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Is lubricating filament a good idea? With respect to Himanshu's comment about applying a lubricant to PLA filament, and then having read the Reddit thread, Seasoning all-metal hot ends with oil?, pointed to in 0scar's answer, I was wondering if any studies have been done on the topic?
If so, what is the general consensus? From the Reddit thread it seems as if the better quality branded hotends, such as E3D do not require it, whereas the older, or less well finished clones, may well benefit from such treatment.
In addition, which oil is preferable, animal, vegetable or mineral? Is vaseline a good idea?
Also, would the advice differ if ABS filament is used, or would the same conditions apply? | I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this is probably not a good idea in any capacity.
First off, if you take a look at this list of cooking oils, you'll notice that pretty much all of them have smoke points below the printing temperature of ABS, with a handful of exceptions that have smoke points just barely above that temperature. All that means is that the hydrocarbon chains are going to break down inside your extruder, which really accomplishes nothing helpful for you. As the compounds break down further and oxidize with the small amounts of air coming into the extruder, you're going to get carbon fouling on all surfaces, including the filament itself as it extrudes.
Second, and this depends entirely on the amount of oil present, but I'd expect to see oil actually coating the filament somewhat as it comes out of the nozzle, and acting as a separating agent between the lines of filament on the print itself. I'm not sure how much you'd actually experience this, but again, best case scenario is it doesn't happen, and the oil doesn't give you any real advantage here.
Third, the process of seasoning cast iron works because the surface of the cast iron should be smooth for minimal food sticking, and any kind of rusting causes pits and porosity in the metal. Seasoning just ensures that oil stays in the metal to prevent moisture from interacting with it, and to provide a very thin oil layer that somewhat separates food from the metal until the food is hot enough that its own fats have started to lubricate it against the pan. Extruders on the other hand really shouldn't have porous surfaces nor be made of easily oxidized materials. Stainless heatbreaks, aluminum blocks, brass nozzles, all of these really aren't going to rust readily and probably won't benefit much from an oil coating.
Fourth, if you're looking for a nonstick coating for the interior of the extruder, a PTFE liner has been known to give excellent results for a very long time now. If you're printing above the temperatures PTFE can survive at, then unfortunately you're also printing above the temperatures that pretty much any cooking oil (or petroleum jelly) will survive without rapidly breaking down.
So to summarize, you're not going to find many oils that can even survive inside an extruder, and they wouldn't really give you many benefits for the duration of time that they weren't just a charcoal slurry. |
Filament starts extruding as soon as hotend reaches melting point I have a homemade 3D printer running on ramps 1.4
When i start a new print and the hotend reaches melting point of PLA, the PLA start coming out of the hotend.
This goes on for as long as the temperature is kept above melting point, without moving the extrusion gear.
The extruder is a bowden type.
Hotend is a J-head.
I am currently using simplify if that makes any difference regarding configuration.
Any ideas what to do to prevent this from happening? | Any ideas what to do to prevent this from happening?
You cannot prevent it entirely, but you can probably mitigate the problem by depressing the lever that squashes the filament against the hobbed gear of the extruder before starting to heat the nozzle.
In bowden extruders, the long portion of filament between the stepper motor and the nozzle is subject to compression during the print. Because of the hysteresis in the filament, and of the slack between filament and PTFE tube, this filament acts like a slow-releasing compression spring. When the nozzle cools down, the potential energy stored in the filament is "frozen" in place.
By depressing the lever, you allow the spring to extend "backward" towards the spool, rather than "forward" through the nozzle.
Some oozing is still bound to happen because of gravity and - as highlighted by others - thermal expansion, but it should be significantly less.
If you adopt the lever trick, remember to print with a skirt, as you will want the printer to recreate that "compression" in the filament before the model proper begins.
Another way to address the issue would be to add a little bit of retraction in the closing stanza of your GCODE (the part where you also tell the printer to unpower the steppers and stop heating). This will prevent any "compression" to be "frozen" in the first place.
This anwer is based on the assumption that the stepper motor is not actively spinning (i.e.: yours is not a hardware/firmware issue). |
PLA continuous operative temperature For personal usage, indoor, I'm doing some experiments with following lamp (v0.1):
Lamp is a led bulb enclosed in a methacrylate tube and with a 3D printed finish at the top using PLA (my first 3d print ;-).
In some www pages (by example, here) I've read that the led buld radiator can reach 90º C. Experimentally, the methacrylate and the PLA feels only slightly hot, I suppose around 40ºC.
