A Dutch Morgan

[DragoslaV]

I thought about sharing some pictures and progress, sadly I am missing a alot of pictures because the last thing I think about is taking them pictures….

I have used aluminium pipes rather than messing, I could get them very cheap and already cut at the right length.

Making sure the drill holes are absolute perfect:

Support shaft using 2 pivot nuts:

Now comes a big leap into the progress, I missed all steps like: laying vinyl, assembly, etc.

But well here we go:

It contains a ‘hood’ which you can open to get to the electronics:

The RAMPS 1.4 is attached to the ‘hood’ plate and moves up. On the other side are 4 attachments for my ATX power supply, The RAMPS will be directly under the PSU for optimal cooling:

Progress sofar:
Everything was assembled, but I had some problems with unstable Z-axis. I noticed that 8mm aluminium rods wouldn’t do the job so I now am waiting for some real 8mm shafts..

Also I didn’t had a good solid stiff build plate, I am also waiting for a 6mm MDF cutout.

I also drilled a 5mm hole, straight through both sets of PVC pipes and attached each set with a 5mm bolt, I hope this gives some constructional support in combination with the new stiff shafts.

[DragoslaV]

Yesterday I soldered 2 new drivers, 2 new stiff rods and attached the new build plate. It seems this last two made it stiff enough.

I also made a modular extruder and spool with an 4-pin XLR-connector for stepper motor. I did use the Airtripper extruder (direct drive) so I had to calibrate my e-steps with:

new_e_steps = old_e_steps * (100 / distance_actually_moved)

Once 10mm in e-steps was 10mm on my vernier I was ready for a test print. But that didn’t went that well, the flow of PLA is inconsistent and the PLA tends to curl up all the time and tries to print on the nozzle rather than on the build surface…..

Any tips?

[Quentin Harley]

Make sure your bed is degreased… Wipe it down with ethanol or acetone. The Kapton is already smooth, and we are heating it up already to get the platic to stick to it. It needs no excuse to fall off – Don’t give it any.

Also, check that the first layer is correct. Take some of it that stuck and measure with a vernier. You may need to adjust your Z offset

[DragoslaV]

I been playing the whole weekend with different tapes, acetone and the Z-offset but I think I have more a problem with the flow of PLA, at one moment it is making swirly PLA and on other parts its coming out in a fluent flow, see my first result:

[Quentin Harley]

Are you using slic3r?

[DragoslaV]

Yes sir, with your settings. I’m pretty sure I have set the right nozzle diameter and filament diameter.

[Quentin Harley]

Which version? I am having trouble with quality at the moment… Waiting for stuff to get fixed.

I cannot remember where it started to go wrong. I am using Cura for the interim, and it looks lime they finally got it working properly at least.

I will post some Cura settings later today.

[DragoslaV]

I am using 1.1.1-dev. Cura is also an awesome program and easier to us, I am going to give that a try tomorrow.

But I still got to figure out why the flow of PLA is fluctuating.

I just thought about checking the temperature of my nozzle, maybe its cooling down to much so that it blocks the flow of PLA.

[Quentin Harley]

I had issues with low inflow fill in slic3r and gave cura another try (did not work for me on a previous try)

Works very nicely now, until slic3r is sorted out. I still like the level of control you have with slic3r

[DragoslaV]

After reading this page http://reprap.org/wiki/Mendel_User_Manual:_Extruder

I decided first to clean the nozzle as mentioned. I am also waiting for an all metal J-head I found for relative cheap. It also has a detachable nozzle, which I thought would be easy in use and easier to replace.

After that I will reassemble it and monitor the temperature a bit more closely. I did verify that I used the right components and configured them correctly in Marlin.

I’ll keep it posted.

[DragoslaV]

Ahh I see, maybe that did contribute to my problem.. Well I guess it didn’t hurt that I cleaned my nozzle already. 😀

[Quentin Harley]

I had a batch of j-heads, 0.4mm 1.75 filament that I had to drill out to 0.4 – they were somehow blocked from the factory… After that they are working excellently. As long as you don’t make the nozzle rough on the inside, cleaning is never a bad thing.

[DragoslaV]

Thanks for the tip, I am going to get myself a drill of that diameter, I think it might have been blocked too.

I’ll be back soon with an update.

[DragoslaV]

After boring the .4mm hole, she now prints a bit better! 😀 I also used Cura but I couldn’t define a z-offset there I had to play around with the configuration again.

But I got my first print done 😀

I still got some issue’s to figure out but I’m getting closer and closer.

[Quentin Harley]

Perhaps I should include that step in the setup instructions…

[DragoslaV]

Yeah, that might be useful info, also a note on the calibration of the E-steps if a different setup is used, might be useful too.

A good google search would reveal this too ofcourse.

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