Building the Ultimaker from scratch

[naik2244 0]

hey,

Im a mechanical engineering undergraduate from India. For my final year project, my team and i are gonna build our own 3d printer. To get started we hav decided to build an existing model. We have chosen The Ultimaker as it has a effective design and the ultimaker community is vast and also very helpful.

All our parts have been sourced and we have just started the assembly. We should be able to make our first print within a week.I will post results as soon as we re done. Any suggestions and comments will be much apreciated.

We have made some changes to the standard Ultimaker. We are using ramps 1.4 electronics with SDramps and LCD, 12v 240w power supply, Reprap thermocouple sensor panels, H3 extruder by Chopmeister, Owens Bowden clamps, GT2 timing belts and pulleys intead of MXL.

Also if anyone wants a BOM or suppliers list, we can make it available.We can also provide laser cut panels set at a reasonable price. Pl contact me at namith_1990@hotmail.com . Ill post pictures shorly!!!

 

 

[kushal 0]

Hi

For those who are interested, attached is the BOM we used to build our ultimaker.

Will post pictures soon!

Hopefully make our first print tomorrow :-P .

For any queries, please feel free to contact

kushalfernandes@homail.com

namith_1990@hotmail.com

Regards

Kushal

 

[kushal 0]

Here are some pictures of our Ultimaker:

Any suggestions/feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Again we would like to thank the ultimaker community for they're active support. Without referring to innumerable posts on the forum we would'nt have come thus far!

If all goes good, we should be able to have our first print within a couple of days!!

Will post the results.

Cheers

Kushal

 

[Daid 306]

Nice job!

Looks like you are feeding the PLA from the wrong side of the roll

 

[snowygrouch 1]

You should make a sleeve for inside the spring, so that it functions co-axially. Your spring rate and also

orientation of the force with the installation as it is, is bad and will give problems in filament drive.

With some tuning, you can then even make the sleeve the correct length. Such that it acts as a "stopper"

for the nut, when you tighten it to the correct amount. That way, when you have to unwind it - to replace the

filament or such - you can guarantee it will go back exactly the same as before.

C.

 

[kushal 0]

@Daid: thank you! We fed the PLA from the other side hoping that the natural stiffness of the filament due to it being fed from the wrong side will help in counteracting the hysteresis in the extrusion process?! Do you think it will make a difference?

@Calum: thanks for the advice! We will definitely work on making a sleeve! Maybe we can print it?! Or use an elastic material that will also make the tuning easier?

[calinb 11]

Thanks for sharing, kushal! Very interesting. Please keep us up to date on your progress.

 

We fed the PLA from the other side hoping that the natural stiffness of the filament due to it being fed from the wrong side will help in counteracting the hysteresis in the extrusion process?! Do you think it will make a difference?

 

 

Personally, I don't think it will make a difference because it is "upstream" and isolated from the drive, Bowden tube, and mechaical load (hot end), which is were the significant hysteresis occurs. The things that make a difference are selecting a Bowden tube ID that provides a good fit to the filament OD (but no so tight that you have excessive friction), and anchoring the Bowden tube as solidly as possible on both ends.

 

That way, when you have to unwind it - to replace the

filament or such - you can guarantee it will go back exactly the same as before.

 

I never unwind the tension adjuster on my V2 drive (Bertho-style). I just flip the "door" open. It is worth implementing a door mechanism for this reason. With the door, this design is a "set and forget" proposition!

 

[calinb 11]

I forgot to mention that I noticed the heat sinks on your stepper motors. If desired, the X and Y steppers can be located on the outside of the box for cooling. Just flip the wire pairs to run them in the correct direction and relocate the pulley on the shaft at the appropriate place. I've done this mod, because I sometimes wrap a "tent" of bubble wrap over the windows to warm the build chamber for ABS. I've measured up to about 70C inside the chamber at nozzle height when running my bed at 120C. I think a more carefully constructed tent could result in even higher temperatures.

Also, snowygrouch has an external stepper motor design that is direct drive and eliminates the stepper belts too.

 

[msurunner 2]

You'll have to let us know how the dfrobot parts work as well! Very curious on the heater core and thermocouple!

 

[kushal 0]

Thanks calinb!

 

I forgot to mention that I noticed the heat sinks on your stepper motors.

 

The heat sinks are on only as a precaution. We haven't had significant heat from the motors. I have seen snowygrouch's design for the direct drive. Its an excellent idea from an engineering point of view, but i guess from a product design perspective it makes sense to keep everything enclosed within one frameworks as far as possible. Its one of those form vs function dilemma's! also we are printing only with PLA at the moment (well not yet printing!). The tent idea is an interesting solution to printing ABS!

 

You'll have to let us know how the dfrobot parts work as well! Very curious on the heater core and thermocouple!

