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How to remove exess filament from bed after removing model Recently got an Anycubic I3 Mega Printer and I've been playing with what it can do, but after a model is done it leaves residue on the build plate behind that is bugging me. Do I NEED to remove it? If so, how? Thanks! (I'm using PLA if that matters)
My Problem: | You should remove it because it can and will affect the quality of future prints. Residue can mix up with new filament and create a ugly of colors and also prevent adhesion in places, thus potentially ruining your next print.
You have several solutions to clean up the bed:
Scrape it off: usually works, but you risk chipping the surface if you're not careful or if you stumble upon a bit of residue that is stubborn and you need to apply strength to get rid of it. I think a scraper is included with the printer.
Sponge and soap: Since the bed cannot be removed, as far as I can tell, you'll need to make sure that the sponge isn't dripping or put towel paper around to avoid damaging the components below, including the heating unit. Rub it gently on the residue until it soften and detaches. It might take a bit to work.
Yellow glass cleaner from Karcher: my favourite, the one I use on my printer and it never failed me. Spray it on a cloth or something, and rub it on the bed until the residue softens and detaches. It might take a bit to work, but you don't run the risk of dripping liquid on any component, and it works way better than soap and without the risk of chipping the bed like when you use a scraper. |
Filament jam on the tube entrance I have a problem in regards to filament jam, however I don't think that my case is any related to the extruder nozzle.
After 30 to 40 minutes printing my filament bends and get stuck on the tube entrance.
To print a nut wheel which comes as a demo file, I had to repeat the operation 4 times, and I had to stop printing when it got stuck, and continue with the printing, which led to a small imperfection.
What's the problem? The filament? The printer? Myself?
I have a Voxelab Aquila (completely new) and the filament u just a generic PLA from Amazon. | Something is stopping the filament from going down the tube 30 to 40 min. after you start printing. You are correct that this doesn't sound like a clogged nozzle. It could be deformed filament, but the closeness of the timing after the start sounds like heat creep. Other possibilities are also listed at the linked stackexchange article.
Note: with heat creep the filament will not jam in the tube. It will jam just above the nozzle on a Bowden tube extruder; thus the filament stops going down the tube. The tube entrance is probably the largest location the tube can kink, although not very large.
What are ways to avoid heat creep? |
How to draw cube with cone (Dreidel like), using Onshape? I want to draw a cube with cone using Onshape.
I need the cone to "shave" the corners of the cube, till it gets to the middle point.
This is diagram I made:
What is the best way to do it? | After rejecting the intense interrogation process for signing up with Onshape, I've settled for a general description based on common practices in 3D modeling.
You would create the rectangular solid representing the cube, as well as another rectangular (or cylindrical) solid slightly larger than the first one.
Create also a cone shape with the dimensions appropriate to the segment you wish to have remaining on the first solid.
Using Boolean operator or the equivalent, subtract/difference the cone shape from the second solid, resulting in a "pencil point" shape of empty space in the second solid.
The skirt of the cone is barely visible in the image above and is transparent, the TinkerCAD™ version of subtraction.
Once grouped in TinkerCAD™, the entire cube becomes a subtractive body.
Place it in the appropriate position over the first solid and perform a second subtraction/difference or Boolean equivalent.
As one may note, the original cube was not tall enough and had to be stretched to provide the desired result. Not visible in this image is that the subtractive shape was not centered on the cube and resulted in an off-center final solid. Easily corrected with alignment tools, but an important aspect when performing Boolean operations. Control-Z is your friend.
The above steps work with OpenSCAD™ as well as Fusion360™ and even within TinkerCAD™ but the specific steps/sequence varies from one program to the other, of course. This example was performed in TinkerCAD™ because it was the fastest method. Fusion360™ would have stretched my abilities to accomplish the same result, due to my minimal experience with that platform.
I am not surprised to discover and easily locate an exact tutorial for OnShape™ that covers the boolean subtraction process. The images are complex within the tutorial, but the process and concepts are identical. The video accompanying the tutorial is also well done and explains clearly the steps involved. |
What does the trimpot on my Switching Power Supply do? On my Switching Power Supply there is a little orange trimpot that's marked VR1; what does that do, and does it work similar to the ones on the stepper drivers? | No doubt it's just a final tuning potentiometer. Even on the pictures you linked it's described as V adj which stands for voltage adjustment.
It's a way to tune your power supply's output as it can vary depending on temperature/humidity/wall-plug voltage/etc.
It's usually set properly and doesn't need to be touched. But you can connect a multimeter to check if your power supply gives the voltage you need.
If you are not familiar with the subject but still want to do it yourself, it's good to set your multimeter to the highest available range and make sure that AC/DC is properly chosen. Now you can measure voltage. You can set the range closer to the expected values then. Usually multimeters have a range around 20 or 30V DC which is propbably what you expect from your power supply. In such a range you should see something like 12.000. If it varies from 12.000 you can then precisely adjust it to get as close as possible to this value. But watch out... cheap power supplies can cheat you. When the are have a load on the output (your 3D printer for example) they can reduce voltage. |
Robotdigg linear guide not smooth motion I recently bought the MGN12H linear guide and rail from robotdigg, which is supposed to be the copy of the Hiwin.
I have noticed that the motion is very smooth when moving fast, but if I move it very slowly, it gets stuck and the motion is not smooth at all. I think this will cause problems on my prints once I assamble the printer.
Am I missing something? Should I put some king of oil on the balls? | Difficult to say with the given data, but here are a couple of ideas:
First theory:
The belt is too thin/flexible for the linear guide.
Linear guides remove the backslash by adding quite some pressure in the ball system: The block is slightly too small (compared to the rail) and thus it compress the balls and rail. The backslash is avoided until you reach this force.
This pressure require a little bit of force to move the block along the rail, so if your belt is too thin or flexible, the belt will start to move until the elasticity of the belt reach the force required to move the block, then the block move a little bit and stop again.
In a fast movement, your block never get to stop, while in a slow movement, it has time to start and stop. Maybe what you feel like "not a smooth movement"
If you identify this case, I suggest you the following solutions:
Lubricate correctly the guide, this could be enough to reduce the issue to an acceptable level.
Change the belt to a larger one, with fibre glass inside (not only rubber).
If I am correct, the "H" of your MGN12H stand for the pressure of the block. H is for high pressure, switching to a C is far enough for a 3D printer and will reduce the drag.
Second theory: (Thanks to FernandoBaltazar)
You got some dust, rust inside
Remove the belt and move the block with the hand, if you are able to feel the movement is not smooth, then it's probably this case.
Add some grease (Never in your life use cooking oil)
Clean the dust of the rail and exterior of the block
Move the block from one side to the other of the rail until the movement become smooth. |
Re-homing Z: trouble resuming a print, what if I can't re-home? Running Marlin 1.1.2, printing from Octoprint on Linux PC. So, the PC freezes up and I have to pause the print and reboot. It's a 36 hour print with 11 hours left to go and I'd rather not start over.
I have the X, Y, and Z coords of where I need to begin again, and I've deleted all the GCode to that point. In the several tutorials I read on how to resume a print, they all assume that the printer - which in my case had a restart of its own - knows where Z is. I can safely rehome X and Y, but when I try to rehome Z the print head moves to the center of the plate, which of course would cause a collision with the model.
On my printer the Z-axis switch is over to the side of the frame holding the print bed, so I can home Z with the print head anywhere. Is there a way I can home Z without the head moving to center? Or, barring that, some offset I can enter for Z so I can resume at the same height I started? I can't wrap my mind around what I need to do here. | Was able to make it happen, though I fear that I may have misjudged exactly where zero was, but we'll see in a few hours.
Anyway, for those who may come along later, here's what I figured out:
I already knew what my X, Y, and Z positions should be.
I kept the heat on for the bed so the print wouldn't shrink and break loose.
With the plate lowered and the print well out of harm's way, I homed X and Y. Then moved X10 Y0, a convenient place to work.
I set relative positioning on, G91, and moved Z up toward the print head until a business card was firmly clamped between the head and the plate.
I then set Z at zero, G92 Z0. Apparently Marlin (or Octoprint? idk) will let you print without homing Z as long as it knows where zero is.
I moved to print head to my desired X, Y, and Z positions and checked it against the model, which seemed to be right. I fear that I may have not zero'd down enough, so there will be a noticeable gap/weak spot, but I won't know that until I get more layers on than there are at this moment. I suppose if that's true, then I could just shave off the new layers and reset zero a couple of layers tighter.
The rest of the steps for resuming a print (editing the G-Code and what-not) are readily available in a dozen or more tutorials, so I won't cover that here.
Follow-up: yep, left too much room. I shaved off the new layers (having a kiridashi really helped there) and re-zero'd, but this time, after doing so I entered my initial Z value so that the nozzle touched the model and adjusted from there. Note that aesthetics aren't an issue: these are mechanical parts to all they need is to not snap in the middle. Having a seam there isn't a problem. |
How to calculate linear Y rod length for a larger replacement bed? I have an Anet A8 which I want to convert to an aluminium frame printer like the AM8 (rebuild of Anet A8 parts):
      
This should give a much more stiff frame with respect to the acrylic frame to aid in a better print quality.
Since the bed (220 x 220 mm) has a slight warp, I want to use a larger build platform (200 mm x 300 mm) I have laying around. My plan is to use the 300 mm in the Y direction.
Knowing the maximum outer distance of the current Y bearings to be 105 mm, is that too short for such a large bed?
How do I calculate the length of the Y axis rods? (especially if you take another distance than 105 mm) | Basically, your setup is the following:
The overhang of the bed, assuming the bearings are in the center, equals (300-105)/2 = 97.5 mm on each side. So the distance from the leftmost bearing face (when bed is at y = 0 mm) to the center of the Y rods assembly equals 300 - 97.5 = 202.5 mm. Knowing this distance for the other side of the center to the right when y = 300 mm is the same, the minimum length of the rod will therefore be 2 x 202.5 = 405 mm which equals the addition of the bed length and the outer bearing distance 300 + 105 = 405 mm.
Please note this excludes extra length for e.g. a limit switch, and some extra space around the bed. Basically the extra length of the bed 300 - 220 = 80 mm needs to attributed to each side of the bed, so 40 mm on each side extra.
For a 220 x 220 mm bed, the minimum length would be 2 x (220 - (220 - 105)/2) = 325 mm. When I measure the rods between the acrylic flanges it measures about 365 mm, about 40 mm extra for clearance around the bed (20 mm on each side).
The overhang for the 300 mm bed is not that much, and a construction under the heated plate will be used to fasten the bed at the corners, as long as that construction is not to flimsy, the current distance will be alright. For other distances you should change the value of 105 in the formulas above. E.g. for an outer flange distance for the bearings of 120 mm, you would require rods of at least 420 mm. |
Ender 3 v2 printing problem Last week, my printer worked really well, but after a print it started having some printing problems. The printer stops extruding mid-print or under extrudes.
After this happened, I
leveled the bed again
increased hotend temperature from 200 to 215 °C (PLA)
changed slicer (I was using Ultimaker Cura), now I'm using Creality slicer
changed the transmission ratio 93 to 106 according to this video
After making adjustments according to the video, the printer still stops extruding mid-print or under extrudes. What should I do to fix this? | One common reason for extrusion to stop in the middle of a print is heat creep. See What are ways to avoid heat creep? |
Stepper does not move smoothly I have a problem with the y movement of my machine.
When i select y+1 in repetier, it moves, but with a very strange noise.
I have a video to show the problem here
I have:
Set the voltage of the stepper drivers to 0.6V
Set the voltage of the power supply to 12V
Tightened the belts (but not too tight!)
Does anyone know what this is? Is it a problem with my belts or are my stepper motors too weak? | Fixed. One of the two was movign in the wrong direction. Problem solved! |
What are the advantages/disadvantages of using synchromesh cables instead of belts? Some 3d printers use synchromesh cables instead of belts. For example, the Deezmaker Bukito (http://bukito3d.com/) and a number of RepRap conversions.
Photo from http://christophergranz.com/?p=449
Are they significantly better than GT2 belts? What are the challenges? | Looking at the specs for both the GT2 belt and the Synchromesh I'm very hesitant to recommend a Synchromesh over a belt.
The first thing that sticks out is that there are both error and cumulative error specifications for the Synchromesh. For a device like a 3D printer, I don't like the idea that of my axes can accumulate up to ±0.16 in. of error over 100 pitches (the pitch is between 0.12 in. and 0.25 in. so that is 12 to 25 in.).
Contrast this to a belt where the only way you have a cumulative error is if you skip a tooth and I think the winner is the GT2.
Looking at the non-cumulative pitch error both products are comparable but again the belt wins. For the Synchromesh we have an accuracy of ±0.002 in. versus ±0.0003(1) in. for a 2 mm GT2 belt and ±0.0012(1) in. for a 3 mm GT2 belt.
Note: I can't be certain about exact values for error since there are no numbers for the GT2 - only a stupid chart. I also have a hard time believing that error is not a function of total length for both the Synchromesh and the GT2 belt but I'm not the manufacturer. However, since both products are made by the same company I wouldn't be as concerned about them trying to oversell one product over the other.
In conclusion, I don't see of any reason to choose a Synchromesh over a belt if your physical layout is compatible with both. As pointed out in the marketing material for the Synchromesh, it can be routed along 3 axes whereas a belt works best along a single axis. The Synchromesh seems to be a product designed for a very specific application...
Sources
http://www.sdp-si.com/PDFS/Technical-Section-Timing.pdf
http://www.sdp-si.com/PDFS/Synchromesh-Cable-and-Attachment-Inch.pdf |
How do the E commands in G-code work, exactly? I've tried looking online but haven't quite found the answer to what I'm confused about, exactly. Consider the following 3 lines of G-code:
G1 X129.000 Y126.322 E7.90758
G1 X128.349 Y125.707 F7800.000
G1 X128.476 Y125.548 E7.92045 F1800.000
Does the absence of an E command in the second line mean that no material is to be extruded from line 1 to line 2? As I understand it, the E parameter controls how much material has been extruded up to that line.
The reason why I am asking is because I'm trying to understand on the code level how to identify when a printer will travel without extruding any material, in the case of moving in the Z direction, or if you are printing multiple disconnected parts in one print. Since none of the Z lines seem to have any E commands, I'm inclined to believe that the absence of an E command means that when moving to the given position from the previous line, no material will be extruded. I've tried quite a few different queries online to try to discover if this is the case, but haven't found a simple answer, so I was hoping someone on this board could enlighten me. | Yes, the absense of an EX.XXX (or an EX.XXX with the same value as the previous one) means nothing will be extruded during the move. The extruder is treated as an imaginary fourth axis and works exactly the same as any other axis: if in a G1/G0 no new coordinate for it is specified, it retains its original position. |
Heat sensor problems with Makerbot Replicator 2X We have a Makerbot Replicator 2X at our school. I have a class in the computer lab and one of our focuses is using the printer. Currently, it is not printing properly. We are using PLA at 210 degrees Celcius. The built plate is not heated (using Build Tak). This has worked very well in the past. The problem is that when the extruder goes to lay down plastic, the filament is too hot and curls up in a clump around the extruder. This is characteristic of when we first tried PLA at a higher temperature. I think that our heat sensor is not working properly. Does anyone know how we can fix this problem? Is there a way to calibrate the sensor is should we install a new one? | Overall, it is unlikely that the problem is temp sensing accuracy. There are only a few things that will throw off the thermocouple's reading:
Poor thermal coupling between the tip and the hot block, such as if the tip has partially pulled free of the brass thermowell crimp (this will make the hot block hotter than the reported temp)
Loss of electrical insulation between the tip and the hot block, plus some ground loop noise or stray voltage on the hot block (this will typically add noise to the reported temp)
You should be able to visually check for the first, and test for the second with a multimeter. The resistance between the board end of the thermocouple leads and the brass thermowell at the tip should be infinite / out of range.
To actually check the thermocouple calibration, you have a few options:
Easy: Look at the behavior of the printed plastic. PLA that is too hot will smell of pancakes/waffles much stronger than normal, or even smell burnt. The printed material may be more shiny than usual. It will string and ooze more as you print.
Moderate: Secure another reference thermocouple (such as might come with a digital multimeter) tightly to the hot block with some Kapton tape, somewhere the aluminum block is exposed. The external TC should read within a few degrees of the printer's TC. (Assuming you get it attached well enough.)
Hard: Place the tip of the TC in boiling water to check if it reads 100C (or slightly lower if you live at a high altitude). Repeat with well-mixed ice water to check if it reads 0C. Both measurements should be within a couple degrees. You will probably need to dismantle much of the extruder to detach the thermocouple for this test.
But, again, the problem probably isn't the TC. It's more likely either a bed tramming issue (eg too much gap between nozzle and surface) or the BuildTak is degraded and not adhering. This can happen if you do a large number of prints in the exact same place, or get the surface oily, such as with fingerprints. Try a fresh sheet of buildtak or cleaning it with rubbing alcohol and moving the print to a different location.
In some rare cases, low-quality filament or filament stored in very high humidity may not stick well. This is pretty rare though. For the most part, if your nozzle gap is right, any extruded plastic will stick to Buildtak. |
How do you program a 3D printer? I'm thinking about building my own 3D printer/Laser Engraver/CNC. Since all use a standard Cartesian axis I wanted to be able to swap out tool heads depending on the purpose. I have everything thought out except the coding aspect of the project.
I currently own a 3D printer and am familiar with some of the coding aspects, gcode, stepper motor moment, axis zeroing, etc; but if I am to build a 3 axis system how do you go about coding it? Are there programs that automatically calibrate all the motors? Can I take existing 3D printer programs and adjust the stepper motor values and build plate area? or do I have to code a new printing program from scratch that can read gcode? For simplicity lets just talk about the printing aspect of the build as I realize that CNC's and laser engravers work on different vector systems. Thanks :) | The foundation of any 3D printer is the controller and the firmware. Many devices are based on Arduino type controllers, with stepper motor driver boards either integrated or added as a plug-in component.
Some manufacturers will use in-house or outside resources and develop their own boards and firmware.
You can search for 3D printer controllers and get a pretty comprehensive list of the various devices available for purchase. Smoothieboard is one device, Raspberry Pi and Arduino as noted above, and others.
There can be found varying "flavors" of firmware to load onto these controllers as well.
The field is exhaustive.
To address your focus regarding the printing aspect, that's one stepper motor per print head/nozzle (usually) and involves calibrating the amount of filament dispensed from the nozzle per unit steps, or more easily understood, amount of steps per unit of filament movement. My stepper motor for the extruder has a planetary gear and moves 100 mm of filament for about 5000 steps.
All of the parameters you've noted are integrated with the firmware. Motor calibration requires movement per step or steps per millimeter to be entered, unless you purchase a turnkey system with the values loaded.
You can adjust many of the parameters from the slicing software, but it's more practical to determine the calibration settings, enter that information into your slicer and proceed with model management.
Look into instructables for others' build projects to see what they've accomplished and the steps involved in such a build. This can give you a starting point for your efforts. |
What are the changes between BLtouch 3.0 and 3.1? I couldn't find a reliable source listing the improvements of BLtouch 3.1 vs 3.0.
I can see that BLtouch 3.0 is sold (original) for about 20 Euro, while 3.1 costs about 30 Euro. The difference is significant.
What are the improvements? | Best reference would be the original equipment manufacturer (Antclabs). It appears their sensor has had many versions:
So, from 3.0 to 3.1 is a software upgrade. Reported highlights are:
★ Smart V3.0 (Mar. 2019 ~ ) : S10, S60, S90, S120, S140, S150, S160,
PWM Wiring defect indication(Blue LED), QR, Molex 1.25, Plastic
Push-pin(PC), Power Wiring defect indication(Red LED)
★ Smart V3.1 (Mar. 2019 ~ ) : S10, S60, S90, S120, S130, S140, S150,
S160, PWM Wiring defect indication(Blue LED), QR, Molex 1.25, Plastic
Push-pin(PC), Power Wiring defect indication(Red LED)
If you look at the manuals you will see the differences:
V3.0
V3.1
As can be seen, timings are different and more PWM position G-code options are available in the V3.1. |
Micro 3D filament food safe Before you put duplicate from this Which are the food-safe materials and how do I recognize them? please read
I need to know if this 3D Ink™ (PLA Filament) is food safe | In general, PLA is known as a "food safe" filament, especially Natural PLA. However, filament suppliers have different processes that may detriment the food safe quality.
Doing a little digging, I found an article on the M3D site which mentions the following about their filament
All of our products, including our filaments are made from 100% non-toxic components and considered generally safe under normal use. They are not considered a chemical, or a hazardous material by OSHA standards. Therefore, OSHA defines it as an "article" and does not require MSDS sheets. You can see more information about that here: http://www.ilpi.com/msds/faq/partb.html#article
So, without contacting M3D directly to acquire an MSDS (or asking if its food safe), you will not find one online.
