# 3D Printing > 3D Printers (Hardware) >  370mm X 250mm X 300mm

## AutoWiz

Upon seeing this I immediately made my purchase. I will report back here when it arrives how it was unboxing and first impressions. It is called the Tevo Black Widow. It was under $600 with auto bed leveling. Here is a link: 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Tevo-Bla...AAAOSwnHZYZV6M
Oh I can't wait to get this thing. It ships from the USA. I will take pictures of the unboxing

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## AutoWiz

It's been shipped. I have tracking. It just has to make its way from the west coast over here to the east coast of the USA and we can start making really big stuff. Here is what it should look like..

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## AutoWiz

Ya well I cant wait for the printer to arrive and be built and then print some stuff out before I can begin the upgrading process. I think at this point we should all know me by now. So this comes with a mks base 1.4 controller and 12864 full graphic display. I have en route a mks base 1.5 controller with mks tft32 full color touchscreen. And I have found and printed the parts needed already from thingiverse to make this be a direct fit to the new printer.... when it arrives. 



http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2096501

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## AutoWiz

The printer still isn't here but as I am looking at all the features of the control solution I plan on applying to this I notice a header on the mks base control board labeled wifi. This got me to searching and I found and ordered this..



So this printer will have a touchscreen and wifi upon its initial setup. Also I ordered the printer with the bl touch for auto leveling, but I have a few proximity sensors left over from a 5 pack I purchased for the other 2 printers. So I might setup a proximity sensor instead of the touch. Either way this is gonna be a build thread just as soon as the printer(and parts) gets here.

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## AutoWiz

Here are the printed parts to make the touchscreen fit correctly..



And I am half way through building the filament holder..



Thank you thingiverse! Now if only this printer and these parts could make haste in getting here.

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## Marm

I'll follow this thread  :Smile: .  Sounds like too good of  deal, don't go spending too much before it gets there.   :Smile:

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## fredk

If you haven't already, join the Black Widow group on facebook.  Lots of good advice on setting up the printer and the group has developed an extremely good 'community guide' to walk you through potential issues with the printer.

The biggest issue with this printer seems to be consistent quality and that is where the community guide comes in.

I've got my BW together, but have not printed yet.  I hope to get the extruder calibrated and finally do some printing this weekend.

FYI, despite quality issues, Tevo stands behind its printer and will replace defective parts.  It just takes a while because everything warranty related comes via slow boat from China.

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## AutoWiz

> I'll follow this thread .  Sounds like too good of  deal, don't go spending too much before it gets there.


Ya i'm gonna wait on the 0.9 degree stepper motors and .2mm nozzle. The resolution jump will come a little down the road. like in a few weeks or so.

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## AutoWiz

> If you haven't already, join the Black Widow group on facebook.  Lots of good advice on setting up the printer and the group has developed an extremely good 'community guide' to walk you through potential issues with the printer.
> 
> The biggest issue with this printer seems to be consistent quality and that is where the community guide comes in.
> 
> I've got my BW together, but have not printed yet.  I hope to get the extruder calibrated and finally do some printing this weekend.
> 
> FYI, despite quality issues, Tevo stands behind its printer and will replace defective parts.  It just takes a while because everything warranty related comes via slow boat from China.


Done. And Thank You. I now belong to a group. I hope to see some new ideas there.

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## AutoWiz

The filament holder finished printing..





I am absolutely glowing over the quality of these prints. I worked so hard to create the machine churning out these parts. From scratch. I have detailed it's building and evolution here:
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=270130
and here:
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...Mixing-Printer
I am just so happy with what I ended up with.

I understand this machine comes without any feet on it. So I found this on thingiverse:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1732461/#files
It is a base stabilizer but it will serve as feet and will pick the aluminum structure up off the table. I have already started printing the first piece of 5..

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## AutoWiz

The main support finished. It took 7 hours to print this. It is thick and has 40% infill. it came out nice..





All I can say is wow this printer is gonna be big. I am currently printing the 4 feet that will go with this piece and keep the frame off the ground..



I joined the facebook group for black widow owners and discovered that there is this power supply issue. So to add to the parts that I have ordered for a printer that still isn't here, I have ordered a mean well se 600 -24 power supply. I now need to print some more parts so this power supply will fit and mount correctly inside the control box.

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## fredk

The PSU is a hit and miss issue.  Some people are fine.  Some have a thermister on the input side go pop.  Those with the skills replace the thermistor.  The root issue is that the V2 heatbed draws close to the 480w output of the psu at startup.  Seems to be a combination of heatbed resistance and where the thermister sits in is spec.

There is now a V3 heatbed with a reduced power draw.  I have not seen anyone post the actual draw yet.

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## AutoWiz

> The PSU is a hit and miss issue.  Some people are fine.  Some have a thermister on the input side go pop.  Those with the skills replace the thermistor.  The root issue is that the V2 heatbed draws close to the 480w output of the psu at startup.  Seems to be a combination of heatbed resistance and where the thermister sits in is spec.
> 
> There is now a V3 heatbed with a reduced power draw.  I have not seen anyone post the actual draw yet.


This will not be a hit or miss issue for me( ... I hope). It's really just the rigid frame and heatbed I am using. I need this to be reliable and not burn my home down. So aside from the control board upgrade to mks base 1.5 and the power supply upgrade to mean well se 600-24 power supply, I also hunted down an external mosfet to wire in to control the heatbed. But not the same external mosfet that others are using for this. The makers of the control board, mks, makes an external mosfet that is good for 30a and it has a much larger heatsink. here is what that looks like..

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## AutoWiz

I'm still a few days away from receiving my printer and honestly with all the parts I ordered to go with it I am probably looking at next weekend before I actually get to build this printer. So for now I will just keep finding and printing parts to get this thing built right the first time out. I found a layer fan duct that holds a 40mm fan and then I found a 40mm fan velocity stack. And this is the assembled layer fan for the new printer..

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## AutoWiz

The suspense is killing me right now. I should get mine by the end of the day tomorrow. There is another modification this printer must have for its initial assembly. Someone figured out how to grow the z axis by 37mm. which would bring the max print dimensions to 400x250x337. Here is the conversion parts and instructions:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2168986

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## fredk

You are not going to get a full 400mm on the x-axis, even with mods.  Stock the max build size is 350 x 250 x 250.  You can extend the x-axis to about 270 with a custom extruder mount or if you switch to a Titan style extruder and pancake motor.

FYI, your kit should come with that external mosfet if it is a v2 board.  The V3 bed supposedly does not need it, but I would put one on anyway.  There are not enough V3 heatbed kits out there yet to know for sure if they have resolved their power draw issues.

I didn't get to the point of printing this weekend.  With the change in the weather here (snow and damned cold) I just want to hybernate for a month or so until the nice weather arrives.  Made yogurt and cleaned the house instead.

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## AutoWiz

It has arrived..



Oh wow here is something the GEEETech i3 didn't come with. I feel spoiled having one of these..



And just like with the GEEETech printer this is to be a team effort..

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## AutoWiz

I must say that I am very impressed with the anodized pieces and how much in this kit is metal. This should make for a very solid printer. I have already got the main brace and feet that I printed out installed and they fit great..




Here is the print bed installed with y axis stepper and belt all setup..



Just to show how big this print bed is here is one of my 1/10 scale r/c nitro cars sitting on top..



This printer is going to be huge.

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## AutoWiz

This printer is big..

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## Bassna

That thing looks awesome. Have you had a chance to print anything large with it yet?

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## AutoWiz

I have only used my homemade printer, printalicious, to make parts for this new machine. That printer has and is really impressing me. The z axis mod I am trying to make happen on this tevo black widow involves a lot of large printed parts. I am printing them all in translucent red pla. I am almost an entire week into printing parts non stop. I rush home on my lunchbreak from work to remove part from the print bed and start the next print. Here is where I am so far..

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## AutoWiz

There have been a lot of parts to print to make this printer growth go down..



And sadly some pieces I had to print multiple times. Not that printilicious isn't up to the task but because of trial and error of printing at different angles and support material that doesn't always like to release. A good example is the pieces that make up the filament spool holder. Here is what happened while removing the support material..



My home made printer is not the fastest and each of those pieces took 8 hrs to print. It is good that I can be patient with this build in the pursuit of perfection. I printed a third piece and was careful removing the support material..



And this is the assembled spool holder. It will sit on top of the frame..



And as I understand that there is a problem getting the extruder all the way to the ends of the bed I have decided to add this very specific 8mm gap on both side pieces of the frame. I printed a 8mm block to help as an exact measurement..



I will also have to add this gap to the top of the frame and also to the x axis but in the end I will have every bit of the possible bed dimensions and a very respectable build height. well over the title of this thread

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## AutoWiz

The frame is pretty much assembled and looking large..

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## AutoWiz

I got to spend some more time with this printer. I have swapped to larger drag chains and added the extra wires needed for the bl touch and for layer fan and also led illumination. There are so many modifications all going on with the initial build that it is taking forever to complete this build..

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## AutoWiz

I have a lightweight titan extruder to setup and install but I still need some more pieces to make it complete. Like a volcano. So for the time, I am going to use the oem tevo extruder. But it is getting this bracket that hinges the extruder 15 degrees out..



before this modification the x axis was limited by the stepper motor on the extruder hitting the frame. This was as far as it would go before..



And with the 15 degree extruder mount the extruder can go all the way to the edge of the print bed..



front shots of the extruder..




And I used a length of the smaller drag chains I replaced for the y axis. So all moving wires are inside of drag chains..

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## AutoWiz

The last leg of this assembly here is the control box. I need to print out a larger control box that will house the better meanwell 600watt 24v power supply but none of my other printers are big enough so I have to put this together and then print the bigger case and then rebuild the control box. Tevo has had problems with their power supply/heatbed/control boards. And as such they have a few revisions of parts and they have added this external mosfet to control the heatbed but never added to the control box or instructions to provide for it's mounting so here I am..



The MKS gen board is supposed to bolt flush against the side wall of the control box. This mounting on it's own is a bad design because it orients the usb port facing straight down where you can't access it. here is the space and mounting holes I have to play with..



So I drew up this plate to hold both boards next to each other..





And now everything mounts neat and clean inside the control box..




...everything except for the wifi module I forgot about when I designed the plate. Oh well. It is only a temporary solution until I can print the bigger parts.

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## jeffmorris

AutoWiz, do you have access to auto repair manuals where you work?  Do you have access to websites related to auto repairs and auto parts?  I'm trying to create 3D models of cars but after looking through a few shop manuals, websites related to auto repair and auto parts, and plastic model cars that were already built, I can't create 3D models of auto parts that look like real auto parts, not toys. I tried to search the Internet for 2D and 3D drawings of auto parts but I couldn't do it.

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## AutoWiz

We use online shop databases such as Shopkey, Alldata, And/or Identifix. In these days where there are common and almost regular software updates for your car and regular service bullitens released with revised diagnostic and repair stratagies, I feel bad for any shop that relies on repair manuals. That died out by the early 2000's I think. But none of that matters for both the manuals and the online databases are chock full of information to aide in diagnostics and repair. Like listings of bolt torque specs. Written removal and install procedures with the occasional 2d poorly drawn reference image. Wiring diagrams. Technical Service Bullitens and Recalls. trouble code definition listings and diagnostic trouble trees. These are the things that automotive techs in the field need to accomplish our job. And none of it involves 3d modeled parts. 

What you are looking for would be engineering. And Good Luck Getting your 3d rendered models of parts or cars from the manufacturers. This is something you are going to have to create on your own or I would imagine pay a ransom for.

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## AutoWiz

It's alive..



It's all downhill from here. simple calibrations and I gotta find and print some kinda layer fan. But I should be posting up pics of how this thing prints soon.

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## OutcastZeroOne

This build sponsored by Kobalt Tools  :Stick Out Tongue: 

Looks great. what you going to build with it first?

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## AutoWiz

It's a really large printer. I am toying with the idea of printing out the largest lego man this printer can handle. With the ability to make each leg over a foot tall I think this machine can produce a lego man the size of a small child. I have already ordered some yellow pla for the head and hands.

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## AutoWiz

It kinda sucks I ran out of transparent red at the end. The layer fan really stands out. But I can fix that later. For now here is my finished printer..




And here is the printer homing with the bltouch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdg2gvuYPWQ

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## AutoWiz

The printer is together, dialed in and ready to make it's first item..



Yes it is a 3dbenchy. It came out pretty good..





And now that I can print the larger sizes I need to start printing out the parts to rebuild the control box to house the better meanwell 600watt power supply

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## AutoWiz

From the time I was turned on to the facebook group of people or a community of people who owned the same printer I made it a thing to go and hunt down all the mods I could find on thingiverse that made sense for this printer. I have had a blast and thus far have not had to design any pieces. Moving forward there are 2 pieces that I need to make to get all these mods to work with each other happily. First is the mounting for the bltouch. The way it is currently mounted allows for considerable flex and ultimately unstable performance from the z axis end stop. I found an awesome solution that mounted to the carriage plate but it was not at a compatible height because the 15 degree extruder mount raises the extruder to give a few more mm's to the z axis. So I had to design this piece that is based off a design I saw on thingiverse..



Of course there were a couple revisions on the way to right..

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## AutoWiz

With the BLtouch corrected I got the 24v led strip mounted to the bottom of the x axis aluminum extrusion..



And because this is a large printer and I have every intention of printing the largest things I can, I added this battery backup. It will power 600 watts for over 2 hours. Definitely not long enough to finish a print without power but surely enough to cover any kind of power surge or momentary loss of power..



And I think we are ready for the control box mod

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## AutoWiz

Here is the first piece I need to print for the control box mod. The new base..



This piece is huge. It uses an insane amount of filament and takes an equal amount of time to print. Here is an estimate of that timetable..





Fast forward past a few days worth of printing and we have all the parts we need for the control box mod. albeit in multi colors..



From here we obviously need to break down the control box..



Here is a side by side of the two power supplies. The one that came with the black widow in my hand and the meanwell already mounted to the printed base..



And here is why this mod had to go down. for an extra 100watts. While the extruder and stepper motors are common to other printers, the heatbed is very large and that warrants the larger power supply..



And here is the first mock up of the new control box..

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## AutoWiz

Unfortunately the larger meawell power supply does not like the location of the power switch with the touch screen mod. So aside from the bltouch mount the second piece I had to design to make all this work together is a new face plate to move the power switch up..

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## number40Fan

Nice build and modifications.  Huge plus to the UPS!  I have been bitten twice now by slight power losses.

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## AutoWiz

I think it is a good time to give credit where it is do. First and foremost I need to thank fredk for post #7 of this thread. Absolute genius. Best advice ever given to a 3d printer owner. Seriously. facebook group or even other community of owners of your printer. Once I found this group, I then found the thingiverse collection of stuff people designed to modify the black widow printer. I want to list and detail each modification I used and who really designed it. and what its purpose or function was. 

The first and arguable the most involved of the modifications was the Black Widow Z-Axis G2T Belt Relocation by Anthony Harmon. I actually got to chat with this person in the facebook group I was suggested to join and he was very helpful and that modification added a lot of usable height to the z axis. The link to that modification is here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2168986

There was a Drag Chain X Alternate Mount that lays the drag chain on its side and gives some more extra height to the build envelope. This mod was created by bdwalker1 and is a great design I feel because it worked well even with the oversized drag chains I used. That mod can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1777681

Then to get the x axis to reach the edges of the heat bed there was this 15 degree extruder mount that was also made by bdwalker1. Like the name implies this mod hinges the extruder out 15 degrees and also raises the extruder so it adds to both x and z axes. Here is the link to that: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1789293

The layer fan I went with uses 2 40mm fans and blows air from 2 sides. It was designed by Elzariant and it can be found here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1726112

The bltouch mount that I designed and printed was a near duplicate of a design by adriansm. Had it not have been for the 15 degree extruder mount I would have used this exact design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1950504

I used this to install the 3.2" touchscreen:  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2096501 . It is a well thought out design by bgsteveg.

And then there is the control box upgrade by dot_bob. This was necessary to fit the meanwell power supply. And after printing it out and assembling it, It was very much worth the time it tool to print. Here is the link to this mod: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2002667

I have very much enjoyed exploring other peoples designs as a way to upgrade my printer. I have learned that there are a lot of very smart and skilled people out there. I strongly recommend others to try to duplicate what I have done here. The end result was incredible. I got to chat online some of the skilled individuals that came up with these modifications. And it has just been an all around good experience.

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## SimonSolar2C

Hi - nice build.  I'd like to add the y-axis drag chain to mine.  Did you download a special bracket for it?

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## AutoWiz

no bracket. I used t slot nuts and screwed the drag chain directly to the aluminum extrusion frame and then I used zip ties to attach the other end to one of the spring bolts that holds the bed. And made sure that ther was enough slack that the electrical connector on the heatbed never flexed as the y axis went its full travel in each direction.

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## AutoWiz



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## AutoWiz

Updated the firmware on the touchscreen so it matches the other machines in my home..



If anybody that sees this has an mks tft32, I got the firmware for the touchscreen here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...VBPcC1NYUxZd1U

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## AutoWiz

So the extruder that comes with the black widow sucks just because it requires taking a tool to 3 allen screws to change filament and adjust tension. Also my bltouch mount for this printer is a bad design..



there is not enough room to move the bracket up enough to run the correct hardware with springs for fine adjustments and it is near impossible to make fine adjustments with the one large bolt holding the bracket to the gantry. This makes me use my other printers more. And so I can not leave this alone. There is no room to go up here and the extruder that came with the black widow is so heavy anyways that I just think this whole machine would benefit from a lighter extruder. I already have a titan on Printalicious and am very happy with it so here I am going to go one step further and lighter and I have ordered a titan aero. I even found a really awesome mount for it:  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2243824

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## AutoWiz

Here is the new titan aero extruder mount all printed out and ready to go..



Now we are just waiting on shipping.

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## AutoWiz

Oh happy day. It arrived before the storm..



Now I have something to do while Irma blows by.

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## raylo32

How did it come out?  I assume power is back by now unless maybe you are on Sanibel or somesuch.

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## AutoWiz

Yes the power is and has been back on. I am a little discouraged at the loss of the pc that had all the firmwares for all my printers and everything on it. It was on when the transformers outside were frying and it is the only thing in my home that didn't come back on. It is a small speed bump and nothing major in the scheme of things. After I retrieve the data off the hard drive I will make sure I keep it on multiple pc's so I never see this day again. In the meantime, I have received my 400x250x3mm borosilicate glass and now I just need to find, buy, or make some type of clips or way to attach the glass to the heatbed. 



Fear not I will be creative. I got the titan aero installed with the layer fan and bltouch..



And I got a set of tmc2208 drivers installed..



The last piece I am waiting on is a micro swiss low friction plated nozzle. Once it arrives hopefully in the next few days and once I get my firmware situation sorted out and design some glass clips this machine will be back up and printing. very quietly.

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## raylo32

Very nice.  Too bad about the PC but if that's the worst you got you are lucky.  I grew up in FL and lived in NOLA for awhile and have been there done that.  No fun.  Maybe the PC power supply took a hit which would be an easy fix.... or more likely the mobo which is more of a PITA.

What the heck is a drag chain?

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## AutoWiz

I have been building and fixing pc's longer than cars. I wouldn't be crying over a lost pc if all I needed was another power supply. The motherboard has failed. when the pc is plugged in it automatically turns on for a few seconds with no display then shuts off and is unresponsive to the power button. I have diagnosed this so many times I just identify with the symptoms. But I did the footwork. you know, I unplugged all the ancillary devices like hdd's, optical, card readers, even ram and then cpu and all fans until it was just the mobo and power supply and it still turns itself on and then off. 

It just sucks because this specific motherboard is or was a legend. The last motherboard NVidia made for an amd cpu. MSI built nforce 980a - g65. It was a revamped 780a chipset and instead of the traditional southbridge chipset this beast had a gf200chipset that plumbed all 16 lanes of all 3 pci-e sockets so when you use this motherboard in sli 2 or 3 way all cards get to keep x16 instead of every other motherboard dropping to x8 for sli because of limitations at the southbridge chipset. But it is old now anyways. So no big loss. I guess.

