Clinton Thomas
- Industrial Maintenance
- Project Management
- Metal Fabrication
- Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
- OSHA-30 General Industry
- Product Development
- Web Development
- 3D Modeling (Fusion360)
- Owner Wildbot3D®, LLC
- Additive Manufacturing
13+ Years Industrial Maintenance Experience
I've been an industrial maintenance technician for over 13 years including 3 years as lead technician and 2 years (and counting) as acting supervisor, leading a crew of 3-6 technicians on night shift. Typical shift included six hours of production, breaking the equipment down for sanitation, completing any necessary repairs, and finally starting the plant back up.
I've done HazMat and Confined Space training and have my 30-Hour OSHA General Industry Certification
Machine Types
- Metal Detectors
- X-Rays
- Grading/Sizing Machines
- Metering Systems
- Baggers
- Box Machines
- Tape Machines
- Strappers
- Squid Printers
- Vacuum Pumps
- Trash Pumps
- Hydraulic Pumps/Packs
- Vacuum Sealers
- Scale Hoppers
- 3000lbs+ Tumblers
- Skinners
- Shear Mixers
- Injectors
- Breaders (Drum and Flat)
- Fryers
- Computer Combination Weighers (CCW)
- Pallet Wrappers
- Scales From 50 Grams To 5000 Pounds
- Water And Oil Boilers
- All Manners Of Conveyance
Brands
- Safeline (Metal Detectors, X-Rays)
- Cantrell (Wing Machines)
- DSI (Waterjet Systems, Blade Portioners)
- Marel/Stork (Sizers/Graders, Sensor-X, Flattener, Single-Feed Indexers)
- Meyn/Dapec (Offal Seperators)
- FPEC (Tumblers, Mixers, Dumpers)
- Cooling and Applied Tech. (CAT Scales, Pumps, Injectors)
- Thomas (High Pressure Water Pumps)
- Kemco (Water Boiler)
- Fulton (Oil Boiler)
- Stein (Breaders, Batterwells, Fryers)
- Murzan (Pumps)
- M-TEK (CVP Bag Sealers)
- Ishida (CCW)
- Yamato (CCW)
- Eagle Scales (CCW)
- PacMac (Baggers)
- Dynaric (Strappers)
- Mosca (Strappers)
- Prime Equipment
- Wexxar Bel (Box Machines)
- Admix/Rotosolver (Mixers)
Electrical
The Wildbot: A CoreXY 3D Printer of My Own Design
Why the Wildbot Exists
I wanted to buy a nice 3d printer to replace my $145 ebay special that was made of plywood. But there were no 3d printers on the retail market that were designed well. Usually they were built from parts and materials that weren't suited to the job. Most of them had over-constrained build surfaces with a height adjustment in each of the four corners. They also tended to have two independent steppers to lift the Z-axis. These and other design flaws that existed in all retail 3d printers motivated me to design and build my own.
Pictured above you can see how I designed the X-carriage in Fusion360 and how the X-carriage came out in the end. I had to change the way I was planning on securing the belts to the carriage but other than that, the design worked like a charm. I ordered the front and back plates cut form 16ga Stainless from Innovative Laser and Design in Lafayette, GA. The top part that mounts to the linear bearing I machined myself out of aluminum on a manual mill.
The Print Bed
The bed is 1/4" mic-6 cast aluminum tooling plate with a 110VAC silicone heater. The heater is controlled by an Opto22 Solid-State Relay. Clamped mechanically to the aluminum is a thermal cutoff in case the SSR fails (they tend to fail shorted).
In the center and to each side, I drilled and chamfered holds on the bottom. Ball headed screws are embedded in blocks of PTFE and the chamfered holes of the bed rest on the heads. In the front-center, I have a micrometer head to adjust the roll(rotation along the X-axis) of the bed. It allows me to make extremely fine adjustments. I machined a small bit of PTFE that attaches to the spindle and holds a ball bearing to minimize contact.
Having the bed resting on top of supports instead of having bolts running through it allows the bed to expand as it heats up without causing it to warp. The PTFE blocks prevent the heat from the bed from transferring to the frame and causing it to deform.
It also means that to level/tram the bed, I simply set my Z-endstop by moving the nozzle just over the left-hand ball head screw (the reference) and, using a feeler gauge between the nozzle and the print surface, adjust the endstop until the nozzle is 0.4mm above the print surface. Then, I move the nozzle over the right-hand ball head screw (pitch adjuster) and adjust it until the nozzle is 0.4mm above the print surface. Finally, I move the nozzle over to the front and center of the bed which is where the micromenter head (roll adjuster) is located and adjust it until the nozzle is 0.4mm above the print surface.
This process only takes a couple minutes and, since three points define a plane, means the nozzle will always be the right distance from the print surface at any point on the bed.
Learn More About the Wildbot...
Website Design
I created this website by writing the HTML, CSS, and Javascript myself in VSCode. No website builder or templates used. It's hosted on a webserver I manage. Below you can see websites I've created on Wordpress and Shopify using various themes.
This is a wordpress site I designed on the Pro Theme by Themeco. It's for a fictional shed moving company.
This is my shopify website where I sell accessories for tabletop RPGs (Dungeons and Dragons, etc) that I design and manufacture myself using additive manufacturing (3D Printing).
Wildbot Apps
This is a website I made to host two javascript apps I created for Etsy sellers.
Taggregator helps sellers optimize the keywords on their Etsy listings.
Sales map just populates a world map with markers everwhere they've shipped an item.
You can check them out here.
Personality
Traits
- Level-headed
- Strong Analytical and Critical Thinking Ability
- Decisive Under Pressure
- Bias for Action
- Lifelong Learner
Certifications
- OSHA 30 General Industry: 26-907397061
- LEAD1x: Exercising Leadership: Foundational Principles (Certificate ID 000af46eddda4de884ae6d762bf91138)
Kolbe A Results
Fact Finder: Explain
Get Essential Facts
- Work within priorities
- Start with the highest probability
- Use terms appropriately
- Test analogies
- Clarify specifics
Follow Through: Systematize
Design Systems that Organize Everything
- Create the plan
- Coordinate needs
- Distinguish patterns
- Design sequential systems
- Bring focus and closure
Quick Start: Stabilize
Stick With What Already Works Well
- Create standards
- Minimize risk factors
- Create precedents
- Establish outside limits
Implementor: Demonstrate
Construct Tangible Solutions
- Build models
- Erect mechanical devices
- Produce quality solutions
- Tackle tangible projects
- Construct things that last
- Make mechanical contraptions