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

Quote
gaddcasey1
I found the printed parts made from aluminium here at [www.robotdigg.com]. I ordered some and will post when they arrive. has anyone ordered these parts before?

Mine are on there way to me will report when they arrive.

Scavenged an old ATX power supply and have it hooked up for now. Just loaded my first STL file to print, waiting for the magic to happen...

Not a bad price on the aluminum parts. I had been thinking about trying this, but way to much trouble when a ready made aluminum end effector is $15.

[www.youtube.com]

Just a sample part I printed last night on the Folgertech, a cute little turtle for my girlfriend. I was having problems with the printer trying to print the tool to test the backlash on the traxxas joints. I downloaded this and gave it a whirl. It took 1 hour 30 minutes to print with support ( I added it even though it said it didn't need it )


Turtle 1
Turtle 2
Turtle 3

Deguello, we are going to be offering the aluminum corners for around $48 and shipped from the US. The ones I have right now are not anodized so they are just plain aluminum. If you want more info, shoot me an email or watch our website for the listing when I get the time to put them up!

Thanks, Dan. I'll watch the website.

Quote
Dan_FolgerTech
Deguello, we are going to be offering the aluminum corners for around $48 and shipped from the US. The ones I have right now are not anodized so they are just plain aluminum. If you want more info, shoot me an email or watch our website for the listing when I get the time to put them up!

You should make them part of the kit and ditch the printed parts.

As another alternative - I went to the hardware store and purchased the felt tipped threaded furniture feet with a 1/4-20 thread. The tower extrusions have a almost perfect fit for a 1/4-20 tap to be run in the center hole (a bit tight, a #7 drill bit can help here). Add a 14/-20 stop nut and this really helps with leveling my Kossel.

I just tried to order the RobotDigg effector as my printed effector is too wobbly. After I placed my order they said they'd be in touch. So it obviously isn't really available yet.

No, what the message said today when I got it (went to order aswell), is that they would e-mail shipping costs to finalize, which would tend to indicate no issue with availability. A number of Chinese companies do this - they are in no way unique in that regard . . .

My issue is that due to all the, attas, and other bs coming from China, getting mail is hard - I have had to firewallpretty much the entire country . . . hence, I *loathe* that practice!

- Tim

Quote
Wittmason
I just tried to order the RobotDigg effector as my printed effector is too wobbly. After I placed my order they said they'd be in touch. So it obviously isn't really available yet.

on my order they got back to me with the cheapest shipping option the next day.

Got the shipping figure for the effector and other stuff, as expected. No delay, just need to make payment . . . FYI . . .

- Tim

Sure enough there it was awaiting in my Inbox. Thanks Tim, from another Tim.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2015 12:10AM by Wittmason.

EMailed customer support at Folger Tech yesterday and had a tracking number for the new PSU before end of day. But with my ATX power supply I took out of an old computer to use in the meantime the magic never happened.

If I G28 to home, it homes fine. I loaded the Folgertech slic3r settings and sliced an stl and exported the gcode. Loaded the gcode file in pronterface and fired it off. I'll paste the first couple of lines of code below. Whenever I g29 (autolevel) near the end of the cycle it homes and slams against the stops and the motors keep going making the whole thing shudder and vibrate like crazy. After the autolevel cycle it does a move to center and pauses at X0 Y0 Z5 . Once the extruder is up to temp it moves to what appears to be X-76 Y-76 Z0 and crashes the print head. It ratchets the nozzle against the heatbed and pretends to be an engraver. If I let the print job continue at that point it tries to print like the print bed is on a 45 degree angle. And it never extrudes anything


A little help please....


Sample of the gcode Im sending to print:

G21 ; set units to millimeters
M190 S40 ; wait for bed temperature to be reached
M104 S210 ; set temperature
G28 ; home all axes
G1 Z15 F5000 ; move Z to 15mm height
M280 P0 S5 ; deploy servo
G29 ; perform auto level routine
M280 P0 S120 ; retract servo
G1 X0 Y0 Z5 F5000 ; Move to center
M109 S210 ; wait for temperature to be reached
G90 ; use absolute coordinates
G92 E0
M82 ; use absolute distances for extrusion
M106 S255
G1 F2400.000 E-4.00000
G92 E0
G1 Z0.200 F6000.000
G1 X-37.575 Y19.901 F6000.000
G1 E4.00000 F2400.000
G1 X-42.826 Y9.987 E4.37313 F2400.000

Quote
bluesmike
EMailed customer support at Folger Tech yesterday and had a tracking number for the new PSU before end of day. But with my ATX power supply I took out of an old computer to use in the meantime the magic never happened.

