Onyx and round borosilicate plate

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dbarrans
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Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by dbarrans »

I bought an Onyx but hadn't installed it yet because I didn't have a suitable build surface for it. Once they became available, I ordered a round borosilicate plate from SeeMeCNC, which arrived today. The glass is just slightly smaller in diameter than the Onyx, and covers up the solder pads for attaching the LED, resistor, and wiring. Now I have a few options, and none are desirable.

1) Hang the glass off the opposite edge of the Onyx, which looks sloppy and exposes it to more risk of damage, or
2) Solder the stuff on the bottom only which would hide the LED and make a less secure connection for the wires, or
3) Find a way to break off a half inch strip on the edge of the plate, then sand it smooth. Seems a bit risky.

Has anyone else come up with a better solution?

- dan
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thingevery
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by thingevery »

I'm using regular glass cut at 12 1/4", so it hangs over a tiny bit all the way around. I soldered everything from the bottom. There are through-holes, so I split up the wires into 2 parts each, so they'd fit into the holes. The connections feel pretty secure. [img]http://thingevery.com/rostock/Onyx-wiring.jpg[/img]
The problem I'm having is that it takes a really long time to get hot. And it can't really achieve temperatures of 90˚ or more. I'm thinking about adding more wires to it, but I'm not sure that will help.

As for the LED, if you don't snip the leads too short (like me), you'll be able to bend it up around the edge of the glass.
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by mhackney »

I received my Onyx and Rostock Max on Thursday so this is probably the latest model. It is 12.2" diameter with a short 3" long flat section at the back for the electronics and connections. There is a white line defining the build area at 11".

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v73 ... 2734-4.jpg[/img]

My local glass cutter is cutting a piece of 3/16" borosilicate glass 12.2" in diameter and cutting the flat section at the back. He'll grind the edges to prevent cuts. My plan is to print some little moon shaped clips to attach this to the Onyx. The electronics will be exposed since the plate is cut to match.

Cutting borosilicate glass is very easy and 1/8" is easier yet. Use a new glass cutter, practice on a piece of old picture frame glass or pick a scrap up at your hardware or glass store. You could also have your glass shop do the cutting, it should only cost a couple of dollars.

cheers,
Michael

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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by Eaglezsoar »

The picture of the Onyx you show is Release 2.
The Onyx shipped with most of the Indiegogo kits was Release 1 which is smaller and does not have the countersunk
holes for the screws. The 300mm glass seems to be designed for Release 2 of the Onyx.
What to do if you have Release 1 and you want to use the glass Seemecnc sells? You could countersink the holes in
your Onyx and come up with a way to mount the glass which will overhang the Onyx.
I bought a Release 2 of the Onyx (which hasn't come yet) and hope to sell the Release 1 on Ebay. On the Seemecnc
web site the pictures of the Onyx are Release 1 except for the one that is being held which is Release 2.
I hope this help someone understand why the glass is so large compared to the Onyx they have.
I plan on using a DC solid state relay and use 24 volts in an attempt to get the heat up faster, I hope that the Onyx
can withstand the increased current until it reaches the programmed temperature.
Thanks for the pictures and showing how to solder the wires to the bottom of the Onyx.
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by barnett »

Yeah I already ordered the seemecnc glass before I read this post about it being too large for my release 1 onyx. The glass came a couple days ago and indeed it's too big. I'm currently using square glass from the hardware store.

Also I'm curious on the 24 volts > faster heating issue. ABS is sticking to my bed at 70 degrees and my onyx gets there about as fast as it takes the hot end to reach 235. Well maybe a minute longer. But this seems fine.

Will I need to go hotter with other materials? I've only tried ABS so far.

thanks,
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by thingevery »

You're probably OK with your bed at 70˚. That gives me pretty good adhesion with ABS. As I understand, PLA will stick at lower temps, but there's a new vinyl material that looks like it will need to be hotter.

I'm using the Onyx v2, and it's taking about 30 minutes to get up above 70˚. Also, the center of the circle gets about 20˚ hotter than near the edges. I don't know if this is normal, or if there's a way to improve this performance.
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by mhackney »

The new material is nylon not vinyl. It actually seems to work well on a cooler glass plate and very well on a smooth poplar wood build surface.

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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by thingevery »

Ah, I stand corrected. In that case, I guess the current temps I'm getting are acceptable. I'd still like it to get hot faster, though.
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by Highcooley »

thingevery wrote:You're probably OK with your bed at 70˚. That gives me pretty good adhesion with ABS. As I understand, PLA will stick at lower temps, but there's a new vinyl material that looks like it will need to be hotter.

