Another Stratasys uPrint retrofit
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@archeantus Very interested to see what you have accomplished!
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@aj-quick I am entering what I have done with the help of the wiring diagrams you posted on your website to the Hackaday.io Hack It Back competition.
Feel free to see what I have been doing and videos of the functioning Uprint SE+ fully controlled by the Duet 2 WIFI with DueX5 expansion board and Geckodrive G320X servo motor controller.
The link is here: https://hackaday.io/project/186419
I will be uploading the Duet configuration files and macros plus more information on the wiring in the coming days. I still have some more work to do to get it to run flawlessly, yet both extruders work and the chamber heater works with reasonable PID profiles.
I have printed ABS and PLA, yet haven't figured out the best chamber temps for the PLA to cool properly. Right now I can use either the Stratasys ABS in the spool under the printer or my Hatchbox ABS from a spool behind the printer. Both print wonderfully. The video is using the Hatchbox PLA red filament.
I will likely be adding an air filter to help with the ABS fumes as well as a PanelDue 5i for convenience when using the printer.
Please let me know what you think!
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@archeantus Absolutely impressive!
I would like to know how you have controlled the stepper motors directly from the Duet though the PDB. As I remember it, the onboard drivers take a PWM sine signal for control instead of regular step signals. Did you work out another way to do it using the Duet drivers directly!?
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@aj-quick I run the motors directly from the Duet.
Hey, I wouldn't have been able to get where I did without your work. Would you like to be added as a contributor to the project?
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@archeantus the extruder is controlled from the step and dir pins sent to the Geckodrive G320X. I feed the output from the Geckodrive through the PDB. During the tool change I switch the motor driver direction to make it always extruder the right way depending on which tool is being used.
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@archeantus said in Another Stratasys uPrint retrofit:
Hey, I wouldn't have been able to get where I did without your work. Would you like to be added as a contributor to the project?
I've got a Hackaday account now, not sure what that entails: https://hackaday.io/ajquick
@archeantus said in Another Stratasys uPrint retrofit:
@aj-quick I run the motors directly from the Duet.
Would you be able to explain more? Mainly just what connections on the Duet are made to the PDB for the motor control? From the drivers directly? Any bypassing of the drivers on the PDB already?
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@aj-quick The X, Y, and Z motors have wires extended using the female Molex connector you referenced in your webpage for the I/O board on one end and the Duet connectors on the other. I crimped some wires and fed them through the electronics box to the Duet. This is like what @drphil3d did to control the movement motors.
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@aj-quick So I completely bypassed the PDB for the xyz motors as the TMC drivers on the Duet 2 are strong enough to drive them directly and quietly too.
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@aj-quick The extruder motor I connected using the J13 pins (31, 33, 35, and 37) the pwm outputs and the encoder signals on the Geckodrive. I just followed the recommended settings for the Geckodrive and it works ok. I used the stp 10 and dir 10 outputs from the CONN_LCD connection to control the external motor driver (Geckodrive). Everything is powered either from the 24V or 5V output of the existing power supplies to run the Duet 2, DueX5 and Geckodrive. The 5V is to ensure enough current for the pwm signaling for the heater control and PDB Power Enable and Motor Enable which uses up all 5 PWM outputs of the DueX5. I read in the thermocouple temps to the thermistor inputs using a voltage divider to bring the signal down to roughly 3.3V scale which enabled the temperatures to reach the correct temperature ranges. This was for the Duet as it seemed to work based on 3.3v though it can in theory handle 5 V. I did have to adjust the linear ranges as you mentioned in one of your posts. I used the touch points to calibrate at two points (finger temp and 100C) then once that was close I went to 200 and then 300 to make sure I didn't burn anything up. Once I got the ranges correct I ran the auto calibration and it now handles the temp changes quickly and accurately. With the DueX5 the 5V endstop voltages can be sent directly to the endstop pins on the Duet without having to do any level shifting to 3.3V.
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@aj-quick Hackaday says you need to accept the terms of the contest. Did you get an invite to the project?
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@archeantus Ahh that all makes sense. My first test was to do something similar. I had a Geckodrive G320 installed, several AC relays and made direct connections to the motors. I only abandoned that idea after I found one of the 120VDC power supplies was located directly on the PDB.
Using both seems to be the easiest solution.
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@aj-quick Yeah, it was pretty straight forward after all you guys have done! It works amazing!