Drag chains are a better way of cable management. look at what the moving wires are inside of between the print head or heat bed and frame on any of the pictures in this thread

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## raylo32

I have been building PCs forever, too, but not many since they last so long.  :-)  Lucky for me I have never had a mobo failure... and the worst part of that, if you are on Windows, is maybe having to buy another license for a "new PC".  Thanks for the drag chain explanation!

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## AutoWiz

> I have been building PCs forever, too, but not many since they last so long.  :-)  Lucky for me I have never had a mobo failure... and the worst part of that, if you are on Windows, is maybe having to buy another license for a "new PC".  Thanks for the drag chain explanation!


I try to do everything on a big scale so I can learn more from it. When I started building pc's I built up to 4. Then I started hosting small scale lan parties at my home on the weekends. Nothing for money or anything. just some friends getting down on borderlands 1 and 2 each with their own screen. It was fun. Here is a picture from when the dead board was new. The white and orange box in the background behind the Novint Falcon on the right is the retail packaging for it..



And speaking of orange box, that was the games that were best to work with the novint falcons with the pistol grips half-life 2, team fortress 2 and portal. I still have them but they collect dust. The 3d force feedback mouse is a great idea but the support for it wasn't there. or it was too far ahead of itself. I got into making my own cases and cooling setups..




I built pc's. Back in those days there were awesome websites like frozencpu.com and crazypc.com and others where you could find any fan or filter or duct or light or feet or heatsink or tubing or anything your heart desired for building your own.

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## AutoWiz

One of the whole joys of 3d printing is now I can make custom parts for my pc's. like this..



and this..

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## raylo32

Still good websites for building, but every time I decide to do a build the hardware has changed so much I need to research it all again.  My 4 year old gaming/3D PC still runs on a few generations old OC'ed i7 920 at about 4 GHz, still plenty good enough, still chugging along.

BTW, Portal and Portal 2=cool game!

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## AutoWiz

Because the plate of glass was the exact same size as the heatbed it was painfully simple to make a mounting solution that wouldn't interfere with the build envelope..





Aside from not interfering with the build envelope the printer looks so much better than it would with those spring clips everybody always uses. There is nothing on the glass and nothing sticks up above the glass..

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## AutoWiz

The above mounts for the glass are one of the few pieces of this awesome machine that I designed myself. So for any other Black Widow owners that might see and like these mounts here is a link to the .stl file for them:  https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/BW%...ouGEuXyv20Q4NA

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## AutoWiz

So to keep from draping a wire across the entire length of the x axis I decided to just mount the x endstop in the max position on the wire harness side of the frame. I did this back when I built the printer and have struggled with mirrored prints the whole printers life. I would just mirror the item before slicing it for this printer as a temporary fix. It took a little bit of trial and error to get the settings right as information on homing to max endstops seems to be rare. But I did finally get it right and on my own. here is a video of my black widow homing with only a max endstop on the x axis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQp-ANKWKE

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## AutoWiz

I have been making changes to this printer and so i wanted to update this thread. First and foremost here is my current extruder setup..



I am so happy to have finally found a layer fan that blows all the way  around the filament. and this setup keeps the bltouch very close to the hotend for better accuracy. Now I just have to do something about that z belt. If I make the belt too tight it flexes the threaded rods and they bind. If I leave the belt loose half way or so up it skips on one side. Not always but a real PITA when  it does it. So I have decided to do away with the belt and convert to dual Z motors. I will upload pictures as that moves forward.

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## AutoWiz

I printed these mounts from thingiverse that are supposed to be a bolt on thing to convert a stock Black Widow..But I have made changes to my printers frame with different ends and moved the belt to the top of the frame. This is not what those printed parts were meant to bolt up to..

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## AutoWiz

With all the covers off we can see the belt system that I hate so much..There are 4 original anodized end caps for this printer I am not using. they make the perfect shims and leave me only needing longer bolts..I will get another roll of translucent red and reprint and maybe even design end caps that can be 1 piece without shims. But that's all after we achieve functionality with the stated goal of 2 Z motors. The extra TMC2208 driver is on its way. As with a pair of 0.9 degree stepper motors that I will put on X and Y and use one of what comes out as my second z motor. and couplers.

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## AutoWiz

So here are the printed parts for Z belt relocation kit that i am now discarding..



Of course I keep all the original parts that came with the printer so no matter what I can always take it back to its original state. Here is the backside of my Black Widow with a hybrid Dual Z mod.. 



And here we are frontside and powered on..



So instead of buying another 1.8 degree stepper motor matched to the one I already had for the Z I decided to order a set of 0.9 degree stepper motors for X and Y. The install was simple but this is a resolution increase for my printer. And I used one of the factory X or Y stepper for the dual Z as it was matched to the other one.  so obviously I have some changes I need to make in marlin for all this to work properly.

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## AutoWiz

So I had a friend teach me a trick. Wipe the bed with white distilled vinegar before each print and nothing else is needed to print with PLA directly on glass. And Good Bye 3m blue tape. As always the key to any successful print is sticking that first layer..

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## AutoWiz

My actual build height right now is 13" or 330mm. That is 30mm over stock.

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## AutoWiz

After getting this back together and printing a few things, I have decided to swap the extruder drive motor. The pancake motor it currently uses is a genuine e3d 0.9 degree motor. I am swapping it to a regular size 0.9 degree stepper motor for a few reasons. I am considering a volcano hotend and 0.6mm nozzle at some point. And also because I wish to use this genuine e3d pancake 0.9 degree motor for another lighter duty printer. The thing about these nema17 0.9 degree stepper motors is they don't come with connectors so wires must be soldered...The pancake stepper motors are for the smaller printers with the smaller nozzles. Here we need bigger and better. And thankfully the mount I printed will fit an even larger motor than what I am using.

----------


## AutoWiz

It's been a long road this Black Widow and me. But i think it is finally taking shape. I have also been re printing parts in black and translucent red to try to bring back the store bought or kit look. Instead of such a multi colored thing. Here is where I am at so far..



I still have to remake the spool sleeve in red and make a cover to go on the gantry and hide the wires. And also I have every intention of running the outer Z mod just as soon as I can locate a kit. And also I have fiberglass reinforced gt2 belts on the way to install. So I am still not done with the upgrades. But I am getting there.

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## AutoWiz

I printed the new black faceplate for the control box face down on the glass without hairspray or gluestick. This made for a nice gloss finish that matches the acrylic lid and sides of the control box..Getting that first layer right is a must if you're gonna print things face down..

----------


## AutoWiz

I am proud of this extruder configuration. Here is the front..The right side..And the left..

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## AutoWiz

I added a dc - dc step down converter, a LM2596 with a lcd display, to my control box. I needed to create 12v to run the silent noctua fans and these have a voltage gauge that can be toggled between input and output voltage. I got mine with a red display that matches the theme of my printer but i saw them on ebay in red, blue, and green..

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## AutoWiz

I am also upgrading the belts. I am fond of Gates fiberglass reinforced belts and I wanted to change the idler from a smooth to a toothed pulley because that is the side of the belt that rides on the belt. I will never know why all these printers ship with smooth pulleys when they ride on the toothed side of the belt. Toothed idler pulleys are not hard to come by and they are the same price everywhere as the smooth pulleys. I am actually performing this same upgrade on both axes on all 3 of my printers..

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## AutoWiz

My next big mod for this printer is already in the pipeline. I have already ordered the outer Z wheel kit from 3dvice.co right here: 
https://3dvice.co/products/tevo-blac...er-z-wheel-kit

In the meantime Here is a current picture of my Tevo Black Widow..

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## AutoWiz

The outer Z wheel kit has arrived. Here are the parts..



These are the same size wheels that are used for the X and Y axes. And X and Y wheels also are on the outside of the aluminum extrusion. This makes adjusting the slack on that axis easy and simple. But the Z currently has these tiny rollers that go inside the aluminum extrusion and once together adjustments are near impossible or a real pita at the very least. So this upgrade is a must for me because I need to be able to make frequent and simple adjustments to my machine as I chase better print quality.

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## AutoWiz

With the entire X axis removed from the printer we can see the tiny rollers on the small plate i am replacing..



And here is the larger plate installed with the larger wheels attached..



And here are both of the rollers with their bearings side by side. The printed piece at the top is a tool to press the bearings..

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## AutoWiz

I still have to do something with the drag chain for the Z axis. It used to sit right where the wheels now roll on the frame. No big deal. But the machine is back together and looking beefy. I am so happy with the results of this so far and can't wait to start printing again with my Black Widow.

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## AutoWiz

So my Black Widow Is all together and printing like it should. One more thing I am doing is I am changing the wheels on the X and Y axis to the same red wheels that I just put on Z. They are currently black and I just think all the wheels need to be the same. Here is a video of my printer doing its thing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuDXfhSqMoQ

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## AutoWiz

I designed and printed a simple cover for the extruder wires. This will also serve as a protector to keep the wires from chaffing against the top of the frame on them large prints..It is 1 and 2 mm thick so it does not add any real weight..

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## AutoWiz

I also swapped the rest of the wheels on the frame to the same red wheels that I got with the outer Z wheel kit. So now my Black Widow has 15 red PC V-wheels, all with precision bearings..

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## AutoWiz

Today I have all of my machines back together and have got the printers calibrated enough to start with the test prints. I never wanted a 3d printer to print out busts or trinkets or figurines or stuff, For me it was always just another way to make a part. So I am not going to demonstrate what my printers can do with a test print from maker's muse or anything like that. For me the test print is going to be this airframe that comes with incredibly detailed build instructions:  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1831295 To make things interesting for me I am running this test side by side with my other 2 printers. So I will have 3 different color airframes when I am done. Here ismy workbench with all 3 machines working on their own airframes..

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## AutoWiz

Because there is such little surface area on the bed I am printing a 5mm 1 layer brim around my print. I have done this for all 3 printers..The reason I am using this airframe for my test print is because in order to be light it wants a 0.36mm wall thickness with 3% infill. with a .4mm nozzle diameter this means the structure has a 1 layer perimeter with practically no infill..The real test will be if the structure is strong enough to withstand flight..

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## AutoWiz

Here is the finished EDF housing..And here are all 3 EDF housings for the 3 airframes I am printing from different machines..It actually looks like they were all printed by the same machine. Which is awesome. This is a good test of my manufacturing capabilities for the purposes of selling 3d printed ideas. Obviously not this as it is not my idea. And these will live a very short life anyways because I have never flown an r/c craft before.

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## AutoWiz

I will start printing the wings and vertical stabilizers tomorrow..

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## AutoWiz

Still printing parts out for these. I have a few ailerons left to print and then the vertical stabilizers. Here is the assembly line..

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## AutoWiz

Still wrapping up green, but my air force is just about complete..

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## curious aardvark

what are you going to use for launching ?

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## AutoWiz

I was considering building the slingshot out of pvc but lets just be honest here. I drive a Corvette. If i am able to fit myself and the rc aircraft in my car that in itself will be a small miracle. I sure wont be fitting a large pvc triangular structure in the car. So I am making some perches to affix the aircraft to my 1/10 scale redcat buggy and I am gonna drive the aircraft up to speed with the buggy, then hit the juice on the EDF and hopefully the aircraft will power into flight. Or that is the working idea, anyways. Brushless upgrade is on the way for the buggy.

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## curious aardvark

If that works you HAVE to get video of that launch process !

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## AutoWiz

> If that works you HAVE to get video of that launch process !


Oh there will be high quality video uploaded to youtube where it can stay high quality and links will be provided. I am all over that. In the meantime, I have hung 5 spools of filament above my Black Widow for faster filament changes. Just grab the color you want and plug it into the modded titan aero..

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## curious aardvark

How's the airforce coming ?
You flown one yet ?

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## AutoWiz

So it has been a while. I have detailed so many hardware modifications to my Black Widow printer but I have not kept up on the software end. If you guys can believe I have been running marlin 1.1.0 on all 3 of my machines. Also I have been running an older version of Arduino and I even had old firmware in my MKS TFT touchscreens. As much as I always liked the alternate firmware I had loaded in these screens it was an older firmware. So I have been setting up 3 copies of marlin 1.1.9 for each of my printers and I have updated the firmware in the TFT touchscreens with a win8 theme and I turned up the speeds a bit. Here is a short video of my Black Widow's new print speed: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCg4gqGRbmY&t=48s

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## AutoWiz

I know the above speed might not look extreme but the heated bed is 400mm x 250mm. It is a heavy Y axis. And I have started to have a skipped step issue on larger prints after I get a bit of plastic laid down on the bed. Only on Y. No layer shift on X. I am already running at 24v but I am running the silent TMC2208 drivers and I have the high precision 0.9 degree stepper motors. There are better options for both drivers and motors that will help with this issue but I really like printing with fine detail and doing it quietly. I have an idea on a new direction. I already converted the Z axis on this printer to use 2 motors. So I am familiar with the setup and changes in marlin that need to be made. So why not? Just replace the front idler pulley with a second stepper motor. So first we need to choose the stepper motor we want to use..



To use a regular size stepper motor would require me to raise the whole frame or cut a hole in my table so this will get a pancake stepper motor for the front. Now that we have selected which motor we are going to use the next step is to create a motor mount to hang off the front of the frame. Go rapid prototyping..



The other thing we need for this is a stepper driver. But that is a bit of a tricky situation because the MKS GEN 1.4 mainboard has 5 stepper driver sockets and I have 2 being used for Z so all sockets are occupied. So this project will require the use of an expansion board to go along with the driver..

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## AutoWiz

To make this all look like it belongs I chased down the right parts. I got a black genuine E3D titan aero stepper motor, a black drive pulley, and black m3 x 7mm screws..



The way I hooked this up required no changes to marlin. There is a header next to each stepper driver socket that is a breakout for the Arduino pins that drive that socket. I connected this expansion board to the appropriate pins on the header next to the driver for the Y axis. And this whole mod is plug 'n play. Here is someone else's instructional video on making these connections: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIChqkEAuto&t

And here is my completed 2 motor Y axis..

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## AutoWiz

So I have become fascinated with this lately and think I have found my new project..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAkzb1nXzwUI just have to have this sitting atop my toolbox at my job working on the Corvettes. So here is the engine block loaded in Repetier..While the above picture is of repetier host I have switched to Prusa Slicer 2.0. This is the new Slic3r and that is what I was using in repetier anyways and I don't really print from usb anymore. And I have nothing but good things to say about Prusa Slicer 2.0. Here is my Black Widow about half way done printing the engine block. ~22hrs in so far..The LS engine family are all aluminum engines. So I am printing the block and heads with silk silver PLA so it has a shine to it.

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## curious aardvark

wow - that should be pretty cool when it's done !

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## AutoWiz

So the engine block took over 40 hours to print. I am happy my printer with all of its mods printed this out without a problem..



Next I need to print the cylinder heads.

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## AutoWiz

With the exception of the exhaust headers The Black widow has printed all of this..The piston on the scale was done for humor. Not needed for this application.

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## AutoWiz

Got the engine stand printed and assembled..

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## AutoWiz

Well I got this far..



And I just cant continue on with the engine yet. The stand needs to be one color. The raw aluminum is just wrong. I mean glow in the dark yellow isn't exactly right but solid colors are what most engine stands are. So I have to draw up and print out some covers for the aluminum so the whole frame will glow in the dark.

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## curious aardvark

how much filament have you used so far ?

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## AutoWiz

> how much filament have you used so far ?


A lot. lol. I wasted a roll of orange i was originally going to use for the stand. A lot of these parts require 80% infill Minimum but recommend 95%

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## AutoWiz

> Hello there


Hey bud. How's it going?

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## curious aardvark

you mean mr dissertation writing spammer ? He gone :-)

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## AutoWiz

Well good. I gotta get back to wasting filament. Right now the 2 tone color of this engine stand is buggin' the hell out of me. So i am drawing up and printing out covers to go over the aluminum so the whole engine stand is one solid color. Glow in the dark yellow. It is likely going to be some time before this engine gets finished at the rate i am progressing through this.

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## curious aardvark

when it's done you could take it into the shop and offer people an upgrade: smaller more efficient engine :-)
runs on cornstarch lol

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## AutoWiz

Oh Happy Day! I love to create and build and I really do get to express myself when I work on my cartesian robots. Of the 4 printers I own this Black Widow is the largest build volume and also the only aluminum extrusion frame I have making this my favorite. printing out and assembling someone else's design is cool and I will finish the LS3 motor. But it is a test of my skills in printer building. I do not work to create that. I follow instructions. The exciting part of 3d printing for me is building, reworking, and tweeking the machines. That's what grinds my gears. And it is time to rebuild my Black Widow.The parts going into my Widow include a few more 0.9 degree nema17 stepper motors to complete my vision of no idler pulleys and 2 motors for each axis. Also I am upgrading to the SKR 1.3 board and will configure and run marlin 2.0. I have a full compliment of linear rails and guides coming for all axes as once this is done I plan on ramping up the print speeds a bit. I have a genuine Prusa mmu 2.0 upgrade kit I will be installing on my BW. I am upgrading from a 3.2" touchscreen to a 3.5". I am also turning my be sideways so I will get the full 400x250 for x and y. I am mounting the control box down low on the frame for more ballast weight for them higher print speeds. And I plan on removing the top cross brace from the frame so my printer has just two towers that go up for the Z. Can you see what I'm seeing here? If not it's ok. Pictures are coming.

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## AutoWiz

The MMU2 S kit I ordered directly from Prusa research. There are knockoffs that can be had for cheaper and if you print your own real cheap. I want this to work the first time out so I ordered the black mmu2s kit from here:  https://www.prusa3d.com/original-pru...-material-2-0/ The new control board I got from here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SKR-V1-3-3D...OSwnYdc8brgAnd I got the new 3.5" touchscreen right here: https://www.amazon.com/BIGTREETECH-D.../dp/B07W1PB11F The parts can not get here soon enough. And I have a bunch of these linear rods coming: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MGN12H-Line...JpFCs_vpdMhKWQ

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## AutoWiz

Well I am not waiting for parts to get started. I have already tore down the printer and will work on printed parts to mount electronics to the frame until the parts come in..

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## AutoWiz

Ok so here is the basic new shape of what is about to be my huge 5 color printer..

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## AutoWiz

The above picture is of the backside. I am turning the bed sideways so i can get the full 400x250 dimensions out of x and y. And Z will be over 300mm. With such a big print envelope i am concerned about the length of ptfe tube i will have to use with my mmu2s upgrade. So i have removed the top brace of the printer and plan to hang the mmu2s unit right off the gantry so it will go up and down with Z and i can run a shorter PTFE tube. Or that is the plan and the hope on this side of getting parts, anyways.

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## AutoWiz

The MeanWell 600watt 24v power supply is mounted to the frame. The bottom mount took 10.5hrs to print and the top piece took just under 8 hours. Each part took 15-20minutes to draw up in autodesk 123d design. I still have an incredible way to go. I am just getting started.I am very happy with how the power supply mount has come out..The specific power supply I have has some weight to it and the way I mounted it adds to the stability of the Z towers. This is a focal point of my conversion here as I am removing the top brace altogether. But so far it seems pretty solid indeed..

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## AutoWiz

I am deleting the top crossmember from the printer's frame so it is crucial that I make the structure as rigid as possible. To that end i have stood the heavy Meanwell 600 se 24 power supply up and attached it to one of the Z towers at the top and bottom and now i am connecting that to the rear of the center extrusion for the Y axis..



This gives this frame incredible rigidity. The weight of the power supply helps add stability here..



And designing your own parts means never having to look for a crayon, marker, or Dremel. For we can just design our name into our part. AutoWiz is 5mm deep in this brace..

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## AutoWiz

Well the MMU2S upgrade kit came in the mail from Prusa Research today..



So I have to get the MMU2S together before I go too much farther on the frame. I need a bigger workbench.

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## AutoWiz

Oh ya. So do you guys remember a few years back when printers were all loud and people loaded gcode to make them kick out the Imperial March? If I wasn't running the silent tmc2208 drivers I Swear I would do that as soon as this was back together. This machine is gonna be radical..