According to www info, PLA has a melting point of 150ºC, far from this usage, but a continuous operative temperature of only 40ºC ( !? this made 3d printing unable in a country as my own one, where ambient in summer is around 40ºC).
So, my question, is PLA a valid material for this application? If not, some other one better?
Thanks a lot. | EvilTeach's answer is correct, ABS is a more reliable plastic for any kind of work which may get above what feels "hot to the touch."
Just to elaborate on the why: the property you're looking for in the thermoplastic (which will determine the continuous operating temperature) is glass transition temperature. This is the point at which the plastic begins to flow, and becomes deformable as EvilTeach described. PLA reaches this state at around 60 °C, whereas ABS is around 105 °C, just suiting your specifications. To go a bit further, polycarbonate offers a glass transition temperature of around 150 °C, and Ultem at 217 °C. So there's a thermoplastic for everyone, you just need to know what you're looking for! |
PET-G under-extrusion after changing the nozzle to a 1.2 mm d. one (Prusa i3 mk3s and PrusaSlicer v2.0) PET-G is the main filament I use. I can achieve high quality of my prints with my Prusa i3 mk3s printer. Recently however, I've recently changed my nozzle from the default 0.4mm to the 1.2mm. I watched the online video tutorial on how to do it properly and did the whole process carefully.
Temperature: 250 °C/100 °C
Speed: max 200 %, but results are the same even all the higher ones .
Layer height: 0.35 mm
With my first print (and the next ones too) on the new nozzle I noticed lots of under-extrusion with infill (holes). LOTS of stringing although I've increased retraction. What's the reason ? | Piecing this answer together from the comments on OP's post.
Myself and R.. noted that a layer height of 0.35 mm, nozzle width of 1.2 mm, and a fairly high feedrate (200 % according to OP, no reference to what 100 % is), is an exceptionally large amount of plastic to try and melt through almost any hotend on the market except possibly the Volcano, or the high-throughput version of the Mosquito.
OP responded that lowering the layer height to 0.2 mm seemed to fix the issue. That's still an impressive amount of plastic, but it's a 43 % decrease in total flow compared to 0.35 mm layer height. |
PLA filament not feeding correctly with Ultimaker 2+ I've got the following PLA filament that is not feeding correctly into our Ultimaker 2+
It starts to feed and then all of the sudden, the wire 'eats' (read breaks, but not entirely) the plastic filament as you can see on the picture below:
Any hints are more than welcomed. | The photograph and your description indicate that the drive gear is eating the filament because the filament has stopped moving. The least likely problem would be that something is jammed at the spool or between the spool and the entry to the drive mechanism.
The more likely problem is that your nozzle is clogged. It is simple to determine if that is the case. If you have a direct drive mechanism (not a bowden tube type), remove all the filament and release the wheel or bearing that presses the filament against the hobbed pulley, which is the part connected to the motor or driven gear if you have a geared mechanism.
Heat the nozzle up to correct temperature for PLA and attempt to push filament through the nozzle. If it does not move, your nozzle is clogged and has to be cleared.
A nozzle clog can be caused by a too-low temperature or a too-high temperature resulting in burned material becoming jammed in the nozzle.
If you have a 0.40 nozzle, find that size of nozzle tool or use a 0.40 mm drill bit and carefully push and turn it into the nozzle.
Also consider to use nylon cleaning method. This involves heating the nozzle to the correct temperature for melting nylon filament, forcing it into the hot end, then allowing it to cool. Reheating it while pulling on the filament will remove some of the debris. Eventually, it will pass through the nozzle and will also pull out clean, with no debris on the end of the filament. It is suggested to research "nylon cleaning method" to learn correct temperatures.
I have used the nylon cleaning method and have removed debris from overheated filament in the past. I have been able to shine a bright light from below and see the open nozzle after completing the process.
The above steps are identical for bowden type systems and require to remove the bowden tube to access the hot end more effectively. The tube can be removed from either the hot end or the drive end, but force is more effectively applied if the tube is removed from the hot end. |
Repeatedly Clogged Printrbot Simple Extruder I have a Printrbot Simple Metal. The extruder is getting clogged all the time. I went through the process demonstrated here multiple times already. Heatting the extruder and pushing different tools all the way through to make sure it is completely clear.
Every time I get a clear flow of PLA, and after a few minutes the extruder motor starts clicking again. At that point, it is even hard to push in the filament by hand.
