Turn your Ender 3 into a 45-degree conveyor belt 3D printer for long model 3D printing

[Music] welcome back to aurora tech channel last week i tested out the additive 3d 90 degree conveyor belt conversion kit it works great but it cannot print long models as a 90 degree printing angle is the same as a regular 3d printer with the conveyor belt serving as the y-axis it is good for printing multiple objects or for looping the same model for batch production aside from the 90-degree kit they also have a 45-degree kit that costs 320 dollars and it was designed to print long models i will also use a refurbished under 3 from congo that cost 109 so the total cost will be 429 i would like to thank additive3d for sending me this kit to review and with that let's get started we have seven aluminum extrusions to extend the base support the 45 degree gantry and the heated bed there are two rollers a conveyor belt some steel rods 14 metal brackets more than 20 bags of screws and small parts stepper motor cables and the zip ties before i assemble the kit i will put the ender 3 together and make sure it works fine this refurbished ender 3 is also brand new with no sign of being used just like the one i used for the 90 degree kit last week i think this 109 under 3 is an amazing deal ok let's print a simple calibration cube and benchy they both look really nice from a completely stock under 3 printing right out of the box next i will do some preparations including getting the ender 3 ready by removing the y-axis from the base the heated bed and the z-axis the y-axis extrusion will no longer be used as well as the rubber pulley wheels for the heated bed as it will be replaced with a conveyor belt for the gantry remove the lead screw stepper motor and stepper motor mount there are two stl files you need to print by yourself a front plate and a limit switch mount i printed both of them but i didn't use the front plate as i will just use this printer to print long models so it won't make any difference with or without the front plate since most parts from this kit will be connected by t-nuts i will attach all t-nuts to the brackets the installation menu is well written and you should be able to put it together by just following the menu i will go through the assembly really quickly so you can just expect how much work is required and what to expect when you get this kit i will use three aluminum extrusions to form a frame and use the extension brackets to extend the total length of the base as the conveyor belt is longer than the ender three then attach a bracket to each corner they are used to mount the rollers and support the 45 degree gantry for the x-axis we need to do some modifications as the gantry will be the x and y-axis we need to attach two back plates at the back of the x-axis so we can connect two belts to connect the stepper motor to work as the y-axis the hot end is also needed to change from printing down at 90 degrees to 45 degrees we will remove the fan cover and the hot end from the x carriage plate and attach a 90 degree bracket to change the angle put the hot end back on this bracket and the screw hole's location is the exact same as the stock plate however the screw is not very secure so i added some m3 nuts at the back to make sure the hot end won't move when printing put back the fan cover mount two brackets on the gantry and use them to connect two 20 by 40 extrusions from the kit to form the 45 degree frame and we can put the x axis back on the gantry and put the 45 degree frame on the base secure it with the t-nuts and screws at each corner then we need to add two pulley wheels at the top of the frame the rod the timing wheels and the stepper motor for the y-axis belt install one belt at each side and zip tie to secure them make sure the tension of both sides is similar so the gantry can move up and down smoothly then attach the ruler and the belt to the base tighten it but don't do it all the way as we need to leave some room for adjustment try to align the belt to be as centered as possible use the y motor with the mount from the stock under 3 as the stepper motor for the conveyor belt since the bed of the ender 3 is thinner than the ender 3 pro i 3d printed two 5 millimeter bars to raise it up a little bit use the 10 by 20 extrusions to support the bed and slide it underneath the conveyor belt use the set of heated bed support brackets to secure it use the 3d printed limit switch bracket to mount any one of the stock limit switches on the y-axis try to make the nozzle touch the bed when the limit switch is triggered so it will be easier for bed leveling next connect the longer cables that came with the kit as the stock widens these stepper motors and the y-lamp switch cable is too short after the frame is extended finally mount the power supply lcd screen and the spool holder on the frame for bed leveling it would be the same as how you level a printer without a bl touch you may wonder why the belt has a layer of glue we actually assembled it and recorded some test print footage and reassembled it again in front of the camera and i will talk about the glue later in the test print section let's go to the computer and slice some models i will use idea maker instead of hira as i have another idea former belt printer and this slicer seems to work slightly better and print faster than cura on a belt printer i made a few changes from the idea former printer profile for this ender 3 belt kit i put the download link under the description if you want to install the profile for this belt kit the manufacturer's website also has an idea maker profile as well as the firmware for your printer okay let's go back to our slicer as we're going to print a benchy we want to rotate it 90 degrees to start from the back i talked more about this in another belt printer review video which i put the link to down in the description i started the print without using glue in the belt but as you can see my belt did not stick well i tried a few times and tried to move the nozzle as close as i could but even a simple calibration cube cannot stick well enough to finish the print so i tried some hairspray it's better but it's still not good then i put some elmer's purple glue and it printed well print after print this is the last thing i want to do on this nylon belt and it looks a little bit messy but it's the only way i can print small objects on this belt when you compare the results printing small objects on a 45 degree printing angle may not look as good as a traditional 90 degree angle