Hot End Mount Generator - Customizable for various carriages, hot ends and options. by croadfeldt

Last crawled date: 2 years, 12 months ago

Development on this has more or less ended pending a rewrite in python. Since this mostly works, that might be a while. I do sometimes fix bugs though so if you find one, let me know.
Updated - 10-17-2017
Features so far:

Hot Ends supported:
Hexagon
Generic J Head mounted Hot End
J Head Mark V
E3D Chimera w/ V6 and Volcano Hot Ends.
E3D Cyclops
E3D V6 w/ V6 and Volcano Hot Ends.


Carriages supported:
C Bot - Core XY
Prusa i3 variants with vertical X Carriage.


Extruders supported:
Bowden
E3D Titan


Probes supported:
Servo / arm
Inductive
BL Touch


C Bot exclusive
Endstops supported
YL-99
Keyes
Generic mini switch


Prusa i3 variants - X Carriage mount, customizable to fit nearly any 4 bolt X Carriage. eg; i3, rework, 23mm spacing, 30mm spacing, whatever, you pick the spacing, it builds the design.


Inductive sensor mount: customizable to the size of your sensor and how high it should be mounted.


Servo mounting bracket: customizable to whatever size servo you have, how much horizontal clearance it has and you choose the side of the cold end it sits on


Blower fan mount: Defaults to 51x51x15, but customizable if you know the size and screw point locations. You can also customize the horizontal and vertical angle, how far out the fan mount extends, how thick the mount is, how wide the connection point is, etc.....


Fan duct: Simple prototype. This is automatically designed based on the criteria you choose, fan angles, hot end, fan mount depth, etc... Full 360 prototype. This very very experimental at the moment, print at your risk.


Z Probe arm: This auto sizes according to the servo dimensions and placement. You can set activation distance among other settings.

Easy-ish printing: Trying to ensure the generated models are easily printable without support. eg; All nut traps are closed and need to be physically opened before use. This is done so printers are bridging instead of air printing the back side of a nut trap.
I've started working on the back log of updates, here they are in no particular order.
Move hot end to the end of the carriage instead of middle. - Allows for more compact layout and shrinking of carriage. - Done!
Move probe to same carriage side as hot end. - Reduce overall chassis footprint needed. More Accurate probing. - Done!
Shrink overall width of carriage. - Reduce overall chassis footprint needed. - Done for C Bot.
Fan duct - Finally finish the work to build an auto generated duct, perhaps similar to the design @AK Eric designed. - Done!
Add option to mount LEDs.
Add direct drive options. - @Carl Feniak 's design and @Elmo Clarity's for the Titan extruder.
BOWDEN USERS: Do yourself a favor and use clips like the ones below. This will reduce the amount of retraction needed and more importantly provide for better consistentency and accurate prints matching or approaching direct drive setups.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:936611
TO DO Still:

Add bearing support for round bar style mounts. This should allow you replace the X Carriage + hot end mount with just the hot end mount with integrated bearing holders. This will reduce wait and smaller XY / X carriage.


Add additional fan mount placements and integrate fan mount directly into carriage. Further reduce the size of overall carriage and parts.


Clean up code, drop customizer support in order to make code cleanup easier. No one uses the customizer anyway. Split up code correctly into separate files. - Coming eventually... :)


Add more hot ends: drop a comment with more suggestions.


Add more carriages: which one should I add next?


Add dual hot ends and any variant. Kicking around the idea of attempting to code up a system that automatically aligns disparate hot ends for dual extrusion.


