Calibration Repeatability

While doing calibrations, I was worried how much variability there is in the FDM process. This exercise calmed me down. I ran six calibrations, at exactly the same settings as I used on 12/7.

The calibration parts looked consistent start to finsh. Looks like I need a better way to take these picture too….

I’m going to the hardware store and get some painter’s tape, and raise the Z up a bit for the next trial.

Here’s just the photos and details of the equipment I used is after that:

Calibration 01

Calibration 01

Calibration 02

Calibration 02

Calibration 03

Calibration 03

Calibration 04

Calibration 04

Calibration 05

Calibration 05

Calibration 06

Calibration 06

I have many cameras, but I have been using mainly two in my posts. I have a Sony CyberShot 7.2Mp that shot the pictures that follow. Great photos, but I have to resize the images to 1024 px wide for WordPress (using SnagIt Editor). I also like using my old Kodak DC4800 that I have several closeup lenses and several filters for:

Kodak DC 4800

Also, I have several microscopes and shop scopes. The scope shots at 100x magnification (I think) above were using a flea market Fisher Scientific Steromaster (I used some tape guides on the stage to locate the calibration squares repeatably):

Fisher Scientific StereoMaster

I stick a DCM130 Scope Camera in one side and connect to an old Dell C600 Laptop with docking station. I use a program called Scope Photo to record the images to memory.

DCM130 Scope Camera and Dell C600 Laptop

This is the DCM130 unit by itself:

DCM130 Camera

This is the Shop Scope unit that came with the DCM130 when I bought it:

Shop Scope and DCM130 Camera

I also have a CnCam (optical measuring webcam) I can also use. I got to dig that out for this project too…

–John