My Velleman K8200

K8200 3D Printer K8200 - Your printer, creations, and ideas for imp
1

Hello, I’m Kenny from Belgium (industrial Engineer in chemistry) and i’m new to this forum. I ordered my first 3D-printer last week en started building this weekend.
The building and soldering is finished:

I’ve put some green protection cable over some of the connections for a nice finish:

But I encountered some problems with the printer, the first one is the gear on the X-axis motor which is not straight at all. This makes the belt wobble and vibrate allot when the bed is moving. So I hope to get a replacement part for this problem. The Y-axis gear also has a slight wobble but this one isn’t that bad.

The second problem was the connection rod between the z-axis motor and the threaded rod. This one was not straight at all and also gave allot of wobble. So we made a new one in aluminium. We also made a grip-pattern on the connection so it’s easier to turn by hand:

The first thing to do now is calibrating the printer and then the printing can begin!

First prints that are planned:

-Cover for motherboard
-Z-axis mount
-X-axis mount
-Ventilator nozzle (still thinking about which one)
-…

Yesterday I also ordered a glass plate for the printbed and the standalone unit.
I will keep posting new improvements on my printer in this topic.

Update 22-02-2014

Here some other modifications:

Update 28-03-2014

Today I made a hole in the side of the mobo-cover to make the cable go all the way around instead of passing the other cables and all the problems from before are completely gone:

Today I also printed another upgrade for my printer:

Then I also printed the anti-vibration cups from thingiverse and i’m really stunned about the difference! The printer makes allot less vibration noise. Probably it will also improve the prints a tiny bit:


I have stuffed it with 3 layers rubber-foil and between each layer double sticky tape, so the cups are stuck to the printer and wont fall of when moving the printer around

I did not like the heat-bed cable being loose so I printed this:

Waste-bin for filament:

The printer is getting beter every day :slight_smile:

Update 22-03-2014

Today I finished the build of a second Z-axis. Here are some photo’s:

Now I will have to test and see if the prints are improved :slight_smile:

Update 5/04/2014

Bought myself the E3D hot-end upgrade for my printer and GT2 belts:



I also bought the nozzle pack with 0,25mm and 0,60mm nozzle

2

Regarding the bad part, please return it to your distributor or mail it for inspection/replacement to:

Velleman Projects Tech. Dept.
Legen Heirweg 33
9890 Gavere
Belgium

3

[quote=“VEL417”]Regarding the bad part, please return it to your distributor or mail it for inspection/replacement to:

Velleman Projects Tech. Dept.
Legen Heirweg 33
9890 Gavere
Belgium[/quote]
Do i have to send a bad gear for inspection? It’s not straight, it’s not really repairable… I saw other people on the forum that could keep their gear and just got a new one in the mail… Otherwise the printer is out of business for maybe a week or 2…

4

I’m sorry, but we had to change the procedures due to massive abuse.
Possible solution: print the part and use it while you wait for the spare part or if you live close to our company, come over and bring the part with you for instant exchange.

5

Maybe he can make a short film of it, that is how i did it.
The replacements i got are good.

Because i did not wanted to wait i drilled the hole a little large an plugged it with a piece of massive aluminium.
After that i re drilled the hole and now they are straight.
Had to make a clamp system to clamp on the gear itself and not on the side plates.
Almost 2 hours of work but i was able to print right after.

6

[quote=“VEL417”]I’m sorry, but we had to change the procedures due to massive abuse.
Possible solution: print the part and use it while you wait for the spare part or if you live close to our company, come over and bring the part with you for instant exchange.[/quote]
For Belgium the company is in Gavere? Do I have to make an appointment?

7

Please check your mail, I have supplied our coordinates.

8

I started my first print today, everything is looking good. I just have a question about the fan. I’m printing a baseplate for the Z-motor, but the fan is not turning. (Standard setting). When does the fan turn?

9

Hi KLucky13,

the fan is only necessary for small layers, thus there’s a time limit included in the settings. If the calculated time for a layer is above that limit, the fan is switched off. You can check those settings in Slic3r, Filament Settings, Cooling.

NB: there are two different time scales. Slic3r calculates the printing time, but Repetier Host shows a different time, adding some percent to Slic3r’s value to account for effects that delay the printing process. Since the evaluation for the cooling happens in Slic3r, it is of course Slic3r’s time scale that’s used here.

Cheers,
kuraasu

10

[quote=“kuraasu”]Hi KLucky13,

the fan is only necessary for small layers, thus there’s a time limit included in the settings. If the calculated time for a layer is above that limit, the fan is switched off. You can check those settings in Slic3r, Filament Settings, Cooling.

NB: there are two different time scales. Slic3r calculates the printing time, but Repetier Host shows a different time, adding some percent to Slic3r’s value to account for effects that delay the printing process. Since the evaluation for the cooling happens in Slic3r, it is of course Slic3r’s time scale that’s used here.

