How To Make A 3D Printer Taller
This tutorial is meant to provide a parts list and some high-level guidance on how to make a 3D printer taller. This will offer some details and notes about how to assemble an extended-height 3D printer from an existing Creality Ender 3, CR 10, or similar bed-slinger machine.
Tutorial Level: Intermediate to Advanced
This tutorial delves into topics and tasks that require some advanced knowledge of 3D printers and their technologies. Knowing information about the following will help you in your journey…
- Soldering and electronics
- 3D printer firmware and firmware flashing
- 3D printer calibration
Table Of Contents
Before You Start
- Make sure your machine is not connected to power. We’re going to be flopping the machine around quite a lot and don’t want to run the risk of electrocuting yourself.
- Make sure you’re wearing proper PPE and using the correct tools for the job.
- We are messing with electronics and heating elements – be sure to have any safety equipment necessary near by in case of dramatic and catastrophic failure.
- Do additional research on the materials being covered in this post.
What To Expect
- Adding height to the base machine
- Adding wire length to the various wires and components that drive printing processes
- Creating braces for the printer to stabilize it and prevent it from wobbling a ton during print
- Letting the machine know how tall it is now
Materials List
These materials are things you may already have or may come with the base 3D printer you use for this project.
Visual Studio Code – for editing the firmware files in a clean, organized way
PlatformIO – IDE extension that allows you to easily compile the firmware we are editing into a bin or hex file for bootloading
Marlin Firmware – Download whatever version of Marlin you want to use (there are other firmware options out there, but this is what is being used in this tutorial)
XLoader – A firmware flashing program for boards that do not have bootloading built into their functionality
Shopping List
For ease of tracking down materials/showing what you need without a ton of photos, I’ve compiled them all into an Amazon List (this is NOT a commission-earning list)
Step 1. Adding The Height
Step 1 is to build up the frame of the machine.
To start, you will need to have a machine without the x-axis stability bar installed (this is the piece of the frame that goes across the very top of the machine horizontally). You’ll want the tops of the vertical axis extrusions exposed for stacking the additional extrusions on top of the existing frame.
If your machine already has support braces: Remove them – keep the L-brackets and eye bolts for later, as adding height means we will need to brace the machine.
If your machine does NOT already have support braces: No worries! I’ll walk you through how to make some. I’ve created STLs for some that work with standard M5 bolts and T-nuts. They’re available for download here.
Step 2. Extending the Wires
Adding the height means that we need to make sure all of our wires are long enough to reach these new heights. If they’re not, it could cause some severe breakage as the machine travels and tension is put on wires and boards. To do this, there are a few options…
- Buy longer, pre-terminated wires for your machine. These are available out there on the internet, but aren’t the most practical things to order
- Buy the termination tools and components and terminate new wires yourself. This process is tricky, but it’s worth it in the long run and makes repairs and future upgrades/expansions much much easier
- Trimming and soldering wires. Wires can be cut and soldered together to make them longer without having to terminate more wires with fancy tools. Just make sure your solder points are solid and make sure your wires are insulated very well to avoid shorting out your machine.
Step 3. Brace the Machine
Since we have added additional height to the machine, it will have “z-wobble” due to it being so tall. This means that as the machine moves the extruder and bed around, the z-axis also wobbles, which can cause issues like severe banding, general poor print quality, or just outright print failure.
To help mitigate some of this, you’ll want to build re-enforcing bars that brace the top x-axis bar to the bottom y-axis bars. They will ultimately be bracer bars that form a big triangle with the frame of your machine.
I used 1 in. copper tubing and cut it to length (finally a reason to use Pythagorean theorem outside of my high school math classes), added some caps with holes in them to the ends of each tube. I threaded eye bolts with a lock nut on it into the cap pieces, which will allow us to secure the bracer bars to the rest of our frame.
Bolt your L-brackets to the frame at the top and bottom using M5 bolts and T-nuts. Then secure your bracer tube pieces to the L brackets, adjust the tension of your bracer bars by adjusting the screw on your eye bolt above the cap. You’ll want to make sure there is no wobble to the bar, but you don’t want it so tight that it’s trying to push the frame itself apart.
Step 4. Flashing the Firmware
Once the hardware is in place, we need to make the sure printer knows how high it can print. If the firmware isn’t flashed to reflect the new height, it can lead to errors and other issues. In short, the machine just won’t work.
To make the machine recognize that it has a taller Z Axis than the stock machine, you will have to modify the firmware to reflect the true height value. To do this, you will need to open the firmware in Visual Studio Code and update the value of Z_MAX_POS in the Configuration.h file
When changing this value, be mindful of your physical limitations. Make sure you’re not making the value taller than the frame is, and make sure you leave a little bit of space at the top to avoid damaging the PTFE tube, wires, and fan shroud on your hotend assembly!
Along with updating the firmware, you will also need to create a custom slicer profile with this updated height. This process varies based on the slicer you’re using, so check your slicer software’s documentation and forums for more info about how to do that.
Step 5. Test Print
The time has come to run a test print on your new machine to make sure everything is working as expected! You can either jump right into a massive print (though I don’t recommend this route) or use a vanilla test print, such as an XYZ Cube or Benchy.
Calibrate your X and Y axis’s first, then move onto the Z. To test the height limitations, simply scale the test print’s Z axis to however high you want to print.
Once you’ve gotten your newly-extended machine dialed in, you’ll be able to print large components for your next cosplay prop or other project!
Tips and Tricks
The taller a print is, the more unsteady it usually is. To help eliminate chances of your print falling over, you can try out some of the following…
- Make sure your print bed is heated
- A thin layer of unscented hairspray on the print bed can help tremendously
- Rafts are your best friend, they’re sturdy and add additional surface area to the base of your print to help keep it in place. You can also use painters tape around the edges for extra security. (Note: Painters tape. NOT masking tape, which can melt and gum up your print bed pretty badly)
- Slow and steady wins the race – drop your print speeds down when printing massive pieces. I usually run mine at 30-40 mm/s
A Note from Me to You
This tutorial may seem very daunting and overwhelming, and that’s totally okay. But you’ve made it through the entire tutorial all the way down to this note (unless you used the table of contents link or scrolled all the way down. In which case, scroll back up, read the tutorial, then come back and read this).
You’ve got it in you to tackle this project. Take your time, take deep breaths, and soon you’ll have your own massive 3D printer to make your own props and projects on.
Thank you for reading, I hope this tutorial has helped. Happy printing!
- Brie (aka Pink Petal Cosplay)
