Folger Tech Kossel Delta 2020 Full 3D Printer Kit w/Auto-Level

I added the extruder fan to the unused D9 output. Normally, this is on all the time by connecting to 12vdc. Be sure your polarity is correct...the fan is controlled by firmware and comes on above 50 degrees.

Do two things:
// in Configuration_adv.h
#define EXTRUDER_0_AUTO_FAN_PIN 9 // old value -1

// in Pins.h
#if MOTHERBOARD == 33 || MOTHERBOARD == 35
#define FAN_PIN -1 // old value 9

Does anyone have suggestion for cooling the three stepper motors and the RAMP board? Seems to get pretty off after an hour of printing, about 140 degree F. I think a few small fans properly mounted underneath and paralleled onto D9 should do the trick.

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dnguyenai598

Does anyone have suggestion for cooling the three stepper motors and the RAMP board? Seems to get pretty off after an hour of printing, about 140 degree F. I think a few small fans properly mounted underneath and paralleled onto D9 should do the trick.

I would like to see a box that I could print, that the main board/ramps could slide into at one end, and had a fan mount on the other end. Then the fan could pull air over both boards, and the box could have tabs for mounting.
Excess wire could be stuffed into the box under the main board too.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2014 11:15AM by Easy.

I have the LCD and it was an extra add-on. There are some functions that can be change and controlled directly, and with the SD mounted on the left.

I did see rubberband somewhere and also heard that changing the pulleys from 36 to 20 teeth helps to smooth out as well, but harder on the motors.

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dnguyenai598
I have the LCD and it was an extra add-on. There are some functions that can be change and controlled directly, and with the SD mounted on the left.

I did see rubberband somewhere and also heard that changing the pulleys from 36 to 20 teeth helps to smooth out as well, but harder on the motors.

I was just wondering if your LCD came with the kit. I do have one I bought from another source though. Also, Dan from FolrgerTech emailed me back concerning the dead-on-arrival RAMPS board, so it's good to know that there's some sort of customer service.
Its true that changing to smaller gears would be harder for the motor, so I would need some sort of cooling to get to them. I'm planning on printing a taller version of the lower frame plastics to give the electronics some room to breathe especially with the heated bed being so close to the RAMPS.
I have another RAMPS board coming in today and I have made some modifications to the original build, so I will report back soon with maybe some printed parts on hand.

Yay! My kit arrived today From Folger Tech.

Boo. It is missing the additional LCD display controller I ordered from them, and the acrylic set shown in the Build Manual.

The kit looks decent enough. Just will have to wait (again) for the missing parts. Hopefully they will get back to me quickly.

It does say Kossel Kit Rev A beta, so they may still have a few kinks in their system.



They need to update their packing list. Says Prusa i3 as well.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2015 03:31PM by rtideas.

Hmm, not putting the kit together well enough so that it's missing the acrylic parts and the LCD is really a big mistake. I hope they fix it soon for you. As they are already running a business for some time and are also selling other types of printers, you would expect them to not have these kinds of problems with missing parts.

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Here are some cons which could be improved:
1. The AC cord is very cheap. No power switch or IEC receptacle. I clipped the end off and tried to crimp forks on them (Chinese color code, what is brown, rhetorical), but the gauge is like 22awg, too thin for crimping.
2. Heated bed is 12vdc, which takes forever to heat up to 110C for ABS. 24vdc may be better, but would required two DC voltages, 12vdc and 24vdc. I never got it quite to 110C, highest was 80C. So my ABS printings are all warped up.
3. When I switched to PLA, thinking "good-bye ABS" but discovered another problem. The tip kept clogging up, but as it turns out, PLA is harder to push through and the filament extruder motor kept jumping/skipping (which I through it was backing up on turns). So I spent an hour figuring it out, pushing the filament through and turning the gear helped. The print was a lot smoother which may also explains the ABS warping which is from not enough material being push through. A stronger stepper motor might help, or if it's geared up for more torque.

Will spend sometime looking for a geared filament extruder that I can print...anyone have a good design in mind?
Has anyone assembled theirs and have a good quality print? Seems like leveling the bed is quite a chore, I need to get the auto-leveling working.

Does anyone know which way the effector upper plate is supposed to be? One side has a larger diameter than the other...

As I recalled, the shiny side is up.

