Is there a reason for the space between the verticals? You could redo the vertexes as a single unit, filling in the space. I did this on the bottom of my printer. The bottom units are 120mm. I have a 20x40 on the bottom. 40mm space. Then a 20x20 on the top. I did this mainly to give me space on the bottom. I also printed up panels that go around the base to hide everything.

 

My reasoning is it should add more rigidity to the frame. However, your design does give me some new ideas to consider. I just don't like machines that wobble I may even secure the top of it to a wall bracket (in which case my doubled up parts is probably total overkill).

What material did you use for the printed parts shown in the photo? From what I can see they look fantastic!

 

I used eSun Solid Black PET-G. While I have never printed with ABS, from what I have read from others who have used both ABS and PET-G, PET-G is a better choice. None of the warping problems of ABS and the ease of printing in PLA. I love the stuff.

 

I started printing my vertex design last night in ABS and found a 99% flawless piece finished this morning in my mostly enclosed CraftbotPlus - printing on Buildtak which was cleaned with 99% IPA prior to printing. Just a tiny bit of lifting in the corners however I think I can eliminate that by altering the infill pattern to reduce some of the cooling stress on the part. My experience thus far with PETG was from a roll with very bad diameter inconsistency - however I did like everything else about how it printed after I somewhat dialed in retraction settings to help with the stringy/gooey nature of the PETG. I have another roll of PETG from a different supplier and will do another test print of my vertex tonight with it.

I also added the cutout I forgot to put in previously for motor shaft clearance and/or wiring pass-through.

 

Can anyone point me to a 450mm diameter borosilicate glass plate and a good heating solution for it ?

 

Okay, okay... After having this build up on my Desktop for a week, I'm gonna do it. Time to build me a Delta-Six.

I have a couple of generic, obvious questions though... I'm sure I know the answer, but I like to be right.... and corrected when I'm wrong. ;-)

The carriage plates? In almost all of the photos, I'm seeing aluminum plates. Looking through OpenBuild, I only see the 20 and 20-80mm universal carriage plates. Is there another source for these? Can I use the 20-80mm universal? Or am I wrong in my assumptions, and these can be printed? I see that there is a printed portion of the carriage, that the belt attaches to, as do the... effector rods? (I'm still learning the terminology too).

I found, early on in the forum, a parts-list as well as a parts list on the front page, but both seem to be incomplete, or without a source for most of the parts. Realizing that builds vary depending on the size you choose, does anyone have a fairly complete parts list for a "typical build", with sources for non-standard hardware bits?

I have a RAMPS1.4 board w/ LCD & SD, that I'm repurposing from an old Huxley that never worked worth squat... I'm targeting 500 x 1000 for the size (in part because I can order those sizes of V-Slot, so no cutting), but I also saw someone posted trying to get a similar size, and had problems sourcing the rods. I've also seen early on in the forum, a build that was twice that size... Are there other concerns I should have in building a rig this size?

Finally, I don't have a 3D printer at the moment (remember, my crappy Huxley...). What's the easiest way to get started with the vertex's and other printed parts? Living in the US, does anyone have recommendations for a printer? I'm happy to pay, but I don't want to pay more than I should...

Seriously, I'm excited to get this thing going... At first I was hesitant, but after reading the forums, I'm disappointed that I'll have to wait for parts to arrive... ugh! In particular, I'm excited to see that this build has an active community of current builders. A small part of me was worried I'd be going this solo...

Cheers!

 

I'm assuming this is for the delta so you want a round piece. Finding something that size might be a bit of a problem and could require a special order. The largest I found was 300mm.

As for the heater, you would probably do best with an AC powered one. I have had lots of success with Keenovo heaters. I didn't find one in the size you wanted, but they will do special orders but not sure of the cost. Custom Flexible Heating Elements, Silicone Heater, Kapton Heater-Keenovo.com

 

Let's see if I can help out any.

I just printed mine. The aluminum ones are more for show.

