3D Printing HyperCube - superjamie/lazyweb GitHub Wiki

HyperCube Community Build Tips

The HyperCube is a 3D printer by Tech2C. It is intended to provide an upgraded frame and motion to re-use a cheap cartesian (eg: Replikeo i3, Tevo Tarantula, Anet A8, HE3D, CTC, etc) and convert it to a cube frame with corexy kinematics. The parts list is located on Thingiverse at:

This page collects community knowledge of the HyperCube including assembly tips, popular parts remixes, and things which improve on the original design.

These were mostly gathered from people on the Hypercube CoreXY 3D Printer Group on Facebook and YouTube. Credit to others given wherever possible.

Original Videos

Other Videos

Artur's Lab rebuilt a Printrbot into a mini HyperCube, which has some good assembly tips:

Artur has also done some part remixes:

He also provides good videos on those:

Artur has also built a larger HyperCube:

Bryce Standley has built a HyperCube and has made a few videos about it:

PracticalProjects has a video series:

Tinkercave build one and did a few videos:

FugaTech has started a build series:

Carl has a good 5-minute overview of his machine:

Adrian has started an assembly series for the HyperCube 300:

Communities

From most members to least:

Build Tips

Significant Remixes

Scaling Up

  • Tech2C gives clear instructions on how to scale the printer up on the Thingiverse page.
  • The HyperCube Calculator allows you to scale up based on build volume, extrusion size, or rods, and accounts for several other modifications and remixes.
  • The old HyperCube Materials Calculator by FunkyDiver is here too.
  • People like to talk rubbish about the cantilever bed design, but really for a 200mm or 250mm bed it's fine. For a 300mm or larger bed, two Z screws and 4 Z rods should be used. For a bed larger than 500mm, three Z screws should be used (three points define a plane).
  • It may be better to join multiple Z screws with a belt, instead of using multiple motors. If you strongly pull the build platform, you may cause one of dual motors to skip steps and get out of alignment. A belt does not have this problem. The D-Bot community has many good remixes of dual and triple belted Z screws, eg: Three lead screws and one nema 17 motor remix for C/D/J-bot by oeyhaga. However, RepRapFirmware (available on Duet3D boards or Arduino Due) has the ability to level the bed using three stepper motors and tilting the plane until a bed probe detects the bed is level.
  • Over 500m bed size the HyperCube starts to become flawed, as the linear shafts on XY have a large deflection over long distances, especially heavy steel which must also carry its own weight. If you are concerned about this then look up a shaft deflection calculator, calculate the stock deflection, then the deflection resulting from your intended build. If your deflection is worse, increase rod size. You may be better to use carbon fiber hollow tube or solid rod, even on the Y axis, to avoid deflection due to the rod's own weight.
  • At 500mm+ you should be considering a design that does not use linear shafts. Good alternatives are V-slot designs such as the KISS, V-King, D-Bot, or something which uses linear rails like the Voron V2 or FolgerTech FT-5.
  • If you want to build a printer over 1000mm, forget falling-bed designs altogether, as a large glass or aluminium bed is too heavy to move easily. You should build a fixed-bed raising-gantry printer like the Voron V2 or Sub33D by sschm9 or this large printer by Shane Hooper.

