Bertha's Build Blog

[xyleth]

Oh and not really build related, but I bought a Spacemouse and decided to lean how to CAD.  Let's see how that goes....

[TitusADuxass]

17 hours ago, xyleth said:

... but I bought a Spacemouse and decided to lean how to CAD.....

Which one did you plum for?

I've been mulling this over for sometime, I'm still edging towards printing one.

I hope you enjoy learning CAD, I took it up last year and really enjoy designing (and printing) my own parts.

[xyleth]

1 hour ago, TitusADuxass said:

Which one did you plum for?

I've been mulling this over for sometime, I'm still edging towards printing one.

I hope you enjoy learning CAD, I took it up last year and really enjoy designing (and printing) my own parts.

I went for the 3dConnexion Spacemouse compact on the grounds that it wasn't ruinously expensive and seemed to have good support even on a Mac.

I've decided to go with Ondsel / FreeCAD for the time being.  Other than being a bit quirky it looks like it should meet all my needs and even though the big players have free / hobbiest tiers they all come with one or more hangups that I just can't quite get myself over.

I actually have a project that I need to do some modelling for (a support frame for a IR Touch frame around a bezel-less TV used as a D&D map) that looks like it will finally push me beyond TinkerCAD, so I decided no time like the present to get going.

[TitusADuxass]

1 hour ago, xyleth said:

I've decided to go with Ondsel / FreeCAD for the time being. 

I went with Onshape, mainly because you don't have to install it. So I can practice my skills at work during the lunch break.

 

1 hour ago, xyleth said:

I went for the 3dConnexion Spacemouse compact on the grounds that it wasn't ruinously expensive and seemed to have good support even on a Mac.

Not ruinously expensive, but not cheap. These were the space mouse of choice by the designers at a previous job.

[xyleth]

24 minutes ago, TitusADuxass said:

Not ruinously expensive, but not cheap. These were the space mouse of choice by the designers at a previous job.

I built a Voron instead of buying a perfectly good off the shelf printer for what would have been about 2/3rds of what I've spent so far.  Not ruinously expensive but not cheap is where I live

[xyleth]

29 minutes ago, TitusADuxass said:

I went with Onshape, mainly because you don't have to install it. So I can practice my skills at work during the lunch break.

I do like the look of OnShape, and I have used it when I need to view STEP files in the past.  There is just something about the requirement to have all my files public that rubs me the wrong way.  Years spent working in IT has taught me that you do private by default and only open access when you mean to, it's become a reflex at this point.

That and the jump from their free account to even their lowest tier paid account is HUGE.  I don't mind paying for tools that I use and get value from, but over a thousand pounds a year is just too much for what is essentially a hobby. 

[Penatr8tor]

2 minutes ago, xyleth said:

looks like it will finally push me beyond TinkerCAD, so I decided no time like the present to get going.

I played around with Ondsel. It's not bad really, it certainly does remove a lot of the frustrations people complained about with FreeCAD's UI. 

Once you learn a feature based solid modeler like Pro/E, Solidworks, Fusion, etc., you can run any of them.

Good luck on your journey. 

[xyleth]

In the mean time while I work on study, skirts are finally on!  All self printed in ABS - which I've discovered the Voron seems much happier printing than PLA.

Also if you haven't tried it Nevermore's Scorch catalytic pellets are magic.  Mix in a 50/50 blend with their carbon pellets for ABS temperatures in my Nevermore v6 and the ABS printing smells are completely gone!

And yes, I have noticed that the logo alignment on one of the fans is wrong.  It'll get fixed the next time the printer is idle because it will bother me every time I look at it now I've seen it.

Applied for my serial number too

It's currently printing the alignment test parts for a ERCF, so onward to the next part of the project!

[xyleth]

Question - I've started printing the parts for a ERCFv2 build and ordered the Siboor kit to match.

Would it be appropriate to just continue this thread, or does that warrant its own thread?

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, xyleth said:

Question - I've started printing the parts for a ERCFv2 build and ordered the Siboor kit to match.

Would it be appropriate to just continue this thread, or does that warrant its own thread?

Totally up to you. Open a new thread if you like or if you feel it is part of Bertha, just continue on....

[TitusADuxass]

1 hour ago, xyleth said:

Question - I've started printing the parts for a ERCFv2 build and ordered the Siboor kit to match.

Would it be appropriate to just continue this thread, or does that warrant its own thread?

Please open a new thread, this is my next project and I would like to follow someone. 

[xyleth]

So a final few tweaks today.  As I've got ABS printing consistently dialled in now I went ahead and printed the parts for the Annex engineering re-enforced Z gantry mounts that I bought the kit for ages ago.  Swapping them over was actually reasonably simple in the end.

First I parked the gantry about 2/3rs of the way up and supported it with some zip ties, like when I was building it.

This gave me access to the gantry mounts.  With hindsight I wish I'd reprinted the belt clips in light blue to match everything else, but oh well.  Next job was to remove the stock Z bearing blocks and Z couplers, this is simply the reverse of installation:

Then it is time to re-install the lower belt clip with a single M3x16 SH bolt in the corresponding hole:

It doesn't matter that this sits proud of the belt clip as it won't interfere with the gantry mount.

After assembling the blocks with the provided hardware you slip a M5 washer over the top:

And then just screw it right into the M5 mounting hole.  It is just slim enough that you can turn it against the frame.  You may need to tighten the pre-load grub screw in the bottom of the block by 1/4 turn just to hold the ball head screw above tightly so you can screw it in.  Once it is in place you can back that off again so it can move as it should.

Once you've done that it is just a case of attaching the block to the Z carriage using 4 M3x12 SH bolts.

A quick check of the belt tension with the tension metre and adjusting the idler as required and you're done.  Now repeat for the other three corners!  The job took maybe 30/40 minutes in all.

One of the advantages of this design is you get a bit of Z height back, about 13mm according to the docs.  Here is the before:

and after:

I've test printed a Voron cube and while I can't say they've made things notably better they haven't made them any worse, so I'll take that as a win!

And, finally, the serial plate I ordered came through so I fitted that to the door as well

This is probably it for major structural changes to this 2.4.  Next on the list is:

- ERCF as previously mentioned

- Nevermore StealthMax to improve the ABS fume filtering (including looking at their photocatalyser mod)

- Maybe changing the skirt fans to Noctua ones to quiet them down a little

Oh and I may finally but the bottom plate on, but that doesn't seem like a high priority job.

After that I have plans to refurb my old Ender 5 as a Mercury One Hydra to dedicate to non-enclosed PLA / TPU printing.  I may have a problem....