Testing, failure and ordering upgrade to the 3D printer
So when I finally got the printer completed and got the 3mm filament I started to do a test print… Which didn’t go so well. The 3mm filament was supposed to be 2,85mm +-0.1 but was more like 2,5mm x 3,2mm. Yes it was slightly deformed, looked like it had gone through a flattening device. This made a couple of problems for the printer. Or more likely design flaws, because the tube that the filament is supposed to go through is exactly 3mm leaving no room for other dimensions or flawed filament. So I needed to get a bigger tube, which I found on the internet. A new tube of PTFE tubing 4x6mm. I also found some tubing at work that I can use until I get the PTFE tube.
So I was ready to test it again… It’s here where it goes bad… The filament is feeded into the hot end… Or was it? Because the damn brass hot end which was screwed into the PTFE thermal block was pushed out destroying the threads. It’ seems that the brass hot end is also only 3mm and doesn’t like filament which is bigger than that. So the complete hot end is pretty much useless now. I was thinking of making a new one in a lathe myself after changing the design a bit to compensate for the flaws. First of all the hole should be bigger than 3mm and it should be impossible to push it out.
I ended up with ordering a new complete hot end from Mendel parts, it’s a V5 version and it should work well with my machine and filament. I’m still gonna try to redo the hot end I have which isn’t working. But I’ll do that later because I’m kinda pissed on that part for the time.
One week into the 3D printer build
So, about a week has passed since I started building the Techzone RepRap Huxley 3D Printer and it is now almost complete. All motors has been installed and working, I still need to redo the Z-axis as it moves in the wrong direction, replacing the Blue-Red-Green-Black order with Green-Black-Blue-Red will reverse the motor. I’ve tested it with the endstops hanging freely, so those need to be installed. After that is done all that remains is to do the final assembly on the heat end. I think I’ll do that either later this day or tomorrow.
So basically I’m soon to be starting printing, probably in the start of next week as I haven’t received the 3mm plastic yet.
Just got the RepRap Huxley 3D printer in the mail
Today I finally received the Huxley in the mail. It wen’t faster through the Norwegian postal service than I thought, and can finally start to assemble the 3D printer. The packet was smaller than I believed, neatly packed in other words. At first glance it seems that all the parts are there. Unfortunely some of the pieces was slightly damaged. The mounting board for the Monotronic circuit board was slightly bent and had a small crack across it. But it isn’t all that bad and can be used with no problem. The printing plate was also cracked across, but this is too damaged to be used since it needs to be flat. Thankfully it isn’t all that hard to make a new one since it’s mostly squared and only have 4 holes and a circular cut on one side.
The damaged parts were of the laser cut thick sheet stuff. I need to do some research on what material to replace the printing plate with. I can get hold of much aluminum, copper and metal at work. I know some has used glass also, but I find glass to be more hassle to work with. I’d also like to build a heated printing plate and I’ll probably make one after I get the printing started.
At least I can get started on the building this weekend.
3D Printer project
I’ve been fascinated with 3D all my life. I think it started back in the day when I played the first Doom games and started making maps for it. I later went over to Unreal Tournament and the UnrealED editor and have since had much fun with the editors in the later games as the came out. These days it’s the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) which is king. Such a smooth 3D editor to work with is amazing. I wish all 3D editors were as simple and advanced at the same time.
Anyways, I usually just make stuff in 3D for the fun of it, the maps I made in UnrealED and UDK were just to make something. Same it was when using Milkshape 3D. And now I’ve ordered a RepRap Huxley 3D printer from Techzone. It’s on it’s way in the mail and I almost can’t wait for it to arrive. It’s a kit, so all I get is a bunch of parts to assemble. But I look forward to that too, mostly because it really gives me the complete understanding in how it works and is built up and why it’s built that way. It also gives me the understanding when it comes to making upgrades to it.
It will probably arrive in about a week time. I’ll make more posts and update the page as the build comes along.
Kicking up some dirt with my RC car
A friend of mine just got his new 1:5 scale RC car in the mail today, so we headed out to the nearest racing park to have some fun.. He first let it run on idle through the first tank of gas before we started to adjust the high and low settings.
My RC car run like hell… Well, at least most of the time. First a small stone got into the steering and jammed it so it couldn’t turn to the left, but that was easy to fix. At the end of the day I started having problems controlling the car. It was then I realized that it had lost power to the front wheels. The left front power shaft had somehow gotten out of the connection cup. The results were easy to see, damage to the connection cup and loss of power to the front wheels.
