Close



Page 3 of 48 FirstFirst 1234513 ... LastLast
Results 21 to 30 of 474
  1. #21
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    Feet printed in black polyflex - for near indestructibility - and fitted.

    Currently just about to start printing an experimental strut mounted filament holder

  2. #22
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    Filament holder works a treat. When i'm done with initial 'essential' modding I'll pop any models up on thingiverse.
    The feet are pretty basic, I'll do better ones when i get round to it :-)

    Currently doing a filamentless test print. Sort of a burn in. Just making sure that it will all run for a decent length period off the sd card, without wires getting caught, filament tube catching on the cradle, the whole thing going up in smoke etc
    So I'm 'printing' a thin walled cylinder 250mm high by 150mm diameter. At 0.4 layer height and 80mm/s print speed. I doubt I could extrude reliably at that speed anyway :-)
    Have discovered that I need to move the power supply and mount it vertically on the back of a strut, 'cos where it is the print head hits it at anything over 175mm diameter. Shouldn't be a problem.
    Also discovered that I need to set a fairly large horizontal offset.
    And that the heat bed removes 32.55 mm from the overall print height. So call it 267 rather than 300.

    Other than that - the basic mechanics seem to be working well and the profile I set up in simplify 3d is doing the job nicely.

    I even found a use for the 6 springs. Put them on the arms where they attach to the extruders. Seems to remove the tiny bit of wiggle I had there.
    might not be what they were meant for, but at least they're being useful :-)

    Oh yeah and I discovered the rest of the control panel menu - turns out if you push the twiddly knob in, it acts as a button !
    Who knew ? Not me :-)
    So while it's not quit as good as the menu on the replicators, it's a helluva lot better than I thought it was.
    So that's good :-)

  3. #23
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    Right pretty sure I've finished the actual initial build and mod now.
    Power supply now securely mounted vertically on the back of a strut, made a couple of minimal brackets.
    It's got polyflex feet and a strut mounted filament holder and a shiny name tag made from aluminium filament.

    The extruder is as optimal as I can make it with guide tube as short as it's practical to make it.
    I've got the end stop screws within a couple hundredths of a mil of each other, I've set up a simplify3d profile and run filamentless prints for a few hours.

    The only issue is the hot end side of the process. It simply won't print for more than a few minutes without jamming. And it creates a little bob of plastic at the end of the filament that will not fit back through the tube, so unloading is a real pita.

    It's like there is a little chamber in the heat block that form a pool of melted filament that just clog everything up.

    The filament just doesn't feed through to the nozzle cleanly or - as far as I can work out - in a narrow feed tube.
    Whether or I can somehow fita ptfe guide tube in there I don't now.

    Until I can extrude reliably, I haven't bothered facing the enormously complicated delta calibration process.

    So whiole I'm happy with the kit and the instruction video/s. A 3d printer that won't extrude, is pretty pointless.

  4. #24
    Staff Engineer Davo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    1,084
    Follow Davo On Twitter Add Davo on Facebook Add Davo on Google+ Add Davo on Shapeways Add Davo on Thingiverse
    That's unfortunate. Without a good nozzle design, the rest is just a pet project.

  5. #25
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    lol yeah.

    There seems to be a gap between where the filament feed tube ends and the nozzle throat begins and it's slightly wider than the filament feed tube. So after a short while you get back pressure build up and the extruder can't push through the congealing pool of plastic and it also puts a blob on the end of the filament that prevents it from being removed via the filament feed tube.
    So you have to yank the whole thing out the top of the hot end, cut the end of the filament and pull it back through the feeder tube.
    Think I'll need to clean the extruder hobbed bolt as well.

    It's not an inherent issue with the bowden process, definitely hotend design failure.

    I'll strip it down and see if I can get some ptfe tube in there to narrow the choke point. Got some spares for the replicators that should do the job.

    Other than that I'm impressed with how fast the bed and hot end actually heat up :-)

    I'll get some more pics up soon.

  6. #26
    Staff Engineer Davo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    1,084
    Follow Davo On Twitter Add Davo on Facebook Add Davo on Google+ Add Davo on Shapeways Add Davo on Thingiverse
    Understood. This is why we have our own nozzle design, which mates with the appropriately machined PTFE delivery tube. No voids, no buildup.

  7. #27
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    yep, that's what i need to aim for.

    Seems daft to me putting a kit together with good quality parts and then using a flawed hotend. I've got no issue at all with anything else.

  8. #28
    I think I know where the springs go... can the rods that make up the arms be slipped into the end loops? (ball joints removed) I think they remove any play in the ball joints by pulling the parallel rod arms together at the ends... I followed a similar post on a delta and they fella used elastics as the end effector has some play due to poor quality ball ends.
    Last edited by S550Stang; 05-30-2017 at 07:07 AM.

  9. #29
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    yeah, I saw someone doing that on a thingiverse picture. So that's what I've also done with them.

    And it did take all the wiggle out of the extruder cradle.

  10. #30
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    Right. Extruder is now modded with ptfe tube.

    Extrudes, loads unloads - in short it works.
    Now knowing that without this 'mod' (read: essential operation) the extruders simply do not work. Why on gods earth would you sell one to someone without the necessary 40-50mm (did not measure it) of ptfe tube already installed ?
    Particularly when you consider how much attention to detail has gone into everything else.

    Insanity.

    Anyway, she's currently printing a large test cylinder. Not calibrated so actually plate of spaghetti :-)
    BUT, she is now ready for calibration and actually printing something :-)


    Also good to see the filament holder also works well and is in the right place.
    The thing is though, if I didn't already have a couple of printers that use ptfe tubing - this would have been a real pita.
    It's a shame as it drops what would have been a 5 star review down to about 3. A 3d printer is no good without a working extruder - and that's what this kit lacks.

    I mean I'm happy, but there will be an awful lot of people out there who won't be and won't have the requisite bit of tubing lying around in the workshop.

    Right, I do believe that is the actual build 100% finished !
    I'll add pics of the mods: psu clamp, feet and filament holder.
    And I'll make the stl files available on thingiverse.
    Oh yeah and the 0.5,mm nozzle extrudes at a consistent 0.52 mm diameter at 210c - my standard temp for pla.
    So that's pretty good.
    Also looks like it'll print at 0.4mm layer height.
    So my plan is to use it for big stuff printed fairly quickly :-)

    More when I've tackled the calibration and bed level process.

    Calibration and printing is next !
    Last edited by curious aardvark; 05-31-2017 at 11:00 AM.

Page 3 of 48 FirstFirst 1234513 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •