Month: March 2010

Here is the latest photo of my OverlapStrap I have made quite a lot of progress on the X axis Carriage. As you can see the basic idea is the same as the Z skates and Z rollers previously posted. Also mounted is the CrudeStruder. I feel like i am very close to getting things working, all the electronics all also ready they are just waiting to be connected up. I just need to re-inforce a few things, tweak a few other things, and hope that the whole thing comes together as planned.

The extruder head shown in my Previous Post was just a mock up.

My Dad has been busy making me the real parts on his mini lathe at work. Yesterday the parts arrived in the post.

He told me that to make this thing isn’t easy, he broke three 0.5mm drills in the process! The results however are fantastic, thanks for all your time on this Dad.

“Fixit blocks” are the bread and butter for Bodgeit’s Repstrap Bertha and my own OverlapStrap design. They are convenient little fixing blocks sold by:

• B&Q
• Wickes
• Screwfix
• Toolstation
• and more

Unfortunately for people living outside the UK these blocks seem to be difficult to source. I am afraid that I also don’t have a solution for people wanting to buy these blocks from a supplier in their own country. However I am willing to re-sell packs of blocks via ebay, and ship internationally so if anyone is interested drop me an email. It seemed to me that also no one has drawn accurate drawings of these blocks for anyone who was interested in making their own. So here are the drawings below

The drawing is also available here as a DXF file.

Also for anyone trying to source these in other countries, here are some potentially useful search terms:
Modesty Block
Jointing Blocks
Knock Down Block
Knock Down Fittings
Fixit Block
Fixing Block
Cabinet Fixing Block
Viereck Möbelverbinder – German for: Quadrilateral Furniture Connector
Cupboard Connector Block

There is also something very similar, but not quite the same in the USA. I think in the USA they might be known as ‘Knock Down’ fittings/connectors.

Sometimes you think you have come up with a simple design, but when you come to real-ise that design it turns out to be much harder than you imagined to make.

So I went back to the drawing board, and came up with something even simpler. This is what I have come up with, the crudestruder.

There is nothing really innovative about this design, its just a piece of MDF with mounting holes for a NEMA 17 and some 15mm copper pipe clips to hold on the thermal barrier. I used another short piece of 16mm PTFE rod with a 4.0mm hole to act as a filament guide. The pinch-wheel is just one of the standard mendel m4 bearings, and is held using a flange of aluminium that I cut off of my original stock of aluminium angle. This pinch wheel mount is held using the same m3 bolts that hold the NEMA in place. The top hole of the mount was cut into a slot to allow minor adjustment. I use a conrad electronics splined model car insert to provide grip on the drive shaft.