The plate with the fan support, snaps into the hotend's top (the grove should match up). And then the "effector upper plate" sits on top of this without any gap. I put four bolts to hold the two plates together.

dnguyenai598,

Can you take a close up picture of the top of it?

I'm wondering if the larger diameter side has any purpose, if facing down, it could alleviate heat transfer to the effector from the hotend. If up, it gives more room around the brass plug. IDK!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2015 12:44PM by parco.

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parco
dnguyenai598,

Can you take a close up picture of the top of it?

I'm wondering if the larger diameter side has any purpose, if facing down, it could alleviate heat transfer to the effector from the hotend. If up, it gives more room around the brass plug. IDK!

Sorry, I'm not at home to do that. Otherwise, I would. I very few pictures on my phone and that's was the best one.

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parco
dnguyenai598,

Can you take a close up picture of the top of it?

I'm wondering if the larger diameter side has any purpose, if facing down, it could alleviate heat transfer to the effector from the hotend. If up, it gives more room around the brass plug. IDK!

Yes, it has a purpose. From what I recalled, the wider open is facing up, that way the brass plug screws right in for a tight fit. If you put the fan in, very minimal heat gets to the top if any at all. I remembered the shinier face of the effertor is up because I was hit with the same question as you did.

That makes sense, but i dont think it's coincidence that the hot end top almost fits into the larger diameter, and watching other videos like this one show just that: http://youtu.be/JrhpLgnzkdw?t=4m51s

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parco
That makes sense, but i dont think it's coincidence that the hot end top almost fits into the larger diameter, and watching other videos like this one show just that: http://youtu.be/JrhpLgnzkdw?t=4m51s

Wished I found this video on the 23rd when I got my kit, which didn't come with a manual. Took me a long time to figure things out and what each part is. If you figure how to mount the servo, the leveling arm and switch, and how to wire it up, please post your results. Not that I've given up, I have to be at work, but would like to get the thing fully functional. Right now, I'm still wait for missing parts to coming in, and I purchased a Wade's Reloaded Extruder (I think the extruder needs more torque especially when using PLA, or maybe I got cheap PLA and it needs to be at 210C, not sure).

Be sure to check your filament path for schmutz as well. Saw these particles looking into the Bowden tube end on the hot end. Pushing the teflon tube into it may help clear it, but still waiting on parts before building more.


Will also gently polish my nozzle.


Discovered more missing parts from my kit. Fan, a bunch of screws, and auto-leveler parts.
Still have not heard back from support at Folger since emailing them Friday.

I do like the drop-in t-lock nuts for the 20x20 extrusions.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2015 02:37PM by rtideas.

Hello everyone! Reporting back with some updates to my printer. I was able to print both ABS and PLA with the kit. I started printing out some upgrades to it. The gold arePLA and the red parts are ABS. Since all I got for a RAMPS mount was a bent acrylic, I printed out an enclosure for it that I will later mount on the side.
For those wondering how the effector is built, you can see in one of the pictures how I built mine. The larger diameter is meant for the hotend to go insinde in. I had to heat up the plastic and pushed the hotend in while it was still soft, because it wasn't big enough for a snug fit.
You're all probably wondering in one of the pictures what I had ghetto rigged to my bed. That was a piece of board with fiberglass insulation sandwiched to get my bed heat up to a good temperature to be able to print ABS. With this contraption, I was only able to get the bed up to 90 degrees. I'm contemplating on changing this whole setup to something more efficient.
I printed the last picture at 0.3 resolution. I'm still using the stock extruder with all these prints. If you're having trouble with slippage while extruding, just play around with the temp and speed settings. That's what I had to do with mine.

Before I go, I saw a mistake on the instructions manual for the build. I had originally built my effector rods longer, but decided to redo it and follow the instructions. Well, it was wrong! It tells you that the rods should be at 224mm. With this whole kit scaled up, it will only give you an effective build diameter of 150mm. I already ordered some replacement rods so I can maximize the build diameter...the way it's meant to be for a bigger printer.

