Some of the parts I made years ago (May 2011) for a frame to hold some solar panels on a sailboat are coming apart.
Worst One
Fortunately they are not all that bad.
Another Two
Yet another
This one held up well as I had cracked the thin wall, so epoxied over the surface.
Held up well
I’ll have to print more up and add some epoxy and UV treatment to the parts.
—-John
Hardware Malfunction
What a greeting to a 21+ hour run! I had started this run yesterday, a rather large part. I started a bit too far back, so when the support was laying down, it ran off the back of the foam (ooopppssss). But, I let it run and stuck it on auto-shutdown. Coming back today to fetch my finished part, I found the machine still on and the ‘Blue Screen’ of death on the monitor.
The part in the machine had not gotten very far along since I left it yesterday.
Stopped in mid-stroke
There was a large puddle of ABS where the run stopped, and you can also see some globs of burnt material probably from my wet material.
Big puddle
Without time to spend figuring things out, I purged the model & support materials successfully and shut it down.
Hung a sign on it ‘John Killed Another One‘ and called it a day.
—-John
I started this week with high hopes of running some more Torlon inlet buffers like I did back in Jan’12 (rrr… two of the LOST posts – cursed ‘puters, networks, & databases). And of course I didn’t remember precisely how I did it, not to mention finding the CNC Programs …. After driving 90 miles to get some machine time, half a day of futzing, two scrap, and zero good I decided to cut the losses, drink some beer, and called it a day to try to remember exactly how it I did it & what with.
Even the FDM2000 head didn’t cooperate — 3 screws broke loose nicely, and of course one didn’t — where’s the tiny easy-outs I had once?
Here’s the one Irish screw, and he is MURPHY!
You can see the nice crack running vertically across the left model material inlet buffer, and it had started to leak underneath the plate too. I’d really like to change both model & support while I’m in here. But for now it’s back into the box for better days (hopefully not another year later!) ….
The FDM1650 was doing much better, and I ran some parts — I swapped out the Red Model P400 and put in some natural filament.
I unload/loaded the filament a bit differently than I have been doing it and it worked REALLY well! I had been hitting the unload button, then going to the back of the machine, and pull it out. I’d swap spools, and push in from the back. I’d open the head, stick the filament into guide tube, and close the head. Then I’d hit the load button, back to the back of the machine, and push from there until it caught in the feed rollers.
This time, with the machine to temp, I opened the head, pushed the unload, and tugged the filament out from the back-side of the head. I went to the back of the machine, and pulled the filament out. Loaded a new spool in, and pushed thru from the back, then closed back end up. Back to the front, put filament into feed tube, hit load, pushed to start, and then (with gloves) closed the head up while it was squirting.
So anyway, back to the parts, the first set (a Mini DV camera mount) was about 8 hrs, had a lot of hairs and burn globs (mainly on the bosses) from filament that’s old and wet.
Front View
Left View
The support was real hard to remove, and I think it was there were so many hairs the model material & support material were really sticking together. I’m sure some had to do with the small complex geometry.
In the bottom of my machine, I’ve been storing the old descant bags to try and dry them back out. I had moved 4 from the chamber to the supply box before this run, and I moved the same when it finished. I wish I could just microwave them to dry them out, instead of this.
Descant in chamber bottom
Another idea is have like a ‘cookie cooling’ rack down there to get a better drying action with my infrequent use (I’ll have to keep my eyes open at the flea market).
The second run (pads for a model carrier) this week was much better – simpler geometry, farther into the spool, plus the extra drying, resulted in almost no hairs plus the support came of better (still not easy though). There was some lifting of the support corners from the foam base as I has backed off from 10mm overhang to 5mm.
Front View
Left View
But enough for this week, I’ve got to learn how to RC Sail, some practice racing to do, movies to take, and of course beer to drink!
My RC Victoria WIP!
(I hope I don’t sink it before the BIG race 3/9 in Monterey …. I got Beer bet on this race!)
—-John
I ran a small run this morning and it ran without any torque limit errors.
Front View
Left View
I’m getting quite a few hairs and burnt globs from both the material and support having too much moisture. Also the models is not separating from the support like it should.
Time to do a bit of tuning & drying.
