[Trimerc] Merc One.1 XY + Voron Trident Z - 200mm³ build volume 🤏

[barren stirrup]

I'm working on a smaller (180x180, or 165x165 build volume) version of the One.1. I have run out of space to put printers in my little farm, so I'm going to tear down my ender 2 pro and use as many parts off of it as I can in this build.

I don't have a chop saw so I wanted the frame extrusions to be sizes easily available from Amazon/Ali.

I haven't decided on a Z-Axis design yet. I may keep it simple and do something similar to the stock ender 5 system, or I might do something similar to the the100 with quad linear rods and dual Steppers. I'm trying to keep the cost down which is why I'm not going hydra, so I'm going to play around with it in CAD and see what I come up with.

Blind joints are used for the frame.

I plan on keeping this log updated as I go for anyone interested to follow along. Depending on how it ends up I might even make a GitHub repo and share everything on there too.

Huge thanks to Dutchdude and everyone involved in the project. I built one to spec and love it so much I decided to build more.

Update: 2/6/24

After the custom Z motion system I designed didn't work out as well as I'd liked, I changed direction and modified the Voron Trident Z-motion system to work in my frame. I also switched from using the 180x180mm KP3S build plate, to using a 8"x5/16" (203x203mm) Mic6 plate and Keenovo mains heater.

I'll be using a dual mainboard setup to run a combination of stepperonline steppers for the A/B motors, and the creality ender2 board to run the three Z steppers. This will also give me extra pins to run various accessories such as a bento box, lights, and other stuff I'll talk more about when I get to that stage.

---

Link to Revo CR EVA adapter:
https://www.printables.com/model/702815-mercury-one1-eva-toolhead-revo-cr-adapter

[rocky jolt]

That's awesome 😄

[worthy pagoda]

I'll be following this, might need a smaller printer in the future so this looks interesting

I see you're going the reuse/cheap route that interests me too

[gilded plume]

ya, this is cool. already bought all the Beta stuff, minus eletronics

[barren stirrup]

Yep, I'm all for going all out with the top shelf stuff, but there's also something about making stuff that you already have work. Plus it'll be a lot cheaper haha. I figure it will save me some time on the config too so that's also a plus.

[worthy pagoda]

I may have switched plans in between, but inspired by you I think I'll be doing a full merc+hydra+enclosure but 180mm bed

[barren stirrup]

Nice! That's gonna be awesome. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do about my bed motion system. Being that I'm trying to reuse the stock electronics, I'm trying to come up with a solution that only needs one stepper output. The system on the The100 looks interesting, but of course the steppers are housed inside the printed frame, so I'd have to do some adapting.

That being said, I just might end up going the Hydra route too. I do have a spare mainboard that's supposed to go into another build I could use.

All the printed larts are printed, and I think all of the parts for the frame and motion system have arrived in the mail now, so I'm hoping to at least get the frame built this weekend.

[worthy pagoda]

I'll be following regardless, this should be an interesting build

[barren stirrup]

Been super busy with work/family/Etsy shop things lately so I haven't been able to make any progress until today. I built up this contraption to test on my standard Merc build in the hopes that it's a cheap way to resolve the Z-Bending issues I'm having. If it works then I'll order the parts to build 2 for this mini build.

I'm hoping to get the extrusions drilled and tapped for blind joints + assembled today. More progress pics to come shortly.

Edit: spelling.

[prisma vortex]

Ohh what is this contraption?

[worthy pagoda]

wobblex

[worthy pagoda]

not sure if the piece under due to the anti slip spring is good

it might prevent freedom for wobble x

I don't use that and my hydra doesnt drop with the steppers off

[barren stirrup]

Yeah I'm still not sure about it either really. It does still have more freedom of movement than stock, but maybe not quite as much as just a normal wobbleX alone. It seems to improve print quality slightly, but not all the way.

I'm still using just the stock ender 5 bed for now, too broke at the moment to upgrade to the hydra. But and if my quad linear rod / dual leadscrew / single motor setup that I'm designing for this mini works well then I'll probably adapt it to the regular size mercury since it's a lot cheaper. Just need to design the bed mount. I'm thinking I'll print it in cf ABS for rigidity.

