Week 10. Machine building¶
In this week we build a Clay 3D printer
JANQ TANJANQ¶
This week’s heroes:
instructors:
Babken - Project adviser, Project director
Rudolf - Mechanical engineering, machine building, machine design and system integration
Mkhitar - Technical support, machine building god
Onik - Electronics guru, adviser
Maxime - Electronics, programming
Anoush - Inspiration, research
students:
Areg - Clay specialist, 3D modeling, 3D printing, CNC, laser cutting, Assembling
Ashot - Great person
Elen - 3D modeling, 3D printing, Assembling, Presentation and Video, Branding
Shushan - DJ and snacks, Programming, Electronics, Assembling, Branding
Maria - 3D modeling, 3D printing, assembling
Didn’t start machine building so far but we already named it:
Which means Suffering
At first we started to think about kinematics and configuration of the 3D printer. Tried the concept of the extruder, and it seems to be working good
First we started with making extruder and testing few concepts for the 3D printer like clay consistence, extruder size and diameter, the screw. Instead of auger we used drill screw and the nozzle is built out of different pipe connectors.
So far we use the PVC tube for clay reservoir but we are planning to replace this with metallic tube. Clay will be pushed into nozzle with air pressure and we afraid the plastic tube will not resist the pressure.
Design process¶
For the 3D printer configuration we took into account Babken’s suggestion to make spinning bed. For this type of 3D printer we didn’t find any open source project that could be reference, so we did all as we though it’s easier and uses less materials. Also we were limited in V-slots, which also made its impact on machine’s configuration.
We used multiple CAD softwares, I worked in Fusion 360, Maria and Areg in Solidworks.
My part of the work was assembling the printer in the program.
I measured and modeled all the components we had, and designed joints for assembling.
Here are parts that I worked on, measured, modeled and 3D printed.
I started with measuring and modeling in Fusion V-slots that we had in our lab. Also I measured and modeled the motors, pipes, bearings, bolts that we will use. When I made accurate 3D models of that parts in CAD I designed possible configuration of 3D printer, and found which parts should be connected and approximate locations for joints and desired sizes. In general all parts I modeled are connector parts. I designed the way that do not take too much space and to be hard enough to resist the weight of all components in assembly. For 3D printing I mostly used 80% infill to make them hard and good quality. Infill type - lines.
Assembling process¶
We all took part in assembling process and I am pretty glad that all the details we made separately milled / printed / laser cut were perfectly joined in the final assembly.
Electronics part and programming is successfully done by Shushan. Fortunately there was a firmware that she found for this kind of untypical machine with spinning bed.
Video and presentation is also made by me so I included in my page. I tried to reflect in the video how interesting and fun was the process and our big ambitions to make such a difficult machine which eventually we didn’t manage to finish unfortunately.
Final video¶
Presentation¶
Conclusion¶
This week was very challenging but fun. We wanted to make a very complicated three axes machine by having not a bit knowledge how to make it. Fortunately each one of us have skills in different fields like modeling, constructing, electronics and we separated work to manage all. Everything was great in my opinion but we were lacking good quality motor for Z axis, that’s why it couldn’t manage to move such a weight. To improve this we need to change motor and put screw guides instead of belts on Z axis.