OK. So after calibrating my printer a little bit I decided to try to tackle the ABS sticking issue again. It appears that having the tape "broken in" helped a lot. At this point I'm still not using any kind of case or cover so, I taped some cardboard to the sides and got a priority mail box to go over the top. It's a loose fit and I have some spacers taped onto it to keep gravity from doing it's job.

So, now we get to printing EZ-Bits. I did all of these at .2mm with ABS.

I made 8 sets of the Vertical Standard servo pieces.

Here is one set on a pair of TowerPro MG995.

You can see they don't fit right. Last night I printed the HD servo Brackets and they fit pretty good.

Taking a cue form EZR and XL, I even opened the stl up in blender and added my little avatar logo.

I've printed a pair of the Standard Horizontal Brackets and some male connectors.

Just some more pics of random EZ Bit stuff I printed. A Blank standard servo is in there. I printed the body and top the glued them together with a little bit of acetone.

But wait, There's more... In the next post.

and so the learning curve begins! I appreciate your insights and pics! Very thrilling having your own in home manufacturing machine ...if only it was that simple for mold injection processing. Thanks so much Antron007 :)

Thank you @irobot58, I'm always so happy to hear someone takes something away with them from my ramblings. I have a few more posts I think people will enjoy and some more tips. I've had my printer for almost three weeks now and all of that is still week 1/1.5. I'll do a couple more posts to finish the week out and then I'll start on this weekend. (Lots of tips learned this weekend. A great tale of woe, heartache, achievement and redemption. I hope to get all of this done today. I have to leave in a few hours so I may not get it all finished until later this evening when I get back in. Thanks again @irobot58.

OK So, now I have all of these servo brackets, what's next? I print bodies, that's what's next. I start out with Six.

Bottom that holds the batteries and ezbits.

Top: After printing I see I should have used support material for this but I didn't. The part will be usable so I'm happy with it.

I'm not sure what the scorch mark is from settings wise but I seem to have it corrected.

I'll make a project thread for EZThree when I get more pics. I'm not sure if it's a power or strength issue but I got him together but he can't stand without help. It's probably because I'm using 4 standard and 2 HD servos. (It's all I got right now )

Then I moved onto JD. I used support materials for theses. These are all still at .2mm with ABS. In Slic3r, I modified my Support Material>Pattern Spacing to 4 instead of the default 2.5. That makes it break away a little better and still seems to give good support for the bridges. I also have my Advanced>Flow set to .75 instead if the default 1. That keeps them a little lighter so they sag less.

I also printed the feet bottoms of JD but I for some reason didn't take pics yet. I'll get those in here soon.

That takes us to the next post.

So, things are going well in 3D Printing land for me. I had a small tear in my painters tape so I decided to replace it. Turns out cleanliness is next to the worst thing I could have done. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to change your tape once in a while but I learned quite a lot from this weekends adventures. Let's begin shall we?

Like I was saying I went and changed my tape and that got me into thinking about last weeks sticking issues so I went to try to use some PLA to get my tape "dirty" again.

So let me preface this by saying it was the first "warm" day we've had in a while so I had been printing things at a slightly higher temp. And while this may make no sense, I was printing PLA a lot higher because for some reason it just worked better and was less "sticky". I know that if I add a fan (In due time, I'm working on that. Maybe next weekend's project.) then I won't need to run it as hot. I think the way that works out is a fan hardens the pieces quickly so they don't get that "sticky" quality but since I don't have a fan the higher temp allows the filament to be more fluid and lay better. At least that's how it seems from my observations.

Anyway, I was printing the Han Solo in Carbonite piece on thingiverse in my clear PLA. (I do like the way stuff looks printed with this.) And long story short I over heated it and clogged my head. So after a few hours I concede to loosening the jigsaw to get at the filament stuck in there. As I'm tugging on the filament, It comes loose and I turn the 6 piece jigsaw into a 12 piece. Fortunatley, It was all clean breaks and went back together perfectly and the screws kept it all together. But I still have a clogged hot end. It's late I go to bed and go to work the next day. Light day so we go home at lunch. Now I never nap but that day I was just tired. So I napped a few hours. I got up and watched the hot end replacement video just to find out I could and should have just done this instead of cracking my jigsaw. Hot End Replacement.

So I get my hot end out, pull out the clogged filament and put it all back together again. Keep in mind that now with the cracked jigsaw I had to align all of the, now 12, pieces while putting it back together. But, after watching the vid I had it apart and back together in 30 minutes. I was quite proud of myself and I know quite a bit about my extruder and hot end now. I want to build a 3D Printer next so this was a good step in that direction.

