I think I have enough stuff to start my build. I still have to finish printing the XZ and X parts, and I need to cut the largest XZ frame and table.
The parts all printed great, the hole sizes all look to be right on. I haven’t fired up my MPCNC for a bit, so I had a few setbacks. My Raspberry Pi that runs it wouldn’t boot, so I needed to make up a new SD card. I had a wire connection break on the Y steppers. Good thing I was just doing a dry run.
I found my 24"x24" MPCNC (old version) is about 1 inch short for cutting out the XZ frame. I’m thinking I could squeak out another inch my sliding out the conduit, but that would be a lot of work. I’m thinking I will just cut out the center, then finish the outside on the jig saw. The inside cut is more important to getting a tight fit.
For the panels I am using a 1/4" Handy Panel. It has a finish on both sides, one side wood, one side black. I need to pay attention to the side I cut so I can make the wood side out, or black side out. I think it helped to build everything in 3D first so I have a good understanding of how it all goes together. I will attach a picture of the 3D model I made.
I just want to put in a good word for the excellent service Ryan provides. I put in my Vicious order and Amazon order on the same day. My package from Vicious came 3 days before the Amazon package!
I wish I could put together a printer package, but right now it is just too much work. If I can increase sales a little bit an hire some help that is first on my list.
For your cut, as long as you get the cnc to make all of the holes you should be fine the rest can be done by hand. So maybe if you rotate it and just get the holes and the inner potion cut and then freehand the outside.
How the heck did I beat amazon in shipping, that is crazy. They are losing millions each quarter on shipping alone. You think all that money would give them an advantage.
I ordered a birthday present for my wife the third week of November. 2 day shipping from Amazon. Just got another email saying they pushed the ship data back again, this will be the 3rd pushback. In theory I’ll get it next week, but I’m not holding my breath. Her birthday was the 29th of last month…
Yeah Amazon is starting to slip. They used to give you a free month (or push your renewal back a month) of prime for every time a shipment was late…not anymore. If they did I would have never had to pay for prime … Just ordered some stuff to build a bunch of otto robots with my friends kids, notice yesterday, “your shipment is still on the way but will be delivered later than scheduled”
Might have something to do with the time of year. Amazon is better if they are shipping themselves, but a lot of their products are shipped by the third party sellers. I had a FedEx package arrive two days late this week, but blame it on the weather.
It took Amazon several days to put it in a box before it shipped. I also noticed you need to watch the shipping dates. If it’s shipped by Amazon, sometimes they ship faster. You can find the same part, about the same price that ships faster. I also prefer the good old USPS. It costs less and they work on Saturday, and several time, like my last order, it came a day early! UPS would let it roll around in a truck for a day so it won’t be early.
When I was looking at my parts, I realized I forgot the power supply. I got one on order from Amazon, so I hope they can ship this before Christmas. I have a few 12V higher amp power supplies I can use for testing.
Jeff, I found this at the auto parts store. It’s an LED ring add-on that goes around LED driving lights. I like the square shape and I am going to try to put it around the extruder to light the print. I put it in the model and it may be a tight fit. I will need to see how it would fit once I print the parts. If I can’t get this to work, I have two of those yellow strip type LEDs I bought in a $5 light I may use. I will post what I come up with.
On the XZ frame, I’m going to see if I can get at least the inside holes. I can use the printed part for a template to drill the holes if I need to. I’m working on this next. I hope I get it right the first time, or I will have to run out an buy more handy board
Because my MPCNC is about 1 inch too small for the XZ panel, I centered the panel in the limits of the router. I just cut the center opening and the holes I could reach (Pic XZ_1). This left the outer hole at the bottom and the two at the top corner. I left extra material on the edges for the final cuts.
Using the printed corner blocks as a gauge I marked a line parallel to the inside CNC cut edge for the left and the right sides. On the bottom I cut this in line with the bottom of the CNC cut. The top I measured and marked. Using tape to mark my edges, I adjust the tape until it was right-on and this gave me a good straight edge (Pic XZ_2). I cut along the tape edge with my table jig saw (Pic XZ_3).
For the holes, I used the corner block to drill the 3rd missing outside hole. The top holes I used the printed upper right and left brackets for a template lined up with the corner edges of the XZ panel. According to my model, both corner block and top bracket should be flush with the edge. As a check, I test fit the Z rods and it looked good. The holes were marked and drilled.
It looks like it will work, I will find out for sure soon.
The belts are installed. Wires are soldered to the end stops and the end stops are installed. The power supply and RAMPS are mounted.
I bought this power switch:
I decided to mount it in a printed switch box so the line voltage terminals are out of reach. The box has room for the stepper wiring to and power supply wiring to pass through. This box has mounting holes that uses existing screws. Attached is a screenshot of the 3D model of the printed box that is transparent.
The extruder and heated bed are installed. The wires are bundled in a 1/4 inch braided cable sleeve. I used a Tesla Wire Loom Harness Tape for the extruder wiring because it was too large for the 1/4 inch sleeve.
I made a mounting bracket for my square LED. The fan shroud on the extruder needs to be modified to work with the LED. I added a little arm on the connector so it can adjusted up and down.
The wiring is all connected for testing. I still need to tidey up the extra wire.
Nice build. Yeah a printer package would be pretty cool, but a lot of work for sure. Hopefully I can start my own one of these too, as the mpcnc does have it’s limits with 3d printing. It is mostly speed cause of its weight. Curious, where did you buy the parts from, are they in a kit?
Ryan is working on an updated version, so I am sure he will in time put together a kit for the new one. You can find the material list for this printer here:
Most of the parts you can buy from the shop here, but there are a few items you will need to get from Amazon. There are links on this page for everything.
I find making it is a big part of the fun. I’m taking my time or trying to do my best to not rush anything. The older I get, I find it’s more about the journey then the destination. There are not step by step instructions for this, but lots of good info and pictures out there. But who follows instructions anyway!!
My first print. I did the extruder calibration of running through 100mm and it looks to be right on. The calibration cube measured correctly. Everything looks good.
I had some problem with the extruder stopping and and starting. I adjusted the driver to 0.6v and that seemped to fix the problem. I think the stepper was getting too hot.
The first print with PLA I did on painters tape because I had some problems getting good adheasion on the first layer. I set the bed to 70 degrees, and I got a good print without tape.
I think this is going to work great. I have to print the fan shroud, do some clean up of the excess wire and tweaking.
