I went out to laser cut the frame on Friday and put the machine together today to see how it looks and test it out. The machine is designed to have 1 inch thick material for the frame (either wood or HDPE) but I just wanted to make a quick frame mock up using 1/4 inch acrylic.
Check out our video of our dry run!
Next step is to put together the wiring and electronics box for the machine. We’re really close to milling some actual parts so make sure to stay tuned for more updates on that!
I assembled the parts we’ve been printing on the Wanhao for the last couple of days and wired it to the controller, and it’s working pretty well. Check out the video for our makeshift testing setup to see it in action.
We’ve had our 3D printer, the Tevo Tarantula, for just under two months, and it has served us beautifully. I decided on picking up a new printer due to the fact that it kept breaking down and needing maintenance, and so the plan is to take apart the Tarantula and use the parts to build new machines.
The Tarantula decided to start doing weird things in the z axis and I finally pulled the trigger in purchasing a new printer.
So we purchased a new Wanhao i3 Duplicator on Friday, and Tim brought it back from Richmond Hill last night. It took about 20 minutes to set up and we were printing right away.
Besides a mishap involving the spool falling out in the middle of the night, everything has been working great! Long live the Duplicator!
We’ve been working hard for the last few weeks to iterate and design our desktop CNC machine design and here’s a rendered CAD image of where we are right now.
Before putting in the electronics, we have just over 160 parts. Compared to other desktop CNC milling machines, this is an incredibly low number (about 280-300 on the Shapeoko BOM and X Carve BOM) but we’re still working on finding ways to do more with less parts, simplifying assembly, and making repairs easy.
We’re excited to be accepted into the Summer Company Program through the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre where we’ll have access to mentors, connections, events, and $3000 in funding.
Here’s a picture of Rob and me when I went in to sign my program contracts and agreements at the Centre, after my meeting with Inksmith at the Communitech Hub.
Today is also the conclusion of Ignition Week for the Enterprise Co-op Program, a one week intensive workshop/one-on-one mentoring/seminar/tour/crash-course to kick off the upcoming summer. It’s been a great week on learning about everything from sales to marketing, UX and UI design, accounting, legal, and more!
We’ve had some inquiries on building linear motion systems for 3D printers, and so we’ve shrunk down the rails for our CNC machines to use in 3D printers!
These rails are designed to fit into 3D printing machines and be superior to currently available alternatives in strength, stiffness, accuracy, and durability.
Chris and I are working on developing a 3D printer with these rails. Make sure to stay tuned for more details!
We’ve put together a number of rail and gantry prototypes during the past week or so. A bunch have parts have come in for testing, and we’re excited to try them out!
We’ve had interest from a few different places to develop some linear rails for 3D printing applications, so we have created a few designs to address that. This means creating smaller and lighter versions of our current rails and exploring different setups, from belt drives to lead screw drives, angle style rails or flat bar style rails.
We won $5000 from yesterday’s pitch competition! 18 teams presented their pitch to two of our judges, David Rose and Nada Basir, from the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Center.
Special congratulations to our other pitchers who won an award:
This award will be released to us at the conclusion of the Enterprise Co-op Program in August. We’re excited to use these funds to continue developing desktop CNC machines and linear motion systems for rapid prototyping!
It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog but I have some awesome news! I’ve been accepted into the University of Waterloo’s Enterprise Co-op program!
This means that for the next four months, I will be working on this project full time with the support and mentorship from the University, as well as support from accelerators and incubators in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
Tim, Chris, and I will be living together and will be working on this machine until we can get it to be perfect. Stay tuned for more details.
Our 3D printer is up and running and has been printing furiously for the last 2 days.
Here’s the setup and a Y axis gantry we got printed:
As well as some test prints:
