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  1. #1

    First build, are these parts worth it?

    Hello, a few days ago i bought found a printrbot simple metal for 70 usd second hand, a real steal. I absolutely love the machine, and is blown away by the print quality, specially how dense the printed parts can get.
    Now i got inspired to try to build one myself using an existing design, i picked the Prusa i3 MK2. First i thought maybe getting a kit would be smart, but i convinced myself it would be a better learning experience to source the parts myself.
    Small stuff really ads up, specially when i need to buy tools to work the wood for the frame, but it will be good for future projects.
    Right now i think i am over 300 usd, maybe more. I want to ask if the parts i picked are good enough for this build and maybe even to be reused in the future. Or did i pick way to cheap parts? In the end i want to end up with something that prints atleast as good as my printrbot.


    Forward or Reverse Direction Metal Extruder Kit With NEMA 17 Stepper Motor For RepRap Prusa i3

    https://www.banggood.com/Forward-or-...p-1258653.html

    TWO TREES® CNC Shield + UNO R3 Board +4x A4988 Stepper Motor Driver +4x 4401 Stepper Motor Kit for 3D Printer

    https://www.banggood.com/TWO-TREES-C...p-1510212.html

    Cylinder Inductive Sensors 5V NPN M8

    https://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/...Id=32865032683

    AC110V/220V to DC12V 20A 250W with Fan Switching Power Supply

    https://www.banggood.com/AC110V-or-2...p-1458586.html

    Reprap Ramps 1.4 Kit with Mega 2560 r3 + Heatbed MK2B + 12864 LCD Controller + 5*DRV8825 + 6*Mechanical Switch with Cables for 3D Printer

    https://www.banggood.com/Reprap-Ramp...p-1732890.html

    0.4mm J-head Hotend Extruder Remote Kit Suppport 1.75mm PLA/ABS Filament with Cooling Fan + Fan Cove

    https://www.banggood.com/0_4mm-J-hea...p-1335218.html

    Obviously there is allot more, but i feel this is the key make it or break it components, but i bought the cheapest bearings, screws, rods etc.
    I bought the stepper motor kit cause it was cheaper than induvidual motors, even if i will not use the drivers and aurduino uno in this project i felt it was a good deal.
    The heater bed that came with the other kit, is kinda small but i thought i could use it until i really want bigger and then buy bigger. Although i am a little worried how to make it a stable build area with such a thin bed.
    What i am asking is, are these components worth it, or would it be better to cancel the orders and buy better quality? I like to be economical, but i want my end result after tweaking to be a machine with very good build quality, better than if i would have bought a kit for 200usd
    I am really excitied about the potentials of 3d printing, right now i am watching youtube lectures on mechanical engineering to learn to build proper machines.
    I do not expect results over night, tweaking is part of learning, i just want to make sure the material i bought is worth it.
    Thank you for the help

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by engpro View Post
    ...found a printrbot simple metal for 70 usd second hand, a real steal.
    That is some dry humor, sir. And you spelled steel wrong.
    Last edited by AutoWiz; 12-28-2020 at 09:02 PM.

  3. #3
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    Ok on a serious note from a building at the end of 2020 / start of 2021 perspective when we are looking at extruders we should be looking for gear reduction a precise guided path for the filament to follow that doesnt allow it to wad up or push out anywhere, and Dual Drive. Even E3D's new Hemera has dual drive. We finally learned that it is better if we grab the filament from both sides. The genuine BondTech BMG extruder comes with an $80 price tag. It is a nice extruder and worth the money but there are a lot of cheap knockoffs that would serve you so much better than what is in your link. Here is one for under $20: Bmg extruder clone dual drive upgrade bowden extruder kit for 1.75mm filament 3d printer parts ender-3 / cr-10s pro Sale - Banggood.com
    Last edited by AutoWiz; 12-28-2020 at 08:42 PM.

