Ender 5 Dual Z Axis Stepper Tutorial?

[Ender5r]

I looked on YT for a tutorial on how to mod my Ender 5 into a dual z axis version. I found nothing about it... literally nothing. To be honest, I was shocked.

I do know there are at least a couple of items on thingiverse about it, but that's not a tutorial AFAIC. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Geit]

I guess it is just printing the parts and mount them. That is what I did with my TronXY back then, as there were no videos as well.

[Ender5r]

I guess it is just printing the parts and mount them. That is what I did with my TronXY back then, as there were no videos as well.

I'm beginning to see that. This begs for a YT tutorial.

I found this one wherein a lot of the parts are printed: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3784970

And this one, which is version 2 of the 1st one, wherein the entire printbed is rotated 90 degrees, so the 2 Z axes are on the sides: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4098102

This one uses the single motor, much like Geit did: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3999933

And the one I like the most, except for his placing the extra Z axis inside the frame, thus reducing the Y axis volume. From the description he is planning to fix this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4079052.

[Geit]

The bulky red one looks impractical and eats additional space.

If that is a 220x220 bed you definitely don´t need a second Nema to drive it.

This one:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3999933
is indeed kind of like my conversion. I just needed more parts to print as the rods and lead screw is on top of the bottom frame. I would have preferred a solution like this, but I was unable to fix it using CAD at that time.

[Ender5r]

I think the big red one would work a little better if the bed was rotated 90 counter-clockwise, so the red printed parts are behind the LCD panel.

[Vassili Finellis]

Does your controller board offer double Z connectors?

[Vassili Finellis]

If the answer is NO, then there is an easy way to add a second Z stepper on it by adding a small PCB. Search for this one https://grobotronics.com/double-z-ax...rs-module.html
The mechanics are easy to mod.

[Ender5r]

Interesting. I'm using the OEM 1.1.5 Creality board so, no, it doesn't have 2 Z stepper drivers. That said, I haven't made up my mind whether I want to just rewire to use 1 stepper driver to drive 2 stepper motors, or to change out the controller for 1 that has 2 Z drivers. I may even do both, starting with rewiring, then moving on to a controller upgrade at a later point.

I had actually considered making a board like the 1 you linked to. For that price, though, I would likely just order it. I'm still open to just hardwiring the Y cable.

Another wrinkle I'm considering is to put some taller feet on the bottom of the printer, so a regular NEMA 17 stepper (like the ones used for the X & Y axes and extruder) could fit on the Z axis. I would then move the current Z axis stepper motor to the direct drive on the hotend. This would put a more powerful motor on the Z axis and a lighter one on the hotend.

[Geit]

Yeah, the SKR boards have the same feature already onboard. Instead of building your own Y-cable or using an external PCB like the one above, you have two connectors on the boards, which are connected to a single driver. It is just required to give the driver more power to work with.

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[Ender5r]

Yeah, the SKR boards have the same feature already onboard. Instead of building your own Y-cable or using an external PCB like the one above, you have two connectors on the boards, which are connected to a single driver. It is just required to give the driver more power to work with.

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I've looked at some of the SKR boards. I found ones with 3, 4, 5, & 6 stepper driver sockets (not the sockets where the cable that goes to the motor plugs in; the sockets the drivers plug into). The 6 socket model was somewhere around $100. I've wondered if that might be a good option for futureproofing.

[Geit]

I have the six socket pro model. If you order these boards in china they are far cheaper. I ordered my SKR Pro on Amazon making sure it is a shop, where the stuff was already in germany. This gave the price a little bump up, but I don´t have any issues with taxes and potential warranty issues.

I think I payed 75Euro incl. four TMC2209 drivers. You probably won´t need a Pro board anyway. The GeitPrinter was designed for three tool heads, so the Pro was the only option. The cheaper SKR 1.3 are fine and available for about 15-18 Euro directly from china.

You probably won´t need the third extruder and the slightly faster cpu of the PRO board. In fact the Pro version has some caveats, as there wasn´t enough space on the board for all jumpers available on the SKR 1.3 boards, so to use sensorless homing you need to cut/bend pins from your TMC stepsticks to enable the feature, while on the boards with less drivers you just need to set/unset a jumper. The Pro version also has no eeprom.

[Ender5r]

No EEPROM? That's a surprising omission. So your board has 5 drivers and 6 sockets, but no EEPROM. How are settings stored; SD card?

[Ender5r]

UPDATE: I checked Aliexpress and found this, at $50: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000...archweb201603_

To get the $50.03, I chose TMC2209x5, China, Turbo

[[email protected]]

I think this would be a good opportunity for some one to put a kit together. The only thing I found was https://twosixengineering.com/gtr-sh...-5-dual-z-axis
they want $100 for a plate only. Some one should be able to put all of the metal parts needed and supply STL files for the printed parts. It can be expensive and tedious to track down all of the parts required. This is one reason that I have never seriously considered converting my 3 Ender 5s, plus I have an Ender 5 Plus which has the dual Z.

[Ender5r]

I saw that site earlier today, and I too thought it was pretty expensive for a single aluminum plate.

[[email protected]]

I thought it included all of the parts, but sadly it did not