Difference between revisions of "Cerberus (metric)"

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For my first printer I searched many shops to find a suitable round cheap glass bed. This proved rather hard to find. I finally got lucky in a Blokker store which sells a 30cm glass turntable for food serving purposes. Hardened glass, smooth edge, cheap: perfect. I bought two.. One spare.
 
For my first printer I searched many shops to find a suitable round cheap glass bed. This proved rather hard to find. I finally got lucky in a Blokker store which sells a 30cm glass turntable for food serving purposes. Hardened glass, smooth edge, cheap: perfect. I bought two.. One spare.
Now, I need to find a bunch more but... they no longer carry them. I visited 4 shops yesterday to no avail. Today, one which -upon inquiry with the manager- turned up two, stocked far away in the 'basement'. So, '''IF''' you happen to stumble onto one of these, do not hesitate and buy ! As of today, we need 2-3 more still...
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Now, I need to find a bunch more but... they no longer carry them. I visited 4 shops yesterday to no avail. Today, one which -upon inquiry with the manager- turned up two, stocked far away in the 'basement'. So, '''IF''' you happen to stumble onto one of these, do not hesitate and buy ! As of today, we need 2-3 more still...<br>
 +
This is how the box looks, but it probably isn't displayed anymore... [[File:201310 232157.jpg|240px]]

Revision as of 02:55, 24 October 2013

Projects
Participants Ultratux
Skills Electronics, Fine mechanics, Assembling, Construction
Status Planning
Niche Mechanics
Purpose World domination

Workshop aiming to build a number of 3D printers of the "delta robot" principle. We will try to stick to the original design as much as possible, but with metric/EU parts.

First steps

  • Waiting to see how many participants will join, to know in which numbers to order components
  • Querying wishes of participants in regards to build volume, other details, etc.
  • Compiling a bill of materials and defining correct order to purchase them in
  • Making sure all parts can be acquired in a timely fashion (and for a fair price)
  • Printing a few of the parts, noting time required and quality/checking tolerances
  • Scheduling a first pre-purchase planning meeting?

I've built my first printer with 1 meter aluminum extrusions, but a bit higher or lower is also possible. Say minimum ~75cm, max ~1m20 maybe ? It would be good to hear everyone's preference to get the order of that under way.

I've emailed Steve Graber, waiting to hear back from him on availability and cost of the CNC'ed parts...

Yesterday I have printed three parts -see pic-. The two upper parts each took 3,5 hours to print. The lower one took 3 hours. The two upper parts are supposed to fit together, but it is extremely tight, I need to test if it fits or that printing adjustments need to be made (or machining...) Also, whether the lower part fits my extrusion profile which is hard to test without disassembling my printer..
20131010 024607.jpg

Then, as each printer needs six pcs of each pictured part (not 100% identical but close enough) this means 40 hours of printing(!) for just the base building blocks for 1 printer. This means careful planning is in order to avoid disappointments, and perhaps an early start on printing objects.

Participants

  • I, Ultratux, will probably build one as well, even though I have the earlier adapted variant.
  • Damnlie has shown interest but had to cancel
  • rad0 will very likely build one and volunteered to documment the whole process.
  • caduceus has shown interest
  • rep has shown interest / will participate

Proposed timeline

Without the parts from Grabercars, this project cannot take off. So first, I will wait for his reply and/or seek contact again by different means. Hopefully he'll reply with good news and we can order the parts.
Then, I plan to take the order for the aluminum extrusions, so I need to know the length everyone desires. Standard is 1000mm. I prefer ordering them cut, they can make much nicer cuts than we can, but mostly it helps with shipping; because 6 meter lenghts don't come by DHL...
In the mean time, a start should have been made with printing many of the base parts as shown in the pic. For 4 printers, we'd need 48 such parts, (plus a number of smaller parts)
Then to assemble and thread the towers, the only part(s) missing are the stepper motors. So by this time, we can either order the stepper motors, the stepper motors plus controller boards, or even ALL the remaining parts (extruder parts, hotends, heatbed etc.) So there is time until this step to choose hotend options, controller options, etc.

Testing the first printed parts

Today I printed a third arm, filed all three down a bit, removing debris and fit them together (a hammer and some careful use of it is required). It is a tiny bit too tight which is apparent by the somewhat wider gaps on the edges, but I think it still fits nice. It is very stiff and sturdy. Good.
20131011 232157.jpg

Better HotEnd

While looking for a solution to my ongoing extruder/hotend problems (it has skipping issues probably due to clogging) I at first wanted to purchase a better bowden connector with a pneufit, but soon after stumbled onto a modern and smart hotend design by E3D which offers a number of very clear advantages over my current J-Head;

  • Can sustain much higher temperatures because it has no PEEK or PTFE parts. Like over 300. Or even over 400.
  • Has no PTFE parts that can deteriorate, swell, leak, pinch or crush the filament, so probably more reliable.
  • Has instead of a power resistor a ceramic element which heats up extremely much faster.
  • Has a channeled fan casing/duct so the cooling isn't accomplished by accident, but with degrees of certainty.

And as far as I can see now, has just one drawback:

  • Has a mechanical weak point, so a head crash into the bed or something similar is really to be avoided at all cost.

I have been working on mounting it today but there was too much else to do plus my pneufit coupling went missing so that got delayed. And I need to adapt the holder because it doesn't fit this one as-is. And after that I need to change settings in firmware and in slic3r, and recalibrate the Z. But when done, I ought to have a better hotend which also has a much stronger pneufit bowden connector, which therefore permits the use of a stronger stepper motor, allowing higher feed rates thus feeding filament faster in a reliable way, which eventually will result in finally attaining the higher speeds these delta printers ought to be able to sustain (the platform being so lightweight). I hate it that I needed to severely limit my speed due to the extruder not being able to keep up. So I am very excited by this...

Sadly, my time is very limited this week due to personal reasons. Stay tuned for news later!

Small problem / minor setback

For my first printer I searched many shops to find a suitable round cheap glass bed. This proved rather hard to find. I finally got lucky in a Blokker store which sells a 30cm glass turntable for food serving purposes. Hardened glass, smooth edge, cheap: perfect. I bought two.. One spare. Now, I need to find a bunch more but... they no longer carry them. I visited 4 shops yesterday to no avail. Today, one which -upon inquiry with the manager- turned up two, stocked far away in the 'basement'. So, IF you happen to stumble onto one of these, do not hesitate and buy ! As of today, we need 2-3 more still...
This is how the box looks, but it probably isn't displayed anymore... 240px