Voron Switchwire Rebuild

[BrianL]

I thought I would log this one here as this printer has a bit of history and it is time to rebuild it properly. I'd say there are a few Switchwires out there that have some dodgy first ABS prints on them

I purchased early 2024 to dip my toe in the Voron waters, so to speak. I purchased second hand in bits and it had the initial prints with it what were out-of-this-world terrible.

All in all, it had a very good base but I did the absolute minimum necessary to get it running. Now I have a second functional printer (V2.4) it is time to bring it up to spec and replace some of those rather crunchy prints.

What is it now?:
LDO SW frame
LDO rails (one has a lovely crunchy breakfast cereal feel to it)
LDO steppers 4240's from memory
Stealthburner, running Revo Voron 40w & CW2 (I updated the toolhead on its initial re-assembly as it was a mess)
BTT E3 V3 main board
Genuine PRUSA MK52 heatbed
Pi Zero
Meanwell 350w 24v & 5v
Keyback - the incorrect one unfortunately.


What am I changing - updating?
All of the prints not yet changed (i.e most of them)
The one shagged LDO rail unless you can reball it? I already cleaned and re-greased but this one feels like the balls are shagged.
Steppers - I have some LDO 4248's I got second hand a while back I will drop in - I mean, why not
Toolhead board - I have a Nighthawk in my 2.4 so thinking to go that direction for this.
Enclosure - It came with one but it is god-dam-awful - will see how I can change it to be a bit more user friendly for easy removal.
BTT touch screen - hopefully it fits the LDO RevC print for the front.
Pi 4 to run the screen
Underdeck wiring / general tidy up

I am playing with colours but I am heading toward gray / red / black with some tasteful lighting in behind the front grills.

 

[BrianL]

I run off the front trim tonight to see if I liked the colour. This is in Polymaker Gray ABS.

 

[BrianL]

Managed to get a bit done on it this week. With what i have pulled off and replaced I am surprised it was printing as well as it did! Motor mounts where quite badly delaminating.

Rear grills done
Underdeck mounts all printed and replaced with the Pi 4 replacing the Zero 2 W. Just need to do a couple of WAGU mounts to tidy up the mains and 24V.
Some of the motion system prints done and fitted in Polymaker Red. I decided to run with a slightly different colour / accent base - all pulleys & motors are in red.

There is quire a significant difference in colour and gloss of the Polymaker Red ABS vs the eSun fireengine red abs+. The photos give it a bit of an orange tinge but it is more of a red.

Aim is to finish the rest of the printing this week, assemble back to stock and get the Pi 4 running. Once that is done and the printer is functioning ok I will start to look at steppers / toolhead boards, klickyPCB etc.

Questions:
I am looking at the nighthawk SB - has anyone run umbilical on the Switchwire with this board?
I was also looking to also incorporate KlickyPCB - can the servo run off the Nighthawk SB as well as the klicky switch? I was concerned with the amp draw on the 5v line.

 

[BrianL]

Have made some progress:
Most of the main prints are done and installed.
Did a bit of work tidying the under deck and got the new Pi4 installed and running while replacing all of the mounting prints. The Zero 2 W was running serial but I decided to move over to USB for this one - dhd to reflash the board with the latest version of klipper but that was pretty easy. Have left the old toolhead wiring in at the moment as I want to get it working fully and then look at the tool head board options - still on the fence regarding nighthawk or Can bus.

Looking at the toolhead and was looking at the Filametrix fork FilamAtrix for a toolhead filament sensor and cutter. Looking around to buy a hardware kit and its pretty thin-on-the-ground in the UK to get one outside of a MMU kit. Will print it as a side project and may have to source via Ali unless one of the retailers has a stash of the required bolts in their back room.

The reason for the cutter? Well I wanted to test some sort of MMU on this printer before committing it to the 2.4 and it may be a self sourced job - BoxTurtle looks good, tradrack looks like a simpler option and, if I want to head down the rabbit hole I could enlist the ERCR V2 - decisions decisions......

Found out my 4.3" screen is a waveshare, not BTT so the LDO prints dont fit. Managed to get the case on by increasing 1% in X and Y dimensions on the print but the bracket to the skirt doesn't fit ..... dont know if I can be bothered to doctor the LDO files or simply order the BTT one ... i can do a bit in freecad but am crap in fusion360. Already have the LDO specific skirts for the screen so prefer to stay with that.

So, to get a base print I need to tighten the belts, replace the Omron probe with klickypcb (the PRUSA bed just doesn't play well with the Omron probe) and run through the basic checks.

Prints to do:
FilamAtrix files for the toolhead.
Fan holder for 60mm fans
Klicky servo mount.
Design and print a bottom panel to cover the wiring - it didn't have one. From my testing I can print it in 2 pieces on my 2.4 350mm bed if I shave a bit off the sides - bottom is 360mm wide - should work. If I print 100mm wide strips I can print them full length diagonally and lay them out like slats - will see what I do there .... I mapped out the shape for the front and back so it is doo-able.

Other jobs:
Wire in the switch and heat shrink the terminals on the power socket.
Wago for the bed / thermostat / Y endstop and tidy those wires up.

Slowly getting there!!