Instead, I started another run and put it on ‘Auto Shutoff’
—-John
Well, I got things back together. The motors & gearheads from the ICW head. The used feed block from RapidPrototypeTech for the model side, and the original feed block from the support side. While I was at it I stuck a completely new set of tips on too.
I loaded new but very old spools of model and support filament, and started a job I had run before.
FDM1650 Running Again!
Front View
Left Side View
There weren’t any ‘torque limit errors‘, and the times I checked the torque it was running in the low 100′s.
Let us see how long it stays that way.
—-John
I remembered I had a ICW head, and when I found it and looked at the motors, they were the 2233U012S 23/1 43:1 type. I pulled them (as I don’t have any casting material & the head is for the 2000) and put them on the test setup.
Using the ‘Load’ button the model motor torque was 73 to 77, while the support motor torque was 32 to 41.
Then using the ‘Unload’ button the model motor torque was 64 to 72, while the support motor torque was 37 to 42.
I’m going to put the ABS head back together using these motors, and put the higher torque reading motors into the ICW head.
—-John
Having an hour to kill, and the used parts in, I hooked up my test blocks to see how the torque values looked. I applied some Krytox grease to the planetary gears & reassembled to the motors. Still not sure whether to put some threadlock on those threads. I did a series of five readings each and looked at the min/max.
Using the ‘Load’ button the model motor with the used planetary drive was initially 287 to 298, while the support motor was 84 to 121.
Then using the ‘Unload’ button the model motor with the used planetary drive was initially 227 to 249, while the support motor was 76 to 90. A little less torque seems to be required when unloading.
I ran it again a second time.
Using the ‘Load’ button the model motor with the used planetary drive was initially 178 to 224, while the support motor was 80 to 90. So things seemed to be loosening up a bit.
Then using the ‘Unload’ button the model motor with the used planetary drive was initially 163 to 177, while the support motor was 73 to 80.
That’s it for today, and I’ll think I’ll leave this setup and try again to see if running for awhile will loosen up even more and get the two motors running about the same.
—-John
Getting nowhere very quickly I contacted RapidPrototypeTech and he had a few helpful things. He said the planetary gear end screws off the minimotor, and it is what usually goes bad. I re-screwed the motor to the block, and gently used a channel locks wrech (probably not the best tool, but it was handy) and had them apart in no time.
Gear end seperated from motor end
I also did the same for the motor that seemed to spin okay. Comparing the torque required to spin each of them, it seems the model planetary drive is almost shot. Scott had a used one so that will be fixed when the parts get here. There was a PDF on the web describing the gear setup and there’s a link below.
He also had a FDM1650 geared block with two pairs of drive rollers like I have — I’m getting that from him too to save time in getting the machine back to making parts (I hope).
Having a bad geared block, when I do get some time, I’ll try a rebuild on it so I’ll have a spare.
—-John
Getting nowhere very slowly with the shim stock cleaning tool, I picked up a 0.004″ slitting saw to try to get the crud out from underneath the drive wheels of the model material feed block.
0.004″ Slitting saw
This was all I could think of, and I’ll probably slice my fingers up more than get crud removed. If this doesn’t help I’ll have to figure out how to press the shafts out to get things cleaned out and free running again.
—-John
I got some RS232 breakout blocks so I’ll be able to test the filament drive motors while in the machine & running. Today I’m just going to quickly test the setup & get a no-load torque reading as I have no idea of the pinout for the DB9 connector. The bech setup looked pretty good:
Bench Setup
But, when I got it in the machine & the head connectors connected it was pretty cramped:
In the machine
I fired up the machine, and let it warm a bit. I hit the ‘load’ button and the model motored turned slowly:
The first torque readings were 80 to 95. I stopped the load, waited a minute, and started the load again. The torque readings this time were 70 to 76.
I switched to the support. This motor seemed to be turning at the same RPM (where did I put the old drill press RPM gage?):
The first torque readings were 7 to 16. Again I stopped for a minute and restarted. The torque readings were 14 to 16.
It does look like the model side motor has a problem, but I’m not sure that it is the whole problem.
I sure wish I knew the DB9 pinout for these motors, or had one to tear apart…
—-John
