I3 Omega from Diytechshop

I've got most of the machine together. I'll get the bed, glass and heater wire installed tomorrow.

Last night while working on it I got all the wiring hooked up and went to turn it on. None of the motors would turn. I think it's wired right, but I'm not sure. Anyway I was working on it and I think one of the heat sinks got pretty hot and softened up the glue on the double sided tape. The heat sinks are a little on the large side for the drivers and when the glue softened it slipped and I think it touched and shorted out some pins. I honestly don't know if they normally get this hot, but they were very hot. Hot enough I couldn't hold a finger on them long.

As a note for anyone else using Diytechshop kits, I recommend using 2 or more rows of the double sided tape on the back of the heat sink, and wrapping it around the side where it comes near the pins. That if they slip nothing can short out.

The Arduino still has Marlin loaded on it and I can control it, but it is no longer recognized by my computer when I plug the usb in. I tried using an Arduino from another project of mine but I think the motor drivers are all shot now though. I can't get any of the motors to move, and they're not even chattering.

I'll have to call up Diytechshop tomorrow and test out their replacement policy. One of the main reasons I ordered from them was because of this policy, so I hope it works out well. I'll post here and let everyone know how it works out.

Just got off the phone with Diytechshop.

They're going to ship me out a new Arduino and new drivers for the ramps at no charge, no hassle at all. It's great that a company will send you out replacement parts even if you mess them up. I think anyone looking around for a printer should consider that. That's 40 bucks worth of electronics.

Running into an issue with the extruder now. I was told the hotend should friction fit into the extruder, but it is a very loose fit. The hole for the filament doesn't line up with the hotend and looks like the hotend cant slide into the slot far enough. The hotend can also go up and down quite a it. If it lined up with the filament hole, I would just put some screws in it.

They're looking into the issue right now and are going to get back to me by the end of the day. This only affects the black extruder bodies. The blue ones use a mounting plate, so it isn't a problem with them.

cfy7,

to be very honest, your extruder body doesn´t look good... From what I can see on the picture your hotend doesn´t fit properly into the slot and never will. I´ve got a black extruder with my kit as well, but it uses a mounting plate which fits a lot better.
The hole for the filament didin´t line up in my extruder either, I had to use my milling tool to bring the hotend about 3mm deeper into the slot.

I would say it would make much more sense to replace the extruder body. If the hotend has some issues as well I would order a complete extruder from another company wich is of better quality. At a certain point of frustration you will do that anyhow...

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ciutateivissa
cfy7,

to be very honest, your extruder body doesn´t look good... From what I can see on the picture your hotend doesn´t fit properly into the slot and never will. I´ve got a black extruder with my kit as well, but it uses a mounting plate which fits a lot better.
The hole for the filament didin´t line up in my extruder either, I had to use my milling tool to bring the hotend about 3mm deeper into the slot.

I would say it would make much more sense to replace the extruder body. If the hotend has some issues as well I would order a complete extruder from another company wich is of better quality. At a certain point of frustration you will do that anyhow...

Do you have any pictures of your extruder setup? I'd love to see it with the mounting piece.

Thanks!

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cfy7
Just got off the phone with Diytechshop.
...

cfy7,

Thanks for your continued updates. It's very helpful. I will do the same when I get my i3A. I haven't gotten any shipping info yet, but I don't expect anything until next Monday based on what their website says (All units will ship 10 business days after purchase).

Bruce

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cfy7
Do you have any pictures of your extruder setup? I'd love to see it with the mounting piece.

Here we go...

Looks completely different from mine. Wow!

Just called Diytech shop, they looked into it and are going to send me a new one.

Here's a better picture of mine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2014 05:53PM by cfy7.

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ciutateivissa
cfy7,

to be very honest, your extruder body doesn´t look good... From what I can see on the picture your hotend doesn´t fit properly into the slot and never will. I´ve got a black extruder with my kit as well, but it uses a mounting plate which fits a lot better.
The hole for the filament didin´t line up in my extruder either, I had to use my milling tool to bring the hotend about 3mm deeper into the slot.

I would say it would make much more sense to replace the extruder body. If the hotend has some issues as well I would order a complete extruder from another company wich is of better quality. At a certain point of frustration you will do that anyhow...

I wound up replacing the body of my first Wade's extruder which was PLA with one I printed in ABS. Ditto the x-carriage. If you do order one, I would try to get it in ABS to start with.

I'll be happy to print my own, just gotta get the machine working first.


Baby steps!

I borrowed some stepper drivers to run my Omega and was able to start extruding some plastic. I'm still working on getting the config file perfected.

I wanted to post a warning about Diytechshop's Stepsticks. I don't think there is any problem with them, but if you're building one of their machines be careful. The heat sinks are very large for the board, and as a result there is very little room for error concerning their placement. When you attach them to the chips I recommend using some tape on the sides of the heat sinks so that if they slip you wont short out the pins. I think that's how I ruined my first set of Stepsticks and the Arduino.

I've also seen pictures of people mounting the heat sinks on their sides and that might be a good idea as well.