[worthy pagoda]

the only issue you might have without the anti drop spring thingie (I never remember the name) is with the steppers off

[barren stirrup]

Gotcha, really the only reason I'm using it is to mitigate the backlash (play in the threads). Although I might end up removing it to see if it is in fact introducing issues of it's own🤔

[worthy pagoda]

best way to find out is test both

[wicked monolith]

those supports are cool for the wobble x. im running the wobble x on my quad z plus build. if you have any luck i would be interested in this. lost some balls already 😂. i can post a photo of my setup if you are interested.

[barren stirrup]

Man, nobody likes losing their balls. Haha, after I make some final tweaks to it I'll post it to printables and link it here. So far I think it's helping, but I still have pretty bad banding. So I have to figure out where that's coming from. I'm wondering if it has to do with how much the build plate bounces around on fast moves.

[wicked monolith]

mine is pretty solid. i dont think i have to worry about Z banding. i feel alignment of the smooth rods is important. for me the smooth rods seem to prevent the quad gantry level from adjusting things fully and the wobble x disengage.

[barren stirrup]

Finally got around to assembling the frame. It's not quite as small as a Voron v0 but it's definitely cool looking. I could've sworn that I had ordered a bag of roll in T-Nuts but I haven't been able to find them, so I'm waiting on another bag to come in from Amazon which won't be here until the 28th. In hindsight, I probably could have foregone the 4020 extrusions and just used 2020 everywhere like on my Voron 2.4, but if anything it might add a little extra rigidity so I don't see a problem with it.

If I can find any more spare time this weekend I'll start on the toolhead. In the spirit of using as many parts from my ender2 pro, I'm going to use the revo CR from it too, so I need to design a mount for it.

[worthy pagoda]

what's 5he footprint?

[barren stirrup]

340mm x 350mm.

So, really not a huge amount smaller than a regular ender 5 I guess, but small enough to fit where I need it to fit.

[worthy pagoda]

smaller than the one I'm designing

[barren stirrup]

What size build plate are you going with?

[worthy pagoda]

180, but I'm doing hydra

I'm doing 360x390x600

[barren stirrup]

Oh ok nice. That'll be awesome

[worthy pagoda]

https://discord.com/channels/747612067951018075/1174002093682597990 if you want to have a look, you're one of the inspirations

[barren stirrup]

Heck yeah dude for sure. That's awesome!

[barren stirrup]

Found a few minutes to work on the stepper / idler towers today. Plan getting the rails lubed and installed and hopefully work on the X axis.

[barren stirrup]

Little more progress today. Dealing with some bent AF extrusions. Hopefully I'll find a decent one out of the three more I have to check for the X axis.

[barren stirrup]

Modified the EVA hotend holder for the Revo-CR:

https://www.printables.com/model/702815-mercury-one1-eva-toolhead-revo-cr-adapter

[barren stirrup]

Belted up and hotend test-fitted.

I think the plan from here is to design the Z motion system next. Looking at using a system with rods/lead screws in each corner, driven by a single stepper and a belt. Not 100% sure on that yet though it's subject to change. We'll see once I get a chance to get back into CAD.

[worthy pagoda]

is that a wire entering yhe hotend?

[barren stirrup]

Yeah that's the wires coming from the X endstop switch. I just had them poked down in there to keep them out of the way for now.

[pine folio]

ooh, another mini merc!

[worthy pagoda]

the one that inspired the smol

which is stopped due to not enough time

[barren stirrup]

I know the feeling my friend. I hope you are able to find some time soon! I'm really looking forward to seeing yours's running with the hydra

I just ordered some leadscrews, pulleys and a long closed loop belt from amazon. Should be here Monday. I'm hoping it doesn't snow / freezing rain tomorrow morning so I can try to find a few hours to sit down and work up a preliminary design in Fusion360. I want to keep it as simple as possible, yet also as solid as possible. I'm hoping to come up with something that I can easily scale up to use on my normal size Merc because that thing has just terrible Z banding issues, even with the WobbleX installed. You can see it if you zoom in on the printed parts on this build.

[worthy pagoda]

getting it running is another whole challenge because money, but thank you for the encouragement, trying to get my shit together

I also get into too much projects so there's that

[barren stirrup]

I feel you there. I think I probably have some degree of ADHD sometimes...

Got the first revision of the Z motion system modeled up. The bed support will fit on my Voron2.4 350mm in one piece but for some reason I can't get ABS to print on it without warping into a bowl right now for some reason🤨 So I'm working on getting that straight so I can print that. Printing the rest on my merc1 and waiting on some more parts to come in which should be here tomorrow.

