Suitable Stepper Motor for Z-stage upgrade on a Clone R1 Core XY printer.

[Steve Johnstone]

Hi all,

I’m after a bit of advice on upgrading my Clone R1 (Core XY) printers Z stage. At the moment it’s a generic canter leaver type and it vibrates a lot when printing any faster than about 50mm/s. This hugely affects print quality.

I would like to change it to the 3 or 4 leadscrew type that seems to be working really well for you guys. I’ve drafted a modification that uses 4 lead screws and 4 linear guides. I’m sure 4 lead screws is way over the top for a printer with a build plate size of 315mm x 215mm but would like to try it as a proof of concept. A some point I would like to designing / building a larger core XY printer with a build volume something like x-300, y-300, z-600.

Most of the concepts have been borrowed from open source projects, in particular Dan’s Core XY triple leadscrew system.  The one component I’m struggling to size / source is a suitable stepper motor for the z-axis that would work with CarlRaffle’sCloneBoard.

I would appreciate any help or advice anyone may have.

Thanks.

[Ryan Carlyle]

How do you feel about soldering SMD components to hack the Cloneboard digipot circuit?

If that doesn't sound fun, you're limited in drive current and you'll want to use either one of the Moon's 17HD-4063-xxN steppers the Mightyboard/CloneBoard was designed for, or some other smallish stepper rated around 0.8-1.0A.

You can check the motor performance of whatever you pick using my handy-dandy stepper driver tool:
https://github.com/rcarlyle/StepperSim
Download the 4988/4982 spreadsheet and look where the instruction page shows you the settings to use for a Mightyboard. Then plug in your motor specs and run through the instructions for checks to do. Then let me know how it goes :-)

[adam paul]

Does the cloneboard have integrated drivers? Can't use a inverted black driver? Wow on the cantilever build plate as well.

[Steve Johnstone]

Cheers Ryan, I don't really want to mess with the clone board unless I absolutely need to. I'll try the smaller motor and take it from there.

[adam paul]

If you use the belt drive you have pictured, you can gear down the motor at the belt level. 20t on the steeper 40t on the leadscrew. Adjust your steps/mm accordingly, based on whatever gears you choose. Could give you the extra torque needed without more electrical power. Reducing your leadscrew count to three would also reduce drivetrain fiction, as well as part count.

[Jetguy]

****** If you use Sailfish firmware or even other 8 bit firmware and maybe even some bad 32 bit ports of 8 bit firmware, running higher than 400 steps per mm on Z  and especially a tall Z is asking to find the point of integer overflow.

 

The best way to KNOW is start a test print and invoke pause. By default, Sailfish and many other firmware moves Z to the max position minus 5-10 mm. If you bed moves a fraction of that, and not anywhere near the programmed size- you just overflowed Z steps.