Pika Hotends:
Bambu Pikas have begun shipping and we are fulfilling them as quickly as we can. We are still making some of the parts (heatsinks) to fulfill all orders (like right now!). We expect those parts (including for U1) be completed by May 29th, and finish full outstanding Pika fulfillment by June 12th.
Not all heatsinks need to be done at once for continued assembly, we are tumbling and cleaning them in-house, and will continue to add them to the assembly tables as they are made!
We have also designed really cool 3d printed assembly fixtures, which have been speeding up our steps as we perfect them. They help prevent hands from becoming quite as tired from holding parts, and have been an excellent aid in assembly.
Chube Compact Hotends:
As requested, I have put together a roadmap for you all!
If you scroll to the bottom, there is also a Q&A section.
Luke also made a video for you to listen to/watch.
So:
The next step for Chube Compact is to make the heatsinks. We will machine these right after we are done machining remaining Pika heatsinks.
All of the needed aluminum is on hand, and Luke will be making these right after he is done machining the Pika ones. We are making these next, because the machine is already set-up for machining aluminum. It makes the most sense to run all of one material type at once, because swapping tooling for different materials is very time-consuming.
The below heatsink was already made in-house!
Luke doesn’t have a hand in assembly, so I (Audrina) as well as some of our other staff, will continue assembling Pika units while Chube Compact parts are being machined!
Shields
The stainless steel shields are done being made and tumbled! We first tumble them in order to deburr, and then tumble them in a fine material in order to “beautify” them visually. Once we are satisfied with their finish, we bend them with our arbor press with a printed die. See, we do 3d print!
Compact Parts Already Made/Acquired:
- Many Chalice Heatbreaks
- Heaters
- PT1000s
- Stainless Steel Shields
- Silicone Socks
- Compact Labels
- FIN6 Nozzles for Direct Orders
· Other Compact parts we need to make:
Compact Heatblocks: Luke learned a lot about machining this copper with Pika! The shape of the Chube Compact block is (in theory) much easier to machine than the Pika Hotend blocks. We will machine these right after the heatsinks, because the copper heatblocks will have the longest QC process, plus the plating lead-time.
· The Copper for all of the Compact blocks is delivered, and here at the lab.
Titanium Shroud: The tube that makes it a Chube.
· Titanium is a well-known material in Swiss lathe machining, and it will not be difficult to make these.
Luke has experience machining this material on our machine already.
One other secret part that we aren't talking about until we are shipping, because cloning is real:
· The material for making these is already here at the lab, and the material in question is easy to machine.
· Luke has had very positive experiences with the material in question.
More Titanium Heatbreaks: A lot of them are already made! We can make second batch while I am assembling the first hundreds of units.
- The material for these is on-hand already, and because this part is already programmed, it will only take about 3 days to make the rest of the needed parts, plus more.
- It will take about a week and a half for it to arrive to the heat-treatment facility, be treated, and arrive back to us.
Other things we need to do before shipping:
Quality Control: All parts will be going through our quality control process! This is an annoying (in my opinion) step, but necessary.
Parts that are plated need to be checked both before and after plating.
Tumbling: a lot of parts need to be tumbled, cleaned, and dried before we can use them. This prevents sharp/oily/dirty parts from reaching your hands!
Assembling the hotends: After assembling over 300 Chube Compact hotends, I have become exceedingly efficient. It takes me approximately 4 minutes to build a Compact from scratch.
Heater and PT1000 Installation: Your heaters and PT1000s will be pre-installed with BN paste!
Labeling Tubes: We have one staff member who is excellent at labeling boxes and tubes. If needed, I will label some too, but I do it… Crookedly. So, if your label is crooked, you can be sure that I am the one who labeled it! LOL
Packaging hotends: Hotends will be placed in their Chube Tubes with spare hardware and L keys, and lovingly shipped out to you!
Cool Things I Did Ahead of Time:
I spent a good amount of time creating Chube Compact assembly manuals for you all! I am really happy with how they turned out, and I genuinely think they will be helpful.
There is an instruction manual specifically for changing out your heater and PT1000, as well as one for a “full” assembly, which may be useful if you ever blob your hotend, and need to clean and re-assemble your Chube Compact.
One of the awesome parts of this hotend, is that they can survive blobs that other hotends cannot. So, here is me hoping your printer does not fail in this way, but also believing that IF it does, you can clean Compact up, and put it back together!
