Clik here to view.
Belt tensionier : the best so far
Tighten the printer beltsI tried many ways to better tension my long X/Y belts (the short belts are another issue). All other (PLA) printed parts just did fail after a while, probably because they...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reduce friction on the rods and bearings
See the thing I did to reduced a bit the useless friction that the standard plywood losanges were applying to the bearing and/or the X/Y rods.This may not be significant, and a hole in the object would...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Replace the filament feeder big gear
I am not sure that the plywood I received was of top quality, because the wheel teeth started wear out pretty early.Before it was too late, I designed and printed a drop in replacement. It is really...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Heat sink on the stepper motors
Clean passive cooling on a stepper motorCool down your steppers : active or passing ?For some time I was developing a new filament feeder, made out of PLA plastic, and finally, after a long print, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lock the filament feeder in place
When I pushed the filament manually, I had to prevent the feeder from popping out of its attachment slots.This thing made my life easier. Interestingly, it is also my most popular object on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Removable filament feeder : add a plug to the stepper motor cables
Add a plug to the extruder stepper motor cable !The case slot design let me thought it would be easy to remove the filament feeder for transportation, good idea. But... did they forget that the stepper...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Printed filament feeder small gear
The small stock delrin gear on the feeder stepper motor got some freeplay with time. I first replaced it with one I found on thingiverse made by Chasmaker.However, the PLA-printed replacement got loose...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bevel the bowden tube ends
I use a very convenient tool to deburr/countersink/bevel the bowden tube ends. I found it by chance and it is very cheap. Now I use it everywhere (it also will deal with aluminium by the way).There are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Presenting my eBay Ultimaker clone (part 2): the head
An improved hot head that looked like an official V2You may want to check also the first part.To the credit of my seller, the printer came with a few special improvements from the real machine. To his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review : which software for 3D printers?
A short review of 3D-printing softwaresExample: Cura as a smart front end to show, scale, slice and printThe printer firmwareThis is the software that tells the hardware what to do, and to read sensors...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Homemade heated bed
Why add a heated bed ?Do you really need an answer ? You just need one in my humble opinion. After I made mine, I never had an object pop off by itself because of cooling retractation, or because a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Replace the bowden tube
Replace the Teflon / PTFE / bowden tubeI ordered more Teflon tubing before running out of the original two pieces I received with the printer.They had to be shortened regularly because they were...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review : printing with wood filament
Printing with wood filament : a short review Twisted Gear Lamp by BenitoSanduchi, printed with Cura at 80mm/s, 0.2mm layers, UltimakerYou may like to read also my post on wood shades though temperature...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review : settings for Cura (3D printing front end and slicer)
What are the most important settings in Cura ?I switched to Cura as the unique front end to print with my 3D printer. This excellent software from Daid is handling all the printing work for you:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to clean the hotend and nozzle from the outside
How to remove clogged/molten filament in a V2 head?Obviously you can disassemble the end, which is a quite painful. It may also damage some items and threads in the long term.Or you try whatever comes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Robust bowden attachment with a blind rivet nut
Using a blind rivet nut to fix the bowden tube once for allBlind rivets nuts give you a nut where you cannot reach the other side of the support.An M6 blind rivet is also very appropriate to hold PTFE...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shades of brown with wood filament, via varying temperature
Wood filament : changing temperature to get shades of brownWood filament, temperatures from 205 to 240°, home made Skeinforge pluginYou probably want to check my first post about wood filament if you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wood filament becoming brittle after a while
Wood filament now brittle, lost all its needed flexibility !When I started printing this morning with my wood filament (~2-3 week old), all kinds of filament issues appeared, while I had almost none...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to write a Cura / Skeinforge plugin
First, do you really really want to write a Skeinforge plugin ?Preliminary note: you probably want to check my review about wood filament and about temperature gradients first, unless you are a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poll: what are the features you added to your stock Ultimaker ?
What are your Ultimaker features ?Here is a poll motivated by this post on the ultimaker google forum. So please keep your comments for the forum!Update: I finally developed my own blogger poll system...
View Article