I'm using the Onyx v2, and it's taking about 30 minutes to get up above 70˚. Also, the center of the circle gets about 20˚ hotter than near the edges. I don't know if this is normal, or if there's a way to improve this performance.
Here what I got, when I measured temperature in several spots (the grey stuff is thermal paste to get accurate reading):
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U672 ... CF0627.JPG[/img]

On a graph, it looks like this:
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-lOEz ... x_temp.jpg[/img]

The first drop is around the spot, where the second heating spiral begins (several silvery PCB through holes). From the second to the third spiral, there does not seem to be a noticeable temperature drop. Somehow, the inner spiral seems to have a lower resistance than the outher two, leading to more current flowing through. But that would be impossible to measure without destroying the board.
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by mhackney »

Hot beds generally do have temperature transitions. On my H-1 I built a bed with nichrome wire. The "coil" was fairly widely spaced and led to hot/cold zones from wire to wire. The fix was simple - a sheet of .062" aluminum between the bed and glass evened the temperature.

My Onyx bed also has a temperature gradient and I will machine a circular aluminum plate to distribute the heat. I'll report back when I do but I have a bit of work to do to get my Max printing before I get to that.

cheers,
Michael

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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by ccavanaugh »

Great suggestion adding the .062 aluminum plate.

Has the plate done anything to limit the maximum obtainable temperature or only better distributes it? I'm struggling a bit to reach temp with my H1.

Thanks,
Craig
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by mhackney »

I use a 30 amp 12 volt power supply. No trouble getting to temp. The aluminum just spreads the heat better.

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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by jesse »

A borosilicate plate is now being sold on SeeMeCNC.

Is it too large (300 mm) to fit on the Onyx bed (280 mm)? Will the bolt heads be in the way?

What's the purpose of printing on a borosilicate glass plate?
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by mhackney »

I can't speak to SeeMeCNC's plate, but a round plate needs to be smaller to utilize all of the printing area. My plate has a flat cut to prevent interference with the electronics connections.

Glass has the advantage of being dead flat, not warping when heated, able to be heated, and you can print directly to it without damaging it.

Cheers,
Michael

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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by jesse »

Received a reply from SeeMeCNC by email.
we switched to the new style bolts, but if you have the old style, you can pick up 6 4-40X3/4" flat head bolts to replace them with
I ordered 100 on ebay for $3.00. Let me know if you would like at set.
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by PartDaddy »

While I designed the Onyx with a uniform width trace, we have talked about a spiral with decreasing width of trace. Wide trace in the center, tapering to narrow trace at the edge. If an experienced electrical engineer would like to comment on this, I'd value the input.

My concern is that the outside may get too hot. What do you think?
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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by mhackney »

Calculating the width of the trace to achieve the power dissipation is probably possible but also probably pretty complex. Another approach is the one I took on my H-1 heated bed which was to divide the heating area up into smaller partitions - each with its own power feed. This could also be done with a circular build plate using concentric zones. The zones would not be spiral since you need to route all of the leads back to the connection pads. But you could control the length of the traces in each zone so they would be about equal - which would more evenly distribute the heat. And as an added bonus you could provide separate leads to the zones so only the area that needs to be heated for a given print would get power and heat up.

Here's the idea with 3 zones:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v79 ... 9260-4.jpg[/img]

You should get the idea from this. But the zones would get narrower towards the perimeter since the traces are longer. The idea is to have the same resistance (which for the same trace width means the same trace length) for each section, thereby evening the heat.

Some of the rectangular plates do something similar breaking the area down into smaller square spirals of traces.

cheers,
Michael

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Re: Onyx and round borosilicate plate

Post by jesse »

I received the SeeMeCNC borosilicate plate and own the Onyx V1 heated bed (from IndieGoGo).

The screw holes on the Onyx PCB need to be widened and countersunk.

Does anyone know what type of drill bit can be used to widen and countersink the screw holes?
While I designed the Onyx with a uniform width trace, we have talked about a spiral with decreasing width of trace. Wide trace in the center, tapering to narrow trace at the edge. If an experienced electrical engineer would like to comment on this, I'd value the input.

My concern is that the outside may get too hot. What do you think?
Shouldn't the trace positioning be proportional in some way to the amount of surface area it has to heat?
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