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2019-12-19T01:35:16.663

|heated-bed|monoprice-select-mini|

<p>I have a monoprice select mini v2, and it has worked well up until now. It currently displays 999 degrees for the build plate temperature. This is a glitch, and I don't know how to fix it. Since it thinks the temperature is so high, it thinks that the build plate does not need to be heated. Because of this, many of my prints turn out warped. Is there a way to fix this?</p>

11586

Monoprice select mini V2 displaying '999' degrees for build plate temp

<p>You get this temperature reading when there is broken wire. Not owning this printer type, can't you switch out the bed thermistor for a new one? Or alternatively check if a connection is loose.</p>

2019-12-20T08:20:42.203

|ultimaker-cura|3d-models|stl|

<p>I have this image in STL</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMJIT.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TMJIT.png" alt="3D model"></a></p> <p>But it seems cura skipped the lower panel entirely when slicing the STL. </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/CPMkb.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/CPMkb.png" alt="Sliced"></a></p> <p>The base is thick, as you can see here, but it is still missing in Preview, and Cura seems to ignore the base.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/apYlc.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/apYlc.png" alt="Base close"></a></p> <p>I have tried to decrease to 0.1mm for width or initial layer, but cura still ignored the base panel.</p> <p>I also found this odd behaviour in a number of my models.. such as this:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bPdo8.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bPdo8.png" alt="Car"></a></p> <p>or this</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TcZSH.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TcZSH.png" alt="Car 2"></a></p> <p>Notice those missing parts? It is like some parts are floating in the air.</p> <p>Can someone help me out here? What kind of setting I have to modify?</p>

11595

Cura 4.4 missing object parts

<p>Using the preview feature as you have is a good method to determine that the original model is flawed. It's not unusual to discover detailed models have reversed normals or non-contiguous surfaces, which will not print.</p> <p>In a simple example, consider a cube for which five of the six faces are properly described by the design software. This would result in all eight vertices being present, allowing the software to present the "missing" face, but the slicer is unable to create this aspect. The cube is no longer solid and is presented as seven zero-thickness panels, which can't be printed.</p> <p>It is necessary to repair the broken models, by closing gaps and reverting/recalculating normals, but that requires skill in other software.</p> <p>Some slicers will attempt to repair damaged models, but some are so severe, the results you've experienced are the result.</p> <p>If you want a confirmation of a failed model, load it into free Meshmixer, run Analysis/Inspector and expect a "pincushion" of highlighted failures.</p>

2019-12-21T04:12:04.200

|creality-ender-3|g-code|bltouch|

<p>I have an Ender 3 Pro with a BL Touch.</p> <p>In my G-code should I add an <code>M500</code> after the <code>G29</code>, to save the results to the EEPROM? I know storage size is an issue, so does storing these results cause an issue?</p> <p>I believe the saved results can be activated before the next print using: <code>M420 S1</code></p> <p>If I do, does that mean I just auto home (<code>G28</code>) but don’t need to run a <code>G29</code> until I think the bed has lost its level?</p> <p>I was trying to clarify this after reading: <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10345/bl-touch-probing-fails-intermittently">BL Touch Probing Fails Intermittently</a></p>

11597

Saving BL Touch settings

<p>From <a href="http://marlinfw.org/docs/features/auto_bed_leveling.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this source</a> you can read:</p> <blockquote> <p>After a G29 the leveling data is only stored in RAM. You have to use M500 to save the bed leveling data to EEPROM, otherwise the data will be lost when you restart (or reconnect) the printer. Use M502 to reset the bed leveling data (and other settings to defaults). Use M501 to reload your last-saved bed leveling from EEPROM. This is done automatically on reboot.</p> </blockquote> <p>The source also answers the use of <code>M420 S1</code>:</p> <blockquote> <p>After a G29 bed leveling is automatically enabled, but in all other situations you must use M420 S1 to enable bed leveling. It is essential to include the command M420 S1 in the “Start G-code” in your slicer settings. If you have no bed leveling, or if there is no leveling data, then this command is simply ignored.</p> </blockquote> <p>So, if you're not using a <code>G29</code> in your start code you must use the G-code <code>M420 S1</code> to enable the stored mesh from memory.</p>

2019-12-21T19:02:18.363

|motor|

<p>I recently purchased <a href="http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&amp;item=301638076307&amp;category=9723&amp;pm=1&amp;ds=0&amp;t=1576805521000&amp;ver=0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a small stepper motor</a> with a hollow shaft, without realizing it ran at 3.8V. I'm looking for the easiest way to integrate it with the ecosystem around the 12V steppers used in 3d printing, including control by Marlin firmware, and also compatibility with mainstream printer boards.</p> <p>The rated specs are as follows:</p> <pre><code> 2 phase 4 wires 1.8 step angle Rated Voltage: 3.8V Rated Current: 0.8A Body Length: 30mm Shaft Diameter: 5mm </code></pre> <p>I have only A4988 drivers, and I was under the impression that those drivers could only work at 12V. I have two <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07P4LCV8K" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">spare DC-DC buck converters</a> that could drop a 12V output from something to 3.8V. But I'm not sure what wires to do that for.</p> <p>I know that motors have "A" and "B" coils for movement. Do I just use two DC-DC bucks off an A4988 driver to power this thing? So, after the output from the A4988 driver, I would connect 1A and 1B to IN+ and IN- on the DC-DC buck, and 2A 2B on IN+ IN- on the second DC-DC buck. </p> <p>Is there a better way to integrate this motor into an existing 3D printer board based on RAMPS? I'm using MKS Gen and MKS Sgen boards</p> <p>Using the pins <em>before</em> the driver might not be such a good idea if 800 mA is needed to run the printer. I don't know whether those pins connect to 12V or to the microcontroller output. </p>

11602

How to use a 3.8V stepper with Marlin / RAMPS?

<p>The 3.8&nbsp;V rating does not mean what you think it does. "Rated voltage" has a very specific technical meaning. For a 3D stepper motor to work properly, the rated voltage of the stepper motors actually needs to be significantly lower than the supply voltage of the stepper drivers.</p> <p>These steppers are perfectly compatible with a standard 12V RAMPS setup with A4988 system. You do not need to and should not mess around with buck converters. All you need to do is adjust the potentiometer on your stepper drivers to limit the current to at most 0.8&nbsp;A.</p> <p>The rated voltage in some sense refers to the <em>average</em> voltage the stepper motor should see, but to actually run them at reasonable speeds you need to supply short bursts of higher voltage. A stepper driver and motor actually form a sort of buck converter themselves, and in some sense do the conversion from 12V to the rated voltage for you.</p>

2019-12-22T15:39:15.720

|filament|creality-ender-3|

<p>I bought an Ender 3 two days ago and assembled it today. I think I did it properly, tested the movement of all axes which works for all axes. Then I performed the calibration as described in the manual. I used a piece of paper and adjusted the bed until it barely fits underneath the nozzle for all four corners. Afterwards, I wanted to print my first model so I selected the cat from the usb stick which came with printer. And now comes my problem. I let the printer run for 15 minutes. It moved and moved and moved but there was no filament on the bed. The nozzle and bed were heated properly. The one thing which I noticed was that the stepper which feeds the filament turns for like 30° and then flips back: to me it looks like the filament can not be fed in. After canceling the print the extruder moves back to the home position which is like 5 mm off the bed and then suddenly the filament flows out of the nozzle.</p> <p>What part of the configuration I'm missing?</p>

11608

Brand new Ender 3 does not extrude any filament during printing

<p>The stepper motor turning back is retraction. It is a normals process for 3D printers. I suggest you check that the filament is able to extrude at all.</p> <ol> <li><p>Using the control panel, go to prep then move axis and move the nozzle up(I forget which axis)</p></li> <li><p>Heat the nozzel up to 200 degrees.</p></li> <li><p>Push filament through the nozzel by hand and see if it extrudes.</p></li> </ol> <p>If not, check that the nozzel is unblocked. To unblock the nozzel get a thin needle and clear the hole while still hot. Unless u have a nozzel cleaning tool.</p> <p>If it is not blocked the filament may need changing.</p>

2019-12-24T08:15:56.250

|marlin|g-code|bed-leveling|

<p>I have been reading through the Marlin website about ABL (Auto Bed Leveling) and I see what appears to be conflicting information.</p> <p>At <a href="https://marlinfw.org/docs/features/auto_bed_leveling.html" rel="noreferrer">https://marlinfw.org/docs/features/auto_bed_leveling.html</a> it states that running <code>G28</code> (Auto Home) will turn off ABL and that to reactivate it you need to insert the code <code>M420 S1</code>.</p> <p>However at <a href="https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/G029-mbl.html" rel="noreferrer">https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/G029-mbl.html</a> it states:</p> <blockquote> <p><code>G28</code> disables bed leveling. Follow with <code>M420 S</code> to turn leveling on, or use <code>RESTORE_LEVELING_AFTER_G28</code> to automatically keep leveling on after <code>G28</code></p> </blockquote> <p>The latter is referring mostly to manual bed leveling, but in this section is referring to ABL.</p> <p>So what is the difference between the <code>S</code> and the <code>S1</code> options?</p>

11621

What is the difference between M420 S and M420 S1?

<h2>TL;DR</h2> <p><strong>Short answer</strong>: &quot;There is no difference!&quot;.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>Long answer</strong></p> <p>G-code is parsed line by line. The parser in the firmware reads the command and the options (also called parameters) following it, comments are discarded.</p> <p>Therefore, option <code>S</code> should be followed by a Boolean value <code>0</code> for False or <code>1</code> for True. Without a value it is undefined and should be reported as incorrect or treated as false (in my opinion). But, the developers have chosen differently. If a Boolean value is expected and the value is not given, the parameter is parsed as <code>true</code>. This has analogy with other software options or switches like e.g. used by Linux commands.</p> <p>This means that for Marlin the G-code <code>M420 S</code> is exactly the same as <code>M420 S1</code>.</p> <p><em>I've checked this with another command (this is not depending on the G-code command as there is a single parser processiong the G-codes and the following parameters); <code>M211</code> where <code>M211 S</code> is exactly the same as <code>M211 S1</code></em>.</p>

2019-12-28T21:09:47.683

|ultimaker-cura|adhesion|

<p>I'm trying to increase adhesion of the first layer (as well as to fill gaps for a more even surface) by squeezing more material against the bed. The obvious way of doing that in Cura is by increasing the "Initial Layer Flow", i.e. to make the printer push out slightly more material than it normally would.</p> <p>But then there is also a setting called "Initial Layer Width" and according to the the Cura Settings Guide (see image below), increasing line width will make the nozzle </p> <blockquote> <p>extrude more material and that material has to flow wider outward. This causes the nozzle to press the material harder on the build plate (...) Not only will the lines be wider ... but they will also be farther apart ... by the same factor, so it would not produce overextrusion</p> </blockquote> <p>This seems to imply that increasing the initial layer width will automatically <em>also</em> increase initial layer flow. If this is so, the question is: which setting is applied first? </p> <p>In any case, it seems that the two settings should not be applied together, if they manipulate the same variable (but I have not seen this recommendation anywhere). Which leads me to my may question: <strong>what is the difference between the two settings?</strong> More specifically (based on my above reasoning): <strong>what else does "Initial Layer Width" manipulate, apart from the flow rate in the first layer?</strong> Just the distance between the lines so that increasing the setting will lead to fewer lines?</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/yzyn4.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/yzyn4.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

11634

What's the difference between "Initial Layer Width" and "Initial Layer Flow" in Cura?

<p>The typical consensus is that you increase the layer flow initially for better adhesion, though from my experience I <strong>decrease</strong> it!<br /> My first layer is printed at between 70-75 % layer flow, this gives the best adhesion and best visuals when printing with ASA or ABS.<br /> From layer 2 on I've 105 % layer flow.</p> <p>The reason is that my first layer is printed &quot;officially&quot; at 0.27mm but in reality, it's more like 0.05 mm thickness. That's manually finetuned while printing after a material change, basically, the thickness is adjusted for perfect grip on the build plate.<br /> When left at 100 % flow rate this will cause ripples or waves on the bottom, it's excess material that builds up along the printed lines.<br /> At 70 % the wrong initial distance is compensated (visually) while maintaining perfect adhesion.</p> <p>Conclusion: Fine-tune your printer and settings for each material used, a general answer is not possible. Especially true for difficult materials like ABS, ASS, or Nylon.<br /> The best is to watch the printer while it is printing and adapt the mechanical properties first, then fine tuning the flow rates.</p>

2019-12-29T16:55:22.417

|post-processing|glass-bed|

<p>I printed a model and now I can't remove it.</p> <p>I have been chiselling away with a putty knife and made little or no progress. I even heated the bed up to 70&nbsp;&deg;C. That really didn't seem to help.</p> <p>Last time, I put it in vice, and tried to free it that way, but instead I broke the glass.</p> <p>Suggestion?</p>

11638

How do I remove a 3D print stuck to the glass build plate

<p>I don't have a glass bed, but I've had a lot of luck with using dental floss to get stuck prints loose. </p> <p>If you can get the floss under the edge of the print, then you just pull it through to the other side. </p> <p>This technique takes some practice but works really well once you get the hang of it. </p>

2019-12-31T21:11:24.947

|marlin|inductive-sensor|

<p>Just added inductive sensor to my printer (<code>MKS Gen L Board</code>) using <code>Marlin 1.1.9</code> After some tweaking it works great! The problem is when it starts print the sensor detects the bed and stops the print because it gets triggered.</p> <p>Can I tell Marlin to ignore the Z-min readings while printing?</p>

11650

Inductive Sensor Causes Print To Stop

<p>Solved the problem, I was missing this line:</p> <pre><code>#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMIN_PROBE </code></pre> <p>Apparently the sensor required a pull-up to better define the signal.</p>

2020-01-02T16:07:03.003

|material|print-strength|

<p>I would like to build a standing shelf where the supports which hold each successive plank are 3D printed (to obtain special shapes).</p> <p>However, I read that <a href="https://toms3d.org/2018/02/02/things-know-pla/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PLA flows under constant stress/pressure</a>. Still, this doesn't stop the author of the article from using PLA for a hanging shelf, which obviously is subjected to constant negative pressure.</p> <p>Which material suffers the least from plasticity/non elastic deformation under stress?</p> <p>Answers with data for multiple materials are welcome.</p> <p>I found that the phenomenon is called "creep" and is related to ISO 899, but I couldn't find any data for the common filament plastics and I don't know the theory behind it, so I'm not sure whether it's unavoidable or it appears after a threshold stress is reached.</p> <p><strong>Information</strong>: it's a living room shelf which will hold books and other stuff and is supposed to last a decade. I will of course add a safety factor and I could even fix the planks to the wall (in hidden places), but ideally the 3D printed material should have NO creep.</p>

11657

Which material "creeps" (plastic deformation) the least (or nothing at all) under pressure after being printed?

<p>Your question can not be answered theoretically -- only empirically.</p> <p>You need to print some trial brackets with materials of interest and measure them. The question is: under what conditions should you test them?</p> <p>The problem is that creep involves both compression and tension, and the behavior may be different. It is also impossible to fully translate material specifications into component behavior without a really good model that includes the details of the infill, adhesion to peripheries, and all the microscopic detail of a real 3D-printed part.</p> <p>The problem with typical PLA may be the low temperature. Raising the temperature of a normal PLA printed object to 160°F (70°C) softens it to the point of nearly being limp. I have used this for force-fitting PLA parts by warming a pot of water and placing parts in it for a few moments. That temperature is hotter than your room, but a hot summer day in the sunshine could soften the part to the point of failure.</p> <p>For anything load bearing, I would want a material with a higher plastic temperature.</p> <p>There are PLA formulations which are annealed after printing. This is claimed to allow the PLA to slowly recrystalize and become both stronger and usable at higher temperatures. I don't have experience with this.</p> <p>Depending on your printer, you can also consider using a higher temperature filament, such as ABS or PC (polycarbonate). PET-G is a little better than PLA, but it softens at a lower temperature than ABS.</p> <p>As important as the material itself is the anisotrophy of the printer parts. Be sure to print the parts so that the major stresses are along the strongest axes, typically X and Y, and not along the weaker Z asis. Choose your infill to contribute to the strength, and use plenty of it, or design the part so that the infill is not intended to contribute to the strength.</p>

2020-01-02T17:08:24.880

|3d-models|fusion360|

<p>I was experimenting with building an enclosure using fusion 360.</p> <p>I was wondering if a part with rounded corners of a larger radius would warp less than smaller ones?</p> <p>Also, any recommendation on reading material would be appreciated!</p>

11658

Does having more curvier corners help warping more then smaller curves

<p>In short, yes, it helps a little. Curves provide less surface area per unit volume (a sphere has the least possible surface area relative to the volume of the solid), and that reduces the rate at which the material in that corner will cool relative to elsewhere in the print, and also changes how the material can deform if and when it does cool unevenly. Uneven cooling of fine features, including sharp corners, is what causes warpage, as these areas typically cool faster than others. The curve also helps with bed adhesion, as the more rounded corner is more easily kept down on the bed by the various forces within the object and in the bed adhesion. Sharper corners depend more on the surface area under the corner itself to keep the piece properly stuck to the bed.</p> <p>However, it's not a panacea. It's not always possible, for one; it's usually an option when CADing a "green field" design for a household item or other standalone product, but if you're making a replacement part for an existing device, or printing a figurine or other detailed model, you usually have to take the curves (and edges) that design gives you. Also, if you radius an outer edge of a hollow shape, but don't radius the inner corner to keep the material thickness constant, you'll end up with similar cooling problems as the apex of that edge cools fastest.</p> <p>Strategies for avoiding warping are along a couple common lines, but exactly how you implement that strategy depends on the material and on the printer. One overarching strategy is to increase print surface adhesion; the stronger the part sticks to the bed everywhere on its first layer, the harder it will be for corners to lift. Exact techniques depend on the print material, but many of them, like blue painter's tape, Elmer's glue and hairspray, work well for several filament types. Adjusting the printed shape, to print a brim around the shape's base or even a raft under the entire object, are also common anti-warping strategies. The tradeoff is that the stronger the bed adhesion, the harder the part will be to remove from the build surface when complete, which depending on your print bed construction can cause more problems than the warping. </p> <p>Blue tape is nice because it's cheap to buy and easy to apply to the bed surface, both of which mean you don't have to worry too much about damaging the tape as you remove the part, just strip the tape and put down another layer. But, it doesn't work for all filament materials; the only thing I've found that really works well for ABS, for instance, is kapton tape, which is significantly more expensive and takes a lot of effort to lay down a wrinkle-free, bubble-free layer over the entire print bed for a large part (especially on my MakerBot, which doesn't have a removable build surface on it, so I'm laying this tape down in cramped quarters within the printer enclosure). A glass surface painted with ABS slurry is an option I've not yet had opportunity to try for ABS printing, but plenty of people swear by it.</p> <p>Cooling, especially uneven cooling rates, are another major contributor, but again, exactly how you deal with cooling depends on the material. Most plastics, especially PLA, tend to work best when you keep things as cool as possible; the coolest extruder temp that reliably feeds fil, the coolest bed temp that reliably sticks, part cooling fan turned up, and even a standing or box fan blowing through the entire work area to put as much air over the part as possible. What this does is to get the PLA down onto the print surface as a hot "putty", then immediately "freeze" that bead of plastic as a solid as the heat's removed, so the bead can't shrink as it cools more gradually. </p> <p>Now, with ABS, this cooling strategy doesn't work, and in fact it's the <em>worst</em> thing you can do to an ABS print. The material is much more elastic than PLA, which is quite brittle, and has no true melting temperature, with a very hot glass transition temp. So, as it's laid down, the extruded beads quickly put the part under elastic tension as it cools. Shrinkage is a fact of life with ABS; the only thing you can do is to control the shrinkage by controlling the part cooling, so the part cools and shrinks evenly. ABS calls for a hot print bed for good adhesion, which will keep the first few layers warmer longer, but higher layers of the print will be further from that heat source, so if there's air moving over or within the work volume, these higher layers will cool more rapidly, at which point it really doesn't matter how good your surface adhesion is (I've seen prints split halfway up the model to relieve the tension by warping). So for ABS, a heat enclosure is pretty much a must. My MakerBot is built that way (in fact it's designed for ABS printing and works better with ABS than with PLA, which is supposed to be the more user-friendly material of the two), but most of your open-gantry RepRap-type designs will need something built around it, usually with a separate heating element to heat the work volume more than the bed is capable of doing.</p>

2020-01-03T21:08:53.273

|filament|3d-models|

<p>I'm using a Prusa i3 MK3S printer. After ~8 months of printing PLA, PET-G, ABS I decided to buy some HIPS and print something with it. I cannot print >1 filaments at once, so I'm not using it as a support for ABS, <strong>I want to create some high durability working models, like gears, robot parts etc.</strong> </p> <p>While the quality of my models is perfect, unfortunately their <strong>strength is disappointingly low. They easily undergo plastic deformation or break.</strong> I've tried lots of settings, some yielding better or worse results, but the problem is present regardless.</p> <p>My settings:</p> <ul> <li>Printer: Prusa i3 MK3S</li> <li>Nozzle: Default 0.4&nbsp;mm nozzle for Prusa</li> <li>Layer Height: 0.2-0.3&nbsp;mm</li> <li>Temperature: 230-240&nbsp;&deg;C nozzle, 100-110&nbsp;&deg;C bed</li> <li>Slicer: PrusaSlicer 2.0.0</li> </ul> <p>I've read lots of tutorials regarding HIPS printing and they did not give me the answer to my question...</p> <p>Am I doing something wrong or is it normal for High Impact PolyStyrene? At this point, the <em>High Impact</em> Polystyrene seems less <em>High Impact</em> than generic PLA.</p>

11667

Very low strength of HIPS prints - Why?

<p>I've been using HIPS for nearly 2 years now to print the housings of EDF units for RC planes. They come out light and strong but have poor layer adhesion, especially on thin-wall parts.</p> <p>Normally I print at with a 260 °C nozzle and 100 °C bed but will try higher temperature when I upgrade my Ender 5 to a 32-bit board. Thin cyanoacrylate painted on the surface solves most issues. Sometimes I use a solution of ASA dissolved in acetone to paint the surface and bind layers together.</p> <p>The EDF rotors I print from Apollo X which is a modified ASA that is easy to print but not soluble in acetone.</p>

2020-01-04T12:28:15.630

|creality-ender-3|bed-leveling|bltouch|

<p>I'm having a problem getting a clean first layer on an Ender 3 with BLTouch auto bed leveling. Thickness seems to fluctuate all over the bed, but in a consistent (repeatable) way. Here's my attempt to print a <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2187071" rel="nofollow noreferrer">single layer 5 square bed calibration test</a>:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bKYFc.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bKYFc.jpg" alt="Full bed"></a> I stopped the print midway through filling the first square, but you get the idea. Lines go from too low so no filament comes out to too high.</p> <p>I printed this several (many) times with slight settings tweaks and it looks pretty much the same every time; the ups and downs aren't random. For example, the center square always is always too low on the left and too high on the right:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2wI8h.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2wI8h.jpg" alt="Center square"></a></p> <p>The printer is a SainSmart Ender 3 Pro with a BLTouch V3.1 and Creality glass bed, otherwise stock. I flashed a bootloader and Marlin 2.0 using the <a href="https://github.com/3d-printing-canada/Ender-3-BL-Touch-Installation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">instructions and pre-compiled firmware</a> from 3D Printing Canada. I'm using the glass bed upside-down on the plain glass side (no coating).</p> <p>I pre-heated and leveled the four corners manually using the paper method. I auto-homed and then lowered the hot end until it would just catch a piece of paper and used that height to set the Z offset using M851 and saved it with M500. It's currently set at -2.80.</p> <p>I added <code>G29</code> to GCode start in Cura, and it does a 3x3 probe before the print starts. Here's the output when I run <code>M420 V</code>:</p> <pre><code>Bilinear Leveling Grid: 0 1 2 0 -0.207 +0.172 +0.162 1 -0.100 -0.160 +0.220 2 -0.118 +0.215 +0.295 </code></pre> <p>Here's what it looks like in the Bed Visualizer plug-in in Octoprint:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vy4YI.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vy4YI.png" alt="Bed visualization"></a></p> <p>If I understand this right (dubious) it's showing that the glass is lower toward the front and left, highest at back-right. But it's only 0.4mm from the lowest to highest points. And the whole point of mesh leveling is to compensate for this anyway.</p> <p>At Paulster's suggestion I turned off mesh leveling using <code>M420 S0</code>, leveled manually, and printed again. The result is pretty similar (note that this time I let it run all the way through):</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/hwWJ1.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/hwWJ1.jpg" alt="Second print without mesh leveling"></a></p> <p>Where should I start looking to diagnose this problem?</p> <p><strong>Update</strong></p> <p>I noticed my X-axis belt was a bit loose, so I tightened it up. It seems to have helped with the odd Z slanting. My test print is still not great though, so this may not be the whole problem. Also I've never seen this effect listed as one caused by loose belts, so it's dubious as the cause. Here's the current test print after tightening the belt:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RWlJd.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RWlJd.jpg" alt="Updated test print"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1deao.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1deao.jpg" alt="Closeup test print"></a></p> <p>It's flatter, but I'm still getting (I think) under-extrusion and some odd wobbles at the corners.</p>

11673

Ender 3 with BLTouch prints slanted lines

<p>This turned out to be a problem with the tightness of the rollers at the left and right sides of the X-axis gantry (that roll up and down the Z rails).</p> <p>Z-axis motion is driven by a single stepper motor on the left side, so the rollers have to be just the right amount of tight to keep the right side in sync. If the right side is tighter or looser than the left then it lags behind, which gives the gantry a slight slant which changes as it goes up and down.</p> <p>If the gantry is changing pitch throughout the print, no amount of bed leveling will help. Even auto-leveling is worthless, because the readings the BLTouch takes become immediately out of sync with the gantry as soon as it moves again.</p> <p>The solution is to adjust the eccentric nuts in the rollers on the left and right. The best description I could find is that they need to be just tight enough that there's some resistance if you roll the top wheel with your finger, but loose enough that you can roll it without forcing the gantry up and down.</p> <p>I ended up putting a magnetic digital level on top of the gantry rail so I could see exactly how much its incline changed. Send gcode to slide it up and down, then adjust the eccentric nuts a little bit, then repeat. Once I got it so the level didn't change, I re-leveled the bed and printed a beautiful first layer.</p> <p>That was almost a year ago and it's been working ever since. I've had to re-adjust the eccentric nuts periodically when things start to get off, probably due to thermal expansion when the weather changes.</p>

2020-01-05T03:28:35.993

|troubleshooting|extrusion|

<p>I'm getting wavy lines on the first layer only in both the x and y direction identically. The first layer is 0.4 mm with a 0.4 mm tip. The other layers are 0.2 mm. I've tried changing the Z offset all the way from -1.2 to 0.5 mm. I've tried changing the hot end leveling the heated bed. None of these changes affected the wavy lines. The waves have about a 1 mm period. The printer is a German RipRap. The material is ABS. The heated bed is 110&nbsp;&deg;C. I've tried the hot end at 220&nbsp;&deg;C and 240&nbsp;&deg;C. So far, nothing has changed the waves. </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/e74SF.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/e74SF.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

11679

Wavy lines on 1st layer only

<p>You have a too thick layer: to get straight lines, the plastic has to be squished together to some degree as it is pushed out of the nozzle. The result is a shape similar to a circle with the top and bottom cut. This works well until your layer thickness is more than 3 quarters of the nozzle diameter - above the "squishing" is practically nonexistent, and if you go above the nozzle diameter, there is almost no way to get the desired thickness out of the nozzle at all.</p> <p>To aid in depositing the layers, it is <em>also</em> advised to demand a line width that is about 10 % larger than the nozzle diameter. As illustration, this is roughly what 0.4 mm extrusion width with 0.4 mm layer height (blue) and 0.45 mm extrusion width with 0.3 mm extrusion height (yellow) look like:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzIa5.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/BzIa5.png" alt="enter image description here"></a><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/yZqG8.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/yZqG8.png" alt="enter image description here"></a><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ElU6V.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ElU6V.png" alt="enter image description here"></a><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPRyP.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/GPRyP.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

2020-01-06T09:33:33.947

|slicing|infill|

<p>I am designing a part with a material which can bear up to a certain stress. </p> <p>To keep the stress within the design limits, I need to ensure a certain surface of solid material per layer, in other words a minimum amount of extruded filament per layer and a smoothly changing infill ratio so that the infill can transmit the load efficiently to the neighbouring layers.</p> <p>The part has an irregular shape and I cannot simply increase the infill ratio for the whole object because the part is big and it would cost more time and filament. I also cannot build straight pillars of solid material inside the part because there are no regions which are suitable for a continuous pillar.</p> <p>How can I calculate and apply a smoothly changing infill ratio or in general how to ensure that each layer is made of at least a certain amount of material?</p> <p>I use Prusa Slicer for slicing and Fusion 360 for the design.</p> <p>Related questions about variable infill, which however don't answer my question because I need to specify the amount of material and because I need a smoothly changing infill ratio:</p> <p><a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6522/different-infill-in-the-same-part">Different infill in the same part</a></p> <p><a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/7025/slic3r-can-i-vary-the-infill-percentage-for-different-heights-of-my-model">slic3r: Can I vary the infill percentage for different heights of my model?</a> </p>

11690

How to slice a model to ensure at least a certain amount of filament per layer?

