Best 3d Printer Design?

Hello all,

i'm not sure where to post this so i will post it here.

I Have just recently built my first 3d printer and i have had TONS of issues, such as filament clogging up, filament being chewed up, prints shifting, oozing, etc, you name it.

i have finally solved all of those problems (atleast i hope so), but i have one MASSIVE issue. Noise.

when my X Carriage moves/jitters a lot, the noise coming out of it is ridiculous. it also makes a massive bumbling noise when it draws circles. i've done research and i've been told it could be the LM8UU Bearings or simply resonant frequencies. i'm figuring the extra weight of the extruder/Nema17 motor on the X Carriage doesnt help.

IMO, one of the better printer designs would be a mobile X Y Carriage instead of a X Carriage and Y bed. moving alarge and heavy object doesnt seem like a good idea to me after this printer. something along the maberbot replicator, but wich a bowden type extruder, would be ideal is what im thinking. does anyone have a "Reprap type" printer that fits these criterions? a X Y Carriage with bowden type extruder, that is also cheap.

i'm also figuring 1.75mm filament is better than 3mm when trying to extrude through smaller nozzles and would be more accurate with bowden. i get a lot of "ooze" and pressure already with direct drive, and im wondering if anyone has figured out something nice.

Sorry if this has been asked before, but i am new to this and dont exactly have time to read through all the threads.


Thank you for assistance/suggestions/comments.

you should turn on m icrosteppting if you havent already, it makes the motors whisper quiet and resduces vibrations

can you provide more information eg which printer your have, which hotend and extruder you have?

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Thank you for your replies. i have a Prusa I3 based Printer frm Makerfarm, 8 inch version. im not sure about firmware, how to update it, and how to turn on microstepping, as i mentionned, i am still relatively new to all this (under 1 month)

It uses Ramps 1.4 and marlin firmware. i also probably need to figure out how to rotate my pritns so it looks like on slicer. seems like prints are coming out mirrored, i saw a mention somewhere about that but i have been trying to get it to work first before trying to improve. now i am at "improvement" stage.

The hotend is a Mark IV B J-Head Brass frm Makerfarm in the kit, prints ABS 3MM at 0.35mm nozzle size.

Hi dragon-fly

I'm not an expert as I've only been into 3D printing for about a month, but I think there are a few things you can check.

I think that excessive motor noise can be caused if the stepper drivers are delivering too much current to the motors.
You could try following the procedure in the wiki to optimize the current to each motor.

Also, how freely do your carriages move if you push them by hand. They could be sticking. If have problems with my Y Carriage, as the pre-drilled holes for my bearings in the kit I bought, were badly aligned. So I had to re-drill them all, and even now I'm not entirely happy with the result, as its movement isn't as smooth as I'd like.
My Y Carriage has 4 bearings, and getting them all to line up exactly is a big problem. I've noticed that some designs only use 3 linear bearings in Y, arranged in a triangular shape - so I may switch to this design, i.e and go down to 3 bearings instead of 4.


On the general point about using an X Y Carriage. I agree that it appears that the companies in the higher end of the market now seem to be going down this route, and it seems to make a lot of sense to me.

(I posted a similar question about this a few weeks ago).

I'm starting to design my own 3D printer, which will have an X Y Carriage, and I'm hoping to use lighter weight components for the extruder motor etc.
Anyway. I could go on at length, but I think I better do this as a separate posting ;-)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2013 06:16PM by rogerclark.

indeed, what you say is pretty much similar to wha ti've found in the short time span that ive had to play in this field.

I've already tweaked the current to my motors, they are all very quiet on movement and do not heat up that much, they are at best lukewarm. only my extruder motor gets warmer than lukewarm as i did have a lot of issues with it jamming, which might be due to bad ABS/other factors. i just managed to print a large skullhead so im not sure.

My smoothrods are extremely well lubricated. when tilting my machine, the X and Y plane shift instantly, and there is absolutely no binding. all the belts have at least 1mm clearance on both sides and are relatively tight. (tightened after i had ovals instead of circles)

For lighter X/Y carriage, i suggest the use of Bowden. the advatanges seem to outweight the disadvantages, as per the wiki. instantly lighter, faster print movements, and since its lighter, you cna have harsher acceleration, more precice control, and less vibrations due to it being lighter. the main disadvantage is filament control, since it will be through a PTFE Tube, so oozing and not enough at the start may occur, but that seems to be why retraction and extra lenght on restart have been added from what i can tell. No more Nema motor means much less weight instantly.

Indeed, making a X Y Carriage means you'd want to move the Bed in the Z direction, but becomes much more complex, Fast.

Hi dragon-fly

I hope you get your extruder problems fixed. My kit came with an All Metal Hot end (albeit a cheap one), and I'm quite happy with it.

It did jam once, but that was may fault, as I experimented with turning off, the fan on the X carriage, as I thought it was a PLA cooking fan, without realising that all metal hot ends need to be constantly cooled.
I managed to unclog the extruder without causing any damage, and things have been fine ever since, using ABS at 235 deg.

Re: X Y Carriage and bowden cable.

I can see the advantages of the bowden cable, but wonder why companies like Makerbot don't use it (as far as I can tell most commercial companies still use a stepper motor at the extruder.

I like the look of the Ultibots micro extruder (http://reprap.org/wiki/Ultibots/Micro_Extruder) but I think that metal gears would improve it.

Anyway. I think I'll do a separate post to ask for suggestions.

Cheers

Roger

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2013 06:40PM by rogerclark.

Just to be sure - are your thread rods lubricated as well? They are probably the most important thing to lube. The other thing to do is a general run through tightening all the bolts. Past that, a finger poke here or there will often tell you what's vibrating. The clips on my glass can make a lot of noise if they aren't quite right....

I printed some feet and suspended the printer (I have the same kit). That made a huge difference. I printed some feet in TPU but you could just make plastic ones and put little furniture pads under them, either felt or rubber. I heard that putting the entire machine on a piece of low density foam helps too if it's on a resonant surface, but I haven't needed to do that.