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Tevo tarantula Z- port burnt I burnt the Z- port for the Z endstop. Can I use the Z+ port? I'm using Jim Brown's Marlin firmware. Any help to change that is highly appreciated. I know nothing about code. Sorry for my ignorance. I'm new on this 3D printing universe.

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.

Filament extrudes at an angle On one of the nozzles on my printer, the filament comes out at a 45 degree angle. It seems that this causes problems with adhesion to the bed and overall quality. What caused this problem? How do I fix it? How do I prevent it from happening in the future?

I've personally had this happen when I had a minor clog in my nozzle. My first steps to fix this would be: Make sure the exterior of your nozzle is clean. I've had bits of plastic pull at the extruding filament and change it's direction. Attempt a "cold pull" or "atomic pull". On my Replicator 2 I do this by removing the extruder motor, heating up the hot end, manually pushing a length of filament through the nozzle, letting it cool slightly and tugging the filament (and hopefully the clog) out of the nozzle.

Printing dental temporary crowns If the right filament material is available, it seems practical for dentist to 3D print temporary crowns. Multiple images of the tooth to crown could be used for a 3D scan. Custom software or settings would probably make the software finish in less time. A 3D-printed temporary crown would probably take less work to get it to fit properly. Anyone know of development to do this? This probably would take a series of clinical trials to get FDA approval.

You ask about "filament", so I assume you expect fused-filament technologies. These are however not accurate enough, besides being prone to gaps and crevices which are problematic in crowns. The smallest viable nozzle, 0.2 mm, is still too rough for that. Dental 3D printers need to be very accurate, so the most common technologies used are stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP). Crowns can be made using resin printing. It is possible to use also CNC machining of porcelain, but it's not part of 3D printing. More info can be found on https://all3dp.com/2/dental-3d-printing-guide/

How to get consistent and accurate readings from thermocouples? I upgraded to an Mk9 dual extruder, and it came with thermocouples installed instead of the thermistors I had before. No matter what I did with the thermocouples, the indicated temperature jumped around by as much as 30C or more. In short, after several weeks of fiddling I never got the thermocouples to work well, and replaced them with thermistors, which have been fine. So my question is: what is required to get thermocouples to give reliable, consistent, accurate readings? Are they just incredibly touchy? Some things I tried include: Of course, one must add circuitry (typically a thermocouple amplifier board such as http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Thermocouple_Sensor_Board_v1), to convert the tiny voltage differences to larger differences usable with Arduino or similar analog inputs. Place those boards close to the thermocouples, but far enough that they are at pretty stable temperature themselves. Have absolutely no wire extensions of splices, changes of wire types (material), etc. Avoid doing repeated measurements too fast. I replaced a thermocouple board with 5V through a potentiometer to the analog input pin, to rule out problems in the Arduino, pin configurations, or software, and got stable readings. I checked for shorts-to-ground from the heater block, both sides of the thermocouples, the heater itself, etc. None found. The thermocouple wires are surrounded by a braided shield (not common or shorted to either thermocouple wire); I tried grounding that at either end and at both ends, to the heat block, the printer frame, the power-supply ground, and the RAMPS board ground. These had various effects (sometimes large), but I couldn't find any configuration that made the readings stable (much less accurate!). Anything I'm missing? Thanks! Steve

Thermocouples work by passively generating VERY small voltages via the Seebeck effect -- usually a few tens of millivolts. They're literally just a pair of wires made from two different special alloys, electrically connected together at the "hot" end. That wire junction can be mounted inside whatever kind of attachment tip or lug is desired. The fact that they're very simple and passive devices makes them extremely precise and consistent between TCs of the same type, MUCH more so than thermistors. Any type-K thermocouple in the world will give you the same accurate output +/-1-2C or so. You can even cut a thermocouple in half, re-twist the ends of the wires together, and it'll still work! However, the very small (millivolts) signal they generate is quite susceptible to electrical noise and circuit design. The signal voltage has to be greatly amplified to be useful. So it doesn't take much EMR from your heater or stepper wires to interfere with the TC reading. A frequent problem with TC circuits in 3d printers is the dreaded GROUND LOOP -- if the "hot" tip is electrically connected to the hot block, voltage and current on the heater and motor wires can induce small currents through the TC wires that totally screw up the millivolt signal. The amplifier picks up these stray voltages and it throws off the temp read. So, there are some important guidelines for keeping noise out of the TC wires: The TC wires must be electrically insulated from the mounting hardware (eye lug, thermowell, whatever your extruder has). You can check this with a multimeter -- you want infinite / out of range resistance from the TC leads to the mounting tip and hot block. While you're at it, make sure your heater cartridge wires aren't shorting to the hot block -- that's unsafe and can also cause problems with TCs. Keep the two TC wires close together, and not immediately parallel to noise sources like PWM-controlled heaters or stepper wiring. If you must run the TC in a bundle with the other wires, TWIST the heater/stepper wiring pairs. (For steppers, twist each coil pair to a different pitch if possible. You don't need to twist the separate coil pairs to each other.) Another common issue with TC circuits is the COLD JUNCTION COMPENSATION. A thermocouple doesn't measure tip temperature, it measures the DIFFERENCE in temperature between the hot tip and the cold junction where the TC is connected to either the amp or copper wiring. The TC amp has an onboard thermistor that it uses to add the temp at the cold junction to the measured signal from the thermocouple. There are a few things you need to do to make sure the cold-junction compensation works properly: You should run TC wire all the way from the "hot" tip to the TC amp. You CAN splice it and install plugs, but only with more type-K TC wire and proper type-K thermocouple plugs. These use the same metal as the TC wire so they don't generate undesired junction voltages that interfere with the TC signal. If you splice copper wire between the TC and the amp, any temp differences along the copper will not be measured! This is a particularly big problem if you splice to copper inside a warm enclosure and then run copper to an amp outside the enclosure. The amp should not be super hot. The onboard thermistor is designed to accurately measure temperatures reasonably close to room temp, not hot-block temps. There should not be large temperature gradients near the amp or between the TC wire termination and the actual amp chip. Place the amp far enough away from the hot end and other heat sources (like stepper motors) that it isn't experiencing weird temp profiles. If you do the above, the TC will output a good signal, and the amp will read it properly. But there's one more hitch. The mainboard has to know how to understand the amp's output. 3D printer control boards that are designed exclusively for TCs, like Mightyboards, usually use digital communication between the amp and the main control chip (MCU). This is high-reliability and does not require any special firmware configuration -- support is baked in. But if you're strapping an external TC amp onto a board that is expecting thermistors, you will have to tell the firmware how to read the signal from the amp. The most common technique is for the amp to output a linear voltage signal to the MCU's normal thermistor input (ADC). Then you configure the firmware to use the appropriate "thermistor table" (really a voltage lookup table) for that particular amp. Depending on your controller board, you also may need to make sure the regular thermistor pull-up/pull-down resistors aren't affecting the amp's output. So you need to make sure: You don't have electrical noise issues The cold-junction compensation is working as intended The firmware and controller board is configured correctly for your amp chip's output If you do all that, a TC should give superior accuracy and reliability over a thermistor.

Trend in Filament Costs? Some have suggested that filament costs are asymptotically approaching a baseline cost - others that costs are linearly decreasing. Does anyone know where to find the trending costs on a single class of filament over the past decade or more? Part of the reason we are asking is to get enough longitudinal data to begin projecting costs for printing objects in the future. You might think of it like the "Moore's Law" of filament costs.

I'm not clear as to the intent of your question, but I would like to provide some insight. Typically, the biggest differentiating factor between a mediocre data scientist, and a good one, is based on the hypothesis they put forth. Therefore, understanding where the cost of filament is derived from is much more important than analyzing the market price equilibrium over a period of time (Even if done with consideration to various filament types). Here are some basic costs: Raw material (the cost based on region, and grade) Manufacturing scale (Mixers, extruders, cooling, spooling, packaging, etc.) Shipping (Often 50% of cost for small quantities) Supply chain (Number of middle men) Without going into detail of every preceding point, I was able to break down costs to a theoretical $10/kg for ABS, if starting with virgin pellets, and shipping flat rate USPS within the US. The point that I am trying to make is, fundamentals over technical analysis in this case.

How are SLS printers able to print multiple colours? With FFF printers able to manage only a small handful different colours (by using different filaments & extruders), how is it some SLS prints are able to be produced in such a broad range of colours? Are they sprayed post-production?

The Z-corp/3D systems printers lay down what is essentially ink in each layer (only around the perimeters) much like an inkjet printer, dying the powder as the parts are made. This means they can make almost any color at any point in the model. The down size is these models are pretty fragile, at least the last ones that I have handled. This can be helped by dipping them in cyanoacrylate and letting them dry. As pointed out in the comments, this is not an SLS process, but looks very similar. The printer lays down a binder (clear or colored) on each layer, and is why these models are much more fragile than SLS models, which are very strong. Here is an example of some prints: http://mcad3dprintingandprototyping.blogspot.com/

How many grams will be used in a print I have an STL file and I would like to know how many grams would this print consume. Is there a software so I can get it or an online link that can say me that?

You can not tell this by looking at the STL file alone, because how much material will be used depends on the print settings (obviously, printing at 100% infill will consume much more material than 10%). The best way to check the material usage is to load the model into a slicer and slice it using your preferred settings. Most slicers will report the projected material usage, often in grams but sometimes in meters of filament (but the two figures are easily converted between each other if you know the density and diameter of your material). Here is an example in the Cura slicer: Simplify3D (after you click "prepare to print!") also shows you the projected print time and material usage and even the cost of the material (if you have previously entered the material cost per kilogram):

What are the benefits to using 128X microstepping drivers on the X and Y axis of a FFF printer? Assuming you have a high quality printer with a fast processor, will you see a noticeable improvement by upgrading from 16X/32X microstepping drivers to 64X/128X microstepping drivers? (e.g. smoother surface finish). In what ways do they perform differently from the more common 16X or 32X stepper drivers. I'm thinking the RAPS128, Silencioso, and Trinamic drivers vs the DRV8825, A4988 and A4988.

You will likely not see a noticeable improvement by upgrading from a 16x or 32x to a 64x or 128x microstepping driver. Depending on the motors you're driving and the size of the load you could actually see a decrease in quality. Although microstepping increases theoretical resolution it does not necessarily increase accuracy. The reason is that microstepping significantly limits the incremental torque of the motor. This means that you may ask for a step but not get one because the torque of the step won't be enough to actually turn the shaft. As an example: a motor running in full steps will have 100% of its rated holding torque. Moving to 16 microsteps/full steps drops this to ~10%, 128 drops it to ~1%. The practical effect of this is that in high torque situations (such as printing at fast speeds) the motor may end up skipping some of the steps. In this way the increase in resolution can actually lead to a decrease in accuracy (smaller steps but they may not actually be taken). A relevant calculation to do would be to work out what the different number of microsteps to full steps works out to in terms of horizontal, vertical, or whatever movement the motor drives. You can do this by measuring how far the stepper moves said surface in one revolution provided you know the number of steps it takes per revolution. Example: With no microstepping: 1 turn/inch * 200 steps/turn = 200 steps/inch or .005 inch/step (127 micron resolution) With 16x microstepping: 16 * 200 steps/inch or .0003 inch / step (8 micron resolution) In this example 128x microstepping would be absolutely foolish. Every situation is different and you should use this information to make a decision based on your setup. Many manufacturers have recommendations on how far their motors can be microstepped.

Is 3D printing suitable for repairing a refrigerator shelf glide rail? The plastic glide rail on which my refrigerator vegetable drawer (bin) traveled recently broke. The rail was part of a large plastic shelf, which is no longer available for purchase. I'm thinking about 3D printing a new glide rail and attaching it (somehow) to the existing shelf. Can 3D printing be used for this task to make the repair any easier or more successful to complete than simply cutting a piece of plastic and (again, somehow) affixing it to the shelf? Note that the glide rail needs to be somehow attached to the shelf at a 90 degree angle. I keep using the word "somehow" because I haven't figured out how to make that magic happen yet.

Can 3D printing be used for this task to make the repair any easier or more successful to complete than simply cutting a piece of plastic and (again, somehow) affixing it to the shelf? Yes. 3D printed parts can be plenty strong enough to handle the kind of load you're considering. You'll need to create a 3D model of the part you want it a CAD program, which is something that takes some practice if you don't already know how to do it, so it may or may not be easier for you than milling the from a plastic blank. One advantage that 3D printing brings with it is the ability to iterate rapidly on your design: you can model and print the part that you think will work, try it out, adjust your model to incorporate what you learn from the first try, and print new versions until you get it just right. If the existing shelf is broken in some irregular way, for example, you can design a new part that mates tightly with the broken edge of the part you have. The rail was part of a large plastic shelf, which is no longer available for purchase. Perhaps you've already looked, but there are a great many parts suppliers online. If you have the part number, be sure to look beyond just what the manufacturer can supply -- it's very likely that someone out there has the part you need.

Attaching the resistor for the J-Head Extruder with Type 44 Non-Contaminating Heat Sink Compound? I saw a video in which someone used GC Electronics Type 44 Non-Contaminating Heat Sink Compound (Part No. 10-8118) to hold the resistor for heating up the J-Head extruder head in place. Is that a good way to attach it so it heats up the aluminum block?

Nope, not adequate. When heating at maximum power, you should expect the resistor to be 50-100C hotter than the hot block. (It must be hotter than the block in order to transfer heat to the block.) GC 10-8118 is only rated for 200C, but the service conditions at the power resistor may run up to 300-400C depending on power output and desired hot end temp. For that matter, you may want to question whether the power resistor itself is rated for the >300C temps it will see in normal service. It's probably not. Most modern hot end designs use steel-jacketed heater cartridges instead of power resistors because they can handle higher temps and are, you know, actually designed to be used as heaters. The power resistors used in older hot end designs are generally being operated way past their design ratings. It's kind of amazing they work at all.

Anet A8 X axis drive-gear wobble I've recently noticed that the pulley driving the X-axis belt on my Anet A8 is wobbling quite a lot. I took out my calipers and sure enough the hole wasn't centred. I ordered a new pulley (from a different manufacturer) which arrived today but it was also wobbling, though much less than my old one. The X-axis motor does not appear to wobble at all, I've tried placing a straight object up against the shaft and ran the motor and could not perceive and wobble at all in the motor, so I know it's not the motor. Before I start ordering more of the same part I wanted to see if anyone else has had this problem or if I'm doing something else wrong (for example if the uncentered pulley is a feature and there's some magical way to mount the belt pulley onto the motor to make sure it does not wobble). My guess is that I've just ordered cheap scrap parts and need to order something more expensive. Here is a link to a video of the wobble: https://imgur.com/o4EJ9pg

There are several possible causes for this. From least to worst: The part itself is good, but the faceing cover plate is misaligned. No action needed. The part is mounted in a way that makes it wobble, re-mounting helps. The part is bad and needs to be replaced. So, let's see the anatomy of a Timing Belt pulley. They exist in basically 3 general types in the McMaster Carr catalog: One flange, two flanges, no flanges. I am not affiliated with them, but they are pretty much one of the parts vendors in the industry that has almost everything, making them the convenience option. In the mantra, they are the "fast-good" option with the "everything" bonus and that the catalog of parts with 3D is integrated into fusion360. A similar supplier would be RS. The part OP ordered is the "With One Flange" design, it is 6mm wide, 5mm axle and 16 teeth. The McMaster Carr catalog has two very close matches to OP's part: 3684N11 & 3684N12, about 6$ for a part machined from a solid piece. Why is that relevant?! well, the part OP ordered is not made from a solid piece but at least two parts: the body and one flange plate, as you can see on the product picture - the plate separation I marked with yellow here: This is where the first error appears: if the flange isn't mounted centered (in poor quality it is rarely) then it appears to wobble but actually doesn't. But the video shows that the axis seems to be straight, while both the front and backside of the pulley wobble in the XY position. This means it is not just the flange that is mis-mounted on the part. Now, error number 2 is misaligned mounting. In case the bore is good, you can often fix a misalignment by removing the part and mounting it again, more carefully, possibly using some thin shim metal around the axis. In some cases there is a pair of screws already to do this, if not it can help to modify the part with one or two extra alignment screws, allowing to sift the gear's center a slight bit by tensioning the additional screws. In the case of OP's linked part, the screw that is not radial but protrudes next to the axis is designed to come over the flat of the axis and the other one is to tighten it down. If the bore for the axis however is really skewed, and even after repeated re-mounting or shimming nothing can be done, a new part is needed. With the measurements of the part, you can order at a lot of online catalogs, the price and quality differ greatly. However, the engineering mantra strikes: Cheap, Fast, Good. Choose two.

What are the tradeoffs of a cantilever printer design? There are several cantilever-style printers around like some DIYs (2018), the TronXY-X1, the Monoprice Select Mini, Tiertime's Cetus line and the 2019 Prusa Minilinks for information, no affiliation. While the specs of the printers are very different, what are the main benefits, tradeoffs and drawbacks that are inherent in the design compared to a more traditional Core-XY or Prusa/Portal design?

Cantilever printers constrain the X-axis carriage only on one side and have a free hanging side. This means, that the X-beam has to be rather sturdy and is limited in length, making them usually quite small machines. Another tradeoff stemming from this source is, that they have to stiffen this one connection as much as possible. Any play on the connection leads to increasingly large errors the further the printhead is out from the Z-Axis and can lead to bad prints, banding and total failures of prints. This behavior, at least on the TronXY-X1, is sometimes called Z-Wobble and has brought up some aftermarket modifications. For example, this bracket constrains the movement of the X-cantilever. While all axis would be affected by bad constraints, a cantilever suffers the most: The cantilever (if not well constrained) can deflect in both XY and XZ plane, pretty much opening a cone with the tip at the leadscrew nut. A one side-leadscrew portal design can only deflect in the XZ plane, opening an angle along with the center in the leadscrew nut. A double leadscrew design has, constrains both ends of the X-axis and prevents deflection but could suffer from bending the portal bar. The main benefit of a cantilever design is that being of a rather simple design with few moving parts, understanding as well as repairing and modifying the motion control system is fairly easy. The ease of access and low component number also allows reducing manufacturing costs to some degree. Another thing of note is, that these printers usually have a fairly small form factor, allowing them to be used in small workshops without taking up too much space. However, their build-volume to occupied-volume ratio usually is not as good as other designs - printers with a much larger build volume just get a much better ratio there.

Silver Solder specifications for hot end heating element In this question I was told that I should use silver solder to connect the heating element to the power supply. (I was also told that a ceramic extruder head was the way to go, but I'm working with what I have) I bought two types of silver solider from Radio Shack: 96/4 Silver-Bearing Solder, Lead-Free 0.62" diameter. 62/36/2 Silver-Bearing Solder, 0.15" diameter. Is there any reason I should use one of these over the other to power the heading element of the J-Head extruder?

The first is not suitable. ASTM96TS Sn96Ag4 has a melting point of 221–229 °C according to Wikipedia. Pb96Ag4 would be OK, but that is not lead free so doesn't seem to match your description. Update from comment to explain the letters and numbers: the data comes from wikipedia, the numbers are Tin(Sn) 62%, Pb(Lead) 36%, Ag(Silver) 2%, for example, see below for an electronics solder compound. Sn62Pb36Ag2 is an ordinary expensive electronics solder (but not lead free), with an even lower melting point. You need to find a high temperature silver solder, with a melting point of about 305 °C (which confusingly might be a soft silver solder), for example one of these. Hard silver solders melt at 600 °C, that would be excessive in this application. The nomenclature 'silver solder' came about before lead-free electronics solder was introduced, since when more alloys containing silver have become popular as general purpose solders.