If I G28 to home, it homes fine. I loaded the Folgertech slic3r settings and sliced an stl and exported the gcode. Loaded the gcode file in pronterface and fired it off. I'll paste the first couple of lines of code below. Whenever I g29 (autolevel) near the end of the cycle it homes and slams against the stops and the motors keep going making the whole thing shudder and vibrate like crazy. After the autolevel cycle it does a move to center and pauses at X0 Y0 Z5 . Once the extruder is up to temp it moves to what appears to be X-76 Y-76 Z0 and crashes the print head. It ratchets the nozzle against the heatbed and pretends to be an engraver. If I let the print job continue at that point it tries to print like the print bed is on a 45 degree angle. And it never extrudes anything


A little help please....


Sample of the gcode Im sending to print:

G21 ; set units to millimeters
M190 S40 ; wait for bed temperature to be reached
M104 S210 ; set temperature
G28 ; home all axes
G1 Z15 F5000 ; move Z to 15mm height
M280 P0 S5 ; deploy servo
G29 ; perform auto level routine
M280 P0 S120 ; retract servo
G1 X0 Y0 Z5 F5000 ; Move to center
M109 S210 ; wait for temperature to be reached
G90 ; use absolute coordinates
G92 E0
M82 ; use absolute distances for extrusion
M106 S255
G1 F2400.000 E-4.00000
G92 E0
G1 Z0.200 F6000.000
G1 X-37.575 Y19.901 F6000.000
G1 E4.00000 F2400.000
G1 X-42.826 Y9.987 E4.37313 F2400.000

I had similar issues with the auto level and removed it from the slic3r configuration, then used the following document to manually level the bed: [delta-calibration.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com] it takes some time but it works.

Following the steps here (http://delta-calibration.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/) helped a ton! I tried a test print and ended up with a gunked up nozzle .I'm thinking the bed temp was too low (95) for the ABS I picked up at Microcenter. I've reset the temps to 110 for the bed and 245 for the extruder. Fingers crossed, its taking a LONG time to get the bed up to temp. Im not using Kapton or anything on the bed at this time. Aside from Kapton what else could I use?

Quote
bluesmike
Following the steps here (http://delta-calibration.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/) helped a ton! I tried a test print and ended up with a gunked up nozzle .I'm thinking the bed temp was too low (95) for the ABS I picked up at Microcenter. I've reset the temps to 110 for the bed and 245 for the extruder. Fingers crossed, its taking a LONG time to get the bed up to temp. Im not using Kapton or anything on the bed at this time. Aside from Kapton what else could I use?

I have an 8 inch mirror from Hobby lobby with silicon heat sink compound in between to assist in the transfer. The mirror sits perfectly in between the bed screws, with just a little wiggle room to spare. The silicon makes the glass slippery, so to prevent movement, I put on the 6 for 2$ clips from Harbor Freight. Under that the bed is motorcycle muffler wrap tape sandwiched between the aluminum heat bed pcb and a 1/4 inch sheet of plywood cut out to the round shape of the bed. The temperature difference under the board is 80ish degrees Celsius then without the insulation. My heatbed goes to 113 degrees in 14 minutes and stays at a constant 110 degrees throughout the printing cycle, even with fans on each motor blowing towards the center of the printer (towards the middle under the heated bed). The temperature at the top of the mirror is registering at 107.2 on a non touch during an active print with the fan blowing. No touch is indicating that it is 35.3 degrees Celsius directly under the bed at the moment (107.3 at mirror). I lost some of my print area (241.8), but I have a perfectly flat, stable heated surface and my prints are a million times better. I tried using Koptan (ch) and it would just rip it off the bed until I fixed the z axis properly. Now I just use a bit of Purple Aquanet and the stuff doesn't budge. If I want a pristine print I throw down a raft, it takes about 5-15 minutes more but well worth it for perfect parts.

I cut 2 x 10 inch, 2 x 9 inch and 2 x 8 inch for a total of 54 inches of the muffler tape. I was generous with it and layed it in a single thickness. Afterwards, you just trim it with a sharp knife/xacto/scissors and your done. Under the bed I drilled a hole for the thermistor and bed wires to come through and routed those around.
Muffler Tape Link





Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2015 10:05PM by thevisad.

Thanks for the writeup Visad. That's got alot of great tips in it.

Be careful printing too hot with the as shipped state of that hotend. It has a plastic ptfe tube in it. It will start to melt/burn at about 240+ or so. Which will mean you replaced a mess with another mess. A bit further back I recommended getting a new barrel for that hotend which is all metal - that means no melting of the ptfe tube because there isn't one.

TimW

Quote
bluesmike
Following the steps here (http://delta-calibration.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/) helped a ton! I tried a test print and ended up with a gunked up nozzle .I'm thinking the bed temp was too low (95) for the ABS I picked up at Microcenter. I've reset the temps to 110 for the bed and 245 for the extruder. Fingers crossed, its taking a LONG time to get the bed up to temp. Im not using Kapton or anything on the bed at this time. Aside from Kapton what else could I use?

