Oneways Trident 300 Formbot

[Oneway]

Big box at my door with Chinese all over it , what could it be ? 

I've been planning this build since I discovered Voron shortly after being gifted a very old Ender 3 which led to purchasing a CR6se which in turn led to modding the crap out of it so it could print the parts for the big box at my door.

 4 months ago I'd never even seen an fdm printer in person and today I'm building what is quite possibly the coolest robot around. Mistakes coming , lessons to be learned, thank God for discord. 

 Here goes everything....

[claudermilk]

Awesome! It's amazing how rapidly things escalate once you find this rabbit hole, isn't it?

[Oneway]

Well everything appears to be present and accounted for. I actually have no idea what would be missing or changed at this point but I checked the BOM and it does seem more or less complete.

[Oneway]

I went with the Formbot kit as a first build and as usual there's a tiny bit of remorse in that I watched the live stream of Steve B building the LDO Trident beta and thier new integrated longer steppers , it's rare that I print in the 300 or 350 z range but it would be cool to have 300 in each axis. So I'll have to build another , perhaps 350 all around when they kit hits the market

[Oneway]

Quick catch-up since I would be a horrible documentary film maker. 

Yesss, I built a box... Well on the way now. 

Very happy with the parts, this was my first go with abs. The hardest part so far was my custom enclosure for the cr6 and keeping it from dying in the heat. A few prints it tapped out and shut down but after modifying the cardboard box with some enclosed ventilation channels to the proper fans it's doing much better , seems a bit noisier than it used to but it's days are numbered anyway so I won't lose any sleep over it.

The rails were not fun. I did manage to get them all greased and back together with only a minor heart attack, not sure I am a fan of the Formbot rails , I expected them to be much smoother and if I have any problems they will be perhaps the first thing to be replaced. 

For me the hard part of this type of project is not knowing what is coming so I can formulate a better plan of attack, for now it's by the book but the next book will be rewritten a bit.

Next up belting, i have a much better understanding now of how this works and how to go about getting it done. Bit lost in the beginning:)

Beds made , my wife would be so happy to hear those words in different context. 

Bottom plate took some gentle persuasive tactics to seat , I wonder if this is by design or perhaps the stepper wire connectors are sticking out a bit to far. I bent it and slid by but it was def a tight fit. I did want to order ABS panels and scrap these shiny ones that come with the kit , but I've already upgraded several things and at some point ya gotta stop and just build it.

 I am following advice for once and building it stock in the general order so when I upgrade I actually know the what and why of the changes I make. I do love a good mod for no reason on a perfectly well running machine though but for now I go plain Jane and keep her stock.

Almost caught up now , I forgot to print the din rail mounts so they are coming down the pipe now. 

I am skipping a bit due to a surprise Formbot added upon the purchase of this kit, the kit was ordered partially because they finally received stock in the us , California to be exact so I had it 3 days after placing the order except a few hours  after payment I received an email stating my kit was being shipped minus the dragon hotend and extruder cable , those were coming from china!!! Wtf, so I rapidly got to the afterburner section which I'll hold on and skip to wires , the hotend should arrive tomorrow. 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Oneway

[Oneway]

Whittling away at the functional part pile. It's getting less and less now. 

Just realized the xy endstop pod is different, another little Chinese surprise. The BOM from Formbot lists hall effect pcb but upon arrival its now microswitches. Not sure which is better or worse but ya cant beat a switch it either works or it doesn't. 

Love this abs , not sure why people make such a fuss about printing this , it prints beautifully.

[leesafur]

My first printer was the CR6SE and also helped me build my first Voron... Could never get the CR6 to print all that great and happy to be done with it!

[claudermilk]

Nice progress!

From seeing all the help topics on the hall effect endstops coming up, I'd say the switches are better. They are simple and just work--especially when you have the PCB mod. 

One box I didn't see in your layout is a Pi. Do you have one already? 

[Oneway]

18 hours ago, leesafur said:

My first printer was the CR6SE and also helped me build my first Voron... Could never get the CR6 to print all that great and happy to be done with it!

It took modding almost everything to get it to print nicely , it's actually a great printer now but still a toy. 

[Oneway]

6 hours ago, claudermilk said:

Nice progress!

From seeing all the help topics on the hall effect endstops coming up, I'd say the switches are better. They are simple and just work--especially when you have the PCB mod. 

One box I didn't see in your layout is a Pi. Do you have one already? 

Ya they didn't have any so I was credited back the cash. I have 2 pi 4s so I'm all good !

[leesafur]

7 hours ago, Oneway said:

It took modding almost everything to get it to print nicely , it's actually a great printer now but still a toy. 

Yeah... Heavily modded. Darn near every part was tweaked or replaced including the mainboard! But could never get the bed to stay level. The Voron is running like a champ with 174hrs on it now. First layer issues are non existence now with the Unklicky mod with the Klipper plugin for a self calibrating Z offset. I highly recommend looking into that one.. Super simple design with no switch to wear out. 

