Mini-mill crash and burn

[YYCHM]

Oh cool guys. I don’t have any nylon. I can print it though. Anybody got nylon and can help out yychobbymachinist? @Jwest7788 @Johnwa ?

YYC if you want to buy some I’ll print your part. There’s a store in the SE near princess that sells it. Spool3d it’s called. 1.75mm diameter.

Brian H has mailed to me his now redundant gear. Thanks Brian H!

BB has back ordered me two (one was covered by warrantee) but I won't see those until mid May.

This should keep me going until LMS has the belt drive/air spring upgrade kits back in stock.

Thanks guys.

Bofobo: Did you pull all the gears out of your machine? BB told me the internal gears are metal.

 

[Tom O]

Oh cool guys. I don’t have any nylon. I can print it though. Anybody got nylon and can help out yychobbymachinist? @Jwest7788 @Johnwa ?

YYC if you want to buy some I’ll print your part. There’s a store in the SE near princess that sells it. Spool3d it’s called. 1.75mm diameter.

I don’t have nylon either I dusted off my printer yesterday as my granddaughter wanted a figurine of Baby Groot off of Guardians of the Universe so back to the learning curve. I will have to look for a different version slicer though that has 2 extruders capability.
It printed ok but at the 3 - 3 1/2 inch mark it breaks loose from the platform! But I have a idea that could save a lot of prints like this “ Stay Tuned “.

 

[Janger]

I had the same problem printing that groot model! I read up that acetone is useful to restore the gripping strength of the metal printing plate. Try that if you have a metal plate. After I could print groot.

 

[Tom O]

Well I haven’t used my printer for years really so it started off bad lol the filliment would clog after about a hour so I switched to a new roll, then using the sd card I unplugged the cable from the laptop killing the print WTF? This happened again as I decided to charge my old laptop while waiting for the print that I was about a hour and a half into it turns out the power cable wasn’t plugged all the way in! After that the body printed fine the head ( a 3+ hour job ) was down to the last 45 min or so and broke loose! So on to print 2 it’s going great and has just a 1/2 x1/2 left to go and breaks loose again so close!

So now I’m thinking Ch Ch Chia Pet

I haven’t started the third print yet to think about it and have decided to make a tool for this type of build that has a small base to height ratio here’s my idea

The two pegs on the bottom go under the build plate the pivot is say 1/4” rod that the ends slide on to and the tension screw to clamp down on the rafting.
Hopefully with this even if it breaks away it should be able to finish the print just make sure you put something under the tension screw to protect your build plate.

 

[CalgaryPT]

Once you upgrade to metal gears you will find the true weak link is in fact the motor as it stalls even trying to drill your half-inch holes a belt drive will still stall the system but is supposed to run quieter though I never bought the metal gears to try I went straight to belt drive currently the 2 hp motor Will slip on the belt drive if I try to take too big of a cut and I may go to metal gears myself one day

Isn't there a safety factor here in having a sacrificial gear on these little machines?

 

[Tom O]

I would think that you can tell just by the sound of the machine if you are pushing too hard but if you stay with the plastic gears you may have to wait for another gear to come in and might have to limit extended cutting time because of heat on the gears.

 

[Janger]

Hopefully with this even if it breaks away it should be able to finish the print just make sure you put something under the tension screw to protect your build plate.

Interesting idea. Get printing it? Would you want two? The prusa bed moves in the y axis but I think this could work in my printer too. Model it up Tom!

 

[Tom O]

I should get on it today it won’t be hard to model up, I was thinking though why have 2 pins per side when one will do it’s just a anchor.

 

[Tom O]

And now to the original post when I first got ny Craftex mill it was cutting good and I wasn’t pushing it to hard my son took over and I could hear the difference in the cut as he was unknowingly pulling the 3/8 cutter out of the R8 holder, this was followed by the machine stopping and taking a closer look at the electrical boards I found the donut choke thing had melted the solder detaching it and was sitting on the wires below it.

 

[Bofobo]

Isn't there a safety factor here in having a sacrificial gear on these little machines?

Well i had very little trouble causing the machine to stall by hand (grab running spindle and stall motor) so i dont think the weak gears are the fail safe, the motor “stalls” to protect it or some junk.

 

[Brian H]

Brian H has mailed to me his now redundant gear. Thanks Brian H!

BB has back ordered me two (one was covered by warrantee) but I won't see those until mid May.

This should keep me going until LMS has the belt drive/air spring upgrade kits back in stock.

Thanks guys.

Bofobo: Did you pull all the gears out of your machine? BB told me the internal gears are metal.

I think I'd be a bit skeptical about having metal gears inside. I'm not aware of any that came that way from the factory.

 

[YYCHM]

I think I'd be a bit skeptical about having metal gears inside. I'm not aware of any that came that way from the factory.

BB was full of BS when they told me the internal gears are metal.

Every one of LMS's direct replacement gears are plastic. LMS lists metal replacements for all the gears but I think I'll go the belt drive route and be done with them.

 

[Jwest7788]

I haven't yet got into nylon, sorry!