Spinningmagnets 3Dprinter project-build log

[Thud]

Hello gang,
Awhile back (during the "world domination" thread) my good friend Ron had the bug for a 3d printer. He bought some printed parts & planned to "home shop" the rest.
IIRC the plastic kit would build a Prusa Mendel i2.

Like myself, Ron's time is... lets say "occupied" by life's daily trials....add(er-take away) all up the time he freely gives this forum + his other writing hobby for the EV movement & a full time job, I wonder when he sleeps. After a short conversation on another topic, he offered me the parts to assemble, figuring I would make the time for a cool project like this. (what a temptation enabler eh?)

After getting the parts & a too generous donation toward the project....I was obligated
Last Monday while looking up electronics kit's to begin the build, I found a smoking deal on a (I think better model) Prusa I3 here:
https://www.3dprintersonlinestore.com/reprap-prusa-xi3

I placed the order Monday evening.....& it was delivered to my door 4 days later from Hong Kong....oh yea, free shipping. (amazing)

Here begins the Chronicles of a resource we intend to share freely with forum members,
I am keeping a running time log on hands on to get from a "box of parts"....to parts off the table.







Its all fitting together remarkably well. the laser cutting is excellent. all the hardware & parts are easy to identify.
The only thing I can remark on negatively- the pictures in the assembly pdf's are slightly different from the actual parts provided...(an earlier revision on the acrylic y stepper mount's) & the instructions have you install the y stepper mounts backwards....then a correct photo on the next page.....not a big deal.

It came with all the hardware an SD card jammed with the manuals, software for arduino, & a bunch of stuff I haven't even looked at yet.

Here's your chance to play along: any one else done a home assembly of something like this?

I am most intimidated by the thought of flashing the controller brains with all the software & I have never played with any of the micro-controllers before (arduino stuff I been trying to find time for) if its as simple as flashing a xie-chang controller...I can handle it.
thoughts?

A huge thank you to Spinningmagnet's for facilitating this project.
Back soon,
& best regards Thud.

 

[Thud]

day 2
Mechanical assembly assembly complete. time today just over 5 hrs. (this includes 2-diasembly's for stupid mistakes) its hard to see clear plexi in instruction photos
total assembly time 7-1/2 hours....that includes looming the wires & some soldering on the limit/home switches.

Time to figure out how to flash the controller stuffs & see if she prints.
I will need to set the homing switches & tram in the floating bed to the extruder tip.

The Chinese to English is kinda funny at first (mechanical stuff) but not so much now I am trying to find the installation sequence for the software.
I"ll take a swing before begging for help.





if she fires up...I'll try a little printing tomorrow night.....kinda anxious to try it out.

last observations:
The printed parts in the kit were a world better than the original parts Spin sent me....after seeing these & the complexity, I am impressed. Gives me something to shoot for quality wise.

The only missing part were grub screws for the extruder drive gear (I stole a couple out of RC car tool box) there were just a few screws nuts & washers left over...plenty of heat shrink, tools to assemble were typical throw away...but you can build it with the supplied tools for sure...(less soldering)
& I need a pc of glass to put on the heated table. They provided some wide kapton tape...& show a glass table top in the photo's but there is no mention of it in the instructions.

I am going to mount it to a dedicated base. The main acrylic up-right is only supported by the threaded rods (y axis) its not weak but its not 100% ridged either....we can do a little better.

 

[Thud]

reserved for day three
edit: Well, this is turning into a learning experience.....after studying up the process for flashing firmware thru the Ardunio brain....I thought I was on the right track.....

1st power up gave a nice plume of the (not so) magic smoke off the 1st transistor(EDITower regulator) on the mega2560 board......(did I do that?) a 23rd check of my
wiring & routings seem to be correct.....

A couple days later...(time to really get my learn on with the ardunio interface) my new mother boards show up....again make my setting & compile the code....no errors. easy connection & file transfer....pretty confident, problem solved?

re-wire the board on the machine....carefully re-connect everything....this is going to be GREAT!.....gently flip the power switch.....& another instant plume off the same transistor......something is wack.

can it be the skin board? or some other hardware issue in the display card & knob controller set up? dealing with the factory is turning out to be laughable....Just hoping I could get a replacement board or 2 coming...

new RAMPS 1.4 skin will be here in a few days...what a frustration.

