Project Whurple - White/Purple Watercooled Build - Changes to 3d printer build!!

[Vince]

Glad to hear you didn't kill it

Killed it... hmm perhaps, although you could possibly fix it. Let me explain, even though I got the board to boot on my bench supply by giving it 12v - 0.1amps and running some wires to effectively bypass the stepper motor drivers, it wont boot under a normal supply and hangs. So I decided to get the multimeter out and trace the fault on the board. It didnt take long! there was grounds across components all around one particular driver, this is the result, I took the driver next to it off for comparison:





If you look closer you can see ive scraped the board to find the traces:




The bottom left two missing traces are 12v and ground, the pin next to that is also cut and I think it's a data pin of some description. With all of the shorts removed the board now boots under a proper power supply. I could possibly fix it but it's clearly junk and the Geetech GT2560 I have ordered is far superior, because it is based on an arduino / Ramps mix up the drivers are slot in so if one goes it's an easy plug in replacement.

If anybody in here really wants me to attempt to repair that I will but im thinking it's better just to wait for the new board etc to get here. I might have to transplant the board into the current printer to print some bits for the new design but to be honest in my buying frenzy and not listed above I also bought a ramps 1.4 board and a mega 2560 so perhaps wack those in this printer and build the new one on the geeetech.

This has prompted an investigation and action to be taken. I have therefore invested in some DRV8825 Driver boards as well. These boards can step 1/32 rather than 1/16 which I read makes some of the axis more stable. 8 quid for 5 it's hardly a bank breaker!

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Killed it... hmm perhaps, although you could possibly fix it. Let me explain, even though I got the board to boot on my bench supply by giving it 12v - 0.1amps and running some wires to effectively bypass the stepper motor drivers, it wont boot under a normal supply and hangs. So I decided to get the multimeter out and trace the fault on the board. It didnt take long! there was grounds across components all around one particular driver, this is the result, I took the driver next to it off for comparison:





If you look closer you can see ive scraped the board to find the traces:




The bottom left two missing traces are 12v and ground, the pin next to that is also cut and I think it's a data pin of some description. With all of the shorts removed the board now boots under a proper power supply. I could possibly fix it but it's clearly junk and the Geetech GT2560 I have ordered is far superior, because it is based on an arduino / Ramps mix up the drivers are slot in so if one goes it's an easy plug in replacement.

If anybody in here really wants me to attempt to repair that I will but im thinking it's better just to wait for the new board etc to get here. I might have to transplant the board into the current printer to print some bits for the new design but to be honest in my buying frenzy and not listed above I also bought a ramps 1.4 board and a mega 2560 so perhaps wack those in this printer and build the new one on the geeetech.

This has prompted an investigation and action to be taken. I have therefore invested in some DRV8825 Driver boards as well. These boards can step 1/32 rather than 1/16 which I read makes some of the axis more stable. 8 quid for 5 it's hardly a bank breaker!

Sounds like trying to repair it may not be worth the bother

 

[Vince]

Sounds like trying to repair it may not be worth the bother

I sent the guy I got it off of a message. I Can't be bothered to attempt a repair so it has to be worth prodding to see if I can get a replacement. For what it is worth the drivers require active cooling and my kit didn't have any! That will need addressing on the rebuild.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

I sent the guy I got it off of a message. I Can't be bothered to attempt a repair so it has to be worth prodding to see if I can get a replacement.

Sounds like a good plan

 

[Vince]

Sounds like a good plan

If they replace it I will probably give this one a repair for a bit of a laugh. I can lay down a new smd and then a few jumper wires to that edge of the driver chip. Could be a fun mission to see if I can get that X driver actually running again although I wouldn't trust the board at all. As I said I have the board running just have no X driver.

 

[Vince]

Bits are slowly turning up. Wont be long before I make a start:



This is a rough mock up in CAD, actually it's not rough at all in terms of dimensions. What is rough is that I have a few parts in there front the original footprint of the machine to give me some idea of where things should go:



Still undecided on v slot or not for the gantry and hot plate slider. Decisions, Decisions! 20 mins in CAD but hours messing about measuring and getting all the parts layed out. Im not sure this is final yet or even how it will end up when I start building. Also 400 high might be a little too high so perhaps 350 might be better.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Bits are slowly turning up. Wont be long before I make a start:



This is a rough mock up in CAD, actually it's not rough at all in terms of dimensions. What is rough is that I have a few parts in there front the original footprint of the machine to give me some idea of where things should go:



Still undecided on v slot or not for the gantry and hot plate slider. Decisions, Decisions!

