Up! Mini 3D printer

On this page I like to show you the modifications I made on the Up! Mini.

I added LED lighting, a webcam, extra cooling to the extruder stepper motor, sound insulation and a spool holder with ball bearings.

LED lighting can quite easily be added to the Up! Mini.

On the PCB in the back of the printer, 2 3-pin headers are left open with the text 'fan5' and 'fan6'.
After the printer is initialized, 12V is applied to those headers.
I connected 1 RGB LED strip to each of the headers. I shorted the RGB minus sides of the LED strip, so the color becomes white. You can of course also put in a white LED strip, but I just had this one laying around.

There are 3 LEDs in series every 10cm, and I cut the strips to a 20cm length.
This results in 2 x 20mA x 3(colors) = 120mA/strip.

I run the wires underneath the bed height mechanism so it doesn't get tangled up in some moving part and also run it underneath the PCB in the back, were the flat cable also comes out underneath.

I placed the LED strips in the front of the printer, near the door as you can see in the picture. Because I also have a webcam in the printer I didn't want to place them further in the back, because that would 'blind' the webcam.

Here are some pictures of the LED strips installed:

In the second picture you can see how the wires run to the back of the printer.

You can also see the sound insulating foam I installed to make the printer more quiet.
Sometimes I had a problem that the printer would not extrude anymore filament half way the print job.
The problem turned out to be overheating of the of the stepper motor, which occured sometimes on hot days.
When the motor overheats, it simply stops turning.
To counter this problem I added a extra heatsink with fan to the motor itself.
I had scrapped this heatsink from a computer in the past and it fit's perfectly on the motor.
I drilled a hole in the plastic piece that holds the PCB and used a clip that came with the heatsink to mount in.
I then applied thermal grease (same as you use in a PC, between the CPU and heatsink) on the motor and pressed the heatsink against it.
On the PCB, right next to the connector were the standard LED strip is connected, there was another connecter that provides 12V when printer is initialized, so I could connect the fan of the heatsink right next to it.

I reprinted the part that failed on a even warmer day and the print came out fine.

Here are some pictures of the heatsink:

The filament spool holder that came with the Up! Mini is good for the shape and size of the filament that comes with the printer, but when ordering larger spools (1kg which I have now) I noticed that the it took the printer a little more effect to turn the spool.
Also the depth of the spool was more than the length of the spool holder.

So I decided to create a new spool holder.

I designed a clip that would fit the hole in the back of the printer were the standard holder is. The clip has a 8mm hole through it to fit a 8mm threaded rod.
I purchased ball bearings with an 8mm inner diameter and 22mm outer diameter.
The hole of the spool was 60mm.
I then designed a wheel with 22mm inner diameter and 60mm outer diameter.

So the ball bearings are fitted in the wheel, and the wheel in the spool. I made 2 wheels, one on each side of the spool, and slide this over the rod.
The rod is held in place with bolts, and so are both wheels.
The spool now turns really smooth.

Here are pictures of the spool holder: