Posts Tagged ‘ hbp ’

Building the C-Bot 3d Printer : Part 32 : New Cooling Fan shroud, and bulldog clips

Jump to C-Bot blog index to see all the posts.

New Cooling Fan Shroud:

Running PLA out of a volcano nozzle means you need a lot of cooling.  I’ve tried a number of solutions in the past, all of which were mainly just “point a really big fan at the hotend”.  I don’t think this is the best technique (although better than nothing) :  You want airflow directed at the filament immediately after it is extruded.

So I buckled down and designed a new cooling fan shroud in Autodesk Maya, specifically designed for the C-Bot, and the E3d-V6 Volcano nozzle I have attached to it.  You can download this file for print from Thingiverse here.  The most recent update allows you to adjust its mount location, hopefully allowing it to work with a greater variety of extruders on the C-Bot:

epfs_B03

Screenshot from Maya of B03

Here’s the previous version (B02) on my C-Bot:

cbot_filament_cooler

Low Profile Bulldog Clips

After installing the new shroud, it sits so close to the build platform, that it hits the side and rear bulldog clips I am using to secure the glass plate.  I looked all over the web for any sort of ‘low profile’ versions of these clips, but couldn’t find anything.

After a bit of thinking, I realized I could modify my existing clips instead:  Presuming you have two pairs of needle-nose pliers, a hammer, and a vice, you can do this too:

low_profile_bulldog New in front, old in back.

  • To get the clips out, jam one needle-nose into the hole of the clip, slightly opening it.  Use the other one to pull out each of the tabs.
  • Put the tabs together in a vice (with the lips of the tab in the vice), and pound it with the hammer over until they’re both 45 deg or more.
  • Slide one tab back into the clip.  Holding the clip with a needle-nose, work the other one in.  That’s it.

Next up, install on your removable bed.

Jump to C-Bot blog index to see all the posts.

2016
04/30
CATEGORY
Electronics
projects
TAGS







Comments Off on Building the C-Bot 3d Printer : Part 32 : New Cooling Fan shroud, and bulldog clips

Repairing The Replicators HBP Cable

About nine months ago, I blogged about how the cable to my Makerbot Replicator’s heated build platform (hbp) fried.  Their support was really responsive and shipped me out a new cable that fixed the problem.  Well, it fried again.  And if something breaks twice, I start to think about how I can make it ‘better’.

Took me a while to understand what went wrong, since from the top it looked just fine:

But after removal, the problem was plainly visible:

After checking the forums, there were several suggestions from knowledgeable users to make a separate connection for the main positive and negative leads, using 14-16 gauge cable.  When I went to the local electronics store, I could only find connectors in 18 gauge, or 12.  I went with 12.  Which is huuuuge for this, but hey, sometimes you have to work with what you have 😉

The first step was to use a Dremel cutting wheel to hack off the positive & negative connectors:

Since the connector I purchased wasn’t long enough to reach the Mightyboard, I had to solder on some (slightly smaller) extensions.  This also shows off the actual connector point itself:  This allows me to disconnect the whole hbp from the Mightyboard, for future removal if needed.  This section sits directly under the hbp itself (when final cable routing is performed).

I ended up wrapping the whole thing in heat-shrink tubing.

The next tricky bit was soldering the 12-gauge wires to the hbp itself.  To make room, I bent the left-most lead over.  And to keep all the twisted strands from shooting all over the place, I tied a noose around each using the wire from a twist-tie:

Next came the soldering:

After which I removed the nooses.  Finally I wrapped them up in electrical tape, and reconnected everything on both ends of the cables (no pic of the Mightyboard connection, but it’s pretty much the same as before, just with two bigger cables running into it):

I was a little scared to fire it up and start heating the platform, but it performed flawlessly.  And with the larger gauge cables, heats up faster too.  If things are still working nine months from now, I guess the fix worked 😉

 

2013
09/23
CATEGORY
Electronics
projects
TAGS





3 comments

New Removable Build Platform: Glass