I have assembled Mendel using Generation 6 electronics board which is a bit different from others as it has many small surface mount components which makes it a treat to work with. The assembly part was rather simple as I just need to follow the instructions given on an open source domain [http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel]. Here is a picture of the Mendel without the extruder.
The next step was the assembly of the extruder which was done with ease. The important thing here is that the thermistor and the resistor should be firmly placed inside the block otherwise the extruder will not be heating up as required and the temperature reading would also not be exact. Here is Mendel with the extruder.
The connections for the heater should be perfect as the heated print-bed is one of the most important aspects when it comes to good printing. If the print-bed is not heated up well, the material will not stick and the object to be printed will be a mess. The temperatures of the print-bed and the extruder are very important for good printing and should be carefully monitored. Here are some objects that I printed.
The problem occurred when I was not sure as to what temperature the print-bed and the extruder should have. I had to take some test prints in order to see the optimum temperatures. I found that temperatures ranging from 70-75 degree Celsius were really good for the print-bed and the extruder could go up to 210 degree Celsius as after that temperature, the material that I was using started melting and coming out of the extruder before the start of the printing. Here are some good prints.
The ones at the left side are the initial prints, when I was not quite sure about the temperature and its effects. The one at the extreme right is printed after careful adjustments to the feed rate of the extruder, temperature of the extruder and the print-bed. It can be seen that the result is pretty good.
