Piper 1 3D printer

Piper 1 3D Printer: highly scalable, based on US 1/2 inch conduits for the frame and for the linear motion "rails".
By default, bed size is 8x12inches (200mmx300mm), may be expanded to a larger size or shrinked to smaller.
Frame is light and sturdy (thanks to Z brackets)
Files: Thingiverse
Assembly instructions: http://piper3dprinters.com/

If you will provide me with most common sizes of OD(outer diameter) for conduit pipes in other parts of the world I may create versions of the printer fitting those pipes.
US 1/2 inch conduit pipe has 17.8 mm OD.

Nice design! My only concern is about the weight of having 6 608 bearings, steel bolts and nuts in each axes.
Perhaps, using POM 608 bearings and plastic bolts a least on X and Y might help with speed.

Here in Europe 18 or 25mm OD are common sizes for steel tubes. Do your think 18mm OD is in the tolerance range with your current design?
Is it an open design? I mean, do you plan to release the sources or just the stl files?

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+ Repstrap Schifanoia Delta - AMEGA/RAMPS 1.4, 4x4988 stepper drv., running RepetierFW 0.92 -
HE IeC 1.75 bowden, nozzle 0.4 on a cold bed (300mm)
+ MiniKossel - Alligator board running RRFirmware, HE E3D-lite 0.4 bowden on a cold bed (170mm)

Thank you.
Agree it is a little heavy. But it may be easily converted to 2 motors per X and Y axis to overcome any doubt.
I am running current design with:
DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION 2000 for X and Y
DEFAULT_ACCELERATION 1000
DEFAULT_XJERK 9.0
and it is running fine with a single motor for X and Y.

18mm OD should be fine as long as it is actual 18mm. I have designed my parts for 18.8mm OD, what works well with 17.8mm actual.
>Is it an open design?
I may release it as open design after the release of Piper 2 and 3, but not ready yet.

Personally I think 608 bearings are a bit overkill for these applications. I've got a design I'm working on that's similar in concept, in that it uses steel tubing for the rails and radial bearings to make sliders, and I think M5 hardware would be a big as you need to go. To be honest M3 is probably fine, too. The only reason I'm using M5 is because my machine will be doing milling/routing and I need some lengths which are hard to find in M3.

Second note, since this is a 3d printer (low/no load on the effector), you can get away with 4 bearings per slider. Two bearings at the top of the slider separated by some distance, and then two bearings halfway between the top two, but offset by 120 degrees along the tube's axis. This offers some cost/parts/weight savings so it's worth considering.

Otherwise, cool design. I'm personally a big (and growing) fan of the idea of machines which can be made with what you find at a hardware store (plus some printed/milled parts).

EDIT: I also second making it an open source design, I can't think of why not and designs like this really lend themselves to hackability and modification because of how easy the parts are to source.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2018 10:11PM by Trakyan.

Thank you.
If you do not want to spend time on design (what I doubt ) you may build MPCNC, which is good router CNC. I am using it to cut bed plates.
But it will be interesting to see your design. With M3 or M5 dilemma go for M4 .
>you can get away with 4 bearings per slider
Unfortunately 4 bearing not working. With 4 bearings rollers may turn away from the pipe, so at least 5 bearings are required, I am adding 1 extra.

Actually, fair point, 4 bearings would be susceptible to torsion in one direction. I knew I was missing something there. Also, no I'm not afraid of design, I quite enjoy it :-). My design will be similar to the MPCNC in that it will have a crossed axis gantry, but with a different drive system, slightly smaller part count (for easier assembly and stuff) and I'm also making the parts a bit bulkier for overbuilding's sake, I plan to make a large format CNC so the tougher the better. I'll publish once I have something more than some half finished parts to show .

The reason I was thinking M3 or M5 (and not including M4) is that if you're working with low loads, M3 will suffice and you use them for the motors anyway, so one less type of part you need to order. M5 is definitely tough enough. M4 seems like a worst of both worlds, you introduce another hardware size and it's not particularly tough/rigid. That and I can't really seem to think of many people that use M4. For some reason I see lots of M3, M5 and M8 but not the sizes in between.

