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Gaps between perimeter walls; potential under extrusion? The cube is a 2 cm x 2 cm with infill at 30 % and layer height 0.2 mm, more details can be seen below.
I'm printing with PETG using an Ender 3 printer.
There seems to be a gap between the perimeter walls, I have already referred to other forums and specifically: " How to fix wall separation in 3D prints (gaps in between wall perimeters)? ", but I still can't find a solution for it.
Most would suggest to tighten up the pulleys, I've tried that, but that didn't work. Others also suggested tweaking to a higher temperature, again I've tried from a range of 230-250 °C, but this also failed.
Infill and initial/top layers seems to be strong and all lines are bonded except for the perimeter walls.
More details regarding the problem:
Here are my print settings: | PETG filament is not entirely rigid and compresses slightly in the Ender 3's extruder gear and Bowden extruder setup. Tightening it will only make this effect greater. Being compressed at the point where mm of extruder advance is applied means less than the desired advance of at-nominal-diameter filament will take place. I find I need a flow of 104% to compensate for this.
When adjusting flow in Cura, make sure you get the main flow setting not the first-layer one (which is an additional factor on top of the main one and can be left at 100%), and that all the derived flow settings for each type of extrustion (walls, top/bottom, infill, etc.) all come out matching the value you set. When I first tried fixing this with flow, they didn't propagate right and I ended up testing changes that weren't actually doing anything.
With that said, you may have something else going on too. The underextrusion looks pretty severe, including in the top layers which you said looked okay. You should not see deep grooves between the lines like that. I suspect they're only bonded to the layer below, not to their neighbors. This could be a result of tightening the extruder pulley, or some other problem. |
Purge okay but not extruding during printing I am new to 3D printing and have a newish Eryone Thinker SE. Its been printing fine with some Eryone Glitter Black (EGB) and I'm happy with the results.
The spool has now finished and I'm trying to use some black Tinmorry and/or Sunlu - both rolls are displaying the same issue.
I can load and purge the new filament just fine but starting a print immediately after results in no filament being extruded.
I have unloaded/reloaded, purged and retried a few times to no success. I also switched back to the take end of the EGB with success.
Extruder temperature is 205 °C. Is this just too cold for the new spools? | So, I was able to fix this (or it fixed itself overnight as these things sometimes do) with a 5°C increase in extruder temperature to 210°C. The Sunlu PLA filament specifies 200°C - 230°C as its print range.
I followed the advice of a IRL friend who suggested "What happens if you raise the z a bit so you can see the nozzle and keep raising the heat until it starts to come out on its own. Check temp and then run a print at that temp."
I only needed that 5°C increase before I could see it oozing. From there I was able to successfully print a calibration cube and further model. |
Anet A6 - First time assembled, won't turn on I recently bought an Anet A6 and decided to assemble it today. When I plugged in the power, I don't get any sign of life from the printer. No lights, no bleeps, no fans which are starting to blow.
I checked the motherboard and it receives power from the adapter (I live in Europe, the Netherlands, so the voltage is 220V) but nothing happens.
Can someone help me out?
I added some pictures of the wiring for references. Display cables are correctly set (J3 to J3 and LCD to LCD). | Welcome to 3d Printing!
as this is a first day of the printer there could be a list of items...
First thing first: disconnect all peripherals, so we can test mainboard.
Before connecting PSU we can connect mainboard via usb and see if it starts (I will probably use a power bank in that case to avoid burning USB (worse case scenario)).
Then you can use cura or another host program to connect to the printer and validate firmware. If the printer is not recognized we can reflash the firmware using provided app or ArduinoIDE .
If all looks good we can check PSU.
please check output voltage from power supply unit (shall be 12V) (on the terminals, there is a small voltage regulator on the lefthand side)
then double check polarity
connect power to mainboard
check if we have same voltage on mainboard terminals
then check if we have 12v on the fan terminal (40 * 10 fan shall run all the time on the hotend)
if that is done and we have power provided to the mainboard then we need to check for 5V that powers the arduino mega2560 (that could indicate a faulty power regulator)
Select one of the available sockets and measure voltage on VCC and GND pins. If we have 5V then we can connect pheriperials one by one, always switching off PSU and disconnecting USB.
If one of the underlying components is faulty then you will see straight after powering the mainboard.
image source |
Why does the painters tape have to be blue? I have been looking at getting some painters tape to use on the glass plate for better print adhesion, and everything I read suggests the blue painters tape, such as this:
However, this white tape is considerably cheaper:
This looks like normal masking tape to me.
Is masking tape ok, or is the blue painter's tape preferable? If the latter, then why is that so? What is so special about the blue tape? Is it a different material? | read first
When you use painters tape, you need to level your printer with the tape applied. You need to relevel if you change the tape type.
Basics
It's not any blue tape that printers love. There are basically two factors that make a tape useful:
It has to stick during printing.
Its surface has to allow the filament to stick to it.
Let's look at some different tapes and their suitability - from my own experience.
ScotchBlue
The original blue tape is actually ScotchBlue for delicate surfaces by 3M. It has a good surface to stick to and at the same time an adhesive that does not degrade to unsuitability by heating. The delicate surface one is just as good as the all surfaces type. But don't use the outdoor type, it is sealed too much.
FrogTape
FrogTape has an adhesive that has no problems with heating, the surface is sometimes a little smoother. Its green variant is about as useful as ScotchBlue, while the yellow variant is easier to remove - which can be an issue when the printhead is not calibrated correctly.
Generic painters tape
Generic painters tape is a can of worms - there are so many different ones it is hard to describe. I have had very good off-yellow rolls from the dollar store of the 'fine surface' type - as in the tape had a fine surface - and their adhesive was good and didn't degrade too much under heat. The followup roll was a little thinner of material and released under heat so it can be a hit and miss - it's ok for starting out though.
I also tried a roll of UHU painters tape of the easy remove type and it was horrible, as it didn't want to stick after the nozzle went over it once even on an unheated bed.
Generic blue colored tape
I even tried two blue colored tapes from different dollar/hobby stores. One was ok-ish and had a similar result as the good dollar store tape in look, but left a blue shadow on the base of the print after two or three prints. The other was showing similar behavior to other mild-adhesive/easy peel tapes.
Conclusion
It's not color that matters, it is the formulation. If you must use blue tape, spend the extra bucks for quality. Some bloggers compared other tapes, tested ScotchBlue vs Kapton, discussed the benefits of either, discussed the ScotchBlue tape in depth.
While in general, I prefer to print on the surface of my (blue) BuildTak (clone), I occasionally whip out painters tape on an unheated surface for very delicate prints: I remove the print together with the tape from the surface, which allows better handling. Sacrificing a layer of tape only costs some cents after all while breaking a print is hours and filament for much more money wasted. |
Is there a way to configure printer extruder to go all way up when printing finishes in Ender 3? With Ender 3 is there a way to configure printer extruder to go all way up when the printing finishes?
Or even with the Ultimaker Cura software?
I want this, because i'm going to put a switch on the top of the printer that will switch it off when the printer finishes (if i can make the arm with the extruder go all the way up when printing finishes.)
How can this be done? | The most safe way to move the printer up to the maximum print height is to use a concept known as "keywords" (sort of constants that are filled by the correct value when slicing) in Ultimaker Cura, certainly if you have multiple printers with different print area sizes.
To use these keywords, just add these in between curly braces and insert them into your slicer "End G-code" script. These keywords will be substituted with actual numbers from the printer settings or slicing configuration parameters. In this case we need to use the maximum print height which is specified by the keyword machine_height. This keyword takes its value from the printer settings, set for the printer in the graphical user interface of the printer settings, see image below (this is a configuration of an Ultimaker 3 Extended, it also shows the Start G-code and End G-code which you can tweak yourself, as seen by the additional G-code line G0 F10000 Z{machine_height} that has been added for this demonstration).
E.g. similar to this answer, you could solve this with a keyword. Now when you slice for a certain printer (e.g. with the printer settings of the image above), the correct value will be filled in automatically when slicing the print object as can be seen from this snippet of G-code:
...
G91 ;Relative movement
G0 F15000 X8.0 Z0.5 E-4.5 ;Wiping+material retraction
G0 F10000 Z1.5 E4.5 ;Compensation for the retraction
G90 ;Disable relative movement
G0 F10000 Z300 ; <------------ note to see {machine_height} be resolved to 300 mm
...
This is specifically for Ultimaker Cura. Do note that e.g. Slic3r even takes the keyword concept further by allowing arithmetic and logic, similar as you could do in programming languages! |
What does nozzle size affect besides line width in, e.g., Ultimaker Cura? The Ultimaker Cura documentation says
Tip: If you use an unavailable third party nozzle size, set the line
width to equal the nozzle size.
I sliced an object with a 0.3 mm line width. When the nozzle size is 0.4 mm, the results are almost the same as when the nozzle is 0.3 mm. The filament usage is slightly different and the gcode files have similar, but different, coordinates throughout.
What does nozzle size really do besides suggest the line width? | Searching the CuraEngine source, the only places I can find where nozzle size is used directly involve some arcane logic for merging of infill lines, such as:
https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine/blob/05e93dabce9e863b8742fd69ed87717e1594e7a9/src/MergeInfillLines.cpp#L124
So essentially, yes, nozzle size mainly serves as a default value for the line width settings.
However, in general it's not always possible for line width different from nozzle size to be honored.
For line widths smaller than the nozzle, motion along a path where the material being deposited has proper adhesion is required to stretch the material and prevent it from retaining the width extruded from the nozzle, and small lines already printed are likely to be damaged by the nozzle when attempting to print additional small lines in their vicinity. In particular, you won't be able to print small details significantly below the nozzle size just by extruding less material.
For line widths larger than the nozzle, compression against an existing surface is required to prevent the extra material from just sagging down rather than expanding horizontally. In particular, line widths wider than the nozzle are unlikely to work right in the presence of overhangs.
Also, as noted by Tim Kuipers in comments, there are places outside the source, but rather in the json-based configuration tree, where nozzle size plays a role in the defaults and warning ranges for other parameters. Those are mostly line widths, but
The nozzle size can affect the values of the following settings besides line width in fdmprinter.def.json: Outer Wall Inset, Outer Wall Wipe Distance and Minimum Support XY Distance. Other than that it only influences the conditions under which setting-values give you a warning. |
Prusa MK3 heatbed shorted: replace just Einsy or heatbed too? Prusa MK3 heatbed power cable shorted out (on the Einsy side) and it looks like I need to replace the Einsy. Should I replace the heatbed too? I don’t know electronics well and am worried I will just fry a new Einsy.
Heatbed end:
Crispy at RAMBo end:
Crispy at RAMBo end:
Larger images can be found here. | There should be no need to replace the heat bed. It wasn't subjected to any unusual loads.
If the bed isn't heating, there could be one of sever problems, but I would start with the fuse. If the fuse had time to do its job, it would have blown and protected the circuitry. In your picture, the fuse is the blue component with "15" stamped on top. There are also two fuses with "5" stamped on top. One of these may be blown. If so, replace it and try again.
If the fuses are all good, and everything except the heat bed works, you have probably blown the FET that switches the heat bed power. If you aren't handy with circuit board repair, you may choose to get an new Einsy controller and then try to repair your old one. These repairs aren't usually hard because the FETs are fairly large components. |
Hictop prusa I3 clone - broken z axis right bracket bearing I was very excited to get my 3d printer but sadly I didn't realise I'd installed the z axis upside down. There's a plastic coupler that goes into the hole for the polished rods it broke then released 1 -2mm sized ball bearing all over my floor.
Is it possible to just replace that coupler thingy?
Or if I 3d print a replacement will it still need that coupler thingy?
The first picture is the one that spilled it's guts all over my kitchen floor.
The last image is an example of how it used to look like but on the left hand side. I know the image looks like it's the right but you can see a bit of the horizontal rods if look closely | That "plastic coupler thingy" is actually a linear bearing, and it consists of a metal shell, and the metal balls roll between the smooth rod and this shell. The plastic part has a channel that guides the balls in a circle.
It would be best to replace the entire bearing (metal part+balls+plastic liner). It's probably either an LM8UU (most likely) or LM8LUU bearing.
3D Printing a new part will not give good results. |
Magnetic field around the printer I'm using a low voltage active screwdriver that is sensitive to magnetic fields.
It is weird, even I put a metal piece on the glass over the heated bed and check it with the pen, it lights fully. If I hold the pen on air anywhere nearby, it is weak but still lights a bit.
My cards and PSU are not mounted on the case. I also grounded my PSU with a small cable from G to V-. So, what could be the reason? Is that normal for such complicated devices? Just curious. | The heated bed is a big PCB whose traces can act like a coil since heating the bed makes current flow through these traces.
By placing a metal object over it, you encounter a phenomenon called induction which will heat up the metal object (that can be the screwdriver tip) because the magnetic field generated by the "coil" of the heat bed.
Since these screwdrivers can be pretty sensitive the electrical current transferred from the heat bed to the metal bit may turn on the screwdriver LED
Also, stepper motors contain magnets and electromagnets which produce an alternating magnetic field when turned on which, by induction, can produce a little current in the spring inside the screwdriver which would act like a receiving coil thus turning on the led hooked up to it.
Try this with your printer on: put the tip of your screwdriver on your tongue (which will effectively ground it with your body) and put the handle over stepper motors or the heat bed and see if it lights brighter. |
Which 3D printer to print heat-resistant material? I need to print a rotor for a DC motor I'm designing. In the process of testing the behaviors of the motor performances, I would need a material that will not deform at a temperature range between 100 °C to 150 °C.
Since I don't have a 3D printer yet, I would like to know what would be the best choice for my need.
I was planning to buy an Ender 3, but I'm not sure this entry-level 3D printer will allow me to obtain the results I'm looking for. I'm excluding PLA material because I think it's the most "fragile" material from this point of view and for my needs.
My questions are:
Which material should I use in order to have a 3D printed object (rotor) that will not deform at a temperature that varies from 100 °C to 150 °C?
Can an Ender 3 (planning to use full metal hotend and also hotbed) be used to print the filament that is heat resistant? Should I buy a resin 3D printer? | Using an Ender 3 for high temperature materials is possible but you need to enclose it to be able to heat the air up to 100 °C.
It's quite involved and it would be much better, if it's something you do seldomly, to have the parts printed professionally.
Many thing start warping or breaking at 100 °C. |
Practical concerns smoothing PLA print with chloroform vapours One way to give PLA prints a smooth finish is treatment with chloroform vapours (or other solvents, as mentioned in this answer). This method is even featured on Ultimaker website. I would like to try it on some of my prints.
What are the practical concerns I should be aware of using chloroform vapours? I am looking for advice concerning vaporisation temperature, time of exposition that makes for a nice finish, and any other experiences.
Caution!
Chloroform is a moderately toxic chemical! I only approach this method as I have an access to a well-equipped chemical laboratory with a fume hood.
Disclamer:
The question is not about the safety issues using chloroform vapours. It is about how obtain the best post-processing results with least trial-and-error. | This Reddit post seems to have some good trial and error dialog.
This Thingiverse post, along with many other references online, suggest that the results are very similar to that of an Acetone treatment with ABS. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of how it works, but the general advice is to be conscious of what you're working with. A heat-induced vapor treatment seems to yield the best surface finish, but can be tricky to track down proper exposure times. It seems that the time required to achieve a desirable surface finish depends on the size and openness of the features on the object. By openness, I mean how evenly the vapor is able attach itself to the surface of the object as compared to other features. Some this variability may be reduced by streamlining the process. Perhaps if you found a way to rotate either the part or the vapor container during the process. This could ensure contact is made in small corners/features. Other variables to consider may be:
If a gradual reduction of exposure is necessary (as is with most heat treatment operations);
How much temperature effects time. Most pages I've read mention 100C as the temp to vaporize the chemical;
Size of the "vaporization chamber" in accordance with how much of the chemical is available. I've used a gallon paint can lined with lightly dabbed paper towel with Acetone for part between 1"^3 to about 4"^3.
That's all I can think of, currently, that could potentially have the most impact on the process. Just as with 3D printing, there's not an easy way to definitively know how your parts will turn out. The sheer difference in the shape of your parts could throw out any "proven process" you come up with. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what things to look out for in starting out.
Here's information about safety, before OP added disclaimer
As with any chemical, always refer to the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet)! Whichever supplier you acquire the chloroform from, should ship an MSDS with the product. If one is not shipped, you should be able to request one. If they don't have one, don't use the product and don't purchase from them.
In most cases, you can get away with finding any MSDS online, but I'd recommend trying to get one directly from your supplier as they might theoretically have a different "strand" of the chemical. Therefore, reactions and safety precautions may be different than what you will find online.
A quick search yields this MSDS which states that chloroform does have "carcinogenic effects" along with some other long-term, undesirable effects. As with any other MSDS it continues to go over best-practices and extremity limits. |
Dramatic failure of calibration print I printed out this calibration shape from Thingiverse with an unexpectedly catastrophic failure. It looks like there are a lot of things wrong here.
I used the Normal profile in Ultimaker Cura.
There's so much bad in this print that I'm not sure where to start.
It appears that walls weren't printed at all.
Resolution is way below par.
Overhangs are collapsing (not sure if that would be expected at those angles)
The in-filling is inconsistent and "blobby". | The failure you are faicing is underextrusion. Underextrusion can have several reasons. Among the three most common I encountered in my printers:
The nozzle could be clogged, hindering flow (Very crushy, squishy prints after it worked fine before)
Dissemble the filament path till you can push an acupuncture needle through the hotend, heat it, press out all filament, reassemble.
The extruder might be skipping steps or shredding filament
check if it is just not gripping the filament, not turning at all or clicking.
real Troubleshooting might be needed
The g-code might have a bad setup for the filament you are using - try upping the higher extrusion multiplier/flow rate and print at least 2 walls!
In Ultimaker Cura: Custom > Material > Flow
If not there yet: Gear > Material > hook Flow |
RAMPS won't PID tune and shows unreal temps About two days ago, I started seeing that my hotend was heating up erratically. I first noticed this while printing a part in PETG and the temp jumped to 260 °C. I shut down the printer at that time and first started checking the hardware. I noticed that the E3D V6 thermistor had been tightened too much. I disassembled the entire hotend, cleaned everything and then reassembled everything. I thought to retune the hotend and when I tried tuning it at 240 °C.
This is where the strange behavior occurs. The hotend steadily climbed up till about 200 °C. After that it just went nuts. I started seeing unreal temps such as 646 °C and such. At this point I thought the MEGA might be at fault. I replaced it and the hotend (an E3D V6 clone). This had the screw on glass thermistor. Again the same erratic behavior and unreal temp readings.
What could be wrong here? What am I missing? Can this be the heater cartridge? | This can come from several sources:
Hardware
The thermistor or its connections might be damaged, and the fault is only observable when the hotend is hot or moved to a certain area. Start by checking the wiring! You may be able to repair a bad connection easily, but depending what was broken, you may need to replace something. In some cases squishing a thermistor cartridge too much can destroy the internals, so a replacement is needed.
A mainboard failure is more likely to just show a static temperature, and a heater failure would show as maybe not getting past a certain point.
Firmware
If it had not worked before or you changed the firmware, the firmware should also be a suspect. The firmware can 'fail' when using the wrong thermistor type/table which can result in a very big offset or bad slope, resulting in wrong or unaccurate readings. |
Strength of 3D printed Objects I am new to 3D printing and need to know if I use steel in printing, do I get the same strength (compression and shear) as steel profiles manufactured in a factory? | A laser sintered part typically uses what could be described as surface bonding, as it does not melt particularly deeply into the powder. It would not have the same strength characteristics as machined steel or otherwise processed metal. A part constructed from 3d printing using feed metal/welding methods would have more strength, but would not necessarily have un-modified steel strength, due to the heat applied during the process.
