SD Press - Mark II (Modifications Breakdown) (Page 3 of 7)

I was going to do it with a short piece of 2020. But I think a sheet of aluminum milled out and shaped with a press break would be best (and easier).

This is what I got so far.

Which brings me to another question. What are these rails made from? Is it a hardened steel?

The stock ones? I am going to assume yes? Not sure. I don't plan on changing them out. Obviously I am going to check to see if they are true. But now that you got me thinking about it- I should prolly get set before finalized the mockup and get started.

Heh. My bucket of stock press parts is going to get bigger... Heh.

Hardened rods are incredibly cheap in quantity.. It would surprise me if they are not hardened steel - the rods on prior Solidoodle models were, but poorer tolerance than most. Since the press apparently doesn't use metal bushings or bearings, it wouldn't surprise me if the stock rods are of extremely poor tolerance and are unusable with bearings. There's no real way Solidoodle knows, because the gliding plastic is going to be more forgiving. Time will tell.

so, was your MK2 bed flat?  i drilled and tapped the new mounting holes in my stock carriage today and noticed that my new heated bed....isnt so flat. 

im not sure how much, but hoping that the PEI i am going to adhere to the top of it will help straighten it out some.  if that doesnt work, what are my other options? my buddy suggested mounting the bed first to a flat layer of aluminum below it that i know is dead flat and going from there.  only issue we see there is that since aluminum is a heat sink thats a bit counter productive here.

say i were to cut a sheet of aluminum 7ga (.144) and then put a 1" or so diameter hole in the center of it for the thermistor to attach to the heated bed and be able to touch the PEI above?

Just for organizational sake, From this point forward I am going to place all my mods in this thread.

So this past week I've been stranded at my mother-in-law's house because of a bad fuel pump and O2 sensor. Which meant I had a lot of time on my hands. And very, very slow internet. But I did have my laptop. And It had fusion installed.

So I've been trying how to build the gantry for a couple days now. And this is what I've come up with.

The above is a WIP. The idea was to reuse what's already there. And keep the required parts list low. But make it rigid. Hense why I went with sheet metal. It's not pretty. But it should get the job done. I have not tackled the other axis yet as it a PITA to get into those areas without completely disassembling the printer (NO DISASSEMBLE).

As for the Z replacement I have it milled, But I need to change the relief cuts so my press brake can bend it. I should have pictures of it at least mocked up pretty soon.

As a sidenote, I'll also have a post on how to get RH and Slic3r correctly configured for the Press. With profiles, pictures and couple calibration parts. I've been also debating if I should release my supercharged version of the FW. Which is a good segway to the next project for my Press (which has already been started) So my quest to add an additional stepper driver and FETs for the Press was successful... If you don't care about getting correct readings from the temp sensor. The weird thing is If I assign any one of the pins (as in just configure it in the FW with nothing connected to the pins) The extruder temps go all over the place. Been dicking around with it for weeks. No dice. So I've decided to replace the controller completely with a RAMBo v1.3. Took the base Marlin FW and Press-a-fy it and flashed it to the RAMBo. So far it works. I've even got a arduino nano controlling the ring LEDs on the top (which will be soon replaced with a ring of WS2811's). The main advantages to changing out the controller was 1) no need to use a AVR flasher to upgrade/change the firmware. 2) Digipots. You can adjust the trimpots via software. 3. (The main reason why I did it) gcode controlled fan headers (multiple) software controlled extruder cooler (in which when it gets to a specified temp it turns it on and when it below a specified point it turns off.) And it already has driver for an extra extruder stepper. Hence why I've made a mount for the Cyclops. Ever since that hotend came out I've been wanting to use it. I think the press would be a good platform for it. (Enclosed, Z-Offset and it was cheap)

Now this is no means a 'OMG PONIES YOU HAVE TO DO00OOO TH1S M0D!!2121!" This is the path I choose to follow. Just want to share what I've been doing. As usually, I'll document (to the best of my abilities) what I've done and share the part files on my github page.

Are you using the stock press thermistor with the Mk2b? Did you have to make any firmware changes for the Mk2b?

Hey, great designs. But i dislike the bent parts. Its usually really difficult to get the angle a 100% correct if you bend by hand. Milled parts should be more accurate. - sry for my bad english.

so, to flatten the mk2 pcb out i cut a piece of 7 gauge aluminum and used the 3m 468mp to attach them together. 

then cut holes in the PEI i had and used the same tape to attach them together. 

initial thoughts since the printer isnt fully reassembled yet.  the overall weight of the bed is a bit more, but it seems able to handle it thus far.  the bed take a little to heat up, less then stock but still not as fast as ive seen on here.  but i think that has to do with the fact that the aluminum underneath everything is sucking the heat out of the pcb...so im going to need to insulate that somehow i think.

to be honest, you lost me at autotune. 

PID i got though because we use a solenoid with that input to control boost on cars, lol.