Delivery No.1 - Build blog of the first V1.0 Peachy Printer in the Wild

[thej]

Plastic tweezers would be AWESOME !!!
I've been poking around fiddling with peachy parts with pens, wires, small screw drivers and if I'm not careful, they get stuck on the magnets. Then i have to get the tool out of the printer without yanking things out of alignment. Plastic tweezers. i need to find me a pair.

I'm also strategizing on how to find out if I still have the second protective layer on the mirrors. I will sacrifice a spare mirror in my research. I'm thinking Q-tips and crazy glue (I don't think that I've loved crazy glue so much !!)

Jason

[thej]

Dripper Oddity
Getting the drip system started seems to be straight forward and easily repeatable.
-(assuming all hoses properly connected) Have the Return hose and the short Purple hose (see pic above) securly crimped with plastic O's.
-Have your reservoir above the Print container
-Squeeze the reservoir until dripping starts. Sometimes it quickly stops so a second short squeeze gets it going.
-Change the height of the reservoir to change the drip speed.
-The drips stop when the reservoir is empty

Now...to get the print container to drain back into the reservoir "should" be done like this:
-Lower the reservoir below the print container
-uncrimp both crimped hoses
-watch the reservoir fill
-Flow stops when the print container water level reaches the bottom of the drain hose (in the print container). The end of that hose should be the same as your print base.

Unfortunately, the return flow isn't working for me.

@Rylan
What am I missing here?

[thej]

Mirror update:
Sacrificing the mirror was a success!!
Turns out I still had the clear layer on BOTH mirrors!! I suspected as much as the beam was not very focused in the few tests I did on the glow paper.

Here's how to properly prep the mirrors during your build.

START with the mirrors. Really, step one.
Use a flat head jeweller's screw driver to scratch at the end of the NARROW part of the mirror.
The blue layer will come off with out too much trouble but the clear layer will need more effort.
If the clear layer is still on, scratching it with the screw driver will feel a little soft. You will notice a slightly rubbery tactile response (of course the mirror itself isn't exactly "hard"). You might start to see the clear layer start to stretch and distort before it peals off.
Once the layers peal back ***DO NOT REMOVE THEM YET *** !!!
FULLY removing the protective films will be done near the end of the printer build so the mirrors stay protected. With the the layers already propelled, you will have a MUCH easier time doing the final removal when the time comes.

Lucky for me, the scratches I put in one of my mirror was only a scratch in the clear layer !! All mirrors look shiny and new :-)

Jason

[thej]

Galvos and Alignment

You have noticed that one of my previous pics had the laser drawing very close to the side of the test container. It “should” be drawing directly below, so why wasn’t it?

I started to investigate several alignment issues last night:
-drawing off center
-“one” warped edge on square test (left side is bent)




I started by poking the Laser itself to see if it was pointing at the mirror straight.
The leads are long for the laser so it sticks out a bit from the PCB. I found it quite easy to eyeball the horizontal and vertical alignment of the laser and found that it was just fine. OF course, by poking it I misaligned it quite fantastically! I had lasers hit the wall occasionally and decided it was time to put on the supplied laser safety glasses. I will NOT be shooting my eye out with a 3D printer !! (Try explaining that to grandma !!)

Next was the galvos. Making sure that the galvo magnets are not touching the aluminum damper in the armature is important. What I didn’t realize yet was that the ROTATATION of the galvos around the armature is CRITICAL. The rotation sets where the laser is going to draw. This is why my test patterns were drawing off center.
(see second pic above. Top down view of vertical galvo)

Rotating the galvo on the vertical armature sets the Y axis (reference printer orientation is with the PCB facing the camera, See pics)
Rotating the galvo on the horizontal armature sets the X axis.

The galvo on the vertical axis is very loose on my printer. It doesn’t like to stay in its’ place. Eventually, I will have to do something about this. I would like to glue it but if I do, it had better be in perfect alignment or I’ll be stuck with it for good !!

So I have the patterns drawing in the center of the glow paper, I have a nice focused beam thanks to removing the clear layer from the mirror but I still have two odd problems.
-ONE side of the square is warped
-The square is not square (sides are not parallel)

I found the warped side problem. Earlier in the build I had to remove on mirror from the armature and stick it back on. Somehow I managed to get the thread under the end tip of the mirror. That curves the mirror surface at the end (..and where the laser draws). I still have to fix it but at least I know what’s causing it.

More to come…

Jason

[quertz]

Hey thej,

Could you post the images in a bigger resolution?
Currently, it's really hard to make out what is happening.

Thanks,
quertz

[thej]

This has been bothering me too. So... solution!
Here is a link directly to my PostImage repository so everyone can see the images in FULL resolution.

https://postimg.org/gallery/1v2m10jn8/

In the latest pics, notice the progression of change in the square test pattern pictures. See how it moves closer to the center as I rotated the Galvo. Image 126 shows the change really well (overlapping squares).

Pictures 129 through 135 show the hourglass pattern as I increase the speed of the laser drawing. The first is at 100mm then I increment by 100 for each additional pic up to 500mm (132 & 133 are both set to 300). You can see the edges smooth out and the center pull apart b/c it's drawing too fast.

Pic 136 is an interesting one using the spiral test pattern. The sides are clipped and there is a chunk out of the right side. I think I need to change the Height calibration in the software and the chunk is probably a thread getting in the way of the laser.

J

[quertz]

Works great, thanks!

[dungdn93]

Thus far I've spent under $50 USD in parts and can repurpose everything in other projects (I have many) if it doesn't work out

MODERATOR NOTE: Late post due to unexpected delay in obtaining moderator approval

[curious aardvark]

so at what point do you actually try and print something ?

[rylangrayston]

Just read this hole thread
Great work thej and yes it was great meeting with you in person.
Just as thej mentioned in his first post in this thread we spent about 10 hours together going over all things peachy,
It was great to meet some one from 3d print board in person!
Its especially nice to see you pointing out both the frustrating and fun parts of your build. The pro tips are great.
Im sure others will find this encouraging and helpful.

To answer you question about getting the drain hose to work, my guess is that there is air in the hose so the siphon hasent started.
If you plug all the hoses except for the drain hose and then squeeze the bottle water should fill the drain hose. Then if you unplug the air relief hose the siphon should start. Hope that helps.

This is a great thread for anyone that is building a peachy. thej has described many things in greater detail than we did in our instructions! I esp like the way you describe how the clear coating on the mirror feels tacky. Also Because I spent a day with thej in person I was able to transfer all kinds of extra knowledge about the printer to him.

There is another amazing thread like this one by Anuvin, here
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ow-To-Megapost

... and last but not least.. thej texted me this morning saying he was banned from posting to this forum!!
Im guessing this is just a mistake? can a moderator respond to this... its esp bad timing to ban thej as he is on a role building his printer, and doin a great job of posting lots about his experience. Whatever the problem is I hope it will be resolved quickly because Im dyeing to see prints posted by thej, which is the next thing after calibration.