Hello !

[YaaJ]

I'm about to order two kits and build them. 0.2 and 2.4 (350mm). At first I was planning designing my own large flying gantry CoreXY (from some inspiration sources), but gave up because I'm on a hurry after too much time spent thinking...  )

Still hesitating about the kit (Formbot or LDO) and online store I will purchase from... I'm open to any suggestion. I live in France, and always had a great experience with german online stores...

I just completed the printer that will print the ABS parts : a retired Tevo Tornado I rebuilt with home designed, machined parts (it's now a boat anchor, but 100% operational and 99.5% completed- no printer is completed. Never.). Extremely rigid, assembled with the help of a metrology surface plate, equiped with a modded Stealthburner I probably will share later, powered by Klipper, and printing ABS quickly and beautifully (ADXL tuned IS, enclosed, active heating up to 70°C) ; I have a machining workshop, half a ton of raw meterials, and a electronics lab ; love CADing, designing, wiring, crimping, making cable management and harnesses. (also love designing and wiring machine tools electrical enclosures as well as restauring old mechanics)

Workflow :

1 - the V 0.2, as quickly as possible. I'm open to any mod that can be usefull, but without slowing this project down. I'd like the 0.2 to be operational before september, 15.

2 - then the 2.4. The 0.2 and the homebrew bed slinger will print the parts that cannot be machined. Will be a long term project as I will have to redesign everything that can be machined (industrial conventional machine tools : designing and machining jigs often take much more time than making the final products !)

 

I'd like to hear about :

- trusted european distributors for kits (that have stock and don't do drop shipping)

- the must have mods

- the material for parts that have to be printed ; until now, had zero problems with random ABS : is eSun ABS+ worth it ? Is ASA usefull ? (will order and start printing ASAP, reason why I'm asking here).

(at this point I still didn't explore the forum : just discovered it ; also, I'm not on a budget for this dual project)

 

[claudermilk]

Welcome to the forum! I love that you're going with the smallest and (almost) largest Voron options. We will want to see build diaries on both projects. 

I'm not familiar with the Formbot kits but they seem to be ok. I am currently building an LDO kit V0.2 and it's great. LDO is a bit more expensive,but they have top notch components and include some of the "must-have" mods to being with as well as a few of their own touches.

From my understanding ASA is basically ABS with some UV resistant additives.

[Simon2.4]

9 hours ago, YaaJ said:

the parts that cannot be machined.

designing and machining jigs often take much more time than making the final products !

Machining the parts for a 2.4 will produce an amazing result! that's going to be a really unique one.  Keep in mind that you have to keep the moving parts of the gantry as light as possible.

For making jigs, you could 3d print some of them ; )

Looking forward to seeing this.  Cheers

[mvdveer]

Welcome to the Forum.

I have build several Formbot kits now and other than the wiring harness, they are good kits. LDO kits are certainly a better quality, bur then all more expensive.

11 hours ago, YaaJ said:

I'd like to hear about :

- trusted european distributors for kits (that have stock and don't do drop shipping)

- the must have mods

- the material for parts that have to be printed ; until now, had zero problems with random ABS : is eSun ABS+ worth it ? Is ASA usefull ? (will order and start printing ASAP, reason why I'm asking here).

Cannot help with European distributers, but I know @Buurman, which has build more than 10 formbot kits, gets his shipped from Czech and as far as I know he has had a very reliable service

Must have mods: (My opinion only)

1. Ramalama2 Front Idlers

2. Pins Mod for AB Drives and XY Joints (Front idlers if you are not going with the Ramalama2 mod)

3. Voron TAP

4. Single door with Voron 2.4 hinge mod

5.  Nevermore filters

There are many others that are worthwhile but don't know if it is "must have". Here is the link to the mods on my V2.4

Material: I have printed ABS+ from e-Sun for nearly two years now and am very happy with the results. Again @buurman prefers ASA, don't know the brand. Only advantage to ASA is less warping and more UV resistant.

Hope this helps

 

 

 

[YaaJ]

At first I wanted to wait for the Voron 24", presented a couple months ago, and make a downsized version based on a 2.4 350 kit ; they are looking very similar. It should come out in december or january. It also is a flying gantry (IIRC...). Going the 350mm route because of a piece of kitchen furniture I modified and 500 mm squared is the largest that can go on top.

Chances are my project will take so long that this new Voron will be published before I start building the gantry !

(also curious to know if the 24" gantry is leveled the way the 2.4 one is, and where is the sweet spot between flex plastic parts and rigid metal parts...) . Total Z mass : never used Z-hop... Some parts could be machined from composite sheet (epoxy + carbon) mixed with aluminum or titanium ; there are also old rigid lightweight materials I can't remember the name (fabric + resin or bakelite or urea/formol - stinks formaldehyde when machined).

I'm sure that there are many machinists on this forum... Here's some porn already posted a few months ago on RepRap forums.

Not very keen about 3D printed jigs for such a project : presision is not sufficient. Here's an exemple, while machining the parts for the "Super Tevo Tornado" Z carriage ; could not have got perfectly aligned chamfers nor perfectly identical parts with a 3D printed jig : jigs are also used for their lateral reference surfaces and perfectly flat, parallel and square (seems to me such surfaces are called registers in english)...

