Honey
Total time spent so far: ~32 hours
honey's journey
2025-07-02 - Sketches and Research (2 hours)
Lots of research. Started by looking at X printer V2 design gallery, and reading build logs. Took a look at X printer and Lemontron's CAD models. Started sketching out ideas.
Extruder design was an initial issue. It is difficult to obtain a 90-degree hotend, so hotend will have to be as flat as possible with off-the-shelf parts. We will see how that goes. Motion design for XY is still undecided, needs more thinking. Currently sticking to a single-carriage design.
Build should be mostly 3D Printed with off-the-shelf metal parts where possible (like rails). It should be replicable.
Current plan is to have a bed above and controls for all 3 axes on the bottom. This will greatly reduce the strain on lifting the Z-axis.
Some dirty sketches
2025-07-05 - Preliminary progress (1.5 hours)
Did more research figuring out parts to use, and sketching design. Started the CAD project with the bed:
I now have a rough idea of how all the parts in this printer are going to come together. Used a generic heated bed. Using some silicon spacers for now.
2025-07-06 - CAD day (8.5 hours)
Grinded out the CAD for the scissor lift mechanism this Sunday. Looking like it will work so far. Yet to add the stepper motor and belts. Fitted cheap radial bearings and used some thrust bearings too so I can preload them and have overall smoother motion. Used linear rails on the top and bottom, and a lead screw controlling the block on the bottom linear rails. This is the full foldable Z-Axis mechanism! Also, added a nice way to mount the beds, and using springs now.
Also got a better idea of the BOM and some progress on that end.
2025-07-07 - More CAD (3.5 hours)
Mostly organization today. Dialed in all the connectors in my main onshape assembly, and improved overall organziation of the project. Some more progress on the BOM as well (rough draft ready). Finally, whipped up this unibody design!
2025-07-08 - Coming Together! (4.5 hours)
It's finally looking like a complete printer! Added slots for the steppers, power supply, and motherboard. Also added cutouts for wires. Kept it slim referring to Lemontron's chassis design! One of the steppers on the back controls the Z-axis with belts (added a tensioner for that too), the other one on the back is for the extruder, and the two steppers on the front are for the XY axes.
few things are left to do. need an upper case for the bottom chasis, and once that gets going I'll be almost done.
2025-07-09 - Getting Closer! (3 hours)
Lots of small changes. Did the extruder and mid plates. Fixed screw holes. Decided on a belt structure inspired from lemontron, and added pulleys and tensioners for them. Belt routing mechanism is also clear to me from this. I'm not sure I'd be able to model the belts in, since onshape's belt feature doesn't support belts that don't share the same midplane. However, the XY belt mechanism is tried and tested (positron), so I know it works! Toolhead next!
2025-07-09 - DESIGN IS READY (9 hours)
Very productive today. Added the X-axis. Fixed screw wholes, added the upper plate of the chassis. Added fillets and cleaned up the looks of the printer. I'm really happy with it. Also, built the toolhead. I don't have access to a custom CNC, however the toolhead needd to be as flat as possible to avoid lost Z build volume. Improvised by using the Ender 3 S1 hotend and it should turn out fine. In the future I could buy Positron's hotend for an even flatter toolhead. No part cooling unfortunately. There are 20mm blower-style fans available, but not in my country from what I found. Perhaps a future upgrade though!
So much progress today! I will keep making small improvements as it goes along, of course.