Dave's First 3-D Printer Build

[davec3275]

Well, I finally did it. I took the plunge and, with proper wifely approval, purchased my first 3-D printer, the Rostock Max V2. It arrived in just a few days and as of now is still sitting in the box awaiting assembly.

While I awaited the arrival of the Rostock, I ordered all the peripheral items required (i.e. PermaTex Ultra Copper High Temp RTV, Kapton tape, etc).

Now that I have everything I just need to sit down and begin building.

I do have 1 question, however. When I ordered the printer I purchased a roll of PLA to get me started. Is it okay to print the fan shrouds using PLA or should they be in ABS instead due to the heat they will encounter?

[geneb]

You need ABS for the fan shrouds.

g.

[davec3275]

You need ABS for the fan shrouds.

g.

Thanks! I thought so.

[davec3275]

Well, it has been quite a while but I finally got around to assembling my Rostock. It had been sitting in the box for several weeks now.

As of this post I have the entire base assembled. Now onto the Onyx plate.

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_760.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_759.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_758.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_762.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_761.jpg[/img]

On a side note, has anyone noticed cracks in the top of the base after installing the T-nuts? I have some on all T-nut locations.

[davec3275]

Sorry for not posting other pictures, but I was too into getting the printer built.

Thanks to the assistance of my wife (and a lot of nail biting), I completed my Rostock Build. It took a bit of effort to get it calibrated correctly, but managed it none-the-less.

The PEEK fan shroud printed just fine. However, when I proceeded to print the layer fan (post PEEK fan installation) I began to get adhesion issues. So, to prove it wasn't a calibration issue, I printed a 6 layer item. This turned out quite nicely.

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0169.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0170.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0175.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0179.jpg[/img]

One thing I did notice was that as the hot end heats up, the Kapton tape seems to emit a "pop" now and again. I have not noticed any other sparks or issues, and all solder joints are wrapped in either heat shrink tubing or Kapton tape. The noise is only there when the hot end is hot.

[Eaglezsoar]

Well, it has been quite a while but I finally got around to assembling my Rostock. It had been sitting in the box for several weeks now.

As of this post I have the entire base assembled. Now onto the Onyx plate.

On a side note, has anyone noticed cracks in the top of the base after installing the T-nuts? I have some on all T-nut locations.

The hairline cracks are basically stress cracks and most builds have them so you should be fine.

[Eaglezsoar]

Sorry for not posting other pictures, but I was too into getting the printer built.

Thanks to the assistance of my wife (and a lot of nail biting), I completed my Rostock Build. It took a bit of effort to get it calibrated correctly, but managed it none-the-less.

The PEEK fan shroud printed just fine. However, when I proceeded to print the layer fan (post PEEK fan installation) I began to get adhesion issues. So, to prove it wasn't a calibration issue, I printed a 6 layer item. This turned out quite nicely.

One thing I did notice was that as the hot end heats up, the Kapton tape seems to emit a "pop" now and again. I have not noticed any other sparks or issues, and all solder joints are wrapped in either heat shrink tubing or Kapton tape. The noise is only there when the hot end is hot.

The pops you hear is the air trapped in the tape as you wound it releasing because of expansion. Air bubbles in the goop you used around the resistors will also make popping noises when heated, these sounds should disappear over time.

[davec3275]

Sorry for not posting other pictures, but I was too into getting the printer built.

Thanks to the assistance of my wife (and a lot of nail biting), I completed my Rostock Build. It took a bit of effort to get it calibrated correctly, but managed it none-the-less.

The PEEK fan shroud printed just fine. However, when I proceeded to print the layer fan (post PEEK fan installation) I began to get adhesion issues. So, to prove it wasn't a calibration issue, I printed a 6 layer item. This turned out quite nicely.

One thing I did notice was that as the hot end heats up, the Kapton tape seems to emit a "pop" now and again. I have not noticed any other sparks or issues, and all solder joints are wrapped in either heat shrink tubing or Kapton tape. The noise is only there when the hot end is hot.

