v2.4r2 2.4 Siboor kit

[Mr. Hedgehog]

Here comes the scary part, and I need your advice.

First, my inlet doesn't have any type of connectors on the ends (see photo one). Should I crimp them before stuffing into Wago, or just let them be as is?

And second, should I fix cable boxes and try to lay everything neatly, or just connect and then try to organize everything neatly?

[Dirk]

I can not exactly understand what you mean by "my inlet doesn't have any type of connectors'. Wago is meant to make it easier when connecting wires without soldering / taping / crimping. So there is no need to crimp the cable end. If you prefer to do so, it will also work.

The cables below your voron... You organise them as you wish. Some people like to tidy as they add every cable. Some after all is finished. 
In this, a problem of kits is, that you have pre-crimped wires that have a certain length and that you always have a lot of length of cable left over after connecting parts. Like in your stealthburner head. So you have to tuck it away after connecting. The cable organizers are good for this purpose. 

I have had to 're-organize' the cables more than once, after I built my printer. So take that into account when shortening cables or stuffing cables away.

I do not know the siboor kit, but here is how my kit should look like. And once I tuck away all the cables into the cable managers, it is similar. But here you can see how the LDO kit (more than twice the price of what I paid for my kit)  handles things. You will see they use a lot of wago's that are used as 'stations' for certain things. And it looks much more organised. But then again, how often do you want to see the electronics bay of your printer? When you are lucky, not too often.... 

So be creative  

[Mr. Hedgehog]

12 minutes ago, Dirk said:

So there is no need to crimp the cable end.

That was exactly what I asked for. Thanks.

13 minutes ago, Dirk said:

Some people like to tidy as they add every cable. Some after all is finished. 

13 minutes ago, Dirk said:

But then again, how often do you want to see the electronics bay of your printer? When you are lucky, not too often.... 

I'll try to do neatly in first pass, so that I would not need to turn this heavy thing often

[Dirk]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

so that I would not need to turn this heavy thing often

Trust me you will... 

Some even made a mod for it, because it is required so often

 

[mvdveer]

13 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

First, my inlet doesn't have any type of connectors on the ends (see photo one). Should I crimp them before stuffing into Wago, or just let them be as is?

Just another observation - Wago requires 11mm of exposed wire, so I would strip some more insulation of the wires. Any wire going into terminals should be bare - not soldered. 

[YaaJ]

The LDO kits use as few Wago's as possible. They are for the bed heater only, and under the bed (no room for anything else). A pair of 221 (N/L or GND/+24V). All other connections are done using screw terminals and ferrules or spad connectors (PSU, DIN terminals, motherboards).

A huge hype around Wagos...Even for wires far below the Wago minimal wire gauge specs ! Like AWG28 or 32 fan bare wires on some Nevermore variants with Wago 221 limited to AWG 18 !

Edited January 7 by YaaJ

[Mr. Hedgehog]

16 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Wago requires 11mm of exposed wire

Thanks a lot! I checked connectivity and there weren't any. Cut and stip 11mm and mains and PE now work properly from inlet to PSU.

So, yesterday I found out that first you need to attach cable chain and only then attach cable gland for CAN cable. I also found out that attaching cable chain upside down is not fun at all. Then I found out that A and B motor wiring is too short. Luckily, Z motors wiring is too long, so I cut two Zs shorter and attached excess of wires to A and B with molex. I hope that's okayish. And, since I already

Now, let's start criticizing the kit. It have a bunch of wires, but there is no indication of which wires should go where. Most of double wires have fork on one side, but tubes on the other. There are also bunch of forks laying separately. Then, while there is bunch of wires, I already don't have enough of them. And I thing there is lack of USB cable to connect Octopus with Pi, but I might have tucked it somewhere. My workspace is a total mess with all boxes, wires, baggies and tools. This is not a big deal also, since I have some unused USB cables. And finally, what frustrates me, RJ11 CAN connector doesn't lock into mainboard. I think i should have some kind of a thingy on pulldown thingy to lock it in place, but there's none.

Now what is left are SSR, CAN power and display. After that, have to recheck everything again and tidy stuff up. My plan to do everything neatly also failed, as you can see.

