DIY-ing a Cable Drive Onto a Genuine E3D Titan Extruder - It's a little bit epic!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2018
- While designing and making a DIY cable drive similar to a Zesty Nimble, I accidentally diagnosed and fixed the last quality issue with the prints that my Tevo Little Monster is making. It now prints as good as my Ender3. .
Dual Drive Extruder by Schematix: • How To: Build A Dual D...
I share files with my Patreon supporters: / designprototypetest
Timecodes:
3:25 3D Printed parts + other components Assembly
7:11 Metal working the shaft
9:46 First test run
13:00 Ordering parts from Filastruder
15:43 Comparing the Knockoff to the Genuine Titan Extruder
19:45 Comparing the Test Prints Knockoff vs Genuine
21:41 Titanium wire
23:14 All working!
23:42 Comparing Final Test Prints
25:11 Conclusions - Why It's Valuable
You are a real inspiration to me. How you take a problem and come up with a diy solution, and the way you explain the process and such is very informative. All I can say is thankyou for all these videos and I will see you in the next one.
Very cool! As a LittleMonster owner I find your videos super informative and useful, thank you very much! Keep up the good work :-)
Love this channel. Very technical and informative. Thanks!
I think you should “invest” in proper bi-directional flexible shaft wire.
I really enjoy your work, keep up with it!
Very cool idea pal. Keep up the good work.
Iterate away, I'm looking forward to the next video
Excellent POC video. Thanks for bringing us along!
POC= Process of creation?
Proof of concept.
oh. :)
Look up flex3drive, he's the original, zesty is a copy of his idea 👍 great product, never failed me
Very good work, impressive!
There are special cables that are made exactly for this type of power transmission. The cables have wires inside it wound in both directions to eliminate the torsional springing, they are not solid wire.
Also the Zesty Nimble has a worm gear arrangement in it, so already does what the Titan does. And the right angled nature of the worm gear assembly makes it more usable on most printers.
Their cable is proper bidirectional drive cable like mine.
Awesome -- love the idea. I wonder though if your time + cost of parts is similar to the $99 you'd spend for a nimble? -- but what's the fun in that right lol?
I think that for remote direct drive system, you'll need more ratio than just 3:1, that way, you completely ignore the little springiness of your cable (Nimble is a 30:1 ratio).
I can agree on that provided you don't have any backlash on poorly meshed gears that will play havoc on your retract. A worm drive solution is very prone to backlash, and at 1:30 reduction you will not get the amount of retraction when you want it most.
Have you considered using a cable from a Dremel tool? They have a remote cable tool that does the exact same thing that I've been considering trying to repurpose.
Zesty is a 30:1 year reduction. Where are you located? I have one I could loan you
I have a Nimble, it's really great :)
Very interesting and informative.
I have an idea to improve the current system:
Mount the stepper somewhere in the middle on the legs to reduce the maximum distance to the extruder and thus having a shorter cable and less springiness
Great video I'd love to see where this goes.
As an Honest but distant guess? No where.
What happens is that the flying extruder itself develops slight resonance with the effector. In order to break it, you need a very light counterweight.
As for not getting the heatsink. That's why you always read the description also and not just go by pictures lol. On e3ds site they have a "what's in the box" spot that says everything you get.
Wonder if bike brake cable and sheathing would give enough of a combination of flex and rigidity?
Better than that how about a speedometer cable? It spins extremely smoothly.
Speedometer cable from a motorcycle...works perfect and made for what you are doing.
How about using a speedometer cable for bike or a car? It spins extremely smoothly.
The arm of the E3D Extruder is made out of a special bearing plastic. It will not wear out any quicker than the other one's bearing. In fact, it will probably even last longer. Also, the E3Ds built quality and tolerances are better. This will improve the lifetime of all extruer parts.
This is sooooooo awesome
Thanks Austin!
You could have a rigid square or triangle section drive shaft running through a sliding collet at the top of the printer with the stepper motor on a gimble mount and a universal joint at the extruder. Better still use a CoreXY with a dropping bed. Then you could have two sliding drive shafts rigidly mounted on the X and Y axis with a right angle bevel gear connecting them. This would be really neat as all the motors could be together, stationary at the top of the printer for really simple wiring and superb kinematics even with really powerful motors.
Wonder if someone has tried adding a counterweight pulley to a direct-extruder delta. By canceling the total printhead weight (even go slightly negative to keep magnetic ball joints under compression), most of the axis' holding torque can be reallocated to acceleration/inertia.
Gr8! I see you implemented RDD. Kodus.
Awesome work! Probably just need a larger retraction distance for the springiness. This is really innovative and I think this is a significant feat of engineering!
Why not use a soldering iron to poke those brass inserts in the print?
Have you considered how much bend you will get in the wire when you print something tall?
Astute observation. I did account for this. Every time this machine homes it goes all the way to the top of it's travel, so I put the cable drive through it's full flex at least two times with every print.
Hello, could you help me solve problem with my tevo little monster?
Have you tried spring steel instead? Piano wire is pretty easy to get a hold of.
You might also be able to do something with this. www.thingiverse.com/thing:3218709 I'm still developing it but theres a step file in there if you want to add a worm gear into your design. I'm going to try using it with nylon coated stainless steel rope/cord. i think the nylon coating will help the threaded wire not be as springy when changing directions but still be more flexible than a solid wire.
Zesty has a worm drive.
The flex cable goes from the stepper to a worm that rotates a gear achieving great gear reduction trading low torque from cable to high torque on gear.
Since the twisting angle is proportional to the torque transmitted, and the torque is so low because of the worm drive
Zesties solution should perform great.
The only thing had to change is the stepper current since it will rotate fast instead of hard.
My only concern with Zesties solution is that their worm and gear are made of plastic rather than metal which will wear out after a while and may break if the nozzle is clogged
Hehey someone else using this system (admittedly I haven’t implemented it yet)! I released a video some months ago with my own version of E3D’s swappable head system, but I used FDE on mine.
may be a better solution instead driving directly the titan extruder from the cable using a worm gear assembly ? it will also set the cable and teflon tube in the good direction
Proffinouille that’s something I’ve experimented with a bit (see my video a few months back) and it works brilliantly. The problem is getting an affordable supplier of good quality worm and gear pairs to have the exact same product each time at a rate you can afford!
Interesting project. Might be a good project for me in the future :-)
But as you figured out, if you buy cheap, you buy twice.
I got 4 printers, and when ever there is a problem, my printers get E3D Titan and E3D V6 instead of the stock equipment.
I know it is expensive but it is worth in sence of saving time and keep the happiness :-)
When I bought a dragon hotend I had to machine an adapter when it was supposed to be a drop in replacement to my genuine titan
Well, good luck!
So the way to mitigate the flex along the cable is just to adjust your restart and retract extrusions.
I love this video man. We are developing a multi tool selecting head. And we are thinking about using flexible shafts to control the motion of the extruders. What do you think about using a planetary gear on the extruder stepper motors instead of an titan e3d on the moving gantry? REGARDS!
I love the idea. Check into Flex3Drive and Zesty. They already have products on the market. Zesty is more refined, but both appear to work well.
@@DesignPrototypeTest I will check it out thank you. Keep on the good work.
You should try flex3drive
Considering the light weight of filament, why is such a massive stepper motor required for feeding filament to the nozzle?
With the Titan geared mechanism it probably would work just fine with a Pancake Stepper Motor.
I think a solid wire of any kind doesn't have the same potential of a specialized cable. While the titanium alloy will always have torsional flex as a physical property of the metal, a cable can be made with that torsional flex under tension in both directions.
Still, a high precision bi-directional drive cable isn't exactly an off the shelf part.
Perhaps I missed it, but I did look twice.. which diameter of your three cable options did you settle on?
I don't think I said, because I don't consider this hack to be successful. Putting my caliper on the part it measures .0775" so, whatever gauge of wire that come out to be... It is much better to just purchase a speedometer cable from your local auto parts store. Or better yet, purchase the fully developed designs from Flex9drive or Zesty/
glass frames are made of nitinol, the super elastic kind.