I replaced the tip already, but this didn't make any difference. I also tried few different filaments, all of them worked perfectly before.
It feels like stopping the flow even for about 30 seconds would cause it to jam. | I had a similar issue on my Printrbot Simple Metal. I believe my problem was initially caused by clogged nozzle which I replaced, however the jamming persisted. I can't say for sure that it was acting exactly as you describe but I think it may have been similar. I noticed that the little red insulating sleeve was pushed up higher than it was when I got it from Printrbot. When I lowered this my problem seemed to go away. |
Slic3r under extrusion For last two weeks I have been struggling with flow rate adjustments. I'm using an UM2, colorFabb XT 1.75mm and Slic3r. Before printing a test cube I made flow rate adjustments using the "Perimeter test" (printed a hallow cube with 1 layer thin perimeter line). I then compared the desired value of the perimeter's width with the value from the g-code and adjusted the flow rate. I repeated this procedure until I got exactly the thickness I needed. After that, I printed a 15x15x15 mm cube and observed under extrusion on top layer. Also, the dimensions of the cube in the x-y plane were smaller than expected (0.4mm shorter than they should be). I have done this a few times now, and still get the same result. :/ Furthermore, I was unable to adjust width by dividing the desired value of the width of the perimeter by a real value, I got slightly smaller extrusion multiplier (One I got by division is 0.9 , but 9.5 relates to desired width). Do you have some suggestion guys?
Update:
I'll try to explain the calibration method I have used.
I have made in Solidwork 15x15x15 mm cube.
The cube was imported into Slic3r, where I have set the infill to 0% and number of sides shells equal to 1 and number of top and bottom shells equal to 0 (It gave me one layer thin wall in shape of cube).
I printed it out and measured the width using caliper and compared with the perimeter's width from g-code.
I have got something about 0.7, but the extrusion width in g-code is 0.65, so I changed extrusion multiplier by 0.65/0.7 = 0.93 (what is not actually true, because I got correct value on 0.95 only)
I have repeated the procedure for many times, and always got wrong dimensions and under extrusion.
There is the video about method I just have explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjE5udkNEA | It looks like you overtune it. I think it's because top layer of hollow object doesn't have any support (which is obvious) but because of that the filament is not oblate that's why it looks like underextruded.
If you really need hollow object then set number of top layers to 3..5 then check if it helps. I know it's not really what you expect but IMO this could help here. (I usually set 2 bottom layers and 3 top and it's quite enought.) You can also experiment with speed of top leyer. I would say the faster the better in this issue as the the first top layer should be as flat as possible then next top layer will have better support. And of course cooling should be set to max (as for the bridges).
Here is an explanation why you get underextrusion.
A is wall (perimeter) B is (ceiling) top layer.
Empty outlines are what you expect but filled shapes are what you really get. Differences are of course slightly smaller but it's to clearly explain the issue
Please also check Printer Settings > Advanced > Top solid infill. |
Support material first layer adhesion issues I am quite new to 3D printing, and having difficulty printing first layer of an object with support. The object has a few curved surfaces that touch the print bed, so not a big starting foot print.
I am printing on a genuine Prusa i3 mk2s, using PLA, 210 °C (clean from what I can tell) nozzle, 60 °C (clean, good condition) heat bed. My model is an STL from Thingiverse, and I sliced it with Prusa Control. Settings: 0.3 mm layers, 30 % infill, Support from build plate, brim on. I have run the printer calibration, z-axis calibration, etc. Only thing that might be a bit out is my z-axis might be a fraction too low. I have no issues when printing objects without support, and usually don't have issues printing objects with support (although typically these have a larger contact area of the object to the print bed as well)
After it prints the brim (which adheres well), it tries to print the support layers for the "actual" layers that will get printed first. These layers do not touch the outer brim. They go down with a little bit of "squeeze out" when the printer does a 180-degree turn. (this can be seen on the right hand end of first picture).
Then, it attempts to print the whole-of-base support structure (refer to pic 3 and 4 for details). Where these support layers touch the outer brim, they adhere well. When they touch the initial support layer sections, it tears them up, leaving a big mess.
What appears to me to be happening, is the small sections that get printed first (circled in red) are either not adhering well enough, or somehow getting "ruffled up", or are printed too close to the subsequent, broader strokes of the rest of the support layer, such that when the rest of the support layer is printed, it is tearing up the initial small sections. Having 2 densities of support layer per layer seems to be causing issues.