Here is an article on a few tips for printing food safe objects as well. In a nut shell, don't 3D print food handling objects with crevasses, using uranium, or intend to put in the oven (a.k.a common sense). |
Should I Opt For Linear Rails With Belts OR Linear Rails With Ball Screws For A Cartesian Style Printer? I am building a medium-sized printer which needs to produce super-precise parts at a moderately fast print time. I frankly don't want to deal with belts or their tension issues but on the other hand, having ball screws on each axis will increase inertia...right?. I'm using Rexroth rails and will use (depending on what I decide) name brand belts or name brand ball screws. | In many years of building printers I only used ball screws for the Z-axis, and even then only for larger Makerbot and Ultimaker style designs that had a heavy platform.
Even for the Z-axis, a good thick trapezoid screw with the right anti-backlash configuration is often enough because most printers are light and most slicers only print upwards.
Modern belts are also very accurate, and if they are not load-bearing, and you stick to good closed-loop ones, they can be incredibly stable over time.
I tended to base my X-Y configuration around the available sizes of good quality closed-loop belts, and sized everything else to be compatible. |
How sensitive are all-metal print heads? So my goal was to print in a variety of materials with my CR10, but all attempts up to now have failed. I've tried a variety of all-metal hot-ends (except Micro Swiss) with no success. For those with a similar Creality printer that successfully print with all metal ends, how sensitive are they? Do they only print with high temp materials? Is a head too close to the bed enough to jam it? Is a 5 mm retraction prone to jam it? Do I need to stick to a premium brand when it comes to all metal hot ends? | Full definite answers on your questions are hard be given, there are a few parameters affecting the clogging of all-metal hotends.
All-metal hotends are considered so-called "upgrades" for printers while in fact they usually cause more problems. For high temperature filaments, like PC and some Nylons, etc. (printing temperature above 250 °C) you require a hotend that can withstand higher temperatures for prolonged use of the hotend. The problem is that heat creep (heat climbing up the throat/heat break) causes low temperature melting filaments to become prematurely soft and cause problems when retracted.
This requires the printer operator to provide enough cooling air to the coldend of the hotend assembly (usually the part where the cooling fins are) to dissipate heat creeping up the heat break and carefully tune printing temperature and retraction length.
Note that Ultimaker Cura uses quite large retraction values (default 6.5 mm), which work perfectly for the UM3E. This could be closely related to the compression effect of the filament in the Bowden tube. The all-metal hotends from the UM3 are perfectly capable of printing low temperature filaments, so if dialed in correctly, such hotends are not only to be used for high temperature filaments. |
Glue for attaching PLA pieces to titanium I'd like to attach a piece I printed out of PLA to a small titanium rod. I've previously used Superglue (cyanoacrylate) to glue PLA pieces to each other with great success, but the problem is that if you don't apply it perfectly cleanly, it leaves very noticeable stains on the PLA.
Can anyone recommend a good glue for this application that won't leave stains like that? | I've been a fan of epoxies for unusual adhesion problems. I found on Amazon a product with titanium in the name, but there's a caution regarding polypropylene plastics.
PLA is not of that family of plastic, which gives it a good chance of success. Epoxy is typically more viscous than cyanoacrylates, giving you a bit more control of the application, but also creating the need for care with "ooze-out."
The big glue company, Gorilla, also makes an epoxy that includes plastic and metal in the adhesion listing.
As PLA is somewhat sensitive to heat, one would consider that fast-cure epoxies generate more heat than slow-cure epoxy, but the amounts you'll be using are not likely to create enough for concern. |
Print layer shifting on Alunar M508 Prusa i3 clone [Edit: My specific question is firmware error or standard layer shifting. using 2 different versions of Cura were getting quite different results from the same stl file.]
Per the image below with Cura 15.4 the centered print both shifted to the bottom of the print bed for the first few passes and then did not build the proper internal structure of the bracket. the top loops were then skewed to the top of the bed. The 2nd print in the corner was using Cura 3.1 and the first few passes like usual skewed off towards the bottom but it seemed to start printing normally after that. I am trying to determine if it is a hardware calibration issue or bad firmware on the printer. Any suggestions on what's going on would be appreciated. For some reason the image flipped 180° when posting.
Center part completed its print and should be about an inch or so tall. It was not even able to build the internal structure like the 2nd one had started to do. the 2nd one I stopped after about 10 min since it clearly showed different behavior. from the layer shifting links the most likely cause would be over current stepping. | This effect is called layer shifting . Now that you know what it is called you could look at some other solutions fixing this issue; e.g. here, here or here. The answers of this question describe best what is causing this. Usually (most of all the cases) it means that your belts are not tight enough.
An edit of the question shows that the effect happens when a different version of Ultimaker Cura is being used. In such cases you need to check the speeds and acceleration settings. Too high values may lead to skipping steps causing layer shifting. Be sure it is not a mechanical issue, also note that the nozzle does not get caught up by the uneven tape on the bed. In that effect, you may want to look at this unaswered question. |
How can I optimize my print for casting in metal? A fellow maker has tried printing a 3D model in clear PLA (<5% infill, 1 or 2 perimeters), burying it most of the way into casting sand, and then pouring molten aluminum. This melts and burns the PLA, and the aluminum takes the space that the printed model used to take.
There's plenty of room for improvement in his process, but I'm asking about what he can do in terms of the 3D printing process to make his prints more casting-friendly.
What print settings are (generally) best for use in this sort of casting?
What materials, if any, would work better than unpigmented PLA? (Must be a material that a typical thermoplastic FDM printer can handle.)
Any other tips or considerations? | Print a two part negative (mold) of your objects.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:31581
https://pinshape.com/blog/how-to-generate-a-3d-printed-mold-for-an-object/
Melt and pour wax into the mold. Praffin wax melts at only 37C, not an issue for both PLA and ABS.
Use the wax object for casting, not ABS/PLA/etc.
The mold is also reusable this way.
To prevent the wax from sticking to the mold, something might be applied to the surface. Oil maybe? |
OpenSCAD to Flashprint ruins model based on number of fragments I'm trying to print a cylinder with Flashprint. Problem is, that the .stl file i created (with OpenSCAD) is totally ruined once loaded into Flashprint. With ruined I mean the round outline is now with spikes and steps everywhere. And by loaded I mean directly after loading, not even creating the .gx files. The output of OpenSCAD looks fine, also in other stl viewers I tried.
I figured out the problem occurs more when using certain number of fragments ($fn). If its very small, loading works better. But for numbers that make it acutally look like a round circle (eg 50), Flashprint is unable to load them correctly it seems.
It's obvious that its no slicing or printing problem, but simply a loading one, since the shown object (which does not look any round) also prints the way it is shown in flashprint before slicing.
Does someone know a way to load a cylinder with flashprint correctly, or do I have to switch to different software? I already installed some but am unfamiliar with the printer settings which I do not know in detail. I really though a cylinder should'nt be too complex for any 3D software.
Here is the OpenSCAD Code for Cylinder, just create .stl and load into Flashprint to reproduce the Error:
rotate_extrude($fn=70)
translate([0, 0])
square([20,2]);
See also this image (tried native cylinder code, problem remains the same however): | Your image is very helpful. I think you might find that the rendering in your slicer is intentionally degraded to minimize use of system resources. The image you see may not be an accurate representation of that which would be printed.
If you wish further confirmation, consider to create the g-code from the slicer and view it in a text editor. An even better option would be to use an online g-code viewer and observe the results of the created g-code.
The image above is the first line of print for a Marvin, showing that the base curves are smooth and clean. Your cylinder should appear in a similar manner, confirming that your slicer is degrading the image. |
How does a UV LCD 3D resin printer work? I've been wondering this for a while, and have searched for hours and have found nothing except undetailed explanations and projects.
How does a UV LCD 3D resin printer cure resin exactly? I understand there is an LCD screen, but where does the UV light come from? Where is it placed? | I'm surprised your research hasn't answered your question, as the concept is relatively simple. You have most of the answer in the question. The missing item is a light source. Usually the source is an array of ultraviolet LED modules. There are resin printers that would not be called LCD printers, as they use computer display projectors to generate both the image and the UV to cure the resin.
A rather extensive list of various resin printers can be found at aniwaa.com along with a clear explanation of the technologies.
The image below is courtesy of the link in the previous paragraph.
The light source that answers your question is visible in the third picture. As noted, the LCD panel blocks the light based on the image to be cured. I think the "uses its own light" is somewhat misleading, unless the builder has found a high-UV output LED LCD panel or is using daylight resins and has configured for long burn-in times. |
Layer Shift with a new CoreXY printer I've started assembling a Sapphire Plus CoreXY printer and produced a nice calibration cube (no layer shift, although a bit of over extrusion in the corner). Then, I started printing a 3D benchy, and got this:
I've checked belt tension and it seems correct (I've printed this belt gauge with another printer and checked that both belts are tensionned the same), with a bass sound when pluked.
I've checked both Z-axis lead screw and it's not 100% perfect (one lead screw has a 1mm deviation on one side when rolled over my desk). When the bed goes down, the effect of the lead screw is only visible when the bed is half the height or more, so it shouldn't matter here.
Also, I had multiple filament breaking before entering the extruder in other prints, so I'm not 100% confident with the extruder.
The machine is a Core XY printer with a Bowden extruder, with linear rails for all axis, and 2 lead screws for Z axis (and 2 stepper motors attached by the same belt). It's level, on a concrete base. | Shifts in a diagonal direction in CoreXY indicate loss of synch between the two belts.
If it's the belt very loose skipping, you may not hear much but such a loose belt is easy to notice.
If it's the belt a bit loose skipping, you would hear relatively loud noises which make very clear what's happening.
If there are no particular noises, it's the motor skipping steps. One motor move along the X+Y diagonal, one along the X-Y diagonal, so you know which one it is.
If you have missed steps it could be because of excessive friction (maybe one motor is mounted tilted, or it is damaged), or because of excessive acceleration setting, which the motor cannot handle, or because of too low current.
If you decide to increase the current be aware that it may work on simple tests, but during longer prints the stepper driver may overheat and lose steps for self protection.
To check what acceleration and/or current you actually need per each motor and to compare whether motors are significantly different from each other, try this.
Without printing, you set the maximum acceleration relatively high (5000 mm/s^2).
Place a paper square (relatively big) on the printing area, parallel to the axes and tape it.
Align the printing head to one corner of the paper square.
Give a G0 command to move the printing head to the opposite corner of the square (G0 F600 X... Y...) and check that the alignment is correct. Also, only one motor should be moving.
Bring back the head to the opposite corner.
Set the feed rate to high values, like F9000 (150 mm/s) and move the head again. If it reaches the correct spot, the current of the motor is sufficient for that acceleration.
Try for the other diagonal of the square you taped to test the other motor.
You can now reduce the current of the motors which successfully passed the test. If you have Klipper it's super easy and requires only the command "SET_TMC_CURRENT STEPPER=name CURRENT=amps", with Marlin I don't know.
See at what current each stepper fails the test, then decide whether to reduce the acceleration (5000 mm/s^2 is anyway probably too high for your printer frame, you would get artifacts like ringing) or to dial back up the current. I would say that 20% above the current required to pass the test is enough. More than that and you are just overheating the TMC2008. |
How does this Martian habitat 3D printer built for NASA work? The ArchDaily article AI SpaceFactory Wins NASA's 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Challenge shows a working 3D printing apparatus using an unusual material containing
basalt fiber extracted from Marian rock (simulant) and renewable plant-based bioplastic.
The photo below shows part of the printer. Is this printer just leaving a slurry to dry, or does the mixture somehow catalyze or harden spontaneously? I'm also wondering what the (looks like) twelve black hoses are around the central nozzle. | Let's start with the general design look and feel: This printer contains a robotic arm with a toolhead, pretty similar to a welding robot, and probably is controlled with a similar CAM software.
Picture by Robotics.org
Tool head
The really interesting part here is the tool head. So let's look at it and try to reverse engineer the use of some parts by how they are placed and what one can see about them, together with the information given by OP.
Black pipes
There's a bundle of 12 black pipes that go from the main body to the print head, ending at the side of some distance disk. To me, these look suspiciously like a system to deliver an airstream, so most likely some sort of cooling system. This is further supported by the huge fans at the base of the machine, pumping air into the flexible pipe.
Silver Tank
The first picture shows a silver tank with the label V7 (version 7?) or VT (as in Virginia Tech) or something similar on it. This is connected via a grey hose to the base of the printer. The mounting of it over the extruder hints, that this is a hopper, most likely holding the print material in pelletized or powder form, and that it is fed via the grey hose. From the information given in the question, it might be some sort of PLA (synthesized from cornstarch) or other bioplastic using the Martian dust as a filler material. From here, the print material falls into the central column...
Central Column
...which goes down through the distance disk into the thick nozzle, so it must be the extruder and heater combo. At its top, there is a large stepper motor in Z orientation, which hints that inside of the matte grey tube is an arbor, pressing down the melting pellets past a heating element into the nozzle below.
Print material and further information
The last picture shows proudly "Autodesk" on the side of the printer. Autodesk has an own article about printing in space from August 2018, where Nathan Golino of the NASA owned GMRO states this:
Abrasion has been an issue with the 3D printer we use. It’s very rough on the feed screw and the barrel and nozzle as the material is extruded through the system.
This confirms the general makeup akin to a pellet-style extruder.
Combining a small amount of waste plastic with crushed rock known as regolith can form an additive construction material that’s stronger than concrete. (on a picture caption)
The material we’ve been using in our additive-construction experiments is regolith mixed with waste polymers. You can get polymers in the form of astronaut trash and shipping containers, or you can synthesize polymers. You can use that as a binder for regolith, with a relatively low ratio of polymer to regolith, to make a construction material pretty similar to Portland cement in compression and 20 times stronger in tensile strength.
"Waste polymer" could be anything from ABS to PETG, from ASA over PC to PLA, but it seems that the plastic-to-regolith mix is on the high regolith side. It seems that it behaves more like a plastic than concrete, hardening/solidifying from a molten paste to its hard concrete as it cools.
As an interesting extra tidbit: Golino also states, that the mars-printers are at the moment on level 2 to 3, where 0 is "general concept" and 9 "ready to fly", so in early development.
Further reading into the background of the project - a design competition in 2015 - hinted, that the software for the arm might even be Autodesk PowerMill.
Looking back at the question if that is V7 or VT on the printer's hopper, an article with the same dome printed in OP's question popped up: Virginia Tech had been part of the crews that were taken to the finals of the aforementioned design competition and was part of the finals. They worked with the AI Space Factory team, which came out winning. In a related article, the printer OP showed us can be seen from a different angle and stripped of the cooling pipes and with a different, longer extruder. It tells us a little more about the work distribution of the teams and participants:
Large format vessel printed by AI SpaceFactory in the Autodesk BUILD Space for the construction phase of the competition. The tooling was developed in collaboration with Virginia Tech and Autodesk.
The main company behind it, AI SpaceFactory, showed a different version - the one without cooling pipes - in motion on a YouTube video on April 10th 2019 and the performance of the air-cooled version during the competition finals on May 3rd 2019 (warning, 10 hours of 3D printing galore!) At 9:52:12 we also start to learn what that disk is in picture 1: It is the endcap of the structure which sadly fell through the hole due to navigation issues.
In the following shorter and commented video, we see that the printer also contains some sort of gripper to place the window frames and skylight just as well as the load bearing test performed after the print. Apparently, the material they use is engineered to a point where it can be reused after regrinding it to dust again. |
After some time stepper motor is hot I have three stepper motors.
One Nema 17 - 2.4 ohm, the second smaller noname from color printer - 9.5 ohm and third the smallest noname from cdrom - 10.5 ohm.
I have connected them to arduino mega 2560 with ramps 1.4(set to 1/32 micro stepping) and drivers drv8825. See my previous question.
After some time (less than one minute) the first is cold. The second motor is hot. And the third is very hot. I can not even touch it.
What can I do to fix it. | The second motor is hot. And the third is very hot. I can not even touch it.
This is to some degree, completely normal and expected. From the datasheet for a typical NEMA 17 stepper, the rated temperature rise is 80 °C above ambient and the maximum operating temperature is 130 °C (implying an ambient temperature of 50 °C). It is normal that stepper motors (in general) get a bit hot.
"Too hot to touch" is still relatively cold. 60 °C is already too hot to touch, and that's only a 40 °C rise above a 20 °C ambient temperature.
You can reduce the temperature rise of the motors by reducing the current they receive. The stepper driver has a small potentiometer that can be turned to adjust the current, but keep in mind that doing so will also reduce the torque of the motors and thus they might skip steps if you reduce the current too much.
Technical details: Note that stepper motor drivers used in 3D printers are constant current drivers, and the little potentiometer controls the current. If you had not paid much attention to this potentiometer, the drivers might all have been set for the same constant current of $1.0\ \text A$. The stepper driver would (to achieve the same constant current) send a higher voltage to the higher resistance motors. This would imply a power dissipation of $2.4\ \text W$ in the Nema 17, and a power dissipation of $10.5\ \text W$ in the small stepper. $2.4\ \text W$ in the Nema 17 would only heat it up by about $20\ °\text C$ above ambient. A dissipation of $10\ \text W$ in the small stepper, which also has much less surface area to dissipate the power, would heat it up by a lot (and probably, given that you didn't fry it, the current was set lower -- or a technical peculiarity limited the current given that the motor likely also has very low inductance). |
PVA support with small tolerances I am at the moment designing some in place mechanical parts. Something like two cylinders that rotate with respect to each other. I need in my design some overhangs that cannot be printed and I was thinking of using soluble supports to be able to print these overhangs. I am afraid that by using something like PVA the PVA will end up between the two parts and glue the together.
Does anyone have any experience with this? Can something be done about this apart from 'not using PVA'?
Edit:
Here is an (minimal) example of an object I would be worried about. The blue and red cylinders are supposed to turn around each other and there is a cutout in the blue cylinder that will need support (the bridge is to long to print without support). | You've not stated this, but one must presume that you have a dual or multi-material extruder equipped printer.
Because PVA dissolves in water, the supports will be eroded on contact when the part is immersed. As the PVA dissolves, it increases the concentration of PVA in the water, but only slightly. You would have to agitate the water, change it if you feel it is becoming too concentrated. At some point, you should be able to rotate the cylinders, creating more turbulence, causing more PVA to dissolve into the water.
If you are determined enough, you can cause all of the PVA to dissolve, followed by a rinse with clean water. This would remove any residual PVA.
The water containing the dissolved PVA is somewhat sticky, but would not glue parts together if the parts were thoroughly rinsed. It's not out of the question to use an ultrasonic cleaner with plain water to provide sufficient turbulence, again changing the water periodically to keep the concentration low.
If you use an ultrasonic cleaner, test a sample of your print filament to determine if the heat generated will soften the plastic. I've had success with PVA to the extent that I have not had to use an ultrasonic cleaner to remove it. |
Raft hard to remove? I've been having a hard time lately getting the raft off of my ABS prints.
Is that a symptom of either a nozzle or bed that are too hot? Or is there some other factor I should be looking in to?
I have an UP mini that I've modified both the nozzle and bed to customize the temperatures on.
Bed gets heated to 100˚C and nozzle is either 266˚C for UP ABS filament or 236˚C for off-brand ABS filament. | A couple things to consider:
Ensure that your build plate is flat and level. An un-parallel HBP could result in the object "welding" to the raft.
Turn down your nozzle temperature. It is likely that the material is hotter than it needs as it is extruding. This results in a slower "cool-down rate". So, if it takes longer for the filament to cool between the raft and the first layers of the object. Therefore, cooling together in a manner that somewhat binds them.
Personally, 266C seems VERY high to me. I've primarily only used ABS on my MakerBot and have successfully printed with 225C +-5C nozzle temperature and 110C +-2C HBP temperature.
Typically you want to extrude slightly above the melting point. You don't want to liquefy the material, but make it pliable enough to bond it to other layers of material (or a BP). |
Warped bed - bulge vs dip? Theoretically what is better- a warped bed with a dip in the middle, or a bulge in the middle?
(I would instinctively think that a dip would be better, since in a perfect world the glass build surface would still span the dip, and then the flatness of the surface relies on the structural integrity of the glass, whereas a bulge would not do the same, instead causing the glass to teeter atop the bulge)
Thoughts? | That depends on the use. If you have a slate of glass a dip might be better (but the heat transfer at the dip would not be ideal), a bulge would stress and tilt the glass.
If you print directly onto the metal build surface it would not matter if you use a(n automatic) bed levelling system because you can compensate for the bulge or the dip using a mesh of the bed. Without a scan of the build platform you would have issues in getting the filament to stick.
Basically, there is not a better solution, best solution is to get a flat bed if the bulge or dip are making printing difficult. |
Using two feeders at the same time I am using Prusa i3 MK2s with the first version of the multi-material add-on.
As far as I understand, the slicer defined the used feeding motor using the T0-T3 code which defined one feeder at the time.
Is there a way to have two feeder motors working at the same time? | The first multi material add-on version off J. Prusa includes several separate steppers that load filament into the hot end. Note that selecting an other color will retract the existing filament so that the next filament can be loaded. There is no mixing hotend nozzle. It is therefore working serial, not parallel. Working 2 steppers at the same time will lead to clogging the filament joining position. |
Where is the auto-reset jumper on the Wanhao i3 PLUS? I'm having some issues when connecting to the printer via USB, see Wanhao i3 PLUS restarts when connecting USB.
