Heat wings are the next important parts of this project. You need to assemble them properly into the silicone extruder. Before we start our assembly let's take a look at our shopping list for this section.
Shopping list
- LCD shield
- Connectors
- Headers
- Motor driver
- Relay
- Arduino uno
- Heater
- Fan
- Thermistor
- Power Supply
- Potentiometer
- Resistor
- Knob
- Power cord: Simple power cord to connect power supply into wall.
Heater Wings Assembly
For the heater wings, you need to first manufacture the aluminum (6061) heater blocks. As they seen in the steps down below. You can put an order from this link: https://www.3dhubs.com/manufacture/?technology=cnc-machining&material=aluminum (or any of the preferences that you have for the manufacturing)
Technical drawings of the heater wings can be found in the attachments of this page named as "heater _wings.zip"
Let's dive into our steps and start assembling the heat wings and connect them into our extruder.
- Step 1 & 2: Assemble the fan, aluminum heat block and the silicone seal. (you will need to use M3 screws and you can recreate the silicone seals with dragon skin material in rectangular shapes as seen in step1 and 2.
- Step 2.1: Prepare the silicone seal by using the attahed mold "silicone seal mold" (you will need to 3d print the mold with PLA material). After printing the mold use eco flex or dragon skin medium 10 (silicone materials) to fabricate it. Pour the mixed silicone into the mold after you use ease release spray. And it will be ready.
- Step 3: Assemble the second heater wing.
- Step 4 & 5: Get the ceramic heaters and connect them into the big holes inside the aluminum heater blocks. Don't forget to open a setscrew hole because technical drawing don't have them.
- Step 6 & 7: Get the thermistors and connect them into small holes located on the sides of the aluminum heater blocks and by using the zip ties stabilze them in place and organize the cable flow.
- Step 8 & 9: Assemble the heater wings into the green arms of the silicone extruder. You will need to use long M3 screws at this point (45 cm long) and you will need to fasten them with wing nuts.
- Step 10: Organize the cables and stabilize them. So that at the time of the print they don't get into our way.
Heater Wings Controller
After arranging the heat wings assembly it is time to setup its controller. At this step we are assuming that you know how to code arduino and connect the arduino shields and circutis together. Based on that assumption here is your circuit map.
For proper installation of the cables please follow the circuit map to not get lost. The map is also color coded so be careful. After you completed your circuit assembly you will need to upload this code into your heater controller (Arduino). Use arduino software to upload it. Before you operate the heater make sure that input numbers are macthing the parameters in the code so that the system will be functional.
You can download the arduino source code attached to end of this page as "heater_control.zip"
Down below you can see my circuit setup in real life and how I stabilize everything on top of an acrylic piece.
It is very easy to implement and since you have the circuit map, it will be straight forward. Don't forget to use the correct pin numbers and read the arduino code that I provide and understand what it does. So that you will have the knowledge to change things. Also when the controller become operational you will see a menu option. In that option if you press down you will get into fan controllers and if you press up you will get into wing temperature controllers. It is very simple to use with the knobs. Just rotate the knobs left or right to increase or decrease the values such as fun speed and wing temperature.
 | heater_wings.zip | 75 KB |
| heater_control.zip | 2 KB |
| silicone_seal_mold.zip | 1 KB |