I need to print some improved tubing connectors, 3 different types - 80 Pcs total, for a pair of crappy shelving units my Wife bought off of Walmart. The originals were as minimal material as possible without missing the nylon tree completely.
The Klipperized Mk3s with a .60mm nozzle is nearly as fast as the mini with a .40mm nozzle. Once again proving it’s not how fast you say you can go, but how fast the parts let you go…
Yes, Prusa runs on Marlin which isn’t a bad thing, but so does Bambu printers.
Klipper does a few things for me.
Klipper allows for a lot of customization if you want it. Everything is a text file. And your printer.cfg is easily editable. And is a cheap way to turn your Mk3s/+ into a Mk3.5 for easily under $100US-- depending on what recommended RPi you decide to buy. Accelerometers are dirt cheap. I bought the expensive recommended $20 KUSBA plus a $5 data cable because I didn’t have one. The RPi 4b I already had for years.
It gives the Mk3s a 32bit controller thanks to a Raspberry Pi 4b running the printer now rather than the 8bit RamBo factory board. The RamBo merely relays the moves that klipper tells it to do.
I can now use an inexpensive accelerometer to setup input shaping very easily.
This gives the printer the ability to print faster without a drop in quality. I went from printing 45mm2/sec to 80mm2/sec and accelerations from 1200mm2 to 4000mm2.
This particular conversion is easily reversible in about 10 minutes if I should ever decide I don’t like it. It’s merely a matter of re-flashing the firmware to the RamBo. And reinstalling OctoPrint to the RPi.
This does not mean it’s now as fast as my mini. It’s not and never will be. But it’s far better than it was. For example, in this run of parts, when printing the same part, (identical test connector), with the same filament, the print times are within 10 minutes of each other. The only difference being the Mk3s has a .60mm nozzle installed and the Mini has a .40mm Nozzle installed. I run a .40mm nozzle in the Mini because Bambu optimizes it’s printers specifically for that size. And there is no difference in tolerances and quality. The parts are perfectly interchangeable.
If you are interested, this is the git hub I used to klipperize my Mk3s
Do you have a source for Bambu using Marlin? It would mean they violated the GPL since their firmware is closed source afaik.
If you open Bambu Studio, and click on the edit box to the right of you machine type and look at the first tab under Basic Settings, and in the Advanced section, its says G-Code flavor-- Marlin(legacy). Now, don’t mistake that for the firmware they use.
Thanks dor the explanation, I never really took the time to check out klipper. Might be interesting to get some IT students in our makerspace by showing this as a possible project.
It could be a fun project for the kids. A bit of googling should get you more information on different brands printers too. Plus all the open source projects available to do mods and accessories that can require some basic to moderate programming skills to be learned.
I know how hard it can be to kids to have enough fun to learn about how to use technology. I spent a few years teaching CAD and 3D printing to kids in school. I also tried to get the machine shop up and running again. But the school would not allow it.
I bear modded mine at the same time and a few other things, biggest for me was that I liked my macros on my voron and I could share them and the motors are substantially quieter.
I haven’t pushed it acceleration wise, do you have any print profiles for prusaslicer or the like? I definitely have room to work with on mine.
Your Bear mod will be a lot different than my stock frame and E3D Revo V6 hotend. The profiles I have been using are based on what I think I can get away with from what I learned about from the input shaping. I think you can get away with a bit more than I can. Particularly if you went from the 8mm linear rods to a set of linear rails. That would be far more rigid and vibration damping along with the heavier frame. Did you go with a high flow extruder too? I’ve been debating on a .40mm Revo ObXidian high flow nozzle lately. But The cost is high even for the Revo eco-system.
I kept them with linear rods, rails were more than I wanted to do at the time. I changed over to a dragon HF after liking it on my voron, just to keep common parts. Hey, its good to know at least that I can probably push more, tuning a profile for it is definitely going to be on my list.
The ObXidian nozzles are really nice, I just have a 0.4mm and 0.6mm regular nozzles, I’ve used a bunch of hardened coated nozzles before, seem nicer than those but haven’t tested much.
I think those linear rods and bearing are the weak part of the system. They are too prone to vibrations and whipping around at high speeds. But I’m too lazy to go after more upgrades on my printer at this point.
I do have a standard flow .60mm ObXidian for abrasive filament, but they were a LOT cheaper then. Plus I already have a lot of brass Revo nozzles already. But…I want.