Rostock Max V3 Sighting

[U.S. Water Rockets]

I've been following this clever guy on YouTube for a few years now. His review of the Orion about 2 years ago is what attracted me to SeeMeCNC in the first place. It looks like he's got one of the first V3's made. Check out this video at around the 1:00 minute mark:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb9n6w4jWXQ[/youtube]

One day I hope to have enough subscribers myself to be able to do printer reviews on my own little YouTube Channel. If you like 3D Printing, or Model Rocketry, or Aerial Photography, check out my channel and help me reach more subscriber milestones. I'd really appreciate the support! Here is a sample of the kinds of things we do on my channel: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkZqvr6xhXA[/youtube]

[Jimustanguitar]

I didn't know that there were any out in the wild yet. Cool!

[Xenocrates]

it's very similar to the V2. I must say, it looked more like a modified V2 than anything else, until I noticed the LCD was mounted up top. It's interesting that they sent out a sample to someone without letting us know more about it. I suppose it's probably so the design can be tested by a less biased third party, before they finalize it and set it loose. I'd be interested to hear more about it, once they have the design mostly finalized.

[U.S. Water Rockets]

It looks like a plastic housing is surrounding the LCD screen and it's mounted on top.
It looks like they copied my printer and put a Blue LED in the Onyx.
It looks like the EZstruder is relocated and no longer hangs down from the top.

I wonder if all the motors are relocated to the top area, simplifying the wiring? Only power would go up from the base to the top through one of the extrusions and the heated bed would get power/thermistor through another extrusion. Less endstop wiring and hot end wiring and extruder wiring passing through the towers.

The blue things on the bed instead of the paper clips could mean there are FSRs or something in there for leveling?

I don't see anything new on the hot end to indicate it has the accelerometer sensor.

I guess we will learn more. I asked Lasersaber in the comments to tell us anything he can say about it.

[Windshadow]

I wonder if we are just seeing his custom touches and he misspoke when he said V3.. if he is the recipient of a review item he would be embargoed form mentioning or showing it, until it was officially announced.

Call me a doubter until an official announcement from SeeMeCNC

[U.S. Water Rockets]

I wonder if we are just seeing his custom touches and he misspoke when he said V3.. if he is the recipient of a review item he would be embargoed form mentioning or showing it, until it was officially announced.

Call me a doubter until an official announcement from SeeMeCNC

I believe he's got a good relationship with SeeMeCNC. He even had a contest they sponsored where he gave away an Orion to a viewer back in 2014. I'm pretty sure this is legit.

[guanu]

To hit all your points U.S. Water Rockets:
Yes
No, I just had 1000 blue leds of that size from a project about 7 years ago and thought it would look cool so I put it on since I was bored when I built it.
Correct

They are.

No, glass is flush with wood base so we used the same clips the eris uses as hold downs, but no fsr.

Because we didnt have the accelerometer hotends when I built that. I'm still working on the coding for the probing which as of last night is working pretty awesome.

Also to note, this was a very first test build of what we were thinking along the lines of for the v3, more of an alpha. The design for the v3 has changed quite a bit since that one was made, but mostly build design changes, the machine will look similar.

There will be more about the v3 when we get closer and start cutting more molds for parts, we just are focused on getting the eris project complete before we move on to the v3.

And windshadow: It is technically the first design for the v3, but it was more of a proof of concept build, and not final, there are lots of changes since that one as I said just above here.

[Xenocrates]

So here's a few questions, if you guys are willing to answer, with the understanding that none of it is necessarily final.

Will it be possible to adjust the hold-downs or base for different heights of bed material, such as if we wanted to add a heat spreader?

What is occupying the base, if the controller and steppers have moved upwards?

Has the overall geometry changed much (Larger build area, greater tower spacing, different arm lengths)? If not, will it be practical to adapt chamber designs such as Raymond or Jfettig's to the V3?

