Hello All,
I've been gathering the parts for my 3DR build for the past few weeks. This is my first foray into 3D Printing so I needed a set of printed parts to get me started. A big thanks to Mitch over at BusyBotz 3D Printing for printing me a set for a small fee - apparently there were some headaches with printing the large flat parts in ABS but Mitch pulled through and delivered a beautiful set of parts. Just take a look at this extruder gear that Mitch churned out and you'll see the quality of his work.
The printed parts required minimal post processing, just some light deburring to get rid of the platform lip and to make the faces fit flush. For the rods, I went with Traxxas TRA1942 Ball Ends and CF Tube, 150mm center to center. I cut some threaded rod to use as a stud and cemented it in place with aerospace grade Hysol Epoxy.
I also encountered a problem with clearance of the rod ends and the mounts, which required me to add a 3mm cone washer (google "ofna 3mm cone washer") which is perfect for the application. You can see the washer as the blue anodized cone at the end of the ball.
Other vitamins include a J-Head Mk-V with 0.3mm Nozzle, a Trinity Labs 170mm Borosilicate Glass Plate + 160mm Kapton Heater, Lin Engineering 4218L Steppers, RepRapDiscount RUMBA + Hall Sensors + XXL Controller as suggested by RichRap.
A word on the heated bed - I've insulated the bottom with two sheets of cardboard. They heat up very quick at 12V, on the order of a minute or two to 60 degrees for PLA. It does dramatically increase the current requirements of your power supply, however. The heated bed by itself draws 10A when on. Luckily I am using a big benchtop power supply (Mastech HY5020E).
One part that held me up for a while and that apparently wasn't on the BOM I looked at is the 4mm T-slot Nut that anchors the upper pulley. I ended up ordering some oval 4mm T-Slot Nuts from Adafruit as well as some plastic extrusion endcaps.
Calibrating my first Delta Bot was a daunting task, but since this 3DR is mostly bone stock I was able to run with most of Rich's original firmware settings (Marlin) which let me zero in relatively quickly to the right values for my build.
My impressions so far: Once dialed in, get ready for some great prints! Repeatability is excellent and I'm printing down to 0.2mm PLA with no issues. As you can see from the faceted vase close-up, the layers are pristine. The vase was done at 30mm/s which I understand to be conservative. Interested to see how much I can push it.
I do have one remaining issue that is vexing me however, which is a slight skew I get in my prints that are supposed to have vertical walls, on the order of 1-2 degrees. I understand that this type of error is most likely due to the frame members not being equidistant, but as far as I can tell they are. Will have to look more carefully into this before I attempt self replication or building some other dimensionally important parts. I've also been looking at the Kossel Pro, maybe one of those is in my future :)
I've been gathering the parts for my 3DR build for the past few weeks. This is my first foray into 3D Printing so I needed a set of printed parts to get me started. A big thanks to Mitch over at BusyBotz 3D Printing for printing me a set for a small fee - apparently there were some headaches with printing the large flat parts in ABS but Mitch pulled through and delivered a beautiful set of parts. Just take a look at this extruder gear that Mitch churned out and you'll see the quality of his work.
The printed parts required minimal post processing, just some light deburring to get rid of the platform lip and to make the faces fit flush. For the rods, I went with Traxxas TRA1942 Ball Ends and CF Tube, 150mm center to center. I cut some threaded rod to use as a stud and cemented it in place with aerospace grade Hysol Epoxy.
I also encountered a problem with clearance of the rod ends and the mounts, which required me to add a 3mm cone washer (google "ofna 3mm cone washer") which is perfect for the application. You can see the washer as the blue anodized cone at the end of the ball.
Other vitamins include a J-Head Mk-V with 0.3mm Nozzle, a Trinity Labs 170mm Borosilicate Glass Plate + 160mm Kapton Heater, Lin Engineering 4218L Steppers, RepRapDiscount RUMBA + Hall Sensors + XXL Controller as suggested by RichRap.
A word on the heated bed - I've insulated the bottom with two sheets of cardboard. They heat up very quick at 12V, on the order of a minute or two to 60 degrees for PLA. It does dramatically increase the current requirements of your power supply, however. The heated bed by itself draws 10A when on. Luckily I am using a big benchtop power supply (Mastech HY5020E).
One part that held me up for a while and that apparently wasn't on the BOM I looked at is the 4mm T-slot Nut that anchors the upper pulley. I ended up ordering some oval 4mm T-Slot Nuts from Adafruit as well as some plastic extrusion endcaps.
Calibrating my first Delta Bot was a daunting task, but since this 3DR is mostly bone stock I was able to run with most of Rich's original firmware settings (Marlin) which let me zero in relatively quickly to the right values for my build.
My impressions so far: Once dialed in, get ready for some great prints! Repeatability is excellent and I'm printing down to 0.2mm PLA with no issues. As you can see from the faceted vase close-up, the layers are pristine. The vase was done at 30mm/s which I understand to be conservative. Interested to see how much I can push it.
I do have one remaining issue that is vexing me however, which is a slight skew I get in my prints that are supposed to have vertical walls, on the order of 1-2 degrees. I understand that this type of error is most likely due to the frame members not being equidistant, but as far as I can tell they are. Will have to look more carefully into this before I attempt self replication or building some other dimensionally important parts. I've also been looking at the Kossel Pro, maybe one of those is in my future :)