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Heated bed for the XYZprinting da Vinci mini w

Instead of replacing the bed, you could invest in a silicone heating element and top it off with a piece of (Borosilicate) glass. If the printer board has exposed headers to attach a heated bed, which is possible, but not certain, you could use an SSR (solid state relay) to power the bed using the signal from the board to set the temperature. Alternatively use a thermostat for an incubator to create the signal for the SSR. Note that all these parts can be sourced from those typical online websites. In case the wires of the silicone heater stick out, use a layer of cork where you cut out space for the cables and thermistor.

How thick is 0.1 mm?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by your comment to Davo's answer, but with respect to your use of a sheet of paper reference, it seems like you can still use 80 gsm paper as a reference for 0.1 mm layers. From Paper Sizes Explained (emphasis is mine): There is no universal calculation for the thickness of paper based on the gsm as varitaions in paper composition can affect the weight, so two different brands of 120gsm paper could have slightly different thicknesses. However, an average sheet of 80gsm paper, the most commonly used weight, measures approximately 0.1mm in thickness, which means that 10 sheets would measure 1mm. By comparison, 10 sheets of 120gsm paper would be 1.5mm thick, assuming the paper composition was the same. So, given that: 80 gsm => 0.1 mm 120 gsm => 0.15 mm Then 40 gsm => 0.05 mm 60 gsm => 0.075 mm From A Guide to Paper Types and Sizes Paper Weight Descriptions Weight Feels Similar to: 35-55 gsm Most newspapers 90 gsm Mid-market magazine inner pages 130-250 gsm A good quality promotional poster 180-250 gsm Mid-market magazine cover 350 gsm Most reasonable quality business cards So, it would appear that you could use a newspaper sheet (or two) to test for layers of less than 0.1 mm. Obviously this would depend upon where in the world you are, and the (physical) quality of your newspapers. Here in the UK, or rather Europe, the exported version of the Guardian used to be printed on some extremely lightweight paper (almost transparent tissue thin), in order to keep the costs of transport down to a minimum. So a folded sheet of that would certainly be in the range of 0.75 - 0.99 mm (which seems to be the range that you are looking for). However, given that the printed media (as opposed to the online version) is currently in decline, I am not entirely sure if it is still available. Or, how about grease proof paper? From the Wikipedia entry: Basis weights are usually 30–50 g/m² Although, this paper has been processed (supercalandered) and treated with starch, which will increase the density, so the thickness will not correlate to the table above (i.e. it will be thinner). Giftwrap paper (not the really thick stuff) could be another option. After having doing some long winded googling, I guess that the best bet would be to get hold of a micrometer and measure whatever paper yourself, as the specifications of paper are generally given in gsm and not mm (which is a bit annoying), and so it is somewhat difficult to provide you with a definitive answer (without physically measuring it).

How to create a 3D model as mold for a 4-legged animal with parallel legs

In traditional mold making, this would require a "sectional" mold -- one that breaks into mutiple pieces to free the legs, rather than just two halves. Sometimes you can use a non-planar mold break line to avoid this issue; look at the molds made for casting miniatures that aren't neatly arranged to see examples, but as you note, with one rear leg alongside the other, the narrow space between isn't accessible with a rigid mold and a molded figure that can't be flexed. One way around this would be to print the figure and make a flexible mold from it -- the mold wouldn't be printed, but would be molded from a positive figure. That would let you use a flexible mold material to run a join between the rear legs and still separate the mold, with a little care. You may also want to make the mold in layers, as would be done for denture making -- using a soft, highly flexible material such as the alginate used in denture making for direct contact with the original figure, and then reinforcing the very soft contact layer with a sturdier backup layer to provide support.

I am experiencing some severe under extrusion

Assuming your filament dimension settings are correct and your extruder is correctly calibrated... Your extruder temperature may be too low. While 184C can be hot enough, it is very near the bottom of the range for PLA and it appears your filament isn't melting quickly enough to keep up with your other settings. Your extruder may even be running slightly cooler than you think so your 184C setting may actually be printing at 180C or less. To solve this: Raise your extruder temperature. I suggest raising your print temperature to 220 degrees and then gradually lower it until other aspects of your print quality are acceptable (bridging, oozing, etc). Slow down your print. Slowing down reduces the volume of melted plastic your extruder has to deliver in a given amount of time. This allows more time for the plastic to melt and allows you to use a lower print temperature Your filament feed mechanism may be slipping. Even if you have adequate temperature and perfectly calibrated firmware and print settings, if your filament feed mechanism (the thing that pushes filament into your extruder) is slipping, you will have under-extruded parts. To solve this: Make sure you have adequate tension on your filament feed mechanism. If your feed mechanism is too loose, filament may slip and cause under extrusion. The part to check is the part the pushes the filament into the rotating hobbed bolt or friction wheel...make sure it applies adequate pressure. "Adequate pressure" or "adequate tension" will vary depending you your printer's design, but it should be enough to provide a firm grip on the filament. Verify your feed mechanism is clean. A hobbed bolt or similar filament drive mechanism that has become clogged or otherwise contaminated may cause filament to slip and under-extrude. Ensure the end of your filament is not damaged from slipping. Once your filament has slipped, it may be damaged with a worn spot, a bulge, or some other defect that can prevent proper feeding even after you fix the root cause of your problem. So, as tbm0115 pointed out, be sure to clip off the damaged end to make sure you have good filament feeding into your extruder. I hope this helps!

M3D Micro printer stops extruding but is not clogged

I'm not sure how similar the two systems are, but I use a Stratasys uPrint SE Plus and I've run into a similar problem. There are two rollers in the head that pull the filament through to the extruder nozzle, and in one instance they appeared to have heated up, melted the filament enough to create two "indentions" on either side of the filament, making it such that the rollers had no purchase on the filament itself. There was never any clog, no material feed error, but it was still failing to print. Wound up having to replace the head altogether. Again, not sure how similar the extrusion mechanics are in the M3D, but suggest checking the components that actually advance the filament, and the filament itself.

Is my printer over extruding?

It looks like you some of your layers are printing with 100% infill. If you are noticing plastic still coming out at the end of lines then I think your pressure in the nozzle is high when it is getting to the end of those lines and that pressure is pushing out the extra plastic. That could be because your over extruding, but if it is only happening on layers where you are printing with 100% infill it could also be because lines are too close together and so when your trying to push out plastic to fill all the gaps in the model the pressure is building up in the nozzle because the gaps in the infill are to small for the amount of plastic the printer is trying to push into them. I would see if it is happening on all your lines or is it worse on layers where the printer is printing 100% infill. Then maybe try adjusting the amount the printer is extruding and see how it changes the print. Adjusting the speed could also make a difference. And some slicers have a setting to tell the printer to coast at the end of a line so the printer will stop extruding just before finishing a line as well. If you think the other setting are all tuned as good as you can get them then trying the coast setting might help for the model you are trying to print.

What parameters affect cylinder regularity?

This is probably a result of bad quality filament. If you haven't changed much in your setups, haven't changed slicers, but may have changed spools, then this might be the result. I would try using another spool and perhaps switch suppliers. I know it's expensive and there seems to be a stigma around it, but MakerBot Industries provides quality PLA (some ABS also). Other than that, you've done some of what I would suggest in this case which are the following: Speeds Layer height My only other suggestions would be: Check how level your build plate is Check material requirements. ie ABS is ideal between 230-240C according to MSDS with about 110C build plate temp, PLA between 210-230C. Sometimes too hot of a hotend can result in overextrusion or ooze. If the cylinder is smaller, try changing your slicing settings to have a time minimum for each layer. In my experience, a material like ABS will begin to flare out with variations in the print environment. When the material flares out, as the nozzle comes across the area again, the flared areas will be pushed aside. If you adjust your slicing settings to about 15 seconds (refer to this calculator), then the material will have time to cool slightly from its plastic state. You can cheat this slightly by adding another object somewhere further on the plate with the same height, since the time it takes to rapid to the area and print the layer might be enough time for cooling. I would also recommend doing some in depth maintenance to eliminate in obvious problems (such as cleaning your nozzle, rods, belts, etc.)

Determining the temps and speeds for DIY printers?

The short answer is, you use the temps and speeds that give you good results. It's trial and error. The temperature number your printer reports really doesn't matter. That's just a process control variable: it needs to be consistent and repeatable, but it doesn't need to be accurate against an independent reference. What you should care about is your print results. Some signs your printing temp is too cold: PLA printed parts have a dull, matte surface Poor layer adhesion Extruder stalls or strips the filament at fairly low printing speeds for your extruder and nozzle size Some signs your printing temp is too hot: PLA printed parts have a very shiny surface PLA has a very strong sugary/waffle smell, or any material smells burnt Stringiness during travel moves that you can't eliminate by tuning retraction Excessive oozing while the nozzle is stationary off the print Bubbles or cloudiness in extruded strands in extruded strands even with dry filament You will also calibrate speeds via trial and error. There are two main speed limits for a printer: how fast the motion mechanism can move the nozzle without running into issues or unacceptable print quality degradation (which is also a function of acceleration settings), and how fast the hot end can heat up and melt filament. The mechanism speed limits you have to find via trial and error. Pick a test print you like (such as Benchy) and repeat it with different tuning until you find your preferred limits. Melt flow restrictions are slightly more complex, because they are a function of VOLUME flow rate, not commanded speeds. Make a large boxy test print (with long straight lines) and multiply extrusion width times layer height times feedrate. That will give you your approximate flow rate in mm3/sec. Generally speaking, every extruder + hot end + material combo will have a maximum feasible flow rate. For example, most "average" hobbyist printers with 0.4 mm nozzles and good extruders can extrude about 4-8 mm3/sec with PLA. PTFE-lined hot ends are at the lower end, all-metal hot ends are at the higher end. The value will depend on your hardware. But you can do a few quick benchmarking tests to find the limit, and then use that to determine peak feedrates to avoid exceeding the melt capacity of your system.

How can I print gears using very high resolution material like nylon

Proceeding with the expectation that you mean nylon rather than vinyl, there are a few options open for you. What resolution are you seeking? Layer thickness of 0.100 mm is quite good, allowing for ten layers per mm of part thickness, with infill adjusted as required. If you've already determined that your printer will not print at the resolution required for your gear design, you would perhaps purchase a higher resolution printer. Of course, that may be an expense you would like to avoid. If your parts count is small, you could consider to print samples of the parts to confirm fit, but not worry about strength and then use an online service to have them printed via SLS method. Selective Laser Sintering places nylon powder on the work surface, then selectively melts the powder into a solid. Each layer when completed is covered with another layer of powder and fused to the previous portion (or not) until the part is complete. Because the un-fused powder provides support, there is no requirement for the model to have supplemental support structures. There is a requirement/objective that the part have "drain holes" in areas which might otherwise be solid. Any surface that entraps powder is charged to the purchaser as if the space within is included in the part. An example would be a cube that can be printed as six square faces only. The cube wall thickness can be specified and if a drain hole is incorporated, the cost would be the volume of the walls only. No drain hole would mean the cube would be charged for the entire volume. For gears, which are typically low profile/flat items, that's a minor consideration. The same concept applies to SLA printing, which uses a laser in a vat of resin. If the model is a solid with no drain holes, the interior will retain the resin. It is possible that the interior can be cured with strong UV light and/or sunlight, but opaque resins would not accept this work-around, nor would it reduce the cost involved. Also note that SLA printed items would lack the necessary strength. If farming out your parts is the direction you intend to travel, ensure the dimension stability reference in the vendor you use. Nylon sintered parts will shrink a known amount during the fusing process. The vendor should provide the appropriate reference, or the vendor should confirm that he adjusts the model appropriately for shrinkage. I have one very tiny part constructed from SLS nylon and it's amazingly strong for such a thin wall. Nylon wears well too.