 

I don't have an infrared thermometer to actually verify the temperatures. When i tested the thermocouple standalone it seemed to work pretty well and was quite sensitive. A lot of the measurement depends on the amplifier circuit you are using. We used the AD595AQ. Currently we are using a thermistor as we seemed to have shorted the AD595 IC !

The thermocouple doesn't quite fit in the AL block we have. We got this block from gadgets3D as a part of the UM hot end bundle that they sell. The TC housing doesn't go all the way into the block, because it is longer. But this is a minor problem and it wouldn't effect the reading?! or you could just cut the housing sheath to the right length. It is verry rugged though!

The heater comes with ample cabling! It is a 19V 60W heater. It takes quite some time to get up to temperature on our setup. This is beacuse we are running at 12V, which effectively reduces the power to about 24W. Also the diameter of the heater core is less than the bore in the AL heater block. Hence there is a bit off play. This can be worked around by using some silver foil or a thermal adhesive for a permanent and effective solution.

 

[popof18 0]

Hi,

Good job

Do you have a idea of the total cost of your Ultimaker made from scratch?

Is it very less expensive compared to buy the kit?

The kit including the ulticontroller cost €1,274.00 and the printer fully assembled cost €1,699.00

I realy want to have a 3D printer, but the price is a little bit too hight for me so it can be a good solution for me to make it from scratch

Thank you for your help

 

[kushal 0]

The cost of building the machine will vary based on a number of factors, mainly choice in materials and location. Having access to a machine shop and scrap material will greatly reduce your costs. A muber of parts can be machine. Also the axes shafts can be made out if stainless steel or just hardened steel rather than chrome steel.

In total the entire 'adventure' cost me 900 euros. However some of these costs went into buying parts that were wrong, failed or broke. After deducting these expenses, it cost 700 euros. However please note that parts which were locally sourced were considerably cheap compared to international rates and also labour is ver cheap so machining and laser cutting was very very cheap. Laser cutting cost less than 20 euros. Harware like nuts and bolts was also cheap. Having the experience of building one ultimaker i would estimate that it would cost me 500 euros to make a second. However this involves using components different from the uktimaker, like all metal hot ends, different electronics platform, perhaps the smoothiebiard. Usinh thermistor instead of a thermocouple also cuts cost. An mk7 or mk8 drive gear and extruder has very few parts and will further reduce cost.

Hope this helps!

[reflexpnt 0]

Hi Everone,

I´m Fernando form Argentina.

It is GT2 pulleys are 5mm inside diameter?

Thk a Lots

PD. sorry by my poor english

 

[dariusc 0]

Hi Guys,

I am putting together a better BOM and would love some input on any parts that are wrong or could be much better priced. It is a work in progress and based off of Kushal's BOM.

What I am most unsure of is the extruder and hothead.

 

Check it out:

http://goo.gl/lf2n2n

 

Please feel free to comment, most specifically on sources that are missing and extra parts I need or don't need.

 

Thanks!

 

[matthiash 0]

Hi,

I am starting a similar project, would be great to work together.

And get input from people, which have already build an ultimaker on their own.

Cheers

 

[kushal 0]

Hey guys

Its been a while since I finished building my Ultimaker and as such have not been very active with any form of 3D Printing since :(

@Darius C

Few suggestions with your BOM:

I think the sheets sizes for the Plywood are off the mark. The 6mm sheet is far bigger and you really need just a small 4mm sheet. In fact the 6mm sheet is almost six times the size of the 4 mm sheet!

You require 2 6mm rods each of 268mm length.

I'm pretty sure that you get the leadscrew nut from McMaster although if i'm not mistaken they are on the higher side. Also dont buy the 19V, 60W heater from DFRobot, I feel it is wrongly specified as it performed poorly. Use a 12V, 40W instead or buy the heater from elsewhere.

Other than that, its a really good BOM and I think you've brought down the cost considerably. However the cost can be brought down further by machining a lot of the parts that you are buying, such as the AL hot end heat sink, bushings, etc.

Would love to see your printer when you complete and if its possible incorporate some of the improvements i had suggested earlier like the all metal hot end, Mk7 or Mk8 extruder, perhaps the smoothieboard platform. Its a good idea to innovate rather than replicate the Ultimaker. Anyway all the best with your build!!

@Matthias H

Sure thing buddy. I will be glad to help you out although it may not be prompt as I am terribly busy with my job commitments!

Cheers

 

[sam 0]

Goodday Kushal,

Nice job there u working on. I'm just wondering which firmware you uploaded to your RAMPS 1.4 board? The reason I asked because I too have RAMPS 1.4 board to make a 3D printer based on Ultimaker. Unfortunately due to my lack of knowledge in electronics stuff results the 3D printer making to nowhere :-| .

I also would like to know more on your electronics connection for this project.

Many thanks.

-Sam