The 3D printer repair is complete! New stepper motor, new belts and pulleys, new second hotend, and a full teardown and rebuild!
I made our Velleman Vertex k8400 sing again and I’m very happy about it.
A quick summary of what I did:
- Replaced the Y-axis stepper motor
- Replaced the second hotend’s heating block, thermistor, heating element, nozzle, and the brass block they all slotted into.
- Removed belts, pulleys, and rods, and cleaned everything with WD-40 and rubbing alcohol, then re-lubricated everything
- Replaced the T2.5 belts and 19-tooth pulleys with T2 belts and 20-tooth pulleys
- Changed the steps-per-mm math to accommodate the new measurements on the belts
- Tuned and retuned the PID settings so the heaters can get to temperature quicker and maintain it in a much more stable way
This video features my first dual-extruder prints, my first print using standalone Cura instead of Repetier, and a bunch of finished prints! Also a weird bug thing.
The thing I struggled with the most when working on the printer was definitely the fact that any time spent working on it was time taken away from other projects. Anyone who works on 3D printers – and does 3D printer repair – absolutely knows about the kind of time sink they can be. It’s easy to forget, when they’re not working, what amazing tools they can be for empowering your creativity.
Repair is one thing, tuning is quite another. This is where using Cura really came into play. The software I was using – Vertex Repetier – was never very good. I made the terrible assumption that it was going to be the best option for my printer because it was the one with the manufacturer-built profiles. Boy, was I wrong. Cura’s profiles, plus my tweaking, were way better than anything I’d ever managed in Repetier.
See the other posts about this here (where I get started) and here (where I keep it going).
Until next time, paddle your own canoe.
– Trevor
Love that t-shirt.
Thanks! That was a gift from my wife. ^_^ She knows me well.
[…] So the printer works well. In getting there, it’s bred an instinct in me where I tinker and improve and upgrade and am constantly, constantly looking for opportunities to improve. It’s like I’ve said to people getting into 3D printing – it’s as much a lifestyle as it is a tool. […]