Finally done painting

Its been a busy month with work and all, but today I managed to actually paint the SUMPOD. Yay!

Two 500 ml cans later all parts got had two layers of glossy white paint - just about enough to cover the gray primer. I would have liked to have one more coat, but the store was closed at this point.

The smaller parts still drying.

For the two-sided parts I found stringing the parts up with fishing-line made it easy to paint both sides without waiting for the paint to dry.

I'm not entirely happy with the finished result as can be seen in the picture below. Overall the finish is good, but on some of the edges I probably should have primed and sanded a couple more times. MDF apparently needs more than three coats of primer even though they looked okay before I started applying white paint.

Still some rough spots on the edges.

Next time I have to paint MDF I'll probably go over all the edges with filler first thing to fill all the small gaps before the first coat of primer. Or maybe I'll just use regular paint which is much thicker and will saturate the fibers much faster.

As for now It will have to be good enough - it's only a 3D printer yes? I might go back and fix this later, but for now it'll do. Onwards to the rest of the build!

Sumpod progress report

Not much progress to show, but on Wednesday I sanded down all the parts - which took about three hours by myself. Before painting on Saturday I also had to get off all the dust before I gave the parts another coat of primer. The larger surfaces are fine, but the ends sucks up primer like there's no tomorrow. So far I've used three 500ML boxes of primer and I'll probably need at least one more before I'm done.

According to the build descriptions at renaissance-engineer the feeder assembly should have more holes than this or am I missing something?

Front

Back/inside. I probably need to drill some holes for the
gear and motor fastings.

edit: I found the answer to my question on the SUMPOD forum: http://www.sumpod.com/forum/post/minor-problem-feeder-parts

Sanding and more paint

Today my friend Tom dropped by and helped out with sanding and prepping of the parts that got their first coat yesterday. This is definitely the most boring part of the assembly so thanks a lot Tom!

The first box of primer was almost out so we were lucky the last box was just enough to give all the small parts their first coat and the box it's second. Tomorrow I'll need to go buy another box.

Seems like the MDF has different quality since several pieces
needed 3-4 passes (wet-wet) before I had good coverage. 

Like Fixer I assembled the box before painting to avoid
getting paint, and swelling, where it's not needed.

The MDF still bristles (is that a word?) a bit, but one more
round of sanding and primer and we should be good.

Inside the box as well as the large surfaces outside are
good enough at this point.

Earlier today I came over the Renaissance Engineer blog which, lucky for me, has a complete assembly guide for putting together the SUMPOD. He's not quite done with the wiring instructions yet, but they are coming. I'll probably use the rest of this week to get the painting done anyway so there's no rush.

Cleanup and Paint

We've been quite busy with work the last week so I haven't been able to do anything more with the SUMPOD build until today. So this is my weekend project. Get all the MDF parts cleaned up and painted.

Parts all done

The prepping was quite easy as the parts looked fairly good from the start. All I had to do was go over all the edges with 240-grit sanding paper. I also used an X-Acto knife where the spindle had left small deposits of wood/paper. I imagine either the tool-bit was a bit dull, the routing-speed had been too high or the MDF too soft. Anyway, some cleanup should be expected in any project :)

Next I assembled the main box from the top and bottom plate as well as the 4 walls. Since I still don't have access to assembly instructions I had to guess which way the top and bottom plates should face. I'll have a look on the SUMPOD site and double-check their images when I get the time.

First coat of primer applied

The painting was pretty straight-forward and I got confirmation what I've read on other blogs - MDF needs a lot of paint. I ended up using almost a full spray-can (500 ML) of primer on the first coat. I seriously hope I don't have to use that much for the next two coats.

Tomorrow I'll try to get the rest of the parts primed and also apply a second coat to the main body.