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ORD Bot Debut at PS1 HackerSpace

The ORD Bot made its debut at the Chicago HackerSpace, Pumping Station One. They host a monthly DIY CNC night that is open to the general public. I have been going for about 6 months and it is always a lot of fun and you meet some great people. Last night’s event was very well attended with about 30-40 people. Many of the people were there for the first time and found out about it via the Hackaday blog post. They usually have a 15-20 minute presentation and then everyone starts breaks away to work on projects or discuss ideas.

I was drafted into the presentation role to present the ORD Bot. It was received very well. Everyone liked the simplicity and clean look to it. Just about everyone picked it up to hold it in their hands. You don’t see people just spontaneously pick up someone else’s 3D printer very often. I guess when it is small, cute and has a handle, it is just asking to be picked up.

Up until then, the ORD Bot had never actually tried to do a full print. I had a lot of trouble getting the PLA filament. I had some get lost in shipping and two orders canceled due to lack of stock. I had some scraps of ABS that I used to test the extruder and I had run all the axis motors. I had done all my testing on a desktop PC at home and brought my laptop to the HackerSpace without all the software. I hooked into the PS1 Wifi and got the nessesary software.

This is the software “stack” I ran. Sprinter was already loaded on the Arduino. I used Slic3r to create the G-Code. I used Printrun (Pronterface) to interface with the printrer. Jeremy from tinymachineshop had a similar setup on his Makerbot and had Slic3r setup in about 3 minutes with the settings I needed. He also donated a length of black PLA

I decide to run the 20mm calibration cube STL that comes with RelicatorG. Slic3r generated the code in about 1 second. We spend about 5 minutes running PLA through to clear out the old ABS. The first attempt immediatly had a problem with the Y axis. I releazed that the set screw was never tighten on the pulley and it was just running on shaft friction. I tightened the set screw and the print ran great. I probably could play with the retract a little.

We were amazed how quiet the machine ran. You can compare it to the background voices in the video. There is even a Makerbot in the background about 10 feet away you can hear. I am not sure why it is so quiet. I think it might be because there is really nothing to resonate. All the flat parts are pretty small and pretty well bolted down.

The completed part measure about 20.015mm square. The layering looked quite even. There were several 3D printer owners in the room and they all commented that it took many hours of trial and error to get the quality I got on the first try. I am sure the tools have evolved a lot since they started and they helped by giving me the good Slic3r settings.

I took a bunch of pictures, but I left my camera at home. I will post more soon. Here is a picture of the part I took later.  If anyone else has some pictures, please send me a link.