Building a morgan!

[Quentin Harley]

You are building a RepRap Morgan… And you would like to brag, or plead for assistance. This is the place to do it!

[L Steyn]

Hi Quintin
I am starting my own Morgan build and I am very excited to build my own 3D printer. I was wondering where I could get a set of printed parts. I live in the Pretoria area.
Thanks a lot
Luan

[RobertKuhlmann]

Hi Quentin,

the printed parts for my Morgan have arrived today. The vitamins are here already and I only need to some hardware to be complete.

But there is one part of the BOM that still misses. You’ve called it “15mm pipe holders”, two of which are needed.

Do you have them as an STL already (You’ll need them to ship the kits I guess 😉 )

Best regards
Robert

[Quentin Harley]

I have added the pipe clamps to the git repository. If not in master, it should be in the experimental ‘lite’ branch.

[Quentin Harley]

Luan, I will contact you via PM or email.

[Cornel]

Hi Quentin,

I am also starting my Morgan build soon! Still collecting all the parts & hardware. Please can you tell me where i can get a complete set of printed parts?

Regards

Thanks
Cornel

[Crioca]

Hi Quentin,

I’ve been thinking about building a reprap for a while and the Morgan looks perfect, but I’m worried that it may be more difficult for a new player than a Prusa Mendel because there’s not as much supporting documentation.

Is there any chance of how-to targeted towards the entry level? Or do you think I’d be able to puzzle it out using the documentation around repraps?

thanks,

[Quentin Harley]

I am working on just such a build instruction. Halfway done.

[Crioca]

Brilliant, looking forward to it!

[Steve]

Looks like there are finally some printed parts on eBay.

[L Steyn]

Is there a specific reason for the two 200 steps/rev an two 400 steps/rev stepper motors on the BOM other than cost? If I can get 400s for the same price as 200s, should I buy four 400s instead?

[Quentin Harley]

Main reasons are Cost and availability. When I build my first machines nobody thought about using 400 because 200 is good enough. People are now bringing in 400 in limited quantities, but if you get it at the same price, it should be fine, especially for the Z-axis that is quite quick at the moment after the drill bit lead screw update.

[jade39339]

Hi again,

I noticed in the BOM that you have omited the GT2 Belt and Pulley, is that on purpose or just an omission? Also, wondering which one should be used?

Mike

[Quentin Harley]

It is a omission. This has been fixed in the working document, but I will have to update the PDF.

I use T2.5, and the smallest pulley I could get, but GT2 would work fine as well. The actual size is not critical, but get the smallest you can get to optimise the drive ratio.
Everything gets set up in initial calibration.

[jesse]

I use T2.5, and the smallest pulley I could get, but GT2 would work fine as well. The actual size is not critical, but get the smallest you can get to optimise the drive ratio.
Everything gets set up in initial calibration.

How long does the T2.5 / GT2 belt length need to be?

[Quentin Harley]

If you get a meter, you should have enough for both the drive wheels.

[Steve]

Hey Quentin – just an FYI, got my parts tonight. Got a few more motors to order, but then I’ll need those instructions.

[jesse]

Two stepper pulleys are needed, right?

[Quentin Harley]

Two stepper pulleys are needed, right?

At this moment, yes.

[Crioca]

I am working on just such a build instruction. Halfway done.

If you want someone to proof-read it for you, I’d be happy too. Reviewing technical documentation is part of my job.

[jade39339]

I’m guessing by the X/Y gear sizes, I’d say roughly a meter of GT2 belt, 2mm pitch, 6mm wide. Cut the belt into 2 even strips and tuck the rest inside the gears as he has pictured. I found a source for a GT2 16 tooth pully here (https://www.lulzbot.com).

The question I have is how the lead screw is turned?

[Quentin Harley]

The lead screw is turned by the motor sticking out on the top platform. It is the only way currently, because the drive wheels are in the way. If you cover the drive wheels, you could mount the motor at the bottom, but I am playing with an idea that will take all the motors except the extruder drive to the bottom plate.

