Steves new build project. Sept 2015

[Stevolution]

Hey all.

Well after weeks of researching, designing and general Googling.... we are off!

Ordered all the follwoing parts, and looking forward to many evenings of rewarding 3d printing (or pulling out my hair and swearing a lot)

RoStock Max v2 kit
E3d V6 hotend
Replacement 750w Corsair PSU
Copper RTV Silicon
Trick laser 300mm carbon fibre arms
Trick laser Nema stepper motor dampers
Trick laser J-Head groove mount for the E3d V6 hot end) - hey it was on offer, what the heck
Extended screws for the E3d V6 hotend
Silica packs for the filament storage
Kapton tape
Replacement 40mm Noctua fan
Replacement 25mm bearingless fan (just in case)
Roll of PLA
Roll of ABS
Sheet of PEI for the hotbed
RGB led ring for the print head
RGB led controller

I ordered the upgrades straight away, because I know I an upgrading the hot end anyway.... so lets do it now. Plus... impatient like that!

I have designed a cabinet with full enclosure and heating. I will start on that once I have the main unit assmebled and had a little play.

First job..... paint those edges on the printer panels!

I was going to keep a photo log of the entire build. I have found other peoples build logs interesting, so why not.

Got an old laptop out of the workshop and I plan to add that to the printer workstation.
Fun times!

I have a question regarding the hotbed. I have read multiple threads about people having issues with the connection to the Rambo. Basically.... it melts.
What is the output from the Rambo? Surely its basically 12v on and off as required - depending on the thermistor.
I was thinking of using the Rambo output to operate a 40A relay and wiring the hotbed through that instead. Possibly in 10 AWG cable or something.

[teoman]

The wires are a little bit thin for the bed but generally worked for me. It was slow however to reach temperature and would not go above 100 degs.

Then omce i installed an Al heat spreader for the bed, it slowly started to deteriorate and gradually could not get above 80 degs. At that point i opened up the printer and saw that the wire was burned. Probably after many heat cycles it got a little bit lose and started heating up.

I have uilt my own ssrs which worked wonderfully and have tested cheapo ebay ssrs which went up in smoke in a couple of seconds failing in the ON position.

The rambo accepts 24V. I have it running on 22V with the max PID set to 185. And i have copper heatsinks behind the rambo cooling motor drivers and bed driver.

Depending on your bed version 12V may be good or bad match for your patience level.

[teoman]

Just solder 10 or 12 Awg wires to the bed. And plug them in to the rambo. Upgrading later will be juat plug and play if you are not content.

[geneb]

No, don't. The terminal blocks are designed for a maximum of 14ga wire. Quit telling people to force larger gauges in there.

g.

[Stevolution]

I am surprised the terminal are so lightweight for the supply to the hotbed.
I have some 10awg silicon flexible cable in the workshop. I might solder that to the bed, and have a short 14awg tail coming off the board and connected with bullet connectors.
That way the cables are larger, but not straining the PCB.

Rambo cooling. I assume the 40mm fan is not enough then. Couldn't a larger fan be added?

Heat spreader for the hotbed. Not looked into that option. Does it greatly improve performance?

The other mod I 'might' make, is switch out the LCD display for an Oled one. I like those better.
I can do that at a later date anyway

[gchristopher]

No, don't. The terminal blocks are designed for a maximum of 14ga wire. Quit telling people to force larger gauges in there.

g.

I don't want to hijack someone else's build thread, but this is becoming a very confusing question for me. The default build uses 18ga wire. Most wire charts I can find seem to indicate 18ga as a safe minimum for the short (24-36" roundtrip?), 12V, 10A wire run. (Charts say up to 40A with 18ga, which means the run to the Onyx should be 75% derated!) But both the thermal imagery and the melted terminal reports (including mine) strongly suggest that 18ga wire is not a reliable choice for the heat bed.

The terminal block used on the RAMBo is rated for 16A and up to 14ga wire.

If the default build is so far within the nominal specs for all the components, why does it fail so frequently? I'm pretty sure the wire was both clean and cleanly inserted in the terminals. Maybe the wire is conducting heat and oxidizing inside the terminal?

Okay, ending the hijack. I don't recommend soldering to the back of the board unless you're super confident with wire-to-board soldering holding up to the amperages. I reworked my RAMBo for a pluggable connector (a significant rework, for me), but failing that, I think I'd second Gene's recommendation to use no larger than 14 gauge wire. At least you have 3.3x the cross-sectional area in your wire vs 18ga. (2.5mm^2 vs 0.75mm^2)

Silica packs for the filament storage

Nice attention to detail! It took me a while to figure out I should order some reusable ones.

Good luck with the build, Stevolution. A completely stock Rostock V2 goes together beautifully and the manual is great. You should have a great time! Post the pictures!