[Mr. Hedgehog]

So, apart from CAN power, everything is wired. I already planning on buying appropriate wires, heat and redoing it all from scratch. Only thing that I like here are motors. Everything else is a total mess. I also broke of thing that should hold BTT Pi onto rail. Any quick fixes that does not involve printing ABS? Or it's ok to initially just keep it as is besides the printer? This is what I'm going to do with CAN anyway, since CAN should be disconnected and connected back on inital setup.

What do you think about it all?

[Dirk]

2 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

redoing it all from scratch

I told you you would have to turn that heavy machine on its side

2 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

thing that should hold BTT Pi onto rail.

The RPI bracket is here, along with many other printable brackets, but of course they require printing. You can provisionally tape it to the bottom with 3M double sided tape (maybe even zip-tie it) so it does not break when you are moving things back and forth. 

5 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

Cut and stip 11mm

I am glad there are knowledgeable people on this forum  Thanks @mvdveer

5 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

A and B motor wiring is too short. Luckily, Z motors wiring is too long

I could not stop thinking that you probably used Z motors instead of A/B motors. In my case they were all the same. So I could interchange them. I see you have different TMC drivers on your octopus board for A/B motors, so I guess you are going to run 48v on A/B? But this would also require a secondary 48v source...hmm... Interesting kit. 

5 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

a bunch of wires, but there is no indication

My Fysetc kit had all cables neatly labeled. Very handy. Matters a lot of trouble when installing first time, then matters a lot when you need to find a certain cable back later. Coincidentally I found a post yesterday here where @mvdveer bought a machine to print plastic strips to label his cables  He also has a lot of printers and even a test-bench which I am clearly jealous of. I also labeled my cables I put in later, which is not easy to do without a plastic labeler.

5 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

RJ11 CAN connector

I looked in my old-tools shed, and found a phone cable that is obsolete for years (I do not have a home-phone since 2000s), but all the modems the companies send, have these phone lines. And mine looks much smaller than this huge connector...

 

2 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

What do you think about it all?

I think it looks good for the first time. I think you also need to tuck those thicker cables into the cable-gutters: for example the motor cables can go into the gutter and it will look better. Once you are able to print you should consider this cable gutter (cable management duct) for the vertical cables. Or maybe even this one. 
I used a lot of small zip ties to hold certain cables together before tucking them in the gutters. But it is a personal preference. 

2 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

planning on buying appropriate wires

I, as a simple guy, do not think you need to. Almost all cables are for low voltage (24v), and the cables there are good enough for them. I am sure the Chinese guys put in adequate cables for the 220v ones. But of course, I am not the expert here. 

Edited January 8 by Dirk

[Mr. Hedgehog]

13 minutes ago, Dirk said:

I could not stop thinking that you probably used Z motors instead of A/B motors.

Nope. They just give six motors with default wiring. This means that every drive have exact same length of wires. It even listed on their github page in FAQ section.

 

16 minutes ago, Dirk said:

And mine looks much smaller than this huge connector

This one is not huge. And at least Octopus "Supports CAN BUS using a 6P6C RJ11 interface"

 

20 minutes ago, Dirk said:

I am sure the Chinese guys put in adequate cables for the 220v ones

Well, when I'll start cutting, something will may go wrong, meaning that I will need something as a backup. Having a bit of a wires as a back up would be appropriate. I don't want to cut everything, fail to crimp, cut more and end up with not enough wire.

 

23 minutes ago, Dirk said:

The RPI bracket

No, not this one. This one is OK. I broke a hook that is clamped onto DIN rail.

[atrushing]

1 hour ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

Any quick fixes that does not involve printing ABS?

This part should be fine if printed in PETG as it is outside of the enclosure. You might even be able to get away with PLA at least for a little while.

[Dirk]

26 minutes ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

This means that every drive have exact same length of wires.

This also means everybody that wants the printer to work, has to cut and add extra wires. I think that is very dumb of a kit maker. If they want to have happy customers and 5 star reviews, they should make it so, that the buyer has to do nothing extra.

[Mr. Hedgehog]

13 hours ago, Dirk said:

I think that is very dumb of a kit maker.

