Work in progress

I realized my Z axis end stop was not stopping the motors kept spinning even after they actuated the switch. Upon doing some tests I found the wires were not transferring the signal or getting power at all. I contacted the seller of the product who promptly sent me a new one.   Although it took 3 weeks to get here even through it was shipped first class which should have taken only 3 days. I now have that hooked up and working like it should.

I am now at the point where I should be able to stay printing. After all I have everything I need to do so. The other day when I turned everything on my server for the printer wasn't properly working. I reimaged the SD card but still haven't did the setup again. I was concerned about the Arduino and the Ramps 1.4 not working properly. I uploaded the test code and now the printer just moves a little bit, had a spike in power draw, and then stopped responding. That's where I am currently. I now have to take off the board and check to make sure there isn't something blocking the pin. Worst case scenario is having to buy a new set costing at least 50 dollars not to mention the possibility of it not arriving on time. 3d printers, especially self made models, are not very popular yet to be able to source parts locally

Problems, Problems, and more problems

One of the things to be expected while building something as complex as a 3-D printer is problems. Not just "Oh I forgot to plug it in"  but "the thermistor is not capable of handling the amperage of the MOSFET in the way it is configured in the code" for example. Here are some of the problems I have run into so far:

Z motors were jumping around making irregular motion when instructed to do a morion. Some research and a magnifying glass revealed a fleck of solder bridging two solder joints under the stepper drivers. With a razor blade the joint was removed, and the Z axis worked.

Motors were not traveling correctly, would go 1mm one direction when inatrucyed, .4mm the other direction. After more research I figured out I missed checking for jumper pins having to do with the stepper drivers microstepping. These pins are crucial at getting the correct distances and proper motor steps based on the G code.

I did over spring break get my LCD up and running as well as Ocroprint setup on my Raspberry Pi with a webcam. This allows me to control my printer from any computer I want to, as well as using my phone. I can control the printers motion, heat up the bed and extruder, and start a print from anywhere with my phone wherever I am.

At this point in the build I am eager to print my first item. Unfortunately there are still more problems to work out.

Deliverable Day!

My printer is done! I have everything built and the software is good enough (more on this later). Anyhow, with the exception of bolting the extruder to the mount, and getting the plastic filament to print something there's not much else I can do.

The software for my printer is still a little bit iffy. There are many variables and settings in some 1000 lines of code, not to mention what is needed to get the LCD screen working. I have put test code on the Arduino and confirmed all my motors move. This is good. For some reason they move really fast when homing, I still may have to change some speed settings for that. The printer does connect to the computer, and takes commands. The software will be changed more as I go along to accommodate new parts or calibration. Some of the software on the computer is a little buggy and I may try a few other programs. After I get my filament I am going to just go for it and print something. It may not work the first time, or the second, or the third... but that's all part of the fun. I still have to do a little more calibration on the motor voltage, as well as frame calibration after I print a calibration piece. This will also show the quality of my printer, and how it stacks up against the commercially available $1000 dollar printer.

The 3-D printer ready to print, calibrated and all!

My cable problems!

Final Note: One of the things that I noticed was the excess of wires. Right now there are 20 motor wires (5 motors/ 4 wires each), 9 end stops wires (3 end stops/ 3 wires each) 4 temperature sensor wires (2 sensors/ 2 each), 4 heater wires (2 heaters/2 each) 2 fan wires (1 fan/ 2 wires) and 4 power wires (2+/2-). That's a grand total of 43 wires going to a board a little larger than a deck of cards, and most of the wires move while printing! I already have some cable management files to print when I get my filament.

More Software...

On Wednesday I received my last part for my 3-D printer, the hot end. Now I just have to get some filament (the plastic you print with) and be on my way!

Another thing that I did this week was do my first (and only) soldering for my project. From what I had read I was worried that everything would have to be soldered, and secured with heat shrink tubing. Luckily most of my parts came with connectors at the right spacing that plug right into the board! I could shorten the lengths of the wires, but for now I am going to leave them at the lengths they are and secure them with zip ties. Anyway I had to solder the heat resistant wire to the heated bed (it gets up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, which would melt the insulation on regular wire) and then add extenders on to the wire to reach the board. This wasn't very detailed soldering so I didn't have much trouble with it.I will probably still have to add plugs on the ends for easy access to the RAMPS board. I also had to extend the wired on my fan with a length of doorbell wire (it was what I had in my garage).

