DMPalmer's H1.1 build
Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:17 am
TL;DR: It's alive!!!
I just printed out a "HelYoda World" with my H1.1 which I ordered 13 days ago and have spent ~50 hours on building. It needs a lot of parameter tweaking, but it works. (Specifically the Faberdashery Yoda from
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12288 )
My system is an H1.1 with the RAMBo board. I ordered the heated bed, but haven't installed it yet. I am using Repetier-For-Rambo firmware and Repetier-Host Mac.
My experience is mostly in software, so other people may be able to construct the printer more rapidly than I did. (I wanted a 3D printer as the last thing I had to build with my hands, and from now on atoms are programable.)
Some build notes are useful for whoever who builds one of these. This is especially true since the H1.1 modifications are largely undocumented. There are 3 JPEGs for the early stages of the build, but nothing further at the moment, and no help at all on using the RAMBo. See the "H1.1 differences" thread in the forum for updates.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=855
First, watch the Steinman video, and refer to it as you go along
https://vimeo.com/47461857
also look at the picture of what's in the H1.1 upgrade kit to see what parts you shouldn't expect to see in the H1.0 construction manual
http://shop.seemecnc.com/H11-Upgrade-Ki ... -58730.htm
Additional tools that I found useful include:
a 5" C-clamp (4" will do I think) for e.g. putting the gears onto the motors and bearings into gears;
electric screwdriver (not just a drill, it has to have a weak clutch so you don't strip the plastic you are screwing into);
a dremel-style tool with a ~1/4" sanding drum;
a D-Sub Pin Crimper tool for the pins of the RAMBo connectors;
a Lineman's Crimper tool for making connections between wires and to the hot-end heater resistors.
(Those two are different tools.)
I used silicone rescue tape for high-temperature insulation and other things. It's good stuff: it sticks only to itself, is an excellent electrical insulator, and is good to 500 F == 260 C.
http://www.rescuetape.com
I also used Shapelock plastic (stuff which becomes malleable at ~150 F and sets hard) which I used to make the plastic parts I needed before I had a 3D printer to make plastic parts.
Where the manual suggests that you ream out holes in the 60 degree bar clamps, that is very good advice.
Additional advice that I wish I had read before it was too late: ream out the blue pieces of the crossed-bar clamps so that the threads only bite on the black pieces. This means that the crossed-bar clamps can actually generate clamping force. It also saves a lot of wrist work on screwing things together.
Also mentioned on the forum, the aluminum spacers for the 608 bearings have to be sanded down to the right length.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... cers#p3432
As the JPEG for H1.1 rear frame assembly suggests, mount the Y-axis motor on its plastic plate before putting the rear frame together. (Motors have two washers between the mounting-screw head and the plastic plate. I don't know why, but I don't doubt.)
The H1.1 kit has many fewer small bearings (12 IIRC) than H1.0 does, with most of the others replaced by bushings. In my kit, all the little dowel rods were too thick to go through the holes, and I had to sand them all down. (I used a dremel drum sander to very lightly sand them down.)
How these the bearings and bushings go together is shown in the video. Resist the temptation to dry-fit things together before you put them in the final position. The plastic sockets for the bushings are easily damaged and then you can't fully-seat them the next time.
The video has the base slightly wrong (the front-back smooth rails hang below the left-right threaded rods).
The video is correct in that the cross-bar clamps holding the side-side (X-axis) smooth rails go on top of the Z axis bearing assembly. The blue parts of the clamp should be oriented so that the smooth rails are in the higher position. This is necessary so that the timing-belt clamps (new in H1.1) can be attached to the new version of the combo bearing at two points on each side. For H1.0 the bar clamps went below the bearing assembly.
I have found on my first print that the two sides of the combo bearing are pulled apart by the timing belt pulling on its two sides. I fixed that by wrapping a zip-tie to hold the two sides together.
ERRATUM: H1 manual page 40, 6.2 #9, it specifies a 10-32 x 1 1/2" Socket Head Screw (#29995), whereas it is actually a 1" screw.
For the extruder, you want to press the 608 bearings into the combo gears with a C-clamp. The surface of the bearing should be inset below the level of the gear.
When you put the extruder together, study the assembly ahead of time so you get the 1.7 and 3.0 mm groves matching each other on the pinch rollers. (I also took a sharpie and labelled "1.7" and "3.0" on the appropriate holes of the filament guides.)
