Topic: Airwolf AXIOM - A.. not so great printer
Hi SoliForum!
I have been reading a lot on this forum about peoples attitude towards Airwolf - and i agree. I just got hired in a new company, unfortunately a couple of months to late. They just bought a airwolf AXIOM printer. And are having a great number of problems. If i could i would have returned the printer and bought a Ultimaker or Rostock Max instead. My Boss however, really likes the look of the printer and hopes it can work. So i got the task of improving the printer.
* The fans are only on/off
FIX - I fixed this by changing to Sunon fans and adding a large capacitor in parallel with the fans(the capacitor might be
enough on it's own.
* The nozzles ware out crazy fast. The printer has a auto-level procedure before every print. this works by using the nozzle
and a metal edge on the bed to create electric connection. it works great if the nozzle is clean. Cleaning the nozzle
involves dragging the soft aluminium nozzles through a much harder brass brush. Destroying the hole and creating burrs.
FIX - I didn't really fix this yet. The solution will be to add a inductive sensor and using this instead of the nozzle to
probe the bed. So far i just made a adapter to regular M6 brass nozzles (MK8 for example) instead of those crazy
expensive aluminum nozzles. as it is now brass vs. brass the wear is less, but still significant.
* The extruder is really good at grinding the filament. The constantly damaged nozzle isn't making it easier for the
extruder. Also this super tight bend of the bowden tube that Airwolf i so proud of.. well it is TO TIGHT. the filament is hard
to even push by hand.
FIX - I am working on solving this by making a new extruder and a all new hotend with a E3d/Dyzend for 1.75 mm
instead. i find the 1,75 easier to work with as it is more flexible, and the extruder doesn't have to work as
hard(slow) to extrude filament.
To do some of these fixes(proximity sensor probe, and the 500c dyzend) i really need to edit the firmware on the printer. I know it is running Marlin, but it is also modified, offering some quite nayz features through the display. I'm a mechanical engineer with a lot of 3d printer experience. I can do the basic edits in the Configuration.h file and so, but I don't really have the guts to do a full rebuild of the software on this printer.
SO i have two questions to you people out there!
1 - Does anyone still have the AXIOM printer? what are you thoughts? have you made any improvements?
2 - Does anyone have the source Marlin code for the AXIOM printer? Is there any way to get it from the printer?
Best regards Daniel