This is combined carriage and extruder for 70mm spaced vertical x-axis. It uses 4 lm8uu bearings and can be removed from the machine without tools or disassembly of the x-axis. With the idler open the hobbed bolt and gear can be removed and cleaned without tools. I've done an extruder test and it rides nicely on the rails, but i wont be able to print anything with it until i build the rest of the machine. The SCAD file is a bit of a mess not everything is derived from the variables at the top.

A pair of replacements clamps to retain your Techzone Huxley bowden cable using 6-R1/8 straight push-fit pneumatic fast connectors.

All my attempts to retain my ptfe bowden cable before that turned into a failure sooner or later. Now that I use those, I have zero trouble, and it's sooo helpfull for filament unloading/reloading to be able to quickly disconnect the bowden tubing.

Idea came from the ultimaker machine.

The guys at Moving Brands challenged us to help them print their own Chocolate Advent Calendar in a month.

We already knew about the Frostruder, and had most of the parts to build a RepRap Prusa, so the solution seemed obvious. They ordered a Frostruder, and we got busy building their Prusa.

Things got exciting when we tried to mount the Frostruder to the Prusa carriage - it was just too big and bulky!

Luckily, inspiration struck. We stripped down the Frostruder to the bare bones, and used the Prusa to print its own adaptor.

Lo and behold, chocolate printing goodness!

Moving Brands Advent Promotional Video: vimeo.com/33775105
Moving Brands Advent Calendar: movingbrands.com/advent

This is a tribute for our teacher Obijuan ( thingiverse.com/obijuan ) that is among the ones that introduced me to the world of 3d printing.

It is a custom Wade extruder gear that has some Rebel Alliance symbol as holes on it.

Some minor changes to my filament pusher inspired by Tom's update (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16928).
I have incorporated a filament guide on the idler (and coined the term guidler).
I also took his modification so the front bearing doesnt rub and I have included a printed spacer so the bottom bearing doesnt rub either (just insert it before the bearing).
I also widened the opening a bit for better access to the hobbing (another of Tom's ideas).
I also included one of Triffid Hunter's suggestions to modify the hinge support piece slightly to make it easier to remove.

Thanks Tom and Triffid for the ideas.

This is a version of Greg's extruder that solves one mayor problem i had with it: My hobbed bolts are not deeply hobbed, so the filament would slip off to the side. thingiverse.com/thing:14960 partially solved it for me, but didn't provide accurate guidance in both directions.

My version has an additional guide in the filament path. I tried to block the hobbed bolt as little as possible, so i added a cutout on the opposite side of the filament so one can still get to the hobbing with a needle or tweezers.

Further improvements include:
- Ziptie-slot for hotend wires
- Small cutaway on the bottom for the hotend wires
- 16mm Groovemount with countersunk screws
- Drepression for the front 608zz bolt bearing, so it doesn't rub against the plastic when moving

It prints quite nicely and works like a charm!

This was done in Solidworks due to my lack of patience and openScad knowledge.
I'll add more hotend mounts upon request.

EDIT: I've uploaded the v2 - the original file was an older revision that constrained the filament too much.

EDIT: And the v3 is here. It contains a couple tweaks:
- slimmed down the support structure for the hinge
- added a bridge-based depression for the rear bearing
- tweaked the guide channel for better printability
- the groovemount screws now sink in deeper
- the cable cutaway is now more pronounced

Piramid-toy for children

I added a cooling air jet directly to extruder gear assembly to prevent softening of PLA filament too soon, PLA is worst case (heat is transferred from motor and extruder hot block) this will hopefully apply to new main board upgrade where stepper motors run at even higher temperatures.

This replaces the stamped sheet metal mount between Extruder and linear slide saddle of an UP! printer with a machined aluminum mount incorporating alignment features to reduce bounce in nozzle when short quick movement in print head occurs.
An added benifit is there is a lot less ABS getting scooped up and burnt due to the wobble of the extruder moving so quickly.

A plate which holds the bearing in.

I had a problem with the bearing working out of the hole on my MK6 extruder, so I made this. It fastens using the nuts which were already installed in the extruder body.

When I received my Ultimaker, the one piece that was faulty was the 50mm fan used to cool the extruder. I happened to grab a 40mm fan and needed a duct to go with it.

Modified Berend's Ultimaker Ducted Cooling Fan such that the really long screws on the extruder head can screw directly into the duct's roof (as opposed to replacing the screws with even longer screws as in Berend's design).

