A huge project, and steady progress

Happy Wednesday Everyone,

JST-XH parts are back in stock - Almost.

The encoder boards and wires are in stock now, the controller boards are in the mail and should be here tonight so I plan to get those tested, programmed, and in the store tomorrow.

Don’t forget that you can use code 8L311H1 for 50% off on those parts.

​​These controller boards are taking a little longer than expected because we asked the factory to x-ray inspect the solder joints since they have been having issues with getting the stepper driver chips to fully solder. They also tweaked the temperature profile and it seems like these are fully soldered, but we will of course test them.

Here is what the x-ray inspection looks like.

We haven’t gotten too much feedback from the folks who ordered in the first batch so we would love love love to hear your thoughts on them.

In our testing they are continuing to work great. Anna made a couple very neat flower pots this week and made a youtube shorts video about it:

Speaking of projects @Aaron_Cover put together this absolutely astounding DNA inspired installation art project this week which blew our minds. Truly some incredible work. Aaron will be the de facto winner of the project of this week because he posted the only project this week, but I think he would have won pretty much regardless of how many projects were posted because this is incredible work.

@Hughmama is the winner of last week’s project of the week with his phenomenal spiral staircase work.

Check out some pictures of @Aaron_Cover’s gorgeous work:

Long Term Plans-

Things have slowed down a little bit and we’ve been able to catch our breath after the year long sprint that was getting the kickstarter kits out and we have a chance to start thinking about the future.

We’ve been taking our time to learn and get feedback on what we can improve which has been incredibly helpful. There is no substitute for real world testing and Maslow4 has been going through a lot of it. 

We’ve made a ton of software progress, but now it feels like it’s almost time to start thinking about what we can improve on the hardware side.

Selling kits is important both to keep the project financially viable and also to keep the community involved and excited. At the same time we didn’t want to rush to keep sending machines out until we had a chance to learn from and address feedback from the first kits that went out into the world. 

We will of course offer all of the updated parts as affordably as possible and preferably first as an upgrade option to existing machines.

Here are the changes that I have in mind so far:

• -Replace RJ45 connectors to encoders with JST-XH - This has made a huge difference for us in testing to generally improve reliability and fix random issues with encoder connectivity

• Fix floating pin on encoder boards - Fixes the somewhat rare but significant issue of the encoders reading backwards. This is a freebie with the encoder board update.

• Replace hex bolts with star drive bolts to eliminate stripping - The hex drive just isn't the best drive option

Redesigned cooling fan plastic

• - Redesign cooling fan so that it can use the same length of bolt as everything else - This is more about it being annoying for us to have to include four bolts which are slightly longer in the kit

• Add upper and lower bearings to the idler gear - It seems like this idler gear is the biggest cause of some arms being stiffer than others, adding bearings will eliminate a wear point and improve consistency and reliability.

A 3D printed prototype with the added bearings

• Add updated belt guards to keep the belts out of the gears - This will be a new injection molded part, although the 3D printed version has been available as a free download for quite a while.

What else can we do to incrementally improve the design?

I’ve created a forums thread here to collect feedback and any and all ideas and discussions are welcome and appreciated! 

Have a great week everyone!

-Bar (Anna is out this week)