I’ve had the parts printed for a year or so, even got a lead screw, but then it all just sat in my basement. Then I got a wild hair, an Amazon GC, and voila! I have a Ramps 1.4 board w/LCD screen and endstops, picked up some conduit and rounded out my collection of nuts and bolts, and I have a GT2 belt and pully set coming in the mail today with more hardware coming tomorrow…
Of course, I see that there are now “Burly” center pieces to be printed! Well alright! I’m on it!
28 hours later, I have two Burly XY pieces! Looking good! But… When I sliced them, I didn’t change the infill. So they’re nice, light 20% infill pieces… Oy… I think I’ll reprint the Z Axis pieces next, with the correct infill.
Need to get wiring supplies, X and Y steppers, and pull the trigger on a spindle (be that a trim router of some sort, or a dedicated spindle).
I’ll get pics up as I get useful assemblies built. Plan is for a 34"x34" overall footprint with about a 5" Z build height.
Gah! Getting great first layer adhesion, but it’s getting pulled up as it cools and the infill shrinks. Latest roller mount print has a nasty convex face. Motor mounting surface is still flat, so it’s still workable, but annoying as hell. I’m thinking it may be the cubic infill pattern in Cura. It’s great for added strength when the infill is low, but it may be doing odd things at higher infill percentages.
Hrmm… Motor mounting surface may not be perpendicular to the mounting plate surface. I don’t think it would cause major issues, but it can’t be a good thing. Trying again with a different, 2D infill pattern, and a slightly faster print speed (trying to get the layer down before the previous layer cools too much). We’ll see when I get home this evening, although the very points of the bottom corners were beginning to curl during the bottom skin print. I’m hoping that was just due to the overhang of the chamfer designed into the piece (the first layer was still attached to the plate), and not a harbinger of things to come…
Going from memory… Generic PLA, 190-195C hotend, 75C bed (had a glass bed on top of the heated bed, but took it off until I get some hairspray). The printer (Qidi Tech X-One) is in the basement, where the baseline temp on the surfaces is usually ~24C, and I’ve propped up some books to block airflow on a couple of the sides to try to keep some warmth in the system.
Just recently switched to overextruding the first layer to get better adhesion (.8mm lines @ 190% extrusion), and it’s helped a lot on that first layer. Was running 10mm/s on the first layer & outer walls and 20mm/sec elsewhere, but bumped it up to 20mm/sec first layer & outer walls, 30mm/sec infill and inner walls along with going from Cura’s cubic infill (3D pattern) to their triangle/octagon infill (2D pattern).
I usually run pla around 60c for the bed. If you can’t get it to stick, blue painters tape works awesome. Stick it down edge to edge, then wipe it down with a little alcohol, mainly to get your fingerprint oils off, and print.
I may have to hit Wally World on the way home and grab some wide painters tape and alcohol. I ransacked the house the other day, and was dumbfounded that we don’t seem to have any!
Oh, and I should note that I print a skirt, but not a brim or raft. Mostly to make sure the extruder is primed and that the bed hasn’t gone completely off level.
Hmmm… Painter’s tape on glass? Dead flat, removable surface + good adhesion - hairspray fumes. That might be a better solution.
I never used hairspray on glass. It was always either blue tape or purple glue stick. New printer has a magnetic build plate with a buildtack sticker on spring steel.
Yeah, I’m going to try a brim next. Latest roller mount print turned out better, but there was still enough shrinkage that it warped up the lower points (not critical) and the top of the mount (more critical, as it also pulled the mounting face out of true).
I noticed it also happening on my “not-quite-so-burly” XY print, where that one long arm sort of crumpled up on itself. The top is not terribly off flat, but the bottom was lifted off the plate and the side crumpled up a bit.
Brims helped a lot, but my print bed is… damaged (overly aggressive scraping to remove glue residue). So, I tried the poly glass with brims, and I thought it would work, but the XYZ part curled off the plate at the ends.
So, we’re at brims + glass + painter’s tape. Absolute charm! Biggest problem I’ve had is either the brim attaching too well to the print (combined with the slight chamfer on the bottom) and peeling off the outermost wall extrusion, or being a bonehead and not re-leveling the printing plate before starting the print (which I saved by using the brim as a guide to live-level the plate). I’m printing the second burly XY piece now, and I’m going to re-slice some smaller bits (Paciente8159’s belt tensioners on Thingiverse) without brims (or at least to make sure I’m not printing brims), and see how just tape on the glass works.
Fargle-blarg! Looks like I’ll have to reprint one XYZ part. I was putting in one of those bearings, and even after pre-threading the nylon, the torque produced trying to snug up the bolt tore apart the layers of the print. I suppose I could super glue the layers back together, then use a clamp on the piece when I go back to try again (and when I go to snug up the other bolts, which are currently just barely engaged with the nylon). I’m just afraid that the integrity is already compromised. Maybe I’ll take another look at the assembly, and see what sorts of stresses are likely to be put on it, and if repaired layer separation would be an issue (or just go with it until it becomes an issue).
Well, I got a new roll of filament and printed one new XYZ-C part. Beautiful print, and it held together just fine as I snugged down the outside bolts/bearings. I have the second one printing now, and I have a list of hardware I need to verify to keep putting things together (may have to print new gantry spacers, as my current ones have lost their lip).
@Ryan, any idea when you may be getting the steppers back in stock? Is your margin on them even high enough to make it worth waiting, or should I just poke around Amazon/eBay for a source?
Dang, I think I’ll need to reprint my burly XY parts. The PLA I was using seems to have delamination issues…[attachment file=114795]
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Ok. It’s not the final table, I still need to cut the top down from 48"X48" to 34"X34" (well, 2@ 6"X34" + 22"X34"). And I need to get some steppers. But I wanted to see how everything fit together…[attachment file=114975]
The actual table will be 3/4” MDF on a 2X4 frame… I just need to clear off the table saw, and wrestle that half sheet onto it. The kids old Lego table just happened to be handy and cleared.
Whelp, pulled the trigger on my steppers… STEPPERONLINE Nema 17 45Ncm. I looked at their big brothers at 52Ncm, but these end up at under $10 each, and should be plenty strong enough (64oz/in or so). Now I just need to find that lead screw I know I have. In the basement. Somewhere. Probably in a box. Full of other stuff. sigh
Great, now I can’t find my lead screw or my multimeter… Maybe if I just touch the leads from the driver to my tongue, I can estimate the Vref. Or better yet, my dogs tongue… What’s the Vref on a Basenji/Terrier mix?
