A robust idler wheel was needed for my plastic extruder in order to withstand prolonged periods of printing. So I found some nice scrap round stock aluminum and lathe’d one up.
Newly Machined Aluminum Idler Wheel
Side View
Idler Wheel mounted into the extruder
In the above image the filament is squeezed between a knurled pulley [left] and the idler wheel [right]. The black part is the front plate of the extruder. Everything runs quite smoothly with repeatable extrusions.
My 10lb spool of 1.75mm diameter ABS plastic came today, in a lovely grass green. Next up is to design and print out a few parts to mount the spool to my machine. Then lots of big, continuous prints.
10lbs of 1.75mm diameter Green ABS plastic
Once I had the machine all hooked up and adjusted, as well as my machine parameters set in ReplicatorG, it was time for the first test print. This was around mid-summer 2010.
Machine all wired up for its first print
For the first test print everything was quite a tangle of wires and loose circuit boards. I had no fume extraction system like I do now, so I used a table fan and an open window.
First Print
The first print turned out pretty well. I printed the classic Unfold’s Self Portrait 3D scan. For this print, I basically just made educated guesses on my initial skeinforge parameters based on previous printing experiences with my Fab@Home, in order to establish a baseline to improve upon. I believe the layer height on this print was around 0.5mm. Since then, I have gone though a lot of meticulous calibration to achieve much better quality prints. Though, this is all a work in progress and I am still working to continuously improving the quality and repeatability of my prints.
