Traitorous thoughts

[Captain Starfish]

I've done a couple of prints at home for my current client work-wise and they were impressed.

Enough that one of the engineers asked me to bring in my RMax in the hope the boss would notice and say "Yep. buy one".

They also got another contractor to bring in his Up Plus.

First impression was "gee it's small sitting next to the max!"

The second impression was "holy sheet it's quiet!" Actually, the second impression was more like the wide and vociferous range of complaints from the office about the noisy printers which stopped when I stopped the Max and left the Up running its job.

The third impression was "wow, that was easy!" after I've spent hours of false starts and tweaking settings and generally stuffing around with very average output and different slicers doing varied and horrible things to me for the Max, the owner of the Up just threw the STL in the firmware and hit the go button. Printout was tidy with some awesome support work, tight smooth finish and no stuffing around.

I have to admit, despite the fact that it has a tenth of the build volume and twice the price, has proprietary software and all those downsides; after seeing a printer which the guy just carried in, dropped on the desk, plugged in his laptop and threw a random (customer supplied) print at for really sweet results, the RMax may have lost a little of its shine for me.

The biggest thing was the noise - I'm still a little in awe of how quiet the Up was, or how horribly noisy the RMax is. Do the stepper dampers make ~that~ much difference? Or am I just damned by the function of the geometry and the larger/faster runs required inherently in a delta configuration?

[DavidF]

I wouldnt consider my rostock loud, in fact I quite enjoy the music it plays. Bit of curosity though, what stepper are on yours and what are your current settings?

[Polygonhell]

FWIW yes IME at least the original V1 max is the loudest printer I have ever used and I currently own 5 different printers, and by a pretty wide margin. And yes the dampers make an enormous difference.

It's obvious why if you just look at the design, the laser cut base is basically a perfect resonance chamber for the steppers that are directly coupled to it. Which is again why the rubber dampers make such a huge difference.

[Captain Starfish]

The steppers in there are whatever SeeMe were shipping about a year ago when I bought it.

Settings really don't seem to change it much, currently running at 120mm/s infill, 100 inner perimeters, 80 outer perimeter, 20 bridges, 140 support and playing with those or the % speed control don't change the volume of racket, just the key the tune is playing in.

I liked the tune at first but now that honeymoon is done, I find it intensely irritating. And seeing just how quiet a 3D printer can be has made that irritation worse.

Might be time to look at dampers, then. Cheers!

[JohnStack]

Starfish, you shoulda taken in the Orion, right?

totally different printers, hope the decision-maker grokked it.

Empathetic.

[gestalt73]

+1 for the dampers, even for the extruders, athough the mounting is a bit wonky for those.

Unfortunately one of the downsides to the rostock design is that you have what amounts to 3 large circular flat surfaces that are more than happy to broadcast the stepper vibrations out as sound. from all the steppers, including the extruder.

I've been wondering if someone were to cut out the center of each plate if it would reduce/eliminate the speaker effect. I'm not really ready to try it though, and the dampers make it suitably quiet compared to before.

[travelphotog]

I LOVE my dampers! My printer hardly sits still and we are already thinking of picking up a second one due to the current workload. There is NO WAY I would do that without the dampers on both. I have the Max V2 so maybe that has something to do with it. But picking those up for my build was a GREAT choice for me. YMMV

[Captain Starfish]

I don't have an Orion unfortunately.

Half the problems were due to my taking the thing in and switching to using my laptop which has none of the software or settings I've been putting together over the last year. No fault of the RMax. Or, really, of the software (and I tried a few). Surprising to see the old lifting ABS attack again - hasn't happened for ages. That didn't help. But the contrast with the noise was the killer.

In the end the client's boss walked through the room, looked at them (he only saw the RMax, didn't notice the UP coz it's kinda tiny and lame), said "cool" and kept on walking. Apparently he now knows two printers he can job work out to and that will be the last we hear of it.

So not the most spectacular of results.

Meh - I'll be looking to install dampers soon, and to start backing up settings. Watching the nice fast wide support with a couple of tight interface layers that the UP was laying down and how well it worked has me thinking of using the same with Slic3r (apart from it stalling out and/or crashing "writing gcode"). Or having a nice long look at the MatterControl code and seeing if I can't get it to do its raft stack at the top of the support rather than the bottom.

[Jimustanguitar]

I've been wondering if someone were to cut out the center of each plate if it would reduce/eliminate the speaker effect. I'm not really ready to try it though, and the dampers make it suitably quiet compared to before.

Stick some asphalt automotive sound deadener strips on it. DynaMat and its off brand equivalents will do wonders for transmitted vibration. I've not done it to my Max, but it does a great job on my air compressor tank.

[geneb]

How do the cork dampers compare to the Astrosyn devices?

g.

[Tinyhead]

Do the stepper dampers make ~that~ much difference?

After putting the Astrosyn dampers on mine, by far the loudest sound on the machine is the couple fans. HUGE difference.

[LASERMAN]

I see nothing "traitorous" about what you are thinking. My first printer was a Max kit. I have since bought another printer - and it was not a Max kit. There are advantages to each. My purpose in getting any printers was to learn about them. ALL of them. I can't see being "brand loyal" at this point in the game. I'd collect the whole set if I could!

[geneb]

HERETIC! BURN HIM!





g.

