Bradley Spillert – Eames CoreXY
I have previously owned a “from a kit 3d printer”, after having built that and tinkering with it for several years before this I knew it was time for an upgrade. These past two semesters (and summer of 20’) I have slowly built up to what I have now.
This fully custom 3d printer was designed fully in CAD (Fusion 360) before ever being built.
Some of its more notable features include:
Core-XY kinematic system
300x300x400mm (x y z) build volume
200+mm/s print speed
120V AC 1/3in aluminum plate heated bed
Triple z-axis(single drive) lead screw
Automatic 3-point bed leveling
32-bit ARM based control board
Full 2020 aluminum construction
5x MGN12 linear rails
This project took several months. Everything was designed and built by hand, from cutting the aluminum with a hacksaw to soldering the wires. The basic steps for building the printer was as follows: (1) Cut ~15 meters of 2020 aluminum, assemble and make sure the frame was absolutely perfectly square. (2) Build coreXY motion system, again making sure the MGN12 linear rails are absolutely perfectly square. (3) Design print head based off several other open sources designs. (4) Build triple z-axis lead screw bed. (5) Wire everything. (6) Modify Marlin 2.0 firmware heavily so it works with this custom build. (7) Several months of trouble shooting and tweaking.
There were nearly endless challenges in building this printer, however some of the notable ones are as follows: Getting the stepper motor drivers working correctly with the Marlin 2.0 firmware allowing the printer to operate at high speeds. The frame had to be rebuild several times to make sure it was square, similarly to the linear rails which also had to be perfectly square. The automatic bed leveling, and the entire bed system was one of the longest to debug, to make sure it was consistently level each and every time. And more!
The estimated budget used was ~$550.
bspillert@umass.edu
bradleyspillert@gmail.com
Additional pictures + video: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LLD-ga1iQahDiBGNQZwZwuXIvzfFZ6n4?usp=sharing
Bradley Spillert – Computer Engineering, 2021 – bspillert@umass.edu, bradleyspillert@gmail.com
