Re: V10P Headstock Fiber Gear Replacement
|
Update time - the gears have been printed, lathe reassembled, and so far so good. After several weeks of not being able to use the lathe, it is finally back in good running order, this time with all of its speeds available.
With the enclosure, filament dehydrator, PEI sheets, larger nozzle, rain dance and a little prayer, I've finally got things printing good enough for the job.
There's still a bit of gunk that forms on the inner ring, which is unsightly, but that can be scraped off. The parts that I really care about for accuracy and smoothness, the teeth, seem to be all good. So at this point I decided to send it.
Everything pressed on very cleanly. I put a ring of CA glue around it just because, but it really does not feel like this is coming off (famous last words perhaps).
Final products here.
It's been a long saga, but if you missed the beginning, I actually have a
brand new 56 tooth gear to put in the lathe, so I didn't need to print a
replacement. This new one was invaluable however for determining proper dimensions. As far as I can tell there is just a bit of profile shift on these gears. Both of my gears were printed with a profile shift of 0.4 which gets me very very close to the dimensions of my originals.  It seems I've hit the limit for photo attachment size here, I'll send a few more in a followup
Trouble with silica gel based units is you still have to have a way to dry silica gel :) Depending on whether it has moisture indicator and what chemistry it's based on, some are supposedly safe to put in the oven, while others are not. I wouldn't put either one in the oven I use for food :)
I print PLA as-is and never had any serious issues re moisture, though I see people documenting their woes from time to time. I went through 2-3 spools of PLA I bought from some random guy who kept it in a garage (price was phenomenal). Since I didn't care I stuck it in my (decidedly huimid) garage. When I finally came to them (at that point 4-5 years old filament) it printed like a champ and these were open spools, no bag, no desiccant, nothing. I do notice however that old PLA spools I have (5y+)? tend to get super brittle. Think just short of almost uncooked spaghetti brittle. They print fine if they don't snap in the reverse bowden tube.
I use a food dehydrator to dry out my filament & desiccant packs.? The BEST thing I've come across is the Stacker F-Box:
?
?
This allows you to keep your filament dry ON the printer.? Depending on how crazy life it, I can take a month or two to go through a roll of filament.? If it sat open on the printer, even with PLA, I would get lousy print quality by the end.? Nylon would probably go to hell a lot faster.? I have some small hygrometers from Amazon and a 3D printed bracket that goes inside:??
?
?
I've had a spool of PLA on the printer for a month, and it's still at 14% humidity.? Admittedly, it's winter, but I've seen similar results when the dehumidifier in my shop runs around 40%.
?
I can also take a filament roll off the printer and swap it out, dry box and all, and leave it in the F-Box.? It makes changing partial rolls of filament much easier
?
There are two catches:? 1) They aren't cheap (my wife is always looking for gift ideas, and is delighted to help me in this regard), and 2) Stacker no longer sells them.
?
Apparently, Stacker sold the product line to Printed Solid, and they should have received their first shipment of parts about now.? I sent PS an email, and they said they expect them to be available again around the end of April.
?
Doug White
?
?
?
?
?
?
|
