FolgerTech FT-5 Build Thread

[3Dex]

Hi Everyone,

Introduction

Last weekend my new FolgerTech FT-5 kit was delivered! Since it requires a lot of building I thought I would share the process with you here.

The FT-5 is a large scale 3D printer from Folger Technologies in the US. The build volume of this printer is 300x300x400mm which is considerably bigger than most other printers on the market. There is quite a large following for this printer and Folger Technologies in general - I think this is due to the quality and price of the kits which seems to be absolutely great. It is also fantastic for prospective builders like me as there are many build threads to follow.

My FT-5 will be used for all of my business' 3D printing needs (3dexfilament.co.uk) - at the moment we are doing a lot of CAD designing and 3D printing for customers such as property developers and product design teams of various local businesses. A lot of clients require large scale printing and although cutting the part into multiple sections is normally fine, the FT-5 will give us extra flexibility.

However, I also intend to use the FT-5 for some of my own projects. I am a huge fan of drone racing and I want to design a few frames. The large print bed of the FT-5 will allow me to print a complete quad frame in one go. As you can imagine, being one piece of plastic makes the frame immeasurably stronger. I also intend to print some scale model aircraft when I have the time to design them.

Building

So when I kit arrived I just checked over all of the parts. They all seem great and there didn't seem to be any omissions or damaged parts. Folger Technologies periodically improve the kits based on what their customers say so therefore, any initial gripes with the 1st version of the kit seem to have been ironed out by now.

The first step is to assemble the frame. This is fairly easy and following the instructions is simple enough. Once assembled, you get to see how big this printer is going to be. Well it's probably bigger than I anticipated but fits in its allotted workshop space perfectly.

The next step is inserting the motors and motor mounting plates into the frame. I shall keep you updated on my progress.

Regards,
Will
3DEX Ltd

[jjpython]

Im looking to build a corexy printer from my i3 clone, will be an interesting read

[3Dex]

Hi jjpython,

Im glad to have you on board. I hope this build is informative enough to be of help to you.

Hi All,

I forgot to mention that I am assembling this kit completely stock. However, there are many upgrades for the FT-5 to expand its functionality/strength and I do intend to try these out at a later stage. One modification I like the sound of is replacing the black melamine parts with aluminium parts. The standard melamine parts are very dirty out of the box. They have lots of dust and residue on them and I have spent quite a lot of time sponging them down and drying them with a towel. I should have taken a photo of the dirt left on the town - needless to say it was awful!

So this afternoon I assembled the motor and rod mounting plates. There is one large base plate and two left and right mounts at the top of the frame. Once assembled I then fixed them to the frame.

I haven't tightened down all of the parts as I don't want to do this until the rods and belts going onto these parts are in place.

Next up is the assembly of the build plate.

Regards,
Will
3DEX Ltd

[3Dex]

Some photos from my work last night.

I managed to assemble the melamine build plate. The heated bed goes on top of this part. Two lead screw nuts and 4 items called LM8FLUU need bolting to the melamine. I had to hold the M3 Nylock nuts in a pair of pliers as a socket won't be able to seat onto the nut. This is due to the shape of the lead screw nut and the LM8FLUU. Half way through I managed to get the knack of this and the last few M3 screws didn't take me long at all.

The next job was to insert the rods and threaded bars into their respective mounts. You must also put the pulleys on the threaded bars to connect them to the z-axis motors. This I remembered perfectly so went ahead and assembled it. However, I then noticed that I had forgotten the belts!! D'OH!!!! So i had to take out the bars to fit the belts and then reassemble.

I am keeping this assembly loose as I believe I will have to fine-tune it later so no need to tighten it at the moment.

I have attached a photo of the frame with the bed attached. Note the coke can that gives it some scale. This thing is large!

Regards,
Will,
3DEX Ltd

[3Dex]

So I woke up quite early today (you might be able to tell from the poor wording used in the previous post!).

I decided to make use of the early get up and start work on the FT-5.

The next job to do is the assembly of the gantry rails. I have read so many warnings about letting the sliders slide off the rails. If this happens then the ball bearings go everywhere and it's very hard to reassemble the sliders as a result. I was very careful to ensure this didnt happen. Out of the box the rails have cable ties at each end to prevent the sliders coming off. However, you will have to eventually remove these to seat the slider on the aluminium frame bars so BE CAREFUL!

The instructions recommend using Kapton tape to prevent the sliders from falling off the rail. I don't know why Kapton tape is recommended but I used electrical tape. In my opinion this is much easier to manoeuvre and reapply. For example, when adding the melamine belt holders I was able to take off and reapply the tape easily.

These bearings will also need a lot of lubrication. They don't run smoothly at the moment. Some people seem to recommend dismantling the bearings and cleaning and reassembling them to ensure they run smoothly but I really want to avoid this. I shall try and drop some oil into the bearing which does seem possible through the slot in the guide rail.

These gantry rails are for the Y-axis and I have one more for the X-asis. This is the next step but before I do that it's time for a cup of tea!!

Regards,
Will,
3DEX

[jjpython]

Looking good bud, the build plate looks very stable

[3Dex]

Thanks for the kind comments jjpython.

Hi Everyone,

So here are some updates. The next stage was to assemble the gantry which was very straight forward. Follow the instructions and I don't think you can go wrong. I think the FT-5 is designed really well and an example of this is the X-asis motor mount. It is upturned so that nearly all of the weight of the motor is directly over the X-asis slider.

At this point it is important to keep the y-asis sliders taped up. There is now a lot of weight on them so they can easily slide off their rails!

The next step is to insert this into the frame and attach them to the upper mounts. Once this is done, the bed rods can be tightened.

Regards,
Will
3DEX

[3Dex]

So I have attached some photos of the instillation of the rails in the frame.

As I said above, I can now tighten the rods that hold the bed in place. I did this by moving the bed to the top, tightening the top and then moving the bed to the bottom and tightening the bottom rods. The result is that minimal pressure from just one finger can be used to raise and lower the bed (obviously the motors aren't connected at the moment)

Of interest: there is a cable chain taking all wires from the extruder to the back of the printer. It has to go through a 90deg angle due to the x and y axis. There is a little piece of melamine that helps to do this. It is mounted on the top of the x-asis motor which I though was fairly forward thinking.

Next step is the assembly of the extruder. (which I put on before the gantry was installed into the frame (but can be done after))

Regards,
Will
3DEX Ltd

[3Dex]

So here is the extruder assembly.

Compared to the rest of the kit, I don't think the extruder assembly is designed very well. Firstly, the fan and the heat sink are only attached using two screws. Four would have been better as there is a little bit of flex in the mounting. (probably not much of a bad thing as this will allow extra air flow I guess). The part where the filament feeds into and is then pressed against the extruder wheel seems to be a cheap plastic component that may fail under a lot of stress or use. However, I doubt these areas are parts which Folger Technologies have designed themselves. Also for the price of the kit I cannot complain and there are many extruder upgrades available.

The whole extruder assembly is mounted on two melamine parts that then fit onto the x-axis slider. I have found these parts to be rather flexible and therefore there is some flex/play in the extruder. (the tip of the nozzle can be pushed ±5mm). Upgrading from melamine to aluminium I reckon would fix this. This is perhaps something I should do very soon. I am hoping this issue won't really affect the printing but I would rather not have any flex.

Once the extruder was fitted I put the whole assembly together. The next stage is to assemble the end stop mounts for the y and z axis.

Regards,
Will
3DEX Filament

[jjpython]

Where the motor is mounted on the rails there is a small pcb, is that an endstop??
Awesome writeup so far, very i formative

[3Dex]

Hi jjpython,

Yes you are correct, the small PCB is the end stop for the X-axis. I have just installed the Y and Z end stops as well so Ill attach a photo in the next update. The instructions are very easy to follow on the end stop instillation.

Hi All,

So this is a fairly large update. I shall cover a few things here.

