Vorpal 180 - A Printed Printer

[atrushing]

I have made up a list of things I need to finish before the Vorpal 180 is ready to publish. Some of these items can be skipped for the pre-release.

• add MGN9 X-axis option to design (largely for Boop compatibility)
• add tophat latches
• move A/B stepper motors back by 6mm
      change back plexi panel design to hide them
      change side panels for extra depth
• adjust rear Z motor mount without the rubber feet
• split side skirts for printing on smaller printers
• add two more magnet locations for front door
• add Differential IR sensor option to x-frame
• look into electronics bay cover

[sparky06757]

13 hours ago, atrushing said:

I have made up a list of things I need to finish before the Vorpal 180 is ready to publish. Some of these items can be skipped for the pre-release.

• add MGN9 X-axis option to design (largely for Boop compatibility)
• add tophat latches
• move A/B stepper motors back by 6mm
      change back plexi panel design to hide them
      change side panels for extra depth
• adjust rear Z motor mount without the rubber feet
• split side skirts for printing on smaller printers
• add two more magnet locations for front door
• add Differential IR sensor option to x-frame
• look into electronics bay cover

Couple of questions for ya.  Are you going to upload the full size skirts as well for those who have larger format printers? You posted a BOM of sort at the beginning and I have started to acquire some of the small stuff but I am wondering about the gear set for the Z drives.  You have a Ali link on the BOM but it is not clickable or complete as far as I can tell.  There is a snippet below of what I am referring to.  Can you expand on this or maybe post the link here?

[atrushing]

54 minutes ago, sparky06757 said:

Couple of questions for ya. Are you going to upload the full size skirts as well for those who have larger format printers?

Yes, I'll have the one-piece skirts and tophat options.

55 minutes ago, sparky06757 said:

You posted a BOM of sort at the beginning and I have started to acquire some of the small stuff but I am wondering about the gear set for the Z drives.

These are the ones that I used. I can't vouch for their quality but the price is great and it is a full extruder hardware kit.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004946578945.html

Another option would be to just get the necessary gears from a more known supplier like TriangleLab.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32944272182.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32946823004.html

[sparky06757]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:25 AM, atrushing said:

Yes, I'll have the one-piece skirts and tophat options.

These are the ones that I used. I can't vouch for their quality but the price is great and it is a full extruder hardware kit.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004946578945.html

Another option would be to just get the necessary gears from a more known supplier like TriangleLab.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32944272182.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32946823004.html

Thank you!  So this is a extruder gear setup being used fort the Z drive?  Interesting...  I went back and looked at the Z drive photos you posted and I am just going to say that I hope you post some more images of different stages of assembly because I am not sure that I see how they will go together and function but having the printed parts in front of me may help as well.  Thanks for the response!

[atrushing]

3 hours ago, sparky06757 said:

So this is a extruder gear setup being used fort the Z drive?  Interesting  ...  I am not sure that I see how they will go together and function

Yes, it uses the 17t gear on the stepper to the 50t gear/shaft combo driving a 16t GT2 pulley. The extruder kit also comes with the two MR85 bearings that are needed for each Z belt setup.

This gives the stepper about a 3:1 torque advantage and makes the mm/step resolution finer than a direct drive setup. The V2.4 uses a 4:1 ratio but requires a large 80t pulley and an extra drive belt. Here is a closer view but I will need to detail the assembly and show which screws are used and where the heat-set inserts get installed.

I could use a Nema 14 pancake stepper with an 8 or 10 tooth gear like I have on my V-Minion but they tend to cost more. It would be interesting to see if a 5:1 or even a 6.25:1 reduction would improve probing accuracy.

Edited October 11, 2023 by atrushing

[sparky06757]

16 hours ago, atrushing said:

Yes, it uses the 17t gear on the stepper to the 50t gear/shaft combo driving a 16t GT2 pulley. The extruder kit also comes with the two MR85 bearings that are needed for each Z belt setup.

This gives the stepper about a 3:1 torque advantage and makes the mm/step resolution finer than a direct drive setup. The V2.4 uses a 4:1 ratio but requires a large 80t pulley and an extra drive belt. Here is a closer view but I will need to detail the assembly and show which screws are used and where the heat-set inserts get installed.

I could use a Nema 14 pancake stepper with an 8 or 10 tooth gear like I have on my V-Minion but they tend to cost more. It would be interesting to see if a 5:1 or even a 6.25:1 reduction would improve probing accuracy.

