I'll have to look up the extruder type you are talking about, but I have PTFE solid rod I can donate to the cause, so drill a hole in it and then cut the end off a similar sized bit for the screw. Let me know if you want the PTFE rod, it's at the HF somewhere, shouldn't be too hard to find.

Pete

I don't know a lot about this, Adam, are you talking about the whole extruder, or just the hot end.

this extruder
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11892

with this hot end
http://www.reprap.org/wiki/ParCan-Hot-End

Seemed reasonable to me, but I'm not sure the best way to pull the filament along.

Pete

This has thread has been quiet for a while but the project is far from dead. Here is a quick update:

Electronics:
The electronics is done. I even replaced the wooden board we had the stepper motor drivers mounted on, with a nicely polished, aluminum plate for better heat dissipation. I do still need to move a power plug to the back but thats about it.

Mechanical:
The design is done for the z-axis mounting plate, to which the print head would be attached. We perpusly wanted this plate to be generic enough that anything could be mounted on it with minimal loss of accuracy. The Bridgeport as been a big help for this. My plan is to have this part done and attached by this Wednesday. At that point, we need to start looking at a print head. I would love to get the Makerbot Mk7 print head but we need donations to make this happen I think.

You can find out more about the mounting plate, and see drawing herehttp://www.tcmaker.org/wiki/doku.php?id=projects:liquid_handler_conversion.

As always, there are pictures of the project on my google site: https://picasaweb.google.com/106721190439104214522/DIY3DPrinter?authuser=0&feat=directlink

John - 651-252-4142

Found a tool head on e-bay...it is in the mail.

Ok, thats exciting.. I better get my ass moving

So I heard the extruder may not be on the way?!?. What's the plan? It would be lovely to have this running for the faire. I was looking at building a wades with a somewhat generic hot end describe in the rep-pages mendel extruder section.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel_extruder#Thermal-barrier_and_nozzle

In the current Maker Bot able to print at all? Could we get it to print the Wades parts to go with the above nozzle?



http://reprap.org/wiki/Wade%27s_Geared_Extruder

It seems all we need that we may not have are a bunch of metric screws, some brass, nichrome wire, and perhaps some PEEK, (I've got PFTE)

Is anybody working on an extruder plan B. Do we need a plan B?

Pete

Seeing as we would like to get it up an running before the fair, I'm thinking about patching my old extruder together to get something going. I don't know where it stands far as a motor goes but I know that it's current mounting bracket will not fit.

I noticed that the http://store.makerbot.com/toolheads.htmlMk6 extruder is back in stock on the MakerBot.com website. I think it can use either the 3mm plastic filament that the CupCake uses or the newer 1.75mm stuff.

extreme precision is the name of the game.

go 1.75m

I finally got a tracking # but all it does is point to ebay. If you want to pick up the head from the makerbot store go right a head, i'm not going to stop you.