Unboxing Day

Remember in my last post when I so hopefully said it would be "later today" when we met up, opened the box from Misumi, and divvied up the goodies?  Well, that was before my wacky work schedule and Tony's even wackier work schedule came into play.

So... on the afternoon of Saturday, 08 June 2013 the stars did finally align and I found myself at Tony's place to open the box.

Now, before we go much further here, I must apologize for my lack of skill with a camera.  Some of the photos to follow are a bit blurry.  Hopefully (there's that word again), as we go forward, my ability with the camera will improve.

This is a shot of Tony's Prusa Mendel printer, showing how he uses a plain bed covered with blue painter's tape as a substrate for his printed items.  The can of hairspray in the background is used as a sort of "tacking agent" to help the first layer stay flat on the bed.  The extra extruder gears are early rejects his daughter (she's two and cute as she can be) attached to various random points.  The little grey figure at left atop the left-hand Z Axis leadscrew dances around as the printer operates, much to her delight.

Next we see a shot of the box from Misumi just prior to opening.  I was surprised by how small the package was.

  

 

 That's a laptop in the background with about a 17" display, just for reference.

As can be seen here, Misumi sure packed the box with plenty of protection.  I was really impressed with the care and precision with which this shipment was put together.

With the big wad o' plastic removed, we can see the extrusion pieces neatly wrapped together with stretch wrap.  These folks weren't taking any chances.  Note also the bubble-wrap in the bottom.

  

There was this awful feeling I'd had for the two weeks since the box arrived that maybe I'd gotten the part number wrong and the extrusions would arrive without the center hole shown in the CAD drawing.  I'm glad to report those fears were totally unfounded.  The center hole goes the entire length of the extrusion, making tapping it for M5 a whole lot easier.

 

Finally, here's a shot of the Sanguinololu controller at the heart of Tony's Prusa.  We will likely be using this same setup on both our MendelMax builds, as it is very well integrated, inexpensive, and has proven to be quite reliable so far in service on the Prusa.

It's going to take me a while to finish up on the Master BOM, and it's beginning to look as though McMaster-Carr will get the order for fasteners when I'm done.

I'll also be ordering the spiral point M5 tap and tap handle from them, so once the order is received the real fun of the build will commence.  Now, where'd I put my try square and level? 

Next time, we will be covering the assembly of the lower frame elements.