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I'm glad it helped! This video barely gets views anymore these days, so I'm surprised you even came across it :)

LMAO, you do it then if it's so much easier than I made it out to be. The amount of people still complaining in my comments about not getting their shit working despite my best efforts to make a fool-proof series of tutorials certainly makes me think otherwise. BTW I'm tired of people telling me I talk too much, it's just pointless and plain rude. If you don't like my videos, there's a super easy fix: don't watch them!

Used to use Google Sketchup 8 at the time (free, very easy to learn), now I use FreeCAD (steep learning curve but infinitely better for anything 3D printing /CAM related. For just plain woodworking Sketchup is perfectly fine, anything more sophisticated would be a waste of time since parts have to be made by hand anyway...

That's true, but with all store-bought soldering tips I've encountered so far, the fancy coating that's supposed to protect the copper broke down within 2 weeks and I was back to raw copper regardless. I don't know about higher end tips for something like a pinecil, but the cheap coated tips barely last any longer than copper wire. Also the idea here was that with tips being super cheap and easy to make I won't need to put up with unreliable coatings in the first place, I can just pop in a new tip when the old one is worn down and it'll still be cheaper.

I'm designing a new, much better printer that should be possible for more people to make, and it'll be fully open source. I'm aiming for a budget of no more than $100 if possible, because $50 just doesn't allow for the right components to get a machine that lasts any reasonable length of time. I had to spend a significant amount of time to keep even this one below the limit, it's just not worth it for people to replicate, since all that time would have to be accounted for too, and off-the-shelf printers these days are just too damn cheap for how good they are, it would be more economical to just work a couple of hours overtime to have money to buy an Ender 3 or an A1 mini from. Filament is fairly expensive too, and that's a consumable - at this point I've spent 3 times as much on filament as on this printer, so yeah... There will be a new printer series, it'll be cheap and made from a lot of trash too, but not as bare bones as this one. It's also how 3D printing goes, as soon as you get used to one printer and its features you'll immediately want to upgrade for more speed/blinky lights/cameras, etc

I was setting up the shot and thought I had to take a 3rd person view just in case because of how absurd it would look 😅

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the problem? Maybe the translator messed it up, but I don't see where there would be play if the aluminum tube is short?

Thanks! Your question isn't stupid at all from an outside perspective I guess - thing is, while this machine just applies ink to a piece of paper like any printer, it's effectively a full blown 3D axis milling machine capable of machining aluminium as far as the control software is concerned. Of course it can't, but the motion control system treats it the same way, so it does perimeters first, then the infill. Actual office printers split the image to be printed into thousands of dots like pixels on a screen and print them one row after another, much like scan lines on a CRT screen used to recreate the image. They can't draw a continuous perimeter, it's just a bunch of dots. To make a plotter like this work like any printer, someone (not me!) would essentially have to write an entirely new firmware capable of splitting many different image formats up into dots that could be hammered down with the print head moving from one side of the paper to the other, while also converting that into usable signals for the stepper motors. The controller in the plotter itself would also have to be much more powerful to do all the extra processing, so for pen plotters that apparently mostly exist as an educational project since nobody actually needs them, it's easier to just run them on a slightly modified version of an existing control software normally used for CNC routers and stuff. I hope this helps :)

Another Question- I have an arduino uno and a few busted up printers - one of which we took a sledge hammer to 😂 but could we use the parts from that to build a plotter? Also I want it way faster! 😊🎉

@jamesbrady9105 depends on what type of printer they are if they have any useful components inside... A faster plotter is definitely a good idea if you don't want to get bored of it super quickly (ask me how I know). If you can get 4 smooth rods from those printers it'll be a good start for the linear rails - stepper motors inside printers are only useful if they are the rectangular type or otherwise do 200 steps per revolution with a step angle of 1.8° degree. It usually says so on the label. However, if you have no prior experience with CNCs I strongly recommend you get your feet wet by building a 3D printer first, as they are a walk in the park to get working compared to these plotters (and you can then use the 3D printer to build the plotter!) Genuinely - even though they add a whole other dimension, 3D printing is almost as easy to pick up as paper printing. So much better than these plotters because the software matured a lot over the past few years. I got into it not even a year ago and I am HOOKED! (as you can tell 😁)