Using a metal which responds to post processing, as in tempering, will likely improve the strength, but I believe that one is unlikely to reach the same values as "ordinary" steel. Compression along the lines of the construction layers would be reasonably strong, but forces applied in other directions are likely to match only the characteristics of the bond. The same consideration applies to shear strength. |
Ender 3 Pro not interpreting G-code correctly? I have an Ender 3 Pro and I have been able to get it to work quite well, I installed a 0.8 mm nozzle to try the Vase mode in Cura. I re-leveled the bed and when I tried to print, I got some very strange behavior.
When it starts the "purge line" along the side of the bed, the Z-axis is too high and instead of going down the left side and back up, it will go down the left side and then from left to right along the back edge and then stop and then just extrude filament. If I look at the beginning portion of the G-code it doesn't look any different than the G-Code for the other models I have printed except for in the initialization script it set the Layer height and Min Z to 0.32 instead of 0.2 and the code for drawing the first 2 purge lines is identical. I tried printing an older file that worked correctly and I got the same results where it went along the left side then along the back side and stopped and just extruded filament.
It seems like something in the printer went wonky? What would cause this and what is the fix? A reset of some sort? And how is that accomplished? | It ended up being something with the printer, I powered it down, let it set a few minutes and then powered it up and it printed correctly. Is there a way to "reset" it without the power cycle, and is this something common? Thanks for the response! |
Do Cura's self-crossing infill patterns account for excess material from self-crossing? As far as I can tell, Cura's infill patterns which are self-crossing, such as triangles, don't do anything special to account for extruding material over the crossing points multiple times. In theory this should produce either a blob around the crossing point, or excess pressure in the extruder due to blockage from the alread-deposited material that will result in over-extrusion after the point is crossed until the excess pressure is dissipated.
Is Cura doing anything to account for this? It doesn't seem to do travel moves across the intersection, but maybe it's adjusting the overall flow to compensate for the crossings "on average".
If not, it seems like crossing points near the walls would be a source of dimensional accuracy problems, which I've seen in tightly confined areas and which I'm looking for a root cause for. | With most filaments you don't need to do anything special to account for overfill caused by these crossing points. When the nozzle extrudes the second direction, it pushes the lines laid by the first direction out of the way. The same happens when the third direction crosses the first two. There's a blob, but it's a blob within the plane of the layer, so it shouldn't stick up out of the layer and upset subsequent layers. There are two complications which can occur though:
When filling each direction, it's usual to keep extruding when moving from one line to the next (not a travel move), which results in getting an extra half perimeter around your infill. This is fine for a single raster pattern, and for box infill, but with triangle, hexagram, or similar, you'd get three half-perimeters (one for each direction). The slicer needs to offset the third direction so that those extra perimeters don't overlap. I don't know how Cura handles this; it's possible that's the source of the dimensional problems you're seeing.
With abrasive filaments, or those that don't stretch (such as carbon fibre or metal fill filament), the "pushing the existing lines out of the way" doesn't really work. You just end up wearing down the outside of the nozzle and getting the kind of blobs you're afraid of, sticking up into the next layer. It's just best to avoid infill with crossings (box, triangle, hexagram, etc.) on such filaments. |
Sharing a printer over a network I have a Tronxy X3 (i3 Clone) running Repetier firmware on a Melzi board.
I would like to share the printer over my home network so that:
Both my boys and I can use the printer. (We have separate Windows 10 PCs)
I can initiate a print from my computer upstairs
I can monitor the print progress remotely
I have (and could use)
A RAMPS board set that I could use to run Marlin.
A Raspberrry Pi 1B
An idle laptop I (might) be willing to use
What I want to know:
Are you sharing your printer on a network, and if so, how long
What Hardware and Software are you using
What do you like most
What do you find most annoying
What do you want to change
What is the interface (web interface, print driver, etc.)
What services are provided (printing, slicing, monitoring, etc.)
Can two computers access it at the same time
Ex: To monitor, or still print if my sons forgot to disconnect
What sort of monitoring is supported? Ex: camera?
What runs the print job (G-code) | NOTE: This is not from personal experience, but I thought it was worth mentioning:
Microsoft
You've probably seen this already - I am not a fan at all of M$, but... Microsoft Plus Raspberry Pi Equals Network 3D Printer.
Here is another link to the same, Network 3D Printer with Windows 10 IoT Core, but, unfortunately, your printer is apparently not supported.
OctoPi
However, closed source M$ seem to be playing catch up, whilst the Open Source OctoPi has been about for a while, indeed there have been a few questions on SE 3D Printing about it. From the blurb:
OctoPi is a Raspberry Pi distribution for 3d printers. Out of the box it includes:
the OctoPrint host software including all its dependencies and preconfigured with webcam and slicing support,
mjpg-streamer for live viewing of prints and timelapse video creation with support for USB webcams and the Raspberry Pi camera and
CuraEngine 15.04 for direct slicing on your Raspberry Pi.
See How to Install and Set Up Octopi for Remote Raspberry Pi 3D Printer Control with Octoprint.
A few of its features:
It also supports monitoring via a camera.
The G-code is sent over the serial to the printer.
You can use OctoPi to control multiple printers as well, as it isn't particularly resource intensive, see Control Multiple 3D Printers Using A Single Raspberry Pi and Octoprint].
You can configure access control for multiple users, or for a better presented version, see Access control.
As an aside, you could put Pronterface on the Pi too: How to Install Pronterface on Raspberry Pi - Instructables. I wasn't aware of this. |
Problem with Marlin 2.0.5.3 / BLTouch upgrade with Sovol SV01 I have just fitted a BLTouch to a Sovol SV01, and flashed Marlin 2.0.5.3 firmware. Bed leveling etc and building the bed mesh all went OK. Slicer is Cura 4.7.1.
However, it won't print.
The Gcode created by Cura after macro expansion etc is as follow
;FLAVOR:Marlin
;TIME:246
;Filament used: 0.14214m
;MINY:115.791
;MINZ:0.3
;MAXX:159.709
;MAXY:144.209
;MAXZ:1.5
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 4.7.1
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
M501;Load settings from EEPROM (necessary for Z offset)
; Following settings from Sovol
M201 X500.00 Y500.00 Z100.00 E5000.00 ;Setup machine max acceleration
M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z10.00 E50.00 ;Setup machine max feedrate
M204 P500.00 R1000.00 T500.00 ;Setup Print/Retract/Travel acceleration
M205 X8.00 Y8.00 Z0.40 E5.00 ;Setup Jerk
M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate
M221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate
M190 S60 ;Heat bed - wait
M104 S200 ;Heat extruder - no wait
G28 ;Home
M420 S ; Turn leveling back on after G28 (why is this needed?)
G29 L0 ;Load mesh
G29 J ;Three point level
M109 S200 ;Heat extruder - wait
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
G1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position
G1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line
G1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little
G1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
G92 E0
G92 E0
G1 F3000 E-3
;LAYER_COUNT:7
;LAYER:0
.... and so on
It heats up the bed OK, and it starts heating the nozzle. It then does the three point level OK, then waits for the nozzle to get up to temperature (200) - the M109 S200.
But that is as far as it gets. The nozzle comes up to 200 and generally moves between about 197 and 203 degrees. The bed sits at around 60/61. I can hear a fan keep speeding up and slowing down, and the info display just says 'E heating ...'. That's it.
It cannot seem to get past waiting for the nozzle to heat - but it has, and M109 S200 should wait for it to reach temp, and continue.
Can anyone advise what has gone wrong here? | I think I might have found it - PID problem (heater has a PID loop). Standard values are 32/3/85 (P/I/D). Just watching the temperature, I noticed there was a lot of overshoot.
It appears that to continue after a temp wait, it must stay within some limit for a period - don't know either number. But, presumably, it wasn't.
There is an autotune PID gcode - M303 E0 S200 C8 says 'autotune extruder 0, at 200 °V, looping 8 times. Ran that and I could see it getting better on each iteration. Unfortunately, didn't manage to find a way of seeing what it came up with, and could not get the result written back to E2P either (M500).
So, resorted to tried and trusted techniques - fiddled with it. In the end reduced P to 20.0 and I to 2.0 - and it started printing. |
Details of Marlin's feedrate calculation I want to programatically generate G-code for a (Marlin-based) Ultimaker 2+ printer, and I have been looking at the Marlin documentation and working G-code examples generated by Cura.
This has left me confused about exactly how Marlin interprets the feedrate (F) parameter in G-code commands.
If I move on a single axis (e.g. G1 F7000 X10 or G1 F200 E50), then I assume F simply says how fast that axis should move (ignoring acceleration).
On CNC milling machines I've worked with, the same is true when moving on multiple axes – for instance, G1 F1000 X10 Y10 Z10 would mean the tool moves at 1000mm/min, and therefore the individual axes are each moving at 693mm/min. Which is good, because it means the feedrate doesn't depend on the direction of movement.
But a 3D printer has four axes (E, X, Y, Z), and Marlin only uses a single feedrate parameter. So do I need to calculate that in four-dimensional space? In other words,
$F = \sqrt[4]{F_E^4 + F_X^4 + F_Y^4 + F_Z^4} ?$
If that is not correct, how is the feedrate related to the feedrates for the individual axes?. | Feedrates are not 4-dimensional, and yes this makes them a bit inconsistent. But physically the 4-dimensional speed would not make any sense - for example, slowing down the E axis while speeding up the X axis would not maintain the same "overall speed" in any meaningful sense.
So, feedrates work differently for:
Moves with a nonzero X, Y, or Z component: the feedrate is an ideal, desired speed in 3 dimensions, possibly limited by the max feedrates of each axis (including E) individually, as well as their acceleration profiles.
Extruder-only moves where X, Y, and Z components are all zero: the feedrate is an ideal, desired speed in one dimension: the E axis, and may be limited by the max feedrate and acceleration profile for the E axis. |
Strange leveling problem by PrusaI3 I have a PrusaI3(Chinese kit that I assembled myself). my strange problem is that: when I try to leveling the bed, upper-left and bottom-right corners of the bed, are more far than the nozzle, respect to upper-right and bottom-left.
I don't know why, but I can't level them with the screws(because upper-left and bottom-right screws goes to be free sooner than their opposite side screws!!). I thought maybe the heated bed is not flat but I use a glass upon it! and it's not possible both of them are not flat!
EDIT: I can remember the last time I used my printer, there was a knocking sound when Y-AXIS was moving about the half of it's way. I very tried to find the cause of knocking sound but I couldn't. now, I have opened the heating bed and there is no sound when I move Y-Axis by hand.
I hope you can understand me and help me too!
EDIT2: I did measure the rods and bed corners, I found that this corner(pointed by finger) is about 2 millimeters lower than other 3 corners! (It seems the bed part is not flat).
How can I fix this? | The Prusha I3 design uses two rods to guide the Y axis, which moves along the rods on linear bearings. If the rods are not strictly planar, there will be movement of the bed as it moves to and fro. You would not be able to correct this with the leveling screws.
Be sure that the rods are planar, and that there is no torque on the bed from uneven rods. Even if the bed doesn't flex, the frame may flex if the rods are not planar. |
how to level kossel's endstops? My printer is kossel (delta 3d printer).
I have a probe far away from the nozzle (offset -x45 y17),every time I run G29, the result is unacceptable, the z distance between points is over 0.5mm, it's not because of the probe's accuracy, I test repeatedly the result is the same.
I cost much time level the bed, finally I realize maybe it's because not only my bed, but also my z max endstops are not horizontal.
My question is
how to level the z endstops? (now I think both bed and z endstops are not horizontal)
is my analyzation correct? any other possible? | First, you should make sure that printing surface is adjusted correctly: it must be perpendicular to all three delta columns, all other adjustable parts must be checked and adjusted if necessary (depending on actual printer design).
Assuming that upper end-stops can be adjusted as well.
Home effector with G28 command, then move it close to one column (some versions of Marlin have these commands hardcoded in the menu)
Move Z-axis slowly until the nozzle touches the bed
Record Z position
Repeat above steps for two remaining columns
Then adjust end stops: if you need to raise nozzle (it touches the bed too early), then you move endstop up. If nozzle is too high (it reaches Z0 and still toes not touch the bed), then move endstop down.
Move endstops very gently because sometimes it it can be a matter of a fraction of millimeter.
After endstops calibration is done, verify that nozzle is properly calibrated at the center of the bed. Or run G29 if you like.
This procedure should make your endstops properly adjusted relative to the printing bed. |
Can't print anything! Is this heat creep? (Detailed explanation & Photo) I have bought an Ender 3 Pro in November. I loved 3D printing and even upgraded my machine to improve my experience. However, lately, I can't print anything due to an issue I can't seem to resolve.
I will provide as many details as I can in an orderly fashion.
My machine: Ender 3 Pro w/ BLTouch clone installed. Running Marlin's latest bugfix branch. Also has a Raspberry Pi with Octoprint built into the PSU so I can control both the Power and functionalities of the printer. I have a glass bed, red aluminum extruder.
My settings:
Printing with PLA;
Hot end at 200 °C;
Bed is at 70 °C;
ABL is on;
Nozzle: 0.4 mm;
Layer height: 0.2 mm;
Slicer: CURA
The issue: While the first layer is printing, the filament bunches up around the nozzle and if it somehow touches the bed (like I reduce the Probe-Z offset) it doesn't stick and drags on a few mm. It eventually sticks and keeps printing fine for long straight lines but it's impossible to print a little circle inside, for example. The small details aren't printed on the bed, the filament just bunches up around the nozzle.
Also when I do a cold pull(heat up to 200 °C then pull at 90 °C, the tip of the filament looks like this:
I have tried the following:
e-step calibration
PID Autotune
Lowering/increasing temp (210-190 °C)
Lowering/increasing first layer speed (+/- 10-25 %)
Changing the heat block and the throat tube (twice)
Taking the entire hot end apart and cleaning it and changing the nozzle (even re-cutting the PTFE tube) multiple times
My theory is that the heat traveling up the cold block thins out the filament, causing under extrusion. The filament can't properly stick to the bed because it's too thin. But the hot end fan works. Should I still replace it?
Or is my problem something completely different? | This sounds like nothing but a bed leveling (distance from nozzle to bed) problem, though you may have introduced other problems disassembling the hotend. It's normal to have material oozing and bunching up before the print starts; this is why you start printing with a priming line or skirt.
Clean the bed well with isopropyl alcohol, level it (paper method at Z=0 or feeler gauges at Z=0.1, I prefer the latter), then fine tune with a leveling test print. If you're still having problems make sure the PTFE tube is tensioned against the nozzle right inside the hotend. Having any gap will make for all sorts of problems. |
Why does my PLA filament keep snapping? Why does my 3 mm PLA filament always snap near the spool some time (usually a few hours) after a print has finished?
I have had it snap mid print but this is quite rare.
I have 3 rolls of 3 mm PLA filament from Velleman and 3DPrima. They all exhibit this behavior. They are between 2 and 3 years old. Each roll is stored in a foil bag with some desiccant, although this was not the case in the first year. The temperature in the room ranges between 14 °C and 18 °C in winter and rarely up to 30 °C in summer. Current relative humidity is 49 %. In summer I think I have seen it as high as 70 %. I baked one spool in the oven at about 50 °C for a few hours but this does not seam to have helped. When I remove the loose end of filament from the extruder after it has broken, some length of it seams to snap easily and some of it will just bend.
The printer has a direct extruder so there is no bowden tube. | PLA seems to become brittle with age. Micro-fractures develop on the surface, and they will grow if filament is taken off the spool and held straight. This behaviour does not seem to be linked to moisture content. The best course of action is probably to use PLA quickly. Don't give it time to age. |
Delta printer not responding to changes in DELTA_RADIUS As mentioned in my previous question, I have some bed-levelling issues with my printer. Following the link in @tjb1's answer I figured they were all about to be solved - just follow the steps and bim, bam, flat printing aligned with the plane of the bed. I was wrong. Firmware is Marlin 1.1.0-RC8
From minow.blogspot.com:
For Marlin in Marlin.ino.Marlin.pde
DELTA_RADIUS is DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET - DELTA_EFFECTOR_OFFSET
-DELTA_CARRIAGE_OFFSET
To correct the problem, the best course is to change one of the variables set earlier to force the value of DELTA_RADIUS to
increase(to lower the extruder nozzle) or to decrease (to raise the
nozzle).
To lower the extruder nozzle increase DELTA_RADIUS by increasing
DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET(Marlin) or PRINTER_RADIUS(Repetier).
To raise the extruder nozzle, decrease DELTA_RADIUS by decreasing
DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET(Marlin) or PRINTER_RADIUS(Repetier). For your
first cycle, if you are above the build surface, increase DELTA_RADIUS
by (about) the same amount. If the extruder nozzle hits the build
surface, decrease DELTA_RADIUS.
Next, repeat the ABC tower calibration process. Changing the
DELTA_RADIUS changes the tower calibrations, so you must cycle through
the process of adjusting the ABC buttons/scripts again. And when the
ABC towers are set, test the center D button/script.
You may have to repeat this a few times with smaller changes to
DELTA_RADIUS, but eventually, the drag on a piece of paper should be
the same at all four locations. Now the printer knows how to print
flat at a given Z height.
So I did that. It's about 5-6mm high in the center of the bed. On point in front of the 3 towers. And it stays pretty much there (less than one 'precision' business card movement, if any) when DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET is increased, increased more, or decreased, for that matter - we started wondering if there was a sign error issue and tried the other way.
There is mention on the page of "turning off EEPROM" lest values be over-ridden by those in EEPROM, but the text appears to suggest that it's a Repetier-firmware-specific problem. So I was not expecting to have it in Marlin. Does it also apply to Marlin, or:
TL;DR mode: why would changes that should affect the "DELTA_RADIUS" to get the printer on plane with the bed be ineffective?
]3 | OK, so a little more poking around finds that it does seem to be loading values from EEPROM and ignoring the configuration files. So that's not Repetier-firmware-specific.
...and I found M665 in G-code which lets me just set a value for it, then M500 saves it to said EEPROM. And it's making a difference (so much of one that I may need to reset Zmax before I can actually adjust it all out as the endpoints on the bed are now off, but they are all 4 much closer to being off by the same amount!) |
Tinkerine 3D Printer I am trying to print model for Prosthetic Hand
(File Here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:596966) using Tinkerine 3D Printer. It went smooth for first hour and after that it started messing up(attached image).
I checked the leveling of plate and it was fine. Also, the nozzle didn't get clogged anywhere. Can anyone suggest, what could be the reason for this or what should be inspected in order to overcome this?
Expected Result
Actual Result | The issue occurring here is similar to a question asked over here. It looks as though this is a result of a hardware fault related to the stepper drivers. @DarthPixel recommended placing heatsinks on the stepper driver(s) and/or properly placed fans.
Depending on the design of your machine, some stepper drivers are going to be worked harder than others. For example, a MakerBot Replicator will work the X-Axis stepper driver more than the Z-Axis stepper driver. Therefore, you have a higher chance of overheating your X-Axis stepper driver.(Images are of A4988 Stepper Driver, not directly compatible with MakerBot Replicator)
Alternatively, I personally have seen the issue repeated by manually triggering one of the limit switches. The effects seemed to take effect on the next layer. |
Home E / extrude until endstop is triggered I'm working on something that I'll share once it's done (then hope it's not a disaster and actually useful to someone).
It requires a stepper to rotate a part by a certain amount of degrees, which I plan to achieve by using E1 and simply issuing an appropriate G0 command.
The issue I'm having is that I would need Marlin, upon start to check if the part is actually rotated to the 0 deg position.
I suspect that there is no way to i.e. use an unused Z max pin and issue something like the well known G28 or like Duet3D does with G0/1 S parameter. Is there maybe a hack I can apply with a filament run out sensor as that axis endstop? | You should be able to adapt the "Dual X Carriage" feature for your project.
That allows a second print head (on the X axis) to move independently of the "main" X axis motor - and it can also be homed against its own endstop.
You can enable this feature in the configuration_adv.h file under "Dual X Carriage".
By default, all "Dual X/Y/Z axis" features use the first free extruder stepper driver - which would be E1 in your case.