Tevo tarantula Z- port burnt

Assuming line 585 of Configuration.h looks like this // Almost all printers will be using one per axis. Probes will use one or more of the // extra connectors. Leave undefined any used for non-endstop and non-probe purposes. #define USE_XMIN_PLUG #define USE_YMIN_PLUG #define USE_ZMIN_PLUG //#define USE_XMAX_PLUG //#define USE_YMAX_PLUG //#define USE_ZMAX_PLUG That is to say, if the Maximum endstop ports/plugs aren't currently being used, then you could just redefine the pin used by ZMIN (Z-) to be that currently being used by the ZMAX (Z+), in the appropriate pins_XXXX.h file (contained within MarlinTarantula/Marlin/src/pins/), where XXXX depends upon which board you have (I don't know what board your printer has). For example, if you have a RAMPS board then in pins_RAMPS.h at line 79 you would change // // Limit Switches // #define X_MIN_PIN 3 #ifndef X_MAX_PIN #define X_MAX_PIN 2 #endif #define Y_MIN_PIN 14 #define Y_MAX_PIN 15 #define Z_MIN_PIN 18 #define Z_MAX_PIN 19 to become (note the change in the last two lines) // // Limit Switches // #define X_MIN_PIN 3 #ifndef X_MAX_PIN #define X_MAX_PIN 2 #endif #define Y_MIN_PIN 14 #define Y_MAX_PIN 15 #define Z_MIN_PIN 19 #define Z_MAX_PIN 18 Then compile and reflash the firmware. Obviously you would then plug the Z_MIN (Z-) wire from the endstop into the Z_MAX (Z+) port.

X and Y homing issues

Without the images of how you connected the endstops, the best guess for your problem is that the endstops cause a short circuit, once pressed, the microprocessor trips and shuts down. If you provide more information, other people may even add better answers based on your added information. E.g. how is everything connected at both sides of the cable (board and endstop), does the message occur when you press an endstop, maybe it is even wise to add a link to your configuration files.

Accidentally printed a chocolate mold instead of the object itself

Cura contains a few different so-called "special modes" which changes what the software does with your STL. One such special mode is Mold mode which, instead of recreating the object, creates a mold for the STL. It appears you may have that setting turned on, so disabling it will cause Cura to work as intended. To answer your other questions: Most settings affect "rough shape", properly slicing your STLs to fit your printer and printing material is an essential skill to master in 3D printing. So there is no magic setting to get it all working, you need to tune all your settings according to what you want to print. Your speed sounds fine, I can't speak for this printer in particular but print jobs taking hours or even days is not out of the ordinary. 3D prints in general take quite some time to complete. Yes, usually it's called Retraction Length. Yes it is definitely necessary to set up Cura to your printer settings because Cura needs to know the build volume of your printer and what flavor of firmware is installed on it.

Heater cartridge with 7.2 ohms - 12 or 24 V?

e3D Heater Cartridges are documented to be around 4.8 Ω for 12 V & 30 W, 3.6 Ω for 12 V & 40 W, 19.2 Ω for 24 V 30 W and 14.4 Ω for 24 V 40 W. 7.2 Ω is a value quite far away from these values - about double of what the 12 V versions are listed and about a third/half of a 24 V heater cartridge. So it is not a cartridge that is similar to those. I have contacted e3D about updating the specs of their High Precision Heater Cartridges to include the nominal resistances to get more references, but that information is pending. However, we don't need that. A variant of Ohm's law can help us estimate what this cartridge could be: Power is the square of Voltage (U) divided by Resistance. $P=\frac {U^2} R = \frac {144\ \text V^2}{7.2\ \Omega} = 20\ \text W$ $P=\frac {U^2} R = \frac {576\ \text V^2}{7.2\ \Omega} = 80\ \text W$ Mounted in a 12 V Machine this should act work at 20 W, in a 24 V it would work at 80 W. It does not say, however, if it is designed to get powered with 12 V or 24 V. It doesn't help, that both types exist: I was able to find 12 V 20 W heater cartridges just as well as 24 V 80 W heater cartridges. If it is an underpowered 20 W one and mounted in a 24 V machine, you risk burning it though, but not the other way round. To differentiate what exactly you have, a photo of the heater cartridge would be needed - it should bear at least a marking of what it's nominal wattage or voltage is.

Print quality problem with M3D FDM printer

It appears that there are several issues with the prints. First layer too far from bed The picture showing the bottom of the print clearly shows the deposited lines and gaps in between the lines. Please re-level the bed to get the print nozzle closer to the bed (usually a sheet of paper should fit between nozzle and bed without too much friction when pulled). Edit after new information: Your initial layer is definitely incorrect, a 0.4 (assuming you have a 0.4 nozzle) is too high, a rule of thumb is to not exceed about 75% of the nozzle diameter, so this should be max 0.3; this is a strong indication that your bed level is indeed to far from the nozzle. Also 1.5 mm line width for the first layer is way too high for correctly leveled bed to nozzle distance; this should be close to 0.4. Too much flow Various pictures show zits and blobs that stick out of the print. The best solution is to calibrate your extruder. Too high temperature possibly/too few cooling flow The deposited filament is not sharp, it looks like the filament it pretty fluid during the deposition. Please lower the temperature to 195 and or increase the part cooling flow. Z banding or wobble The wavy walls show that the printer suffers from X-Y movement (eccentric movement) when the Z lead screws advance. This cannot be fixed easily as this involves the mechanics and the design of the printer. To determine to improve the print quality you first should look at the bed leveling issue, second calibrate the extruder (see if you ask it to spit out 100 mm of filament it actually is 100 mm rather than randomly lowering the extrusion flow parameter) before you print some calibration cubes at reduced temperature and or increased part cooling flow.

How do you call the Z-axis mechanism in a Cartesian 3D Printer?

Linear actuator would be the proper name for the mechanism driving the movement along a single axis. There are 2 linear actuators driving the X-axis platform (for a Prusa i3 Cartesian printer, or the build platform for a raising bed Cartesian printer like a CoreXY, H-bot, etc.), the collection of parts could be named the Z-axis assembly.

How to find correct part cooling fans?

If the fan you are using is not defective and if you test another fan that behaves in a similar manner, it's possible your firmware or hardware are the root cause of the problem. The controller directs the driver to vary the power provided to the fan. It's a method called pulse wave modulation, aka PWM. Full voltage is applied to the fan one hundred percent of the time, for full speed operation. For fifty percent performance, half of the time full voltage is sent, while half of the time no voltage is sent. The time period is rather short, but I didn't determine that aspect of this answer. One can find a clear explanation of PWM online but one word is worth one one-thousandth of a picture: If your fans are not performing properly, either the program embedded into the controller is buggy, or the driver module for that unit is bugging out.

Why does my model stop printing at the same spot?

The answer is that you have not used support structures. The printing fails as a result of missing support structures. If you look closely to the Ace of Clubs card at the top, you will see that the lower point is being printed from out of nothing, this corner needs to be supported. When unsupported, the extruded filament flows freely and where it deposits is unknown. Usually this extruded filament sticks to the nozzle or ends up stuck at the next piece of the printed layer building up. This build-up can cause the head to hit the print and ruin the print. To enable support in Ultimaker Cura configure your setting accordingly: These settings are accessible when you select custom settings: If the options aren't visible, use: and type in the option. Please do note that using supports does not guarantee that the print will not fail! Especially when using long slender support structures, the chance that a support structure fails increases with the amount of support structures and the length of the structure. Sometimes long slender support structures are knocked over. Sidenote: Your printer has more issues, if you look at the brim, it is not a continuous bed adhesion layer, it looks like it does not adhere too well, see also the bottom of your trophy.

Wrong Z-Axis movement in G-Code

You could put the z endstop at the top, and flip the motor connector to make it move the other direction. This should make it home to the top near the nozzle, and then move downward during the print. Otherwise, you'll have to tweak the firmware configuration and reflash.

Weight Reducing Design Change for Extruder Driver

Very cool idea, One motor would definitely be more than capable of producing the required torques even through a flexshaft connector. For any normal sized 3D-printer the torques required, and the speeds you'll need for rapid response are well within the capabilities of any off-the-shelf stepper motor. Just a note on the idea though, with a normal, 'rigid', connection there is essentially no winding or unwinding, and only the backlash between the gears and the filament to consider, and that is effectively zero. With a flex-shaft though, the stack-up of twists and flexing will be much greater. The system will require more rotations at the source to effect the same amount of torque at the end effector as the flex shaft flexes and bends under the load. For tiny torques with short flex shafts, this wont be an issue as filament pressure is pretty minimal. But if you scale up this project or start working at much higher speeds, you may run into some issues with this design. I have no idea how big or fast you'd need to be working at for this to begin to become a problem. I'm imagining pretty big though. Just something you might want to keep in mind if you try turning this into a huge, super fast 3D-printer.

Is there a way to invert motor direction with GCode instead of Firmware in Marlin

You can use M92 to change the axis steps per unit to a negative value, which causes it to move in the opposite direction. I.e. if normally your X axis has 160 steps per mm, using M92 X-160 will invert all of its movements. However, this is more of a hack than a real, intended solution. It would be better to (if you are concerned with the homing direction) change the configuration to have the printer home in the other direction. Unfortunately, this can only be done by changing the firmware and not through G-code.

Acetone smoothing not working on ABSPlus-P430

Make sure that your acetone is actually acetone. According to the MSDS, ABSPlus-P430 is indeed "ABS resin" so acetone smoothing should work. Some companies sell confusingly-labeled products that might be mistaken for acetone, but are actually "eco-friendly" alternatives such as 2-butoxyethanol. While these alternatives work for some of the uses for which acetone is normally used (such as cleaning or degreasing), they don't work for smoothing ABS.

How to sharpen cookie/clay cutter edge

An extrusion width of 0.5 mm is too wide for making a sharp outline, I do use this sometimes for extrusion width for the infill. Note that you can sand plastic (e.g. PLA or ABS) to sharpen the edge.

Filament moving around and not sticking to bed

If the printed material moves with the nozzle, you might have several problems at hand, e.g.: adhesion, nozzle to bed distance and overall level. Nozzle to bed distance needs to be the thickness of a plain A4 or Letter paper. This needs to be at the same distance (when pulling the sheet of paper you need to feel a little drag) at the complete area of the bed. This is sometimes difficult as not all beds are perfectly flat from itself. Finally, you need to pull some tricks out of your sleeve to get the filament to adhere to the bed. Many example can be found, popular ones are using blue tape, glass bed, glue stick, PVA based spray (e.g. strong hairspray or dedicated spray cans like 3DLAC or Dimafix, etc.), or a combination of these. You just need to experiment some more what works best for you, but it is good to start with a correctly levelled bed with the proper nozzle gap. Sometimes, increasing the bed and filament temperature with 5 °C for the first layer also helps.

Printing copyrighted objects as a print shop for a customer

There are two aspects to this question that probably should be addressed separately. This is not legal advice and I'm not a lawyer, so consult with an experienced IP attorney. Copyright law may apply, and other IP laws, such as patents and trademarks, may apply. They each have different requirements and restrictions. Notably, IP law varies from country to country. WIPO has made significant inroads into regularizing IP law across many countries, but this answer will still focus on a US-centric reading of US IP law. Copyright law It's already established that printed works, such as photographs, texts, and similar works will result in prosecution against the person and the company that the person outsourced the copying of the copyrighted work to. Attempt to copy a book or copyrighted photo at a paper copy shop and they will typically refuse to reduce their liability. Even if you show that you have rights to the work, through educational use laws, for instance, they may still refuse because they may be putting themselves in danger of a lawsuit by a particularly aggressive copyright holder. This applies to 3D printing shops in a similar manner. If you don't know the source of the 3D model, and that the person has a right to the model, you may find yourself liable for copyright infringement. Even if you are sure, a lawsuit can financially ruin your business if it comes from a large corporation. Patents Patents apply even if you were unaware of them. So any model you print that contains patented techniques, technology, or concepts may also pull you, as the print shop, into a lawsuit for patent infringement. Reducing liability A suitable contract with the person requesting the 3D print, as written by an IP lawyer, may reduce, but not eliminate, your liability. It won't completely absolve you of all responsibility, but may reduce your exposure to such lawsuits, and give you some leverage in court should someone prosecute you.

