Rite Of Passage

Making Stuff

ptec3d 8th

So as you know I don't often get a chance to actually buy things. Pension sucks, scrimping sucks. I do surveys for the $20 threshold every couple of dozen weeks, and that's my mad money. Well, about two months ago I "invested" my twenty in Lotto because I felt lucky. And it paid back just under a hundred bucks, so I was able to splurge (by my standards anyway) and sent away. 

So I Crossed Some Sort Of Maker Rubicon

It seems to me that every maker that works with 3D and CNC and FFF and that, has some aluminium extrusions. Check.

Extrused.

I also note that they often use 6mm T2.2 timing belt. Check.

Belt, check

And powered and idler pulleys for the belt. 

 

Oh yeah - and that's a check too.

Now For The "Why"

It's like I knew (Oh hang on - yeah - I did know) that these things were arriving. I've been wanting to build a bit of a CNC machine on the (VERY) cheap. I have an old Makita plunge router that's still got good bearings so the spindle was taken care of. Motion components are a bit different. But I also had the ill luck to buy a Canon MG3660 inkjet. That died in under a year after consuming less than one new set of cartridges. The warranty replacement also died in less than one cardridge change, and the third one has now lasted two years and two changes of cartridges. (Fingers crossed!)

They didn't want the old printers back. I think they probably have a huge stack of returns out the back or something. No, I'm not saying what the company was. But it did mean I had a supply of reasonably smooth linear motion components, and a pair of everything, at that. If you're not thinking "Oooh! X-Y motion components!" by this stage stop reading... hehehe just kidding, read on we'll make a Maker of you yet.

 

And so I printed an adaptor to replace the 12V DC brushed motor and replace it with a NEMA17, and (hopefully) a pair of pulleys and some ingenuity would let me make a stable axis in one direction or the other. Or both, preferably both. But it became obvious that the plastic slider alone wouldn't be stable enough by itself. Lucky I'd ordered those parts including some 2020 extrusion, and have a heap of rollers, and a 3D printer.  

And that's where the project currently sits, because I have to do other boring things in between, like blog posts and setting up a Confluence space for a side project and you know, cooking and laundry and boring stuff.

This Is The End

... of this article. But it's nowhere near the end for me. It sometimes takes several days to find a topic to write about, properly research it, and then write and schedule it, unlike this article where it took me months to get everything together. Hehehehe. I don't have any assistance and I don't have the kind of income that allows me to use a scheduling service like established writers can. I also spend some of my limited pension on keeping servers and domain names going, more on parts for the R&D I buy for      making machines for recycling waste. You can help me by sharing this article or the link to the newsletter I put out, or more directly by making a Paypal donation here. Failing that you can also go to my Ko-Fi page and set up a monthly donation. (It's like Patreon without all the bullsh*t.) Everything you can do, will help me keep going.