New ways - the Wolfstock

I´ve decided to abandon the Eventorbot. After I calculated that I needed at least 100€ more to make the machine work properly I checked what different frames would cost.

There aren´t many frame kits but once I looked up the Delta design and also found out how cheap aluminum extrusions are I decided on the Wolfstock http://wolfmanjm.github.io/wolfstock/

There isn´t much published about this machine so I will leave my opinions along the way.

Spaghetti Filament

Coming soon, filament homeproduction...

The fruits of my research on filament making machine will hopefully bear a nice little webshop where we will be selling filament.

Find all update on this endevour und the label Spaghetti
http://printnewworlds.blogspot.nl/search/label/Spaghetti

New pins for Emmets heart gears #Smart Design

Emmet is on it again.
I always had some trouble printing the heart gears with PLA. They just would not turn. He changed the gear ratios and the pins got a mokeover as well. I´m exited to try them out.
You´re not a full fletched printer commander anyway until you printed a heart gear!

My custom direct extruder

I´ve seen some great bowden extruders which even worked with very good retraction settings, the one on the Eventorbot is not one of them.
The first problem I had with it was that the geared motor did only the backward part of the retraction but failed to push the filament forward again.
A new NEMA 17 motor solved that problem and even when directly driven without any gear reduction seems to work fine. I still am not convinced about the use of the huge gear reductions the Wade extrudes bring with them but that a topic for another conversation.

The clothpin held down the motor

I decided rather quickly to go for a direct driven non-bowden design and started with a faceplate which would serve a connector for motor and filament guide. In the first version my goal was just to mount everything but didn´t pay much attention to the forces that are at play here. The way the motor was connected to the housing would push the motor up rather then push filament down into the nozzle.

In the 2nd version I went for a spring loaded filament guide which directs all force down where it belongs. One issue still even in the rather balaced design is that the clamping pressure is between the housing/filament guide and the motor screws. If that is not well fitted the plastic will give in and filament will just slip.



For the 3rd version I had the idea of putting a cogwheel on the motor shaft and adding a 2nd axis with a 2nd drive gear to hopefully give the filament grip from both sides. The would apply clamping pressure only there where it is directly needed.

Wing nuts, simple, cheap and useful

Here is something I like for multiple reasons. Thingiverse user Mooncactus provides us with a customizable option to make wings for normal hex nuts. In my local DIY store they cost ~4€/6pcs, making them my self is much more fun.

Fine thread Z axis - succes

I am carefully optimistic to have managed one of the main Z axis problems.

With the original 5/16" threaded rod I had one deteriorated layer for every rotation the rod did. Which resulted in a gap every 1.4mm. I still dont exactly how this happened but there must have been something in the thread which would cast the extruder to not lay down material well.

Before with 5/16" threaded rod

Here you can see how I not only get a gap and an upwards curled filament line but it also looks like the extruder stuttered.

After with M8 fine thread

Now this looks much better. Since the filament is half transparent they layers are much more visible and the main bed wobble is still visible but the whole wall look much more uninterrupted.
With better quality filament (I really don´t recommend buying "Jet PLA") and a solid color I might be able to actually print decent quality.


Coming up: Speed testing. I want to reach an accelerated 80 mm/s and the print parts to change the whole Z axis assemble, but the fine thread will definitely be a part of it.