Index of files

New Printer Build

File	Description
	X & Y are using GT2 2mm belt & pulleys.
	3rd (final?) iteration of axis design. The motors and idlers mounting using very similar pieces. Guide rails mount to the extruded aluminum using a separate piece.
	Starting to assemble the X & Y rails.
	Gecko stepper drivers. Is it worth the extra cost? I don't know. The thing that interested me about these is that they have microstep to full step morphing at high speeds. The motors on my mendel stall out if I push them too fast and I have been wondering if switching stepping modes dynamically could help with that.
	The bottom end will house the electronics. The enclosure is formed with painted plywood panels held in place with anti-rattle covers. The top section is transparent acrylic and will have a removable acrylic lid. I took a stab at cutting out the middle section with a circular saw and hand saw to finish it off. I flame polished the edges afterwards. While it came out somewhat better than I expected, there is no substitute for a laser cutter.
	Starting to assemble the X & Y rails.
	Plywood panel with printed fan cover inserts bolted in. The panel is sort of wedged in place using upside down T-slot covers fitted to the plywood then slid into the wrong side of the T-slot. Hopefully that keeps it from rattling around.
	Second motor & guide rod mounting idea, which has since been scrapped for various reasons. This one piece design filled probably %80-90 of the build plate. Even when made with PLA, the warpage was so bad that the first two had to be thrown out. Printing on acrylic was the only way I found to keep it under control.
	The vender kept sending the wrong bearings. I think it took about a month and a half to finally get the right ones. At least they were free.

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Makerbot printed parts

File	Description
100_2571.JPG	Dirty, abused prototype extruder & custom carriage
100_2531.JPG	Printed extruder springs, also no longer in use. I have since moved on to this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12890
100_2465.JPG	Guide rollers for a wire cutting machine. After a year of use, they are still going - even though they are not quite round and occasionally a gritty hairball/dust-bunny type thing builds up around it. Printed in ABS.

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Mendel printed parts

File	Description
pattern.jpg	This is a piece to the puzzle sphere (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5862), which is slightly smaller than fist size, to give you a sense of scale. Each piece is maybe two quarters in length? This is an up close look.
overhang.jpg	Unintentional overhang test. The extruder snagged on the print and caused skipped steps.
black_specks_white_print.jpg	Eventually I tracked down the source of this problem. I don't know if the image shows it very well, but there are black specs inside the print. Sometimes they were on the surface. As it turns out, the filament had air pockets and inside many of these air pockets was some black crud.
100_2727.JPG	Something happened to allow the heated build plate to way overshoot and stay there for the duration of the print, as evident by the caramelized ABS on the side that would have been stuck to the plate.