Core-XY based on Rat Rig V-Core and Duet 2 Ethernet

deckingman

@snoozer I bought my heater from AliExpress. I can't off hand remember the seller, it might have been this one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1400w-240V-400-x-400mm-Silicone-Heater-Bed-Heating-Pad-for-3D-Printer-Without-Hole-Office/32880041524.html. They will make any size, any voltage, any wattage. I know it's from China and like most of us, you might have reservations - I did initially. All I can say is that it has worked flawlessly for the past 3 to 4years.

As I said, I use flat, aluminium tooling plate, 10mm thick) although 8mm thick would be fine. The heater is stuck to the underside and I use two layers of semi-rigid insulation under that. I use 6mm thick glass on top because it is flat, cheap, and I like having a removable print surface so that as soon as one print is finished, I can start another without waiting for the bed to cool.

I use 3 lead screws, one near the each corner at the forint and one in the centre at the back. These are driven with a single motor via a continuous belt. Initial levelling is done by slackening the pulleys on the lead screws and adjusting each one. Subsequent levelling isn't needed. The bed is flat and level and stays that way.

I don't use any form of bed level or flatness compensation and I can do things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U733PMTou7M.

That's an old video - these days I use 3DLac on my glass which allows me print the first layer very much faster. In fact, I don't slow the speed down at all for the first layer so typically lay it down at 90mm/sec. Oh and I can also do things like this which requires very good bed adhesion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG1WqijJ634

snoozer

@deckingman

Oh that's very nice. Did you machine your bed yourself or did you use Weerg or such ? I have never printed on glass, on the Prusa I can't try it cause it has an inductive probe and I don't want to start ripping things apart to do manual bed leveling. I will add that to my list to things to check out for the cost of getting a decent strong print bed machined. A continuous belt on the Z would not bother me to much. As long as the absolute position is correct after the move any flex should not matter. A three point mounting is understandably the best if the structure does allow for it.

I check that out regarding a custom print bed......

Jan

deckingman

@snoozer
I bought aluminium tooling plate cut to size from a UK supplier.

Personally I like printing on glass. Others hate the idea - mostly people who have never tried it. But it doesn't have to be glass. What I like most is the ability to quickly remove one piece at the end of a print, slide in another piece and resume the next print quickly. Any removable build surface would do as long as it's flat. Glass happens to fit the bill, being relatively cheap but flat and 6mm thick is surprisingly difficult to break. I have 3 pieces and of course, you can use PEI, or 3D Lac or blue painters tape on each one and swap between them.

One word of caution - do not be tempted to have the glass toughened. The toughening process will distort it so stick with plain float glass. That was a lesson I learned the hard way.

Edit. I did sort of machine the plate. But only drilling the fixing holes and then counter sinking them. It did it all with a hand held power drill - nothing special. Initially, I did mill a slot using a wood working router, on the underside of the plate to take the thermistor but later abandoned that in idea in favour of drilling a hole in the side.

snoozer

@deckingman

I have flicked through some of your YT videos. Man what a machine !!!! The dynamic counter weight is absolutely stunningly well done and is works so well.

I am beginning to seriously consider a chunky aluminium plate with adhesive silicone heater mat. I'd still go for main 230V powered cause i hate low voltage high current stuff, just does not sit well with me. I have just bough a reasonably decent but not to expensive router to be able to make the ends of the aluminum extrusions of the V-Core true and equal length assuming they are not machined properly. I suppose that could also work to cut a slot in the aluminium plate for the termistor and make it true and nice around the edge. I did a quick and non to elaborate aluminium plate in fusion 360 to upload to Weerg for a quote. It had 3 mounting slots 4.2 mm width and a slot to the middle for termistor. Weerg will not accept it for quoting cause the ratio of thickness to outside circumference on the 320x320x8mm plate is to much for them. I have the option for a manual quote but I leave that till I have a final design. The heater I have narrowed down to on a quick search is this:

https://ie.rs-online.com/web/p/silicone-heater-mats/1065429/

It is rated 150 degree c continuous operation and my experience with RS is 99% positive. I keep an open mind, once the V-Core kit arrives I have a better idea what may and may not work mechanically on that kit.