It was specifically designed to be printed without a fan and, thus, is dead simple in design.

Please, someone, derive this and add some screw notches or something to allow it to be held together without wire ties!

This is a filament dust remover in cylindrical form. It can be attached anywhere on the filament. On top of the extruder or before your filament guide, etc.

this is a proof of concept in the use of driving more than 2 filaments (3 here) using 2 motors. one motor drives the filament while the other drives a cam that pushes the filament into the drive shaft.
i am currently preparing to test this, but wanted to get it out there. current issues are that is does not have good access to the drive mechanism for cleaning or feeding filament and that much of it was designed to be machined instead of printed. the side plates are to big for a cupcake, but i ws able to print a few of the pieces on one. it may also not be compatible with other motors until there is a redesign, as the motors are integral to its strength.
if anyone has improvements, let me know.
EDIT: added an IGES assembly file(let me know when you find its broken, and how to fix it) and SW2005 part and assembly files. also added an exploded image
EDIT: lookes like this has been worked on a bit already by wildseyed thingiverse.com/thing:10783 . not sure if i should list it as derivative.
Finally got more than 1 hot end functional at a time, so to check out the filament drive in action see youtu.be/CVaYHlLkvWM
and youtu.be/yqAGEqaoPg4


it works! all 3 filaments running:
youtu.be/po8KyagUsY4
youtu.be/-X-azhcsqdM

I designed this with 123d beta - similar to autodesk inventor.
123dapp.com/
This mount is for a Sells Mendel and has the wade's mounting holes - I measured everything with a caliper to figure out the correct measurements :)...

Printed pics within the hour..and I will report if it has correct measurements or not. (I'm printing with a slightly incorrect mount right now with these linear bearings and they work a treat! - So smooth)

Rencio out

A dualstruder-compatible duct that diverts some air from the extruder fan so that it blows on the nozzle. This should help plastic cool faster, which again should lead to better bridges.

The mendel-parts.com V9 1,75mm Hotend/Extruder works reliable with PLA.

Unfortunately 1,75mm ABS filament is softer and more flexible, which can cause some problems.

Sometimes the filament bends before entering the hotend tube and curls up between filament drive and hotend.

This upgrade solves that problem.

After some problems extruding ABS through my J Head MkIV nozzle I decided to install a fan for active cooling whilst printing.

As I needed an offset mount for anything smaller than 50mm for my X-carriage, I designed this mounting and guard.

Simple and minamalistic!

filament dust remover for "hinged extruder". No fixing needed.

NEW VERSION AT: thingiverse.com/thing:16483

This is the extruder used on Aluminum Mendel thingiverse.com/thing:16076. It combines the features of its ancestors that I liked best. It provides more internal filament support than the standard body for less filament buckling. Changeover is very fast.

The purpose is the same as the Ultimaker Hobbed Bolt Release by bkubicek ( thingiverse.com/thing:14505 ).
However, I have a different kind of hobbed bolt, so his model didn't match my bolt. Also, some nuts didn't allow the holder to turn, so the knurled part is separated from the extruder and the external diameter is slightly lower to fit loosely with the extruder motor.

Just a couple of changes to this other design: thingiverse.com/thing:8830

This is a mounting plate for the MK7 safety cutoff board and a 1/4 inch feeder tube.

I created this because on a Cupcake, there's no good place to put the safety cutoff board, so I needed somewhere to mount it, and I use a feeder tube (so that the filament stays in a sealed box with dessicant). The feeder tube wouldn't stay straight, so I needed a way to hold it up.

I will be posting an updated version of this with more airflow channels and an additional fan, since my extruder motor gets SUPER hot...

I finally made a re-design of the extruder assembly of a Beta
Ultimaker.
The design was on my mind for a long time.
The advance is the bigger diameter off the "bolt" (20 mm) and a bearing as a pressure roller.
Also the wheel has just straight grooves so I don't have to clean it anymore.
Because the grooves are straight it's not grinding in the filament
anymore.
I print for many hours without cleaning.
My parts are looking better also because of the constant transit of
the filament.

The only disadvantage is that you have to make some parts in steel.

Geo Hagen
hagentb.nl

This is a redesigned Ultimaker extruder. It employs a MakerBot Mk6 drive gear over the 2nd gen bolt from Ultimaker. youtu.be/UmeMxHsAtbA

This Mk7 replacement features a spring-tensioned, quick-release 623 bearing idler, and shouldn't interfere with dualstrusion. The back is also open to make it easy to clean the teeth of the drive gear.

