This is a work-in-progress (not fabricated/prototyped yet), exploring how to design a CNC/laser cuttable extruder head assembly for Makerbot/CandyFab applications.

- Target material is 0.9mm thick steel/aluminum as provided by ponoko.com/
- Routed channels are 1mm or 2mm wide
- Bolt-holes are 2mm in diameter.

- The pieces are to bolt together, then heater wire wrapped around the indented sides.
- Material is fed from the top; air from the side ports.
- If a magnetic material like steel is chosen for the Upper Plate, air feeds could be magnetically attached.

- Total design height is 70mm to allow for three stages of heater-wire wrap for graduated heating temperatures.
- Removing one or two of the stages would shorten the height by 16mm or 32mm respectively.

- License set to Attribution - Share Alike - Creative Commons. Feel free to adapt and make money off it as long as you share your mods!

My Second design of a small geometric sculpture that explores the battle between cake and pie

This box is designed to protect the table beneath your PCB from scratches, while giving you full access to the PCB top layer.

If you've seen any of my other weird stuff, you'll have noticed my stupid camera crank ( thingiverse.com/thing:3930 ) and the issues I've had getting it to print cleanly. I'm happy to report after a number of little issues ironed out, I've got a pretty usable part and a fairly clean print with a few minor nitpicks. The catch with this part is that it stays so hot printing the stem, it warps a little, stays mooshy longer than it should, and kind of gobs up a little bit.

One evening I sat here as it printed and I blow onto the the print as it layers up. The most recent 3 layers stayed a little soft, but the problem was reduced exponentially. So I thought, why can't I make a tiny fan, kind of like the direction bothacker investigated ( bothacker.com/2010/06/22/keep-it-cool/ ). Because RepG0018 doesn't really utilize the COOL function with aplomb, I figured, fans are worth a shot, so I built one, but I directed the air to a finite point, since I don't want to perturb the HBP or the nozzle temp as it prints.

I built this CNC router from designs I saw all ver the place and like the idea of using aluminium channel and steel. I simply built the table then measured the gantry to suit. You can build any size this way as long as you re-enforce properly. The control board came from HobbyCNC and the motors are NEMA 23. The power supply I built (simple 24v 7A).

This is a spreadsheet to get feed rates for your TOM into the ballpark for nice printing, based on a W/T and a layer height you choose. Flow rate is fixed at 255 PWM due to the extruder firmware and the spreadsheet also helps determine what your flowrate is.

This is a work in progress, I cannot be responsible for you totalling your TOM as some basic assumptions I have may be wrong, and my math might be crap. Thanks to Dave Durant who steered my thinking in a different direction, and gave me some impetus to think of an easier way to calibrate my 'bot.

A spreadsheet and procedure for setting up Skeinforge paramaters for calibration of Makerbots having DC motor extruders such as the MK4 and Mk5

Print, measure the step size for X an Y

The last nickel calibration test I designed gave no real feedback on how to fix the problem. This one should allow for measurements and corrections.

This one is exactly 21.21 mm wide in both the x and y. The slots are the same lengths (21.21mm) but a little wide (3mm)to disregard the width of the slot until the x and y are perfect.

Not everyone has unlimited access to the US nickel, and as an exercise to myself I made this fully parametric coin calibrator in OpenSCAD.

Modeled to be virtually identical to its ancestor, you can now measure your favorite nickel alternative coin in your country of choice, and print your local flavor calibrator, ready for the coins in your pocket right now.

To limit confusion I added labels to the axis courtesy of tbuser's bitmap fonts. thingiverse.com/thing:2054
(place the bitmap.scad file in the same folder to make it work)

This is a lotus or rose or what ever is most Awesome. I made this as a gift for someone so I went the extra mile and made some brass leafs colored green and Copper wire stems so oxidize them in a brown green tone. I went to TIG the copper to the stainless stalk but It was too small so I just brazed it. I ended up Threading the stem to use a 4/40 nylon acorn nut below the flower and a 4/40 acorn nut at the top to look real.

This is my British themed Prusa Mendel.

For more details on the design and build, please see my Blog - richrap.blogspot.com/2011/10/made-in-insert-country-here-british.html

Video's of the build and printing can be seen on my Youtube channel - youtube.com/user/RichRap2011

I hope you like it.

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