An evolution of the Microcube-hypercube hybrid

This is a remix of the Microcube-Hypercube hybrid that peter47_a's designed and built. It uses the same basic design that he put together. I took the general theme of his design and modified nearly all of the plastic parts to improve rigidity and stability of the structure and overall function of the parts. I'm going to call it the MicroCube X-Plus to differentiate it from his original design but to also indicate that it is a derivitive. These parts would likely work with his design or even the original MicroCube with some modification. Structurally, this printer is a tube-style printer and uses 8mm tubing as the main component. It incorporates the Y-axis rods as part of the support structure. The corner brackets are designed to clamp the tubing in place with multiple fasteners to improve clamping force without relying on material flex. The outside corners of the cube use a modular design. All of the outside half of the corners are the same, with the inner halves being specialized, either to hold the stepper motor, to hold an idler pulley, or to serve as a foot. This allows the inside brackets to be redesigned for different tasks without re-printing the entire assembly. All parts are held together using M3 socket cap screws (of various lengths) and melt-in type M3 threaded brass inserts. 8mm rods and linear bearings are used. The X and Y axes use 250mm long rods while the Z-axis uses 300mm rods. The linear bearings are 8mm x 15mm and are 17mm long: Two of them are used, butted together, for the y-axis mount, and a spacer is added to for the x-axis. All of the stop switches are mounted to removable brackets allowing different bracket designs to be used without having to re-print new structural components if different switches are needed. The lead-screw uses a removable bushing at the upper mount with a 12mm OD, allowing multiple diameters of lead screws to be used. I've included bushings for 8mm and 10mm screws. As designed by peter47_a, Nema 11 stepper motors are used on all three axes and drives GT2 belt and pulleys. The extruder is an E3D-V6 type and is fed by a remotely mounted NEMA 17 stepper pushing 1.75mm filament through a standard bowden tube setup. The Z-axis is moved by a T8 lead screw mounted with a clamping coupler to the stepper motor. The printer is controlled by an MKS 1.4 RAMPS board with integrated stepper drivers, a 24-volt DC power supply and Makerbot designed stop switches. All of this is controlled by Marlin firmware. Per request, I've added designs to allow you to use NEMA 17 motors on all axes. I've added that as a remix. You can find it here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4281936

Updates:

9/13/2019: As noted above, this is still in progress. I have printed all of the mechanical parts and am currently assembling the structure. Parts will likely change as I find things that don't work quite like I thought they would. I will upload IGES versions of all the parts when I have the design finalized. 11/15/2019: The printer is up and running and I've shared a video. Since the last update, I've added the extruder mount for an NEMA 17 stepper, added a cooling-fan bracket to help keep the Z-axis stepper cool and had to reprint the X and Y axis stepper motors in ABS as they were getting hot enough to soften PLA. 4/12/2020: I've reuploaded all files so that the most-recent versions are available. I'll include exploded-views soon to clarify assembly. 4/13/2020: A few months ago, I tried to add a glass bed. The NEMA 11 Z-axis stepper just didn't have enough oomph. At a request of others, I designed NEMA 17 mounts. I expect to reprint the Z-axis bracket and convert to NEMA 17 for that axis. The NEMA 11's are doing great for the X and Y axes and I see no reason to change them. I've also added my version of Marlin for your use. Note that I'm using an MK Makerbase 1.6 main board with a Kingprint 12864 LCD setup. It includes the coding changes needed to make that work correctly. 4/15/2020: I added the Solidworks files for you to use if you want to modify my original designs. Of course, you have to have access to something that will open a Solidworks file correctly. I've also added the fan bracket for the mainboard as it seems I omitted it from the original upload.

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