Filament extrusion always stops at some point during print I own a Creality CR-10 (using Ultimaker Cura for slicing) and I am experiencing terrible printing problems.

My problem:  I am not able to print anything that takes several hours to print. For parts printed in 30 minutes or so, my printer usually works.

The prints end up like this (unfinished and with a lot of stringing)

This below is actually the best result I got so far.. (important note: there is no under extrusion during the print, it suddenly stops out of nowhere..)

(Although I have to use terrible retraction settings and need a lot of post processing because of all the stringing - you might have an answer for that too.. I just couldnt get the 3d printer to print parts properly with good retraction settings.)

The problem is that at some point of the print, no more (PLA) material is extruded and the printer moves without actually printing anything. The first couple of layers usually work (you can see that in the images) but after wasting almost 600 grams of PLA, I am not able to find a solution myself.

.

I have some suspicions:

Could the problem be the angle, the PLA is inserted into the feeder? (so that it is almost a 90 degree bend)? The filament comes from a spool in the right hand side. But I dont think that this would cause such a problem..

Is it a software problem? Here are all my cura settings (I even reduced the printing speed to 30mm/s at 205°C - still didnt work..)     :-(

Could the length of the bowden tube and it tangling up be a problem? (as you can see in the image below)

And annother important thing: The feeder always grinds into the filament (even at those low retraction settings) and it is always very hard to pull the filament out of the bowden after a failed print. Sometimes its almost impossible and i have to use heavy tools for it.. that should be the probelem

I already did some atomic pulls, replaced the nozzle and switched the bowden tube.

I have a dream: My printer printing a part without any stringing and actually finishing the print. Please help me to achieve this dream..

Thank you for your help in advance. :)

(and the filament I used, sorry for the bad quality of the pic)

Stringing?

The stringing is explained by your relatively low retraction settings, 1.5 mm is not much for a Bowden setup. As do too high printing temperatures.

Stopping mid printing?

What you are experiencing is called clogging, the extruder cannot push the filament through the hotend and cause the grinding you report. Clogging mid printing is usually caused by insufficient cooling (for the temperature you print at) of the cold end (causing heat creep; slowly increasing temperature of the heat break), especially all-metal hotend assemblies are notoriously known for this problem.

Your Bowden tube does make a lot of kinks, maybe you can improve the path of the Bowden tube. Also if you are concerned about the sharp filament intake angle, you could print a filament guide:

I had the same thing! On my anycubic I3 mega.

Tried a lot of stuff and got so sick of it so I installed a 10:1 gearbox on my extruder motor. So now it provides 10x more torque and since I havent got the issue anymore where the extruder is just grinding on the filament and the motor is just skipping steps.

No because of this and because my anycubic won't connect to a pc I can't change settings on my printer so I resolve the ratio with 1000% flow in my cura settings. And other stuff is also affected.

But at least it won't stop and just be sitting there and skipping steps.


How to convert png to stl? Is it possible to convert an image image to STL file format?

E.g. I don't need the coloring, I need the lines.

I suggest your objective can best be accomplished by converting the image to a single color vector file. You can do this with Inkscape (free, Linux, Windows, Mac) by combining the built-in bitmap tracing feature with some manual editing. I attempted to do so, but the coarseness of the image would result in excessive manual edit time. It may even be faster to reduce the opacity of the image and create a manual tracing on a second layer.

Once you have a vector file, you can use any number of 3D modeling programs to convert the file to a 3D STL. Fusion 360, Tinkercad and OpenSCAD allow import of SVG files to be extruded to user-specified thickness.

For things like a coat of arms, you do not require a full 3D conversion, essentially all you need is a lithograph-like effect. The best program I've found for such conversions is 3D Builder which is a free Microsoft download for windows users (yes, I was surprised too). It can use either color or degrees of greyscale shading to determine the z-axis depth of each region in the picture. Makes the cleanest conversion I've found so far. Exports as a .3mf file but can be readily converted to an .stl for 3D printing (using something like SwiftConverter for example). Also has an option to invert the conversion which I've found quite useful.


Centering model with CuraEngine when creating g-code? How can I center a model at the middle of the printing area of the printer when creating a g-code with CuraEngine.

Are there any parameters I can add to ultimaker2.def.json to achieve this?
Thanks.

Found a solution.
This need to be applied under "settings"

"command_line_settings": {
    "label": "Command Line Settings",
    "description": "Settings which are only used if CuraEngine isn't called from the Cura frontend.",
    "type": "category",
    "enabled": true,
    "children": {
        "center_object": {
        "description": "Whether to center the object on the middle of the build platform (0,0), instead of using the coordinate system in which the object was saved.",
            "type": "bool",
            "label": "Center object",
            "default_value": true,
            "enabled": true
        }
    }
}

If this is over the commandline tool "CuraEngine", then you will have to read the sourcecode. According to the Author, 'Nope. Only documentation there is in the code, readme and my head.' (cringe!).

If you're talking of the GUI program, then right click and click "Center". But this requires GUI usage. Not so nice if you want to automate using curaengine as your slicer.


How to directly send G-code to printer from a Linux terminal? Should it be possible to directly send G-code to the printer serial connection using pipes under Linux?

Example:

echo M106 > /dev/ttyUSB0

My controller runs at 250000 baud, I have tried setting the TTY baud rate to 250 kBd with:

stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 250000

But, unfortunately, this particular baud rate appears to be unsupported under Ubuntu, giving the error:

stty: invalid argument ‘250000’

For direct low-level printer control from a terminal, without specific software, I found the following solution with full credit thanks to user: http://stackexchange.com/users/6463673/meuh

Sharing here as may be of use to other users in the 3d Printing community, and I was unable to source a "complete" solution to this elsewhere.

Step 1)
Create a custom python script that allows you to set arbitrary baud rates (make executable with chmod u+x).

#!/usr/bin/python
# set nonstandard baudrate. Original Question: http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/327366/119298
import sys,array,fcntl

# from /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/serial/serialposix.py
# /usr/include/asm-generic/termbits.h for struct termios2
#  [2]c_cflag [9]c_ispeed [10]c_ospeed
def set_special_baudrate(fd, baudrate):
    TCGETS2 = 0x802C542A
    TCSETS2 = 0x402C542B
    BOTHER = 0o010000
    CBAUD = 0o010017
    buf = array.array('i', [0] * 64) # is 44 really
    fcntl.ioctl(fd, TCGETS2, buf)
    buf[2] &= ~CBAUD
    buf[2] |= BOTHER
    buf[9] = buf[10] = baudrate
    assert(fcntl.ioctl(fd, TCSETS2, buf)==0)
    fcntl.ioctl(fd, TCGETS2, buf)
    if buf[9]!=baudrate or buf[10]!=baudrate:
        print("failed. speed is %d %d" % (buf[9],buf[10]))
        sys.exit(1)

set_special_baudrate(0, int(sys.argv[1]))

Step 2) Run the script to set your baud rate.
./set_custom_baud_rate.py <> /dev/ttyUSB0 250000

Step 3) You can now monitor your printer output in a terminal window simply with:
 tail -f /dev/ttyUSB0

Step 4) And finally, open up a new terminal window, and you can directly send M or Gcode to your printer; example:
echo "M115" >> /dev/ttyUSB0

That's work solution:

you need 2 terminal, one for in and another for out flows


What is stopping us from mixing 3D filament colors in an Extruder? This came up in one of my groups today. That we could not color bend, or mix 3d printing filaments. I have researched but I am not finding anything talking about Plastic mixing in an extruder.

Why is it that we cannot take say a Diamond hotend, or a hotend with 5+ inputs, and mix any color we want? (assuming all the same type, ABSm, PLA). I think it would be interesting to at the least get a gradient effect on prints.

The best I have seen is natural plastic and a marker system. Or a powder / advanced / out of hobbyist price range process that sprays ink. The only Color Bending I know of is with Recycled plastic that uses multi color. Not quite what I am looking for.

Thanks!

I just started with google and phrase "3d printing color mixing" and on the first place (in fact first two were valueless adverts) I got this Instructables - DIY Full Color Mixing 3D Printer.

How it works?

It uses magenta / cyan / yellow filaments and mixes it while printing with Diamond hotend.

