Qidi Tech 1 - Replicator 1 clone

[Syd_Khaos]

The problem is finding larger wheels that will also fit into the tracks. I prefer the three wheel approach myself as two wheels, unless taking up the entire width of the plate (meaning one wheel would equal the width of what is currently two wheels including the space between them), is not enough.

Oh, and just the wheels themselves are hideously priced imo.

I meant 1 wheel per contact point.
Most of the I3 clones on google shop search have 4 contact points per gantry end, a full gantry bar being 8 contact points. Most designs are using 2 wheels per contact point.
I want to use 1 wheel per contact point, but have 10 points on a full gantry bar, with the wheels being on 3 sides of the ride rail.

I don't think it will be to hard to find the right wheels (I don't think it will be to easy either lol) as there is a little room to play with the v-rail. A taller thinner single wheel could be used, riding all the way to the inner rail. or something just the right width ti ride the V properly. If I can't find it in the industrial world I will look to skating. They make such a crazy range of sizes and materials in skateboard wheels. If nothing else I bet there is a skateboard wheel that would ride the V right and be soft enough material.
I'm only doing Y and Z on gantry trollys, X will be the plate and done on bars/lead screw. Bars are gonna be 380mm apart on center with the lead screw in the middle....that puppy not gonna shake much...in theory =)

I'm also gonna play with the idea of milling out a recess in the aluminum heat plate that would fit the glass build plate. Could be open on one side to slide plate out, and held with single clamp.

[DarkAlchemist]

I meant 1 wheel per contact point.
Most of the I3 clones on google shop search have 4 contact points per gantry end, a full gantry bar being 8 contact points. Most designs are using 2 wheels per contact point.
I want to use 1 wheel per contact point, but have 10 points on a full gantry bar, with the wheels being on 3 sides of the ride rail.

I don't think it will be to hard to find the right wheels (I don't think it will be to easy either lol) as there is a little room to play with the v-rail. A taller thinner single wheel could be used, riding all the way to the inner rail. or something just the right width ti ride the V properly. If I can't find it in the industrial world I will look to skating. They make such a crazy range of sizes and materials in skateboard wheels. If nothing else I bet there is a skateboard wheel that would ride the V right and be soft enough material.
I'm only doing Y and Z on gantry trollys, X will be the plate and done on bars/lead screw. Bars are gonna be 380mm apart on center with the lead screw in the middle....that puppy not gonna shake much...in theory =)

I'm also gonna play with the idea of milling out a recess in the aluminum heat plate that would fit the glass build plate. Could be open on one side to slide plate out, and held with single clamp.

Ahhh, I was going to say 2 wheels would suck and 4 causes a lot of issues, as does 4 bearings that a lot of printers use, that was found out and 3 is the perfect match in a triangular pattern.

You should join that openbuilds forum and start a project as it has me interested at least (I suspect others as well).

My build had to have that many wheels because it was a mixture of UM+Replicator but using all V-Rail and no smooth rods at all.

[Syd_Khaos]

Ahhh, I was going to say 2 wheels would suck and 4 causes a lot of issues, as does 4 bearings that a lot of printers use, that was found out and 3 is the perfect match in a triangular pattern.

You should join that openbuilds forum and start a project as it has me interested at least (I suspect others as well).

My build had to have that many wheels because it was a mixture of UM+Replicator but using all V-Rail and no smooth rods at all.

I will start a project there soon as I got a little more done on the design. Hope it works though...seems that site is set up for SketchUp users...and I have never touched it.

[DarkAlchemist]

I will start a project there soon as I got a little more done on the design. Hope it works though...seems that site is set up for SketchUp users...and I have never touched it.

Solidworks is there too and you can download all of their stuff they sell as .sldprt and assemblies. It makes designing a printer a snap with all of that.

Sketchup has always been junk and always will be junk as far as I am concerned. Seen quality stuff in it but never was able to print anything someone designed with it (their stl exporter has sucked from day one with holes and all sort of abnormalities in the stl).

[talasyn]

Newbie question - what is the best way to clean my build plate? I have the plate with the blue sticker / surface that came with the printer. I've done a good number of prints, scraped off after each build, but it still has a layer of residue. Now when I print in black, the surface that rests on the build plate is picking up some of the previous colors, mainly white.

Thanks

[JSensebe]

Newbie question - what is the best way to clean my build plate? I have the plate with the blue sticker / surface that came with the printer. I've done a good number of prints, scraped off after each build, but it still has a layer of residue. Now when I print in black, the surface that rests on the build plate is picking up some of the previous colors, mainly white.