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## curious aardvark

this the one with hundreds of stepper motors ?

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## AutoWiz

When I am done there will be 10 stepper motors driving this printer. And each motor will have it's own stepper driver so I will have 7 tmc2208 drivers and there are 3 drivers built into the MMU2S control board.

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## curious aardvark

so why have you gone for the central bed support over the side supports ? 

I mean it is a pretty substantial central support. But surely the side supports make a more stable bed ?

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## AutoWiz

I am converting to all linear rails and guides for X, Y, and Z. I am also upgrading the front stepper motor on the Y axis to a full size stepper and have designed a new mount for it. Here is my current progress..

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## AutoWiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um-PlX6oPBQ

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## AutoWiz

While this printer is down I am printing out all the parts I need with my failed 3 Color Mixing Printer, Printalicious. And these y end caps/ motor mounts are printed in petg and as the picture shows I have already revised this part from my original design..And before I even got the new part with more material installed I realized I need to make some sort of stop for the linear guides so they do not travel off the end of the rails. Back to the drawing board.

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## curious aardvark

lol yeah that could be a problem :-)

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## AutoWiz

3rd time's a charm. Got my motor mounts for Y designed and printed. I am happy with the results..

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## AutoWiz

Still a ways to go. And I am waiting on a set of 550mm linear rails for Y to arrive in the mail..

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## AutoWiz

Well it sucks the weekend is over and I have to go back to work tomorrow. But we are starting to look like a printer again..

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## AutoWiz

I have finally got the tops of the towers situated and figured out. One thought that I have struggled with is the weight I am adding to the gantry and the fact that i replaced the lower metal frame ends with printed plastic parts. I am or was afraid that the weight of the gantry might crush the plastic and change z height on 1 or both sides. Here is the lower bearing and mount I am talking about..



So I have the metal upper plates flipped upside down so the bearing goes in from the top and I have the collet on top of that so the top of the frame is what is supporting the weight of the gantry. In raw form here is what that looks like..

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## AutoWiz

So i made some pieces to cover the metal plate so there is just one shade of red on my printer. The only exposed piece of the metal plate is the stop for the gantry so it doesn't climb up and out of the printer..





And here are the tops completed and together hopefully for the last time..

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## AutoWiz

Here is the backside of my printer.. I need to create some type of mount for the SKR 1.3 board, the mosfet, the 2 stepper driver expansion boards the tft35 v3.0 screen and the buck lm2596 step down converter. And it all has to look clean.

----------


## AutoWiz

So I had to do some backtracking. The parts I made to attach the gantry to the linear rails on Z were insufficient and would just slide up and down and off of the metal plates they were supposed to be holding. So I have redesigned these parts. each took just shy of 7 hours to print and the machine uses 4. But that is all behind me now and my machine is really starting to look the part..And from the back..

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## AutoWiz

I am gonna get a delta CA. When this is done I am gonna get a Tevo Little Monster and rework it to be a 3 color mixing printer with the diamond hotend. And I will have 2 completely different ways of chasing large color prints. I just gotta get through all this first.

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## AutoWiz

So today i have the belts on and adjusted and i have the extruder mounted. From here i plan to move the drag chain from on top of the gantry to underneath the gantry. This is because the Prusa MMU2S unit now sits where the drag chain used to be. And it will look cleaner anyways to bring the wires down and under the gantry..

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## AutoWiz

So I have been busy with reworking my printer albeit with a gross lack of design skillz. But here is my progress anyways..

----------


## AutoWiz



----------


## AutoWiz

Since I am now going to be running a 32 bit controller I am going to swap the drivers for X, Y, and E with LV8729 and chase the 1/128 microstepping. I am going to leave Z with the TMC2208 for now.

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## AutoWiz

Ok so I am trying to cope with the linear guide costs but I already have my correct parts for Y. So I am working on completing that axis. I am turning the bed sideways so instead of 370 or 380 X 250 I can get the full 400 X 250 build volume. Also I am applying linear guides so I need a very specific piece to attach the mount/ base plate for the heat bed to the linear guides. And here is my design..

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## AutoWiz

My new stepper drivers showed up. I got 5 LV8729 drivers that I have every intention of running in 1/128 micro stepping. 2 for X, 2 for Y, And 1 for E. Z already has so many steps per MM that I do not know if it will be beneficial for the extra cpu effort required so I am going to run 2 TMC 2208 drivers for the Z motors. Because they are silent at 1/16 micro stepping..

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## AutoWiz

I learned a hard and expensive lesson on linear guides. The right answer is expensive and to be perfectly honest anything less and you are better off saving your money. I bought the cheap ones first. And then I bought the genuine HIWIN. And while my butt hurts immensely, life has never been so good..

----------


## AutoWiz

So after I got the guides sorted out I finally made a real mount for the Y axis drag chain. For the longest time I just had the drag chain zip tied to the bed screw/spring. But now I have a part I can attach the drag chain to with 3 screws like it was meant to be..

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## AutoWiz

So my bed is going to move more now that it is turned sideways. 400mm travel instead of 250mm. And with the MMU2S unit hanging off the gantry it is clear that the ptfe tubes will have to make sharp bends to avoid the bed at the start of prints. So I am thinking about making a bracket and hanging the MMU2S off the gantry still but just at 90 degrees so the PTFE tubes are off to the side..

----------


## AutoWiz

My last order of HIWINS is on the fedex truck out for delivery right now. I am literally standing on my porch staring at the watch I dont have on my wrist and tapping my foot. lol. And then I got some backtracking to do to get the gantry off and the z motors off so I can change the 4 rails for Z. Hopefully at some point here today I will produce a picture of my Black Widow with 8 HIWIN rails screwed to it.

----------


## curious aardvark

so what made you go for the mmu2 over the mosaic palette 2 ? 
On balance the mosaic would seem the better option as it will blend colours As well as do multi filament selection, rather than just select single filament types like the mmu2.  Also only a couple hundred bucks more. Or about 6 inches of linear rail :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

I am going after multi material from 2 different angles. As far as multi material goes, the MMU2S takes in 5 filaments and it costs $300. For twice as much your mosaic takes in 4. This will be my printer to print in many different filaments. When I am done with this build I will most likely hunt down a little monster and apply a diamond hotend to it with my knowledge from today and get a mixing printer with 3 colors. I mean, lets just be real for a second about mixing. All colors come from 3 primary colors. Don't you remember this? 
 
3 primary colors. So then if we are mixing what is the 4th filament for? If we are mixing we need 3. If we are chasing multi material then we can have more than 4. And for hundreds of dollars less I might add. And from a big name like Prusa Research.

----------


## AutoWiz

> so what made you go for the mmu2 over the mosaic palette 2 ? 
> On balance the mosaic would seem the better option as it will blend colours As well as do multi filament selection, rather than just select single filament types like the mmu2.  Also only a couple hundred bucks more. Or about 6 inches of linear rail :-)


I respect you, your thoughts, and your input CA. And as such I have done some further research on the palette 2 and I still feel the same. But for a new reason I want to share with you. For it to take in 4 filaments and feed one out to the hotend and be able to handle mixing can only mean that this machine has it's own hotend built in and it is melting and squeezing out new 1.75mm diameter filament on the fly. While this is a cool feature on the surface my 24v printer is already up to a 600watt power supply. We must consider power consumption when we are dealing with machines that can run for literally days at a time. Of course this is all my thoughts and ideas on the subject this side of a working model or prototype.

----------


## curious aardvark

the 4th element is for white. Think about inkjet printers. 
  4 colours because the white is already present in the paper and you need black to adjust for shades.
Although - it would actually need 5
In life, the white is represented by - well light itself. 

In 3d printing you need white and black to make shades of colours. The three primary colours themselves will mix any colour - but the lightness and darkness of shades will be fixed. The white and black are there to change the 'brightness'. 

So ideally for a full colour mixing fdm setup you would have black, white, red, yellow and blue. 
Quite how you would blend actual filaments together - no clue. 
The best option at the moment are the inkjet solutions like the xyz davinci colour uses. A white filament that's coloured with the three primary colours and a black. 

That said, looking at the mosaic, it doesn't do blending after all. Pretty much the same as the mmu2s, one colour at a time. 
But I do like the way it cuts and shunts the filament into the system as it actually connects each piece of filament to the next with a proper melted joint.  
I guess the advantages over the mmu2s would be mainly in speed as you just get a continuous length of filament rather than all the stopping and starting and retracting with the mmu2s.
Each length is precision cut and joined to the next in line.

So no it isn't actually extruding new filament - but it is heat joining the different lengths.

----------


## AutoWiz

That makes no sense on how we get gradient colors from a section of one color than a section of another. There must be a melt zone inside the palette 2 to create these gradual colors. The nozzle does not mix UNLESS multiple filaments go into the hot zone together. That is the only way we can achieve new colors is by mixing the filaments. not a binary red than yellow then red. Because we will see red and yellow and red in our prints rather than orange. Because nozzles hold a very tiny amount of filament and surely not enough to mix sections of filament. Not even the diamond hotend has a melt zone that big.

----------


## AutoWiz

So I decided to mount the MMU2S on the gantry so the PTFE tube going to the extruder can be as short or shorter than it is on the Prusa MK3 with the MMU2S. But I do not want the 5 PTFE tubes to exit the rear of the printer. This can cause interference issues with the heat bed. So I designed this bracket to orient the mmu perpendicular to the gantry..

----------


## curious aardvark

palette 2 doesn't mix colours. 
I had a good look at their website and it's just a multimaterial machine, like the mmu2 but cleverer (and I suppose, potentially more to go wrong) :-) 

The machine is starting to look impressive !
What's it going to be called ?

----------


## AutoWiz

i don't know yet. But it is so not a Tevo Black Widow anymore. I will think of something. So all this talk about the palette 2 and the mmu has given me an idea. But one that i am not capable of completing by myself. I am no master at writing code or programming. And i struggle with it. But i can physically build one large format printer with a palette 2 being fed by 4 MMU2S units for a total of 20 filaments into one hotend. But i wouldn't know where to start for controlling software. But i sure can design build and wire it.

----------


## AutoWiz

I need financial backing to flesh out some of my bigger ideas. Can you imagine the palette 2 + 4 MMU2S units? that is almost $2k right there.

----------


## AutoWiz

So after the afternoon with this thought I am left wondering if it is possible to just daisy chain MMU2S units. like 6 MMU2S units. 5 feeding one that feeds the extruder. 25 filament potential. All controlled by one mainboard. This setup would require careful planning and building to keep all PTFE tubes as sort as possible. But how awesome would that be? all different types and colors of filaments. That should open the playing field on what we can make with our printers.

----------


## curious aardvark

well, it would probably make more sense to build a spool handling machine instead. Plus can you imagine how slow a 6 mmu setup would be ? Also a lot to go wrong. 

I guess if you had enough space and a large cabinet to put everything in, it might work. But I reckon I could probably change a spool faster than 6 mmus could get filament to the actual hotend :-) 

The man to talk to is the guy who builds all the bizarre machines for duet 3d. That guy is an engineering genius.
He's also proved that the duet board family can handle just about any printer configuration conceivable by man. Plus iof you used a duet board, they'd probably help with all the programming :-) 

You'd need to be using amf files and some kind of specially customised slicer. 
Good luck :-)

If you really want to kix things uop - why not go with an idex system, and link mul;ti mmus to each head :-) 

Actually I'm surprised you haven't gone down the idex route yet. would seem the natural next step up in the evolution of the Brazillian Huntsman _(worlds most venomous spider, and one of the most aggresive)_.    
Or 'Brian' as I can't help thinking of it ;-)

----------


## AutoWiz

I think or at the very least hope I am going to seriously impress you when i am done with this printer. The MMU2S is slow when it is printing out a wipe tower behind the item it is printing. But when it is using wipe to infill it is notably faster. The high quality linear guides are also all about turning up the print speed. As with the 2 stepper motors for each axis. And the shorter PTFE tube from hanging the unit off the gantry will also help but not as much as connecting everything to a 32 bit controller and running the MMU2s off of marlin 2.0. It will also run on 24v. This MMU2S should behave a little different than the rest. But time will tell. I will post videos as I chase print speeds with it. I have been against Idex because it is only 2. Just a single step above the most basic of 3d printers. 3 with mixing or 5 in my mind are the minimum standard we should demand here at the end of 2019. But the thought of an idex with each extruder being linked to an MMU2S is a powerful idea. And thank you for that, CA. But I have to see this MMU up and running first. I still have absolutely no experience with this Prusa MMU2S. It just looked real cool and like something I wanted to try. I need to assess for myself whether the MMU2S is good or bad for me.

----------


## AutoWiz

...Or an idex with 2 diamond hotends. 2 independent sets of mixing extruders. That might lead to some cool creations.

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## AutoWiz

> You'd need to be using amf files and some kind of specially customised slicer.


I will only play with open source. Custom slicer to me sounds very much like a software that will stop receiving updates at some point. But open source promises I can just go find another software that is properly maintained. Even as businesses and trends rise and fall. We should all be very cautious about setups that run 'custom' firmware or slicers. Typically printers built with this tech resell on ebay for dirt cheap. There is Absolute Beauty and Perfection in Mainstream Open Source. Can it run repetier? Can it run simplify3d? Can it run Prusa Slicer? Can it be run by octoprint/Cura?

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## AutoWiz

> The machine is starting to look impressive !What's it going to be called ?





> Actually I'm surprised you haven't gone down the idex route yet. would seem the natural next step up in the evolution of the Brazillian Huntsman (worlds most venomous spider, and one of the most aggresive). Or 'Brian' as I can't help thinking of it ;-)


Thank You CA for your creativity in suggesting a name for my printer. I have been struggling with this and maybe 'Wandering Spider' shall be the new name of my Black Widow after this round of extreme reworking.

----------


## curious aardvark

or Brian ;-) 

The thing with idex is not that you can use 2 materials, but more that you can use 2 completely different meterials with different print speeds and temperatures. 
So you could have one head hooked up to tpu, nylon, polycarbonate, soluble material etc and the other to a squillion different colours of pla.

With a one nozzle multi material machine you'll always either be waiting for the nozzle to heat up or cool down. Just inefficient. 

And yeah fascinated to see just what kind of speeds you can get from Brian :-)

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## AutoWiz

The time for temp change can be helped. There is a dwell setting or I think marlin calls it residency where you tell marlin how long you need to see that extruder holding a temp before it is ready to print. We can also adjust how lax this temp setting is. Whether you want the extruder to hold 235c for 10sec within 2 degrees of target might take a lot longer to achieve than 2 seconds within 5 degrees of target before resuming the print. And turning on the layer fan can help bring down extruder temps a little quicker. So I would just need a way to command the layer fan on at 100% while waiting for temp to decrease. Or maybe I will setup another fan just for that. I have to get to a starting point first, but I look forward to bumping into obstacles. Otherwise this would all get real boring real quick.

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## AutoWiz

OK Let's talk electronics. The Black Widow came with this Control box and all these wires with connections and it was just a mess. One goal of this rework is to do away with the control box and mount all the electronics directly to the frame. I already have the power supply mounted and I chose the space between it's support and a frame rail to mount the Mosfet..

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## AutoWiz

On the other side of the rear half of the frame is where I am mounting the SKR 1.3 mainboard and the 2 stepper driver expansion boards..

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## curious aardvark

So, given all the other expense - why go with a dirt cheap controller board ?
I mean I've no idea what the top end boards do for you, but I would think it's kinda like spending 3 weeks pimping a car and then fitting it with lawnmower engine. 

Also on the 'pick an arachnid' front - the australian Huntsman spider, while not venomous is frigging huge ! 


The thing is eating mice in his house and he says: 'that is so cool'. 
I'd be going for the shotgun ! 

Okay this video is not for anyone who's nervous of spiders - you were warned !

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## AutoWiz

So as i understand it all of these control boards are pretty much the same. With the difference being whether it has an 8 bit or a 32 bit controller. Past that there are features on the board that we all like. like integrated or changeable steppers or 5 or 6 stepper driver sockets. But in reality with expansion boards this is totally a non issue. And even with the best board i would still need an expansion board, sooooo. Why not save money on the same part? All 8 bit boards are the same and as I move to 32 bit I seriously doubt I will see any difference with a duet or a skr pro.  If there are other differences or advantages that I am not aware of I would be interested in learning about them.

----------


## airscapes

I am sure you have already seen this but this could be helpful https://youtu.be/W6U-u0wBdfQ

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## AutoWiz

No I had not seen that video. Thank you for sharing. If you guys would believe there are 8 bit boards that are selling for over $100 today. Boards like the Panucatt Azteeg X3 Pro. I am using extra stepper drivers but I will never use most of the features that set that duet 2 and 3 at their price point. Tool changers are for corexy and do not translate so well to reprap. But if there is one thing we can all be absolutely sure of it is that this will NOT be the last configuration of this printer. And if I am anything less than utterly impressed with the SKR 1.3 I will change it. But I choose my parts by specs. And the ~$20 SKR 1.3 has very similar specs to all the more expensive controllers. I think we all just need to be able to better understand what specs are and how they should apply to our selections. Ya know? The best specs isn't always the best specs. Sometimes the best specs are what is right for what you are doing. Even thou there are better specs out there if you will never take advantage of them then you have built a mismatched printer. And that is just not what I am all about. For me and all that I do and build Form Follows Function. I strictly adhere to this golden rule of building and I think my results have shown as much. The $1000 rails started as cheap ebay rails. They met the specs but when I got them they were trash. I never ran them and tried some others and then went with the genuine HIWINS. Hopefully the control solution wont go the same way, but I am not against 3,4 or even $500 spent on a control solution if that is what it takes. I am already somewhere between $2 and $3k into this machine since and including it's purchase at the start of 2017. I have no problems putting money into it. But it needs to be the right part. Not just the most expensive or the part with the most features that do not apply to what I am building. With that said, you guys are scaring me. The SKR 1.3 is a 32 bit board for $22 in a sea of other like boards for over $100. Well this STARTED as a rework on a budget, anyways.

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## AutoWiz

Have you guys seen the MMU2.0 auto deplete function? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyHUdQ-sSGI

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## AutoWiz

On second thought scratch the above video. Just watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCdQkgSwNoU

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## AutoWiz

I have been busy this weekend wiring this machine. I am still not done but here is my progress so far. I do NOT build rat's nests and I profoundly respect a well laid out electrical system with a clean appearance..

----------


## AutoWiz



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## AutoWiz

Hey CA what do you think about "Kumonga"? It is the giant mutated spider from Godzilla.

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## AutoWiz

Well I better decide on the name soon. This thing is almost done. The wiring is complete and I just need to mount the touchscreen and the step down converter and then I get to start playing with marlin 2.0. I am pleased with how all this has come out..

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## curious aardvark

have a look at this: https://coda.io/d/M3D-Official-Troub...e_sudLH#_luU6H

Maybe for the Huntsman mkII :-)

If you want to go for fictional spiders: Shelob is the original mother of them all :-)

But given that huntsman's are real and as wandering spiders, prone to turn up at random in people's houses - much scarier !

