Anycubic I3 Mega Project "Diamond Hotend" - "Tutorial"
Description
Hi Folks, this is my very own Experience for setting up the Anycubic I3 Mega for printing Multicolor (3 Colours) with the Diamond Hotend. In this Tutorial I will give you some "Know How" and useful tricks to come to an successful happy End. I will give you also a short overview what you need and place some links where to find the things you need. Attention: This Tutorial is for using RUMBA+ Board and complete new wiring, because you can´t use the Trigorilla for 3 Extruders. !! IMPORTANT ATTENTION: You will follow this Tutorial at you own Risk. I am not the responsible Person if you did´t know what you are doing here ! And I am not responsible for any kind of damage to your Printer. This is your very own decision to start this Project. !! Keep this in Mind !! First of all, what would I like to achieve ?: to print in 3 colours :-) that was easy. Here is a shopping list for all the Parts you will need for your project (no personal referrer, just links): 1. I decided to use a RUMBA Plus board with full graphic Display. There are so many ways to buy a kit of this board (ex. Aliexpress, banggood etc.) but I bought it on Amazon. Why ? because there are only a few Euros of difference between the Chinese Stores with shipping than Amazon, but here I have the Guarantee to get my money back if there´s going something wrong. https://amzn.to/2FRJFtE 2. Now that we know which Board we would like to use, we need some Stepper drivers. I use the TMC2208 because they are super silent. We need 6 of them. For each of our Stepper Motors. There are two Motors for the Z Axis (are connected as one), one for the X Axis, one for the Y Axis and 3 Extruder Stepper. I bought it on Aliexpress, but its your decision where to buy. Please don´t have only an eye on the price you pay..... the quality is much important. Keep an Eye on how to stick it in correctly. 3. Maybe some cables (Dupont) and additional stepper driver cables with Dupont Connectors..... to connect the wires from the old Trigorilla to the new Rumba. But I am honest - its not really necessary if you are familiar with soldering. Anyway here are the optional cables I bought: https://amzn.to/2HrahEn and https://amzn.to/2AV2M2J (The cables are reversed at the end on Dupond side, so I changed that so they are straight now. otherwise your Steppermotors won´t work) 4. Stepper Motors, yes I know there are so much opinions for that. But the best results I get with this one: https://amzn.to/2HjGDAS ! you will need only 2 more but its not wrong to have some in reserve. 5. The Extruder: You will need two more, because in summary you need three. So its up to you to buy 3 of the same extruders or to use the original plus two of this one: https://amzn.to/2Dp3mr6 6. The bed leveling Sensor. This is optional and not necessary for the Project. But for me it´s a nice to have, and it´s really worth the money. https://amzn.to/2HjGZrc 7. OK the most Important thing is the Diamond Hotend itself :-) you can get one at the original RepRap Store or other resellers. ATTENTION: You can also use all other Multcolor Hotends you want. The only prerequisite is: 3 Colours. There are some Hotends with 4 Colours, but that doesn´t suit within this setup. 8. Now you have to print a bunch of things from Thingiverse... what else :-) A big Thank you to all of this Makers and Designers who makes this Project possible with their own Designs that we can use. * the X Carriage Mount (Base plate) (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3025330) - Attention: the mounting holes for the Diamond Hotend are a way to high. So I decided to design a new one, but in the meantime you can use this and drill new holes right under the given ones. * the X Belt Mount (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3012269/files) * the Diamond Hotend Mount (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3025330) * Sensor Clamp (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3012269/files) * Fan duct (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3346603) * Stepper Motor Mount (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3364953) * X-Endstop Sensorfinger attached to this Post * Rumba Board and Display Mount (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:516447) * Display holder also attached to this Post. 9. You need also a tooth belt (6mm in width) for the X Carriage, because with the new X belt Mount the original one gets too short. Also you need small and tiny zip ties for fixation. Have a look at the Photos. 10. Cutting knife as well as Screwdrivers, hex key, comb pliers, pincers, power drill, 1mm driller, Voltmeter and some other Tools. 11. Assortment of Screws. M3, M4 ...with nuts: https://amzn.to/2U9mIX5 and some smaller drywall screws (spax) for the Display Case and to mount the FAN to the FAN Duct. 12. Labels - to label the wires and cables. 13. Maybe a USB extension Cable because the USB Cable you get in the RUMBA Kit, is very short. 14. JST connectors: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01MY8FLMV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 15. Dupont Connectors to crimp https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0774HCRY1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Now we are good to go. -------------------------------------------------- Lets start with the first Steps: 1.At the beginning of this Tutorial I can tell you this was a very painful way to get through all the Steps and through all that tons of Information I found on the Internet. But luckily you can use this Guide and have fun: First we have to dismount the current X Carriage from the Printer. But be careful we need the original Hotend PCB for the way back (not for using in this Project). So you can easily cut the x belt from the x belt mount and unmount the Hotend. At the end we have only the both friction bearing on our X Axis. Now assemble the Diamond Hotend to the Diamond Hotend Mount and use the little zip ties for fixation at the heatsink. At this Point I decided for a complete new wiring. Use the power driller to drill some 4mm holes on the back side of the X base Plate where the ones are for the Diamond Hotend are. Just below drill new holes. (Pictures) Now remove the Extruder Stepper Motor and the Cables from the Printer Base. Dismount the whole XCarrier from the Printer Base and put it aside. Turn around and open the Base to have a good View on the Motherboard. You don´t have to unmount the Trigorilla, you can leave it where it should be, but you need the Power cable from the Powersupply, Heatbed and Heatbed Thermistor, Also the Y Axis Cable and Y Endstop Cable. I put it through the USB Port. Use some labels and stick it around the wires and cables - to label it - otherwise in the end you didn´t know which cables was for which connector. If you want to step back to Trigorilla Board this is very useful to know each wire (If you keep the Board Inside you can´t skip this Step). Some other useful hint: make Photos with your Smartphone for documentation each Step you have done. If you are ready to go and labeling is done and also all Photos are taken, we can go further. At this Point we have a look at the new RUMBA PLUS Board to have an eye on all the connectors we need. For that reason we use the schematic for the RUMBA Board: https://github.com/Aus3D/RUMBA-Plus There are one easy work to do. You can find the thermistor connector for the Heatbed, the PowerSupply and the Power connector for the Heatbed very quick at the Trigorilla.The Y Endstop is also easy to find. Change this to the new RUMBA. Then use the schematic to stick in the 6 stepper drivers. If you have a closer look into the schematic of the RUMBA, you can´t ignore the fact, that theres only 2 FAN conntectors. Right ? FAN0 and FAN1. But in our Anycubic´s Universe we use by default 3 FAN´s. The chassis stepper driver FAN, the Hotend cooling FAN and the printing parts FAN. But don´t worry, you can use the He2 for connecting the chassis FAN or the permanent 12V Poweroutput right on the left side of HE0. Oh... yes it´s getting a little bit difficult now. We have to wire the complete Anycubic with the wires and connectors.... theres nothing more on that point. To get a feeling how this should look like, have a look on the Photos. ......In the meanwhile you can have a CoffeeBreak to relax your Brain...... Also good to know: The thermistor has no polarity so don't worry about which way you hook it up. After 2 Days of wiring .... .....Are we ready now ? hmmm some little Steps are waiting, to finish the Hardware Part. If you connected all cables and Stepper driver to the new RUMBA we go ahead with the wiring of the additional E1 and E2 and E3 extruder cables. Have a look at the Picture. Also I connected the USB cable to the Board and used a USB extension cable to have enough length. Don´t forget to have the Endstops connected to the new Board. Perhaps if your Printer is looking like mine on the Photos, the Hardware Part is done. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Software: Marlin 1.1.9 I learned a lot with this Project, and one thing is, that there are 100 Ways to get the right config. There is no right config out there for Anycubic with 3 Extruders. I used this Version of Marlin: https://github.com/davidramiro/Marlin-AI3M and configured the Configuration.h to fit it for using 3 Extruders. Beleave me it´s not easy because I am not that familiar with Software Engineering or any kind of coding. But that´s the point I am standing now. I´ts a trial and Error thing. At this time I can´t post the perfect configuration.h ...but maybe there is a Guy out there who can help ? Feel free to post your comments I will try to answer. Anything missing ? please let me know. More Photos will be added soon.
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