Why not .4mm nozzle?

[mhackney]

Check my blog and my v1 build thread. Photos can't do the quality difference justice. You have to see the parts. Check my printed fly reels on mhackney.zenfolio.com. All done on Duet.

[mhackney]

And "worth the money"? Only you can answer that. The print quality is superior but all of the other features are just as impressive.

[DeltaCon]

Thanks David, Michael and Xenocrates for the answers. I think having a 0.6 version is a plausible and not too expensive option for me. I already have the FSR setup so that would be an ideal combination.

Yes Nazulle, it is because of the price. The 0.6 is prices half as much as the new Duet Wifi and I don't care for Wifi. I'd rather take the 0.6 plus the new arms and skates

[mhackney]

The .6 is a great deal. You will be surprised at how much quieter your steppers are with it too. And you get ALL of the benefits of the dc42 firmware and Duet Web Control.

[626Pilot]

I'm not convinced that the segmentless calculation actually does anything you can measure in a side-by-side comparison, and I say this because that's exactly what I did. These two pieces were printed on a Duet 0.8 (segmentless) and a Smoothieboard (200 segs/sec). Can you tell which was printed on which? At some point, the resolution limit on the stepper motors will eat any gains you might get from segmentless calculation. The printer these were made on has 0.9-degree steppers.

I would consider upgrading to 0.9-degree motors with AstroSyn dampers first, before changing out the controller, if you want to reduce the waviness. I DON'T have any side-by-side photos of parts printed with 1.8 and 0.9 degree steppers, so I can't prove it directly, but the logic is sound: if the steppers have twice the resolution, the controller will be able to draw smoother lines with them.

I also have to say that even if I was using Duet (which I'm not anymore), I would still use OctoPrint. G-code file uploads will always be much faster on large files, due to the RasPi's ability to cache the entire file in RAM and write it to the SD card in the background. The TouchUI skin makes web access work flawlessly on cell phones and tablets, and it's smart enough to know to load that skin when it's on a smaller screen. Then there's the built-in webcam server. You can either use a RasPi camera (plugs into the Pi with a ribbon cable) or a USB webcam. I can watch the thing printing (or failing to do so) from another room, on my cell phone. It generates time-lapse videos on the fly (however many seconds/frame you want) and lets you download them from the web interface. There are also a bunch of plugins - things that will email you or send various push notifications when the job finishes, add useful widgets to the UI, display a cost estimate, edit EEPROM (if you are running Marlin or Repetier firmware), slice STLs on the Pi itself, keep a log of all printed files and whether they succeeded or were cancelled, etc.

That said, if you get a Duet, the PanelDue is definitely worth consideration. I released an enclosure for it here. It comes with a mount that works with the Trick Laser MAX Metal frame, or it can be used stand-alone, or (if anyone cares to do it) a hanger could be developed that would fit a regular Rostock MAX.

Speaking of the Trick Laser MAX Metal, that frame is highly accurate and very easy to assemble. That's why many of this forum's power users swear by it. An upgrade to think about for the distant future.

My setup is OctoPi + Smoothieboard running my auto-calibration firmware. Does the Duet (with dc42's firmware) have Z-only correction yet? It was in an incomplete state when I last tried to use it, but that was about a year ago. Its incompleteness was the straw that broke the camel's back and sent me back to Smoothieland. I could not get a flat 1st layer using only dc42's calibration, but I can get it on the same machine using Smoothie and my firmware.

[Nazulle]

Sorry for the late response, I've been very busy these last few weeks.

I would consider upgrading to 0.9-degree motors with AstroSyn dampers first, before changing out the controller, if you want to reduce the waviness. I DON'T have any side-by-side photos of parts printed with 1.8 and 0.9 degree steppers, so I can't prove it directly, but the logic is sound: if the steppers have twice the resolution, the controller will be able to draw smoother lines with them.

The 0.9 stepper motors seem to be relatively the same price as the 1.8 motors, which is weird because if they are meant to be more precise then why is it not being used as a standard for all printers? (in the RMax price range at least) Do you know of any drawbacks that having 0.9 stepper motors might have? If anything, they would just require more power from the motherboard to run properly. I noticed quite a bit of stringing in your prints which i would imagine would be due to the bowden style setup of the Rmax... I've been getting that a lot too so ive been thinking of possibly building a fly-struder to counter that issue, but again i don't see many people using it so maybe there's some drawbacks I am not seeing. I was thinking weight could be a factor but the weight of the stepper motor is being distributed to the 3 other motors so i wouldn't think it would be a huge issue.

