Stepper Plastruder Instructions

[Rick Pollack]

I expect that many of you will stat receiving your Stepper Plastruders today :) The instructions are not up yet. I'll work on them tonight.

I'll keep an eye on the MakerGear IRC channel...so post your questions there for the fastest response....

Thanks!!
Rick

[Luis E. Rodriguez]

Dumb question, I ordered the 1.75 version, which is or isn't shipping?
Hut my real concern is how dobi swap between 3mm and 1.75? I have tons
of filament. I do understand I'll need profiles for both setups.

Luis E. Rodriguez
Creative Services Coordinator

Kauffman Foundation
4801 Rockhill Road
Kansas City MO 64110-2046

816-932-1254
816-751-6873 Fax

*sent from iPhone 4

[bill]

It's like a puzzle! A crazy laser cut and machined metal puzzle.
I've got a big pile of left over pieces. :-)

Seriously though I did hook up the stepper. Nice. Now we're steppin'!

Q, I got (as others did I'm sure) the 1.75 mm samples. Can those
be used after a fashion in a 3mm setup or is this to encourage
upgrades?

Q2
Are the brackets and things (wood components) open source? As in can I
download the dxfs and cut some extra groovemounts? I could draw it up
myself I suppose. I'm working on a bowden extruder and want to use
the
MG insulator and hotend.)

Also I've been working on a wade's/MK5 combo that does away with the
four screws and filament bearing and replaces it with a MK5 style
thumbscrew
and delrin plunger with a single spring. Are your 3d printed parts
custom
or are they just brustruder parts. Are those files available as well?

Excellent job as always. Can't wait to get this baby up and running.

-b

[Rick Pollack]

The instructions are a work in progress...

[Rick Pollack]

Luis - Batch 1 just finished shipping moments ago. We're waiting on another batch of motors for batch 2 plus I need to finish the 1.75mm hot ends...so that is a few weeks out. I'm working on making the transition between 1.75mm and 3mm as painless as possible. I'll post more as it is available.

Bill - you can run 1.75mm but you'll need to clean out the insulator periodically as it slowly builds up and will eventually cause the filament to stop moving. So, in other words, you can experiment with 1.75mm filament in a 3mm end but I think you'll need a 1.75mm end for the long run...

As soon as I've cleaned up the files for the mounts they'll be posted here in the Files section. The bruthead files are already posted in Files section - they are modded to fit the geared stepper.

Rick

[ddurant]

> Batch 1 just finished shipping moments ago

Congrats!!

On Nov 19, 6:18 pm, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> Luis - Batch 1 just finished shipping moments ago. We're waiting on another
> batch of motors for batch 2 plus I need to finish the 1.75mm hot ends...so
> that is a few weeks out. I'm working on making the transition between 1.75mm
> and 3mm as painless as possible. I'll post more as it is available.
>
> Bill - you can run 1.75mm but you'll need to clean out the insulator
> periodically as it slowly builds up and will eventually cause the filament
> to stop moving. So, in other words, you can experiment with 1.75mm filament
> in a 3mm end but I think you'll need a 1.75mm end for the long run...
>
> As soon as I've cleaned up the files for the mounts they'll be posted here
> in the Files section. The bruthead files are already posted in Files section
> - they are modded to fit the geared stepper.
>
> Rick
>
>
>

> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> > The instructions<http://www.makergear.com/pages/stepper-plastruder-instructions>are a work in progress...

> >> > Rick- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Jordan Miller]

where you say to connect the heatcore directly to the 12V source on a PC power supply. how *exactly* do you do that?

jordan

[Rick Pollack]

if you look at the pinout for the disk drive connector...you'll see 5v, 12v and two grounds. Hook up the 12v to one lead and ground to the other lead and turn on the power. Be careful there are not short though...

[Bill Culverhouse]

When I looked at your instructions the first time there was a decided gap at "Step 2"

 

:-)

 

Also I've been intrigued by your new groovemounts. Nice to have one in my hand, now I want

more. When you get the 1.75 hot end finalized put me down for one. $30 seemed high for an

insulator until I got an upclose look at one. Snazzy.

 

-b

[Jordan Miller]

hmmm... is it the +12V or the -12V i should use?

jordan

[Rick Pollack]

There are only four pins on the disk drive connectors....12v, 5v and 2 grounds...

[Rob Giseburt]

Rick, you mean this connector, right:

http://flickr.com/photos/giseburt/4835378221/in/set-72157623868651903/

I thought I had a better photo of it, but I think that gets the point across. 

  -Rob

[Rick Pollack]

or this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Molex_female_connector.jpg/250px-Molex_female_connector.jpg

[Rick Pollack]

and i'm working on the instructions...so more will be available soon

[ddurant]

In your copious spare time, I was a bit confused on finishing up the
heater core..

In particular, the bit in the middle where you say "Now, insert the
Teflon wire into the HeatCore crimp. Leave about 1/2mm of wire exposed
- this makes it a little easier to solder it up later." With the
previous bit having just hooked up the male ends to the green wire, I
was really tempted to use those male ends of the wire on this step.

