New printer "Helga"

hello,
I am a developer from Europe, I have built my own printer for my personal usage because no one of existing printers fits my needs. I want to print small and middle sized prototype parts from ABS. Although it is not a self replicating printer, I would like to share the result.
The purpose was to make a compromise between cheap printers with low power consumption and expensive profesional rapid prototyping machines suitable for ABS.

I have made and followed this specification:
- use cheap components: Arduino Mega 2560 or a chinese version, Ramps 1.4, stepper motors Nema 17, heated bed.
- printing area 200x200x240 mm
- tough metal structure from 2 mm sheet metal.
- no welding in order to prevent deformations. The front and top wall is easily separable in case of maintanance. Although there are lot of screws, it is possible to assemble all at home without special tools or fixtures.
- only one motor for each axis.
- rods with ball bearings, diameter 12 mm for X, Z and 10 mm for Y. Lead screw for Z.
- closed printing chamber suitable for ABS. The chamber has thermal isolation, temperature rise during printing up to 50 or 55 degree of Celsius.
- closed space for material. Possible to use a bag of silicagel to keep material dry.
- LCD with SD card, the outher panel is printed from ABS

Nice looking Honza...although it doesn't appear much different from most "cube" printers. Show some closer detail photos to explain how yours is different. Thanks...TP

Hello,
The main diference is that my printer consists of sheet metal parts mostly, there are no complicated CNC milled blocks or printed parts. Important point is that all inner parts should withstand higher temperature, a closed chamber is advantage when printing ABS.
Only few parts are made using a lathe - pulleys, extruder heatsink etc.
The printer mechanism is made like „cube in cube in cube“, see the picture. This design allows to use only one stepper motor for each axis.
Another difference is that Y motor is carried together with extruder. I decided to do this in order to remove one energetic chain and make structure as simple as possible (despite higher weight in Y direction, but technique is about compromises).
I have printed several days without any failure, so I hope the design will be reliable. Nevertheless need to be tested longer.

Very interesting design! Congratulations!

It looks like it's producing some high quality prints. What are the speed, acceleration, and jerk settings?

Very nice!

How do you heat up the build chamber?

Hello, sorry for no answering long time.
There are only heatbed, extruder and stepper motors as source of heat.
Inner air temperature depends mostly on heatbed temperature and thermal isolation effectiveness.
When heatbed is 80, air temperature is approx. 45.
Now I use heatbed 95, air temperature is about 50, one inch from the heatbed temperature is 55.
I am printing ABS only, extruder has no problem.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2015 05:16PM by Honza.

hello, I don't play with jerk, acceleration and speed much, it has no significant effect. I use some average values:
acceleration X,Y: 1000
jerk: 20
speed: 60
perimeters: 40
external perimeters: 20
I tried speed multiplicator from 150 to 200% sometimes, it works for smaller parts, but there is big danger of skipping steps for bigger parts.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2015 05:41PM by Honza.

hiiii
i have also designed my own 3d printer i wanted to add some features like online printing and 2d to 3d using xbox 360scanner suggest me something new feature so i can implement this feature into that ...



please help me guys
thanks in advance