Redneck Robo in Alberta

Picked up my printer today. I've been following the forums for the past few weeks, and I really do like the community involvement and support here. There is a lot of knowledge, experience and resources here that I can't wait to join in.

My experience so far has been a shaky start, but things seem to be smoothing out, and I have very high hopes for the future.

I bought my Robo through the U.S. Best Buy. First impressions were good, it looks very complete, if not a little... don't know if gaudy is the right work...., but very easy setup... or so I thought.

After I plugged it in and followed the introduction video, I quickly noticed the Y-axis wasnt responding to homing commands. Very brief investigation revealed a broken belt tensioner. Thanks to my shadowing of this forum, I had seen this issue before, and knew that there was a fix, if I could make the part. I'm contacting Robo support and sending them the photos, and they've said already that as soon as they have the emailed request fort he part, they will get it on the way. Very impressed with their customer service so far.

But, I'm on a mission tonight. So I grab the gorilla glue, and spend an hour fixing the part somewhat... not perfect, but MAYBE enough to print a replacement. Ya, wishful thinking, but hey, I now live in the age of 3D PRINTING!! So I fix my end, put it all back together... and I break the other end .... ... Another 2 hours gluing that together.... haha, I'm persistent, eh?

Spoiler: Pics of the tensioner breaks

 

So very first print is complete.
I was able to glue the broken tensioners well enough that they are at least holding for now. I'll keep a close eye on the prints for part failures until I get the replacements either built or printed at a good quality.

I used the sample PLA that came with the printer, I have some Robo ABS as well, but I want to save that for later once I'm more familiar with the printing process. Also I am using the Simplify3D software to generate my G-code, then using the SD card to print from.

I had to stop my very first attempt after maybe 4 minutes, as it was quickly apparent that I wasn't extruding properly. It looked to my amateur newbie eye that possibly the temperature was too low. I made an adjustment to 205C in the Simplify software, reloaded the gcode and started again after pre-warming the printer up.

Spoiler: First Print Tensioner Pics

For a pretty much out of the box print.... minus the repairs... I am extremely happy with the turnout. There is definitely room for improvement but I haven't even begun learning this really. The pics are after a very easy supporting structure removal, which was really only in the bottom belt outlet, up to the belt loop cylinder. I would like to know how to add more supports structures as the biggest points of failure on this print right now are the areas where the overhang was unsupported.

Any advice here will be much appreciated! And I'll keep working on this tomorrow, see if I can improve some things. I also have to get the micrometer out and make sure the size is printing accurately.

 

Thank you Mark. I'm definitely impressed with the printer. And the parts are much more solid than I imagined they would be, which gives me a lot of hope for my future plans

Got another tensioner printed of yesterday, but I used Sketchup to rotate the model axis to see if starting the print "laying down" would help. I got a much better print this time, but I ran into a few issues with a Simplify wanting to add support layers out of the blue near the top of the print. It cleaned up easily, but wasnt expecting that. So now I have some emergency parts, though they are just a touch smaller than the original.

Measured the parts with the micrometer, and I think I have a Z-axis issue. At least its something I have to look into. Both the prints were out of proportion in the z-axis. Now that I have something that I can work with incase my glue job fails, I will start with the calibration cubes, and look into the firmware update if I need it. I may very well be a setting I have missed in Simplify as well. Also need to locate the general "scale" setting in simplify as well.

 

Thank you Mark! Took me a little bit, but I found the Model Settings and have been calibrating with a 10mm cube. My 3rd attempt is now 10.04 X 10.04 X 10.08. So almost there. Well for the cube at least.

Spoiler: Cal Cube 10.0mm

Thats on medium settings, 0.2mm layering, and 210C (I'm definitely finding the 195C auto setting in Simplify too low)

Have you found that the scale adjustments you make for one model remain viable through multiple different models? So I can just right down the multipliers and apply them to all future models?

Also, if you look at the Cube pic, you can see the minor variation at the bottom. It looks like I may need a Z-axis offset raise, but everything is building well so should I just leave it. It appears from the skirting that I may be close to scraping, but I'm not... I just would like a second or third opinion from more experienced eyes than mine.

And lastly, the top layer seems a bit... rough... with openings, small ones though. Hotter temp maybe? or am I missing something in the Top Layer settings?

 

Ah, I am well short on the layers. I wasnt sure where to start so I went with the default. So only 3 layers T & B for 0.2mm layering.
Thanks again for these quick tips. I really do appreciate this. And that link is actually something I had already been referencing, I saw that browsing the forum

 

Just giving a little update. I've had my ROBO for about little over two weeks now. I've had some successes and a lot of failures, and learned an amazing amount in the short amount of time. Overall I am happy with my printer. For the price, I don't think I could have gotten anything better. And it is steadily improving bit by bit. Probably the best thing about this printer is that it is fairly open source and up-gradable.
Most of my printing so far has been to upgrades, here are the ones I have done:

1. Printed foot lifts for the printer
2. I built an enclosure following Mike K.'s instructions and example
3. Added a heat lamp to the enclosure.
4. Printed a top spool holder
5. Printed an "oiler" for the filament.

With all of these done, I have been getting some pretty good prints lately, and those have all been in ABS. The warping is very minimal now that the temperature is slightly elevated in the enclose.

It may seem like I've done a lot, but everything has come with a lot of gained knowledge about how everything has to work together, how the slicing programs work, and the capabilities of what this ROBO can do. It may not be perfect, but it can be a hell of a machine and a great push to learn things you wouldn't ordinarily.

Just for an idea, I am printing of my first custom made design of an articulating arm and base clamp system. I started learning Autodesk Fusion360 and that's what I used to design and flesh out my system. It's by no means a complicated build, but probably the most full-filling experience so far is having my idea in my hands in a few hours. Science is awesome!