Now it is - Just a Trident 300mm

[mvdveer]

Had a project in mind and prepared for it by acquiring all the hardware in the form of a Trident 300mm Formbot kit. Printed all the parts for a Trident morphing into a  Tridex . Started the build of what I thought would be a Tridex. But Alas --  Not gonna happen due to a comedy of errors.

The Tridex is based on a 250mm Trident build - I got a 300mm  (I have a Trident 250 but it is printing so well, I am not keen to strip it for this project.)  Thought I might get away by buyng a Trident 350mm frame kit as that will give me the extrusions I need - not the solution.

For the Tridex to work, you need to be able to park the toolhead that is not in use, OFF the build plate.  Not gonna happen on a Trident with a 300mm build plate . 

So - lets build a Trident 300mm, get that printing well and see if I have the energy to convert the 250mm Trident to a Tridex.

Gone with traditional Voron colors - Black and Red, and if you =can believe it - just about a stock build.

Took my time in building a square frame - this is the foundation of a printer that prints well - ensured the Frame bolts were secure and tight.

AB Motors mounted and Idlers mounted (Non modded - who can believe that from one of my builds?)

Z-Motors done - (See I can do it - no Z-Belted mod)

Hung the gantry and racked it.

Routed the belts and mounted the Chaotic labs TAP (Is that still classified as a mod?)

And finally mounted the bed

Starting to look like a printer. 

Onto the Clockwork2 and stealthburner.

 

 

[atrushing]

51 minutes ago, mvdveer said:

AB Motors mounted and Idlers mounted (Non modded -

Who are you and what have you done with @mvdveer?!

[claudermilk]

9 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Gone with traditional Voron colors - Black and Red, and if you =can believe it - just about a stock build.

Lies!

[mvdveer]

6 hours ago, claudermilk said:

Lies!

I said "just about" 

[mvdveer]

Stealthburner and clockwork 2 done and trial fitted.

                                                                               

                                                                                

Will have to come off again in order to properly do the wiring to the toolhead board which is a Mellow Fly SB2040 Canbus board.

Now for the electronics - And the awful crimping of those tiny JST connectors.

 

 

[mvdveer]

Thank heavens the tiny crimping is done!

Loved the inverted electronics on the previous Trident build and went straight to it on this build. (I do not see this as a mod, just a change of perspective )

Component layout done -- sooo much space!

                         

On to wiring

[claudermilk]

Aha! Busted! Mods right out the gate!

[mvdveer]

Now this was interesting. As is my practice, I burned a Raspi SD card with Raspberry Pi Imager, connected the Octopus and SB2040 boards via lab power supplies, flashed the boards - ensured all was working and then installed into the printer. 

Great was my surprise that once all cables were connected, my Can0 network DISAPPEARED!   Well a few choice words and back to the drawing board. Removed the board, fired it up without any connections - and there it was - the Can0 network in all its glory. WTF

Spend most of a day researching, reading and trying to find the problem. well, it works when no wires are plugged in, so lets plug in the wires one by one and see who is the culprit. Timely process but well worth it in the end.

The CULPRIT --- a faulty wired Y-Endstop switch. Somehow I managed to wire it to 5V and GND, not GND and Pin.  Arrrgh! Fixed this and lo and behold - the Can0 interface surfaced again.  ANOTHER LESSON LEARNED - Pay attention - ALWAYS!

Thought I would post this as it shows that no matter how many times you have done something - there is always a possibility of something going wrong

[claudermilk]

I'm always paranoid about wiring and the possibility of angering the pixies & releasing the magic smoke. So I triple-check everything before applying power.

[mvdveer]

The build is done. Was not without its fair share of issues. 

 

Installed klippain (more on this in the klippain thread) on this build and started doing the configuration checks. Everything worked as it should from the start - did not need to change any motor directions, etc

However, when I got to the point of testing the extruder, I got the error : "IFONT could not be read" which either meant a dead driver or a wiring issue. Wiring was good, so maybe the driver on the canbus board. Thought I try doing a resonance test with the on board ADXL on the canbus - again failed with an error - "Value 0, expecting 5". Thus conclusion - damaged canbus board.  Because I am who I am, I had some spare boards - flashed another installed and all is well again. Was a dead canbus board.

Due to the canbus and umbilical mod, I had to install a tophat for clearance of the umbilical. 

As klippain has ALL the needed macros installed, I tested these out and here are the results. As a start - quite happy with it:

Belts: Tensioned equally and not much "noise" there.

X-Axis - Nice sharp peak - happy with that

Y-Axis - Mmmhhh something going on there - will have to check the belt path again. Most likely a loose bolt somewhere along the path.

And lastly Vibrations - Not clean at all - 

After correcting the shaper graphs, will now open the Ellis Tuning guide and start the tedious but MOST IMPORTANT tuning of the machine.

A good source for interpreting these graphs can be found in this video.

[mvdveer]

Found the Y-Front Idler screw was loose - rerun the test. Much better but not perfect.

Y-Axis - getting there

x- axis ----- PERFECT

 

Ran belts calibration again and as can be expected the belt tension was "unequal"or out

Tensioned the Y belt and re-ran the belt tensioning macro - belts in sync again:

Tested vibrations after tensioning - no difference at all

 

Now that I actually understand what these graphs mean, it is so more USEFUL ll!

 

 

[claudermilk]

Thanks for the video link, I'll have to give that a watch. I like to be able to make sense of the squiggly lines (certainly helped for my track days).

[mvdveer]

Did some basic tuning as per the ellis guide and started a print - a disaster. 

