Compact Plastruder Update

[Rick Pollack]

We are currently waiting on parts. If they arrive on schedule, the Compact Plastruders will ship the first week of November. I'm a little concerned about an email indicating the motors may ship a week later than indicated and I've requested clarification. I'll post more information as it becomes available.

Thank you,
Rick

[Aaron Double]

Cool, Thanks, just curious

Aaron Double

[Bill Culverhouse]

Yeah I think everyone understands the fun of dealing with suppliers. Just keep us updated.

I'm only now starting to play with stepper extruders, and I'm wondering why the crap

these things aren't standard on a makerbot. :-) I don't even have it set right and and I've 

got .23 mm layer height without even trying. :-)

 

-b 

[martin]

Pardon what might be a stupid question, but what is the advantage of a
stepper motor for the extruder?
Will Skeinforge adjust flow rates for the extrusion? I've been
wondering if it would be worth upgrading.

On Oct 23, 12:17 pm, Bill Culverhouse <bill.culverho...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Bill Culverhouse]

The gear motor extruder isn't reliable at anything but full on (255) a stepper allows you to control the

speed of the motor and thus the flow rate of plastic.

 

Mine is mostly working and it is far better than my gear motor was. Which was also stopping for

no good reason and causing my extruder controller to reset and abort prints. So it was a good time to

try the better extruder. A stepper extruder is the standard for the RepRap.

 

I don't know if skeinforge supports 5d gcode, which means the flow rate is varied depending on how fast

the head is moving. (I think). I know the reprap host software supports 5d.

 

That's all I know right now. Anyone else?

 

-b

[ddurant]

I think one of the biggest things is that the DC motors aren't nearly
as responsive to start and stop commands as stepper motors are. This
better response time (from when it gets a stop command to when it's
totally stopped moving) should mean that ooze is a lot easier to
control, which means nicer prints that require less cleanup.

Also, like you said, steppers are far better at different flow rates.
This will (hopefully) mean a big boost in the quality of prints, if
you want. One trick to getting good prints on a stock makerbot is to
drop the flow and feed rates way down. Things take a longer to print
but the those prints come out a lot nicer. With the DC motor, you're
pretty limited to how much you can do this and the more you do it, the
less able you are to do things like support structures.

You could probably, maybe, also go the other way and push more plastic
with a stepper than you can with a DC motor, if you were more
concerned with print times than with quality..


On Oct 25, 4:05 pm, Bill Culverhouse <bill.culverho...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > > > > Rick- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Rick Pollack]

Stepper offer tremendous flexibility....you can extrude very slowly or very quicky. You can use settings like cool so that most of your model is printed quickly and then as it works up a narrow peak, the extruder slows downs (based on the cool setting)...

The best analogy that I can think is going from a bicycle with one or two gears (constant speed DC extruder) to a bicycle with lots of gears (stepper extruder)...you can shift gears based on a the need...

Rick

[Rick Pollack]

FYI - it looks like the motors have been delayed a week and won't be here until the 2nd week of Nov.

On the upside, this give me some time to re-work a few things. I apologize for the delay but I think the extra time with prove net-positive.

Rick

[ddurant]

Thanks for the update, Rick!

So shipping would start around the 3rd week or so of November, if
nothing else changes? (I have zero clue what it takes to go from 'got
motors' to 'shipped!')

On Oct 26, 2:18 am, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> FYI - it looks like the motors have been delayed a week and won't be here
> until the 2nd week of Nov.
>
> On the upside, this give me some time to re-work a few things. I apologize
> for the delay but I think the extra time with prove net-positive.
>
> Rick
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 2:07 AM, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> > Stepper offer tremendous flexibility....you can extrude very slowly or very
> > quicky. You can use settings like cool so that most of your model is printed
> > quickly and then as it works up a narrow peak, the extruder slows downs
> > (based on the cool setting)...
>
> > The best analogy that I can think is going from a bicycle with one or two
> > gears (constant speed DC extruder) to a bicycle with lots of gears (stepper
> > extruder)...you can shift gears based on a the need...
>
> > Rick
>

> >> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Rick Pollack]

I'll use the extra time to makes some improvements but the intent is to have everything ready when the motors arrive so they'll start shipping within a day or two.

[ddurant]

Groovy.

[nrp]

Will preordering open up again or will it just be regular ordering
when they are in stock?

Nirav

On Oct 26, 10:28 am, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> I'll use the extra time to makes some improvements but the intent is to have
> everything ready when the motors arrive so they'll start shipping within a
> day or two.
>

[Rick Pollack]

We are going to open up another round of pre-ordering shortly - the initial inventory sold out.