You would have to adjust the X2 parameters to allow you to zero the motor on the endstop (X2_MIN_POS 0, X2_HOME_DIR -1, X2_HOME_POS X2_MIN_POS), as well as setting the default mode to "FULL CONTROL" (DEFAULT_DUAL_X_CARRIAGE_MODE DXC_FULL_CONTROL_MODE).
As far as I understand, you can then use
T0 and T1 to change between both "X axes", with T0 selecting your real X axis, and T1 your custom stepper motor. |
Best material for compression? I'm designing a mount for a cylindrical speaker to attach to my bicycle. It will mount on the bottle cages. I've printed a few iterations with various infill settings (using PLA) and the weak point is always the bolts holding the entire mount to the bike. They can't handle the compression needed to secure it properly. I had thought about using an imbedded metal part to distribute the load, but it's not easily replicable and I want to make the design public and fairly accessible to others with the same speaker. I currently have PETG and ABS, would one of those perform better or should I order a specialty high strength polymer? | Infill has minimal effect on the strength of printed parts, so I would expect the part to break in the same spot regardless of what infill percentage you used.
PLA is especially poor in this exact application, and it undergoes significant creep/cold flow under mechanical compression over time, so even if achieved the necessary strength by changing settings (which you can), it would require that you periodically tighten the bolts more and more, as the PLA would slowly deform under the mounting pressure.
Perimeter width and number of perimeters are what primarily influence the strength of a printed object, infill has very little impact on strength in comparison, and unless you're using an exotic pattern like gyroid, what impact it does have is not even close to isotropic (will add strength in some directions while doing nothing in others). But even then, infill only really has an effect when we are talking about forces that are spread evenly over the entire object, not concentrated strength of a specific spot of the part. And that effect is always much weaker than what perimeter count or width will have.
Just bump up your perimeters to 4 or even more and that should make a huge difference.
And also, don't use PLA. I think PETG is a much better choice in this situation. It is more ductile only slightly less rigid than PLA, making it much more durable overall than PLA, and less prone to cracking under compressive forces. PLA theoretically has higher tensile strength, but that often doesn't mean much.
I would not recommend ABS, it tends to have similar issues with brittleness and is one of the weaker materials one can 3D print.
It terms of ordering a special high strength polymer.... unless printer and hotend is rated for in excess of 400°C, no such 'high strength polymer' exists, at least not that you can print. PLA and PETG are close to the best you can get, with Polycarbonate inching out ahead but not by a huge amount (~20%). Despite what filament companies would like you to believe, carbon fiber reduces the strength of PLA, ABS, PETG, PC, and probably nylon, and instead simply makes those polymers more rigid and increases dimensional stability. The only filaments that would actually be made stronger with added fibers short enough for filament manufacturing processes are ones with glass fiber. But you don't want to print those filaments, trust me. They will dull the teeth on your hobbed gear(s), even if made from steel, and will just ruin all but ruby nozzles very very quickly. And they still wear out ruby nozzles even then.
There are exotic polymers, but none of them print at less than ~350°C, and are generally exceedingly expensive. All the polymers that can be used at normal printing temperatures are all fairly similar to each other in terms of tensile strength at least. |
Material for printing orthotics I noticed foot arches are already digitized, but custom arch supports are usually expensive. PLA and ABS aren't the best material for printing arch supports, especially if they replace the shoe's innersole.
Is there a more flexible material for 3D printing that could be used for making custom orthotics? | The standard choice for this would be TPU, thermoplastic polyurethane.
TPU is a common filament material for use in fused filament fabrication 3D printing due to the fact that it is an elastic thermoplastic which makes it ideal for printing objects that need to be flexible and elastic.
...
Properties of commercially available TPU include:
high abrasion resistance
low-temperature performance
high shear strength
high elasticity
transparency
oil and grease resistance
In addition to TPU, there are plasticizer-modified PLA filaments with similar flexibility, but not necessarily with the other nice properties like abrasion resistance. I've printed with one from 3D Solutech and had good results, after figuring out what to do about stringing.
Also, it's possible to achieve a decent degree of flexibility merely with printed geometry, rather than special materials. It's possible that PETG with an appropriate geometry could work for your application. |
Object's height not a multiple of layer height This basic question has been bothering me for a while.
Let's say I'm printing an object of height 20.1 mm with 0.2 mm layers. What will the slicer do? in other words, how will it print the last layer? Since I'm printing with 0.2 mm layers, my object will be printed in 11 layers, but the last one would make my object 20.2 mm high. Is there some sort of compensation (in Slic3r or Cura for example), or will I just get an inaccurate object? | Slicers will round off to the next nearest layer, so 20.2 mm in your case. However, you can get to 20.1 mm if you use a 0.3 mm first layer. |
Sunken and rough bottom layer Most of my part is printing very well, but I have problems in the bottom layer and in layers that are the first layers, but not necessarily layer 0.
Looking at the print quality troubleshooting, I can't find a problem that fits my needs. Using the terms over there, I would describe it as "gaps in bottom layer".
Photo from part A (RPi case top piece):
Photos from part B (RPi case bottom):
There is a really ugly screwhole (sorry for the blurry picture):
But in the same part, there's an almost perfect much better screwhole:
For the location on the print bed, it's here (both parts):
I have seen the question First bottom layer has gaps, where the OP has already tried a lot.
My thoughts so far:
I don't want to generally lower the Z height, since it prints fine over a large area with a really flat and smooth surface.
I'm not sure I should change the temperature settings. I use the i3 MK3 printer and I use Prusa PLA filament with Slic3r Prusa PLA filament settings.
I don't understand many of the extrusion width / extrusion multiplier options of that question.
I thought I might have had a fingerprint on the print plate. I typically avoid that by wearing gloves and cleaning the print bed with alcohol every fifth print or so. However, I didn't clean before any of the two parts. (I cleaned now)
Given the description and the pictures, can you name the problem and suggest the most likely solution?
Printer and filament details:
Prusa i3 MK3
Prusa PLA filament 1.75 mm, pearl blue
0.20 mm SPEED setting
20% infill
5mm Brim
215°C first layer, 210°C other layers
60°C bed temperature
Prusa PLA default filament settings
I use a Prusa spring steel print bed. No special adhesion, tape or anything. Closest I could find in the shop is smooth PEI, but mine looks more golden. | I know you said you don't want to change the Z height, but it does look like you're printing a bit too far from the plate. I would recommend adjusting your Z-offset if you can, or adjusting the limit switch (or whatever your Z-homing mechanism is) |
What is the best 3D modeling software for a beginner on a 3D printed mini barrel project? My goal is to 3D print a 5 liter miniature barrel with a side stand, similar to this wooden one on Amazon. I want it to have a removable top so that a boxed wine bladder may be put inside, and there should be a hole on the top as well so that the spigot may stick out and be used. I have no experience with 3D modeling or printing, but I have access to a public 3D printer at my local library. I know you can print parts individually (ex. curved wood-colored sides with staves and holes to interlock and make up the body of the barrel, the metal-colored hoops to go around the barrel). I don't know what software to use, though. I was thinking of starting to learn Blender? Would that be effective for this project? | Your question begins in an inappropriate format for StackExchange, but you've ended it with one more appropriate by asking if Blender would work.
If you are willing to take the time to learn Blender, you are certain to discover that it will do as you require, and much much more. Your referenced model could be created using engineering-type design software such as Fusion 360 or SolidWorks or many of the free packages, but the free-form aspect is more suited to the flexibility of Blender.
2020 UPDATE: Fusion 360 now supports a sculpt feature, which combines organic modeling with the engineering-type for which it is previously known.
Even though Blender is not an engineering-type program, it has internal support for precise modeling. Should you learn to use those features, you get the best of both types of software.
If you construct your model in the software in segments/pieces as you suggest, your result will have greater flexibility at the printing stage, specifically with respect to color and filament choices. Instead of wood-colored sides, you can use wood-simulated PLA filament! Depending on the printer at the library, you could also use filamet, a filament containing 88 percent metal for the hoops.
I use Blender for some aspects of modeling, often importing the STL into Meshmixer to address things I've not yet learned in Blender.
I hope your reference to 5 liter is the original size and that your model will be a miniature of it. A 3d printer with 5 liter capacity would be a wonderful asset at the public library! |
BLTouch does not compensate for differences in bed level Printer: Ender 3
Bed: Creality Glass
ABL: BLTouch
Everything else: Stock
Few weeks ago I had a meltdown during a failed ABS print. My hotend was completely wrapped in plastic and trying to remove said plastic I snagged the termistor. Anyway I had to replace the nozzle, hotend and thermistor. Everything on here. I went ahead and measured the Nozzle BLTouch needle offsets and re-flashed my Ender 3 with TH3D Firmware and configured BLTouch. After which I adjusted the Z offset again.
All good here. BLTouch appears to work, well at least it appears so.
I started printing and I see that my bed always hangs lower on the right side and BLTouch does not compensate for this difference.
Manual leveling (with a heated bed, also tried without)
Auto home
Move Z axis from 5 to 0
Move the head to each corner of the bed
Adjust the corner hight using the paper method (repeat 2x for each corner)
Auto home
Move Z axis from 5 to 0
Go to Z offset, and move it until it tugs on the paper.
Save and Auto home
But this did not solve the issue. When I move the head to Z0 (with the offset) in the centre it's perfect. Moving it to left gets close to the board, right goes way away from the board.
Belts & screws
Went and tightened all the belts and all the screws.
X Axis alignment
I set the Z axis to the max 250. And measure the distance from top of the X axis to top of the frame. There is no difference in the left, right or centre of x axis to the top of the printer. Same for distance from bottom part of the frame.
I cleaned the belts and the wheels with a soft brush. Not sure what else to do. I'm giving up on Creality/Ender :( | The issue was BLTouch i'm not sure what use is this thing if it cannot compensate for differences in bed or frame.
I'm not sure why but the probing seems to be bad. I tried everything clean TH3D install and config, pitch perfect alignment of everything frame, bed, mounts everything. Perfectly calibrated Z offset at the centre of bed. I triple checked the belts. Checked if X axis was off or if any screw was lose, checked wheels to make sure everything was snugg.
Anyhow in the end the issue was with bad BLTouch probing not sure why. I gave up and went and disconneced BLTouch did manual bed leveling with the paper method. Press print and I got a perfect print. Like literally perfect. Even extrusion everywhere.
BLTouch seems to have probed the distance at the centre of bed, I set the offset for it. Than when it went and probed other corners before the print it seems to have read the values wrong. |
Print failing when connecting mains loads I am running the SeeMeCNC customized version of Repetier on a Rostock Max V2. I have experienced this problem with both the stock configuration along with an E3D The Chimera. Sometimes, when I am printing and connect a mains device, my printer will fail in some way. The first time this happened I was printing with ABS, so I connected my fume sucker (A ~25-50W fan) to an outlet. However, when I connected it, the LCD showed garbled characters and my software (MatterControl) reported an error. Restarting the printer returned it to the previous state. I had a ~15 foot (coiled) extension cord connected to a 3-way splitter.
Today, I connected a hot glue gun, and MatterControl reported that Repetier had switched to "Printer set into dry run mode until restart!" (no heat or extrusions). Looking at the firmware, this seems to be caused by a thermistor failure. I had everything plugged into the same setup as before, except for a surge protector at the end. The circuit that it is connected to has a 20A circuit breaker, with probably ~3A of it constantly used.
My theory for this is that an additional device causes a slight fluctuation in the thermistor wires, causing an error to occur. However, the Rostock Max is designed so that wires are inside of aluminum tubes, which I think would provide EMF protection. The power supply is a generic 12V 30A power supply that was included in the kit, usually seen in LED strips. Both of these occurred while printing. I have ordered a UPS for the printer: would its under/over-voltage detection help? Are there any other solutions for this? | I have had the same Issue with my Maker select prusa printer, the way I found that best combats this is to attach the printer to a UPS and avoid attaching any High draw devices from the same circuit. Every Time i'd switch something on, My TV, my lights, etc. The same would happen. Hope this helps! |
I've exported 3D models from the game, can I print them? Assuming I've extracted 3D models from a game which I legally bought (such as StarCraft). I am allowed to 3D print them for personal use or give it to close friends?
Is there any general rule, or this suppose to be specified in the license? If so, which section/clause potentially can prevent me from doing that? Or I need to contact the company who owns the game to obtain the permission? | No. Such figures are generally covered by copyright, which means that nobody but the copyright holder is allowed to (re-)produce copies of the work. Copyright also covers personal use. In the US there are limited fair use exceptions but they do not apply here.
The only way to do this legally is if it is specifically authorized in a license or if you get permission. |
Can 3D printer work with enamel paints (or paints generally)? Are such printers available? There are lot of advices on the web how to paint the 3D printed objects, but generally they are advices for manual painting and this required special skills, especially if the object is small. My guess is that maybe 3D printer can lay the color layers as well? I am especially interested in the layering of enamel paints (which can be transparent and which can required high temperature heating afterwards). Medieval art has fine examples how detailed enamel art was created on the metal. Maybe something like this can be achieved with 3D printers as well?
If 3D priner with the paint-printing capability is not available generally then what are the prospects when such printer can be available? Maybe there are some early, experimental efforts to create such printer and maybe test devices are available? | So, there's not really anything like a 3D painting machine/robot like I think you're looking for, but there are printers that do fine detail with actual paint, usually oils, but not on 3D materials.
I found a thread that talks about canvas printing about 8 years ago, along with a couple of videos that show current machines doing just that, but that's still not what I think you're looking for.
There are also CNC machines that print with enamel paints, but these are usually for 2D again, and not very precise, as they are used for lapel pins that have cavities to hole the paint while it dries. I'm sure something like this could be used without the cavities, but you'd have to do a lot of testing to make sure the paint stays put or mixes as you want it.
Just like the oil printers, these enamel printers are likely very large and costly.
Alternatively
What might work for you is hydrodipping. There's a variety of methods to this, but one company has done a bunch of research on this and can do extremely accurate detail printing to "paint" 3D objects. The below video shows a variety of these hydrodipping techniques, but I've skipped to the most relevant part.
Here's the original video of what I think you're most interested in. It's not 3D printing in the way most of us think, but it's definitely a fantastic outcome.
To explain, if these videos are ever deleted: detailed prints are made of a 3D model to color it exactly the way it needs to be, sometimes using multiple steps and computer positioning to get the object colored/"painted" correctly and seamlessly. One part of the video shows how the software can accurately make straight lines on a human-contoured face mask, while another part shows how a blank, fully 3D cat model can have spots or stripes added in 3 steps with the seams being completely invisible as well as it detailed enough to be mistaken for a real housecat beyond first glance.
As it turns out, you can do (some of) this yourself. After doing some research, I've found that you can actually get blank (instead of pre-printed) films and use an off the shelf printer, as long as it meets certain requirements. (I'm not recommending a site, brand, or anything else, this is just the first/only option I can find. If you do more research, I'm sure there's more options out there.)
https://www.tsautop.com/blank-hydrographic-film/
https://www.tsautop.com/blank-hydrographic-water-transfer-printing-inkjet-printer-6-color-inks/ |
Does the Creality Ender 3 allow variable layer thickness? I'm new to the 3D printing world but I've been using some of the 3D printers at my local library, and am now interested in purchasing my own! One thing that's important for my projects is being able to use variable layer thickness (for example, the first 50 layers are 0.3 mm, the next 50 are 0.1 mm, and the last 50 layers are 0.3 mm).
I know the Prusa printers can do this, but I've been trying to understand whether the Creality Ender 3 allows you to use variable layer thickness. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find this information online so I would like to ask here! | Variable layer height is a setting of the slicer, not an ability of the printer itself.
However, the printer must be able to print at such layer heights. Any FDM (Fused deposition modeling
) or FFF (fused filament fabrication) printer, which is the type you describe in the question, is able to print at 0.1 to 0.3 mm with at least a 0.4 mm nozzle diameter.
There is also notion of optimal layer heights. Optimal hight depend on full steps of Z motor correlated with a leadscrew type. It is especially important when microstepping for Z is disabled or when printer disconnects a Z motor during long printing of single layer, otherwise positioning may get imprecise. Prusa calculator helps to determine these values. For 8 mm/revolution lead of screw (standard T8 in Ender 3) the step for optimal heights would be 0.04 mm. |
Bed probing feed rates I was watching a friend's Prusa run the bed-probe routine and I realized how pathetically slow mine is and takes forever. I want to speed it up.
What parameters in Marlin's Configuration.h do I modify? Also, it seems to retract for the second "accurate" probe by like 10 mm which could be reduced by 8 mm or so. Where is that one? I looked through but can't be sure. Also, could I just change the feedrate in the pre-script?
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 300, 300, 8, 50 } // was { 400, 400, 8, 50 } | To speed up the probing for a touch sensor, a "High Speed" option is available in Configuration_adv.h which is by default disabled (//#define BLTOUCH_HS_MODE) as not all printers/sensors are able to use this.
You can also increase the homing speeds in your Configuration.h file.
// Homing speeds (mm/min)
#define HOMING_FEEDRATE_XY (50*60)
#define HOMING_FEEDRATE_Z (4*60)
.
..
...
..
.
// Feedrate (mm/min) for the first approach when double-probing (MULTIPLE_PROBING == 2)
#define Z_PROBE_SPEED_FAST HOMING_FEEDRATE_Z
// Feedrate (mm/min) for the "accurate" probe of each point
#define Z_PROBE_SPEED_SLOW (Z_PROBE_SPEED_FAST / 2)
However, you can simply speed up the movement between probe locations by setting the movement speed directly through G-code. The G29 code, used for automatic probing of the bed surface is described in "G29 Auto Bed Leveling (Marlin - MK4duo)". The S parameter in G29 can be used to set the movement speed between probes, where the units are specified in "units/min", e.g. mm/min.
Note that you potentially can change the Z-height for deployment:
/**
* Z probes require clearance when deploying, stowing, and moving between
* probe points to avoid hitting the bed and other hardware.
* Servo-mounted probes require extra space for the arm to rotate.
* Inductive probes need space to keep from triggering early.
*
* Use these settings to specify the distance (mm) to raise the probe (or
* lower the bed). The values set here apply over and above any (negative)
* probe Z Offset set with NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET, M851, or the LCD.
* Only integer values >= 1 are valid here.
*
* Example: `M851 Z-5` with a CLEARANCE of 4 => 9mm from bed to nozzle.
* But: `M851 Z+1` with a CLEARANCE of 2 => 2mm from bed to nozzle.
*/
#define Z_CLEARANCE_DEPLOY_PROBE 10 // Z Clearance for Deploy/Stow
#define Z_CLEARANCE_BETWEEN_PROBES 5 // Z Clearance between probe points
#define Z_CLEARANCE_MULTI_PROBE 5 // Z Clearance between multiple probes
//#define Z_AFTER_PROBING 5 // Z position after probing is done |
Print sketchup files (STL) on makerbot One of the local libraries has a new small Makerbot 3D printer. I have been submitting Sketchup files converted to STL files for printing.
The tech guy who runs the printer for patrons is having trouble getting a project of mine to come out to be the right size. I need this item go be 2 inches wide. The tech guy sizes the item on the screen to 2 inches. I watched him do it. But, the item is printed with a base of 2 inches, and the item itself comes out smaller.
Does anyone have suggestions about this? I can get more info if someone can give me the right questions to ask. The tech is open to taking suggestions. He wants to get the printer running smoothly for patrons.
I submitted a file with my own base with supports made in Sketchup. But, the tech guy said he needs to set the printer to create it's own base and supports.
Additional info:
When I printed it by letting Makerbot create the base and supports, it came out to be 1 3/4" as shown here:
https://flic.kr/p/EashnD
Printer: Makerbot Replicator with Smart Extruder (not Plus).
(I am now at the library with the technician.)
Here is a screenshot of what I am trying to print. It is a replacement clip for a messenger bag. So, it has to be 2 inches across.
https://flic.kr/p/EtdM6s
Here is the printer:
https://flic.kr/p/E5F1M6
I used a website to convert the DAE file exported from Sketchup to an STL file. It was GreenToken.com.
