wiley wrote:

I also made a bed probe mounting point that I use for a BLTouch sensor. Most folks here probably won't want it because you can't use a BLTouch with the factory board, but I use it because I switched and rewired for a Replicape, which has made my printer tremendously quieter.

What's stopping us from using a BLtouch with the factory board? Doesn't it just use 5V and a servo connector?
How hard was it to switch over to the Replicape? Did you just have to solder wires directly to the board?

I'm curious about this as well. I'd love to add a BLTouch to my Da Vinci 1.0. It seems that it was done here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3385416

Can I use this on a Davinci 1.1 Plus?  Can't flash to some other software, so has to work with my controls.

Thanks.

Kev

I also made a bed probe mounting point that I use for a BLTouch sensor. Most folks here probably won't want it because you can't use a BLTouch with the factory board, but I use it because I switched and rewired for a Replicape, which has made my printer tremendously quieter.

What's stopping us from using a BLtouch with the factory board? Doesn't it just use 5V and a servo connector?
How hard was it to switch over to the Replicape? Did you just have to solder wires directly to the board?

Has anyone actually tried this?

Is that a blower fan?

Yup.

Thingiverse listing just went up: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2284110

Sorry this took longer than it should have - life happened and this project ended up on hold for a while.

The listing is a bit bare at the moment, but I should have some pictures up in the next day or so. The current model mounts a 52x52x15 blower fan, but I intentionally made the blower mounts all removable, and I plan to come up with alternative mounts for the same carriage that let you use a 40x10 or 30x10 blower, because the duct for the 52x15 is so restrictive that I suspect I'm getting a lot more noise for not much air.

I made the wire rack attachment at the top removable - I don't have any current plans to make a cable chain attachment for it, but I figured I'd leave the door open for anyone who does want to.

I also made a bed probe mounting point that I use for a BLTouch sensor. Most folks here probably won't want it because you can't use a BLTouch with the factory board, but I use it because I switched and rewired for a Replicape, which has made my printer tremendously quieter. Quite pleased with the end result.

Let me know what you think!

... and so it begins anew...

Wiley, is this your new design? Is this up on Thingiverse?

Thanks.

... and so it begins anew...

tomasro wrote:

Love the design and the name!  I asked about the filament cooler and I am working on a remix of your design that will utilize upgraded bearings.  I'm thinking of lifting the left brace between the front and back rails to allow a access for a cooler from the left side.  I have currently created a clip on fan with duct that attaches to the front of the carriage, but it floats just barely over the print surface (1.5mm?) and I'm not sure I'm cooling the laid down filament (maybe just the nozzle). I found this (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1688224) and am tempted to see it it will either integrate currently into the design or see if it will fit after the fact.

I would love to get your thoughts/design feedback on filament cooling for this carriage.  Thanks!

Sorry, I've been neglecting this project because I started building a delta printer and I can't tear apart both printers at the same time . I'll get the Fusion 360 link posted on Thingiverse, which should make remixing simpler.

EDIT: Fusion 360 link is up on Thingiverse and in the first post.

As for the cooling fan, the problem you're going to hit is that there's <5mm of available clearance on the left side of the carriage before you start losing build volume on the positive end of the X axis. I struggled with this while designing because making the Titan face the front of the printer also means the hotend must be to the right of the center of the motor, which constrains the design pretty severely. XYZ's hotend was left of center. The right side may be a bit easier - it's pretty easy to see how much clearance you have because the optical endstop needs to access the first few mm of that flag. It's still only enough for a duct and not a fan, though.

I think you're best off working from the front, and it's worth pointing out that the front of the carriage doesn't really need to cover up the front X-axis rod like it currently does. The bearings are still the only pieces making contact with the rod - the rest of the cover really just makes printing it easier because you don't need supports and your right bearing holder can't come out wrong if the supports don't work properly. There's also quite a bit of clearance in front.

It's always possible that you'll see a possible tweak I missed, though, so if you have an idea of how to use the left side, don't let me discourage you. One idea I had but never really tried was that the left side brace could move inward and integrate with the hotend fan (possibly replacing the entire fan shroud), which would definitely improve clearance in that area. The trick would be doing so without making assembly impossible because you still need enough clearance around the heater block and heatsink to pop the hotend into the extruder. If necessary, though, the Titan mounting screw that goes under the hotend could be omitted, which would allow the extruder and hotend to be installed as a single assembly. I believe the adaptor plates to install a Titan on the factory carriage omit this screw, and it doesn't seem to have caused them any problems.

Awesome! Thanks for the files.

My add-on cooler currently mounts to the front of the carriage and fits in that very short area between the bottom of the lower belt and the bed.  With the remixed carriage, I won't have the same mounting structure for the Igus bearings, so I'll need to create some soft of cooler built into the structure around the nozzle, but somehow leave enough room for the mounting of the E3D v6.  Should be a fun remix and still make sure it doesn't require supports.  Challenge accepted!

