3d printing – Page 3

printrbot GO – a latch, a replacement part, a handle and a calamity

It took a good long while, but I finally got tired of seeing the front door for the bot open all the time and decided to make a latch for it. There were some latch designs on Thingiverse, but nothing really close enough to what I had in mind to use as a starting place even, so I just started from scratch in OpenSCAD. What I came up with was a low profile knob on the outside (I wanted it to be lower than the outside edges of the corner protectors) with a shaft going through the door and locking Read more [...]

printrbot GO – mirror printbed and stuff

After printing on an aluminum bed up to now (with an 8 x 8 Kapton square), I decided to install a mirror printbed I had purchased a while back. I had wrestled with the best printbed material for the GO for some time before giving up and deciding to try both. The GO being a mobile platform, it makes for some strong arguments in favor of aluminum. No matter how gingerly I secure a piece of glass inside the thing, a good knock when traveling could bring me seven years of bad luck. And there Read more [...]

printrbot GO – shoes and a socket

So after months of laboring over these little guys, I was finally satisfied enough with the results I was getting to print out a set of four corner protectors for the bottom corners of the GO. I printed these out in a single print and arranged them all so that the insides of the corners were facing each other (to minimize tool moves over the exterior perimeters) and so that they were aligned diagonally on the print bed (for no good reason). http://youtu.be/HPIpsss-DFk Printing them diagonally was Read more [...]

printrbot GO – some prints, some tweaks and some mods

So I had this fantasy that I was going to assemble the thing, do a bunch of "test prints", perform a lot of calibration (I think that's what you do with "test prints") and then tear it apart and stain it. Sometimes things don't happen the way we plan. For one thing, it turns out I'm not patient enough for proper calibration test prints (yet at least) and the stuff I've been able to spit out with little to no calibration is good enough that I keep wanting to make more stuff. Don't get me wrong, Read more [...]

printrbot GO – first print

So the wiring was a little kludged together but I didn't have the patience to wait for the wiring solution Brook told me he'd put together for me, so I hacked something together to get the thing up and running using some bits from Radio Shack. I was pretty sure that the power supply which came with the bot would be underpowered for the heated bed, at least for ABS type temperatures, so after getting a tip from Brook that an X-box 360 PSU might work (the original version puts out 203 watts) Read more [...]

printrbot GO – the box (part two)

So I've gotten totally out of sync between the building and the writing. I guess that's what happens when you obsess over one and neglect the other, so let me try to catch up a little bit. There were a few critical pieces missing from the kit as received. Most critically, the Z couplers were nowhere to be found. These are the pieces that connect the shafts on the motors for the Z axis to the threaded rods that move the entire X assembly (and extruder) up and down. Essentially, you Read more [...]

printrbot GO – the box (part one)

So with the X axis assembly, um, assembled... it's time to start putting the box together. For the top and the bottom, it seems that Brook recommends wood glue. I can't say for sure I won't do that later, but for now I've decided instead to beef up the attachments using countersunk screws and nuts instead. You see, there are a few places where you absolutely need countersunk screws and don't have them. The panel in the bottom of the drawer that will expose the Y axis belt securing bits and Read more [...]

printerbot GO – let there be X

I didn't take a lot of pictures while putting together the X axis assembly as it went mostly without incident and the documentation was pretty good and complete. A few comments about the unexpected however. This one hole for a wood screw seems to just be in the wrong place. It's on the left side of the X assembly and if I had planted the screw here, it would've just splintered the tab below it since the hole is basically directly over the edge of the material. It's worth noting a couple Read more [...]

printrbot GO – Y assembly

Sometimes we do things that are foolish. While it may indeed be a good idea to bevel some of the exterior edges on the GO, it was decidedly not a good idea to spend a lot of time and effort on this before actually assembling the thing. Birch ply wood is a great material for an assembly such as this because it is inexpensive and can be easily brought to shape on a laser cutter. It does not however hold up particularly well to detailing and the size of the wood screws and the perilously-close-to-the-edge Read more [...]

printrbot GO – some experimentation, some sanding and a change of course

It's not clear at what point I decided that my Printrbot GO should look like a steam punk suitcase (I think I have to blame Plexus in part at least), but the goal of staining and otherwise finishing the birch plywood panels definitely adds a layer of complexity, not the least because I don't know the first thing about treating wood. I reached out to my dad and an old friend who works with wood for a living and also read up as much as I could stand to on various woodworking forums for advice on Read more [...]