It definitely does what you are asking for and it's exactly the same idea you come up with ;)

Overview

  Getting the controller board ready for three extruders... I hacked
  a RAMBo board to drive three extruders, however, you can use any board
  you want... (most people use a RUMBA due to it having all the
  pins/components needed for 3 extruders native on the board)
  Rewriting Repetier firmware to get color mixing working on your
  machine.
  How to install, configure, and use the diamond hotend - tips /
  tricks / lessons learned / etc...
  My original Bowden extruder design and various ways to mount the
  three extruders for your set-up
  My universal magnetic effector plate and accompanying hotend mounts
  for quickly swapping various hotends. (delta specific)
  How to design multi-color models and making STLs that can be
  exported and used as a individual STLs or combining them into an AMF
  file for slicing...
  Configuring color mixing in Repetier and Slic3r to print above
  mentioned multi-color models.
  Anything else I can think of later that I can't think of now.
  Comprehensive overview of Quantum Mechanical Entanglement as it
  pertains to multi-color printing (just kidding, I don't understand
  that... But I will cover multi-color printing throughly)

If you clearly observe the geometry of the print it has printed in different colours .the part is designed in such a way that it has the small height gap between the each colour but we cannot seen this gap in one projection plane..
We can print only in direct drive extrusion .by changing the filament of different colours without pausing the print by immediately changing the material . It is printed in single nozzle. The above image clears your doubt.it is designed with different heights.


High temperature flexible filament I need to cool some liquid (250 °C) while it’s flowing through a tube which has to be able to bend and flex.
My idea is to make a flexible tube with a second tube spiraling around it through which coolant will flow.

I’d like to 3D print this tube if possible so I wonder if there is some printable filament that:

doesn’t melt at 250 °C
is flexible enough that it can print some tube that can bend (bending radius of 30 cm)
optimally also has good heat conductivity

Is there any 3D printer filament available that has these properties?

Ok, so to answer the primary question: What flexible filament will operate consistently at 250°C?
Man... this is a tough one. Some filaments, like PEEK and ULTEM 1010 can operate up in the 200c range.... but they're not flexible at all.
Silicon might be able to work, but you're still pushing boundaries.
Now.... I'm lucky to be in a 3D Printing company.... and we're testing a super-high-temp flexible material, very similar in temperatures to ULTEM. I'll definitely check back and let you know how it goes, but....
Honestly, that's so hot, readily available thermoplastics may not be an option unless you're in Aerospace with an unlimited budget..... which, based on the requirements, would make sense, lol!
I'd say the most readily available way to get this done would be 3D Printing a mold, in which to put your silicone, and bam -- you've got the part.

3D printing nerd showed a couple of filaments that fits this in his latest video "Printers at RAPID + TCT 2019":

Firstly a Nylon 6 high temperature filament:

Another part of the video shows another flexible print, created on a four axis 3D printer, using TPU filament:


Managing LEDs with NanoDLP I'm building my own DLP printer with UV LEDs. I use a 20A relay to power them on, since they require high power and can't be directly driven by arduino or Raspberry.

I'm planning to use them with NanoDLP on Raspberry + GRBL on Arduino.

Is it possible to make NanoDLP tell GRBL to power on (send digital 1/+5V) the relay when the print starts and power it off (send digital 0/GND) when the print ends?

The other way would be to just install an on/off switch and do it manually,  but I feel this step should be automated somehow.

Is there a way to do it?

I have no experience with either GRBL or DLP printers, but the

M7
M8
M9

coolant control codes should be able to be sent by NanoDLP to GRBL. Those seem to allow for direct digital output.
Apparently you can set the pin you want them to use in the cpu_map.h file, with the standard being Analog Pins 3 and 4 for the M8 and M7 commands respectively.

// Define flood and mist coolant enable output pins.
#define COOLANT_FLOOD_DDR   DDRC
#define COOLANT_FLOOD_PORT  PORTC
#define COOLANT_FLOOD_BIT   3  // Uno Analog Pin 3
#define COOLANT_MIST_DDR   DDRC
#define COOLANT_MIST_PORT  PORTC
#define COOLANT_MIST_BIT   4  // Uno Analog Pin 4

Hope this helps!
Source: https://github.com/gnea/grbl

I think you don't have to use the Arduino. There´s an option in NanoDLP to control the z-axis through the Raspberry GPIO.


Creating positives for a food-safe silicone mold: safe? First, a little background. A couple of years ago, I was researching making my own candy, and I came across this page: Lego brick shaped gummy candies, describing how to use real Lego bricks as a positive to make silicone molds for Lego brick shaped candy. Now that I have a 3D printer, and inspired by the usual description of ABS filament ("It's the same plastic used to make Lego bricks") it occurs to me that I can now make any positive I want.

The question is, would that be safe? I know the filament I'm using is not food safe, but if I create positives for a food safe silicone mold, would toxins leech into the mold? And if so, is there a barrier I can use to prevent this, such as some kind of coating?

In principle, ABS is safe for contact with (cold or room-temperature) food. The two main concerns specific to 3D printing are, assuming you start with a filament that is not itself contaminated:

Pores and holes in the printed part which may harbor bacteria
Impurities introduced into the plastic during the printing process

I doubt that the silicone mold will capture the pores and holes with sufficient detail to be of any concern (it certainly won't capture the internal structure, only the surface).

That leaves us with 2. It has been noted that brass nozzles contain trace amounts of lead. This lead can contaminate the printed part, which may in turn contaminate your mold, which may in turn contaminate your food. I don't think this is of realistic concern, since we're looking at trace amounts of trace amounts of lead. The nozzle might also have burnt plastic stuck to it (which might be carcinogenic) so you should make sure to do the print with a very clean nozzle and at a temperature that is not too high.

ABS is food safe for contact with cold or room-temperature food. It is however not food safe for contact with hot food, because at higher temperatures the food may leach certain chemicals out of the plastic. Your application is one of low temperature, but silicone is not food and might perhaps leach some contaminants out of the plastic, regardless of temperature. However, this concern is not specific to 3D printing, as it applies to the method of making moulds out of Lego bricks as well. Therefore, making moulds from 3D printed positives does not appear to be different in a food safety perspective from making them out of LEGO blocks.

The plastic is not quite your main concern (though it still can be). You should worry about the cracks and crevices in FDM prints. Bacteria loves to hide there. For most people, this is the first concern when it comes to "Is X 3D printed food-safe?" If the end product is a hard material, you should sand or smooth your print to prevent the layer crevices from appearing in the end use product. Also consider food-safe epoxies for filling in gaps. If the end product is made of a flexible silicone, then this is less of a concern.

ABS is not food safe. PLA as a material is considered food safe by the 3D printing community, but I have not seen a scientific study on this. However, many filament makers do not extrude pure PLA. Therefore, the answer to your question is that it depends on the manufacturer. You will need to contact the company to know what is in the filament first. Beware of untrustworthy manufacturers that claim food safety without backing that up.


First layer eventually sticks to the hotend and tears I am at my wits end with this problem. I start a print and the skirt goes down fine, then the outline of the parts go down fine (usually) and then when it goes to fill in the first layer, it will always get stuck to the hotend at some point and rip apart the layer.

Any ideas on how to solve this?

Printing PLA at 210°C;
First layer temp is 225°C;
Bed temp at 60°C;
1.75 mm filament, and;
0.4 mm nozzle.

Maker Select V2.1, using Cura to slice.

Step Zero: is always to check/adjust the bed level - if the height over the bed varies while putting down the first layer, it's hard to ever get first layer settings that work.

Step One: is to adjust your first layer settings - height, temperature, extrusion width until you find a set that work for your setup (knowing that they may change somewhat when you change filament.) Some folks find more success with thin first layers, others with a thicker first layer to pump more plastic, still others use the same layer height but increase the width to pump more plastic, and others combine these approaches. Increasing the temperature is common, though in my case I found that the "usual" +5°C was not enough for the present setup.

You can change one setting at a time and have an idea of what works better or worse in each case, or you can change lots of settings and hope you get lucky. I prefer the tedious approach, it's less maddening.

Are you using any surface treatment on the bed? A bit of gluestick or hairspray may help you stick.

Try lowering your first layer temp to 205°C, and apply a gluestick to the bed before you print anything. By lowering the temp, this allows th plastic to cool faster, and doesn't risk the plastic sticking to the nozzle as much. Applying the glue stick will help the print to stick to the buildplate better, lowering the risk of it getting stuck to the nozzle. You might also want to try using a raft, as this will provide more surface area for the print to stick to the bed with, and lower the chances of it attaching to the nozzle.


What can I do about a printjob in progress that starts to warp/curl on the edges? I currently have a print job that is about 50% done, been running for 2 hours with 2 hours remaining.  One side is curling/warping pretty bad, and I'm afraid there's no possible way this is going to finish without serious problems if I don't intervene.

So what I'm doing is either brilliant or idiotic, I'm not sure which: I've paused the print job, stuck some elmers glue below the curling part (with toothpicks, careful not to budge anything else), added a couple degrees to the heatbed (for pliability hopefully), put a small book on top of it to smash it on the glue and let it rest for a little bit (I'll report back if this was a horrible idea or not).