Filament is stuck in nozzle I recently bought a Geeetech Prusa i3 x. After two full days assembling I can finaly try to print something. Having put in the filament into the extruder no filament actually came out of the nozzle. I opened up my extruder and the filament seems to be stuck in the nozzle. Note that I have tried heating the nozzle up and both pushed and pulled but no movement. Does anyone know what to do? Thanks, Merijn

There are a number of options you could try. If heating up the hotend does not work, you'll have to disassemble it. Remove the nozzle and the heatbreak (the threaded part). To disassemble the nozzle, you will need to heat it up and use pliers or wrenches to unscrew the parts. You can use a blowtorch to melt and burn out the plastic that is stuck. Make sure to do this outside. You can use solvents to dissolve the plastic. This works especially well with ABS, which can be dissolved in acetone. You can also try dissolving different plastics with acetone, but for example PLA does not really dissolve in acetone (it does become somewhat soft, so this can still be helpful towards getting it out). You could also try using other solvents if acetone does not work for your particular plastic, but consider these tend to be quite toxic compared to acetone so be careful. Note that in any case, the plastic will need to soak in the solvent for at least a few hours or overnight. Do not try to disassemble it while cold, the expansion and contraction of metal with heat makes this impossible. When reassembling, be sure to heat up the nozzle before giving it a final tightening (again, this is to make sure that when the nozzle expands as it is heated, it makes a tight seal).

How can I read this 3mf-File So I am trying to get the XSD-Schema from this object. When I open the File I just get something like this code (snippet): ¸†2¡Q·2ºyƒeCã2ï…w ïÀ|¼ðAøä[0Ÿ |>‚|ó‘å2²ºFƒ¼Æò1ùàåcj@Þ`ùиÌ{áÈ;0/|¾ ùÌ'Ÿ„ Á|d½¬¬¯Õ ¯±|l¾…­Œo@Þ`ùиÌ{áÈ;0/|¾ùÌ'Ÿ„ Á|d½œ¬¯Ó ¯±|h\æ­Œo@Þ`ù¸| ßBs¦5–Œ~ôè»­£(™c´“Ç£[yp1:æ'Éc4Jó Uâ˜ÍÇ<h—8^'Ð¯É What is this? How can I convert it back? I need to edit the structure manually. Thank you in advance.

Three likely culprit: The file is compressed but your machine can't detect it. So for example the 3MF model has been zipped, and what you are trying to do is opening the zip archive in the text editor, rather than the file that is in the zip archive. Solution: try to see if common decompress utilities like zip, gzip, 7z can open the file. The file is a 3MF model but the character encoding in the file being different than the one your editor is expecting (typically Unicode/UTF-8, these days). Solution: read on the rest of this answer. The file is a binary one that is totally unrelated to 3MF. So in essence: an error, you are trying to open maybe an MP3 or a JPG file believing it to be a 3MF instead. As for the "wrong encoding" option... Oversimplifying a bit, the story goes like this: computers write data to files in bytes, a byte can only be set to one of its 256 possible values, in the early days of computing, when computers were just glorified calculators, it was enough to have a 1:1 ratio between the byte possible values and the symbols one wanted to use, so ASCII was born (actually ASCII only "mapped" the first 127 values of the byte, but that is a detail). So: value #49 would represent a 1, value #90 a Z and so on... shortly afterwards, computers became powerful enough that people wanted to use them to process human languages, so the need for more characters (like accented ones åáä or the ones from non-latin alphabets like Cyrillic язы́к or arabic عَرَبِيّ‎, or...) came to be and engineers speaking different languages had the "brilliant" idea to each use the other 127 "free slots" in a byte for their favourite languages, thus a plethora of extended ASCII encodings was born, each using the same byte value, but each mapping to a different symbol. later on, people began to realise the need to combine the use of say Gaelic, English, Japanese and Farsi with mathematical symbols, and thus they came up to way to map symbols to values expressed as the product of more bytes (so for example: 2 bytes encoding could map 256x256=65536 symbols). Again: each system using the same values but different symbols. finally after decades of frustrated users and expensive bugs, engineers around the world settled for a multi-byte standard that has 1,114,112 possible values that could contain all characters one can possibly need, and Unicode was born. Back to your question: despite unicode having been around for a few decades now, legacy software and sloppy programming are a thing, and there are still systems that do not use unicode internally but some legacy "special purpose" encoding. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say with certainty how a file was encoded, so occasionally you may find yourself opening a file and starting decoding it according to a "conversion table" that is not the one used by the author of the file itself. This is what it looks like is happening to you. Onward to what you can try to do to fix this... First of all: as attentive readers may have already inferred, you will need the actual file for this. In fact if you cut-and-paste its "content" from an editor what you are really doing is cutting-and-pasting the decoding your computer did of the byte values, and not the byte values themselves. Then your best bets are: Try one of the online detectors like this one, using "English" as a language. These detectors work by trying all the decoders they know of until the decoded file will have English (or another language of your choice) words in it. This may not work for you as a 3MF file is mostly numbers, not text, but it is worth a shot. Guesstimate what encoder may have been used. For example: if you got the file from an old windowsXP machine from Eastern Europe, chances are it may have been encoded with "windows-1251". Use an online converter to see if you were right about it. Use brute force. For this you will require to write a simple programme or ask somebody to do it for you, but the key idea here is to have a script taking your original file and decoding it using all encoders in that programming language knows of. Then it will be up to you to open each decoded file individually and verify if it worked or not.

Inconsistent printing results using same settings but different calibration models I've got a second-hand Renkforce RF1000 which I've gone into more detail about in this question. The extruder works however, I get some inconsistent results. First I printed a calibration cube and noticed huge gaps in the bottom layer. Because of this, I increased the extrusion multiplier to 1.05. I noticed there still were some gaps but also other issues, I then printed one with the extrusion multiplier reset to 1.0 and a negative Z-offset. The results are shown below. In every image, the left cube has multiplier 1.0 and the right cube has multiplier 1.05. Then, for a better idea about the consistency, I printed a hollow pyramid. This shows some heavy stringing. However, when printing a retraction test I barely get any stringing. Does anyone know what could cause these inconsistent results? I assume some hardware tweaks might be needed, not just slicer settings. Any help is appreciated. I use Slic3r I use 3 mm PLA printed at 190 °C on a 60 °C bed with some glue (doesn't stick without). The first layer is 200 °C with a 65 °C bed. After three layers the fans are enabled. I have a negative Z-offset, it probably isn't calibrated 100 % correctly I don't know the nozzle size (a new one is being shipped) but use a size of 0.5 mm in the slicer retraction length 2 mm & 60 mm/s minimum travel after retraction 1 mm Print settings: EDIT: After the recommendations I've changed the following: All belts have been recalibrated The e-steps have been recalibrated through this method. Couldn't do a wall measurement due to a lack of precise tools. Changed first layer temperature to 210 °C and other layers to 205 °C Added two top layers I printed two new cubes. One without glue and with a Z-offset of 0.05 mm and one with glue and with a Z-offset of 0.15 mm. The results are quite comparable to the original ones although slightly better. Any recommendations? I'm aware of some cooling issues on my prints. Once a new nozzle arrives I plan on printing the current cooling system again. It's not really blowing air right effectively now.

First of all, I would try printing a little bit hotter, let's say arround 210 °C. Secondly, due to how the X and Y letters are being printed in the sides of the cube I would suggest to tigthen both the X and Y belts. Regarding the gaps, I would first try a flow rate test. You could use a cube like this one. Using: extrusion multiplier = 1 layer height: 0.2 mm; layer width= 0.4 mm ; wall count= 2. Then measure the walls with a caliper and you should have 0.8 mm walls. Do a couple of measurements, get the average and divide 0.8 by it and multiply by a 100 (100*0.8/average). That's your new flow rate. I would also try to add 1 or 2 top layers to the print. For the first layer, I would definitely get a glass bed and use hairspray. The bottom of the pyramid doesn't seem to be sticking well. Apart from this, I'm not really fan of using Z-offset. Just try leveling a couple of times manually with a paper to get it right.

How does the sizes of nozzle diameter and the Z-axis layer resolution work? I have a 3D Printer with 0.4 mm (400 micron) nozzle length and the printer guide suggests that it can print up to a layer thickness of 60 micron and has a accuracy up to 100 micron. What I'm trying to understand is that, how does the 0.4 mm nozzle output a filament size lesser than it? How does that process work? Does it reduce the speed at which the filament flows or something?

Yes, they do reduce the speed. Basically, the speed at which you feed filament determines how large of a volume comes out, and the distance you move the extruder means this volume gets distributed over this distance. However, this is not the whole story. The size of your nozzle determines only two things: the maximum layer height and the minimum feature size. It does not affect minimum layer height (and obviously doesn't affect maximum feature size) although there are some practical constraints (you wouldn't want to print 0.1 mm layers with a 5 mm nozzle). The nozzle squishes the filament down as it is extruded; the filament is basically forced into the gap between the nozzle and the previous layer. There's no limit to how thin of a layer you can print (the 60 micron figure is just something the marketing department made up, you can likely print even thinner layers). So long as you can position your Z-axis with sufficient accuracy (which is usually no problem) you can print arbitrarily thin layers. On the other hand, the nozzle size does determine the maximum layer height. Your need the filament to be squished a bit, or else it won't stick to the previous layer properly. You can't print layers thicker than your nozzle size, and it is generally recommended to print with a layer size that is at most 80 % of your nozzle size (e.g. with a 0.4 mm nozzle you shouldn't attempt to print layers thicker than 0.32 mm) but this is just a guideline. Your extrusion width is the width of the line deposited by your nozzle. This is generally (due to the mentioned squishing) a bit larger than your nozzle size. With a 0.4 mm nozzle you should set your extrusion width to something slightly larger, like 0.5 mm. It is technically possible to print with an extrusion width that is the same as (or even smaller) than your nozzle size, but this results in very weak prints: as mentioned before, you want the plastic to get squished slightly. They claim an accuracy up to 100 micron. This doesn't mean that you can print features as small as 100 micron (since you can't, due to the extrusion width being much larger). What this means, is for example, that if you print a 10 mm cube, you should expect its real size to be between 9.9 mm and 10.1 mm. Such a cube does not have any features that are smaller than your minimum feature size, but its outer walls can be positioned with greater precision than this minimum feature size. I should caution you that the 100 micron figure is "up to" and in practice you will have a hard time achieving this.

Mid-print issue, extruder issue? I have succumbed to asking the community for assistance. I've been scratching my head and lost many late nights and time trying to figure out what is going on with my 3D printer. Please see the image of what's going on with it. Sometimes my printer doesn't even get this far, most of the time it fails at the 5th layer or so because it stops extruding is what I suspect. I've replaced the hot end entirely, a new thermistor inside the hot end, replaced the PTFE tube, upgraded the extruder feeder to aluminum. Replaced the extruder gear, and for some reason, the filament just stops feeding. I've tried several retraction settings from 80 mm/s and 2 mm of filament, to 20 mm/s and 6 mm of filament. Initial Layer Height: 0.25 mm I hope the community can help me out here.

Do the two loose pieces go where the fill shows up on the larger piece? If so, you may have internal surfaces there that need deleting in your drawing so that they don't mess up your slice program. Otherwise, the slice program may leave a gap in the gcode where you have no extrusion. If you retract too much, it can cause the filament to jam in the hotend, but you wouldn't be getting all the mid-air extrusion, not connecting to anything. We need more information to give you a more precise answer. I suspect you have a settings or gcode/drawing issue rather than a hardware issue.

HE3D Prusa Z-Axis Motor Error I have an HE3D Prusa XI3 that I have assembled but the z axis motors aren't functioning properly, they will whine instead of turn. They will turn if I use Z babystepping or position changes but will not when doing a fast position changes or in normal use

You are probably driving the motors with insufficient current. Try increasing the motor current, by adjusting the potentiometer on the respective stepper driver. Turn it clockwise until your motors stop skipping steps.

Extruder clogs with HIPS I've got a Prusa i3 MK3. I have printed with PLA, PETG and tried HIPS. Haven't had any clogs with PLA and PETG, but with HIPS I've got a weird problem. My first three test prints in HIPS went fine, but then I got a very bad clog (required total disassembly of the extruder) twice. And every time, it was at the same moment during a print. The object I was printing was a hollow cylinder. The walls were about 5 mm thick, getting thinner near the top edge. At the moment the walls started getting thinner, the problems started. I've read that HIPS can clog if the filament moves too slow through the hotend. At the moment the clog occurred, the printer was printing a very narrow part, and the extruder had to move around a lot. Is it possible that, at that moment, the filament moves too slow and the problems starts? I have also printed two copies of the object in a single run, and then the problem didn't occur. I hope my explanation makes sense, but here's what it comes down to: Does HIPS clog easily when the filament moves too slow, and if it does, what can I do to solve this?

This has been sitting for a long time without an answer, so let me answer with an experience I've had with PETG rather than HIPS. PETG seems to be a relatively soft plastic. It isn't soft like TPU, but it is softer than PLA or ABS. The HIPS filament (which I have but haven't used) appears to also be softer, so it is possible that my PETG problem could relate to your HIPS problem. I was printing and re-printing an object with PETG that had worked fine with PLA. Three times in a row, I got a filament jam in about the same place. The problem was that the filament was retracting, returning, retracting, and returning many times within a very small amount of extruded plastic. My extruder was set for high pressure between the drive roller and the idler. When the filament went back and forth through the extruder, it flattened enough that it would jam from being too wide to fit through the next stage (in my case, a Bowden tube). When I reduced the compression of the filament in the extruder, the problem stopped. I also reduced the retraction distance, and increased the minimum travel before the slicer would do a retract. Both were intended to reduce the number of times any single bit of filament would pass through the rollers.

Designing clips that won't break As my first project, I'm trying to design a holder for glass vials, for a scientific application. The photo below shows the latest design iteration, and also shows the problem with it: As you can see, one of the clips that's meant to hold the vial in place has broken off. This happened after inserting the vial once or twice. I think I understand the reason for this. It's because I'm printing in the orientation shown below, in order to avoid the need for supports. (This will be more important later, when I scale it up to an array of many holders.) This means that it's relying on the strength in the z dimension, which is much weaker than in the other two directions, because it relies on the cohesion between the layers. My question is whether I can do anything about this by changing the design of the clips, without abandoning my hope of support-free printing. I don't care at all what the design looks like, except that as much of the vial as possible needs to be visible from the front. I'm printing in ABS. I have tried varying the thickness of the clips. Thinner ones don't break as easily, but they are a bit floppy and aren't very good at keeping the vial vertical. The ones shown are the thickest I've tried - I'm afraid that if they're too thick they won't bend at all. (The vial is supposed to be inserted from the front rather than the top.) Edit just as an update, here's what it looks like using John Biddle's suggestion, which works perfectly:

It looks like those clips are thin and need to bend pretty far to let the vial out. Try to make the clips thicker, but with a smaller clip to retain the vial so that it doesn't have to bend as much. This is what I'm thinking, in beautiful MS-PAINT form:

Ender 3 Pro extruder drive rocking back and forth I've been running this Ender 3 Pro for quite some time with no problem up until recently. The issue was the printer refused to extrude filament (the extruder stepper seems to be rocking back and forth) so I went through a few things to try and fix the problem: I leveled the bed properly I printed at higher temperatures (215 °C for PLA which is the only filament I run in this printer) I cleaned the nozzle and I actually replaced the nozzle with a new 0.4 mm nozzle (same size as before) I replaced my Bowden tube with a newer one (unbranded) and even replaced the tube fittings for the extruder assembly and the heat sink. I saw somewhere that maybe the wiring to the extruder gear is frayed but I inspected the extruder side of the connector and everything looks fine. I would open up the box and everything but I want to see if anyone has a solution before opening up the circuit box.

Sounds like one end or the other in your stepper cable is not seated correctly or has shaken loose there are 4 wires if even one doesn't make proper contact you will get a shaking back and forth almost like a hard vibration. I always take a cable from one of the other steppers plug into this one move the motor with good stepper wire 10-20 mm see what motor does if it is okay then you know it is a cable issue if not, it could be a bad board or stepper.

3 Extruders on SKR V1.1, how set up 2 in 1 out (Y piece), and 1 single extruder in latest Marlin? On Anet A8 with SKR V1.1 32 bit board my intention is to use 3 extruders on my Anet A8, 1+2 via Y-piece on single nozzle, 3rd Extruder with 2nd nozzle. Need another stepper to connect to SKR V1.1 (10 additional pins are available), extruder 1 + 2 go to single nozzle/heater via a Y-piece, 3rd extruder is on its own with own nozzle/heater. How to modify latest Marlin for this?? Please, all help appreciated, thanks a lot.

The latest Marlin, version 2.0.8, allows for multiple extruders (albeit with a single or multiple stepper motors) through a single nozzle, or multiple extruders with multiple nozzles, it is not possible with the current compiler definitions to configure a mixed extruder nozzle concept; this would require more changes to the sources.

What part is this? Circular threading spool gear, about 10 mm diameter How should I describe this part which looks like a small gear so that I can research replacements? This came with my FLSUN 3D printer, which may be based on a Prusa design.

This is a timing belt pulley. Specifically, is a GT2 timing pulley, 2 mm pitch (between teeth), 6 mm wide. The drive diameter is measured by the number of teeth (16 in this case) , the shaft diameter (bore) is measured in mm. The 'GT2' part refers to the tooth profile, some other examples are shown half way down this page.

Clogging due to heat creep: buy new cooler or new hotend? Sadly, I am not able to "repair" my 3D printer. Every time, I want to print something that takes a bit longer to print, the extrusion stops at some point during the print (the first few layers are great), no under-extrusion whatsoever before that critical point. I already tried temperature variation (185-220 °C) with about 5 different brands of 1.75 mm PLA. I tried printing without any retraction, but failed (I also experimented with flow rate a lot and calculated the perfect percentage etc.) Everytime a print fails, it is a nightmare to remove the PLA filament from my Bowden tube (because it expanded near the nozzle and is stuck in the Bowden tube). I have to pull with so much force, that I already cut myself several times because I slipped off my pliers. As I know for sure (I already wasted almost 1kg of PLA for my testing) the problem is heat creep = heat travelling from the heat block to the PLA above because the heat break or fan seem to be broken. So my question is: "Will it be enough to buy a new cooling fan (as the standard fan doesnt seem to be powerful enough)?" I have to add that I already bought the original hotend long time ago and I tried printing with the "fan of the first hotend" and with the "fan of the second hotend" (the fan that blows air towards the cold end) so that might not be the problem. Or do I need a totally new hotend? (with heatbreak etc.) My printer is a Creality CR 10, and I'm using Ultimaker Cura 3.6. Or is it enough to buy a new heating block + heat break? (I don't know if the cooling fan is the problem or the heat break).

To fight heat creep, you must understand why this is happening. Heat creeps up the hotend assembly as a result of incorrect settings or hardware setup causing the filament to prematurely soften and swell. It is important to reduce the heat travelling upwards in the first place rather than fighting the result. Too high print temperatures are an obvious culprit, but also print speed and retraction length are important. These need to be dialed in in perfect harmony. Even when you buy a complete new hotend or parts for the hotend, incorrect settings may lead to the same results. It is known that all-metal hotends (due to the lacking of a thermal barrier PTFE liner in the heat break shielding the filament of excessive heat input) are more susceptible to encounter heat creep and should generally be avoided by less experienced makers. Whether or not you should buy new parts depends on the current extruder, your ability to fix it (and the willingness to put in more effort to try) and the knowledge to install new parts and find the correct settings for optimal printing. There is no unambiguous answer to this question.

Z offset not working after flashing TH3D firmware I had the BLTouch (3.1) working with stock firmware on an Ender 3 v2 but wanted to get a 5x5 mesh instead of the 3x3 so I installed the TH3D firmware. With the stock firmware my Z-offset was -2.95 mm. After installing TH3D firmware, my Z-offset has to be in excess of -6 mm to reach the same nozzle-to-bed height. I've tried setting the Z-offset via LCD and through G-code, saving to EEPROM. I'm having 2 problems with this that I assume are connected: Z-offset seems to not be applied when setting Z axis position. When I autohome and then set Z axis to 0, even the extended probe from the BLTouch does not touch the bed (it's actually 1-2 mm away from touching). And this is with the Z-offset set to -6 mm. I tried running a print, which includes an ABL request (G29), the print head crashed into the bed immediately after finishing levelling. My hunch is that when starting to print the -6 mm Z-offset starts being correctly taken into account. Could this be the result of something I did in the Configuration.h when compiling the firmware? I made the following changes: CrealityV42X/Firmware/Marlin/Configuration.h Line 24: uncommented #define ENDER3_V2_V422_BOARD Line 43: uncommented #define CUSTOM_PROBE Line 66: changed #define EZABL_POINTS from 3 to 5 Line 124: changed #define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET from { 10, 10, 0} to { -44, -6, 0 } Line 233: uncommented #define BLTOUCH Line 235: uncommented #define SERVO0_PIN PB0 Line 636: commented out #define Z_MIN_PROBE_USES_Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_PIN Line 636: added #define USE_PROBE_FOR_Z_HOMING In Configuration_backend.h the only change I made was increasing Z_PROBE_OFFSET_RANGE_MIN from -5 to -20.

I'm pretty sure something is wrong with the firmware I downloaded. I flashed the 3/5/21 version of Marlin firmware from https://marlin.crc.id.au/ and it is somehow working better with the LCD firmware (which I got from TH3D), the Z offset is working as it should, and the leveling process has more points and goes faster.

HE3D-XI3 3D printer Repetier software config help! I am new to 3d printing and had bought my first 3d printer a couple of months ago. I have it all put together and the software uploaded to the Arduino. However, I need some help with configuration and calibration of the printer. I understand that there is a configuration file that can be changed and uploaded again the create those changes. I also have worked with Arduino before so I know the IDE. When I turn the printer on everything works, as far as I know. I did some tests to see if anything was wrong, but I couldn't find anything. However, when I hit home for all of the x, y and z axis to go to their starting marks, it tries to go past the rails and comes apart. From what I understand this is a configuration issue. I tried to contact HE3D about this, but received no answer, so you guys are my last hope. If you need any more information to help me, let me know and i'll try getting it to you asap. (I also have read the documentation on Repetier and the installation and configuration section but my brain for some reason is not clicking into gear.) Thanks for the help in advanced!!! Here are the specs: https://www.3dprintersonlinestore.com/reprap-prusa-xi3

Based on some troubleshooting in the question comments, it appears that the issue here is the motors running the wrong way. This can be fixed EITHER by inverting the motor directions in firmware, OR by simply flipping the orientation of the motor plugs where they connect to the controller board. Flipping the plugs is an easy and quick way to reverse the phase of a stepper and thus reverse its direction of motion.

How does Carbon3D's CLIP technology handle bridges and support material? All of Carbon3D's marketing and demonstrations show their CLIP technology producing contiguous and bridge-free parts. Has anyone seen examples of their M1 printing something like a buckyball within a buckyball or a figurine or some other shape that requires support material to print? For example, how would the Carbon3D print a shape like this: vvvvvBUILDPLATEvvvvv ==================== XXX XXX BBB <----- columns A and B require support material XXX AAA BBB in order to connect them to the build XXX AAA BBB plate. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~RESIN~~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| In a similar vein, how do they handles enclosed volumes? I doubt anyone wants a sphere filled with still-liquid resin... Again, I've looked around, I can find no material addressing these questions, so if anyone can shed some light, I'd be glad.

On Carbon3D's homepage they show a part that appears to have supports in it. Per a conversation with Carbon3D's support they confirm that their slicing software will generate supports based on the overhang angle geometry, and in the case of a buckyball within a buckyball, there would be supports generated to create the buckyball, and to support the interior buckyball joining the two together that would have to be removed in post processing. Enclosed volumes need to have a drain hole, and you would have to avoid vacuum forming shapes such as an upside down cup in which atmospheric pressure would keep the interior of the cup filled with resin until the reservoir runs out or the vacuum is able to be broken releasing the excess resin. In the case of a cup you would change the orientation. I am not sure how one would handle trying to print a solid sphere with no holes to avoid this condition.

Marlin: Making any GPIO pin HIGH for a given time Is there any way Marlin Firmware supports G-code that can make a pin "high" and keep it at that state for a period of time specified? I have made a machine, which runs on Marlin Firmware, that is a mould forming tool, that would make a mould into a powder, then another tool would come over this mould and dispense some liquid in it. I have a custom GUI to move the tools to given coordinates, press a mould, position the second tool over the mould. For dispensing liquid I'm thinking about buying a diaphragm valve. I've downloaded the user manual for it. As per the documentation, when compressed air is given to valve it will lift diaphragm and will start dispensing. The amount of liquid it dispenses depends on the how long the valve is opened. So I'm thinking about using a relay to turn a solenoid valve ON and OFF to supply air to the valve. To turn the relay ON I need to make a certain GPIO pin "high". Is there any way I can do this in Marlin Firmware?

As explained in the comments by Tom, you can set any port directly from G-code using the M42 command. To set pin 22 "high", you need to call M42 P22 S255. There is no parameter to add time to the command, so you need to add that yourself using G4 (dwell or pause) to specify how long the printer needs to wait for the next instruction, e.g.: M42 P22 S255 ; Activate solenoid/relay G4 P2000 ; Dwell/pause for 2000 milliseconds (2 seconds) M42 P22 S0 ; Deactivate solenoid/relay As an alternative, you could use the existing fan if that fan is unused in your machine (or add an "extra fan" in the firmware and send the value 255 to that fan). To use the existing fan: M106 S255 ; Activate solenoid/relay G4 P2000 ; Dwell/pause for 2000 milliseconds (2 seconds) M107 ; Deactivate solenoid/relay How you add an extra fan is already described (for a specific RAMPS board) in this answer. However, the answer is valid for other boards as well, as long as you have exposed pins you have access to (or if you can solder directly to open pins), you can use the described technique. The G-code to activate the "extra fan" (solenoid) is M106 P1 S255 disabling would be M107 P1. Note that there is an option/parameter to add time (Bnnn Blip time - fan will be run at full PWM for this number of seconds when started from standstill) to the M106 command, but that is only implemented in RepRapFirmware. An alternative is to use G4 (dwell or pause) to specify how long the printer needs to wait for the next instruction (M107) is being parsed, e.g.: M106 P1 S255 ; Activate solenoid/relay G4 P2000 ; Dwell/pause for 2000 milliseconds (2 seconds) M107 P1 ; Deactivate solenoid/relay

Can G-code scripts be run automatically on inserting an SD card when using Marlin Firmware? When running Marlin Firmware, is it possible to run G-code scripts/series of commands automatically when you insert the SD card? I'm running Marlin on a 3D printer board using an ATmega 2560 based board with a reprap discount LCD controller with an SD card slot. I would like to do this without the need to add another computer/board, so native from the board running the Marlin Firmware.

I am not entirely sure if this is what you are after, or if it will work, but from this post on Printing From SD Card when printer is turned On While an LCD controller is not needed for auto#.g to work, if you have an LCD controller you can use the MENU_ADDAUTOSTART option to add a menu command that will run the auto0.g, auto1.g, auto2.g whenever you want. This (final) post ended up closing the thread so it appears to answer the OP's question - however, whether it will answer your question is another matter. This post, on the Marlin forum, replicates your question and asks about purely insertion of an SD card on a printer which is already powered on. A reply was received and apparently it should be possible by making a code change in ultralcd.ccp: It does not seem like an auto print, when inserting a SD-card, is to be found in the current program code of Marlin. You might consider making a feature request here: [github.com] I do not think that it would require much work to implement a "card.autoprintfile()" function in Marlin. It seems to me that a call to such a function could happen at line 5172 right after: else LCD_MESSAGEPGM(MSG_SD_INSERTED); in the file ultralcd.ccp A subsequent feature request has been made on Marlin's GitHub, see [FR] Can G-code scripts be run automatically on inserting an SD card when using Marlin Firmware? However, from this reply, it appears that a feature request is already pending: I'm not in favor of this as a general feature. We already have a feature request to be able to run custom G-code in response to various events, with SD card insertion being one of those events. Would that feature serve your needs? However, as yet, I do not have a link to this other feature request. Will update as and when. As an aside, in might be worth mentioning that the SDFat related code could be the place to code this in, see if SD card removed, how to flag and restart?, although after looking at the Marlin codebase, in particular SdFatUtils.cpp, this would appear to be a red herring.

Ender 3 underextrusion I am a beginner in 3D printing and recently bought an Ender 3. With the filament included in the package, my first print ever was flawless. However, after the first print, I tried printing with ABS, which did not work out, so changed to PLA, and ever since then, all my prints were under extruded. I have tried everything. I bought a new nozzle to make sure it wasn't clogged, I cut the last 20 mm of the PTFE tube, I performed cold pulls, I leveled my bed before every print, made the line width in the profile 0.48 mm instead of 0.4 mm, increased the flow, tried printing with every temperature between 185-210 °C, looked at different Ender 3 suggested profiles on the internet, and more. I also made sure there was nothing wrong with the extruder. Attached are pictures of my most recent prints. Anyone who can tell me what I am doing wrong???

The helical exterior is an indicator of a filament diameter mismatch or volumetric mode enabled for linear commands From ref: Then you probably enabled volumetric extrusion by accident. On LCD go to Control Filament Disable Save EEPROM Revert estep cal if applicable. What is it? M200 Its a feature of Marlin firmware which interprets E moves as mm3 instead of linear mm. It is poorly described in the menu, and tends to be enabled by accident.

Tool to measure in STL files I want to create parts for a 3D printer using OpenSCAD. Having some STL files from the vendor, but nothing else (no technical drawing, no CAD files). Does anybody knows a free tool, that allows me to measure distances between 2 selected vertices, measure distances between a selected vertex and a plane defined by 3 vertices, measure the radio of a circle defined by 3 selected vertices? I very much like the way Blender allows to work with meshes, especially select vertices or planes, but unfortunately haven't found a way to measure with Blender.

I suggest blender. It's not the simplest of tools but it is free and learning it will improve your 3d printing skills. :-) (I write this answer also for future viewers of this question so I start basic). Check here for another answer: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19772/how-do-i-measure-a-distance-between-two-points Import your STL-file. Press the Home key to view everything. Select the model by clicking on it with your left mouse button. (Blender changed to left-click-select as of version 2.80) Hit tab to enter edit-mode. Press N (or use View | Properties) until the Properties panel shows up. Select the "Length" checkbox in the "Edge Info" section of the Properties panel (see image below). Select "Edge Select" mode (see image below) Select the edge to measure by clicking on it with your right mouse button. If you need to measure the distance between to vertices with no edge. Create the edge by selecting them and pressing F. If you need to measure the distance between a vertex and any other point, select it and press E to extrude.

Do I need to manually enter in gcode to turn off the bed and nozzle? I got into 3D printing back when it was very much an art and not user friendly, and I have not been keeping up with it very much. My Slic3r profile required me to manually put in the GCODE to turn off the nozzle and bed. I'm experimenting with Cura and I can't seem to find a place to enter in GCODE. The program is way more polished than I am used to, so it's possible that it's an automatically enabled feature. Does Cura automatically turn off the bed and nozzle after a print is complete, or do I need to manually enter the GCODE somewhere?

Using Cura 3.0.3 to create the GCODE and OctoPi/OctoPrint 1.2.7 to print: By default the printer turned off the nozzle and bed, and also homed the X and Y axises. You can set start and end GCODE in the preferences for the machine, like so:

Delta printer printing incorrect dimensions in X and Y directions. Z dimensions are correct I had to pause an ongoing print (because of complicated reasons) and that caused the printer to reboot (I don't know why). When it rebooted, the Z extents were screwed up. I know this because when I gave the print again, the nozzle hit the print bed and started grinding. The printer has an auto bed levelling function that runs before every print. It takes three points on the bed where the sensor needle comes down to contact in a vertical to-and-fro motion. When that runs now, the head starts its vertical to-and-fro motion from a point considerably higher than where it used to start from earlier. The sensor needle does come down to touch the bed but it takes a longer time per point since the distance travelled is more now. (Hope this is clear) To print again, I compensated for the Z-direction by giving a global offset (2.65 mm) while generating G-code. But I realised later that X and Y dimensions were incorrect (larger by 4.6% to be precise). I tested this by printing cubes of 10, 20, 30 and 100 mm. The Z dimensions are perfect though. Also, there have been weird "lags" while printing larger objects. The print head stutters and this is causing sharp vertexes in between curves and some little blotching of material. The printer runs on Repetier 0.92.6 and I've been reading about it but its honestly intimidating to me. Please let me know how to figure out what to change and by how much. Edit: I agree this is quite similar to scaling issues thread here: Scaling/size issues in delta printers I just want to know what could've caused this problem, whether there are any other possible solutions, and how to get started with Repetier framework. Edit2: Attached image is the bottom surface of the 100 mm cube. You might notice slight charring on the bottom right corner. The masking sheet I pasted on the print bed was charred underneath. Also, it's evident that the bottom surface is not as compact at the corners as it is in the center. What could be the possible reasons for that?

As detailed at minow.blogspot.com (which I found very helpful for the most part - it was the first link in the answer to my related question) you need to check/adjust the zero in front of each tower, check the zero in the center, tweak the radius, and repeat (checking the zeros at the edge of the bed in front of each tower again) until it's correct. After that you adjust the rod length to correct XY size (and recheck all 4 zeros, thus the radius - it makes for a less than exciting day, but is worth it in the long run.) You either need to turn off EEPROM until you have the right settings, or save the setting to EEPROM each time - depends how worried you are about using up EEPROM write cycles, I guess. You should also turn off auto-bed-levelling while getting the basic calibration correct, per the same blog instructions. My fun with figuring out what my EEPROM was doing behind my back is here: Delta printer not responding to changes in DELTA_RADIUS

Edit G-code to change print order of multiple one-at-a-time print jobs SUMMARY: I use a Creality Ender 3 and Cura 4.8 slicer. I need to print multiple objects 'one-at-a-time' (Cura allows this, that is fine) and I must specify the order in which each model is printed but Cura does not have this facility. My question is: how can I change the order of the printed objects by editing the G-code? DETAIL: Sometimes it is essential or useful to specify the order of printing multiple objects in a 'one-at-a-time' batch print to allow the printing of some objects that are taller than the X-gantry clearance together with other objects that are shorter than the gantry because if you can control the order then you can print the small objects first and then the tall objects (because the gantry won't get in the way of the already-printed small objects but if the tall objects are printed first then the gantry will crash into them). Specifically I am talking about two or more objects printed at roughly the same Y-level on the print bed (I know you can 'get-away' with it if you separate them in Y but I want to print multiple rows of such objects). Without control over print order this cannot be done thereby limiting productivity (number of models per print run). WHAT HAVE I DONE TO RESOLVE THIS ALREADY: I can control the print order of multiple identical objects in Cura (they are printed in reverse order to their creation as duplicates of an initial model and if there are problems you can sometimes control the order by moving objects around) but this does not work for multiple different objects. I did several Google searches and found some conversations that deal with this issue including on the official GitHub page of the Cura slicer (see for example this Cura GitHub Discussion). The conclusion given by the Cura developers is that they understand the limitation, but it is not an issue for Ultimaker printers so they have no plans to make user-customisable print order a feature in Cura because it would be too much work for them to do the changes and maintain them. One person mentioned a python script to allow post editing of G-code to change print order but I could find no links to it. Another person described a 'workaround' in Cura to do with grouping and ungrouping models in a specific sequence but this does not work for me (?maybe it only worked in older versions of Cura). Perhaps someone on this forum has G-coding knowledge and could shed some light on how it may be done? [PS: I am only interested in G-code editing solutions for this question, or a Cura workaround that works in v4.8 - I don't use Octoprint/Rasperry Pi controllers]. Thanks. [EDIT] Thanks to the contributors in the accepted answer I managed to do this with 'cut-and-paste' (via a small C program - you could do it manually but it is tedious and there is more risk of making a mistake if you have many models). I used the comments in Cura's G-code and a few other G-code cues to calculate the correct splice points. It works provided you take care to ensure the new extruder code is either altered according to the new model positions or use the 'relative extrusion' mode when saving the original G-code from Cura (I used the latter method). Also you must splice the G-code at the right points to ensure pre-model start and post-model finish G-code commands are properly carried around and the final model in the original G-code needs a terminal G0 command to be constructed if it is no longer terminal in the new order so that it can properly position the nozzle to go to the next model in the chain. Also you need to ensure M107 is included prior to each model's first layer. There is danger in doing any of this - the new G-code might damage your printer if you get anything wrong - but it can work (at least it has for me). I made several manual checks on the new re-arranged G-code as well as loading it into Cura and running Cura's nozzle simulator on it to ensure it does what I expected of it prior to risking running it in my printer, but after that it printed OK.

You can open the G-code file in any text editor and copy-paste the relevant sections of G-code to reorder them. It will be fairly obvious where one object ends and the next one starts because the printhead will move back down to Z=0; you can do a simple search to find the commands that move to Z=0 (in my version of Cura, it inserts a comment ;LAYER:0 at the start of each object). To ensure that the extruder starts in the correct position, look back at the previous print (in the original order) to see where the extruder finished, then insert (at the start of the new print) G92 Exx.xx where xx.xx is the previous position of the extruder. If looking back to the previous print is too tedious, you can also just use the very first extruder position in the print itself and use that. It will just skip printing the very first section of brim/skirt, which doesn't make a big difference.

Autodesk Spark Print Manager Operating Systems? What operating systems are available for running the Autodesk Spark Print Manager? (https://spark.autodesk.com/developers/reference/printer-manufacturers/integrate-your-printer/integrate-your-printer-model) I'm finding the documentation a little difficult to parse. It does seem that there are only build options for Windows or Mac, but I want to confirm. Thanks!

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, ...).

StepStick Protectors How do StepStick Protectors work and what exactly do they protect? If I use them with Pololu style stepper drivers, can I unplug for example the motor while the driver is powered without damaging the driver?

To Protect, or Not to Protect From the web site you reference: The SilentStepStick Protector is an add-on module for StepStick and Pololu A4988 compatible stepper motor drivers. The board provides flyback diodes (freewheeling diodes) for the motor outputs, so that they are also protected against induction voltages in the unpowered state of the driver. The v2 protector also contains a diode from the logic voltage (anode) to the motor voltage (cathode), so that the power supply order of all SilentStepSticks is always guaranteed. Since I assume you've read this, please indulge some explanation of the electrical engineering. Motors Every motor has a part called the "rotor" that rotates, and a part called the "stator" that is stationary. In the stepper motors usually used in 3D printers, the rotor is a permanent magnet and the stator consists of coils of wire. In normal operation, the current flowing through the coils creates a magnetic field. The rotor aligns itself with the field of the stator. To move, the stator field is shifted by changing the current in the coils, and the magnetic force causes the rotor to rotate to align the fields. Generated Voltages As Faraday discovered, a changing magnetic field induces a voltage in a wire. There are two ways that the magnetic field changes. The first is that the current changes or stops. That introduces little high voltage blips into the motor coils. The motor drivers are well prepared to handle this blips. The second is when the rotor is forced to turn by an outside force, such as sliding the bed. As these voltages are not related to action the motor driver is causing, some of the techniques used to handle the voltage spikes may not be as robust. The protection boards you point to consist of diodes to limit the magnitude of the voltages that the coil can produce. This is redundant with the diodes and protections built into the driver chips, but it may offer stronger protection. Benefits? In this responder's opinion, you are unlikely to see a great benefit from these boards, but perhaps there are vulnerabilities I am unaware of. You are also unlikely to do any harm. You asked specifically if, with the protectors installed, you could unplug the motor while it is passing current. The protectors may help with that, or they may not. Interrupt the connection creates a spark, and arcing through the air, that makes many high-frequency components which may not (or may) be effectively clamped by the diodes. For best results, you could add the protectors, and also avoid interrupting the motor current while powered.

