HM version 4 Rpi 3d print case


 
Sorry for the delay in reporting back, I "thought" I had my 3D printer all dialed in until the circles on the front of the case started printing like tear drops... Just when I thought I had a grip on all the things that come loose another one cropped up, the mount for the Y-axis belt where it attaches to the bed, it was wobbling all over the place...

So after I pulled the bed and tightened that up I got the case printed. It's not my best print cause I just had the machine ripped apart again, but the case fit together nicely. The display didnt snap into the hole on this one (like it did on my previous print of the older case), it fit a little loosely, some floppy drive/CDROM screws worked perfectly to secure it down. It may have fit a bit loose cause my hotend was a bit high off the glass and the plastic didnt lay down very tight, either way it worked out perfect with the screws....

The nut traps worked great as well, except the hardware store only had two screws long enough, and two more that might be long enough. I tightened down one nut into the trap as far as it would go hoping the short screw would reach, the nut started to slip and I couldnt back the screw out. I did get it out with a little pressure from I tiny screw driver, but I thought I would report that. Not sure if that nut trap turns round up there eventually or what? Again, could be my weak print too....

The boards plopped down in there like they knew where they were going and everything fits together great, I like the two guide rails on the sides where the top and bottom mate, that helps keep things aligned.

All in all, besides my printer vibrating loose on me, the print worked out great and the case design is awesome, I like the square design so much better!

Thanks again for your efforts....
 
Sorry for the delay in reporting back, I "thought" I had my 3D printer all dialed in until the circles on the front of the case started printing like tear drops... Just when I thought I had a grip on all the things that come loose another one cropped up, the mount for the Y-axis belt where it attaches to the bed, it was wobbling all over the place...

So after I pulled the bed and tightened that up I got the case printed. It's not my best print cause I just had the machine ripped apart again, but the case fit together nicely. The display didnt snap into the hole on this one (like it did on my previous print of the older case), it fit a little loosely, some floppy drive/CDROM screws worked perfectly to secure it down. It may have fit a bit loose cause my hotend was a bit high off the glass and the plastic didnt lay down very tight, either way it worked out perfect with the screws....

The nut traps worked great as well, except the hardware store only had two screws long enough, and two more that might be long enough. I tightened down one nut into the trap as far as it would go hoping the short screw would reach, the nut started to slip and I couldnt back the screw out. I did get it out with a little pressure from I tiny screw driver, but I thought I would report that. Not sure if that nut trap turns round up there eventually or what? Again, could be my weak print too....

The boards plopped down in there like they knew where they were going and everything fits together great, I like the two guide rails on the sides where the top and bottom mate, that helps keep things aligned.

All in all, besides my printer vibrating loose on me, the print worked out great and the case design is awesome, I like the square design so much better!

Thanks again for your efforts....

It's made for M3 hardware with 30 mm screws. I buy them through McMaster but you can also get them on amazon if your hardware store doesn't have them. I bought a bunch because I always send them with the cases I print, but if you need just 4 of them, PM your address and I will put some in an envelope for you.

Tom
 
Also, if you run into that situation where the nut spins in the trap take a jewelers screwdriver and wedge it between the nut and the wall, then slowly back the screw out. That trick has saved me more time than I care to recount.
 
That 3A draw is going to be tough on those 8825's.

You might want to step up to these drivers: http://www.piclist.com/techref/io/stepper/THB6064/index.htm

I've been wanting to give them a shot but haven't had the need to do so. I'm going to use these on my leadscrew CNC once I get around to it.

Plus they're compatible with RAMPS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEe0haOE-N0

I imagine that Gen7 would work as well.



 
That 3A draw is going to be tough on those 8825's.

You might want to step up to these drivers: http://www.piclist.com/techref/io/stepper/THB6064/index.htm

I've been wanting to give them a shot but haven't had the need to do so. I'm going to use these on my leadscrew CNC once I get around to it.

Plus they're compatible with RAMPS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEe0haOE-N0

I imagine that Gen7 would work as well.

Yea, it's by no means a permanent solution. I just want to show my chairman that I can get this to work, then I will request funds to improve. Those drivers look sweet though.
 
Also, if you run into that situation where the nut spins in the trap take a jewelers screwdriver and wedge it between the nut and the wall, then slowly back the screw out. That trick has saved me more time than I care to recount.

I was frustrated at first, could have gone bad, but I calmed down and did exactly that... Jewelers screwdriver saved my ***...

Tom, thanks for the offer to send me a couple M3 bolts, but I'm sure another hardware store in town will have a couple more for me...
 
Tom,

what's really cool is that you're able to apply this to your real-world job. How did you get involved with CNC at work? Trying to reduce costs?
 
Tom,

what's really cool is that you're able to apply this to your real-world job. How did you get involved with CNC at work? Trying to reduce costs?

