Motorized Conveyor Belt Sneak Peek
A few hours ago I printed on an automated conveyor belt build platform. The hardware is functional, but I’m sure I’ll think of improvements over the next week. I’ll post a better video and pictures in the next few days.
UPDATE 2010-04-29 0606: Here’s a second test.
UPDATE 2010-04-30 0314: It works.
UPDATE 2010-05-01 2230: It even conveys large area prints like butterflies.
UPDATE 2010-05-02 12:22Over night print test yielded ten beautiful bottle openers. No major effect on mylar conveyor belt. Here’s the eleventh being printed.
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[...] Pax has developed a working MakerBot motorized conveyor belt print bed. (Is it heated?) There’s a lot of reasons why this is a big [...]
MakerBot Conveyor Belt! | MakerBlock
2010.04.28 at 00:43
Awesome work Charles, You always come up really clever and useful hardware!
Matthew LaBerge
2010.04.28 at 07:38
This would be pretty incredible if it can really work as an automated factory. I’m enjoy a video of it printing a couple pulleys in sequence, but I’m weird like that.
MakerBlock, there is no way to make this work without a heated build platform as far as I can see.
Ryanp
2010.04.28 at 07:46
I’ve been casually hunting around for the right material for the belt. Rough leather seemed to work okay. However, the heated build platform makes this all work quite nicely.
There may still be good belt materials out there. Due to the method of object removal we can deal with a much stronger bond between the ABS and build platform.
Charles Edward Pax
2010.04.28 at 08:47
The second video is ever more exciting! I’d love to see a makerbot ustream that just churns out pulleys all day long
.
The issues I’ve had with warping can lead to parts getting in the way of the head, possibly knocking the whole part loose (it’s pretty rough to come into the room and see your part jammed into the side of the BP). While you may be able to get a non-heatered material to work, I can’t see it being repeatable unattended unless it’s some type of dispenser where the surface peels off whole.
Ryanp
2010.04.29 at 07:54
If you liked the second video, you need to see the third.
Charles Edward Pax
2010.04.30 at 02:20
This is most awesome, Charles!!
Is it too early to talk about what it’ll take to upgrade a cupcake with this rig?
DaveD
2010.05.03 at 10:11
It will be a single device that snaps onto the y stage just like a normal build platform. It will be awesomely easy!
Charles Edward Pax
2010.05.03 at 13:07
Awesomer and awesomerer.
Does RepG already know how to deal with this? Any extra electronics involved (stepper controller, etc) or does the conveyer plug into some existing mobo pins?
If you can get it to print a queue of different objects, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2069 on a cupcake. At 547 different pieces, being able to print that one would definitely spell ubersuccess.
DaveD
2010.05.04 at 11:31
I have the conveyor motor connected as if it were a cooling fan. Using M106 and M107 turns it on and off respectively.
I’ve modified the Skeinforge start.txt. and end.txt files such that I can skein an object and simply copy and paste the output gcode into a file once for each copy I want. Just open the file, press ctlr-a, ctrl-c, and then press ctrl-v ten times for ten copies. I should also be able to concatenate a group of output gcode files into a single one. Below are the start.txt and end.txt files I use.
(beginning of start.txt)
M104 S220 T0 (Extruder Temperature to 220 Celsius)
M109 S120 T0 (Heated Platform Temperature to 110 Celsius)
M107 (fan off)
G21 (Metric FTW)
G90 (Absolute Positioning)
G92 X0 Y0 Z0 (You are now at 0,0,0)
(You have failed me for the last time, MakerBot)
M108 S255 (Extruder speed = max)
M6 T0 (Wait for tool to heat up)
G0 Z0 (Go back to zero.)
(end of start.txt)
(begin end.txt)
(make more!)
G1 X0 Y45 F3300.0
M106 (conveyor on)
G04 P5000 (Wait)
M107 (conveyor off)
G1 X0.0 Y0.0 F3300.0
G1 X0 Y0 Z0 F3300.0
G04 P9000 (Wait)
M18 (turn off steppers.)
(end end.txt)
Charles Edward Pax
2010.05.04 at 12:49
out of curiosity, have you already tried PTFE tape with silicon adhesive? It has an almost cloth like texture, think duct tape, only resistant to 500F. And it isn’t horribly expensive so long as you don’t get into the 1″+ range, then you would be looking at $45+ per roll.
woofpickle
2010.06.12 at 22:38
sorry, forgot to post a link to what I was referring to, and apparently Amazon sells it cheaper than I remembered!
woofpickle
2010.06.12 at 22:40
[...] the bed, peeling as it goes, until the object falls into a collection area. From what I can tell Charles Pax has the most advanced working prototype so [...]
A continuous problem – Conveyor belts | Capolight Electronics Projects.
2010.06.19 at 00:55
how far off are we from seeing these for sale? what kind of price tag are we looking at? and will there be a kit available for people to modify there heated build platform 2.0 to this?
mctrivia
2010.06.28 at 12:59
I’ve been working on a simplified version of Charles’ excellent design. The idea was more towards retrofit rather than replacement.
http://databotlv.blogspot.com/2010/08/makerbot-tractor-upgrade-testing.html
Dataman
2010.08.24 at 11:39
[...] my previous posts to see how the project developed into its current [...]
MakerBotAutomated Build Platform Launched! « Charles Edward Pax
2010.09.13 at 14:19