Just realized the pully system in the corner is hard to see in that render. I'll try to get a better one later

[worthy pagoda]

funny you say that, I actually got diagnosed last week 😅 but I don't want to invade your awesome log

[barren stirrup]

No worries your good!

[worthy pagoda]

closed chamber? what bed temp and fan?

how hot is the chamber

[barren stirrup]

Yup

Running the bed at 100c and the chamber settles at around 50c

fan is at 30% I believe.

[worthy pagoda]

might be worth adding some extra squish on first layer

also make sure your bed is clean

[barren stirrup]

I've printed quite a lot of ABS on it in the past, but I've been printing PLA+ pretty much exclusively for the past few months for the wife and I's Etsy shop.

[worthy pagoda]

same plate?

I'm starting to have one dedicated to pla

[barren stirrup]

I think that's my next step. I did make sutto clean the bed with blue dawn dish soap like I usually do. I'm starting to think that it might have just been an anomaly with the Z probe because now it looks like it's printing okay

[worthy pagoda]

sometimes happens, klicky?

[barren stirrup]

yup, the LDO one that came with the kit. It's always been great

[barren stirrup]

Definitely not a bad idea, I have a few dedicated PLA machines

[worthy pagoda]

could be some residue that refuses to come off too

though PETG is the main offender

[barren stirrup]

Yeah, well, unklicky actually. The magnet one. I occasionally run into random "probe samples exceed tolerance" errors. In my quest to resolve those I've switched to the unklicky which seems to have helped, but I do still get them sometimes

[barren stirrup]

I did wonder about that, I'll hit it with some 99% IPA after this print finishes

[worthy pagoda]

I was having some inconsistencies with klicky+sexbolt moved to unklicky+unbolt

did not have issues yet

[barren stirrup]

It's definitely looking better this time than it did before. (Ignore the skirts welded to the bed from mistakes on my end😭)

[barren stirrup]

I did have the unklicky bolt too for a while but I think the tungsten nozzle I'm using was messing causing big swings in the readings due to being ferris. It was causing it to errors out too

[worthy pagoda]

I got a plate with some ultra thin PETG layers

[worthy pagoda]

oof

makes sense though

[barren stirrup]

ah yeah petg can do something terrible to a bed

[worthy pagoda]

and yet I print a lot

[barren stirrup]

PETg used to be pretty much all I printed up until I built the voron and started printing ABS. PETg does have it's own plus sides though for sure

[barren stirrup]

I think I got the bed adhesion issue resolved. Z axis printing now. We'll see in the morning how it comes out.

[worthy pagoda]

curious to see the results

[barren stirrup]

I checked it in passing on my way out the door for work. At first glance it looks pretty promising. I'll post some pictures when I get home later. I was kinda surprised it was only like an 8 hour print.

[barren stirrup]

Initial impressions are good. I'll do some actual fitment tests and get better pics tomorrow. Sadly the leadscrews won't be here until Thursday

[worthy pagoda]

looks sturdy enough

[barren stirrup]

Decided to go a bit unorthodox with with the electronics enclosure. Being that this printer is going to be up high to where I'm already going to need a stepstool to reach it to get prints off, I want to avoid making it any taller than necessary. So instead of using the traditional mercury skirt system (Which is beautiful btw) I'm going a different route.

I printed some standoffs which I then bolted a piece of pegboard to. The idea is that it should make it easy to layout all the electronics. I'll print mounts for each that will bolt through the back (using m3 screws and washers) so there won't be anything wiggling around to throw off the resonance compensation. I might paint it, haven't decided what color though.

I have a sheet of acrylic that my boss gave me which I'm going to use to enclosure the frame. I'm hoping to use as much of the beta stuff as possible, but will probably have to design some of my own stuff too. I need to get my CNC properly trammed so that I can engrave a logo into the rear panel, then I might add some addressable RGB LEDs shining down the acrylic from the top which I'm hoping will illuminate the logo. We'll see what happens.

Oh yeah, I also gutted the sacrificial ender 2 pro.

Additional clarification:

The electronics will all be on the printer-side of the pegboard, so they will be visible through the acrylic. Even though they aren't fancy electronics, I still want to see them.

Got the sherpa mini built and installed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get the electronics all mounted up so I can get the toolhead finished.

[worthy pagoda]

so a backpack style electronics bay

[barren stirrup]

Yup pretty much

[barren stirrup]

made enough progress on some of the mounts to be able to start mounting the electronics. I think it's gonna work out pretty good.

[barren stirrup]

Made the backpack standoffs way too long. Shorter ones to be installed tonight

[worthy pagoda]

I'm wondering how much it will affect printer stability as it moves the center of gravity to the back

[barren stirrup]

That's a concern I have too. I thought about designing some sort of legs for the bad. Possibly something with threads where you can fine tune the height by turning it up or down. Similar to how the feet work on a clothes washer / dryer

[worthy pagoda]

extra feet for the backpack? that might help a little, but still center will be shifted back

[barren stirrup]

Yeah, we'll see how the resonance compensation graphs look like once I get it up and running. If worst comes to worst I'll have to move everything to the bottom. Hope not though.

[worthy pagoda]

hopefully it won't be needed

[barren stirrup]

I just came to the realization that I designed this frame before gaining access to the enclosure beta, which means that my stepper towers are hanging off the back of the frame, which is going to make it hard to enclose back there.

No matter. I will see what I can come up with. Things may have to get... Interesting...

[barren stirrup]

Much better. Noticeably less rear-heavy too. Still going to make some feet for it though.

[barren stirrup]

Small update. Spent a few hours tonight trying to get the stepperonline 2A steppers working with the Ender 2 main board to no avail. Plugged in a creality 42-40 stepper to test and it ran fine. Tomorrow I'll find out if it's possible to replace the A/B steppers without undoing the belts...

[minor leaf]

Y so smol

[worthy pagoda]

double check wiring it might be your problem, creality steppers have the inner pins swapped, LDOs for example don't, stepperonline IDK but double check the phases

[barren stirrup]

Because I can😌

But actually that plus the full size frame wouldn't fit in the only place I have to put it, so it was necessary.

[barren stirrup]

So it's pretty strange. I've tried every different pin combination I could think of, I did get it to move in the right direction, but the whole time it was like vibrating like crazy. Like it was just running super rough. I tried adjusting the vRef up and down but either direction made it not run at all, just sit there vibrating.

These integrated drivers on this creality board are 5 wire drivers, which I've never dealt with before. I read some discussion I found on GitHub which gave the name of the driver ms and stated that they are 2208 compatible, but this board doesn't support uart control. The stepperonline steppers are normal 4 wire steppers. The creality ones of course have 6 pins (idk what the extra two do🤷🏻‍♂️). So I'm not sure if it has something to do with that or what.

I considered swapping the main board with a spare spider that I have in stock, but that would be a lot more work, plus I'd have to spend the money on drivers and money is kinda tight right now so, we'll see how these dinky creality steppers do🤷🏻‍♂️

[worthy pagoda]

steppers with 6 wires exist I think and may be wrong, they might have 3 phases instead of 2

mine were 4 wire

the creality ones

[barren stirrup]

Gotcha, I was thinking the issue might have something to do with the steppers being incompatible with the drivers. It really was making a heck of a racket

[barren stirrup]

Plenty of work left to be done but it's finally starting to come together and look like a printer. Also it's alive 👀

Replaced the stepper online steppers with some creality 42-40's that I had laying around and it resolved the issues I was having with the former.

Waiting on some more hardware to come in from Amazon so I can get the Z motion system mounted and configured. I ended up having to order a shorter closed belt for the Z because the one I originally bought was way too long. Starting to get excited now, can't wait to get it running so I can start working on the enclosure.

[worthy pagoda]

I would eventually swap the board for something cheap like an skr pico since you're running single z stepper should be enough and will allow you to run the stepper online ones that in theory might be better

[barren stirrup]

That's a really good idea. I didn't realize I can get the skr pico for like $22 on AliExpress. I'm probably gonna do that

[barren stirrup]

I'm going to have to investigate further, but I'm pretty sure I can squeeze a slightly bigger bed in there. Obviously I haven't been able to measure it yet without the Z system installed but it looks like the tool head travels past the edge of the bed in every direction.

[worthy pagoda]

not necessarily bad

IIRC the one I'm designing also has some room around, mostly because I want room in the back for at least sexbolt

[barren stirrup]

Good point

I've been going back and forth on the idea of putting a sexbolt on mine. Also would be nice to have a (un)klicky since it's running a revo

[worthy pagoda]

there's an unbolt as well

(shameless self promotion)

[barren stirrup]

I'll have to give that a look, have a link handy?

