texSC - Rostock MAX

[texsc98]

So been working on the Rostock MAX the past 8 days (started on 2/8)... Coming along pretty good so far, have several ok quality prints. Seem to be having issues with infill like mhackney is having in his build thread.

I'm on Window 7 using Repetier-host v0.84 (http://www.repetier.com/download/) with polygonhell's firmware (https://github.com/polygonhell/Repetier ... evelopment). Comiled/uploaded with Arduino 1.0.3 (http://code.google.com/p/arduino/downloads/list)

The filament I'm using is 1.75mm natural white filament from seemecnc (http://shop.seemecnc.com/175mm-Natural- ... 175001.htm)

I have the LCD module but haven't installed it yet, still just trying to tweak my print quality.

I'll upload some photos here, but my "dumping ground" of them can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/10915024 ... sYut1ruHRQ

So first up is the unboxing spread of materials from just a week ago, although it feels like it's been a lot longer lol!
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nQyO ... 63-001.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

The first part, the base plate, has been freed form the laser cut melamine!
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-yZip ... CN9268.JPG[/img]

I decided to put the motors on earlier rather than later, I also put the pulley bearing in here too, but don't have a pic of it before putting the base together
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-lhyW ... CN9273.JPG[/img]

The base is together
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7bQ5 ... CN9274.JPG[/img]

Here's a shot of the pulley bearings that were installed prior to putting the top on
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-v9NA ... CN9275.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

Putting the power supply in. For some reason I thought I was supposed to use these metal screws, but ended up needing them later for something else. It's actually should be nylon screws that are used here
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2L0m ... CN9278.JPG[/img]

One cheapskate fully mounted, two to go!
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Xrah ... CN9281.JPG[/img]

Cheapskates installed & arms mounted! That was a LOT of work getting all those u-joint to fit "just so". I did quickly figure out a "trick" to getting all those arms quickly rounded off though... Dremel tool with one of the round sandpaper attachments. I have a video I'll link here later
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ObZH ... CN9283.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

I wasn't really sure what this little tube was included for... und a use for it isolating the thermistor wires from shorting on each other!


Then solder & RTV it in there, haven't had a bit of a problem from it!


Top side

[texsc98]

If you're like me and just getting into 3D printing, then you probably don't have Kapton tape... I read in the PDF about using silicone tape, so a quick search of my local hardware store's website tuned up this "Stretch & Seal" silicone tape, rated up to 500*F. So far have not had any problem out of it on the hot end, and have had it up to 260*C. Today I had it running for the most part of 8 hours at 240*F without any failures, seems like an excellent cheap alternative. I actually used this to attach my split flex tubing to the bowden tube as well. When you pull it off the roll it doesn't even "feel" sticky, and seems to mostly only stick to itself (really really well!). When you take the tape off of something it leaves no residual stickiness either...
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-r2Nt ... CN9295.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

Wrapping the resistors (hot end heater) with aluminum foil for a tight fit to help with heat transfer to the hot end
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-tCTV ... CN9299.JPG[/img]

Fit like a glove!
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CqB5 ... CN9300.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-euS4 ... CN9302.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

For installing the thermistor in the hot end I used the same principle I did on the onyx bed, used some of that tiny diameter tubing to keep the leads separated from one another. Didn't get a picture of it one this one though. And as you can see I made use of that nifty Stretch & Seal tape again, love that stuff!!
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Uu82 ... CN9303.JPG[/img]

Also here on my hot end I decided to go with the "bare metal" look for the clamps on my resistor wires... For two reasons: It looks cooler, & I didn't know how hot that butt connector plastic could/would get before melting
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Uu82 ... CN9303.JPG[/img]

One installed, and showing here how I just took a razor blade and put a slit down one side of the butt connector, then pulled it apart with some tools
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_4uP ... CN9304.JPG[/img]

The almost final product... You can see here I used a small pair of aluminum soldering clips to hold my thermistor wire to the wires heading to the RAMBo while I soldered them together. I was worried about the solder failing this close to the hot end, but so far no problems!!
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-VtSF ... CN9312.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

Hot end installed, & extruder installed... Running the split flex tubing now. It's kind of difficult to see here, but since reading in the PDF about using a hand drill to twist wires together, I did it for all of mine! I think it look much neater and keeps them from getting quite as tangled... You can see here I again used the Stretch & seal to attach the thermistor wire to the hot end resistor power wires...
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ixIG ... CN9316.JPG[/img]

The mechanical install is completed!
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b-Zp ... CN9317.JPG[/img]


Now on to the electronics
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-GXe0 ... CN9352.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

Hacked all the wiring together in somewhat short order... I think I might have went a little overkill on the HBP wiring Don't all the wires just look so neat all twisted together?!
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--shp ... CN9353.JPG[/img]

Little did I know here until later discover that I had actually mismatched where two of my stepper motor drivers plugged into the board. Every time I tried to home in G28, one axis would hit the switch and stop, and either one or both of the other ones would just bounce off the limit switches until I killed the power. Wanted to know myself in the head after I figured out I goofed the placement!

