Self Sourced Custom 300x300 Trident - First 3D Printer

[normal niche]

I was originally going to build a 3D printer from scratch, then I found the Voron Trident design and it looked the one for me. Amazing job from the design team. Much thanks to them.

The build I'm doing is haphazard as I'm waiting on parts most of the time. I'm sourcing from within Indonesia so options are sometimes very limited or precision is off e.g. I had to spend 2 days shimming the frames with cut bits of aluminium can to get them exact. Aliexpress is banned here so it's difficult to source direct from China and I'm doing the challenge of sourcing all locally now (although the vast majority is from China originally anyway).

I'm going to be using a Mellow Fly D5 controller board and an Orange PI 2W processor because I was able to source them cheaply and easily here. I also bought a SHT-36 board for the toolhead.

The panels are plywood (which was easier and cheaper to source) painted with 3 coats of boric acid solution for flame retardation, 3 layers of black spray paint and then 3 layers of clear coat spray.

For the hotend I've sourced a TZ-V6-2.0 which seems to fit with the revo_six_and_v6 STLs on the Clockwork2 Sealthburner.

Just finished drilling the 8 x 300 x 300mm 6061 T6 aluminium plate. I wasn't sure if the plate was even gonna be flat but it turns out it is perfectly flat. The edges were cut very roughly though so I had to sand down the burs and flanges which I did by hand. Also it's not cut to square. But I don't think that matters. Most importantly it's flat.

[normal niche]

3D printed mount for the Orange Pi 2W arrived. Looks like it fits the board and the DIN connector well. https://www.printables.com/model/454578-pi-zero-2-w-din-mount

Mounted

Second 3D printed mount arrived for the Mellow Fly D5 controller board. I tried the one on the left first, but it doesn't fit the DIN connector. The new one on the right does.

https://www.printables.com/model/896085-mellow-fly-dp5-din-rail-mount

D5 mounted

Pi and D5 in the bay.

Final aluminium 2020 frame piece arrived. Now can start assembling the heatbed.

[viscid cypress]

Welcome!

Making good progress i see. Enjouy the build!

[normal niche]

Thanks @viscid cypress !

[normal niche]

First version of the 3D printed drag chain arrived. I modified the ends of this model "Drag Chain with mounts" https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:915487/files in OpenSCAD to fit the 2 hole Voron fittings. Seems ok but needs a few tweaks on the original end piece connectors so they rotate to the correct angles and don't stick to the center links. The center links also need slightly more "anti stick".

[normal niche]

I couldn't source a cheap silicon heater with the specs I needed, so I'm going to build one. I've ordered some nichrome wire and will use 8 x 90cm strands to cover a 25 x 25cm area under the build plate. The plate will have a kapton tape layer for electrical insulation plus another layer on top to secure the wires in place. Total power: 424 W

[normal niche]

Bed frame ready to be installed. The extrusions came with untapped 5mm holes, so I had to hand tap one of the short extrusion's ends at 6mm and am using a non-standard M6x15 (couldn't get 16mm ones) rather than M5x16.

[normal niche]

I had a 400mm extrusion I repurposed for the short bed extrusion by cutting it with an angle grinder to 282mm (well it ended up being 285mm, which I hope is still within tolerance). Since the squareness only matters at one end it didn't have to be a perfectly square cut.

It installed nicely. Feels very smooth and stable.

[normal niche]

Voron Hall Effect board arrived. Looks good.

Fits the mount well.

[normal niche]

My supplier sent 2 x MGN12H instead of MGN9H. So I'm going for a MGN12H mod on the Y axis.

[normal niche]

These are the STLs for the modded parts: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5124692

[normal niche]

Just installed DietPi on the Orange PI 2 W https://dietpi.com/downloads/images/DietPi_OrangePiZero2W-ARMv8-Bookworm.img.xz

I then used Kiauh (https://github.com/dw-0/kiauh) to install Klipper, Moonraker, Mainsail and Fluidd.

[normal niche]

Tried these out and the Hall Effect End Stop sensor won't fit now :(. Going for sensorless homing for now then until I can modify the part to fit.

