SeeMeCNC H-1 Upgrades

Back in 2012, I purchased a SeeMeCNC H-1.  This was a kit that was probably the cheapest around at the time at “only” $300.00 or so.  The kit was actually driven by some 3-axis CNC electronics that required parallel connection to Mach 3 (or Linux equivalent) along with an additional stepper driver just for driving the extruder at a fixed rate (which is not a great way to do it).  Eventually some folks hacked it together with some extra pins on the CNC electronics to trigger an EasyDriver direction/step lines.  This worked better, but not perfect.

I got the kit together and it sat for a long time when I started to have issues with the electronics.  They just never quited worked right.  Eventually I bought a Printrboard Rev D.  I tried getting this going but when it wasn’t a drop-in fix, I basically gave up on 3D printing.  Sad really, but I’d already poured way more than $300.00 in a printer that couldn’t print.  It sat and sat and sat.

Finally, this year, I bought my MP Select Mini.  Now that I’ve done some printing, and some disassembly, and some experimenting, I think I understand how things are SUPPOSED to work much better.  As such, I started playing with the H-1 again.  So far I figured out some of the problems with the Printrboard (the firmware assumed you have end-stops, but I never hooked them up).  I also started printing out some mods to the original H1.  This page will document the rest of the mods as I go.  I’m going to roughly be following the links on this page.

Replacement X-carriage

Add-on to convert Triple-bearing block to a PLA linear bearing

Flash the firmware on the Printrboard

Compiling New Printrboard Firmware