Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

I need one too. Just ordered my kit but they were out of the glass, this looks better away!

cambo3d wrote:kool when can i order one. do i get a loyal customer discount =P

i haven't had a chance to test my 3/8 mic6 plate yet, i'm having too much fun playing around with my printer now that its somewhat dialed in.

check it out

It looks like you are going to have to use natural gas to heat that plate! What do you intend to heat that monster with?
Looks cool on there though. I think you are going to have the most modified Rostock in the world when you are done! Makes for
some good reading to see what you are doing next.

Carl

mhackney wrote:Most stainless is not magnetic so these are steel. I will spot them and drill. I can do this on either the lathe (with a 5C chuck) or mill (also a 5C chuck). Balls this size can be drilled easily so I don't anticipate a challenge.

Did you order Chrome steel balls? Thats what I got and I have had no luck trying to drill them on the lathe. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised as they are hardened steel. The do advertised carbon steel ball bearings on ebay. They are Grade 100 case hardened. Perhaps they would be easier to drill.

mhackney wrote:In Repetier, the M303 command starts the auto tune. Here is the command syntax:

- M303 P<extruder/bed> S<drucktermeratur> Autodetect pid values. Use P<NUM_EXTRUDER> for heated bed.

If P is left off, P=0 is assumed - which is normally the hot end. S is the target temperature and should be the temp you would normally want to maintain. So for ABS, 200°C on the hot end is a good target. For the heated bed, 100°C is good. Make sure the device is at room temperature before running the auto tuner.

To calibrate the PID for the heated bed, I ran: M303 P1 S100

When I run M303 P1 S100, it times out and doesn't complete the hotbed autotune. Do you know if this is an idle timer in Repetier or in my firmware?

I had the same issue. Yes, I believe I had to increase the timer in the firmware to work around this.

mhackney wrote:I had the same issue. Yes, I believe I had to increase the timer in the firmware to work around this.

Any idea what timer and where? I found a timeout value for the machine and for the steppers (one was 600s and the other 900s) but changing them in the firmware and in the Repetier EEPROM didn't do the trick. My PID Autotune still times out at exactly 10 minutes.

does your heatbed get to 100c?

You nailed it! It takes about 9:30 to reach 80C, so it was hitting the 10 minute mark a few minutes too early. I changed my command to M303 P1 S80 and it worked just fine.

I suspect that the timeout value is behind the scenes in the Autotune routine and not where I was looking in the printer settings.

Thanks again!

Now that I think about it that's what I did too. I used to run my heated bed at 100°C so attempted to autotune the PID for that. Now I run at 75°C for ABS and autotuning worked fine, probably because of being below the timeout threshold.

mhackney, how are your printer mods coming along. Did that mic6 plate work for you? i still haven't had a chance to experiment with mine yet.

Come spring things get very hectic so I've not been able to make much progress. I have the Mic cut but not installed. What little time I do have right now, I print rather than tinker now that I have the machine dialed in!

regards,
Michael

Well, a little surprise from SeeMeCNC showed up with the UPS delivery person this afternoon! It's the new EZStruder kit! I couldn't wait to open it and put it together. Here is the package (without the stepper, I have lots of extras of those). It's about 3"x3" of wrapped parts:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v74 ... 4086-3.jpg[/img]

Here are the parts laid out:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v87 ... 4190-3.jpg[/img]

Ah, how I missed that smell of laser cut melamine!

Take the protective film off the two laser cut parts, these are the mounts:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v85 ... 4286-2.jpg[/img] [img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v96 ... 4428-2.jpg[/img]

The main body with the idler assembly screws directly to the stepper. The screws were captive in the clear housing so they do not show up on the parts photo above:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v91 ... 4652-3.jpg[/img]

The knurled drive wheel can be mounted next. Note, the little hex wrench came with the kit:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v87 ... 4738-3.jpg[/img]

Next, the upper guide assembly is screwed directly to the motor:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v81 ... 4878-3.jpg[/img]

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v79 ... 5002-3.jpg[/img]

That completes the actual extruder assembly! 5 minutes start to finish.

