Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
I'm playing around with some lightweight extruder designs. The original Prusa is to heavy for me and a way to big. I also cannot see whats going on under the nozzle. I designed an alternative nozzle and cooling design in a few posts earlier, but this is also very heavy, but has an better view on the nozzle and printing area.
I found some interesting designs for the Titan Aero but all of them results in less printing space. Some of them loosing a few millimeters in the x and y-axis, a few only in y-axis. Most of them need specific firmware updates.
So, I do some brainstorming. What happens if I extend the y-axis for about 20mm ? If I use this design ( https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2192480 ), it's very lightweight and seems easy to print, I loose 15mm in y-axis. But If I extend the y-rods of about 20mm and do an initial new homing with the M206 and/or M428 command in the start code of every printing, I win back the full y-length.
Additional I will remove this heavy and loud part cooling fan and replace it with an nozzle driven with pressured air from a "aquarium air pump". Yes, I know, the pump is louder, but I have such an compressor already installed under the roof of my house. The only thing to do is to lay on hose from the pump to the printer. I also add an solenoid valve which can be PWM driven to regulate the airflow.
What do you think ? Opinions, suggestions ?
Thomas
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
Hi Thomas,
So yeah, I'm on this train as well. I got real silly at one point and had medical grade ducting providing airflow to Titan Aero with sintered aluminum X-Carriage. But realized it would cost as much as the printer so now I'm just making a custom lightweight dual Noctua duct as I broke the stock one trying to remove an air gap. It's been years since I've ran CFD sims but any excuse is a good excuse to sharpen another tool in the shed.
If you're still interested. My arrangement was to flip the Aero so motor is facing out like stock, fan is removed, X-Carriage is as I said a custom aluminum sintered mating part acting as a giant heat sink to aid stock Aero sync. The two flanking Noctua NF-A40x20, left is back plate cooling, right is part cooling. Duct not yet developed. Oh, and importantly, PINDA and head XY plane exact, build height increased by 24.5 mm. Project abandoned.
Correction: PINDA is offset by a little. Forgot Aero is offset, not on center.
MK2S kit owner since 8/15/2017
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
I found my prior layout file. Last image I threw together because it took more time to search for the old file than whip one up. Here is a screen shot of my planning. Again, I've lost interest because my MK2S is printing every day perfectly.
Critical parts are:
1. Use "mirror" version of Titan Aero.
2. Z-Top and bottom to relocate Z-motor axis 15mm left, this includes X-trigger for wider X-Carriage assembly.
3. X-carrier body would have to be a completely re-engineered part, probably metal, I chose sintered Aluminum 3D print from Shapeways.
4. Super fancy ducting design, which is why I shelved this project.
In this design, all Prusa firmware settings are unchanged, didn't research extruder multipliers for Titan. Calibration should take care of added print volume (25mm more vertically), your printer would end up being 15mm wider. No clearance issues.
By the way, the rig is a modification of found i3 model. I call it Chibi i3, it has a print volume of 0 to test max move clearances.
Looking forward to your progress. Will live vicariously until I need super hot filaments or try a Volcano end.
MK2S kit owner since 8/15/2017
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
My mount for Titan Aero *increases* build volume with no loss in X or Y. It's an easy swap for the stock set up and much lighter since you use a smaller motor. I have other happy customers. Is there a reason you don't want to try it?
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
Hiya Jon, good to hear from you. Great design but I set a different mission for myself.
Oh, wait, sorry, I confused your design with another one that looks identical. Did you change the design in the last month? Yeah, I'll take down your STL and test with my i3 Chibi setup to test my unique clearance issues (many mods installed already). But, looks like we have a winner!
MK2S kit owner since 8/15/2017
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
Project frozen because of the upcomming MK3 Updates.
Thomas
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
Hold on there! I too was a little unsure about the way they designed the extruder on the Prusia i3 MK2, and was wondering if the Titan Aero would fare better.
But the Bondtech solution seems to be considered "the best" in the community from some places I've read due to the high quality parts, materials, and yes, because it pulls/pushes filament on both sides instead of a brush, or tooth moving the filament on one side.
The problem I had with Bondtech was the lavish price... $155 for the QR 1.75 Universal. (Only does extrusion, no heating element) It's great that they upgraded the MK3 with this sort of extrusion technology, as well as increasing the voltage from 12 to 24 volts.
However.. the E3D hot end is still using a 30 watt ceramic heater cartridge, and a semitec 104GT thermistor (300 C max, +/- 3%, 7 seconds to read accurately).
I hope in the future Prusa will offer;
-Type K thermocouple for better range (1372 C max, also increases reliability), accuracy (-/+ 0.75%), and faster temperature matching (0.1 to 1.1 seconds).
-PID software with more iterations to prevent overshoot when heating up, and heat loss when extruding.
-Bigger heater to improve higher temp stability for more exotic materials like Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) plastics. (~343 C)
Sometimes I wonder.. if other types of heating like inductive could be more efficient / effective...
War... War never changes.
Re: Titan Aero upgrade with pressured air part cooling
.. the E3D hot end is still using a 30 watt ceramic heater cartridge, and a semitec 104GT thermistor (300 C max, +/- 3%, 7 seconds to read accurately).
Not sure on the thermistor but Prusa uses 40 Watt cartridge since MK2 and still does on MK2S, if you have info from PR stating 30W I'll correct my data.
MK2S kit owner since 8/15/2017