So my main quesiton: Is there any other techniques that you folks can recommend for a scenario like this?  McGuyver'y techniques to repair your in-progress print jobs?  Has anyone tried this technique I'm attempting and if so how successful was it?

In case it matters, I have an ANET A8 and generally send my print jobs to Octoprint (Raspi) from Cura with a Octoprint plugin (Windows).  Printing with PLA filament.  I've done quite a few successful prints recently, but this is the first one that goes from corner-to-corner on the heatbed (this specifically).  Printing at 207c with 60c heatbed (bumped up to 64 while glue settles).  It's in a cooler room of the house, and doesn't have an enclosure so I'm afraid the cool temp is affecting it.

Thanks

Edit, last maybe significant (or maybe not) details: printing on glass with glue stick applied to it - been doing it for weeks and works quite well for the most part.  Also, printing on a raft.

Edit, here are a few pics.  Both are from the back of the printer looking forward.  I have one cam almost exactly level with the glass so I can see the hot-end extrude filament and another one slightly above it.  Sorry for the bad lighting.  Also included screenshots of my slicer settings for this print.

Btw, I've since resumed printing after glueing it down, so far so good - but as you can see in the first pic it may have some possible structural defects and still has a slight curl:

Putting a large brim on it can help, I've seen people rescue prints with larger brims by literally adding weights to the brim around the areas that are peeling up. I've done it by taping brim edges down carefully as the print goes.

More glue to hold it down and lower in-fill percentage will reduce the warping. Or adding more cut-outs to the design like you have further up the shaft.


What defines the speed at which a motor is retracting and how can it be changed? Given a Marlin firmware and a line of G-code such as the following:

  G1 F100 X50 Y50 Z0 E-10

What defines the speed at which the stepper motor associated with the E-value is retracting? It is my understanding that the Feed Rate defines the speed of the movement (in this case 100mm/m) but I am not clear how I could accelerate a retraction?

The reason I am asking is that I am not seeing a swift removal of material as i retract. Could the slow feed rate be the issue? I am using a pellet printer (WASP 3MT) and generating G-code from polylines on Silkworm.

You instruct the printer to move from a certain X-Y position instructed by the previous move, to X=50 and Y=50. While moving at a feedrate of 100 mm/min, it will also retract 10 mm of filament (if the previous extruder distance was 0) during that move. If the movement distance is large, the retraction is slow. If you started from X,Y = 49.99,49.99 it would be very fast.

If you want a fast retraction, first move to a position, and than retract fast, so in separate commands. Do note that we usually do it the other way around: first retract fast and then move, this way there is less oozing of the nozzle.

To sum up, in your G-code command, the speed of retraction depends on the path of travel (the length and speed defined by the feed rate F). If it is fast retraction you are after, you should split the command into two separate commands.

It seems like you are particularly talking about your extruder, please correct me if I have misread.

In the command G1 F100 X50 Y50 Z0 E-10:

G1 - move linearly
F100 - Use a feed rate of 100 mm/minute
X50 Y50 Z0 - tells those axes to move to (50, 50, 0) (absolute positioning)
E-10 - tells the extruder to retract 10mm (relative positioning)

If you are not experiencing high enough retraction speed:

Try increasing the retraction speed in your slicer.
Try increasing the max acceleration for the E axis using M201 (e.g. M201 E10000 sets to 10,000 mm/s).
Try increasing the max feed rate for the E axis using M203 (e.g. M203 E25 sets to 25 mm/s).

Notes:

If you're able to connect to your printer over USB, and you aren't already using an interface to control it, something like Pronterface might make it easier to test retraction speeds.
If this is the correct firmware for your printer, it looks like it is able to save changed values to the EEPROM.  They may be using a modified Marlin firmware.  If so, EEPROM can be saved with M500, loaded with M501, and reset with M502.
If your firmware limits what you can set with M201 and M203, you may want to download the firmware and try to edit its maximum accel/feedrate before flashing.


How can I determine whether my borosilicate glass is fake or not? Is there actually a way to determine whether the sheet of glass that one has received from a Chinese supplier on eBay is actually a sheet of Borosilicate glass, and not just a piece of normal glass intended for glazing purposes?

Are there any laminations, or markings/features, visible under a certain light or if the sheet is viewed at a particular angle?

I ask because most of the 200 x 300 mm sheets on eBay are priced at around £16 - £26, but there are a few priced at just £10, which still claim to be toughened glass, although they do not mention the word Borosilicate, such as this one, 300x200x3mm 3D Printer Heated Bed Toughened Glass Clear Build Plate UK STOCK.

To paraphrase, "Usually if things seem to good to be true, then they are probably fake." However, I wondered whether it was worth a punt as it is only £10, and then if I would be able to verify its veracity once it was in my hands.

Google turned up this thread: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=96214

There don't seem to be any easy, definitive tests. You have two main options, both of which seem to require a fairly high level of laboratory skill (but nothing fancy in terms of equipment).

The refractive index of Borosilicate glass is very similar to vegetable oil (implying no reflection from a boundary if you have a pool of oil on the glass).

The density of the glass can be measured too, using a water bath. This should also be able to give a fairly accurate answer.

Stress testing seems the most reliable way to determine if you have a 'good' sample, but may be more expensive.

"toughened" glass,

Lead, cadmium and barium would have that effect. It goes without saying that you wouldn't want that kind of glass anywhere near your neighborhood.

Even those items that mention borosilicate glass in the product description may have never seen any boron.

Some studies have found that more than 90% of items sourced from China are fraudulently labeled. There is no enforcement.

While stats say nothing about any particular sample, I'd certainly keep them in mind.


What stepper motor to use in heated chamber I want to build a 3D printer with a heating chamber of around 90 °C with build area 200x200x200 mm. I have never build a CoreXY system, so my design is currently an XY system with moving X motor (mounted on Y). Since it has a heating chamber I can't use normal stepper motor (there's a way, but I have to provide forced air cooling like NASA did, or water cooling). Extruder is Bowden type. I have already sourced almost all components, but I'm stuck at choosing the motor.

I could find high temperature stepper motor in India (that's where I'm from), but it cost too much. I found one at the Visionminer website, they're the dealers for Intamsys printers, which has a chamber of 90 °C and they are providing replacement stepper motors as well.

Comparing the cost, the motor I found in India costs three times as above. Even with shipping I will save a lot. But one issue is they're not providing any details about torque and current rating. There's one image in the website and it says,

MOONS STEPPING MOTOR
TYPE 17HDB001-11N
60904162 18/04/12

I thought it might be a MOONS motor, so I contacted them, no reply so far. I tried to find the motor by part number, but failed. I tried mailing Visionminer as well.

Anyone have any idea which motor is this? or know any high temperature motors?

Also they use Gates belts, which is rated for 85 °C. How reliable will it be in 90 °C chamber?

"Since it has a heating chamber I can't use normal stepper motor"  Sure you can, the interior doesn't get all that warm unless you really seal it up tight, and that's not really needed.  I have an enclosure around my 200x200x200 mm MIGBOT (early Prusa clone with direct drive extruder), printing PLA with 60 °C bed, the interior only gets a few degrees warmer.  The motors can take a lot more heat than you think they can.

I have a couple pictures in this thread.

The front & back panels are 18x24 inch polycarbonate from Home Depot, I 3D printed the corner brackets, and added a couple of pieces of wood for some stiffness. The entire front hinges up. The top is 24x24 inch, and the back 6" hinges up to access the SD card that is on the display/control panel.

You don't need to worry about the stepper for heating chamber since the direct drive uses a fan for cooling the motor area.

When I started to make my own printer I had the same question but in order to make me feel good and peace. I prefer to use a bowder extruder.

This bowden extruder comes in different sizes: Normal as picture shows above, small, and mini like the other that shows pre assembled below.

However the question should be different like, Can I print inside an oven? for this will address the question to other possibilities:

1.- Cover or shield the motor with some foil to avoid the heating
2.- Add a water cooling like CPU, so the water flows from outside to the motor to keep a low temperature.
3.- Add cooling fans, this ones should take te air from outside and tha air can be directed with a corrugated tube for the Extruder motor and the radiator. For the X, Y and Z motors can be a rigid tube.

This cooling fans won't affect the internal chamber temperature due the cooling process is punctual.

4.- Many electronics components are designed to work at 105°, so won't be affected in short terms, however the life of circutry will decrease a lot, since designs cover until 5 years at normal conditions so your printer can last up to 1.5 years.

Recommendations:

I don't see a real reason to keep the printer isolated to high temperatures while the porpuse of this is to keep temperature variations from clime like winter and summer. In my case the print room has a normal temperature of 38°C on summers and -2°C on winter, so how can I print with the same quality on winter if the printer is so cold? ah, I need a chamber to keep that temperature of summer. then I made the chamber to acheive 38°C not the whole temperature of the bed print.