AWESOME! Thank you for the information.
The problem is a stepper motor is heavy, but anything that works at a distance (Bowden, cable drive) is going to have backlash. Why not keep the filament under constant compression (in a Bowden tube) and have a light weight "escapement" at the print end which releases it accurately as needed.
You need to actually be able to pull back on the filament to relieve the pressure in the hot chamber. This is called retraction, and it's the way to remove blobbing and stringing from your 3D Prints.
For that to happen you require almost instantaneous reversal of the filament and if you have any, as in the very slightest amount of hesitation, then you won't get the designated retraction you need. @@DesignPrototypeTest
Hmm.. Just a thought.. About the counterweight - well, it could resolve the resonance, but other solutions exist as well, some of which might be better at it, without adding much weight to the system. Solutions such as: print a long coil (spring) in TPU and wrap it around the short bowden tube from the effector to the extruder, so that it pushes against both. This could maintain the tube straight even at fast prints, without adding much weight to the system. The counterweight idea would still work, but this might be a better solution.
You're overthinking a simple problem that does not exist.
regarding the genuine and knockoff Tevo titan. Yes the moving of the pivot point off the motor was an excellent idea. They did it really early on as well. There are three areas where they did go down in quality however. The fit of the clear PC lid and the plastic gear and also the filament drive thing.
Then you have the other big knockoff which is the triangle labs one.
Metal pinion and a plastic knob on the tensioner. Good fit on the PC lid. But going back to that pivot on the motor which is not great.
Plus something that I don't find necessary. A hardened steel hobbed bolt. Why I have no idea. It's not like metal fill etc really wears away at a normal hobbed bolt in any significant way. But hey if that is a fear when you run kilo after kilo daily of carbon fiber, glow in the dark, metal, wood etc then I guess it has a use.
Triangle labs does say their large gear is "precision machined" like the e3d genuine.
So a bit of a mix. I use all three on separate machines in a short bowden about 25cm long. So not as good as direct drive but across all three titans I get between 2.5mm-3.5mm (depending on material with cheap china ptfe) retractions with no stringing. So I'm fairly happy with that. I don't have the direct drive weight and I don't have to retract 5mm-7mm+
Martin B Good information. Thank you!
I've just bought a genuine E3D Titan Aero and that has the option to use either the thumbscrew or a small normal screw to tension the idler. I'm not sure if it only comes with the Titan Aero (it uses the same extruder body as the standard Titan, they have an upgrade kit to upgrade the standard Titan to the Aero by adding some extra parts) or if they have just recently started including it but that would address the weight concern about the thumbscrew mentioned in the video.
According to Chuck Bryant on UTUBE the retraction should NOT exceed 1mm with a direct drive ………..that is, a drive that is sitting on top of the hot end cooler with a short PTFE tube between them . I personally will be fitting the direct drive conversion to my Ender3 Pro by mounting the stepper and extrude on top of the cooler/hot end assembly as I think, despite the weight gain, it is simpler and less work to achieve..... the flexi drive is just another mechanical bit to go wrong and cause problems...….my opinion purely.
A counterweight will not "make the flying extruder weightless". For every time the effector rises it needs to go down. For every weight benefit it will have to pay back. That's why you only need a very light counterweight. You only want to break the resonance with the effector, not "make the extruder weightless".
Props for using Rhino. I know it's cumbersome...but it's the most versatile.
Cool prototyping. At around @11:30 mark tho, i realized that this is not needed!
You can mount the stepper motor directly to the titan extruder no prob, as it's not in the effector. Just put counterweights for the rail side, a lot of people has used counter weights with delta.
The counterweights will effectively nullify the effects of the added mass; as the extruder assy barely moves other than up & down, so perhaps about 90% of the effect is nullified. Add 5% power to stepper motors and all done, does not effect anything :)
@24:45 It is because the solid core wire is a spring and it's pushing the effector downwards. You need a wire which is torsionally super stiff, but otherwise just as flexible as the PTFE tube.
