POS is Alive! It's Alive!

[jcdammeyer]

Long story short. Wanted a Delta printer. Bought expensive, for the time, Delta printer. What a Piece of S. Slop in the universals. Plastic filament drive unable to push filament through bowden tubes. Too much play in the linear bearings so twist one of the slides and the hot end moves several mm. And the 8 bit Arduino software just was inadequate.

So I splurged on a Replicape and Touch screen for a BeagleBone Black running LinuxCNC and Octoprint and found that one of the stepper motor drivers wasn't working. Even changing drivers around in the software still had problems. This was about 6 years ago. Gave up.

It's been collecting dust. It's in the way. To make it fit the Replicape I had to replace all the connectors. Well today I put the original connectors back on. Once I correctly put the X and Z limit switches into the proper places it homed. Yahoo. It's alive.


Now why am I doing this? Well it was collecting dust. The BeagleBone due to a failed Replicape and no support because the designer has moved onto other things was a total loss. So I thought now that I know more than 6 years ago perhaps I'd pick up a few more linear bearings to stabilize the motion. I've already replaced the extruder drives with all metal units. I have a whole bunch of different types of extruder nozzle assemblies.

So it's time to do something with the POS. I figure if I can make it mechanically sound then maybe one of the more advanced 32 bit controllers would handle it better.

 

[kevin.decelles]

May the force be with you! I got the delta bug out of my system when I went down the Tiko kickstarter rabbit hole

Nowadays I just want it to work

 

[Susquatch]

Nowadays I just want it to work

I used to love the rabbit holes. But sometimes I hated them too.

As time slides by, I hate them more and love them less.

Just now I read your note and realized why. Rabbit holes are all underground. No wonder I'm hating them more. I'm in no rush to get there. Gotta shoot those rascals before they reach the hole.

 

[Cryoine]

the ESP32 based controllers are a dream to work with but any 32bit controller will work wonders, with the feature sets they pack into them these days also 3D printers work best when coupled to a furnace lol. The 3D printer makes the molds and the furnace makes the metal all gooey for those molds.

I never messed much with the delta style printers I know a friend of mine was building one and gave up on the project and i took his rails and build my cube pcb mill

 

[YotaBota]

a Replicape and Touch screen for a BeagleBone Black running LinuxCNC and Octoprint

Is this actually something real or have you been watching to much Dr WHO and RED DWARF! This sounds to much like something out of sci-fi. lol
Hope to see it running.

 

[David_R8]

Good luck mate!
Is it mean to say I love my Ender?

 

[jcdammeyer]

I know I have to buy a new cartesian printer. My existing one has started acting up again.

the ESP32 based controllers are a dream to work with but any 32bit controller will work wonders, with the feature sets they pack into them these days also 3D printers work best when coupled to a furnace lol. The 3D printer makes the molds and the furnace makes the metal all gooey for those molds.

I never messed much with the delta style printers I know a friend of mine was building one and gave up on the project and i took his rails and build my cube pcb mill

Any particular suggestion for a 32 bit controller? Needs XYZ and two extruders so 5 axis. Three outputs for heaters, bed and two extruders and therefore 3 thermister inputs.
The biggest issue with the current controller is even the slightest change to a limit switch or bed height mechanical adjustment means changing the Print Height Z value in the firmware and reprogramming.
Why? Because the code runs faster if it's a literal value than one stored in EEROM. If that processor even has EEROM.
And yes I make a lot of patterns using the 3D printer to then cast metal.

 

[jcdammeyer]

Haven't used the POS Delta since February what with all the computer crash and rebuild issues. Needed to print a small adapter for the kitchen faucet handle ... again two years after the first ... (PLA really the wrong material) so still used the 2006 cartesian 3D printer system since the G-Code was still on the Raspberry Pi2. Just start it up and select via OctoPi web interface the part and print. Kitchen tap handle works again.

OK. Why bring this up? The original printer is like my band saw. Turn it on. Use it. Turn it off. Well today my Father's day gift to myself arrived. 300x300 build surface. Still direct drive instead of the long tube like on the Delta POS. Very stiff. Very quiet. Had a demo by my friend JoeMac. That sold me.



