Sunday, August 7, 2016

Printer is Running Again!

Unfortunately, I needed the kick-in-the-butt of my Dad coming out for a visit to prompt me to tear down and fix my printer.

I pulled off the heated-enclosure brackets and lifted the bed in order to access the stepper motors, then put locktite on all the motor pulleys.


I also worked on the heat source for the heated chamber. Having two 150 watt bulbs right next to each other and inside a metal box concentrated the heat onto the top plate worse than I had realized. Here's the damage, viewed from below with the bulbs and fixtures removed:


To prevent this from happening again, I covered the bottom of the top plate with aluminum tape:


Later on, I'll clean it up and add some ceramic insulation around the bulb fixtures (I have to find it again - it got lost in my sea of stuff).

After a quick re-assembly (and some really quick calibration), I ran the file for "knurled bolt and nut", this time with white filament. All things considered, it turned out pretty well, though not as nice as the previous two I made.


All in all, it was some good male bonding, and Dad took the bolt and nut home as a souvenir!


No comments:

Post a Comment