Total Newbie 350!

[Beez]

First questions as I begin the build.
1) The motor/pully spacing tool seems not to have been included in the essential parts kit from matter hackers. Is this by design?

2) I seem to have two sets ( four parts) of x carriage parts. Is this correct? Looks like 2x left and 2x right parts and identical.
Thanks for helping a newbie out!

 

[Sanity Agathion]

Welcome to the forum! You had not specified what kind of printer you have - is it 2.4 or Trident?

VORON design is not a company which sells products. It's an open-source project, ran all by volunteers. We only publish designs and guides, by which you can source parts and assemble the printer on your kitchen table. As such, we are not responsible for what individual companies put in their kits. I suggest you contact Matterhackers customer support and clear it up with them. While on the line with them, ask if parts that you received are really from ABS or ASA - that particular vendor had been known to offer PLA(!!!) parts absolutely not suitable for use with VORON printers, and their ABS parts left a lot to be desired in terms of quality.

Or you can print your own. STLs are here https://github.com/VoronDesign/Voron-2 in Tools directory. This one can be printed from any plastic, it's not structural part but a template.

 

[Beez]

Welcome to the forum! You had not specified what kind of printer you have - is it 2.4 or Trident?

VORON design is not a company which sells products. It's an open-source project, ran all by volunteers. We only publish designs and guides, by which you can source parts and assemble the printer on your kitchen table. As such, we are not responsible for what individual companies put in their kits. I suggest you contact Matterhackers customer support and clear it up with them. While on the line with them, ask if parts that you received are really from ABS or ASA - that particular vendor had been known to offer PLA(!!!) parts absolutely not suitable for use with VORON printers, and their ABS parts left a lot to be desired in terms of quality.

Or you can print your own. STLs are here https://github.com/VoronDesign/Voron-2 in Tools directory. This one can be printed from any plastic, it's not structural part but a template.

Hey thanks! I have an R2. Not a trident. 350mm. And when I say total newbie, I mean it. No printer yet so I can’t print my own parts. I hope these are ABS. One indication they may not be is the soldering station is easily melting in the inserts at 475f.

 

[mallcop]

Hey thanks! I have an R2. Not a trident. 350mm. And when I say total newbie, I mean it. No printer yet so I can’t print my own parts. I hope these are ABS. One indication they may not be is the soldering station is easily melting in the inserts at 475f.

Do you mean the V2.4r2? If so, solid choice.

To see if your parts are ABS or ASA, you can scrape a thin segment of plastic off something (maybe your duplicate X parts?) and burn it. ABS and ASA burn with a sooty yellow/orange flame and smell like a car fire. PLA will burn with a drippy, small purple flame that smells like waffles. PETG will have a weirdly gross sweet/sickly smell. Please don't burn your house down trying this.

You'll want to lower the temperature on your iron for heatset inserts too. Try about 220C for ABS/ASA, and 200C for PLA. Also, get comfortable with Celsius, it's all we use for temperatures in this hobby.

Make sure you properly prepare your linear rails before building the machine! You do not want to run them without proper lubrication, and even if they feel oily (or move very smoothly) that does not mean they are ready for long-term use.

 

[vinnycordeiro]

Also, if you are having problems with MatterHackers parts, you could possibly use the Print It Forward program - https://pif.voron.dev/ -, as they provide all the functional parts you'll need for a Voron for a very reasonable price and outstanding quality (as those parts are all printed on Vorons highly tuned for the job).

And as mallcop said, be prepared to use the metric system when talking about 3d printers.

 

[Sanity Agathion]

I use around 240 for heatserts, around the temperature of melting plastic, it has more chance to flow around crevices in heatsert and seal it in.

Maybe you can go to Marketplace section of the forum here and ask? People may have printed few of those and will happily send it for shipping, it's a small flat part. BTW did they provide also rail alignment tools? Those are very important as well.

Are you on VORON Discord? If yes, maybe shout in general chat room that you need that print and we run community activity to "rescue" such users with missing parts. Where are you from? Country/general area is enough.

 

[Beez]

Wow! Thanks for all the help. This is awesome!

I’m a former engineer machinist and I use metric and English interchangeably. Most of the time I remember to append the units to the end of my numbers ;-).

Fortunately, I do have dial calipers, gauge pins, gage blocks, etc. I have been able to put the pulleys on in the correct locations I believe.

They did include the rail alignment devices four of them so that’s handy and I have been cleaning the rails with 99% isopropyl alcohol and lubricating lightly with lithium grease.

I’m not on the discord yet. I try not to tangle myself up with too much social media. I definitely appreciate the warm welcome, and detailed replies here. If you think discord is better or more useful, I’ll jump on over there.

