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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 18, 2019 9:29:15 GMT -5
Over the past year or two, I've wanted a 3D printer. I was basically shopping on price, because:
1. I know that I won't be using it professionally, or even very often.
2. I'm willing to sacrifice features/ease of use for price.
3. I'm willing to put it together myself.
I was looking at the Anet A8. Really the only thing holding me back was the acrylic frame. Sure, there are mods to make it stiffer/stronger. You can get metal retrofit kits. You can even make it into an X-Y printer if you want. It's known for some safety issues (Fires!), temperature limits not being enabled in software, poor design on the connection to the heated bed, undersized power supply, no power switch, undersized power switching components on the main board. All those problems can be simply fixed with extra parts. A different power supply, external mosfets for the print bed and hot end, adding a power switch, etc. But even after you add all that stuff, you still have an acrylic frame. A metal frame kit was between $50-$100. At that point, you can get a metal frame printer without the safety issues. Although the one thing I like about the A8 is that it has dual Z axis motors. Some of the others have one motor, and the other side of the Z axis rides on rollers, which can cause flexing/sagging on the Z.
Last week I noticed that there was an Anet A8+. What? Metal frame, new control board, bigger power supply, power switch, bigger print volume. It looks much better than the original. Right now the original is on Amazon for about $170, the Plus is like $218. It's a no-brainer. I found it on Wal-Mart marketplace for $208, and Wal-Mart offers a 4 year warranty plan for $45. Reading the reviews on Amazon, people still suggested replacing the belts with a less stretchy material, and to replace the factory linear bearings with Igus Drylin bearings. Ordering on Wal-Mart does not get me 2 day Prime shipping, but they say it will be here before the 29th, and it's already shipped, not sure where from though yet.
So I went to Amazon, and ordered the belts, bearings, and a roll of filament. I'll have that stuff before the printer arrives.
These things are all basically a clone of the original Prusa printer anyway, which is like $750 as a kit and $1000 pre-assembled. Yeah, for that price, you might get some nice features, but as a starter printer, this should be OK.
A couple things I'm looking to print straight away is the surround for the screen in the Accord, so that I won't have the Nylon bolt heads visible. Also, I'd like a case for the Atomic Pi with a fan inside for the garage PC.
Lots to learn!
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Post by COMpulse on Jul 18, 2019 11:31:02 GMT -5
Congrats!
I almost picked up a 3D printer a few years ago. They were more expensive back then, and sizes were limited. And I didn't actually have a need for it. Thought it would be neat as hell though.
Now, if you feel like creating some sort of 3D-printing infinite-recursion time-loop, start printing out the parts required to build a 3D printer.
Can't wait to see what you make.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 18, 2019 13:33:32 GMT -5
Yeah, it's too bad it wouldn't be able to print aluminium extrusions, servo motors, belts, power supplies and control boards.
I'll have the filament, bearings, and belts tomorrow. It will be able to print 12" x 12" x 14" tall.
There is a bit of a learning curve on all the slicing and printer settings, so I imagine it'll be while before I get good at it.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 19, 2019 12:18:15 GMT -5
Got notice today, the printer is coming out of New Jersey. Hopefully it does not take too long to get here.
Bearings, Belts, and Filament arrived today.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 20, 2019 14:10:41 GMT -5
According to WalMart, the printer should be here Monday. That's 3 days earlier than the earliest prediction. It must have transferred to USPS from UPS, as UPS says it's not a valid tracking number anymore.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 23, 2019 17:03:59 GMT -5
Printer arrived Monday as expected. Box looks to be in good condition. I don't know if I'll get to it this week.
Work has flared up again, with another piece of the big project I finished a week or two ago.
Still have not looked at the Tacoma, or my wife's car.
Gotta mow grass before the weekend.
This weekend is Pro Football Hall of Fame Balloon Fest. My wife and I are crew for one of the teams, a father and son that both fly hot air balloons. It's fun to crew, and you feel like a rockstar, going behind the scenes at the events. But it's early mornings, and late nights, from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Gotta be sure not to consume any caffeine, as sleep time is limited Friday and Saturday night.
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Post by COMpulse on Jul 24, 2019 7:56:06 GMT -5
I find the idea of being in a hot air balloon simply terrifying. I don't think I have a fear of heights. Just a serious distrust of anything constructed by human beings and designed to keep me from falling to my death.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Jul 24, 2019 13:41:27 GMT -5
I most likely won't be flying this weekend. Years ago, my wife entered a raffle at work for a Balloon ride. Her company would sponsor a Balloon, and in return, the Pilot would take a person for a ride on the Friday night flight. Anyway, she won the raffle, but since she was in charge of the company's tent for the employees at the festival, she couldn't fly. So I got to go. It was AWESOME. I love aviation anyway, so I was giddy with excitement. I took a bunch of pictures. Of course, being the passenger, the balloonists always need help setting up the balloon, getting it filled and ready to fly, and then packing it up and putting it away. Helping isn't required to be able to fly, but it helps the pilot and the crew out, so why not? About 5 years ago, there was another raffle, and as she was running the raffle, she knew how many tickets had been bought, so we knew our chances of winning up front. So, we won again, and I was all set to fly again, but the weather was not good enough to fly. The guy I was supposed to fly with has a son that also is a pilot. He was driving up from Atlanta, and didn't have a crew, so I offered to help him for the weekend. It's been an annual thing ever since. And now that my wife's company does not sponsor a balloon, or have a tent at the event any more, she helps crew as well. It's one weekend a year, and it's a blast.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 1, 2019 10:39:27 GMT -5
I've been working on assembling the printer, chunks at a time. The first go, I got the X axis all together. Bottom frame, X motor, belt, rods, table support, table, and leveling adjusters. Yesterday I built the Y axis stuff, the extruder, rods, Y motor, belt. I had a little trouble. The toothed gear on my Y motor was installed upside down, so the belt was not able to ride on the toothed portion of the pulley. I had to flip it around, and take some measurement to ensure that the toothed section was in line with where the belt would be straight, and not rub the side of the hole that the belt goes through. Also the block that the belt slides into so that the belt tension can be adjusted was too thick, and the long screw was not able to go into the hole, so I had to file the bottom of the block to get the proper clearance. I also got the Z Axis stuff together and got it all mounted onto the X frame base. At least now it looks like a 3D printer. The next step is to mount the power supply and the control board and run the wires. Also I need to mount the holder for the screen. I'm going to get a grommet at the hardware store today. The wires enter the metal enclosure where the control board is through a punched hole in the metal. I'd like for that to have a rubber grommet before I run wires through. It's probably OK without it, but I want to be sure no chafing occurs. Here's the X Axis stuff done. And here is the Y and Z sitting on the X axis frame.
