SOLD - MakerGear M2 for sale - SOLD

[jsc]

I didn't know you did investment casting. That's pretty cool.

[insta]

Hah! Knew it! I've always kind of mentally pictured insta as the Energizer Bunny.....wheeling back and forth from one printer to the next, starting prints and popping them off of plates, back to the next one to start another print...he keeps going, and going, and going........

That particular job suuuucked. It wasn't supposed to suck, it just did. Originally, I was going to print one and resin-cast it ... so I got cocky and accepted all the jobs at once. I had like 3 days to print 90 parts. Because of the shape of the flared piece on the edge, it wasn't castable. No problem, I'll modify the GCode to eject the part with the print head when its done ... except that didn't work (Marlin bug). I actually ended up having to sit there and babysit 4 printers for 3 days, nearly constantly. I slept at my office under my table of printers. I paid a friend a hundred bucks to watch netflix and pick parts off the print bed.

It wasn't until I got near the end of the job that I realized the bug with Marlin. The "bed heat" command has a command to "set exact" (Rxxx) or "set at least" (Sxxx). Older Marlins read R as S, so when my looping GCode commanded a "set bed heat to 38C" it would say "oh, 60C is at least 38C, moving on!" and would ram the well-stuck part into the hotend. Fixing that and some super secret mods to the printer that may have involved paperclips shaped into a hook shape allowed me to use a very automated self-ejecting approach. I eventually got the cycle time down to an hour per part and the remainder fell like dominoes.

[Jules]

Hah! Knew it! I've always kind of mentally pictured insta as the Energizer Bunny.....wheeling back and forth from one printer to the next, starting prints and popping them off of plates, back to the next one to start another print...he keeps going, and going, and going........

That particular job suuuucked. It wasn't supposed to suck, it just did. Originally, I was going to print one and resin-cast it ... so I got cocky and accepted all the jobs at once. I had like 3 days to print 90 parts. Because of the shape of the flared piece on the edge, it wasn't castable. No problem, I'll modify the GCode to eject the part with the print head when its done ... except that didn't work (Marlin bug). I actually ended up having to sit there and babysit 4 printers for 3 days, nearly constantly. I slept at my office under my table of printers. I paid a friend a hundred bucks to watch netflix and pick parts off the print bed.

It wasn't until I got near the end of the job that I realized the bug with Marlin. The "bed heat" command has a command to "set exact" (Rxxx) or "set at least" (Sxxx). Older Marlins read R as S, so when my looping GCode commanded a "set bed heat to 38C" it would say "oh, 60C is at least 38C, moving on!" and would ram the well-stuck part into the hotend. Fixing that and some super secret mods to the printer that may have involved paperclips shaped into a hook shape allowed me to use a very automated self-ejecting approach. I eventually got the cycle time down to an hour per part and the remainder fell like dominoes.

Yikes! Okay I was just kidding! You actually did it! Sympathies!

[Matt_Sharkey]

Fixing that and some super secret mods to the printer that may have involved paperclips shaped into a hook shape allowed me to use a very automated self-ejecting approach. I eventually got the cycle time down to an hour per part and the remainder fell like dominoes.

Video or it didn't happen.

[insta]

Trade secret paperclip

[Jules]

Okay, i have to jump in....my curiosity is up. You have to at least tell how you did it now......

(Yanked the prints off the bed into a bin underneath with a paperclip shaped into a hook, attached to a fishing line, extending to you in the comfort of your easy chair? Quick reload during commercial breaks?)

[insta]

No I used a clip attached to the frame itself, combined with automatic temperature control, to pop the part off the bed. It was part of the GCode itself. When I hit "go" on a file it would print 1 part, eject the part by whacking it against this clip, repeat ... 10 times. I ran 5lb spools on the M2s and let them go.

[Jules]

No I used a clip attached to the frame itself, combined with automatic temperature control, to pop the part off the bed. It was part of the GCode itself. When I hit "go" on a file it would print 1 part, eject the part by whacking it against this clip, repeat ... 10 times. I ran 5lb spools on the M2s and let them go.

Well, that's either the most ingenious thing I've ever heard of, or total bullshit.... i can't tell which!

[insta]

It's something I feel can give me something of a competitive edge ... the ability to batch up parts and let them run mostly automated. I don't want to go into a ton of detail. It's not hugely secret, and it's probably infringing upon somebody else's patent, so I'm mostly going to just stay quiet.

[Jules]

It's something I feel can give me something of a competitive edge ... the ability to batch up parts and let them run mostly automated. I don't want to go into a ton of detail. It's not hugely secret, and it's probably infringing upon somebody else's patent, so I'm mostly going to just stay quiet.

Fret not, I'm pretty sure the patent on the paperclip expired a few years back.....

Cool!