My last stepper driver won't fit in the socket. Two of the female pin sockets where not accepting the male pins. Found a video on YouTube on how to fix it. Giving it a go. Removed the plastic cover. Then will straighten the pins and place the cover back on. Fingers crossed 🤞.

[normal niche]

Straightened the pins but also had to swap the blue plastic part with one from the neighbouring driver. Very fiddly.

End result. The last driver and the one before are slightly raised on the right sides, but the connections seem ok now.

[normal niche]

Klipper and Mainsail / Fluidd are amazing pieces of software. Very easy to use, nice UIs and powerful.

I'm currently working on the printer.cfg for the Orange Pi Zero 2 W and Mellow Fly D5 setting.

For anyone interested, I'll be posting my setting. So far I have the temperatures being reported:

#---------------------
# tempurature sensors
#---------------------

[temperature_sensor Fly-D5]       # FLY board temperature
sensor_type: temperature_mcu      # Associated MCU (default)

# Orange Pi Zero 2 W
#
# see http://www.orangepi.org/orangepiwiki/index.php/Orange_Pi_Zero_2W#Temperature_sensor

[temperature_sensor Opz2w_zone0_GPU_temp]
sensor_type: temperature_host
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 100
sensor_path: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

[temperature_sensor Opz2w_zone1_VE_Video_Engine_temp]
sensor_type: temperature_host
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 100
sensor_path: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone1/temp

[temperature_sensor Opz2w_zone2_CPU_temp]
sensor_type: temperature_host
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 100
sensor_path: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone2/temp

[temperature_sensor Opz2w_zone3_DDR_Memory_temp]
sensor_type: temperature_host
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 100
sensor_path: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone3/temp

And the electronics bay fans:

#-----
# fan
#-----

[fan]
pin: FAN1
kick_start_time: 1.0         # Forces the fan to run at full speed for 1 second when starting from 0% duty cycle. Helps overcome inertia in fans that don't start well at low speeds.
off_below: 0.10              # Any fan speed below 10% is treated as off. This prevents jitter or unreliable spinning at very low speeds.
max_power: 1.0

Board pin aliases:

[board_pins]
aliases:
    # Stepper drivers
    D0_EN=PC2,   D0_STEP=PC15,  D0_DIR=PC14,  D0_CS=PC13, D0_STOP=PB4,  # X
    D1_EN=PA2,   D1_STEP=PA1,   D1_DIR=PA0,   D1_CS=PC3,  D1_STOP=PB3,  # Y
    D2_EN=PA6,   D2_STEP=PA5,   D2_DIR=PA4,   D2_CS=PA3,  D2_STOP=PD2,  # Z
    D3_EN=PB0,   D3_STEP=PC5,   D3_DIR=PC4,   D3_CS=PA7,  D3_STOP=PB5,  # E0
    D4_EN=PB11,  D4_STEP=PB10,  D4_DIR=PB2,   D4_CS=PB1,                # E1

    # Heaters
    BED_OUT=PC7,
    HEAT0=PC6,

    # Thermisors
    BED_TEMP=PC0,
    HEAT0_TEMP=PC1,
   
    # Fans
    FAN0=PC8, FAN1=PC9,

    # EXP1 header
    EXP1_1=<NC>,  EXP1_3=PC11,  EXP1_5=PC10,  EXP1_7=<NC>,  EXP1_9=<GND>,
    EXP1_2=PA15,  EXP1_4=PA14,  EXP1_6=PA13,  EXP1_8=<NC>,  EXP1_10=<5V>,
    
    # EXP2 header
    EXP2_1=PB14, EXP2_3=PC12,  EXP2_5=PB6,   EXP2_7=PB7,    EXP2_9=<GND>,
    EXP2_2=PB13, EXP2_4=PB12,  EXP2_6=PB15,  EXP2_8=<RST>,  EXP2_10=<NC>,

    # BL Touch
    SERVO=PA8   # BL Touch servo pin

[normal niche]

Wired up this 3950 thermistor for the heatbed. I'm using some fiberglass tubing to insulate the legs and then connected it to silicone wire by twisting the ends together and crimping them with a half tube cut from a stainless steel straw. The crimps are covered in kapton for insulation of that part. https://www.tokopedia.com/cncstorebandung/sensor-suhu-3d-printer-thermistor-ntc-100k-3950-1

These are the Klipper settings:

heater_pin: BED_OUT
sensor_type: Generic 3950
sensor_pin: BED_TEMP
control: pid
min_temp: 10
max_temp: 110
pid_Kp: 52.0
pid_Ki: 0.7
pid_Kd: 105.0```

[normal niche]

I'm using this to control the fan speed so the fan isn't always on full.