If I need to print ABS so I set the bed temperature to 80°C so the parts won´t get warped, due the temperature for adhesive for ABS is the correct; also this temperature won´t over heat the chamber at least near to 60°C, but can it be reduced extracting the heat with other fan. For this case is just only one or two fans.

Note:
The Idea to have the whole printer inside an oven will help to keep that 80°-95°C under control is good, but some times is hard to implement it due materials and its purposes are different and serviseable life will be too low.

So your chamber should include the printing area only or follow the recommendation as the picture above. Those photo was taken from the site industrial RepRap and also exposes som e features as i'm suggesting.


Bad PEI plate adhesion to heated bed I'm (surprisingly) having a problem getting my PEI substrate to stick to the heated bed surface.  The ABS item being printed stuck great to the PEI surface.  I've not seen anyone else post on this problem, but perhaps someone has seen it.

Note, this is the PRINT SURFACE warping, not the item being printed.  That part went great with no delamination even on a large flat bottom.

I'm using 3M 468 adhesive to attach a PEI plastic sheet directly to the heated surface of my Flashforge Creator Pro printer.  The heated bed is anodized black and the adhesive is a sheet cut to the requisite 6" X 9".  It seemed fine and looked pretty good with few air bubbles when first attached, but the first print caused the edges of the PEI plastic to warp up from the corners of the bed.

It appears that the weak link is that the PEI detached from the adhesive. While this was not uniform, removal of the PEI sheet showed that 95% of the adhesive was still attached to the print bed.

The PEI has one glossy side and one matte side, and I chose to apply the adhesive to the matte side to get the glossy surface.  Does this make a difference?

I applied the adhesive to the PEI surface just as it was after removing the protective plastic coating.  I figured this was a clean as it was ever going to get.

I'd definitely appreciate some ideas on this.

Perhaps this is due to the aluminum build plate warping/crowning as it heats?  I use a PEI print surface on my Monoprice Maker Select (Wanhao Di3), which has an 8.5"x8.5" build plate, and I've had no issues with the PEI coming unstuck.  However, instead of attaching mine directly to the aluminum heated build plate, I attached it (using 3M 468) to a piece of Borosilicate glass, which is then attached to my aluminum build plate using silicone thermal heatsink pads.  The rational for using a Borosilicate glass print surface is that a heated metal build surface is going to warp or move some, as the heat is coming from one side; the glass will not warp and so you have a completely flat surface on which to print (and the heatsink pads help make up the difference in surface geometry).  I used this 3dprinterwiki article as the basis for my glass bed mod, and applied the PEI/adhesive using another source (which I've forgotten, possibly the RepRap wiki).  While the first link is Wanhao Di3 specific, it covers the idea.  Make sure you tweak your z-endstops if needed on your particular machine, as adding the glass plat raises the bed height by several mm.

Please note that I'm theorizing - I did not ever try applying my PEI directly to my aluminum build plate, so I have no direct comparison.  But the use of glass to eliminate build plate warping/crowning is fairly well documented. See also this 3DPSE Answer.

I never used one, but the thing that makes two parts stick together is the atmospheric pressure. The glue is just a thing that, even if it does not make any chemical bond, is keeping the air out. A pure example of that is if you put water in a glass and then put another one on it. Although the water is not glue you can't easily pull it up and if the surface is big you can't at all. It is the atmospheric pressure that keeps them together and the water keeps the air out ;). I suggest try the other side and see I'm just guessing . Good luck!!!


My Hatchbox PLA filament only allows me to use rafts When I first got my 3D printer (a FlashForge Adventurer 3), it came with a sample pack of filament. With this filament, I was able to use skirts for my first layer. When the sample filament ran out, I switched to Hatchbox PLA filament. For some reason, I cannot use skirts with the Hatchbox filament. Now, whenever I try to print something with a skirt, the print moves around, ruining it. The only first-layer that works now are rafts, which I do not like, as they use up more filament and are more of a pain to remove. Is anyone else having this problem? If so, what are some workarounds to this issue?

Here are the failed prints. I terminated them mid-way, as they started
to shift on the build plate.

It is unlikely this is a filament material issue since many of us have used Hatchbox PLA without this issue.  This is a first layer adhesion issue.

Your bed may not be clean, or the bed may have had an adhesion layer you cleaned off.

Your nozzle may be too high on the first layer.

Your bed my not be level.

Glue sticks can help adhesion.  Glue sticks usually don't post the composition on the packaging, but Elmer's glue sticks work.  Elmer's washable makes it easy to remove the old layer before adding a new one.  There are also glue sticks specified for 3D-printing.

Here's a discussion on glue sticks: Are all glue sticks PVA-based? How to find out?

Please try one (or more) of the following:

Change the temperature of your heated bed (50 - 60 °C)

Check your nozzle height (0.15 - 0.25 mm is what I use)

Make sure your bed is level (Maybe use a leaving stick (or whatever those bubble things are called))

Use adhesion. Start with painter's tape (least damaging, easy to remove), then use a glue stick or even hair spray if necessary.

Be sure the bed is clean (I recommend glass cleaner 1-3 squirts and then a light scrub of a paper towel)


How to switch motor outputs and use E1 as X, in Marlin firmware? I broke up my electronics and now the output for X is not working. The stepper is OK.

There is any simple solution to remap the output pins? I want the E1 output to act as the X output.

When using Marlin firmware you could easily change the pin layout of the extra extruder (E1) with the broken X stepper pins by changing the pins_RAMPS.h file.

Download the firmware and open the firmware project in Arduino IDE. Navigate to the "Steppers" section of the pins_RAMPS.h file and replace:

#define X_STEP_PIN         54
#define X_DIR_PIN          55
#define X_ENABLE_PIN       38
#define X_CS_PIN           53

for:

#define X_STEP_PIN         36
#define X_DIR_PIN          34
#define X_ENABLE_PIN       30
#define X_CS_PIN           44

and also change:

#define E1_STEP_PIN        36
#define E1_DIR_PIN         34
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN      30
#define E1_CS_PIN          44

to:

#define E1_STEP_PIN        54
#define E1_DIR_PIN         55
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN      38
#define E1_CS_PIN          53

When the file is changed an saved, build and upload code to your board and plug the connector of the X stepper into the E1 header.

you can find pin.h in marlin directory and in pin.h file change # define pinout of z motor and extruder motor


RF100 Settings after reinstalling firmware I have an RF100 v.1 printer with stock software (again) onboard.

After my attempt of changing firmware, the X-axis motor decided to stray printhead away out of the borders of the printer and somehow motor wires broke out of the adapter.
I fixed the wires and reverted to stock firmware, though now whenever I auto-home or press "Home" button on Ultimaker Cura, printhead goes wild top and left reaching borders and starts buzzing like crazy.

current condition:

Head is TOP LEFT with X=100 and Y=100 on the table being under head Z=0;
screenshot

Even with these beautiful tiny settings, I cannot print anything because printhead goes too far TOP RIGHT by itself.
Ideas?

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


Heated Bed vs Heated enclosure for large scale printer I'm /relatively/ new to 3d printing (I'm getting pretty good prints from my Wanhao di3 plus, but haven't done any DIY kits or anything) and materials engineering is probably the furthest thing from my area of expertise so I thought I would pose this to more experienced makers:

If I'm building a large scale printer (probably a similar size to substation33 - sub33D's 1200x1200 printer) that I'm only going to print in PLA and MAYBE ABS occasionally, can I substitute the heated bed for simply heating the entire enclosure?
The idea would be to have a thermistor measuring the ambient air temp inside the enclosure with a heat gun or two to hear the entire enclosure as necessary. I want to do this to try and reduce the cost (significantly as far as I can tell) as it seems 400*400 silicone heat pads tend to go for about 80 bucks a pop.
An alternate idea I had was to use two or three heat pads and space them evenly under a glass bed, although I feel that this won't work as well because the heating won't be homogenous...

Any input is appreciated :)

I tend to agree with Davo, that you might want both. But I'd probably try the enclosure first. My printer is about 1200 by 400. I looked at options, and found some difficult trade-offs:

First, the big heatbed approach:

as you know, getting a single heatbed that big will be expensive (and if it ever breaks or fails, you have to replace it all).
a big heatbed also draws far more power than a RAMPS board can switch, so you'll have to use the on-board control to control a power relay (solid state or mechanical).
a big heatbed will also waste a great deal of power when you're doing small things.

