Cerberups
| Projects | |
|---|---|
| Participants | Ultratux |
| Skills | Woodworking, precision assembly, electronics, fine mechanic |
| Status | Active |
| Niche | Mechanics |
| Purpose | World domination |
Introduction
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Cerberups, a Delta-type 3D printer. It is a slight modification to a US design, the Cerberus, see https://github.com/grabercars/Cerberus. My modifications were mainly necessary to adapt from imperial to metric extrusions, but also because other choices were made in type of materials (ie. wood instead of PLA). The Cerberus itself is based on the Rostock, of course: the first delta 3D printer.
First uneasy steps. This was rather hard; the used wood is a very hard and tough kind. And it's only when you need a 30 degree angle, you find that none of our tools have any setting for it, or they are so coarse/imprecise as to be completely useless... Examples: I wanted to buy a mitre box with a 30 & 60 degree cut-- unobtainable. And our mitre saw has a 60 degree angle, but can't manage 30 degrees... Oh well. Lots of improvisation. Lots of extensive postwork on the very resistant wood...
Coating specially crafted by Steve Graber (the designer of the Cerberus) on his state-of-the-art CNC lathe. These are at the heart of the vertical movement system used in the Cerberus. Get these babies wrong, and gone is precision & accuracy, and gone is silent movement.
Decided to go with wood instead of printing in PLA, for a host of reasons; Our other printer is in a state of constant testing, rebuilding, breaking and fixing and not deemed production ready yet. Secondly these printed parts are so massive I'd need to babysit our printer for 48 hours or more, even if it doesn't fail halfway. And third, adaptation from imperial to metric proves hard to do, since my extrusions also have a slightly different profile, so it needs a lot more work than just scaling up by 105%, sadly.
After retrieving my router and making the mounts for the three steppers, I could now bolt it in place in a more permanent fashion. Not too happy with the extrusions not being 100,0% parallel yet, but we're getting there. Robustness though, is already quite good now.
I must await delivery of the stepper motors and must find a way to get the three carriages printed. In the meantime I will find some means to re-make the bottom dual idler mounts and the top idler + tensioner in something other than PLA. So, get creative, Maarten!
