I think you have a very nice build going.. Was wondering want program you are using to create your parts.
I am at the moment printing my parts for my c-bot and would like to see if I could tweak your supports abit. And look at your direct drive. Would you share your original files and the stls? I was also wondering how you plan on water cooling your hotend, And extruder motor...I have seen a few different methods.. I plan on using an enclosure too. Thanks for more inspiration!

 

I don't (although I've experimented with it in the past). What you describe sounds like a funny, yet super annoying side effect of that behavior though. I've done some also on a timer, where they just snap a pic ever 60 seconds, which would resolve this issue.

 

I have been using the timer, but can never get the smooth look that the layer trigger gives. Might have to turn off the Z lift on time-lapse videos when I do them.

 

Is it possible that the heated bed draws too much power so that the steppers don't have enough to run smoothly? The bed switches on and off to not overheat, so it might be stable for a long time unless it has to heat again later in a print.

 

For my issue, Im running my heated bed via a relay so the steppers and bed are independently drawing power from a supply with plenty of margin. I didn't hear the steppers skipping or running abnormally.

The problem seems to be mainly on overhangs that sit right above the bed, possibly just too much heat coming up into the overhang sections. The rest of the print goes ok.

 

The heated bed is supplied from a separate power supply. The supply for the stepper motors has plenty of excess power available.

 

I don't remember where I collected these photos, but I have a few reference shots for how I will water cool my v6.







Seems pretty straight forward to me, hopefully this helps to explain ^^

The stepper motor will initially be cooled by a generic CPU cooler block which can be had for less than 10 bucks off ebay. This will have to work until I get my CNC up and running and be able to mil a new end cap for the stepper motors. With the X and Y outside the enclosure, and the Z under a floor (which I'd thermally insulate) the only motor I have to worry about is a direct drive extruder motor. I don't see the point of bowden here as there are just not any benefits to me when the point of this printer is high precision > speed. All of my stepper motors, even my NEMA 23s, are all mounted with metal/rubber damper pads so that keeps their heat off my printed parts as well, but if I find they run too hot for some reason, the radiator is more than capable of handling them. From my research, you don't even need one to begin with. The reason I will be is a) over kill, and b) part of my "water reservoir". In all setups I've found with water cooling hot ends, they had a large water tub with a submersible pump. Since I won't have a large volume of water, and I want this to be an all enclosed package, I opted for the active cooling: a PC water cooling reservoir, swifttech pump, and the radiator.

If you are a water cooled PC geek like me, it is the same setup as your PC.



All of my parts are created in blender. Here is a shot of my (in progress) Z platform mount fitted for a ball screw nut in the center.



I am positive there are likely much faster modeling programs out there, but this is just a program I have years of experience with and works just fine!

As to my supports, they are far from done. I know for a fact I still haven't normalized the sizes of all the supports. I have .5mm spacing on the 20x20 at 20.5mm, which meant I had put the 20x40 extrusion at 21.0mm. The 21mm is a bit too loose fitting but if I didn't the 20x20 wouldn't line up perfectly. So I have some decisions to make there for a final spec. Also some of the thicknesses of the corners were at 3mm, others were at 4mm when I found it not strong enough. I figured out about half way through modeling the supports the way I really liked them and haven't gone back yet to fix the initial models.



You can see some of the corners have gone through several iterations already, others are still on a v1.

The enclosure will require the back side of all of them to be cut off so that a single sheet of whatever you are enclosing with can lay flat against the aluminum 20x40 extrusion. As they are now, I am limited to an open build, which is fine since things are still changing height and stuff. Din will initially begin life as an open air printer for its first prints. Once I have wire management complete and I know my exact and final placements, the enclosure will begin.

The same state could be said for the direct drive extruder. I've printed the extruder once and looks like it will work, but I haven't printed with or even pushed filament with a stepper motor through it yet. It's still very much "alpha" stage.

