Ender 3 & E3D Hemera upgrade

[TobyCWood]

I really didn't want to do this... 

After all, the Hemera cost more than half the cost of the Ender 3 to begin with! But, to get the chameleon doing the reliable multi materials dance it has to be a super reliable interface from the chameleon coupling into and through the extruder feeder.

So what mount to use? There's a couple on the Tverse but I'm a picky person. I never liked the printed parts versions. They all looked challenged by the weight of the Hemera stepper. Then I saw this 4 wheel carriage on Amazon and I went with this:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4076960

I am also a masochist it seems...

I ordered the carriage and got it from Amazon in a day. This morning I used my Dremel and a cut off wheel and removed the 2 metal standoffs for the Creality hotend. Drilled the holes. Removed the wheels and spent 2 hours trying to figure the optimal way to mount the Hemera. Super complicated since the bolts must be an exact length and the Hemera has to standoff of the plate to allow room for the wheels bolts. Eventually the best I could come up with was to make my own nylon standoffs. See pic. 

Then to get the new carriage and the Hemera on to the Ender required removing the top cross bar and dismantling the X gantry bar then removing the end part with the Z axis wheels. All the old Creality parts for their extruder had t be removed. Oy. It all came back together ok. Then I had to reattach the the X axis G2 belt which had to be shortened because the new carriage is wider. Weeee!

Wait... not done!

The Creality thermistor won't mount into the E3D block! Oboy. So now the controller box is opened and the thermistor cable removed and the E3d cable snaked back and inserted into the connector which unfortunately  is not the same kind but it still fit.

Taking a break. I'm tired!

[TobyCWood]

Put the hotted into the Hemera only to find that the entire Hemera assembly sits to far up on the mount. As such the wheels touch the bed before the hotend. ACK!

Currently making offset standoffs to lower the Hemera. What a total PITA!

[TobyCWood]

That was a complete waste of time. Sometimes it happens.

The 4 wheel carriage I bought from Amazon will in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM fit the Ender 3!

and... sure enough there was no way to know that until I burned a day trying to make it work.

The bottom wheels have nylock nuts on them and they both hit the relative side brackets. So the left side can't reach the limit switch and the right kills like 3 inches of build area.

Then the holes for the Hemera, which are as low as possible on the bracket, make for a mount that is too high and the bottom wheels hit the plate before the hotend.

Perhaps the producers changed this carriage from what the thingiverse poster had, but regardless this carriage cannot fit at all.

What a PITA this is turning into! )&*^@%@*)~*&%^!

[LukeH]

The Hermia is an odd beast, compared to the light and fast direct drive extruders people are using these days. It is undoubtedly very good, but it is an odd shape and still uses a heavy NEMA 17, instead of a lighter NEMA 14 through a gearbox, which seems to be the flavour of the month, such as in the Afterburner or Orbiter extruder systems, which both perform well, and are considerably more compact than the Hermira. They also have broad community support for most printers, including mounts for the Ender 3.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4638150

https://www.printedsolid.com/products/ldo-orbiter-v1-5-140g-dual-drive-direct-extruder?variant=32974481227861

Hermia was a good idea, and sparked some new thinking in extruders, but is now kind of obsolete, IMO.

[TobyCWood]

Ya know I seem to be agreeing with you Luke on just about every post. 

I critiqued E3D when it came out. Using the mid sized laminate core rather than the small pancake was done probably because the lower current on the pancake sized wasn't enough for their dual gear design. Just guessing. I can't see any other reason for making such a hefty paperweight except possibly to show how dumb they can be. Then they make it worse with their tiny, shallow mounting spots and a plastic idler arm!

What can I say, I had it lying around and I have to install something that the 3D Chameleon can feed reliably.
I am amazed at just how really hard and complex it is to mount this thing on just about any carriage!

So second shot was another pain... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4017555

Here's my make... Note my comment...

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:906962

In the meantime I now have to wait 2 days for the roll of GT2 belt I had to order since I had to shorten the belt for the 4 wheel carriage.GRRRRRR!!! I flamed that Tverse post!

[Mark Napier]

If you are not completely done tinkering this might be an alternative:

BIQU Upgraded Direct Dual Gear H2 Extruder

Found it easily on Amazon and other places.  Similar to the Hermes but much smaller and lighter.  Being "cost optimized" it will likely take some work and part swapping to perform well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IJaD15UQU0&list=LL&index=4

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[TobyCWood]

The OEM carriage works fine and the Hemera is now mounted properly. Next I find the Extruder stepper needs a new cable since the OEM cable is not long enough. Luckily I always keep spare parts. After that I have to switch out the OEM downward fan which is a tiny fan. A 24v 5010 standard is going on and I'm printing yet another duct for it as well as a set of cable chains.

