mcbeen.com

I went ahead and picked these up from chaoticlab because the default printed plastic ones are just not designed well. Adjusting them causes grinding on the belts. I also wanted to get rid of any flex in the z axis.

Adjustment is far simpler now, and they don’t look too bad. Just with they were purple.

I’ve been printing out these dry boxes for keeping filament clean, and have been pretty happy with them.

As you can see, things are getting better, but there are still flow issues.

Added a bit of flair cut up by one of my bored daughters. I think it fits well. I think I’m going to stencil a print of of it and mirror for the other side.

And I have run into a number of issues I’m trying to resolve. I’m deep in the valley of despair.

I made a lot of assumptions starting this project, even though I tried as much as possible to make sure I knew what I was getting into. One of the big ones was klipper. I expected it to be much simpler to get started and configure. I expected to just download a basic config and grow from there. I expected there to be a well defined middle of the road. There’s no roads here. There is a ton of information, but its more or less unstructured. It’s not a bad thing, I just didn’t understand it going in.

This project has forced me to use all of my abilities across many specialties in an integrated manor I was not expecting. Hardware, Firmware, Software, Programming, Electrical, Soldering, CAD design. Its been very difficult. It probably would have helped to have someone to guide me through this. Here is a small sample:

Klipper configs do not use pinout aliasing for configurations. This means that you bury your hardware pinout in the actual macros. It makes configs completely locked into your controller board. Configs can’t be repurposed easily with a remapping. I’ve been trying to use aliases, but its messy as heck.

I ended up abandoning sensor less homing as it causes all kinds of issues to get it working. Its super hard to tell the difference between acceleration and an end-stop. It’s just far easier to use a switch. I spent a long time making up a new homing macro that is now more or less redundant.

Ran into issues on my z axis motor grub screws coming loose and causing z leveling to fail. redid them all with storing locktite.

Found the gantry was slightly racking causing prints to be out of square. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOn6u9kXvy0&pp=ygUYY25jIGtpdGNoZW0gdm9yb24gZ2FudHJ5

Canbus is randomly timing out during leveling causing the system to crash. Hacking the tolerance values in klipper has mitigated it to a point. https://klipper.discourse.group/t/canbus-communication-timeout-while-homing-z/3741

Extrusion is a nightmare. I just don’t get whats going on with it. Nothing seems to work to fix it.

Feeding filament seems to be a problem as well. I need to find a better way of dealing with friction in the long boden tubes.

Still trying to get z height dialed in and stable.

For some reason, on square prints at a 45 degree angle, coming from the LEFT ONLY, are f-d up. Its driving me mad.

Maybe I should have just got a prusa. This is exactly what I didn’t want.

Today I woke up to this:

something went wrong during printing, and the toolhead just filled itself with solid plastic. I was able to get the hotend out though, and begin working it in my vice using a soldering iron. I was a bit concerned wit the status of the heater core.

It was a mess,but it cleaned up surprisingly well.

I ordered up a new boot, as the existing one was just ripped in half. So far its back in service and working well. At least now I know the extruder can push when it needs to.

After some calibration, I decided to try a first print.

It wasn’t too bad over all, but still room for improvements.

Every printer has to have a name, and I have decided to go with Kosh, the Vorlon from Babylon 5. The purple/black scheme isn’t perfect since Koch was more of a green tinted alien, but some of the Vorlons were purple, so I’m going with it. Vorlon is too close to Voron. I’m making a mural for the back of the printer.

I converted the image to an SVG, then imported it into onshape, and extruded the geometry.

As you can see can see above, we have some moderate extrusion issues. printer still needs tuning. I went ahead and ran some test prints to see where I was at.

Lots of flow and under-extrusion issues. Going to need to do some calibration.

Decided to print out some 270 degree hinges that turned out excellent. Also embedded magnets in them to hold the doors when open.

Things are not perfect yet, but the printer is printing, so I decided to go ahead and register for a serial number.

I’ve been working on getting a few things completed, I discovered that led light strips fir perfectly in the extrusions, so I am wiring a 24v string into one of the heater connections on the MP8. As you can see in the second image, it makes an amazing task light with no glare in the camera above the doors.

Camera module. This unfortunately has turned out to be a complete failure as it just almost immediately over heats. Vendor says they are working on a fix.

