Ebay SINTRON Kossel Mini full kit

your pictures helps a lot. keep up with your work.

Heated bed

In the 20 years that I've owned this soldering iron, I've never had to turn it up to full. That just changed. This heatbed just wicks away the heat (which is a good thing I guess). The only way I could get a good solder joint was to heat the joint up with a heat gun, while pressing the maxxed out soldering iron onto the joint.



Since we're using 12V for the heat bed, the negative goes to pins 2 and 3. Not shown is the thermistor that is taped close to the centre of the bed, and cable tied to the negative lead. I don't want the tape to fail and the thermistor to fall off the bed.



In the spirit of using as much from the kit as possible, the cardboard box it came in has had a circle cut out of it, and silver tape applied.


When you go to fit this to the bottom area, it turns out to be easier to cut three corners off it so that the cardboard rests on the stepper motors.


Like this:

Almost all the wiring is shown here (everything except the wiring for the heat bed).




And... Voila! Ready for calibration! I'm using a 20 amp power supply for the moment, until I can print out a cover for the one they provide. I think it's just too dangerous having 240 volts floating around without proper insulation over it.




Please ask any questions you might have about how to put your kit together, I'm happy to help as much as I can.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2015 11:52PM by nebbian.

@nebbian

nice job. well done.

could you provide more pictures with more details from the print head, electronics ... please.
Did you connect the endstops with all three pins?

Here you go Rossini:





I wired up the endstops with all 3 wires, as I wanted the cool red LEDs to light up when the switches were triggered. They work

Almost none of the wires were long enough to reach the circuit board easily, so they were all extended with the 20cm ribbon extension cable provided in the kit. That's why the colours are all over the place.


Also I had a problem thisafternoon where I was getting an over temperature alarm, even though the hotend was at room temperature. It turned out that the people at Sintron had tightened the screw that locates the thermistor so tight, that the leads were shorting out against the heating block. Easy when you know what to look for, not so easy when you've never dealt with thermistors before and don't know what resistance they normally have!


I was pleased to see that all the motors move nicely


I'll post my arduino settings when I've done some calibration.


How close are you to moving your motors Rossini?

nebbian,
Glad to see you are ahead of me. I got the rods assembled and installed, printed a new end stop holder based off an existing design and published on Thingyverse.

To space the rods I used a cut off screw and a t-nut on the side of the track. The screw went through the t-nut and locked to the back of the track. No problem except that the rods are only 220 mm long. At some point I will have to redo them.



End stop block



Another obvious tip... put on top corners and then install extrusions. Its a lot easier than trying to do three things at the same time.

I expected a problem soldering wires to a large heat sink like the bed. You came up with a good solution.

Note -- endstop was too thick -- new version coming

Roger

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2015 05:43PM by Miamicraft.

Good stuff Roger, I'm enjoying seeing the progress that others are making

Calibration continues...

Couple of tips for those treading the same path:

• Install screws on the carriages so you can adjust the endstop trip position precisely
• Install a 40mm fan to cool your electronics bay
• Wire up your hotend fan to always spin when power is applied (don't ask)
• See if you can make your heated bed easily removable, while keeping the same height. It's a pain in the freckle when you just want to make a simple change and then have to recalibrate everything.
• Wire up an emergency stop switch if you can. I've had a couple of crashes into the bed.

Also this bug caught me out, the part of the bug where the head moves in a curve when moving between points while doing the calibration routine. It dug a big scratch into my shiny new bed when moving from the calibration points to the Z-probe retraction position. Not impressed!


Still haven't gotten up to the bit where you start melting plastic. Maybe later this week.

Nebbian,
The lack of end stop adjustment screws on the carriage worried me also but I thought that the end stop distance was now set in software? I have a clean model (stl and step) of the carriage but can't print it without changing the nozzle on my Frankendoodle from a .60 to a .40 to get the belt teeth to print. Guess I could always drill and tap the existing carriages.

Thanks for the heads up.

Roger

Hmmm it might be set in software I guess. I haven't been able to find it. Screws are pretty quick to adjust, and are easy to understand

Here's a good starting point for this kit, it's calibrated to my setup, as well as having a bugfix to stop the probe from crashing into the bed when you do a bed calibration.