[texsc98]

After some crazy frustration trying to get all the tower alignment done, then the extrusion not sticking to the glass at all, I finally got something working!
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OVSt ... CN9388.JPG[/img]

This is my 2nd successful print, which I didn't think was *too* bad... I'll have to take some pics of my first one, forgot too for some reason. (I'm printing at .2mm layer height)
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Ni3C ... CN9391.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2bXq ... CN9392.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-oM7I ... CN9393.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IVIE ... CN9394.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

Even though the printer isn't calibrated that well.... I decided to make something for my wife since she's been so patient with me constantly working on the printer You can definitely see the infill problem I'm having from this print
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qva7 ... CN9398.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-yFHg ... CN9399.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qO_L ... CN9401.JPG[/img]

I picked it up and flipped it over... one side looks pretty good and everything meshed well, but the other definitely had some opportunity for improvement!
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nTe- ... CN9404.JPG[/img]

I do think the rounded perimeter of the stand turned out excellent!! However, the infill was horrible, so the heart doesn't seat very well in the stand...
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V8sq ... CN9429.JPG[/img]

Despite the relatively poor quality, she loved it!
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1u7C ... CN9427.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

And here's a test print I created in google sketchup and ran up close to the X tower. I think I need to recalibrate my z heights at the tower bases again or something. On the first layer one side was squashed nice & flat and stuck well, the other side not so much.
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-RxwM ... CN9418.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Owm5 ... CN9426.JPG[/img]

[mhackney]

Are you printing directly on the Onyx with tape or onto glass with tape? I've found that the Onyx warps a lot at temperature by bowing up in the middle by .5mm.

[texsc98]

I just went to Lowe's and got them to cut me a 11.5x11.5" piece of window glass, cost ~$5. The hottest I've had it is 95*C, usually I print around 80-85*C. Most of the prints I've just sprayed some of my wife's hairspray on the glass and print straight on it after ~10 seconds or so for it to dry. I've tried some with the blue painters tape, but I must've gotten a kind that the ABS doesn't like because it really doesn't seem stick to well to it. BTW, I've followed all your build post as well, excellent write-up!!

[mhackney]

My first plate was 3/16" window glass clipped in4 places to the bed with the binder clips that came with my kit. I probably had 10 to 15 prints on it when it when kabam. I ordered a borosilicate plate and will put a plate of aluminum between it and the bed. Give the warping of the onyx I might use .125" aluminum attached with the same 6 screws that attach the onyx. I'm hoping that will both keep flat and dissipate the heat over the surface to get more even heating.

[texsc98]

Yea I remember seeing your unfortunate symmetrical crack down the center.... I'm sure mine will probably succumb to the same fate eventually, but it was a good starting point at least. Yea I definitely think adding aluminum will help more evenly spread the heat, I will probably do the same. Do you know if the borosilicate plate has the same sticking issues to where you have to put tape or some other means on the surface to help with adhesion of the ABS?

I was thinking about going with a phenolitic sheet something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/200827009072?ss ... 1438.l2649. They withstand up to around 284*F (140*C). I only worry about the "flatness" of these sheets. But I think since the max operating temp of the phenolitic sheet is not excessively higher than the temp at which we can print (100*C) that it may make the surface slightly more "sticky", but not so much so that the part would bond with it. Which would be nice so that no extra steps are needed to print on the bed. I got the idea from searching through this thread: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us when researching using polycarbonate that is available locally (LEXAN at Home Depot) and saw SeeMeCNC mention a phenolitic sheet.

