Vorpal 180 - A Printed Printer

[atrushing]

For making the back panel I fell back on my drafting background. Unfortunately, I was only able to find clear plexi panels locally.

It looks a lot better with some matte black vinyl applied. I should have more frame components printed by now but I ran into a clogging issue and had to rebuild my Trident toolhead.

The spool holder and the power inlet can be swapped on either side as needed.

[atrushing]

I am getting a little ahead of myself here but since I had the gantry ready I just couldn't help myself..

Adding the X axis ties the frame together rather well but I think I might still need a cross bar at the front of the frame. My plan is to build it into the tophat.

The X/Y joints are quite compact but still have a good amount of material resisting the strain from the belt tension and accelerations.

[mvdveer]

I love following this build. Can tell your excitement for afar!

[atrushing]

I've been busy but haven't finished much today.

All three of the endstops are ready.

And I've remixed the controller mount to fit the Manta M8P.

[atrushing]

I've got the A/B motors in but I will need to modify them to account for ABS shrinkage.

And here is another size comparison now that the Vorpal is further along.

[atrushing]

I have remixed this cable guide to fit directly behind the rear Z-axis linear rail.

Studying this picture, I think it might be a good idea to extend the cable guide up and change the black "T" piece so that it is just a horizontal section. With the tension from the belts, the back area bows a little and needs to be made notably stiffer.

They say that the last 20% of the design process takes 80% of the time. I feel that I am approaching this point.

[atrushing]

I am in the process of re-designing/re-printing at least 16 pieces. The new version of the cable guide turned out to be a good shrinkage calibration piece. For every 20mm, the part shrinks by 0.2mm meaning that this part needs to be 1.8mm longer for good fitment (or scaled by 101%).

[atrushing]

I have moved the belt line up by 1mm and made the A/B motor mounts into a much more solid bridge structure.

I also created geometry that guides the belt around the motor pulley and insures that the belt can only be routed the correct way. A piece of masking tape on the end of the belt helps reduce friction and allow it to be pushed through blindly until it exits past the idler pulley.

[atrushing]

I find that I need to reinforce the rear vertical part of the frame since that is the only structural section without a linear rail to help with strength and dimensional accuracy.

I started with same-day delivery of stainless backers from Send-Cut-DoItYourself until I realized that the available Voron styled backers are all very expensive titanium pieces. I am now using printed pieces and can verify the accuracy and hole spacing using an extra linear rail that I have. Unfortunately this change means that I get to reprint another six frame pieces using an extra 330g of filament..

[atrushing]

A nice feature of the integral tensioners is that doing maintenance only requires removing two screws from the front and you're left with plenty slack in the belts.

The new top structure has a lot less flex than before. The belts are tensioning and tracking very well. I will do my first test prints before putting on the side plexi panels to see how the frame holds up to the movement and acceleration. Then I can put on the panels and compare test prints before and after.

[atrushing]

While the new rear frame pieces are busy printing I decided to start in on the wiring. I began by up-cycling some short ribbon cables for the Mini 12864 display.

Then I mounted the power supply and controller with VHB tape and connected all of the stepper motors.

Now it is time to start designing the z-carriages and bed mounts.

[atrushing]

Two steps forward and one step back. This reminds me of the time I left my car on the wrong side of town..

The new rear pieces are still printing but I have already reclaimed all of the heat-set inserts from the old pieces.

[claudermilk]

Well...putting printers on concrete blocks is a thing...

[atrushing]

Getting a little further along. Fortunately the hole pattern on the Prusa Mini sub build-plate has rotational symmetry. This allows for a much cleaner design.

The Z carriages still need some more design work.

[atrushing]

This is almost starting to look like a printer!

The Z-carriages use a toothed wedge and a tensioning block to secure the belt. The spherical bearing mount point can also be adjusted up to 9mm lower to allow a UHF hotend to fit without reducing Z travel.

[atrushing]

I applied my typical 6mm cork to the underside of the heated PCB. I used a pencil rubbing to help mark where I needed to Dremel away material so that it would sit flat.

[atrushing]

It doesn't look like I will have a problem with the bed dropping on power-off.. The drill weighs 1.7kg!

[atrushing]

I have been debating on releasing yet another Mini Stealth variant.

The Micro Sherpa only saves 2g compared to the Mini Sherpa but it is a lot smaller and has allowed me to implement the one feature that I have been missing with the Mini.. A filament release lever.

[atrushing]

Tomorrow should be a busy day!

I am surprised I haven't received any comments on the Mini Stealth regarding the 3010 hotend fan. When I was assembling this, I found that the LEDs are nearly impossible to install with the larger fan. Rotating the LED pockets forward made them much easier to install and should shine more light on the print rather than on the silicone sock.

[atrushing]

I've got everything wired up. I couldn't get the WiFi to connect until I realized that I forgot to connect the antenna.

It took a while to get the config file in working order and I still need to tweak it a bit.. I hacked it together from three of my other printers.

Putting down the first print!

I pushed the speed more than I usually would to see how things would go. The Benchy took about 35 minutes but one of the fans is jammed so the overhangs curled a bit. I will also need to fix the LED wiring while I have the toolhead apart.

[mvdveer]

Great effort

[atrushing]

After taking everything apart and replacing LEDs, it looks like PEBCAK is the word for the day... It turns out that I just hadn't changed the pin definitions in the stealthburner_leds.cfg file.

[atrushing]

I've added the side panels but I'm not sure how much they are helping with the vibrations. I still plan on adding a clamping cross brace as a part of the tophat. It looks like I might need to make the tophat a bit taller though. With the X/Y extra travel, the umbilical ends up higher than on the V0.1..

And the Vorpal 180 with its big brothers..

[atrushing]

I lost track of which print was from before and which was with the side panels installed but they both have some pretty bad ringing and surface texture. They were printed at 150mm/s infill and 110mm/s walls and 5000mm/s/s acceleration. Also I haven't printed much with PLA in a long while and forgot how bad it can curl on the overhangs. Maybe I could slow it down a little..

[claudermilk]

The struggle is real. I can feel your pain with the darn overhangs, that's giving me fits right now.