1 Topic by Johns Print Farm (edited by Johns Print Farm 2018-06-15 21:55:46)

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Topic: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

Greetings to everyone!

I have a small CNC machine and welding shop that I have been trying to find a product to manufacture. Not an easy task. I decided to buy my first 3D printer when I found out that you could print Nylon gears.

The first was a Tevo Black Widow with a bootleg FTDI chip. It is also when I found out that the BL touch is only a product for a programmer that happens to do 3D printing. The Black Widow, sat dormant for a year due to firmware issues.

Then I purchased a tiny MonoPrice Mini Delta with a 110mm diameter build area. That really raised my expectations as to what a 3D printer can do. I used it to experiment with engineering shapes. A 1KG spool of PLA lasts forever with it.

Having found a marketable product, I purchased 2 TronXY X5S-400 printers. They have a 400mm square build plate. The X5S-400 made nice PLA prints once assembled and I did not have to do anything with the firmware. Basically the X5S needs a Volcano Hot end, better idler bearings and a 32 bit processor board to get the high speeds that a Core XY is capable of. I will either get a Smoothie Board equivalent of a Lerdge Board system, whichever is the most idiot proof for a non programmer.

I am currently putting together an order for a Filastruder and Winder to feed my farm.

I use
DesignCAD 2D
Design Spark
Fusion 360
Cura 15
RapR3D to edit my G Code
Notepad++ to also edit G Code

Tevo Black Widow
MonoPrice Mini Delta
TonXY X5S-400, 2 each
Filastruder and Filawinder on order

2 Reply by Tin Falcon

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

How do you like the  MP mini delta they seem unbeatable for the money but have not really read up on them .
I have a MP mini select seems to work well but could use some minor upgrades.

Soliddoodle 4 stock w glass bed------Folger Tech Prusa 2020 upgraded to and titan /aero extruder mirror bed
FT5 with titan/ E3D Aero------MP mini select w glass bed
MP Utimate maker pro-W bondtech extruder
Marlin/Repetier Host/ Slic3r and Cura

3 Reply by Johns Print Farm

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

I love the little Mini Delta. It is slightly out of tram but that is mechanical and I will eventually fix that. I use Cura to correct the tram errors in the Scaling function. My scaling factors are X 1.025, Y 1.020, Z 1.010 It will be different for every machine.

It is perfect for printing artwork.

The wire bundles are a bit too tight and I had to make some repairs.

Do you know what kind of processor and firmware MonoPrice is using on this and other mini machines?

It is a fast little machine and has never made a bad print even when I accidentally put in 1.0mm instead of 0.1mm for layer height.
See attached image. It is the the base for https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2804270 Elons Musk Starman by Vectary.
It only took about 45 minutes instead of the numerous hours at 0.1mm.
Also attached are a tiny scaled down version and a version scaled for the printer.

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Tevo Black Widow
MonoPrice Mini Delta
TonXY X5S-400, 2 each
Filastruder and Filawinder on order

4 Reply by heartless

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

Welcome aboard!

for a 32 bit board - take a look at the Duet WiFi - super easy to install and set up.

I have a PrintIt Industries Horizon Printer that uses the Duet WiFi board - it is also a coreXY printer.. also have the E3D Titan Extruder and Volcano hotend with a 0.6 nozzle in it.. very capable of some crazy fast print speeds

SD4 #1 & #2 - Lawsy carriages, E3D v6, Rumba controller board, mirror bed plate, X motor fan, upgraded PSU & Mica bed heater
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1

5 Reply by Tin Falcon

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

Do you know what kind of processor and firmware MonoPrice is using on this and other mini machines?