Each bag of parts has a small flat coupon with a bunch of part numbers on it that I suppose indicates the batch in which they were printed I’ll try burning some of those minus the house and see what kind of smoke I get. Thanks so much for all the detailed information I really appreciate it.

Chris.

 

[Beez]

Oh yeah I just noticed you guys were using 430 to 460 Fahrenheit in ABS which is actually a little below what I’m using. My Weller soldering station is “calibrated” in the key of F so it’s old-school. I’ll turn it down a little more. Thanks!

 

[Sanity Agathion]

Wow! Thanks for all the help. This is awesome!

I’m a former engineer machinist and I use metric and English interchangeably. Most of the time I remember to append the units to the end of my numbers ;-).

Fortunately, I do have dial calipers, gauge pins, gage blocks, etc. I have been able to put the pulleys on in the correct locations I believe.

They did include the rail alignment devices four of them so that’s handy and I have been cleaning the rails with 99% isopropyl alcohol and lubricating lightly with lithium grease.

I’m not on the discord yet. I try not to tangle myself up with too much social media. I definitely appreciate the warm welcome, and detailed replies here. If you think discord is better or more useful, I’ll jump on over there.

Each bag of parts has a small flat coupon with a bunch of part numbers on it that I suppose indicates the batch in which they were printed I’ll try burning some of those minus the house and see what kind of smoke I get. Thanks so much for all the detailed information I really appreciate it.

Chris.

Where are you from? Maybe we can have somebody ship you that part.

If you scrape the part off and it leaves white stress marks, it's probably ABS. Burning it leave typical "burning plastic" smell. PLA is more like caramel? Sweet smell. PETG usually does not smell too much.

 

[Beez]

I'm in the San Francisco bay area, San Ramon. Was in Oakland 25 years, finally gave in and moved to the burbs.

I did burn one of those coupons and it was yellow flame with sooty black smoke. Really stunk up my kitchen! ;-)
I'm really enjoying the build and I think the parts from matterhackers are reasonably good quality.
The LDO rails don't seem to be all that though. I'm used to THK and other top shelf motion products from the CNC world.
I'll keep them clean and lubed and see if they smooth out but the surface quality of the rails is suspect. Possible item to change.

Oh, I'm trying to post pix but it says they are too big. Any idea what the max spec is?
Thanks again!
Chris

 

[Beez]

Argh, I keep forgetting to say it IS a V2.4r2.
Can I edit the name of my thread?
Thx
B

 

[Sanity Agathion]

Actually you may not need that part, it's more of a convenience rather than anything else. Calipers will do just fine. But I can ask somebody from that area if they are willing to contact you.

Is there anything else you may be missig? Do you have parts for Afterburner or Stealthburner toolhead? Stealthburner uses 5015 fan and small round nema14 pancake motor for extruder. Afterburner uses 5020 part cooling fan and nema17 pancake extruder motor. They use slightly different X carriage.

 

[Beez]

Thanks so much for the kind offer. I’m way past meeting that tool now. I’m building the tool head and have discovered why there are multiple X carriage parts. ;-). Z,A,B all belted up. This is exciting! I can see the wiring taking up a lot of time though. Particularly feeding the cable chains.

I have a stealth burner. Revo hot end and nozzle kit. .6 and .4mm nozzles. Should I start with.6?

 

[Beez]

 

[Sanity Agathion]

Oh wow, you made some progress!

Start with 0.4, it is easiest to find profiles for that nozzle size.

 

[Beez]

I had put the .6 on thinking it would be easlier to get up and running. More rework. ;-)

 

[Beez]

I noticed the LDO docs show the DIN rails installed 90degrees to the official assembly pdf I've been using...
Also LDO docs suggest rotating the stepper cable connectors outboard? Any consensus to that move?
Suggestions? I really need to start organizing wire, and I still have a LOT more to add.

Noticed my cable chains are "openable" so that's a plus.

 

[Beez]

Pix

 

[Sanity Agathion]

I noticed the LDO docs show the DIN rails installed 90degrees to the official assembly pdf I've been using...
Also LDO docs suggest rotating the stepper cable connectors outboard? Any consensus to that move?
Suggestions? I really need to start organizing wire, and I still have a LOT more to add.

Noticed my cable chains are "openable" so that's a plus.

What do you mean outboard? On which motors?

 

[Beez]

The Z motors. It's not a big deal, the Voron docs show the connectors facing in towards each other. LDO recommends facing them out. It's a style point. I rotated them on the back two motors to face out or outboard. On one it places the motor wires farther away from the AC wiring. On the other, farther away from the bed heater wiring...