Reinforced Kapston Belt

Looks like the humans forgot to post their progress again.  When last we left, they were battling the problem where the belt was wrinkling as the plastic constricted due to cooling. 

Padawan came up with the idea of reinforcing the Kapston by applying self adhesive laminating material to the back.  This works as the kapston resists the heat the maintains the shape of the laminate.

This is a test of .002 reinforced Kapston film:





Makerbot Tractor Upgrade Test 03: Reinforced Kapton Belt from Charley Jones on Vimeo.

Dataman is working on a tensioning mechanism for the standoffs.  Yup, it's based on captive nut technology, what else!  The idea is that bolts will adjust the belt tension.  This is actually turning out to be a engineering problem.  Standby

Makerbot Tractor Upgrade Testing: Kapton Belt

Last night the humans tested the first Kapton belt on the new design.  The build stuck remarkably well to the Kapton, with the only problem being that, as it cooled, the kapton did not resist the lateral shrink of the plastic.  This caused a bit of curling of the first object.  The second object, printed with a raft, caused even more deformation of the kapton.  But it's flexible stuff and bounced right back again.

Video of progress:
http://vimeo.com/14422350

Will work on strengthening the Kapton.  Mylar has also been suggested. 

Makerbot Tractor Upgrade Testing

Well, the humans have been really busy trying to complete my Tractor Upgrade so they can share it with the rest of the world.  They've posted pictures and a video of their first proof of concept test here:

http://vimeo.com/1438374

The idea was to eliminate as many exotic parts as possible, use as many printable parts as possible, and keep costs down as far as possible.  I think they achieved their goals.

They are in final build and testing and will be posting full STL files and build instructions by end of the week.

Requires less than $30 in parts, can be printed and assembled in a night, using standard tools (a drill, and a makerbot)   Should also work on a Makerbot HBP.

Back Online, Again...

It's been a commedy of errors lately.  We ran out of white ABS, and started on our 5# spool, only to find out the 5# spool was defective.  Unfortunately, this defective plastic seems to have set us up for some other problems.  The tension wheel broke lose again, looks like we had another defective extrusion motor (siezed), and looks like we may have blown out the extrusion controller.  Dataman is up on the spare parts though, and we had spares for everything in stock. 

Meet Darth Roboto, my first post assembly printout, with a new .5 big head from MakerGear.Com.  Prints much more smoothly than the MakerBot head. 

First public appearance is at LVBots this Thursday.  Wish me luck!

What a difference a couple of weeks makes...

It's been a couple of weeks since I've blogged about my progress.  I've got a bit of catching up to do.

For now, Dataman's Mr. Roboto is the Featured Thing on Thingiverse.Com.  Thingiverse is a place where makers meet and share their digital designs with the world.  Mr. Roboto was first printed on me.  Now there will be legions of Mr. Roboto printed all over the world.

Needless to say, I've been a good Makerbot and printing well, for the most part.  Still giving them some trouble, whenever I can...

Day 15: Still not able to Print the Big Stuff

I'm still not able to print the big stuff.  Something is going wrong when I try to print long lines on a first layer.  Dataman calls it the Venetian Blinds effect.  I leave these gaps, that balloon up and hook the print head when it tries to cross hatch.

The nice folks over at Makerbot forums are trying to help Dataman with this.  It's been driving him NUTS.

I did manage one decent printout today, a Heart Shaped box... The cover is not printing correctly though.  Just a bit too big and encountering the venetian blind effect.

Day 14: My First Field Trip

I got to go home with Dataman for the weekend.  My first ride in a car, all buckled in nicely, newly printed Z-Stops in place to protect the car ..


Dataman spent the day working on my HBP, Heated Build Platform.  Sadly he won't give it to me yet, something about be a bad misaligned girl.


For some reason, the Y stepper board was giving me trouble again.  Dataman had to run to Padawan and grab the backup boards.

We did manage a couple of decent printouts, the first of which was the J-Hook tool holder.  Slips over the top of me and holds tools in place. 

We also managed a rather com "dogs" at the request of Nicholas.


Lastly, it started getting dark, and necessity what it is, Dataman added headlights to my repertoire.

Day 13: I hate filling in Circles

Dataman figured out that I have a problem filling in circles.  Configuration problem I guess.  Bunches of aborted printouts due to this problem.  Guess I don't get my heated build platform upgrade till this is fixed.

Did print up some cool Allen-Key tool clips though.  Using them for Screw Drivers and the Pinchwheel Tensioning Bar.

Day 12: Alignment Cubes

Trying to dial in Skeinforge we're printing the same object Over and Over and Over. Here is the effect of varying the FeedRate.

It did prove one thing though:  Dataman used some cheap Cat 5 cables when he built me.  All the way from the Dollar Store!  Didn't they spec Cat 5e cables?  Ok, Cat 5/Cat 5e pretty close.  But Cat 6 STP is recommended for noisy environments.  And I am a noisy environment!

Day 11: Printing Parts

Dataman had a list of upgrade parts that he wanted printed. 

My alignment problems seem to throwing a monkey wrench into those plans.  But he was able to get one really cool printout made. This tool holder mounts to the side of me and keeps all the hex keys and the tweezers in easy reach...

A bunch of alignment passes later, and still not much farther.

Dataman posted all the stuff we've made together to Thingiverse.Com

Day 10: Replacement Parts II

Datamans Psychic Order of Replacement Parts came in.