For the Y axis timing belt, I had to attach one belt clamp, thread the belt, figure out what notch of the belt clamp gives the right tension, then pop the belt off the motor gear before screwing down the second clamp. Popping the belt back on the motor is easier than screwing down the belt clamp then the belt is under tension.
The X-axis belt tension has two adverse effects: it pulls the two halves of the combo bearing apart (fixed with the zip tie as mentioned above) and it pulls strongly enough to overcome the friction on the bar clamps holding the smooth X rails onto the Z axis bearing assemblies. This pulls the vertical Z axis screws and rails together so that things are no longer plumb, and things jam when the Z axis gets near the bottom. I made a cross-bar to hold the smooth Z rails apart at the top. This costs me 20 mm of vertical build volume because the extruder hits the cross-bar.
Electronics:
The H-1 Electronics Manual for the EasyDriver is the basic guide for wiring things up, but many things are different for the RAMBo.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=69
I am using the RAMBo board, which I have mounted on the left rear diagonal of the frame. (I used the two spare bar clamps that were in my kit to hold the circuit board by two mounting holes with the component side of the board facing forward and a bit down. The motor connectors are on the board edge next to the threaded rod.)
Motor connectors (included in the kit) use crimped pins which are for 24-30 AWG wire. I used this "D-Sub Pin Crimper":
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2103683
to crimp the pins directly to the wires of the wires of the X,Y,Z motors. These leads (on my motors) are long enough that they reach the appropriate sockets on the rambo-board without requiring more cable to be spliced in.
I have the order of motor wires in the connector as
Black Green Blue Red
reading from left-to-right on e.g. this figure:
http://reprap.org/wiki/File:Rambo-conn-main.jpg
This is a different order than the figure shows, because the printout of the figure that came with the kit was in black-and-white. (And that figure has a black wire instead of a yellow wire.) When I did this, the software worked correctly without requiring any motor directions to be reversed.
I used 24 AWG 4-wire telephone cable to extend the wires to the extruder motor. 24 AWG is about as small as you want to go for 2 amp motor current, but as large as you can use with the supplied connector pins. The phone cable is crimped (using a "lineman's crimper" like
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... d=12529252
) to the motor wires. The cable bundle that goes to the extruder motor also includes the thin wires to the thermocouple, and the 18 gauge wires to the heating resistors for the hot end, all wire-tied and taped together to make a reasonably stiff bundle that won't flop around too much. I cut the wires to the appropriate length so that they would all read\ch the board without too much excess.
The two resistors, wrapped in aluminum foil, insulated and gunked up with high-temperature silicone, are crimped (the two resistors in parallel) to the 18 gauge wire. I first cut off the vinyl insulation from those crimps because it wouldn't stand up to the heat. Make sure the bends you make to the resistor leads will fit into the combo bearing housing before you commit with the crimper. I used the same silicone gunk to seat the thermistor and insulate a short length of the thermistor leads. The rest of each thermistor leads past the (soldered) connection to the thermistor wire was wrapped in silicone rescue tape, then everything was wrapped in more rescue tape to give good mechanical stability and prevent the thermistor from pulling out.
I then read the label on the silicon gunk I used (GE Premiumsilicon Gasket and Seal: resists high temperature according to the label). In the fine print in back, it says: Service Temp -60 F to 400 F (= 204 C). So it will be interesting to see what happens when I try to extrude ABS at 220 C. I have a fire extinguisher right next to my printer.
I placed the limit endstop switches:
X: on the bar clamp on the left Z axis bearing assembly, hit by the combo bearing.
Y: on the rear frame, so the table pushes it down.
Z: At the top of the left Z rail, hit by a tower I built out of Shapelock on top of the Z axis bushing housing.
These limit switches are mounted in shapelock for stability that you don't get with double-sticky foam tape or other such methods.
The Z limit switch is a maximum switch, so that when that axis is homed, it is as high above the table as it can go. This requires some special settings in the firmware and software, but nothing that isn't supported by Repetier Host and Repetier Firmware. It allows using different bed thicknesses (e.g. putting in and taking out the heated bed) with only a few changes to numbers in the software settings, and doesn't require fiddly mechanical adjustment to allow the switch to click at the home position 100 microns above the table rather than crashing the nozzle through it.
Pictures showing some of the details mentioned above, and of the Yoda I printed, will be in a future post in this thread, as will discussion of the software settings I used, and other details.
