[sudo-discuss] 3d printer solder paste dispensing at sudoroom using rpt2paste

[Jake]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2018, Morgan Allen wrote:

> I just kept it to myself, stencils are better.
> Also, did you sacrifice the 3d printer to accomplish this?

no the 3D printer is fine.  i also tested the hot end and it's working fine.
the solder paste solenoid plugs in instead of the hot end so it may need to be
swapped but that's easy.  the solder paste syringe holder doesn't interfere
with printing.

curious why you say stencils are better when you've never used a 3D printer to
dispense solder paste.

-jake

> On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 6:47 PM Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
>
>> seriously no one had anything to say about any of this?
>>
>> On Wed, 5 Dec 2018, Jake wrote:
>>
>>> last night at sudoroom i did some things to get solder paste flowing
>> from the
>>> TAZ 3 3d printer.
>>>
>>> i brought in a compact air compressor and adjusted its power switch to
>> click
>>> off around 100 PSI (since it was failing to reach its design pressure in
>> a
>>> reasonable amount of time and we only need like 40-50PSI for solder
>> paste)
>>>
>>> i'm not sure if it's still working because it cut out apparently due to
>> heat
>>> the last time i was running it, but possibly just because of duty
>> cycle.  It
>>> needs a fitting installed into the outlet to plumb it to the solenoid.
>>> Fittings are in the box behind the printer and there's teflon tape in the
>>> "tape" box on the shelves in sudoroom.
>>>
>>> i installed a three-port solenoid on the 3d printer which plugs in
>> instead of
>>> the extruder resistor / temperature sensor.  It contains a 47KΩ resistor
>> to
>>> simulate a thermistor (to avoid a fault code) and it wires the nozzle
>> heater
>>> wires to the three-port solenoid (which is rated at 24VDC matching the
>>> printer's power supply)
>>>
>>> I piped the 3-port solenoid to a syringe and mounted a syringe holder on
>> the
>>> print head assembly in a reasonable place.  A syringe of solder paste is
>> in
>>> the
>>> sudoroom fridge and can be used.  Needles of various sizes are in the
>>> cardboard
>>> box behind the 3d printer.
>>>
>>> the air compressor's outlet needs to be plumbed to the flexible black
>> hose
>>> going to the 3-port solenoid.  The solenoid needs to be mounted to the
>> print
>>> head (a twist-tie should work).
>>>
>>> unfortunately the 3D printer's firmware seems to be cycling power to the
>>> nozzle
>>> resistor when a temperature is selected, probably because of PID
>> parameters,
>>> so
>>> we will have to look for a set of commands (or modified firmware) to
>> activate
>>> the solenoid properly during the dispensing process.  This printer
>> doesn't
>>> seem
>>> to have wires for a print head fan, which is how we connected the
>> solenoid in
>>> past implementations of this setup.  There will need to be a script or
>>> modification to rpt2pnp to issue the right commands for this setup.
>>>
>>> as a reminder the software for creating g-code to dispense solder paste
>> from
>>> the .rpt file output of a KiCAD circuitboard project is here:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/hzeller/rpt2paste
>>>
>>> note that it's superseded by
>>>
>>> https://github.com/hzeller/rpt2pnp
>>>
>>> which may be newer.  the latter was confirmed to (apparently) correctly
>>> process
>>> the .rpt file from the project we'll likely dispense solder paste onto
>> first:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/fitzdoingprojects/big_battery
>>>
>>> i'll be gone for two weeks but if anyone wants to make progress on this
>>> project
>>> please write back and i'll help as much as i can.
>>>
>>> -jake_______________________________________________
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>