Printruder II

Well after fixing my idler wheel several times I thought I had it licked. After the epoxy not holding enough, the hot glue seemed great but wouldn’t get through 2 prints. So superglue I go. I let it sit for a couple days, then after a couple quick warmup prints I told it to do the printruder II block, after about 15 minutes the idler wheel stopped moving. It was still feeding the plastic and there appeared to be a crack in the acrylic idler wheel. So it looks like the third one is down. Amazingly it held out the print and I have a nice looking printruder block. This was the last piece I needed but figured I’d try to get a couple more prints in, or at least try. A couple prints later, or was it the new firmware that appeared and I couldn’t resist burning, no matter. The printruder was ready to be installed.

Green

While my new plastic and pololu stepper driver arrived I remembered why I never use UPS from the states. The are extortionests when it comes to brokerage. My contents were roughly $100. Shipping was $20, brokerage and gst was $40. So including shipping ups is 60% of the actual thing I bought, and yes 40% if you dont include shipping. For something that amounts to printer cartridges thats eco friendly and as far as I know the only distributer in north America. As least there wasnt duty I suppose. Next time Ill use USPS.
GREEN!!!
The green PLA is awesome and it seems thinner than the clear oddly enough. Ultimachine also included a sample of Translucent blue and as someone else said it is indeed black light reactive. Wicked!!! I definitely should have ordered it as the cost of shipping and brokerage fees are somewhat counter-productive.

Its Alive!

Finally my new belts for buckybot arrived today. Thats the name Im giving my almost finished Mendel. The first set of belts I sourced locally ended up being about double the thickness they were supposed to be so couldnt do the tight turns required for the pullies. Also some green pla arrived And a nice new sample of the translucent blue color, they seriously want me to spend all my money.

: It’s alive

Most of the pulleys required some cleaning which of course I mean solid abuse from a pair of scissors. Which reminds me I need to get some proper cleaning tools. The z pulley was the most problematic since it had almost no clearance with the captive nut pulley. Luckily I had a couple tiny screws that worked.
After a little bit of adjustments, since I didnt really do them in the rush of assembly, I had everything hooked up. Then I had a problem with one of the steppers. After a quick check and some multimetrring I realized it was some shoddy pins. With a bit of prodding I was firing up replicatorg to make sure things were ok.
Success!!!
I have movement on all 3 Axis.
Now to finish off a Wade extruded while I wait for some modular heat core kits to arrive.