A lot of the quadfusion info would seem to be relevant to the mumu setup as well: 



> *Foreword*
> The QuadFusion (QF) is a first of its kind - a printhead cramming 4 full direct drive extruders into the same space that most bowden printers use for one the hot end.  This is possible thanks to the direct-drive, fixed crush-distance gears, and highly geared stepper motors in the QF.  _QuadFusion is innovative, there has never been a printhead like it, and this creates unique challenges that requires retraining for success._ Thus, it is important to start with the right mentality to achieve success:  The QF requires new knowledge - clear your mind, and do you best to avoid the assumptions and biases of other printers, and adopt the methods laid out in this guide.It's all about the force.  The QF has 4 times the force (up to 50 lb), and up to double the pressure of a standard 3D printhead.  This leads to many unique challenges, such as extra force on the nozzle, and competition between ports.  You should read through this guide as many times as it takes to appreciate this statement to achieve maximum success. There are four times the number of spools, filament flow paths, extruders, etc.  So if things are going as well as a traditional one-extruder 3D printer, one should reasonably expect 4 times the rate of failure.  Luckily with good knowledge and understanding of the print head, failure rates caused by things like jamming should approach that of a single-extruder, noting that this result would mean each individual filament extruder as a subsystem is more effective and and successful.
> *Material Selection*
> The QF was optimized primarily around PETG, and M3D's ABS-R brand.  For learning purposes, please use PETG, and not PLA.  The low temperature stability of PLA compound the difficulties of learning the QF technology, as it will Grind Through (Concept)easier and needs more force.
> *Spool Size and Placement*
> It's all about the force
> There are many forces acting on the printhead and filament at any time.  The printhead pulls filament and unravels the spools.  Too many spools of heavy size requires too much pull force from the print head and can cause the printhead to move out of it's current Z plane, causing wobbly looking prints or Grind Through (Concept).  Following this guide will prevent these issues.
>  
> Spool Placement / Filament Path
> ...

----------


## AutoWiz

Hey thanks. I've already got the cards stacked against me here a bit as I am using my titan aero extruder that does NOT have the flament sensor in it. There is a sensor in the mmu2s but not in the extruder. I am going to see how far I can get before I upgrade. It would be nice to get a few prints out of it in this configuration. We will see. I am in the home stretch. Tonight after work I will start to design the screen mount. I appreciate the help CA.

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## AutoWiz

I drew up the mount for the touchscreen and it is printing. Gonna take 13 hours and it is printing out on Printalicious..

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## curious aardvark

some interesting info there - in particular the difference in quality from where it pulls the filament from. 
This is something I've noticed particularly from my replicator clone. which pulls it all the way up and over from the back. 
Causes real problems with flexible filaments. They stretch, which reduces the amount and causes issues.
It's interesting that the delta with a bowden setup can print flexibles almost as fast as the knp which is a direct drive. It seems that pushing flexible filament down a shortish tube is often better htan pulling it along a long one.   

The klic'n'print has a single piece steel shell (beautifully made machine), and I have yet to work out a decent mount attachment to move the spools above the machine.  I don't actually want to drill holes in the case lol Plus there's a sort of double skin which would make it difficult to get at the underside of any holes. 
It does need to be done. 

lol this is the problem with and industry like 3d printing, as soon as you embrace one good idea another three better ones come along a week later :-) 
What I do find odd with the quadfusion is that they stopped at a 4 colour mixer, while stating that you need to change white for lighter colours, black for darker and transparent for more depth. 
Now if you were to attach a mumu to the 4th spot for the 'key' filament - that could be interesting. 
Also I can't find any indication of slicer software on the website. You go to the software support page for the quadfusion and it's blank. 
Kinda weird, it's got to be coming from somewhere.

13 hours ! 
For a simple screen mount !
Damn, you really do need a faster machine lol
I don't have that kind of patience - I've been printing base mounts out for my rotary axis for my k40_ (had to buy the bearings and rods and grub screws, but printed everything else including the rubber drive belt and gears)_  - 2 in 1 hour, and that's at 0.2 layer height, which is hi-res for me lol
You really need a delta :-) 
150mm/s and still bang on spec for the sizes. 
Might not be pretty - but then I don't really care as long as they work ;-)

Actually you need to start thinking about getting a k40 - it's a tinkerer's dream ! As well as being an industrially capable machine. Once you start cutting acrylic sheet, there's no way back. It's like the first practical thing you design and 3d print - at that point you've fallen down the rabbit hole :-)

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## curious aardvark

is that the latest cura ? 
Looks a lot better laid out than last time I tried it.

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## AutoWiz

It is Prusa Slicer 2.0 or now it is 2.1 I think. It used to be called slic3r. The display mount is 9" long, 6" wide, and ~4" tall. It is a big part that will wrap around the side of the frame. It is almost done now.

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## AutoWiz

There is a big part of me that feels like this whole Black Widow thread belongs inside of my thread for Printalicious. My 3 color mixing printer thread. Because that printer has made almost all of the parts for this machine. On the initial build and now on this rework. Printalicious truly is the unsung hero of this project. And it absolutely could not happen without this home made printer..

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## AutoWiz

Here is the display mounted to the frame..

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## AutoWiz

Ok guys the last part has been designed..   From here I just need to print this out, install it and we can get started on understanding how to work with marlin 2.0, a 32 bit controller, LV8729 drivers, and an MMU2S all at the same time. It is going to be a while before this part is done printing. So in the meantime here is a selfie I took with my new machine..

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## curious aardvark

looks like the bed should be wider ;-)

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## AutoWiz

Well I am done building. Sadly the machine is now complete and my creativity must come to an end. Here is a proper 5 filament multi material machine as I understand it with 400x250x350 actual build volume..

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## curious aardvark

so go exercise your creativity and make something with 5 materials !
Just running that past a slicer is going to keep you occupied for quite some time ;-)

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## AutoWiz

Yes CA. I have no idea how to use or program this thing. lol. But isn't the journey hafl the fun of any trip?  :Stick Out Tongue:  I have some youtube tutorials to watch I think. lol.

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## curious aardvark

you know it looks a bit like a transformer - a head at the top would finish it off nicely.

Just spotted the temp readout - very neat :-)

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## AutoWiz

It is voltage. The LM2596 step down converters I use to power the 12v noctua extruder fans have a display with a pot for adjustment and a button to toggle between input or output voltage on the display. In the picture it is showing input voltage which is the 24v power supply output at 23.9v. Here is a link to the step down converters I use: https://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-DC-Buck-...wAAOSwY45UMfSP

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## curious aardvark

Knew it was familiar ! 
it looks like one of the leaping beasts in one of the metroid games :-)

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## AutoWiz

So my first impressions of the SKR 1.3 mainboard are that it is incredibly cheap. I am very unimpressed with the lack of LEDs on the mainboard. The MKS boards all had them and I think even the GT2560 board that came with my cheap ebay GEEETech printer had LEDs onboard. And at the beginning of my 3 color mixing printer thread we can all see the leds on the mainboard I had with the 6 stepper drivers. No LEDs mean no conformation of when it powers on or off or when it starts or stops being written to or if it is even actually being written to. I would really like to have these visual confirmations because I have to use new software I am not used to.

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## AutoWiz

Quick amendment to my last post, there is a power LED on the mainboard. The 5v power requirements of the MMU2S and the extra stepper driver expansion boards are overcoming the 5v supply and pulling it down. I will now try to supply 5v from a usb charger or something and report back on that success. In the meantime here is my machine all powered up less the MMU..

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## curious aardvark

so go print something ! 
:-)
let's see what you can do quality wise at 150mm's and 0.4 layer height - basically what I use for rough prints on my £200 delta. 
Mind you I do use a 0.5mm nozzle. 
So I'll accept 150 and 0.3 layer height on a 0.4 :-)

let's face it, ANY machine can do quality at low speeds and thin layers. Where it's at, is the larger layers and faster speeds.

And - obviously get the mumu working :-)

Give me a model and we can have a print off ! :-)

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## AutoWiz

IF and when all this goes well when I upgrade my extruder to the bondtech so I can have a filament sensor for the mmu at that time I will also install a volcano and a .5 or .6mm nozzle. I am totally with you on larger prints coming out decent and in a decent amount of time. In the meantime I have to figure out this new marlin that does not use the Arduino environment. I am all for a print off with you CA. But on this machine. My others all have this problem with artifacts or ghosting in the prints. They come out great dimensionally accurate and stuff. They fit and work great as specific parts I design and print. But if you look at one of my prints for too long I swear it will give you vertigo. That is why I had to stop the LS3 engine I was printing. I cant stand the ringing/ghosting/artifacts, or whatever it is that makes my prints look the way they do. This machine with these high quality parts should correct this. I hope.

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## AutoWiz

Hey CA buddy, do you have any experience with the duet boards? I am now mulling the duet 3. It is just coming out and will be available for regular order on Novemebr 28th. I will buy one and upgrade a.s.a.p. if only i know i can program it. Is it the same as working with the SKR 1.3? or totally different software?

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## curious aardvark

not a clue.  Those thigs are way too rich for my blood.
I've met the people behind duet on several occasions. Very helpful, good people.
So best to just ask them :-) 

holy crap its £222 ! 
That's bloody ridiculous.
I don't care how good it is, that's sheer daylight robbery ! 
No wonder they're helpful :-)

I think I once spent just over £100 on a motherboard for a clients gaming pc (£500 on graphics cards) - but never before or since.

What justifies that kind of money ?

More importantly, has brian printed anything yet ???????

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## AutoWiz

I have a gaming PC i built for myself that i spent just over $4k building. The Mainboard for that was 4 bills. Asus Maximus X Hero Wifi. But that machine is absolutely radical. I used 3d printing to help make it. I spent over a grand just building the water cooling system. The fully modded D5 pump that can build up to 53psi cost $200 on it's own. I was empowered by monies made off of crypto currencies. I built that right here: https://www.superchargerforums.com/t...-machine.7445/

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## spegelius

I have 2 Duet boards, Duet2Wifi and Duet Maestro. Both use RepRapFirmware https://github.com/dc42/RepRapFirmware and I don't think Marlin is available for them. But the hw is very good quality. Also Duet is very flexible in sw since everything is configured with gcode and macros so no need to compile fw.
There is some discussion about MMU2 with Duet boards here: https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/6155/...-s-mmu-v2-duet and it seems someone has got MMU2 working, at least somewhat (did not read all of the thread...).

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## curious aardvark

> I have a gaming PC i built for myself that i spent just over $4k building. The Mainboard for that was 4 bills. Asus Maximus X Hero Wifi. But that machine is absolutely radical. I used 3d printing to help make it. I spent over a grand just building the water cooling system. The fully modded D5 pump that can build up to 53psi cost $200 on it's own. I was empowered by monies made off of crypto currencies. I built that right here: https://www.superchargerforums.com/t...-machine.7445/


I think we've already established you're not normal where tghis kind of thing is concerned :-)
I'm pretty sure i could build something at least as fast for half the money. 
pc's are all about balance - just throwing money at them, is not the way to go :-)

It is very pretty lol 
what processor and drives did you go for ?

----------


## AutoWiz

Intel core I7-8700k, Asus Maximux hero X wifi mobo (the mobo natively supports water cooling!), Samsung 1TB m.2 pro ssd, Nvidia gtx 1080ti, 4x8(32)gb rgb g.skill ddr4 ram, and it is driven with a 1000 watt power supply. And the video card is connected to a curved 27" Asus ROG G-sync gaming monitor with 1ms response time and 2560x1440 res @ 165hz. That monitor is not included in the cost of building the rig. But it did cost a chunk on it's own. But holy cow, it'll bring a tear to your eye just to look at it.

----------


## AutoWiz

Hey so with 5 spools of filament and the filament buffer, this printer now has a rather large footprint..

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## curious aardvark

So no ryzen processor then :-) 
Oh well, lol
I haven't built an intel system since the first amd 486 processor came out, 30 years ago ? Something like that. 
Faster, cheaper, more reliable and the new 7nm processors piddle on intel from a great height. Hell even the ryzen 3 benchmarks faster than most current i7's. 
Intel are the apple of the processor market - they have a huge marketing campaign, but don't invest as much in manufacturing as amd/ati.

Anyway, so next you need a back frame to lift the spools up along the back of the printer, that'll reduce the footprint and reduce the filament drag on the spools.

----------


## AutoWiz

At the time I built this machine AMD was getting into trouble for misadvertising the amount of cores in their processors and one day I got a check in the mail out of nowhere for my 8 core FX-8370 processor I bought a few years back. If that has changed then it is just the fluidity of the industry we are in. But so far as I always understood it Intel and Nvidia are where people went for the better quality and the folk who wanted to save money went with amd and radeon. Despite current benchmarks we should all wait and see what comes out next. Be it a better chip from intel or another class action lawsuit. One single product release does not undo decades of back and forth and Intel coming out on top. That is just us getting caught up in the moment I think. But time will tell. For now, why not go read this 411 about my paycheck from nowhere: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbrea...ulldozer-chips

----------


## AutoWiz

I most definitely need to find a way to shrink this down. The trick is keeping the filament buffer and the MMU2S moving with those tubes up and down 330mm. There is a better solution for this. I like your idea of a back frame.

----------


## AutoWiz

So I went to GitHub and got the latest firmware for the new Bigtreetech TFT35 v3.0 and I must say I am impressed. I can enter Gcode directly from the small touchscreen..

----------


## AutoWiz

And there are menus for auto leveling now, too..

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## AutoWiz

Here is the home screen on my new multi material rig..

----------


## curious aardvark

that's pretty cool.
Seems like the screens are doing almost as much as the motherboards these days. 

I thought the mumu just fed the extruder on the printer - didn't realise it had to move around as well ! 
But you 'could' build a simple up and down frame seperate from the printer, though if you have a direct drive extruder on the printer itself - why does the mumu need to move about ?

As far as processors go - both intel and amd do the cores with double threads thing. 
As far as performance goes - amd have always been ahead. 
What intel do is they pay the big manufacturers a lot of money to use their processors. At one point if you used intel cpus intel were paying 50% of all your advertising costs that mentioned 'intel inside'. 

To be fair I have built a few intel machines recently actually. 
Got some unused mini-itx boards that had been removed from unsold computers. So all brand new kit, but second hand. 
The board, 4gb of ram and an i3 cpu were £25 delivered :-) 
 The boards are mini network server boards and when new - the board alone - would have been in excess of £100. 
So the 'server' that runs my k40 laser is made from one and my  current workshop disk cloning, data recovery machine, also uses one and I built a cheap base unit for a client with one as well. 

Since amd stopped making the am1 cpus - my previous source of cheap mini-itx systems - this is the best deal I've come across. 

But over the years I've seen and benchmarked thousands of machines and amd always come out best both for speed and reliability. 
Ati cards do tend to be faster than nvidia and run cooler - but the nvidia software has always been a lot more stable. So On average for good graphics cards I generally go for nvidia. 
But for normal useage the ati on chip graphics is much better than the intel on motherboard chipsets. 

I've always found it interesting that amd have never advertised - well at least not that I've ever seen :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

I am past the software and basic calibrations of my machine. I am now working on reworking the filament buffer. I want mine to be clear so I can see the filament. But also I need mine to grow a bit as my ptfe tube from the mmu2s to the extruder is still longer than on the Prusa machine. Also I want mine to be easier to load filament into. My filament buffer will come out something like this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3681588/files

----------


## AutoWiz

Alright. Well that was a little messy. The clear plastic sheeting does not cut so I had to use the Dremel to make the 6 plates. But it is done and here is my clear slightly larger filament buffer..   And here is one of the plates from Prusa set over my buffer to illustrate how much larger my buffer is. Just a little bit..

----------


## curious aardvark

I have no idea what I'm looking at - just see a black plate ? 

So how on earth does that work ? 
every time you show a bit of the mumu it seems to get ever more complicated :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

So there is a long ptfe tube that runs from the MMU2S down to the extruder. Every time the mmu wants to change filament it must pull the filament out of this ptfe tube and feed it back towards the spool. But if it unwound the spool we would see that in our prints as the spool hit points of load, or worse the filament might unspool and come off the spool. So this buffer gives the rewound filament a place to go without unraveling the spool. I re made mine in clear so i can see the filament inside doing its thing. This short video shows both the filament backing up into the buffer and also it shows my intended setup. I mean to hang all 5 spools on the wall just like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDeXqmv8rII

----------


## AutoWiz

Alright so i am moving on all axes and i go home like i am supposed to and my heaters heat and i am almost there. Up next i need to pid autotune both the bed and extruder. Then i gotta figure out how to get the MMU2S to do its thing. Or maybe i need to understand what things it is supposed to be doing in the first place. lol. I am chasing the curve. The printer looks awesome..

----------


## AutoWiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aphy6hQaIrw

----------


## curious aardvark

Okay that makes sense. 
I mean it's hellishly over complicated - but it does make sense.
What were your objections to the mosaic again ?

----------


## AutoWiz

I think the best objection to that I heard from you. The idea of trying to glue a 1.75mm dia. filament to another filament and how some filaments don't melt to other filaments so well. So the mosaic is really more of a multi color than a multi material when we think about it. But the MMU2S is extremely versatile. It will work with any 5 filaments so long as they are the same diameter. crying about heat up and cool down times at each layer is still the print happening, ya know? But when we are sticking filament to filament we don't get to work with a lot of combinations and are limiting ourselves right out of the gate. The MMU2S is about as good as we are gonna get without separate extruders that can be held at temp and a toolchanger. Which requires a lot more money, space, and power. From where I stand the MMU2S is a powerful contender in the multi material arena. Here are my first 2 prints. They were printed with the LV8729 stepper driver for the extruder set at 1/32 micro stepping. With the 0.9 degree e3d stepper motor this brings me to 1674 steps per mm of filament movement. I still have to try 1/64 and 1/128 micro stepping for the E. But look at the surface of these benchy's, man..

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## AutoWiz

I made an account on Thingiverse and shared all my .stl files. I am calling this the Multi Widow: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4048939

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## curious aardvark

okay - but you know me, I'm all about speed :-)

Can it print fast and accurate ?

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## AutoWiz

As far as accuracy goes I am on genuine HIWIN guides as you know with 4 cars under the bed and 2 on each end of the gantry and 2 for X I am using a lot more power per print i am sure from all the preload. With the printer homed and the steppers energized I can grab the bed or the extruder carriage and move the whole printer around and vigerously without forcing a single skipped step just because of 2x locked steppers per axis. And the 0.9 degree stepper motors paired with 1/64 and 1/128 micro stepping the 32 bit controller is commanding 1256 steps per MM of movement on X and Y, 1600 steps per MM on Z, and the extruder I currently have set to only 1/32 microstepping and it is getting 1674 steps per MM. So I am accurate and have the capability for speed. I just need to get things turned up. So far I have been printing the wall mount spool holders with my new machine and I am impressed. Still haven't hooked up the MMU2S.  gotta get these spools mounted first.

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## AutoWiz

Oh man that hurts. I have a mainboard and the stepper driver expansion boards mount the steppers oriented opposite to what is on the mainboard and then the pot is on different sides on the TMC2208 and LV8729 drivers and I installed 3 drivers backwards on the mainboard. I let the smoke out. Now the drivers are dead, with them removed the mainboard is dead. The screen is not turning on and I hope it is just because of the lost connection to the mainboard. So this job is on hold while I wait for a new mainboard and drivers. It stinks in my living room now. But hey, If your gonna be dumb and stupid, you gotta be tuff. I gotta go open a window.

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## AutoWiz

Well how about that. The SKR 1.4 and SKR 1.4 TURBO are out and available on BIQU's website. It has the same footprint as the 1.3 so it is what I ordered. While I wait on shipping for anybody interested in the latest version of the 32 bit SKR board that is still right around $20 here is a link: https://www.biqu.equipment/collectio...31198920999010

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## curious aardvark

speed - if it won't print as good at 150mm/s as your other printers do at 50mm/s - then, well it's mostly for nothing :-) 

Go on load up an iris box and crank the speed right up 

I'd drop you the link to the iris box - but thingiverse is currently a bit poorly :-)

try this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1817180

I don't count benchy's. 
Make something both practical and a right bastard to print is my test. And then see just how fast you can make it. 

I think my current best for an 80mm (widest point of base) smooth running iris box is just under 4 hours at 0.16 layer height.
This is also just about the best test of clean retractions I know of. 
I struggle with the 60mm version in the link - so that would be an even better test.

I reckon Brian ought to be able to knock one of these out in under 1.5 hours.

These boxes are great for little screws and stuff that won't fall out when you knock them on the floor (like i do  lot). 
Plus about the best thing to show people to illustrate how 3d printing differs from injection moulding.
Once working I usually add a drop of 3-1n-1 oil to the base of the 'flaps' with the box closed. Then work it a few times to fully lubricate the mechanism. Amazing just how smooth they'll open and close after that.

