Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Well, it doesn't really look Hawaiian style, but the sweat dripping off my body from no A/C over 5 days of building is certainly in Hawaiian style!

I started the build of my printer on Tuesday when I received it, and finished up today and am currently printing my PEEK fan shroud. I wanted to say that after 14 building hours and 4 hours to calibrate, it seems to be doing pretty well for itself as far as I can see. It might be over extruding a tiny bit and could use some tweaks on print settings since it has a few minor blemishes, but it stuck to the plate and is working away at a relatively silent pitch. I added the TrickLaser stepper mounts while building it, so I can't tell if they are quieter than normal, but it is no louder (maybe even quieter!) than my inkjet printer.

Photos: https://imgur.com/a/Urkji

First Print: http://youtu.be/mCpiRCg756A

The assembly manual was very good, although I will be going through it and noting some suggestions at certain places where I messed up or didn't quite understand what was to be done. Also, I have some suggestions for the build that seemed difficult in certain places or not quite right but was easy enough to figure out. Not complaining about the assembly manual, it is awesome, but I figure a few small suggestions can't hurt!

Notes for the manual and general build suggestions all in one place:

• Larger photos of screws and stuff so I can compare to what I have. I didn't know the difference between each screw to save my life, although I was able to figure it out alright by googling them.
• The melamine sheets are quite different now than the ones in the manual. Check out my pictures in the album to see what they look like now.
• Stepper Motors (pg. 44ish): Put the note about making one of the stepper mount assemblies mirrored at the front of the section. I tended to not read ALL the instructions before doing stuff and sometimes that got me into trouble. Maybe just make a note to read ALL of the instructions for a section BEFORE starting for idiots like myself :)
• There is now a Rev. 7 heated bed that's more like the older ones as far as wiring them goes. I forgot photos of the underside, sorry!
• 4-conductor wires: I didn't check closely enough to see what wires were what and initially used 22 gauge wire for the heated bed. Don't make my mistake! The grey sheathing has the gauge written on it, BTW.
• Tower Wiring: I used the thin wire inside the grey 4-conductor wiring that was throw-away to tie around the wires and pull them through. It is impossible to put the wires through any other way, IMO.
• Make sure you put all 4 t-slot nuts in each tower mounting bracket (pg. 95)! I didn't realize there were 4 places for them at first!
• End stop switches (pg 102): Maybe it would be easier to install these near page 125 where you plug in the connectors. I think it would be easier to plug them in while the switch is off of the mount and THEN mount it. Just my opinion, though :)
• Cheapskate plates (pg 114): tap those t-nuts into the board really really well or you're going to regret it later as they push out of the board and don't tighten down!
• Cheapskates (pg 117): I put them together first and then slipped them on from the top of the towers, it made it easier for me than trying to tighten stuff while they were on the towers.
• Idler Bearings (p 123): MAKE SURE TO PUT A WASHER ON THE SCREW SIDE OF THESE! It makes it much less likely to overtighten and ruin stuff.
• Hot end wiring (p 147): Don't cut it too short like I did. I'd suggest making the wires long enough to reach to where the LCD goes and cutting them off JUST BELOW the top plate. I made mine too short and then made them a bit too long after that.
• Mesh (p 149): I put a zip tie right at the end of the mesh around it and the wires before I shrink tubed it. That's just personal preference, but I see that all the time on professionally done meshing jobs so I did it. You then just put the shrink tube over the wires, mesh, and zip tie. all together.
• Soldering thermistor (p. 151): That was hard, the tiny wires didn't want to stay in place. I ended up tinning the green and white wires and then sticking the thermistor to it after while heating the solder on the tinned wires. Also, if I did this again I would get some smaller 22 gauge wire for these white and green wires and use that instead since the RAMBO-side latching connectors do not work well with 18 gauge wire. I soldered a length of 22 gauge onto that end just so it would work better.
• Hot end installation (p. 162): Give a very slight twist to the hot end so the bowden tube and wires don't rub as much against stuff. I just let the hot end hang for a second, then twisted it 2/3 of a twist before installing the bracket.
• Spool holder (p 166): Make sure to put it together as pictured. I messed up the first time and had to reassemble it. Maybe I need to RTFM better!
• Tapping the holes (p. 169): I used the screw method, but found that wiggling the drill as I did it made the black thumbscrews screw in a bit easier. If you just go straight up and down, they are a pain to screw in with your hands!
• RAMBO board installation (p 193): I found it easier to install the non-connector wires and put in the RAMBO and then plug the ones with a connector in after. Otherwise it turns into a mess of wires!
• LCD Interface Board Plugging (p. 194): It isn't clear here, but you need to install the plugs B and A onto the small adaptor board with the small knobs on the connectors facing in the UP direction when the RAMBO is mounted. Because the ribbon wires were backwards on my ribbons as compared to the ribbons on the connectors in the photos I figured it out when the LCD didn't power up later. Basically, if your LCD fails to power on when you power up the printer at the end of the build, just flip the connectors around (NOT BY PLUGGING B TO A: I MEAN BY INVERTING EACH OF B AND A ON THE SMALL BOARD).
• Power and USB cables (p. 201): I zip tied the USB cable to a hole in the x-axis mount so it wouldn't pull free if tugged on.
• PEEK Fan install (p. 250): Don't forget that the 26 gauge wires you want to wire the PEEK fan to is the ones that are tied with a knot :)
• Blower squirrel fan (last print): Mine printed well at 50% speed after the point mentioned in the manual, but the nozzle tip didn't fit below and hit the bed so I had to clip it down a bit afterwards.