Any Ideas or Like experience around here?

 

[Marin]

watching with interest

 

[amberwolf]

any one else done a home assembly of something like this?

I used to repair plotters, laser, inkjet, and dot matrix printers for various mechanical problems, back in my computer tech days, so I have a fair bit of experience in the mechanical aspect of this type of thing, though I've never dealt with a 3d printer.

I think you'll probably have an easy enough time of things; you're certainly mechanically-inclined enough to figure out anything that the instructions don't clearly cover.

I am most intimidated by the thought of flashing the controller brains with all the software & I have never played with any of the micro-controllers before (arduino stuff I been trying to find time for) if its as simple as flashing a xie-chang controller...I can handle it.

Not having worked with this specific device, I expect that it wouldn't be much different than rooting a phone, or updating the BIOS of a computer motherboard, (or Grin's cycle analyst or satiator, etc). Somewhere around here I have a devkit for an STMicro MPU that I've updated a few times, and it is pretty easy to do. I don't imagine it would be any harder (or riskier) to do it for the printer.

 

[Lurkin]

If programming them is anything like programming an arduino, its a walk in the park IF you have the program already. The hard part is getting a program that works... :x

Very, very cool project though!

 

[Dauntless]

http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/16/technology/homemade-invisalign/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_deskrecommended_pool&iid=obnetwork

College student 3D prints his own braces

Name brand options for clear braces can cost up to $8,000, according to companies like Invisalign, Damon, and ClearCorrect. But the 24-year-old wanted to save money, so he found a way to manufacture his own for less than $60.

 

[Grizzl-E]

I built a Rostock max 2 years ago. If your using repetier or marlin it's pretty easy. If they provide a file customized to the machine your golden. If not then there is a ton of help out there getting started with either. Once your into the phase of setting up slic3r or cura or whatever you want to try first I may be able to add some value to the thread. The flashing portion and setting up the arduino file is a little further back for me.

 

[Thud]

Well It took a couple of steps backwards to unlearn a couple things. But we finally have a fully functioning printer now!

learning the different config files guys have written & seeing how the code works...I finally cleared enough grey matter to get the settings turned on & off, & reversed in the correct order...it was a little mind boggling to me no one already had a working firmware to flash onto this machine platform....the stuff from the vendor was th worst example.

I wasted way too much time cranking on marlin....every file i downloaded was incredibly "dirty" & hard to deciphyr...lines of text running into code & a ton of variables for other machine config's....prolly works fine...but I had a bunch of un-compilable code with the few tweeks I was making following the on-line tutorials on a couple sites.

I am finally successful & recomend the repetier.com site & there (1 version old) configuration tool.....don't get me wrong...the configuration generator still gave me an non working machine....but the text was clearly seperated, & there is documentation on the sight to get you going.....I still haven't gotte the sd card reader functioning....but I am confident now I can get it working....131,000 more fimware flashings & we'll be good to go LOL.

2 cycles of the test program....need to adjust the heat down a little...but I am happy with the the 1st results

[youtube]vibtaoQkkKc[/youtube]

 

[nicobie]

Looks like fun!

I need one of those.

 

[bigmoose]

Thud is the kit from the vendor you linked to fully complete? Do you have to purchase separate arduino boards? Is anything else needed beside a laptop?

 

[Thud]

The kit is 100% complete....the instructions come on a 8g sd card. all the wires, zip ties, wire looming. the whole caboodle as it were.

I can't fault the service I got from the vendor during my learning curve...Sunny always responded to every e-mail & re sent me some files that were corrupted on the sd card. (I eventually planted myself on the Repetier's web site & learned their commands for sinking & controlling the hardware)

The thing that really slowed me down is my experience with straight coding....its still RS274 but these kids use far more parametric's than this geezer was expecting.....over all I am glad I learned a few things...arduino is going to be useful to me some day LOL!

(I already have parts incoming for another Arduino based table top cnc (engraver).

 

[Ypedal]

Been wanting to get into this for a while.... nice to see the price match my potential budget !..