A note that the longer/bare end of the teflon wire goes to the female
crimps on the nichrome - not the end you just put the male crimps on -
might be good there, just to avoid confusion.

On Nov 20, 12:50 pm, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> and i'm working on the instructions...so more will be available soon
>
>
>

> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
> > or this
> >http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Molex_female...

>
> > On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Rob Giseburt <giseb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Rick, you mean this connector, right:
>
> >>http://flickr.com/photos/giseburt/4835378221/in/set-72157623868651903/
>
> >> I thought I had a better photo of it, but I think that gets the point
> >> across.
>
> >>   -Rob
>

> >> On Nov 20, 2010, at 11:07 AM, Rick Pollack <r...@makergear.com> wrote:
>
> >> There are only four pins on the disk drive connectors....12v, 5v and 2
> >> grounds...
>

> >> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Jordan Miller < <jrdn...@gmail.com>
> >> jrdn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> hmmm... is it the +12V or the -12V i should use?
>
> >>> jordan
>
> >>> On Nov 20, 2010, at 12:09 AM, Rick Pollack wrote:
>

> >>> if you look at the pinout<http://www.smpspowersupply.com/connectors-pinouts.html> for

> >>> the disk drive connector...you'll see 5v, 12v and two grounds. Hook up the
> >>> 12v to one lead and ground to the other lead and turn on the power. Be
> >>> careful there are not short though...
>

> >>> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Jordan Miller < <jrdn...@gmail.com>
> >>> jrdn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> where you say to connect the heatcore directly to the 12V source on a PC
> >>> power supply. how *exactly* do you do that?
>
> >>> jordan
>
> >>> On Nov 18, 2010, at 9:34 PM, Rick Pollack wrote:
>
> >>> > The instructions are a work in progress...
>

[ddurant]

Semi-random notes and stuff from other locations/sources..

Wiring it up:

From Koen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koenkooi/5144834329/ (note
the picture's got 2 wires wrong - the text is correct, though)

From me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52118225@N08/5212535154/ (pin 1
of the rainbow cable is lower left in this picture) and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52118225@N08/5212679830/

Driver/carrier soldering: http://www.johnyang.com/www/pscc15 . When
you do the two 8-pin headers and plug the carrier in to make sure the
alignment's correct, make sure you plug the carrier in the right way!
See later pictures on that page for a reference. I didn't do this
(plugged it in upside down) and it's sorta off at a funky angle now.
It still works but it looks a little weird..

Binaries for Rob's 2.x firmware: https://github.com/koenkooi/G3Firmware/downloads
.

Change to ~\.replicatorg\machines.xml. For windows people, this is in
the %USERPROFILE%\.replicatorg dir. Just copy/paste that to windows
or internet explorer. I added this, which probably won't format
correctly here.. :\

<machine>
<name>Cupcake CNC - external stepper extruder (no hbp)</name>
<geometry type="cartesian">
<!-- different pulleys on X and Y axii -->
<axis id="x" length="300" maxfeedrate="5000" scale="11.767463"/>
<axis id="y" length="300" maxfeedrate="5000" scale="11.767463"/>
<axis id="z" length="300" maxfeedrate="150" scale="320"/>
</geometry>
<tools>
<tool name="Pinch Wheel Extruder v1.1a" type="extruder"
material="abs" motor="true" motor_steps="400" floodcoolant="false"
mistcoolant="false" fan="true" valve="false" collet="false"
heater="true"/>
</tools>
<clamps></clamps>
<driver name="sanguino3g">
<!-- optional, defaults to first serial port found.
<portname>COM1</portname> -->
<!-- required: we need 8 bit and 38400 baud. -->
<rate>38400</rate>
<parity>8</parity>
<!-- optional, defaults to 1. <databits>1</
databits> -->
<!-- optional, defaults to N. <stopbits>N</
stopbits> -->
<debuglevel>0</debuglevel>
</driver>
<warmup>
</warmup>
<cooldown>
(Turn off steppers after a build.)
M18
</cooldown>
</machine>


If you download Rob's firmware to the ~\.replicatorg\firmware, you can
also add this bit to the firmware.xml file while will let you burn the
firmware from within repg. Note that this is for the norelay version..
If you get the relay version, make sure to change the name:

<firmware major="2" minor="6" relpath="firmware/EC-ecv22-v2.6-
extstepper-norelay.hex" name="v2.6 w/external stepper support" />

> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[ddurant]

Pretty happily printing now! w00t!!

I ended up switching to the firmware at https://github.com/giseburt/G3Firmware/archives/master.
I grabbed the 'relay' version so my HBP is back in action. Rob
compiled this to be 1/8th stepping so I put jumpers on MS1 and MS2 on
the Pololu driver board. At least on my rig, it's still a bit off - it
seems to do about 2 RPMs when I tell it to do 1 RPM - but that's
pretty minor. Dunno if that's my rig or a firmware issue.

Burning the extruder firmware from repg just wouldn't work for me. If
it's giving you a hard time, you can use the command line, which gives
you more feedback and seems to work a lot more reliably than through
repg.