Failed print, still on the bed. At the right, there is a section of "fine" support material that sort of survived.
Close up of the failed first layer. The broad strokes seem to adhere well except for when they meet where the fine layer was - after that it's just a big mess.
Slicing in Prusa control (part 1): shows the different support structures and very minimal contact of actual object to the bed (orange)
Close up of other problem area in PC slicing. No actual contact of object to bed here. Also, as a side note, why the funny diagonal line cutting through the rest of the support structure here? | Quick, low-tech solution:
There might be several issues in your question, but in relation to bed adhesion, I'll share one of the most useful tips I wish someone had told me when I started out: Spread some glue-stick over the area to be printed.
I used ordinary school/craft glue stick (which I stole from my daughter's school pencil case) - the kind for gluing paper. I use a purple one, so it's easy to see and easy to clean up. I apply a little glue then smear it around with a wet finger to make it a bit uniform.
I have a heated bed (FlashForge Creator Pro) and have used this little trick with a range of filaments. In almost every case, it helps adhesion enormously. Parts and supports stick like mad! But they still come off easily enough the usual way. It is a weak glue, so it won't lock the part to the bed. Once the part is off, the purple glue is visible when wet, so it is dead easy to clean up the part and the bed in a minute or two.
This trick is so easy that it is worth trying first for any adhesion issues, before digging deeper. |
Why do the corners of my ABS object lift off the bed? I print ABS on a LulzBot Taz 5 and frequently have issues with the corners of objects lifting off the bed.
My extruder is at 230 °C and the bed is at 90 °C for the first layer and 100 °C for the rest of the layers.
I have experimented with using ABS slurry (ABS + acetone) on the bed for increased adhesion, building a foam enclosure for the printer, and varying the fan speed. I have noticed the problem is more common the taller the parts are and the sharper the corner is.
Adding ABS slurry helped for smaller parts (less than an inch tall) but with my more recent larger parts the adhesion to the bed was so good that the corners of the part lifting actually peeled the PEI tape off of the bed.
I have tried using both a skirt and a brim with no change. The skirt stays on the bed, the brim gets pulled up with the corner. | There are many different approaches to solving this issue and most of the answers already are spot-on. However, the fundamental reason for the "warping" is incorrect and inconsistent temperature across the material.
If there is too much fluctuation in the temperature across the object in this heated state can result in warping. The reason you see this mostly on the build plate is because the temperature of the first few layers of molten plastic vary much more against the build plate than against higher layers. Note that you can see additional warping mid-print using ABS and this can be a result of a draft or sudden drop in ambient temperature.
So, to help solve your problem, here are some suggestions (sorry if there are duplicates):
Completely enclose/seal your machine's build area to reduce (or eliminate if possible) draft and prevent the natural heat of the machine from escaping.
Increase the temperature on your build plate. I almost exclusively use ABS on my printer and I keep my HBP at about 112C. However, I live in the NW of the US, so my climate is naturally cooler than say Florida.
Alternatively, try decreasing the nozzle temperature to a lower point within the ABS melting range. This will just shorten the gap between the inconsistencies in temperature across layers. It is typically better to print at lower temperatures if you can help it. Obviously there are differences in the filament, so you'll have to find that "sweet spot".
Ensure your build plate is flat and your tape doesn't have bubbles. Your BP being flat should be a no brainer, but if your kapton tape (or whatever you use) has bubbles, your freshly printed plastic may not be getting the same temperature from the BP as the rest of your part. This is a bad thing as mentioned earlier.
Use extra adhesion techniques such as "ABS Glue" (ABS w/ acetone) or even hairspray. This works about 80% of the time for me, but can make it a bit difficult when removing the parts off the BP. |
How many times can you re-flash the Marlin firmware to a RAMPS 1.4 board before it degrades the ROM? First of all I'm working with a Folger Tech Prusa i3 kit, if that makes a difference. Also I believe the Arduino is a Mega 2560.
I know somewhere in the back of my head that electrically programmable ROM like what must be on the Arduino board storing the firmware degrades a little, each time you write to it. Right now I'm trying to calibrate away another print problem, and I think I need to modify the firmware yet again, which I've already done several times. So I'm starting to worry about how many times I can do that.
Well, once I remembered the acronym "EEPROM", and after a little googling, I came across this, Arduino - EEPROM, which says that it can handle 100k cycles, so I think I'm onto the answer, but the problem is I'm not sure if a cycle is an entire file being uploaded? Wouldn't it be a single blip of data? And if so how many cycles would the average Marlin file consume?
