PseudoBot Filament Extruder by unotre

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Inspired by http://www.extrusionbot.com
Auger barrel is 1" OD x .875" ID seamless 304 SS tubing and was single-point threaded on the bottom end. It, and the SS feed tube, were cupped with a 1" endmill @ 30 deg and welded together. The auger is a 7/8" "Jennings Pattern" screw bit, and its shank had to be trued and turned down on a lathe to 8mm to fit into an 8mm shaft collar and 8mm ball bearing. A thrust bearing stacked on top of the shat collar pushes against an aluminum plug that's been pinned to the auger barrel with a 5-40 screw. On the top end of the alu plug is a counter-bore to press fit the 8mm bearing into. On the bottom threaded portion of the barrel, an aluminum heat sink/hot-end with an internal 30 degree taper terminating to a 7/16-14 thread, screws on, and the brass extruder nozzle screws into the 7/16-14 thread. The heatsink is heated with a 1" 250w band heater. For the thermocouple, a 1/16" hole was drilled into the heatsink adjacent to the 7/16-14 thread and between where the band heater splits
Motor is the "BetaMotor" featured on filastruder.com. It was fastened to 4" x 1/4" aluminum angle with one leg milled down to 3", and the angle fastened to a 1/4" x 2" aluminum bar. The betamotor came with a square drive shaft, so I replaced the shaft with a 1/2" rod turned down to 3/8" on the drive end to fit into a 3/8" Lovejoy equipped w/ bronze spider.
The power supply for the motor (externally mounted on the left side) was a ~$25 12vdc10A LED power supply off Amazon.
Housing dimensions: 6.5" width x 5" depth x 10" height.
I used a rotabroach to cut the 1" and 1.25" holes in what were to be the top and bottom before I bent it on a magnabend. All other holes, the PID, and window cut-outs were drilled or nipped after bending. After bending, the auger/motor brace assembly w/ spacers added was put into place, and the spacers were then traced around with a pencil to map where the housing mount holes should be. Six 1" pieces of 1/2"x1/8" angle were riveted to the rear housing to serve as attachment points for the front half of the housing.