@Chris Roadfeldt
Hi Chris,
You could possibly add the option for a BLTouch z-probe. The dimensions of the BLTouch can be found here: Google+
At the moment I'm using my own BLTouch probe mount and I had to modify your generator to increase the width of the carriage to enable it to fit.
Regards
Sally

 

Do you mean ones like these?
Endstop Microswitch

 

@TechGirl - Definitely! Should I use your mount as a template? I would need any clearances required for the mount and BLTouch as well.

@Spiffcow - The generator supports YL99, generic mini switches and Keyes endstops already. Send me the details on what you want added.

 

@Chris Roadfeldt
@Matt Mathias

These are the kind I'm talking about. I have no idea what they're actually called.

Mechanical Endstop RepRap Mendel Prusa Ramps 1 4 3D Printer RepRap | eBay

They're used in the current BoM for everything except the X axis. I cut the mount for it from a section and put it on the standard direct drive back plate (C-Bot direct drive backplate with cheap endstop mount by spiffcow).

 

They do, and they don't. The switches themselves are about 20x10mm which I think is larger than the micro switch that you linked, but they do not have the circuit board or all the other BS. The idea behind the circuit board is that it has an LED on there which some people think is nice. I have two rules on end stop switches:

1) If they fail, it needs to register as the endstop being hit. For this reason I always wire my end stops in as "NC" so that if a wire breaks or something in the switch breaks down it will "open" the circuit and prevent a crash
2) I want them to be dead, stupid simple. This is why I have switches with no LEDs and still use physical switches when I could be using Hall-E or similar.

 

FWIW - I use a YL-99 switch modded to be NC on the hotend carriage for min. Still has it's LED, which is on when powered and off when triggered. Works very well.

 

"NC" sounds like the smoothieware term.. Is that what you're using? If so, have you found a way to make Smoothie actually *stop* when it hits an endstop? I get it to home, but I can also make it jog past its endstop without stopping.

 

For some reason, the people doing Smoothieware haven't implemented soft end stops which is why you can go past the physical one. This is one reason I dumped using my Smoothieboard.

And 'NC' is standard switch terminology that means 'Normally Closed'.

 

Exactly.

No I don't use Smoothie I looked at it but was turned off by several things. I use RADDS, so if anyone wants to know how to get a VIKI 2 LCD (or pretty much any non-RADDS LCD) working on a RADDS board let me know as I somehow magically got it working.

 

I recently bought three to try on the X,Y and E drivers, been too busy to test them out but I'll share results when I do. At $13 a piece I hope they are quiet

 

@Chris Roadfeldt you are welcome to use my mount if you wish.
Full dimensions of the BLTouch including verticle clearence is given here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/photo/113792662927481823969/6259025116903059730?sqid=109126963511513081214&ssid=7cbafe6e-45a1-4d6e-b86d-020e0962dddd.
The BLTouch also needs to be at least 15mm away from the hotend.

 

Just a quick update. Got my AKEric fan shroud installed. Had to modify @Matt Mathias mount to offset it from the center. From this angle, looks a bit like a frowning grumpy person.

 

Nice!, the rest of the dimensions worked ok tho?

 

Yeah. I had to lengthen the base to reach left most holes of the two sets. The mount to the shroud fit perfectly.

 

Awesome looks like the shroud is positioned well to the hot-end too, how far is it off the build plate?

 

Depends on how low I move the build plate. (Yeah - shut up smart ***)

Here is a picture of it at Z = 0.2. It has good clearance and because of the angle of the output, doesn't blow much on the hotend. It probably could be adjusted down more.



Here is a picture of the mount and you can see how I elongated the one side.

 

Wow, thats almost perfect. That makes me super happy. I am glad that AK Eric did all the hard work of developing the fan duct because I wasn't a fan (no pun intended) of any of the current solutions. The duct he designed is spot on what I had in my head.