Have no idea where I'm going to put this. Might end up sitting in the box for a few weeks.

 

[jcdammeyer]

Yeah like it really would sit in the box ...
Auto Bed Levelling in progress...

 

[Susquatch]

Auto Bed Levelling in progress...

So does the head do a cha cha when levelling?

 

[jcdammeyer]

So does the head do a cha cha when levelling?

You don't actually want an answer do you?

 

[Cryoine]

any printer that has an autolevel feature is a nice quality of live improvement lol, when it comes to material though ABS, PETG probably nylon are your best bets

ABS is similar to PLA but can survive a higher temperature range
PETG is a very tough and somewhat flexible plastic, good abrasion resistance as well and not as brittle as ABS/PLA
Nylon similar to PETG but is a pain to work with since it seems to be more hygroscopic than the rest of the plastics we have

PETG can be printed with the same settings as ABS if you don't have a profile for it

 

[jcdammeyer]

I'm now pondering exactly what sort of table I will build for this. It will have to have a removable enclosing cabinet. I've found that ABS just warps way too much in lower ambient temperatures.
On my other Cartesian printer I always have nozzle plugging issues with PETG. With that printer not my favourite material.
The POS this time around wasn't bad. I may keep it just because it's fun watching it print. Updating it to a 32 bit controller would also make a difference. It was designed to be a dual filament printer so I could do washable support stuff along with the real print. Never got there...

 

[Cryoine]

I'm now pondering exactly what sort of table I will build for this. It will have to have a removable enclosing cabinet. I've found that ABS just warps way too much in lower ambient temperatures.
On my other Cartesian printer I always have nozzle plugging issues with PETG. With that printer not my favourite material.
The POS this time around wasn't bad. I may keep it just because it's fun watching it print. Updating it to a 32 bit controller would also make a difference. It was designed to be a dual filament printer so I could do washable support stuff along with the real print. Never got there...

with the ABS i print at 100C bed temperature though 80C should be good, but more important than that was to disable print cooling, we has massive issues with that when we did this then that sorted that problem out

 

[Cryoine]

all the parts in grey are PETG and the blue and purple ABS i also scale everything up by about 0.3 - 0.6% that gives me good results too

 

[jcdammeyer]

all the parts in grey are PETG and the blue and purple ABS i also scale everything up by about 0.3 - 0.6% that gives me good results too

Nice. A little systolic pump.
So far my 200mm x 200mm print bed has just been big enough

with the ABS i print at 100C bed temperature though 80C should be good, but more important than that was to disable print cooling, we has massive issues with that when we did this then that sorted that problem out

I found my best ABS happened when I had the printer in the sun room and during the middle of summer an ambient temp of 35C was just great. As soon as it cooled off in the evening the same exact print lifted off the bed.

 

[jcdammeyer]

@Susquatch This picture is mostly for you. The Yellow one is done with the new printer. The white one with the old. Not really visible in the photo but the roughness of the hull from the general vibrations and shaking. I'll admit I wasn't using the same parameters since the G-Code for the new printer came on the SD card. So I'd have to do some detailed investigation to determine what parameters were used. But both prints took 1.5 hours so can't have been that far off. Anyway, the new printer makes much nicer smoother prints.

 

[whydontu]

@Susquatch This picture is mostly for you. The Yellow one is done with the new printer. The white one with the old. Not really visible in the photo but the roughness of the hull from the general vibrations and shaking. I'll admit I wasn't using the same parameters since the G-Code for the new printer came on the SD card. So I'd have to do some detailed investigation to determine what parameters were used. But both prints took 1.5 hours so can't have been that far off. Anyway, the new printer makes much nicer smoother prints.
View attachment 35262

I am in awe. When I take photos for posts, I usually have the top of my freezer, or a chunk of used white paper, as a backdrop. “Latin American Cha Cha Cha”? We applaud excellence, no matter it’s form.