get kits for the things you want and self source what you want to be picky on. For example, here’s a motion kit
configure a kit from someone like West3D
buy a BOM in a box. There are a couple of brands that do this
I personally went the West3D route. It seems like the LDO and formbot BOM-in-a-box options are popular. If you live near a microcenter they offer smaller kits if you want to mix and match or use a brick and mortar. Self sourcing tends to be expensive due to our collective tendancy to buy higher quality than necessary parts and shipping.
Yes, you will be building the thing from a ton of parts. Yes, it will take you a while. If you’re comfortable building things there’s nothing particular hard about it. You absolutely will not need to solder. Most kits come with premade wiring harness and there’s plenty of complete wiring options available even if you buy components. Depending on your goals, you might need to customize your wiring some. This means crimping, which isn’t hard per say but you’ll probably need to buy a crimper or two and dial in the right amount of squish for your terminal and wire gauge combination. Too much force and you’ll wind up severing the wires. Too little and the terminal will come off the wire. Again, not hard but you’ll probably need to do it a few times before you develop a feel and get consistent.
I see their kit, very cool. I’m alright if I have to solder. My neighbor can help out, they have a complete workbench setup for electronics and I believe they even have the crimpers I would need.
I’m going to go for the 350mm bed. I’m tired of being limited on the build plate of the Vyper. Are there any suggestions for bumping up the base kit? I see there are a lot of options for this kit.
I replied to another post with a list of mods, so take a look at the other comments in the post for some out of box mods.
As a 350 owner, be aware of two things.
First, big bed = big chamber = heat soak takes a while and you have a lot more surface area to lose heat from. If you want to print big ABS/ASA parts you’re going to want ACM panels, a better sealed/insulated front door, and potentially a radiant layer inside the printer.
Second, the big printer limits your rate of acceleration some compared to a smaller CoreXY. IMO if you have a big printer to print big things you’re probably not going to have small/finely detailed parts that often. Those are the kinds of parts that will go a touch slower. But honestly 5k acceleration is orders of magnitude faster than most bed slingers can achieve and 10-15k is only a 2-3x increase so you’re not giving up that much.
I wouldn’t look for voron stuff at Microcenter unless you feel like there’s no better option. The few times I’ve seen the stuff they sell it all looks like older outdated versions of the parts.
I got CNC parts from microcenter. They had the chaotic labs kit in a differently branded box for significantly less $$ than available on the web. The QR code for documentation inside the box went straight to chaotic labs and the parts look to be identical.
As with anything, do some level of research before you buy.
You have four paths to get parts for a Voron:
I personally went the West3D route. It seems like the LDO and formbot BOM-in-a-box options are popular. If you live near a microcenter they offer smaller kits if you want to mix and match or use a brick and mortar. Self sourcing tends to be expensive due to our collective tendancy to buy higher quality than necessary parts and shipping.
Yes, you will be building the thing from a ton of parts. Yes, it will take you a while. If you’re comfortable building things there’s nothing particular hard about it. You absolutely will not need to solder. Most kits come with premade wiring harness and there’s plenty of complete wiring options available even if you buy components. Depending on your goals, you might need to customize your wiring some. This means crimping, which isn’t hard per say but you’ll probably need to buy a crimper or two and dial in the right amount of squish for your terminal and wire gauge combination. Too much force and you’ll wind up severing the wires. Too little and the terminal will come off the wire. Again, not hard but you’ll probably need to do it a few times before you develop a feel and get consistent.
I see their kit, very cool. I’m alright if I have to solder. My neighbor can help out, they have a complete workbench setup for electronics and I believe they even have the crimpers I would need.
I’m going to go for the 350mm bed. I’m tired of being limited on the build plate of the Vyper. Are there any suggestions for bumping up the base kit? I see there are a lot of options for this kit.
I replied to another post with a list of mods, so take a look at the other comments in the post for some out of box mods.
As a 350 owner, be aware of two things.
First, big bed = big chamber = heat soak takes a while and you have a lot more surface area to lose heat from. If you want to print big ABS/ASA parts you’re going to want ACM panels, a better sealed/insulated front door, and potentially a radiant layer inside the printer.
Second, the big printer limits your rate of acceleration some compared to a smaller CoreXY. IMO if you have a big printer to print big things you’re probably not going to have small/finely detailed parts that often. Those are the kinds of parts that will go a touch slower. But honestly 5k acceleration is orders of magnitude faster than most bed slingers can achieve and 10-15k is only a 2-3x increase so you’re not giving up that much.
Other than than, no regrets about the 350.
I wouldn’t look for voron stuff at Microcenter unless you feel like there’s no better option. The few times I’ve seen the stuff they sell it all looks like older outdated versions of the parts.
I got CNC parts from microcenter. They had the chaotic labs kit in a differently branded box for significantly less $$ than available on the web. The QR code for documentation inside the box went straight to chaotic labs and the parts look to be identical.
As with anything, do some level of research before you buy.