exxos 3D soldering machine build

[exxos]

I'll bet it would be easy enough to replicate though.

Not sure there, because by the time of paid £20+ for the brushes, bought a motor or 2.. printed a case etc. Not sure it be worth the hassle.

I do have some of those metal wire cleaning sponge things. Thought the iron could just push into that, but doubt it clean good enough.

[exxos]

Printing out my first solder spool holder. Also printing out the new soldering bottom section as about 5mm to tall for my longest bolt :roll:

Trying to save time and printing out both together..

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[exxos]

New block printed. We now how angle iron :lol:

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Working out my solder reel holder...

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[exxos]

There was a slight miscalculation with the solder reel holder :lol: :roll:

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I had to print some washes out because the nuts were actually jamming the bearings are needed to space them off a bit.. But how come the printer can work fine.. UNTIL you stop watching it then it immediately starts to misbehave!!!

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My new assembly with bearings.

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All mounted up :)

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I was looking on evilbay at the listing for the printer and it seems they are sold out. I'm not sure why they had loads "allegedly". Though I really wonder if they actually sent me a new printer just to fulfil the order. I was of considering getting another one. I presume I just got incredibly lucky for once in my life!

So I am now at a bit of a loss until my tubing comes :(

Though I do still need to modify my Gerber to Gcode converter script anyway.

[exxos]

First movement tests with my new gerber to gcode test conversion script 8-)





Hopefully the vision is now realised by people not keeping up! :lol:

[exxos]

Almost finished my new Gcode creator scripts :)

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[exxos]

My tube come :D

It does not actually stay in the PTFE tube by itself though unfortunately :roll: Though the main problem is it is practically impossible to bend this stuff! Even trying to bend it it acts like a spring and just tries to go back to straight again :lol: :roll:

Probably a copper tube would be a better solution because it would be likely easier to bend about. Though finding tube the right diameter is a little bit tricky because it all seems to going wire gauge. So 1.8mm to 2.00mm and I really need 1.9mm.

I have got some spare PTFE tube. Though really needs to be a small internal diameter where I am not yet sure if you can buy that stuff. Even so, I need some elaborate way of holding and adjusting the tube. Probably have to have something like two bolts mounted so I can adjust it all somehow... Time for some more plotting I think...

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[exxos]

Been trying to think how I could make a adjustable feeder of some sort. I realise there are things like this with adjustable light somewhere you can bend them anywhere you want..

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But then I thought there are the "helping hands" things I never use.. But can I find the bloody thing!

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I guess I could just print a mutant bracket to do the job. They really for a prototype I need something which is adjustable.

[exxos]

Found bugger! Really just need some way off bolting the bar at the front of the head assembly... It will likely involve a 3-D printed block with a hole and a hammer....

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[exxos]

Finished my Gerber to Gcode converter. Now to let it loose on my normal 3D printer :hide:

I suggest nobody watch this video unless you want to waste 11 minutes of your life :lol:



When it started printing it was moving all over the place and I was thinking :WTF: I let it run anyway and then realised it was printing the via's as they are holes as well :lol: I guess really the script could ignore anything below 0.8mm for example. But would need a lot of coding and updates which I don't really see me spending the time on it. The simplest way is to just delete all the holes which are not needed from the Gerber data.

The output gave this.

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Which seems to basically correctly match this! (NOTE my printer bed has a lot of crap stuck to it as well!)

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I checked the blobs against a header strip and they match. So I think my conversion script is correctly working and scaling correctly :)

I've also just ordered a 1mm print nozzle. I'm thinking of using this as a guide for the solder near the soldering iron tip. The PTFE tube will fit inside this nozzle and the print head.

I think it would make feeding the solder through the head a little be easier with a normal diameter tube. The problem then "shifts" to the other end of the tube where it needs to be tapered down somehow so the solder does not flap all over the place while being fed. It looks like the print nozzles are tapered internally. So I am hoping this will be enough to guide it without it jamming.

I'm also going back to my previous idea of just 3-D printing a bracket to hold the flexible PTFE tube. There what I may do is print it into two sections. The main bracket and then the "print nozzle holder" could be printed separately so I could experiment with the angle etc. then I will have to wait until next week now :)