Thanks for your suggestions and shared experience !!
Jan

PS: The quote from the Weerg website is

"The morphology of the piece does not allow a safe realization.
We do not execute objects whose perimeter exceeds100 times the height (now it's170.0 times).
The reason is due to the fact that vibrations could reduce the workpiece precision during the machining process.
Do you think the piece can be made?
Do not hesitate to contact us, by clicking here."

deckingman

@snoozer That's a weird thing for Weerg to say IMO. The piece of tooling plate I bought is 400mm x 400mm which therefore has a perimeter of 1,600 mm. By their reckoning, it should be at least 16mm thick which I'd say is a bit crazy.

Ref RS, yes I have an account with them. Yes they are good and delivery is fast but soooo expensive. 178 Euros !!. Suggest you shop around.

Edit. Keenovo have a good reputation - worth checking them out https://www.keenovo.com/products/silicone-heater.html

snoozer

Uups..... just got quoted 515 EUR for the bed plate 320x320x8 with the milled slot for the termistor, 3 mounting slots 4.2x14 and rounded edges....... definitely NOT going for that. This was with Protolabs. I keep looking, there is no rush.

Jan

Veti

https://clever3d.de/epages/7a4290fc-7c7f-46cc-9b99-eadef22228e2.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/7a4290fc-7c7f-46cc-9b99-eadef22228e2/Products/c3d-DP/SubProducts/c3d-DP-0039

328x328x8 for 63,75 €

snoozer

@veti

Oh wow, that looks promising !! I keep that on my link list for supplies. Thanks for sharing !!!

Jan

PS: Nice online shop, A lot of stuff I had spend days looking for and could not find. I never search in German on google, maybe that's why this never came up.

Veti

the site says since they manufacture each plate individualy they can make it to your likeing. so 320x320x8 should also work

snoozer

@veti

I have seen that, the 320x320 is just a figure out of my head, I have to wait till the V-Core kit has arrived to see exactly how big I can make it. But definitely a good place to check out. Also they do laser cutting, good to keep that in mind for the enclosure at the end of this project.

Jan

Dougal1957

I got my tooling plate from Ecocast tooling plate not to bad on pricing and very quick (Carriage is the killer but get manageable if you want a lot of stuff as it is a fixed rate)

If you want it customised to a specific shape etc then I would suggest getting it water jet cut so as to not induce any real temp change which may just shock it to warp although I think that is unlikely to happen but you never know.

My Silicon Heater is from Keenovo and I can say they are the best of the chinese makers having had several of them now. they will make it with holes in them wherever you want them ie for mounting holes and in my case I have a 10 mm hole in the centre of them that way I can drill a 3mm hole that doesn't quite go thru the ally bed and then I glue in a temp sensor using Arctic Silver thermal epoxy.

HTH

Doug

snoozer

@dougal1957

Also added to my link list. deckingman also recommended the Keenovo heaters, I have looked at them and they do a great variety of them, the price is very good (Customs or at least VAT will be added on arrival). My main concern is the adhesive, but it must be good otherwise it was not recommended I guess.

Jan

deckingman

@snoozer said in Core-XY based on Rat Rig V-Core and Duet 2 Ethernet:

@deckingman

I have flicked through some of your YT videos. Man what a machine !!!! The dynamic counter weight is absolutely stunningly well done and is works so well.

Thanks for the complement. Don't get too excited about the dynamic load balancing though. Although it does a good job of stabilising the printer as a whole, there is no improvement in print quality. That's because the frame is very stiff so although the entire printer rocks about, everything rocks together so there is no adverse effect on print quality to start with. It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist on my printer and I was stupid in not evaluating that at first. But I always share my experiences, both good and bad, on my blog as it might help others. So, if you have a stiff frame, don't bother trying to cancel out the forces. If you have a frame that can "flex" and you get problems with prints because of that, then this might be worth a try.

snoozer

@deckingman

I have a steel table welded for my Prusa MK3, that's over 50kg. The high mass has reduced the set-up rocking about a lot. I can see what you mean re stiffness, and I would also not have 4kg of moving mass on my printer, at least not on the V-Core I am building now. But to come up with the idea is pretty fascinating. What steppers do you use for your XY axis ? Are they driven directly from the Duet or do you have external drivers ?

Jan

snoozer

Just in case ppl are interested, my preliminary idea of a hotend mount for my V-Core is here:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3490910

It is UNTESTED so far, I only worked of the original V-Core Fusion 360 files. I don't even have the V-Core kit yet on hand.

