InDimension3 Glacier Summit printer: "Reviving an Ancient Giant"
Posted by Fernando@SI
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InDimension3 Glacier Summit printer: "Reviving an Ancient Giant" May 08, 2020 11:06AM |
[drive.google.com]
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening to all!
My name is Fernando and I am an EE at a small manufacturing in Anaheim CA. Long story short, there is a VERY old 3d printer in the Eng. lab at work and none of the previous engineers could figure it out. Which lead to me asking if I could take a shot at getting the 2013 relic working. Since, I had about 2 years’ experience of 3d printer maintenance and printing management for my club back at school. Surprisingly all the electronics were "functional" mind the quotations. The motors where in decent condition no evidence of tampering, noise, or wear on them
. The control board turned out to be a Megatronics v2.0, link to the RepRap documentation on this specific board. [reprap.org]
as a good engineer, I studied the provided files on the RepRap wiki, such as the data sheet. unfortunately, the "datasheet" is very vague in some areas, which is the reason I joined this community. thank you to the moderators for welcoming me in I appreciate it. enough introduction I don't want to write an entire essay here.
basically, I need help with properly selecting the correct hot-end, and extruder setup that supports:
1. Necessary functions: Dual Extrusion, and ABS/PLA material since there's a LOT in our stock.
2. Desired functions: new setup can run on the Megatronics v2.0 hopefully? board seems fine and a new board is another cost.
ISSUES: WAS heating up and filament could be extruded to a point then just clogged every time, only ever got a small string. so, I did a heat up then a retract/withdraw of the filament noticed it was a regular thickness on the cold end then enlarged in the hot end. which lead me to believe it was nozzle so I dissembled the entire assembly found that the M6 heat-break screw on the "throat end" was bent on extruder #2 and completely missing on extruder #1
. so ultimately I tried to clean it up the best I could and retried a simple extrusion which clogged and now it is not heating the nozzles properly either. I probably broke a wire in the heater cartridge or the temperature sensor. extruder #1 will heat up to 165° and extruder #2 up to 225° then just stop heating. in conclusion, I gave up trying to fix this outdated setup and have now ventured on R&D of a new setup using modern 3d printer tech.
these are the things I found when dissembling the carriage "extruder assembly and hot-end":
printer is direct drive with a nema17 with gear box and a hobbed gear for the filament. [store.makerstoolworks.com] the filament is pressed against this hobbed gear with the common bearing inside a machined block with four hex screws with springs. which I hate since it’s so troublesome to put back and easy to lose those dang springs.
the hot end is my biggest concern, no markings/brand what so ever. connection is rather uncommon has two heat cartridges connected in parallel observed visually and digitally with a multi-meter reading of 1.8-2 ohms. both cartridges are 40 W 12 V as best as I can see its severely blackened I think because of oxidation just like a soldering iron tends to. The nozzle has a circular heat sink that is directly screwed on the M6 heat break.
the heat break and throat was a long 55 mm M6 screw that runs through the entire hot end assembly. from the nozzle to the extruder that feeds the filament.
as for the temperature sensor, I not too familiar with temperature sensing but I believe it is a thermocouple the brand is thermX of the connectors. also, its connect to the thermocouple terminal on the megatronics board so I just put two and two together.
my direct question to the community is how to know for sure what hot end should work on the printer I believe it’s a 12 V setup but the parallel connection of the cartridges bewilders me? Additionally, could I update the firmware to a newer version of marlin on this old megatronics board? also since I will probably have to modify the extrusion setup would a Bowden or keeping a direct drive be more cost efficient in the long term since the usage would be prototyping enclosures/parts. I am lending towards Bowden since my little mono-price mini v2 printer at home has never caused me issues.
side story: while at school the direct drive on the AirWolf student edition EVO direct drive, was just garbage always destroyed the Teflon tubing never melted but always was caught on the gear. However, I am not opposed to a direct drive as my club had a little Cetus mk1 printer that worked for three years without "proper" maintenance since I was still new to 3d printing
. I never greased the bearings or cleaned the rails 
and we used that thing to its limit. but it ultimately died when someone printed a tall single piece without my supervision and it destroyed as the print got caught and made a modern art work of the hot end. I replaced the hot end but finished my undergrad and left it in the hands of the younglings.
Regards,
Fernando C.
Electrical Eng.
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening to all!
My name is Fernando and I am an EE at a small manufacturing in Anaheim CA. Long story short, there is a VERY old 3d printer in the Eng. lab at work and none of the previous engineers could figure it out. Which lead to me asking if I could take a shot at getting the 2013 relic working. Since, I had about 2 years’ experience of 3d printer maintenance and printing management for my club back at school. Surprisingly all the electronics were "functional" mind the quotations. The motors where in decent condition no evidence of tampering, noise, or wear on them
. The control board turned out to be a Megatronics v2.0, link to the RepRap documentation on this specific board. [reprap.org]as a good engineer, I studied the provided files on the RepRap wiki, such as the data sheet. unfortunately, the "datasheet" is very vague in some areas, which is the reason I joined this community. thank you to the moderators for welcoming me in I appreciate it. enough introduction I don't want to write an entire essay here.
basically, I need help with properly selecting the correct hot-end, and extruder setup that supports:
1. Necessary functions: Dual Extrusion, and ABS/PLA material since there's a LOT in our stock.
2. Desired functions: new setup can run on the Megatronics v2.0 hopefully? board seems fine and a new board is another cost.