I was thinking that maybe I could buy 3 0.9 stepper motors (i don't think its necessary to have one for the extruder), the 3 pack of Astrosyn dampers, a Duet Wifi (for its upgraded stepper drivers compared to its predecessors),and a 7" panel due that I would probably try designing an enclosure for myself to add more aesthetics to the printer sooner or later I will eventually also get the bed leveling probe upgrade that came with the v3 as well as an e3d v6 hot end. Through all of this i am easily spending over $400 on upgrades which makes me realize how expensive this hobby can become.

[Xenocrates]

Sorry for the late response, I've been very busy these last few weeks.

I would consider upgrading to 0.9-degree motors with AstroSyn dampers first, before changing out the controller, if you want to reduce the waviness. I DON'T have any side-by-side photos of parts printed with 1.8 and 0.9 degree steppers, so I can't prove it directly, but the logic is sound: if the steppers have twice the resolution, the controller will be able to draw smoother lines with them.

The 0.9 stepper motors seem to be relatively the same price as the 1.8 motors, which is weird because if they are meant to be more precise then why is it not being used as a standard for all printers? (in the RMax price range at least) Do you know of any drawbacks that having 0.9 stepper motors might have? If anything, they would just require more power from the motherboard to run properly. I noticed quite a bit of stringing in your prints which i would imagine would be due to the bowden style setup of the Rmax... I've been getting that a lot too so ive been thinking of possibly building a fly-struder to counter that issue, but again i don't see many people using it so maybe there's some drawbacks I am not seeing. I was thinking weight could be a factor but the weight of the stepper motor is being distributed to the 3 other motors so i wouldn't think it would be a huge issue.

I was thinking that maybe I could buy 3 0.9 stepper motors (i don't think its necessary to have one for the extruder), the 3 pack of Astrosyn dampers, a Duet Wifi (for its upgraded stepper drivers compared to its predecessors),and a 7" panel due that I would probably try designing an enclosure for myself to add more aesthetics to the printer sooner or later I will eventually also get the bed leveling probe upgrade that came with the v3 as well as an e3d v6 hot end. Through all of this i am easily spending over $400 on upgrades which makes me realize how expensive this hobby can become.

The drawback is speed (Especially for the Rambo). Some printers run into issues with the voltage rise time, as they are largely inductors (See the RL time constant math), to a level which produces appreciable torque. Others, especially Delta's, run into issues with the high rate of step generation needed becoming problematic with slower boards such as the Rambo. Combine the two with a stock Max, and you have some real potential for problems. However, the Duet Wifi can easily keep up with step generation, and the voltage can be tweaked upwards slightly or be fed 24V.

On the extruder, unless you're using a geared one such as a Titan or Bondtech, I would actually suggest it so that you can have greater precision on it, because it does make a difference. Assuming 1.75mm filament and a .5mm nozzle bore, with a 92.4 steps per mm (what is pre-loaded in seeme's firmware), a single step is around a tenth of a mm of extrusion. It gets worse for smaller nozzle bores such as .25, and even worse for .15, where it exceeds an entire MM of extrusion. This ties directly to minimum feature size, and thus print quality.

[Qdeathstar]

If your still wondering whether or not the duet is worth it, if you throw out every single feature they advertise (better software, 32 bit electronics, better support, the best autocalibration routine, - nice web interface, etc) It is still worth the price. It makes the steppers (movement of the arms) almost completely silent, and that alone wanked me off. My only regret was wasting money on octoprint before moving to the duet...

[626Pilot]

Astrosyn dampers make the steppers totally quiet, and they are a much cheaper upgrade. However, I don't know how well a RAMBo can drive 0.9-degree steppers because I moved to Smoothie well before buying them. The release I use updates motor speeds 1000 times/sec, compared to the RAMBo's 200 times/sec. Newer Smoothie releases went to a continuous step generation (like Duet). As I posted above, I can't tell the difference between 1KHz and continuous just by looking at the finished part.

