Have had some fantastic success (and failures too i suppose) with this printer, doing a few mods like milling a solid z axis motor bracket (as prints were wobbly) and putting a glass plate on which is now just perfect!! (well almost - but isnt this the fun of it…)
My only gripe is the cheapy plastic gears on the extruder head, I plan on making a proper toothed belt system for this and am wondering if anyone has attempted it? My only real cause for doing this is that I often leave the printer on for long times at night, and can hear the gears when it retracts the filament for its move. (also, i think a belt system would last longer??)
On a side note, printing with the cheapest filament on ebay, using heated glass bed to 60c and masking tape (with a rough up with wire brush) seems to grip extremely well, and very little lifting, even with flexible filament!
Have had some fantastic success (and failures too i suppose) with this printer, doing a few mods like milling a solid z axis motor bracket (as prints were wobbly) and putting a glass plate on which is now just perfect!! (well almost - but isnt this the fun of it…)
My only gripe is the cheapy plastic gears on the extruder head, I plan on making a proper toothed belt system for this and am wondering if anyone has attempted it? My only real cause for doing this is that I often leave the printer on for long times at night, and can hear the gears when it retracts the filament for its move. (also, i think a belt system would last longer??)
On a side note, printing with the cheapest filament on ebay, using heated glass bed to 60c and masking tape (with a rough up with wire brush) seems to grip extremely well, and very little lifting, even with flexible filament!
Cheers
Will[/quote]
Just look at thigiverse, ther is at least one GT2 Belt mod for the k8200 available with printable gears.
good point about reversing the extruder rotation!!!
I really would like to veer away from plastic gears, even printed ones as also there’s quite a bit of plastic dust that builds up after a while. Plus I imagine it still has the noise factor that the normal gears make?
Will be measuring the gear sizes tonight, and seeing if any of these wants to fit. Hoping that i can lathe the one on the hobbed bolt to fit straight over the pulley, and tighten with a grub screw or it will be superglue
i have dabbled with a direct drive, but as mentioned this means quite a few changes, and as my stock extruder works fine anyway i really dont want change it yet!
Probably with a Mk8 drive wheel. There’s always the option of going to a geared stepper. One commercial extruder uses a geared Nema 11 for the job[/quote]
Sure, but that eliminates the advantage of less moving mass for the hotend completely.
I can recommend this mod, no more dust and plastic stuff from grinding gears also alot quieter.
I made my main gear with ABS but might re-do that with taulman bridge nylon
I changed to belt very early just because of the low maintenance and silence, that constant clicking on retraction made me go insane. I started to get some tear-down on the gears and experimented with some greasing but the fast retraction makes this very messy if you are not careful.
Hello there,
I’m waiting for my K8200 (It should arrive in a week)…
I have seen a video on youtube of it and that noise looks horrible. I can see the problem. Now this will sound very noob because I’m from Slovakia and in school on english lessons we learn how to buy t-shits and socks not technical stuff…
The straight tooth gears make mutch noise. The solution is “twist” the model like this:
This is mutch quiet solution that is used in car transmissions even because these gears have mutch wider tooths with same seize gear (you can transport more force).
The way I “twist” the gear on image is not perfect… It may take a long time until the gears fit perfectly together…
I just need to find the models of original gears…
You’re not far off. Those are known as “helical cut” gears. Make some out of Nylon and it’ll probably help keep things quiet.
Part of the problem is in the material availability. The gears should be made from POM (polyoxymethylene), also known as Acetal, or the brand Delrin. The same qualities that make POM attractive for gears are what make it insanely difficult to print. I’ve been reading horror stories about folks who have attempted use of the material. Then there’s the little snag that it off-gasses formaldehyde when overheated. Need a build box with exhaust hose to do it right.
