This weekend I am building my extruder, even though the hot end is not quite complete yet (no heating or sensor…) Let’s call it a wooden Greg’s like hinged accessible extruder. The body of it has the same mounting footprint as Greg’s extruder, making it possible to print myself an upgrade later.
Note that this would be a temporary extruder to get me printing – something that would enable me to design and print the multi material extruder.
The body of the extruder consists of three pieces of wood:
- Foot: Sized and drilled to be drop in replaceable with a Wildseyed compatible extruder.
- Body: Closely modeled on Greg’s except for the motor placement – the available tooth gears I have were either too small or too big. Had to go with the too big one (obviously)
- Idler: Hinged on a piece of metal plate because of the space behind the large gear is restricted.
The gears in use is a 15T small gear and a 75T large gear. Gives a ratio of 5, slightly higher than Greg’s 4.3, or Wade’s 3.367. I am driving it with a smallish stepper motor, but it should pack plenty of punch with this high gear ratio. Stepper speed will not be a problem, since I plan to use (modified) Sprinter firmware.
The filament is driven by a M8 bolt, hobbed using the M3 tap in a drilling machine method. The bolt has a smooth section below the head that extended too far into the bolt, so I tapped an extra 2.5cm of thread onto the bolt. It now has a tailored fit 😉
It is nice to see the pieces taking form… Pictures to follow.
