Free Leapfrog CreatrHS - What should I do with it?

Such as Laser cutters (Must use the phrase 'sharks with frickin lazors' once per thread)
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JFettig
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Free Leapfrog CreatrHS - What should I do with it?

Post by JFettig »

A customer of mine had a Leapfrog CreatrHS sitting in his office for over a year, didn't get used, I asked about it and he said he could never get it to print right.... then it followed me home.

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What a goofy machine! It has 3 rolled ballscrews for Z axis, and no linear guides of any sorts - it uses the ballscrews AS the guides.

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Does anyone have any experience with these machines? I'm trying to decide whether I try to figure out what's up with it or retrofit it with a new controller(and better Z axis!)

The extruders look kind of crappy, do they work ok?

Does anyone know what the specs are on the extruder heaters and bed heater? Volts, Watts, etc? I have yet to find time to turn it on or dig in.

Thanks,
Jon
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Re: Free Leapfrog CreatrHS - What should I do with it?

Post by geneb »

My, that is a funky little box, innit? :)

The Z-Axis should be ok, even though it's kind of weird.

g.
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JFettig
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Re: Free Leapfrog CreatrHS - What should I do with it?

Post by JFettig »

Found a little time while making parts on the mill to tear down and label wires.
Additionally, someone else has done something similar: https://passion-impression3d.jimdo.com/

Since I already have a smoothieboard that I tried in a delta(and I hated it!), I'm installing it for now to see if it does better in a cartesian printer(major corner rounding issues in the delta IIRC, I'm sure I posted about it on this forum).

Here is the original control board, it has DRV8825 drivers on it 16x micro stepping
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I took lots of pictures so I cold figure out the wiring, it's pretty straight forward - from the link above he measured the motor currents, he also figured out the thermistor calibration but I'll have to dig for it since he didn't post it directly
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Under the main board I found this quite interesting, they use an OLIMEX to run the front panel and the USB connections go through it, both in back, and up front.
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I plan to power it up outside the printer and see if it's worth messing with for other applications, I don't have any interest in using it for this printer.

Cheapie 24v power supply, S-400-24 meanwell knockoff.

Rough layout
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Where I left it for the evening
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Z axis is a nema 23 motor so I'll power that with a TB6600 drive. I'm hoping I can add it to the smoothie using some spare pins so I can run both extruders.

X,Y,Extruders are 1.68A
Z stepper is 2.8A

Found a copy of the firmware https://github.com/chili-epfl/creatr-hs ... guration.h
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Re: Free Leapfrog CreatrHS - What should I do with it?

Post by dc42 »

A Duet could power that Z motor directly.
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Re: Free Leapfrog CreatrHS - What should I do with it?

Post by JFettig »

dc42 wrote: Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:49 am A Duet could power that Z motor directly.
I don't have a Duet in my junk drawer.


It's finally printing. Smoothieware is such a pain in the ass! If you put a '!' in front of the pin assignment to change it's direction, it not only changes it's direction but it's direction is ONE WAY. I found that out after a lot of hassle and annoyance. Additionally in the example config file there is no PID or any other sort of heater control for the bed in there by default - I overlooked it at first, it gave me a ton of trouble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBcT4ds2T80
I'm a little surprised how fast it moves and accelerates. I had to turn it down quite a bit because it would shake my mezzanine! 60,000mm/min I think is where that was and 10,000 mm/s/s acceleration.

The nozzles on this printer are terrible, they're .35mm - so they're a bit small(I usually print with .4mm, not significantly different) but the outside geometry really doesn't allow a nice bead to go down and it picks up anything and everything that might stick up. I might make a heat break so I can use E3d nozzles without swapping out the entire end effector.

I will most likely get a Duet or RADDS for this printer soon - I have a RADDS in my delta and I really like it combined with Repetier Server on a Raspberry Pi.
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