Dual lead screws with ONE stepper! | DIY unipolar 3D printer build part 6 - motorizing the Z-axis
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- How do you skimp on your DIY 3D printer even more when you're already using motors that were salvaged from E-waste for free? By using fewer of them of course! In this video I build a dual lead screw Z-axis driven by a single (and very underpowered) stepper motor. And somehow that included making the actual pulleys for the timing belt myself, by hand - because I wanted to 3D print my own pulleys rather than just buy them. So as a temporary solution until I get this printer up and running I decided to "just make some out of wood". Something you definitely don't have to do obviously! I also ran into quite a lot of trouble with the ABEC 1 low grade ball bearings I had planned to use - turns out on these bearings the bore isn't even centered!! Nothing some spontaneous redesigning didn't fix though.
Here's the test code I wrote to control unipolar stepper motors using a potentiometer:
drive.google.c...
GT2 pulleys were generated using this awesome piece of software:
avtehnik.githu...
And some affiliate links* to parts I got for this printer:
5pcs A4988 stepper motor drivers: s.click.aliexp...
Cheapy hotend kit: s.click.aliexp...
Arduino mega 2560: s.click.aliexp...
Geeetech PLA filament: s.click.aliexp...
4010 turbine fan: s.click.aliexp...
100k NTC temperature sensor for heated bed: s.click.aliexp...
10m nylon coated fishing line: s.click.aliexp...
Keep in mind I got a few of these items during sale, so the total might well be above $50 now (especially with inflation)
if you decide to purchase something through an affiliate link I receive a small commission
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Additional sound effects from www.zapsplat.com
Additional graphics from: www.cleanpng.com/
5:00 woah cardboard drawers fits with your diy recycling vibe
That's what you do when you're a teenager and don't have access to better materials 😅 I spent my entire teenagehood setting up this workshop in my parents basement bit by bit, and still have a lot to do 😂
@@ChronicMechatronic I have my work shop in my parents basement too but I'm only 14, and my dad is a wood worker so I have access to wood!
Cool! For important projects I used to have access to wood too, but my dad always having been a scrooge it was often easier to just use trash 😂
And now I have to say, I actually prefer recycling old stuff over using new stock, it's somehow uniquely satisfying!
@@ChronicMechatronic yeah most of my projects are recycled
Love that people still build these kind of junkstrap reprap machines from recycled parts. Lots to learn doing that.
Hearing my work being called "junkstrap" kinda hurts but I still agree... I'm definitely learning lots, primarily why 3D printers are generally built the way they are instead of how I'm doing it. And I'll try putting as much of that newfound knowledge as possible in future videos, so you guys can learn from it too
Those pulleys are genius
You are crazy 😆. I'm here because it's really looks like " from scratch" and I plan to build mine too. I 'm learning a lot. Next video.
23:57
The whole thing makes a nice and relaxing sound to be honest. awesome work btw, keep up the good stuff
Thanks! 😃
Good morning, or good night, given the jet lag. Thank you for everything you do, it's very consistent with the initial problem 😉
The Z axis anyway is the one that moves the least. One idea: offset the weight of the Z axis with pulleys and counterweights. Cost: no dollars. You still have ball bearings, small V-shaped wheels that you have already turned, excellent precaution to have made a few more, fishing line, scrap wood for the counterweights on each side!
Best regards and thanks to Google translate. 😉
You know, that arbor machining on the drill press is so me! These days, I rarely subscribe to any channel but you deserve more subscribers and I've subscribed.
6:58 wait a minute I am also not such Normal person , so let me suggest you something -
Just take your Timing belt and fold it around centred drilled Wood Wheel or anything similar in such that the groves of timing belt facing upward now you have diy Timing pully don't forget to put grease or Petrolium jelly on it 🎉🎉
The hardest part of your project I think. Hi Ben, almost 30 minutes of delicious discoveries. (FR) Salut Ben, tu es un volcan d'idées et finalement le vrai défi est de tirer parti d'éléments plus ou moins précis ou très imprécis comme ces roulements à billes peu chères (justifient leur manque de précision ;). Tu y as réussi. C'est étonnant que finalement les defauts des uns et des autres se "neutralisent" un peu quand on comprend ce qu'on fait. Excellent post, merci beaucoup pour tous tes efforts. ça tient en haleine, un vrai suspense de bout en bout. Comme la vidéo précédente, je vais la revoir 2 ou 3 fois. Tu as la minutie et une patience Japonaise. Fouille ton arbre généalogique et tu serais étonné d'avoir un aïeul Nippon ;)
Thanks for continuing this series
Well it seems people are now quite interested in it after all :)
10:56 i also did the same , thinking same but will tittle harder pipes of Ro filter
Piping by combination to thickness 5 and ≈ 9
Mine plan was to cut some sprial to the pipe to make it flexible in spin Directions .
True, that's another possibly 👍
ANYTHING can be done if you just try hard enough!
And you really prove it
23:30 You might try the lighting department instead of general nuts and bolts. A lot of lamp parts are brass, so they'll probably have some nuts over there.
I wish you would have put that Z belt up on top instead of underneath. I did that on my milling machine and it's super handy being able to pull on the belt to quickly move the Z axis up and down (with the stepper disabled, of course).
Those pulleys are indeed very impressive :) And nice to see you know about the super glue surface hardening trick.
Yeah, that's an idea... For my laser cutter I found threaded inserts made out of brass, those should do the trick.
