See, that’s why I printed a Prusa sign, benchy and then the core after getting my printer. Just to get it over with. 
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Nothing much to report. I’ve had work and family stuff going on. So this project will slow down for a bit until I build the bench and order the parts from @vicious1.
My priority right now is to get my Harley back on the road. It’s been sitting a few years due to some personal stuff. So getting out and riding is a top priority.
After that, I’ll be building the workbench for the MPCNC and ordering the parts. While I wait for parts I expect to put the MPCNC together minus the motors and wiring. Then do the wiring once the motor and parts come in.
It’s a bit frustrating as I have the box of parts and the box of hardware sitting behind me desk here (and I work from home).
I tried that plan, didn’t work real well, you can get all the bearings in and feet in place. But you can’t even get the outside rails securely mounted until after you put the trucks on them and you can’t put the trucks on until the motors are on the trucks. And of course you need to have trucks put on before the gantry rails and core…
In the end I worked on it for about 4 hours then I had to wait for my motors.
In other words motors and hardware will limit how for you can get it assembled. Wiring can be done after though.
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@Atom I was afraid of that.
I guess I will see how the budget goes the next few weeks.
But it sounds like I’ll need to order my parts soon to keep making progress!
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Well nothing much to report this week.
I did order a package of Dupont connectors. I still need a decent crimp tool. (I hate the one I have).
Otherwise still saving up my pennies to place my order. Hopefully the penny jar will have what I need in a week or two.
The dupont crimpers are all kind of terrible. I made a video on how I do it, and there were a lot of tips in the thread:
Of course, I am sure the legit ones work great, and cost $1000.
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@jeffeb3 there is no way I’m spending $1000 on a tool I use a few times a month. If I were running my IT company and we were using them every day and had paying customers relying on the crimps then I’d get a pair. But the reality is I need the crimps to be good enough to be reliable and work when the MPCNC is used. So I’ll check out your video and order a pair of the ones you link to when I get a few more pennies saved 
I agree. I have no idea how they justify prices like that. But all the official crimp tools are crazy expensive.
Even working in a lab for an engineering company, we have to think carefully about it. It takes a lot of crimps to reach $1000 if we can make a crimp the hard way in 20s. Even if you are a software engineer making cables.
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@jeffeb3 software engineer making cables. Now that is funny. I worked in a place where we supported all of the IT operations. We had techs making all sorts of cables. Mostly Cat 5 patch cables. It was a nightmare. Once they found out you were good at it no matter what else you were doing or who you were, you got tons of requests to make them. So being a senior engineer than a PM, I acted dumb. I didn’t tell anyone I could actually make them better than any of our techs
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Due to some bad project management, or maybe some agile scheduling, I ended up making cables for a few weeks as a junior software engineer. It really made me appreciate the work our techs did for us and I learned a lot of good techniques. But those were some of the most expensive cables we’ve made (not just because I was paid well, but because I was bad at it and I took a long time).
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I fully understand. I’ve done many menial jobs. I’ve always told my folks that they’re no better than the security guard, the janitor or anyone else so be kind to everyone. And if we didn’t have those folks they’d be cleaning out their own trash and wouldn’t be in a secure facility nor will they be able to get into places when they need to.
Having worked in a manufacturing industry that used such tools(and tested them to decide what to get). I can tell you how places afford them… they are free. If you buy 300000 of whatever ends are used. (So buy 300000 dupont plugs with a plan to use another 300000 a year) and they just give you a few of those tools for free.
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Considering the plugs I buy are probably also not legit, that’s probably going to be tough.
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So I have an Ender 3 Pro and have hated the bed springs since the beginning. I finally broke down and ordered the upgrade springs last week. They weren’t suppose to arrive until Friday, but showed up in the mail yesterday. I’m blown away at the difference in print quality that they make.
So I printed a jig to drill the Festool style clamping system holes in the soil board. I’m thrilled at how they came out!
I think I’m going to cut the tubing now!
So I spent some time today cleaning up my shop. One thing that was driving me nuts was not being able to find my label maker. Well after some cleaning and such I FOUND IT.
I also found batteries for it!
Now my shop isn’t what I’d call “clean”. But I have been working on organizing it, and it’s really coming along. So the batteries were EXACTLY where they were suppose to be!
The reason the label maker was so important was I built a rack to hold my HF small parts organizers. I build a variation of the Adam Savage inspired racks folks are building.
What’s cool is all of my misc nuts, bolts, screws, nails, etc all are getting homes. And labeling where they go is SO NICE.
Of course I ran out of label tape but it’s ok. It gave me time to reflect on how far I’ve come and how I love how the space is evolving. It also helped me see how I could fit in the MPCNC and how I should design the bench for it!
So another small step in journey. And while it’s not direct progress on the MPCNC it is in the big picture!
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No new updates.
I’m planning on possibly getting the material to get the wood to build a table for the MPCNC this weekend.
I also need to find my grinder with the cutting disk. I can only find the one with the flap wheel and can’t find the thin cutting discs. So I’m not sure why two of three are hiding. I guess that’s the next part of cleaning up!
So once I find the missing grinders or some cut off discs I’ll cut the piping! And once I get the material I’ll build the table. pics to come of both
So my frustration with black filament has been well documented above. What I didn’t share is that my first core print came apart. I"m not sure why. But there was separation between a few layers, and I dropped it and it broke in half.
I made another attempt and 8 hours in the printer kept going but was printing blank lines. I’m not sure what was going on as any other color works fine. There was no clog and changing filament with the same settings, same brand, etc resulted in beautiful prints.
So I was going to just give up and oder a core from Ryan. But I figured since I had some white filament in and it worked on other prints I’d give it a try. Well guess what? It printed a core that seems fine! Go figure.
While I’d like to have a pretty MPCNC all color matched and all the reality is that this is a tool that will get dirty and be used. So I’m not too worry about it right now. Worse case, I load some blue filament and make it match the A parts if it starts to bother me, or I order a core.
Until then, I’m just going to go with the white core. I also have some white cable chain that doesn’t match anything on my Ender 3 Pro so I’ll probably use them two. Who knows maybe I’ll start a trend
Below is a pic of the completed core “hot off the press” I mean the printer
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I just went out to the mailbox and in it this arrived!
So now I have connectors. I still need to get a crimp tool, and order the rest of the wiring, electronics, motors, etc.
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Spray paint.