Second, the heated enclosure approach:

more costly to heat up at the beginning, but if insulated it may be cheaper for long prints (with a bed that large, your prints might take really long, too) because it can retain the heat better.
if you keep the air circulating inside, you'll get much more uniform heat, rather than hot first layers and cooler higher layers.
consider the effect of the heat on all the other components: motors, electronics, pre-heating the fibers, thinning any lubricants,....
you could save some heating cost and time by providing a way to shrink the space to be heated: perhaps just a partition you can insert when doing smaller prints. It wouldn't have to be nearly airtight to make a big difference.

A third option is several small heatbeds:

this lets you turn on just the ones you need for any given print
still expensive, but cheaper than one big one, especially when any of them fails.
there will be uneven heat at the seams, but if you place the boards tight together I doubt it's enough to matter. You could also carefully trim the boards' edges to get the spacing closer to uniform.
temperature regulation will be tricky. If you want to support a temperature sensor for each board, you'll have to start hacking at the control software, because (as far as I can tell) there's no provision for multiple heaters. Probably easier to create a completely separate unit with a big power supply, and a simple thermostat for each of the beds, that you just set manually before starting a print.

Overall, I think the heated enclosure may be best. I like the hair dryer idea or heat gun idea, of course you'll need a little extra circuitry to switch it, but you can use the usual software for temperature regulation by installing thermistor or thermocouple in the case (just be careful about circulating the air well enough to avoid "hot spots").

You may want to add an extra cutoff to protect against runaway heating -- I had that happen once when a thermistor literally fell out of the mounting hole in the hotend. Something like https://www.grainger.com/product/SUPCO-Thermostat-407L11.

Let us know how it turns out.

If it is yours first DIY 3D printer try building smaller version first with just one silicone heat pad. 400^2 mm^2 is good enough.

From my experience:

I used 500W silicon heater with SSR (AC mains) and it heats as fast as hotend (on DC 12V).
I also recommend tooling plate (CNC machined Aluminum plate), it is better for heat transmission (Al) and it is more flat (machined to +-50um).
You might consider thermal insulation under the silicone heater and also some foil on build plate itself - to minimize thermal losses. Cork might be useful for bottom. For top I use blue foil (in which it was originally wrapped).

Enclosure I think it is also necessary, combined with heater, but then you must also have tubes for cooling of printed part, motors, fridge on hot end, etc.

Word of caution:
You must realize that you will be probably using 1.0mm nozzle or even more, since on 1200x1200mm you will just wait for weeks for part to complete.
For reference: I print on 340mm diameter (delta) with 0.3mm nozzle and works just fine. But if I use just 0.1mm instead of 0.2mm layers it takes more time, but at the end it looks fantastic. So in your case even layer height must be big to reduce printing time. So you can increase speed, but then there could emerge some artifacts on printed object and also consider heater on hot end, which might be lagging behind.

There are a lot of problems when you go this big and all are not even closely to be considered solved, but if you have time..


How to prevent bend (or warping) with M3D printer? Hello is there a way to prevent bend on print with M3D printer?

You can to print a brim, a thin layer on the bottom connected to the model. This will help hold it in place. Since it is thin (one or two layers) it will not warp itself.

The brim is not the same thing as a raft. A raft is under the model. The brim is on the same layer as the models bottom layer but outside the model. It looks something like this:

I assume that you use a heated bed if you have one?

Also, it is imperative that you get a good first layer. Calibrate your machine carefully.

Try using an adhesive before you print. This could be http://airwolf3d.com/shop/wolfbite-prevents-3d-printed-parts-from-warping ... What is the temperature of the room you are printing in like?


Nozzle moves very slowly from home to start position I´m currently working on a custom delta printer running Marlin 1.0.2 firmware. To control it I´m using the Repetier Host software with the onboard Cura software to slice my objects. The printing works fine but it takes the nozzle nearly 5 minutes to move from the homing position at 250 mm to the starting position of the print near z=0.

I already tried to increase the travel speed but nothing changed. Can you guys please tell me how to increase the speed of my nozzle to move down to my starting point of the print?

I had the same problem, and I solved it by changing the Z-Axis Feed Rate to a much higher value (1000 mm/min.) in Repetier Host via Config -> Printer Settings -> Printer.

Try changing the travel speed in you r slicer, if that doesn't work , try changing out the motors for newer ones.


How to debond cyanoacrylate glue from pla I have used cyanoacrylate glue aka superglue to bond PLA. I have created several electronics enclosures. (Definitely the most time-consuming part of the project.)

Now my question is which debonder/solvent can I use to separate the pieces again without destroying the PLA parts?

Wikipedia proposes the following:

nitromethane
dimethyl sulfoxide,
methylene chloride,
gamma-Butyrolactone.

Acetone

Acetone will dissolve cynoacrylate (superglue) and should weaken it enough to be able to separate the parts.
A readily available cheap source of acetone is nail varnish remover (just make sure you don't buy the acetone free version!).
Give the pieces a soak in nail varnish remover for 10-20 minutes and they should come apart with some prying.
Acetone does not dissolve PLA, so the PLA parts should be undamaged. If you were to try this on ABS parts however, they would begin to dissolve.

Gamma butyrolactone is by far the best product to remove cyanoacrylate and also great to dissolve PLA.


Are the Makerbot 5th generation's initial issues resolved I am considering buying a 3D printer for work (scientific research). On paper, the Makerbot 5th generation seems to be the best option, because the price is right for my budget, and also because I'm generally pretty busy, so I want something that's as close to "plug and play" as reasonably possible. This will be my first 3D printer and I have no prior experience with the technology.

However, any search for "Makerbot" brings up a raft of negative reviews from around the time of the 5th generation's first release, which mostly focus on issues with the smart extruder constantly failing and needing to be replaced under warranty. Many of these reviews point out that this may be an initial "teething" issue which might be fixed in later versions of the model, but now, one year later, I'm unable to find any information about whether this was indeed the case.

So: are the initial issues with the Makerbot 5th generation's smart extruder generally considered resolved, or is it an underlying flaw of the model that won't be fixed until the next generation?

I imagine that people might want to suggest alternative models in the same price range. That would be welcome, but I have an extra constraint, which is that I can only buy models that are available in Japan without a long delivery time - this probably limits my options quite a bit.

Makerbot claims the problems are fixed. I have heard from a number of resellers that the problems are fixed. Unfortunately, both of those are somewhat biased sources. It's surprisingly hard to get good info on the subject -- very few credible people are talking about recent experiences with the product line.

Issue #1: The main surviving user forum (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/makerbot-users) has had the torrent of people reporting 5th gen issues more or less dry up. There ARE still people posting issues, but at a fairly low level that is not far outside what you would expect for an average hobbyist printer. What we DON'T know is whether the flood of complaints has slowed because they're working better, or because very few people are actually buying them any more.

Issue #2: The power-users and community leaders that typically evaluate and review 3d printers are all avoiding the 5th gen line like the plague. Makerbot burned up a lot of community good-will by going closed source with the Replicator 2, and lost more good-will through a series of misunderstandings over patent applications and the Thingiverse terms of service (Takerbot scandals), and put the nail in the coffin by knowingly releasing a non-functional 5th gen product line. Very few credible people are willing to give them a chance at this point, so there is a severe shortage of unbiased reviews.

Issue #3: Makerbot has a proven history of buying off journalists and reviewers to get positive 5th gen press. Some verifiable examples:

Hundreds of fake 5-star Amazon reviews from paid review accounts. A relevant analysis: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JI8LRRXZYNX1/ (Not verified, but related: a widely-believed rumor states that the German Amazon site actually wiped all of Makerbot's 5th Gen reviews because of blatant tampering: http://www.amazon.de/MakerBot-MP05825-Replicator-5th-H%C3%B6he/dp/B0183TP806/)
The CES awards initially given to the 5th Gen line were given before Makerbot had functional firmware. None of the 5th Gens at the CES launch were functional. All demo prints shown were made on Replicator 2s. How could a non-functional product win awards? Not hard to figure that one out.
Historical positive press in the 3DP journalism media (3ders, Make Magazine, etc) has been directly proportional to the volume of ad-buys from Makerbot or the parent company Stratasys.

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

So it's hard to evaluate the reality of the situation. But even IF the Smart Extruder issues are truly all fixed (jams, leveling issues, thermocouple connection, filament encoder failures, etc), there are still meaningful problems with the product line.