<p>I think you have a major XY problem. The amount of material per layer is not what determines the part strength. Unless additional material is placed in a manner that reinforces against the stress you're designing for, it's just wasted. Moreover, infill in particular is not terribly useful this way, as infill has to rest upon the support of existing infill below it. If you suddenly increase infill density at a particular layer, it will not provide any significant additional strength because the added lines will be unsupported and will not bond strongly to anything. Even the next layer above them, and the next after that for quite a few layers, will not bond well because the unsupported lines can just bend downward when the nozzle goes over them, rather than providing a surface for the newly deposited material to press firmly against and bond to.</p> <p>Generally, infill is not your main source of part strength anyway. I would start out (especially if you can test; if this is a one-off thing, the material cost is not going to be an issue anyway and just go with overkill) by increasing the number of wall lines (wall thickness). Walls generally provide the most strength, and the amount of material used will be proportional to cross-sectional perimeter rather than area, which typically will vary "linearly" rather than "quadratically" (I use these terms loosely since I don't know right off how to make it rigorous - what the independent variable should be thought of as being). My usual default (and I believe Cura's) is 2 walls; I would expect 4-5 to be very strong, and as long as you keep at least 15-20% infill, probably stronger than what you'd get by any increase in infill percent.</p>

2020-01-06T11:46:21.757

|3d-models|

<p>I want to scan a few ceramic items that are shiny and have multiple colors and found that using an artec 3d Spider that doesn't really work due to the shininess and thus want to use a matting spray or sth to be able to get proper results. Ideally sth without color that can be used on the ceramic items and allows to obtain proper texture results for the 3d model too. Any ideas?</p>

11691

3d scan matting spray

<p>There are many variations of a product generically known as chalk spray. Some of them should be considered permanent or semi-permanent, while the <a href="https://www.montana-cans.com/en/spray-cans/montana-spray-paint/chalk-400ml-marking-spray/montana-chalk-400ml" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Montana brand product</a> explicitly states "temporary" in the description. There is a caveat in that it has to be a non-porous surface to be considered temporary.</p> <p>The product is primarily directed at outside/sidewalk art which can be washed away or will wear away under normal traffic. As such, it is suited for matting shiny surfaces for scanning purposes. White is the best color for scanning as it will accept light and shadows better than the other choices.</p> <p>I have a can of white and can attest that it will wash off. Some of the product will wipe off dry but the small crevices require washing, which should be considered when spraying your item.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2IAI3.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2IAI3.jpg" alt="montana chalk spray"></a></p> <p>The product is available at many online outlets and may be found at local art supply retailers.</p>

2020-01-06T13:42:57.847

|print-quality|marlin|ultimaker-cura|prusa-i3|pla|

<p>I keep having this issue on prints where the first layer has stringy lines that don't stick together. </p> <p><strong>I've tried the following things</strong></p> <ul> <li>Replaced nozzle and throat</li> <li>Used new filament (to rule out filament that may have absorbed moisture)</li> <li>Printed at 180, 200 (my usual temp), 220</li> <li>Aligned z stop sensor</li> <li>Tried line width of 0.8 (usual 0.4)</li> <li>Slowed initial speed to 30mm/s</li> <li>Increased flow</li> <li>Different Top/Bottom patterns</li> </ul> <p><strong>My print settings as shown in this pic are the following</strong></p> <ul> <li>Layer height: 0.2</li> <li>Line width: 0.4</li> <li>Wall thickness: 0.8</li> <li>Print temp: 200</li> <li>Bed temp: 60</li> <li>Retraction dist: 5.5</li> <li>Retraction speed: 40mm/s</li> <li>Initial layer speed: 30mm/s</li> <li>Cooling at 20% after 0.2mm, 0% until then</li> </ul> <p><strong>Printer</strong> </p> <ul> <li>Prusa I3 (hictop)</li> <li>Cura to slice</li> <li>Printing with PLA</li> <li>Have had years of successful prints, issue started happening after a couple months of not using printer</li> <li>Running marlin</li> <li>Runs auto leveling routine before each print </li> </ul> <p>Let me know if you think there's other relevant settings to this issue. Any help is greatly appreciated, I've been trying to fix this for days. I've tried different models, large and small, but have the same issue no matter the size</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pgRYE.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pgRYE.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

11692

Filament spreading apart and stringy on first layer

<p>I would try two things you didn't mention; a bed leveling (this looks a little close) and an e-stepper calibration. The layer looks thin and under-extruded, and two common culprits are the bed height being too close ("oversquishing" the first layer which reduces flow rate and adhesion), and the e-stepper not feeding as much filament as the slicer's asking for (giving you thinner lines than the slicer expected, so they don't adhere to each other or the substrate).</p> <p>I also see problems with that kapton layer. Totally understandable, the stuff is a major pain to lay down bubble-free, however it's also absolutely necessary to do so to avoid first layer issues. That's not your only problem here but it'll keep being a pain after you have filament feeding sorted out.</p> <p>Lastly, I'm seeing slicer error; the floor fill is being laid down over the top of the shell layers on the right side of your image. Remember that the wealth of slicer variables in Cura regarding print speeds, flow rate, filament diameter etc ultimately boil down to a single G1 command per line: "move from here to here at this speed extruding this length of filament". So, if the slicer is forgetting where it drew the outline by the time it scripts the floor fill, it's possible it lost the plot on extrusion calculations as well. Alternately, the printer could be the one that lost the plot, either losing track of the steppers or incorrectly interpreting the G-code. Usually you just need to power-cycle the printer, close and reopen Cura and re-slice. Also, if you're printing with a USB cable, try switching to an SD card; there's less to go wrong in the communication between slicer and printer if the slicer tells the printer <em>everything</em> it should do up front.</p> <p>I'd look into each of these, then try to print a calibration shape, like a 20mm XYZ cube, before going back to the print you had on the plate before.</p>

2020-01-06T20:36:25.940

|hotend|repair|e3d-hemera|

<p>I'm trying to replace my hotend with the E3D Hemera direct kit. I got to the final step of hot-tightening the hot side and managed to snap my heatbreak. The part that screws into the heat-sink is stuck, though I was able to remove it from the heater block section.</p> <p>Below is a picture of the heatbreak. The red square shows what it in the heat-sink. It's mostly thread (with thermal compound) but a bit of the unthreaded metal is sticking out (above the disk shown). </p> <p>I've tried removing it with a jeweler's drill (which is how I removed the heater block portion, but I cannot get a good grip on the long threaded piece. I've also tried pliers and rounded needle-nose pliers. Neither worked. I couldn't find my regular needle-nose and will go to the store to try that. Are there other options to break this free or am I stuck with buying a replacement heat-sink? I already ordered a replacement, but it'd be nice to have a backup in case something else goes awry (as has been the case with this modification; this is snafu number 4).</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xgpZN.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xgpZN.jpg" alt="Heatbreak with stuck portion highlighted"></a></p>

11703

Remove broken heatbreak

<p>Broken screws or screws with damaged screw heads are typically removed with screw extractors. Since there is already a hole you could "drill" (unscrew) it out with a screw extractor, as it is counter clockwise, it is about creating enough friction to unscrew it from the threads. Beware that it is not drilling and spalling material, turn slowly.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ek64u.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ek64u.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>Alternatively, a grip vice pliers may work if there is enough "meat" to clamp on.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pVTIq.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pVTIq.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

2020-01-07T01:27:02.153

|heated-bed|print-material|anycubic-i3-mega|

<p>I have printed two objects with my new 3D printer (Anycubic Mega S) and everytime, my prints are stuck to my bed (sort of glued to it). I cannot remove them by hand. I have tried waiting until it cools off, but the only thing that works is scraping really hard the bed with the spatula.</p> <p>I'm scared that if I have to do that for my next prints, I will break the bed (maybe peel off the element that keeps the plastic and the bed glued together while printing). </p> <p>What is the safest way to remove a print from the bed ?</p>

11707

How can I remove my print from the bed safely

<p>I have had good luck using dental floss. If you can get it under the edge of the print, then you can pull it all the way through and prints come off easily. </p>

2020-01-08T14:06:19.880

|anet-a8|printer-building|anet-a6|power-supply|

<p>I understand that this is probably more of an electronics question, but was hoping that someone with experience of using an Anet A6 in the UK (or a country outside of the US/China) may be able to help... or alternatively, someone knowledgeable in electronics!</p> <p>I recently bought and assembled an Anet A6. I am based in the UK. On the power supply transformer of the Anet A6, there is a switch that allows you to select the input voltage from the mains. There are two options, 100&nbsp;V or 220&nbsp;V.</p> <p>When I turn my Anet A6 printer on, nothing happens... I have triple checked all connections and there doesn't seem to be anything wrongly connected or loose.</p> <p>I am wondering if the reason it is not working is because in the UK we use a different mains voltage 230&nbsp;V (I think) and a different frequency 50&nbsp;Hz (I think) to the US and China (which I assume the printer was built to accommodate)?... I am not 100&nbsp;% sure on this, just a guess, I am far from an electronics expert.</p> <p>I don't have a multimeter to test if there is voltage flowing (not that I would even know how to test it lol). Is it likely that this difference between voltage/freq is the reason that it is not working? If so, is there anyway to fix this? I would prefer to buy something (some sort of converter) than tinker with the electronics, as I have no experience in electronics and live in a rented flat, which I really don't want to burn down (not that I would if i owned it).</p> <p>Any help is massively appreciated, thanks in advance!</p> <hr> <p><strong>Update</strong> </p> <p>I have done what @Oscar suggested and also bought a multimeter to test the circuitry. I plugged my Anet A6 into the mains power supply and turned it on, but still nothing happens... the LED doesn't light up, not does the LCD screen turn on. </p> <p>I tested the voltage of the power supply whilst it was turned on across connections 6 and 8 in the video below (taken from the assembly instructions video, 12 mins 46 seconds):</p> <p><a href="https://youtu.be/mQzOHL_89nc?t=766" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Assembly Instructions Video, 12:46</a></p> <p>The 6 and 8 connections correspond to the output from the transformer (ie the connections that would be connected to the mainboard). There was no voltage reading at all when I measured it here with the multimeter. Does this indicate that there is a problem with the transformer/power supply, or is this expected? Or am I testing in the wrong place and there is a better place to test when the printer is on to determine what the problem might be?</p>

11722

Using an Anet A6 3D printer in the UK... (mains voltage issue!)

<p>@Oscar was correct, so long as the switch is set at 220 V, the printer will turn on. I am adding this answer to help anyone else who has a similar problem.</p> <p>I strongly recommend that you buy a multimeter if you have any power supply issues, as this helped me to figure out what was wrong.</p> <p>There were three issues that needed to be rectified before my printer would turn on. The first was that I had bought a fairly cheap EU to UK plug converter from my local supermarket. This was mistake number one, as the quality was low and there was no ground pin for the power supply (which is dangerous). I plugged the EU plug into my converter, and then the converter into the UK mains socket, and it would not turn on. By using my multimeter I was able to figure out that the converter was a piece of rubbish. With the plug still plugged into the converter, but the converter removed from the mains, I touched my multimeter cable, whilst in continuity mode, on one of the three pins on the UK side of the converter (the bit that goes into the wall), and the other cable onto one of the terminals that I had connected the power cable to the power supply with. I touched each terminal in sequence to see if it was electrically connected to the pin on the converter. I repeated this in sequence and identified that the live pin on the converter was not connected, and so no current could flow when plugged into mains. I immediately defenestrated the converter. Here is the replacement that I bought:</p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00QGYY5DC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EU to UK converter</a></p> <p>The next issue was that the power supply cable was wired up incorrectly (or at least unintuitively). In continuity mode again, I touched one multimeter cable to one pin on the EU plug of my power supply, and the other to one of the terminals (which were connected to the wiring of my power cable.) I discovered that the live and neutral wires of the power cable were wired the wrong way round on the plug (in order for it to be used in a UK converter, not sure what the wiring convention is on mainland EU). In the UK, the right hole in the mains socket is live, the left is neutral, and the top one is ground. On the EU plug I had been provided with, the left pin was live and the right pin was neutral. If I were to plug this in to the new converter in the normal orientation (cable coming out the bottom side), the live and neutral would have been connected incorrectly (plug-live -> converter-neutral, plug-neutral -> converter-live). Hence, in order for the pins to be situated correctly in the converter, and subsequently in the mains socket, the EU plug had to be plugged into the converter upside down (plug-live -> converter-live, plug-neutral -> converter-neutral). </p> <p><strong>Finally, the official instructions for the wiring of the Anet A6 are wrong.</strong> If you follow the youtube video that they provide, you will see that the positive terminal is closest to the bottom of the diagram (on the thermistor/endstop side of the board). <a href="https://youtu.be/mQzOHL_89nc?t=1530" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mainboard wiring instructions</a>. THIS IS INCORRECT. Check your board, as the polarity will be printed onto the board. If you wire up the mainboard according to the instructions, your V+ wire will go to the negative terminal of the mainboard and, your positive terminal will go to the COM wire of the power supply. This is wrong, as the positive terminal should be connected to the V+ wire, and the negative to COM.</p> <p>Hopefully this helps save someone some frustration and time!</p>

2020-01-08T18:07:39.557

|ultimaker-cura|

<p>I have made a temperature ⨉ fan speed tower which needed 3x9-1 ChangeAtZ post processing scripts and it took me quite much time to configure them all (and check it twice). Is there a way to save this, so that I wouldn't need to make them all again if something went wrong and I needed to start over or if I wanted to do something similar again ?</p>

11725

How to save the post processing scripts configuration with Cura?

<p>Thanks to fred_dot_u, I found the solution : the post processing scripts configuration is saved... in the printer profile. So, you cannot directly duplicate it, but re-installing a second occurrence of the same printer will clear the post processing scripts list, you can get them back by selecting the modified one...</p>

2020-01-11T03:21:19.340

|marlin|extruder|

<p>I've recently added a second hotend and extruder assembly to my 3D printer and I've made all the necessary changes in the firmware. I've defined the temp sensor for hotend 2, all the pins for heat and temp as well as defined extruders as 2 instead of 1. </p> <p>The problem is that the printer display in the motion menu is showing </p> <ul> <li>Extruder</li> <li>Extruder E1</li> <li>Extruder E2</li> </ul> <p>"Extruder" and "Extruder E1" both control the primary extruder and "Extruder 2" controls the second extruder. </p> <p>Any tips, ideas, suggestions?</p>

11738

Marlin firmware question for dual extruder

<p>There is nothing to worry about, this is a <a href="http://marlinfw.org/docs/features/lcd_menu.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">feature not a bug</a>.</p> <p><code>Extruder</code> refers to the active extruder, the <a href="https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#T:_Select_Tool" rel="nofollow noreferrer">loaded/active tool</a>. Based on the active extruder the <code>Extruder</code> controls either your <code>Extruder E1</code> (this is known in the firmware as <code>Extruder E0</code>!) or your <code>Extruder E2</code> (the <code>Extruder E1</code> from the firmware).</p>

2020-01-11T20:48:08.260

|build-plate|maintenance|cleaning|

<p>My printer came with a knock off BuildTak like build surface. What can I use to clean it? I don't want to damage it. </p>

11744

What should I use to clean buildtak(knock off)?

<p>For BuildTak, my first recommendation is isopropyl alcohol (aka rubbing alcohol or isopropanol). Readily available just about anywhere basic medical supplies are sold, it cuts though light oils and greases, and dissolves most common build surface adhesives like hairspray or Elmer's glue stick. In fact I often give my Ender's bed a light spray of isopropyl after an initial layer of hairspray, as the alcohol thins the hairspray a bit so I can take a plastic scraper and spread it around a little more evenly, before it sets to a very tacky initial surface that holds well.</p> <p>Depending on where you live, denatured alcohol aka methyated spirits might be easier to get, and this stuff also works well as a cleaner and degreaser. The methanol does a little better job at actually removing old build adhesive instead of just "reactivating" it, and it also seems to do a little better than isopropyl at releasing and capturing old print residues that didn't make it off the surface with the rest of the print.</p> <p>Be aware that both the liquid and the vapors of both of these are toxic, denatured alcohol a little more so than isopropanol. You should have plenty of ventilation through your workspace while using either one.</p> <p>For a deep clean, especially with a removable build surface, it's hard to beat a mild dish detergent and water, and a scrub with a Teflon-safe Scotch-Brite sponge (they're usually blue). A clean rinse, pat dry with a towel, then give it a spray of isopropanol to finish drying it and it's ready to go. This is more of a hassle and I don't recommend it as a quick between-prints cleaning, but it can bring a well-used bed surface right back to life when more volatile cleaning agents won't do it. </p> <p>Whether it's worth the frustration getting the plate properly rinsed (soap, being slippery, is not going to aid adhesion), versus just scraping the surface back off and putting a new one on, depends on how easy it is to bring the bed surface to the sink. My Ender's magnetic surface makes this much easier than a simple adhesive-backed surface right on the aluminum. By the same token it also makes the surface easier to replace, and they're not that expensive (so I highly recommend them if you like BuildTak), but \$12 is \$12, compared to 5 minutes in the sink with some Palmolive.</p>

2020-01-12T05:09:11.163

|openscad|fusion360|

<p>I want to create two piece labels for storage containers. The main piece would be the “badge” which would have text cut out of it (e.g. “Paint”, “Electrical” etc.). The second piece would be a positive of the text which is would be in a different colour, and would fit inside the cut out on the badge. Because of the tolerance of 3D printers, I need to make the insert slightly smaller than the cut out. Initially, I thought I could just scale the insert but that would affect the letter spacing. Then I thought it would work if I could somehow taper the letters so they are slightly smaller at the top than the bottom. So my question is, how I do that. I did the original in OpenScad but I would try Fusion360 if that’s a better solution. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks.</p>

11747

Creating a two part label for storage boxes

<p>You will need to run test prints to see how your printer behaves with your choice of filaments. Then you'll know how much narrower the letter-lines (not the letter dimensions) need to be to fit. </p> <p>The problem with that is one of making letters with narrow solid parts but without "shrinking" the open parts so that they fit into the badge receptacle regions. You can't just reduce the dimensions of the letters themselves. </p> <p>Other than what Trish's answer suggests, I'd recommend either using a very small nozzle diameter and setting a narrow linewidth to reduce the "over-dimensioning" effects. Even better would be to identify the letters separately from the badge but keep them as a single STL and use a two-color printer (twin extruders, etc) to make the badge in one run. </p>

2020-01-12T13:51:21.467

|slicing|

<p>I currently only have access to an old, 32 bit OS and need to slice a couple things. While there are a lot of slicers around, most popular ones, for example Ultimaker Cura 4, need to run on a 64 bit operation system.</p> <p>What somewhat recent (late 2018, 2019) options offering common abilities are there that run on older computers?</p>

11750

Slicer for 32 Bit Operating systems?

<p>You can try using <a href="https://www.c6.fabheads.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C6 Slicer software</a>, which is a Cloud-based one, no need of an application version. I think they are still in development phase, but still does give some good prints.</p>

2020-01-13T00:32:15.113

|ultimaker-cura|support-structures|anycubic-i3-mega|

<p>I have recently bought an Anycubic i3 Mega S 3D printer. I'm using the stock nozzle (.4&nbsp;mm) and I print with the plastic it came with (ABS). I'm using <code>Ultimaker 4.4.1</code>.</p> <p>When I print minis, I'm always having issues removing the support the slicer software adds to print the object. Most of the time, I end up breaking parts of my minis. I'm using the tools given with the box.</p> <p>How do I make this process easier ? I'm mostly interested in the settings linked with the support generation, but if there are other ways, I would like to know. </p> <p>Note that the minis are for DnD characters, thus printed objects are often not flat and contain multiple curves, which then creates support that are harder to remove, for example, in between the holder of the mini (the cylinder that holds the piece in a stand up position) and the legs.</p> <p>I usually print models found online for free, but from time to time I buy some models which contain a lot of details than the free counter parts. I don't mind loosing some of those details, as long as the mini is well printed (in short, I don't mind if the sheath of the sword falls off, but I do care if the arm falls off)</p>

11756

How to ease the process of removing support for miniatures

<p>Let's look at the factors that can help us get support parts printed and removed:</p> <ul> <li>access</li> <li>dimensions/size</li> <li>bonding</li> <li>debonding</li> </ul> <h2>access</h2> <p>Support structure has to be accessed to be removed. Tree support could help in this. An alternative would be soluable support, which is still accessible if buried deep in a part - as the solvent would be all that needs to access the part.</p> <h2>dimensions/size</h2> <p>Support structure needs to have some crossection to be printed at all. if it gets too small, it will fail to print and fail in supporting. You might alter the support angle to support even 40° or 30° surfaces to the vertical to forcefully increase the supported area and thus dimension of the support structure.</p> <h2>bonding (to bed)</h2> <p>To make sure the part and its supports don't shift from one another, it is best to print with a brim that makes sure all support trees and the base of the model all share a combined first layer.</p> <h2>debonding</h2> <p>Debonding means, we need to remove the support structure from the printed part. Ultimaker Cura allows to define a gap from support structure to the part, usually 2 layers. With these settings removing supports can be as easy as removing the brim and careful cleanup.</p> <h1>Other things</h1> <h2>No support?!</h2> <p>Some miniatures have lots of unsupported areas. For example <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1711097" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this knight</a> needs support at the hilt of the sword, the arm and the helmet overhang. <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3006182" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This dwarf</a> might need support at his dagger in the back and on the left arm (and was resin printed).</p> <p>However, with the proper design, there is sometimes no support needed. For example <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:144775" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this pirate</a> has no areas that need support for overhangs or free hanging areas.</p> <h2>Printing speed</h2> <p>Printing miniatures and intricate parts is hard. I have set up an older, small TronXY with a 0.2 mm nozzle just to print small and detailed items, usually engineering models. I print them <em>slower</em> than normal (ca 40 mm/s, 20 mm for the outer shell).</p>

2020-01-14T13:02:07.870

|extruder|bowden|

<p>I currently have a single extruder (direct drive) Tronxy X8.</p> <p>I am thinking about adding a second extruder, that I would use only occasionally. I really like the characteristics of the direct drive extruder, so I would not want to switch over to dual Bowden. Also adding the weight of a full second direct drive extruder for only occasional use does not seem useful.</p> <p>Is it possible to use a direct drive extruder as main extruder and a (possibly detachable) bowden extruder as secondary extruder?</p> <p>Is there anything in particular that I need to watch out for when mixing extruder types?</p>

11771

Adding a Bowden extruder to a direct drive setup

<p>I'm an amateur and I used dual extruder printers but never built any.</p> <p>It's probably a good idea, take care about the purge, retractions distances that may vary. On the filament feed side there shouldn't be interference from the different flexibility. Still it maybe good to place one reel on one side and the other on the opposite. </p> <p>Now the most complex thing is to make both nozzle not interfere. A technique is to rotate by few (like 5°) the dual setup to give few millimeter more to one of the two nozzles. If both heads are at the same height, you'll need to keep them hot, and avoid the passive one to leak. It would be good also (but not mandatory) to have a purge routine.</p>

2020-01-15T06:05:27.030

|marlin|electronics|repetier|serial-connection|

<p>I am wondering if it is possible to print with a 3D printer from an SD card and connect to a serial host at the same time. I want to use the Marlin <code>M118</code> serial print command to trigger custom functions running on a Raspberry Pi. The RPi would be connected to the printer over serial but would not be sending G-code. Is this possible?</p> <p>My printer is the Monoprice Mini Delta. It runs a Marlin based firmware and I can install standard Marlin on it if necessary.</p>

11775

Print from SD and connect to serial host at the same time

<p>This can be done, but you need to have the right order of operations. <a href="https://octoprint.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Octoprint</a> relies on such a setup. </p> <ul> <li>Set up the serial connection <strong>first</strong>, as sending the connect signal from your terminal or Raspberry to Marlin triggers the printer to reboot.</li> <li>After having the connection established, start the printjob either via the control buttons or the remote console (for example: Octoprint or Repetier Server, running on your Raspberry)</li> </ul> <p>Note that you have to make sure not to dis- and reconnect the raspberry during print, as that might trigger a reboot of the printer!</p>

2020-01-15T16:59:27.450

|marlin|creality-cr-10|

<p>I was just informed via a comment that the TH3D Unified firmware a version of Marlin that's no longer updated and considered obsolete (1.9.X in this case) and that, since I'm flashing my firmware to fix my default e-step settings, I might as well flash a non-obsolete firmware.</p> <p>However, something in the back of my mind is telling me that I can't use Marlin 2.0 because of some hardware limitation.</p> <p>I'm using the Creality CR-10S printer (with the Creality 2.0 board, I believe) which is an 8-bit CPU. What should I look out for before upgrading to Marlin 2.0?</p> <p><a href="http://marlinfw.org/docs/basics/install.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Marlin's Install website</a> suggests that 8-bit AVR printers can use it (flashing via Arduino IDE). SO I guess I'm double checking before I do something that could potentially brick my printer.</p>

11778

What precautions to take when flashing Marlin 2.0?

<p>It wasn't advised to use the version 2.x because it was in development for 32-bit micro processors. Now that it has been released as the official version, you can use it for 8-bit micro processors.</p> <p>But, it totally depends on the amount of options in Marlin you activate (bed leveling, advanced menu, <code>M5xx</code>, etc.). Luckily you can see how large the installation is after you have built it e.g. in PlatformIO. Also, in the configuration files frequently is mentioned how much extra storage activating an option costs (search for <code>PROGMEM</code> in the <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Marlin sources</a>). Unless you want all options active, you'll be fine. I'm running it on an AVR (MEGA2560) for a CoreXY with bed leveling and some more options; it runs fine.</p>

2020-01-16T05:55:41.613

|diy-3d-printer|2d|

<p>Say I wanted to print a plastic credit card like shape (like <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07193KG7G" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">these</a>), but with a QR code engraved. How could I do that for cheap? You can buy an "ID card printer" for $1,000-1,500 on Amazon, but that's way too much for printing one or two cards. Maybe down the road this would be a good option, but I kind of like the option of 3D printing the card from scratch, so the QR code bleeds halfway or all the way through the card, rather than just being printed on the surface. Is this possible for cheap? Maybe like <a href="https://www.library.ucsf.edu/news/3d-print-the-ultimate-business-card/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> but not as fancy. Mainly (I'm new to all this) I am wondering what machine would accomplish this for low price yet good quality, and what other equipment I would need.</p> <p>Basically, what printer is best for this type of task?</p>

11782

How to 3D print an ID card

<p>One option to create the tag you require can be accomplished with a single extruder and a bit of manual intervention.</p> <p>I've performed the sequence of steps from a <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1973570" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Thingiverse creation</a> that resulted in a box lid for a gift card box. It's a single layer of multiple colors placed on the print bed, then consolidated with a backing layer.</p> <p>For your card objective, the single layer provides the contrast and you can determine easily how thick you wish the remaining portion to print.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XhBlN.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XhBlN.jpg" alt="snowman box lid"></a></p> <p>The detail level is reasonably good, limited to the printer nozzle and specifications. A glass bed or similarly smooth surface bed will provide optimum results. As 0scar suggests, a 3D printer in the US$100-150 will likely suffice, but check reviews and forums for troublesome products of such a low price.</p>

2020-01-17T02:32:45.040

|troubleshooting|creality-cr-10|e3d-hemera|

<p>I've been trying to print anything for the past few days. Every time I go to print something the printer stops pushing plastic out and usually the motor makes a knocking sound.</p> <p>My original thought was that my E-steps were off (because they were) but I solved that and I still have a problem. Then I noticed that I was struggling with getting the PLA filament to feed into the nozzle. I assumed it was a clogged nozzle and possibly heat creep (because I was a dummy and used my old, bowden retraction settings on my new, direct extruder). I cleared out the clog and I'm able to feed plastic through after disengaging the idler arm. Though, I do struggle getting the filament into the nozzle. Maybe it's due to the Hemera's tight tolerances or due to a misalignment in the hot end, I'm not sure yet. Once I do get the plastic in, it quickly and easily pushes through and spits out of the nozzle so I think that my nozzle isn't clogged. I did do a cold pull the other day. </p> <p>But I've noticed that my extruder is making a knocking sound, as if someone was gently rapping on my chamber door. I also see that the gears move one step back and forth. It looks to me that the motor is stuck or frozen. I'm pretty sure that it's not skipping steps. The sound happens at varying heights and not just the first layer. The first time I noticed it, it was printing the cabin of Benchy. Z > 1 mm when I finally decided to ask this question. The sound is kind of loud, but that's most likely the resonance in the machine than a symptom, stating it nonetheless. </p> <h2>My setup:</h2> <ul> <li><strong>Printer:</strong> Creality CR-10S </li> <li><strong>Extruder:</strong> E3D Hemera </li> <li><strong>Nozzle temp:</strong> 205-220&nbsp;°C</li> <li><strong>Retraction:</strong> Initially 5&nbsp;mm at 40&nbsp;mm/s, then 0.3&nbsp;mm, then most recently none </li> <li><strong>Motor Vref:</strong> just north of 800&nbsp;mA. (I've read somewhere that the Hemera motor wants 800&nbsp;to 1000&nbsp;mA) </li> </ul> <p>I'm just not sure what could be wrong here. I feel like I checked all the steps and I'm just missing something. </p>

11787

Extruder motor making a knocking sound, nozzle is not clogged

<p>I have had the exact same problem on my Ender 3 Pro. I fixed it by adjusting the amount of pressure on the filament by the motor. I did replace the motor too for other problems.</p>

2020-01-17T20:02:42.850

|ultimaker-cura|slicing|

<p>I'm trying to print a part with thin walls. I've designed it with wall 1.2&nbsp;mm thick, so that I should get three 0.4&nbsp;mm lines. This works just fine for the straight lines, but for the radiused corners, Cura 4.3 insists on trying to print infill. This infill is only added where they are going at a tangent to the curve, so it alternates corners on alternate layers.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/y5ztw.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/y5ztw.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>Worse, it prints the segments entirely out of order, which adds lots of travel and hence print time.</p> <p>I've tried setting the infill to 100&nbsp;%, setting the wall thickness directly to 3 rather than the default 2. I've tried reducing the wall thickness by 0.2-0.3&nbsp;mm. I've tried a few other things too - all to no avail.</p> <p>Some layers it gets right: <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ylxFs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ylxFs.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a> So why can't it get them all right??</p> <p>I presume that this is probably caused by the fact that the curves are actually a series of straight segments, and so the centre gap between outer 0.4&nbsp;mm walls will not be exactly 0.4&nbsp;mm all the way round, but is there any way to just force Cura to print three lines all the way round? </p> <p>Now, I know that this will print OK, but the corners will obviously look messier than they need to, and this is not the first time I've come across this problem. I'd like to get this fixed.</p> <p>I have found a <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8416/ultimaker-cura-3-6-choosing-to-fill-in-narrow-walls-with-diagonal-striping">similar question</a>, but it's for an older version of Cura, and the recommended solution of 100&nbsp;% infill doesn't help. </p>

11793

How to slice thin curved wall

<p>Even though each path, in theory, is concentric around the center point of the arc, the pathing does not always work out that way - especially around corners and radii. </p> <p>While your 1.2mm walls <em>should</em> always allow for three 0.4mm paths, if the slicer rounds down the overall thickness to 1.19mm, it will not detect enough room for three 0.4mm paths - but three 0.39mm paths should still fit, even if the slicer determines the thinnest part to be 1.17 mm.</p>

2020-01-18T15:59:48.430

|adhesion|glass-bed|

<p>My Kossel Mini printer was working well. Recently I made some changes including replacing the nozzle and throat, adding a silicone heater cover. Now it has the problem of first layer adhesion. </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/CYVTs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/CYVTs.jpg" alt=""></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8QZhA.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8QZhA.jpg" alt=""></a></p> <p>The perimeter sticks well but the infill line swells upward in the middle, while start and end has no problem.</p> <p>In my experience the adhesion problem only occurs at corner but never in the middle. So I don't know what configuration needs to be changed to fix it.</p> <p>Delta calibration has been done before the print. PVP glue was used on the bed.</p>

11800

FDM printer first layer infill swell upward

<p>Had tried below and didn't work:</p> <ul> <li>Clean the bed</li> <li>Use a brand new glue stick</li> <li>Verify delta configuration and make sure z-plane is flat and parallel to bed </li> <li>Adjust z height to minimize the distance between nozzle and bed when z=0</li> <li>Increase first layer extrude width</li> </ul> <p>Printed again and watched carefully, then found that it was pull up because the printed PLA slice shrank. I realized that the problem was related to my change on the fan duct. Before, the fan blowed directly to the tip of nozzle; after changed it blows around. </p> <p>Tried to turn off the fan on first layer, the problem was solved. </p> <p>I suspect that the fan duct change made the extruded material not cooling down immediately. It shrank when the air blew on it. I need further test to verify it.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jLyeW.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jLyeW.jpg" alt=""></a></p>

2020-01-19T15:51:16.413

|troubleshooting|hotend|thermistor|anycubic-predator|

<p>I got an Anycubic Predator last month, and after resolving a few mechanical problems, I was able to get it printing decently well. The only significant modification I've made so far is a set of 8-diode TL Smoothers, and I'm now mostly operating it via Octoprint.</p> <p>However, during the last few prints, I've noticed the temperature dropping midway through the print. It warms up and cools down fine, but for some reason it's not able to sustain the temperature throughout the print.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HoRn1.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HoRn1.png" alt="temp graph"></a><br> In this case, the print started out at the correct temperature (200&nbsp;°C), held that temp for around 2 hours, then it dropped to a lower temp (174&nbsp;°C). It eventually went back up to the target temp, then dropped again 5 minutes later. I tried manually adjusting it to see if that could fix it, but no luck.</p> <p>After this print completed, I restarted it to show how it is easily able to reach the target temp and hold it at the <em>start</em> of the print:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmQlC.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cmQlC.png" alt="temp graph 2"></a></p> <p>Any tips on diagnosing and resolving this issue?</p>

11809

Hotend doesn't maintain temperature

<p>Based on your picture from Octoprint I can assume that you may have the wrong heater. Why? Because heating hotend to 215 takes quite a lot of time (3 minutes) in your case. If you have an appropriate heater it should take around 1 minute</p> <p>You need to check the resistance of the heater and then calculate the power based on voltage.</p> <p>Current = Voltage / measured resistance</p> <p>Power = Current * voltage</p> <p>For a good working hotend, you need to have at least a <strong>35 W to 40 W</strong> heater.</p> <p>Some shops sell 40 W heaters but these heaters are for 24 V systems, so in your case, if you have 12 V system it may be the case why the temperature drops because the heater will work like it has 10 W of power</p> <p>But even if you swap the heater, you need to be sure that your power supply/board will be able to deliver appropriate current without damaging itself - MOSFET/SSR (solid state relay) could be helpful sometimes.</p> <p>As someone mentioned in a different response it's good to have cooling protection like silicone socks or any other protection material.</p>

2020-01-21T15:38:33.657

|troubleshooting|creality-cr-10|e3d-v6|e3d-hemera|

<p>I tried printing a <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2939079" rel="nofollow noreferrer">"improved" calibration cube</a> and noticed that the printer was laying down dots instead of a solid line. This was right after switching out my extruder motor and tweaking retraction settings. I believe my first setting was 0.3&nbsp;mm, then I tried 0.1&nbsp;mm. I didn't get a picture of the first setting, but shown below is when retraction was set to 0.1&nbsp;mm. I think the print was at layer 3 roughly. The difference is 0.1&nbsp;mm had a higher frequency of dotting, ie more dots that were closer together.</p> <p>This was only present in the first couple of layers. The dots weren't occurring in the same spot so the picture shows dots overlapping each other making a sort of "twisted" or braided look. This also happened on both the x-axis movements and the right side of the y-axis movements. The rest of the cube came out relatively well.</p> <h2>Settings</h2> <ul> <li><strong>Printer:</strong> Creality CR-10S</li> <li><strong>Temp:</strong> 205&nbsp;°C at nozzle; 60&nbsp;°C on bed</li> <li><strong>Retraction:</strong> 0.3&nbsp;mm initially, 0.1&nbsp;mm (pictured)</li> <li><strong>Bed Distance:</strong> ~0.1&nbsp;mm</li> <li><strong>Nozzle Diameter:</strong> 0.4&nbsp;mm</li> <li><strong>Layer Height:</strong> 0.2&nbsp;mm. I usually do 0.4, but I was lazy with slicer presets (AstroPrint)</li> <li><strong>Hotend:</strong> e3D Hemera direct, e3D v6 heater and nozzle</li> <li><strong>Filament:</strong> Hatchbox PLA white</li> </ul> <p>I never saw this issue before on my printer nor have I seen it mentioned in various articles/videos online.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/usdSs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/usdSs.jpg" alt="Dotting when laying down initial layers"></a></p>

11827

Odd dotting when printing a line

<p>It's not about printing settings but only about the bed: the bed is too close to the nozzle.</p> <p>Maybe you adjusted it when it was cold, instead of doing it when it's already heated to the desired temperature and the nozzle is heated at about 180°C to get close to operating temperature without oozing.</p> <p>Or maybe you used a too thin paper sheet.</p>

2020-01-21T15:42:18.760

|hotend|nozzle|multi-material|diamond-hotend|

<p>I discovered <a href="https://www.reprap.me/diamond-fullcolor-nozzle.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">"diamond"</a> 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.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LZIXQ.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LZIXQ.jpg" alt="Diamond nozzle, 3-in 1-out"></a></p> <p>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.</p> <p>Are there hardened diamond nozzles, or equivalent systems which are lightweight and can avoid a second hot end, to print composite or abrasive materials?</p>

11828

Are there multi-filament hardened nozzles or equivalent systems?

<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZTMg.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/eZTMg.png" alt="Zonestar M3 mixing color hotend side view"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bQ83E.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bQ83E.png" alt="Zonestar M3 mixing color hotend front view"></a></p>

2020-01-21T17:27:01.070

|print-material|safety|legal|

<p>Which type of filament material(s) is safe to use as an in-wall box for regular, 120v wiring? For instance, an electrical outlet box.</p> <p>In case it matters, location is the state of Washington, USA.</p>

11829

What filament material is safe to use as in-wall housing (US)?

<h1>Safety is not the same as legality</h1> <p>Something might be perfectly safe, but it doesn't make it legal to do or allowed to use. Parking your car over double-yellow lines is one example that is perfectly safe but violates the traffic codes.</p> <p>Any 3D printed box would violate for example <a href="https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=296-46B-300" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WAC 296-46B-300</a>, as it isn't in compliance with NEC Class 3 Standard.</p> <blockquote> <p>(1) Cables and raceways for power limited, NEC Class 2 and Class 3 conductors must be installed in compliance with Chapter 3 NEC unless other methods are specifically required elsewhere in the NEC, chapter 19.28 RCW, or this chapter.</p> </blockquote> <p>The NEC is also known as NFPA 70, and availeable at the Website of the <a href="https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards?mode=code&amp;code=70&amp;tab=editions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">National Fire Protection Agency</a>. You will need to look in Article 725.3 for the exact, current specifications that a cable box would need to follow.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>725.3 Other Articles.</strong> Circuits and equipment shall comply with the articles or sections listed in 725.3(A) through (N). Only those sections of Article 300 referenced in this article shall apply to Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 circuits.</p> </blockquote> <p><em>Also</em> note, that mains wire work is usually regulated in how it has to be done and you might (in some areas) not even be allowed to do it yourself! Even if you may do it, it might be inadvisable to do so due to insurance reasons: non-professional wiring or non-standard parts can be usually excluded from coverage.</p>

2020-01-23T19:37:23.463

|cooling|flexible|tpu|

<p>I could have sworn I read somewhere that when printing with TPU to make sure the part cooling fan is blowing. But I just did a quick Googling and couldn't find anything stating such on Matter Hackers or All3dp.</p> <p>I currently don't have a part cooling fan attached (waiting for square nuts to come in). I've been able to get by printing PLA without the fan. I'm curious if this is going to be a major obstacle with TPU.</p>

11843

Part cooling fan on when printing TPU?

<p>Sharing fan percentages like in <a href="/a/11852/">this answer</a> is only helpful if you use the same printer model, cooling fan and cooling duct. As there are many 3D printers and many cooling fans, ducts and solutions, this cannot be readily adopted to every 3D printer.</p> <p>So, in such a case I would rely on the manufacturers of the filament e.g. the flexible filament I use has settings for different printers listed <a href="http://ngen-flex.colorfabb.com/how/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. TPU is not very prone to warping. The general rule for cooling of TPU is found to not use it for the first 2 layers and after that proceed with a moderate cooling flow. What that value is for your printer is left as an experiment. Several test/calibration print designs exist (e.g. for bridging) to test this out. It is said that a little cooling aids in better aesthetic prints (finer details) while less cooling results in stronger layer adhesion and thus stronger prints.</p>

2020-01-24T10:20:39.367

|marlin|bed-leveling|anet-a6|

<p>I have an Anet A6, an SN04 sensor for the Z-axis, and Marlin 1.1.x software that has automatic bed leveling enabled.</p> <p>My question is (looking at the image below): &quot;It seems my bed leveling is not working correctly. What can I do to improve it?&quot;</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/84jTC.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/84jTC.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p> <p>You can see several things below:</p> <ul> <li>I tried to use glue to make the first layer adhere better.. works only for small prints;</li> <li>the middle part of the print is being done quite okay;</li> <li>the outer part are either too low or too high.</li> </ul> <p>I used the following procedure to get my leveling &quot;right&quot;:</p> <p>First I set the z-offset with the <code>M851</code> command, followed by <code>M500</code>. Then I performed the bed leveling with <code>G29 T</code>, followed by <code>M500</code>. Then I started my print.</p> <p>Maybe I need more grid points for my bed leveling, even though I have this interpolation method on. Or do I need to check the implementation of the bed leveling, maybe something is just plain wrong in the software.</p> <p>What is your recommendation?</p> <p>Current bed level status (<code>M420 V</code>)</p> <pre> Send: M420 V Recv: Bilinear Leveling Grid: Recv: &emsp;&emsp;&emsp; 0 &emsp; &emsp; 1 &emsp; &emsp; 2 &emsp; &emsp; 3 &emsp; &emsp; 4 &emsp; &emsp; 5 Recv: 0 +0.709 +0.609 +0.519 +0.456 +0.448 +0.404 Recv: 1 +0.525 +0.440 +0.370 +0.325 +0.304 +0.298 Recv: 2 +0.368 +0.282 +0.222 +0.177 +0.189 +0.182 Recv: 3 +0.221 +0.152 +0.100 +0.055 +0.069 +0.082 Recv: 4 +0.086 +0.020 -0.028 -0.060 -0.050 -0.020 Recv: 5 -0.027 -0.093 -0.138 -0.187 -0.163 -0.146 </pre>

11844

Anet A6, Marlin 1.1.x, bed leveling with sensor probe

<p>Eventually it was a mixture of things that sort of solved this.</p> <ul> <li>Setting the Z-offset a bit more tight helped some</li> <li>Probing with more gridpoints helped</li> <li>Instead of using glue, I used painterstape. Way easier to refresh and easier to take prints off. I wanted to try kapton tape, but painterstape was good enough for now.</li> <li>Manually leveling the bed to a better position also helped.</li> <li>(After edit) recalibrating my two z-axis motors.</li> </ul> <p>In the end, I think my bed has become a bit curved over time. So a final solution would be to print on a glass bed, but that was not really an option when using the SN04 sensor. I am moving now to a BLTouch sensor + glass bed to make everything perfect again.</p> <p>EDIT: important note, I also put off bed heating. Since I am working with PLA, it was not really necessary. Doing this allowed me to use painterstape, otherwise it would 'fall off' eventually.</p> <p>EDIT2: I think I have thought of a better explanation. I am using an Anet A6 and it might be because the x-axis was not parallel to the plate. Meaning that my two z-axis stepper motors were not calibrated properly.</p>

2020-01-24T21:16:54.593

|troubleshooting|monoprice-maker-select|

<p>I am an absolute beginner having issues with my Monoprice Maker select v2 printer. The left half of my prints look fine but the right half always gets messed up. When I watch it print the right half of an object it seems that the PLA isn't sticking even though I level the bed thoroughly beforehand. I don't think the problem is that the right half of my board is not sticky enough, because when I move the print so that the whole thing prints on the left half of the bed the problem persists.</p> <p>I have attatched a photo to show what I am talking about. Any help is appreciated</p> <p>Edit: I'm using inland pla. The extruder is at 220° and the bed temp is 60° <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PpBtK.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PpBtK.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

11850

My printer is making mistakes on the right half of the print, but not the left

<p>I found the problem. This model of printer Monoprice Select v2 has bed warping issues so when the bed heated up it would warp severely. I bought a glass bed and all my problems were solved. </p>

2020-01-24T22:20:01.610

|marlin|heated-bed|troubleshooting|firmware|hardware|

<h2>Configuration</h2> <ul> <li>Printrun/Pronterface </li> <li>Slic3r 1.3.0</li> <li>Windows 10</li> <li>Arduino Mega + RAMPS 1.4 </li> <li>Marlin 1.1.9</li> <li>Prusa i3 -- Hephestos BQ with following modifications: <ul> <li>450W PSU (230V to 12V)</li> <li>heatbed</li> <li>3D touch</li> <li>led stripe</li> <li>ps_on with relay on the PSU</li> </ul></li> </ul> <h2>Issue conditions</h2> <p>I was printing fine until something happened, do not know what. What I can tell is I can reach any bed temperature with Pronterface, and for any duration. (my little 450&nbsp;W PSU provides enough power for my needs, like 60, 70 or 80 °C, a bit hard for 85 °C though)</p> <p>But as soon as start the print (when the temperature is already ready extruder and bed -- and as I always did), the motors move the extruder in the bed center and then I get the following error :</p> <pre><code>Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0 [ERROR] Error:Heating failed, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0 Error:Printer halted. kill() called! [ERROR] Error:Printer halted. kill() called! </code></pre> <p>If I check the temperature with <code>M105 ; temp report</code>, the printer gives me:</p> <ul> <li>before I press the "start print" button >> <code>T:245/245 , B:80/80</code></li> <li>after I press the "start print" button >> <code>T:245/245, B:80/0</code></li> </ul> <p><strong><em>so bed temp command is fine.....until I start the print</em></strong></p> <h2>Temp command set to 0</h2> <p>What causes the printer to be halted is a huge temp difference between command and sensor. In the provided <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/guidugast/Share/3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/11851/low_temp_test.gcode" rel="nofollow noreferrer">G-code</a>, the bed temp was lowered to 30 °C, which helps :</p> <ul> <li>running the test faster</li> <li>this shows that the problem is still going on (bed temp command to 0 °C)</li> <li>I can "print" (move the nozzle without error but the PETG won't stick to the bed) and I don't get temp error.</li> </ul> <p>See the full log <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/guidugast/Share/3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/11851/low_temp_test.log" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p> <p><strong><em>So, what does cause the bed temp command to get to 0?</em></strong></p> <h2>Not from G-CODE</h2> <p>I checked in the G-code, and there is no <code>M140 *0</code> nor <code>M190 *0</code> until the end of the G-code, and I'm sure the problem is not comming from the slice/G-code because I ran some previously successfully run G-code/config and they fail the same.</p> <h2>Not COM related</h2> <p>I ran the same gcode on sd card (to see if the USB was involved), but the behavior is the same: as soon as the bed temp is reached and print started, the bed temp command is set to 0 (I can see command on LCD screen).</p> <h2>Hardware related?</h2> <p>I did not change the firmware, and print were going fine, before the printer was doing this, so I guess the root cause is Hardware.</p> <h2>Firmware involved</h2> <p>Because of the "0 °C command", the firmware react to something but I could not understand what is happening here.</p> <p>when checking the firmware code, the only reasons why bed temp is set to 0 when print is running without asking for it would be </p> <ul> <li><code>gcode_M140()</code>/<code>gcode_M190()</code>: it could be bad interpretation of ascii command.</li> <li><code>_lcd_preheat()</code> ?</li> <li><code>PID_autotune()</code> : PID algo error?</li> <li><code>ABORT_ON_ENDSTOP_HIT_FEATURE_ENABLED</code> : maybe but it would also put the extruder temp command to 0</li> </ul> <p>nothing that would really explain this...</p> <p>Any hints?</p>

11851

Bed temperature command going to 0 °C with no obvious reason when print is started

<p>I tried, by <strong>instrumenting code</strong>, to know <strong>where/when</strong> the temp bed is modified.</p> <p>I found that it is called in the <strong>gcode M81</strong> when starting the print.</p> <p>Wait M81? isn't it M80 to switch on the PSU?</p> <p>What I did in fact was both <strong>wiring this up side down and mixing M80 with M81</strong>.</p> <p>But what I didn't know is that M80 and M81 <strong>are not</strong> strictly opposite functions.</p> <p>Indeed, M81 puts the <code>PS_ON</code> signal to <code>PS_ASLEEP != PS_AWAKE</code> but also <strong>disable all heaters</strong>. I couldn't see it without serial trace because the extruder temp is set back after the M81, but not the bed temp.</p> <p>Problem solved.</p> <p>Hope this can help people in the future to spend less time than me on that simple mistake.</p> <p><strong>Note:</strong> What remains a mystery, though, is: why was it working before on previous prints and then, suddenly, broke?!!</p>

2020-01-26T18:51:09.153

|pla|creality-ender-3|warping|

<p>I'm printing flat objects (like rectangular) with PLA on a glass bed and 70 celcius degrees (also tried 75 celcius too, 65 celcius and lower ends with adhesion problem in general). Also I use brims too. Most of the time, after a while it shrinks and warps (when print continues).</p> <p>Room temperature is steady, there is no airflow to cool down things..</p> <p>I tried to slow down to 20mm/sec. I tried to increase heat for first layer... Nothing helps. </p> <p>I am suspicious about moisture of the filaments. Can it be related?</p>

11857

Does moisture cause warping?

<p>Warping is caused by the plastic shrinking as it cools and inadequate bed adhesion is usually the what lets it warp. Either cleaning your print surface very thoroughly with rubbing alcohol or using something like a glue stick on your print bed will mitigate that warping enough that you won't suffer problems with your print. Printing too hot can also be a problem because the plastic will need to even cool more after it is extruded and could possibly lead to more stresses buildup in the plastic.</p> <p>The dimensional stability of PLA really depends on the quality of the plastic. Storage conditions come into play as well, but it is mostly the quality of the material you need to worry about; I have some cheaper PLA that has gotten brittle due to having absorbed moisture despite being in a (albeit somewhat loosely closed) package with desiccants, and I also have a different brand of PLA that is of much higher quality that I just leave out in the open; this PLA doesn't exibit signs of moisture damage. Higher quality filaments are designed to resist moisture better and be more stable in terms of dimensions. With the cheaper brand of PLA, I have also experienced warping, but that is not due to moisture in the filament; that was actually from a new roll.</p> <p>When a filament absorbs too much moisture, it can become brittle but still print. Excessive moisture will cause any water in the filament to vaporize when passing through the hotend and form bubbles that will ruin the finish quality of a print. You'll know if filament is excessively wet because you will hear quiet and sharp snapping sounds as the result of the bubbles that are formed in the plastic popping. You will also be able to see steam if you examine your hotend with a bright light as it is extruding.</p> <p>I'd suggest trying a different brand of filament if possible, cleaning the print surface / adding glue, or at the very least, a new roll of filament.</p> <p><em>(When using a glue stick to increase first layer adhesion, it could be worth noting something unusual I found; adding glue to the build plate of a Prusa i3 MK3S actually reduces bed adhesion in my experience. It might be worth playing around to see if super clean works for you, or if super sticky does. The build plate is coated in a very finely textured PEI if that is some information that could help your case.)</em> </p>

2020-01-26T19:17:13.773

|marlin|creality-ender-5|

<p>This is my first time asking for some help on here and I have Googled, but only found a few reference to this issue. I know I am doing something dumb but I have no clue what it is. </p> <p>I get an unknown motherboard error every time I try to setup my MKS GEN L. At first I found that in the <code>boards.h</code> file there was no reference to this board and the <code>pins.h</code> file was not there either. I have added both of these in and still nothing. I have checked the <code>configuration.h</code> and as far as I can tell I cannot find the error. </p> <p>I have tried this in 1.1.9 and 2.x of marlin and get the same error.</p> <p>The message is:</p> <pre> Arduino: 1.8.9 (Windows 10), Board: "Arduino Mega or Mega 2560, ATmega2560 (Mega 2560)" In file included from sketch\MarlinConfig.h:33:0, from C:\Users\name\OneDrive\Desktop\Ender 5 1.1.61 version (1)\Ender 5 1.1.61 version\Marlin\Marlin.ino:31: pins.h:235:4: error: #error "Unknown MOTHERBOARD value set in Configuration.h" #error "Unknown MOTHERBOARD value set in Configuration.h" ^~~~~ In file included from sketch\MarlinConfig.h:39:0, from C:\Users\jcgra\OneDrive\Desktop\Ender 5 1.1.61 version (1)\Ender 5 1.1.61 version\Marlin\Marlin.ino:31: SanityCheck.h:311:6: error: #error "BABYSTEP_ZPROBE_OFFSET requires a probe." #error "BABYSTEP_ZPROBE_OFFSET requires a probe." ^~~~~ SanityCheck.h:624:8: error: #error "Z_MIN_PROBE_USES_Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_PIN requires the Z_MIN_PIN to be defined." #error "Z_MIN_PROBE_USES_Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_PIN requires the Z_MIN_PIN to be defined." ^~~~~ SanityCheck.h:909:4: error: #error "HEATER_0_PIN not defined for this board." #error "HEATER_0_PIN not defined for this board." ^~~~~ exit status 1 #error "Unknown MOTHERBOARD value set in Configuration.h" This report would have more information with "Show verbose output during compilation" option enabled in File -> Preferences. </pre> <p>My config file is as follows <a href="https://gist.github.com/cripto101/9e9e36f509352ab19033beb189e166d7" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Config.h</a>.</p> <p>Please let me know if there is anything else you might need to help with this matter and thank you for your time and attention.</p>

11859

MKS GEN L unknown motherboard error

<p>As explained in the <a href="/a/11866/">answer by @towe</a>, you are using an older version of the configuration file, it appears that you aren't using the latest sources from the 1.1.x and the 2.0.x trees.</p> <p>In addition to the answer, the MKS GEN L is basically a RAMPS board with RAMPS pin layout except for a few pins. The board is defined in both <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/blob/1.1.x/Marlin/pins_MKS_GEN_L.h" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1.1.9</a> and <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/blob/2.0.x/Marlin/src/pins/ramps/pins_MKS_GEN_L.h" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2.0.x</a> (if you scroll down you see that it includes the pin definition for a RAMPS layout: #include "pins_RAMPS.h"). This being said, you could get it to work in pre 1.1.7 release of Marlin if you must. Choosing a RAMPS board for <code>MOTHERBOARD</code> constant and overriding/defining <code>MOSFET_D_PIN</code> to 7, <code>X_CS_PIN</code> to 59 and <code>X_CS_PIN</code> to 63 will make the firmware work. But, it is advised to get the latest version, even Marlin 2.0.x will run fine on Arduino Mega 2560 based boards.</p>

2020-01-27T18:00:24.510

|creality-ender-3|bed-leveling|

<p>What is the thread pitch of the Ender 3's bed leveling screws? The diameter measures about 4mm. Are they M4 0.7 (coarse) pitch or 0.5 (fine) pitch? I'd like to develop rigorous formulas for the amount to turn the knobs by after measuring (or visually inspecting, since I can see an accurate 0.2 mm first layer decently well) leveling-test patterns in the corners rather than using a closed-loop tune-and-retry approach.</p>

11875

Thread pitch of Ender 3 bed leveling screws

<p>Just as Andrew, I did run a quick test to measure it: on my corner closest to &lt;0,0,0>, a little stud is poking out. <em>Just</em> enough to screw on a threadcutter I know without any cutting happening:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/W4fWc.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/W4fWc.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/7jWyf.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/7jWyf.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>Indeed, it is <strong>M4x0.7</strong>, aka coarse thread.</p>

2020-01-28T20:12:15.427

|octoprint|lulzbot|serial-connection|

<p>We have a Lulzbot Mini at my office (i.e. it's not my personal printer). It's connected to an OctoPi and I've been able to get just one file to print on it (which I had to cancel due to leveling issues). Others have used it successfully in the past.</p> <p>However, right now, every time I try to connect to it through OctoPrint, I just get gibberish back:</p> <pre><code>Connecting to: /dev/ttyACM0 Changing monitoring state from "Offline" to "Opening serial port" Connected to: Serial&lt;id=0x6f830510, open=True&gt;(port='/dev/ttyACM0', baudrate=115200, bytesize=8, parity='N', stopbits=1, timeout=10.0, xonxoff=False, rtscts=False, dsrdtr=False), starting monitor Changing monitoring state from "Opening serial port" to "Connecting" Send: N0 M110 N0*125 Send: N0 M110 N0*125 Recv: �Np|\x04n6H\x15\x06' Recv: \x10ONv�HO Recv: J%�i�h�ON,=\x0c\x14\x07�|i�Mx86B~1~\x04g\x1a\x1e�HO Recv: J%P|H~\x03�^�-\x08n6�M�w��K�' Recv: \x08�^�;V7JO\x1e\x0b�\x08\�H^�Kqp|\x08\x13\x08H\x08\x04P|"]+X{\x16�\x08nl�P&lt;\x08\x14\x08]�x� Recv: �J�X�\x1a�H3H6F�J�J%�J/H\x08^�I\x08ZY\x08\x07:&amp;h\x0f^\x17�}�$p|\x08\x14 Recv: ^HJ�J�\x08�J\x1b�*':f\x18�k\x1e&gt;H]�Zf�J�Z�J�%\x08^\x08W�X�\x1a�\x0b\x1e\x1eH]�Z�Kq?N!KP�.N!Kka�.a\x0b' Recv: �J�J�JH�I�JHJP|@_a\x13�\x16�/m\x7f\x1fy�\x16=�6\x1b�VO6�=�6\x1b�f&gt;�K7f\x7f�K{f&gt;�K\x1bf��+'J�z�J\x08@�\x08�J%�\x18%�(�J\x17� Recv: \x07 Recv: �M! Recv: gJ�j�I�j\x08N�x�\x1a\x7fB �\x0b]F�J�J�x� Recv: V Recv: o\x16�F�J�Z�j\x0c.�\x08%�\x05\x07J�j�5�\x18HJ�J�X�*�\F]{L$P&lt;\x08�\x08~5Ip|\x04}&amp;@\x1faF�J�J�If�\x1a33l\x7f�N\x0bYp|\x088 No answer from the printer within the connection timeout, trying another hello Send: N0 M110 N0*125 There was a timeout while trying to connect to the printer Changing monitoring state from "Connecting" to "Offline" Connection closed, closing down monitor </code></pre> <p>The only thing I can think of right now is refreshing the firmware, but before I do that, I figured I'd ask here. Does any one know what this gibberish is and how I can restore this printer to regular operation?</p>

11889

OctoPrint Unable to Connect to Lulzbot Mini

<p>If the printer returns gibberish, the Baud rate of the connection is incorrect. You are using 115200 in the example above. For older Mini firmwares, it should indeed be 115200. For the newer 1.1.5.xx builds, it should be 250000.</p>

2020-01-29T12:54:17.590

|3d-design|support-structures|stl|blender|

<p>I created an stl file of bathymetry using Matlab and the results can be seen in the two pictures below in Blender. The problem I have is that it is very thin with overhangs. I would like to add some kind of support. For example put a solid block underneath it like in the third picture.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/p0gUZ.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/p0gUZ.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wjh7G.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wjh7G.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/gZWJX.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/gZWJX.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>I can't seem to figure out how to do this in Blender and if I try to fix the stl file in Blender it puts a surface through my original surface. I also tried to use Microsoft 3D printing repair but it takes hours to queue. How to I change my stl file so it has enough support to be printed?</p>

11898

creating support for a surface

<p>You generated a simple surface. You do however need a closed body to print. You might get away with using that surface as a cutter for a block and removing the top half, but there is an easier way using blender:</p> <ul> <li>Select the whole ara with <code>A</code></li> <li>Extrude with <code>E</code> then <code>Z</code> to constrain direction</li> <li>pull until you have an item that is fully thick everywhere</li> <li>Scale the currently selected, extruded vertices with <code>S</code> then <code>Z</code> then <code>0</code> to force them all into the same plane</li> <li>possibly move the vertices down till they all are below the bottom surface</li> </ul> <p>Now you have a positive thickness, solid body! Run a simple "remove double vertices" on this bottom if you want to reduce file size, but there you go! Export as STL and print!</p>

2020-02-03T11:28:02.260

|nozzle|

<p>Lately I noticed that there is a new type of nozzles (called airbrush nozzles?!?) available; typically found on those online overseas vendor sites. The nozzles are advertised for usage in E3D hardware, but are not found amongst the <a href="https://e3d-online.com/nozzles-for-3d-printer" rel="noreferrer">E3D genuine nozzles</a>.</p> <p>These nozzles look like this:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/OH4O2.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/OH4O2.png" alt="Airbrush nozzle"></a></p> <p></p> <p>What are the basic physics principles or what is the engineering relevance for application of airbrush nozzles? (Gimmick or actual product improvement?)</p>

11946

Is there an engineering/physics foundation for application of airbrush nozzles?

<p>An obvious drawback is the lack of a flat surface around the opening, resulting in a severe limitation of the extrusion width to exactly the nozzle width (plus some percent). This nozzle cannot efficiently push the filament against the nearby perimeters because it cannot constrain its height and it cannot flatten the top of the already extruded one. So layer adhesion may not be a big problem, but perimeter-to-perimeter likely is.</p> <p>Also, the thinner wall and extended length will reduce the filament temperature, however I don't know whether a simple compensation would do, since cooling will depend on filament speed and travel speed.</p> <p>Regarding the cooling, you can check also the original designer's <a href="https://well-engineered.net/index.php/en/46-small-smaller-airbrush-nozzle" rel="nofollow noreferrer">goal</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>A big problem with small. hot and slow prints is the heat radiation of the hotend and nozzle itself. To get as little as possible heat into the print, the nozzle needs to be as long and pointy as possible. The longer the nozzle, the bigger the distance between heater block and the print. And the more pointy it is, the less heat radiation can affect the print. A nice side benefit: the cooling fan can blow better onto the print and "around" the nozzle.</p> </blockquote>

2020-02-05T03:33:12.253

|print-quality|ultimaker-cura|creality-ender-3|

<p>I just started 3D printing a few weeks ago, so I'm still trying to get a handle on the tricks. I printed something with a flat surface and a few raised pieces (shown below). I'm pretty happy with the surface quality overall; however, in the locations where the print head came back for it's second pass the quality is worse. Is there any way to fix this? I'm assuming it's a slicer issue...</p> <p>Using Ultimaker Cura 4.4 &amp; Ender 3 Pro</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mx5Kq.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mx5Kq.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

11951

Poor surface quality when sweep interrupted

<p>It looks to me like you have underextrusion in these regions probably due to loss (oozing) of material during travel moves prior to printing them. Aside from small gaps in the surface sweep at the part you're talking about, I see a long slightly-diagonal light-gray line between the middle of the right and the middle of the bottom of your image, which appears to be material that oozed during combing.</p> <p>Make sure you have retraction enabled, have sufficient retraction (at least 6 mm for bowden; somewhat less for direct-drive) and either disable combining or set max combing distance very small (like 1.5x nozzle width) and see if this helps.</p>

2020-02-05T11:40:25.890

|post-processing|petg|glue|

<p>In analogy to: <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/q/6723/4762">What glues for bonding printed PLA to injection-molded plastic?</a>, what are the best glues to use for PETG?</p> <p>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?</p> <p>Knowing that PETG is more &quot;greasy&quot; than PLA, what typical glues can you use to create a good bond; this question excludes using heat to (re-)bond.</p>

11953

What glues to use for PETG?

<p>A strong epoxy like BSI 5-15 min works great for me. I use it to bond high power rocket fin halves printed from PETG:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cMUsv.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cMUsv.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>

2020-02-05T16:37:30.527

|g-code|file-formats|algorithm|

<p>I am developing an <a href="https://github.com/Stypox/image-to-gcode" rel="nofollow noreferrer">image to gcode program</a>, that would recognize edges and generate corresponding G-code to be sent to a plotter. I was able to detect edges using the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobel_operator" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sobel operator</a>; then the edges are converted to an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph" rel="nofollow noreferrer">undirected graph</a> using a search heuristic of my creation. Converting a graph to functional gcode is not difficult: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth-first_search" rel="nofollow noreferrer">depth first search</a> does the job. The issue is that using this method the generated paths for the plotter are far from optimal, since they contain many movements that could be removed or shortened just by printing paths in a different order. This can be seen clearly in the images below.</p> <p>Is there an <strong>algorithm that can convert an undirected graph to optimal G-code paths</strong>? Otherwise, if there are none or the problem is NP complete, what heuristics can be used to generate almost-optimal gcode (e.g. the ones used in programs such as Inkscape)?</p> <p>The graph on the left is converted to the gcode on the right using depth first search on the connected component of the graph. The white and red lines represent, respectively, the visible writes and the invisible movements of the plotter. The G-code can be found <a href="https://github.com/Stypox/image-to-gcode/blob/master/graph.nc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/iWVqxm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/iWVqxm.png" alt="An example undirected graph, rendered by graphviz"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qLFq3m.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qLFq3m.png" alt="The corresponding gcode, rendered by https://nraynaud.github.io/webgcode/"></a></p>

11956

Converting an undirected graph to optimal G-code paths

<p>Quote of comment of <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/11956/converting-an-undirected-graph-to-optimal-g-code-paths#comment21885_11956">R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE</a> on question reads: </p> <blockquote> <p>Pretty sure it is NP-complete (equivalent to travelling salesman problem), no? – </p> </blockquote> <p>This is correct; this is route optimization at its purest, and is by no means a new problem. You want to travel the shortest total distance between all vertices of what's essentially a totally-interconnected graph; there are no inherent limitations on going from anywhere, to anywhere. The TSP is the general-case statement of this problem, which your problem specializes only slightly by predefining certain movements along edges as being required in the final path (but those edges can be traversed in either direction and in any order.</p> <p>What makes this complex on its face is the sheer number of possibilities that an exhaustive solution to the TSP like Held-Karp has to evaluate. You have no real constraints regarding which points to travel between; you can go from anywhere, to anywhere. Only a relatively small number of edges (your extrusion lines) are known requisites, and those can theoretically be traced in any order.</p> <p>If I'm reading your graph right, you start near the top center, then go to the top left, then to the s-curve, then you jump to the main shape and start traversing it from the "right arm", turning downward through the "body" and "left foot" of the central shape, then up to the "right hip", through that leg to the foot, then back up to the "left shoulder", through that "arm", etc.</p> <p>If I have that right, then you definitely have "endpoint detection", where you are identifying points in the graph that are part of only one line segment (and therefore will require a travel move to get to or from them), and are planning travel moves to and from those points. Very smart. I would be interested in knowing exactly how you choose the next one to travel to. Obviously the closest endpoint of an undrawn line is a natural choice, but your algorithm doesn't seem to be doing that. Right from the off it chooses a relatively further point to extrude and then comes back to the rest of the shape. That actually seems to be the most efficient move in the overall graph, because if you don't get it early you will very likely make a big move to get back to it later, but making that decision in a non-exhaustive way doesn't seem intuitive.</p> <p>Anyway, your algorithm was doing pretty well at path choice, up until it finished drawing the "right leg". The most efficient move from there would be to go to the bottom of the "Y" looking shape to the right of the main figure and trace through that. When that's done, the closest undrawn line segment will be back at the left shoulder of the main figure, which will lead you to the small dots, and you'll end in this region with relatively small travel moves. Overall, I think that a "closest remaining endpoint" strategy would be near-optimal at every turn; when you reach the end of a drawn line, look for the endpoint that is closest to your current location. It would make most of the decisions your existing algorithm does, and a few better ones. It's not <em>always</em> the best choice (case in point, the dot at the upper left, which is never closest to the end of any other move and so will be ignored until it's the last one left) but more often than not it is.</p> <p>My programmer savvy says you also have some recursive intersection tracing ("tree-walking"); the algorithm sees that there are multiple paths to draw from a single point, remembers that point and then picks a path. When it reaches an end of a chain of extruded lines, it goes back to the most recently-encountered intersection, re-evaluates available paths, and picks the next one until all paths from that intersection are drawn. Then you skip back to the previous intersection, and so on in a recursive LIFO fashion.</p> <p>While that's also generally a smart way to approach it, it makes a couple obviously inefficient moves, such as from the "right foot" of the main figure back to the "shoulder" (which is the most recent intersection visited but not fully drawn by that point). The more efficient move is simply the closest remaining endpoint, the bottom of the wonky-looking Y to the right of the main figure.</p> <p>How you choose intersection paths to prioritize is also key. In general, taking the route that will lead you to the closest intersection or endpoint will reduce the possible backtracking you have to do. However your algorithm seems to prefer the longest path from a fork (or the one with the most forks along it) and that turns out not to be a terrible way to do it in this particular graph.</p> <p>Now, having drawn the "left arm" of the main figure, it is totally beyond me why your algorithm chose to cross the graph to draw the wonky Y, then cross back over to the left side. That is by far the least efficient move it makes and the one you're probably pointing to yourself. The most efficient path from the end of the left arm of the main figure given what's left to draw is straight-up closest-endpoint, filling in dots and lines on the left side, then making one move across the graph to the wonky Y. Closest-endpoint would actually have already filled in that Y as covered earlier, and you'd end your graph traversal in the left region of dots and small lines. You may have one or maybe two relatively inefficient moves between corners of this region on the left of the graph depending on the closest point calculation, but those are minor compared to the moves made across the graph. If your algorithm is producing deterministic results for this graph, I'd debug it and step through to that point, and figure out why on Earth it thought that sequence was preferable. Optimizing that decision may very well be the key to a near-optimal overall graph-walking strategy.</p>

2020-02-06T19:45:33.203

|print-quality|petg|glass-bed|qidi-tech-x-plus|

<p>I'm printing with opaque grey PETG on glass. The intention is to produce a house number plate, so a shiny, production quality finish on the bottom. For this reason, extruding at 245&nbsp;°C with a bed at 95&nbsp;°C, to give a perfect glass finish with no filament lines showing. Smaller test versions have been very promising; this seems to be the maximum temperatures before warping or a severe elephant's foot arises.</p> <p>However when printing the full-scale version, areas of the first layer of filament seem to go completely "transparent"; there seems to be filament there - you can feel the filament "comb" when you run your finger over it, and it feels a similar thickness to its neighbours.</p> <p>On the attached photo you might think that those gaps are simply not printed yet, however you can see on the top right corner that it's actually started on the next layer.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/JYOVA.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/JYOVA.jpg" alt="print"></a></p> <p>What could be causing this? Is it a blockage which is interrupting flow, and maybe insufficient filament is being "stretched out"? Or maybe it could be something to do with temperature? Could it be insufficient layer height (I'm using 0.2&nbsp;mm, but 0.24&nbsp;mm on first layer, increasing further reveals filament lines, but tested higher and lower on smaller scale with success).</p> <p>I've tested a range of extrude and temperatures and chosen the temps with the best results; but when I "go large" this always seems to happen. I've also calibrated the bed height using the 3 point adjustment screws on this printer (Qidi X-Plus). (The transparent areas are actually occuring in the center where the smaller test prints where working perfectly, so don't know how it could be to do with this). </p>

11967

Why could my opaque PETG be printing "transparent" in certain places?

<p>there are a lot of variable at play here, when are there not in the 3D printing world. Given that I don’t know the answer to your question although very interested to learn how you solve it eventually I will mention the things you can do ,maybe you have to eliminate or identify what parameter is the fault cause.</p> <p>Things I would eliminate - 1 bed temperature discrepancies - move the origin cycle of the print or rotate it to see that the problems are physical rather than software. If the faults occur at the same place on a reoriented print then I would say you can eliminate nozzle and bed temps as well as material inconsistency.</p> <p>May also be worth trying the print from a different complier I often find a piece prints differently and there fore better from this or that printer app.</p> <p>2 could cooling be the issue? What if you hold a heat gun on the extruded parts to slow down cooling I have done this on tricky parts to get better binding, could be similar issue.</p> <p>3 print a raft or test piece and see what happens to transparency with heat - if the material properties change as a result of temperature you could investigate why the temp is changing at the points in the print that are relevant -</p> <p>Not sure that these ideas are that original but the fewer variable you need to consider the faster you will work out what to do about the rouge one </p> <p>Regards</p>

2020-02-07T00:05:10.707

|hotend|speed|e3d-volcano|

<p>The e3D volcano features an extended heater block of length 20&nbsp;mm with the cartridge heater running parallel to the filament.</p> <p>The purpose of this is to increase the speeds at which filament can be printed (of course the extruder and other factors may still be limiting factors).</p> <p>My question is how capable would this heat block be of printing at slow speeds with a 0.4&nbsp;mm nozzle?</p> <p>Is printing still possible at lower speeds or is the filament heated too much that jams occur? Is the retraction performance okay?</p>

11968

Can you print at low speeds with e3D Volcano hot end?

<p>The worry must be about oozing and stringing. In general, no worries! Nothing a bit of tuning would not fix.</p> <p>I have experience printing with Volcano with 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0&nbsp;mm diameter. PLA, PETG, Nylon, TPE, and TPU. (Volcano nozzles have been my default style for several years now. I don't even own a 10&nbsp;mm heat block anymore (ok, maybe one)).</p> <p>And yes, speaking of the classic 0.4&nbsp;mm nozzle, you get higher stringing and oozing compared to 10&nbsp;mm meltzone. You'll need to tune your retraction - it will be significatnly higher than 10&nbsp;mm meltzone (I'm not giving numbers because it depends on printer style, material, nozzle diameter, temperature, and even slicer and slicer settings...).</p> <p>I do like to print quite hot though with lots of cooling (PLA 220&nbsp;°C for example) to increase layer adhesion and strength - so I experience this more. </p> <p>For oozing, you may need to experiment with XY travel speeds, wiping settings, coasting settings, and similar (this also will help with stringing). </p> <p>Also, keep in mind that the bigger the nozzle diameter, the more cooling you'll need (coupled with slower print) just to solidify that massive extrusion flow/mass. </p>

2020-02-09T10:38:52.470

|print-quality|sls|

<p>I'd like to prefix this question with the fact that I know virtually nothing about 3D printers, aside from the general principles of how they work.</p> <p>I've recently seen that SLS printers have become more affordable, to the point where in a few years they might be a compelling investment. I'm mainly interested in 3D printing miniatures for painting, and as such this one:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/tQUMO.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/tQUMO.jpg" alt="Warhammer 40k Kustom Boosta-Blasta"></a></p> <p>For scale, the miniature is about 150&nbsp;mm long. I'm mainly worried about smaller details, such as the faces of the Gunner or Driver. Will a consumer-grade SLS printer be able to print to such level of detail?</p>

11980

What level of detail can be expected from a consumer-grade SLS printer?

<h2>Consumer Market?</h2> <p>While there are no &quot;consumer level&quot; SLS printers on the market currently, the question in itself is very interesting on a scientific level. The pricing edges for the consumer market for 3D printers can be somewhat estimated from the consumer electronics segment. This puts a maximum price tag of about 2000-2500 \$ onto it, comparable to a high-end PC.</p> <p>Currently^{Feb. 2020}, most SLS machines come with 'inquire for price' or with prices of <a href="https://sintratec.com/product/sintratec-kit/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">5000 \$</a> or larger price tags, which indicates they are intended for professional or industrial use. Most SLS printers in consumer hands seem to be phased out older systems from second hand. So while there are for sure tries to get SLS more affordable, it is not there yet.</p> <h2>Resolution of SLS</h2> <p>SLS printers have resolutions based on two factors^{<a href="https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/60707.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1</a>}:</p> <ul> <li>grain size</li> <li>laser diameter</li> </ul> <p>Generally speaking, the finer the grain and more focussed the laser, the better the resolution. Current industrial machines - even cheap ones - work with particle sizes between 20 and 80 µm, with the bulk being around 40 to 60 µm^{<a href="https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/1.4918516" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2</a>}.</p> <p>The laser focus point ranges generally in the &quot;tens of µm&quot;^{<a href="https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/60707.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1</a>}, and is listed with values between 50 and 300 µm for most ceramic powders in that paper.</p> <h2>Conclusion</h2> <p>As a rule of thumb, 50 µm seems to be the average nylon spot size, which is very much comparable with resin printers using SLA/mSLA/DLP technology. Details on miniatures are usually in the area of 100-200 µm, so are well achieveable with either.</p> <h3>Comparison SLS to SLA/mSLA/DLP</h3> <p>Resin technology has the benefit of being easier accessible with some entry level printes between 200 and 500 \$. Nylon SLS prints do demand a sealant but prints without any supports, Resin does at times need support.</p> <p>Printing times for DLP/mSLA is not dependant on the ammount of space used, making packing the build surface with as many models as possible benefitial, while SLS, like FDM, works with a moving spot, so the ammount of models increases print time.</p> <p>Both Technologies work with hazardous material - resin and very fine powders respecively - and demand proper PPE to handle them.</p>

2020-02-09T17:03:28.673

|ultimaker-cura|bridging|

<p>I'm trying to print this model of a boat:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jSWyL.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jSWyL.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>It has 2 keels joined by 5 bridges, but the top of each keel is curved, so while the middle part is mostly flat, the bridge on the back has a bit of a slope (as you can see with the "stair" effect).</p> <p>The problem I have is that I can't get Cura to properly bridge that specific part: It creates a bridge for the first layer, but on the next layer (where there's a part that needs bridging), it just starts drawing a surface:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/NlN4K.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/NlN4K.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>In this picture you can see layer 86 it has drawn a bridge between both keels, but on layer 87 it tries to print a surface larger than posible. That results in this happening:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/s8Adi.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/s8Adi.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>and this causes big gaps in the top surface.</p> <p>I've been trying to play a bit with the settings in Cura, but I can't find anything that would fix this... Is there anything that can help me? (maybe even the model has a design problem)</p>

11982

Sloped bridges in Cura

<p>Cura has some options in this area that might or might not help. I've had mixed results. You should make sure Enable Bridge Settings is on, and try adjusting Bridge Skin Support Threshold. By default bridge settings are only used if 50% or more <em>of the area</em> is unsupported. Area is an utterly ridiculous/meaningless metric for whether bridging is needed, so you probably need to set this to just a really high value like 90% or 95%. You may also want to check that Bridge Has Multiple Layers is on.</p> <p>With that said, for your model I would just use supports with a support interface (roof) below the bridges. You could reduce the material cost of them with Support Tree mode. But there are of course places where you can't use supports in similar models (bridge is over another part of the model and there's no access to remove the support material), so having working bridge settings is still desirable.</p>

2020-02-15T04:04:00.173

|marlin|bed-leveling|skr-v1.3|robo-r1+|

<p>I have a Robo R1+ which uses the nozzle contacting the glass print bed to level the printer. When the print head strikes the bed the Z-min endstops open signaling that the bed is touched.</p> <p>I recently upgraded from an Arduino to an SKR 1.3 running Marlin 2.0 and have been trying to make the printer auto level. However all the examples I can find involve a probe. I'm not even sure what this kind of autoleveling is called.</p> <p>Is there a way to configure Marlin 2.0 to perform this kind of autoleveling. And if so what lines should I comment and un-comment?</p>

12014

Switch nozzle contact probe auto leveling with Marlin 2.0

<p>Basically, you are also using a probe, the nozzle is the probe. So this is very similar to an auto levelling setup using a capacitive or inductive sensor, the difference is that your <code>M851</code> nozzle to probe distance is zero, and may receive a positive value to slightly raise it to get a sheet of paper in between the nozzle and printing surface.</p> <p><em>Please note that below only changes for levelling are addressed, not other specifics in Marlin 2.x for the Robo R1+!</em></p> <p>First you define the nozzle offset in <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/blob/2.0.x/Marlin/Configuration.h" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Configuration.h</a>, which is exactly at the nozzle, so X and Y (and Z) are zero.</p> <pre><code>#define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { 0, 0, 0 } </code></pre> <p>You can also set:</p> <pre><code>define NOZZLE_AS_PROBE </code></pre> <p>Furthermore, you need to define a levelling method in the same configuration file:</p> <pre> //#define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_3POINT //#define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_LINEAR #define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_BILINEAR //#define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_UBL //#define MESH_BED_LEVELING </pre> <p>For safety, we usually home Z at the center of the printing surface:</p> <pre><code>#define Z_SAFE_HOMING </code></pre> <p>Also be sure the following statement is active:</p> <pre><code>#define Z_MIN_PROBE_USES_Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_PIN </code></pre> <p>Next, you need to define the boundaries of the &quot;probe&quot;, which is exactly where the nozzle may come (apart from a small safety offset at all edges called <code>MIN_PROBE_EDGE</code>); how you do that is described in question &quot;<a href="/q/8153">How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?</a>&quot;, in Marlin 2.x this needs to be set in <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/blob/2.0.x/Marlin/Configuration_adv.h" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Configuration_adv.h</a>:</p> <pre> #if PROBE_SELECTED && !IS_KINEMATIC #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_LEFT MIN_PROBE_EDGE #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_RIGHT MIN_PROBE_EDGE #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_FRONT MIN_PROBE_EDGE #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_BACK MIN_PROBE_EDGE #endif </pre>

2020-02-17T20:35:35.440

|pla|post-processing|

<p>I need to smooth some prints with silk PLA filament. </p> <p>The silk PLA has a nice translucent effect but unfortunately if sanded results in an horrible matte finish regardless the sandpaper grade (I have tried with many grades). </p> <p>Since I don't have specific solvents or special equipment, and I don't want to paint it as well, I'm wondering if there are alternative ways to smooth the surface.</p> <p>(Also a my friend speculated about some heat treatment with hair dryer... never heard of something similar and I'm not sure if this could make sense, and in case how should I try).</p>

12025

How to smooth PLA Prints without using sandpaper, solvents or paint

<p>Unfortunately, there is no way to smooth PLA without sandpaper, solvent or paint - but you can fix the finish after sanding.</p> <p>If you heat the plastic after sanding to just the point the outer shell starts melting the horrible matte finish goes away and the original color of the plastic returns.</p> <p>You have to heat the plastic and then remove the heat source just as it's start melting (right before the original color returns, so when you see it working it's too late) because otherwise the object will deform.</p> <p>I use a heat gun set to 180C and work quickly in short bursts, an hair dryer is probably nowhere as hot, so it will take longer to heat the surface.</p> <p>You have to do this after sanding, applying enough heat to smooth the layer lines will just cause the object to melt and deform.</p> <p>Try on a few failed prints first, you will need to get the feel for when to stop heating and you will still probably ruin prints every once in a while. </p> <p>Another option is to coat the object in an epoxy that will hide the layer lines the best known brand for this is XTC-3D.</p> <p>If you do decide to paint, you get extra thick primer that's supposed to fill the gaps between the layer lines so you don't need to sand as much (sorry, can't remember the brand name)</p>

2020-02-17T22:00:07.827

|delta|kossel|underextrusion|skr-v1.3|

<p>I'm facing weird "pillars" of underextrusion on outer walls of my XYZ test cube.</p> <p>On the pictures below I`ve printed PLA test cubes with a 0.4&nbsp;mm nozzle, 0.2&nbsp;mm height and 210/50&nbsp;&deg;C hotends/bed temperature.</p> <p>Gaps are appearing in walls parallel to both X and Y sides. The pictured side is parallel to Y face.</p> <p>I'm slicing with Cura, my printer is a homebuilt around Anycubic Kossel with Marlin 2.0 onboard. </p> <p>What have I tried already:<br> 1. Temperature from 190 to 210&nbsp;&deg;C<br> 2. Retraction from none to 6&nbsp;mm 60&nbsp;mm/sec<br> 3. Tuning down Jerk in Marlin from [10,10,0.3] to [5,5,0.3]<br> 4. Tuning down acceleration from 3000 to 1000<br> 5. Tuning print speed from 60 to 30&nbsp;mm/sec 6. Checking belts, nozzle and extruder. </p> <p>Now I just ran out of ideas. Delta is calibrated by <code>G33</code> autotune. Mechanics looks just fine. What am I missing? <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EUYpL.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EUYpL.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJxp4.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/hJxp4.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><strong>UPD1</strong>: tried removing combing - it did not help. But I noticed that my printer accelerates strangely at this parts</p> <p><strong>UPD2</strong>: could it be stuttering? I have 320 segments per second with block buffer size of 8 bytes(?)</p> <p><strong>UPD3</strong>: lowering segments count to 120 and raising block size to 32</p>

12027

Partial underextrusion in walls

<p>Well, I could not track the problem and it lasted till two major updates:</p> <ol> <li>I have changed rods for ones with proper lenght</li> <li>I have reset all Cura settings to default</li> </ol>

2020-02-19T18:26:15.833

|creality-ender-3|bowden|

<p>I run a 3D printer farm and I have to replace my Bowden tubes on the printers after about a month or two of use(roughly 1000 hours of use). The Bowden tubes continually melt on the side of the tube very near to where it pushes against the nozzle. I am running Ender 3 Pros and I run at about 205&nbsp;&deg;C with PLA. The Bowden tubes I have are some I found on Amazon and they are not Capricorn tubes. </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xnhmZ.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xnhmZ.png" alt="Note how the hole is very near the base of the tube closest to the nozzle"></a></p> <p>EDIT1: I have added more pictures below of a new failure. This time you can see the marks of the teeth of the coupler a good inch below the failure point. <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/QPk6E.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/QPk6E.jpg" alt="New photo of tube 1"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/A3xXQ.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/A3xXQ.jpg" alt="New photo of tube 2"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/P9l5a.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/P9l5a.jpg" alt="New photo of tube 3"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PB7Ox.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PB7Ox.jpg" alt="New potho of tube 4"></a></p>

12033

What causes my Bowden tube to melt on the side?

<p>This isn't melting, it is wear.</p> <p>And it isn't typical wear you would expect due to abrasion. It is wear caused by retraction. As your filament retracts (usually between parts of the model to reduce stringing), the semi-molten filament is sucked back into the tube.</p> <p>Then, when the filament is unretracted, the filament is pushed back into the nozzle. However, in the meantime, a little of the filament solidified on the PTFE wall. PTFE is very slippery, so the solidified chunk is peeled off the wall no problems - but it takes with it a tiny bit of the inside of the tube.</p> <p>Do that hundreds of thousands of times, and the wall of the tube gets thinned at that point until it fails.</p> <p>One solution to this is to reduce retraction. Notice how the distance between the worn bit and the end of the tube is always the retraction distance in millimeters?</p> <p>Another solution is an all metal hotend.</p> <p>Or just trim your bowden tube shorter by a few mm every hundred hours of printing or so.</p>

2020-02-19T20:27:11.243

|software|

<p>Is there a software package that when I have my printer connected directly to my PC via USB could record and export hot end temperature data overtime?</p> <p>Ideally this data would be recorded in a way that I could export it and manipulate it in the likes of Excel.</p> <p>E.g. I see Pronterface has a temperature graph but it doesn't seem possible to export this. I know Simplify3D has a temperature plot in the machine control panel, anyone know if you can export from this?</p>

12035

Software to record hot end temperature?

<p>I don't know if using OctoPrint is an option. If so, there is a <a href="https://plugins.octoprint.org/plugins/tempsgraph/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">plugin</a> that claims to do exactly this. And you could probably find a few more if you looked for them. Note that I have no first hand experience with this plugin, but I can vouch for OctoPrint being convenient and by default it shows a temperature graph.</p> <p>It might even be relatively easy to write your <a href="https://docs.octoprint.org/en/master/plugins/gettingstarted.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">own plugin</a> to accomplish this. This will mostly depend on your comfort with coding in Python/JavaScript.</p> <p>As a sidenote: if your printer is connected directly to your computer via USB, chances are pretty high it is a simple serial connection. Having multiple programs use this connection at once is not possible as far as I know. </p> <p>This implies that you will not be able to have your current software send it G-code lines while having another one recording the temperature values sent back from the printer.</p>

2020-02-20T06:40:11.417

|ultimaker-cura|multi-material|

<p>I'm trying to do a multifilament print on my single extruder machine. So I separated out the models based on filament, and imported the parts into Cura. I ensured that "Automatically drop models to build plate" was disabled and in the "Prepare" phase that seems to work. However, when I slice the model it gets pushed back down to the build plate as can be seen in the picture below. Any recommendations? Do I just need to write a script to go in and shift the z location?</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DptKY.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DptKY.png" alt="Preview"></a></p>

12040

Cura projecting floating print onto build plate during slicing

<p>I've been playing with this and came up with a solution, so I thought I would share in case anyone else had this issue in the future. In Ultimaker Cura I enabled supports and z-hopping before I sliced the part, then I ran this Python function to remove the supports and get the extruder setup.</p> <pre><code>import re def float_part(file): printString = ';LAYER:' partString = ';(.*?).stl' with open( file , 'r') as content_file: content = content_file.read() printArea = re.search( printString , content ).span(0)[0] partArea = re.search( partString , content ).span(0)[0] uncommentedLine = partArea - re.search( '\n.*?(?&lt;!;)\n' , content[ partArea:printArea:-1 ] ).span(0)[0] lastExtrusion = uncommentedLine - re.search( 'E' , content[ uncommentedLine:printArea:-1 ] ).span(0)[0] secondLastExtrusion = lastExtrusion - re.search( 'E' , content[ lastExtrusion-1:printArea:-1 ] ).span(0)[0] lastExtrusionAmount = float(re.search( '\d+(\.\d+)?', content[lastExtrusion:] ).group(0)) secondLastExtrusionAmount = float(re.search( '\d+(\.\d+)?', content[secondLastExtrusion:] ).group(0)) ResetCommand = '\nG92 E' + str(lastExtrusionAmount) + '\n' with open( file , 'w') as content_file: content_file.write( content[0:printArea] + ResetCommand + content[uncommentedLine:] ) </code></pre> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hs8Ld.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hs8Ld.png" alt="Elevated part"></a></p>

2020-02-21T00:47:55.110

|creality-ender-3|anet-a8|wanhao|monoprice-select-mini|tronxy-p802|

<p>I am looking for a cheap 3d printer that can print this: <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1307100" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1307100</a> and is hopefully under US $200, such as the Creality Ender 3, Monoprice Select Mini Pro and V2, the Wanhao Duplicator i3 mini, the Anet A8, or the tronxy p802ma.</p>

12045

3d printer recommendations that can print fidgets?

<p>Pretty much any recent commercially available 3D printer should be able to print that model. Only really old stuff, or poorly built DIY machines, might have trouble. It may take some tuning of slicing settings to avoid problems with the rings bonding together during printing, but a more expensive printer is unlikely to make the tuning any easier.</p> <p>The printers you listed in the question are probably all decent choices. I have an Ender 3 and like it but it's a little over \$200. There are some printers well under \$200, like the Monoprice Mini Delta, but I don't have any experience with them and product recommendations are off-topic here anyway. Also keep in mind that you'll have to spend a little bit on consumables, at least one spool of filament that's typically around \$20 (slightly cheaper for no-name brands, much higher for fancy color/shine/etc. or special materials, but simple PLA should be fine for what you want).</p>

2020-02-21T08:17:02.820

|meshmixer|

<p>I've created a model in Sketchup and exported the file as a .stl Since the model is 80cm x 24 cm i need to cut it in meshmixer. But when i open it in meshmixer it appears tiny. Why doesn't it open as the real size?</p>

12048

Meshmixer size of model

<p>You mention your dimensions in cm. Any chance that the STL export is also in cm where Meshmixer might expect mm?</p> <p><em>Assuming your Sketchup template was set to cm:</em><br> To validate this guess you could measure/eyeball a known dimension and if that comes out to be 10 times too small you could scale your model by 10 times. Alternatively you could adjust the template in Sketchup.</p> <p>Additional information on STL files: By it's very nature, the STL file format is just a bunch of unitless numbers in a well defined structure. This structure represents a set of points (vertices), lines (edges) and and triangular surfaces (facet). A few simple rules apply to exactly how all this should be defined. (<a href="https://all3dp.com/what-is-stl-file-format-extension-3d-printing/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">See here</a>)</p> <p>But the key thing here is that an STL file is <strong>not aware of units</strong>, the program used to generate the STL file (e.g. CAD software) needs to be told what units to use, and accordingly the reading program (e.g. slicer) needs to use the same settings. Generally in mechanics applications we default to mm, at least in metric land. All this is explained a bit more verbose <a href="https://wps3dprinter.wordpress.com/designing/stl-units/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p>

2020-02-22T02:34:52.363

|ultimaker-cura|creality-ender-3|

<p>Recently I've been having trouble printing properly on my Creality Ender-3 printer. I ran a pretty long print (approx. 15 hours) that turned out really well. I then started printing an attachment for the original print and saw that it was printing layers that were extremely thin. </p> <p>I first scraped off the excess filament left on the extruder nozzle. Then, I heated up the bed and rubbed off the layer with alcohol. I tried printing it again but it still didn't print right.</p> <p>Thin layer<br> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4wh5.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4wh5.jpg" alt="Thin layer"></a></p> <p>Weird thing<br> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jUTgb.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jUTgb.jpg" alt="Weird thing"></a></p> <p>From the images above, you can tell it's noticeably hard to see the layer, which shows just how thin it is. </p> <p>I sliced the model in Ultimaker Cura. I set the layer height to 0.15&nbsp;mm. I've printed models before with this height but the layer wasn't transparent. </p> <p>What should I do to fix this issue?</p>

12051

Issue with 3D printer making super thin layers

<p>You need to level you bed. Thin prints happen when the extruder is too low and is printing too close to the bed.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybFIO.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ybFIO.png" alt="Example of printing levels"></a></p> <p>Download the following test codes from this address:</p> <p><a href="https://www.chepclub.com/bed-level.html" rel="noreferrer">https://www.chepclub.com/bed-level.html</a></p> <p>1) The first code is the most important you will want to run moves the extruder to five points on your board - Front Left and Right, Back Left and Right, and Center. Using a folded piece of paper - I use a business card - drag the paper under extruder of each of the four corners. You want to make sure you get a bit of drag when pulling out the paper/card. If you feel have enough of a gap that you can run put the paper/card under the extruder and that you feel a bit of tug when pulling it out. It runs the middle last - if you are having issue with the drag, adjust all four corners slowly until it is right.</p> <p>2) The second runs the extruder in a square pattern on your board. You simply want to run your finger of the print - if it sticks to the bed, you are good - if it doesn't, adjust your corners up and keep testing.</p>

2020-02-24T20:46:31.447

|octoprint|

<p>I've setup OctoPrint with the goal to log temperature data of my hot end. So, I've enable serial logging and examined the serial log file.</p> <p><strong>The Output for an example line is as follows:</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>Send: M105</p> <p>Recv: ok T:20.7 /50.0 B:20.0 /0.0 T0:20.7 /0.0 @:0 B@:0</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>So, from what I understand:</strong></p> <p>T = Thermistor temp of hot end °C</p> <p><em>In the example, current temp is 20.7 and target temp is 50.0</em></p> <p>B = temp of bed °C</p> <p><em>In the example, current temp is 20.0 and target temp is 0.0</em></p> <p>But what is T0?</p> <p>Or the @ and B@?</p>

12065

In OctoPrint when receiving temperature data (M105) what is T0?

<p><code>T</code> is the selected tool, <code>T0</code> is the first hotend tool. If you only have one hotend, <code>T</code> and <code>T0</code> are exactly the same. </p> <p>Do note that G-codes are described on the <a href="https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code" rel="nofollow noreferrer">G-code wiki page</a>, for <a href="https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#M105:_Get_Extruder_Temperature" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>M105</code></a> you can find:</p> <blockquote> <p>The parameters mean the following:<br> - T, T0, ..., Tn - extruder temperature. In a single extruder setup, only T will be reported. Some firmware variants will report no T0 in multi extruder setups - in that case T is to be considered the temperature of the first tool. Otherwise, T should be considered the temperature of the currently selected tool (which will be repeated in one of the Tn entries)<br> - B - bed temperature<br> - C - chamber temperature<br> - @ - Hotend power (Prusa only) - B@ - Bed power (Prusa only)<br> - P - PINDAv2 actual (Prusa MK2.5/s MK3/s only)<br> - A - Ambient actual (Prusa MK3/s only)<br></p> </blockquote>

2020-02-27T08:57:23.307

|stepper|stepper-driver|motor|arduino|ramps|

<p>I am thinking to use closed-loop stepper motors to prevent step loss and make the machine more accurate. What options (preferably low cost) are there for:</p> <p><code>stepper motor + driver + encoder + microcontoller</code></p> <p>Is building it from scratch worth it? E.g. Arduino Mega 2560 + RAMPS 1.4/1.5/1.6 + stepper motors (e.g. NEMA17) + drivers (e.g. A4988, DRV8825) + encoders (e.g. AS5047P, AS5047D, AS5048A, TLE5012B) + microcontrollers (e.g. STM32).</p>

12087

Closed-loop stepper motors

<p>It has been 25 or 30 years since I did my first closed-loop system. I was driving a syringe pump from a printer port on a MS-Dos PC that ran hot had to disable the timer interrupts to make the deadlines amount moving the plunger, updating the floppy drive reading and computing the new position, getting the time, and fixing up the timer.</p> <p>I found moving to a goal with a tolerance of 1 or 2 stepper motor steps was on the money over 95% of the time and I made deadlines over 90% of the time. Any error was made up in the next move. I used the same scheme on an 8 x 32 foot structured light scanning table. I am pretty sure I saw memory errors from cosmic rays on this one. It took 500 hours to scan that with no parity check on the RAM. It had some wooden structures that changed size over time. I could track the movement with the error files from the shaft encoders.</p> <p>On the x y scanning table, the wait time was7 seconds after a move before the camera stopped asking enough to capture an image. We elected to fix up the position in software and accumulate the errors in the next move in order to be able to finish the project.</p>

2020-02-28T16:12:25.070

|sla|resin|

<p>If I set my prints on the window sill (indoors) will the sunlight still be able to cure the resin? The problem with setting them outside is the wind knocking them over.</p>

12097

Can you cure resin with sunlight through a window?

<p>Yes.</p> <p>I frequently leave models made on a Saturn printer with Elegoo gray resin on a surface in the sun to slow cure them. If properly cleaned their finish is indistinguishable from models rapid cured in a UV chamber.</p> <p>It should be noted that I only do this with small models that are Table top miniature scale. Large models with lots of shadows, overhands or complicated detailing may not cure evenly.</p> <p>I usually do this if I have a lot of models to cure and am too lazy to keep cycling them through my cure station.</p>

2020-02-28T23:02:34.030

|print-quality|extruder|creality-ender-3|resolution|

<p>I've been noticing in some of my linear advance test towers that the (very minor/fine) ripple pattern in walls varies with the K factor, which made me think that it isn't coming from any vibration in the print head motion, but rather from quantization of the extruder into discrete steps (i.e. wall gets slightly thicker right after a step, thins out afterwards until the next step, repeats).</p> <p>By my math, with 1.75 mm filament and 93 steps per mm on my printer (Ender 3), each step is 0.02585 mm³ of material. At 0.4 mm line width and 0.2 mm layer height, there's 0.08 mm³ of material per linear mm, so that should give roughly 3 extruder steps per linear mm. That seems comparable to the ripple rate I see, although not exact; I suppose it varies somewhat because of linear advance and perhaps other reasons.</p> <p>Anyway, to get to the question, am I missing something or is this the limiting factor in print resolution on my printer? It seems like isolated small details (smaller than 1/3 mm) won't be extrudable at all except as ooze, or over-extruded if they happen to cross a step threshold, and like things would be far worse if I tried to use a smaller nozzle and thinner layers. It seems that, ideally, you'd want the E-axis steps per mm to be sufficiently high that quantization is a non-issue (i.e. +-1 step is small relative error) for extrusions corresponding to a single X- or Y-axis microstep.</p>

12099

Is E-axis steps/mm resolution limiting factor in print quality?

