BTT Octopus Pro vs Mellow 64bit FLY Gemini V3

[vorondesignlover]

Hello to all,
I'm going to build my first Voron 2.4 R2 350mm (all the highest specs selected in the configurator) with the following enhancements:

• 48v system
• Rapido V2 UHF hotend (PT1000 ???)
• CANBus
• Galileo (for a setup like this I suppose is a better choice rather than the stealthburner)
• Any other enhancement I'm currectly not aware of, in the future or now (if I'm still within my budget). Suggestions are more than welcome.

I'm stuck on what control board I should choose. Initially I was 100% sure to go with the Octopus Pro, but now the FLY Gemini forced me to re-evaluate everything from scratch:

• no need for an external host like a Raspberry
• better CANBus integration (CAN-FD support and no extra components other than the CAN Toolhead)
• many other advantages (interfaces, eMMC, wifi, thermal handling, onboard sensors etc), but the first twos are the ones that attract me more

However, apart the good stuff, I have to understand well what could be the possible downsides. Some that come into my mind are:

• A site that review Voron control boards, for high performant machines recommends an Orange Pi 5B with as much RAM as one could get and this is going to be very expensive. I'm wondering if the FLY Gemini is at least on pair in terms of performance. I don't want to find myself, now or when I do an upgrade, forced to buy a new whole board due to "not enough system resources". With the Octopus I feel much safer because I can just use a cheap x86 Mini-ITX board as host.
• It appears to use a customized (and closed source) version of Klipper. This is usually a valid reason for me to give up and look into something else, but I'm new to the world of 3D printers and someone may give me a valid reason to close an eye.
• I've read that it comes with 8 stepper driver sockets, but in their picture I only see 4 sockets (which is not even close to the 7+ Stepper outputs board listed in the BOM)
• I can't find any review on their AE product page, just some unanswered questions: "Is possible use dual Z Step motors with this board?", "What should I register in Clipper for this board to connect adxl345?".
• I may have to go into advanced cooling and while I saw any kind of cooling running in Octopus boards, I have no idea if this board can handle this

Mellow produces several control boards, if there are some more suitable models for my setup, please let me know.

Thanks to all

 

[NoGuru]

I would not do a Fly Gemini. It's design is more of a Ender3 board replacement.
48v is nice but not really needed in most cases and can complicate your build.
With the Rapido UHF you will need a longer version of Steathburner or whatever toolhead you choose so keep that in mind. Also when it breaks its an expensive replacement.

Consider Beacon or Cartographer for the toolhead probe.

I would really try and stick to the stock build unless you are sure about your build skills with the exception of Galileo as I am not a fan of Clockworks.

 

[claudermilk]

What site is recommending an Orange Pi5? That's an oddball clone that was mainly used a bunch when actual Raspberry Pis were scarce. Going with a true Raspberry Pi will be an easier path. I have a Pi 4 2GB on the Trident and it's overkill and a 3B on the V0.2 because I couldn't get a Zero 2W when I was building it--so it's also overkill.

 

[vorondesignlover]

I would not do a Fly Gemini. It's design is more of a Ender3 board replacement.

Many thanks! Seems to be that, when performance customizations are involved, all the community agree that Octopus Pro is the only way to go. Everything else is asking for troubles.

48v is nice but not really needed in most cases and can complicate your build.

Yes, I know, needs appropriate PSUs, high voltage motors, TMC5160 drivers, (probably) advanced cooling etc. Without all of such things 48V will make very little difference. I'm prepared for this and I think will be very fun.

With the Rapido UHF you will need a longer version of Steathburner or whatever toolhead you choose so keep that in mind. Also when it breaks its an expensive replacement.

From what I've read, in a stealthburner, rapido requires a 3D printed adapter, is this what you're talking about? Same is for Galileo 1, but on Galileo 2 seems to be they fixed this issue.

I've also read that a 5015 fan should be used (I was thinking to B8500RPM, the one with the highest cooling capability). Not sure if other mods are needed, I think the best is to handle each thing over the time and one by one. Trying to get all the needed parts and complete the whole build at once is asking for troubles.

I didn't checked life time, what is supposed to break and with what frequency? The Rapido is rated as the best with the most rock solid design and I didn't saw any breakage report.

