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Having paused for several months I’ve got my Morgan almost finished and running. Last show stoper at the moment: The hotend that I’ve selected doesn’t work at all. I’ve ordered a new one and hope to get it within an few days.
Calibration took a while but was very successful at last. What I can see from my first printing trials (leaving at least some marks on my building platform; just enough for measurement) it’s very accurate in two dimensions at least (need a working hotend to test the Z-accuracy of course).
Becoming more familiar with Morgan’s firmware over the time I’m confident that I’ll be able to print on the additional space my oversized building platform has to offer:
It was a bit tricky but I’ve managed to place all components behind the rod wheels on the platform. The Arduino incl. shields resides under the wheels. So except the big platform it’s a very compact and easy to transport. The power supply is cooling the electronics.
Heating up the big building platform lasts a while (app. 5 minutes), so I will have to rethink its wiring. The first prototype doesn’t look very professional, because I improvised the montage of the heat-wire on the aluminum. The next try will look better and I’ll post pictures of that too.
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It doesn’t seem to get hot enough and loses its working temperature very soon (even without using the fan). I’ll give it a try with a bigger heater barrel I’ve ordered a different hotend as well:
It’s small and lightweight. Looks promising to me.The Morgan’s arms are relatively high above the top platform, so I’m able to use several kinds of hotends.
I can adjust the height of the building platform in a range of several centimeters. -
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It looks nice, but there is a problem…
The nozzle is not centred to the shaft, and will cause offset in the maths. If you use it you will have to make sure that the distance from the elbow to the nozzle tip is exactly 150mm, which means turning the nozzle to the one side. This will make adjusting the 90 degree position tricky, since the angle will be offset.
You may have to modify the tool-head to use this nozzle in the end.
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Hello Quentin,
my big bed is heated of course. I made a bed of nails and created a copper-wire-mesh with it. But I have to modify the wiring, because I need more power to heat it up more quickly. And I will give Pyralux a try (Pyralux is Kapton with a copper layer on it – can be etched like a PCB). Pyralux may be an option for standard heated building platforms as well. I’ll receive several examples for testing in the next days.
I’m using a modified toolhead anyway (with integrated fan) and will place the new hotend in the optimum position.
That one can be used to print even with PC at above 300° C, but needs a different thermistor for that. But I’ll try ABS and PLA first. I’ve modified my existing hotend meanwhile, because I’m still waiting for the new hotend to arrive. -
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Good news.
The big building platform performs very well. An insulated copper wire with 0,56 mm diameter copper, 0.62 mm total diameter and a length of app. 41 m, divided in two halfs of 20.5m each (connected in parallel), giving a complete-resistance of app. 1.1 Ohm heats up from 21° C to 60° C in less than 6 minutes, using 10.9 A at 12 V/DC, consuming app. 130 Watts.
The wire was formed on my bed of nails, that I made for this purpose and then fixed to the platform with capton-tape. (will post photos tomorrow)The heating up time is measured without any isolation underneath the platform. I think it would heat up much faster, if I place a heat reflector under it.
I have fixed the hotend (gave it a bigger heater barrel and a new thermistor) and it performs very good now. I used a stripe of capton-tape to limit the fan’s air flow to the cooler and prevent it from cooling the heated end.
I also had to fix my extruder, changing its stepper and fine tune its montage.
Last show stopper was my z-axis (a trapezoid rod). The firmware seems not to be prepared to use different feed-rates for XY- and Z-axis. I had to reduce the maximum feed-rate to the value, my Z-axis accepts.
Prior to finish my first successful print on my Morgan I’ll have to do another z-axis-calibration and to prepare the aluminum-surface of the big building platform for holding the freshly deposited ABS (hairspray, sandpaper, Capton, whatever).
Still waiting for my Pico hotend though an some new parts for tests with a threadless ball screw for the z-axis, as well as Quentin’s Alpen drill solution.
The Morgan being my first 3D-printer told me countless lessons. I wish I’d have started to build a “spare” printer more early, to be able to print the parts needed myself. But my time for this project was and is limited.
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Here come the promised pictures of the heating wire for the big building platform:
http://reprap.org/wiki/File:Bed_of_nails_for_heating_wire.JPG
http://reprap.org/wiki/File:RepRap_Morgan_big_platform_heat-wire_resistance.JPG
http://reprap.org/wiki/File:RepRap_Morgan_heating_wire_fixed_to_platform.JPG
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