The replacement stepper motor board has been installed. As expected, that immediately solved the Y-stage movement problems. Now, it's time for an extrusion test!So, I go to the control panel in ReplicatorG. Put the temperature up to 220C. The power relays have an audible "click" as they engage, then turn off as temperature is reached. There's also a graph so temperature progress can be seen. It takes around 5 minutes to achieve temperature. The first heat, as expected, vaporized the oil coated parts and that produced a smoking effect. It doesn't last too long but I managed to get a quick photo of it. I then verified by thermocouple that the thermistor was working properly. I noticed my thermistor reading was 2 degrees lower than the thermocouple. Close enough!
Once my reading was done, I manually fed a section of ABS feedstock through the extruder. That worked well. However, tightening down the pinch head so the motor could force plastic through didn't work so well. I suspect my guess on the position of the gripper wheel was a little off. So, ill need to let the unit cool down and take it apart later. Once it's apart, I suspect I'll only need to loosen the hex pin, then push the gripper wheel on the drive shaft a tad bit more towards the motor so the grabby section of the wheel can grip the feedstock better. Ah, problems. Just gotta keep in mind that big journeys are completed with lots of little steps and some of them may be backwards!
