HBOT PRO PROTOTYPE GALLERY



Hey guyz. Well, we finally did it. We know we said we would post this the night of the Phlatlab show but that was before we realized how tired we were. We apologize for that. Hopefully, this post makes up for it.

The H-Bot Pro is a 3D Printer that we are working on developing and we plan on offering it as one of our Phlatboyz machines. We hope it to be fast, accurate, and inexpensive so we can all enjoy it. Some of the principle design features we are hoping for with this project are speed and build size. We really wanted to leave the H-Bot Pro as open as possible for mod-ability. Because you will be able to 3D print your own parts, creating brackets, attachments, and other cool upgrades, will be easy to integrate into the overall machine.

There are a lot of 3D printers on the market today. We want to make sure that the H-Bot is unique and not just in it's mod-ability features but also in the way that the overall system works. We are happy to say that we have accomplished this utilizing the H-Gantry system. The H Gantry system is amazing to watch in action. It plays a trick on the mind because it uses one continuous belt loop to produce both X and Y motions simultaneously and it does so precisely and at high speeds.

Goals we are shooting for with the H-Bot Pro:
1. Mod-Ability. It would be awesome to be able to build a 10' version!
2. Speed. We want to be as quick as possible without compromising print quality which means keeping the gantry as light as possible. At this point, we can only go as fast as the plastic can be extruded so Phlatboyz will have to jump in and help design a quicker extrusion system
3. Precision. Especially on the Z axis. We feel like gear reduction will give us resolution beyond what we are seeing out there today.
4. Price. We are hoping to be able to offer a very competitive price. We are incorporating a lot of high end parts on this Pro system but we are also taking measure to minimize the amount of custom parts that we will need to have manufactured. Plus, we can always print upgrade parts
5. Software. We can't thank Nick (jovian) enough for being on board and helping us bring this machine to life. We hope the software will be easy to use but powerful enough to allow for advanced users to continually improve. Having Nick working on the program as well as owning an H-Bot Pro (prototype) will really help push the envelope of the software.
6. Size of the Print Bed. We are shooting for a standard size of one cubic foot. 12" X 12" X 12". Where you take it from there is up to you

We have successfully produced 3D parts using the H-Bot prototypes

As well as work on our end proceeding with the hardware design and development, jovian here on the Phlatforum has been working on the software side of development for the H-Bot Controller. It is really coming along nicely. It's been great working with him and we appreciate all of his efforts. He has really taken this project to heart and put his all into it. We are shipping him our latest prototype so that he can move forward fine tuning the software and testing it in a real world environment.

Here is a picture of the latest protoype that we will be sending to jovian.


he main parts of a 3D printer consist of an X, Y, and Z gantry stage as well as an extruder, a hot end, and a control board.

For the H-Bot Pro, we wanted to ensure that we could get the highest possible resolutions on the Z axis (very thin layers of plastic for each layer). Therefore, we applied gear reduction on the Z axis. This should give us very high resolution. Here is a picture of our current test bed.

As for the extruder, we are testing the Wade Extruder. This is a popular extruder used on 3D Printers at the moment. We have been successful with it, to some degree. The extruder works by extruding plastic filaments that comes on a spool or a roll through a pinch point controlled by stepper speed through a bowden cable system forcing it through the heated nozzle of the hot end. Keeping the extruder off of the gantry reduces the overall gantry weight and allows for overall higher printing speeds. Here is a pic.

The hot end that we have chosen to experiment with is the Budaschnozzle. It may not be the final hot end but it works well for testing purposes. They just released a version 1.1 which we will be incorporating in the next prototype. This new version allows for changing out nozzles as well as a longer body length for faster printing speeds. We chose the Budaschnozzle because of it's compact design and completeness. Generally, all hot ends utilize the same components but we really like the way this one was laid out. It was based off of the arcol hot end. Here are a couple of pictures.





The electronics that we have chosen to use, so far, have been the open source Arduino Mega with the ramps shield. The ramps shield is basically a driver board that plugs directly into the Arduino Mega which is the processor/usb connection. The shield also acts as a breakout board for the Arduino Mega and gives you the ability to connect inputs and outputs. For example, the hot end has a resistor that heats up the aluminum nozzle as well as a thermister which sends the signal back to the Arduino so that the software can monitor the temperature and turn the resistor on and off according to the temperature the nozzle should be at. The electronics handles all of the motor movements and calculations as well as extruder feed speeds and retracts. There are a lot of variables with a machine like this going on at the same time and the Arduino Mega does an amazing job handling all of these processes taking place at once. Here is a picture.

So, starting out with the first prototype was just the concept. Will the H-Gantry system work was the question we asked ourselves. We built this very crude but (we think) very cool looking first prototype. Here are a couple of pics. The last picture was a test to see if a pvc frame could be used with the H-Gantry system. It could not. The inertia was too great for the pvc flex.


