Mhackney's Rostock Max

[bdjohns1]

I'm using an actual download from Repetier, so your location might not be the same, but it's right after the extruders, and before the custom thermistor tables.

In the current version of Repetier on their repo, it's line 415.

[mhackney]

Thanks guys. My new 40A relay with heatsink came in on Saturday but I haven't installed it yet.

[mhackney]

So, after my SSR flame out a few weeks ago (literally caught on fire) I've been paranoid about using an SSR to control the 24 V o my Onyx. I ran direct 24 V from RAMBo for almost 18 months with NO issues whatsoever but can't do that with the Azteeg 3 Pro.

I ordered a heat sink and a new 60A relay from Amazon. I've been busy with the Droplet and my reelmaking the last few weeks but I finally needed to get my heated bed working again (I was hobbling along on 12V and waaaaiiiiitttttiiiiinnnnnnggggg forever for the bed to warm up). I installed the SSR on the heatsink, hooked up and took it for its maiden run. I watched the temp cruise past the 60°C set point to 70, 80, ... at 90° I stopped the heated bed from the button in Repetier but the temp kept going up. Had to pull the plug to the power supply. Long story short, this relay is stuck always on. Doesn't give me a great deal of confidence in these things.

I had a second relay like the one that burst into flames so I've mounted it on the heatsink and testing out now. At least it is maintaining heat. I changed over to bang-bang limited check (#2) in Repetier. The heat sink is pretty hot. I am going to switch back to PID and see how that goes. I don't trust this relay though given the other one worked for quite some time and then just died.

[Renha]

I ran direct 24 V from RAMBo for almost 18 months with NO issues whatsoever but can't do that with the Azteeg 3 Pro.

why? It works great for me

[bdjohns1]

I ordered a heat sink and a new 60A relay from Amazon. I've been busy with the Droplet and my reelmaking the last few weeks but I finally needed to get my heated bed working again (I was hobbling along on 12V and waaaaiiiiitttttiiiiinnnnnnggggg forever for the bed to warm up). I installed the SSR on the heatsink, hooked up and took it for its maiden run. I watched the temp cruise past the 60°C set point to 70, 80, ... at 90° I stopped the heated bed from the button in Repetier but the temp kept going up. Had to pull the plug to the power supply. Long story short, this relay is stuck always on. Doesn't give me a great deal of confidence in these things.

Ouch, that seems kind of sketchy. I'll recommend the one I linked above from Auberins again. It's twice as much as the one you got off Amazon, but it also hasn't run away yet on my printer.

I imagine you could build in a watchdog circuit of some kind - if you're seeing current draw to your bed (or your hotend, for that matter) when it's not being commanded, do something - alarm, kill power and the print job, etc. We have that on the safety systems for a lot of equipment at work - a lot of times, an e-stop button will have both NC and NO contacts attached - if they ever both read closed or open, you've got a problem meriting an emergency stop of the machine - if you're unsure of what state you're in, you assume it's not a safe state.

You'd have to run your main power to your printer (at least the bed) through a relay you could switch based on that watchdog signal.

[mhackney]

I ordered the Auberins SSR - it's the path of choice. I haven't had any issues with the second unit but I don't trust it for a second!

[mhackney]

I just finished installing the TrickLaser carbon fiber-ball rod end arms on my Rostock V1. I had installed the magnetic ball end arms but over the past 6 months or so they have been failing intermittently at high speed slinging my Kraken 4 nozzle hot end around! The water cooling and wiring for 4 hot ends is not a lot of mass actually but the Bowdens and wiring are "stiff". I had a couple of actual pop offs on some high speed prints and once I had that happen I noticed some artifacts on part printed at high speed.

I've used CF rods and ballends on the Mini Kossels I've built and helped others build and I've been very impressed with the print quality. So, I picked up the TrickLaser set. Being a lazy bum, I decided to try to do the install in situ - who wants to disconnect an effector with all that hardware on it! The V1 platform came in 2 parts, a top and bottom, so I thought I could loosen all the screws and pry the parts apart enough to slide the new axels in. In worked great! Took about an hour and 15 minutes to replace all 3. Although my stock arms were 269mm and my Rostock was well calibrated, when I checked my Z height after installing, I was about .25mm too high. I set my Z=0 and now I'm printing a calibration cube to measure it and see what calibration I need to do.

