Why?????

I keep getting asked "Why build it, why not just buy one?" Several reasons:

1. I modeled mine off of the Ultimaker printer which is a $2200 dollar printer and most of my parts are identical to that one so I can get as good if not better prints for $600 that I was able to get a part here and a part there instead of coming up with all at once, and which I could have brought down by making it smaller, getting all chinese parts etc but I wanted it to be a rock solid tank when done.

2. I will in the end have a built a printer with a bigger build platform and height than most desktop printers without to huge of a bigger footprint, it is about 1.5 times bigger wide and deep and 2x taller than the Ultimaker.

3. It was built my way, the way I thought it should be with the latest design in the XY carriage (corexy) and anything that went not right since I was designing it could easily be modified.

4. One of the biggest reasons is the learning experience, if I bought one I would be just trying to figure out how to get the best print out of what I have, instead I was able to think more of "How can I physically get the best prints that I possibly can?" and once that was done then I could push it even further by then sitting down and pushing the envelope by tweaking all the settings and software to get it above and beyond what I already managed physically.

    Not to toot my own horn but Chris and I were both amazed at how my out of the box, not tuned, no parts replaced so just my wire ties and hot glue was turning out better prints than a lot of things we were seeing on Thingiverse, we both are excited to see what it can do decked/tweaked out.

5. Goes with the above reason, I am not trying to figure out how something works that I bought, I have learned by creating it, I know every screw, bolt, rivet, belt, pulley, gear, etc. on my printer, I now know what it does, how I could make it better, how it interacts, I know the software settings in and out (especially after doing the auto bed leveling and wasting seven hours to fix in a tweak that others said was nothing and didn't work... it worked, changed that tweak and fixed in seconds what I spent seven hours trying to tweak/configure to get it to work.) I know the sounds, clicks, clunks it makes and know just by listening when something is not right because I was the one that did it, not someone else.

6. And the MOST IMPORTANT reason, the one reason to rule them all....... 

BECAUSE I CAN!!!!!!!

Last Paydays Modification... Light it up!

There are modifications of course to be made, the printer is by no means at the end specs that I want.
The first and cheapest modification was lighting it up to make it easier to see and work with, I purchased some LED flexible strips, I bought the double density 600 LEDs per meter, unfortunately I can't run them at full 100% brightness because as the bed heater that draws 15 amps kicks on and off very rapidly to make the bed stay at temp it drops the 12v ATX power supply down from 12 volts to 11.5ish which causes the lights to strobe extremely annoyingly so I went to radio shack and bought a variable voltage regulator for a buck and a half and adjusted it to just below the lowest voltage drop and now they are on solid, it didn't dim them too much just a bit.
(For those in the know, no a capacitor wouldn't work, maybe a cap and a diode but the cap would have to be very large.)

Here is the light strip that I bought, you can cut them to length anywhere there are copper pads.
  XKTTSUEERCRR 3014 SMD 16.4Ft 5Meter 600LEDs 120Leds/M Cool White

I put them along the front sides and top of the build area, this is what it looks like now.

 I can't put the front on until I make a new ribbon cable for the display, that is as far as it reaches right now, it came with a very short cable.
Here is what the entire thing looks like so far.

Time to replace the bed.

My bed was made out of aluminum angle iron, I thought it would work so well, well I was so wrong, it was very flimsy even with extra bracing and rivets, my friend Chris came to the rescue AGAIN and slapped me together a new bed out of maple, it is very strong and very stable.

Here are the parts that are being replaced.

Here are the replacement parts when they finished printing, four shaft holders and a anti-backlash nut, it is not the one I actually used, the one I used was the same model but I redesigned it just a bit making the bottom nut not locked into place but able to float up and down so that the spring could actually push it against the threads making it an actual anti-backlash setup instead of a "Sort of" one.

 And as normal I suck at taking "As you go" pictures (sorry) so here are pictures of everything in place, I purchased last payday the two bearings that I had originally wanted but they were out of stock so I had to use something else until I got them.

Next up will be auto bed leveling (I did the lighting last week just forgot to post about it).

Quick video of it printing

The title says it all.

Feeder gone wrong!!!

This is my feeder that I made out of some nylon plastic sheet:

I printed a new replacement part but it didn't turn out to good, I put it in place and used it to print another one to replace the not so good one, I woke up all excited for my new parts to replace my feeder etc. um.... yeah..... no.....
I woke up to this:

And this is all the plastic I woke up to on the floor instead of turned into my part:

It popped apart, I had to hold it together with clamps to be able to print another one.

