Having an effective dust collection system for a CNC router keeps the area clean and chips don’t get a change to foul up the cutting. Pipe and snout pieces were designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS. The primary nozzle has a T-slot where a flexible brush can be inserted. The system keeps the work surface tremendously clean. Parts were printed on FlashForge Creator and Creator Pro.
Biki is a tweaked design based on O.T. Vinta’s Rubiks Cube solving robot. All constructed of 3D printed ABS minus some fasteners and motors. A significant change from the original was to make the legs in 3 pieces with print orientations to maximize the strength of the various parts. The carrying handle was also not part of the original design. The embossed embellishments were created in SolidWorks. Simplify3D was used to drive various build files for the FlashForge Creator and Rostock Max.
Bob the woodworker has a special flexible brush for spreading glue but it couldn’t reach in the crack of a biscuit slot. We developed a two filament print using Tough Ink filament for the bristles and ABS for the handle. The bristles are about 1/8 inch wide and fit easily in the biscuit groove.The design was done using SolidWorks and Simplify3D makes the work flow of two headed printing streamlined. The part was printed on the FlashForge Creator.
A friend was interested in a Dinosaur bank. We found a Brontosaurus on Thingiverse. The body was hollowed out in Meshmixer and a coin slot was added. The unit was scaled and sliced with Simplify3D. This was a two tone version just to add some variety. The part was printed on the FlashForge Creator in ABS.
The lineup of four, 5-gang well cars and containers all 3D printed.
TPM Technologies had the opportunity to present 3D printing applications to model railroaders at a regional convention. The application chosen was containers and wellcars. Every car and containers starting with the 4th car are 3D printed.
The design was developed in SolidWorks and the majority of the parts were printed on the FlashForge Creator, “Cat’s Paw”.
Here’s is a close up of some of the cars in the railroad club’s layout.
Well cars on the mainline zipping by boxcars on the siding.
Checking out container loading on the well cars with the forklift.
At a summer Make Camp we wanted an inexpensive way for the campers to jig up bracelets and other paracord weavings. A clamp for each end was devised that straddled a yard stick for easy sizing. With a trapped screw and nut the ends are easily adjustable to the right point on the yardstick.
The design was developed in SolidWorks and the parts were printed on the Makerbot Replicator in ABS.
The original home switch dog on the Rostock Max was a long screw that wobbled and interfered with the other pieces and didn’t consistently engage the limit switch. You need a screwdriver to tweak it. We replaced it with a nice engaging, consistent ledge. While we were at it we redesigned the whole cheap skate bearing block into a “banjo” complete with toothed belt clamps. The number of parts was significantly reduced as well. The best part is no tools are required to adjust the home dog location. A screw is used as a micro-adjust and the nut is trapped in a knob. The ribs of the knob are held in place with a spring printed in the housing.
The ‘banjo’ was designed in SolidWorks and printed in ABS on the Makerbot Replicator. Each axis is color-coded to match the belt tensioners. In this version the screws enter from the inside making the tightening clumsy as your screwdriver interferes with the rods and extruder. In a later design version the ‘banjo’ is modified to trap the nut in a hex socket and tightening is accomplished from the outside with no interference.
The Rostock MAX belt tensioners were OK but required tools and three hands to align the bearings, develop the tension and tighten in place. At TPM Technologies we developed a system for evenly tightening the belt from both sides and best of all, no tools required. A screw was used as a micro-adjuster. The screw head is trapped by two symmetric plates that ride up and down the plate where the nut is captured. The four traveling plates are held together with the screw that traps the bearing and spacers from the original design. The nut is encased in a knob with ridges. The ridges are locked with a spring printed into the plate. Now the belt can be tightened and equalized on both sides without tools. The design was done in SolidWorks and the parts printed in ABS on the Makerbot Replicator. The axis designation was also engrave printed into the side of the plate and each axis was color coded.
At TPM Technologies we currently have a Makerbot Replicator and a Rostock Max. The build envelops are sufficient for most projects so far. Occasionally we have to get creative about placement or how to split a large assembly. It dawned on me that many part needs are long and slender but there isn’t a need to support an equilateral cube. Hence, we dubbed our large area printer “OrthoBot” as a way to describe this phenomenon. Think of a machine envelope required to print a femur, the largest bone in the body. That’s our quest. Or another way to think of it is the build envelope required to print a baseball bat. As we were kicking around approaches to this build envelope we happened across a new video on the Packt Publishing website, “Building a RepRap 3D Printer.”
I have to say I was totally impressed for several reasons. First, the quality of the video is inspiring. Having done many video projects over at StudioYouTube, I know how hard it is to make a good video. I was impressed by the videography and the ease of watching and how Sam Muirhead effectively used the video medium to pass along the content the rest of the team wanted to portray.
My next great surprise was that the Packt site would play the video just fine on my iPad so I could conveniently view it many places in my workshop, multi-tasking as I absorbed the sequence of the RepRap build.
Lastly, the content that the team put together is what every 3D printer builder can gain from. Even though they are using the i3 Berlin RepRap printer as the backdrop they have done a nice job of describing build elements and techniques that apply to many 3D printer build projects. Not only is the video full of nice technique but it is equally inspiring as you develop or build your own system. I found that once I started watching it was hard to stop. I kept sneaking away to finish watching to the end. My hat’s off to this team and their advancement of the open source 3D printing industry and RepRap. I’m sure many new applications will spawn from their efforts. You can check out the video here. More on OrthBot later.
A business acquaintance had a used but significant piece of equipment in their printing business and needed a replacement part. Using a picture with the part next to a scale the picture was imported into Design Spark Mechanical and the 2D profile was traced and then extruded to the correct depths. DS-Mechanical worked quite well for scaling, tracing, extruding, and exporting the stl file.
The part was designed in metric and printed in ABS on a Makerbot Replicator.