Gearotic 3D printing

[Mooselake]

Has anyone taken the stl files from GM and produced gears with a 3d printer?  If so, how did they work out?  It looks like printed gears may need a bit of cleanup, and certainly won't carry very big loads, but they're in pretty common use in the reprap community .

It's not just academic, I've supported a Printrbot+ on Kickstart er (check out the project; it's got a bit over a day to go), and if all goes well I'll receive it around March next year.

Anybody made gear Christmas ornaments?  Care to share pictures in the show and tell area?

Art, any progress on your 3d printer?

Kirk

[ArtF]

Kirk:

   Actually, the 3d printer sits ready for more playing in the new year, I just wanted to put clocks and escapemen ts to rest before
I sitch to playing in that area. We seem to be finding so many cool things to play with its hard to focus on one project. Im really
intereste d in kinetic art machines right now too, they seem a nice offshoot of clock mechanism s so I may have to play in that area as well
soon.. and thos ehypocycl oidic drives are tweaking my interest as well. so much to do..so little time..

Art

[Mooselake]

Actually, the 3d printer sits ready for more playing in the new year, I just wanted to put clocks and escapemen ts to rest before
I sitch to playing in that area.  ... and thos ehypocycl oidic drives are tweaking my interest as well.

Eagerly awaiting the results.

so much to do..so little time..

Hobby CNC routers/lathes/mills, lasers, 3d printers. ..  you unleashed a monster with Mach, Art

Thanks!

Kirk

[Bloy]

Hobby CNC routers/lathes/mills, lasers, 3d printers. ..  you unleashed a monster with Mach, Art

Thanks!

Kirk

I second that! It's compoundi ng my ADD. I feel like a monkey hopping trees in a jungle.

[danmauch]

  I am really close to making my first 3d Print using Mach3 and an add on developed by Gnexlab which is free for the d/l. The plugin uses python, skeinforg e and mach3 more like a wizard. For more informati on http://cnc2printer3d.wordpress.com/   
  You simply load the add-0n into mach3. Run mach3, select select the wizard, run the wizard, select the stl  to run and seamlessl y the add on runs sheinforg e which generate a 4 axis G code file that can then be run in Mach3. The 4th axis controls the stepper driven extruder head. Gnexlab has a low cost  PID  dual temerpatu re controlle r  for controlli ng the extruder element termperat ure as well as the build plate temperatu re. Right now I have another temperatu re controlle r.
  Use should only need to buy something like the  stepper plastrude r, the termperat ure controlle r and make some kind of a mounting system  for the stepper extruder for your Mill, router, plasma table etc.

 I am making the mods to an XY stage that I have had laying around for 10 years. It has a 10X10X6 travel. the Z axis is another stage that I have had laying around  and I am making up adapters from the DB9 connector s for a G540 that I will press into service to the old stepper motors that I have installed .

I hope to have my first print by the end of the week depending on the holiday distracti ons bound to occur and business.

The bench tests of the extruder and temperatu re controlle r have been good the filament is quite fibnr at about .007D



Dan Mauch
www.camtr onics-cnc.com

Has anyone taken the stl files from GM and produced gears with a 3d printer?  If so, how did they work out?  It looks like printed gears may need a bit of cleanup, and certainly won't carry very big loads, but they're in pretty common use in the reprap community .

It's not just academic, I've supported a Printrbot+ on Kickstart er (check out the project; it's got a bit over a day to go), and if all goes well I'll receive it around March next year.

Anybody made gear Christmas ornaments?  Care to share pictures in the show and tell area?

Art, any progress on your 3d printer?

Kirk

[Mooselake]

Dan:

Hope to see your results soon!

Kirk

[ArtF]

Me too, looking forward to seeing what that thing prints Dan.. Sounds interesti ng, Ive been following the thread on the mach group with curiosity .

Art

[Sonny]

I just joined the forum and saw this thread.  I have 2 prusa mendel 3d printers that I can use to make gears.  If anyone has one that they would like me to try, I'll be happy to.

Art, I look forward to seeing what you add in that realm.

