Ducc it

Ducc-it

Made by: @Dongathan-Jong
Repository link: https://github.com/Dongathan-Jong/Ducc-it
Total hours so far: 153

BOM: here

This is a custom made 3d printer for Hack Club’s Infill YSWS! Currently, the printer’s features are:

• 160x160x160mm Print Volume
• Cantilever Design
• Auto Ejecting prints
• Fits under $300 USD
• At least 100mm/s printing
• Klipper support

As someone who has used Autodesk’s Tinkercad their whole life, I have realised that CADing models on that software may not be the best idea. I have used this YSWS as an opportunity to learn Fusion 360 along with the electronic workings of a 3D printer.

Day 1 - 2/15/2025 - 12:02 PM (1 Hr)

I want to lay some ground rules down for what this printer can do:

• 100mmx100mmx100mm build size
• At least 100mm/s printing
• Fit under $300 USD (under Hack Club’s infill budget)
• The printer is rigid enough to produce good quality prints

Going to try and sort out the BOM today

Day 1 - 2/15/2025 - 1:37 PM (1 Hr)

Worked on my bom, added steppers, aluminum rails, and linear rails.

Day 1 - 2/15/2025 - 10:36 PM (6 Hrs)

Just did a super long work session ~6h, added a ton of things to the bom! Lead screw, motor bracket, coupler, build plate, linear bearings, and linear rods! Turns out Aliexpress is really my best friend…

I did a ton of work on the CAD, doing pretty good with the cad so far:

I struggled quite a lot as im pretty new to fusion, but all seems to be good!

Day 2 - 2/16/2025 - 10:08 AM (1 Hr)

I thought this through, and I will restart this. I realised that with my current progress, I have barely made a dent in my CAD and have already blown through half the budget. I think the current progress is amazing, but even using the cheapest parts I can find, I don’t think I can hit my desired $300 budget. I think a bedslinger would be cheaper? Something like the bambu A1, where the z axis is supported on both sides.

Here is the current BOM:

Part	Quantity	Cost	link
Nema17 Stepper Motor	4	$30.25	here
MGN12C Linear rail + block (200mm)	3	$33.04	here
2020 Aluminum extrusions (8 in)	8	$24.44	here
2020 Aluminum extrusions (10 in)	4	$10	here
T10 lead screw (2mm pitch 8mm lead), 200mm	1	$9.68	here
Nema17 stepper motor bracket	3	$8.06	here
5mm to 10mm shaft coupler	1	$1.23	here
110mm x 120mm build plate (PEI + PET)	1	$12.91	here
LM8UU linear bearings	10	$4.94	here
8mm linear rods	2	$4.99	here

The total comes to ~ $139, which excluding electronics and such doesn’t sound so feasable.

Day 2 - 2/16/2025 - 11:01 PM (6 Hrs)

I did a bit of work here and there throughout the day, came out to ~ 6 hours. I worked on achieving a cheaper frame, and eneded up settling with a cantilever design, similar to the Bambu A1 mini. Here is the progress for today!

I’ll get to updating the BOM soon, maybe tomorrow.

Day 3 - 2/24/2025 - 4:53 PM (10 Hrs)

Wow… School really put everything to a halt. I updated the BOM and put everything on a spreadsheet, making these tables in markdown SUCK, here is the link to that.

I have worked a little more on the CAD, hope to get the mechanics and everything finished by the end of the week, then finish the electronics in the week after. Will be pretty inactive on this project though, going to Scraypard!

Here is the CAD progress:

Day 4, 5, 6, 7 - 3/1/2025 to 3/17/2025 (~35 Hrs)

School, Scrapyard, HQ, everythings been putting this on the backburner, but I am finally here to continue on the writeup! I did quite a lot of work in between my trips to hq fulfilling hackpad, texas for scrapyard, and others, and have finished the hotend assembly, updating the spreadsheet with everything needed, and have everything done except for the electronics and fan shroud (and the feet but thats not high priority).

I need to figure out how to make a good looking fan shroud since I’m pretty new to fusion, definitely will figure that out soon. As per now, I have quite a lot of stuff figured out, this is basically the final stretch!

Day 8 - 3/21/2025 - 11:39 PM (7 Hours)

Finally had some time to work on this, worked ~ 7 hours today figuring out electronics, PSU, what I am going to use since I have zero experience with what I am using. The popular choice was to go with a SKR Mini E3 V3, a 350W Creality power supply, and a RPI3 I have laying around. I also added a roll of Polymaker Carbon Reinforced filament, as the brace for the X axis won’t be able to support the weight with normal PLA. This suprisingly took SO long because I watched so many YouTube videos on whats good and what isn’t.

I updated the bom, added some GT2 parts, belts, pulleys, etc. The total right now is a little over $290 USD, but I added around $2 to each part, since customs may be an issue.

I think I am going to just strap all the electronics under the bed, and create mounts as I go, since I cannot find the right CAD models for the parts. Also, for the self-ejecting part, I plan to use a servo to sweep the bed, but that will also need to be further researched into.

