The Makerbot instructions are confusing, and as the project gets more complex (like making up the wires and soldering components onto circuit boards) you have to allow for cross checking and comment surfing to find appropriate ways to get all the elements together, connected and plugged in.
We couldn't find anything that answered a few key questions about how the power should be run through the boards, or a completed circuit diagram / picture to check we weren't going to overload anything...
Still thats all the fun in the project... right?
So after wiring (and then re-wiring as we reassessed what we'd done), soldering (and then re-soldering as again, we had missed out a few things) and various debates about how best to put together the IDE cables (they are really easy to make it seems) we were finally at a stage where we could flick the switch on the power.
We made the very underwhelming video, which means thankfully it didn't explode.
Once we had power running through the various boards we could then use the pots on the boards to modulate how much power each drew before pushing the electronics underneath.
The moment of truth came when we plugged in a laptop and started trying to control the various motors - and to our amazement - they work!
We have two last glitches to iron out. Our extruder heater control isn't working properly (although the thermometer is) and the Y axis motor seems to be working back-to-front. Once we have those two issues sorted, we will post up pictures of this lovely thing actually feeding in wire and printing objects in 3D!
Related
- Feed: MakerBot Making day 1
External Links
- Visit: MakerBot