<p>Your calculations about the theoretical extruder resolution are spot on. I did a similar calculation to evaluate which extruder to use with different hot ends, I paste the results. The dark cells are the input cells, the rest is calculated. You can see that for some lines I entered directly the mm/microstep value, since I wanted not a theoretical but practical result for my printer (3 mm filament) or for known extruders (BMG).</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mQeA.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3mQeA.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p> <p>Concerning the question, the resolution of the extruder matters, but it's a bit complicated to estimate exactly how much.</p> <p>In general, this are the factors I can think about.</p> <p>A poor resolution may not impact straight lines much, since the rotation of the extruder is continuous and the extruder is unlikely to snap exactly to the desired microstep position as soon as you ask for it: it's likely a bit behind all the time, that's how torque is obtained (more or less).</p> <p>The issue may become smaller with drivers which interpolate microsteps up to 256x.</p> <p>However, whenever there is a change of flow rate, poor resolution implies that you cannot control the exact location/moment where/when the flow changes. This matters mostly at the end and at the beginning or retractions/re-retractions. Maybe you get more ooze?</p> <p>However, the extruder resolution is not, in practice, as good as you calculated. In fact, as we know, microsteps reduce the incremental torque to very low values. The extruder is a motor which requires quite a lot of torque, since pushing the filament is quite hard, and it is unlikely that you can achieve all the time the 16x microstep accuracy you assumed. For example, due to friction in Bowden, hot end, ... the filament (= the motor shaft) may at a certain point stay &quot;back&quot; more than average. This would cause an increase of effective torque, pushing the filament a bit faster, which would it bring to in sync or so with the desired position, but at that point it would slow down, and so on. Depending on the average speed, this oscillation may be dampened (and then no rippling is visible) or may oscillate constantly, and you see ripples also along straight lines.</p> <p>This is why I placed the usteps column in my calculations: it is meant to calculate a more realistic resolution assuming that no accurate microstepping is achieved. I assumed higher achievable microsteps the lower the load on the motor is (this means gears, or thinner filament).</p> <p>Having a high resolution to begin with clearly helps to reduce this issue. You can try to increase the current to the max your drivers and motor and cooling allow, and see if the ripples change. I think it will be reduced.</p> <p>You may also try to build the <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4223085" rel="noreferrer">Orbiter extruder</a> (linked also in the table) and see how it goes.</p>

2020-02-29T09:49:35.657

|diy-3d-printer|sla|lcd-screen|

<p>I began build LCD printer and I want make some modifications.</p> <p>What if I will place LCD below VAT<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tznt5.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tznt5.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a>? Will the display break when printing? what are the risks? I seen a lot of printers and all of them use PP material for VAT bottom and attach with a lot of screws. I want make more simple VAT-LCD constructions and I think this construction transmis UV light better</p>

12100

Attach LCD to VAT

<p>The way you're thinking about using the LCD directly on the bottom of resin vat and cure the resin is a good idea, but there are several problems that I will focus on the main. as mentioned by @Trish some issues might occur to the LCD and u need to replace it. Except that you need to clean the vat some times after print and with LCD attach to it, you know...</p> <p>But the main reason is that when the resin is cured in the bottom layer can stick to the bottom of the vat so the printers have a solution to raise the bed and again lower it. </p> <p>The FEP (Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene) membrane is an <em>elastic</em> material, so when the bed raises the FEP film get raise a little sticking to the part and detaching. so we cant have this situation with the lcd because the lcd is a solid film that bends just a little.</p> <p>I'm also working on an LCD resin base printer so please post questions if you have any other questions. </p>

2020-03-01T14:30:33.690

|hotend|

<p>My custom printer is affected by a strange problem. After 30/40 min printing without any problem, PLA starts blobbing from the top of the hotend.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RvZ3V.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RvZ3V.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>What does it means? Where to start checking?</p> <p>It is possible that there is a little space between nozzle screw and transition screw inside the hotend?</p>

12108

PLA from the top of the hotend

<p>This is a typical sign, that your hotend wasn't tightened properly. Carefully heat it up and remove all the plastic you can while removing the heatbreak - that's what you call transition screw.</p> <p>After cleaning, screw in the heatbreak and the nozzle. The nozzle should butt agains the heatbreak, but have at least 2 threads to the heating block. Reassamble the full hotend now by adding the coolend.</p> <p>Finally heat the hotend on the full assembly to about 240 °C and tighten the nozzle against the heatbreak again. This is called hot-tightening. You can add the PTFE liner after the hot tightening.</p>

2020-03-02T08:01:38.897

|diy-3d-printer|hotend|replacement-parts|

<p>A question to those who have a 3D printer. Have you ever needed a spare throat or a heater block? Do they ever break? </p> <p>I just bought some spare parts: heaters, thermistors, nozzles... However, I am not sure if buying throats and heater blocks make any sense.</p>

12114

Do spare throats or a heater blocks ever break?

<p>Parts don't have to break or bent, they may become unusable by other issues as well!</p> <p>In addition to <a href="/a/12115">the answer of @Trish</a>, if you clog your hotend, or the hotend/heater block/nozzle gets buried deep into solidified filament (see image below), it might be much easier just to replace the parts rather than salvaging the parts (or you can salvage the parts later, in the meantime you'll be up and running).</p> <p>E.g. recover from <a href="/q/8252">this</a>:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HYYcU.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HYYcU.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

2020-03-04T07:45:29.270

|ultimaker-cura|

<p>I'm using Cura 4.5.0 and an Ultimaker S5</p> <p>The walls in my model are coming out not solid. I don't have a clue why.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TNETT.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TNETT.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/rAcCs.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/rAcCs.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>When I open the STL in Sketchup it has all these weird lines. I don't know how they got there and I don't know how to get rid of them.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1feCe.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1feCe.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

12125

Uneven walls, not solid

<h2>Triangles?!</h2> <p>First of all, the triangles on the STL are not a problem - they are just how STL is defined: a mesh of triangles. you can't save anything but triangles in STL, so let's not bother with that item but the actual elephant in the room: the print.</p> <h1>Underextrusion</h1> <h2>Step 1: proper settings</h2> <p>It shows signs of underextrusion. And I can exactly tell you where part of it comes from: You have set the line width to <em>below</em> the nozzle width. However, the line width should be best 10% <em>larger</em> than the nozzle. <strong>All</strong> of these lines should read between 0.4 to (as I have set it) 0.45 mm:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLa2e.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MLa2e.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p> <p>With a 10% wider line planned into, it is not necessary to have an extra initial layer line width of more than 100 %, but it can help in adhesion.</p> <h2>Step 2: Other issues?!</h2> <p>There might be other issues at work, though they will show up after setting the width much better. The following two strike me as most likely if the problem persists with the now considerable increased flow:</p> <ul> <li>The retraction and/or retraction speed might be set too high.</li> <li>mechanical issues of the extruder system, for example, worn gears or uneven pressure against the gear due to damaged parts.</li> </ul>

2020-03-05T08:43:49.570

|pid|

<p>Using the following code to autotune the PID:</p> <pre><code>M303 E0 S200 C10 </code></pre> <p>Which is setting my tuning temperature to 200&nbsp;°C using 10 cycles (though this is irrelevant in this scenario).</p> <p>The temperature overshoots to 250&nbsp;°C then decreases until room temperature.</p> <p>The following error is returned:</p> <pre><code>PID Autotune failed! Temperature too high </code></pre> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yoIo.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yoIo.jpg" alt="PID Autotune graph"></a></p> <p>As a test I reset all PID values to zero.</p> <pre><code>M301 P00.00 I00.00 D00.00 M500 </code></pre> <p>Then set the printer to reach 200&nbsp;°C</p> <pre><code>M104 S200 </code></pre> <p>This produced the following graph, where oscillations can be seen.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkBP6.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YkBP6.jpg" alt="PID All values set to zero"></a></p> <p>I could attempt to manual tune the PID from here but I'd rather use the autotune command if possible. Any ideas how to fix this?</p>

12129

PID Autotuning not working – large initial overshoot, no oscillations

<p>I recently experienced exactly the same problem. For me it was related to an incorrect heater cartridge. I accidentally used a 12&nbsp;V cartridge in a 24&nbsp;V powered system. </p> <p>The heater element got accidentally mixed up between the higher voltage parts container and I forgot to check the resistance. Inserting the correct voltage heater immediately fixed the problem, but it did require a retune of the hotend.</p>

2020-03-05T16:00:04.440

|sla|maintenance|

<p>I have a Phrozen Sonic Mini printer, and of course I'm eventually going to need to replace the FEP film on the resin vat. Is there anything I need to take in to consideration when buying some replacement film? Will any legitimate FEP film I find on Amazon work?</p>

12130

Does it matter what kind of FEP film I use for my SLA printer?

<h1><strong>Yes</strong>*</h1> <p>Any FEP film you find will work fine with any SLA printer you come across. Some may work 'better' or 'worse' depending on the quality of the film, but, for the most part they will all just work.</p> <p>The caveat is that you must ensure the film is of the correct dimension for the resin vat, If it's too small you may be unable to clamp the sheet in taut enough to get a proper seal.</p> <p><strong>ASWELL</strong>, Some SLA printers do <em>not</em> have a standard 'sheet' style FEP, instead opting for a proprietary/semi-proprietary 'cartridge' style FEP. In these cases, unless you can find some form of 'adapter' or aftermarket upgrade, you will be unable to swap FEP films outside of said cartridges sold by your printer manufacturer.</p> <p>In the case of your Phrozen Sonic Mini, It looks like it uses the standard sheet-style method, You should have no problems with replacing the FEP with an aftermarket sheet.</p>

2020-03-05T20:50:49.593

|anet-a8|stepper|multi-material|

<p>I am wondering if it is possible and safe to add a second extruder to my Anet A8 without changing the main board. I was thinking splitting my Z motor wires to free up the Z2 axis motor connector on the main board, using this connector for the second extruder motor. Is this possible? If so, how would i configure Marlin to use those extruder pins Can I overload the board by using two motor on the same connector?</p>

12132

Anet A8 Installing second extruder without changing board

<p>That is not possible without changing to a different printer main board. The Anet A8 board has 4 integrated (A4988) stepper drivers, one for X, one for Y, one for Z and one for E (extruder 0). </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uwsgt.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uwsgt.png" alt="enter image description here"></a> Both Z steppers are controlled by a single stepper driver (they are wired in parallel to the single Z stepper driver), there is nothing to free up nor is there to configure in Marlin without replacing the main board.</p>

2020-03-07T04:42:16.830

|calibration|monoprice-select-mini|

<p>About a year ago, a bad print encased my hotend in PLA and I broke the wires due to my impatience trying to get the glob of PLA off.</p> <p>I don't remember the details of the disaster print, but generally the printer was working fine except I now know I was heating the bed too high and causing warped prints that I was trying to avoid by raising the bed temp.</p> <p>I'm trying to salvage the printer now, I bought a new hotend and build plate sticker. I don't want to name the supplier because I'm pretty sure these parts are irrelevant and I don't want this to seem like an advertisement. Anyways, install was pretty easy, I didn't disconnect any of the axis or feeder steppers control wires - just the hotend heater and thermistor.</p> <p>I don't think it should have anything to do with the bad print or the replacement parts, but now when I print I'm having major calibration issues. My entire print seems to be 2x scaled up. This is causing skipped stepper steps, grinding, etc for completely bad prints.</p> <p>I ran at least part of a factory reset program before any trial prints because it was recommended online somewhere (which displayed weird 50&nbsp;% complete message and that's all). I most suspect the factory reset as my problem. After the reset, I needed to flip the Y axis with an additional G-code instruction before it would home to the correct corner instead of grinding to the top-back-left.</p> <pre><code>M502 ; Restores default settings M562 Y ; Reverse Y -- I had to add this to even get it to work as well as it does. M500 ; Saves the settings to EEPROM </code></pre> <p>I have read that I can adjust the axis scaling by an arbitrary factor with additional G-codes, but since I didn't mess with the printer other than the program above, I don't expect my scaling factor to be off by a random value, but more a common value that ALL mini select v2s need that I erased. But I am not finding info about this.</p> <p>I am using Cura 4.5 and Cura knows I'm using a Mini Select v2 and the model I've loaded is known to Cura to be the right dimensions.</p> <p>In the picture, you can see that Cura shows it is centered on the bed, but it actually prints off center. Also, the finished print is about 2x scaled in all three axes and lacks the material density of a correct print - it's printing only enough plastic for the correct size print, but spreading it over the scaled-up volume. The steppers are also skipping steps (I guess) so there are a few layer shifts in this print. What a mess! (It's supposed to say it's dimension on the top - "23&nbsp;mm" but it actually measures about 46&nbsp;mm but hard to say exactly due to the other print issues)</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VHvx4.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VHvx4.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

12134

2x scaling of Monoprice Mini Select v2 Firmware v30.50b after factory reset?

<p>Thanks for the comments! They led me to find this solution using PuTTY on Windows as my serial (COM) terminal. I guess one of my resets put the settings to 1/16th stepping whereas my hardware has 1/8th stepping.</p> <pre><code>&gt; M115 NAME: Malyan VER: 3.0 MODEL: M200 HW: HA04 ok N0 P15 B15 &gt; M503 echo:Steps per unit: echo: M92 X93.00 Y93.00 Z1097.50 E97.00 echo:Maximum feedrates (mm/s): echo: M203 X150.00 Y150.00 Z1.50 E50.00 echo:Maximum Acceleration (mm/s2): echo: M201 X800 Y800 Z20 E10000 echo:Accelerations: P=printing, R=retract and T=travel echo: M204 P1500.00 R3000.00 T1500.00 echo:Advanced variables: S=Min feedrate (mm/s), T=Min travel feedrate (mm/s), B=minimum segment time (ms), X=maximum XY jerk (mm/s), Z=maximum Z jerk (mm/s), E=maximum E jerk (mm/s) echo: M205 S0.00 T0.00 B20000 X20.00 Z0.40 E5.00 echo:Home offset (mm): echo: M206 X0.00 Y0.00 Z0.00 echo:Invert axis: M562 XYZE XYZABCD++-+-+- echo:PID settings: echo: M301 P20.00 I0.02 D250.00 C100.00 L20 echo: M304 P10.00 I0.02 D305.40 echo:Filament settings: Disabled echo: M200 D1.75 echo: M200 D0 ok N0 P15 B15 &gt; M92 X46.50 Y46.50 Z548.75 E48.50 ; from https://www.mpselectmini.com/howto/steps_per_unit_mm &gt; M562 Y ; Invert Y because it was Homing to the wrong corner &gt; M206 X0.00 Y-2.00 Z0.00 ; Inverting the values from M114 once good Home manually found. &gt; G0 X0 Y0 ; testing the range of motion &gt; G0 X0 Y120 ; testing the range of motion &gt; G0 X120 Y120 ; testing the range of motion &gt; G0 X120 Y0 ; testing the range of motion &gt; M500 ; this saves the new values to EEPROM <span class="math-container">```</span> </code></pre>

2020-03-07T11:04:27.693

|anet-a8|motor|nema-17|

<p>The Y-axis motor is really loud. The pitch of the sound varies depending the angle of the motor (in some angles the motor is silent, in others it's louder than a fan). I am looking for a solution because this is by far the loudest component of my printer. Is there any settings that could help making this motor quieter? If not, should I replace the motor or the board?</p> <p>Here is a short clip of the sound of the motor: <div class="youtube-embed"><div> <iframe width="640px" height="395px" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C_fRKteE-Ec?start=0"></iframe> </div></div></p>

12135

Y Axis motor is really loud

<p>The sounds are mainly caused by the bed resonating with the stepper motor, and this will vary with the speed of the stepper motor. The best solution is to use "silent" stepper motor drivers (e.g. Trinamic), but you may be able to reduce the noise by:</p> <ul> <li>Reducing the belt tension as much as possible.</li> <li>Changing your print and/or move speeds.</li> <li>Fitting a stepper motor damper.</li> <li>Fitting TL smoothers (if you have A4988 drivers), although their efficacy is controversial.</li> </ul> <p>I have done all of the above with good results.</p>

2020-03-08T10:42:17.520

|support-structures|sla|print-failure|support-material|elegoo-mars|

<p>I am trying to print a box shaped object with an ELEGOO Mars SLA printer. I positioned the piece rotating it on X and Y axis 35 and 30 degrees. However, the print fails because the piece does not stick to the supporting structure (see picture). </p> <p>Do you think that it could be a problem of the piece sticking to the display due to overexposure or deteriorated film? Or is it something else? I tried two prints, lowering the exposure time from 8 to 6 seconds, the second print still failed but at least the piece is not totally stuck to the display. </p> <p>Any other idea?</p> <p>First failed print with 8 seconds exposure: the film was completely jammed and all the resin was stuck there (this is why there is no piece on top of the supporting material) <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xnSMg.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xnSMg.jpg" alt="First failed print"></a></p> <p>Second failed print with 6 seconds exposure: the film was perfectly clean, but the object did not stick to the supporting materials therefore collapsing. <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/eOJOs.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/eOJOs.jpg" alt="Second failed print pic1"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yhxke.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yhxke.jpg" alt="Second failed print pic2"></a></p> <p>This is the 3D drawing <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/R9DZD.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/R9DZD.jpg" alt="3D drawing"></a></p>

12142

SLA printing: piece does not stick to supporting structures

<p>I have tried to print the piece upside-down with the cave part facing down and it worked. Since the printer prints upside down, positioning the cave part facing up creates a suction-cup effect on the printer display that makes the whole structure stick to the lcd and detach from the supporting structure, thus making the print fail. </p>

2020-03-08T18:38:27.507

|marlin|bed-leveling|z-probe|

<p>I've just added a Z-Probe sensor to my custom printer (<code>Arduino</code> - <code>RAMPS 1.4</code> - <code>Marlin 2</code> default disabled EEPROM) but now I'm confused. Printer seems to work but I cannot configure the right nozzle height.</p> <p>I use <code>Pronterface</code> and before start printing I send <code>G29</code> code. Printer succesfully ends bed calibration. At this point I start printing but the printer seems to ignore the calibration (no bed compensation). </p> <p>Do I need to run other commands to tell printer to use the previous calibration?</p>

12144

Marlin bed autoleveling confusion

<p>When the printer ignores the scanned topology (grid) of the bed this means that the levelling is not active. <code>G29</code> activates the <code>M420</code> to enable the grid. A <code>G28</code> after scanning the bed will reset this.</p> <p>You need to make sure that the start G-code (this is an optional script that is pasted before the sliced object) contains both the <code>G28</code> and the <code>G29</code>, where the <code>G28</code> is placed above the <code>G29</code> on separate lines.</p> <p>For each slicer this is defined in different places, bit if you use Pronterface for slicing, a good chance is that it uses the Slic3r engine. If I open an STL for slicing in Pronterface, it starts loading Slic3r.exe; this brings up the GUI for Slic3r which has options to define/modify the start G-code.</p>

2020-03-10T09:20:02.260

|marlin|firmware|knowledgebase|

<p><strong><em>Note</strong>: This question is meant as a wiki to include all steps that are needed to update your printer with a self configured Marlin firmware version. The answer is a wiki that is currently in development and can be seen (and edited) by all users.</em></p> <hr> <p>I have a printer and need to update my Marlin firmware to get some stuff done to my liking, especially to make sure I have <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8466/what-is-thermal-runaway-protection">TRP</a>, have <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10571/how-to-activate-power-loss-recovery-in-marlin">power loss recovery</a> and then do a PID-tune. I am also not sure if a bootloader is flashed. So what I need is a step-by-step guide to:</p> <ul> <li>prepare my printer for flashing</li> <li>configure my Marlin firmware</li> <li>get my new Marlin firmware onto my printer</li> </ul>

