Also cant wait to get @Liberty4Ever light setup installed, with two cameras and that lighting I wont miss anything being printed!
Ref: . Lighting Upgrade On The Sovol Zero
-Mike
Also cant wait to get @Liberty4Ever light setup installed, with two cameras and that lighting I wont miss anything being printed!
Ref: . Lighting Upgrade On The Sovol Zero
-Mike
Hello
. Is the Kobra camera using the old Sovol camera cable, or did you adapt it with external USB connection?
Hi @Atomique13 welcome to the community!
Nothing fancy, I’m just using the USB cable to the external port.
I did look into the stock camera cable thinking it would be quick to swap in, but the other end plugs into to a custom 6 pin port on the MB. The github page for the MCU Pinouts shows you the port and pins, not sure how correct the diagram is though. With a little work maybe the Kobra Camera could be wired that way, I’ve just not had time to sit down and research it in detail so took the side of caution, and the easy route
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@MikeHides did you ever finish this Kobra camera bracket model? Mine’s still dangling from the top
@rpcyan no unfortunately I have not had time to revisit this.
@rpcyan, anyone else who is interested…
I worked on this a bit over the last couple of evenings after work and came up with a few prototypes to see what fit best… Around version set 11 I found something close to what I was looking for that didn’t hit the print head or cause other issues, sharing for others.
It’s kind of surprising just how much “expansion” is added to measurements when you 3D print. Maybe it’s my print settings, but something that needs to be 3.0mm needed to be set to 2.65mm in the CAD design in order to fit properly after printing.
I normally use OpenSCAD, but needed more than it could offer for quick solutions so I hacked a few prototypes out in TinkerCAD, also posted a STL with all the models on PrintsDepot.net. This is Release Rev 1 of the ones I liked the best.
I’ve been prototyping with High Speed PLA+ for now, I will use PETG for better durability in the long run. Here are just a few “almost” tests I made along the way, excluding the failed prints
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After the above “discoveries” I decided the stock mount was not really so feasible here, just could not get the mirroring and angles right, not to mention I needed to figure out a bracket to hold the camera in. Maybe in the future I can work on it a bit more, but it’s low on the list. The middle side mount, I liked and wanted it to work, but the tolerances for hitting the print head were just so tight, so it was out as well, I can see why Sovol chose the mount they did
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Sooo between the top, middle, and stock mounts, the top won out… The mount is up high, has plenty of room for the USB camera and it’s cable, and uses a "ball joint” to “clip” in and allow for movement.
I mounted the Kobra 3 Camera using a slot in the front top rail and secured it using a M3x8mm hex screw I had from a kit I had laying around, the camera is not going anywhere. Amazon Link to the hex kit.
Rushing here, no pictures of each along the way, only showing what worked and the placement chosen.
Note, I am using the “shorter” mount of the two top mount brackets in the photo below.
What my two cameras show on my Sovol Zero currently. Left is Stock, Right is the new top mounted view.
The TinkerCAD and STL on PrintsDepot.net link have the Sovol Zero stock camera mount mixed with the Kobra camera mount, clearly it needs more work, a custom mid rail side mount, two top rail mounts short and long, a back cover, and three different camera mounts for the top and side mounts.
I’m still working on making more adjustments and improving the design. Also I need to find some cable ties that “twist” into the rails to manage the cameras USB cable across the top rail to the right side where it will eventually end up. I also need to get to that Lighting Upgrade Project @Liberty4Ever did for the Sovol Zero, the camera being up high does not do so well with the light levels. But it’s better than a dangling camera at least
…
Cheers,
-Mike
P.S. I had to re-upload to the Prints Depot site, this is the new link, updated above as well: https://www.printsdepot.net/models/209
Looking good, Mike!
It’s odd that your 3D printed parts are too large. Most 3D printed parts shrink slightly when they cool. I prefer to create the parts the correct size in CAD and if the part needs high tolerance, I print one, measure it in X, Y and Z, then tweak the scaling for X, Y and Z independently in the slicer.
OpenSCAD is very cool but I haven’t played with it lately. I’m on an evangelical mission to let everyone know that FreeCAD can be used in TinkerCAD mode. Switch to the Part (not Part Design) workbench, then ignore everything but the primitives - Cube, Sphere, Cone, Torus, Cylinder and Tube. Copy and paste objects and then scale them, rotate them and move them rather than creating similar objects from scratch to CAD a rough version of the part. Then use the Boolean tools Cut, Union and Intersection to combine portions, subtract some from others, and form intersections of different parts. I’ll usually use the Union tool to create a main body with several added objects then I create a union of the objects I want to subtract with the Cut tool to make the nearly finished part. Finally, use the Chamfer and Fillet tools to create tapers, countersunk holes, radius features and to make edges pretty and less sharp. Once you start thinking in these terms, it’s a very fast and powerful way to do parametric 3D modeling but the CAD experts don’t want people learning to CAD that way. They want everyone to do “real CAD” by drawing 2D shapes and padding them, extruding them, revolving them, etc. It’s amazing how complex parts can be when created using only a few simple tools.
@Liberty4Ever Thanks, I hope to find some more time to improve on them. Agree OpenSCAD is really cool, it has it’s place in the arsenal for sure. As far as FreeCAD, stay on that mission, I’m listening to what you are saying now! I had no idea it could be used like that and was following all sorts of videos that just showed me a lot more of the software than what I was ready for with the time I had so I kind of let it fall to the back burner. Now that I know it can be used like that I think I’ll spend some time looking into it from the “Part” angle, thanks for sharing, really appreciate it! ![]()
TinkerCAD was the most intuitive and straightforward for me to quickly grasp and reach my goal so it won out, I would prefer to have my files local in FreeCAD, not a cloud fan… anyway, thank you!
Cheers,
-Mike
I just want to meniton that the Sovol camera’s cable, while it can physically plug into an Anycubic Kobra3 camera, it is NOT pin compatible! In fact, the pins are probably reversed. I was hoping it’d just work and I would be able to reuse the cable that plugs directly into the motherboard and not have to always have one sticking out the side… oh well
(I know I know. I should have mapped out the pins with a multimeter, I was just being lazy and took a gamble. Learn from my mistakes)
Price on Amazon has increased in recent months, now $22, but I still think they are the best alternative, especially for these small printers where a 38x38 or an old C270 webcam are actually kinda big. Still about their original price directly from the AnyCubic store, and you can pick up some filament while you’re there.
Good thing I bought two back in September.
I’ve done nothing to tweak the camera settings per rpcyan’s script or swap to a better quality camera, but I continue to be impressed with the improvements to the image quality simply by providing adequate light inside the dark Zero.
That’s with a strip of bright LEDs along the entire upper perimeter, aimed downward at 45 degrees. The extruder still casts a shadow on the primary area of interest, and the low cost camera’s dynamic range is poor with shadowed areas too dark and lighter areas completely blown out. There is probably room for improvement with the parameters that rpcyan is adjusting.
I received my second Zero last week but haven’t unboxed it yet. I’m planning on running LEDs along the upper perimeter as before, but also continuing the LED strip down the corner on the right side of the door, behind the camera, to better illuminate the area the camera is viewing. Hopefully, more light from more directions will reduce the shadows and even out the over exposed areas, resulting in a better image with the stock camera, although it’s already good enough for my needs - observing the first layer and monitoring for failed prints.