The original designer of the printer has abandoned it and as a result, the printer design has gone in sever different directions. The frame design is pretty simple so seems to stay the same from design to design. I got most of the parts for my printer from the OpenBuildsPartStore.com.

While you can use the RAMPS to drive a delta, you should seriously look at getting a 32bit controller instead. I have gone with the Duet 0.8.5 for my build.

Going with 500mm horizontals might bring up other issues with the bed size. In the posts just before yours, jerry426 is needing to get a heater and plate for 450mm. When I was doing a search for glass and heaters that size, it seems 300mm is about the largest standard ones available. That might mean special orders and more expense. Hopefully someone else know of a place to get a plate and heater that size.

Asking people on here really nice is one way. There is 3D Hubs: Local 3D Printing where you can probably find a local printer. I remember earlier some people check them out and the hubs wanted some really high prices for them.

There is also a makerspace in SLC (MakeSaltLake has moved!). You could probably join them and use their printer.

No need to go solo here. Lots of people around to help. I haven't finished my build yet. A co-worker is building one and I am doing it with him to help. Right now he is having some health problems so can't work on it much. I was also finishing up another printer, but that one is pretty much done so I will be able to concentrate on the Delta again soon.

 

TriDPrinting.com has boro plates up to 400mm as well as heaters and heat spreaders.

 

After more searching, the ready availability of the 400mm size has convinced me to scale down my extrusion lengths appropriate for a 400mm plate. Being my first delta printer I will use it as a learning experience to prepare for a larger one later.

 

Thanks for the info! Particularly about the Ramps alternatives. Is it possible to replace the Mega with a Due (32bit Arduino), and still use the RAMPS drivers/etc?

Also, unless I am misunderstanding something, it should be possible to use any size bed SMALLER than the extrusion lengths. Ie, even at 500mm, I should still be able to use a 300mm or 400mm bed. Realizing this isn't the best use of space, the point being that I can start with what I am able to source immediately, and move up in size if/when I find the larger size.

 

I just finished a Delta with a 310mm build plate. It's pretty big. But not big enough to build a house!

My parts were sourced from OpenBuilds for hardware and Ultibots for most everything else. Brad at Ultibots is a great guy and he ships stuff really fast. And as well packaged as the folks at OpenBuilds. Good l

 

Something to consider when contemplating a big 3D printer: build times. Yesterday I sliced an object that didn't use all available space (bed diameter 300mm, z max of 450mm). The object I sliced used about 2/3 of that. At 70mm/sec print speed, 0.3mm resolution and 10% infill projected print time was something like 4 days. I cancelled the print! Big prints need big extruders and high temperatures. I'm not sure how good a print you get with 1.5 mm nozzle.

My two cents. Keep the change.

PS. I think my longest print went for 25 hours, which I didn't realize when I started it. My usual limit is around 12 hours, or overnight. Too much time and material get wasted if something goes wrong at the 42nd hour...

 

My latest vertex revision if anyone is interested. I printed the revision just prior to this (very minor change) with PETG and it fits the 20x40 perfectly - zero slop in any direction with a very snug slip fit around the extrusion. Looks like PETG is the clear winner on these for me even though I can get very good results with ABS. The almost non-existent shrinkage of the PETG is just wonderful.

I will post the STL for this if anyone wants it - and/or - feel free to suggest any changes to it.

 

Kyo, here it is.

 

Very impressive work!

 

Thanks for the compliment! Here it is printing and finished at 0.2mm layer height using eSun solid red PETG at 100% infill. I'm printing another at 0.3mm to see which one I like best versus time to print - then I'll end up with 9 of them and put my frame together. My original plan was to use 12 vertexes (doubled up on top and bottom) but now I'm scaling back to single on top because my build is going to be smaller given the easy availability on the 400mm heated bed versus the 500mm+ idea I originally had.

 

Another design improvement for more rigidity and the STL file to go with it:

 

very nice Jerry,

On my printer (over sized) the top was the bit that moved. I expect there was more weight in the bottom.

