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  1. #1
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    Default Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    I bought a cheap chinese printer to have a play with. In my price range there were 2 that got good reviews, the Anet A8 and the Tevo Tarantula. After reading a few reviews I went for the Tevo.

    It cost me £156 off Aliexpress and £40.32 import duty. I ordered March 29th, order was sent April 11th and I received it April 18th.

    As it is a kit I had to assemble it before I could use it. It took around 6 hours to build and was relatively hassle free. The manual shows the Y axis stepper motor on the right. I put it on the right and when I tried to home the print head it tried going through the front of the Y pulley mount. After 15 mins of faffing I moved it to the left and managed to home the printer successfully. I also broke one of the limit switch mounts but was able to glue it back together. The extruder stepper motor was missing the thread on one of the holes by about 3mm and didn't have enough for the bolt to catch so for now I have used a bigger bolt. Tevo are sending me a replacement stepper motor after me drawing them a diagram explaining the issue



    Here it is and yes I know the wires are a mess, I'm going to rewire it with thicker gauge wire all round, as well as a mosfet for the heated bed.



    So on to my first print which was a 20mm calibration cube and turned out shit but at least I'm printing something.



    Following some advice I printed a fan shroud and fitted 2 blower fans, printed a spool arm and whilst I was there I added some LEDs to the top and the X axis. Also did some calibration at this point and tried the cube again which came out much better although the bottom was a tiny bit warped.



    After that success it was time to try a 3d benchy which is supposed to test your printer. It came out OK, it had a bit of stringing when the head moved.



    Not bad but I thought it could get better so I pissed about with some settings in simplify3d and tried again. I used some better quality PLA as the "1kg" free filament that was supposed to come with the printer turned out to be two 330gram rolls, one of PLA and the other ABS and I had run out of their PLA. It was also multi colour so if you printed a bigger part the colour would change half way through the part. This one turned out much better





    And here's a potato cam image of it with the lights, spool arm, fan shroud attached. I printed the orange spool holder too. I added some glass I took from an old picture frame, it just about fits the bed and works well.

    Last edited by beerman; 27th April 2017 at 10:37 PM.

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  2. #2
    DF VIP Member MHP's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Outstanding! How long did it take to print the boat?

  3. #3
    DF Super Moderator piggzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Would love one of these and toyed with getting a Chinese one myself. Would you recommend the one you bought ?

    Thanks for posting. The final boat looks quite impressive imho.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    About an hour and 10 minutes at 60mm/s. I did another one at 0.1mm layer height which came out a bit better. That one took 2 hours 30 as I did it on a raft too.

    One on the left is 0.2mm, right is 0.1mm

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  5. #5
    DF VIP Member
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    Would love one of these and toyed with getting a Chinese one myself. Would you recommend the one you bought ?

    Thanks for posting. The final boat looks quite impressive imho.
    Definitely would. I'm so impressed with the quality this cheap chinese printer is producing. I have just made a surround for the screen as I didn't like it on the top of the unit due to the extra weight on the Z axis. The picture frame glass I'm printing on gives it a shiney look.

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  6. #6
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    I've been busy printing some mounts, a case for the board and a cable chain for the bed. I've got a 3cm thick chip board to bolt it all down to to stop any wobble.



    Fuck knows when I will fit these. The printer has been running for 24 hours solid with no issues apart from one squeaky bearing which I'll grease when I take it apart. More parts to come for a complete rebuild to remove more of the flexy acrylic. It's going t be a different printer by the time I'm finished with it.
    Last edited by beerman; 30th April 2017 at 01:12 PM.

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  7. #7
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    I fitted the motherboard case and cable chain and sorted some of the awful wiring. The case was a real pain to get together, as you can see from the photo I gave up on one screw. It holds so I may just glue the screw in place so at least it doesn't look odd.
    I still need to revisit the wiring but have a mosfet on order so will do it then. I also fitted an oldham coupler which should help with Z axis wobble.





    I've moved the Z rod to show how it works, it's not this far out


    Progress but still need to reprint the 2 top brackets in orange. One is green and one is blue, they were printed with the crappy filament that came with the printer which changes colour the further down the spool you go.

    I've got these bits to fit along with the bottom brackets - cover for power supply, belt tensioners and motor holders for X and Y axis. For the belt tensioners (the bits with orange) I will probably need some new belt as I trimmed mine down, looking at these they are wider.

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  8. #8
    DF VIP Member cyprus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Great thread so far beerman. You bought a 3D printer so you could print 3D parts for your 3D printer.

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  9. #9
    DF VIP Member JonEp's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Really interested in one of these, I can see the attraction in getting you started and keeping the cost of the printer down by getting you to print your own parts along the learning curve, keeps the production costs down too.

    How difficult is it for a nobo to take an idea for a unique plastic widget to a final print?

  10. #10
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Quote Originally Posted by JonEp View Post
    Really interested in one of these, I can see the attraction in getting you started and keeping the cost of the printer down by getting you to print your own parts along the learning curve, keeps the production costs down too.

