stratasys fdm 2000 thoughts and ideas

Hello,

I recently got my hands on a functioning stratasys fdm 2000 printer.
This printer has a ABS head and soluble support head.
I find my self in a bit intimidated by the old control HW and SW.
I have the software to run the machine but it just seems so convoluted and out dated.
I was thinking of replacing the control electronics along with the motors.
Do you think there is any benefit performance wise upgrading the control and SW?
I was thinking of using the trinamic tmc2130 and a 32 bit controller paired with simplify 3d,will need a new hot end setup due to servo driven system it currently has but thats not a problem.

Any one have experience using the old SW and HW as is think this is a worthy endeavor or will i be losing resolution and performance?

Thanks so much for any advice.

The X, Y and Z axes are all steppers, but i believe the extruders are closed loop DC motors. You might have problems changing to an off-the-shelf controller unless you're willing to replace the extruders, no small feat in those machines. They pipe in room air for cooling the hot-end and adapting all that stuff todifferent extruders would take some doing. One of the guys at the Milwaukee Makerspace, have_blue, has one of those machines at the makerspace right now. He'll probably post here shortly.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Yea i noticed that the extruder setup is massive and much more complicated to the printers i have now.
I was thinking of water cooling the system and even the motors in the build chamber and insulating them to try to stop from cooking the magnets and not having to worry about degrading magnets in the motors.
The biggest draw of this beast of a machine is the motion system.

If the drive cables are lose or worn dose any one know what they can be replaced by?
I was thinking spectral fishing line the high end multi strand kind.

Thank fully i have my own cnc mill, manual mill, lathe and 3d printer so im okay with having to do a complete rebuild of the extruder carriage.

Take a look at [www.youtube.com]

He converted a Stratasys Dimension BST ,,,, It was lots of work.

Quote
the_digital_dentist
One of the guys at the Milwaukee Makerspace, have_blue, has one of those machines at the makerspace right now. He'll probably post here shortly.

I have been summoned! Digital_Dentist is correct about the guts of the system - the extruders are DC motors with encoders, and everything else is steppers (and they survive perfectly happily in their 70deg C enclosure - no need to rig up some sort of additional water cooling). The old FDM thousand series machines are near and dear to my heart - they may be slow, but they are solidly reliable and aren't 'chipped' like all of the company's subsequent offerings. Please make a solid attempt to run the machine in its stock format before deciding to gut it with new brains! Drop me a line at haveblue@haveblue.org (I also have various posts on my blog at that domain regarding running these old machines), and I can get you the last Insight version that will work with them.

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[haveblue.org]

What a world.

I read your blog and sent you a mail a day or 2 ago.
I would love to pick your brain.
I know so little about this machine but have been reading all that i can find.

So would it be your opinion that there is no precision to be gained from switching the electronics out and being able to use modern day software and the features they bring?

Let me first say thank you have blue.

I got the machine talking to my computer and able to move around.

But I have yet to get it to print something.
I keep getting what the manuals call backflow.
I cleaned out both nozzles and loaded them and everything ran fine.
Started a print and once the chamber heated and it tried to extruder the filament it came out super slow then stopped. I removed the motors and checked and found on both the support and model filament had backflow plugs forming.

[photos.app.goo.gl]



Any thoughts.

Also I would love to chat about this machine via Skype or irc or what ever.

Quote
chrisg9
So would it be your opinion that there is no precision to be gained from switching the electronics out and being able to use modern day software and the features they bring?

If the base machine itself is working well, I don't think there's much to be gained in swapping out electronics and switching to 'modern' software. In fact, I've shown a few people how to use Insight, and they've remarked that it's actually better than the various open source offerings.

Now, if this were an old P-class machine (much more proprietary, expensive plastic build trays, chipped filament spools, etc.), I'd be much more inclined to hack it up with replaced electronics (or at least make a go of getting it to run Insight - CatalystEX is really limited software).

The photo you emailed definitely looks like material leaking from between the buffer and heating tube - heat up the head, remove the nozzles, and purge material through to make sure everything is okay there. My guess is that you may have blockage or damage to the nozzles.

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[haveblue.org]

I'm very interested in this thread... I've recently bought a uPrint plus, with vague thoughts about converting to some other software. One of the downsides of the machine is the requirement to buy filament from Stratasys at 10 times the normal price.

Please do keep posting updates here.

Well with the help i have gotten from haveblue my plan is to run it stock. without his information and guidance i would have had no chance and my only option would to have been to transplant a new brain into it.

Right now i am sourcing the hightemp plastic to make a new set of inlet buffers for my printer.

Once i get it printing i will post the results.

I read online that someone broke the security of those chipped printers where you can just insert the cartridge chip into a arduino and hit a button and it will refill and give a new serial number to the filament so you can use your own.

Well after a day in my shop i was able to produce 2 inlet buffers for my hotends.

Should have the printer reassembled this weekend and will post some picture of the results.

I have enough material to produce maybe 3 more buffers
But know i am limited in my skill so they are close to the original but with a few changes.

So after much fighting and a few burns later i have decided to say my original nozzels that i had and or heater tubes are bad.

So i decided to model up and make all new ones.

The new setup is kinda like i had thought of before with the watercooled heatbreaks and standard V6 nozzle and heater blocks.
Here is a link to the pictures of what i have made. (1.9mm bowden tube yet to be installed.)

[photos.app.goo.gl]

Now onto how to control these new heaters.
I am using 24V cartridge heaters. but the original system is setup to run on 110V main heaters.
So to keep things simple and not replace the heating controllers i am adding a mains 110v controlled solid state relay with a built in snubber controlling a 24V to the heaters.

So if all goes as planned i will be running what the machine thinks is as normal but with updated tech.

This also gives me the ability to get more nozzle sizes (0.1, 0.12, 0.16) at a much lower cost as to get any new ones now i would have to hand make them.

Sadly i dont have it running yet but this weekend i should be able to get its first print with this new setup.
Also this should allow me to use lesser quality filament in the system as mine is PTFE all the way right before the hotend vs before it had to push molten plastic about 110mm with a 90 turn so much less force.

Hello,

Well after a few more setbacks its printing
[photos.app.goo.gl]
Now i just have to calibrate the x y offset for the support head and a bit on the Z and she will be good to go

Now its on to learning the software better and then changing the nozzel from my 0.16 to 0.1 and try some highres printing.