Temp Tower Setup Troubles -- Slic3r (How do you format G-Code {if} statements?) I watched with great interest this video: Temp Tower - Slic3r Gcode Placeholders - How To - Chris's Basement -- Jan 23, 2019 Chris Riley I found a model I'm happy with: Smart compact temperature calibration tower by gaaZolee, December 24, 2017 Uses Layer 0.20 mm infill: 15 % I'm testing a stubborn new spool of PLA. Temp range of test 225 °C to 180 °C. That model above came with recommended ifstatements. I verified that with 100 % thickness on first layer, I'm exactly hitting all the Z targets at exactly the correct place for each temperature story on the tower. I'm using the Slic3r "Printer Settings" tab - to place my if statements in place at "Before Layer Change G-Code". It's not clear to me on the format required for a G-Code {if} statement. I've tried... {if layer_z == 7.8}M104 S225{endif}; // fail, this converts to: M104 S225 {endif} {if layer_z==1.6}M104 S225 // fail, this converts to: M104 S225 {if [layer_z]==1.6} M104 S225 // fails, this converts to: (null) {if [layer_num]==8} M104 S225 // fails, this converts to: (null) {if layer_num==8} M104 S225 // fails, this converts to: M104 S225 In detail what I'm seeing is the if statements from all ten towers prints as change temp to 225, 220, 215, 210... down to 180 (last entry) and 180 °C is where ALL my prints get printed at. Total Fail. I'm just not seeing anything in the Gcode output from Slic3r that remotely looks like an if statement. Any ideas here? I've seen this reference, on advanced conditional G-Code but I'm just not understanding what to do here. I do see from Slic3r Custom G-Code Placeholder Reference, that I'm using the correct terms. [layer_z] - Z height of the active layer, and [layer_num] - Integer number of the active layer. It's not clear if their use in "Before Layer Change G-Code" require the square brackets or not. Any clues on how to get an if statement into G-Code via Slic3r for a temperature tower print?

So I think I figured this one out. I was looking at it a bit wrong. And here's my code: ; Note to self: layer_z = [layer_z] ; T tower floor 1 {if [layer_z]==1.6} M104 S225 T0 ; T tower floor 2 {if [layer_z]==11.6} M104 S220 T0 ; T tower floor 3 {if [layer_z]==21.6} M104 S215 T0 ; T tower floor 4 {if [layer_z]==31.6} M104 S210 T0 ; T tower floor 5 {if [layer_z]==41.6} M104 S205 T0 ; T tower floor 6 {if [layer_z]==51.6} M104 S200 T0 ; T tower floor 7 {if [layer_z]==61.6} M104 S195 T0 ; T tower floor 8 {if [layer_z]==71.6} M104 S190 T0 ; T tower floor 9 {if [layer_z]==81.6} M104 S185 T0 ; T tower floor 10 {if [layer_z]==91.6} M104 S180 T0 The key to understanding what is going on is the ; Note to self: layer_z = [layer_z] line. The whole block of code above gets repeated for every layer of the print in the G-code, but it gets evaluated. And when I search for "layer z =" and scan thru the code.. I eventually see this... ; Note to self: layer_z = 1.6 ; T tower floor 1 M104 S225 T0 <---- Yowza. Nice. ; T tower floor 2 ; T tower floor 3 ; T tower floor 4 ; T tower floor 5 ; T tower floor 6 ; T tower floor 7 ; T tower floor 8 ; T tower floor 9 ; T tower floor 10 and then again: ; Note to self: layer_z = 11.6 ; T tower floor 1 ; T tower floor 2 M104 S220 T0 <---- Yes! ; T tower floor 3 ... All good. You have to have {} and [] within the code statements... Addendum: So it turns out things are not quite perfect. I'm noticing at the upper floors, where things should be cooler, the temperature isn't changing. Its locked at 215C. I see this in the code: ; Note to self: layer_z = 31.5999999999999 <--- not sure how that happened. ; T tower floor 1 ; T tower floor 2 ; T tower floor 3 ; T tower floor 4 ; T tower floor 5 ; T tower floor 6 ; T tower floor 7 ; T tower floor 8 ; T tower floor 9 ; T tower floor 10 31.6 would have triggered a temperature change. 31.5999999999999 won't do it. I need to modify the {if... == } to a complex test between two values... Just wanted to share that observation here. I do see from this reference that Expressions may be chained for an implicit AND: {if [layer_num] == 10}{if [temperature_1] != 210}M104 S210 And this seems to fix it: ; Note to self: layer_z = [layer_z] ; T tower floor 1 {if [layer_z]<=1.65}{if [layer_z]>1.55} M104 S225 T0 ; T tower floor 2 {if [layer_z]<=11.65}{if [layer_z]>11.55} M104 S220 T0 ; T tower floor 3 {if [layer_z]<=21.65}{if [layer_z]>21.55} M104 S215 T0 ; T tower floor 4 {if [layer_z]<=31.65}{if [layer_z]>31.55} M104 S210 T0 ; T tower floor 5 {if [layer_z]<=41.65}{if [layer_z]>41.55} M104 S205 T0 ; T tower floor 6 {if [layer_z]<=51.65}{if [layer_z]>51.55} M104 S200 T0 ; T tower floor 7 {if [layer_z]<=61.65}{if [layer_z]>61.55} M104 S195 T0 ; T tower floor 8 {if [layer_z]<=71.65}{if [layer_z]>71.55} M104 S190 T0 ; T tower floor 9 {if [layer_z]<=81.65}{if [layer_z]>81.55} M104 S185 T0 ; T tower floor 10 {if [layer_z]<=91.65}{if [layer_z]>91.55} M104 S180 T0

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.

How to fix evenly spaced vertical print pattern These lines exist on all prints, PLA, ABS. They're 0.800mm apart [20T 2GT pulley, 1.8deg/step motor = 1 line/4 full-steps] Start to disappear above 75mm/s but will still appear on slower axis when printing diagonal lines or curves Custom built frame, cross bar (Ultimaker style) using linear rails dual-motor(4 total on X-Y) + separate driver (1motor/driver) Running Smoothieware on Smoothieboard 5X [A5984 drivers, 32 microstep] Tried all these with no improvement: TL;DR problem is somewhere between drivers and motors Switched to 6.625:1 geared extruder Tried parallel, series, single coil on the 8 wires motor and 2 other different motors Enable fast decay mode on A5984 Motor current from 0.5A to 1.8A PLA temp from 170~200 Acceleration as low as 100mm/s2 **Changed 20T to 16T pulleys. The pattern scaled down proportional to the change in tooth count. Ruled out mechanical issues.

The fact that these are all perfectly spaced, and don't mirror the edges of irregular prints, makes me think it's definitely not ghosting. That said, I can't see the Y direction on either print, just the X direction, so this all assumes it's only happening in one direction. One thing to think about: Your motors have typically 2 opposing coils, and they get activated by taking 4 steps: (North, off, South): N/o o/N S/o o/S If these are spaced out exactly 4 steps apart, that would imply that one of your coils is either underpowered or overpowered on the motor controlling that direction's movement. That would lead to your motor torque dipping and increasing, leading to slightly uneven print speed. This is 100% speculative and might be a goose chase since you've got 4 X/Y motors and it seems to happen in both the X and Y axis. The chances of having that many motors exhibit the same deficiency is astronomical. That said, I've got little experience with multiple motors per axis. Another thing you might look into is whether the motors are fighting each other at all. If, for example, the motor-side pulley isn't aligned exactly the same way on both X motors, or the motors get out of sync with each other, because of the way the motor's holding torque falls as you get away from a full step position, you might find that one motor is holding the other back slightly, or pulling it forward towards the nearest full step. Again, this is all speculative, but it might be worth looking into. You can typically figure out the full step location by killing power to the machine and letting the motors settle into a full step on their own without the belts or other drive mechanisms attached. I'd unhook the belts, kill the power, get the motors settled (with a bit of a nudge if necessary), and then see if your belt perfectly settles into both pulleys in that location. You might find that the belt teeth don't quite line up on both pulleys, and the only way I can think of that would fix that specific problem is spinning the motor until it matches, or even physically relocating the motor closer or farther relative to the other on the same axis. YMMV, best of luck.

Double Image Along X Axis Recently my printer has been creating double images along the X-axis, I just printed a calibration cube after checking all of my rods to make sure nothing was catching and here was my result: It looks like there is another X to the right of the X that is supposed to be, would this be a retraction problem, or could it be a problem with the filament because I printed a calibration cube with another filament a couple of weeks ago and there was no double X.

I agree with @FernandoBaltazar. You have several things going on. If the problem is recent, you may have loose belts, but you may also need to perform acceleration and jerk tuning. Reducing your print speeds may also help.

Does PLA block wifi signals? I printed a raspberry pi case from PLA. This case. I fitted it to my raspberry pi and now the wifi keeps dropping out. When I take it out of the case there is no problem. The filament I am using is Black, 3D Hero 1.75mm. Has anyone experienced anything like this before, if so how did you work around it? Is it common with PLA is there another material that wouldn't cause an issue?

Typically the black pigments in polymers are mineral based. If you are having true WiFi issues then it sounds like your filiment is using black iron oxide also called magnetite for the black pigment. This is the same material they use in radar absorbing paints which would make sense as to why you are having radio related issues.

How to make a printer bed vibrate using g-code (heated chemical stirrer)? I was just about to start using my 3D printers heated bed to warm a chemical reaction in a container and was thinking it would be great to be able to get the bed stepping back and forth to stir the pot. Can anyone already up to speed in programming G-code walk me through a quick and dirty way to get the X-axis on my old Printrbot metal doing a couple of micro-steps either way in an endless loop? Or suggest some software out there that could achieve the same effect?

Basically you need to write a G-code file yourself. This is a plain text file with a .g extension. You need to home the printer with G28, then move the Y axis all the way forward (for a Prusa style printer) with G1 F1500 Y{ymax} (where {ymax} is the length of the bed). Now raise the head with a similar command G1 F500 Z{zmax} (where {zmax} is the height of the printer volume). Heating the bed is done with M190 S60 (set and wait to reach 60 °C). You can now rock the Y axis by moving it fast, e.g. with G1 F5000 Y{ymax-5}, G1 Y{ymax-1}, Y{ymax-5}, Y{ymax-1}, etc.

How to repair burnt heat bed connector? My Anet A8 suddenly had issues with being unable to heat the bed. After ruling out software issues, I disconnected the connector and found this (sorry for the terrible quality): The left most pin on the male connector (bed) is also charred. How could I best repair this?

Owning an Anet A8 I confirm that the connectors are not rated for the amount of current that pass through them. You do not need a new bed unless the heat element has burned through (but that is pretty uncommon, it usually is the connector). This burning of the bed connectors is a very well known problem of the Anet A8 printers; these connectors are just not rated for the current and the movement of the bed. It is best not to use a connector at all! And yes, the Anet A8 default printer firmware does not have any build in protection for thermal runaway! It is always advised to immediately flash another firmware, e.g. Marlin firmware. The best repair is to get some high quality silicone AWG 14/16 wires and solder these directly onto the back of the pins of the connector. Also crimp forks to the other end to connect the wires correctly to the printer board. What I did was cutting up the connector to leave only the 2 middle pins (for connecting the bed thermistor, which does not use much power) and soldered the red wire to the left 2 pins and the black to the right 2 pins. You can do that at the back side of the socket where the pins make an angle.

Anet A8 (Prusa i3) Power Supply Fuse A little backstory to help you understand the situation. I put the 3D printer together and turned it on and everything seemed fine until I started printing. It didn't even get the first layer down when the screen reset and so did the print. I didn't think anything of it, I just went back and tried again, but this time right when I pressed start, the fuse blew. I have done some research on the issue and haven't had any luck besides recommendations for putting in a secondary fuse before the power supply (which I will be doing in the near future). As for now though, my plan is to just replace the power supply fuse if possible. I went to the hardware store and picked up a Bussmann T5AL/250V fuse (photo attached below) and before I put it in, I just want to make sure this is the correct fuse and I'm not going to kill the entire printer this time. Picture showing the internals of the power supply unit: Picture of the fuse I bought: Any and all help is very much appreciated because as you might expect, I'm not too happy with the printer so far.

The fuse rating is same as described on the board - so that shall be no issue with it. My main concern is why the fuse is down? Was there a short-circuit? As this is mains fuse - that suggest a big-bang, so, please check carefully hot-end and bed heater connections before restarting the device, to avoid replacing another fuse.

How to modify G-code or a better place to get it I have built a 3D printer from salvaged/purchased parts. I am using an Arduino Uno and three easy driver stepper drivers with 3 CD-ROMs drives and a PC power unit. I ordered a 3D pen and have it mounted with a transistor to switch it on/off. Everything works but when I try to run code that I got from makercam.com it seems like it wants to fill in the shape rather than build up. I followed this tutorial YouTube - How To Make A Cheap 3D Printer and after modifying the G-code I am unable to get any successful prints.

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.

Do I need a heated bed for printing PLA in an enclosed printer? I am planning on building a large enclosed (Cartesian XY-Head) 3d printer. I want to keep the inital build time minimal and it is very likely I would need to build the ~50x50cm heatbed from scratch, because it doesn't exist in ebay. The enclosure itself is not separately heated, but depends on waste heat from the printing process. The enclosure will eventually be vented outdoors with a 12V CPU vent via ducting (air flow unknown). Do I even need a heated print bed, when I am planning to only print PLA?

The answer is "No" you don't need a heated bed for PLA but it does make the base layer a little easier to lay down and also helps with print removal post print. PLA is a very easy filament to work with and the majority of PLA printers don't come with heated beds and suggest blue tape and/or elmers glue. You may find that if you are purchasing very cheap/poorly extruded PLA, that things don't stick as well and a heated bed can alleviate some of these issues.

Drop in temperature after couple layers I'm printing basically a large flat square pane. This goes fine for 3 layers, after which the temperature suddenly drops by about ten degrees. After a while, my printer goes into thermal runaway protection. I restarted my print, and as soon as the temperature drops, I pause the print. I wait for it to go up again, and resume. It starts dropping again, so I decide to see about continuing this part at 200 degrees (which worked quite fine, so I think I'll stick at 200 for now.) I have tested running the printer at 210 and turning on the fan, thinking maybe it's simply related to that. That does not give a thermal runaway, and a drop of 2 degrees max. My assumption is that it's the PID. How do I fix this? My printer is a heavily modified Anet a8, running Marlin.

I had a similar problem with an Anet A8 once. The problem was, that the thermistor wasn't mounted right in the heat block, so the air flow cooled it while the print head was moving. You can check, whether this is a problem at your printer.

Font suitable for 3D printing I am looking for a font, which is connected and has a good line width (so that it can be 3D printed). Something like in the image below: Something like in the image above would be great, but I don't know the name. Do you have a suggestion for a font?

That particular font is Sarina Regular and is part of the Google Fonts collection. Just Google "connected handwritten fonts" to find more. Kimberly Geswein does a good selection of handwritten fonts. A lot of them are constant width, but most are unconnected.

How to identify nozzle wear E3D-Online and Make Magazine have written about the potential damage printing carbon fiber and glow in the dark filaments can do to your printer's nozzle. What I can't seem to find is what clues or warning signs to be on the look out for if your nozzle has taken a significant amount of wear. I've printed a few hundred grams of glow filament personally and have not noticed any change in print quality. E3D says you may have "unpredictable erratic printing" with a worn nozzle. Can anyone explain or provide examples of what this actually means and when a replacement is necessary?

I believe the little experiment made by E3D - the same link you provide - answers your question very well. Several points about wear can be found in this article. After printing only 250 grams of ColorFabb XT-CF20 (carbon fiber filament): The nozzle diameter had increased markedly The inner walls of the orifice (opening) showed deep sharp ridges and grooves The tip of the nozzle had become critically rounded, and shortened All of these symptoms were found repeatedly for standard brass nozzles. In particular, I believe the last of these symptoms may be the one most easily identifiable without accurate measuring equipment (and without observing print quality). With regards to reduction in print quality, these symptoms could be simulated by: Setting the nozzle diameter too big in your slicer Leveling your bed too high (the rounded tip will also reduce the length of the tip) Printing with a partial clog that interruptus normal filament flow (due to the grooves and ridges) Exactly what this will look like on your printed part is hard to predict, but I would assume you could see blobs, under-extrusion, poor layer adhesion, as well as an irregular surface finish of your top layers.

Using stepper motors with integrated controllers I just scavenged stepper motors from an old laser printer. These have integrated controllers. I'd like to use them without dismantling the controllers. I currently have 4, 6 and 9 wires stepper motors. Any help would be reatly appreciated :) Thanks !

Many of the motors that look like stepper motors in laser printers are actually three-phase brush-less DC motors. These look like stepper motors, but are intended to be used differently, controlled differently, and serve a different function. Like stepper motors, they have a permanent magnet rotor surrounded by coils of wire. They typically are used in applications that require a definite rotation speed, rather than a definite position -- velocity rather than location. They create feedback to their controlling board via an encoder. Differences include having a smaller number of poles, and possibly having three coils rather than two. I suspect that the magnetic field profiles of the poles may also be different, since the primary design purpose is not to sharply define the restoring torque curve for a small deviation of the rotor from a rotational position. If these are the type of motors you have in hand, you won't find them very useful for a 3D printer motion control system. They are great for any form of continuous movement where position isn't critical -- maybe wheel motors for robots or for peristaltic pumps on your automated drink mixer. You may ask on what experience I speak. I have done tear-down analysis of several laser printers by different manufacturers.

Clearance between moving parts I am using a Prusa printer to print parts for prototyping. The project I am currently working on needs parts to be able to slide against each other and they need to be printed together. A bit like these gears, where the whole construction needs to be printed in one go and the gears need to be free to move afterwards. What clearance should one use between such moving/sliding parts to make it snug but not unmovable?

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:

What level of detail can be expected from a consumer-grade SLS printer? I'd like to prefix this question with the fact that I know virtually nothing about 3D printers, aside from the general principles of how they work. I've recently seen that SLS printers have become more affordable, to the point where in a few years they might be a compelling investment. I'm mainly interested in 3D printing miniatures for painting, and as such this one: For scale, the miniature is about 150 mm long. I'm mainly worried about smaller details, such as the faces of the Gunner or Driver. Will a consumer-grade SLS printer be able to print to such level of detail?

