SgtToe 12" i3v Build Thread

Well I just placed my order, very exciting. I plan to use this thread to ask questions about my build as well as document my progress.
ORDERED:

1. 12" i3v w/ RUMBA, .40 Hexagon 3mm Hotend
2. .3mm nozzle for hot end
3. Extra Thermestor
4. spool of purple abs filament

Will order power supply from Amazon later today:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D7CWSCG/...=I9TN4FAUHQABW

Mitigating Spousal Annoyance will figure highly into the process, lol. She is a good sport in supporting all my hobbies and so I want to do what I can to preserver harmony in our little apartment. So my proposed timeline with the wife is as follows:

• one weekend of taking over the dining room table for the build process.
• two weeks of completed printer sitting on our dresser in the bedroom of our apartment, for calibration, configuration and misc printing exp.
• one weekend of building an enclosure
• printer in new home inside enclosure.

After the printer is in good running order and in an enclosure next steps will be:

1. Misc improvements community recommends like feet, fan shroud ect.
2. Octo Pi and web cam (enclosure will have no windows)
3. Relay hooked to octo Pi to turn printer on and off
4. Air scrubber http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:125264

Congrats SgtToe! Very glad to see that you've ordered a kit!

You set an ambitious but well thought our plan! I wish you the best in your build of both printer and enclosure, if there's anything I can provide to help with the enclosure build please let me know!

I recommend this power supply http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007K2H0GI . I bought the one you linked to and woke up one morning to half a print done and the psu was off. The Meanwell is of much better quality and won't burn your house down.

Update for this week:

Printer order status changed last night from in process to complete. Looks like Makerfarm shipped it last night and it will arrive on Monday.

Power supply arrived from Amazon this week, it is the one I put in my first post not the one mattanonymous recommended as I had already ordered it.

Also this week I got my Ocoto Pi up and running with the web cam. Next I need to get the relay board going, it came in this week also.

I still need to pick up the glass and the wire, I'm planing on just buying the wire by the foot from home depot and not going with speaker wire but stranded wire of the specified gauge, anyone see any issues with that? I have seen folks refer to "silicon wire" is this just wire with silicon insulation? I was disapointed when Home Depot told me they don't cut glass, so I'll have to check local hardware stores.

Oh, another question I had:

I have spool of ABS coming from makerfarm. What should I get and how should I use it to make the print stick to the glass? I see hairspray and glue stick mentioned. I think I will go with the purple elmers glue stick for now, the sheet of PIE in another post looks good but I have shot all of my money getting the kit and supplies so I can't afford the sheet of PIE for now. I was thinking the glue stick over the hair spray because I thought there would be issues with over spray getting onto the printer it self, or all over the enclosure.

Love to hear how you use hairspray or glue stick. thanks

I use a sheet of PEI now but used the hairspray first. Never got around to trying the glue stick. I just sprayed an even coat close to the glass in the area that I was printing, didn't really notice any over spray. Lowe's cut my glass for me by the way. for most of my wire I went with 12 gage solid wire, which seems to work well.

Hi SgtToe,

I use the glue sticks with no issues. I was going to use hairspray, but I didn't have any on hand and my kids didn't even notice when I stole their glue stick! At first I did have issue with the abs peeling from the glass, but I found another post on here about flipping the fan so it pulls the across the hotend instead of blowing on the hotend. I also printed the fan hood that clips right on the fan and directs the air flow straight up.

I have the .4 hexagon 1.75

hey I ordered the same power supply that you did if you have any issues let me know

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neverlift

hey I ordered the same power supply that you did if you have any issues let me know

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Will do. It was recommended by others on the form.

Is this to much h warp? This is the bed of my 12" that arrived 4 hours ago, not sure if I should stop my build to get a replacement.http://3dprintboard.com/attachment.p...tid=5475&stc=1

Wow Colin replied in the time it took me to post the picture. He said as long as the wheels engage the aluminum extrusions im ok.

I've been looking at this same kit for weeks, and I'm in a surprisingly similar situation to you. I've got a nice tax return coming back, live in a very small apartment, and have a girl friend who isn't super excited about the idea of me building and keeping this in our home.

Let me know how your build goes, and how your relationship fares :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Two Roads

I've been looking at this same kit for weeks, and I'm in a surprisingly similar situation to you. I've got a nice tax return coming back, live in a very small apartment, and have a girl friend who isn't super excited about the idea of me building and keeping this in our home.

Let me know how your build goes, and how your relationship fares :)

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So far it is working out. We decided to put off the enclousre because we wanted to use the money for other things, I'm good with that because prevailing wisdom on the form is to get some usage experience before you build an enclosure. I have started my build early but at the end of each work session I pick up all the plywood bits and keep unsued parts organized. That helps my wife to feel like my hobby is not taking over our small apartment.

Question around fan shrouds

I was planning on making clough42's hexagon cooling shroud with the rear mounted 25mm fan, but just realized that the fan that comes with the hexagon is a 25mm. In light of this I ask:

1. Is the fan and shroud that now comes on the hexagon hot end a good design (ie cools well and does not induce warping by spilling air onto the print)
2. If the current design is not a good one, will the included fan work well enough on clough42's shroud or is there another design that I should be considering. I wan to do abl and eventually include a fan for cooling the print for when I print in PLA.

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SgtToe

1. Is the fan and shroud that now comes on the hexagon hot end a good design (ie cools well and does not induce warping by spilling air onto the print)

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Are they shipping with something different now? Pic?

I'll throw this option in the hat - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:693913. You can use the 25mm fan that came with the hexagon, and print the angled version that exhausts the airflow upwards off the print bed. Even if you eventually move to the clough42 cooling system, this is a better solution than the shroud my kit came with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by printbus

Are they shipping with something different now? Pic?