At first thought the filament was wet as the print seemed brittle and lumpy. Dried the filament at 50C for 48hours but that made no difference.  

When I moved the Z-axis, I realised it did not move the full distance. As I used "klippain" for this installation, it turns out I choose the wrong Trident config. There were two to choose from - a TR8X8 and TR8x4 - had NO IDEA what this meant!   (Will have to re-tune the printer because of that)

Rectified the entry from TR8x8 which had a rotation distance of 8 to the TR8X4 and started a print without any tuning, other than setting the Z-Offset.

Result for a first print are acceptable (Benchy and 20x20 cube) and will improve with revisitng the Ellis Guide.

      

  

 

Any comments welcome

 

[mvdveer]

Serial Request Video:

 

 

[mvdveer]

Thanks for following - it has been named VT.1345

[PFarm]

On 10/17/2023 at 6:01 AM, mvdveer said:

Loved the inverted electronics on the previous Trident build and went straight to it on this build. (I do not see this as a mod, just a change of perspective )

 

That mod is so cool, I'm thinking of eventually doing the 2.4 version of this mod on my 2.4.

[mvdveer]

25 minutes ago, PFarm said:

That mod is so cool, I'm thinking of eventually doing the 2.4 version of this mod on my 2.4.

Should be possible, don't know why no-one has thought of it before.

[PFarm]

2 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Should be possible, don't know why no-one has thought of it before.

Here is the link for the mod

https://mods.vorondesign.com/detail/TmE2ogJM6EYetii4uD1GQ

[PFarm]

Please delete it was posted here by mistake.

Edited December 6, 2023 by PFarm

[PFarm]

On 10/17/2023 at 6:01 AM, mvdveer said:

 

  

 

(Reverse electronic bay) So with the bed away from the bottom panel, it will not warp like on the 2.4 no need to secure it?

[mvdveer]

6 hours ago, PFarm said:

(Reverse electronic bay) So with the bed away from the bottom panel, it will not warp like on the 2.4 no need to secure it?

I have not experienced warping on either of the tridents to this point. You can always secure it with some panel clips if you are concerned.

[mvdveer]

After many, many hours of printing got an error: "heatbed not heating at expected rate"  Well, it was time for regular maintenance anyhow. So in she comes for some well deserved care.

Always amazes me that most bolts/screws need re-tightening, by at least a quarter of a turn. Did this.  

However, in this instance, the middle extrusion on which the bed mounts, was totally loose and twisted. (Let's do the twist -like in the sixties!). This caused the bed heater wires (From the fuse),  attached to the Wago Connecters to break. Fixed this and error gone - bed heating normally again. (But to be sure - followed the electrical path and tested every element to make sure it was not a double whammy)

Whilst I had the panels off, decided to fit the aluminium X-Carriage, Cartographer probe, (this printer had a Chaotic labs V1 TAP originally), Filametrix toolhead and the titanium backers. .

   

Set up the Cartographer - Had to re-flash with new firmware as it came with an older version of klipper canbus firmware. Very straightforward process. Downloaded the firmware from Cartographer website, flashed the probe with the python script and done!

Must say, had to spend some time setting the Z-offset. But think I got the first layer just about right now. The latest test cube:

    

(BTW - The Filament is ABS Sparkle Burnt Titanium from DREMC - a local supplier - First time I tried their filament and already fallen in love with it)

Today - tuning according to the Ellis guide.

Looking at those cubes - I definitely need to get pressure advance tuned as well as flow rate and extrusion multiplier. Some retraction settings need to be adjusted and may as well re-calibrate rotation distance. Will be printing a CaliLantern once all that is done,  to adjust skew as well. 

Next:  Adding one of the Trad Rack's to the build. In order to do this, I will change the path of the PTFE Bowden to enter through the middle of the top panel. Have some adapters printed - will see which angle will work.

 

 

[Dirk]

Beautiful printer.

Even if you used normal colors, it is still very flashy.

Honestly, if I had followed your build back in september, I would not have been able to understand anything you have written.. But I have learnt so much on this forum, that I can follow what you write

1 hour ago, mvdveer said:

setting the Z-offset

The manual on the website for the wiring and installation of the probe is great and very well documented. 

The klipper configuration, mounting on the CNC carriage, and even flashing are very well documented. 

A point which I have also mentioned in their discord, is setting the z offset, which is expressed not in a 'fool-proof' way, so it causes some confusion.

The admin in the help channel assured me it would be adjusted shortly in clearly understandable language

But, here is how I finally did it: After installation/flashing/configuration, you have to calibrate the probe by entering CARTOGRPHER_CALIBRATE. Which brings up the familiar Z offset test interface. Once you are done setting that, you accept and SAVE_CONFIG, after which the printer does a firmware_restart.
When you are back, you need to set your z offset by babysteps after you home the x and y. Saving this and restarting, does the trick.

Using the klipperscreen interface, does NOT save the new offset, so you need to use mainsail/fluid.

Anyway, I am sure many people are waiting eagerly on your tradrack integration with this beautiful printer, including me.

 

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, Dirk said:

Using the klipperscreen interface, does NOT save the new offset, so you need to use mainsail/fluid.

Thanks @Dirk that was where I fell flat on my face, but figured it out. Followed the instructions on the Cartographer site to the T, except was using klipperscreen, not mainsail. Once I figured that out - all was good.

[mvdveer]

Finished tuning as per Ellis guide. Lots of pieces of plastic for the bin.

Still need to get the retraction setting sorted. This filament has a lot of stringing.

Going to print the Calilantern tomorrow and tune skew settings.

Hopefully then I can mount the tradrack and start tuning. Quite looking forward to it in a way......