Quote
unnokeng
Hello everyone! Reporting back with some updates to my printer. I was able to print both ABS and PLA with the kit. I started printing out some upgrades to it. The gold arePLA and the red parts are ABS. Since all I got for a RAMPS mount was a bent acrylic, I printed out an enclosure for it that I will later mount on the side.
For those wondering how the effector is built, you can see in one of the pictures how I built mine. The larger diameter is meant for the hotend to go insinde in. I had to heat up the plastic and pushed the hotend in while it was still soft, because it wasn't big enough for a snug fit.
You're all probably wondering in one of the pictures what I had ghetto rigged to my bed. That was a piece of board with fiberglass insulation sandwiched to get my bed heat up to a good temperature to be able to print ABS. With this contraption, I was only able to get the bed up to 90 degrees. I'm contemplating on changing this whole setup to something more efficient.
I printed the last picture at 0.3 resolution. I'm still using the stock extruder with all these prints. If you're having trouble with slippage while extruding, just play around with the temp and speed settings. That's what I had to do with mine.

What was your temp for ABS and speed setting? For PLA?

Quote
dnguyenai598
What was your temp for ABS and speed setting? For PLA?

I had mine set for PLA=210 and ABS 235-240 at 60mm print speed. Once I go any faster, it starts slipping, that's why I printed out a geared extruder.

Quote
unnokeng

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dnguyenai598
What was your temp for ABS and speed setting? For PLA?

I had mine set for PLA=210 and ABS 235-240 at 60mm print speed. Once I go any faster, it starts slipping, that's why I printed out a geared extruder.

Maybe that's where I went wrong. PLA temp was at 190C recommended. ABS was 230C. Where did you get your speed setting. I'm using DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT with {44.44,44.44,44.44,96}, 96 is the setting, not sure if that's correct since I'm using Marlin's.

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dnguyenai598

Quote
unnokeng

Quote
dnguyenai598
What was your temp for ABS and speed setting? For PLA?

I had mine set for PLA=210 and ABS 235-240 at 60mm print speed. Once I go any faster, it starts slipping, that's why I printed out a geared extruder.

Maybe that's where I went wrong. PLA temp was at 190C recommended. ABS was 230C. Where did you get your speed setting. I'm using DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT with {44.44,44.44,44.44,96}, 96 is the setting, not sure if that's correct since I'm using Marlin's.

I was talking about when you slice your .stl file. What you have is just about right for the steps per unit setting. The thermistors are not accurate, that's why I'm printing at a higher temp. When I do the readings with an infrared thermometer, I get 100 degrees on the bed while it's still reading 88 degrees on the LCD.

Quote
unnokeng
Before I go, I saw a mistake on the instructions manual for the build. I had originally built my effector rods longer, but decided to redo it and follow the instructions. Well, it was wrong! It tells you that the rods should be at 224mm. With this whole kit scaled up, it will only give you an effective build diameter of 150mm. I already ordered some replacement rods so I can maximize the build diameter...the way it's meant to be for a bigger printer.

How long should the rods be then? Thanks for the reporting.

Quote
rtideas

Quote
unnokeng
Before I go, I saw a mistake on the instructions manual for the build. I had originally built my effector rods longer, but decided to redo it and follow the instructions. Well, it was wrong! It tells you that the rods should be at 224mm. With this whole kit scaled up, it will only give you an effective build diameter of 150mm. I already ordered some replacement rods so I can maximize the build diameter...the way it's meant to be for a bigger printer.

How long should the rods be then? Thanks for the reporting.

The rods should be at least 280mm to maximize the whole build diameter. The 224mm is meant for a mini kossel, so I will keep these rods to build a mini.

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unnokeng

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dnguyenai598

Quote
unnokeng

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dnguyenai598
What was your temp for ABS and speed setting? For PLA?

I had mine set for PLA=210 and ABS 235-240 at 60mm print speed. Once I go any faster, it starts slipping, that's why I printed out a geared extruder.

Maybe that's where I went wrong. PLA temp was at 190C recommended. ABS was 230C. Where did you get your speed setting. I'm using DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT with {44.44,44.44,44.44,96}, 96 is the setting, not sure if that's correct since I'm using Marlin's.

I was talking about when you slice your .stl file. What you have is just about right for the steps per unit setting. The thermistors are not accurate, that's why I'm printing at a higher temp. When I do the readings with an infrared thermometer, I get 100 degrees on the bed while it's still reading 88 degrees on the LCD.

I used white thermal paste for the thermistor and heat bed. It was pretty accurate based on my infrared thermometer.