I have had nothing but issues printing a new feeder, the old one would chew the plastic to the point it no longer could grip the plastic to feed it through and would stop printing, it would jame and break the filament, it would spew the plastic filament out the side, it was a nightmare, took me several days and like 12 prints to get it to turn out a complete feeder.

New HotEnd holder/mount

My plywood solution is not cutting it, the nozzle moves around like 5mm in each direction, I got it to print a replacement.
Here is the replacement part:

The old mount to get me by:

The new part in place:

Working on the CoreXY mechanism

The CoreXY mechanism controls the hotend movement in the X and Y axis, I like how it functions and how it keeps the torque of the movement equal so it doesn't twist.

I needed to make something to hold the bars for the Y movement so I drilled a hole in some aluminum angle iron and slid the shaft in it, I could have deviation to the left or the right as I can just move the part before screwing it down but I could not have any deviation up or down as I had no way to adjust that so I clamped a piece of angle iron onto my drill press to butt the pieces up to so that I can get the height correct.

We are going to take a huge jump ahead here as I was so busy getting it to work etc. that I did not take pictures but I have a crude video I sent my wife and some pictures from after the build, I will be having better pictures as I swap out my bailing wire and bubblegum parts for printed parts.
Here is the video of me moving I sent my wife.

A video of it moving thinking it is printing:

Here are some after shots of it built and in place.

Lack of posts

I apologize for the lack of posts, I have been non stop beating the printer into submission, my main issues are with the filament feeder, and it is hard to print anything if it doesn't feed the plastic in.
I have been taking pictures as I went except for when I was making the CoreXY carriage I was too busy trying to bubble gum and bailing wire it together but I will be posting a lot of pictures of the carriage parts etc. that I will be printing out and will be explaining as I go.
Be patient with me, it will all come together.

BTW, it is printing. ;-)

Power and Heat Sinks

While waiting for UPS I did some work on getting the ATX power supply going and getting some heat sinks on the board.

I changed out the socket for the power adapter as I have seen them fail time an again and with giving it 34 amps on that little connector there was no way I was going to trust it, at that current you get a small arc, turns into a big arc and melts the connector down, so as you can see in the upper left corner I swapped it out for an XT60 socket that I use in my model airplanes and quads that is rated at 60 amps, and it gives me the added benefit that I can pop in my watt meter that I use for the same as the connectors and it is rated for 100 amps so I can get an exact idea of how much current the printer is going to take, and if I can add a second hotend later without a second power supply etc.

Instead of just soldering it on I took some really large solid copper wire and soldered it through the holes for the jack and soldered them on both sides (double sided board) and then slid the XT60 end over it which was a perfect fit, and then soldered them to the pins and the board, I adjusted the pins so the jack would sit on the board and so it is doubly connected, and will not be ripping traces off of the board if I disconnect it, then for some extra insurance I hot glued it around the base to the board so it is rock solid now.

I glued some tiny heat sinks onto the stepper drivers (small red squares) they are 0.25" x 0.25" so like I said... tiny, and I managed to put one on sideways which really wont matter except that I am anal about detail.

Then I added heat sinks to everything else, I added them to the mosfets, the power regulator and even the PWM output. I did have to modify they bottom mosfets heatsink as it has a large capacitor really, really close to it and there just wasn't room as it was so I trimmed some off of the sides of the bottom of the heat sink to get it to fit.

With a fan that board should run nice and cool now.

Here is the power supply, connected, I didn't do anything special as some people get rid of the extra wire, I have plenty of space so I just left them, I just cut the end off of the twelve volt wires and cut the wire off of the connector that will let me soft power on and off the power supply instead of using the switch on the power supply.

I want to use the soft on/off because when I use it the board just turns off, when I flip the switch on the power supply the board goes off then flickers on and off several times as things discharge, I don't want to risk blowing anything out so going to use it like your computer does.
The power supply is just a normal ATX computer power supply, I just bought a beefy one so I had plenty of current available.

Stay tuned for building the CoreXY mechanism later.

UPS screw up and working with my new hotend.

Well UPS in there infinite wisdom decided not to deliver one of my packages today, so much for two day delivery guaranteed. It really pissed me off as the one package that they don't deliver is the one with the bearings and shafts in it so I really can't do anything on the build until I get that box.