Parts

  • Corners - I found the Suleve corners on the BOM to be rubbish. Of the 5 bags I bought, 3 bags were so badly made they were useless. Here is a printable internal corner bracket of the same 20x20x17 dimensions: 20mm Suleve Corner for 2020 Extrusion (HyperCube) by superjamie. Users suggest printing this in an inflexible filament like PLA or PC or Nylon instead of a more flexible filament like PETG or ABS.
  • Nuts - Likewise I found the T-nuts specified on the BOM to be poor quality. Many needed to be filed down on the curve where they are supposed to rotate, or on the top edge furthest from the curve. 5% to 10% of the nuts were just too thick to fit in the extrusion slot or were drilled and tapped at an angle and had to be thrown away. Order at least one extra bag of nuts.
  • Screws - The M5x8mm screws are only used to fasten the Suleve corners to the frame. The M5x10mm screws are used for all printed components, as the printed components are thicker. Recommended to order at least one extra bag of M5x10 if you're the kind of person who likes to tinker and add stuff to their printer.
  • Carbon fiber tube/rod - Many on the HyperCube Facebook group have purchased their extrusion from HaoZhong Carbon Fiber on eBay. The size is not always guaranteed exact, and varies from 9.95mm to 10.15mm, but the variance within a single tube is less than 0.01mm so is good for plastic/polymer bushings. You can buy 10x8mm tube, or 10x6mm tube (better), or solid 10mm rod (maybe better for larger builds). Look down the categories on their eBay store as they sometimes have different shipping deals to different areas: https://stores.ebay.com/HaoZhong-Carbon-Fiber-Tube
  • If you have a local carbon fiber vendor, try give them a call or email and say you want to use their rods as linear shafts and need as close to 10.00mm as possible. Some vendors will go through their parts with measuring calipers and try find the exact rods you need. Carbon Fiber Australia have done this for a few people.
  • Carbon fiber safety note - The sharp tiny fragments made by abrading carbon fiber are inert and easily inhaled. In extreme cases, they stick in your lungs forever and cause long-term scarring just like asbestos: Pulmonary_fibrosis. If you are cutting CF yourself:
    • Do it outdoors.
    • Have any wind blowing away from your face, not towards you.
    • Wear a disposable respirator.
    • Wear disposable gloves.
    • Tape over the cut, then cut through the tape.
    • Vacuum well afterwards and empty the vac immediately, before you take your respirator off.
    • Don't sand or grind as this creates much finer particles than a hacksaw.
  • Imperial rods - If you're in a place where getting 10mm metric rod for the X axis is difficult, there are several remixes on Thingiverse of X carriages and XY joiners and holders which suit 3/8" (9.525mm) rod or 8mm rod, both of which are more readily available, at least in the USA.
  • Print Settings - For your printer parts, you want at least 3 perimeters, at least 6 top and bottom layers, at least 25% infill. I print at 4 perimeters, 8 top/bottom layers, and 50% infill. Any more than 75% infill is pointless. You may wish to print mechanical parts a tiny bit (from 2C up to 10C) hotter than your "visual best" settings to encourage better layer adhesion, but not so much it ruins bridges or screw holes. Smaller layer height is stronger than larger layer height, but increases print time dramatically. Tech2C's recommended 0.25mm layers have been fine.
  • Mirroring - It is not necessary to mirror any of the Tech2C parts, they all print as-is. If you like, you can mirror two of the four Bed_Support and Z_Shaft_Clamp parts so they look nicer left to right. This is just a cosmetic choice, it makes no mechanical difference.
  • Material - PETG and ABS are fine for all 3D printer parts. If made from PLA, anything which flexes such as the Z rod clamps and Y rod clamps will likely crack over time. The rest of the printer is fine being PLA, including the X carriage and fan duct if you have a silicone sock or kapton/cotton pad or other hotend insulation.
  • Buying - Various aluminium extrusion sellers on Aliexpress sell pre-cut HyperCube extrusions. Most extrusion sellers do custom orders if you want a different size machine.
  • The HyperCube is provided by Tech2C under a non-commercial license, so producing commercial quantities of HyperCube STL parts is not allowed, however Tech2C recommends people look on 3DHubs when they need parts sets printed and he can't do it himself.
  • Zyltech sell pre-cut extrusions and pre-gathered parts kits for the original Tech2C design and for a slightly-modified HyperCube 300. This seller gets generally good reviews for quality and they provide good support if a part arrives bent/faulty. Zyltech have gotten Tech2C's permission to use his printer design in a commercial capacity.

Tools

  • Buy a set of long hex key drivers with the 25° ball head, they'll be really useful for getting into hard-to-reach parts of the frame.
  • A torch is useful to look down the frame and make sure the T-nuts have actually spun.
  • A needle or other long thin rod is useful to poke at the nuts and spin them manually if they need coaxing.
  • A dab of nail polish on screw threads helps them catch the T-nut and spin it, and acts as a weak threadlock compound.
  • A set of mini metal files has been useful for making the ends of extrusion even, and shaving down poorly-made T-nuts, and will be generally useful for tidying up prints of all sorts.
  • A long set of "antistatic tweezers" is useful for pulling ooze off the nozzle just before printing.
  • A craft blade (eg: Exacto knife) is useful for tidying blobs off parts if printing in PETG.
  • Modify a paint scraper as detailed here by Devin from Make Anything to get parts off the bed.

