Gina

You're getting twice the Z axis speed that I get in my Concorde printer. Mind you my print bed is 500mm x 500mm, weighs around 5Kg and driven by just two single start threaded rods. OTOH the large 3D printed Z carriages do make the bed sufficiently level not to need bed levelling - the RMS error was 0.106mm over the 400mm x 400mm printing area with most even closer. I was amazed!

I too find the search engines in ebay and Amazon amazingly inept at finding what I want - a list of totally unrelated items generally ensues!! It sometimes seems to need imaginative thinking to come up with a search phrase that comes anywhere near!

I often think it doesn't do to go back to where you used to live. Many places you knew well, gone and replaced by housing estates or industrial works. We were swamped by the radio waves from the Hillmorton transmitting station. The call sign GBR could be heard on a rusty bedstead - "_ _ . _ ... ._." is embossed in my brain forever!! Some years ago I took a friend to see where I had been born and spent my first nearly 7 years. Where we used to play, out the back gate of our garden on the edge of a town, Wotton-Under-Edge, in Gloucestershire, had been completely built over with a housing estate and the Tabernacle (chapel) where my grandfather was buried, is now an auction house and sometimes appears in antiques programmes on TV.

New baseplate and waterblock clamp plus cable clamp.

Decided I shall use two round cables - USB and a 4 core for the dew heater and camera cooler (Peltier TEC). They can be clamped between 3D printed flexible plastic pieces (TPU filament).

Amazing coincidences... I was there between the ages of about 7 and 17.

I used to live in Rugby - well just outside the town around two thirds of the way to Hillmorton.

I thought that too ?

Mast coupling, base plate with waterblock clamp and camera in housing. With this arrangement there isn't room for a 4 pin connector for the Peltier TEC and Dew Heater nor for a waterproof USB connector.

Base plate and waterblock clamp. I have yet to work out how USB and other connections will go through this and be sealed.

I used reinforced concrete poured into a cardboard tube at the same time as I poured the block. Probably about the cheapest but very permanent.

Start of the design of the bottom part of the outer casing, connecting ASC to mast.

Design changed and now printing.

Radius of protrusion from camera centre line (optical axis) is 60mm. Current ID of outer casing is 110mm so for a cylindrical outer housing the ID would be 120mm. I think that's the easiest.

I printed the outer casing shown above but it isn't big enough inside to clear the projection on the camera housing that takes the camera USB connection. Two possibilities, either simply increase the size or add a "bump" to accommodate the projection.

The mast the ASC is going on is an aluminium pipe 37mm ID and 45mm OD. Cables and cooling water tubes will go down inside. I guess the outer cover wants to be in 2 main parts. The top part taking the dome and the bottom part attaching to the mast. Somewhere there will have to be a sealed joint (in addition to the dome seal).

They look good but where can I order them from (UK preferably). Alternatively I guess I could break into the USB cable and use a standard multi-pin connector. I guess if I'm thinking of breaking into the USB cable I could get a USB plug for the camera and run multiple single wires through a multi-pin connector.

I'm not happy with this design - I'm not sure about the dome clamping/sealing. In many ways it would be easier with the 4" dome though the 4" dome would give a much bigger area to keep clear of dew. The dew heater and Peltier TEC connections can use a sealed 4 pin chassis connector but sealing the USB cable is much more difficult. Needs a lot more thinking...

If I had a shelf like that it would soon fill up with clutter!! Very pretty though

You need to add thermal insulation to the cold finger, though some uninsulated copper will attract moisture away from the sensor which will be warmer.

Very true. Only if you have a lot of heat to get rid of, such as in a refrigerator, do you need larger TECs. For cooling image sensors you only want a small TEC.

Arranged anti-vibration mountings for the Z stepper motors and also a new X carriage with better piezoelectric sensor mounting and now eliminated Z motor vibration triggering the sensor. Now the hotend fan is triggering it instead so I need to isolate that.

One point that might help you, they are not at their best when run flat out, back off to about 2/3 the maximum current and that should give you the most cooling.

Ah yes, I know it. Not the most efficient but nice and cheap for experimenting. I'm sure you'll learn a lot from it ? Have fun.

Which model of Peltier TEC are you using Louise?