Ormerod 1 maintenance - couple of questions

Ive had the Ormerod 1 for 3 years now and I use it a lot. Its been repaired when needed, but now I am thinking about doing a total and complete overhaul on it.

Couple of questions:

Stepper motors - whats their life expectancy? Do I go and get myself a set of spare ones about now?

Bearings - Are the due for a change? Three years of work must have worn them out somewhat. The printer does sound a bit "metalish" when the hot head is moving about.

Belts - look good for now, but a spare one wouldnt hurt I guess.

Thermistor - I messed up the connector on the thermistor on the day I assembled the kit. The wires are so light and tiny, and I ended just connecting wires directly one to another. Also, cant find the right thermistor in my country (Thermistor, NTC, 10 kohm, B57863S Series, 3988 K), will any other 10k thermistor work? I found others with marks 3435, 3950 etc.. Example 1 Example 2

Z rod - did anyone made the change to T8 lead screw? Ive been doing a lot of research on that, there are a couple of new parts to be printed... so any first hand advice comes handy

Thats all for now.
Looking forward to hearing your experiences on this.

Regards,
Antonio

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Sardi
Stepper motors - whats their life expectancy? Do I go and get myself a set of spare ones about now?

Will last forever, OK, the bearings could wear out after 20.000 working hours or so..:-)

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Bearings - Are the due for a change? Three years of work must have worn them out somewhat. The printer does sound a bit "metalish" when the hot head is moving about.

Linear bearing will also last for a very long time if kept clean inside and that is only so if you keep the smooth rod well oiled all the time, if not, the seals will become hard and wear out, will no longer contain the oil and grit will get inside

But if the seals are OK I would recommend you clean and re-lubricate them from time to time, here's how I do it:

Put the bearing in a small container, ad solvent (I use heptane), put on lid and shake:



Blow with high pressure air until dry, use the air to slowly circulate the balls, repeat with new solvent until it comes out clean, the idea is to get the old oil and grit out



Oil lightly, don't overdo it, and let the bearings stand on end for a moment to drip of excessive oil:

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Belts - look good for now, but a spare one wouldnt hurt I guess.

I don't change the belts but always keep a spare roll

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Thermistor - I messed up the connector on the thermistor on the day I assembled the kit. The wires are so light and tiny, and I ended just connecting wires directly one to another. Also, cant find the right thermistor in my country (Thermistor, NTC, 10 kohm, B57863S Series, 3988 K), will any other 10k thermistor work? I found others with marks 3435, 3950 etc.. Example 1 Example 2

Dunno but maybe it do not matter much if you are using dc42's latest firmware where he have added a auto tune PID something-something

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Z rod - did anyone made the change to T8 lead screw? Ive been doing a lot of research on that, there are a couple of new parts to be printed... so any first hand advice comes handy

Yes there are threads about that but not worth it IMHO, a lightly oiled 5mm stainless threaded rod and long brass nut will last forever



BTW, another important thing to do is to tighten all connections, esp. the high current ones!

Erik

Hi Erik, thanks for the elaborate explanation regarding the cleaning of bearings

However, you did not make me happy with that "the bearings could wear out after 20.000 working hours or so.. " .. Ive had this printer for 3 years, and thats about 26000 hrs, and of course the printer wasnt on 24/7, but I think Im just gonna replace the bearings as long as Im taking everyting apart

Thermistor - Im gonna check with DC42 directly as I am using his firmware.

Z rod - I have that long brass nut on the z rod, but I must say it does look much more sturdy to have one, in diameter bigger rod there. Also wouldnt hurt to have a direct transmision, instead of a double gear drive like it is now.

There is no way that 3 years of use would bring you anywhere close to 20000 hrs operating time. Four hours per day (average) would be *extremely* heavy use for a home printer (that's one quite large print every single day, you'd be spending a fortune on filament), and even at that usage rate it would take over 13 years to reach 20000 hours. I consider my use to be pretty heavy but I doubt that it amounts to as much as 400 hours per year. How many days per week do you usually use the printer, and how long does your average print take?

Dave

400 hrs a year printing? Tbh thats nothing to me. For the last 3 weeks Ive been doing about 8hrs a day of printing. Prints are not big, I do printed texts at the time, a lot of curves, so max speeds of about 30mms, so they take about 45min to 60mins, depending on the file.
Filament is not that expensive though, in my town I can get a roll of 1kg for 20-23 euros.

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Sardi
Z rod - I have that long brass nut on the z rod, but I must say it does look much more sturdy to have one, in diameter bigger rod there. Also wouldnt hurt to have a direct transmision, instead of a double gear drive like it is now.

Direct drive with the stepper in the original position will not make it possible to mount a bigger diameter rod, it will not clear the smooth rod, so you will have to re-position the stepper -Y (and maybe -X too, to get full use of the bed)

Erik

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Sardi
Thermistor - I messed up the connector on the thermistor on the day I assembled the kit. The wires are so light and tiny, and I ended just connecting wires directly one to another. Also, cant find the right thermistor in my country (Thermistor, NTC, 10 kohm, B57863S Series, 3988 K), will any other 10k thermistor work? I found others with marks 3435, 3950 etc.. Example 1 Example 2

For the bed, either of those thermistors will do. I would choose the first one. You just need to put the resistance at 25C and the B value (preferably B25/85 or thereabouts) into the M305 P0 command in config.g.

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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].