So I get it all together and plugged back in and to my surprise, everything worked great. I was worried about damaging the hot end or heater core because I've read they're fragile but I had no issues. I get it heated up and some of the old PLA filament started dripping out so I fed in my ABS and started to extrude. I got all of the nasty old burnt PLA out and have been printing all weekend.

With a cracked jigsaw? No. I printed this based on a recommendation I got at soliforum.com. Jigsaw Replacement

I got that printed and installed with no real problems. I used the screws that came with my SD2 so no additional parts are needed. The top left screw is longer than it needs to be and it has no ill effects. I've been using it pretty much non stop all weekend. I don't even have a screw in the locking arm. I'll get one soon just to be proper but it also doesn't seem to be an issue.

So clogged and unclogged hot ends, cracked and replaced jigsaws, all of this over sticking parts and you still haven't solved the sticking parts issue? Well, yes, yes I have. TBH a couple of guys over at soliforum.com had the solution. Glue Stick. More specifically I went with Cra-Z-Art, Washable Glue Sticks, Disappearing Purple. Just a light coat on the warm bed will do you. If you use too much you're going to have to wait forever for the part to come off or have a heck of a time wrestling with it.

So right now my setup includes the replacement spool mount and jigsaw, stock hot end, cardboard enclosure. I'm using 3M Blue painters tape on a mirror bed with above mentioned glue stick. I'll be honest, I could do some more fine tuning to my machine. Fan and Z wobble most notably. TBH my Z doesn't seem too bad. I'll start getting into .1mm prints in the next week or so.

It's been running like a champ, printing away all weekend. "Printing what?", you might ask. Well, I think that's gonna all be in next weekends post. (Hopefully next weekend. We'll just say the next one is on Pre-Order. LOL! That's funny if you read the EZ Robot forums regularly. I think so anyway.)

That's awesome dude! I so glad that you are enjoying the printer. The solidoodle takes a lot of diy experience but little by little you can get better prints. The best for sure are .1mm . The .3mm to me seemed to not adhere well together , aka sloppy. Anytime you have questions just ask. It looks like you hit the ground running. I will tell you it's beneficial to have a heater inside the bottom of the printer , you can make a simple and cheap and safe one with a heastink +fan and Peltier element. Then of course either cover the machine with a plastic bag or make a acrylic case

Thanks Josh. You XL guys are alright. I may do that for next winter. I've learned to turn the bed on, close it all up and walk away for about 30 minutes. So I've been coming home from work and setting it up / turning it on and maybe start slicing something, so as I go about my Just Got Home routines, it's nice and ready for me when I can actually sit down to use it anyway.

I forgot to mention that I have an acrylic door that I pried off of a jewelry display case I happened to acquire a few months back. It's kinda just taped on right now. I'd like to upgrade from the cardboard case eventually so I haven't made anything too permanent.

I should also mention that I may have only had the printer for three weeks but I put in a ton of homework. I went on an extensive hunt to find a reason to buy something other than the SD2 because I've heard horrors of their customer support but, the more research I did the more I learned. It would have been great to have $1200-$1300 for a flashforge but for the $700 I had to work with the SD2 was clearly the best choice.

I also downloaded just about every free 3D related software available from Design programs for model making like Sketchup to Blender, to different 3D Printer software, Repetier, Cura, ReplicatorG. I got those mostly for the slicing to be honest. I've only been able to print with the Repetier for the Solidoodle website. I am using the newest version of slic3r though.

And I watched countless hours of you tube vids about those programs and 3D Printing in general.

I can honestly say I spent months on this research and I was pretty much prepared for any potential situations. So like Josh said, it's a DIY printer. I just got really lucky with mine so I was lucky to not have to deal with a lot of the issues others experience. And I'll tell you now that those issues are 90% shipping related. I'm only about a day away from Brooklyn so my printer didn't travel far so it was still all in pretty good alignment. My research shows that the farther from Brooklyn you are the worse the problems get. That can only be the fault of the guys who handle the boxes after they leave their warehouse.

And that's an open offer to anyone with questions. I'm more than happy to share what I know.

@Josh- Thanks again for all of your help and advice. Good luck selling your printer. That's a great deal you're offering. Seriously, Somebody, Buy Joshes Printer.

