Posts by humebeam

Yes I've printed at nearly 400 C as an experiment. I've successfully printed an Icarus fan duct in GF-PEI for example. It's possible with the Dragon hotend and a 60 W heater, probably with a 50 W heater as well. There are other hotends that can do it too but ensure you use one that is rated for the temp as well as using a thermocouple rated at 500 C (a K-500 thermocouple).

One thing to remember though you will likely need dual hotend fans to transfer away all the heat from the hotend efficiently else you will get heat creep and clogging as a result. What I did was print a special mount with one fan in front (like standard Icarus) and one in the rear then use the top right plug on the PCB to power that extra fan (so it was always running), after that it ran longer prints fine at 385 C.

Printing PEEK or PEI for example is very difficult but it can be done, definitely not for beginners. You need high bed temps, high chamber temps and will probably have problems with bed adhesion and warping. I would also use a one perimeter draft shield around the printed part to keep the heat enclosed as much as possible (see video below). These printers aren't really setup for it though, the recommended chamber temp is difficult to reach. You could do so with a PTC heater but if the temps get too high your stepper motors won't be happy. But 2 or 3 hour prints should be fine as long as you can get bed adhesion. Print on glass using Nano Polymer as adhesive.

I don't recommend it but it can be done. Good luck.

Yes it is expensive but both the 115W heater and a T-K500 thermocouple included so it's not a lot more than a Dragon. Soon they will also offer a TD6 with a K-500, less than half price.

I have tested one for about a month, it's been awesome. Heats up super fast and maintains temps great. Stock PID and it's perfectly stable.

I agree with that.

Quote from GrumpyOldNerd

Hello dear friends of happy melting, after I had to put my project on hold for a quarter of a year due to a job change, I installed the Orbiter 2.0 today to print the carriages. So far everything looks great, but my hotend cooler is pulsing every second, ie it starts up, goes off after a second and starts up again. And he does that all the time.

Have the new Qidi firmware on it with the new GUI and the Gcode Mod from the instructions.

What can it be?

It is a bug with the latest firmware (2.29). It effects some fans but not all. I'm using 2.29 and my fans are working.

Downgrade to 2.27 and your fans will be fine. But then the filament load/unload function will be buggy instead, pick your poison

Quote from humebeam

This is reportedly fixed in Qidi firmware 2.29, I've not tested it myself yet. Ask Qidi support and they will send you the update.

Make sure you run the Icarus firmware adjustment after.

Just an update on this, version 2.29 fixes the bug, I've just installed it.

Quote from bema

2. FW jabe ich die letzte. Sie kam mit dem neuen Board, was ich vor dem Umbau bekommen habe.

This is reportedly fixed in Qidi firmware 2.29, I've not tested it myself yet. Ask Qidi support and they will send you the update.

Make sure you run the Icarus firmware adjustment after.

Absolutely, carriage is the same and it is the final version. Only more extruder/hotend mounts, same as before.

A little update for Icarus 2 which should be happy news for everyone as it allows for much cheaper builds and an easy upgrade path later for people on a budget.

So what's coming next?

- Support for BMG extruder. Rigid hotend mounts: Dragon, Dragonfly, Mosquito. V6 groove mount for all hotends using such a mount, including but not limited to E3D V6.

- Support for Rapido HF hotend.

- Support for E3D V6 hotend (and clones, it is open source). There will be mounts for all supported extruders: Orbiter 1.5, Orbiter 2.0, Sherpa Mini, LGX Lite, BMG.

BMG of course means a much heavier setup about the same weight as Hercules (but lighter than stock) but you can later transform it to a Sherpa Mini by printing the parts and getting a Nema 14 motor for it. It will also be easier for Olaf to scout parts for builds.

View more here:

Icarus 2 - Status update

imgur.com

The Moai bust was printed at 60% scale just today using a Trianglelab BMG and Dragon HF hotend. As you can see this combination can also give you great looking prints at a lower cost.

Quote from Olaf Krause

Does it support a thermocoupler? I thought it is delivered with 104NT thermistor? Or are there several options? Spec states 290C max. for the Thermistor.

Yes you are right, thermistor only normally but I've asked Trianglelab to make one with a T-K500 thermocouple, it will be available once my testing is complete and the mounts are uploaded.

Here is a picture of my hotends with T-K500.

Dragonfly is also supported and almost as good. However, it is lacking steel columns between the heatsink and the heatblock to survive nozzle crashes and enabled one handed nozzle changes. It's a bit cheaper.

Rapido hotend will be supported soon, it's more expensive but includes heater core and thermocouple.

Quote from Olaf Krause

Here are two pictures of the current prints just coming out of the printer.

0.4mm steel nozzle. Prusa PC CF 295C printed.

Looks great, cooling off?

Sorry for the delay. I have 10 mm rods.

I forgot to mention I wear a tin foil hat.

I might, haven't decided

To be honest I think they've done it on purpose to limit aftermarket solutions i e Icarus.

Yes PID tune is no longer working on recent firmwares, I have reported this two months ago to Qidi but they said they would forward the info to their engineers but nothing has happened.

The stock PID works nicely with Icarus and 40-60W heaters so it's not a real issue. Best to not run the auto PID script at all, just skip that step.

All parts in the printer including Icarus, my improved X-Gantry and bed leveling screws are printed in Prusament PC Blend (Orange and PC CF).

For the I-Mate I've not seen any.

I've redesigned the X-Max enclosure, it's complete but not yet fully installed.

It's using side panels in Polycarbonate attached by magnets to the frame so you can quickly remove them when needed. I've not cut the PC sheets yet but other than that it is complete. The screen is moved out of the way and is located below the printer, just pulls out when needed.

I will attach a few pics and also an earlier render.

Imgur

imgur.com

Edit: The pulley on the motor shaft is correct. You could flip it the other way around but the belt alignment would be skewed more.

Yeah it is more flexible, I agree but looks so great . I'll see if I can upload my bearings to the project page later.