Consider Beacon or Cartographer for the toolhead probe.

Many thanks! I can't find none of the twos in the BOM list. Is this an enhancement not part of the stock design? I suppose that in my case Cartographer is mandatory because the only one with CAN compatibility. I still have to investigate on what could be the most suitable CAN board, but at first glance the Mellow ones seem the best ones in terms of features. They also sell a cheap IGUS control cable for which I saw many good feedbacks. In a 48v setup I suppose I should only go with 42mm motors, but can't find any Mellow CAN board for them. Apart from this, whatever the CAN board I'll end up with, can I expect this probe to work or I need to specifically check for compatibility?

I would really try and stick to the stock build unless you are sure about your build skills with the exception of Galileo as I am not a fan of Clockworks.

Well, this was my initial plan, a stock Voron with very little changes. Then, once I saw the users mods, I simply couldn't resist. I'm afraid is too late for me to go back. Although I still have to buy the parts, I invested lot of time in researches related to customizations. After all, user customizations is what Voron is known for. If I only wanted to go stock, I would have been better off with a Bambulab.

When I compared the twos, I saw Galileo the clear winner on most of the specs. What you don't like of the SB? I need one last reason to definitively stick with Galileo because I'm still in doubt. SB is still the most diffused in the community and there are plenty of videos, tutorials, mods etc. Even if Galileo is a bit easier to install, I feel like there are so many user mods for the SB that could make it even better than Galileo. Am I wrong?

What site is recommending an Orange Pi5? That's an oddball clone that was mainly used a bunch when actual Raspberry Pis were scarce.

I didn't posted the link because this was my first thread and I was not sure it was allowed. The main reason for the recommendation seems to be the included wifi and bluetooth, better features and all of this at pretty much the same price (see "High performance setup" section).

Going with a true Raspberry Pi will be an easier path. I have a Pi 4 2GB on the Trident and it's overkill and a 3B on the V0.2 because I couldn't get a Zero 2W when I was building it--so it's also overkill.

I can only find the Zero 2W at acceptable prices, but I have big concerns about its usability on a 2.4, even more when customized for high performance. IO Throughput is also very limited, so I can expect issues even there.

I should receive soon a Lenovo M920q (16Gb RAM, 8th gen i5-8500T cpu) that I'll use as a NAS. My original plan was to use it also as an host for the printer, but I've read in an old thread that printings are very likely to fail when klipper runs through docker. Is this true 100% of the times and in any case or something changed in the meantime?

I may be wrong, but to me, as of now, an x86 Mini-ITX board seems to be the best option. It should cost a bit more than a Zero 2W, but for sure there aren't issues with system resources and IO. I'm not sure if in the bay there is enough space for an Octopus Pro + a Mini-ITX board combo, but at worse I can always install a board on top of the other and still mantain a compact style. Am I wrong?

 

[claudermilk]

Link doesn't work, but based on the URL it's from 2022. If my memory serves (and that's debatable ), Pis were still scarce then. The easiest IMHO would be an Octopus and Pi 3 or 4; there's tons of Vorons on that combo so lots of support.

 

[vorondesignlover]

Link doesn't work, but based on the URL it's from 2022. If my memory serves (and that's debatable ), Pis were still scarce then. The easiest IMHO would be an Octopus and Pi 3 or 4; there's tons of Vorons on that combo so lots of support.

I tried and works. Try to google "Pi Alternatives for Klipper", it should appear between the first couple of results. The BOM list recommends at least PI 4. The Pi 3 seems to be barely usable (slow FFT in input shaping, laggy webcam streaming etc). I think that any board should work, as long as it can run Debian 11 and has the right CPU, RAM and I/O. So, the choice list is very long.

The scope of the thread was to understand if Gemini would have been a good All-In-One solution as Octopus replacement. It isn't at all, so I'll go back to Octopus.

 

[NoGuru]

Seems like you have done your research and ready to build.

There is no breakage report for the Rapido, just going from experience, I had a couple fail for one reason or the other and it's expensive.
Its still a good hotend.
I switched to Bambu labs because they are cheap and work incredible well.