Interesting prototyping tho! :)
can you try dremel cable . i think it will be better
have you considered a speedometer cable?
good idea, but its designed to run in one direction only, so 'may' be a problem with retraction
vizionthing some are bidirectional and are real tight tension wise, may work?
for sure
A cable from a remote rotary tool (think Dremel) would work too and actually may be better since those are designed to handle speed and load.
I agree....a rotary tool drive with it's metal lined sheath is designed to be a complete drive system with squared ends for attachments etc.@
I’ve always wondered why people always talk about direct vs Bowden but not remote/flex driven direct extruding.
You can basically say that a direct drive extruder is superior because there is less of a spring between the nozzle and the extruder gears. With remote cable drives we replace the springiness of the filament inside the tefon bowden tube and substitute the springiness of the cable as it winds and unwinds. Both approaches are inferior to direct drive for feeding filament because of this springiness. Both approaches are superior to direct drive for savings in the inertial mass of the print head. The remaining question is which is superior Bowden or Remote Cable Drive?
I think e3d including a hex cap screw to replace the thumb screw.
Cryo treatment of the titanium will increase the elasticity and give it metal memory. So when you bend it, it will want to return to its original shape. So do not have it treated while its coiled up..... or it will want to return to that shape
Why isnt this a thing, this is a very nice idea
It's not a thing because the guy who invented the concept (flex3drive) hasn't figured out a good way to bring it to market. Meanwhile the guys with the superior product and marketing (zesty) are constantly accused of knocking off flex3drive, and thus can't gain good traction.
@19:21 what about using a bearing
Instead of titanium, why not just head to AutoZone or NAPA and get a speedometer cable core? They are very flexible and the torsion spring constant is really high so they don't typically flex much in torsion.
Plus...they are cheap.
The Zesty Nimble has a gear reduction ratio of 30:1. That's how they get rid of the effects of the springiness of the cable drive. It's reduced to an insubstantial amount due to the 30:1 gear reduction. zesty.tech/
Interesting adventure Clearly THE issue was the Crap drive /repurposed Ikea Curtain bits? Geee Who woulda thought ? :-)
One Can buy Power tool drive cables (similar to Speedo cables of Yore) It's what the Zesty uses. for ~3 $
But then hindsight is always 20 20.
Thank you for the entertainment at least.
Now, what do we do about that tiny almost invisible ghosting problem? Well, if you read my previous responses, you know exactly what's causing them. And you know how to fix it as well.
Some good advice is to avoid using a clothes dryer to dry clothes that are already the right size for you. It'll shrink them and make them look too small. I've had this happen a couple of times so i feel your pain.
Also, don't eat yellow snow, and look both ways before crossing the street. But what do these things have to do with 3D printing, and remote drive extruders?
Heat treating titanium may be able to be accomplished with a decent flame.... Titanium work and heat hardens. So you could, at least in theory, harden that wire without too much trouble if you wanted to.
As already suggested would be cool to see the same setup with Bondtech BMG (or Trianglelabs clone) and a using a Dremel flexible shaft attachment or similar flexible shaft for rotary tools
The fact that you don't see this idea as a feature on ALL current printer designs says a lot......if it's design for design sake, then tea cups would have 2 handles.....left handed people are also tea drinkers.....LOL.
But the zesty nimble have a reduction, all cable driven extruder needs reduction to counter the springiness. Zesty have a 40 to 1 reduction I think.
Alvin Gozali Good information. Thank you. That is a huge reduction! I'm getting decent results with just a three-to-one reduction. Stepper motors have problems at higher speeds so I wonder if they shouldn't maybe lower the reduction. then again with such a large reduction they can probably get away with using a cable like I used in the beginning.
Design Prototype Test, My bad, the zesty only have 30:1 reduction, while flex3drive have the 40:1 reduction.
The Nimble is 30:1 actually :)
I'm one of the creators of it
Design Prototype Test you could introduce another set of gears at the other end of the cable to reduce the gear reduction. while the relation of cable flex to wormgear reduction remains the same
finally subed
clapped me into oblivion at 25:10
I don't clap that often when making points. I guess you just found this instance super annoying. Thanks for watching to the 25 minute mark.
