That's a lovely birthday gift. Are you going to try it on the Cbot? I'd be very interested to see the performance differences when going from Ramps to Smoothie.

 

I've been trying to understand the whole 'performance' play with a Smoothie based controller. Perhaps you can illuminate me. If a printer can only print at Xmm/s, and a Ramps solution can feed the instructions to the printer faster than the printer can print, what advantage is there for having a higher performing controller?

I'm personally using a Raspberry Pi running OctoPi/Octoprint connected direct to the printer. I have done a few prints using the SD card early on, but have since switched once I got the Raspberry configured. So, perhaps with this setup, I'm avoiding the suggested performance penalty, but I'm just not sure I see it.

The ease of configuration using a text file vs recompiling a C kernel, makes complete sense to me. Perhaps that's the true justification and the faster processor is just to make people feel good about spending more money.

PS. It also seems the ones I've seen so far, have reduced functionality, like only 1 extruder, or only 4 steppers, and no dual Z steppers. Like the X3 Pro has 8 steppers and 4 extruder w/ 2 hot bed, etc. etc.

 

The performance issue is with the math to convert the XYZ coordinate into the movements to feed to the steppers to achieve it. For a Core XY printer, the 8bit processor can handle it. But for the more complex math for a delta, it has to make compromises to keep up. It is not an issue with sending the data, but processing it.

 

Ok, so it's the part converting the XYZ gcode movement command into steps for a given stepper motor, and with delta since that's more than one motor at a time, and maths are involved, it can slow down the printer to the point it's running less than the intended speed. But for CoreXY, there's less maths and therefore it's unlikely to impact overall print speed.

Makes sense now, thanks.

 

Carl, What clearance have you got between any of your carriage plates and the extrusion?

I've only converted a few of the parts in the 123dx library to sldprt as a few of them had features that were not directly convertable. Meaning i'd have to re-model them, which would be a PITA. I've decided to model a c-bot clone myself and then build the brackets to suit. Partly as an exercise, partly so I have a comprehensive model of my machine in SLDASM format. Apologies.

Does the thing in this link replace the spacer AND shim? Or just the spacer, with a taper to a shim?

 

Gotcha, thanks!

 

Hi! I'm building this printer in Solidworks to get an idea about how to build it and how many parts I have to buy (I have to buy some things outside my country and it's really difficult here ). I have a doubt, why the bigger holes (the ones where you can move the bolts in order to adjust the bearings I think) in "XY Moving Ends" are not flat, I mean, they have some kind of elevation with an angle, what's the purpose of it? Thank you very much for your help and for designing such a wonderful printer, this will be the first printer I build!

 

Thank you Carl!

 

So the bigger holes should go on the top right?

 

hi,

i just ordered a contractor relay switch from ebay seller(according to the bom's suggested keyword). Its a 30A 250VAC/30VDC relay, will it able to drive makerfarm 12"x12" heatbed?

Am i right to say i would have to just switch the +12V DC(using one of the two channels set) and connect the ground wire straight from heatbed to psu?

Any help would be appreciated coz i am really not good with the electrical stuff at all, and i wanted a heatbed so much.

 

Is this a solid state relay? Solid state relays are different for AC and DC loads. For example, you cannot use an AC solid state relay to switch a DC load. Standard electromechanical relays don't care what kind of load you are switching, they are just a coil activated by a control voltage that opens and closes a pair of contacts.

 

I love this design and have been eyeing it for over a month.
This is while I am waiting for all my parts to arrive.

I have a problem though, somehow, I ordered the normal, bigger V-Slot Wheels instead of the Mini-V Wheels.

Now, I do not want to spend more money as I have already spent a lot.
Would you be willing to modify the couple of parts that will need to be changed due to this?

Or do you think I should spend more money and order the Mini Wheels as they have some specific advantage that I haven't figured out yet?

I understand that you must be busy with ventures of your own, but it would be a great help if you (or anyone else) can redesign the parts for the bigger wheels.