 

[vorondesignlover]

Well, I spent most of the time in researches and I've nearly finished my BOM list, but since I've gone too far from a stock Voron, I'm pretty sure there are several mistakes. I'm better off to open a new thread and ask for help before I start to buy parts.

Can't say anything about your experience with Rapido breakage without know what part broke, in what condition, your hardware details etc. The hotend itself is expensive, but from what I saw, the spare parts are pretty cheap.

Initially I've been very debated between Bambulab and Voron, but then I found multiple reasons to stick with Voron. The closest model I could find was P1P which is only 256mm and a modded 350mm Voron 2.4 (supposed to be much more performant) was still cheaper. The open source nature of the project also played a big role. You are the second owner I had chance to talk with who switched to Bambulab. May I ask for what reasons? You still have both and you only use Bambulab? Model? Apart Rapido, the rest of your 2.4 is/was stock?

 

[NoGuru]

Mine is far from stock. Maybe the only thing left stock on it is the Steathburner hotend but I have an SLA printed XOL toolhead but I have not had time to install it.

I run 48v and AWD or 4 motors for the X and Y which I don't recommend if you value the space of the 350mm.

Beacon and CAN buss have been the biggest improvements to the system as well as 5mm panels.

One of the other reasons I use a Bambu labs hotend is I have an X1C so I always have spares available.

I will say when the Rapido UHF worked, it worked well.

 

[3dCase]

A bit late perhaps but I would never use anything but the real deal with regards to the raspbery pi. You simply hear too many horror stories about the cheap alternatives. It will be a headache later and personally i hate headaches.
Secondly, closed klipper is an absolute nono. If you ever need help or advise you can go to the klipper discourse (not discord), and there are very knowledgeable people there always willing to help, .....until you have something that is stolen software and closed off. And I fully support their attitude towards this. Open source should stay open source and that is the end of it.
Tried and trusted, it is not all that much more expensive if you consider all the mods you will screw on to your printer later.

 

[vorondesignlover]

@NoGuru your Voron must be a real monster! Did you published full specs and pictures somewhere?

The motors is probably the hardest part I'll have to deal with. May be you can help me to solve some concerns:

1. I suppose that only with 42mm motors I can get the full benefits of a 48v setup. I've read that such motors reduce acceleration and I have to understand if this statement is true or not. Did you experienced this or any other downside I should be aware of?
2. I'm debated between 42mm and 48mm motors. What you can tell me about this?
3. AWD seems to be the number one performance mod for Voron users and the first obvious question is: what about before and after?
4. Can you quantify me the printable space you got once installed AWD? Something like 350mm to 300mm? As of now, two quick ideas that come into my mind to avoid printable space reduction are:
   • relocate components
   • build a 400mm voron (I suppose should not make big difference in costs)
5. May I ask how many high voltage motors and how many stock motors you use? I saw Octopus sold with 100% 5160 drivers or in combo with two 5160 drivers. Am I correct to deduce that the biggeest benefits comes from two high voltage motors (and the two needed 5160 drivers) for the X/Y motion? Am I wrong to deduce that trying to increase the number of such hv motors is going to be very expensive with very little benefits?
6. The two additional motors in an AWD must match the original two X/Y motors, right? So, in a AWD 48v setup means four hv motors (rather than two) and four 5160 drivers (rather than two), right?

Beacon and CAN buss have been the biggest improvements to the system as well as 5mm panels.

What Canbus board you recommend for my custom build? Beacon doesn't do CAN, how you've been able to make it work with your CANBus setup? Thanks for letting me know the 5mm Panel Mod. Are you able to share some data before and after the mod? I suppose that in such mod the difference is harder to notice.

One of the other reasons I use a Bambu labs hotend is I have an X1C so I always have spares available.

I will say when the Rapido UHF worked, it worked well.

Not sure I have understood well. You replaced the broken Rapido in your Voron with a Bambulab X1C hotend and you print all of your stuff with your voron configured in this way, right? How you would compare your Voron (with or without Rapido) with X1C?

 

[vorondesignlover]

A bit late perhaps but I would never use anything but the real deal with regards to the raspbery pi. You simply hear too many horror stories about the cheap alternatives. It will be a headache later and personally i hate headaches.

