Hello,

I just start sharing my experience with building a 3D-Printer here from today. My 1st build will be based on the mechanical kit of the Rat Rig V-Core. V-Slot Core-XY design which I have chosen because it looks sturdy and its reasonably priced and above all it is shipped from the EU. I was contemplating buying a China made Core-XY printer and upgrade it with Duet 2 but gave up on that due to quality and shipping concerns. Here the main reasons why my own build and why Core-XY.

• Gather experience with a setup from scratch
• Learn to create my own print profiles in my slicer
• Core-XY could potentially be very accurate and fast
• Duet 2 because well documented, made in the EU 32 bit controller
• Rat Rig V-Core as compromise between high quality and low cost
• My dream choice would have been E3D's prototype or the RailCore II

I have chosen the following main components.

• Duet 2 Ethernet for the reasons mentioned above, eth over WiFi because I know how unreliable WiFi can be and eth gives me the freedom of both worlds if I need to.
• Titan Aero Hotend because its very compact and of good quality, I am to inexperienced so far risk using a cheap clone etc. The final goal would be a Titan Aqua because I want my printer to be enclosed and that seems to be the way to go to get the heat away.
• 0.9 degree 1.33A steppers for X, Y, ZA and ZB. My choice of 0.9 degree is just a gut feeling, I give it a shot and see what happens. They are not very expensive and I can replace them with 1.8 degree easy.
• For the hot bed I intend to use a E3D 230V AC 300x300 bed, that is a rather expensive single piece of the build so to start I will use a 300x300 24V Silicone heater pad which goes under the original V-Core aluminum bed, once I get anything decent working I change that for the E3D bed with Solenoid.

Here a few pics of where I am so far. Thanks to the RRF Config Tool and the extreme well documented Duet controller I had no issues getting started with testing steppers etc....

I have the axis steppers configured with the actual information of the V-Core regarding pulley teeth and lead screw pitch. I went with 50% current as is recommended as lowest setting from what I have read. All moves and does not seem to lose steps yet. That may well change once i have received the mechanical kit and stuff actually starts moving. The hotend is only partially assembled, I need to finish the mounting 1st as it has to go between stepper and heatsink. So for now I only have the heater, heatsink, termistor and fan going. One issue I noticed was a rather high overshoot when heating. It easy goes over by 10 degree but I have not yet looked into that at all. Just got it going to start with.

So that my state of play for now, I have ordered everything from the EU, mostly Rat Rig and Ooznest. E3D to follow for the bed and nozzle-x but they are so sloooooow....... Amazon fulfilled stuff as temporary Print Surface and Ebay EU for end switches and silicone heater.

Next I get my hotend mount ready and adjust extrusion etc and look into the overshoot when heating the hotend initially.

Have Fun!
Jan P.

PS: I am using a Poenix Contact 24V 5A PSU which I had sitting around for now. I have a 24V 20A on order to use with the 24V heated bed once it arrives.

Hello,

I just wanted to introduce myself and say hello to the Duet community. My name is Jan and I am relatively new to 3D printing. I have bought my 1st 3D printer in October 2018. That is a Prusa I3 MK3 kit which works very well. I have chosen that printer because I know myself well enough and I wanted to avoid frustrating shortcomings on Chinese Hardware which would have depleted what little patience I have. So the MK3 has worked without a lot of frustration for me and keeps printing. Since I have some basic understanding now of how things work I just wanted to get my own setup going. I have decided to build a Core-XY printer with the mechanical kit of the Rat Rig V-Core. Looked like a good starting point to avoid the pain of mechanical design (for now) but have the chance to make it mine. Yesterday I have received the Duet 2 Ethernet, Steppers and Titan Aero extruder. Still waiting for the V-Core kit (has 2 weeks lead time). So far I have only done the basic setup to have the motors work on the bench. Hoping to get the hotend up and running as well as the heated bed this week. And then its waiting for the V-Core kit to arrive and put everything into action.

About me, I am living at the South-West coast of Ireland for the last 16 years. Originally I am from Germany but feel home where I am now. I am Network and System Engineer in real life and like tinkering with electronics and all kind of tech stuff in general. Hiking and sailing are the non technical things I love to do.

So that me and why I am here.........

Have FuN!
Jan

PS: Once I have something to show for I post in the related category to give an overview of my machine.

@andornot

Just one more thing to consider maybe, you can always make an Ethernet Duet hook up to some WiFi Access point or client device via the Ethernet cable, with the WiFi version you are stuck with WiFi and have no option to connect in any other way.