[delayed_gcode bed_fan_loop]
initial_duration: 1.0
gcode:
  RESPOND PREFIX="gcode_macro UPDATE_BED_FAN" MSG="fan speed update"
  {% set f = (printer.heater_bed.target - printer.heater_bed.temperature) / 5 %} # 100% power at 5C delta
  {% if f > 1 %}
    SET_FAN_SPEED FAN=Power_Supplies_DIN_rail SPEED=1
  {% elif f < 0 %}
    SET_FAN_SPEED FAN=Power_Supplies_DIN_rail SPEED=0
  {% else %}
    SET_FAN_SPEED FAN=Power_Supplies_DIN_rail SPEED={f}
  {% endif %}
  UPDATE_DELAYED_GCODE ID=bed_fan_loop DURATION=5 # run every 5s

[normal niche]

Bought some Raspberry Pi heat sinks (4 pack of different sizes) and attached the two largest to the Orange Pi Zero 2 W's CPU and memory chips. I didn't seem to make much difference, but they do heat up so they must be discipating a bit of heat.

Power is running from a JST-XH 2 pin connector to a Meanwell RS-25-5 5V supply and with the ground connected to the 24V PSU as per the assembly manual.

I taped the wifi antenna to the black ABS DIN rail connector.

The Orange is connected to the Mellow Fly D5 via a 20cm USB-C cable.

[normal niche]

I was running the D5 in non CAN bridge mode and having trouble reaching the SHT-36. Now I see the correct setup is to have the D5 in bridge mode and use the SHT-36 as the MCU.

At first I thought this would lead to performance issues cause I thought the SHT-36's CPU would not be powerful enough to control everything, but it seems the PI does the brunt of the work and the D5 is then a forwarder and the SHT-36 does minor calculations.

[normal niche]

After a lot of playing around and flashing Katapult to the D5 and SHT and then configuring their Klipper firmware and installing it everything works now!

Neopixels working on the SHT-36 toolhead board via the Mellow Fly D5 in bridge mode, driven by the Orange Pi Zero 2 W

[normal niche]

I finally got the Mini12864 display working but am having troubles with its speed for updates and if I dial the controls too fast Klipper crashes. I heard quite a few people have encountered this with a CAN bridge MCU. So I'm going to try hooking the display directly to the Orange Pi Zero 2 W.

[normal niche]

For the Z stop, my supplier could only send a minimum length metal shaft of 10cm so I cut it to length with this tool and also used it for the notch.

Now I have a nice Z stop!

[normal niche]

I didn't end up controlling the display directly from the Orange Pi Zero 2 W. Instead I ordered a Mellow Fly UTOC-1 board. Now I have the UTOC board connected to USB0 and the D5 connected to the USB1 of the Orange Pi Zero 2 W. The SHT-36V3 toolhead is connected to the UTOC-1 and controlled by it. Now it solved the problem of the super slow display that was crashing. Now the display update is reasonable/usable and doesn't crash the system.

The UTOC board allows potential future CAN devices to be connected easily while maintaining good performance from all MCUs. Now also both the D5 CPU and SHT36 CPU are in on klipper operations and calculations rather than just the SHT36 when the D5 was being used as the CAN bridge. Performance should be much higher and smoother.

CAN bus is running at 1Mbps

Something tricky is that you need to explicitly enable USB0 on the Orange if you're running my setup where I use both its USB-C ports.

This is what you'll need to do to DietPi OS on the Orange Pi Zero 2 W:

Decompile device tree, into user's home directory:
dtc -I dtb -O dts -o sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dts /boot/dtb/allwinner/sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dtb
Modify it:

...
usb@5100000 {
  ...
  status="disabled"
  dr_mode="host"
  ...
}

usb@5101400 {
  ...
  status = "okay";
  ...
};

usb@5101000 {
  ...
  status = "okay";
  ...
};
...

