Rat Rig V-core 3 part 1 - Premium coreXY 3D printer community build

are you looking to build a high quality corex white 3d printer with all of the latest features if so you're in luck because this is part one of my rat rig v core 3 build series [Music] late last year i announced i would be doing a step-by-step series building up a high quality core xy 3d printer kit since then there have been an abundance of comments suggesting which one to make these days it seems common for someone to start off with an off-the-shelf kit like a end of three learn the ropes and then dive head first into a more serious build project and as enthusiasts we are truly spoilt for choice when it comes to quality options a popular choice of many is the voron the latest being the voron version 2.4 we have the hebort which has some ridiculously fast prints shown on their youtube channel i've previously featured the second go and they have an upcoming sk tank which looks great as well we've got the mgn cube by ben levi the layer fused x301 and printers like the hypercube evolution there really is so much good stuff to choose from but the model i've chosen is the new vcore 3 from rat rig if you're looking to learn about the features of this printer this page is your friend as you can see it's a corexy 3d printer kit with some extremely nice features the mounting of the bed is amazing it's suspended in three points by three separate stepper motors and this can be used to get it perfectly flat it's also using tooling plate for the bed so it shouldn't warp all of the motion runs on linear rails and the frame is built from 30 series extrusion rather than the more common smaller 20 series like most of these machines it's somewhat modular and that means a choice of different build sizes one thing i really like is that for the hot end it uses the eva system and that supports a wide range of options so if you've got some existing hardware there's a fair chance you'll be able to use it on this build like the second which i really enjoy working on the electronics can be mounted on the back for easy access but you also have the option to partially or fully enclose the printer if you want to have a heated chamber or print some more exotic filaments the printer is completely open source with the stls and step files available online and there's even a publicly available cad model through onshape this means if you want to remix and modify it's going to be extremely easy high quality step-by-step instructions are available for the whole build and this should ensure that the printer goes together soundly and that means great print quality too let me be clear in that i'm not saying these features are unique to the rat rig as they're most likely going to be found in many of these other options with that in mind why did i choose the rat rig well it's quite simple my patrons some of them have been building this printer so i thought it would be nice to do it together plus they did contact rat rig to get the ball moving it's been locked in since last year and since then it's just been a matter of being patient waiting for the parts to become available this will be a multi-part series with a couple of videos on the build one on electronics and i know some people will be thrilled to hear this machine will be running clipper with an spr pro as well as a raspberry pi i'm going to have a video on calibration including what looks to be amazing clipper resonance tuning and perhaps even an attempt at a really fast benchy for the speedboat race let's get started on this build by looking at the ordering process everything is done through this configurator page and i reckon it's fantastic as we can see the base price is 500 euros and then depending on what you pick will determine your final price for instance if you want one of the larger models that's going to increase the price and for everything else you have the option of either getting the components from rat rig using something you already have or sourcing them yourself for instance i didn't add a controller board because i sourced that locally so i selected no i also had spare hot end parts so i skipped those as well there are printed parts in this kit so you can either print them yourself which i did or if you want to pay extra you can have them printed for you now you can work your way down the page selecting which options depending on how much you want to spend and what components you might already have back at the top of the page the price will update depending on your options and if you're just above or below your budget you can tweak your selections to get it where you want after you submit you'll get a confirmation email with your choices you can then pay a deposit and then wait for the confirmation that your kit is ready where you'll pay the balance and finally it will be shipped disclosure time i have paid for this kit with my own money in full but rat rig were kind enough to cover the freight although this is a build series rat rig have still read and agreed to my review policy in case i want to do a proper review once this is all over let's do an unboxing and have a look at the components this was one big heavy box that i was quite excited to receive and inside i was glad to see things were well packed and there was no damage a combination of foam cardboard and bubble wrap are used to protect the components this ensures things like the tool plate bed are kept exactly how they should be flat and pristine the foam in between the pieces of extrusion also ensures that they're not actually touching each other and there's no chance of them scratching and rubbing off the coating while they're in transit after unwrapping i divided my parts into categories starting with all of the frame pieces everything here is metal thick and rugged just what you want for building a rigid machine and as we mentioned earlier all of the extrusions except one are 30 30 series which is heavier duty than 20 20. next we have the components related to motion such as the lead screws belts and all of the linear rails here we have all of the electronics including a pancake stepper for the extruder five full-size steppers for the rest a power supply wiring looms and more here are all the bed components including the six mil thick tool plate bed we also have the kenovo mains powered silicon