Welcome! The folks at Random Idea Generator Shop would like to thank you for purchasing our 3D printer kit. We are dedicated to providing an easy to build kit with customizable options to meet your requirements. If you have any questions during our build, please feel free to send us an email. Table of Contents Welcome! Table of Contents Build your own desktop 3D printer Tools you will need Bill of Materials Assembly Instructions Electronics Wire it all up!: Calibration Print your first Thing! Resources on the internet Support Glossary of Terms and Components 1
Build your own desktop 3D printer This is a kit containing all materials and software to build and operate a 3D Printer. The printer is a Graber i3 - with certain modifications, based on the Prusa i3, with nearly all of the parts being laser cut. 2
Tools you will need Screw Driver Wrench or pliers (5/16 and 1/2") Bill of Materials Included in the kit you will find everything you need to build the basic kit: Laser cut Frame Includes nuts and bolts 5x stepper motors - 40 N-cm (56 oz-in) RAMPS 1.4 Controller includes: Arduino Mega 2560 R3, 4x Stepper drivers w/ heat sinks. 12V 30A Power Supply 2x belts and pullies 5x 608zz bearings 10x LM8UU linear bearings Extruder hot end Extruder cold end 3x Endstops with wires 5x Springs for extruder and bed 2x 5mm x 11.5 Threaded rodw/ nuts 6x 8mm smooth rod. 2x 12.5 (Z), 2x 13.5 (Y), 2x 15.75 (X) Heated Build Platform, 8 x 8 glass not included Nuts and bolts - #6-32 (41x 3/4, 6x 1/2, 2x 1, 4x 1-1/4, 8x 1-3/4 ), M3 (20x 10mm, 4x 25mm, 4x 20mm), M4 (3x 12mm) Software and firmware Repetier is loaded on the controller and the host software is included on disc, but can be downloaded from Repetier.com. 3
Assembly Instructions The frame is designed to go together relatively quickly, but it s main benefits are its rigidity and ease of calibration. Assemble the Z motor mounts: 1. Attach brackets (H) to left and right Z- axis stepper motor mounts (G). Chamfered corner will be the front outside corner. Requires: (4) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts (4) 6-32 nuts <insert photo> 2. Attach the Z motor mounts to the main upright (F). Requires: (2) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts (2) 6-32 nuts <insert better photo> 3. Attach the left and right uprights (B) to the base. (A) Orient the base such that the two square holes near the middle are facing the front, and the low portions of the uprights are facing front. Requires: (6) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts (6) 6-32 nuts 4
<insert photo of attached base and sides> 4. Put the Y-axis motor mount (K) into the square hole on the rear of the base Requires: (2) 6-32 x 1/2" bolts (2) 6-32 washers <attach photo showing how attached> 5. Attach front (D) and rear (E) faces. Secure idler and motor mount brackets to front and rear faces. Requires: (8) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts (3) 6-32 x 1/2" bolts (3) 6-32 washers (11) 6-32 nuts 6. Slide the main upright into position and secure to the left and right uprights. Requires: (6) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts (6) 6-32 nuts 5
7. Insert 2 threaded rod with 608zz bearing into the idler brackets and secure with 2 nuts each side as jam nuts. Don t over tighten, make sure the bearing is free to turn. This is a good time to put one of the GT2 belts around the bearing as you insert it. It will make getting the belt in easier, and it can also help you align the bearing to the threaded rod. 8. Attach Y-axis rod stops to front and back faces. Use one bolt in the bottom hole. Requires: (4) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts (4) 6-32 nuts (2) 13-1/2" M8 smooth rods (1) LM8UU bearing on the right (2) LM8UU bearings on the left (4) Zipties to secure rods 6
9. Install Z and Y-axis motors. The Z motor with the longest lead should be on the right. Requires: (11) M3 x 10mm bolts Assemble Y-axis and print bed: 1. Attach Y-axis endstop to back right side M8 smooth rod. Requires: (1) 6-32 x 3/4" bolt (2) 6-32 x 1/2" bolts (3) 6-32 nuts (1) endstop with wire <insert photo> 2. Attach Y-axis enstop flag to Y-carriage base (M). Requires: (1) 6-32 x 1 bolt (1) 6-32 nuts <insert photo> 3. Attach the two belt brackets (P) to the Y-carriage base. Insert belt attachment bolts. Requires: (2) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts 7
(2) 6-32 x 1 Bolts (4) 6-32 nuts. Attach to linear bearings using zip ties. 5. Insert thermistor into Heated Build Platform center hole and secure kapton tape. 6. Solder 18 wire to HBP, connecting the negative lead to both pads 2 and 3. 7. Solder LED(s) and resistor to board for power indicator. 8. Attach the heated build platform (HBP) to the Y-carriage base (3) M3-25 bolts (3) M3 nuts (3) springs inserted between the bed and the carriage 9. Place an 8 x 8 piece of glass on the HBP attach with (4) mini clips.. 8
I typically mount mine with the LED in the rear as it provides better movement for the wires. I also ziptie the wires to the back right hole on the carriage. Assemble X-axis Motor Mount: 1. Place the X-axis motor mount (Y) on a level surface. 10
