Z leadscrew bases with bearings and some scrap studding mounted. Fitting M6 studding into 608 bearings required a small collar, which I made from some spare 1/4" copper pipe. I cut the pipe lengthwise, squished it a bit to fit snugly on the M6 studding, then put it in the trusty pedestal drill and sanded it until the bearing fit. The M6 washers foul on the M4 washers around the bearing, so I'll need to cut them down a little.
Here's my temporary stepper driver, which I will use until I build a proper one. Some parts of the construction need a working driver, eg putting splines on the shaft for the pinch-wheel extruder, and putting flats or keyways for the axis gears. It doesn't have proper current control, just a resistor, but it should be sufficient for now. I programmed up to 32x microstepping, although steps smaller than about 8x don't seem to have any effect at all - probably because the L293D is only rated to 5khz, but I'm driving it at 62.5khz.
Made some more parts since my last post, check them out:
Clearly I cut the z-bar with the grain running the wrong way. I'll have to reorient and make some more, see if they survive better. Perhaps make them fatter?
I haven't cut out the opto-flag on these yet, I only got my "router" working in the past day or so. A router bit in a pedestal drill is the closest I have to a mill at the moment.
Z leadscrew bases, with my first work on my repurposed drill. I think the wood at the bottom of these may split under the weight at some point, but I'll deal with that when it happens.
You can still see the black marks on some of the balls in the ball chain where I measured its exact pitch. Turned out to be 4.77mm pitch, 3.6mm ball diameter, 3m for AU$12 at my local hardware store.
From a toaster, so uninsulated. Considering insulating with aluminium, whose oxide is an excellent insulator while conducting heat quite readily.
from Small Parts and Bearings who seem to be the only shop in Australia that has ball bearings in an online shop.
Various prints either made already or waiting to be made.
Here are some of the images I've been printing:
Not sure if you can extract the original 4960x7015 600dpi PNGs from flickr, contact me if you have a good place to put them (and the .blend originals).
Pics up on picasa now, which allows downloading of originals. Happy printing!
Following rab3d's Blender Cad tutorial, I was able to get some scale print-outs of mendel parts.
I know I need to put some more nuts and things on the rod, but I had to see it!
ps: some of you may have noticed that my threaded rod looks a bit thin, and you'd be quite right - I had M6 lying around so I decided to use it.
My motors have arrived!
AusXMods had them stocked at an excellent price, and purchasing/delivery was quick and painless.