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## AutoWiz

I have been learning on the fly as I build and play. I chose a starting point and gave it a go and have walked away with some important knowledge to share. The LV8729 drivers are great for the 1.3A stepper from E3d that comes with the titan and titan aero. But them drivers max at 1.5a and most nema17 stepper motors we use start at 1.68a. On a loose, broken in, or worn printer maybe this might work. But on my machine with the high end guides with preload I have had a few of the lv8729 drivers fail and have replaced them before deciding to go back to the TMC2208. What this is teaching me is that my large format printer needs a 0.5 or 0.6mm nozzle and .3mm layer height. And it can build big things fast and accurately. I think I need to rework my geeetech i3 to have a 32 bit skr mainboard, put the LV8729 drivers on that (it already has all 0.9 degree stepper motors and a titan aero), get a 0.2mm nozzle and make that my precision machine to chase the 0.025mm and less layer heights or make detailed miniature action figures or something. I think that is what i am doing. So much so that i have already started designing braces for the Geeetech and ordered a second SKR 1.4 mainboard.

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## AutoWiz

Tracking shows both SKR 1.4 Turbo mainboards are inside the country. I should have them soon and I can get back to this incredible machine. One thing that is different with the SKR 1.4 over the 1.3 is it now natively supports dual Z stepper motors and has a second connector tied to the Z stepper driver. For strength and because I have such a heavy gantry I am going to be using TMC5160 drivers. This has had me thinking if I need 2 stepper drivers per axis or if just one TMC5160 is fine to drive 2 stepper motors on each axis? This sure would let me clean up my electrical. while I do not have a breakout for a second connector on each axis I sure can get or make some adapter harnesses or solder the wires together myself. I think I still have a few days to mull how I want to proceed. I do want a clean look.

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## AutoWiz

Hello trouble..

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## AutoWiz

Oh Yes! Finally, this printer is back in the game. The SKR 1.4 Turbo is a new board with a new chip for the SKR series. Where the 1.3 and 1.4 have LPC1768 running at 100mhz the Turbo has swapped this for LPC1769 @ 120mhz. While I can not yet speak on the performance benefits of this I have a lot to say about setting it up. The first time around and just recently I bought a SKR 1.3 and at that time there was not an official release of marlin 2.0 yet and I setup and installed marlin 2.0 bugfix. Now there is an official release of marlin 2.0 and there is also a marlin 2.1 dev that can be had. In all of these versions of marlin the only one that had the SKR 1.4 turbo listed in the boards tab is a version linked from biqu.equpiment's website. it is marlin 2.0 official but is is a special version of it from biqu for this board that I guess came out after the board list for the official release was done. BUT WAIT, SKR 1.4 Turbo is also not listed in marlin 2.1 dev? So I guess it will be added to a later version of it. Maybe when we get to 2.1 bugfix we will see it. This matters because there is no other boards or even a viable way to tell marlin you are using LPC1769. Anyways, the Multi Widow lives. It died after printing 3 of 5 wall mount spool holders I designed for the mmu. Right now it is working on the other 2 and then I will get the 5 spools and filament buffer mounted and we will start down that path.

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## AutoWiz

This is the first print with the SKR 1.4 TURBO. no benchy. Straight to finishing the parts for the mmu..

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## AutoWiz

Alright CA i am printing your Iris Box right now. I am using the speeds that came with the marlin 2.0 firmware and the settings that came with the Prusa slicer. I have not made any changes to any of the speed settings yet. I am open to suggestions or screenshots of better settings i might try. Or i will find an answer from youtube or google. This iris box for me is set for 3hrs and 2 mins. But it is looking good so far..

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## curious aardvark

be interesting to how easy it is to get working. You cut the tabs underneath. Then work a small screwdriver around the edge of the base to loosesn the base. Then cross your fingers and twist :-)

3 1/2 hours sounds about right. So you don't know the actual print speed ?
what diameter/width are you printing it at ?

Brian definitely looks like he's about to leap at you ;-)

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## AutoWiz

Well it doesn't work. It looks great. It looks like it should work. But i am printing on bare glass and i think i might have the first layer too hot or the nozzle too close to the bed. The bottom of the print has lost those features i need to cut and it is just a smooth bottom surface, lol. I tried to cut anyways but it didnt work. I will take and post pictures tonight after work and start re printing with some changes to z offset and / or first layer temp.

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## curious aardvark

yeah had that :-)

As I said, never print another benchy - print an iris box :-) O8nly a well dialled in machine with eevrything working properly will succeed. Particularly good for retraction testing. 
And if it works, you have a really useful box with built in lid.

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## AutoWiz

I am printing my third one now. I broke the second one apart so as to understand why it was sticking and sure enough the blades down towards the bottom are fusing to the inside shell. So i have dropped the temp from 205 to 200 to 195 andi will try 190 after this. I cant wait to try this same print with the other printer i am reworking. That blue thing is gonna have a 0.25mm nozzle. .15mm finer tip on the pencil drawing my picture. I am gonna get this to print and work on both of these machines.

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## curious aardvark

The other test print I do if I want to really push a machine is a print in place fidget cube :-)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1752508

With my monoprice mini delta, I put a 0.25mm nozzle on and made one of these really tiny - 10mm on  a side when in the 'cube' configuration.

I will admit to adjusting the internal gaps between surfaces a little bit. 0.1mm works well. 

The thing is a benchy has no moving parts - so is not a good PRACTICAL test of a printer. 
An iris box and print-in-place fidget cube on the other hand, will only work with a printer that has every aspect, dialled in properly :-) Including the filament. A filament that won't retract without leaving blobs - won't work with either print. 
And when they work they are useful to have and good to give away :-)

If you can print a working version of either - you can print ANYTHING !

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## AutoWiz

So I have my 5 wall mount spool holders I designed all printed out, I bought a piece of spruce pine fir with glued edges because it advertised itself as being perfect for diy and projects. I mounted my re worked filament buffer and 5 spools to the backboard and now I just have to hang this on the wall and connect it to the MMU2S..

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## AutoWiz

I just have to setup the ptfe tubes, make changes to marlin and say some prayers. Maybe this weekend we will get our first multi material print out of this beast. I am really happy with the way all this has come out..

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## curious aardvark

looks great :-)
Love the design !

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## AutoWiz

So i got my new TMC5160 stepper drivers. These are the v1.2. And they handle a lot of load vs. all the other stepper drivers out there. So i am now thinking about removing the stepper driver expansion boards and just using these y connectors for x and y. This should allow for a cleaner look and be more efficient..

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## AutoWiz

Well now things look a little more tame. Just 4 stepper drivers and no expansion boards. With the SKR boards no wires are needed for SPI configurations. And the 5160's don't even have a pot on them to adjust. The plug that is not connected is to the MMU2S. I hope to connect it this weekend at some point. I just gotta get through all this other stuff first..

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## AutoWiz

I have found less than success with the tmc5160 drivers and honestly I don't need 4a support anyways. So I now have installed 4 tmc2209 drivers and I am gonna play with UART. I am so happy with how the SKR 1.4 turbo does the uart without any external wires. This is one of the cleaner UART setups..

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## AutoWiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qRUq6-JAdY

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## AutoWiz

So I decided I want to stability test my latest rework. Who cares if I can print a benchy or an iris box. I need to see if I can print for days. Am I that stable? So I found a need. Which is more space on my toolbox at work. And I designed a shelf. A big triangle that will sit on the lip on the edge of my box and give me 300mm of more space. 300x300mm, btw. So the triangle's dimensions are 300x200x300. Sliced with a 0.3mm layer height and just 20% infill this is a 100 hour print. I took this picture at the very start and just wanted to point out the importance of sticking that first layer..

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## AutoWiz

I am currently just past half way done with this print. 53 hours in without a single hiccup..  That is except for filament. This print is using an insane amount of filament. So far I have paused print to change spools 3 times or my part is 4 color, so far..  But look at the wall of this print. I am so happy with how this machine is performing right now. Stepper motors are warm and cool. Nothing getting hot even this far in..

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## AutoWiz



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## AutoWiz

Well this print got this far before failure.. 
 
There is no feeling bad about the failure as it is a simple calibration issue. I have the tmc 2209 drivers running in uart and the current on x,y, and z was set to 1000 which might be good or a lot for a single stepper but I have 2 on each axis. My stepper motors stayed cold for the days of printing and after the print got so heavy Y skipped steps when I paused the print to change filament. But this print made it 72 hours before failure.. 
 
I am printing another piece and am over 30 hours into this print passing the 100 hour mark of print time on my new rework. No problems so far, but still calibrating. And Extremely happy so far..

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## AutoWiz

Oh it hurts. But it is what it is. So this printer prints awesome. I still have some dialing in to do but it has become clear to me at this time that I can not connect a tft AND the MMU2S at the same time. This has pushed me to find another mainboard with at least 2 sets of rx and tx pins. I have found that here: https://www.biqu.equipment/collectio...rts-for-i3-mk3 . So I have ordered it and when it arrives I must rework this printer yet again to accept this board so I can move forward with the multi material stuff. No worries on wasted parts, though. This SKR 1.4 Turbo board will go to Printalicious, the printer that made all the parts for this rework and also for the blue geeetech i3 rework. Printalicious will also receive a mag flexible bed.

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## AutoWiz

I wish the mainboards I ordered from China back in March would hurry up and get here so I can move forward with getting some multi colored prints

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## AutoWiz

I think i figured out a way to connect the MMU2S with what i have. The TFT35 v3.0 has dual modes. It can be a touchscreen and connect via the tft connection on the mainboard but it can also be a lcd12864 and connect to the exp1 and exp2 connectors on the mainboard. I think if I wire this in and use this mode for the screen I can use the tft connection on the mainboard and get that MMU2S up and running finally. So I bought some ribbon and some ends and made some cables.. 
 
I am so excited to finally get to use the MMU2S. I have had it for so long now. Anyways, hopefully I will be posting up a multi material print soon. Making my own ribbon was the way to go. Nothing fits like cut to length..

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## AutoWiz

I was checking the display and making sure it worked so I started a print and made sure the heaters started heating and I cancelled the print. This is the home screen of the lcd12864..

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## curious aardvark

so the mumu has it's own board with screen outputs ? 
That's useful. 

Yeah saw those 2-in-1 screens and ended up with the touchscreen only as it's just for my cheapo prusa clone.  

had no idea they could be used on 2 different machines at the same time. 
useful !





> Who cares if I can print a benchy or an iris box.


Lol so still no working iris box ? To be fair that's pretty much 100% down to how clean your retractions are. 
ANY webbing and it will weld. 
And yes it's important if you ever do multiple models at the same time. 

In fact I reckon lean retractions are probably the single most important thing to get. 
Hell I even have them on my click-n-print with flexible filaments. Love being able to print multiple flexible parts with zero spider webs. 

What on earth was the giant multi coloured wedge for ?

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## curious aardvark

Ah right it's a shelf. 
Umm so why did it take so long ? And why such a dense infill. you could have got away with 10% on something that large no problem. 
What speed did you print it at ? 
I mean if after all this work you're still only printing stuff at less than 100mm/s - was it worth it ? 

You've got stepper motors both ends of the cables - so you should be able to speed things up considerably. 

I do get that you just like improving things - but there must be some kind of point to it. And in 3d printing surely faster is the main thing to shoot for ? 

Hang on a minute....
Right - so at the same layer height and 10% infill and 150mm/s that print would probably clock in at around 25 hours. 
And that's without adding in the cylindrical voids. 
Okay - weird, the circles slow  things dow to around 30 hours.
Printing at 0.4mm knocks it back down to 24 hours. 

So presumably you were printing at 75mm/s ?

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## AutoWiz

The MMU2S does have its own board with its own stepper drivers integrated. But the board connects to the mainboard via i think uart? it needs rx and tx pins connected. And the SKR 1.4 only has rx and tx pins for the tft socket. So I have connected the dual mode screen's exp 1 and exp 2 connectors to the skr 1.4 and now the skr 1.4 is driving a lcd12864 and has the tft connector open. So now i can connect the MMU2S rx, tx, and reset pins to the tft port on the skr mainboard and get this multi material party started. Which i am doing this evening. As we speak, in fact.

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## AutoWiz

OMG. I am here. I have the mmu connected. I have the firmware setup and it finally built without error and I got it loaded into the Multi Widow and check out the new menu option for the lcd12864..  I have some calibration stuff to do because of the different length PTFE tubing and stuff. But I am right here. And it is good. Because I really want to dig into my diamond hotend build so I can have and compare 2 different forms of multi material printing.

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## AutoWiz

The clock is against me. It took a little time to get the settings right in marlin. But i finally got everything up and working from the lcd12864 and I was able to load and unload all 5 filaments. I had a half used spool of black pla to stand in for the missing fifth spool of PETG. So here is my home made clear filament buffer in action.. 
 
But it is after midnight. I have to be at work at 8am. I can not start a print now. So if all goes well, tomorrow after work I will print my first 5 color test cube. I am so excited. I built this a little while ago, now.

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## curious aardvark

> But it is after midnight. I have to be at work at 8am.


lol - damn that has to be frustrating :-)

Looking forward to the results. if you can use 5 different materials - bugger the speed :-) 
That's just really cool. 

I guess pet-g would be best as it needs slow anyway and prints around the same temp as soluble support filament. 

Okay that was a week ago now - did it work ???????????????????????????????????????????

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## AutoWiz

I am totally with you on the speed thing. I really just wanted to do this last rework to each printer to clean up the wiring as much as humanly possible, brace the axes as much as possible, and make them all look like they belong together. I very much want to see how fast they can print. My Geeetech i3 printer now called 'Old Blue' is waiting for a new mainboard as I burned the one in it connecting the 5015s fan polarity backwards for a while. And Printalicious is pretty much done but waiting for a set of tmc2209 uart drivers and a clone MK3S magnetic spring steel heated bed assembly. All parts are coming from https://www.biqu.equipment/ and I ordered them back at the start of march. It sucks I am waiting so long but one day they will arrive. As for Big Red here I have gotten so far but am having problems. I made a video and uploaded it to youtube that illustrates my current problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iICQ8sENQJs&t= . I am currently chasing this problem and welcome any ideas for a solution.

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## spegelius

Can you post the gcode somewhere? Maybe there's some kind of configuration issue with the purge lengths or something. During the initial purge moves it shouldn't move the extruder backwards AFAIK. I haven tried Prusa Slicers multi-material support for a while so I can say it's not meant to do that, though... I'll see if I can get Prusa Slicer configured for my 6-color machine, at least try so I can see how it does things.

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## curious aardvark

makes some horrible noises and that big lump at the end of the filament isn't good either. could easily get stuck in the hotend. 

The extruder is jamming. 
Looks like the feed path has issues, the mumu clearly thinks it's working. 
I'd strip the extruder down and check all my bits of ptfe were in the right place.

Either that or the filament is being held by the mumu and not allowing the extruder to actually feed it into the hotend. 

The complicated bit is working :-)

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## spegelius

Ah yes, looking the end of the filament on the video, it's quite bad. Might get stuck on the heatbreak and MMU is detecting tha it's not feeding and backing it away? This is quite common problem with single nozzle - multi extruder setups, some filaments are worse than others and need some tuning to get working properly. There's different methods to get a better tip, I think that there's a custom version of Prusa Slicer that has more options for this...

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## AutoWiz

Spegelius and Curious Aardvark thank you for your input. I am forced to take a brief pause on this while i resolve getting the ptfe tube actually mounted to the titan aero extruder. The ptfe tube that runs from the MMU2S to the extruder needs to be attached with a quick connect coupler on either end. I have to overcome this obstacle before i can move forward. I have ordered some different couplers and a solid metal titan aero idler arm from amazon. I already have the all metal idler arm and hopefully the couplers will arrive in the next few days and i will drill and tap the idler arm to receive the coupler. The unload movement uses the extruder's drive gear to push the filament back and the MMU2S takes the drive gear away from that filament so it is free spooling and can do what the extruder gear wants the filament to do. This unloading movement because it is pushing on the filament it drives the ptfe tubing out of the plastic idler arm nearly every time. Hot glue helps but is hardly professional and in my video fails anyways. I hope to report back my success with the ptfe tube mounting by the start of the week. Thank You both again for your interest, time, and consideration. I don't wanna be 2 for 2 at failing chasing multi material printing. I gotta get this right.

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## AutoWiz

I am almost there, guys. The ptfe tube quick connect couplers came today. The titan aer comes with a stupid plastic arm that has a u shaped hole on top so I can not screw anything into it..  I tried to thread the fitting into it anyways but with no success and because the hole is at the top it would leave a large gap between the end of the coupler and the hobbed gear.  Here is my all metal arm and I had to order the couplers in a 10 pack.  And all I have to do now is find a m5x0.8 tap so I can put some threads in this all metal arm and I am back in business. I just have to locate this tap.

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## AutoWiz

Well I had to go to my job on my day off to make it happen but I got the idler arm tapped to m5x0.8 and I got the quick connect mounted and got everything installed. From here I have to go back over a few calibrations to bring me back to where I was. This quick connect looks so much better than the hot glue..

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## spegelius

Looking good, I have the original Titan and the arm seems to be the same as on the Aero. Good to know that there's a replacement arm that can be modded to take PTFE coupler.

Went and ordered MMU2S, been thinking about getting one for a while. Actually was going to make the order a while agoe, but Prusa shop didn't have it available at that time. Now it's in stock so should be getting one in few weeks.

I've been doing multi-material printing for a couple of years now so is not a new thing. But MMU2S is a interesting design and I want to experience it myself. Also as I've developed a tool to for supporting single nozzle multi material printing on different slicer I want to have a hw to test the tool properly. My tool does have a MMU2S support, courtesy of a user and apparently it is working fine, but having the hw is always the fastest way to test things.

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## curious aardvark

pretty sure you're 90% of the way there. 
The mumu was definitely doing the right thing. Just looks like a standard normal extruder feed issue.

And you should be able to fix that in your sleep :-)

Hell your kids can probably do it ;-)

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## AutoWiz

So I have got the latest version of Marlin up and going on all 3 of my printers. Marlin 2.0.5.3 and I also got the latest firmware installed on the MMU2S. 1.0.6. I am still not getting past the initial priming to get me to my first print. I have seen some people using a prime bucket and I think I am going to make one for this printer. It promises to save filament over building a prime tower and it definitely saves space on the build plate.

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## curious aardvark

what's a prime bucket ?? 

Oh and here's a video for you to think about your next project. 'cos you know, once the mumu is working you'll just get bored watching it move about.  ;-)
What I really like about this machine is the three z-screws - which you can actually use for TRUE autolevelling. 
And damn it's fast ! 
But his approach to building does seem very similiar to your own.



Plus I've just worked out why a corexy can be so fast - And yes I have a particlly assembled one. 
I thought I'd done it wrong when I installed the belts because no matter how you move it - both the x & Y stepper motors move. 
But just realised that's kind of the point lol. 
The extruder carriage is always under tension and the head is always controlled, kind of like the dual motor setup you're using. 

Got to extract my s3d profiles from the registry on the old workshop computer, then I think I'll have ago at finishing the sapphire pro off. 
This has got me all intrigued now :-)

Oh - now i remember - The bedlevelling boltss need to soldered into position as they are under the bed print surface and just turn round when you turn the bed levelling wheels. Yeah, and I don't have any soldering gear - That's why I haven't finished it yet ! 
Damn. 
Have to wait for my mate the electrician to come round.

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## AutoWiz

I'm sorry CA, 'Purge Bucket' is an alternative to building towers and wasting bed space for filament changes. With a purge bucket the nozzle just moves to this location and extrudes X amount of filament at X speed and then goes back to printing and we can have multi material prints that take up the entire bed size. Here is my purge bucket installed in it's place..  Now I just need to create something that can follow the z axis and wipe the nozzle after the filament changes.

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## AutoWiz

I have finished setting up the purge bucket and nozzle wiper. The nozzle wiper is attached to Z so it will always be at the right height.. 
 
 
 
Now all i have to do is figure out how to set this up in Marlin and PrusaSlicer and I will be in business. Oh and I also have to make a similar purge bucket and nozzle wiper setup for My 3 Color Mixing Printer.