ISSUES: WAS heating up and filament could be extruded to a point then just clogged every time, only ever got a small string. so, I did a heat up then a retract/withdraw of the filament noticed it was a regular thickness on the cold end then enlarged in the hot end. which lead me to believe it was nozzle so I dissembled the entire assembly found that the M6 heat-break screw on the "throat end" was bent on extruder #2 and completely missing on extruder #1
. so ultimately I tried to clean it up the best I could and retried a simple extrusion which clogged and now it is not heating the nozzles properly either. I probably broke a wire in the heater cartridge or the temperature sensor. extruder #1 will heat up to 165° and extruder #2 up to 225° then just stop heating. in conclusion, I gave up trying to fix this outdated setup and have now ventured on R&D of a new setup using modern 3d printer tech. these are the things I found when dissembling the carriage "extruder assembly and hot-end":
printer is direct drive with a nema17 with gear box and a hobbed gear for the filament. [store.makerstoolworks.com] the filament is pressed against this hobbed gear with the common bearing inside a machined block with four hex screws with springs. which I hate since it’s so troublesome to put back and easy to lose those dang springs.
the hot end is my biggest concern, no markings/brand what so ever. connection is rather uncommon has two heat cartridges connected in parallel observed visually and digitally with a multi-meter reading of 1.8-2 ohms. both cartridges are 40 W 12 V as best as I can see its severely blackened I think because of oxidation just like a soldering iron tends to. The nozzle has a circular heat sink that is directly screwed on the M6 heat break.
the heat break and throat was a long 55 mm M6 screw that runs through the entire hot end assembly. from the nozzle to the extruder that feeds the filament.
as for the temperature sensor, I not too familiar with temperature sensing but I believe it is a thermocouple the brand is thermX of the connectors. also, its connect to the thermocouple terminal on the megatronics board so I just put two and two together.
my direct question to the community is how to know for sure what hot end should work on the printer I believe it’s a 12 V setup but the parallel connection of the cartridges bewilders me? Additionally, could I update the firmware to a newer version of marlin on this old megatronics board? also since I will probably have to modify the extrusion setup would a Bowden or keeping a direct drive be more cost efficient in the long term since the usage would be prototyping enclosures/parts. I am lending towards Bowden since my little mono-price mini v2 printer at home has never caused me issues.
side story: while at school the direct drive on the AirWolf student edition EVO direct drive, was just garbage always destroyed the Teflon tubing never melted but always was caught on the gear. However, I am not opposed to a direct drive as my club had a little Cetus mk1 printer that worked for three years without "proper" maintenance since I was still new to 3d printing
. I never greased the bearings or cleaned the rails and we used that thing to its limit. but it ultimately died when someone printed a tall single piece without my supervision and it destroyed as the print got caught and made a modern art work of the hot end. I replaced the hot end but finished my undergrad and left it in the hands of the younglings.Regards,
Fernando C.
Electrical Eng.
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Re: InDimension3 Glacier Summit printer: "Reviving an Ancient Giant" May 08, 2020 12:35PM |
Hi Fernando,
... welcome to the forum!
First - 2013 is no way a "relic" -- our first kits or complete buildups were from 2007 ... my first DIY-LOM-system (Laminated-Object-Manufacturing/Modeling) was from 1990
If you get hands on (or trace yourself) a proper schematics, there shouldn't be a problem to update the firmware to actual Marlin version -- you only have to select the proper board type and identify the I/O pins.
The hotend too is pretty straightforward a temperature controlled heater, where you have to fit the temperature curve to your sensor (either known or measured and stored into the temp-table) ...
Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]
Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]
... welcome to the forum!
First - 2013 is no way a "relic" -- our first kits or complete buildups were from 2007 ... my first DIY-LOM-system (Laminated-Object-Manufacturing/Modeling) was from 1990
If you get hands on (or trace yourself) a proper schematics, there shouldn't be a problem to update the firmware to actual Marlin version -- you only have to select the proper board type and identify the I/O pins.
The hotend too is pretty straightforward a temperature controlled heater, where you have to fit the temperature curve to your sensor (either known or measured and stored into the temp-table) ...
Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]
Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]
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Re: InDimension3 Glacier Summit printer: "Reviving an Ancient Giant" May 08, 2020 04:04PM |
Dear Viktor,
Thank you for welcoming me. the relic was a joke here at my company since the printer has never worked just has take up space for the last 7 years. Also, I was amazed when I started my R&D on this project and found out that 3d printing has been around for so many years!!
today's update: after reading the RepRap megatronics page I found that the USB 2.0 can be used to program the on board Arduino mega 2560!! I modified the Arduino board.txt in the directory to include the megatronics board and it recognized the printer and the TX and Rx LEDs began to flash and a DBG led switched on for a brief moment. I will be trying out the provided test firmware from the megatronics RepRap page hopefully I don't break it on the software end. I will be researching how to properly install marlin tonight then continue testing Monday.
As for the hot end thanks for the information! all help is appreciated. I was looking into the Prometheus system last night and was wondering if anyone in the forum has had any experience/thoughts with it.
thank you Viktor!
Thank you for welcoming me. the relic was a joke here at my company since the printer has never worked just has take up space for the last 7 years. Also, I was amazed when I started my R&D on this project and found out that 3d printing has been around for so many years!!
today's update: after reading the RepRap megatronics page I found that the USB 2.0 can be used to program the on board Arduino mega 2560!! I modified the Arduino board.txt in the directory to include the megatronics board and it recognized the printer and the TX and Rx LEDs began to flash and a DBG led switched on for a brief moment
. I will be trying out the provided test firmware from the megatronics RepRap page hopefully I don't break it on the software end. I will be researching how to properly install marlin tonight then continue testing Monday. As for the hot end thanks for the information! all help is appreciated. I was looking into the Prometheus system last night and was wondering if anyone in the forum has had any experience/thoughts with it.
thank you Viktor!
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