Frame and z-motor mounts
We ended up using 10mm rod as on the stock TAZ printers. This hasn’t posed a problem for the tool head but the bed proved too heavy for the Y-rods to act as support. Kent designed custom rollers which David drew and I printed. This solution has proved very workable.
Kent drew the aluminum bed-plate and we had it cut at Rocky Mountain Waterjet in Greeley. They are great. The original bed was massive so we re-drew it and sent it back to have it re-cut thus eliminating a third of the weight. We also cut mounting holes closer together so the mounts/bushings wouldn’t interfere with the Y-stop.
Kent wired it having tons of experience at this. Other than that chore, he left the build pretty much up to me.
Glass!! 600mm x 600mm Boro plate courtesy of Allen Glass in Boulder. They are awesome and have an amazing shop.
First print. No bed heater. Rocktopus.
That’s awesome. I saw you got a heatbed and spreader on that puppy.
Nice.
Thanks! Yes, got the bed heater and heat spreader on a couple of weeks ago. Will post some pics of all that today.
The Onodrim was designed primarily to print PLA for the large topographies we have in mind. My experiments with ABS on the TAZ 4 in the I2P lab were unacceptable due to the amount of warp-age from the bed. This is why we left off a heated bed initially.
Below is the second print. An attempted Lithopane 575 mm x 575 mm to print on the entire bed while using a minimum of filament. It had considerable Y-slippage and I stopped the print after 8 hours. We replaced the pulley on the Y-motor with one with fewer teeth and that seems to have solved the slippage problem by increasing the torque exerted.
4th print is of a portion of CU Boulder campus from LiDAR data. It turned out well though, I need to have more top layers to cover the relatively sparse infill (20%). I am now finishing the prints with 4 surface layers.
The 5th print is of the full extant of the Pingree Park area that the printer was designed to print. The area in this print will be divided into sixths and each sixth will be printed the full area of the Onodrim bed. This will yield a complete model that is about 5 feet by 3 feet. This print turned out great except for drippage from the hot end. It is visible as the occasional brown spots on the print. I have rebuilt the hot end and have fixed this leak problem.
Heating it up. Below are images of the heating solution I decided upon. Kent and I determined that our original plan of 4 12"x 12" bed heaters was too much for the Rambo board to handle (and output much heat). So, I decided on one place in the center of the bed so I could print printer and other parts in ABS to the scale of a TAZ. In addition, I had a piece of .009" Aluminum cut to size and inserted beneath the heated glass. I designed small spacers to hold the aluminum close to the glass without effecting the level of the bed. This bed heating solution works well if the room temperature is warmish. The glass surface is so large that room temperature has a big effect on bed temperature.
Here is a vid of the Onodrim with the heating solution: https://youtu.be/bN28ZoXgX_A
I have moved the Onodrim from the I2P lab over to its home at TILT at CSU. Am printing test topographies in preparation for the production runs of the full model. Here is a vid of where Onodrim lives: https://youtu.be/GgqtSuPiJz0
Thanks again to everyone who pitched in on this effort.
make make make make make make make make make make make
Hello! I’m enlarging my Taz 5, following the Onodrim design. Thanks for sharing the design, I don’t think I would have attempted it without the kind of information I’ve found for this.
Mine isn’t ready to go yet, I still need the glass which has been very hard to source in Canada at the 60cm square size. I noticed the supplier named in this thread … hopefully they’ll ship to Canada.
I have a couple questions …
I added the roller supports to help take the weight of the bed. In setting them up I found my water-jet cut aluminum undercarriage is a bit warped. How flat was yours? Has it been a problem?
Today I tested the motion of the axes, after updating the firmware for the larger bed size - so far so good, however I notice that when the Y axis reverses direction, the entire bed twists slightly. I think because the Y axis belt pulls the bed from off-center positions, on either side of the axis. The belt is well tensioned. Have you noticed the same, and have you had to do anything about it?
Thank you.
Very interesting build.
I am embarking on a 1 meter cubed build volume Taz based printer. Just in the beginning phases. Gathering parts. CADing up pieces.
The heated bed is definitely a challenge. Haven’t started on that quite yet. I figured on a 120 volt heater as it is obvious that 24 volts is way too many amps, and the power supply would be way too expensive. I was thinking of using the stock Taz temperature sensor, but simply directing the 24 volt heater signal to a soild-state relay which would then control the 120 volt heater(s) on the bed. The solid state relay input has a 3-32 vdc “logic” input, so the Rambo board won’t know that there is anything unusual attached to the output, but would have nearly zero load.
The SS relays are $6 on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/231693016931
The silicone heaters (with adhesive) are a bit pricey, but you can buy ~10 of the 12 volt heaters and run them in series for 120 volt operation. Perhaps using multiple silicone strip heaters would be the most economic.
I haven’t looked very hard in the Denver area for a 1m x 1m Pyrex (boro-silicate) plate. If anyone has a source for one, I would appreciate hearing about it. <billdube (at) killacycle.com> Shipping a big piece of glass from out of town would be expensive, (and likely unsuccessful.)
I would very likely insulate the underside of the bed to help stabilize the bed temperature and to reduce heating the surroundings. Nothing major, perhaps a 1/4" or 1/2" of insulation.
Since I have chosen a much greater span, I’ve selected supported linear rails with ball bearing slides to replace the simpler (and cheaper) plain rods and polymer bushings on the Taz.
Bill D.