Enclosed is a picture of the difference of the Stepsticks vs the other drivers I'm using right now. The red ones are the ones that come from Diytechshop.

Diytechshop might want to consider downsizing these heat sinks. In their defense though, like I mentioned before they are taking care of me and are sending out replacement parts free of charge.

Ramps Assembly - This bit had me stumped for a little bit. The ramps came in a bag without any jumpers installed. There are 3 sets of pins underneath each Stepstick. You have to put jumpers on all of them.

Also I talked to them today, they're having trouble getting their instruction manual uploaded to their website. I'll be posting more pictures on here though so people can see how they go together.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2014 06:13PM by cfy7.

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cfy7
I borrowed some stepper drivers to run my Omega and was able to start extruding some plastic. I'm still working on getting the config file perfected.

Hi cfy7,

Was there any addtional documentation for hooking up the electronics, or are you just going by the schematic in the DIY build docs for the i3x?

Did they at least come with the necessary jumpers, just not installed, or will I most likely need to find jumpers elsewhere?

Bruce

Bruce,

It came with all the jumpers it needs, they just weren't installed. I don't mind this since the boards came in the ESD bags to protect them.

And nope. No documentation whatsoever came with the kit. The wiring information that is available as a download after buying the kit was helpful. It lets you know what wires go to what pins. For the most part though, I used the schematic.

The BOM's in the kit was off, I'd do a full a inventory and make sure you have all the parts to put it together. If it's missing parts they'll get them out to you if you give them a call.

Xan with Diytechshop keeps telling me they're working on getting the manual on their website. He said they tried to do it but it's over a gigabit and had issues posting. I'll have more pictures posted tonight or tomorrow morning, and if anyone has any questions on assembly or dimensions I'll be happy to help.

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cfy7
Xan with Diytechshop keeps telling me they're working on getting the manual on their website. He said they tried to do it but it's over a gigabit and had issues posting. I'll have more pictures posted tonight or tomorrow morning, and if anyone has any questions on assembly or dimensions I'll be happy to help.

Wow, that's huge. Hopefully the new manual will contain a lot better information.

Bruce

After fixing the problem I had with backlengths (the provided bars were probably for the i3x/Alpha not the i3xl/Omega), I noticed that all the wires for endstops/etc are 26gauge and the crimp-on connectors I have are all 20-22gauge. This makes sense (as far as I can tell, nobody makes crimpons that small), but it means that you will have bad connections unless you solder them to the terminals.

EDIT: I've soldered the wires to the slide-on terminal connectors. Thankfully, the butt connectors seem to work fine, so I was saved the hell of having to solder all of the motor wires.

I'm using the RAMPS 1.4 instructions from the wiki here.

As to the hotend, I'm not using theirs, so I can't help anyone out there.

The endstops are positioned to be min endstops. The Merlin firmware from the RAMPS 1.4 article on the wiki is preconfigured for a smaller build X/Y/Z than the i3Omega can do. Through some experimentation, I have found that a soft endstop of 350 is sufficient to travel across the entire X bar w/o actually contacting the other end.

I've got an odd issue atm where my z motors are just squealing w/o doing anything. This is weird, as the test sketch did spin both. I'll double-check later. The plastic tube is sufficient for one of the zaxis drives, but the other just freed itself from the plastic. Might be fixable with some WD40 in the nut. If anyone else has

Since I don't have a enough power out of this PSU, I will probably rig up another PSU just to run the heated bed (yes, I have them just lying around). A SPST switch is wired directly to the activation pins on the PSU. I need to clean that up.

I haven't put any heatsinks on the stepper drivers, but I do have a 90mm fan pointed at the board.

In other news, I finally got my trace of the frame corner imported into Inkscape and converted into an OpenSCAD module. Now I can continue work on designing a different electronics mount that will (hopefully) hang onto that frame.

Waiting for the copper-clad boards at present. I'll also provide my notes/design for the heated bed once it's done. Also thinking about either buying a ATX cable extension and clipping what I don't need or getting an ATX receptacle from sparkfun (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9497) to make the wiring cleaner.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2014 12:33AM by lordofhyphens.

lordofhyphens ,

One of the things I did with the motor wires I had, they were so long that I didn't even bother with the cut up pieces of wire. Not sure why they even bothered putting them in the kit.

Are you sure your z axis isn't overheating because it doesn't have a heatsink and causing it to skip? (I'm assuming you're afraid that their giant heatsinks will slip and hit the pins like mine did? I'm happy I got some new drivers with smaller heatsinks and I'm keeping the ones Diytechshop sent me as replacements as spares) Do you have the blue plastics? If so, mine were awful. The x axis was not level, it made it so if I tried to level it, the z axis motors would bind. Maybe that's your problem? They replaced mine with the black and I am much happier. Although they still owe me a new extruder and refuse to return my calls to update me if it will ever ship.

I've ended up using a config file very similar to this: [www.polymathiae.com]
Works pretty well, I've made a few tweaks, but it's getting there. For now I've limited the bed to 190 x 190 that way I don't hit any of my binder clips holding the glass on. It's big enough to print what I need to make this machine work better.

