More upgrades to the large Delta 3D printer

In this post I describe three further upgrades: 24V power, moving the electronics under the bed, and the Robotdigg aluminium effector.

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Upgrading the large delta printer

In my previous entry I described my large Kossel-derivative delta printer. Since building it, I have upgraded it in a number of ways, which I will now describe.

Building a large delta 3D printer

In this entry I describe how I built a largish delta printer based on the Kossel design. It started up as an upgrade to the Mini Kossel that I describe in earlier posts, but now there is very little of the Mini Kossel left in it.

Upgrading the Mini Kossel to Duet Electronics Part 4: the Z probe

In earlier posts in this series, I described how to install and connect Duet electronics on a Mini Kossel, how to install and configure the firmware, and how to calibrate the printer. In this post I cover using a Z probe.

Upgrading the Mini Kossel to Duet Electronics Part 3: Calibration

In the third part of this mini-series, I will cover final commissioning of the Mini Kossel with Duet electronics.

Upgrading the Mini Kossel to Duet Electronics Part 2: Software and Commissioning

In Part 1 of this two-part series, I covered the hardware changes needed to use Duet electronics with the Mini Kossel in place of Arduino/RAMPS electronics. In this second part, I will cover installing the software and the first stages of commissioning the printer. Part 3 will cover the remainder of the commissioning process, including calibration.

Upgrading the Mini Kossel to Duet Electronics Part 1: Hardware

The Mini Kossel delta 3D printer is available in kit form from various suppliers, including Think3DPrint3d (T3P3) in the UK. The kits currently supplied by TPT3 include an Arduino Mega and a RAMPS board to control the printer with Marlin firmware. Although this combination can drive the Mini Kossel, a number of delta 3D printer owners have commented that this combination of electronics and firmware is barely able to handle the demands of a delta printer and attached LCD display. Users who have attempted to add a 128×64 graphics display have reported very poor performance of the display while printing.

Today, 32-bit embedded processors are cheap. So there is no longer any reason to use 8-bit controllers to drive 3D printers. A few  32-bit controllers boards are available, including the Smoothieboard and the Duet. The Smoothieboard has been described elsewhere. In these articles, I will describe how to upgrade a Mini Kossel built from a T3P3 kit to use Duet electronics and associated firmware. This article describes the hardware, and the following article will describe software configuration and commissioning.