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Post by COMpulse on Aug 2, 2019 9:58:20 GMT -5
Just out of curiosity, what's the largest object (X/Y/Z) you could print if you wanted to?
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 2, 2019 11:36:02 GMT -5
300mm x 300mm x 350mm
so 11.8" for x and y, and about 13.75" tall (z).
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Post by jhornbr225 on Aug 23, 2019 10:49:40 GMT -5
I've been working intermittently on assembling the 3D printer. (Very Intermittently)
Last night I reached a point where I can say it's assembled, wired, cables tied up pretty, and ready to power up.
Next time I work on it, I will power it up and level the bed. Maybe I'll even try the test print.
I've been considering getting a Pi4 as an octoprint server for it, but I'll get it going with an SD card first.
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Post by COMpulse on Aug 23, 2019 14:44:21 GMT -5
Pi 4 looks awesome (assuming you add cooling to it). Haven't ordered one yet. Waiting a bit for developers to get their code updated.
From what I've read, Pi 4 runs HOT. Like, plan on adding heatsinks and a fan.
My RetroPie box keeps letting me down when I want to game with a friend. Terrible lag on the controllers. I think the metal enclosure on my Pi is hindering my bluetooth gamepads. So I switched to a USB bluetooth dongle, and it seems to be working better. Just fucking embarrassing every time I try to show it off like "check out the cool little game console I built with these expensive ass gamepads I bought" and then it performs like shit.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Sept 29, 2019 13:29:11 GMT -5
Finally worked on the 3D printer again. I plugged it in, and nothing smoked. I started going though the steps to level the bed, and I found that my Z-Axis limit was not set right. After everything homed, the bed was too low compared to the print head, so even loosening the adjustment screws almost all the way (raising the bed), the bed was still too low compared to the print head. The solution is to raise up the Z-Axis, and lower the Z-Axis switch, letting the Z come down lower to be considered home, and then re-home. I was then using the jog feature to move the print head around to the corners of the print bed to adjust the thumbscrews.
I found I had some zip-ties in the wrong place, not allowing the Z-axis to go up very far. Also, you're supposed to go around the bed a few times, as making large adjustments at the start influences the other corners. After I while I noticed that the Y-axis seemed to be having trouble moving. Loosening the belt all the way, and attempting to move it by hand brought me to the conclusion that it is binding somehow. I'll have to take some measurements, and loosen some things up to see where it got out of alignment. That or something is wrong with my Igus bearings. They have very good reviews, so I hope that's not it. But by then it was late, so I'll try again another day.
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Post by jhornbr225 on Oct 23, 2019 22:21:34 GMT -5
I played with the 3D printer again tonight. I found that getting the bed level, puts the Y axis in enough of a bind that it's hard to move.
Problem 1. I found that the Z axis's right hand side was always lagging behind the left. So if the Z was traveling up, the right side ends up slightly lower then the left side. And if you are traveling down, the right side ends up higher. I found that there is some binding on the right side. I could see that the top of the worm screw was going up. I found that it was actually increasing the separation in the slits in the coupling due to the binding. I removed the bearings from their holders on the right side Z shaft so it can float a little, and the binding went away. I also put a little lithium grease on the worm shafts. I'll have to work on that later. As I was leveling, I'd raise the Z, then move to the next corner, then lower the Z. The right hand side Z would not lower enough, due to binding, so I'd have to raise the table in that corner, putting the Y axis in a bind.
Problem 2. I don't know why, but even now that the Z stays level, if I get the bed level, it still puts the Y axis in a bind. I'm not sure about the accuracy of all the parts involved in the Y axis. It's a 3 piece table, 3D printed bearing holders, and 3D printed shaft supports. I did some measuring, and there are some differences in the corners of the table support. The back left corner is higher than the other three, even though the rod is 0.2mm lower in that corner. Looking on Amazon, there are machined bearing holders and shaft supports. There is even a stiff, one piece table support. So I've ordered all that. Should be here Friday.
I might have to do a little fabricating, as these shaft supports look like they are going to raise the Y axis rods a little. That may change the placement of the motor and belt tensioner, we'll see. I might have to raise them a little. That may also limit my Z height from reaching it's full potential. I might not be able to print stuff that's as tall as this was originally rated. So I might not get the full 13.75".
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