 

[Thud]

Well its been a couple weeks of learning & goofing around with settings, but I am getting pretty confident with the set-up & operation of this little machine.
here are some pictures of more parts for no good reason:

There you see a set of parts to build another PI3 form scratch...a couple fans I designed some trinkets-
View attachment 3
The longest print Ive attempted to date: 17+ hours for a bust of Admiral Akbar "its a trap!"
it has some pretty complex support structure to create the huge offsets...I am not really a star wars "nut" but this provided a great learning op. with support structures. The repetier software is really quite incredible. I will be making a donation to these guys soon. & i will gift this to the real starwars nut I work with.

& of course the Obligatory "Yoda"

the cooling fan in print:


this is a handy tool to have around....PLA is much stronger than I was speculating. I have yet to run ABS thru the machine...but other than getting temps correct I don't see any hurdles.

I am anxious to get a roll of 1.75mm investment wax & print some stuff to be cast....this would make 1 off investment very feasible for a back yard guy like me ($50 a spool + shipping is cheap IMO) other practical use would be printing chain sliders for my vintage motorcycles out of some of the high performance filaments I see are available.....I guess the imagination is the only limit.

Any one have any tips for a free .STL editing software?
All my design have ben solid models in AutoCad exported as STL's once they are STL the are useless in cad....I may try my copy of Rhino out & see how much we can manipulate some art work....Acad is fine for mechanicals.

Thanks again to Ron.

 

[nicobie]

I had never thought about printing wax for casting.

EXCELLENT idea.

 

[spinningmagnets]

Trust me when I say, I NEVER would have figured this out. I picked up the starter kit when I "thought" I was going to have to work a few months on night shift, so I would have plenty of spare time to kill. I now realize that even if I had that kind of time, it was just wishful thinking! I'm glad to see someone like Thud playing with this kind of stuff...

 

[Grizzl-E]

Wow your getting some good prints out of that machine! Well done, you'd be surprised how many guys who have shelled out for a makerbot that don't have that nice of prints.

Pla is great for modelling and parts around the house, but hit a print with a hair dryer and you'll see why it's not great for long term components.

It prints so nice though because it has only ~ 1% shrinkage. ABS has ~ 8%. So every layer is warping the part below it as it cools. That is why you need a heated bed with ABS and a heated enclosure is even better.

If I were you id skip right over abs and get some petg to try. Its slightly more money but only has 3-4% shrinkage. And since its slightly more elastic than ABS, its better for functional parts where as ABS can shatter, especially when its cold out.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Thud]

Thanks for the compliments & input. I've continued to challenge myself & am getting more comfortable designing printable parts.

I commute about 45 miles to work every day...last fall they paved a really nice bike trail I can access for the last 15 miles of the journey. it goes through some really dark woods & @ 5:00 am it is pitch black.

I need some lights on the vintage takara 10 speed I use on road. 3-d printer to the rescue:
View attachment 4


Also been printing some test parts as masters to make a molds from.



last in this post s the new controller clamp for the takara


if anyone has an idea for a needed part, of you want a copy of anything i am showing..drop me a line. I normally start the printer in The evenings & let it run overnight, or of you have a printer & need some help with stl files for printing , I am glad to help when I can.

 

[nicobie]

Did you get any wax to run through the machine yet? I can't wait until you try to cast alum. with it.

 

[Thud]

whooo whoo
My wax filament delivered today....time to figure out a strategy to keep the slippery stuff on the build table.

I am thinking a coat of pva followed with a spritz of 3M77....stay tuned.

for anyone looking for printing wax....
http://www.machinablewax.com/product.php?product=52

 

[Danny Mayes]

Wow Thud, you were a weapon with a cnc hot wire cutter and some lost foam.... Loving seeing the next level rolling out before my eyes. Interest piqued over here! Watching keenly.

 

[amberwolf]

How did the wax/mold/etc stuff work out?

 

[Thud]

Hey Amberwolf,
Havent made time to play with the wax filliment yet. Busy season at work has me tied down 50+ hours a week.

I'll make a point of looking for something to print & cast (prolly something simple LIke a ring) & post it up.