Nozzle height adjusting for every print

It sounds like your bed is unstable. This is what I had to do with my Tronxy X1, and I fixed it by installing a decent bed stabiliser. Now that I have a stable bed, I only have to re-level it occasionally. However, the Tronxy X1 is a cantilever printer with a single rail for the bed, not an Ender 3. I would suggest that you tighten the bed-levelling springs as far as they will go whilst still leaving sufficient movement for bed levelling, and re-position the end-stop switch. Then re-level the bed. If that doesn't work, try fitting stiffer springs. Upgrades are available for the Ender 3. If that still doesn't work, look for bed stabilisation solutions for your printer. Note also that the bed-levelling knobs have a reputation for coming loose on the Ender 3. Tightening the springs (or fitting stiffer springs) may cure this, but some users fit locking nuts to stop the knobs moving.

Will I still be able to export my Fusion 360 models to other CAD packages after Autodesk's recent license changes come into effect?

Most of my answer is based off of what Autodesk has said and this video from Maker's Muse, which explains this topic in much more detail. In summary, Autodesk is planning on restricting your ability to export any parametric file formats like .STEP or .IGES, leaving no useful CAD-specific files available for users with personal licenses. I would recommend exporting everything you want to keep as .STEP right now just in case you do decide to switch programs later on, because you won't be able to switch after the changes go into effect. I hope that helps. EDIT: As Oscar has pointed out, .STEP exporting is now also part of the general consumer's license, and you can export to other CAD packages at any time. As far as I can tell, other parametric formats, notably .IGES, is still not available for consumers. This shouldn't pose too much of a problem. I'm going to leave my original post intact for now.

Which is a more accurate linear motion system?

I used a few different linear rail systems in my build: plain smooth rods for Z motion smooth rods bonded to a T-haped steel base for a 1200mm Y axis (similar to those at https://cdn.automationdirect.com/static/specs/suremotionlinear.pdf) igus "low profile linear slide" for X (https://www.igus.com/drylin/profile-rail-guide) They all seem to work pretty well. The one problem I had was with the igus slides, which I found had a little too much play -- so each change of direction on X had a slight backlash, from the "cars" twisting a tiny bit within the rails. I improved that with careful tuning: shifting the rails a tiny bit farther apart, so they kept the cars under a little tension against the inner sides of the rail -- some call this "preloading". I think systems that use actual bearings should generally be more accurate than spring-loaded slides. But the igus rails are still pretty good, and they're quite light, compact, and reasonably priced. I still use them, though once in a while I think about swapping them out to do a serious comparison. The rails aren't the only factor in accuracy, though. I can't detect any play or warp in my Y rails, but that says nothing about accuracy and repeatability of motion along them. That's controlled by the motor and the belt, leadscrew, or other things actually moving them. Leadscrews, in particular, vary quite a bit in accuracy, depending on the shape of their threads, the kind of "nut" riding on them, and other factors. You can even make your own leadscrew system from just a threaded rod and a nut -- but those threads are not the same, and they allow far more play than a real leadscrew does. Nice article on the "backlash" problem at https://www.liutaiomottola.com/Tools/Backlash.htm.

Failing slow extrusion after upgrade to E3D hotend

I bet your old and new extruders have different hobbed pulley/bolt effective diameter. It looks like your new extruder has smaller hobbed diameter that's why it pushes too less material. In MatterControl application there is a slider which allows user to tuneup extrude ratio on the fly (while printing). You coud check it so it would confirm the issue. In Slic3r you could go to Printer Settings > Advanced > Extrusion width and experiment with it (especially with Default extrusion width) Both (Slic3r and MC) could answer your question if it's extrusion ratio issue. If you confirm that - you can proceed with calibration. Here is method to calibrate extruder flow and general calibration article here.

1st layer problems with .1 layer height

You likely need to re-calibrate the Z-height of your nozzle. The reason that a lot less plastic is coming out of the nozzle at 0.1mm is that the actual gap is likely smaller than 0.1mm. This makes the print bed act essentially like a partial "lid" on the nozzle which occludes the outflow of molten plastic. Simplify3D has information on their website regarding the issue which can be found here: https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/#not-extruding-at-start-of-print. Hope this helps!

Help installing my Anet A8 printer to my computer

Your question addresses (USB) computer connection, so that will be addressed in this answer. For connection to the printer, you need 2 things (apart from the apparent things as computer, printer and cable): A working CH340 driver installed on the computer for USB communication with the board, a piece of software to talk to the computer at a bit transfer rate the printer understands. The cheap Arduino based boards rely on the CH340 chip for USB communication. You should check whether you have correctly installed this driver. These drivers are erroneous and prone to cause problems. Sometime re-installation works, once did work for me. The SD card supplied by Anet contains a folder (on my SD card: .\A8\A8资料\Software\CH340G Drive) with the installer file of the driver. Once installed properly, you should be able to connect various applications to the A8, provided you use the correct baud rate of 115200. All this said, are you asking the correct question? Why do you need to connect to a computer, as you can print just fine by putting sliced .stl files (.gcode files) onto the SD card (when inserted in the computer using the adapter) and reinsert the card again in the printer to select the file using the menu buttons of the printer. Printing from SD card is considered safer then printing via the computer over USB as the print will stop when the PC is shut down or crashes.

Are 3D printers efficient for printing a detailed iris to bypass iris identification system?

I take lectures in university and was asked to read a review paper on 3D printed organs by Anthony Atala (the most famous paper in printed organs research). The paper discussed about using several techniques to print the tissue we need at functional resolution. The review also cites detailed procedures to 3D print lung and skin tissues. Coming back to your question, we have reached a point in time where we can scan a real Iris and print them! Yes. And people use this technique called self assembly to achieve this (Other design approaches like Biomimicry and MiniTissue assembly is also being used right now). To do this we first extract cells from the donor. Or We do a functional high res scan of the extracted cell/part that we want to replicate. This is done via FMT-CT-Fluorescence Imaging, etc. And we cultivate the cells in bio incubators (we can also print cells btw - If the exact environment and operational conditions are maintained, we can print cell-replicas that will later self assemble to form the Iris with the same resolution and functional properties as that of the real one). The cultivated/printed cell is used as the tissue forming material. Forming is done by the cells themselves and is thus christened Self assembly. Although this may sound futuristic, Autonomous Self Assembly is something that's already being done in Labs! The method works by studying embryonic organ development. For instance, Early stage cellular components of a developing tissue makes their own ECM. Like mentioned before, if we use proper signalling, and environmental manipulation, we can create autonomous organization and patterning to make something we want. Advantage of this method is that we can work without scaffolds. This method relies on cell as primary driver of histogenesis. Knowledge of how an embryo grows into tissue (embroyo tissue genesis and organogenesis) is applied to achieve "real" cell dimensions/properties. I would recommend you to read the paper for detailed information. The method I mentioned in this post is only one among three other methods that are being used currently in this domain. So yeah. My answer is yes. You can print an Iris and fool the system. -- Updates S. V. Murphy and A. Atala, “3D bioprinting of tissues and organs,” Nature Biotechnology, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 773–785, Aug. 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2958 Withdrew my claim "any given resolution" Details of the process

Ramps 1.4 and extruder

Make sure that your heating device (resistor) is for 12v, not 24v (resistance is < 10Ohm) Check if the temperature readings that you get in your system are (at least roughly) the same as actual temperature (thermocouple with multimeter or any other device that can measure ~200C will help) Check if connections are good enough. Low voltage at hotend is an indication of possible problem. ATX power wires are often too thin to transfer enough current. Consider replacing them with at least 2.5mm2 (AWG 14)

Printing PLA on PEX surface - is heated bed needed?

I print PLA on a PEI bed at 60°C. I have also printed PLA on an aluminum bed at 60°C with Elmer's Glue Stick for bonding, which worked better for me than PLA. I recently switched to Aqua Net Hairspray on the aluminum bed at 60°C, which also worked well. I have found no reason to avoid bed heating with PLA. If the object is stuck too tightly on the PEI bed, you could try adding hairspray. It acts as a glue, but also as a release agent, and, being soluble in water, you can help release the object with a few water drops.

Flexible filament how to print a hollow "sleeve"

Print orientation is usually the key to print with a minimum of supports. If you print this part with the sharp point down, you will get some support structures on the outside for overhang support to prevent it from tipping over, but no support on the inside.

CR-10 Layers not printing after certain amount of filament printed

If the problem occurs at same height I would focus on the Z axis, in particular the gantry and its rollers. Try to remove the Z axis screw and feel if the you can slide the gantry up and down with ease, in particular if it gets harder to slide at roughly the height where the problem occurs. You can use the eccentric nuts to adjust the rollers preload and make it slide smooth. Next on my checklist would be the screw: verify there is no issue on the screw at that height, the Ender 3 is renown for having a Z rod issue due to misalignment between the motor and the nut on the gantry. While writing another idea came to my mind, but I'm sure already checked that: the filament is not clashing or being clamped somewhere when it reaches that height, right? A filament guide would generally exclude that...

Dual Filament Mixer Marble Effect

E3D has a Cyclops product which mixes two filaments inside a melt chamber. Clones of the E3D Cyclops can be found through the usual outlets. E3D also has software recommendations for using their Cyclops product, which are found here. They suggest cura as the slicer. The RepRap firmware (and possibly others as well) allow two extruders steppers to be used in an extrusion move, proportionally mixing two filaments. In case you want to go further, to get a broad color gamut, you will need five filaments mixed into one extrusion bead. Cyan (sky-blue), magenta (or bright purple), yellow, white, and black filament can be mixed to make most colors. "2D" printing is done with four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), but for 3D printing, you also need white. 2D printing uses white, but it is the white of the paper. Black is needed to get dark colors, as well as to form neutral gray colors. Based on the OPs comments, I understand that the software sought is a shader that creates a marble effect on the surface of a print. I don't know of such software, but, as a software engineer, I imagine it would take roughly this form: Slice the object conventionally, producing G-code for the object. Identify all exterior extrusions with a special extruder number. Multi-material slicers should provide this option (Slic3r-PE does). Project a 2d image or synthetic pattern onto the 3D external surface of the object. For each voxel (volume pixel) of the exterior extrusion, determine what it's color should be based on the shading. With previously determined propagation delay from when the mix is set to when the color is extruded, back up along the extrusion path the correct distance. Split the extrusion command at the point where the mix must be changed. Insert new extrusion values. Output the modified g-code. I've left out many implementation details. The scheme depends on how predictable is the delay (in extrusion distance) from when the extrusion mix is changed to when the change comes out of the nozzle. The variation (if any) in that distance will make the output look jagged and fuzzy. In some ways, that variations limits the 2D bandwidth of the color information. Schemes that require sharp, line-to-line coherence may require a purging process. I assume that for a marble pattern, which I characterize as having soft color changes on a scale that is larger than the extrusion width, purging on every change is not desired or possible.

Which 3D printer should I use to make custom miniatures for a tabletop game?

The Form 2 will definitely give the best results for your application. Both the Fortus and the Dimension use FDM, which builds the model up using a bead of molten plastic. Because this bead is typically 0.5mm in diameter, this strongly limits the details you can print. The Form 2 uses liquid resin, that is cured by scanning it with a laser. This process is called SLA. The laser produces a 0.14mm dot, and so you can produce much finer details. The Form 2 can also use much thinner layers (down to 0.025mm v.s. the 0.178mm of the Fortus) so the models will be much smoother. To make small miniatures SLA is much more suitable than FDM.