2. Insert two the rod spacers (Q), large tab down, in the two large slots near the middle.. Insert X-axis motor bearing plate (X) into the X-motor mount sides (Z). 11
. Insert the X-motor mount sides (Z) onto the.motor mount (Y). 5. Place (2) LM8UU bearings in slot and Insert (2) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts.. Insert Z-axis nut and threaded rod into outside facing recess and cover with (AA). I recommend using hot glue or something similar to secure the nut in place so it doesn t wiggle in the nut capture. 12
7. Install X-axis motor mount top (W) and secure with 1-3/4 bolts. Assemble X-axis Idler: 1. Place the Y-axis idler base (T) on a level surface.. Insert two the rod spacers (Q), large tab down, in the two large slots near the middle. 13
. Insert X-axis idler bearing plate (S) into the X-idler sides (U).. Insert the X-idler sides (U) onto the Idler mount (T). 14
. Insert two LM8UU bearings in slot.. Insert 3/8" x 1-3/4" threaded rod into idler cover and secure with a nut each side. Leave enough so the rod will be flush to the back of the idler assembly. 15
. Place (1) 608zz bearing between the back(t) and the bearing plate (S) and attach front plate (R) with (4) 6-32 X 1-3/4" bolts.. Insert Z-axis nut into outside facing recess and cover with (V). 16
. Install X-axis idler top (R) and secure with 1-3/4" bolts. Assemble the X-carriage: 1. Insert (3) 6-32 x 1 bolts into the top and side holes of the X-carriage base (N1). The shorter slot on N1 will be up. 17
. Attach Extruder Body to (N1) using (2) 6-32 x 1-3/4" bolts. I ve found it s better to put the bolts in from the back so the nuts are on the face of the extruder body (not as shown in the image below).. Insert three LM8UU bearings. 4. Install X-carriage back(n2) and secure with 1 bolts. The top bolt s nut can be secured with a wrench as long as you place a little tension on the bolt to keep it from turning. Assemble X and Z-axis: 1. Slide 15.75 smooth rod into X-carriage bearings (X-carriage not shown for clarity). 2. (1) LM8UU bearing will be the top, (2) bearings on the bottom. 3. Insert X-carriage assembly into X-idler assembly. Idler will be on the right. 4. Insert X-carriage assembly into X-motor mount assembly. Motor will be on left. 5. Slide 12.5 smooth rod into X-axis motor mount bearings and X-axis idler bearings. 6. Insert M5 x 11.5 threaded rod into the captured nuts on the motor mount and idler assemblies. 18
. Insert assembly into the rod holes on Z-motor mounts (G).. Attach left and right Z-axis rod holders (I). 9. Using 1 length of tubing attach the threaded rod to Z-axis motors. I recommend some sort of adhesive to prevent the threads from backing out, though I ve never experienced this. 10. Mount X-axis motor with (4) M3 x 10mm bolts. 11. Attach X and Z endstops using (2) 6-32 x 1/2" bolts and (2) 6-32 x 3/4" bolts. <attach photos> 19
Extruder Cold End assembly: 1. Insert (2) 608zz bearings into recesses on extruder body. 2. Using 3/8 x 3/4" threaded rod place 608zz bearing into extruder idler. 3. mount idler to extruder body.. Mount extruder motor with (3) M3 x 10mm bolts, keep loose. 5. Attach extruder idler with (1) M3 x 25mm bolt. 6. Insert hobbed bolt into big gear. 7. Insert M3 nut and set screw into small gear. 8. Insert hobbed bolt and big gear into body and slide small gear into place on motor shaft. Use washers on hobbed bolt between extruder body and big gear to get correct spacing for good 20
alignment of the hobbed area with the filament feed hole. Use (2) jam nuts on the back to secure hobbed bolt in place.. Tighten set screw on small gear to motor shaft. 10. Make sure the gears have good contact and tighten motor. 11. Insert (2) 6-32 nuts into nut capture slots on top of extruder body. 12. Use (2) 6-32 x 2 bolts with springs and washers through the top of the idler assembly to nuts in the extruder body. <insert photo> Attach belts: 1. Attach (1) GT2 pulley to Y-motor and tighten set screws. 2. Make sure Y-motor is loose in the mount to allow tightening later. 1
3. Attach one end of the belt to the Y-carriage bolt on (P) by folding over and zip tying in place. Make the excess as small as possible to allow as much movement as possible. 4. Run Y-axis belt through idler, around Y-motor pulley and back to Y-carriage, if not already.. Attach end of belt as above. Make sure it s taught.. Tighten belt by adjusting Y-motor before tightening motor mount bolts. 7. X-carriage is similar to above. Electronics Assemble Control Board 1. Attach RAMPS 1.4 control board to Arduino Mega 2. Install DRV8825 Stepper Drivers. The chip will be away from the power connectors. You can also look at the bottom of the driver to see the pin assignments and align them appropriately to the board. 3. Attach heatsinks using heatsink paste or adhesive. 4. Attach to left upright with (2) M3 x 25mm bolts. I prefer on in the top right and another in the bottom left. 22
