I decided to go through the steps of designing a prop which might fit into the cyberpunk 2077 style video game. In this video, I show the steps that I took to complete the project. Like most projects, although it took quite a while to complete, it was well worth it to get the results that you see here. This video features both 2D design and 3D design techniques to create a finalized prop.
Hello everybody and welcome to another video tutorial. Today we’ll be addressing an issue which is quite common among budget friendly printers and isn’t discussed all that much. The Elegoo Saturn like many other 3d printers in the market today, have tinned wired connections at their terminals, so today we’ll be replacing those with ferrule one’s. As always, what you see here represents my own opinions, and undertake this at your own risk. I’m in no way responsible if any damages that may occur.
Now there’s a couple of reason why you might want to change the main power connections to ferrule one’s, however the main one is for safety. Not having ferrules means that maintenance will generally be more difficult since you’ll have to deal with the wires unravelling when be placed inside the terminals. Tinned one’s on the other hand can make the strands more susceptible to vibration, loosing and corrosion, all of which are to be avoided when it comes to the main power connections. So for this reason we’ll be taking a closer look at how to replace the those connections on the Elegoo Saturn.
Before we begin, make sure to remove the build plate and vat so that they don’t get into the way or leak any resin. After this we can finally begin removing the screws to open the top of the machine. Because of how the machine is put together, we will need to remove the whole top in order to access all the terminals. Your first going to need to remove the screws that are located in these areas of the top of the case. With those primary screws removed, you can then remove these on the side of the machine. This will allow you to access the display connection and remove this prior to opening the machine. After that is done, you can then gently open the top of the case and remove the fan and z motor connections. This allows the top to be removed and put aside for easier access to the terminals.
You’re very first connection that has tinned wires, is for the main power, therefore we’ll replace those with ferrules by first removing the terminal which is designed to snap into the motherboard. This is often attached with some additional glue, so you’ll first have to remove the glue before it comes off. To make things easier to keep track of, we’ll only remove one wire at a time by unscrewing the screw at the top of the terminal. With wire cutters, you’ll remove the part that tinned before beginning to prep the wire for the ferrule. In order to have proper contact with the ferrule, well need to strip the tip of the wire by using one of the two methods. If you have wires strippers, you can use those to strip the wire connection, if you don’t, you can use your wire cutter to do the same thing by gently adding pressure until you’ve cut through the outer protective layer. You’ll then be able to remove the coating by holding the cutter’s partially open while pulling that part away. When choosing a ferrule, you want to choose one that just barely fits onto the wire to help ensure a proper connection when crimped. By making sure that to twist the wires first, you’ll have an easier time inserting them into the ferrules. If you have a ferrule crimping tool, you can use that to crimp the connection, if not you can use a pair of pliers to do the same thing.
The reminder of the connections that we’ll replace are for the UV Light. In this case, those are located near the side panel and have connection screws which are located at the bottom of the printer. Once you’ve unscrewed those, you’ll be able to remove the small board that has the remainder of the connections, allowing easier access to those components. Once again remove the glue holding the connections, we’ll take out each terminal one at a time to make it easier to add the ferrules. By taking each wire out one at a time, this process should be fairly easier to accomplish. In total, we’ll have replaced the wire connections for 5 terminals.
Before you close up the machine, you’ll want to add some glue to help ensure that the terminals stay connected. Over time, the vibrations of the machine can loosen the connections, which is why we’ll use some hot glue gun glue to ensure that they stay on. With all of this updated, we can then re-attach all the components and close back up the machine. Important to note, is that you’ll want to make sure that you properly connect the LCD screen and put back in the tap that holds the strip down. This tape, really helps hold the proper connections, so long as it’s been properly seeded.
I hope this video has helped some of you out, and if there’s a video you’d like to suggest, please leave a comment down below. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I hope to see you guys soon. Thank you and take care.
Hello everybody and welcome to another video. Today we’ll be looking at a collection of machines that I currently own and explore some of the safety issues that they may have. Today we’ll be checking the machines for Thermal Runaway Protection as well tinned wires on the terminals. I’ll be evaluating not only my FDM machines, but also my SLA printers at the same time. As always the information you see represents my own opinions and no money has exchanged hands. Try this at your own risk.
After having watched the 3D printing Nerds video on the CR30 along with the Thomas Sanladerer’s video on thermal runaway, I felt that expanding on this topic might be of use to some of you. You see, I’ve been using quite a few FDM and SLA printers non-stop and decided to show you guys just how many of my personal machines have issues out of the box.