If you were referring to how the lead screw was made, you will have to ask Alpen… it is a SDS masonry drill bit that I used. You might not find the same one I used, so it might be better to go with 8mm or equivalent ACME lead screw. I am allergic to threaded rod as a lead screw…

[jade39339]

Thanks Quentin, sorry to be so thick headed. I guess my next question is how is the lead screw connected to the motor? Is it done my pully or gears?

It sounds like its done by gears, but I don’t see anything in the BOM that would indicate what kind of gear would get attached to the lead screw.

Am I missing something?

[jade39339]

Nevermind Quentin, I re-read the assembly instructions and you state clearly to…

Install the Z lead screw motor coupler piece onto the lead screw, using two M3 bolts and nuts. Insert the M3 captive nuts into the coupler, and install the M3 grub screws.

:0

[ZS6HDV]

Hi Quentin

The parts link on the site opens up to show a photo of the parts and price but no place to actually place an order with shipping and payment options?

Can I pay via the donation button? I was thinking a hundred dollars should buy me a set of printed parts and you a roll of filament 🙂

Then I can arrange to collect it once it is printed in the new year (currently we are still on holiday at the coast).

Hein

[ZS6HDV]

OK, the Witbank (South Africa) Morgan build is under way (or at least, some of the parts are on their way).

I have also decided to create a simple build blog, for anybody interested. More aimed at the novice new to RepRap. Photos will be uploaded and occasionally cross-posted here.

See http://reprapramblings.blogspot.com if you’re interested.

Thanks
Hein

[Quentin Harley]

Thanks!

[ZS6HDV]

Quentin

I have spent a significant part of today looking for an 8mm SDS drill bit in 450/400 mm length (four Builders Warehouse branches, three Micas including Mega Mica Eastgate, Cashbuild, Builders Express and various other hardware stores), and nobody seems to stock the long 8mm bit (I can find 8mm in 310/250 length and 10mm in 450/400 length).

Can you tell me where you purchased the drill bit, I drive to Jhb at least once a week and going to a specific store is not TOO much of a problem for me?

Thanks
Hein

[RobertKuhlmann]

Quentin’s printed leadsrew is designed for an Alpen drill. I don’t think it will work with a drill bit from a different manufacturer.
You may use a standard trapezoid thread for the z-axis as a replacement. And two screws for that thread with a spring against backlash between them.

[ZS6HDV]

Hi Robert, thanks for the input. That will be the backup plan, but I’m not ready to give up yet. If I know where Quentin bought his bit, it is no problem for me to drive past the shop and collect one. It is but a small detour for me as I drive that way once a week for work purposes. I live approximately 120km from where Quentin is based.

As a matter of interest, what is the z-axis resolution for the threaded screw and drill bit options? I have not seen any figures, but have not really searched for it either.

Hein

[ZS6HDV]

Answering my own question – I see in the calibration guide that there are slic3r options LQ MQ and HQ for 0.4, 0.2 and 0.1mm respectively.

I figured about as much, as the Alpen drill bit has a twist of around 30 to 40mm, and 400 steps per revolution should give you around 0.1mm (not measured, estimated by eye).

[Quentin Harley]

Yes, except that you forgot the 16 to 32 uStepping of the motors. This effectively gives you much smaller step sizes, needed for bed tracking at HQ 0.1mm layer hights

[ZS6HDV]

I have found the Alpen drill bit – on my doorstep. Timber City Witbank stocks the long length of the 8mm bit.

Hein

[Quentin Harley]

Your progress is very impressive!

When done, I will come and visit you to chat about the build. Perhaps you could help me make the set-up instructions a bit more friendly to first time builders.

Cheers,
Q

[ZS6HDV]

Hi Quentin

Thanks. I’m going to have to talk to you, I’m not having success with the calibration. Full description on my blog, but the short version is – I follow the calibration procedure, at the end the printer thinks 0,0 is VERY close to the drive shaft (actually jamming against the pipe), and I cannot convince the firmware to accept a given coordinate after manually positioning the head (using the G92 command to force coordinates).

Hein

[ZS6HDV]

Update: looks like it fixed itself! Makes me worry.

I reversed the wiring order of the arm stepper motors (from posts on this forum), as expected everything then worked in reverse. After changing the wiring back, it calibrates! I suspect I had a bad connection on one stepper before – that might have caused the X and Y resolutions to differ.

