Hunin's Rostock MAX v2 Build - Elric

[Hunin]

Today the box with my new 3D printer has arrived from SeeMeCNC. I've been waiting for it about 2 weeks. Unfortunately I'm flying to Seattle next week so I will only have one day to get started.

Here is a picture of the box arriving from UPS. It required my signature so I had to work from home in the afternoon to make sure it wasn't sent back.

My build space was a bit crowded from my past computer build and some things I am making for my scooter. I cleaned the room up a bit and got to unpacking the box. Here is all of the items which came with my Rostock.

I purchased an extra glass plate because I knew I wanted to experiment with different films on the build surface. I have a polyetherimide sheet I purchased from Amazon which I'm going to give a try. I really liked how GeraldO's build color came out with fluorescent orange. I am going to paint the ends of my "wood" parts a very bright orange. That is the next step for tomorrow.

I will continue updates with more build pictures and some of the mods I am wanting to try.

[Hunin]

Here are the parts ready for primer and then orange paint! Anything black will be orange and anything with paper on it will be black.

[Hunin]

The first step of the side parts being orange. It is too hot now for any further painting in the garage. So I'll need to paint the other parts next weekend.

The primer I'm using is Kilz Latex 2 primer. I had to use two coats to cover the majority of the black wood ends.

I'm using Rustoleum Neon Orange spray paint for the final coating. You will notice some of the orange paint on the top is cracking. The sides looked good when I inspected each part.

[Hunin]

The paint has dried and I removed the paper from the top and bottom of each "wood" part. Overall the paint came out okay. It isn't spectacular but it isn't a bad job either. I think I applied a bit too heavy of a priming coat in places which didn't let the orange color come through. I need to go over the lettering on the bottom plate with a fine paint brush and some neon orange paint.

While the paint was drying, I got to work on the hotend as well. I cut a narrow strip (3/8") of aluminium the width of the resistors and wrapped the foil tight around the resistor. Then inserted the foil in to the sides and applied copper silicone. Hopefully this will provide better thermal contact to the hotend. The thermistor is installed per the manual.

[Hunin]

Got back to building the 3d printer this week. A lot of stuff has happened in my life since I got it and I'm just now getting back to assembly. Got the base assembled with the stepper motor mounts with dampeners. The crimps on the power wires are coming off so I'm going to be looking for replacements. Next up is wiring the heated pad. I want to use 16 gauge wire for the heated pad power but need to make sure the hole in the center will accommodate the larger wire.

[Eaglezsoar]

A very nice build so far, thanks for the pictures!

[crocky]

Hi,

Just like my Bandit you obviously got your paint on a little better than I did.

Lovely paint but it takes a long time to dry. I fitted the dampers too and I am glad I did. I took ALL of the unused wires off the PSU and the build went pretty well.

Early models of the Max suffer with not enough air flow around the power supply and I would suggest leaving the back acrylic panel off (PSU) and putting a fan (sucking in) in one of the side covers with a vent on the other side cover. You will then have a Rostock that won't suffer any of the PSU problems. Later maxes have a much better base design with ample ventilation.

Hope your over the problems you had and can continue on to the end now, Orange is the colour

[Hunin]

Thanks for the encouragement. I like the idea of fans in the base. I build my own computers and always want enough ventilation. The base will seem crowded with the LCD panel and RAMBo board there. Maybe I can put a pot with a linear voltage controller on the LCD panel for fan speed control. This will happen at the end of the build though.

I also plan on putting LED strip lights underneath the top platform for general lighting and below the effector for spot lighting. I'm going to run another pair of 22 gauge wire through the Y axis tower for the lighting. I'm not sure if there is enough room in the tower.

[Hunin]

Ultimately decided not to run another set of wire through one of the tower supports. Got the tower supports installed and the wires ran through the aluminum. It went very smoothly and now I'm on to the top section assembly. I would like to say that the assembly manual is awesome and guides you through every part of the build process.

[Hunin]

Decided to name my printer Elric after Fullmetal Alchemist.

[crocky]

Elric sounds like a nice name...

Just like building mine, your doing great now

[dclarkm]

Decided to name my printer Elric after Fullmetal Alchemist.

Very few people are going to relate the name Elric to an Anime series.....cool name, just don't be surprised when someone asks you to print Stormbringer.....

[Hunin]

So life happened and I had to take a long break on building the printer. I've resumed and am almost done.

One problem is the wires broke off the crimped pins for the hot end thermistor going in to the RAMBO board. There is only one 1x2 latched female housing with the kit. Does anyone know how to remove pins from the connector with detached wires? I'm going to try an awl to push the pins out and a needle to push the metal pin latch down. Didn't have success trying to pry the pins out with my smallest needle nose pliers.

[Hunin]

The awl did work to get the pins out of the connector. Hopefully my first print will be tonight.

[Hunin]

Here is what my version of the finished Rostock MAX V2 looks like. I've since moved the Rostock from the garage to my home office.

I went through the tests tonight and found a few problems. All the endstops and motors works very well. The heated bed, bed thermistor, and two LED lights work well. I have an issue with the hotend heating and hotend thermistor. I've narrowed down the problem to the quick disconnect on the extruder platform. I get continuity between the connections on the RAMBO board and to the quick disconnect connector. I also get about 88k ohms on the thermistor and 3.2k ohms on the power resistors after the disconnect latch connector which I believe are the correct resistances.

