A look inside a Stratasys machine....

A few years ago I rescued a Stratasys Prodigy Plus machine from the scrap heap. The company had replaced with a newer/bigger/better unit and Strat obsoleted this one so, the company was dumping it. It was 12 years old at the time and I was aware that many well-meaning but inept techs had worked on it over the years - my first thought is I would liberate all the good mechanicals and save them for a project.
What I discovered was the processor board was shot but everything else was working so, in a moment of weakness, decided to gut the controls and replace them with my own. that worked and the P+ lived for a while longer. Now, the time had come to let it go. Other projects in the wings and my own Robo kicking-butt now meant the P+ was done.
All along the print quality was supreme. 15 years ago it was making ABS prints FAR better than any current production home machine could even dream of - without any need to make tweaks or adjustments.. load your stl, hit go and come back when it's done. Now that I'm finally raiding it for parts, I thought I'd share some pictures so those who've never seen the inside of a serious 3D printer can see how they did it. Here' s a pic of the Z-axis, I'll upload others as I take them...

Two 5/8" shafts with linear bearings guide the build surface vertically, three 1/2" lead screws lift/lower it driven by a single NEMA23 stepper motor. The screw's threaded length are 15" long but due to length used by bearings, nuts and limit switches, the Z height was claimed to be only 8". Since the screws were all driven by a single belt, no level adjustment was possible. Level was set by a technician and all prints were made on rafts so any out-of-level condition that may have been left was compensated. The build surface was a hard foam product that could only be used once, although you could print in a different area and/or flip it and use the other side. The foam "plate" rode on an aluminum casting. Aall the dust seen is from crumbling heat insulation.
The build area was heated buy 4 large 24VDC centrifugals fans blowing air over 4 110VAC heater bars - Covered with sheet metal designed to direct the air into the build area.

 

That is a pretty beast rescue, oh and how good is the printer?