That's it for now, unless I think of anything else!

Thanks for the thoughts. They should be useful for me going forward. I don't think you mentioned the reasons for 22 AWG for the thermistor, but I agree with you and I think I know why. The locking connector supplied to go to the Rambo board is not suited for wires as large as 18 awg. Also, a thermistor does not need 18 awg, even for such a long run.

Can't wait to see your pics and video.

bot wrote:Thanks for the thoughts. They should be useful for me going forward. I don't think you mentioned the reasons for 22 AWG for the thermistor, but I agree with you and I think I know why. The locking connector supplied to go to the Rambo board is not suited for wires as large as 18 awg. Also, a thermistor does not need 18 awg, even for such a long run.

Can't wait to see your pics and video.

Hey, I just got up some photos and stuff. You were right, I found that the crimp connectors for the RAMBO board connectors didn't work with 18 awg wire so I had to splice a few inches of 22 awg wire to get that in there properly. Also, I HATE HATE HATE those crimp connectors and cannot get them to work correctly! Anyways, thanks for the comment and check out the pictures that are up now. I didn't take as many as I wanted, because I got too excited at some parts, but a large portion is there.

I am checking them out now. How did you break the PSU?

bot wrote:I am checking them out now. How did you break the PSU?

I got excited about cleaning up wires and started cutting them off and desoldering them from the PSU board. Didn't work out and the PSU was fried. No biggie

Another note: The blower fan shroud/mount that is the second print in the manual doesn't fit properly under my setup for some reason. The tip of it touches the bed way before the nozzle does, so I had to do a quick-fix of clipping the tip down a bit.

Not big deal though, I'm currently designing an "LED Illuminator + Hot End LED + 30mm Blower" mount that should fit better! I am going to make it two parts that connect together so that you can mount the LEDs on a ring below and then choose where to put the 1,2, or even 3 blowers should you want more than one. Not sure what to wire the LEDs into yet, but I'm thinking they might go with the PEEK fan since it's on all the time anyways while the hot end is on and I can then just wire the hot end LED in there for fun as well. I got three of these (https://www.radioshack.com/product/inde ... Id=3060973) so I think those should work fine with the fan and another red LED. According to what I know, I should be able to get about 360mA max through the 26awg wire, so these three, the hot end red LED, and the fan should be perfectly fine at less than 150mA.

redoverred wrote:Another note: The blower fan shroud/mount that is the second print in the manual doesn't fit properly under my setup for some reason. The tip of it touches the bed way before the nozzle does, so I had to do a quick-fix of clipping the tip down a bit.

Not big deal though, I'm currently designing an "LED Illuminator + Hot End LED + 30mm Blower" mount that should fit better! I am going to make it two parts that connect together so that you can mount the LEDs on a ring below and then choose where to put the 1,2, or even 3 blowers should you want more than one. Not sure what to wire the LEDs into yet, but I'm thinking they might go with the PEEK fan since it's on all the time anyways while the hot end is on and I can then just wire the hot end LED in there for fun as well. I got three of these (https://www.radioshack.com/product/inde ... Id=3060973) so I think those should work fine with the fan and another red LED. According to what I know, I should be able to get about 360mA max through the 26awg wire, so these three, the hot end red LED, and the fan should be perfectly fine at less than 150mA.

I had the same problem with the blower fan. I moved the round spacer for the hot end to below the mount instead of above it touching the nut. This gave me the necessary clearance.

Your integrated blower / LED sounds great! The fan shroud from the instruction manual can move around because it only has one screw. I was thinking of adding some ledges around the mount so that it would engage with the tab on the platform, this way it can't rotate out of position. Maybe something to think of with your design?

rpress wrote:I had the same problem with the blower fan. I moved the round spacer for the hot end to below the mount instead of above it touching the nut. This gave me the necessary clearance.

That is an excellent idea! I might do this if I can't design my mount to be thin enough.

rpress wrote:Your integrated blower / LED sounds great! The fan shroud from the instruction manual can move around because it only has one screw. I was thinking of adding some ledges around the mount so that it would engage with the tab on the platform, this way it can't rotate out of position. Maybe something to think of with your design?

That's a good thing to think about, thanks. I was planning on making it really simple, but now I'm thinking I might make it a bit fancier and perhaps design it so that the blower blows into a sort of tunnel system and the flow comes from all around the nozzle. I can also centralize the fan more this way to lower the moment of inertia, or at least any twisting motion, on the effector. I am printing a thin and long ABS part right now at 300 percent feedrate and it's running VERY well, but on the side away from the fan it is wavy just a bit due to the short layer times. The fan side is fine with the fan at 20 percent, but I'd like to have the flow coming from all sides, ideally. I am not sure if the fan can blow enough to work like that, but I suppose I can always enlarge the fan or something.