Phido's Tronxy x5sa 500 to Mega Vxbot

The new Ender5 MAX?! The new ender5max does looks promising, i don't think it will compare to yours

 

Project is still moving slowly.
I have a new job, with holidays so progress I expect will move during school holiday periods.

Also while doing the wiring, I came across multiple issues and rethinking everything, everything is now being mounted to a box that is then attached to the frame, instead of heaps of random parts mounted to the ACP back panel. I can keep all the wiring neat and together and not have random 240v stuff everywhere.

• Also I am going water cooling. Steppers, Goliath, even the extruder. I'm all in on this machine.
• Also there is a CNC filament cutter for the Vzbots now, hopefully able to use MMU systems in the future. Either way, before everything is finalised I can fit this now. It doesn't work with the goliath short, so going WC anyway, means I haven't really wasted anything. I think this configuration will be popular. https://github.com/Treintjes/Magneto_Filament_Cutter
• 4mm polycarbonate for the front doors, it was pretty cheap. The 8mm I can use for other projects.
• I will probably make 4mm polycarbonate sides when I get my CNC commissioned after this printer is operational.

Also I see the Ratrig Vcore4 are having a fair number of complaints, particularly about IDEX and its complexity, people literally taking it off their machine and chucking it in the bin.. Also some issues on the 500 sized machines frame/gantry/bed related?. With the two heads being quite heavy on the larger printers as well.
Also the fancy new kraken steppers don't seem any better, or are further delayed for Vzbot.

So I feel a bit better about doing this project. But it is still massive undertaking.

 

This project is still moving along..
But wiring the dam thing up is complicated and time consuming. Also, I am still messing around with the enclosure panels because I am not really happy with them.

I also have some upgrades. There has been some progress in the VzBot world.:

• The Stepper motor coolers have arrived. Which includes 4 x/y steppers and the filament stepper. I also have a water cooler for the Goliath. This may not get plumbed in straight away, but while I am fitting everything else I will fit the coolers. I should have gone with this from the beginning, with hightemp printing and a larger printer, the consensus is yes, motors get hot.
• I got the mellow pump and res. These have shortcomings, but everyone still seems to use them.
• The filament cutter has arrived.. its the mellow magneto type, all metal. These seem quite popular now, and allow the use of various MMU systems. Minimal mass for a nice feature. Im not really seeking MMU at this stage, but having everything in place seems like a good idea. It wasn't particularly expensive. https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005008545019732.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2vnm4itemAdapt
• I have ordered diamond nozzles. Vez mentioned in his recent setup video that Trianglelab's Diamond CHT is very highflowing 0.4 nozzle. Someone mentioned you can still buy them off the website (not off aliexpress). They are in runout. Able to do a real 75+ mm^3 flow with a 0.4 nozzle. So I have a 0.4 and 0.6.. I figured 0.8 is already pretty high flow, I probably don't need diamond CHT on that. I can get 0.8 and 1.0 CHT type nozzles cheaper. The 0.4 you kind of want every advantage you can get in conductivity, hardness, CHT flow etc. They are expensive, but certainly pretty neat!
• Vez has double sheer on hits 235, but not the 330 yet. However that seems to be coming, the 235 is in production with mellow. Hes gone to GT3 belts. My experiments seem to indicate on bigger printers belt tension is even more important as they flop around a fair bit. I really want this. Vez seems to indicate double sheer and increase belt tension helps a lot and apologizes they didn't do this originally. There is no real way to fit wider belts with the VZbot, but GT3 belts and higher tension is certainly possible. I only ever purchased the front aluminium mounts, and I have non-high temp motors.
• Kraken motors are out. His experiments said they were noisy and not any faster with the standard pulleys. They might be useful on larger heavier printers that need that torque. But cost and value is a legit question. But I will need longer shaft motors for double shear mounts. But I will just focus on getting this machine operating. Changing belts and motors is fairly easy.

Also Ratrig seems to address some of the issues that people were having with the vcore4.

 

Project has hit a problem. The wife was annoyed at me taking up so much space for my never ending printer. So she decided to "örganise" and basically packed everything away and take away my workspace to work on this. This had been brewing for a while, because in cutting out the sides from ACP lots of little plastic chips were generated and I am now banned from cutting or drilling, anything until she has "cleaned the space" and "organised". While I thought I was pretty clean, obviously I wasn't getting every single spec, because next time I would work on it, more stuff was generated. I have the panels on but now more holes for all the cooling, cabling etc going through the sides. If you do this just get the side panels cut out professionally and out of ~5mm polycarbonate.

