RepRap: Blog

Recently, a cool dude by the name of Scott McClure emailed me about locating a supplier for machined parts. He mentioned a site called emachineshop.com which is really awesome. They have a free CAD application you can use to design parts to be made, get quotes, and order parts, all within the same application. I had heard of them before, but I didn't have a ton of experience with CAD so I didn't follow up.

Anyway, Scott suggested that we use them to get the machined parts we need for the extruder. Not only that, but he went above and beyond and made drawings up of the parts we need! He emailed me those files to look at, and hopefully have parts made from eventually.

The prices are reasonable at the quantities we're looking at, and the work that Scott did was very good. Here's the situation: it does not make sense to do a test order of a small number of parts, so we pretty much have to do a production size order. Obviously this runs the risk of getting 100 parts that are not what we need or want! I trust that the drawings Scott did are correct, but in the interest of perfection I present the files to you, the community to help spot any potential mistakes. Many eyes make bugs shallow, right?

Here are the files in question:

extruder drive screw - this is one piece with an extra 10mm of drilled shaft that is intended to be cut off by the end user to make the nut assembly to solder to the motor end of the braided wire.
half bearing - these are the bearings for the extruder drive screw.
heater barrel - this is the aluminum heater barrel for the extruder. (w/ 3/8"-16 threading)
ptfe barrel - this is the insulating PTFE thermal barrel. (w/ 3/8"-16 threading)

So please, download the emachineshop software, open the files above, check them out, and post any problems you find in the comments. This is really important, because a mistake could cost the RRRF hundreds of dollars (which at this point in the game, is a large amount)

Cheers,
Zach Smith