Pretty sure, unless they manufacture M6 rods with marginally different pitches and get them all mixed up afterward? If they were a different diameter I'd definitely have noticed, and the difference isn't enough to be metric fine vs coarse thread either... Here in the comments we collectively came to the conclusion that it was some unfortunate batch difference since they just aren't manufactured to high standards. No idea how common this is, but it obviously happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

😂

Yeah the results I got are pretty decent, though I had to go really slow to get there. What little play there is in the bearings was one of the biggest sources of trouble, if I tried to take off more than ~0.02mm at a time I would get a lot of chatter

I looked it up and it's definitely cool, but since it requires quite some tension I don't think my machine would withstand it without buckling. The entire frame is designed to grow and shrink with humidity changes, and there just isn't anything structural to take the longitudinal load. Not a big deal though, I'll take the redesign as an opportunity to improve it and change what I don't like about it so far!

I agree, better not check! I won't check the ones on my 3D printer either. From what I read here in the comments it doesn't seem that common for threaded rods to be this different in pitch, maybe I really just got unlucky with two very mismatched batches from the factory...

Thing is, in terms of threaded rods these are are well within spec for their intended purposes - I wouldn't have expected tolerances to be this loose, and I haven't verified any numbers here, but it makes sense for manufacturers to not obsess over a 2mm/m difference in pitch if all it's ever meant to do is thread into nuts - which by all means works just fine - I would assume not taking this into consideration and double checking the accuracy before purposely using the rods in a much higher stakes application than what they were intended for, would, objectively, qualify as a failure in the engineering process on my part. But anyway, it's nice of you to see it differently :) One of the reasons for finishing it I didn't mention in the video, was so that I could start experimenting with the machine and get some basic experience with laser cutting. That way the new design should turn out even better!

Not worth it, I get the same minor inconveniences of having lead screws in the first place, but also with the pitch on T8 being a lot steeper I don't get enough granularity with my 48 steps/rev motors. As it is I get a resolution of ~0.01mm in half-step mode, I don't think it would work with less. Overall it'll be cheaper I just stick in a bunch of NEMA 17's like everyone else...

I'm not down, just annoyed I wasted so much time on it.. But glad you all still enjoyed it!

A good idea is a good idea :)

I use a single lead screw below my cnc machine which is huge. You could use 1 for a laser instead of 2. Mine is centered below with wood to reach the edges.

Its a little slow for a laser , but that would make a good cnc....with 1 lead screw on the bottom.

Threads in the coupler would work too, but result in a lot more runout. I was going for as smooth an operation as possible and in my experience 3D printing would never get below like ~0.1mm runout, which is also why I drilled out a single 3mm hole instead of printing one side of the adapter 3mm and the other 3.5 or 4mm. I'll definitely try to reuse these rods on a CNC machine with single screw axes so the grinding wasn't wasted. Cool! I'll check GatorCAM out!

@@ChronicMechatronic let me know if you have problem downloading. Dropbox makes it look like you need to make an account but you don't. Is that confusing? I may need to make a video helping people.

@@ChronicMechatronic instead of printing an adapter, you can use a little plastic tubing with copper wire to pinch it tight. I don't think run out is an issue. One of my 1st few videos shows a specific way to use the copper wire. It has worked for many years without any problem.