Any questions?
I just printed out a "HelYoda World" with my H1.1 which I ordered 13 days ago and have spent ~50 hours on building. It needs a lot of parameter tweaking, but it works. (Specifically the Faberdashery Yoda from
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12288 )
My system is an H1.1 with the RAMBo board. I ordered the heated bed, but haven't installed it yet. I am using Repetier-For-Rambo firmware and Repetier-Host Mac.
My experience is mostly in software, so other people may be able to construct the printer more rapidly than I did. (I wanted a 3D printer as the last thing I had to build with my hands, and from now on atoms are programable.)
Some build notes are useful for whoever who builds one of these. This is especially true since the H1.1 modifications are largely undocumented. There are 3 JPEGs for the early stages of the build, but nothing further at the moment, and no help at all on using the RAMBo. See the "H1.1 differences" thread in the forum for updates.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=855
First, watch the Steinman video, and refer to it as you go along
https://vimeo.com/47461857
also look at the picture of what's in the H1.1 upgrade kit to see what parts you shouldn't expect to see in the H1.0 construction manual
http://shop.seemecnc.com/H11-Upgrade-Ki ... -58730.htm
Additional tools that I found useful include:
a 5" C-clamp (4" will do I think) for e.g. putting the gears onto the motors and bearings into gears;
electric screwdriver (not just a drill, it has to have a weak clutch so you don't strip the plastic you are screwing into);
a dremel-style tool with a ~1/4" sanding drum;
a D-Sub Pin Crimper tool for the pins of the RAMBo connectors;
a Lineman's Crimper tool for making connections between wires and to the hot-end heater resistors.
(Those two are different tools.)
I used silicone rescue tape for high-temperature insulation and other things. It's good stuff: it sticks only to itself, is an excellent electrical insulator, and is good to 500 F == 260 C.
http://www.rescuetape.com
I also used Shapelock plastic (stuff which becomes malleable at ~150 F and sets hard) which I used to make the plastic parts I needed before I had a 3D printer to make plastic parts.
Where the manual suggests that you ream out holes in the 60 degree bar clamps, that is very good advice.
Additional advice that I wish I had read before it was too late: ream out the blue pieces of the crossed-bar clamps so that the threads only bite on the black pieces. This means that the crossed-bar clamps can actually generate clamping force. It also saves a lot of wrist work on screwing things together.
Also mentioned on the forum, the aluminum spacers for the 608 bearings have to be sanded down to the right length.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... cers#p3432
As the JPEG for H1.1 rear frame assembly suggests, mount the Y-axis motor on its plastic plate before putting the rear frame together. (Motors have two washers between the mounting-screw head and the plastic plate. I don't know why, but I don't doubt.)
The H1.1 kit has many fewer small bearings (12 IIRC) than H1.0 does, with most of the others replaced by bushings. In my kit, all the little dowel rods were too thick to go through the holes, and I had to sand them all down. (I used a dremel drum sander to very lightly sand them down.)
How these the bearings and bushings go together is shown in the video. Resist the temptation to dry-fit things together before you put them in the final position. The plastic sockets for the bushings are easily damaged and then you can't fully-seat them the next time.
The video has the base slightly wrong (the front-back smooth rails hang below the left-right threaded rods).
The video is correct in that the cross-bar clamps holding the side-side (X-axis) smooth rails go on top of the Z axis bearing assembly. The blue parts of the clamp should be oriented so that the smooth rails are in the higher position. This is necessary so that the timing-belt clamps (new in H1.1) can be attached to the new version of the combo bearing at two points on each side. For H1.0 the bar clamps went below the bearing assembly.
I have found on my first print that the two sides of the combo bearing are pulled apart by the timing belt pulling on its two sides. I fixed that by wrapping a zip-tie to hold the two sides together.
ERRATUM: H1 manual page 40, 6.2 #9, it specifies a 10-32 x 1 1/2" Socket Head Screw (#29995), whereas it is actually a 1" screw.
For the extruder, you want to press the 608 bearings into the combo gears with a C-clamp. The surface of the bearing should be inset below the level of the gear.
When you put the extruder together, study the assembly ahead of time so you get the 1.7 and 3.0 mm groves matching each other on the pinch rollers. (I also took a sharpie and labelled "1.7" and "3.0" on the appropriate holes of the filament guides.)
