Its April, Fools.

It has been super busy around here and I haven't had a chance to post in a while. I have good news and bad news alike.

The Bad

The bad news is probably the thing that hurts the most. After much waiting I found out a few weeks ago that I did not make it into the third round of the Arch Grants. But in that, there is a silver lining. I learned a ton on starting a business, making a pitch and doing all of the things start ups need to do. Once I receive my feedback from the Arch Grants committee I will re approach the work I did and try again next year.

Also my mighty little Ultimaker has been sick for a little while. There were alot of failed and terrible prints coming out of it. It even started to smoke after the temperature sensor became disabled and the PEEK melted due to excess heat! After alot of work trying different things I managed to get it running like a champ again. Turns out the main issue was a chipped nozzle. After doing all of my repairs it has been running nearly non-stop for the last week making parks for El Monstro as well as several other projects.

The Good

While both bits of bad news had upsides, this is all good news.

I am going to be doing a test assembly of El Monstro next week! I have all of the parts for the frame done and I have a little bit of work to do with some aluminum plates and it will be ready to go! From there I will be making adjustments and seeing where any issues may be. The goal is to have the frame assembled by April 25th. From there it will be getting the Z axis constructed and all the steps that follow. But I won't bore you with that dear readers.

Aside from that, we have also acquired a few more scanners so that we can do even more 3D scanning!

Finally, once I am reworking the design for the filament extruder. There are some modifications that need to be made based on what I have learned with the first go round and from talking to the folks at Xtrution. Namely adding in a cooling fan to the pipe behind the band heater and adding in a water cooling system with an auto winder. Its alot of changes and upgrades but it should all be worth it in the end considering the savings on filament it will create.

Updates on the assembly of the big machine will follow in a week or so. Please stay tuned!

Arch Grant, Round Two!

I was accepted to the second round of the Arch Grant entrepreneur and startup grant on March 10th and the submission for the second round was on the 17th. I submitted my pitch video and here it is!









I will be continuing to update the blog as the design progresses. I am currently playing with a few different designs for the Z axis, which is why I haven't posted anything recently.



More posts on the big machine to come! Keep watching!

Gantry Design DONE!

After several revisions and different models the Gantry parts are done being designed.

Naturally they will change slightly and go through revisions as the parts go from digital to reality but for now they can all be printed and tested! One revision that will be done before moving onto the next piece in my design list is changing out the Dual V Wheels with Solid V Wheels. The Solid V Wheels can handle the loads of the gantry better than the Dual V's so they will be an easy replacement. The Solid V's are a slightly smaller diameter (very very slight) but its enough that I want to make sure that I don't have to change the placement of the mounting holes.

Here is are a few pics of the gantry so far.

And here are the individual parts. The first of them is the Extruder_Plate. Just like the name says, the extruder will be mounted to this plate.

The next part is the Ganty_Mount bracket. I went through 5 revisions of this part before finally ending up with this design. Each revision was a ground up take on the design which took a while each time. On the back side of the bracket there are little "wings" or "horns". Those are going to be the points that the belts mount to allowing the gantry to move.

Next up on the design list is the Z axis scissor lift. This one will be an interesting challenge. In some of my pre-drafting spitball designs I came up with about 16 different parts that I will need to model for it. Many of those are used multiple times which means that the total part count is closer to around 50 parts in the the Z axis assembly. That count doesn't even include the wheels or screws! Looks like I have quite a bit to be working on, so best get to it!

Comments? Questions? Answers?

Just post in the comments section below!

Still Working On Things

The most up to date version of the El Monstro's design is coming along. I am having some issues getting the gantry redesigned to support two pieces of extruded aluminum to help with the deflection of the full 1500mm distance. I have some designs that I am working on currently but they are still in the early stages of design.

Here are a few pics of the frame so far using the new corner blocks. In all there are 3 different corner blocks used in the frame. The Base, which covers the 4 bottom corners and vertical rails. The Motor Mount corner  blocks, which are at the top of the machine holding the motors in place. Finally the Idler Mount's which allow the idler pulleys to be mounted so that the belts can loop back to the driving stepper motors.

A close up view of one of the corner blocks shows a high lighted hole at the bottom of the corner block. This corner bottom hole is used to attach tension cables to in order to allow a stronger structure without the need for an external super structure.

More updates to follow as I make progress on the design!

It has been quite a while since I have posted on here. That is mainly due to there being very few things to report and update.

I mentioned in the post from September that I would have a few updates regarding the status and future of El Monstro. Well I can talk a bit more about that here in a single post.

Present

The physical build has stalled for the time being. This is due in part to lack of funding but also due to other projects coming up and work in general.

I have continued to refine the design digitally. I have been printing some test parts but with my current 3D printer on the fritz I have to do some repair work before I can print any more test parts.

I am currently on version 3 of the El Monstro design. I have also been working on redesigning the hot end and doing some general work to bring the over all mechanical design into better shape.

The Future

I have recently applied for an Arch Grant! This would be a HUGE step in moving forward. While I am not looking to produce the printer's themselves, it would still help in the development of the large scale printer so that giant prints could be made.

An Arch Grant would be the next big step in allowing me to go full time as a maker. But that is just the first step. The steps that follow will be the important ones that would help me to sink or swim.

I have partnered with a friend and fellow 3D printing guru, Ryan Hendrickson. Together I feel that we will be able to TAKE OVER THE WORLD... of large scale 3D printing though FDM/FFF printers.

I am working on a model to post on here as a sign on where things are headed for us in the design and build of El Monstro v3. I have been working on ways to incorporate dual extrusion, a stronger build platform, a heated bed and a direct feed filament maker.

Ryan has been looking into things on the software side in order to help keep things moving from all angles. He has been researching and working on code to allow the big machine to work fast and effectively. Code isn't my strong suite but Ryan is great at it and I know that he will come up with something great.

The last exciting thing to mention is that with the help of one of the members of Arch Reactor (hacker space) we will be starting on building a filament grinder soon as well! This is a big deal as it helps to lower filament costs from failed prints!

We will also be starting work on a website soon so look for updates with links!

Keep checking back! More to come!