upahill

Getting that sort of stuff done commercially is always going to be expensive. A maker could probably have just modeled the old brackets and printed them for pence. 3D scanning seems excessive for the job

I just had the connector melt / almost catch fire on the headbed for my Tevo Black Widow - even factory connectors shouldn't be trusted as being up for the job. Thing is I knew this was going to happen - its a known fault - but still annoying - pretty sure its taken the board out too when it fried. But, this is why i NEVER leave the printers alone - ever. And why I have fire extinguishers next to them. ...... So what are everyones recommendations for cheap printer controllers? - I cant stretch to a duet, so thinking of a MKS sbase, or a ledgre (but that is closed source/not marlin) I would like 32bit though.

Amazing work! I'm guessing the projector is projecting some sort of grid for the cameras to pick up? Im a little bit naive with 3D scanners but have looked into some photogrammetry stuff and done some full body scanning with an xbox kinect to print replicas of myself (albeit smaller). The problem I'm having right now is designing stuff for printing that are so over complicated its unreal. Where usually a piece of steel bar would do the trick. My latest over-designing project is to hold the motor to my focuser. Its good practice with solidworks at least.

Some things can't be unseen. I'm now going to be blaming UV for my hairline biodegrading as well as a myriad of other things.

I think you are right - everything is going degrade over time - my issue is that a lot of people would tell you that PLA is useless for outdoor use - and as yours, mine, and others experiments have proven that's just not the case (within reason, and providing your use case isn't extreme or unreasonable) I used to be a healthy, fit, athletic teenager - you only need to look at what UV exposure did to me to see the risks ?

I think if we had really high temps here it could be an issue, but im talking months of 35+ temps which isn't going to happen. The three concerns seem to be: Softening due to temperature Degrading due to UV exposure Strength Chriske's experiment seems to allay the concerns with all three, and the second could be further protected against with a coat of something like perhaps. Im seeing mostly anecdotal evidence that suggests PLA is fine for outdoor use, and I think the UV instability is more a reference to the colour pigment of the filament than it actually biodegrading. If layer adhesion is good then I can't see it delaminating either so really think the concerns with PLA outdoors are a little unfounded and probably just assumed because its 'biodegradable'

Combined with some of the neural mapping techniques for controlling there are some very cool projects out there. If you have a printer and want to give a hand (to use their own pun) check out e-nable - http://enablingthefuture.org/

This is really interesting. When I printed my pier adapter in PLA, with 70% infill, 1.2mm walls I was basically called a nutter by some. The general consensus being that within a few days of sunlight PLA would warp and my mount would come tumblin' down. In my defense it was supposed to be to make a mold for a cast or acrylic part but its been so good I haven't bothered. Im now probably 6 months in, through a moderately warm summer with zero noticeable deformation or reduction in stability. All bolts are still tight, no UV degradation, no cracks and still maintaining very good polar alignment and guiding results. It has had the mount on for weeks at a time and whilst the mount was covered the adapter was exposed.

If you were self building the largest chunk of cost would probably be the mechanical parts - aluminium frames and connectors etc. Followed by the electronics Then the motors But it depends on quality of each part - for example you could buy a £100 hot end or a £9 china clone, a £20 ramps board or a £200 duetwifi controller. Edit: I think personally that machines like the Enders in their sub £200 price bracket are going to be the cheapest commercial units available that are actually half-decent. I doubt we will see good quality sub £100 for a few years yet.

Take a look at the Ender 2, I have the Ender 3 and find it to be quite compact, but still not coffee table size really. The model before it is a bit smaller though.

Fusion 360 seems to be the popular choice - https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360-for-hobbyists I don't have any experience of it though, there are some open source alternatives too but ill let someone more knowledgeable on those chime in.

The Titan may be a good alternative, im using the original extruder/motor on the Tevo Black Widow with a genuine E3D hotend, which according to specs the motor alone adds around 600g to the gantry. My ender3 uses bowden and it works a dream though so torn both ways. Maybe I should have bought a titan and reused this motor for my focuser project instead of purchasing a new PG27 motor for it yesterday. Doh! ? Great news, manual bed leveling is an art isn't it! I have found a set of feeler gauges removes some of the guesswork and lets me set it to 0.10 accurately enough every time most of the time.

It was a weekly occurrence for me, but I spent ages believing that all-metal / e3d hot ends were just overpriced and couldn't really be that much better. Then I bit the bullet and got the E3D 1.75 kit - the difference is night and day and would never go back to teflon inserts now. Next job is to switch from the direct drive to bowden and remove the excess weight of a PG27 nema on the gantry.

What type of printer/ hot end do you have? If its a MK8/9 there is a usually a piece of teflon tube inside that I found blocks up very easily and is really a consumable. PITA to replace it but usually got great prints everytime I did. The teflon gets soft if your temps go too high (like during a thermistor failure) and can get damaged.

