Author Topic: Printer Enclosure. (Read 50175 times)

shipto · « **on:** January 05, 2021, 03:41:57 PM »

For my cloned i3 or at least thats what I intended but I got to the stage you see it in the picture and thought "hang on I can make that into a new printer" and it just so happens I have a big bit of 10mm aluminium that I rescued from the scrap bin ages ago thats just the right size for it apart from being round

. So thats gone to a friendly machinist to cut the top bit that will house the X and Y axis's. It will be a corexy type printer which at least to start will be made with mostly stuff I have lying around the workshop until I can get the funds to upgrade as I go along eventually even some tool changing heads

picclock · « **Reply #1 on:** January 29, 2021, 10:43:33 AM »

FWIW
I tried a printer enclosure similar to your picture with the sides and top made of fibreglass sheet. It was always a disappointment in that it did little for the warping/distortion that I encountered.

I then found out some further information about Prusa. Allegedly his print rooms are kept at a very high temperature, around 28-30C.

So in a final attempt to resolve the warping issues I constructed an enclosure with foam insulation board, the type with silver foil on both sides, stuck together with silicone sealant. This easily reaches 30c with just the waste heat from the bed. I leave the door open a bit if it looks like getting too hot.

The print quality, and strength is amazingly good using this technique. Even printing in a garage at 0C recently the resulting prints were outstanding. (Marlin blew up with lowtemp but its fixable by using a hot air gun on the bed for a few minutes prior to a restart)

This sort of leads me to the conclusion that it is not the drafts which cause the problem but the ambient temperature at which the print is being made. It may be a combination of both, but for me the major effect was ambient print temperature.

Hope this helps

Best Regards

picclock

WeldingRod · « **Reply #2 on:** January 29, 2021, 03:12:32 PM »

My printer enclosure runs well above ambient and I found that helped me a lot. My first one had a thermostatically controlled lightbulb to regulate the temperature, as the small bed didnt heat things up enough.
In a perfect world, you want the enclosure really hot: just a bit below the softening temperature. This means all the motors and brains need to be outside, of course ;-)

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

shipto · « **Reply #3 on:** January 30, 2021, 07:29:20 PM »

I haven't got around to working out heating for this yet but I will be doing it, probably something independant of the printer controller itself and only the Z axis steppers will actually be in the warm area although if they have problems it probably wont be too hard to mount those under the bottom of it too.
Anyway I have made some progress with this printer the aluminium top came back and isn't bad seeing as its just salvaged from one of our impellers at work, it has one or two stray holes left behind but they will not get in the way at all and I have also got quite a bit of the printed mounts sorted. In the picture there is one mistake circled because I forgot that I need 2 idlers on each of these.

ddmckee54 · « **Reply #4 on:** October 22, 2021, 12:29:22 PM »

Shipto:

What's the status on the printer?

Don

shipto · « **Reply #5 on:** October 23, 2021, 06:27:20 PM »

On hold and in the way unfortunatly. Just had so many other things to do, most of it due to doing the die heads for my wifes work (definatly got to pay extra tax this year

) I have collected various other parts for it but not enough progress to report just yet.

shipto · « **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2022, 09:50:58 AM »

As I have had a bit of spare time recently I have started to do a bit more on this project, I had to find the thread to see how far I had taken it and realised that I had not even kept up to date with the thread. So there is a big chunk missing from this.
First pic is where I am currently at:
The latest part I have designed is the blue "Y" axis bit which will include the adjustment to tension the belts (pic2) I notice theres a bit of distortion in it but it looks far worse on the picture than it really is. I am trying to decide if I should 3d print the adjusters or make them from aluminium at the moment they are quite simple and will just have a pin to fold the belt around and a M3 adjuster screw.

shipto · « **Reply #7 on:** January 18, 2022, 01:20:43 PM »

I had a bit of a rethink mainly due to the front doors, they were going to be a bit difficult so I made some new front struts out of some angle. This has the added bonus that I can make the sides open easily too so that will help if I need to do any maintenance on it.
I also decided to take the idling bearing off plastic mounts and they will now be attached to the aluminium. The motors too will now be mounted to the back board rather than on the first printed mounts, still need to cut out the openings for the belts to come through but this cuts out a couple of bearings.

