Alright, so I got sidetracked by the hollidays and an oversized fiddle for a while, but now I’m moving towards finishing my next batch of 3d printer upgrades. Here is what is in the works that I am working on, and when you might see it in the wild:
- The conveyor belt part remover - It’s in testing. I’ve removed thing taped on a bed from a bed, and the motor didn’t catch on fire. Most of this one is just finish work at this point, complicated by the fact I’m building it into the second test unit which lacks a rambo boartd and a power supply. It’s getting there though. Should be around in the next few months
- The new Taz upper gantry to Y axis back brace project: This is a simple crossbrace to remove the last bit of flex from the taz frame. it’s designed to be fairly quickly removed. make use of my new cable pathing thingies, and not impact the bed travel area or part production at all, while allowing for an upper corner to lower back corner frame position, and a mid frame mount extension for my Z rail mid bracket. The result should be something almost as strong as a mendelmax 1.5 without the front restriction.
- The sensor project: This one is taking too long, I know. I have the pins identified, I have the code in place, I basically just need to wire it up and make it all work for stage 1. Stage 2 should be its own project, which is rebuilding the carriage to allow for spring contact pins and a toolless mounting option. It will be compatable with the space occupied by the present Taz toolhead, but will most likely based off the early designs be a retrofit, not a toolhead compatable unit.I can’t get the toolhead solid mounting I need without changing the V notch significantly.
- Project pup tent style magnet stick on enclosure of doom - or PTSMSOEOD for short. Yeah, not a great acronym. I actually have the design drawn up, I need to replace my failed sewing machine though. It is difinitivly beyond repair toast. So I don’t know if that one is still going to happen. I don’t really need it.
- The lower wire duct project. This one is also mostly done. It’s mainly focused on getting the cabeling out of a Taz 3 style control box, but most of the run pieces will work with a 5 or a 6 as well.
- The bondtech core standard belted extruder - The belted bondtech flexy extruder actually works really, really really well. I do have some things I don’t particularily like about how I implemented it, but I think i have most of those issues sorted out for the next one. The idler is going to be significantly different, I think the hotend will be attached to a removable JST connector for easy service with some sort of integral ducting, and this may be the one I start messing with hybrid water/air cooling to see of we can get the hotend stack shorter but still funcitonal. There is a huge amount of unneccessary space in a Wade extruder design. The hotend cold part could be almost directly under the hobbed bolt, the plate mounting feet can be truncated and still serve the same purpose, the top can be quite a bit shorter even with a geared variant, etc. Two fan cooling points are necessary for PLA print quality, but are two Fans necessary, etc.
- The Taz 6 openbuilds + Anti wobble mod hasn’t really had alot of interest, only a few people have even downloaded the other one, so i’m likely going to abandon that variant for now, especially since I won’t use it. There will not be a standalone Taz 6 rod based anti wobble, there isn’t room for one with my deisgn without major surgery.
- The final Taz 5 X/Z axis reconfiguration: I’m still debating this one. Ideally, the Taz 5 leadscrew and bearing configuration would be much closer to the Taz 6 position. With an openbuild setup, the back rail could actually be replaced with either a 20 x 40 x 500 rail pair, or a 20 x 20 replacing the back corner directly. You would probably have to widen the frame to accomodate it like they did with the Taz 6, or potentially narrow it and place the main frame behind the X rail, which adds its own host of problems. I don’t know that I will get any additional quality out of it, and its alot of rework for something that most people won’t use. I’m leaning towards leaving it alone for now.
- My dual extruder: custom 3.00mm chimera, two belted hobbed bondgech cores, two pancake Nema 17 short stack motors, one with a large 11mm hollow shaft, one with a longer 5mm standard shaft and two bushings to run the smaller shaft inside the larger one. The pulleys would be clocked to not interfere with one another, and the two hobbed bondtech thingies would be offset slightly to allow for operation. It works in my brian and in my prototype drawing. I need to source the motors yet. If it works in real life it will be very tiny, not very heavy, and much more powerful than a Mk8 direct drive extruder. In theory anyways.
So thats what I have on the radar at the moment. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few odds and ends, and I’m open to other suggestions, but thats the development plan for the volunteer development side of things. As always, all of my projects are unofficial, unsupported, and the like. If you have any ideas you want created, please let me know.