The holy grail of layerheight .1mm

With my new and improved setup I dared testing how .1mm layer height would look like.

Results are mixed, for some reason the model rips itself apart. I also get the feeling that I'm hitting the lower extrusion speed limit if something like it exists.

First I tried normal speeds (30-40mm/s) with otherwise normal settings and furthermore reducing the retraction to 1mm @ 40mm/s.

Then I tried to increase the output by raising the the layer width to 300%, that looked better.

Pushing this even higher to 400% width and 0 retraction made it almost perfect. This is a simple test piece and I haven't managed a complexer piece yet.

Something useful - the stove knob

In one of the earliest videos I saw about 3D printing and Reprap, they mentioned printing knobs (link below).

A rather unexciting idea until you realize how inconvenient it is to fiddle around with metal pins when carefully trying to find the perfect temperature to not burn your pancakes.

Luckily someone like minded already provided a template (Oven knob fully customizable).
This works great, so great indeed that I can put in a custom marker for the prefect pancake setting.

Stability mod part 1

I finally build Masos stability mod (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:171418).

I replaced the printed arm with 40x20mm rectangular aluminum profile and used a simple L bracket to connect it to the carriage (grey). The wobble is gone now, but the parts were not printed very precise and therefore the carriage doesn't slide very well on the straight rods. I'm waiting for normal linear bearings to arrive.

Same old, same old.

I had hoped once I bought a high-end hotend I'd get good prints, but the Eventorbot frame is still holding me back.
Although much has gotten better such as the solid infill and surfaces

Left .3 and right.2 mm layer height

However I'm still puzzled by the gaps in the walls.

It looks like parts of the wall just curl upwards. However if I see it during printing I cant really see a wobble it just curls up like it doesn't want to stick on the layer beneath. It also is connected to the layer width, which I had down to 120% for different reasons but it appears that 150% reduces the number of gaps visually.

One glimmer of hope is that the gaps appear to be only in places when it wobbles towards the inside, all outward wobble have not gaps.

I can't really imagine that the bed is jumping up and down when the general wobble is only in the x-y direction, but nothing is impossible.

I'm implementing a stability mod at the moment, so we'll see where this leaves us.

Mending Filament

While I was thinking about a temp controller circuit I had the idea to build a little mechanism where you can put two filament ends in and melt them together.

It could basically be a little metal tube cut in half and drilled out to either 1.75 or 3mm hold in block of heat resistant stone or plaster with a hotend 40watt cartridge and a thermistor attached.

Once heated up you put the end in so some seconds, open it up and have continuous filament.
The same heater circuit could also used in a acetone chamber where the cartridge get replace by a heated bed.

Parts:

Solid metal tube like the 8mm straight rods in our printers.

Temp controller like this come already with a thermocouple
http://www.ebay.de/itm/AC-220-V-Digital-PID-Temperatur-Kontrolle-Thermoelement-Controller-0-bis-400-/281291174288?pt=DE_Möbel_Wohnen_Sonstige&var=&hash=item417e42b190

A 12V 40watt hot end cartridge
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Cartridge-Heater-12V-40W-1-5m-Heater-Cartridge-Heating-Element-for-3D-Printer-/361098962779?pt=DE_Computer_Sonstige&hash=item54132ce75b

E3d hotend under control?!

It took some time but I think I managed to crack the code on how to work with the E3D all metal V6 hotend.
The problem had been that the extruded lines were to far spaced based on my old extruder settings which let me to believe that there was too much resistance in the hotend.
I still have the feeling that the manual pressure to feed filament is way higher than in my old hotend but the main point was reducing the extrusion width. The width is now between 90% 150 of the layer height.

Wolfstock vs CherryPi 3

The CherryPi 3 just got released and from what I gather it looks very similar to the Wolfstock I had a mind. The flexibility of the whole Delta platform allows to exchange elements freely.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:344408

• The brackets are the same. 
• For my size I will need the double Vslots, so i use the one from the Wolfstock. 

• The carriages could be exchanged from one model to another.
• The one from the CherryPi looks a tad more solid.

• Whether the belt tensioner is on the frame or of the carriage doesn't make much difference. 
• The Wolfstock has a neat mechanism which will tension the whole upper roller.

• The hotend mount will be adjusted by everyone anyway for the preferred method of cooling and hotend. 
• If I come around to bed leveling ill print me the CherryPi one.