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Leon's Printer

Discussion in 'Show and Tell' started by Leon Grossman, Nov 11, 2013.

  1. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    I've had my printer about a week now. I have yet to print anything of substance but I'm being very methodical.

    The problems I'm having so far:
    • Overheating RAMPS board trying to print ABS
    • Z limit switch doesn't trigger because the z axis isn't heavy enough to trigger the switch unless the X carriage is on the Z switch side.
    Completed mods:
    • Marlin firmware with Viki
    Immediate planned mods
    • Replace Z axis limit switch with hall effect sensor. (doing that tonight)
    • Add Tesseract's bed levelers. My bed is more level than I expected but it can be better
    • Replace X carriage with EZStruder mount
    • Replace hot end with E3D
    Longer term planned mods
    • Replaceable build plate
    • 110V bed heater, aluminum heat spreader for much more rapid heating and ability to swap glass
    • Precision ground rods for X/Z axes
    • Replace drawer rails with rods (possibly just purchase 1.2 upgrade parts from Robo)
    Possible mods:
    • Repetier firmware. The Viki interface is 1000x better on Repetier
     
  2. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
    Staff Member

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    Leon which was your z stop switch oriented was the fulcrum toward the back or the front of the printer I think it was on the front and if so I believe it was backwards it should have had the fulcrum toward the back and the screw should have made contact with the end of the lever. There should not have been any weight issue if the screw was near the fulcrum then it would not have worked well at all which seems to be what you were seeing turning it around would have helped.
     
  3. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    Relay installed. If you do this mod, the heat sink is a must. It gets quite warm.

    2013-11-15 21.33.15.jpg

    The heat sink uses #8 screws and I used #8 screws to secure it to the housing.

    Wiring:

    RAMPS + to Relay input +
    Ramps - to Relay input -
    PS ground to one leg of heater
    PS 12V to - side of relay output
    + side of relay output to other leg of heater
     
  4. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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  5. Deadly Z Driver

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    Interesting concept, I just figured I would put a fan in mine since I had a few laying about. I'm printing up a mount as I type this I already have the fan in place and it seems to be working great.
     
  6. 1d1

    1d1 Active Member

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    Hi Leon, Glad to hear that the relay was semi-successful anyway. Good concept, wrong device. Mine will be here this week and I will give it a try anyway. It says it is rated at 25 amps, so it should be plenty even if the kapton heater draws more than 11.5. I also experienced some difficulties with my z-stop switch. Not loving that particular arrangement. I'm going to do some checking around today and look for alternatives but I suspect I will just end up replacing the one I killed in a fit of ham-fisted frustration. Outside of that, when it prints, it prints quite well.
    Dean
     
  7. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    Automation direct relay installed. It did the same thing until I realized my mistake. The Fotek Relay probably would have been fine but it was quite warm where the AD relay remains pretty cool.

    Wiring:

    RAMPS + to Relay input +
    Ramps - to Relay input -
    PS +12V to one leg of heater
    PS GND to - side of relay output (Load)
    + side of relay output (Load) to other leg of heater
     
  8. 1d1

    1d1 Active Member

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    Well, now you know... I'm finding a great deal of my own experience with the ROBO is, um, educational. In regard to this thread, I thought that one was supposed to "switch" a relay on the positive line, but switching the ground wire makes a bit more sense. I think.
     
  9. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    Weekend activities:

    • Longer precision ground Z Rods installed, giving 238mm height (precision X installed last weekend)
    • New X carriage installed, with cooling fan mounted now has 203 mm. Removing cooling fan will give 220m
    • EZStruder installed
    • E3D installed
    • X end-stop lengthened to allow for higher Z height
    • X motor wires lengthened to allow for higher Z height (Note, the insulation was compromised from the factory and I had observed the vibrating motor resulting from a short between two phases of the wires.
    • Automation Direct 40A SSR installed to fix heat bed cutout.
    2013-11-24 20.16.13.jpg
     
    2 people like this.
  10. 1d1

    1d1 Active Member

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    Looking good, Leon! How is it printing after all that?
     
  11. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    I don't know yet. I'll likely find out tonight or Wednesday!
     
  12. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    Here's the only thing I've printed that's not a calibration cube or part for my printer.

    Cute Octopus Says Hello at 0.1mm

    2013-11-28 14.35.41.jpg
     
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  13. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    That looks amazing man. I really gotta get my printer to that level of quality.
     
  14. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    You've seen the list of things I've done to my printer. I couldn't say what was the biggest bang for the buck improvement.
     
  15. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I think a lot of my issues resided in the flawed PTFE tube I had in my hot end. Leaking filament out the sides resulted in some funky stuff. I'm hoping my E3D fixes a lot of that. Then it's just a matter of reducing stringing
     
  16. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    FWIW, I haven't had only the most mild amounts of stringing with PLA or ABS. I don't know what I'm doing differently. Regardless, the E3D is a fantastic choice.
     
  17. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Can you share your config settings?
     
  18. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    Aside from the dimensional settings, it's:

    220 for Abs w 100 heat bed
    180 for PLACE w 60 heat bed.

    I didn't change any acceleration, deceleration or retraction settings. Same results, no matter the infill.
     
  19. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Hmm I guess I'll be interested to see when you try printing a less solid object, like the cal pyramid
     
  20. Leon Grossman

    Leon Grossman Active Member

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    The 5mm cal cubes were no problem.
     

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