Currently Woodsmoke is about 80% of the way to well tuned. There was SF40 to thank for the large part of that. The other important step forward though, was installing an extrudate cooler near the hot end. Everyone will have seen the improvements to single walled boxes and followed suit by now, for anyone who hasn't I heartily recommend it. [Thingiverse:6173]. My own cooler is a 12v 50mm radial flow fan, liberated from an aging ATI graphics card. it's wired to the 12v laptop supply that powers Woodsmoke's Gen6 board. The fan currently runs unfettered by resistors and fairly subdues my heated build plate to a chilly 45C. The ungoverned flow is clearly more than is needed and the amount of curling I get on tall parts is substantial. So Woodsmoke's first printed upgrade will be a governable extrudate cooler. The cooler should chill the filament enough to ensure it will not continue to sag, creating inaccuracies that add up as new layers are laid down on top. At the same time it must not cool the filament too much. As the filament cools, it contracts. If the part cools unevenly it warps and will curl away from the heated build plate. The aim of this new design is to allow me to find the Goldilocks zone for chilling newly laid down filament.
Of course this kind of control could be achieved with a potentiometer. They didn't have any dimmers in the local hardware store and I don't imagine my parents would take too well to my liberatiion of the living room light switch in their absence. I have also become quite attached to the idea of uploading a new part to Thingiverse called: the_Governor.stl.
The First prototype, warm off the printing plates. Who doesn't enjoy the snap and crackle of PLA slowly separating from it's glass sheet? Already I am made aware of the need for improvements, like a square aperture for hot ends with aluminum resistor blocks and guide vanes for the Governor. Any more that you care to mention would be given good thought.
Woodsmoke
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