Extrusions

  • The BOM specifies Type 6 T-slot extrusion which has a 6mm slot in the middle, so accepts M5 screws. Some people end up buying Type 5 extrusion which as a 4.8mm hole which only accepts M4 screws. You can just buy M4 screws and T-nuts instead of M5, or this remix resizes all holes to accept M4: HyperCube 3D Printer M4 Variant by Zargony
  • Adam who built the S.T.E.V.E. 3D Printer made his own printed roll nuts which go into Type 5 extrusion: A Tale of two Nuts by C.R.T
  • Make sure all your extrusions are the same length, and are flat on the ends. The D-Bot Facebook group suggest extrusions should be within 1/64" (0.4mm) of each other. I got mine down to half that and checked with a feeler gauge. A metal file can be used to adjust. Even a small file cuts through the soft aluminium quickly so be careful. Don't use power tools like an angle grinder, they take off material too quickly and heat up the extrusion too much. A belt sander with a 90 degree table would make this a lot easier!
  • I measured my extrusions by standing them all on their end, clamping another piece of extrusion each side so they were square, and using a straightedge or another piece of extrusion across the top.
  • Consider adding another 75mm or 100mm onto your Z extrusions so you can put stuff underneath like the control board and power supply. I didn't order this but ended up using a longer Z screw from Tevo, so I flipped the Z motor mount and designed some feet to lift the frame, you could resize these feet if more space is required: HyperCube Leg Extension by superjamie

Frame

  • Getting the frame square can be quite difficult. It's worth spending time getting this done properly. It's common to have your frame together and apart multiple times until you get it right.
  • At the end, you should be able to place any side of the frame on a flat surface and have no "clack" as the frame rocks back and forth, it should sit flat on the bench. You should also be able to measure horizontally, vertically, and diagonally between all extrusions and get the same measurement within say 0.25mm.
  • Building on a truly flat surface such as a glass/marble counter will help. Don't assemble this somewhere soft, like the carpet or a rickety old warped wooden desk with uneven feet and one propped-up leg.
  • In Artur's Printrbot conversion he describes the idea of making two "windows" from the Y and Z parts, then joining those with the X parts. Arvind agrees this is the best way to assemble a cube frame, it worked well with his FlyingBear P902.
  • Additional corner brackets on the outside of the extrusions can help line the frame up, such as the corner supplied in: HyperCube extensions/modifications by Golkun
  • Adrian supplies this tool which can be used to align extrusions in a similar way: Hypercube 300 Assembly Tool - Alignment Gauge by adrianm1972
  • Internal corner brackets which are joined together is also a good idea, such as: Corner Bracket 3 Way for 2020 aluminum extrusion by LuisCRSousa
  • Over time, if your motor mounts flex or sag and cause the belt to rub on the pulley when tightened, use this to set the motor straight again: Hypercube Motor Angle Adjustment by Bakak

Vibration

Bearings/Bushings

  • Most LMxUU bearings from China are cheap rattly garbage. Strong recommendation not to use $1 Chinese bearings due to the noise, play, tendency to stick, and possibility to cause artifacts along the axis as the balls inside move around.
  • One alternative is to buy good linear bearings like Nippon Bearing. These are typically more expensive than the Chinese ones (like $30 each) but are also much smoother and quieter.
  • Many of us are printing at least the X bushings in PLA or PETG or Nylon. Where your X rods are too big/small for the Igus JSM bushing, this is one of the few options left:
  • You can also print the Y bushings if you like:
  • To size the inner of the bushing properly, vary the inner diameter of the bushing until it fits your specific printer and your specific rod. Do small test prints 8mm tall until you get within 0.1mm of your rod size. Then use full-height prints to dial down to the exact 0.01mm size where the bushing grips the rod and won't fall with gravity anymore. Use that size as the ideal bushing for your specific rod/printer/filament combination.
  • When printing Y bushings, make sure the outer diameter is 0.2mm smaller than the bushing clamp, so that the clamp doesn't crush down on the printed bushing and deform it out of shape. The bushing should be a little loose in the housing, then you can wrap it in teflon plumber's tape so the clamp grips the soft tape and not the bushing body.
  • When you get the bushing size ideal for your machine, print at least two spare sets so you can make the printer work again when the first set wear out, because you might need your printer to be working well to make more precise parts so the printer can work well again.
  • Printed/polymer bushings are not suitable for cantilever loads like the Z axis, even with 4 rods there is still a risk of tipping and sticking. Use good metal linear bearings on the Z rods. They do not move fast enough to make noise anyway.
  • Bronze sintered bushings are not suitable for use on carbon fiber tube. The metal bushing is harder than the fibreglass resin which binds the CF together. The bushing needs to be softer than the shaft it runs on.
  • If buying Igus RJM/RJUM/RJZM, be aware that not all are the exact same size as their LMxUU equivalents. If buying Igus bushing to replace LMxUU, get the right size and get the ones in the aluminium sleeve. Part numbers here: https://github.com/superjamie/lazyweb/wiki/3D-Printing-Bearing-Sizes
  • Make sure you are buying LMxUU Japanese Metric bearings, not LMExUU European Metric bearings. European Metric have different outer dimensions (longer/wider) and will not fit in places designed for Japanese Metric.

