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More learning experiences today
Sep. 25th, 2011 02:37 pm1) sometimes people provide wacky STL files - the Z axis motor mount I wanted to print today for some reason was centered on the Z axis which means it wanted to start printing 8mm below the surface. The printer's firmware refused and just ignored all those commands, so it started printing halfway through the object. I grabbed the original SCAD file and translated it up 8mm to fix.
2) printing from SD is problematic - either I have a bad SD card or a problem with the reader hardware, but it was just doing random stuff like the head suddenly shooting way to the left, or skipping lines. It finally ruined the print by jacking the Z axis up by 10mm and just spewing plastic all over. I am now printing from the computer but the baud rate is down to 57600 so hopefully that will fix the trouble I think I was having due to that a few days ago.
Hopefully when I'm done with all this I'll have a set of Gcode files that will produce a nice set of printer parts, but I'm sure blowing a lot of filament getting it going.
I now have enough parts on hand or on order to make another printer, except for the hot end. I'm going to try to make one myself. I need some teflon rod and a brass bolt for that. It doesn't seem too hard but the devil is in the details.
I'm also going to try my hand at winding springs. Springs are kind of hard to find exactly the right thing, and they're expensive. Music wire, OTOH is dirt cheap and once I get a jig set up I should be able to make whatever spring I want to in a couple of minutes. Besides, it's something I've never done before and I'm always interested in learning to make something new.
2) printing from SD is problematic - either I have a bad SD card or a problem with the reader hardware, but it was just doing random stuff like the head suddenly shooting way to the left, or skipping lines. It finally ruined the print by jacking the Z axis up by 10mm and just spewing plastic all over. I am now printing from the computer but the baud rate is down to 57600 so hopefully that will fix the trouble I think I was having due to that a few days ago.
Hopefully when I'm done with all this I'll have a set of Gcode files that will produce a nice set of printer parts, but I'm sure blowing a lot of filament getting it going.
I now have enough parts on hand or on order to make another printer, except for the hot end. I'm going to try to make one myself. I need some teflon rod and a brass bolt for that. It doesn't seem too hard but the devil is in the details.
I'm also going to try my hand at winding springs. Springs are kind of hard to find exactly the right thing, and they're expensive. Music wire, OTOH is dirt cheap and once I get a jig set up I should be able to make whatever spring I want to in a couple of minutes. Besides, it's something I've never done before and I'm always interested in learning to make something new.