Most beds have some warp in them, hence the glass. I found a nice alternative to the bulldog clips in my local stationers, they are some sort of paper clip/staple thing. Low profile and I use them on the left and right of the bed. They are quite strong steel too so really hold it together well. https://www.viking-direct.co.uk/en/p/ND180794 Another one I have used in the past is a small version of the thing people use to hold a table cloth onto a table outdoors but I cant for the life of me remember where I got them. Those are even lower profile so rarely had problems with the nozzle hitting them. Not as strong though. Other than that, you can always alter your routines to miss the clips

Sounds like you have the MK8/9/10 hot end - you can buy the silicone socks for those like the e3d have if you don't fancy re-insulating it and using kapton tape. Is it the bead type thermistor? I found them to be extremely fragile. Loving the cartridge style now.

SLA printers are pretty good for precision stuff, I have an old Formlabs 1+ and the quality is amazing in comparison to the melted plastic type of printer. Comes with a large cost and fuss overhead though so unless critical it rarely gets used. How much precision do you need?

Thought I would post an update to this.... I'll preface by saying that 1) yes a proper pier would be better/safer/sturdier/etc and 2) If I had the money/time/freedom I would redo this in a heartbeat but here are my thoughts after a few months of actually using the pier. Firstly, its pretty solid, its a patio slab on 2 inches of sand with no mechanical fixing to the ground, the building blocks are not bolted together but simply gorilla glued. This is madness, but it works. It wont budge and I have no fear of knocking it over. Secondly I took some flack in the 3D printed astro group on facebook for risking my equipment on a PLA printed pier adapter. The consensus there was that it would deteriorate, become brittle and my scope and mount would come tumbling down. I understand the logic behind that but again the reality is that it does what it is supposed to. There is no apparent deterioration of the plastic, no creaking, cracking or any other untoward noises. I'm not saying it will last forever, and I should make a metal adapter instead but for now im confident my gear isnt going anywhere. Thirdly, my guiding seems pretty reasonable, averaging about 0.25 total error. Some of this is down to the mount needing a tune too. But its better than I get on the heavy duty tripod so im happy with that. Fourthly, Polar alignment is maintaining very well, the mount stays outside for weeks on end under cover and is always ready. I have polar aligned once when I built the pier and once when I returned from SGL2018 - doing it again tonight to test revealed no change of more than a few seconds. Fifthly, It could do with some masonry paint, when it rains the concrete does absorb the moisture and it looks ugly. I cover the pier and mount in a heavy duty cover and buckle it to the pier which seems to do fine. Whats Next Until I can build an obsy, the plan is to keep using this setup - but I do want to make it a little better so will clad the pier in something and weatherproof it. Im also going to lay some concrete around the slab to add a little bit of protection from the soil eroding away around the edges. I am also going to build a frame around the pier about halfway up that a box can sit on top of and clamp down onto. This will mean at 4am I can just put a box on and go to bed and worry about packing up in the morning. I also may consider adding some outdoor sockets to the pier (although im considering a 12v and Cat5 run out to the pier instead. If you are in a tight spot financially but want a pier I just dont think you can do better than this for £50ish. If you use the adapter off your tripod instead you can avoid the 3d printing too. I am halfway through designing this.... and when I build it there is a strong chance I will use this style of pier again.

I think an FDM printer would struggle with fine threads like that. You would need the smallest nozzle you could get and that brings a host of new difficulties. I did look at M48 die cutters out of curiosity but at £200+ that's madness too! I have had some success in softening printed parts and then impressing threads into them - and using existing threads to cut threads into PLA which could be a viable approach depending on the application.

Just caught up on your progress and its looking fantastic. Congrats on first light!

Good move, octoprint makes life so much easier than faffing about with the cards - Duet is on my 'maybe one day' list but that day keeps getting further and further away ?

This was one of my fav printers, just a little suggestion though - if they haven't improved the design there is a cut out on one of the metal bars which is underneath - cables get fed through the gap. The one I had was very sharp on the edges and would eventually wear through the plastic on the cabling which could be dangerous. I used a block of foam zip-tied to the cables to protect it all. The reliability and repeatability I got out of the Ender 3 was amazing though. Seriously considering getting another. Another handy suggestion would be one of these, if you use the micro-sd card. Saves the hassle of unscrewing the control box when you post the micro-sd in under the PCB instead of into the slot.

Im using the GPCAM too, it took me some tweaking to get the images to solve the first time. If you are getting clear stars in the preview then maybe try tweaking the star detection settings in the polar alignment screen. Off the top of my head thats where I got hung up. Also a dark library if you havent already done it really helps. Cant look up my settings at the moment as the astropc is in the car First time I tried it I was so out of focus I didn't realise I was trying to plate solve hot pixels ?

Best £10 I have spent in the hobby yet. You will not regret it. Super simple, let it plate solve, rotate the scope 90 degrees, click next and then make the adjustments it tells you to. All the time its resolving and updating.