Printhead + BOM finished !

Printhead

Alright, i finished the printhead - this is probably the most time i worked without devlogging so i have quite a bit to explain

The design is based on the Mantis toolhead and i stole a lot of stuff from tha, but im using my own design for quite a lot of stuff ! I using basically the exact same hardware i described, but i am going to switch my hotend - the Dragon GF is expensive asf, which i didnt know and i need to keep my costs under 600$ since Hack Club only funds that much.

Otherwise the Hardware is the exact same as last devlog.

As for how to attach the belts, i decided i would use a belt clamping mechanism (see below) which the toolhead would screw directly on - hopefully this will work.

The BOM

The BOM i would say was maybe actually harder to get done than the printhead, which is quite frankly amazing !

I was scouring websites for ages, trying to get it cheap as possible - this is quite a challenge, as this is supposed to be a Voron Trident alternative, and the Voron Trident is 1300$ !!!! I have to get mine under less than half that (600$) !!

I just about managed it, but only cause i spent literal hours on this (my lapse recordings keep dying cuz i turn off my laptop b4 pausing them)

My inital BOM was like 800$, and that was way over - i had to find cheaper components, skimp out, change a few things, etc. to make it work.

The things i saved the most on are the NEMA 17 motors, the Frame, and the hotend -

By switching my hotend to the TZ V6 i was able to save 50$, by using a rlly cheap 30$ trident frame kit from JLCPCB instead of an official one saved me 100$ and the NEMA 17 motors i found with help from zsharpminor for 5$ each !!!

Toolhead choices and Components finalized !

Alright, i started working on this again today after a lot of procrastination ! I did a LOT of research off-cam and on-cam by watching youtube videos, and opening up like 20 different toolheads in onshape to see how they fit together - kudos to the EVA 3 docs for being so easy to understand and giving a good visualization of how things fit together !

What did i do ?

Today i finalized my component list (again).

I needed to choose a extruder, hotend, probe, and cooling method for both the hotend and the extruded filament !

I did a lotta research, and have now decided on what i will use !

Shoutout to @anicetus for writing his 3dp design guide and for helping me out !

What i decided on :

Bowden or direct drive ?

There are really only 2 options for the filament path of a 3d printer - bowden or direct drive.

direct drive is duh driving the filament directly into the printhead - so the extruder is part of the toolhead.

Bowden means the extruder is mounted somewhere on the frame and extrudes filament into the printhead with a “bowden tube” - this makes the printhead lighter => faster, but increases the chance of something going wrong.

Since ive never worked with a 3dp b4 and this is my first one, im going with direct drive as its a lot more reliable !

The Extruder

Im going with a Sherpa mini - i want something lightweight since im using direct drive and this will sit on the toolhead, and the sherpa mini uses a NEMA 14 pancake motor, so much lighter than other options

The hotend

I initially thought id use a tz e3 because @anicetus recommended it to me, and he has good experience with it (its cheap too), but in the end i think ill go with the phaetus dragon HF hotend - this one has a faster flow rate and is stabler as it has a 4 hole mounting method instead of just 2, and because the tz e3 was initially meant to be a ender 3 drop-in - (ender 3 is a very common 3d printer from creality)

Cooling

Alright, so i need two types of cooling

For this part i just used the recommendations from ani’s guide, since i didn’t have much knowledge of this and hes and expert - why question him, he hasn’t failed me till now (and never will, if your reading this, love you dude )

For part cooling (cools filament after its been deposited on to the build plate) im using 2 5015 blower fans - i know part cooling isnt strictly required for a 3dp, but no printer ever comes without it - id be pretty cooked without

I also need a fan to cool my hotend, for this im going with a 3015 heatsink fan :D

Whats next ?

Next up is actually designing the toolhead - for this part im not gonna do it completely from scratch - im going to make my own version of some popular toolhead designs !

I think i could probably frankenstein together different aspects of different toolheads - i like how compact and easy to assemble EVA is, love the intuitive cooling of the Mantis toolhead, like the looks of the dragonburner, and also like the archetype mounting method.

I have already imported a bunch of toolheads into my Onshape, and will probably experiment a lot next - lets see where this goes !

Btw ive already been working on frankensteing/designing this toolhead but its not ready to present yet

PLEA FOR HELP !!!