Regards
Jan

Hello @ all,

I have recently started to build my own Core-XY printer from the Rat Rig V-Core mechanical kit. There is a different topic in another place on this forum about it. Among a few other things the most pressing decision wise for me is the use of Piezo probe(s). I have thought of alternatives 1st like inductive or IR probes but they all have downsides which rule them out for me. I have been looking around and it seems Precision Piezo from the UK are the go to people to get a working solution. To start with I thought I put one probe in the print head assembly but it may not be the simplest and most room conserving solution for me. I am using a Titan Aero hotend from E3D which rules out the "drilled" type probe due to mounting issues. I would have to put the probe in the mechanical stressed part that holds the entire hotend assembly in place. I am worried I would sacrifice to much mechanical strength and end up with a weak mount. Then I have seen the "Andromeda" type piezos which seem to look ideal for bed mount. Here my actual question to people that have experience with bed mounted piezo probes. I intend to use an Aluminium tooling plate 6 or 8mm strong as print bed and glass or spring steel PEI on top as surface. The bed would be 320x320mm. Would the preload from the weight rule out precise z-probing results ? I understand the trigger comes from the delta between resting and compressed/bend probe, would the delta (or difference) be enough to trigger reliably ? The other question is the movement, on my printer the Z movement is done by the bed. Will the acceleration and decelaration in itself cause issues with false triggering or cause imprecision ? My setup uses a Z max end stop to fast move to a known position with the bad all the way down. From there to home or do bed calibration I would move fast to Z 0 +2-5mm, probe very slow from there.

In short:

• Is preloading the piezos an issue (weight of bed)
• Are slow moves of the bed on Z acceptable for z-probe precision or are bed mounted piezos only a think where the bed does NOT move on Z ?
• Should I rather put the probe in the head while I still have the chance.

Any input, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks
Jan

Just a quick add on, an impression of the fast non print move speeds I get so far.

https://youtu.be/PBN2l-wafVY

Yes, that has worked for downloading the sys directory content.

wget --ftp-user=admin --ftp-password=PASS -r ftp://IPADDRESS/sys/

That will do for me to make a backup.

Very frustrating day today...... the design above was evidently made around a clone Titan Aero, the original has issues fitting on the mount. I needed longer bolts for the stepper mount and the hotend is shorter apparently, I had to trim some of the part cooling duct off. The belt attachment is for ppl with a LOT of patience but I did get it done in the end. A nice baseline design but I will do that again from scratch and fix the issues I found. So far I can not recommend it for an original E3D Titan Aero. On the positive side, its very compact and gives a few mm more print area.

Jan

Hello,

I am finally getting somewhere. After resolving some of the issues with the Titan Clone Mount I spend some time getting Slic3rPE set-up. My approach to that was basically a mix of the Prusa settings and some input from the a Railcore II300 profile I found online. I can not claim that I would know all the details what each parameter actually does but so far I have a working printer setup and print setup for 0.2mm and 0.1mm layer height. One of the things I struggled with most was priming of the nozzle prior to the actual print. The way Prusa does it did not really work so I have taken that from a Railcore profile. I can run both print profiles at 100% with very nice looks and at 200% for a very fast print. I have speeds set to 60mm/s for perimeters 30mm/s for external perimeters and 80mm/s for infill and support, 20mm/s for the 1st layer. Some distortions are noticeable after sharp corners for example printing a cube. Printing it at 200% speed that obviously gets worse. It is in no way so bad that it would worry me for now but something that shows there is some unwanted vibration. I will look into that once I have my final bed finally on the printer.

Another issue I ran into was heat in the wrong place of the hotend. I had the Titan Aero fan set to 70% to reduce noise. That was not a good idea, on an longer print I started missing steps on the extruder and it finally ground through the filament. The problem was the fan was to slow to provide enough cooling. So my heatbreak was clogged and I had to disassemble the Titan Aero to remove the blockage. This has not happen since I run at 100% fan speed.

I have no good light here to take pictures of prints, I take them with me to the office and post pictures later today or tomorrow.

Have FuN!
Jan

Thanks @Phaedrux and @grizewald for your comments. Re z drive, I will use a single NEMA 23. I have received the V-Core 3 screw upgrade. They originally use it with 3 NEMA 17 and also suggest to drive them independent for bed levelling. I have decided against that. I have received my trust bearings now as well and have started to make up bearing blocks that mount instead of the steppers on the metal mounts. See pic.