Next step: melting plastic!

Quote

Hmmm it might be set in software I guess. I haven't been able to find it.

He was referring to the M665 and M666 commands, for sure.
-Olaf

I had to redesign the Sintron end stop mount to be much thinner to be compatible with the carriage. This redesign required the use of a flat head mounting screw to keep from shorting out the microswitch board. Please see: [www.thingiverse.com] for the step and stl files.



Roger

I redrew the Sintron carriage and posted it on Thingyverse as [www.thingiverse.com]. The original STL was a mess with bad triangles and such that made it impossible to edit. I basically cleaned it up and provided a STEP file.



Roger

Thanks for that carriage!!
The one on Thingi (original) one was bad and was continually failing to print [100% correctly] for me.

Do you have any guides for learning autodesk? Your files have looked really good and I've not used autodesk 360 before.

Kingoddball,
I hope it prints OK for you. My current printer has a .60 nozzle for large prints and it will not print the teeth. I have a .40 but don't want to go through the effort to re-calibrate. The Kossel will have the small nozzle when done.

Autodesk Fusion 360 is amazing and it is free. You just download the trial and then register as a hobbiest. The program is every bit as powerful as Inventor or Solidworks. There is a bit of a learning curve if you have not done parametric modeling before. The tutorials are very good and you only need to learn the basics for most of the stuff we do. It would probably take about a week in your spare time to learn. Well worth it.

Did I mention its free?

Good luck,
Roger

Free?
Well I like the free side!
I use TinkerCad for everything!
Brilliant page!! Made everything so far, only issue is fine movement is harder!
I'll be getting autodesk tonight, price is right!

From the few tests I made with my delta, I´d prefer a carrier were the rod-mounts are at the center of the carriage.

I´d loose some headroom but the wiggling v-rollers wouldn´t have such a massive effect on the rods/ effector.
Watch your carrier at the turning point of a move. Mine tilts 1mm back and forth.
-Olaf

I don't know if they are compatible with the carriage mounting points in the Sintron kit, but I like the Robotdigg metal carriages with built-in belt tension adjusters, [www.robotdigg.com]. The rod mounts are at the centre of the carriage as the previous post recommends.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2015 03:09AM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Hi,

I'm pretty new to the whole DIY part of 3d printing. Not satisfied with my current printer (micro 3d from m3d), I want to build a kossel and my eye fell on the sintron kit because I'm a bit on a tight budget (restricted by wife ).
Comparing kits the folger tech kit gets better comments, but I live in Belgium, and they charge shipping and VAT on top of the same price as the sintron kit.
From this topic I noticed a lot of complaining about not fitting parts. The printed parts, and the carriers. My current printer is totally unfit to print high precision engineered parts because of inconsistent sizing in the y and z plane, so it's hard to make replacement parts.
Where should I expect problems? I expect the rods and carriers? From the comments here I'm unsure if there is a way to make the printer work with the supplied parts, or if I will really need to buy extra (replacement) parts.
I have to say that I don't have a lot of tools for exotic interventions. I have a soldering iron, I can borrow a dremel.... and that's about it. I'm a bit worried if I can make this kit work if I buy it...

The general rule is that with cheap kits, you get what you pay for. I'm not sure the Folger kit is any better, it has changed several times and from what I see on this forum, I think they are still including motors that are very badly matched to the drivers and corners that don't fit properly. If you want a high quality but relatively low-cost delta kit shipped from Europe, I suggest you look at the RepRapPro Fisher.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2015 12:54PM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Quote
dc42
The general rule is that with cheap kits, you get what you pay for. I'm not sure the Folger kit is any better, it has changed several times and from what I see on this forum, I think they are still including motors that are very badly matched to the drivers and corners that don't fit properly. If you want a high quality but relatively low-cost delta kit shipped from Europe, I suggest you look at the RepRapPro Fisher.

thanks. The fisher has a too small build volume for my liking. I know you get what you pay for, but at least I hope to be able to build a working printer from a full kit. I don't expect it to produce ultra high quality prints without a few upgrades, but I just want to know if it's possible to put it together at all, or if I would need to order a couple of replacement parts together with the printer to avoid not being able to get it to work.