 

Hi All,

As I'm planning on building a C-bot over the next few months, I've converted all of the C-bot parts to .STEP format so I thought I'd share them to save those of you who don't have a copy of 123D the time in converting them.
I know .STL files aren't the easiest to work with in some packages (SW included) so I hope these come in handy.

Thanks to Carl and others who have contributed to this build, this will be my first printer build so I'm learning a lot from the conversation/updates.

Cheers,
Chris

 

@trublu832 @JustinTime @Carl Feniak
Thank you guys.. appreciate the knowledge sharing..

Sorry i make a mistake it is a single channel relay and yes its not a solid state relay. the control should be the red and black wire with a small header that comes with the package.
Ebay link: http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eB...8183&category=36328&pm=1&ds=0&t=1445306170479

and i have attached a reference wiring diagram i found(i have also added a translation of the chinese words): @Carl Feniak do you switch the negative 12V as well? or should i just switch positive 12V(power supply positive to one of the terminal in K0 and heater positive to one of the terminal in K1)? or either way works? just concern which is more pratical way of doing it. thanks!

 

It's a good idea to switch the 12V as close to the supply as possible, to avoid lengths of un-switched 12V possibly causing a short. If you switched GND (-ve), you'd have 12V constantly present on your bed (with exposed solder contacts).

 

The std MOSFET control switches the GRD and +12V is applied to the component all the time.
The circuit is simpler this way with drive from an IC.
Bottom line is with a relay u can switch either + or grd, but the relay control will be switched to grd to activate. There is no need to switch both lines. That is only done with AC line voltage for an extra degree of safety. I would probably go with switching + since, as noted, u don't have 12V on the bed at all times.

 

Hi there,

Carl, kudos on a great design. As a modestly mechanically inclined person I am looking forward to making a 305x305x500mm version.

I do not have any prior 3D printer assembly experience (or even own one) but have managed to assemble it in Solidworks a couple of times and have read and reread this thread a number of times. I have access to the local library makerbot2 but it will take me some time to print out all the parts given the limit of 2hrs per session! Anyone here willing to print them out for a fair price?!

I may have a few newb questions along the way but the build seems pretty straight forward.

Anyhow, just a heads up that the Zip file in the Files section which contain Chris' stp versions has a few corrupted parts. I tried a few programs to no avail...namely:

C-Bot Single Carriage.stp
C-Bot T Bracket.stp
C-Bot XY Bar and Carriage .stp

Thanks for making this open sourced and hopefully I can contribute an idea or two along the journey.

As a fellow Canuck (I''m in Ontario), I'll be ordering through snbinc.ca (not affiliated with them in any way) and they are willing cut the extrusion for me.

Cheers,

John

 

I wanted to share my bill of materials for anyone who has been interested in the Cbot design but has been scared away by some of the $1000 and $1200 estimates.

My build is almost finished and my total cost is about $550.

I believe that this approach does not sacrifice quality for cost and I did not necessarily just look for the cheapest junk parts I could find, I just shopped around and sourced parts from various places. Some of the trade offs come down to personal preferences such as printing spacers but I did not go as far as printing flex couplings and other hardware etc.

Switching to a hot end such as the E3Dv6 lite and eliminating some of the optional components can put your bottom line under $500. Even with a generous estimate, the cost can still easily come in under $600.

Just trying to share some alternatives and hopefully make this design available to more people. Thanks

 

Wanted to share another big print: Printed out a life-sized pirate head for a buddy at work (he sculpted it in zbrush)

Stats & info on my blog. Feel it came out pretty well!
New 3D Print : Life-Sized Pirate Head

 

I think he wants to leave it the printed purple. There was actually one problem removing the supports. You can see it in the pic if you look: The supports under the left ear actually tore out a chunk of the base they were affixed to. .6mm supports are much more... robust... than .4mm ones I'm used to