I also got the Trick Trucks but I wanted to do the install in steps. That way I have a working printer to print my parts without a lot of down time! That and the wheels and other hardware for the trucks hasn't arrived from OpenBuilds yet. Once the stuff is in, I'll bite the bullet and install those. I'm really looking forward to them as I've beat the crap out of my CheapSkates (1000s of hours of printing) and they are starting to show the wear.

cheers,
Michael

[teoman]

I am installing an ssr now.

I intend on placing it close to the exhaust of the 24v power supply. Should help keeping it cool.

[mhackney]

Ok! The 25mm calibration cube comes out to:

width (X) = 24.90mm (measured in 3 locations - bottom, middle, top - all were within 0.01mm)
depth (Y) = 24.95mm (measured in 3 locations - bottom, middle, top - all were within 0.01mm)
height (Z) = 24.85mm (measured in 3 locations - bottom, middle, top - all were within 0.01mm - I know my first layer was too thin as my Z calibration was quick and dirty)

I wish I had printed a calibration cube before changing the arms. The layer registration is excellent - really pointing out that my stock arms and joints were getting a bit worn. You can click on the photo to get a bigger image that makes the layer registration more visible. This was in glow in the dark PLA and I had forgot to hook up my fan after the upgrade! So on the bridges I used a soda straw and did it the old fashioned way (blowing!). This is right off the bed with no cleanup - you can see a little filament "bridge worm" inside.

I remember the good old days with the SeeMeCNC H1 and trying to print this cube. It took a while but I finally mastered it on that machine!

[Khalid Khattak]

Amazing .. seems either your vernier needs calibration or the vernier is from China Origin
Congratulations on superb results... i wish i could get that accuracy with my CNC machine

[mhackney]

Thanks, its a Starett so I hope it is still in calibration! I don't even want to think about how many hours of dedicated effort went into being able to do that! I do remember the frustration, pain, urges to give up, etc. But now, I just have the knowledge and experience to print almost anything confidently. And, when I say print, I mean the entire process - filament characterization, understanding the slicer and how to manipulate it to get the best out of the filament, the extruder, hot end and nozzle characteristics, and, of course, the mechanical movement of the printer. Lots to understand!

[jdurand]

BTW, mentioning implements of measuring, I have two digital calipers. A no-name that's very old. 8" long, dead on accurate (checked against my gage block set), and the battery lasts what seems forever. The display only turns off when I press the power button.

The other is a newer Fowler Euro-CAL IV, water & oil resistant and supposedly super accurate. The accuracy seems good, the instructions say to never get it wet (???), and it powers itself off in something like 39 seconds so it's always off when you need it. Haven't gone through a battery but it uses the giant CR2032.

So..., I'm tending to favor the no-name.

[mhackney]

Last night the heater in my house gave up the ghost and the repair guys are here now putting in a new heating system. "No worries" I thought, "I'll do a little printing to relax and take my mind off it." Ha Ha Ha, the universe has different plans. I started up and set my Onyx to 50°C and hotend to 185°C to warm up. I glanced at the display and saw the Onyx hitting 80° and rising! I turned off the heater but the temp still kept going up and the LED on the Onyx is lit. I ended up having to unplug my 24V supply to stop the temp rise. Once cooled, I started back up and opened the base door so I could watch the SSR. The bed started heating up again, the LED on Onyx was continuously lit but the the LED on the SSR was not and the heater was not enabled in my host. It looks like the output side of the SSR has shorted. It's the 2nd Fotek that I bought last year. The first one went up in a ball of fire (literally). I have an Auber MGR1DD100D100 here that I intended to install, I guess I will have to now. The only way the Onyx could get power is through the output side of the existing SSR so it must be a short. I'll find out in a few minutes.