[texsc98]

A problem I had when initially trying to print was the Steve's extruder periodically slipping. I think I've solved this problem with a easy to do Steve's Extruder mod! If you've recently got your Rostock MAX you most likely still have a ton of the pieces of melamine laying around somewhere, I know I do! Well after closely inspecting Steve's extruder while extruding, I noticed that one problem is on the carriage that is removable. It has the two gears with the machined slots for 1.75 & 3mm filament on it. Well the gears and the machined grooved part aren't directly driven by one another, but just by friction between the two. So I cranked down the tightness of the bolt that holds it all together which helped keep the center grooved part from not spinning when the gears are. Note this can also be a problem where the other grooved slot is on the non-removable part of the extruder, make sure these are good and tight as well. The next problem I noticed was that to get the 1.75mm grove tight enough on the filament for it not to slip, that the gear would rise up too high and get interference from the thumb nut where the filament enters to go into the bowden tube. Unfortunately I don't have a picture before I implemented my fix. But you can see from this picture if the gears raised higher they would hit that thumb screw. The right side of the gears on the left have actually been worn down some from this rubbing against the thumb screw.

[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nrPa ... CN9435.JPG[/img]

Now on to the "mod" part of the fix! If you find one of those teeny tiny melamine dowels, they are the PERFECT size for this fix! I just took two of them and super glued them to the removable carriage. This allows the carriage to still be tightened as desired, but allows the gears to not crash into the thumb screw. No other changes are necessary. Since doing this I've placed marks on the filament as a print is running and it NEVER slips anymore!

[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-We-5 ... CN9436.JPG[/img]
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-gOac ... CN9452.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

HAHA, I've just had my "eureka" moment with my infill & general printing problem!! After reading over the forums as usual earlier trying to figure out why my printer might not be acting properly, I ran across a post saying to make sure the extruder is extruding the length you tell it to. And I've thought for a while that I wasn't getting enough plastic out being my problem for a while. I should have done this much sooner!

I put a black mark on the filament right before it enters the extruder area, then told it to feed 10mm. I measure how much the extruder actually pulled in, and it's exactly half (5mm)!! Then it hit me, I've been following mhackney's excellent Rostock MAX build thread http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=1106, and remember one step I had to do just like he did because we have the newer kits with RAMBo v1.1 (http://forum.seemecnc.com/search.php?ke ... sf=msgonly). And I did as he posted in there to set my microstepping to 16, but totally forgot about changing
#define EXT0_STEPS_PER_MM 292
to be:
#define EXT0_STEPS_PER_MM 584

And now I'm printing AMAZING in comparison to what I was... I'll be getting some pictures up soon of a few prints. I've been beating my head against a wall for a while over this issue. Adjust the arms, make sure it's planed out. Pull off the delta arms and check the u-joints for too much friction, re-calibrate everything, print something else. In endless cirlces, lol... And all I've been missing is simply changing one number. But I'm super happy it's printing now, so I can finally move on a different set of calibration steps!

[mhackney]

That's great! Amazing what a little factor of 2 will do!

[texsc98]

That's great! Amazing what a little factor of 2 will do!

Haha, yea you got that right!!

[texsc98]

So I check the "flatness" of my bed with a caliper, and it seemed that the top side by the Z tower was higher than the rest. I remembered when I put my extra heavy duty wiring on there to heat the bed with, that I had to push down on the bed to get the screws in. Well again I should've thought about the fact that that could've caused leveling issues, but now I know at least! It seems for the onyx board that the through-hole for the bed wiring should be farther out than it is, or that there should be an area in the melamine bed plate for the onyx board's wiring to more easily make it to the hole. Here's how my wiring looked with just a single pair going to the bed (I had two pair), I was still worried that it could "lift" the bed by some small measurement throwing it off.
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R6Il ... CN9459.JPG[/img]

Well I didn't want to risk messing with the base plate of the Rostock, if I screwed that up there'd be a LOT of work to replace it! So I took the jigsaw and notched out a spot on the melamine bed plate for the wiring:
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-cP77 ... CN9464.JPG[/img]

And now the wires can easily go down into the base plate without affecting the build plate flatness!!
[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Abd0 ... CN9468.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

I think I remember someone asking about a way to keep the doors closed on the RMAX... Maybe it's only included in the later kits, but there's a little melamine "door keeper" part that fits like this:
[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W9Uv ... CN9469.JPG[/img]

[img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bYFU ... CN9471.JPG[/img]

[mhackney]

Yeah, that was me asking about the door. I have a new kit but I don't recall seeing those. Too late now though! So I printed a couple and put them on Thingiverse. They work well.

[texsc98]

My infill issues before adjusting the extruder steps per mm:
[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L69g ... CN9503.JPG[/img]

[texsc98]

Yeah, that was me asking about the door. I have a new kit but I don't recall seeing those. Too late now though! So I printed a couple and put them on Thingiverse. They work well.

Oh nice, making your own always works too!