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3D printing using OctoPrint on Linux Ubuntu desktop I'm trying to set up OctoPrint on my Linux Ubuntu 16.04 desktop to work with my Micro3D printer. The printer works fine on Mac and Windows:
I've installed OctoPrint with the M3D Fio Plugin Manager. I can see the files in ~/.octoprint/ fine and I can even turn the printer fan on/off, move the extruder, etc. through OctoPrint:
But when I press the blue "Print button", there is no response. Also the files in the "upload" section are greyed out. Must I download a slicing program or something? I'm new with 3D printing in general but not with Linux. Grateful for help! | I just discovered that OctoPrint only reads .gcode files for printing (apparently, unless you have a slicing software embedded in it), so I installed Slic3r separately, and ran
./slic3r mystlfile.stl
to generate a .gcode file (in the executable directory).
Then I uploaded the .gcode file to OctoPrint and things got moving. |
3D printing forum community Is there any forum where expert designers can help beginners like me?
I am starting to design a panel for my car, and I am having some difficulties with finding a modeling program and using it. | See DesignSpark - DS Mechanical is good, free and fun to use. |
Unable to hit hot end temperature with part cooler on I'm unable to use the parts cooler I printed. Every time I turn it on, the hot end temp drops too low, and for some reason the PID can't seem to get it back up:
This is a test to simulate the issue. The first drop is the fan kicking on, then the last bump is me turning the fan off. It's almost as if the set point drops when the fan kicks in. Any ideas? The PID is tuned (I ran the autotune) and works well without the fan on. This is a RepRap Guru Prusa clone. | This effect you describe is a commonly known problem that occurs when the print part cooling fan is not correctly positioned, i.e. if it blows air directly onto the nozzle or heater block and is best solved by printing an alternative part cooling fan duct. Alternatively you could insulate the heater block with some insulation cotton or silicone socks that fit over the heater block. |
Printing coarse threads I have a makerbot, and am using their slicer program. The part I am printing has an extremely coarse thread, 5 threads per inch with a 2 mm thread height. The thread face is at a 30 degree angle (15 degrees of overhang)
I have printed external threads like this without issue and without support material before for various gardening tools (a flow straightener for example). I'm now trying to print an internal threaded part however the rest of the part needs to have support. I've played with the settings in the makerbot software but can't find a combination that will acomplish my goal.
I'm looking for an idea, a setting, or an alternate way of printing the threads without support, but still have supports for the other sections of the part that I know do need them.
Perhaps there is an alternate software that can do something like this, or is best practice to modify the part to have weak structural elements to support the extremely overhanging sections that I'll then break off afterwards and print the part with no supports? | There are some software tools that let you manually design support structures so you can target the areas that need them, and avoid others.
For example, Meshmixer can be used to add supports into your STL. I believe you still use a separate slicer.
Some slicers also have the ability to manually add support. I have found that CraftWare and Simplify3D have this kind of feature. |
z-axis hard to move in some areas - what could be faults, how to improve? I have a z-axis which follows schematically the same principle as the makerbot one's (threaded rod and two leading rods with linear ball bearings carrying a level). It is from an old experimental lab doing physics or chemistry.
The axis move gorgeously about 5 cm, but then it get's stuck on either sides of this way. Both driving threaded rod and the leading rods seem perfectly fine and should be able to allow for further movement. This is as far as I can see by eye.
Where should I look to find further issues and how could I improve the performance? Do I need to take the construction apart? | X stage binding like this is almost always caused by parallelism issues with the rods and/or screw. The two-rod-plus-screw arrangement is quite over-constrained and thus requires good alignment to move smoothly.
Some basic troubleshooting steps:
Make sure the screw is not constrained at both ends. It is very difficult to manufacture a screw that is perfectly straight and then mount it so precisely that it can rotate with zero runout. Screws in light-duty linear motion applications should be allowed to "wobble" freely so any bend or runout doesn't apply side-load forces to the Z stage. This can be accomplished by putting a misalignment-tolerant coupler (like an Oldham coupler) on the driven end, and/or leaving the non-driven end free without any support bearing. A motor mount with a small amount of compliance (like a rubber stepper damper) can help when the screw is captive to the motor.
Lubricate the screw and bearings and make sure everything is clean and in good condition.
Allow the Z carriage to self-align the rods and screw. The proper technique for this will depend on the Z stage, but the basic idea is to loosen the rod and screw mounts on either end, run the Z carriage back and forth a few times to push the rods into position, and then only re-tighten the top and bottom hardware when the carriage is at that end. It may also be necessary to loosen the screw nut and bearings on the carriage to get everything aligned properly and smooth-running, but that does not enforce parallelism like loosening the rod and screw mounts, so is really a secondary step. It may be necessary to leave some "float" in one rod or the bearings on one rod (with gravity preloading out any resultant slop) if the hardware has major alignment issues.
If the stage still binds after doing the above, it may be necessary to check if the linear hardware is bent (such as by rolling rods on a flat table) or use a file or Dremel to loosen up the mounts or whatever feature is causing the misalignment. |
Marlin keeps restarting when I push the LCD controller button I am new here and also new for the 3D printers world. I have built a 3D printer myself. Everything seems okay, but, when I install Marlin firmware I can't use the printer.
While my printer is connected to my power supply (12 V; 30 A) and when I push the button on the screen for selecting the menu items, Marlin is restarting.
But, when I connect my computer with USB and power supply together, Its working fine
I am using RobotDyn Arduino Mega 2560, RobotDyn Graphic LCD controller, RobotDyn DRV8825
Any help will be highly appreciated. | If the trouble was just a short between 5 V and ground, the board probably would restart whenever you pushed the button, with all kind of power sources.
The fact that the Arduino restarts only when powered from RAMPS makes me wonder another cause for this problem.
It's well known that most of Arduino clones don't have a good voltage regulator onboard. This causes trouble when you power Arduino from RAMPS, because RAMPS sends 12 V to Arduino through Arduino's Vin pin, and this 12 V goes to Arduino's voltage regulator, which should reduce it to the 5 V used by ATMega MCU.
The question is, probably the Arduino's onboard voltage is running almost at its capacity and, when you press the button, the extra processing load or the redrawing of the display makes Arduino reset.
The solution would be disconnect diode D1 in RAMPS, and power Arduino from USB, or feeding 5V directly to Arduino's 5 V pin (not Vin).
A third option (more complex) would be feed about 7 V to Arduino barrel power-connector. This lower voltage would reduce the task of Arduino's onboard regulator. My 3D-printer uses an Arduino clone, but, as I discovered about this problem before building it, I've never powered it from RAMPS. I dessoldered D1 on RAMPS and, since the first day, Arduino was powered from USB, or from a DC-DC buck converter that reduces 12 V to 7.2 V. |
How should you run PTFE (Teflon) Tubes? I bought a modern machine, and it comes with PTFE tubes. I need to relocate the spool, so I bought some longer PTFE tubes. I bent the tub by hand, and my first test run actually had too much friction, so the extruder was unable to pull the filament through the tube. I cut it a few inches and it seems to be fine.
What are the rules of thumb that one should use when redesigning a filament path though a PTFE tube? For example, these are some things I can think of based on how I would teach someone about running wires in a high- or low- voltage commercial application (with or without conduit):
Bend radius.
Number of bends.
Length of tube.
Diameter of tube relevant to diameter of filament (link).
Expected friction coefficient (teflon appears to be slick, but will still have some friction)
How to secure the slippery tube (clips, zip ties, glue, etc.).
How much compression is too much for the tube (ie zip ties)? | Constriction
PTFE-Tubes usually have enough stiffness to not require additional support and constriction from anything but the two end fittings and the stiffness the filament in them provides. In fact, they make great guides for cable management to the heater block! You might want to add some constricting clamps on very long tubes. To do so, zip ties and cable guide clamps are common. Don't make them too tight as they shall not cut into the tube!
You also shouldn't constrict them too tight: A bend diameter of about 12 cm is where I would pull the line for 1.75 mm PLA: anything lower and you might get problems. For 2.85 or 3 mm filament, you should use a somewhat larger diameter - I have seen good flow with about 20 cm bends. A very simple test can be done: Fix one end, load filament, pull at the other end while holding the second fixture close to the planned position. If you have an easy way, you're good.
Length
Length is tricky: you should not be too long, as that could add too much friction, but on a direct drive or when you pull filament from a dry box, there's little to no length limit on the tube through which you pull, there's only a maximum length you can push through effectively.
Diameter
The diameter of a tube on the pushing end of the extruder motor should be somewhat snug: 1.9 and 2 mm inner diameter are common for 1.75 mm filament, and 2.85 mm does work well in a 3 mm tube. 3 mm filament needs about 3.25 mm inner diameter. As a rule of thumb: add 0.15 to 0.25 mm to the diameter of the filament and get the closest available diameter to that.
On the pulling end of the extruder, a larger size can be used. Though don't go too large, like 10 mm ID, as at some point, as you might experience backlash and rattling in the tube, resulting in noise, and for very hygroscopic filaments (PVA or Nylon), the extra air in such a large tube could reduce the effect of printing from a dry box:
3.25 mm works well for both 2.85 and 3 mm and might still work for 1.75 mm filament on the intake side (Thank you for the insight FarO!)
a 4 mm ID on the intake-side can still work for 1.75 mm and mitigate extrusion problems on a Bowden-extruder (thanks @0scar)
In either case, you have to keep in mind the bending radii - don't overconstrain! Also, remember that you need to have a fitting coupling on the delivering and the receiving end. |
AnyCubic Chiron shifting in Y axis I have an AnyCubic Chiron, and sometimes the bed doesn't move correctly. This causes the prints to shift and ruins the print.
I've spent a lot of time watching it, and noticed that when this happens, the belt stops moving for a short period of time, and then a "thunk" and it continues printing, with the slight from when the bed wasn't moving.
I've captured a video that demonstrates this. You can see it get stuck about 22 seconds into the video.
It's a new machine, and printed fine for the first 5 or so prints, and then this problem started happening. Now almost every print fails.
Things I've checked:
Belt tension seems fine.
Belt is not slipping.
The bed moves smoothly back and forth, no binding, nothing in the way.
When it's failing, it doesn't seem to be because the head is stuck on the print.
The screws attaching the pulley to the shaft are tight.
The same G-code file that used to print successfully now fails, and not in the same spot every time. Doesn't seem to be related to what I'm printing.
I'm not sure where to go from here. Is this a bad stepper? | AnyCubic Support suggested I swap two of the motor drivers (X and Y) and after I did that, the problem disappeared. I've had a half dozen good prints in a row now, no problems at all.
The drivers are inside the computer module - had to flip over the printer, take off the cover and pry out the top two modules and put them back in swapped. Not difficult, but probably worth getting advice from AnyCubic before going ahead and doing it yourself unless you're comfortable with this sort of thing. |
Efficient packing of models with chains I have a model where several solids are linked with chains. The original design contains a lot of empty space.
I am looking for software, which can automatically move the solids and fold the chains such that the total build volume gets smaller (total build volume is a major cost driver on shapeways.com). Obviously, the topology of the design must not change, i.e., it should be possible to return the model to the original state without breaking chains.
I tried Blender - Rigid Body Physics, but that has stability issues. | This is relatively easy to do in any CAD/mesh software. For example, if you load import the model into Meshmixer, you can select a given solid and N links of chain connected to it (using "expand selection to groups" or similar to be safe). Then use the "Separate" command to allow you to move/rotate that subset on its own. All you have to do is make sure the two chain links at the point of rotation remain disjunct.
Once you've moved everything around, just SelectAll and export. |
New Build. Hotend Overheating. Not Printing Yet My build with the Hypercube Evolution continues with a replacement BIQI KFB2.0 board. I am not at the printing stage yet. This is due to my latest problem.
The kit contains a “no-name” hotend, complete with round finned heatsink and nozzle. Looks a bit like a V5 J Head Hot End.
Everything is wired up. A 24 V power supply is being used. The printer is connected to Pronterface via USB. Using Pronterface, I set the hotend temperature to 70 °C. The KFB2.0 board lights a bright red LED when power is being sent to the hotend (and/or the heated bed). On initial heating, the red LED is on until the hotend temperature reaches around 65 °C and then turns off. The temperature continues to climb to around 120 to 125 °C, then starts falling. At 69/70 °C the red LED comes on again for about two seconds, the temperature continues to climb after the red LED is off to around 86 °C. It then cycles around the 69/70 to 86 °C position.
I have removed the thermistor to check its resistance. Reads greater than 100 kΩ. When in situ in the hotend, it was reading around 85 k&ohm, but a bit of Kapton tape sorted that. I was now reading 100 k&ohm with the thermistor in place. I then used Pronterface to set the temperature again. This time with a multimeter hooked up to the hotend terminals on the board. It confirmed that the bright red LED was sending 24 V and nothing when not on, so the hotend is recording a temperature increase from around 65 to 125 °C with no power. But, I now got something different when the temperature fell back to 69/70 °C. The red LED flickered for about two seconds and the multimeter showed readings fluctuating between 0.1 and 4.2 V. From this point the hotend kept the correct temperature, even after I had removed the multimeter.
Has anybody any idea why the temperature is going so high and what can I do to fix it? | 3.9 ohms is a 12V heater. It won't work on 24V. |
Monoprice printer: no files found on SD card My monoprice printer was working; I then tried to format the SD card on a Mac, then it stopped working. I have now tried three different SD cards after formatting on a Windows PC, and still nothing works. Are there supposed to be files on the SD card itself like some kind of root files? | I've no idea why 3D printers don't like SD cards formatted by operating system utilities, but they don't. Use SD Memory Card Formatter to format your memory cards. Unfortunately, you have probably lost any data that was on the original SD card.
The SD cards that are supplied with 3D printers typically contain documentation, test files, and device drivers. However, these files do not need to be present for the correct operation of the printer. All that is needed is a correctly-formatted SD card containing the G-code files that you want to print. |
Temperature settings not changing in Cura I seem to have got Cura into a state where changing the material has no effect on the settings. I am a beginner with Cura, and I would like to understand what I've done wrong, and how I can undo it.
More details:
My part is meant to be printed in PETG, but I first did some test prints in PLA to get all the non-material related settings right (e.g. infill, top/bottom pattern, etc.). When I changed the material from "PLA" to "PETG", it gave me a popup saying that I had changed these settings and asking me if I wanted to keep or discard the changes - I selected keep. I'm pretty sure that temperature, fan speed etc. weren't on that list of changes, otherwise I would have pressed discard.
However, the temperature, fan speed etc. also didn't change, they all stayed at their appropriate values for PLA. This effect seems to be permanent - they stay at their PLA values even if I select 'Settings -> Profile -> Discard current changes' from the menu, or if I select the 'Draft' or 'High' profiles, which I haven't yet used.
I noticed also that if I go to 'Manage Profiles', I find that all three profiles include settings for the material, including a 200 degree printing temperature and a 60 degree bed temperature. I guess that these are overriding the settings associated with the material. I guess that these settings are not supposed to be in the profiles, so I want to understand how they got there and whether/how I should remove them.
It's possible that I did manually change those temperature settings for some previous print - but I wouldn't have expected that to have such a permanent effect. | You're right in that the profile overrides the material. Cura's overriding precedence is as follows, where higher numbers override the lower numbers:
Cura's base defaults.
Printer specific settings.
Adjustments to the printer made in the Machine Settings dialogue.
Nozzle profiles.
Material profiles.
Quality levels (aka built-in profiles).
Custom profiles.
Settings not yet saved to a profile.
In the Cura GUI, once a setting has been saved to a profile, there is no way to really get it out again. You can only create a new profile and copy over all of your overrides.
However for the temperature you can still click on the little fx button next to the setting. This will restore the link from the setting to inherit again from different settings. In the case of printing temperature, the material profile actually adjusts the "Default Printing Temperature" setting. Clicking the fx button makes it go back to "use the Default Printing Temperature" so that your material's temperature is used again.
The same does not go for fan speed, sadly.
The Cura developers are planning to remove the fx button and replace it with a button to remove a setting override from a custom profile. That would fix your problem. It's not implemented yet though.
Source: Am Cura developer. |
Can snap-fit connector be designed for 3D Printing? I am new to 3D Printing. We currently have to design in process that I want to finish. The design consists of two parts (top and bottom), the top and bottom that need to snap fit into each other. The arrangement should be similar to the one used in many electronics, for example, the cordless phones in the picture below.
My question is, can such clips be done with 3D printing? Will they last (be used 5 to 20 times) and does the material used for 3D printing make a difference? Is there a material that is particularly good for such snap-fit connectors?
Note that my design will only be a prototype and eventually we would be creating a mold for our product. | yes
You can totally print snap-fit connectors for 3D printing, but you need to keep some things in mind. I assume that since you have looked at these connectors, you have a good idea about the matter, but I nevertheless suggest Angus (MakersMuse) discussion locking devices at the beginning of a tutorial Video on designing buckles.
Your tabs thickness will need to be at least one line width wide at the most narrow point to be printable at all.
Print-Orientation
Another thing besides thickness is orientation. For the strongest tabs, you might want to print the tabs like a C for maximum part strength. Just modeling the part with the tabs, it should print in this orientation then:
This way the bending is not applying stress against layer boundaries but 90° to them, giving even force on each layer. This means that you will need to print parts in awkward orientations just for the tabs usually. You will need lots of support.
You can certainly print in a less awkward position at the expense of strength of the tab, acknowledging that "this is a prototype, we can show you that it closes perfectly like this, though due to FDM limitations we might break the tabs opening it again. So we'll be careful."
prototype-variation of model
Snaples tabs
It might be however easier to print the tabs flat and without the hooks, allowing to do a fitting test, but not a snap-connection. Your benefit is, that you won't have to watch for print orientation, but it won't be locking. Make sure to work with workflow and put the modifications for easy printing/not-locking at the end. Alterations to the general design should come all before this point. Then turn off these steps to create the model that is sent to machining for the mold.
Modular intermediate design
If you need to have working, strong tabs AND a good print, it can pay off to print separate parts that combine into a single piece with a little glue. Maybe the C-clamp is actually a thin bar that is put into the back plate and glued into place or secured with a little friction weld. |
Should I use different nozzles for different materials? I know I should use different nozzles for filaments that use vastly different temperatures but what about filament types that use similar temperatures?
For example, PLA and PLA composites like ColorFabb Woodfill filament. Should I use a separate nozzle for that? | There is absolutely no reason to use different nozzles, not even if filaments do require different temperatures.
The only exception is when printing abrasive filaments (such as glow-in-the-dark and carbon-fiber) in which case you should use an abrasion-resistant, stainless steel nozzle. This nozzle can also be used to to print "regular" filaments but a regular brass nozzle has slightly more favorable properties if you do not require abrasion resistance. |
Why all the excitement about linear rails? Whenever a 3D printer that uses linear rails is announced (case in point: the cetus), the Internet (well... at least that corner of it dealing with 3D printing) gets abuzz with excitement.
