My, my don't I feel silly. I've got a couple plates that are simply too thick. I was so happy that I got them I neglected to check which sickness they should have been. They turned out to be about 2 centimetres thick, and this would steal a total of 4 centimetres vertical print space. This is totally unacceptable. I will have to get a new lower plate cut from a finer plate, and I think I will splurge for a heated bed.
Here are some pictures of the plates as they are today:
I made a decision on the print-bed: I'm going with MDF for now. I drove over to the local hardware-store (getting rear-ended on the way, but that's another story) and described the dimensions of the plates I needed. They just laughed at my puny plates and cut them out for me and gave them to me at no cost! Sometimes small things really are better...
I'll get back to the building later tonight, stay tuned :)
Hello again! I'm back from a three-day hiatus from my build while on a conference out of town. But I'm back, and I've been busy. I've now gone through the rough positioning of all the rods relative to each other and made sure the frame is now stable and symmetrical. It turns out my eye-measurements are kinda slack, so that was quite a bit of fiddling.
Once that was done I put on the final, bottom threaded-rod that positions the clamps the z-vector smooth-rods will rest in and centred those.
Now I'm at the point where I can start attaching the smooth rods and mounting the bottom plate. Problem is - I've yet to decide on a plate. I'm thinking I may go for MDF for now and take the extra work later on if I want to use a hot-plate. As far as I understand that will cause lower-quality prints due to shrinking while printing. I'm really unsure about what to do here, so I'll apply my favourite heuristic when unsure - I'll sleep on it :)
Here are some pictures of the state it's in so far:
It's Here! The parts are finally here! Most of them, anyway :)
Yesterday I got the package from the good fellas over at XYZPrinters. For future reference I ordered the parts on the 2nd of May. 12 days later they started assembly of the electronics and 6 days after that they marked the order as assembled. On the 22nd of May the package was shipped to me from the Netherlands with TNT, and it arrived here in Norway yesterday, the 2nd of June.
My first thought is that if it really took some guys who've done this before 6 days to assemble the electronics I'm relieved I didn't go for the self-assembly :) It's been a month since I ordered it, and finally it's here and I can begin assembly.
I took some pictures of the parts - feast your eyes on these!
With the plastic parts I already had:
And finally with the impromptu assembly-table I made because I need to use my PC and I don't want to move the parts in and out of the cabinets all the time during assembly:
