Author Topic: PeterE builds a 3d Printer (Read 81005 times)

nrml · « **Reply #50 on:** November 14, 2015, 12:29:04 PM »

Mine mounts perpendicular to the X slide so I am afraid I can't give you any first hand information on the thickness needed. Have you had a little search on thingiverse or equivalents for a suitable piece?

picclock · « **Reply #51 on:** November 15, 2015, 10:41:53 AM »

Hi PeterE

Just some info which may be useful for setup of the Y axis drive belt. I have just done a series of calculations to determine the change of belt length caused by poor height alignment of the driving, idler and bed mounting. Basically, if there are height differences as the bed gets closer to the end it it will stretch the belt to accommodate the difference in length, and the closer to the end the larger the error is. For a 1mm height difference I calculated 0.236mm belt stretch at a distance of 2cm. Two fixes spring to mind. Easiest is to make very sure that the heights are all the same so there is no angular deflection of the belt, or a slightly more bodgy method is to ensure that the bed mount and idler/driver are always a fair distance from the end position. At 5cms the stretch falls to .1mm and halves linearly from then on.

Hopefully this will prove of some use in your setup.

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #52 on:** November 15, 2015, 01:06:37 PM »

@nrml; Thanks for the info. It is actually useful as it does not say no to my guess

Another thing, why not show a picture of your setup? It would be interesting for me at least!

@picclock; Thanks for that info. Good to know.
When I get my idler from China (20 tooth GT2 flanged idler with bearings) I will fit the belt for the Y movement and as it is not yet fixed to the base it will be easy to take a picture to show if it deflects or not.

/Peter

nrml · « **Reply #53 on:** November 15, 2015, 04:32:49 PM »

I managed to get a couple of pictures of the extruder to make it a bit clearer. Sorry about the poor quality. The printer has ended up in the storeroom which is a bit of a dump at the moment and the lighting is not very good there. It got the marching orders from my wife after occupying the dining table for over a month. I'll drag it out and get better pictures later.

PeterE · « **Reply #54 on:** November 16, 2015, 04:57:46 PM »

@nrml; Ahh interesting indeed. Your Wades extruder design is different from mine!

Your version seem to nip the extruder nozzle with heater using a clamp in the base, whereas mine does not have that at all. See image below.

(Snip from picture on John Riddley's site as my camera isused by my daughter on vacation).

As far as I understand, my design requires a metal (aluminium) plate with a slot catching the extruder nozzle and heater, and will co-act as cooling fin to save the extruder feed parts.

Have you experienced any problems with heat from using ABS (which I understand requires a bit high temp than PLA f ex)?

/Peter

nrml · « **Reply #55 on:** November 18, 2015, 05:45:09 AM »

I don't think heat from the extruder itself will be an issue, as the E3D V6 is superbly designed. The cold side of the heat-break is barely warm to touch even after prolonged prints. I haven't printed with ABS yet because I don't trust the printed black PLA parts on my X carriage and extruder to stand up to radiant heat from the hot bed at 110 celsius.

A rebuild with ABS-polycarbonate parts and better hardware is in the pipeline at some point. At present my thoughts are that a new build from scratch is going to be more fun and educational than improving the kit I already have. Buying a kit was a bit of a double edged sword. The supplied components are just about the cheapest that will function. On the positive side it works and it was an easy way for a complete newbie to gain some understanding of how 3D printers work. I had access to an outstanding build manual and all the electronics came pre-programmed and ready to plug and print. So it was as painless a build as it could possibly be barring the frustration of dealing with poor quality components.

PeterE · « **Reply #56 on:** November 18, 2015, 03:48:36 PM »

Hi nrml,

Sounds re-assuring that the extruder nozzle has a good design. That will make my first tries safer - I think ...

My plastic parts on my printer is actually ABS all of them so no temp issue there.

I understand your choice to start using a ready-made kit, but from my point-of-view the build has so far been vary easy. The principles and designs are simple and straightforward.

I am just preparing to make the distance pieces from Plexi glass (perspex) which should be quite enough.

Oh, and one thing to add. I noticed in the instructions I linked to that the measurement of quite a few of the screws is 6x32 which in metric is best translated to M4 (really M3.5 but those are expensive), and then some of the holes have to be gently broached (with a drill) to M4.

BR

/Peter

nrml · « **Reply #57 on:** November 18, 2015, 04:35:41 PM »

Just a passing thought.... If you are making the spacer from acrylic, it might be cheaper to buy and easier to cut a thin sheet and glue thin layers together with acetone to get just the right sized spacer. It should also be in theory possible to bond the acrylic to the ABS with acetone.

