DigiFab Meeting 22/01/2019 8:15PM

Time: 8:15 pm
After General meeting
Date 22/01/2019

as we have not been able to make quorum the last few meetings I ask the following

If you know you will be unable to attend the meeting, please send
through the following proxy form before the meeting to
secretary@hsbne.org

HSBNE Inc:

I, of (insert address), being a member of the association, appoint
(insert name) of (insert address) as my proxy to vote for me on my
behalf at the Digifab Cause meeting of the association, to be held on
the day of (date) and at any adjournment of the meeting.
Signed this day of (date).

(Signature)

Agenda:
Change to the 3D printer and laser cutter(Cleanroom)
to use the laser cutter the room needs to be cleaned within the last 3 weeks
FDM printers = 2 weeks
Photon Printer = 1 week

This is due to the room getting to a state that we were not about to operate the Photon in digifab because the room had to much dust and if a fragment of dust was to get on the screen would cause the printer to break or make prints fail.

Pruchase of
Palette 2 - Four filaments combine and feed into your 3D printer. Palette 2 takes your builds to a whole new level.
Budget of $900
We may be able to get this cheaper but time will tell

please add anything you think we might need

Taz 5 Repair Parts

There are a significant amount of issues wrong with the Taz - all bushings are significantly worn, all the belts are cracked, all extruder parts are broken, etc. This is a seriously great printer let down by next to maintenance for a very long time.

I propose a budget of $266.04 + a roll of PETG for spare parts, which also allows us to upgrade the Taz 5 to a 5.5 - there are a few issues with the Taz which were upgraded between revisions. The biggest change is upgrading the X/Y smooth rods to 12mm instead of 10mm (taking the X sag from around 0.1mm to almost nothing). At the same time, we can increase the belt width from 6>9mm for a tiny bit extra than just replacing the belts with 6mm, which will allow us to drive the printer a little bit faster and reduce ringing.

The breakdown is as follows:

8mm - 20mm Diameter Rods Stainless Steel Round Bar Metal 3D Printer CNC - D:12 L:500
Item #: MEC-ROD-00110 £14.09 GBP 4 £56.36 GBP

Igus DryLin- RJ4JP-01-10- 10x19x29mm - Polymer LM10UU Bearing - 3D Printer - 4
Item #: MEC-BEA-11504 £7.80 GBP 1 £7.80 GBP

Igus DryLin- RJ4JP-01-12- 12x21x30mm - Polymer LM12UU Bearing - 3D Printer - 8
Item #: MEC-BEA-11608 £17.40 GBP 1 £17.40 GBP

GT2 Timing Belt - 2mm Pitch, 9mm Width, Reprap Rostock Mendel 3D Printer - 5m
Item #: MEC-TIM-00205 £17.99 GBP 1 £17.99 GBP

GT2 Pulley 12 - 72 Teeth 3mm - 12mm Bore - 3D Printer Timing Belt CNC Drive - 16T (5…
Item #: MEC-PUL-03702 £3.49 GBP 2 £6.98 GBP

For the filament, I am happy to do all the printing at home in PETG as my printer is set up for it, and I am happy to leave prints running overnight. I am about to order some filament, so I am happy to cover postage costs if I’m reimbursed for the filament (1kg of PETG is about $34 from Cubic Technologies). I think total weight of required filament is about 400g for all the parts, so once they’re done I will bring the rest of the roll in.

There are a few bolts/etc which probably need to be replaced, but I am sure I’ve got most of them at home I can just donate to the Space.

2 Likes

I’d like to get feedback from other members about making keeping Digifab clean a requirement for using some of the equipment in there, and what frequencies people think would make for good hard limits to set. My current thoughts are 3 weeks for the laser cutter, 2 weeks for the FDM printers, and 1 week for the resin printer, but that’s just my opinion there. There’s a whiteboard in Digifab that can be used to write down the date the room was last cleaned; using equipment beyond its set period without cleaning the room & updating the whiteboard = insta-ding.

The reason for this is that aside from how clean areas are nice areas, this room contains some of the most sensitive equipment we have - a single speck of dust in the wrong location could shatter the laser cutter’s optics, crack the resin printer’s LCD, or cause extrusion issues in the FDM printers. It needs to be kept to a higher cleanliness standard than other rooms, which means regularly vacuuming the floor & wiping down all horizontal surfaces. This room has its own shop-vac (or you can grab the Dyson from Craft Punk if you prefer that one) so there’s no excuse for letting it get dirty. Also, making cleaning a requirement of tool use should help spread the workload around, so it hopefully won’t be the same people doing it all the time, and it gives those who want to help out but don’t feel like they’ve picked up any technical skills yet an easy option to contribute too.

2 Likes

Has anyone considered using an air curtain above the door? Triggered to run when the door is open. This will act as a thermal, insect and dust barrier for the room reducing debris coming into the room. I’m not sure if there is a air filter to cycle and filter air that is in the room, again reducing the amount of dust that is in the air within the room before it settles on filament, mirrors or job surfaces.

Just a thought

An air curtain isn’t much use unless we also stop people opening the big windows, which is the main route for dust getting in there.

Air curtains do a very poor job of being an actual barrier that prevents air mixing; they’re primarily designed for uses in openings between rooms operating at different pressure levels. I know they’re heavily marketed and sold claiming to save air conditioning costs or prevent dust coming into a building, but actual real-world tests that weren’t funded by air curtain manufacturers show that in some cases & scenarios (particularly retrofitting to standard office doors), they can actually be worse than nothing. Source: am a Building Energy Efficiency Assessor

Thanks Riumplus for the information you posted. I only know the broad strokes with air curtains. Yeah pelrun, definitely worth looking at keeping the big windows closed, would save most of the problem and reduce the cleaning/maintenance workload.

When I checked out HSBNE space last month I was surprised to see an open window to that space esp knowing how much dust affects the equipment in there.

What about air conditioning the room and to have a monthly clean on the filter?
That would maintain a stable temperature for the digifab equipment to produce consistent work removing seasonal temperature, humidity variation?

Maybe anyone using the room could give a quick vacuum or bench wipe down during their end of job cleanup.

Yeah, dust is always a big problem with such equipment.

hsbne digifab meeting 5.2.19
start 8.30pm

14 attending
nog proxies:
paula odonnel
david buzz

meeting thread: DigiFab Meeting 05/02/2019 8:15PM

chair: aaron bycroft
minutes: miles whiticker

motion 1
text: taz5 repair parts and to upgrade from 5.5 to 6 for $266.04
put by: aaron bycroft
passed unanimously

motion 2
text: palette 2 to upgrade 3d printers (spend of up to $1041 as per budget)
put by: aaron bycroft
discussion: price had to be changed due to exchange rate
1 abstain
all others in favour

meeting adjourned at 8.34