[mhackney]

Well, this is perplexing. I installed the new SSR and the same thing is happening. I then disconnected the output side and verified that the Onyx was not heating up. I then tested the SSR by turning on the heated bed (without the output hooked up) and see the LED on the SSR blink as it is trying to send power to the Onyx. I'd find it remarkably odd if the new Auber SSR was defective in the same way out of the box. Not impossible, just not probable. But what else could it be?

[mhackney]

Problem solved but perplexing. Turns out that I had the original SSR output side wired incorrectly. The feed from the 24V supply was going to the wrong terminal on the SSR. When I replaced it with the Auber I hooked it up the same. Turns out that it was reversed. Why the Fotek worked for months like this and then failed is beyond me. When I hooked the Auber up correctly it is working properly now.

[mhackney]

I like this Auber SSR! I've been running it for 1n hour and a half with no attached heat sink and it is dead cool. I'm even running my bed 10° higher since my heater in the house is kaput and my temp inside is 61°F! Nice little unit and worth the extra cost. I use these on other projects like my bamboo drying oven for bamboo fly rod making. Never had a failure.

[Renha]

I'm sorry mhackney, could you please answer my previous question there? What for all theese SSR's? Am I doing wrong wiring 24v direct to Azteeg X3 Pro with 24V?

[mhackney]

Renha, you must be running both your hot end and Onyx at 24V so you are fine connecting both direct to the board. Many of us run our hot ends at 12V and heated beds at 24V. The RAMBo board supported this on board and I did that for over a year. But it is safer to switch the 24V to the bed with an SSR controlled by the 12V heated bed output.

[Nylocke]

I saw your picture in the PEI thread, and I'm wondering where you got that cable wrap. I can only ever find the split loom stuff, but I like that corkscrewing stuff a lot more. Is it somewhere local or did you get it off the internet?

[mhackney]

Found it on eBay. Multi colors too.

[barry99705]

http://www.amazon.com/Spiral-Manage-Com ... B00OM9M8UA

[Nylocke]

Awesome, thanks

[mhackney]

That's good looking stuff barry. I'll pick that up for my next build.

[barry99705]

That's good looking stuff barry. I'll pick that up for my next build.

Not sure how thick the material is on that link. I've also found that type of wire loom at Napa, or other car parts stores.

[mhackney]

Well, after 3 weeks of printing printing printing fly fishing reels for customers I finally got caught up and even made extras for inventory. As a treat, I decided to bite the bullet and dig in and do the TrickLaser Trick Truck upgrade. I've had them sitting here ready to install for a month but couldn't risk the down time. The other motivation was that I discovered an odd print artifact in the last few prints I made today:

At first I though it was a scratch in my PEI but on closer inspection you can see the beads are actually shifted along the break line. This is precisely aligned with the movement of the X and Y towers. Best I could figure is that there was some debris, a burr or lump that caused one of the carriages to push out a bit. The rift line is S shaped due to the motion of the carriages. I didn't feel anything moving them manually but I decided this was a good reason to go for it.

My biggest concern was that I knew my firmware needed to be reconfigured and rebuilt since I lost my backup sometime over the last 6 months, can't find hide nor hair of it! I knew the TrickTruck conversion would go quickly, it was the reconfiguring Repetier for my Azteeg X3Pro and Kraken hot end and then the recalibration of the printer that caused my angst.

Well, 2 hours after starting I have a tricked Rostock and seem to be pretty close to calibrated. A few tweaks here and there over the next few prints and I should be good to go. One good thing about the TrickTrucks is you get some extra Z. It looks like got back a little over 2cm, not bad!

Here they are starting their first print:

They are nice and smooth. Here you can see the cool stainless thumbscrews I got for the endstop triggers. They are dead easy to adjust and look cool.

I'm really looking forward to putting the Trick trucks through their paces. They look awesome - very light and airy. I almost don't see them. I'll report back when I have a few dozen parts printed with them.

cheers,
Michael