I don't have an actual Mk7, but it seems like it will work from my test assembly with parts I had lying around, including a Mk5 gear with the wrong size hole for the stepper and 3mm filament.

Clearance on the head of the idler screw might be a problem. If so, the screw may have to be replaced with some other type of 3mm shaft. A piece of 3mm filament should work.

Paste extruder based on the Moineau pump principle.

The pump geometry is based on thingiverse.com/thing:7958

Should work as a plug-in replacement for a hot plastic extruder in a 3D printer. However, I have NOT used this to actually print anything. I'm just publishing it in case someone else wants to try it out. (I think it's ready for printing a very small pizza without toppings, but beyond that I cannot say.)

Almost everything is parametrized and adjustable from the SCAD file. However, the resulting design should be evaluated to see if it is still sane after adjustment, since not all of the features are automatically calculated. Particularly the flange and driveshaft diameters must be adjusted by hand to match the other measurements.

See it in action: youtu.be/OHQiKuQvuEU

Note: obviously it is impossible to build an object from material that flows on it's own - the object would not hold it's shape. So in practice the material has to either be pulled into the extruder by a negative pressure (impossible with PLA printed pump parts) or pushed into the extruder by a positive pressure. In either case the motor axle has to be sealed, or it would either relieve the negative pressure or allow the material to flow up and out from the inlet block.

With PLA as my plastic of choice, I found that objects with short layer times benefitted greatly from a fan directly at the extruder. Greg Frost's Lm8uu X Carriage with Fan Mount fulfilled this requirement for most parts. However when printing thin layers with short layer times I found the side opposite the fan could still come out messy. To remedy this I added a fan to the other side.

The goal is to make 3mm filament from PET drinking Bottles.

(To this melting chamber any kind of drive can be mounted and any kind of plastic can bee fed but a PET-band stepper-feed is planned)

The he Centi PET Re-Extruder shall be easier to build and cheaper than exiting re-extruder projects. This shall be reached by making it smaller (20cm desktop size instead of 1m workbench size) and requiring its maximum output speed not to be very high (>= one printer input speed).

For a fully functional system additionally to this melting chamber there will be needed:
PET Cutter (A); PET Band Feeder & Guider (B); Filament cooler & catcher (C)
Those are not yet constructed.


This Melting chamber is Heavily influenced by the existing projects:
reprap.org/wiki/Web4Deb_extruder
appropedia.org/Waste_plastic_extruder
thingiverse.com/thing:12948
recyclebot.tumblr.com/
kickstarter.com/projects/rocknail/filabot-plastic-filament-maker

The only differences are that it is smaller (thumb sized) and it has some additional features which are only possible since it's a 3d printed design. Those features will be more thorougly discussed in the following design decisions section:



DESIGN DECISIONS:

Since its smaller size it has much more surface area per volume and thus huge-er thermal losses. So a bit more care must be taken for thermal isolation.
SEE: [INSTRUCTIONS -> Assembly] for application of thermal isolation.

The chamber is open on both ends => easy cleaning easy nozzlechange and nice thermal isolation with fibreglas-PCB endplates.
The chamber is symmetrical => no wrong assembly possible.
Lots of spikes (16) and wedgecuts (2) provide air pockets under the isolation to give additional thermal isolation.
The screw aligners are open and sharp pointed for minimized thermal contact to the screws.
Wall thicknesses are kept minimal for lower material volume and thus price.

Lamellas:
PET has a very high thermal resistance [0.28W / (m*K)].
The steel lamellas [shapeways infused steel: 22.6 W/(m*K)] decrease the termal equilibration time quite a lot.
The gap between lamellas should be choosen as a tradeof. With smaller gap size the maximum feed speed for reasonable thermal exchange rises but if the gaps become too narrow viscous friction will kick in (laminar flow). An optimal geometry would require numerical simulations and narrowing gaps (this is overkill).
The minimum lamella thickness is given by the printing process and should be around 1.5mm for steel prints.
The outer isolation (thermal resistance similar to PET) should be thicker than the distance between lamellas. I hope the airpockets are ganna help here. As of now I've choosen the gap size as small as possible so that it remains reasonably cleanable but it wouldn't hurt to do some conservative estimative calculations. (TODO)