[travelphotog]

I will admit I do plan to pick up one or two more printers.. I am waiting to see if the Cobblebot can hold true to their promised pricing.. I am having a very hard time though thinking they can really pull it off at that price. But Michelle already wants her own Max V2 so our place is going to have a few printers in it shortly. So if we keep a 2-1 ratio of Maxes to others does that work for you GeneB?

[Generic Default]

Cartesianists should be executed for treason, no exceptions!

Just kidding. I dealt with lots of problems with my Rostock v1, most of which have been fixed by now. Part of it was that I insisted on printing with trimmer line, which has benefits but demands special parts. I have been frustrated at times; luckily I'm patient. Most hobbyists with 3d printers have considered making their own 3d printers with their own 3d printers. An example of this is Brian with his Nemesis delta printer (check it out).

It turns out that a more rigid, less plate-ey design is quieter than resonant plywood. Cork dampers and rubber dampers reduce the noise significantly, but in the end we need fully enclosed and dampened printers to get silent prints. One thing I figured out is that putting cork board slabs under your rostock with significantly reduce the stepper noise!

[McSlappy]

My V1 is as-shipped with no dampers at all. My v2 has the cork dampers from Trick laser and the difference is quite pronounced. I've never tested Astrosyn dampers but I'm quite happy with the reduced volume the cork ones provide.

I've heard lots of good things about the Up - and I guess for a plug and play style printing it would be great.

I'm pretty sure after printing a few things I'd want to change a setting that just wasn't available, who knows maybe I wouldn't... But I bet I would

[Captain Starfish]

Astrosyns enroute, will just have to drink more wine for new cork printer feets

I have noticed the jump from more is less even on the Max, jumping between Slic3r and MatterSlice.

MatterSlice gives really smooth, nice prints and sane g-code but it's young and I'm sure Kevin and Lars are getting sick to the back teeth of my continual stream of emails that go "It'd be nice if we could just tweak XYZ".

Slic3r lets me do all this customisation and tailoring but that hang on the final gcode generation gives me the irrits and the gcode it produces is bloody horrible, hot end is jumping randomly all over the shop.

Cura and Kisslicer I've played with but didn't really do it for me - depending on the job they either had too little to offer or they did something weird.

I'm guessing the Up would have frustrations of its own, and I'm looking forward to some printing that doesn't quite have that dentist brain-drilling noise pollution that I'm getting at the moment on my big baby.

Also keen to see how the geckotek plates work out as I'm still getting crappy ABS lift issues (the Up had a perf fibreglass plate which apparently worked really well).

And one day in the not-too-distant future time to look at a nylon upgrade.

[Generic Default]

Nylon upgrade?

And I just recently starting printing with ABS on a hot bed. My first ABS print with the smoothieboard used my Tri hotend, PTFE magnetic arms, and cheap walmart hairspray on a glass bed. It was a large print, a container for the smoothieboard. No warping at all!

SeeMeCNC should sell a pimp-my-printer kit with every possible upgrade. If they don't, I will! I've grown impatient waiting for the perfect do it all 3d printer.

[Captain Starfish]

Nylon upgrade = E3D or Prometheus or whatever all metal hot end and something appropriatey for the bed to sticky the nylon down.

[Flateric]

When I did my initial research and testing on the astrosyn dampers years ago I discovered through many hours of work that much $ has been spent on the development of the dampers by many big name photocopier companies and the like. We are lucky enough to benefit from this research when we use them.

The difference between a none isolating damper like cork and rubber and a totally isolating damper like the purpose built astrosyn dampers is very substantial for a number of reasons.

Unlike cork or rubber where the fastener is anchoring the motor through the machines frame (wood or rubber) and making contact with the frame and the motor with the fastener. A screw or bolt. The astrosyn type dampers totally isolate the frame from the motor with zero contact between the two to allow the motors vibrations to be transferred.

The dampers are also tuned specifically for the frame size of nema motor that they fit snugly onto. The rubber is of a very specific type and flexibility that is designed to kill that nema size of steppers vibrations. That being said there are some very bad dampers out there that are far too soft or incorrect thicknesses made by cheap chinese counterfit fleabay companies that have no real understanding of the dynamics involved. These copies are also not great for 3D printers because of the flex they allow the motor to achieve and this affects end effector accuracy.

I would estimate that the good proper dampers kill up to 90 percent of the sound from the motors. The cork, I would optimistically say kill 40% or the resonant vibration sound.

It is truely a night and day difference. I can actually hear the plastic being extruded out the hotend while printing if I kill my fans. Fans are by far the loudest thing on the 3D printer after good dampers are installed.

[Hydrolove]

Thats good to know, I am still waiting on my printer kit to arrive and went ahead and ordered those dampers. I figured installing them during the build is easier than taking it apart after the fact.

Kris

[Captain Starfish]

I have 'em on the way now for mine and a mate's printer.

Even lashed out for the extruder motor

[Broose]

How do the cork dampers compare to the Astrosyn devices?

g.

I've tried both. The Astrosyn dampers are significantly quieter than cork, which is significantly quieter than the stock RMax setup. With the Astrosyn dampers, the loudest sound on my RMax is a layer fan or E3D cooling fan.

[geneb]

Hrm...

Maybe one day.

g.

[Mac The Knife]

Over 20 days of printing time,,,, I'm still not annoyed by the sound.