In the meantime I found yet another surprise. Moving the X carriage by hand I feel tiny bump in the movement. WTF!? I feel the channel and sure enough either the black material is chipping or somehow the extrusion got scratched or dinged. It had to have been there before. I never saw any issues in my prints from it but now I'll be looking. Yet another really bad aspect of the delrin rollers!

I should have put the Chameleon on the CR1!

[TobyCWood]

I note all the correction comments below this vid. This guy shot from the hip on camera a little too much.

[LukeH]

Also, living in a metric country, I can assure you that “decigrams”, while I guess is the correct use of the prefix, is not a thing. Neither is decilitres or decimetres. :)

That said, the H2 extruder looks pretty good on the surface. It shows what can be done when designers get away from the mindset that the extruder must be bolted to a NEMA 17 stepper because that’s what is on the rest of the printer (which is how the kit printer builders roll, because of efficiencies of scale).

[TobyCWood]

Boy this rabbit hole sure got deep.

So it took three tries before I found a downward fan duct that not only fit properly and put the air where I wanted it, but was also printable.

Replaced the tiny OEM fan and installed a standard 24 v radial with a nice new duct printed in PC+Carbon Fiber.

Next the cables which are now all over the place. I had to do 3 chains. One for the Y axis/bed and two more for Z and X. I had to add a thick cable tie along the length of the X chain or it would have bent in only one place. Thats real bad for the cables.

Did my first test.

The extruder stepper ran reversed. P*&@#^@*

I HATE it when that happens... with a MARLIN machine! This is no sweat at all with a Duet, but with Marlin, it's a major PITA!! Add to that the complication of my use of the SKR board! I went to download the SKR flavor of Marlin and it's gone! The link no longer worked! To get it you need to email the SKR people! HECKWITHTHAT! So I gritted my teeth and swapped the coil pins in the connector. GRRR!

The machine is printing again. Benchy in process. Quality looks real good... it better be after all this unplanned pain! 

Still don't know yet if the path into the extruder feeder will be reliable enough for the Chameleon so this all may been for nuthiin.

[Edward Simpson]

Toby, you don't need the OEM fork of Marlin to run the SKR series, mainline Marlin 2.0.7.2 handles it just fine once the config is set for it. Or https://github.com/bigtreetech/BIGTREETECH-SKR-V1.3 is the github link for all the documentation including firmware.

[gro...@gmail.com]

Just wondering which fan duct you found for the Hemera?

I haven't yet affixed my 3D Chameleon, been busy with work, not enough time left in the day for 3d printing

[TobyCWood]

Swapping the pins in the connector took me seconds. Loading all the tools, finding the right versions of the files, making the invert change, compiling then installing just had too many things that could easily create more PAIN. Once you go RRF you really do not want to go back.

[TobyCWood]

I went with this one:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4069650

Theres another just like it out there too. Others either did not have enough room, didn't do a good job of aiming the air or were simply unprintable.

[TobyCWood]

Task completed. 

The Hemera is installed and all the related mods are done. Esteps changed. The Ender 3 profile in S3D is all tuned. Offsets are all correctly set too. The quality is optimal as it was before.

One last important test...

Install a PTFE tube into the entry hole on top of the Hemera, insert filament and tell it to load without guiding it by hand...

Success! 

It will feed reliably. No catches or sticking at all. Now, back to the 3D Chameleon thread! Tomorrow.

[gro...@gmail.com]

Well done

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Andy - HOLY Crap - sorry about the Rabbit Hole - next time - do NOT take the Blue Pill!!!

Crazy stuff indeed - and I DO Enjoy watching what happens and how you progress. Keep Rocking those 3DP's!

Side note - had a user come to my area today - for me to help him transfer his data. As he's not a techie. Dude is tall, a bit of grey hair - and a great Brit accent. I'm transferring his data between his old laptop and his new Tablet that I prepped and sent him. I then show him my Alien Queen creation - you know the one - 3D printed in 8 parts - assembled w/acetone and luxuriously "painted" with my liquid plastic (pic attached).

DANG - I wrote this a couple days ago - forgot to send - it was sitting behind some other windows (Clutter on my desktop) - so, here goes...

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