Thank You

 

Thanx, man!

 

Oh is that not just typical.. I had to get the steppers with cables just short enough to not pass under the smoothie board and up into the plastic connector.

Cable lengths are great for everything except the Y axis.

Oh well.. I will manage

 

Simon, could you post pics on the heat bed / build platform assembly? Thanx.

 

Stock Indie I2 coming together..

 

Received my Cyclops plastic extruder thingy today. Mounted the cold side assembly on the X carriage.

Also starting to wire the PSU to the Smoothie. I wonder how that goes when plugging it in for the first time. Poof?

While working on this I started wondering about where to run all the cables that end up on the X rail. There are cables from End Stop, stepper motor, fan, and the hot end on the extruder. Need some ideas there...

Also - I see the other Indies in this thread appear to have a fan or two blowing on the extruded plastic. Anyone got a tip for me on how to get that going? I have no parts on hand for that.

Forgive my Noob - my I2 is the first printer I have been within 10 meters of..

Edit: Simon, I'd love to see some pictures on how you wired the heated bed to the smoothie.

 

Voltage Regulator - yeah, I've been scratching my head today on how to supply 5V to the Smoothie. I'd hate to be stuck having to power the board with an usb cable or paying for a separate 5V psu so I need to order that.

Interesting read on the need for fans. Thanks. I'll get the thing running ,then worry about everything else...

 

Hi, this is my Indie LC while printing the new Indie i2 parts
Simon I cant wait for the alu set

http://www.OpenBuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17544-4bc9448ecf944fd0a48c53a8214dc7d0.jpg
http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17545-9f7596815b2412d9313ae38bfa81c59f.jpg
http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17546-3d8f3c4d149210936e4dd5f431b51f86.jpg http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17547-f567b7ab1db3fd0bb014eb62bbb7a68b.jpg
http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17548-321de1e0d43df22d1de5ff2479bec50e.jpg http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17549-dbe108b7c9eca9a584b1c4097b727eef.jpg
http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17550-354afe19b014a990b426f7e958d7ef0f.jpg
http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17551-a424680e2493eece4ccb7f7c207a8f0f.jpg
http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17552-971cc76538da3da9feefbc52b1a50f1e.jpg http://www.openbuilds.com/data/xengallery/17/17553-3ac617603778103601a3c96f8f0f3c37.jpg

 

Yay! My I2 moved on all axis after powering and testing the jog controls in Pronterface! That makes the wait for voltage regulator and a couple diodes worth it.

Tried feeding it a gcode file but it went nuts complaining about stuff I have no idea what means yet. But whatever! IT MOVES!

Oh man this made my day!

 

Progress has been made

Volt regulator in place, also diodes behind the small mosfets. Apparently not doing so is a warranty breaker for the Smoothie..

My two diodes were delivered at my door in a cardboard box big enough to hold four 0.5 liter cans of beer! That is a lot of empty air for 2 grams worth of electronic gadgets.

While wiring is still a mess I know the following works:
- 3 axis steppers
-1 extruder stepper. The other one I haven't figured out how to move in Pronterface.
-extruder hotend + fan + thermistor. Already burned my hand on the extruder nozzle!
-headbed + thermistor
-2 mechanical endstops.

Still stuff on the todo list before first print:
-Bowden tubes
-Bed leveling
-Figure out how to get the Hall-o endstop thing working. It's dead weight at the moment.
-Get ethernet connection going.
-Order consumables: filament, Kapton tape for the alu bed(?)
-Create something to hold the filament spools

 

Yay! Got my Hall Effect endstop working. A certain someone had not done his reading and failed.... Fixed.

Both extruders are pulling filament nicely. I think..
When I get this thing printing replacement small gears for both extruders will be a priority. One of the small gears I got with the kit is at this time barely holding it's grub screw, the other forced to work with a dremel and a beating.

One thing the extruder documentation does not show is that you need a M3 nut inside the gear to hold the grub screw properly. Without a nut the whole assembly is a no-go in my experience. My gears are, apparently, slightly off with regards to printing so the M3 nut installation was a PITA. There were excess material left in the bottom of the slot to hold the M3 nut, causing serious misalignment of the grub screw. Digging out the excess material was no fun at all..

I do think my current assembly will hold until replacements are printed.

Todo for tomorrow:
-Cleaning and levelling the bed, add Kapton tape.
-Research on how to Zero the Z axis with the Hall-o endstop. I understand mechanical switches, but this Hall-o thing is a mystery to me A tip or two will be appreciated! What is z-zero on a 3d printer anyway? 1 micrometer above bed or the bed surface?
-Research on how to get octoprint up and running. I want to run this indie i2 while at work and be able to see what is happening via a webcam. *nerdgasm*

 

*Facepalm* I should have thought about using the soldering iron sitting right next to the printer on the desk.. Thanks for the tip. Will do next time around.

Also, thanks for the links. Much appreciated!

 

First print gave me a laugh atleast..
The small gear I wanted to print and the result in picture below. Looks functional enough...

Now to try and figure out why the thing stopped pulling filament...

 

No, I did check that the extruder would deliver a sensible lenght of filemant before plugging into the hot side of things and attempting a print. Asked for 100mm, 40mm and 5mm of feed and what was brought forth by the one working extruder was reasonably close to expected.

The small gear was my test "cube". First two layers look nice though, but that is perhaps just the chamber holding melted plastic emptying out. It appears to me that feed drops or stops somewhere along the line after starting print.

Next attempt tomorrow evening.

 

I'm looking to build one of these (I'm a total noob, it'll be my first 3D printer). Tried following the link to emaker but they now only sell one model. Have you decided which online market place you are going to use?

 

Second attempt at printing never got started.
Disassembled both my extruders and rebuilt them. Managed to get the M3 nuts in the small gears to line up better.

Of course I just had to drop a grub screw on the floor and guess what: it's GONE. Spent much time searching for it with a big magnet to no avail.

So - I created my own replacement using offcuts from M3 screws.. Works like a charm!

Last discovery was that the large gear unscrews itself on one of the extruders. Need to figure out why. I got somewhat greasy fingers when reassembling it so I wonder if perhaps one of the bearings is having a breakdown and is leaking. If the hobbed bolt is stuck because of a bad bearing that could explain why the gear unscrews itself.

Btw: for me the extruder pulls 100mm when asked to pull 100mm with the steps_pr_mm set to 609.89, not 645.16 that was in Simon's config file. Failed to mention that earlier. Why it should be different I do not understand as I believe we have the exact same motors.

Anyway, hoping to try printing again tonight. If the thing do not extrude enough plastic again I would think there is something messed up with my gcode from Slic3r dropping filament feed because of user error. Being a total Noob I would not be surprised.

 

Hmm..

Got further today. But at some point after the first couple layers the thing stops pulling filament at a sensible rate.

I am not good at gcode but could this be the spot in the file? It's about 2/3rds from the beginning.. Exxx is extrusion rate, correct?

Code:

G1 X77.027 Y93.734 E2055.77295
G1 E2054.27295 F2400.00000
G92 E0
G1 X67.026 Y86.946 F7800.000
G1 E1.50000 F2400.00000
G1 X66.989 Y86.936 E1.50199 F1800.000

 

Oh man..

Something went seriously wrong last time. Found two clogged up heatbreaks on my Cyclops hotend.
No fun at all.

But, I should stop hijacking this thread I think and create another for my troubles..

One question though - anyone got a something enabling the use of another hotend with the i2?

Perhaps this one: v6 HotEnd Full Kit - 1.75mm Universal (with Bowden add-on) (12v)

The Cyclops with it's two filament intakes might just be a wee bit overkill for a noob such as myself...