These are not public yet, as they show a special part we would like to keep under wraps until we start shipping units. But if you would like a better idea of what they are like, you can check out the ones I made for Chube Air and Chube Conduction at the same time:
Air Full Assembly:
https://plugandplay.lukeslabonline.com/odoo/knowledge/108
Conduction Full Assembly:
https://plugandplay.lukeslabonline.com/odoo/knowledge/111
Luke's Section/notes/machining bits
To borrow language from INDX's update, these updates are not what we want to write, nor what you want to read, but here I am, on a Sunday afternoon, making sure parts keep flowing & work keeps getting done.
We realized in the last few weeks/months that we didn't do a good job of communicating why we haven't had any movement on Compact as we worked on Pika.
To put it in writing again, we can only realistically make one part at a time on our swiss, but it will spit out that one part many times in a row nearly identical to all other parts its produced. When in operation, its amazingly fast and happily produces parts lights out, but getting there on first time setups especially w/out the external support I was promised (see other blog posts to see just the magnitude of how these have added up) has truly caused a horrible overrun on schedule, and its meant that all predictions that I've put to paper have become terribly untrue as I worked through all the components, on top of still continuing to do the normal parts of my business.
That's changed now that I'm finally completing out the work on Pika, which is significantly more complex than Chube parts!
There aren't any new processes that should be needed, no new tooling suppliers or extra processes, should just be standard gcode programming, testing, and then letting the machine run!
As a fun bit of "trivia" we continue to have a lot of "fun" with our machinery. Our live tooling (which is a component of the machine itself, custom to it, and only available from Tornos) had a manufacturer defect which significantly halted our roll on these heatsinks, as it was resulting in spontaneous death of endmills from chatter/wear/backlash) which *really* sent me for a loop, as I was continuously adjusting toolpaths to make them less aggressive, constantly trying new approaches to prevent death.
Eventually, it seized up and just stopped working.
I disassemble it, and poof! turns out, there was something in the system that caused a lot of lash, on top of having two loose bolts that retain the transfer gears, resulting in excessive wear, heat, and lash, ultimately deforming the cover from pressure & repeated force.
Tornos, to their credit, acted immediately & fairly and got me a replacement, and I was back running within a reasonable amount of time. Great service.
I also (this is my fault) had to grind down a tool to get more access to make the fins. I knew this wasn't a permanent solution, and ultimately the tool failed. What was unfortunate was that I did buy the proper tool, but that was backordered and ultimately was delivered after the tool broke (2+ weeks), despite buying it the same day I performed the temporary modifications!
How it started:
How its going:
Anyways -
I still work a minimum of a 9-9-7 schedule, typically through illnesses & other stuff. Coming home from RMRRF was quite rewarding to see ya'll and show off that we finally had some product to show for our efforts (since again, we have to make *all* the parts or we have no hotends to show at all) but it also brought home not 1 but two rounds of illness that really ruined my productivity (again) and honestly put off making this update as I was forced to drop hours down to that meager 80-90ish/wk.
I'm back to mostly ok health, am merrily producing heatsinks as I finish up typing this, and am even catching some time working on Redwood as the machine merrily hums along.
I'm once again sorry that its taken so long, but I think we're in a good spot & have a handle again on our timeline & deliverables.
I firmly believe that you'll be delighted with compact & although it's early, we still have quite a few ideas & improvements for other hotend systems (cough prusa cough) that will be possible once we are all finished with our work here.
Seriously. Thanks for your patience and trust. I hope that the clarity & transparency here go a long way in upholding our side of the bargain & show that we've never stopped never stopping.
Luke
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: When will orders ship to vendors?
A: We plan to pack and ship vendor orders over a couple of days. Because it takes longer for international shipments to arrive to their final destinations, I will fulfill those first, because in the end they will arrive around the same time as US-based vendor orders.
Q: When will Compact Ship?
A: We expect it to begin shipping in July, and to complete shipping certainly in August. This is working literally 7 days a week to make these things happen
Q: I placed multiple orders with Chube Compact. Can you ship them all at once?
A: No. Due to the volume of orders received, it would actually take us longer to try to merge multiple preorders together than it would be to just ship them as we process the orders. In order to maintain fairness, we will be implementing a First In, First Out (FIFO) type system for orders. International orders will be batch-packed daily, as filling out the customs forms is quite a bit more involved than packing orders within the country. It is more efficient to do in batches. However: all parts are made at the same time - so if you have an order, the longest lead part, the actual machining/plating will be done at the same time.
Q: What color silicone sock comes with my Chube Compact?
A: It automatically comes with a black silicone sock.
Q: Does my Chube Compact come with a heater and PT1000 automatically?
A: It does, yes!
Q: Why can't you make smaller batches & just start shipping a few dozen at a time?
A: We only have one machining center. It can only run one part at a time, and tearing down between parts & materials takes significant effort. Watch the Video above if you want to see why
