How vn-corexy was born

A little more than a year ago I bought my first 3D printer: EZT-3D T1. I was looking for something which could print tall objects, occupy small space on my desk and of course be a cheap one 🙂 Delta printer was the only one that needed not much horizontal space. Vertical dimension of delta is another story, but I didn’t care about it. So, I bought Anycubic Kossel, but it turned out that seller didn’t control his own stock and I’ve got nothing except my money back. Then I bought this EZT-3D T1 – cheapest printer with intention to upgrade it later. Long story short: easiest way to upgrade this printer is to build or buy new one.

During this year I started collecting parts for new printer: bigger and better delta. But recently 2 things happened: I got rid of one monitor from my desk and get more room for something, the second thing was that I found that there are CoreXY machines. Analyzing theirs mechanics I found that it could be possible to build something with much larger build volume than my current printer and still fit on my new spare space on the desk. I have 35cm of width available, maybe I could add few more, but not much more. I started to check already available products and projects, but I found nothing that could fit in less than 40cm of width and have decent build volume size. I had no other option than to start designing it myself. That way Very Narrow CoreXY 3D printer aka vn-corexy was born:-)

The printer

My basic assumptions for designing this machine was:

• reduce width to minimum, even at some cost in other dimensions (because of my space constraints), but not at any cost 🙂
• make it more compact compared to other available designs, but a little less universal, for example by limiting printing head size
• build volume about 300x300x300mm (because I need more than my current printer)
• CoreXY mechanics (because I think it’s most compact and could be as fast as delta)
• use linear rails on X and Y axis (because I already got them for my next delta)
• use one motor for Z axis (because I already have control board that can’t handle 3)
• OpenSCAD used for designing (because it’s free, available on all platforms and I was already using it for many smaller projects before)
• it should be open source, so I created repository on Github: https://github.com/majekw/vn-corexy , and because OpenSCAD files are just ‘code’, version control is really helpful in tracking changes
• use as many parts as possible from what I already bought for new delta (linear rails, motors, BMG extruder, belts, pulleys, electronics etc.)
• custom parts should be easy printable on any crappy 3d printer, without supports if possible

First rendering of vn-corexy:

At this stage frame dimensions was set and axis drive was sketched. I used it to order frame parts (extrusion profiles 20×20 and 20×40 mm) and estimate needed screws (only frame needs about 120 screws for mounting!)

Almost final dimensions:

• width: 390 mm
• depth: 520 mm
• height: ~530 mm (not final, can be changed, but no more than 570 mm)

It’s work in progress, but I’m building and designing at the same time to make progress also in real hardware.

More to come 🙂