The print quality is not impressive. The motion mechanics, which have not been appreciably changed to my knowledge, are not great. The Smart Extruder is basically a giant pendulum wobbling off the side of a non-optimal gantry selection of an H-bot architecture. Makerbot has addressed the floppy construction via firmware tweaks to significantly slow down the machine to give marginally-acceptable print quality. According to most reports I have seen, a Replicator 5th Gen will print significantly slower than a Replicator 2, for example. Expect in the neighborhood of perhaps 30-40% longer print times than comparable printers.
The price tag is roughly double or even triple the current market price for the size and print quality output of the machine. There are so many great printers on the market now for significantly less money that it's kind of nuts to drop the cash on a Makerbot.
It is marketed as a PLA-only machine. That's fine if you're printing art and trinkets, but it's not a great option for mechanical parts. While you CAN print other materials, this is not technically supported.
The support plan structure has quite frankly become abusive. Makerbot used to have really helpful phone tech support, but the crushingly massive volume of 5th gen troubleshooting requests forced them into a paid tech support model. Around the same time, Makerbot shut down their user community forum and deleted links to external technical resources off their website. So unless you know the right places to go, support is scarce. For official tech support you must buy "Makercare" or pay for each help ticket. This is completely out of line with industry norms for a hobbyist/consumer 3d printer. They essentially took their biggest liability -- unreliable printers -- and tried to twist it into a profit center. I personally think this is a significant reason to avoid the company entirely.

Is it possible to get good results from a Replicator 5th Gen? Sure. But it's a poor value for the cost, from a company that has spent the last few years systematically driving away its former loyal user base. I would recommend staying away until there's some significant change in the product line at minimum.

I own a 5th gen printer and after teaching myself how to dismantle and clear the smart extruder of jammed filament I can attest to the machine working better than any other 3D printer I have used. I run the 3D printing section at Tampa Hakerspace and the MakerBot is much more reliable than the prusa or wanhao which we use at the space. I had problems with the machine initially but now it works like a champ


Under extrusion when starting outer wall See the pictures below. I have a severe under extrusion when the printer starts the outer wall, which is resolved by the time it finishes the outer wall. It starts the layer in the same place every time, so it results in this vertical line, on one side of which is fine (where it finishes the layer) and the other side has bad gaps and the wall is much thinner.
In this picture, the problem is on the outer wall (see red outer line, the print head is moving counter clockwise.

And here is the print showing the issue. Just fine on one side, but terrible on the other, precisely where it starts the layer.  Strangely, this only occurs on the layers with infill. The top layers seem fine (despite starting in the same place).  I have disabled retraction with no effect.
Here you can see it start at the tip and get gradually better as it progresses.

Here you can see that by the time it finishes, it's just fine, and also what a contrast is between the start and end.  That should be a flush edge, there.

Another view

Is there some setting that I should be tweaking?  I've exhausted my own ideas of different tweaks to no avail.
The printer is a Monoprice Maker Select V2.  I'm using Ultimaker Cura 4.1.0.

Material: PLA
Layer height: 0.24 mm (in the pictures, but replicated with 0.16 mm also)
Temp: 205 °C, here (but tweaking this hasn't had any effect)
Retraction: Disabled

This doesn't happen on layer changes.  Although it does line up with the Z seam, you can see from the G-code visualization below that the outer wall is the very last thing it does.  The issue occurs at the start of the outer wall (still on the same layer) that it has the issue, but by the time it ends the wall (just before switching layers) it is fine.
I've tweaked a few other settings, one by one, and seeing if any have any effect.  So far, not really:

Outer Wall Wipe: 0.2 (default), 0.8, 0.0
Jerk Control - Wall Jerk max velocity change, 5 mm/s
Outer Wall before inner (Yes instead of No)
Wall Line Count (3 instead of 2): This improves it some, but I suspect just by making it a little more difficult to see

What have I done since...
I reset all settings in Cura to a default "Draft" setting and then set layer height to 0.24 mm, and turned off Infill. Then I have tried prints with different settings for "Retract Before Outer Wall" and printing temperature.
Here are those results:
These pics seem to suggest a very clear lag in extrusion.  1 and 2 are different temps.  2 and 3 are different retraction.
205 °C, 0 % Infill, Retract Before Outer Wall: Off

195 °C, 0 % Infill, Retract Before Outer Wall: Off

195 °C, 0 % Infill, Retract Before Outer Wall: On
Note: the retraction setting resulted in a noticeable pause before printing the outer wall. Retraction distance is 6.5 mm, and this is not a Bowden fed device.

There doesn't seem to be anything strange about the G-code, either.  Here are the G0 travels just before the outer wall followed by the wall.
...
G0 F7200 X106.319 Y93.413
G0 X106.26 Y93.909
G0 X107.213 Y93.658
G0 X107.8 Y92.542
G0 X107.286 Y90.844
G0 X107.509 Y90.394

; (outer wall of outside)
G1 F1328 X107.985 Y90.707 E116.98713
G1 X108.38 Y91.128 E117.01098
G1 X108.658 Y91.623 E117.03444
G1 X108.813 Y92.18 E117.05833
G1 X108.832 Y92.751 E117.08193
G1 X108.713 Y93.315 E117.10575
G1 X108.463 Y93.837 E117.12966
; (first curve complete, on to straightaway)
G1 X99.631 Y107.716 E117.80936
G1 X98.912 Y108.59 E117.85612
...

Even more done...
These are retraction off, and 205 °C
If I set the "print speed" in Cura to 20 mm/s (normally 60 mm/s), the outer wall speed is reduced from 30 mm/s to 10 mm/s. The result is quite good.

If I leave the "print speed" at 60 mm/s and adjust only the outer wall to 10 mm/s, it's still quite good.

So it seems like an acceleration thing.  If I can figure out how to get it to slow down in just the right spots or compensate in some way, then perhaps I can make this problem go away with minimal sacrifice in total speed.

Based on other comments, answers, and question edits so far, in addition to your original question, I believe there are possibly two things going on here: incorrect retraction settings, including a misunderstanding of which settings are relevant and what they do, and issues related to slow acceleration. Both relate to misdepositing/loss of material.

First, some basics. When the filament is advanced to the point needed to extrude material and print at the intended volumetric rate, it's under significant pressure, compressed between the extruder gear and the nozzle. My understanding is that your printer has a direct drive extruder, not a bowden, so there's far less compression than with a bowden setup but it's still there. This means that, if you try to stop extruding, it's material will continue to come out of the nozzle, just at a decreasing rate, until the pressure dissipates. This effect is reduced but still present if the nozzle is held-against/moving-over already printed material, and heavy if moving over empty space, even moreso if moving across sparsely-filled space like infill where it will bond with the already-deposited material and get "stretched"/"pulled" out.

The idea of retraction is to pull the filament back when the print head is moving to a new location without trying to deposit material, to relieve this pressure and prevent unwanted misdepositing/loss of material, and to reverse the process, putting the filament back exactly where it was when the last printed line ended, the next time it starts trying to deposit material.

The relevant options in Cura are:

Enable Retraction - must be on
Retraction Distance - should be at least 5-6 mm for bowden setups, probably more like 0.5-2 mm for direct drive.
Retraction Minimum Travel - should be 0
Combing Mode - try different settings. Off is probably the best relative to your issues, but hurts your print time a lot for certain models, and can hurt quality in other ways.

Everything else related to retraction is fairly irrelevant, especially "Retract at Layer Change" is a niche option and not typically useful. As I understand it, turning just "Retract at Layer Change" on does not mean retraction is on.

Now, your other issue may be acceleration. Extrusion works best as acceleration speed approaches infinity, because the extrusion rate and pressure needed to extrude will be fairly constant for the entire line/curve. If acceleration is very slow, pressure will be wrong during the start and end of lines. It's likely that, due to high pressure, excess material will get deposited at the end of one line while slowing down, then after moving to start the next line, even if you retract the filament, you'll have insufficient pressure at the nozzle after reversing the retraction to start the next line.

A jerk limit of 5 mm/s is really low. I'm used to more like 20-30 mm/s. You don't say what your acceleration limit is, but it's probably also low. Slow acceleration has minimal impact if your max speed is slow, because you quickly reach the max speed and most of the print speed (and thus extrusion rate) is steady. But if you want to print at high speeds, you need high acceleration. Try and see if you can increase it. Or accept printing at slow speeds.

Another option, if you're open to hacking on your printer, is replacing the stock firmware with a recent version of Marlin with the Linear Advance feature. It does the math to model the filament pressure as a spring, with a spring constant you can tweak, so that it can compensate for varying print speed and end lines with approximately no pressure remaining.


