http://imgur.com/a/wSNoq

I have not carefully kept track of costs.  If cost is an issue, you can always spread out your orders over time anyway because everything will take longer than you thought to assemble.  Yes, I could have bought a workbench for the cost of this printer but I'm convinced this will be a better machine.  I have not used cheap components, everything on here was sourced for quality.  You could get any of these parts for cheaper if you were willing to take chances on quality but I'm just not interested in having a cheap machine like another solidoodle.  This one will be built like a rock.

Album with more photos: http://imgur.com/a/wSNoq  (scroll to bottom for latest)

I'm very happy with the frame.  Then open beam with corner brackets is rock solid, and having everything cut my Misumi at the factory has allowed me to not really worry about building it square.  One of my goals was not not have printed parts in the rods or bearing area.  For now, it has printed 8mm shaft supports, but metal ones are on order from aliexpress.  The pen beam allows the rod holders and KP08 bearings to be adjusted for perfect alignment.  That is really why I wanted an open beam frame instead of a steel case, so a single bad drill hole does not ruin the whole thing.

The bed holder is from ultimaker, probably OEM, got it from aliexpress.  Unfortunately, it does not work very well with the solidoodle direct drive setup and extruder.  I'm losing about 1.5 inches of bed space in the back that I can't get the nozzle to reach.  Also, the shaft supports are kinda long and I'm losing some X travel that way.  So the 12x12" bed that I was hoping for is now barely a 10x10" bed.  Kinda disappointing, but I know I will probably never really need to print anything that big anyway.

Now that my bed size is set, I've got an AC heater on order from McMaster.  So if you guys don't hear from me in a couple days, assume I burned my house down.

http://imgur.com/a/wSNoq

I got in all the aluminum extrusions and other parts from Misumi on Friday, so that makes it 9 days between ordering and receiving.  I think that's very quick for custom cut extrusions and all the rods too.  I wanted them to cut it to my specs so I didn't have to worry (as much) about building the frame out of square.

I blocked off my whole day on Saturday hoping to get the frame built and maybe more.  I have previously received the M5 tap and handle from McMaster so I was ready with that and the cube corner connecters from openbuildspartsstore.  So I tap the first couple beams and go to test fit it.  Unfortunately, I did not pay close enough attention and these connectors require low profile M5 screws instead of the standard M5 cap heads, so I was immediately dead in the water and couldn't work.  Crap.  See last pic in album.  So I immediately ordered some low profile M5s from McMaster and these should be here pretty quick.  Spent the rest of the day cleaning my house.  Fail.

Anyway, tapping all these extrusions turned out to be a pretty big job but when combining the corner bracket with these printed braces that I made, I think it will be a very rigid machine.   When tapping open beam, the M5 fits nicely and self aligns.  I didn't have any metal cutting oil on hand, so I just used the glass cutting oil that I got when I was cutting glass beds and it worked fine.  But some kind of oil is essential, don't skip on this.  You could also order the ends tapped M5 from Misumi but it more than doubles the cost of the aluminum extrusions and the tap with handle was only about $12 from McMaster so I decided to do my own taps.  It was pretty easy but I should have ordered a few small sections to practice on first.

I did build another solidoodle extruder from self sourced parts.  I put my volcano on there for now.  M3x60 screws are perfect for securing a fan and heatsink on the back of the motor and can also be used in the lawsy carriage to hold the motor and mount on the the bearing holding part.  I've now have a ton of the screws and heat sinks because I had to order like 20 heat sinks from aliexpress if anyone needs one.

I also held the open beam up to my SD2 for scale.  I estimate this will end up giving me a build area of somewhere between 10 and 11" when done.  I thought about making it big enough that I could for sure get a 12" build plate in there but I ultimately decided that I will probably never actually want to print anything that big and there is the whole issue of thermal contraction making it hard to go much bigger anyway.  I'll order an aluminum plate and heater pad when it is all built and see exactly what I end up with.

I also changed the name of this thread.  I guess it's not very correct to call it an ultimaker hybrid when the only ultimaker piece will be the Z axis assembly.  It will have solidoodle carriages but it will have 8mm rods in the back and front (in addition to the typical 8mm Y rods).  These will be used for the Y drive in the back and in the front I will mount the idlers for the Y axis, but if I ever wanted to it could be converted to an ultimaker style gantry without too much work.

I need to get to work designing something good to mount the Y axis end stop with.  The Z endstop will be based on this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:126716

And if you want a delta, check out my kossel that is over in the for sale section.  I'm selling it to fund this next project.

http://www.openbuilds.com/builds/c-bot.1146/

http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comm … st/cob4802
https://sites.google.com/site/alumimaker2/build

I like this build but I am much more familiar with the solidoodle carriages and extruder design.  I am a big fan of the 8mm pillow blocks on it, which will allow me to mount the Y rods and tweak their position, unlike if I made a sheet metal frame then I would be pretty stuck with their positions and if it was a fraction of a mm off then I would be screwed.  I also wanted to keep the direct drive extruder (not bowden) because I enjoy printing in ninjaflex.

So I decided to build this frame, including the bed holder with 12mm rods and M8 lead screw but I ordered it a little larger and I will make the X carriage as a solidoodle instead of an ultimaker.  I will replace the stock ultimaker bed with a silicon heater, aluminum spreader and glass top.

Of course, I welcome all feedback and I will update this thread as I go.  It will be at least a week before I see anything from Misumi and 15 to 30 days before aliexpress parts get here, so I won't be in a hurry...