Electronic Tinker Toys: March 2016

It didn't take long for things to go off the rails. I was working on printing a toothpaste squeezer when my y-axis pulley came loose from the y-axis stepper motor. Some quick analysis revealed that the slices of the parts were out of alignment in one direction only.

The set screws on the pulley that came with the kit required a 2mm allen wrench to cinch down. They were pretty scrawny to say the least. I quickly ordered a different set from Amazon and replaced the parts that came with the printer.

After the new parts, it's been working wonderfully. Look at all the money I'm already saving!*

* This is sarcasm. I'm under no illusion that buying this thing is ever going to pay for itself. It's a hobby.

THE FUTURE IS NOW!

I've purchased a 3D printer. It was a bit of an impulse purchase from Amazon, and by that I mean that I time-boxed the research period before purchasing. If you do any web searches for 3D printers, there is a TON of information out there and a lot of it is difficult to internalize without any 3D printing experience. So, I decided that ~$400 was a price point that I could handle for a toy that might be awesome or may turn out to be a flop.

With the $400 option, there is some assembly required. When I say "some," I mean "a ton." Here's what it looks like out of the box:

I asked one of my grad school buddies if he wanted to lend a hand with the assembly. His response was something to the effect of "You better not start without me!" Two engineers should be able to throw this thing together on the quick, right? A Saturday morning should do the trick, right? Wrong.

Here are some photos of the assembly process:

One minor setback occurred when I failed to correctly identify a stepper motor. The kit includes two different sized motors, just a few millimeters different in length. The z-axis motors are slightly shorter and, as we learned, the taller stepper motors don't fit.

As the wiring came together, it slowly devolved into an absolute rat's nest. Although it's a bit unsightly, I prefer this slightly less polished model of printer because I can easily trace lines, troubleshoot, and replace individual components.

Throughout the course of the build, I was surprised with the relatively high level of quality for a kit straight from China. The installation instructions were in poorly translated English and weren't always accurate, but it possible to figure it out with a little deduction.

My quality opinion went down when I realized that I was short five fastening parts. They're sort of like M5 nuts, but with a special shape that allows them to turn 90 degrees and then stop within the aluminum frame channel. I contacted the seller through amazon and they said they will ship me the missing parts. Since I didn't want to wait for the slow boat, I improvised for the mean time:

There's nothing a little duct tape can't fix! Well, nothing except this protruding set screw that prevents the extruder heatsink from seating properly...