I'd say that this is not so much of an issue, but it sure could be done on their side. However, lack of labels on all baggies, wires and such is a much bigger issue. With overall good kit, figuring out which wires to use where was frustrating. I understand that many of them are interchangeable, but a guide on proper wiring with instruction what to use where, what to cut how and such would be nice to have.

19 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

RJ11 CAN connector doesn't lock into mainboard

Yesterday I learned that there is multiple RJ11 (and other RJ) connectors. Octopus uses 6c6p (6 wires and 6 "outputs"), but provided connector is 4c4p. Don't know if this prevents locking or not, since tere are just two wires needed for CAN. Might as well buy new RJ connector and just crimp it, but first need to find old phone cable to check if it would lock.

 

I made some progress in finding Octopus power inputs-outputs to be very confusing, when you have "bed out" wires to be in "minus then plus" order, and rest to be "plus then minus". Guess who messed up all octopus power? Well, after thorough check up I did a test power up. It works! IT WORKS. At least it powers up and don't burn or let magic smoke out. I had problems with HDMI adapter for BTT Pi, and it for some reason it failed to connect to WiFi on it's own (I triple checked "system.cfg"), so waiting for new HDMI cable (that I will get this evening), will do a bit ow rewiring, add electronic fans and, hopefully, start checking that all works as it should.

[Dirk]

4 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

this is not so much of an issue

The most popular DIY kits are like Lego. Everything is to size, nicely packaged by category with a very clear illustrated manual. As if the printer was assembled in China, then disassembled and packaged and shipped to you.

4 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

HDMI adapter for BTT Pi

HDMI, Pi and wifi, I do not understand. I only use the RPI and it connects to the octopus through a simple cable delivered with the Pi. It is a lot of work to configure the linux version to auto log on, to recognize wifi, log on to it, and re log on when disconnected. This RPI imager, took care of it all for me with just a few checkboxes. But as a software engineer, I do not think I have to tell you how to fix that. If you want to find out, I would suggest connecting a screen and a keyboard to your PI and figure it out. But simple me would re-install the mainsail os image with the right checkboxes and ssh into it.

[Mr. Hedgehog]

53 minutes ago, Dirk said:

The most popular DIY kits are like Lego. Everything is to size, nicely packaged by category with a very clear illustrated manual.

They also tend to cost more (or not shipped to where I live, or even both). To be honest, I was ready to do lot more work than I did, so my experience overall is better then expected. Especially considering that they actually sell Trodons - basically prebuilt Vorons.

56 minutes ago, Dirk said:

HDMI, Pi and wifi, I do not understand. I only use the RPI and it connects to the octopus through a simple cable delivered with the Pi.

That is the part that I'm pretty much proficient in. At least relatively. Siboor use custom image of CB1 (it's specificaly made by BigTreeTech for their BTT Pi). It specifically configured for Siboor Voron kits. When I boot everything up and be comfortable with how everything works, I might upgrade software parts and configure to my liking, but first I need to verify that everything works properly. Kit also includes 5" touchscreen, hence the HDMI cable, and initial wi-fi connection should be set up from the screen by manual. There is also an option to autoconnect to WiFi with CB1, but it fails for some reason, so I'll just plug new HDMI cable, maybe a keyboard, if needed, and then see what happens. Maybe it will go smoothly from here on.

[Mr. Hedgehog]

A small update, but a big win.

HDMI and WiFi problems sorted themselves out. I just bought new HDMI, and found out that BTT Pi actually comes with WiFi antenna. Also, there is a jumper on Pi that switches between USB 5V power and 12V-24V direct power. And while 24V power works even with jumper in place, WiFi doesn't work. Removed jumper, spent half a day figuring out why my network wasn't showing, found the antenna, attached it and now I'm online and can do everything from a comfort of normal mainsail, and not from touch keyboard on 5" display.

Next thing is CAN RJ11. Everything turned out ok with it, except that it was too deep into the black housing. Cut a bit of housing like people advised on discord (I hate discord, but it's a necessity now), and it snapped in place with satisfying click.