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## AutoWiz

Well alright after some big prints I have identified an issue with my printer's design. On this part the Z banding can be clearly seen on the vertical wall.. 
 
I know this is caused by the threaded rods being held to the frame and moving the gantry as they spin about. I have mulled the correct way forward and here it is. I need to remove the collar and bearing from the bottom of both threaded rods on Z and also raise the threaded rods so they are not inside the hole where the bearing used to be. Like this.. 
 
Because there is a lot of weight on the gantry it was a good idea to double up on the collars at the top of the threaded rod above what is now the only bearing locating each threaded rod.. 
 
So now that the collar is twice as tall and there is more length of threaded rod sticking up above the frame I now need to print some spacers. Thankfully I already have those designed and in my Multi Widow thingiverse here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4048939 so I just printed them out on Old Blue.. 
 
And things are all back together and ready to print. ... well, all except for the broken plate of glass. Which I just want to say hurts. The plate of 400x250x3 borosilicate glass cost $48 from Amazon and the 400x400 gecko tek hot build surface is another $36. I dont know how much I like glass build surfaces today. But anyhow, when the new glass and build surface arrive I will be able to verify the correction for the Z banding. And then get back to trying to get that darned MMU2S printing. In the meantime, here is the Multi Widow all back together and 10mm taller..

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## curious aardvark

just out of curiosity - could you put linear rails on the z axis - and would it make a difference ?

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## AutoWiz

There are 2 linear rails with 2 cars (1 on each rail) for X, 2 linear rails with 4 cars (2 on each rail) for Y, and 4 rails with 4 cars (1 on each rail) for Z(2 rails on the front and 2 on the back). Best quality all genuine HIWIN ordered from motion constrained. It was the 4 Z linear rails that helped with the frame's rigidity and allowed me to remove the top cross brace from the frame. These 4 rails go a long way towards holding the frame square. It is these rails that control the Z banding and have kept it to a severe minimum. But removing the lower bearing and collars from the threaded rods will eliminate it.

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## curious aardvark

just checking :-)

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## AutoWiz

With the aftermarket metal idler arm installed with the bowden fitting screwed in the filament is held slightly off of its optimal angle and is prone to skipping or if I tighten it down enough it will just kink the filament before feeding it down. I swapped the plastic idler arm in to print those large parts with the single filament and as soon as i put the other idler arm back in I'm back to the skipping. I need an extruder i can feed a bowden tube into. I already started down the path of no expense spared with the genuine HIWIN rails and PRUSA MMU2S instead of clone parts so I have resolved this extruder problem in that same fashion and did like I said I was gonna do. Today I have ordered the Mosquito hotend from Slice engineering along with a 24v fan, 24v 50 watt heater cartridge, thermistor, vanadium 0.6mm nozzle, and BondTech BMG-M extruder. I feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside about this new extruder setup and can't wait to change a nozzle with just one hand. This new extruder setup costs more than some printers. But it is fitting and the correct part for the machine I built. Gotta treat my robot right. I ordered my parts directly from BondTech, here:  https://www.bondtech.se/en/

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## curious aardvark

well if the bondtech extruder is anything like mine - I'm not overly impressed. 

The fact that you can't feed any flexible filament through it at a print speed faster than 10mm/s without it somehow managing to 'escape' and wrap itself behind the gears - has not endeared it to me. 
And there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it - short of finding someone with a metal engineering lathe and cutting a couple of new gears with enlarge back barrels that block wriggling filament. 
I've even tried fitting a sleeve over the offendind part of the gears, but it just slides across the gear. Guess I could glue it in place. 

Hopefully your's is better designed than mine :-)

I'm currently contemplating stripping the extruder out of my original flashforge creator_ (which is mothballed on top of shelving)_  and using that. At least i know I can make that flex proof with very little effort.

Extruders can definitely be over complicated.

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## AutoWiz

I think mine are a newer design. I currently like BondTech this much.. 
 
Did you buy genuine real BondTech or a knockoff? Inside of a real $80 BondTech BMG extruder I am pretty sure it is impossible for the filament to wrap around anything. This is looking down inside one of the 3 on my mixing printer.. 
 
The case is made so precisely against the gears on both sides. God Bless BondTech BMG. ...of course I have not printed the flexible materials with one of these extruders yet.

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## jeffmorris

My SainSmart Coreception printer is supposed to have E3 Titan extruder but it may be knockoff instead of real thing. One time, flexible filament jammed inside the extruder. On Amazon's website, there are different E3 Titan extruders as well as different extruders for FlashForce Creator printers. How can I buy the real thing instead of knockoff?

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## AutoWiz

> How can I buy the real thing instead of knockoff?


Directly from the manufacturer is not just a great way to ensure a genuine product, but it also ensures that you will have the latest version of whatever product you are ordering and that it has sat on a shelf for the least amount of time. For your Titan you would want E3D: https://e3d-online.com/ . For BMG you want BondTech: https://www.bondtech.se/en/ . For SKR and other chinese mainboards you want Biqu: https://www.biqu.equipment/ . And so on. No amazon or ebay or ali or other middle men. At best they can only add to the price. Biqu is in China so you gotta give them time to get you your stuff. And if you are going to buy yourself one of these extruders here in 2020 you really should spend your money on either the E3D Hemera OR the BondTech BMG. Both are dual drive. Sadly E3D is having troubles keeping up with demand for their Hemera. So really you should be looking at the BondTech BMG. For verification your titan extruder should have a holographic E3D sticker on it's side and the pancake stepper should have the E3D logo on it's backside. Like this..

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## AutoWiz

It's all here. It came today. Mosquito hotend, BMG-M extruder, 50w heater cartridge, fan, 0.6mm vanadium nozzle, and all from BondTech and Slice Engineering. Let the Good Times Roll!!

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## AutoWiz

Well mission creep has officially set in. The Mosquito hotend comes with a 50watt heater cartridge and the wires that come with it are thicker than what is inside the drag chains. And I really want to add an external MOSFET for the extruder. Also The bondtech bmg-m mounts the nozzle a little further outboard from where the titan was. So I need to move the towers back a few mm on the Y so that the nozzle can reach all 400mm of the bed. And I need to swap the SKR 1.4 turbo for the SKR Pro I have. Sounds like the next rework but it shouldn't be that bad. I only have to design a new mainboard tray and extruder mount. I did try to download and print out various mounts just didn't find anything I liked. So it's time to rip this machine back down again. Electrical needs to come out so this can go in..

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## AutoWiz

Why is it the best extruder mounts are always the ones you make yourself? I mean you want to just hit the easy button and print something off of thingiverse and be done with it. But then you just don't get your labels displayed properly. And we do pay a price for them labels so they should be displayed..

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## AutoWiz

Oh no. Help, I'm falling down the rabbit hole again. Mission Creep is getting Deep! So I now see TMC2226 stepper drivers and they are not specifically supported by Marlin 2.0.5.3 and so i look there and see that Marlin is up to 2.0.6.1 and so I have ordered a bunch of the 2226 drivers and the skr pro will go in with marlin 2.0.6.1. Oh and i made this very short video displaying just how rigid the Multi Widow really is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=448lbf6lmKE

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## AutoWiz

Well I cheated. Instead of making a new mainboard tray to hold the SKR PRO I just made a small adapter to mount the external MOSFET I wanted to use for the new 50 watt heater on the Mosquito. I will still do all these things but I am really anxious to get to printing with that BMG-M and Mosquito. This printer is wild. And even with all this I have managed to keep my electrical tame. A task anyone can handle if they just put a little effort into trying..

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## AutoWiz

Alright it is time to have some fun snd show off the hardware and it's capabilities. So first and foremost i just want everybody to see there is no layer or part cooling fan present at the time I printed this. I still have to design that part..

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## AutoWiz

There was some layer shift on Y axis right near the top. This is with 2lbs of plastic on the print bed. I have 2 steppers driving Y with one TMC2226 driver and the forward current set as low as possible i think 1.2 or 1.3. I will turn it up a touch  but otherwise I am happy with the quality of this print..

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## AutoWiz

Well I have found a place and space to try those closed loop drivers. As I am printing a lot of big things with this machine I am noticing that after going up and then back down 300mm or so the side with all the wires has a bit more weight and sits a little lower than the other side. A very slight amount but enough that I am making a correction in between each print. And that is just an untenable situation for me. I need my printers to be stable. Also while I have not measured I am pretty sure those skipped steps on one side of Z are gonna be reflected in my print's dimensions. So while tonight I am seeing how much I can crank that forward current without getting the stepper motors hot I think this is a great place to try them closed loop drivers with the displays that mount to the back of the stepper motors. I ordered a pair of assembled closed loop drivers with stepper motors just to be lazy about it. I got the newer v2.0 ones here: BIGTREETECH S42B V2.0 Closed Loop Driver Control Board 42 Stepper Moto – Biqu Equipment . 

This should be a pretty quick upgrade except for running the wires from the motor to the driver. These closed loop drivers want 6 wires instead of 4. Also I got a smart filament sensor to work into the TronXY printer because I cant see how I am going to print anything 600mm tall with 1kg of filament.

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## AutoWiz

While I wait for shipping on them closed loop drivers for Z I can keep myself busy with some needed maintenance on my one off printer. With my dual motors I intentionally did not design a tensioner. It takes more to set the belt to the right length but it is a more rigid setup. I might change that at some point but for now we just need to get down to that 9mm gates reinforced Y belt. First the bed comes off..  

 

And then the Tevo carriage for the heated bed comes up revealing the carriage I designed and printed to marry the 4 cars to the Tevo carriage.. 

 

With the 16 m3 screws and my carriage removed we can see the 4 cars that this printer's 400x250 bed slides back and forth on. HIWIN logos laser etched everywhere. The only thing more beautiful than the logos on them cars and rails is the way they feel sliding back and forth. But dammit it hurt buying them.. 

 

Alright so now with everything out of the way we can focus on the small changes I want to make. First off the piece the belt attaches to for the Y carriage is offset to one side. It can be installed either way but I feel it is installed backwards. It is currently setup so the belt is offset to the outside of the carriage.. 

 

Here is a better picture. In my mind flipping this the other way will mean more belt coverage and less chances of the belt skipping on the driven gears. And because I have this thought I know it is wrong and must correct it. In reality I am sure the difference is so utterly insignificant. But I will get to tighten the belt while I am here and that definitely will help..

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## curious aardvark

> because I cant see how I am going to print anything 600mm tall with 1kg of filament.


https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2457148
Printed as a single piece and hollow. 
My mate would buy one. 
3-400g should do it. 

Without cooling, the finger looks good :-)

So how long did that take to print ?

And i really really really REALLY want you to build a delta !

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## AutoWiz

I really want to build a delta, too. A big one. The finger took 10-12 hours to print. 

I have fixed the belts by removing the tensioner springs I had on both. Now I just have a tight belt with no preload and I am happy. Aside from that I also have made a few careful tweaks to my cable chains in the name of longevity. As a part of the Multi Widow rework I made the chains run a tight arc for a clean as possible look. Here we can see the chain that runs across the back of the gantry for the extruder. I had this chain tucked in real close and tight with the frame.. 

 

For this chain I have reversed a few links to force a more rounded arc that sees a much more gradual bend across a larger length of wire instead of forcing such a tight turn. In the below picture the extruder is homed to the max endstop for X and the chain still doesn't force a tight turn.. 

 

The Y axis was a bit easier to correct. Here is the way I originally set it up with the smallest footprint I could get out of it.. 

 

And here is my incredibly simple correction. But it opens the arc and makes for an easier time for the wires as the bed slides back and forth.. 

 

And now that all that is out of the way and the printer is back together we are free to get started on mounting them closed loop drivers on top of them Z towers..

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## AutoWiz

So I fixed my Z issue and without the closed loop steppers and drivers. On the SKR 1.4 and 1.4 Turbo there is dual Z support baked into the mainboard. This is 2 Z stepper connectors tied to one Z stepper socket. I unplugged one stepper from this and ran it to E1, set up dual Z in marlin and gave each Z motor it's own driver. Now when I go up 330mm and come back down 330mm I am still at the same Z height on both sides. The only downside is now all the stepper sockets are occupied but to be honest that would have been the way with the closed loop drivers. Here is the physical configuration on the SKR 1.4 Turbo mainboard.. 

 

And the closed loop drivers might go on the TronXY for X and Y just because the displays would look cool where the X and Y motors are. I just have to find some real world comparisons between the noise levels and performance differences between these and the TMC 2226 drivers.

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## AutoWiz

I remember when I used to print dozens of things with one spool of filament. In those days a failed print was nothing. Today every skipped step seems to cost me $20. Not much on its own but man is it adding up. These big prints are putting too much weight on the bed driving inertia to a higher place than what the pair of stepper motors can handle. So now I have to backtrack and add an extra stepper driver for Y so we can double the amount of forward current going to them stepper motors. This print made it to 2lbs, 100mm tall, and 12hrs out of 17 before it failed. 

 

I was watching the printer when it happened and I stopped it as soon as I regained control over my mouth and let my own heaters cool down a bit.. 

 

I had these setup before so it will go in easy and fast and I will be reprinting this piece today. I need to print 4 of these as they are the new legs for the TronXY. 220mm lift instead of 100mm. The TronXY will never have this problem as the bed doesn't move about in a way that will combat an ever increasing inertia. The stepper driver expansion board I have will not accept 2209/2226 and I have to run a TMC2208 driver in it. All the rest of my drivers in this printer are tmc2226. I will first try to run it just this way and see what I get.

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## AutoWiz

My Printer is back up and running and at the moment 1h and 22m into printing that leg again. To make it work I had to take the Y axis away from UART and run it in standalone. I have a bunch of stepper drivers. So I sorted out all the tmc2208 v3.0 stepper drivers I have. I actually have these prepped both ways. Some are standalone, some are UART. The way we quickly identify which are which is by flipping them over and looking at the small solder pads. Typically if there is no solder then the drivers are configured for standalone and UART or SPI required soldering jumpers across pads. In the below picture the Yellow arrows up top are pointing to the 2208 drivers configured for standalone and the bottom row has green arrows pointing to the soldered jumpers making the drivers ready for UART communications.. 

 

With a pair of the correct standalone drivers selected I set the pot to 1.3v on each and put jumpers in ms1 & ms2. And made sure the dip switches for ms1 & ms2 were in the on position on the stepper driver expansion board. The one tmc2226 driver that was running the pair of steppers before was set in the firmware to 1.9v. Split in half that's 0.8 for each motor but now there is 0.5v more to each stepper and twice the surface area for cooling the driving circuit. I feel good about this and can't wait for the next 12 hours to pass to see if it makes it further than the last time. My electrical center is getting busy. I might have to redesign all this at some point. Or just upgrade that board to something with more stepper motor sockets.. 

 

At this point I am so happy I am finishing up building a coreXY. Oh I can't wait to finish it.

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## curious aardvark

why are you using such dense infill ? 

If you use triagular infill and more walls/outlines you could cut the weight of the drastically and still keep them as strong. 

the tringular infill is better at lateral stress than the honeycomg and also prints faster. 

And again - delta - never any weight issues, no matter what you print.
Only three stepper motors to deal with.  For larger machines - just use bigger steppers, never any need to double up. 
One of the biggest deltas I've seen - about 10 feet by about 5 -  was only using nema 23's and nothing special for belts. Looked like 6mm but was probably 10.
We were impresessed at just how basic it was. 
https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....4&d=1538399634
https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....5&d=1538399716


As long as you measure accurately - even a home made delta is pretty easy to setup.

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## AutoWiz

Well because it has to hold up a heavy printer that is gonna shake about. It is only 10% infill. But 3 perimeters and 3 solid top and bottom layers. And printed with a 0.6mm nozzle and 0.4mm layer heights. And out of PETG of course. These legs need to be heavy and robust so the printer that sits atop them will be stable. I got the first one to finish. It is not perfect and it will be one of the back legs. But it is finished and good enough to be on the rig. In the end aside from the dual stepper drivers and the extra current to each motor I had to drop the acceleration down from 3000 to 1500 and change the JD value from 0.013 to 0.022. I did this in Marlin and wrote the new firmware to the SKR 1.4 turbo. There is a link to a nice math equation to help figure out the right JD value from known AJ and acceleration values. Something like D = 0.4 * AJ * AJ / acceleration. So now I am running that. To get the one leg I have finished I kept slowing down the print speed as the height built. All the way down to 70%. But it finished. 1 - 1.5 spools of filament. I have to weigh it but it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 3lbs if not just a tad under. It is big and gonna pick my TronXY up off the ground.. 

 

The last legs I had made stuck out 10mm past the extrusion on all sides. Ultimately this grew the overall dimensions of my printer by 20mm on each axis. This printer's frame is a bit wider than it is deep and so my redesigned legs are flush with the extrusion on the front and rear sides of the frame. Just so this machine will retain the ability to go in and out of doorways. The big hole in the middle of where the extrusion will sit is for access to the bolts that hold the Z smooth rods in place without disassembly of the legs.. 

 

And there is even a hole on the bottom of my legs to screw in the original height adjustable TronXY rubber feet.. 

 

The next leg is printing out now. More filament is on it's way. Hopefully I will be updating my coreXY thread soon.

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## AutoWiz

It is really turning out to be quite the mission getting these legs printed out. Aside from skipping steps with enough weight on the moving bed I have also been having these random filament jams at my expensive top end DD bondtech BMG/slice engineering Mosquito setup with the big 0.6mm nozzle. These jams are always easily cleared. I have to pull the filament out, I always cut back a length of filament and re insert and it goes without a problem. And then I had this jam and now I understand it is the dirt cheap ebay filament I am using.. 

 

I can not begin to describe my frustration with this as I am committed to using this specific filament at this point. Or start re-printing everything again. So I am applying the smart filament sensor to 'Big Red' and i needed to flash the latest firmware to my BTT tft35 v3.0. The new firmware has a cool new look to it.. 

 

The smart filament sensor should detect the jams and at least give me a chance or hope to finish this project. My gosh I have never had such a time trying to print something. Big warning to any and all reading this. The ebay ad I bought from did not specify any kind of tolerance to the filament. So not only do I not have a leg to stand on for a return but honestly I got what I deserved for not specifically looking for that tolerance and seeing what it claims. Bad Autowiz!!

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## Martin_au

I actually designed a simple filament sensor that will trigger on oversized filament (or kinked ends of filament as commonly found one sun spools). May be worth a shot if the smart filament sensor doesn’t catch them in time. 
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints...resence-sensor

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## AutoWiz

Pretty cool. You need to update your design to include an encoder wheel spun by the moving filament and a sensor that can read pulses from said encoder wheel so that if the filament jams on the other side of your sensor it will still trigger. The 'smart' filament sensor is big and bulky and has 3 wheels where it could surely survive with 2 so there is definitely room for improvement. Go rework your idea into something on par with the day, kid. Like one of these: Filament sensor - Collections - gordonmuvesz - Thingiverse 

Show me something that can see the filament moving and when it stops and is smaller and lighter than the smart filament sensor and I might be impressed. But so far as I know nobody in this industry has been impressed with them microswitches for a while now. But a hall effect sensor that can generate pulses every x amount of filament travel, now that is something to behold in the realm of filament runout detection. Wouldn't you agree?

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## Martin_au

The way to do that would be to adapt something like the Pat9125 from Prusa. The code already exists, and you don't need an encoder wheel. Just place a bearing against the filament and read the bearing directly (Don't try and read the filament directly though, that doesn't work well).

E.g.: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints...t-mk3-filament

I thought about doing that again, but I don't get jams in the nozzle often enough to care. Not too sure what Marlin's support for the Pat9125 is either. 

The issue with these is generally the detection length. The few millimeters required to detect the stoppage is also often enough to cause problems, especially when separated by a decent length bowden/filament feed tube.

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## AutoWiz

So that issue is more for you guys with the little nozzles and tiny layer heights. With the big 0.6 and 0.8mm nozzle diameters and the thick 0.4-0.6mm layer heights let me tell you that 1.75mm diameter filament moves pretty darn fast in relation to the extruder sliding around on X and Y. 