[worthy pagoda]

https://discord.com/channels/747612067951018075/1177778236864872509

sure

[barren stirrup]

sweet thanks. I'm gonna open on giving it a try on this build even I get to that point

[worthy pagoda]

feedback is welcome

been running on mine fine (and it's not even latest revision, pin was too short so out of lazyness I just extended it with another magnet)

[barren stirrup]

Nice, I might have to modify it to use one of those bolts with the flat end to avoid using a magent since I'll orotbe running an obsidian nozzle

[worthy pagoda]

they're magnetic?

might not be a problem, travel is very short (don't remember how much) and normal state is to be as up as possible (NC)

if you don't mind please try it out, I would like to know if it actually causes issues and if so I want to have options available

[barren stirrup]

I'm pretty sure they use hardened steel inserts. It may not be a problem, but I was having issues when using the magnet contact point with the unklicky Z and the tungsten nozzle on my V2.4.

I'll definitely give it a try as is though and report back

[barren stirrup]

I like the UnBolt. I'm planning on designing a mounting solution to put it on the Z gantry like this.

Also, @worthy pagoda you were right about the CG being too far back. I ended up removing the PSU and I'll have to figure out where to put it. Might just let it sit next to the printer

[worthy pagoda]

well there is the omnibox

https://discord.com/channels/747612067951018075/1144990245729865840

[barren stirrup]

Nice, thanks for the link. I'll look into that. I'm also going to explor the idea of designing a mount to attatch the PSU to the bottom of the frame at the front to act as a counterweight for the steppers on the back. One thing I'm finding with this smaller footprint is that it is less stable. Removing the backpack really didn't seem to make a noticeable improvement over just removing the PSU from the backpack, so I'm thinking using it as a counterweight is gonna be the way to go..

[worthy pagoda]

might be worth considering the electronics enclosure on the bottom

you'll need custom skirts but might help.move all the weight

[barren stirrup]

Quite possibly.

I just did some measuring in my printer room and found another potential place to put this one when it's finished. It's not ideal but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. One plus to this spot though is that because it's under the platform I built for my P1S, I could just enclose the whole area with some plywood instead of building an enclosure for the printer itself. Kinda sucks but might be easier.

[worthy pagoda]

if it works for you

[barren stirrup]

Small update after spending some time on it this weekend. I somehow managed to make the LM8 bearings slightly misaligned with the 8mm linear rod mounts so now my rods are bent to ship and I'm pretty blown that I wasted a bunch of time and resources going this direction. I'm not sure if this was due to me not taking ABS shrinkage into account in CAD, or what. I'm thinking it must have to do with shrinkage, it is a rather large part after all.

So I'm going back to the drawing board. I need to rethink my Z-motion system. I'm going to ditch the linear rods+bearings and order some 300mm MGN12H's. I'm going to look into Hydra. I'm also going to explore the idea of using the hydra motion components with my single Z-Stepper config. I know that would eliminate part of the functionality of Hydra, but idk we'll see. I'm rambling at this point so I'm gonna go play a round of fortnight with my kid

[barren stirrup]

After doing a lot of comparing, I decided to go with the Voron Trident Z-Motion system instead of Hydra with the aim of trying to maximize usable Z as much as possible. So I am working on adapting the Trident system to my custom frame. I have most of the parts printed already. I need to work on the part that attaches to the bed next.

I am also swapping out the 180x180 KP3s build plate for an 8"x8x5/16" (200x200mm) mic6 plate with Keenovo style 120v heater.

Just for the fun of it, I am going to try using printed 2020 "extrusions" in place of aluminum ones for the bed support structure. If it doesn't work out I'll just cut some real ones down, should be an interesting little side quest.

Being that I am going with a tri stepper Z axis now, and sticking with the somewhat unorthodox theme of this build, I am going to use a dual mainboard configuration in order to have enough outputs to run everything. This will allow me to use all of the steppers that I already have, so I don't have to spend any money to buy more. I will drive the A/B motors (StepperOnline) and Extruder (Fysect) with the BTT Pico board I have coming from AliExpress, while using the weird Creality ender 2 board to drive the creality 42-40 steppers which will be running Z. This will also give me some extra pins to use to run other misc things like a BentoBox, relays to controll lights and printer power, and some other stuff. Hopefully I'll have some more time to work on the CAD tomorrow so I can figure out the dimensions for the bed support extrusions and other stuff.

