The blog has stopped accepting images for unknown reasons (bug-a-minute here), so this one is pointing to my Mastodon account on the NZOSS server. I hope it works. If it vanishes, sorry, I have the original.
What you should see here is four etched probe tips, numbered, etched from 0.3mm 316L SS wire. #14 was made a couple of days ago before my Z Axis died. That was given a 20 second roughening etch, then the GCODE-controlled etch as per the github repo /utils directory. It has a smooth ogival point.
#15 and #16 were the ones that ended up malformed due to the misbehaving Z Axis. I cut the tips off, and re-etched the wires using the same GCODE as #14. These display a significant stepped profile to the point. Not what I was looking for.
So I wondered. What effect is the roughening etch having on the point profile? So I etched #17 with the same GCODE as #14 but did not do a roughening etch on it. The ogival profile is very good.
All of the probes display a slightly roughened area about 0.1mm behind the tip. This is unplanned but fortuitous. I will experiment with #17 to see if the roughening process is worthwhile when using the sodium chloride etch. The nitric acid roughening etch certainly soaks up the resin, but I have not seen any of this behaviour on the sodium chloride etched tips unless they are over-dipped. Over-dipping is not good for accurate resin deposition as it results in a roughly spherical blob held on the tip by surface tension rather than a film held by capillary action.
Anyhoo, now have tips. Next step is to mount them to the Flexured Probe Holder I printed earlier.
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