Jan

deckingman

@snoozer said in Core-XY based on Rat Rig V-Core and Duet 2 Ethernet:

@deckingman
What steppers do you use for your XY axis ? Are they driven directly from the Duet or do you have external drivers ?

Jan

These ones https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/nema-17-bipolar-59ncm-84ozin-2a-42x48mm-4wires-w-1m-cable-and-connector-17hs19-2004s1.html

Nema 17s driven from the Duet. Rated current is 2.0 Amps and I run them at 1800mA. Bear in mind that I use two separate XY gantries - one for the hot and and one for the extruders. So my 4kgs of mass is spread across two gantries and thus 4 motors.

(The load balancing is yet another XY gantry with yet another 2 motors).

Dougal1957

@snoozer said in Core-XY based on Rat Rig V-Core and Duet 2 Ethernet:

@dougal1957

Also added to my link list. deckingman also recommended the Keenovo heaters, I have looked at them and they do a great variety of them, the price is very good (Customs or at least VAT will be added on arrival). My main concern is the adhesive, but it must be good otherwise it was not recommended I guess.

Jan

Not only do Keenovo do a great variety but they will also do you a custom one if you so wish. I now get mine without Temperature sensors in them as I prefer to use my own.

Doug

GPetropoulos

Ratrig offers an anodised alluminum 3mm bed in the kit. As far as i have used it, it seems great. Plus anodising makes it insulated.

snoozer

@deckingman

Just watched your video of the 5x BT extruder upgrade. Its all V-Slot mechanics your are using ? Must be a good system if you are still with that. I have read about ppl having issues with flats spots on the wheels when the printer is sitting for a while, you never had that ? Did you deliberately chose to load the wheel lateral on the X axis or did your design just work out better with the space you have available this way and the loading direction is accidental ?

I did check the Aluminium supplier you suggested, no shipping to IRL, same with a couple of other suppliers from the UK. A friend of mine lives part time in Newcastle, I get him to bring one back for me. The price really is reasonable in compare to what I find local.

How is your glass plate held in place ? It looks almost as if you have a slot in system ?

Thanks
Jan

deckingman

@snoozer So many questions ....

Yes it's all OpenBuilds Vslot.

No, I've never had a problem with flat spotting the wheels. There is only one reason why that can happen and that is if the wheel doesn't rotate freely and scrapes along the rail. It's exactly the same as locking the brakes on a car (before the days of ABS) and then the tyre scrapes along the road.

IMO there is only one reason why the wheels may not rotate freely and that is due to poor assembly. The eccentric spacers must be adjusted so that when a carriage is fitted to a rail, if that rail is then tilted, the carriage will slide under it's own weight. At the same time, there must be no "play" in the carriage.

I have had occasions when using OpenBuilds gantry plates, even with the eccentric spacers backed off completely, the carriage is still too tight. That is an unacceptable situation. One solution that I have used is to enlarge the small hole that takes the wheels on the other side of the gantry plate. This allows the bolt with the non-eccentric spacers to move slightly further away from the rail which then gives the necessary clearance. One other thing that can make the wheels bind is over tightening the lock nuts. However it is achieved, the wheels must rotate freely on the rails and not bind.

Regarding the lateral loading of the wheels on the X carriage, I guess you mean the fact that the wheels are either side of the rails, rather than being top and bottom. There are three reasons for this. One being that I use two parallel rails. The carriage has 6 wheels in total, 3 per rail with two inner fixed wheels, and one outer adjustable wheel. This arrangement helps to keep the rails parallel. The second reason is that I always like to have the wheel bolts supported both ends, like an axel. Rather than having the bolts fixed at one end only, which means that they could flex. So it's easier to have a top and bottom plate with the "axels" fitted vertically between them, rather than using a single plate which would need bosses hanging down to support "axels" running horizontally. The third reason is that with wheels top and bottom, the hot end would have sat too high unless I had spaced the rails further apart to allow it to sit lower. This would have meant losing even more Y travel. Although the engineer in me would have preferred to have the wheels top and bottom, this works well enough.

The glass is clamped to the bed using two "L" shaped sections of aluminium extrusion. These have slots in the side through "T bolts" screw into the edge of the aluminium plate. So I press down in the extrusions then tighten the bolts.

Hope that all makes sense.