LDO Trident 250, complete 3D printer beginner

[jonhi]

I'm writing a build log on my blog and reposting it here.

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I’m not sure where it came from, but it was suddenly very important that I got myself a 3D printer.Maybe it was an important insight, but it maybe it was only a fix idea I got that somehow became this all-import thing.

Either way, I now have lots of parts for a VORON Trident 250 and I figured I’ll try to document the journey of building it (or failing to).

Why a VORON?​

The first step to building a 3D printer is deciding on what printer to build.This was roughly my selection process:

1. An Ender 3 seems like a cheap and popular printer, maybe that’s a good place to start?
2. Hmm, the quality of an Ender 3 doesn’t seem that great and the internet says that you’ll spend a lot of time to tweak and modify it until you get something good.
3. The Prusa MK4 has just released, and their printers have historically been really solid.
4. Prusa seems open-source friendly (well, sort-of) but I’d probably want an enclosure as well…
5. There is a Prusa enclosure, but holy crap it’s large and expensive. Maybe there’s something else that has a built-in enclosure?
6. Damn, this VORON thing looks amazing and at around the same price range of the Prusa.

And that’s how I ended up wanting a VORON.

Now, a VORON is a really cool printer and there are lots of things that drew me towards it:

1. It’s completely open source.
2. The footprint is small and it comes with an enclosure.
3. You can mod it to your hearts content.
4. You build it from scratch, meaning you’ll get the knowledge of how to mod and repair it (I hope).

At this point it didn’t matter that I’m a complete 3D printer noob and that a VORON is not recommended for beginners. I wanted one, and settling for something else would just leave me filled with regrets and I would’ve just bought a VORON later anyway.So I bought the printer I wanted directly instead.

I got the 250mm version over the 300 and the 350 simply because it’s much easier to fit in my office and in my storage.I’m not planning to make any larger prints so the larger sizes felt unnecessary to me.

Now as I said a VORON isn’t a beginner printer, but I did take some countermeasures to hopefully make the build more manageable for me:

1. I Bought the expensive LDO kit as it’s as close to a “just build it” kit you can find.
2. I went with the Trident over a 2.4 because the Trident is supposedly a little easier to build.

I also made one choice that probably makes it a little more difficult for myself:

1. Even though the kit comes with the Klicky Mod, I want to use VORON Tap because I got this idea that Tap would be better.
   At the moment I’m not planning to install Klicky at all, but we’ll see how that goes.

As I don’t have a printer I used the print it forward service to buy the printed parts for the printer.

What I got​

I’ve got a bunch of boxes
These are the items I’ve ordered:

• LDO VORON Trident 250
• Phaetus Rapido Plus Hotend UHF
• VORON Tap hardware kit
• Printed parts

I first ordered a kit from caribou3d.com but after waiting months without progress I canceled itand ordered from 3djake.com instead (where I bought the Rapido).

But when I tried to cancel the order from caribou3d they told me they couldn’t make a refund as they had to declare insolvency. I did get a refund via PayPal, but I still strongly recommend you to avoid caribou3d.

Preloading the t-nuts​

Assembling the frame wasn’t too bad.I took it easy to make sure I put the extrusions the right place, rotated as they should be.

But my big worry—that still isn’t resolved—is the preloading of the t-nuts.Apparently LDO’s combination of nuts and extrusions is very tight and you can’t (or it’s super difficult) to insert them after assembling the frame, so you have to insert them before.

There is a helpful video, but I’m still very worried that I’ve placed one of them wrong or missed some, and I have to disassemble the frame at a later stage.

Assembling the frame. I really, really hope that I’ve placed the t-nuts correctly.

Heatset inserts​

What to do with the heatset inserts? The LDO kit comes with a heatset insert tool… But it didn’t fit the soldering iron I had. What to do?

Turns out you don’t need it, and you can just use the soldering iron with a regular tip:

This works great.Except that I shouldn’t use this particular part in the build. Oops.

Set screws​

Another source of great worry for me was this line in assembly manual:

Loose set screws account for the majority of issues that our users report.Save yourself hours of troubleshooting and apply thread locker to all set screws during the build.

And I don’t even know what a “thread locker” is.

After some research time it seems I really do want a thread locker, but I live in a really small community and I don’t know where to buy this (except ordering online and waiting for a week).

Well maybe nail polish works just as well? So armed to the teeth with fire red lipstick I was ready to tackle the problem…

And I see that thread locker has been pre-applied to the set screws.Maybe it will pay off with the more expensive kit after all?