If you intend to enclose the printer, some rigid panels on the sides will also take a lot of movement out.

Anyone know where to get custom laser / water cut aluminium plate in Australia online?
Where I live it will cost me over $150 for my heat spreader....

 

Time for a sanity check....

Does anyone see anything too far off with my numbers, angles, etc?

• I will use a 400mm diameter heated bed.
• I already have 500mm rods.
• I have sized my extrusion lengths based on those values in an attempt to get the other important geometry somewhat correct.
• At full reach across the build area, my rod angle is around 20.5 degrees.
• In the centered position, rod angle is the 56.74 degrees shown in my drawing.
• I will end up with a build volume of almost 400mm diameter and a little over 450mm height.
• My effector design will leave most of my E3D above its bottom plane such that the nozzle tip is approx 10mm below the effector (subject to change depending on how I work out geometry for part cooling fan(s)).

 

Hey Jerry, Its looking really good. I'm going to be printing your verticies soon... they look awesome. Hopefully my local 3d printer is up to the task.

As for your numbers, while I'm not really an expert on the matter, the 500mm rods feel really long. In theory these shouldn't be any longer than your horizontal extrusions, unless your allowing your effector to fall outside of the frame, in which case, you may pop your ball-socket joints.

Geometrically speaking, assuming your build area is confined to within the frame, the length shouldn't need to exceed the altitude of the triangle, since that distance will always be shorter than the [extruded] side. Having the rods longer reduces your vertical build volume, and increases the chances of the head moving outside the build area and physically damaging something.

 

My horizontal extrusions are 530mm long and my rods are 501.25mm. I ran my dimensions by some knowledgeable people in the google deltabot group and have decided the sizes of everything are plenty close enough to proceed.

Here's the current geometry:


And my first 4 vertexes are finished - only 5 more to go - then on to the other printed parts:

 

Those vertexes look great jerry!

Any chance you would be willing to share the scad files on them? (I'm assuming you used openscad) I made some changes to the originals myself but used sketchup as I didnt know openscad which was a mistake, I have since been learning openscad. Yours look great and would make an excellent starting point for re-doing the very minor changes I did to mine.

As to your dimensions, I'm no expert but it looks ok to me, back on page 15 David Bunch did some work on a "delta 6" calculator which is what I used to work out mine. you seem settled on your design but if you want to double check it could be worth trying the calculator.

 

I used SolidWorks to draw them. I very briefly looked at openscad but don't have time to learn it anytime soon and since I use SolidWorks very extensively in other areas of my work it is by far my preferred tool. If you haven't already, you should check out OnShape - I might be tempted to redraw my parts using it which in turn would let anyone copy mine and modify easily.

I also played with several of the delta geometry calculators while working toward my current dimensions.

 

No worries, my changes were only small anyway, mainly to reduce the extrusion opening size fractionally to make it a tight fit, rise up the upright slightly (but crudely nothing as nice as yours) and to add two lots of side bolts to the uprights - those minor changes increased the rigidity significantly as I was finding a very small amount of sideways movement of the uprights in the vertex which over the 1m height was noticable.

You can see it in the attached pic.

 

As a learning exercise, I did my vertex drawing in OnShape. Anyone can copy/modify it easily there.

 

Jerry. Cool stuff man! Yeah, I thought I read in your specs your horizontals were 430mm, not 530mm. 530mm for a 500mm rod sounds just about perfect. My machine will come in a little bit under yours in size, but overall, they are very similar, so I'm watching yours closely. Plus, you've got those wicked nice verticies you put together (the first of mine should be off the printer any minute now!), thanks!

 

More enhancements - diagonal bracing:

Starting with this end piece for 20x20 rail (I will upload the STL after I print one and make sure it is OK):



Front view:


Rear view looking up at an angle:


Detail up close:

 

Oops - realized my chamfered edge on the end was not symmetrical - fixed now: