Delta Roller by cwaa

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

My first printer was a Voxel OX from Open Builds. Its been running for two years and I have been thinking about a large delta build. For stability I wanted no plastic parts in the frame. I have followed other builds and for this size printer most are using materials custom cut on a CNC or water jet. I could not justify a $20 13" x 13" x.125 build plate being custom cut for $150. My top and bottom plates together cost $40 and would have cost another $200 to have them professionally cut. So the basis of my build is to cut all of my materials myself and use drill jigs to give me the necessary accuracy for this build. My tools include a 12" radial arm saw, a 10" table saw, a jig saw and a scroll saw, along with a drill press and misc. hand tools. Right now I am in assembly having cut my plates and just received the v-slot materials. The total out of pocket costs for the frame material excluding freight is less than $200.
When I began looking at this build, I wanted a wide rod spacing to enhance effector stability. I started out with 2080 uprights in my design and that gave me 100 mm between rods. I reduced that to 2060 after some conversations with others. Now the rod spacing is 80mm to give the carriage as much stability as possible. Also using 4 wheels per carriage while most use only 3 on a 2020 upright. When it came to the joints, I simple reverted to my structural background. The only other design that seemed strong enough was those using metal cast vertices, but they limit your choice in uprights. The corners have 9 bolts holding the upright, to the plate and the plate to the horizontal brace. Its like having a 100 mm corner brace. The plates and braces form a box at the bottom and top that is extremely ridged and flat. The horizontal braces not only brace the upright, but pull the plates into a flat position. I am building the frame without tightening the bolts from the horizontal braces to the uprights. After everything is assembled and check for square and alignment, I will slowly tighten the horizontal bolts both top and bottom and that will "lock" the frame in place. The power supply and SSR for the heated bed go into the bottom covered by a fireproof panel. There are two fans and one power inlet built into the lower horizontal braces. The electronics will rest on the top plate as will the motors. If I enclose the printer, I want the electronics outside of the heated area. My choices for controller is another Smoothie board, Duet Network, or Azteeg X5 mini.