Qidi Tech 1 - Replicator 1 clone

[DaveB]

What ya really need to run it is all metal hot-ends.

And really you should be breaking down the extruder block(s) at least every couple of weeks...once a month at the absolute least. Personally I break down the extruder blocks every 2 weeks....the whole machine once a month.

edit:
Just realized something that totally bums me out.....
Never got a chance to pull the bot stats from the old control board before it went kerput. =(

Holy cow! I had no idea that level of periodic maintenance was required. If you are making all of those Iron Man costume parts then I guess you must be running your printer 24x7. Could you elaborate on what breaking down "the whole machine" involves?

[Syd_Khaos]

Holy cow! I had no idea that level of periodic maintenance was required. If you are making all of those Iron Man costume parts then I guess you must be running your printer 24x7. Could you elaborate on what breaking down "the whole machine" involves?

Naw...I don't run my machine when I sleep or when I gonna be away from the house for long time. Though neither of those things happen much. I am printing from about 8am to 2-3am most days.

Every 2 week:
I take the fans/heatsinks off the blocks, take the nozzles and PTFE tubes out, take the feed carriage apart and the toothed feed gear off.
Fans, heatsinks, and steppers are wiped clean.
Toothed feed gear, nozzles, and PTFE are heated and cleaned. To clean nozzles use either piano wire the right size or use torch cleaning wire the right size (that being 0.4mm). Best way I found to clean PTFE tubes is to get a 1.5mm drill bit and heat it up, then stab it through the tube.
Everything is put back together, and both feed gears lubed.

One a month:
Same as above. I also snap the all gantry carriges off the bearing to clean and lube all the gantry rods. I take the bottom plate of the machine and clean out down there, as well as bottom of the build area. Clean off all clear plastic parts. While I clean these areas all wires and connectors are checked for damage and tightness. Then I wipe the whole machine down with denatured alcohol....it gets dusty here lol.

This is probably WAY more than this machine needs...but I have a touch of OCD, and I tell ya, its very rare I have downtime due to problems that seem to be constant for alot of other makers (like nozzle/feed clogs and small crap like that).
I think I way over-do everything though. I clean my build plate after every print. I test and recalibrate bed level before each print..even if its close enough.

I mow my lawn in cross pattern....even though its mostly grab-grass lol...just kinda how I do things.

edit:
Forgot to mention I got more info on the IronMan suit. Talked to my buddy that runs an autoshop in Long Beach. He said to make the suit look like it did in the movie to go with a heavy metallic silver base with the red and gold ontop.

Gonna be using Eastwood Meteor Grey as the base, Eastwood Pin-up Red, and Candeez Gold sugar-coat. Will be finishing it all with Diamond Super77 clear-coat.

[cncartist]

That's a sweet project Syd and it's awesome you are doing research. Hopefully 4 months is enough printing time and it really sounds like it's going to be a kickass costume.

In reference to maintenance/printer upkeep:
My printer runs A LOT and I don't perform anywhere near that level of maintenance. I think it really depends on your environment and I've had good luck with lubricating/cleaning the 8mm axis rods besides doing minor cleaning of the exterior of the extruder nozzle and leveling the build plate/cleaning the build area. I do those things almost every print or 40 hours of printing, the leveling/cleaning is done nearly every time. The only things I've rarely done that are considered maintenance is wiping down the belts lightly to remove debris and removing little filament strings from the extruder fans with pliers.

I just reached 1000 hours on my machine, printed my longest print at 38 hours, and at ~920h I finished printing a large marble machine from thingiverse. I calipered the interior dimension of the rails and bought the appropriate sized chrome steel ball bearings for the track. It's really cool when seen in action but due to the ball bearings it wouldn't be appropriate for a small child.





I've never disassembled the extruder, taken the fans off the heatsink, cleaned the interior of the extruder nozzles, taken the carriages off, or even seen what the toothed filament feed drive gear looks like first hand. I don't know if I've had exceptional luck, but I did have a very good understanding of machinery before I purchased the printer and learned a couple key things in my first weeks of ownership while disassembling and reassembling most of the paneling/wiring. At 1000 hours of use it's almost to the point where if the extruder assembly had a major issue I wouldn't be against getting another assembly (I think $85?). I don't believe it will have an issue soon and I have extra nozzles / feed gears on hand that I've been waiting to install but I haven't seen a decrease in print quality yet. If anything, the print quality has increased since my understanding of how to slice the models has improved.

I don't believe I would have reached 1000 hours of print time in less than 3 months without having a well performing and properly maintained machine, but I'm glad I haven't had any issues that required me to disassemble anything in the extruder assembly. I wish all other users had the same luck as me, but I know from reading the prior issues reported that isn't the case. I'm extremely grateful that other users such as Syd above have outlined maintenance procedures for many of the processes on this machine and I wouldn't feel uncomfortable taking this thing apart to its bare components to resolve an issue given enough time.


NOTE: I'd like to add that I cover the machine when it will be off for more than 12 hours and all my filament is currently fed through dryboxes that have the capability to clean the filament prior to it reaching the feed gear/extruder nozzle.

[Syd_Khaos]

That marble tower is awesome!
You should do a short vid of it in action when ya get the balls for it.

What color is that? Is that Orange Krush from MG?

