True about the gantry, but a print bed will have significantly more mass as size scales up than a gantry. It is especially true if a bowden setup is used. Yea, for z-axis, I have been thinking I would do something like this to drive it all off of one motor: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/h-bot-and-corexy-3d-printers/qQs10CV1hnM/EqD25p7tbswJ
I have 2 gMax printers. The gMax 1.5 and the gMax 1.5+. Both printers work very well. I use them everyday. The gMax 1.5+ worked right out of the box. I had to tune the bed alignment slightly but after 10 minutes I was easily printing very large models. My second day after unboxing the gMax 1.5+, I was 29 hours into a large model which finished much better than anticipated. Replacement parts are very affordable, accessible and modular. The software and electronics are opensource. This printer can be modded/built into any form of FDM 3d printer. The customer support is great. This is a great choice for any prosumer looking for a 3D printer.
varija
January 28, 2016, 12:29pm
13
Hi, Thanks for BOM. I have some doubt on ACME rod.There you mentioned 1/4"-16.please let me know 1/4" is diameter?If yes it is equal to approximate 6 or 8mm rod.Also please explain 16.is it length of rod?
1/4" acme will be close to 6mm acme in diameter. 1/4" is 6.35mm. 20 is the number of turns per inch. You may find something similar in metric, but it won’t be exact. You will need to alter the marlin settings appropriately for whichever rod you get. You also will need to make sure that the nuts you use in the z axis will be captured properly in the printed parts. Check the dimensions of the ones you get against the 3d models. If they don’t match, you may need to alter the models some. I honestly don’t know why they chose to use imperial measurements. Metric can be found without too much difficulty here in the USA.
varija
January 29, 2016, 6:11am
15
Thanks for reply.Here I got some 8mm ACME rod with 3mmpich. I will try with this.
varija
February 27, 2016, 4:40pm
16
Dear Sir,
Thanks
varija
March 7, 2016, 3:46am
17
Dear Sir,
Thanks
varija
March 18, 2016, 6:37pm
18
Hi anybody know?
Thanks
I have a gCreate GMAX and I use it daily. I had yet to try ABS on it, but for PLA, so goat so good. I use Aqua Net Extra Hold hair spray and I’ve had no issues. I do have the occasional mess ups from downloaded files but nothing on my printers end. I also have a Prusa i3 and I rarely use it anymore. Think I’m going to try ABS in the next week or so and attempt to get that figured out.
It’s definitely a good printer. I have been getting very good quality prints as long as I pay attention to my settings and know my printer. I do have a few modifications, but mostly to support an e3d Chimera hotend.
I have printed and assembled nearly all of the lower portion (where most of the complicated parts are) of a Curta calculator (if you’re interested in the progress, I post my updates on http://wudev.digitaltorque.com ). Many of the parts are very small, and nearly all of them require tight tolerances to operate properly. The work has involved cutting both internal and external threads into printed parts. The gMax has handled this work which involves detailed prints both large and small very well.
That said, I am currently building a core-xy printer which will eliminate y-axis movement vibration since it won’t be moving a big print bed back and forth.
Excellent printer – it will get you far, but there is room to grow.
thats cool do you have any pics of your build?
I threw together a shared album . I couldn’t find any photos of the entire printer – I’ll take a couple and upload them tonight.
The extruder pictured is a direct drive extruder for an e3d Chimera hotend . I had to make a plate to mount it to which I did in OnShape and just now pushed to thingiverse .
About how much time did you have in the build? Would you do it again?
It’s hard to say how much time I put into the build – I purchased parts a little at a time and built it as I got parts. I would guess I put the whole printer together and calibrated it in the equivalent of 3 days of focused work.
My biggest annoyance with the gMax design is that an 18x18 print bed is a very large and heavy bed to be moving back and forth. When doing infill on small areas, the bed moves back and forth very quickly causing lots of vibration. Even if you stiffen up the y-axis (the 1.5+ does this), the bed itself is on springs to make leveling easier and prevent head crashes from doing as much damage. The springs will pick up the movements and translate it to vibration on the print bed.
My second printer is a combination between a D-Bot and a Triple C-Bot and because I can’t leave anything alone I have my own modifications as well. The print bed only moves vertically in small increments (your layer height). At speeds that would cause significantly reduced print quality on my gMax, I am getting very smooth prints on the new printer. Plus it has a heated bed. My biggest problem so far has been stringing from using a Bowden setup, but I’ll get that ironed out. Picture attached of a Marvin printed at 80mm/s with 0% infill at 0.1mm layer height printed on the new printer.
Edit: grr, my phone camera won’t focus on the Marvin very well so it’s hard to see just how good the quality is. Plus it’d be nice to see a comparison with one printed on my gMax with similar settings (minus the speed). I’ll see if I can remember to take those photos tonight with a better camera when I get home.
“My biggest annoyance with the gMax design is that an 18x18 print bed is a very large and heavy bed to be moving back and forth. When doing infill on small areas, the bed moves back and forth very quickly causing lots of vibration. Even if you stiffen up the y-axis (the 1.5+ does this), the bed itself is on springs to make leveling easier and prevent head crashes from doing as much damage. The springs will pick up the movements and translate it to vibration on the print bed.”
Interesting, is this typical of large bed printers where the bed moves in the X,Y or both as opposed to the extruder moving or is it something about there design.
It would be typical of large bed printers. Their design actually does a great job of mitigating it, but I’ve found that it’s always a factor.
Is there a term for this? Just curious I want to upgrade to a large bed printer and it would help my research
I am not sure if there is a specific term. There will always be effects from all the movement going on. Changes in design can move or reduce it to mitigate the impact to the print, but often at a cost in another way.
AlNYC
September 11, 2016, 12:52am
29
I bought a gCreate GMax 1.5 + for over 3K and got a lemon. My printer has not produced a single good quality items even though I have followed all the instructions and spent many hours trying doing so.
The delivery was quite difficult to coordinate and the package arrived damaged, so some of the problems may be the fault of the shipper.
However, gCreate dropped the ball on the support. They reply late or not at all to emails (once they have received the payment); don’t have a phone number; and were not at the address that they specified (Industry City Sunset Park).
After spending over 3K on this printer I now only use my XYZ printer ($349) and my Prusa i3 ($300 kit) and have yet to hear back from gCreate.
I highly recommend that you try their forums if you haven’t already. There is some official support there and there are also experienced users who are very helpful.
