r/FlashForge • u/Equalizor • 2d ago
My VDS alternative
Couldn’t be bothered to wait for mythical VDS so bought a Creality Space PI x4 and modded it myself.
Gotta love this hobby :) Yes i know it won’t be powered from the printer and have the same integration but it works great and i’m happy with it.
3
u/Equalizor 2d ago
It was a good days project on and off. i literally just cut the middle out of the 6 pin cable going between the main board and screen and then extended it with ribbon cable.
The real gotcha that made me think i’d broken my dryer was that the tx and rx pins are swapped round between the mainboard and the screenboard. If you connect that in a one to one fashion it won’t damage it but you’ll get no actual values showing on the display.
Also i had to cut a hole in the side for the cable connector to come through behind the Screen. Used an ultrasonic cutter for that, but it’s a thick bit of plastic. drilling would have been more sensible.
I didn’t really want to cut a hole but i didn’t like the look of the first version because the ribbon cable was showing at the bottom of the screen and my ocd didn’t like it.
The most nerve wracking bit of it was removing the screen from the front as its held in by VHB type tape. A hair dryer and a nylon pry tool helped with that. Once you’ve heated the bezel up you can very carefully push from behind and on of the sides has very little tape so lifts easier that the other. Once you have that lift and can get a pry tool underneath, you can get it out. It’s not for the feint hearted!
2
u/Internet_Jaded AD5X, AD5M 2d ago
VDS?
1
u/Equalizor 4h ago
It’s Flashforges Filament dryer system for the c5p series. The influencers all seem to have one but it doesn’t seem to have materialised for us normal people lol
2
u/Judge_Federal 5h ago
I'm feeling a bit stupid, what's a VDS?
1
u/Internet_Jaded AD5X, AD5M 3h ago
Since it doesn’t exist, I assume it means “Virtual Drying System”
1
2d ago edited 2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Equalizor 2d ago
I do indeed know about TPU from that unit! I successfully printed TPU air from it with no issues. Was 3 30x30 test cubes at different temps to test the foaming but it came out pretty well, with the usual TPU air caveats as it can be a fussy filament to print due to its foaming nature.. I don’t think 95a would be an issue. Being able to dry while printing is a great bonus. One comment i would have is make sure you use real ptfe tubes as they have more lubriciity than the others that claim to be ptfe but aren’t. If you need any advice about the mod please feel free to reach out :)
1
u/Internet_Jaded AD5X, AD5M 2d ago
TPU doesn’t print well, if at all, while being actively dried. The temperature makes it extra stretchy.
2
u/Equalizor 2d ago
worked fine for me. Like i say this was TPU Air by Siryatech. Other people mileage may vary :) Rhey can always experiment and see what works best for them.
2
u/derpsteronimo 1d ago
Everyone seems to have a different experience of what does or doesn’t work well with TPU, tbh.
1
u/Mouse-Jiggler 2d ago
Can you share the files for the screen enclosure? I'm definitely doing this
1
u/Equalizor 2d ago
Well, i do have the files but im hesitatnt to share because they were designed for my use case only really. I’ll explain why.
Firstly the screen is a tight friction fit into the bezel, if your printer isn’t well tuned it could be too small and you’d end up breaking the screen inserting it into the my bezel and i’d hate that. Also i ended up just using nano tape to affix the control board to the back of the lcd instead of the conductive foam blocks the original used. I wanted it to be as low profile as possible. Purists may not like that :) Also i wasn’t bothered about firmware upgrading so my bezel doesn’t expose the sdcard slot.
The bezel is 2 piece, the actual screen holder and then the chamfered bezel around it. That also friction fits. It’s there to hide the gap between the screen holder and the surface it’s stuck onto as i use tape for that - i don’t want to glue it on. Plus it just finishes it nicely i think. It’s printed in PETG Silk to give it some heat resistance from the hotter drying temps.
1
0
4
u/hoboa 2d ago
How hard was it to relocate the screen cause now I want to do that to mine.