Milling Toolhead for RepMan is DONE

It is done.
Took quite a while to get it right but now the toolhead is a tight fit and should work just nicely.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1703


I recomment visolate to generate g-code to mill PCBs and I guess Skeinforge with a milling-setting can be used to generate gcode to mill 3d-objects.

Dremel milling-head for RepMan

A first print is done.
It prints well but I needed to tweak some meassurements.

lessons learned:
* boolean operations in blender can cause extreme artifacts.
* ABS is weak enough that the threads on the dremel flex-shaft can cut their way into the ABS for a perfect fit.
* the holes in my printed part 10056 do not perfectly align with the holes in the original
* always check and double-check the orientation of a flat object. ;)

reliable printing

After going through 45g of black ABS and unbending my inperfect print-bed and LOTS of good hints from Bogdan Kecman I managed to get a reasonable print-quality on my RepMan 3D-printer this night.

There are a few things on thingiverse that I´d like to print before
starting to design my own objects. Particulatly the Dremel-microlathe seems cool.
But currently I have some issues with the STL of the female buckle-strip for the male one I already printed (after Bogdan cleaned up the bad STL with netfabb professional 4.4. The free edition should work too and YES, there is a Linux-version of it.).

my first minimug

Print #0 - my first minimug. Nearly perfect. :)
Used the ready-made Gcode from BfB and no
changes to temperature or extrusion rate
even though I used colored ABS that usually
is said to require 2-4°C higher temperatures.



Print #1

A belt clip using the standard-settings from the Wiki.
The infill does not reach the shell.



Print #2:

Better infill, only 1 raft-layer.
There was so much warping that the tool-head pushed
the object around by colliding with already printed layers.
Reaction: Lowered the height-over-width ratio of raft+interface layer,
so it would push the fillament more only the build-platform, so it would
stick better.





print #3:

OK, the head is MUCH higher then before.
Aparently I was supposed to give a higher
value for thie setting instead of a lower one.

First real print!

I managed to clean the noozle of my RepMan 3d-printer.
Steps:
* manual move -> get the bed down
* tool setup -> heat to 250°C to get the plastic to liquify (press button "up" serveral times)
* hold a needle with some pliers and poke into the 0.5mm hole in the toolhead
* start extrusion (press button "right" serveral times)

The test-rafts:

(I guess either the noozle was too high or too much plastic pushed out the noozle,
so it curled up in zig-zag -lines.)

Minimug:

I increased the temperature and extrusion-rate and got the bed higher during the print as the lines of plastic seemed to fall down from the noozle onto the object. Too thin and too cooled down when they hit the layer below to form a
watertight object.
After the first 2 layers of the round part the X-movement stopped. It seems that the
X-belt was too loose.