I’ve been designing a mod for the existing mount in my head for the last day or so. What I’m planning is take the standard lower mount, join the halves together but leave it oversize, kinda like an oval. Then put in a part on a screw that clamps the router to the back half of the oval. That way, there’s no screws holding two thin pieces of plastic together. My biggest problem at the moment is the moving part is captured in a groove, and petg doesn’t do overhangs or support very well. PLA is garbage in my opinion, good for paper weights and vases and that’s about it.
I have had success printing ABS as of late printing at 255 degrees with the fan on (for overhangs)… Your bond to the build plate must be very strong though other wise it will warp off in no time. I also run a space heater in the room while it is printing. Makes the room about 35-40 Celsius or so. I printed some calibration cube and the dimensions were very close to perfect so shrinkage was not an issue.
If your hot end will allow you to print hotter print hotter. I read an article about this guy that was getting crappy ABS prints the cranked the heat and turned on the fan then it was printing beautifully. He had an all metal hot end so was printing at like 280.
I print pet-g, which prints at the same temp as abs, it just doesn’t warp as bad as abs. Awesome plastic. It just doesn’t like to bridge very well. I might design the part without the slot. Probably doesn’t need it. E3D v6 hot ends freaking rock! I need to get a larger nozzle though. Larger nozzles make stronger parts, more melt between the layers.
I think this hinge mount looks pretty strong, and you can flip the “top” side to print without overhangs:
I tried merging the allted one with this, using just the STL files in sketchup, but my CAD foo is not strong. I broke the upper mount once (and reprinted in PETG) but I haven’t broken the bottom part yet.
I really want to love PETG, but it sometimes just really really screws up. I think the root of the problem is that the filament prefers to stick to the nozzle (or the molten plastic) more than the solid plastic, so if there is any extra extrusion (or overhang material) it will prefer to collect in a blob on the nozzle, and deposit itself as a big bump later on. PLA doesn’t seem to do that, it just leaves a little more plastic with the stuff it extruded. The blobs cause a real problem later on, when the nozzle bumps into a 5mm blob of hard plastic… You should see some of the epic failures I’ve had with this stuff. When it fails, it fails HARD.
I’ve been printing PETG at 260C with no cooling, and the bed has to be absolutely perfectly level. I went so far as to level while printing the first layer on a big print to get it right. I’ve never had to be that precise with PLA. For something that’s flat, or at least really solid, without any small parts, and without any overhangs, and with a lot of infill, PETG has created some great prints, but I can’t print a bunch of the stuff that has been easy on PLA. Definitely an advanced filament, IMO. I don’t have a ton of experience with ABS, but maybe it would be easier coming from ABS. I could probably print all the parts but the better middle Z in PETG. Probably. Things like the cable chain would have had me pulling my hair out, I’m sure.
I like that it is stronger than PLA. I like that it has a higher glass temperature than PLA. I like that it only needs a 60C bed vs. ABS, and it sticks well to blue tape.
I’m pretty sure PETG isn’t really that standard either, because the hatchbox stuff I’ve been printing has a temp range of 240-260, and the inland stuff is 235-255, and I’ve seen some expensive PETG with even lower temperature suggestions.
I have a MK10 extruder, which I upgraded to the micro swiss all metal. I wonder if I shouldn’t have bought the e3 instead.
BTW, I just got my two mystery rolls from makergeeks, and I got “bomber jacket brown” (which looks like a really dark brown) and “HD Glow Glass” (which is see through/glow in the dark, not very bright glow in the dark). But for $33, they will definitely make some functional parts. I might make a glow in the dark printer pretty as my next project.
I got bored and came up with this… My machine unfortunately is not too the point where I can test this yet but it should be quite a bit stronger then the original as there is more material where it has been breaking. Having it slide on the Z axis rails should provide some stability too or at least that is the goal.
That looks nice and beefy. I think that should work a lot better.
Just thinking out loud. It seems that the ideal would be the clamp part just holding the router to the main part, and the main part should be working to hold the tool up and holding the dust shoe on. I see there is a lip on the clamp. It would be better if that was on the main side. I don’t know how to make the dust shoe attachment go to the main side, but that would help as well.
not sure how your going through so many mounts I have probably 300+ hrs on my machine if not a lot more and I am on my first set.