Y Axis

  • 10mm rods can be used for the Y axis. The Y does not move so weight doesn't matter, any of steel or aluminium tube or carbon fiber rod/tube can be used, though larger builds may benefit from CF to prevent rod deflection due to larger steel rod weight.
  • The HyperCube 300 has the option of 10mm rods for the Y axis, but Adrian suggests that it is not required.
  • More clamps for both 8mm and 10mm rod: HyperCube Y_Shaft_Clamp_REMIXED by GofX
  • If using the original LM8LUU-sized XY Joiner, it can be used with JSM-1012 Igus bushings (same as for the X axis) with this holder: Igus 10mm Bushing Holder for LM8LUU by superjamie
  • Some more LM10UU XY Joiners: by mbruehl and by erdemerciyas

Belts

  • Belts can be more easily tensioned with Hypercube easy Belt tensioner by bagwan.
  • The belts need to be evenly tensioned. You should not have one belt a different tension to the other belt.
  • If the frame is square and the X gantry evenly contacts the frame without belts, but does not evenly contact with belts, then the belts are not evenly tensioned.
  • If moving in the X direction also moves slightly in the Y direction, then the belts are not evenly tensioned.
  • If you move the Y carriages back and forth and the X carriage moves side to side, then the belts are not evenly tensioned.
  • Tying the X gantry to the rear of the frame with cable ties and then tightening the belts has solved this for several people.
  • To measure belt tension, use the Belt Tension Meter by calviniba which uses a printed part and a spring from a Pilot G-2 pen. Set your belts to about 5 marks in from the long side. I am running 5.5, Vance is running 4.5.
  • Measuring a frequency with a sound meter app is incorrect, as different lengths produce different resonance frequencies.
  • I didn't like the idea of flipping the belts or having them ride on double flange bearings, so I used these idler holders for actual toothed/smooth idler pulleys. Note the advice not to buy cheap idlers:
  • The Aliexpress seller Powge is known to be a good reliable source of toothed and untoothed idler pulleys.
  • Jerry found the Tech2C idlers cracked for him, so designed thicker ones and used washers to shim the bearing ID: JeSc HyperCube XY Idler T16

Bed and Lead Screw

  • When assembling the bed brackets, there is no set measurement where the extrusions go. Assemble the bed H bracket with the Z carriages, then add the Z rods and bolt the rods to the frame in the center of the X axis. Then remove the middle piece, and use a spirit level (or spirit level app on your phone) to get the longer bed holders the same level as the Y axis frame pieces. Make sure the Z carriage can move to the top and bottom smoothly, you should be able to pick up the cube and tip it back and forth and have the Z axis slide easily with gravity. Finally, move the carriage to the top, add the Z nut holder to the horizontal piece, and add that horizontal piece back to the bed holders so that the lead screw is straight up and down. This is described in more detail here on Reddit.
  • Tech2C has a video about motors with internal Z screws: 3D Printer stepper motor mod by Tech2C but several have found this method to be difficult and ended up ruining the motor or screw or both. Vance has had success putting the lead screw in boiling water to weaken the glue. You may be better to use a plastic/rubber/wood hammer, not a metal hammer.
  • Jin found this sprung Z nut holder helped her wobbly Z screw a bit: Z_Nut_Mount_WobbleFix by syahriansyah
  • Even Tech2C comments that the 8mm Z rods are a bit flimsy. A good 10mm Z remix is: HyperCube LM10UU Z Axis Carriage by henryarnold or using LM10LUU long bearings: Hypercube LM10LUU Z carriage by diegotrap. Many people are using 12mm rods with the HyperCube Evolution Z components.
  • If using a Z limit switch for the endstop, Artur and Henry have holders:
  • There are a number of useful probe holders, such as:
  • Make sure the lead screw is riding on the motor shaft to prevent the spring coupler from carrying the weight of the bed and Z carriage.
  • Using a spring coupler on Z is not a good idea as they can unwind/wind/bounce under fast movement or changing load. Ideally use a "plum coupler" or "spider coupler", these have red rubber in the middle and are a more solid design. You can also get metal couplers which have some flex but aren't a spring which work well. You can also get universal joints and solid couplers, but these may lead to increased Z wobble as they will amplify even the slightest imperfection in the Z screw.
  • Success has been reported with this printable coupler: Self-centering tapered-thread Z-axis coupling [v2] by loco
  • Several people have found that supporting the Z screw on a radial bearing instead of the motor shaft has fixed wobble/vibration artifacts in their prints: Hypercube Bearing Supported Z Axis Leadscrew Motor Mount by butchja (before anyone says it, it's perfectly fine to use radial bearings in this way)
  • If your coupler is extremely wobbly and off-center, you may have been supplied a 6.35mm coupler for a NEMA23 motor, not a 5mm coupler for a NEMA17 motor.

Cooling

Bowden Extruder

  • Tech2C's bowden extruder with the MK7 gear is fine for most people. The Tech2C extruder is actually just a MK7 remix of Compact Bowden Extruder by schlotzz which uses a MK8 gear.
  • If you find your printer extrudes fine into air, but won't extrude into the hotend, ensure your filament gear screw is tight, ensure the bowden tube is not crushed and allows filament through smoothly and without restriction, ensure the stepper driver has enough current that the motor does not skip.
  • It is recommended to print a clip for the tube connector so that the tube cannot move up and down. E3D sell these as Collet Clips. For E3D you can also print Bowden Tube Clip by walter. A small cable tie or thin wire will also work in a pinch.
  • If you want to print flexible filament (yes, you can print flexible with Bowden) an extruder with a very constrained filament path is required. Ideally the gear and bearing should only be needed to press against the filament to drive it. There should be very tight clearance between the filament guides and the gear.
  • The most popular commercial geared extruder is the E3D Titan, which can be mounted with a bracket such as: Titan/Drakon/NSTT mount by superjamie
  • A list of printable extruders such as the Drakon and NSTT is located at: https://github.com/superjamie/lazyweb/wiki/3D-Printing-Extruders
  • Artur has a Belted Extruder he has used successfully: Belted Extruder v3 for 1.75 extended by arturslab
  • The Capricorn XS tube with the smaller 1.9mm inner diameter helps to constrain the filament path to reduce play. Most users report being able to take 0.25mm to 0.5mm off retraction and get slightly better print quality.