Cheers,
kuraasu[/quote]

Thanks for your respons. I’m quite happy with the first print:

I installed my standalone unit today. The display works, I can scroll in the menu’s I can steer the bed etc. but when I select a G-code nothing happens… It just waits but the bed does not heat up etc… Is there a manual where I can read everthing about this stanalone unit? I cannot find anything on the internet…

11

When I connect my printer to my computer, the log on the bottom of Repetier shows that i’m running marlinv1, but I updated the firmware to V2. My Stand-alone unit works and is printing without a computer connected (This isn’t possible with V1 I understood). So why is Repetier showing marlinV1 at the bottom?

12

Hi Kenny,

with all due respect, I seriously would like to know why this got the name “V2” …
Both versions are Marlin v1, so this log entry in Repetier Host is ok.

Cheers,
kuraasu

PS: the search function would have told you the same, but faster!

13

[quote=“kuraasu”]Hi Kenny,

with all due respect, I seriously would like to know why this got the name “V2” …
Both versions are Marlin v1, so this log entry in Repetier Host is ok.
[/quote]

My confusion came from the fact that on the download section on vellemans site this new firmware to make the standalone unit work is called “firmware_k8200_marlinv2.zip”

That’s why I though something went wrong when the log showed V1 after updating :slight_smile:

14

This are some of my first prints, I would like some feedback if possible to make the prints even better in the future:

I’m also thinking about printing a Fan-nozzle but I don’t know which is the best choice. I like the design of this one the most:


thingiverse.com/thing:174247

Greetings,

Kenny

15

I printed out a cover for my PCB a few days ago and recieved a fan to place on it. But where do you connect it? It has a 3 pin connector on it:

b8v39w.jpg1200×1600

Edit: I found on the internet that the 3th wire is for tachometer. So I won’t be needing that one. On this forum I read that you can connect it straight to the power supply. But the power supply is 15v (measured 14,7V) and the fan is a 12V fan… Will this break the fan?

Edit2: I tried it on the power supply, fan works, I don’t think the 2,5V extra are a big deal.

16

Here some other modifications:

17

Very nice work, The fan nozzle you asked about is the one I use. After making a few of my own designs I think the one you have pictured gives the best results as it allows the air to reach all around the object and doesn’t cool the nozzle much like the side mounted types. It improved my small and tall prints a lot.

Also worth noting is your PSU cable is looped up, anything with electronics that is looped like this is bad. I would cut the cable to the perfect length and re use the ferrite core (or buy another). It will reduce the magnetic field that will interfere with the main board.

I like the blue too!

18

[quote=“Moorron”]Also worth noting is your PSU cable is looped up, anything with electronics that is looped like this is bad. I would cut the cable to the perfect length and re use the ferrite core (or buy another). It will reduce the magnetic field that will interfere with the main board.
[/quote]

Well you make me think about something… I have a problem with the standalone unit, sometimes out of the blue the printbed moves to the side and comes back and continues the print. Leaving a strain of filament. A week ago the printer did this about 30 times on a 40 min print resulting in very bad results. Then I found a bad solder point on the motherboard, redid it, problem was gone for a days. Then the problem came back (doing it about 2 times on a 4 hour print). This time it happend at complete random. When wiggling the connection to the motherboard I could not trigger the bed to move to the side, so no bad solder point this time. I did install a mobo cover this week, which meant that i had to run the PSU cable all way down, into the hole of the cover and all the way up again. I had to strip this cable around the other cables to make the cover fit. The PSU cable is wrapped around the other cables. I will try to take the cover off again, moving the PSU cable completely away from other cables and look if the problem is gone.

Thank you for this insight :wink:

19

Today I made a hole in the side of the mobo-cover to make the cable go all the way around instead of passing the other cables and all the problems from before are completely gone:

Today I also printed another upgrade for my printer:

Then I also printed the anti-vibration cups from thingiverse and i’m really stunned about the difference! The printer makes allot less vibration noise. Probably it will also improve the prints a tiny bit:


I have stuffed it with 3 layers rubber-foil and between each layer double sticky tape, so the cups are stuck to the printer and wont fall of when moving the printer around

I did not like the heat-bed cable being loose so I printed this:

Waste-bin for filament:

The printer is getting beter every day :slight_smile:

20

[quote=“VEL417”]I’m sorry, but we had to change the procedures due to massive abuse.
Possible solution: print the part and use it while you wait for the spare part or if you live close to our company, come over and bring the part with you for instant exchange.[/quote]
Ah so… This is the reason why I did not got a replacement filament transport screw yet. I already wondered that I got a invoice but no screw. But then I wonder why there was no notice (not even a email reply to my question about it) that I should send the old part back to Velleman. It broke because the extruder was jammed because the filament is electrostatic-charged and attracted some dust because there is no sponge installed to remove the dust (fixed that now).
FYI: I cut myself a filement screw which works very good and also purchased three original replacement screws from Conrad and paid € 1.- for each. Shipping the old screw from Austria to Belgium would cost € 6.80 for ONE Screw. Abuse or not, that is [color=#FF0000]not[/color] economical.
Why you not make a blacklist of abusive customers and keep good service to valued customers?