Picking a control board and components

[Samiamjohnson1]

Hey guys. I am in the process of designing a custom 3d printer from scratch.



BUT…..





I have no idea what I am doing lol.



I work as a maintenance mechanic at a manufacturing company, so I am familiar with industrial machines. I have been printing on an Ender 3 Neo that I have modified to print 300 degrees to print carbon fiber. But I am not happy with the size limitations. So, I have decided to create a 24”x36” 3d printer.



So far, I have designed a dual extruder head using the Micro Swiss direct drive heads. It has 5 fans on the extruder.



I also want to include a self-leveling bed driven by 3-stepper motors. So, I am up to 9 stepper motors including the dual z-axis.



So, I was planning on using the octopus board because it supports 9 motors. But it seems like there are several options and it is not making sense with my skill level to what I really need.



I also read what I think is an option to run the extruders off USB instead of a ribbon.



So I guess my question is what would you recommend for the board, and controllers, what do I need to put together to make this all work?



Any suggestions would be amazing



Thanks



Sam Johnson

 

[NoGuru]

Are you sure you want to do a full custom? I mean looking at that toolhead I just see weight and a very slow printer. Now, I could be wrong and I am not discouraging you but I would maybe build a Voron to at least get some idea of design, and function first and to learn Klipper if you don't already know it.

That being said I think maybe the Fysetc Spider King might be the board you are looking for. It has a lot of function. https://wiki.fysetc.com/FYSETC-SPIDER-KING/?mwg_rnd=2859476

 

[ah2049]

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to print at that size, or the budget you're working with, but making a printer that big from scratch is going to be an expensive trial and error exercise in frustration. It can be fun to design and modify your printer, but it is absolutely frustrating to constantly need to fidget and fix things instead of being able to use the machine for what it was built for: printing.

If I were you, unless the first and main goal is to have something you designed on your own and having a sometimes/hopefully usable printer second, I'd go with something that properly scales up to about what you need (not just want you think you want), like a ratrig v-core in the 500mm flavor.

Also, with that being said, there have been quite a few people who have made modifications to the v2.4 to add 100-200mm in the Z axis. So if you only need extra length in one axis, that may be an option.

 

[Samiamjohnson1]

I am planning on building car parts for my offroad vehicle. That's why I'm looking for that kind of size. Things like wheel fender and interior parts. I'm also going to design and print a full intake manifold and things like cold air intake. Because of my job working with large scale industrial equipment 24 by 36 is actually quite small lol. Plus I'm I. School to become a mechanical engineer so I can use this as one of my projects