Electronics

  • Some basic electrical safety with power supplies and wires should be observed:
    • Do not use an LED-style power supply without the green earth wire connected. It is a lethal electrocution hazard. Do not risk your life, or the lives of others, for your 3D printer.
    • Buy a cheap outlet tester and confirm your power outlets are actually grounded, especially if you live in an older house which may not have originally had grounded outlets installed.
    • Do not screw bare wires into an LED-style power supply, always use a fork or ring terminal crimped onto the wire. The wires should be big enough that you need to use a 2.5mm or 3mm crimp terminal.
    • Do not allow the AC power wires and the DC power wires to touch, even through their insulation. These wires should be kept separate from each other and fastened so they cannot move.
    • There are many designs for printable [power supply cover on Thingiverse](https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=power supply cover) which keep the wire terminals separate, some even integrate an IEC plug with a switch and fuse for extra electrical safety, and to avoid the wires moving and breaking over time.
    • If you are uncomfortable wiring an LED-style power supply to the AC mains power and don't understand how to use a multimeter to hook up an IEC power socket, then hire a licensed electrician to do it for you. Don't just follow pictures on the internet. There are different styles/colors of power supply and power socket and power wire. You can't just use Google Images and Facebook/forum posts for this.
    • Use at least 16AWG wire for the DC hotend and at least 14AWG wire for the DC heated bed. You can calculate your exact wire requirements on a calculator such as: https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
    • Any wire which moves should be stranded core, not solid core, as solid core will break over time. Silicone-insulated wire is best for moving wires as the silicone has high temperature resistance and low friction against the wire strands inside. Silicone wire is commonly sold by remote control hobby and automotive stores.
  • If your LCD sometimes gets corrupted text, this could be caused by static electricity building up in the frame due to the movement of belts and pulleys. You can avoid this by grounding the frame. Unplug the printer at the wall, add a ring or fork terminal to each end of a wire, connect one end to the metal frame (you could use a corner bracket) and the other end to the green AC Earth terminal of the power supply (NOT to the powered A/N terminals). Before plugging the printer back in, confirm with a multimeter that various points around the frame frame all have continuity to the ground wire. If your extrusions do not touch or your have printed corners, you may need to use a few points with T-nuts which bite into the frame, or wire hooked to a sanded-off patch on the frame, to get through the aluminium anodizing/oxide coating to provide a good electrical join.
  • If buying stepper motors from different suppliers, be aware not all motors have the same pinout at the connector. If in doubt, use a multimeter to figure out which pins are members of the same coil, then swap wires or firmware direction until the motor moves as desired. There are additional methods located at: http://www.instructables.com/id/Find-Bipolar-Stepper-Motor-Coil-Pairs/
  • Many RAMPS boards do not ship with the stepper driver jumpers pre-installed, and need to be installed by you before you put the stepper drivers in. The normal configuration is to install all three jumpers under a stepper driver to enable 1/16 stepping mode for A4988.
  • Make sure you line up the stepper driver enable/ground pins with the same pin on the RAMPS board. Double-check each time you install a driver. Installing a driver backwards will probably fry the driver or the RAMPS or both.
  • The Y endstop doesn't hit well with some XY joiners. Another Y endstop mount is in the HyperCube 300 parts list. Other holders are around like HyperCube Y end-stop by imstrng or Hypercube Y axis end stop by JOES_PARTS.
  • It may be better to use the smaller type of limit switch and mount on the extrusion: Hypercube Improved Y Endstop by n9jcv
  • The X endstop doesn't hit well sometimes either, especially with larger 20T pulleys. Try: JeSc HyperCube X-End Stop add-on by jschun
  • If you cook the connectors on your $4 Chinese RAMPS, consider getting an external bed MOSFET like this MKS one, and a StaticBoard Premium RAMPS or an all-in-one board like the MKS GEN or MKS GEN_L.
  • If you have a very noisy machine during XY movement and A4988 drivers, make sure you have not been supplied HR4988 drivers by the seller, these chop very noisily at 1/16: https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/75w22r/psa_hr4988_drivers_cause_noise_and_vibration/
  • If using TMC2100 or TMC2130 and you get skipping XY steps:
    • Make sure you are running in spreadCycle mode. The default stealthChop mode is not strong enough for most people.
    • Make sure you are supplying enough current to the motors. Most need at least 1.1V vref for typical NEMA17 motors.
    • Make sure you have active cooling (heatsinks and fans) on the drivers.
    • Make sure your belts are not too tight. See the section on belt tension above.
  • If you don't want TMC21xx but want quiet drivers, consider TMC2208 or TMC2224. These have a mode called stealthChop2 developed by Trinamic specifically for 3D printers. These operate in standalone mode and can speak to Marlin over UART if desired. The TMC2224 has stealthChop2/spreadCycle selectable via a jumper, which the Panucatt SD2224 driver puts to the MS3 jumper under the driver which is handy.
  • If your bed will not heat past 40C-60C, measure the resistance of the bed. Take the wires out the controller so the bed is unpowered, and really mash your multimeter probes into the bed wires. Measure the resistance of the multimeter wires too (just join the probes) as cheap multimeters can have high resistance there and offset the measurement. A 12V bed should be between 0.6 Ohm and 1.2 Ohm. If your bed is much over 1.2 Ohms, it won't be able to get very hot, return the bed as faulty or get a new one. If your bed is more like 2.4 Ohms then it's a 24V bed. You can work out the current draw and wattage of your bed with a calculator like: https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/watt-volt-amp-calculator.html

Firmware

Marlin

  • Tech2C's Marlin configuration does not come with an LCD enabled by default. If you just plug in your LCD, it will power on but nothing will appear on it. You need to uncomment one of the LCDs in Configuration.h and re-send the firmware to the board. The two most common LCD types are:
    • #define REPRAP_DISCOUNT_SMART_CONTROLLER - 20x4 character display "2004" (like Tech2C uses)
    • #define REPRAP_DISCOUNT_FULL_GRAPHIC_SMART_CONTROLLER - 128x64 pixel graphical display "12864" or "GLCD"
  • Tech2C keeps the Marlin Configuration.h file up to date whenever he feels like it. A new version is placed on the Thingiverse page for the printer and a note added to the description.
  • If you wish to upgrade to a later version of Marlin, then you cannot just copy in an older Configuration.h file, as the config options change from time to time.
  • Instead, download a new Marlin from the Marlin releases page, get Tech2C's Configuration.h from Thingiverse, and open the two up in a comparison tool. A downloadable tool is Meld and an online tool is Text-Compare. Scroll down the two files together, looking for changes which are relevant to the printer such as speeds, steps, thermistors, etc. Make the same changes in the new file and save it.
  • Once you have a newly-configured Marlin, open the new firmware version in the Arduino IDE or PlatformIO IDE and upload to your board.

Repetier Firmware

  • A configuration tool is provided: https://www.repetier.com/firmware/v092/
  • If you are familiar with configuring Marlin from scratch, you are better to download the Master branch from the Repetier Firmware GitHub as the config tool strips the useful comments from the Configuration.h file, and some things are explained better in the comments than the web tool.

RepRapFirmware

Smoothieware

Calibration and Slicer Profiles

So you've built your machine, it heats/moves/extrudes. How do you get those picture-perfect prints that everyone else seems to brag about?

Adrian Martinez, David Siles, and myself tuned the following slicer profiles for PLA and PETG:

I don't think S3D is worth the US$150 price tag anymore. The open source slicers are now producing equal or superior results and have more features. Everyone has an opinion on slicers so just use what works for you. Any slicer is only as good as the time you put into it, just because the default settings are rubbish with your printer does not mean the slicer is bad.

HyperCube Evolution Remix

The HyperCube Evolution by Scott3D (commonly called "Hevo") is a remix of the original design, adding a stronger 3030 outer frame, more options for X and Y rail sizes, 12mm Z rods for strength, a dual Z screw option for larger beds, and a parametric design which scales up easier.

The creator has also released a build guide video series:

This printer has evolved its own community and wiki beyond the scope of this guide:

Other Similar Printers

Here's a list of a few other corexy-extrusion printers you maybe interested in looking at:

  • KISS by beginjd and V-King by Pro3D are both corexy designs which use V-slot and V-wheels on 2020 extrusion. The KISS started as a HyperCube modification and is described as a collection of ideas, no complete BOM or documentation. The V-King is the evolution of that idea into a fully documented open source printer with BOM and firmware provided.
  • D-Bot by spauda01 - A popular remix of the C-Bot by cfeniak. Uses V-wheels on 2040 extrusion. Has a detailed assembly guide which is worth a look. The creators of both C-Bot and D-Bot participate in the D-Bot community on Reddit and Facebook. A good selection of remix parts is detailed on AK Eric's 2017 Redux blog post and the SpiffBot by spiffcow.
  • VORON - The most popular alternative to the HyperCube, the old V1 and V1.5 bed is 9" aluminium tooling plate with dual Z screws and an AC heater mat, many imperial parts so may be frustrating to build for those outside the USA. Has a detailed assembly guide. The creator participates in the Voron community on Reddit and GitHub. The VORON V2 changes the design to all linear guides with a fixed bed and raising XY gantry.
  • FB2020 by AxMod - Based on several iterations of an older design called the FuseBox by AlexY, this frame has a horizontal X carriage and a diagonal cross-brace on the frame which reportedly improves print quality. AxMod has 20 of these printers going producing commercial quantities of printed parts. The design has been very reliable for him.
  • S.T.E.V.E. by CompRevTech - Designed by Adam around the same time Tech2C was designing the HyperCube. Ends up similar but with a few differences, such as direct drive and an AC bed. Two detailed YouTube series about its design and building.
  • Even more on my DIY Printers page.