PeterE · « **Reply #58 on:** November 18, 2015, 05:10:21 PM »

Thanks for your thought! Also my thought actually. I have a suitable piece of Plexi of about 3 mm thickness. two or three layers should do the trick. Bonding with actone would work well from what I heard from my friend at work.

PeterE · « **Reply #59 on:** December 06, 2015, 10:01:39 AM »

The spacer is being printed along with a couple of replacement bits.

A little more done today while waiting for idler wheels with bearings (that takes an awful long time from China this time ...). I got tired of waiting to continue the assembly so I quickly turned up two aluminium idlers from a scrap piece I had.

Nothing difficult, just a wheel with some flanges and a 4 mm hole through the center. This will do until I get the ones with bearings.

This also meant I could go on and fit the toothed belt and give it a first tension. A little fiddly to get the ends through the holes in the mid piece under the table, but nothing out of the ordinary.

When that was done the whole Y-movement could be secured to the base by screwing the four threaded pads down through the portal base and into the black base-plate. 16 screws will make it stay I think

Also did some cleaning up in the "old computer items" box and found a neate 400 W PC PSU leaving just short of 30 A on the 12 V DC side. I will use that one for powering the printer. Neat thing including power switch and fan and also power for the arduino and others.

So the only bits blocking the rest of the assembly are those re-printed bits that will arrive shortly.

/Peter

picclock · « **Reply #60 on:** December 07, 2015, 02:27:50 AM »

Hi Peter

Good to see that you are progressing well. The pictures look very good. With 12v for the heater bed it will need ~ 12A current. One of the first things I shall make when up and running is a cable chain to keep all the wires in the right place.

Will you be done by xmas ??

Looking forward to your next installment.

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #61 on:** December 07, 2015, 12:12:23 PM »

Hi picclock,

Thanks, it is coming together quite nicely, if a bit slow though ...

This with collecting cables and strapping them together is something I am having a think about. I don't particularly want to strap them using tie straps as the bundle becomes quite stiff. Cable chains is one way, but I think I will test those mesh tubes (plastic "stockings") as those seem to keep the parts together but not locking them so the final bunch will be "bendier" and more easily follow the movements. But that is still a thought ...

Done before X-mas? I don't know really, I surely hope so.

BR

/Peter

sparky961 · « **Reply #62 on:** December 07, 2015, 05:16:16 PM »

Pictures look good indeed! The slight yellowish hue from your camera, lighting, or both make a lot of the parts look gold plated at first glance!

PeterE · « **Reply #63 on:** December 07, 2015, 05:22:03 PM »

The lighting is actually just the normal fluorescent tubes I have in my garage/workshop. I found that the flash on the camera made the images way too sharp and cold, and the reflexes/glares tended to hide details so I decided to stay with the ordinary light.

And no, no parts are even remotely close to any gold not even brass this time.

/Peter

picclock · « **Reply #64 on:** December 08, 2015, 08:39:37 AM »

Hi Peter

The reason I suggested cable chains for the bed is that they limit the bend radius and control the vertical position of the wiring. I ordered in some flexible silicon cable specifically for the heatbed. I will get some thinner silicon lead for the head heater and thermister. Temporarily I will use direct filament drive to manufacture the parts I need for a bowden tube arrangement so I'm not sure its worth getting silicon leads for my extruder stepper.

happy building

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #65 on:** December 12, 2015, 05:38:09 PM »

Thanks for the info picclock!

Will have a look at that when time comes.

At last they arrived! The idlers made to fit GT2 toothed belts and with a ball bearing in their centers.

I ordered them late October and they arrived late last week - talk about slow boat from China ....

Anyway, one fitted to the Y movement and the other to the X movement tensioner in prep for assembly as soon as I get the prints ...

/Peter

picclock · « **Reply #66 on:** December 13, 2015, 03:47:18 AM »

Hi Peter E

They look good, hopefully worth the wait. Are they different sizes ?

Not sure if you are into the firmware yet but Marlin have a new release candidate which includes several enhancements that I would think are worth having. Released on 1st December available from https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin (download the zip). The configuration and adv configuration files contain more information and many more helpful links.

Looking forward to your next steps

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #67 on:** December 13, 2015, 03:55:14 PM »

Hi picclock,

The two idlers are the same size (20 tooth) as the drivers to make sure I don't get any unwanted angularities introduced.