If I open the object's STL file in Tinkercad, the object appears two inches wide. And, if I open the file in one of the 3D printer websites in Tinkercad, the object appears two inches wide (in cm).
The security on the library's computers do not allow me to apply plug-ins to Sketchup. The library's Tech staff is going to eventually put the plug-in in there.
If it is resized to 2 inches wide in the MakerBot software to be sent to the printer, why is it printing the generated base 2 inches wide and not the object? Are there some settings the tech guy in the library is missing in this set up window?
Additional notes:
The library now has the latest version of SketchUp on Macs. They are working on installing the STL plugin. (Security issues)
My process for producing an STL file to print is now this:
I create something in SU and export it as a DAE file.
I have found that meshconverter.com produces better STL files than greentoken.
I then upload/fix the STL file at the netFabb website.
I then import the STL file into TinkerCad to view it. If there are problems in the file, I can see them. And, I run it through netFabb again. I can also modify the file in TinkerCad. It is no where near as sophisticated as SketchUp. But, it doesn't claim to be.
I have found that there is a way to export the STL file to 3D printer hubs through TinkerCad. You can see the prices, the material available and the location of the company/person doing the printing. You can contact the printer ahead of time and they can look at your file to give you advice.
Update
I just wanted to add that the netFabb website does not export STL files after it fixes them. It now gives you a 3MF file format when you upload an STL file. I am not sure why this happens. But, this has put a big wrench in my process. I can no longer fix SketchUp STL files with netFabb. When I bring them into TinkerCad, I see errors in the object. It seems like there are issues with complex curves. | It appears that you have scaled the object after the raft and supports were added. As you can see in your photo of the raft, the clip is approximately 7/8ths (1.75/2) the size of the raft.
Edit: As a side note, STL files don't actually have a concept of units. Each axis is defined in arbitrary units. That's why when you export and import it you have to set the scale appropriately. |
What ambient humidity should one target for filament storage? I live in an arid environment and have never worried about leaving filament out for an extended period of time. To reduce how frequently we receive static shocks I installed a whole house humidifier with a target humidity of 35 %. Is this enough humidity to warrant storing filament in a dry box? At what point does ambient humidity become a concern? | The closer to zero humidity the better. Maybe a garage or some place protected from rare precipitation outside would be better. If one room is considerably less humid than the others, you could use it. Keep the bags and dry packs the filament comes in and put them back in when not in use. |
Use Gcode Extrusion Speed in Calculations I have a Rostock Max V2, and I've added a second extruder going into a y-splitter into a single nozzle on my printer. I have both extruders working correctly, but I'm having trouble tuning the retraction settings to prevent stringing when I switch between extruders during a print. My system is essentially identical to the setup seen here. However, I can't get my printer to retract as cleanly as the one in the video
What I'm trying to avoid is the long, thin "tail" that forms when retracting the filament from the hot end. That "tail" binds the other filament during the switch and makes the extruder grind a hollow spot on the filament.
I've had limited success tuning my retraction settings, but I find that I need different settings for different extrusion speeds. For example, after an extrusion like G1 E20 F240 a 3mm retraction, 3mm extrusion, then a fast retraction creates a nice, clean break (this routine is recommended here by kraeger on the SeeMeCNC forums). However, after an extrusion like G1 E20 F900 I have to use longer retractions to get a clean break. I think this might have to do with the filament acting like a spring inside the bowden tube. It would make sense to me that the harder you push the filament, the more you need to pull back to compensate for the pent-up spring force.
Here's my question: Is there a way to read the value of the extrusion speed, essentially the "F" term from the gcode commands, and change my retraction routine accordingly.
Example pseudocode:
If F value < 500 Then do short retraction
If F value > 500 AND F value < 1000 Then do medium retraction
If F value > 1000 Then do long retraction
I'm using the tool change script feature in Simplify3D to store the tool change code. | I don't think you're going to find either a firmware feature or a slicer feature that handles specifically what you want to do. The slicer would probably be the best place to put it, and I'd recommend maybe opening a feature request ticket with Ultimaker, because that sounds like an awesome feature.
That being said, there's nothing stopping you from post-processing your GCode file after it's been generated. If you're experienced with python at all, that's the place I'd recommend you start.
You'll probably want to do it via the following:
Find the first line number that does a retraction.
Sum up all the extrusion distances between that line and the starting point (the beginning of the file)
Replace the retraction distance and feedrate with whatever your short/medium/long retraction settings are
Store that line number as your new starting point
GOTO 1.
If you're using Slic3r, there's actually a post-processing script function built into the app itself, you just need to write the script and give it to the application to make the whole process hands-off. For other slicers you'll probably just have to run the script manually between slicing and printing. |
Trouble printing perpendicular walls I'm trying to print the following model:
I'm using Simplify3d to print the model with the following settings on my Qidi X-pro:
Filament is ABS
Bed temp is 100 °C
Extruder temp is 230 °C
1 top layer
1 bottom layer
4 perimeter shells
The outside direction is 'outside in'.
Internal infill is triangular at 60 %.
I've tried numerous tweaks to the settings, but, I can't seem to get a perfect perpendicular exterior wall as seen in the photos. The print more resembles a trapezoid. It appears like the walls are bowing inward. This also seems to throw off the dimensions. They aren't consistent. For example, the height of the part is 6 mm, but, in measuring with a caliper it shows 5.8 mm to 6.2 mm.
Can anyone tell me how I can get my external walls perpendicular? | You may be getting shrinking due to cooling on the non-top and non-bottom layers. Sixty percent infill is rather substantial. I'm printing 20 hour pieces in ABS at 100 °C / 250 °C using ten percent infill and getting nothing like what your image shows.
Can you do with a lower infill? More isn't always stronger. Four perimeter shells may be a factor but you'll probably see a difference with a smaller percentage infill. |
Irregular adhesion on Creality glass bed I have an Ender 5 pro and upgraded from the magnetic bed to the glass version. I print with Prusament PLA on 65 °C bed temp and 220 °C extruder temp. I measured that the glass surface has ~58 °C in the center and ~56 °C on the corners. That should be in the specs of the spool which has a printed recommendation of 50 +- 10 °C for bed and 215 +- 10 °C for extruder temps.
Now I also have a BLTouch and use the TH3D firmware so Z offsets should work correctly and are done with the Z offset wizard present (nozzle touching the bed).
The problem I currently have is that the first layers have "lifts" in them. Also, it seems that the layer itself is not 0.2 mm everywhere. It's close to 0.23 mm on the edges but on the inner there are variances up to 0.36 mm.
Currently, I slice with Cura 4.8.0 on Standard Quality 0.2 mm
How do I get rid of the lifts and irregularity in the layer? Is it a problem with the bed? | The only time I've seen lifting, away from the edges of the part like this, is when the bed is contaminated with something which will stop the print sticking, like fingerprints and such.
A thorough wipe-down with IPA on the heated bed is usually enough to stop it. |
Extruder stepper motor problem, what can be wrong? I bought a self-made Reprap Prusa Mendel 3 printer, modified to be built from cheaper materials, and immediately after the deal I got various problems. I fixed the majority of them, but don't know what the reason of the strange extruder behavior is: The stepper motor is not rotating while extruding filament, it's moving back and forth with small steps instead. I made some footage, Reprap Prusa Mendel 3d printer extruder problem, hoping that someone has met a similar problem before.
If so, please tell me what to do to make it work as it should.
The obvious option while encountering this problem was to slacken the bolt which holds this parts together (in the left bottom corner of the video), but that did not help.
Any ideas are very welcomed. Thanks for your time. I hope this is an appropriate kind of question here. | Your controller board probably requires calibration.
It sounds like, maybe, the extruder's stepper motor is not receiving sufficient current, to make it turn. Or, somewhat confusingly, maybe the stepper is receiving too much current, and overheating.
You don't say which controller board you are using, but regardless, there should be an adjustable potentiometer on the board, next to each of the stepper drivers, or on the stepper driver daughter boards. Like so,
This potentiomenter adjusts the reference voltage used to control the stepper motor. From this reference voltage, and the resistance of the stepper coils, one can determine the current, which is used to drive the stepper motor.
For the stepper driver of the extruder, you could try turning this adjustable potentiometer slightly, in order to provide more current to the stepper, in turn to provide sufficient torque such that the motor is able to turn. Or, less current to stop the stepper from overheating.
The adjustments can be made whilst the power is on, but a non-ferrous (i..e. plastic) screw driver should be used, so as to avoid short circuits. Also care needs to be taken, when turning the potentiometer, as they have been known to just fall apart whilst being turned. If you are paranoid, then make micro adjustments with the power turned off, and then turn back on to check the behaviour.
Note: it should go without saying that one should never disconnect a stepper whilst the power is on, as both the driver and the stepper motor may be irrevocably damaged.
The photo above is taken from POTs Calibration – RAMPS 1.4.
If a POT is set too high then the associated stepper driver will tend to overheat and go into over-temperature thermal shutdown (to prevent damage to its components). The first sign of overheating is erratic stepper motor behavior. Typically, this can be recognized by the sounds of the stepper motor suddenly losing power (thermal shutdown). If no load or movement is required of the motor, it is hard to detect whether it is over-powered as the driver is barely producing any heat.
and
Conversely, if the POT is set too low, the stepper motor can enter an underpowered state. This can be recognized by a lack of holding torque and a stepper motor that is skipping steps because the necessary movement requires a higher power demand than the POT setting allows for.
Driver cooling
In addition to the possibility of the stepper motor over heating, it could be possible that the stepper driver is overheating, although the symptoms may be different, to those that you are experiencing. Regardless, you may still find it advantageous to cooler the controller/driver board with a fan that is always on (not temperature controlled).
Additional reading
RigidWiki - Stepper Driver Adjustment, which goes into further detail about the adjustment of the potentiometers, that I outlined above, as well as the reference voltage and the adjustment thereof.
RepRap Wiki - RepRapPro Setting Motor Currents describes a different controller to yours, but goes into the process of adjustment, and description of the reference voltage (which is applicable to all boards):
The wiper on each potentiometer generates a DC voltage that is sent to the chip. This is the reference voltage; it defines how much current the stepping motor driver chip supplies to the motor. The bigger the reference voltage (VREF), the higher the current (A) that the chip will send to the motor. For most NEMA14 motors, the current maximum is 1A, but this will generally cause it to get warm, so a setting of 750mA is recommended. For NEMA17 motors, depending on size, the limit on current is generally between 1.3A and 1.7A. If you drive stepper motors with more current than they were designed for, the motor will get hot, and may be damaged.
Pololu - A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier with Voltage Regulators - this is a very common stepper driver.
MyHomeFab - DRV8825 Adjust Stepper Current goes into the adjustment of the reference voltage, for the commonly used DRV8825, which is an alternative to the popular A4988.
This thread, about non-actuating steppers, may also be useful, Motors, which mentions setting the trimpots and points the OP to RepRap Wiki - Pololu stepper driver board, which, in turn, refers to this thread, Strange stepper behavior and this video, video-2012-02-02-16-37-26.mp4, which describes a jitter in the stepper behaviour. |
Adhesion problem when printing calibration test Here is my first attempt at printing a "Bed Leveling Calibration test".
It obviously didn't come out as I would have hoped, but what can you say just looking at this picture?
Is it possible to tell from this calibration print which corners are not leveled? Or is this just a general lack of stickiness issue (e.g. i need glue)?
I leveled this thing with paper several times, but honestly, I'm terrible at leveling. I just got this new piece of glass and there's nothing on it. The glue residue is actually on the sheet beneath.
What are some tips for printing on glass? I hear some people say use glue, others say never use glue. Should I increase or lower the temp?
I'm printing Dikale PLA on Monoprice Select V2, extruder temp 200 °C and bed temp 70 °C. Initial layer speed is 30 mm/s (print speed is 60 mm/s but I don't think this print goes that far). | What can you say just looking at this picture?
->There are 2 obvious observations that can be drawn from your image.
First, the bed does not seem to be levelled correctly, the right side (especially the front right corner) is closer to the nozzle than the left and left-back side.
Is it possible to tell from this calibration print which corners are
not leveled?
-> Yes, the front right corner is higher. The filament is much thinner there, it is more transparent than the rest of the lines.
Second, you have glass mounted onto an adhesion sheet similar to BuildTak. Note that such adhesion sheets are rough (to create more surface area for the filament to grip on), placing a sheet of glass on top of such a sheet will create small air pockets (less contact surface area to the glass plate as that is perfectly flat by its production process) and thus an unsatisfactory heat transfer process. Glass directly onto the Aluminium will have a higher temperature than with an insulator (BuildTak sheet) in between it, it is far more difficult to determine the bed temperature that way. For printing on glass, you could also raise the temperature compared to direct printing onto the metal bed.
Should I increase or lower the temp?
-> When using glass on top of the heated bed, you should raise the temperature a few degrees.
You should remove the BuildTak sheet and put the glass directly onto the Aluminium heat bed or remove the glass plate and print on the BuildTak sheet directly, level the bed better or consider installing an auto-level (touch) sensor if your printer electronics board supports that.
What are some tips for printing on glass?
Furthermore, use some PVA based spray (e.g. certain hairspray brands or specific print adhesion spray) or Polyvinylpyrrolidone based glues (certain glue sticks, white wood glue, etc.) to create a sticky surface for the filament to adhere to. I have great experience with PVA based sprays like 3DLAC, but there are great alternatives found in common household hairspray cans as well, as long as it contains PVA.
Or is this just a general lack of stickiness issue (e.g. i need glue)?
-> Yes, Polyvinylpyrrolidone/PVA based glue/spray will result in better adhesion.
A general remark is that you could listen at what others have tried, but you need to find out yourself what works best for you. In order to get the print to stick to the glass, you should use every trick there is to get good adhesion. If PVA based sprays or Polyvinylpyrrolidone based glues work for you, use it, if not, print on bare glass, use tape, BuilTak, elevate bed temperature, overextrude first layer, use brims/mouse ears, etc.. |
How can I decrease the thickness of a wall in an STL file? There seem to be a lot of search results answering the question of how to increase wall thickness, but how can I decrease wall thickness? I have an STL model of a mechanical keyboard key where the outside dimensions are correct, but the walls are slightly too thick so the key gets stuck in the down position. I'd like to shave some of the thickness off of the inside of the walls to better match the original key I'm replacing, while leaving the rest of the model dimensions as-is. How can I go about doing this? I consider myself technical in general, though I'm a novice at 3d modeling software. | The process is rather simple:
import your model into either a modeling software (e.g. Blender et al.) or a CAD-program (e.g. fusion360, Design Spark Mechanical et al.) that can import and export STL.
if needed, convert the STL into a useable model with your chosen program's functions or switch to edit mode.
select inner walls and extrude them the desired amount.
export as STL again. |
FDM layer bonding strength I'm looking for some advice, rules of thumb, or models for how to design parts for layer bonding strength.
As an example part, lets assume a circular beam in bending (tall cylinder). Depending on how the part is setup on the build platform (tube axis aligned parallel to Z, or setup to lay in the X-Y plane) the layers and internal structure will then be different depending on the orientation chosen at the time of building. Does/has anyone done any investigation to what roles these factors will play on simple shapes like a solid cylinder?
Ideally, with a CNC'd, injection molded part the total strength of a solid part is quite easy to model (mathematically) for strength and flexibility. However, with a 3D printed part the orientation makes the isotropic material properties effectively anisotropic, as layers don't bond perfectly, different cooling rates, and a host of other reasons.
Ideally I'd love to find a 'simplified' model that can be applied to hand-calculations to come up with rough approximations to part strength and bending. My guess is that these parts would be modeled something similar to an ABD matrix, similar to composite materials, but that's just a guess. | I have not been able to find a simple model for FDM part strength. FDM parts are pretty complicated as they have a LOT more things that affect their strength than just layer adhesion. Since any "solid" part will have infill, the part can't really be modeled as a laminant. There are so many settings you can play with in the slicer that effects part strength, the model would have to have tens (if not hundreds) of parameters. Also, you would likely have to establish them for your own printer since lots of things can affect them (like room temp, ventilation, humidity, material, material storage, ...)
One empirical example discussing the affects of FDM choices on part strength is a video done by Angus at Marker's Muse. In the video he discussed how orientation and wall thickness affects strength. Angus is not a math/ME guy (by his own admission). FEA or other modeling would not be his approach; but, you can get some insight from his experience.
On the modeling front, I have seen one company that did create an FEA model to test whether their product would be strong enough if they produced it using FDM. Here is the publication they wrote showing their analysis approach. It will give you some insight on how they approached what I think you want to do.
Note: They do offer a service where you can pay to have your part analyzed for a considerable amount of money. I have no idea how much money; but, based on jobs I have quoted in the past, I would expect it would be a least a few hundreds dollars.
As for me, I really enjoy basing my decisions on models and understanding how a part/process works. In this case; however, an empirical/experimental approach might be more cost effective. If you really want to take an analytical approach (and have the time to spend doing it), I would recommend choosing several key parameters and run an analysis using DOE (Design of Experiments).
If you come up with something, I would love to see it posted here.
Good luck and happy printing. |
How can I print to my FLSUN QQ over WIFI I want to be able to control my FLSUN QQ over wifi, and don't have octoprint or a raspberry pi to run it on. | Assuming you use Ultimaker Cura to slice, there is a MKS plugin that allows connecting to the MKS WiFi module that comes with the QQ. Just follow these steps:
Install the MKS WiFi Plugin
Open Cura
Click "Marketplace" in top right
Select "Plugins"
Scroll down to find the "MKS WiFi Plugin"
Click on the plugin.
Click "Install"
Restart Cura (quit and reopen)
Configure WiFi
Turn on your QQ
Tap Settings
Tap WiFi
Enable WiFi
Note the IP address and network name
Connect your computer to the printers network
Open your browser
type the IP address of your printer into the address bar
hit enter
Scroll down to "WIFI Configuration"
Select STA
Enter your home network SSID into the field labeled "WIFI"
Enter the password into the field labeled "KEY"
Click configure and reboot
Setup your printer in Cura
Open Cura
Open settings > Printer > Manage Printers...
Click "MKS Wifi"
Click "Add"
Enter the new IP address of your printer (can be found by opening WiFi settings on the printer)
Click Ok
7, Click connect.
Now you should be connected to your printer. After slicing you should have the option to "Print over FLSUN..." In the Monitor interface you should have some other options such as sending commands to the printer, and printing any files already on the SD card, as well as uploading gcode files to the SD card.
Happy Printing |
Layer bending with first layer not sticking I'm pretty new to 3D printing, so I'm looking for some tips with following problem I have.
I'm trying to print following model https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4671256 on my Ender 3 v2.
But as soon as the print reaches the body and the first layer parts are attached, the print comes loose from the bed and the print will be dragged by the nozzle.
If you look at the picture you can see the bending of the front paws of the sculpture. So they don't stay sticked onto the bed.
I have changed the model to be 80 % in size, but also upped the bed temperature from 50 to 75 °C.
Running at 50 °C was even worse...
My printed 20x20x20 mm test cube was flawless by the way. | Try a Brim (the model is rather tricky on FDM), which can help with bad adhesion.
Your first laser appears coarse and not "smooched" as it should. This hints that you leveled either high, or you hit the portal off-angle. If it is just high leveling, a tiny turn "up" can help a lot.
The model has some rather flat overhangs, like the mouth, chin, under the tails and lower body. I suggest printing that with support turned on.
For PLA Filament, I use 200°C nozzle with 60°C bed, so unless you go far beyond that, your print should work.
