I replaced the heating printbed with a mkII version, which has a 1.5ohm resistance, to get more power / heat.
I print on glass with kapton tape, to get rid of all the problems with (not) sticking on the bed, and to get a good first layer (the most important one to get a good sticking print)- now i can almost squeze to the bed.
The adjustment screws betweenn the 2 allu plates are fixed in my case, i do the changes withe the 4 screws on the corners of my new bed. Very solid!
Ofcourse, the power supply from velleman is only 100w, so insufficient for this extra power needed.
I replaced this power supply wit a 20Amps 13.8v power supply, without further hardware changes, only added a fan directly on the switching transistors, they get HOT.
To reduce the powerpeak, i adjusted the firmware so it only switches on 1/3 of the time, printing since saturday, working ok.
I know i am pushing the limits on the board, worst case i burn something, but i am willing to take that risk.
Also changed the belts + pulleys on the x en y axe, to get a more precise an smoother action. (still not convinced this is a better solution)
Work to be done:
Z axe. This is a joke. the rod was bend, and the whole structure was wobbling. Printed the new motor support, and will go for a better spindle / nut.
If not better in that case, will probably go for 2 motors on the Z axe.
Extruder: i feel that there is something wrong with mine, it seems to be rather unstable in the feed. probably will try another extruder type and or hot end.
what kind of pulley you used?
i will replace the z-rod with something better (ordered :-).
i think the mount for the z-arm is stable enough, so adding a second stepper could lead into more trouble.
they have to be absolutly in sync! ever!
sure you can copple them to one driver, but then never touch your rod anymore if you do your arm will not be level…
The Z setup with the rod on one side is a little strange but I think it works for this printer because the vertical load is rather low ( only the z carriage + extruder ) and even more important the drive direction doesn’t change during printing. When the Z carriage moves down you notice there is a backlash but it only moves up during printing so the backlash doesn’t interfere with the actual printing process.
RudyG, can you say me if you have change the piece for fixing the Y belt under the heated
because i have put the same belt and pulley on Y axe and it’s not easy to fix the belt…
Have you printed another piece for GT2 belt fixing ? have you got the STL file if yes ?
About the z axle, you can remove the top nuts and the top bearing. This way it can not put force on the sliding bearings but the top end of the z axle will swing around. It looks funny but it is harmless and the extruder will not be moved since the sliding bearings will keep it steady. Another advantage is that since the motor will not move anymore that the z axle also will not be pushed up and down anymore, helping in keeping the extruder in the right place. I use it like this but I have replaced the coupling for the spring type version shown on many photo’s on this list.
@RudydG
Can you upload some pictures of how you mounted the new heating bed?
Is it possible to use just one Alu plate? Perhaps a base plate intended for an other machine?
if you do your arm will not be level…