I'll throw this option in the hat - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:693913. You can use the 25mm fan that came with the hexagon, and print the angled version that exhausts the airflow upwards off the print bed. Even if you eventually move to the clough42 cooling system, this is a better solution than the shroud my kit came with.

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As soon as I finish assembly I will post a pic

How many hours do you expect the build to take?

I just built mine a couple of weeks ago, I used the hexagon fan shroud that came with it. I had issues with abs warping, then I turned the fan around and pulled the air and then the warping went away.

My girlfriend was not happy with it begin on the kitchen table. Its been there for a couple of weeks now and the complaints have lessened. I should probably think about moving it, but not sure where to. The build took me about 12 hours, but I'm slow and and like to over think.

I have 4-5 hours on mine and I am at the point where I will bolt the aluminium rails on to the frame. I'm really shocked, I thought I would be pulling an all nighter to build it but have been enjoying the process and just working on it when everyone else in the family is watching tv or doing something else.

Draled, thanks for the info, I think I will follow your lead and mount the fan to pull air away from the head for now. I see so many folks mentioning problems with ABS warping, I hope I don't regret starting with a spool of that. I just figured I would need abs to print replacement parts.

LOL, I didn't come up with the idea of turning it backwards, I read it on another post and it helped! I haven't printed anything but abs so far and I have been really happy with it. You won't regret it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Draled

I just built mine a couple of weeks ago, I used the hexagon fan shroud that came with it. I had issues with abs warping, then I turned the fan around and pulled the air and then the warping went away.

My girlfriend was not happy with it begin on the kitchen table. Its been there for a couple of weeks now and the complaints have lessened. I should probably think about moving it, but not sure where to. The build took me about 12 hours, but I'm slow and and like to over think.

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Nice. Yeah I'm really excited about the 12" print volume but a little nervous that I'm not going to find a convenient place to put it. Meaning I'll likely have to calibrate every time I go to print something. Who know's though, maybe she'll find a use for it too and then I could just leave it in the living room ;).

Ok, this next step has me a little nervous. I just finished assembling the extruder and now the directions tell me to hook the rumba board up tot he heater and the thermister in the hot end and bring it up to 220c and then tighten it.

1. So did you guys skip this step and come back to it when you had all your electronics mounted and hooked up? And to I need to have the heat sinks on the stepper drivers before I apply power to the rumba board at this point or just before I actually try to drive motors with it?

2. What did you set the hot end on while it was heating up?

3. Any other advice around this step other than don't get burned? lol

It was scary but not difficult at all. I used the glass that I had cut for the bed to place the hotend on while it reached temperature. Then grabbed an adjustable wrench and tightened it up. Be careful when tightening the heater block as it is easy to mess up the threads with the wrench supplied. Tightening the nozzle is simple.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kablahz

It was scary but not difficult at all. I used the glass that I had cut for the bed to place the hotend on while it reached temperature. Then grabbed an adjustable wrench and tightened it up. Be careful when tightening the heater block as it is easy to mess up the threads with the wrench supplied. Tightening the nozzle is simple.

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did you do the steps in sequence so that the electronics were only hooked to the thremister and the heater or did you come back to this step once you had all the other electronics hooked up? Was you glass already on your bed? I was worried that it would damage the glass or the heater under it if I had the hot end resting on the glass.

You don't need anything else attached to the board other than power, thermistor, extruder heater cartridge and some way to control the nozzle temperature (LCD or USB with pronterface [or other software]). You are not using any motors so stepper driver heat sinks are not needed.

I put the nozzle in a small metal vise to hold while it was heating, but that is just because I had one handy. Glass will certainly not melt and shouldn't scratch or anything. My only worry there would be too fast local heating/cooling.

I actually did do mine out of sequence, but only because I finished the build while waiting for my power supply to arrive.

First print underway! It is late and I just grabbed some of my wife's hairspray, corners look ok, i think one might be lifting, plan to get some purple gluestick, this is Garnier Sleek and Shine Extra Strong #4. I'll post more pics when it finishes and seek advice on tweaks.

Attachment 5614Attachment 5615

Finished! There were a few dark specks that seemed to come out of the extruder but other than that I think this is a decent looking first print. All I did was level the table. I think I need to calibrate the extrusion rate next, any other ideas or recomendations? Is this quality good enough for me to print all the printable spare parts for the the I3v?
Attachment 5617Attachment 5618Attachment 5616Attachment 5619

Lastly I noticed this goober on the bottom of the extruder, is that normal?

Attachment 5620

Oh and do I need to apply hairspray or glue stick before each print?

how accurate are the dimensions? and yes goobers are normal in my experience

you only need to add hairspray/glue if stuff isnt sticking. also sometimes you can shift the XY Start position so its not always starting at the same location where the hairspray/glue might have worn out.

Congrats on the successful print!

Within the next few days I'm hopefully ordering either the 10" or 12".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by adamfilip

how accurate are the dimensions? and yes goobers are normal in my experience

you only need to add hairspray/glue if stuff isnt sticking. also sometimes you can shift the XY Start position so its not always starting at the same location where the hairspray/glue might have worn out.

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Cube dimensions were right on at 24mm!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lakester

Congrats on the successful print!

Within the next few days I'm hopefully ordering either the 10" or 12".

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Congrats! Seems to be lots of us who have just bought these kits, Colin must be doing well. While I was building mine I noticed the 12" build guide got updated, looks like the bed is now coming with some reinforcements.

Yea three ribs that run under the bed my kit came with them