Quote
Miamicraft
Kingoddball,
I hope it prints OK for you. My current printer has a .60 nozzle for large prints and it will not print the teeth. I have a .40 but don't want to go through the effort to re-calibrate. The Kossel will have the small nozzle when done.

Good luck,
Roger

Hey,
Printed great, no ugly hole on the bottom - Teeth are strong and it comes out to perfect match.

My carbon/magnet kit should arrive today and I'll finish off my 12mm magnet carriage. So far it's really good - Need to strengthen the cylinders a little otherwise it's solid and looks ok.

G'day Reaper

Mine is just about ready to print, here are the extra parts I used:

Traxxas ball joints (part 5347)
Assorted M3 screws and washers
A small amount of aluminium angle to mount the electronics
High power 12V connector
16 AWG wire
Flexible 28? AWG wire for the head fan and Z sensor
Heatshrink in various sizes
Small cable ties

Optional:
Extra 40mm fan for the electronics bay (probably need a 30mm fan for print cooling as well)
20 A power supply (the 10A they provide won't be able to heat the bed plus head), not really necessary for PLA)
Female crimps


Tools:
Screwdrivers
Dremel
Drill
Mallet
Vice (or pliers)
Hacksaw
Soldering iron
Heat gun
Tweezers


I would ask them if they can substitute the traxxas ends for the metal ball joints before buying, as the metal joints are totally unsuitable.
Apart from that there aren't any real showstoppers, just be prepared to spend quite some time with a dremel in your hand, making red dust

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2015 07:07PM by nebbian.

Hi Nebbian,
Two quick questions; one: Whats a Nebbian?

Two: Z probe; is this required for anything?
Only asking as the heat plate bolts directly to the steel frame so there is be (hopefully) no movement of the bed, not like the old i2's.

Quote
kingoddball
Two quick questions; one: Whats a Nebbian?

Two: Z probe; is this required for anything?

One: It's a made up word consisting of my name backwards, plus some stuff on the end to make it sound like a real word. There are many like it but this one is mine

Two: I've no idea. It's part of the reprap design, and it seems to work, so I built it. I'm yet to print anything, ever, so all i can offer are wild guesses that will probably be wrong .

Btw the kit provides three springs to mount the heatplate with, to allow easy bed levelling (I think). The springs also help when you crash the head into the build plate. I know this!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2015 07:22PM by nebbian.

Cool, thanks!
I didn't actually buy the whole kit. I bought the pieces I wanted.
Printed parts, rods, arms and wheels.

I'm using an AZSMZ controller and 2amp motors etc.
I wanted better quality parts for somethings - So mine will be a frankenstein.
I'm now going to setup a magent effector kit

The z-probe is good for auto bed levelling ( ABL ).
Also helps in the calibration process when sending G30 at each tower position to find the right parameters for the M666 command.

But you can live without it and do it manually.
ABL and z-probe config with marlin produces more headache, than it solves ( will be better with marlin 1.1, I hope)
-Olaf

Well I melted some plastic yesterday

However it didn't stick to the bed. And when putting some painters tape on there I realised that one side of my bed wasn't attached properly, and then began a descending spiral of calibration.

I'm convinced that turning the hotend on causes the RAMPS board to overheat. I've got a 40mm fan coming soon to try to remedy that situation, I'm pretty sure that purely passive cooling in a small enclosed space is just not good enough. I might try taking the RAMPS board outside of the base to see how hot it gets under normal operation.

I´ve killed so many A4988 over time, that I had some spare heatsinks to spend. I attached them to the MosFets of D8 and D10.
Wondering, if that would help? Maybe add another on the 5V regulator of the arduino?
-Olaf

Hmmm. Well, progress tonight at least.

I pulled the arduino/ramps out and had it outside the bed while printing, but nothing got hot at all. I'm now thinking that it's to do with the auto level procedure, or my bad calibration.

Anyway I got a print going! I'm amazed at how fast and precise this thing could be.


My issue at the moment is that although the print head is at the right height in front of the X, Y and Z towers, as well as the center, when it's between towers it wants to go a lot lower than the bed (in my first print, about 3mm lower). I've tried fiddling with the delta numbers, but can't get it to work properly... I've no idea what to adjust now.