D-Bot 3D Printer

[Dr_Ju_ju]

FYI, Thomas Sanladerer (https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasSanladerer) stated at the end of his latest video that he's going to be doing an article\video with TMC about their latest drivers & boards....

I use their Radds board on my MPCNC & it is a lot quieter & cooler.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

I fear feature bloat. The limiting factor is how well the nozzle can deliver a bead at the right temperature and that's limited by the physics not the software. It may be that people 'able to print faster' simply push the enevelope more because they have a new controller?

 

[tekkydave]

Mainly I'm hoping for quieter printing. I thought about upgrading my RAMPS to TMC drivers but the Duet has them built in. Anyway its an excuse to spend some money at Xmas

 

[Gina]

Where is the noise coming from on your printer Dave?  Is it due to the pulse rate on the motors?  My "Pilot" printer is very quiet with the motors plastic mounted and using quite large (25mm) plastic pulleys for the cords.  OTOH the "Titan" is noisier, with the motors mounted on 6mm plywood and using 15mm metal pulleys.  The small pulleys rattle and the motors resonate on the plywood.  The fume extraction fan is also fairly noisy (only a 50mm one).  The noise from the "Titan" would be worse without the acrylic enclosure.

[tekkydave]

No obvious cause just motor vibrations. Lots of users report that changing drivers makes a huge difference. I'm sceptical but we'll see.

[tekkydave]

Tried fitting the Piezo transducer a couple of days ago but it wont slide all the way into the Titan's groove-mount due to it catching on the DBot's Titan mount. I'm currently printing a redesigned mount giving enough clearance for the transducer to slide all the way in.

[tekkydave]

Print failed unfortunately. I'll have another go tomorrow. Octoprint, which has been 100% reliable up till now is having issues with Marlin. Could be a Marlin issue I suppose but needs further investigation. I might try printing from PC using Pronterface or even from SD card.

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Some of the plugins can cause issues, have you updated\installed any lately ?

 

[tekkydave]

No, haven't changed a thing.

[Dave_D]

my duet wifi arrived yesterday... still fitting connectors lol

curse having to go to work.

tis a bit disconcerting using putty as a terminal to send gcode to activate the webserver, but to say the interface is comprehensive is somewhat of an understatement.

now, back to soldering

Edited December 6, 2017 by Dave_D

[tekkydave]

Mine arrived last week but it was 'spirited away' to be wrapped in Xmas paper

 

[Dave_D]

it'll give you a chance to do a bit of reading... this thing is definitely not plug-and-play kit  

Edited December 7, 2017 by Dave_D

[Gina]

Hmm...  Even more reason to stay with what I've got

[Dave_D]

finally got x, y and z homing working... oh my (insert non-existent deity of choice) this is quiet compared to the other board...

[Gina]

Does it use more than 16x microstepping?

[Dave_D]

1 minute ago, Gina said:

Does it use more than 16x microstepping?

up to 256

[Gina]

Aha - that's why the motors are much smoother in operation then and could make a big difference

[tekkydave]

Finally managed to get the Titan mount to print. The comms problems I was having between the Pi 3 and RAMPS have been resolved by changing the USB cable

The print needs some cleaning up but looks more or less correct and is plenty rigid.

 

[tekkydave]

I have fitted the new Titan mount to the DBot x-carriage. The piezo sensor slides into the Titan's groovemount in place of the heatsink. The heatsink of the hotend then fits into the piezo sensor and is clamped in place. You lose about 18mm of z-axis which is acceptable on a 375mm build. I have done some basic testing but I need to reconfigure Marlin before testing it  properly. I think I'll need to modify the E3D cooling fan as it is a bit loose on the heatsink and the vibrations are triggering the piezo!

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Do you have to replace the whole heatsink at intervals?

[Gina]

I've never found a reason for that.

[tekkydave]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Do you have to replace the whole heatsink at intervals?

Never had to replace a heatsink.

[Stub Mandrel]

Sorry I meant the finned 'heat break' tube between hotend and extruder - it looks a bit more expensive than the Mk8 ones, and I've got through a few (breaking filament in them).

Very clever design that piezo thing though, I assume it gently 'taps' the build plate with the nozzle?.

[Gina]

I've never had to replace a heatsink (finned item).  To avoid filament jamming in the heatsink, make sure the cooling fan is running until the filament cools well below 100C or lower for some filaments with low melting point.  Also, I've found it worthwhile buying good quality filament.  I recommend Rigid Ink.  I used to get all sorts of problems with cheap filament.  I've also found that it's worth paying the extra for R3D products - the quality is superb and good design.

Yes, that piezoelectric device looks pretty good.  Makes for a neater machine than my conductive sensors and copper film pads where the test points are for auto bed levelling.

[tekkydave]

13 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Sorry I meant the finned 'heat break' tube between hotend and extruder - it looks a bit more expensive than the Mk8 ones, and I've got through a few (breaking filament in them).

Very clever design that piezo thing though, I assume it gently 'taps' the build plate with the nozzle?.

That's the idea.

I haven't needed to replace any part of my E3D hotends apart from the nozzles due to wear.