Tantillus & Prusa 3d printer build updates

A brief update on the build status of my prototype version of Brad’s (aka Sublime) forthcoming Tantillus 3d printer and my Prusa Mendel Reprap printer.

Last weekend, Brad & I mounted most of the printed parts, motors and hardware for the extruder and build platform. Part of that exercise was for Brad to see how difficult it was for someone else (me) to assemble the internal parts (it’s tricky!) and for us to get an idea of how to document the build process for others.

Mechanically, it’s complete except for the bowden cable. We still need to source some tubing for the 1.75mm filament I plan on using. Brad’s also been fine tuning some of the printed parts to better match the sourced vitamin hardware.

Last night I started wiring the LCD panel and encoder wheel as well as mounting them to the front of the printer. As I’m building the wood cut version, I had to drill holes in the front. The lasercut acrylic version will come pre-drilled (and it’s seethru so the LCD will be on the inside).

I used this LCD cover I found on Thingiverse and it fits perfectly and cleans up the front nicely although I may reprint it in ABS instead of the PLA that is shown which is semi-transparent so the backlight leaks through.

The LCD & encoder are wired the same way as the PanelMax addon is that I recently integrated into my Prusa:

This is thanks to the excellent printed parts and tutorial TommyC posted on Thingiverse. It really makes a huge difference in using the Prusa without a computer…I simply slice my 3d models using Slic3r, then put the gcode file onto a microSD card (I’m still using my SDRamps board and not Tommy’s SD card reader in the PanelMAX). Power up the Prusa and navigate to the file and click on it. The bot then starts heating the bed, then homes the axis and starts printing as soon as the hotend is to temperature. I’m using Marlin with the Prusa now but am still having issues printing taller objects as I seem to have something off in my Z height configuration. You can see in this photo of two Yoda’s…the one on the left was printed using Sprinter firmware and the one on the right is with my Marlin build (latest as of last week):

A little squished vertically thanks to Marlin settings. More troubleshooting & recalibration to come!

I’m still waiting for my RAMPS 1.4 kit and power supply to come in before I can fire up the Tantillus but they are enroute so hopefully very soon.

UPDATE: Fixed the Marlin issue by turning down the current on the Z driver…it was overheating due to being on during the entire print at a high current so was basically going into protection mode on every layer, hence the weird behavior. My Sprinter config had the Z axis disabled when not in use which also works in Marlin but it works better if it’s always on. (Thanks to Brad for solving this!)