Printers Fixing Printers

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May 042019
 

My ancient (but still perfectly reliable and awesome) LaserJet 6MP has had a problem for a yearish now… one of the clips that keep the rear exit tray closed finally fatigued and snapped. Replacement bits are expensive enough that it’s not really worth replacing, and it’s not feasible to repair in place. Problem is, the rear tray needs to be closed for paper to feed to the exit tray on the top, and if it’s not quite closed, paper just tangles itself in the rollers and causes a nice little jam. So I’ve had a stack of DVDs jammed between the printer and my subwoofer on the same shelf this entire time…

Finally got fed up with this arrangement and used my other printer to make clips to keep the tray closed. Not very exciting, but hey… better living through technology.

Clips broke a while ago, I’ve been shoving DVDs behind it to keep it closed.
A few measurements and a tiny bit of openscad later…
… no more need to shove things behind the printer

Printer v2.3

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Mar 172019
 

It’s been a few years since my reprap’s journey began, and I think it has reached the conclusion, before a total overhaul and replacement of the frame (3.0?).

I replaced the 45° rear frame brackets with slightly better ones (used a bit off-label — I’m just bolting the frame part to a table) that mount to where I had originally intended the supports to go, decided to see if the hype was real and swapped my worn out three year old belts for real, live Gates GT2 belts, replaced the original y-axis mounts that made it impossible to remove the y-axis without getting under the printer with metal brackets that are accessible from the top, and swapped the y-axis parts for the Wilson II y-axis.

This resulted in some slight improvements in print quality (mainly in y, since the original belt was really worn out and there was a ton of backlash… not helped by my super misaligned belt line), but nothing major. Worth the effort if only for the y-axis not being awkwardly mounted and impossible to remove, and the control board being in a better position.

At this point it’s clear that the 2020 frame is too flimsy for a printer of this size… as such, I’m planning to design a new frame inspired by the Prusa i3 MK3 Bear Frame Rebuild, but in openscad instead of a proprietary cad program that doesn’t run on GNU/Linux (still debating continuing hacking on the pre-MK2 community version of the Prusa i3 or just re-forking the mainline Prusa i3 MK3).

  • Original frame braces for the TS … I sized the rear extrusions for mounting to the top of the frame but never go around to making my own mounts so the extrusions went way past the edge of the table…
  • Replaced the idler-side frame brace. Not messing with the brace the control board is mounted to until rebuilding the y-axis.
  • cat tax
  • new y-ends! In addition to having adjustable tension without adding backlash like the old tensioner did, they give me ~6mm more z height.
  • Just before the overhaul
  • y-axis mounts from hell
  • you can’t get a screwdriver into either of these except from below the machine which makes working on the y-axis a major pain, especially since my frame has to be bolted to a table for rigidity.
  • After much struggle, these replaced the y-axis brackets. The attachment to the xz frame uses ball spring t-nuts so they stay in place when removing the brackets for easy alignment on re-assembly. These also feel way stiffer than the plastic mounts (and the screws can be checked/tightened regularly).
  • Was a bit messy under the printer after getting the y-axis off.
  • All clean now. And the plastic corner brackets I couldn’t get out (without much suffering) before have been replaced with metal brackets, matching the top of the frame (I had to learn the hard way how much stiffer the metal brackets are)
  • What have I gotten myself into?
  • Y-axis back together, with the fancy GT2 belt (and original 10mm hardware from the TS, not taking the entire print bed apart this time…)
  • All together again. Much nicer looking I think! Still needs some cable management redone (not that it was ever done very nicely before)
  • Back and ready for action.

A quick and probably meaningless rough history of changes to the machine, that I want to expand into a page on my actual website eventually (more naval gazing?):

  • 1.0: Straight Wilson TS, with a 300x400x300 mm frame, an itty bitty double flex extruder, and 10mm linear rods for the y-axis.
  • 1.1: Swapped the threaded rod for a lead screw on the z axis
  • 2.0: Upgraded the linear rods on the x and z axes from 8mm to 10mm
  • 2.1: Upgraded to a Panucatt Azteeg X5 GT running Smoothieware (great hardware, adequate firmware).
  • 2.2: Fixed bug in z-axis that was causing the motor mount to shift 2mm vs the x-axis parts (perils of using two different source trees for different parts)
  • 2.3: Swapped the y-axis for the Wilson II y-axis, replaced the rear frame braces.

More Packages Arrive

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Aug 232015
 

My 600W 24V DC power supply arrived from mouser, along with my hobbed bolts and the NEMA14 motors for the dual extruder.

Preparing for mass production with my threedee printed parts tray
I’m running all three terminals — main power, heatbeds (yes, two), and a 12V regulator for the fans
Heatsinks on x, y, z, e1, e2
Installed the heatsink over the hotend mosfets
Mmm… MOSFETs
NEMA14 motors for the extruder
That’s not a power supply…

I’m wiring up the DC side of the power supply to use 12 awg wire and female disconnects for now. I’ve got the main board supply, a separate line for the heatbeds, and a third set that will be wired in voltage regulator to give me a couple of amps of 12V power for the fans.

And, yeah, heatbeds. The Wilson y-axis can be stretched to 400mm, and I figured it was worth a shot going all the way. I wanted at least 300mm in the x-axis as well, and I found 200x300mm heatbeds (cheaper than one 300mmx300mm) and a conveniently sized 16″x12″ piece of glass at Home Depot. Worst case, it proves to be too large and I have to downgrade to 200mmx300mm (keeping the second heatbed ready for The Future™). This might seem a wee bit insane, but, after having used the TAZ 4, less than 300mmx300mmx250mm seemed underwhelming.

For the controller, I got an Azteeg X3 Pro because it has dual heatbed MOSFETs and support for up to five extruders as a bonus. At the outset, I decided to sink some of the savings over buying a printer into dual extrusion, and wanted to leave open the possibility of at least triple later on… and the X3 Pro wasn’t much more than a RUMBA with steppers aaaand it came with eight stepper drivers (useful in their own right), was fully soldered, and, hey… a triple nozzle extruder plus a single hexagon in the next couple of years or something doesn’t seem too crazy does it?

Not much I can do now until my nuts and bolts come Monday or Tuesday. I have very boring things to say about crimping wire harnesses too.

I Guess I Actually Went Through With It

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Aug 202015
 

So I printed the parts for a three dee printer on a TAZ 4 my friend graciously let me borrow, and I may have actually spent weeks going over the BOM a few times … and ended up hitting order on a few too many websites. Packages started trickling in yesterday…

azteeg x3 pro and my hexagons (yes, plural)
Streeetch
I have bad taste and used uv reactive abs
budgeted in some crimping tools too
I had to design a part to fit the dual extruder I wanted. I have no idea what I’m doing.

This is going to be … interesting.