Late last year, I found this AR3 kit and immediately decided to buy it to myself as 60th anniversary gift. I haven’t had to regret the decision, as the fun has been and it will continue for a long time to come. In the beginning had to hunt for parts around the globe. Part I found nearest was that Teensy 3.5 controller which I found from my home town and I got it few hours from order. Other packages were shipped from USA, Canada, Ireland, China, UK, Netherlands, Finland etc. So I celebrated more than two months my birthday while waiting 🎁 to arrive.
First checked allways what I have got and only one small issue with XL15 pulley for J5. Spacer had flipped off and bended during shipping but easy to fix.
First real build stage was to print enclosure parts. Colours will be black and gold PETG and PLA. The old workhorse Prusa MK2S was given responsibility for printing. Few fails but got all done. I made little design change to enclosure. I divided bigger part to two pieces and streched enclosure and cap 20mm to get more free space inside. And AR3 decoration also added to top of the cap.
will be continued...
Indeed - received and ready to print. Kiitos !
It works if you change the extension of the file (for example here I change the extension for .stl to .txt
Great build Markku, I just started mine. I really like your jig to calibrate the position of J6 housing. Could you share the stl file ?
Small update. Got those missing set screws and now mechanical parts are assembled.
Now I'm waiting rainy days so I can start assembling with electrical stuff...
Those 3mm rods were interesting. Both needed little sanding to whole lenght of the rod and after that one had one thicker point and another had two thicker points which needed more work. In the picture below those thicker points are marked to rods and it needed several times to mark and sanding and to check to get rid of those thicker points and get bearings slide smoothly.
I added little light oil and the rods were ready to put in to the J5 carrier
Then it was time to repair the XL15 pulley which was damaged in shipping and was in the first picture of this build blog. First I tried to straighten the flange but no success. Then little modelling and 3D-printing result is below. My opinioin, better than original....
Once again I read the manual and desided to go ahead little diffrently. There is no reason why I can't build J5 arm part appart and attatach it later to J4 main part. All I have to do later when I attach J5 arm to J4 is to loose timing belt for a while so that set screw between J5 housing to J4 main tube can be tightened. Also plastic covers are coming later to the J5 arm.
Need to attach wired roller tip limit switch at this stage. It can't be done later.
For mechanical calibration purpose of the J6 housing I printed the part which is in the next picture. In the assembly there is that requirement 105 degree angle for the J6 housing. At the right end of the part ther is that 105 degree angleand it was easy to get parts aligned right with it.
Mechanical calibration of J6 housing
Below assempled J5 arm and J6 motor. Ready to connect with J4
But now in troubles.... in manual on page 148 it's said "Install M3x6 set screw red arrow) to secure J5 housing to J4 main tube" In plastic bag there is M3x6 set screw BUT the threads in the J4 main tube and the threads in J5 housing are M4...
There is still another set screw in plastic bag. M3x10. I checked where it will go. Page 204 in the manual gripper mount is secured to J6 saft with M4x10 set screw and I have M3x10
So I have screws that are the right length but the diameter is M3 and it should be M4.
Placed an order to local screw dealer....
will be continued.....
According to installation manual M4x10 screws should be used with J2 spindle. Looked so short for me and no reason why they can't be longer so I replaced original ones with M4x20 screws and got joint tightened without fear to break threads in aluminium.
Current stage in picture below. Electrical parts added so far are motors of course, roller tip limit switch on J2 turret housing which would have been difficult to put in place later and those RJ45 panel mount jacks in base enclosure. When I desided to make enclosure box 20mm wider in the beginning, I hadn't got those RJ45 panel mounts. When I got those I noticed that they are about 20mm longer than those in yhe part list in the manual. Lucky desision was that enclosure box streching.
will be continued...
J1 and J3 motors have key stocks which sould be removed. For me easiest way to to remove them was to use cutting pliers and bend the keys up.... few secods each. J3 in picture below.
For XL15 sprocket J1 motor, I replaced the set screw which goes to motor saft slot for a longer screw. The longer one has still space to turn around and it can be tightened better without fear to ruin threads in sprocket.
In stage below picture I read the assembly manual several times carefully and made decision to assemble all mechanical parts first and only include those electrical parts which are impossible to add later. In the end I'll see if that was good or bad decision....
will be continued...