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RepRap X2V3

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Hardware

Metal Parts (AKA vitamins)
Location of Changed Rods
The hardware design is similar to RepRap X2 (that is based on SAE Prusa's Mendel), but X2V3 has to be slightly wider and therefore requires some of the metal rods to be longer (basically all the rods that are positioned horizontally). Below is the list of the changed rod lengths. Both, the original (RepRap X2 or Prusa's Mendel) and correspondent X2V3 rod lengths are listed.
  1. Two threaded rods on top and one at the bottom of the machine that are used for mounting Z-motors, extruders and clamp the lower end of the vertical smooth rods:
    3x440mm (original) -> 3x465mm (X2V3)
  2. Four threaded rods for connecting the frame triangles at the bottom front and back of the machine:
    4x294mm (original) -> 4x320mm (X2V3)
  3. Two smooth rods the hotend carriages slide on:
    2x392mm (original) -> 2x410mm (X2V3)
Additional parts
The additional parts for making the second hotend carriage and its driving mechanism are: A few more of various nuts and bolts will be needed. For the carriage assembly those are 3/4" and 1" long 6/32" machine screws and nuts (can be purchased in HD or Lowe's hardware stores). A few 5/16 washers and two locking nuts will be needed for the ball bearing mounting. You'll also need more of the smaller screws for mounting the motor and attaching the 40mm fan to the carriage.
The nozzle wipers can be made using various techniques and materials. I'm using about 40mm long piece of a thick silicone tube with a triangular cut up to the center of it where the nozzle slides over it (right in the middle). The 3/4" long 6/32" screws are tightened on each side of the wiper arms and the tube goes onto the screws (it sits tight enough to prevent it from rotating).

Plastic Parts
A lot of the plastic parts in RepRap X2V3 have been changed. Some of them have minor changes in the design files and are not noticeably different from RepRap X2 parts, others have changed completely. The following components of the machine have been modified and are not compatible with RepRap X2 design: The STL files for the specific parts can be downloaded by clicking on the part's thumbnail image. Downloading and printing those parts individually is probably the best approach for upgrading an existent RepRap X2 machine. For building the X2V3 machine from scratch one can download the complete building plates further below. The parts are for the machines using 3mm filament.

Frame triangle parts:

Design files: frame.zip
Four legs and two top vertices are required to build the machine.

X-ends:

Design files: x-end.zip
Two copies of each part are required. The x-ends are positioned on the opposite sides of the x-stage. The motor side of the right x-end should be facing the front of the machine and it should be facing the back of the machine for the left x-end (if everything is printed correctly). The wiper arms ('i'-idler side and 'm'-motor side) are screwed under the x-end on each side of the machine.

X-carriages with hotend mounts:

Design files: x-car.zip
Two copies of each part are required. The X-carriages are positioned to face the opposite directions. The right carriage belt clamps should point to the back of the machine and the left one to the front. The belt clamps in the carriage STL file are generated for GT2 timing belts.

Motor fan mounts:

Design files: fanmount.zip
The motor fan mounts allow to hook up 40mm fans to the machine stepper motors. Installing those fans isn't necessary, but when tuned for optimal performance the motors can become pretty hot. The extruder motors are especially prone to overheating.

Build plates:

Design files: plates.zip
The build plates contain a complete (except the motor fan mounts and casing components) set of plastic parts required to build single X2V3 machine (for printing with the 3mm filament).

Casing
Cardboard case
The case covers most of the printing area preventing uncontrolled drafts that cool down the build plate and the part being printed. That helps to improve consistency of the prints, significantly speeds up heating of the build plate during startup and decreases warping.
The easiest way to see how useful it can be is to cut it from the coagulated cardboard. That might even work fine as a permanent solution (ignoring potential fire hazard problem). When time comes to switch to a different material, the cardboard case can be used to adjust design for better fitting as all the RepRap machines end up being a bit different.
The picture (at the right side) shows the cardboard case that was used as the template for the design files to cut the acrylic plates for making the casing of the RepRap X2V3 machine pictured on the top of the page. The ends of the threaded rods protruding from the sides of the machine frame legs go into holes on the sides of the casing. The casing is also attached to the frame on the top (similarly to the electronics mounting plate). The front and back of the casing are connected using the small side plates. The front door plate is hinged (using packaging tape in the cardboard case). The back plate has circular hole for the heat lamp.

Design files for laser cutting the casing plates:

Those SVG files can be used with ponoko.com laser cutting service. The clear 4.5mm thick acrylic was used for my machine casing.
Note: the holes for connecting the plates are not a part of the design and have to be drilled manually or added to the design files depending on the kind of brackets and hinges used.

Plastic parts:

The above plastic parts might come useful for assembling the casing. The leftmost is a bracket for connecting the plates. The rightmost is a special plastic washer. Those plastic washers are placed over the 5/16 nuts on the side of the machine legs. The flat surface should face the washer under the nut. The case side plates then go on top of those and tightened using big metal fender washer and another 5/16 nut. The plastic washers (by bending) give some room to adjust the position of the casing side plates.