“… I’ve finally invented* something that works.” E.L.Brown.
*built not invented.
After a long time in procrastination hell, I’ve finally finished my 3d printer.
Based on this brilliant “Chimera” Instructable from Matstermind, my printer is taking an old and unwanted DLP projector and allowing it to be reborn as the heart of my Phoenix 3d Printer.
After my last post, I managed to get the z-axis mounted onto my framework. Cutting the build platform was surprisingly simple with the cheapo snips I’d picked up.
The problem that held me back was the wiring. I’m not confident when it comes to using a soldering iron. That, combined with a poor choice in components lead to my solder joints on the stepper motor snapping off. It took me a while to spot though and I ended up doing a fair bit of debugging before I realised what had happened. I’ll share more on this soon.
With that fixed though, I was raring to go.
If you’re following me on Social Media, you’ll have seen some prints come out of the machine already. Some good, some not so good and all of them not calibrated.
I’ve immediately realised how much of a pain calibration is and that’s given me more ideas for the future, which is something I will revisit soon.
Suffices to say, I took my first prints down the pub at the weekend and my friends were full of praise. This was something I wasn’t expecting and quite frankly that was deeply humbling. @ryxnf on Twitter even asked if he could keep one of them, which made my day (read year).
Now it’s working expect some more pages to pop up under the Phoenix section of the site, I’ve got few build photos to sift through and I’m keep to have a go at making one of these maker videos you see all over YouTube.
I’m feeling well chuffed about this.