As I may have mentioned before there is code for my 3-D printer available online for free. The downside is that it is written for many different types of printers in many shapes and sizes. This means that I have to do some math to calculate the steps my motors need to take based on rod pitch, belt pitch, pulley size, gear ratios etc. I also have to get my end stops positioned in the correct way, select my power supply, fan type, hotend type and so forth. This is easier than it seems as you just have to un-comment some things in the code, but looking through thousands of lines worth to find the correct item to configure is quite monotonous.

Getting the code right

I finally am at the point of wiring everything together and start printing. I knew from

the beginning this would be one of the most difficult parts of this build, as well as one

I could learn from the most. I started out by wiring everything up and plugging it into

the computer. I uploaded the MARLIN code with its stock settings (not set up for my

printer, more on this later), and opened the host software (that I haven't used before).

It easily recognized the printer, and the small Led began blinking on the control

board. I clicked the up button and hoped for the best. Instead of the smooth and quick

motion I heard a knocking in the motors. Quickly I unplugged the power and tried

again. I tried moving a different axis by clicking the home icon. Quickly the Y axis

zipped across its rails and hit the back of the printer. The motor kept trying to spin but

was cut short by me turning of the power. We packed everything away for the night.

During my down time at school, and a little while over the afternoon scouring

the internet for sources. I found out 3 rules you are supposed to follow.

1) Don't plug in anything while the power is on

2) Adjust the drivers to change the voltage needed for the motor

3) Only plug in one motor at once

All of these sources warned of burning out motors, drivers, and other electronics, all

of which I hoped I hadn't done, as I didn't follow any of these rules the night before.

To my glee, nothing was burnt out and broken, perhaps luck was on my side.

Anyway, I am planning on going through the code this weekend to accommodate my

printers settings.  I am really hoping to get things figured out so I can get going on

printing things, after all the deadline is closing in.

I also have finished the extruder with the exception of the hotend destined to arrive on

Monday.

On the road again...

Once again I didn't quite make my deliverable (A completed 3-D printer). However I am closing in on that goal. Right now I am about 75

Printer so far, notice the motors.

% done with the mechanical construction of the frame. I have added the motors and the end-stops, as well as all the X,Y, and Z axis.

I still have to put the belt on the pulleys attached to the motors, make sure everything is properly aligned, a herculean task in itself, assemble the extruder, wire everything together, upload some code and get printing! That may seem like a lot, which it is, but most of it is what you may call "busy work", it just takes time. I have already set apart Sunday as a build day to hopefully finish things up.

That leads me to the past weeks progress. I received my electronics package on Tuesday with the parts to get me going again. This package contained the end-stops, heated bed, Arduino, Ramps 1.4, and belts as well as a few other wires and things. I immediately ran into a problem. The endstops I received had the mounting

The whit part in the picture was the issue.

holes under the wiring harness. Turns out it is impossible to plug something in when there is two giant bolts sticking out of the top. Luckily after some internet searching I found a solution. I had to precariously bend the contacts enough to get the bolt through the opposite way, without breaking anything. (See Picture). This proved to be taxing as I didn't want to break anything and have to buy more parts.

My next issue was with the bearings. They were supposed to fit nicely in the holder and slide freely. They instead decided to bind against the steel so much that you couldn't pull on them without the whole printer moving (at least 15 Lbs). I shaved some of the plastic and the problem was solved.

Final note: I bought my hot hot end end today, the last needed part!

The LCD controller

At a Standstill

Parts

Over the past week I received a few more parts for the printer namely the:

Raspberry Pi

• Printed Parts
• Mounting Plate
• Couplings
• Motors 
• Raspberry Pi (A small computer for Wi-Fi 3-D printing, also a regular computer unto which I am typing this post right now)

I am still waiting on the electronics which has led me to a halt in assembly

Progress

Completed X-Axis

Since I finally got all of the parts I needed to begin my assembly I got started tuesday night. The first step was the x-axis which depending on your perspective is the "to and fro" of the motion. I had to start with zip tying bearings (metal slides) onto the heated bed mount (holds the part being printed). After that I started the process of using the metal rods. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Most of it was taking the rods, pushing them through plastic pieces

Heated Bed Assembly

, and adding a washer and nut. Some of the plastic pieces had small string of plastic hanging in there gaps that had to be removed. The leftover strings gave me a idea of how small of detail I can have. According to my calipers these parts were printed with a .35 mm diameter, pretty small if you ask me. Then came adding the smooth rods. It appeared to be a easy process, just snap them into place. This was easier  said then done. Apparently you can't fit a 8 mm rod into a 7 mm hole. At the website suggestion I got a hair dryer and heated up the plastic parts. These resulted in the parts shrinking giving just enough room to slide the rods in. I slid the heated bed assembly on and the x-axis was done. I took some time to snap together the frame to see how big the footprint would be of the completed printer, it is comparable able to a milk crate. I then started putting together the Y axis. Again I inserted bearings into there holders, and had to use heat to get them in. I added the nuts used to help the carriage move up and down. This leads me to where I am now. I am waiting to get my electronics, which contains the en end-stops. My directions say to go ahead and add them in. I didn't want to be in  difficult place later, so I am delaying until I get them. According to there tracking they are between New Hampshire and here.