On the filament side there is 7mm worth of filament travel required to trigger a pulse. 

I guess if we were printing something small enough and at like <1mm layer height we might even get into whole layers before a pulse gets missed. But I'd say overall the BTT sensor has pretty good resolution..

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## AutoWiz

I am so happy with the new look on this tft firmware update. Really..

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## AutoWiz

It is entirely too busy on the rear of this printer. I just received the BTT UPS 24v v1.0. This device is a small board with a bunch of capacitors on it and upon loosing power this will store enough energy and send a signal to lift Z so when I resume after power failure the print will not be melted. I still have a real battery backup UPS (600watt) but this is an extra layer of protection for them long prints. Anyways I have no idea where I am gonna mount this. My electrical is real busy. It was always busy.. 

 

But now it is real busy and there is not a lot of space left to keep adding small boards.. 

 

So with 7 stepper motors being used on this printer I actually have a genuine need for the BTT Octopus v1.1. No more splitters or expansion boards. UART communication for all axes. And a 180mhz processor to boot. We now wait on shipping. The Octopus is awesome for many of reasons besides 8 stepper drivers supported. It also supports 6 pwm controlled fans that all have their own jumpers to tie them to 5v, 12v, or 24v power. This board looks awesome by the specs. Seriously. And I can not wait to get it. I bought mine from ebay where I got free shipping but here is a link to the board from Biqu with all the details: BIGTREETECH Octopus V1.1 – Biqu Equipment

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## curious aardvark

wow that board's a big sucker ! 
Good price though.
That's longer than the mini itx boards I tend to use for workshop projects.
 You can usually pick up a board, intel core I3 cpu and 2-4gb ram for £30
Throw in a small psu and cheap ssd and you've got a nice cheap multipurpose compact computer. 

here's a question - I keep seeing klipper mentioned and sounds good,. But It always seems to be in coop with octoprint. 
I have no interest in running a r-pi board for the printers. 
So is klipper a proper standalone firmware - or just something that has to talk to a pi board ?

only 10% infill ? 
wow looked a lot denser than that.

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## AutoWiz

Tracking shows the first Octopus v1.1 I ordered is inside the country so I should have it soon. In the runup to getting this board I wanted to get my BTT UPS up and going. It is a bank of capacitors that stores a little charge and gives the printer just enough time to lift Z so we don't burn and melt the print and can resume after power loss. Unfortunately what I am learning in practice is that now when I shut off the power switch the power very slowly leaves the printer as the capacitors drain. So my power switch now needs to become a DPST switch that can cut the 120v line and also the +24v wire from the capacitor bank. The annoyance of what it is to power cycle my printer now is absolutely unbearable. So it is time for changes. Here is my busy electrical center.. 

 

Would I really zip tie a circuit board to a power cord? Why not? I mean they do rhyme don't they? 

 

And here we are back down to the tray. Those standoffs are gonna be incompatible for the Octopus. I am just not sure if I am gonna make an adaptor or remake the whole tray..

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## AutoWiz

Still waiting on the Octopus to arrive but the dimensions are posted on the website I bought the board from and So I was able to make the new mainboard tray based off of that.. 

 

The top is the old tray. The bottom left was supposed to be the replacement but I am really not happy with the translucent red I got. It does not match the rest of the parts I printed for this rig so I reprinted it in black and that is what I will use. The mainboard should be here in today's mail or tomorrow.

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## AutoWiz

Well the board is big for sure. But dammit does this look so much better. Just a clean look. This is my new board. 180mhz and all the bells and whistles. All of them. This is the board that will be in the TronXY and that board will be arriving in a few days. But for now I got some more wiring to do. I am very pleased with my mount design so far also..

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## AutoWiz

Curse this mania. Ya know. I just wanted to wire in a new mainboard and get back to printing out them legs for the CoreXY which is the printer I am trying to be building on right now. But I have this octopus going in and I only want to wire it up once and I am gonna now have enough stepper drivers for it and I ordered a second smart filament sensor for the CoreXY I haven't used yet and I have an extra Bondtech BMG extruder and I think I'm going to convert Big Red to be an IDEX. There is so much room for it with the bed turned sideways like it is. Mission creep has set in again..

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## AutoWiz

Well alright so the actual conversion is gonna be painfully simple I think. I made some new motor mount brackets for X. Gonna move one motor up a bit and put a long bolt through the bracket for the idler. Here is the motor mount I drew up for one side..The other side will look similar but 4 bolt holes will be in a different location.

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## AutoWiz

Well alright. So here is one of the new X motor mounts.. 

 

Now we just gotta make the other side upside down from that, get some idler pulleys on the studs and get on to drawing up some carriages for them BMG extruders.

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## AutoWiz

Well alright. So now we just need to make them carriages and attach them belts.. 

 

Oh I also moved the power switch up to the front of the rig just above the touchscreen. It used to be in the back with the power receptacle and it was always a thing to reach around and under the bed to turn the power on and off. Now that is fixed as well.

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## AutoWiz

First carriage is done and I am happy with it. This will be the main carriage with the BLtouch.. 

 

These carriages have to be narrow enough to not limit or restrict the size of my X axis. I think I am good with this design and the other side will look very much like it less the BLtouch.. 

 

I do not think I will such an awesome fan for the other side. And to be honest this fan was supposed to be for my LGX extruder going in the TronXY. But I really like it and I will hunt down another fan and shroud for the TronXY later..

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## AutoWiz

And here is my asymmetrical IDEX. On the left is a Mosquito with BMG-M extruder and on the right is a generic v6 heatsink with E3D heater block and temp cartridge and a regular BMG extruder. Both have genuine E3D 0.9 degree pancake stepper motors that came out of genuine Titan extruders I bought in projects past. I still have to make some pieces to bolt the cable chains to and get the belts installed and then get it all wired and programmed so I am not done by any means but I have 2 extruders on one gantry and that is progress.. 

 

And I did not design the mount for the fans on the v6 heatsink. I used the easy button and took to Thingiverse and searched for something that fit my needs. I was impressed with and used this design for that. It saved me time and is a really good design and I got it right here: 

Thing files for v6 Hotend Fan Shroud and 5015 + 40 Fang Combo by JamesK1 - Thingiverse

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## AutoWiz

I was really not happy with the motor and idler mounts. They looked real big and blocky. I am now on the third version of them. I at least like these better even though they might not be the final parts used.. 

 

I am close. Now I just have to make the mounts for the cable chains on the rear of each extruder and get this bad boy wired up. And hopefully between now and then I will find some type of info on setting this up in Marlin.

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## AutoWiz

I am down to just getting these cable chains connected. Instead of one I will now need two. One will be on top of the other. Then we can focus on setting up a clean electrical system. Almost there..

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## AutoWiz

Well OK we can cross IDEX cable chains off the list. They came out great and I am very pleased with them.. 

 

One last thing I need to do before wiring is I need to get end stops mounted for both extruders. I have a cool idea for end stops..

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## AutoWiz

For the endstops it is important to me that they are the same part. Same sensor for both X and Y and only the Z probe should be a different sensor. And I am able to create this because I saved the original Z endstop from the Tevo Black widow. I never used this sensor. It is brand new. But it is the same as X and Y. So I have 3 matched sensors. Y is attached to the extrusion under the bed and reads a bolt sticking down from the bed carriage. Both X sensors are going to read the back side of the extruder stepper motors. My IDEX will be all touchless homing.. Now we just gotta get this all wired u,..... wait. I need 2x filament spool and smart filament sensor mounts still. And then we can wire it up. And then we can work on getting Marlin setup for this. We are getting there.

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## curious aardvark

cool a diy ideax. 

So how does the board know where the two extrduers are at any given moment ?
So they don't crash into each other ?

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## AutoWiz

Ya. This printer always should have been an IDEX. I think you made a comment on that subject a while back, CA. I have been posting in F.B. groups hoping to find others with a Marlin running IDEX in hopes of finding that easy button but so far no joy. I will cross that bridge when I get there. I have a min and max endstop for X so one extruder will home to the min and the other will home to the max. And I think one should home before the other moves but ATM I just think. I am also trying to run 2 smart filament sensors so there is gonna be a curve to getting all this programmed. I am almost there. The spool mounts are drawn up one is printed out and the mirrored version is printing now. Then we gotta mount the smart sensors and wire it all up. So close.

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## AutoWiz

Because I am using the smart filament sensors I have to run a ptfe tube from the sensor to the DD extruder. This is not a bad thing as it allows me to mount the filament spools down low where they are as easy to get to as humanly possible.. 

 

Speaking of which I still have to mount those two filament sensors before I start running wires. brb

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## AutoWiz

Well there is one more thing that I am now thinking about. I want to put some kind of light on this printer. This rig has been dark since the last Multi Widow rework. And then we can wire. But here is everything else with the smart filament sensors in place.. 

 

Now where to put some lights...

----------


## curious aardvark

Christmas tree lights would be cool - with all the effects :-)

It's a smart looking beast and no mistake !

----------


## AutoWiz

Buddy I like the way you think. I'm gonna do it.. 

 

I wonder if it will let me change the color when the print starts or ends? That would be cool, no?

----------


## AutoWiz

Well now I have to wait for some rgb lights. But also I am waiting for a some Capricorn tubing so I can get rid of that white length of ptfe. Guess I can get started on running wires while waiting for the rgb leds..

----------


## AutoWiz

Sunday fun. Building harnesses stuffing them in cable chains and building a clean and coherent electrical system for my new large format IDEX. Kinda large format anyways. 400x250x330 actual build volume. Still got a little ways to go..

----------


## AutoWiz

Time to share. For anybody interested I have posted all the files I drew for this effort to thingiverse free for any and all to download right here: Tevo Black Widow IDEX Conversion by AutoWiz - Thingiverse

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## AutoWiz

The printer is all back together. It looks great. One last thing I might do is angle the smart filament sensors forward a bit so the PTFE hoses do not get pinched or pulled. But overall I am very happy with it.. 

 

I always loved this printer because of the huge extrusions it was made from. It is such a robust platform to build with.. 

 

This is so much cleaner now. every stepper motor has its own driver and no driver expansion boards or splitters. Just one board and a clean coherent electrical system.. 

 

Marlin is up to 2.0.9.1 and that be the version I am working on setting up for the Octopus v1.1. Hopefully Big Red here will be back to printing soon. I still want to finish my large format CoreXY build.

----------


## curious aardvark

I know it's crass - but any idea how much that has cost you so far ? _(knowing you, the ruby tipped nozzles will be added at some point,_ _probably when you realise how much better than pet-g nylon with carbon fibre is ;-) 


_But it's certainly a handsome looking beast !

----------


## AutoWiz

In both money and time this machine represents a lot. I did not skip out on a second Mosquito on this because of cost. I am using a v6 j head under the bondtech BMG extruder on the secondary extruder so there is a bit of vertical adjustment. That is I can unscrew the heatbreak from the heatsink a little and give myself a few mm worth of meaningful Z adjustment between the 2 extruders in my IDEX. Otherwise I would have 2 Mosquitos on this rig.  

I can try some nylon with carbon fiber as soon as I get this up and running. I was unimpressed with the 2 pc design of the Ruby nozzle. I have read horror stories about such an expensive part having a temp differential between the metal of the nozzle and the ruby tip. I have also read about the ruby tip cracking. It is certainly the most expensive nozzle out there. But I am on the fence about it being the best. The vanadium nozzle in my Mosquito comes with a lifetime warranty from Slice engineering against any type of abrasion wear. The v6 J head has a Micro swiss plated nozzle that is hardended but definitely less than that ruby. Both are 0.6mm. 

And thank you. Hopefully this will all dial in ok and I will get to leave it alone for a while and just print stuff with it. But I mean how far down that road can I possibly get before I just become bored to the point of tears?

----------


## curious aardvark

lmao - and at that point you'll remember the little nagging voice in the back of your head that's been whispering:
_Build a really big delta and print full sized people...

_So come on: $1000_,_ 2, 3, 4 ? 
I vaguely remember the rails coming close to $1000 on their own.

Go on you can tell me, your wife's definitely not looking ;-)

I mean if you really want a project - buy a k40 and turn it into something truly spectactular !
The 40 watt co2 laser is a full on deathray ! 
But the rest of the machine is just horrible.
You'd love it !!!!!

----------


## AutoWiz

Honestly I am pretty sure I have sunk somewhere between 3 and 4 into this. But over the years. And since early 2017. The printer itself with the BLtouch was just over $600. The rails were a grand. The BMG/Mosquito setup was over $400. The MMU2S was $350. The Meanwell SE 600 24v power supply was $130. I have been through so many different mainboards, screens, drivers, and extruders. 32 pages worth at this point. And then there is hardware and filaments. I spent a chunk on separate whacks with ebay for wires, bolts, nuts, t slot nuts, and I bought the translucent red PETG filament 2 or 3 spools at a time.  

One big thing I have learned along the way is that all parts are not created equally. And the name brand parts are made with better quality materials but also with better machining qualities. We should all pause for thought about reworking that $200 printer with the extra $150 we have in our savings account. I mean how much better could that be? If not just a placebo that makes us feel like it prints better because we spent time with it. 

I still want to build a large delta. And I have given a lot of thought about trying to print out the largest Lego man I can. With the TronXY That would be a big dude. This guy is already scaled up 5x and I would scale it up to the max dimensions of the tronXY: Lego Man Figure by papajohnfuller - Thingiverse

----------


## AutoWiz

New Marlin is cool, BTW. 2.0.9.1 lets you command multiple baud rates. That's new. Different speeds for different serial connections. I'm gonna be here for a while. This rework has all the 'bolt-ons' from BigTreeTech. Aside from the 2 smart filament sensors there is also the ESP-12S wifi module and the 24v UPS that is supposed to keep the machine powered on for a few seconds after power loss and raise the nozzle. I have a lot of configuring to do. 

This Octopus has so many inputs it just lists them all with numbers rather than to label anything with a specific designation. So there is no X motor. It is motor 0 - motor 7. However motor 2 has 2 outputs motor 2_1 and motor 2_2 so I guess if I were to run dual Z off one driver that would be the way. I am not connecting my dual Z that way and each stepper has it's own driver. 

The fans are the same way. They are not labeled for extruder fan or case fan or layer fan or anything. There are just so many fan connectors on this board they are just labeled cnc fan 0-5 and then fan 6 and fan 7. And they all have separate jumpers to link them to 5, 12, or 24v power.  

Even the endstops. There are 6 endstop headers with 2 3 pin headers for filament detection. This board is just so awesome. It is well worth all the time it is gonna take me to get this firmware right. I made this legend as I was wiring to help me with the firmware..

----------


## AutoWiz

And in Marlin under the configuration adv.h tab is the section I need to enable and configure to make the magic happen.. 

 

There is actually a lot more but this directly enables what I am trying to do and what I just built. I still haven't seen a way to run 2 smart filament sensors or to link each one to an extruder. But I still have so much more to dig through here.

----------


## curious aardvark

what software do you use to edit and compile marlin ? 

Also to whet your appetite, this is the basic frame for a 350x1000 delta that i will eventually make, probably. lol

I need to get some more base struts cut and threaded as i kept breaking the thread cutters. 
but the main reason I haven't finished it is that I have nowhere to put it. 
Plus no actual reason to finish it other than: 'because'.

----------


## AutoWiz

VS Code. I am trying to get through this but having many problems. But not what you might think. I am figuring out how to get this setup and debugging ok. I just keep finding more things I want to get up an running. Like for example I see Dual Z auto align. And don't you know I am configured for it without touching my printer. I have separate Z stepper motors with no belt going into separate Z stepper drivers and a BL Touch. All I have to do is get the firmware configured for it and I never have to check that again. So it's moving along but I am still struggling with the mission creep.  

That will make a huge Delta. And I think that would be a better way to go than the Tevo Little Monster. You need to finish that. Reaching your own goals in a project can be very rewarding. You should make a giant delta thread and update it regularly buddy.

----------


## curious aardvark

lol the htread is there. 
But life moves on and I'm hoping that what I;ll need in the near future is another machine that's shit hot at printing tpu. 

So currently considering looking for another second hand sapphire pro, I can then give the klic-n-print to my mate, who has a massive house no kids and only 1 dog. So lots more room than me. 
But with luck I'll be needing another dedcated tpu printer soon. 

goals, yeah - I'm not big on goals. 
I mean I've done a whole bunch of stuff in the slinging world that nobody else in the world has done. But that's more because I'll always say yes to anything interesting and make the effort to go places. 

But I am notorious for starting something with massive enthusiams and then once Ive got to the point where I know I can finish, stopping and starting something else. 

One of these days I'll come back to the delta, i figure a week dedicated to it and I could get it finished. 
At the moment I have no real use for an enormous printer and lots of use for another fast tpu printer. 
I mean I'd still have nowhere to put the delta... 


Vs code eh ? 
Okay I'll have a look at that. Anything has to be better than ide !

----------


## AutoWiz

Link me to the thread or bump it to the front of the line. I don't see it and would absolutely love to. 

It is good to know I am not the only one with that problem. But a delta that big is a worthwhile struggle. 

Making progress with Marlin. Very slow progress, but progress. Here are some early screenshots.. 

 

If you look closely behind the screen you can see where I mounted the BTT 24v UPS. This guy: BTT UPS 24V V1.0 Resume Printing While Power Off Module – Biqu Equipment 
This part is cheap. So much cheaper than an actual uninterruptable power supply/ battery backup. And this method doesn't care how long the power is out. All of my printers have this now..

 

The only thing about this capacitor bank is that it takes a while for the printer to power down after turned off and then it powers down slowly as the voltage drops and I just really don't like the way it does that. So what I have done is I am using a DPST power switch. 1 circuit is breaking the line in from the wall(black). The other circuit is breaking the power connection to the UPS. This way when I shut off the switch the power supply shuts down and the ups gets disconnected simultaneously and the printer functions as normal with the UPS installed. But if the wall power goes away it is connected and ready to do its job. I feel this way is safer for the mainboard. There is a red led light on the BTT UPS that stays on when it is charged and since the load gets disconnected with the switch after the printer is turned off this light stays on for a good while. I never found good instructions on doing this from BTT or Youtube. But to just leave this connected to the mainboard really makes cycling the power a royal PITA.

----------


## AutoWiz

I am making progress. So far I have the fans all working as they should. I have done good with the 4 fans. That is 1 fan to cool each hotend with each fan tied to its own temp sensor and set to come on over 50c so the fans don't run while the printer is idle. I have verified this function by turning on the heaters and raising each extruder temp above 50c and the fan came on. As it dropped below 50c the fans turned off and for the correct extruder. 

As for the part cooling fans. I asked what to do about setting up a second part cooling fan in the 3d printing multicolor and multimaterial facebook group and someone answered me that I should tie the two part cooling fans together because the slicer wouldn't know what to do with separate cooling fans anyways. Which made sense and I even found a place under configuration adv.h tab to tie a second fan pin to the part cooling fan pin which I did so each fan has its own driver just to be all correct and because I have so many fan headers to play with on this board. I verified the part cooling fan by commanding the fan on from the touchscreen. When I do, both part cooling fans come on together. 

I have got each stepper motor wired right, assigned to the right stepper driver, moving in the right direction and while I still have to figure out dual Z auto align and also why my BL Touch is not responding I am almost homing. Almost.. 

My Custom Built IDEX printer homing - YouTube

----------


## AutoWiz

Oh man. I am almost done with the firmware and ready for the slicer. I have no idea what Slicer I want to use for this BTW. I am guessing Prusaslicer? But I would rather use S3D. But not familiar at all with how I would go about doing that. Anyways. I am getting there. I copied over my kp,ki,and kd values from the last firmware with the last mainboard but I need to pid autotune all 3 heaters. I think that is as far as I can go until i get a test print to check the two carriages are sync'd up in printing. Almost there. Here is a video on the Dual Z Auto Align in action..

