Choosing a heater

(Backdated: Oct 24, 2016)

I started this sprint out strong with some research into heaters. Basically, we saw two different options for heating up the barrel of our extruder: ceramic heating elements or a coil of nichrome wire.

Heater coil experimentation

(Backdated: Nov. 8, 2016)

For some experimental validation, I made a preliminary heater coil out of 1 foot of nichrome wire and heated it up with a lab power supply. In order to handle the higher current that this application would require, I assembled…

Getting Started with Raspi

(Backdated: Nov. 11, 2016)

Using a Raspberry Pi can be incredibly unintuitive if you have no previous experience with it. In all my researching, I never found anything that definitively told me how exactly I should set up my Raspi, or what to expect. In…

Playing with Motors

(Backdated: Oct. 25, 2016)

The goal of this experimentation was to try driving a motor that ran on 12 volts DC with an Arduino (at 5V) by low-side driving it with a large power FET. I scavenged around for motors for a few days in various stockrooms, and I settled on a…

Deciding on Firmware

How does one design a user interface which connects to the electrical system for a filament recycler? Well, first they decide what firmware to use that can handle both an electrical system and running a GUI.

Mechanical Photos

As a supplement to the mechanical page, we provide photos of important mechanical features.

Researching Sensors

(Backdated: Oct. 18, 2016)

We’re just getting started, and I have made it my mission to hash out what our software system would look like. I want to make it easy for whoever was using our system to understand exactly what is going on at all times. For instance, if the…