I researched a bit the topic myself, and while I understand that linear rails can be produced to a fantastic degree of precision for super-heavy machinery, it escapes my comprehension why they are considered superior "by default", relative to the classic linear bearings on a shaft.
3D printing is a lightweight application, and the motion of at least 2 axis does not happen against a solid surface (where you could bolt a linear rail every few cm) but suspended between the 2 ends of the axis. Furthermore, the internals of the bearings used on linear rails are substantially identical to those used on a shaft.
The cetus site says under the heading "Quality Linear Rails":
Self-lubricated | Maintenance Free | High Precision | Long Lifespan | Quiet
but this - in my experience - can be said of "Quality Linear Bearings on a Shaft" as well, and in some cases even bushing deliver to a high standard on 3D printers.
So, what am I missing? | The following is a compilation of the input from a number of sources.
Linear rails in general are mechanical components that - when designing equipment - offer great flexibility.
The profile of the rail can be designed in nearly infinite ways. This in turn allows for:
Different levels of stiffness in different directions (for example you may have stresses only on a given plane, or you may actually want the rail to slightly flex in one plane but not in another one).
Placing the surfaces for the rollers strategically, for example in a location that is unlikely to get contaminated, or where the maximum force will be applied.
Curved paths, so that the carriage can move along a line that is not straight.
Because the contact surface between the rollers and the bearings is flat, cylinders can be used instead of spheres. This in turns diminishes the mechanical stresses, and the amount of play, increases longevity and allows for more bearing capacity, among others.
Linear rails can be anchored along their full length, rather that at their extremes, thus increasing the accuracy of their positioning, their stiffness and their bearing capacity.
Linear rails can be machined while pre-loaded, thus achieving maximum accuracy when in use, rather than when coming out of the factory.
The bearings on a linear rail only allow for one degree of movement. There need to be two rods with linear bearings/bushes to achieve the same result.
All that said, when it comes to the specific application of consumer-grade FDM 3D printers, it seems that none of the above is very relevant, nor confers any real advantage to the printer in terms of quality of the final print:
the mechanical stresses involved in 3D printing are very small,
the movements all happen along straight lines,
most of the axis cannot be anchored to a large, rigid body,
...
On the other hand, the design with rods + linear bearings is cheap, effective, simpler and lightweight, all characteristics that are highly desirable in a 3D printer.
All in all, it seems that there is no good reason to prefer linear rails over rods in general.
Still, there may be specific designs that may benefit from their adoption. I postulate that the Cetus printer linked in the question may be such a design: the cantilever arrangement of its axis - for example - is well served by the fact that a single rail locks movement in all but one direction, and the orientation of the X rail offers maximum rigidity against the action of gravity. |
Anet A6 ERR MAXTEMP BED error Out of the blue my A6 printer displays a ERR MAXTEMP BED error and shows about 100 degrees on the bed even when just powered on.
A quick thermistor check shows that it's working properly : about 80 kOhm at room temperature, similar to other units (didn't bother to really check the specs).
Swapping the bed thermistor for the head thermistor connector does not change the temperature readings : the one connected to the bed input gets 100 degrees, while the other one works as expected, proving that the connector and thermosensor are ok.
It has to be in the board. How do I fix it? | I'm posting the answer here hoping that will help anyone that encounters a similar issue. A post on another site indicated that these boards are known to be problematic.
After some digging, I came up with the schematics of this part of the mainboard :
I'm not an electronics genius, but clearly it's not the capacitor; so that leaves the pull-up resistor or the microcontroller.
Since the printer is already unusable, no harm in trying to replace the resistor, which is located just next to the connectors; for the bed it was the second from left, but if you encounter the same issue with another input, you may need to locate the proper one.
Make sure you have the proper tools and knowledge for removing and soldering SMD components; in my case it was a 4k7 resistor in 0805 footprint.
Bottomline : replacing a less-than-one-cent resistor saves a month of waiting for the delivery of a $25 board. |
Ultra high precision and accuracy printing I work in a teaching hospital and we have a research project we're interested in pursuing. We'd like to 3D Print tubes we'd implant into rats to help with nerve regeneration. We're interested in the shape of the tubes right now, more so than what material it is or whether it's biocompatible etc..
So this question isn't necessarily about what type of plastic or whatever we should print in. My question is more so:
We'd like to print a tube that's 1 mm in diameter, about 1 cm
long and has as many micro "tubes" crammed through it as possible,
something like this:
I currently have a Stratasys j750 in my lab, a UPrint Se and a Prusa i3 Mk3s. They all work well but for the detail I'm looking for, come up a bit short. They have advertised accuracies of 14 microns (well, the j750) but thats just in the z direction, x and y are more like 200. If I went to get PRECISE, what technology should I look into? | This is an interesting question. A good thing to note when we start talking about SLA and other jewelry grade 3d printing, that you will have to factor in the materials toxicity when we start talking about medical applications. You can also look into DLP 3d printers but they will not have as good quality.
What can help you right now is these SLA printers I see that form 3 has 25 microns, with a laser dot of 85. Well within your tolerances. Just make sure to get dental grade or medical grade resin.
Note that if there are bends, then you will have issues with SLA printing, depending how steep the angles are.
There are other technologies, such as metal 3d printing or SLS printing, that will likely be out of your price range such as the HP Metal Jet that can do 21 -xy by 50 -z microns. Or binder based 3d printing which will have the best internal geometry, as powder will act as support, and is easily removed.
There are many specifically in the bio printing area that might be what you are looking for as well, this is more an alternative. You can look into what the researchers at Penn has been doing, where they have been using Sugar to create vascular networks. As far as I know they do not sell it as a product at this time. Here is more information about scaling vascular networks
See here for more information about other printing technologies |
What should I use to clean buildtak(knock off)? My printer came with a knock off BuildTak like build surface. What can I use to clean it? I don't want to damage it. | Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is the general recommendation I've heard and it works well for me. |
Teflon tubing in nozzle throat coming out? I have a HE3D prusa XI3 printer with an MK8 extruder. While printing or testing, the extruder makes a clicking noise as if the filament isnt getting hot enough to extrude. I began my investigation and read about many reasons why this could be happening. Eliminating most of them, I finally took off the fan on the extruder and looked at it while it was trying to extrude. I noticed the teflon tubing and tried to push it back into the throat. Then the extruder worked fine. I put everything back together and began testing again. The clicking came back, - I then took the fan and heatsink back off and there it was again. Pushing back down and this time extruding some material and noticing the tubing slowly coming up. Is there anyway to fix this without upgrading to a better hot end? | It looks like you got too tight nozzle, too cold hotend or extruding speed is too high (all could be in the same time of course).
As filament goes into the teflon tube (coldend) and then into hotend it doesn't have enough time to go out throught the nozzle. So it causes that melted filament accumulates in hotend and pushes out teflon tube.
Check application and arduino settings for
nozzle diameter (increase it), check if it's not plugged with something inside
hotend temperature (increase it), check for your filament settings
extrude ratio (decrease it), check also gearing on extruder motor |
Which is a more accurate linear motion system? If someone looking for accuracy, which is the better linear motion system:
Maker slide,
Smooth rod - bearing,
Linear guide way,
V slot,
Open rail
Please let me know if there's a better one other than above list. | I used a few different linear rail systems in my build:
plain smooth rods for Z motion
smooth rods bonded to a T-haped steel base for a 1200mm Y axis (similar to those at https://cdn.automationdirect.com/static/specs/suremotionlinear.pdf)
igus "low profile linear slide" for X (https://www.igus.com/drylin/profile-rail-guide)
They all seem to work pretty well. The one problem I had was with the igus slides, which I found had a little too much play -- so each change of direction on X had a slight backlash, from the "cars" twisting a tiny bit within the rails. I improved that with careful tuning: shifting the rails a tiny bit farther apart, so they kept the cars under a little tension against the inner sides of the rail -- some call this "preloading".
I think systems that use actual bearings should generally be more accurate than spring-loaded slides. But the igus rails are still pretty good, and they're quite light, compact, and reasonably priced. I still use them, though once in a while I think about swapping them out to do a serious comparison.
The rails aren't the only factor in accuracy, though. I can't detect any play or warp in my Y rails, but that says nothing about accuracy and repeatability of motion along them. That's controlled by the motor and the belt, leadscrew, or other things actually moving them. Leadscrews, in particular, vary quite a bit in accuracy, depending on the shape of their threads, the kind of "nut" riding on them, and other factors.
You can even make your own leadscrew system from just a threaded rod and a nut -- but those threads are not the same, and they allow far more play than a real leadscrew does. Nice article on the "backlash" problem at https://www.liutaiomottola.com/Tools/Backlash.htm. |
What's a good way to secure bushings in a 3D printed part? I'd like to secure bushings in 3D printed parts. They would be used for a drilling jig. I've seen heat-set inserts, but they've all had threaded interiors. The best idea I can come up with is printing the plastic hole several thousandths of an inch larger than the bushing and applying a lot of epoxy to the OD of the bearing and inserting it. Is there a better way?
As an aside, I had a hard time finding proper tags. | If the outside of the bushing will bond well to the epoxy, your method is simple and likely to be effective.
You could use the same method used for threaded inserts by roughing the exterior of the bushing, heating it and forcing it into a correctly sized hole printed in the model.
The threaded inserts are knurled or otherwise textured to provide stronger bond with the melted plastic. Knurling your bushing is more complex than a good epoxy bond.
I've discovered a product called "castable bushings" which would appear to meet the above requirements for heated inserts:
The product listing indicates that these are used for drilling jigs.
It might be less messy but more expensive to purchase and use these as opposed to epoxy and a bit of sanding. |
Creating "pie slice" in OpenSCAD? When making a cylinder, sometimes I need to only take a pie slice. I'm currently using this neat trick to make pie slices for angles under 90 degrees. However, I have need of a few angles over 90 but under 180 degrees. Is there a way to generalize/extend this to work for these bigger angles?
module pie_slice(r=3.0,a=30) {
intersection() {
circle(r=r);
square(r);
rotate(a-90) square(r);
}
}
pie_slice(r=10,a=15); | My current workaround is to use union instead of intersection. Unfortunately, that means I have to use an if clause which makes the code have two paths instead of one clean approach. Also, unlike the above method, this does not result in a clean cylindrical shape but must instead by combined with a proper cylinder to get the final pie slice
size = length + 2;
if (angle_deg <= 90) {
translate([0,0,-1])
intersection() {
cube(size);
rotate(angle_deg-90) cube(size);
}
} else if (angle_deg <= 180) {
translate([0,0,-1])
union() {
cube(size);
rotate(angle_deg-90) cube(size);
}
} else {
echo(str("FAILURE - Angle cannot exceed 180"));
} |
Configuring BLTouch with Marlin firmware Has anyone configured BLTouch with Marlin firmware?
I could only find videos about older firmware version. I followed this document. To avoid causing any damage to the printer, I removed all connections, took the board out and connected a stepper to Z-axis terminal and BLTouch to Z-min and servo 1. All other axes are not connected. X-min and Y-min end stops were shorted using jumper (Mine is NC configuration).
After updating the firmware, I can move the X and Y steppers, but not Z stepper. There's a blue light glowing inside BLTouch, which turns off if I remove Servo connections.
The M119 command shows all end stops are open.
Do I have to change pull up settings of end stop?
I cuurently have:
Marlin 1.1.6
BLTouch Classic
Here's my configuration file | For security reasons, you cannot move Z until home position is applied to X, Y and Z.
With the level sensor attached, we need to home X and Y, and then Z will be homed in the middle of the bed (as configured). Execute G28 to home all axis and then you shall be able to run 'Z'.
To test that, you can unplug just steppers (with power switched off to prevent damaging the stepper drivers) and move X and Y manually to home position, then just give a touch to the BL sensor (when servo/pin) is deployed to confirm home position. |
Ender 3 unknown (maybe bed leveling) issue I halfway feel like I walked into a landmine, neighbor's kid saved up and bought an Ender 3 base model printer. Just before it was given to me he installed a BL touch I bought him in exchange for him printing some parts I was modeling and so our story starts...don't think I can go into my full sob story so I'm going try and cut to the chase but I have little knowledge of how this is put together and coming in in the middle and backpaddling whether is was put together correctly.
As a 3D modeler I attempted to print a demo file or two in preparation to print a case for a raspberry pi camera I've been working on during COVID. At some point during the print while I wasn't around the bed flew off, and there was an inch of plastic melted around the head. Long story short I spent the last week finding, buying and replacing the whole hot end assembly as it was cheaper then repairing it. So now I believe I'm back to square one.
While watching something print, I noticed the PLA wasn't getting bunched off on one part of the print so I stopped it before a repeat of earlier in the month happened. While sitting on the floor I began to notice the right side of the bar where the hot end/nozzle attaches is about 1 cm or so higher then the right. As I have no frame of reference I'm hoping someone can confirm whether that should be the case.
Raising the Z to the top and measuring to that cross bar I don't know that it's the bed but I don't have a small enough level to put on the bed.
I'm seeing if I print something like a calibration cube it's printing OK, but if I go for something wider like 3D Benchy or my camera case the filament only touches on one part of the bed. This is occurring on both the original bed and the glass bed I installed and readjusted the Z for.
Sorry...Hope that's not TMI, there's a lot going on. Also I'm using a spool of Hatchbox PLA if that matters and the new hot end is a Creality one from Microcenter as I didn't trust what was on Amazon to be 'authentic'. | Non-square gantry is a common problem with the Ender 3. You should be able to compensate by adjusting the bed leveling screws so that the nozzle at Z=0 is touching the bed at each of the four adjustment points. This will leave some skew, which you may or may not care about. But the right thing to do is leveling the gantry.
Both sides' Z carriages have some play in how the gantry mounts to them - the holes are larger than the machine screws that go through them - so after loosening the screws you can make adjustments. The screws on the side with the Z motor are hidden between the carriage and Z axis extrusion it rolls on, so to adjust it you need to roll the whole assembly off the top of the printer (with the cross beam at the top removed). Since you can't tighten it in-place, you just have to do your best to get it straight before putting it back on. The unpowered side, however, has screws that are reachable with the whole assembly in place, so you can square the gantry with the Z extrusions before tightening them.
Keep in mind that the whole Z axis system is severely over-constrained, with 6 wheels where 3 should suffice to constrain it. People have a lot of different ideas about how you should deal with this, and I'm still not sure what's best, but I think you want to get each of the V-roller sets tight (using the eccentric nuts to adjust the inner wheels) before leveling and tightening down the gantry. Otherwise the wheels may have uneven tension, causing the assembly to want to twist. |
Is it possible to run 2 Ender 3's off one power supply? I have 2 Ender 3's and I am limited to wall sockets to power both the printers at the same time. So I was wondering if it was possible to wire both the printers to a single PSU? As the printer uses a single xt60 connecter for power to the mainboard, so there is a spare screw terminal on the PUS where the xt60 for the other printer could be screwed in. I am just afraid if I run both printers off one PSU, I might see some magic smoke or else the psu may not be able to provide enough power for them both and may cause print/power failure. | The heated bed alone draws 220 W of 24 V power, so I'm going to say no, you shouldn't attempt to run two Ender 3 machines from a single power supply.
Instead, because the whole machine only draws about 3.5 A at 115 V (or half that at 230 V), you should consider installing a power strip or (better) a small UPS to both power both machines from your existing outlet(s) and also protect the machines from power surges and short power interruptions. You won't overload your outlets, and you won't risk burning out a power supply by drawing twice the power it's built to provide. |
Always keep printer hot and ready to print We are using a Prusa i3 MK2 printer in a structural design firm to print the buildings we design as well as print individual panels and components. Projects can have 100s of pieces that need to be printed quickly, but the printer cools of quickly after the print finishes. When we go to start the next print we have to wait 10-15 minutes for the printer to warm up again.
We tried preheating it using the built in function hoping that it would keep the heaters on after the print is complete but had no success.
Is there any way to set the printer to stay warm after the print to be able to quickly print back to back? | Just set values in your end code for your slicer. Set the bed to the temp you use, set the nozzle to roughly the Tg temp of the filament you use. Typically the bed heatup time is the worst offender here. I wouldn't keep the nozzle at extruding temps, though. |
Using auto-bed leveling, do I need to initiate G29 before every print? Various methods to scan the top surface exist to improve the bed adhesion to prevent prints to come loose from the bed during printing: e.g. BLTouch and clones or inductive and capacitive sensors/probes.
In order, for the print head, to use this so-called auto-bed leveling (ABL) you need to add the G29 command in your start G-code of your slicer.
Is it necessary to call G29 before every print?
The rationale behind this is that scanning the surface takes up some time, certainly on very short prints, it would be great if the surface geometry could be saved. | No, it is not necessary to call G29 before every print to "auto level the bed" 1) provided that:
the bed surface has not changed (e.g. large load or force has been exerted on the build platform, leveling screws are accidentally adjusted, etc.),
the carriage of the hotend is stable (some printers, e.g. the cantilever type, or single side Z lead screw driven printers are more prone to an unstable or level axis), and
the scanned surface geometry is saved in the controller board memory.
There are several solutions to solve this. You could manually run the G29 command once in a while storing the scanned surface with an M500 command to save the mesh to the EEPROM (memory) of the controller board (this can be done from the printer controller display for Marlin operated printers, an interface like a terminal or a print server application, or from pre-stored .g/G-code files on an SD card). If you use the SD-card, note that it is possible to auto-launch G-code files from the root of the SD-card upon inserting.
Do note to remove the G29 command in the start code of the slicer. The G29 command needs to be replaced with M420 S1 for Marlin firmware operated printers. This command will load the saved mesh at the start of the print from memory. This is especially useful when using a large amount of probing points (e.g. a large bed mesh using a 10 x 10 mesh of 100 probing points, to ensure the mesh is up-to-date, once in a while initiate the scanning sequence to store an updated mesh).
1) Please note that auto-bed leveling might be confusingly indicating that some magic leveling of the build platform/surface itself is taking place (this is also possible in Marlin when there are multiple Z steppers and lead screws used), but, that is not actually what is meant with this phrasing. The process of the auto-bed leveling actually scans the surface of the build surface and compensates the height of the print head/nozzle during a predefined printing height (usually 10 mm, set in the firmware or through G-code: M420 Z10 ; Gradually reduce compensation until Z=10), during this printing process the nozzle gradually be less and less compensated. |
Starting G-code for auto Z probe offset So, I like to take off my glass build plate from my printer bed because I don't like to put any force on the bed bearings but this presents an issue. I have an inductive bed leveling probe and each time I remove the plate the Z offset seems to be off on the next print.
Instead of re-leveling my bed and setting the Z offset by hand, I thought of adding starting G-code to do that for me but I've hit a snag. I have an Ender 3 and use Slic3r.
