Graphing temperature - Part II

Being able to easily graph temperature has allowed a quick evaluation of heating performance with different fan positions and air flow arrangments. The primary objective of the exercise was to find a good balance between active cooling (fan) and heating the 'heater-block' to a given target temperature.The active cooling is necessary to prevent heat rising through the stainless steel tube to the cold-end. Since my design does not incorporate...

Read More

Graphing temperature - Pronterface manual 'hack'

I wondered if there was a better way to log the temperature change over time as the heater block warmed up. It's only something you'd do occasionally if you were assessing something in particular, so it's just a bit of fun, and may be of value to others. I had observed how Pronterface would read the temperature at regular intervals and echo the reading to screen, once the 'monitor printer' box is checked. If you leave it 'echo' as the heater block...

Read More

Extruder evolution - 1.75mm with stainless support

I've build a new extruder. I started with a 'pre-owned' 1.75mm brass nozzle I acquired from a fellow Irish Reprapper ( AMK ), following terminal failure of it's PTFE insulator.?My new extruder consists of  Greg's style cold-end, adding a raised tab to the idler block, similar to RichRap's mod here. That was my first exercise in modifying an existing design using Sketchup. It worked well.I added an aluminium base plate to the cold-end...

Read More

"Can you hear me now?"

A little printing fun this evening...They call it a Phonecone:  http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6348I also like the bigger version they call a Meg-i-phone! http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6957I wonder what people would say if I produced it for a conference call in work? :)On a technical note...The extruder is working well now. I'm printing at 20mm/sec without difficulty (PLA, .5mm nozzle, 200Deg C). It's not exactly light-speed but things...

Read More

Improving my extruder...

I build my first extruder using an old stepper motor (old 5.25" floppy drive), and some salvaged printer cogs. It 'worked' but proved to be a bit weak, struggling a little if I tried to increase print speed. The under-powered stepper and poor cog ratios lead to stepper skipping. You'll see it here in an early photo. The good thing was it worked well enough to print new cogs, which you can see in the second photo...Old exturder....

Read More