Absolutely not! Yes, some cheap alternatives may need workarounds to make them work and I'm not even sure there is a good saving: we need the right CPU/RAM and these are expensive anyway even on a cheap board. To me the only safe option remains an x86, very cheap and better hardware than any raspberry. Have no idea on how to deal with the limited space, even more when a AWD setup is involved, but I suppose some smart relocation of components should be enough. A raspberry pi 4B may worth to be considered, but while is safe on a stock Voron, I'm not sure could be enough for a Voron full of performance mods.

I'm currently investigating BTT Manta control board. There are very few places to buy the needed Raspberry Pi CM4 and while the single basic board is not expensive (but not even very cheap), as soon as you need to expand it the prices become crazy. I'm not sure the single board without any extra parts is enough for a stock voron. Probably not for a modded printer and in any case, soon or later, someone may need some upgrade. May be I'm wrong and some owner may want contradict me.

Secondly, closed klipper is an absolute nono. If you ever need help or advise you can go to the klipper discourse (not discord), and there are very knowledgeable people there always willing to help, .....until you have something that is stolen software and closed off. And I fully support their attitude towards this. Open source should stay open source and that is the end of it.

Absolutely! This is my golden rule in everything, I just wanted to be sure even in the case of the control board. And yes, I also agree with all of your statements. Open source should stay open source and that is the end of it.

 

[3dCase]

I use the octopus V1.1 and, as you know , it has 8 stepper sockets on it. I use canbus BTT36 and cartographer, which frees up one stepper socket because it now lives on the canbus toolboard. So if you add awd, you have ample free sockets to do this without needing an extension. I don't know what other things would need an extension but the octopus is jampacked with features and outputs. It also sports a can converter on it, so you do not need to use the U2C, but I did anyway because I believe it will make trouble shooting easier. Furthermore, I refuse to use the space under the deck for the electronics because working on your machine means flipping it everytime you have to do something. So I designed my own control box which lives on a short umbilical next to the machine. Currently redesigning it to be upright instead of flat so the footprint reduces. This is more in line with the piggy back electronics that some have, and also more like the ratrig sidepack. Much easier to work on then in the basement.

this is the flat controler. The new one will sit upright with the footprint of the power supply.

 

[NoGuru]

@NoGuru your Voron must be a real monster! Did you published full specs and pictures somewhere?

The motors is probably the hardest part I'll have to deal with. May be you can help me to solve some concerns:

1. I suppose that only with 42mm motors I can get the full benefits of a 48v setup. I've read that such motors reduce acceleration and I have to understand if this statement is true or not. Did you experienced this or any other downside I should be aware of?
2. I'm debated between 42mm and 48mm motors. What you can tell me about this?
3. AWD seems to be the number one performance mod for Voron users and the first obvious question is: what about before and after?
4. Can you quantify me the printable space you got once installed AWD? Something like 350mm to 300mm? As of now, two quick ideas that come into my mind to avoid printable space reduction are:
   • relocate components
   • build a 400mm voron (I suppose should not make big difference in costs)
5. May I ask how many high voltage motors and how many stock motors you use? I saw Octopus sold with 100% 5160 drivers or in combo with two 5160 drivers. Am I correct to deduce that the biggeest benefits comes from two high voltage motors (and the two needed 5160 drivers) for the X/Y motion? Am I wrong to deduce that trying to increase the number of such hv motors is going to be very expensive with very little benefits?
6. The two additional motors in an AWD must match the original two X/Y motors, right? So, in a AWD 48v setup means four hv motors (rather than two) and four 5160 drivers (rather than two), right?

What Canbus board you recommend for my custom build? Beacon doesn't do CAN, how you've been able to make it work with your CANBus setup? Thanks for letting me know the 5mm Panel Mod. Are you able to share some data before and after the mod? I suppose that in such mod the difference is harder to notice.

Not sure I have understood well. You replaced the broken Rapido in your Voron with a Bambulab X1C hotend and you print all of your stuff with your voron configured in this way, right? How you would compare your Voron (with or without Rapido) with X1C?

