Extruder Designs

Greetings,

I have been working on the design for my first extruder. I've done my homework and shamelessly borrowed some ideas from others. I think that I am off to a good start but still, I wanted to post up my work and get some feedback.

I've provided an animation for the two revisions and I hope they will do better in conveying the design than the typical single cross sectioned view. The 2nd design was a progression from the first but both are aimed to keep the unit modular. The 2nd concept body is a bit more of a complex part to machine but I'm looking forward to it. All of the pins/bolts/gears are mcmaster parts and then their are three machined parts in each assembly. I will try to post up some work in progress pictures if you guys would enjoy them- probably will only be machining the second version and not both.

I sometimes wonder how much of the conveyed design is lost through communication over the internet. Maybe I will annotate a screen shot or two to specify materials and such?

I leave for a two week vacation in a couple days- won't be getting my hands dirty with this project until I return.

Rev1:

Perspective view:

http://a.imageshack.us/img341/4583/extruderunit1persp1280.jpg

Sectioned view:

http://a.imageshack.us/img828/7296/extruderunit1sectioned1.jpg

Animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VG8BbzyEh8

Rev2:

Perspective view:

http://a.imageshack.us/img843/1543/extruderunit2persp1280.jpg

Sectioned view:

http://a.imageshack.us/img97/3059/extruderunit2sectioned1.jpg

Gear view:

http://a.imageshack.us/img827/2375/extruderunit2gears1280.jpg

Animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzOcbAw69gk