If it doesn't sell it will be great for making smaller odds and ends You can get a sheet of acrylic or polycarbonate from home depot and cut it up. I went with 1/4 inch but 1/8 is much easier to work with ( and CHEAPER). Then i bought a bundle pack of magnets from hobbylobby for 6 bucks and then use weather stripping with the peel away sticky to fill gaps from the thickness of the magnets. I just cut a foam square for the top so i had clearance for the filament. In all i spent about 60-80 between everything. So are you making a blue 6 ? :)

Thanks for even more tips.

I'm making more of a 3 than a 6. (Available parts ya know ) I've got it together but I only have 2 HD servos so it won't "stand" without assistance. It will hold position and "lay down" from that position just fine. I'm using the 6AA battery pack that came with my V3 kit so that's some extra weight. It looks like it was meant to have 2 lipos inside the body and the EZB was to go on top.

But I've been printing some other EZ Bits I want to put a little more time in with my EZThree and get some pics and vids to make a thread then move onto those other things.

Oh and while I'm here, I want to shout out to my pal Jay from the UK. He was having issues getting the EZ Bits to print so, I just want him to know not to be discouraged. It can be done. I didn't have much trouble at all. Sure, they ain't the prettiest parts but, they're working. If you need any help I'll try my best. I know we have different printers but a lot of the core concepts are the same. I'm happy to help.

I also should mention that I ran all of the EZ Robot stl files through netfab and, of course, printed the repaired versions. I can't believe I haven't mentioned netfab yet. For those who don't know, netfab is a program/web service that examines stl files to make sure they are 3D printable. If not it fixes them and you can export/download the repaired part as a new stl. You pretty much want to run every file you're going to print through netfab. I personally use the PC version and not the web service. Google netfab.

If I had to brake down 3D Printing into almost simple steps it would be.

1. Acquire stl. Either download or make one.
2. Run that stl through netfab. If the part needs repaired, do so, remove old part when it asks and export the new part as an stl. Do not save the file or you will have altered the original. I personally try to keep an original copy of everything before I start changing it.
3. Load up your 3D Printer software and load the stl. Re-position it if you'd like. I prefer the back right of my bed for smaller jobs and center for bigger.
4. Start heating your bed.
5. Slice your parts.
6. Once your bed has reached temp, start heating your extruder. Once the extruder is about 20 degrees shy of it's target temp start the job.
7. Sacrifice 3 goats and a pregnant chicken to the 3d printing gods so your parts come out OK.

Living in the city, I haven't had the opportunity to verify step 7 so I can't say that you necessarily need it but, a little blind faith never hurt anybody, has it? Besides, do you know how hard it is to impregnate a chicken? It takes a lot more to get them drunk than you'd think.

Where in the world did you get the little square connector. The tiny one? I looked all over and I did not see it. could you give me a link?

Thanks,

Hey MovieMaker,

If it's the one I think you're meaning, it is the connector that joins DJ's body to the arms .... It is in ARC from memory. Select JD as an Example Project and then go into the parts section ... it should be in there.

Cheers,

J

I'm pretty sure it's the Male Horizontal Connector. I'm at work now but I'll verify that when I get home. But Jay is correct. it's in the EZBits. Go to the details of the part and it will have the stl files there. @jay- I actally just printed the ones you're refering too. they are the female connnector. They're still on the print bed actually. ;)

Thanks Guys, I will try this.

Sorry, I did not see it.

It is THIS one. I can't find it anywhere.

Thanks!

Agian I'm not a ez robot staff member but I believe that they are changing which items are in the library. They are changing designs to have the ez robot logo on them. You should also be able to see them on thingiverse

I don't see it. What is it called?

I have no idea what I'm looking at

It is called the female Ez-clip. I guess they make a male version of it also. It would be nice to have both.

But, of course I have NO idea where to find them.

that is the male clip. if you load up ARC, select design, find the horizontal servo in the library and look at the details. it has all of the stl files there. one for the L bracket and that little male adaptor. I cant remember if I had to repair it or not.

@josh is correct, they are going to change. I'd like to think that the connector size will remain unaltered though. but yes, they are changeing so I probably wont print any more ez bits until the library update. I do have some more to show off, I just got to take some pics and ,aybe a vid or 2.

I saw where it was described. But, when I went to download it, I could not find out HOW to do it. It said this part is not for sale right now.

could someone just simply upload the file for me?

Thanks!

OK, we seem to be miscommunicating so, I'll walk you through it. :)

Load up your ARC Software on your computer.

At the top click Project, then click Design.