Greasing the rails​

Greasing the rails is another thing that bothered me, because grease (and cleaning) wasn’t found in the kits I bought.My partners little brother came to the rescue and found a NLGI 1 grease (as recommended by the LDO guide) and some break cleaner to clean the rails.

That’s great, but I also don’t have a syringe so I ended up removing the carriage and applying grease that way.To my surprise they were full of small balls that had a tendency to jump out at me.

The balls jumped out on me. I hope I found them all?
(No, I later found some missing balls…)

At first I applied a bunch of grease on the balls as well, but then carriage moved really slowly over the rails, so in the end I applied a little grease only in the middle.

They still don’t move as smoothly as they did when I opened the boxes, I hope it’ll be okay…

Best part of the build so far​

This is Loke’s hand.
I don’t want to publish pictures of my kids, so this is what you get.

So far the best part has been that both of my boys (5 and 3 years) have been helping me out, and they’ve been really enjoying being there and helping me tighten some screws.

I really want all my kids to build and be creative.Be it LEGO, sand castles, programming or 3D printers.So far this project has been promising, and at least the older one is super hyped about the prospect of building his own Nerf guns.I also want to build some toy robots and—when they get older—maybe a Quadcopter or two.

Where I’m at right now​

The frame is built and I’ve added three of the rails.
I’ve had the printer for almost one month and progress has felt slow.

 

[So I Says...]

Welcome to the party! don't worry about how long it takes, enjoy the process.

I'm glad the t-nut preloading guide was helpful, it was not fun to make

tiny note: your front z motor mounts are swapped. the voron logos should be at the front

 

[jonhi]

Welcome to the party! don't worry about how long it takes, enjoy the process.

I'm glad the t-nut preloading guide was helpful, it was not fun to make

tiny note: your front z motor mounts are swapped. the voron logos should be at the front

Thanks!

The guide was more than helpful, without it I would've for sure messed up in a major way.

I'll see if I can swap the mounts. I've attached the motors to them, but maybe I should do it anyway.

 

[claudermilk]

You're definitely diving into the deep end head-first. But taking it slow, and being able to ask questions here will help you to a successful completion. Did you make sure the frame is square? This is the time to verify that--it will make things down the road easier and the printer will work better.

I can say that the Trident is a great first Voron, and 250 is a good size if you don't have specific needs for larger. My Trident 250 has been a workhorse since I built it. I started ordering parts almost as soon as I finished building my Prusa Mini kit. That poor Mini mostly gathers dust now.

 

[jonhi]

You're definitely diving into the deep end head-first. But taking it slow, and being able to ask questions here will help you to a successful completion. Did you make sure the frame is square? This is the time to verify that--it will make things down the road easier and the printer will work better.

I can say that the Trident is a great first Voron, and 250 is a good size if you don't have specific needs for larger. My Trident 250 has been a workhorse since I built it. I started ordering parts almost as soon as I finished building my Prusa Mini kit. That poor Mini mostly gathers dust now.

I thought I had verified it, but I got nervous so I had to do it again. I think/hope it's good enough...

That was exactly what I felt was going to happen to me! I even looked at the Prusa Mini, and right now it feels like the right decision to skip it.

 

[claudermilk]

If I had a bit more confidence in my ability I might have jumped straight to the Voron. The Mini was a really good learning platform for me. Now I have that, the 250 Trident and a V0.2. I'm looking at a Rook for fun later.

 

[jonhi]

This is part 2

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Since the last update I’ve made some good progress:

1. All the motors are installed
2. The x-axis and belt are installed
3. Tap is installed
4. The toolhead with Stealthburner + Clockwork 2 is also installed

Purple means Pretty.

I’ve run into a few problems on the way that I’ll try to document, but other than that the build has been really fun so far. The design of Clockwork, Stealthburner and Core XY is really cool and it’s been very interesting to assemble them to see how it all comes together.

X-axis and belts​

I didn’t encounter any issue assembling the x-axis or the belts.

I’m slightly worried that I messed something up as moving the gantry from front to back has a very slight hiccup in the middle, but it doesn’t come up when I move it from back to front or if I move it slowly.

Toolhead​

Up to here it’s been fairly straightforward.Just follow the official assembly guide and don’t forget to read the LDO Build Notes/FAQ.