[Polygonhell]

The melted terminal block is almost always a bad connection at the terminal block, people try and be clever and do things like solder the wire ends or use some rigid structure in the terminal block.
The terminal blocks are designed to crush the stranded wires to get a good connection, anything done that prevents this will result in more resistance at that connection, it doesn't take very much before that connection is bad enough to be a significant portion of the ~1.5 Ohms that circuit is, resulting in it generating enough heat to melt the terminals.

If the wires not getting hot it's not a significant part of the resistance and isn't significantly impacting the heated bed, My V1 Max was put together before their was a manual that covered wiring, and I think I have a single 18 gauge wire running to the bed, it gets warm and 2 or 3 would be better but it's been like that for 2+ years and several thousand hours of printing and I've never damaged the terminals on the RAMBO.

The danger with using much heavier wire than is intended is that you actually end up with a worse connection at the terminal block.

[Stevolution]

The wiring is the least of my worries. I am an electrican by trade with a large background in electronics and Arduino programming.

Whether right or wrong, they could have used a better connection for the heatbed on the PCB. Those plastic terminals are a potential failing point under amperage load.

There are several parts of this kit that I think could do with a little 'attention' (I hate that SeeMeCNC logo!), but hey.... its a kit and its part of the fun sorting out these issues.

I will eliminate any risk by probably soldering decent gauge cable directly to the Rambo, but via a teminal post . It eliminates that high resistance joint.
You should not really solder directly to the underside PCB pad, as pulling the cable may strain, break or strip the PCB etched track).

I have a HUGE pile of bits here! Just waiting on my TrickLaser parts and a couple of minor bits (replacement illuminated power switch etc).

The Corsair 750w modular PSU turned up yesterday (Sunday delivery? - Thanks Amazon!) . £62 for a very nice PSU.
I do have to say the 450w PSU they supply is a bit disappointingly small. Most of the suppliers in the USA include a 600w supply.

Other minor mods I will do as I build is a panel mounted USB socket. I like tidy wiring.

As soon as the last few parts arrive, I will do a full build post with photos.

Oh... what is this 'anti-backlash' I keep reading about?

[teoman]

No, don't. The terminal blocks are designed for a maximum of 14ga wire. Quit telling people to force larger gauges in there.

g.

here is the awg chart

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If one day one decides to put an enclosure the temps will be above 30 degs. You can decide for yourself. The wires can also act as a heatsink for the connector.






I shall not be mentioning my opinions / experience on wiring for the heated bed anymore.

[Stevolution]

I read that people have been adding cooling fins/heatsinks to their Rambo due to overheating? Why not increase the cooling fan size or add a second fan?

[teoman]

I have copper heatsinks on mine. Installed them because I had them not because there was a problem. Usually they are a solution to the motor drivers overheating and missing steps. I was afraid that my bed river mosfet would overheat because i am running it at 20V now so i installed a heatsink there aswell.

Mine are sandwiched between the melamine and the rambo, tehir self adhesive pads suck.

I am sure a guru will come along and give a better explanation than i can, on if it is needed or not and where the best place to install one and why not to install one is. If you search tje forum i have pictures of my old installation. Which is dangerous because the adhesive fails and the you have pieces of conductive copper on your controllers pcb.

[Stevolution]

Interesting. Yes, now that you mention it. A large fan may reduce the heatplate temp.

I might play about with cooling just the driver chips later on. Not going to trust some Ebay stickyback heatsinks!

I am just waiting on my TrickLaser parts and I will get under way. Planning to start painted the edges this weekend.

Are there any handy tools I will need for setting this thing up? I have a steel square. I wondered if a digital level would help.
I have also seen people using those 0-10mm accurate touch depth gauges to level the bed (the rotary dial type). Necessary?

I think the bit I am unsure about is the assembly of the E3d V6 hotend. I will have to find some info on that. Any pointers gratefully received!

[teoman]

Interesting. Yes, now that you mention it. A large fan may reduce the heatplate temp.

The stock fan to cool the rambo lasted about 4-6 months on mine. The last 2 months my printer started sounding like it was diesel powered. Some upgrade to a Noctua brand fan as it is quiet and people claim it is reliable. But the printer in stock form did not experinece any overheating of the rambo or other components. So just start printing and then you can later change the fan if you see it necessary.

I might play about with cooling just the driver chips later on. Not going to trust some Ebay stickyback heatsinks!

If the board was sitting horizontally, it would not be a problem. But because it is almost vertical one should not trust any kind of adhesive where heat cycles are involved.

I am just waiting on my TrickLaser parts and I will get under way. Planning to start painted the edges this weekend.

Are there any handy tools I will need for setting this thing up? I have a steel square. I wondered if a digital level would help.
I have also seen people using those 0-10mm accurate touch depth gauges to level the bed (the rotary dial type). Necessary?