That will bring up the Design Screen. Click the triangle next to the Library Manager Button, then select Servos.

Wait for the bits to load and locate Standard servo Swivel. Then click the Little Blue "i" icon. Its underneath the shopping cart icon.

That will bring up the Info Screen. Scroll down to Horizontal Connector Male and click the Save STL Button.

I'm sorry I was calling things by the wrong names. I was at work so I didn't have ARC at hand to verify.

Also if you don't have the servo Swivel, Click the Library Manager Button. Then click Sync Now. it will download all of the current versions into your ez-bit library.

Hope that gets you what you need. Oh, BTW I did have to repair it in netfab before printing it.

Yeah netfabb is a good idea. Also preview the object after netfabb. I once had netfabb screw a model up a tiny bit and had to redo it.

@Thank You, Double OH (007)!

Sometimes I can be So Dense and Lame. I have been looking for this little part for almost a year. I pressed EVERY BUTTON. But when I got to the little blue i , I figured it was for information only.  Please forgive me for being so Dense. And, Thank You for you for being patient with me.

Not a problem Maker I had the same issue when the EZ-Bits first came out. I figured that my be the case so I took those shots real quick to help explaine. Let me know how your progress goes.

Small Update: I still live among you.

My printer suffered an injury during a work space re-arrangement and I seem to have bent the shaft on my X motor. I can still get ABS to print with a fan but not very well I'm afraid. Now that the new EZ-Bits are available I've a fire in my pants to get it working again so I can try printing all of those out. I'm moving shop to a now spare bedroom in the next week or so and will take my printer apart to see if I can maybe fix it before ordering a new one.

I pretty much have everything I REALLY wanted to print out initially, printed out so, I haven't been that motivated to mess with it. Especially knowing another work space re-location was going to take place. I'm moving from a carpeted floor to a wooden one. Hopefully that will help with stability. I'm even wondering if moving it may solve my problem since moving it seemed to cause it. I'm just assuming my X motor is bad based on that fact that it seems to wobble and I didn't really notice it before. Then again, I wasn't looking So, we'll see what happens when I move shop.

I still have my 3 legged Six that I have not messed with enough to start a post about it but I hope to get to that soon as well. I just wanted to let EZ-Robot.com and all of my friends and acquaintances here that I'm still alive and with checking the site on about a 3-5 day basis. I've just been busy with summer prep, holidays and family affairs.

My Roli and other parts should only be a month or two away at this point also. My enthusiasm is rising again. With the pre summer honey do list pretty much done, I'm hoping to be getting a little more active on the site again soon.

One thing I also wanted to do, and if someone wants to beat me to it, I'm cool with that, was to make an EZ-Robot version of the "KEEP CALM" poster. "KEEP CALM,(EZR LOGO),THE REVOLUTION,IS ON". I've been bouncing between 3 different computers lately and need to do some centralization/organization so, I've avoided really doing anything of any significance. I know it would only take about 5-10 minutes. I'm really surprised the marketing team hasn't capitalized on this yet.

Also, Congrats to all of you with V4 stuff. I haven't gotten to reading many of the posts or new info about it. I didn't want to get over anxious waiting for mine. In any event, I live, I love and I'll be back :D

You can also get the STL files from the 3D Community Printing tab: https://synthiam.com/Community/Revolution/EZBitList.aspx

@Antron007 That is awesome! Well done! How long did it take you to print JD's body? Do you remember?

[Edited and corrected] I loaded the Gcode and I found the estimated times fairly accurate (shorter than EPT usually for me) so this is the info from those files. I printed them at 0.2 layer height. The top took about 5 hours with support. (I didn't have a fan then so I think I could cut some time off of that when I get ready to try the new ones out.) The bottom took a little under 3 hours also with support though, not very much.

I hope you find this info of use. :)

Not so much an update as it is a caption in time:

So with the new .stl files being released and yet another work space relocation I've fired up the Solidoodle 2 for the first time in about a month. Here's where I'm at and what I'm doing.

I'm still having an issue that I believe is my x motor but since I've added a fan I've been able to at least finish some prints. They're bad, to say the least and ugly at best but still functional for anything I've been trying. Nothing too detailed obviously.

As I stated above, the new .stl files are out. I milked them all from ARC and ran them through netfab. Only like 4 or 5 of them needed repaired. I also flipped the top shell of the US Ping Senor shroud so it would print the face on the bed and not try to print it as bridges. As I play with them more I will update more on any issues or tips I may come up with.