Last words: that the model you chose was made with resin printing in mind, so you will use some details. |
Using a Full Spool of Filament, Read as "Empty" I have a cheaper consumer-grade printer that I've owned for a couple of years now. It is an XYZ da Vinci Mini W and it seems to recuperate its incurred losses from selling a cheaper printer by jacking up the prices on their filaments. I don't have much of a problem with this (and I'm not asking to "hack" the chips to let me use cheaper filaments), but I went to switch out my filament with a full one I had laying around and I noticed the chip case it contained was a chip (probably removed by somebody for some odd reason). I used a chip that I had laying around, but the printer read the full spool of filament as "empty" because of the old chip. Because of this, I was wondering if there was a way to force the printer to keep printing when the spool is "empty" or if I can somehow reset the chip. | From what is read online, it depends on the firmware version your printer has. It seems that later versions keep track of tag serials and reports tampered tags as non-genuine tags. The best and most recent reference found is from 2018 which describes you should be creating new tags instead of resetting existing tags. This involves installing an Android App from unverified source and new "paper" NFC213 tags. |
Are there multi-filament hardened nozzles or equivalent systems? I discovered "diamond" nozzles (name of the design, not the use of diamond material), which have multiple filament inputs (designs for 3 or 5) and a single output nozzle, see figure.
They look like a very good and compact solution to avoid or significantly reduce purge towers, where filament is wasted until the channel is primed, and to avoid a second hot end, which takes space and which could be oozing when unused, but I could find them only made of brass.
Are there hardened diamond nozzles, or equivalent systems which are lightweight and can avoid a second hot end, to print composite or abrasive materials? | Yes, but there is no hardened version of the "Diamond" nozzle design. Basically when you want to use a hardened nozzle, or a Ruby nozzle in combination with color mixing (I specifically refer to mixing solutions as the melting chamber is smaller than filament changing solutions and your request for none or minimal purging towers) you need to order a design that accommodates the replacement of the nozzle. In such a case you can remove the standard nozzle to replace it for a hardened version.
There are a few 2 and 3 filament input designs that are offered on typical auction and Chinese selling sites. Below is an example for the Zonestar M3 mixing color hotend with a replaceable nozzle. |
Can the `render` function be used to speed up rendering? I am designing a moderately complicated piece in OpenScad.
It renders fast enough in preview mode (1s).
But when i do a full render so I can export to STL,
it takes ages (In the 10s of minutes)
I have read that sometimes the function render is useful to speed up overall rendering.
Is this correct, or have I misunderstood?
If I have misunderstood, what is the render function useful for?
How does this work?
In what circumstances can I apply it? | First a disclaimer: I am far from an expert on the subject, I'm just a regular Joe who happens to use OpenSCAD and have done some experimentation with it. I believe the answer below to be correct, but I will be very grateful if errors or misconceptions were brought to my attention in the comments. :)
I have read that sometimes the function render is useful to speed up overall rendering. Is this correct, or have I misunderstood?
I'm unaware if it is possible to use render() to speed up the "overall rendering", but I'm rather confident that the intended purpose of render() is to simplify the in-memory representation of the model and thus the responsiveness of the preview window, rather than speed-up its final rendering.
How does this work?
In order to understand how this work, one has to understand how Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) works.
The entire premise of CSG is that using boolean operations between primitive solid shapes, it is possible to represent complex shapes.
However, while the human operator may see subtractive operations like difference and intersection as something that makes the model smaller in volume and thus possibly easier to handle, the computer sees each and every operation as adding geometry and complexity to the part, as the following image aptly illustrates:
When manipulating the model in the CAD viewer, OpenSCAD is in the preview mode and all that "invisible geometry" needs to be processed for each adjustment of the viewport. It is easy to reach a level at which the OpenSCAD viewer will become jittery or unresponsive.
What the render() function does, is telling OpenSCAD to compute the mesh resulting from the boolean operations enclosed in the render() call, and use that single mesh instead of the underlying boolean-combined primitives when handling the model in the viewer. Meshes are what is normally used in the render mode of OpenSCAD (F6) rather than in the preview one, but here their advantage is not better visual quality, but the fact that OpenSCAD needs to handle a lot less geometry.
In what circumstances can I apply it?
You can apply it any time you like, really, but it is a trade-off: a model that uses the render() function internally, will take longer to display its initial preview (because generating the mesh is an expensive operation) but it will behave very well in the viewer. Conversely, a large model that does not leverage render() will be jittery to handle in the viewer, but it will render to screen in a fraction of the time. It has to be noted that OpenSCAD make heavy use of caching, so the first preview is the one that will take the longest, while successive ones may be a lot faster.
For reference, the code at the bottom of this answer (which generates the image above) behaved like this:
With render(): 15s for the preview, 1m29s more for the proper rendering (TOTAL: 1m44s).
Without render(): 0s for the preview, 1m45s more for the proper rendering (TOTAL: 1m45s).
I don't know if the fact that the totals resemble each other is a coincidence peculiar to my model or a general rule of thumb (the render() function effectively creating part of the final rendering during preview), but you are free to play with the code and if you find out a pattern, please leave a comment.
In the following code, you may need to increase the grid size to 20x20 if you want to see the difference in responsiveness between vanilla code and render() function.
Also remember to close and reopen OpenSCAD between tests, in order to flush the cache.
$fn = 30;
module shape() {
render() difference() {
sphere();
cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([90, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([0, 90, 0]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([45, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([-45, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([0, 45, 0]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([0, -45, 0]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([90, 0, 45]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
rotate([90, 0, -45]) cylinder(r=0.3, h=3, center=true);
}
}
module line(x, y) {
translate([x * 2, y, 0]) shape();
if (x > 0) line(x - 1, y);
}
module grid(x, y) {
line(x, y * 2);
if (y > 0) grid(x, y - 1);
}
grid(3, 3); |
First layer looks weird and print fails Update below
Printed 650 of these tokens, no problem. Then all of a sudden I can't get them to stick and the first layer looks wavy and weird.
After a few tokens it knocks one loose and the whole print fails.
Did try to recalibrate the z-height. Should it be even closer? The test pattern for first layer height looks good.
Removed the nozzle to inspect if it's damaged but it looks fine to me...
Any help is much appreciated.
Update - Dec 29th 2019
With the new nozzle and recalibration I managed to get one more print to stick as in my answer below. Then back to not sticking.
I did order a textured plate from Prusa. Recalibrated the XYZ. That did not help.
I have played around with the first layer calibration.
In the video below the setting of -0.900 is fixed the whole time.
The lines look good and healthy but then lifts on the right side of the bed.
Video of first layer calibration
I then moved the nozzle even closer and REALLY smash it into the bed @ -1.050
It still lifts on the right side and a little bit in the corners. The first purge plastic that is output to the bottom left usually does not stick at all.
Untouched with nozzle closer
Things I have done:
Recalibrated the XY & Z axis from scratch.
Did two cold pulls of the filament (link) to make sure the extruder is not clogged. The pulled filament looked nice and clean.
Switched to new textured bed sheet
Switched to a new 0.4mm nozzle (E3D V6)
Tried different filaments (only PLA though)
Lubricated moving parts
Checked heat bed to make sure screws are tight and the bed sits snuggly
Two ideas now:
Can it be the mesh leveling that is acting up? How do I check that?
The heat bed feels differently warm in different places. Is the heat bed constructed with different zones where one can fail and the rest keep working? Do not have access to a heat camera to check.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
EDIT:
Thanks @Paulster2! It's good to find this community!
I've been using several different PLA filaments since this started happening. Before, they all stuck to the printing bed like champions, now none of them do. Pictured is som generic white, but getting the same result with Prusament PLA. Nozzle 215°C, Bed 60°C. As I wrote above, I did check the nozzle and it LOOKS fine. It's very small though and I have ordered new nozzles. If no one has any other suggestions I will post more when I have tried the new nozzle.
Also thanks to @Greenonline for correcting spelling and layout. Cheers! | A new day, a new nozzle, an old result!
EDIT
The success was a one off. The problem remains!
Heat on the heated bed seems to differ a lot in different areas. Just using my hands to feel it since I have no IR-camera. |
Is hot glue suitable for FDM printing? Is hot glue suitable for FDM printing, or some process similar to it?
I think it has all of the required properties, and could produce a flexible transluscent print. It's cheap, hotends are cheap, and the technology has been around for a while.
I couldn't find any examples or anyone talking about such a material for use, on here or the general Internet. I wonder if there are tradeoffs or challenges that make it not worth pursuing. | You could mount a hot glue gun to a 3D positioning frame, but you would immediately notice the following:
Hot glue sticks are fat, so you lose a lot of precision for each feed/retract increment. I.e., it's a lot harder to get precise feeds with a fat stick because the stick size is so much larger than the nozzle.
Hot glue sticks are short, so you would to create a filament to spool the stuff or come up with a glue stick feeder.
Hot glue melts at 120 °C and common plastics such as nylon melt at much higher temperatures. So hot glue would make an AWFUL structural part like a stepper mount. Even PLA barely deals with stepper temperatures. Note that temperature tolerance is irrelevant for costume parts.
Hot glue is soft, which makes it a great glue, but not very stiff for, say, making parts for a 3D printer. However, the parts might be fine for use only in costumes, etc.
But, if you then used your 3D glue printer to dispense glue for gluing stuff together, well...that might be valuable. :D |
What is a w/t ratio? I have seen a few guides mentioning w/t ratio but I can't find anything which defines it.
I am using Simplify3D with a Wanhao i3. | It appears to refer to calibration factor called Width over Thickness.
From Calibrate your 3D printer to print parts to fit
Here is the list of necessary variables for this calibration to work,
Carve/Extra Decimal Places (float) : change to 5
Carve/Edge Width over Height (ratio) : nozzle diameter/layer height
Inset/Infill Width over Thickness (ratio) : nozzle diameter/layer height (initially)
Dimension/Filament Packing Density (ratio) : needs calibration (equivalent to the reciprocal of the extrusion multiplier in Slic3r)
Scale/XY Plane Scale (ratio) : needs calibration |
Marlin's bed leveling Mesh Validation Pattern ignoring home offset I'm using a Prusa clone with Ramps 1.4, Marlin 1.1.5 and an inductive proximity sensor Z-probe. Due to the design of the printer, the X and Y end-stops and the Z-probe are not exactly aligned with the heated bed, so I must use Marlin's Home Offset feature to align the coordinate space to the print area, using the G-code command M206 X-18.5 Y-2.5 Z1.1.
I am now attempting to use Marlin's Unified Bed Leveling feature to compensate for a slight but significant curvature of the bed.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Mesh Validation Pattern command (G26) is not taking the Home Offset into account when printing a test pattern. The printed pattern hangs off the left side of the bed and the center printed circle is clearly misaligned with the center of the print bed by the bed offset amount.
Does this suggest that my firmware is misconfigured? Or is there an alternative method for aligning the mesh validation test pattern with an offset print bed? | A Marlin developer confirmed that bed-leveling and probing are now performed entirely in the machine coordinate space.
To clarify further, if one has a non-zero home offset enabled, the following commands refer to different physical locations despite the supplied parameters being the same:
M206 X10 Y10 ; Set a home offset in X and Y
G30 X100 Y100 ; Probe (100, 100) in machine space
G0 X100 Y100 ; Move to (100, 100) in print space, ie. (90, 90) in machine coordinate space
I was able to correctly align the bed-leveling grid by altering header files in the source code. I defined the XY offset using two new macros BED_OFFSET_X and BED_OFFSET_Y in Configuraion.h and altered the following lines in Conditionals_post.h.
#define X_CENTER ((X_BED_SIZE) / 2) + BED_OFFSET_X
#define Y_CENTER ((Y_BED_SIZE) / 2) + BED_OFFSET_Y
The mesh is now physically aligned with the bed and I have not observed any adverse effects. |
Can't print the top part of a circle I'm trying to print the painter's tripod from this tutorial:
I can't get it to finish the print. It always fails towards the top when it's closing the circles. I've tried brims and even glue for adhesion, and different settings for inlays, perimeters, etc... my bed levelling is correct and my first layer is perfect. The prints come out beautiful, but they always fail there. I have a theory but since I don't have a camera set up I can't confirm, but I feel like the nozzle gets stuck against the previous layer, as if when it's coming from the other side of the "bridge" completing the upper layers of the circle, it get's to the other side of the gap and it finds that the filament has hardened just a bit higher than when it's going to print, and therefore knocks the piece to the side (despite using glue!!), and from that point on, obviously, total mess and I have to cancel. Just a theory though. Any ideas of what else could this be or what to do about it?
Printer is a Prusa i3 Mark3S | You are trying to print an unsupported edge up there - the top edge has nothing to rest on and thus sags down. As a result, the print failed.
To remedy this, activate printing with support. With a support angle of 80° or tree support, you could minimize the needed material. |
How do I modify Cura's code generation? Cura is generating temperature commands in the wrong order. I need to swap lines 6 and 7 below so that both the printhead and bed can begin to heat at the same time.
Is this code generation configurable in Cura?
5 ;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 2.5.0
6 M190 S60 ; set bed and block
7 M104 S215 ; set printhead, don't block
8 M109 S215 ; set printhead, block | You can do so by placing this at the top of the start code under machine settings (tested on 2.6.1).
M104 S{material_print_temperature}
M190 S{material_bed_temperature} |
How to add tolerances/gaps in 123d Design? When I design parts that must fit in each other, I usually keep in mind that prints are 0.2-0.5 mm wider than expected (depending on material) and I size the parts accordingly.
However, sometimes I design the whole part and then I slice it with planes or lines. In these cases I need to push/pull afterwards each contact surface manually by the same amount (0.2-0.5 mm) and that is a time consuming task. Another option is to use a cutter to remove the outer surface layer (basically I remove the rigged surface, making it smooth again) but it's not safe and even more time consuming.
How can I quickly generate said controlled gaps on the contact surfaces between two objects, but not on the rest of the object? to make it everywhere I could use shells, I guess, but I don't need that on the whole object. | Unfortunately, 123D Design doesn't have such a feature.
You could select multiple surfaces and push/pull them all at the same time though.
Remember, your 3D Printer's slicer should have an option to undersize or oversize holes and walls, to help reduce/remove the effect you talk about.
It's called size correction, I think? Simplify3D Has it, atleast.
You might have to tweak this for every filament type, though. |
How can I stop my print bed tape from sticking to the filament? I made a test print for a small gear (~ 1.5 inches in diameter) a few months ago, with a hole through the center. On the first try, the filament (ABS) fused to the print bed, meaning that I had to spend ten minutes scraping off material to loosen it. One solution to this is to use painter's tape spread across the print bed.
This yielded a good print during the next run. The problem with this method was that some of the tape subsequently fused to the backside of the gear; it was so tight that I had to discard the prototype. Multiple varieties of tape made no difference.
Is there a way to continue using this tape without having it fuse to the filament? | This can highly depend on the slicer you are using. Some software such as Makerware and Slic3r allow you to adjust the settings for the first raft/part layers. I might suggest adjusting this "Z0" point to about 1/4-1/2 of your layer height. Essentially the first layer (or two) will not adhere as well.
This is just one suggestion of many solutions. Here are some other variables I could think of off-hand:
Type of build plate tape (ie masking, painters, kapton, etc.)
Type of material. I've noticed that PLA is very stubborn if you let the part completely cool after printing and that it's much easier to remove the part from the build plate/raft right after it's complete.
Type of build plate. Are you applying too much heat (if you have a heated bp) for the material such as PLA?
Try lowering your layer height. This will ensure that each strand does not have too much surface area and therefore less chance that it will create a vacuum affect with the build plate. This can, however, result in a worse surface finish. |
LCD full graphic smart controller, no character display and screen blinking After uncommenting the REPRAP_DISCOUNT_FULL_GRAPHIC_SMART_CONTROLLER, the display is blinking and no characters are shown on the screen, I have already switched the cables between EXP1 and EXP2, but it did not succeed. | this problem can be solved by turning the slots on the display, as in the image below. Some Chinese displays are inverted from factory. |
Z Offset on autoleveling sensor setup How does Z offset (M851) work with an auto leveling sensor? Does it add the Z offset to the offset of the G29 mesh? or the G29 value replaces the M851?
My printer is an Anet A8 with Marlin firmware, I was having issues with the autoleveling sensor and reset the Z offset to 0 and let G29 get the mesh offsets and its working good now.
I was looking through Marlin G-code page but couldn't figure out how G29 affects M851 or vice-versa.
My setup with level issues:
M851 Z0
G28
M211 S0 ;turned endstops off and got a paper to find the zoffset
M851 Z-0.59
M500
M211 S1
And G29 before printing. | G28 instructs the printer to home itself to the X an Y endstops and the Z sensor determines the homing of the Z axis; i.e. when the sensor triggers, this is not necessarily (and most commonly) not the position where the nozzle is at Z=0.
G29 determines the shape of the bed by probing the bed. This will set the shape of the bed with respect to the sensor trigger point as described earlier. The Z-offset (set by M851 Z-x.xx is needed to set the offset between the nozzle and the sensor trigger point (to the bed).
The sequence to determine the offset is:
M851 Z0; // Set the Z offset to zero height
G28; // Home Z in the middle of the bed
G1 Z0; // This will move the head to zero height;
M211 S0; // This will disable the end stops so that you
// will be able to proceed lower than Z=0
Now adjust Z height to fit a piece of paper and note the negative Z height (either through the LCD or through an application or console/terminal over USB)
M851 Z-1.23; // Define the Z offset
M500; // Store the settings
M211 S1; // Enable the end stops again
Please note that -1.23 is a fictive value that should be replaced by your own value.
To explicitly answer the raised question, the G29 probes the bed by scanning the surface geometry and the M851 adds an offset for the sensor trigger to the nozzle (at the center). The offset is required to let the firmware know where the nozzle is with respect to the trigger point. The offset therefor lowers the scanned G29 surface, no replacement is taking place. The sketches below illustrate this:
note that the bottom line of the "M851 Z offset" denotes the G29 scanned surface |
Regular over-extrusion..? Can anyone explain to me why I'm getting regular over-extrusion patterns on this extrusion calibration cube?
Just upgraded the extruder from stock to Flexion HT on my Balco Touch (Wanhao i3 plus) and now I'm getting a strange pattern on my prints.
The photos below show me trying to calibrate the extrusion multiplier after completing the extruder install. The first is with a factor of 1 and the second with an adjusted factor of 0.86 (which I suspect is the reason for the change in pattern?).
I guess this is some kind of mechanical issue causing the over-extrusion? Any ideas?
Note: during the second print (below) I was playing with the Flexion extruder's Cam set screw hence why it stopped extruding all together. I tried it set tight and loose and other than when really tight and stopping the extrusion there was no real difference in the pattern when extruding.
Help..! | Mine is a shot in the dark, but the fact the overextrusion is so regular let me think it is due to something rotating going around in cycles.
The fact that the pattern changes with the flow parameter make me think the culprit is the stepper motor pushing the filament (as different flow means different number of rotations for the same lenght of printed wall).
A possibility could be an irregularity in the cobbed wheel biting it the filament: a longer tooth would push more filament into the hot end, for example.
Another cause could be a problem in the actual stepper motor, in which a failure in the coils causes it to move to steps instead of one, at some point.
There are possibly other suspects in firmware settings and stepper dirivers, but that's not the area of 3D printing I am most expert in.
Much more unlikely, it could be a defect in the filament, but that's easy to test: just swap it for another one! |
How is the print time of an object to be printed estimated? I am curious about the algorithm/principles behind the estimates that the slicing softwares provide. Is there a standard technique behind this and how accurate is it ? | Much of the software used in 3D printing is open-source, and so are some slicers. Cura, for instance, does (or did, this source code is from an older branch) its print time estimation in gcodeInterpreter.py.
The relevant portion of the source code is (simplified and with many lines removed for clarity):
totalMoveTimeMinute = 0.0
pos = util3d.Vector3()
for line in gcodeFile:
G = self.getCodeInt(line, 'G')
if G is not None:
if G == 0 or G == 1: #Move
x = self.getCodeFloat(line, 'X')
y = self.getCodeFloat(line, 'Y')
z = self.getCodeFloat(line, 'Z')
e = self.getCodeFloat(line, 'E')
f = self.getCodeFloat(line, 'F')
oldPos = pos.copy()
pos.x = x
pos.y = y
pos.z = z
feedrate = f
currentE = e
totalMoveTimeMinute += (oldPos - pos).vsize() / feedRate
As you can see, (this version of) Cura simply:
Loops over all the G-code instructions,
Computes the length of each move (in X/Y/Z) and divides that by the feedrate to get the time that move will take,
Sums this up over all the moves.
and does not take into account:
Acceleration or deceleration. It assumes the printer is always operating at the maximum feedrate,
The length of filament extruded. The feedrate is the speed for the move in (X,Y,Z,E), but Cura only looks at (X,Y,Z).
