I’ve been distracted by things like trying to find toilet paper (seriously, people) but I’ve been trying to make a little progress on the filament storage box. Since the last post, I mounted the fan that will push air over the cold plate for dehumidification. It fit pretty well in the hole I made, but …
More progress on the filament storage box. All 5 sides of the box have been glassed on at least one side, and the dehumidifier circuit side was completed. The layups for the air channel were a bit tricky compared to the flat sides I’ve done so far. Instead of just wetting out rectangular pieces of …
In the last post, I described the basic idea of the dehumidified filament storage box. I don’t have a lot of time to work on it, so progress is slow, but I’ve done a few layups. The back side is made from 2″ foam to give good insulation against the hot plate and maximum rigidity. …
As you may remember, my 3D printer is mostly used with Nylon or polycarbonate filaments, since those are strong and works to high temperatures. Unfortunately they’re also very hygroscopic, so they absorb moisture from the air (which we have a lot of here) and then you can’t really print with them without getting blobs and …
As I described in the post about making the compressor intake, the gibs took a beating with all the vibration. The gibs on the mini mill, especially the X-axis, leave a lot to wish for in the best of situations. The problem is that the adjustment screws, which are “dog point” set screws (which means …
As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been working on quieting down the new 60-gallon air compressor. People claim a significant fraction of the noise from an air compressor comes from the air intake. For this reason, I was going to fit a larger intake filter/silencer. The stock air filter is a chunk of …
For my compressed air needs, I’ve so far used this 8-gallon Husky air compressor I bought back in Torrance, and while it’s been adequate, it can’t really keep up with really any use of air tools. Even just running the mister for the CNC mill, which doesn’t use a lot of air at all, it …
It’s been a while since the last mini mill post. I’ve taken the table off a couple of times to clean out chips that get in under the gibs and re-grease the ways, but it should be clear from the relatively large number of posts of stuff actually made with it that it’s been running really …
Continue reading ‘CNC Mini Mill #12: Streamlining Tool Changes’ »
It seems like every time I conclude with saying the mill is now operational, I realize there’s something else I want to improve. After making the new air spring bracket, I finally wanted to fix the air spring scraping against the inside of the column. This would require making a new bottom mount for it, …
Continue reading ‘CNC Mini Mill #11: A little more work on the air spring’ »
As I mentioned in the last post, one of the things I wanted to make was an improved bracket for the air spring that takes some of the weight of the spindle. The stock bracket is a ~300mm long, 10mm diameter steel rod, mounted with two M6 screws on the side of the spindle, threaded …
Continue reading ‘CNC Mini Mill #10: A better air spring bracket, and some tweaks’ »