CR6 laying down PETG at 170mms

 

[Oneway]

1 hour ago, leesafur said:

Yeah... Heavily modded. Darn near every part was tweaked or replaced including the mainboard! But could never get the bed to stay level. The Voron is running like a champ with 174hrs on it now. First layer issues are non existence now with the Unklicky mod with the Klipper plugin for a self calibrating Z offset. I highly recommend looking into that one.. Super simple design with no switch to wear out. 

CR6 laying down PETG at 170mms

I heard about that mod , sounds awesome.. ya my cr6 has everything except linear rails, for the bed the thing that finally did it was silicone spacers and adjusting the strain gauge properly after that it works fine. Along with micro swiss hotend , bondtech lite extruder and the btt mainboard it actually prints very well and fairly quick:)  I can talk about a cr6 all day but the voron is a new animal and I feel so lost. 

[Demosth]

Love it, thank for the build progress!

[Oneway]

To busy to update this build diary so I'll do a giant catch up to get to where it sits today.

Parts , parts and more parts.

Hatchbox abs neon green and polymaker abs black is what i used. So I had finished printing everything and slogging thru the  beginning of the build when they released the trident r1 update,  are you kidding me? You changed what? shit, more printing. It changed my mind on a few things though, I had originally planned building it 100% stock and modding after but indecided to change a couple things and went ahead and added the pin mod, the updated skirts , titanium backers and igus cable chains.

Also went with the dragon instead of the v6 antique, the dragon is no longer in this printer but we will get to all that.

Afterburner done , about to start the electronics.

everything layed out and mounted, it was at this point i realized i had no idea what i was doing , the docs are good but theres many places i felt as though I was just  winging it or frantically searching the internet to find examples of what other people did. Its funny to me now since i have acquired so much knowledge of this printer and the build itself how lost I was and wondering if I had actually taken on something I couldn't finish, kinda like writing macros only with this I had a snowballs chance in hell, unlike coding.

Great update with the new release was the inclusion of the wago mounts under the bed , much cleaner.

i had read this was a safety mod,  using the rtv to make sure the bed doesnt fall off during printing  as well as adhering the thermal fuse directly to the bed rather than screwed to the metal for thermal runaway protection or some other shit that only happens to ither people,but it makes sense to me. During my internet searches I couldn't believe the  horrendous silicone bed heater jobs , I get that it's under the bed but  for God sakes use masking tape and make it at least a little bit clean, it's a Voron , treat it like such.

slow goin.

and about finished wiring , oh did i mention i also went with a btt tft50 touchscreen , more parts to print for the new mount, wasted parts for thenold mount but thinking back it was one of my better decisions, I love klipperscreen.

Wiring complete and backers installed.

its alive !! Sort of , i had zero experience with building a Voron which is about twice as much as my knowledge of klipper , I did actually get my cr6 up and going with it for a short time but the learning curve was to much, even just  getting it configured at the time to recognize the hardware so I went back to marlin. These days it's nit so overwhelming,  I'm still a novice but at least I kinda know where things live.

This is how the initial build finished up, but alas the build and wiring were by far the easiest part , the frustration was just beginning. I used the basic cfg to get rolling , of course it was all a bit overwhelming and so many questions piled up but my main problem at this stage was the inductive probe, it didn't work. I poured over anything I could find looking for answers and like everything in life, its happened to someone else and Google can find it. So long story short my octopus board didn't want me to use the probe header that was supposed to work , no matter the combination of resistor this pull up that  and header huh?  The work around was buying a bat85 diode and using a different sensor pin , and finally we had a triggered probe.

I couldn't believe when i actually arrived at this point,  what had  seemed like eons since discovering voron,  setting aside the cash to order the kit and impatiently at the door waiting for the delivery, the countless hours figuring out how to print successful abs parts on a crap printer to finally  finishing each and every part and the setbacks during assembly all thenway to the end.  I stood starring at it in awe, I finally had my own Voron , time to make it sing. 

Since buying my first printer a year ago and trying every slicer available I had settled on prusaslicer , so thankfully superslicer seemed very familiar and has now become my favorite, and it had a voron cfg, I also learned how to get this slick trident  bed model on the screen:)

First 2 prints, this printer is better than i could have hoped, this was with no adjustments, no pa, no input shaper, nadda. 

it was about this point i figured out how to wire and use the adxl , input shaper done, pressure advance, esteps and for me the real proof was stumbling across the andrew ellis github , I followed his guides to tune, installed his printer.cfg and slicer profile, amazing, 300mms infill 150mms perimeters , 10000 acceleration,  everything ran smooth as could be, solid clean abs,  Asa, petg, everything printed no problem. So that can only mean one thing , time to upgrade and fix what isn't broken.

