mhackney's 3D Printers

[rpovey]

I'm looking forwards to getting back home Saturday, so I can start the wiring, I have a RAMPS board I'm going to try and use, but I'm very interested in how you eventually route the hot end wiring, along with with how you sleeve the thermistor and resistor wires.

[Doubleoh9]

I bought an H1 when this thread got started. I had been wanting to build a 3d printer for a while and all this excitement pushed me to jump in. I was really interested is what a cheaper kit could deliver.

First off, the documentation is terrible, but the yahoo group and wikis really help. I didn't get the bearing upgrade. The big problem with the stock bearings is that they are really out of round. Another problem is the axle shafts. The bearing kit still uses those plastic axles which isn't the greatest. I turned my bearings true using an arbor and cut new axles from 1/8 inch brass rod. The brass rods don't flex when you adjust the bearing tension with the screw. I also turned a new larger bearing for the lower position of the bearing block to account for the smaller size of the stock bearings I turned true. Linear bearings would be a great upgrade.

My kit was missing 2 sections of 12" all-thread that form the bottom of the frame. I had some rod that I could cut down and use. The rest of the construction went well. Even with my trued up bearings, there is significant slop in the bearing blocks. The initial prints show this. Another area is the backlash. Not having real bearings on the belt drive limits how much tension you can run to limit backlash.

The 3 axis board really requires work. The diodes on the extruder motor pins need to be removed or the pulses look like saw teeth on the oscope. There is no plug included for these pins in the kit. I had a plug from a computer CD rom to sound card that worked. The opto isolators also need to be by-passed or your prints will look like a leaning tower.

The file on Seeme's site doesn't have the correct parameters for Mach 3. I used 800 steps per for x and y. 64000 for z. Rapids are 900 on x and y and 8 on the z. My extruder set as the A axis is at 1950 steps per and 30 ipm. Your results may vary.

I'm using Slic3r for my g-code so I set my extruder to run as the A axis. This is nice because the extruder will reverse. Slic3r also generates g-code quick.

Overall, this kit is a great start and a platform to improve upon. These kits are not for those who are afraid to modify, improvise, and adapt.

[rwskinner]

Yes, on my H1 one they are soldered. I used some heat shrink to insulate them and the secure the connections. On the Mendel I crimped them. I haven't had an issue from either one.

Richard

Hey Richard, I changed mine also and will document using crimp connectors. That was an easy thing to change and eliminates a problem area. I presume the thermistor leads can be soldered? They are much skinnier and would be tricky to crimp.

Cheers,
Michael

[mhackney]

doubleoh9,

All good points. One thing on the bearings, even the steel bearings come with the stiff plastic axels. As you noted, this is to allow adjustment of the bearings. I can get these to be silky smooth with no wiggle, etc. I think the mechanical parts of the H-1 are pretty straight forward and the assembly manual I'm writing will make it a fairly easy build. The electronics, especially the 3 axis driver, is a bit of a pain. I don't mind building up boards but clipping diode and jumping boards is trickier! I also spent almost all of yesterday trying to install a fresh copy of XP on an old PC, Mach and then configure so I can document the process for the Setup and User Guide. What a disaster! I have built 4 CNC machines using Mach and had no problems with any of them. On this machine, as soon as Mach connects to its driver, it blue screens. Same with the Driver Tester. I wasted a good day on that. I'm trying to find another old PC (this one was a Compaq my others are Dell or Sony towers).

I started using Slic3r too and it is a lot less complex to install and is very fast. We'll be using it in the documentation for the software.

cheers,
Michael

[mhackney]

Thanks Richard, I soldered and used heat shrink tubing on my thermister too. Seems like it should work. Everything is all set, wired up, and ready to go. I plug things in and turn on the power and the steppers energize. But, (see previous post) my PC is crap and I need to swap it out. I'll get it going with my Dell I normal use on my lathe tonight just to get it moving under mach. I think longer term, that Gen6 board with built in temp control, etc is looking pretty good!

cheers,
Michael

[jolafson]

Hey Guys, John here from SeeMe

Wow, these threads are taking off fast aren't they? It's amazing to think that what was just an idea and a "hey, what if we" in November has become so big so fast. I don't know if I can thank you guys enough for making it happen.

A few points to everyone reading this I'd like to bring up are,

Mike (mhackney) what an amazing job, and thanks for pitching in and helping out on the manual side of things. I suck at that in writing. I could show you how to build some amazing things in person, just don't ask me to write it down. Writers block I guess (haha). Your hard work is not going un-rewarded, you've earned your spot in "the crew" here.

Another point, yes, the bearing design does suck a bit, we know. However, we wanted to keep as much of the origional Huxley reprap alive as possible. Those are the bearing designs it uses. Don't think we'll be using that on our next machine! (Yes, our NEXT machine, a few months out prob.) Someone said it perfect earlier, we had the goal to cut the cost in half of building a 3D printer, and some things had to be backed up in terms of bearings etc... to make it even possible. We all are "hackers" or "makers" so I know that most of you prob. won't even get to print number 20 before you've already designed/re-designed something to make it bigger faster and stronger. That was another point, we WANT you guys to make it unique. So much about the machine is from comments/suggestions by our customers, like the new PEEK barrel capturing the teflon, the o-ring washer stack on the extruder, the 1.75mm AND 3mm grooves for filament, the list goes on and on. We (Steve and I) watch the yahoo group closely, and I peek in here too, to see what others are talking about, and we're listening. Believe me, we are scheming up some good stuff over here.

Kinda long winded I know, but hey, I'm waiting for the Mazak to drop a bar and thought I'd pop in here.

As always, anyone is selcomed in our groups page and to email us with any questions at all.

You guys rock!
John Oly

[mhackney]

I have movement and a hot hot end! Now to do a littl tuning and print a part!

Cheers,
Michael

[cornbinder23]

Thats awesome Michael!
You must have been diligently toiling away to have it this far!
Can't wait to see a print

JTCUSTOMS

[mhackney]

So close!!! Unfortunately, my extruder is only spinning in 1 direction. I've gone through every wire and can't figure it out. I could easily get this to work with a G540 but the point was to use the off-the shelf kit components. The extruder is powered by a little easy stepper board that is wired in to the 3 axis stepper driver. The extruder is set up as an A axis. It rotates the same direction no matter which way I jog.

Time to sleep on it!

cheers,
Michael

[hojpoj]

The extruder is powered by a little easy stepper board that is wired in to the 3 axis stepper driver. The extruder is set up as an A axis. It rotates the same direction no matter which way I jog.

I'd scrutinize the connection to the step/dir pins going in to the easy stepper board. Take a multimeter or something and check the direction pin, something might not be bringing the voltage hi/lo, hence only moving in one direction.

[LeeWay]

I agree. I remember having a loose wire to a motor once and it only ran one direction.

[mhackney]

Well, I know I am getting 0 and +5 at the end of the DIR line on the EasyStepper board when I change jog direction in Mach - measured with a volt meter. I'll double check the wiring to the stepper tonight and maybe switch steppers to eliminate that as a problem.