Mysteries of the tall print

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There’s a new Tall Print record holder in town.  Brian J. Pierce aka Chooch printed a 154mm tall Chicago’s Willis Tower.  Brian reveals the secret: “My bot is hacked, but using mostly original parts that came with the kit and printed parts to achieve the new record.”

What’s the hack?  Well, Brian says in the comments, “I’ll be releasing the Pfierce Z-axis extender kit in a couple of weeks.  It comes with 6 spacers and a new and improved z axis crank.”  Below is a crop of picture of Brian’s setup.

Chooch's Vertical Hack

Chooch's Vertical Hack

I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff in this setup:

  1. It looks like Brian’s got a Z axis wobble arrester.  I can’t tell if it is NateTrue’s Wobble Arresting Z bracket or TwoTimes’ Wobble Arrester.  If I had to guess, I’d think it’s NateTrue’s – since there are no visible straight rods.
  2. Check out the build quality on the Z axis wobble arrester – it’s terrible!!!
  3. Now, check out the build quality on the print – it’s pretty good!  Nice job!  I guess that arrester is working.
  4. If you look at the place where the top panel meets the sides, you can see printed bits.  It looks like he’s used a series of “spacers” (perhaps 6?) to raise the top panel above the sides.

8 thoughts on “Mysteries of the tall print”

  1. Is that the front of the bot or the back? Seems like there should be a Z stepper in there somewhere but maybe it’s just out of frame. If it is the back, he still might have the full Z wobble deal in front.

    Being at work (aka: away from my bot) I can’t check for myself but I thought the Z acrylic would hit the Z stepper if it went high enough – maybe he moved it? Or maybe I just remember incorrectly..

    That arrester is notoriously difficult to print due to the thin walls around the bolt holes – most of the ‘standard’ skeinforge profiles won’t print them correctly. Nate’s is a bit easier to print but both his and TwoTimes’ can be tricky. I wonder if Brian just slowed his feed rate way down instead of doing a higher resolution profile so that the blobs would fill in the gaps some.

  2. @Dave: I don’t know for sure – but I think that’s a view of the back interior of the bot. My batch 9 bot has a large indentation where the Z stepper is – which would allow the stage to raise above the bottom level of the stepper.
    However, now that you bring it up… I seem to recall someone saying Adam had suggested he move the Z axis belts to the inside for some reason…

  3. Yes, those are TwoTimes’ wobble arrestors, I just haven’t gotten around to installing the rods yet. The arrestors were some of my first prints, when I was still figuring things out. The extrusion “roped” a bit, making for a poor, almost braided print. The picture also makes them look really, really bad. Although, I have been meaning to replace them, when I get a chance. I’ve been super busy lately. I’m sure you’ll see why in a few weeks time . No I didn’t slow anything down, I think it was just bad calibration. They should print extremely well, now that I have everything dialed with a Makergear .35mm bighead nozzle and a HBP. The poorly printed arrestors do help damp the rod wobble though, even without the aid of rods.

    That is the back inner wall of #1034 (Ten-thirty-four is my bots name.)

    He’s a newer bot, so he does have the cut out in the z-axis table, which makes colliding into the z-axis stepper impossible. There are a lot of other z-axis limiting factors. For instance, I assume Zaggo (the previous record holder) found out by trimming the idler pulley bolts down flush, you get about 10 more millimeters of travel without spacing the top of the bot, like I have done.

    I’ve got some really interesting mods coming out and some little doodads to help the open source community, like these magnetic couplers: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3549

    So keep a look out, big things are coming!

    Cheers,

    Brian

  4. @Brian: A few questions. Is that you in the Master Sergent outfit or the guy next to him? I’m glad to see that Twotimes Z arresters work so well even without the straight rods. What do you use to affix the spacers? Just the regular nuts/bolts? Can’t wait to see more!

  5. That is a picture of myself next to my Master Chief costume, I built it a couple of years ago.

    Yes, I used the supplied M3 X 16 screws and nuts to attach them.

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