So the lead screw goes through the bottom of that prototype black block, next radial bearing and on top of the outer ring rests the thrust bearing which again takes the load from the clamp on belt pulley. So I will have two on the forward side and one centered in the back. All three lead screws then joined by a loop belt plus one idler for tensioning.. I am not yet sure if a triangular belt drive has enough engagement on the teeth of they pulleys, if not I have to add a few idlers that wrap the belt around the pulleys more for better engagement of teeth. I intend to drive the rear single lead screw from a top mounted NEMA 23 or if that is not practical use a very short belt loop to drive the lead screw from a separate pulley and the motor in the base of the printer, not yet sure which I do. When I bought the pulleys I assumed its easy to get 3mm pitch belt but turns out that is not really the case, I have to make a mock up 1st now to see what length I need. Also forgot to order the NEMA 23 and motor mount (silly me).

Re piezo, guess that was kind of clear just I did not cop on to that, it needs a sharp impulse. Now with the glass bed it has never missed. Works very reliable now and wile bed levelling never probes on point more than 2 times, before it could take 4-6 times cause of the flexing nature of the flimsy light aluminium bed with the spring steel sheet. So for now I am all happy with the precision of the piezo. I will try again the other hotend mount with the build in Andromeda piezo.

Oh that sounds bad with the Mosquito, are you working in hot environment ? What you write re cooling issues would suggest issues will come up in an enclosed printer. I would not mind a 40 or 50mm fan as long as they can run silent. Or even a blower could them be a compacter, less noisy option. For an enclosed printer it may even make sense to have some sort of light weight duct with external fan to get cool air from outside the enclosure. Just thinking out loud, not there yet. The Linear Rail version will get the BMG M and Mosquito.

Have Fun.
Jan

PS: Re the termistor on top, that would not to control the heater but to delay the print start till the heat has gone through the materials. I find some way to implement that in the "Start G-code" section of the Slicer. IDK yet how I best implement that practically with a pocket cut in glass or whet ever, I probably have to experiment a bit.

My 2 NEMA 17 can drive Z WELL fast enough to trigger the z-probe. I just don't want to have huge inertia behind it with high speed if I can avoid it and go slower.

@grizewald, about the glue spray. I always apply that in the shower. I usually wash the glass in the kitchen sink with hot water and dry it. Then apply the glue in the shower to prevent glue mist on all the surroundings. The fact float glass is super cheap and can be got in any size combined with the ease of printing so far I don't think I go back to anything else to be honest. Have not yet tried ABS and PA. I did PC, PLA, PETG. Carbon filled XT-CF20 all work great.

Sorry I keep going on about this glass printing, I don't even bother sometime to wash the surface. I can see exactly where I printed before and just position the next part different in the Slicer, it is really so easy. For fun I just print one of my bearing blocks in ABS to give that a shot. I don't want to open my PA just now cause I have no dry box and its wet season here now......

Jan P.

Thanks @Phaedrux and @grizewald for your comments. Re z drive, I will use a single NEMA 23. I have received the V-Core 3 screw upgrade. They originally use it with 3 NEMA 17 and also suggest to drive them independent for bed levelling. I have decided against that. I have received my trust bearings now as well and have started to make up bearing blocks that mount instead of the steppers on the metal mounts. See pic.

So the lead screw goes through the bottom of that prototype black block, next radial bearing and on top of the outer ring rests the thrust bearing which again takes the load from the clamp on belt pulley. So I will have two on the forward side and one centered in the back. All three lead screws then joined by a loop belt plus one idler for tensioning.. I am not yet sure if a triangular belt drive has enough engagement on the teeth of they pulleys, if not I have to add a few idlers that wrap the belt around the pulleys more for better engagement of teeth. I intend to drive the rear single lead screw from a top mounted NEMA 23 or if that is not practical use a very short belt loop to drive the lead screw from a separate pulley and the motor in the base of the printer, not yet sure which I do. When I bought the pulleys I assumed its easy to get 3mm pitch belt but turns out that is not really the case, I have to make a mock up 1st now to see what length I need. Also forgot to order the NEMA 23 and motor mount (silly me).

Re piezo, guess that was kind of clear just I did not cop on to that, it needs a sharp impulse. Now with the glass bed it has never missed. Works very reliable now and wile bed levelling never probes on point more than 2 times, before it could take 4-6 times cause of the flexing nature of the flimsy light aluminium bed with the spring steel sheet. So for now I am all happy with the precision of the piezo. I will try again the other hotend mount with the build in Andromeda piezo.

Oh that sounds bad with the Mosquito, are you working in hot environment ? What you write re cooling issues would suggest issues will come up in an enclosed printer. I would not mind a 40 or 50mm fan as long as they can run silent. Or even a blower could them be a compacter, less noisy option. For an enclosed printer it may even make sense to have some sort of light weight duct with external fan to get cool air from outside the enclosure. Just thinking out loud, not there yet. The Linear Rail version will get the BMG M and Mosquito.