but that is just how a 45 degree belt printer works then i will try to slice a rotating ring and see if it can print with good clearance for each layer to rotate freely [Music] [Music] it can spin not super smoothly like those printed from a normal 90 degree printer but all the layers can move freely in fact the main reason for getting a kit like this to turn your ender 3 into belt printer is to print long models i will try printing a huge titanic ship and enlarge it by 200 to be 538 millimeters long using the default 0.2 layer height will take more than 32 hours so let's see how much time it can save if i print at a 0.3 millimeter layer height it saves about 10 hours and would take 22 and a half hours so let's print at a 0.3 millimeter layer height and see how it looks [Music] [Music] i think this titanic model looks great all the details are printed pretty nicely and i can't see any overhanging issue without using any support i am quite happy with the result and i would consider this under 3 belt conversion to be successful after spending a week with this ender 3 45 degree conveyor belt printer i would like to share what i think about it this kit included a few more parts than the 90 degree kit i reviewed last week additive 3d put a lot of effort into the design and documentation and it used the least number of parts to turn the ender 3 into a conveyor belt printer we spent around 2 hours putting it together i guess it could be faster if we don't record it at the same time i would say the assembly is fairly easy and it does at least take less time than putting a prusa mk3s plus together the motion system extruder hot end and the whole x and y axes are all the stock under three parts without any modifications except the z-axis has been replaced by the conveyor belt as the printing angle is now 45 degrees for small objects it will not print as well as the stock ender 3 or the 90 degree conveyor belt but the main reason we want to do this upgrade is to print long models a converted 45 degree printer prints long models pretty well and the result is just as good as a real conveyor belt printer compared to the 90 degree kit i reviewed last week this 45 degree kit requires less tinkering the only part i need to adjust is adding a 5 millimeter bar to raise my bed as the ender 3 bed is thinner than the ender 3 pro magnetic bed besides that i have two other issues during the assembly process first the thread of the hot end plate wasn't made that well and the screws kept spinning but this can be simply fixed by adding a few m3 nuts at the back of the plate the second issue is that the menu stated that there are four t-nuts and four m5 screws to secure the corner brackets to extend the base but there were only two of each that's not that big of a deal if you have some spare parts at home but if not that would be a problem so i would like to suggest the manufacturer includes spare screws set screws and nuts with the kit you always want to include more screws in case some are damaged or missing another suggestion would be grouping and labeling all screws and parts of one step in one bag with a step number for example the step one bag should contain all the connectors brackets screws and t-nuts required for step one finally the belt did not stick well with small objects i had the same problem with the 90 degree kit but when printing at 90 degrees i can move the nozzle lower squish the first layer down and still be able to print most of the time without applying glue on the belt but for this kit you just can't do the same to squish the first layer down from a 45 degree printing angle and i can't even print a cube or benchy without using glue with glue it sticks pretty well or i should say that the glue itself sticks pretty well i also reviewed another belt printer two weeks ago that uses a similar nylon surface but it sticks well to different pla filament the manufacturer could consider improving the surface material of the belt so it can stick without blue in conclusion this kit does deliver what it promised it turns your ender 3 into a 45 degree conveyor belt printer and it prints long models pretty well if you want to do continuous printing or small batch production i also made a video for another 90 degree belt conversion kit and put the link under the description people ask whether i recommend getting a kit like this or just buying a conveyor belt printer it really depends on your budget what hardware you currently have your knowledge in 3d printing and your diy skills if you have an old under 3 or buy a refurbished one for around 100 this kit is a good option for building a conveyor belt printer without breaking the bank of course you have to spend some time putting it together and you have to be willing to do some tinkering and even enjoy the whole process also after you convert the ender 3 into a belt printer it will be easy to upgrade you can change anything you like like the hot end extruder motherboard or screen just like how you upgrade a stock ender 3. it may not be the same if you are going to buy a brand new under 3v2 for 260 dollars plus the 320 dollars for this kit that would cost you 580 and for almost the same price you could get a ready-to-use core xy conveyor belt printer with linear rails that has a larger print volume and better hardware configuration than the ender 3. however you may lose the underfeeds advantage of being easy to upgrade anyways i put a link to additive 3d and their facebook support group down below so you can also join the group first and see what other users have to say before making your decision scott meredith from the edge of 3d has also made some detailed assembly videos for these conveyor belt kits and i put a link to his channel down below that's it for this video if you like this video please hit the like and subscribe button my brother and i make a new video every weekend so check out my channel on mondays and you'll see something new see you next week

Channel: Aurora Tech

Views: 34,648

Keywords: belt 3d printer, conveyor belt 3D printer, conveyor belt printing, Creality CR-30, Creality Ender-3 CR-30, 45 degree belt printer, 3d printing long model, long 3d model printing, Creality 3D Print mill, continuous printing, 3d printer continuous printing, Ender 3 loop printing, loop 3d printing, non-stop 3d printing, 3d printer batch production, 3d printing batch production, 3d printing mini factory, 3d printing farm ender 3, 3d printing small batch production

Id: HaBZ7BgWTrE

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022