After some research I thought I would try to remove the auto-reboot jumper. Now that the i3 Plus uses a custom board instead of the standard Melzi, I'm not sure where to find it.
See pictures attached: | The pictures don't help much, and I don't know the board. But if it is as described here, Elec Freaks Wiki - RAMPS Melzi, then you need to look for the FTDI Chip FT232. The reset is caused by the DTR Signal. There needs to be a copper trace from pin 2 to the capacitor and then to the jumper. From the jumper a trace leads to pin 4 of the Atmel ATmega.
If it is a clone, the jumper might have been "optimized away". If so, desoldering the capacitor gives the same result. Be certain to desolder the right one. If unsure keep the capacitor and solder it back in if it was the wrong one. |
How to create an air-free design? I am creating a bottlecap-like design. The design is sealed by rotating the lid. I am adding a chemical to it for an experiment. I would like the inside of the design to have no air circulating to it through the lid tiny spaces.
My design:
Are there any simple solutions I can implement out there? Design-wise, material-wise, or maybe an extra piece? | Are there any simple solutions I can implement out there?
A gasket made of rubber or other elastic or deformable material is probably the best option. Printing one or both of the parts using a deformable material like TPU might also work. Finally, if you don't need to open the unit during the experiment, you could use a sealant like silicone caulk might make sense. |
Nozzle goes down after bed leveling BLTouch I am new and I really hope you could help me out.
I have two printers, one is an Anet A8 and the other one is a CreatBot DX plus. On both of them I installed a BLTouch, firstly on the DX and today on the A8. I have never had a problem with the probe, but today I am experiencing some problems. I just set the offset, by doing the procedure, and I found to that the Z0 is -0.8 mm.
Problem is, when I start to print (I use Cura as a Slicer and OctoPrint), I run G28 and G29, everything is fine and the bed gets mapped. When the print starts, something weird occurs: the nozzle goes down for the regions where the bed is higher! So, the layer that is put down, is very thin and the nozzle actually dives into the bed! It is like a Z0 too low, so the nozzle crashes into the bed, but it is not because in X100 Y100 it is perfectly fine! Could you have any idea why this occurs?
What have I tried?
Changing bed springs
Because I was curious, and impatient I changed the springs with the Ender ones I bought online. The problem is still here! I can see the bed closer to the nozzle during bed leveling, compared to the left side. So I screwed the right side, to see any difference. However, the nozzle seems to be always closer on the right side! I checked the X rods, they are leveled.
Searched online
I checked almost everywhere online and I found out that it could be a problem related to the bilinear bed leveling. So I changed to linear, and apparently now I can print! I believe it is something related to the mesh the firmware creates after the leveling, which is avoided for the linear. | Check and potentially replace your bed springs as this is a common cause with cheap bed springs.
An immediate workaround is redoing your Z-offset but most likely after a while you have to repeat it until you replace the bed springs with stronger ones.
After replacing springs you have to redo Z-offset again. |
Z offset in Marlin is not working recently My printer is ignoring the "Z offset" setting in Cura and the "Bed Z" stored in the printer LCD settings? It has been working before but after a firmware update of my printer, it doesn't work. Even after flashing the previous firmware back "Bed Z" changes no longer affect anything. No matter if I change "Bed Z" during prints or if I use the "Z offset" option in Cura, the nozzle still prints at the same height. | I have the same problem. You need to check your G-code to detect where's the problem.
Try comparing the G-code file with different values of the Z offset.
In my case it looks like this:
No offset
;LAYER_COUNT:107
;LAYER:0
M106 S255
G1 F300 Z0.84
G0 F6000 X124.645 Y78.208 Z0.84
;TYPE:SKIRT
G1 F300 Z0.44
G1 F1500 E0
With offset (comments made by Cura)
;LAYER_COUNT:107
;LAYER:0
M106 S255
G1 F300 Z2.06 ;adjusted by z offset
G92 Z0.84 ;consider this the original z before offset
G0 F6000 X119.093 Y42.498 Z0.84
;TYPE:SKIRT
G1 F300 Z0.44
I hope this helps. |
Hatch Distance and Scan Distance I am going through some of the basics about one of the 3D printing techniques - Selective Laser Sintering, and I am confused between the above mentioned parameters - scan distance and hatch distance. Are they the same ?
How do we calculate the value - the overlapped area of two parallel scan lines in linear scanning technique. There must be some area of overlapping for the selective laser sintering to work.
Any idea ? | Scan spacing
Within each of the ‘islands’, simple alternating scan vectors are used with the spacing between these vectors defined as the ‘scan spacing’ and the speed with which the laser spot moves across the surface defined as the ‘scan speed’.
Source
The influence of the laser scan strategy on grain structure and cracking behaviour in SLM powder-bed fabricated nickel superalloy
chapter: 2.2. SLM processing and laser scan strategy
Hatch distance
The stripe pattern is a band defined by the scan vector width (ie stripe width), the hatching space between adjacent tracks and the scan direction as well as the overlap with the neighbouring stripes
Source
Scanning patterns in SLM
Notes
The computer controlled laser scans the surface of the bed to selectively melt the current two-dimensional slice of the CAD file.
The laser scanning remelts some of the previously built layer to ensure good bonding between layers and a fully dense component overall.
Cool printing image |
What can cause a 3D printer to catch on fire? From what I've seen, you can take a typical extruder heater, apply the designated supply voltage without temperature control, and as long as the heater isn't contacting something with a flashpoint below the temperature the heater reaches, the heater will not catch on fire. Thus, unless one catches the filament on fire, it seems that thermal runaway of the extruder heater wouldn't normally start a fire.
I'm not sure what would happen if someone installed wrong components, such as a 12V heater to a 24V supply. What are situations that could cause a 3D print to catch fire? | In short:
The control board does not have thermal runaway installed
The heated bed connectors are loose and begin to heat up until the wires catch fire
The power supply or it's connectors begin to heat up until they catch fire
The modifications that you made to your printer were not well thought out resulting in a capacitor to explode (raises hand; that's happened to me.) |
Are there differences in filament consumption between ABS and PLA I have been printing the same model once with Verbatim PLA and once with an ABS material from Switzerland. For both I was using two brand new 1 kg spools of filament. I was printing both at the same speed, same additions, same infill percentage, solid layers, solid wall count, etc. Literally everything the same except temperature.
Simplify3D indicated 300 g for each print, however I already realized that all of Simplify3Ds estimates for time and material are - unlike Cura - very poor. However I was still kinda surprised when I checked the two spools after printing. Originally they had the same diameter of material and same depth. After the print the ABS spool looked almost the same as before the print, in terms of diameter it shrank less than 5 mm, however the PLA roll was definitely at least 1/3 empty. The difference was also confirmed by a scale. ABS only consumed like 220 g, while PLA was using a bit over 300 g. ABS surely did not look like more than 20 %, but maybe its inner diameter is larger than the PLA spool.
Since I can order ABS considerably cheaper than PLA I was wondering if this is a common phenomenon. Googling for that leads to a million of pages outlining the differences between ABS and PLA where 999'999 of times it says that ABS is more prone to warping than PLA and the other one is about dimensional accuracy, but I could not find anything about material usage. | I’ve never actually printed anything other than PLA, but...
Searching the web for filament density, I found this article , among others, that indicate that PLA is nearly 20 % denser than ABS, on average (1.24 vs 1.04 g/cm3). This indicates that a 1 kg reel of ABS will have 20 % more volume (therefore length) than a 1 kg reel of PLA.
This does not quite explain the difference you see as 300 g vs 220 g is 36 % but maybe your measurement is off or the particular PLA mix you’re using is slightly denser. |
GRBL with low feed rate not working I have a cheap 3000 mW laser cutter that I'm trying to cut 3 mm black acrylic. I'm lowering the feed rate to try to get it to cut in one pass.
I have the G-code for a small circle (16 mm) but it seems any feed rate below about 25 mm/min is being ignored and it uses 25 mm/min anyway. The laser cutter has been set up with GRBL 1.1h and I have checked that feed rate is being read in by GRBL correctly. If I set a feed rate of 35 mm/min, that is processed correctly - but it needs two passes to cut the acrylic.
Please see G-code below:
G90 (use absolute coordinates)
M4 S0
S0
G0 X9.6 Y18.16
S1000
G1 X10.98 Y18.21 F20
G1 X12.27 Y17.99
G1 X13.48 Y17.55
G1 X14.58 Y16.9
G1 X15.56 Y16.07
G1 X16.41 Y15.1
G1 X17.12 Y14
G1 X17.68 Y12.82
G1 X18.06 Y11.56
G1 X18.26 Y10.28
G1 X18.27 Y8.98
G1 X18.08 Y7.7
G1 X17.82 Y6.88
G1 X17.48 Y6.11
G1 X17.06 Y5.39
G1 X16.56 Y4.72
G1 X16 Y4.11
G1 X15.37 Y3.55
G1 X14.7 Y3.06
G1 X13.98 Y2.63
G1 X13.22 Y2.27
G1 X12.43 Y1.98
G1 X11.62 Y1.77
G1 X10.8 Y1.63
G1 X9.15 Y1.6
G1 X7.62 Y1.89
G1 X6.23 Y2.47
G1 X4.99 Y3.3
G1 X3.93 Y4.34
G1 X3.06 Y5.55
G1 X2.41 Y6.89
G1 X1.98 Y8.33
G1 X1.81 Y9.83
G1 X1.91 Y11.35
G1 X2.3 Y12.85
G1 X2.99 Y14.3
G1 X3.38 Y14.87
G1 X3.8 Y15.4
G1 X4.27 Y15.87
G1 X4.76 Y16.29
G1 X5.29 Y16.67
G1 X5.84 Y17
G1 X6.42 Y17.29
G1 X7.02 Y17.53
G1 X7.64 Y17.74
G1 X8.28 Y17.92
G1 X8.94 Y18.05
G1 X9.6 Y18.16
S0
M5 S0
G0 X0 Y0 Z0 (move back to origin)
This G-code was produced with LaserGRBL (and modified by me, to no effect). I have tried F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F10, and F20 and they all take the same amount of time to complete.
What can I do to perform a cut in one pass since these low feed rates appear to be ignored? | This was likely due to reaching the limitations (maybe minimum step rate) of the stepper drivers which were 4988 drivers. I updated them to 8825 drivers which were able to support a speed of F20 correctly. I have not yet tried them at lower speeds. |
Bed temperature command going to 0 °C with no obvious reason when print is started Configuration
Printrun/Pronterface
Slic3r 1.3.0
Windows 10
Arduino Mega + RAMPS 1.4
Marlin 1.1.9
Prusa i3 -- Hephestos BQ with following modifications:
450W PSU (230V to 12V)
heatbed
3D touch
led stripe
ps_on with relay on the PSU
Issue conditions
I was printing fine until something happened, do not know what.
What I can tell is I can reach any bed temperature with Pronterface, and for any duration. (my little 450 W PSU provides enough power for my needs, like 60, 70 or 80 °C, a bit hard for 85 °C though)
But as soon as start the print (when the temperature is already ready extruder and bed -- and as I always did), the motors move the extruder in the bed center and then I get the following error :
Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
[ERROR] Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
Error:Printer halted. kill() called!
[ERROR] Error:Printer halted. kill() called!
If I check the temperature with M105 ; temp report, the printer gives me:
before I press the "start print" button >> T:245/245 , B:80/80
after I press the "start print" button >> T:245/245, B:80/0
so bed temp command is fine.....until I start the print
Temp command set to 0
What causes the printer to be halted is a huge temp difference between command and sensor.
In the provided G-code, the bed temp was lowered to 30 °C, which helps :
running the test faster
this shows that the problem is still going on (bed temp command to 0 °C)
I can "print" (move the nozzle without error but the PETG won't stick to the bed) and I don't get temp error.
See the full log here.
So, what does cause the bed temp command to get to 0?
Not from G-CODE
I checked in the G-code, and there is no M140 *0 nor M190 *0 until the end of the G-code, and I'm sure the problem is not comming from the slice/G-code because I ran some previously successfully run G-code/config and they fail the same.
Not COM related
I ran the same gcode on sd card (to see if the USB was involved), but the behavior is the same: as soon as the bed temp is reached and print started, the bed temp command is set to 0 (I can see command on LCD screen).
Hardware related?
I did not change the firmware, and print were going fine, before the printer was doing this, so I guess the root cause is Hardware.
Firmware involved
Because of the "0 °C command", the firmware react to something but I could not understand what is happening here.
when checking the firmware code, the only reasons why bed temp is set to 0 when print is running without asking for it would be
gcode_M140()/gcode_M190(): it could be bad interpretation of ascii command.
_lcd_preheat() ?
PID_autotune() : PID algo error?
ABORT_ON_ENDSTOP_HIT_FEATURE_ENABLED : maybe but it would also put the extruder temp command to 0
nothing that would really explain this...
Any hints? | I tried, by instrumenting code, to know where/when the temp bed is modified.
I found that it is called in the gcode M81 when starting the print.
Wait M81? isn't it M80 to switch on the PSU?
What I did in fact was both wiring this up side down and mixing M80 with M81.
But what I didn't know is that M80 and M81 are not strictly opposite functions.
Indeed, M81 puts the PS_ON signal to PS_ASLEEP != PS_AWAKE but also disable all heaters.
I couldn't see it without serial trace because the extruder temp is set back after the M81, but not the bed temp.
Problem solved.
Hope this can help people in the future to spend less time than me on that simple mistake.
Note: What remains a mystery, though, is: why was it working before on previous prints and then, suddenly, broke?!! |
What to do with failed/unwanted 3D prints? I am planning on getting a 3D printer soon and I was just wondering, what do you do with 3D prints that either failed or were prototypes that you no longer want?
I tried looking online but the closest I got was effects on environment, turning prints back into filament, or restarting a failed print half-way, none of which were the information I was looking for.
The solution should be somewhat eco and just keeping unwanted prints in a box somewhere isn't a very good solution either.
Finishing off failed prints isn't totally applicable because it wouldn't apply to prototype prints that you don't want to keep.
Is there anywhere to send failed 3D prints for professional recycling, or are there any recommendations for properly disposing 3D prints?
In case this is of any use, the printer I am planning to get uses filament that can be made of PLA, ABS, Nylon, and possibly other materials. The printer is this one specifically (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/101hero/101hero-the-world-first-us49-3d-printer) from KickStarter. | The "obvious" answer is re-grinding the prints and making more filament. Unfortunately, this isn't yet a very economical or simple operation. A decent filament extruder capable of holding acceptable diameter tolerances is around $1000, and even then they can be pretty fidgety to operate. You have to have a LOT of volume throughput in your filament extruder for regrinding to be an economical proposition.
Some of the reasons why recycling prints into filament can be difficult:
Most plastics will degrade to some extent each time they are extruded. (Both by the 3d printer and by the filament extruder.) PLA will thermally degrade with extended exposure to heat. PET will hydrolyze and break down if not meticulously dried to remove moisture prior to heating to the melting temp. (PETG seems to be less prone to hydrolysis damage than plastic bottle PET, but it still happens to a limited degree.) ABS holds up to extrusion conditions better than most, which is part of why it's favored for injection molding, but there's still the potential to affect properties by depleting additives or cooking out plasticizers. In practice, this means regrinds generally need to be mixed with fresh pellets at some ratio. That dilutes the degraded or additive-depleted polymer with good material so you can maintain the material properties and performance.
If you print a variety of different colors, and don't want all your recycled filament to mix and end up a muddy brownish color, it can be difficult to manage the color sorting and matching. Most people don't want different colors along the length of a spool, either. So the regrind has to be mixed evenly in with virgin pellets and a suitable amount of masterbatch colorant to get a reasonable color output. You're not going to run off a new spool with 95% virgin pellets just to recycle a 50 gram failed print, are you? Likewise for material matching. Mixing materials is a bad idea. If you only print white PLA, this is all pretty easy to manage. But if you print a variety of colors and materials, you've got to set up a material tracking, sorting, and storage operation. You can do it... it's just a hassle.
Diameter control is difficult. 3D printers need a fairly tight diameter control for reliable performance and good quality. This is really the key challenge in any filament extrusion process. Extruded polymers like to change shape as they extrude and cool due to molecular alignment effects. You can't just push molten plastic out a 1.75mm nozzle -- "die swell" will make the extrudate bulge to a larger diameter immediately upon exiting the nozzle. Then you have to actually pull on the soft filament as it cools to carefully draw it down to the right diameter. The way the filament extruder measures diameter and controls tension is the key to getting acceptable results. Most hobbyist/desktop filament extruders have not succeeded at this.
Those are just the major issues. Filament extrusion is a complex subject with a lot of depth. For a home user of 3d printers, making filament basically becomes a whole second hobby. In my opinion, it only really makes sense in a commercial production printing environment where paid technicians can run the extruder(s) and a very large print throughput makes the pellets+regrind economics much more favorable than just buying new filament.
Reducing and reusing are preferable to recycling. Making your printer more reliable and gaining experience with calibration/configuration will reduce the volume of waste produced.
There are also some productive uses that let you reuse unwanted prints as-is or "downcycle" them for productive uses.
I personally keep a box of failed prints (and calibration prints and
no-longer-needed prototypes) as showpieces for people who want to
learn about 3D printing, and as toys for my nieces and nephews. I strongly recommend doing your calibration prints with a "toy" calibration model like Benchy or CaliBlocks. 3D printing is still new enough that people will happily take dozens of Benchies off your hands for the novelty value.
Failed and unwanted prints can also be used around the workshop for shims, sacrificial
cushions when clamping or hammering or drilling, or as scrap for experimenting
with adhesives or post-processing techniques.
ABS scraps are good for making ABS-slurry as a print bed adhesion treatment
layer, or for solvent-painting and filling gaps in other prints. Unfortunately, most other filaments do not have such convenient and safe solvents.
Some people have experimented with putting piles of scrap prints on a cookie sheet in an oven and melting them into multicolor cutting boards. There's a lot you can do with this sort of heavy remelt plate if you get creative. (I personally wouldn't use cheap Asian filaments for food contact though, they often have unpleasant contaminants.) |
3D printed mold techniques for long and short term usage 3D printing can be used to make injection molds of unimaginable complexity but which kind of 3D printing process is suitable when?
Suppose that a part is to be made using injection molding in large quantity for an extended period of time, what Additive Manufacturing (AM) process will be the best, such that the mold does not give way too soon?
Also, suppose that the part to be made is custom and only has to be made in small quantities - that is to say that the injection mold will be used limited number of items and then thrown away - which is the best AM technique then? Best in the sense of economic feasibility, lower cost, lower capital investment etc.? | Yes, this is very broad. That said...
For high detail you want SLA. i.e. jewelry. If you just want a prototype of a mold, you can do a standard FDM style printer (95% of printers are FDM, and that number is a guess)
Really, you should be asking what material you need for your mold, but you can open a second question for that.
Do more research on injection molding. There is a great deal of information on how molds are made, i.e. How It's Made Plastic injection molds.
You will see there is a vast difference between a plastic, or silicon, mold and an injection molding machine. You are thinking that injection molding as a single mold, when it is really it is a system composing of several pieces of heavy duty machinery that can pump out hundreds of items a day automatically. However, it usually starts at 20k USD for the tooling for injection molding. Your costs could be a fraction of that or could be several times that. This is just a generality. So, if you are making 100 units you won't want to go down that route. For 10,000 units, on the other hand, it would be acceptable. |
Selective laser melting and building near the road (vibrations) Our company want to implement selective laser melting(metallic powders). But our building close to the road plus we have industrial machines near us, what vibration levels are dangerous in SLM printing? What numbers is admissible? Vibration are dangerous because of lasers? Or because layer of powder can be distracted during the build? | That depends...
Among the fact that can influence if vibrations could be the problem in this case, I see the following s is the most prominent:
Powder grain diameter
Powder composition
Powder shape
Aimed for resolution
The grain diameter and composition are the more influencing factors: fine powders of low-density metals will be much more affected by vibrations and almost behave like dust or fluid under resonating vibrations. On the other hand varicose powders of high-density metals will more easily settle down and have much higher thresholds for how much vibration affects them.
The shape mainly influences how particles coagulate: very coarse particles, think snowflakes, will interlock and bond to one another creating flakes of several powder particles. Vibration can influence the formation and compactness of such flakes and such influence the resolution.
If you want to print very coarse with rough, large powders, vibrational mitigation might be not needed. But should you want to print pretty much in aluminium dust... you need to take it into account.
Vibration mitigation
If the Vibrations influence your prospect machine placement, you'll have to inquire about at your machine manufacturer, best with a seismometer measurement of the places where you want to build. By placing special fasteners and vibration dampeners (springs or rubber feet) in between the machine and the floor, anchoring it to a separate foundation that is not connected to the surrounding building, or even by having the machine float, vibrations can be mitigated.
It's often much easier to install larger vibration mitigation equipment on lower floors and mounting it directly to the foundation of a building (ground floor and basement) is often preferred.
In case of special projects, the local municipality might allow banning (heavy) road traffic or even pedestrians from areas that affect the manufacturing in such a way - the Cologne Opera is partially under a public space right next to the cathedral, and during events, pedestrians may not use a chunk of it. In my city, the use of one road with trucks is banned due to vibrations they can cause in a nearby old building. |
Homing X and Y after stopping print through display How can I include homing X and Y of a Marlin firmware operating printer after I press the stop printing in the display?
In which folder I need include the command? | It's EVENT_GCODE_SD_STOP in the configuration_adv.h file.
It appears to have been added to Marlin 2.0.x on 2019-04-03. |
Where is the line between "inspiration" and copy and derivative? Scenario: I'm cruising Thingiverse, and I find the awesomest thing. I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE. I download it, print it, and for whatever reason, it doesn't work quite right. OK, no big deal, I'll just download the source because the maker was so kind, modify it ever so slightly, and I will have the most awesomest thing evar!
Several hours later, I realized that I could have designed it from scratch in a software that is way more user friendly, deterministic, simpler, etc.
And then I do redesign it. From scratch. Maybe taking a measurement or two from the thing, or something related to the thing. And I refine it, and it turns out better than the original was.
Did I make a new thing? Did I only draw inspiration from the previous thing? Did I make a derivative work? Using Thingiverse's terminology, did I remix it?
I'm looking for some canonical guidelines to refer to for the US. Thingiverse can be an example, but god answers should not be limited to Thingiverse, nor my specific example.
I ran into this issue while trying to print out a case for a Raspberry Pi Zero. I'm not done redesigning it, but I've been wondering how I could share it on Thingiverse, and if any restrictions from the original model's licensing might affect me when I post my thing. | I should start by saying that I am not a lawyer. I have been both the complainant and defendant in patent cases, and have had the role of observing copyright compliance for a performing arts organization. With that in mind, the following is my own opinion and information.
Ultimately, there is no simple answer to your question. It would depend on the case law that applies to 3D printed objects, which is not very clear. You are venturing into Copyright law, which is very different than Patent law.
For example, if someone had a patent on "A Raspberry PI case with a <describe a novel, special, functional feature>", and you made a case with that feature, you would be in infringement. It wouldn't matter if the case looked like the original, or was completely different. If it included that patented invention, you would be more likely to lose if challenged in court. The one thing about patent court prosecutions is that it is really rare that anyone actually "wins". The cost to put forward a case is very high, and usually someone runs out of money (sometimes even the "good guy") before a decision is reached.
Copyright is much harder and softer at the same time. Copyright can relate to the design feel of an object -- such as rounded vs. square, or using a trash can vs recycle bin icon. Prosecuting a copyright violation of this kind would require that the aggrieved rights holder demonstrate that the design was copied, or at least derived in an unpermitted way, from the original work. This is often more a matter of opinion than law, which is why the lawyers matter, as well as the judge and potential jury.
Technically, you are not free to do whatever you wish in the privacy of your own home. You are much less like to be detected and then prosecuted, and the penalties would be lower, but you are just as much in violation if you make one for your own use or sell them by the millions.
The best way to handle it, if you are prepared for possible adverse reaction from the original designer, is to ask them for permission. You can say ask for clearance to use, such as by saying:
I loved your object <thing> on Thingiverse. I plan to <put in your plans here -- make a few for me and my friends -- sell further varieties online -- whatever>. Although I didn't copy your design, I would like to acknowledge that I saw your design before doing my own. How shall I do that?
Your next steps will depend on how they respond. Most likely, they will either give you free leave to do as you wish, or they will ask for something.
This happens a great deal in music, and expensive and acromonious problems have developed over who actually composed a particular guitar riff. You can pick up the "Stairway to Heaven" case here. If you are doing this commercially, it is better to negotiate ahead of time. If you are putting your object back on Thingiverse for sharing, I'd just identify it as derivative an get on with life. |
Ender 3 severe under-extrusion I've been using my Ender 3 for about four months now and it's been working wonderfully. The print quality is amazing and all the prints are very strong. Then about three weeks ago, my entire system crashed while Ultimaker Cura was open and it lost the profile for my 3D printer. I recreated the profile to the best of my ability with other people's working profiles online, but none of them worked right. I've been getting severe under extrusion in all my prints, and they're incredibly fragile. For now, I've just been printing a 1"x1"x1" test cube. I've tried many steps from other people's posts online to fix the problem, including:
Raising the print temperature for PLA to 200 °C.
Checking the extruder for signs of too little tension or too much tension. I checked, and the PLA has light tooth imprints on it, and no grinding or damage to the filament.
Clearing out the extruder. I disassembled the whole extruder assemble, and flushed all the plastic from each part with a heat gun, and metal pick, and then tried reprinting, but it didn't work.
Trying a newer Ultimaker Cura version. At the time, I was using Ultimaker Cura 3.1 and hadn't updated because it was working well. I then tried the newest stable release of Ultimaker Cura 3.6, with a few different profiles, and then I also tried the beta version of Ultimaker Cura 4.0, but none of these worked.
Increasing the extrusion rate. I incrementally increased the extrusion rate from 100 % all the way up to 130 %. The prints looked a little better and were a lot stronger, but this still didn't fix it.
Trying a different slicer. I then downloaded Slic3r and created a new profile in that. The prints turned out a lot better, but there was still significant under extruding.
Checking the filament tube for any burns or damage, and ensuring it's inside the extruder assembly all the way.
If anyone can help me figure out what's going on with my printer, I'd really appreciate it!
Here are some pictures of the prints I've been getting:
These were made in Ultimaker Cura with different small changes to the profile made
These were made in slic3r with a flow rate adjusted up to 130%
These were prints I made before I lost all my settings in Ultimaker Cura.
Here's some of the material I read/watched and checked before posting myself:
I am experiencing some severe under extrusion
Sudden underextrusion on Ender3
r/3DPrinting: Under extrusion on Ender 3
Fixing a Filament Flow Problem on CR-10 mini, CR-10 or Ender 3 by CHEP
Edit: Here's my printer profile:
Ender 3 Profile Google Drive | It is not too rare to create a new machine in Ultimaker Cura to be set to 2.85 mm as this is the default. Also some bugs in the past did reset or assume this diameter unless you manually set it, and unless we know your exact version we can't confirm it is really this.
Underextrusion why?
The 0.55 mm more radius result in an underextrusion due to the pressed through volume, and since $V=A\times l$, we need to see the area to see how severe the underextrusion is for one given extruded length. $A_{1.75}=2.405\text{ mm²}$ and $A_{2.85}=6.379\text{ mm²}$ are rather obvious, so $\frac {\text{real extrusion diameter}} {\text{calculated extrusion diameter}}=\frac{A_{1.75}}{A_{2.85}}=37.7\ \%$, so only about 40 % of the needed filament is pressed through the nozzle as the slicer thinks it is almost twice the diameter. This matches well with the 130% still being very spotty, as that'd need a much higher factor to compensate for the underextrusion. A compensating extrusion multiplier would be $\frac 1 {0.377}=265.25\ \%$.
Fixing
To fix this, check under filament and set it to 1.75 mm so you force the correct diameter. Remember that filament diameter is not saved in the printer profile but in the material database.
You might need to restart Ultimaker Cura to activate these new settings. |
E3D V6 Original vs Clone What is the difference between an original E3D V6 rather than a clone?
I know an original would have its own advantages, since there is a huge price difference between the two. Will there be a huge difference in the output? By considering the following:
Print quality
Printing Speed
Maintenance
Life Span
If anyone has used both, please share your experience. | While most components (cooling body, heatblock, heater cartridges, thermistors) of knockoff e3d-v6 hotends can be similar enough to not notice in a large part, or at least functionally the same. Note that I don't say the parts are necessarily interchangeable - a lot what is sold under the name is not what it claims to be. The main distinguishing difference is the heatbreak: a proper e3d v6 hotend is hard to manufacture, so let's compare the designs of the real and the knockoffs.
Original
e3D v6 heatbreaks are necked considerably and have a socket with an airgap to the cooling body in top to take the lining and prevent heat flow to the PTFE pipe. This makes it an "all-metal" hotend, because the liner stops in the cold zone, where the cooling block is screwed on, and thus gets the least heat to the bowden, allowing to print hotter than with a lined hotend. The cooling block and the heather block threads are also not the same: M6 and M7. They are flat at the front to securely butt the nozzle thread against.
Their internal and external geometry looks like this:
Knockoffs
Knockoffs vary a lot how their heatbreak is constructed. Some are lined all the way through. Others are pass-through - and neither is an all-metal hotend. Some knockoffs are necked but use the same thread on both sides.
gallery of knockoffs
Conclusion
If you print a lot of high-temperature materials, the need for a proper all-metal hotend is there. Many knockoffs don't do this necking properly or invalidate its effect by lining the hotend all the way through.
Note that the machining quality can be quite different.
Due to sizing, not all knockoffs allow to mount a genuine heatbreak with knockoff cooler and heater block. |
Is the Vref trimmer relevant on TMC2208 in UART mode? I'm going to use TMC2208 stepstick in a printer and the firmware can control via UART the current during printing and during holding (static, no movement): the firmware has an explicit setting for running current and for holding current.
In this case, should I care about the physical trimmer which controls the Vref?
I tried to understand the TMC2208 datasheet (page 50) when it's talking about current control but I don't understand whether the Vref becomes superfluous or it still acts as a maximum value which the UART must obey. | The potmeter does not work in UART operation, see e.g. this quote:
You don't have to fiddle with jumpers to set your micro-steps, just
change it in the firmware, and you can dynamically change the amount
of current going to each stepper motor (no more adjusting that small
potentiometer on the driver board) just by sending a GCode command
(M906). |
Overhanging section of part turns into spaghetti A part I've printed (on a Monoprice Maker Select V2, sliced with Cura) has a small peg on it, which is an unsupported overhanging section of the model.
The first few layers of the peg end up a mess of PLA spaghetti. Here I've rotated the part to get a better shot, normally it would be printed on its side.
I've done test prints that contain L-shaped overhangs and they worked ok, so I'm not sure what's broken about this one.
One guess I have is that because the peg is relatively low to the heated build plate, the material isn't cooling as quickly, and it needs to be more rigid in order for subsequent layers to print.
I also tried with supports but I found it too hard to remove. | Unsupported parts need to be printed with support. If your supports are too hard to remove, try the Tree Support setting and make sure that your support structure is set up with a gap to the actual print. As we don't know which slier you use, I can't go into more details here. |
Safe way of disposing resin I have some leftover resin (100 ml) that I`m not planing to use anymore. What is a safe way of disposing it that doesn't involve curing? | Resin is notoriously hard to handle, especially as exposure to air and light can and will cure it over time. The uncured resin is a hazardous material.
Handling hazardous waste
The rules for safe disposal can - generally speaking - be broken down to this:
make sure the hazardous material can't contaminate water or food sources
make sure the hazardous material won't be touched or ingested accidentally
This means (for example for acids) that they are neutralized (to pH 7) and then handled as chemical waste.
WHY?
Why go all these lengths? Let me explain with an example from Germany: The city of Leverkusen is the main site of Bayer. They produce pharmaceutical and chemical products there, which includes a lot of chemical and hazardous waste. Bayer knows how to handle waste, they handled 541000 metric tons globally in 2015. Most of the following information comes from Germany, and is in German, but I do provide my sources.
For the remains of pharmaceutical product production at Bayer in Leverkusen around 2007, the process, as I was told on a tour to the fabrication plant, was generally speaking this: The nasty stuff got neutralized and reacted in ways to make it inert, the resulting sludge got dried and incinerated to destroy most toxic compounds. The remains were bagged in thick plastic bags that were carefully stored with a catalogue of what was stored where in a dedicated chemical waste landfill with (iirc) 3 independent groundwater protection systems, covered with a thick plastic sheet, then with a several meters thick cover of carefully constructed layers of dirt, clay, cement, more plastic, gravel, and rock to protect the rhine and the ground-water. Today, this process is done by the Currenta in a similar way.
In the past, the landfills were less secure: the old landfill that was started by Bayer in 1923 in Leverkusen. It was used by Bayer, the local population and (for some time) the IG Farben. It was finally closed in 1965, contains 65000000 tons of waste, of which approximately 15% is residues of chemical processing (~1 million tons). Nobody ever cataloged what had been stored where in these times, one just knew that it was filled south to north. It had to be pretty much re-engineered in the 1990s and brought it to match the (then) current landfill standard, for example with a 38m deep cement wall: Checks had found that nobody knew anymore where what materials were stored and that residues - among them possibly LOST - had found their way to the surface. These chemicals threatened to get into the Rhine and the water supply at some point. It also lead to a case of public domain and following demolition (for public health concerns) of a group of houses that had been erected on one part of the closed landfill.
You see the length people go to keep you safe from chemical waste: LONG.
Now, how do we fix the problem at hand both safely and effectively?
Getting rid of small batches of resin
The basic rules of handling hazardous waste (the two bulletin points) tell us we should take a two-step process:
find a temporary storage solution (e.g. storing in a safe container)
decide on a process that can get rid of the stuff in a safe way.
How could one fulfill the target number 2? I came up with three options:
re-cycle the unused resin from the print-tub back into the resin for later prints of the same color/resin.
find a specialist to take care of the uncured waste ( => give it to the waste disposal center in a clearly marked container)
make the material non-hazardous and allow disposal through the home-waste ( => curing)
Your local waste disposal service might charge a fee for taking care of your resin, but your problems end when you hand it over with old paints or other chemical waste. Check out who provides these services and what laws, rules and regulations apply for small batches of resin and paints.
A different kind of specialist that would take the resin could be a maker or artist that plans to use it in their own SLA/DLP printer.
Making it inert could be done by curing with only sunlight, without the need of much special equipment or chemicals in a very well ventilated area and make sure nobody touches it: pour the resin into a (disposable) mold like a cardboard box or yogurt cup. If you can't have a well-ventilated place, storing the resin in sealed transparent plastic or glass container (plastic bottle or marmalade glasses) in sunlight can cure the resin very slowly over time. Note that it will take quite some extra time, as such containers do filter out some of the 400 nm light that commonly cures the resin.
The resulting resin chunk can be handled like any plastic block once thoroughly hardened through: Use it for other projects, as a paperweight or dispose of it through the normal waste.
tl:dr;
Until you have chosen a method to get rid of your resin, keep hold of it in a sealed container.
You might find a local maker or artist that would like your resin.
The best way to get rid of resin wastes without curing it yourself is handing it to a professional waste disposal service. Check your local laws, code and regulations about it.
Curing it allows disposal through the normal garbage cycle. |
What type of plug is this? I'm not really sure what the type of plug on the heater cable is. Is it a Molex KK or maybe a JST PH?
The printer is a Prusa I3 Hephestos (aka BQ Hephestos). It came with this "BQ HOT-END HEATCORE CLASSIC" hotend from the "BQ Witbox 1" extruder. | As 0scar noted, this looks suspiciously like a JST connector, but the left one is not a JST RCY connector and it is neither one of the common JST PH nor JST XH, JST manufacturer pages show. In fact, it's not a wire-to-wire JST connector. The BQ-store claims it is a 2.5 mm JST connector, but JST has some 10 dozen different types of connectors, some three dozen of them with a 2.5 mm pitch.
"JST Quick" / JST RCY
This one is rated 3A, and looks like the connector on the right, the thermistor one. So if you need to fix that, you know what to get for that.
So what it is?
The connector however looks at first glance suspiciously like this one:
I found this product on several warehouses, listed as 2-PIN CONNECTOR W/HEADER, .10", and even found a specsheet. Those products appear, in design, to be based on the Molex KK 254 from the 2659 series. A genuine Molex 2659-series connector is rated for up to 2.5 Ampere, and looks somewhat similar.
However, the shop did claim it is a JST 2.5 mm pin, and they give a side view:
That is not a Molex KK. It appears more similar to a JST NV, which however has a 5 mm distance between the peg centers (= pitch) and it's rated for 10 A (or 120 W at 12V!). While matching in style it does not match in measurements - as OP confirmed, there's a very close to a 4 mm pitch (+- measurement tollerance) on the connector. So it's not an NV, but something os similar style.
But then it has to be the VH! The VH series has a 3.98 mm pitch, it has that latch and it is rated 10 A, for 120 W at 12 V. In fact, the pins on the Hotend seem to be B2P-VH, matching VHR-2N or VHR-2M "female" adapters.
Safety?
I would not trust a Molex KK 2659-series connector with a heater cartridge on a 12 V Machine! With a 12 V, 30 W Heater cartridge draws exactly 2.5 Ampere, so you'd have a safety margin of 0! That's bad design. A 40 W heater cartridge would draw 3.3 A - that's 132 % of the rating! That'd be a fire waiting to happen!
Only a 24 V machine could be built with a Molek KK 2659 connector and stay within the 2.5 A rating (40 W & 24 V -> 1.67 A, 30 W & 24 W -> 1.25 A) with a safety factor of about 1.5 to 2 to the rating (depending on heater cartridge).
However, this is a JST VH with a rating of 10 A. That means, at 12 V, it's safe for 120 W load, so plenty safe: That's a safety facor of 3, and on a 24 V machine it'd be 6. That's Perfectly safe and sane! After all we look for at least a 5 A rated connector in conjunction with a 12 V/40 W heater.
The more tedious variant to connect safely is to use either an even higher rated connector (requiring replacement) or a continuous wire to the board. |
Change 1.75 mm 3D printer to 3.0 mm printer I am planning on buying a cheap 3D printer to get into 3D printing, but the printer I'm planning to buy only takes 1.75 mm filament, I was wondering if it might be possible to change the hotend of that printer or something to take in 3.0 mm filament, the reason I want to use 3.0 mm filament is because it is cheaper than 1.75 mm filament. | First it really depends on your printer / extruder. That said generally 1.75 mm is cheaper and much more common.
If one were to change the hotend, likely you will need to replace most or all of the hot end. In the case of my personal hot ends, when I did this conversion I had to replace both the tube and the PETF lined mouth. I did not have to replace the tip, core, or the thermsister.
My advice is to pick a different printer. You see 3 mm on older extruders like J Head direct gear from around 2012-2013 and Bowden style (like the Ultimaker) use 3 mm (actually 2.85 mm).
Possible yes, advised, no. |
What type of fire alarm/smoke alarm should my printer have? I know you should, like an infant, never leave your printer without surveillance.
But sometimes we all do, trusting our double thermistors and heat runaway configurations. But electronics fry and who says there is no danger even after the print job has finished and it's cooling down, still hooked up?
I have searched but smoke/fire detectors come in a wide range of varieties:
They can be battery powered or hardwired, they detect different things: carbon monoxide, heat, smoke..., they thus also have different detectors like photoelectric sensors, ionization sensors or both. We also print with different materials...
So what's the best safeguard for my 2 year old (CoreXY ^^)? | Since some prints can take literally days, I would use a combination of techniques if you're worried about a fire. According to The Internets, firefighters are willing to inspect your stuff to see if they pose fire hazards. You could ask your local firefighters what they think of your risk with yoru 3D printer.
Keep your workplace free of dangers
Don't keep flammables, explosives, or similar stuff near your printer. If it does catch fire, these kinds of things will make it worse. There are plenty of valid 3D printer supplies that fall in this category: alcohol, alcohol pads, acetone, acetone pads, various glues, various cleaners, hairspray, etc.
Periodically inspect the high amperage parts of the system
Inspect crimps, but splices, solder joints, relays, etc for burn marks, loose connections, or other problems. Solve the problems before they catch fire.
Alarm
One or more smoke alarms should detect a fire. However, they may give false positives for ABS, because ABS gives off that burning plastic smell. I would experiment with the super-cheap ones and one or two more expensive models to see what kinds of false positives you get. You'll probably want to put at least one of them directly above the printer. If your printer is enclosed, put a sensor in the enclosed area.
I think smoke alarms should be sufficient, but I'm not an expert (or even hobbyist) on fire alarms. I have not come across any information that states Carbon Monoxide or Radon are a worries with 3D printers. Area-affect heat sensors may give many false alarms because of how hot printer stuff gets. However, you could use contact heat sensors for parts that should not get too hot and monitor them with a microcontroller or Raspberry Pi. Reading this article, it seems you may want some ionization sensors for the printer, and not photoelectric. My WAG (link) is that the plastic (or electronics) would smolder long before catching fire, so you want sensors that would detect the smoldering.
Camera
OctoPrint/OctoPi make it easy to use a webcam to monitor your printer. However, if your printer is on fire and you're remote, it may or may not be able to shut the printer down. Even if successful, you still have a fire to deal with.
Fire extinguisher
You should have a fire extinguisher available to someone to put out your printer should it catch fire. Printers will need at least an extuingsher of Class C rating, and since we're working with plastics, you probably want Class B as well. Most of the fire extinguishers you can find in consumer stores are going to be ABC rated, and powder based. The powder will make a mess and wreak havoc on electronics. CO2 or Halon will not themselves damage the electronics, but are substantially more expensive than their powder based brethren. For example, I get 5lb Fire Extinguishers for ~$30 at Costco, but an equivalent in CO2 would be several hundred.