The sequence of events I would like is as follows:
G28 - home axis
G0 X150 Y130 Z5 - Moves to X150 Y130 Z5
G30 S1 - Performs a bed leveling probe at the current point. This raises the head 10 mm and stops when the probe is triggered. The current Z height this stops at is what I want for the next command.
M851 Z[insert Z height from prev command here]
I know Slic3r has these placeholder values for some commands like M109 S[temperature_0] in the square brackets. Is there one for the current Z height? | The inductive sensors trigger to the metal plate under the glass bed. This implies that if you remove the slate of glass, the distance between the trigger point and the print bed is increased by the thickness of the glass slate. But, the trigger point is still exactly the same as if there were a slate of glass (as it triggers on the metal bed underneath). This extra distance need to be compensated for.
The method you are using is incorrect in determining the distance between the nozzle and bed with respect to the sensor trigger point. This answer on question: "Z Offset on autoleveling sensor setup" describes how you need to determine the distance between nozzle and bed from the trigger point. It includes a manual step to lower the nozzle a paper thickness above the build plate.
If you insist on using G-code (e.g. in your start G-code script), you can redefine the Z=0 level by adding a G-code G92. In case of a 3 mm glass plate, you should add after the homing (G28) and probing of the bed (G29) the following:
G1 Z0 ; This will move the nozzle to Z=0 as if there was a slate of glass,
but in fact it is still 3 mm offset
G92 Z3 ; This redefines the old Z=0 (with glass) to be Z=3 mm |
How is a Thermistor supposed to be installed between Heated Bed and the Glass? opposed to what the title of this question might impose, I'm not new to 3d printing itself and have operated more than one printer for years, however, I feel dumb with installing the Thermistor on this new Heated Bed I got from RepRap.me: Aluminum Heatbed MK3 400x300
The old Mk2b 214x214 Mendel/Prusa heated bed that I have been using for quite a while now has a through-hole in the center, where the thermistor-leads could be fed to from below.
On this new heated bed however, there is a lowering in the very center of the Heated Bed to place the Thermistor in, yet the pads to connect the thermistor leads to right beside it are level with the rest of the Heated bed.
I tried using just a tiny amount of SMD solderpaste and just soldering the thermistor leads as flat as possible to the pads, nevertheless, the glass plate on top is not laying flat and stable on the heated bed with the thermistor installed.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated on how improve the thermistor-installation onto this heated bed! | Try to use a silicone heat conductive pad between heater and glass, where you can make a hole for the sensor. It also helps to improve the contact between aluminium heater and glass, which otherwise may be inhomogeneous (as expected between two quite rigid materials).
They sell them in rolls and you can choose a 1 mm thick one or even 0.5 mm. They are "sticky" but they don't have glue, so you will be able to separate the glass from the pad, even if not so easily as it would be with a clip. |
Prusa i3 MK2 Heated Bed Thermal Runaway Problems I'm having an issue with my Prusa i3 MK2 MMU.
It starts printing just fine, and everything gets up to operating temp quite quickly. However, after printing the first few layers, it seems as if the heated bed can't keep up with the demand, and its temperature starts to drop, first it can barely hold 80 °C and then it slowly drops down to 77-76 °C before the printer shuts off due to BED THERMAL RUNAWAY.
The LED is continuously on for the bed, so it seems to be supplying power when this happens. Setting the printer down from high power to "silent" helps a bit, so could this be that it is not getting enough power?
Ambient temp is around 17 °C. | The local library makerspace (prior to COVID-19 shutdown) has a Prusa i3 MK2 (no MMU) that had a similar problem. The model being printed was relatively small, compared to the bed and was being printed nearly atop the temperature sensor.
The part cooling fan was cooling the bed sensor while the rest of the bed was not being used.
Moving the model away from the sensor resolved the problem. If you're printing in the center of the bed, consider to re-slice in a position offset from the center.
If you are using the PEI sheet as the library machine is/was, consider to shuttle your prints around the bed over time. The library's printer wore away the PEI from always-centered prints. It had to be replaced after about a year. The replacement is going on two years with little complications. |
Estimating filament consumption in length per time I printed a lot of models in last month. I spent 2 kg filament in total. I want to know how many hours have been passed while printing. As far as I read, 1 kg PLA (1.75 mm) is about 110 meters long. My default print speed is 70 mm/s. The nozzle diameter is 0.4 mm. The nozzle multiplier in the simplify3d is 0.9 .
In a very basic math,
220÷(0.7×0.04÷0.0175×0.9)=~ 153 hours.
Is this correct? | Your math looks correct, and is also a good approximation for what I've seen in the first few weeks with my own Ender 3.
Another way to calculate (to check yourself) is to calculate the volume extruded (nozzle area times extrusion percentage times print speed -- be sure you convert everything to the same units!) in a given second, multiply by the density of your filament (common PLA runs about 1.2 g/cm^3), and get a rough figure for how long it takes to print a kilogram of filament. Your actual print time will always be higher than this approximation, because there are moves during which the extruder isn't running, infill is often set to lower extrusion level, and of course there's setup and cleanup time to account for. |
Cleaning IPA with the help of Mercury wash-and-cure? I have seen that you can clean used IPA from resin by putting it in the sun a while, making the resin dissolved in the IPA cure. Could I do the same thing just using the cure-mode in with the Elegoo Mercury wash-and-cure-station? | Based on the frequencies of most UV cure resins, your suggestion has merit. Other factors come into consideration, however.
These illumination devices have a limited life span. Running the UV diodes for the purpose of curing out the resin from the IPA will "use up" the portion of time otherwise useful for curing models.
Additionally, the UV light which would otherwise be "applied" to the surface of a printed model now has to pass through the IPA. While the IPA is perfectly transparent to the 405 nm used to cure resins, there could be attenuation and refraction by impurities in the liquid.
Sunlight is mostly free, broad-spectrum, and (on a sunny day) far more powerful than most affordable UV illumination systems.
In a pinch, sure, use the curing feature, but the sun is your cheap friend. |
Is this the correct motherboard for my Creality CR-10S Pro V2? When trying to solve the issue described in this post I followed the advice in the accepted answer and I found that the timing pulley holes for the Y axis (to "secure" the pulley to the motor shaft) were only half drilled (!!!). I suppose that everything worked fine (even without blind screws) for the first month (probably because the belt was extremely tight) but just a bit of wearing and it started to slip.
While I already replaced the pulley I also contacted the Creality technical support to obtain (at lest! funny...) a reassurance that it didn't possibly stressed the belt or the bearing balls. My experience with their technical support has been horrible and I am still waiting (after weeks) my answer (probably it's easier for them to try to ignore their sloppy assembly and QA) but they sent me a procedure to follow to "debug" any issue with my printer.
One of the pictures in that procedure is this:
To my surprise this is the motherboard I have:
Now I am puzzled. Which one is the correct motherboard for the Creality CR-10S Pro V2 (not the old version but the newer V2)?
Is this just [another] sloppy mistake from the technical support or I do have the wrong motherboard? Differences with V1 are not many then I suppose it could even work with the old one... | The board that's installed in your machine appears to be the Creality v2.4 / v2.4.1 board, which is the correct board for your printer.
It is distinguishable by the 30-pin ribbon connector, which is used to connect to the rest of the printer.
The board in the tech support pictures is the v2.5.2 "silent board", designed for printers such as the non-Pro CR-10 series. It features two 10-pin connectors for the LCD screen.
It also uses individual connectors for all functions, so, contrary to the "Pro" boards, is also easily swappable with aftermarket boards.
A third type of board (e.g. v1.1.5) exists, mostly for the Ender 3 series of printers, which features only one 10-pin connector for the display. |
Chocolate printing vs casting? I need to make chocolate busts.
Is it better to make silicon reverse of the bust and cast the bust or directly print it using chocolate printer (I prefer cost and process speed over quality)? I don't have chocolate printer so if this method will be better I will need to use some 3D printing service.
I need to make quite a large amount of the busts. | In my experience, direct printing of chocolate is tedious because:
It has to be around 88 C to melt; and
It doesn't solidify very quickly at normal room temperature.
Unless you can print in a chilled environment (freezer is better than refrigerator), you will likely wind up printing a chocolate puddle. Even then, you have to heat not only the reservoir but also the entire nozzle (or it may solidify in the nozzle).
Also, some chocolates have issues if they freeze or become overheated, so it's a very tight tolerance with the temperatures. |
How to obtain high resolution prints in a shorter period of time? When I've printed an object I've had to choose between high resolution and quick prints. What techniques or technologies can I use or deploy to speed up my high resolution prints? | You could experiment with slicing. For example, you might not need high resolution all over the object, but you can speed up some straight parts by using greater layer high there. See a part of Slic3r manual about such thing.
It is also possible to print thicker infill every Nth layer, see Infill optimization in Slic3r.
Other slicers might have those features as well. |
Preview 3d printing process Is there any type of software in which you can animate the way the .stl object will be printed?
I'm not talking about what the end result looks like. I'm talking about a tool which acts like it's printing the given object as an animation.
I know it somehow depends on your printer but is there anything I can use? | You may wish to consider Craftware for your purposes. It's a free program in beta form that does provide a tool-path animation for printing the layers. It is not so much specific to a printer as it is configurable for your own requirements. The video shows what I believe you are seeking at about the two minute point.
Simplify3D also provides such information, but is not a free program. |
What material should I upgrade the teflon tube to? I'd like to print PET on an Ender 3 v2, but I see that some people recommend upgrading the hotend because it will melt the teflon filament feeder tube. I'm not sure if the hotend will even get hot enough to use PET, even though it's listed in the specs for the printer. I didn't know Teflon could melt, if that's the case, should I get rid of my teflon cooking pans?
What is the max temp range for a stock Ender 3 V2?
What material tube should I upgrade to?
What are the benefits of an all metal hotend as far as hotter temps? Why is that the recommended solution for PETG printing? | The Ender 3 (original, pro, or v2) does not need any modifications/upgrades to print PETG. Temperatures of 230-235 °C are sufficient for PETG and well under the 250 °C that's not recommended to be exceeded on a machine with PTFE lining all the way to the hotend. PTFE doesn't melt above these temperatures, but it does start to break down and release chemicals that can be harmful. Note that teflon pans achieve temperatures comparable to or exceeding what you'd print PETG at all the time while cooking, and especially if you burn food. The smoke point of peanut oil is roughly the same as the temperature you print PETG at.
If you did want to change it (I wouldn't recommend this) there is no different tube you can "upgrade" to. Instead, users who want to be able to print higher temperatures switch to an "all metal" hotend, which means the tube doesn't extend through the heatbreak to the hotend, but instead stops in the cold part, with a metal passageway for the rest of the filament's path to the hotend/nozzle. You still use the same PTFE before that, though. All-metal hotends are not necessarily an upgrade; they're a tradeoff. The PTFE tube all the way through is a highly desirable feature because it has very low friction and no ridge/boundary between materials for semi-molten filament to get caught on when retracting and unretracting. |
Good sources of filament "sampler" pack? The local stores have started to stop selling filaments in the smaller 0.5 kg spools, and it's getting harder to maintain an assortment without buying lots of big spools.
I mainly just want a bunch of different colors (red, black, blue, green, etc.), ideally as a bunch of small spool "samples" or like a "sampler pack". -- Even if they're at .25 kg spool sizes... -- I don't want to spend a ton of money on buying and storing a ton of 1.0kg - 2.0kg spools.
I prefer to print in PLA, but ABS is fine. I can only print 1.75mm filament.
The seller should to be able to ship to western US, and have filament of decent quality that's not going to ruin my printer.
What do you recommend? | Amazon, of course. I found a pack of 20 colors, maybe 50g each or so, 1.75 PLA. (that link is direct to this product).
edit:
Well, dang, I blinked at that particular item is off the list. Here are two other multicolor packages currently available (2PM EDT 20 Oct 2016)
one , and ... two |
Error "TMC2208 or TMC2209 on Z2 requires Z2_HARDWARE_SERIAL or Z2_SERIAL_(RX|TX)_PIN I am getting this error when I try to enable the Z2 driver for MKS Gen L V2.1
Could anyone help?
Error "TMC2208 or TMC2209 on Z2 requires Z2_HARDWARE_SERIAL or Z2_SERIAL_(RX|TX)_PIN
Thanks | Your question is missing important information, but I can try to figure out something. You didn't say what kind of firmware it is. I assume it is Marlin.
Your problem is that there are no Tx Rx pins specified for Z2 (because there is X, Y, Z, E0, E1 by default on the MKS Gen L board)
I assume you want to use the E1 driver for the Z2 instead of a second extruder. In that case, you have to tell the firmware that you want to use that driver for Z2.
Search the source code for file "pins_MKS_GEN_L_V21.h"
There should be E1_SERIAL_TX_PIN and E1_SERIAL_RX_PIN defined.
Rename them to Z2_SERIAL_TX_PIN and Z2_SERIAL_RX_PIN.
In "pins_RAMPS.h" file, find a block of a few lines that starts "E1_STEP_PIN", and rename E1 to Z2 for all those lines.
It may (or may not) work now. If it doesn't, please somehow post those configuration files. |
Wrench drops temperature of heater block when tightening nozzle I've noticed when heating up the hotend to maximum operating temperature to tighten the nozzle against the heat break, after putting a wrench on the heater block, the temperature of the heater block drops by as much as 60 °C. Do you ignore this or have a procedure to correct? | Mitigating "heat loss"
Technically, we don't lose heat, we have a drain of thermal energy out of the parts, but let's stay simple.
To combat the loss into the holding/steadying wrench, I use a vise: it might lessen the heating curve by the added thermal mass if used bare, but by adding two pieces of wood on either side of the heater block, I can insulate the block against the thermal drop from the steadying vise and atop that prevent scratches.
If you use an adjustable wrench for the heater block, one can add wooden "soft jaws" with a little cyanoacrylate glue, otherwise, some painter's tape or Kapton might aid.
It might help that my small wrenches have a super sturdy surface coating making them rather comfortable to use when left out in the cold and prevents rust. This layer also seems to prevent the flow of thermal energy into the wrench. Note that they are not chrome-plated but more like an enamel-look, a glassy powder-coat or actually lacquered.
Conclusion
When I need to mount something installed on the printer, I do the tightening as quickly as possible - the temperature of the measurement point and the temperature of the nozzle getting pressed into the heartbreak do not drop in the same instance, the nozzle will still be at the aimed for temperature when the thermosensor already has dropped. |
Boolean operation on two objects in Blender I'm trying to draw a strange cup, with a kind of empty handle (actually, it's not a cup, but it looks like one).
I need to print this object with a 3D printer, so I exported the model to 3D printing software (Simplify3D) to obtain relative G-code for the printer.
I can correctly export (in .stl) both parts separately (cup [a] and handle [b]), and obtain a good G-code. But when I try to match the two parts with a boolean operation, the result becomes chaotic.
I've added a (G-code) picture to show how the slicer creates strange triangles inside the cup; I really can't understand how to prevent it.
I'm designing the print using the Blender 3D software modelling tool.
I've uploaded my file for reference.
The file has the bezier curves from witch I do screws in the origin. the result that I'm trying to export in stl is on the side.
Note: to have correct dimensions, I scale the model after 90° rotation on x-axis (base on bottom for printing), I then change the scale to 1:10 (bigger model), before exporting as stl.
I would obtain a sort of vase with an empty handle (the cylinder should work as an hole).
here what I do:
I convert curves to meshes
I screw the cup (360° y-axis)
I screw the handle (60° after rotation -30° on y-axis)
I solidify the handle
I add 2 operations to cup, (a) solidify, (b) boolean
to match the two solid I adjust the solidify (a) looking to boolean result of an intersection (cup to handle).
when I have the right overlapping I apply (a) solidify and then (b) union-boolean (cup to handle).
at the end I apply a difference-boolean modificator to cup/handle with cone, to create the hole.
I hope someone should explain me what I am doing wrong. I have made a somewhat simpler version here. | Check your settings in the slicer software you use: if you look at the sliced print carefully, you see only one line in each layer that crosses the inner section. The lines are also yellow, not green. This strongly hints that these are movement commands, not actual print commands.
On the other hand, you might want to carefully check in blender: at times, the normals in places get swapped inside out and then mess up the whole geometry without being visible in blender. Recalculate Normals can fix that at times, other times choose the messed up vertices and flip normals.
Make sure not to include voids in the model.
The model in question
Looking at the model, I also spotted that there was a lingering solidify modifier. Applying that resulted in this:
This is a particularly bad thing. Fixing is easy though: remove the offending inner vertices.
Atop that, the center points are a clustered mess of vertices - surely you want to merge them into just two vertices.
Applying the Boolean modifier now created a solid shell.
Before exporting, all other items had to be removed (deleted), then the export gives this nice model: |
Extreme under extrusion Ender 3 Pro I'm having some severe under extrusion and I cannot figure out what's going on I replaced the extruder with the all metal one I've also replaced all the Bowen fittings and the tube with Capricorn tubing replaced the nozzle made sure everything was butted up tight can't figure out what's going on at all can someone please help I've only had the printer for 4 months and I've never had a problem like this before | I had a similar problem to you with my Ender-3 but now it is fine.
There are so many causes of under-extrusion that I doubt I can tell you what is specifically wrong in your case but perhaps I can give you some pointers.
In addition to what you have done, check if you can manually extrude the filament by releasing the grip on the filament (depress the lever on the feeder mechanism) and push the filament through with your hand (while the nozzle is heated to the correct temperature for your filament).
If that works well without too much force then it suggests one of two things:
an issue with the feeder mechanism (e.g. worn or clogged up teeth on cogs, spring too tight or too weak) or
extrusion settings on your slicer need modification (e.g. your slicer made G-code with too frequent retractions and this causes the filament to wear down thin preventing the extruder feeder cogs from gripping it. A solution is to reduce the maximum number of retractions possible by altering your slicer settings - this was an important factor for getting my machine to work again).
I found the following YouTube video helpful in giving me pointer of where to start - perhaps it will help you too: |
Is B-REP a ready to print mesh before a mesh can be printed it needs to be 'repaired'. According to most tutorials that is including making the shape close and removing inner shapes. Reading through B-REP in Wikipedia there is no layman term or explanation how it differs form the traditional polygonal mesh create for example from scanning or exporting from CAD. Is B-REP a mesh that only represents a boundary and therefore ready to be printed? | a) about
Is B-REP a mesh that only represents a boundary [..] ?
B-Rep contains more information, see here:
There are two types of information in a B-rep: topological and
geometric. Topological information provide the relationships among
vertices, edges and faces similar to that used in a wireframe model.
In addition to connectivity, topological information also include
orientation of edges and faces. Geometric information are usually
equations of the edges and faces.
b) about
and therefore ready to be printed
it is need not only check that the model is correct (no lack of a face, no wrong face normals, ...) but also that is valid for a 3d printer (no "floating" parts, addition of supports, ...).
Finally, recall the model is not what drives the printer, the printer is controlled by the machine instructions, usually gcode. Thus, the usual evolution is: parts description (.scad, ...), model format (.stl, ...) and machine instructions (.gcode). |
Brief very slow moves near top layers I've been trying to change to the latest Cura (v2.4) from the older v15.04 (I'm sure there's a good story about why they reset the numbers).
There's an annoying behaviour in my prints now, and I can't track down what is happening. Everything goes fine, but during the print (maybe mostly near later layers) there are these moments when the print head doesn't move with the normal 30-50 mm/second, but perhaps 1-2 mm/second.
Watching the filament closely, it appears to retract filament at that moment, then the head moves painfully slowly around the part. Then 10 seconds later it goes flying around again.
Can't see a "print speed during retraction" setting. I see a speed at which the filament is retracted setting - I'm guessing that's unrelated.
I'm worried these frequent slow move sections are having two effects:
The hot print nozzle sitting on the part is deforming the surface features;
The hot print head is overheating the filament feeding into the nozzle and I get jams or sometimes swollen filament that won't go back into the nozzle as it tries to proceed further, causing a jam.
Any idea what makes these super slow movements? The older Cura never caused any of them.
I'm using a Monoprice Select mini printer, with six months of good results before this showed up, and only with G-codes created with new Cura 2.4. | Are the layers where this is happening smaller than previous layers? Many slicers have a minimum layer time setting where if the layer takes less than X time, it will either slow the layer down or possibly pause until the time is reached.
This can be useful to allow the previous layer to cool down and harden up a bit before more hot plastic is added. If you're not having issues cooling the print then you could disable this. I've only ever used Slic3r, KISSlicer, and Simplify3D so I'm not sure where the setting would be in Cura but those slicers all had/have the option. |
How can I print a 1 cm overhang with minimal supports? Here's the thing I want to print.
The red ring is 3.5 mm above the bottom of the orange cylinder. The red ring is 1cm thick. I'd prefer not to use supports because I tend to break as much as I clean up.
I know this could be done in two pieces but then I'd have to make sure the pieces fit and then glue it in at that's too much. It'd be ideal to print this as one piece. How can I do this with as few supports as possible? | Three ideas
If either side of the red ring can have a chamfer to meet the cylinder, add the chamfer and print with the chamfer side down.
If both sides of the red ring must be perpendicular to the axis of
the cylinder, can you print the cylinder lying on its side? You
might get good enough print quality, especially if printing with
thinner layers toward the top.
If that is unsatisfactory, try explicitly adding an inner support
ring as part of the model. Don't depend on the slicer to do what
you want, do it yourself. You would then be bridging to make the
red disk, but that can work surprisingly well with a good cooling
fan and printer.
In all three cases, consider the slot holes you have in the red ring. For case 3 you may need to add a support around those holes as well. In case 2, they would want to be pointed vertically. In case 1, the chamfer would be modified to have holes of cavities matching the slot holes. |
Does anyone know how Slic3r determines its infill adjacent strand spacing, instead of using fill density? I'm doing research on changing the fill density into the air gap width, adjacent strand spacing, or whatever, instead of using the fill density, as it will give me more precise controls.
Question 1:
All I can work out is from Slic3r's the source code in ~/Slic3r/xs/src/libslic3r/Flow.cpp,
Link to Flow.cpp source code
/* This method returns the centerline spacing between an extrusion using this
flow and another one using another flow.
this->spacing(other) shall return the same value as other.spacing(*this) */
float Flow::spacing(const Flow &other) const {
assert(this->height == other.height);
assert(this->bridge == other.bridge);
if (this->bridge) {
return this->width/2 + other.width/2 + BRIDGE_EXTRA_SPACING; //Line A
}
return this->spacing()/2 + other.spacing()/2; //Line B
}
If I am right, will changing Line A or Line B, be the right way to change its infill adjacent strand spacing?
Question 2:
And since we're on this topic, what does the bridge variable represent? | This answer should have been a comment, except I have included the relevant code.
To answer question 2, at a guess, bridge is simply a boolean (bool) that specifies whether there is a bridge or not.
From Flow.hpp line 32
/// Represents material flow; provides methods to predict material spacing.
class Flow
{
public:
float width, height, nozzle_diameter;
bool bridge;
Flow(float _w, float _h, float _nd, bool _bridge = false)
: width(_w), height(_h), nozzle_diameter(_nd), bridge(_bridge) {};
Additionally lines 68-73, may also be of interest:
private:
static float _bridge_width(float nozzle_diameter, float bridge_flow_ratio);
/// Calculate a relatively sane extrusion width, based on height and nozzle diameter.
/// Algorithm used does not play nice with layer heights < 0.1mm.
static float _auto_width(FlowRole role, float nozzle_diameter, float height);
static float _width_from_spacing(float spacing, float nozzle_diameter, float height, bool bridge);
However, your best bet, to get an accurate answer to both of your questions, is to contact Alessandro Ranellucci - alexrj, and ask him - as he is is the designer of the Slic3r code. When you get a reply, maybe you would like to post the answer here... it may be useful for someone else. |
How to unclog a clogged extruder? I have a Wanhao Duplicator i3 v2 (A.K.A. Maker Select, Cocoon Create).
My extruder got clogged: I noticed that it wasn't extruding, so I stopped my print, removed the fan, heatsink and the extruder motor and I saw that the clog is at the heater block level.
This is a what I have:
As you can see, there is some PLA clogged at the very beginning of the 1.75mm hole in the extruder block.
I can see there is something white inside (a stone? something that is not PLA?). I tried to heat up the extruder to 250°C and pushing with an hex tool but the block did not move.
I solved a lot of clogged nozzle issues with the cold pull method, it always worked like a charm, this time I tried too but as a result the PLA filament broke and the "stone" is still there.
Does anyone know if there is a way to unclog the extruder in this situation?
Do I have to change it? | I'm sure this is not the best solution, and if you have some ethyl acetate you should try that before going "the hard way".
Ethyl acetate is a solvent for PLA, so if you soak the extruder into it PLA should melt and free the extruder.
That said, this is the "hard" solution that worked for me.
You'll need:
A drill
A 1mm drill bit
A 1.5mm drill bit
Insert the 1mm drill bit into the drill. If your drill has a setting to reduce the drilling speed, take this to the minimum speed. If your drill doesn't have such options, you'll need to push the drill button very gently.
Put the drill bit on the pla block (be sure to not touch the cooling block, you might ruin it). Start drilling at the minimum speed and push very gently, until you get a side-to-side hole on the PLA (you know it because you feel no resistance at all while pushing the drill).
Take the 1.5mm drill bit and repeat the same operation. At this point my PLA block literally exploded (now I have some broken PLA inside my room, don't know where) and the extruder was finally free.
I hope this helps someone. Please notice that you need to be very gentle in order to avoid breaking parts of your extruder, but if I managed to do it, you can do it too ;)
As previously said, if you have ethyl acetate try soaking the extruder into it to make PLA dissolve before trying this. Try this solution only if all other options didn't help. |
What type filament should I use to produce stamps? My wife wants me to use an FFM 3d printer to make custom stamps for her to use on paper (scrap books, letters, etc.). She is convinced, however, that they will be too rigid to make good stamps. A quick google search showed ones made from PLA and ABS. Logically, though, a TPU or similar would address her concerns. A good quality stamp needs to hold ink and make good, even contact with the paper. It would probably need to be able to be sanded or smoothed in some way.
I am supposed to receive my printer next week or so and am trying to get some filaments, STL files, and accessories I will need ready in advance so I can rapidly learn how to use it. | I see three options...
1. Print with a flexible filament:
Many options: TPU as you pointed out, the flexible PLA that Tom mentioned, and others. Here's an article with a few options from Matter Hackers
I'd suggest printing the stamp side down so you get a nice flat stamp with no post processing. For any wide gaps, mind your bridging...use fillets or chamfers so the "roof" of the gap is an upside down V or U shape.
2. Print with any hard filament, but use a rubber mat under the paper.
The idea here is to use a semi-flexible surface under the paper to help get uniform contact pressure between the paper and the hard stamp. As long as your stamp holds ink, this should work okay.
3. Print your stamp shape, then use it to make a rubber stamp.
Making a model and then copying it with your desired non-printable material is a common manufacturing technique that can be used in many situations. Use of molds for casting and related processes can really expand your possibilities. Check out Smooth On. They have several rubber and flexible compounds that you could use for stamps. |
What filaments allow air to pass but not water vapor? In some situations it useful to have a material in which air passes but water, and water vapor, does not. Printing cell membranes or cases for something that must be immune to humidity changes (like something that holds a highly oxidative metal) are two examples.
Teflon (PTFE) is a material that has this property. But PTFE is horrendous to 3D print.
Silicone is another material that has this property. 3D printing silicone can be done with a syringe mechanism. But there are also thermoplastic rubbers (e.g. TPU, TPE) that are designed to mimic Silicone.
Are there any filaments on the market which naturally form holes with the porous diameter for this feature? Is there any way to manipulate the diameter of this hole, even starting from pellets? Are some filaments more likely than others to have this feature? | It is difficult enough to make 3D-printed objects water-tight (unless you paint them). Making them permeable to air but not water vapour is too big an ask, I think. |
Does the Da Vinci line of 3D printers come with a heated bed? I'm now currently looking at getting my next 3D printer, after my success with the Prusa i3 Reprap Build, and I have had my eyes on the Da Vinci line of printers for some time now.
What I want to know is, does this line of 3D printers include a heated bed? Or does it come with a stock aluminum bed? | Yes. The Da Vinci Duo 2 (most common one) has a heated bed. |
Sparkmaker SLA resin not curing My model layers are printing much as I expect but the parts when removed from the plate are very soft and flexible and fail to harden any further in sunlight or UV lamplight. A tall or slender part will bend and distort under its own weight while printing. I am using LCD-T resin, I have increased time and reduced thicknesses and am now using 0.04 mm layers at 20 s and 255 brightness with no improvement.
Can anyone suggest what I need to change? | It might be the case that the resin separated into layers in the tray. Try mixing the resin well in its container.
I have also heard it can help to filter the resin prior to mixing. |
Why is my print getting messed up mid-print? I am using Slic3r to generate the GCode for my Marlin-based printer. For some reason with increasing height my print starts to get messed up. On another part it starts to act like this when there are small parts. Is this related to my Slic3r settings, maybe to much filament being extruded or is this due to something else?
Any help is highly appreciated and I can provide more pictures of messed up parts or slic3r config if necessary. | For me, this looks like a cooling problem. Try to print this part 2-4 times in one print and get sure your fan is cooling all the time.
It is a known problem, if the layers get smaller, that they do not have time to cool down. So you're printing on a wobbling bunch of still soft layers, which result in what you showed on the photo.
In my opinion, this has nothing to do with the filamen. |
Writing G-code: Audible Alert at end of print Often, the pre-generated G-code is enough for start and end. However, sometimes we want to have something different. In this case: how to generate an audible alert of something like 4 bleeps at the end of the print, after putting the printer into the end position and when the bed has reached a "safe" 30 °C? | Let's put the parts one by one:
Wait for bed temperature being at 30 °C: M190 R30
Play Bleep for 1/5th of a second: M300 S440 P200
Wait for 1/5th of a second: G4 P200
That gives:
M190 R30
M140 S0
M300 S440 P200
G4 P200
M300 S440 P200
G4 P200
M300 S440 P200
G4 P200
M300 S440 P200
G4 P200
Just for 0scar:
M300 S1396.91 P400 ;f7
G4 P400
M300 S1661.22 P600 ;as7
M300 S1396.91 P400 ;f7
M300 S1396.91 P200 ;f7
M300 S1864.66 P400 ;b7
M300 S1244.51 P400 ;es7
M300 S1396.91 P400 ;f7
G4 P400
M300 S2093.00 P400 ;c8
M300 S1396.91 P400 ;f7
M300 S1396.91 P200 ;f7
M300 S2217.46 P400 ;des8
M300 S2093.00 P400 ;c8
M300 S1661.22 P400 ;as7
M300 S1396.91 P400 ;f7
M300 S2093.00 P400 ;c8
M300 S2793.83 P400 ;f8
M300 S1244.51 P400 ;es7
M300 S1244.51 P200 ;es7
M300 S1046.50 P400 ;c7
M300 S1567.98 P400 ;g7
M300 S1396.91 P1600 ;f7 |
Heatercartridge bolt stuck After a brownout a print failed and it got the whole hotend covered in PLA. I am now in the process of replacing some parts on the hotend (one of the thermistor legs broke of) and also wanted to take the heater cartridge out. The problem is that the bolt that locks the heater cartridge is stuck and I am now afraid to strip the head.
Is there a trick to remove the bolt with the smallest probability of stripping the head? Is it better to apply heat or not? Should I soak it in Acetone or some other solvent? etc. | Don't Panic!
First of all, a printhead caked in PLA is usually not a death sentence, it is often a temporary setback. Let's start in steps!
Step 1: remove the extruder
We want to work on the hotend, so we remove the extruder feed first. For direct drive, we unload it, then remove it depending on your printer, so the cooling of the hotend remains. For a Bowden, unload and, if possible, remove the Bowden tube from the cooling block. If not disconnect it from the extruder.
Step 2: remove from the carriage
Now that we have the whole hotend assembly bared, we remove it from the carriage. Usually, it is 2 to 3 bolts, more if the cooling solution is mounted separately and has to be removed to access it.
Step 3: remove the cool-end
If you can, remove the cooling fins - we want to have the heatbreak to hold on to.
Step 4: Clamp it up
Take a fire-proof surface (ceramic tile!) and put down the hotend. Rig it up that it can't jump away, best with a small vise. Don't bend the cables!
Step 5: Free the thermosensor
Let's start to clean! If your cartridge still works, get 12V onto the heater and let the stuff melt a little. Use pliers and a scraping tool to clean the thermistor cartridge.
As you have no heat control only heat in short bursts to prevent fire and destroying the cartridge too.
As an alternative and if you can't get the cartridge to work, use a hot air gun or a hot-air soldering station. A soldering iron with a broad tip also works well to scrape off the plastic with controlled heat an as a scraper to remove large chunks.
If you use an external heat source, free the heater cartridge first and remove it, hoping that it is not also dead.
As soon as you can, get the thermosensor out. If you run on the heater cartridge, install a fresh Thermosensor, even into the goopy heater block, and wire it to the board to regain temperature control and use the board to provide the power.
Step 6: Finish cleaning
I usually clean up the final stretch (and as far as I can: all steps) under board controlled heat:
Make sure that heater cartridge and thermosensor are installed well and working. Set the hotend to 170 to 180°C and do the last cleaning under the use of regulated temperatre.
Step 7: Do steps 1 to 4 in reverse order.
Reassemble, following the steps backwards.
Step 8: Hot Tighten!
Heat the assembled hotend to 240°C, then tighten the nozzle against the heatbreak to ensure tightness. Let cool, done.
Alternative
Replacement/Upgrade!
One could go down to step 3 and replace the hotend assembly (Heaterblock, Thermosensor, heatbreak, nozzle) with fresh parts and reassemble. This is much more expensive than reusing but cleaner and faster - if you need to print now, you might want to keep one hotend assembly on hand as spare and clean the one replaced while the machine runs.
External heat sources
As mentioned, a hot air gun or soldering iron can provide heat to remove the plastic caking.
The soldering iron has the benefit of doubling as a scraping tool and providing localized heat, allowing to possibly free the thermosensor without unsoldering anything in it, and it won't melt the heater block.
A heat gun provides gentle, overall heating of the beater block, but needs extra care where the hot air is going - it can easily char wood and might remove the solder from the heater cartridge.
A gas torch might be used to burn off any residue on a totally stripped heater block, but it also would be able to melt and deform an aluminium heater block! Do not use it on a still assembled heater block, or it will melt any solder in the heater cartridge and destroy it.
In any case, working on a fireproof surface is mandatory!
Chemically cleaning (for non-PLA)
PLA can be removed chemically, but the solvents are rather nasty and some take quite some time to work. Very toxic dichloromethane was used to make a solution of PLA to create thin layers used in this paper, and most other solvents the study mentions are at least equally nasty. The available working options - ethyl acetate and propylene carbonate - have high price tags associated with them. So chemically cleaning PLA from cheap nozzles is not an economically viable option. However, it is a viable option to use acetone if you have your hotend caked in ABS. |
How can I make bed leveling improvements in the middle of my Ender 3 V2 bed? Got my Ender 3 v2 and stack with the bed leveling.
Used default settings, Creality slicer 4.2, test PLA from the kit and print model https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3013319 (4 squares in each corner and 1 in the middle), nozzle 200 °C, bed 60 °C.
After some adjustments, I have good solid pieces on the bed corners but the center one has small gaps. Is it possible to fix this problem?
Corner pice:
Center piece: | The gaps are, because the nozzle is to far from the bed at this point. It may sound like a big deal, but actually this is not leveling alone, but it looks like the bed is not a perfect plane/perfectly flat. This is normal, my ikea mirror and my stock bed show the same thing. Now here's one solution:
Print calibration stickers, like you already did on various places around the bed to get a feel, where it is too low. Let it cool and put painters tape (the very very thin tape, that should not burn) on areas, where the bed is too low. Print more calibration rectangles and check if you have enough. Repeat until you cannot see a difference.
It took me about 2h to level everything absolutely perfectly. This was 2 years ago and I didn't have to touch the tape below my bed ever since. It just works.
Alternative solutions involve mesh bed leveling and buying a new bed surface or even the surface below the bed. However, I found that to neither of them work reliably, whereas the simple tuning does what it's supposed to. |
Using both .gcode and .gbr files in a hybrid 3D printer + circuit etching machine? (RepRap 1.4 with Marlin firmware) I'm making a hybrid 3D printer and circuit etching (CNC milling) machine that can both 3D print and etch prototype circuit boards. I'll be using Marlin firmware with an Arduino Mega & RepRap 1.4 board. It will have a 3D printer head and a milling head side by side. I'd like to have it be able to read both .gbr (for circuit etching) and .gcode (for 3D printing) files. How should I configure Marlin to read both types? | You can use both .gcode and .gbr files one one machine. We do it where I work.
However, when we make prototype circuit boards, we don't print them; we acquire circuit board blanks, and then we either:
Use a diode laser to burn off the top layer of garolite for isolation traces, then do a chemical dip to remove that copper, then another laser burn to expose pads for surface mount components; or
Use a spindle tool to remove the top layer of garolite where needed for pads, as well as mill through the copper layer for isolation traces.
We have not found a printable material that has the conductivity we want in a circuit board.
Source: I work for Hyrel 3D
Note: we don't use Marlin on Arduino, we use in-house firmware on STM32F429 boards. |
Slic3r not interpreting STL correctly I'm very new to 3D printing, I purchased a Monoprice Maker Select Plus last week and I'm just getting started with printing my own models.