Hi Phil! Thanks! I figured most of my regulars missed the TwoTrees printer video because the thumbnail looked very different - but yeah, it's been good to have that printer to play with around off-camera. The DIY printer is cool, and surprisingly reliable now and all, but the linear rails also wear quickly so I probably shouldn't be printing a lot with it until it's served its main purpose as a RepStrap helping to build a better one that'll eventually replace it. It's pretty annoying how quality concerns become relevant the deeper you dig into a topic - I'm still in the process of designing that new DIY printer, and I really wanted to use the 8mm smooth rods I had salvaged from ewaste printers, except none of the Chinese LM8UU linear bearings I got fit properly on these rods. They're all ~0.03mm oversized and have too much play on the salvaged rods which are actually ~0.05mm UNDERSIZED. The bearings do however fit quite nicely on brand new Chinese smooth rods sold for 3D printers, which are actually 8.03mm in diameter. So a few dozen microns basically render valuable components that could have been reused in a different application almost useless. The problem with a 1-hour long video would be that it takes even longer to make :') I still only manage to produce about ~1min10 of finished video per day on average, less even if I hit a bunch of roadblocks that require extra work to resolve like in this one. I wish I could make them in 4K so the resolution would at least be worthy of a big TV screen, my phone can record 4K no problem after all, but until I splurge on a decent computer later this year or early 2025 that won't be in the cards unfortunately... Your English is just fine to understand by the way :)

@ChronicMechatronic Hi Ben! It's a shame those printers rods couldn't be used in this project. They have great precision and a pretty long life without significant deformation. 70 seconds of finished video per day is pretty decent IMHO. I guess the longest part of your work as a director is setting up lights and cameras to give the viewer an interesting perspective. The Swedish Maker (www.youtube.com/@TheSwedishMaker) once complained that it takes a lot of time -- viewers can't imagine it. By the way, you show how to achieve those acrobatic ;) shots.

Thanks! It's not what I had in mind at the time, but I really like this type of potentiometer control for pretty much all testing with stepper motors :D

Maybe.. If I had one on each side, probably yes, the new GRBL even supports dual motor axes for gantry self-squaring. But I'd have to use a single one to drive the entire carriage, which I'd estimate weighs easily over a pound, so accelerations would be very limited. It COULD move it no doubt, but if I do install decent motors I want decent performance to boot ;)

Well, a millimeter every 35cm approximately, I just used imperial because 1 foot was a nice single unit to visualize things

Definitely one of the crazier ways of fixing it, but also one of the coolest!

Thanks! I'd never have expected Klipper to support it - though it's no good either way because none of the G-code senders for laser out there are Klipper compatible - but thanks tor the info anyway! Knowledge is power as they say... Yeah, coreXY is definitely more suitable, especially as I have all of the parts at hand already - while I'm at it I'll also purge all the unnecessary weight in the gantry and make it less overkill, it's just a laser after all. Probably a good thing overall for the project. I really didn't expect the thread to be that inaccurate, but it makes sense, threaded rods are meant for screwing on nuts which doesn't need tolerances this tight. As @SianaGearz mentioned, with a constant pitch die in manufacturing the final pitch depends on the diameter of the rod that was fed into the machine to begin with, which hadn't even occurred to me.

I actually discovered it mostly by chance, I was about to start filming the montage and just fiddling about with them when I noticed they didn't mesh...

I'm a (minor) Marlin contributor and i wouldn't dare do such a modification. You can't imagine how complex and fragile the movement code in Marlin is. I'm vaguely comfortable with many other areas, i have modified the HAL to suit my system better and enable interrupt features, etc. You will notice how many hundreds of people touched most of the Marlin code and how few have actually contributed to the movement routines, these people are spectacularly sharp, and the code in that area is still very far from ideal in behaviour.

@@SianaGearz i was refering to his arduino based ghetto lathe. you could literally just count steps up to a hard coded value and then reverse direction. doesn't have to be pretty.

@@cho4d Oh yeah sure there's any number of way to do that, easy enough. I meant and thought you meant running different step rates across the same axis two motors. This would require a substantial re-engineering of Marlin, which is complex enough.

Yeah, hard-coding steps and speeds is likely what I would've done, but that still would have taken me a day or so to write and debug, the machine would've taken a day longer to build because this also requires a motorized 3rd axis, and then I'd have to wait another four days till it finished grinding to continue with the video. Sure, I could've done something different in the mean time, but the video wouldn't have been out sooner. Next time I'll do it though! I might also simply run GRBL on it and write some G-code to take the rod down to a preset diameter after probing?...