1. Now that the gantry is installed I can sure up the aluminium frame. The gantry is installed on aluminium bars that should be 160-170mm from the top bars (I shall call this the mid frame). The instructions say that the mid frame must be 170mm from the top bars. However, I have seen people go for 160mm gaps to give them a bit more z-axis height. In the end I went for 165mm. It is important that the whole of the mid frame is exactly 165mm lower than the top so I achieved this by using a piece of balsa wood 165mm in length to go round each corner with and make sure they are all the same height (see the attached photo). I am pleased with the results.

2. The next stage was to install the GT2 belts on the X and Y axis (two belts for the Y and one for the X). This was incredibly fiddly! The first difficult task is getting the start of the belt through the melamine belt holder. I managed to do this with a cable tie stuck into the slot that I could use to draw the belt through. (see the picture attached). Then I had to take out the Idlers (I hadn't hard installed them anyway) to get the belts to go around them. I also had to remove the Y axis end stop. The belts are prevented from coming loose by cable ties. I am not sure how well these will work but they seem to be holding up so far. I would like to actually add two cable ties per end to ensure that there is no slip. However, so far I have installed the belts as per the instructions and everything seems to work satisfactorily.

3. The next stage was installing the Power Supply and the MKS board on melamine parts which are then secured to the melamine base plate. Everything seems to be very straight forward at this part and following the instructions should be fine. However, the instructions recommend using 12mm m3 bolts for the MKS board but these are too short so I used 16mm bolts. As luck would have it, when I came to install the power supply plug (where the kettle lead enters the printer - see photos) the instructions advise on using 16mm bolts but 12mm will easily suffice so I still have the correct amount of bolts left over for the rest of the build.

The next stages are adding the LED screen and heated bed but after that it seems to mainly be the wiring which is going to be a long and difficult task. I shall have to refer to many online build threads for this part. My concern is that it might be easier to do the wiring with the power supply and MKS board out of the printer - so I might remove these.

Well thats all for now. Today I shall be continuing with the build so hopefully I shall update this thread later on.

Cheers,
Will,
3DEX Filament

[3Dex]

Hi Everyone,

I apologise for the delayed update.

I haven't covered all that much since the last one so I shall summarise what I have done.

1. Installing the heated bed. This is very easy and following the instructions is perfect. 8 bolts with springs between the melamine and heated bed hold it together. Simple and easy! However, what wasn't so easy was the soldering of the heated bed wires. Since the heated bed is entirely aluminium it is very difficult to get the required heat in the joint. The bed acts as one big heat sink! My 50w soldering iron struggled at first but I eventually managed with a lot of Flux and also using a paint stripper to get the heat into the bed. I focused the paint stripper on the joint and then, once hot, quickly used the iron to melt the solder. Not perfect but it seems to have done the trick.

2. Installing the LCD screen. This should be a very simple operation, however, the instructions suggest using 20mm M3 screws. Unfortunately, these aren't long enough and I don't have enough of them left. Therefore I assume this is an error in the instructions. Rather than guess the required bolt size I shall attach the LCD screen right at the end of the build using whatever screws I have left over.

3. Wiring up the whole printer is the next stage. Luckily it's one of the last but also the most complex. I haven't finished this task but have certainly done the majority of it. I found the instructions to be rather confusing regarding the wiring so I simply started at the extruder and worked backwards.

The first job is to solder the extruder wires. I attached an XT-60 connector to the wires rather than the included plastic plug. This is simply for the aesthetics and the ability to remove the extruder easily in the future.

The next stage was to feed the extruder wires, thermistor wires, fan wires and extruder motor wires through a braided mesh tube. Once through that it then passes through a plastic cable chain. This is all on the X axis and then it is repeated again on the Y axis. This was extremely fiddly and took many hours to do properly. However, I came up with some time saving ideas that will hopefully help you.

a. Leave the plastic cable chain off - its so much easier to feed the wires through the chain without it being attached to the printer
b. touch the ends of the mesh tube on a soldering iron to prevent the ends fraying
c. An easy way to get the cables into the mesh tube is to put the mesh over a carbon/aluminium tube and then slide the wires through the carbon/ali tube. Once all the way through simply slide the mesh tube over the carbon/ali tube so that it's left on the wires.
d. to get the wires through the carbon/ali tube easily I used some heat shrink tubing to pull all the ends of the wire together. (see picture)
e. In the future, if you want to add any functionality at the extruder (a layer fan e.g.) then plumb the wires in now!! it's so much easier then doing it later.

The end result is a neat cable chain with the wires within the mesh running along the X-axis gantry and the Y-axis gantry and down into the back of the printer.

In the instructions there were warnings of making the cable chain too long and thus not having enough wire to reach the MKS board. This turned out to be completely incorrect and I had lots of wire left over. You could easily make the cable chains 50mm longer without any bother.

The next stage was connecting the end stop wires and running them down the rear right of the outer frame. This was very straight forward.

I also have wired up the Z-axis motors which requires making a Y-harness. This is very easy to do with the included screw-down connectors.

Next Steps

The next stage is to wire up the Y-axis motors. This involves another y-harness but reversing the polarity of one of the motors so they work in the opposite directions to each other. After that, all I have to do is wire up the MKS board to the power supply and then the power supply to the switch and then I can turn the printer on (not forgetting that LCD screen instillation).

I hope my hard work and rather meticulous attention to detail has paid off and I shall be rewarded with a great functioning printer. However, I wouldn't mind betting there will be some much need tuning (perhaps 50/50 my building skills and the quality of the kit)

Conclusion

Well I apologise for the incredibly lengthy post. I hope I have made it possible for someone to easily see the parts that are relevant to them. I am thoroughly enjoying creating this thread though!

Regards,
Will,
3DEX

[3Dex]

I am pleased to report that my FT-5 is now complete and working! It was an awesome moment when the printer did its first auto-home and everything went smoothly. But before that I shall summarise the finishing touches to the build.

1. Installing the LCD screen. I did this at the end of the build (see above posts). The instructions mention using 20mm m3 bolts for the LCD screen but it really needs 25mm bolts. Luckily there are some 25mm countersunk bolts included in the kit that I think are meant for the heated bed, however, the instructions say use 30mm screws for the bed so I had these left over.

Annoyingly, the button that should go back onto the splines exposed in the pictures, will not work correctly when put back on. It would appear that someone writing the FT5 manual must have missed out a few mm when creating this step. So I have decided to leave the spines expose for now. I might cut the button down at a later stage.

2. Finishing the wiring. I thought this was going to be the biggest issue when building. Luckily it is actually quite straight forward. I followed the wiring diagram included in the instructions and it worked perfectly (as you would expect). I took the PSU out of the printer in order to wire up the MKS and then added the PSU back later. Connecting the PSU to the MKS board involved 4 wires which were very easy to connect thanks to the screw connectors.

The instructions mention soldering wires directly to the mains switch but I wanted to use connectors (incase I had to remove the switch) so had to buy some 6.3mm spade connectors. I then soldered these connectors up (see attached picture) and these worked perfectly.

After the build I had many screws and bolts left over. I think Folgertech include some spares after people complained of not having enough bolts to finish the build. I have plenty left I shall never need to buy any replacements.

3. Flashing the printer. I have never flashed a printer before so was a little nervous about doing this. Luckily I found an awesome Youtube video by Dustin Corbin which explains exactly how to do this in very easy steps.

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkkStBgDK8U
Following this video step by step ensured a successful flashing of the printer. Thank you Dustin for creating such an informative video. I wish I had found his Youtube channel sooner as it has so many great videos about the Folgertech FT5 such as tuning stepper motor drivers which is the next stage of the build.

4. The FT5 instructions mention using a program called Pronterface to check the workings of the printer. This program now seems to be called Printrun and installs very easily (download here: https://github.com/kliment/Printrun). However, I managed to test the end stops using this program but not much else. For testing the motors I decided to use the recently uploaded firmware.

