The library paratslot.scad allows you to create parametric tslot and accessories.
even mix them in a single render.
Make tslot of any dimension.
30x30, 30x60, 20x40...

2012/02/10 fixed some bugs.

Todo:
add stepper supports,...

I like the polargraph controller
polargraph.co.uk

but its current choice of electronics somewhat limits the choice and size of stepper motors one can use.

I went with stepstick drivers with 1/16 microstepping and modded the polargraph firmware to work with step/direction drivers.

Note: my printed files are here: thingiverse.com/thing:16692

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

I recently built the Ninja CNC kit from CNCSNAP.com. They include some pretty good harware but I wanted my machine to be able to cut heavier material. So i began making upgrades to the machine. I replaced the laser cut motor mounts with HEAVY DUTY 3D printed ones that are probably a little "over" built. But stronger is better right? I also designed a very robust tool holder that fits the motor they supply with the kit. I love this tool holder, it works great. Note: you will need to drill a hole in the end of the clamp to bolt it together. I recommend a small diameter machine screw. Next I stiffened up the guide rods with a set of support claps on each rod. I made them slightly under sized so you will need to run a 1/4" drill through them. My "Y" axis coupler broke so I replaced it with thing 7059. I can't find the corner bracket file I used to stiffen up the frame but I'll post it when I do. I also bolted together my "Z" carriage because it wanted to split with putting the tool holder one it.
If you have any questions or want me to make other upgrade/ design changes just let me know.
Thanks and I hope you put these files to good use.

youtube.com/watch?v=GYD6TE_If6U

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.

UP! extruder Mofification
1. Tolerant to material variances
2. Stable mounting
My best modification to the extruder has developed into;
• Replace "pressure" block holding "fixed position" feed roller bearing that applies pressure to keep filament in contact with extruder gear with new design 2 part adjustable constant pressure block and arm incorporating "Vlier" spring plunger to apply consistent pressure regardless of variances in filament diameter tolerances.

Stops the aluminium coupling from opening from the weight of the z-axis on the Prusa Mendel.

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

Gerber files for the PSCC v1.5.2 stepper controller by ljyang for batchpcb.com. These are simply the eagle files to make a printed circuit board from the original, now repackaged as gerber for your convenience.

A few months ago, my school was getting ready for a theater run of "The Little Shop of Horrors" and needed a tripod that could mount a video camera and be controlled from back stage wirelessly via radio. The whole idea behind the thing was that at the end of the play, when the plant achieved sentience, a camera, hidden inside of the huge plant, would look around at the audience and pick-out one member of the audience to devour.

I was most dismayed to find out that junior year of high school is not the most forgiving time to be trying to bang-out a completed, complicated, reliable device involving software, electronic and mechanical hardware as a one-man development team. A student needs more than 4 hours of sleep every night to be able to at least attempt to hold an intelligent conversation once a day for the duration of the school week.

I did not manage to finish the actual mechanical part of the assembly in time for the run (it's missing the all-important camera mount) but managed to finish all of the gears, mounts, wiring, soldering, OpenScad and Arduino/XBee coding necessary to get the thing moving via remote with stepper acceleration, control smoothing and a wicked-fast 20ms communication delay (by comparison, most first-person shooters operate with a 80-200ms latency). So 1,199 finished lines of code later, I have to admit it's still a work in progress (at least the mechanical camera mounts are) but I'm hoping, at the very least, the XBee and Arduino code involved in the controller and receiver sketches might help out anybody who needs to have super-fast, reliable wireless data communication with error checking and ACK packets using an XBee in API mode.

I'll update this Thingiverse posting with a video of the whole contraption moving under its own power sometime later today once I've had a chance to trim and upload the video.

The latest current source files for the Arduino and XBee powered electronics and the parametric gears can be found at their respective Github repositories here: (for the Arduino code)
github.com/xtremd/XbeeRemoteCameraRig
and here: (for the OpenScad code)
github.com/xtremd/Parametric-Openscad-Tripod-Mount

If anyone has any questions about my code or my tripod, just drop me a quick comment below and I'm sure a bunch of people (including me) will be able to help you out.

