The Voron

Project backstory:

With my 3D printing business taking off, I began to look into getting a more capable 3D printer. I was looking for something that was faster, had more material capability, and most importantly, upgradable. It was around that time when I discovered Voron Design, a group of talented designers and engineers making cutting edge, open source 3D printer designs. I fell in love with all the possibilities this printer had in store, so I bought a Trident hardware kit from Formbot on black Friday. I didn't know it at the time, but this printer would open a whole new realm of possibilities for me. 

Over the next few months, I expanded my knowledge in both the hardware and firmware aspect of 3D printer building. I upgraded the stock toolhead from the Stealthburner to the Xol toolhead by Armchair Heavy Industries. After that, I also added a Trad Rack by Annex Engineering for multi color printing along with a host of modifications designed by other users and myself. I more than doubled the stock Voron speeds, pushing the Trident to 300mm/s at 20k mm/s^2 of acceleration.

I've become obsessed with modifying my printer, extracting every ounce of performance possible to improve speed and quality. However, I got to the point were I felt like I was hitting a performance ceiling with the current configuration. With this in mind, I decided to do a full ground up rebuild. I've documented the process, giving you insight into my design choices and how I approach problems. Enjoy!

Project Goals:

• Increase frame rigidity to handle higher belt tensions and speeds

• Speed: 1000 millimeters per second for travel moves

• Acceleration: >40k millimeters per second squared

• Flow: 40 cubic millimeters per second 

• Build volume: 300 millimeters cubed

• Enclosure Temperature: 90 degrees Celsius ambient 

• Improved aesthetics to match my design style

Custom AWD Monolith Gantry:

To reach my speed and acceleration goals, I need to upgrade the gantry from the stock Voron configuration. After some research, I concluded that the Monolith Gantry by Cloaked Wayne was a good place to start. It has a  shortened belt path, an option for 9mm belts compared to the more standard 6mm belts, and most importantly, a variant that replaces the two front idlers with motors. A quad motor set up essentially doubles the torque output, allowing for higher speeds and accelerations. However, the addition of new motors often comes with the drawback of loosing build volume in the front corners, as a larger toolhead like the Xol can come into contact with the motor mounts. I aimed to fix this issue by building off the already well designed 2wd version of the Monolith gantry.

Belt Tensioning:

To tension the closed section of the belt, I designed this wedge-like mechanism to force the motor mount away from the front corners. The mechanism can be tensioned from the side after loosening the motor mounts, so it should be relatively convenient to use. All the parts were optimized for 3D printing with minimal supports. The wedge pieces for the tensioners are designed to be printed with both of the sliding faces on the build plate to eliminate friction between layer lines. Some of my alternative ideas required tensioning from the front or back while also relying on the strength of heatset inserts, so I'm pretty happy with the final solution. 

Custom Frame:

To fully benefit from the 9mm AWD gantry, the frame of the printer needs to be able to withstand the high belt tensions the belt subjects it to. I decided to build the main extrusions of the printer out of 4040 aluminum because high belt tensions on 9mm setups have been known to cause issues on the more standard 2020. The remainder of the frame is made up of 2040 extrusions for the tops and bottoms and 2020 for the gantry. Although 2040 gantry extrusions may have also improved rigidity, I wanted to keep them as 2020 to conveniently fit insulation later on. This design also features metal panels, further increasing frame rigidity.

Belted Z:

To complement the new gantry, I also decided to go with a belted z axis over the more standard lead screw system. This allowed me to increase the maximum z height from the Trident's standard 250mm to 300mm. The belted z axis should also improve layer stacking a little bit, as lead screws aren't always super straight. I'm not sure if this will be a noticeable difference from a quality standpoint, but the added z height is definitely a benefit. The design was mostly adapted from Genevamotion's and Thiagolocatelli's Trident Belted Z mod, as it has support for the monolith gantry, but I modified the motor mounts to fit the geared stepper motors I bought along with the 4040 frame.  

Custom MMU Buffer System:

Like in my previous iteration of my Trident, I will be using the Trad Rack Multi Material Unit (MMU) to perform multi color and maybe multi material printing. Last time, I modified a ERCF Cotton Tail buffer and adapted it to the 17mm width of a Trad Rack lane. This worked pretty well under most printing circumstances, but I found it to be a little cumbersome to load new spools into the MMU. For this iteration, I have decided to make my own filament buffer from scratch with usability in mind. I was largely inspired by the design of the "Simple Slot Buffer" by 53Aries, but I wanted to design one from scratch with a nice side mount on the Trident to make it one uniform unit. This is a current work in progress.

Electronics:

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