The pops you hear is the air trapped in the tape as you wound it releasing because of expansion. Air bubbles in the goop you used around the resistors will also make popping noises when heated, these sounds should disappear over time.

Thanks for the information. That is quite a relief.

[teoman]

Try printing it again.

Also in my experience when the printer is new you need to calibrate it again once in a while. As the parts adjust themselves to eachother that makes minor mechanical changes.

[davec3275]

Try printing it again.

Also in my experience when the printer is new you need to calibrate it again once in a while. As the parts adjust themselves to eachother that makes minor mechanical changes.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I plan on reprinting the layer fan this evening. I also plan on getting to know the machine and 3D printing as much as possible. Running some calibration prints as well as others.

[davec3275]

Last evening I gave the layer fan another try. However, I changed my approach just a little and had great success. I decided to heat the bed up first, followed by the hot end. Once all that was done, I kicked off the print and WOW! The layer fan turned out extremely well. No adhesion issues, and the fan looks very nice. I also kept an eye on the nozzle and made sure to clean it as much as possible prior to starting the print. I believe part of my earlier failures were due to filament stuck on the nozzle.

I am not sure this is the best approach going forward, but for now I think I may continue preheating everything before kicking off the print.

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0185.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0184.jpg[/img]

Here is a shot of the PEEK fan mounted.

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Rostock%20Max%20build/th_IMG_0183.jpg[/img]

[Eaglezsoar]

Looks good on the printer. Great job!

[davec3275]

It has been a while since I posted here, but I figured an update is in order. Over the past weeks I have developed a love/hate relationship with my V2. I love the size of it and the quality of prints that it makes, but that is where it ends.

I have become dismayed by how many hoops I need to jump through just to get a print to actually print to completion. I get parts lifting from the bed, layers not wanting to stick to the bed (despite using glue stick), the need to adjust the Z-height on a regular basis, and even the hot end not being able to maintain full temperature required for the print (it makes it to the target temperature then after some time falls by 5-10 degrees and never makes it back to target).

For the hot end, I ran a PID autotune of the hot end and made updates but still did not help the temperature stay for the whole print. The bed temperature does maintain temperature just fine (and I have not done any tuning on this).

For the bed, I have tried to adhere a sheet of PEI to the glass plate, but have had issues with removing the backing from tape from roll where there is no stretching of the tape. So I have given up trying for now. So now I lay down a few layers of glue stick on the glass. But I noticed that the V2 doesn't like to make circles/curves nicely in some instances (which causes the initial layers to pull up).

After 3 days of printing multiple parts, I began to have issues with the initial layers of the next part sticking. I tried multiple times, reapplying glue stick (both on top of the existing and on freshly clean glass), and different slicers to no avail. I decided to adjust the Z-height and that solved the issue. Why would the Z-Height shift while the printing and need adjusting???

Honestly, there is a huge part of me that wants to keep pressing forward with the V2, but if these hoops continue I may just jump to another printer. Heck, if there is someone with a V2 that lives close to me and can help me out in person tweaking and making sure I am fully calibrated correctly, please contact me.

[stonewater]

a few things...


1- the fan on the peek section on my max was cooling too much. I added a potentiometer to the peek fan circuit so I could change the speed of the fan. you can also change fan speed in the firmware.
2- did you adjust the horizontal radius per geneb manual?
3- you z height will shift if something is loose (belts, endstop screws or switches, your nozzle is loose in the mount, any mechanical connection with nuts, or you set z height with bed and / or nozzle not heated up.
4- you will not find a printer that does not need calibration from time to time. I have delta and Cartesians both need occasional tune ups. even my Robo 3D R1+ which has auto calibration does not get it right every time.
5- if you are printing ABS your layer fan should be off especially if you do not have an enclosure for the printer. if you are printing in an unheated garage expect problems with layers sticking to each other.

another thing you may be dealing with is the filament diameter, and the steps per MM for your extruder. filament that is under diameter combined with incorrect steps per mm not set correctly will cause under extrusion and parts wont stick. there are bed issues you need to deal with also. Every filament is a bit different so you will have to see what bed temp it likes. I use elmers purple glue stick, not the white stuff. get the first layer right, most things follow after some time. mattercontrol now has calibration for your bed have you tried this?

when its all said and done you learn a whole lot, (software, hardware, a lot of terminology) and you become the expert everyone else will need one day. 3D printers are still the wild wild west of technology. it will be a few years before the infrastructure is around that we will be able to have a printer that behaves like say a decent microwave, or a toaster oven. even the 30 thousand dollar stratasys printers need constant maintenance and monitoring.


don't grow weary of doing well!

