I know we have all been waiting a long time on these but I can promise you that you will love them once they are up and running. Anyway I wanted to let you all personally know that if you have any problems at any time I am more than happy to help you get through them. Just post them in this forum ( I will be looking in a couple times a day, PM me or just catch me in the chat. I hope you all enjoy your 3D printers and I look forward to seeing all the cool things everyone makes.

 

Hello,
I appreciate the offer of help, I am going to need it for sure. I Misplaced the list of parts to finish the 3D printer and I was wondering if you could post it? I would like to start getting some of this stuff. I wanted to wait so I made sure I got the stuff that will work the best and other people would be able to give me some feedback.
Thanks, Larry

 

Larry, the following might be of some help, or at least a start. Nick can probably provide a more updated parts list for the working prototype. The latest update on electroics and heated plate were included in Mark and Trish's Saturday update. Sorry for the length.

Regards, Sid
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Guyz. We wanted to touch base with you to let you know what is going on with your Phlat Bot order as well as update you on a few other things.

As you know from our last update, all of the parts for the Phlat Bots had been ordered sometime ago. Some of the parts had to be manufactured vs. just buying them off the shelf. These parts all have a lead time. We are still waiting for a couple of parts to arrive. In the meantime, we received our aluminum plate samples. This is the one item that we felt that a sample was necessary. The parts are expensive and have a lot of holes and a lot of room for error. Having the first set in hand, we immidiately knew we made the right decision as there were errors on some of the hole placements that we noticed right away. These are easy to fix and just need to be addressed. We have been working on building another Phlat Bot so we can test all of the parts that we received. So far so good with the exception of a few changes needed to the aluminum plates as we have just discussed. We contacted the manufacturer and have asked them to update us with a current lead time as these parts, most likely, will be the last in hand. We will let you know when we hear on that.

Maker Slide...as you know, initially, we were going to get our own die made and extrude our own Maker Slide. You all generously pre-ordered your discounted Phlat Bots to help us with the cash flow. After many days and even a few weeks of working on this, we decided that it wasn’t in Phlatboyz best interest to do this. So, we contacted the Maker Slide folks and ordered a large order of Maker Slide to fulfill the Phlat Bot orders and work on our next machines. The Maker Slide arrived last week.

As you may know by now, we have started a Kickstarter project for what we call Open Rail. Open Rail was inspired by our experience with Maker Slide but it gives us the freedom to make any size extrusion a linear rail so we can use the same extrusion, Open Rail, and apply it to a light duty machine such as the Phlat Bot and a heavy duty machine such as the 2X4 router we are planning on making as well as the Phlatprinter in between. So, we are excited about it and as of tonight, we are fully funded and definitely moving forward with it. You can learn more about it on our Kickstarter page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ope ... ing-system

We would love to build the Phlat Bots using the Open Rail System and plan on doing so in the future as there is a lead time in getting it manufactured. If anyone/everyone is interested in waiting, please let us know. We will be doing everything we can to get it manufactured and in our hands asap. If you don’t want to wait, we completely understand and we have more than enough Maker Slide on hand for your Phlat Bot.

Ok, speaking of Kickstarter, this is a must have for any Phlat Bot and the price is amazing! You will want to pick up at least one of these MK7 Clones. These have been reworked and from the testing that we have read about(we have not tested it for ourselves yet) it looks like it will be perfect for the PhlatBot (This extruder uses the 1.75mm filament): xtruder-dual-ext?ref=live" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qu- ... t?ref=live You will want to get the $47 one with the heater cartridge. Our stepper motor order arrived so you won’t need to worry about that. The stepper motors we got are Nema 17’s with 76 oz. of torque. They retail for $19.50 each. If you are interested, we can include as many as you need (you should need 5 total) with your Phlat Bot Kit and the free shipping will still apply. Please let us know.

We have power supplies on order. They are scheduled to arrive early next week. They are 12V/30A 360watt. They retail for $35 and we can include them with your Phlat Bot Kit as well if you are interested.

We have been asked to include details on other parts that are needed. We know it’s difficult to get started in a new “field” for us and to not have a clear path of parts needed. We will do our best to help but as we stated before, technology is moving so fast and we have not had first hand knowledge with each option so we hesitate recommending things. Having said that, we will share our experiences with you and we hope it helps.

We just ordered the MK2 Heat Bed with the Thermistor and mirror Glass (drop down list) off of Ebay. The cost was $30. We haven’t hooked it up yet but we are planning to do so on the latest Phlat Bot build and we have every expectation that it will work as we expect it to. This is something you will want to pick up. The power supplies we have ordered will work perfectly with this and the MK1 heat bed. Here is a link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 0938872936

We have not settled on the best ABS and PLA yet. Once we do, we will let you know.

