Purpose:

As we discovered earlier this week there are often many similar versions of parts that are needed for any piece of equipment like a 3D printer. This first came to our attention in the context of the NEMA motors that are used to drive the print head back and forth along the three axes as well as those used to drive the plastic extruder. This presents a great opportunity to slow down and get familiar with what these specs mean and how to teach yourself what they mean.

Procedure:  

As a scientist/engineer/technologist you have, of course, already begun a file system for keeping track of the various aspects of this build project. Here are some activities to include in your parts/equipment folder. If you are a group working on a kit build you will need to apply the tasks in this lab to the equipment and parts that are provided to you in the kit.

1) Finish the analysis of the motor requirements that was handed out in class. Compare your determination of needs with those of another group.

2) There are other parts that seem to need a similar level of attention. These include the hot end, the extruder, the power supply, and the controller. Address each of these in turn or work with other groups to divide up the labor. I want you to work out how to write this down in a stanard document that is the same for every part that your group needs to specify..

3) I want you to work out how to write this down in a standard document that is the same for every part that your group needs to specify. Yes, I want you to create a form that allows you to easily access all the information easily because you know where it is on the sheet.

4) Some of the raw materials for the kits seem pretty straight forward like the threaded rod but there is actually something you need to check. What is the form of the raw stock that you can actually buy? If you have 2 80cm threaded rods can you get a 2 m piece of rod and have a 40 cm chunk left over or is there more waste than that? Determine the waste that is going to result from fabricating either your threaded rods or your drill (smooth) rod?

5) Tools: What is the tool set that we need to assemble 3D printers of these styles? While it's true that we should have the budget to say "Buy 5 sets of everything we could possibly need!" we probably don't have it. So what do you/we need? Do the commercial kits list or describe the tools needed? What about the wiki's? How do you organize (on a spreadsheet) your tool needs?

LAB Deliverables:

 

 

 

This week I would like a memo (LaTeX of course, posted to Bb) that responds to the following prompts:

1) Start with a little background about how your group arrived at it's results for this week. Most of the deliverables will be pretty self explanatory but I'd like you to give me a little context and reflection.

2) In this document include the spec sheets for all of the objects for which you created specifications. You will of course include a list of these documents in the preamble to your report?

3) Also provide your tool list.....

4) Compare your tool list to that of another group and note any differences. Is there a standard 3D printer assembly kit that would do the job for almost everyone with little or no "dead" tools?.

5) Gather a single spec sheet from another group and provide your groups analysis of the their solution to the problem of writing a spec sheet. Discuss pro and cons along with what you learned from the process.