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Production Update: First print success!

’nuff said. I’ll fill the back orders and then start printing more and up the stock in store. Even with this I’ll have to temporarily rely on other local printers to meet demand. Thank you, VHS members.

Does anyone know of a way to tell zencart to make one product from a collection of other products? In other words, if I sell one drawbot I want it to decrement the inventory of each component. I’d also like it to say “if you have these many parts you can have this many drawbots”

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Successful sprocket print…almost.

Well it’s a good quality ABS print from my Prusa. Better even than the Tantillus PLA print I’m using right now.

There’s just one little problem: It’s backwards. The herringbone teeth are all pointing the wrong way. Thank goodness the parts I need to print are symmetrical! I can print anyways and figure out the backward stuff later.

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windows 64 bit systems, sprockets

Man, I hate the sprockets on the wade’s extruder. It’s so easy to over tighten and break them. I’ve done it three times now. So last night at the VHS I printed out a new one on the Tantillus and I’m printing a spare on my home machine right now. it actually looks like it’s going to work! Awesome possum. Maybe after this I can get back to making real parts for customers?

At the same time I’ve received a few reports that windows 64 bit users are having trouble starting the app. I’ve just updated the experimental branch with a better BAT file and some new native libraries for x64 bit windows systems. Can you test it and let me know in the Github Drawbot Issues page if it works or doesn’t?

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Production update: anyone got ideas?

This is what Shapeways currently offers me for printed parts.

This is what Ponoko offers.

I’ve now spent just over two weeks trying to assemble and debug this 3D printer and I’m no closer to printing than I was on day 3.

Yesterday I replaced the extruder bobbin because it came loose (again) from the motor shaft. This bobbin has a set screw and shouldn’t be going anywhere. Note that you have to be really careful when putting in the set screw because it’s very easy to overtighten by accident and crack the bobbin like a walnut.

Then, because the z-axis leadscrew on one side SLIPPED OFF last night I had to fix that and re-level the x-axis gantry to the bed.

I managed to burn myself for the first time. Remember kids: 230c is no joke.

This morning I fired up the printer again and printed a 0.5mm thin wall test to remind myself what the current state of the machine is. Lo and behold, the blobbing on +Z is gone. I didn’t change any settings! The only thing more frustrating than a mystery is a mystery that gets deeper. Especially when it’s a mystery that could unravel into a whole set of frustrations.

Anyways! Gift horse dentistry, right? I’m going to try to print another motor mount and we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime I can catch up on bill paying, customer follow up, fixing the windows build, and buying plane tickets. Did I mention I’ll be at FabLearn 2012, october 17 & 18 this year at Stanford? Really looking forward to seeing you there, listening to your feedback and going out for sake later. I imagine most of the demos there will be for full sized 3D printers, which will put me in a unique position to be teaching ABOUT the technologies behind 3D printers… which is kind of the point, right? If you have ideas about how I could improve on this:

Then please comment below. I’m thinking of a series of notes attached to the board that explain what each piece does – all without getting in the way of the Drawbot doing it’s thing. Ideas welcome!

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Production Update: infill tests, frustration.

Last night at the VHS I resoldered the melted mosfet connectors and then fixed some extrusion problems by lowering the nozzle temp.

I also made sure to label everything before I disconnected it. Maybe this will help you assemble your own machine?

I won’t say my prints were looking great but they were looking like the thing I expect to print.

based on these results I tried to print a motor mount v2 today.

Here they are again, turned so you can see how tall they should be.

Right now I’m feeling very emotional. I’ve worked on this machine every day for two solid weeks. I’ve let pretty much everything else in my life slide to one side and topple over. I’ve got good customers that have already paid me their hard-earned money and I can’t sleep. Worse, I’ve got a growing list of people now who say “Please tell me when you are in stock, I want to order.” Well @#$*(! and (%^*@, I would love nothing better than to trade dollars for kits. It sounds great to say “Demand > Production!” as long as know one asks “so… how big is production?”

I’ve re-levelled this bed about 20 times now. I really really hope I don’t have to solder anything any more. By the way: whoever designed this heated bed? Thank you for putting all the leads on the bottom where they’re hard to reach. Same goes for whoever thought it was a good idea to make some calibration screws accessible only when the machine is partially disassembled. How does that make any sense?

There’s got to be a way to reduce the number of variables to make calibration easier. Even after I’ve retested that the bed is level (relative to the nozzle) and the XYZ&E steppers move at the correct speed there’s still what, 20 parameters that control layer height, flow rate, infill, and more? It’s crazy. There’s got to be a systematic way to calibrate this thing that’s better than this list I’ve been following. Most of my issues aren’t even in this document.

I have to go write to a customer now and tell him that I’m late and I’m sorry and I’m doing everything I can to fix it. I hope you never have to experience that with your customers. I hope these blog posts are useful to you, out there in internet land. If they are, please do me a favor and tell your friends about my indiegogo campaign. As of now it has 8 days to go and I would really love the help.

I apologize if I seem a little tense. I’m going to make some tea and watch North By North West and try again tomorrow morning.