It Prints!
Feb. 18th, 2013 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deaneI wasn't able to get back to the RepPresent last weekend but I was finally able to get to it today. I leveled the bed, twice because I did it wrong the first time, tested out the heaters, did some hand extrusion to make sure that was all okay, then I let it rip on its maiden print. There's video of it printing here.
When I was testing the print head heater it started to give off a bit of white smoke. The instructions said to turn off the heater if that happened, which I did. But the instructions never said what to do about it. So after a bit I turned the heater back on. This time it smoked less and eventually stopped smoking at all. I'm not sure what was being burnt off, but it appears to be gone now.
Here's the finished part:
It's one of the frame brackets for the printer itself. There are some obvious problems. Notice that lip around the bottom of it? That's not supposed to be there. I had the print head too close to the bed and it dragged a bit, leaving the first layer offset from the rest of the part. I moved it up a smidgen and the next part printed nicely.
You can also see some waviness along the lower right edge. I think that's due to the Y belt rubbing up against the motor sprocket. That will be tougher to fix, but I'm sure I'll manage. But compared to some of the first prints that I've seen out there this is pretty damned good and I'm quite pleased. Despite its flaws that part is actually usable.
While I was aligning the bed I over-tightened the clamp for the Z-axis limit switch and part of it broke off. Fortunately the screw I'd been tightening still had enough of a grip on the broken bit to wedge it in place. That left the limit switch a bit loose but still firmly enough mounted for the test build. The second part that I built was a replacement clamp. :-)
Before doing many more prints I need to come up with some kind of roller to allow the PLA filament to unspool without getting tangled. For these first few prints I've been unrolling the filament by hand and I can see that getting old fast. Once that's taken care of I want to try designing a mount for my Nexus tablet to go on the exercise cycle, so that I can use it to watch videos while I pedal.
When I was testing the print head heater it started to give off a bit of white smoke. The instructions said to turn off the heater if that happened, which I did. But the instructions never said what to do about it. So after a bit I turned the heater back on. This time it smoked less and eventually stopped smoking at all. I'm not sure what was being burnt off, but it appears to be gone now.
Here's the finished part:
It's one of the frame brackets for the printer itself. There are some obvious problems. Notice that lip around the bottom of it? That's not supposed to be there. I had the print head too close to the bed and it dragged a bit, leaving the first layer offset from the rest of the part. I moved it up a smidgen and the next part printed nicely.
You can also see some waviness along the lower right edge. I think that's due to the Y belt rubbing up against the motor sprocket. That will be tougher to fix, but I'm sure I'll manage. But compared to some of the first prints that I've seen out there this is pretty damned good and I'm quite pleased. Despite its flaws that part is actually usable.
While I was aligning the bed I over-tightened the clamp for the Z-axis limit switch and part of it broke off. Fortunately the screw I'd been tightening still had enough of a grip on the broken bit to wedge it in place. That left the limit switch a bit loose but still firmly enough mounted for the test build. The second part that I built was a replacement clamp. :-)
Before doing many more prints I need to come up with some kind of roller to allow the PLA filament to unspool without getting tangled. For these first few prints I've been unrolling the filament by hand and I can see that getting old fast. Once that's taken care of I want to try designing a mount for my Nexus tablet to go on the exercise cycle, so that I can use it to watch videos while I pedal.
