Saturday, September 4, 2010

Almost done.

There are 4 people on the Makergear IRC (Basically the official IRC of the Makerbot folks, considering most of us that have operational Makerbots have some of Rick's goodies ) that have kept steering me back to this project.  Well It's finally "done".  I just need 4 new Wingnuts,  a 5/16 jam nut, 4 smaller springs (the one's I have are almost 3 inches long unspring, WAY too long. and a 1 inch bolt (Everything I have is metric, and getting a 8mm jam nut is not likely at Lowes).

This extruder was originally designed as a super small gearmotor extruder for the now Huxley, but since I have hit 5-6 snags on the  Mini Mendel, and I sold my extra set of electroncis, this is now a Makerbot Extruder.

Here are some design charateristics of this extruder:

-608 spring tensioned bearing idler (stolen from Wades Extruder http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1794)
-Viewport for  the drive gear, and the hot end integration  (stolen from juniortan's breach extruder http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3178)
-Mk5 drive gear (Stolen from the Mk5 extruder http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3290)
-Legs (Stolen from Zaggo's prinstruder legs http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1912  I use 2 sets of his left legs (two left feet, get it!), Funny thing is I had to extend the extruder 11mm on the x axis to reach even that.  But I don't think I am up to designing a whole new leg system)
-A heaping helping of advice from the folks off Makergear and RepRap IRC, thanks folks!

It has extruded, but I will not upload it still it can print.  We have enough semi-functional stuff on Thingiverse already. 

If you already have an extra gearmotor, mk5 drive wheel, and springs and want to Alpha test it just let me know. 

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