Since I powered everything I performed some of the initial checks. Turned out that my Molex crimping skills were not good, so A drive didn't have continuity on A+ and A- wires. And yes, I learned how to check stepper wires now. And I missed a power selection jumper for Z3 (I rechecked jumpers on mainboard three or four times, and missed this one somehow). I fixed it, inverted few motor directions, checked heaters, checked endstops, checked homing, performed QGL. So far pretty good.

Now, since everything works, I need to tidy up wiring a bit, install skirt, and continue with checks and tuning. Meanwhile any advice on choosing and configuring slicer? I'm long term PrusaSlicer user, but there are now options like OrcaSlicer and triumphal return of SuperSlicer. Should I give them a try? Are default profiles in them any good? I had a bad time syncing machine limits between Klipper and PrusaSlicer with Ender (time estimations always wrong somehow, but sometimes it minutes, and sometimes it's an hour - very bad for planning).

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

Meanwhile any advice on choosing and configuring slicer?

I would most likely recommend Orcaslicer - a lot of us have switched to it due to the hiatus in the Superslicer arena. An excellent slicer with a great interface and mainsail incorporated in the product. 

Else - Superslicer, now that it is back in development. I believe 2.7 will be released towards the end of February, bringing it up to date with the latest Prusa slicer as this release will incorporate the merge with that branch of Prusaslicer.  The only drawback at this stage, is that there is no OSX/MAC version, if you are locked into the Apple ecosystem. Again this will happen after the merge to 2.7 according to supermerril. 

BUT - Choose one, learn it and stick to it - that way you can get all your profiles tuned. Switching slicers means redoing profiles.

[Dirk]

Annoying that not everything works out of the box, like you have to cut plastic and lenghten / shorten wires. But I guess you managed well. Also the wifi/hdmi thing is funny. 

About the slicer, if you are used to prusaslicer(never used it), I guess superslicer is very similar. A very unix-like interface. 

If you are used to work with Mac's, you will find Orcaslicer more convenient, I think

Check out this thread from beginning to end.  You will see that some love it, some go back to superslicer. I also installed it to see what it was about. Since you are very comfortable in a unix interface, I guess you will prefer superslicer.

Timings, I find superslicer more accurate than cura (never used others).

[Mr. Hedgehog]

5 hours ago, mvdveer said:

The only drawback at this stage, is that there is no OSX/MAC version

My main PC have Windows, so it's not a big deal. But I'll try Orca. If I don't like it, there is always familiar PrusaSlicer or very similar SuperSlicer.

2 hours ago, Dirk said:

Also the wifi/hdmi thing is funny. 

Antenna thing is hilarious, but I'm mad. I haven't seen anything about it in BTT Pi manual, and my Raspberry Pi3 that handles Ender don't need any external antenna at all. There is also a card in the box from BTT saying how they grateful for my purchase or something. And antenna (flat thing on a wire) was under this card. I found out that there is antenna when accidentally clicked on "images" in search ad it showed image with contents of the box.

2 hours ago, Dirk said:

A very unix-like interface.

For me, Klipper have very unix-like interface. It have commandline and huge text config and I love such things. UIs are hard to do good, especially if it should have a lot of stuff. Luckily, people are adaptable even to bad interfaces.

 

I have another question (or two) to ask. Since I'm primarily print in PLA (and don't even have any other filament at the time), I don't want to enclose printer yet. At least, not all of it. But all tuning guides say "enable heaters and heatsoak printer for half an hour, and then do this and that". I understand that heating the bed for some time should be mandatory, since it have pretty big volume with relatively small heater (but 220V do wonders, to be honest). But otherwise, is it ok to lower suggested temperatures (I don't need 100C bed and 260 nozzle, for example) and just go along as I did on my Ender?

Also, still don't understand about tightening bed screws. I really don't want my bed to warp from the get go. Should I stick to Voron asseembly manual or do as Ellis suggests (linked earlier)?

[Dirk]

I think you have very good questions. I am also curious what others (experienced users) have to say.