nstall drivers, software and firmware: 1. Install Arduino software and USB drivers. 2. Install Repetier Host. This includes Slic3r, Skeinforge, and Cura Engine. 3. The Arduino already has the latest firmware loaded. 4. Connect the Control Board to your PC and verify it is recognized. 5. Open Repetier Host and connect to the Control Board and verify it is communicating. You can wait until you re finished wiring, but it s always good to verify everything is communicating. *If your status line says N Commands waiting you re having communications issues and you re not communicating with the Arduino. Assemble RAMPS board fan 1. Attach (1) 40mm fan to the fan mount peices using (4) M3 x 20mm bolts. Assemble the Extruder Hotend: Your hotend should be assembled with the exception of adding the fan and fan mount. 1. Attach fan to motor mount using (2) M3 x 20mm bolts 2. Attach the fan housing to the Aluminum body of the hot end. Secure with zip tie. 3. Insert hotend into base of extruder body and hold in place with (2) M3 x 20mm bolts. 4. Run hotend wireing along the inside of the extruder motor and combine wiring, secure with zip tie. Use wire wrap to make it look nice. Attach Power Supply 1. Screw onto right side with (3) M4 x 12mm bolts, wire connections on the bottom. 23
. Attach (2) positive and (2) negative wires to the output screw terminals. 3. Attach power cable to input. White is typical Line (L), Black is typically Neutral (N), Green or Black with Green stripe is typically Ground.. Optionally: buy a 125V 20A switch and place it in series with the Neutral. Mount it above the power supply. Needs (2) peices of wiring 18 long with connectors and solder. 24
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Wire it all up!: If the markings on RAMPS board are not clear, use the following images for reference. Polarity is very important in all cases except thermistors and the hotend heating cartridge. 6
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1. Plug in Z motors, red wires at the top. 2. Plug in Hotend Thermistor to T0, polarity not important. 3. Plug in HBP Thermistor to T1, polarity not important 4. Plug in Y motor, red wire on top. 5. Plug in X motor, red wire on bottom. 6. plug in X-axis Min endstop, bottom most pins in endstop area, red wire on right. 7. Plug in Y-axis endstop, 3rd set of pins from bottom. 8. Plug in Z-axis endstop, 2nd set of pins from top. 9. Plug in Extruder motor, red wire on bottom. 10. Screw Extruder heater into D10 terminals, polarity not important. 11. Screw HBP wires into D8 terminals. Check polarity. 12. Screw Hotend Fan and 11A power supply wring into screw terminals. Check polarity. 13. Screw RAMPS Fan and 5A power supply wiring into screw terminals. Check polarity. 14. Wrap wiring. Calibration Verify that you are not driving too much voltage to your steppers. 1. Turn on, or plug in, your power supply. 2. Using a multimeter, measure the voltage from the center of the small trim potentiometer and ground. This should be set to approximately 0.6-0.7 volts. 3. Turn clockwise to reduce the voltage. Connect to Repetier Host and check endstop functionality. 1. Once connected to Repetier Host, go to the Manual tab and enter M119 in the G-Code text box. 2. All endstops should report L. Adjust Endstop placement 1. X and Y endstops should be positioned such that the hotend s nozzle is in the front left corner when Homed. 2. Set Z endstop so the nozzle homes to slightly above the HBP on the left side. a. When finished bed leveling the Z endstop should be set so that the nozzle is close enough to the build platform that you can just slide a piece of paper between them with a slight bit of resistance. Bed leveling 1. Adjust the (3) bolts holding the HBP to the carriage so they are of equal height. 2. Set the nozzle at Home X and about 100mm Y. This will be on the right side about halfway up the Y-axis. 3. Adjust Z endstop so you can just feel it touching a piece paper between the nozzle and HBP. 4. Set the nozzle to X maximum, about 190-200mm, so the nozzle is all the way to the right side of the platform. 5. Adjust either the HBP screws or the right side Z-axis threaded rod so that it just touches the paper. 6. Do this several times until it is perfectly even from one side to the other. 7. Place nozzle at the center of the build platform and move it along the Y-axis and perform the same adjustments, turning the single center HBP screw and adjusting the endstop height as needed to level the bed from front to back. 28
8. Jog the nozzle around the HBP and make sure you feel the same amount of resistance on the piece of paper in every part of the bed. Print your first Thing! This is where you really begin to learn about fine tuning your printer to meet your needs. 1. Load the calibration cube in Repetier host. 2. Go to the Slicer tab and select Cura Engine (recommended) 3. Typical settings for: a. PLA are 185-205 degrees for the extruder, and 55 for the HBP. b. ABS are 235-265 degrees for the extruder, and 110 for the HBP. c. Play with these numbers as preferences vary. 4. Slice and Print. 