Have Fun.
Jan

PS: Re the termistor on top, that would not to control the heater but to delay the print start till the heat has gone through the materials. I find some way to implement that in the "Start G-code" section of the Slicer. IDK yet how I best implement that practically with a pocket cut in glass or whet ever, I probably have to experiment a bit.

My 2 NEMA 17 can drive Z WELL fast enough to trigger the z-probe. I just don't want to have huge inertia behind it with high speed if I can avoid it and go slower.

I have that RatRig upgrade ordered along with longer lead screws and bearings, 3GT pulleys, idlers etc..... Have to find thrust bearings now and closed loop belts of suitable length.

Also just noticed as a very nice side effect of having a 230V AC bed heater now I can use a fanless 24V PSU. But I have to find a way to attach as thermistor to the glass surface. It does take a lot of time for the heat to come trhough the 10mm aluminium plate and the 5mm glass. Maybe just a "puck" style thing with the termistor embedded that I wire up to another termistor input to wait till its warm enough before starting the print. Was considering a small embedded termistor in the aluminium plate but that would still be way off.

Jan

@grizewald , yes, quick change hotend was on my list as well but its for now way to complex to get done nice with 3d printed parts. If I ever get a little milling machine maybe but not for now. I agree re the Mosquito, the nozzle is only one aspect, the mechanical build just seems much better quality and I am totally off the titan extruder, BMG M and Mosquito is my next bigger plan (Probably for the linear rail RatRig coming in December)

Anyway, I have finally my nice and heavy (maybe to heavy) aluminium bed mounted. I am still running on 2 steppers and it does work quiet OK but I had to increase the motor current to 2A and cant let it drop below 50% in idle to maintain position reliable. The glass plates are a dream to work with, SO easy to have a few of them, let cool down, print off, clean and ready to go while the next print is already on the way. I do have to tweak a few things by the looks of it. In compare to the Prusa PEI plate the lines of filament don't seen to blend into each other that well. I am at the very beginning now on glass, so I am sure I get there. Mesh bed levelling is MUCH better now, the piezo seems to respond very well to the hard glass on the solid mounted aluminium plate, much better than the spring loaded thin old bed with the Prusa surface. With the weight of this bed now I really need to have the lead screws linked. The bed drops when I switch of the printer and its does not drop quiet equal on both sides. For now I have a mechanical support where I drive the bed to before I power down so it rests on that instead of uncontrolled dropping.

I have done a few more iterations of a new hotend mount for piezo use. Also includes the Andromeda piezo in one of the designs but all of them have in common that they dont react to gradual pressure application. Sudden pressure yes but not if I drive Z to slow. I am not sure yet how to overcome that.

So the next on the list is:

• 3rd lead screw RatRig upgrade
• Belt drive for Z axix
• Improvements to bed insulation and glass hold down clamps
• learn printing on glass

Have Fun !
Jan P.

I have just put all parts for the print bed on my bench here. I can't remember what I have read re isolation now. Looking from top down what would be the best order of layers:

1. Aluminium plate (bed)
2. Heater
3. Glass fiber reinforced aluminium foil
4. mineral wool
5. Cork
6. Mechanical layer to keep it all in place.

I am not clear about the aluminium, would that be 1st after the heater or last before the mechanical layer ? I would use the original old RatRig print bed as mechanical layer to close of the bottom I think.

Thanks
Jan P.

PS: I would use the aluminium 1st after the heater to reflect heat back rather than absorb in the other materials. Just my logic which may be wrong ofc.

@grizewald , thanks for the suggestion. The reason I don't use independent motor drives is that I am convinced once the belts are in place on the lead screws like in @deckingman's printer there is simply no need to drive them separate. I am using a (or will be once I have it machined) 10mm aluminium plate as heated bed and 5mm float glass. I think it will be very rigid. The maximum height difference would come from the pitch of the lead screw over one notch of the belt. I am very confident that can be dealt with with the mesh bed levelling. Also now that I have seen they will have a linear rail version of the RatRig soon (November / December apparently) I don't want to spend any money on the extension board, I rather build the new version once I have this one done.

