Back in business... mostly

Continued from this post... basically.

I haven't got one of those fancy soldering iron and desoldering iron that everyone tells me I need. Got mine in a kit at CompUSA before they closed down. Got a desoldering bulb to work with it at RadioShack. But that was all I needed to remove the remnants of the parts that broke and solder in the replacement PC Board Terminals, also from Radio Shack.

After that it was a matter of reconnecting everything up and testing to be sure I didn't get my left and right confused. Because on the board it's not "left" and "right" it's "1" and "2" and on the cute little labeled wire connectors it's "I" and "J" in some places. ProTip, you can do your pre-heat testing while the bot is still on it's side before you close everything up, not something I've done in the past. But I managed to get everything right the first time, also not something I've done in the past. Statistically it had to happen at some point, I guess. Just happened to be the first time I was ready to fix it if I got it wrong.

Took a little break to fix my son's bike, since he caught me while I was already in the garage. Used the 3D printed tire levers that were some of the first things I ever 3D printed.

Once the bot was back together and vertical with a new extruder head all wired up it was time to test it out. I started with something small, a filament clip that I've just kinda kept on my SD card if I ever needed a small print. It turned out mostly okay, with only a small problem in the first couple of layers that may have been related to the build plate slipping... maybe. But I don't think the print head is the problem. At least it shouldn't be. So I clipped down the print bed and tried again, this time a something a little more ambitious.

Business card holders for my job. The one of them didn't stick, fell off, and left noodles everywhere, including on my print head. Baptism by fire for the new print head, I guess. And still getting some nasty shrinkage on the first layers. Maybe it's time to update my enclosure. That's probably it.

So I've got to get this shrinkage problem underway and I'll finally be able to finish the paid jobs I have hanging over my head. A few more test prints tonight to see if I can get that under control.