The time it takes to heat up the print bed/hotend or homing/autoleveling,
The effects of the printer slowing down if moves can not be read (from USB/SD-card) sufficiently fast (though this would be rather hard to include in any estimate).
The accuracy of this estimate can be arbitrarily bad if the feedrate is set to some unrealistic value.
Newer versions of Cura use a much more advanced time estimate method, and it can be found in timeEstimate.cpp. It is much more complicated, and actually takes jerk/acceleration/deceleration into account. It is much more accurate.
We know exactly how 3D (open source) 3D printer firmwares work, so estimating print time is as easy as simulating execution of the G-code by your given firmware. There is no reason you can't get a really good estimation (if you take into account all of the intricacies of your given firmware's acceleration/deceleration techniques) but writing the code for it is rather involved. |
Good Designing Software for cheap So I've seen some very good design software, but almost all of it is very expensive. I'm just wondering if there's a good cheap design software out there. | Try Fusion 360. It's free for educators, students, enthusiasts and start-ups. It's not 100% intuitive, but once you learn the basics, it probably has all the facilities that you will ever need for mechanical design. |
CR6-SE fails to heat hotend to set point TL;DR - Please help me rebuild my CR-6 SE so that I can move on
Here's a link to the latest issue that I had to make proof of in a video: CR6-SE failed
Basically, it's failing to reach/maintain temperature (set point of 240 °C, fails to heat above 230 °C), issues start to happen at temps as low as 210 °C.
Creality support is evasive/dodgy. First, they want to see a video proof for the problem reported, and after a while and emails from me asking, suggested something obvious (set temp to 200 °C).
And without any video, they don't respond. Just like last time when I ran into the defective/burned power switch and failed bed leveling.
If you have some spare time, please quickly check the video and provide some feedback.
I already fixed the burned power switch and auto-leveling (Creality ignored me, so I got the parts from Amazon).
This is the last issue that I need to do a "mercy" fix, so that I can either repurpose it or, just give it away (but I still have to make it working again and safe!).
I already placed an order for an i3 MK3S+, should've bought this in the first place to help me study 3D modeling, not working my degree towards fixing Creality printer failures :)
Thanks in advance.
My troubleshooting steps so far after a screw fell off during print:
Disassembled the hotend: found heater block loose, screws were bent and somewhat stripped
Heater resistor has a bad crimp
Thermistor is reading temp, but I don't know if it's accurate (don't have a multimeter+thermocouple)
Ordered a hotend from AliExpress, hopefully, that's it | Perform PID calibration procedure for hotend using G-code 'M303' with nozzle fans turned off completely.
You may use detailed guidelines from AK Eric's blog, RepRap wiki or 3DMaker Engineering.
If this will improve or clearly change the situation, but you still observe some issues during or after tuning, review other posts for troubleshooting. For example: large initial overshoot, no oscillations, struggle to fit into functional range or narrowed down hardware issues of incorrect heating cartridges.
When succeeded, you should repeat the procedure with fans enabled at the regular speed you use during printing.
PID calibration can be performed from Marlin's LCD menu (Configuration > Advanced Settings > Temperature > PID Autotune E1). It will allow to select target temperature, but not number of tuning cycles. It is only accessible when PID_AUTOTUNE_MENU is enabled in firmware settings (Configuration.h):
//#define PID_EDIT_MENU // Add PID editing to the "Advanced Settings" menu. (~700 bytes of PROGMEM)
#define PID_AUTOTUNE_MENU // Add PID auto-tuning to the "Advanced Settings" menu. (~250 bytes of PROGMEM) |
Spiral bevel gears in OpenSCAD I'm trying to design a "Lifting Table" in OpenSCAD which will consist of 2 concentric cylinders. On the inner cylinder I plan to mount 3 un-powered bevel gears vertically plus a 4th powered one each at the proper location/angle to interface with external cylinder's spiral bevel gear and keep the external cylinder level.
OpenSCAD's involute_gears library makes a bevel gear pair that is close to what I need, but the bigger gear is flat instead of a spiral. How can I get the bigger gear to be a spiral and more than one rotation (level) 720 degrees for example? | I read this question a few months ago, and thought I knew what you wanted. Re-reading it now confuses me a little.
But, I think you may be asking for a large, flat surface with a spiral in it, like the tightening mechanism in a 3-jaw chuck. In effect, are you using the large cylinder as a worm gear to drive four gears which ride on it?
I thought you wanted more general bevel gears, and today I found a package in OpenSCAD that looks quite good. it is found at: https://github.com/dpellegr/PolyGear
If this is the answer you were looking for, great. If not, please comment here and I will delete this answer. |
Painting an STL file I have an STL file that I want to add a tribal tattoo to with the end goal of getting it printed in colour sandstone from Shapeways, or in full colour on an Mcor Arke at some point, but I'm not really sure where to go.
I've looked at Microsoft Paint 3D. It's ok, but I cannot get the paint job symmetric. It outputs the .3mf format which the Arke will eventually handle with their Orange software, but it won't export into anything Shapeways will accept.
I've looked at UV unwrapping in Blender, but it seems I have to create the image in another graphics program and then import it... but I can't really work out where the images will be applied to the object, and then when I'm done it seems I cannot export the bits I'm expecting. On the plus side I have the mirror function so I can just paint one side and it's symmetrical.
I've looked briefly at Maya and 3Ds Max, but they are eyewateringly expensive, way out of my league.
Blender with some form of layers for the image might be really useful so I can make the tattoo in bits and then apply them to parts. I've kind of seen how you can split the model into panels but my brain is struggling to get round this as it's really quite hit and miss... and exporting seems to be a problem, although DAE and the texture will go to Shapeways, assuming the DAE has the texture layout embedded. FBX seems to go into Paint 3D and then I can export it to 3MF for the Arke.
Has anyone got any helping pointers for this confused noob?
Thanks | It is indeed more related to the blender forum than the 3d printing one.
You can start by looking at this post from blender.stackexchange.com which explain how to unwrap and paint on a 3d object. You can also paint the texture on a 2d software like Gimp and then put it in the UV Image editor of Blender. Then you should be able to export your project (with the texture) in a suitable format for 3d print. |
Z axis not moving on Prusa i3v 8" I have a Maker Farm Prusa i3v 8" i just finished building. Initially when i first homed it, it ran fine, it even ran a test g code for movement. The problem is now the Z axis wont move anymore. First i checked for physical issues such as binding or nuts coming out of traps, everything's OK there. In Pronterface i can move x & y no problem, but Z will not move, there is no noise from the steppers. Also unusual is the the Z axis is not on the endstop, its resting on its own in a spot (the hotend is about 2mm off the bed). I ordered some new end stop switches to try on my Z axis....any thoughts? I'll update after switch install. | If you are using Repetier the code to test the endstops is m119 I think. If your z stop is triggered, you may have to invert it in the config.h file. I had this same issue for days before i figured out the control board was reading the switch as normal close instead of normal open. Hope that helps! |
Printing shells and pouring filler I had this idea for bulky parts for just printing the shell (PLA) then pouring in some kind of filler in to make up the bulk/strength.
Printing bulk .2mm at a time line by line is slow and subject to warping!
So I though precision print a shell and fill it with 'something' - has this been done by anyone? What is a good something to use?
Yours hopefully! | I've looked into doing something similar to this before and love the idea, never had the chance to follow through on it yet. This is sort of a hybrid method between cast molding and 3D printing.
The accepted answer to a question I had a while back had some very good points by fred_dot_u
Post processing FDM for strengrh
Short version, Epoxy is a good option but you may have to consider heat generated from it. Urethane is another really good option (cast urethane is a pretty standard process). Chem-Eng isn't my area of expertise but there is a huge range of material options out there that can be mixed as two parts. I think there are enough options out there right now that you can choose your material properties you need and then select the material from there.
You could also consider going the chopped-fiber composite route. (carbon, glass, etc) and then combine with whatever the appropriate resin is for those materials.
I see the most difficult part of this is getting the shells to print properly. When I had looked into doing this, I considered modeling my part then hollowing it out completely. Then going back into the hollow part and designing in minimal internal structures for the purpose of supporting the thin-walled shell model. Printing that, and then drilling and filling the part after the fact. This approach I see as being a good option however the location of the drill points would be critical otherwise you could get voids as your fill material is injected in. And, the additional modeling time wouldn't be insignificant, however the saving I expected would come from having a ridiculously strong part, with complex geometry and be significantly cheaper than even a cast-urethane part.
If you get some good results, please post a link to them! This is a huge interest of mine! |
Monoprice select mini underextrusion? Can someone please review the picture and tell me things to try to fix, the threads are full of little gaps. The layers that are solid, below the threads have a tiny bit of space between them. Is it underextrusion, or a clog? The bottom layer seems good. Also I have taken a picture of grooves on the filament after the extruder. Is the the groove from the extruder normal? | The grooves (notches, more accurately) are acceptable and indicate that your hobbed gear has a good grip on the filament.
Many factors will cause your probably-correct diagnosis of under-extrusion. If you are confident that your extrusion settings are correct, you could have this problem from under-temperature on the nozzle.
One method to assess this is to increase the nozzle temperature by five degrees C and examine a test print. If the gaps are reduced but do not disappear, consider an additional step or two of five degrees.
If you are so inclined, locate one of the many temperature tower models and modify them accordingly for your printer. This will give you a good range of temperatures for best results.
Also note that different filaments will have different temperatures and the temperatures will vary between colors from the same manufacturer and between different manufacturers. |
Is there a well-tested Ender 3 printer profile for PrusaSlicer available for download? I am very comfortable with using PrusaSlicer and having a hard time adapting Cura.
Is there any downloadable well-tested PrusaSlicer profile for some of the Creality printers? | Open PrusaSlicer, go to Configuration -> Configuration wizard, then go to page named "Other Vendors", tick the checkbox next to the name "Creality", then click "Next" at the bottom right of the window. A page with a handful of Creality printers should appear including Ender 3. Tick the checkbox under Creality Ender 3. Then click "Finish" at the bottom right. The profile should appear in the selection.
It imports various print settings (from 0.3 mm to 0.08 mm I believe) as well as some basic material presets. You can import more materials by just going to the "Filaments" page in the Configuration wizard and ticking the desired options.
The profiles are tested by PrusaResearch themselves I believe and I think they are based on other profiles found online with some tweaks and adjustments to better fit to PrusaSlicer.
I am using PrusaSlicer 2.3.0
Here is an image, what it should look like. Your colors might be different, I asume you are using Windows, wheras I am using Linux Mint. |
Dots in Cura on Prepare-mode When I load a figure in Cura 4.6.1 I get weird dots all over my figure in Prepare-mode.
How come, and can I turn it off?
It's on every model I load :( I am fairly sure the normals are facing the correct way as well. | Solution found!
If Display model errors is disabled, the dots appears.
Check the setting, hit OK, click on the box and they disappear. |
Convert an STL model to a two-extruder model I have an STL file from thingiverse. The model is of a rectangular lid with an engraving. I would like to print it using two different colors, so that the engraving would be in a different color than the lid base. In the model description, the creator explained that he simply switched the material mid printing.
However, I have a two-extruder printer, and I'd like to utilize it for this printing. What's the easiest way (tool) to select a part of the model and define that it should be printed using a different color? | One method is to use meshmixer to select the faces to be created in the second color and "detach" them without removing them from the model. Keeping the detached faces in place provides the appropriate alignment when brought into the slicer. When exporting the model for printing, check your preferences to ensure both segments are exported at the same time. The preferences (file) default to separate exports based on selection.
Some manipulation will be required with the extracted segments, as typically one is removing a zero-thickness surface from a manifold object. The videos I've seen usually create an extrusion towards the inner body to create a dimensional model from the extracted skin.
Even if you are not familiar with Meshmixer, there are a number of videos and tutorials explaining this feature. If you use the terms "meshmixer dual extrusion" you'll get loads of links in return. I narrowed it by adding "Maker's Muse" to the search, as his explanations are clearer than others.
I know that Slic3r and Simplify3D will support the correct positioning when importing the model, other slicers may require additional research to accomplish this objective. My search also appears to indicate that Cura will support such processing.
The rabbit in this image was being prepared for two colors. I've seen the video but cannot recall why this image was presented, as the other pieces were eventually incorporated during one print. It's possible this image represents a single color print, based on the supports, but it is indicative of a partial process during the creation of a dual extrusion print. |
Expansion in bottom skin after first layer I'm having an issue where prints with narrow tolerance come out fused. This makes it pretty much impossible to print anything with narrow parts. It seems to be mostly (maybe only) an issue in the bottom skin layers. Once it gets through those, the rest of the print goes smoothly and tight tolerances are not a problem.
Here's an example where I've tried to print some hinges:
It's a test print where each hinge has a different tolerance, so the left and right are expected to look different. Below each real image is a preview layer from Cura showing how it's supposed to look.
The first layer appears OK. The second layer looks a little messy, and the gap between inner and outer circles has shrunk. By the third layer the hinge on the right is completely fused.
The printer is an Ender 3 Pro with a glass bed (flat glass, no special surface), BLTouch, and Marlin 1.1.9. The slicer is Cura 4.6.1, and for this test print I used the default for "Super Quality - 0.12 mm" at 200 °C and 60 °C bed with no changes. The filament is Mika3D PLA.
Some things I've tried to fix this:
Calibrated e-steps (currently set at 95.88) - no noticeable difference
Calibrated flow rate (got 97.859 % but returned to 100 % for this test) - no noticeable difference
Varying temperatures from 190 to 230 °C by 5 °C increments - no improvement from 200 °C
Set "Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion" to -0.1 mm, -0.4 mm, and -1.0 mm in Cura. - no improvement.
Set "Initial Layer Flow" to 90 %. - no improvement.
Obsessively leveled and re-leveled the bed. - no improvement.
Moved the Z-offset up and down to get more or less squish on the first layer - no improvement.
Tried various brands and colors of PLA - problem is consistent.
Reduced build plate temperature to 45 °C after initial layer - no improvement.
What else is there to check?
Edit 2020-06-26:
At R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE's suggestion I returned the e-steps to default (93), re-leveled the bed, and adjusted the z-offset tighter. I made 10 attempts with varying z-offsets, and here's the best one:
The first layer looks better! But the second and third layers are just as bad as before, in fact maybe worse. The circle on the right completely fused on only the second layer. And the top surface is just as ripple-ey and messed up as before.
Here's a closeup of the fourth layer to show how bad it is:
So although the re-calibrated e-steps may have been a problem, that clearly wasn't the only problem. What else should I be looking at here?
Edit 2020-06-27:
At Davo's suggestion I double-checked all my slicer settings. Flow is set to 100% everywhere, wall thickness is 0.8 mm for two walls (so 0.4 mm each), and nozzle diameter is correct at 0.4 mm.
At R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICEs suggestion I double-checked my filament diameter. It is set to 1.75 mm. On the actual filament, my digital caliper measures 1.74 to 1.76, within the expected tolerance. So that doesn't appear to be the issue.
At 0scar♦s suggestion I tried a print with 0.2 mm layer height. Here's the first layer:
Looks like the same over-extrusion.
Then I tried reducing the flow multiplier to 90% (for both "flow" and "initial layer flow") and printing at 0.2 mm layer height:
Better, but it still looks over-extruded!
I don't know what else to try. | OK, let's start with your pictures. Putting aside the expansion in the XY plane, layer 1 looks seriously underextruded (gaps between the lines, even) while layers 2 and 3 look severely overextruded. It would be possible to achieve this with a reduced first-layer flow setting, but you haven't indicated that, and moreover, in addition to looking underextruded, the first layer's lines don't look very flat - they look a lot thicker than 0.12 mm. I suspect if you can take a caliper with resolution greater than 0.1 mm and measure the thickness of the first layer, you'll find it's at least 0.2 mm thick, maybe more.
So, what's happening? You're overextruding by a lot, but have lowered your bed enough to (more than) compensate, giving the excess material in the first layer a whole 0.2 mm or more of vertical space to expand into, preventing it from being pressed against the bed and taking up the horizontal space it should. Now, as soon as you start the next layer, the big problems start. Since the nozzle has only moved up by 0.12 mm, you only have 0.12 mm of vertical space, and the overextruded material gets squeezed out horizontally. Some of it goes down into the gaps between the lines of the first layer. But by the time you get to layer 3, there are no gaps and things go really bad.
What's the source of the overextrusion? Your "esteps calibration". This is not a number you need to calibrate. It's a function of the extruder gear, and for the Ender 3's (including the Pro's) factory gear it's 93.0 (*).
After you fix the overextrusion by putting esteps back to the right value, you're going to need to re-level your bed. If you use the paper method, make sure there is significant tension on the paper and it does not slide freely under the nozzle at Z=0. If prefer using real metal feeler gauges and moving the nozzle to Z=0.1 to level. (You mentioned that you have BLtouch, which I'm not familiar with, but as I understand it you still need to calibrate it due to possible difference in sensor height and nozzle tip height.)
(*) Note that for compressible filaments like TPU and to a lesser extent PETG, compression of the filament in the gear will alter the effective steps per mm of (uncompressed) filament moved. However, rather than modifying your firmware esteps setting for this, it makes a lot more sense to model that as either a flow adjustment percentage or a narrower filament diameter (since essentially that's what it is -- the filament becomes narrower at the point of measurement), since slicing software supports adjustment of these per-material. So, don't touch esteps unless you replaced extruder hardware. |
How to get less Z-seam? I printed this Curvy vase from Thingiverse and it came out pretty well on my Chiron.
However, I am not happy with the Z-seam that is very large. When I look at other people's problems with this, they often seem to have too little filament at the seam, but I have too much. What setting should I change to make it less visible?
Printer: Anycubic Chiron with Marlin 2.0.7
Material: PLA
Slicer: Cura 4.8.0.
Nozzle: 0.4 mm
All Cura settings are here (except that I lowered printing temperature to 200 ºC while printing).
All files used and some pictures are here.
2021-03-07 Addendum after I made 19 test-prints of a small portion of the vase's neck. Below are some of my notes:
Combing Mode=All is better than Off
Speed=60 is worse than 40
Retract Before Outer Wall=On is worse than Off
Outer Wall Line Width 0.45 to 0.35 gave a Z-seam on the outside with more build-up
Inner Wall(s) Line Width 0.45 to 0.35. Some places has less contact between layers, so less appealing and less robust. Also less material use.
Outer Wall Wipe Distance 2.0 spread ot the seam (too much), and also made a ditch before the Z-seam (on the outside of the ring).
Coasting tripled to Vol=0.588 and Wipe Distance 5.0 is more appealing. Two changes at once make it impossible to know which one helped. 5 mm is not enough to completely wipe.
50% printing speed improved Z-seam and surface smoothness
In the future I will use slower speed for Outer Walls, test Wipe distance=2*Line Width, use Combing (turned Off because of some advice to do so when LIN_ADVANCE is used) and experiment with faster retractions and Z-movement.
Pictures and complete notes are available here. | There is a Cura option to choose a random seam alignment in the shell menu:
Z-seam alignment
This setting allows you to choose where each new layer in the Z direction starts and affects where the seam of the model will be. This is useful for models with consecutive equal layers as the seam can be visible. By changing the Z-seam alignment you can decrease the visibility of the seam. The options available are:
User-specified: Set a coordinate for the X and Y direction of the Z-seam. This coordinate is absolute by default. Example: X 100, Y 200 will move the seam to the center back of the model.
