Wilson TS construction videos

Preamble

I was looking into building the Wilson RepRap. This thread, RepRap “Wilson” (Prusa I3 variant), mentioned that Marty Rice (the author of the Wilson RepRap) has produced some great video tutorials of the build process. These videos, specifically, are for the Wilson TS.

Wilson TS specification

The Wilson TS specification is on github: mjrice/wilson.

eBay item

The Wilson TS that was produced by one of the posters (and his wife) in the thread above was sold on eBay, RepRap Wilson TS 3D Printer – FULLY ASSEMBLED WITH UPGRADES – From USA!!!

The item description is rather interesting:

Thank you for visiting and welcome!

Up for sale is brand new “FULLY ASSEMBLED” RepRap Wilson TS 3D Printer. A descendant of the i3 style RepRap printers, the RepRap Wilson machine is designed fully by Marty Rice (author name MRice from the RepRap wiki page) with the goal to replace the often costly single sheet frames of the i3, with ones built from 2020 Aluminum Extrusions. The Wilson TS is licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL) and can be found here.

All design files and source files for the RepRap Wilson 3D Printer can be obtained from the github page at http://github.com/mjrice/wilson.

I built this machine as per Marty’s excellent youtube video instructions, with a few upgrades I decided to include/change on my own. The following is a list of the upgrades in this machine:

1.) Budaschnozzle/Buda style hotend (for 1.75mm filament) – 5th picture (Not directly from LulzBot, but from a different vendor).

2.) Greg Wade Extruder for Budaschnozzle (5th picture) with custom X axis mount.

3.) Nylon self lubricating and self aligning “Pillow Blocks” bearings for Y axis (6th picture) – The LM8UUs that I received had some defective ones, so I went with these and they are “MUCH MORE” quieter and smoother.

The machine runs great and all motors work and all axis moves and homes properly. There are some “VERY MINOR” issues that are more like cosmetics, and does not affect the over all quality of the printer. Please see pics 7,8,9,10 and 11:

1.) As I started printing all the necessary plastic parts, my previous print required a lower extrusion rate and I completely forgot to return it to its normal extrusion rate in Slicer. Therefore, the upper and lower braces where the Z axis smooth rods connect to (pics 7 and 8) were a “little loose” in their holes. In order to compensate for this, I melted some of the plastic to hold the rod in place.

2.) Since this machine is equipped with the Buda-style hotend with a custom X axis mount, I had to use the original i2/i3 endstop bar clamps for the X axis (pic 9). The Z axis endstop also uses one of these bar clamp style endstop holders as the original one for the Wilson broke when I was putting them in…. =) (pic 10).

3.)Currently, the machine lost about 1″ of print space on the Y axis due to the custom Budaschnozzle hotend mount. This should be quite easy to fix by repositioning the upright frame. All you would have to do is loosen the lower braces (I pointed to the part in pic 11) and adjust the whole frame accordingly.

4.) Hotend and Heatbed heats up just fine (see my snapshot of Repetier in pic 12), but I did not do a test print as I do not want to risk “clogging” the hotend before shipment. It happened once too many, and I decided not to do it again… =) The hotend is “BRAND NEW” and has nothing in it, therefore should definitely work.

5.) The glass bed IS NOT INCLUDED in this auction as they can break easily during shipment

Package List:

1x RepRap Wilson TS 3D Printer – Fully Assembled with RAMPS 1.4 and Arduino Mega 2560 with 4x Pololu Stepper Drivers.

1x Power supply

1x USB cable

Due to the nature of these machines, I WILL NOT ACCEPT RETURNS. Shipment will be done via USPS with tracking and signature confirmation. Please know what you are buying and if you do not have any experience with RepRaps or 3D printing in general, PLEASE DO NOT bid. Machine will require calibration upon delivery. ABSOLUTELY NO RETURNS.

Thank you for looking and feel free to message me if you have questions.

Video Tutorials

Reprap Wilson TS Assembly Part 1 / 6

Reprap Wilson TS Assembly Part 2 / 6

Reprap Wilson TS Assembly Part 3 / 6

Reprap Wilson TS Assembly Part 4 / 6

Reprap Wilson TS Assembly Part 5 / 6

Reprap Wilson TS Assembly Part 6 / 6