Transcript:
Hello, I’m Ivan. Today I’ll be starting another upgrade project for the CR-10. This will be an ultimate upgrade before starting a different project for building a Voron Corexy 3d printer, which is quite ambitious for me. – it will probably take me several months. OK, first I decided to take the maximum out of this printer by implementing linear rails on Z and Y axis. I have already a linear rail on the X, but I’ll try to install a second parallel one on the X in order to be able to attach havier print heads So. My little man cave is full of stuff -. It took a lot of time for some things to arrive, but finally. I have everything, – parts and printed parts. I hope this project will take 2 weekends. (actually Took 1) and first I’ll start with the Y axis. Here you see the current solution from Creality. The hotbed is moving on V-wheel’s. Those wear for couple of months of daily use. You can see some black particles from the plastic. This leads to play of the bed. And when tightening doesn’’t help anymore, you’’ll have to change them. Instead of the V-wheels I’’ll be using two linear rail that should improve both the stability and the precision. I will also change the 6mm GT2 belt with a 9mm one. Finally, I printed a tensioner for the new belt from polycarbonate. Check the description for the parts. I use. For this modification, the heated bed and the 2040 extrusion have to be disassembled. I bought the linear rails from RobotDigg. Those are MGN12 stainless still and high quality Chinese rails. Good alternative of Hiwin. They are 500 mm long. For the Y axis, each of the two rails has two carriages. The linear rails will be attached to 460 mm, long 2020 extrusions. I will be using a combination of standard T-nuts and spring ball T-nuts. The spring ball T-nut’s help to suppress vibrations, if any. In order to attach the carriages to the hotbed supporting plate, I printed a drilling template and marked the holes. I used the same template for the both sides of the plate. The supporting plate is from aluminum. It is 6mm thick. It will be attached to the carriages with M3 bolts. I used first a 1 mm drill bit and then a 4 mm one for the final holes. This gives some tolerance because my drilling technique is not the most precise one. I also printed 7mm tall spacers. Those will be between the linear rail carriages and the supporting plate and are needed to create space for the timing belt. Once mounted, it was relatively easy to adjust the parallelism of the 2 rails and the supporting carriage is moving smooth. Here you can see how I attached the 9mm belt using thin strips of metal sheet, Modifying the Z and the X axis requires to disassemble the top 2020 Extrusion and the gantry. The Z rails are also 500mm long MGN12. There are several existing solutions for mounting linear rails for the Z Axis. And you can check them on Thingiverse. They require to change the position of the X Axis Stepper. I wanted to keep the Stepper where it is because I think this position provides good balance. After short study, I decided to position the Z rails on the right side of the 2020 Extrusions. The mounting elements for the right side of the gantry are available on Thingiverse. For the Stepper side, I had to design my own solution. Here you can see how I attached the 9mm belt using thin strips of metal sheet, Modifying the Z and the X axis requires to disassemble the top 2020 Extrusion and the gantry. The Z rails are also 500mm long MGN12. There are several existing solutions for mounting linear rails for the Z Axis. And you can check them on Thingiverse. They require to change the position of the X Axis Stepper. I wanted to keep the Stepper where it is because I think this position provides good balance. After short study, I decided to position the Z rails on the right side of the 2020 Extrusions. The mounting elements for the right side of the gantry are available on Thingiverse. For the Stepper side, I had to design my own solution. For the X-axis, I use 2 rail’s, – MGN12 mounted on the front side and MGN9 mounted on the bottom of the gantry. The print head is a modified version of the Tank print head. I presented in another video. I had really tough time to align the Z-rails. It was much more difficult than the X and the Y rails because the distance between the rails is big and very small deviations lead to difficult movement. The technique I use for aligning the rails is to fix the first rail and then to progressively tighten the screws of the second one while moving the carriage. This didn’’t work for the Z rails. It took me some time to realize that I should first synchronize the 2 sides of the gantry before making the alignment because when testing by hand, there is always more force applied on the right or on the left side, which leads to deviations. When I synchronized the gantry, aligning the rails was easy and now they move very smoothly. The belt of the X axis should also be modified. Because of the MGN9 rail mounted on bottom, it can no longer inside the 2020 Extrusion. On the left side of the gantry, I used one of the holes of the Stepper and a headless bolt to attach an M3 idler! On the external side, the bolt is screwed to the stock. M3 spacer. The front plate for the X endstop was also modified to host the spacer. On the right side of the gantry, I modified an X tensioner from Thingiverse to hold another M3 idler! Here you see the X belt In action. I printed few parts to test the print quality. First, I printed a Benchy and a calibration cube from PLA at 0.2 layer height, The calibration cube printed perfect. The Benchy had some layer artifacts on the cabine, but those are due to stringing, which is related to the printing profile and not to the mechanics. So I consider it a success Than I printed a measuring cube and an ocarina from ABS. The measuring cube was printed at 0,35 mm, layer height and with very cheap ABS filament. The quality is OK for this resolution. The Ocarina was printed at 0.25 mm layer, height, 100% infill from Amazon Basics, ABS. The print quality is perfect. In conclusion, – the upgrade did improve the print quality. And I’m happy with it. Another good think is that the system is so rigid. I no longer need an ABL sensor. The BLtouch goes to my spare parts. I have also installed supports for the Z Axis ( frame braces). Those help to make the frame sturdier and improve the quality for tall prints. I had to design a part for the Y Axis Endstop. It holds also the back of the Y Axis Stepper. Please check the description for more information on the parts. I used. Thanks for watching. See you soon for another project.