Creality Ender 3 - printing in front of the build plate

When a print is not printing on the build platform, you either: Have the incorrect settings in the slicer (e.g. Ultimaker Cura, a common mistake is that the "origin at center" option is active), or Have the center of the bed incorrectly stored in your firmware. (See: How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset) or Recalibrating Home-position). Note that the most simple change (after you verified the slicer settings and confirmed that it still does not print in the center) is adjusting the settings in the slicer (bed settings, of start G-code script), this way you do not need to compile and upload new firmware (e.g. if you are uncomfortable or inexperienced in doing so), but, fixing it in the firmware is the best solution. Why? If you change the offset in the slicer you force the bed dimensions to a new position that you know where it is, while if changed in the firmware, the printer "knows" the actual size and the limits. To fully answer your question, we need a little more information what slicer you use and what the current settings are. From your question it sounds as if the offset is more than a few millimeters. Usually this hints to an incorrect slicer setting (frequently Ultimaker Cura).

Can I use different sized steppers for different axes?

Each axis is fine using a different stepper size and/or quality. You will still need to tune their operating current and steps/mm for each of course. Make sure your motor mounts fit too. Where it might become challenging is if you wanted two different steppers on the SAME axis. As in, a NEMA17 + NEMA23 for a dual Z axis. I don't think this is what you intend though.

X carriage "vibrates" on small segments

The overall torque, and thus the incremental torque is less with your new stepper, this may result in less smooth operation because of moving the weight of the carriage (e.g. when you have a direct extruder mounted on the X carriage). You could be facing skipping steps, resulting in less accurate prints. Maybe the Vref has not been adjusted correctly, or the stepper is just not working for your application.

Can't seem to fix over extrusion

Your images look as if your initial nozzle to heat bed offset is too large. This causes the filament not to be squished. Try re-levelling and have a piece of plain printing paper have a little drag when pulled.

Changes rods for linear rails

I've seen mods for the Hypercube (and Hypercube Evolution) using linear rails (e.g. this mod), so yes that is possible. You need to redesign a few parts and make sure you have the correct length, but that shouldn't be too difficult.

Tetrahedral honeycomb?

For designing your part, especially considering the repetitive mathematics involved, I would consider to learn to use OpenSCAD. I've learned the program and it fits your modeling requirement quite well. I feel it's easy to learn and is somewhat easier for folks who have a programming background. I don't have one, but it's still a logical progression to learn this program. Regarding the SLS aspect, that also jumped out at me as a suitable answer. Solid shapes require to have "drain holes" to reduce the amount of powder consumed by the process. I am assembling a Sintratec SLS printer and your model is the sort of thing I would enjoy to create with the printer. I've not yet listed my Sintratec printer on 3dhubs to solicit business, simply because it's not yet a fully assembled printer! I did a quick Google search for "openscad tetrahedral honeycomb" and found this link: http://forum.openscad.org/Beginner-Honeycomb-advice-needed-td4556.html The result is more a polygonal honeycomb, not a true 3d tetrahedron, but it's a start. The file that created it is fewer than a few dozen lines of code. The post is old enough that the internal links no longer work but the OP posted his module code and that does work: I'm not sure how personal contact works in stackexchange, but I'd be willing to work with you regarding creating your code and if the printer ever gets assembled, printing out your part. Adding a picture again, to show the latest revision, based on the updated information:

Top surface scarring even with Z hop

Z-Hops only occur when the slicer is retracting Filament automatically (i.e. when Cura detects a move between parts/around outer walls where stringing would be a problem). In your end G-Code, you do retract your filament, but manually. This means that Cura does not add the Z-Hop code. Solution: Add this before your G28 X0 Y0 command: G91 ;Change Positioning to relative G1 Z5 ;Move head up by 5mm (or bed down, depending on your machine) The G91 command is needed because otherwise you wold need to provide an absolute Z position which is guaranteed to be above your last layer (so you would either need to set the height to the top of your build volume (takes ages to move the head there) or to adjust the height for each printed part (annoying)). Documentation for the G91 command: http://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/G091.html Manual for Z-Hop and other travel moves in Cura: https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/52507-travel Edit: Note that this is only a good idea if MAX_SOFTWARE_ENDSTOPS are enabled in your Marlin configuration.h. Otherwise, the head could move ABOVE the maximum Z height (zMax) if the print height h >= zMax -5mm. Thanks to @0scar for mentioning this!

G-code for activating material preset in Marlin

The M145 G-code command sets the values for the materials for use by the LCD menu solely to preheat the bed and/or hotend and part fan cooling percentage. There is no code to lookup the values and execute to heat up material 1 (S0).

Arduino and Ramps powering up

I had a similar issue building my Prusa i3 Mk2s clone. I was constantly hooking & unhooking my Arduino from my PC while the printer was plugged into the mains. At some point it had enough & it released some "magic smoke". Later on I found out this was the power regulator on the Arduino. You shouldn't need to plug in the USB and the external power to the Arduino at the same time, but if you did, it is smart enough to only use one. That being said, by default the RAMPS passes 12V straight to the Arduino in order to power it (the Vin pin).

When building the ramps 1.4 is it safe to use small wires to jump the 5A, 12V power input over to the 11 Amp input

I guess that the external split is at least partly done to force the user to utilize 4 wires. 16 Amps at 12 Volts is quite a bit of power and you don't want your wires or connectors to melt. If you use twice the wire cross section by using 4 instead of 2 wires, you also reduce the resistivity and hence heat created in the wire. Put it the other way around: Using 2 instead of 4 wires raises the risk of your setup to catch fire. Still, you can use that bridging technique, if you make sure that all your wire diameters are big enough. I would advise you, however, to cut the wires that come with your kit in half and use the connectors in the way they were meant to. For optical appeal and less cable clutter you can still put the wires into some braided sleeve for example.

Issues with Auto Bed Leveling

Your problem is that the hotend carriage does not stop when the sensor triggers. I assume you mean "on homing", not "while printing" (UPDATE: after watching the video it is confirmed that it is "on homing"). First, the working and this difference is explained. Thereafter your configuration file is assessed and typical errors or inconsistencies are reported. Note that assassing an existing configuration file is more work than for you to start over taking the consideration below into account. Also look into this answer which describes what you need to do starting from a clean configuration file. Note: Why not test if the sensor works at higher Z values by using a metal screwdriver to test if the head stops, then you do not run into the bed (with way less chance to damage your printer). From the video you can see that the sensor triggers, does the signal also gets registered by the printer board? With M119 you test the endstop status of all endstops. Auto bed leveling theory An auto level sensor does not trigger exactly when the nozzle hits the bed like in normal leveling using switches. The sensor is meant to detect the bed before the nozzle touches the bed. It is the offset that you define with command M851 e.g. M851 Z-1.85 that determines the correct offset between sensor trigger point and the nozzle. After homing G28 and auto bed leveling G29, the nozzle needs to get under the sensor trigger point (e.g. in the example above it is then still 1.85 mm away from the platform) so while printing it is perfectly fine that the sensor stays triggered until printing height gets above 1.85 mm. This gives an answer why you see the head go past the trigger point when printing, when homing or leveling that should not happen. Configuration file observations From your configuration can be seen that //#define Z_SAFE_HOMING is not enabled, this is advised to enable. This is important, but not the complete solution. Also, you have not defined the auto leveling area by setting the boundaries for probing (where the probe can reach). In your config you will find disabled constants for (see also this answer or question: "How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?"): //#define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION MIN_PROBE_EDGE //#define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) //#define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION MIN_PROBE_EDGE //#define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) You only have defined a Y sensor offset in your configuration : #define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 43 but the video and the comments say otherwise, you should therefore should have set: #define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 43 so e.g. the following could work (depending on the offset from limit switch position to printer origin): #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION MIN_PROBE_EDGE #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION MIN_PROBE_EDGE + Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) Another part in your configuration that need further inspection is your offset from limit switch position (when homing) to printer origin; you have: #define X_MIN_POS 0 #define Y_MIN_POS 0 This is very unlikely, but possible, it means as is that the X=0 and Y=0 is exactly on the limit switches for X and Y. Usually this is not the case and you see negative values for these constants. All-in-all, your configuration file has a lot of problems which need to be fixed. To solve your problem you need to read into configuring Marlin. Once you got the printer working fine you progress to an ABL sensor and make the correct settings in the configuration by using the hints above.

Thermal runaway triggers when raising temperature amid cooldown

Yes there are ways to tune false positives. For Marlin firmware you can find these option in the Configuration_adv.h file. From the file itself you can read what you need to do: * If you get false positives for "Thermal Runaway", increase * THERMAL_PROTECTION_HYSTERESIS and/or THERMAL_PROTECTION_PERIOD */

If I have a nozzle clog, can I easily get rid of it by simply replacing the nozzle?

The nozzle on a Prusa i3, if a genuine Prusa, would be part of the E3Dv6 assembly and is removable. It's wise to heat the nozzle to 150°C or higher, and handle with the care necessary for something that hot. When loosened, be prepared for it to fall onto the surface below. A catching tin would be a good idea, at the very least. Once removed, you can test that it's the nozzle that is clogged by pushing or extruding filament via the control panel to confirm that the rest of the system is clear. Consider also to perform a nylon cleaning of the nozzle before you perform the above disassembly. I've performed this process more than a few times and disagree with one aspect of the process. The process describes heating the nozzle to 250°C and forcing nylon filament into the hot end. I suggest doing so manually, not via the extruder controls, as it give you better feedback and control. Once you've forced as much through as you can, allow the hot end to cool. Not included in the steps reference above is a part of the process that is semi-automated on my printer. Heat the nozzle to about 140-150°C and carefully and slowly pull the filament back out of the hot end. The above link suggests yanking it sharply. The article also includes a caution that doing so is brutal and could damage your machine. Carefully and slowly will not damage your machine. I have to use pliers to get sufficient grip on the nylon but that's a trivial aspect. The nylon will come out with debris and previous color filament. Clip off the debris and perform the task again. Repeat until the nylon is clean and you have good flow through the nozzle. Acetone will not dissolve PLA filament. Extreme heat may carbonize the material in the nozzle and render it useless. The nylon cleaning method is nearly universally successful unless you have a physically damaged nozze. There are kits to be purchased which are described as nylon cleaning kits, and include a small length of nylon filament and sometimes a cleaning drill. Using such a drill may damage the nozzle and is contraindicated. If you can afford to purchase a half-kilogram or full kilogram of nylon in the diameter specific to your printer, it will last quite some time. You can share segments with friends and/or members of your local makerspace and improve circumstances for many. Nylon absorbs moisture more quickly than any other filament, making storage for extended periods challenging if you intend to print with nylon, but for cleaning, it matters little that there's moisture boiling out of it as you clean your nozzle. I've found the little bubbles in the extruded nylon to be a sign that I'm getting clean nylon through the nozzle and can expect good results. In the worst case I've had thus far, I've had to push nylon four times to clear a clogged nozzle. I had some overheated PVA support material jam the nozzle and once cleared, everything flowed properly.

Autodesk Spark Print Manager Operating Systems?

I checked https://spark.autodesk.com/developers/reference/desktop-applications/print-manager. It seems that Print manager is a application written in JavaScript and its source code is available on github. So you have to install node.js to run it. So you can use all major OS (win, mac, linux, ...).

Keeping my filament spools from getting knotted?

When I first set up my printer, the spool was able to spin freely. Filament was making loose coils on the outer layer of the spool. Snags happened frequently. I decided that not allowing the spool to spin faster than the rate draw of the filament might improve the way the filament was feeding. I put more physical distance between the spool and the machine. The filament stopped bunching up in loose coils on the surface of the spool, and the snags went away. The increased amount of slack between the machine and the spool seemed to absorb the "overshoot" of the filament draw and the spools became much better behaved. I also was able to run the spool down to the end more consistently than before. Not everyone has extra room to use, and not all extruders are conveniently oriented, so moving the spool further away from the machine won't work for everyone. I believe a guide or some sort of dampener would serve the same function, if the underlying problem is the spool loosening up enough to where loops of filament get caught under others and then snag. What worked for me was to stop the spool from "racing ahead" of the rate of draw and loosening up enough to snag.

3D Molecular Printers

The link I mentioned from popular mechanics is the state of molecular 3d printing. So yes the printer does exist and can do some really impressive things. However as the article states it is limited to what it can create right now. The technology sounds really interesting. However it might be a bit out of our knowledge as it doesn't seem to be widely available passed the scientific academia world. This link here talks about reactionware for Chemical Syntheses as well as a TED talk about it

What can cause a 3D printer to catch on fire?

In short: The control board does not have thermal runaway installed The heated bed connectors are loose and begin to heat up until the wires catch fire The power supply or it's connectors begin to heat up until they catch fire The modifications that you made to your printer were not well thought out resulting in a capacitor to explode (raises hand; that's happened to me.)

Printing with Polycarbonate keeps warping

Adjusting the design may also be able to help limit the amount of warping you get. One of the major causes of warping is upper layers contracting while cooling when laid down over now-cool(er) lower layers which no longer contract so much but are still thin enough to flex when subject to tension along their upper edge. Insertion of strategically placed gaps in upper layers can reduce the tension such layers are able to apply. I was printing some long thin beams in ABS. I inserted horizontal-axis holes along the beams (making them look a bit like LEGO Technic beams rather than solid pieces). It did the job for me.

Additional mods for printing metal filled filament with Ender 3 V2?

There is a lot of misinformation in the 3D printing world about "all-metal hotends" being an upgrade. Some of them, especially clones, are not even all-metal but just poor lookalikes that create all sorts of problems. But even if you get a real one, it's a trade-off, not an upgrade. It lets you print materials that need a hotend temperature over 250 °C (over which the PTFE liner will begin to degrade and possibly release small amounts of harmful gasses) up to the temperature your heating element can achieve, at the cost of losing the extremely-low-friction PTFE pathway all the way to the nozzle, which aids with smooth extrusion and retraction and avoids jams. Depending on your particular all-metal hotend, it may be harder to get retraction working correctly than with a normal PTFE-lined one. Some users report very good results, others lots of problems. There are very few materials that need temperatures over 250 °C to print that don't also need a much more expensive machine (or at least a heavily-modified one) for other reasons, such as requirement of a high-temperature enclosure. The main materials that can be printed on an Ender 3 with an all-metal hotend but not the standard PTFE-lined hotend are polycarbonate (needing 255-300 °C) and some forms of nylon (which may need up to 250-270 °C). All the other non-exotic materials, including PLA, ABS, PETG, and TPU, and even some exotic ones like POM (aka delrin or acetal) and many nylons, can be printed just fine with a stock Ender 3 (possibly with a minimal enclosure built around it). In particular, for the purpose you want - printing metal-infused PLA - there is no point whatsoever in an all-metal hotend. Metal-infused PLA is printed within the temperature range of PLA, which is typically 230 °C at the absolute highest (and preferably much lower) and the printer you're looking at should print it just fine out-of-the-box (or rather, once you assemble it). If you're concerned about abrasive wear from the filament, this affects the nozzle not the hotend. Technically the nozzle is "part of" the hotend assembly, but it's easily removable and generally considered a consumable item that you replace periodically. You can get hardened steel nozzles and all sorts of other exotic replacements designed not to wear out from abrasive materials, but the standard brass has the best thermal (heat conduction) properties and is so cheap you're generally better off sticking with it and buying a pack of 20 or so to have on hand when they eventually need replacement. In any case, there's no need to replace the hotend with an all-metal one to deal with nozzle wear; you can get either type of replacement to fit the original one.

Scratches in the build plate - How did this happen, and may it cause problems?

As the question continued in comments, it can be read that the build plate had over-tight screws and loose screws on the build plate. This uneven tension could lead to stresses that warp the bed, e.g. lower corner and bulging out in the middle of the bed. When levelling on the corners, the nozzle could hit the bulge in the middle when printing. Furthermore, an endstop may have shifted during operation.

Print sketchup files (STL) on makerbot

It appears that you have scaled the object after the raft and supports were added. As you can see in your photo of the raft, the clip is approximately 7/8ths (1.75/2) the size of the raft. Edit: As a side note, STL files don't actually have a concept of units. Each axis is defined in arbitrary units. That's why when you export and import it you have to set the scale appropriately.

PID autotune fails with a temp too high

As the heating curve is very steep, it could be that the wrong cartridges are inserted, or you have been supplied the incorrect cartridges. (Not long ago I've had a similar experience with a 12 V cartridge in between my 24 V spares...) To find out for which voltage the cartridge has to be used you can measure the resistance with a multitester/multimeter. You can calculate the resistance roughly by using the formulas: $$ U = I \times R$$ $$ P = {U}\times{I} $$ Combing these formulas gives: $$ R = \frac{U^2}{P}$$ (P is power in Watt [W], I is current [A], U is voltage [V] and R is the resistance in Ohm [Ω]) Your multimeter readings should be close to the calculated values. About 4 Ohms for a 12 V/40 W cartridge and about 14 Ohms for a 24 V/40 W cartridge. Since the Ender 3 is running on 24 V, you need the higher resistance cartridges. If you are using a 4 Ω (12 V/40 W) cartridge on 24 V, the power would become: $$ P = \frac{U^2}{R}= \frac{24^2}{4}=144\ {W} $$ This amount of power will quickly raise the temperature of the nozzle! It then becomes very difficult for the PID control schedule to harness that power (e.g. overshoot control). From the question is read that: I used 24 V heater cartridges rather than the 12 V ones that came with the hot end If the cartridges are truly 24 V this rapid heat-up is not expected, it could be that you accidentally received incorrect cartridges, you should measure the resistance to be sure.

Which is the right filiament type to print breakable children's toy parts such as small gears

deliberate/planned obsolescence is the term you look for If you design parts that break after some time, you plan their obsolescence. That you do by a deliberate choice of material and working conditions. Designing a part that will break after a certain time can be done by choosing the correct stresses that will make your chosen material break. In a gear that is meant to break at certain stress, one can weaken the teeth or the sprues, so that normal operation stresses will very likely break the safety margin and destroy the gear. is it a material choice? Any material is suitable to make a planned break, as long as the design is suitable. Performing a stress analysis of your part will tell you where to weaken it to enforce it will break - if the part was solid. As printed parts in FDM aren't solid, take the result with salt - it will tell where but not when it fails. Do the experiment for actual numbers. is it a print setting thing? Besides deliberately under-engineering some part of the gear, a usually perfectly fine gear would lose a lot of strength by deliberately reducing how massive it is: the stability of a print is affected by the form and amount of the infill just as much as the number of shells. Some random setting examples: 1-shelled, 1-bottom/top-layer, 5% infill piece is very likely so fragile you might not get it off the build plate these parameters at 2-5-10% results in a somewhat durable piece. 2-5-20% is more than twice as strong as 2-5-10%. To find the exact breaking point of a setup, one might need to toy with the parameters and experiment. It might be interesting to use no top- or bottom-layers and thus turn to create all the spokes of the gear in the shape of infill and outer shell. Also, some infills are better at withstanding forces than others - for example, Gyroid or Hex infill is rather stable on pressure while spaghetti is quite weak. Other parameters also can change the infill stability: speeding up the print of the infill compared to the shell and using a thinner line considerably weakens the infill, thus reducing the needed load to break it. This is a somewhat easy parameter to tweak if you want to go for breaking the spokes (see below). planned obsolescence and how to under-engineer safely Sometimes, planned destruction is good for safety: a safety valve is supposed to break under overpressure to release the pressure in a safe way. But planned obsolescence can also be a safety risk: If a toy breaks under normal use, it is a safety hazard for the broken off parts can be swallowed by children. Another factor to look at is where broken off parts end up in the machinery - they might jam other pieces that are not meant to self-destruct and destroy them. Design the pieces to break in a safe way - the larger the chunks, the better you prevent them from going into places they should not. Design the teeth to deform or melt rather than shearing off Design the axles to sheer free by losing their keying Design the spokes of the gears to break, separating gear rim from axle & hub, either of which goes nowhere due to the other gears and the mounting Encase the self-destruct gears in some sort of gearbox to prevent the pieces from going flying Industrial machinery design usually goes the melting way: Let's take a hand mixer. It contains a gearset that has one drive gear connected to a second gear, so that both mixers spin opposite. Under normal use, these spin pretty fast, creating heat from the friction. In a good design, these two gears are made from metal or a high heat tolerant polymer. But if one plans for having them break, these gears are made from a material that will heat under the friction in such a way, that after a set time (around 5 minutes), the teeth will be sufficiently weakened to deform and grind away, destroying them in the process. Preferred Material I would actually deliberately under-design the gears for the expected loads and then go for a solid material printed in SLA or SLS from either a resin (which will break with pieces and bits going flying, so a gearbox is mandatory!) or a polyamide (nylon). These parts would match the stress analysis fully. If FDM is the only option, the material choice depends on the failure mode you opted for: In case you opt for destruction from heat on the teeth or axle, a low melting material like PLA is perfectly fine, but make sure to engineer the chance of breaking teeth low. ABS can perform a little better but needs more heat (and thus more RPM) to self destruct. In case of designing for a breaking failure of spokes or keying, PLA is an excellent choice, as it is sufficiently brittle. PETG is a good compromise between ABS deformability and PLA's printing ease. Footnotes Gear DesignWhen designing your gears, keep in mind that gears are rather complicated. I actually advise to take a look on the gross oversimplification of This Old Tony because it allows you to see where you can make teeth break very easily by design! planned obsolescence and consumer rightsWhile planned obsolescence can be an important safety factor, planning obsolescence in consumer products for sale to break them after a calculated time is unethical and can be a consumer rights violation. Remember, that legally demanded warranty and a right to repair exist in a lot of countries. LEGO is Copyrighted, Patented and TrademarkedCopying Lego designs would be a Trademark Violation, Patent infringement and a copyright violation by using their designs. They protect them.

Why is glass a widely recommended option for the print bed?

I suggest to look at a similar question, but just the glass question here: Glass is a very smooth surface Glass shrinks when cooling to a degree it pops the print free on itself Glass is virtually impossible to scratch with metal scrapers Glass stays fairly flat under heating Refurbishing of the bed isn't needed but for applying your adhesion solution (Woodglue, Gluestick, Hairspray, 3DLac, ABS-Slurry... pretty much ANY glue can work Glass is one of the few surfaces upon which almost all materials can be printed without risking ruining your print surface on removal PETG is one of the few that demands some sort of extra adhesion material with glass, most others don't need anything. POM and some other materials love to rip PEI apart I had a huge PLA-print stick so well to a BuildTak that I had to cut the sheet off the bed to get it off The problems are fairly evident on the other hand: Glass is brittle and shatters on impact or thermal stress. Good glass can become rather expensive if you want a super flat sheet in non-standard sizing and a specific type. Large glass sheets need a very even heater to prevent thermal stress. Borosilicate? Borosilicate glass ("labware" glass) is more resistant to thermal stress but also does not pop free from the print the same way as normal glass does. It is also more sturdy but MUCH more expensive. It also comes with its own problems: Some people have experienced spalling in combination with PETG, as it created a perfect airtight seal, making an adhesive as a separation layer mandatory. This behavior was also reported for normal glass, which is why an adhesive material is strongly suggested for this material.

Print layer shifting on Alunar M508 Prusa i3 clone

This effect is called layer shifting . Now that you know what it is called you could look at some other solutions fixing this issue; e.g. here, here or here. The answers of this question describe best what is causing this. Usually (most of all the cases) it means that your belts are not tight enough. An edit of the question shows that the effect happens when a different version of Ultimaker Cura is being used. In such cases you need to check the speeds and acceleration settings. Too high values may lead to skipping steps causing layer shifting. Be sure it is not a mechanical issue, also note that the nozzle does not get caught up by the uneven tape on the bed. In that effect, you may want to look at this unaswered question.

Which NEMA 17 Stepper Motor for Titan?