 

It is a little crooked on my machine, but I think that is because the one side is pressing on the inductive sensor. But it is not too bad. Need to do some more printing and see how well it works.

 

Hmmm... Came back from the store to find this. Not sure what fell/broke first. Probably the fan rotated down and caught the print and that started it all. Everything was in PET-G so I don't think it was from a weak spot in the print. The screw holding the fan in place was tightened with a lock nut so it shouldn't have come loose. Think the next one, when I get it in place, will get some super glue on the hinge so I know it won't rotate.

 

Okay. After doing some repair work on all this, I think this is what happened. The cooling fan on the hot end died resulting in a jam. The Titan, living up to its name, applied enough force to push the hot end out of the clamp. Once it was free, it ran into the shroud, pushing into the print can causing it to break off.

 

Couple postmortem pictures. There was a bulge in the PTFE tube at the top of the hot end. Was able to pull the tube and cut it in half at the bulge.

 

The PTFE tube is trapped between the Titan and the hot end. There is no where for it to separate to. I'm a bit amazed at the power in the Titan since I am using a short body nema 17 (13oz). I thought it would have stripped the filament first.

 

@Elmo Clarity : Scary crazy. Yikes. This is why I run octoprint when I'm out of the house and check it obsessive compulsively

I wanted to point out one thing on the fan duct: I did attempt to design it to blow just below the hotend on the extruded filament, rather than on the hotend itself: I did this by actually holding it up to a faucet and blasting water through it, seeing where the water 'aimed' (which also helped me configure the C-curve shape of the mouth): On my 2nd rev I got it dialed in better. This is presuming of course that blown air has the same thermodynamic properties as water. But it's all I have to go off of without getting my room really smokey Ironically I could run a full fluid sim inside of Maya testing this, but my old laptop isn't powerful enough. I really need a new computer... I'm not saying it's perfect and I welcome any improvements to it.

One thing I just discovered: It's so low, it now hits the bulldog clips holding on my glass build plate on the back, and L\R sides. So I looked all over the web trying to find 'low profile clips' and came up with nothing. But with a bit of thinking, I just modified what I had:

New in the front, old in the back for comparison.

If you have two pair of needle-nose pliers, a hammer, and a vice, it's not hard to pull that tabs out, pound them into a 45 deg angle, and reinsert them.
No more clearance issues. Super easy mod for anyone with those types of clips.

 

@AK Eric : I am using a Duet for my controller and it has a really nice web interface (I run OctoPrint (OctoPi) on my Printrbot) and a web cam so I can keep an eye on print jobs too. The job it was on was almost over so I didn't think anything about it while I was out. The damage would probably have been already done by the time I would have seen it on the cam anyways since I can't tell if the fan is running or not.

The file I am printing from is "epfs_B02.stl". Is this your second version you talked about? If you saw the pictures earlier, I have plenty of clearance from the print. And for clips holding the bed? I don't have any. I have a 6mm tool plate that I counter sunk 3 bolts on and covered it with BuildTak.

 

Yep, B02 is (well was) current: I just now uploaded B03 to Thingiverse:
C-Bot Volcano Filament Cooler by AK_Eric

You can see from this pic that I enlarged the bolt-channels for both the fan bracket, and the clip: This should allow for people to configure its location much easier, regardless of nozzle type. Note, I didn't test this yet, since I'm happy with what I have. I also adjusted the bolt-channel on the shroud so that it no longer needs supports to print.

 

Well, I'm not going to test it either 'cause I'm happy with v2. And besides, I already started printing another one and I don't want to stop it.

 

D'oh: My comment wasn't meant to make you sound like an un-safe printer. I just freaked out when I thought that "it could happen to me" too: Yah, unless you were just staring at your video-feed, a failure like that would probably happen pretty quickly.

 

I didn't take your comment to mean I was an un-safe printer. Just saying I do the same thing in being able to watch and control my printers remotely.