Quote
unnokeng

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rtideas

Quote
unnokeng
Before I go, I saw a mistake on the instructions manual for the build. I had originally built my effector rods longer, but decided to redo it and follow the instructions. Well, it was wrong! It tells you that the rods should be at 224mm. With this whole kit scaled up, it will only give you an effective build diameter of 150mm. I already ordered some replacement rods so I can maximize the build diameter...the way it's meant to be for a bigger printer.

How long should the rods be then? Thanks for the reporting.

The rods should be at least 280mm to maximize the whole build diameter. The 224mm is meant for a mini kossel, so I will keep these rods to build a mini.

I used 250mm based on the Cerberus design, which used 300mm 2020 extrusions for the base. Longer rods would meant lower height built. Even if you used 224mm, the limitation is toward the Z pillar only; the X and Y pillars have better travel. Too bad the arms can't be adjustable.

Having another minor issue: the instructions state to mount the heatbed directly to the acrylic plates using M3 bolts and locknuts, but the heatbead hits the nuts used to mount the arduino.

Maybe some spacers would do the trick, but just wanted to check if I'm doing something wrong here.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2015 05:53PM by parco.

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parco
Having another minor issue: the instructions state to mount the heatbed directly to the acrylic plates using M3 bolts and locknuts, but the heatbead hits the nuts used to mount the arduino.

Maybe some spacers would do the trick, but just wanted to check if I'm doing something wrong here.

I didn't mount the arduino board to the acrylic. It's just sitting on the bottom. However, I was thinking, when my straight acrylic piece comes in, I would raise the built plate a little bit, put it on high tension spring or rubber spacers; thus making the plate adjustable to level it. Then the arduino can be mounted on those two holes. Or better yet, print out an enclosure with a built-in fan to cool the drivers.

Did anyone get anywhere with the auto-leveler servo/switch? Haven't done any work on it since last week when I tried to run PLA through it, and the extruder motor would constantly skip.

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dnguyenai598

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unnokeng

Quote
rtideas

Quote
unnokeng
Before I go, I saw a mistake on the instructions manual for the build. I had originally built my effector rods longer, but decided to redo it and follow the instructions. Well, it was wrong! It tells you that the rods should be at 224mm. With this whole kit scaled up, it will only give you an effective build diameter of 150mm. I already ordered some replacement rods so I can maximize the build diameter...the way it's meant to be for a bigger printer.

How long should the rods be then? Thanks for the reporting.

The rods should be at least 280mm to maximize the whole build diameter. The 224mm is meant for a mini kossel, so I will keep these rods to build a mini.

I used 250mm based on the Cerberus design, which used 300mm 2020 extrusions for the base. Longer rods would meant lower height built. Even if you used 224mm, the limitation is toward the Z pillar only; the X and Y pillars have better travel. Too bad the arms can't be adjustable.

It's true that you'd get a shorter build space, but what's the use of having a 180mm diameter if you can't maximize the use of it? 250mm is still better than 224mm rods.

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dnguyenai598

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parco
Having another minor issue: the instructions state to mount the heatbed directly to the acrylic plates using M3 bolts and locknuts, but the heatbead hits the nuts used to mount the arduino.

Maybe some spacers would do the trick, but just wanted to check if I'm doing something wrong here.

I didn't mount the arduino board to the acrylic. It's just sitting on the bottom. However, I was thinking, when my straight acrylic piece comes in, I would raise the built plate a little bit, put it on high tension spring or rubber spacers; thus making the plate adjustable to level it. Then the arduino can be mounted on those two holes. Or better yet, print out an enclosure with a built-in fan to cool the drivers.

Did anyone get anywhere with the auto-leveler servo/switch? Haven't done any work on it since last week when I tried to run PLA through it, and the extruder motor would constantly skip.

I gave up trying to figure out the auto-leveler, but you can probably check out other threads like some prusa having that same mechanism. I was planning on heavily upgrading my Kossel anyway. The heat bed could never get up to the right temps for ABS even with a fiberglass insulation I put in, so for now I have a silicone heatbed attached at the bottom of it. I have already printed an effector with built-in FSR mounts, but it does defeat the purpose for other buyers who plan on buying a complete kit that they cannot fully maximize the functionality of it.