Makerbot fixing Pt1:
The Breakerbot was broken again (surprise surprise). I managed to fix it in 2 hours, for $4 with only local materials. Here's the rundown:
The issue was that the filament was melting in the extruder tube above the heatsink, just below the hobbed pulley. This allowed it to expand to the point where it couldn't be pushed into the tube. Eet was two big. Ryan pulled it apart for me to put back together.
Here's what I found:
The fan that cools the heatsink which in turn cools the aluminum cooling block; was missing some fins. How'd the fins get borked? I dunno but the were definitely borked.
So I realized after some research that 24V 40mm * 10mm fans aren't that common in local computer shops. Although they do carry the 12V version.
So how do you make a 12V fan work in place of a 24V fan? Easy! You replace what's borked! The fan blades were the issue here, so that's what i fixed. I removed the rotor portion of both fans:
Borked:
12V:
I had to remove the plastic snap-ring from the 12V fan to remove the rotor. You can see it in the bottom right of the last pic.
I then installed the new rotor in the 24V stator.
The rotors are stunningly identical, all the way down to the small bronze bushing that keeps it running true. The only difference is in the coil windings of the brush-less motor.
I re-assembled the extruder and added some washers so that the fan wouldn't be crushed. Surprise, it all worked!
I tested the extruder before bolting it back on the machine. Far too many times I've re-assembled something thinking it would would work without actually seeing it work.
Now it works again so I can print out some X-mas gifts.