Consumer Market? While there are no "consumer level" SLS printers on the market currently, the question in itself is very interesting on a scientific level. The pricing edges for the consumer market for 3D printers can be somewhat estimated from the consumer electronics segment. This puts a maximum price tag of about 2000-2500 \$ onto it, comparable to a high-end PC. CurrentlyFeb. 2020, most SLS machines come with 'inquire for price' or with prices of 5000 \$ or larger price tags, which indicates they are intended for professional or industrial use. Most SLS printers in consumer hands seem to be phased out older systems from second hand. So while there are for sure tries to get SLS more affordable, it is not there yet. Resolution of SLS SLS printers have resolutions based on two factors1: grain size laser diameter Generally speaking, the finer the grain and more focussed the laser, the better the resolution. Current industrial machines - even cheap ones - work with particle sizes between 20 and 80 µm, with the bulk being around 40 to 60 µm2. The laser focus point ranges generally in the "tens of µm"1, and is listed with values between 50 and 300 µm for most ceramic powders in that paper. Conclusion As a rule of thumb, 50 µm seems to be the average nylon spot size, which is very much comparable with resin printers using SLA/mSLA/DLP technology. Details on miniatures are usually in the area of 100-200 µm, so are well achieveable with either. Comparison SLS to SLA/mSLA/DLP Resin technology has the benefit of being easier accessible with some entry level printes between 200 and 500 \$. Nylon SLS prints do demand a sealant but prints without any supports, Resin does at times need support. Printing times for DLP/mSLA is not dependant on the ammount of space used, making packing the build surface with as many models as possible benefitial, while SLS, like FDM, works with a moving spot, so the ammount of models increases print time. Both Technologies work with hazardous material - resin and very fine powders respecively - and demand proper PPE to handle them.

Is a BLTouch probe used during a print after the first layer? I was looking at a BLTouch probe, and saw the recent question about one with intermittent failure. That was kind of scary, where I might spend a bunch of money for something that would make my printer harder to use, rather than easier. But I was curious. I don't have any personal experience using these, but it seems like the probe would only be used during an initial level and when homing the Z axis. Thus, as long as the probe works most of the time, and failure to home properly doesn't damage your nozzle or print bed, maybe this kind of thing isn't too bad. Is this assessment of how the probe functions (that it's not really used after the start of a print) accurate? In the spirit of stack exchange, I'm not interested in the subjective issue of nozzle or print bed damage; I'm only asking about the objective assessment of how a probe is used by the printer.

Your assessment is correct, after probing before printing it deploys several times, after that it is stowed till the end of the print unless you call for deployment. The probe is used by G-code command G29; this command is used by a few printer firmwares to perform a bed probing sequence where, depending on the options set in the firmware, the surface of the bed is scanned by deploying the sensor at various locations. From these measurements, the firmware will determine the shape or tilt of the bed to compensate for deviations in Z height during the first couple of layers or millimeters of the print. Basically, it will keep your nozzle (approximately, as it is based on calculations) at the same distance all over the bed area. Once the print starts after the G29 command, the sensor is stowed until the next print calls the G29 command (or M280 with arguments to deploy on Marlin/Duet/Smoothieware, or M340 on Repetier firmware).

Feasible 3D Printed Snap Connectors I have Ultimaker 2+ 3D Printer and I need to print a piece that doesn't fit within the build volume of the printer. Even though it would fit I'd still need to print it in two parts because I'll need to fit some equipment inside. I could use glue to put it together, but I'll need to remove the equipment later. So I'm trying to find some feasible solutions how to attach/snap it together. The wall thickness is currently 3mm. Plane for cutting the part. Cut cross section.

If the equipment has to be removable, then there's no point in trying to make a one-piece object in the first place. So it looks like you have two problems. The first is to decide what's the best way to split your container to facilitate both putting the equipment inside & removing it; the second is how to latch the two together. I can't answer the first since you haven't shown us the equipment. As to the second: there are a number of plans for spring-latching connectors (such as used with straps, backpack covers, etc) on thingiverse.com. If you have no constraints on the exterior of your container, I would just merge the latching connectors into the container wall (e.g. with meshmixer) .

Cura with Pronterface UI stops printing When I use Cura with the Pronterface UI it sometime just stops printing. When it stops the printer just stops, the UI looks like it's still printing but nothing is moving in the printer, also, trying to control the printer from the UI does nothing. It always stops early in the printing process, usually during the auto-leveling process or while printing the skirt, the latest it happened was during the first solid layer of a raft. Usually closing the printing window and re-opening it solves the problem but not always, this never happened to me with the basic UI, I couldn't find any settings that makes the problem better or worse, it just happens randomly. Anyone knows how to stop that from happening? My printer is a Robo 3D R1+ Update After installing a screen on my printer I discovered Pronterface is sending a "Wait for user" G Code to the printer. Because this changes the question too much and invalidates the existing answer I've asked a new question at What makes Pronterface wait for user?

A problem I have come across when using Pronterface is that the operating system starves the resources of the program if the program's window is not in the front. If I, for instance, started a print, then started browsing the web, it would sometimes suddenly stop. When bringing Pronterface back to the front, it would take a few seconds, and then continue (if I remember correctly). On OS X - which I am using - I believe this is called app nap, while a similar mechanism exist for Windows. I ended up printing form an SD card myself after this, but you might want to try manually setting the resource priority for Pronterface in your OS. In Windows, you could trying to increase the resource allocation for Pronterface by going to Task Manager -> Details -> Right click the Pronterface process -> Set Priority. I would be careful to set it too high, since you are basically allowing the program more juice to potentially do something wrong. In OS X you could try to disable app nap for Pronterface.

Z motors only working manual, do not home correctly I'm currently setting up my custom built 3D printer with a BTT SKR mini E3 v1.2, and so far I have all the endstops and x and y motors working. The problem is that when trying to home my z motors, they just vibrate and make a lot of noise, which tells me they're not getting enough current(which makes sense cause there's two of them as opposed to the other axis). The weird part is that when I manually control them on pronterface, that is just clicking up and down on the arrow wheel, they work perfectly fine. It's only when homing that they vibrate and make a lot of noise. I've tried using the M906 command to raise the current on the motors - they started at 560, and I slowly worked my way up to 4000 - and witnessed no difference. I'm not sure what to adjust from here. Thanks for the help in advance!

Jogging the Z axis may be a sequence of very short moves, happening relatively slowly. Homing may be a longer, faster move. The homing move would depend more heavily on the maximum velocity, maximum acceleration, and jerk parameters. If there are too high the z axis won't operate properly since the motors will attempt to move faster than is supported by the torque, and the rotating magnetic field will lose control of the permanent magnet rotor. To fix this, find how the motion limit parameters are controlled for your software, and reduce them all by a factor of 50. It should work, although perhaps too slowly. I would also reduce the current setting. Microstepping motors doesn't work when the magnetic field is driven to saturation.

Anet A8 Hot End Spares Quey I saw an extruder mod on Amazon "EAONE 2 Pcs PTFE Teflon Tube (2 Meters) with 4 Pcs PC4-M6 Fittings for 3D Printer 1.75mm Filament (2.0mm ID/4.0mm OD)" Anybody know how this is fitted? Is it simply tapping the feed hole on the top?

Is this what you are referring to? If yes, the cold end of the extruder is nomally already tapped and you simply have to screw the new fitting in it. The PTFE tube itself needs just to be fed through the hole in the fitting until it cannot go any further. Failing to do so will most likely result in a clog and/or leaking. It is a self-locking mechanism, in order to release the tube you have to press down the plastic flange on top of the fitting while pulling up the PTFE tube.

Prusa Mk3 filament detection sensor, can you access the image data? I have seen that the new Prusa Mk3 design has a optical mouse sensor that can be used to detect if the filament jams. Optical mouse sensors are just a really low resolution camera with no color. I am interested in finding out if it is possible to get access to the image data coming from that sensor? Could I add a rgb led and interpolate the filament color by comparing pixel intensity under different lighting conditions? And I was interested in seeing if the image data could be used to measure the filament width?

I am interested in finding out if it is possible to get access to the image data coming from that sensor? And I was interested in seeing if the image data could be used to measure the filament width? No. The sensor is the PAT9125EL. The only output it provides is the movement in the X and Y directions. There is no way to get image data out of it. Could I add a rgb led and interpolate the filament color by comparing pixel intensity under different lighting conditions No. The sensor uses laser light of a specific wavelength. It's likely not sensitive to any other wavelengths. On a positive note, there is an "average frame brightness" register that can be read from the chip, but I don't think it's likely to work with RGB LEDs.

Ender 3 with direct drive has severe stringing printing TPU I recently upgraded my Ender 3 Pro with a direct drive kit, primarily so I can print soft materials like TPU. I bought a spool of Overture TPU to try it out. I'm getting really bad stringing on every print, to the point where it's pretty much unusable. This is my first time printing with TPU, so I'm at a loss for what to do. Direct Drive mod - After modding the printer I did a few prints with PLA, and it works great with very little stringing. So I assume I assembled the mod correctly and that's not the issue. Material - Reviews of the Overture TPU on Amazon mostly say it has low stringing and are generally positive, so I'm assuming it's not just bad filament. Temperature - The consensus in the Amazon reviews seems to be that 230°C is the sweet spot. I did a temperature tower from 205 °C to 230 °C by 5 °C, and the print quality and stringing was pretty much uniform throughout. Retraction - I tried with retraction off, then with 1 mm, 2 mm, and 6.5 mm, in various combinations with temperature and speed. Results varied in details, but all were pretty bad. Speed - I tried slowing down to 15 mm/s (from Cura's default of 50). Results got even worse. Following are photos of a stringing test with various combinations of settings. PLA for reference - 205 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 1 mm TPU - 205 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 2 mm - Print speed 15 mm/s TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 1 mm - Print speed 15 mm/s TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 1 mm TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 2 mm TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 6.5 mm TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.12 mm - No retraction TPU - 240 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - No retraction Is there something else I should try to reduce stringing? Is it possible that I just got a bad spool of TPU? Or is it more likely something's wrong with my printer?

Due to the flexible characteristics of TPU, stringing is a known "complication" with this material. is a video from Matterhackers: no retraction - stringing is expected dry filament - ensure the filament hasn't been exposed to the air for extended periods - use an oven or dehydrator if needed There are many other tutorials and videos covering the process. Tom Sanladerer has also a video covering the use of flexible filament. ensure correct alignment of hobbed bolt and feed hole consider to use a piece of PTFE tubing downstream of drive mechanism use 3 mm (usually 2.85 mm nowadays) filament for better results (if possible) bed temp - 40 °C with glue stick on bed print slower adjust extrusion multiplier by testing various settings Obviously some of the above references don't apply or are being observed.

How to know if I should replace my power connector? I have seen several postings in forums about the power connector on some ender 3's being bad and causing issues or just burning out, potentially causing a fire. How can I tell if I have the bad power connector?

If you can measure the voltage at the main board where the bed power line is attached, or at the last point in the wiring prior to the connector, then measure the voltage at the bed, you can compare the difference to determine if there is loss related to a failing connector. One certain indication of a failing connector is to separate the components of the connector and see corrosion, discoloration or any sign of burning. The Robo3d R1+ used 10 ampere connectors and the bed draws 14 amperes, according to the research I've done. When I discovered that information and separated the connector, it was an easy answer, as one side was scorched and the pins on the other were corroded and discolored. Another method, not for everyone, is to use an IR camera and examine the leads carrying the power to the bed. The failing portion will be absorbing some of the power and heating itself, which will show up as a bright portion in the power path.

Homing a stepper motor as an extruder using E0/E1 with an limit switch and end stop Note: I have extended my question as some of you mentioned that the question is not clear. I am using a RAMPS 1.4 board with an Arduino mega 2560. I need to drive a stepper motor as an extruder using either E0 or E1. I am using Repetier-Firmware and can drive the extruder (stepper motor) using the E0 (RAMPS 1.4). Now for my application, I need to make sure that the extruder is in home position before it starts to drive for the very first time. I am trying to use a switch to connect to the end stop and perform this homing operation. I can do this for X, Y, and Z axes. I was wondering how (h/w connections and firmware modification) can I do it for the extruder?

The edited question appears to mention that the actual extruders of the print head need to home / limit themselves. The answer is that this is not required. When operating direct or Bowden driven extruder setups, you know (or you can measure or find out experimentally) the distance that the filament has to travel from extruder entry to hot end (e.g. to load new filament). If already loaded, because you have printed before, you also know where the filament is (filament could stop after printing, personally I retract the filament en few mm after a print). When a new print starts you usually reverse the retraction at temperature and extrude some extra filament to prime the nozzle to counteract oozed out filament for instance. At that point, the nozzle is primed and the gcode G92 E0 is then used to tell the extruder this is the start at zero length, sort of the home position of the filament. All this is usually done in the start code of your slicer, similar to disabling bed and hot end temperature or final retract is done in the end code of your slicer. This answer below addresses the initial question, this question was not quite clear. It was phrased as of the head containing the extruders needed to be homed correctly. The normal end-stops (can be mechanical or optical switches) already ensure that the printer head (containing the extruder or extruders) is homed correctly (if correctly configured in your printer firmware). The home offsets you define in the firmware define that you start at the origin (0,0,0). Your question does not state what firmware you use, but e.g. in Marlin firmware these settings are found in the firmware configuration file. In this file the following is defined: // Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions. #define X_MIN_POS 0 #define Y_MIN_POS 0 These values must be changed according to the offset between your switch and the origin of the heat bed (e.g. Prusa style printers have the origin at the front left). For my Prusa clone printer I have defined: // Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions. #define X_MIN_POS -35 #define Y_MIN_POS -12 What this says is that the homing switch for the X axis is 35 mm left of the origin, etc.

Nozzle cleaning tool broken inside nozzle Recently I opened up my printer (PowerSpec Duplicator i3 Mini V2)to clean the nozzle (it comes with the little tool to get tiny bits of filament out of the nozzle). Well, I was using that and when I pulled it out I discovered the tool broke inside the nozzle. Filament is still coming out but obviously not properly. Can someone please help me fix this?

Your best fix is to get a replacement nozzle. Nozzles are relatively cheap. Having and replacing them on a regular basis is a good thing. Replacement can help you maintain proper printing. You can probably get the cleaning tool out of the old nozzle, but most likely you'll damage it further, making it nearly useless.

Endstops will not trigger using Marlin Firmware I have an old Solidoodle 2 that I bought broken from a garage sale that I am converting to use RAMPS 1.4 with Marlin Firmware. All the motors work correctly, I am just having issues getting the endstops to work. I am using a regular limit switch with NC going to the signal pin and the other to ground. I have this switch plugged into first header column for X-min. My endstop configuration is currently: //=========================================================================== //============================== Endstop Settings =========================== //=========================================================================== // @section homing // Specify here all the endstop connectors that are connected to any endstop or probe. // 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 true #define USE_YMIN_PLUG true #define USE_ZMIN_PLUG true //#define USE_XMAX_PLUG false //#define USE_YMAX_PLUG false //#define USE_ZMAX_PLUG false // coarse Endstop Settings #define ENDSTOPPULLUPS // Comment this out (using // at the start of the line) to disable the endstop pullup resistors #if DISABLED(ENDSTOPPULLUPS) // fine endstop settings: Individual pullups. will be ignored if ENDSTOPPULLUPS is defined //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_XMAX //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_YMAX //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMAX //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_XMIN //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_YMIN //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMIN //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMIN_PROBE #endif // Mechanical endstop with COM to ground and NC to Signal uses "false" here (most common setup). #define X_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING true // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. #define Y_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. #define Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. #define X_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. #define Y_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. #define Z_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. #define Z_MIN_PROBE_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop. I have X-min enabled and inverted. When I send an M119 (endstop status code) I recieve: Send: M119 Recv: Reporting endstop status Recv: x_min: open Recv: y_min: TRIGGERED Recv: z_min: TRIGGERED And then when I press down the X endstop with my hand I get: Send: M119 Recv: Reporting endstop status Recv: x_min: open Recv: y_min: TRIGGERED Recv: z_min: TRIGGERED -No change. There is no mechanical failure with the switches, I've tested it with a continuity tester. I have even shorted the signal and ground pins on the Ramps board with a jumper wire and I still haven't seen any change. Where is the fault at?

try uncommenting the following lines to enable endstop detection on all pins for troubleshooting. //#define USE_XMAX_PLUG false //#define USE_YMAX_PLUG false //#define USE_ZMAX_PLUG false This way the M119 will show any changes. The only thing I can think of is that either the switch is plugged into the wrong pin on the ramps board (Max instead of Min) or the switch doesn't require the pullup (your could try commenting that back as a second test as well)

How to prevent stringing with 0.25 mm nozzle? When I print with a 0.4  mm nozzle I have no problem with stringing at all but because I need a more detailed print I must use a 0.25 mm nozzle. I use Ultimaker Cura and an Anycubic i3 Mega. What i tried so far: Enable/Disable Z hop Tried different retraction distance and speed. Tried with lower temperature Different wall thickness If you have any suggestion please let me know.

First, you should change the nozzle diameter setting, not just the line width setting, in Cura. Both are involved in determining extrusion. Line width can be less than or greater than nozzle size, but setting it much larger or smaller is not going to work well. I suspect your main problem, though, is print speed. The area of the 0.25 mm nozzle orifice is only 39% of the area of an 0.4 mm nozzle orifice, bounding the material extrusion rate at best at 39% of what you could get with the larger nozzle (in practice it will be even lower due to complex fluid dynamics, probably much lower), but at the same linear print speed with narrower lines, you'll be extruding (or trying to extrude) 62.5% as much material per unit time. Now, if that much material can't actually make it out of the nozzle, pressure builds up between the extruder gear and the nozzle, and stringing is the result. So, try lowering the print speed. A lot at first. If that solves the problem, gradually increase it until you find the limit. Increasing retraction and temperature may help you push it a little further. See my question and self-answer on stringing with flexible filaments, which might give you some ideas on other things to try: Avoiding stringing with flexible filament

Arduino WEMOS and RAMPS I'm thinking of buying an Arduino WEMOS1 as I am tired with SD card fiddling. As the ESP8266 chip has 32 Mb (~4 MB) flash memory, I am hoping to be able to push most of the G-code files over the Wi-Fi. I was trying OctoPi but, having electronic noise issues, the transmission was not stable. Has anyone tried WEMOS with RAMPS? Is the serial communication stable between ESP and Arduino? 1 Product description is Mega +WiFi R3 ATmega2560+ESP8266 (32Mb memory), USB-TTL CH340G. Compatible for Arduino Mega, NodeMCU, WeMos ESP8266