Edit: I'm also going to be using the kinematic bed mounts by Whopping, although I'm thinking about adpting them to use magnets so I don't have to send off to get spring steel springs cut.

[minor leaf]

you should try to print all the extrusions

[barren stirrup]

haha that would be VERY interesting

Gotta admit though, it at least looks pretty cool...

[worthy pagoda]

aomeone is going down the rabbit hole

[barren stirrup]

Yeah, I tried my best to stay out, but I fell in anyway. Now all my projects money for the next few months is gone😭... But, if it works out like I'm hoping it does it should be a pretty cool build so🤷🏻‍♂️

[worthy pagoda]

heh I feel you, I knew I would go down the rabbit anyway so I started the full thing right from the beginning, it's taking me more time to design as well but at least I have time to save some more 😆

it's going to be an awesome build

the extrusions also looking good, but the orientation we print them doesn't help with strength

[barren stirrup]

That's a good point

At least once you get your design finished you can stand back and say that's the only one like that in the world

[worthy pagoda]

sort of, I have set some rules myself, I want to avoid custom parts for the motion system, that means it has to work with merc hydra and electronics bottom, gave myself freedom on the toolhead but it's challenging to find the right size frame to work with the hydra arms and still get room around the bed for other options

I really should get back into it

[barren stirrup]

That's what I was thinking too. I'll probably try printing them in a horizontal orientation too and do some stress tests to see if it's even worth printing the full size pieces.

[barren stirrup]

Ahh gotcha. Yeah that would make it a little more challenging for sure. I have to admit, I only took some very rough measurements so I'm hoping that 200mm² isn't going to be too big for my frame.

[worthy pagoda]

sometimes I'm too much of a perfectionist

[barren stirrup]

Still have to adjust the lengths of 2020 extrusions to get them to fit in the frame properly, but I think it's gonna work out pretty good. I'm really liking the way this bigger bed looks inside the frame better than the 180mm bed. I think it will be just about right. I'll work on it some more tomorrow. I want to get the CAD work finished by Friday so I can have the measurements to cut the bed support extrusions on the miter saw at work. I played around with the ABS one I printed and I think it will just be too flexible, so aluminium it is. I also decided to drop the kinematic bed mounts for right now. I just don't have the spare money at the moment, so maybe I will ad them later, but after talking to some guys over on the voron trident server I think it should be fine without them.

[barren stirrup]

Here's some renders of what is hopefully a near final design. It's something of a mercury One.1 on top, Voron Trident on the bottom, electronics on the back, but smaller... I think this calls for a name change, but I haven't figured out what to call it lol.

I found some time to cut the Bed extrusions on my CNC (I don't have another way of cutting them straight), which worked out pretty well.

Some things on the todo list next are:

• Disassemble the old, failed Z motion system.

• Finish making an XYZ corner probe block for my CNC so I can drill the Mic6 plate to the best precision of my abilities. (After cutting a mock up from wood first to confirm fitment).

• honestly there's a lot more that needs to be done, but I won't try to write it all here. Hopefully I'll have some more updates in the next day ir Two.

[worthy pagoda]

@barren stirrup TriMerc? Mercudent? Tricury?

[barren stirrup]

ahh those do have a certain ring to them

[minor leaf]

ZeroGon Vorcury.180

[worthy pagoda]

oh dear god

[worthy pagoda]

I personally like TriMerc

[barren stirrup]

I think that one's growing on me as well. The TriMerc Mini. Or maybe just leave the mini off since the size is just part of the design now.

TriMerc 200

Mercury One.1 - 180x180 build volume 🤏 (TriMerc 200)

[umbral comet]

If you have heat resistant filament you could directly couple the bed arms to the bed. however i do not know how long the magnets will withstand heat from a hot bed.
my design will show that some time 😆
otherwise a nice solution for the z axes!
is there enough space surrounding the couplings to take some tilt?

[worthy pagoda]

I got 2 abs pieces in contact with the bed and no issues ao far

but it's on the edge

[umbral comet]

Good stuff

[barren stirrup]

Hmm not a bad idea, I do have some PC so maybe I'll explore that in the future. Do you have a thread onnhere for your build? I'd love to give it a look. And thanks! Yeah it should have enough room to be able to tilt a few degrees, not a whole lot but should be enough I think.

