20x20 aluminium tubing frame

Hello!

I’ve been lurking for a year or so and thought I should finally contribute something.

Short story, TLDR at bottom. I built a Prusa/Mendel style scraprap to be able to print parts for a coreXY. But where I live, in the northern parts of Scandinavia, T-slot is rather expensive. So; I looked around for alternatives. 20x20 square aluminium tubing seemed like an alternative since a printer based on 20x20 t-slot could be adapted to square tubing. I came across this design; [www.thingiverse.com] I liked the use of square tubing but few other features.

Filipe Campos design on the other hand I liked very much! [www.thingiverse.com] and [forums.reprap.org] (thank you for sharing your work!). So, I decided to build a mix based on the Wild River frame concept and most other parts from Filipes design. I made some modifications like increased height to fit ATX power supply and filament inside the printers frame. To get structural rigidity I boxed the frame with riveted aluminium sheet metal. The printed corners and angles mainly serve as help in getting things square and keeping them in place until the sheet metal is fastened.

At the moment it’s not quite done, I have to reassemble, etc but the frame is finished and turned out alright. The frame cost me about 40€ (15€ for 6 m alu tubing, sheet alu was free, 15€ for rivets, 5€ for the baseplate (IKEA kitchen door out of painted MDF), and ~5€ for some self taping sheet metal screws). In the end I think it turned out alright, it’s sturdy and I like the riveted look

However, I wouldn’t recommend this construction since it was rather time consuming, doesn’t give any real advantages except cost (not that much) and doesn’t allow for adjustments of parts so easily (compared to t-slot).

TLDR; I built a frame that I haven’t seen before in this community. It’s not worth the trouble IMHO, go with t-slot.

Pictures of the frame before and after sheet aluminium. Allso pic of the scraprap.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2018 04:23PM by DLF.

The scraprap made me smile. So heartwarming oldskool

Why did you use rivets for the sheets? I'd have used acrylic or silicone glue. That would have probably been less noisy and easier to remove.

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o_lampe
The scraprap made me smile. So heartwarming oldskool

Why did you use rivets for the sheets? I'd have used acrylic or silicone glue. That would have probably been less noisy and easier to remove.

Aluminum sheets plus epoxy plus rivets to make a box, hard to beat in term of lightness, rigidity and ease of mfg !
As for the noise, it has to be taken care at the source

Acrylic ? Silicone glue ? Fine for fish tank .

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2018 07:37AM by MKSA.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

Glad you like it! With todays cheap chinese printers scrapraps are few and far between. But still a lot of fun and a good learning experience

I’m with MKSA on this one. Allso, the plan is to never remove the alu. I can disassemble to printer without doing so if needed. How big of an issue the noise is remains to be seen. I tested the printer before adding sheet alu. It will be interesting to see the difference

You could have made a crisscross in your sheets to avoid resonance, but its too late now.
There are selfadhesive rubber-like dampers you can put on the inside of the sheets. ( Just in case your neighbours form a mob in front of your door )

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2018 03:17AM by o_lampe.

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DLF
Glad you like it! With todays cheap chinese printers scrapraps are few and far between. But still a lot of fun and a good learning experience

I’m with MKSA on this one. Allso, the plan is to never remove the alu. I can disassemble to printer without doing so if needed. How big of an issue the noise is remains to be seen. I tested the printer before adding sheet alu. It will be interesting to see the difference

Al sheets are not that noisy !
Anyway, fight the noise at the source, makes a better machine too. Most of the nerve wrecking noise is due to crappy chinese bearings ! Got rid of all of them and made my own with Igus filament.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

The criss cross would have been nice! Too bad I didn’t think of that!

I’ll see how the noise-level turns out. If it’s to bothersome I’ll probably do a combination: sound dampening and trying to quiet the machine itself. Soon I’ll be moving to a house outside of the city so hopefully the neighbours wont be affected. My wife may however still have things to say in the matter

How does the Igus filament compare costvise to buying Igus bearings?

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DLF
The criss cross would have been nice! Too bad I didn’t think of that!

I’ll see how the noise-level turns out. If it’s to bothersome I’ll probably do a combination: sound dampening and trying to quiet the machine itself. Soon I’ll be moving to a house outside of the city so hopefully the neighbours wont be affected. My wife may however still have things to say in the matter

How does the Igus filament compare costvise to buying Igus bearings?

Just look for how much you can get Igus filament, its cost/weight and compare to Igus bearings cost/weight !
ANyway, when you make your own you can make them a lot smaller, of any size, shape and well integrated, adjusted in the parts.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

Definitly something to consider for the future! Upgrades are half the fun

It’s up and running now. It has a more metallic tone but I can’t say it’s noticably louder. Will try higher speeds and see how that effects sound level.