Automatic suppression system
As a maker, you could build a reactionary fire suppression system. I imagine it would be cost prohibitive to hire someone to do it for you. Basically, you would use the alarms or special sensors to activate one or more fire extinguishers. You should over-engineer this so that your fire suppression system completely overwhelms any fire that occurs. According to The Internets, firefighters are willing to inspect your stuff to see if they pose fire hazards. You could ask your local firefighters what they think of your risk and suppression system.
Firefighting Robot
You could build a robot to detect fires about put them out, as sort of an advanced automatic suppression system. Something like Tony Stark's robot, or something emulating what is actually in service (US Navy (CNN), Australia tracked firefighter). |
Using an Arduino Mega with burnt voltage regulator Due to a not-given compatibility with Makerbot mechanical endstop wiring (and carelessness on my side) I ended up burning the voltage regulator on my Arduino Mega 2560. Now, powering the Arduino separately from a USB power supply, I can operate the electronics, however, I am still unable to receive any signal from the endstops and I don't want to hook up my replacement Arduino until I see that my wiring is correct.
Could I have burnt anything else on either the Arduino (pullup resistors were firmware disabled) or the RAMPS 1.4 which makes it impossible to receive a singal from the endstops? | Take a look at Ryan's answer to my question. I believe the MightBoard is based on the Mega 2560, so it is possible that some of the other components could have been damaged. If you look at the comments below Ryan's answer, we discussed the possibility of the processor itself being damaged. I had attempted this fix on two different MightBoards and they both ended up turning on, but the firmware wouldn't boot. So, it's safe to say that in my case, the processor on the Arduino was shot.
All and all, I'd recommend not using MakerBot's endstops as they seem to be the main culprit for this issue and has been for years (it happened to me twice since I got my machine in 2012). |
How thick is 0.1 mm? I have a printer with a 0.1 mm typical layer thickness. Of course I can choose some different sizes in Cura or other slicing software, but most prints on this machine will be .1mm. In my (admittedly limited) experience thus far, the 0.1 mm seems typical for other printers, too.
I want to get a sense of just how thick this is. I know about the paper trick for leveling the print bed, but my understanding is the first layer pushes into the bed a little, meaning it's less than 0.1 mm and so paper isn't a good example for the typical layer.
Is there a similar item with close to 0.1 mm thickness I can use to visualize this? | I'm not sure exactly what you mean by your comment to Davo's answer, but with respect to your use of a sheet of paper reference, it seems like you can still use 80 gsm paper as a reference for 0.1 mm layers.
From Paper Sizes Explained (emphasis is mine):
There is no universal calculation for the thickness of paper based on the gsm as varitaions in paper composition can affect the weight, so two different brands of 120gsm paper could have slightly different thicknesses. However, an average sheet of 80gsm paper, the most commonly used weight, measures approximately 0.1mm in thickness, which means that 10 sheets would measure 1mm. By comparison, 10 sheets of 120gsm paper would be 1.5mm thick, assuming the paper composition was the same.
So, given that:
80 gsm => 0.1 mm
120 gsm => 0.15 mm
Then
40 gsm => 0.05 mm
60 gsm => 0.075 mm
From A Guide to Paper Types and Sizes
Paper Weight Descriptions
Weight Feels Similar to:
35-55 gsm Most newspapers
90 gsm Mid-market magazine inner pages
130-250 gsm A good quality promotional poster
180-250 gsm Mid-market magazine cover
350 gsm Most reasonable quality business cards
So, it would appear that you could use a newspaper sheet (or two) to test for layers of less than 0.1 mm. Obviously this would depend upon where in the world you are, and the (physical) quality of your newspapers. Here in the UK, or rather Europe, the exported version of the Guardian used to be printed on some extremely lightweight paper (almost transparent tissue thin), in order to keep the costs of transport down to a minimum. So a folded sheet of that would certainly be in the range of 0.75 - 0.99 mm (which seems to be the range that you are looking for). However, given that the printed media (as opposed to the online version) is currently in decline, I am not entirely sure if it is still available.
Or, how about grease proof paper? From the Wikipedia entry:
Basis weights are usually 30–50 g/m²
Although, this paper has been processed (supercalandered) and treated with starch, which will increase the density, so the thickness will not correlate to the table above (i.e. it will be thinner).
Giftwrap paper (not the really thick stuff) could be another option.
After having doing some long winded googling, I guess that the best bet would be to get hold of a micrometer and measure whatever paper yourself, as the specifications of paper are generally given in gsm and not mm (which is a bit annoying), and so it is somewhat difficult to provide you with a definitive answer (without physically measuring it). |
Z height incorrect on calibration cube I tried to print 30mm calibration cube with my TEVO Tarantula. I found that a few bottom layers was missing as shown in picture. I noticed that a few bottom layers looks thin during printing. Anyone know how can I solve this ? | Anyone know how can I solve this ?
In order to know how to fix it, you must first diagnose what the problem is.
Two things you should verify in Slic3r:
Check that under "printer settings" the Z offset is really what you want it to be (if you don't know what that is, you want it at zero).
Check that in the preview (Plater plane, the "preview" tab is on the bottom), you can actually see the bottom layers being generated by the slicer (you can verify this by moving up and down the slider on the right of the main window).
If both of these checks are positive, then the problem is probably not with the slicer but with the printer or printer setup. The ultimate proof of this would be to try another slicer like for example cura.
If the problem is with the printer, the only obvious one I can think of, is that the bed is too high, the nozzle touches is, and the plastic cannot be extruded for the first few layers.
You can confirm or refuse this hypothesis by simply observing the printer while in operation. If it is the case:
you should observe the nozzle moving "as if" it was extruding the first layers
the nozzle should be touching the bed
very little plastic should remain onto the bed
you should hear some grinding or clicking noise from the stepper motor of the extruder (as the printer will try to push the filament, but the filament will have nowhere to go)
If you realise this is the problem, stop the print immediately: this is the typical situation in which you could generate a clog in the cold end of your extruder, which is not a permanent damage, but fixing it is a somewhat complex and tedious procedure.
The good news is that if this is the problem, the solution is trivial: you should simply set the nozzle height correctly. How to do this changes from printer to printer and you should refer to the user manual of your printer. Here is a video showing a few of the most common method to achieve that. |
How to utilize/calibrate print fans for PLA? At the moment, I am thinking about print fans that cool the plastic when printing. I am not asking about the design of the fanducts, which might be a whole book on its own. I would like to know how to find out the best application of print cooling for a given PLA filament, - that is fan speeds and setup in a slicer of your choice (to learn what the different options are). | Everybody's combination of fan hardware and print settings is different. Unless someone else has the exact same printer and slicer profiles as you, there's no way to really say anything like "use X% for PLA" or whatever. For practical purposes, you just empirically figure it out with test prints based on a few simple rules of thumb:
Use lots of cooling for PLA, moderate cooling for PETG, and minimal cooling for ABS. (Note that sometimes ABS does benefit from gentle airflow, and PLA shouldn't necessarily always just be blasted at max power.)
Use less cooling on big prints where each layer takes a long time, more cooling on small prints where each layer is very quick.
Axial / box fan? You'll probably want to run it at full power. Radial / squirrel cage blower? You may want to run lower power.
Overhangs curling up or sagging? More airflow may be needed. (Lower layer heights also help enormously.)
Hot end temp sagging when the fan kicks on? Try less airflow. (Or insulate your hot block better.)
Weak layer bonding? Try less airflow. (Or raise your hot end temp.)
Small, fast prints getting mushy or corners "pulling in"? You need more airflow. (Or lower heatbed temps.)
Print warping / corners lifting off the bed? Try less airflow, particularly on the lowest few layers. (Or higher heatbed temps, or a better adhesion layer, or less nozzle/bed gap for the first layer, or any other approach.)
Fan too noisy? Try less airflow. (Or get a better fan.)
Filament stringing during travel moves? Try less airflow pointed directly at the nozzle. (Or tune your retraction settings better, or get the moisture out of your filament, or lower hot end temp.) |
How is FDM Better than CBAM? So there is a company called impossible objects that use CBAM technology witch the description can be found here http://impossible-objects.com/technology/ I am pretty sure that they are the only ones using this process, I want to know why. CBAM makes stronger material out of carbon fiber in a very sophisticated process stronger than FDM(Fused Deposition Modeling). This is interesting and I want to know why. I understand the process but not the pros and cons. | Well the CBAM stuff is SUPER new, requires a lot more work done by hand (currently), and is going to be WAY expensive compared to widely used FDM machines.
Seems to me like a carbon fiber mixed filament is a cheaper way to go, with a possible annealing process to get the tensile strength up post-print.
Try locating a CBAM printer for $200! Maybe if the process becomes quicker, and the machines/materials cheaper to purchase, we could be using this method more in the future. I feel that we will likely advance the materials we have with FDM much faster than this other process would catch on and become affordable. |
CR-10 Layers not printing after certain amount of filament printed I am printing on a CR-10 for the first time with white filament1. The problem is it seems that after a certain amount of filament printed one or two layers don't stick to the print which causes a huge gap in the end.
I think the pictures speak for themselves:
Here is what I already tried:
Different print speeds (60 mm/s and 45 mm/s)
Different nozzles (both 0.4 mm)
Print-temperatures of 200 °C and 205 °C
Resliced models in case of faulty .gcode files
Support densities of 10 % to 20 %
Different models
I tried this with two different models, two print attempts each. The gap occurs earlier in the larger model and at almost the exact same layer on both attempts, same for the smaller model.
The most frustrating thing about this is that it happens a few hours into the print so I can't just sit next to it.
It seems that at a certain layer the filament doesn't stick to the print anymore which causes those straight parts.
I ruled out a faulty z-Rod since the gap occurs at different heights.
I am printing White PLA from Janbex with 60 °C bed temperature. I slice with Cura 4.0 (the linux version).
1 I've been printing for over a year now, it's the first time I use white filament. I don't think that it is entangled filament since the spools from Janbex are always perfectly wound. It did occasionally happen with other filament too though but not this often. I have a theory that it might have something to do with the geometry of the model since there were a few very close hard edges at that height. Maybe the filament didn't have enough time to cool down on those spots. I'm trying to print with lower layer height (0.15 now, 0.2 earlier), maybe that will make a difference... | If the problem occurs at same height I would focus on the Z axis, in particular the gantry and its rollers.
Try to remove the Z axis screw and feel if the you can slide the gantry up and down with ease, in particular if it gets harder to slide at roughly the height where the problem occurs. You can use the eccentric nuts to adjust the rollers preload and make it slide smooth.
Next on my checklist would be the screw: verify there is no issue on the screw at that height, the Ender 3 is renown for having a Z rod issue due to misalignment between the motor and the nut on the gantry.
While writing another idea came to my mind, but I'm sure already checked that: the filament is not clashing or being clamped somewhere when it reaches that height, right? A filament guide would generally exclude that... |
OctoPi command v412-ctl not found I try to set up the focus of my Logitech C920 in OctoPi. I follow several guides, which all propose to set the command sudo v412-ctl --set-ctrl=focus_auto=0 by SSH'ing OctoPrint.
I always receive the answer in SSH, that v412-ctl command not found.
What's wrong? | It's an l (ell) not a 1 (one). v4l2-ctl. |
Order of solving printing issues 3D Printers (those who print, not the machine, dummy)!
I haven't been printing in a while, so when I returned to my Monoprice Select Mini VII, of course it had been sprung out of whack. Some of my first prints would not even come out of the extruder until I realized I had some pretty bad (and worse, unnoticed!) heat creep going on. After fixing that issue, it became apparent that many more persisted.
My question for you all is this: In general, what problems should be addressed first when looking at a complete disaster of a print?
I'm not going to specify any singular problem, but I am interested in seeing the "order of operations" for general problem solving when multiple issues exist. For example, "Fix bed height before anything else; this is a common problem that produces multiple others." Hopefully, this can help others with multiple printing issues, too. | for sure the answer could be dissertation or even a book because there is no simple way to address "all" issues - it's just to wide area
but as the simple troubleshooting i would list it this way
is your printer alive so is it
working at all (check power, cables)
communicate with the world (check app, drivers, cables)
moving HE and heating HB (check jams, end-points, belts, screws)
is it extruding (check heating, temperature, HE jams, filament path)
if all above is "yes" then
is your printer making printouts and are those printouts
starts and continues (check heating HB, HB adhesion, leveling, cooling)
finished at all (check all above again, stepsticks temerature)
keeping the shape (check screws and nuts, couplings, stiffness, stability, temperatures)
if all above is "yes" then in general you are half way ;)
common issues - printout is
bent or skewed (check geometry, stiffnes, leveling, belts, vibrations, stepsticks temerature)
wrapped or overextruded (check temperature, extruding, printout angles)
underextruded (check filament flow, filament path, stepsticks temerature)
stringy (check temperatures, app settings)
that is the main path i think. all above is more or less applicable to all DIY printers and all prusa clones and all clones of clones ;)
it can go wrong and fork in all possible moments as there is so many aspects to screw... |
Slicer/Printer Origin I am very close to buying a 3D printer and have started to do some preliminary design work from the things I'd like to make, but I have a question: Which corner of the print bed corresponds to the origin (0,0,0) in slicer software? Is this the same across slicers and printers?
The reason I ask this is because of the difficulty some have in removing items from the bed. It seems to me like I'd want to print small items closer to the front of the printer to make access easier, but it looks like most slicer hosts only show a box representing the build volume with no real indication of what's "front". | Depending on what kind of printer you have, the build table origin and slicer origin (0,0) are usually either the front left corner, or the center of the build plate. This can be changed by the end-user in most open-source printers. There is no standard or requirement for a particular origin location. The important thing is merely that the slicer and printer coordinate systems match, so parts actually come out where your slicer thinks they should.
In practice, it's usually quite easy to tell what's "front" in your slicer's build volume. When you open the program, the bed usually appears as it does when you stand in front of your printer. It is rarely an issue.
In terms of difficulty removing prints from the bed, a removable build plate is an excellent solution. Plastic has a higher coefficient of thermal expansion than most build plate materials (like glass), so throwing the print+plate in your freezer will generate large separation forces and help remove the part for you. Non-removable build surfaces are a deal-breaker for most serious 3D printer users I know. Either don't buy such a printer, or add a removable plate yourself. |
Can't control printer via USB I've recently purchased a Makerbot Replicator Dual clone made by CTC. I'm in the process of upgrading/adding a few parts to it, but noticed that I can't control or print via USB.
The machine prints perfectly from an SD card and I can see information in the terminal from the printer via USB in RepG and through OctoPrint - Such as M105 - but can't send any .x3g files to print or upgrade firmware (I wanted to flash Sailfish 7.7 eventually).
To clarify;
In Octoprint
Temperature auto-reporting is working
Can send M105, M27, etc.. & get response
Can select .x3g files from the SD card to print & the printer starts
Can upload files (.stl, .x3G, .gco etc..) to Octopi, but even the .x3g files wont actually start on the printer.
Tried sending M140 T0 S200 & M106 T0 S100 which received OK response, but there was no change reported, or indeed actually happening with the tool
Terminal Output from OctoPrint at connection:
Changing monitoring state from "Offline" to "Opening serial port"
Connected to: <octoprint_GPX.gpxprinter.GpxPrinter instance at 0x6c9a02d8>, starting monitor
Starting baud rate detection...
Changing monitoring state from "Opening serial port" to "Detecting baudrate"
Trying baudrate: 115200
Recv: start
Send: N0 M110 N0*125
Changing monitoring state from "Detecting baudrate" to "Operational"
Recv: Makerbot v7.4
Send: N0 M110 N0*125
Recv: echo: gcode to x3g translation by GPX
Recv: SD card ok
Recv: T:27 /0 B:21 /0 T0:27 /0 T1:26 /0 @:0 B@:0
Recv: T:27 /0 B:20 /0 T0:27 /0 T1:26 /0 @:0 B@:0
Recv: T:27 /0 B:21 /0 T0:27 /0 T1:26 /0 @:0 B@:0
Recv: ok
Send: N1 M115*39
Recv: ok PROTOCOL_VERSION:0.1 FIRMWARE_NAME:Makerbot FIRMWARE_VERSION:7.4 FIRMWARE_URL:https://support.makerbot.com/learn/earlier-products/replicator-original/updating-firmware-for-the-makerbot-replicator-via-replicatorg_13302 MACHINE_TYPE:r1d EXTRUDER_COUNT:2
Send: M21
Recv: ok
Recv: SD card ok
Send: M20
Recv: ok
Recv: Begin file list
Recv: 2GB
Recv: System Volume Information
Recv: mesh_bed.stl
Recv: xyzCalibration_cube.x3g
Recv: CTCB_3DBenchy.x3g
Recv: 3DBenchy.x3g
Recv: ActiveCoolingDuct.x3g
Recv: CTCB_ActiveDuctD4_UN.x3g
Recv: UK_TROLLEY_TOKEN.x3g
Recv: mesh_bed.x3g
Recv: z-axis-support.x3g
Recv: bed-screws.x3g
Recv: spool_nut.x3g
Recv: 2016_spool.x3g
Recv: 2016_spool_no_raft.x3g
Recv: ActiveDuctD4_UN.x3g
Recv: Z_Axis_Support_Ends.x3g
Recv: End file list
Send: M105
Recv: ok T:27 /0 B:20 /0 T0:27 /0 T1:26 /0 @:0 B@:0
Send: M105
In ReplicatorG
The software connects to the board via USB and recognises that it is a Mightyboard running f/w 7.4
Reports that it is an unvarified board
Cannot use the GUI control tab to send commands to the printer
Cannot send sliced .x3g files over USB, console shows a time out error instantly
Saving .x3g to SD card does work
Is my Mightyboard just a dud, or is there something I can do to try and fix it?
The reason I want to try and solve this now, is that I'm planning on adding active cooling and LED lighting control so don't really want to do all that just to find out that I need to replace the board soon.
Additional info
Some information meaning that the current firmware and board is reported, as well as current temperatures of the extruders and heat bed. I can print .x3g files from the SD card, but I can't send G-code commands or .x3g files through USB.
I have just tried a few G-code commands through OctoPrint terminal with mixed results. M105 works, M140 & M106 don't. | Good morning, and welcome to 3D Printing SE.
You said: "I can see information from the printer via USB in RepG and through OctoPrint, but can't send any prints, commands or upgrade firmware (I wanted to flash Sailfish 7.7 eventually)." This means that the USB communication is working fine. It isn't a question of drivers or the FTDI interface chip. That must be working fine or you wouldn't have any USB communication.
I would look toward a problem with slight dialect differences in the firmware that is flashed compared with the expectations of the host software.
I am not an expert regarding the differences in firmware G-code dialects, but there are at least: Marlin, Repetier, Mach3, LinuxCNC, Machinekit, Smoothie, Makerware, Sailfish. I got this list from the "about" page for Slic3r.
I would start by trying to slice files with different dialects and seeing if one of the resulting G-code files prints. You may also find a description of the firmware you have flashed with references one of these names, which would save a lot of time.
For flashing, you could try dropping back to the Arduino level and use those flashing tools.
More answer in response to the information you have added to the question.
X3G files are not G-code files. If you are using a control program that expects G-code, it will not be able to handle X3G code. Similarly, if the printer expects X3G, it may not understand G-code.
Octoprint has an adapter layer that seems to interconvert between g-code and GPX. You are running this layer. At about line 11 of the log file you added to the question:
Recv: echo: gcode to x3g translation by GPX
The GPX add-in may be perfect, and it may cover all version of firmware and all functions. I don't use it and am unfamiliar with it.
To flash your board, I would be reluctant to assume that Octoprint/GPX new how to run that protocol. I would use the host software supplied by the vendor. Flashing is an infrequent operation, and add-on software is less likely to have it 100% correct. If I were writing GPX, I would intentionally make flashing be out-of-scope, since the consequences of doing it wrong could easily be to brick the printer.
Since Octoprint/GPX claims to be able to print to the printer, I would being all software up the respective current versions. Flash current Sailfish firmware using the supplied host tools. Update to the current/best version of Octoprint/GPX. Read the release notes of Octoprint/GPX for known issues.
It seems that X3D files are fairly limited in their use, which will constrain your options to be within the scope of the community that uses X3D files. I tried to add the X3D tag to your question, but so far no one has created the X3D tag.
Makerbot is part of Stratasys, and should be well supported. It may be well supported mostly within its ecosystem. You have a clone of a Makerbot machine, so, even though most or all of the printer parts are open source, you may not be able to use the genuine Makerbot host control software.
Your question asked if your controller board was working. It almost certainly is. I think you have a software/firmware compatibility problem. |
Which connectors should I use to connect my Power Supply Unit to the Ramps? I have read that the cable colours depend on multiple factors:
Used voltage
Kind of cable
Type of voltage (DC or AC)
My cable looks like this:
I live in Spain, in Europe. The colour codes of the International Electrotechnical Commission for AC circuits are these ones:
My PSU has these possible connections
So I guess these are the connections:
L (AC). Brown colour. Single Phase line or Three Phase Line (L1)
N (AC). Blue colour. Neutral
GND. Green and yellow colours. Protective earth or ground (PE)
COM, COM ¿?