Add dremel / rotary cutting tool mount

Add camera mount: not sure how practical this is, but the idea came to me this morning. This is a long shot.... mainly because I'm trying to keep the moving weight as low as possible.
Be aware that this is very very much a work in progress. Please feel free to provide feedback and suggestions or even better yet, help out by contributing code. :) This is my first openscad project and what I am using to teach myself openscad, so the code is not terribly efficient or clean yet, but, it works.
I've removed the sample STLs. Development is fairly quick and it's too much of a hassle to update all the various sample files. USE THE CUSTOMIZER to produce a hot end mount for your printer. If you have questions, please feel free to ask.
This is GPL and the source code is also available vit GitHub. Contributors very welcome!
GitHub repository: https://github.com/croadfeldt/Roadfeldt_3d_hczf_mount
Watch the GitHub page for details on code changes. Updates will occur their far more often than they will here.
Status Updates
** 10-17-2017 - Minor defaults changes. No functional differences.
** 10-1-2017 - Updated distance for bltouch mounting plate to tip of hotend to 45, was set to 28mm. This would have put the BL touch below the hotend. I believe the change I made sould fix that, please test and let me know since I don't have a BL touch. Thinking about getting one though. Hmmm....
** 6-25-2017 - I am halting development of this for the time being. The code is overly complex and is in need of a rewrite, most likely in a different language than OpenSCAD. This is not a knock against OpenSCAD, in fact it's doing great. But the language simply was not intended to be doing what I am doing with it. To that end, it's become an unruly little thing and needs some tempering, most likely in python which exports OpenSCAD code. This should allow me to properly modularize and objectify objects which in turn makes each component easier to create, modify and inject into the design intelligently. There is no ETA on this work as of yet. Until then, most likely there will be no more changes to this script by me. The bugs it has, it's going to have to make peace with. More to come!
** 5-22-2017 - Force all zProbes to be on the left side when using a Titan extruder. Removed extra copy of generator which was confusing customizer. If you generated a hotend carriage between 5-17 and 5-22, please regenerate your carriage to get the latest updates.
** 5-17-2017 - Changed to 51x15 blower fan. 50x20 blower was oversized. Also changed to E3D V6 Volcano as default. This is my personal configuration, no other reason for the change.
** 2-1-2017 - Removed round / 360 degree duct selector from thingiverse customizer copy of the script. Script still contains the option, but you will have to download and run it locally to make it work. This should fix the pointed duct issue.
** 1-12-2917 - Contacted Thingiverse support to request help finding customizer issue.
The customizer is again creating ducts with the pointed tip. I believe I know what part of the code is affected by this, but can not reproduce it when run locally. So it appears to be a bug in the customizer or interaction with the customizer. Requested their help to isolate the issue. In the meanwhile, downloading the OpenSCAD script and running it locally should produce a valid design.
** 1-9-2017 - Disabled and reenabled Customizer
The customizer is creating bogus fan ducts. Took a look at the code offline and verified fan duct is working as expected with options that produced a pointed fan duct in the Customizer. Re-enabled the customizer and verified the same correct behavior for the fan duct creation. Leaving it enabled, if you encounter a pointed fan duct, please tell me what options you changed.
** 12-11-2016 - Bug fixes from @Steveveepee
Fixes for incorrect carriage height
Remove git merge detritus from file
Further fixes for problems with carriage height introduced with 3 wheel settings
Merge remote-tracking branch 'refs/remotes/croadfeldt/master' into Fixes-for-Carriage-Height
** 12-7-2016 - C-Bot 3 Wheel support and titan bug fixes.
Merged C-Bot 3 wheel support from @Steveveepee, thanks!
Don't allow titan extruder with chimera / cyclops. Can be re-added if folks want it, it's untested at this point so removing the option to reduce number of things to code around.
** 11-21-2016 - Added vertical offset for E3D Titan mount.
Added option for setting vertical offset for Titan mount on Prusa i3 Carriage.
Dropped Titan mount lower on C-Bot mount.
Added reinforcement for J Head mount on all carriages when using Titan.
Tweaked fan duct settings.
** 10-30-2016 - Updated E3D Titan mount brace to 15mm.
** 10-30-2016 - Updated E3D Titan mount. Bug fix for servo arm placement.
Added bracing for E3D Titan mount.
Fixed E3D Titan spacer depth.
Used fixed Titan spacer depth.
Corrected Titan mount size to match Titan body.
Increased amount of space around Titan mount.
Removed accessory holes from Titan mount.
Fixed servo arm placement.
** 10-5-2016 - Added option use universal hot end height. This allows for re-using the same carriage for multiple hot ends and swapping out accessories instead if needed. This is the default behaavior now. You can still select the build height optimized version if desired.
Modified Inductive sensor mount to be a bit lighter and easier to use.
Added accessory mounting holes to E3D Titan mount, can select left, top, or right as desired.
Added runner to simple fan duct to better direct airflow, it's customizable.
Cleaned up code a bit.
** 8-31-2016 - Simple fan duct improvements.
Increased default thickness of fan duct to 1mm.
Modified default position of nozzle to be lower.
Changed angle of duct outlet to better isolate nozzle itself.
Modified positioning of duct interior to fix wall thickness issues.
** 8-24-2016 - New release! Added Titan extruder support. Added BL touch support. Added experimental 360 degree fan duct.
** 8-4-2016 - Been tweaking the new fan duct to make it easier to print. So far the results have pointed out more tweaks are needed. Still working on it. Thingiverse user universam, has created an axial fan adapter for use with mounts created by this for i3 j-head variants. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1704108
** 7-11-2016 - New fan duct is nearly complete, circular nozzle is done. Working on connection to fan. NOTE - Initially this will NOT work for chimera. Want to get this out for the other changes included. Expect a major update for all carriages later this week. Added E3D Titan direct drive, BL Touch Mount, 360 fan duct and more stable fan duct connection on cbot. Moved hotend on cbot carriage to allow for z probe to be on same side as hot end. Will update when new version is uploaded.
** 4-28-2016 - No ETA on completion. Will update the code here after each one is done.
** 2-8-2016: Updated defaults. Reduced depth of X Carriage on Prusa i3. Increased the amount of material around inductive sensor. Fixed inductive sensor mount duplication on Prusa i3.
** 1-27-2016: Added a bumper for the hot end carriage X endstop switch to hit. This bumper is mounted one of the bolts holding the XY bar on. This provides a more reliable place for the end stop to hit.
Also changed the default size of the 4mm and 5mm holes to 4.2 and 5.2 respectively.
** 1-20-2016: Updated settings for YL 99 and Keyes endstop switches for better fitment.
Added some space for solder pads on these switches as well.
** 1-12-2016: Updated dimensions and settings for YL 99 endstop switch.
Received some of these switches and updated the settings based off measurements of them.
** 1-6-2016: Added ability to modify J Head mount settings, needed for printers that
are not calibrated perfectly.
Don’t display the inductive mount unless desired.
Added default adjustment settings for J Head Mount.
Updated a lot of defaults for better fitment.
Turned on generic miniswtich for C Bot X Axis switch by default.
** 1-5-2016: Added option for covering nut traps with a small amount of material so printing is easier.
Made the covered nut traps the default.
Updated defaults for better fitment.
Made Hot End vertical placements different default values for each
carriage.
Reverted changes for J Head nut trap dimensions to fix incorrectly
covered nut trap.
Made Chimera brace height adjust to carriage placement and corner
radius.
Used correct servo dimension on C Bot carriage width calculation.
Don’t create cable tie in middle of C Bot open space, this prevents it
partially appearing when fan is moved up.
** 1-4-2016: Added x / y limit switch mount to C Bot carriage. X or Y depending on your configuration.
** 1-3-2016: Added servo based Z Probe to C Bot carriage.
Cleaned up more code.
Rewrote most of the Z Probe and servo positioning code to allow for easier adaption to various carriages.
Updated J head based hot end mounts to match documented dimensions.
Cleaned up positioning and code for cable ties.
Updated defaults to more appropriate settings.

