Getting into 3D Printing [Aurora Z605]

[rrileypm]

Thanks to my buddy Eric at Geekbuying.com, I was able to purchase a reasonably priced 3D printer for my son for Christmas. He's 15...and kind of an engineering type...and for the last 6 months he's been bugging me about getting him one....LIKE REALLY BUGGING ME. His other love is baseball...so it didn't surprise me that the first print job was a baseball cap as you can see in the picture.

I've decided to start this thread to share our experiences in getting the thing built and set up.

Now, my wife was not in agreement or the least bit supportive about this project...but at the last minute we both convinced her that the $1,000 printers she was looking at weren't all that necessary. A few days before Christmas, Eric came through with a discount and I purchased an Aurora Z605. You do need to figure in a little more in the budget for shipping costs, because there is no free shipping.

Because of the delay in making the decision to buy...the box didn't make it until the day after Christmas. But my son was extremely happy...because I let him know he was getting it. There was also a delay in actually getting a variety of filaments to print with...so until they arrive, we are trying to conserve the included demo filament.

Overall, it took us 2 days to put the thing together. The directions come on a DVD with a PowerPoint and some videos that show you each step in the assembly process. Because of a few Chinese/English translation kinks...towards the end it became a little bit rocky...but I'm happy to say that we now have a working 3D printer...after another 2 days of trying to figure out the software.

The problem with the instructions is that once the printer is built, it doesn't explain at all what to do to get your first print job started. I will try to add a post with how we got the thing to finally print. It involves a proper mix of extruder heat and fan cooling among other things.

I have an old Avertech laptop with Windows 7 on it I was planning on dedicating to just 3D printing, but due to the unique device driver setup on the laptop (with many proprietary parts)...I gave up even trying to use it...and went to the family Windows 7 Acer desktop (for now, anyway). The drivers and software loaded right away.

I will be adding some pictures and videos on this thread as we get more relaxed with the features and have a few prints under our belts.

This has been a very cool father and son project...that neither one of us has totally lost it. I've just watched and offered suggestions...and he's done all of the work.

I can't show you the unboxing part (which is usually pretty dry anyway) because the box showed up while I was at work...and the framework was already put together when I got home. The videos provided on the DVD were very good examples. Except my son put the frame together backwards and didn't discover it until the thing was pretty much built...so we had to do our own design adjustments to keep from having to disassemble and start over again.

One thing I must warn you about if you get one of these is that the DVD contains an app called Driver Genius. DO NOT USE THIS APP UNLESS YOU CAN READ CHINESE. While it may actually contain the ability to load the drivers for you...this app is FULL OF CHINESE SPAM that you can't get rid of unless you can read Chinese. I was able to install the drivers the hard way by turning off the option that makes Windows search Windows Update for the driver before allowing you to browse your drive for the real drivers.

Stay tuned for future posts...and feel free to chime in if you have anything to add. Jackson and I still have a bunch of learning to do with these things.

[clarkss12]

Looking forward to hear all the details, thanks for sharing.

[rrileypm]

Yeah, really I was worried that we should have invested a lot more money in a printer that the reviews were better on. I read that the controller and extruder needed to be changed out to higher quality parts.

But you know what? This thing really does a nice job of printing. We've done a tiny baseball cap and a toy top (keeping things small because we have very little filament to play with so far). I really didn't have very high expectations...but I'm very pleased with the results.

I'm just looking forward to getting some more filament to make some bigger objects.

[rrileypm]

One confusing part of the building process was choosing the correct wiring scheme.

The DVD contains two different diagrams. The one of the left is a jpg file in the PCB Connections folder in the hardware folder. The one on the right is from the PowerPoint.

As you can see they are different boards and different instructions.

We found that all of the motors should be set from top to bottom: Yellow, Red, Blue, Green

[rrileypm]

Another important thing to do is to open and read the User Manual PowerPoint on the DVD.

The software they use is Repetier Host. It's a pretty nice app, but not very user friendly for newbies like us. The manual suggests that you install the older version first and then upgrade to the newer version. They don't explain why, but I assume there is a setting they want to pick up from the earlier version that isn't included in the newer version.

What we did was go to the Repetier Host site and download and install v1.0.6 without installing either of the versions from the DVD. It works fine for us.

[rrileypm]

The driver installation part is a little tricky.

As I mentioned in post #1, I first tried it on an old laptop I was wanting to dedicate to just 3D printing. I should have known better...because in the past I always had trouble loading drivers of any external device on that laptop. So I went to the trusty old family desktop.

Before installing the drivers, I suggest you turn off the Windows default to search for the driver on Windows Update. You do this by:

1. From the Start Menu, go to : Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Hardware -> Settings for device installation.
2. Check "No, let me decide" and "Never install drivers from Windows update".

Then with the 3D printer powered up, plug in the USB to your PC and the driver installation process will begin. Manually browse to where the appropriate drivers for your PC are on the DVD and install them. There will be two different devices that pop up in Device Manager which will require a driver.

[rrileypm]

We couldn't get the printer to do anything until I found this little item in the PowerPoint.

[rrileypm]

One thing that took us a little while to discover was that what you do in manual mode doesn't carry over to a print job.