I do not think I will have the armor done by this Halloween. I probably could if I rush it...but I really don't want to do that. I want this to be a damn near movie quality build when I'm done, or at least close as I can manage.
Always next year after all =P Also, me and the wife have been talking about going to E3 or ComicCon LA this year, to try and drum up some cosplay orders for our little shop. We figured that would be a great market for little 3D print shop to break into. The things would be fun to design and print...and those cosplay cats spend CRAZY amounts on good costume bits.

I may take a break from the armor soon, as I finally found a fella up in Austin to help me with a mission I have been on since before I got a printer.....
I am a HUGE fallout fan, have been since the first game was released. When Fallout 4 was in pre-order I couldn't get the cash together for a Pip-boy Edition before they were sold out.
There are some good ones on the interwebz...but they all fall just a little short. So I have been hunting for someone with one from Bethseda that is willing to take it apart.
Gonna drive up there this week with my scanner and strip that thing down and scan every little bit.
I shall have my game accurate pipboy!! Gonna make a few extras to sell...help finance the armor a bit better.

[bluemeane]

h

any chance someone here more knowledgable about stepper motors can answer my question in the last page?

[Syd_Khaos]

any chance someone here more knowledgable about stepper motors can answer my question in the last page?

What stepper are you trying to replace? One of the feed motors yes??

Don't think what ya get for feeding is gonna be to critical. Long as the motor housing and shaft are same size, and it has ok torque then ya should be ok.

Keep in mind that when ya run the feed filament function from machines control panel it will run the feed motor at about the max it will ever run during normal printing operations.

[bluemeane]

What stepper are you trying to replace? One of the feed motors yes??

Don't think what ya get for feeding is gonna be to critical. Long as the motor housing and shaft are same size, and it has ok torque then ya should be ok.

Keep in mind that when ya run the feed filament function from machines control panel it will run the feed motor at about the max it will ever run during normal printing operations.

Oh yeah they run really fast when loading for sure lol.

Yes I am looking to replace a extruder motor. And looking for something cheap and closer than China lol.

So as far you think I am good to go with this motor?

LEORX Nema 17 2 Phase 4-Wire 1.5A 40mm 1.8° Stepper Motor for 3D Printer https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015SS3Y7O..._4nxzxbCRZC999


Thanks again!!

[cncartist]

That marble tower is awesome!
You should do a short vid of it in action when ya get the balls for it.

What color is that? Is that Orange Krush from MG?

I do not think I will have the armor done by this Halloween. I probably could if I rush it...but I really don't want to do that. I want this to be a damn near movie quality build when I'm done, or at least close as I can manage.
Always next year after all =P Also, me and the wife have been talking about going to E3 or ComicCon LA this year, to try and drum up some cosplay orders for our little shop. We figured that would be a great market for little 3D print shop to break into. The things would be fun to design and print...and those cosplay cats spend CRAZY amounts on good costume bits.

I may take a break from the armor soon, as I finally found a fella up in Austin to help me with a mission I have been on since before I got a printer.....
I am a HUGE fallout fan, have been since the first game was released. When Fallout 4 was in pre-order I couldn't get the cash together for a Pip-boy Edition before they were sold out.
There are some good ones on the interwebz...but they all fall just a little short. So I have been hunting for someone with one from Bethseda that is willing to take it apart.
Gonna drive up there this week with my scanner and strip that thing down and scan every little bit.
I shall have my game accurate pipboy!! Gonna make a few extras to sell...help finance the armor a bit better.

Definitely, I got the ball bearings in last week and just posted a video. Very good eye on the filament and yes, it's Orange Krush from MG.



Understood that the armor is going to take a while to get it perfected and the costumes idea sounds neat. I've played through a couple Fallout games myself and thoroughly enjoyed them. I haven't seen a Pip-Boy in person like what you're talking about but it sounds like it would be a desirable item once completed. Will it have electronics in it like the in-game one?

[Syd_Khaos]

Understood that the armor is going to take a while to get it perfected and the costumes idea sounds neat. I've played through a couple Fallout games myself and thoroughly enjoyed them. I haven't seen a Pip-Boy in person like what you're talking about but it sounds like it would be a desirable item once completed. Will it have electronics in it like the in-game one?

The ones Bethseda was selling with Fallout4 are made to hold a smartphone...the top 'screen' plate pops open so you can put your phone in. There is a (free) pipboy app you put on the phone so it has all the screens/functions as pipboy, can even link the app to the game as use the app instead of the ingame pipboy.
Since I am gonna be scanning parts from a Bethseda one its gonna work the same.
However there will be some electronics in the build not handled by the phone...but only 2 amber color LED indicators.

There are a couple things I do not think will print well. The main things that worry me are the 2 'gauges' (handled by decals on the bethseda version). Dont have a vinyl cutter yet....so probably gonna pull the textures from the game and print on transparent photo paper...glue em on the paint and clear-coat over em.
Also there are some things I am probably gonna 'fake' a bit. Like the little wire spool on the back for the relay plug. I'm not gonna bother making a little spool....the 4in or so of wire showing is good enough for me. The ejection pegs for the holotape deck.....to complex, to small, to much a pain to replicate I'm guessing. Probably gonna replace that with a rubberband system to pop the tape out.

If the scans come out good and the first one I make comes out good I may make a few to sell....but SHHHHH....don't tell bethseda =P

[Stwert]

Just had my first bash at stripping down the extruder (not really by choice.) wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. But sure enough I've got myself a knackered thermocouple.

Anyone know of a UK/European supplier for them, the wait time from China is a bit on the lengthy side.

Cheers.