Apogee BeltEnder Beta 1
I'm very excited to share with you my latest upgrade project for one of the most popular printers, the Ender 3 v2.
This project started as a wish of Jason from LDO Motors to offer an upgrade kit for Ender 3 v2 owners which takes your beloved printer to a completely new level.
The design is based on linear rails an all axes, a belted Z design which get rids of all Z bending issues of the stock design and the Apogee toolhead adapted for linear rail.
If you have not joined already please join our Facebook group, support and design discussions are mainly done there.
Design description
This design is shared under Creative Commons license - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license!
This upgrade kit requires changing of the roller based movement system to linear rails. The Z axis motion is controlled by a belt system, this way Z artefacts are completely eliminated.
To make the upgrade most affordable this version uses printed parts. You only need to buy the mechanical parts listed in the mBOM, the rest of the part could be printed on your Ender 3 v2 out of PETG, ASA or ABS. I personally printed the parts out pf PETG.
Suggested printable parts print orientation:
Suggested print settings:
-
Perimeters – 4 using 0.4mm layer width
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Solid TOP and Bottom layers - 6 using 0.25mm layer
height
- Infill - 75%
Supports are needed for the ZmotorMount, RightZBeltArm and LeftZbeltBracket
Alignment Jigs
Proper calibration and alignment of some parts requires some jigs to make sure you mount the parts in the right position.
Suggested jig parts print orientation.
I suggest to print two rail alignment jigs, this way both ends of the linear rail can be restrained to he right position before tightening down the fixing screws.
The X axis horizontal alignment tool also need to be printed twice. Using this piece the belt Z belt system can be adjusted to hold the X axis in a perfect horizontal position. Print part with support.
Assembly Manual - soon
Firmware configuration
Direct drive extruder requires linear advance feature. Recently the issue causing the crash of the stepper driver with Creality boards (4.2.2 and 4.2.7) having linear advance active was fixed. Here you cand download the firmware for BeltEnder running on Creality 4.2.2 boards.
Copy the firmware-xxxxx-xxxx to an SD cards root. Insert the SD card into your mainboard, power on the prionter and wait for firmware to be uploaded.
The firmware is compiled to use BL_Touch or CR_Touch with Apogee, Orbiter v2.0. All setting in the firmware are done. After uploading firmware you have to redo PID tunning for bed, hotend and configure Z offset.
*Note the Orbiter v2.0 wires shall be plugged in directly to the mainboard, now wires needs to be swapped. The direction change is done in the firmware.
Next, you must update your LCD firmware as well otherwise no icons on your screens will be displayed. Copy the DWIN_SET directory to an SD cad and insert it to your display. Power on the printer. The screen shall turn blue indicating its uploading new firmware. After screen tuned to orange, indicating firmware upload finished. Power off the printer, take out the SD card and power it back on. Display firmware update done!