Ok guys, im sorry for not keeping you updated on this project ! Big apology needed (for whoever is reading this )

The last week i got rlly busy with reviewing for stardance as some of you (who got their hackpads reviewed by me) may know - ive been cracking down on those since i became an official bts person for stardance hardware.

RESEARCH

I did research. A lot of research. And im hopeless.

I need help

I have no idea how to do this, so this is now a plea for help from you guys !

TO ANYONE READING THIS ! I NEED HELP !

if you have absolutely any tips or tricks or suggestions or guides or resources or anything on this, it would be REALLY helpful ! I desperately need help with this part, as its basically the only thing blocking me from getting my very own 3dp ! Even if you dont know anything about 3dps, still write a comment down below so i know im not insane and people are actually reading this - it would def make me feel better if nothing else

And i dont know how the stardance algorithm works, but everyone reading please like this and give the project a follow ! this is the only time ill ask cuz hopefully then more people will see this and help me out !

Attached below is the EVA 2 toolhead, which uses the same MGNH12H rail as my printer with a front facing rail, so i can hopefully use it as inspiration !

All 3D Printed parts done !

Ok, i finally got time to hop back on and got cracking.

The Idlers

Alright, first of all, lemme explain what the idlers actually do, BUT YOU WOULD KNOW THIS IF YOU WOULD READ MY DEVLOGS !

Yes. I mean you.

Sitting there, scrolling through stardance.

GO READ MY DEVLOG

or ill eat you

i mean it

Sorry for getting sidetracked, lemme explain again

What the idlers do (fr this time)

Alr, so my 3d printer uses a belted gantry alr - and if you dont know what that means genuinely go read my devlog for the gantry, i swear it explains stuff.

Im not gonna explain everything again like a parrot - so basically the printhead and X axis move through turning a belt with a motor - and the belt cant levitate in midair unlike my soul when im doomscrolling at night when a floorboard creaks, so the belt needs to go around something - The idlers - and guess what - the idlers arent attached to anything, so they are idle get it. They spin freely with the belt.

My idler mount

Last devlog i had quickly designed a mount for my idlers that attaches to the frame - but i didn’t test it.

so i did that

Results

Well, first thing i did was test if the idlers fit on the thing - and , they do ! The holes line up and everything ! (See pics below)

After that, i tested if the whole thing fits on my Frame by replacing the old mount that wasnt mine (and changing the color so its stylish )

This is really the final task - i aligned it with the frame and it looked pretty good (see below)

I zoomed out, aligned my cam, and checked - and what a pretty sight it was - my idlers (2 toothed circles) and my motor pulley (ring around motor shaft aligned perfectly from this side - it took a bit to align them along the other axis too, but it was worth it, it looks amazing !

Also i forgot to unpause lapse

Whats next ?

I still have a few tiny odd jobs and very simple 3dped parts to make, but that shouldn’t take very long, its so quick its not even worth logging.

The next big thing to do before im actually done with the printer is the one ive been procrastinating and saving for last and dreading for weeks, cause its def the hardest one - ** The Toolhead**

What is the Toolhead ?

The toolheead is just a shell that holds the actual printing components - the hotend (heats stuff up), extruder (motor with gears that pushes filament into the hotend properly), probe (senses the print bed), etc. - sounds simple right ? well it isn’t

Whats the difficulty ?

The challenges

• Ow ow hot ! Im making a 3dp, so it gets hot - duh. I need to make sure that none of that filament melting heat gets to my 3dped toolhead (made out of filament 💀)
• mounting : im using a MGN12H linear rail, so i need a way to mount my toolhead on that.
• belts - i need a way to clamp the belts of my gantry down on my toolhead
• multiple parts : too many parts are needed and all of them need to be somewhere specific. The part cooling fans need to be at the top, the main fan near the hotend but not too near. The hotend needs to be low down, but also high up enough so its close to the extruder. The klicky probe needs to be near the bottom, so it can hit the print bed first, so i need to design around a clicky probe mount too 😭 .

Im cooked. See ya soon !

Final 3D Printed Part for only the printer !

See below - blue one is mine, black is internet one !

WAHOOOO

Alr, im overjoyed rn.
I locked in today, and started with the final (big) part that needs to be designed !

This was the idler mount, and i resolved not to make the same mistake i made last time, and to do it in one try - that was the goal.