Here is a better picture from the flexystruder assembly instructions (which I am unable to upload here due to file type) to show how the filament never leaves the tube, making it much better than the current c bot direct drive version. I also think the eccentric spacers will add a good amount of stability that any c bot maker should utilize.



Din's version, while still an alpha, I think is much more suited to be tested if you got eccentric spacers and full size wheels. If you have any feedback or revisions, I'd love to see them. If it proves functionally working, I'd want to clean up the central direct drive gear and tubing guide to make it look smoother, call that a beta, and get a finalized version shortly after that.

**Do note that your printer will need to be able to bridge 45mm pretty easily to do most of my prints. That is the only way to get a full enclosed corner support done across a 20x40mm v slot. The extuder here only has a 23mm bridge, but just note you'll have to have a decently calibrated 3d printer. A few bridge test stls can be found on thingiverse that can help you get dialed in if you need to.**

The corner stls, by contrast to the extruder, are just so messed up today that I would feel ashamed sharing them in their current state. Once I get some more time to get them cleaned up, I'll get those shared asap.

 

For those of us without octoprint, there are still ways to get time-lapse videos!

 

Here's mine using a handycam (6hrs) to After Effects using Timewarp.

 

Pro use of popsicle sticks there

 

I learned from the best!

 

2c : I started using BPT on my 12"x12" glass: I found that on large prints with large contact area, the pla would stick so well to the tape, that when it would warp, it would actually pull the tape off the platform along the tap seams, crazy! (actually I've seen this same issue on my smaller Replicator1 as well) That's why I moved to the woodglue slurry, that hasn't done me wrong to cents. YMMV.

 

Screenshot_20151206-111132 by Muh_3d posted Dec 6, 2015 at 11:28 AM

@Curiosichi
I thought that this extruder was a pretty good option. Uses a NEMA 11 geared I think 521.

Here are some screenshots of the video I would like to maybe make something like this it would be lightweight and two of them with Direct drive might be possible.
Screenshot_20151206-111132 | OpenBuilds
Screenshot_20151206-111101 | OpenBuilds

Screenshot_20151206-111031 by Muh_3d posted Dec 6, 2015 at 11:28 AM

Screenshot_20151206-111101 by Muh_3d posted Dec 6, 2015 at 11:28 AM

Screenshot_20151206-111132 by Muh_3d posted Dec 6, 2015 at 11:28 AM

 

I water cool my CPU too. And I've seen some different ideas on how to cool the stepper motors and hot end.
I saw some people using this for their hot end and some CPU aluminum blocks for there stepper motors similar to what you had on your pictures. In another post just before this I have some pictures and a YouTube video other pretty cool extruder use an anema 11 stepper motor. It looks pretty light and could be replicated pretty easily I think. Really nice compact and simple design. At the moment I'm working on ceramic Delta printer that I'm just working the kinks out of.


Then I'm going to start on this c-bot... I'm working on a simple design extruder for the ceramic that will use and other run by a stepper motor to be able to stop and start the clay extrusion. At the moment it's just running on air. I've only had to print so far.
Can't wait to get started on the sea but I have a lot of ideas that I would like to try like everyone else here.
Sorry if my post seems so sporadic but I'm talking into my phone trying to hurry up and do these posts and sometimes I don't check what is coming out. Lol

 

This seems like a good enough bandwagon.

 

200C
White PLA

 

200 seems to be the magic number for the different colors of hatchbox PLA I've been using, except silver, which always has difficulties for some reason.

 

When calculating for the size, plan for a 300mm x 300mm work area, but design for around 310 x 310. One thing I found when looking for build plates and print surfaces for my 300x200 is that doesn't seem to be a popular size. Things went from 200x200 to 300x300 so I can see why there was a lack of interest in the 300x200.

One change I have been thinking of adding to my printer for the direct drive is some sort of spool mount on the top of the printer. I had some ideas for possible mounts, but nothing finalized.

Were you going to go with 3 screws or stick with two and move the motors to a cross beam?