Tricklaser EZmount KIT for Rostock Max

[inventabuild]

Will the Kysan Geared 5.2:1 Nema 17 fit into the "Tricklaser EZmount KIT for Rostock MAX" w/ out modification?

http://www.kysanelectronics.com/Product ... ordID=8318

I might need to buy a reduced geared stepper motor to improve print quality and I already own the Tricklaser EZmount kit which is the reason for my question.

Also, wondering if there are any other good options for a reduced geared stepper motor?

[kbob]

The Kysan gear motor has an 8 mm shaft. The EZStruder gear fits a 5 mm shaft. You would have to modify one or the other.

[626Pilot]

Also, wondering if there are any other good options for a reduced geared stepper motor?

You can get some planetary gearsets on Thingiverse that will do something pretty similar to this. (The Kysan has a planetary gearset.) You'd need to modify the gearset to have an output shaft of the right diameter. Additionally you'd need 4 new screws (3 of one length and 1 of another) to mount it, depending on how thick the transmission is.

Another option would be to get a stepper with finer resolution, like 0.9 instead of 1.8. They come with a lot higher resolution than that, too. Not sure where to get one, but if you can find a NEMA 17 stepper with a 5mm shaft and sufficiently high steps/revolution it would be a drop-in replacement. You'd just have to change a setting in the EEPROM.

[JohnStack]

I'm interested in your results if you go to finer steps. For one, I'm wondering if the precision of the motor isn't offset (cancelled) by the gears, by the variability of the filament, and the imprecision of the software.

Would you know of any examples where finer steps on the extruder are beneficial?

I hope this works for you as I see this being a really great refinement!

Another thing came to mind - beyond visual results, I'm wondering if there might be an STL that you might use on a before/after basis that really shows the benefits as well as facilitate being measured - of your intended change.

[626Pilot]

I've noticed a couple of effects that make me wonder. First, I can put my index finger on the extruder stepper and feel individual pulses when it's printing slowly. The more steps you have per rev, the smoother that is, although I don't know to what extent the filament/Bowden tube act as a "capacitor" to smooth that out. Second, walls seem to be smoother at *higher* speeds in some cases, which correlates with the stepper's output being less jagged and more smooth, like if you were sampling sound at 16KHz instead of 8KHz. However, correlation by itself does not indicate causation so I'm not sure. It could also have to do with microstepping and its effect on positional accuracy at higher speeds, and by that I refer to the X/Y/Z motors.

[lordbinky]

Seems that gearing effectively acts as a motor damper.

http://www.linengineering.com/accessories/Nema17_Damper.aspx

http://www.earsc.com/HOME/engineering/TechnicalWhitePapers/TunedDamper/index.asp?SID=67

My favorite are ferrofluid dampers, just because they're using freakin' magnetic fluid!

[inventabuild]

Interesting possibilities. I wanted a reduced gear motor because I was concerned the stock Nema 17 on the EZStruder didn't have the torque to keep up with faster builds and imperfections would be the result. Now it sounds like I want a reduced gear stepper motor w/ a high number of steps and a damper. Probably could improve the Nema's on the towers while I'm at it...

[Broose]

There is one other advantage to the the gearhead motor on an EZStruder. There is some kind of bug/processor issue discussed elsewhere on this forum (http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... ier#p15347) with lowering the flow multiplier below 100% on short moves with the EZStruder. It causes hesitation of the printer that goes away when turned back to 100%. This only showed up for me after installing the Ezstruder and not with Steve's extruder. I expect it's related to the lower number of steps/mm. A 5:1 gearhead motor like the Kysan would probably eliminate that issue as well as increase the torque to the drive roller.

The other thing that would need to be done to mount a Kysan 5:1 or similar to the EZstruder besides boring the drive roller to 8mm is to make a mounting plate that adapts the round end of the planetary gear to the square NEMA 17 mounting hole pattern.

[626Pilot]

Honestly I think the stock EZStruder has enough torque. If you're printing at high speeds and it's starting to make the extruder skip, what's really happening is that the spring that clamps the filament in place is not strong enough to keep it from slipping. At least, that's what I've observed - the filament release lever can be seen to move at the same time the stepper is straining. Someone designed a spring standoff that compresses the spring so it will hold on under higher pressure (it's on Thingiverse somewhere) but once you start pushing hard enough on the filament you risk wearing out the teeth on the Bowden clamps (I went through three of them in a week of high-speed printing) and it can also mess things up inside the hot end. If anything, I view that release lever skipping as a safety valve! If you've had to take apart a hot end to muck it out and get all the gooped up PLA that either knocked something out of alignment or oozed all over the place, you know why.

If you're printing with ABS, just about any hot end should have low enough pressure that you never run out of torque. With PLA, the solution is to get a hot end that's good for PLA (i.e., shortest melt zone possible, best cooling possible, and retracts that take the least possible millimeters in order to avoid heat-soaking the head.) The Budaschnozzle I use right now is *fairly* good. I've heard the E3D is a lot better, so I've got one on order. It's no coincidence that both of those hot ends have lots of aluminum fins. I found the SeeMe and hotends.com J-heads are not quite as good, although the J-head does seem to work better.

[Broose]

I am running the Ezstruder 1:1 with no problems with a J-Head and PLA. Never had any problems with it with ABS. I was using an older v4 E3d hot end and was having skipping issues with PLA and the EZstruder and had to go to a geared head modified QUBD extruder (similar to the berrybot extruder) I had built earlier. Flateric thinks this E3d PLA issue has been solved with the v5 E3d hot end that they are shipping now (http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... =70#p16600)

[Eaglezsoar]

In the Xnaron magnetic arm thread he shows his 5:1 geared extruder that he uses and he included the stl files so that you could print the actual extruder portion.
I think going that route makes more sense than trying to modify the Ezstruder to work with the geared motors.

[lordbinky]

Honestly a geared extruder makes ALOT of sense to use if you're going the ezstruder path. You don't get full torque on every microstep between full steps, and for the extruder where significant torque and resistance is a guarantee, gearing doesl help to smooth out the movement because the microsteps are more likely to meet those reduced torque requirements.