For the Y axis timing belt, I had to attach one belt clamp, thread the belt, figure out what notch of the belt clamp gives the right tension, then pop the belt off the motor gear before screwing down the second clamp. Popping the belt back on the motor is easier than screwing down the belt clamp then the belt is under tension.
The X-axis belt tension has two adverse effects: it pulls the two halves of the combo bearing apart (fixed with the zip tie as mentioned above) and it pulls strongly enough to overcome the friction on the bar clamps holding the smooth X rails onto the Z axis bearing assemblies. This pulls the vertical Z axis screws and rails together so that things are no longer plumb, and things jam when the Z axis gets near the bottom. I made a cross-bar to hold the smooth Z rails apart at the top. This costs me 20 mm of vertical build volume because the extruder hits the cross-bar.
Electronics:
The H-1 Electronics Manual for the EasyDriver is the basic guide for wiring things up, but many things are different for the RAMBo.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=69
I am using the RAMBo board, which I have mounted on the left rear diagonal of the frame. (I used the two spare bar clamps that were in my kit to hold the circuit board by two mounting holes with the component side of the board facing forward and a bit down. The motor connectors are on the board edge next to the threaded rod.)
Motor connectors (included in the kit) use crimped pins which are for 24-30 AWG wire. I used this "D-Sub Pin Crimper":
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2103683
to crimp the pins directly to the wires of the wires of the X,Y,Z motors. These leads (on my motors) are long enough that they reach the appropriate sockets on the rambo-board without requiring more cable to be spliced in.
I have the order of motor wires in the connector as
Black Green Blue Red
reading from left-to-right on e.g. this figure:
http://reprap.org/wiki/File:Rambo-conn-main.jpg
This is a different order than the figure shows, because the printout of the figure that came with the kit was in black-and-white. (And that figure has a black wire instead of a yellow wire.) When I did this, the software worked correctly without requiring any motor directions to be reversed.
I used 24 AWG 4-wire telephone cable to extend the wires to the extruder motor. 24 AWG is about as small as you want to go for 2 amp motor current, but as large as you can use with the supplied connector pins. The phone cable is crimped (using a "lineman's crimper" like
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... d=12529252
) to the motor wires. The cable bundle that goes to the extruder motor also includes the thin wires to the thermocouple, and the 18 gauge wires to the heating resistors for the hot end, all wire-tied and taped together to make a reasonably stiff bundle that won't flop around too much. I cut the wires to the appropriate length so that they would all read\ch the board without too much excess.
The two resistors, wrapped in aluminum foil, insulated and gunked up with high-temperature silicone, are crimped (the two resistors in parallel) to the 18 gauge wire. I first cut off the vinyl insulation from those crimps because it wouldn't stand up to the heat. Make sure the bends you make to the resistor leads will fit into the combo bearing housing before you commit with the crimper. I used the same silicone gunk to seat the thermistor and insulate a short length of the thermistor leads. The rest of each thermistor leads past the (soldered) connection to the thermistor wire was wrapped in silicone rescue tape, then everything was wrapped in more rescue tape to give good mechanical stability and prevent the thermistor from pulling out.
I then read the label on the silicon gunk I used (GE Premiumsilicon Gasket and Seal: resists high temperature according to the label). In the fine print in back, it says: Service Temp -60 F to 400 F (= 204 C). So it will be interesting to see what happens when I try to extrude ABS at 220 C. I have a fire extinguisher right next to my printer.
I placed the limit endstop switches:
X: on the bar clamp on the left Z axis bearing assembly, hit by the combo bearing.
Y: on the rear frame, so the table pushes it down.
Z: At the top of the left Z rail, hit by a tower I built out of Shapelock on top of the Z axis bushing housing.
These limit switches are mounted in shapelock for stability that you don't get with double-sticky foam tape or other such methods.
The Z limit switch is a maximum switch, so that when that axis is homed, it is as high above the table as it can go. This requires some special settings in the firmware and software, but nothing that isn't supported by Repetier Host and Repetier Firmware. It allows using different bed thicknesses (e.g. putting in and taking out the heated bed) with only a few changes to numbers in the software settings, and doesn't require fiddly mechanical adjustment to allow the switch to click at the home position 100 microns above the table rather than crashing the nozzle through it.
Pictures showing some of the details mentioned above, and of the Yoda I printed, will be in a future post in this thread, as will discussion of the software settings I used, and other details.
Any questions?