Thanks for the breakdown.  I would be willing to try the pancake stepper setup.  Mounting should be the same so it should not involve you having to modify any files to make it work.  I will order the ones with the 10 tooth gear on them.

[atrushing]

21 minutes ago, sparky06757 said:

I would be willing to try the pancake stepper setup.  Mounting should be the same so it should not involve you having to modify any files to make it work.  I will order the ones with the 10 tooth gear on them.

I have probably run across the fact that the Nema 14 has the same bolt pattern as a Nema 17 but I never really put  together what that means in my designs! The only issue is that the 10t and 8t gears have a different meshing distance than the 17t.

You can see that the top right mounting hole is the pivot point for getting the gears to mesh well. I should be able to elongate the opposite hole to give the pancake stepper enough range of movement to work. I would suggest the LDO 20mm version. The 17mm steppers do not have that much torque and get very hot in operation. I don't have any experience with Moons steppers and the StepperOnline pancake motors are 9° instead of 1.8°.

[sparky06757]

5 hours ago, atrushing said:

I have probably run across the fact that the Nema 14 has the same bolt pattern as a Nema 17 but I never really put  together what that means in my designs! The only issue is that the 10t and 8t gears have a different meshing distance than the 17t.

You can see that the top right mounting hole is the pivot point for getting the gears to mesh well. I should be able to elongate the opposite hole to give the pancake stepper enough range of movement to work. I would suggest the LDO 20mm version. The 17mm steppers do not have that much torque and get very hot in operation. I don't have any experience with Moons steppers and the StepperOnline pancake motors are 9° instead of 1.8°.

Yes you are correct about the mesh.  I did not think about the gear being a smaller diameter and therefore not being enough room in the part for proper mesh adjustment.  I will leave that up you.  I wont buy the motors till you release the project

[atrushing]

31 minutes ago, sparky06757 said:

Yes you are correct about the mesh.  I did not think about the gear being a smaller diameter and therefore not being enough room in the part for proper mesh adjustment.  I will leave that up you.  I wont buy the motors till you release the project

Extending the bottom left hole further would be easy enough but then the Nema 14 stepper ends up hanging so low it risks touching the table.

The easy fix would be to make the feet 2-3mm taller but for some reason that solution feels wrong to me. I think it would be cleaner to make a dedicated pancake stepper mount which would allow me to put the pivot point where it works best for the 8/10t gears. This would really not be much work since the part has a simple flat shape and I can just shift the existing geometry around and fill the large faces back in.

[atrushing]

I have designed a separate Nema 14 pancake stepper mount for the Z axes. The Nema 17 rotates about the top right screw and the Nema 14 rotates about the bottom right and will accept an 8t or 10t motor.

I have also been making progress on my list.

•   add MGN9 X-axis option
•    move A/B motors back by 6mm
•       change back plexi panel to hide them
•       change side panels for extra depth
•    fix tophat hinges width
•    adjust rear Z motor mount without the rubber feet
•    add alignment between motor_mount and reduction_housing
•    raise tophat by 10mm
•    make split side skirts for printing on smaller printers
•    add tophat latches
•    make one-piece tophat .stl
•    add two more magnet locations for front door
•    look into electronics bay cover

[sparky06757]

17 hours ago, atrushing said:

I have designed a separate Nema 14 pancake stepper mount for the Z axes. The Nema 17 rotates about the top right screw and the Nema 14 rotates about the bottom right and will accept an 8t or 10t motor.

I have also been making progress on my list.

•   add MGN9 X-axis option
•    move A/B motors back by 6mm
•       change back plexi panel to hide them
•       change side panels for extra depth
•    fix tophat hinges width
•    adjust rear Z motor mount without the rubber feet
•    add alignment between motor_mount and reduction_housing
•    raise tophat by 10mm
•    make split side skirts for printing on smaller printers
•    add tophat latches
•    make one-piece tophat .stl
•    add two more magnet locations for front door
•    look into electronics bay cover

All this looks great!!  I will definitely use the pancake motor version.  You have been knocking things off that list in a hurry!!

[atrushing]

The curse of stating publicly that a project is almost finished..

I have updated the list to better represent the steps involved.

