Geoff's Mini Kossel Adventure

[Geoff]

Hai!

**Edit now that it is finished and working... I have to say, this is the quickest, easiest printer to build.

2 days build time - taking it slowly, I could do it in half a day now after building one. Calibration took about a day of tweaking, another day of just adjusting and tightnening things, belts etc, getting all the little artifacts out of the prints, and yeah.. about 3-4 days total buld to print time and it was my first one. The prusa took me days to build, ordering more parts, printing more crap... and it was about a 2 week process of getting it right, and still, the delta prints are AWESOME!!!

This is hands down the best machine I have used for 0.1mm prints... it is flawless, zero wobble and backlash, even if your print comes unstuck from the bed, there is so little backlash the thing doesnt move!! not joking, my hats off to you Mr Kossel, you design a magnificent printer.

Well, I thought I would have a crack at building a mini Kossel, mainly for the small footprint they have, which is only about 30cm wide, fits neatly on my desk

I started my journey by buying one of Blomkers kits, and while all his parts were great, the plastic frame parts he sent were unusable.

The picture below is the reason I not only decided to print my own parts, but also because ABS in my simplistic brain is far more durable, stronger and overall more feasible to use when building a printer.

"OH BUT PLA IS FINE!!!"

Ok ok calm down, I didn't mean to offend you PLA fanboys, but let's face it - it does degrade over time, no one can deny that. ABS does not degrade.

This is the Orange 'Blomker Industries" PLA parts I was sent, they all have the same warped split quality. If I didn't have my own printer and ability to make my own parts, I would have been very angry.



I don't think I need to point out the issues with these parts. The main one, the Openbeam 240mm V-slots DID NOT fit in the holes, they were so far out I had to drill new ones, and then the structure was so weak,
they split like when it was all put together..

So using my flashforge in 1 day, i pumped out all my kossel parts AND prusa parts, the flashforge was glowing red hot by night time... 20 hours straight printing.

YES ITS A MESS!
The prusa build is my "Tinker' machine... I plan on it never being finished and upgrading it constantly. haha



Base was relatively easy, now onto the rest




Gizmo the cat, photobombing...




And we are almost there, there is more done than this photo, but still messy, am doing the final wiring hookup tonight and then the auto level probe..

of all the things I didn't have in my house, a safety pin... I can't believe I didn't have a safety pin lol... so yeah tonight is test night

[jaguarking11]

That looks very good. I am curious what is the build volume supossed to be? 300mm footprint, in my mind there is around 200mm cylinder capable? How about height?

[DrLuigi]

Nice printer, Liking those Black aluminium bars, How did this kit cost anyway?

Ive been thinking to get my printer all taken apart and making a Delta, But aint sure yet at this moment.

They look damn awsome and have some nice speeds without to much vibiration nor sound.

[jimc]

I do like the biohazard gear! Cool

[Geoff]

Nice printer, Liking those Black aluminium bars, How did this kit cost anyway?

Ive been thinking to get my printer all taken apart and making a Delta, But aint sure yet at this moment.

They look damn awsome and have some nice speeds without to much vibiration nor sound.

Nice printer, Liking those Black aluminium bars, How did this kit cost anyway?

Ive been thinking to get my printer all taken apart and making a Delta, But aint sure yet at this moment.

They look damn awsome and have some nice speeds without to much vibiration nor sound.

if you bought the parts seperately, about $400, but in a kit with everything ready was about 600, but now I know what's in it and what I can get parts for, it wont be anything near that price.

#1 most expensive item is the bearing sliders for the arms, from $50 onward each... i see now why people use V-slot runner wheels instead ...

The aluminum bars are $18 for 1 meter, I bought 10 meters, but you need to calculate your grinder size as you will lose like 3mm per cut, the black are like out of stock everywhere .
M3 screws are much required in this kit, there is 16xM3-15 in each base foot, 5 in each top..

Allen key / spring / safety pin / endstop microswitch makes up the autolevelling feature..

Traxas rod ends and graphite rods so easy to get... everyone has got them...

The speed is unbelievable from what I have seen, for me it means double the reliable speed at 150ms feed rate.

That looks very good. I am curious what is the build volume supossed to be? 300mm footprint, in my mind there is around 200mm cylinder capable? How about height?

My round glass plate that came with it is 180mm, but I have a boroscillate round glass at 170mm and a 160mm round hotbed, so will prob use the 170mm.

I find height is what I want more, and the kossel mini is rated to 240mm high prints! so I will have a print area of 170x170x240

[Mjolinor]

I decided to see how cheaply it was possible to make a delta printer. This one is under $100 so far not including the Azteeg board.

It's a long way off finished, I am currently making a multi extruder hot end and Bowden push thing for it. It doesn't look as nice as yours but it should print fine. I have run it for hours as it is and it's repeatability surprises me even though it has string to move the axes instead of steel Bowden cable. I bought some steel cable for it and it worked very well but after 20 minutes or so the strands started snapping because of the tight bending radius of the pulleys, I need to source some good flexible cable for it really but that can wait.

[Geoff]

Nice work!
Oh man I like your workshop... i'd be like a kid in a candy store in there lol

[Mjolinor]

It is a good mancave but it's a bit overfull though when one is reduced to building printers on the only spare seat in the room.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dknpowe...es/mancave.jpg

[jaguarking11]

My round glass plate that came with it is 180mm, but I have a boroscillate round glass at 170mm and a 160mm round hotbed, so will prob use the 170mm.

I find height is what I want more, and the kossel mini is rated to 240mm high prints! so I will have a print area of 170x170x240

That must be one fast beast. Are you looking into light weight build for the head? I have an idea of making the carriage and the hot end one part. Should reduce the number of steel fasteners and reduce the weight drastically. IF your printing in abs, use abs carriage, if your printing in pla still use an abs carrige. My pla parts warped after 2-3 prints.

I went oversize with my build and I am using abs, this means the main moving parts are like 2x the weight they should be, maybe more. Tuning and tweaking is next. I am liking the alu extrussions. I will be experimenting with a different rail system once I have my heated chamber built. I printed a 220mm long part yesterday. It took about 12 hours, and at the end I had some ridiculous lift on the edges. The part is still usable as it looks like a uniform lift, but the part warped 3mm on each corner. I have to get a heat spreader and heated chamber built asap or else this thing wont be able to do the rest of the parts I need.

[Geoff]

That must be one fast beast. Are you looking into light weight build for the head? I have an idea of making the carriage and the hot end one part. Should reduce the number of steel fasteners and reduce the weight drastically. IF your printing in abs, use abs carriage, if your printing in pla still use an abs carrige. My pla parts warped after 2-3 prints.

I went oversize with my build and I am using abs, this means the main moving parts are like 2x the weight they should be, maybe more. Tuning and tweaking is next. I am liking the alu extrussions. I will be experimenting with a different rail system once I have my heated chamber built. I printed a 220mm long part yesterday. It took about 12 hours, and at the end I had some ridiculous lift on the edges. The part is still usable as it looks like a uniform lift, but the part warped 3mm on each corner. I have to get a heat spreader and heated chamber built asap or else this thing wont be able to do the rest of the parts I need.

I have to admit. it's the first machine I've used/built that has a feeder external to the head. I have never really liked the idea of feeding the filament from half a meter away from the head. I am keen to try it to see how light it makes it and if they makes much of a difference, all I can go on is youtube videos so far and they look great

I would love to say I used a couple of machines to print my kossel parts, but the only one I could get the corners to print without warping was the flashforge, with 50% infill they take a long time to print need a fair bit of heat.