12153

Updating Marlin Firmware - Step by Step Guide

<h1>Step 0: extracting old settings &amp; setting up</h1> <p>The first step is to get yourself a printing software that has a <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10573/what-is-a-printer-console-terminal">Console or Terminal</a> like present in <a href="https://www.repetier.com/" rel="noreferrer">Repetier Host</a>, <a href="https://www.pronterface.com/" rel="noreferrer">Pronterface</a> (as part of the Printrun software suite), <a href="https://octoprint.org/" rel="noreferrer">OctoPrint</a> or any other tool (e.g. serial connection with PuTTY also works) that allows to communicate with the printer to extract the settings we already have. Once we have the software installed and the printer connected, send <a href="http://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M503.html" rel="noreferrer"><code>M503</code></a> and copy the old settings into a file for later use.</p> <p>Next, we need our development surroundings. Usually, you want to use <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6399/recalibrating-home-position/6660#6660">Arduino IDE</a> (but the <a href="https://platformio.org/" rel="noreferrer">PlatformIO</a> plugin as part of Visual Studio Code can be used for both Arduino based microprocessors as 32-bit processors), but you need to know what kind of board the control board of your printer is derived from because some boards have native IDEs that work better for them. </p> <h1>Step 1: Choice of Firmware</h1> <p>By some metrics of early 2020, about 80&nbsp;% of all shipped machines run Marlin in some fashion^{need citation}. The most prolific versions of Marlin at that point are often cited to be 1.1.9 and 2.x. Since anything before 1.1.9 is very much obsolete and needs an update anyway, we will look into 1.1.9 and 2.x only. Version 2.x was developed to include 32-bit microprocessors, but is compatible with 8-bit microprocessor printer boards. As the version jump indicates though, 2.x is pretty much an entire rewrite, so do your choice and jump to the correct next step.</p> <h2>Marlin 1.1.x</h2> <p>Typically, you start by grabbing <a href="https://marlinfw.org/meta/download/" rel="noreferrer">a blank Marlin 1.1.9</a>. The next step is to alter the static settings of the printer to match yours in <code>Configuration.h</code> - best use the settings from what we pulled earlier via <code>M503</code> as a start. Alternatively, you can search for a configuration of your printer between known <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/tree/1.1.x/Marlin/example_configurations" rel="noreferrer">configuration files</a>. You should at least need to adjust these:</p> <p>For communications and filament diameter:</p> <pre><code>#define BAUDRATE 250000 // Generally expected filament diameter (1.75, 2.85, 3.0, ...). Used for Volumetric, Filament Width Sensor, etc. #define DEFAULT_NOMINAL_FILAMENT_DIA 3.0 </code></pre> <p>Choose your correct temperature tables, and make sure to turn on the one for the bed if you have one!</p> <pre><code>#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 1 [...] #define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 0 </code></pre> <p>Next come two blocks that set the 'this is ok' temperature area, for the hotends and bed respectively (only hotend shown here).</p> <pre><code>// Extruder temperature must be close to target for this long before M109 returns success #define TEMP_RESIDENCY_TIME 10 // (seconds) #define TEMP_HYSTERESIS 3 // (degC) range of +/- temperatures considered "close" to the target one #define TEMP_WINDOW 1 // (degC) Window around target to start the residency timer x degC early. </code></pre> <p>The next slot is an important safety feature: Mintemp and Maxtemp. Unless you seriously, positively know your hotend can do more than 275 °C (which means you have an all-metal hotend), <strong>DON'T</strong> touch the Maxtemp, but you might set Mintemp to 0 °C if you like.</p> <p>Next come PID-Tuning settings, you only need to work with those if you know what you are doing.</p> <p>The next step is important also: make positively sure that these two lines are exactly as follows, no stray <code>//</code> in front to comment them out. This is <strong><a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8466/what-is-thermal-runaway-protection">TRP</a></strong>.</p> <pre><code>#define THERMAL_PROTECTION_HOTENDS // Enable thermal protection for all extruders #define THERMAL_PROTECTION_BED // Enable thermal protection for the heated bed </code></pre> <p>If your printer is a CoreXY or similarily uses 2 belts for moving along 2 axis, you look at the Mechanical Settings tab and alter it there, otherwise we skip further to the Endstop Settings. Enable (remove the leading <code>//</code>) the max-endstops if you have them, the rest is usually not necessary on most consumer-grade machines, then go further to the Movement Settings. From our <code>M503</code> we grab the settings to fill out the following:</p> <pre><code>#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 80, 80, 4000, 500 } #define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 300, 300, 5, 25 } </code></pre> <p>If you have a probe, you look into Z-Probe Options and follow <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8153/how-to-set-z-probe-boundary-limits-in-firmware-when-using-automatic-bed-leveling/8154#8154">0scar's guide here</a>, skip it otherwise until you find the next snippet. Fix that one up to fit your bed and movement area. You might need to set values for the endstop to bed origin distance. These offsets, <code>X_MIN_POS</code> and <code>Y_MIN_POS</code>, need to contain the correct values to center the bed; see <a href="/q/6375/">"How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset) "</a>.</p> <pre><code>// The size of the print bed #define X_BED_SIZE 200 #define Y_BED_SIZE 200 // Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions. #define X_MIN_POS 0 // Value of zero means that the origin of the bed is at the endstop #define Y_MIN_POS 0 // Value of zero means that the origin of the bed is at the endstop #define Z_MIN_POS 0 #define X_MAX_POS X_BED_SIZE #define Y_MAX_POS Y_BED_SIZE #define Z_MAX_POS 200 </code></pre> <p>Next, uncomment (remove the leading <code>//</code>) the following line:</p> <pre><code>//#define EEPROM_SETTINGS // Enable for M500 and M501 commands </code></pre> <p>If you want to have a special pause position, uncomment and define it in </p> <pre><code>//#define NOZZLE_PARK_FEATURE #if ENABLED(NOZZLE_PARK_FEATURE) // Specify a park position as { X, Y, Z } #define NOZZLE_PARK_POINT { (X_MIN_POS + 10), (Y_MAX_POS - 10), 20 } #define NOZZLE_PARK_XY_FEEDRATE 100 // X and Y axes feedrate in mm/s (also used for delta printers Z axis) #define NOZZLE_PARK_Z_FEEDRATE 5 // Z axis feedrate in mm/s (not used for delta printers) #endif </code></pre> <p>We are on the finishing stretch, just a few things in this file remaining! Select your language with the line: </p> <pre><code>#define LCD_LANGUAGE en </code></pre> <p>Turn on the SD-Card slot by uncommenting </p> <pre><code>//#define SDSUPPORT </code></pre> <p>The last step we need to alter in the <code>Configuration.h</code> is choosing the correct LCD controller. Uncomment the line corresponding to your printer - you might need to use a generic option.</p> <h2>Marlin 2.x</h2> <p>Again, grab the 2.x marlin, either the <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Configurations/tree/release-2.0.4" rel="noreferrer">blank base</a> or a preconfigured version. For some printer styles (like Delta), you have to take a specialized set. Then we look at our <code>M503</code>output and set our communications Baudrate and our motherboard (or the board it is derived from), then the number of extruders and the filament diameter:</p> <pre><code>#define BAUDRATE 250000 #ifndef MOTHERBOARD #define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_RAMPS_14_EFB #endif #define EXTRUDERS 1 #define DEFAULT_NOMINAL_FILAMENT_DIA 3.0 </code></pre> <p>Next we go to thermal settings! We need the correct temperature sensor table for hotend and bed, possibly we could lower MINTEMP to 0. <strong>Don't</strong> touch MAXTEMP unless you know what you're doing and have a full-metal setup and you know your machine can take more.</p> <pre><code>#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 1 [...] #define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 0 </code></pre> <p>Our next step is <strong>making positively sure that TRP is on</strong>. Make sure these lines have no leading <code>//</code></p> <pre><code>#define THERMAL_PROTECTION_HOTENDS // Enable thermal protection for all extruders #define THERMAL_PROTECTION_BED // Enable thermal protection for the heated bed #define THERMAL_PROTECTION_CHAMBER // Enable thermal protection for the heated chamber </code></pre> <p>If the printer is a CoreXY or similar, enable the style in the mechanical settings area.</p> <p>Enable (remove the leading //) the max-endstops if you have them, the rest is usually not necessary on most consumer-grade machines, then go further to the Movement Settings. From our M503 we grab the settings to fill out the following: </p> <pre><code>#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 80, 80, 4000, 500 } #define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 300, 300, 5, 25 } </code></pre> <p>If you have a probe, you need to set it up - <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8153/how-to-set-z-probe-boundary-limits-in-firmware-when-using-automatic-bed-leveling/8154#8154">0scar has a partial guide</a> - and it is all in the Z Probe Options area! Otherwise, go on. We need to go down, and in the middle of the Probe setup, we find the bed settings. Set them up to fit your printer and possibly the offset from the home-switches to the build volume corner.</p> <pre><code>// The size of the print bed #define X_BED_SIZE 200 #define Y_BED_SIZE 200 // Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions. #define X_MIN_POS 0 #define Y_MIN_POS 0 #define Z_MIN_POS 0 #define X_MAX_POS X_BED_SIZE #define Y_MAX_POS Y_BED_SIZE #define Z_MAX_POS 200 </code></pre> <p>Down to Additional Features we go! Let's turn on the EEPROM by uncommenting (removing the <code>//</code>)...</p> <pre><code>//#define EEPROM_SETTINGS // Persistent storage with M500 and M501 </code></pre> <p>...and think about how you want to set up your preheats or where to have your special park position. But then comes the last part, which we really need to do: Set up the interface. Start by changing the language and turn on the SD-Slot by uncommenting the lower of these lines:</p> <pre><code>#define LCD_LANGUAGE en //#define SDSUPPORT </code></pre> <p>Our last stop on setting up the basics is LCD / Controller Selection. We need to uncomment the right one here. If you don't find yours, use a generic one.</p> <h1>Step 2: Preparing the Board</h1> <p>There are 2 variants here: either you use a bootloader, or you prepare a .hex file for overwriting the whole firmware. In either case, we need to know what board we have, so we can compile with the correct encoding and setup. You might need to install a proper extension!</p> <h2>2.1 - Bootloader</h2> <p>A lot of boards come with a pre-flashed bootloader, which makes installing and revising software very fast. But not all boards have one flashed.</p> <p>Flashing a bootloader needs you to have an Arduino and some cables or a different ISP or AVR programming tool. Complete instructions can be found <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6685/how-to-install-new-atmega-firmware-via-the-isp-pins/6686#6686">here by Greenonline</a> and <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/11338/flashing-a-bootloader-on-ender-3-without-arduino">here</a> by <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/a/11339/8884">Robert Lo Giacco</a> and <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/a/11347/8884">jpa</a>. </p> <p>Or you take your control board to your local maker space and ask someone there to help you flash the bootloader - most maker spaces have at least someone that has an Arduino and can help you!</p> <h2>2.2 - .hex file</h2> <p>In this case, we don't need to do anything in <em>this</em> step. We'll have a different installation process though.</p> <h1>Step 3: Compiling &amp; Installing Firmware</h1> <p>Depending on your choice in the previous Step, you have to follow the corresponding branch here:</p> <h2>3.1 - Bootloader</h2> <p>If you have set your bootloader, now installing firmware is as simple as connecting your computer with the printer using a direct connection and doing a compile &amp; Upload command. </p> <h2>3.2 - .hex file</h2> <p>After preparing your .hex file, you can upload it with one of the variants shown <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6654/how-to-install-a-hex-firmware">here</a> by <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/a/6656/8884">Greenonline</a>, <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/a/6655/8884">Trish</a> or <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/a/7559/8884">Thomas Weller</a></p> <h1>Step 4: Finishing touches</h1> <h3>Seeding</h3> <p>Directly after installing up our new firmware on the printer, we <strong>need</strong> to seed our settings. Connect to the printer via any Console or Terminal (see Step 0) and use these commands</p> <pre><code>M502 M500 </code></pre> <h3><a href="https://3daddict.com/pid-tune-3d-printer/" rel="noreferrer">PID Tune</a></h3> <p>Then we run a PID-Tune. For the first extruder we send:</p> <pre><code>M303 E0 S200 C3 </code></pre> <p>It will run the machine some and return values named Kp, Ki &amp; Kd. These directly correspond with P I &amp; D. Store them into the EEPROM and save with the following: </p> <pre><code>M301 P##.## I#.## D##.## M500 </code></pre>

2020-03-10T17:54:59.613

|ultimaker-cura|lulzbot-taz-6|

<p>I have a LultzBot TAZ 6 3D printer and the software I use for my prints is "Cura LulzBot Edition - 3.6.3". Recently, I have begun to play around with the parameters in Cura relating to initial layer adhesion. One such parameter is the <code>Initial Layer Flow Rate</code>.</p> <p>Now, after manipulating this parameter several times and evaluating the pieces that have been printed subsequently, it seems quite apparent to me that a manipulation in this parameter is affecting all subsequent layers that are printed. </p> <p>For example, if I <strong>increase</strong> the <code>Initial Layer Flow Rate</code> from the default setting of 100&nbsp;% to 130&nbsp;%, layer 2, layer 3,...layer n all appear to be printed at at a flow rate of 130&nbsp;% resulting in prints that are clearly "overextruded" (e.g. the finished surfaces are incredibly uneven, bumpy, etc).</p> <p>Similarly, if I <strong>decrease</strong> the <code>Initial Layer Flow Rate</code> from the default setting 100&nbsp;% to 70&nbsp;%...all subsequent layers are clearly underextruded (e.g. walls are not connected at all and floor/ceiling have visible gaps).</p> <p>Why is this happening? Directly above the Initial Layer Flow Rate parameter is a parent setting that is simply named "Flow". (refer to below picture)</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTG5R.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YTG5R.png" alt="Cura Parameters"></a></p> <p>Do I need to manipulate flow in order to avoid this from happening?</p> <p>All I want to do is change <strong>exclusively</strong> the initial layer's flow rate (for better adhesion on larger pieces)...but my current method is not accomplishing this. Any suggestions?</p> <p><span class="math-container">$\color{red}{\text{EDIT}}$</span> - After reading the comments, I just wanted to clarify that I have let my parts "be printed to completion". The obersvations that I am making about underextrusion or overextrusion are in reference to the <em>total structure</em> (not just the first several layers). These are large structures (~12 hour prints).</p>

12158

Cura Parameter Confusion: Initial Layer Flow Rate

<p>If you're over- or under-extruding by a 30% margin, there is going to be so much excess or deficiency of material in the first layer that it will take a few layers to "catch up". Normally you would only adjust the flow by 5% or at most 10% unless you're using it to correct for compression of the filament in the extruder gear (for flexible filaments), but adjusting first layer flow only is <em>always a hack</em> to work around incorrect bed height or adhesion problems. You'd do much better to figure out the right solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve with flow.</p>

2020-03-11T13:30:26.667

|firmware|hotend|safety|cooling|

<p>I'm getting a pet bird soon, and I know that off-gassing from heating PTFE above 300&nbsp;°C creates noxious fumes, which are bird-killer¹. To try to prevent even the chance of that I'm replacing my hotend with an all-metal one. I have an E3D v6 1.75&nbsp;mm, which I noticed still uses a PTFE tube at the cold side (the 3&nbsp;mm version apparently doesn't, but 1.75&nbsp;mm filament is what my printer uses, so there we are).</p> <p>If I'm reading the instructions correctly, it sounds like the heatsink shouldn't even get warm to the touch, and if that's the case I'm not worried as long as things go well. What I'm still worried about is what happens if the heatsink cooling fan fails. I plan to plug the fan into the always-on 12&nbsp;V port on my board (SKR 1.3): if I do, then is it possible to set my firmware (currently Marlin 2.0.4.4) to stop a print if the fan fails?</p> <p>If I can't get the firmware to stop on fan failure, then is there a 1.75&nbsp;mm all-metal hotend out there that doesn't require the use of PTFE on the cold side?</p> <hr> <p>1- <a href="http://healthline.com/nutrition/nonstick-cookware-safety" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here:</a> "at temperatures above 570°F (300°C), Teflon [PTFE] coatings on nonstick cookware start to break down, releasing toxic chemicals into the air <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276392/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">(14)</a>"</p>

12165

All-metal hotend, cooling fan failures, and cold-side PTFE

<p>It is doubtful that small PTFE inside hotend could produce that kind of dangerous gas leak. But another thing should be considered: the PTFE tube inside hotend WILL degrade over time and will need replacement.</p> <p>For last several years I had numerous experiments with all kind of solutions including my own designs made. And recently I found the best and all metal solution: Volcano 20mm heater + M6 stainless throat + normal SHORT E3D nozzle (not the Volcano nozzle but the normal one). Basically this solution put the problematic gap (merge of nozzle with throat) deep into hotter zone, you just need longer throat. So far I have best quality and speed with this approach.</p> <p>The most important thing for the all metal hotend is to have fast retracts.</p> <p>For the FAN I recommend to use double deck, that is to put one fan on top of another and connect them in parallel. I found this solution in some server power supplies. And indeed two fans produce really good flow to cool heatsink at higher temperatures (before I was considering water cooling but two fans much cheaper and do the job very good). Also the probability that two fans will fail is very low.</p>

2020-03-15T18:50:56.100

|ultimaker-cura|g-code|

<p>I notice that if I print from Cura without preheating the printer, it will first raise the bed temperature and then raise the extruder temperature. The G-code it generates is:</p> <pre><code>M140 S55 ; set bed temperature to 55 C M105 ; report temperatures M190 S55 ; wait for bed temperature to reach 55 C M104 S210 ; set hot end temperature to 210 C M105 ; report temperatures M109 S210 ; wait for hot end temperature to reach 210 C </code></pre> <p>The "Preheat" feature of Cura presumably send the "set temperature" commands without the corresponding "wait" command.</p> <p>Wouldn't it be more efficient to do something like this:</p> <pre><code>M104 S210 ; set hot end temperature to 210 C M140 S55 ; set bed temperature to 55 C M105 ; report temperatures M109 S210 ; wait for hot end temperature to reach 210 C M105 ; report temperatures M190 S55 ; wait for bed temperature to reach 55 C </code></pre> <p>Then the bed and extruder heat up simultaneously, and we wait for the higher temperature one <em>first</em> assuming that the other will reach its target temperature in the meanwhile.</p> <p>If this is sound, is there a way to set this in Cura, or would I need to submit a patch?</p>

12188

Simultaneous heating of extruder and bed at start of print

<pre><code> import os for filename in os.listdir(): if filename.endswith(&quot;.gcode&quot;): with open(filename, &quot;r&quot;) as file: lines = file.readlines() for i in range(len(lines)): if &quot;M140 S&quot; in lines[i]: lines[i] = &quot;M140 S50\n&quot; elif &quot;M104 S&quot; in lines[i]: lines[i] = &quot;M190 S50\n&quot; elif &quot;M190 S&quot; in lines[i]: lines[i] = &quot;M104 S185\n&quot; elif &quot;M109 S&quot; in lines[i]: lines[i] = &quot;M109 S185\n&quot; lines = [line for line in lines if &quot;M105&quot; not in line] # remove first two M105 lines with open(filename, &quot;w&quot;) as file: file.writelines(lines) </code></pre> <p>I wrote the above Python script to edit my G-codes in bulk for a plane I'm creating. This makes both extruder and bed heat up at the same time. It changes the places the code comes up in the order that @0scar listed above. And removes the grab temp <code>M105</code> lines. This makes my prints start at least a few minutes faster which is nice when you have many to do.</p> <ol> <li>Install python3 in Windows or Linux,</li> <li>Create a file called <code>something.py</code></li> <li>Paste the code above and save</li> <li>Move the script to the same folder of G-code</li> <li>Open cmd or PowerShell or Linux terminal and type <code>python3 something.py</code> or <code>python3 ./something.py</code></li> </ol> <p>It will update all G-codes to heat simultaneously. For modifying yourself edit the temps I have <code>S50</code> for the bed and <code>S185</code> for the extruder.</p>

2020-03-16T03:19:53.250

|heated-bed|heat-management|power-supply|

<p>I'm using a 200x200&nbsp;mm PCB Mk2B which connects to the MOSFET of the D8 pin on a RAMPS 1.4 shield. I used 12&nbsp;V power source for heat bed so I connected positive to pin 1 and negative to both pin 2 &amp; 3 of the bed. Heat bed worked properly. But the wires that connects power source to power supply pin on RAMPS were being heated badly. I think the problem is come from heat bed because when I unplugged heat bed, wires were cool down instantly. </p> <p>Can someone helps me with this problem. I'm just a newbie in this area.</p>

12191

Heat bed wires get hot (12 V connected to RAMPS 1.4 shield)

<p>Check the diameter of the cable. The smaller the diameter the higher the resistance, thus the heat. AWG14 seem a bit small.</p>

2020-03-18T04:48:46.787

|sla|dlp|

<p>Recently I changed the FEP bottom of my Anycubic Photon S and I'm having problems with prints now. The bottom layer sticks super well, but none of the supports or the prints do.</p> <p>I've tried tensioning the vat, releveling, and changed supports of the structure. Nothing works and I don't know how to proceed.</p> <p>I also tried tightening all of the screws on the build plate, but still errors.</p> <p>I'm using Anycubic black resin, 8 bottom layers at 90 seconds, 7 second exposure with 2 seconds off.</p> <p>The image shows a failed print example:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MRkI9.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MRkI9.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

12199

Photon S DLP first layers adhere but support will not

<p>I finally reached out to anycubic and their tech support answered and was awesome!</p> <p>They had me update the firmware, tighten the fep film more ( instead of using the small lever I used the big lever this time), then level the bed again. I printed their test print and it worked!</p> <p>After that I looked at their parameters and I saw that mine were very different. The main differences was in the lift distance, speed and retract speed. I only had 1 mm lift distance and much slower.</p> <p>Here are the correct ones in the end</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/vwnby.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/vwnby.png" alt="true parameters"></a></p>

2020-03-19T11:16:06.490

|creality-ender-3|troubleshooting|y-axis|dimensional-accuracy|

<p>I've got a peculiar issue today, and was looking for some help with it.</p> <p>Of the six Ender 3s I manage at my college, one of them seems to be <strong>stretching the Y axis</strong> of all the prints I make with it.</p> <p>Some points about the issue:</p> <ul> <li>It's variable, but is much more pronounced in larger prints: <ul> <li>A raspberry pi frame-mounted case I printed came out too long along the Y-Axis by over 2&nbsp;mm.</li> <li>To troubleshoot, I printed a calibration cube but the Y-axis was only 0.5&nbsp;mm longer.</li> <li>It seems to affect only part of some prints; a bit over half of the pi case was stretched, but a section at the top appeared normal (screw holes were perfect circles, but towards the other end they were ellipse-shaped).</li> </ul></li> <li>I tried tensioning the Y-belt, and while I noticed it was loose before tightening it, this didn't make a noticeable improvement.</li> <li>It doesn't occur in any of the other five Ender 3s, all of which are equal in modifications.</li> <li>A re-flash of the Marlin firmware didn't fix the issue. It's a preconfigured Marlin version that I pulled off github based on a recommendation. I flashed this version to try and solve the problem, the previous version was installed by the printers' previous caretaker but the new version didn't help (makes me think we might have both grabbed the same version). </li> <li>It means that I can no longer print any components that require high tolerances, as they simply won't fit together.</li> </ul> <p>The most recent print was a 40&nbsp;mm fan shroud for a "hero me" setup (which I'm working on installing on all six printers).</p> <ul> <li>I ran two of them, one on the printer with the issue and one on a perfectly functional printer.</li> <li>They were run this morning, in identical conditions and started at the same time.</li> <li>There are no other structural defects aside from the stretching, it simply looks like a normal, print but as if someone used the photoshop transform tool and pulled it.</li> </ul> <p>Here is a side by side of the two finished prints, comparing them along both the X and Y axes. As you can see, the X axis is perfect on the problem print, but the Y is consistently stretched (visible in the shape of the round cone and the screwholes).</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/75J8V.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/75J8V.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>This issue has been consistent and I'm honestly stumped, any help is appreciated! If anyone needs me to obtain more documentation or test something, I'll be back in with the printers in the morning (roughly when this post is 10 hours old) and I'm happy to get any documentation needed.</p>

12204

Ender 3 Y-Axis Stretched (I don't believe it's layer shifting)

<p>If an axis doesn't print the sizes you command it there are basically 2 options causing this.</p> <ol> <li>The printer is incorrectly configured,</li> <li>The printer has an hardware issue.</li> </ol> <p>To find out which of the 2 is applicable, you need to look into your setup and into the firmware settings. E.g. from the printers display you can read the amount of steps the stepper needs to make to move the axis 1&nbsp;mm. Alternatively, send <a href="https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#M92:_Set_axis_steps_per_unit" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>M92</code></a> through a <a href="/q/10573">terminal</a> and look at the steps per mm. If X and Y are the same, the firmware is correctly configured and you are facing a hardware issue. Note that for the stock Ender 3 the value for X and Y needs to be 80&nbsp;steps/mm. <strong>Do not alter these values!!!</strong> These values are based on the mechanical layout and the micro-stepping used by the stepper drivers.</p> <p>Since you have flashed a stock hex firmware file it is highly improbable that the firmware contains the incorrect steps per mm value for the Y axis (unless you accidentally changed this through the interface/display). This leaves you with a hardware issue. Common reasons that could identify the source of the problem are:</p> <ul> <li>Loose grub screw of the pulley on the stepper,</li> <li>Missing steps, e.g. due to too much friction (if dimensions are smaller, in your case this is not the problem, it is added for completeness),</li> <li>Loose, under tensioned belts,</li> <li>Stretched belts as a result of over tensioning the belts.</li> </ul> <p>Considering the stretched Y dimensions, the most logical explanation would be that your belts are stretched, you cannot fix this by changing the steps/mm value, it requires mechanical attention; i.e. replacing for new belts.</p>

2020-03-20T00:42:32.287

|creality-ender-3|build-surface|

<p>I have had my Ender 3 for a few months now and have loved it! I recently noticed that the build plate, the black removable part of the print bed, is sticking up in the middle. If I poke it, it goes back into place, but will not stay there. It shows especially when I print my leveling squares and find the the corners are near-perfect, but the center is crazy thin.</p> <p>I am using a stock Ender 3 with Cura 4.5.0.</p> <p>For those who may find this to be helpful, I am looking to find a good replacement build plate. In the meantime, I managed to get mine (without the sticky back) to lay flat by increasing the temperature of the bed from 50 Celsius to 60.</p>

12213

Ender 3 build surface is sticking up in the middle

<p>So your (clone) BuildTak bed surface is not sticking to the bed anymore, time to <a href="/q/7960">remove the surface and clean the heatbed</a> and apply a new one. These build surfaces (usually) have a sticky 3M sticker to stick it to the bed (or the surface bottom is covered with a sticky surface). When this sticking layer fails of subsequent heating cycles you need to replace the build surface. The higher the temperature the more the build surface expands the higher the surface gets when it doesn't stick in certain places. </p> <p>Note that the build surface is a consumable, it needs to be replaced once in a while.</p>

2020-03-22T12:51:32.983

|ultimaker-cura|creality-ender-3|nozzle|heat-management|retraction|

<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/WwWuN.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/WwWuN.jpg" alt="3D printing problem stringing"></a></p> <p>So these past few days I have been 3D printing again with my Ender 3 with PETG and 0.4&nbsp;mm nozzle and while I have been using the same setting as usual I am seeing an unusual amount of stringing between the prints. Does anyone know why? If you're wondering regarding the settings here they are, I'm using Cura for slicing, see options:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ialqzm.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ialqzm.png" alt="Quality"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tc2Blm.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Tc2Blm.png" alt="Shell"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3SpNZm.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3SpNZm.png" alt="Temperature"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/6H1M6m.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/6H1M6m.png" alt="Retraction"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0KMAQm.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0KMAQm.png" alt="Speed"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xWib6m.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xWib6m.png" alt="Cooling"></a></p>

12226

Prints coming out very stringy

<p>The travel speed of 160 mm/s is a big red flag. PETG is not tolerant of a hot nozzle moving over it at high speeds, especially unretracted (combing). The nozzle will drag material in a stuttering pattern, every so often, marring the surface and pulling what it dug up into strings.</p> <p>Lower the travel speed to the same as the print speed, and then experiment with whether you can increase it without problems. I would not try going over 80 mm/s and probably not even over 60.</p> <p>For what it's worth, this <em>sounds like</em> softened/molten PETG is a non-newtonian fluid, where at low stress (slow moving nozzle pushing/pulling) it deforms gracefully, but at high stress (fast moving nozzle) it strongly resists deformation and has a discontinuous breaking point. A quick Googling turned up this article, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10924-019-01544-6" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Thermal, Rheological and Mechanical Properties of PETG/rPETG Blends</a>, which might explain what's happening.</p>

2020-03-24T10:55:20.307

|stepper|arduino-mega-2650|power-supply|ramps-1.6|tmc2130|

<p>I want to make an order with this configuration</p> <ul> <li>Arduino MEGA 2650 R3</li> <li>Ramps 1.6 Plus</li> <li>2 TMC2130 </li> <li>2 Stepper motors 17hs3401</li> <li>1 Fan</li> </ul> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nl0sE.png" alt="stepper_motor"></p> <p>But I am not sure what voltage and current would be enough to make it work. The Ramps 1.6+ board has an input of 12V as you can see in the picture, but I have read that <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/9911/tmc2130-external-vm-ramps1-4">other people</a> had to increase the voltage with a DC-DC converter.</p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RtBEr.jpg" alt="ramps_voltage"></p> <p>So, would be 12V and 15A enough to make work that configuration?</p>

12235

Is 12V and 15A enough to make work a Ramps 1.6 Plus and two stepper motors?

<p>Yes, A power supply that can deliver 12 volts and up to 15 Amps will work. Since that board says 12 V, that means it is designed to work at 12V. The components on the board might not survive 24V. The TMC stepper motor drivers specified can tolerate a max of 2.5 amps. That current draw is dependent on the per phase winding impedance of the motors that are used. @2.4 ohms phase resistance, that 12 volts could generate a max of 5 amps (more than the Trinamic can tolerate). Therefore, if you configure the stepper drivers to operate at more than 50% power, they will overheat and shutdown.</p>

2020-03-24T11:36:54.923

|stepper-driver|skr-v1.3|bigtreetech|ramps-1.6|tmc2130|

<p>I want to buy the board <a href="https://www.hta3d.com/en/ramps-1-6-plus-compatible-with-spi-compatible-with-tmc2130" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ramps 1.6 Plus</a>. The description in the link says that is compatible with the driver TMC2130, but I found that there are two versions soldered in SPI mode. </p> <ul> <li><p><a href="https://www.hta3d.com/en/tmc2130-welded-for-spi-stepper-motor-controller-silent-driver" rel="nofollow noreferrer">BIGTREETECH TMC2130 V3.0</a>. Where the diagnosis pins are soldered as well</p></li> <li><p><a href="https://www.hta3d.com/en/tmc2130-sb-spi-version-stepper-motor-driver-carrier-low-noise-driver" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TMC2130 V?</a>. In this other product those pins are not soldered and I believe it will fit in the board</p></li> </ul> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rbd6a.jpg" alt="comparison"></p> <p>As you can see in the image other boards like the SKR 1.3 have some socket to plug in the diagnosis pins. But I don't see something similar in the Ramps 1.6, which has male pins instead.</p> <ul> <li>Should I remove those pins in order to plug the driver? Or is there a better way to proceed?</li> <li>I don't really know what the diagnosis pins do, are they really necessary? Should I buy the second option without those pins soldered to avoid problems?</li> </ul>

12236

Will the TMC2130 V3.0 stepper driver work with the Ramps 1.6 Plus board?