No i do not the firmware is some sort of locked down Proprietary  thing that is actualy in two pieces motion control and user interface. there are you tube videos  on upgrading firmware. and like any other machine they can be modded to a standard ramps.
As far as the board I think it is custom they are made in volume  so they can kinda do what they want 
Her is the wiki link with lots of info and links for the MP mini delta

https://mpminidelta.com/start

Soliddoodle 4 stock w glass bed------Folger Tech Prusa 2020 upgraded to and titan /aero extruder mirror bed
FT5 with titan/ E3D Aero------MP mini select w glass bed
MP Utimate maker pro-W bondtech extruder
Marlin/Repetier Host/ Slic3r and Cura

6 Reply by Johns Print Farm

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

heartless wrote:

Welcome aboard!

for a 32 bit board - take a look at the Duet WiFi - super easy to install and set up.

I have a PrintIt Industries Horizon Printer that uses the Duet WiFi board - it is also a coreXY printer.. also have the E3D Titan Extruder and Volcano hotend with a 0.6 nozzle in it.. very capable of some crazy fast print speeds

The Duet is under consideration. Is has to stone simple idiot proof for me to set up.

What speeds are you getting and how fast can you go before you break the print?

My MonoPrice Mini Delta seems to throttle the speed to what works. It has yet to make or break a print.

By stone simple idiot proof I mean something like this:
http://bbs.lerdge.com/configuration_tool/

I respect that Lerdge took the time to consider usability for people who are not programmers.
If not for Steve Jobs strong arming his programmers into making usable interfaces, I think our cell phones would have command line interfaces.

My Tronxy maxes out well before 100mm/sec when the processor chokes up causing a repeatable and massive layer shift.
I reproduced this doing an air print. The motors have plenty of torque up until the processor chokes on a 100mm/sec rapid move. I think they used the cheap half size version of the Atmega chip.

Tevo Black Widow
MonoPrice Mini Delta
TonXY X5S-400, 2 each
Filastruder and Filawinder on order

7 Reply by heartless

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

the Horizon prints very nicely at 120mm/s - this is actually fairly slow for this printer...

At Milwaukee Maker Faire last year, one of the PII guys pushed his up to somewhere around 300mm/s just to see how fast he could push it during a print.. He could probably tell you more than I can. (username here is Azerate)

the configuration files for the Duet live on a micro-SD card that can easily be edited (no "flashing" required). Maybe not quite as simplified as your link, but not difficult either.
The same user named above is also known for killing controller boards - he has not killed a Duet - yet.. so it is a pretty robust board.
having the WiFi makes it super easy to run the printer from any WiFi enabled device - including a smartphone.. Or add the touch screen (PanelDue) and make it even easier.

SD4 #1 & #2 - Lawsy carriages, E3D v6, Rumba controller board, mirror bed plate, X motor fan, upgraded PSU & Mica bed heater
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1

8 Reply by AZERATE

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Re: Greetinigs from Johns Print Farm

Wow...I am VERY late to the party it seems!

The Duet Wifi has a 32bit processor which of course yields faster processing speeds and a better print. Flimsy boards always produce flimsy quality. And as Heartless stated, you can control your printer via computer, tablet, smartphone, iPod, Pi, etc. I don't know how many times I started prints while watching movies on the couch with my daughter or repairing other machines with no down time in production times.

Speed - As far as speed goes, at last year's MakerFaire in Milwaukee I ran the Printit Mason unit at 330 mm/s as a torture test. Everything held up just fine until I had to jack the hotend temps; to what setting, I do not recall.
Durability - Yes, I have a profound reputation of destroying boards in embarrassing and sometimes innovative ways. One week before the MarkerFaire in Milwaukee, I made a bonehead move while wiring. When I turned the machine on, the lights fluttered like a strobe as smoke poured out the back. I discovered said bonehead move, placed wires back to required positions, and turned it back on with no issues. It was the same board I torture tested our machine with one week later with no replacement or repair of any kind.

While I work with Printit, we make no financial gain recommending this board. We simply use and recommend it for a very good reason.

Printit Mason and Printit Horizon printers
Multiple SD2s- Bulldog XL, E3D v5/v6/Lite6, Volcano, Hobb Goblin, Titan, .9 motor, Lawsy carriages, direct Y drive, fishing line...the list goes on
Filawinder and Filastruder #1870.....worth every penny!