Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Tue Aug 10, 2010 3:42 pm

After thinking about this some more, it's the v-rails that need to be straight not the actual structure...the structure only needs to be straight within reason. Although if I can make or find a "double v-rail" (two v-rails in parallel with a connecting flat) I would then just have to adust that on the x structure to be perpendicular to the other two double-v y rails. LOL i make it sound so easy...I have a feeling a feeling lots of shims will be involoved. I know it's not going to be an easy task and given that I'm a hard headed former Marine, i may be inclined to take the hard way.

I don't know, if I'm really trying to stay true to making this a 3d printed and threaded rod machine for extremely cheap or what... $16 is tempting :) We'll see.

Let me fail, it's the only way I'll learn.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Tue Aug 10, 2010 3:51 pm

I know it won't take $100k to start the business, but you should take out enough money to be able to live off of until you can make a profit for almost 2 years. I would be working full time on it so i'd be living off the loan until i actually turn a profit, then i could just pay back what i don't use.

I guess it's just taking the first step into the unknown that is the hardest, maybe i'm being a little too cautious and need to just take a risk.

My current company labels it as a conflict of intrests and it is discouraged.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:45 pm

It's been awhile since i updated this last.

When I was on vacation in Pennsylvania, I think I finished modeling all the parts necessary to print and build the cutter.

<Image

Now all i need to do is print and buy a few parts.

It's probably going to take about 48 hours of printing straight...i wish i had a conveyor belt mod for the makerbot, but i need the laser cutter to make one.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Fri Aug 20, 2010 3:41 am

Hot off the bot:

Image

I printed the x-clamp and t-rex clamps first, because I thought the teeth might present a challenge.

The bot proved me wrong! They turned out great.

Printing took 12mins for the x-clamp and 39 minutes to print the t-rex clamps.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Sat Aug 21, 2010 4:42 pm

Image

The bot has been furiously printing through the night. I probably won't have everything printed until winter!

So far I have the laser car, x-idler bracket, mirror brackets, z-axis bearing retainers and a few frame pieces printed, in addition to the other pieces previously printed.

BTW i forgot to mention I've converted all the hardware to metric... I'm a an advocate for promoting metric designs. It just makes more sense to me even though i live in a standard/imperial society.

I've also been correcting little issues that i find in my designs. After you have the part in hand its so much easier to inspect and find issues. I have a feeling that some of the parts will be one time use, i.e. you build the cutter and immediately laser cut replacement parts just for accuracy sake.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby wilson » Sat Aug 21, 2010 6:47 pm

Lookin good, chooch. Are you still going with the threaded rod idea or did you switch back to misumi beams? Either way the prints look good. I've been printing some of the parts from bdring's design on my bot, just to see how they come out. They're looking good, but I'm not quite ready to jump into the project with both feet yet. I think I'll follow your progress first and see how it turns out.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Sun Aug 22, 2010 12:01 am

I'm still going with threaded M8 rods until I hit a devastating snag....if i hit a snag.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby bdring » Sun Aug 22, 2010 1:34 pm

Your parts are looking great Chooch.

Metric: If I were to do my project from scratch, I would probably have stuck to metric. I have so much inch unit hardware and decent metric hardware is hard to find at the local stores. I stuck with whatever I could quickly lay my hands on. The Internet suppliers make it easy to get either now if you have the time to wait. I still find the inch unit hardware has a little more diversity, like long skinny screws. Misumi is all metric, so you can't go all inch either.

Changing the parts: I expected to see you change a lot of parts. Each technology has it's strong points and weaknesses. Complexity on a laser or mill/router just adds time. On a printer it can actually reduce time and material usage. You might be able to find a better method for the bearing clamps. I needed to pieces because I am stuck in 2D. You might be able to print the pocket for the bearing in one piece.
Bart
"If you didn't build it, you will never own it."
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:38 pm

Thanks.

Yeah, I know what you mean! I can't find M3 hex screws at the stores, the closest I've come is at Menard's, they have M3 philips head screws. However, they do have a pretty good selection of M4 and up hex screws.

I thought about blending the z-axis bearing supports, but decided that it would use more plastic and may be harder to assembly. Although, I haven't printed the actual supports out yet, because I want to change them a little bit more. The circle pieces don't take too long to print out, but It's something I could revisit in the future.
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Re: Chooch's 3D printable laser cutter

Postby thechoochman528 » Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:54 pm

LOL just had my morning shower after that previous post and it hit me

Bart you're right! For some reason I was thinking the bearing pocket was limited to be in the bottom of the support, but putting a pocket from top down would save plastic.

Thanks again, sometimes I can't see the forest from the trees. Looks like i get to redesign the supports, good thing i haven't printed any yet.
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