Quote
bluesmike
Aside from Kapton what else could I use?

Plain glass smeared with UHU glue stick works like a charm for me, when printing ABS. When printing PLA I print right on the glass.
In both cases, a well leveled bed and good nozzle distance is needed.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2015 03:21AM by krakadu.

---

ShapeForger

FYI, my kit arrived today as shown by UPS. Total time from order to in my hands was 18 days.

I decided to test my electronics first, since I had noted some folks having a problem getting the Smart Graphic Controller to come on this kit. I simply uncommented the line for SD Support, commented the line for the Smart Controller, and uncommented the line for the Graphic Smart Controller, included U8glib, and it comes up fine on the current Folger firmware, the prior Folger firmware, Marlin 1.0.2 and Marlin 1.0.3-dev from git . . . Not certain why folks have issues with this, since I frankly, could not manager to get it to fail. Oh, and the display was the one Folger sells . . . Marked as the RepRap Graphic Smart Controller, and shown to be built by bigtree-tech.com . .

The kit was very nicely boxed, with all parts "subkits" in nice sealed and labelled bags, and UPS got the box to me with just scuffing . . .

Hopefully, the time will be there to start building within a day or so!

- Tim

Wow! A lot of great tips guys. Thanks for the quick replies! My print never happened, the bed wont heat above 96°. Im positive its the old ATX PSU that Im using. Its only a little 110Watt that I pulled from a parts bin. Once my replacement from Folger Tech gets in I'll be all set (I Hope!). In the meantime I'll spend a little more time researching other Hot Bed tips and tricks.

Quote
bluesmike
Wow! A lot of great tips guys. Thanks for the quick replies! My print never happened, the bed wont heat above 96°. Im positive its the old ATX PSU that Im using. Its only a little 110Watt that I pulled from a parts bin. Once my replacement from Folger Tech gets in I'll be all set (I Hope!). In the meantime I'll spend a little more time researching other Hot Bed tips and tricks.

It is pretty hard to get the supplied hotbed above 90 without insulating it.
Try sending a print without using the hotbed. Maybe your power supply can power the head alone.
It should come up to temp and once the firmware thinks the temp is stableit should start printing.

I was wondering about getting a 24 volt and found this one that can use either 24VDC or two 12VDC connections. Has anyone tried it? Geeetech Round PCB Heated bed for Delta Rostock

Quote
Deguello
I was wondering about getting a 24 volt and found this one that can use either 24VDC or two 12VDC connections. Has anyone tried it? Geeetech Round PCB Heated bed for Delta Rostock

Geeetech.jpg

I have several of these on order ( I paid about 4.50 plus free shipping for one and 6.50 + free shipping for another) Geeetech is one of the names from China that is all over everything from big machinery to anything with electronics. My buddy got one from the american company and he indicated that with 12 volt you wire 2 and 3 together to increase the resistance? Note it is a PCB heat bed and not an aluminum one, so you need to have something (borosilicate glass) over the top of that. Regardless -----> American Made and Shipped Heatbed <-----

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2015 10:42AM by thevisad.

Quote
bluesmike
Wow! A lot of great tips guys. Thanks for the quick replies! My print never happened, the bed wont heat above 96°. Im positive its the old ATX PSU that Im using. Its only a little 110Watt that I pulled from a parts bin. Once my replacement from Folger Tech gets in I'll be all set (I Hope!). In the meantime I'll spend a little more time researching other Hot Bed tips and tricks.

With anything blowing across the surface of the hotbed, you will not reach temp. The only way I could reach temp prior to insulating the bed was to have no fans blowing of any kind. I was able to get around this after adding the fan by lowering the print bed temp to 80. After insulated the heating issue went away.

Yeah, if I do it I'll go with the American one. I'm working on adding an inductive proximity sensor, so I need to keep an aluminum surface. I guess I could unsolder the leads from the original bed and lay the PCB under it with silicone grease between.

Quote
Deguello
Yeah, if I do it I'll go with the American one. I'm working on adding an inductive proximity sensor, so I need to keep an aluminum surface. I guess I could unsolder the leads from the original bed and lay the PCB under it with silicone grease between.

Lol... care to buy one of the handfulI have purchased trying to get them to work? Aluminum has a .2 inductive profile, so the 12 MM is actually 2.4 MM, my glass is 3MM so it will not detect the aluminum. The 15+ MM sensors are way expensive (more then 20$) and you can buy 3 FSR for 19.99 + free shipping.

Quote
thevisad
With anything blowing across the surface of the hotbed, you will not reach temp.

I bought a package of 12x12 cork tiles and cut one as an insulator under the bed. I prop the other 3 around the printer while the bed is heating to block breezes.

Quote
thevisad
Aluminum has a .2 inductive profile...

I wonder if a 16 gauge stainless steel disc would work under glass?