Build Session #5 - October 13th

Ryan, H and I put another 3-plus hours into assembly of the MakerBot Thursday evening . Installing the Electronics. Ryan brought excellent beer.

Drilling mounting holes for a small circuit board.

Circuit board installed on the Z-axis stage.

Trying to upload the firmware before mounting the motherboard in the robot. But there were problems.

The motherboard was connected and had lights flashing, but Replicator G said that there was no connection.  

We decided to install the motherboard anyway. We will sort out the firmware issue later. 

Motor controllers

The kit seemed to have a few too few 1/4" spacers, so we made some from small round scraps of laser-cut acrylic.

A bit of head scratching. The wiring shown in the online instructions was unclear.

Hand gesture indicating frustration.

Wrapping it up for the evening.

Build Session #4 - October 9th

Ryan and H came over from 10 to 2 for four hours of robotchery. H brought the beer this time (thanks H).
Prime objective was to finish the extruder, build the case, and install the x,y assembly. Everything went according to plan. The online instructions are not perfect, but good enough.

putting the nozzle into the thermal core. Isn't nozzle a cool word?

Wrapping the heated nozzle with ceramic tape and  Kapton tape. Kapton tape is heat proof. 

Installing the heated nozzle into the extruder assembly.

Beer was consumed.
Ryan needs a hat and a lab coat.

Did I mention that we had some beer. And some of H's home made blackberry wine.
Can you find the Portland Aerial Tram tower model hidden in the picture?

THIS is a MakerBot. Almost.
I never figured out why H wore the lab coat like a shawl. Maybe it's because he's a bit odd.

Rear View

Ryan did the soldering of this little relay circuit board.  It is the only circuit board that is not pre-assembled.

Rear view. 

Front view.

Next step: Install the electronics. That will be fun. Probably will happen this Thursday.

Build Session #3 - October 1st.

Ryan, H and I got together for 4 hours Saturday night for some beer and 'bots.

H uses a Renascence Faire dagger for stripping the motor wires

X-Y assembly

Ryan working on the Extruder

X-Y Assembly

X-Y Assembly with hand gesture

Tightening the belts

Tightening the belts

X-Y Assembly

Shrinking the heat-shrink tubing

X-Y assembly

Trimming a zip-tie

Ryan and the completed X-Y Assembly

Extruder assembly

Extruder motor assembly

More heat-shrink tubing shrinking