My current thinking is the male pins aren't sticking out enough on the latch connectors. The male pins are 1/4" inside the male latch connector. The female pins look like they are all the way to the end of the female connector. Here is a picture of the male connector with the pins from my phone.

[Hunin]

One thing I wish is the nylon screws for the front panels had philips screwdriver head in addition to the knurled head. My hands are killing me from taking on and off the panels with these screws.

[Eaglezsoar]

Great build!
You might consider investing in an electric screwdriver to take the load from your hands.

[nitewatchman]

One thing I wish is the nylon screws for the front panels had philips screwdriver head in addition to the knurled head. My hands are killing me from taking on and off the panels with these screws.

Shortening the screws helps a bunch!

[Hunin]

One thing I wish is the nylon screws for the front panels had philips screwdriver head in addition to the knurled head. My hands are killing me from taking on and off the panels with these screws.

Shortening the screws helps a bunch!

That's a really good idea! I may give that a try.

I spent a few days investigating my issue with the hot end. I tested all of the wiring to the hot end and the wiring was getting continuity through out. I tried moving the wiring around inside and the continuity didn't break.

I took the hot end completely apart and tested the looked at the soldering for the thermistor which looked good. I tested the thermistor at the solder joint and it gave me a resistance in the K ohms. I tested the wiring up to the quick disconnect connector and it also gave me a resistance in the K ohms. So I put the hot end back together and took another look at the quick disconnect connector.

I already redid the female crimps and I can see the metal pins coming to the end of the housing. I have tried to shove the male pins further in to the housing because I think this was where the problem lay. It didn't work so I took a dremel and removed some of the plastic from the pin end of the housing. I put the connectors back together and it worked! The male pins really are not making connection to the female pins in the connector.

So I put everything back together and ran through the manual movement test procedures in the manual. While the hot end was moving, the nozzle gave me def error again. Forced the male pins back in the connector, rebooted and got an actual temperature. Moved the hot end and got an error again. So the connector is very sensitive and won't work for any "real" printing.

So now I'm looking to scrap the 1x4 0.100" latching connectors and redo the connection again. I have some extra JST connectors which I will try first. I've also thought of using a standard 4 pin molex connector similar to the old power supply hard drive connectors.

[JFettig]

One thing I wish is the nylon screws for the front panels had philips screwdriver head in addition to the knurled head. My hands are killing me from taking on and off the panels with these screws.

After taking my panels off twice they haven't been back on I'll run a tap through mine some day.

[Hunin]

I decided to use a Molex connector from some older spare computer parts. I was working on the last thermistor lead and while stripping the wire, pulled the entire lead out of the thermistor. Luckily I have an extra thermistor I bought on eBay a few weeks ago. I was able to remove the old thermistor and add the new one easily. I tested the hot end resistors and thermistor. It gave me roughly the correct resistance values. I put the hot end back in the printer and was able to heat the hot end to 100 C. Now on to the rest of the tuning later tonight.

Here is the new disconnect plug for the hot end.

[Hunin]

One thing I wish is the nylon screws for the front panels had philips screwdriver head in addition to the knurled head. My hands are killing me from taking on and off the panels with these screws.

After taking my panels off twice they haven't been back on I'll run a tap through mine some day.

I'd like to mount a Raspberry Pi to one of the panels to control the printer instead of my computer.

[Hunin]

I was able to do the bed calibration fairly successfully. I think I went through it about 6 times before getting everything to my current level. I tried to advance the filament with the extruder stepper motor and it didn't work. The screw would just go back and forth without moving. Searched the forums and found out one of the issues is a loose connector the to stepper motor. I looked at the wiring and saw several places where the pins were sticking out. I didn't some continuity tests and the connection seemed okay. However I didn't have very good skills crimping the previous pins so I decided to solder the stepper wire motors to the extension wires through the towers. Once the soldering was complete and the printer put back together, the extruder stepper motor worked like a charm.

I preheated the bed and the nozzle and started my first print. At the 4th layer, the print would shutdown and lose all power. Again searched the forums and found out about the heat issues with the power supply. I tried again and the printer shut off at the 4th layer. I felt the power supply case and it was warm. Took off the back and both side panels. Reapplied the glue and restarted the print. The printer worked and now I have a fan shroud.

Here is a picture of the first successful print. During the print, I noticed the X tower cheapstake was moving a lot so I have to adjust it for the next attempt.

[teoman]

I am a great fan of connectors for the hotend, but would it not be more logical to have long cables on the connectors, so all of the connectors are on top, attached to the build plate.

I think one could eliminate all the danglies and make a leaner looking hotend this way.

[Hunin]

I am a great fan of connectors for the hotend, but would it not be more logical to have long cables on the connectors, so all of the connectors are on top, attached to the build plate.

I think one could eliminate all the danglies and make a leaner looking hotend this way.

If the goal is to remove the hot end and exchange it quickly, I don't think the connectors being at the top of the printer would work well. I may want to feed more of the cable length in to the top of the printer thus reducing the wires around the hot end. However right now I'm still working on basic functionality rather than looks or quick changes. I do appreciate the suggestion.