Shortest: The next layer starts at the endpoint of the previous layer. This is the fastest way of printing, but also creates the most visible seam.
Random: The next layer starts at a random point of the previous layer, which eliminates the chance of a seam. Print time will increase due to the necessary travel moves.
Sharpest corner: This puts the seam in the sharpest inward or outward corner of the model, when available. This is the best method to completely hide the seam. |
Warping of bottom of print The bottom of my prints warp/curve upwards, most often at the corners. This is a very slight curve, only about 1-2 mm.
I print with a raft all the time.
I don't have a heated bed.
I print with PLA at 199 °C (390 °F) with a print speed of approximately 40 mm/s
I have a Sindoh 3DWOX DP201.
What slicer settings might be the cause of this phenomena?
Or could it be 3D printer settings? | The first thing to understand is what causes warping. Warping is caused by the thermal contraction of the plastic when it cools down.
Simplifying things a fair bit, you can visualise the process like this:
hot, expanded plastic gets deposited on cooler, shrunk layers,
when the hot plastic cools down, it shrinks and pulls the upper part of the layer below inwards
at this point, the layer below has a differential in the compression between its upper and lower parts, and curls up
the problem is exacerbated at the very first layer (the one touching the bed) as this is "locked" to a rigid body (the bed) and cannot shrink, while subsequent layers are only attached to the somewhat flexible plastic beneath, and thus can contract.
Also notice that the larger the part being printed, the stronger is the force trying to curl-up your print.
Once one understands all of this, then it is possible to appreciate the many ways the problem can be mitigated.
Here are the common ones:
USING A MATERIAL WITH LOW SHRINKAGE COEFFICIENT
This translates in smaller tensions and thus less force "pulling up" the corners of your print. Historically, 3D printing started with ABS because this material was one of the very few, relatively safe ones to source. Nowadays there are materials like PETG which have similar mechanical properties to ABS but are much easier and forgiving to print with, so - unless you need ABS for some very specific reason (e.g.: acetone smoothing) consider never printing with it.
DECREASING THE THERMAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MOLTEN AND SOLID STATE
Concretely, this means lowering the "gap" between the ~200°C of the nozzle and the ~20°C of room temperature by using a heated bed and - possibly - an enclosure.
The heated bed not only drastically diminish the shrinkage of the first layer, but because heat radiates, and hot air goes upwards, the entire bottom of the print has shrinkage mitigated.
An enclosure just increase the benefit of the heating bed, by reflecting IR radiation back towards the print and preventing hot air to escape. A heated enclosure just improve things even further.
Some slicers offer a "shroud" option, that encloses the entire print in an enclosed, sacrificial structure, that tries to emulate the benefits of a proper printer enclosure.
INCREASING ADHESION WITH THE PRINTING BED
That is the "brutal force" approach: if you face a strong "curl up" force, oppose it with a strong "anchor down" one.
The increase in adhesion can be achieved in a number of ways:
Lower print speed (more time for the molten plastic to "bond")
Overextrusion (more pressure, more material)
Disabling cooling fan (more progressive cooling, more time to "bond")
Using a brim (more contact surface between print and bed)
Using "ad hoc" material on the bed (PVA glue for PLA, ABS sludge for ABS, kapton tape, hair spray, blue tape, etc...)
REDUCING THE CURL-UP FORCE
This is typically achieved during design. Designing is a vast field and it would be impossible to cover all the possible mitigating strategies one could use, but here are some of the most common ones:
Prefer assembling smaller parts over printing huge ones. This is self explanatory really, as the curling force increases with the amount of material "pulling", the least material one has, the less force one gets.
Make relief holes above the first layers in long structures. This will essentially "break" the build-up of tension in the layer, creating many points with a little "curling up force" rather than two with a huge one. Something along the lines of this, for example:
Avoid extensive overhangs close to the bottom of the print (this is because otherwise you will have considerably more material "pulling up" than you will have "anchoring down". Here is an example of what not to do (to be fair: this was specifically taken from a bed adhesion/warping test).
Of course all of the above strategies can/should be combined, when possible. Even if not warped, a part with a lot of internal tension will perform less predictably and possibly worse than a part where such tensions are lower. |
Extruder spins for a few seconds after layer changes Sometimes my Extruder will start spinning pointlessly fast and long.
Youtube Video showing the problem
This Issue only happens:
When printer has finished a Layer and moved up to the next (right after the Z axis has moved)
Not on all, but only on some layers of a print.
Typically it will be more towards the middle of a print, and it will happen on several (maybe 10, 20, or a lot more) consecutive layers
My regular Setup/Stack:
PrusaSlicer-2.0.0+win64-201905201652
Octoprint (Version 1.4.0)
Tevo Tornado (with Mamorubot print-platform)
I have tried to test whether the source of the problem could be Octoprint or the slicer/gcode.
Octoprint:
The problem persists, when i print directly from SD
slicer/gcode:
Here is some gcode, one of a layer change where the problem did occur and one where it was fine:
Problem occured here:
G1 X167.854 Y170.305 E209.95401
G1 X167.851 Y132.289 E210.24063
;BEFORE_LAYER_CHANGE
G92 E0.0
;3.95
G1 Z3.950 F7800.000
;AFTER_LAYER_CHANGE
;3.95
G1 X168.141 Y131.859
G1 F3600
G1 X129.532 Y131.858 E211.24663
G1 X128.945 Y131.592 E211.26340
G1 X128.419 Y131.004 E211.28396
No Problem occured here:
G1 X168.288 Y170.558 E474.06508
G1 X168.224 Y170.259 E474.06950
G1 X168.213 Y131.857 E474.62495
;BEFORE_LAYER_CHANGE
G92 E0.0
;9.8
G1 Z9.800 F7800.000
;AFTER_LAYER_CHANGE
;9.8
G1 X168.559 Y131.441
G1 F3600
G1 X129.622 Y131.440 E475.63947
G1 X129.198 Y131.248 E475.65161
G1 X128.776 Y130.777 E475.66807
I cannot see any problem with the gcode.
Now I am at my wits' end - what could be the source of the problem, and how to I proceed to debug it? | Doing some googling, it looks like the BEFORE_LAYER_CHANGE comment in the G-code and stuff that follow come from the before_layer_gcode setting in your PrusaSlicer profile. Somehow, G92 E0.0 got in there. Remove it and the problem should go away. |
Can a 3D printer make a 3D printer? Could you use a 3D printer to make a 3D printer's parts? What is the most of a 3D printer that can be made this way? Could parts that break be replaced this way? | Yes, you can print most of the parts (electronics, linear guide rails, ball bearings and nuts and bolts, etc cannot be printed). Actually this was exactly the purpose of RepRap.org:
RepRap is humanity's first general-purpose self-replicating
manufacturing machine.
and:
Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints
those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself - a kit
that anyone can assemble given time and materials.
There have been attempts in the past to even replicate the frames of printers (e.g. Dollo 3D or Snappy, but such designs are not very successful, printed frames are more flexible than metal frames.
I have built 2 custom printers myself using other printers to print parts and printed all printer parts for several others. It is possible to print your own linear bearings from POM, I prefer these over the noisy metal bearings. |
Autobed leveling doesn't compensate I finally manage to setup the ABL on my Prusa.
I run G28 to home all axes (for z I use the same probe used for ABL). Then
I run G29 E ( I use E because otherwise for some reason I have not understood yet, Z does not lift during probings) probing 4 points on the corners of the bed.
finally I get the map of the bed:
Bed Level Correction Matrix:
+0.999999 +0.000000 +0.001233
-0.000005 +0.999992 +0.003905
-0.001233 -0.003905 +0.999992
and after that, the print starts.
The first layer looks perfect however I have not seen Z moving a single step along the printing.
Any hint about what to check? Is the obtained map indicating that the bed is already too leveled to act on any compensation?
UPDATE
I printed a 180 mm diamater cylinder and the Z axis is not compensating the 1mm difference from edge to edge of the bed. | I believe that the matrix is shown transposed from how it should be, but that doesn't affect the answer. The compensated Z position is derived from the original (X,Y,Z) position by multiplying the corresponding vector with that matrix. This means that the new Z position would be
Z' = 0.999992Z - 0.001233X - 0.003905Y
If you have a 200 x 200 printbed, a diagonal move from one corner to the other would correspond to a 1mm change in Z-height. This should be noticeable, but if perhaps you're printing something quite small you might not notice it.
Though, if your first layer is perfect, I would see no reason to mess with it. |
SLS 3D printer to DMLS 3D printer I know that the SLS 3D printer stands for selective laser sintering,where as DMLS stands for direct metal laser sintering.
I want to know that,can i convert SLS 3D printer to DMLS.
By just changing powder(or another way?) | By just changing powder: No.
Changing the powder, the laser and the chamber, maybe you can get something, but it's not recommended.
DMLS machines use a sealed chamber with a flow of Argon, Nitrogen, or other gas to prevent oxidation of metal powder (and avoid fire or explosions).
Laser power for metal needs to be of higher power than that used por polymer laser sintering (SLS, SLM, LS, etc).
BTW. DMLS also need a metallic build plate to dissipate heat. |
prusa i3 not extruding enough plastic I built my 3d printer from a kit a few weeks ago, and initially, it was working fine. However, when I took it with me to college, something must have went awry. The first layer comes out fine, but afterwards, the infill breaks apart. It extrudes the entire time, but there are gaps in it that make prints porous, unisitely, and brittle. The printer is a prussa i3 knockoff. I have included a gallery of a recent print attempt of mine. I hope you guys can help me diagnose the problem.
Gallery: https://imgur.com/gallery/BLxJa | For your troubleshooting process, I would suggest to use a simple model, perhaps a small cylinder of 20-25 mm diameter, 5-6 mm height.
You've not indicated what material you are using, nor the extruder/nozzle temperatures, but the print appears to be suffering from low temperature problems. You would also include the slicer software name although I don't believe this matters.
The initial layer will print reasonably well, if your slicer performs a reduced speed layer one. The slower filament movement through the nozzle allows it time to heat up for an acceptable layer, while the faster later layers will prevent enough heat to be imparted to the filament.
Increase your temperature at least 10°C for the initial test, as your part is quite a bit below temperature, in my opinion. If the first test is not acceptable, increase by 5°C for each succeeding test.
Keep in mind that individual brands will have different optimum temperatures and within a specific brand, different colors will require temperature adjustment.
The "initially working fine" reference does not include information regarding filament change, color change or other useful information such as print speed, layer thickness, etc., but I'm aiming for a temperature adjustment as the most likely answer. |
Printing material for methanol tank I am trying to print a tank to be used with my RC engine. The material that I have to use needs to have the following properties:
It needs to be possible to seal the final print so that it is not leaking any fluid
It needs to resist methanol, nitromethane (a solvent like Acetone) and lubricating oil at room temperature. It can get discolored or have other changes from the fuel, but it must not be able to compromise the sealing.
I first - foolishly - just printed it with ABS as I do for every fluid container as I can nicely seal it with Acetone. After almost being done with it a friend told me to check the chemical resistance of ABS and as you might guess methanol and nitromethane completely desintegrate it, almost like acetone itself, so that was a waste of time/material.
Next I considered using Nylon. It shows exactly the chemical resistance against all the fuel components I need, however I could not find any (easily available) option to seal the print after printing and after printing a small test container and pouring in some water it leaks after half a minute, so unless I find a way to seal the Nylon containers interior this is also not an option.
I checked various epoxies but the few that I checked all showed poor resistance against methanol/nitromethane.
What I could not test yet but seems like an option is using HDPE. I am using PET bottles to transport the fuel sometimes so it definitely is both resistant and - in theory - watertight, however I am not sure how I can seal an HDPE print, so I am not sure about my first requirement with HDPE. EDIT: I found that Limonene dissolves HDPE and is relatively harmless and easily obtainable. Maybe it can be used to seal the HDPE print surface?
Hence my question: Is there a material that can be printed on a regular desktop printer (heated bed, nozzle up to 255°C) that satisfies both my requirements above or am I "doomed" to buy a moulded plastic fuel tank? | Most commercial blow-molded fuel tanks for model airplane fuel (methanol or ethanol, nitromethane or nitroethane, and some combination of castor, mineral, or synthetic lubricating oil) are made from HDPE. This material isn't commonly seen as filament, in my limited experience, but it ought to be possible to arrive at settings that will give a liquid tight tank without further sealing if you can find some. As you note, limonene might be used to smooth/seal HDPE prints, but likely won't be necessary if your settings are right.
You might want to test PETG filament for its resistance to your fuel mix(es) -- this material is available as filament, prints with settings little different from generic PLA (in my experience, higher nozzle and bed temperature, and a little more bed clearance for the first layer), with good layer adhesion and, with a good print, is liquid-tight as printed. It's not particularly flexible (as is the case with HDPE), but since you can customize the shape of your fuel tank, it may work for you -- or it may be more flexible in vase mode, as PLA is.
Sealing PETG may be as simple as baking it (similar to "heat treating" PLA to increase print strength, albeit again at a higher temperature) -- this partial remelting will ensure that layers are adhered throughout the print, which (presuming you have avoided under-extruded areas) should be all that's needed to make a printed tank liquid tight. |
3 vs 4 bearings for y axis travel I have a Monoprice Maker Select Plus, where I'm doing the Gulf Coast Robotics carriage plate upgrade. I was watching through an installation video just to find any "gotchas" I might want to watch for, and the guy in video recommends removing one of the carriage bearings, going from 4 to 3. The idea is to get quieter, smoother travels, with less weight on the belt.
Has anyone else here done this for this model printer? Or for the very-similar Maker Select v2/2.1? Are there any downsides I should watch for? Everything I know seems to indicate 3 bearings are just better (the whole "3 points define a plane" thing), but if it's that simple, why go to the cost of shipping with 4? | Ideally you would use three bearings opposed to four. In principle you will only need 3 fixtures to get a stable reference frame. Look at how most Prusa i3 "X" carriages are constructed, they also have just three bearings.
Three bearings are way more easy to line out (especially with tight tolerance bearings), with four bearings you will get binding much more easy than with three.
I've been using three linear (self printed tight tolerance acetal/POM) bearings on the moving bed (Y direction) for quite some time on a Prusa i3 type of printer made from 2040 Aluminium profiles.
A similar reasoning applies to fixating the heated bed/glass slate, only three screws are necessary to define the reference plane. This is how my CoreXY heated bed is connected to the "Z" platform (a slate of glass is perfectly flat as a result of the production process). |
Chalk objects: 3D Printed or Molds? I am thinking about making something from chalk. But can chalk be printed into shapes directly or is it better to shape it with printed molds? What kind of material would be suitable for a mold for the chalk so I can ensure the mold releases after the chalk solution cures? | Chalk, as a ceramic substance, could be printed with a paste printer and if the substance can hold its shape during drying for a couple of hours.
It might be easier to use a flexible filament like TPE or TPU to print a mold in which the paste can cure slowly to a point it can be safely removed. These filaments make release easier as one can flex them away from the printed object.
Another option could be vapor smoothed ABS and a tapered shape so that the object has no undercuts and easy paths only. If one adds a pusher rod place, which is closed by a plug during casting the chalk and can remove from the back after casting, removal gets easier as air can flow in from the back through the removed plug. It can also be used to use a pen or similar obect to gently release the item with light taps. |
Configure Marlin for tool changing system I am planning to build a CoreXY machine with a tool changing system. I am using Marlin firmware and BigTreeTech SKR PRO as the controller board. There are 3 options in Marlin for tool changing systems:
Switching tool head
Magnetic switching tool head
Electromagnetic switching tool head
I want to use the switching tool head in my project using a servo/stepper motor. So I have 2 questions:
Should I use a servo or stepper motor? Which one does the board and firmware support?
Where should I connect the servo/stepper on the SKR PRO and what should the value of SWITCHING_TOOLHEAD_SERVO_NR be?
Note: I am also using a BLTouch leveling sensor So I can't connect the servo to the BLTouch servo port.
Edit: After so much research, finally, I found the way to do this. For the first question, Servo is the best choice.
First, we need to configure tool change x and y position and servo rotation angle in configuration.h file and leave SWITCHING_TOOLHEAD_SERVO_NR as it is. Also, uncomment #define NUM_SERVOS and set it to 2.Then we need to open Marlin\src\pins\stm32f4\pins_BTT_SKR_PRO_common.h file and in the Servos section, add the following line:
#define SERVO1_PIN PC9
In the end, connect the servo signal pin to the PC9 pin on extension 1 and the VCC and GND pin to the pins next to the PC9 pin that are GND and 5V.
Note: I haven't tested this because I don't have this board. If this way doesn't work, please tell me in comments. | Use a servo. This way you can use the digital pins to control it; or in your specific case PWM_PC9
Connect it to the expansion port and configure one of the digital pins in the marlin configuration file. A servo will go to the minimum position when the pin goes low, and the max position when the pin goes high. I take it you don't need any stops in between since you're doing a tool changer.
If you figure out how to modify the code to support tool changing, I'd be interested to know as well. |
What is Thermal Runaway Protection? What is Thermal Runaway Protection (TRP) and why should I enable it?
How does one do so in Marlin? | What is TRP and how does it work?
Thermal runaway protection is basically self-explaining; it is protection against the temperature getting out of control. Essentially, the firmware checks whether the measured output of the thermistor (What is a thermistor? A thermistor is basically a temperature sensor; it is an electrical component (more specific: a resistor) that has a large reduction of its resistance when heated; it is frequently used for measurement and control as you can link the resistance to the temperature via a table or a curve) is within an expected range for a certain target value within a certain time frame when heating the hotend or the heated bed.
E.g. When you request the hotend or heated bed to a certain temperature, the heater elements are being scheduled/switched on to increase the temperature. If the temperature increase as a result of scheduling the hotend or heated bed are not met in time (settings in the firmware configuration), the printer will halt and heating of the heater elements will stop. The printer needs to be reset after such a failure.
What triggers TRP?
Common problems that trigger the thermal runaway protection are:
a faulty thermistor,
an incorrectly placed thermistor (e.g. not making good enough contact with the heater block),
including falling out
a loose heater cartridge,
including falling out
faulty connectors,
faulty or partially broken wires,
basically, anything that interrupts either heating or the measurement of the signal.
Why should TRP be active?
Thermal runaway protection is mainly meant to prevent fire hazards by stopping the heater cartridge when it might have fallen out of the heater block and is trying to set the whole surroundings on fire.
To illustrate the point: This happens if Thermal Runaway Protection is disabled, and the associated story. Luckily this one did not result in a loss of life and home, but it could have - and the owner was able to do some forensic examination on what caused the fire.
How to activate TRP in Marlin firmware?
Please make sure that you have the configuration lines in the Thermal Runaway Protection section (466-485) of your Configuration.h file uncommented (no // in front of the lines starting with #define THERMAL_...).
//===========================================================================
//======================== Thermal Runaway Protection =======================
//===========================================================================
/**
* Thermal Protection provides additional protection to your printer from damage
* and fire. Marlin always includes safe min and max temperature ranges which
* protect against a broken or disconnected thermistor wire.
*
* The issue: If a thermistor falls out, it will report the much lower
* temperature of the air in the room, and the the firmware will keep
* the heater on.
*
* If you get "Thermal Runaway" or "Heating failed" errors the
* details can be tuned in Configuration_adv.h
*/
#define THERMAL_PROTECTION_HOTENDS // Enable thermal protection for all extruders
#define THERMAL_PROTECTION_BED // Enable thermal protection for the heated bed
Note that Marlin 2.x has an additional protection for the heating chamber:
#define THERMAL_PROTECTION_CHAMBER // Enable thermal protection for the heated chamber
This should generally be enough to enable TRP on your printer, fine tuning can be done by changing the time constant and the temperature increase in the file Configuration_adv.h in the section:
//===========================================================================
//=============================Thermal Settings ============================
//===========================================================================
However, it is advised to not change these values unless you are absolutely certain; e.g. if your heating cartridge is not powerful enough and you are getting printer halts. When getting false-positive printer halts according to the Marlin firmware you could:
* If you get false positives for "Thermal Runaway", increase
* THERMAL_PROTECTION_HYSTERESIS and/or THERMAL_PROTECTION_PERIOD
How to test if TRP is active on my printer?