There are more e3d suppliers here in the states other than filastruder. Such as matter hackers, printed solid.
are you certain the cable doesn't twist and defeat the purpose?
need to stop asking during the video. lol never mind
Norm Caissie 🙂
I would try a tachometer cable from a motor cycle
HOW ABOUT THE EQUIVALENT OF A DREMMEL CABLE ADAPTER.....?? Easy to work out the details..(GEAR UP...FOR FAST SPIN...GEAR BACK DOWN AT THE HEAD FOR CONTROL...POINT IS, ITS PROVEN, RELIABLE, LIGHT, FLEXIBLE AND STRONG...)
If cheap always meant worse quality I’d 100% agree with you. I MUCH prefer buying American. But then you get stuff like Slice Engineering’s mosquito that costs as much as an Ender 3 with a virtually imperceptible difference in quality from the knockoff dragon hotend.
If money is no object, yeah, get the original. But for a lot of people the options are get the knockoff when the quality is similar and hope enough other people buy the original or nothing.
I’m pretty sure ‘Schematix’ is a Kiwi, not an Aussie.
Maybe Piano wire can be used.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_wire
hobbyking.com/en_us/1-meter-piano-wire-1-5mm.html
Preferably a wire that is twisted both ways
A worm gear drive should reduce the spring loading by increasing the torque to the extruder gear
While it is true that the Zesty Nimble and Flex3Drive both reduce spring loading with their worm drive gear boxes, the fact that they are worm drive is not the defining characteristic. Whether it is a worm drive or an involute gear box the reduction in torque is the same. All that matters is the gear ratio.
For what it's worth you can get stepper motors with gearboxes to give more torque and do a direct drive.....the extra weight on the X axis beam is not a real problem, or at least only an unproven hypothesis that less weight on a moving part is good. During any print cycle the head is moving relatively slowly so inertia will not come into the equation. I think the constant revolving cable of a wire drive will create vibration that WILL be transmitted to the X axis carriage and on to the print head. Vibration has been shown to show up on a print surface. I would further go on to say.....without any proof I admit.....that some mass on the X axis carriage will damp out vibration and ensure a steady print head movement. The X and Y axes rubber drive belts being long in themselves are a factor for having vibration appear on the print head. @@DesignPrototypeTest
Brexit will not come into force until next march ...... the problems you are having with delivery lay elsewhere.
Indeed. Try living outside the USA and then you will understand how good those living inside have it.
I would try something around a g-string holding an ounce, maybe even less. You only want to keep the tube straight, that's all.
Use the inside part of a speedometer cable. That's the same as what Zesty uses. I have a Nimble and it works fantastic. 30:1 gear ratio...
The Zesty Nimble is gr8. But I wasn't referring to it, I was referring to the ghosting problem. This issue could be the result of two possible causes: a. Untight screws. But this printer is new and had just been assembled, so.. fat chance this is the cause. b. tiny resonance between the flying extruder and the effector, leading to high freq ripples along the short bowden tube. If that's the case, a very light counterweight could keep the tube straight and disrupt the resonance. But maybe the problem lies elsewhere. Need to experiment to find out. That's science.
well he doesn't have a "flying" extruder its more a leaning and tipping over extruder.. a flying extruder shuldn't move from side to side... it is to close to the effector on all little monsters..
Should have went with a BondTech extruder...
As far as I can tell from looking through your channel, this is the last video you made in a series of modding the little monster and haven't said much more about it in four months. when you started the series you were "making your favorite your best". At the end of this video you just printed one little test piece and basically said you need a nimble. I was kind of hoping for a more comprehensive wrap up of the mods you've done to this printer and maybe cover the cost of the mods you are actually still using and whether they had the desired effect and or if they were worth it. Have you indeed succeeded in making this your best printer? hindsight being 20-20, would you have done anything differently?
It's on my to do list. I have a nimble in the box ready to install. Gotta build a chamber for the Ender 3 first. This is a printer for someone who wants the bomb Delta machine, and doesn't mind fiddling around with it quit a bit. If you just want to get great quality prints as quickly as possible. Get an Ender 3. What I would have done differently is never to have tried to mess with the MKS Sbase board.