1-1-2016: Added inductive sensor mount for all carriages.
Cleaned up some code.


12-29-2015: Cleaned up defaults so E3D mounts work.
Gave customizer users access to advanced variables.
Consolidated hot end height and depth variables.
Added explode parts option to allow All Parts option to be printable if you separate the parts in Cura or NetFabb. Default now is parts exploded.


12-28-2015: Added Hexagon and Generic J Head mounted Hot Ends.
Modified fan duct to hopefully fix tilting issue during print.
Reduced fan Duct height to make room for smaller hot ends like the standard J Head Mark V.


12-23-2015: Added J Head Mark V Hot End.


12-22-2015: Added E3D V6 and E3D V6 w/ Volcano Hot End.


12-21-2015: Added Chimera w/ Volcano and Cyclops Hot Ends.


12-20-2015: Added C Bot - Core XY carriage.
Cleaned up code to make it easier to have relative positioning of objects.
Added initial code for inductive sensor mount, this is not functional yet though. The inductive sensor stuff came along for the ride with the C Bot carriage.


12-2-2015: Started code changes to allow for selectable cold / hot end.
Added option for removing fan mount tab.
Added option for removing Z probe extension. Started code changes to allow for selectable Z Probe type.


11-27-2015: Fixed z Probe Switch mounting hole placement.
Fixed fan duct auto design to produce at least a viable fan duct when fan is placed out front.


11-25-2015: Added Z Probe Arm for Chimera with V6 hotends.
Bug fixes.
Code cleanup.
Changed default values for X carriage mount and servo bracket after testing printed objects.


11-24-2015: Fixed fan shroud connection overlap.
Changed this thing to reflect the fact that it has basic functionality for a Chimera with V6 hotends.

11-23-2015: X Carriage, Fan Mount
Servo Bracket are fully functional.
Very very basic fan shroud ready.
Feel free to chip in via git.
https://www.youtube.com/c/chrisroadfeldt/live