3D printer rebuild (an unfinished project)

Brian Wu
May 26, 2022
3 min read

This is one of the big projects in Makerspace! You are more than welcome to take this project and try to fix it and learn new engineering skills!

Hi, this is Brian, a sophomore in VIS in 2022. I want to fix the 3D printer but I realized that this is a huge project that I am not able to fix in just one semester. Nevertheless, I have identified the major problems with that machine. And I would like anyone to undertake this project, no matter you're how familiar with engineering.

Skills needed for this project:

basic project management experience
willing to learn engineering knowledge

Not much, right? These are the skills you're going to learn:

3D printing skills
electrical engineering
software engineering (computer science)
mechanical engineering

It shows that you'll be going to learn quite a wide range of engineering skills, so I recommend students that are interested in engineering but don't know where to start to conquer this project.

Basic information about this project:

This is the printer that should be fixed, basic information about this printer:

Name: da Vinci 1.0 Pro 3-in-1

https://www.xyzprinting.com/en/product/da-vinci-1-0-pro-3-in-1

Problems identified:

The carriage tensioner is broken
The Circuit board is crashed

Three main tasks need to be done:

1. Carriage Tensioner replacement (done)

2. Circuit board replacement & software reform

3. Upgrade fans and hot end

I have finished one-third of the task. Looks like the project could be completed quickly, right?

Haha. No.

I'll explain in more detail the problems identified and my progress to let you understand the whole situation.

About carriage tensioner:

The carriage tensioner is to strengthen the drive belt that is connected to the motor to move the hot end in two dimensions.

Carriage tensioner was broken--> loosen drive belt--> can't move the hot end to a target position

the picture below is the broken carriage tensioner:

One side of the hanger is cracked, so I 3D printed the whole model in the following steps:

measure information I need to model the tensioner (ex. size...)
Use Sketch Up to design the tensioner

Sketch up file: https://edu.sketchup.com/edit/drive?state=%7B%22ids%22:%5B%221NoZC8s7THDAnCBu0rmIKy0AsUBarQMZg%22%5D,%22action%22:%22open%22,%22userId%22:%22116765989697840557405%22,%22resourceKeys%22:%7B%7D%7D

Circuit board:

The circuit board was completely dead and there was no way to fix it, so I decided to replace the circuit board and upgrade the hardware capacity at the same time, killing two birds with one stone.

Dead old circuit board:

New circuit board:

How to repair and replace the circuit board and use the SOFTWARE is down below:

I am still in the progress to try to switch the wires from the old circuit board to the new circuit board, and I found out that the plugs aren't the same, so I am trying to solder the wires to joints that are compatible with the wire and the contact hole in the new circuit board.

Soldering:

the soldering box is this one:

Oh, one more thing, there is one terminal block on the circuit board is broken, I have taken it off, and you should also solder it on the circuit board:

the right top of the circuit board s where the terminal block I took it off.

the terminal block you should solder:

If you have finished all of the tasks I mentioned, the machine is probably working now.

I grant you to have the right to ask a teacher to have an A in your grade.

Now, the task below is OPTIONAL, do it if you have time or you're an excellent engineering student with an unlimited passion for 3D printing& Makerspace.

Renew the hot end
Add fans to the machine

Let's start from the hot end thing:

The hot end is the component of a 3D printer that melts the filament for extrusion and helps maintain a consistent and accurate temperature for successful prints.

So if you upgrade the hot end, you'll get a much more efficient and capable machine.

The hot end we want is da Vinci 1.0 Pro Replacement Hot End Module V3, a pretty nice version of the hot end, the old one we are using is a piece of shit compared to this

V3 model.

Remember DON"T buy Hot End for da Vinci 1.0 Pro, that's not compatible with our machine.

There are two parts we need to buy: 1. 3D model 2. the metal parts(E3D V6)

We don't have to buy the circuit board since the V3 hot end has the same circuit board as the old one we have. However, you should make sure if the current intensity(ampere) is capable to work with E3D V6.

To buy the 3D model you can check out this website:

https://www.thingiverse.com/groups/da-vinci/forums/general/topic:5379

The metal parts(E3D V6): this company has the parts we need, but we don't want to assemble them by ourselves

https://www.3dprow.com/

Add fans to the printer:

I have no idea how to add the fans to the machine. I know it's possible to renew it only because the current teacher said there are high-quality fans leftover and I can install them on the 3D printer.