I just couldn't gut the extruder with the whole tilt mechanism and CNC parts.
The extruders are insane! I can't out run the extruder. I end up with vibrations in the print before I can max out the amount of hot filament! It is just crazy! I'll see if I can get a video later showing this. I think I end up maxing out the travel speed of the Duet.
I ended up adding an accelerometer to help me know how to minimize ringing in the printer using input shaping. It seems to have helped a lot! Maybe it will help with the vibrations are high print speeds.
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@aj-quick Welcome to the project on Hackaday!
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@archeantus Fantastic job! I've been following your updates this week, and looking forward to hopefully trying this out on a (working) 1200es BST I have. Love the reversible approach.
I'm curious, did you take any steps to evaluate the uPrint's motion settings prior to swapping in the Duet boards? Acceleration, jerk, etc. Thats something I've wondered myself - the printer I've built very much is inspired by how well the 1200es can print, and I've tried to exceed the quality for a given print duration.
I'm unsure what motors are in the uPrint, but I have datasheets for those in the 1200es (Applied Motion steppers). It seems they would like to be run closer to the Duet's max of 2.4A, rather than .95A - any insight on why you selected .95A for the X and Y axes? I can share the datasheets on Monday.
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@sebkritikel I know there are some technician only software tools out there that allow you to actually adjust the settings on the 1200/uPrint. I believe over command line you are also able to see some of those speed and acceleration parameters. That being said, I think the uPrint for example is very de-rated as far as what it is actually capable of. I would expect having to adjust the speeds and accelerations after conversion.
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@aj-quick said in Another Stratasys uPrint retrofit:
@sebkritikel I know there are some technician only software tools out there that allow you to actually adjust the settings on the 1200/uPrint. I believe over command line you are also able to see some of those speed and acceleration parameters. That being said, I think the uPrint for example is very de-rated as far as what it is actually capable of. I would expect having to adjust the speeds and accelerations after conversion.
Agreed that these machines run at derated speeds - hadn't thought about connecting with the diagnostic tools... I wonder if MacaraEx will do the trick, think I have a download of that somewhere.
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@sebkritikel if you want to get super involved you can plug a keyboard and monitor in directly to the onboard PC inside the machine. If you run a few commands (I'm guessing sudo systemctl sshd enable) you can actually enable the SSH access into the machine and have full access to the files and commands. If I recall the hard drive contained the executable code for every model they had (Dimension, uPrint, Fortus).
You can also plug in over serial and send commands that would mimic the ones sent between the material bays and the controller. (Probably different for a Dimension or 1200 unit.)
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@sebkritikel I know @drphil3d had some that he had pulled out from the Uprint and uploaded to his GitHub. You may check there. I ended up running at 0.95 since the story motors on the Uprint for X and Y are rated at 1.4A. I haven't had any issues with motor skips. In things I have read it is best to run them closer to 60 percent of the rated voltage. Yet even in my video you can see running them at 300mm/s (acceleration limited) that I still didn't skip any steps. I'm sure I could mess with the acceleration, yet I only just put in the accelerometer this week and haven't really had a chance to test much after that. I did mess with acceleration settings earlier yet had some vibration issues and ended up going with what I have. The settings I have uploaded I think are a bit closer to what @drphil3d had used. I haven't been able to see what the z motor current rating is so I haven't really pushed it to much. It is buried in the back of the instrument and I didn't feel like taking it apart that much to find out. If anyone knows I would love to adjust settings as the z motor had to hold a fair bit of weight. I would like to be able to push it up further yet it seems to be working ok for now.
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@archeantus For posterity, here are the datasheets for the 1200es BST - the recomended replacement (aside from all the fancy shaft modifications) was the HT23-597.
MN23-700-001
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n2taAMFu3agLpNULymEK3nVKLw8_VqeN/view?usp=sharingMN23-700-002
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LjYgWmTOQZbuap6dJBgMRQ50yjt7VcrY/view?usp=sharingMN23-700-003
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sxlal_UX6_PN25cqXctgkB7OG1f29wFz/view?usp=sharing -
@AJ-Quick The project made it into the top 10 of the Hack It Back challenge! I'll be working on putting together and uploading full build instructions and a better video outlining the project for the final judging of the competition for the top 5 of all of the categories (5/50, 10 for each category). Hopefully the full instructions will help anyone else going to do the same or use this as a starting point for controlling similar systems!