Ok, so if you are picking up the extruder from Kickstarter, the hot bed from Ebay, and the stepper motors and power supply from us, you will still need the following items to complete your kit:

Electronics
- As for the elecronics, we are currently using the Arduino board with a Ramps 1.4 shield that plugs into the top of it. The Arduino is a micro controller that plugs into your computer via USB. The Ramps board plugs into the Arduino board. It is the driver board that drives the stepper motors as well as controls the heat to the build platform and the extruder and also controls the cooling fan. There are other a lot of other electronics that are capable of running this machine.
Arduino - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arduino?rd ... irect%3Dno
Ramps 1.4 Shield: http://reprap.org/wiki/RAMPS_1.4
We bought our electronics from Ultimachine.com. We included the Mechanical Endstop Switches w/ Wiring (default) and the (default) Single Connector. It’s on back order for the next 2.5 weeks. Here is a link: http://ultimachine.com/ramps-pre-assembled-kit-complete

We recently found and ordered one of these cool controllers for testing. http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 500wt_1413 This will allow us to print computer free with just an SD card! This will be great if it works and we will treat it like a MOD once we get the PhlatBOT up and running with the laptop first.
So this is a neat little addition to look forward to

So please know we are working hard to bring this machine to you guys asap and will do our best to keep you up to date.
Thanks everyone
Mark and Trish

 

Larry. You should need the electronics (arudino, ramps shield, stepper drivers) yet which you can get from here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ramps-1-4-ULTIMATE-KIT-incl-SD-Ramps-and-wiring-Mendel-RepRap-/150870717103?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item23209872af#ht_4357wt_1397 this has everything you will need and is already soldered for you.

A heated bed is a nice addition though not required if you are going to use PLA (It is required for printing ABS). This can be picked up here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Reprap-heat-bed-MK2-Prusa-resistor-and-LEDs-soldered-/150870726681?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item2320989819#ht_4008wt_1397

You will also need the Stepper Motors and power supply which I would recommend picking up from Mark and Trish. Just send them an email.

Finally you will need an extruder of some kind. The one that is used in the setup videos is can be obtained here (Single nozzle) http://store.qu-bd.com/product.php?id_product=11

The extruder uses 1.75 sized filament which you can get from several sources I have used ultimachine in the past and been happy with the quality at http://ultimachine.com/catalog/print-materials/pla/pla-175mm but I believe Mark and Trish will be/are stocking some as well which I am sure will be good quality. Otherwise here is a list http://reprap.org/wiki/Printing_Material_Suppliers but be warned the quality of the filament in greatly affects the quality of the prints. Quality here is dictated by the amount of variation the filament has. The lower the variation the better nothing more than +- .05 mm

 

Nick, how abou touching on the number of stepper motors required. It is my understanding that at least four are required.maybe five? What about software? Will SketchUp get the job done? If so, what Plug ins do you reccogmend? Hopefully "The Kit" will arrive tommorrow.

THANKS FOR STEPPING IN WHILE MARK AND TRISH ARE ON A WELL DESERVED VACATION.

Regards, Sid

 

Sid,
You will need 4 nema-17s for the axis movement of the xy and z (the z uses two motors). You will also need one for the extruder if you use the recommended extruder I linked to above it is also a nema17 which can be provided from Mark and Trish (for an extra torquey one) or a thousand other places for a more standard one.

As for the software I go through everything you need to do to get your first part through on the included build videos. But all you will need is Sketchup ( I prefer 8 due to it telling you if the object is solid but 7 will work) with the STL plugin to be able to export components as stl files. Other than that I just use Repetier-Host (which includes a slicer) to run the machine.

 

Thanks Nick, Sounds like the Build Video is going to answer a lot of the upcoming questions. I think I have all of the hardware bases covered although not all of it is in hand.

Thanks again for the hand holding.

 

no problem

 

Jovian and Sid,
Thank you for all the help. I am blown away at the help and the willingness from all you guys and I totally appreciate it. I am so looking forward to this build and I feel a lot better now that you guys are ready to help. I cant wait to get this going... This forum and you guys rock..
Larry

 

Hello,
I ran into a small problem while watching my assembly discs. I finished disc one and put the disc labeled two into my PC and it is an exact duplicate of disc one. Did anyone else run into this??
Larry

 

Larry unfortunately haven't received my copy of the build videos yet nor do I have access to them atm. Once I get them I will take a look and send you the second set if someone else hasn't done so before then.

 

Jovian,

When I read Nitro's post this morning, I checked my Disc 2 and it is also a duplicate of
Disc 1. It is no big deal right now as I have to order the steppers and power supply from Mark yet.

Cal State

 

Crash i know the limit switches were not sent out but i do believe mark intends to per his email once they come in. If u cant wait you can get some ( set of 3 min) from ultimachine. They end stops are only required for the mins here but there are spots on the boarf for max endstops as well for a total of 6

 

My kit also arrived with two Disk #1's, although one was labeled Disk #2.

 

And i thought i rarely posted

 

Hey crash, Nice job on the building, looks great. I am really looking forward to this thing for sure. Thank God for you guys and this forum, it makes taking on these projects a lot easier. Larry

 

These are the hardware kits that Mark and Trish sold earlier. Unfortunately there were some complications with the licenses and while everything is taken care of and everyone is happy for these kits they won't be producing more of them.