So, we moved to a more structurally sound frame and settled on aluminum t-slots. This worked much better. On this particular prototype, we are using V-Groove bearings riding down the center of the aluminum track. This actually worked very well, however, since the bearings are hardened steel and the aluminum is not, it wore a groove in the aluminum. Here are some pictures of this prototype. You will notice in a few pictures we started to experiment using garolite in combination with the t-slot to create the brackets that we needed for the machine. This worked out really well for prototyping but gets very expensive so we used other materials such as mdf whenever possible.

Here are a couple of pictures of a miniature Sharpie Attachment based on scraighamilton's Sharpie design for the Phlatprinter 3. At the time, we did not have a hot end to test with so we decided to use a Sharpie marker. This worked out really well for early testing of the H-Gantry's acceleration and velocity.

A little bit further down the road, here we are with the Mag eyes, tuning the machine.
Some help these two turned out to be

We got the hot end in! More testing....

Here we are testing power supplies.

Our first prints were basically squares as you can see here.

On this next part, we got a little ahead of ourselves and it came out like a brillo pad but we still loved it.

We consider those parts test prints. Our first real printed 3D part was from SketchUp It was a circle with some geometric shapes on it as well as the PB. Keep in mind, all of this time, we are testing different software settings. We are still working on getting it dialed in. This part was supposed to be a lot smaller than what it is here.

Here is a bunch of various test prints that we have done with the material that we have had to use. Most all are done in a filament called PLA which is a natural corn based plastic with the exception of the yellow prints which are ABS plastic. ABS is not the plastic of choice as it warps on larger parts and requires a little more heat on the nozzle. Still testing and experimenting though.



We hope you have enjoyed the pictures, so far. Please keep in mind, this is a very small glimpse into the trials and testing that have been going on into the Phlatlab. Just to give you an idea, there are over 100 different design variations of this machine, so far, and the majority of them are extremely different. We have come to settle on this particular concept at this point but we'll see what the coming days bring. There are very exciting times ahead of all of us. We really feel that you will enjoy this machine as we have watched carefully and studied existing designs and have incorporated as many improvements and innovative solutions to further develop the technology. It's truly going to be awesome to have this tool in your workshop. We'll keep you posted as we further develop the H-Bot Pro. Thanks so much for your support and encouragement in bringing this idea to reality.

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Awesome!!!! I can't wait to have an Hbot in my workshop.

 

Thanks guyz!

Last night, we packed the H-Bot prototype to be shipped off to Nick (jovian) so he can get his hands on it and roll up his 3D Printing Sleeves.

We know it's going to a good home but it didn't make it any easier to say good bye :girl_cray2:

The first picture is us getting some of the wires ready for the trip and the second is what it looks like all boxed up. It took 2 of the large square boxes we use for the Phlatprinter 3 and this version weighed 26 lbs.





This picture is an idea we had attaching Din Rail to the extrusion. It was so close to being really great. Still might circle back to this, in some form. It's nice and light and that is what we are after.



We are now working on the next prototype using the MakerSlide for our cabinet pieces. The MakerSlide is an extrusion which incorporates the V for the grooved wheels onto the extrusion itself. This is a great product and we have hight hopes for it. Our thoughts leading up to this build are that it's a little beefier than we really need but it's sooo nice we just have to give it a try. Here is a pic of the early stage of the build using the MakerSlide.



Mark and Trish Attached files

 

I was looking at that Makerslide a while back. That stuff looks really nice.

 

It is really nice and we plan/hope to incorporate it into future machines (maybe a PhlatBED 2x4 ) as we move forward!
We are going to do our best to make the HBOT open hardware as well as the software!
Mark and Trish

 

Keep up the good R&D because I've got green waiting to spend. The project is looking great. It's an amazing nitch that is so close to a pp (cnc in general) that it makes learning the new terminology and following various groups easy to do.

Is a heated bed going to be part of the design. I seems that temperature monitoring and correction from several aspects plays a big part in constant prints.

I'm really glad your using the Arduino Mega platform. I love that thing and have done many shields for many things and never had one fail on its own. The language is straight forward and new libraries are introduced all the time.

 

Thank you for mentioning PLA as what the Hbot will be centered around.

Just to help peeps wrap their head around the 3D push, this helped me a lot http://www.3ders.org/directory/

 

Hey guyz. Well, by now you probably know that this week's Phlatlab show was not recorded. It really stinks if you missed it LIVE! :girl_cray2: In any event, you can turn back time but you can upload some of the pics that we shared on the show,

Things are going great with the H-Bot. We are successfully printing parts and are moving forward. We are waiting to get a prototype part from a local manufacturer which will hopefully help push us in the right direction. We are looking forward to receiving that. In the meantime, please enjoy these pics. Attached files