The stringing is a function of printing in PLA with retract/prime speeds too high. Slowing down to ~15mm/sec makes a huge difference. Seems to help with PETG as well.

All things considered, if you really like the Duet WiFi, I would consider buying it. If nothing else, it's FAR more future-proof than the RAMBo you have now. The only thing I don't like about the board is that it has a weak hot end power connector. The Molex connectors used on the RAMBo and Smoothie boards have their own issue: they get really hot when warming the heated bed from room temperature, and in fact my power-in connector literally melted earlier this week and I had to swap in a new one. (This might be because I'm using a 40-watt heater with my hot end, rather than the stock 30-watt one. Not sure.) Anyway, the Duet's connectors terminate the wires directly (contact plate held down by a screw), so they should offer less resistance (heat) under high current loads.

If dc42's new Z-only correction works well, then it is as strong a contender as my Smoothie fork.

[Qdeathstar]

adding the dampers to a rostock v2 after it is built seems extremely difficult.

[626Pilot]

I added them to my v1. It did take a little work, but in exchange, the printer was no longer screaming in my ear. IMO it should be included in every v3 kit they sell. It's crazy not to.

[TwoTone]

adding the dampers to a rostock v2 after it is built seems extremely difficult.

One reason I did as much research as I could before we bought the V2. Ordered the Dampers and PEI sheet at the same time as the printer.

[dc42]

All things considered, if you really like the Duet WiFi, I would consider buying it. If nothing else, it's FAR more future-proof than the RAMBo you have now. The only thing I don't like about the board is that it has a weak hot end power connector. The Molex connectors used on the RAMBo and Smoothie boards have their own issue: they get really hot when warming the heated bed from room temperature, and in fact my power-in connector literally melted earlier this week and I had to swap in a new one.

Can you explain what you mean by "weak hot end power connector"?

The Duet 0.6 used pin headers originally, later changed to Molex connectors, however the pins are doubled up so as not to exceed the per-pin current rating. But users didn't like having to connect 2 pins per wire or else run 4 wires to the hot end. So the Duet 0.8.5 uses 2.54mm terminal blocks rated at 5A, which is sufficient in theory for a 12V 60W heater, or a 12V 40W heater overdriven to 18V. However, getting the hot end wires into the small terminal blocks can be tricky if you can't get a good view of the cable entry. So we switched to 3.5mm terminal blocks on the Duet WiFi.

I'm not a fan of using terminal blocks, but the Molex KK series connectors have a marginal current rating at best unless you double up the pins, and most of the alternatives with higher current rating I have seen are either too large or impossible to take apart without an expensive tool. I welcome suggestions!

[Xenocrates]

Can you explain what you mean by "weak hot end power connector"?

not pilot, but I would say it feels like I'm about to twist it off sometimes (Not that I've even heard of someone actually managing to gorilla it that much). As far as other connectors, well, I personally like the Powerpole series, however those want for a semi-specific tool (It's not too badly priced though). The Smoothie project apparently went with XT-30 and 60 connectors for their V2. However both add cost and have substantial footprints. Not to mention that revising a legacy board to use them when the new version improves on it is probably not worth the time, and would be a marginal improvement at best even if it hadn't been changed.

[626Pilot]

What he said. The screw terminals are somewhat small, and trying to tighten them down real good results in the entire block feeling like it's twisting in place. The Duet WiFi pic I looked at a couple days ago appears to have similar terminals to the 0.8.1 that I got back in 2015. I understand there's a tradeoff where using larger connectors means a bigger, costlier board.

The new Smoothieboard 2 is indeed using the XT30/60 power connectors (presumably 60 on the main board and 30 on the daisy-chained extra stepper boards), which are the same ones used in high-current remote control applications (like quad copters). They are designed for heavy current loads. I would look into it. You might not be able to fit that on the Duet WiFi's footprint.

Another option would be spring cage connectors. I have it on good authority (from one of the Smart Guys on this forum, forget who) that they are more suited to the 3D printing environment because of all the vibration, which they are immune to.

[Qdeathstar]

i agree about the power connectors on the duet wifi, they do feel kind of wonky, but they seem to work ok.

[PartDaddy]

sorry if this was answered, I quickly scanned the posts. if you are running from your computer, you might try running the same file from the SD card.