FlashForge Finder turns off mid print and is unable to reset or update firmware I am new to 3D printing and am trying to get started with a FlashForge Finder. Unfortunately, the printer keeps shutting off mid print, and I am unable to find a cause. Here's what I have tried thus far:

System Settings

Factory Reset - When I attempt a factory reset, nothing happens (the menu closes, but usage stats & wifi do not get reset)
Firmware Update - Updating the firmware from the touchscreen immediately fails every time

Printing

I can start a new print, but the machine turns off after about ~10-15 minutes at temperature
The transformer on the power cable remains lit green even after the machine fails and turns off
I have tried printing multiple files from Thingiverse with no edits (an elephant and an owl)
Temperature is set to 220 °C

Observations

One of the times that the print failed, I noticed that the temperature had dropped to ~204 °C prior to failing. I don't know if that's normal behavior or not

Same problem occurred to me, now twice.
How much is the Finder's memory able/allowed to register?
After erasing all but the print job, things go smooth.

Try unplugging the USB lead as soon as the printer starts to print (I had similar issue and this worked for me).


Are there many assembly type 3D printers? I am wondering if anyone here knows of any 3D printers that work by assembling models from parts instead of extruding or setting material.

The closest I have found is the pixelstone but it appears to only be a prototype and I haven't seen or heard of any progress on it in over a year.

There is a similar house printer fastbrick but it is also just a prototype.

There is research papers on rapid prototyping with lego blocks and software for this (brickify), but these don't have machine assembly.

And there are 3D printers that can do conductive filament in the model but none of these seem to do pick and place as well and they still need a human to add the electronics or to change the tool head. (firepick)

So are there any 3D printers that work like pick and place machines and just stick blocks together?

Yes and no:

Yes, there are machines, that assemble things from parts. For example, SMT placement equipment & pick-and-place-machines. Almost all electronics are made this way. In fact, a lot of items are made by using Pick-and-Place machines in the final assembly.

On the other hand: No, there is no 3D-printer, that works by just being a P&P machine: it simply is not inside the specifications of additive manufacturing to be just an assembly machine. That is an assembly or pick and place machine, no matter if they call it printing. It is not.

However, I have seen a recent makerfaire video and a talk that was showing a prototype of an E3D toolhead swapper, which - in its idea - would allow to combine a 3D printer with a P&P machine. Their idea is to fully automate the manufacturing process, including adding non-printed parts with grabbers or the like.

I've prototyped a design that used beads similar to these http://www.infostir.com/images/plastic-beads-350.jpg on a rod with a heated tip and then you just press them off into the design. But it wasn't too strong and had some pretty specific requirements of the model. Labelled it a failure.


How does acetone "rejuvenate" PEI? The Prusa3d knowledge base mentions that acetone will "rejuvenate" PEI in addition to cleaning oil and grease from the surface.

  About once a week, or when prints stop sticking, use ACETONE to clean the bed. It removes grease better than IPA or Windex. It also rejuvenates the print surface. However, if you use acetone every day, PEI will become brittle and start cracking.

From a chemical or physical perspective, how does acetone affect the PEI surface?

Rejuvenate is probably a bit of an exaggerated term. The number one adhesion suppressor is grease. The stuff that comes off of the fingers used to handle the sheet. Even if you are careful and only handle the sides, the grease will be carried to the center of the plate next time its cleaned with less aggressive solvents.

Isopropyl alchohol does break down grease but not to the extent that acetone does. Acetone also attacks plastic particles that accumulate on the print surface over time.

PEI is resistant to a wide array of chemicals[1] including acetone but it can become brittle if exposed to it too much especially when hot so acetone is not recommended for daily cleaning.

[1] Ultem Product Broshure table 4-3

Acetone is smelly nasty stuff.  Here's a sample recommendation for PEI maintenance from one of a few (million?) 3d printing help sites.

  Use isopropyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, soap, Heptane, Hexane, or
  Naphtha. Avoid ketones (such as MEK) or strong bases (such as sodium
  hydroxide).


Ender 3 is capable of food safe printing? I've been looking into the viability of manufacturing a replacement part for a kitchen blender that has a broken part. I found this page that talks about what makes a print food safe. One of the items mentioned was:

  ... a brass extruder may contain lead, and lead contamination can cause some nasty health problems. ...

I own an Ender 3, and I haven't replaced the nozzle yet. How can I tell if my printer is capable of creating food safe prints in its current state?

Food packaging needs to comply with regulations. One certification agency informing about these (and their service to certify for them) is TÜV Süd, another is SAI global. A summary of the GFSI can be found here. Inform yourself about the standards you wish to apply! The stack can not give legally binding answers.

No

The Ender 3 is not approved to produce food products (and not usable for them out of the box) for lack of certification. In the design it comes from the box, you need to replace a lot of parts for food rated ones:

The whole print head/bed need to be swapped out for food rated parts due to the exact composition being not known. They might contain banned materials. As a result:

You'll need an all-metal hot end that can be taken apart for cleaning up to the standards if needed.
You'll need a food rated PTFE tube.
You'll need a stainless steel nozzle that complies with food grade manufacturing demands.
The extruder gear should be stainless steel as well.
You'll need to add some part to prevent filament shreds/flakes from the extruder to enter the print area as they might act as contaminants or carry germs.
Similar measures have to be taken for the wheels on the hot end carriage, as it might shred.
As you include a volume of air into the print, you are likely to be demanded to print under a protective atmosphere to make sure no germs are inside the print.
We do not know the composition of the build platform, so you'd need to replace the back surface with something that is food rated.

You'll need to post-process your prints as smooth as possible, especially because of the small edges at the layer boundaries, which can and will act as spots where germs can grow.

This can be achieved with a material that is smoothable in some way.
Alternatively, a sealing lacquer/coating that is food safe might help here.

Remember, safety first:

Printed plastics that are rated for food are not necessarily food safe because of the quality or blend of the material. PLA and ABS can be made food safe, but that is usually pure material. We usually don't know what kinds of fillers or coloring is in our filament. The heating process might destroy the colors or fillers, which in turn might make it unsafe.

Indirect manufacturing

If you are stone set you want/need, you can use indirect manufacturing: you don't print the actual object, you print a mold that makes the actual object. Clay and other ceramics can be made food safe very easily and they can be shaped with plastic molds.

Boxing

There is also another way to facilitate food safety in a 3D printed container, and that is checking where the food will actually make contact. For a lunch box, that is the inside. We could line this inside with a food safe surface, for example placing a steel cup in our plastic cup-holder. Accessories like a cup holder or a decorative container for the actual food container do not need to adhere to the food packaging regulations themselves.

Exposure time

I know this is all looking at industrial food rated production. The Primer given in the question does include a point about time the product gets into contact with the food - if there is just a short exposure, you might get away with it, but it doesn't make it certified food safe. Another good read in this regard is this short discussion about the Pros and Cons.

Parts printed in pla are food safe, as pla is usually made from corn starch. However, most 3d printed parts would not be food safe for they have many crevices where bacteria can grow. Also, if you printed with materials other than pla with that nozzle, traces of the material (which  would make it into the print.


Filament moving around and not sticking to bed I have only just set up my Anet A6 today. I am trying to print a calibration box, but the print is moving around the bed while trying to print. Any ideas how to fix this? The documentation is very vague.

Basically I am very new to 3D printing. I purchased an Anet A6 and have set it up stock. I am trying to just print the box directly from the demo models on the SD card. I'm using the standard filament that comes with the printer. I'm not sure what type it is.

All settings are default.

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.

Chances are, you're not levelled close enough. try levelling your bed when it's heated around 60C (or as high as you can get if your machine's FW won't let it go that high) with a piece of standard printer paper. you should get a bit of resistance, and play around with the paper for a bit, find a happy medium. Try spreading glue stick on your bed, or spray it with hairspray. If you have BuildTak or some form of PEI, wipe it with some 99% rubbing alcohol. Lastly, find a fairly simple model on thingiverse.com or myminifactory.com, and slice it using either Raft or Skirt as build plate adhesion. I prefer a skirt because you can actively be checking how your bed levelling is, and adjust it. And make sure your first layer flow or extrusion multiplier is slightly higher is about 110-120%. This can get you good sticking almost every time.


Installing bowden tube into E3D V6 I'm struggling with an upgrade I made to my Creality CR-10.  I upgraded the extruder to an E3D V6 hotend.  The extruder mount and cooling fans are installed and working, however, I'm doing something wrong with installing the bowden tube into the hotend.  Inevitably after I print a few layers, the extruder jambs and the issue is always the same:  the bowden tube has backed itself out a few tenths of a millimeter, and the filament has mushroomed into the vacant space and hardened so that the filament cannot go forward or backwards.

I've tried several things to fix the issue including:

Trying various pneumatic fittings from various suppliers
Recutting the end of the bowden tube to attempt to make it more flush
Replacing the bowden tube
Three different E3D heat-breaks from different supplier
Various ways of inserting the bowden tube including:  pushing it after the fitting was screwed in, pushing it into a fitting that was back out a couple turns and then screwing the fitting in

The only thing that has (partially) worked was when I would ductape and hot-glue the bowden tube into the fitting so it couldn't back out.  However, since I'm still tweaking things, I inevitably have to disassemble things and I'm back to square one.

