@bcrazycramer for the heated bed the company is called alirubber. They have a shop on aliexpress (a wed site tied to alibaba).
For the limit switches look at robotdigg where the motors are from. For the plate any 1/8" aluminum plate will do, but it needs to be cut by hand or professionally on a CNC or waterjet.
The idler setup can be purchased as a kit from openbuilds, or another reseller like @SMW3D . They also have the limit switches and other items. Brandon is great.
I plan to make proper prints, but have not completed them yet. I will try to do them when I get back from MRRF.
Looking at the 3D Model and I noticed just how big the build volume is. Has anyone actually taken advantage of this yet? I am yet to see a large printed part that wouldn’t fit on a smaller printer. I use an Ultimaker 2 at work & i would like to design and build a HurcuLien variant the size of an Ultimaker 2 ish.
@Carl_Hicks I print using the large volume regularly. But #Eustathios could easily be scaled down. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to scale down #HercuLien. It is so overbuilt already, the strength would be even more overkill at lower sizes.
I was wondering if anybody had a current price sheet or estimates on what all the parts cost for the V2. I was thinking it was around $2200, if somebody knows that would be great.
@Eclsnowman This is an amazing build. I plan to build one soon. Presently I have a Rostock Max V2 with a handful of upgrades but would love the greater build volume your design offers. If I were to want an even larger build volume, would I simply need longer rails, belts and rods or are there other challenges involved?
great work- Is there a BOM for the spider 1? I ask because the Eustathios BOM doesn’t seem to include everything (step motors, for example). It’s not a big deal- I think I can piece together the parts and sources from the various BOM sheets from V2 and the other printers. I’m interested in the using 120VAC to heat the bed- I guess the Marlin firmware must be tweaked to use very small pulses to keep the current very low- what current does the bed use at 120VAC- do you know? That may enable the use of a 12V power supply- since I think the stepper drivers chop the source voltage down to 3-4V anyway. I’m interested to know why regular cheapo linear bearings are not used for these designs- would they not work?
Another question: did you find any problems with the single smooth rod + one lead screw Z-axis design of the Eustathios? Is one smooth rod stable enough, or does it really need two smooth rods per side?
@Ted_Huntington No they would not work. The bearings need to both translate and rotate along the sides. Linear bearings are only good down the length, not rotating.
The V2 uses a 120V heated bed and a SSR that is triggered by the normal bed output. It works flawlessly. I would never go back to DC heated beds again.
Thanks Eric. I’m having a neuron block that is not allowing me to understand where the rotation on the bearings happens - looking at the 3D PDF it seems like the bronze sintered bushings just endure linear motion. Another question: was there a reason for moving some motors to the top in spiderv2? I kind of like that the wires are all kept below in the first design- but maybe there was a problem with running a belt to the top- was that prone to problems?
I think I see, when the rod rotates (about it’s long axis), the ball bearings in a linear bearing would have a problem allowing the rod to rotate where a bushing doesn’t have that problem? I’m thinking that a bushing would cause more friction than ball bearings. Please forgive my ignorance on this- I’m just trying to gear up for trying to build one.
Yes it has higher friction than a bearing, but not so much that it causes issues. The only difficult part about bushings is alignment, they are less tolerant to misalignment than linear bearings. So initial tramming, squaring, and setup are key. But once tuned they never need lube like bearings, and are dead silent.
I just found some “linear rotary bearings” but they seem pretty sparse- apparently building open-source DIY 3D printers hasn’t permeated the masses yet ;( So I understand why bushings are used now, but I still think I prefer the motors at the bottom to avoid wiring to the top- although I have seen one person bury the wires in the aluminum extrusion which seems smart- and something has to stretch to the top- either belt or wires.
@Ted_Huntington I use the tslot cover to hide it. It is cheap and great to route the wiring. For me I would rather have a shorter belt less prone to stretch and long wires, than short wires and long belts which can lead to backlash.
@Eclsnowman
oh ok I see the logic and advantage there- on the topic of wires- using 120V for the moving bed must require keeping the wire well insulated - I have a heated pad and at 24V it takes 30 minutes to reach 120C- so I’m definitely moving to the 120VAC method, but I worry about having a 120V wire floating around- as long as it’s well insulated I’m sure it’s not a big problem.