That's a lot of questions so I will do my best to answer.
Here is the short log of the 4 motor conversion https://forum.vorondesign.com/threads/converting-my-2-4-from-2-motor-to-4-motor.1549/

It's been a while so I don't recall all the details but they are in the log or you can ask. I will say in hind site I would rather not have AWD "4 motors" and want the space back.
Instead I think a better mod that does about the same thing is using 9mm belts. The 4 motors help mitigate the long length of the belts but so would 9mm belts without the complexity of the extra motors. Also there is something called Monolith which is a redesign of the Gantry but I have not tried this.

For the loss of space you loose about 3 inches or around 75mm in the front two corners if my memory is correct.

I run the X and Y on 48v and the rest on 24v. X/Y are using TMC5160's and I think the rest are on 2240's or something like that.

Last thing I will mention about going AWD is that is was more of a fun project as I don't print at the edge of the printers ability, I can print as fast or faster then my X1C with around the same quility but rarely ever do. I dial it back to around 70% of the speeds or less.

I think I use the Nitehawk CANbus board, so I have attached to my toolhead CANbus wire, USB for Beacon and PTFE tube.


"You replaced the broken Rapido in your Voron with a Bambulab X1C hotend and you print all of your stuff with your voron configured in this way, right?" That is correct, I use the BBL X1C hotend in my Voron. I lost a little speed from it but I am okay with that.

Comparing the two printers, humm, I would say the Voron is more of a just fun printer to learn and mod on and the X1C just works, every time.
The only time I use my 2.4 is for parts I want to print larger or just "because" its a cool printer and I use the X1C if I am using more expensive materials and I don't want to risk a failure but I this also comes down to slicing parameters.

 

[3dCase]

That's a lot of questions so I will do my best to answer.
Here is the short log of the 4 motor conversion https://forum.vorondesign.com/threads/converting-my-2-4-from-2-motor-to-4-motor.1549/

It's been a while so I don't recall all the details but they are in the log or you can ask. I will say in hind site I would rather not have AWD "4 motors" and want the space back.
Instead I think a better mod that does about the same thing is using 9mm belts. The 4 motors help mitigate the long length of the belts but so would 9mm belts without the complexity of the extra motors. Also there is something called Monolith which is a redesign of the Gantry but I have not tried this.

For the loss of space you loose about 3 inches or around 75mm in the front two corners if my memory is correct.

I run the X and Y on 48v and the rest on 24v. X/Y are using TMC5160's and I think the rest are on 2240's or something like that.

Last thing I will mention about going AWD is that is was more of a fun project as I don't print at the edge of the printers ability, I can print as fast or faster then my X1C with around the same quility but rarely ever do. I dial it back to around 70% of the speeds or less.

I think I use the Nitehawk CANbus board, so I have attached to my toolhead CANbus wire, USB for Beacon and PTFE tube.


"You replaced the broken Rapido in your Voron with a Bambulab X1C hotend and you print all of your stuff with your voron configured in this way, right?" That is correct, I use the BBL X1C hotend in my Voron. I lost a little speed from it but I am okay with that.

Comparing the two printers, humm, I would say the Voron is more of a just fun printer to learn and mod on and the X1C just works, every time.
The only time I use my 2.4 is for parts I want to print larger or just "because" its a cool printer and I use the X1C if I am using more expensive materials and I don't want to risk a failure but I this also comes down to slicing parameters.

Dear friend, I think you confuse canbus with usb. Your mods list also says nighthawk usb. Did you change something?

 

[NoGuru]

Dear friend, I think you confuse canbus with usb. Your mods list also says nighthawk usb. Did you change something?

No, USB is for Beacon.
I have a newer CANbus board that I could plug Beacon into instead of running the cable all the way from the toolhead to the RaspberryPi 5 but I have not the time right now.

Also I forgot to share my config in case anyone wanted to skim through it. https://github.com/NoGuru2/VoronV2.4/tree/main/printer_data/config

 

[vorondesignlover]

I use the octopus V1.1 and, as you know , it has 8 stepper sockets on it. I use canbus BTT36 and cartographer, which frees up one stepper socket because it now lives on the canbus toolboard. So if you add awd, you have ample free sockets to do this without needing an extension. I don't know what other things would need an extension but the octopus is jampacked with features and outputs. It also sports a can converter on it, so you do not need to use the U2C, but I did anyway because I believe it will make trouble shooting easier. Furthermore, I refuse to use the space under the deck for the electronics because working on your machine means flipping it everytime you have to do something. So I designed my own control box which lives on a short umbilical next to the machine. Currently redesigning it to be upright instead of flat so the footprint reduces. This is more in line with the piggy back electronics that some have, and also more like the ratrig sidepack. Much easier to work on then in the basement.