9 minutes ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

"enable heaters and heatsoak

This heatsoaking is meant for printing with ABS in an enclosed printer.
As I understand there are two reasons to do this.
First is not different from other printers, is that if you start moving / vibrating all assembled parts, things loosen, or 'sit' better in their place. This is when you have to tighten everything down again. If you are going to the extreme of movements in the assembled parts, you better heat up all parts. 
Second is, only for printing with ABS. Or with a heated up enclosed printer. I do not remember if I linked that too, but the thermal expansion thing was a big problem for me in the beginning. I started printing and after a few layers, the nozzle would kick off parts from the plate or it would lay loose layers. Frustrating until I installed the backers and pre-heat a while before doing ABS prints. Read the link and you will understand: it is not really necessary to worry with lower temperatures and not heated chamber.

The question about ABS and printing lower temperatures? I never managed to print succesfully anything with ABS below a bed temperature of 95 degrees. 110 is my standard for different reasons. But... if you were succesful and have tropical temperatures outside with no wind (It is freezing here and dripping cold rain), then you might get away with lower temperatures, I think...

But as I said, I am curious what others will say.

[Mr. Hedgehog]

8 minutes ago, Dirk said:

The question about ABS and printing lower temperatures?

I don't need ABS at lower temperatures. I don't think I want to print ABS in my living space, and I have no other space where I could do that. PLA is usually what I need, but I'd like to also try some TPU some day. My confusion is from the fact that many guides on Vorons are targeted at ABS/ASA, so they require heating everything. Should I just ignore or heat only bed (nozzle heats up pretty fast), or don't mind this all and do stuff on cold (for example, leveling bed and calibrating probe)?

[Dirk]

as I said : all the heatsoaking is for ABS and thermal expansion at enclosed heated chambers.

If you are not going to print ABS, you can just go ahead and do your thing. But make sure to check if anything loosens and re-tighten. I am sure it will require that.

 

 

[mvdveer]

4 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

Also, still don't understand about tightening bed screws.

As the bed expands with heat, is should not be fully tightened to allow for this expansion. Thus you fully tighten one screw, tighten the other three then loosen them by about half turn - tis allows for the bed to expand without warping

 

3 hours ago, Mr. Hedgehog said:

Should I just ignore or heat only bed (nozzle heats up pretty fast), or don't mind this all and do stuff on cold (for example, leveling bed and calibrating probe)?

You still need to do the PID tuning for both nozzle and bed. I print PLA at a bed temp of 60C. So if I were you, I would heat my bed to the temp you print PLA at, let it soak for 15 - 30 min, then calibrate your probe. (To allow for thermal expansion). This will also be the case for Quad Gantry Leveling - heat the bed to print temperature, soak it, do a QGL. Doing this will ensure a much more accurate and constant first layer across the whole plate.  

If you are going to print PLA without any bed heating, then you can ignore this and just do a cold probe and QGL

[claudermilk]

What @mvdveer just said. Get the printer all set up normally, then do a shorter heat soak to allow the parts to stabilize--especially the bed. Don't worry about the enclosure--in fact you want the printer open for PLA. From there print away. Switching between ABS and PLA or other materials that don't want the high temps is why I added the snap clips for my panels. I have been printing PLA most of the week this week and just finished yesterday; now I'm on to an ABS job so the panels went back on and away goes the printer. 

[Mr. Hedgehog]

On 1/8/2024 at 9:12 PM, atrushing said:

You might even be able to get away with PLA at least for a little while.

Remember broken piece to hold Pi onto DIN rail? Well, I printed it in PLA (will order PETG and reprint later). Guess what printer I used?

 

So, It prints, and prints reasonably well, considering that printer stands on its own box, it's not properly calibrated (except for extruder rotation distance), have almost default klipper config (default from Siboor) and default PrusaSlicer profile for Voron. I tried Orca, but it's too violent with movement speeds and I will be calibrating speeds and accelerations when printer will be on its rightful place and not on a cardboard box.

Today I will fix Pi in place, add skirts, bottom and back panels, and will start dethroning process for Ender, so I expect that today or tomorrow I will inaugurate Voron as a main printer. Expect a video soon.

While my journey is not over and I will report on further progress, I'd like to thank you all. You've been welcoming, friendly, encouraging and super helpful. Thank you for this.