v0 mount

I have made some progress in the past weeks, mostly working on prototyping tool mounts.
The first mount I made I've dubbed version 0. It is mostly meant to give a little bit of experience, while still allowing me to use my printer as usual.

The v0 Mount

It is merely a simple slide. A rectangular piece of plastic can fit in the tracks. For the v0 mount, I designed and printed a 3D print head attachment, and a plotting attachment, which holds a common Bic pen. Both work quite well, and I have continued printing using the 3d print head. Plotting with the pen works quite well, too. After issues with my E3D V6 hotend, I found that the E3D Lite6 hotend works on the same attachment with no modification.

The issue that I have run into is that this mount does not prevent the tool from sliding up. I had a few prints fail because of this, before I added a screw to keep it in place.

As an improvement, I have now designed version 1 of the tool mount. This new design is created to work around a Maxwell kinematic coupling. This will allow for consistent placement of the tool. Additionally, springs on the tool will click it in place, giving it some rigidity in all directions. In future designs, I will have a servo attach to the tool, to provide greater rigidity, especially for any sort of subtractive tool. Unfortunately, the thermistor broke on my hotend, so I have not yet printed a prototype, but I should soon.

The v1 mount design

The v0 mount, attached to the printer

The v0 mount, with 3D print tool attached

Plotting tool for the v0 mount.