[RyanP]

I guess I don't understand. How is this different from the
experimental version v2.3 extruder firmware that's been available?
http://wiki.makerbot.com/stepper-driven-extruder

Does it not work? (I'm working on my own makerbot wades, but that
isn't very far along yet)

[RyanP]

Nevermind I missed where it says to use Rick's 1.8 modified version to
get a dedicated driver to work! :)

On Oct 27, 9:26 am, RyanP <rplum...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess I don't understand.  How is this different from the

> experimental version v2.3 extruder firmware that's been available?http://wiki.makerbot.com/stepper-driven-extruder

[Bill Culverhouse]

Yeah Rick, that pic of the gearbox on the new extruder holy crap. Heavy duty.

No wonder it's taking extra time to get the motors.

 

As to the firmware, can I say, "Someone implement extruder disable!"

Burning my crap up when I forget to flip the board off and back on.

I wish the firmware would auto disable everything after X minutes of inactivity.

 

Great job on the extruder, can't wait. Looks like the new hotness.

 

-b

[Antonio Santos - Brazil]

Rick,

That gearbox is awesome, I so wanted a compact plastruder, but I just
got the wade like 2 months ago.

-Antonio Santos

On 27 out, 12:50, Bill Culverhouse <bill.culverho...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah Rick, that pic of the gearbox on the new extruder holy crap. Heavy
> duty.
> No wonder it's taking extra time to get the motors.
>
> As to the firmware, can I say, "Someone implement extruder disable!"
> Burning my crap up when I forget to flip the board off and back on.
> I wish the firmware would auto disable everything after X minutes of
> inactivity.
>
> Great job on the extruder, can't wait. Looks like the new hotness.
>
> -b
>

[bill]

Hey Rick I was looking at makergear and noticed that you have a 3mm
or 1.75mm option on the preorders. (I don't think there was an option
when
I ordered) I was wondering then what is needed to switch from one
diameter
to the other. I sort of was under the impression that the extruder
would be
compatible with either from what you have mentioned before. What I
expect is
that the drive is compatible with either and you need a new hot end or
something.
So what do you need to do either? I definitely need a 3mm but I'd like
to look at
the thinner diameter as well.

-b

[Rick Pollack]

Bill - I plan to offer an upgrade path to batch 1 buyers - there are a lot of details to sort out so I don't have the specifics yet but I expect that it will just be a matter of replacing the hot-end (or parts of it) and some mounting bits.

Antonio - to make a long story short, I found the Wades to be difficult to manufacture with consistency. I initially planned to just fix the problems (like having the hobbed bolts CNC'd) but one thing led to another...

[Nirav Patel]

I take it the 3mm hot end will be available for buyers of the 1.75mm
plastruder as well?

Nirav

[Hirohiron]

The plan that offers an upgrade is great!!

I am just wondering if my order is covered that plan but I don't know
which batch is mine. (I ordered Oct 17th.)

Or if I can order only 1.75mm hot-end as additional order, that would
be great too.

Looking forward to see it!!


Hirohiron

On Nov 3, 12:09 am, Nirav Patel <n...@eclecti.cc> wrote:
> I take it the 3mm hot end will be available for buyers of the 1.75mm
> plastruder as well?
>
> Nirav
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> > Bill - I plan to offer an upgrade path to batch 1 buyers - there are a lot
> > of details to sort out so I don't have the specifics yet but I expect that
> > it will just be a matter of replacing the hot-end (or parts of it) and some
> > mounting bits.
>
> > Antonio - to make a long story short, I found the Wades to be difficult to
> > manufacture with consistency. I initially planned to just fix the problems
> > (like having the hobbed bolts CNC'd) but one thing led to another...
>

[Rick Pollack]

There will be a cost to upgrade to the 1.75mm hot end. I'm trying to make it as straight forward as possible.

[Cid Vilas]

Do we have an ETA for the Compact Plastruder yet?  Or is it still rough estimate?

Thanks! :)

--
Cheers,
Cid Vilas

[Rick Pollack]

Here is the plan - the motors should arrive late next week and we'll start shipping shorty (as in 1 - 3 days) thereafter. If anything comes up, I'll post it here.

[Hirohiron]

Thank you for your consideration!

I've got e-mail that motors arrived!

I'm looking forward to see the plan!!!

Hirohiron

On Nov 3, 3:09 pm, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> Here is the plan - the motors should arrive late next week and we'll start
> shipping shorty (as in 1 - 3 days) thereafter. If anything comes up, I'll
> post it here.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Cid Vilas <cidvi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Do we have an ETA for the Compact Plastruder yet?  Or is it still rough
> > estimate?
>
> > Thanks! :)
>

> > On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
>
> >> There will be a cost to upgrade to the 1.75mm hot end. I'm trying to make
> >> it as straight forward as possible.
>