• add MGN9 X-axis option
• move A/B motors back by 6mm
     • change back plexi panel to hide them
     • change side panels for extra depth
     • lengthen side skirts for new printer depth
• fix tophat hinges width
• adjust rear Z motor mount without the rubber feet
     • add alignment between motor_mount and reduction_housing
• raise tophat by 10mm
• make one-piece tophat .stl
• create sprung feature to keep the back panel tight
• make Nema 14 version of Z drives
• make split side skirts for printing on smaller printers (low priority)
• add tophat latches
     • re-print new version of all tophat pieces
     • cut new tophat plexi panels
     • reprint Frame_front_upper_left/right
          • add two more magnet locations for front door
               • move door screws away from edge of plexi
     • dis/re-assemble tophat and upper front frame parts
     • verify fitment of latches
• test new cable routing
     • create new version of z_carriage_left/right
     • create new XY_joint_left_upper/lower
     • re-wire toolhead
• apply pin-mod to XY_joints (assembly with M3 screws for the bearings is very difficult)
• make mount for Fysetc input shaper (low priority)
• look into electronics bay cover (low priority)

On a positive note, I have learned how to make line drawing renders in Blender which should be very helpful when making the manual.

[atrushing]

I was able to mount the Fysetc input shaper on the Mini Stealth but the process isn't very straightforward. I had to drill an extra hole in the PCB and then it requires spacers with M3x55 screws or M3 threaded rods as shown in the picture.

I also found a fun use for the line-drawing graphic. I think that I could even use Gimp to make a "rainbow barf" style animation for the Mainsail sidebar.

[atrushing]

Well that was easier than I expected but the animation is a little distracting..

[atrushing]

With the new cable routing I can make the tophat at least 20mm shorter! I would just like to find a better quality cable sleeve and at least one size smaller than what I have here. The printer has plenty of spare X-axis travel so it's not really a problem. (ignore the hole in the bottom panel of the printer. My original wire routing plan didn't really work out..)

The tophat is the last crucial item left on my list! For now though, I get to spend a couple hours crimping...

[atrushing]

I am still fighting with getting the size of the tophat right for a proper fit and my stack of scrap tophat quarter pieces is growing.. But the new pin mod is a lot easier to install instead of having to lay the printer on its side to keep the bearings and washers from falling off of the screws and scattering.

[atrushing]

Apparently I have a lot to learn about GitHub..

I have successfully uploaded 102 separate .stl files as well as most of the basic supporting documents needed for a pre-release of the Vorpal 180. There is a very sparse assembly manual but it does contain some very valuable information for those wishing to start a build. As I complete more of the manual I will push it to GitHub.

Please provide feedback. I will be happy to answer any questions that arise.

[mvdveer]

Congratulations and well done!!

[atrushing]

On 10/11/2023 at 6:34 PM, sparky06757 said:

I hope you post some more images of different stages of assembly because I am not sure that I see how they will go together

Does this style work for the assembly manual or would this step need to be broken out into separate parts?

I am borrowing heavily from the Voron manuals but trying to add a little more information where I think it could help. Of course, I get to create almost this same exact page five more times...

[mvdveer]

53 minutes ago, atrushing said:

Does this style work for the assembly manual or would this step need to be broken out into separate parts?

This will work just well. Amazing job, so much effort

[atrushing]

49 minutes ago, mvdveer said:

This will work just well. Amazing job, so much effort

Thanks. This part is not as enjoyable as the designing process but it needs to be done.

Open source software is getting so much more feature rich than back when I first started playing with Linux! This is a perfect chance to learn. Blender (render) -> Gimp (highlights) -> Inkscape (organize) -> .pdf

[claudermilk]

It can work. The color coding is subtle due to size; it took a bit for me to figure out where each of the screws goes. Breaking it into two parts might help make it more clear.

[atrushing]

10 minutes ago, claudermilk said:

It can work. The color coding is subtle due to size; it took a bit for me to figure out where each of the screws goes. Breaking it into two parts might help make it more clear.

Would this help?

[atrushing]

I wasted about two weeks trying to measure resonances on the Vorpal. I tried an ADXL345, an MPU9250 and a Fysetc USB input shaper and couldn't get any of them working on the Vorpal or on my Trident. I finally gave up and went back to the classic Ringing_Tower.stl.

The bottom one starts at 3000 mm/sec² and goes to 8000 mm/sec². After adding [input_shaper] to the config, the top tower starts at 5000 mm/sec² and goes up to 11000 mm/sec². I had to tune down the PA from 0.045 to 0.02 to get the corners looking better but I am very happy with these results!

[atrushing]

And to re-visit Astronaut Phil, here he is with input shaping turned on, at 12,000 mm/sec² acceleration and 150 mm/sec external perimeters. (in ABS this time)