Re piezos, I am not using a E3D V6, I have a Titan Aero, my mount would be very different. The reasons behind that choice have been mainly the gain in build height and less leverage on the nozzle due to the shorter compacter design. My next build will NOT have a Titan Aero again, in fact I probably go away from E3D and look at the BMG-M with the Mosquito hotend. I had issues with clogging (had the fan speed to low) and the extruder is often missing steps at higher speeds (not a pancake motor). So for now I am OK with the piezo cowboy style mount cause it works. I will revisit that once I have the print bed finished. I am not happy with my hotend mount anyway, its very hard to service. I would love a modular (possibly magnetic) mount.

Anyway, optical end stops 1st, proper bed next.

Regards
Jan P.

Hello after a long time,

summer is over and social life is returning to a lower level of intensity. I have not touched the printer all summer, was just to much RL stuff going on. Back at it now since a few days.

So the state of play right now:

• Precision Piezo is set up and working
• Still original print bed
• Optical end stops in progress as we speak.

The piezo probe took me some time to get working. The issue I had mostly was it would not trigger at low speed but super sensitive on acceleration and even walk by. For now I ended up wedging the piezo between the V-Core metal carrier and the printed hotend mount. My attempts with a "pocket" for the piezo failed every time and location. I have a bit faster moves now for probing on the Z axis but slowed the X and Y right down between probe points for mesh levelling. Probing the entire bed now can take approx 10 min but thats OK cause it works SUPER good and I don't need to do it every time anyway. The microswitch based end stops for X and Y click, even that click sets off the piezo, so I finally have to get on with my optical end stops. Printing holders now and wipers to pass through.

A more serious mechanical issue with the RatRig design is the fact that I have 2 independent yet from the same driver driven steppers. During my probing fails that caused the entire bed to go out of level alignment. For now to quick fix that issue I print sleeves that go over the Z lead screws to have a fixed level point at the bottom to align this. For a permanent solution I will upgrade to the 3x lead screws and also join the motors with a drive belt, the 3rd lead screw having the belt drive only from the other 2 motors. I may have issued with weight in the end. the aluminium plate with the glass print surface is over 5kg (weighing scales max), so I might have to upgrade the motors or use one big motor to drive the 3 lead screws, not sure yet.

Anyway, I am back on track and I see a linear rail version of this on the horizon. RatRig have that in the pipe.

Have FuN!
Jan P.

Right, I am back to my 1st design (Orange PLA further up in a pic), all I am gaining on the Y axis would be 7mm with the new design or so, cant be bothered. The underslung mount and some others similar lose significant Z height, I prefer not to follow down that road. On top of those issues I have not yet received my machined cast Aluminium plate. The supplier in the UK did not want to send to IRL so I used Parcel Wizard in NI with a UK Address. The supplier had all the details correct as confirmed by mail BUT left some details out on the shipment so now DPD can not associate the delivery to my Parcel Wizard Account....... emails back and forth now for a week...... I nothing happens I order a new plate from IRL this time.

I have been looking a lot more into the Mosquito Magnum and the BMG M, I see a lot of advantages mechanically with that entire idea, The heat-break no longer has to deal with any mechanical load and no more frustration on nozzle changes with spinning heatblock. The nozzle change drama is what stops me from using bigger nozzles on big prints, I hardly ever need fine detail, just strong and fast is what I need most times. The downside is the price, the lot with extruder, hotend, heater etc comes to approx 380 Euro. Have to sleep a few nights over that.

So all in all a bunch of delays by choice and inflicted from outside.
Jan

@Phaedrux

I would find that a waste of build height to be honest, That vertical compactness of the Titan Aero was THE main reason why I got it. The BMG./Mosquito design could be placed mostly above the gantry to maintain build height. I think that I have to accept the limitations at this point. What annoys me the most is that the belt fastening/tensioning is part of the hotend/extruder mount. In any future design I would make sure mechanics are independent of hotend and other components.

Have FuN!
Jan

Hi,

I really took some time off the printer and started from scratch with the Titan Aero mount including the piezo and having a detachable extruder from the base plate. Some preliminary work is shown below. Base plate and bolted on extruder mount with a flat part for the piezo, it can be seen slightly visible. A couple of guides for the PTFE tube and wiring. A bit of a support for a wire guide will bolt on to the back that's what the M3 nuts are for. On the side is also the mount for my (still) mechanical end stop. Playing with it in hand pushing down on a surface it is VERY sensitive but wont know for sure until its mounted.

After all that I have to say I am not sure I would use a Titan Aero next time. I find the mount requires just to much asymmetric shapes and it is not easy to get the nozzle centered. Also what I have notices is yes, it is very compact vertically but its not ideal horizontally. Have been looking at the BMG M extruder now with Mosquito hotend, that looks way easier due to the symmetry of everything and yes its way more expensive...... next printer