EDIT: Likewise with linear rods, you see 8mm, 10mm and 12mm, but rarely ever see the sizes in between.

Check this video by Matt on "Inside The Mind Of Matt" channel:

[www.youtube.com]

He is assembling largest Piper 1 printer yet, with 500x500x500 build volume.


(my main website piper3dprinters dot com is not operational at the moment due to hackers attack)

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piper3d

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Piper 1 3D Printer: highly scalable, based on US 1/2 inch conduits for the frame and for the linear motion "rails".
By default, bed size is 8x12inches (200mmx300mm), may be expanded to a larger size or shrinked to smaller.
Frame is light and sturdy (thanks to Z brackets)
Files: Thingiverse
Assembly instructions: http://piper3dprinters.com/

Hello my concern is every picture I click on I get THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Including the hyper link [piper3dprinters.com]

Any Ideals?????????????




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2018 10:59AM by Roberts_Clif.

My piper3dprinters dot com website was hacked and it is down at the moment.
Please go through Thingiverse or to the temporary website: [s728416714.onlinehome.us].
I am in the process of restoring the main website.

Quote
piper3d
My piper3dprinters dot com website was hacked and it is down at the moment.
Please go through Thingiverse or to the temporary website: [s728416714.onlinehome.us].
I am in the process of restoring the main website.

Thank You!
Though I had Already discovered this thru Thingiverse.

The domain name was cleared with Google and Norton. it is possible to use http://piper3dprinters.com now.
Reverting back to Matt's funny video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHx4f_eAK4I

What an interesting idea for a printer. Did the mostly printed CNC inspire you ?

dasflux, You are absolutely correct. Initially, I have made MPCNC for myself. Than Piper 1 came out.

There were multiple updates to the projects since my last post.

- The new version 2 of Piper 1 was published:
For US https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2966295
For UK and other countries with 20mm OD conduit https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2999885

- Metric screws were added to BOM at https://piper3dprinters.com

- Second Generation - Piper 2 (CoreXY) is soon to be released.

Also, check Matt's youtube channel mentioned above, he finished his 500mm cube.

If cost is a concern (so no Al extrusion), I fail to see the advantages of using round tubes instead of square or rectangular that cost the same but are easier to assemble and used as guides. I am speaking about plain cold formed profiles not the typical electric conduits whose surface finish is not suitable.
Note that unlike in the US, in EU steel electric conduit are not that common anymore, replaced by PVC.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2018 04:15AM by MKSA.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

Round tubes are a bit more forgiving in terms of wonky assembly which is I think why they're used. If a part is twisted a little (or even the tubing is twisted, which I've seen before), a circle still the same circle, not so much with squares. Another thing is you'd need more bearings. A round tube can be properly constrained with three radially spaced bearings, square tube needs four. Again the "more forgiving" thing comes in as the three bearings have a sort of self centering effect whereas four bearings do not and you can have one bearing that doesn't make contact. This is especially important if you go for a "percise"/interference fit with the carriages rather than designing some adjustment mechanism.

I still don't quite get the advantages of square tubing, and what makes them easier to assemble since everythign is usually just clamped in place. Any examples off the top of your head about specific advantages? I'm open to the idea, since I can pretty quickly switch my own design from round to square tubing. I haven't really commited to anything yet since work and needing to replace some stuff around the house put the project on the back burner.

Interested to see a coreXY implementation of this sort of design. Have you experimented with bushings? I'd be keen to try it myself but I'm skeptical the tolerance and surface finish of the tubing would be good enough for a bushing to slide freely on.

My coreXY design does not have EMT conduits in the gantry only on Z . Published it in CoreXY forum. (Sorry for responding late was busy preparing release of Piper 2)

Design files for Piper 1 v2 have been released at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2966295

Piper 1 is going to The World Maker Fair