After having looked into them, these boards certainly seem to be rather interesting. There appear to be two varieties of this board, as I have seen photos with either RobotDyn: rear (from Instructables) or WeMos logos on them. They may, or may not, be the same. There is also this one, with just a generic "WiFi" logo (from the eBay page below): Memory Discrepancies However, there is certainly some discrepancy relating to the specification and amount of memory (unless there are a number of variants - which would certainly be possible): 4 MB of Flash is in the ESP8266-12, as Dan states, see ESP8266 SMT Module - ESP-12. But is it the ESP8266-12 in the board, or is it another ESP variant? This WeMos product, on eBay, WeMOS Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 USB-TTL For Arduino Mega NodeMCU appears to agree with the 32 Mb1 This RobotDyn board, Контроллер RobotDyn Mega 2560 R3 + WiFi ESP8266b, flash память 8Mbit, USB-TTL CH340G, MicroUSB, has 8 Mb apparently. However the same product page, but in English, upgrades the memory to 32 MB! See MEGA+WiFi R3 ATmega2560+ESP8266, flash 32MB, USB-TTL CH340G, Micro-USB Looking at this article, Instructables - Arduino MEGA 2560 With WiFi Built-in - ESP8266, it isn't exactly the ESP8266-12: In today's text, we discuss an Arduino that I consider extremely special, as it has an ESP8266 embedded in its board. It doesn’t have the ESP12 soldered onto the board. Instead, it has the Espressif chip. So, on the board you have the built-in Tensilica chip with 4MB of memory, along with the ATmega2560, which is the traditional Arduino Mega. So the ESP has 4 MB, but where does the 32 Mb come in to play? Well, looking at this RobotDyn memory table (taken from the Instructables page): The 4 MB of the ESP appears to have been immediately contradicted and upgraded to 8 MB! The ATmega2560 somehow has 32 Mb (which seems a bit of a lie - as there isn't an ATmega2560 known to man that has that much memory2), and is confused further by the corresponding text: As we see in the table above, the ATmega has 32MB of memory, not counting the ESP memory. This is wonderful, since the traditional Mega Arduino has only 256kb of memory. So MB or Mb? Is there an additional flash IC external to the ATmega2560? Looking at the schematic, taken from the Russian RobotDyn page, there doesn't appear to be: So this could be nonsense. Logic would dictate that the ATmega has 256 kB and the ESP has 4 MB... But I could be wrong..? Links from Контроллер RobotDyn Mega 2560 R3 + WiFi ESP8266b, flash память 8Mbit, USB-TTL CH340G, MicroUSB: Schematic (PDF) Pin out (PDF) (JPG) Mechanics (PDF) (JPG) Reliability of communication Regardless of the actual spec, to address your question of ESP/Arduino communication reliability: As the ESP8266 and the ATmega2560 are on the same board one would assume that the (serial) communication between the two would be faultless. However, some issues have been reported3. Nevertheless, from your question, it seems that you were having issues with the ESP to the OctoPi communication, rather than ESP to Arduino, so maybe this doesn't actually answer your question. Also, as to their compatibility with RAMPS, there is very little information available currently, and it would seem to be a case of try-it-and-see. The closest I got was this post on the thread, OnStep and RAMPS1.4, but it seems to be spam. However, it certainly sounds worth a gamble as it would be a nice combination of technologies. However, I would imagine that some modification of the firmware would be necessary. Useful Notes From post #8 of Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 (8 Mb mémoire) To upload the sketch to the board: 5, 6, 7 ON RXD3 - TXD3 To run the sketch: 5 and 6 ON RXD3 - TXD3 Here is an excellent manual in Russian Footnotes 1 From WeMOS Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 USB-TTL For Arduino Mega NodeMCU WeMOS Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 USB-TTL For Arduino Mega NodeMCU 　 Features: Full integration on one board: Mega R3 ATmega2560 and WiFi ESP8266 with memory 32Mb (megabyte) All of the modules can work together or each separately. And everyone has their own pinout headers The convenient solution for the development of new projects requiring Uno and WiFi Via USB you can update sketches and firmware for ATmega2560 and for ESP8266. For this on board have the USB-serial converter CH340G Use this board is very simple The board has DIP-switch, to connect the modules. For example to: USB and ATmeg2560, USB and ESP8266, ATmega2560 and ESP8266 Table DIP- Switch: Connection DIP 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ATmega2560<->ESP8266 ON ON OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF USB <->ATmega2560 OFF OFF ON ON OFF OFF OFF USB<->ESP8266 (Update firmware or sketch) OFF OFF OFF OFF ON ON ON USB<->ESP8266 (communication) OFF OFF OFF OFF ON ON OFF All independent OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF Special solution: USB <->ATmega328<-> ESP8266 Connection DIP SWITCH 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 USB <-> ATmega2560<-> ESP8266 ON ON ON ON OFF OFF OFF To RXD3/TXD3 USB converter CH340G connect to RX0/TX0 of ATmega2560 ESP8266 connect to RX3/TX3 of ATmega2560 Size: 10.5x5.3cm/4.13x2.09inch 2 From the Atmel ATmega640/V-1280/V -1281/V-2560/V-2561/V datasheet 3 From Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 (8 Mb mémoire), there do appear to be some issues communicating between the ATmega and the ESP ICs, with a number of users reporting problems. However, a couple of solutions are provided: Solution 1 From post #2 Set the DIP switch to "special" mode: (1=on, 2=on, 3=on, 4=on, 5=off, 6=off, 7=off, 8=off) see the the description of the product. Set the switch in RXD3 Run the below sketch, change the SSID and PASSWORD values. this is just to test that Arduino and ESP8266 are working together. The code originated from BISSA ORBOEA in Element14. Code: #include "ESP8266.h" #define SSID "YOURSID" #define PASSWORD "YOURPASSWORD" ESP8266 wifi(Serial3,115200); void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); Serial.println("Restart"); wifi.restart(); delay(1000); Serial.println("FW Version:"); Serial.println(wifi.getVersion().c_str()); if (wifi.setOprToStation()) { Serial.println("OprToStation ok"); } else { Serial.println("OprToStation err"); } if (wifi.joinAP(SSID, PASSWORD)) { Serial.println("Join AP success"); Serial.print("IP:"); Serial.println( wifi.getLocalIP().c_str()); } else { Serial.println("Join AP failure"); } } void loop() { } Solution 2 From post #6 First you need to write the code for each board according your application, but in your code you need to establish a commmincation between serial port of Atmega and ESP in both code, again in according you application. Finally, put the switches which make the intenal interconnection between both. For example, I made a code for ESP to connect in an Access Point and put on a TCP server. When a wireless client is connected in ESP and consequently in the TCP Server, all data send by client I redirect to the serial port. As serial port of ESP is connected with serial 3 of the Atmega, the code in Atmega pass to theat the data from serial 3. Solution 3 From post #11 Follow this if you have the same to my cases: programm to the ESP(upload sketch) for wifi connection by configure the DIP to 5:on,6:on,7:on and other off. program to mega(upload sketch) in case you want to send communication to each other by configure Dip to 3:on,4:on, and other off. switch two RX0/TX0(in my case I use Serial.print() and Serial.readString() for communicate between Esp and Mega) after you already upload sketch to both Modules you can test communication between them by configure DIP to: 1:on,2:on,3:on,4:on. and then press Reset Button to restart the boards. In ESP you can get the string from Mega by if(Serial.available()) Serial.readString(); and In mega you can get data from ESP by : if(Serial.available())Serial.readString(). After you got a string so you can split or do anything whatever you want. If you want send data to Firebase you must use the Firebase Library at the Esp side, in Mega it not support.

Prusa i3 Mk3 - Top layer wrinkles (not on buildplate) Recently started using my kit Prusa I3 Mk3 and noticed that with large horizontal surfaces a wrinkling pattern is emerging. As you can see in the image the wrinkles seem to run parallel, the surface is 10 mm above the build plate with all bridges fully supported. Has anyone seen this before? All other areas seem to be doing well. This print uses PLA filament @ 235 °C hotend temperature and clearly shows a wrinkled pattern on the top layer If it helps, I haven't changed the settings from the normal Prusa Slic3r 0.15 profile. The problem reduced to an acceptable level by reducing the temperature to 205 °C but keeping the fan speed 100 %, I am printing PLA. I might reduce the fan speed if I feel troubled by the result.

Waves in printed surfaces with FFF are observed at either the bottom layer (common) or the top layer (less common). Waves in bottom layer Rippling/wave generation/wrinkling is a common problem for first layer to occur and has a direct relation to the print nozzle to bed distance; a too short of a distance or over-extrusion can lead to this effect. However, this effect is less commonly observed in top layer finishes. Bottom layer waves are described in more detail in this answer. Waves in top layer I have seen this defect before. It is caused by a combination of incorrect hotend temperature and print cooling fan settings. Please reduce the hotend temperature and reduce the fan cooling. The image below clearly shows the differences of such measures.

Cura grey large grey area, almost nothing fits… I can't seem to understand the margins that Cura uses or how to fix them for my machine. Look at this: I can't seem to tweak the stuff under machine settings to anything that does this better: Maybe a bit of dup of Cura not allowing full print area to used, but I think my case is a lot worse and can't be explained by skirts.

I had mistakenly left the setting "one at a time" in print sequence. This meaning the printhead needs a lot of room since it will go back and forth in z. Cura allocates this extra space even if there's only one object.

Trouble printing Poppy Robot with SpiderBot For a university project, my partner and I need to print the robot Poppy. This is an open source robotic project, poppy-project.org. We are printing it with a double extruder SpiderBot with PLA and HIPS as support material. Our principal issue is the weakness of the pieces we print. It prevents us from removing the support material without damaging the piece. We don't have the chemicals to dissolve HIPS. Have you some advice to make the pieces stronger, or a more gentle method to remove the HIPS? Thanks for the replies

Having a bit more experience since my comment post above, I can offer up a possible solution. If your printer is able to print ABS, it works great with HIPS as support material. I've been printing boatloads of ABS models. When support is needed, the HIPS supports will bond reasonably well to the ABS, but when cooled, flick off with a sharp pointed instrument such as a razor knife point. As an additional reference, a good bond to the print bed is required for both ABS and HIPS and if your slicer allows support density adjustment, increase the support in that manner. My slicer (Simplify3D) would print an accordian type of support unless instructed otherwise. I set up for alternating 45° patterns making a denser but also more vertically rigid structure. If you cannot print ABS, PLA and PVA as Ogre55 suggests is about your only option. I see from the 'net that the SpiderBot Pro supports ABS, which implies the basic version might not have a heated bed.

File too big to open in Tinkercad. How can I shrink it? I need to shrink an STL file below the 25 MB threshold, so I can open it in TinkerCad. I don't care about quality, I just need it shrunk. How can I do this?

If you have 3D software like Blender you can import your model and use the decimate modifier to lower the number of vertices and then re-export. Here is a link to how you can do this: Simplify Geometry with the Decimate Modifier in Blender 2.9.

After homing all is fine, when printing the Z-axis stops advancing My Prusa i3 has developed an issue. It homes fine and has no issues. But, when I press the print button it gives a sneeze (quick screeching noise from the Z-axis stepper motor) and start to print. The only issue then is that there is no lifting on the layers when it prints! When I kill the print, it stops, lifts and goes to the home position as if nothing is wrong. Video link: Prusa I3 Z-axis issue Does anyone know of a remedy for this issue?

Awesome, I got it fixed! I've restored to default the Firmware EEPROM Settings in the driver program and it's all fine now. I have no idea how that got changed as I would never go mess around there. I CAN PRINT AGAIN!! The program I'm using is Repetier. It has a Firmware configuration setting under the printer settings. The values in there was a bit odd so I took a chance and pressed the Reset to Factory Settings and it worked. There is no version number attached to the setting

How to remove white marks from PLA When you cut or break a PLA model (for example to remove support) it often leaves an ugly while mark where the removed piece was connected. Sanding also tend to leave dull white scratches on the sanded surface. What can I do to restore the white areas to the original filament color?

A quick blast from a heat gun will very slightly reflow the surface texture and eliminate white marks. However, it's important to avoid over-heating the perimeter layers or you'll see them soften and sag into the infill. So wait for the heat gun to get fully hot and then use a short duration of high heat. Let the part cool between attempts if you don't get it all the first time, or need to clean up a large area. Incidentally, the heat gun will also help clean up strings from travel moves.

Raise3D Wi-Fi Protocol I am interesting in connecting my RepRap printer to ideaMaker using the same Wi-Fi protocol they use for their Raise3D printers. I am sure I could emulate it using a Raspberry Pi if I knew the format of the protocol (I suspect it is pretty simple). Is the protocol documented anywhere? Is there open source for something that uses the protocol? Has anyone that has a Raise3D printer looked at the packets it uses? I suspect the protocol is just G-code in a wrapper.

OK, I have found the first piece of this puzzle. "The Raise3D printers listen on TCP port 31625 for remote control from ideaMaker."

Can we apply more voltage to a PCB heated bed to get faster heating? From my understanding, the power of heater must higher than heat dissipate to ambient air so the bed can heat up. The reason why a bed heats up too slowly is due to its heat capacity compared to heater power. As the heater is a resistive load, I think we can put higher voltage to get more heating power. The PCB heater has two parts: copper and laminate. The reason of failure is that the copper can come off the board due to high temperatures. In this case we can control temperature with firmware. The questions are: Will this method work? What can go wrong or what is the risk of this method?

Yes, this method will work. Some (LED) power supplies have a small potentiometer that you can use to slightly adjust the voltage. On a 12 V printer, adjusting the supply from 12 V to 14 V will give a 36% increase in power. Obviously there is a limit to how much you can increase the voltage. The voltage itself is unlikely to be the limiting factor, but there is a limit to how much heat the bed can dissipate. The PCB heater have 2-part copper and laminate. the reason of failire is the copper go off the board due to high temperature. In this case we can control temperature with firmware. This is true, but you have to consider that firmware is not infallible. If you increase the voltage (and thus wattage) of the bed a lot, you risk creating a dangerous situation if something fails. Ideally, you should choose the wattage of the bed such that it does not create a dangerous situation even if it is left on permanently by accident. In extreme cases (e.g. 220V to a nominally 12V heated bed) damage will be almost instantaneous before the firmware can intervene. You also have to consider that increasing the voltage also increases the current. The wires need to be thick enough to handle the additional current. You also have to pay special attention to the MOSFET that is used to switch the bed; it also needs to be able to handle the current (and voltage, though this is usually less of a problem). Usually the integrated MOSFETs on 3D printer control boards can only handle about ~10 A which is what the bed might normally draw. Also pay attention to fuses and to screw terminal connections. They might not be able to handle the increased current either.

Mechanics for modelling a push button latch spring I am designing a door to put on a small enclosure that will open and close upon pressing a button. The idea is something similar to what you would find on an external DVD reader. My problem is with the actual button I understand I will need to use springs for this but I can not figure out the mechanics of the button. Are there 3D-printable, mechanical designs that could fit for this purpose?

A commonly seen method to provide spring action in a 3D printed model is to use a series of curved and straight segments. Some of the designs use the segment assembly in compression, aligned with the plane of the print, while others use the segment assembly for springiness perpendicular to the plane of the print. An example of the latter is a squishy turtle from Thingiverse resulting in four legs that provide some bounce to the turtle if dropped from a small height. This video shows the movement of the legs more clearly, as there were no suitable still photos available on the site. The image below shows another spring type print from Thingiverse in which the forces are in line with the print plane. The S-curves cannot be too thick or movement will be severely limited, and too thin means impossible to print and possibly reduced lifespan. Many designs abound with a search of the 'net for "3D printed springs."

How to generate gcode only for first layer? As first layer is so important, I am looking for an easy way to generate the gcode to print just the first layer. I see that with Slic3r you can cut from a Z But for test purposes I prefer just selecting a number of layers to be generated so I can easily generate different "first layer(s) tests" with different first layer(s) settings (width, height, speed, flow....) The only way I achieve it is editing the gcode. Any help? Thanks

I understand your question like this: I know I could cut the mesh and just slice the bottom of my model, but since I am interested in a given number of layers and the heigh of a layer may change according to settings (e.g.: 0.2mm, 0.1mm, 0.05mm...), I want to find a way to generate an arbitrary number of layers from the full model. I use slic3r. If my understanding is correct, then you can achieve what you want with a few steps. Use verbose GCODE The setting is under "Print settings → Output Options". This will output gcode with comments in it. Save the finishing gcode of a valid printing job Basically, open a valid gcode file, and save the last few lines (comments will help you to understand which ones, it changes from printer to printer) in a separate file (gcode.tail). These lines are typically those that move away the nozzle from the print, disable the heating element, the steppers and the part cooling fan. Prepare the first-lines.sh script #! /usr/bin/env sh sed -e '/move to next layer (3)/,$d' $1 > /tmp/gcode.tmp echo ~/gcode.tail >> /tmp/gcode.tmp echo /tmp/gcode.tmp What this script does is: take a file name from the command line ($1) and savie into gcode.tmp only the part of it up to and excluding the line saying "move to the next layer (3)" (you should actually use the number of layers you actually want here, 3 is just an example). Again, the presence of such a line depends from you generating "verbose gcode". append to gcode.tmp the content of the file gcode.tail (here replace ~/ with the actual path on your machine. output as a stream the full content of gcode.tmp Set your printer to automatically run the script onto the generated gcode This setting is again under "Print settings → Output Options". You have to type in the full path to first-lines.sh. Also remember to make the script executable (chmod +x first-lines.sh). You can also hover over the textbox to get additional information of how you can access slic3r variables there (for example you may want to read the layer height from the settings and compute within the script the number of layers you want to keep). Profit :) Final notes: I tried the sed command and have post-processing scripts running on my gcode myself, so it should work, but I haven't tried the full procedure myself, if you encounter bugs please leave a comment so I can fix the answer for everybody. :) I use slic3r Prusa Edition (I believe these settings are the same, but just in case... you may wish to download that version. All of the above should work out-of-the-box on all mainstream Linux distributions and OSX. For windows, it has been suggested in the comments to install CygWin. Since this procedure still slices the full model and then throw away most of it, you could make it faster by only slicing a reasonably thick "bottom part" of your model. For example: say that you know you will never want to print more than 5 layers and never with a layer height past 0.3mm... in this case you could only keep the bottom 2mm of your model and you'd be safe for all other combinations of layers and layer heights. Don't keep exactly 1.5mm though, as this is likely to generate a different top layer than the one in the full model. Good luck! :)

I can't level my bed any more I have a Monoprice Select v2 that I just bought less than 2 months ago. I've manually leveled it on several prints prior. I noticed a couple of holes in my print bed after my last print, like the extruder pushed into the sheet really hard. They're both on the same side. I then noticed that the extruder's horizontal bar wasn't leveled so I leveled it. I did this by unplugging the wire to one motor and modified the z-position so that the other connected side would go up. (Is this the proper way of adjusting the horizontal bar?) And then I moved the extruder back into its Home position at z-position 0. That's when I noticed that it seems my extruder barely reaches my print bed even though I have the screws almost loosened to the point of detaching from the thread. The extruder z-limit-switch (I think that's what it's called) seems to be pressed so the extruder is as far down as it can go. The controls also show that the z-position is at 0. So I'm guessing my print bed somehow lowered. But I don't see how that could possibly be. Any ideas? Here are some photos but I'm not even sure what to show really you can see the z-limit-switch in the right of this pic next to the letter A's you can see my extruder still has some distance to go before reaching my print bed but you can also see that my screws are loosened as much as possible showing the horizontal extruder bar is now leveled

The bar where the level is attached is the support cross-bar for the X-axis travel. It's important this bar be level, but it's even more important the bar be true to the rest of the machine. We call this "leveling" the printer, but really the more accurate term is "tramming". If the bar is level, but the machine sits on an unlevel surface, things are out of sync. This may be the case here. I did this by unplugging the wire to one motor and modified the z-position so that the other connected side would go up. (Is this the proper way of adjusting the horizontal bar?) No. The first image in your question shows two threaded vertical rods: one on the left that is exposed, and one on the right that is more hidden (only a small portion is visible between the two "A" labels). These rods control travel in the vertical "z" direction. Each rod has an inline coupler connecting it to the Z-stepper motors. The coupler for the right side is visible just below the square label "A". You adjust the level of the X cross-bar by turning the couplers while the printer is turned off or the motors are otherwise disengaged. This allows you to make finer adjustments for the bar, often without needing to re-home the Z axis. You can also use this method to correct your immediate problem. I own a Select Plus, which uses similar construction to your Select V2. When I first got the printer one of my couplers was not adequately secured to the rod. This made for all kinds of difficulty leveling the bed at first, including at one point an issue similar to what you are experiencing. Re-leveling the X cross-bar is easiest if you are first certain the printer itself is on a level surface. If this is the case, you should be able to use the level in the images to check the cross-bar in the same way you did previously, making adjustments via couplers. But check that surface first. If the surface is not level, you need to adjust the X cross-bar to be parallel to something in the machine other than the bed. While we want the bed to match the rest of the machine, the very fact you can adjust this means it's not guaranteed at any point in time, and so you should use something more structural to compare against. In this case, you can place the same level across the two steel Y-axis travel bars below the bed, and check where the bubble sits. Then make sure the bubble ends up in exactly the same position for the X cross-bar, regardless of whether or not that's level to the ground. The greater precision you can get here, the better things will be. I'm gonna add some notes about leveling the beds on these specific printer models. There are three basic types of leveling: Manual. You do everything yourself. Assisted. You still do most things yourself, but the machine will help by moving the head quickly to certain positions for you to check. This is what many machines refer to as "automatic", even though it really isn't. Automatic. This is where the machine does everything, using lasers to map the bed or some other contact sensor to detect when the head approaches the bed and make it's own adjustments. Often this only uses software to compensate for the bed, and so you still want to get the bed as level as possible first without this option. The Select V2 and Select Plus only do #2: assisted. When I was starting out, my research indicated you should generally level your print beds "hot", because heating a print bed will expand it and potentially change the results. This makes sense to me. However, the instructions included with my Select Plus said nothing about heating the bed, and if followed precisely meant I leveled a cold bed. Additionally, the so-called "automatic" (really: "assisted") leveling tool in the firmware also does not keep the bed heated, meaning if you want to level it hot you must do it entirely manually. This caused me great difficulty when first starting out getting a good level, because I was trying to do it manually on a hot bed. I finally gave up on that, and started using the assisted tool on a cold bed. To my surprise and relief — and counter to what I've read elsewhere — I've had much better results when doing it cold this way. But this may be some peculiar to these printers, perhaps involving the special mat it uses on the surface of the bed. I'm also considering this upgrade (Update: I recently installed it, but it's too soon to know if it's helping), to help improve things even further, since there is some curvature in my plate: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B251KBS/ Finally, there's an interesting seesaw effect when working on a square print bed with four adjustment knobs. I have a post about it here: Leveling a square 3d printer bed with four mounting posts

How to check if filament sensor is ok? The filament sensor of my i3 MK3 stopped working. In the support menu, it just says IR: N/A. This is the same output as if I disconnect the filament sensor. My PCB says rev 0.2e and this is what I see: In the Prusa Shop, I found a laser sensor, which has 4 pins, so that's probably what I have. I have already checked the voltage coming from the Einsy cable. It's 5.02 V, which is probably ok. The remaining two pins seem to be SCL and SDA, so it's likely a I²C bus. I have Arduinos, ESP8266 and ESP32 around. Is there a test routine that I could run on the filament sensor, other than Prusa's N/A display?