As of now, I am marking this printer as completed until I recieve the parts to fabricate!

Day 9, 10, 11, 12 - 4/1/2025 to 4/4/2025 (12 Hours)

My parts arrived! Super stoked to to start building, but was sad to find out I actually got scammed from the SKR vendor on Aliexpress. I got a refund but it will be a little while until I can actually get the next one I ordered.

I got quite a lot done today (4/2/2025), finished building all the axes without attaching them to the 2020 extrusions.

Built the 2020 extrusion base and attached everything together!

Thats all for now, signing off!

Day 13 - 4/8/2025 (4 Hours)

Today I realised I bought a MGN12H rail instead of the MGN12C rail… That meant that I had to redesign the WHOLE hotend to fit the proper block. I spent WAY too long redoing this, and haven’t even gotten to the fan duct.

I also realised my linear rail vertical was SUPER unstable, so I reinforced it with 2020 extrusion 90 degree mounts I created myself on Tinkercad.

Day 14 - 4/10/2025 (3 Hours)

I finished the hotend!

This took SO much longer than expected, I think I made the holes for the heatset a little bit too small, so the plastic would find it’s way seeping into the heatset which made screwing everything together SO difficult. I ended up using a drill but its all together. I also belted the X axis, so that axis is good to go!

I need to do a little more research on how I plan to organize these cables because currently its a massive rats nest.

Day 15 - 4/11/2025 (4 Hours)

The bed carriage is on now! I had to redesign this because I bought a 180x180 bed compared to the 160x160 I planned for, I did it in fusion and printed it out. Once I put the heatsets in and tried to screw it in, I actually had some problem with it being really stiff and not moving around at all, but everything was solved when I untightened the rod holders and retightened them at a better place. So far, everything looks amazing!

For now, I am just waiting on the mobo to come, so I can start wiring everything together! Can’t wait.

Day 16 & 17 - 4/12/2025 - 4/13/2025 ( ~ 14 Hours)

Welp, it’s been a LONG 2 days. After the last entry in this journal, I started testing the motors with an arduino, and found the Z axis’s unstable motion SUCKED the toolhead moved all over the place when the Z axis was going up or down, and it was because of the joint of the aluminum exutrsions with the base. I went through quite a few iterations of how to fix it, but I ended up with this design that finally worked (made it stable enough). I’m kinda sad I ran out of black filament and had to start using blue, since the all black would’ve been so cool.

Along with that, I designed the belt idler for the Y axis, with it working amazing. I belted the bed on as well.

Finally, I extended the cables to the fans since they were only 20cm long and weren’t long enough to reach the mobo. It took me a while to do this suprisingly but it’s all done!

This also means that I hit the 100 hour mark making my printer! It’s been a crazy ride so far.

Day 18 - 4/14/2025 (11 Hours)

I’m actually writing this on the 16th of April… That day was way too long. When I finished my bed, I was so excited, and I hooked all the electronics up, and when I went to move the motors, and the shakiness in the bed was so bad. I made the stupid decision to rip it out… and restart it. I had some extra 2020 extrusion and POM wheels laying around, so I decided to completely redesign the bed. Here it was before:

And here it was ripped out:

Here is the new carriage!

I’ve learned not to trust linear rods and SC8UU bearings anymore :) and now love how stable the bed is! Everything works great and looks amazing.

Day 19-25 4/16/25 - 4/21/25 (~ 40 Hours)

I FORGOT TO DO MY LOG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Okay, back on track, the first few days, I finished soldering the endstops, and mounting them. Suprisingly, this took me really long because I had to manually crimp the JST connectors (without a crimping tool).

Next, I modeled and CADed a electronics mount for my rpi + btt skr, didn’t take too long to cad out and looks pretty cool. The RPI sits on the bottom and the skr sits on top.

Heres how it looks IRL:

After that was done, I made the 3 hour journey of:

• adjusting motor wire length
• soldering JST connectors on the motor wire
• mounting electronics to the 2020 extrusions
• plugging everything in
• testing electronics
• cable managing (THIS WAS TOUGHHHHH I used ~ 20 zip ties)
• testing

And after all that, doom struck. The Z wobble on the machine was ATROCIOUS, and it was due to my nema17 motor mount and how it wasn’t even bent to 90 degrees fully. With the super wobbly Z axis, I printed a few prints, this benchy that really stood out!

Not my proudest moment, but a benchy is a benchy! Ducc it finally printed something. I redesigned the motor mount and made it a 3d print for accuracy, and here is the result!

There was still some slight wobble in the Z axis, and upon further inspection, the shaft coupler was under so much load that when I took it off, it was naturally bent. I replaced it with a rigid coupler, and printed a calibration cube with a slight modification to it. I made the last 2mm as a overhang test and it performed really really well. 75 degree overhangs are pretty crazy.

Really happy with the result of the print! Of course it isn’t perfect and it definitely can’t stack up to Bambu Lab’s printers, but the result is undeniably decent! Thats the base printer for now, I still need to finish the lighting and create the auto ejecting part of it!