Pen Holder for Prusa

Having got the software to work the next job was to print a Pen Holder, I chose the Mendel Pen Holder on Thingiverse.com.

I needed to modify it a bit. I have a Greg Frost LM8UU based X-Carriage and the holder as printed did not fit through the mounting hole. So I turned it 90 degrees, drilled new mounting holes in the top and trimmed the sides. It fitted.

Then having taken off my extruder and fitted it to the carriage I ran into some problems.

The distance from the pen tip to the X-Carriage support bars is very small. When the pen is at X0 it:

1) Ran into my Z-Axis stabilisers.
2) Stretched the wires for the Z-Endstop.
3) When printing the pen is so close to the board that it is very difficult to see what is going on.

So I took off my stabilisers, and move the electronics so the wires were not so taut.

Then I did a test print of an expansion board I am working on for my Gen6 electronics.

The test print worked, i.e. Ink was put on the board in the correct places, but the board was a disaster, but not because of the pen holder. :(

When I drew the board I used the standard Eagle router and DRC files. With the pen I had that meant the wires were too close and overlapped.

New tasks:

a) Redesign the board to use thicker wires that do not pass between the pins.
b) Redesign the pen holder to move the tip of the pen down more.

More post on this subject to follow :)