V, V ¿?
V(ADJ). This is a potentiometer, in order to modify the current voltage. Should I touch this?
But I am not sure about what are the COM and the V ports. I assume they are for the DC connections, which is the positive and which the negative? The PSU does not have any manual and I am little lost
Should I turn the potentiometer to change the voltage to adapt it to the Ramps 1.6 Plus board?
Please correct me if I made some mistake in my question as well | You're quite right :)
L (AC): Brown colour. Single Phase line or Three Phase Line (L1)
N (AC): Blue colour. Neutral
GND: Green and yellow colours. Protective earth or ground (PE)
COM: DC Negative (-) - Also referred to as "Common"
V+: DC Positive (+)
V(ADJ). This is for a potentiometer, in order to modify the output voltage. You won't need this unless your power supply is far off.
The way to go about these things is to connect the AC side and to connect a multimeter to the output terminals (V+ and COM, there are two of them in case you need to wire up more than one connection). I like to lightly tighten down the probes under the terminals, that way you don't have to mess with the connections with the mains terminals exposed.
Now you can plug in the power supply (PSU) and make sure it doesn't start smoking or sparking.
Verify that the PSU is outputting DC 12V (that seems to be the voltage required by your Ramps board according to the picture). After that, you can connect it to the Ramps board (remember to disconnect the PSU before rewiring). If the voltage is anything but around 12 V (+/- 0.5VDC should be safe), you need to verify that the PSU is the correct type for your application. |
How to setup PrusaSlicer to support long bridges Don't support bridge is a good idea to reduce support with acceptable print quality. But in this case, if I have a very long bridge and a short bridge, how do I tell the slicer to generate support only for the long bridge. How can I set some parameter like bridge length threshold? | Regardless of the choice of long bridge support or short bridge support, Prusa Slicer 2.3.0 has a feature which allows forced support or allows forced no support.
In Advanced or Expert mode, there is an icon in the left tool bar for "paint-on" supports. The left mouse button paints on supports, while the right mouse button creates support blockers. Shift-left mouse button erases errant paint splatters.
There are more details in the linked video. It's not a parameter, but it is a means to determine where you want (or don't want) the supports.
According to a thread in the Prusa support forum, in order to have the enforcer and blockers operate as expected, configuration settings should be for supports off. This may have changed as the thread is older and may have been modified in newer releases. |
3d scan matting spray I want to scan a few ceramic items that are shiny and have multiple colors and found that using an artec 3d Spider that doesn't really work due to the shininess and thus want to use a matting spray or sth to be able to get proper results. Ideally sth without color that can be used on the ceramic items and allows to obtain proper texture results for the 3d model too. Any ideas? | There are many variations of a product generically known as chalk spray. Some of them should be considered permanent or semi-permanent, while the Montana brand product explicitly states "temporary" in the description. There is a caveat in that it has to be a non-porous surface to be considered temporary.
The product is primarily directed at outside/sidewalk art which can be washed away or will wear away under normal traffic. As such, it is suited for matting shiny surfaces for scanning purposes. White is the best color for scanning as it will accept light and shadows better than the other choices.
I have a can of white and can attest that it will wash off. Some of the product will wipe off dry but the small crevices require washing, which should be considered when spraying your item.
The product is available at many online outlets and may be found at local art supply retailers. |
Is it a good idea to include thermal fuses in a DIY 3D printer design? 3D printing should be relatively safe, however, the inherent nature of 3D printers, with all of the heated parts, constitutes a fire risk. A well designed 3D printer should be designed to be as safe as possible, especially one used in the home... Yes, the recommendation is, when printing, to watch the 3D printer at all times and never leave a print unattended. However, with some print times lasting hours and days, this is not always feasible, nor practical. So, some inbuilt safety features should be included, to at least mitigate the risk of fire, to some extent.
Is the use of thermal fuses1,2 a good idea3?
Would you use more than one?
Where should one place a thermal fuse? Next to a particular component, or free standing, in the air, to get an average, rather than highly localised temperature?
Against which components should a thermal fuse be placed? There are a number of places to choose from, such as next to:
The hotend?
The heated bed?
The extruder?
Each of the stepper motors?
The power supply?
The RAMPS stepper motor drivers?
Of lesser import, which type should one use4, radial or axial?
Has anyone added thermal fuses to their 3D printers? Or has anyone examined where the thermal fuses are placed in commercial 3D printer designs, if used at all?
Background
I have recently found myself having to repair rice cookers and fans in Thailand. In those, it is very often the thermal fuse (axial thermal fuses for the rice cookers and the square "radial" types for fans) that requires replacing, as they have blown before the device got hot enough to start a fire. This got me thinking about their use in a 3D printer.
Footnotes
1 We are not talking about the standard, replaceable, thermo-fuse,or fuse, which blow upon a current surge, short-circuit, etc. These are thermal fuses that contain metal connector within them that melts (permanently) at a specific temperature (typically ~135°C), thereby breaking the circuit.
2 Nor am I referring to resettable fuses (AKA PPTC, multifuse, polyfuse or polyswitch)
3 Would a thermal fuse be preferable to thermal cut offs, in the case of fire?
4 The thermal fuses used in rice cookers are the axial type, and in the motors of fans are the radial type. | Whether you should use a thermal fuse or not depends on what other safety measures you've taken. You can't look at the safety features of a printer in isolation, you need to look at what other measures are in place.
The main fire hazard in printers is unfortunately (still) the fact that some manufacturers use underrated connectors on their boards, and that some users put bare wires in screw terminals or use inadequate torque when tightening terminals. As the wire works itself loose, it starts arcing and burning the connector. A thermal fuse does not help in this situation (unless you place thermal fuses near all of the connectors, which is impractical). Instead:
Properly tighten screw terminals, check them, and consider using proper wire termination (crimp lugs).
Use strain relief on wires. Make sure wires don't rub against anything, and guide them so they do not bend in a tight radius. Since the extruder (or print bed) is constantly moving, those wires are subject to fatigue.
Make sure connectors (especially those for the heated bed) are rated for the current running through them, and solder wires directly to the board if necessary.
Using a regular fuse may protect against wires shorting against each other should their insulation be damaged. Fuses are usually already integrated into the main board.
Most firmwares include some variant of thermal runaway protection, a feature that monitors the heaters and shuts the printer down if it notices something gone wrong. This protects against:
The thermistor coming loose/reading incorrect values/etc...
but not against:
Bugs in the firmware itself
Failure of the MOSFET
Most printers use MOSFETs to switch power to the heating element. Unfortunately, when MOSFETs fail, they usually fail closed (i.e. conducting). This means that, even if the firmware detects something has gone wrong, it won't be able to do anything about it. Solid State Relays (TRIACs) can fail in the same way.
To protect against this, mounting a thermal fuse (or resettable bimetallic switch*) on the heated bed may be a good idea. However, thermal fuses with ratings up to the operating temperature of a hotend do not appear to be available so this is not an option.
Attaching the fuse physically to the part it is monitoring is the most reliable, but for instance with the hotend (if you wanted to protect it all) this might not be feasible to the high temperatures involved so you'd have to settle with monitoring the air temperature close by.
Also consider thermal balancing. A thermal fuse is unnecessary if the component can not overheat to begin with. For instance, most MK2 heated beds struggle getting up to even 100C, so even with a shorted MOSFET they present no danger. However, if you have a powerful high wattage (mains-powered) heated bed, you should definitely install thermal protection.
E3D supplies their hot ends with 25W, 30W and 40W heaters. The 25W heater is the safer choice, since it limits the maximum temperature the hot end can get to, while with the 40W heater you can reach higher temperatures (and reach them faster). Barring a very unlikely scenario in which simultaneously (1) the power supply fails and starts supplying excessive voltage and (2) the MOSFET and/or firmware fails, a heater that is sized appropriately to the load it is driving can never pose any danger.
I don't think it's common to install thermal fuses on steppers, stepper drives or the power supply (which should have its own protection). For every possible location to place a thermal fuse, you can probably think up a failure mode in which that fuse would save the day, but at a certain point it just becomes overkill. The stepper drivers would likely burn out well before the steppers would get hot enough to pose a threat, and overheating of the stepper driver would probably (violently) destroy it but afterwards it should not pose any threat.
Axial v.s. radial does not matter, just use whatever is convenient for your situation.
* Note that some bimetallic switches short one of the leads to the (metal)
case when tripped, which poses a danger, especially with mains-powered heaters. |
How to calculate the proper layer height multiples? We all know, that the best layer hight is, when you have multiples of full steps. If it is not, sometimes steps get skipped and end up bad layer-to-layer adhesion when one height step missed a tiny bit and then the next catches up, creating an extra-thick layer. For example, this was printed somewhat deliberately, and here, the extra spaced layers are perfect for delaminating the print with just a fingernail:
The Ender 3 I have uses the following Z-Rod:
Diameter 8 mm
4 flutes
ca 13 Threads per inch
That is according to the table, a 2 mm pitch for one thread.
As a result, it's an 8 mm pitch for each of the 4 threads.
The firmware (Marlin) I use claims in configuration.h that the NEMA17 motor would be using 400 Steps per mm in Z. configuration_adv.h tells that the microsteps on the Z-axis motor are 16.
In the printer's menu, Babystepping is in increments of 0.049 mm (though some rounding error seems to be there: 5 Babysteps are 0.250 mm). | that the NEMA17 motor would be using 400 Steps per mm in Z. configuration_adv.h tells that the microsteps on the Z-axis motor are 16.
Easy. There are 400 microsteps in a millimeter, and 16 microsteps in a full step. So, there are 400/16=25 full steps in a millimeter. So a full step is 1/25th of a millimeter, or 0.04 mm. Your layer height should be a multiple of this.
As your leadscrew has a lead of 8 mm (i.e., a full rotation will move the Z-axis by 8 mm), a full step is either 8/200=0.04 mm (for a 1.8 degree stepper) or 8/400=0.02 mm (for a 0.9 degree stepper). So, apparently, you have a 1.8 degree stepper (and this is the most common type of stepper). |
Prusa MK3S weird 'Blobs' on PLA print surface This is the first time I've run into this problem and it seems very confusing. I wanted to print a simple functional part out of PLA and although the first few layers were fine, the 6th/7th layer started to have some weird 'blobs'/deformations on it. I don't know how to fix it and the problem didn't go away after changing the filament. I suppose the problem is related either to my settings or the printer. It is very weird, I fully calibrated the printer right after the first fail.
Settings:
nozzle 215 °C
bed 60 °C
speed 100, 50 mm/s for bridges
cooling 100 %, but no autocooling in order to print faster
using PrusaSlicer
Photo: | After hours of trying to fix the problem by trial and error I found that getting the nozzle slightly higher by approximately 0.1 mm was the solution. I cleaned the rods from dust, tightened most of the screws again and calibrated the printer.
I don't encounter this problem anymore even while printing at 150 mm/s speeds. |
Connecting Sain Smart Mechanical End Stops to Ramps 1.4? I have Sainsmart Mechanical End Stops, and I'm building a Prusa i3 Rework.
I've recently gotten the x-axis to move, but it needs to stop when it gets to the end and it does not do that; I end up having to pull the plug.
From what I understand, there are two ways to wire ends stops in general, but you have to change the settings in the firmware to make it work right.
There are 3 connectors on the board:
S (signal)
- (ground)
+ (VCC)
My Sainsmart Mechanical End Stops have 4 connectors!!!
According to their website, left to right with the white connector facing you, they are as follows:
S
Normally Closed (NC)
Normally Open (NO)
VCC
Now it seems to me that if I take those connections and connect them as follows it should work...(ramps on the left, sainsmart end stop on the right):
S (signal) -> S
- (ground) -> Normally Open (NO)
+ (VCC) -> VCC
nothing -> Normally Closed (NC)
...but! Screwing this up by either using the wrong firmware of selecting the wrong wire frys your board, so I thought I'd ask here. Sources please. | The multiple connections are redundant. Your picture indicates the wires labelled as "SIGNAL, GND, GND, VCC". This is correct if the board is a "standard" mechanical endstop v1.2. The two middle pins are both ground, but you only need to use one of them.
You can simply connect signal to signal and ground to ground. That is sufficient for the endstop to work. You only need to connect VVC to VVC if you want the LED that's on the board to function. |
My first attempt at pausing a print and changing filaments resumed from the wrong position -- how do I troubleshoot? I'm attemping my first print where I pause the print, change the filament, and resume to achieve a two-color print. My first attempt failed when the printer resumed printing over a centimeter away from where it should have on the X axis. My second attempt was much better, but still resumed about 1.5mm off-target.
Here's specifically what I did:
Loaded the STL in Cura, the design has a 1mm "base" with an additional 1mm design on top of the base.
I used Cura's "Pause at Height" feature to specify the printer should pause after completing the first 1mm.
I sent the print to Octoprint, via the Cura plugin.
The pause began and went as-expected for the first 1mm. It paused after finishing the layer, as expected.
To switch filament I used the controls to raise the nozzle by 1cm, then moved it to home (X/Y, away from the print). I swapped filaments, hand-feeding the 2nd color until the old color was no longer coming out the nozzle, then gently cleaned up the nozzle.
I lowered the nozzle back to the height it paused at (down 1cm), then resumed the print. The printer moved the X/Y back to the print and resumed.
I'm guessing either I shouldn't move the printer head away from the print when changing filament, or perhaps need to re-home after the new filament is in.
What should I do to resume a print precisely where it paused? Is there a better approach? | You are out of luck:
Print gcode is written in relative coordinates. If you move the printhead manually, the printer does not know this, and will just follow its relative path from the new position - which is what commonly is called layer-shifting.
To try to mitigate this, there are ways, but they are a little tricky:
If your printer has a change filament option, then choose that - this saves the absolute position of the printhead before moving it to X0Y0, then usually extracts the filament and waits for the new filament to be inserted and the printer waits till given a resume-OK. Then it will move to the saves absolute position, and resume the code from the point it paused.
If your printer has a pause option that moves the printhead to X0Y0, this can be used, using a manual extraction. Resuming the print will be easy.
Some slicers support to call "Change filament at layer X", which will call a move to X0Y0 and pause, allowing manual change even if the normal pause behavior is not to move to X0Y0.
As you see: NO manual commands are given here! You can not move the printhead up/down/sideways without having a good chance of inducing a layer shift.
The Pause behavior can be adjusted in the firmware. |
Best/Simplest/Easiest way to secure a lid This is a part I designed, a kind of a frame:
Into the frame I want to be able to place a flat object of variable (but uniform) thickness - like paper, glass, sheet metal, etc. The inserted object should then be covered by some kind of a lid and secured. The lid should keep the inserted object pressed against the "ledge" you see in the frame. The object in the frame will be repeatedly replaced, so the lid will be repeatedly taken off and placed again. When placed, the lid needs to hold, not fall off randomly.
What would be the best/easiest/simplest way to secure the lid? Considering ease of printing, so ideally no supports, as little additional separate parts as possible (but adding a few is not a big problem), etc. The side of the frame you see in the picture can be modified, stuff can be added.
Considered:
threaded inserts in the corners of the frame, screws through the lid. Screws are a little impractical. Threaded inserts for screws big enough to be practical when handled repeatedly take up a lot of space both in area and depth
rubber bands stretched from one side across the lid to the other side. Rubber bands seem a little weak to hold the lid securely, but I guess it could be done.
What methods would you choose? | Don't know how big your parts are, but if repeated use is a concern and you need pressure that screws can deliver, consider screwing on some toggle clamps if you have the real estate.
You could also make a 3d printed version of one that's sized to your needs. There are some models available. |
How to fix WoW models in photon workshop I am using an AnyCubic Photon Resin Printer. I have used the (WoW model viewer to export a miniture that I am hoping to 3D print.
However, when I look at the model in photon workshop, certain parts appear in a different colour, and those parts are printing incorrectly on the final version. For example, if you look at the model below the headpiece feathers printed as a solid block all the way to the base of the model.
Looking at the slicing file, this is what photon workshop exported. I believe the issue may be that, because these are models deisigned for games and not 3d printing, they have only one surface and what I am looking at in Blue is what the photon workshop considers to be the inside of the model. Would ye be able to recommend any steps that I could do to adjust the models to allow them be 3D printed?
https://mega.nz/file/p6I00JZK#qhQplzOTh6w7yZxbGw2vtRRKc-iVDp_QHOvaWfPtULs
The above link is the object as exported from WoW Model viewer. | I believe you've identified the primary problem with this model. The single surface features are going to interfere with printing this object.
The image above is the result of loading the model into Autodesk Netfabb. The red segments are reversed normals, but also single surface components. There are others, visible when rotating the model.
One portion is uncertain, above the flap on the back. It could be a component of the flap or a reversed normal of the body's back.
To resolve this problem, it would be necessary to add thickness to those features.
I loaded the model into Meshmixer and identified one feature, the rear flap. It's loaded with reversed normals when viewed from the "outside" or rear of the model.
Using the select tool, it was easy enough to highlight those triangles and proceed to Edit, flip normals. That was followed by Edit, Extrude, to a thickness of -0.02 mm which presented this result:
There are a few "floating" features in the model. One which pops out is over the protective garb over the shoulder. Those would have to be anchored by adding features or moving that specific feature to properly intersect the body.
There are a few others, zero thickness portions that resemble solar panels. I suspect they are artifacts rather than intentional model features. Those can be removed in Meshmixer using a similar method, Select, Edit, Delete
The hanging hook is a collection of intersecting faces and present a challenge. It's not my model, but I'd be inclined to completely remove that feature, or remove most of it and add a simple cylinder to attach it to the model.
There are programs other than Meshmixer which will allow one to perform such manual repairs/modifications, but my skill set does not include presenting the answer for those packages. |
Issue with Z homing on Ender 3 Pro with Marlin I've just changed the motherboard on my Ender 3 Pro with a MKS GEN_L v1.0 and flashed the latest Marlin version on it.
I've calibrated my bed manually using the default XY and Z auto home commands on OctoPrint and a piece of paper.
I'm happy with the calibration, however whenever I launch a print the Z axis moves up from the calibrated position by about 4 mm and starts extruding.
I've checked my Z endstop status with M119 and it's triggered at the right calibrated position.
How can I correct this? | I've actually found what the issue was. It turns out that my Z steps were way out of whack (i.e. 4000 steps/mm instead of 400). Apparently, that's the default value in GitHub for version 2.0 of Marlin. Not sure if that's a typo or a valid value, anyhow setting it to 400 fixed it. |
How to access BIGTREETECH firmware I recently purchased a BIGTREETECH SKR mini E3 V1.2 and need to adjust some of the settings in configuration h to accommodate for my custom built 3d printer. In the past I've used the RAMPS 1.4 board and adjusted the firmware in the arduino IDE. What is the best way/recommended way to do this for the mini E3 V1.2.
Thanks. | The previous answer is good, but here's one specific for Bigtreetech.
Install platform.io. I use the command-line interface (CLI)
Modify your marlin files. You can clone existiing firmware for your board from the BigtreeTech Github for your board.
Remove microUSB card from your Bigtree tech board
Plug microUSB card into microUSB reader, and the microusb reader into the computer. You should be able to read your microUSB card
Enter the command in the root directory of your Marlin files: platformio run -e STM32F103RC_bigtree_USB. At least, this is the one for my board. You should have to run this in one folder before the Marlin folder.
It creates a file called firmware.bin in the directory .pio/build/STM32F103RC_bigtree_USB/firmware.bin. Copy it to your microUSB card, replacing and deleting any existing .bin. You can use the name firmware.bin.
Remove microSD card from computer and plug into board.
In your Marlin Configuration.h file, there should be a variable called something like MACHINE_NAME. If you make that name custom, then it will appear in the Octoprint terminal when connecting to your board, letting you know that you have updated the firmware. |
Infill not reaching perimeter I've got several examples like the image below where the perimeter either doesn't bond to, or doesn't reach the infill. I tried adjusting the infil overlap parameter in Slic3r from its default of 25% to 30%, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. This is on a new Tevo Tornado that's all stock + a petsfang bullseye cooler.
Edit
neither speed variations, nor temp variation seems to impact this issue. I'm beginning to suspect that it's related to some sort of play in the y axis, as if you look at the defect in the picture, it's the most pronounced running north/south in the picture, which would be layers along the x axis (meaning their relative position would be impacted by y axis movement instability). I'm replacing the leveling springs with PETG standoffs tonight (I have a BLTouch) and will try again then.
I tried 25, 30, and 50% infill overlap as per a comment request, and that (50%)seems to have improved another issue where the infill on a first layer would often not reach the perimeter shells.
I tried the following print speeds with all of the following temperatures- 190/60, 193/65, 193/70, with 3 perimeters.
