Week 13
Machine Building
The Assignment
I've been extremely excited about this week's project for a long time now. For my final project I wanted to build a 3D pancake printer (its looking more and more like it will only be two dimensional with stackability) but I was told by many that such an ambitious project would only work if I simplified, or got some help. So I pitched the idea to my group for machine building week and together we made a pancake printer. Not one exactly like what I was trying to build, but one close enough to test a lot of the things I was trying to acheive. Most of the information about this project will be on Joao's page linked here or on the group page linked . But I'll explain my contribution here.
My Part in the Project
Because I wanted to make a pancake printer for my final project I had a pretty good idea of what we needed to do to make this thing. But because we were going for a different type of coordinate system and because I'm not the best at coding I didn't have a predefined plan for the entire thing. I pitched the idea like this "An XY gantry over a griddle that extrudes pancake batter instead of filament" In the end we went for a "polar type" gantry over a hotplate, but the pancake batter was still there and that was the important part. We needed 4 teams/ main components for the machine. First the frame, second the axiis, third the end affector, and fourth software. I really wanted to work on the peristaltic pump because that as the main idea I wanted to try with This project, so I helped the pump team design and research an adjustable peristaltic pump that was cleverly laser cut and assembled quickly, it worked with thicker pancake batter but not so well with water because it had such a thick tube and water was too thin. I also helped with the axiis team to CAD designs for both the rotary and sliding axiis, in the end we had to scrap our designs and remake them on the last day which was terrifying but we got the cadding done (I cadded some of both the failed and succesful mounts and parts for the slide), we wanted to make our cantilever as light as possible so we made a carriage that only held the tube and the syringe and pump were mounted to the frame. I don't know enough about software to say I helped with that part of the machine, but Kevin and I stayed up until 4am on Tuesday night to pull all the parts together and troubleshoot both hardware and software issues and get the printer printing. One of the major problems we had, the pump getting stuck due to friction was solved with a tube of green lubricant I found on a free stuff shelf in the halls, I didn't know at the time but it was liquid teflon and commonly used in food processing devices because it's safe to be around not in food. It took a lot of testing and trial and error, but in the end we finished it and it worked pretty well which was awesome and helps me out a lot with my final project though I may still be miting off more than I can chew. Anyways here's the link to the group page again for the rest of the details.