    How difficult is it for a nobo to take an idea for a unique plastic widget to a final print?
    The printer will print out of the box but will be inaccurate due to some of the acrylic parts used. As you say I'm learning as I go, printing these is making the printer more accurate and I'm learning from my mistakes. I do plan to make more exotic bits (I just found a storm trooper helmet stl) once I'm done on the printer.

    I'm slowly learning fusion 360 but once the model is complete you just export as an stl file and print. Here's my creations so far, a lens tripod mount which I still need to add some holes for the nuts, a fidget spinner and a new top for my board case which has a 60mm fan instead of a 40mm fan.

    2 Thanks given to beerman

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  11. #11
    DF Super Moderator piggzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    I know different 3d printers are capable of using different filament types. Is this printer limited to what filaments it can use or can you use a variety ??

    Cheers

  12. #12
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Quote Originally Posted by cyprus View Post
    Great thread so far beerman. You bought a 3D printer so you could print 3D parts for your 3D printer.
    Not all I've been printing. I've also done a few calibration cubes. I'm going to put dots on them and take over the dice market



    Breech block for a Crossman 1377 air pistol - needs reprinting, was one of the first things I did and it looks terrible.



    3d printed working wrench (prints as one piece)

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  13. #13
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    I know different 3d printers are capable of using different filament types. Is this printer limited to what filaments it can use or can you use a variety ??

    Cheers
    PLA and ABS at the moment although I'm waiting for my mosfet to try ABS again, there is too much power draw on the MKS board when heating the bed to 110 degrees c. Once I get a chinese clone e3d hot end I'll be able to do PETG and once I print a new extruder I'll be able to do flexible filaments.

    Haven't looked at the wood/metal filaments but I've seen some successful prints from them on a Tevo.

    Thanks to beerman

    piggzy (3rd May 2017)  


  14. #14
    DF VIP Member WRATH OF BOD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    the resolution is fantastic for a low end printer, have you looked into smoothing yet with isopropanol

  15. #15
    DF VIP Member
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Quote Originally Posted by WRATH OF BOD View Post
    the resolution is fantastic for a low end printer, have you looked into smoothing yet with isopropanol
    I'm only printing PLA at the moment, that only works for ABS. I'm too worried about heating the bed to the required temps for ABS. Anything in pink is ABS so I've done a few bits and the board got quite warm whilst heating the bed. I'll wait for my mosfet before trying ABS again.

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  16. #16
    DF Admin Teajunkie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Omg I really want one of these now
    i don't know what I would do with it but I want one
    Have you joined the DF discord server. https://discord.com/invite/YajVGQxDaw

  17. #17
    DF Super Moderator piggzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    I think it will be my next purchase.

    I can put it next to my collection of Rasp PI's ;-)

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  18. #18
    DF VIP Member
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    Quote Originally Posted by piggzy View Post
    I think it will be my next purchase.

    I can put it next to my collection of Rasp PI's ;-)
    You could at least print a few cases for them

    Or you could use the raspberry pi and a piece of software called Octoprint to add it to the network.

    Thanks to beerman

    piggzy (3rd May 2017)  


  19. #19
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    I decided to try making a better solution for holding my camera for monitoring prints. My original solution was a bit ghetto.



    Managed to knock this up in fusion 360. It took about 2 hours but that was mostly me going back to youtube videos on how to do certain things like give a nice rounded edge and other things I had no idea I could do in the software. I'm sure someone who knows what they are doing can knock this up in minutes.



    Not exactly a bold design but for a first attempt I was chuffed. Off to the printer. After seeing a 4.5 hour build time at 0.2 I went with 0.3mm layer height which reduced it to 3 hours.

    One of the edges started warping but decided to leave it going just to check the hole diameter.



    It turned out OK even though the edge warped a bit.






    Time to check the hole. Well I'll be blown, it only fucking fits.




    And it's in its place.



    View from printer cam

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  20. #20
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    Default Re: Tevo Tarantula 3d Printer

    More bits to improve the printer and tidy it up.

    I liked the honeycomb design of a power supply bracket I found but the newer power supply has an integrated fan so wanted to add that into the design.

    Original design:


    My modded design:


    I printed at 0.3mm and I'm not happy with the result. Especially when I did the front bracket at 0.2 and it came out pretty much flawless.



    The support material I had to clean up.



    The rear bracket fits, there is a 5mm ridge at the rear of the power supply so it shows a gap in the first row of honeycomb. In hindsight I should have incorporated this in the design but I'm still learning so maybe in version 2.



    The front bracket that was done at 0.2mm. A much cleaner look.



    More upgrades. I bought a e3d hotend, not the £80 kind just a clone from aliexpress for £5. With no mount on the standard carriage for an e3d I had to make one. These are someone elses designs, someone who looks a lot more versed in cad. The orange clips hold the belt in place with tension, genius design. It's also modular so I can interchange to hotend.

    I add a little led bar and have removed the row of leds from my x axis, they kept catching on the clip holding my glass on and ripping themselves off.

    And yes the missing bolt is driving my ocd wild. I only had 1 long m3 bolt left.

    3 Thanks given to beerman

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