Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

I started my build over the weekend. This is probably the most difficult thing I've ever tried to build - and I call it difficult due to my inexperience, not for any other reason.

On with the build

I'm having some trouble getting the power leads to the Onyx bed attached, but I'm going to try again tonight, then i should be able to mount the power supply and Rambo board.

Good luck on your build! Looking good so far.

My Rostock was one of the more challenging builds I've ever attempted, but the kind folks on this board really helped. Everytime I hit a bump in the road, I'd have an answer within hours on this forum!

I've seen people do everything from using 4 of the tiny wire bundles for each onyx power pad, to using 3 pairs of speakerwire (my choice), and even people using Silicon 10awg power cables (silicon cables are easier to route through the top base and into the cabinet). You're going to need a high temperature iron to solder the pads, I had my Variable temp weller up to full heat before I started.

Interesting - your RAMBo has screw terminals on the board. My Rambo uses screw terminal plugs. Wonder what other changes they made to the board....

Also I see the "Electronics Door" is now a blank panel - interesting, I guess nobody was mounting it to that location

Thanks for the great pictures. I am confused, in your first pictures your top piece for the base says "Rostock Max"
printed on it then in your later pictures with the base built I no longer see the printing. What's up with that?

Eaglezsoar wrote:Thanks for the great pictures. I am confused, in your first pictures your top piece for the base says "Rostock Max"
printed on it then in your later pictures with the base built I no longer see the printing. What's up with that?

If you click for the full image you can see it along what is the left edge. Thanks for making me panic and worry that I'd somehow put it on upside down or something!

Yea, it's the picture that shows the doors open where I don't see it. Glad to see it's okay, just trying to be sure there was
no problems before you got too far along. Sorry for the panic attack but you need your heart too pump fast now and then.
Looking forward to the rest of your build.

cassetti wrote:Good luck on your build! Looking good so far.

My Rostock was one of the more challenging builds I've ever attempted, but the kind folks on this board really helped. Everytime I hit a bump in the road, I'd have an answer within hours on this forum!

I've seen people do everything from using 4 of the tiny wire bundles for each onyx power pad, to using 3 pairs of speakerwire (my choice), and even people using Silicon 10awg power cables (silicon cables are easier to route through the top base and into the cabinet). You're going to need a high temperature iron to solder the pads, I had my Variable temp weller up to full heat before I started.

Interesting - your RAMBo has screw terminals on the board. My Rambo uses screw terminal plugs. Wonder what other changes they made to the board....

Also I see the "Electronics Door" is now a blank panel - interesting, I guess nobody was mounting it to that location

My RAMBo is like his, I believe that is one of the differences between v1 and v1.1. Although it's not listed here http://reprap.org/wiki/Rambo_development, I have seen indicators that this was changed then.

Not true, I have the RAMBo 1.1 with the 16 microsteps, yet still uses the plugs like the original Rambo - this must be 1.1b, or mine was a leftover board from 1.0 that they used to make a 1.1? Strange

Ahhhh, screw terminals were put on RAMBo for use by UltiMachine, it makes it a little more compact, and since there were screw terminals on the plugs, it made sense there too! So you should see screw terminals on the mosfet outputs on all rambos from about early march and on from us.

Continuing..

Got the extruder put together, the arms and carriage done, and the cheapskates. Now I'm fishing wire down the rails for the limit switches.

Belts on, limit switches installed. The limit switches turned out to be a PITA, not so much the wire fishing down the rails, that really wasn't too bad. The reason it was a pain (for me) was that:

a) The connectors just barely seemed to fit up into the area where the switch is installed

b) I also had to loosen the screw that holds the top idler assembly in place, bend the front connector of the switch forward a little and then tighten the screw.

I tried a couple of different ways of attaching the limit switches, but the rear connector either ended up rubbing against the belt, or the switch was too far forward to be tripped by the screw. I'm guessing I probably have something "not right" somewhere, but damned if I can figure out what it is. Seems like the limit switches should work as is though.
Adding the hot-end and wiring everything up is next.

I completed my build tonight, applied the power, and it didn't explode I managed to need to invert all the stepper motors in the firmware so at least I'm consistent! I have a new crimping tool arriving on Monday (I wanted to re-crimp all my wires as the tool I was using was crap..) so I'll re-wire the pins then. I kind of equate finishing the build of this printer to getting a black-belt in a martial art. You haven't reached the peak of your knowledge - you just know enough now to start really learning.

congrats!! Now the real fun begins!

You show a .6 variation between your extruder and your hot bed assuming both are at ambient, that's obviously an issue.

Congrats!! Looks great!!

Finally made my first print! The 10:1 mixture of Elmer's glue and water, plus raising the bed temp to 80c seemed to do the trick

I did see some play on my X cheapskate that I need to correct, but the print turned out way better than I thought it would.
Are the stray threads in the open spaces normal or do they point to something not calibrated correctly?
The result

The stringing is due to improper retract settings. Although, your stringing seems quite slight. The SMCNC fellas have a nice video on Youtube showing some slic3r settings that will help.

Thanks Foshon, I'll look for that video.

foshon wrote:The stringing is due to improper retract settings. Although, your stringing seems quite slight. The SMCNC fellas have a nice video on Youtube showing some slic3r settings that will help.

While waiting for my new hotend to arrive (and printing some parts with my semi-functional stock hotend) I decided to make a couple of small modifications to my Max.

First I added a fan to the electronics bay. I couldn't figure out a way to mount it anywhere other than where I did without needing to doing some additional cutting and drilling which I was trying to avoid. So I mounted it to the door and it pulls air through the opening under the LCD controller. Works really well actually. The fan is wired straight to the PSU so when the unit is turned on the fan comes on. When I mounted the RAMBO I had added some heatsinks on the back of the board where the stepper motor connections are and added some standoffs so I get good airflow all around the board.
Second I added a switch to my parts fan so I can turn it on and off as necessary when printing PLA. Initially I had it wired to run continuously and manually rotated it so it wouldn't blow on the bed when I didn't want it to. I mounted the switch on the second bay door.
Next up is to add the belt tensioners that I've been (slowly) printing - I hope to get all that done before my E3D head arrives in a couple of weeks. I also plan to add an LED illumination ring to the carriage.

Had a nice surprise when I got home from work today, my EZ-struder had arrived!

Surprisingly (because it's me ) it only took a few minutes to put it together. Awesome!

I'll get it mounted this weekend and take it for a spin. Now if my E3D would get here..

Let there be light!

I added the EZ-Struder and the top mount. I really need to find a better way to route these wires.

looking good cp

Man, those leds would blind you if you stared into them.
Great job in getting this far and thanks for the pictures, this
is the first time that I've seen the Seemecnc top mounted spool holder.
I wonder why they didn't put the spool between the uprights instead of
hanging it off the side. Hey, it works and looks good who am I too judge.
Thanks for all the pictures, I have been following along and enjoy reading
your posts. Neat use of the mason's line to hold the wires.

Thanks guys.

Yes, those LEDs are really bright!

I'm sure it's around somewhere but I couldn't find an assembly guide for the top mount anywhere so all I had to go by was the photo on the page where you order the mount. For all I know I put it together wrong, lol. But it works just fine. I'm still considering shortening the bowden tube a bit. I really want to run all the wires from the hoted up through the center hole on the top plate and then down over the side - but I'd need to extend all the wires and I really don't like the thought of doing that at this point.

I also realized that I can have two extruders now if I wanted to, I still have the original Steve's extruder and the side mount of course and soon I'll have an extra hotend..hmm.