-----------------------------------

I chose PET as primary feeding material out of following reasons:
1) Drinking Bottle PET has a reasonable low melting point ( 230°C ) (due to some additives ?) SEE:
blog.reprap.org/2009/03/drink-bottle-feedstock.html
I tested melting it with my soldering iron set to 220°C and it melted easily!
2) It can be cut to very slim long stripes which lend themselve for feeding into a small melting chamber entrance with an hobbed bolt drive (no auger drill drive intended)
For cutting devices I found this nice website:
utsumi.com.br/pet/English/filetador/index.html
## The first two steps in PET bottle processing must be treated with different parts that are yet to be constructed
>> Centi PET Cutter -- see (A) below
>> Centi PET Band Feeder & Guider -- see (B) below
3) Very good mechanical properties prints similar to PLA (diff temp) but is not brittle at all.
Though hygroscopicness & re-crystallisation may degrade it a bit.
4) IMO it smells less obnoxious than HDPE fumes


################################### TODO
(A) Petcutter
Is it possible to construct a small one that is easy to handle?

(B) Feeder & Guider
the drive mechanism must solve
# backlog
# PET band creasing avoidance or control over it ("snakelooping")
"channel to be the thickness of the folded strip"
=> maybe too thinn to print.
directly feeding the pet band to a printer?
=> probably not for an bowden tube printer.

(C) Filament Cooler & Catcher
important for constant diameter
design so that it can be directly fed into a bowden tube
####################################

This is an early concept for a belt driven extruder. The extruder motor (E Motor) is moved from the X carriage and mounted at the x end. Force is transferred via a differential.

One of the goals for this design was to minimize barrier to entry. That is, I wanted to allow anyone to be able to implement this without having to to know how to write software/firmware or redesign the printer in a major way. As such, this design accomplishes the task mechanically. A similar approach could be accomplished via software pretty easily, and it would eliminate the need for the differential. However, with this design, users may be able to come up with the gear models and implement the design without having to wait for someone to work on the appropriate software changes.

The X assembly has two belts. One connects to the X carriage as a 'normal' X drive would. The second (E belt) connects to the hobbed bolt gear on the extruder. At the end of the X belt, where you'd normally have an idler/bearing, there is a pulley which connects to a differential.

In the images, orange represents idler/bearings and red represents pulleys/gears. Note that the X carriage is connected to the bottom of the X belt, while the extruder gear is connected to the top of the E belt. The images here are just a representation and are not designed to be functional. As such some things are not to scale and gears do not have teeth. Please take this with a grain of salt. This is being published just as an idea.

Imagine we want to move the X carriage but we do not want to extrude. The E motor holds stationary while the X motor rotates. This causes the differential's ring gear to be stationary and thus the X motion is transferred via the idler pinion gears into the E belt such that the E belt moves at exactly the same speed and opposite direction as the X belt. Since the X carriage is connected to the bottom of the X belt and the extruder gear is connected at the top of E belt, this means that both move in the same direction and the extruder gear does not rotate.

Imagine we want to extrude (rotate the extruder gear) but we do not want to move the X carriage. The X motor holds stationary while the E motor rotates. This causes the differential's ring gear to rotate. Since the X drive pinion gear is stationary, the ring gear's idler pinions cause the E belt to rotate.

Some benefits of the Meehl Drive system over other potential drive systems:
* X carriage is lighter and can be moved faster with less inertia
* No new software or firmware updates are necessary
* X rods can potentially be smaller since there is less weight and therefore less sag
* Less printer vibration and shaking

The extruder design is from thingiverse.com/thing:6713
The X carriage design is from thingiverse.com/thing:14530
Although, in both cases, almost any similar X carriage and gear driven extruder could be used.

This is very much in progress of being built and designed ad-hoc, But I've started on a Ultimaker style bot that is a meter cubed in volume. So that I can print a Chair!

Each corner is printed on my Makerbot, and then standard 4x2 steel tubing can be inserted to make the frame.

Each side is cross braced with threaded rod to make it true and the 16mm ground shafts are used as guides for the head.

The head is on a 10mm shaft and houses two LLU10's for smooth running.

The head is designed to accept up to 4 heads but I will need to figure out a way to keep the weight down, because even with 10mm shafting there is some flexing.

The platform when build will have two ball screw on opposite corners with two linear bearings on the other corners.

Each axis will be powered by Nema23's at 48v going through some Gecko Drivers, but I intend to rig up my Makerbot Mother board to control this, so that I can re use the Extruder controller for the head.

Anyway, I will start posting files when they are ready.