IDEX Dual Z Auto Align - YouTube

----------


## Martin_au

> VS Code. I am trying to get through this but having many problems. But not what you might think. I am figuring out how to get this setup and debugging ok. I just keep finding more things I want to get up an running. Like for example I see Dual Z auto align. And don't you know I am configured for it without touching my printer. I have separate Z stepper motors with no belt going into separate Z stepper drivers and a BL Touch. All I have to do is get the firmware configured for it and I never have to check that again. So it's moving along but I am still struggling with the mission creep.  
> 
> That will make a huge Delta. And I think that would be a better way to go than the Tevo Little Monster. You need to finish that. Reaching your own goals in a project can be very rewarding. You should make a giant delta thread and update it regularly buddy.


Z-auto align is a very nice feature. It works very well with UBL too.

Another thing in Marlin you might like is the ability to speed things up a little bit (change filament, print, etc) by setting the temp hysteresis and window.
#define TEMP_RESIDENCY_TIME          3  // (seconds) Time to wait for hotend to "settle" in M109
#define TEMP_WINDOW                  5  // (°C) Temperature proximity for the "temperature reached" timer
#define TEMP_HYSTERESIS              5  // (°C) Temperature proximity considered "close enough" to the target

The above means that rather than the printer settling on 215, following a M109 S215, it will start the next command at 210. As usually the next command is a change filament, or a prime line, the temperature can handle being a bit wonky at the start. By the time the print itself begins, the temperature will be stable.

----------


## AutoWiz

Ya I learned that lesson on way out calibrations. I always change them settings just up front just so I can get through a PID autotune without errors or taking forever. That is good advice, thou. However I could really use a hand with getting a slicer up and going. I believe I am ready for my first print but have nothing to slice with. I have S3D but have not seen it to be friendly to the multi material printing. 

I am trying to configure Prusa Slicer but I do not see where I can set different temps for each extruder. And I have absolutely no idea what start, end, or toolchange gcode should look like for the IDEX. Or if I even need any of that. I think I do. I mean one carriage has to home before the other comes out to play and it needs to home before the first comes back out. Marlin doesn't handle all that by itself does it?  

I need Spegelius. Where is that multi material genius. He will surely know how to configure what slicer for this.

----------


## AutoWiz

Got it. I'm using Cura. Got the extruder offsets dialed in real nice, too.. 

 

Still got a bunch of tweaking to do with the slicer settings to get to a good print. But the IDEX lives.

----------


## curious aardvark

not sure how good s3d would be with idex. 
I never got it to do dual extrusion - but it has been a long time since I tried.

The bbd (big bastard delta) is kind of interposed throughout my original delta thread
https://3dprintboard.com/showthread....a-kit-)/page35
it's all in there somewhere. 
I ran across a post from 4 years ago about how bloody awful some yellow filament was to print with. 
oddly I've been using it the last couple of days to make some hollow discs for clay inserts for a new designed disc sling I just invented. 
And i was right - it's horrible filament alright lol
But as these discs are mainly going to be sling and never see again - I don't really care lol


The idea is the discs are held upright and actually roll out of the pouch rather than tumble every which way, which they do in a normal sling pouch. 
Just had a few throws with the dogs - works really well :-)

Tell you what I'll set up a new idex printer and see what s3d does.

----------


## AutoWiz

That's pretty cool. What filament did you print that sling with? And I would really appreciate it if you did setup an IDEX and figure out a good slicer option. All the problems I am now having are slicer related and getting the nozzle to go wipe on the tower before going to the print and stopping Z lift when the nozzles change so the shell I am building around the print can actually wipe the nozzle. 

Do it and we will compare prints again but with our IDEX rigs.

----------


## AutoWiz

So the first prints with the IDEX aren't that great. They should be. They would be if I was using a better slicer I feel. I tell Cura to wipe the nozzle on the prime tower and the unused nozzle, too. But when the nozzles switch 2 things happen. The Z lifts. And the incoming nozzle goes to where the other nozzle left first. And then it goes over to the prime tower to wipe. And because of the Z lift that i can not find a way to get rid of ATM even building a shell around the object doesn't help wipe what dripped while the nozzle idled. And this is what I get.. 

 

It's not bad and I am happy with it. I also printed the 3 color lizard with the same results.. 

 

What matters is it gets through a print. Both smart filament sensors work correctly with the right extruder. All the fans are doing the right thing. Except for the part cooling fan. Again with the slicer. I am used to the fan coming on and turning off at times but with Cura now the fan comes on 100% at the start of layer 2 and just stays on forever. But I got most everything on the printer and firmware side down. The Dual Z auto align is a hit. Had no troubles at all and it even tells me how far off the 2 sides are from each other. I have the distances / offsets of the 2 extruders dialed in pretty well also.. 

 

So we definitely need to figure out a better slicer option or at least find a more capable mind to set up cura for this effort. I am also going to build a physical nozzle wiper and mount it just before where each carriage parks and hang it from the gantry so both nozzles will be wiped every time they come out of the park position. I have ordered a silicone mat to cut up and use for the wiper. I already made one before when I had the MMU2S setup. I only need a small piece and i can make 2. One for each side. Here is a picture of the one I made. This picture came from page 26 of this thread.. 

 

The new mat should be here in a few days and I will get back to funnin' around with the dual color printing then. In the meantime it looks like I am all set to finally get back to trying to print out them huge 220mm tall legs for the TronXY build..

----------


## Martin_au

> Ya I learned that lesson on way out calibrations. I always change them settings just up front just so I can get through a PID autotune without errors or taking forever. That is good advice, thou. However I could really use a hand with getting a slicer up and going. I believe I am ready for my first print but have nothing to slice with. I have S3D but have not seen it to be friendly to the multi material printing. 
> 
> I am trying to configure Prusa Slicer but I do not see where I can set different temps for each extruder. And I have absolutely no idea what start, end, or toolchange gcode should look like for the IDEX. Or if I even need any of that. I think I do. I mean one carriage has to home before the other comes out to play and it needs to home before the first comes back out. Marlin doesn't handle all that by itself does it?  
> 
> I need Spegelius. Where is that multi material genius. He will surely know how to configure what slicer for this.


Can't help with Cura. Haven't used it in ages, but under Prusaslicer, you:
Set the number of extruders under the printer settings -> general screen
Probably leave "single extruder multimaterial" off.
Use the custom Gcode section to park/clean/prep each extruder (Tool change Gcode). There's parameters to distinguish between the extruders.

----------


## AutoWiz

Man these things take so long to print. But they have to support weight. And I do not ever want to have to change them. Soooo. This is printing with a 0.6mm nozzle and at 0.4mm layer heights. The thicker the filament we print with the stronger the part we land with. I am about to be half way done with this daunting task. And I have to mirror my design in the slicer for the next 2 prints.. 

 

Burning through that PETG. This is California Filaments I am using sourced from Ebay, if anybody is curious. It is not a perfect filament but it is cheap. Translucent Yellow color. Their yellow is different from most others and looks more of a Gold, TBH.

----------


## AutoWiz

Well ok I got my silicone mat to cut up for the nozzle wiper and I drew up this awesome double wiper that will be a part of the two front outer gantry mounts.. 

 

As soon as the first one is done printing we will mirror it and print out the other side. Then I will cut a few 20x15mm pieces of that mat out for each side and get it all mounted up. The only b*tch is the red silicone pad looks a lot more brown then red. Oh well. The previous mat I used was closer to pink than red so w/e. I can not wait to reprint the lizard with the wipers on. Each side is gonna take 3hrs to print.

----------


## AutoWiz

The nozzle wipers are a hit and I have my first real successful multi colored print.. 

 

It might look better in solid colors but this lizard is special. It is the translucent PETG filaments I have used to make my red IDEX and this yellow TronXY. From here I just need to figure out how to make things for multi material printing. One step at a time.

----------


## curious aardvark

have to admit i was pretty impressed with the first lizard. 
The second one looks even better. 

As far as the idex slaicer setup goes - I'd have started with a profile from an existing i3 idex machine. 
You should be able to just get them from the manufacturers websites.
I'd start with the Tenlog machines. 
Very similiar spec to yours - well you know without the platimum bolts and gold plated linear rails ;-)

But, Nice one !

Self built IDEX is on another level !

So (snigger snigger) how about a corexy idex belt printer......
I'll let you think on that one while you're working out how to make an idex delta (or is that too cruel lol) 

But, yep - well impressed !

the trick now is to see if you can get it to run without the wipe towers - that's my biggest issue with conventional dual extrusion. 
Takes 3 times as long and uses twice as much filament. 
It's why i just haven't bothered with it over the years -despite always having at least one dual extruder machine on the desk.

On an entirely different tact: a 'Honda' is either the spanish or catalan word for 'sling'. The other spanish or catalan word is 'Foner'. Foner is both sling and slinger. wheras Honda is sling and hondero is a slinger. m
The problem is that on the balearic islands they speak both spanish and catalan and even my Austrian linguist mate who speaks at least 5 languages, says he struggles with the catalan.

The disc slings are made from tpu - my favourite filament. the e-da stuff I've been using recently is seriously good. 
Did an extensive field test last week. And while i had some slings with a vertical channel the width of the discs I was using - the geneeral purpose pyramid version actually worked better ! 

The tpu is fantastic stuff as it can be really floppy and fairly rigid in the same print. 
Printed with two 0.25mm layers the 0.5mm thick strip is totally floppy and unbreakable by humans. 
go up to 2mm thick and it's fairly stiff. 
The pyramids are all hollow, but because of the design, really rigid. 

Now obviously with an idex setup you could mix tpu with pla or pet-g for the ultimate in living and built in hinges. 
Tpu is just really cool stuff. 
I mean it's not fast. 
My standard printing setup on saffy is: 0.25 layer height, 30mm/s speed, 235c temp - and 100% speed on everything. That's one redeeming factor, when you find the right speed and layer height, you can run everything at full speed. 
And the bed is unheated. 
I've never found anything it doesn't stick to and never needed to ever heat a build surface :-)

It's just fun stuff to play with and the slinging applications are pretty cool as well.

What do you design all your bits in ? is that fusion 360 ?

----------


## AutoWiz

OK you blew my mind with the delta IDEX. Is that even possible? I mean with separate carriages? Can't be. Can it? I will make this commitment right here and now buddy. IF I get my 3 color mixing printer figured out. Despite how rigid it is I absolutely hate the way it looks. So if I find the success in my Geeetech 3 in 1 mixing hotend, I will use that and just transfer over that hotend and get 3 tiny dual drive orbiter extruders to make it as close to a DD 3 color mixing delta as humanly possible. And I will do it with 3 smart filament sensors. Either a custom built frame or a minimum size of the Tevo little monster. God I wish I could find funding or a way to pay for my life so I could just play here. 

I need help with getting the printer to behave as I want. I think this is all in the slicer. When the tool change happens the extruder in use raises a bit and shoots over to home and then the extruder to be used comes out to the exact place where the last extruder was. Once it is here it will wait for a sec in this spot on the print until the nozzle temp settles which deforms the print a little, and then it will go over to the wipe tower before coming back to start printing. I need to make some changes to this order. And if I could figure out how to just extrude a few mm of filament before each extruder comes out of park and runs over the wiper than no I don't need a prime tower.  

I am still using Autodesk 123d design. Please don't shame me.  

This globe is printed with PETG. Both nozzles are 0.6mm and I sliced it at 0.4mm layer height. The prime tower that Cura builds is but one line wall thickness and the PETG needs to print slowly and I think the speed is a bit high on the prime tower printing as it fell over and let go from the bed. Otherwise I would have one sweet globe right now..

----------


## curious aardvark

I'll have ago at setting up an idex printer on simplify3d. 

But I ws thinking about the actual sequence I;d want last night. 
To start with you need to maintain the temp on the nozzle. 
So no cooling when idle - it doesn'.t need to. 

So what i came up with was: 
1) at end of print section, retract 7-8mm - or whatever it takes to remove it from the nozzle completely and into the heat break. Keep temps on full.
2) before moving head back to print, extrude the 7-8mm (whatever it was) plus 1mm. Then move the head across the wiper and then immediately do a standard length retraction. 
I figure that way it should reach the print in the same situation as though it's just done a standard retraction, move and print start.

I pretty much always preheat stuff before starting to print. and as i sometimes (lol) lack organisation - that can 'occasionally' be for hours. Never noticed any issues. 
hell saffy's currently waiting for me toi change from pla to tpu - so she's sitting ther ate 235 with pla in the nozzle.  I think. #
lol

But yeah i reckon with the right sequence of retractions and nozzle wipes you really shouldn't need a purge tower at all. 

And while the idea delta was a joke. 
I have also been thinking about how to do it. 

So far I've come up with two possibles. 
1 involves two stationary upright towers and a bed that moves between the two. 
The other involves two towers set at a fairly steep angle with longer rods than normal so you move a head over the bed and then out of the way while the other one prints. 

But a multi nozzle is probably a better idea. lol
There are a few of those around. 

The other option might be to use morotised nozzles. So a conventional multi nozzle extrusion setup, but with the nozzles moving up and out of the way when not in use. 
I'm also pretty sure I read of a multi in one out setup that used little valves to shut off the filament feed that wasn;t being used. 
That would eliminate the filament bleeding into each other with a standard multi in 1 out setup. 

Now as far as you becoming a full time 3d print guru - youtube :-)

Some of those muppets on youtube that are actually making enough money to live on, know exactly bugger all ! 

It's got to be worth a shot ! 

The other option would be what I've mentioned before - bespoke built 3d printers for the sort of people who will buy apple products and pay thousands of dollars for a graphics card. 

Damn sure you could make that work. 

You've got all the enrgy and enthusiasm that i lack :-)
Or to put it in olympic year terms. I tend to be a sprinter and have short bursts of inspiration and then lose interest fairly quickly. 
But you're a marathon runner and can ,maintain the enthusiams for much longer periods od time :-)

If you ever actually finished the big machine and started actually making custom parts for pewrformance cars - that right there is a serious revenue stream - both as direct part sales and to sell similiar machines to all the other performance shops there are in the us. 

Most business are looking - though they don't know it - for machines for very specific tasks. And all you can buy, really are general purpose printers that need modding to do a specific job. 

You can absolutely do that ! 

And while you're doing it - make videos on youtube.
I got faith in you :-)

----------


## AutoWiz

Made a short video showing off how awesome the neopixels are.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbNY6YxvVE

----------


## curious aardvark

bloody hell - 7 minutes 30 to heat up !
Thought you had a mosfet for the bed ? 

How on earth can it take so long to get to temp ? 
The lights are nice - but why does it take so long to heat up ?
That would drive me mental lol

----------


## AutoWiz

There is an external MOSFET for the bed. And I am using a MeanWell SE-600-24 power supply. 600watts at 24v. But the bed is 400x250. And it is heating up to 80c in that video. This is a large surface area for a 24v heating element. And this is what drove me to get the silicone mains powered heater for the tronxy with the 500x500 bed.  

The climb from 30-50c happens a lot faster than from 50-70c which is a lot faster than that last little bit from 70c to 80c. Or rather it just takes that time to heat soak the bed? IDK. But I am with you on it being a severe PITA. 

And What I have shown on the lights is just the power on self test or POST and then the changing colors as they warm. But there is so much more these lights do. 

With M150 Gcode we can change the state of the lights. Turn them on or off or adjust the color or brightness. As explained here: Set RGB(W) Color | Marlin Firmware (marlinfw.org) 

And so you can make the lights turn a different color or brightness or off at different stages of your print. Also with the neopixel LED's they are individually addressable. I haven't seen how I would command a different state out of different led's, yet, But I am sure it can also be done. 

There are just so many possibilities of what we can do with programmable individually addressable RGB led's on our 3d printers.

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## AutoWiz

Showing off my nozzle wipers. No firmware or slicer changes needed. And I made the video with my new iphone. So this is very likely the best quality video I have made yet..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7uCbjI9NXo

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## AutoWiz

I am a big fan of the BTT UPS 24V. I run this little guy on all of my printers. It is small. It puts an end to lost prints from power failures. On my Big Red IDEX I have mounted the UPS directly behind the tft35 v3.0 display.. 

 

When we think about wattage and 3d printer heated beds and high temp extruder heaters and just the size or time some of these prints can take it is just not logical or realistic to try to keep a printer going off of battery power in a power outage. This really is the smart way. Save your place, pick the nozzle up off the print and just hold. I mounted the BTT UPS for this printer directly to the extrusion.. 

 

The mount is pretty much universal and just attaches the BTT UPS 24V to extrusion with 2 drop in T slot nuts. For anybody that wants this mount it is shared freely right here: BTT UPS 24v Extrusion Mount by AutoWiz - Thingiverse

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## AutoWiz

I have my IDEX up and running on Marlin 2.1.1 and also the tft is updated as well. I have been working on the x carriage offsets and am digging my way through calibrations and debugging again..

Multi Color Printing With My IDEX - YouTube

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## bbc0

Excellent postings for the Black Widow.  I recently purchased a hardly used original and am loving it but your mods have certainly got my attention.  Nice work

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## AutoWiz

> Excellent postings for the Black Widow.  I recently purchased a hardly used original and am loving it but your mods have certainly got my attention.  Nice work


TY.

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## bbc0

> TY.


I may have missed it but have you changed to stepper drivers.  I have just purchased TMC2209's for mine but not exactly sure of the installation on the MKS Gen 1.4 board.  Any advise would be appreciated.

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## AutoWiz

> I may have missed it but have you changed to stepper drivers.  I have just purchased TMC2209's for mine but not exactly sure of the installation on the MKS Gen 1.4 board.  Any advise would be appreciated.


The 2209's won't fit on that board. These drivers have 2 extra pins and you will need to upgrade to a 32-bit mainboard for that. You can use TMC2208/2225 drivers. And there is some incredible news on that front. If you are interested in such a thing. Watch this video.. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLV8QYfF-Y0 

I am not sure how those will fair with an 8-bit mainboard running at 16hz but it would be worth checking out. For comparison the 32 bit mainboards run at 72mhz and go up from there. My BTT Octopus mainboards are running at 168mhz, literally a 10x bump in brain power from the 8-bit boards. While all of the 8-bit mainboards are the same exact thing (ramps+ATmega2560) the 32-bit boards all have different processors and run at varying frequencies and some have more memory than others. Your board has 256k flash size, most of the 32-bit mainboards double this and have 512k and some of them like the BTT Octopus Pro 429 mainboard have 1m of flash and will fit all of Rep Rap Firmware(RRF) making these the most versatile boards on the market as they will empower you to use any firmware you get the hair up your a$$ to try. 

These days the Bigtreetech Manta is the board to have. Have you seen this mainboard, yet? 

https://biqu.equipment/collections/c.../manta-m4p-m8p

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## bbc0

TMC2209's will fit.  The extra pins at the end just dangle.  A number of people are telling me that they have them working on the MKS Gen 1.4 board but I personally can't get by the ''Unable to read tmc uart 'stepper_x' register IFCNT" alarm. 



.


> The 2209's won't fit on that board. These drivers have 2 extra pins and you will need to upgrade to a 32-bit mainboard for that. You can use TMC2208/2225 drivers. And there is some incredible news on that front. If you are interested in such a thing. Watch this video.. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLV8QYfF-Y0 
> 
> I am not sure how those will fair with an 8-bit mainboard running at 16hz but it would be worth checking out. For comparison the 32 bit mainboards run at 72mhz and go up from there. My BTT Octopus mainboards are running at 168mhz, literally a 10x bump in brain power from the 8-bit boards. While all of the 8-bit mainboards are the same exact thing (ramps+ATmega2560) the 32-bit boards all have different processors and run at varying frequencies and some have more memory than others. Your board has 256k flash size, most of the 32-bit mainboards double this and have 512k and some of them like the BTT Octopus Pro 429 mainboard have 1m of flash and will fit all of Rep Rap Firmware(RRF) making these the most versatile boards on the market as they will empower you to use any firmware you get the hair up your a$$ to try. 
> 
> These days the Bigtreetech Manta is the board to have. Have you seen this mainboard, yet? 
> 
> https://biqu.equipment/collections/c.../manta-m4p-m8p

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