Love the design and the name!  I asked about the filament cooler and I am working on a remix of your design that will utilize upgraded bearings.  I'm thinking of lifting the left brace between the front and back rails to allow a access for a cooler from the left side.  I have currently created a clip on fan with duct that attaches to the front of the carriage, but it floats just barely over the print surface (1.5mm?) and I'm not sure I'm cooling the laid down filament (maybe just the nozzle). I found this (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1688224) and am tempted to see it it will either integrate currently into the design or see if it will fit after the fact.

I would love to get your thoughts/design feedback on filament cooling for this carriage.  Thanks!

Sorry, I've been neglecting this project because I started building a delta printer and I can't tear apart both printers at the same time . I'll get the Fusion 360 link posted on Thingiverse, which should make remixing simpler.

EDIT: Fusion 360 link is up on Thingiverse and in the first post.

As for the cooling fan, the problem you're going to hit is that there's <5mm of available clearance on the left side of the carriage before you start losing build volume on the positive end of the X axis. I struggled with this while designing because making the Titan face the front of the printer also means the hotend must be to the right of the center of the motor, which constrains the design pretty severely. XYZ's hotend was left of center. The right side may be a bit easier - it's pretty easy to see how much clearance you have because the optical endstop needs to access the first few mm of that flag. It's still only enough for a duct and not a fan, though.

I think you're best off working from the front, and it's worth pointing out that the front of the carriage doesn't really need to cover up the front X-axis rod like it currently does. The bearings are still the only pieces making contact with the rod - the rest of the cover really just makes printing it easier because you don't need supports and your right bearing holder can't come out wrong if the supports don't work properly. There's also quite a bit of clearance in front.

It's always possible that you'll see a possible tweak I missed, though, so if you have an idea of how to use the left side, don't let me discourage you. One idea I had but never really tried was that the left side brace could move inward and integrate with the hotend fan (possibly replacing the entire fan shroud), which would definitely improve clearance in that area. The trick would be doing so without making assembly impossible because you still need enough clearance around the heater block and heatsink to pop the hotend into the extruder. If necessary, though, the Titan mounting screw that goes under the hotend could be omitted, which would allow the extruder and hotend to be installed as a single assembly. I believe the adaptor plates to install a Titan on the factory carriage omit this screw, and it doesn't seem to have caused them any problems.

I printed, assembled, and set up the latest iteration of my carriage design today, and while there are a few things I'd still like to tweak, it's entirely functional. It has a few benefits:

- cool totally random name
- extruder and hotend are accessible from the front
- lots of space for assembly
- lightweight (I don't have numbers for this specific iteration - last I checked it was ~300g assembled with a pancake stepper, and it's definitely lost weight since that iteration)
- reuses factory bushings
- built-in cable chain mount (although I'm happy to revise it to have a bar at the top for zipties instead)
- good airflow through the v6 heatsink (I'm not sure how this compares to the adapter for the factory carriage as I haven't built it)

... and probably a few others I don't recall because I've been slowly iterating on this for a while now.

It's worthy of note that I don't have a layer fan design for this. It's on the list to happen at some point, but it's definitely going to be a different design iteration.

This design should be printed in ABS or similar with high infill. Mine is printed in E3D Edge with 90% infill (not 100% to reduce plastic buildup on the nozzle), and I did 90% and ABS for most of the earlier iterations. DO NOT USE PLA - IT WILL WARP OVER TIME.

Thingiverse page here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1634298

I'm putting this up now because it's become clear that the next iteration is going to take a while. I design using Autodesk Fusion 360, which represents the design as a series of operations that can be edited. This is tremendously powerful because it means I can essentially take the model backwards in time and edit some early step, then jump back forwards to see the results after later operations. It also means that if I don't design carefully, the model becomes a several-hundred-step monstrosity. That's the stage I'm at now, and I'm probably going to redesign the same part from scratch so it goes back to being something I can edit.

I haven't figured out how to get Fusion 360 to give me a public link to the source files, but I know there's a way in there somewhere. If you want to take a look and don't mind wading through the mess, feel free to ask.

Normal warnings apply: I can't promise this won't break your printer, insult your mother, or cause you to break out in a nasty rash. It works for me, though.

Love the design and the name!  I asked about the filament cooler and I am working on a remix of your design that will utilize upgraded bearings.  I'm thinking of lifting the left brace between the front and back rails to allow a access for a cooler from the left side.  I have currently created a clip on fan with duct that attaches to the front of the carriage, but it floats just barely over the print surface (1.5mm?) and I'm not sure I'm cooling the laid down filament (maybe just the nozzle). I found this (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1688224) and am tempted to see it it will either integrate currently into the design or see if it will fit after the fact.

I would love to get your thoughts/design feedback on filament cooling for this carriage.  Thanks!