Filament joiner

[drayson]

Guys,
don´t know if this is the right section, but... LOOK WHAT I MADE

Found a filament joiner on Thingiverse and started to build my own version. Tests pending, but it took app. 6 hours to mll the block (ok. very small mill, 0.4mm passes with a 8mm mill and yes, the camfer has been milled too...)

As soon as the first tests are done, I´l post an update - if somebody is interested...

[drayson]

Tested... it works...
A bit of trial&error is necessary, the first few joints made a huge mess, but finally I managed to join my samples color by color sucessfully in no time.
As expected, cleaning/trimming the joint needs to be done as usually, but as the joint is much better than made with a lighter, it´s quite easy...

[reibuehl]

What did you use to control the temperature? I am currently working on the one from Thingiverse - I bought the hardware kit and printed the plastic parts - but do not want to use the printer as controller as this would mean too much messing around with the cables. I have an Arduino based temperature control already running but still have to work on the PID controller for the heater.

[drayson]

I took this one as example:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:281792
and bought the temperature controller at ebay.

If you take this one in 24V instead of 12V (http://www.ebay.at/itm/WH7016J-24V-Digi ... SwOVpXfLgS) you could reuse the UM2 PSU and a spare 24V heater

Control itself is simple. The hysteresis can be set as well as a temperatrue calibration factor. But what I learned from my trials, temperature stability is not critical as you just contact the filament with the heater block for a few seconds.

I modified the wiring a bit. The controller can be switched off by pressing RST for a few seconds and I feel more comfortable when setting the values before the heater is switched on instead it heats up immediately as the controller is switched on. Therefore I placed the switch between the power line and the relais input...

[reibuehl]

I try to make this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1656353

[antiklesys]

What would be the cost of having a similar piece machined?
I could be interested in it

[drayson]

Huuu... from a Pro, I guess its much faster than me so I guess a tenth of my efforts (and it took a whole day with my mill to machine it)

wooden box is from IKEA, cost ~7€
controller incl. sensor from ebay ~13€
heater from ebay ~3€
switch from my parts box, would estimate ~1€
alu block 30x20x18 (from the companies trash bin -I´ll post the drawing later)
balsa block as insulator (from my parts box)

Does this help?

[antiklesys]

It's a start

[reibuehl]

On what kind of machine did you mill the block?

[drayson]

Emco Unimat 3 with a milling stand
veeerrry small with only 90W power

[reibuehl]

Okay, then I should have a good chance to do faster milling once I get my Shapeoko 3 with a 1kW spindle finally running I was a little concerned when I read "whole day"...

[drayson]

yessss, but that´s probably because I got it new and had to learn on it. I learned that 0,4mm cutting dept (Zustellung meine ich) is possible, but with 0,5mm it starts making strange noises... and I milled down the angled shape this way instead of using the saw and mill the last 2mm...
But that´s the learning curve...

[reibuehl]

I ordered endmills in 10 packs - for the learning curve

[antiklesys]

I have a 12V PSU and a Ramps board I could use to have this working.
The temperature could then be controlled directly by Marlin running on the Ramps.
What I miss is the aluminum block... :/