Pay attention to how the melamine mounts go together. The engraved text should be up and facing you as shown here:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v91 ... 5114-3.jpg[/img]

and the extruder mounts with with two screws through the upper guide section into captive nuts:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v83 ... 5250-3.jpg[/img]

Here is the completed unit in the proper orientation to mount on the Rostock:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v83 ... 5410-3.jpg[/img]

It should be straight forward to mount. I'm guessing the extruder arms on the Rostock will be modified to allow the new EZStruder to screw in from the top rather the bottom. I suspect this because the holes for the mounting screws are "counter sunk" on the top side!

The entire extruder was unpacked, photographed and assembled as above in less than 30 minutes! Without instructions. Of course, when I went to find the link on the SeeMeCNC site to post above, I discovered that they have a [ur=http://www.reprap.org/wiki/EZStruderl]wiki page and video[/url] on assembly! Watching it might have slowed me down though!

Next step, mount it on my Rostock, calibrate and print. Stay tuned!

is the mount listed on the website now?

i couldn't find it when i ordered mine. then emailed john he said they will list it when its been fully tested?

They are including the mounts for now as a free bonus.

sweet,

mhackney wrote: Next step, mount it on my Rostock, calibrate and print. Stay tuned!

I was wondering if you could direct drive the bowden with no gear reduction. I built a very similar design with a modified QUBD extruder but I used a 5:1 planetary gear stepper. Does it have enough torque for 1.75mm filament with no reduction?

$24.50 w/out motor is a good price.

It occurred to me that there might be a part missing - an adapter which keeps the filament in an orderly fashion while it is coming off of the spool. Perhaps a flat mount on the spool holder with a brass fitting for the old bowden?

What are you going to do there?

Also, does the firmware have to change?

Not sure what you are asking about John? The filament simply feeds up into the bottom of the extruder like with the old style. Nothing more needed. The PTC fitting for the Bowden simply screws into the filament exit "port".

The steps per mm is different for this extruder. I have not calibrated mine but that's easy to do. This time of year is crazy busy with family stuff - graduations, recitals, soccer games, you name it! Makes it hard to get "me time" in!

cheers,
Michael

I'm talking about what keeps the filament tube and wires orderly. The filament comes off of the reel, goes into directly into a tube down to EZstruder which is mounted on the arms.

See photo - marked out areas where Steve's Extruder would likely be removed... (I would prefer keeping that little guy intact for the purposes of austerity and the benefit of mankind).

John,

There are a couple of build logs that show the ezstruder in use already. Mine and another. The filament goes right off the spool and up into the feed side of the extruder. Nothing else is needed.

I'm thinking about a hot end going directly on the bottom of this...and then figuring out something to control the feed end.(Thanks for answering though!)

JohnStack wrote:I'm thinking about a hot end going directly on the bottom of this...and then figuring out something to control the feed end.(Thanks for answering though!)

Why not just set the spool up top then?

Good idea. Next week's project - make spool holder for the roof. The bonus is a small reduction in overall lateral movement / wear / adjustments.

Here is how I mounted the EZStruder to my Rostock. My kit came with the melamine mounts:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v89 ... 8742-3.jpg[/img]

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v94 ... 8914-3.jpg[/img]

It's a direct replacement for the Steve's extruder.

I recalibrated by extruding 100mm (for better accuracy) and got 92.65 steps per mm. I think Fosion measure 92.68 steps per mm. .03mm is a VERY SMALL difference.

So far, I am really liking this extruder. It grips PLA well (have not tried with ABS yet but it should be fine). And it is very easy to start new filament. It is much quieter too. It seems to grip the filament much more securely as tested by pinching the filament and trying to stop it from moving.

I'll report back after I have more printing experience but so far, it's a winner!

cheers,
Michael

Anything new to report? I picked up mine from the guys during Makerfaire.