It'll be running GRBL, there is basically no better option for laser machines since most dedicated Gcode senders don't speak the Marlin or Klipper accents. As far as I'm aware Lightburn and Laser GRBL are the two prime candidates for controlling lasers, so ignoring obscure Inkscape plugins which might result in God knows how many issues, and skipping proprietary Lightburn, I'll pretty much have to use LaserGRBL. Too true, usually failure is the most effective way to learn things!

Glad it did! Thanks for watching!

Thanks!

😅

Thanks! I thought about that possibility too, seeing as all the cantilever designs out there do it, but when I took a closer look at it I noticed there's still about half a millimeter of lag between moving one side of the X-carriage and the other one coming with it. I guess it's better than what I have now, but not good enough for a fix. I was actually surprised to see it, given how overkill the entire Y-axis ended up being in rigidness, but it also weighs about half a kilo at the very least so the little play there is in the individual bearings of the POM wheels actually allows some flex. If the rear wheels ran on the rail horizontally it would probably work fine, but as it is the weight introduces too much drag... Also I'm sufficiently fed up with it at this point that I'd rather redesign it and skip the minor inconveniences from having lead screws altogether :)

Well - almost no firmware supports two separate steps/mm settings for one axis, even if it's a dual-motor axis with self-squaring capability. It always applies the same resolution setting to both motors. Apparently Klipper does, (offer individual step/mm settings) as somebody else mentioned here in the comments, but the problem is that no G-code sender for laser cutting supports Klipper. Or even Marlin for that matter. The whole software ecosystem for laser cutting isn't anywhere near as advanced as the one for 3D printing. So I basically HAVE to run this laser on GRBL, which is kinda clunky and doesn't support fancy stuff like screens or SD cards. No reason to fix it if it ain't broke I guess, but it's nowhere near as plug&play as 3D printing has become.

Good point, maybe it's an old wife's tale - I don't really know a lot about machining, I heard that it's terrible to machine and verified it in a google search where it ranked second, right under inconel on a list of least machinable metals. Though my guess is that time spent on the process is taken into account as much as hardness since it translates directly into cost?...

I know right? Huge respect for the guys and girls who rapidly type away on their keyboard like some sort of mysterious magical proceeding, and come up with a working piece of code in a matter of minutes! 😂

It is! The five days spent grinding those rods are the most painful - I'll try and see if I can reuse them in an actual CNC router one day (with a single screw per axis ofc) But yeah, I really hope this is helpful to other people too - come to think of it, I can't remember ever seeing a video or other documentation online of any CNC projects using threaded rod as lead screws, even though I know it's done rather commonly on budget built machines... Of course it's understandable no one with the means to get something decent even bothers with these cheap options, especially youtubers who get inundated with offers for review machines (heck, I've been offered like 5 laser cutters since starting this project, and my channel isn't exactly large...) Though there really should be more coverage of things like this!

Yeah, I have a real printer - I mainly took them up on the offer because I figured learning the ropes of 3D printing would be much more difficult on an inherently delicate printer. And having a second one definitely doesn't hurt either ;p I tried the heated bed filament box method dry PLA at some point but it didn't really seem to work - probably cause I half-assed it, I didn't poke any holes in the box, nor did I leave it running for more than 4 hours, since I couldn't stand the constant drone of the cooling fans x) Thanks for the tip with the dehumidifier packs! From my brief googling just now it seems it's the same stuff as road salt, and I happened to find a disused bag of the stuff rotting away in the garage... Just need to figure out how to dehydrate it. Not storing it near anything metal makes sense, having seen the state of the metal scoop that was in there. Yeah the difference in pitch was way more than I expected - never heard of it either, though it doesn't help that I can't remember to ever have seen a video or something where someone tried to make a CNC with it..