Disassembling for assembling (Week 2)

 Disassembling for assembling

This week, we disassembled CD drives to get the necessary parts to assemble the 3D printer next week. Devin used this video as reference to take apart the drives. The goal of this was to take advantage of the components of the CD drives and turn it into a CNC machine. This computerized numerical control machine plays a crucial role to make the 3D printer functional. CNC is a method to allow computers to automate machines. In this case, a computer would automate the sliding of the CD drive platform back a forth in one axis.

In our case, we disassembled three CD drives to get three CNC machines. By utilizing three machines, we are able access the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis. This is the basis in 3D printing.



Here, we are using the casing of the drives to make the sides of the printer. This would allow us to set in the CNC machines to their correct positions to create the necessary axis movement.
To the right, we finished setting in the machine responsible for controlling the y-axis. The wall perpendicular to the platform would control both the x-axis and z-axis.

There will be a platform on top of the y-axis machine. This would be the printing deck for our completed printer.

Now the machines are ready to be soldered with wires that would be connected to a computer. We are planning on using an Arduino that would control the movement of the machines in regards to the CADs we are printing out.

Our goal for next week:

We want the crucial physical parts of the printer done so we can go into coding the program that would move the CNC machines in the right place. One of the biggest foreseeable challenge is that we are going to learn a whole new language for the Arduino, so we want as much as a head start in that task as possible. 

Another interesting thing we want to do is to etch or customize the casings to make it more unique to us as a group and to Drexel.