3D Printer aka Sage-o-matic
Back in December 2012, I discovered that 3D printers were actually becoming something I could finally afford. The industrial versions have always impressed me with their capabilities, but the size and cost left me wondering if I could every make them worth owning. I purchased a Makerbot Thingomatic (TOM) kit for about $1200 and I was hooked!
While the TOM was very capable of making nice ABS plastic parts, the maximum size was limited to about 3" x 3" x 3" or about 80 cubic millimeters. What I needed was a bigger TOM, so I went online and discovered other variations of printers that moved different axis and took up less space. I decided to create one for my company, to make our own plastic parts, because the cost of professional injection molding had left us parched and hesitant in creating more plastic parts. The Sageomatic (SOM) was my new direction. After I decided to base my new printer from, what's called a "Mendel Variant", I started to design, in 3D Systems Alibre CAD, each and every part necessary to accurately model the entire machine on the computer, before any actual hardware fabrication.
The electronics package that moves each axis was simply the same circuit boards and wiring of the TOM. I knew it already worked with my computers, and the spare parts were plentiful.
As a quick aside: The 3D printer I'm describing is a computer driven platform that melts plastic filament through a tiny heated nozzle, and just as a paper printer deposits a single layer of ink on a page, a single layer of plastic is deposited on the platform in the shape of the cross section of the part being created. Once the printer finishes drawing the melted pattern for that cross section (layer) it repositions the heated nozzle start over on the next layer, where the same process is repeated. This process builds plastic parts of high precision one layer at a time with each successive layer fused to it's neighbor. The final plastic model looks very close to an actual molded plastic part, but its appearance is not smooth or polished, it's somewhat ribbed.
Once, the design of the computer model was complete, I moved onward to fabrication. My friend David Corey at Edge-Tech Design, was gracious enough to cut all the metal parts I needed, and my TOM was used to make the plastic parts for his big brother!
After about 12 weeks from start to finish, the SOM is still printing good quality parts for prototype designs that I need for testing. Recently (early 2014) I replaced the plastic extruder with one that melts PLA instead of ABS. I also added some cooling bed fans, to improve the PLA printouts.
While the TOM was very capable of making nice ABS plastic parts, the maximum size was limited to about 3" x 3" x 3" or about 80 cubic millimeters. What I needed was a bigger TOM, so I went online and discovered other variations of printers that moved different axis and took up less space. I decided to create one for my company, to make our own plastic parts, because the cost of professional injection molding had left us parched and hesitant in creating more plastic parts. The Sageomatic (SOM) was my new direction. After I decided to base my new printer from, what's called a "Mendel Variant", I started to design, in 3D Systems Alibre CAD, each and every part necessary to accurately model the entire machine on the computer, before any actual hardware fabrication.
The electronics package that moves each axis was simply the same circuit boards and wiring of the TOM. I knew it already worked with my computers, and the spare parts were plentiful.
As a quick aside: The 3D printer I'm describing is a computer driven platform that melts plastic filament through a tiny heated nozzle, and just as a paper printer deposits a single layer of ink on a page, a single layer of plastic is deposited on the platform in the shape of the cross section of the part being created. Once the printer finishes drawing the melted pattern for that cross section (layer) it repositions the heated nozzle start over on the next layer, where the same process is repeated. This process builds plastic parts of high precision one layer at a time with each successive layer fused to it's neighbor. The final plastic model looks very close to an actual molded plastic part, but its appearance is not smooth or polished, it's somewhat ribbed.
Once, the design of the computer model was complete, I moved onward to fabrication. My friend David Corey at Edge-Tech Design, was gracious enough to cut all the metal parts I needed, and my TOM was used to make the plastic parts for his big brother!
After about 12 weeks from start to finish, the SOM is still printing good quality parts for prototype designs that I need for testing. Recently (early 2014) I replaced the plastic extruder with one that melts PLA instead of ABS. I also added some cooling bed fans, to improve the PLA printouts.
The design work of the Sageomatic was very extensive and I can go into greater detail on how all this works, if anyone is interested.