The key parts that I like about this logo

• Combines my interests in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.
• The gear has 42teeth
• The resistor could also be a waveform
• It’s easy to add to a circuit board as a silkscreen

I also used the gear and resistor in the logo for makerbits.net, which will be more interesting when it finally comes off the back burner.

The machine itself is built on a plywood frame. The X axis carries the Z axis, which has the dremel attached to it. The dremel mount itself is not particularly exciting, except that the main wood part of it was milled on this machine. It was a bit of a chicken/egg problem. Each axis has a wooden block to act as a spacer, with a small metal plate to aid in alignment. The X and Y axes both have damping weights on the back shaft of the motor.

The motors themselves are NEMA 17 sized bipolar stepper motors with the shaft going all the way through. They are attached via a servo coupler to the lead screw, which has a 1 mm pitch. Overall, the travel of all axes is about 95mm.

The Y Axis is mounted under the table. All three axes have limit switches that are used for homing.

The main control board uses an old printer connector (from the same printer that donated the tray) to go back to the parallel port on the PC. The PC itself is an old P4 1.8GHz that I got for $40 from the UW Madison Swap Surplus Store. It runs the EMC on top of Ubuntu Linux. The machine has a separate PC power supply to power the stepper drivers. I modified it to include a small relay and a power outlet (to the left of the control board). This lets me have a logic switchable power outlet for the dremel. All the 120VAC wiring is done inside the case of the power supply, so risk of shock is reduced. Each stepper is driven from a very handy Pololu A4988 Stepper driver. I have little heat sinks that I have not yet installed to let me push a little more current through the drivers.

One of the other nice features I added are four storage boxes above the power supply. These were originally microscope slide boxes. A cup hook keeps each one from falling out. turning the hook a quarter turn releases them.

All told, this project cost me about $100 in parts that I didn’t already have. The linear axes from THK were all free surplus from a friend of mine. I’ve used it to mill plastic boxes for prototype circuits, and some 3D profile milling with a 1/16″ end mill.

I still need to do something to level it properly, and find better screws, but the plate is too thin to properly countersink them anyway.

Another easy modification was precipitated by the drive gear stripping off the M6 bolt in my stepper extruder. While I had it apart, I drilled an access hole to reach the set screw on the filament drive. If it ever loosens up again, I can get in here with a hex wrench and tighten everything up again.

If you are ever in the Atlanta area, go check them out!

If you want to view the raw data (so far), go to the spreadsheet.

If you want the csv file for doing your own comparisons, look here.

Or try the Interactive Filterable List. I just wish it had sorting.

If you want to help add data, send me an email (engunneer @ this domain) with the subject [printing supplier data], and I’ll add you to the sheet. I’m not quite ready to throw it out to the public for editing yet.

If you see an error in the data, let me know. There are a few known inaccuracies, for example really special colors, and I’m approximating the volume and length based on published density information.

If you know of a supplier that isn’t on the wiki, please add them!

Update: I created a form. Let’s see how this goes, shall we?

Finished printing a Screwless Cube Gear set this weekend. The stepper extruder really helps on the small layers.

Screwless Cube Gears by emmett

Thank you, all of you who've made cube gears and posted pictures. Since tbuser made these lovely pin connectors, thingiverse.com/thing:10288, I figured it was high time to make a fully printable cube gear set. Now you needn't bother buying any more screws: this one snaps together. UPDATE: For anyone without access to a 3D printer, you can now buy these from caesia on her Etsy store: etsy.com/shop/PlasticFusion UPDATE: New version uses tbuser's new pin connectors V2: thingiverse.com/thing:10541, is much stronger, and prints right-side-up. This is practice for making a heart-gear version. This design also incorporates a couple of tricks that others may find useful. The center block has two very narrow slices through it, which cause interior walls to form, which help keep the tops of the holes from sagging during printing. Likewise, a cylinder is cut out of the interior of the gears, which serves two purposes. First, it makes a strong internal support for the pin. Second, it makes for less stringing between parts when you print four gears at once, because Skeinforge makes the head go from the center of one to the center of the other, so that the perimeters wipe off the nozzle. UPDATE: By popular demand, a new version of the center block has been uploaded (BcenterFlat.stl), which doesn't have any internal slits and is oriented to print on a large face. This one is significantly easier to print, though the top and bottom holes do end up a touch tighter than the rest.

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Wouldn’t you agree?

Stepper Extruder: 

Improved Stepper Upgrade for Mk5! by TheRuttmeister

Now with COLOSO-Gears!(tm). An improved version of my prior design. The Adapter Plate was just revised (to v1.2) the gearing was completely redesigned (which involved drawing the involute curves the hard way, which gave far better results). Gears are 51 and 7 tooth respectively. Giving a ratio of 7.2857:1. The gears are also oversized (COLOSO-Gears!(tm)). I will be uploading a slimmed down version in the near future, I just wanted to be sure I had a large enough meshing area. Note that the new adapter plate is very wide, 90mm+ and will only just fit on the cupcake platform. I recomend printing a z-rider to get a larger build area! Also, the 51 tooth gear is kinda massive. You might have issues printing it from ABS. As always, I recomend PLA. The 7 tooth gear is TINY. Sorry. It will be a pain to get to print right. I broke mine trying to remove it from the build platform. Had to epoxy it back together. UPDATE: Added 14 tooth pinions sized for nema17 and 23 (5mm and 1/4" shafts). Added an 8 tooth pinion (obsolete files gone, but 7 tooth gear left up for the brave). I recomend that you print the small gears with 0 extra shells (infill of 0.1 or higher will result in solid teeth). 9 Tooth gear is off for now unless someone really really needs it Here is a video of it running (and reversing thanks to SF35!)flickr.com/photos/45928876@N02/5405071895/

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Part being printed: 

bobbin winder by engunneer

Work in progress. I'm making a little device to wind yarn bobbins for my wife's loom. There will be more parts as I get along with the project. This part was made with Tinkercad. Edit the part online at: tinkercad.com/p/acc0fef42f823f92

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Makerbot is assembled and prints pretty well. Will post about it next week.

Here’s some instructions I developed to help others get Lotus installed on the phone.

1. Download and Install Android SDK (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html)
2. Run the SDK Manager and install at least the Android SDK Platform-tools package
3. Download LotusInstaller from wherever IT says you can get it (LotusInstaller.apk)
4. Copy the LotusInstaller.apk to C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools
5. Open a command prompt, navigate to platform-tools directory
6. Enable USB debugging on the phone Settings -> Applications -> Development
7. connect phone via USB
8. run “adb devices” to be sure the phone is detected
9. run “adb install LotusInstaller.apk”
10. From phone, find and run the new app called “Installer”
11. download the lotusTraveler package inside the Installer App. The phone will provide an error saying the app was not installed.
12. From the command prompt
13. run “adb pull /data/app/com.lotus.sync.traveler-1.apk” it should indicate the download was completed
14. run “adb install com.lotus.sync.traveler-1.apk” it should indicate Success
15. disconnect phone
16. on phone, run the LotusTraveler app and continue setup as normal.