So far I’ve run through: Two RAMPs boards (maybe 3?) with attached Arduino processor boards One combined RAMPs based on a standardized MKS base design (MKS seems to be a working group of a number of Chinese firms). This worked well until it died. One Smoothie board from Kingprint based on an MKS sbase design…… Continue reading Controllers are anything but Smoothie
Category: Hobbies
Smoothieboard (3d printer saga continues)
You think you have things (sorta) figured out. You buy the replacement parts and you recite your mantra; enjoy the holidays. I had another shot of my friend’s JW Blue label scotch and my sense of smell was on. A remarkable smoky note plus a bunch of other harder to describe flavors. Christmas morning I…… Continue reading Smoothieboard (3d printer saga continues)
The 3D printer is (temporarily) busted
I was getting the inductive probe working. After I tried my circuit, which worked but wasn’t quite reliable enough I decided to go back to the simpler resistor voltage divide option. Easy and foolproof. It took me too tries because you really should give yourself enough prototype board to work with. It is hard enough…… Continue reading The 3D printer is (temporarily) busted
The Toranado Extruder
The 3d printer project continues unabated as does my introduction to these new things as well as the reintroduction to things I haven’t seen (if they even existed) since college. It really is a blast. The Extruder The Toranado Precision Extruder is a continuing project to improve on the relatively crappy extruders that are supplied with…… Continue reading The Toranado Extruder
3D Printer – My First Design
I finally finished this round of squash my thumb with a hammer and decided to build a holder for spools of filament. I made that out of wood but wanted “washers” to keep it from sliding. I decided that would be an easy first project to print. In the lower right is a short cylinder…… Continue reading 3D Printer – My First Design
The 3D plot thickens
Going the way of the MKS v1.4 board led to an interesting situation. With the separate RAMPS 1.4 and Arduino, everything I downloaded for Marlin (the onboard monitor that runs the printer) was just setup for my printer. No muss, no fuss. Once I stepped away from the safety rail I was both better and…… Continue reading The 3D plot thickens
3D printing, more lessons learned the hard way
The first set of controller boards were replaced gratis. I can’t quite remember why anymore, it is even possible that the failure wasn’t due to my error – yes, I think I’ll stick with that. This third set just got fried because, even though I thought I was being meticulous about having the power off…… Continue reading 3D printing, more lessons learned the hard way
Learning more about 3D printing
It turns out you have to be good at this in the present. Lots of things can fail in the part change and depending on what fails you get various, sometimes mysterious symptoms. I’m going to describe some I’ve gone through recently, but I’m sure these wont be the last ones. Let me start by…… Continue reading Learning more about 3D printing
3D Printing, not for the faint of heart
I’m currently awaiting some parts, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Starting about a week and a half ago, just after things started working, things stopped working reliably. Isn’t that always the case? In particular, the x-axis would “slip”. What I mean by that is that the zero point would move, so instead of a…… Continue reading 3D Printing, not for the faint of heart
3D Printing
About a week ago I gave myself a birthday gift, a 3D printer kit. The kit is based on a standard open source design The organization is Rep Rap and the idea is that the 3D printers can reproduce themselves (with some human assistance of course). The heart of the kit I bought is the design of…… Continue reading 3D Printing
My Gifted Life 