shipto · « **Reply #8 on:** January 23, 2022, 12:15:17 PM »

I have made a bit of progress despite my kids seeming to think that dad can do without that free time nonsense

I printed new mounts for the X/Y steppers and mounted them and have slight redesigned the belt ends/adjusters, still need to drill and tap the adjusters for some M3 bolts but I might wait until my friend comes back for that his Hobbymat is much better suited for such small stuff than my Harrison is.

shipto · « **Reply #9 on:** February 13, 2022, 08:10:39 AM »

So there I was happily designing and printing stuff to build the printer with the intention of using the ramps board I have had for ages, when I got a message from a mate "I saw your making a printer, I have a BTT SKR2 board with the touch screen and TMC2208 drivers. Are you interested"

Its only the board I had in mind for future upgrade. So after berating him for costing me more money I took it off him

.

Now however I have decided to skip straight to another future upgrade I had in mind and make the printer with triple Z screws and self levelling which of course means I need to order an expansion board to allow 3 independant Z screws. The back centre screw is worked out and in place.

shipto · « **Reply #10 on:** February 13, 2022, 11:23:58 AM »

Looking for some advice here, I had planned to use rod ends to allow the freedom of movement with just one on the back and 2 on each of the front corners but now I am thinking that will allow too much freedom as there will be nothing stopping the bed from moving side to side pivotted on the single rear rod end.
Edit: Never mind I have solved it, it just so happens that the bracket is held on by two M5 bolts which is the same thread as the rod ends so I dont even need to modify anything.

shipto · « **Reply #11 on:** February 14, 2022, 04:19:49 PM »

So here we have my solution to the problem, this will allow the bed the freedom to move but keep the centre lined up.

shipto · « **Reply #12 on:** February 19, 2022, 11:24:43 AM »

Having a bit of a nightmare with everything in the workshop this week not just the printer, to start with I printed the front bed mounts totally wrong so having to reprint them now.

So I thought while I am waiting for the first one to print I will get on with a fette rollling head I have to fix for wifes work. This one has been bodged previous to me getting it and I got so fixated on A)the fact that whoever had reassembled it had got the cams totally wrong one being two teeth out of sync and the other seven teeth out and B)someone had made some new parts totally wrong so the parts where not mating together properly That I forgot to check the most common reason for a rolling head to be running rough. Got to the bit where I remove the cams to place them in correct position and noticed that they where worn to buggery

So now I have the situation where I have said a rolling head that should already be in the scrap bin can be fixed. Lucky for me that my wife has just been promoted to manager

and thinks she can get some reasonable replacements for me.

Thats not the end of it though I knocked out the bodged parts ready to put new ones in and they have given me the wrong replacements or at least I hope they have and part of the bodge wasn't opening up the holes to fit the bodge.

shipto · « **Reply #13 on:** February 20, 2022, 11:12:40 AM »

Better day today, making progress

shipto · « **Reply #14 on:** February 27, 2022, 11:38:40 AM »

Started to work out the panels which will be cheap plywood until I get them finished at which point I will replace them with some clear plastic.
The sides will be made of one fixed panel which will serve triple duties of keeping heat in, securing the front Z axis and also keeping the frame square while the rear will be a hinged door in case I need to get in from the side for any reason.

shipto · « **Reply #15 on:** February 28, 2022, 01:50:14 PM »

Belt adjusters are fitted but the picture makes the print look far worse than it is to my eyes so will probably reprint that in the future. Picture also showed me one of the inserts wasn't in straight so I have sorted that.
Anyway its the same both sides so I will have ample adjustment for the belts.

jiihoo · « **Reply #16 on:** March 01, 2022, 09:03:55 AM »

It is a functional and fully functioning part so no need to re-print; it will work fine for the intended purpose. Just move on to the next part

Did the corners lift from the build surface during print cause that's what it looks like? If my parts are big or very small or tall and narrow then I take all the help I can get and use an adhesive on the print surface. It also helps to lessen the frustration at the beginning when the 3D printer is not set up perfectly yet (print head temperature, print surface temperature and initial layer distance from print surface) or when first starting with new or harder materials. I had a bit of a "learning experience" when first starting with PETG after having used PLA before. My frustrations went away with starting to use an adhesive and slightly increasing the bed temperature.

