Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Received my Rostock this past week and finally got started over the last few days. I have been lurking around the forums for a while so I have a number of upgrades in mind right out of the box.

I have a new power supply already a Corsair CX600 and some arms from tricklaser. I also picked up a 40W cartridge heater from Jram the other day along with some stepper dampers. Not sure what else I will be doing for upgrades right away, but I am glad to hear your suggestions as I go along.

At first I thought I might install the power supply on the exterior just to make it easy in case it fails, but when I noticed the CX600 is exactly the same size as the stock supply, I realized I should be able to remove it if it does fail. I notice a lot of folks upgrade to a 700W or 750W supply. I wonder if the failure issues with the stock supply are due to quality and design or is it underpowered?

I started the build by doing an inventory and painting the edges of the base parts. Then I modified the power supply by removing some of the extra wires from the power supply leaving some of the 3 and 5v wires for later upgrades if I decide to add other little goodies later on.

I am attaching some images of my build so far. I finished attaching the single 40W heater cartridge and the thermistor to the hot end last night. Tonight I finished the bottom half of the base. Great instructions so far. Should be able to put in some more hours over the weekend.

Thats all for now.

Russ

Looking good Russ! Keep up the good work!

Ahhh, so they DID add some cooling slots for airflow, and notch for that front T-nut clearance.

Always neat to see the evolution of the design to meet the feedback on the forum.

An update is due here! I have a functioning machine! But I need to fill in some details first.

Lots of progress.
Here is a picture of the base after I had that done. The painted edges look good I think.
Stringing the towers went easier than I had feared.


Much time passes. I fiddled around with getting the towers square to the base and the plate for a quite a while. I knew that would make life easier down the road. I took it further and used a caliper to make the distance between towers as close to equal as possible. There is enough slop in the laser cut parts to create about 0.5-1mm difference in tower separation. But by loosening the tower mounts and tapping them in this direction and that, I was able to seat them with the needed bias to minimize the issue. I found my top was quite equal. But the bottom had to be adjusted a bit.

I put on the tricklaser arms and standoffs right away. I also upgraded to the carbon standoffs and used a 40W heater cartridge on the hot end. All turned out great I think.
At this point the mechanicals are done and the Rostock is a zombie looking for a brain. (Braaaaiiiinnnss...)

I had to fiddle around with the belts a bit after I discovered I routed them wrong by putting them over the lower idler pulley on the inside instead of around the bottom. Turned out to be an easy but annoying adjustment. But it is good I discovered it before I wrecked a belt.

Once it came to install the cover plate I leveled it with the base and placed aluminum foil spacers along the perimeter to level he plate. Then I used the clips by attaching them only over the spacers to reduce the warping of the top plate.

More to follow...

Russ

Continued...

I organized the wires with ties and attached the Rambo board. All that went fine without surprises.
It took a few more days before I had the time, but I finally turned the bugger on! No smoke.

Then I started the bed calibration process. Tuning the hot end was a little strange with the 40w cartridge but the search feature on these forums quickly turned up the answer. It was during the work week and I was tired. To make a long story short, I smashed my standard nozzle into the bed when doing the tower height. I mis-read the instructions. Ugh. The glass was fine the nozzle folded itself inward breaking the tip. Luckily I had a 0.7 tip handy so I installed that and went to bed. When I was fresh I re-read the manual and the light went on. Once I managed to understand the process I started chasing the screws and it went smoothly. I figured out how to configure the print for my larger tip...and then... All of a sudden it was time for the first print!

Oops I did not have any ABS. Well off to Microcenter to get some cheap chinese ABS. I ransacked my kiddos art bin to find some purple glue stick. It was kind of old so it was part dry stick and part purple juice. Needless to say it did not work so well. I put down some blue tape and....
Wow.
Looking really good.

And it is still printing as I type this. Looks much better than I expected!! I will upload a final pic when it is finished!

Russ

Done!

Just a little lifting on one corner and a few strange bits and blobs. But much cleaner than I anticipated!
I think after a little work with a deburring tool it will be excellent!
Russ

Excellent!

Looks like it came together nicely Russ!

Thanks...I have been learning how to optimize PLA through the .7 tip. I have it working very well at 40mm/s and .3 - .4mm layers. I know that is "easy" for most folks but I can really see what is going on and have learned a lot that way. You can really see the difference between a layer that is either too thin or thick or even too hot or cool by how it puts down the layer. I think out my main issue now is I need more cooling fan coverage or experiment with cool extruder temps. I have been running at 185-195c with the seemecnc red pla and getting good results. The Make magazine shapes and the hollow pyramid have been helpful in nailing things down.

I have a new 0.5 tip now so I will transition to that this week. Love this machine so far!

Russ