TINKER LIFE PROJECTS

It’s about time I wrote this one up…

Way back in December (yep, took me that long) I bought a new printer, a Craftbot Plus…that was broken. But it was cheap and I felt pretty confident I could fix it, eventually.

What was wrong with it?

Short answer, quite a lot. I found what was likely the root of the problem, the power connector into the bard had blown up a bit. But the heater cartridge was detached and hanging on by a thread, the mainboard wouldn’t power on, no lights on anything, a couple of broken switches, hotend was a charred mess and the build platform bracket was bent away.

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But all that’s ok. Switches are simple to fix or replace, I have a spare e3d V6 hotend that came with my Ultimaker, a titan extruder and some power supplies hanging around form old projects. As for the printerboard, it gave me a chance to try out something I’ve been wanting for a while.

So I did some wiring; everything fits neatly in in the back after some gentle dremeling. Set up the duet (So happy with it I got far to invested, building custom menus systems etc. There will be some follow up posts specifically looking at it.) Put together the V6 hotend and titan extruder, designed a few mounts and adapters. And put it all together.

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Since then, its been used a lot. The print quality isn’t as nice as the ultimaker, nor the build area as big. But the wireless integration of duet into Cura made it so much easier to use. It’s also quieter, more fun to tinker with, and just exciting having a new printer.

Since then, the thermistor has been upgraded to a PT100 so it can operate happily at 350+ degrees (good for polycarbonate). I added LEDs to the inside, cut out some custom side panels, made more removable beds, added rubber feet to the bottom, changed all the acces bolts to thumb screws. Designed a mount for the Duet PanelDue colour touch screen, bent the build platform baraket into position, changed the rear fan to a silent PC case one, added a camera with a raspberry pi, built a custom cura profile, and threw on some (imitation) buildtak. I’ve also taken the whole thing apart and cleaned it though it didn’t stay that way for long.

Overall I’m very happy but there’s still bits left to do. The next big one is autobedleveling which I have yet to personally experience.