But assembling the toolhead (or printhead, what’s the difference?) was not so simple and I had to reference several sources:

1. VORON Tap manual and VORON Tap errata
2. VORON Stealthburner manual
3. LDO Voron Stealthburner + Clockwork 2 + LDO Toolhead PCB Revised
4. LDO Voron Trident 250 Wiring Guide (Rev. A/C)
5. LDO Input Shaper Toolkit
6. VORON 2.4 R2 MPX CBT build series part 16 - Rapido HF hot end unbox and installation

This was confusing and I managed to trip up on several things.

Tap​

My plan wasn’t actually to build Tap from the start, and instead rely on the standard inductive probe. Even though the kit stated the probe was included, it wasn’t listed in the parts checklist so I assume it wasn’t included in the kit?

(I later found it in a bag in the cable box...)

No big deal. Instead of building the Klicky probe just to tear it down and replace with Tap later, I decided to build Tap from the get-go.

Tap in progress.

The first thing that confused me was the printed parts .In the Tap manual the main printed part had the VORON logo, yet my part did not. There were some other minor differences, so maybe I got the printed parts from an older revision of Tap?

But the manual also didn’t seem updated to the latest version as it was missing items from the errata (which I only discovered after assembling Tap). There were no mentions of the tall reinforcement screws (that I could install afterwards), belt covers (that I didn’t use) or how to install the 2 extra magnets (that now lie unused).

I got the Hardware Kit + OptoTap rev2.4.1 5v or 24v OPB666N HIGH TEMP + D2HW “kitchen sink” kit, but the amount of unused parts worries me.

Still, I got it assembled and it seems to work? Crosses fingers.

Tap is mounted and ready to go.

 

[jonhi]

Part 2b:​

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Clockwork, mod or no mod?​

For the top part of the Stealthburner, I did the component prep and then I noticed that the LDO documentation refers to a revision that called for using alternative printed parts.

Okay, okay. I redid installed heatset inserts on those parts as well and went to work.It went well until I had to install the PCB and the printed mount (from the revision) didn’t fit.

Alright, improvisation time:

I didn’t find how to attach the PCB in the documentation, so I improvised with heatset inserts. I feel so clever!

Of course later on I found a plastic part that was made for the job and replaced the mount:

This is how the PCB is supposed to be mounted.

… And then I found out why it didn’t fit. There was this line in the revision:

THIS MOD NO LONGER REQUIRED for V2.4 Rev. C - the kit includes the Stealthburner PCBs and works with the stock parts.

I’m not building a V2.4, so I didn’t think it applied to me. But now I think it was a bad assumption.I’m building the Rev. C of the Trident, which seems to have the new version of the PCB that fits the standard parts.

At first I was going to leave it like this cause why bother, but then I read a note hidden in the wiring guide that for the new PCB I needed to use a specific cable cover that of course wasn’t compatible with the modified parts…

So I redid everything.

And then I discovered that the specific cable cover I had was missing the thermistor holder:

My printed part doesn’t have this holder.

Darn it.

But I think (hope) it should finally be finished enough; I can probably tuck the thermistor somewhere to get it to print.

Now I think it’s built as it should be?

Installing a hotend​

When I was going to install the Rapido UHF hotend that I got I had a small panic.

I couldn’t find any VORON documentation on how to install it (the assembly manual only shows another hotend). From Rapido I got a very nice looking card pointing to https://www.phaetus.com/rapido-hotend that led nowhere.

And when I tried searching for it online I found that Rapido UHF actually wasn’t supported!

Oh no!

No matter how I look at it, this won’t fit? How are you even supposed to attach it? It does say P-RPD but I don’t understand…

I was sure I read that the UHF version also contained HF parts, but maybe that was wrong? Do I need to buy new printed parts from someone? Or maybe a new hotend? Buy the Rapido HF instead of the UHF I got?

I’m off watching reviews on the newly released Rapido 2.0…

Luckily I found a YouTube video showing how to install it:

Oooh, you just remove the top part (and don’t install the UHF parts) and it fits!

Crisis averted; all is well.

Stealthburner assembly​

Before connecting it all.

It was slightly scary that you had to break off and cut into a fan—I really didn’t want to mess it up permanently. But after watching NERO 3D do that I managed to collect the courage to do it as well.

When I was going to plug in the hotend I noticed it didn’t connect to the PCB properly:

Nope, the cable doesn’t go into that connector.