After a quick rebuild, my Pinchwheel Mark V was completely rebuilt.  In doing so, the built team figured out that the tension wheel had broken lose from the bearing.  Damn super glue didn't hold.  That's why it was flopping around.  So good thing we rebuilt.

The hot-end was completely rebuilt with a new barrel.  Extruded excellently the first try.  And a I went one to print and print and print...

I seem to have one problem though.  My head keeps crashing into stuff I've previously extruded. This causing the head to skip at times.  Build team is concerned and shuts me down when this happens.  Turns out they're right.  It's not good.  Could possibly break me.  Frog turned out pretty mutant looking.

Dataman is posting to the Forums looking for answers.  Maybe its Skeinforge calibration...

My First Weekend Off

Spent my first weekend off due to my broken barrel.
Not my fault.
Damn Cat!

Day 9: Disaster Strikes

Padawan was working hard, baking my tip, took it out of the oven, and tripped over the damn cat.  Needless to say, hot tip, cold floor, that was the end of my pretty tip.

Psychic Dataman ordered a replacement kit a week earlier.  Something about knowing we'd break the barrel.  Ya right, like that would ever happen.

Anyhow, Padawan soaked the tip & barrel in WD40...

Dataman arrived 8 hours later, interlocked 2 6mm bolts, and to get the tip off...

Good think Dataman is psychic.  Parts arrive Tuesday.  Down for the weekend.

Day 8: Learning how to Bake & Clean Tips

Everythings seems to be working correctly, but very little if any thread comes out.  The team has been baking my tip & barrel at 220F for 2 hours.  Duh. I measure in Degrees C don't I?  That should have been 428F Team!!!

Anyhow, after 2 hours in the oven at a low temp of 104c, most the gook came out.  So it was a long bath in acetate.  After this first bath of about 8 hours, Padawan was able to see light through the Tip.

Dataman then decided to try pushing the alignment guide, that metal bar thingy, into the barrel.  That mucked up the tip again. 

They cleared the tip again by poking a pin through the nozel, but Dataman was a bit concerned that we gunk just under the tip.  This was confirmed when we jammed up again and could not print.

Back to the oven again...

Day 7: Yes, Boards Can Be Fixed, But Extruders Can Clog

Dataman was able to surface mount solder the driver chip onto the driver board and we had a good test.  So, we have two good replacement boards in stock.  That's a relief.


But now we've started to have strange problems with the extruder.  Seems we can't get much to come out at all any more.  The boards suggest that bake at 220 and soak the tip in acetone.  So it's baking and soaking...

This picture shows good grooves in the filament, followed by a telltale dig mark where the motor burrowed in.  This indicates the motor pushed as hard as it could, but could not get past the hot end.

Day 6: Board Replacement

With the replacement boards from New York, I was back in business. I forced the build team to rebuild my hot end, but I produced one more model in the end.  The team learned that compressing the PTFE, the white teflon tube was bad, and that occasionally you have to ream it out again with a 1/8" drill bit to get filament to pass through it.

Day 5: Fist Day Down

Well, Data-Brilliant-Boy decided to swap the X and Y controller cable with the power ON!  A definite NO-NO!  Y stepper board survived.  X did not.  Overnighted 2 more stepper boards from New York, and 5 driver chips from Digikey in case we can repair ourselves.

Cards are due in tomorrow, so we tested to make sure Y Stepper and, most importantly, the Motherboard survived, they both did.  Thank Data. 

ChipQuick is a wonderful product and really good at removing SOIC chips.  Closeup of Driver Card with Driver Chip removed:

Day 4: Fist System Test

The build team finally put me all together for the first time today.  Spun up my motors, tried to print the 20mm test cube, and I happily crashed right into the build platform with a 220 degree tip.  Nice gouge! 

Seems the build team forgot to read the configuration instructions.  Something about the fact that my stepper motors might be reversed? 

After a wild goose chase to get new Molex connectors and rebuild the data cables (Good thinking Dataman, but entirely WRONG!)  Padawan discovered something about Inverted Axises in the documentation?  Duh!!!

Anyhow, read the docs more carefully.  Especially Calibration, PID Settings, Thermistor Calibration, Skeinforge Setup.  Lots to do before you really print!

Anyhow, by some miracle, these two somehow got it right.

Build Day 3: Plastistruder

Putting together the Plastistruder was the next bit of business.
A complex bit of maThey get through the Y, X, and Case stages and give up for

This machinery, this is the Achile's heel of the whole bot.
If the pinchwheel does not push correctly, the filament jams,
If the hot-end does not operate properly, the fimalent jams,
If it's not cailbrated properly, guess what? it jams.

Please note a couple noob mistakes here...
A better picture later on...

Build Day 2: Mechanical Complete

Day 2 build complete,
X, Y, and Z Stages Installed, Electronics Installed
Problems with with Data cables, not well documented.

My Birthday

I'm delivered by UPS from MakerBot, New York.  The 1,251st of my kind.  Happy Birthday Dataman!

Dataman and Padawan get to work on putting me together. They get through the Y, X, and Case stages and give up for the night, pretty exhausted.

For now, I'm an empty box with a couple disconnected sub assemblies.

I'm Almost There!

I'm en route to Las Vegas in a couple of boxes!
A couple of parts arrived today, and Dataman quickly put them together.
The big box with all my major assemblies is due to arrive tomorrow.
Today it's just the Endstops and Lots and Lots of Plastic!