Or maybe you are suggesting making rough printed jigs, machining critical areas to specs, and then machining the final product ? Worth testing as long as they can stand the pressure (clamping and machining forces) ; the milling machine is a italian Bridgeport-ish machine, with a 2HP spindle, ISO40 attachment, 1J-ish head ; machinig plastic is not easy because the spindle and feedrates are rather slow. ~3000 RPM, 120 mm/mn, on the low side for plastics. Will get a couple of one toothed endmills.

Doing so could save time, material, tooling and money... Definitely worth testing. After all some make 3D printed sheetmetal bending tools that take tens of tons of pressure...

(a steel jig on the 400mm rotary table, not easy to move around and align : also time consuming ! Parts are repeatidely indexed on the jig using "Mecanindus" elastic pins, the jig is indexed on the table using removable stops)

 

 

 

Satisfying little things that will take so much time that the Voron 24" will be published before the structural parts are completed !

Alu corners reinforcements and multi threaded T-nuts (steel, first machined, then zinc electroplated).

 

 

 

Of course, in an ideal world, all this would be easily made on small chinese CNC.

Fun fact : came to 3D printing for a small lathe retrofit. Needed to make some enclosures and protections. The lathe is still in pieces ; ballscrews, motors and drivers still are on the shelves. It's been so for the last 6 years... 5 years learning 3D printing, now building printers. One day, I will use them. One day in the future...

 

[mvdveer]

2 minutes ago, YaaJ said:

5 years learning 3D printing, now building printers.

Now that sound familiar 

[YaaJ]

We cross posted !

The idlers definitely are the kind of parts I love designing and machining. They could be made of aluminum and made lightweight the vintage way : turned into Emmental cheese (was used to do this on my bikes)

Voron Tap : spent hours and hours designing klickies and auto Z offset for the bed slinger ; last iteration here :

Yes, Formbot comes from Czech Republic, and I found LDO kits from Austria ; it's 1000€ vs 1750€, two weeks vs 3 days delivery ! Why such a difference ? Have to compare, maybe the linear rails ? Nonmae vs Igus ? The Formbot comes with a Raspi 3 clone, the LDO without any SOC ; I ordered two RPi 4 4GB today from germany (from welectron). In his video, Modbot says there's not much difference... Just some little things that are better on the LDO side...

I have a problem with the "nozzle-is-the-probe" concept : expensinve, heavy, needing some vertical force, and I've always been meshing after heat soaking the head and the PEI bed.

Edited August 4, 2023 by YaaJ

[Simon2.4]

20 minutes ago, YaaJ said:

suggesting making rough printed jigs

It was just an idea i threw like that; you are obviously on top of your game, this is next level crafting right here  ; )  you're taking VZbot approach to building a voron..  I like that

[mvdveer]

11 minutes ago, YaaJ said:

I have a problem with the "nozzle-is-the-probe" concept

Fair point - I have ordered and awaiting arrival of the beacon scanner /probe. Have noticed that my smooth PEI sheets have become quite "pitted" after 6months of probing with TAP. Has not affected first layer though.

[claudermilk]

I've had quite good luck with Tap once I got it set up. Using KAMP with the fuzzy probe points and keeping the temp to the recommended 150; I'm not seeing any wear on my PEI now.

All that machining is cool, and should be a really nice printer. Just remember these are glorified hot glue guns--don't get too wrapped up in being ultra precise and drive yourself crazy.

[YaaJ]

Just bit the bullet, and ordered the two LDO kits from 3Djake. Should be delivered on friday or saterday. Not sure it is worth the extra euros - nearly double the price - , but this way if things go wrong I can say it's my own fault. I don't need everything that will come with (already have all the required tooling as it is basic lab tooling...). Also got some eSun ABS+ (will be black and natural white, like the "Super Tornado"), also CHT and Nozzle X nozzles (tons of V6's all around). Will see later for hotends : I've been using quick change hotend systems with various nozzle diameters since the begining - was before Cura Arachne... -, homebrew at first, now Stealthburner cardridges : will have to get half a dozen, will read more before I decide... The kits will come with Revos, not sure it is the best choice (pretty sure it isn't).

@claudermilk

I don't fully aggree... a few years back, I spent some time measuring samples using a surface plate and metrology instruments. I was blown away. Finely tuned Tevo Tornado, homebrew dual Z. Everything was within +-0.1mm wich is really great for this technology (easy adjustments if needed, at CAD level, and after a few iterations). Of course, measuring the crests, not taking into account the poor Ra ! As a comparison, getting +-0.02 mm on my industrial machine tools is really good and requires a lot of care, +-0.01mm requires professional skills or to be really lucky (every tinkerer who says "I can do +-0.01mm" is a liar !!!). Ideally requires a surface grinder. More than accuracy, there's repeatability. The same gcode was producing similar parts, within +-0.03mm. It is crazy.

3D printers are half an order of magnitude from tons of cast iron. And we often need no better than 0.1 or 0.2mm tolerances. Reason why since I got a printer, I rarely use the machines. Not even speaking of the costs (and chips that get everywhere, under the skin, and even in the bed sometime ; much better WAF !).

 

 

[YaaJ]

They are there ! With some other things for the bed slinger. Tomorrow : the RasPi's.

But will have to wait before I can build the v0.2 : took the bed slinger apart (one more time, hopefully it will be the last one for a while...) ; some parts to machine, wiring to polish before the project is completed, and can print the required parts. (already tested and validated for ABS, with active heating up to 70°C)

Frustrating !