Bumblebee issues

Well, not surprisingly I'm finding issues with the Bumblebee. It's been sitting a while, and some of it is just needed maintenance, and other things are just because it's not been run for so long. I redesigned the x carriage to use the new E3D hotend (which I'm really liking) and I think I need a new serial cable, I'm getting lots of dropped commands and disconnects. The most surprising was my rock solid reliable extruder started to first skip steps, then just clicked. I though it was the pololu at first, but when I took the extruder apart and checked the planetary gearbox, the sun gear (the main gear on the stepper shaft) had worn down to less than HALF its original size.

Guess that just shows how much I print with this printer, the hippie is still running fine. I did have a new bulldog extruder that I was going to set up as a Bowden feed, but now with the new split carriage it actually is smaller than the geared extruder. First print I had it adjusted too loose, but I think I've got it dialed in now. I'm going to pick up another good quality serial cable, I've had bad luck with some cheap ones, and then I'll be rocking again.

YAY, Bumblebee II is back up and running

Finally had some time this week to finish doing some modifications and repairs to my Mendelmax the Bumblebee II. I designed a new x carriage that is split to make it easy to install/remove the new E3D V6 hotend I installed, installed a mount for the webcam, fixed the raspberry pi octoprint installation, and it's running great!

My next printer

I've decided to build a 3DR which is a deltabot designed by RichRap. The nice thing about it is that it only requires some bearings, almost everything else is either printed or off the shelf bolts. I'm going to make some red filament to print the parts for it, and I'm really looking forward to having a small portable FAST printer.

Shape of things to come

Very cool happenings in Chicago.

First 3D printed Car

Practical uses for a 3d printer

I've found tons of them, but some of these are pretty cool.

3D printed house in New York

Here's one of the articles about the mansion that is going to be printed in New York :)

3D printing status

Well, haven't done much lately, but I'm finally getting back to working on my printers.

The hippie has been running with a .7 nozzle ever since it got clogged up with some cheap plastic and I drilled it out. But I think it's time to put another .4 back on it. It's nice how fast it prints, but it is nice to be able to print the detailed objects on either printer instead of relying on the bumblebee II. Also I finally had to adjust the settings for the bed leveling, had to adjust it .2 mm as it's apparently shifted ever so slight on the carriage. But other than that it's been working awesome.

The bumblebee II is not up right now, I had gotten the E3D v5 hotend and was experimenting with the quick release carriage, but I really don't like it. I also had the thermistor pop out and had a thermal runaway on the hotend. It doesn't appear to have damaged anything, but I decided to go ahead and upgrade it to the V6 of the E3D, as it has a more secure fastening for the thermistor and is almost the same size as the J-head. I'm also going back to the maker gear x-carriage with a wider opening that fits the E3D better. The rumba board has been working awesome and allowed me to move up to a 24v power supply.

WhoDat Festival Fun

Had a wonderful time yesterday going to the WhoDat festival at Doodad farm in western Greensboro yesterday with the Alamance Makers guild.

I took the Hippie out and was printing Yodas, Round Tuits, nautilus gear puzzles, and a few Doodad and WhoDat coins. Had lots of great visitors stop by and chat, and lots of kids with AMAZING questions and tons of enthusiasm.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

This sucks

Lawsuits suck. This possibly could have some serious impacts to the desktop printing community.

Upgrades and improvements

Well the makergear hot end I installed on the hippie was apparently one I had problems with before, so I just went ahead and got two new J-heads.  One is for the hippie and the other is for the bumblebee.  I did try the chess head ceramic hot end from 2engineers, but after messing around with it and talking with them I realize that it's not really suited to use with ABS/PLA, so I'm just going to keep them for the Nylon and Polycarbonate printing.

There was a recent post and update to Marlin that has me EXTREMELY excited.  Basically it's true auto-leveling for the bed, but it's actually more of a compensation instead of actually leveling the bed.  You install a servo with a microswitch on the end, and it will swing down and measure the bed height at 3 locations.  Then with this measurement and the configuration of the offset of the microswitch to the hot end tip it will automatically adjust z-height dynamically while printing to provide a perfectly aligned print with the bed.  The really nice thing is that it appears to be very straight forward to implement, and it works with silly mis-alignments.  The video on Youtube shows almost an inch of tilt left to right, but the printer compensates not just vertically but actually tilts the object so it's perpendicular to the bed.

I was just going to install this on the bumblebee thinking that the hippie wouldn't have room, but after desiging a holder for the servo and switch I test fitted it and it will be just fine on both my printers.  The only drawback is the hippie is still running a sanguinololu, so I took the RAMPS from the bumblebee since it's already torn down and I'm in the process of upgrading the hippie.

For the bumblebee I decided to go ahead and do the upgrade to the RAMBO board from ultimachine.  This is an all-in-one solution that Made In Space is using for the 3D printers going to the ISS.  The advantage is you don't have seperate boards, a mega, the RAMPS board and the A4988's so there's less chance of an issue with connections.  The drawback I've heard was that if you blow a stepper controller you have to get a new board, but in the 3 years I've been printing I have yet to have a board go bad (knocks on wood).  It has some other really nice features, like seperate power bus for the heated bed, extruders, and motors. digital trim pots for the steppers, screw connectors for hot end, heated bed, fans that make it very easy to install.  The one thing I'd really like to see is screw connectors for the stepper motors.  Almost everything else is a screw connector and I think it's time for the steppers to follow suit :)

My friends Ordbot is coming along well, he has all the mechanical parts and is assembling it now.  I gave him one of my backup extruders with geared stepper motor while I printed his in a color to match his printer.  I expect that in the next two weeks I'll be heading over to help him with the calibration and initial setup.  He also has mentioned that he likes the Ordbot design, very solid and easy to align and assemble.