I see what you mean with the belt up top, it's used on the few single stepper dual lead screw setups out there. Guess that's something I'll change on the next 3D printer... Reason I didn't do it was because the puny 5mm lead screws needed 2 bearings close to the pulley, otherwise the tension of the belt would have ended up bending them. I didn't want to put all that weight on top to prevent the printer from becoming too top-heavy.
Omg Is that even legal?
I am in awe of your skills and patience with miniature wood
Doing it with wood is illegal 😂
Though these pulleys sadly didn't always work as well as in this video - you'll see in the newest video coming out tomorrow!
I really need to get into machining, metal would allow me to give in to my obsession with accuracy 😁
That's a Great series, seeing forward for the next part
Soundtrack is great as usual, including that strange yiddish balade (I guess).
That's funny, because it's still all tracks from the official RUclips Audio Library nobody uses anymore because they deem it "too unprofessional".
Or maybe no one knows how to select a music that helps set the mood for a particular section of the video rather than be annoying...
Either way thanks for noticing, piecing the audio together is actually more than half of the editing...
I try to imagine what kind of super-project you would have if you had a lathe... or a 3D printer, a CNC or a laser cutter...
I feel kind of conflicted with those modern maker CNC tools... On the one hand, yes, the possibilities those tools open up are endless, the complex shapes that can be created at high accuracies are game changing. On the other hand it takes insane amounts of time to fully model those parts in CAD and set up the respective machine for a successful execution. The same time it would've taken me to chuck a piece of material in a few machines and do it myself. Additionally I think the convenience of pushing a button on a computer and having a finished part plop out of a machine will slowly kill creativity in the long run, just like social media kills our attention span...
A lathe, welder, mill etc. yes please! As they say, necessity is the mother of invention!
Im making a cnc engraver out of salvage parts and my main issue is g code parameter parts
3:05 thank god you mentioned this, I noticed the same problem with my lead screw, which is 8mm diameter 1 meter long, when I put it on the floor I noticed it was wobbling ( even with the bearing) I found that one of the screws had a small bend so I tried to force it manually to make it straight but I didn't succeed perfectly , initially I thought it wouldn't matter much because it will not be in load so a little bit of wobbling would be good as it will adjust itself when it will be placed between two parallel rods or LR but after listening to your words i am a bit worried can you explain that in this situation what could go wrong?
I think it all depends on how thick and sturdy your gantry is. An 8mm threaded rod at 1 meter length will easily have a 3-5mm wobble straightened out by a decently strong gantry. For 1-2mm even a single 20x20 extrusion (for reference) should be strong enough I'd guess. Basically what happens is, the force required to straighten the lead screw is what will push the carriage in all directions it isn't supposed to go. All you need, is to have the axis of the machine (smooth rods, linear rails etc.) strong enough to not get bent over the acceptable limit by that force. It's kinda hard to explain...
Ways to work around that, would be to only mount one side of the lead screw with bearings and have the other end flop around more or less freely (like I did in this video). Alternatively you could mount the nut in a way that allows it to move laterally and follow the wobble of the screw. Though that's by far the most complicated way of solving it, because every freedom of lateral movement will potentially also increase backlash...
@@ChronicMechatronic thanks for suggestions , I will also try to straight them if possible.
Finally your channel get money tuze i happy for you, th ou doing great, but putt more video for more growth
I literally cannot do more than two videos a month, it's too much work 🥲
“Bumi you’re a mad Genius”
25:00 I wonder how he will behave under load
I hope he doesn't lose speed.
Should be fine I think, with the threaded rod the motor has a lot of mechanical advantage and the hotend + X-carriage aren't going to add a lot of mass to the X-axis
you know better ))
@@ChronicMechatronic
I'm not always right ;) I was genuinely disappointed by how little torque the stepper actually has. Though for normal operation it should suffice, especially when I replace the wooden pulleys with lower friction 3D printed ones...
You can run your motor as a bipolar motor if you want to. I had such crappy motors and running them in bipolar mode gave them more torque. But you won't use the unipolar motor drivers, the cheap A4988 motor driver will do.
That's what I'm planning to do!
I wouldn't know how to modify the software to run control unipolar steppers anyway...
You should totally approach one of those Chinese mini lathe companies for a sponsorship/review.
That's actually an awesome idea, thank you! I don't know if my channel is influential enough yet to warrant such a big "present" from a company, but you're right, why not use it to get the things I can't pay for by myself, it never hurts to try!
WoooooHOoooooo IT LIVES!!!!!!!
What's the case with brass nuts btw.. what about steel nut
You can use steel nuts of course, as long as you keep them well lubricated they'll work just fine. Thing is, if you run steel on steel it'll wear out both, the lead screws and the nut, whereas the softer brass wears out much faster so you'll only have to replace the nut rather than both which is a lot easier and inexpensive. Additionally brass is generally kind of low friction on steel, hence why bronze bushings in motors are a thing...
But yeah, as difficult as brass nuts are to come by, at least using standard threaded rod as lead screws it may even be cheaper (or at least easier) to occasionally replace the entire lead screw than finding brass nuts
The ending run really reminds me of teletubbies when the speakers slowly com out from the ground with ASMR mechanical squeak. And nothing else happening on screen
Lol
@@ChronicMechatronic ya know what I'm talking about, right?? Hahaha teletubbies was my fav when I was a kid hahaha
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"eppur si muove" 😅