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dc42

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Sardi
Thermistor - I messed up the connector on the thermistor on the day I assembled the kit. The wires are so light and tiny, and I ended just connecting wires directly one to another. Also, cant find the right thermistor in my country (Thermistor, NTC, 10 kohm, B57863S Series, 3988 K), will any other 10k thermistor work? I found others with marks 3435, 3950 etc.. Example 1 Example 2

For the bed, either of those thermistors will do. I would choose the first one. You just need to put the resistance at 25C and the B value (preferably B25/85 or thereabouts) into the M305 P0 command in config.g.

DC, As long as we are on the subject, I will order the thermistors soon, so can you please tell me what exactly needs to be changed and what remains the same. I am really not good at changing values in config.g (read: got minimum idea whats what over there).
My current settings are:

M305 P0 H18.2 L-14 ; set ADC correction
M305 P1 H18.2 L-14 ; set ADC correction

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Sardi

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dc42

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Sardi
Thermistor - I messed up the connector on the thermistor on the day I assembled the kit. The wires are so light and tiny, and I ended just connecting wires directly one to another. Also, cant find the right thermistor in my country (Thermistor, NTC, 10 kohm, B57863S Series, 3988 K), will any other 10k thermistor work? I found others with marks 3435, 3950 etc.. Example 1 Example 2

For the bed, either of those thermistors will do. I would choose the first one. You just need to put the resistance at 25C and the B value (preferably B25/85 or thereabouts) into the M305 P0 command in config.g.

DC, As long as we are on the subject, I will order the thermistors soon, so can you please tell me what exactly needs to be changed and what remains the same. I am really not good at changing values in config.g (read: got minimum idea whats what over there).
My current settings are:

M305 P0 H18.2 L-14 ; set ADC correction
M305 P1 H18.2 L-14 ; set ADC correction

Assuming that the H and L parameters were correct for your Duet, change the M305 P0 command to:

M305 P0 T10000 B3990 H18.2 L-14

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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].

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dc42

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Sardi

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dc42
For the bed, either of those thermistors will do. I would choose the first one. You just need to put the resistance at 25C and the B value (preferably B25/85 or thereabouts) into the M305 P0 command in config.g.

DC, As long as we are on the subject, I will order the thermistors soon, so can you please tell me what exactly needs to be changed and what remains the same. I am really not good at changing values in config.g (read: got minimum idea whats what over there).
My current settings are:

M305 P0 H18.2 L-14 ; set ADC correction
M305 P1 H18.2 L-14 ; set ADC correction

Assuming that the H and L parameters were correct for your Duet, change the M305 P0 command to:

M305 P0 T10000 B3990 H18.2 L-14

Thank you for that Dave, I will write it down.

Regarding H and L values, I dont remember ever changing those paramteres. If I did, it was maybe when I changed firmware (if it was needed, if it wasnt then those are the original values for H and L parameters), currently Im on yours 1.09r, but that will be upgraded along with the printer parts in about 3 weeks time.

I tend to not touch the config.g values unless I ask someone and get an explanation, or else I will end up changing something and not knowing what I did wrong.

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Sardi
400 hrs a year printing? Tbh thats nothing to me. For the last 3 weeks Ive been doing about 8hrs a day of printing. Prints are not big, I do printed texts at the time, a lot of curves, so max speeds of about 30mms, so they take about 45min to 60mins, depending on the file.
Filament is not that expensive though, in my town I can get a roll of 1kg for 20-23 euros.

I might have periods of a couple of weeks of intensive use when I am working on a sizable project (8 hours of continuous printing would be exceptional, but it might average 5 hours a day), but the printer will then only see occasional use for the following several weeks. 8 hours every day amounts to pretty heavy commercial use - none of the CNC machines in my factory are routinely working 56 hours per week (and couldn't be unless I were to double-shift) - but even then it would take nearly 7 years to reach 20000 hours.

If you used your car 8 hours a day, it would translate into about 90000 miles a year, and you wouldn't expect it to last 7 years!

Dave

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2017 07:43AM by dmould.

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dmould
I might have periods of a couple of weeks of intensive use when I am working on a sizable project (8 hours of continuous printing would be exceptional, but it might average 5 hours a day), but the printer will then only see occasional use for the following several weeks. 8 hours every day amounts to pretty heavy commercial use - none of the CNC machines in my factory are routinely working 56 hours per week (and couldn't be unless I were to double-shift) - but even then it would take nearly 7 years to reach 20000 hours.

If you used your car 8 hours a day, it would translate into about 90000 miles a year, and you wouldn't expect it to last 7 years!

Dave

All I can say is that I had a couple of moments when the printer would work for 4 days non stop (only time it would stop would be to remove whats printed, and start the new print). I dont see anything wrong about that, the printer is well maintained and repaired (when needed) and its very reliable in terms of speed, print quality etc. Maybe im not even close to 20000 hrs on it (my math was always bad) but when I do use my printer, it prints approx 8-9 hrs a day for a long period of time.

I guess we can say that I pretty heavy use my machine, after all, thats why I bought it

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Sardi

Thermistor - I messed up the connector on the thermistor on the day I assembled the kit. The wires are so light and tiny, and I ended just connecting wires directly one to another. Also, cant find the right thermistor in my country (Thermistor, NTC, 10 kohm, B57863S Series, 3988 K), will any other 10k thermistor work? I found others with marks 3435, 3950 etc.. Example 1 Example 2

Sardi, I'm using a 100K thermistor on my bed because it's all I could find. You just need to set the values for it in your config.g file