OB1.4 open beam 3D printer
Derived from
Description
The aim here was to make a larger volume printer that did not need specialist parts, laser cutting or CNC machinery to make. The 1.4 designation comes from the new side frames resembling the number '4'.
If you have already built the earlier OB1 printer you can reuse a lot of the original plastic parts as well as all of the extrusions although this new printer uses less extrusion and some will require shortening.
The x-axis ends and carriage are now included but have not yet been tested hence the "work in progress" label.
I may yet design a standard x-carriage to take a Wades type extruder but if anyone else wants to have a go the X-axis rails are 55mm spacing 8mm diameter linear rods.
Instructions
Full assemble instructions are available on YouTube here:
Part 1: youtu.be/WR5EMgwua-Q
Part 2: youtu.be/PiuRKRwRDCY
Part 3: youtu.be/vGVZhLTLnB4
part 4: youtu.be/4_iULqEEOrE
(Full BOM is included in the file list in excel and tab-delimited formats)
Open beam extrusions required:
1 x top rail 420 mm long
8 x front/rear/side and upright rails 330mm each
2 x diagonal rails 297mm each
These can be cut from 4 x 1m lengths of Open Beam extrusion.
Mitre-box here: thingiverse.com/thing:32668
Linear rods:
X-axis 8mm x 450-500mm long
Y-axis 8mm x 390mm long
Z-axis 10mm x 450-500mm long
Hardware:
4 x 10mm LM10UU bearings
8 x 8mm LM8UU bearings
2 x 608 bearings
80 x M3 x 8mm hex socket machine screws
10 x M3 x 10mm hex socket machine screws
80 x 3mm washers
80 x M3 nuts
I have also included the drawing of the 5mm aluminium plate I recommend you use for the y-carriage along with the y-carriage design OB14Y1 included here plus these bed adjusters: thingiverse.com/thing:29782
You will also need an extruder, I am using my small footprint extruder from here: thingiverse.com/thing:30951 as a pusher.
If you use the build trays from here: thingiverse.com/thing:51593 they include the pusher and extruder parts in the trays as well as the y-carriage.
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Thanks Mate for such a great printer design!
I am putting together electronics and I can't find out how the Y endstop is attached to the frame do you have a picture of it.
Thanks
Lincoln
Still confused. The 'original' printrbot appears in plastic via the link you supplied. However, if you go to the printrbot site all the kits they have (that I can find) are laser-cut wood versions. If you are building a printrbot, are you having someone 3D-print the plastic parts for you, or did you find a kit somehwere? Please share.
Which printrbot are you getting? The one I saw in the youtube video was dated Dec 17, 2011 done in plastic; the ones on the printrbot site look different -- are they made of wood? Are you getting a wooden one? Wouldn't plastic be better?
If you can, let me know where you are in getting your 1st 3D!!!
Hello Everyone Here. Just starting out with 3D printing. Can any of you in the US offer a kit of parts for the OB1.4? Wired1 suggests getting the parts from a source closer to me as I have no ability to 3D-print anything.
Can anyone guess as to the total cost for everything required to go from nothing to 3D printing with the OB1.4 design? Thanks.
Where do you guys get all the other metal parts? Motors, controllers, etc.?
Great design, I started printing the pieces but i cant find any 10mm smooth bar in Toronto. Any chance for a 8mm version for the Y axis?
Hi Ryan, you really need 10mm rod because of the span and the flex you will get with 8mm rod sorry. I am now thinking I should have gone 10mm on all axes but maybe next printer. There are plenty of on-line stores selling rod and failing that have a look on fleabay. Good luck with your build.
Great design, I started printing the pieces but i cant find any 10mm smooth bar in Toronto. Any chance for a 8mm version for the Y axis?
Hi Ryan, you really need 10mm rod because of the span and the flex you will get with 8mm rod sorry. I am now thinking I should have gone 10mm on all axes but maybe next printer. There are plenty of on-line stores selling rod and failing that have a look on fleabay. Good luck with your build.
I was looking the YIdler assembly pictuers from the OB1 Prisim - Can you do a quck measure and check on the length screws are you using for the 3 screws (2 for springs, 1 for the 'hanger'? The hanger looks like about m4x25 should work correctly?
If you get a 'nails on chalk board' rattle in your Y at speeds of ~120mm/S the cause is the Idler screws where they contact the openbeam. The solution I have come up with is to stick rubber feet to the openbeam where the screws contact. This also prevents the scratching the screws would otherwise do.
Check out the long Y parts of this calibration angle. The X movements are nice 'whip whip whip whip " sounds at about 8 seconds. The noise in question is at about 12 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
You will still get the stepper noise, but the metallic rattling (it carries extremely far) is negated with the rubber feet.
Can you post pictures of the rubber feet by the idler screws? We're about 2/3 done w/ the mechanical part of the build. Also which carriage are you using?
Thanks!
Thanks for the video that carriage works very well. The rubber feet is a good idea too, I use them to stop the machine wandering around the room too but for noise reduction it has to help.
I don't see threaded rod in your BOM. I am guessing its just 8mm but what confuses me also is the coupling from 5mm to 6.25mm.
Yes you need a couple of lead-screws. It will work with 8mm threaded rod but I prefer to use the Acme leadscrews from Techpaladin.com. They are the same nut size but a lot more accurate. These come with a 6.25mm end on them which is why I needed the 5mm to 6.25mm couplings. If you are using 8mm rod you would need 5mm to 8mm couplings.
i have a ton of 80/20 1" extrusion, any idea how much work it would be to update this for that stock instead of openBeam? This looks way easier then even mendelmax!
I'm almost done printing the parts and am about to order the electronics and hardware. I had a couple of questions on the BOM:
What size PTFE for the filament from the extruder to the hot end? 3mm id, od?