Wow! I really like how you built your printer, all the electronics inside a plug & play module. Really ingenious, but isn't this going to take much more space compared to the original design? Did you got other benefits? With all the electronics placed in an external controller, the printer chamber weight will be much lower and, in theory, less stable and more susceptible to vibrations? I'm not sure if this can affect print quality and even if it doesn't, I still have to take into account that I'm building a much faster printer than the stock one. Oh yes, flipping it everytime you have to do something is a nightmare when electronics is under the deck and I'm trying to convince myself with something like "You only have to do this while building and in a couple of rare situations".

Thanks for sharing your CANBus setup. This is something that got me stuck for so many time. I see that all boards support no more than TMC2209/TMC2240 drivers. Unless AI is mistaken, such driver is used to manage the internal motor of the extruder, usually a NEMA17 (shouldn't be NEMA14 usually?) which can also be upgraded to an hv motor in 48v setups. Is this really a supported scenario with the mentioned drivers?

In the BOM list I see a total of seven motors: six NEMA17 seems to be for x-y axes and one NEMA14 for Z axis. With the additional motor inside the extruder (don't know why is not listed in the BOM) we are at a total of 8 slots. Even with the canbus onboard driver I can only free one slot and AWD is not going to work anyway because needs two slots. Is that correct? In any case, AWD implentation seems to be that requires a driver extension (hoping it exists).

I'm still in doubt between BTT vs Mellow CANBus boards. They both have onboard drivers, but there are too many variants and listed features. This makes very hard for me to understand which one is better in real world (I never had chance to play with a 3D printer). And I'm dealing with a modded Voron which complicates things even further.

Based on the below deductions (which could be perfectly wrong), the Mellow seems to be a better option:

• Provides much expandibility
• Much more built-in features
• Can directly connect to the board through the specially designed CAN cable (it's PVC, but I suppose PTFE/silicon is not needed for this kind of connection) while BTT needs a U2C adapter sold separately. I'm not sure if this also applies to CANBus, but I had chances to verify that with other boards with different communication protocols, adding a USB extra layer is not good for performance. Systems should always communicate natively.
• RS232 support. ChatGTP says this is an obsolete protocol not supported by klipper and modern boards like SB2040, BTT EBB, etc. Mellow advertises this as one of the top feature fully supported by klipper. Very funny! Is this the new communication protocol that will be adopted in the future?

Compatibility is another concern. The Mellow Fly seems to be designed for StealthBurner while I'll use Galileo 2 (I can always switch back to the the SB). Not sure if can be adapted for Galileo. EBB42 is designed for NEMA17 while Mellow Fly seems limited to NEMA14. I'm not sure on the real differences between the twos in the specific case of the extruder, but I suppose there are otherwise a EBB42 variant would not make sense. The Mellow Fly is specifically designed for Voron while EBBXX for general CAN bus toolhead applications. So, Mellow is supposed to work much better.

The choice between the twos is very hard!

Mellow Fly-SB2040 V3​

EBB36 EBB42​

 

[vorondesignlover]

It's been a while so I don't recall all the details but they are in the log or you can ask. I will say in hind site I would rather not have AWD "4 motors" and want the space back.
Instead I think a better mod that does about the same thing is using 9mm belts. The 4 motors help mitigate the long length of the belts but so would 9mm belts without the complexity of the extra motors. Also there is something called Monolith which is a redesign of the Gantry but I have not tried this.

Thanks for the link, it's very interesting and I liked your videos. It looks like this mod make sense only if there is no space loss and I'm trying to understand if this is possible.
You means square inches, right? Uhmm... not a big loss, but still enough to make impossible to print some models. There should be some mechanism to move the motors out of the offending area. If you decide to implement your idea, please log your progress here. I may have my voron ready at that time and will try to help.
As of now, what I learned is that this is a very complicated mod. I can't just add the needed parts to my BOM list and expect to build all at once. This is something that requires an existing voron user who have already built the printer and had enough time to explore and learn how the printer works.
So, I should first complete my build and later think on how I can upgrade to AWD without space loss.
Only thing I would like to know is if building a 400mm voron could be a viable option because once I order the parts for a 350mm it will be too late. If I'm not wrong, in a 400mm build, the loss should be around 25mm instead of 75mm. Much better, but still not satisfying. I still want a solution like the one you previously mentioned (unfortunately I can only understand and comment all the details once I'll have a working unit on my hands).