Right now, I'm trying to print the US Ping shell. I have this white filament that I think may be crappy. It seems to melt at a real low temp. So low that I'm wondering if it may be PLA instead of the ABS I ordered. I'll have to give it an acetone test, something I've also procrastinated on. I've also suspected an issue with my x motor but the problem happened at the same time I switched filament and moved my set up so, I'm not sure just yet. It seems to be printing a little better in it's new home.

I did make the mistake of printing both pieces of the Ping shell at the same time. The larger one curled in a corner a bit but I'm pretty sure i'll be able to finish the print. Next I'll try them separately and see how that goes.

Ultimately, I'm going to have to pull that x motor off and really examine it. I'm just in no hurry to take it apart :(

Well I'm going to check on that shell now. I'll try to get to another update later this weekend.

[Amendment] Printing still seems to be going well. About another hour to go. (1hour 45min projected total print time at .2mm, 40% infill, 3 shells all the way around. Before @aislinn asks ) But the real reason I'm typing this is to share some wisdom from my experiences.

When printing parts for your printer, try to print them with filament with a high melting temp. As stated before I have this while that melts real low and I tried using it to make a part that holds my fan and those keep melting about 1 hour into printing. So, I dug up my old blue one and slapped it back on and it seems to be doing fine. I've actually printed the V3 bodies with the one I'm using now and it's only browned out a little. It melted at 210-215 as where the white I have starts to melt at 180-190.

So in short, if you go to print pieces for your printer, especially anything that's going to touch your hot end anywhere, use the filament with the highest melting point. That way when you're printing with your other lower temp filaments, you won't have to worry about your printers parts melting, like it did to me, several times.

I hope this tip helps save some one some time and stress. I wish I didn't have to learn it the hard way but, I did. So, I shared. [/Amendment]

First, for those who may care, my apologies I actually took and prepped these pics right after the previous posts mentioned prints were finished. I've just been procrastinating on this post. I remembered that you're supposed to play games on your xbox 360 and spent some time playing some of the free games with gold that I've been downloading for months and have never touched.

And now for something completely different.

I'm still using the Repetier that is available from the Solidoodle web site. I tried the newest version when I first got my printer and I couldn't get it to connect so I just stuck with the recommended one. I have updated slic3r and am using the newest version of that.

As per Prev Post, I flipped the top shell of the US Ping Senor shroud so it would print the face on the bed and not try to print it as bridges. I printed these at .2mm resolution, 40% infill, 3 shells for top, sides/walls/perimeters, and bottom.

Being so thin I probably could have just used maybe 5 or 6 shells with 0 infill. I'm not sure if you can use 0 infill. I know you cant use 1 but can use .99 . Something to consider if I ever go to print another one.

Here are the outsides of the Ping Cover. The back is on top and the front is on bottom. You can see the gaps and strands. The jacked upper right corner on the front is where it curled as mentioned before. As you can tell they are a little ugly due to my printer not being in top form but, they work.

Here are the insides. Not too shabby. On the back, there's a little pillar next to the screw holes on the lower left and upper right corners. In the upper right one, you can see one of the areas my printer seems to skip or jerk at.

Next is pictures of it "assembled."

You should be very aware that because my printer has some alignment issues, these prints are no reflection of the designs themselves. They are well designed. So well, that they even fit together and clip into the other bits I've printed. The sensor went right into the front with no problem. Even with my printer having its issues so I can only assume that they would be stellar if someone else, like the XL Robot boys printed them. Good work once again Cory.

This sensor was the first thing I had soldered in probably 20 years so it had a very weak joint on one of the pins. I pulled a wire off of it pulling it through the back so I re-soldered it now that I'm a little better at it and it's all good now. Practice, practice, practice. After I did that, the wires had plenty of but not too much room to get through.

They are only snapped together so, it's not together very well. I didn't screw it shut yet and it did take a little nursing but that's because of the jacked up corner from the curling and my lines aren't strait. But it passed the most important test for me. It woks. That's all I ask. Looking good is great but I'm pretty happy that even though I've already damaged it a little, I'm still getting my use and money back out of my Solidoodle 2. Because the way I see it, every bit I print is one I don't have to buy. $5 saved is about $4.9x earned. :)

It's going to be pretty hectic for me the next few weeks and I probably should fix my printer so I don't have an agenda right now but, if I end up doing something or think of any tips, tricks, advice or any other 3d printing contribution, I'll share it as soon as I do. ;)