Quantum ORD Bot

I got another 3D printer. Although really, given how much I love those machines, it was only a matter of time. But this one is different. This is the new hotness in 3D printers, the Quantum ORD Bot.

It’s small, cute, and and neat. It’s made of makerslide, which is an aluminum extrusion with v-rails on it. When combined with v-wheels, it’s pretty much instant linear bearing. And like anything made of linear bearing, it’s rigid and smooth, and that combination leads to fast.

I got my hands on this one for beta testing, and it wasn’t long before I took the nice clean aesthetic and draped it in tangled masses of wires.

I started with a heated build platform. I took this one off my cupcake, because the ORD bot prints with ABS and ABS doesn’t work without a heated bed.

With the addition of the heated bed and a thermocouple amplifier for the extruder, my RAMPS board quickly got all messy. But hey, it’s still pretty dang neat.

But the proof is in the results, so let’s skip to those.

This herringbone gear was one of the first things I printed. At this point, I had a poorly aligned z-screw, which was causing a ripple in the z-axis. But the print quality was still miles better than what my cupcake had to offer, so I pressed on.

Here’s a heart gear. It’s a very complex profile, and it printed almost flawlessly. I’m happy.

And here’s a quick video of an early print, printing more heart gears.

I will be bringing the ORD Bot to CNC night at Pumping Station:One (Chicago’s hackerspace) on the 14th.

I got another 3D printer. Although really, given how much I love those machines, it was only a matter of time. But this one is different. This is the new...