I started taking my measurements and made a sketch again, this time making sure that i wasn’t modifying the idler positions, since that would mean they wouldn’t be aligned with my motors anymore - and i LOCKED TF IN

I finished the part, and didn’t oversee anything for once, and it looked perfect !

Whats next ?

I gotta hop off for now, but later im gonna make sure that the idlers fit by positioning them in onshape itself, and after that i have to confirm that they fit into my overall 3dp design - after that - im pretty much done !

I still have to do small little 3dped designs, but the rest of them are pretty simple, no big ones anymore, and even if i get the rest wrong its not critical.

Ill be back soon with another update !

Gantry corner mounts for NEMA 17 motors

Alright, im a bit pissed rn cause i just needed 2 and a half HOURS (and more that i didn’t log by accident)for what what was supposed to take half an hour and be a quick thing.

What i did :

For the better part of two hours, i sat there, recreating every single measurement and hole and screw gap and everything metciulously, and when i was finally done, and tried to mount my motor on it in the CAD ? everything was wrong. every single measurement, every single hole position, everything.

So i did it all again. This time it was a bit better, but it still took ages, and didn’t work AGAIN

Then guess what ? I did it AGAIN.
And this time it worked ! the motor could be mounted (See below)

After that, disaster struck when tryna import it into the overall 3dps cad file

What did i do wrong ?

I messed up bad - I changed the whole position of my motor’s pulley ! If you don’t understand what that means, basically the lil rod thats on the end of the motor controls a belt with a pulley and there are idlers on the other side - but now my whole motor was shifted, so it didn’t align with the idlers anymore !

The fix

Instead of tryna do it again, instead this time i imported a model of a nema 17 mount from the internet, and literally used every single measurement from that one, ever angle, line length, chamfer size, EVERYTHING, and managed to make the final Half assed version of the motor mount :

And when it FINALLY came time to check if it worked … drum roll it didn’t fit AGAIN. So i did one final fix with the measurements (i used the circle for a measurement instead of its center) and I was done ! It fit like a glove .

Now theres only one part left - the Idlers !

Finished Z axis and foot mount assembly !

What i did :

Instead of continuing with the last 2 3dped parts (the idler mounts and the Gantry motor mounts) , i started replacing my prebuilt 3dps with my own designs, and i even added some branding on the feet !

I replaced all of them, the feet went in perfectly, with no mods needed . The Motor mounts didn’t initially fit, but after a bit of modification and fixing mistakes, they also are correct

WOOOHOOOO

Whats next ?

Just 2 3DP components left - idler mounts and motor mounts for the gantry - then im done with everything other than printhead

Corner Motor Mounts

Heya, i got a lil bit more time in the meantime today, so i worked on the next part - the corner motor mount

This goes in the duh corner of my frame at the bottom, and screws into both the bottom frames that it will touch, then mount the motor with the holes that are always on NEMA 17 Motors.

What’s next ?

Not sure when ill do this, but theres also a rear motor mount that i have to design, and then after that

Foot mounts

Why the devlog ?

After lots of discussion with @1 and @anicetus it turns out i only gotta design the 3d printed components myself - not the ones that you buy :D

Im now gonna gradually work on making my own versions of the parts

What i did

Today i made a very basic rubber foot mount of my own, using the original one i used that came from the internet ! its a lot less elegant, but was simple, with all the holes in the right places ! It will do for now

Why onshape ?

I switched to Onshape, because im more comfortable with it as a CAD modeling software - i had initially switched to FreeCAD as OnShape kept lagging for me on detailed prints, and Assembly was going rlly well ! Unfortunately, part design has been going really slow and i keep struggling with how it works, as its not as intuitive. From now on ill be using onshape for part design !

Whats next ?

I still have a LOT of 3dped parts to design, and will be working on those - ill post another devlog next week once ive completed 1 or 2 more 3dped parts !

Lots and lots and lots of research, some more research, and even more research.

Alright, i did a LOT of research

What i did wrong

Today @1mon (@1 ) told me that i messed up.
Like severely messed up.

I had been using 3d printed mounts for the motors and XY Joints till now, but im not actually allowed to do that - that disqualifies my project.