<p>Well I found that I can use a DuPont cable to connect the diag1 pin to the right endstop</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/tWE10.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/tWE10.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>There is also a beta functionality in the Marlin firmware I haven't tried: Just uncommenting <code>SPI_ENDSTOPS</code> definition</p> <pre><code> * SPI_ENDSTOPS *** Beta feature! *** TMC2130 Only *** * Poll the driver through SPI to determine load when homing. * Removes the need for a wire from DIAG1 to an endstop pin. * * IMPROVE_HOMING_RELIABILITY tunes acceleration and jerk when * homing and adds a guard period for endstop triggering. */ #define SENSORLESS_HOMING // StallGuard capable drivers only #if EITHER(SENSORLESS_HOMING, SENSORLESS_PROBING) // TMC2209: 0...255. TMC2130: -64...63 #define X_STALL_SENSITIVITY 8 #define X2_STALL_SENSITIVITY X_STALL_SENSITIVITY #define Y_STALL_SENSITIVITY 8 //#define Z_STALL_SENSITIVITY 8 //#define SPI_ENDSTOPS // TMC2130 only //#define IMPROVE_HOMING_RELIABILITY #endif </code></pre>

2020-03-26T01:26:05.873

|prusa-i3|acetone|cleaning|bed|pei|

<p>I have the original Prusa i3m3 printer. Prusa recommends cleaning the bed before each print with isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol), with only occasional cleaning with acetone. The textured bed prohibits using acetone.</p> <p>Given the SARS-COV-2 situation and COVID-19, isopropanol is impossible to find, and will not be in stock on shelves in the US for months.</p> <p>What would you suggest as an alternative that might still be found on store shelves?</p>

12249

PRUSA likes the bed to be cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. What else should I use?

<p>The <a href="https://cdn.prusa3d.com/downloads/manual/prusa3d_manual_mk3s_en_3_12.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Prusa manual</a> also states that you can use Windex for PET-G:</p> <blockquote> <p>use Windex instead as it degreases less thoroughly.</p> </blockquote> <p>Also works with PLA, I've tested it, but for assured adherence, I also use a little swipe of the glue stick included with the printer. </p>

2020-03-27T13:35:13.377

|file-formats|openscad|fusion360|.step|

<p>I work with Fusion360 for designing lots of things. Recently I learned how to work with parameters that I can easily modify all at once, allowing to pretty much make easily customizable pieces.</p> <p>Now, Thingiverse wants customizer pieces in the shape of <code>.SCAD</code> files, and some people just can't work with Fusion360 (<code>.F3D</code>) or proper <code>.STEP</code> files that can be imported by most CAD programs.</p> <p>I have no experience with OpenSCAD. Can I import my <code>.STEP</code> into openSCAD, retain my parameters and export it as a <code>.SCAD</code>, and if yes, how?</p>

12258

.STEP/.F3D to .SCAD file?

<p>I managed to get openscad-step-reader to compile, but I had to jump through a few hoops:</p> <ol> <li><p>Run the <code>apt-get</code> install command from the beginning of the Makefile:<br /> <code>apt-get install libocct-data-exchange-dev libocct-draw-dev libocct-foundation-dev libocct-modeling-algorithms-dev libocct-modeling-data-dev libocct-ocaf-dev libocct-visualization-dev libtbb-dev</code></p> </li> <li><p>Ignore anything to do with <code>cmake</code>. I can get <code>cmake</code> to work by creating a <code>CMakeLists.txt</code> file, but I couldn't get the <code>Makefile</code> it generates to work.</p> </li> <li><p>Edit <code>triangle.h</code> and replace</p> <ul> <li><code>ostream</code> with <code>std::ostream</code> [2 changes]</li> <li><code>endl</code> with <code>std::endl</code> [3 changes]</li> </ul> </li> <li><p>Edit <code>openscad-step-reader.cpp</code> and replace</p> <ul> <li><code>endl</code> with <code>std::endl</code> [1 change]</li> </ul> </li> <li><p>Edit <code>explore-shape.cpp</code> and add</p> <ul> <li><code>#include &lt;GeomAbs_SurfaceType.hxx&gt;</code></li> <li><code>#include &lt;BRepAdaptor_Surface.hxx&gt;</code></li> </ul> </li> <li><p>Edit the <code>Makefile</code> and change</p> <ul> <li><code>7.3.0</code> to <code>7.5.2</code> [2 changes] (I realise a better solution would be desirable for this!)</li> </ul> </li> <li><p>Run <code>make</code>. The <code>.o</code> files should be created, but the <code>cc</code> command will fail (after a longish time), citing 'undefined reference' 783 times</p> </li> <li><p>Copy the <code>cc</code> command that was printed whilst running make, and put all the <code>.o</code> files before all the <code>-l</code> arguments, like this:</p> </li> </ol> <pre><code>cc openscad-step-reader.o tessellation.o openscad-triangle-writer.o explore-shape.o -lTKSTL -lTKXDESTEP -lTKBinXCAF -lTKXmlXCAF -lTKXDEIGES -lTKXCAF -lTKIGES -lTKSTEP -lTKSTEP209 -lTKSTEPAttr -lTKSTEPBase -lTKXSBase -lTKStd -lTKStdL -lTKXml -lTKBin -lTKXmlL -lTKBinL -lTKCAF -lTKXCAF -lTKLCAF -lTKCDF -lTKMeshVS -lTKOpenGl -lTKV3d -lTKService -lTKXMesh -lTKMesh -lTKOffset -lTKFeat -lTKFillet -lTKHLR -lTKBool -lTKBO -lTKShHealing -lTKPrim -lTKTopAlgo -lTKGeomAlgo -lTKBRep -lTKGeomBase -lTKG3d -lTKG2d -lTKIGES -lTKSTEP -lTKSTEP209 -lTKSTEPAttr -lTKSTEPBase -lTKXSBase -lTKStd -lTKStdL -lTKXml -lTKBin -lTKXmlL -lTKBinL -lTKCAF -lTKLCAF -lTKCDF -lTKMeshVS -lTKOpenGl -lTKV3d -lTKService -lTKXMesh -lTKMesh -lTKOffset -lTKFeat -lTKFillet -lTKHLR -lTKBool -lTKBO -lTKShHealing -lTKPrim -lTKTopAlgo -lTKGeomAlgo -lTKBRep -lTKGeomBase -lTKG3d -lTKG2d /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKMath.so.7.5.2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKernel.so.7.5.2 -lfreetype -lpthread -lrt -lstdc++ -ldl -lm -o openscad-step-reader </code></pre> <p>Now, for me, the program will compile. My system is running Ubuntu Focal Fossa 20.04.6 LTS. I contacted the author (Gordon Assaf) but he said he was no longer working on the project. For me, this has been a godsend, since it allows me to import .step files downloaded from the Swagelok website into my OpenSCAD design.</p>

2020-03-27T21:18:32.310

|prusa-i3|heated-bed|heat-management|

<p>I'm having an issue with my Prusa i3 MK2 MMU.</p> <p>It starts printing just fine, and everything gets up to operating temp quite quickly. However, after printing the first few layers, it seems as if the heated bed can't keep up with the demand, and its temperature starts to drop, first it can barely hold 80&nbsp;&deg;C and then it slowly drops down to 77-76&nbsp;&deg;C before the printer shuts off due to <code>BED THERMAL RUNAWAY</code>. </p> <p>The LED is continuously on for the bed, so it seems to be supplying power when this happens. Setting the printer down from high power to "silent" helps a bit, so could this be that it is not getting enough power?</p> <p>Ambient temp is around 17&nbsp;&deg;C.</p>

12263

Prusa i3 MK2 Heated Bed Thermal Runaway Problems

<p>The local library makerspace (prior to COVID-19 shutdown) has a Prusa i3 MK2 (no MMU) that had a similar problem. The model being printed was relatively small, compared to the bed and was being printed nearly atop the temperature sensor.</p> <p>The part cooling fan was cooling the bed sensor while the rest of the bed was not being used.</p> <p>Moving the model away from the sensor resolved the problem. If you're printing in the center of the bed, consider to re-slice in a position offset from the center.</p> <p>If you are using the PEI sheet as the library machine is/was, consider to shuttle your prints around the bed over time. The library's printer wore away the PEI from always-centered prints. It had to be replaced after about a year. The replacement is going on two years with little complications.</p>

2020-03-28T11:25:38.903

|diy-3d-printer|ramps-1.4|reprap|full-graphic-smart-controller|

<p>I want to add an <strong>external SD card adapter</strong> on my <strong>RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD</strong>. My 3D printer is based on (Arduino Mega + RAMPS v1.4 + RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD). I buy an SD Card Adapter from Aliexpress (<a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32873382195.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.4f544c4d5UzB1L" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32873382195.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.4f544c4d5UzB1L</a>) and now I want to add this adapter on my RAMPS 1.4 while not disturbing the working of RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD. Please guide me how can I add this to my RAMPS? Thanks!</p> <p><strong>My 3D Printer Details:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Model: A Standard DIY Prusa 3D Printer (Cartesian)</li> <li>Firmware: Repetier Firmware</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MrNnS.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MrNnS.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wg9g4.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Wg9g4.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

12265

Makerbase MKS Slot2 V1.0 + RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD + RAMPS 1.4

<p>A RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD already has an SD card slot reader at the back of the board:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPVXr.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD backside"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/IPVXr.jpg" alt="RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD backside" title="RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD backside"></a></p> <p>Basically one of the 10 pin headers is used for the display and rotary encoder and reset, the other header is used by the SD card reader.</p> <p>The module referenced in the question is a breakout SD card slot reader for the TFT (touchscreen) display controllers. Whether these are compatible with the EXP2 header of the RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD should be compared with the schematics. The schematics of the RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD are available, but for the SD slot breakout cannot be found. It is therefore unsure if the EXP2 is fully compatible for the SD slot board. To use the EXP2 on a RAMPS shield, you need the L-shaped connector.</p> <p>The description of the Slot2 explicitly says that it is meant to be connected to either a TFT35 or a TFT70 MKS touchscreen display. In order to use it directly to your RAMPS shield requires finding out which pin goes where.</p>

2020-03-29T09:55:18.983

|creality-ender-3|troubleshooting|homing|

<p>I'm new to 3D printing and have bought an Ender 3. I have printed a few good prints but I'm noticing a worsening issue: </p> <p>When I select "autohome" the axes head towards their limit switches, but the y axis in particular seems to slam into the limit switch, bending it away, meaning that the platform bounces off and doesn't activate the limit switch a second time</p> <p>This causes the machine to slam against the back over and over until the limit switch is triggered or power is removed.</p> <p>I've replaced the limit switch twice</p> <p>I've tried supergluing the limit switch to its PCB but even with a needle and patience this caused the limit switch to be ruined</p> <p>What can I do?</p> <p>Edit: Here are some photos of the switch (2nd replacement). The OEM switch also did the same thing, but I don't have photos of that. The screws are loose in these photos, but this is just because my Allen key is lost - the previous two switches had the screws reasonably tightened with the correct Allen key, provided in the box<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/myOyr.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/myOyr.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LJ7vM.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LJ7vM.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/C3JHa.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/C3JHa.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

13269

Homing damages limit switches Ender 3

<p>The solution seems to be simply triggering the switch earlier, and making sure that it is triggered. The thin arm can end up bent over the actual button of the switch, meaning that the arm can be touching the switch without actually &quot;pressing&quot; the switch. For some, bending the arm seems to have worked, but for me I had to wedge a small piece of plastic between the arm and the switch button, meaning that it is a lot more reliable when you press the switch. The piece isn't stuck in there in any way, simply held by friction. This isn't the best solution as you have to keep an eye on that piece with every homing, but until a better answer is available, I recommend this solution as it was more reliable than bending the arm out or into a different shape.</p>

2020-03-29T23:00:04.660

|extruder|creality-ender-3|bowden|

<p>I'm new to 3D Printing and recently purchased an Ender 3D PRO I'm having an issue with the filament guide tube getting pushed out of the nozzle on the feeding mechanism. The assembly instructions don't include a whole lot of detail about installing this guide tube but there are blue clips that were included along with the spare nozzle. There are no instructions on where to use these blue clips and I have a hunch this might be the problem. </p>

13275

Filament feed tube

<p>The clips or collet clips as they are called are to secure the Bowden tube more solidly to improve printer extrusion; more specifically: extruder retraction performance.</p> <p>E3D has explained this very nicely on their site under <a href="https://e3d-online.com/blog/2017/10/27/bowden-tube-physics/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bowden tube physics</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>For the bowden couplings (which can have some wiggle room in them) we are introducing collet clips, which slide under the toothed collet part of the coupling that physically holds the tube and locks it into place with a little pre-tension to boot. This reduces coupling lash to near zero as the collet and tube it is holding are locked into place.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YobdM.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YobdM.png" alt="Bowden collet clips principle"></a></p> <p>From the <a href="https://i.imgur.com/RTWnzB5.gif" rel="nofollow noreferrer">animated gif from the E3D website</a> (animated gifs are not allowed on SE) it can be seen that without clips, the tube can move in the tube coupling: <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YfzfWm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YfzfWm.png" alt="enter image description here"></a><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2OpuTm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2OpuTm.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

2020-03-31T01:07:29.873

|ramps-1.6|

<p>Recently my RAMPS power connector caught fire while heating the heated bed. I suspect this was a defect caused by the connector, and de-soldered/removed it as best I could. I'm not an electrical engineer, so I'm looking for advice on whether It is possible to re-solder the power connectors directly onto the board, or I'm just risking another fire. Here are pictures of the top and bottom.</p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/BFnKQ.jpg" alt="Top side of PCB and underside of power screw terminals, showing burning" title="Top side of PCB and underside of power screw terminals, showing burning" /></p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oWCMH.jpg" alt="Underside of PCB" title="Underside of PCB" /></p>

13282

Can I resolder a power connections with a partially burnt board

<p>As MIck wrote, we hope your board isn't damaged - with any luck there aren't any trace shorts in the melted region. </p> <p>My approach would be slightly different. Use some short bits of wire soldered into the board at one end and soldered to a new connector socket at the other end. This way you can put a new plug connector on the power leads and be able to disconnect the board as desired. </p>

2020-03-31T15:51:25.697

|creality-ender-3|bltouch|

<p>I followed this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TTuisjmbmY&amp;t=624s" rel="nofollow noreferrer">tutorial</a> on how to set up <strong>BLTOUCH v3.0 with my Ender 3 Pro</strong>. (v1.1.4 motherboard)</p> <p>I even <strong>removed C7 capacitor</strong> on Z axes. And <strong>no luck</strong>. My BLTouch probe is working, it turns on with the Ender and testing is fine. But it doesn't stop the printer on Z axis while auto homing.</p> <p>Firmware is from firmware.th3dstudio.com</p> <p>Any ideas? Any advice is highly appreciated.</p> <p>My configuration.h file: <a href="https://paste.ofcode.org/Z4kKiGwYXC6yQ698t9uaeY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://paste.ofcode.org/Z4kKiGwYXC6yQ698t9uaeY</a></p> <p>My configuration_backend.h file: <a href="https://paste.ofcode.org/34tuX4mG3Ph57jSnT8YByi3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://paste.ofcode.org/34tuX4mG3Ph57jSnT8YByi3</a></p>

13290

Problem with Creality v1.1.4 (Ender 3 Pro) and BLTOUCH v3.0 (removed C7 capacitor)

<p>If the probe works, but not on auto homing, it could be that the Z endstop/probe wires are incorrectly wired.</p> <p>From <a href="https://cdn.thingiverse.com/assets/67/42/7a/bf/ad/v3_Fixed_Creality_BLTOUCH_Guide.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">"The complete BLTouch/3DTouch guide for Creality printers (CR-10/s,Ender 2,Ender 3) for Auto Bed Leveling UPDATED"</a> can be read:</p> <blockquote> <p>If you connect your bltouch and when auto homing the sensor doesn’t register &amp; the z axis keeps dropping pressing into your bed, turn your printer off, disconnect the power and invert the black and white connectors in the z limit switch header (put black where white was, put white where black was).</p> </blockquote> <p>This can also be found in <a href="https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/12948" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this Marlin issue tracker</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>The Problem was the polarity of the sensor wires was reversed.</p> </blockquote> <p>If <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ender3/comments/eee23n/ender_3_bltouch_v3_probe_not_stopping_for_z_axis/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">reversing the polarity does not work</a>, move to the original Marlin firmware. </p>

2020-04-01T18:13:20.377

|power-supply|color|wire-type|

<p>I have read that the cable colours depend on multiple factors:</p> <ul> <li>Used voltage</li> <li>Kind of cable</li> <li>Type of voltage (DC or AC)</li> </ul> <p>My cable looks like this:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ghH1zm.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ghH1zm.jpg" alt="main_cable"></a></p> <p>I live in Spain, in Europe. The colour codes of the International Electrotechnical Commission for AC circuits are <a href="http://electronink.blogspot.com/2015/09/electronics-circuits.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">these ones</a>:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/FApMR.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/FApMR.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>My PSU has these possible connections</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/v4WwO.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/v4WwO.jpg" alt="front_psu"></a></p> <p>So I guess these are the connections:</p> <ul> <li>L (AC). Brown colour. Single Phase line or Three Phase Line (L1)</li> <li>N (AC). Blue colour. Neutral</li> <li>GND. Green and yellow colours. Protective earth or ground (PE)</li> <li>COM, COM ¿?</li> <li>V, V ¿?</li> <li>V(ADJ). This is a potentiometer, in order to modify the current voltage. Should I touch this?</li> </ul> <p>But I am not sure about what are the COM and the V ports. I assume they are for the DC connections, which is the positive and which the negative? The PSU does not have any manual and I am little lost</p> <p>Should I turn the potentiometer to change the voltage to adapt it to the Ramps 1.6 Plus board?</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RtBErm.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/RtBErm.jpg" alt="ramps"></a></p> <p>Please correct me if I made some mistake in my question as well</p>

13296

Which connectors should I use to connect my Power Supply Unit to the Ramps?

<p>You're quite right :)</p> <ul> <li>L (AC): Brown colour. Single Phase line or Three Phase Line (L1) </li> <li>N (AC): Blue colour. Neutral </li> <li>GND: Green and yellow colours. Protective earth or ground (PE) </li> <li>COM: DC Negative (-) - Also referred to as "Common"</li> <li>V+: DC Positive (+)</li> <li>V(ADJ). This is for a potentiometer, in order to modify the output voltage. You won't need this unless your power supply is far off. </li> </ul> <p>The way to go about these things is to connect the AC side and to connect a multimeter to the output terminals (V+ and COM, there are two of them in case you need to wire up more than one connection). I like to lightly tighten down the probes under the terminals, that way you don't have to mess with the connections with the mains terminals exposed.</p> <p>Now you can plug in the power supply (PSU) and make sure it doesn't start smoking or sparking. </p> <p>Verify that the PSU is outputting DC 12V (that seems to be the voltage required by your Ramps board according to the picture). After that, you can connect it to the Ramps board (remember to disconnect the PSU before rewiring). If the voltage is anything but around 12 V (+/- 0.5VDC should be safe), you need to verify that the PSU is the correct type for your application. </p>

2020-04-02T02:20:31.650

|heated-bed|ramps-1.4|ramps-1.6|mosfet|

<p>I recently build a 3D printer from scratch and was using an Arduino Mega + RAMPS 1.4 to control it. A few weeks in I installed a heated bed to help my prints stick to the surface. The bed I bought was an Anet bed found on Amazon, I'm told they are prone to causing fires. </p> <p>About a week after I installed the bed, my the MOSFET on my RAMPS overheated and began to smoke. I could no longer perform without heating up too hot and smoking, so I bought another RAMPS 1.4 to replace it. The same thing happened and I returned it... </p> <p>After doing some research and finding out the connectors and MOSFETs on the RAMPS 1.4 are typically undersized, I decided to upgrade to avoid the problem and go with a RAMPS 1.6 instead, which was supposed to better handle the current flow. After about a week of using the RAMPS 1.6, the power connection began to smoke and caught fire(Not the MOSFETs like the RAMPS 1.4, the incoming power connector). I attempted to remove the connector and resolder the wires, I couldn't get it to work. At this point I'm looking for advice on which controller to go with. I don't want to buy another RAMPS out of fear of the same thing happening, but I am also wondering if buying a different heated bed would fix the problem. So any recommendations on where to go from here? I've look at a few boards but one thing is some of them can only control 1 Z stepper driver, while my setup has Z.</p>

13300

Which 3D printer controller should I use?

<h2>Controller boards</h2> <p>Please note (this is not to bash) that RAMPS shields are not the top of the line printer controller boards, investing in a more modern printer board platform (preferably not a clone of a known board), e.g. a 32-bit board might be a better solution.</p> <p>Any board with at least four stepper drivers should be sufficient (you can use the two Z steppers in parallel or in series), some boards even offer two Z stepper output connectors controlled by a single stepper, e.g.:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XV4Jf.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="Two Z stepper ports on SKR PRO"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XV4Jf.png" alt="Two Z stepper ports on SKR PRO" title="Two Z stepper ports on SKR PRO" /></a></p> <p>No worries if the board doesn't have two Z stepper connectors, you can buy dual stepper breakout boards, e.g. a parallel solution:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XkxXjm.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="Dual Z stepper connector breakout board"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XkxXjm.jpg" alt="Dual Z stepper connector breakout board" title="Dual Z stepper connector breakout board" /></a></p> <p>Alternatively, an extra stepper driver can drive the extra Z stepper; this requires a board with at least 5 stepper drivers then, the Z2 stepper would then be connected to the E1 extruder driver. The firmware needs to be aware of using 2 stepper drivers, so in Marlin (depending on the version) set <code>Z_DUAL_STEPPER_DRIVERS</code> or assign a value to <code>NUM_Z_STEPPER_DRIVERS </code>.</p> <h2>Anet heatbed</h2> <p>The Anet heatbed is notoriously known for fire accidents/burning caused by the underrated connectors (the connector itself is not rated for 10 A!), also the connector should require proper strain relief. The best solution is to solder the heat bed wires directly to the backside of the connector (which is what I did on my old Anet A8 printer, I used multiple pins soldered together, both the outer 2 pins on either side), an example from the web (downside is that they only used a single pin) shows this principle (with solution for cable/soldering stress relief using a tie-wrap):</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRZLm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="Anet heatbed soldered to the back of the connector"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/KRZLm.png" alt="Anet heatbed soldered to the back of the connector" title="Anet heatbed soldered to the back of the connector" /></a></p> <p>A final notice for connecting heatbeds is to use proper cables; silicone cables of proper gauge (silicone wires are very flexible, e.g. AWG 14) should be used. Also, never solder the ends and put them under screw connectors on the printer board, instead, use ferrules or proper sized fork terminal connectors.</p> <h2>MOSFET Band Aid</h2> <p>In case the MOSFETs on your boards are underrated, you can use external MOSFET boards to relieve the shield/printer board from the high currents. Note that the bed requires the most current (about 10 A), for the hotend this will not be required, the current draw is much lower, the onboard MOSFETs are rated for those loads.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EVwaZ.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="MOSFET External module"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EVwaZ.png" alt="MOSFET External module" title="MOSFET External module" /></a></p>

2020-04-02T06:45:25.030

|marlin|firmware|anet-a8|bed-leveling|

<p>I've just updated my Anet A8 with the blue bed level sensor to Marlin 2.0 . Both pressing the Level Bed button on the display or using <code>G29</code> after <code>G28</code> in the G-code don't do anything.</p> <p><code>G28</code> Homing works fine, but doesn't put the nozzle at the center like it did on Marlin 1.1.x, instead it puts the sensor at the center of the build plate. <code>G29</code> worked fine in my previous Marlin 1.1 config.</p> <p>These are my config files: </p> <ul> <li><a href="https://pastebin.com/kbRgPzM8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Configuration.h</a></li> <li><a href="https://pastebin.com/HQiLLArE" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Configuration_adv.h</a></li> </ul>

13303

G29 Bed Level not doing anything on Marlin 2.0

<p>From the linked <code>Configuration.h</code> file the probe X, Y, Z probe offset is set by constant array:</p> <pre><code>#define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { 75, -35 , 0 } </code></pre> <p>So, the sensor is mounted at the right-front (X+, Y- according to the Marlin configuration definition) when facing the printer.</p> <p>This implies that the sensor is limited on the right and at the front.</p> <p>The probing area used to be defined in Marlin 1.1.x in the <code>Configuration.h</code> file. However, Marlin 2.x requires edge offsets rather than absolute bed size constraints. From the <code>Configuration_adv.h</code> of linked file, the following probing limits are set:</p> <pre><code>#if PROBE_SELECTED &amp;&amp; !IS_KINEMATIC #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_LEFT (75 + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_RIGHT (X_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_FRONT (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_BACK (Y_BED_SIZE -35 - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #endif </code></pre> <p>This is incorrect, this is what you would do in Marlin 1.1.x. Note that <a href="/a/8154">this answer</a> describes in detail how to set the bed probing limits. You need to specify the offset from the edge on each side, in schematics the probing area is defined as:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PLhmn.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="Front-right probe position"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/PLhmn.png" alt="Front-right probe position" title="Front-right probe position"></a></p> <p>From your printer configuration, the probing limits should be set to:</p> <pre><code>#if PROBE_SELECTED &amp;&amp; !IS_KINEMATIC #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_LEFT (75 + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_RIGHT (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_FRONT (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE_BACK (35 + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) ; Note that 35 is absolute(-35)! #endif </code></pre>