On Windows, with the firmware .hex file copied to the dir that
replicatorg.exe is in, the command is...

.\tools\avrdude
-C.\tools\avrdude.conf
-cstk500v1
-P\\.\COM3 -b19200 -D
-Uflash:w:xxxxx.hex:i
-pm168 -v

Make sure to change COM3 to be the COM port you use and xxxxx.hex to
be the name of the firmware file.

This should all be on one line - I just split it into several lines to
keep google from doing any reformatting. Rob said he never hits the
extruder reset button when running this but I needed to give it a push
maybe 1/2 a second after pressing enter - YMMV.


Slight mod to the repg machines.xml stuff I posted above. If you don't
have a HBP, you want a tool node like this:

<tool name="Pinch Wheel Extruder v1.1a" type="extruder" material="abs"
motor="true" motor_steps="400" floodcoolant="false"
mistcoolant="false" fan="true" valve="false" collet="false"
heater="true"/>

If you DO have a HBP, you want a tool node like this:

<tool name="Pinch Wheel Extruder v1.1a" type="extruder" material="abs"
motor="true" motor_steps="400" floodcoolant="false"

mistcoolant="false" fan="true" valve="false" heatedplatform="true"

collet="false" heater="true"/>

The difference is just that the later one has heatedplatform="true" in
there.


Also, if you're just switching from a DC to a stepper extruder, make
sure to change your start.txt file so it does the pre-build noodle
correctly.. My start.txt is below. NB that it expects the machine to
know its position (ie: it assumes the X/Y/Z in the control panel
matches reality) and doesn't reset the position at the start of a
build.. It's also got lines in there to set the HBP temperature -
remove that if you don't have a HBP - and sets the inital temp to 210C
- change that if you use some other build temperature. It also does
the noodle at 1 RPM (which is really 2 RPM on my machine) which you
can change if you'd like..

(homing routing)
(stepper extruder start.txt file)
(MAKE SURE THE CONTROL PANEL XYZ POSITION MATCHES THE ACTUAL XYZ
POSITION ON YOUR BOT)
M104 S210 T0 (extruder emperature to 210C)
M109 S110 T0 (platform temperature to 110C)
M107 (fan off)
G21 (Metric FTW)
G90 (Absolute Positioning)
G0 Z15 (Move up for test extrusion)
M108 R1.0 (extruder speed rpm)
G04 P5000 (Wait 5 seconds)
M18 (steppers off)
M6 T0 (Make sure we're all warmed up)
M101 (Extruder on, forward)
G04 P5000 (Wait 5 seconds)
M103 (Extruder off)
M01 (The heater is warming up and will do a test extrusion. Click yes
after you have cleared the nozzle of the extrusion.)
G0 Z0 (Go back to zero.)
(end of start.txt)

On Nov 28, 12:33 am, ddurant <dduran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Semi-random notes and stuff from other locations/sources..
>
> Wiring it up:
>
> From Koen:http://www.flickr.com/photos/koenkooi/5144834329/ (note
> the picture's got 2 wires wrong - the text is correct, though)
>

> From me:http://www.flickr.com/photos/52118225@N08/5212535154/(pin 1

> of the rainbow cable is lower left in this picture) andhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/52118225@N08/5212679830/
>

> Driver/carrier soldering:http://www.johnyang.com/www/pscc15. When

[Jordan Miller]

cool! I think if you are doing 1/8th stepping you want to set motor_steps=1600 in machines.xml instead of 400. That could be why it's not turning as you expect.

jordan

[John Yang]

I don't think that motor_steps=xxx in the machines.xml file actually
does anything right now. I believe it is hardcoded when you compile
the firmware. I think there was talk about storing the values in
EEPROM if changes could be made to repg to support this.

John

[ddurant]

Good point, Jordan!

> I don't think that motor_steps=xxx in the machines.xml file actually
> does anything right now.

That's what I've been told but looking through recent commits to repg,
I think that might be changing in the not-too-distant future..

How many steps does the motor have per RPM? Though it doesn't really
matter on repg 21, the correct value on the tool node should, I think,
be the number of steps * 13.6 * 8. Or ... * 4 for 1/4 stepping, etc.
IIRC, Rick has said that the motors are geared 13.6:1 so that has to
be in there too..

On Nov 30, 5:08 pm, John Yang <lj.johny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think that motor_steps=xxx in the machines.xml file actually
> does anything right now.  I believe it is hardcoded when you compile
> the firmware.  I think there was talk about storing the values in
> EEPROM if changes could be made to repg to support this.
>
> John
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Jordan Miller <jrdn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > cool! I think if you are doing 1/8th stepping you want to set motor_steps=1600 in machines.xml instead of 400. That could be why it's not turning as you expect.
>
> > jordan
>
> > On Nov 30, 2010, at 1:24 PM, ddurant wrote:
>
> >> Pretty happily printing now! w00t!!
>

> >> I ended up switching to the firmware athttps://github.com/giseburt/G3Firmware/archives/master.

> ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -