ToolChanging Extruded Aluminum E3D BB3D2?

Discussion in 'BigBox General Chat' started by EpicFail, Feb 26, 2018.

  1. EASI3D

    EASI3D Well-Known Member

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    Yep this is the future, got my order in
     
  2. Paul Seccombe

    Paul Seccombe Well-Known Member

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    I'm in. Basically this is what I had started to design for my Bigbox, but I dont have anything like the time E3d have spent on development and I love that motion system's speed.
     
  3. Rob Heinzonly

    Rob Heinzonly Well-Known Member

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    I will join the party also, as soon as the TOOLCHANGER-SHIPPING coupon code works. I am feeling the Bigbox kickstarer fever again :)
     
  4. dc42

    dc42 Well-Known Member

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    We're ordering 2 of them.
     
  5. R Design

    R Design Well-Known Member

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    Am on the edge. Since will be cannibalising my BigBox want to be assured that will be able to get it up and running smartly so as not to be left without a working printer.

    Dunno if there's room, but wouldn't it be interesting if the aluminium top-plate went all the way around, completing the square at the front? Not just because that would improve rigidity (you can never have enough, especially if a subtractive, vibration creating tool is added later) but because our V2 printer should offer a closed build chamber, which means fitting a door and a roof: the fact it's aluminium will help but a front piece would certainly be helpful. In which case definitely mounting the bowden motors and the spools on the roof (shorter bowden filament path + spools shouldn't be in heated chamber). Oh, and aqua.

    @Greg Holloway, did you eat the noodles?! :D
     
  6. Rob Heinzonly

    Rob Heinzonly Well-Known Member

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    This printer deserves a better name. How about QuickBox ? ;)
     
  7. Winand

    Winand Member

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    WOW!
    Well, props to Greg and the E3D team. I love the design choices made and I was headed in this direction anyway thanks to all the fantastic IDEX builds on this forum. I have been lurking in the shadows but a HUGE thank you to the community for coming up with so many awesome builds. I was sad when E3D announced the *ahem* "setting free" of the BigBox but luckily the community kept it alive and continued with some incredible upgrades and advances.

    For those who have not spent hours crawling through the forum here they are in a quick overview (if I am missing something PM me know and I will include it):

    BigBox Hardware upgrades:
    Clever3D's printbed - milled aluminium and coated with PEI
    Greg's Integrated lead screw - An attempt to fix some z-axis problems
    Duet wifi - Upgrade to 32 bit electronics, faster, more precise and quiter (see the multi-extrusion rebuilds for more)

    BigBox notable multi extrusion rebuilds (I attempted to put them in order, whatever that means):
    Chase's dual Titan - creating a compact direct drive Dual build with Titan extruders
    Greg's bowden IDEX - first attempt fix to the problems with the BigBox Dual multi material printing (oozing of inactive nozzles)
    Bjorn's dual titan IDEX - rebuilding Chase's design into an IDEX for full multi material printing (direct drive to also print flexibles)
    Alex's Dual Titan IDEX - An iteration of Bjorn's design (more compact and better wiring)
    Greg's Titan Aero IDEX with linear rail - Direct drive IDEX with the Titan Aero extruder/integrated heatsink (damn those rotated fans though)
    James' Titan Aero IDEX with linear rail - Entire frame rebuilt out of 3030 aluminium extrusions, Hypercube evolution inspired it seems but a good indication that the frame could use an upgrade.

    Can we start calling this beast the BigBox 2?
    I think it would be a nod to the community that helped push the design in this direction, it still has enough of the BigBox soul to be called a BigBox and yet is different enough to be a real v2.

    Lets take another look at all the awesomeness:
    - fabtotem inspired coreXY design for no flying motors
    - machined carbon fiber X gantry to further minimize weight
    - brand name timing belts
    - brand name linear rails (absolutely worth the extra $$$)
    - machined top plate and metal spacers and mounts (3D printers aren't made in sheds anymore)
    - extruded aluminium profiles for easy mounting options and additional hackability (Big Box 2 extended?)
    - complete redesign of the z axis (this was giving me some headaches on the BigBox and I had no bright ideas for a good fix)
    - 32 bit electronics (Duet ftw)
    - mechanical bed leveling (BL touch)

    Well... Sign me up!

    With that said, I would like to offer some feedback that *might* make it even better:

    Extruders
    While the titan extruders are OK I am thinking of going the nimble extruder route to keep the weight low, still have "direct" drive extrusion and still squeeze as much speed out of of the motion system while keeping ringing to a minimum.

    Any chance E3D will come with a nimble variant of their own? I am curious what direction you are headed in in terms of the flex extruder, any hints? It looks like there are quite a few people on this forum going the same route so it may be looking into... (hint, hint).

    Side and back panels
    It would be an added bonus if the side/back plates were easily removable so I can laser cut my own variants without having to disassemble the machine. It looks like they are right now and that is great, I would hate for them to have to fit into "grooves" - it may look nicer but I would like a tinker friendly machine.

    Subtractive cutting head? Really!?
    Believe me, I want a box that can make anything as much as the next guy, but this machine is now designed for speed. A subtractive cutting head doesn't call for speed but rather the ability to take large tool forces. IMHO you can optimize for one or the other but wanting both is greedy. I think Thomas explains this quite well in one of his latest videos.