Are the towers better constrained or aligned at the bottom, since they no longer need to have anything other than an idler down there on most of them?

Is it still possible/easy to mount 2 EZ-struders to the printer?

Have any considerations been made for mounting SSRs or similar (I really hope that the design actually features one stock, as it would make it easy to feed the wiring down the towers, since you could use a lighter gauge, and it would let you use a 24V PSU without burning the Rambo, but I don't hold out a lot of hope)

I presume that the controller board is still the Rambo? If it isn't, are you willing to share any specifics on that?

Again, I know this stuff isn't final, and I'm sure you have things you would rather do than answer questions posed by overly inquisitive people about prototypes, but we love that sort of information.

[U.S. Water Rockets]

I would guess the PSU goes in the base and the 12V for the heater comes down one of the extrusions. Probably a nice heavy gauge wire.

Doing a 24V conversion means you would replace the PSU with a 24V unit and mount the FSR in the base somewhere, since it will be fairly empty.

I wonder if having the motors on top would lead to quieter operation? Less noise resonating with the table under the base?

The V3 looks like it will be a lot easier to build, so that's a big plus. If it comes out with the auto bed sensing accelerometer deal, then it will be amazing.

[Windshadow]

T
And windshadow: It is technically the first design for the v3, but it was more of a proof of concept build, and not final, there are lots of changes since that one as I said just above here.

super thanks for the confirmation . I am just amazed that you don't put your beta/prototype users under a NDR until you announce a product update

[U.S. Water Rockets]

T
And windshadow: It is technically the first design for the v3, but it was more of a proof of concept build, and not final, there are lots of changes since that one as I said just above here.

super thanks for the confirmation . I am just amazed that you don't put your beta/prototype users under a NDR until you announce a product update

They don't seem that concerned about that kind of thing. A while ago they put a bunch of Eris info on the website with no external links, but when I was searching for something on Google, the stuff they had posted was turning up in the results. I sent a PM to SeeMeCNC, and they never bothered to remove the info. I believe someone else stumbled across it a few weeks later and posted it to the forum here, and it was like it was no big deal that the info was public. So, they're probably not all that secretive about their work like other companies are.

[JFettig]

Guanu,

regarding the enclosure stuff - you should just adapt some of the design features I used in my delta that I designed - you guys cut the top and bottom pieces.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=8442" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It has slots in the melamine for polycarb to drop into, they could be 'accidental' features if you're worried about patents, or use them for something else

[guanu]

Xenocrates:
since the beds are just clips, if you had a thicker heat spreader, you would likely need to print the hold downs since it is designed for the thickness of the bed and glass only, or use a heat spreader the same thickness as the glass.

In the base is the power supply.. the wires ran to the top would be the two main power wires (one in each tower), then the third tower would just be the bed power and thermistor wires.

geometery is the same

for the inside pieces that hold the aluminum and seperate the main plates, we are going to be injection molding them, so they wont be as finicky as the laser cut pieces.. the pieces will be the same in the top and bottom, both sides will have motor mounts and whatnot, so you can put the motors and electronics in the top or bottom.

it is designed so you can add extra extruders, yes...

no SSR in the design.

still the rambo at the current design.


U.S. Water Rockets: much easier to build!

JFettig: the thing with enclosures is too close to dancing around patents for us to include a enclosure, so it is something we cannot do.

[JFettig]

JFettig: the thing with enclosures is too close to dancing around patents for us to include a enclosure, so it is something we cannot do.

I'm not suggesting that you include an enclosure, but some provisions for the end user to drop in their polycarb

[bot]

I honestly think that there would be no issues with including heated enclosures on a delta machine. Most of the wording of the patent(s) revolves around the XY gantry design, and flexible barriers separating the x/y gantry. There is no x/y gantry on a delta, and most of the components wouldn't be separated...

[JFettig]

I just wanted to note something from my experience - keep the display in the lower part of the machine. Its a pain to do calibrations and set z-heights when the display is 3 feet away from the printer bed.