Tom C

[davec3275]

Thanks for the reply. It helps relieve some of the worries...even if it is just a little.

I did set the diagonal rod per the manual. Even calibrated per the instructions as well. I know I need to run a better calibration, but I just keep putting it off a little to see how I can make out with what I did initially. I have a dial indicator and am planning to use the OpenDACT to manually calibrate shortly to ensure the bed is 110% level. Whenever I adjust the Z-height, I make sure to heat both the bed & hot end.

I will also go over some of the nuts and bolts to ensure all is tight enough. However, how do I know if the belts are TOO tight (or loose in my case)? They have a tiny bit of play in them to the point that they are can be pushed into the channels of the tower.

I usually check the filament diameter, but on this last 2 rolls I have been using of SeemeCNC white, I did not and simply left the default diameter in the slicer. Seemed to work pretty well for the most part. I will snap a few pictures of the parts I printed with it this past weekend in a few and post them to show just how it is printing. Using a 0.2mm layer height with the default extruder multiplier in S3D (0.90) the prints actually turned out quite nicely.

[davec3275]

Here are some pictures of my latest prints. I used S3D to create the gCode and printed off the SD Card. These actually turned out quite nicely to be honest.


[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Astromechs/BB-8%20Build/th_20160310_192123048_iOS.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Astromechs/BB-8%20Build/th_20160310_192126317_iOS.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ti9327/Astromechs/BB-8%20Build/th_20160310_192139141_iOS.jpg[/img]

[davec3275]

Okay, so a lot has happened in the past weeks. The biggest being that I upgraded my hot end to the E3Dv6. So far I like how the prints have been coming out. However, after upgrading to MC 1.5, things weren't working so well. I began to notice how prints were not laying down evenly from 1 side of the bed to the other.

So, I spent a part of the afternoon calibrating my V2 using OpenDact and my digital gauge. Took over 20 tries but OpenDact finally said it was good. I decided to print a calibration circle.

[img]http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt6/ ... 68_iOS.jpg[/img]

It didn't turn out too badly. All arms measured equal or super close to equal. And the thickness was within a .007mm. Could be better, but for now I will take it.

I did notice something odd, however, before I performed the calibration. The Onyx plate had apparently come loose in the months since I built the V2. I don't print with it all that much, the official time is about 12 1/2 days worth of print time. Any ideas?

[Eaglezsoar]

Those last prints you posted looked great to me also.
If the Onyx plate is loose the only thing that can be done is to tighten it back down, snug on the screws not tight.
If you want to prevent them from coming loose you could try a drop of the blue loctite before installing.
Seeing the pictures, you are very close to a "perfect" calibration. Best of luck to you.

[davec3275]

Well, my frustrations are back. I tried dialing in the calibrations 6 ways to Sunday and am still having issues. One method I used to calibrate worked quite nicely; however, since it had me change the steps per mm my nozzle would grind across the prints. Then I reset and tried the recommended method in the user guide (aka change the endstop screws), but that still isn't good enough. When I printed a test calibration print the area near the X tower is very light, as if the nozzle is not anywhere near the bed at that point...and I made sure to calibrate every point to w/in 0.18-0.23 mm's using a dial gauge.

So for now I am just taking a break from the printer. Maybe some time away from it will help me get it working straight. Otherwise it is going to a new home.

[geneb]

Don't ever change the steps/mm. It's basically a constant - changing it will screw with the part scale. Same goes for the arm length.

g.