Anyways, movement is now sorted. The extruder drive gear is not working as it should, I will re-make that.

Hein

[Quentin Harley]

Skynet… coming to an inconspicuous 3D printer near you…

[Quentin Harley]

The drive gear has an OD of 10mm. Drilled out to 3.5mm and tapped to M4

[ZS6HDV]

I started with a threaded M10 brass bolt. Drilled it out, tapped it cut it to length, but by this time the threads were flattened from gripping it in the bench vise, and then I cut slots across the threads with a Dremel disc. The OD is too small so the gear doesn’t grip enough (clearance to idler bearing too big).

Hein

[Quentin Harley]

Ok… Start with M12 bolt. Do the drilling and cutting to size, and with a file work down die diameter to 10mm before cutting with the dremel disk.

Otherwise, look at some of the hobbing tools on the web to fashion your own, and tap it with an M6 tap. You can do it while holding the drilling machine by hand.

This weekend I am going to make a couple of Morgan drive wheels… Real ones…
😉

[Quentin Harley]

Working better?

[ZS6HDV]

The new brass drive gear seems to works well. The little stepper motor gear is no longer with us. You gave me two (a white one and a black one), the white one seems larger and does not fit (the larger inside-teeth gear does not fit around the small gear). The smaller one, which fit, broke two teeth.

I will need a new small gear or two, and preferably another extruder body as well (I cracked the current one although that does not stop it from being usable.

How can I get those from you most quickly?

[Quentin Harley]

We can make a plan.

In the mean time you can try to fit the larger gear by loosening the motor screws and pushing the motor towards the inside before tightening.

I am also going to print the small gears a bit differently in order to make them stronger.

[ZS6HDV]

After visiting House4Hack yesterday and collecting new extruder bits from Quentin, my Morgan is printing!

There are still fine calibration issues to be sorted out, but I have printed small gears, one of which actually works in the extruder.

Hein

[Quentin Harley]

I left a comment on your blog. It May be worthwhile to drill out the motor mount holes to 3mm in order to give the gear a bit more breathing space. If not enough, you can go to 3.5mm

[ZS6HDV]

Hi Quentin

Got your message, did it when I got home from work. It works well now, the gears were a tight fit.

Currently I am printing calibration prints (thin wall boxes), I am down 25 percent on extruder multiplier, and still printing better and better.

Hein

[ZS6HDV]

Hi Quentin

I have switched to operating under Linux, and I am using Slic3r 0.9.10b. I get a complaint that the small extruder gear has a hole that is “not manifold”. Slic3r (not sure which version) under Windows sliced the same file no problem.

I have tried to fix the stl under Meshlab, the error (position) changes, but Slic3r still complains. I have uploaded and retrieved the fixed stl under Netfabb’s cloud service, and it seems to slice properly now.

Any idea what causes this problem? Have you experienced something similar?

Hein

[Quentin Harley]

Hi Hein,

It is better to be a bit more adventurous with slic3r…

Get the Git version, and compile it yourself.
I am on the master branch, and recently it has been behaving very nicely. It can even fix broken stl files.

I will export the small gear again. There may be some small problems in the SCAD model causing the issues.

… printing more small gears?

[ZS6HDV]

I have quite a collection of small gears now, none quite perfect. I’m playing with settings to try and get the ultimate gear. The one I installed after loosening the motor mounts is still soldiering on, and I’ve put a few meters of filament through the extruder already.

Feel free to share your settings for a solid, small gear.

[Quentin Harley]

What is your nozzle size?

If 0.5, use a nozzle size in Slic3r of 0.4,
and set the infill to 1, and rectilinear.

If 0.4, set it to 0.35

This trick fools Slic3r into creating thinner perimeters, and gives it a better chance to actually fill the small gear areas.

[cn]

I’ve added a subtle reminder of which aXis the tube wheel θperates:

n.b. this is in addition to colour coordinating my parts

[Quentin Harley]

Cool looking Theta wheel!

[pyro139]

hello, haveing problems navigatting your site.
is there a resource that lists all the components i need to build a morgan, includding what motors and electronics i need?

[Quentin Harley]

Hi pyro139,
Have you looked at the BOM on the Morgan assembly page? On that page you will also find a link to the reprapmagazine that features a step by step graphical assemby instruction of the classic Morgan.