Amazon says they gave it to UPS on Friday, the jerk on the other end of the chat that I waited 45 minutes for it to be connected claims that Amazon didn't give it to them until Monday, granted I am upset that they didn't get me the package and that I have to way until four pm tomorrow to get the parts to start, the thing that had me in an absolute rage was the attitude and the of the chat guy and how he treated me, I was so mad I could spit nails, after telling me basically to go eff myself and then asked if there was anything else he could do for me I told him "Well since you have done nothing but blow smoke up my ass I don't see how you were any help at all." and disconnected.

I didn't expect them to run the package over that night all I asked him was that if they indeed were going to deliver it first thing in the morning like Amazon said that they said UPS would or if it would be the normal four to five pm delivery time like normal and the guy treated me like total and utter shit.

Now that the rant is over I did work on the electronics today though.

I apparently ordered a hotend (extruder) that comes with a thermocouple instead of a thermistor; So what you ask? well a thermistor is like a potentiometer (volume control on your stereo) but instead of you twisting a knob the resistance changes as the temperature changes, a thermocouple is two dissimilar metals put together that when heated generates a small amount of electricity; So what you still say? Well the thermocouple generates a tinsy tiny amount of electricity 0.02 - 0.03 volts so for it to be any good you need a booster/amplifier circuit if your board is not thermocouple compatible (which mine is not) for the thermocouple to do any good as the board normally uses five volts normally., the one that comes with my hotend will not work for me without that circuit.

So order the circuit.... well the only place I found it was slow boats from china that will be here at the end of April unless I want to spend $60 in shipping for a $10 part.

I thought I would order the chip and make my own circuit.... nope same thing no one has it locally and slow boat from china again.

I do however have a ten pack of thermistors so I am saved..... well sorta, there is a -cough- size issue.

As you can see the LITTLE glass thermistor is so not going to fit, and since it is glass if I use the set screw that held the thermocouple in place it was shatter it, I was thinking about gluing it in when I had a brilliant idea, I have some brass rod that I bought to make a tool for scratch building houses etc for my N-scale model train and it was the exact same size as the thermocouple so my idea was to cut a piece then drill out the center (I didn't get exact center but I tried) then glue the thermistor in with some Arctic Silver adhesive and then slide the brass piece in and clamp down all I want a perfect solution.

And here with it in place but not glued into the brass adapter yet.

It worked out beautifully and if the thermistor goes out I have enough brass rod to make several hundred of those adapters so I am set for life there.

Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the hotend, I was not deceived I just ordered parts at four am and did not see where it was clearly marked thermocouple so that was my bad but honestly I would order it again in a heart beat.

It is listed as "Generic Hotend" but I was running low on money so I ordered it, it was forty dollars, however I was looking at the E3d hotends that everyone is carrying on about and how they are so awesome and why. Well guess what, when I got my generic hotend I looked it over of course, it is very nicely built and then it hit me, it has every feature that I read about for the E3d v6 head has except the shroud around the heat sink is different but I could print out anything there, I was so psyched, I thought I was settling for something cheap that I would swap up to something better later and heck it has all the features of the "better" one, I am extremely happy with it so far, it looks like it should print nicely.

Oh and it uses standard nozzles so I was able to get some different sized nozzles also.

Here is a list of links for what I bought that I talked about in this post.
1. Generic Nozzle Metal J-head Hotend Thermocouple Extruder 24v 0.4mm with 700mm Tube
2. RioRand(TM) Upgraded 10 pcs 100Kohm NTC Thermistors thermistor,temperture sensor,Reprap,Prusa 3D printer
3. Kingstorm 3D Printer Extruder Nozzle 0.2mm 0.3mm 0.4mm 0.5mm Nozzle Print Head Kit for MK8 1.75mm Printer

Early Parts!

I received some parts a day early today, I received the extruder, ABS filament, the stepper motors, the belt pulleys, and the 5mm to 8mm adapters, the last two I have already mounted to the stepper motors.

The extruder came with a thermocoupler instead of a thermistor which is fine if my board was setup for a thermocoupler which it isn't, it would need a amplifier board... so another $18 but since it would have to come on a slow boat from china and would be here sometime in April I think I will use one of the thermistors that are coming on Tuesday, they are rated for 260c and ABS filament prints and 215c-230c so I should be fine and will do the whole thermocouple thing later.

The head also comes with the fan adapter which was printed out on a 3d printer, it is really cool and will eventually be redesigned and reprinted, the made the hole to small so it blocks half the fan blades at the top, I will do something a little better designed but there are more important parts to print out first like the ones to hold everything together.

