Ordbot

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ordbot Hardon build

I built my Ordbot back in December 2012, having been interested in 3D printing for a few years. I liked the concept of the original RepRaps, but to be honest, I was a little put off by how fragile they looked, and I had some concerns about the slop they may have.

Upon seeing an Ordbot Hadron at the hackerspace, however, I was impressed. It is made out of Makerslide and, at the time in 2012, was far more rigid than other models I had seen.

I bought an Ordbot kit, a reprapdiscount RAMPS1.4 electronics set, and a Wades Extruder kit to round out the basics.

Assembly was interesting - There wasn’t a heck of a lot of documentation, and I found myself looking at the engineering drawings and a whole bunch of forum posts about similar builds.

I spent a few days on the frame assembly. To be neat and tidy, it seemed quite a few people drilled out holes in the frame to run cables in, which I proceeded to do.

After assembling the frame and running the stepper motor cables inside the frame, I took to wiring the electronics.

Originally, I had the Arduino/RAMPS combo bolted to the frame as below, which I later moved into its own case with a fan to help with cooling the steppers. At the time, I didn’t realize how much active cooling they required!

Calibration was also a challenge, as was bed adhesion. Printing PLA on glass was all the rage in 2012, but I could never get it to stick well. Blue painter’s tape ended up being my go-to.

It wasn’t until late 2015 that I completed Rev.2 of the Ordbot - upgraded with a Bulldog Extruder, E3D v6 hotend, printed case + fan for the RAMPS, and a Full Graphic display for the LCD.

The Bulldog was far superior to the printed wades, and the E3D hotend was amazing compared to the hotend I started with (which I can’t even recall now).

Later, a Raspi 3 with Octoprint came along, and I printed a case for it that I tacked onto the back of the printer. Since I never designed the rear of the case for the amount of gear I was trying to fit in, I honestly never managed to get it neat and tidy. “Working” became the main goal.

That said, after plenty of tuning, fiddling with the Marlin firmware, etc., I was able to get decent prints from it.

It got some decent use - for example, I printed 80 sculpture pieces for a friend’s wedding, as well as love heart train carts for my step-daughter’s birthday. During arts and crafts activities, we could have a moving train delivering glitter and pens to everyone.

However, with the arrival of the Prusa MK3s in the household, it is now fully dismantled, awaiting its upgrade to Rev3.

Ordbot on Voltaicforge

Ordbot

Ordbot Hardon build