Anyway, while I can technically work on it, its even more awkward than before. And I need to unpack and pack everything away, and I have very little desk space... Bugger. I understand. Also all the connectors are driving me bonkers, I had kinda figured everything would just plug into the board, but either the cables aren't long enough, or use a different connector, or have no connector, or all the above.

I'm going to focus on the wiring, because I can do that without too much mess and it needs to be done.

If you do want to build a super large printer.. I notice Fysec now has a 600x600x600 Voron.
https://www.fysetc.com/products/venture-xl

This is actually I think a better format for large printers, even better than ratrigs because your not trying to support a very heavy print, and the gantry moves up and down. When your prints get this large, you could be talking about having to lift and move dozen or more KG with just a triple mount. I also like its kinda of setup..


There is a youtuber building one..


IMO it looks like he might have bitten more than he can chew, his work space is pretty tiny..

 

Man ive always just had a whole garage or workshop to dedicate to what ever i wanted.... and managed to keep the wifey out of it.

I see these big name "tubers" build shit in their tiny little area's and think why? i couldn't operate like that let alone be on youtube...


You were the last of the great diy hopes for us I recently sold off all my DIY projects once the Ender5max and H2D showed up. Then the K3max and with the 3 Cr10max machines i kinda feel blessed for size... but after seeing that 600 x 600 my juices are flowing again....

I was looking very hard at the newer tronx 600 but after getting a SV08 and totally loving the flying gantry this could be the one!

Hope the wife gives you back your manhood and this gets back on track soon

 

The voron community is huge. And plenty of mods, and open source stuff. 600x600x600 is big enough for IDEX or multitoolhead stuff, It is also way more open and mod friendly than the Gigastorm, and it is enclosurable and while smaller than 800x800, 600x600 is still humongous. I also like the layout. The ratrig style electronics box. The zoned heating with AC heaters (1800w total). The screen. 48V and 24v. Cartographer. CANBus. It comes with a single 605x605 PEI buildplate, even 5160 Motor drivers, 9mm belts. That 600mm size puts it in a very specialised size category. Its like a smaller, more practical gigastorm, but more open source, more mod able, with better stuff. You can fit AWD and all those other mods on that thing, you could build it into a total beast. The only limitations would be things like really high temp filaments that need hot enclosures, like PEI/PEKK/PEEK/PPS. But I am not not even sure they are relevant really at all.

I look at that Fysect kit and think, OMG I should have done that!. It would love PLA, ABS, PC, Nylon, and probably PPS-CF.

I am still waiting for the Vzbot double sheer motor mounts. But the Vzbot project seems to have lost a bit of steam since the Ratrig and newer vorons have hit the market. So I've been hesitant to do things because I don't want to have to keep redoing things. Most of the original tronxy is in my bin pile.

Life is getting in the way. I got made redundant, went on an overseas trip, started a new career with a new employer. Kids. etc.
Its been a bastard of a project, I've had to do every element like 5 or 6 times. Nothing fits or works, I thought the 500 was a semi popular Vzbot thing, but its not, and those who did it are people will endless time and talent. Nothing wiring wise works, I have to extend every aspect annoyingly. There are some clearance issues that needed work arounds, and everything is annoying large size. Plus I really didn't know what I was doing when I started this. I should have built a really simple small printer and then acquired a proper kit. But it still has its moments, if I can get it all together it will be worth it. Major projects IMO should have moments where you wonder if it was worth it at all and walk away from it..

Its still active. But my claims of having it moving and printing were wildly optimistic.

She is allowing it to continue, but I have also requested space to set up my Foxalien CNC mill 8040XE-Pro with rails and a 1.5kw spindle. And the lathe still needs a proper place. All of these should be going to my out the back shed, but I have to build that.

 

Yer man i hear ya, i started a few projects and just lost interest as well.... they all just became overly complicated and i could get the same thing accomplished all be it alot slower on cr10max machines.... Then the ender5max came along and now the k3max... I'd still really like a 600 machine i feel that's the elite sweet spot. The giga is just too big for what we need to do. At least you got a lot further than i did and imo a pretty good darn accomplishment so far.

We will all still be here when you decide to pick it up again