The Dome re-visited

[Cyber_One]

After the disappointing discovery that my old 3D printer was printing things 1-2% smaller than it should have been, which resulted in the entire dome being re-printed.
I started with the spider like UpperPie parts using the 2 piece print for that.  It fits on the bed diagonally, just.
Then I proceeded with the rest of the dome printing Dome1 then Dome1top.
With the first dome I tried the pie and panel hinges created by Helmet studio, while it sort of worked, it did have a lot of parts and was difficult to setup, on the first dome, I had two pie segments with the hinge installed, but had not yet installed the servo or the linkages.  For this dome, I thought I would try a different approach, Looking on the forum, Martyman, had what looked like a very nice setup with files on Thingverse.  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2797760
Then I found a post by MrBaddeley in the forum with pictures and a link to what looked like an even easier setup, so I down loaded the files from Thingverse.  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2746177
Once downloaded I sliced this up and printed it out.
What was really good was an Alignment_Jig that you print out that then aligns the servo mount and hinge point in just the right position.  What could be easier?
I welded the Dome1 and Dome1Top parts together and since there is enough of the pieTop mount points, I mounted the pie_hinge_pivot




With this first section looking so good and fitting so well, I continued with the printing and welded together the two UpperPie piece.
 As the Dome2 parts came off the printer I bolted then to the first parts and did a test fit of the UpperPie pice.


This is starting to look good, Let the printing continue J


After about a week of printing with most, not yet all the parts printed and some parts welded together, the test fit look like this.

 
Things were going so well.   Then disaster struck…. L
The 3D Pen I use for the PLA welding stopped working.
Ohh Nooooo. What now.
Let’s have a look inside the 3D Pen.


What’s interesting about this pen is that it’s a Bowden style feed, and the hot  end is a small module that plugs in.  Looking at the right hand lower side you can just see where a button lifted from the board.
I had a go at trying to re-solder it to the board, but I get Err on the screen now.
These 3D Pens are so cheap now; I ordered a new Version 2 of this pen from BangGood for only AUD$27 including shipping.  Now for the 1-4 week wait for it to turn up.

I could go back to the TIG style of plastic welding, I’ve done it before I go the 3D Pen.
Time to make a video J

With a bit of luck, the next blog will be finishing off the Dome.