I can create fairly simple models in Sketchup without a problem, export in .obj, then using Slic3r, covert the STL into G-code. This method worked fairly well for some simple cubic bearing holders I was printing, however when I tried to slice a complex shape (a wheel), the slicer shows an incomplete version of the .obj file, missing faces and transparent from some angles.
Here is now what the wheel looked like on the slicer
There is obviously something I'm doing wrong in Sketchup, maybe I have to put it through some filters in MeshLab? Or I'm not constructing the model properly? | Sketchup is notorious for creating non-manifold models for 3D printing. The first recommendation would be to consider using a different resource for your models. I'm not a big fan of TinkerCAD, but it is similar in operation to many features of Sketchup. I've used it on a couple occasions where it was the fastest simplest way to create a particular model.
There are other programs that are more complex in the learning curve. Meshmixer is good for more organic shapes, although it will perform reasonably well for engineering-type models such as yours.
Blender is a great piece of free software with an extremely steep learning curve, but again, better suited to organics.
I'm quite a fan of OpenSCAD which is script/text based and quite well suited to creating engineering-type models, especially if you need parametric modeling. The model you have in your pictures would be an easy build, perhaps twenty minutes creation time, a few dozen lines of text. I see two cylinders, some boolean subtraction and some radial primitives. If the code is clean (easy to do), the result is a manifold object.
On the even more challenging level, there are programs such as SolidWorks but the learning curve there is steep too. In the same ballpark would be Autodesk Fusion 360, for which a free hobbyist version exists.
Of course, with all of the above, there are YouTube tutorials to assist your learning process.
More to the point, one can use an online 3D model repair service. I've attempted to use a couple with mixed results.
Netfabb is a commonly recommended online repair service. I've not used that one, or if I have, the results were poor. A bad model (your example) will likely fail with most services.
I've used MakePrintable in the past as well. Again, a bad model will fail and Sketchup is the culprit here.
You can use Meshmixer in Analysis mode to find the errors and use Auto Repair All, but the results aren't going to be pretty! |
Moving Extruder Gear Assembly So I am getting a Creality CR-10S which has a similar print frame with a lot of other printers. Eventually I'm sure I will want to print using flexible materials, but the bowden system is not optimal since you're basically trying to push cooked spaghetti through a tube. I could replace the bowden with a direct drive but that can be expensive (and potentially shave off 15 mm from one of my axes). Not to mention that the print head is now heavier which can affect print speeds and quality.
That's when I thought about moving the extruder gear and motor from the side of my printer to the top. The tube then goes down the Z axis so the flexible filaments are pulled by gravity and controlled by the gear instead of just being pushed by the gear. (Please refer to my wonderful sketch)
I can't be the only one to think of this, but I've only seen one website that has talked about this issue and thinks that the solution is a second gantry to follow the hot end. If you're interested, here's the link.
Are there any potential issues with this new setup? Though I would mount the servo above the cross beam instead of to the side so that there's full range of motion along the z axis. (sadly that thought came to me AFTER making the picture in paint) | Hanging up the Bowden system won't fix the problems with printing flexible filament: the filament will still press into the bends of the tube and thus lead to under extrusion. Another issue is, that the flexible filament can compress - and the longer way it has to the melt-zone, the more filament it can "store" on the way to it. These bunched up zones will release suddenly, resulting in pulses of high output and between those under extrusion.
Direct drive (like in a Prusa i3) is pretty much the only way to reliably print flexible materials. You could, with some engineering, move your existing motor to the carriage and turn your Bowden into a direct drive. |
3D scanner data acquisition I found an old Creaform3D EXAscan laying around at the company I work for, and tried to plug it on a computer to see if it still works.
I discovered that it uses a software called RapidForm for data acquisition, but its license is expired.
I looked in the manufacturer site for drivers or something similar but there isn't anything.
Is there any other software or way to read the data coming from such scanner? | The Creaform EXAscan is according to the manufacturer a laser based machine. This means that it determines data points and their positions by some triangonometry done with a laser, 32.000 times a second, resulting in very high density point clouds. This demands a powerful program to work with.
At some point, your company used Rapidform, which costs a wooping 10 to 30 grand for a license. Other software in this niece are - according to a solidworks thread - Geomagic and PolyWorks. The gist of the thread seems to be that these "big 3" were the best ones at the market in 2011. However I have no idea if they work together with the given hardware or what the later two cost. |
Does PETG fade in the sun? I'm looking at scanning in a statue on my pond and making a print of it. I'm wondering if PETG will fade and how fast. I'm thinking of using white or maybe a bone color if possible.
If PETG fades kinda fast, what material should I use? Keep in mind this will deal with all weather types, full sun, and it will have water coming out of it.
I've been 3D printing for a bit, but I never made anything to stay outside for looks. I know PETG is pretty good at water, and I think it's stronger than ABS when it comes to weather. But I'm in NC, and I even lived in FL at a point. Shockingly, I found the sound in NC can bleach wood in a matter of days to weeks in the mid of summer where it might take all summer in FL. So I'm worried what I might make will get that yellow fade look that plastic does in the sun. | tl dr: For the most part, yes it should be color fast in the sun. It should be good for outdoor use.
This website claims the following:
Filament materials ... for outdoor use include ASA and PETG that are perfect for use in extreme conditions without changing shape or appearance. Printed pieces do not change colour either with the sun's UV rays and do not take on a yellowish appearance as does ABS, for example.
Please realize, this is partially an advertisement (and no, I have no affiliation). What it boils down to is, PETG and ASA are going to be better for outdoor use, but every brand of each is going to be a little different in how well it reacts to the elements. Without advertising on the site, you'd need to do a little investigating on your own, with the possibility of testing different brands to come up with what you believe is the best. Beyond that, it's just an opinion.
I doubt any filament, no matter what it is made of, is going to be perfectly colorfast in the sun. The sun is a harsh beast. It will bleach a printed object over time. Some colors are going to be more susceptible than others, especially red. This is due to the color of the sun. Again, some filaments are going to be better than others, but I'd not expect any filament to be perfect. |
E3D V6 underextruding always? I have an E3D v6 1.75mm bowden.
When I print, there is a gap between infill lines, and also when printing rectilinear/hexagonal infill lines seem to be pretty slim.
My settings:
Slicer: Slic3r
Nozzle size: 0.4mm
Print speed: 30mm/s
First layer print speed: 15mm/s
Travel speed: 90mm/s
Retraction length: 0.8mm
Retraction speed: 40mm/s
Extrude ratio: 1 (tried also with 0.48mm extrusion width, I remember it's the default S3D setting, so I gave it a try)
Print temperature: 220 °C
Material: PLA
Firmware settings:
Firmware: Marlin 1.1.0-1
Motion system: CoreXY
Acceleration: 1000
VMax X: 300
VMax Y: 300
VMax Z: 5
VMax E: 80
Xsteps/mm: 80.05
Ysteps/mm: 80.05
Zsteps/mm: 400
Esteps/mm: 96.5
Disclaimer: I set Esteps/mm to 96.5 because I calibrated the printer as described here, so I'm 100% sure it's an accurate setting. Same for X,Y,Z steps. I printed a cube and calculated the real steps per millimeter, and it's accurate too. The extruder motor works, it's not the issue.
Here you can find some pictures that show what I'm trying to describe:
While printing I tried to release the extruder motor clamp and push the filament by hand: it extruded 1mm thick lines, so the extruder is not clogged and is perfectly capable of extruding the required amount of PLA.
Is it possible that the VMax E parameter is preventing the extruder motor to extrude properly? I mean, could it be that it's trying to extrude at a higher speed than the maximum allowed? Seems weird to me, because comments in Marlin's Configuration.h file say Default Max Feed Rate (mm/s) for that parameter, so if the limit is set to 80mm/s it should extrude just fine. If this is the issue, how should I solve it? | Major factors affecting extrusion:
Nozzle diameter
Extrusion ratio
Extrusion stepper calibration
Filament actual diameter
Extrusion width setting
Nozzle temperature
According to the photos, temperature is acceptable (may be a bit high, but it is not a problem in this case). Extrusion ratio is 1 and should not be changed in normal operation. Extrusion width is often set to auto but sometimes calibrating it gives better results in slic3r. If stepper is calibrated properly, then I would check for nozzle and filament diameters. For nozzle it should be enough to verify that 0.4 bit fits in and 0.5 doesn't. Filament can be measured by digital caliper. Difference between 1.75 and 1.73mm may have significant difference resulting in under-extrusion. |
Top surface scarring even with Z hop When the print is finished, it looks like the extruder is digging into the top layer as it returns to home?
I tried adding Z hop at 5 mm but it's not really helping.
Sorry for the picture, white on white is hard to show.
I tried a range of speeds from 40-90 mm/s and over extrusion of 100-105 %, but the scar remains.
Any suggestions?
Here is the end code:
;TIME_ELAPSED:333.340017
G1 F1500 E417.35346
M140 S0
M141 S0
M107
M104 S0
M140 S0
;Retract the filament
G92 E1
G1 E-1 F300
G28 X0 Y0
M84
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
M104 S0 | Z-Hops only occur when the slicer is retracting Filament automatically (i.e. when Cura detects a move between parts/around outer walls where stringing would be a problem).
In your end G-Code, you do retract your filament, but manually. This means that Cura does not add the Z-Hop code.
Solution:
Add this before your G28 X0 Y0 command:
G91 ;Change Positioning to relative
G1 Z5 ;Move head up by 5mm (or bed down, depending on your machine)
The G91 command is needed because otherwise you wold need to provide an absolute Z position which is guaranteed to be above your last layer (so you would either need to set the height to the top of your build volume (takes ages to move the head there) or to adjust the height for each printed part (annoying)).
Documentation for the G91 command: http://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/G091.html
Manual for Z-Hop and other travel moves in Cura: https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/52507-travel
Edit:
Note that this is only a good idea if MAX_SOFTWARE_ENDSTOPS are enabled in your Marlin configuration.h. Otherwise, the head could move ABOVE the maximum Z height (zMax) if the print height h >= zMax -5mm.
Thanks to @0scar for mentioning this! |
How to create attachable/detachable printed parts I am making a part that needs to come apart, so I don't want to use glue or similar adhesives. I saw an article about printing snap-fit pieces, but it seems like you would need a lot of expertise to make it work well. Does anybody know of an easy way to non-permanently attach PLA parts, while still maintaining a sturdy connection?
EDIT: (more detail about specific project)
I need to attach plastic to plastic, in a pretty small surface area. This is a prop knife/sword in which the "blade" retracts into the handle. For the prototype I printed the handle in two halves lengthwise, which I do not want to do for the final product. I want to print as much of the handle in one piece as possible. Because I need to get the blade into the handle (and remove it for working on parts, painting, etc) I need part of the handle to detach. I am thinking that the front bit (examined more closely below) would be the best place to detach. As the wall thickness is about 1/4 in, there is not a whole lot of room to work with. However, I remain hopeful that there is a way to attach it such that it will remain securely together and retain the "blade" properly.
Thanks for the help so far. | This question may yet fall into the too-broad category, but I'll give it a shot.
You don't want to use glue or adhesives, but does that exclude bolted or screwed fasteners? Threaded inserts are metal "nuts" with knurled grip extrusions that enable one to use a matching bolt. The insert is heated with a soldering iron or similar source and embedded into the part. It's especially useful when the part thickness provides sufficient strength and the threaded insert is on the surface of the part opposite the bolt head.
Another option you have is to design into the part a "conventional" joint such as a dovetail or slot with the matching dovetail or T shape on the adjoining part. This requires access to the end of the part to enable the sliding action of joining them together, of course. Some testing of prints should be performed to ensure proper mating.
Directly related to that method is pins and holes. With suitable testing, one would create a hole on both parts and print a pin to match. If one is well versed in the software of choice, one hole with a built-in pin on the adjoining part would work too.
Yet another extension is provided free from 3DKitbash:
http://www.3dkitbash.com/free3dmodels/
in the form of friction fit pins. I've constructed one of their models using this design and find the straight-line pins eventually work free. The pin model with "mouse ears" allows for a bit stronger gripping due to the compression of the shape on insertion.
The friction fit pins would be considered to be the snap-fit parts you want to avoid, but the level of expertise should not be beyond that of a model designer.
Trial and error works wonders when it comes to putting these things together. I printed an Overwatch logo for a fellow makerspace member. The part used a pin on the insert and a hole on the logo. I was astonished when the two different colored parts slid together quite snugly. I have not calibrated my printer and it was indeed a snap together build. On the flip side, when I pried the two pieces apart (low infill) the pin remained in the hole, snapping cleanly off the insert. Should I be asked to do this again, I would have much more infill on the pins.
For clarification, consider also to note what software you are using for your design. Some programs lend well to creating connections, others not so much. |
Are there practical reasons to NOT use a stepper motor with lead screw for the X and or Y axes? After a few months of printing with my Prusa Mk3 (with plans to get a second one soon), I have been wondering about making my third printer a home-built one was a larger print bed than the Mk3. One thing I wondered about is perfectly expressed in the title question.
Are there practical reasons to not use a stepper motor with lead screw for the X and or Y axes?
I am certainly happy with the GT2 belts used in my current printer, but I wonder if the design might be simpler with lead-screws on all three axes. | I am going to answer this as someone who actually did rework their Prusa i3 fleabay clone to use leadscrews for all axes. Before digging into the matter, the backlash issue can be solved easily with spring-loaded brass nuts, kinda like how ballscrews work. That's the simplest problem to solve though as there are a lot of other issues.
Short version / tl;dr
Hardware can't handle that many microsteps.
Crosstalk and motor inductance limit speeds and acceleration.
Print quality suffers in really weird ways because of (2).
Leadscrews are not made for quick movement over extended periods of time and will wear, even with grease.
You'll need additional bearing surfaces to prevent your motors from grinding themselves apart, and to eliminate backlash due to the flex couplings.
The system becomes a lot more prone to highly destructive failure modes.
Long explanations
First
You're going to notice is that you're constrained to horribly, horribly slow movement and acceleration rates. My screws are 8 mm screws, with 8mm pitch. That means it takes 200 steps to travel 8 mm. Multiply by 1/16th microstepping, and that's 3200 microsteps per 8 millimeter of travel. Multiply by whatever speed you're trying to print at, then the number of axes you're using, and you'll find that your RAMPS board starts to stutter on complex moves if you print fast enough.
Second
You'll quickly hit the inductance limits of your motors. At "standard" power levels (ones that don't fry my knockoff NEMA17 motors), even after switching to 24 V for the entire setup, the fastest I could spin my motors was about 5 revolutions per second, which translates to 16,000 microsteps per second with 8mm pitch screws. For reference that means that under ZERO load, the fastest my N17 w/ 8 mm pitch could travel, is about 40 mm/s.
You're basically running the motor coils at several kilohertz, which means you have to be really careful about keeping your wires separate and shielded to prevent crosstalk, in addition to the fact that as your step frequency goes up, your step torque goes down dramatically. Not only does this limit the weight of the bed that the motor is capable of pushing at a given speed, but you even have to worry about the inertia of the motor and bed much more than with a belt-driven system. So instead of 30 mm/s jerk with 200 mm/s2 acceleration, suddenly you're limited to, say, 5 mm/s jerk and 40 mm/s2 acceleration.
As mentioned, for best results, the whole system needs to be converted to 24 V, and not all boards are configured for this to be easily done. My cheap RAMPS clone only needed a single diode removed and everything else was fine, but YMMV in this regard.
You could solve this particular problem by gearing the motors down, but at that point you've now introduced a new source of backlash either between the gear teeth or in the belt drive system, and kinda defeated the point.
Third
Due to this effect, is that you run into extrusion pressure artifacts. Basically, the plastic in the nozzle is a fluid, a very viscous one, being forced through a small hole. The fluid pressure will "lag" somewhat behind what the extruder motor thinks is happening.
The end result is that while you're accelerating, the lines you're laying are thinner than they should be, and will be thicker than they should be while decelerating, and you tend to get weird "globs" on each corner when you come to a stop. For me, with a 0.4 mm nozzle, 0.8 mm line width, and 0.2 mm layer height, these artifacts actually completely offset the additional accuracy I was getting with a tightly-coupled leadscrew with spring loaded dual nuts on it. The parts ended up being even less dimensionally accurate than before, with very strange deformities.
There ARE settings you can use in the firmware to try and combat this specific effect, but the process is tedious and takes a lot of trial-and-error, and recompiling the firmware every 30 seconds is annoying, not to mention the variables are dependent on line width, speed and acceleration settings, and layer height, so you have to recompile your firmware any time you want to change the print quality. Super, super annoying.
Fourth
Leadscrews aren't actually designed for this. The constant back-and-forth motion will wear the brass nuts and even the steel threads of the screws over time. You end up with a black powdery residue on everything underneath the screw, which, in the X axis, typically also means your print. Nobody wants steel powder messing up their layer adhesion.
In my case I used Superlube, which is a silicone/PTFE grease, to help prevent this problem, but that only works so well when you've got spring-loaded brass nuts. Eventually they push most of the lube out. Additionally, the lube tends to grab and hold any metal powder that does form, accelerating wear in areas that are still lubricated.
Fifth
Bearings. Turns out motors have internal bearings, that generally suck and aren't made for heavy loads in any direction. I found that out when my Y-axis N17 motor failed because the bearing did, and spread powder all over the coils, some of which got pushed through the enamel and shorted the wires out.
Additionally, because tiny amounts of misalignment turn motors into shrapnel in a hurry, you're almost certainly going to be using flex couplings. Flex couplings have a certain amount of yield to them axially, and are primarily designed to be under compression loads, and tend to fail when stretched repeatedly.
For the Z axis this is normally not an issue because the whole system is held down by gravity, but in the X and Y axes, you'll get some weird offsets of even a millimeter or two each time the carriage or bed switches directions. So you'll want to make sure that the motors aren't load bearing themselves, and the screw remains locked relative to the frame while still being able to rotate.
You can accomplish this by having a ring fastened to each end of the leadscrew that either pushes on a thrust bearing or rides in a regular ball bearing. Ideally, you can do both, but this turns into an expensive venture with a whole lot of brackets in odd places that you may not have space for. I ended up losing about 20 mm of bed travel solving this problem.
Sixth
You need to think about what happens when a component fails. For me, it was my endstops. The first failure was from the crosstalk issue I mentioned above. Y-stops triggered, bed started shifting towards the front of the printer over time, and eventually the printer started trying to move the bed through the front of the printer frame.
It was successful.
The second time was simply the endstop switch failing mechanically. Belt travel stops at the pulley. Leadscrews go all the way to the end of the screw, and because they're geared so much lower than belts are, there's a lot more torque involved. I destroyed my printer frame three separate times because of this problem, and once more when the Y-axis flex coupling snapped. This allowed the motor to spin the screw easily in one direction but not in another - which this time forced the print bed backwards instead of forwards, yanking the Y motor through its bracket and the frame again.