I run the X and Y on 48v and the rest on 24v. X/Y are using TMC5160's and I think the rest are on 2240's or something like that.

So, four 48v motors and related TMC5160 drivers (two for the regular XY and two for AWD). Seems like does not make sense to run 100% 48v motors (I wonder why BTT sells the Octopus Pro in bundle with eight TMC5160 drivers).

Last thing I will mention about going AWD is that is was more of a fun project as I don't print at the edge of the printers ability, I can print as fast or faster then my X1C with around the same quility but rarely ever do. I dial it back to around 70% of the speeds or less.

This is the first rule I learned. The goal of building a fast machine is not to get it running at its limit all of the time, but rather increase the speed by a good amount without any loss on quality. In your case 70% seems to be the right balance. I suppose that by "fun project" you means you have not taken it enough seriously to implement all the changes that such mod may need to exploit the full potential, right? From your words seems like you have not gone much far from an X1C, but without Rapido and the mod not optimized to its full potential I don't feel to say it doesn't worth.

I'm wondering if AWD can be the cause of the Rapido breakage. May be it can't withstand such increase of speed? I can't believe this can happens with an hotend specifically designed for this purpose. You've never been able to identify for what reason your Rapido broke, right?

Comparing the two printers, humm, I would say the Voron is more of a just fun printer to learn and mod on and the X1C just works, every time.
The only time I use my 2.4 is for parts I want to print larger or just "because" its a cool printer and I use the X1C if I am using more expensive materials and I don't want to risk a failure but I this also comes down to slicing parameters.

Seems to be that there is not a clear winner, at least in terms of performance. So, the 3 things that makes Voron a better choice for some users could be:

• limited budget
• the need to print models bigger than 256mm
• customization without limits and full control of each aspect of the machine
• Cheaper spare parts due to the fact they are not proprietary

You said you use X1C when you use expensive material and don't want to risk a failure. Are really so easy failures on Vorons? Is not possible to reach the same level of reliability of the Bambulabs printers?

 

[vorondesignlover]

No, USB is for Beacon.
I have a newer CANbus board that I could plug Beacon into instead of running the cable all the way from the toolhead to the RaspberryPi 5 but I have not the time right now.

Also I forgot to share my config in case anyone wanted to skim through it. https://github.com/NoGuru2/VoronV2.4/tree/main/printer_data/config

Isn't Cartographer the only one with CAN support? In a previous comment I expressed my concerns about USB connections (third point of the unordered list) and BTT vs Mellow CANBus boards. What board you purchased?

 

[3dCase]

Isn't Cartographer the only one with CAN support? In a previous comment I expressed my concerns about USB connections (third point of the unordered list) and BTT vs Mellow CANBus boards. What board you purchased?

this year the beacon became dual setup also which means you can choose usb or canbus.
With regards to the compatibility of the boards to toolheads I cannot help you. I have never been a fan of the standard toolheads on anything, not only Voron, and as of many years I prefer to design my own combos for different purposes. My clockwork extruder was a nightmare and I do not even know exactly what was the version as I could not find conclusive details.

The way you mentioned the octopus sockets and the bom list amount of motors is slightly off I think. 4 motors are z axis, 2 motors are the corexy motors and one is the extruder. so this is 7 motors of which one will move to the canbus board and frees up one on the octopus. This means you could theoretically add the awd without an expansion board. This is why I said I do not know what other extras will require an expansion board, because I do not use any.
The electronics do not weigh enough to be of significant effect but my first few months of ownership of this machine was filled with weekly flips because the wiring was all wrong and broke. That is why I went full out on this drastic solution. Yes the footprint right now is too large and I am designing it to be an upright box the width of the power supply. It has not got any connectors yet (unfortunately), but it might in the future. That would make life even easier still.