Let me know if this helps.
Quentin

[Quentin Harley]

Here is a link…
Assembly Guide

[pyro139]

i ended up finding the make magazine after i posted.
but now curious is electronics same for pro and mega?
do you have option for me buy printed parts? and if yes how about the mega? I’m in toronto, canada.

[pyro139]

also i noticed that on mega you using what looks like a e3d-v6
any one try using e3d chimera or even the kraken 4 head liquid cool extruder?

[pyro139]

another question, does arduino have be the mega or can it be any arduino with the mega chip, like uno v3?

[pyro139]

or do i need an actual rep rap board like this

[Quentin Harley]

No, it does not. In fact, I recently moved to using the smoothieboard. It is a 32bit arm coretex m3 based board.

If you possibly can, try to get a smoothieware compatible board.

[Quentin Harley]

I would recommend a nozzle with a single point to make the math work out. Chimera would be an option – just make sure you understand the caveat of that hotend – you cannot ever run it without filament in all its feeding tubes.

[pyro139]

sorry so many questions, this will be my first printer, and my first electronics in over 20 years, so i’m a little out of date.
would this kit If i used a mega be suited for all my electronics including the motor drivers?

[arnob7]

Hi Quentin,

I am starting to build a morgan this week, I am from France, and I think I will have some questions about the build process.

Here is almost all printed parts

[Quentin Harley]

@pyro139 Yes, it will work, but know that the RAMPS electronics does not have quite the processing power Smoothie has, and the firmware might be a little old.

Another builder here actually managed to get his Morgan running on RAMPS with the latest Marlin. I will ask him for this.

[Quentin Harley]

@arnob7 Welcome to Morgan. Looks like you are well on your way to build yours! Always makes me smile when I see a freshly printed set of Morgan parts 😉

[pyro139]

Curiosity any one build a morgan using raspberry pi? I have those laying around the house

[pyro139]

also whats height from bottom oflegs to counter top
cause i’ll be building custom structure to intergrate printer into my work table will be using a structure like this, with whole in middle for printer bed, and doors on front to retrieve prints

[pyro139]

k was just looking at the smoothie website, am i reading this right? is the stepper drivers built right in?
does that mean if i use a smothie my electronics is a smothie, 4 motors, j-head, and my old power supply with some wires? k smothie cost more but the simplicity makes it worth it.

[pyro139]

Forgot and 3 end stops

[pyro139]

that smoothie board is nice just reading up on it, theoretically if have strong anough arms, could use swapable tools to switch between 3d and light wait cnc.

[pyro139]

also what would cost be for aluminum pro or mega minus electronics with shipping to Toronto Canada?

[pyro139]

never mind price on mega, i found an article online on what that cost.
But is the 3d files available for mega? and is electronics same?
if i build a morgan i can use it to print a mega.

[Quentin Harley]

Hi Pyro,

I should really spend more time here I see.

Mega is basically a scaled up Morgan Pro. The source for it is not available yet since it is a commercial product now, and will be released at a later stage in the same way Ultimaker releases the plans after a certain time.

The current Mega is lasercut – it will be hard to print the large pieces required. The arms are 280mm from center to center, and the drive wheels are scaled to match.

Mega is an impressive machine, but I would say not a prime candidate for a first build.

[Ron]

Hello,
I have built the morgan, I’m having a problem, when I send the home command it works when I send a command to go to 0,0 it crashes into it’s self. If I reverse the y axis motor leads and manually set home position and then send 0,0 it works but when I send to home the y axis goes in the wrong direction. I’ve set different settings in marlin firmware with no luck.

[ZS6HDV]

Just a quick update on my progress:

I picked up the printed parts from Quentin on Saturday, and spent most of my free hours since assembling the printer.

Status at the moment – I should be finishing up the wiring tonight and start testing movement, homing etc. The extruder is still completely missing (need some extra vitamins).

As it stands:

A more complete build record is posted at http://reprapramblings.blogspot.com

Regards
Hein

[ZS6HDV]

Note to self: friends with lathes occasionally have offcuts of half inch brass rod in their junk bin…

Drive gear:

[Author]

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