Well, you can never have enough tools but a micrometer is handy generally and is nice to have around. You can later measure your prints for accuracy and also measure your filament dimension.

I have one of those digital angle gauges and depth gauges on order, they shall be arriving within a month. Do you really need it for your printer? You do not, but i also need them for other things, like trueing my laced rims for motor vehicles. They will probably make life easier. It all depends on how much you are willing to spend on your hobby. There are cheaper alternatives if you are just going to use it with the printer, paper being the cheapest. Second cheapest thing would be something like this:
[img]http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6110/6890 ... 0c2c8c.jpg[/img]
After that you could try installing a limit switch to your hotend, or installing fsr under your heated bed.

ALL the NECESSARY tools are listed int he manual.

I think the bit I am unsure about is the assembly of the E3d V6 hotend. I will have to find some info on that. Any pointers gratefully received!

I do not have one, but you will need to get a mount for it, unless you buy it, you can print it with the standard hotend which is good for ABS and PLA.

[Stevolution]

Thanks for the advice. I bought a replacement Noctua fan for the Rambo... so I will fit that during the build.
I also bought a mount for the E3D V6 hotend. Hopefully then that will help.

Limit switch on the hotend? I assume that is to prevent collisions with the hotbed?

Fsr... OK, Just Googled that. Interesting.
The sensors would have to survive the heat however.

[teoman]

As I have not done this yet, you are better of searching the form for people who have done this.

The idea with the dial level indicator is that you acquire the exact height of the nozzle to bed so you can calibrate. An alternative method is to be able to detect when you can detect the nozzle (or a limit switch that you install there) making contact with the bed.

[Stevolution]

Limit switch does make sense, although a mechanical limit switch isn't very accurate. Depends how 'accurate' it has to be (pretty accurate I would think)
Is there provision on the Rambo/software for a hot end limit switch?
I will do some research

[teoman]

What you do is replace the hotend with the limit switch and then do your calibration. And then re isntall your hotend. Or attach it from the side. But it is generally not present while you are printing (but there are clever mechanisms and exceptions to this).

But before you jump in to this, follow the manual and start using your printer. You should be good to go. Some people have problems printing at the edges of the build plate and some of them are able to get away with doing the calibration procedure in the manual more carefully. So I would recommend not to fiddle with it just yet, get printing and then start the quest for perfect calibration if you feel you need it.

Oh, and there was a fellow over here who recommended to use an oversized nozzle (0.7mm if i remember correctly) when you were starting out. He claimed that he could "see" the printer printing and gain familiartiy with the process much quicker. I would have gone that route had I known about it at the time.

For now i would recommend trying to get your towers completely vertical to the printing surface as that is not easily adjustable after you have assembled your printer.

[KAS]

I would agree with building the stock setup first, then upgrading after you're comfortable in troubleshooting your own issues that could/will arise with modding.


From what I can tell, consistent repeatability is the goal to a "perfect" limit switch. I found the switch mounts cause more instability than the actual switch does.
After all, our whole Delta design counts on three limit switches to maintain its calibration.

I think most use the min-z socket to run limit switches for calibration.

[teoman]

Sorry to hijack the OP's thread but I have a question.

The upper limit switches are for towers (so that each carriage finds its maximum position), but is the min-Z limit switch wired by default in the repetier firmware as a limit for the Z axis in the XYZ movement coordinate system?

Also would some of those optical limit swithces provide any additional accuracy?

[Stevolution]

So many questions....

I plan to assemble the printer stock, except for the carbon arms, motor dampers and the E3d V6 hotend (oh, and a Noctua fan for the Rambo).

It does seem a bit counter-intuitive to set the levels with a gauge, and then swap-out the printer head. That surely must lead to some difference in final accuracy. But hey... I'm new, so I am probably totally wrong!

I am TOTALLY sure I will be fiddling, spending, fiddling, swearing, spending, thumping, fiddling, spending.... over the next few months

[teoman]

These things are fun to fiddle with.

Most of your questions will dissolve away once you print your first object.

I believe your set of upgrades are good and you would not need much else for some time. It is not a good idea to do too many upgrades at once. Because as the number of upgrades increases the amount of people that can provide help decreases.

[Stevolution]

Well got going today. Trial painted the edges of one piece and it looked fine.
So - etch spray primer, metallic blue and laquered all the edges.

I would upload pics directly to the thread, but even if I run them through Photoshop and save as 'for web - low resolution', I still get a blank white page when I try to upload them in here (about 500kb images). Must be too big still.
Not wasting hours resizing all the photos. Shame that.

What is the image size limit?

[Stevolution]

[Stevolution]

Ha... just spent 30 minutes messing around resizing all the build photos and then it limits me to 2x posts in a row!
I will forget photos.

[geneb]

You can post more than one pic per post.

g.