I cant make them myself either, as i lack the knowledge of how 3dps work like someone who owns one or built a voron would have - nor do i have the experience in CAD to design these parts even with that knowledge.

What do i do now ?

For now, im putting this project on hold

I will probably not work on this for a while, and will try and find another project to do that will (hopefully) give me the experience needed to design this myself, or will wait till the next YSWS and transfer this over - and then work on it once i have more experience with actual physical designs with motors.

Im sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Pandaprint won’t be moving along for quite a while

Printhead components !

I imported all the 3D Models for my printhead, and decided on my components

Im using :

• A sherpa mini extruder
• tz e3 hotend
• dual 5015 blower fans for part cooling
• one 3010 heatsink fan for the hotend heatsink
• a 0.6 nozzle
• a Kilick probe (not added yet)

Gantry finished (X axis) !

What i did today :

Today i finally added the XY joints with their (toothed) Idlers, and positioned the X axis inside them. The X axis is just going to be another 2020 extrusion with a rail (and carriage) strapped to it

I addded the idlers inside, and also considered actually somehow adding the belts to the CAD, but i later gave up that idea cause i have no idea how to do that and it would be way too complex

What’s next ?

Now that im done with the motion system
i have to move on to the Toolhead + Hotend

What is a Toolhead/Hotend ?

The toolhead is like a box for the hotend and whatever else we want - its usually 3d printed, and holds the actual thing that heats up filament and deposits it on to the print bed - that part is called the hotend.

There are prebuilt toolheads from the community like The Mantis (see below) or the Eva - just search that one up if you wanna see.

Since i want funding from Hack Club, i have to design one myself - im not exactly sure yet as to what hotend i will use or nozzle size, but i will do some research and have a LONG chat with opencode

Apparently (i havent done research yet, just talking bout what ive heard !) the hotend is (duh) the part that heats up the filament - but it also needs to be cooled . Most probably it also has a motor that presses filament out. Apparently they come in different sizes and weights, and have different flow rates - the hotend choice influences what speed the printer will have. also, i think the nozzle is a different part . I think that the nozzle is what the extruder presses filament out of, so it decides how much quality the print has - smaller nozzle is equal to more resolution, but also more time needed. The nozzle can also be made up of different materials, and some materials are better for some materials - for example brass nozzles can be used well for PLA and PETG, but not for filament that needs to be heated up more, like ABS.

So yeah, im gonna work on the toolhead and nozzle for a while :D

Gantry for Pandaprint part 1

Today, as promised i started working on the gantry.

In classic coreXY fashion, im using belted motion with linear rails

How does belted motion work ?

Hehe im shamelessly gonna make you read my previous devlog now - if you check that out, i explained in that section how it works in detail.

If your too lazy, i found this cool animation that explained it really well for me :

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fW7jzLN-__w

What i did in the last hour and a half

First of all, we need movement. So i added the motors.

Our gantry (and Z axis) are gonna use NEMA 17 motors ( just a type of stepper motor for those of you that don’t know what that is), so i added them to the CAD with screw in (and on) mounts

After that i attached a pulley to the motor shaft (so it can actually move something).

There was a bit of choice on what to do next, but i decided i would finish all the parts that were mounted directly on the frame first

The next step i did is attach the idlers (2 of them - if you dont get why theres 2 go watch the yt animation i mentioned !) to the Frame.

After that i got a CAD model of the rails and the carriage,
and positioned them on the Frame

That was all for today.

Whats next ?

The next part is just adding the actual X axis and after that the toolhead/extruder/nozzle choice

Finished Z axis and print bed

I finished the next part of the design - designing the Z axis.

For all of you that dont know what it is -

What is a CoreXY printer, and whats an Axis ?

There are different ways a 3d printer can move, but im using the method called CoreXY, which is the traditional one.

A 3d printer needs movement in some way in all 3 axises (axi ? axiss? axisses ? …. axes ?) - no not an actual ax, but a vector of movement like in a coordinate system.

In simple word for dumb human, printer go up back and right

In a CoreXY printer, the printhead only moves in (guess what ?) X and Y. So you might be wondering how it moves in Z (up and down). Well thats what i worked on today.

You see, instead of the printhead going up and down, the print bed (where the filament gets printed on to) moves up and down - that way the bed rises to meet the printhead, and if the print grows taller, the bed moves down.

Sound easy right ?

