Another improvement

As you might remember, I have a prusa i3 on loan, and had an issue with the cables to the servos breaking due to the movement of the axis. You can read all about it here.

Consequently, when building the Blocks Zero printer, I payed particular attention to the routing of the cables, and securing them such as to avoid excessive stress at the most fragile point, i.e. where it enters the connector. The problem is that the movement induces fatigue at the point the cable joins the connector pins.

It doesn't appear to be such a big problem in the Blocks Zero, as only one servo moves, and moves along with the Z axis, making it not too mobile. Still, I decided to make a jacket for it, to hold the cable slightly above the connector, to maintain the cable/connector connection free of movement.

This is the result:

Again, the printer is so accurate that I first printed a part with an extra 0,5mm tolerance, and it was too loose. I ended up printing one with the exact 42mm.

As usual, the models can be found at the warehouse.

Blocks Zero 3D printer

A few months back I ordered a Blocks Zero 3D printer in kit. It appeared to be a nice printer, made in Portugal!

Received it and finally had the opportunity to assemble it after the holidays.

What a great little printer it is! Great build quality, great assembly instructions, and everything worked right out of the box!

Go check it out! and if you need a small printer - it will only print 12x14x12cm in PLA - I think it is a great contender!

I ordered a heating plate to install a warm bed to be able to print ABS, but I'm not sure I'll install it. At least not now. It just runs so well and produces such nice parts that I'm not sure I want to change it.

If you do assemble one, be sure to check the additional assembly instructions at their website, which I wasn't aware until after I figured out how to assemble those extra parts.

Here are some pictures of the final product.

Once I finished assembly, I wasn't very happy with the black display being left there in the hole, so I designed and printed a little frame for it, which I think really ties the whole thing together. And the precision on the printer is so good, that it fit right in. It's a tight fit! It was a bit difficult to take it out from the base plate, and it broke a tiny bit, which I glued back in place. Might print another one soon.

The files can be found here on the google warehouse.

I would advise to remove the display for installing the frame.