The safest thing to do is to wait a month (it probably won't take that long anyway), and order the correct stepper motor from China, or pay more and locally source the 42BYGHW609. The 42BYGHW609 is a commonly used stepper and it is best to keep all of the steppers matched - just for ease of calibration, matched performance/behaviour, and future maintainability. Otherwise you need to match (at least) the torque, the inductance, the rated current and resistance of the coils, if not the physical size and the stepping angle. Which is not an impossible task, but a bit of a pain, TBH. The time that you spend verifying the various steppers and then re-checking and worrying would be better spent ordering the correct one in the first place and waiting for it to arrive. BTW, take a look at the RepRapWiki - Nema 17 page which lists suitable stepper motors. As an aside, if this is your first purchase from China and are worried about reliability of service, then don't. I order everything from China, and haven't had a problem. In addition, if you order via eBay/PayPal you are financially protected if your order doesn't arrive (which does sometimes happen), or, alternatively, order from AliExpress, where I have never had something not arrive (if that makes sense) I have just realised that you need an extruder replacement (and not a X/Y/Z stepper)... in which case, as towe states, either of your candidates is probably fine, although maybe over-torqued (slightly). However, I, personally, would still replace the stepper with the same model that the 3D printer originally came with, but that is just my personal preference - unless you had found the 42BYGHW609 to be not strong enough, and you actually want to up the torque..?

Weird temperature graph and thermal runaway protection triggered

Periodic temperature irregularities, such as cycling between a higher temperature and lower temperature slowly enough that it spends at least a layer or two at a different temperature than other layers has a tendency to be mistaken for z wobble. You can actually intentionally modulate print temperature (at least of PLA) every few layers to great a sort of banding or 'wood grain' effect. Higher temperature, for whatever reason, results in thicker perimeters and cooler temperatures thinner ones. This is when always staying above the normal PLA print temperature though. The temperatures in the graph would certainly cause serious under extrusion during the times it was under temperature. Understand though, it is likely that temperature has been behind the underextrusion, rather than it being a problem in of itself. It isn't possible for the temperature to jump around too quickly to get a good reading. The temperature changes relatively slowly, simply due to the thermal mass of the heat block. It takes a little bit for the extruder to come up to temperature, right? When warming up from room temperature, watch how fast the temperature changes. That's the fastest the temperature can change, because that is when the heater cartridge is on at full blast. And even then, it isn't particularly quick. It also does not appear to be a problem with the thermistor. If there was a poor or failing connection (like a wire that was almost broken), this would cause added resistance to the thermistor reading, and thermistors usually lose resistance as they heat up. So extra resistance throwing off the reading would make the printer believe that the hotend was cooler than it actually was, and you would wind up printing at a too high of a temperature. This would cause a number of problems, but your interlayer adhesion would be excellent. Delimitation would not be one of the issues, nor would underextrusion. Thermal runaway protection is kind of a misnomer, because it is really 'something about the temperature of something isn't behaving like it should' protection. Basically all it is is a hard coded temperature and time window. If it has turned on the heater, there is a hard coded number of degrees that the thermistor must increase by within a certain time window, usually 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. If it doesn't, something is wrong. Or, if it drops out of the intended temperature by another hard coded number of degrees for a certain amount of time, then again the thermal runaway protection will be triggered. In cases where the connection to the thermistor is failing, this will prevent the hotend from being heated without any limit (poor thermistor connection means the temperature the printer reads is always much much lower than what it really is, so the printer keeps trying to heat the hotend up hotter). But thermal runaway protection will also get triggered for much more benign problems, like a failing connection to the heater cartridge. If the thermistor is working fine, but the cartridge is not working correctly and either only heats intermittently, or has a poor connection and can't get enough current through it, this will also result in the temperature not going up as expected, thus triggering the thermal runaway protection. Based on your symptoms, the thermistor reading looks to be quite accurate. What you describe is exactly what I'd expect would happen for a print where the temperature of the hotend really did vary exactly as shown in your graph. What can often happen is one of the leads (especially close to the cartridge but really, it could happen anywhere along the length of the two leads) will have broken from repeated wire strain (if you have disassembled your hot end at all or otherwise disturbed the heater wires in anyway, this is more than enough to cause a lot of metal fatigue), but the insulation around the broken wire will hold it together such that wire will still be making contact with itself. But it will be a more resistive connection, and will cycle between an acceptable and poor connection as the print head position moves. Long story short, you get a temperature graph that looks just like that, because the heater cartridge is periodically either developing a poor connection, or losing its connection entirely, only to regain it again as things move just the right way again. I would double check all your connections to the cartridge, checking the actual resistance and not just using a continuity tester. If those seem ok, then you will probably just need to buy a replacement cartridge. I like to keep a few of them on hand since they have a tendency for their wires to break just from a little bit of normal manhandling.

3D printer part clones from china - legality

This question is really a legal question, and could apply to any cloned parts/devices rather than being 3D printer specific, and a generic counterfeit consumer goods based question should be asked on SE.Law. However, as you rightly state, a lot of 3D printers from China may contain (whether knowingly sourced or not by the manufacturer1) counterfeit parts, be that ICs, hotend designs (i.e. E3D clones), controllers (i.e. Arduino Mega boards or stand-alone non-RAMPS Arduino shield boards),or what have you. As such this is an issue that may be faced by any unwittingly innocent consumer. Prefacing any statement with I am not a lawyer (IANAL), these sections from Wikipedia entry on Counterfeit consumer goods might help answer your question: Growing problem as will this Enforcement- US. In short, if they have a mind to, Customs could seize it at the border; if your house was raided (for whatever reason) law enforcement could seize your printer (although this seems unlikely, unless they were explicitly raiding your house for knock-offs); and (more worryingly) there is a proposal to fine those people who purchase knock-offs. Of course this is not the only legal issue that may be encountered when buying Chinese devices/parts from less-than-reputable suppliers o eBay or AliExpress, for example, what if: it breaks and what legal recourse do you have as a consumer; it produces a poor quality or dangerous print; it explodes, what legal recourse do you have; and so on, etc. These questions lead into rather murky grey and legally complex areas, and really would need to be dealt with by a legal professional (solicitor/lawyer). Other Stack Exchange posts worth reading These deal more with quality not legality but see Can cheap hotend parts sourced from China actually produce good prints?, and; Vaguely related - What are the pros and cons of collecting parts yourself, versus getting a DIY kit and then modifying it? Also, which respect to the electronics: Some Arduino components seem ridiculously cheap and; Compatibility between Arduino and Arduino clones. This answer to Arduino Clone - A request for the USB device descriptor failed interestingly points out that if the device is licensed appropriately (CC, open-source, etc.) then they may not be any legal issues at all related to cloning (but not counterfeiting - See What's the difference between a clone and a counterfeit Arduino?. 1 A bone fide low end oscilloscope manufacturer got stung by a batch of fake regulator ICs just last year, see Re: JYE Tech DSO150 oscilloscope troubles

Brand new Ender 3 does not extrude any filament during printing

I am a fairly new user of an Ender 3 and had similar issues on a couple of occasions. The main reason was as @0scar suggested - the nozzle was too close to the build plate preventing the filament from exiting - and the back-pressure was causing the filament to jump back, giving the extruder a "shudder" as it slips on the filament. Lower your build plate as suggested by @0scar. The paper should only just drag. The fact that filament oozes after the hot end/print heads moves to home suggests you don't have a blockage... but you will if you don't adjust this. It is better to have the nozzle slightly too high, so the first level does not stick and gradually raise the bed up while you are running the test patterns. Only turn the adjustment knob about 1/8 of a turn before checking - you are dealing in tenths of a millimeter here. Also remember that changing the front setting is going to change the back settings too because the plate will tilt.

How to effectively eliminate stringing in 3D print

Note: The image in the question was changed after the question was asked. This answer is out-of-date with respect to how the question has changed; I'll update it when more information is available. These don't look like strings, which I'd define as material deposited outside of the model, but rather damage done by moving the hotend through already-printed material without retracting. In Cura, this is called "retraction combing", and it defaults to "all", which is way too aggressive and visibly harms the surface finish. Switching it to "noskin" or even "infill" only will make this go away and greatly improve your print quality, at the cost of some speed. The cost can be severe in worst case with certain kinds of fine detail, but usually "noskin" is cheap and suffices.

Can cheap hotend parts sourced from China actually produce good prints?

Hard to say for sure - my whole printer is cheap parts bought as a kit in China by a Chinese student who abandoned it in the US (I resurrected it after it was abandoned.) It includes all the parts you list, and I think we finally sorted out what the thermistor actually is so the temperatures are more accurate now. It prints. Could it print better? - Probably, but at some point replacing all the various cheap parts starts to look foolish .vs. just build a new printer with better parts all around, leaving the original functional. I doubt I've ever met a "E3D V6" and I'd have to google it to see what sort of paragon of printing it's supposed to be. The only thing I'm actually considering replacing is the nozzle itself, partly because I'm just guessing what size it is (mostly based on the way it prints when set to various sizes.) I'm also contemplating adding some sort of insulation for the heater block, having squnched some aluminum foil around it as a first stop-gap. Likewise, if your concern is with burrs, etc. a degree of fettling by you can sort that sort of thing out, if you know to do it and how to do it (i.e. you need to be somewhat mechanically ept.) But of course "parts from China" are not a monolithic entity - there are good parts and bad parts that both come from China - given the state of internet sales, you may well have (unknown to you) the choice of parts that passed quality control, parts that failed quality control, and parts that quality control never looked at (some of which might pass, some of which might fail), from the same production facility, available to you from various vendors at various price points. And then there are many different production facilities as well. Production in the US or Europe is no magic bullet either - competing with imports on price is difficult, so one hopes that superior quality is on offer, but it may or may not actually be from a given vendor, or a given batch of parts.

Is packing multiple prints into the build volume a feasible workflow for powderbed printers?

Yes, this is very popular. Look into the site Shapeways and you will see that this is exactly what they do. I've also personally seen a local 3D print shop do this with their machine. It's called batching. I similar technique can be used in traditional machine shops (mills/lathes).

Bicycle air pump project

depends You certainly can print parts of a bicycle pump, for example, the outer case and maybe the inner piston, maybe even the housing for the connection valves. However, you cant print the buffer spring or the valves itself. You will have trouble printing the adapters. And you will have to print in ABS to smooth the inside of your pump with acetone vapor, so you have a smooth surface that forms an air seal under operation. It would be cheaper and more durable to just print just the fittings and use a PVC Pipe as the cylinder itself. As in all things, if this is a good pump depends a lot on design and your machine.

RAMPS 1.4 Stepper's not getting a good signal

Turns out there were multiple faulty stepper drivers, if the one stepper driver was plugged in, it would operate, but would draw too much current from the pins on the Arduino causing all the other drivers to receive weak signals. This is why swapping them around still only worked on the X-axis, if it was only one driver, I would have figured it out. So if you get a very weak signal on the stepper driver step pin, even when it's pulled out, it's probably because of one of the other stepper drivers shorting the whole rail.

MOSFET as a safety feature

In the world of (cheap) printers, "MOSFET" has taken on a meaning of its own. For a long time, 3D printers have had MOSFETs on board of their motherboards to switch the heated bed. In the past two years or so, we've seen a surge of (mainly) Chinese printers where the on-board MOSFETs (or, more often, the terminal blocks) weren't rated for the high current for the heated bed and would melt down or catch fire. People then started recommending fixes to these issues, such as using a relay, soldering wires directly to the board (to bypass the terminal blocks) or using an external (better) MOSFET. Eventually, manufacturers caught on and started offering "MOSFET boards" which basically consist of a high-power MOSFET, high-current rated terminal blocks and (often) an optocoupler to isolate the drive signal from the bed power (but this doesn't really do anything; there's no need for this isolation). These boards are meant to be used to switch the high current to the bed directly, without it passing through the main board (and instead, the bed output of the main board is used as a control signal for the MOSFET board). People often refer to these pre-made "MOSFET boards" simply as "MOSFETs" but there is more to them than just a single transistor. why it increases the overall operating safety of the printer Using an external MOSFET board does not increase the safety of the printer at all, unless the main board of the printer is badly designed. There's no reason the MOSFET needs to be external and can't be integrated on the main board. Essentially, any company that is offering a printer "with a MOSFET (board)" is saying that their main board is poorly designed and that they've included a band-aid fix. Or, perhaps, because installing an external MOSFET is such a common "mod" nowadays, they're advertising an external MOSFET because it is what people want to see (even if the main board might have a perfectly capable MOSFET already...).