Thanks for the info about the firmware. As soon as the mechanics are completely assembled and the electronics is wired I will dive into that as well.

BR

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #68 on:** December 20, 2015, 03:51:07 PM »

Evening All,

I have finally got the missing printed parts, this time they turned up in red so I will paint a few bits black to match what I already have.

The missing parts were - from left:

- The left end of the X movement
- The distance piece between the extruder and the carrier
- The distance piece/securing plate for the extruder head
- Three end stop holders.

It is only the X end part I will paint, the other ones will probably keep the red colour for contrast.

As can be seen on the parts on the right, they are printed with a "skirt" to make them stick better to the glass plate on the build table. The skirt is easy to remove afterwards.

Interestingly, the red parts are much better fused at print time, compared with the black parts I had. It seems like the colour is a factor to consider as it affect both temp and print speed according to my friend who printed them.

Personally I will use PLA for my parts instead of ABS. PLA is supposed to be easier to handle but that will show once I get up and running.

Right now it is X-mas preparation time so no shop time in sigt. Have to wait until after the 25th to see if I can get more things done.

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #69 on:** December 25, 2015, 01:19:06 PM »

X-mas eve done (we have our main day in Sweden at the 24th), and everyone is happy and satisfied.

So today it is much more calm and relaxed. Managed to adjust what I needed on the X-movement, The toothed belt fitted and everthing in place in the frame.

Sometimes it is very useful not to final assemble at the first go. It turned out that I had accidently placed the X-movement motor to the right instead of to the left as it should be

Got the new bits printed but in red this time. So took the chance to use them to contrast all the black bits just for fun. Now the X-movement is complete and also parallell the the build board on the Y-movement. Everything moves with ease without binding anywhere. Time to fit the end stop switches and start the electronics work!

BR

/Peter

SwarfnStuff · « **Reply #70 on:** December 26, 2015, 12:43:03 AM »

Great project write up Peter. Just a thought as I like the red - If you leave them red will it print faster? Like Red cars go faster?

All looking very good,
Congrats and,
Thanks for posting.

John B

PeterE · « **Reply #71 on:** December 26, 2015, 05:05:53 PM »

He he, yes red makes it print faster

Joke aside, thank you very much for cheering me on. I enjoy the build and hope you all do as well.

BR

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #72 on:** December 28, 2015, 04:40:09 PM »

Good Evening All,

Today I bought a PC power supply for the printer. The one I had only delivered 15A DC max on the +12V line so it was under requirements. Need another 5 to be sure.
It was not very expensive, I think about 45£ or thereabouts.

Back home and into the shop it was time for "unboxing" and opening the PSU with some expectations.

I am following these instsructions from the REPRAP site;
http://reprap.org/wiki/Choosing_a_Power_Supply_for_your_RepRap. They seem to be good and Now I am on my way intot he unknown. Will stop at this point because I want to be less tired so I don't make un-necessary mistakes. It would be bad if I blew a new PSU that I have forfitted the warranty on by opening it.

Story continues tomorrow .....

/Peter

PS,

Just had to add a comment as I got a question from a Swedish forum I am also posting on ...

If one reads further down the linked document it is possible to avoid opening the PSU to maintain warranty if so desired. But I still wanted to limit the "tail" of cables to a minimum so choose to open and cut out not wanted bits.

So there is actually two ways to go using a PC PSU, it is up to the user. Anyway, the choice of a PC PSU is quite economic compared with other types, at least I find it so.

DS

picclock · « **Reply #73 on:** December 30, 2015, 05:33:48 AM »

Hi Peter E

Good to see your progress to a very smart machine. I have modded other pc atx power supplies for general use with good success. On mine I have mounted the 5v load resister inside the case where the fan can cool it, and then used a terminal block on the outside to expose the voltages generated, removing the atx connectors. This seems to give maximum flexibilty of use.

You appear to making really good progress with a very smart machine. Looking forward to seeing the results of your hard work with the first plastic prints.

Best Regards

picclock

nrml · « **Reply #74 on:** December 30, 2015, 12:56:51 PM »

Nice progress on the build. The end is almost in sight. I can almost smell the molten PLA already. Can I ask why you chose to buy an ATX power supply rather than get one of those CCTV / LED power supplies? A 12V 30A supply costs only £17.69 and it comes ready to plug and play - no mods needed.

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Author Topic: PeterE builds a 3d Printer (Read 81005 times)