[barren stirrup]

Nice that's good to know. Part of me would still like to do a kinematic bed at some point but for now I'll be happy just to find the time to complete the build as currently designed 😭 Things have become super busy lately so I've had to set this project aside for now sadly.

[umbral comet]

I only have a Thingiverse link is our forum seemingly died... ☹️

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6496524

There is a seperate photo of the Kelvin bed couplers

[umbral comet]

I am building and upgrading this particular printer for almost 4 years now but seem to have reached the finish line now.

[worthy pagoda]

wait you can finish?

[umbral comet]

Yeah. New mechanic works, hotend performs well and even the bd sensor works fine.
Have just to tidy up and adapt the side panels to the wider built. And design a new electronics cover

[barren stirrup]

Finally made some time to rip out the old Z-system and start installing the Trident system. So far so good. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get the bed support platform installed and maybe even mill a mock up of the Mic6 plate out of plywood before committing to cutting the real thing.

I have some thrust bearings on the way from Amazon to take the axial load off of the Z-Steppers. They should be here Monday. Still lots to be done but it feels good to make some progress.

[barren stirrup]

This should be interesting 👀

[worthy pagoda]

shinyyy

what's the size of the cnc

[barren stirrup]

ikr, I should take another pic after I pulled the plastic off lol

[barren stirrup]

The working area is 400x400mm. I can't rmeetthe height at the moment, but you're able to Mount it higher or lower depending on what your milling.

[barren stirrup]

Ok so, drilling the mic6 on my CNC didn't work out...

[warm holly]

circle interpolate/bore with a smaller endmill, 1/8" endmill can bore a 4mm hole.

[barren stirrup]

Yeah I'm not sure what happened TBH. I've cut aluminum extrusions with it before, just manually jogging it, but using the same Endmills it really didn't like plunging or ramping no matter how slow I went. I tried the bore operation and the circular operation (fusion). I think this CNC just isn't rigid enough. I have a full aluminum 3018pro that is considerably more rigid except for the bed which has the signature wobble. I have some heavy duty linear rails for it but I need to cut the rails and design some brackets to hold it all together.

I ended up just digging out my cheapo harbor freight drill press and knocking it out today.

I do want to build another, even smaller MiniMerc at some point after I finish this one, so maybe I'll get to use the 3018 to mill the bed for that.

I also gutted the Ender2pro PSU and designed an enclosure for it. I plan on covering the bottom with either plywood or a painted acrylic panel. I may end up making a window so the PSU is visible, but I haven't decided yet.

After adding the Z-Steppers and PSU to the bottom of the frame the CG has improved a lot. It's even more improved when adding the heavy AF slab of Mic6. So I think the CG won't be an issue which is good.

[barren stirrup]

Slowly progressing. Almost done with the wiring, have to run thr signal lines to the bed SSR then do some cable management. I ran into a small issue where the bed at the top of it's travel is about 40mm below tje nozzle.... I have an idea of how to resolve this, but I'm not very confident in it. We'll see how it goes tomorrow when my 45mm M5 screws come in....

Those purple skirts are just there propping up the bed right now, they are actually go on the left side and secure the power inlet.

[barren stirrup]

Mercury One.1 - 200mm³ build volume 🤏 (TriMerc 200)

[barren stirrup]

Made pretty good progress today. Modified the design of the Z-Brackets to flip them and get the extra height I needed. Got all the wiring completed and tested and confirmed both heaters and all steppers working. Still have a bunch of work to do on the config and install the leadscrews before it'll be operational, but it's getting close to making a benchy and that's exciting.

[barren stirrup]

IT'S ALIVE

[barren stirrup]

Still have some work left to do like get the Z_Probe installed and working, I need to print a shorter plunger for it and rebuild it. Then next I think I'll work on figuring out how I'm going to enclose the thing. I don't really have the money to buy a bunch more extrusions right now so it might just have stay open for a while. I'm just stoked it's printing. Can't wait to tune it and see what kind of speed/quality I can get out of it.

Oh and klicky, gotta get one of those printed up to go with the z probe.

[barren stirrup]

First layer is going down pretty good I think

[Trimerc] Merc One.1 XY + Voron Trident Z - 200mm³ build volume 🤏

[worthy pagoda]

satisfying

[barren stirrup]

ikr

I'll admit, it took some fiddling to get the Z-motion system just right, but it was worth the multiple hours of work haha

Now I need to make a cover for the PSU, since it is just sitting there wide open with nothing but a board covering it up....