  4. #4
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    For the Control board today you should only be looking at 32 bit mainboards. For these we should be looking at Big Tree Tech. Here is a good setup for what you are talking about doing: BIGTREETECH SKR MINI E3 V1.2 32 Bit Control Board +TFT35 E3 V3.0 Integ – Biqu Equipment . This mainboard has silent stepper drivers so you don't build a noisy printer. They are tmc2209 but they are built in so you can not change or upgrade them. But it is cheaper that way. And the tft35 v3.0 touchscreen is just a really nice interface that makes using a 3d printer an enjoyable experience. It has dual mode and can toggle back and forth between the old green and black lcd12864 display and full color touchscreen. You should look around on that website at their other mainboards. And see what you like better. They are mostly 32 bit boards on that website. For stepper motors you should go find your own. Because there are 2 different resolutions available. Most out there are 1.8 degree or 200 steps per revolution motors but if we look hard enough we can find 0.9 degree per step or 400 step per revolution motors. And that is not microstepping or creating steps in between steps but this is a physical hard resolution increase for our printers. You can get a set of these 0.9 degree stepper motors right here: 5 PCS NEMA 17 0.9 Degree Stepper Motor, 51oz-in 40mm 1.7A, 4wires | eBay

  5. #5
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    For power and the sake of holding torque while them silent drivers are chopping up the signal to the stepper motors it is really better to go after 24v power. These power supplies can be had dirt cheap on fleabay or if you really want safety and reliability in your power supply you could hunt down a MeanWell power supply. They are crazy efficient like over 90%. This will mean that you will find a 24v heated bed and good news there, again with the days and times we are living in, here is a link to a 24v complete spring steel magnetic removable heated bed assembly: Clone Prusa i3 3D Printer MK3 PCB Magnetic Heated Bed MK52 24V With Ma – Biqu Equipment . I actually have this bed installed on my 3 color mixing printer that I built from scratch, Printalicious. I detailed it's constantly changing life right here: My 3 Color Mixing Printer (3dprintboard.com) . And for your hotend here is a knockoff of the industry leading Mosquito hotend from Slice Engineering: All Metal NF Crazy A Hotend Mosquito A V6 Nozzle for Ender 3 CR10 Prusa I3 MK3S Alfawise Bmg Extruder 3D Printer Parts|3D Printer Parts & Accessories| - AliExpress . And that hotend can mount directly to the dual drive BMG clone extruder so it is all one assembly. Then you are down to some 24v fans, wires, connectors, linear rods and guides and carrriages , lights, camera(s), and a pi.

  6. #6
    Thanks for the great information, it sounds like I bought crap components and wasted all that money, I hope not. Since my items have shipped I believe it is to late to return them. But my question remains, will these components work and bring a result atleast as good as something like the simple metal? I understand there are far better components if I double or triple the price, but I wonder if what I bought is usable. Noise is ok. I do feel your information will be really good to use in my second build, cause what you propose will be double to triple the money.
    So what I bought is it usable, even if noisy, can I make a decent printer out of it, by that I mean comparable to the real i3 m2?

  7. #7
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    My point is that the parts you selected are the exact parts that come in just about every sub $200 printer sold on ebay since I joined the game back in the start of 2016. To build one of these printers the way you are will cost you more than 200 by the time you are done but will give you AT BEST those exact results. In this life the juice needs to be worth the squeeze. If you are asking if your time and handywork can make the cheapest parts in the industry perform like good parts well we all get what we pay for.

  8. #8
    That makes sense.
    So for high quality resulution what are the most important factor. Where is the bottleneck? I understand after reading a little after that 32bit processor is useful to drive the motors much more smoothly and quieter.
    I'm trying to understand what makes a good quality printer

  9. #9
    I tried to send this on pm but it would not allow me, so i am asking you here. It is related to part quality.Right now i am bidding on auction site for a wanhao d9 400 mark 1, defective condition.right now it is 100 usd, how much would this be worth to bid up to. Example the motors and extruder, etc.The idea is if i get it cheap i could base my build on itthank you

  10. #10
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    For quality you need a rigid frame. First and foremost. Then the more physical steps per mm of movement on each of the axes you can create will directly translate to increased resolution. You can drop the nozzle size down to 0.25mm get an extremely rigid frame and rail setup. Because 200 or more steps per mm of movement requires extremely tight tolerences for that kind of accuracy. One way I rework my printers is by bracing the axes on the frames in careful ways that bring about incredible amounts of rigidity to my machines. Here watch this: Multi Widow Rigidity Test - YouTube . That printer weighs a metric ton and I caught so much hate for removing the top brace from the Black Widow printer. But man is that rigid, right? So for the i3's I made these reinforcements: Geeetech i3 - Stability Rework by AutoWiz - Thingiverse . And then the resolution upgrades actually yield results. I went the other way with the Multi Widow, btw. I got it super rigid and went with big instead of small. 0.6mm nozzle and 0.5mm layer heights. I can print a 2x size benchy in the same time my i3 can print a standard benchy and that is just awesome by my standards. And I am aiming for a 0.8mm nozzle and 0.6-0.7mm layer heights for my TronXY X5SA 500 PRO.

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