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Is there a Zesty Nimble in your life?

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by fred3d, Mar 6, 2020.

  1. fred3d

    fred3d Member

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    Or more accurately, is there a ZN in your R1 plus?

    Having upgraded my R1+ to an E3Dv6, I learned just how heavy that carriage is. It's impressive that such a mass can move as quickly as it does and produce such good prints.

    I've been interested in remote direct drive systems from when I first learned of a Kickstarter option many moons ago. I hadn't yet built my delta printer, a good candidate for such a drive (and have not yet built it) but figure a ZN would be a good upgrade for an R1+.

    Has anyone done this sort of mod? I see there's a Thingiverse adapter for the Nimble, which is promising, but I'd like to hear from someone who has completed such an upgrade.
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I have not used a direct drive extruder in the R1 series. It should work fine. I have used them on other printers (monoprice, SeeMeCNC delta, etc). It is not really important on the RepRap style unless you want to offload the weight from the carriage. The difference may or may not actually be visible. On a ganrty style (R2/C2) it would be completely moot. On a delta it would absolutely matter.
     
  3. fred3d

    fred3d Member

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    Semantically, the R1+ is a direct drive, but I suspect you mean a remote direct drive. I'd love to have the Nimble on my BCN3D Sigma R16, as the bowden tubes are a minor pain on occasion and it would benefit from the direct aspect of the mechanism, but they produce only for 1.75 mm filament.

    It appears that the sidewinder version of the Nimble would be more practical, with the stepper mounted on the aft panel off to one side and the drive cable snaking in over the rear area of the bed. The Thingiverse build isn't for the Sidewinder, though.
     
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The R1 is a geared extruder :) That GregsWade is geared to heck.
    It is "direct" but geared. Normally we differentiate a direct drive (stepper only) from a geared direct.
     
  5. fred3d

    fred3d Member

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    Thanks for the clarification. The Sigma upgrade I installed put a planetary geared stepper in the system (Bondtech) which means it's even less suitable for the Nimble, while the gear reduction you've noted means the R1+ stepper motor is more suitable, as the Nimble wants a fast spin.
     
  6. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Since there is a toothed gear drive that attaches to the motor shaft -- technically -- the direct is somewhat geared as well :)
    However nothing like what the Wade does. I once switched our delta tot he GregsWade to overcome issues with backpressure stalling the direct extruder, but ultimately I solved it with some new teflon tubing (it has a 7 foot bowden feed due to the size and that adds backpressure).

    I honestly prefer the geared drive to direct, but the geared ones do have more moving parts so more potential points of failure.
     
  7. fred3d

    fred3d Member

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    And of course, the Zesty Nimble is doubly geared. The worm gear driven by the flexible shaft and the same hobbed gear pushing the filament.
     

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