I have been working on this desktop printer design for the last month. My large coreXY printer is performing great, but for the desktop design I wanted to use the Ultimaker style gantry with linear rails. A few months back I scored some 320mm Hiwin MGN9 rails with long variant carriages off eBay for a great price.
I am almost done with the design of the desktop printer, still have to finish up the electronics, and tweak some minor clearance issues. Parts are on order and I plan to begin machining the components in the next two weeks.
Quick specs:
250mm sq build area
270mm Z
Vexta dual shaft Nema 14 52 oz-in for x and y
The Z will be driven by a Mechaduino Servo
Azteeg X5
Rasp Pi for Octoprint
MIC-6 Print bed
120V 500watt Kenovo silicone heater
Bondtech QR 3.0 Bowden
and of course an E3D V6
I reckon hotend lever action can be reduced if pushed up as much as possible and using some grip near the bottom of it (maybe some part channeling cooling air). Look at the Prusa i3 MKII for inspiration.
Looks like an awfully premium machine to use a cantilevered Z stage. You’d get kick-ass performance with triple lead screw, but even two screw would be a big improvement. That’s a pretty big and heavy bed for a cantilever.
@Ryan_Carlyle You are correct. I wanted to use a dual or a triple ball screw setup, but I already have 2 12mm ballscrews and I am building two of these printers. I am using 20mm linear rails for the Z and I am hoping they are going to be adequate. The heat bed is going to 3/16" thick with a 0.3" thick X 0.4" wide perimeter on the bottom (milled pocket nonetheless). I am cutting as much weight out of the bed as possible. The heat bed support rails are extruded aluminum so they look much heavier than they actually are. The front black piece that supports the bed is PLA.
I wouldn’t put PLA in a cantilever, it’ll creep and warp under the weight over time. (Speaking from experience here.) How fast it fails depends on how hot the bed is and how stressed the PLA is.
@Kyle1 , amazing looking build
Simple question, have you considered how your print cooling fan is going to be mounted to your gantry? If you haven’t, it might be worth adding a couple tapped holes in your hotend mount to give you some options for the future.
Any enclosure in the works?
@Ishaan_Gov I am working on the hotend mount. My goal is to design a fan shroud that houses the hotend cooling fan and print cooling fans. I would like it to be snap on like the E3D stock shroud. However I am leaning towards a screw mounted option. Working on an enclosure as well 11ga. alminum laser cut panels with acrylic windows. The aluminum panels will also serve as added bracing.