Conclusion
X/Y screws are not necessarily a bad idea, simply an expensive and tedious one in 3D printing. They're much better suited to low-feedrate applications like CNC mills, mechanical engravers, and the like. You may notice that even high-accuracy applications like laser printers tend to have belt-fed carriages rather than screw-driven ones. Screws are much better suited to high load, low-speed applications, and printers tend to be the opposite of that.
If you're trying to eliminate backlash due to the belts not being tight enough, as I was, the answer is to make a better printer. I couldn't tighten the belts enough to get my prints accurate before the motors started failing, because I didn't have the motor-end pulley supported by a bearing. Start there, literally just support on either side of the pulley on the motor shaft with a small bearing braced against the frame to take the radial load off the motor. If your belts are stretching too much, use steel-core GT2 belt. If your system is overall just sloppy, build a more robust system. My current project is a Hypercube Evo, and I found a supplier that makes steel-core GT2 belt. I'm going to use that to maximize rigidity in the CoreXY belt system. The frame is made from 30x30 mm T-slot extrusions, with 12 mm Z-axis rods and 10 mm X/Y axis rods. Bigger, more expensive components that are way more robust and will flex much less than the 400 mm long 8 mm rods on my cheapo printer.
Hope this helps.
(edited to get my math right on the microsteps) |
Printing a part from two materials I am trying to print a large part from PolyPro but can't get it to stop warping when I remove it. It also doesn't stick well. I have tried playing with printing speeds, temps, extrusion % etc. Even tried putting packing tape on the bed (which helped it stick but didn't prevent the warping).
I thought I might try printing a base layer (2 mm) of PLA, the print the rest of the the part in PP right on top of it. The PLA hopefully will stick and keep the walls of the part straight. My question is how to do this. Is it as easy as cutting off the bottom 2 mm of the part and telling the design software that the part rests 2 mm above the bed, then tell Cura not to print a support? | You could just let it print the 2mm you want for the base, then pause the print and change the filament to PP and then resuming the print after you change the filament. |
What is wrong with my "disable sensor" gcode? I have a spool of translucent PLA filament that doesn't work well with the filament sensor on my Prusa i3 MK3. The translucency trips up the sensor, making it think the filament ran out. I thought I'd create a filament profile in Slic3r and disable the sensor in the "Start G-code" block that gets inserted at the beginning of the exported gcode file.
I've got the following code:
M900 K{if printer_notes=~/.*PRINTER_HAS_BOWDEN.*/}200{else}30{endif}; Filament gcode
M406 ; Disable filament sensor
M117 Filament sensor OFF
The first line is provided by Prusa's default PLA profile. The second line should disable the sensor, and the third line should print the "Filament sensor OFF" message. If I look in the gcode, it's there:
G92 E0.0
M221 S95
M900 K30; Filament gcode
M406 ; Disable filament sensor
M117 Filament sensor OFF
G21 ; set units to millimeters
G90 ; use absolute coordinates
M83 ; use relative distances for extrusion
;BEFORE_LAYER_CHANGE
But if I print this gcode file, I see no message, and when checking the sensor in the "Tune" menu while printing, the sensor is still on.
I thought I might have a problem with line endings, but looking at the file in a hex editor, all the lines seem to end with a 0A line feed character, including mine.
Why isn't my printer doing anything with the M406 and M117 messages? Full gcode file here. | As per github PR this is not implemented - see this PR for details
Please check if your printer is processing M406 by issuing it manually.
In meantime, a sticker on the sensor will help you to print :) |
What is the MakerBot Grip Surface lifespan? I've done a few prints on my MakerBot Replicator+ now and I'm curious if anyone else knows what the typical lifespan is signs of degradation are for the grip surface tape?
I'm used to using Kapton tape in the past. Which will bubble, scratch, and even tear at times, indicating that the tape should be replaced. However, this new MakerBot "Grip Tape" is a very stiff, precut material, with extruded plastic anchors to help evenly spread the tape and keep it secure on the build platform. The tape also has texturing on the top face that helps with adhesion.
So, this new tape seems somewhat impervious to bubbling, scratches, and tears. I'm curious what signs I can look out for that indicate that this new grip tape needs to be replaced.
Obviously the tape isn't a permanent solution, so what are some signs that the tape should be replaced? | There's no quantitative formula for the lifespan of any grip material, be it tape, glue, or PEI sheet. If you find a lack of stiction and it's not due to small changes in the Z-origin (50 microns can make a big difference in the way the first layer grabs the bed!), then replace the tape. It's cheap.
Just to be pedantic, torn and scarred tape should be replaced :-) |
Do I need to recalibrate z-probe offset every time I switch to a different layer height? It occurs to me that I'm never really thinking about layer height when I calibrate my z-probe offset. This is obviously an oversight, because I'll want my nozzle to start higher for 0.3mm layers than for 0.1mm layers.
After this realization comes the question: Do I need to recalibrate every time I switch to a different layer height? Or can slicers store a reference layer height + probe offset and just deduce the proper starting height for every print? Or is it smartest to keep the 1st layer height constant throughout my prints to spare myself this frustration?
If it matters, my printer is the Printrbot Simple Metal, and my goto slicer is Cura. | All modern slicers adjust the nozzle position for the first layer in accordance with your chosen layer height. You can see this in your gcode if you slice files with different layer heights. Before you add special slicer settings and offsets, if you print 0.1mm layers, the nozzle will start at Z=0.1mm, and if you print 0.3mm layers, the nozzle will start at Z=0.3mm.
There are two reasons this is more complex and less reliable than it seems:
Different slicers assume different initial tramming gaps. And your actual tramming gap may not match that assumption. If the slicer thinks your nozzle is leveled at Z=0 with a real physical gap of 0.1mm to start with, that means gcode Z=0.1mm is actually a 0.2mm gap that must be filled with plastic. So the slicer must compensate by starting lower than the nominal layer height.
So what works perfectly for one slicer won't necessarily work correctly for another slicer. And if you tram with a thinner object than the slicer expects (say a post-it note instead of business card) then your first layer will be off. This is why I personally prefer physical build plate leveling mid-print using screws while watching the strands go down. It bypasses all the assumptions about tramming gaps and just gives you the correct result. (Or you can do the same thing with babystepping in firmware that supports that.)
The other issue is that people use lots of weird, ad hoc slicer tricks to get their first layer to stick. Things like printing the first layer much hotter, or at half speed, or squashed way down and over-extruded, or at 60% layer height, or at 200% extrusion width, will all affect the extrusion volume calibration and the space-filling behavior of the molten plastic flowing onto the bed. The slicer doesn't really have the ability to understand "your" first-layer adhesion recipe.
The combination of incorrect/unknown tramming gap and person-specific first-layer settings is why the slicer can't always get the first layer height and extrusion volume correct across all layer heights. Within some fairly reasonable assumptions, the slicer is smart enough to always correctly relate extruder flow and nozzle position so it fills the space between the nozzle and whatever surface you're printing onto. But if you break those assumptions, it may perform differently for different settings. |
Hotend on a Neutron printer: E3D vs MK8 I own a Creality Ender 3 printer, and have been printing on it for about a year.
I thought it might be fun and instructive to build a Neutron printer (https://cobyhuang.com/ATOM-Neutron) using my Ender 3 to print the parts.
The Neutron printer can use either an E3D hotend, or an ATOM 2.5 MK3 hotend.
I think that the E3D hotend is more common, so I think that is the one I'll go with.
It occurs to me that the heater block for an E3D hotend uses an M6 thread for the heat break and the nozzle. Likewise, my Ender 3's heater block also uses M6 threads.
Here is my question, it is possible to replace the heater block and nozzle on an E3D hotend with a heater block and nozzle from an Ender 3? Not that I'd disassemble my Ender 3 mind you, but it would be nice to have one set of interchangeable parts. | Yes, but...
Technically, you can reuse your old heater block and nozzles and just buy a new heartbreak and cooling body or the other way around. However, you might run into problems under working conditions, especially if you install the heater block together with its native heating cartridge and thermosensor. Installing a thermosensor to which the printer is not adjusted to can lead to all kinds of problems - Firmware update is a must!
Another source of trouble could stem from not taking care in the change itself. The Makerbot MK8 seals the hotend by pressing the liner against the nozzle, which itself is seated against the heartbreak, just like the e3D lite6 seals itself. On the other hand an all-metal e3D v6 seals itself by seating the heartbreak against the nozzle on a larger area. If the seal is imperfect, the Makerbot Mk8 style tends to leak out through the top. Such a leak can leave plastic in the threading which has to be removed carefully before reusing. |
Which resolution is needed for bricks compatible with Lego? I found a story about someone 3D-printing equipment for their Lego minifig, using an Ultimaker. (Article is in Dutch, but accompanied by photographs).
I noticed that what they made weren't the actual connecting bricks, but the tools used by the minifig. And that even so, some filing and a dremel were needed afterwards to make them fit properly.
I'm told that to make something connect properly with real Lego, the machine needs to be tuned very precisely.
So, what resolution is needed to print bricks that will connect with normal Lego bricks? | It's really more about calibration than resolution -- a poorly calibrated printer will have dimension errors that prevent mating with true LEGO bricks or other printed bricks.
Also, "resolution" is an incredibly loaded term for 3d printers, because it can mean a lot of different things. But we don't need to get into that right now. There are really two big things to worry about: layer height and extrusion width.
Layer heights of 0.1mm or 0.2mm should be fine. Coarser layers may run into surface finish issues that make the bricks difficult to put together or take apart. There probably isn't much reason to go finer than 0.1mm for this application. Almost all FFF printers can do 0.1mm layer heights as long as it is reasonably well-tuned.
Any typical household FFF printer with a "normal" nozzle size can print fine enough for the bricks to work. It just needs to be tuned well. The smallest "must have" feature in a standard lego brick is the 1.6mm thick wall around the sides. The typical minimum printable feature size for an FFF printer is 2x the extrusion width, because the slicer will place a path on the inside edge of the shape and the outside edge of the shape. (Some slicers will allow single-extrusion features, but this is not generally recommended because it makes weak parts.)
So, how wide is the extrusion width? It's adjustable, and different slicers auto-recommend different values, but as a safe rule of thumb it needs to be between 1x and 2x your nozzle size. There are some volume calculation quirks in different slicers that may encourage larger or smaller sizes, so sometimes people recommend [extrusion width = nozzle size + layer height] particularly with Slic3r. This is very system-specific.
Assuming you have the most common stock nozzle with a 0.4mm orifice, and also set the extrusion width to 0.4mm, the slicer should put four strands in the walls of the LEGO brick. That's good.
Where it gets tricky is if you have an extrusion width that does not evenly divide into 1.6mm. Say you are printing with an extrusion width of 0.6mm. There is enough room in the wall of the part to place two full 0.6mm perimeter strands... but then a gap 0.4mm wide will be left in the center. You can't put another 0.6mm strand into that 0.4mm gap. Different slicers handle this different ways. Some will leave an empty space between the walls, and you get a very weak print. Some will mash an excessive amount of plastic into the gap, causing poor print quality as excess material builds up more and more on each layer. Some will push a smaller-than-commanded strand to try to properly fill the volume.
So, the general advice with small features is to make sure your extrusion width goes into the part's minimum thickness a reasonable number of times.
[Feature size / extrusion width < 2] is BAD
[Feature size / extrusion width = 2] is GOOD
[2 < Feature size / extrusion width < 3] is BAD
[Feature size / extrusion width > 3] is GOOD
Although these will vary somewhat by slicer -- older slicers like Skeinforge tend to have more issues with this than newer slicers. What you should do in practice is check your slicer's print previewer to see whether it is leaving a gap between the strands. Then adjust extrusion width and perimeter/shell count to try to get an intelligent output. There's some trial and error involved. |
Infill pattern comparison I'm relatively new to 3d printing, and wanted to get a few things understood.
Firstly, I am unclear on how Hexagonal infill is stronger than, say, diamond pattern.
Can anyone explain how the different shape causes the structure to be stronger? I saw a few places that hex is stronger; usually, more vertices means 'weaker' shape (i.e. a triangle is stronger than a square), so how does that work with hex vs diamond?
Also, in small objects, where the printer makes only a single dot as the infill (a dot instead of a line in larger objects), does the infill strengthen the object at all?
EDIT: I am trying to understand the effect of the infill pattern on the strength of the print, regardless of print time. | Hex grids are used for different reasons than triangular grids (such as you often see on bridges and roof systems). Triangles are especially good at being rigid, while hex grids are very material-efficient for a given strength. The second reason ($) is typically more important for 3D printing.
Triangles do have fewer vertices than squares, but it's not always true that "fewer vertices" means stronger. Vertices are one kind of weak point. But in a triangle, vertex "angle-holding" failures simply don't matter. You can fasten 3 bars together with hinges or other joints that have little resistance to changing angle, and the triangle is still rigid.
In contrast, rectangular grids can (and do -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t9MpNTSbYg) completely collapse if their vertices aren't rigid enough. That combines badly with the fact that vertices concentrate forces, so have to be much stronger than sides in comparable settings.
A triangle cannot change without changing multiple things -- at least 2 angles and a side, or all three sides. Intuitively, the sides and vertices of a triangle work together for strength. This advantage of triangles doesn't transfer to hexagons, but hexagons have two other advantages: First, if you want to fill a space with a repeating shape, hexagons use less material than other shapes. And second, hexagons keep all the individual "walls" shorter compared to others shapes, which makes them less prone to bend.
The material efficiency was proven by Thomas Hales in 1998, according to http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/hexagons_are_the_most_scientifically_efficient_packing_shape_as_bee_honeycomb.html. His paper "The Honeycomb Structure" is available at https://www.communitycommons.org/wp-content/uploads/bp-attachments/14268/honey.pdf |
Probe instead of nozzle centres on the bed Problem is that the probe is in the center of bed instead of the nozzle. How fix it on my Tronxy X5SA?
Those are my current settings and the nozzle is shifted from the centre (X: 35 mm, Y: 3 mm):
#define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { -37, 3, 0 }
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING
(Marlin 2.0 configuration) | TL;DR You don't need to fix it, it is by design.
When using a probe, defined the correct probe X (xxx) and Y (yyy) offsets (#define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { xxx, yyy, 0 }) and having enabled #define Z_SAFE_HOMING will cause the probe to home in the middle. That is how it is supposed to work!
If the nozzle would be in the center, then you wouldn't probe the middle of the bed, but the offset from the nozzle. |
Acceleration with Marlin I expected that the movement of an axis would start slowly, become faster and then run at a constant speed when reaching the maximum speed, then slow down slowly and arrive at the target point at the lowest speed.
At my DIY machine, however, I achieve a constant, very low speed at the beginning, then jumpy change to the maximum speed, finally a also jumpy change to the low speed, which also happens at the beginning.
I've been working on the Marlin settings for days, but I haven't had the slightest success.
Why don't I get any rising and falling ramps, why the sudden change?
These are my current Marlin settings:
G21 ; Units in mm
M149 C ; Units in Celsius
Filament settings: Disabled
M200 D1.75
M200 T1 D1.75
M200 D0
Steps per unit:
M92 X800.00 Y640.00 Z800.00 E500.00
Maximum feedrates (units/s):
M203 X200.00 Y200.00 Z12.00 E25.00
Maximum Acceleration (units/s2):
M201 X5000 Y5000 Z1000 E10000
Acceleration (units/s2):
P<print_accel> R<retract_accel> T<travel_accel>
M204 P3000.00 R3000.00 T3000.00
Advanced: S<min_feedrate> T<min_travel_feedrate> B<min_segment_time_ms> X<max_xy_jerk> Z<max_z_jerk> E<max_e_jerk>
M205 S0.00 T1000.00 B20000 X10.00 Y10.00 Z1.00 E5.00
What's the secret of a beautiful ramp? | Your steps/mm settings are very high. Assuming you are running an ATMEGA based controller, like RAMPS, you will only be able to move at very slow feed rates (<20mm/s). There are also many hardware factors that influence your maximum speed at a given steps/mm (which is typically referred to a your maximum step rate):
Supplied voltage. Using too high/low voltage can cause poor stepper performance or create unexpected faults at high/low step rates.
Motor specifications. Stepper motors come in a dizzying number of models with varying specifications. This is because each one is tailored to a specific use case.
Stepper Driver. There are a bunch of driver designs and manufacturers out there and none of them should be considered equal. It also matters how you setup the driver in terms of current/voltage limits, microstepping, decay modes, heat syncing, etc.
Wiring. At high step rates the inductance of the wires between your controller and motors start to matter more, as does interference to/from other electrical devices.
If you aren't sure how to set/select/tune the things above it's best to just mimic what is done on common printers like the Prusa i3, which have robust designs.
In more direct regard to your Marlin settings, your acceleration and feedrate values are very high for an untested printer. It's best to start with conservative values (Accel ~500mm/s^2, Feedrate <10mm/s) and work your way up 10% at a time until you start having issues, then back off ~20% from there. |
Printer extrudes too little filament at beginning and end of extrusion I've bought a new type of filament (GreenTEC Pro Natural) for my Anycubic Mega i3 to print some food-safe cookie cutters. Now I have changed the print settings to an extruder temperature of 210 °C and a heated bed temperture of 60 °C and everything works well.
But when I look at the print, I see that too little filament is extruded at the beginning of an extrusion and at the end. So every time the nozzle is lifted to move without extruding, it takes too long for the filament to correctly start extruding again (see picture).
What can I do? Is there a setting to print slower at these points (I'm currently using Cura)? Maybe change retraction distance? Different extrusion temp? Before I used PLA from Anycubic and everything worked fine... | I think there's a retraction issue(had the same issue). You need to change retraction and check whether there are any improvements. Some times different filament types need slight filament setting calibration. |
How to decide print orientation? Please Note: This question is not about the design. It's about deciding print orientation after the design.
I have a small, but complex piece which I need to print. Here are two images of different orientation for you:
No matter how I orient it, it will require a support structure. Any which way I print it, I believe there will be pros/cons to doing so. My question is, Is there a thought process for how to orient the part for printing? What are some of the things to consider when deciding print orientation?
Note-1: For a size reference of the part, looking at the second image, it is approximately 60 mm from the top of the long bottom part with the two "claws" point down, to the top of the vertical piece which has the two larger chamfered holes in it. In the same image, the left part will be at the bottom when put into use, though will be suspended (the chamfered holes will have wood screws in them, with a block of wood on the other side from the chamfers.
Note-2: For this example, I will be using Priline PLA filament on an Anet-A8 printer. | To answer the generic question "Is there a thought process for how to orient the part for printing?", I would say "Yes there absolutely is such a process!".
Part of this though process can be aesthetics, structural strength, limiting filament waste, print duration, etc.
For the given example I would try to think of the load case (if it has to bear a load) that subjects the part and prevent a perpendicular load to the deposition plane. If the load is low or non existent, you could orientate the print such that you minimize wasting material, or get the best aesthetics (removing supports can leave its scars). |
Best way to fix ABS corner curling on enclosed Prusa style printer with PEI heatbed? I'm trying to set up an enclosed (custom enclosure) Prusa i3 style printer for ABS, but having a fair amount of difficulty preventing the part corners from curling.