heater as well as a prima textured spring steel and magnetic surface we have all of our fasteners and hardware to construct the kit of which there's quite a bit finally i had the components that i had already ordered elsewhere such as the main board and raspberry pi before we start putting it together we do need to 3d print some more components for this we're going to start on the bill of materials page of the website here we have all of the parts listed in the categories of essentials extra and accessories there's only one of everything needed apart from the pillow block which needs three and the motor cage front which needs two we can individually download the files but instead i'd recommend clicking download all that will download everything from the github and then if we come into cad printed parts we'll have the three categories and inside each of them we'll have step files for modification as well as the actual sdls from here we come to the files and printing page of the website near the top we have our general printing parameters the most important ones being 25 infill and four outlines or perimeter shells further down the page we have this 360 view showing us the correct orientation for printing for each of the essential parts unfortunately the parts don't import in the correct orientation so you need to switch back to the 360 view find the part you're after and then rotate to the correct orientation before you do any slicing i chose petg as my material with all of the black parts printed on the ender 3. this is currently being used to test victory text h2 extruder the first one of which jammed up and required a replacement video coming soon the blue parts were printed on the prusa mark iii which is midway through a brain transplant that you'll see in an upcoming video when doing cold overnight prints i used the wham-bam pop-up enclosure to prevent warpage and attachment from the bed i kept track of my parts by creating a folder called done and moving completed ones into it as well as referencing that original diagram and arranging my parts in the same formation to ensure that i didn't miss any at this stage i thought i was ready to build but i was actually caught out by one missing component when i thought i was ready to assemble i decided to browse and look ahead in the instructions and that's when i came across step 8 that talks about the optional inner frame panel that holds the electronics on the back of the machine as the page says the panels are not supplied by a rat rig they are meant to be sourced locally and this is something i had not done the instructions also said that this is a good time to attach it as it would be difficult to get it in place later on i was going to have to prioritize making it myself so i bought some acrylic sheet from the hardware store i imported it into my laser cutter to find that the largest dimension was 500 millimeters long and it was simply too large to fit that meant no chance of fitting in the cnc shown in my intro so the only machine i had that was big enough was the low rider 2 printed cnc that i previously built on the channel after that series finished i did replace the spindle from cordless to corded but i hadn't tidied up the wiring yet and something loose was being unreliable so just for this required part i re-did all of my wiring crimping on the proper connectors to plug into the main board the other problem i had to overcome was that the holes on the back were to suit a duet rather than skr pro and raspberry pi so i found the mounting hole dimensions for the skr pro from their website imported the dxf into onshape and set up a new mounting pattern to suit this main board i then looked up the spacing for the mounting holes on a raspberry pi and set up a mounting location for the raspberry pi above the skr pro on the back of the printer after some tidying up and double checking my modified part was ready to go my mounting method was dubious so i triple checked everything and fortunately the part seemed to complete exactly as it should on the first go later in the build once i've verified that the dimensions are accurate i'll release the dxf for this part for others to use finally i was ready to go so let's get into it the official instructions will always be the most up-to-date and detailed resource so please follow that and count what you're about to see as more of an outline to show you what's involved tools aren't supplied with the kit so you will need your own before you proceed and i'd strongly recommend laying out your work area to make it neat and efficient as well as having the online instructions somewhere nearby first things first our printed parts might require some cleanup you can see here i have some fine stringing and my favorite way of removal is to use a heat source to melt it away to nothing you'll also notice some sections that allow holes to be printed without the need of support we need to use a drill bit or a similar tool to clean these out at least enough for the fastener to go through just like building lego it's best to get out all of the parts you need as you arrive at the beginning of your next step most of the early stages require the repetition of putting nuts and bolts together on the metal brackets for instance the first step is to build up four feet then we prepare 16 corner brackets and a dozen joiner brackets we use a long ruler to select the correct lengths of extrusion before following the diagrams to arrange them into the correct shape and doing up the bolts lightly before checking everything is square and even with a ruler before tightening and moving on to the next step it wasn't long before my electronics panel was required and i was very glad to see that it fit the frame perfectly all of these early steps lead to the building up of three sub-assemblies which we then combine into one big frame using the remaining extrusion pieces throughout the process there's an emphasis on measuring to make sure everything is in the exact position to avoid having to change things later on with the addition of our first 3d printed pieces for the end stop and some cable management the first chapter is complete and we have our assembled frame and that's how this is a series of simple steps that most people will be able to complete to a satisfactory standard it is harder than assembling an off-the-shelf 3d printer kit but i wouldn't say it's hard overall as we continue we start to utilize more of our printed parts but they're generally paired with metal brackets which vastly increases their strength all of these brackets are designed in such a way that as we add them to the frame the frame becomes even more rigid we can see this principle with this motor mount which bolts to two pieces of the frame before having printed parts added and then a combination of washers spacers and pulleys to build up the guide system for the belt and that's one thing i found novel about this build instead of doing the frame and then adding the belt at the end we're constantly routing the belts as we go more pulleys are added to the stack before the upper belt is inserted and routed into the correct position and then we add an additional printed part from the top to cleanly cap everything off to complete the corner the stepper motor is then raised from underneath before m3 bolts are used to secure it the whole thing is very neat and very compact and we mirror this sub-assembly in the other corner to complete stage two the idlers at the front of the printer have a very similar construction a metal bracket supported by a 3d printed part and then a long bolt goes down the middle where a stack of shims spacers and pulleys provides the guide system for the belt one of these idler assemblies in each front corner and stage three is complete the next phase concerns mounting the three stepper motors that control the z-axis the printed pillow block in black then supports a bearing a thrust bearing to be exact and after all of this is bolted together we then introduce the coupler that goes to the lead screw and we can see that this clever design will support the vertical mass of the bed without putting any strain on the stepper motor in each of the front corners we use four m6 bolts to secure this to the frame and at the back of the printer there's a third similar piece which once again uses four fasteners to mount it to the frame with the three of these in place that is stage four complete stage five is all about linear rails and we need those as well as these printed alignment pieces of which i chose to print three there's two different lengths used on the machine so once again we need a ruler to identify the correct ones and we can then cut open the packaging prepare an area with lots of paper towel and follow the instructions to remove most of the excess oil testing for smooth and consistent motion which i'm pleased to report all of my bearings had with these checks out of the way we can begin preparations for mounting the rails to the machine with a short m3 bolt and matching m3t nut going through each of the holes mounting the rails to the machine is pretty straight forward thanks to those printed alignment tools as soon as you have two or more in place the row will be held in position as well as being centered on the extrusion this allows us to do up just the top and bottom bolts we'll leave the rest loose in case we need to realign later on the linear rails for the y-axis work in exactly the same way except they're slightly shorter and they mount on the underside of the upper frame once they're in place that means stage 5 is now complete next up we turn our attention to the x-axis gantry idlers once again a stack of components mounted to a printed part and if you follow the instructions it's really hard to go wrong these idler sub assemblies go either side of the only piece of 20 20 extrusion in the kit this was a really tight fit but it was really satisfying when the part finally slid into position we then introduced some bolts top and bottom to interface with the t-nuts inside the extrusion and then on the underside for each end we introduce our final metal bracket and if you think you're cool enough you can use a karate chop to put it in position which i did for some unknown reason some m5 no lock nuts hold all of this together and after this we can turn our attention to the final linear rail which needs cleaning and prepping in the same way with more m3 bolts it then goes on top of the x gantry but no alignment pieces are needed because the end of the printed parts hold it perfectly in the middle unlike the other rails all of these fasteners can be done up tightly immediately the x gantry then bolts onto the linear bearing blocks on the underside of the upper frame and then we begin the y-axis alignment by moving the x-carriage to the minimum position and doing up the end volts moving it to the max position and again doing up the n2 bolts assuming the carriage now moves freely through the full range of travel we can do up the rest of the m3 bolts to fasten the linear rails into place permanently we then do the same for the bolts holding the x carriage onto the bottom of the linear bearing blocks thread the belts through all of the idlers this one was easy but some of the others needed disassembly because it was so tight in stage six the ex-gantry is now complete and that's where i'm going to leave it for today so far this is being rewarding and really enjoyable with the bonus of actually needing the low rider 2 for a project next up is mounting the bed and choosing which hot end and extruder combo i'm going to use with the eva system i have parts for the titan bmg and orbiter all of which are supported feel free to let me know which one i should use in the comments section thank you so much for watching and until next time happy 3d printer building g'day it's michael again if you like the video then please click like if you want to see more content like this in future click subscribe and make sure you click on the bell to receive every notification if you really want to support the channel and see exclusive content become a patron visit my patreon page see you next time

Channel: Teaching Tech

Views: 123,293

Rating: 4.9581046 out of 5

Keywords: 3d printing, 3d printer, 3d print, 3d printed, kit, project, ratrig, rat rig, v-core 3, series, step by step, how to, lesson, tutorial, test, firmware, assembly, klipper, corexy, marlin, skr pro, raspberry pi, octoprint, unboxing, ordering, components, linear rails, eva carriage system, belts, lowrider2, mpcnc, 3d printed cnc, laser cutting

Id: XoTxFs3BGuk

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021