-XtremD

I recently built the Ninja CNC kit from CNCSNAP.com. They recommend you use a fan to cool the board but they don't include a fan or an enclosure. So it bought a "thunderblade" 80mm blue led fan from radio shack and designed this enclosure for the board. I didn't feel like designing fastener attachments for the top-base connections so I just heat welded them together.
Feel free to modify the design to use a different fan if you like.
Check out my other Upgrades for this kit.
thingiverse.com/thing:16749

This is the T5 pully belt gear for 4mm shaft steppers. Please let me know how it fits your motors. I've only printed it on my prusa which may vary.

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.

This Y bracket for a prusamendel can (also) be used if you want or need your belt to run very close to your stepper. It is clipped onto your frame then bolted in and secured by the washers so you don't need to take your frame apart to get it on and off.

My steppers have machined pulleys fixed on them with a length of 14.5mm, but the teeth only go untill 10,5 mm.The pulleys have a diameter of 9.7mm with 11 teeth and a 3mm pitch. when your diameter is much bigger the belt cannot be so close to the stepper because it will not have enough clearance.

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.

Designed this bracket to combine four Stepper Motor Driver v3.3 together in One convenient plate. Perfect for custom mounting on your 3D Printer. Mounting hole are 1/4 inch. Perfect for a flush finish on your printer!

Nema 17 Motor mount drawn in Google Sketchup. Perfect base starting point with 42mm Width and Height. Included is the Google Sketchup File that can be used to modify this bracket for your custom project. Enjoy!

Nema 17 Motor mount drawn in Google Sketchup. Hidden hardware design allows for a clean setup. Use this Motor mount to Mount a Nema 17 Motor Horizontally with 1/4 holes. The motor i designed it for is 32mm width front to back. Counter Sunk holes for a clean stealth look, No wires showing! Enjoy :)

Nema 17 Motor mount drawn in Google Sketchup. Hidden hardware design allows for a clean setup. Use this Motor mount to Mount a Nema 17 Motor Facing down with 1/4 holes. The motor i designed it for is 32mm width front to back. Counter Sunk holes for a clean stealth look. Enjoy :)

Nema 17 Motor mount drawn in Google Sketchup. Hidden hardware design allows for a clean setup. Use this Motor mount to Mount a Nema 17 Motor inline with 1/4 holes. The motor i designed it for is 32mm width front to back. Hidden wires. Hidden Hardware. Super Stealth!

While going mad about the ooze of my extruder, I came about several calbibration pieces for testing ooze and retraction. After printing the nice test piece of Hardik about twenty times. I decided to make one that is sliced and printed even faster and shows several problems of ooze in one piece.

I have been working on a makerbot that is controlled by the adafruit motor shield. I made all the parts and wooden pieces by hand using a saw. Once i had all the wooden pieces I put it together and added 2 nema 17 stepper motors for the x and y axis. I used a parallax continous rotation servo for the z axis. The code isbased on some code by Max Livesey and I edited it so it will 3d print instead of ploting. I built the whole thing for around 250 us dollars.
(it is using an arduino mega so analog pins can be used with an extruder board i built)

The stepper motor that drives the extruder on my Up! gets hot enough that PLA becomes too soft to feed properly through the stepper. This stops me doing all but very small PLA prints.

The solution I used was to cover the exposed surfaces with small heat sinks, I used these stick on ones:-

jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=HH8580&keywords=heatsink&form=KEYWORD.

To carry the heat away I designed a modified electronics cover and a snap-in brace to hold these 40mm fans:-

jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC5054&keywords=40mm+fan&form=KEYWORD

This a very much a prototype:-
* The parts aren't robust and break unless treated carefully
* The model could be much cleaner
* There's some unnecessary slots from previous ideas

However, even if some bits do snap the part still generally works, and I can now print models in PLA without the extruder jamming.

This is sort of an experimental idea to add to the fundamentals of the reprap project. It's a 3d printable replacement for existing recycling T5 timing belts used on repraps.
This belt should work with existing timing belt gears, it has a 2mm apex to trough height. It should also allow you to scale up repraps by printing additional sections of the belt and attaching them, and getting longer rods. It's also basically an internal-load modular rack and pinion system

the modular pieces now screw together with a regular metric reprap nut and bolt. the threads fit great with this pulley: thingiverse.com/thing:7218
I also didn't realize it but its a little bit like this thing: thingiverse.com/thing:8938
I just need to adapt a bracket to catch the belt system, and then it could probably work with existing hardware, and software.

