mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

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MOD: thermostatically controlled heatsink fan

Post by mhackney »

The heatsink fan on my V3 is noisy, very noisy, and it stays on all the time. So this mod will automatically turn the fan on and off when the temperature gets above/below 40°C. All it takes is:
  • 4' of 22 gauge wire - black
  • one 2 prong electrical connector - there should be an extra in the RAMBo connector bag that came with your V3 - see photo below
  • a few minutes of time
First, you need to heat up the hot end and pull the filament completely out of the Bowden tube. Then turn it off and let it cool down. Once it is below about 75° turn off your printer. Make sure you turn off your printer (yes, I repeated myself, it's important.)

Disconnect the Bowden from both the extruder and hotend. Don't loose the little lobster claws! Now pass the 4' of wire INSIDE the Bowden from the extruder end until it comes out the bottom. Grab the wire at the top and then pull the Bowden out of the whip sleeve from the bottom near the hot end. Yes, you are removing the Bowden from the sleeve. This is all to make sure the thin black wire is inside the whip sleeve. If you come up with an easier way, chime in! Once the Bowden is removed, you have to put it back in exactly the way it came out (except without the wire inside it!). When you are done, you'll have the wire and Bowden inside the whip with the wire coming out of the side of the sleeve at the top like this:
IMG_6799.JPG
Next, unscrew the bulkhead connector that the sleeve and wires run through in the top plate. Also remove the top access plate.
IMG_6800.JPG
You need to loosen it all the way in order to get the wire through the fitting. Carefully find where the wire comes through the sleeve braid and push the end back through the same opening and up towards the top. The idea is you want to get this last foot or so of wire inside the sleeve, through the fitting and out of the end of the sleeve in the top. It is much harder to describe than it is to do! Once the free end is visible in the top, grab it and pull out some of the slack but make sure NOT to pull the lower end up into to the sleeve.

Now we are going to remove the connector and top cover from the HE280. Inside looks like this:
IMG_6801.JPG
The arrow points to the connector for the heatsink fan. Clip the black wire about 2" from the connector. Then strip and solder the other end to the new black wire. Make sure to put on a piece of heatshrink tubing before soldering. There will be a short (2") black wire hanging free off the connector, that's correct. I like to put a little piece of shrink tube over the end to insulate it.
FullSizeRender 52.jpg
Now we are going to make the connection to RAMBo. The new black wire inserts into the connector like this:
FullSizeRender 56.jpg
The connector fits into the top edge of the RAMBo at the position marked Heat 1 - NOT Fan 1, like this:
FullSizeRender 55.jpg
FullSizeRender 53.jpg
That's it! Before buttoning everything up, test to make sure the fan comes on at 40°. You will need to plug in the HE280 connector and then turn on the printer. Then set the hotend temperature (LCD display is easiest) to 150°C (the minimum it lets you set). Watch and listen. If the fan comes on at 40° turn the hot end off and turn off the printer.

Now you can reattach the bulkhead fitting. Reinstall the HE280 cap, making sure to route the new wire so it does not interfere. Connect the connector to the HE280. Finally, connect the Bowden at both ends. Make sure to seat it all the way into both the extruder and the hotend. Here's a trick, after you insert the little lobster claw under the locking ring, push the tube in firmly, it should insert another mm or so. This insures that it is properly seated all the way. Here's the hotend completed:
IMG_6804.JPG

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

Although not totally silent, the V3 is a LOT quieter now when it's not printing. This mod is certainly worth an extra wire!

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HE280 Probing Tip

Post by mhackney »

I posted this a week ago in another thread. I am going to start copying all pertinent HE280 and V3 posts to my thread so they are all in one place and easy for people to find. This one deals with a problem some of us are experiencing where the effector tilts just as it contacts the bed near a tower to do a probe point. If you look at the arms when probing you'll notice that the arms nearest the tower are completely vertical. That coupled with the impact force from the probing causes a momentary twist and bad probe data. I've found that decreasing the probe radius a little completely eliminated this issue and I now get 100% consistent probing.

The bed probe points are kept in EEPROM and called something like:
Z Probe X1
Z Probe Y1
Z Probe X2
Z Probe Y2
Z Probe X3
Z Probe Y3

In my other post I showed how you can use David Crocker's bed file generator but that caused more questions than I can respond to. So, instead, I'll just present my probe points and you can use them:

Z Probe X1: -116.910
Z Probe Y1: -67.500
Z Probe X2: 116.910
Z Probe Y2: -67.500
Z Probe X3: 0.000
Z Probe Y3: 135.000

This probes on a 135mm radius circle rather than the stock 142.68mm.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by Noircogi »

Using the smaller probe radius and 3 bed clips with a washer under each has given me excellent first layer results.

I've purchased a couple of fan controller boards and two 60mm PWM fans which I plan to put in the bottom and top ends.
I'm also going to do the extruder fan mod to hopefully get silent standby operation.
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

"more silent" standby operation, the power supply fan seems to stay on all the time.