My friend Chris brought me my other two boards today and Heather (my darling wife) helped me attach the bottom boards (had to have the board split to get them in place) so it is ready for the circuit, power supply etc.there is enough room in that thing that I was thinking about making part of it a storage area for parts, commonly used filament etc.just throw in some moisture absorber pellets to keep the humidity down, dunno just thinking out loud.
I have to give my friend Chris a major shout out, he has supplied the wood for my project, he has offered input, construction advise, has been a sounding board, he doesn't roll his eyes when I drone on about 3d printers, RC planes, or quadcopters, and has all in all been an absolutely awesome friend in general.
Thanks Chris for everything.

More to come tomorrow.

The Frame is done.

Or should that be titled "THE FRAME IS DONE!!!!!!!" lol

So I finished the frame up, there is nothing more I can do until the rest of my parts get here next week.

I could have probably just done one rivet per corner, or one per side of the corner, but I wanted a tank and rivets are cheap. I don't want any flex in the frame whatsoever, it is rock solid now, I can't imagine what it will be like several months down the road with sides on it screwed to the corner angle iron.

This is the position that I will most likely move the CoreXY mechanism to but I will decide that later, I won't be putting in the fourth ledge support in until I decide as I wont be able to remove the boar once I do unless I remove the top level that is riveted in, Once I have it together then I will decide and pop the last support in.

The bottom shelf (shelf missing at the moment) will eventually be completely hidden by sides and a front, it will hold the power supply, the circuits, all the horrid wires will connect under there, etc.

It looks mammoth but it is 18" x 18" x 36" tall, if I cut off everything past the CoreXY mechanisms board it would drop the height of the frame by 8" but not the total height of the printer as the board will have motors etc mounted on it so I will probably leave it that tall and let the sides go all the way up hiding and making a noise barrier between me and the motors, gears, etc.

It has begun......

I cut all the aluminum angle iron and bent the 3 square levels out of it (I ended up making a 4th level when all was said and done), I have the bottom of the work area and the  the top board that I was going to use for the CoreXY platform that my friend Chris gave me and cut to size.

I said was because I somehow cannot do math and did the frame a little taller than what I really needed so I am going to leave my options open as the precision shafts do come in a 36" inch version as well (sounds like I am bragging almost :-) ) so I made a 4th level, on the top I will put the 3/4" MDF with the 10" hole cut in it and probably mount the filament up there out of the way or it will become a catch all sorta shelf for things to vibrate until they fall down into the printer, we will see, and then Chris in his abundance of kindness and friendship is going to cut me another piece of MDF for the CoreXY with a 12" hole so I can get that 11" x 11" build platform in the future.

The Idea

So I wanted a 3d printer but did not like the ones I could find for cheap seriously what can you print worth printing in a 4" x 4" x 4" print area, the printers I did like are $2000 so I decided the best bet was to build my own.

To cover the costs I bought some parts here and some parts there.

My idea was given to me by drooling over the Ultimaker, I am using a clone of the Ultimaker Original board, it seems so much better than the reprap board that came with the electronics kit I got from hobbyking, I would have LOVED to have gotten my hands on the Ultimaker 2 board, that printer gives me a nerdgassim every time I look at it.

My printers config will eventually be an 11" x 11" x 20" build platform however I ran out of money and am so close to having it built I threw in and bought some cheaper bars and print bed so it will start out at a 8" x 8" x 12" build area which is still respectable in my book I have made the frame to accommodate the larger build platform, the frame once built ended up pretty big, it is a total of 18" x 18" x 36" so it is big but it is going to be so nice to make larger items in the end, I am sure I will have to make my own heated bed to get the 11" x 11" size.

I am starting raw and plan on improving something every other payday until I have my dream printer, Some of the mods I want to make is a quad extruder head, light strip (easy), get the precision shafts for the 20" height, the 11" x 11" heated bed, covering all the sides and adding a door to help regulate the heat etc.

It is going to be a bowden fed (a tube between the extruder and the filament feeding unit, it lets the filament pass through the tube which is firmly attached at both ends), I am going to use the CoreXY setup for my X and Y axis, it looks so stable and simple that I think I am really going to enjoy it.

The coolest thing about this project is that it will first be made of bailing wire and bubblegum (I learned those skills from my dad.) and once I have it printing it till print parts for itself to upgrade itself into a rock stable 3d printer with a huge build area. (compared to most hobby printers)

Stay tuned for build pics and updates,
Rob.