Building the "Repeat" printer

a wood frame core x y, this is sweet! Is it still in beta?

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Yes and no. I was starting to write up the release stuff and this trigger issue popped up. So the files are available, but the documentation to go with it is not there yet.

Iā€™m back home, going to run some errands and tonight I will play with the printer, going replace the belt and see if will get any better.

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I can see the ā€˜coolnessā€™ of using the belt for the sensor, but why not just use a small 3d printed part that would be stiffer?

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You could, but then it is not easily adjustable with scissors. All 5 triggers use these and for the most part all 5 are different lengthsā€¦and they change depending on your extruder and build.

The extruder is pretty easily centered to your bed using the triggers more so than firmware offsets, and then there is no chance of physical contact with fans or ducts.

The bed itself is kind of different. After it is all assembled and the bed triggers left a bit long when you do the hardware leveling with the bltouch you can see what triggers are too long and pretty easily get it to under a one tooth or less level. All this just makes every leveling sequence after that faster.

So it is an easy way to discount error stacking.

The ZenXY uses physical triggers, and I will not do that again. The gcode offsets are a bummer and add complexity I would rather not be there. And as I found out barely translucent material does not work as a trigger so I have white out painted on my Zen triggers. Double bummer.

My 3d printer uses a bolt with two nuts to make tiny changes to the Z switch. Loose then two nuts and adjust the bolt until itā€™s the length you need for your hot end/hot plate differences, then tighten the two nuts onto the mount to keep it from moving.

But that would probably require too much redisgn.

I did look at screws but oddly enough I was worried about alignment. There is about 1/2mm or less room on each side of the switch with an M3 and none of the screws already used in the design would fit. I was on a mission for ease of sourcing once again, and fewest unique parts was at the forefront. Belts offered the most room in the switch and it seemed to have saved my butt here. In the end precision is far more important than accuracy if power recovery is to be used and it is a goal of mine to add. Optical endstops and the belt segments seem to be extremely precise (repeatable) and accuracy. For me quickly getting the nozzle +/-1 mm from where I want it is pretty easy, after that hardware and mesh leveling tweak it to under .1mm.

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Whatā€™s the average cost to build this new printer design in the US?
Where can I get the BOM or are most parts sold in the store?
Where is the files for printed parts and the 2d files for the frame?

Its not at that point yet.

I am working on the instructions, then BOM. Best to wait for that if you donā€™t have spares laying around.

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is there any videos of it up and running?

I donā€™t think so, only 3.5 of us have one.

I will make a video of the printer running and post here but not until monday night, that is when I get home from this trip. I saw that you asked about the Voron 2.4, I donā€™t know how fast that is, but I can tell you that the ā€œRepeatā€ is wicked fast. You can probable cut printing time to about 1/2 on large prints, if you compare to a Cr10S Pro.

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Great looking forward to seeing the videoā€¦ thank you so much.

I think I only have video of the homing sequenceā€¦ I think thereā€™s a video up there of Ryan doing the homing with a massively off-level bed.

Itā€™s definitely fast. I have a couple of prints to do, maybe Iā€™ll take some video and post itā€¦

Thanks @gpagnozzi
This is the kind of thing I was wondering about. A lot of the discussion on the new design is from people with 3D printing experience going into spec details so I was wondering if there were any big picture benefits like this.

For me I am limited by things like part cooling and max volume though a standard Hemera. So for me to go much faster I need to look into Higher flow and maybe a second cooling fan. I am plenty happy with the current speed, 12mm^3/s. If I wanted to go faster I would look into something a little lighter to offset more cooling I think.

Iā€™ve only had other people print stuff for me (you included!) so Iā€™m not at the stage where I know what speeds are fast or not, or even if speed is a thing I should worry about.
Slowly parsing it together before I go ahead with anything.
In the end, having a printer to print something when I want it will be faster than asking someone to print something for me. By weeks! :grinning:

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Well, I donā€™t run a print farm, but in my experience, speed is always a thing with 3D printing.

We play a trade-off between speed and accuracy. Slowing things down (to a point) makes print quality better. reducing certain print artefacts. Ultimately we are going to be limited by the amount of energy that we can (reasonably) throw a the plastic in order to melt it, as well as the physical properties of the plastic in how long it takes to re-solidify (part cooling) afterwards. We can mitigate that by printing larger groups of objects ta one time for production runs, but for most of us as hobbyists, I for one often print just one of a thing, because itā€™s all that I need and all that Iā€™m ever going to need. Still, speed is a thing.

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Just to add to your confusion @Darwin :wink:

I can differ on that - not arguing as I know that speed is important to many, but hereā€™s the opposite viewpoint: At first it was the case, probably influenced by so many YouTubers and forum members who thought like that - then I thought - why? Is there really a difference in time for me between printing for 10 hours or 14? Or at the other end of the scale between 10 minutes and 14?

Strangely perhaps for me, getting a nice print is a bit like building something with hand tools - thereā€™s an extra layer of satisfaction! :smiley:

So I decided to put print quality first and I think Iā€™ve got a nice compromise in quality - I can print1/2" tap fittings for instance with spanner slots and yes this pair of items took a total of 53 minutes, but itā€™s not as if Iā€™m sitting there while it prints!

Iā€™m way out of line with most on batch printing too - even small things I tend to limit my build plate to what can print in an hour - if itā€™s longer than that I print one at a time - one little failure in the batch will take a lot more time to replace/repair the clog etc than the time it takes to print individually.

(NOTE this is a hobby point of view - commercial printing is a very different kettle of fish!)

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