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[MUSIC] Hey, guys! This video is meant as an introduction to those just starting to get into 3d printing and definitely isn’t intended for any experienced users out there. I will be going over All of the different sections of a 3d printer how they work and what parts can be upgraded or changed. Depending on your particular machine setup. This will hopefully be the first video in a series to help those just now getting into 3d printing before they get overwhelmed with tutorials and terminology that will just go over their heads without getting into too much detail. There are quite a few different processes with 3d printing. The majority of you wondering about is what is called. F F F or F DM, where plastic is melted and pushed out of a nozzle slowly building your part. That process is what we will be covering in these videos since other processes require completely different parts and knowledge. Let’s start off by looking at this diagram that I’m including in the 2020 edition of my book to be released in roughly one month. This book will be free for digital download the first five days. It’s out, so make sure you’re subscribed to this channel to stay updated. So you can grab yours for no cost. I drew this diagram in order to help. Make sure everyone understands the terms of different sections of a printer when referenced later in the book, there are a few notes, though before getting into the names and parts of what they do. This particular drawing is of a printer with linear rods. What that means is that the carriage is travel on smooth metal rods, which are attached to the carriages via bearings. These bearings can be either plastic or metal. Depending on your machine, what’s become much more common over the last couple of years is printers with V slot aluminum extrusions. The essential functions of the printer are the same, but rather than carriage is moving along smooth roads. They are traveling over stiff aluminum rails. These metal rails are normally stiffer than the standard rods and use rollers rather than bearings. This means it doesn’t need any lubrication. Many people now prefer this V slot extrusion over linear rods as you can see with most of the printers on the market today. The other thing about this diagram is that it’s of a Cartesian 3d printer. Cartesian printers have a direct relationship between the X and Y motor movements. Meaning that if you move one motor, the carriage will move only in that direction. Typically, they have a build plate that moves in the Y direction, a hot end that moves in the X direction and the entire X axis that moves up and down in the Z direction away from the build plate. This was by far the most common type of 3d printer for a very long time but core. XY has become a favorite for most makers over the years a core. XY printer doesn’t have a direct linear relationship between the X and y motor movements, meaning that the X&Y steppers move in opposite directions to travel in the X direction and move in the same direction to travel in the Y direction that is definitely a little confusing, but they are best known as printers that have the hotend moving in both the X and Y direction with the build plate moving down in the Z direction. There are some variations such as the similar. H Bot design and even the Ender V, which is technically a Cartesian machine but functions. Similarly, in the sense that the build plate only moves down in the Z direction and not back-and-forth in the Y direction, while there are obviously differences in how the tool path and Stepper Motors work. I classify all of these in the same boat. If the printer build plate moves down away from the nozzle, I tend to call that a core XY machine I have personally slowly turned into preferring this type of set up. Having the build plate moved down in the Z direction, rather than back-and-forth in the Y direction has many benefits, the first of which is the amount of rattling that can occur on your print with a standard. Cartesian machine. If you need a tall, skinny part printed on a Cartesian machine, you’re going to be stuck with a persistent problem. Since the bed is going back and forth, the print may sway, leading to some very ugly tops of prints if the print isn’t just knocked over fixing, this requires some slicer tweaks, but there is no doubt this problem is drastically reduced when the build plate is only moving down the second benefit of a core. XY machine to a Cartesian machine is the ability to print faster without worrying about ghostie ghosting or echoing is one features of your print seemed to repeat themselves. This is generally caused by fast accelerations and decelerations but can be exasperated by the build plate being so heavy, moving back and forth. When your hot end is the only thing moving in the X and Y direction, far less ghosting will occur without having to reduce your acceleration or jerk settings and then there is Delta printers, which look and function quite differently than the other two. I just mentioned this is because the extruder is suspended above the build plate via three arms in a triangular fashion. The bed does not move at all, but rather, the hot end is moved in all three axes. These machines have their downfalls but can normally print much faster than a Cartesian with the same specs. I personally do not have much experience at all. With these types of FDM machines, the vast majority of tutorials and people you see, using a 3d printer are not using Delta machines. There are some minor variations with these three types of printers, but in general, when you think of Fd’m 3d printing, they fall somewhere along these lines. Now that we got some basics around the frame and movement of the machine, let’s get into the parts. We will start with the basics and then work our way around the machine. First up is the hot end. A hot end works as it sounds. Functioning is the part that heats up to a set temperature and then melts the filament as it comes out of a nozzle. It does this via heater attached to the heater block and a thermistor that works as a thermometer. Your printer is given a temperature via the thermistor and will know whether or not to heat the heater, depending on what the temperature setpoint is attached to. The heater block is a heat break, allowing there to be a quick temperature differential between the heater block and the barrel this barrel can be referred to as a heat sink. Its purpose to make sure the filament that’s kept inside is at room temperature. You also normally have a fan blowing onto this barrel to make sure it never gets hot. When the barrel gets hot, it can cause a material within to expand, which will result in a clog. A good hot end is all-metal, meaning