Genealogy Research
My ex-wife (Of all people) got me into starting to research my family history about a week ago using the www.geni.com page. Which I must admit is quite good to work with as it checks if people you add already exists in another family tree and asks you if the person is the same, and if it is the tree is added to yours. So in basic you might not have to research your family tree so much as it might already have been researched on Geni.
My father did some family research many years ago. I think he still have a folder with print outs from it, but I believe I have a digital copy of it stored on a old hard drive. My father was helping with translating a program called “Brothers Keepers” which is a geneaology program when he did the research. Today I did a cleanup in the closet where much of my old stuff is stored, and I found the hard drive, a 212MB Western Digital Caviar disk from 1994. Hope it still works.
I now need to set up a old computer to try to extract the data from the hard drive, I don’t want to use my main computer as it doesn’t really use those old drives any more and I don’t want to compromise the system as the hard drive probably contains Windows 95. Sudden system conflicts really annoys me.
Making a gun tripod
So, I now got the new XS Titanium mainspring installed and I’ve mounted the new Walther FT8-32x56mm scope on the air rifle. The weight of the air rifle itself is at 4,2Kg and the scope is at 1,2Kg so it’s a total of 5,4Kg now. It’s a bit heavy to wield around freestanding and since I always shoot sitting I’ve begun working on a support support stand. More or less a tripod that I can lay my gun on.
First search for something like this ended up with finding tripods for this kind of use to be quite high priced. So I begun to search for alternatives. Camera and heavy duty scope tripods were out of the question as those also cost too much.
I ended up with a halogen lamp with a telescopic tripod mount. It cost about half of what a normal gun tripod do and it can make the top part myself.. I also now have a 400W halogen lamp I don’t need at the moment, but hey – the day will come for that too. So now all I need to do is to make the top bracket part of some metal, foam and glass fiber. I also want to camo paint it, because it’s very bright yellow. But that’s for later.
So in conclusion I now got a really cheap gun tripod that supports heavy items and it’s about 63cm long when folded together so it’s easy to carry. It’s a bit heavy for it’s size, but I reckon it’s because of the material used. Still light enough for it’s use though.
BAM B-40 Upgraded
Finally got my BAM-B40 upgraded with the new Titanium XS Mainspring. I had to make spring compressor at work to compress it so I could fit it into the gun. Didn’t have time to make a very good spring compressor from a pipe and weights, so I ended up with a 40cm thread bar, some nuts and washers. The spring was 30cm long and I compressed it to half the size. Left it for about 7 hours and the spring had compressed a whole 3cm. Not much, but enough for me to use all my weight to push it into the gun while my girlfriend inserted the fastening bolt.
Before I assembled the gun I also lubed the moving parts with some Moly grease. Now the gun feels firm and nice. Haven’t tried shooting with it yet as it’s not much weather outside for shooting. Hopefully a friend at work can bring his chrono to work one day so we can check out what speed I get from the gun now.
I also need to remember to bring some of the bullets to work so I can check the actually size of them with a micrometer.
A new scope was also ordered the other day, it’s a Walther FT8 8-32x with a 56mm objective. It’s big and heavy.
Air rifle upgrade
Being able to have fun in Norway isn’t as easy as it used to, due to stupid people. Me and some friends have fun with air rifles, plinking and shooting stuff. It’s cheap fun, but I would like to buy a new more powerful PCP rifle in .22 (5,5mm) caliber. That’s not so easy any more. Norwegian rules have been changed since I bought my BAM B-40.
Living Earth Simulator
The “Living Earth Simulator” (LES) project is a HUGE project, aiming to crunch data on an epic scale. It’s a ambitious plan cooked together by a group of international scientists. And I’m thrilled about it.
The project goal is to simulate everything that is happening, has happened, and probably will happen. It’s just one minor downside to this… The amount of data is huge, or beyond comparison to anything else to be exact. Supercomputers are needed badly I would presume, but that wouldn’t be much of a problem if they used BOINC’s distributed computing or made their own similar service so that we mere earthlings can participate in number crunching. At least I would like to help.
With all this simulating planned, maybe someday we’ll actually know if a fart can start a tornado on the other side of the planet.
