During this leg of the Cupcake-building journey, Sara and I assembled three “stages” to fit into our frame, which move on pulleys and control the printing orientation along three axis.

The first step was the “Z axis” stage, which we dived right into by… oiling threaded rods.  Let me tell you, THAT is a lot of fun.  It involved paper towels, fingernails, five to ten minutes of learning how to use an electric drill, and some electrical tape.  I’m sure it was worth it and will make the Z-stage run smoothly, though!

The rest of the Z stage was pretty fun.  After we got the pulleys attached to the top of the frame, and lined up the four rods (see:  Fun With Rulers), we started to get a sense of how the machine would work when the motors were running.  And by that I mean we twisted the turn-y thing and giggled as the stage moved up and down.  /cough

Z Stage:

The Y stage was a lot… well, cuter.  It basically looks like a little car- the neat part here is a band with notches in it that is clamped between two pieces of wood on the underside.  It keeps the band solidly in place, and the notches fit into a grating pattern cut into the wood:  easier than gluing, and more reliable, seems like.  Of course, the next instructions were “hot glue these little black bits into these holes here”, so I suppose it isn’t obsolete just yet.

Pictures of the Y-Stage:

And in reverse alphabetical order, the X stage!  This one was bigger than the Y, and actually served as a carriage for it.  The tiny Y-stage assembly fit into the top of the X stage.  From pictures you can probably see how rods were pushed through the black bits in the Y-stage:  those attached to either end of the X-stage, letting it move forward and back, with the help of a pulley.  You can also see the stepper motor mounted to the bottom of the X-stage, and then attached to the pulley system.   Here are some final pictures!