Tap also didn’t have a cable I could just use, so now I had to mess with the wires. Tough luck, I didn’t have any 2-pin or 3-pin connectors (or extra cable), so I left this until later.

That’s a future me problem. Screw that guy.

Missing some minor parts​

At this point I discovered I’m missing a few things:

• Printed part for the input shaper.
  Maybe I just haven’t found it, but either way it’s not a big deal. Input shaper seems to be a temporary thing that you should remove after some calibration, so I guess I can just tape it temporarily.
• The LDO specific cable cover I mentioned before.
• 2 Locking Washer, M5
  Maybe I can find two of these things in the hardware store somewhere? Ordering these online for only two pieces seems like a hassle.
  I’ve contacted 3Djake about the washers, maybe they’ll find some replacement parts for me. But even if they don’t it’s no big deal.

I thought I was missing the neopixels and the inductive probe, but they were hiding in a bag in the cable box.

How does it feel?​

Even though I’ve had a fair amount of trouble sorting through documentation and other issues, the progress has felt good. It’s really fascinating to assemble things like the belt system and the toolhead and see how they come together.

 

[Dutchronnie]

Your conclusions on the TAP are also mine.
I think this is the cable door cover you are searching for: cable_cover_pcb_with_thermistor.stl

After i assembled the Stealthburner cover over the extruder and hotendblock i noticed a gap between the cover and extruder block. Did you have the same?

 

[jonhi]

After i assembled the Stealthburner cover over the extruder and hotendblock i noticed a gap between the cover and extruder block. Did you have the same?

I don't think so. Here are some more pictures:

 

[Dutchronnie]

I see also a small gap, when i tighten the upper bolts my gap is the same as you have, but when i loosen the upper bolts the gap is almost 10mm. the two screws squeeze them together, and i don't know if that is allowed. in my opinion they have just to fit and the screws are only to secure the parts.

 

[claudermilk]

First off, before you get too much farther: The front two Z motor mounts are reversed still. The Voron logo should be facing the front.

If you are feeling a catch in motion, track it down now. Is the gantry trammed?

For Stealthburner, I have the same cover you do. That one with the thermistor clip is new to me. I have my chamber thermistor attached to the rear Z rail extrusion about halfway along its length. LDO includes extra hardware just in case, so you're not going to use every single screw and washer they packed; if everything is assembled and works right, you're probably fine. Check LDO's wiring docs for the hotend, if something needs to be changed they would have noted it. On my "standard" hartk PCB and Revo, it just plugged right in as I recall. I also have a slight gap between the front cover and main body after installing Tap; it is what it is & the functional benefits far outweigh the minor aesthetic drawback.

One thing you will come to discover is there is a lot of overlap in V2.4 and Trident parts. Stealthburner is identical between them. You'll find a whole lot of V2 mods will work on Trident (or have a Trident-tweaked version).

 

[jonhi]

First off, before you get too much farther: The front two Z motor mounts are reversed still. The Voron logo should be facing the front.

Yeah, I kind of assumed that it was just an aesthetics thing and decided to not bother. But that might be wrong...?

If you are feeling a catch in motion, track it down now. Is the gantry trammed?

I don't understand the word "trammed". What should I do to verify the gantry?

I've tried to verify that the frame is built square, but I haven't done anything special with the gantry.

For Stealthburner, I have the same cover you do. That one with the thermistor clip is new to me. I have my chamber thermistor attached to the rear Z rail extrusion about halfway along its length.

Awesome, will try to attach it somewhere later.

 

[jonhi]

I see also a small gap, when i tighten the upper bolts my gap is the same as you have, but when i loosen the upper bolts the gap is almost 10mm.

As far as I remember it plugged in pretty well, certainly not with a 10 mm gap.

 

[claudermilk]

Sorry, racking is the more appropriate term. Here's a helpful video from Nero covering it better than I can.

 

[jonhi]

Part 3

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I’ve made a lot of progress on my VORON. Electronics and other stuff are installed to the degree that I’ve begun wiring, but I’m going to separate the wiring into it’s own post.

This will be a short post about bed preparation and installing electronics components.

Feedback from the VORON forum​

I’ve gotten some feedback from the friendly VORON forum on some issues I should take a look at:

1. Verify that the frame is built square (I’ve tried to do so).
2. The front Z motor mounts were swapped.
   
   
   Front Z motor mounts now have the VORON logo at the front.
3. I should check the gantry racking to get rid of it catching (I haven’t done that yet, I want to finish up the wiring first).