You could try out this Arduino sketch and see if the Arduino can find the sensor on the bus, but I'm fairly certain that the chip has developed a fault and stopped responding to I²C commands, hence the error, or it's giving a value that's outside the limits set in the firmware. I'd also recommend getting in touch with Prusa Research, they have very good support and can tell you what part you need for your machine.

How can I stop the flare out of the bottom layers? On nearly all of my prints, my first few layers are flared out slightly. I'm using painter's tape for the bed, and the bed temperature is at 60 °C while the extruder is at 205 °C. This seems to happen regardless of print quality settings. Here's one example below: That extruded rectangle shape is 19.50 x 19.30 mm on the outside on the straight part. On the flared part, it measures 19.92 x 19.70 mm. Is there a way to fix this? If so, how can I improve it?

The picture is not very clear so this can be related to either: Overextrusion at the bottom layer (slicer setting) or an incorrect bed leveling (bed to nozzle distance too small), or this could be the effect called "elephant foot" that is primarily caused by printers with a heated bed. This issue is related to unbalanced printing parameters: heat bed temperature (too high) in combination with insufficient part cooling. The general remedy for these problems is to level the bed (e.g. nozzle can be too close to the bed). "Elephant foot" can be reduced by reducing the heat bed temperature, re-positioning the cooling nozzle and/or start cooling at a lower height. Please experiment with the print parameters by printing XYZ 20 mm test cubes till you find the correct settings.

What is PEI+PC 3D Print material? ISS 3D Print Contest There was a contest to develop 3D printable files for the International Space Station's 3D printer. The winner got a 3D printer ... runners up got Fluke DVOM's and all entrants got a t-shirt. ISS 3D Print Contest They offer 3 materials: ABS, HDPE, and PEI+PC ... I'm not familiar with the last one. Anyone know? If found this material on Matweb: PEI+PC Alloy These links are thought to last a very long time. I hope many of you decide to upload a project into contest site and compete for the grand prize ... A sweet John Fluke DVOM. If nothing else a free awesome T-shirt.

Apparently the Made In Space printer can print an exotic alloy of PEI (ultem) and PC (polycarbonate). Ultem is a super-premium material for industrial FDM printers, and requires a very high temp heated build chamber to print. Hobbyists use it as a build plate -- Stratasys uses it as filament in their most expensive FDM machines. Polycarbonate is a specialty material that benefits from a heated chamber but is just barely printable on hobbyist level machines. (I print a fair amount of PC -- it makes ABS seem easy in comparison.) By alloying PC with PEI, they are presumably optimizing some kind of performance parameter compared to ultem alone or polycarbonate alone. Exactly what material properties they get will depend considerably on the ratio of the two polymers. Ultem is exceptionally heat-resistant, quite stiff, and extremely strong. PC is very heat resistant, and has exceptional impact toughness. Blends of the two can be somewhat stiffer than either, with most other properties resembling the weighted average of the two base materials. It really depends on the mix, which we don't know. This is analogous to the PC-ABS blend filaments we sometimes use. You get reasonably intermediate properties. So, it's basically super-filament that NASA might want to use to make "production" parts in space. I would expect a HUGE degree of warping if not printed in extremely well-controlled conditions. But the Made In Space printer was intensely engineered for this task, so I have to assume they have it all figured out.

How often should I replace the glue layers on the bed? I am printing on a non-heated bed right now, but the question also applies to heated building plates. How often should you replace the glue layers that's supposed to be applied before printing? Some say you can do up to a few prints, such as in this forum, while others say to replace it every print. What is the correct approach?

Depends on the glue and on your tolerance for messy undersides on your prints. It's fairly common for some of the glue to come off with the print. Or you may have marks from scrapers or rafts. Do you want to touch up that spot and have some artifacts on the bottom of the next print, or clean and redo the bed to get everything flat? Gluestick is pretty easy to wash and reapply. It can also be freshened up with a gentle spray of water, smeared flat, and redried, or more gluestick added on top. It will really come down to your preferred workflow.

Hotend moves up on HOME command My Ender 3D with BlTouch And Marlin 2.0.1 firmware was working flawless for 3 months. Yesterday, without any hardware or software change, it started acting weird: on Auto-Home command it first makes expected moves (home X and Y), then moves to the center of the bed and then instead of going down to bed, it rises all the way up and then writes a message about End Stop. This of course happens also on "start print", "level bed", etc. Before the Auto Home command, I can operate the Z axis normally, after it, the printer does not allow movement down. Do you have any ideas, what might have gone wrong?

The mystery is solved. The BlTouch probe was slightly blocked and reported (supposedly) being in touch with the plate. Just touching it released the probe from the stuck position and all works well now. Due to direct sunlight, I overlooked the warning blinking red colour of the BlTouch.

PLA Issue printing first 3 mm with Ender 3 Pro I´ve tried tunning printer settings with different Nozzle(190-210 ºC)/ Bed(0-60 ºC) Temperatures, Fan Speeds (0-100 %), Cura and Slicer adjustemens but nothing worked. I still get the same bubbles in the first 3 mm of every print. I also tried a glass bed and the magnetic bed that comes with Ender 3 pro and the result is still the same. The last thing I tried was moving the 0 position of the Z axis 10 mm up, but it didn´work. What else could I try? Any idea of which could be the issue. Thanks in advance.

This answer hints to the correct diagnosis but doesn't explain how to fix this in Cura or any other solution other than babysteps. You don't want to adjust babysteps at every print... Basically, your nozzle is too close to the bed (from comment 0.1 mm to be exact). To increase the distance between the nozzle and the bed you can: level with a little thicker paper, move the bed down on all corners, move the Z endstop up, redefine the Z=0 in your start code, G1 Z0.1 ; Move to 0.1 mm height G92 Z0 ; Redefine zero height install Cura plugin "Z Offset Setting" from fieldOfView (through the Cura Marketplace) and define a Z Offset of 0.1 mm, and/or increase the first layer height a little.

Changes rods for linear rails I would like to know if it is possible to change the rollers for linear rails, just replacing or some calculation should be done and take some precautions. In my case, I have a Core XY DIY printer. I was reading about need to migrate of 8 Bits to 32 Bits, because for get better resolution, results and should be update more things, like add autolevel, etc.

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.

Using HIPS as support for PLA printing? I have a question. I have a dual extruder printer and I want to try using HIPS for printing. Can I use PLA as my main material and HIPS for supports? Searching online I found combinations of ABS + HIPS mentioned. No where is it mentioned that It can be used.

You can as PLA is not affected by Limonene (the chemical used to dissolve the HIPS) but it is not recommended as the print temperatures for each material (~180C for PLA and ~230C for HIPS) are quite far apart and the PLA may not stick to the HIPS. A better choice would be PVA which prints ~185C and dissolves in water but this material has its own set of fun issues. *Temperatures are estimates, different vendors may have different temperatures.

Magnetic heatbed options - can I trim these to size? I'm looking at options for removable heatbed surfaces for my Prusa Mk2 clone, which has a MK42 bed, 250x210mm I have a removable spring steel plate at the moment, but it is not dependably flat - there are often issues with patchy filament adhesion or oversquashing, as it has bumps in it. I'm looking at a magnetic solution instead. Does anyone have experience of this type of stick-on magnetic surface? Any drawbacks? Can I trim it to size? I can't see any which are 250 x 210

Adhesion and sizing First of all, the product you link is very likely a BuildTak clone or a similar product. My Ender 3 came with a similar one and I have changed to a different one after I ripped it off accidentally to mount a similar one. I have yet to find a sheet of this material that you can't cut to size, as it is pretty much only a polymer with a strong tape on one side and a rough surface on the other. So trimming is not a problem at all. Mounting To mount your new surface, you need to get a surface onto your heatbed that has good contact on all the area securely holds the bed in place is as flat as possible So you surely want to get a metal sheet that is as flat as possible to mount your surface on. If your bed is heated, your mounting method needs to transfer the heat as good as possible, so a direct contact to the heated bed would be good. This, however, rules out most thin magnets, as these magnet sheets demagnetize under heat, limiting the usability for higher temperature materials, for example, ABS. The original Prusa uses a spring steel bed and high-temperature magnets embedded in the heating platform to work around this.

Oven/Food safe Filament? I just backed a 3d printer on kickstarter, called "Mooz", and I was wondering about some of the possible applications of it. I realized it would be cool/helpful to be make cookie models, and bake cookies to that shape. The cookies can be baked as low as around 250 °F, So is there any food-safe and heat resistant filament that can withstand those temperatures? (I know many filaments are printed above those temps anyways, but in my case I don't want them to even warp.) Google has failed me on this one, so I hope someone here can answer it for me! -Thanks in advance :) P.S. My 3d printer will have a heated bed, so it can print more types of filaments. The highest bed temp is 100 °C, and the highest hot end temp is 250 °C. I don't really mind using some sealant, but I'd rather not use something toxic like ABS. P.P.S I'm a newbie to this stuff, so I apologize in advance if I asked a really stupid question.

Don't try to bake cookies inside a plastic mold; the plastic will smoke even if not melt. If you need to bake cookies use a cookie cutter made of plastic (your own design or copy) obviously printed on your new printer then bake normally. here is a link from thingeverse to get a cookie cutter .stl file :) enjoy cutting cookies these holidays Here is another link from hacks from one person is making the same to show his idea.

Homing the 3D printer I have just built my first 3D printer, and I am having some problems. It is a Cartesian based 3D printer, using Marlin firmware and Pronterface software. My problem is homing the 3D printer. I do not have a probe to calibrate the z offset but I have all 6 endstops. The problem is that the "ZMIN" endstop isn't precise enough and my hotend is always either too far from or too close to the heatbed. Is there a way to manually set the home position, so when I start the printer, It just starts printing and it doesn't have to home again; Or maybe some other way to set the correct offset. It would also be helpful if I could use just the "ZMAX" plug, and then manually set the minimum Z position using a piece of paper.

It is possible to "home a printer" without having endstops, technically, you don't require endstops, but it makes your job a lot easier if you want to print something! Basically, when you don't have endstops or limit switches, you need to define where the head of the printer is located. E.g. you can set the nozzle at [0, 0, 0] (origin in [x, y, z]) and add the command G92 to your print G-code file that it is at that position using G92 X0 Y0 Z0 (or any other location you use, e.g. you could engineer a parking position and refer to that position instead, note that you also need to write the movement commands to get out of that location safely). Don't forget to remove the homing command from your start code in your slicer, replace G28 with the G92 command with appropriate X, Y and Z values. Regarding the inaccurate repetitive accuracy of your Z min endstop, it might be worth to find out why this is causing such a spread in triggering, maybe you need to invest in some new endstop switches or look more closely to the heated bed attachment to the frame. Using Z max as a reference point is e.g. used by Ultimaker machines. The heated platform lowers to Z max; the printer knows from calibration and geometry how far it needs to rise to get to Z=0.

Creality CR-10 Clogs and Underextrusion - Filament at fault? I've been printing successfully on my CR-10 for the past year now. I've had issues now and then but have been able to look around the internet and solve them. I've been using some Flashforge white PLA with great results. Example: Last week I got a couple of new rolls of filament, black and orange. SinceI tried printing with them, I've got nothing but jams. The white prints fine, however. I dug around online and found this was happening to my printer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vH_spN5wyw So yesterday I opened up my hotend to clean it out and got quite a bit of gunk out: I also changed my nozzle. I printed some with the old white PLA and printed fine. The moment I switched over to the new orange filament, it jammed after a few layers. I ensured my nozzle was tightened and then got to measuring the filament. The older white one is 1.75mm in most places with some at 1.73mm. The new ones that I got are pretty inconsistent - the orange one ranging from 1.68mm to 1.72mm; I found very few places where it was actually 1.75mm. The black one averaged 1.72mm. So I made the change in my slicer but even then the first layer was visibly underextruding and it jammed soon after. I took apart the hotend and cleaned it out. Now, I put the white one back and its back printing fine. Should I go ahead and return the filament?

Not all filaments are created equal. Even with the very same manufacturer, the addition of colorful pigments can change the needed printing temperature a lot! I have had a white china PLA that was giving ok quality at 200°C, but the same brand's clear PLA only took 195°C to print. My white Kaisertech prints better at the 200°C while orange needs a little more, something about 205°C - this is the same brand and manufacturer mind you. The matte "natural" PLA I have even needs some more heat, 210°C. As a rule of thumb: Printing temerature is filament dependant. Test around (there are temperature tests - use them!) to find the ideal one for each brand and color combo you have. It is also a goood idea to replace the claps on the Bowden tube, if the plugs appear more often.

Anet A8 inconsistent filament flow I have been attempting to get my Anet to print for a couple months now. Haven't had a huge amount of time but when I have I've worked on it. A lot of the problems I have had I have been able to trouble shoot, for example for a while I was unable to get any filament to lay, and I have since fixed this issue. Now however my filament will extrude but it is very spacey, and not solid. I have tried re-calibrating the bed, un-clogging the extruder, and increasing the flow rate but nothing works. Is it possible that I have a bad board and that is causing my problem? [

The skirt looks ok, which tends to rule out the most extreme flow or blockage issues. However, skirt/bottom layer can be over-squashed so not ideal for calibration. I assume this is intended to be a 100% layer rather than infill. It looks like you're achieving about 50% infill, which is a good clue. I guessed (and confirmed in comments) that you are set for 3mm filament, but using 1.75? (I had cura default to this on me not long ago, despite printing perfectly before, and no intentional changes). One easy check would have been to try one of the provided pre-sliced models that came with the printer. The effect of configuring for 3mm filament is to reduce flow by a factor of 3 (diameter squared), so even a 50% over extrusion still leaves you with less than half the plastic volume required. After fixing this, you will need to raise the Z-home position slightly to enable the first layer to extrude properly.

Is there any 3D-printing software that supports Raspberry Pi? My only functional computer at the moment is a raspberry pi, and I was wondering if there was any software that supported it. My printer is a Newmatter mod-t, but I might be able to modify other software to support it

The answer is "yes", but it depends on what hardware you have, what operating system you are using, and what software you want (or need) to use. I have a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of memory, and I am running a 32-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS. I have been able to install the following software from the Raspberry Pi OS repositories, but not everything is working "out of the box": Blender 2.79 (starts, but not tested) Cura 3.3.1 (crashes on startup) FreeCAD 0.18 (crashes when opening a new document) PrintRun (PronterFace) 1.6.0 (working) PrusaSlicer (Slic3r PE) 1.39.2 (working) Repetier-Host 0.85 (crashes on startup) Slic3r 1.3.0 (working) I have been able to download the 3DBenchy from Thingiverse, slice it using Slic3r, and PrintRun (PronterFace) is currently printing it on my Tronxy X1. I will update this answer if I can get the other stuff working, since I would quite like to use a Raspberry Pi for 3D design and printing. If I can get FreeCAD working, I shall be happy, and OpenSCAD would be a welcome bonus, but I don't think that it has been ported.

Are there any metals that exhibit a large glass state? Plastic is used in 3D FDM/FFF printing partly because it had a wide temperature range for its glass state - where it can be flowed with some force, but won't flow due only to gravity. Most metals have a very narrow, or non-existant, glass state. They transition from solid to liquid with almost no flowable-but-not-liquid state. Are there any metals or alloys that display a glass transition state?

A few things are required for effective extrusion-style 3d printing materials: It must stay where placed by the nozzle long enough to harden (or, alternately for pastes and such, have a shear-thinning or thixotropic viscous profile so it will not flow under its own weight). If using a filament extruder, it must have a wide range of viscosity that varies gradually over a considerable temperature range. This is necessary to develop the proper "cap zone" semi-melt shearing behavior that allows the incoming filament to act like a piston and generate pressure upstream of the nozzle. Pellet extruders have a similar requirement but related to screw/wall shearing rather than filament/wall shearing. If using neither filament nor pellets, such as clay printers, the material must be pumpable by a positive-displacement pump. (It is possible to pump molten metal, but the cost is quite high.) It must form some kind of bond with previously-deposited solid material, without needing to be in a state that will rapidly flow and lose shape. It must have some combination of low shrinkage, the ability to creep at the printer's ambient temp, and/or low stiffness that allows consecutive layers to be stacked without an unacceptable amount of warping. Liquid metals tend to have a conflict between "Staying where you put it" and "bonding with the previous layer." In order for deposited metal to fully bond, the interface material needs to reach the melting point so a true fusion weld occurs. And in order to supply enough heat to remelt the interface without an additional heat source like an arc, the deposited molten metal needs to be very hot. So it will tend to run while it cools. High density and high heat capacity makes it run fast and cool slowly. Pretty much every DIY metal 3d print (such as made by wire-feed MIG welders) ends up looking something like this: https://3dprint.com/29944/diy-metal-printing-garage/ In comparison, polymers have long molecular chains that allow them to "diffusion weld" and adhere WITHOUT fully remelting the interface. Molten liquid plastic will stick to solid plastic quite effectively. The interface only needs to get hot enough for appreciable diffusion to intertwine the molecular chains. This will occur between the glass point and melting point, without true fusion occurring. So you can print molten plastic at a temperature where it will stay in place long enough to harden, and still get good bonding. Metals also tend to be very stiff, which encourages warping. It is difficult to build a heated environment of sufficient temperature to properly stress-relieve the thermal contraction stress as the print progresses, whereas with plastic a heated build plate and warm enclosure can permit warping stresses to start relaxing as the print progresses. It is possible to "FDM-style" 3d print filament/wire made of metal alloys that have a wide range between solidus and liquidus. It has been done using solder and similar alloys. However, between the warping stresses, poor layer bonding from inadequate interface re-melting, and use of soft low-melting alloys, the resulting printed parts will usually end up being weaker than if they had simply been printed in a strong plastic. For example, PEEK is nearly as strong as aluminum, and carbon fiber or fiberglass composite plastics can exceed metals on various performance metrics. So what's the point of printing with weak, brittle metal alloys? Over the years, lots of people have tried FDM-style metal printing, but no one has found it worthwhile to pursue in the long run. More typical DIY metal printing approaches like 3D MIG welding following by cleanup machining will produce better results.