Thanks

If you're using glue stick, it's water soluble. After a good scraping to get off the big messes, I use a wet paper towel to wipe away the rest. The glue will return to its purple color when wet, which makes it easy to see what's there. I never have a problem with plastic residue remaining on the plate, though. Maybe because of the glue stick?

Unfortunately, my blue sticker is nearing the end of its life. Heating the plate to 110° has caused a bubble to form in the center (which incidentally is the reason my calibration cube was concave on the bottom). I have no idea how to safely remove the sticker or how to place the backup Qidi provided without creating more bubbles.

Granted, I haven't researched the matter at all yet. For now, I'm just moving my prints a bit to the right to avoid the bubble.

I printed my first real part in ABS yesterday. It was a small piece to repair my A/C return vent. One of the bits of aluminum that's supposed to stop the door from folding in too far was broken off, so I built a snap-in replacement. Works good, but I may revisit it to see if I can make it even better at some point. Getting the tolerances right when snapping to pre-made parts is tricky. The nice thing is, since the part is so small, it prints in five minutes, not counting heat-up and cool-down.

[Syd_Khaos]

If you're using glue stick, it's water soluble. After a good scraping to get off the big messes, I use a wet paper towel to wipe away the rest. The glue will return to its purple color when wet, which makes it easy to see what's there. I never have a problem with plastic residue remaining on the plate, though. Maybe because of the glue stick?

Unfortunately, my blue sticker is nearing the end of its life. Heating the plate to 110° has caused a bubble to form in the center (which incidentally is the reason my calibration cube was concave on the bottom). I have no idea how to safely remove the sticker or how to place the backup Qidi provided without creating more bubbles.

Granted, I haven't researched the matter at all yet. For now, I'm just moving my prints a bit to the right to avoid the bubble.

I printed my first real part in ABS yesterday. It was a small piece to repair my A/C return vent. One of the bits of aluminum that's supposed to stop the door from folding in too far was broken off, so I built a snap-in replacement. Works good, but I may revisit it to see if I can make it even better at some point. Getting the tolerances right when snapping to pre-made parts is tricky. The nice thing is, since the part is so small, it prints in five minutes, not counting heat-up and cool-down.

Scrape the sticker off with a putty knife and clean the left over adhessive with some denatured alcohol.
To reapply a new sticker (this works for both BuildTak style tape and klapton) you gonna want to start with a 1 full side, use a shorter side to make things easy. Peal about 2in of the sticker cover back and apply to build table, use a sticker knife or a bondo putty tab to slowly press the sticker into place. Remove the sticker cover few inches at a time, repeating the pressdown process as ya go.

If your gonna be using tapes for your print surface I would strongly suggest getting a glass plate. I Have 2 glass plates, one just glass (for the rare instances when its not to humid here) and another with buildtak tape on one side.
This will do 2 things for ya.
First it gives you a removable build surface...EVERY printer should have this.Trying to get prints of a bed hooked to your leveling hardware is just plain silly, and rather counterproductive.
Second, you would have to be TRYING to mess things up to get a bubble in the sticker on glass. Most bubbles caused in these type stickers comes from the recessed bolt holes in the aluminium plate. Its hard to get the sticker down perfect and flat over the holes. Even if you place the sticker PERFECTLY there is still gonna be little airgaps where the hardware is. On a long enough timeline the chance its gonna bubble in one of those spots is very high.

There is a bit of trial and error when printing parts to work with none printed stuff. To me it seems this mostly stems from the slight material shrinkage that happens with prints. This is REALLY hard to account for...I have yet to find a sure-fire way thats 100%...but there is something you can do to help a bit, Kinda a twist on the calibration blocks.
Make yourself 2 blocks 20x20mm and 50mm or so wide. In the first block cut a series of cylinders, start at 1mm and go up a mm each one. Should be able to get 5 or 6 into the block. Go in from the top and go 3/4 the way to the bottom with the cut-out.
Do the second block in the same manner but with square cutouts.

Print the blocks and take messurements..this gives a general idea on the kinda shrinkage your gonna see. The issue with doing this is it has to be redone basicaly for every print, as lots of little things can effect shrinkage, bed and nozzle temp, humidity, case heat, material and coloring, infill.....just about everything has the potential to effect shrinkage.

[JSensebe]

There is a bit of trial and error when printing parts to work with none printed stuff. To me it seems this mostly stems from the slight material shrinkage that happens with prints. This is REALLY hard to account for...I have yet to find a sure-fire way thats 100%...but there is something you can do to help a bit, Kinda a twist on the calibration blocks.
Make yourself 2 blocks 20x20mm and 50mm or so wide. In the first block cut a series of cylinders, start at 1mm and go up a mm each one. Should be able to get 5 or 6 into the block. Go in from the top and go 3/4 the way to the bottom with the cut-out.
Do the second block in the same manner but with square cutouts.

