Sounds very interesting. I have been thinking the same thing. The plastic parts of the platform are what i am concerned with on a long print. For temp control you would need to have a controller that does the work for you or manually adjust with a regulated supply. I am curious to see how it goes. When i get mine will get done. That link is not 12x12 i assume that is just the same idea.
J
Well if you just bought one of the cheap power supplies for a prusia i3 they can Pretty much get the bed up to temp and almost no farther . basically what I’m saying is they get the bed to about 110 and never really any farther
cobnut
August 18, 2016, 1:53pm
5
Hi @runninred57 the electronics involved in temperature controlling something like this are really quite simple; the kit appears to come with a thermistor, so all you need to do is measure it’s value, compare that to your setting, then turn the power on/off to the plate as appropriate. The trickiest part would be calibrating the thermistor (ideally you’d need an infra-red temp reader to check it), but that’s not an unsolvable problem and, once calibrated, it shouldn’t need doing again.
Because I’m lazy, I’d probably use a small Arduino of some flavour, an LED display for the temperature to set, a power switch and a couple of up/down micro-switches (maybe a few components for the circuitry). You could print an enclosure for it and you’d be set.
wbasoc
August 18, 2016, 7:50pm
6
Who are you and when do you think this will be ready?
Thanks
Hi there
did you notice your heated build plate is 300x200 mm?
build plate of Z18 is 300x300.
I would prefere to go for biger one.
ide3d
August 19, 2016, 12:43pm
8
Hi, you can check out our profile
wbasoc
August 19, 2016, 12:55pm
9
We have a replacement Z18 coming to us in a couple of days, that we might be able to send you the build plate from.
I would want to look at your past products and how well they work.Do you have a website?
Another straight forward option is to purchase a PID temperature controller. You would need to use a thermocouple instead of the thermistor, but a whole kit including a controller, thermocouple and SSR can be bought from Amazon for ~$30. Then you just need to wire it to your power supply. Make sure you match voltages of the SSR and powersupply.
Cheers,
please keep us updated, I will definitely buy a heated build plate, I hope to hear from you soon.
ide3d
August 31, 2016, 6:41pm
12
Hi guys, since several of you contacted me, i wanted to inform you about the status: We decided to purchase an Z18 to make sure we can adapt our 5th gen replicator HBP system for the Z18. We received the Z18 2 days ago and had a lot of work to adjust everything (really unbelievable how some things were mounted at an 8000 USD machine btw) Do not understand me wrong, we do not plan to make the existing build plate fit to the Z18, we are making a special Z18 version, just in the same kind like we did for the Rep 5th Gen. I think there will be no big problems and I guess in a few weeks i can inform you that it is available.
I cant wait, I have to agree with you the Z18 really lacks in build quality for such an expensive machine, a lot of things happened at makerbot through the production and further development of the z18, many features were cut or posponed and the printer was then finally marketed as a PLA only printer when in actual fact this was suppose to be their flagship printer with multi material support with all the bells and whistles utilising the same patented tech from stratasys, they only went as far as to redevelop the smart extruder + sadly no stratsys engineers were put on the project the team was loosly filled from new and leftover employees from makerbot, the team did a reasonable job all things considered however stratasys probably realised the capabilities of this machine and that it would outperform many of the other very expensive objet and fortus machines if they were to allow it front and center stage time.
Any other news on this? @wabasoc did you get a HBP on the z18? I’d love to chat with you if you did so I can add one on mine. @id3d can you provide some more detail on you upgrades? If you are vetted I’d send you my build plate for you to create a HBP for the z18. Thanks everyone
Whats going on with this I am ready to drop some cash for one
ide3d
December 5, 2016, 3:38pm
17
Hi guys, i already replied to some of you in a personal message. It took way longer than expected to bring the 5th gen thing on the market, cause we had to do a lot of certification and stuff. I will inform you here as soon as the Z18 Version is available - sorry for the long waiting, i would have liked it faster also
thanks for the reply, are you able to provide some specs and an inclination of what it will look like, what functionality will it have? is it tied into the firmware? and a rough cost if possible thanks and hope to hear from you soon. i cant wait to start printing abs through the z18.
ide3d
December 6, 2016, 11:45am
19
Hi, it’s completely independent from the software and firmware. It has its own controller where you can set the temperature directly. So there are also no changes at the printer needed, you just replace the original build plate with our build plate system and can switch back whenever you want to the original one.
wbasoc
December 11, 2016, 12:16am
20
Is there a website I can check out your products? one of your posts said you have a system for the 5G, I would love to get one of those and worry about our Z18 later. Thanks.
ide3d
December 11, 2016, 8:54am
21
Hello, yes but only in german at the moment and the 5th gen is not uploaded yet.
there will be a English site also.
wbasoc
December 11, 2016, 2:38pm
22
Please lets us know when the english site is up.