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Calibration UPDATE

Post by mhackney »

A few hours ago JJ (SeeMeCNC) texted me a photo of a 10.5" diameter (9.5" ID) single layer ring he printed on a V3 that was as perfect as a photo could show. That got my attention so I asked some questions:

bed surface? Clean borosilicate, cleaned with hand soap and water
filament: SeeMeCNC gold nugget PLA
temps: 60°C bed, 210°C hot end

So, that got me thinking I need to test on plane glass. I removed the FlabLam (it peals off easily) and then scrupulously cleaned the glass with soap and water and dried with lint free paper towels. I carefully reinstalled the bed making sure everything was clean and flat. I then ran auto calibration dead cold (well, room temperature dead cold!).

I drew up a 10.5" OD x 9.5"ID ring 2 layers tall for testing (attached to this post). I sliced this using my published KISS profile but set the temps as JJ did.

I made a few printer deity incantations and hit print in OctoPrint and watched, in amazement, as a pretty good first layer went down. My Z height was a little off which made for a thin first layer but it went down well enough. More experiments going on now. I am printing a rather large box for my CNC Router speed control now and after adjusting the Z the first layer looks even better.
IMG_6821.JPG
IMG_6822.JPG
This zip contains the STL and a KISS sliced gcode file you can print on a stock V3.
CalibrationRIng.zip
(58.83 KiB) Downloaded 329 times

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by Mac The Knife »

I recall that they did have to play around with how fast the hotend hit the bed during autocalibration. Using a softer surface would muffle the impact.
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

That should be ok as long as it is consistent. And when I auto probed my reproducability was very very good. But the issue seems to be either not the surface itself but the interface between the surface or the interface between the bed and mounting system. That's what I'm looking into today.

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Irrelevant musing!

Post by mhackney »

I forgot how mesmerizing that RAMBo stepper driver "music" is! Been printing like crazy on the V3 for the last day and I've gone through 2Kgs of PLA already.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by stough »

I finally have a good calibration (mostly hand calibrated) and I'm hesitant to try auto cal again. However, I've realized that, if I leave the end-stop screws alone and backup my EEPROM settings, I can try and roll back if it doesn't work.

I'll post results using the new calibration circle diameter.

Cheers,
Tim
Last edited by stough on Tue Oct 18, 2016 3:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

Thanks Tim, that is a good strategy - save your EEPROM settings! And as you say, if you don't touch anything mechanical on the printer you should be able to restore back to a good working set.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by stough »

Also, I had tons of extrusion issues until I set my nozzle size to 0.4mm (although all the docs say that the V3 comes with 0.5mm). Now, I'm getting good prints with 90% of default speeds. Is the nozzle dia indicated anywhere on the nozzle? If I am lying to Matterslice about the nozzle diameter, what would the symptoms be? The resulting prints look good.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

Usually the symptoms would be underextrusion. I have a set of gauges I use to validate nozzle size. But if you don't have those, you are dependent on the vendor.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by Polygonhell »

FWIW I don't think SeeMeCNC has ever made a 0.4mm nozzle, so I'd surprised if it wasn't 0.5mm.
All setting the nozzle size in the Slicer does is give it a hint for extrusion width, you can easily extrude a 1mm width from a 0.5 mm nozzle. In fact back in the 0.8 days Slic3r used to compute 0.85mm as optimal width for a 0.5mm nozzle and 0.3mm layer height.
If you were having extrusion trouble with the higher value, it's more likely that you were bailed out because the 0.4mm width resulted in less plastic being extruded, which to me implies a temperature, or extruder current issue.
FWIW you can also extrude less than a nozzle size because the plastic is stretched during extrusion, however at some point the plastic just snaps and you'll get terrible solid layers.
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

They do have the now available for the HE280 and have been for a week or so. You never know if one got inadvertently shipped!

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by stough »

This is a print that I did overnight. Info: MatterSlice, MatterHackers PLA, 220C extruder, 65C bed, Rostock V3 stock nozzle (dia set to 0.4mm), 0.3mm layers, max print speed 35mm/s. When I used 0.5mm as the nozzle dia, I got problems with the extruder motor slipping and bouncing when printing _much_ slower...
IMG_20161018_134452.jpg
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by Polygonhell »

mhackney wrote:They do have the now available for the HE280 and have been for a week or so. You never know if one got inadvertently shipped!
I didn't realize, but I stand by my assertion, picking a larger nozzle size should not cause slipping/skipping extruder issues.
All it does is increase the required extrusion rate and from 0,4 to 0.5 we're talking ~25% volume increase at 0.3mm layers.

It might exacerbate an issue, but if the extruder is skipping, either you're printing too fast for the temperature or the motor isn't providing enough torque.
Usually I'd assume a temperature issue, until it's been eliminated as an possibility either by pushing the filament by hand or ideally by verifying the hotend temperature with a thermocouple.
Pushing by hand is sufficient to rule out temperature, but it's so hard to explain to people what it's supposed to feel like.
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

Maybe I misunderstood the OP, I thought he said he had extrusion issues (whatever those were) when his slicer was configured for 0.5mm. He changed to 0.4mm and getting good prints. I don't know what his extruder issues were but I absolutely agree with you. However, if he does actually have a .4 (or maybe a partially blocked .5) nozzle and tried to push the appropriate amount of filament through it, that could cause problems.