@@DesignPrototypeTest so overall you feel like the duet board was a worthwhile upgrade?
Yes. For some reason everyone just accepts these crappy 8 bit boards running super convoluted marlin. My Gameboy from 1989 is also 8 bit, and it wasn't even cutting edge in it's time. 32 bit boards, with wifi capability and a good looking interface are totally worth it. Not to mention how much easier the Duet board is to install and use. I don't ever want to touch Marlin again.
Yet the consensus of opinions is that the Ender 3, with it's stock board, is a top rank printer and as a standard offering with stock items performs well...…….I think we need a side by side comparison with the Duet board and the stock one to see tangible evidence that you get significantly better results than just doing upgrades because the market that supplies them says you can to make money too.@@DesignPrototypeTest
I would suggest removing fan mount it weights sooo much... I have made printable model. Will post it when I'll have spare time.
Using the Ender 3 or Pro as an example, if you want to reduce moving weight parts remake them in aluminium.....under the bed it's all steel......the wheel carriages are all steel too...….then you can mount the extruder on the X axis carriage for a direct drive without an increase in weight. The makers of the printer use steel to cut down on cost.
Nitinol is the titanium your looking for .
Why not use a "nimble extruder"?
There is magnetic stainless steel, they're called ferritic stainless steel.
Direct drive is pretty shitty vs bowden unless you put a bowden between the direct drive and the spool. A bowden doesent have flaws, as far as i can find out. There are probably people that have had that but overall it is not as frequent as you may think. And.. well if you got inconsistency one of a hundred prints..well thats not really a good idea of just going to a different design..
i'm not sure why you spent so long talking up the titan extruder and it's knock-off in a video where you attempt to replicate the Zesty Tech Nimble
Disclaimer: I've never got to this point myself. What you're doing here is completely experimental. Let's see how it works, for science :-).
E3D does not make their stuff in the UK. Their HQ is in the UK, they manufacture in China just like almost everyone else.
After doing some research it appears that you are correct. They used to make at least some of their own stuff, and so I was mistakenly under the assumption that they still do. For the record, Duet control boards are made in the UK with the exception of the Maestro which is made in China for M3D.
China is awesome and many companies have great quality!
0:03 exist since 1975 ...
Zaka Pentax What has existed since 1975?
Some stainless steel are ferris.
6:26 the proof that men never become adult
in short, as seen at watch?v=MKSP9Yhn4oI only this **insert a not so nice word** did his weight way too heavy.
I'm confused. One of you videos you went off talking about not buying Chinesium knock offs. You were basically telling us that we were bad people for buying knock offs instead of buying/ supporting the originals from the creator. In this video you are all about clones.
Your comment seem inappropriate for this video. My stance on clones in this video is pretty clear and well articulated. Did you mean to leave this comment on my older Anycubic Kossel video ( th-cam.com/video/3IJX6p9oETY/w-d-xo.html )? I'll respond as if you left the comment over there:
Did you look at the dates when the videos were made? My mind is changeable, and I will adjust my position on an issue if I realize that I am wrong. When I made this video I had not yet put enough thought into the issue. I did not yet realize just how nefarious cloned products are. In a way I got woke to the thievery of clones and copy cat products from China.
Just in case you still don't understand my stance on cloned products please watch this video: th-cam.com/video/iKhn5IcVvAg/w-d-xo.html
I found it difficult to follow because your autofocus was misbehaving. Please go manual focus.
6:29 Hahahaha
Would you care to elucidate what you are laughing about?
Design Prototype Test the words on the vid. I’m also 14 years old at times. Ha!
OH! Yeah, I'm 14 also. The time stamps should be 6:27. That's why I didn't understand.
Ok you bought An 800€ printer. Bought like 300€ of parts to make IT work..... I think ill pass on this little monster
As you should. Watch my latest video for a good delta printer which I recommend even if you will need to replace the control board: th-cam.com/video/lUK5k4RrH-Q/w-d-xo.html