You list a 5mm x 6.25mm coupling, is that supposed to be 6.25 or 6.35?
For the curious, did you machine the deck or get it done externally?
Thanks!
Yes I need to make another video detailling the extruder and bowden tube setup. It is designed for 5mm OD PTFE tube with ID of 3mm for 3mm filament. It takes 5mm nuts threaded directly onto the PTFE tube as is commonly done.
Yes my bad converting from metric to imperial sorry, the coupling goes from the 5mm motor shaft to the acme lead screws (or any 8mm lead screw) which is normally 1/4" or 6.35mm. I'll correct the BOM asap.
My original aim here was to make a printer that was printable and not require laser/water jet cut parts but I confess I had those water jet cut for me. You could cut one out from a 230mm square sheet of 5mm alloy but they do look awesome off the water jet :)
have you thought about using 10mm in the x and y. would you mind throwing up a derivative of the two
I started printing some of the parts at 10% fill, they seem pretty strong. What do you recommend for fill?
Anyone have plates of multiple parts for printing? Also, Wired1 - any chance of including the stl file names in the excel BOM? I wasn't quite getting them to match up for printing purposes.
Build trays here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thi... I've been mass-producing them this week, probably could get it down to 5 trays but 6 works well.
Yes fair comment, I'll adjust the BOM to match the part names. I am printing a set out at the moment and got home from work yesterday to find a birds nest of black filament on the printer where the x-axis ends should be :)
I have added a better Y-carriage to replace my one-piece one used previously. The new one includes the relocated belt clamps and is setup for t2.5 belts.
I have to cut the upper extrusion to 420 mm to be able to have 300 mm alignment up and down.
What is wrong?
Very nice design!
How do you tighten the x-axis belt? Belt holders in OBXcarry5S.stl seems to be very fragile.
That's a tricky question as it largely depends on where you live. If you live in China the cost is very low but here in New Zealand the cost would be about the same as any printer at between US$500 - $700 all up in parts I would guess. Down here the Musumi extrusions are very expensive so it is a lot cheaper than building a Mendel Max but would have the same amount of plastics, electronics, motors, heater bed, hot end, rails and hardware as a Mendel Max so would cost about the same if that helps.
On top of that there is a heap of labour so built up it would be around US$1800 at a guess. I haven't sat down and worked it out.
Apart from wanting to design something using the very affordable Open Beam I wanted to make an open-front printer with a big build envelope that can be printed on any other printer.
It looks like Y-axis motor could be mounted inside the frame instead like in Prusa i3 (not sure as I do not know the distance between bearings in the carriage).
There probably is a spot you could fit it - not at the front middle as that would collide with the y-carriage but maybe off to one side. I like the y-carriage to be as wide and deep as possible to make it more stable but you could also modify the y-carriage design to fit the motor in front.
Another builder (Hossmachine) here is building a giant version 12" x 12" or bigger, video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
You have very shallow nut traps for the threaded rods on the X ends. Looks like no more than 1.5 cm. Can you fit a spring in there, or do you just let gravity do the trick?
I am starting to build the printer with Misumi extrusions HFS3-1515 instead of open beam.
Do you think there are problems?
I started down this track because the Misumi extrusions are not readily available in my part of the world (or not affordable anyway) hence the move to Open Beam. I am not sure how the nuts work with your extrusion but in theory if it is 15 x 15 it should fit with all the parts OK. Does the Misumi extrusion use T-nuts or just standard M3 nuts?
I just noticed the bowden setup. I'm thinking of going that way. How is it working for you? Are you using 3mm or 1.75mm filament? I use, and prefer to use, 3mm, but I'm led to believe that bowden setups work better with 1.75. I'm especially interested in how your extruder works in this arangement. I thought that with bowden tubes, retraction speed was extremely important which would seem to rule out extruders with a reduction gear. I thought direct drive was supposedly the way to go. I like the airtripper extruder, but it's for 1.75mm and I can't get an answer as to whether it could be adapted for 3mm.
The Ultimaker community has nearly perfected retraction on their setups over the last few months. They use 3mm filaments, bowden tubes and gear reduction on the extruders just fine. With 3mm filament, you don't have to move the extruder stepper very fast to get significant extrusion rates.
It is pretty experimental and if it doesn't work I may still make an x-carriage for a standard wade type extruder as a fall back. I prefer 3mm filament and could not find a direct drive 3mm extruder so using a standard extruder as the pusher was the next best thing. Still learning I guess.
Added the X-carriage, j-head mount block, extruder pusher mounting plate and extruder adaptor today. Should work with most extruders but use my small footprint one to be sure http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
Really nice looking machine.
Any particular reason for 10mm on the Z linear rods?
Just to make the x-carriage a little more stable. Next printer I design will be 10mm all round, no flex and better prints.
Yes it is difficult to get the top completely solid even with aluminium extrusions but the 10mm rod add to the total rigidity and saves me adding lateral triangulation which would do the same thing. The other two axes aren't subject to the same problems and 8mm rods are plenty big enough for them.
Also added x-ends today, x-carriage and pusher still need a few tweaks but almost there...
I don't see how your x-axis is going to be able to get past the cross brace.
What does your x-axis look like?
Very nice - do you know yet if you are going with a horizontal or vertical x-carriage?
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I have just replaced the original x-carriage today with a better one that has an integral fan for cooling the j-head extruder. I have also redesigned the pusher mount and relocated it from the angle brace on the side to the top of the printer to make room for the electronics on the right hand side of the printer. The new pusher bracket will work with any standard spacing extruder and will still need the bowden tube adaptor. I have also added the same AzteegX3 mount I used on the OB1 for convenience.
I like the designs, nice job. I couldn't find the stl for the pusher bracket, have you uploaded it?
Thanks!