Machining PLA from my RepRap

I've got a Taz 2.1 from Lulzbot. It's tons of fun, but I had really hoped I'd find some joy in the ability to use it for rapid prototyping. I've done some minor stuff with it, but this weekend I finally got to build a thing which I designed that was not trivial.

One of the final pieces being printed

I also took all the scraps and did some ad hoc materials testing. A 6mm standoff will take a 1/16" drill bit just fine, and then the resulting hole will hold an M3 screw pretty well.

On larger flat surfaces, drilling was also easy, though with a larger bit and too much force, layer separation can occur. Being able to get in 0.1mm tolerances is pretty impressive.

Layer Separation, and a screw hole

Super glue works surprisingly well on unsanded PLA, but I can't get my corners to stay down perfectly

More Separation, More Screws.

I haven't tried cutting it yet, I assume that a very fine blade is going to be the most useful.


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Issac Kelly