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!