Infill not printing well. What I am doing wrong?

You problem clearly under extrude which mean the plastic not flow as much as it should be. I face this problem recently here my step to solve. Tune e step (do this first) Add more temp. to nozzle (so plastic will melt and flow faster) Slow down print speed. Change nozzle and clean whole hotend.

How do you solve PLA corner-curling short of printing really, REALLY slow?

Cura has an additional setting that you can make visible called "Lift Head". My recommendation is that you do the following: Set your minimum print speed to something actually reasonable like 30mm/s or higher. Printing too slowly negates the following two settings and is not beneficial to printing small features. Set your minimum layer time to something higher, like 15s or so. The slower you print, the higher this number needs to be. Using too small of a minimum print time prevents adequate layer cooling. Enable "Lift Head". This must be used to allow the small features on your print to properly cool. Without the "Lift Head" setting, your nozzle will remain parked on your print and provide both radiant and convective heat which prevents cooling and causes sagging of small features. The combination of these settings will rapidly deposit the layer, then move the nozzle high and away from the print until the minimum layer time is reached, such that the radiant heat from the nozzle doesn't continue to heat the soft PLA while it's trying to cool. Enabling all three is how I got perfect tiny features on all of the printers here at my office - a fleabay i3 clone, an Anet A8, and a couple Monoprice printers of various levels. Edit: I forgot to mention, keep your bed temperature at a reasonable setting too. For PLA, normally people may recommend up to 70C, but realistically, for very small prints, you can keep your bed much colder without detrimental effects. For tiny items, my PLA prints used to use a bed temperature of about 30-40 C depending on the specific filament. Very tiny prints are unlikely to warp even with a cold bed. Basically, the colder the bed is, the less heat is getting conducted up through the print to the top layers that are molten, and the faster those layers cool. Keep the bed temp down and it'll benefit your layer cooling.

Is it necessary to have both hot ends on a dual extruder printer at the same height?

I have a dual extruder Replicator 1 and having the nozzles at the same height is a must and albeit a bit of a struggle otherwise. At one point, I had to disassemble my extruder head and the nozzles didn't line up quite right. There after, printing with the lower one obviously didn't have any troubles, however, printing with the high extruder made it so the lower extruder would scrape the molten plastic layer. This made my surface finish horrible and almost impossible for support structures to be printed. Instead of fighting with my stock nozzle assembly to get everything perfectly lined up, I just shimmed the one side with some stacks of paper cutouts. This brought my extruders very close to even. Also, you'll want to make sure excess plastic is cleaned off of BOTH nozzles when printing with either nozzle. I found that some prints would fail because of a small discharge from a previous print on the other nozzle.

Pronterface not connecting ERROR: A device attached to the system is not functioning

Finally, I found the solution after frying up a Mega board. The problem is with the Mega board. Part of the board is not functioning properly or not connecting with the RAMPS 1.4 shield properly. So I tried with a new Arduino Mega board and it worked. Also removing the D1 diode is the solution for the voltage regulator overheating on Arduino mega board as mentioned in question "Arduino Mega voltage regulator overheats with RAMPS board".

How to determine real printing speed (TEVO Tarantula/Cura)?

Printing speed is dependent by the firmware and physical properties of your printer. Slicers typically compute the expected time by assuming the printer will execute exactly what it is instructed to do, but a printer is a real object, with mass and momentum, and stepper motors that have an upper limit for their power output and rotation speed. So for example, the GCODE may say "extrude 200mm at 100mm/s" and the slicer will compute that operation as taking 2 seconds. However the printer will need to accelerate and decelerate at the extremes of the movement, and it may even be incapable of reaching speeds over 70mm/s, so the actual operation will likely take 3 seconds or more. Accelerations and decelerations account for most of the difference between ideal time and real one, and since the number and intensity of those is totally dependent by the GCODE/model being printed, it is not possible to simply multiply the computed time for a given factor (for example 1.15, as your question seems to imply). A large cylinder printed in vase mode will have a printing time much more similar to the computed one that an intricate model with a very complex surface, for example. In recent years, slicers that are maintained by a printer manufacturer (cura, slic3r PE) have become better at estimating printing times for their own printers, as the settings of the firmware are accounted for in the actual estimating algorithm. If you use Octoprint, you may have noticed that the time estimate octoprint gives improves over time, as octoprint will analyse the GCODE and measure the elapsed time, and will be able to guesstimate the real time with an increasingly degree of accuracy.

How is 3D printing done in space?

Most likely, the 3D-printers used on ISS does not incorporate some fundamental difference that allow them to print in zero gravity. Some people over at 3Dprint.com raised a very similar question, and figured that when turning their 3D-printer upside down and on it's side: there’s not really much difference at all. It’s quite interesting to see how the orientation has little effect on the quality. One of the early 3D-printer models - the Bukito printer - demonstrated that their printer was so portable it even could print on the move, and upside down. In other words, some consumer 3D printers already print upside down, and so they would probably print in zero gravity as well! (That's the short story anyway. Have a look at Ryan's post, who gives a great description of the more intricate parts of space printing!)

Is Marlin capable to work with binary G-code?

No. Marlin only supports ASCII G-code, and does not (currently) support binary format. According to the List of Firmware, Repetier is the only firmware that supports binary G-code. Moreover, verifying with Marlin's source code, shows that the G-code parser can only handle traditional G-code.

Clearance between moving parts

Each printer will have different "print in place" tolerances, but you can find such a model with which to determine the numbers you seek. One such item is on Thingiverse:

preventing my printer nozzle from getting too dull, from nothing but PLA filament

Your extruder nozzle will wear from the inside out if you are using abrasive filaments, which include carbon fiber, wood type filaments, glow-in-the-dark and many other types. Because they are abrasive, removing material from the inside also thins the cone shape of the outside (point) of the nozzle. The solution is to not use abrasive filaments, or to use a hardened nozzle specifically manufactured for abrasive filaments, or to change the nozzle frequently. If this is a 3D printing pen as your post suggests, please clarify, as the answer is likely to change but only slightly. If this is a nozzle for a 3D printer, consider to edit your question to reflect thusly.

stl files -measuring stl files

Consider to provide additional information regarding the software you use and the source information of the STL file. I will make some general suggestions that you can implement to resolve your problem. Meshmixer is a free program that has the ability to measure overall dimensions as well as point-to-point locations within an STL model. Import the STL, select Analysis followed by Dimensions to get the overall information. For point to point, the interface is less intuitive and I would suggest a YouTube search for a tutorial. Without seeing the part, I cannot suggest a specific sequence. If you are able to visualize the action of stretching the part in a single direction, Meshmixer also allows that: Select Edit, Transform and note the three-axis tool which will appear in the model. Each arrow has a small box at the end. Grab the appropriate box with your mouse and move in the desired direction. It will stretch/distort the model on all surfaces in the direction you move. There will be a digital reference showing during this process, allowing you to more precisely set the increase in thickness. If there are holes in the same plane as the bracket you wish to thicken, they will become longer if on the same axis, or they will distort severely as you increase the thickness. You can use Meshmixer to perform a plane cut to separate the model into individual parts to avoid undesired distortion. Please provide an image of the model and an indication of the portion you wish to increase. EDIT after photo and some clarification. Your last line has valuable information. Thicker x axis if it's stood up implies thicker z axis in photo. That's the easiest location for that model. It would take me about 30 seconds to stretch it in Meshmixer. If you attempted it yourself, it might take you two or three minutes. I agree with the post by "plaintoothpaste" that it would be easier if you had the source file. I use OpenSCAD and adjustments are simply a matter of changing a number in a text file, while other software, for example, SolidWorks requires that you find the parameter and modify it to your requirements. Because of the shape of the model, the first reference I provided (Dimensions) would give you the thickness and as a bonus, you can change the number in that window to the desired figure. Export the model and you're done. Far simpler than using the transform tool, if not as much fun overall.

Marlin firmware: move without auto bed leveling

A second G28 should not be necessary as it can be replaced by a G0 or G1 command, but in the end it should work when RESTORE_LEVELING_AFTER_G28 has been set in firmware weren't it for a bug present in the Marlin 2.0.7.2 and 2.0.x bug-fix release.

What are the effects of the elements on 3D printed objects made with "infused" PLA

If you use filaments filled with metal particles, some particles will be exposed to the environment. Depending on the corrosion resistance of those metals, yes the environmental conditions will weather the print object. So if it contains iron (and does not contain elements that prevent oxidation like used in stainless steel) and it is subjected to water and oxides, the print will rust. This is e.g. also valid for copper filled filament, which you can polish to get a gold shine surface (removing the copper oxides), or bronze filled filament, that if correctly subjected to weathering environments, will give the looks of a very old statue. In both cases this implies that the metal particles have undergone a(n) (de-)oxidation process.

How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?

There are a few questions on this topic, so a more generic solution would be informative and will prevent multiple questions of others when their sensor has a slightly different location. This answer intends to cover any position with respect to the nozzle. It also does not matter what kind of sensor it is, it can be 3DTouch, BLTouch, inductive, capacitive, etc., as long as you are able to determine the offset to the nozzle (center to center). For now, it is assumed that the nozzle can only reach the complete area of the bed, no extra space. So unless the sensor runs of the bed, the nozzle limits are used, otherwise the sensor limits the nozzle with respect to the sensor limits. This is the safest assumption and will prevent the carriage running into the end mounts. But if there is more room for travel, an additional offset may be added to the limits. First, determine the offset of the sensor (e.g. by measurement or taken from the information of the printable sensor bracket found many share sites on the internet; Thingiverse is a good source for such brackets). HINT for Marlin 2.x Note the version (branch) of Marlin! The answer is written at the time of the 1.1.x branch and as such is perfectly valid for the latest 1.1.x (1.1.9) version. For the 2.0.x branch of Marlin, different constant names are in use, and a different strategy is used (more simple for setting up). The constant names are not found in the Configuration.h, the answer (and the theory) is still helpful. Constant probe offset values are now found in Configuration_adv.h: MIN_PROBE_EDGE_LEFT MIN_PROBE_EDGE_RIGHT MIN_PROBE_EDGE_FRONT MIN_PROBE_EDGE_BACK HINT for Marlin >= 2.0.6 Since version2.0.6 MIN_PROBE_EDGE_* has been renamed again. Now it is: PROBING_MARGIN_LEFT PROBING_MARGIN_RIGHT PROBING_MARGIN_FRONT PROBING_MARGIN_BACK Note that in Marlin 1.1.x the boundaries are set in absolute positions while in Marlin 2.0.x it is described in offset values from the bed edge. Sensor Offset The position of the sensor is set using the following constants: #define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER [XXX] // X offset: -left +right [of the nozzle] #define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER [YYY] // Y offset: -front +behind [the nozzle] where [XXX] and [YYY] are offset values that specify the center of the sensor with respect to the nozzle. If both are positive values, the sensor is located in the back-right, if both negative, the position is front-left (as seen from the front of the machine using the definition in the Marlin configuration file). The other positions that are possible are the back-left and the front-right (one positive and one negative value). HINT for Marlin 2.x Note that in Marlin 2.x, these constants are replace by an array definition: #define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { XXX, YYY, ZZZ } Where ZZZ is the Z offset. If you use the old constants, the sanity check upon compiling will throw an assertion that these constants are not in use anymore and should be removed. Second, let's set the sensor area limits! Sensor Area Limits In the following images, the nozzle, the sensor and the offsets are defined by: There are four possible positions of the sensor, this results in the following schematics for the sensor area limits (transparent red area): 1. Sensor at the back-right: This implies that the sensor can reach the back and the right borders, so the limits are set by: #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER) #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER) #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE) Note that if a minimum probe offset is defined by #define MIN_PROBE_EDGE [value] in the configuration (to account for sensor width/dimension), the bed limits are changed resulting in (where t = MIN_PROBE_EDGE): Limits are then set by: #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) In the following sensor position placements, this offset for MIN_PROBE_EDGE will be accounted for. 2. Sensor at the back-left: This implies that the sensor can reach the back and the left borders (for zero MIN_PROBE_EDGE), so the limits are set by: #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE + X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) 3. Sensor at the front-left: This implies that the sensor can reach the front and the left borders (for zero MIN_PROBE_EDGE), so the limits are set by: #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE + X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE + Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) 4. Sensor at the front-right: This implies that the sensor can reach the front and the right borders (for zero MIN_PROBE_EDGE), so the limits are set by: #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE + Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) This should have tackled the basics for defining the sensor area limits. It becomes a little more complicated when there is extra travel space. A very easy use of extra travel space can be found in the configuration file; e.g: // Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions. #define X_MIN_POS [XX] #define Y_MIN_POS [YY] where [XX] and [YY] are offset values from endstop to origin (orange arrows represent X_MIN_POS and Y_MIN_POS): Results in offset constants for a back-right probe: #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER + X_MIN_POS + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (X_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER + Y_MIN_POS + MIN_PROBE_EDGE) #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION (Y_BED_SIZE - MIN_PROBE_EDGE) For all other options, a similar addition of the homing offsets can applied. A similar addition is possible if the print head is able to travel further on the X or Y axis at the other ends of the axes. Thoughts for solution for Marlin 2.0.x As I mentioned earlier, Marlin 2.0.x uses bed edge offsets rather than absolute positions. In analogy of the previous graphs we can draw a bed limits diagram (the example below assumes a back-right mounted probe!): Note that the offsets from the edge need to be defined, to properly do this we need access to the definition of the nozzle offset: #define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { XXX, YYY, ZZZ } As this is the part that defines the array values, you first need to make an array (note that this is a simple solution that many people should be able to understand with limited programming skills, more elegant solutions use the XYZ struct to access the X, Y or Z properties): Note that Marlin 2.0.x automatically adjusts your probe area based on the defined offset and the MIN_PROBE_EDGE defined for all 4 sides of the bed. see: #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