Detailed specs:
Geetech A10 (generic Prusa clone) w/ PEI heatbed
Custom enclosure
Slic3r software
ABS filament (obviously!)
247 °C hotend temp
115 °C heated bed first layer, 110 °C for others
Fan on for layer 3 and above
Verified heatbed temperature with calibrated IR imager.
Thus far I have been unable to prevent parts from separating from the heatbed during print, primarily at the corners where stress is concentrated. I've tried various heatbed temperatures from 90 °C to 115 °C, lower hotend temperatures (which just made the problem worse and caused complete print failure), cleaning the PEI surface with alcohol, etc. to no avail. I'm even seeing this to some extent with Benchy, it shows up as a lift to the stern and bow (slight bend parallel to the keel) -- the print is otherwise basically perfect.
I've attached an image of the more extreme curling -- yes, I should probably be using mouse ears on a part like this, but I see the same thing on parts that shouldn't require mouse ears.
What is the best way to fix this particular problem? Temperature adjustments, brims, rafts, something else? | Adding 20mm mouse ears was sufficient to resolve the problem using the original extrusion / heatbed settings. I did not expect mouse ears to be required on the Benchy model, but given the lack of better advice it seems this may be a poorly documented "feature" of ABS.
Results on the original worst-case test model:
Note that the brims will not help if the bed is insufficiently leveled -- the brim has to actually merge with / melt into the base part layer, so the extruder height has to be perfect at the brim to part interface.
Example of extruder too far away from bed: |
Will glue sticks form a barrier on a build surface to prevent PETG from damaging the surface? Will glue sticks, such as Elmer's All Purpose, Cra-Z-Art washable or Scotch Permanent, form a barrier on a build surface to prevent PETG from damaging the surface? While forming a barrier that holds the PETG print down, does it allow the PETG to separated after the print finishes, so that the build surface isn't damaged?
I found in the description of a glue stick designated for 3D-printers: "these 3D printer glue sticks can be applied to remove 3D models much easier .. made of quality PVP material ... have nice adhesion to hot plate or hot bed, easy to remove the printing models ..."
I'm now using an Elmer's washable school glue stick (PVP). It is working consistently at bed temperatures of 30°C and 80°C. It both holds the PETG print and releases the print without destroying the build surface. | I don't know about PVP but PVA sticks more at room temperature and gets weaker at higher temperatures, see "Influence of temperature on the strength of bonded joints"
I remember using hairspray with PVA for PETG and it was really difficult to detach large parts. |
Shell doesn't cover the entire inner wall at some areas How do I improve/increase shell coverage so that it covers the entire inner wall?
I've experimented with shell settings, but I can't seem to get it right.
I'm using Creality Slicer 4.2.1 (Cura)
Picture showing the areas in question below: | You should increase the top layer thickness according to Ultimaker Cura support:
Top/bottom thickness
With the top/bottom thickness you can set the thickness of the solidly printed top and bottom layers of the print. A higher value ensures all gaps on the top and bottom layers are closed completely. However, this can also increase the print time and amount of filament used.
It is advised to always use a multiple of the layer height for the thickness of the top and bottom. This means, for example, that with a layer height of 0.15 mm, it’s better to set the top/bottom thickness to 0.6 mm rather than 0.7 mm. |
Can you print at low speeds with e3D Volcano hot end? The e3D volcano features an extended heater block of length 20 mm with the cartridge heater running parallel to the filament.
The purpose of this is to increase the speeds at which filament can be printed (of course the extruder and other factors may still be limiting factors).
My question is how capable would this heat block be of printing at slow speeds with a 0.4 mm nozzle?
Is printing still possible at lower speeds or is the filament heated too much that jams occur? Is the retraction performance okay? | Speaking from first hand experience running a Volcano hotend, mostly using a 0.6 mm nozzle, but I have used 0.4 mm as well. I can't really complain about any lower printing speed limit (low speeds are usually a solution to high speeds problems for me).
Just for completeness: I am using a DaVinci 1.1 Plus with custom firmware (modified Marlin) and an E3D Volcano hotend. No problems with the nozzle, clean prints! Note: I am using the Titan Aero as extruder but not using the included pancake motor! Went with the original motor of the DaVinci.
And as always: the parameters are key! Given a bit of tuning you can get amazing results! For PLA and ABS I can work without stringing. Although ABS seems to be prone to pitting (slight underextrusion at start of path). TPU and other flex are sometimes a bit of a challenge, but that's mainly due to my own lack of experience there.
The one important caveat here would be to also reduce the nozzle temperature. A possible theory here might be that the filament has more time and surface to heat up.
(Sometimes I go as much as 15 °C lower as compared to normal/high speeds! Usually lower speeds means small pieces for me and in term means a limit to the layer cooling time.) |
Is 3D printing feasible for a coaxial rotational joint? In a design that I need to prototype, I have a coaxial, rotational joint between 2 cylinders connected to another coaxial rotational joint between 2 cylinders by a hinge. I have attached the individual part files as well as their assembly where you can use your mouse cursor to check how they move.
Click here for the SolidWorks parts and assembly files
Initially when I 3d printed them by splitting them in half, the outer tube did not close, even after filing the inner tube sufficiently.
Could you tell me an alternative method to get this complicated joint working? I need to 3D print them. I plan to use ABS for the 3D printing.
Thanks for your patience :)
EDIT:
Lubrication: I plan to use grease to lubricate the sliding surfaces.
Clearances:
I printed them without clearances initially (this is my first ever 3D print and I wanted to know how accurate it would be). I then used Dremel and filing tools to file away about 0.5 mm of both the surfaces. It should have been enough for mating the parts. The gap between the edges of the outer shell while trying to close it around is 3-4 mm which doesn't suggest 3D printing inaccuracy. I suspect that the outer tube isn't circular enough in cross section. It meets the inner tube at the the two ends of the semicircle and not inside its belly (you can see it in the picture). I have already tried the obvious, which is removing material from the surfaces wherever the parts touch. The model seems to be too warped for any success. The parts were printed upwards from the bottom, so it is not the warping due to gravity. | Have you considered to use a service to have the part printed? You can print almost anything in one "pass" using selective laser sintering, typically done in nylon. I am currently un-boxing an SLS printer, so I cannot currently offer to print it, but the capabilities of SLS are substantial for parts of this nature. I've read of entire planetary gearboxes being printed, fully assembled, with appropriate clearances for operation, once removed and "dusted," or cleaned of residual powder.
The printer I hope to be assembling soon has 80 micron powder, so the resolution is quite high, although I forget at the moment the x/y/z figures.
Do you think such a method would suit your purposes?
Edit (add):
because FDM printing by nature causes "oozing" especially in the x/y directions, I would not be surprised to learn that your outer piece has a smaller inside diameter than your design has specified. You may have to make adjustments to the design to compensate. Those adjustments would be specific to a particular printer/filament combination as well. Calibration prints would make the task slightly easier. |
BLTouch wiring and pin assignments I’m in the process of installing a BLTouch on a Velleman Vertex K8400. The board doesn’t have a dedicated servo pin, so I’ll assign one. No problem there.
The board only has a Z-min pin, so it’s my understanding that I’m supposed to unplug my Z-min cable and plug the BLTouch into the Z-min port.
My question is: "Can't I assign another unused pin as a Z-max, plug the BLTouch into that, adjust the firmware, and leave the existing Z-min sensor plugged in?"
Upon further review, I probably shouldn't have said Z-max, and will be more specific.
This is a Mega 2560 board with 2 available PWM pins. Anything wrong with this setup?
Pins.h:
#define SERVO_0_PIN 15 //PH3 (PWM)
#define Z_MIN_PROBE_PIN 16 //PH4 (PWM)
Configuration.h:
=======Z Probe Option=======
#define Z_MIN_PROBE_ENDSTOP
#define BLTOUCH
I want be able to keep my Z-min sensor plugged in as a backup to prevent a bed crash just in case the BL touch doesn't trigger. From what I see this should work as long as I make sure the BLTouch triggers before the Z-min. Any issues that anyone can see? | Note: The question has changed after posting this answer. This answer answered the previous question, but is now out-of-date with respect to how the question has changed; I'll update it later, as it is possible what is asked now.
You can change the Z-min and the Z-max pin assignment in Marlin Firmware in the pins_<boardname>.h file, you basically exchange the Z-min and the Z-max. Note that the switch connected to the old Z-min port now becomes a Z-max sensor if you enable that in the firmware; you should therefore remove it (the actual switch) from the minimum Z position.
To enable a BLTouch sensor you require 2 pins free on the microprocessor. One registers the signal of the trigger, the other triggers the servo to stow/deploy the sensor.
You can connect the white/black to the Z-min signal (Z-min pin) and ground of the Z-min connector (or if pins are swapped in the firmware to the Z-max). The other wires need to be connected to +5 V (red), ground (brown) and orange/yellow to a free analog pin (PWM pin):
BLTouch can be operated in the following condition.
- One I/O for control (PWM or Software PWM)
- One I/O for Zmin (Z Probe)
- GND and +5 V power
The PWM pin should be defined in your pins_<boardname>.h file, e.g.:
#define SERVO0_PIN 5 // RUMBA board
or
#define SERVO0_PIN 27 // ANET board
The Z-max signal pin is no PWM pin for the servo. |
Could nail polish damage pure PLA? I would like to use nail polish to paint and smooth a PLA model. Could nail polish damage a model made out of pure PLA? | This is an ugly question, and an ugly answer.
Nail polish doesn't come with an ingredient list. Nor are there MSDS's available to refer to what solvents are in it. So it's "unknown 1"
Most every filament company will not give you a list of compounds for colorants or plasticizers used. MSDS is off the table. So, even though we do know what PLA and ABS is inherently, we have no clue about the other ingredients used to make your particular filament. This is "unknown 2".
What both of these comes down to is a very nasty situation indeed. We know for a fact that ABS dissolves into acetone. PLA does not.... Except we have had reports of PLA that does. When we look further into those responses, and ask them to do a burn test, they smell popcorn and something acrid (ABS).
This guarantees unless we have virgin material and MSDS in hand, you only have a close guess at what material you have. And that's to say nothing about "nail polish", and its components.
There are also other solvents that will dissolve PLA. MakerBot back before they turned evil, noted a solution called Beta Solution (90% isopropyl alcohol, 9% KOH, 1% Al(OH)3 ). This stuff is noted for dissolving PLA and leaving ABS intact.
Long story short: "Could Nail Polish damage pure PLA?" We can't guarantee purity of PLA, we can't guarantee contents of nail polish's solvents. The only answer is to print a swatch and test yourself. Calibration cubes are quick and easy. |
How do I enable Expert mode in the Craftware slicer? I'm using craftware, and I'm trying to figure out how to enable expert mode so that I can adjust the extruder/bed temps. I looked all over the application, the user manual, and googled it, but I cannot find the setting to enable it. Any help is appreciated. | I figured it out, you must click the slice button, then among those options, there is s button to switch to Expert mode. Hope this helps someone in the future. |
How can I improve the overhang angles my printer can successfully print? Using an FDM printer and PLA or ABS, without adding support material. What modifications can I make to improve how steep an overhang my printer can print before it starts having problems?
The obvious first answer is to add a cooling fan, increasing the airflow over the freshly-extruded material ensuring it solidifies. What other things can improve it?
Does lowing the temperature help? Raising it?
Does speeding up or slowing down the print head help?
Does increasing/decreasing the extrusion diameter, or layer height help? | The two most important things you can do are:
Provide adequate cooling to solidify the plastic quickly
Minimize layer height
Cooling is really obvious. You need the plastic to solidify before it has a chance to sag. PLA in particular has to shed a lot of heat before it is fully solid. A fan and air guide setup using a "squirrel-cage" radial blower around the nozzle is optimal. A little 30mm or 40mm axial fan will not provide optimal performance.
Low layer height when slicing is less obvious, but is extremely effective. When you use thinner layers, two things happen:
There is less melted plastic per pass and a higher surface area to volume ratio, so the fresh material cools faster.
A larger percentage of each strand in the overhang is supported by the previous strand. If you do 0.2mm thick by 0.4mm wide, half of each strand is unsupported. But if you do 0.1mm thick by 0.4mm wide, only a quarter of each strand is unsupported.
When you combine these two effects, it is possible to exceed 70 degree overhangs with good surface quality.
Another lesser factor is printing shells/perimeters inside-out rather than outside-in. This helps anchor the outermost strand a little better as the overhang is built. This is pretty minor though. |
What are the advantages of gyroid infill? I've seen a few print time-lapse videos lately which use gyroid infill: wavy lines, which deform across layers so that the waves end up alternating between the two axes. Other than making the time-lapse videos look much cooler, what are the benefits of this infill style compared to the more common hatching or cross-hatching? | From this reference you can read that:
A gyroid is a naturally occurring structure which be found in
butterfly wings and even within membranes inside cells. In 2017, MIT
researchers discovered that when graphene was shaped into a gyroid
structure, it had exceptional strength properties at low densities.
They then discovered however, that the crucial aspect of this was
actually the gyroid structure itself, and that other materials such as
plastic could benefit from this.
It is assumed that this type of infill has better properties against failure than the normal types of infill we know.
A test conducted by an author named Martin is found here. He printed test specimen and subjected them to bending to test the resistance against shear stress.
From the figure can be concluded that the gyroid infill has a better resistance against bending for a lower weight.
The advantages of gyroid infill over the tested infill types are:
high shear strength, and
low weight (so less filament needed).
On top of these advantages Gyroid infill prints relatively fast with respect to some other infill types and is close to isotropic (i.e. uniform in all orientations), meaning that is very suitable for flexible prints. |
Pushing Text into surface - Google Sketchup In Google Sketchup, I have text on a surface that I'd like to push / pull so that the text is etched into, rather than placed upon the surface. I can't seem to figure this out, the text disappears when I try to push it into the surface and I'm not quite sure what else to try. Any advice? | Definitely you have to perform substract operation.
Take a look here
Extrude text and then substract it from the object to etch in. |
BOSL2 alignment precision problem in OpenScad Why my small cuboids are not perfectly aligned with the big one?
include <BOSL2/constants.scad>
include <BOSL2/std.scad>
use <BOSL2/shapes.scad>
diff("remove")
cuboid([1, 0.5, 0.2], anchor=BOTTOM){
attach(RIGHT) cuboid([0.2, 0.4, 0.1], anchor=TOP, $tags="remove");
attach(LEFT) cuboid([0.2, 0.4, 0.1], anchor=TOP, $tags="remove");
} | from Revar Desmera:
The attach() module by default overlaps the attached with the parent by a slight amount (0.01). You can do attach(RIGHT,overlap=0) for an exact alignment.
The overlap is so that CGAL correctly can union shapes.
and the attach() documentation :
Attached objects will be overlapped into the parent object by a little bit, as specified by the default $overlap value (0.01 by default), or by the overriding overlap= argument. This is to prevent OpenSCAD from making non-manifold objects. You can also define $overlap= as an argument in a parent module to set the default for all attachments to it. |
Ender 3 Y Layer Shifting My school started a robotics club this year and one of the teachers gave us an Ender 3 printer to use, they assembled it the year before but never actually used it so it was sitting in their garage, I attempted to print several different objects but all of the larger ones seem to suffer from layer shifting on what seems like the Y axis. I've looked at other threads and tried stuff such as changing the binder clips (add adding more), leveling the bed (again), tightening the belts, moving the print position to a corner, using a different slicer, and reslicing the models which all fail, when I print smaller objects, it prints fine. What could the problem be and what can I do to resolve this? I'm using Cura 4.4 currently.
Failed print:
What it should look like:
Successful print (smaller object):
Edit: I'm also using OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi for remote control but the issue still occurs when printing from an SD card. | Fixed it finally, seems that the X axis was not level. Thank you to everyone who commented. |
Music from the printer? Harking back to the days of "singing disk drives," I am wondering if anyone's written music to be performed on a 3D printer. Most of us have noticed in passing that the servo motors for X and Y drive generate a different pitch depending on motion speed. With some care and experimentation, one could write g-code to produce not only a tone but even a 2-tone chord. So -- has this been done? Does anyone want to do so? (Note that there's no need to simultaneously produce a print, but that would be even classier). | Yes, it has been done before, see here and here.
The README file of the first repository linked above contains a detailed explanation of the basic idea/calculations involved. A short excerpt:
As you can set the parameters of G1 in such a way as to precisely control the velocity and the distance of a movement along a certain axis, you can control the operation frequency of the stepper motors as well as the actual time to complete a movement.
On another note (pun intended), you can also play music by using the code M300. |
Extruder temperature failure I've never made solid prints since I purchased a TEVO Tarantula in December 2019, but since I'm totally new to this sport, I didn't realize I had an issue until after many failures. I kept upping extruder temperature and nothing seemed to change, parts printed but fell apart. Using a hand held temperature gauge to check bed and extruder (on the sensor screw), bed temperature was perfect, extruder only warm, stepping 10 degrees Celsius at a time (200, 210, 220, 230, 240, 250 °C) always resulted in 18.3 °C/65 °F
I looked for broken wires on extruder heat and sensor, but they were okay. TEVO support thinks it's a sensor problem, but it won't arrive for 1 month or more. I purchased a spare extruder from AliExpress when I bought the machine and replaced the complete unit but now I get an error E1 Heating Fail, Printer Halted. | The first extruder unit appears to have an error the firmware can't detect, which is why TEVO thinks the issue with that extruder is the heat sensor. If the sensor's reading hot relative to actual temp, the block will be too cool to reliably extrude, while the printer won't think anything's wrong and won't try to heat the block more.
However, I'm surprised the extruder can push any amount of any type of fil through the nozzle at room temp, which makes me think there's also some user error here. Non-contact temp gauges like IR guns can be bad at accurately checking very localized temperature; I'd recheck the extruder at what the printer thinks is working temp, but use a contact thermometer like a multimeter with a thermocouple (the Extech MN35 is inexpensive and works well for most hobbyist uses).
The second extruder has a detectable error. Either the sensor is again faulty, but this time reading 0 V (which usually equates to 0 °C), or the heating element is faulty and can't warm the block. Either way, the printer can command as much extruder heat as it wants, the sensor never gets above room temp much less to operating temp, so the printer eventually gives up and tells you there's an extruder heating problem.
This printer-detected heating error is a little easier to troubleshoot because the printer can help you. If the hotend gets to working temp as measured externally, but the sensor reads well below it, the sensor is the problem. If the hotend does not heat, or heats very poorly (like only getting into the 150-ish range when trying to heat to 200), it's the heating element. Both the heater and sensor could be faulty, but the combination of two failures is less likely by simple probability, and it's easier to diagnose the sensor issue with a working heater, so if the heater's not heating, fix that first.