To test if thermal runaway protection is enabled on your printer, you can disconnect the heater element of the hotend or the heated bed while printing a print or sending temperature commands to the printer over USB using a terminal to send commands directly to the printer. You can disconnect the heater element while the printer is cold (before start) and also when the heater element is heating up. No heating of the nozzle will take place, so after the period defined by the time constant set in the firmware, the printer will halt if thermal runaway protection is enabled. Power down the machine and reconnect the wires, it is not advised to put them back in on a running machine, as one might touch the open wires; when the printer halted, you should power down or reset the printer anyways. If the printer did not halt, power it down as quickly as possible - TRP is disabled.
Further Considerations
Besides activating thermal runaway protection, it is always a good idea to install a smoke detector and a fire extinguisher in the surroundings of the 3D printer: the smoke detector over it, the extinguisher within arms reach of the door leading to the room. |
Is it necessary to have both hot ends on a dual extruder printer at the same height? I'm thinking of another extruder on my printer, and I'm curious about this one....
Is it necessary to have both hot ends on same height? Why yes / why not? (if there is not) | I have a dual extruder Replicator 1 and having the nozzles at the same height is a must and albeit a bit of a struggle otherwise. At one point, I had to disassemble my extruder head and the nozzles didn't line up quite right. There after, printing with the lower one obviously didn't have any troubles, however, printing with the high extruder made it so the lower extruder would scrape the molten plastic layer. This made my surface finish horrible and almost impossible for support structures to be printed.
Instead of fighting with my stock nozzle assembly to get everything perfectly lined up, I just shimmed the one side with some stacks of paper cutouts. This brought my extruders very close to even.
Also, you'll want to make sure excess plastic is cleaned off of BOTH nozzles when printing with either nozzle. I found that some prints would fail because of a small discharge from a previous print on the other nozzle. |
What does a "3 h5" mean in reference to the axle of a motor? Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but it seemed like the most relevant stackexchange.
I want to print a connection from a motor to an omniwheel, the axle of the wheel is listed as 8mm, but the one of the motor only say "3h5" which isn't really helpful for me, and neither was Google.
Side-question: Would pla be sturdy enough or do I need to use abs? | I think it's a reference to a tolerance. Look at this ISO table. This States that the nominal diameter of 3mm is held to a tolerance of +-0.004mm.
@DarthPixel provided some great links identifying the term interference fit (or press fit as I've heard locally) as described here. Also, here is a better link providing examples of how the tolerance works and more legible tables to reference the correct tolerance. Keep in mind that the units in the tables is in nanometers. |
Do you have trouble with 3D printer on UPS during short power outages? Using a Gearman RepRap with Slic3r, printing from an SD card, with an uniterupted power supply (UPS), and both PLA and ABS filaments, short power outages often result in x/y-axis offsets (see image). During an outage the power is not as clear from a UPS as from a power conditioner. If both x and y axes offset the results look like Why did my print fall off its raft?. Are you experiencing these same issues? Have you solved the issue.
The image above shows an x-axis shift that occurred evenly across eight parts distributed across the bed. The filament was ABS. The parts still adhered to the bed. Note: the G-code file normally prints well. Thus, the file is not corrupt. | Part of your self-answer:
What is puzzling is why did the 3D printer run as if the computer was still operating it, when is was printing from the SD card? Was the circuitry getting power from the USB cable from the computer?
is more of an extension of the question, which I'll answer. Generally, yes, the logic of many (most?) 3D printers can be powered by the USB connection. You can try it sometime with the printer not plugged in to the AC power source at all. Under such a power configuration, the motors (not to mention the heating elements) should not operate at all, and I think the firmware has logic to detect this condition and not try to print under it, but I may be mistaken. However, in any case, in the event of an outage during printing, the logic board will remain powered if it's connected by USB, and especially if the outage is short enough, it might not even notice that the motors and heating elements are not functioning, yielding a result like what you saw. |
Is it practical to build a separate hotend temperature controller to assemble hotends without taking up printer time? One could make such a controller with 3D printer parts and building a case for them, but is it significantly less than just buying a compatible low-cost printer. The intent is to heat up the all-metal hot end to tighten the nozzle to the heater break. | You can get a suitable board for $20 or so, print a case for a few cents, and either repurpose an old PC power supply or buy a new one just powerful enough for the hotend (not bed) heater very cheap, so I think it's a lot less costly than a cheap printer, and cobsumes less space. But I'm not clear what you need it for. |
Extra data appended to the Y values when issuing `M92` & `M500` I am still trying to dial in my Anet A8.
The Marlin firmware takes too long to scroll through the axis settings when I change them, so I use Repetier Host instead issuing M92 followed by M500.
I noticed in the log window that X goes in as typed but that Y has a *75 after the value i input. Can anybody tell me why/what it is for? I suspect I know what it does just no idea why it is doing it. | *75 is the checksum value, (a method for verifying the integrity of the transmitted information).
RepRap wiki gcode : checksum
There is probably an option to not use/disable checksum generation in repetier/slicers, however this may only be advantageous for use with code run from the sdcard as it is extra processing (and probably less relevant when not being transmitted over serial connection. ) |
Ender-3 Pro - PLA mid-layer warping (layer separation) - salvageable? I just got into 3D printing with an Ender-3 Pro. The test dog printed great, some custom small/thin objects printed good, and now I tried my first big object.
Designed in Tinkercad (link to my (updated) design), exported to .stl, sliced and printed using Cura 4.5.0 with the default 0.2 mm profile (3 layers wall thickness) and 100% infill (for strength), with the extruder at 200 °C and bed at 50 °C. Ambient temperature had been 25-ish °C.
The filament is a brand-new Spectrum Premium PLA (Arctic White). On its box it says it prints at 185-215 °C.
So I got this:
The top (thinner) sections look OK-ish (there are some visible lines, but meh), but the transition from the bottom sections (thick) to the top has terrible layer separation and warping problems. One side of the base is actually barely holding together when I'm holding it. There is also a smaller problem mid-way at that side of the base, but it's not catastrophic.
Why did that happen? What did I do wrong? How can I print it again and get it nice and strong?
2) I have a handheld "3D print pen". If I use it to fill the gaps manually, how strong will the part be? The part is meant to "hug" the iPad charging port, so that you can hold the iPad in the bed while charging, without pressing the cable on your body and damaging it. nvm that
Using wall thickness of 4, layer height 0.16 mm, 30% infill and 205 °C extruder, this is my (successful) result. | One hundred percent infill is not necessarily stronger than lower values. By having such a high infill figure, the forces on the model as it cools are magnified and not in a particularly good manner.
Consider that you could use twenty to thirty percent infill to get the strength you require for this application, saving filament and time for the print. You've not noted how many wall layers used, but for increased strength, four to five would make for a very strong model. |
Can general purpose polystryene (not HIPS) be used for 3D printing? High Impact PolyStyrene (HIPS) is a frequently used filament in 3D printing. It has been touted to have simular properties when printed to ABS and is especially useful for support structures (if the user has a multi-nozzle 3d Printer) as it is soluble in Limonene.
General Purpose PolyStyrene (GPPS) is frequently used in disposible cups, cutlery, etc. I don't believe I have seen it as a 3D printing filament. This is not styrofoam for the purpose of this question despite the identical chemical properties as the incorperated air makes it difficult to recycle.
Would filament produced from GPPS, be usable on most FFF 3D printers that are capable of using ABS, PLA, and HIPS? Are that any particular issues observed with such filaments that would not be observed with HIPS (besides the implied decrease in impact resistance)?
Note: For the purpose of this question, I am assuming that the filament can be produced and am concerned about whether the filament would be usable for support structures and infill. | In principle, it should work fine as a filament, since it's used extensively in the plastic extrusion industry, but I don't think you'd get great material properties out of it. ABS and HIPS incorporate polybutadiene into a graft polymer structure for a very good reason: the butadiene sections in the long molecular chains kind of "stick together" as a distinct solid phase to produce what amounts to micro-bubbles of rubber inside a matrix of hard styrene or acrylonitrile-styrene plastic. This compound microstructure is what gives HIPS and ABS favorable impact toughness and some minor flexibility.
The flexibility is important -- the stiffer a filament is, the more it will tend to warp while printing. Based on chemistry alone, I would expect styrene to be somewhat more prone to warping than ABS. And it would certainly be more brittle. So there doesn't seem to be much reason to use it as filament.
Interesting sidenote: PLA/PHA has very favorable mechanical properties because the PHA forms a very similar flexible microstructure inside the hard PLA matrix. PLA/PHA is good stuff because it mimics ABS and HIPS! |
Is it possible to make a hermetic sealed 3D Printed case? I am wondering if making an hermetic box is feasible using 3D printer. The box would be a cube with a front face removable, with screw and sealing joint to close it.
I searched for different materials, however, none talks about hermiticity. (However, I found a product that seems to improve water resistance of 3D printed items here, which might be a starting point)
Does anyone have experienced to make hermetic things ? I am specially interested in carbon fiber reinforced materials. | A few thoughts that might help...
Material:
ABS can be vapor smoothed with Acetone which results in the layers sort of "melting" together to form a smoother, and less porous surface.
Other plastics can be smoothed with compatible solvents, but I've not tried solvent smoothing with anything other than ABS. Be careful if you try.
Print Method:
Consider slightly higher print temps to increase layer adhesion. You'll likely have to compensate with extra retraction to avoid excessive stringing.
Consider more perimeter layers and more top/bottom layers.
The CF materials are stiffened with chopped CF strands...I think it's a stretch to call them "reinforced" unless you happen to have a Markforged printer or similar.
Sealants: This is probably your best bet.
Epoxy: Generally considered effective for producing hermetically sealed containers. Dip or brush on. Mind your VOC's and pay attention to working time.
Plasti-dip or similar sealants: These may be good enough for your application and result in a rubbery coating over your part. Good for water sealing, and may be close enough to hermetically sealed for your needs.
Design:
To mechanically seal the opening, there are many options depending on your requirements. O-rings, gaskets, etc. If you use a rubberized dip, you may be able to skip the gasket. You could install a few threaded inserts around the perimeter of the opening, put in the screws, then dip. After drying, you slice around the screw and remove it (this just keeps the coating out of your threads) Dip the cover as well. Then when you screw on the cover, it will provide a water-tight seal. To help make a good seal, apply a silicone grease to the mating surface.
I hope this helps. :-) |
Tronxy X5S-400 Marlin stuck at splash-screen I got a Tronxy X5S-400, I assembled it and when I power it on, I see on the screen one of the below images and gets stuck there.
Is the firmware broken? If yes, where can I get a configuration.h file?
I verified that the two buses between the screen and the mainboard are not loose or incorrectly connected.
The board is a MKS Melzi v2.0 clone | It looked like the firmware wasn't flashed correctly in the factory. What I did was to flash a bootloader using an Arduino compatible board and to flash the Marlin software e.g. according to videos from this guy.
Next, the menu wasn't displayed correctly so I added, in the Configuration.h the following lines:
#define ST7920_DELAY_1 DELAY_NS(63)
#define ST7920_DELAY_2 DELAY_NS(100)
#define ST7920_DELAY_3 DELAY_NS(125)
Now the display is working fine, and the Marlin firmware can be directly flashed from the computer because the bootloader remains there.
I also had a problem with the heating bed which was heating very slow and I had to raise consistently the TEMP_BED_RESIDENCY_TIME and decrease TEMP_BED_HYSTERESIS to 1. |
What is causing this "ribbed" texture on my circular prints? I am having this problem with my printer. It doesn't print smooth circular objects. The objects are typically "ribbed" or ridged... never smooth. I am not sure how to fix this.
I have tried fixing it in Meshmixer, I've tried Sli3r (I normally use Cura 2.7). I've tried turning down acceleration as low as it will go (500 in my printer's case), tried slowing down the actual print and travel speeds. Short of just replacing the dang thing (not an option at all), I have no idea what to do... I'm at a total loss for words here.
My printer is a TronXY P802MA. Auto Level, runs Marlin firmware. I use Octoprint as my print server. The picture shows the odd texture. It's at the bottom of this particular model. For some reason, within the pictured model, the problem isn't reproduced in the partial spheres. | Any deviation from smoothness is caused by irregularity in the material feed, the motion, or both. In this case, I would suggest both.
The problem is that current 3D printer control firmware (If someone has a counter-example in the hobbiest space, please add it) prints in linear segments. This starts as @senthil-j-prakash shows in the conversion of the CAD object to an STL file. STL files are made of triangles, which are linear structures. There is no curvature in a triangle, only straight edges and flat faces. Making the triangles as small as possible helps, but it exacerbates the next problem.
The second problem is that each line segment is passed as a separate command to the control firmware. No matter if this is stored on an SD card, or transmitted through USB from the PC to the control firmware, each command defines a short, linear movement. In an ideal world, the printer would precisely reproduce each of this short, linear motions, which would flow smoothly from one to the next.
Unfortunately, the "flowing smoothly" part is difficult to implement, and in some cases isn't actually what you want. If the angle between segments is sharp enough, you don't want to round the corner. When printing approximations to circles, however, one could move continuously, if the commands were sent enough ahead to analyze, and the firmware were clever enough to combine two segments into one smooth, curving motion.
This computation is very difficult to perform on an 8-bit microcontroller, and historically has not been done.
I am using a 32-bit ARM microcontroller and the RepRap firmware, which also does not smoothly merge motion between two low-angle linear motions into one smoother motion.
But, it's not just merging two into one. One must merge a long series of short, linear moves into a long sequence of curved moves. We could be doing motion planning based on splines rather than segments.
But then, we need to cap how much the control processor may change the path because the slicing software needs to predict very closely where each extruded element will lie. Adjacent elements (additional perimeters and infill) must be placed to touch those elements for bonding and strength. if the control processor has moved an element too far, it could either not connect with, or interfere with, an element that is placed later.
But, enough of that rant about the technical difficulties.
For your particular machine, it is likely to be moving in fits and starts because of the short, linear commands. Anything you do that improves the print quality will help with the ribs, and make them look more like facets.
Check the belt tension, the backlash, and the stiffness of the whole machine. Try using slower speed and acceleration settings. If you are printing from a PC through USB or the network, try printing from an SD card. (If printing from an SD card, try printing over USB or the network).
Good luck, and keep printing! Tell others of your experiences. |
How to properly use Polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam with the heated bed? From what I understand, it takes a really long time for the heated bed to heat up using an MK2a heated bed. I've heard some people suggest that using Polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam (insulation that takes quite a bit of heat to catch on fire) can be used under the headed bed to make it heat up faster.
Now of course there are other methods for doing this too, for instance using a larger power supply, but at this point I'd rather just use the parts that I have without re-soldering many of the components on the RAMPS board.
I was wondering what a proper way to attach this to the bed would be for instance, should the springs go on the bottom or on the top of the bed? Do I need some extra parts? Are there any other considerations for doing this? | An alternative solution that is used with some Kossel Mini models, is a simple cardboard covered with aluminum tape (docs).
This solution has the added benefit of actually improving heat-up time, since the reflective surface of the aluminum tape reflects the heat back into the bed, instead of getting absorbed.
It is also a very simple solution, without costly materials. I guess mounting it properly could be an issue depending on your printer, but this is a fine solution for the Kossel models, at least. |
Is it ok for stepper motors to be hot? I have been running my i3 MK3 for about 12 hours now and the motor on the extruder is fairly hot, not too hot to touch but I'd guess its about 60c on the outside. Is this within normal operating temperatures or should I let it cool down before starting more prints? | The maximum operating temperature can be found in the specifications of your steppers. Usually the ambient temperature operating conditions are limited to 50 °C with a maximum operating temperature in the range of 70 - 100 °C. For instance, the steppers I use are limited to a temperature of 80 °C. It is however advised to keep this temperature lower, e.g. to max. 60 °C to prolong the life. Do note that very high temperatures could be a problem for "self-printed" stepper mounts of the wrong material (materials with a low glass transition temperature).
To answer your question: "Yes, steppers may get hot, but if you want them to get too hot is up to the mounting system and how long you want to use them." |
What glues to use for PETG? In analogy to: "What glues for PLA?", what are the best glues to use for PETG?
I mostly print in PETG and have occasional failed prints which I usually reprint. But what if I'd like to repair a print e.g. a split between layers or a part broken off?
Knowing that PETG is more "greasy" than PLA, what typical glues can you use to create a good bond; this question excludes using heat to (re-)bond. | From forum
Bison plastic - works great for me, only it's not "quick dry" but it's very strong, not brittle, holds PETG and PLA very strongly.
Buy paint stripper that is/contains methylene chloride (dichloromethane). It will solvent weld both PLA and PETG.
Or see other forum which recommends Eastman-910 (original brand of cyanoacrylate) or any equivalent, polyurethane glue, or even epoxy. |
Nozzle always "randomly" moves to 0 during print, then resumes I recently bought an Anet A8 (https://pevly.com/anet-a8-3d-printer-review/). I've managed to get everything up and running, leveled the board, but am now running into a problem.
At the start of the print, the printer moves to 0,0,0, bumps into the switches a couple times (I assume to calibrate or so?), and then starts "printing". But the nozzle "randomly" moves to either an X of 0 or an Y of 0 before returning to the printing position. This movement seems to pull off any basis the printer managed to lay down, which then forms a nice "ball" on the nozzle, to which the rest gets stuck. (I'm still having some other issues with getting the filament to stick to the bed, but there's plenty I still have to try out for that.)
During one attempt of printing a very simple small cube, I carefully pulled the filament "ball" from the nozzle while it did one of those movements to X 0, and afterwards it managed to lay down the bottom layer perfectly fine. This causes me to believe those movements are the biggest problem I'm facing right now.
After it did the first layer, it moved up a bit, moved to X 0, back to the model, and got stuck on a piece of plastic that was standing upwards.
These movements seem to happen at around the same phase in the print, and happen quite consistently. Is this normal behavior? If so, how do I make sure the filament does not get pulled off during these weird movements? If not, how do I get rid of them?
(No, not a duplicate of Printer randomly moves to home during printing, then resumes as normal as I print directly from PC.)
Edit to add more information:
I use Cura 3.0.4 for printing, the stock Anet A8 firmware, and am attempting to print the cube model that comes with Windows 10. (Yes, I've tried different models, same result.)
I seem to have more issues, in the video it's visible that the feeding does not seem to work too great, but I think the random movements are the most clear and biggest problem right now, so I should tackle that first.
In Cura I've used the Pruisa I3 printer, with the following G-codes:
G21 ;metric values
G90 ;absolute positioning
M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode
M107 ;start with the fan off
G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops
G28 Z0 ;move Z to min endstops
G29
G1 Z15.0 F9000 ;move the platform down 15mm
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length
G1 F200 E3 ;extrude 3mm of feed stock
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again
G1 F9000
M117 Printing...
and end
M104 S0 ;extruder heater off
M140 S0 ;heated bed heater off (if you have it)
G91 ;relative positioning
G1 E-1 F300 ;retract the filament a bit before lifting the nozzle, to release some of the pressure
G1 Z+0.5 E-5 X-20 Y-20 F9000 ;move Z up a bit and retract filament even more
G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops, so the head is out of the way
M84 ;steppers off
G90 ;absolute positioning
(Yes, I added in the G29 in the start code manually, as I bought the official auto-leveling sensor. I'm not sure if it works though, but I read somewhere that I might need a different version of the firmware to support it properly.)
And here's a video showing what my printer does do exactly. It started printing from the center in this case, it seems to randomly either move to the middle or to 0,0,0 when I abort the print. | I see two problems in your video:
It looks like the first layer is built too much upwards. (The level calibration should be so that a Z-height of 0 can barely fit a sheet of paper under the nozzle. )
Your printer is not extruding at all. As you said, the extrusion has some problems. Extrusion problems will cause adhesion problems too. |
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