Hey,
Pretty new to this. I started making my own 3D printer. I made mine with gears and not timing belts. Is the calibration the same? Plus I used some motors out of a big printer copier fax all in one. I need some help with calibration. Also I am going to use the Arduino sheild and stepper drivers that came from Gadgets3D. Loaded with the Marlin firmware.
If you’re out on a hacking project of your own, without using the recommended setup, etc you’re going to have to be detailed in your descriptions, possibly include pictures, whenever you need help. Many of us will do our best to help, but sometimes not being there is a huge hindrance. Sometimes you’ll have to hack things up yourself, and due to such hacks, may not always get the best quality.
However, yes, the calibration procedure is going to largely be the same. All of the software for this expects stepper drivers, and not motors. If you’re just using DC motors, realize that those printer/copier/fax all-in-ones generally just use DC motors with encoders and none of the existing firmware is setup for such a task. There will be a lot of software and hardware engineering you will have to do on your own.
Yea, These are 1.8 degree steppers. I am going to take some pictures. I do have the bed made and ready to go. Now I am working on the frame work. My z axis looks at little off at the moment but when I am all done it will look alot better. I will post a picture. Also for the bed I am using gears and gear rail. Not pulleys and belts.
Yeah, gears are fine, just as long as they mesh well and don’t have any backlash in them. Skeinforge has backlash compensation, but you wouldn’t be able to use slic3r.
@Vik_Olliver has a 3D printer known as the “Roofl”(sp?) which he’s printed a bunch of gears so that people without quick access to proper belting can make a 3D printer. So gears are more than possible/feasible.
+1 for interest. it has been done. keen to see pictures.
There is no backlash. I made sure of that. Hopefully i will be printing in a couple of weeks
The threaded-rod-drive-only machine (Simpleton) was heinously slow (15-20mm/sec) but the geared Z axis proved to be a practical alternative to dual Z motor or continuous belt setups, so at least we managed to remove those constraints! This lives on in the Rroofl http://reprap.org/Wiki/Rroofl which I’m just going into production of a local variant with as The DiamondMind.
I try to click your link and nothing comes up.