Backup the existing system device tree:
sudo cp /boot/dtb/allwinner/sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dtb /boot/dtb/allwinner/sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dtb.bak
Compile the modified device tree from user's home directory into the system location:
sudo dtc -O dtb -o /boot/dtb/allwinner/sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dtb sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dts

Now the USB0 port should work fine!

[normal niche]

Finally got this SHT-36 mount installed https://www.printables.com/model/1187255-cw2-ebb36nh36-pug-mount

[normal niche]

Ended up having to cut the cable cover to make way for the PUG mount. I'm not so sure about this board mount cause the CAN cable has to bend around and there is not a lot of room for the cable to move back and forth with the cable cover on one side and the bent CAN (from the toolhead into the PUG) on the other. Let's try it out and see what happens.

[normal niche]

After a couple of months my MGN12 Y axis rails got very rusty. So I gave up managed to source the stock MNG9s from a better supplier. My X rails of from this other supplier and hasn't rusted. The rail on the right I rubbed with a cloth and most of the rust came off. Seems mainly surface rust. Not very deep.

I was also having trouble because I bought the hall effect end stops and they won't work with the MGN12s cause they sit higher so the magnet holders would need to be reprinted also. So if you're going for MGN12 Y rails, don't count on using the standard hall effect sensors.

[normal niche]

I put the belts on today and the X direction ended up being reversed. I tried switching the A/B motors connectors over on the main board and tried inverting the directions in the klipper config but nothing was working to get it straightened out. Ends up I was swapping the Z motors around instead of the A/B (Y/X). Once I swapped them it all worked well. Finally!

[normal niche]

WARNING: Don't wire your steppers incorrectly. I did this and my Z stepper driver caught fire. It was producing flames for several seconds before I managed to turn the printer off. I thought my controller board would be broken, but luckily it was just one stepper driver only that needed to be replaced!

My nozzle was wobbling after crashing into the Z endstop pin. I thought it must have damaged the 3D printed Stealthburner holder part but it ends up I just had to tighten these 4 screws in the marked locations in the photo. I believe they were not tightened fully in the factory.

[normal niche]

I've tried this umbilical cable guide in the back-right corner. But this seems not the best position cause the length of cable on the diagonal is longer than it could be if the support was at the back-center. This mean I can run a shorter cable and there will be less vibration and risk of snagging or curling over the toolhead.

[normal niche]

I was recommended this instead of the stock filter https://github.com/tanaes/whopping_Voron_mods/tree/main/umbilical_passthrough, to be used in conjunction with the https://github.com/nevermore3d/Nevermore_Micro.

Just some notes here. The umbilical passthrough requires 2 x M3x10 to secure the cable gland housing.

And 2 x M3x10 to secure the plate to the rear panel - for 3mm panels. Use longer screws for thicker panels.

[normal niche]

I'm using this hotend. It's easy to source in Indonesia and pretty cheap.

It comes with GD900 thermal paste which is rated to 200 C. I was getting white smoke and a sweet smell, so I replaced the thermal grease with Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme high temp grease that I had sitting around which is rated to 350 C. The sweet smell went away, but I still got the smoke and a burning plastic smell.

I thought the burning plastic smell was the wire from the temperature sensor touching the toolhead ABS at first. I removed the head from the ABS and tried again. Smoke still. Now I thought it was the PTFE insulation on the heater wires. I replaced them with fibreglass ones, but no change.

After tracing it some more it ends up it was off-gassing from the silicone sock. After smoking for about another 30min it stopped. Now all seems good.

[normal niche]

This photo shows the fibreglass sheaths on the heater wires (insulated with PTFE before) and the temperature probe (2 enamelled wires inside the one sheath).

[normal niche]

I got the filament jammed in the throat section. Turns out I didn't have the cooling fan on to cool the throat. I had to unscrew the Stealthburner and managed to use my heat gun to heat the throat and a 1mm allen key to clear it.

Getting bad layer shifts. The cube on the left is the 1st print. Right, 2nd print.

[normal niche]

After putting threadlocker on the motor couplers and tightening screws and tensioning the belts I managed to get a perfect cube.