5. Testing the printer motors. As mentioned I used the onboard firmware for this (Prepare > Move Axis > Move 1mm > then all of the four motors) and there was a bit of an issue. My Y motors were not working. I new pretty early on that it was likely to be my wiring as the Y motors have to be connected via a y-lead and one has to be reversed in direction. Sure enough I had the yellow and grey leads the wrong way round. I swapped these over and the y axis worked perfectly.

After this I performed an auto-home. The feeling the successful completion of this gave me was absolutely thrilling. To build something and it work perfectly straight away is always exciting to me!

6. First print. So I decided to print a green rocket. I sliced it using Cura slicing software. Interesting Cura has the FT5 as a preset printer you can select. I found that all of my prints, although in the middle of the print bed in Cura actually print about 10mm to the left of the print bed in real life. I think there might be some errors in the Cura FT5 profile.

So I have uploaded a video of the FT5 working on my Facebook and twitter which you can see here:
Twitter
Facebook

The next few stages will be to calibrate the printer. I want to ensure the bed is level and also the Z end stop is positioned to get the nozzle at the right distance to the print bed. This might take a while. I also have to tune the stepper drivers but right out of the box they seem to be fairly good and definitely useable.

After that I hope to be trying out some large prints with this printer. Some people have experience overheating and even melting of parts on the MKS board and power supply so these long prints will be a good test. I really hope that my equipment will stand up to the tests.

Conclusions

So I hope you have enjoyed my build of the FT5.

After building it I can safely say that I would recommend this printer to anyone who needs a large scale printer. Due to the sometimes confusing instructions and general complexity of the printer I probably wouldn't recommend this as a first printer. Folgertech do make other and smaller printer kits that might be more suitable to a first printer.

However, if you are confident in your building skills and have some common sense when reading the instructions then I am sure you will love this printer. If you get stuck at all then there are many build threads you can follow. The price, quality and modification possibilities of this printer make it an absolute winner in my opinion. I love it and I hope it provides me with many great prints in the future - I have every confidence that it will!

If you have any questions or need some advice with one of your builds/printers then feel free to comment below and I shall try my best to answer you and would be happy to help.

Regards,
Will
3DEX - UK 3D printer filament

[jjpython]

Great writeup, very informative and clear, the joy of building your own machine and seeing it come to life is immense

[3Dex]

Hi jjpython, thanks for the kind comments.

Hi everyone,

So here is one of the first prints I have done on my new FT5. This is something I quickly grabbed from Thingiverse. It's a tree stump with with a door and windows (there is also a roof to print as well)

I haven't tuned the stepper motors this is simply the FT5 working from stock so improvements could be made but I am actually really pleasantly surprised with the quality.

I printed at 0.2mm layer height and a speed of 70mms.

You may notice that I am printing onto a glass bed. The folgertech does not come with a glass bed but I managed to buy a cheap picture frame (£5.99) which had a size of 300mm x 250mm. Almost the same size as the FT5 bed. The glass works perfectly and I strongly recommend buying a glass build bed. I believe Folgertech make a glass bed that you can buy as an optional extra.

Well thats all for now.

Regards,
Will
3DEX - Printer Filament

[jjpython]

Lovely output from it, be nice to see the difference when its tuned, again, great writeup

[3Dex]

Hi jjpython,

Thanks for the comments!

Hi All,

I have been doing some more printing with the FT5. Things are going well but here are a few observations:

You will definitely need to tune the stepper motors. The Y-axis stepper motor comes out of the box running at 0.6v but because it controls two motors this will need to be upped to around 1.1v. The instructions cover how to do this, but if in doubt there is a great video here by Dustin Corbin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6lgFeZ7ZQ

Also, make sure your belts are tight and I mean very tight. To avoid slop and shifting I had to have my belts very tight! Luckily this is easy to adjust.

Dual Z endstop - this is not a modification I have done but something that perhaps will be necessary. Using just one I get some rather erratic results. Sometimes the bed is too high and sometimes its too low. And often it is never level. Whilst I can certainly continue without dual endstops, doing this modification will really be useful!

I hope this helps anyone also thinking of building the FT5.

Regards,
Will,
3DEX