Reprap discussion: forums.reprap.org/read.php?2,110697

One of my other things, the nickel calibration, only measured internal holes. This one plays off the idea that two separate known distances are better for measuring and calibration.

The small parts are 20mm and the longer ones are 40mm. The corners are all 90 degrees and will show you if you axes are square. (Use a real construction square)

The height is 3mm but I don't think it's high enough to calibrate the z.

Again the formula for calibrating is

mm wanted to move/ mm actually moved= Percentage your steps are off.

Find your current steps per mm in your firmware and multiply that by your percentage those steps are off.

Your new number will be the new steps/mm.

Ordered 50mm/ moved 54mm = 0.9259259259259259

Current steps 40*0.9259259259259259= new steps 37.03703703703704

***UPDATE 1/12/2012***
Added .PK2 and .STL for 4mm stepper shafts


***EDIT** Rev2, I made some adjustments to the columns and verified that the .PK2 file works in Creo again. I printed a new one and it looks better than the first one I uploaded. Let me know what you think. Use EricCoupler2 for the newer version.. I also found Thing# 12190, which is really similar, he made his first so I've listed this as a derivative though I created mine separately before I saw his.


This coupler came from my seeing and experiencing issues with other couplers. I wanted a Z coupler that was round and would not snag any loose wires. I wanted one that I would not have to worry about slippage, and that would be beefy. After a little experimentation, I decided the captive nut idea was the best. This is my first posted Thing, so Comments are certainly welcome. I design objects with PTC Creo. It's awesome. Elements is Free.

Most of my acrylic parts have been slightly cracked but stable for a long time. However since I got an MK6 Stepper and have begun ratcheting up the speeds these cracks seem to have grown... One acrylic extruder plate broke the other day (thankfully the MK6 upgrade kit came with a spare). So here are some quickly generated drop-in replacement printable .STL part files for the "Rainbow bridge" that supports the MK5/6 extruder. A more printer compatible support design could be made but the convenience of drop in replacement parts should not be over looked!

Oh, note that the largest part comes in 2 halves that lock together like jigsaw pieces. I would recommend gluing or acetoning these together.

Also, the narrow slots beneath the nut holes are for M3 washers as otherwise I feel the nut will get pulled into the plastic if you over tighten it.

To completely replace your Rainbow bridge you will need:
2x replacement_rainbow_bridge_V1.1_A.stl
2x replacement_rainbow_bridge_V1.1_B.stl
2x replacement_rainbow_bridge_V1.1_cross_brace.stl
1x replacement_rainbow_bridge_V1.1_left_foot
1x replacement_rainbow_bridge_V1.1_right_foot
1x replacement_rainbow_bridge_V1.1_top

This fits the MXL belts found in many junk flatbed scanners. The 5mm bore fits most NEMA 17 stepper motors. MXL belts can also be sourced from Mcmaster-Carr. mcmaster.com/#mxl-series-timing-belts/=f8ej07

Shown here is a generic printed axis. I designed and printed this one today to be the Z-axis for a Stereolithographic UV 3d printer I'm making. I will upload more progress about the printer as I make it. This axis seems to work well enough. I used 3/8" steel rods and bushings, because that's what I had laying around. I also used 1/4" 20tpi threaded rod. The SCAD file is generic, so you can change a few variables to make it 1/4 - 8mm rod compatible. I also used piece of plywood as a base.
I built the axis to be 300mm overall length, you can choose any length you'd like. I would recommend using an lm8uu or equivalent for your rod diameter instead of bushings. When you change to lm8uu's or other, you'll need to adjust the slider to fit.

Uses SAE bolts. 5/16" and #6.

Faster to print, uses less material.

No observable change in accuracy. Gravity and the weight of the gantry keep it from back-lashing. Should be noted I am using brass oilite bushings instead of the printed ones. Only one each side.

Carriage mounts Wade's or Greg's extruders.

Other items I'm using;
thingiverse.com/thing:12151
thingiverse.com/thing:5995
thingiverse.com/thing:8917
thingiverse.com/thing:4773