Production Update: infill tests, frustration.

Last night at the VHS I resoldered the melted mosfet connectors and then fixed some extrusion problems by lowering the nozzle temp.

I also made sure to label everything before I disconnected it. Maybe this will help you assemble your own machine?

I won’t say my prints were looking great but they were looking like the thing I expect to print.

based on these results I tried to print a motor mount v2 today.

Here they are again, turned so you can see how tall they should be.

Right now I’m feeling very emotional. I’ve worked on this machine every day for two solid weeks. I’ve let pretty much everything else in my life slide to one side and topple over. I’ve got good customers that have already paid me their hard-earned money and I can’t sleep. Worse, I’ve got a growing list of people now who say “Please tell me when you are in stock, I want to order.” Well @#$*(! and (%^*@, I would love nothing better than to trade dollars for kits. It sounds great to say “Demand > Production!” as long as know one asks “so… how big is production?”

I’ve re-levelled this bed about 20 times now. I really really hope I don’t have to solder anything any more. By the way: whoever designed this heated bed? Thank you for putting all the leads on the bottom where they’re hard to reach. Same goes for whoever thought it was a good idea to make some calibration screws accessible only when the machine is partially disassembled. How does that make any sense?

There’s got to be a way to reduce the number of variables to make calibration easier. Even after I’ve retested that the bed is level (relative to the nozzle) and the XYZ&E steppers move at the correct speed there’s still what, 20 parameters that control layer height, flow rate, infill, and more? It’s crazy. There’s got to be a systematic way to calibrate this thing that’s better than this list I’ve been following. Most of my issues aren’t even in this document.

I have to go write to a customer now and tell him that I’m late and I’m sorry and I’m doing everything I can to fix it. I hope you never have to experience that with your customers. I hope these blog posts are useful to you, out there in internet land. If they are, please do me a favor and tell your friends about my indiegogo campaign. As of now it has 8 days to go and I would really love the help.

I apologize if I seem a little tense. I’m going to make some tea and watch North By North West and try again tomorrow morning.