All systems go...

Post date: 13-Feb-2014 20:12:16

I had 20, 3mm aluminium plates cut last week based on the two designs I created and uploaded to thingiverse.com. I had 2 plates cut for the 3 post mounted MK2a board, for my 3D Delta Printer, and 18 of the plates for the 4 post mounted boards. The 4 post plates were destined for friends at H4H, my local hackerspace, where most people have Morgan printers, requiring the 4 post mounting system.

After wasting 2 pieces of Koptan (always thought this was Capton tape, why does everyone pronounce it like that?) I figured I'd use a trick my sister, who works in advertising, where she often has to stick vinyl signs to glass and other stuff, taught me.

I dripped a couple of drops, really just a small amount, of dishwashing liquid onto the plate, then wet it with water and gently mixed it with my fingers until the plate was evenly wet and slippery from the soap. I lay the Koptan tape onto the wet surface, which allows for really easy bubble removal, using a credit card, until the water dries up, and the tape takes over.

Here is the finished product installed on the MK2a heat bed on my 3D Delta Printer:

With all the bits finally in place I figured it was time to get some filament moving through my extruder. I had set all the values in DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT to the same value, 167, including the extruder. Turns out the extruder needs 954 steps to push the filament 1 mm, thanks to the slightly customised Reprap pro mini extruder I now have. (A review of this coming soon). Anyway, with it all set up and ready to go, I decided to see if I could get some molten plastic squirting out of my hot-end for the first time.

And so was boren: Worm 1 and Worm 2

@Gineer Worm1 and worm2?

— Quentin Harley (@QuentinHarley) February 12, 2014

I am having slight problems with the balls not being held tightly enough to the trucks, but theoretically, I should be ready to print my first actual object soon. Just need to recalibrate with the new plates installed.

Whish me luck ;-)