[Mooselake]

Sonny:

I came pretty close to ordering parts for a MendelMax, but went for a Printrbot+ instead.  We'll see if it was a good choice, and if I have any fingernai ls left when/if it actually arrives (not too worried about actual arrival despite the Brett's moved to Mexico Kickstart er comments, but suspect the delivery dates might optimisti c).  I've got no practical experienc e, and saw my first 3d printers last week (5 at the local universit y in various states of construct ion and repair, none actually working).  I did get to handle and look at some first printed parts for the first time.

Anything you'd care to share would be welcome.  How well do the gears mesh and run?  What resolutio n are you getting and how small a DP works?  Do you plan to try anything other than ABS?  Not even sure what questions to be asking yet.

Still in the kid/candy shop/outside looking in stage...

Thanks!

Kirk

[Sonny]

Kirk,

I don't use ABS, only PLA.  I haven't printed enough gears to test, but they are dimension ally correct and the teeth are perfectly formed.  I don't suspect I will have any problems.  If you have the STL of a gear you have in mind, I'll be happy to try and print it.  My maximum volume is 7.5x7.5x4 .  I won't print one for you that large (because it would take 30 hours), but I'll print something smaller if you have something in mind.

[Mooselake]

Sonny,

At this point I'm more intereste d in the process than specific gears.  However, I'd be delighted to see how a set of elliptica l gears would work.  It sounds like you have your machine well calibrate d if you're getting perfectly formed teeth (the ones I saw still "needed a little work").  If you're willing, say 4th and 3rd order, D Pitch around 12 (or as fine as you think'll work on your machine), 7 teeth, a 0.125" plus a hair shaft (for old endmills  ), a bit of backlash, thickness as appropria te, and interesti ng spokes.  It looks like that's around 2 1/2" / 60mm OD.

What type of infill, if any, do you use?  I've seen lots of discussio ns but not a lot of advice, on choice of infill style and percentag e.  Sphere filling looks interesti ng, but so far all academic.  What about firmware and controlle r?  Printer firmware appears to still be in a pretty early stage of developme nt compared to Mach and EMC (soon to be LinuxCNC).  However, all I know is what I can read about.

Thanks for the offer!  No matter how many times I check the UPS truck just hasn't made it here with my machine.  Maybe it's the snow, although we've only had 102 inches so far.

Kirk

[Sonny]

Its a different world.  With the 3d printer world you are interpret ing the gcode on firmware itself.  The host is basically to read the gcode file and spool it over the usb emulated serial port.  There are a few different firmwares, but 3 that get the most attention .  They are called Tonokip, Sprinter, and Marlin.  Tonokip was the best of breed around the end of the year.  Sprinter came out which added accelerat ion.  Prior to it, you could realistic ally only go 75mm/s.  Marlin came along, which implement ed a lookahead with optimized accelerat ion.  Now I run my printer at 180mm/s

If you look back at June 2010, DC extruders were as good as it got.  Around September, stepper extruders came along and made a radical differenc e.  With DC extruders you don't have good control over how much filament is extruded.  Its a guess based upon PWM.  The stepper extruders gave us the ability to control the forward and reverse control.  This allows us to retract filament when going over open spaces.  That reduces strings and printing blemishes .

During all of this, the nozzle diameter has been shrinking .  My first makerbot had a .5mm nozzle.  My first prusa had a .35mm.  Though I still like .35mm, .25mm is fairly popular as well.  3mm filament was the rage when my cupcake was new.  The same time I went to a stepper extruder I went to 1.75mm filament.  That means the internal stress within the nozzle is much lower and it requires less torque to extrude.

Lastly, many reprapper s use heated beds exclusive ly.  When i first started, you used blue tape to print on.  It was an exercise in frustrati on.  Both removing the part and dealing with warping was terrible.  Many times we needed to use a raft.  With a heated bed, life became better.  Warping went away.  With PLA and a heated bed, I can print directly to glass.  When the glass gets below 40C, the part pops right off.  Its awesome.

I mentioned about in an earlier post that grbl is a firmware built for subtracti ve CNC machines which parallels the reprap approach.  In fact, the lookahead and accelerat ion in Marlin came from grbl.  In addition, circular interpola tion is being added which will make things even better.  That part is still beta.  It would be ideal for mach3 or emc2 to support 3d printers by allowing a spool mode where it just passed the commands through to serial.  That way, you had the rich interface that they provide while retaining the simplicit y of the firmware based approach.

Sorry for the long tangent ...  I hope it was informati ve.  Things have changed dramatica lly over the course of 18 months.