Misaligned extrusion​

When I was going to insert the top cover I noticed that the Z motor didn’t fit into the cutout, and I discovered that the center extrusion wasn’t right in the middle:


I have a small memory that I measured it, and the spacing was off by a little, but then maybe I forgot to do something about it? Just goes to show how my plans of taking the build slowly and trying to be thorough doesn’t prevent me from doing silly mistakes.

The buildplate​

Even though the assembly manual says that you should install the buildplate at this point, I decided to skip it. I got the tip from Nero3D to only install it at the very end, even after wiring, because it’s heavy and makes the printer more annoying to flip around during the build.

These screws were extremely hard to screw down… Maybe I need better tools?

Other than the small screws murdering my fingers, installing the final extrusions was straightforward.

Bed mount installed.

Electronics​

And now the part of the build I’ve been most worried about begins; avoiding blowing up the electronic components.

Well, that requires wiring so maybe I’ll blow it up in the next post.


I couldn’t find the LDO Beefy Raspberry Pi Mount in my printed parts. But why would I need it, the standard parts work well?

The big electronic components are laid out.

Again, laying out the components were no big deal.Embarrassingly, the most trouble I had was locating the microSD slot for the Raspberry Pi (it’s underneath).

Next up is the dreaded wiring.

 

[claudermilk]

Looking good. Take the wiring one step at a time. Mains plug and power supply. Power up and make sure nothing blows up and the supply is putting out 24V. Then controller. Then Pi. That way you minimize what might blow up. If you have any doubts at all, take good pictures and post here and/or on Discord--that saved me from an expensive mistake.

 

[jonhi]

I've run into an issue and I think I've gotten a cable that doesn't fit properly, but I'm not sure.

In LDOs wiring documentation it says that I should connect a cable between HEO and BED_OUT:

Breakout PCB	Cable label (breakout end)	Controller	Cable label (controller end)
HE0 ****	HE0	HE0/PA2	BED_OUT

***The BED_OUT port in the Octopus controller carries more current than the HE ports, this allows you to use super high power hotends such as the Phaetus Rapido.

However the BED_OUT requires a "U" connector (not sure what it's called) and my cable only has pins (that seems to match the HE port):

The SSR cable is already connected to the HE port, and that has the same pin type connectors. I also have the Phaetus Rapido so it seems important that I connect it to BED_OUT?

Am I correct that I should have a different cable?
I'm sure that some would say it's easy to just change the connectors, but I have no idea how to do that and I'm worried I'll mess up something.

 

[claudermilk]

What is that cable you already have plugged in to the Octopus HE0? That's where you're supposed to be plugging the HE0/HOTEND cable you are holding according to their docs.

Connecting the Breakout Cables (Part 1)​

We will now begin connecting the cables between the toolhead breakout PCB and the Octopus controller.

1. Connect the cables according to the following table:

Breakout PCB	Cable label (breakout end)	Controller	Cable label (controller end)
E-MOTOR	E MOTOR	MOTOR6	E STEPPER
TH0	TH0	T0/PF4	HOTEND TH
CT	CT	T1/PF5	CHAMBER TH
HE0	HE0	HE0/PA2	HOTEND
LED*	Not used	Not used	Not used
CFAN*	Not used	Not used	Not used
CFAN LED*	Not used	Not used	Not used

*The three ports with labels CFAN, LED, CFAN LED are not used in the V2 build, they are used for Voron Switchwire.

The end result looks like this:

See the high resolution image here

 

[jonhi]

Things are a bit confusing. One of them is that the wiring documentation seems different here for 2.4 and Trident (and in the Trident documentation all cables aren't in all of the images...).

This is the Trident wiring gude: https://docs.ldomotors.com/voron/voron-trident/wiring_guide_250_rev_a

That does point out that the hotend should be connected to BED_OUT:

What's connected to the Octopus HE0 is the SSR (input 3 and 4):

Which is pointed out in this image from the wiring guide:

What I think happens is that you have two configurations that can work:

1. SSR -> HE0, Breakout hotend -> BED_OUT (Displayed in the Trident docs)
2. SSR -> BED_OUT, Breakout hotend -> HE0 (Displayed in the 2.4 docs)

And the choice depends on the hotend you use (for a high powered hotend it's better to connect to BED_OUT).

But my problem is that both of these wires have pins that fit into HE0, but not BED_OUT that I think should have these "U" connectors.

Does this make sense?