You wanted it, so you got it; a load of GT2 belts and pulleys are on the trucks now, and I should have them in stock within a week or so. I know that GT2 belts and pulleys are tough to source outside of the USA, so international customers should be pleased to hear that [...]
MendelMax printed part sets are finally back in stock! And I’ve made a few improvements. For one, all kits now include AlephObjects’ more robust Z motor and rod mounts. You can also select which kind of bushing you’d like your parts to fit, either Igus polymer bushings or self-aligning bronze bushings. Sets for bronze bushings [...]
A bunch of the sintered bronze bushings that are becoming popular in the RepRap community arrived recently. These bushings are really nice since they’re as precise as LM8UU bearings, but they’re smaller, cheaper, don’t rust, and tolerate up to 5 degrees of rod mis-alignment. I have ones with 8 mm and 10 mm interior diameters, [...]
We’re nearing the end of the mechanical parts! I’ll be using the popular Greg’s Hinged Accessible Extruder in this guide. This section may differ for you if you’re using an alternate extruder such as the venerable Wade’s, but they’re all broadly similar. Let’s start with the idler. You’ll need to put a 608 bearing onto [...]
Time to move onto the Y-table. A huge X-Y build area is one of the big advantages of the MendelMax, so this is a fun process. Before you do anything, insert your bushings into their holders. This will depend on your bushings and your holders, but I’m using Igus bushings and my Igus bushing holders. [...]
Wow! I’ve been completely bowled over by the demand for MendelMax parts! I’m printing these parts as fast as I can, but the queue that’s built up has forced me to close the listing for now while I catch up with the demand. If you’ve ordered a set, rest assured that I’m working as fast [...]
I’m now selling high-quality aluminum motor couplers you can use to connect your motors to leadscrews or M8 threaded rods. These couplers are a really nice upgrade from the standard printed couplers since they’re guaranteed to hold the rods centered, and they’re slightly flexible so they tolerate minor misalignments. All of this improves your layer [...]
A lot of people have asked me recently how I make extremely high-detail prints, such as this little gnome house: Using a better firmware (Marlin) and a gcode generator that creates more sensible paths (Slic3r) are the first two things you absolutely must do. Without using both Slic3r and Marlin, you’ll struggle to print your [...]
I titled the last post in the build guide “MendelMax Build: frame part 1” because I anticipated there’d be a part 2; turns out the build was faster than I thought. Let’s move on to the X and Z axes. First, assemble your X-carriage. This should be a matter of attaching whatever manner of bushing [...]
Techpaladin.com now has a store! I’m carrying high-quality parts for RepRap printers such as inexpensive Igus bushings, high-quality aluminum motor couplers, and MendelMax printed parts sets. I’ll be gradually adding more premium inventory such as GT2 belts and pulleys and precision leadscrews for folks who are interested in maximizing their printers’ mechanical quality. Please don’t [...]