It's possible, even probable, that a combination of parts from the two extruders will give you a working hotend, however you have to know which parts are working, and those parts have to be separable (as in you can remove the needed part from one assembly and put it in the other without destroying the part or either assembly), which at this pricepoint is honestly not a guarantee. The info provided in the question isn't quite enough to say which pieces of each assembly should be combined to give you a working extruder head, but the above tests will tell you. |
Printrbot going off axis when initializing I have a strange problem with my Printrbot Simple Metal.
When I start printing it's suddenly trying to go off axis before starting to print. All is fine once it actually starts to print, but it's very annoying to hear the sound on the start and end of each print.
That can't be good on the motors and chains either, something is going to give out at some point.
Here's what that sounds like: YouTube - IMG 5600.
My OctoPi settings are: | It is very common that FDM 3D printers "home" their position at the start of each print (as defined by the slicers preprint g-code). This is done by deliberately running the end effector towards its expected X=0, Y=0 position until it hits the endstop switches for each axis. Could it be this behaviour you are seeing? If so, I would suggest checking that your endstops are functioning correctly.
You can manually activate this homing action using the G-code G28 in (for instance) Pronterface. Alternatively, you can verify that your endstops are actually working using the M119-command while pressing each switch manually. |
single point z-correction after 3-point auto-leveling On my Monoprice Delta Mini, autoleveling is performed based on three push buttons, on which the printer platform rests: The nozzle moves downwards until one of the buttons detects being pushed down. Using the G29-gcode, this is performed automatically at three points close to the locations of these sensor buttons.
However, even after this calibration, the printer expects the platform at one of the test points to be lower than it actually is. Thus, when printing close to the front right sensor button, the printer "smears" the plastic onto the platform. At the other locations, the printing works fine. Therefore, I cannot simply adjust the overall z-distance. (Multi-point auto leveling gives even worse results since the platform tilts during the probing.)
Is there a gcode-based option to modify the z-height of just one of the calibration points of the autoleveling?
Edit: The bad leveling seems to be a common problem of this printer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/mpminidelta/comments/73xcxg/leveling_doesnt_seem_right/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mpminidelta/comments/6tqe7f/follow_up_on_bed_leveling_issue/
Till now, nobody seems to have a solution. | There is no "standard" g-code, especially for the auxiliary functions of calibration, and even more so for the calibration of delta-class printers. I find that the Reprap Wiki includes a fairly comprehensive list: http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap_Firmware_G-Codes and http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code. These lists address the RepRap firmware, although they include some g-code functions which are specific to other types of applications.
If the Monoprice Delta firmware is based on the RepRap firmware, the lists might be helpful, although detailed documention from Monoprice would be the best reference.
Assuming there is no available or known g-code to adjust this, you work from the hypothesis that your three switches are not responding identically. If possible, use a micrometer to measure the difference between the "idle" position of the bed and the point where the switch actuates. It could be that the front switch requires more travel before actuation, which would then cause the leveling calculation to have a lower point for the front switch. In the alternative to measuring, it may be possible to exchange the front switch with a rear/side switch and see if the problem moves.
Delta machines are more difficult to calibrate because everything interacts. The three actuator delta machine is a simplification of a more complex 6-axis Stewart platform. As I see it, a delta machine is a 6-actuator machine in which pairs of actuators operate "identically", except that minor variations cause unexpected positioning errors. Sometimes these are modeled as a bowl shape with positive or negative curvature, although measurements I've made on my home-brew delta show an error that looks more like a carpet in a high wind. Some factors improve the design, such as longer actuator arm pairs and smaller build diameter, which may help you with the Monoprice. |
How to turn off supports in Z-Suite (Zortrax slicing software) I would like to print a model without supports on the Zortrax M200. To do this it is mandatory to use the proprietory Z-Suite slicer. I am certain that at some point I found an option to turn off support struts (I specifically remember the text "(not recommended)" appearing in the UI somewhere), but it seems not to be there now. Is my memory playing tricks on me, or is there a way to enable a "no supports" option in Z-Suite? | I've found the answer for myself by playing around a bit more. It seems that in selecting the "support angle", a higher angle means more supports. This was confusing me, because I had assumed "support angle" meant the maximum angle of overhang before a support would be generated. I guess it does actually mean that, but it counts 90º rather than 0º as vertical. In any case, supports are turned off simply by changing it to 0, in which case the text "not recommended" does indeed appear. |
How to offset my probe so it's not hanging off the bed at 0, 0 position when printing I had my printer printing fine when using the stock trigger switch as I used it to print the green bracket you see in the picture.
My problem now is when I do a print with the sensor, it moves to 0,0 position. However in this position the sensor is hanging off the bed hence there is nothing for it detect so it crashes into the bed.
As far as I can tell the nozzle is homing in the right place.
How do I tell Marlin the new minimum position it needs to be in so it doesn't crash into the bed? | It is not a problem that the sensor is not above the build plate during printing as long as it is above the build plate during the auto bed levelling sequence.
Homing does not necessarily need to be the (0,0) coordinate. Usually, a printer homes on the endstop switches, from that coordinate an offset is defined in the firmware to move to the origin. This implies that (depending on the position of the sensor), the sensor may be outside the bed area when the nozzle is at the origin (0, 0)). Therefore, similarly, you need to tell the printer the location of the Z sensor with respect to the nozzle position in order for the printer to keep the sensor on the bed when levelling by setting boundaries for the sensor to reach.
E.g. for Marlin firmware the offset from homing to the bed origin is defined for an Anet A8 by:
#define X_MIN_POS -33
#define Y_MIN_POS -10
The values you should use need to correspond to the actual offset from the homing point to the origin of the bed (0,0).
When using an auto bed leveling sensor like you are using you should consider this remark:
If using a Probe for Z Homing, enable Z_SAFE_HOMING also!
Un-comment the proper line in the configuration file to read:
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING
This will make the printer aware of the sensor, and home Z in the middle of the bed (default behavior, but can be changed), so that your sensor is never off the bed when probing the bed for Z homing.
Furthermore, you need to set the offset values of the center of your sensor to the nozzle center:
* Z Probe to nozzle (X,Y) offset, relative to (0, 0).
* X and Y offsets must be integers.
*
* In the following example the X and Y offsets are both positive:
* #define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 10
* #define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 10
*
* +-- BACK ---+
* | |
* L | (+) P | R <-- probe (20,20)
* E | | I
* F | (-) N (+) | G <-- nozzle (10,10)
* T | | H
* | (-) | T
* | |
* O-- FRONT --+
* (0,0)
*/
#define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER XXX // X offset: -left +right [of the nozzle]
#define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER YYY // Y offset: -front +behind [the nozzle]
#define Z_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0 // Z offset: -below +above [the nozzle]
Where XXX and YYY are your actual values.
And set the boundary of the probing section:
// Set the boundaries for probing (where the probe can reach).
#define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 15
#define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 190
#define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 15
#define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION 170
Note that the values should match your bed size!
And:
// The Z probe minimum outer margin (to validate G29 parameters).
#define MIN_PROBE_EDGE 10
Details on setting the boundaries of the bed to keep the sensor on the bed is described in question "How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?". |
Is the 110 m length accurate for 3.0 mm 1 kg spool? I've been seeing the 330 m and 110 m length estimates for 1.75 and 3.0 mm spools (of PLA, presumably). But a moment's thought staring at that will raise an obvious question.
Using πr², we get the area of the filament in square millimeters (rounding to two decimal points)
For 1.75 it's 2.41 mm²
For 3.00 it's 7.07 mm²
Then taking the ratio and multiplying:
(2.41/7.07) * 330 m = 112 m which is close enough to 110 m.
BUT as all makers of filament and makers of extruders know, 3.00 mm is just a rounding off of the real dimension, which is 2.85 mm. Now do that:
For 2.85 it's 6.38 mm²
and:
(2.41/6.38) * 330 m = 125 m which is at least 120 m.
So, whoever calculated the approximation of 110 m did the calculation based on the rounded rather than actual dimension. What am I missing here?
My point is not that the 330 and 110 would be inaccurate given the dimensions of 1.75 and 3.00. Rather, my point is that the 3.00 mm diameter is not what is really so; it's actually 2.85 mm and therefore the answer is longer than 110 m. | Let's go about this scientific:
$A_r=\pi{r}^{2}=\pi{\frac{d}{2}}^{2}$
As a result the crossections are $A_{3}=7.06858\text{mm}^2=0.0707\text{cm}^2$, $A_{2.85}=6.3794\text{mm}^2=0.0638\text{cm}^2$ and $A_{1.75}=2.40528\text{mm}^2=0.024\text{cm}^2$.
Volume of a cylinder is $V_{A_d,l}=\times {A_d} {l}$. Turned around to get a length from Volume and Area we get $l=\frac {V_m}{A_d}$, but what is V?
We know the density of comercial PLA is about $\rho=1.25 \frac{\text g}{\text{cm}^3}$, and we know $m=\times V \rho$. So: $V_m=\frac{m}{\rho}=\frac{1000}{1.25}\text{cm}^3=800\text{cm}^3$.
Taking this Volume and using the $l=\frac {V_m}{A_d}$ we get:
$l_{d=1.75}=33333.33\frac{\text{cm}}{\text{kg}}=333.33\frac{\text{m}}{\text{kg}}$
$l_{d=2.85}=12539.18\frac{\text{cm}}{\text{kg}}=125.39\frac{\text{m}}{\text{kg}}$
$l_{d=3}=11315.41\frac{\text{cm}}{\text{kg}}=113.15\frac{\text{m}}{\text{kg}}$
If the filament is more on the dense side $(\rho>1.25\frac{\text g}{\text{cm}^3})$, then it will have a smaller volume and thus be shorter than this estimate.
To show this better, a graph: This is the length of a filament spool in dependancy of the density. The values were calculated for the usual diameters with their closest neighbors rounded to 0.1 as absolute diameters and run over a broad range of densities commonly used in plastics - 0.7 g/cm³ to 2 g/cm³. |
Ender 3 Extruder Speed / Upgrade I am attempting to make my Ender 3 Pro print significantly faster than it is intended it I fear.
I hear a clicking noise coming from the extruder above 130 mm/s in Cura when it is going in long straight lines (I think my acceleration settings prevent it on shorter lines). I have seen this before when the bed is too close to the nozzle but I have auto bed leveling now and it is happening on all layers.
I have a standard extruder + Bowden tube setup. What can I do to make things go faster? I am less concerned about the quality of the print and more concerned about the speed. | I am still somewhat of a noob, but I have heard that your problem may be because the extruder is not getting the filament out fast enough. You are trying to extrude filament before it is sufficiently fluid. Try increasing your hotend temperature by 5 degrees. |
What is causing 'droplets' on first layer? I recently changed filament and for starters it worked perfectly well, but quickly I got some problems with my first layer. It's like droplets are forming on the surface (finished item + 3 undersides):
The final part is (for me) okay but I'd like to get rid of those pesky 'drops'.
As the defect is quite stable and quite recognizable and it happens all the time, I bet somebody more experienced than me knows what's going on!
Info:
I'm using a 1 week old eSun filament, a E3D V6 Hotend 1.75mm on my scratch CoreXY printer, short Bowden direct drive, Repetier, Marlin, Linear advance (M900 K60 so quite low).
The print is done using a 0.4mm diameter nozzle at 0.2mm height at:
50°C(122°F) heat-bed and 214°C(417°C) hot-end for first layer, then lower a bit to
40°C(104°F) heat-bed and 211°C(412°F) hot-end.
I use Blue-painter tape.
Worked perfectly well with my black eSun and my white eSun.
What's my problem?
Thank you all!
[Edit]
Tried about everything (more temp, less temp, fan on item, more / less bed temp, underextrude, moving around z delta, removing linear advance, radically lowering speed) but the only thing that worked about okay (problem was quite reduced but didn't go away totally) was to bump up the layer thickness to 0.3mm
[Edit 2] Finally it seems it was, as it usually is, a conjuncture of several problems that I will list here:
The bed was not perfectly flat
The heatbed moved/bended when going from a hot first layer to a colder second (and on) layer
Maybe the speed was a bit high for the first layer (25mm/s)
I fixed this by installing a borosilicate glass bed on top of the heat bed which ensures a perfect flatness.
I had to change my inductive sensor to an 8mm one (insteéad of the 4mm I had previously added) to make this function. I think it is not as good as it can be as it detects the heatbed under the glass (which is not perfectly flat), but it's enough for now. I'm thinking about how to make the glass conductive, like aluminium or something, but that's for another day/post.
I also put blue tape on the glass because the first layer was tricky. This might be because the inductive sensor doesn't do its job that well (see above).
Heatbed temperature for first layer: 70°C
Extruder temperature anywhere from 190°C to 220°C works fine, that was not the problem, or it is no longer a problem.
I also lowered the first layer speed to 20mm/s because the first layer didn't stick easily directly onto the glass, with blue painters tape it sticks even too much so I'll try higher speeds. It did mitigate problems though so it might be a path to try if you run into similar problems.
And now it seems that it works even amazingly well, I just have to print something really big to see!
---------------Old:
Moving z up made spaghetti :-) and different temperatures made quite extreme warping: | Mine is more of an educated guess than a definitive diagnosis, but it looks to me like if your printer may be overextruding (it's difficult to say with certainty with this particular picture, but your top layers too do not look as good as they should).
I wonder if you have calibrated your extrusion for this particular spool of filament? This is something that you should do for each and every new spool of filament, regardless of whether you have already used the same brand and material, as different batches and colours may differ slightly in diameter or hardness, and both factors can lead to a different overall flow out of your nozzle (I just checked eSun website, and they state "Accuracy:1.7-1.8mm", and 6% variance is quite a lot).
Possibly unrelated, but 211+°C is also quite on the high end of the correct temperature for printing PLA (if that is what you are using). Still in the range recommended by the manufacturer - so it should be ok - but you may wish to try bringing it down a notch (205°C perhaps?). |
Define coordinates for Z homing I have a printer with the following dimensions: L300 x W300 x H400. After flashing Marlin software, the extruder keeps homing at X77 Y50 instead of X150 Y150 that is the center of the printing area for me. Where can I find the appropriate line in config file in order to edit it with preferred coordinates. Unfortunately I can only find info on how to change offset of origin point. In my case origin point is correcty set. | If you enabled Z_SAFE_HOMING, then automatically the printer homes Z at the middle of the build plate, if the bed size dimensions are correctly defined (in your case X_BED_SIZE and X_BED_SIZE should be defined as 300).
In Configuration.h you can find:
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING
#if ENABLED(Z_SAFE_HOMING)
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_X_POINT ((X_BED_SIZE) / 2) // X point for Z homing when homing all axes (G28).
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_Y_POINT ((Y_BED_SIZE) / 2) // Y point for Z homing when homing all axes (G28).
#endif
If Z_SAFE_HOMING was enabled, and the bed properly dimensioned, it could be that the steps/mm are incorrectly defined.
Note that if a probe is used, the offset of the probe to the nozzle center is taken into account, this implies that the probe is moved to the center, not the nozzle. The code responsible for this is found in G28.cpp:
/**
* Move the Z probe (or just the nozzle) to the safe homing point
* (Z is already at the right height)
*/
destination.set(safe_homing_xy, current_position.z);
TERN_(HOMING_Z_WITH_PROBE, destination -= probe.offset_xy);
I.e. the ternary operation (TERN_) determines the addition of the probe offset. |
Connecting my OctoPrint to a Google drive folder Is there a way where my upload folder on my OctoPrint server would be a folder on my Google drive so that I could save my G-code that was generated using Simplify3d to an existing folder on my desktop at which it would then automatically be uploaded into my RPi via the internet.
Or maybe a watched folder that can be accessed via internet? | You could mount your google drive using gdrivefs on your pi following this tutorial: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=109587
However, I have to ask: why send the file to the internet? Is your printer/pi on a separate network than your desktop where you are slicing?
If they're on the same network, you'd be better off setting up a samba share on your raspberry pi (https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/samba-file-server/) and then mounting that directory from your desktop (https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-connect-to-linux-samba-shares-from-windows-10/).
In either case, you could set the directory (the gdrive directory or the samba share) as the watched folder in octoprint's config.yaml (http://docs.octoprint.org/en/master/configuration/config_yaml.html#folder). |
What makes 3D printing noncompetitive for medium production runs? I've been 3D printing as a hobby for a couple of years now, and have always heard how 3D printing is great for prototyping, but once you get beyond 10 or 20 pieces it's just not cost competitive with other technologies. I just accepted this to be truth, and have even told some of the customers I've gotten through 3DHubs and other marketplaces the same thing.
Now I'm creating an item for resale and am 3D printing the case. As I'll need 40 - 50 cases at a time I thought I would shop around for other options. But I just received some quotes back on injection molding. The mold price (for half the case) was \$15k, plus \$10 per unit at a quantity of 50 and \$4 per unit at a quantity of 500. Even in the case of the latter, the cost of tooling plus production is \$34/piece. 3D printing the same part myself costs $7 in filament, and paying someone else to 3D print it cost \$28.
Keeping in mind that 3D printing allows me to make changes to the design on the fly and print the exact number I need without having to worry about volume discounts, I now wonder if I've just been repeating a common misconception. Is 3D printing really noncompetitive for medium (10-500 pieces) production runs? If so, what makes it noncompetitive, given the extremely high up-front cost of IM? | TL:DR
3D printing is great for low quantities of items, but terrible for large quantities of items. This is a continuous scale and as your quantity grows, the drawbacks of 3D printing become more pronounced. In your situation, you seem to be dancing in the nebulous zone where there isn't really a good answer as to which production method is better. It's more of a question of price vs speed.
There are several factors that limit additive manufacturing technologies (in this answer I'll just talk about FDM since you're asking about a plastic item) from being practical in large scale manufacturing.
Time
Compared to injection molding, 3D printing takes a very long time. An injection mold can make 72 plastic caps in 3 seconds. While I don't have a source, I would expect a similar item to take at least 5 minutes to be printed. In order to produce an average of 24 caps/second, you would need 7,200 3d printers working without down time. That doesn't take into consideration ...
Labor
Every 3d printed object needs to be removed from the print bed by hand. That requires a person to be there ready to remove the item. It's possible to have automated print removal, but for now I've yet to see it as a standard option on any machine. An injection model machine can just pop the parts out into a box. Even with the capability to remove the parts extra labor is still required for 3d printing because ...
Quality
Injection molded parts are as smooth as the mold they were made in. While failures still exist even for molded items, their relatively cheap production cost and very quick production time ensure that an occasional failure won't be problematic. 3D printing on the other hand is still prone to variations in the final product. For a few items, it's sensible to hand finish the parts with filing, sanding, or other reductive manufacturing techniques, but for many items this quickly become burdensome. Also, given the long production time compared to injection molding, even 1 discarded product will result in a long time required to produce a replacement. |
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