Well after a few days, I'm almost complete with the mechanical assembly.
The power supply mod was fairly straight forward. I stuck with the manual and decided not to remove the extra wires. I'm considering a Corsair power supply for the future, but given the increase in size from the original I figure I'd give it a shot.
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The base came together quickly, which in turn made it hard to set down the tools for the night.
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The heated bed assembly went as well as I could have hoped. A lapse in reading comprehension skills made the process a bit longer because I soldered the 22 ga wire instead of the 18 ga. Live and learn.
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Threading in the wires was not as difficult as I had imagined. I took the advice of one of my electricians and used some nylon string to pull the wires through. This made this process pretty easy. Had I used a bit of lubricant, it would have been easier, but I didn't want to risk any issues later on.
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I should have taken more pictures to describe the process I used but it boils down to the following steps:
Bundle the wire.
Wrap a string in loose spirals down the wire about 4-6".
Tape over the string and wires with one to two wraps. I used Kapton tape, but any style tape should work as long as the overall diameter of the bundle is taken into consideration.
Drop the string through the tower. It will need a little help on occasion, but is should go through pretty easy.
Pull the wire through. In my case a good amount of force was needed for the 18 ga and the 22/26 ga combo. I staggered the end stop wires so that the pins were not in one large bundle, but spaced about 3-4" apart. This allowed the end stop wires to be pulled through at one time.
Tower install was pretty easy once the t nuts were set to the proper depth. I had to tighten/loosen a couple to get the proper alignment. Again reading comprehension failure.
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I'm extremely blessed to have a 'big helper' to work alongside me with this build. He is so excited about the new 'robot'.
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The most rewarding part of this particular build has been sharing it with him.
The infamous top plate gave me quite the challenge. I had everything complete. T Nuts tight. Belts tight. Etc, only to find that I had manged to have it rotated one axis to the right.
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It was at this moment that I decided to stop staying up till the wee hours of the morning drinking beer and assembling the remaining pieces.
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I discovered my drunken mistake the next morning when I went to mount the extruder.
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Once I got everything back together I decided to mount the arms to see how everything was going to play out motion wise.
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I'm still waiting on my threaded thermistor to complete the hotend. Once that arrives, it's on to the electrical install.
This has been a very satisfying build compared to kits and homebrews I've completed in the past. I cannot wait to get everything up and running for the first test prints.
Cheers!
