Interlude and Z Stage

This is what we saw while driving along the coast this week.

Elephant seals!

Lazy elephant seals. Don't mess with them though--they grow up to 16 ft (5 m) in length!

Fear the mighty elephant seals! They make a sound like a backed up sink but even scarier.

 This is how close we got to them.

And today we worked on the Z Stage of the Thing-O-Matic. This part has two self-aligning bearings for the two steel rods that allow the build platform to move up and down. At the top center you can see the threaded Z motor flange for the step motor.

This part was very easy to assemble but it took me over an hour because I thought the Z motor flange was missing. I double-checked and triple-checked all the parts bags and boxes before starting to write an email to MakerBot Industries. As I was writing the email I had to check on which model step motor we had and that's when I discovered that they had screwed the flange on the motor's threaded shaft. I guess that seems logical...now.

Tomorrow we begin working on the Stepstruder, which is the part that 'draws' the 3D objects.

- Sgt M.