What's in the workshop? A 3D printer!

[tc4332]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

Well the Hypercube kit finally arrived from Ratrig (two weeks to get here from Portugal) and I have to say I am pretty underwhelmed. The extrusions are cut very accurately, but the angle brackets for joining the extrusions are straight outta Shenzhen They're supposed to have little tabs on them which align them with the grooves in the extrusion, but these are just tiny stumps which do nothing so its really difficult to get the frame square. By contrast, the brackets I printed for the CR-10, on the CR-10 are far sturdier and dimensionally accurate. I would have been better off printing the brackets for the 'cube while waiting for the extrusion to turn up.

I'll probably still order the extrusion for the Evo from them when the time comes since they're the only European supplier of black 3030 I can find, but I will source or print the hardware myself.

Pics of the frame later

It's all a bit of a bugger.
I ordered some tram bits from the only manufacturer who resides in the States. Ordered before Xmas and finally emailed him this week. Prompt reply, All manually made so it takes time to fulfill the orders.
Thanks for letting us know about the right angle brackets, probably like the plastic ones in MFI days. That is if you remember MFI.
We're looking at an Evo but on the higher side. Auto levelling, maybe tool changing, or multiple extruders feeding the one nozzle.
All pipe dreams at the moment just like my self dreiving trams.

[MikkiJayne]

New preferred supplier of extrusion: https://ooznest.co.uk/

The anodising is better, the ends are cut much cleaner with no burrs, and custom lengths turned up next day Better in every way than Ratrig.

Only downside is that they don't have 3030 so no good for building an Evo, but they do have 4040 for building a monster

[tc4332]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

New preferred supplier of extrusion: https://ooznest.co.uk/

The anodising is better, the ends are cut much cleaner with no burrs, and custom lengths turned up next day Better in every way than Ratrig.

Only downside is that they don't have 3030 so no good for building an Evo, but they do have 4040 for building a monster

Thanks MJ.
But why is there always a downside?
We are looking at various dual extruders.

[MikkiJayne]

Current state of the CR-10S:







Fully self-contained now with all the electronics in the base, including a Raspberry Pi 3 which was supposed to be running Octoprint. More on that later.

The X carriage broke again. Turns out its actually from the nozzle running over blobs of filament when its messed up a bridge etc. The hard plastic simply pushes the nozzle out of the way, and the X carriage is the weak link so it breaks the studs off. This is my temporary repair from last time which has now worked loose again:







Enough of that. I made a new piece from 4mm aircraft-grade 7075 aluminium plate:



I also made a support bracket / spacer thingy which spaces the hotend off the plate and supports its base. The groove is for a cable tie. I made this in the mill.





Installed





This is so much more stable than the original! The belt is cable tied to a bolt for now. Not ideal, but it got the printer running again.

I'm currently printing this to hold the belt properly:



The part cooling fang is held on with a cable tie. I was going to do something fancy bolting the fan right through in to the X carriage, but actually it doesn't need it. The cable tie holds it all still just fine. I might tidy it up in the future when I'm at a loose end...



Printing again! Much better quality than it has been doing for a while too.



I also had a cunning plan to solve the Z height misalignment issue I've been having. I homed the Z axis and straightened the Z couplers up so the slot is parallel with X. This took about an hour to get right! But, once I had both couplers parallel and the X carriage perfectly level with the frame I levelled the bed and did a test print.

The couplers were set like this before printing:





Re-homing after a print the right hand coupler ended up like this:



All I have to do now is home the printer before a print and then manually straighten the right hand Z coupler, then I know its in the right place and I can start the print

[MikkiJayne]

Hypercube pic dump. I'm doing dual Z screws and four Z rods so its actually a mini Hevo! I'm using the original Hypercube as inspiration, but pretty much making it up as I go along Print something, don't like it, design a new one, print that, bolt it together















Difference in quality between Ooznest (left) and Ratrig (right)

[gninnam]

Like your idea with the CR10 making sure that the Z couplers being aligned. Will look at doing that myself.
So far the last few prints have come out good so I am happy the bed is staying level (what I have done is put some masking tape in the middle of the plate as I know the glass bed is flat yet when setting up the leveling, no matter what I did the centre was always off.
Since adding the tape all is good

The Hypercube looks like it will be keeping you busy for a while.
Still getting to used to the CR10 (still happy with it also) before Ieven think of building something like that!

Cheers

[MikkiJayne]

Finished the belt clamps.

Angry robot



Out of focus as usual but you get the idea. These hold the belt very firmly and the movement is nice and smooth. Better in fact than when it was new





Back to printing Hypercube parts