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.