So i had a brand new lgx lite and phaetus rapido i was going to use on my flsun rocketship which runs klipper now and handles 400mms without blinking but the voron seemed like a better candidate. Stealthburner, LGX lite, rapido was the plan. 

i hope this isnt a bad idea. 

all dressed up and no 24g ptfe to go. It's on its way.

The SB is just an amazing piece of cad , it is a great addition amd prints perfectly,  all configured now and with the pretty lights it just looks the part and for the rapido, maybe the perfect hotend , hosts up in seconds , hold temp like a rock , doesn't clog (yet), prints flawless and pushes a lot of plastic, def my new favorite and a considerable upgrade for the dragon. 

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Oneway

[Oneway]

365mm corner to corner parts, these are led mounts for neopixel strips. I've only owned  a few printers up till now but never have i had a bed perfectly flat corner to corner, I don't run bed mesh nor do I need to , it just makes printing so much more fun. 

Really liked the look of these handles and they are quite useful as well for wrestling this beast around. I finally managed to install the electronics bay bottom panel and now  I'm sure I'll need in there twice as much since it's screwed shut. 

Well that pretty much completes the cliff notes build diary of my Voron Trident 300, I'm now looking at the LDO 350 integrated steppers that they ship with their new trident kit  just released.  Im thinking 350x350x350 which honestly I don't need but the shear size draws me to it.  I have now gone from being totally lost to knowing exactly what parts I need which mods I want and where to buy everything!!  If I had to do it over I wouldn't change a thing except perhaps the kit manufacturer, a good friend is embarking on a first voron journey and i talked him into the LDO kit, its so nice and includes many of the upgrades i purchased, has a very good assembly manual, which mine came with nothing except the voron docs and you get to pick frame color, kinda jealous...

Well what an adventure this became , it took longer than I planned, at times I felt stupid, lost, frustrated and pissed  but in the end that feeling of pride and accomplishment overshadows all that. If you find this and are contemplating a voron all I can say is buy a kit from a reputable source, do your homework and read the docs , look at the mods available and the parts included in your kit and  plan accordingly as some mods could require much more extensive assembly after the machine is built so maybe do it right off the bat like I did with the pin mod, above all if you print your own parts and you should if possible, do them right and be hyper critical,as some bad prints could ruin all your hard work. Now it's time to figure out what next, I'm currently modding a flsun super racer which is cool but I want to build another voron, bigger or smaller is the real question,  I don't need either but that's never much mattered in most everything I do. Thanks for reading amd happy voroning 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Oneway

[mvdveer]

What a great build. I had fun reading through this, excellent outcome. Thanks for sharing.

[smirk]

I'll second that, thanks for sharing!

6 hours ago, Oneway said:

and building a self sourced machine,

I think we will all be waiting for your next build diary

[Oneway]

In my world a printer is never quite finished so I'll just continue on with current modifications as they are installed. ABS smells and I heard a rumor that it's not great to breathe the fumes or you'll get vd or voc or something or other,  I keep a window open since I know I'm nit getting out of this world alive, printer in hand but the Nevermore looks kinda cool, does a job and circulates air. I had originally planned to do the bed fan mod but things change. Easy print job for the filter just a handful of parts and a couple fans. I do love when my printer is running like a top and everything  just comes out quality and quickly,  go Voron. 

and mounted up, pay attention to the different exhaust locations on each model, the trident blows straight up where as the 2.4 turns 90 degrees. Bummer that the trident model does not have the nifty nevermore logo across the front , oh well.

Thanks for looking,  I think a chamber thermistor is up next. 

[mvdveer]

4 hours ago, Oneway said:

n my world a printer is never quite finished so I'll just continue on with current modifications as they are installed.

So true. But it is fun, keeps the mind active. And the satisfaction when the mod works. Until the next mod.....

[claudermilk]

Great diary! I totally understand all the feels. After all the time gathering money, then parts. Then getting your current printer up to snuff to print the Voron parts. Then the build, and finally the first power up (no smoke or sparks), and the "OMG, it's actually working!" moment of that first print. It's so satisfying; probably only other Voron builders get it.

Now you have a fun road of mods to add. I did several including Nevermore; that should be a must-do one. Not only does it help with the VOCs, but chamber temp comes up sof much faster and gets higher than just static air. Along with the physical mods is the learning in Klipper and macros so you make the printer work exactly how you want.

[Oneway]

As with most voron builds they are never truly finished until your attention turns to the next build,  of which I have a few ideas but for now my attention stays focused on perfecting my first Voron and so the story continues......

The last mod I believe was the addition of the Nevermore and after many 100s of hours print time I can only say great things , it truly removes the smell but the most important thing it does is reducing the amount of time it takes my chamber to reach proper temp. I had gone back and forth between the bed fan mod and the Nevermore and am quite happy with my choice at the moment. 

