Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Started to sell RepRap Prusa V2 kits on eBay.  First one sold in less than a day.

I have started to notice a need for higher resolution.  My current printing quality is being held up by my 0.5mm hotend nozzle.  I just ordered another J-Head hotend with a 0.35mm nozzle from Hotends.com. (Yes thats a real site)  I love my original J-Head.  Unless nearly ever other item associated with my RepRap, my J-Head has never had a problem. (Knock on wood) 

I am also in the process of building another 3D printer.  This time built out of 20 Series T Slot extruded aluminum framing.  While I apreciate the fact that my RepRap can replicate, or print, itself (especially since I can sell those replications to fund my hobby), I am looking to make a printer that is much more sturdy.   My Prusa can easily print over 80mm/sec, but the quality of the print suffers.  When moving at that speed, the entire printer vibrates causing "waves" in the finished printed part.  While this doesn't affect the integrity, it does tend to make it unsightly. 

I was inspired for my new design from the Pocket Printer on Thingiverse.  My design differs slightly by incorporating the X motor onto the X axis.  The Y axis will then move the entire X axis (x axis slides, x axis motor, printbed, etc).  While this will increase the weight of the X axis, I'm going to risk it.  I may even try a NEMA 14 instead of a 17 if it will work, in order to decrease weight.  I appreciate The Pocket Printer's novel design, it seems overly complicated and I'm not sure that belt configuration provides much benefit to printing speed/quality.  But I could be wrong.  I'll keep this blog posted with my findings. 

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