5. Tweak Resources on the internet There is a fantastic support forum and wikis on RepRap.org to help you with tuning your 3D printer. There are many techniques and philosophies on the best approach to achieving great prints, it s up to you to decide what works best for you. If you are looking for places to find things to print that others have already created, try Thingiverse.com. There are many other repositories for objects, this is one of the more popular ones. Support For assistance or support you may reach us at info@randomideagenerator.com Glossary of Terms and Components This is a list of terms and definitions you may come across in your learning about 3D printers, this list is by no means comprehensive, but is meant to provide you with some basic information on common terms. RepRap - Open Source self-replicating machine. Uses FDM, fused deposition modeling. RepStrap - Similar to RepRap except mainly non-printable, such as this kit. Vitamins - Anything not printed or specifically generated, i.e. nuts and bolts, bearings, rod, and threaded rod. 3 Axis s of motion - X, Y, and Z. This is a standard Cartesian coordinate system. X axis is left and right movement 29
Y axis is forward and back movement Z axis is up and down movement Stepper Motors are motors with a specified number of steps per revolution that the controller uses to precisely track and position the print head. Extruder - Delivers the plastic to the print bed. Consists of a cold and hot end. Cold end - Has a stepper and toothed shaft to push plastic to the hot end. Hot end - Has an orifice that once the heating element heats the plastic in a reservoir it is then squeezed out of and onto the print bed. Build platform - The area that the plastic is extruded onto creating your model. Can be heated or not. Heated beds are best used with ABS to prevent the model from lifting or warping. Types of plastic - PLA (Polylactic acid) and ABS ( Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) are the two most commonly used, but there are many more materials available and more coming to market. PLA - Is a biodegradable plastic derived from corn starch. It has a lower melting point, is harder and more brittle. It s not UV resistant and will warp in warm temperatures. It s very forgiving for the beginning 3D enthusiast. ABS - Is a petroleum based plastic and is very widely used. It has a higher melting point, is more durable as it s not as brittle. The parts tend to be more resilient. Models: STL files - any 3D model you create must be exported or converted to an STL file. CAD/CAM Software - There are many modeling programs available ranging from free to many thousands of dollars. Here is a short list of examples: OpenSCAD - Freeware, is a code based 3D modeling software. SketchUp - Freeware, with paid versions available, is a visual 3D modeling software that is widely used and supported. Blender - Freeware, used for many 3D applications including animation. FreeCAD - Freeware, I don t know much about this. 30
123D Design - A free Autodesk product, very limited in capabilities compared to thier other products. Is specifically aimed at the maker community, included in a suite of 123D programs. AutoCAD - Autodesk product, expensive but very robust modeling software. Does not do organic forms easily. 3DS Max - Autodesk product, aimed more at animation and 3D rendering, it s very complex with many options. Modeling can be difficult at first but results are very good. Solidworks - A mechanical engineering software that can be used to build a virtual mechanism to test functionality before exporting individual pieces for printing. 3D Scanning 123D Catch - Part of the Autodesk 123D suite. Takes a series of photos and stitches them together to generate a model you can print. Xbox Kinect - Uses stereoscopic imaging to scan an object. Other similar tools are on the market. Other forms of scanning include some laser and camera based options that can be DIY d or purchased. Slicers - Takes your STL file and generates G-code, for your control software to send to your printer. There are many slicers available. Slic3r - Open Source, is simplified, but does offer many advanced options. Skeinforge - Open Source, lots of variables, some can be obscure. Cura Open Source but maintained by Ultimaker. Printer Control - Includes host software and the firmware that is loaded on your microcontroller. Allows you to manually control your printer as well as sending the G-code commands. Host software Repetier - a package including both firmware, host software, it also has Slic3r, Skeinforge, and Cura embedded. Pronterface - Is host software and can speak to many different firmwares. Cura is also offered as a package but can be used as individual components. Firmware Loaded onto your microcontroller this receives and interprets the commands from the 31
print control, or host, software and sends it to the various components of your 3d printer. Repetier Teacup Marlin Sprinter Microcontrollers Programmed with the firmware it receives commands and then controls movement and temperature through the use of G-code. G-Code is used to send a command or a query to the microcontroller. Information is either movement, temperature, or fan control. The host software will also query the temperature inputs to precisely control the temperature of the extruder and the heated bed. 32