Category Archives: 3D Printing

Upgrading the Wanhao D7

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The first part of this upgrade is dealt with in another post on my blog

The Wanhao D7 has a lot of promise, but is let down badly by the pretty useless UV LED array – Due to the size, there is a pretty intense hotspot in the centre, while exposure drops off towards the edges of the build plate. This makes it impossible to get consistent results across the entire build plate.

Phrozen released the ParaLED upgrade, which is a full size replacement for the UV source. As it is a generic upgrade, I have produced a shroud which allows you to remove the fan from the ParaLED heatsink and mount it on the mounting already present on the base of the D7. This has an added advantage of giving a more even airflow over the heatsink and eliminating the dead spot caused by the fan hub. The shroud also positions the ParaLED at the correct distance from the LCD. The ParaLED is becoming difficult to find, but if you google it, you may come up with some still for sale

I have also removed the Wanhao board and replaced it with a Raspberry Pi running nanoDLP and a nanoDLP shield, making the machine stand-alone.

Finally, I have replaced the stepper motor, coupler and leadscrew with an integrated motor/leadscrew. This eliminates the inaccuracies caused by the coupler expanding and contracting.

Procedure for setting up the nanoDLP shield are documented in an earlier post. The STL files, nanoDLP Machine Profile, etc are supplied here on Thingiverse

I have used a 4.3″ Nextion. In case you want to use a different size screen (more easily supported by the nanoDLP/Nextion integration), I have included the SolidWorks part file for the front cover in the Thingiverse project so that you can adjust the cutout and mounting lugs to suit your screen. If you are using the 4.3 inch screen, I have created HMI and TFT files based on the HMI for the 3.2 inch screen, and included them in the Thingiverse project for you to use when setting up your Nextion screen

In addition to the D7, Nextion and ParaLED, you will need the following:

  • An SSR-25 solid state relay – 3-32V DC input, 5-60V DC switching capability
  • An optical endstop
  • Plugs, pins and a crimp tool suitable for the on-board sockets of the shield
  • Cable suitable for hooking everything up
  • If you so desire, a Nema 17 stepper with integrated leadscrew (An adaptor is included in the printed parts if you want to do this)

The upgrade procedure is as follows:

1. Strip the D7. This is a ground-up rebuild

2. Print the parts. On the Base Extension, tap all 2.5mm diameter holes to M3. Leave the 3.5mm holes

3. Drill the original Wanhao steel base plate according to the drilling guide PDF

4. The back and left side of the ParaLED has aluminium plates attached. Remove and discard. Drill two holes in the front of the lens plate suitable for mounting the “Upper Shroud – Front” printed part. Remove the fan mounted to the ParaLED heatsink. Assemble the ParaLED to the “Shroud v2” part and attach the “Upper Shroud -Front” and “Upper Shroud – Rear” parts. The completed assembly is shown below:

5. Mount a 60mm fan to the base plate, so that it draws in air from under the machine. It is advisable to fit a filter. Do not use any of the fans that came with the ParaLED, they are 24v and will not move air.

6. Mount the ParaLed Assembly to the base plate using 6 M4x10 screws. Make sure the fan wires exit through the cutout on the base of the shroud. Mount the “Base Extension v4” part to the base plate. Use 4 M3x10mm screws. Note that two of the screws which go through from the top, where the power socket plate used to mount and two go in from underneath. Screw on the rear feet through the base plate into the base extension using M3x14mm screws – You must drill out the rear feet mounting holes with a 3.5mm drill prior to assembly.

7. Mount the various bits and pieces (Excluding the HDMI/MIPI board) on the base extension. Use M3x18mm for the Raspberry Pi and shield (use the shield standoffs between the two), M3x6mm to mount the LED power unit and solid state relay and 1 M3x14mm and one M3x10mm to mount the PSU. Make sure you run an earth wire from the PSU earth screw to the 4mm hole you drilled and tapped on the base plate

8. Remove the USB and HDMI sockets from the rear bracket. Cut off the excess where the sockets used to be, so that the bracket only holds the power socket, and is 66mm wide. Mark and drill a mounting hole that will line up with the hole in the base extension. Mount the bracket on the base extension

9. Temporarily mount the top plate. Stick the MIPI/LCD adaptor board to the side of the ParaLED lens plate with double sided tape, ensuring that the MIPI cable socket faces the rear of the machine and that the LED ribbon cable is not under any strain. Stick the MIPI/HDMI board to the base extension using double sided tape, ensuring that there is no strain on the MIPI ribbon cable. When all is correct, unplug the LCD screen and remove the top plate

10. Cable everything up. I used a 10cm HDMI cable sourced from AliExpress and a Mini USB cable also sourced from AliExpress that I cut and crimped a plug onto which mates with the 5V out socket on the shield to power the MIPI board. The SSR is used to switch the LED constant current supply – do not switch this directly from the nanoDLP shield.

11. Attach the Nextion and a 60mm fan to the front cover and install the front cover. Do not use a fan from the ParaLED kit, they are 24v and will not move enough air – YOU WILL KILL YOUR LCD SCREEN IF YOU IGNORE THIS!