Assembly table 

I had originally planned to build a whole desk out of pallet wood, but the wood  kept breaking no matter how gently I pulled them apart. Instead I am using a card table, and a tool holder/riser to hold my TV with build instructions on my Raspberry Pi as well as tool holder. Side note: Broken pallet boards are great for for or bonfires.

Assembly Table

First Parts!

Although this is severely late I finally received my first parts! On Saturday I received my frame kit from Nevada. This contained the frame, rods, nuts and bolts, and other parts for mechanical Assembly. This day had been much anticipated. When it got here I learned two things.

Nuts and bolts

1) This is a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. Pictures you see on the internet often dont have indicators of size to reference, just a number. This small size may lead to tighter working area and tighter tolerances in the parts. We'll see if that has a impact later.


2) Its going to be heavy when it's done. The frame and hardware weighs 12 pounds alone. 5 pounds for the motors, 5 for the electronics, 3 for the power supply... This weight combined with its bulk, although still manageable, will make the printer a little harder to move around.

Ruler for Frame Scale

The other part I received was the power supply. It was most economical to get it off of Amazon. I wanted to get a quality product to prevent power issues later, as well as wanting something that plugs into my wall to be safe.

I went ahead and ordered the rest of the parts I needed for my 3-D printer except for the hotend. I want to see my pasrts before I ordered it to make sure it will fit, as there are many types of these in many different sizes. The rest of my orders current states are as follows:

Electronics-Not yet shipped, have tracking number, estimated delivery date 2/12-2/16

Couplings & Hot End mounting plate- Not yet shipped, have tracking number

Printed Parts- Departed Santa Clarita, CA a day ago. Estimated delivery 2/5-2/10

Motors- Departed Elk Grove Village, IL today.

Most of my orders are coming from USPS with the exception of my cooling fan which is somewhere between here and China.

A note on motors

When I was researching which motors to buy I came across a interesting prospect. A set of 5 motors are available on both Amazon and Ebay, with the same picture and specifications. I did a little digging and found that they are the same seller using two different mediums. I ended up purchasing off of Ebay because of the significance of the cost difference. I wan't planning on buying my motors on Ebay but the reviews on amazon for this product were all positive. Hopefully I get the same quality product as described.

Power Supply

Rods for the printer

Change of Plans

Tonight I was supposed to be showing you all these wonderful pictures of my completed mechanical frame for my 3-D printer. Unfortunately that will not happen for two reasons:

1) I am a little behind schedule and all the parts for the mechanical frame will not get here until tomorrow

2) I was reading more into the assembly of the printer and have come to realize that mechanical assembly and electronic assembly happen at the same time, you can't do one half and the other half later.

That being said I have to alter my deliverable schedule slightly:

New Deliverable times:

February 20 Deliverable	Printer mostly assembled and ready for testing
March 13 Deliverable	Complete the Software portion of the build and Calibrate the printer
April 10 Deliverable	A complete fully operational 3-D printer

I still have been getting things ordered for the printer. I have ordered most electronics including:

1x 40mm cooling fan, will get here sometime in February from China. 

My little fan coming across the Pacific

Electronics Kit:

This kit includes:

• Ramps 1.4 (The small red thing)
• Arduino Mega (The blue thing)
• LCD Controller (Not Necessary but a nice extra)
• GT2 Belt
• Heated Bed
• End stops
• Stepper Drivers
• Usb Cable
• Software Disc

This leaves only a few parts left for me to get including:

• Power Supply
• Motors
• Hot end
• Printed Parts

Everything else has been ordered and is making its way across the country. Currently I have parts coming from New Hampshire, Nevada, and China. Once I get the other few things I will begin assembly on the printer.

One last note, the printed parts I still need to get come in many color4s and am still trying to make up my mind on what to pick.

The Electronics

Now that I have the mechanical components taken care off it's time to begin getting the electronics for the printer together. In my previous post I discussed the various parts off the printer, including the electronics. Specifically these parts include:

5x NEMA 17 Stepper motors- These make the axis' move up, down, right, and left.

5x Motor Drivers- These provide heat sinks to prevent motors from overheating.