that there is a metal heat break between your barrel and heater block so that no tubing in the area can be heated up and deformed, meaning you can print at a higher temperature and with less clogging all of these parts make up what is considered a hot end. The nozzles that are threaded into the bottom of the hot end can come in a variety of diameter holes, the smaller. They are the more detailed. Your print can be. You will also notice on most printers that there’s a fan that blows air onto your print. This is either called an active cooling fan or a part cooling fan. This air helps freshly laid down hot plastic cool down and will drastically increase the surface quality of your print so long as the material you’re using, prefers it on now in order for plastic filament to actually be fed out of this hot end. It needs an extruder. An extruder is a part that takes a filament and feeds it, making it one of the most important parts on your printer. This extruder is attached to a stepper motor, which then turns an item with teeth that grips onto the filament and pushes it out. This motor can be attached to the frame of your printer with there being a large gap between it and your hot end, which is called a Bowden setup. Most makers prefer this extruder to be directly attached to the hot end so that there is no gap, which is referred to as a direct extruder or direct drive. Working with a direct extruder will allow you to print in more material options since a large gap on. Bowden machines make flexible filaments quite difficult to print with these extruders can have a gear ratio or not having a gear ratio means that you are using a mechanical advantage requiring your stepper motor to spin faster but have far less resistance. It’s just about always preferred that you have a gear 2 extruder since he could print faster and not put too much pressure on your motor, meaning that you shouldn’t experience what are called Extruder Motor Skips, which can be quite a nuisance on non geared extruders. There are many extruder and hotend manufacturers, but they all essentially work the same way. The extruder feeds filament via a stepper motor into the hot end, which then melts and extrudes the plastic. There are even packages like the titan arrow or soon-to-be-released. Hermes, by E3d, which combined the Extruder and hotend into one item, the hot end and extruder are the two parts on the 3d printer that really make it unique and both are required on every type of FDM 3d printer, regardless of the frame, the hot end and the extruder in direct drive setups are attached to the X carriage on your printer for Cartesian machines and both the X and Y axis on core XY machines. This X carriage can be 3d printed or mass manufactured, but it holds on to your hot end and attaches to your frame, either by bearings on linear rod setups or by rollers on V slot setups, the X carriage slides back and forth with ease, the printer is able to move the X carriage back and forth via a belt That is attached to your X Stepper Motor via a pulley with teeth, Your stepper motor spins, turning the pulley and pulling the belt back and forth, causing the X carriage to move. This belt can be a reason for specific, ugly prints due to it, having a bit more leeway than what the stiff lead screw has belts need to be tight in order not to have any excess. Freeplay core XY printers work. Similarly, but the hot end is moved in both the X and Y direction at the same time via their Stepper Motors. The way your X carriage knows to stop when its home is via what’s called an end. Stop this end! Stop gets engaged when your carriage goes all the way to its home side, which tells your printer to stop turning the stepper motor. Your X Y and Z axes will all have end stops to let your printer know when to stop after reaching home on Cartesian machines, the build plate moves back and forth in the Y direction. This is done just about the same way that your. X carriage is moved. Your build plate is attached to a Y carriage, which is in turn connected to the frame of your printer via bearings or rollers and is moved back and forth via a belt that is connected to a stepper motor. Since we’re talking about the bed, let’s talk about your build plate. The build plate is where your print sticks to and where the first layer of your print will start. The majority of 3d printers have a build plate that heats up since that is required for most materials to stick properly. This helps by having a build plate that is heated to around what the material’s glass transition temperature is. The build plate is heated in a similar fashion to your hotter, working with a large heated pad as well as a thermistor to read the temperature on a Cartesian machine. Your entire X carriage is moved up and down via what I’m calling a Z carriage. This can either be 3d printed or one that’s manufactured, but its function is to move the hot end up or down in the Z direction with a nut threading a Z leadscrew. It is then attached to either the X Axis V slot or rods for added stability and smoothly goes up and down with either bearings or rollers. Cartesian machines will normally have two of these Z carriages, one on either side of the printer, though some V slot setups do not having a thick lead screw or two will help for stability and longevity. These lead screws after being threaded through the Z carriage are then attached to a stepper motor via a coupler. Your stepper motor will then rotate the amount required to thread the Z carriage up or down. Depending on your print settings, this lead screw will work the same way that your belts do on other axes. They are just stiffer and better for this use since you don’t normally have a ton of back-and-forth movement in the Z direction. As you do with the X&Y, When working with the core XY machine, there is normally only one lead screw for the z-axi’s that moves the bed downward. It functions the same way as what? I just described but rather than raise the hot end, it lowers the build plate well. This was just a very basic first intro into what the parts on a 3d printer are since. It’s definitely beneficial to know how your 3d printer works and is built before you start learning all of the different slicer settings and material options. I plan on making more intro to 3d printing videos and hope this can serve as a good first part. Well, thanks for watching guys. I’ll see you all soon with further tutorials, reviews and fun prints. If you’re interested in 3d printing, don’t forget to check out my book 3d printing failure’s 2019 edition. This guy has been revamped and edited to include all of the 3d printing failures. I have ever experienced how to diagnose them and how to fix it. Check the description down below to grab yourself a copy you.