For instance, if you turn on the fan and heat up the bed and extruder in manual mode...when you start a print job, the whole process starts over. The print jobs will control the heat levels.

If you start a print job and you already have the fan and heat running, the fan will keep the extruder from achieving the correct temperature to start the job.

Also, if you need to hit the emergency stop button during a print job, we've found that we always have to power down the printer and disconnect the USB and reset everything before we can start a new print job.

Make sure you have the bed adjusted to the correct height. The end of the extruder needs to be about the thickness of a sheet of paper above the bed. Otherwise, if it's set too low, when you start a print job...the tip of the extruder will gouge the bed (or at least mess up the painter's tape on top of it).

Among the supplies you need is a fresh roll of painter's masking tape to keep the top of the bed looking nice.

[rrileypm]

My first impressions of the end product from this printer is very positive.

While it's printing, you are wondering what in the world it's doing...there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to how it processes the job...but when it's done you have a very convincing 3D model.

Our first object was a baseball cap which didn't resemble a baseball cap until the job was almost complete.

Since then we tried two different toy top designs (trying to keep things small to conserve filament). Both tops were perfectly round and spun as well as any top I ever played with when I was a kid.

I've started accumulating some larger, more aggressive designs to try when my filament order arrives.

[gascan360]

Uploading Firmware?

The driver installation part is a little tricky.

As I mentioned in post #1, I first tried it on an old laptop I was wanting to dedicate to just 3D printing. I should have known better...because in the past I always had trouble loading drivers of any external device on that laptop. So I went to the trusty old family desktop.

Before installing the drivers, I suggest you turn off the Windows default to search for the driver on Windows Update. You do this by:

1. From the Start Menu, go to : Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Hardware -> Settings for device installation.
2. Check "No, let me decide" and "Never install drivers from Windows update".

Then with the 3D printer powered up, plug in the USB to your PC and the driver installation process will begin. Manually browse to where the appropriate drivers for your PC are on the DVD and install them. There will be two different devices that pop up in Device Manager which will require a driver.

I am in the process of getting the software installed. My dad and I have also had trouble getting the firmware "Marlin" installed via the Arduino IDE program, the "Melzi" board is not a selected board option and ive been ripping my hair out over this. Any ideas? Does the Melzi board allready have firmware installed?


A more important question would be, what driver do you install. It says in that power point to unzip the 'FTDI USB Drivers' but what driver is the right one?

[rrileypm]

We didn't need to flash any firmware...just started using the app provided. I will get my son to help me post his process.

[Alan R]

nice therad

[Willy_HSV]

Sounds way to familiar...

Hey, I got the Aurora Z605 for Christmas also. Very first thing that I did was brake one of the motor mounts (they gave 2 extras, and I now now why). The instructions were horrid. Especially for the x axis. I put on the belt and it had 4-5 inches extra hanging out, so I trimmed it up. Then I tried to put the x axis on the z and found out the instructions had me use the shorter rods. So then my belt was to short. I barely have it holding the Y axis now and told the distributor I needed a new one because of their typo. I also had to take apart and re build the y bed multiple times. They sent me differerent parts than what were in the instructions. Then I had ball bearings fall out of something (I think the y axis bushings). Then after tweaking the crud out of the frame, I finally had x and y moving freely. Then I had major issues with z axis. The screw rods were bent and warped slightly, causing it to bind. Then among the 50 times I assembled/reassembled it, I was noticing that the z guide rods would not naturally rest in the holes on the motor mounts. So I ended up tilting the motors by a washer in the back, to force it to fit better. Oh, I also had all motors running backwards and had to flip the wires from what they said. It is very frustrating working with these, but I guess that is what we get for paying much less than the pre-assembled ones. Also, my right x axis brace has a crack in it, and I dont know if he will replace that or not.

The software was easier for me. Of course, I was using the web to find my information out. I downloaded a good little program for controlling it, and use this to get the axis from binding. Then I used the software that came with it to try some test prints. Since I ordered 1.75 filament instead of 3mm, I only have the sample stuff to work with right now. First I did a bed test and it was terrible (This was after I already set the bed level). Then I tried a little cross, which did not come out well, but the kids knew what it was and were fighting over it. Then I tried it again with settings changed and during this build, it was going great, right up to the point the y axis belt came off. Ugh. So now I am trying to jerry-rig a tensioner on the y axis so I can print a better tensioner. By then I should have some more filament in so I can start building again.

[rrileypm]

Luckily, my son was looking for a really difficult project to take on with this setup. We did experience some of the similar things you mentioned...but did get the belt working without trimming it.

Just an update on our progress.

It seems that the bed has to be adjusted and leveled before every printing job. That's kind of a pain...but manageable.

There are some designs that require quite a bit of tweaking...especially if there is a lot of support fill required. It wants to print the support structure, but it leaves out the actual design sometimes....still trying to figure that one out.

While my son was out of school for the holidays, there was a lot of 3D printing going on. But now with school back in session (and all of the other activities associated with school)...we haven't had time for as much work on the printer.

I now have stacks of filament spools laying around waiting on something to be made with them.

The good thing about this particular model is that there are lots of DIY tweaks that are available to improve things as you go.