Teensy 3.0 meets 3D printer I learned how to model involute gear forms so I printed up this 6:1 (12 tooth pinion:72 tooth idler) 20deg contact angle gear set.
It’s printed in ABS at .24mm slice thickness. The large gear is 150mm in diameter. It’s operated by a stepper motor, controlled by a Teensy 3.0 and a Panucatt SureStepr SD8822 stepper motor driver. In this video, it’s running at 32 microsteps /step, with low acceleration. I’m amazed at the torque this thing can produce
FANTASTIC… I have loads of teensies at home.
damn, for a minute I thought you had used the t3 for the printer electronics. I’d be really keen on a ramps type setup for the T3.
can someone explain to me what I’m lookng at please.
Pretty cool, @Robert_Wozniak ! 
@Spunky_Rooster It’s a Teensy 3.0 (a very small arduino board) running a stepper motor connected to a two gear system (like the sort of thing you find in geared extruder setups).
SWEET! well I really like the whole 3D printing thing just have yet to get my hands on one and understand it you know. I’m guessing this is a big deal and pretty cool though. Well keep up the cool videos coming even if some of us don’t fully understand it lol. It gives me something to look forward to learning about so yeah SWEET!
@Jonathan_se5a_Sorens I’ve been playing with various components of 3D printers using the Teensy 3.0, with the idea that maybe someday I’ll try a Teensy 3.0 printer controller.
BTW, DaveX has ported Traumflaug’s Teacup firmware to the Teensy 3.0, but I can’t see where anyone actually has it working in a 3D Printer. Here’s a link:
Does the Teensy have enough I/O broken out to be a printer controller? It’s something on my list of “fun electronics to add to the workbench” but I haven’t gotten one yet.
@Spunky_Rooster Thanks.
Mostly this was a test of the ABS gear design. The Teensy 3.0 microcontroller, Panucatt motor controller and NEMA17 x 47.5mm stepper motor are the test fixture.
It’s been running now for almost 36 hours at 4 times the acceleration that I used for the video. The 72 tooth Idler is running on a needle bearing that’s pressed into the large gear, and is rolling on a printed 0.5 inch diameter ABS shaft. The gear teeth and needle bearing are lubricated with a little “Super Lube” Teflon grease.
@Stephen_Baird Teensy 3.0 has plenty of IO. The following is from the kickstarter page from a while back:
128K Flash Memory, 16K RAM, 2K EEPROM
14* High Resolution Analog Inputs (13 bits usable, 16 bit hardware)
34* Digital I/O Pins (10 shared with analog)
10 PWM outputs
8 Timers for intervals/delays, separate from PWM
USB with dedicated DMA memory transfers
3 UARTs (serial ports)
SPI, I2C, I2S, IR modulator
I2S (for high quality audio interface)
Real Time Clock (with user-added 32.768 crystal and battery)
4 general purpose DMA channels (separate from USB)
Touch Sensor Inputs
It lacks a true analog out however.
I don’t know how Paul did it but somehow he fit 54 pinouts in that tiny package.
Here’s a link to the pinouts:
http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/pinout.html
Oh wow, I didn’t realize it had that much I/O. Very cool.
@PaulStoffregen is brilliant at electronics stuff. The printrboard is in all likelyhood written using a decent amount of his code.
A friend and I have contemplated utilizing a Teensy 3 to drive printer electronics. It has the added benefit of being 32 bits instead of just 8.
Neat, I didn’t even know there was a new Teensy!
I’m definitely interested in finding an inexpensive basic controller setup (four axis and a hot-end).
I love RAMPS, etc. for experimenting but I’d love to find something small and less expensive for basic machines.
What are you using to model your gears?
@Nathan_Ryan I’m using the method developed by Lance Skelly. The idea is to calculate the tooth profiles in excel, then using a macro, import the profile into AutoCad.
You can learn about it here:
http://grabcad.com/questions/creating-precise-involute-spur-gears-using-excel-and-autocad