Leviathan 3D Printer
My journey as an engineer begins here. After seeing the possibilities of 3D printing in high school, I began designing my own printer. My original design goal was to have a total print volume of one cubic meter and to design as many of the parts myself. Through Fusion360, I realized the first version of the Leviathan. I soon left for college, and realized how much I could improve this project. I noticed that my original designs did not meet the standard that I was looking for. They were either too weak, modification was difficult, or the design didn't work. After seeing this, I began applying the things I learned in school, like proper modeling techniques, basic dynamics, and circuits, and watched other people who had attempted a similar project to improve upon my original design. I remodeled everything in Solidworks and have been slowly iterating on my original design since.
Here is the version 1 frame assembled. The first version of corner brackets were toleranced for press fits with the square framing and had spots for the bed guide rods. The strength of the parts and the simple design soon became an issue as I moved into the XY axis design. The current corner bracket would break along the layer lines, specifically at the corners of the press fits or at the end of the square framing. This issue was unavoidable because, regardless of the orientation of the print, the 3D print would still have layer lines in one of the critical orientations.
This the XY axis almost fully assembled. Many of my older designs used press or compliant fits, as seen with parts that interact with the guide rods. These fits were perfect for a new designer and allowed me to explore the possibilities of 3D printing without worrying about fasteners. This changed later as the modularity of parts and speed of iteration became more important.
Based around the E3D Titan Aero direct extruder, the extruder carriage is currently one of the most complex pieces within the Leviathan build. This part taught me how to create designs that could modified easily without messing other sections up, how to manufacture complex parts, and how parts interact with each other.
The version 2 corner bracket features 3 modular pieces. This new design was game changing, dropping print time from 6 hours per corner bracket to 2 hours for the largest piece. Not only was the corner bracket significantly stronger, I was able to create multiple versions and test them significantly quicker. I was also able to create different versions for different needs. For a CoreXY motion system, two different versions of the corner bracket were needed, the idler version and the motor mount version. This new design allowed me to implement them both easily and quickly.