I'll start from the beginning so that this makes sense. I am an engineer that converted to medicine (radiation oncology). As a physician, you take on a lot of peoples problems and it can wear on you if you don't come up with a way of dealing with it. Some people go to psychiatrists, my therapy involves focusing on projects in my workshop. The hetermeter lead me to 3d printing and I have focused on this intensely over the past 9 months. Now, I am just entering the research year of my residency and have several projects going, but because of my background, I like to focus on radiation physics. As a side project, I was looking into different ways I could incorporate some of my new interests at home into radiation oncology. Interestingly, I found a cool paper in one of the IEEE journals about using 3d printed blocks for attenuating photon beams to achieve more conformal radiation treatment plans. It sounds cool, but in today's modern radiation oncology centers, it's really obsolete and just a proof of principle sort of thing. I don't know how much any of you have paid attention to the health care news, but you might have heard about proton radiotherapy as the new hot button topic. The theory being that you can exploit the physical characteristics of particle beams to avoid the problems of exit radiation dose seen with photon radiation and possibly spare more normal tissue, theoretically, and I mean theoretically, reducing the risk of things like secondary malignancies. This becomes very important in children but is starting to be used more and more in many different cancers. This is a very controversial topic because of the costs associated with the technology and the fact that we don't know what benefit, if any, the technology will have. The public is starting to hear about and it is becoming an arms race for centers to start building proton facilities. Anyway, we are going to be getting one eventually and with the current technology, each patient has a custom compensator made, usually out of acryllic to help shape the radiation dose field. These are sometimes outsourced which ups costs and turn around time. One day I joked with my chairman that I could easily build a CNC mill to make one of these compensators. He wasn't convinced so I decided that I would attempt to do this during my research year, and then test it with a photon beam (we don't have protons yet) and see how it performs. Obviously, this would have to go through rigorous QA testing before ever getting to the point of using it in a clinical situation, but I thought I would give it a shot and maybe come up with a more cost effective solution to problem. So in a nutshell, this is my convoluted way of integrating my hobby with work.

Here is an old article if you are interested. http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/machinings-role-in-making-cancer-quothistoryquot
 
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First off, thanks for the explanation - I can appreciate this effort so much more now. Makes my tinkering seem...insignificant.

I guess they do PET and/or CT to find the cancer, then use an algorithm to generate the nozzle and compensator? Is it just a single pair of nozzle/compensator and that is used at a specific angle relative to the patients tumor, or do they use multiple component pairs and approach the tumor at a number of angles to reduce the dosage on the surrounding tissue?

Either way, super cool. You should blog about this - I'm sure others would be interested.

I wonder if you could use a 3D scanner to measure the output and compare the meshes for QA? http://hackaday.com/2013/05/15/3d-scanner-with-remarkable-resolution/
 
I guess they do PET and/or CT to find the cancer, then use an algorithm to generate the nozzle and compensator? Is it just a single pair of nozzle/compensator and that is used at a specific angle relative to the patients tumor, or do they use multiple component pairs and approach the tumor at a number of angles to reduce the dosage on the surrounding tissue?

There is actually quite a bit involved in the design of a 3D radiation treatment plan. A shortened version goes something like this. First you so what is called a planning CT (and/or MRI or PET if you have it). This is what serves as the anatomic model for planning. PET scans are helpful in some cancers, but not all. A physician then contours the regions that contain and are at risk for containing cancer in 3 dimensions. This is based upon imaging, physical exam, clinical judgement, anatomic knowledge. Then you add margins based upon your setup accuracy, image guidance, motion control techniques, etc. A prescription in terms of radiation dose is then given to the target volumes and a plan is generated iteratively using various beam angles, field geometries, and beam weightings until a plan is created that achieves predetermined normal tissue and tumor dosimetric criteria. In the case of a proton plan this would then move to the next step of creating the field compensators that were calculated in the planning process. If I were to make a compensator, I could test it with our photon beam and measure the radiation fluence through the compensator and compare it to the predicted.

Sorry about the off topic conversation. I will stop now.
 
Off topic but really cool! I remember tackling some of this in an operations research class a while back - optimizing a region for min and max exposure to a radiation beam.
 
For those interested, I recently had a very enthisiastic forum member make a request for better access to the button. Here is the result. I'll post the files if people like it and/or want it.

2rr7abq.jpg
 
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123d files obsolete :-/

I posted the files and updated the first post of the thread.

Hi Tom, I've PM'd you about getting a case sent to Germany :cool:

One issue: I tried to open the 123d files but found that they are only working in the old Beta versions of 123design (which don't seem to be available anymore). The final version uses .123dx file format, and for some idiotic reason there seems to be NO way to open the now-legacy .123d format. Any chance of switching to the new format? :)

On the 123design forum they recommended the solution: upload .123d files to online space "MyCorner" with Beta9, then they could be saved or converted to .123dx format (maybe with the final version, not sure). Seems they are trying to p*ss off all the people who beta tested their new software...

cheers,
dave
 
I've uploaded the Beta9 files to my google drive.

the x86 version
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6yPgtXXa9tXSUNJb2RRcVp1c3c/edit?usp=sharing

the x64 version
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6yPgtXXa9tXaFEtclVzZzh6NEk/edit?usp=sharing

You should be able to open the .123d files in inventor fusion as well.

ADSK is starting to **** me off any more. Their new fusion360 product can't open .123D files. It's pretty freaking powerful, but if I can't open my stuff it's worthless. :/ Add the subscription fee of $25/month... :mad:

meh.
 
Have you guys released a version of the case with the recessed button hole for the 4 line display? I flush mounted my button (cause I didnt have a case when I built) and so my button is slightly below the surface right now, I can still use it but it would be much better to have the recessed area around it,
Nice work as usual guys....
 
It's in the 123d file.
Sweet, thanks a bunch....
PS I too am upset with Autodesk the way they made the 123D beta files not compatible with their 123D design program, that's a real hose job. I have both apps installed, but have only worked with the beta version thus far. How 'bout you guys? Have you used the official release much? What do you think of it, and do you plan on keeping the case files in the beta format or eventually moving over to the release version format?
 

 

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