Print the blocks and take messurements..this gives a general idea on the kinda shrinkage your gonna see. The issue with doing this is it has to be redone basicaly for every print, as lots of little things can effect shrinkage, bed and nozzle temp, humidity, case heat, material and coloring, infill.....just about everything has the potential to effect shrinkage.

Yeah. I got the part to fit on the second try. Not a big deal, really, since the part's so small even Skeinforge slices it in no time. My 100%-infill calibration cubes actually come out up to 5% too large in both PLA and ABS, which I find interesting. My A/C has a dehumidifier which I think helps reduce the variability somewhat. On a small part like this, it's just better to go for it. The prints to calibrate size are going to take longer to print than the part itself.

Thanks for the tape tips. I fully expect I will create more bubbles trying to replace the tape than what I've got now. Is there anything I could use to lubricate the tape, so that I can squeeze the bubbles out before it dries and sticks to the plate? I was very happy with the aluminum+tape+glue stick for my stuff until this bubble formed. I haven't printed anything large enough in ABS for curling to be a problem, though.

Here's a hypothetical question. If there were small "air holes" near the bolt in the plate, would the tape bubble at all? I would think the expanding air would have a place to go instead of applying pressure to the tape, but I could be wrong.

[DarkAlchemist]

Yeah. I got the part to fit on the second try. Not a big deal, really, since the part's so small even Skeinforge slices it in no time. My 100%-infill calibration cubes actually come out up to 5% too large in both PLA and ABS, which I find interesting. My A/C has a dehumidifier which I think helps reduce the variability somewhat. On a small part like this, it's just better to go for it. The prints to calibrate size are going to take longer to print than the part itself.

Thanks for the tape tips. I fully expect I will create more bubbles trying to replace the tape than what I've got now. Is there anything I could use to lubricate the tape, so that I can squeeze the bubbles out before it dries and sticks to the plate? I was very happy with the aluminum+tape+glue stick for my stuff until this bubble formed. I haven't printed anything large enough in ABS for curling to be a problem, though.

Here's a hypothetical question. If there were small "air holes" near the bolt in the plate, would the tape bubble at all? I would think the expanding air would have a place to go instead of applying pressure to the tape, but I could be wrong.

That is one thing that was right on my printer as there was no bubbles. I also read to remove the blue crap it was best to heat the bed to 60c or 70c so it helps to loosen the grip of the adhesive and to start on a corner. All printers who use this sort of stuff have issues with the remains being left behind. Wanhao is horrible to remove their so I would suggest glass for everyone. I will not advocate window glass though for safety reasons.

I never really have fluctuations with humidity but I am in the 70%+ RH from April through Oct then when winter gets here there is low humidity and I never had humidity issues with printing. I will say this the very first roll of filament I ever purchased was great then after 18 months they went to pure garbage (KBell) when I had purchased my first. I was printing with it and steam would come out of my nozzle and popping and spitting sounds. I didn't know what that was then but I soon found out.

I still have that spool but I stick all of my filament into my box with <20% RH and it seems to dry the filament too which is cool.

I think I may switch to PETG since I read it is Hydrophobic so I don't really need a dry box with it like I do with ABS and the sponge filament known as PLA, lol.

[Syd_Khaos]

I will not advocate window glass though for safety reasons.

A VERY good tip indeed!

Make sure your using at least commercial grade borosilicate glass, scientific grade is better. Most windows are standard grade boro...one step below commercial. The thermal properties are horrible, and it is possible to get stress and heat cracks in such low grade glass.

A good place to look locally for glass is any place that does custom bathroom (shower) enclosures as these typically use commercial grade boro-glass.

Purchased my first glass plate from MC Master Carr...only to find out later there is company locally that does bathroom enclosures, used the higher end of commercial grade boro, and cuts me plates for $10 a piece. And to add insult to injury their shop is about 4 blocks from me lol....

@JSensebe:
In theory making relief holes for heated air to escape would reduce the chance of bubbles forming over the bolt holes.
However you also creating more surface area exposed to air, and in a very small area at that. This could lead to small temp fluctuation across your plate. Maybe not enough to make a lick of difference, but maybe so.
You would be much better off leaving the plate as is and getting a removable bit to but the sticker/tape onto.
If glass does not appeal to you look into the MagHold build plates. Now that I have switched to printing mostly on stickers (not by choice I assure you) I plan on getting a MagHold setup very soon.