I'm trying to figure out what mistake I am making to keep causing this issue.  As an example, originally I used the pneumatic fittings wrong and thought I was supposed to pull the plastic part out to release the tube, rather than simply pushing it in to release the tube.  (Needless to say, I wrecked a lot of fittings that way.)

What else might I be doing wrong to keep causing this issue?  What are other culprits to this issue happening repeatedly?  Are there firmware settings that may help (or be aggravating the issue)?

You may need to secure the pneumatic coupling in the closed position with a small plastic clip (which should be supplied with the hot end).

You can print your own, providing that your printer will work for long enough (a paper clip might do the trick):

Thingiverse: Bowden Tube Clip v3

Addendum:

Some pneumatic couplers are sprung, so that you have to depress the coupling ring in order to release the tubing. In this case, no clip is usually required. Other pneumatic couplers (such as the one on an E3D V6) are unsprung. This makes it easier to secure and release the tube using the supplied clip. The disadvantage is that you may lose the clip. Sprung couplers sometimes lose their springiness, in which case a clip can be used to secure them in the closed position

It's "swings and roundabouts", really. You can to choose between the awkwardness of sprung couplers, or the risk of losing a clip. Either way, print some spare clips. You may need them one day.

This sounds more like a problem with heat creep. When you installed the new hotend, did you reuse the old cooling solution? You might need more heatblock insulation and / or cooling power.


Material for autoclave-able part I’m designing a part that will need to be autoclaved—it will be under steam at 121°C for about 15 min per job and I will want it to be able to go through the autoclave repeatedly. I ran a test PLA part through the autoclave and it warped noticeably; based on their glass transition temperatures, ABS (105ºC) and PETG (80ºC) would probably also not hold up. For a consumer-grade FDM printer, what filament materials that could be used for parts that could be autoclaved?

It might seem that common 3D printer materials such as PLA and ABS should be capable of being autoclaved—unfortunately. However, although their melting temperatures are higher than autoclave temperature (typically 121ºC), their glass transition temperatures are below that limit so they can warp or undergo creep deformation.

Sterilization of numerous plastics is described here, with PLA, ABS, and PET all being described as "poor" for autoclaving. For each "good" material on that list, I looked for filament by Googling and consulting material guides from Prusa and Matter Hackers.

Polypropylene (PP) or acetal (POM, also known as Delrin) are the best choices. Filament is available for PEEK, PEI (ULTEM), FEP, PPSU, and PPS but these filaments are expensive (>$100/kg) and require high extruder temperatures (>300ºC).

In contrast, PP is about $50/kg and uses an extruder temperature of 254ºC; POM is similarly priced and uses an extruder temperature of 210ºC. Nylon (depending on the exact type) and HT-PLA may also be worth considering.

"High temperature" filaments are not worthwhile for this application. Again, they're expensive and, more significantly, do not work well with consumer-grade 3D printers. For example, the upper limit for a Prusa i3 MK3s is about 280ºC—the thermistor only is good up to that temperature. Higher temperatures would require swapping out sensors and modifying firmware and building an enclosure. It's been done. Printers designed for high-temperature filaments easily cost thousands of dollars.

This question was previously asked on Reddit a few times but this analysis is more comprehensive.

You need to order the part printed by an SLA machine in PA, preferably with 10 % mineral or glass content. The heat deflection temperature is suitably high for any autoclaving you'll do, and the material will resist most every that your lab and throw at it. I also went down this road with a part for my own lab and found no reasonable solution from a consumer level FDM printer.


Ender 3 v2 won't read or recognize any SD cards I've just received my Ender 3v2 and tried multiple SD cards, all have been formatted to FAT32 with no luck. Under the Print selection, all I get is the back button. I looked and I have the V4.2.2 and the firmware is up to date, Showing 1.0.2 unless this is not right and this is why I'm having this issue. Even when plugging directly into the computer, nothing is showing up.

Format for 32 with MBR for ender 3d I had similar issue. Check Reddit


Why would one choose 12 V from 24 V, from a safety standpoint? I have seen many people saying on this site and many other 3D printing websites that 24 V systems are safer, compared to 12 V systems. By safer, I am talking in terms of fires or other electrical and component failures.

Why would a 24 V system cause less danger? I would think that 12 V would be safer because it is very common (automotive) and many parts have been around for a while that use it. Although there are an increasingly amount of boards that support 24 V, many don't or need fuses or other parts that do support 24 V.

Also, many parts that I have used are rated for 12 - 24 V. A 12 V power supply can go a bit over fairly comfortably. A 24 V power supply can't without partially going over the rating.

If I had to build a printer designed with safety as a main priority, what voltage would be best?

The most important "safety" advantage when using 24V (compared to 12V) is that to get the same power, you only need half the current. A 192W heated bed would need 16A at 12V, but only 8A at 24V.

Since one of the most common safety issues is underrated screw terminals being used for the heated bed (just search for "3d printer fire"; you'll find quite a few pictures of charred plastic around screw terminals). For example, the screw terminals on RAMPs board are only rated for up to 12A. That would be okay at 24V, but well over the limit at 12V.

Since the wire gauge is dependent on current, you can also use somewhat thinner wires with a 24V system (or equivalently: wires that would melt in a 12V setup won't in a 24V setup). The power dissipated in a wire scales quadratically with current, so the same wire being used in a 24V setup would only waste a quarter of the heat of that wire in a 12V setup. There is also less strain on switching devices (such as MOSFETs or relays). The same applies here: power loss is quadratic with current.

From a pure safety standpoint there is nothing about a 24v system that is distrinctly more safe than a 12v system. I see you added comments about something involving wire sizes. This is not really a factor.. I would say not knowing what wire size to use is a whole other issue. There is nothing stopping you from putting on larger wires.

The following websites verify the fact that a 24v needs smaller wires. Though again the system it self is not safer because the wires required are smaller.

JamesTown
SDC minimum wire gauge to distance chart

I will also note the size difference is negligible anyways. It is not a major difference.

Now one exception to this. If you had a 24v and a 12v compatible board. I would pick a 24v. The reason is not that the wire sizes needed are different. But for the reduced danger of the CONNECTOR that the wires attach to. I see quite often in the flashforge owner group boards that have caught fire due to a cheap connector that can not handle the load for the printer.


Best gear STL to print with ABS I spent the last days trying to make the best gears I could but they are not "smooth" nor good. I searched at thingverse with "gear" but I see no set of gears. I would like someone to point me a good set of gears (with 5, 10, 15... teeth for example) so I can use this STL file with Google Sketchup.

Do you guys know any good matching gears that I could print?

I will be using this gear in a fast spinning matching so it would be nice these gears to be well designed to support some fast moving.

Also, I think in my case I would like to use gears with this shape (the white gear). Any idea why is this gear design better than the usual?

This type of gear is known as a "herringbone" gear. A traditional straight-cut gear is strong, but can cause more vibration as each tooth engages and disengages. A helical gear (slanted tooth) reduces that vibration as the tooth engagement is more uniform. However the angle of the teeth causes a sideways force that may be undesired. A herringbone tooth design effectively cancels the sideways forces but gets the uniform tooth engagement.

A search for "herringbone" on Thingiverse comes up with many gears of this type.

Regarding the quality, if you are not happy with the results of your own design, that's OK - gears are shockingly complex, and people make careers of gear design! However, if you have a good CAD model that just isn't printing well, it's not likely a bad STL.

An STL from a different source is likely to have similar quality with the same slicer/printer setup. You might be able to improve print quality of your design by changing settings on your slicer or adjusting your printer. I'd suggest asking a question with your current setup and specific print quality issues.

As for high speed gear ideas why don't you design your own if there aren't any good ones. I will admit sometimes there will be surprising lack of content in some areas and I dont know what you expect, sometimes you do have to do some things your self to bridge the gaps. Maybe try looking into automobile transmission or even jet engines which use two shafts for high speed compressor and low speed fans. Jet engines spin pretty fast over 35k RPM. They may end up using a planetary gear I would think, the forces are well balanced. But you haven't said the purpose of this gear, is it power transmission on separate parallel axis? Speed reduction/change? In engineering, structurally things which use pointy edges can perform poorly under stress, the stress is highly focused geometrically. Instead if manufacturing constraints and design volume allows it, rounded, chamfered, or filleted edges reduce high stress points. Also adding material distributes loads where possible. Smaller teeth may increase vibration frequency but reduce amplitude. Ideally you would want to minimize the relative velocities of the contacting surfaces to reduce waisted force from friction converting to heat. Also heat can reduce strength and increase wear, decreasing life span of the gear.