3x End stops- These provide data to the controller so to indicate extruder position.

1x Arduino Mega- This micro-controller turns computer signals into motion.

1x Ramps 1.4- This is a "shield" for the Arduino that translates signals to motion, what you plug components into.

1x Power Supply- Provides the necessary power to drive all the components

1x Heated Bed- Provides better prints by allowing the parts to cool faster.

1x Hotend- Melts the plastic for printing

*Parts below are considered optional
1x Raspberry Pi- This would allow me to print through WiFi as well as allow me to add a webcam to monitor my prints when I'm away.

1x Smart printer controller with LCD- The screen on this unit allows me to control the printer, upload files, and monitor conditions without a separate computer.

A wiring diagram with all the electronics

Where will you get the parts?
As I described in my first post most of the electronic controllers will be bought in the form of a bundle to save money. From what I have seen a electronics kit including the heated bed, LCD, Ramps 1.4, Arduino Mega, endtsops, and motor drivers as well as the belt to finish mechanical construction are available from various sellers for $89.99.  The power supply I will source from Amazon for the modest price of around $20. The hotend I purchase will depend on my extruder but most likely that will cost around $25 and be sourced from Ebay.

Parts of a 3-D Printer

Since I keep throwing around the idea of 3-D printing, and its applications, as well as the process of building one, but haven't really discussed how they work or there parts. In doing this I hope that it will be easier to understand the topics I discuss in my blog.

A basic explanation on how a 3-D printer works

The process of printing a objects begins with designing a item in a 3-D modeling program such as Blender or downloading a file from the internet. This item is represented as a whole object so you have to get it into g-code to send to the printer. G-code splits the object into hundreds or thousands of layers of 2 dimensional shapes that stack together on the printer to create the object. This code is then sent to the 3-d printer driver.

Frame- For my 3D printer I am using a melamine or acrylic frame that us bolted together with metal rods. These rods transfer motion from the stepper motors to the extruder or hot end.

Printer Control Board- This board transfer the g-code to the motors. The board tells how many steps the motors need to take, the extruder speed, the hot end temperature, the heated bed temperature and much more. All of the electronic components are connected to this.

Extruder- This part of the printer is supported on the printers gantry. It pushes the filament through the hot end to be melted into a object. I currently plan on using a single extruder but may evolve to a dual extruder later on to print two colors at once. Thats the great thing about having a 3-D printer, you can improve it however you want!

Filament- This is the source of your printers object. Since spontaneous creation is still impossible the material has to come from somewhere. Typically packaged on a continuous roll and available i hundreds of colors and materials filament decides what your objects will be made of.

Motors- These motors, NEMA 17 stepper motors in my case, control all of the motion on the printer. Upon each electrical signal they move one step, 1.8°. The motors have to work in sync, all 4 of the motors required for motion to have a successful and accurate print.

Heated Bed- Although considered a optional component a heated bed is one of the best upgrades o make to your printer. Having one allows to print in more materials as the can keep the parts warm enough to melt together without cracking. The bed heats glass that the pieces are printed on.

I hope that this has helped you have a deeper understanding in the components of 3-D printing.

A quick video description from CNN is available here.

Look for more on the electronics next week.

Not Much Progress

Progress on the 3-D Printer

Unfortunately I didn't make huge strides towards my 3-D printer. I spent my time doing some more research on parts kits. For financial and availability reasons I have chosen to order a kit containing the parts needed for the mechanical portion of the printer. By ordering a kit I can get all the parts I cannot find locally as well as for around $50 less than buying individual parts. This also ensures that the parts will work together. The kit I am looking at purchasing comes with the rods, hardware, bearings, and frame. It appears I will need to purchase the 3-D printed parts separate even though the description says otherwise. I am planning on purchasing the required mechanical parts tomorrow (1/6/15) and they will take a few days to get here from Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Table

I mentioned in a earlier post that I was going to get some pallets to build a new desk/table out of to build my printer on. I was fortunate to find some little used pallets to use for my project. I began by taking the pallets apart. Although they are made to just carry copiers and other such items they are built to last. This can be difficult since my goal is to take them apart for there wood. For my pallets the choose to put two inches of board together with a 3 inch hybrid nail and then bang the extra into the wood. So for each board I had to first get the nail out of the wood with a screwdriver and a sharpened railroad spike. This resulted in my screwdriver breaking, a testament to the pallets strength. While doing this some of the boards split. I have since glued and clamped them together. After thats done I will join the boards together on top of some OSB. If all goes to plan I will have my completed tabletop by Friday ready to find some legs.