That's default behavior. I've also gone to
Perimeters - 80
Small perimeters - 20
Infill - 90
Solid infil - 25
Top solid infil - 20
Bridges - 70
Gap fill - 25
With no visible change in this outer perimeter behavior (the faster set of numbers is what I print with in general). | This has nothing to do with the infill overlap, the image you've added looks as if the issue is related to non-bonding perimeters (it looks as if it is in between the 2nd and the 3rd perimeter). If that is the case look into this question.
I've had this same issue, the problem is that if the perimeters do not touch, this is most probably caused by insufficient filament flow which can be a result of a too high of a print speed (or too low print temperature) of the inner perimeters. |
PLA printings always ~0.22% larger I was trying to print parts for a small CD-ROM drive based plotter based on this thing https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3521286
But as tolerances are very small and need to match the existing parts, I realized that my printed parts are actually a little bigger, I made a test with a part like this:
_ _
/ \ / \
\ .------------------------. ___
| [O]________________[O] | ^
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |<--- 62mm ---->| | | |
| | | | 70mm
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
_| [O]________________[O] | _v_
/ '------------------------' \
\ _ / \ _ /
Side View:
[X] [X]
___[XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]____
A squared and mouse-eared frame with two protruding 4mm cubes on each corner with inner distances of 62mm and outer of 70mm between each adjacent cubes.
I discovered that, after measuring many times and averaging distances, my model printed 0.227..% larger.
I've heard of shrinkage factor for ABS or Nylon, and people compensate scaling their models while slicing.
But what about PLA?
Im using:
Anet A8
Stock marlin firmware (not the Anet one)
Flashforge natural PLA 1.75mm
0.4mm Nozzle
0.2mm layer height
0.4mm line width
210ºC extrusion temp
60ºC Bed temp
40mm/s print speed
Fusion 360, Cura 2.7 or 4.3 and Octoprint.
The printed model is pretty flat, has no curvatures or artifacts either.
Would this be an error of constants on my printer a known artifact from PLA? | You are not taking into account die swell.
When printing with a 3D printer hot plastic is forced through a nozzle, which leads to the expansion of the material. The result is, that with 0.4 mm nozzle and 0.4 mm intended line width, the material will actually deposit some fraction of a millimeter wider. In your test case, that is 0.22%. If you'd print a double-sized test piece, I expect 0.11%, and in case of a half-sized 0.44% - in other words, it is a static offset.
Because of this, it is usually better to demand wider lines than the nozzle is, forcing the die swell effect to become negligible in the wider line. I managed this with about 110% of the nozzle width on my machines.
Further Reading: Why is it conventional to set line width > nozzle diameter? |
Extrusion stops during print I changed the filament (PLA) in my Wanhao Duplicator I3+. I ended the first try to print when I saw that the 'lines' were too thin. I re-sliced with a higher temperature (195°C instead of 190°C). Now the print started without a problem but after about 25% no more filament came out of the extruder. What can be the reason and how can I resolve it?
The filament is from Vertex, grey. The object that I use to test is a 20 mm hollow cube from Thingiverse that I have used for the previous filament too.
I am not sure that this is a clogging problem since the print starts with no problems. It just stopped after 25%. When I started another print I was able to finish by increasing the temperature. | I redid the print in order to reply to some questions posed in the answer of @kdtop. The print started but the output was not consistent and sometimes stopped. The temperature is 195°C and sometimes 'drop' to 194°C. First I pushed the new real so that the extruder did not need to pull so much. When this did not solve the problem I changed the temperature to 200°C. Now the output became consistent and my print finished. It was not as good as the one that I did with my previous filament. The top was not as neatly closed. Only the last 2 layers covered more or less for 100% the surface (perhaps 200°C is too high for this?).
For me the solution is to higher the temperature to 200°C (or perhaps 205°C). |
RF100 Settings after reinstalling firmware I have an RF100 v.1 printer with stock software (again) onboard.
After my attempt of changing firmware, the X-axis motor decided to stray printhead away out of the borders of the printer and somehow motor wires broke out of the adapter.
I fixed the wires and reverted to stock firmware, though now whenever I auto-home or press "Home" button on Ultimaker Cura, printhead goes wild top and left reaching borders and starts buzzing like crazy.
current condition:
Head is TOP LEFT with X=100 and Y=100 on the table being under head Z=0;
screenshot
Even with these beautiful tiny settings, I cannot print anything because printhead goes too far TOP RIGHT by itself.
Ideas? | Everything was fixed by thorough googling and flipping the whole wire-set of the motor. It started to twirl in a right direction.
Sorry for the time |
Turn off heated bed in Repetier? I have a printrbot simple metal with the heated bed upgrade. I think theirs a problem with my board, so long story short, I'm just trying to print without actually heating up the bed. The problem I am faced with is when I try to print from Repetier, it's still trying to connect the heated bed. I can't find any settings for shutting this off anywhere. How can I bypass this so I can still print? Thanks! | A workaround would be to post-process your gcode files manually removing all M140 and M190 instructions (the one setting heated bed temperatures).
You can do that manually by opening your GCODE file in a text editor and searching for M140 and M190, but I recently had the same problem with Slic3r (Prusa edition) and I wrote a one-liner that does that automatically for me. |
Connecting disconnected pieces in Fusion360 Stencil. Sketch entire model then extrude I am trying to make stencils of Japanese Kanji characters with my 3D Printer.
I am very new to Autodesk Fusion360 so I am running into some barriers:
I am having trouble sketching a rectangle and then a text character and extruding them separately. If I extrude one they both disappear. Therefore I have to sketch one, then extrude, then create the next sketch object.
How can I create both sketches and select different ones to extrude?
I am having this basic problem where my stencil has parts that are disconnected (see example below). I've tried sketching lines and thin rectangles to connect the pieces but they both didn't work. I once again can't extrude after it's created.
How can I connect the pieces after extruding? How can I connect them inside a text object? | As I see it, for a stencil you want the brown part with the white part(s) cut out.
This is easily doable. You can do this one sketch at a time, extrude it, and cut it out of the brown part.
To connect the inner brown parts to the rest of the brown, you'll need to cut a thin rectangle in the white character so that the inner brown pieces are connected to the outer brown pieces. |
Adhesion problems with masking tape I have been playing around with the bed for a while and I still can't get the first layer to stick properly. I think I am getting the bed leveled good, I use the paper method. But yet I find myself with the filament lifting off and getting pulled away with the nozzle or some balling in rare situations.
I use masking tape, which I found for $3 at Dollar general. I heard something about shine being a factor, but why is that important? And is more expensive masking tape worth it? I don't want to buy it because I would hate for it to tear when I take off a print.
I also use some glue stick, which seems to sometimes not help, almost like it doesn't allow the filament to stick. I don't think I was adding too much, maybe I was. But is glue stick needed? Does it really make that much of a difference?
So other than that I don't know what to try. I can't get the first layer to work properly. Maybe it is my speed, what is a good speed to print at for the first layer, I am doing 60 mm/s, just like the rest of my print.
Any advice from there with first layers would be great. I am tired of wasting time and filament over failed first layers. But when I do get the first layer done, the second+ layers all work fine, no issues.
Here are the specs of my printer, that should be helpful for people:
Printer --> Anet A6
Print area --> 220 x 220 mm
Heated bed? --> Yes
Bed temp --> 50°C
I use masking tape on bed
nozzle dia. --> 0.4mm
Nozzle temp --> 210°C
Print speed --> 60 mm
Material of choice --> PLA
Fan is on after 3 layers
I think that covers everything, Let me know if I need to add anything else. | Masking tape (and blue painter's tape) is coated with a wax-based release agent in order to prevent the tape sticking to itself on the roll. This release agent must be removed with an organic solvent in order to obtain good adhesion. Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol is good for this. Acetone will also work, but it is a much stronger solvent (which is not necessarily a good thing).
For blue painter's tape, rub freshly applied tape with solvent until the blue dye starts coming off. Then give it a quick wipe between prints to remove any fingerprints, etc. |
How does Prusa3D firmware respond to an open or shorted thermistor during a print? I have a Prusa3D i3m3s. The problem occurred once before with firmware 3.6.1. Last night I upgraded to firmware 3.7.1 and repeated the problem almost exactly.
The symptom is that at what appears to be the same point in the print in the two failure instances, the extruder stops extruding. There are a few wisps of filament on both failures. The print continues to completing. At the end of the print, the firmware issues an error because the MMU2s can not properly retract the filament.
On analysis, the filament is tightly jammed into the extruder and hot end, almost as if there has been heat creep. Slow, strong, and steady tension on the filament will withdraw it from the extruder system.
The hot end heats normally, and maintains temperature. When hot, plastic extrudes properly from the hot nozzle.
The thermister wires are damaged from an earlier problem.
The damage points to a thermister-related problem, but a shorted or open thermister is easy to detect in firmware. I would expect it to throw an error and stop the print.
My question is: Does the Prusa3D firmware detect open/shorted thermisters and stop the print?
If a photo is required, I can post that tomorrow. | This sounds like a problem I had with my hotend cooling fan a couple years back. To answer your question, from what I'm reading, the Prusa3D firmware detects thermal runaway if the hotend temperature drops for more than 45 seconds, it detects an open-circuit by reading 16 °C or less (MINTEMP error), and detects a short by reading 310 °C or higher (MAXTEMP error).
Couple questions that might help better troubleshoot the root of the problem:
have you measured the thermistor's resistance while cold or hot?
have you made sure your hotend cooling fan is at an appropriate speed while heated?
have you made sure your print cooling fan duct isn't pointed at the hotend block due to being jostled?
You might find that there are some fairly simple solutions to a handful of overheat problems. I bought a cheap knockoff all-metal heatbreak and immediately ran into problems, but solved them by printing a better heatsink shroud and upgrading to a 40 mm fan. If you've upgraded to an all-metal hotend, you might run into issues with PLA specifically if you're not printing enough material fast enough, as PLA is somewhat sensitive to heat creep through the filament itself in the throat of the hotend. |
The bottom of the printed objects has waves after replacing the nozzle I had a problem with my nozzle on my homemade printer. The problem was that the nozzle with a 0.4 mm diameter wasn't putting out any plastic. I replaced the nozzle with a 0.2 mm one and now the bottom of my model is looking like this:
I tried to change flow,temperatures and speed.
But nothing helped it keeps making this waves. At the old 0.4 mm nozzle there everything was okay. | Without more detail is difficult to say with certainty what the root cause of the problem is, but it looks like too much material is being deposited on the bed.
A few things to try/check:
Make sure the nozzle is not leaking. If it is, you should see fused plastic coming out from the seal nozzle/hot-end and/or hot-end/heat break and trickling down. This is often the case when the nozzle hasn't been tightened enough, or it has been changed with the hot-end being cold, or if the internal PTFE tube has been dislodged upwards (does not apply to all-metal hot-ends).
Make sure you changed the appropriate setting for the nozzle diameter. This is not "flow" it is a separate setting. If you haven't, your printer is now extruding ~4 times as much filament as it ought.
Recalibrate your nozzle height. This should be done at each nozzle change, as each nozzle is slightly different from the other, and it is possible your new nozzle now sits too close to the bed.
EDIT: also, the picture is too low-res to be sure, but looking at the skirt, it looks like the extruded plastic comes out in blobs. If it is not due to leakage, then I would suggest to also check that the filament is not slipping through the gears of the extruder. If you have access to a suitable thermometer, you could also check that the hot-end temperature is stable at the level it should.
Final thought: have you ever succeeded printing with that filament spool? It is unlikely, but it may be for example a defective one, or a mis-labelled one (so your printing temperature may be wrong). |
Extruder clicking Tronxy x5s Whenever it start printing the extruder starts clicking, I tried adjusting the voltage with no luck, it's still clicking. And it doesn't extrude a lot of plastic sometimes it even stops extruding but the extruder is still turning. Can someone help? | The clicking you are hearing is either the stepper motor skipping steps or the hobbed gear losing grip on the filament.
Either way, it means that the filament opposes an unusually high resistence to be pushed forward.
A key information to be able to diagnose your problem is whether the clicking is on the firsts couple of layers or throughout the print.
If it is only for the first 1-3 layers the problem is likely to be the printing bed too high (or deformed), so that the nozzle touches it and the bed acts a "lid" on the nozzle preventing the molten plastic to get out. If this is the case, adjust the printing bed to be flat and level (and the nozzle at the right height when homed on the Z axis.
If the problem persists throughout the full print the problem is likely to be related to one of the following:
the extruder not managing to get a firm grip on the filament (worn teeth, slack spring, ...)
the stepper motor being underpowered (this seems not to be your case, given that you have already adjusted the voltage)
a clog, adhesion, or restriction in either the bowden tube or the extruder, for which the best solution is disassemble, inspect and clean (eventually changing the bowden tube if it has been deformed). |
How can I program a 3D printer to move using Arduino? I search about that topic, but all what I found, was the mechanical part of the 3d printer. But I didn't find, how to program it using arduino.
I want to make a cartesian 3d printer. I don't have a printer yet, but I will buy all the components that I need actually.
I know, how to control stepper motors, but I don't know, how I can program it in order to make the shape that I want.
This is my question: what I need to learn in order to let this 3d printer make this shapes? | Yes.
Look up Arduino Ramps 1.4
http://reprap.org/wiki/RAMPS_1.4
Following the programing is all done for you in the firmware. That said you can edit it. Just open the firmware files -- it is compiled when you upload them. Generally however one usually sticks to the preferences header alone..
http://reprap.org/wiki/List_of_Firmware
Over all you are trying to reinvent the wheel. When I started 5-6 years ago it was barely a thing. Now you buy a proven kit and get to the printing. That said if you are truly interested in designing check out.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cncbuilddesign/
If you want help on picking a kit. Or what I really think you are looking for. A good place to start. This is one of the larger 3d printing groups. Full disclosure I run this one, but at 6k members I don't recruit.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/3DPrinterHobbyists/
I got my start in reprap IRC
http://reprap.org/wiki/IRC
Be aware there are trolls that now camp the IRC looking to sell you a printer. I would not engage with them, their printers are usually overpriced and sub par.
Best of luck.
Most of all I think you need to know it's Reprap all the way. Reprap forums, Reprap printers, Reprap kits, Reprap community. All the commercial printers started off the reprap project. Even if you buy a makerbot (don't) it's Reprap in it's roots.
https://vimeo.com/5202148 |
Layer lifted and separated from ESD PLA I'm using the default Ultimaker Cura draft profile but with the nozzle temp at 220 °C because this is a special ESD filament.
All was going well after some troubleshooting thanks to some users on 3DPrinting.SE but this happened over night:
What would cause an entire layer to lift off the main body, continue to print and then turn to spaghetti?
The red circled part was supposed to be part of the blue outline. | The spool kept getting caught on itself and tightening. I unrolled some of it and rewound it and the print came out perfect. @anttix was almost correct with the clog theory. |
Are stepper flex couplings important? How important? TL;DR:
On my particular printer design, it definitely appears the company switched from flex couplings to solid couplings on purpose to improve the printer, and to prevent well-meaning users from adjusting the previous flex couplings. Whether or not this is a good design overall, is left for the reader to decide. It's certainly simple and cheap to use the motor itself as one of the leadscrew thrust bearings, but in the future I might add a micro-adjustable bearing block in place of the motor, and then couple the motor to the leadscrew with a flex coupling. That would be more typical of the way it's done on CNC machines, where the stepper bearings are isolated from any machine loads.
Original post: I bought a Artillery X1, supposedly the latest V4 version. It's my first printer, but I have experience with CNC machines. Although the pictures and YouTube videos all show the Z axis steppers connected to the leadscrews with flexible (spiral type) couplings, the printer I got has solid couplings.
I thought flex couplings were important to prevent binding, so I was going to buy some flex couplings. But as I look at the printer, it appears the leadscrews actually are supported by the stepper motor itself at the bottom...there are no thrust bearings, so the weight of the printhead is supported by the stepper motor directly through the coupling. Since the spiral flex couplings can compress slightly, is the use of solid couplings deliberate in order to make a more precise machine? If I install flex couplings, will it make my printer worse by introducing "spring" into the system? Is this a typical design, or do other printers have thrust bearings or "hang" the leadscrews from the top?
There are a lot of reviews and videos about this printer where people noticed the leadscrews were internally touching the end of the motor shaft inside the coupling, and people thought that was wrong, so they spaced them back apart. Now, I wonder if the shafts touching was a deliberate design decision, and maybe the company even switched to solid couplers to prevent people from adjusting the couplers back. Please help me solve this mystery of the solid motor couplings.
EDIT: I found a related application where the axial rigidity of the stepper couplings matter. In the following YouTube video the author deliberately jams together the lead screw and stepper shaft in order to eliminate spring from the flex coupling. This tends to solidify my theory that this printer uses solid couplings deliberately, and other printers with similar Z axes could potentially benefit as well. The X1 uses floating support bearings for the X stage to prevent binding, which probably helps.
Also, in this YouTube video the author describes how he deliberately decided to use rigid couplings on this printer to improve his Z axis and references other sources which come to the same conclusion. | Yes and No
Let's start with the obvious: Flex couplings or rigid couplings are a deliberate choice in designing the printer. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. So let's look into the 4 types of drive-train setups that I know to be possible:
Spiral couplings make it possible to operate the machine with a slightly misaligned motor to the shaft (<1°) but can add a measurable slop, which can be seen as a systemic error.
Rigid couplings have minimal slop but need to be much better aligned by the user in setup.
No coupling at all - direct drive to the shaft - has no slop at all, but is both more expensive and needs the most diligent work on setup.
Geared. You could couple the motor with the Z-Axis via gears, allowing to trade speed for detail and vice versa. It also can allow mounting the motor 90° to the printer, but it also adds some backlash and slop. Because good gears are expensive, this is really rare.
Using spiral couplers right
A spiral coupler can actually be used in two ways:
Keeping the leadscrew tensioned into a position.
This butts both parts together, it reduces the slop induced by the coupler to the minimum, but you need to forcefully make sure that the parts push together. You lose some of the misalignment-correction.
Decouple vibrations from one shaft to another.
This keeps a little gap between the two. The slop can be larger, but you get the benefit of the shafts on both sides not transmitting all the vibrations 1:1 to the other shaft and you get more self-realignment if the motor and shaft are not perfectly coaxial.
What is better?
Well, it depends. If you want the perfect drive, you'd go direct drive. If you want the finest motor control (by virtue of getting the steps to a much smaller rotation), you might use gears. But the spring-coupler allows you to do the setup easier for a consumer that might not be the most reliable in setting it up himself. Making the spring-coupler butted can increase repeatability and reduce slop to almost the same as a stiff coupler but not lose the ability to have a slightly crooked setup that still works. |
How can I tell if BLTouch is triggering? MY new BLTouch doesn't seem to be actually sensing anything, and I'm not sure how to test it.
Quick background: I have a bit under a decade of experience with printing generally, but essentially none with firmware or any of the specific hardware. I recently got a new Ender 3 Pro, and successfully printed with it for a month.
I recently decided to upgrade my Ender 3 pro motherboard and add a BLTouch. I installed an SKR Mini E3 v2.0, tested briefly (long enough to satisfy myself that it worked as expected, but nothing extensive). I bolted on a BLTouch (not sure if 3.0 or 3.1), built and installed a cable to the dedicated "Z-Probe" port (same pinout as the BLTouch: brown, red, yellow, black, white), and updated the firmware with the binary firmware file from the controller board manufacturer. I have no other mods to electronics.
Right now, I have the following behavior:
During startup: BLTouch extends and retracts several times
In the LCD menu for BLTouch; select CMD:Self Test: BLTouch turns red, extends and retracts several times.
In the LCD menu for BLTouch; select CMD:Extend: BLTouch extends.
In the LCD menu for BLTouch; select CMD:Retract: BLTouch retracts.
In the LCD menu, select Auto Home: behaves as expected (moves the axes until they hit endstops).
So far so good, but then this:
In the LCD menu, select Bed Level: performs Auto Home procedure (as above), moves the BLTouch over the corner of the bed, extends the probe, lowers the Z axis until it hits the endstop. BLTouch probe moves back in. On the way down it turns solid red, then flashing red, then eventually retracts, then the carriage hits the endstop. Process ends.
So, What next? I'd like to check that the BLTouch is actually sending a signal to the board, but I'm not sure how. I've reviewed a bunch of online tutorials and the documentation for the mainboard and the BLTouch, without finding an answer.
Available tools: I have a multimeter and a very cheap oscilloscope. I haven't gotten the maple console installed, but do have a (probably?) functional alternative through the Pango slicer. | Problem is solved, though I still don't know how to test the BLTouch.
I had reversed the power connection (black and white wires) at the connection to the extension cable. Swapping that connector back around restored expected behavior. |
Can a sandstone 3D print be printed as a solid object? I've been asked to prepare a 3D model for 3D printing in sandstone. I've been told that it needs to be 3" tall and the walls have to be at least 2 mm thick. It's an absolute pain in the neck having to make sure everything is the right thickness. So, I was wondering, can the whole model just be printed as a solid object, with 100% infill, and does that work for sandstone? | Yes, you can just print it solid. However, it might be significantly more expensive to print your object entirely solid. For instance, Shapeways charges \$0.75 per cm³ of material for their full-color sandstone. A solid cube of 5x5x5 cm would cost \$96 to print, whereas it would only cost around \$6 if you printed it hollow with 2mm walls. |
Identifying PLA/PETG or ABS I received a roll of Black filament as a present, and struggled to print with it, experiencing extreme under-extrusion (and slippage of the hobbed gear). Higher temperatures seemed to work better, particularly in freeing up the extrude rate.