The endstop mounts are awful. One of the first things I am printing are new mounts for all of them. They flop all around and limit the movement of the bed.

I guess my big thing is just getting a working printer so I can make replacement pieces.

Attached are some pics, including the printing of a replacement part and my daughter showing me how to fix the printer.

Pics!!! Post some, lets see your beast!

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cfy7
I guess my big thing is just getting a working printer so I can make replacement pieces.

Looks like you are getting there cfy7. How stable does the printer seem while it is printing?

Bruce

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brucehvn

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cfy7
I guess my big thing is just getting a working printer so I can make replacement pieces.

Looks like you are getting there cfy7. How stable does the printer seem while it is printing?

Bruce

Not too bad. Pretty stable. From the smaller prints I've done I think it is rigid enough to make some decent prints. The force of it is throwing it all around my table though.

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Not too bad. Pretty stable. From the smaller prints I've done I think it is rigid enough to make some decent prints. The force of it is throwing it all around my table though.

Yeah, I think probably mounting it to a plywood base or something is probably a good idea. I'm going to try and call diyts Friday and see if mine is on schedule for shipping. Sent an email asking, but never got a reply. Tomorrow should be 10 business days, so hopefully it will ship tomorrow or Monday.

Bruce

I received the last of my parts from Diytechshop today.

I had fried the stepsticks and the arduino when a heat sink slipped. They replaced those and the ramps for good measure. Go diytechshop, I'm very pleased with that.

They also replaced my extruder body that had a printing defect. Looks like it should work well.

Unfortunately my hot end has begun to leak. I might have one from when they made their changes, or it may be installed wrong. I've posted over in the defective hotend thread to see f I can get some advice.

Other then that I've fixed most my issues. The z axis height is now correct, and my prints are starting to look halfway decent.

Got my Fedex tracking number today for my i3Alpha. I'm excited but prepared for a bumpy ride putting it together.

Xan at Diytechshop recommended putting kapton tape around the hotend where it was leaking so I can keep printing while I wait on the new hotend. It's working pretty well!

Currently I've got several parts hobbled together and haven't gotten around to swapping them out with the replacement parts from Diytechshop(cause I wanna print stuff!). Even with this the print quality is pretty good. I'm very happy with this machine right now.

Edit: tape isn't doing as well on print number 2.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2014 01:37AM by cfy7.

cf7y,

congrats! You did make a lot of progress the last week, and finally you´re able to print.

One thing I´ve noticed is that you´re not using a fan to cool down the upper part of your hotend. This didn´t work for me at all, if I would switch of the fan for a second, my hotend wouldn´t work at all. The filament would melt approx. 4 cm high in the hotend and then become clogged... That´s the reason why I use an original J-head hotend now. The advantage of the new one is that it is a about one inch shorter so my Z-high increases

I will do some prints now with the new one and hope to improve the quality as well.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2014 01:01PM by ciutateivissa.

My plan is try out the new head when it gets here. If it works, great. If not I'll order a real j head or the E3D.

It's nice having it up and running for sure, but now I'm trying Cura. N9cjv had mentioned he was having problems with slicer, then the same night it started rendering gcode wrong for me.

Just when I had figured out slicer!

Printing out a new extruder body. I wasn't very pleased with how the hot end is held into any of the extruder bodies from diytechshop. The most recent one they sent me is good enough to print with, but I'm not a fan of the friction fit. This one I'm printing from thingiverse is made for j head and looks like it'll grip onto the hot end much better.

Just ordered an E3D hot end. Diytechshop is sending me a new little brass hotend, but I'm just not pleased with the print speed of the current one I have. I'm lucky if I get 30 mm/s. All the good reviews on here made me want to give the e3d a try. If it gets me slightly faster print speeds I'll be happy.

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cfy7
Just ordered an E3D hot end. Diytechshop is sending me a new little brass hotend, but I'm just not pleased with the print speed of the current one I have. I'm lucky if I get 30 mm/s. All the good reviews on here made me want to give the e3d a try. If it gets me slightly faster print speeds I'll be happy.

I was tempted yesterday to order an E3D as well even though I don't have the printer yet. I am also looking at the Pico hotend which is due out in April. I know the E3D gets good reviews and it's a bit cheaper.

Bruce

I'm posting my config file in hopes that it might help someone. It's not perfect, but it's working for me right now. I've got the bed limited to 190x190 while I'm still working on the machine, so for sure you have to change that to whatever your machines specs are.

I ordered an i3A today. They took off $30 and so I'm going to print my own parts for it (hopefully before it gets here). I'm new to printing but my school has a lab full of them so I'll use that until then. Hoping all goes well!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2014 12:48AM by Istale.

Though I got my fedex tracking number on Friday, looks like DIYTS just got it to fedex today (Tuesday). Estimated delivery is on Thu.

One question. Do these printers come with a fan for the hot end? I was wondering if that was causing some of the problems with leaking, etc.

Bruce

Bruce,

there will be no fan for the hotend within the kit.

A very simple solution I did is to buy a little fan with 30mm diameter and put it directly to the hotend mounting plate with two little screws. Works for me quite fine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2014 03:02PM by ciutateivissa.