To start things off, I’ll be looking at 3 of my FDM as well as 3 of my SLA printers, for a total of 6 machines. These machines include the CR10 V3, Ender 3 V2, CR30, Anycubic Photon, Voxelab Polaris and the Elegoo Saturn. Unfortunately, at the time of recording this video, my two Anycubic Machines required maintenance, so I will not be including these in this video. It should also be noted that I had modded those two machines so extensively over the years that most of these issues have already been addressed.
Let’s begin with the machine that started this whole inquiry, which in this case is the CR30 by Creality. For the most part this machine is very well though out, however I have had to do several adjustments after extensive use, and I’ll be covering those issues in a future video. For today however, I did check the machine for tinned wires. When I opened up the machine, I did indeed discover that most of the wires connections to the terminals were all tinned. I therefore replaced those with ferrules.
The next machine was the Ender 3 and in this case we once again have tinned wires at the terminals connections. After replacing those, I then started working on the testing the thermal runaway on this machine. All 3 tests were successful and indeed this machine did have a properly implemented thermal runaway protection. Although error messages weren’t always generated, the machine did on each occasion turn off the hot end. If you’re testing out your own machine, you’ll want to keep in mind that the test for removing the connection wire to the heater cartridge does take a while to trigger, depending on the machine.
Let’s take a look at the modified CR10 V3, which does have an updated firmware, which was created with the source code that Creality had on its website. When I recently went to check for those files I did find them harder to located, however they are still available after doing some digging. Now similar to the Ender 3 and CR30 the wires were tinned at the terminals and had to be updated to included ferrules. To do this, I used a Ferrule crimping tool and automatic wires strippers, although you can just use a pair of pliers to do the same thing. Now the wiring for the hot end is a little more complicated since it uses a hub to provide power to most of the hot end components. Therefore, testing will most likely more difficult if you are attempting this at home. This machine passed all the thermal runaway tests with flying colours and had the appropriate warnings pop up on each occasion. As mentioned previously, I was using my own modified stock firmware, which can be found on my website.
Now, all these FDM printers did have mosfets to help cool the motherboard, which is a very important feature to have. Since so much power is being drawn to the hot end and the build plate, having those will help cool those connections and keep them from burning out. On my I3 Mega and Mega S these were not present, and I had to add them to it separately. The Creality machines all have these built into the motherboard and so long as they’ve been properly installed, they will keep cooling the motherboard and prevent the wires from overheating. You can see that on my Anycubic, although the connection did overheat, the damaged was contained to the mosfet. In this case the damage was caused because of the tinned wires which were still present at the time.
The SLA printers were all pretty surprising in themselves, with the Elegoo Saturn being the most complicated. Out of all these machines, all of them had tinned wires at their terminals. Thermal runaway isn’t an issue in this regard since we aren’t dealing with a hot end or heated build plate. Out of all the machines, the most difficult one to check and repair is the Anycubic Photon, since it required the most awkward of dissembles. While the Elegoo Saturn did take time to do disassemble, all parts are fairly easily accessible, although you’ll have multiple connections which are tinned. It’s for this reason that I’ll be releasing an additional video going over this in more detail for the Elegoo Saturn. In the end, the easiest printer to access all the components was the Voxelab Polaris. Voxelab opted to create a more open design, which should make upgrades or repairs easier in the future.
So with all of this information taking into account how did all of these machines do in the end? Well, none of these 3d printers had proper ferrule terminal connections, which is disappointing to say the least and should be the very first thing a user should check upon receiving their machine. Out of the FMD printers by Creality all of them did have thermal runaway protection. The CR30 is still to be tested as we speak, so you’ll have to keep an eye out for that video when it comes out. Out of all machines, only the Anycubic Photon was extremely difficult to access the internal components and is something that I would like to see them solve in the future. By far the easiest to disassemble, was the Polaris, which clearly had a focus on repairability because of the open design. While the Ender 3 is still easy to open up, you do have to be careful when putting back on the panel. Since the CR10V3 has a separate case for the electronics, repairs are easier since you can simply remove this portion. I hope this video illustrations how important it is to check your machine when you get it, since you never know how seriously a company has taken safety into account. As someone who was once bought a device which didn’t have thermal runaway enabled, I say just how serious of an issue this could be and just how thankful I am when it’s properly implemented. In future however, I would like to see companies stop using tinned wires in their terminal connections since this does represent a significant safety issue and is definitely something I will be watching for in the future.