What is the purpose of partial (<100%) backlash correction? Marlin has an option to fade out the amount of backlash correction, given as BACKLASH_CORRECTION. It is also available in GCode as M425 [F&lt;value&gt;], where 0.0 = none and 1.0 = 100%. Assuming backlash correction is otherwise well tuned at 100%, when is useful to reduce its effect? Why not always keep it at 100%?

The developers explained the use of the M425 code themselves. We devised a routine for measuring Z backlash automatically during G29 and found that software backlash compensation does wonders for the first layer. However, this comes at the expense of artifacts on the rest of the print. In particular, any rapid motions of the motor to try to take up any backlash will inevitably create a small pause and vibration, leading to a seam in the print. We devised a smoothing algorithm that allowed backlash correction to be gradually applied over a distance, this eliminated any harsh transitions, which again lead to a huge improvement. Alas, we learned that the feature was very sensitive to the variances in the printer build, working amazingly well in some cases, but leading to a degraded quality other printers. This perhaps is a feature that could be used by someone who wished to hand tune the algorithm, but not something we could use in a mass produced printer. ... &quot;M425 F&quot; sets a value from 0 to 1 which is multiplied by the backlash distance. This command is meant for use by the slicer, and allows it to &quot;fade&quot; away the backlash compensation gradually over several layers, or to turn it off completely after the first layer (with a &quot;M425 F0&quot;).

BiLinear bed leveling My G29 command reports +0.178 +0.281 +0.830 -0.614 -0.012 +0.371 -1.208 -0.849 -0.351 So should I tighten up the screw of the bed, close to 0,0 position or loosen it? I have a feeling that when I loosen it, it gets away from zero and I expect the opposite to happen. For bed leveling i use a capacitive probe and after playing around with the screws here is the result +0.406 +0.127 +0.411 -0.161 -0.007 -0.041 -0.572 -0.652 -0.668 Finally the leveling process was found here But the question remains. The value -0.572 corresponds close to 0,0 ?

Proper leveling using plain "A4" or "Letter" paper is recommended. Level the bed by first homing all axes, then level each corner and at mid-span. In between leveling (by dragging the nozzle head from one to another position, beware of the hot nozzle!) redirect the nozzle to "Z=0" or home Z and instruct the printer to go to "Z=0". Note that capacitive probe sensors are inaccurate, they tend to be influenced by the humidity of air. Running Marlin Firmware and instructing a G29 trough a terminal gives me something in the region of the unity matrix: Recv: Bed Level Correction Matrix: Recv: +0.999994 +0.000000 -0.003585 Recv: +0.000003 +1.000000 +0.000823 Recv: +0.003585 -0.000823 +0.999993 Running the command G29 P3 V4 gives: NOTE: P Set the size of the grid that will be probed (P x P points) V Set the verbose level (0-4) Recv: G29 Auto Bed Leveling Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 22.000 Z: 0.138 Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 22.000 Z: 0.071 Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 22.000 Z: -0.842 Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 97.000 Z: -0.427 Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.083 Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.086 Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 172.000 Z: 0.004 Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 172.000 Z: 0.019 Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 172.000 Z: -0.297 Recv: Eqn coefficients: a: -0.00356075 b: 0.00080090 d: 2.38097906 Recv: Mean of sampled points: 2.07054519 Recv: Recv: Bed Height Topography: Recv: +--- BACK --+ Recv: | | Recv: L | (+) | R Recv: E | | I Recv: F | (-) N (+) | G Recv: T | | H Recv: | (-) | T Recv: | | Recv: O-- FRONT --+ Recv: (0,0) Recv: 0.13385 0.14866 -0.16731 Recv: 0.21531 0.21284 -0.29814 Recv: 0.26715 0.20050 -0.71286 Recv: Recv: Corrected Bed Height vs. Bed Topology: Recv: 0.12837 0.44228 0.42541 Recv: 0.26990 0.56653 0.35465 Recv: 0.38180 0.61425 0.00000 Recv: Recv: Bed Level Correction Matrix: Recv: +0.999994 +0.000000 -0.003561 Recv: +0.000003 +1.000000 +0.000801 Recv: +0.003561 -0.000801 +0.999993 Running the command G29 P3 V4 again, but now with my vernier on the bed (opposite to the side of the origin, on the right side of the bed; vernier under probing points 3 and 4), gives: Recv: G29 Auto Bed Leveling Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 22.000 Z: -0.003 Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 22.000 Z: -0.050 Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 22.000 Z: **5.709** Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 97.000 Z: **5.892** Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.007 Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.039 Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 172.000 Z: -0.023 Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 172.000 Z: 0.017 Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 172.000 Z: -0.329 Recv: Eqn coefficients: a: 0.02233918 b: -0.01331358 d: 2.30744504 Recv: Mean of sampled points: 3.45099973 Recv: Recv: Bed Height Topography: Recv: +--- BACK --+ Recv: | | Recv: L | (+) | R Recv: E | | I Recv: F | (-) N (+) | G Recv: T | | H Recv: | (-) | T Recv: | | Recv: O-- FRONT --+ Recv: (0,0) Recv: -1.27376 -1.23426 -1.57986 Recv: -1.21205 -1.24414 4.64083 Recv: -1.25401 -1.30091 4.45816 Recv: Recv: Corrected Bed Height vs. Bed Topology: Recv: 4.05814 2.22162 0.00000 Recv: 3.12192 1.21381 5.22275 Recv: 2.08203 0.15910 4.04215 Recv: Recv: Bed Level Correction Matrix: Recv: +0.999750 +0.000000 +0.022334 Recv: +0.000297 +0.999911 -0.013306 Recv: -0.022332 +0.013309 +0.999662 From the snippets you can see that the topology is printed in the output. You also see the vernier of about 4.5 mm comming back in the matrices. But the 4.5 mm thickness of the vernier is not easily found in the correction matrix! The answer to your question is that the origin is in the lower left of the matrix, so you need to loosen the origin screw in the first example (this matrix shows you that the bed is highest at the right-back and lowest at the origin at the left-front). Your second example shows that the whole bed is tilted downwards to the front.

Delaminating in the middle area of photon printer I've been getting delaminating and other issues in the middle area of my Anycubic photon printer. Sometimes the print won't stick to the print bed and sometimes it delaminates like in the images below, but I'm only seeing issues in the middle of the printer. Anything along the edges of the print area prints without issue. I've tested the screen, it seems to work. No dead areas. I've tried multiple different prints (I only have issues in the middle area). The problem usually is early in the print but the size of the print does not seem to matter. The print bed does not appear to be warped. FEP tensioned using the Tuning method. The prints can be seen attracted to the print bed here. The part of it that is facing each other is where there were issues. Delamation example (both prints had the same issues) Settings used: Resin: Elegoo ABS-Like Grey Layer thickness: 50 µm Bottom layers exposure time: 100 s Number of bottom layers: 10 Normal layer exposure time: 11 s

The print you do is a sealed cup in the position it sits directly on the build plate. As a result, there is a column of resin in the cup as you print and at some point, the weakest spot delaminates, the air gets into the column and drains. Take the print and either angle it by a few degrees so the hole in the top becomes a vent or add a tiny extra vent-hole.

Does color changing PLA require a hardened nozzle? I've seen comments about glow-in-the-dark filament being abrasive and would damage a bronze nozzle so a hardened nozzle is recommended. Is the same true for filament that changes colour when warm (for example when held in your hands)?

The color changing material used in the filament is most likely a Leuco dye. There are several types and some can be abrasive (just like the glow in the dark dyes); but, they aren't like putting sand through your nozzle. Since brass is really soft, even something like the dyes can cause it to wear; but, it will take a while. The safest bet is to use a hardened nozzle; but, if you are just doing a small print then it probably won't be too hard on the brass nozzle either. I have heard of people printing an entire spool of glow-in-the-dark PLA with a brass nozzle then examining the nozzle and not noticing any wear. Also, some people like the better thermal characteristics of the brass over the steel; so, they just stick with the brass nozzle for everything and replace it when needed.

How to achieve dimensional accuracy of printed parts When designing parts that should either fit with external objects or other printed parts, what measures can one take to ensure that the dimensions of the final print are accurate and fit the other object? To my knowledge, you at least have two options to account for printer inaccuracy and shrinkage: Adjust the space around joints in your CAD model Adjust dimensional offsets in your slicer software Are there any good workflows one can use to design and print 3D-models accurately without resorting to trial and error?

Unfortunately, different firmwares and different slicers require different calibration techniques! There's a lot of software-specific advice out there, like printing a single-wall calibration box and measuring the wall thickness. That's a good technique for Slic3r, but not for Simplify3D. It can be very confusing. Here's the general outline of what you should do: Rough calibration check for printer steps/mm. Do the values in your firmware settings make sense for your linear motion hardware? For example, you can calculate what the theoretical values SHOULD be based on belt pitch and pulley tooth count. Print something moderately big (~100-200mm) and check if it's +/-1-2%. If it's off by more than that, your steps/mm is probably wrong. Check for mechanical backlash using a backlash-checking print like this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:252490 Tighten belts and perform other printer-specific tuning required to eliminate backlash. Backlash will throw off other calibration steps, so make sure there's no slop! Follow the recommended extrusion volume calibration steps for your slicer. This starts with measuring your filament diameter with calipers and inputting that into your slicer. And then you will usually either "print a single-walled box and measure the thickness" or "print a series of 100% infill calibration boxes and adjust the extrusion multiplier to the largest value that looks good without bulging." By measuring filament diameter and then adjusting an extrusion calibration setting in the slicer, you will be able to measure future filament and prints will come out right. Giving the slicer fake diameter values will force you to recalibrate every time the diameter changes. Note that you must redo this calibration for each FILAMENT MATERIAL and EXTRUDER DESIGN. Different material/extruder pairs will have different bite depths and effective drive diameter. Precision calibration check by printing a variety of object sizes and PLOTTING "desired size" as X and "actual size" as Y. Then find a linear fit equation, y=mx+b. (Do this separately for your printer's X, Y, and Z axes.) The value "m" is your scale error. You can use your slicer object scaling to fix this. For example, ABS usually requires 100.3-101% scaling to account for shrinkage. If you have scale error with a low-shrinkage material like PLA, you can adjust your firmware's steps/mm value to compensate. The value "b" is your fixed width error. Assuming you don't have backlash, this is usually caused by the small amount that molten plastic bulges out to the sides, or by extrusion volume calibration error. You can improve this by fine-tuning your extrusion volume. Many slicers also have "horizontal/XY size compensation" settings that you can use to shrink/expand the part by b/2 to correct the fixed width error. Any residual fixed-width error that you cannot correct with slicer settings should be added as a tolerance in your part models. If you follow these steps, you should get +/-0.1mm or better dimensional precision on your prints.* *Deltas not included. That's a whole other ball of wax.

3D model with errors when exporting to Cura I 3D modeled a cartoon car using Blender, mostly using add and subtract with boolean tools. When I export to Ultimaker Cura, I get these cuts along the model. Does anyone know why this is happening? Appreciate any feedback on the model. The blender file: https://github.com/dantedaiki/jQuery-File-Upload/blob/master/Cartoon%20Car.blend

In blender, you can occasionally have faces with flipped normals. Those areas then are &quot;inside out&quot;. Such areas are just ignored in Cura. Fixing the files is as simple as recalculating the normals, but you'd best use a program like NetFabb for for that.

Why don't 3D printer heads use ceramic inner walls? Why don't 3D printer heads use ceramic inner walls? PTFE tubes melt with high enough temperatures and all metal ends risk jamming as heat makes its way up the head.

It can be done cheaply, as two different users have proven, see A practical 10 Cents Ceramic tube hotend, and; Hotend with ceramic parts. However, as Paulster2 states in his answer, there are some technical issues with using it, which make it rather problematic. Apparently, in comparison with PTFE, the thermal conductivity of the ceramic in spark plugs is too high, to use (according to nophead - a user on the reprap forums), and there are friction/clogging issues, unless the inner diameter is very well polished. Synopsis of reference The RepRap user, hp_, encountered the issues above when attempting a design - from Ceramic Hotend - Part 1 Research As far as I know there are no ceramic hotends out there, I know nophead has tried some spark-plugs for nozzle holders but found them not suitable(thermal conductivity is pretty high). I wanted to give it a go, confident enough (I hoped), that it would work :) So in my case, a hotend exists out of 2 main parts, a nozzle holder and a nozzle. The nozzle is the easy part it would stay brass. The nozzle holder is the interesting part, here is what I've come-up with total length should be in the range of 35-40mm, see my first sketch below: here are many types of ceramic out there, ie. 95% AI2O3, 99% AI2O3, Zirconia (see material properties sheet Link) 95% AI2O3 is easy to buy but after a few tests the conclusion was its to brittle for my taste, second material to try is Zirconia. I've found a few Chinese ceramic manufactures. Only draw back I had to order 10 pieces for the first batch.. on something that has never been tested, well I'd give it a shot.... and ordered the parts. but the clogging issue mentioned above was encountered: ...after the first layer, it just stopped extruding.. ugh!!! what could be wrong???? Possible root causes - Friction coefficient? Meaning after awhile the friction between PLA and the Ceramic became so high it would just jam the nozzle holder. Stickiness? Could it be that after awhile PLA would just stick to the Ceramic and would jam because of this? PLA thermal expansion( nozzle holder barrel is to small?) so the inner diameter of this nozzle holder is 3.2mm, could it be that the 3.0mm filament would expand so much because of the heat, that it would start to jam the nozzle holder? Connection between nozzle and nozzle holder is insufficient cause the Jam?? The user was forced to return to using PTFE. From Ceramic hotend part-2, after some rework done by the Chinese manufacturer, the new hotends worked correctly: Awhile ago i stared working on the ceramic hotend and found out the first version wouldn't work for 3.0mm fillament, after some discussion with my chinese counterpart :) i got a new version of the ceramic piece. They polished the inside very deep and precise. and i gave it another go. and some more tinkering with the hotend and a new nozzle design, with a smaller Inner diameter, and its longer Apart from that the details are a little sparse. Additional information From J-head with ceramic body instead of PEEK, specifically this post: Just to be clear, it's Ceramic Zirconium. My concern was that Zirconium becomes brittle when it is exposed to heat for consecutive long periods of time. I would stay with PEEK. MgO or Yttria stabilized grades of Zirconium are very stable. Pure ZrO2 is known to crack, so additives are used to stabilize it. Key Properties of Zirconium Oxide Use temperatures up to 2400°C High density Low thermal conductivity (20% that of alumina) Chemical inertness Resistance to molten metals Ionic electrical conduction Wear resistance High fracture toughness High hardness Typical Uses of ZrO2 Precision ball valve balls and seats High density ball and pebble mill grinding media Rollers and guides for metal tube forming Thread and wire guides Hot metal extrusion dies Deep well down-hole valves and seats -Powder compacting dies Marine pump seals and shaft guides Oxygen sensors High temperature induction furnace susceptors Fuel cell membranes Electric furnace heaters over 2000°C in oxidizing atmospheres Zirconium oxide Zirconium oxide is used due to its polymorphism. It exists in three phases: monoclinic, tetragonal, and cubic. Cooling to the monoclinic phase after sintering causes a large volume change, which often causes stress fractures in pure zirconia. Additives such as magnesium, calcium and yttrium are utilized in the manufacture of the knife material to stabilize the high-temperature phases and minimize this volume change. The highest strength and toughness is produced by the addition of 3 mol% yttrium oxide yielding partially stabilized zirconia. This material consists of a mixture of tetragonal and cubic phases with a bending strength of nearly 1200 MPa. Small cracks allow phase transformations to occur, which essentially close the cracks and prevent catastrophic failure, resulting in a relatively tough ceramic material, sometimes known as TTZ (transformation toughened zirconia). Zirconium dioxide is one of the most studied ceramic materials. Pure ZrO2 has a monoclinic crystal structure at room temperature and transitions to tetragonal and cubic at increasing temperatures. The volume expansion caused by the cubic to tetragonal to monoclinic transformation induces very large stresses, and will cause pure ZrO2 to crack upon cooling from high temperatures. Several different oxides are added to zirconia to stabilize the tetragonal and/or cubic phases: magnesium oxide (MgO), yttrium oxide, (Y2O3), calcium oxide (CaO), and cerium(III) oxide (Ce2O3), amongst others. In the late 1980s, ceramic engineers learned to stabilize the tetragonal form at room temperature by adding small amounts (3–8 mass%) of calcium and later yttrium or cerium. Although stabilized at room temperature, the tetragonal form is “metastable,” meaning that trapped energy exists within the material to drive it back to the monoclinic state. The highly localized stress ahead of a propagating crack is sufficient to trigger grains of ceramic to transform in the vicinity of that crack tip. In this case, the 4.4% volume increase becomes beneficial, essentially squeezing the crack closed (i.e., transformation decreases the local stress intensity). and the following post Thermal conductivity: Diamond thermal conductivity: 1000 W/(m·K). Copper thermal conductivity: 385 to 401 W/(m·K). Aluminum: 205 W/(m·K). Stainless steel 16 W/(m·K). Granite: 1.7 to 4 W/(m·K). Zirconia has a typical thermal conductivity of 1.7 to 2.2 W/(m·K). Porcelain has a typical thermal conductivity of 1.5 to 5 W/(m·K). Glass thermal conductivity: 1.05 W/(m·K). Rulon As an aside, again from J-head with ceramic body instead of PEEK, specifically this post: Rulon was one material we used. I think it is a glass filled ptfe. The mechanical strength is far better than solid ptfe and it is easy to machine. There are many grades but Rulon AR for example will withstand 288 deg C. but there are inconsistencies in quality Rulon i looked at a while ago, there are plenty of options with it, however the cost of some of these materials can be incredibly high, and in some cases availability is a serious problem, and the difference country to country is borderline criminal in some cases

SKR 1.4 Turbo - Withhout SD-card reader, bricked? Unfortunately and regrettably. Whilst trying to install and fit an SKR Turbo 1.4 Turbo Motherboard into 3D printer body, I managed to break the SKR 1.4 Turbo Motherboard SD-card reader. The card reader is not flush and protrudes from the board. It peeled the reader from the PCB. I attempted to fix it without success. I have since removed it from the controller board (the original SD-Card Reader PCB pads are not intact so connecting a new SD-Card Reader in place is not possible) Have I bricked my brand new controller board? Please can anyone suggest (If possible): Is there a way that this could be rectified in respect to uploading/flashing the Marlin 2 firmware to the SKR 1.4 Turbo without the original SD-Card Reader Module? I am under the impression I may be able to use a programmer of some description to upload the firmware? Installation of a new SD-Card Reader that could be used instead of the built in default SD-Card Reader? I think I would be required to first modify Marlin and then flash the motherboard firmware? Then perhaps be able to connect another SD-Card reader to the motherboard via SPI or alternative e.g wires to the respective pins on the reverse of the board? Could somebody kindly point me in the right direction? I would appreciate some guidance if this indeed possible?

You may get lucky flashing firmware with the STM Cube Programmer, though I haven't tried that. The schematic for the SKR 1.4 Turbo shows that the relevant pins for the SD card are also accessible via the 2x3 SPI header - except for the P0.27 pin used for &quot;SD DETECT&quot;, which you may have to circumvent. I believe you should be able to use an &quot;SDRamps&quot; module and connect that to the SPI header via jumper cables.