Heh.

Now we move on to the

Movement Method

Now that we know what we wanna move and where we wanna move it, we have to figure out HOW we can move it

Luckily there are only 2 common methods to move stuff in a 3D printer

• Linear rails
  and
  -Linear rods

Linear rails

Linear rails are little train tracks that you put wheels on to - these wheels are then moved by a belt thats attached to a pulley thats atttached to a stepper motor - basically when i spin my stepper motor, it spins a litlle round wheel - that little round wheel is attached to a belt that then gets moved by the wheel.

The moving Belt then also moves our bed.

Linear rods

Linear rods are much simpler. Here our lovely Stepper motor (im calling him Steppy from now on) spins a rod - basically a rlly long screw.

This screw is then attached to our bed (not exactly, its actually attached to a small 3d printed mount that the bed is attached to cause we need to heat the bed but - shut up nerd panda)

When the motor spins left so does the screw/rod - in classic screw fashion that causes our bed to rise up.

If it turns right, the exact opposite happens

” Lefty loosey, Righty Tighty” - Me probably

For the Pandaprint, i chose to use linear rails instead of rods, since that seems to be common practice in the 3D printing community.

There is one gaping hole in my logic that some of you imaginary readers may have discovered - wont my bed just try and spin wildly ? um … yes.

The fix is rather simple - add something that stops the rotation !

Thats why the bed mount is also attached to a carriage on a linear rails - this fastens it and stops rotation , while still allowing it to move along the axis it has to move along.

Up next

Tomorrow ill start work on the gantry (aka X and Z)

Here ill go with the previously mentioned belted approach - lets see how that goes :D

Pandaprint - A 3D Printer from Scratch

July 30: Pandaprint is born (~3 hours)

Alright, so here we go again.

Since Outpost ended recently (I wasn’t able to go 😭), I’ve been waiting 2 weeks for the forms to reopen or Stardance to start so I can get Stardust and funding for my other projects.

I’m slowly losing hope, and complaining about it all the time isn’t gonna help, so I needed a new project before I went insane and/or spiraled into depression.

Unfortunately, I had no ideas.

I kept gravitating towards another cyberdeck or dashboard thingy, but I was getting bored of those. Then I came across the videos from Outpost.

There were SO MANY 3D PRINTERS.

I’ve always wanted one of my own—until now I’ve only ever used the one at my makerspace—so this became my next project.

The first thing I did was ask in #infill (an old Hack Club event where people built 3D printers) and got a ton of help from @anicetus and @java (shoutout to them!).

Then I watched about 4 hours of YouTube videos on how 3D printers work and how to build them. The best one was Dr D-Flo’s 2½-hour marathon, which explained everything really well. After that I watched a few build videos and browsed the Voron Trident and Legacy for inspiration.

Then came planning:

• I chose a CoreXY design, where the toolhead moves in X/Y and the bed moves vertically.
• For the frame, I went with 2020 aluminum extrusions, roughly the size of a Voron Trident, with overall dimensions of 500 × 350 mm (not the print volume).
• I also decided on linear rails for the gantry instead of rods.

I’m leaving things like the extruder, toolhead, motors, and hotend for later after more research and asking around on Slack.

With the planning done, I downloaded models from similar printers and started designing my own frame.

At first I planned to use visible corner connectors, but I didn’t really like how the little cubes looked, so I switched to hidden internal connectors instead.

After aligning the extrusions, I added the gantry rails and borrowed some feet from another printer.

Here’s the result after day one.

Tomorrow I’ll add the corner brackets that support the gantry (the devil’s in the details… and in my touchpad 😭) and hopefully start on either the printhead or bed movement system. I’ve also got a lot of personal stuff to do, so we’ll see.

To whoever’s reading this, goodbye!

July 31: Frame revision (~2 hours)

I spent a bit more time revising the frame. I changed the dimensions to 500 × 370 mm, which meant redesigning basically everything and took way longer than expected.

I also did some visual tuning and decided to go for an all-black theme. I swapped the extrusion model for a black one (I’ll probably just spray-paint the real extrusions since I’m not sure if black ones are easy to buy).

Finally, I adjusted the feet, made everything match the theme, and added the corner brackets that actually support the gantry.

Next up: the Z-axis motion system. That’ll be tomorrow!