I will just nod and try to look wise lol
Obviously I know what a 3d printer is
But the actual parts will be a mystery to me lol
Unless the name of the part gives a clue

 

[Vince]

I will just nod and try to look wise lol
Obviously I know what a 3d printer is
But the actual parts will be a mystery to me lol
Unless the name of the part gives a clue

I don't even know if I am getting the names right Im calling the bit that goes up and over the top the gantry. The bars that run from front to back in the middle, they are the sliders for the hot plate or build area for the machine, the new footprint is 1.5cm wider each side to allow printing right up to the edge of the hotplate. The two different linear motion methods I am talking about, v rail and slider look as follows:



Im kinda starting off with a simple design I know I can build and write firmware etc for. After that I might design something a bit more crazy if this works out as expected. I don't even care if it doesn't work out so long as I learn some bits and bobs along the way!

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

I don't even know if I am getting the names right Im calling the bit that goes up and over the top the gantry. The bars that run from front to back in the middle, they are the sliders for the hot plate or build area for the machine, the new footprint is 1.5cm wider each side to allow printing right up to the edge of the hotplate. The two different linear motion methods I am talking about, v rail and slider look as follows:



Im kinda starting off with a simple design I know I can build and write firmware etc for. After that I might design something a bit more crazy if this works out as expected. I don't even care if it doesn't work out so long as I learn some bits and bobs along the way!

Very true
Learning new stuff or skills is never a waste of time far as I am concerned

 

[Vince]

@LePhuronn What is your opinion - Do the whole thing in v-slot or mix it up with some random bits and just ghetto it together?

 

[LePhuronn]

I'm partial to full extrusions because I like the rigidity of my Ender (oo er, etc.). But if you're in it for the learning then go ghetto, identify weaknesses and determine improvements. You'll know exactly how these things work then and why certain aspects are done in a certain way.

 

[Vince]

I'm partial to full extrusions because I like the rigidity of my Ender (oo er, etc.). But if you're in it for the learning then go ghetto, identify weaknesses and determine improvements. You'll know exactly how these things work then and why certain aspects are done in a certain way.

Sounds like a plan - Can you help me with one more thing? I have 3 boards coming, one is the gt2560, one is the anycubic Trigorilla and then I have the combo of the mega 2560 and ramps 1.4 over two boards. I am just looking about working out how you might go about upgrading firmware on these when I get them, I also expect I will need to do this to see what ampage is set going to motors etc as well as setting up different motor stepping of 1/32 im planning on with different drivers for some axis. What's the process as my google foo seems to be letting me down.

Edit: Cancel that ive just compiled Marlin Can't flash the board I have as it is cheap chinese rubbish with no bootloader but the new boards should be golden.

 

[LePhuronn]

Boards is where I can't help, I'm afraid. All I know is most boards don't have bootloaders so you need to faff about with something else to act as a bootloader. From the Ender perspective, people are using Raspberry Pis to bootload and upload firmware onto the Marlin boards.

 

[Vince]

Boards is where I can't help, I'm afraid. All I know is most boards don't have bootloaders so you need to faff about with something else to act as a bootloader. From the Ender perspective, people are using Raspberry Pis to bootload and upload firmware onto the Marlin boards.

Yep I see that and my board is no exception. The seller of the kit is sending me a new one and I have another 4 different boards on the way (All the decent looking ones I can find) and yes I did spend about £100 on boards just to find out what the best one is! I can always sell them on, I think I have to admit that this stopped being about the cost a long time ago, this is now about the sweet science! I will review each of them with my thoughts etc in here!!

I will also be mixing stepper drivers for 1/32 stepping over 1/16 on some axis and will also change the thread pitch of all the rods from the standard 1 pitch of the rods that came with the machine to T8 rods with an 8mm pitch. I've done the maths and it will absolutley require firmware changes but should make what I am building super smooth.

I think I may entirely change the design again after more time messing about in cad - I am starting to think an all extrusion setup with some tweaks is the way forward! If I use extrusion I can reduce the footprint by somewhere in the region of 25% while still having coverage across the whole build area. Obviously I will need to mock something up and properly test I am not talking rubbish! The Ender 3 is a great example of a small footprint machine that can print the whole bed so It has to be possible on a self build! I think I probably should have went 2040 rather than 2020 but I have 10 bars of 2020 so 2020 it is.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yep I see that and my board is no exception. The seller of the kit is sending me a new one and I have another 4 different boards on the way (All the decent looking ones I can find) and yes I did spend about £100 on boards just to find out what the best one is! I can always sell them on, I think I have to admit that this stopped being about the cost a long time ago, this is now about the sweet science! I will review each of them with my thoughts etc in here!!