My 3D printer is the Anycubic I3 Mega with the Ultrabase print surface. Decent quality budget printer in my opinion. The adhesive I use - and the only one that i have experience with - is Magigoo (the original multi-material one).

Jari (following your project with interest)

shipto · « **Reply #17 on:** March 03, 2022, 04:57:43 PM »

I fully intend to leave it as it is for now but will improve it sometime in th... lets face it once its working I'll probably never get around to it

For now however I have turned my mind to control. I had every intention of getting a 3 stepper expansion board for it but they are proving harder to come by than I thought unless I want to order it from China (which I'm not too sure about at the moment) so during my search I came upon software called Klipper which runs on a raspberry pi and can run two boards at once so I am thinking of using my ramps board to control the 3 Z axis screws and the SKR2 to run everything else.

BillTodd · « **Reply #18 on:** March 04, 2022, 03:35:05 AM »

I'd be interested to know how you get on with klipper. I may have to use it to control my segmented bed , marlin doesn't support external temperature controllers.

Bill

vtsteam · « **Reply #19 on:** March 04, 2022, 09:54:19 AM »

Shipto, I just want tyou to know I'm reading this thread when you post. I just don't have anything to contribute on this particular subject. But it is of interest, and you do have silent followers, who, in my case at least, will let you know once in awhile!

shipto · « **Reply #20 on:** March 05, 2022, 06:26:09 PM »

Quote from: vtsteam on March 04, 2022, 09:54:19 AM

Shipto, I just want tyou to know I'm reading this thread when you post. I just don't have anything to contribute on this particular subject. But it is of interest, and you do have silent followers, who, in my case at least, will let you know once in awhile!

Thank you I can tell from the pic views that at least a few are interested. This may get a bit interesting soon however if the klipper idea doesn't pan out because I am seeing that there are a few downsides to it. HINT:it involves a grbl shield without the uno.

shipto · « **Reply #21 on:** April 05, 2022, 02:06:05 PM »

Although I haven't posted for a bit I have been busy both with the printer and rather a lot of dieheads. The wiring is a bit of a mess right now but I am working through the firmware getting things setup, still have a few problems to iron out the main one being that the stepper connected to the mainboard is running at a slower speed than the 2 connected to the expansion board. It has to be in the firmware somewhere but I am really struggling to find the problem.
It doesn't help that the pc I have in the shed is really slow especially when I do something stupid like edit a picture to upload

so building the firmware each time is taking an age.
I have got the heat pad for the bed which I had not realised needs to be stuck to something so I will try and source a sheet of aluminium this weekend and hopefully I can test the bed levelling (assuming I sort out the stepper problem).

shipto · « **Reply #22 on:** April 08, 2022, 03:47:07 PM »

Found the problem and it wasn't firmware. I connected the board to the pc and used repetier to get it to tell me about a "error all low" msg I was getting and it was from some of the steppers after a little swapping and changing I figured out it was the extra steppers I had ordered to fill the expansion board. The ones that came with the board already had the jumper connected to turn them to uart mode but the new ones didn't

However then a disaster happened I connected one and did a test and it wasn't showing the "all low" error any more so I proceeded to do the next one (they are a bloody fiddly little jumper to solder) and made the mistake of plugging it in without powering down the board and immediatly noticed the psu fan speed increase then slow down again.

Now when I power the board the processor starts to get hot really quickly and I think I have fried it

As I dont have time (or the skill probably) to see if I can fix it I have decided to get a octopus instead which has the option for 8 steppers on board so there will be no need for the expansion board.

What an expensive mistake.

vtsteam · « **Reply #23 on:** April 08, 2022, 05:08:22 PM »

Who hasn't ever made a hookup mistake.......raise your hand.....

shipto · « **Reply #24 on:** April 08, 2022, 07:03:22 PM »

I'm not entirely sure why it would do it, at first I thought I had messed up the connection but I looked at it close and it seems fine. As I have 1 spare anyway I have stowed it away to look closer at a later date.

News:

Author Topic: Printer Enclosure. (Read 50175 times)