I must first apologize for not posting on this build for almost 3 years. My project has actually been on hold for all that time. First by losing the PrintrBoard and endstops I purchased and then more importantly working and caring for my 87 and 93 year old parents. I have finally now gotten back into this project and am looking forward to printing some designs, but first I have to get the printer running.
The structural part was easy, the electronics and modifying the code to match my custom build is going to be far, far more complicated for me. I hope some of you far more knowledgeable than I will be able to help me as problems that are most certainly to present themselves arise.
That said this week with the arrival of a new PrintrBoard and endstops, I was able to hook these up and connect them to my laptop and the Antec VP 450W Power Supply I purchased some 3 years ago to power the system.
Wood is very bad material for a 3D printer as it is changing depending on temperature and humidity. You will never receive high accuracy with that. At least for the print bed you should take aluminium.
You might be surprised, I’ve seen several all wood printers that work as well or better than a lot of printers out there. Keep in mind if the environment is indoors, temperature and humidity are relatively stable. The plywood bed may need some attention - but get it working first and see…
What do you need to change?
Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, wood is not the best but this is dried structural 2x4s and their length is not that long. The birch plywood is pretty dimensionally stable. Plus, it is what I had available at the time. Also, as you said, it is in a indoor controlled environment. Far more troublesome is the stepper motor plastic gearing that I inherited from the original large format scanner this project was centered around. I am coming to the conclusion that this item could result in me either having to reconfigure the design to eliminate the gearing, or abandon this design and use the parts (stepper motors, PrintrBoard, heated bed, and power supply) in a more traditional design.
For parts that big, its gonna be good enough. Put a volcano extruder on it and make some flower pots, of course you should feed it with a pellet melter…
Almost everything you need should be configurable in M commands.
if all you would need to change is sizes, and steps per mm. The it is really easy to change in M commands.
yeah, given its a normal cartesian printer, it should just be config tweaks.
Keep up the good work and my compliments on your prioritization of whats important in life.
