Keith, any chance of splitting or regrouping the Z-axis upgrade so it fits on a 200x200 build area? I'm having problems with models corrupting when I try to split it.

And thanks for this redesign, I'm one of those who was having problems with wobble with the nylon rods.

 

Thanks immensely. I'm still learning the various pieces of software for my printers and router, so sometimes I don't take the obvious path. And thanks for the link but I ordered from a local source in Canada already.

 

@Keith Davis A couple questions for you. What is the length of the Z-adjuster screw (Manual page 3-15)? And I can't seem to locate the Z-Height endstop mount in the .stl zips?

Can you tell where I'm at in the assembly stage?

 

Thanks for the quick response. A further question arises though: that Z endstop mount doesn't look like the one in the 2nd photo in the build thread? You've moved the location of the Z-adjuster screw, I'm not sure that one linked will work?

 

Thank you sir! I kinda figured you might have linked the incorrect version.

 

@Keith Davis the .stl files for the nut anchors and shims for fastening the heated bed don't seem to be in the .zip file?

 

I forgot to thank you for posting that. Z and Y axes are complete, but I ran out of a certain size of screw to build the X axis. Hopefully they will arrive before the weekend.

 

I hope to start building some kind of variant on the TrueUp later this year, once I have done enough research to prove that I can get everything I need here in Britain & that I know exactly what I need to do. As I will be cannibalising my existing printer (a very dodgy i3 clone) for its few good parts once I near completion, I naturally want to be sure that I have everything planned out properly.

Anyway, my first question is actually about the design choices of some of the commercial manufacturers, as both the Creality CR-10 & the Geeetech A10 (just to name two) have gone for a single lead screw instead of one either side to power the Z-axis. What is your opinion on this, as someone who has designed their own printers from the ground up?

 

I'm new, but the Z axis design is what sold me on this printer.
Jim

 

Jim, I completely agree. I love the maths & the fact that it completely works around all of the Z-sync problems that having two steppers entails. I'm just covering all of the bases before I jump in & do the "Big Chief Hand-in-Wallet" thing & start buying my Openbuild kit (& printing stuff). I thought about exactly the same thing as the TrueUp Z-axis, only with a really small loop running a single threaded rod, rather than two. I suppose that it just depends on how solid the X-axis is.

 

Hi @Keith Davis, yes, you're absolutely right.

On my i3, if I forget to plug a Z-axis stepper motor back in, one side goes up & the other doesn't, & it all goes completely wrong in under a second.

Thanks also for the word on your friend & their Delrin wheel issues. That's exactly the sort of info that I was looking for, & it makes perfect sense, now that I've had time to mull it all over again. I just saw the designs last night for the CR-10 & the A10, & thought "Wow, does that work". Then I thought that it must, because they're out there, being sold. Then I thought about it a bit more & came to the conclusion that I'd better ask around, as there was a warning light flashing at the back of my mind - hence the questions above.

I'm going to build something close to your TrueUp design later this year, as your ideas seem to fix pretty much all of the massive issues that I have with my i3. I've got completely fed up with Z-sync & bed levelling problems, & the lack of flatness, squareness & rigidity. Because this will be my first ever 'proper' build, where I have complete control over the design & hardware choices, I'm looking at everything to see what I think will work for me. Your belt driven threaded rods, & the associated maths to avoid micro-stepping, is awesomely beautiful. Delrin wheels & V-slot really appeal to me too, as I love the logic - & the built-in squareness & rigidity. I'm sure that I can correlate the working components that I've got with what's easily available here in the UK & come up with something close to your principles that fits my budget.

 

Much appreciated. I've spent quite a while going through your site, & I saw your Anet upgrade kits & was really impressed by it. I started to design my own upgrade for my Geeetech Pro W a few weeks ago or so, & got all the belts & pulleys that I needed ( I had some bearings laying around, left over from a past project). If you look closely at version 0.3 of my design, you'll see that I've only got one slider to alter the belt tension, which meant that my belt was just too tight to get on. I got sidetracked before I could cook up version 0.4 with a slightly longer tensioning slider on both top plates. As I've still got my original threaded bars from before my lead screw upgrade, once I get the TrueUp upgrade properly working, I can try subbing them back in instead of the lead screws to address the micro-stepping issues. I've also got problems with bent X-axis bars & bent Y-axis bars, & the fact that there is over 1mm of difference in the distance between the lead screw & frame between the left & right hand sides. So much on this printer is just sooo badly manufactured....

 

When I finally clocked that it has squareness & flatness built in, that's what completely sold it to me. I also worked out that it was much more difficult (ie flogging a dead horse) to fix my Geeetech than it was to design & build a completely new frame. I've already got an original E3D Titan & Lite6 setup as the stock extruder & hotend were worse than the rods.

 

Is that from personal experience???

 

I've finally got Version 0.4 of my Geeetech Pro W TrueUp mod printed & installed. It all appears to be doing what it should, although the single Z-axis stepper is running almost too hot to touch. It's an original Geeetech 42SHD0034-20B stepper which appears to have a Holding Torque of 300mN.m (I think that this is around ~5% less powerful than the OpenBuilds' model 1702HS133A which is rated at 44oz.in, but they seem to make it really hard to compare specs across continents). Do you think that I could do with a slightly more powerful stepper? I'll test this for a few weeks, but hopefully it'll finally nail my z-axis drift problem. Then I'll just have to sort out the banana issues with my X & Y axes. I may well end up re-designing & replacing the bottom Z-axis stepper mounts with bearings & go the whole hog with threaded bars & a 20 tooth GT2 pulley on the stepper, just to properly wrap up & totally resolve all my Z-axis issues. Alas, I'm still trying to free up the budget for the 2020 & 2040 to build myself a proper frame, & thus fix my X & Y axes issues - which should then magically resolve my hotbed flatness issues as well. I wish that I'd never bought a Geeetech, but then it has really taught me a great deal about 3D Printer troubleshooting. So far, I've spent more than it originally cost, & nine or ten months, trying to get it working & it's still nowhere near right yet.

 

Thank you. Alas, I'm not on eBay.com, I'm on eBay.co.uk, over here in England. However, I know that both my X-axis rods are banana shaped for definite, & I have serious suspicions about my Y-axis rods too. I've rolled them all on mirrors, & cursed Geeetech. Oddly enough, I can get similar rods & prices to your friend from Germany (even with shipping to the UK), & Amazon.co.uk has a vast number of the beefier steppers available (although none of them have many reviews yet, so I'm biding my time).
The TrueUp mod appears to have resolved my Z-axis sync drift problems, but I'll run it for a few more days & carefully measure it all to see what's happened.