The filament is advertised as PLA, but without any temperature recommendations that I can find on the vendor's website (or the amazon listing). Amazon reviews have a fairly wide range of temperatures, but the listing aggregates several colours. There is a suggestion that the filament may be PETG, or ABS.
I have tried using acetone, and it dissolves roughly the same as some ABS I have, my PLA shows some weakening but doesn't dissolve.
Below about 215°C, extrusion is borderline non-existent. I printed at 225°C with a fan, and it extruded kind of OK, but adhesion was poor. 240° without a fan seems a bit on the hot side (see photo). Even 255°C seems to extrude OK without burning. There is no smell I can observe (but I have a cold). It burns with a small blue flame, and minimal smell (kind of like natural gas).
One factor against it being ABS is that with the bed at 60°C, printing both a benchy and the heat tower below, there was no warping. Bed adhesion remained good.
Is there anything I can do to better identify this filament and decide the best combination of fan/temperature without wasting too much time?
255° to 225° heat tower, seems different to the ABS i've used: | There is a trick. However I would like to mention that chances are that the random spool you pickup from most stores, especially no name brands, are either completely lying to you about its material or is mixed / cut with cheaper fillers. All about finding a good brand. Course rarely does one actually need pure PLA, a mixed material will often perform as well without you even noticing. Aside from the temp difference. Not to say it is right.
Now the trick is this. While I don't advise ever breathing in potentially carcinogenic plastic smoke. You take a lighter. Burn it. If it smells sweet it is PLA.
From this link from digital trends about PLA VS ABS you can see why it has this smell.
The thermoplastic is also more pleasant on the nose, as the sugar-based material smells slightly sweet when heated opposed to the harsh smell often associated with ABS. However, while PLA might seem like a better overall choice at first glance, it features a far lower melting point than ABS.
Also not responsible if you burn yourself or your property. At your own risk.
Just warming it with lighter might work too. But just burning a small section. It will be real clear.
Or you could just drop a bit into aceton and see if it melts. PLA will mostly just look like crud after being treated is aceton. ABS is 100% dissolve.
We see from these forums that PETG does not dissolve via Aceton. So you can test you material. If it does disolve it is ABS. If it smells sweet when burned it is PLA. If it melts at 240 and does not dissolve it is likely PETG.
Solid forums
3d printboard
We are a bit lost on a test for PETG. However we do know its melting point. Which is 240-260c. I would say it is likely you have ABS
Once we know the material we can get to the meat of your question.
Best way to proceed is to start with simple calibration prints. The thin wall. Cube, and part fitting. Once those pass you are good to go. Other than buying simplify3d I do not know of any short cuts. Back when I used slic3r I kept a spread sheet. I would change a temp by 5 degrees and give it a quality score. Repeat with speeds. Far as fan, I would expect that it wont effect much. Maybe need to calibrate your PIDs.
Once you have it dialed in, all you will need to do is calibrate the temp when switching materials. Remember you need to calibrate even between different colors (okay its best to.. I often skip) I usually do the temp adjustments live on the printer. Increase and degrease a few degrees. For me the goal is to have the plastic as cool as possible. That allows for highest quality prints (ie less oozing and such) |
What do the pink colors in Slic3r preview signify? If it signifies a problem, how do I fix it? What does the pink color in Slic3r preview mean? Yellow is my model, green is support, and pink is..?
If the pink color is some kind of warning, how do I fix it? | In slic3r preview, salmon (pink) represents infill, yellow represents perimeters, and green represents support material, including skirt and brim. |
Problems with bed leveling of Creality CR-10 Mini So I've had my CR-10 Mini for some months now, and I've been continually having strange problems with bed leveling. Basically, after leveling the bed and printing a part, the bed is no longer leveled for printing again.
Just now, I auto-homed, leveled the bed to where there was a pretty good amount of friction between the nozzle and a piece of paper, and started a print. The first layer didn't look like it was getting squished just that little bit that it should be, so I stopped the print, auto-homed again and checked the leveling with the paper. Low and behold, there was no friction at all between the nozzle and the paper. I re-leveled again and restarted the print, and then the first layer went down OK.
So what I'd like to know is why the heck am I having so many leveling problems?!? I've checked to make sure all my set screws are tight, my belts properly tensioned, and the rollers on the bed adjusted to slide smoothly but still have a good amount of grab. Help? | The Creality CR-10 Mini is a portal printer using a single Z lead screw at one side of the portal to move the whole X axis gantry. This implies that the X gantry needs to be very stiff when raised and lowered from one side and also have a minimum of play on the rollers (especially on the lead screw driven side).
I have seen many complaints from experience of people complaining that the gantry is not stiff enough, or that there is too much play on the rollers on either side of the gantry to result in a skew gantry. Consistent leveling is very hard on such machines. A colleague of me added an extra stepper (and split the original stepper connector) to have it raised and lowered from both sides. Do understand that this is also not optimal, missed steps on one of either sides can also cause the X gantry to become skew. A better solution is to create a belt driven extra lead screw that is powered by one stepper, you will not experience a skew gantry as the gantry is integrally moved. |
Second layer of ASA print 'runs' I am using a Prusa i3 MK2 to do a print in ASA, and I'm having a problem where on the second layer the plastic 'runs' into lines across the direction the head travels. It looks like the plastic is being repelled by the previous layer and running together due to surface tension, but I may be wrong about this.
I thought I had managed to solve this problem previously by reducing the temperature to 230 °C (1st layer) / 225 °C (other layers), but having changed some of the other settings this is no longer solving the problem. I have tried reducing the temperature as low as 215 °C / 210 °C, and this is still happening.
Here is a photograph of the first and second layers:
The direction of head travel for the first layer was bottom left <-> top right, and for the second layer top left <-> bottom right.
The settings were based on the standard Prusa i3 MK2 Slic3r settings bundle for ABS filament with a 0.05 mm layer height, modified as follows:
print temperature reduced to 230 °C / 225 °C
fan speed increased slightly to 15 % as on 10 % the fan doesn't start.
layer height for first 14 layers: 0.2 mm
extrusion widths set to Slic3r defaults
various print speeds reduced, mainly the travel speed.
number of top and bottom layers reduced because of the increased layer height.
The reason for increasing the layer height for the first 14 layers is that the print is a piece of mixed raised text and braille lettering intended to be inset into a larger sign. I want fine detail for the top layers with the lettering, but high speed for the lower layers that are more structural. I am inserting an M600 change filament manually into the G-Code file at the point where the lettering starts. I have so far managed to produce one successful print - see the image below. The reason I am still playing with the settings is that the good print wasn't in high enough quality, and there was some slight stringing between letters.
The good print was based on a 0.1 mm layer height for the lettering, modified to 0.15 mm for the lower layers, with a temperature of 230 °C / 225 °C. | I've now worked out the reason for the plastic 'running' on the second layer. It is because of the way that I prepared the G-Code file, using the option in Slic3r which lets you alter the layer height for certain layers in the print. The problem with this appears to be that there are other settings which are not altered at the same time for the thicker layers. So the first half of the file ends up printed using the settings that work for a 0.05 mm layer height, but with the layer height set to 0.2 mm.
I have prepared a new file by rendering two G-Code files, one using the Prusa settings for a 0.2 mm layer height, and the other using a 0.05 mm layer height. I then merged these manually by looking for the layer change at 2.8 mm in both files and appending the end of the 0.05 mm file to the start of the 0.2 mm file. (I found the layer changes by using Slic3r's custom G-Code option, and adding custom comments into the G-Code which included the layer number and height on every layer change). Then I inserted an M600 'Change filament' instruction at a height of 3.05 mm, where the writing begins.
When I print this file, the problem with the plastic running together on the second layer disappears. |
Anycubic i3 Mega incorrect Heated Bed temperature Reading It's been about a month since I've started using my Anycubic i3 Mega and everything has been going great. But today, I left it alone to print a 3DBenchy and it suddenly stopped mid-print. I didn't see it stop but once I came to the printer, the motors and the bed were at ambient temperature suggesting that it has stopped for quite a while. I was surprised that the Bed Temperature registered at over 200 ºC (although it wasn't at all hot) and tried to stop the print. However. I wasn't able to stop the print (It said stop failed) and I couldn't change the temperature, so I just switched the PSU off.
After leaving it for a few minutes, I turned the printer back on and the Bed Temperature still registered at absurd temperatures although it wasn't hot at all as seen on the Image Below.
I then tested the Hot End as the temperature seemed normal and it does seem to work and I was able to get some filament to be extruded out normally.
Any ideas on what happened here? It was working fine for an entire month and was working fine for the day, but mid-print it just suddenly broke. I've also uploaded a GIF to Imgur to show how the bed temp fluctuates a lot. Any help would be appreciated :) | The first value, which is in your pictures 179 and 184 °C, is the measured value. The 0 °C value is the set value. It looks like the temperature reading from the hotbed is not working correctly. So there are two possible issues:
The cable on the backside leading to the hotplate might be damaged. This seems to be a common issue with this printer. You could check if the cables show any obvious damage.
The hotbed thermistor is broken. On the leads on the backside you can measure with a multimeter the resistance between the green an blue cables. Typical readings are in the range of 100 kΩ. If you touch the thermistor, usually it is placed in the mid area of the heatbed, the resistance should change. |
How are delta movements calculated? On a Cartesian printer movements are really simple. If we assume the printer has 100 steps/mm on each axis, then a move of 10mm on a axis is just 1000 Steps on that axis.
Movements that are not aligned with one axis are also simple. Moving from x,y = 0,0 to 10,10 would be 1000 steps on x and y.
On deltas even for simple moves more than one motor has to move. And just calculating the amount of steps on each axis needed to reach the destination probably gives a curved move.
So what is the algorithm to calculate the steps for a given move for a delta printer? | There are two main special steps to the technique used by most open-source 3d printer controllers:
Divide each linear gcode segment into lots of very small subsegments ("Segmentation")
Use some basic trigonometry or the pythagorean theorem to tie extruder position to carriage height for each of the three towers ("Inverse Kinematics")
to find the target position for each small segment
The inverse kinematics are surprisingly simple. A virtual 90 degree triangle is constructed from two known lengths to solve for the unknown third length:
The fixed delta arm length is the hypotenuse of the triangle
The horizontal distance between the column joints and end-effector joints is calculated from the XY coordinates of the nozzle and the fixed position of the column, to determine the length of the lower side of the triangle
The length of the upper side of the triangle is calculated from the previous two via the pythagorean theorem
The length of the upper side is added to the nozzle Z height to get the necessary carriage height
I think the best open-source reference here is Steve Grave's Rostock Kinematics document, rev3 available for download here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/deltabot/V6ATBdT43eU/jEORG_l3dTEJ
Some relevant pictures:
These inverse kinematics calculations are performed for each carriage to get a "carriage space" target position, and this is performed for every path sub-segment.
The results from these steps can then be reinserted back into the standard linear path interpolation techniques for the printer, in which it fires steps in the necessary ratios and at the necessary rates to produce the desired straight-line motion and acceleration/velocity profile. (How THAT is done is a different question.)
The net effect is that the printer will move through a series of small "linear" carriage movements (linear meaning constant* speed with respect to time) that collectively approximate the necessary curved (quadratic position with respect to time) carriage motions required to produce a straight-line end-effector move.
*(Constant speed before acceleration slowdowns are applied in order to obey dynamics constraints, anyway. Again, that's the subject of a different question.)
Segmentation is very similar to the process of using a polygon to approximate a circle. If the facets are small enough, the polygon is a good approximation. Higher Segmentation rates produce less path-following error. The primary conceptual difference between drawing circle arcs and Delta motion paths is that the so-called "faceted arc" with Delta Segmentation is constructed in height-vs-time coordinates instead of the X-vs-Y coordinates you'd use to draw a circle on a computer screen.
This system is used in large part because support for Delta style printers was originally bolted onto GRBL-based motion planners which were written exclusively for straight-line motion paths in Cartesian printers. It was a relatively minimal modification to the existing codebase compared to implementing full quadratic path interpolation.
Techniques have evolved over the years. And alternate approaches are often used: for example, the dc42 fork of RepRapFirmware performs exact path-following without segmentation, by recalculating the proper time for the next step after every step. This is functionally equivalent to approximating a circle with a polygon facet count so high that every pixel on the screen gets its own facet. So it is exactly as accurate as the positioning resolution of the motors allows. The downside is that this segmentation-free technique is fairly processor-intensive, so it only works on relatively fast controllers, not the older 8bit Atmega AVR that powers most existing consumer/hobbyist printers today.
Other techniques are possible. The academic parallel robotics control literature is a whole other world of mathematical techniques and complexity in order to produce generalized control algorithms that work for a wide range of robot mechanisms. The version we use in open-source 3d printers is quite simple and application-specific in comparison. |
Calibrating E steps for new filament Is it a good idea or do I need to calibrate my E steps after I switch to a new filament due to the different types I use (to make my prints accurate)?
E.g. calibrate when switching from PLA to ABS/PETG? | No that will not be necessary.
However, you could use calipers to measure the diameter of the filaments (e.g. at 5 positions over a few meters) and calculate the mean diameter, if there is a significant difference between the new and the currently used filament you could change the diameter in the slicer (or the flow modifier), you do not need to calibrate the steps per millimeter every time you change filament.
You only need to calibrate the steps per millimeter if you change something in the extruder hardware setup, e.g. different extruder, different stepper driver, a new gear, etc. As long as the hardware is not changed a calibrated extruder setup will move a certain amount of filament regardless of the diameter variation (per rotation of the extruder gear an amount of $2 \times \pi \times (gear\ radius)$ mm of filament. |
Issues with connecting Pronterface to Anet A8 printer I was recently told I should probably update my printer's firmware from the current version (ANET_A8_20160701V2.0) to Marlin (going to use v1.1.9). To do this, I dutifully downloaded both Pronterface and RepetierHost trying to connect with either one of them to my printer. I've checked the Device Mangler (Manager) and found the USB does connect and is recognized on COM5, yet neither software are connecting. The software sees COM5 as active as well, but I get back an error stating "access is denied" for some reason. What might I be doing wrong? | After some trial and error, I discovered you need to set the baud rate to 115200 in the printer settings. I went through and tried each of the baud settings available until it connected. Glad I started with Pronterface, as RepetierHost has a lot longer baud list :o) Setting the baud rate is not inuitive as to the issue, as getting back "access denied" to me implied something else was going on. After that, was able to run direct commands to the printer through the USB port without issues. |
What is the strongest filament type? I'm looking for a filament that is strong, doesn't crack and doesn't break easily and is impact resistant. I'm currently using PLA and it's strong, but, I'm looking for something that doesn't snap or break when dropped. | PEEK may well be the strongest filament out there (and it has other interesting properties to recommend it), but it is very difficult to print and requires a printer designed to operate at high temperatures. If you are still using PLA, your next port of call should be PETG. It is a lot stronger than PLA (although it will shatter if hit hard enough) and it is almost as easy to print. It also gives off hardly any fumes and it can be printed without an enclosure. |
Brand new Ender 3 does not extrude any filament during printing I bought an Ender 3 two days ago and assembled it today. I think I did it properly, tested the movement of all axes which works for all axes. Then I performed the calibration as described in the manual. I used a piece of paper and adjusted the bed until it barely fits underneath the nozzle for all four corners. Afterwards, I wanted to print my first model so I selected the cat from the usb stick which came with printer. And now comes my problem. I let the printer run for 15 minutes. It moved and moved and moved but there was no filament on the bed. The nozzle and bed were heated properly. The one thing which I noticed was that the stepper which feeds the filament turns for like 30° and then flips back: to me it looks like the filament can not be fed in. After canceling the print the extruder moves back to the home position which is like 5 mm off the bed and then suddenly the filament flows out of the nozzle.
What part of the configuration I'm missing? | I am a fairly new user of an Ender 3 and had similar issues on a couple of occasions.
The main reason was as @0scar suggested - the nozzle was too close to the build plate preventing the filament from exiting - and the back-pressure was causing the filament to jump back, giving the extruder a "shudder" as it slips on the filament. Lower your build plate as suggested by @0scar. The paper should only just drag.
The fact that filament oozes after the hot end/print heads moves to home suggests you don't have a blockage... but you will if you don't adjust this.
It is better to have the nozzle slightly too high, so the first level does not stick and gradually raise the bed up while you are running the test patterns. Only turn the adjustment knob about 1/8 of a turn before checking - you are dealing in tenths of a millimeter here. Also remember that changing the front setting is going to change the back settings too because the plate will tilt. |
3D Printed Sphere, How to Remove Roughness I have a model of an eye that I custom made in Blender 2.83 that when printed only creates roughness on the printed object near where I had the supports. The supports are not the cause of the roughness (at least not completely) since the supports don't even touch the parts of the print where the majority of the roughness and bumps are (refer to my photos of the print)
The roughness is only near the bottom part of the sphere as it prints upwards (refer to photos)
What I'm looking for is a technique or any suggestions for printing this without the roughness so it's smooth like in the rest of the print. I'm also curious what is causing the roughness.
Eye Model in Blender
Blender Scale Ratio: 0.001
Blender Units: mm
Eye Model in Prusa Slicer
Layer Gif
Prusa Slicer Main Settings (Higher Res)
Variable Layer Heights For Smoothness
Eye Model Prints Photos
Eye Model Small Version 3D Print (Notice it's smooth on top of print)
Eye Model Small Version 3D Print Trouble Area
Eye Model Small & Large Version With Support (Notice roughness on the sphere)
Example of Support Used On Small Print
Smooth on inside of print
--------- Print Details ---------
Printer: Prusa i3 MK3s
Filament: PLA Galaxy Silver (Prusa Reserach)
Slicer Software: Prusa Slicer
Print Temperature First Layer: 205 degrees
Print Temperature Other Layers: 190 degrees
Notes: The suggested temperature for the filament is 205-215, I've adjusted after careful calibration given my environment to a lower temperature to reduce stringing. I created a tower at different temperatures and discovered 190 was the perfect setting to reduce stringing in my case with this material. Refer to my screenshot below. I do not think temperature has anything to do with this since the print is smooth inside and near the top without any issues.
Temperature Tower Test For Filament Photo:
(Note stringing in the cone test areas at 225 to 205)
--------- Prusa Slicer Settings Photos ---------
Filament settings
Extruder Settings
Support Settings | While Trish is completely right that the roughness can't be completely eliminated (you can't print a perfect spherical surface with discrete layers), the situation can be improved dramatically. The most telling photo in your question is the one of the removed support structure.
The part of your sphere that's seriously rough is all severe overhang. In this region, the outer wall of layer N+1 barely overlaps the outer wall of layer N, if at all, and without support would be printed mostly or entirely over thin air, failing to attach to anything and sagging/curling down randomly according to tensions in the extruded material, air currents, etc.
Now, with support material that's not entirely the case. Every so often (looks like a 2 mm grid) there are support lines under the overhanging outer wall. These will anchor it every so often and keep it from curling or sagging too much, but they don't actually constrain it to the place the slicer wanted the wall to go, and they don't provide a surface for the extruded material to press against to get the desired (e.g. 0.4 mm wide by 0.1 mm thick) extrusion cross section; instead the cross section will tend to be circular as a result of tensions within the molten material.
In order to get a decent surface over support material, you need what slicers call "Support Interface" or "Support Roof" (these are the names Cura uses; I suspect it's similar in Prusa Slicer). This feature builds a top surface as part of the support material itself for the supported part of the model to rest upon and press against. Of course that can make support harder (potentially a lot harder) to remove, and depends on tuning the Z distance between the model and the support as a tradeoff between quality and difficulty of removal, but it should get you much better results. |
Where to enable user interface encoder in Marlin? I am trying to configure Marlin for a Ramps 1.6 board. I have an I2C 4x20 character LCD enabled. I have the LCD working with
#define LCD_SAINSMART_I2C_2004
I have a separate encoder, with push button, but I can't find where to enable it. It seems that combo display-encoder-buzzer boards are enabled as a set. Some common name, like the define I used for the display. But I can't find any useful information that includes a I2C LCD with an encoder.
I'm looking for a configuration that would enable my LCD and encoder, or just some way to enable the encoder by itself.
For some configurations I found the following. But when I connect my encoder to those pins nothing happens when I try it. So I think I need to enable them somewhere.
//encoder pins
#define BTN_EN1 31
#define BTN_EN2 33
#define BTN_ENC 35 | It seems that ULTIPANEL must be defined. The code for the encoder was included long ago with the Ultipanel (display and encoder) and does not exist on its own.
#define LCD_SAINSMART_I2C_2004 // I2C LCD
#define ULTIPANEL // enable code for encoder.
//encoder pins
#define BTN_EN1 37
#define BTN_EN2 35
#define BTN_ENC 31 |
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