Sure looks great though. High res, high frame video feed.

the SSR for the bed was getting way hotter than I would like, so I picked up a heatsink that just barely fits. Stays reasonably cool now.

The build plate arrive today and I was able to do my first bed mesh. It did not turn out well.

For some reason, I was getting a really weird spike on the y axis, and I could not figure out why. there was nothing under the bed. Everything seemed to be working properly. Then I went and pressed on the bed, and I found that it was badly warped.

There must have been some kind of manufacturing defect, so I had to send it back for replacement. Not great, as at the moment these large 350mm build plates are hard to get.

And they look great. He printed them all on a Bambulabs x1 and they have come about perfect. Everything looks great.

Getting the gantry fitted and aligned.

Electronics bay is just about done. For power bus distribution, I am using wago connectors instead of screwdown terminal blocks

Attaching belts to the carriage. unfortunately I really screwed up and was not paying attention to the belt width for the Z axis. I accidentally used a 9mm belt on the back left, and cut it too short. Now I have to buy more,and the belts are expensive! As you can see, I went ahead and wired in the limit switches just in case I need them. even if I don’t use them for homing, I would like to have them for triggering an emergency stop. I also went ahead and printed up a tap carriage because why not. This thing is already overly complex on bleeding edge branches. What could go wrong.

Time to hook up the toolhead MCU. Luckily it all went well and is responding to commands from klipper.

The bed is here! My brother did me a solid and bought me a MandalaWorks aluminum bed with magnetic inserts. It’s really amazing, and heavy.

The first attempts and moving the gantry and leveling. Yea i know there is no bed, but I was excited.

This lead to a nice gouge in my pretty aluminum bed that I have to look at now everytime I remove the build plate. I guess that’s better than gouging a plate.

While I wait for the plastic parts, I am working on testing all the electronics and figuring out how klipper installs. On the MP8, there are two SD slots. One for the cm1/rpi, and the second for the MP8. One thing that has not been simplified is getting the firmware to load on the MP8 mcu. Getting the compute module setup with linux is pretty easy as you just load it on the SD card and boot.

After compiling klipper for the MCU, I was able to load it over DFU mode using my desktop, and then was able to discover and address the MCU through the gui. Then came the fun of trying to figure out pinouts on the MP8, that don’t seem to be quite right. But i’m able to spin motors now at least.

Oh yea, one other thing. I decided to go with canbus for the toolhead, but so far its been a bit difficult to get everything to cooperate. Yet another MCU for me to get flashed and communicating. I seem to be having protocol issues, and I’m having trouble making out where the problem could be. I didn’t realize how new this branch of klipper was. Maybe I should switch to a harness. I’m also setting up with sensor-less homing(diag) so I don’t have to wire up limit switches.

For motors, I cheaped out to save some money and bought a set from stepperonline. We’ll see if that becomes an issue. So far they seem fine.

Added a termination point for a boden tube. This keeps filament from falling down the spool, and keeps the spool from being pulled toward the extruder. Mount is M10 threaded for push fit piping.

I’ve been doing 3d printing now for a couple years using a prusa i3 mk3s I borrowed from my son-in-law. I’ve really enjoyed the machine, but have been bumping up against the limits of the bedsling and bedsize for a while now. There are a few areas I would like to play with that I simply can’t do. Additionally, the large format prusa XL is still delayed, and I’m tired of waiting.

With a bunch of encouragement from my brother I have decided to start on building a Voron 2.4r2. I have been reluctant to go this route as I’m more interested in printing than fiddling with the printer.

I have been going over the parts lists and am kind of shocked at the over all costs. I’ve decided to buy things as needed over the next few months. I went ahead and picked up a hardware kit for all the screws and fasteners from fabreko and a set of extrusions that are cut and drilled. I’m going to be using West3D berserker rails for all axis. Also picked up a ton of brass inserts for all the parts.

For the electronics, I’m going to try out the manta mp8 from BTT along with their cm1 module since you can get an rpi anywhere. I kinda like the integration of the daughter board so i don’t have to deal with usb port issues.

Also been working on figuring out how stealthburner works, and mocking up a few test heads to make sure everything fits. My Brother has volunteered to print up the parts list for me, and should be delivering in a week or so. As you can see I am going with clockwork2 and revo.