PeterE builds a 3d Printer

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PeterE:
Hi DMIOM,
Yes, probably. There is a great speed difference in ball screw and toothed belt movements, not to say power differences.

But principally it should work of course.

/Peter

PeterE:
A fiddly bit done at last.

I worked with the extruder a little more today and was looking over the bits prior to assembly. I got this extruder head and it has a PTFE tube connector in its top end. Unfortunately, that will foul with my extruder body so time to re-think this.

The PTFE tube connector was unscrewed to see more. It turns out that the thread is a 1/8"-27 NPT and not the more common M6x1. A quick look in my tapping dies drawer revealed a proper die. Good.

The hole in the extruder head is quite deep and if I don't put anything to guide the filament, I think I am in for some problems. Some measurements gave a base for a small adapter to fit in place.

Without the PTFE-tube connector I also tested the extruder head collar fit in the base of the extruder body. Hmmmpf, the collar was a tad too large in diameter, but not more than a couple of strokes with a file couldn't correct.

A new test fit showed that the collar went in quite a bit, in fact a little over 1 mm more than its own height. New info for the adapter then.

So, the adapter need to compensate both for the removed PTFE Tube connector as well as creating a washer to make the extruder head stand proud of the extruder body about half a mm or so for clamping purposes. This is how it turned out:

The thin stem is entering the hole in the extruder body to further guide the filament to the extruder head from the feeder. The coned end is stuck into the extruder head and guides the filament properly down to the hot end so there should now be way less risk for filaments to mis-behave during printing. The adapter is screwed in place using the 1/8-27 NPT but nothing more than finger tight is necessary since it will be pinched by the clamp.
And here we have the whole assembly before fitting to the X-carrier. It is easy to see that the extruder head is really clamped to the body and there will be no backlash or wobble anywhere in that setup as far as I can see.

With this the extruder is now complete apart from electrical connection(s). Starts looking quite OK now.

The the last bit to fix is to make a new fitting for the PTFE tube connector. It must be placed above the filament feed screw but there is not much meat to fit it.

I have ideas and will try them out.

I'll be back!

/Peter

PeterE:
Evenin' All,

The load resistor finally showed up and was fitted. I put a paper below to show how I did. Solder close to the "body" and then a smallish piece of heat-shrink tubing to avoid un-necessary accidents.

Then to avoid having something bouncing around inside the box I tied the resistor to the mesh with a couple of tie-strps just like picclock showed earlier. Simple and effective and the resistor get some cooling air flow.

Then on with the lid and the fan and the PSU is done.

What is the proper place for this thing in or on the printer? My thought says put it on the left rear. That means that the electronics can be placed above the PSU and I can easily re-use the "left-overs" cables to suit.

The last picture also shows that the mains connection cable enters the PSU above the switch, which I think don't look very well from a usability perspective.

I am thinking like if I flip the PSU over and make a largish hole in the left triangle stiffener the cable and the switch have much more natural positions. That in turn would mean that I will not induce any un-necessaery cooling air streams around the build plate and thus limit the risk for bad prints.

Will think a bit more on that. To make a hole in the side will not geopardize the structural stability that much so it ought to work. Hmmm, a large hole or a grid with suitably sized holes? :scratch:

Any thoughts???

/Peter

chipenter:
If you fit the wire fan cover over the hole or holes and use longer self tappers it will also fix the psu .

PeterE:
Very good idea chipenter, many thanks for the input :thumbup:

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