How to display images on DLP using HDMI for 3D printing?

Q1: Printrun is 3D printer host software written in Python with limited DLP support. You can checkout how it display layers. NanoDLP directly talk to GPU through Dispmanx which makes it Raspberry Pi only. Q2: Printrun supports SVG. To convert SVG (multi-layer) to PNG you can use ImageMagick cli tools, you should consider your projector resolution too.

What parts are strictly necessary for a 3D printer?

You will certainly find that the print functionality of a 3d printer is a bit more complex than you suggest. The mechanical portions include a means to push the filament into a heated nozzle as well as the software portion to regulate the speed of the filament movement. You haven't referenced the heater cartridge and temperature sensor, but you will discover that aspect soon enough. The "air tube" you think you've seen is likely called a bowden tube. Such designs permit lighter weight print heads, which is beneficial for speed, acceleration and precision, but has complications with respect to compression of the filament as well as retraction considerations. Non-bowden print heads will have the extruder motor as part of the moving assembly, with the drive wheels very close to the nozzle opening. This allows for flexible filament and more precise control of the filament feed. Either design has compromises, so one must determine priorities for the design. Cooling is also a factor. The heater cartridge is designed to heat the nozzle to a specific temperature for the type of filament used, but also requires a means to keep the heat from traveling to the portion of filament not in the nozzle. You'll discover terms such as heat break, referring to narrow threaded portion connecting the nozzle assembly to the heat sink. There will also be a cooling fan to blow air over the heat sink and very often a cooling fan to cool the filament as it exits the nozzle and attaches to the model being printed. You suggest to ignore the mechanics and software, but it's important to be aware of both when considering the principles of the print head assembly. Simplified, filament enters bowden tube then into heat sink, pushed by extruder motor (or) filament is pushed into heat sink by extruder motor. Filament travels through heat break, gets melted in heater block and exits nozzle. Sheesh, that's way too simple.

All-metal hotends are less forgiving / not as good for PLA -- but how bad?

All-metal hotends are less forgiving Yes not as good for PLA No but how bad? That is very subjective and totally depending on the skill of the 3D printer operator! So, that part of the question cannot be answered. Fact is that all-metal hotends are sold as being upgrades to lined versions, this is simply not true. It is a different design that can handle higher temperatures. To operate such hotends you require a little more experience as these hotends are a little less forgiving if you do not have the right slicer settings. Key parameters are hotend temperature, cold end cooling and retraction speed and length and amount of retractions in the model. Another fact is that e.g. the Ultimaker cores concept (we opened a 0.4 mm core to see that for ourselves) doesn't use a PTFE lining, nor do other brands. They can perfectly print PLA (even with a high retraction length). The only time if failed printing PETG (higher temp than PLA) was the result of a heat creep induced clog which was caused by a cooling fan failure (the cooling fan ingested something and seized up), so just one print of a few meters of the several kilometers 2.85 mm that got printed.

What is the best free source for generating g-code

Try using TinkerCAD! I'm not advertising here - I have used TinkerCAD in the past for 3D printing. TinkerCAD allows you to easily build and create simple shapes by the press of a button. (I assume this is what you mean by generation) It is great for testing if your homebrew 3D printer works. Link: https://www.tinkercad.com/

Visible lines along Y-axis on Ender 3 Pro

I see some possible issues at work here: Retraction issues on the arc. You might need to decrease your retraction length a little. Your bed might have a little play. tighten the eccentric nuts a tiny bit. As you are at it, check your X-belt, because accuracy on the Y move is affected by the accuracy of the X-head's position.

Removing pla from extruder

One resource you can use is called the nylon cleaning method. It works by setting nylon filament temperatures, pushing nylon filament into the nozzle until only nylon is extruding, then cooling the hot end to a specific temperature. The page linked suggests a hard yank, but I disagree. Brutality is not a recommended action for 3D printers, in my opinion. When I use the NCM and the hot end reaches the correct cooler temperature, I use pliers and lever them against a suitable surface. The lever action is slower, yet the mechanical advantage is increased, making removal easier. Some 3D printer users disagree with the expense of nylon, which is, on the surface, excessive. I've found that I am able to see light through the hot-end after using this method, however, so I find the expense justified by a completely clean filament path. The above linked page also includes the modification of this method for use with the same type of filament to be cleaned, in your case PLA. Consider that you should be able to use ABS to pull PLA from the nozzle. Heat the nozzle to the lower end of your ABS filament temperature and push or extrude until you get the ABS color. Allow the hot end to cool to the low end of PLA temperatures and reverse the extruder/pull out the filament. If you use contrasting color filament (for example, white PLA, black ABS) you should be able to see the ABS collecting the other color as you remove it. Eventually, you would have no contrasting color, indicating that the previous filament has been removed.

Getting better support than Slic3r generates

I know many Slic3r users - myself included - add support material to the model itself before importing it into Slic3r. I personally favour MeshMixer for support generation, as the supports are much more predictable and easily removable. In complicated cases I also add supports in my CAD software. Although a not free, the support generation in Simplify3D is supposed to be great, allowing for custom placement. I also found this review that compares support settings in Meshmixer, Slic3r and Cura fairly well. Here is the summary: Meshmixer This support was the most efficient in material use however it required the most manual tweaking to print properly. In addition the marks it left once removed were more noticeable than Cura and (sometimes) Slic3r. While the settings could probably be further modified to improve the performance this support type appears the most limited for future improvements. Slic3r The support's performance was variable - by far the best in some situations (fox's head and tale) however the worst to remove with the most obvious marks in other areas of the same model. This may be down to my chosen settings and with some more tweaking I may get better results. The most obvious general flaw is that it does not leave a big enough gap between the support and the unsupported areas of the model (like the foxes legs or the lower roots of the planter) Cura While some of the support left marks, overall it was the easiest to generate support which performed consistently well. Once again though slight tweaks could improve this further for specific models. Overall Cura wins my "no time to tweak - got to make it work now" award.

Configure Marlin for tool changing system

Use a servo. This way you can use the digital pins to control it; or in your specific case PWM_PC9 Connect it to the expansion port and configure one of the digital pins in the marlin configuration file. A servo will go to the minimum position when the pin goes low, and the max position when the pin goes high. I take it you don't need any stops in between since you're doing a tool changer. If you figure out how to modify the code to support tool changing, I'd be interested to know as well.

What is a w/t ratio?

It appears to refer to calibration factor called Width over Thickness. From Calibrate your 3D printer to print parts to fit Here is the list of necessary variables for this calibration to work, Carve/Extra Decimal Places (float) : change to 5 Carve/Edge Width over Height (ratio) : nozzle diameter/layer height Inset/Infill Width over Thickness (ratio) : nozzle diameter/layer height (initially) Dimension/Filament Packing Density (ratio) : needs calibration (equivalent to the reciprocal of the extrusion multiplier in Slic3r) Scale/XY Plane Scale (ratio) : needs calibration

How to increase bed temperature over 103 degrees

You need to increase the power of the heated bed. With a given amount of power, there is an upper limit to the maximum temperature you can reach because at a given point losses due to conduction, convection and radiation will balance out the heating power and the temperature will not increase any more. Sometimes, inability of the bed to heat up is due to the supply voltage sagging under load. First, measure the supply voltage with and without the bed turned on. If you find the supply drops significantly when the bed is turned on, you need a new power supply. Otherwise, you will need to either: Get a new, higher-power heated bed. Make sure that it is compatible with your electronics, or upgrade them as needed. Increase the supply voltage so that the bed you already have will give more power. Some power supplies have a small adjustment potentiometer that lets you adjust the output voltage. Be careful when doing this. Even a small change in voltage gives a big increase in power. For a heated bed with resistance R at voltage U, the power dissipation is U2/R. Going from 12V to 13.5V already gives 26% more power.

How to modify G-code or a better place to get it

Download an stl file from Thingiverse.com Put your .stl file in a slicer program like cura It will output gcode for 3d objects rather than 2d.

Extruder motor does not turn

It turns out the problem was a firmware issue. Using the gcode below (from David Lotts in the comments), I was able to determine that the extruder was running backwards. A flag in the firmware reversed it, solving the problem. M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length G1 F200 E20 ;extrude 20mm of feed stock

Slic3r: How can I automatically modify the STL filename?

The filename is under the "Print settings" tab. Under output options, you can change the name template. You can use words like: [layer_height] to make the name dynamic. The variable you are looking for here is: [filament_preset] But the full name, with space and everything, is used. Here is a screenshot: Here is a link to fuller docs: https://github.com/slic3r/Slic3r/wiki/FAQ#how-can-i-specify-a-custom-filename-format-for-output-g-code-files New version of Slic3r It lets you edit the filename when upload it. You will see what will be upload it and give it any name. But this is a manual process. Just updated my answer for the sake of completeness.

RF100 Settings after reinstalling firmware

Everything was fixed by thorough googling and flipping the whole wire-set of the motor. It started to twirl in a right direction. Sorry for the time

Bridging islands in my stencil

You should know that there will be no such functionality anywhere because "make a bridge between islands" causes some questions: what do you mean be bridge where this bridge should be how it should look like Application cannot answer these questions automatically. Conver image to 3D object is (almost) only to create logo-like-objects or text-like-objects. If your image will consist more than one separate elements then MC will convert it into separate objects and these objects will be treated as separate islands. There will be no way to bridge them on certain level/layer. The only thing you can achieve is a solid "connection" between islands if they will be connected with line on the image. I'm sure it's not what you expect. Almost all 3D apps have a functionality to create 3D obj out of image but it will always be a perimeter or surface which you can extrude. You can create bridges in your app by creating additional 3D object according to your expectations or you can use sculpting app to extend a form. It means you won't add extra object but sculpt existing objects by extruding/extending/pulling faces. For such sculpting you can use Meshmixer for example.