 The printer itself runs flawless, it is tuned well and the print quality at such high speeds is really quite unbelievable so as far as hardware it will remain in this configuration till It breaks. There's a few things that annoy me about my choices and a few things for QOL. First ,  the color, if I did it again I'd go a totally different direction but after looking at this thing day after day the amount of neon green was too much , I did like it at first but my thoughts now is that it makes the printer look cheap and more of a toy. I began by reprinting the skirts most easily changed parts back to black, keeping only a few parts green. After removing the panels which are a pita to take off and put back I decided to change to magnetic latches and removable 270 degree doors amd now that they are done I won't ever use anything else , best mod besides the klicky I think. And as one thing leads to another I replaced the cheap clear  2mm panels with smoke colored 5mm acrylic and again so glad I did, not only for looks but the insulation factor and noise reduction greatly improved but mostly because they look amazing! 

I am also going to reprint the SB and reverse the colors maybe someday when I have nothing better to do:) 

I am much more content with the black , I think it makes it a much better looking black box of melted plastic. 

The other new mod or addition on this case was to add leds to the chamber, I went with neopixels , found a mount and diffuser someplace , of course they weren't long enough so I had yo fix up the model for each but it worked out. At the moment I'm trying to understand the led effects mod that's floating around out there, seems an awful lot of work and cfg for some silly moving lights I won't use so for now I just set the color and intensity thru a simple macro amd leave it be but as far as qol mods the panels and the lights make things much easier.

One final thing added was a thermistor in the chamber , not sure how accurate it is but it gives me a much better idea where the machine is at and if it's ready to print.

Until next time than. Take care and happy printing.

[smirk]

Now that looks glorious!

 

[claudermilk]

Nice.

I set up my Stealthburner & case NeoPixels to react to what stage of a print the printer is at, so you know at a glance across the room where it is in the startup process.

[Edu]

Awesome build diary!

A question on your extruder though: What kind of flow rates are you getting from the LGX Lite with Rapido?

I have an LGX Lite with a Rapido on a Stealthburner and with a CHT 0.4 nozzle I'm only getting to about 30mm^3/s before the extruder starts skipping. I can reliably print at round 26mm^3/s with the CHT and with a 0.4 plated copper nozzle I can reliably print at about 20mm^3/s 

I've seen a video of someone getting 46mm^3/s with a Rapido and a 0.4 CHT nozzle on an Afterburner so just wondering if the huge difference I'm seeing is due to the smaller stepper on the Stealthburner or if maybe I have a partial clog (or some other issue) in my Rapido.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Edu

[Oneway]

Well well, here we in the future and what a strange course life continues to take, Google reminded me of this build diary while searching for something totally unrelated and I thought perhaps it would be a good time to carry on with my atrocious documentary. I apologize in advance for my lack of creative writing skill but in my defense will say this, if my mistakes and misfortunes save anyone time and money or god forbid help another printer down the road than the half assed effort was well spent. I have learned much  reading through blogs and posts, they show me that my knowledge of printing isn't the worst but definitely not on par with the movers and shakers that continue to push the boundaries of this hobby, perhaps one day ill have an idea that inspires instead of just following the path of the smarter man but for now the path is already laid to a certain point so lets catch up. 

Reading through my previous posts I realized a few things, I should proof things better before hitting submit and I should learn how to write, I will try to catch spelling errors from now on but I am to old to learn English over again. 

The last post was over 2 years ago and my build was successfully functional thanks to the folks that are willing to lend a helping hand and especially those that take the support tickets on Discord that have saved me from literally tossing my printer in the bin when all hope was lost. At some point I will search back and thank them by name but at this time I need to get from then to now. Due to life and the challenges it brings I had to shelve printing for quite some time and so my glorious build sat in my new man cave collecting dust for over a year until just a couple months ago, since than its game on and several changes have taken place to this particular build, some before the print darkness and some after and the rest are happening in real time. 

I will elaborate in the next post but for now i will say this , do not update klipper or anything else unless you have no other choice, the consequences of a single click cost me hours of searching through endless nonsense, if it isn't broke do not update, I always want the latest and greatest but it comes at a price with open source.  

Things coming include, rama idler conversion, kinematic bed mounts and new mag bed plate, pi wide screen camera with mounts, xol toolhead with vz hextrudort low extruder, btteb36 can v1.2 w/ umbilical cable, several TAP mounts including the pos chaotic labs , the ok printed ver, and the much better mellow cnc, beacon probe, trident canopy extension, printdry drying station and my conversion to ORCA which was honestly the best thing i never knew happened while i wasnt printing. 

Ill try to post soon and make it worthwhile , sorry if you are reading this dribble maybe go spend time with the wife, thank god mine is beyond cool.