2023-9-10 • Ryan
Aquilawire VS.807
Introduction
Aquilawire is a heavily modified Voxelab Aquila X2 converted to CoreXZ akin to the VORON Switchwire.
It was bought for cheap on a black-friday sale and worked well with slight modification for many months. Until I discovered and fell into the world of VORON …
The VORON Switchwire provides linear rails, CoreXZ motion and saying goodbye to z-wobble from poorly constructed lead screws. It was a big list of upgrades to boost speed, precision, and overall print quality.
I stumbled upon this gem of a project by boubounokefalos. They took the Aquila X2/Ender 3 frame and turned it into a Switchwire. I self-sourced all of the parts needed to build this machine and printed most of the parts from boubounokefalos albiet modifying a few.
But, of course, the modding journey didn't stop there. Automatic z-offset became the next big thing. Which needed a nozzle end-stop (much like tool stops found on CNC mills) and at the time I wasn’t about to wait around for parts to ship. Lucky I have a lathe handy and was able to turn out the needed bushing and pin.
I then came across the Klicky probe by jlas1 - a game-changer. I opted for the KlickyPCB derivation as initial use of the KlickyNG seemed to be unreliable, I’ll chalk that up to poor initial tolerances on my printer. However, this became the key to hassle-free bed-levelling and nozzle swaps. With some configuration files in Klipper for auto-offset calibration I can switch nozzles easily, no feeler gauge required.
Now this printer takes it all in stride. Cruising at 250mm/s² external walls with 10k acceleration - it’s a beast that can print PLA, ABS/ASA, PC, PETG and TPU. Albiet with lots of testing to find the right printer settings for each material it’s been a very enjoyable project with an awesome printer to use at the end.
Specifications
- Stealthburner w/ CW2
- Dragon UHF w/ CHT Volcano
- BTT SKR Mini e3 V3.0
- Raspberry Pi 4 8GB
- CYD Screen
- KlickyPCB Probe w/ servo mount