    Laser module
    Lasers are dangerous, especially the "useful" ones. Most people are not fully aware how dangerous a bit of light can be but without a fully enclosed box it just seems irresponsible. I have seen too many 3D printers converted to laser engravers at makerfaires with groups of children standing around them with only one person wearing proper eye protection. Add to that the gasses that are produced duing lasering or the fine particles that start to enter the bearings and it just seems like a bad idea to me. Makers and tinkerers everywhere will do this anyway so I dont think E3D needs to provide this solution, I think it would open them up to all sorts of legal headaches they can do without.

    License
    The post doesn't mention what license this will be posted under, any word on that? I am assuming open-source?
     
  8. R Design

    R Design Well-Known Member

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    @Winand this thing is bowden so extruder motor weight not an issue. Not sure that side panels are included so you do what you like and bolt them to the slotted profiles using appropriate slot nuts. Subtractive can only (?) really mean a rotating drill bit and not sure that works too well with plastic? Besides, hell of a mess.
     
  9. moshen

    moshen Well-Known Member

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    I put myself in queue.Would there be a direct extruder toolhead for those that prefer that? Perhaps the flexible filaments toolhead can be used as a general purpose direct extruder head?
     
  10. R Design

    R Design Well-Known Member

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    Can anyone who does lots of dual material prints, explain whether they'd expect the rapid accelerations and head-switching of the BB2 to have much impact upon print duration?
     
  11. mhe

    mhe Well-Known Member

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    Any time you'd lose for tool changing I'd estimate you can easily make up for by using the silly fast speeds an optimized CoreXY architecture allows for if tuned correctly. It makes a lot of difference not having to have motors moving around on an axis, even IDEX systems have their X and U axis usually equipped with motors that move.

    Also you can add beefier motors without adding weight to the moving gantry which is very useful.

    What we see here is like all the hotness of IDEX times two and even better than that. Only slight downside is the restriction to bowden extrusion which might prove to be a problem with some flexibles but hands-on time with the machine will tell, can't wait.
     
  12. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I hope to get one of these to play with :) Looks like a killer motion system. Always wish I'd designed a CoreXY like this, so thanks E3D for saving me the trouble
     
  13. R Design

    R Design Well-Known Member

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    So @mhe our print times have thus far been limited because:
    a) we can't accelerate fast enough to get up to speed (esp when printing smaller parts)?
    b) at higher speeds our heavier print heads (and floppy 8mm rods) create resonance when changing speed/direction?

    In other words not because of some property of the filament which means that it "doesn't like" to be extruded and laid down more quickly?

    So we'll see big time improvements from the new system?

    It's just that E3d are so sharp on marketing that have a nagging doubt that there might be a reason we saw some zippy rapids and then the finished part but never any printing! ;)
     
  14. mhe

    mhe Well-Known Member

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    You are limited by:

    1.) Acceleration - mostly depending on ratio of power/torque vs mass that is really good when you don't have motors on the carriage.
    2.) Extrusion speed - which is mostly dependent on filament used, nozzle and heater. You could probably max even this motion system out with Volcanoes.

    I think it will be overall better by far, the only downside that might happen is that flexible filaments like TPU might be problematic as they are notoriously difficult to print with bowden setups. E3D know their stuff but that thing still is a beta version so currently you pay for an unfinished product should you decide to get it. If you don't feel safe with an unfinished things that comes without any guarantees and might also still have some flaws that need ironing out, wait for the community and testers to help E3D fix all that and get a mature machine at a later point.
    I am fairly sure they will let world & dog know if they have a new printer they want to sell.
     
  15. EASI3D

    EASI3D Well-Known Member

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    Can we get the CAD files?, I want to start working on various bits:)
     
  16. Greg_The_Maker

    Greg_The_Maker Administrator
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    Not yet :p
     
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  17. Miasmictruth

    Miasmictruth Well-Known Member

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    @Greg Holloway

    First off, I loved this at MRRF, amazing work!

    I was thinking about our conversation at MRRF, you said that there would not be a Titan Aero head as it would be too heavy. I was just curious is it too heavy for crazy fast speed, or would it not even be able to keep up with IDEX bigbox for some reason?

    I agree that the prints look amazing even without direct drive but it might be nice to have in the back pocket if we need it for some reason.

    Also from the blog it looked as though it was on the list of future tools, was it scrapped, typo?



    From The Blog:

    Tools we are developing
    • A Titan Aero extruder.
    • A better extruder for flexible filaments.
    • A subtractive cutting head.
    • A laser, perhaps for part marking or edge finishing
    • A Raspberry Pi Zero camera head, for in-process inspection
     
  18. Greg_The_Maker

    Greg_The_Maker Administrator
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    Thanks :)

    It's a little too heavy for the current tool coupling mechanism, plus there is the size of the thing. There is limited space in the tool dock area. I imagine it would require a tool specifically design as a direct extruder to work with this machine. Given time maybe someone will do it. Assuming the project actually goes ahead.
     
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  19. Miasmictruth

    Miasmictruth Well-Known Member

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    Ah, now that makes more sense I thought you meant motion system for some reason.

    I was thinking that a fair amount of prints might not need more then one material, so if you to had to have it for some reason then you could manually hold it there and lock it. Obviously that defeats the purpose of tool changing system but just a thought.

    That or maybe cut a hole in the back plate to give the stepper room if geometry permitted and restict the Y travel for that tool.

    Is it the spring mechanisim that holds the servo that's the limit?
     
  20. Greg_The_Maker

    Greg_The_Maker Administrator
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    Basically yes.
     

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