YRS 3D Printer Status and Log

The YRS 3d printer has been rebuilt and recalibrated and is currently available for inductions and printing to Hackspace members. The print accuracy is to within +/- 0.04mm in X and Y.

The YRS 3d Printer is being 'lent'/allowed to be completed by the owners the ail is to complete this and then finish the Hackspace owned printer to have a '3d Printer as a tool' available in the space.

The YRS printer is basically complete and the build should go fairly quickly the hackspace printer will require (at least) Electonics, and possibly other bits.

YRS Build Log NEWEST AT TOP

Rebuilt extruder and sourced new hobbed bolt to feed more accurately. Also changed most M3 nuts for nylon locknuts to prevent them from shaking loose.

Fitted custom couplers to give greater accuracy and more reliability for Z movements.

Finer Mark IV print head sourced from UK supplier.

New hotend donated by Richard Crumley. The mark IV is PLA friendly, unlike the now defunct mark 1 supplied. It is hoped the Mark 1 can be recommissioned with a choice of hot ends for ABS and possibl TPS (NinjaFlex rubber) to give more choice of build materials.

Rehoused electronics in a wooden box to give greater protection from tea splashes or similar.

Trimmed pots for current limiting by hand testing with Pronterface so 0.1, 1, and 10 mil steps all work. X lowered to about 25% of a turn, Y by only 10% of a turn, Z by about 15%.

Trimmed a fan and enclosure to fit over the board for further testing regards overheating issue.

Initial Calibration all done. First parts printed !!, 2 * Calibration 'L' Parts

Steppers start to miss steps after about 5 mins of printing and the stepper driver chips get hot (too hot to touch) So need to either reduce stepper current or fit a fan for the electronics board.

The steppers are functioning with what seems like quite a lot of reserve power when first stated (drivers cold) so I suspect that reducing the driver current will work to keep the temps down and still give enough drive power.

This is just tweaking the pots on the stepper driver boards down a bit. See Here for more info.

Simplest way is probably to create a test gcode file that move one axis at a time zigzag at full speed e.g.

G1 X100 F6000
G1 X50 F6000
G1 X100 F6000
G1 X50 F6000
...

and turn the drive current down till it starts to miss steps then back up a bit. Chriscain (talk) 08:38, 30 December 2013 (EST)

Wireing sorted and tie wrapped. Electronics board fitted. Hot Bet fitted and ready for leveling All limit switched fitted and wired.

Hot end needs fitting, follwerd by PSU connection and plug in of electronicd to the RAMS board then Unit ready for power on and initial testing. Chris 27 Dec

Box of remaining parts tidied. All non YRS 3d Parts (i.e. hackspace reprap parts) moved to shelf to try and help with keeping things in order. Only major bits left for fitting are hotbed, hot end and the electronics. chris 26 Dec

Extruder built 26/dec chris

X carriage movement a bit stiff, a couple of tries using washers/spacers to make it run better it now moves reasonably, further adjustment may be needed once the electronics/motors are connected and under power testing can be done.

X assembly built and fitted

X Smooth rods too long (length for non LM8 X ends) Cut down by 15mm to 435mm

Z motors added with coupling rods - motors not screwed in place notes on web seem to indicate that it may be better to not screw these down but to use tie wraps to hold them in place and redude out of alignment rough spots/vibration.

X-end idler was broken New part printed

Next steps

Fit SD Card Reader

The part has been sourced, but the electronics board in the YRS printer will need some pins added to enable connection. Also, the firmware will need updating to use it. Fitting this part will enable the printer to work independently of a laptop or other controlling PC.

Fit Display

A display has been donated (actually part of 5 suitable for Arduino projects). Fitting a display will let the temperatures and positions of the head to be displayed, letting people know how hot the printer is operating at without burning their fingers or using a laptop.

Build Extruder

Completed. Extruder all built and placed on x carriage, not screwed down yet as need to check hot end fit/alignment etc.

Build Hot end

All Done. Opon examination of the hot end bag it turned out that the hot end came pre-built all looks in good shape, ready for mounting. Not mounted yet as it is a bit fragile and probaly needs to be done after alignment/coarse testing of movement.

Fit Extruder/hot end

Build bed (heated plate etc)

Completed, Bet built and fitted, needs alignment

Electonics

All checked (as in stock checked :-) ) and complete this is probably next step now to allow some motion testing the X - axis is still stiff/catching and may need some more work unless it frees up under power.

Wire up

Almost complete All wires connected. Ramps and Arduino fitted to board, needs PSU wired up and motors et al plugged in.

Needs a USB 'B' cable to allow comms/prog of Arduino.

Functional testing and coarse alignment

Complete

Commissioning

Complete.

Calibration / fine alignment