12. Install the fully assembled top cover (including motor, sensor, etc.)

13. Install the upper endstop to the top of the Z axis.

14. Attach the 60mm fan to the rear cover and install

Notes

1. This is intended for a v1.5 machine, or one that has been upgraded to v1.5
2. The intention is to run positive pressure in the case. All three fans should be blowing IN.
3. The maximum width fan that can fit in the rear cover is a 6010. you can use 6020s for the shroud and front cover fans
4. The motor driver on the shield must be set up according to instructions on my blog: https://collingwood.me.uk/blog/index.php/raspberry-pi-and-the-nanodlp-shield-v1-1/
5. The machine profile from this thing must be loaded
6. For resin profiles… Currently, you’re on your own. I’ll post any working ones I develop on this thing at a later stage, feel free to add working ones you develop in the comments
7. If anything goes wrong – you’re on your own. I’m not sitting in front of your machine, and I didn’t make any of the changes made to your machine. If you do not understand basic electronics and mechanics, do not attempt this.

Raspberry Pi and the nanoDLP Shield v1.1

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07 Apr 2019 – Update – nanoDLP now natively supports the Nextion (In Beta at the moment, but the beta runs nice and stable). Accordingly, the procedure has been updated

I am in the process of rebuilding my Wanhao D7, which includes dumping the Wanhao logic board and replacing it with a Raspberry Pi, putting a 4.3 inch Nextion touchscreen in the front panel and replacing the utterly useless UV light source with a full size array.

This post deals with the first two items.

I got myself a Fysetc nanoDLP shield (v.1.), which seems pretty cool and well designed. Unfortunately, it’s not all that well documented, so I’ve gone through the pain of getting it running, and documented it here, so you don’t have to.

A few notes:
• These instructions are for a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. They may not work for other models
• The shield provides power to the Raspberry Pi. You do not have to apply power separately to the Pi
• When setting the motor reference voltage, measure between ground and the potentiometer wiper.
• For some applications (Like replacing the Wanhao D7 mainboard), you will need to reverse the motor direction
• Right at the end of all of this, I had to update nanoDLP again from the browser as per step 2.4 in order to get the Z motor to work

1. Prepare the Shield

Setting the correct reference voltage for current limiting is absolutely essential, as the entire system will shut down if the current limit is set too high. This is a major cause of people giving up on these shields early on in the game

1.1. The shield uses a DRV8825 stepper driver. Conventional wisdom out on the web suggests using the following formula to get the correct current limiting:

VREF = Current/2

However, for these shields, that formula is INCORRECT! The reason for this is simple; The standard Pololu style drivers using these chips usually use 0.1 Ohm sense resisters. However, these shields use 0.01 Ohm sense resisters, so the correct formula is:

VREF = Current/20

2. Install and update nanoDLP

2.1. Install nanoDLP on an SD card, following the instructions on the nanoDLP website

2.2. Insert it in the Pi and power it. After a while you should be able to get the webpage up. It shouldn’t matter what distribution you choose as we will load a machine profile later, but just for simplicity choose the nanoDLP generic version. The Pi will reboot

2.3. Once it has rebooted, click on the Setup then Tools tabs. Click on the Expand Filesystem button. The Pi will reboot. This will take a while and it depends on the size of your SD card

2.4. Once it has rebooted, click on the Setup then Tools tabs again. Click on the Upgrade nanoDLP button. in the new page, click on the “Upgrade to latest beta version” button. After a while, the Pi will reboot

2.5. By default, the shield turns on the UV lamp on power up, and only turns it off once nanoDLP has booted and taken control. There is now a possibility to turn it off by setting the relevant GPIO to an output and driving it low at boot time. This usually requires a firmware update as the nanoDLP firmware does not have this facility.

SSH onto the Pi
Check the firmware:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Mar 16 2018 16:21:29
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version db815f3ae3dc88cf21fed2765f3b25d9d2bea67a (clean) (release)
pi@raspberrypi:~ $

We can see from this particular output that the build date is 16/03/2018 (I use the correct format for a date, DD/MM/YYYY, not the stupid American one). If the build date is earlier than 21/03/18, update it:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo rpi-update
*** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom
*** Performing self-update
*** Relaunching after update
*** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom
#############################################################
This update bumps to rpi-4.14.y linux tree
Be aware there could be compatibility issues with some drivers
Discussion here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=197689
##############################################################
*** Downloading specific firmware revision (this will take a few minutes)
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 168 0 168 0 0 25 0 --:--:-- 0:00:06 --:--:-- 42
100 56.2M 100 56.2M 0 0 1213k 0 0:00:47 0:00:47 --:--:-- 2105k
*** Updating firmware
*** Updating kernel modules
*** depmod 4.14.97-v7+
*** depmod 4.14.97+
*** Updating VideoCore libraries
*** Using HardFP libraries
*** Updating SDK
*** Running ldconfig
*** Storing current firmware revision
*** Deleting downloaded files
*** Syncing changes to disk
*** If no errors appeared, your firmware was successfully updated to 883750dcbdfb4be32d6bc579258a07c9f664ea77
*** A reboot is needed to activate the new firmware
pi@raspberrypi:~ $

Reboot the Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo reboot

2.6. Update the OS – SSH into the Pi and run the following commands:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo unlink /etc/dhcpcd.conf
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo cp /boot/nanodlp-dhcp.txt /etc/dhcpcd.conf
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get update
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo ln -s /boot/nanodlp-dhcp.txt /etc/dhcpd.conf

Reboot the Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo reboot

3. Prepare the boot config for HDMI, GPIO and Nextion.

Note that the HDMI section is for a 2k LCD panel – you will have to change it to suit your particular panel

3.1. Edit /boot/config.txt and add the following to the end of the file

# Additions for NanoDLP Shield v1.1 and Nextion

# Set up the GPIO that controls the UV array as
# an output and drive it low as soon as possible
# after power up.
# This gets around the default shield behaviour
# of turning on the array and leaving it on until
# NanoDLP is loaded.
# *** Requires firmware with a build date of 21/03/18 or later ***
gpio=5=op,dl

# Addition for Nextion screen
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt

# CAMERA SETTINGS ( 1 = ON, 0 = OFF)
#start_x=1
disable_camera_led=1

# DISPLAY SETTINGS
display_rotate=0x10000
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_timings=1440 0 50 10 35 2560 0 4 2 2 0 0 0 50 0 198000000 0
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_pixel_freq_limit=500000000
hvs_priority=0x32ff
max_framebuffer_width=1440
max_framebuffer_height=2560
framebuffer_width=1440
framebuffer_height=2560
framebuffer_depth=24
framebuffer_ignore_alpha=1
config_hdmi_boost=4
gpu_mem=192

Reboot the Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo reboot

You will notice that the blue LED next to the power terminals goes out on reboot. This is a good thing, it means that UV output is turned OFF.

3.2. Set up the serial interface and localisation
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo raspi-config

Scroll down to “Localisation Options” and hit enter

When done, hit the Tab key to get to the bottom row and the right arrow key to select back.

When back in the main config screen, scroll down to “Interfacing Options” and hit enter

Scroll down to “Serial” and hit enter. Select “No” for the first question:

Select “Yes” for the second question:

Hit enter when presented with the selection feedback screen:

Use the Tab key to access the bottom selections, select “Finish” and hit enter.

Hit enter to reboot:

3.3. Disable Bluetooth:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl disable hciuart

Reboot the Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo reboot

3.4. Disable the console:

Edit /boot/cmdline.txt. It will look something like this

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=b94f2c65-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait

remove any console entries, so that it becomes similar to this:

dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 root=PARTUUID=b94f2c65-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait

Reboot the Pi:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo reboot

3.5. Update the firmware on the Nextion screen – Download the correct TFT file from the nanoDLP Download page for your screen, copy it to an SD card, insert the SD card in the SD card reader of the screen (NOT the Raspberry Pi) and power on the screen. Updating will take just a few seconds, and the screen will tell you when it’s done.

4. Set up nanoDLP to use the shield and Nextion

Connect to nanoDLP using your web browser. Click “Setup” and select “Machine Settings”

4.1. Printer Settings

4.2. Movement GPIOs

4.3. 3D Printer Board
Don’t bother setting anything here. Enabling GPIOs in the step above disables this section

4.4. Codes
You will need to add codes specific to your printer here. I can’t tell you what they will be

4.5. Shutter

4.6. Display
You will need to add entries specific to your screen here. I can’t tell you what they will be. In order to save all of the settings you make in this section, you must at least set XY resolution

4.7. Platform/Resin
You will need to add entries specific to your screen here. I can’t tell you what they will be.

4.8. Motor
You will need to add entries specific to your screen here. I can’t tell you what they will be.

4.9. Camera Module
Leave as is

4.10. AMLCD
Leave as is

4.11. Physical Buttons
Leave as is

4.12. Hardware Fault Detection

4.13. Various Settings
If you are using a remote instance of nanDLP to slice, set the IP address and port. Set the Nextion port address.

Don’t forget to hit the Submit button

Cleaning the Anycubic Ultrabase

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I got myself one of those Anycubic Ultrabase kits at the same time I designed and installed underbed piezo sensors in my Anet A6 (Prusa clone), as I was tired of messing around with glass and hairspray.

Over time, I started getting more and more bed adhesion failures until it was almost constant – this despite following the manufacturers instructions to clean with alcohol. I don’t usually use IPA, I use denatured ethanol as I get it in bulk for cheap for cleaning up my SLA resin prints. I got to wondering if the additives to denature the alcohol causes the issues be leaving behind some sort of residue. I tried IPA instead with the same result.

I got really annoyed as I had some urgent prints to get out, and succumbed to spraying a “frustration layer” of hairspray – still no dice.

Then I resorted to my go-to cleaner for anything that just won’t budge; AMMONIA!

Yes, it stinks. Yes, your wife will wonder if the cat pissed in your office. But it bloody WORKS!