I will also be mixing stepper drivers for 1/32 stepping over 1/16 on some axis and will also change the thread pitch of all the rods from the standard 1 pitch of the rods that came with the machine to T8 rods with an 8mm pitch. I've done the maths and it will absolutley require firmware changes but should make what I am building super smooth.

I think I may entirely change the design again after more time messing about in cad - I am starting to think an all extrusion setup with some tweaks is the way forward! If I use extrusion I can reduce the footprint by somewhere in the region of 25% while still having coverage across the whole build area. Obviously I will need to mock something up and properly test I am not talking rubbish! The Ender 3 is a great example of a small footprint machine that can print the whole bed so It has to be possible on a self build! I think I probably should have went 2040 rather than 2020 but I have 10 bars of 2020 so 2020 it is.

Bit of an understatement to say I think 3d printers have you hooked lol
Least I know who to shout if want something printed

 

[Vince]

Bit of an understatement to say I think 3d printers have you hooked lol
Least I know who to shout if want something printed

Yea I dunno about hooked but I am certainly well into some sort of project I didn't anticipate! It's not all bad though gives me something to do and you dont learn without getting involved, or at least I don't. I could read about it all for a week and wouldn't gain the knowledge you can in 1 hour building and playing with one.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yea I dunno about hooked but I am certainly well into some sort of project I didn't anticipate! It's not all bad though gives me something to do and you dont learn without getting involved, or at least I don't. I could read about it all for a week and wouldn't gain the knowledge you can in 1 hour building and playing with one.

Very true
Book knowledge is great
But still need to be able to actually put it into practice
Sometimes you have to take things apart to see how they work
And of course reassemble them hopefully still working lol

 

[Vince]

Very true
Book knowledge is great
But still need to be able to actually put it into practice
Sometimes you have to take things apart to see how they work
And of course reassemble them hopefully still working lol

Well it's been a pretty boring day in terms of stuff for my projects, I can't get started on properly constructing things until at least 90% of the stuff is here more specifically I need boards and a few other bits arrive. Some stuff I ordered an age ago on amazon did arrive as did a few bits for the 3d printer. These little storage boxes came, I ordered a couple of sets as I have millions of screws, nuts, bolts etc for different projects so thought I would sort them all. Here are all the parts I have so far collected for 3d printer stuff all nicely organised in little boxes as well as the stepper motors I will be using, the little flexible joints are no longer going to do the job for the build so I will have to think of something else to build when I am done with the printer

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Well it's been a pretty boring day in terms of stuff for my projects, I can't get started on properly constructing things until at least 90% of the stuff is here more specifically I need boards and a few other bits arrive. Some stuff I ordered an age ago on amazon did arrive as did a few bits for the 3d printer. These little storage boxes came, I ordered a couple of sets as I have millions of screws, nuts, bolts etc for different projects so thought I would sort them all. Here are all the parts I have so far collected for 3d printer stuff all nicely organised in little boxes as well as the stepper motors I will be using, the little flexible joints are no longer going to do the job for the build so I will have to think of something else to build when I am done with the printer

Got few of those little boxes they come
With phanteks cases they're quite useful

 

[Vince]

The first board is here. Meet the Geeetech GT 2560 Rev A+ (mega 2560 + ramps / mega 2560 + ultimaker) The first thing I did was update it straight to the latest firmware which it loaded straight away without issue, this means the board has a bootloader. I still cant actually drive anything from it yet as the drivers are not here yet. Still i can mess around with it and see what it can do.



I cut the 4 pin off of an old atx supply and wired it into my bench supply to get her going and updated! Next up im thinking ill see what it outputs to the lcd and check the new firmware etc went on.

What im not sure about yet is if this can take my new 150w heat pad gel mat thing for the bed. Specs wise it recons 12 amps to the heatbed which I think should be enough but I have grabbed an upgraded heatbed mosfet of 20 amps just to be sure. Ill be using a mix of drv8825 drivers running 1/32 and a4988 drivers in 1/16. Once some drivers are here ill set up a test bench and have a little go with it. I think ill need to change the firmware I have put on it to deal with that as well as the pitch of my new bars. Talking about them I have a customs card so think the kits I bought are sitting at the postie... this means I might be able to get building on Monday