[AlanZ]

I too would prefer keeping the display on the lower portion of the machine.

I mount my printers so that the bed is at a height of 46"... it's much nicer to stand in front of the printer to watch a print in progress without having to bend over very far.
I want the thing I look at the most (the bed), to be in the most comfortable position for me.
So, the top of my printer is up pretty high.

I have a temperature control unit and some switches in the top, but they require very little attention.

So, if I got a printer with a display on the top, the first thing I would do is try to figure out how to relocate it to a lower position.

To see how I've got mine configured, take a look at this thread: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9905" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks

[geneb]

You'll have the option of building it either way, but the docs will only cover the version with all the electronics up top.

As to calibration...well let's just say it's not gonna take that much work any more.

g.

[AlanZ]

Thanks Gene.

[dlbyers]

You'll have the option of building it either way, but the docs will only cover the version with all the electronics up top.

As to calibration...well let's just say it's not gonna take that much work any more.

g.

Hoping there will be an affordable retrofit kit for previous versions. I just got my V2 in January so I'm a bit sickened that it will be obsolete so soon.

[geneb]

Adding auto calibration to a printer doesn't make others of the make & model obsolete. That's absurd.

They will be offering refit kits at some point for v2s - but the v3 won't be released until some time after the Eris, and the Eris is about a month out.

g.

[mhackney]

I have an original V1 and I'll put it up against any other existing Rostock for print quality, reliability, auto calibration, etc. When you get a Rostock, you can make as many mods as you want/need. I hope the new accelerometer probe is great but until I see it in action, FSRs do everything I need them to do and they are inexpensive. I experimented with an accelerometer probe for 2 months earlier this year and finally gave up. Not to say that a different approach won't work, but it will take some secret sauce! The idea has been bandied about for a few years and no one has demonstrated a working prototype except SeeMeCNC, so I'm hopeful. An effector mounted solution that uses the nozzle as the probe and a rigid print bed is a very attractive probing system.

You can read about my extensively modified Rostock Max here.

[Xenocrates]

Given SeemeCNC's history with this, I don't doubt for a second that all the parts needed to do a conversion will be easily available (If they aren't on the store, Email them and they probably will sell them to you). It was also said at one point that it was likely that the V2 and V3 would be available concurrently (http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... 372#p77372

Spoiler:

The transition to the new ball cup arms is today. All RMAX v2 kits are leaving the factory with the new arms. (Sorry about the short lead time Gene. It had to do with production and inventory levels.) Is the RMAX v2 kit getting phased out? No. We really haven't discussed a termination date. RMAX v2 will be around well into 2016.

The RMAX v3 is different enough to be an additional product. JJ & Andy took this project and ran with it. When I showed up to work one day (couple months back), the v3 prototype was sitting in the lobby (no s!*%). I did not know they made a working prototype. And I was impressed with their hard work. It incorporated ideas from all of us. Perhaps most importantly, JJ told me the design was also influenced by you guys on the forum too.

JJ is currently cleaning up files for the new ball cup arms and will upload them to our github soon.

So don't worry overly much about your printer becoming "obsolete". At worst, you get to add external wires to connect the accelorometer to the controller. It's not a huge thing. V1's did that with all their wiring, heavily modified V2's (such as mine) do it with most any additional wiring (I personally have no less than 8 additional wires going up to the top, and a few more that leave the base to control external relays). It's a flexible, adaptable, and extensible system, and well worth the price (Not that a newer, better product makes the things you have any less capable, and those capabilities were worth enough to you to convince you to pay the price in the first place.)

[geneb]

mhackney, the accelerometer hot end works perfectly. They've got the hardware nailed - Ultimachine did the board. I watched two Eris printers going all weekend and they did many auto-cal demos. When it gets confused, it just restarts. It has a similar calibration time as does RRF on the Duet.

g.

[mhackney]

Very cool! Thanks Gene.