My 3 Color Mixing Printer

[curious aardvark]

so have you got all the radio control electronics ?

Although it occurs to me (who is old enough to have plaued with one) that this would be ideal for one of the old style 'planes on a string'.
You controlled height and speed with just a throttle, which would be easy to rig via a wire.
Tethered they call them.
Haven't seen one for sale for about 40 years. But they were fun.
Kind of made you dizzy - but still fun.

I'm currently talking myself into getting one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Prec....c100005.m1851
?80 delivered.
Looks like a decent frame and I don't currently have an i3.
I figure a bit of moving around and I can find somewhere for it to live.

Just intrigued at:
1) how cheap these things are being sold
2) how good they can be
3) the whole i3 seystem :-)

Given it's almost exactly half the price of the monoprice mini delta, I can more easily justify getting one lol
Plus some of the listings I've seen have autolevel firmware and - presumably - hardware. Same price, just a slightly different listing.
Although, weirdly the autolevel listings only show up on my win7 workshop computer, not this old xp machine. Bizarre.

How much cheaper can these get ?
It is ctc who seem to be making these. So not expecting brilliant quality control :-)

Just fascinated to see what an ?80 3d printer will do. Plus it's a larger print area x&y, than any of my current machines and I can use that.

Got no dosh and a lot of bills this month. But I can buy this with change from my jars of shrapnel coinage.
Ain't that a kick :-)

[AutoWiz]

That is identical to my GEEETech acrylic i3. I paid $220 for mine back in 2016. I am constantly amazed at how cheap these machines and their parts are becoming. The industry wants to be mainstream so bad. But the reliability is still way too low for 3d printers to become the new microwave oven seen in every home. But I will bet you if you are experienced, patient, good with your hands, and you know how to calibrate you can make that $80 machine print like the best of them. As for the aircraft I have every intention of outfitting all 3 with separate electronics and the larger 4s motor that the instructions promise me will make this PLA move at 125+ mph. I am buying electronics where they are cheap, of course. https://hobbyking.com/

[curious aardvark]

lol you want it to go faster ?
My one concern when i watched the video was how fast the thing went.
half a second and it's out of radio range. Also how do you land it ?

That ctc i3 actually has a metal frame (it says) not acrylic. You can get the anet a8 for same price, but they only seem to have top and bottom to their frame in acrylic. Not a full metal back frame.
right Off to sort some coins into bags :-)

ps. it's the ?125 deltas with auto level and 32 bit controller boards.
Was tempted, but I think I'll go i3 and cheaper :-)

First thing it'll need is a print area cooling setup.

[AutoWiz]

all electronics are ordered. I got 6 channel recievers with telemetry, 8 channel radios with the fhss and also with telemetry. I got graphene lipo batteries, and 50mm

11 blade

ducted fans with 4200kv brushless motors. and 70a ESC. As soon as the 3mm carbon rods arrive i can start glueing the airframes together and things will really start to take shape.

I never liked the deltas because of the small relative build area that tapers as you get near the top. I just rather build in a cube. I shy off of the core XY because of all the belts and pulleys. It just looks like a fun time trying to keep things tight. But to be fair, i have never had anything but a cartesian printer. So in truth i am ill experienced to be making them assesments.

[AutoWiz]

Just a few sections of wings left to print. I am almost done making parts for this effort..

[curious aardvark]

belts are a doddle to keep taut. just use belt tensioners :-) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazingdeal...belt+tensioner
They insure that all belts are the same tension all the time.
I have 2 on each of the delta's belts and I'll use them on the i3 as well.
Delta's don't taper at the top - where'd you get that ?

Only machine I can remember that did that was the little plastic cube micro things that came out a couple years back.
Where deltas rule among fdm is in speed and lack of vibration.
And small footprint for volume of print.
And easier to build.
lol

Planes are looking pretty cool :-)

[AutoWiz]

So as the extruder on the delta moves around on the X and Y the 3 arms that hold it move up or down. So the closer you get to the top of the frame the less travel there is for the rods to go up and ultimately the less movement you get on the X and Y progressively the closer you get to the top of the frame. So deltas will build in a cylinder for like half of their build height, and then the top half of the build envelope is a cone. And the wider the circle of the delta just means the longer those arms need to be and the further up and down they need to move to traverse the larger circle when scootin across the x and y. I feel like that was a sacrifice made for just being different. Which is my turn off to it. I really do like the idea of a better controller with a more powerful processor like the smoothie stuff has, but I just can't get over what I perceive to be an engineering or design oversight. Out of the 3 designs, cartesian, core XY, and delta this is solely a delta problem. Everything else builds in a cube. And you can extend any one axis as you see fit and you don't have to go way up just to go out like you do with trying to build a large print area delta.

[kamylkut]

Problem: My blues are turning purple.

[AutoWiz]

Problem: My blues are turning purple.

I don't understand what that means. But take a look at this assembly line..

[AutoWiz]

So I am almost ready to start stuffing the electronics in this airframe..