The biggest problem was that the plastic parts I had were not the iteration 1 or iteration 2 of the prusa design but rather some type of current beta iteration that has not bee officially accepted. This cause a lot of confusion because I had no instructions for these parts.
On top of that the mixshop kit was specifically for iteration 1 of the prusa so I was missing several minor pieces like a couple screws. It took me a little while to find the missing screws but I eventually did at a cool little shop that I have probably passed a dozen times but never noticed. It is called Jacobs hardware and it right in the fashion district which I visit frequently with Talia.
The other odd problem I had was that the clamp that was supposed to attach the z motors to the z axis threaded rod was not small enough. With the clamp fully tightened the motor post would still spin around. To solve this I did a little drilling to add a set screw of sorts to hold the flat end of the motor post in place
One thing that has me a little concerned is the quality of the printed parts that I have. I actually managed to partially split of of my motor gears by screwing the set screw in too far :(
Glueing the lower layer of the print bed down
My assembled x axis
But despite these problems I have the majority of the chassis built. Now I have started working on the electronics.
Now onto the electronics. I started doing the soldering a couple weeks ago while I was still searching for my missing hardware but unfortunately I ran into a problem right away. My soldering iron was not working the way it should. The thick bulky part of the tip would get hot but the precision part was not. It would take a long time for my to get any solder to melt and when it finally did it would immediately solidify as a ball on the tip of my solder.
Thankfully Talia's dad is an electrical engineer and had a really nice soldering iron with a super fine tip. It took a couple days for him to find it but it worked like a charm and I was soldering the in no time
One of the 4 POLO stepper motor controllers that I had to solder together. It comes with the Polo chip and the 16 pins to be soldered in order to connect it
To solder the chip I had to cut the pins in half to make 2 8 pin connections and then solder the short ends to the chip
The Ramps 1.4 board that the Polo get attached to
2 down, 2 to go :)
All 4 Polos soldered and plugged in.
The addition of the heat sinks on the chips complete the RAMPS chip assembly.
The next thing to do for the electronics is to connect the motors to the RAMPS board. Sadly I am again missing a tool. This time it is a crimping tool to put nice plug ends onto the motor leads. My dad has one that should fit so hopefully I can borrow one from him. I also have to go and get some cables to extend the leads in order to attach them to the board.
Total money spent so far:
Prusa electronics and hardware kit: $618
Plastic parts: $120
0.8mm solder: $12
5 extra M3 screws: $0.53
Sadly I have completely lost track of how much time I have spent building this :(
~(' ')~
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