My experience so far with the V3 and stock EZRStruder is similar to what we went through a few years ago with the original EZStuder. It is not geared and at 92.4 steps/mm direct drive, I think we agree that that is really on the very low end. I've done some testing today with a geared stepper and it is, as expected, working much much better. The EZRStruder is a much nicer design and probably the easiest extruder to load/unload that I have. With a geared stepper I think it will do quite nicely. I haven't had a single extruder skip all day today and I've been able to lower my temps back down to 195°C from 210°C.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by stough »

So, you think that it is a hotend issue.

The installed thermocouple seems to be working and reporting temperatures that make sense. You mentioned extruder current. I can measure that, I suppose. Do you mean current to the heating element? What other things can I look at and rule out? I have disassembled and reassembled the hotend to ensure that there are no clogs and got the same behaviour before and after.

Thanks,
Tim
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by Polygonhell »

Yeah I ended up upgrading all my EZStruders to geared steppers because of issues with various filament types.
The direct drive extruder on the Polygon which I've been experimenting with recently seems to do OK, but its closer to 140 steps/mm and has a somewhat higher rated Stepper which I'm running at 1.2A, even then I'd be suspicious of it for PET or Nylon.
Like you I really like the Bondtech.
Have you tried the new E3D extruder?
I still haven't picked one up, but people seem to have a positive impression of it..
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

Current that powers the extruder. It is configurable in firmware on the RAMBo controller. But it does require recompiling. I need a lot more experience on the V3 but I do believe the direct drive extruder is workable but can't be pushed too far (print too fast).

I have not tried the new E3D extruder, I will at some point when I have time!

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by Polygonhell »

stough wrote:So, you think that it is a hotend issue.

The installed thermocouple seems to be working and reporting temperatures that make sense. You mentioned extruder current. I can measure that, I suppose. Do you mean current to the heating element? What other things can I look at and rule out? I have disassembled and reassembled the hotend to ensure that there are no clogs and got the same behaviour before and after.

Thanks,
Tim
What's installed is a Thermistor, when I say check with a thermocouple I'm talking about using an external thermocouple to measure the actual hotend temperature, because of the way Thermistors are used, they can show more or less correct ambient temperature and still be a long ways off at 200+C. If Michael's hotend is close to accurate with the default firmware, they are probably all pretty close. I've had very bad luck with E3D hotends in this regard almost all of mine have thermistors that at printing temperature are reading between 15 and 30C too low with the recommended firmware settings, but that doesn't mean the same is true of the HE280.

Stepper current is a setting in the firmware, the drivers provide constant current to a stepper, this dictates it's "holding torque", more current more torque, but it makes the motors run hotter so there is a trade off, SeeMe will have tuned this for the current motors in the firmware.

Without a thermocouple you can tune the correct extrusion temperature by feel, at temperature you should be able to push the filament through by hand, there should be some initial resistance, but once the filament starts to flow pushing is through should not require excessive force. Unfortunately it's hard to describe any better, it's easy yo notice if you know what it's supposed to feel like, but that doesn't help people without experience.
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by mhackney »

IMG_6824.JPG
IMG_6823.JPG
Here are a couple of large parts that I'm printing on bare glass. The first layer went down nicely on these.

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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by stough »

Polygonhell,

Thanks for the tough love. I tore down, cleaned, and reinstalled my hot end. Then, using mhackney's instruction from a previous thread, locked the Bowden tube to the hot end with the lobster claw and then pushed it in again (felt like I got 1mm or more or additional tube into the hotend). After that, PLA flows great at 210C. No issue with the extruder stepper slipping or bouncing. I am now able to print at the default speeds (up to 40mm/s) with no problems.

MHackney,

I tried out your eeprom settings for changing the calibration circle as well as installing washers and using 3-point bed suspension. It got me a much better auto-calibration, but I still needed to do fine adjustments by the end-stop screws. I also used your suggestions to tune my retraction.

At this point, I'd say that I'm up and running. Now to learn more about printing support material. :)

This community is awesome, thanks again.
-Tim
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Re: mhackney's Real V3 Build Thread

Post by HComet »

Okay, here's a question/thought related to the new HE280 and some of the issues with the head twisting during the taping. The new head mounts the ball joints on the top of the effector plate while the old one mounted the ball joints on the bottom. I'm wondering if this allows the tip of the hot end to apply torque differently through the ball joints. Now while the printer arms are pressing down they are pushing the effector plate while before they were pulling. Would this make the effector plate more susceptible to twisting when there's a force applied to the tip and the force on the ball joints is not well balanced. I assume it gets less balanced as the hot end is moved further away from the center of the build plate.

Crazy thought? The axis through the ball joins is only about a mm above the effector versus previuosly being a mm below.

If not crazy, then maybe it also affects the printing by allowing the head to twist slightly more while pushing molten filament across a print.
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