I also found this:
but I'd be very surprised if I've uploaded to it more than 2000 times
on Mega2560 bricked? not detected, DFU failing, indicating that the answer might be as low as 2000.
Also, this:
Failure modes
There are two limitations of stored information; endurance, and data
retention.
During rewrites, the gate oxide in the floating-gate transistors
gradually accumulates trapped electrons. The electric field of the
trapped electrons adds to the electrons in the floating gate, lowering
the window between threshold voltages for zeros vs ones. After
sufficient number of rewrite cycles, the difference becomes too small
to be recognizable, the cell is stuck in programmed state, and
endurance failure occurs. The manufacturers usually specify the
maximum number of rewrites being 1 million or more.[5]
During storage, the electrons injected into the floating gate may
drift through the insulator, especially at increased temperature, and
cause charge loss, reverting the cell into erased state. The
manufacturers usually guarantee data retention of 10 years or more.[6]
from Wikipedia: EEPROM - Failure Modes, indicating the answer might be into the millions.
At this point I'm just wondering if an expert might see this and relieve my angst... | The EEPROM is not where the program itself is stored, what's relevant for your question is the flash. The flash in the ATmega2560 is rated for 10,000 cycles (i.e. you can reprogram it at least 10,000 times). |
Octopi connecting just once to wifi Just starting with octoprint.
Bought a pi3A+,
Etched a 4Go micro sd card with the latest octopi distro (0.17.0)
Using a 5V bench power supply that delivers up to 10A.
Following official octopi instructions
I managed to connect once my pi to the wifi, configured it, but as soon as I reboot my pi, it won't connect to the wifi again.
Any hints?
Nothing helped me in the wifi troobleshooting FAQ.
I thought that I changed a particular config but :
without configuration change, I:
started the pi once
waited until the pi connects to the wifi
successfully pinged the pi via my PC
rebooted the pi
a new ping wouldn't work
I compared the files on the boot partition and only this changed:
freshly etched sd card:
cmdline.txt:
console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=6c586e13-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait quiet init=/usr/lib/raspi-config/init_resize.sh
card from rebooted device:
cmdline.txt:
console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=6c586e13-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait
there is no more differences. | What worked for me:
changed SD card from 2 GB to 16 GB (do not need so much)
power the pi with 5.4 V instead of 5 - 5.1 V |
Periodical under extrusion with Slic3r I got myself an Ender 3 printer, put it together and tried the test g-code, worked fine. But i sometimes have problems with under extrusion, as shown in the picture below.
As you can see, the part to the left is almost not printed, but the part to the right is fine. These "holes" are a lot of places, and i dont understand what is causing a temporary clog or whatever the problem may be.
Anyone know something about this problem? | What you experience is temporary under-extrusion. This could be a typical result of friction in the supply of filament to the extruder. I've run into this also a week ago when the shaft of the spool holder caught a plastic bag next to it which wrapped around the shaft creating a lot of friction. Friction can also be caused by filament that gets entangled on the spool, this is usually a problem if the spool unrolls too freely on the holder (too less friction);it unrolls a few windings, and then tightens those entangling the filament. Also, if you use 2.85 mm filament on small diameter spools, the last stretch of filament has the smallest curvature and as such requires the most force to pull it to the extruder (this can go in steps).
Furthermore, slipping of the extruder gear is also a (rare) possibility (when using a stepper directly to drive the extruder gear, a flat spot on the stepper shaft should prevent this).
Be sure to inspect the filament release from spool to extruder and try to see (and listen!) what happens when you print a part when you experience the under-extrusion. |
Editing arc in Marlin for 3d printing I'm working on designing a 3d printer with a team. The team is using marlin open source software and I started half way into project trying to make sense of things.
Apparently there is an issue with the wheels moving the print head and it always moves a few mm short in the of the desired position. Can some one tell me which part of the marlin code interprets the G-code file and controls movement? I'm thinking of increasing the distance in the x and y axis to correct this (seemingly) minor problem. | Since your team is designing a printer, you'll have to do some basic calculations to figure out your x and y axis steps per millimeter and then set them in your firmware.
For a decent primer in the basic idea, this video is a good start. For another decent getting started summary check this blog post
Also, since you're using Marlin, become very familiar with the Marlin Firmware and how to configure it. The setting you want to change exists in the configuration.h file. Documentation is included in the file, but you can find good information here in the Marlin Configuration instructions within the Marlin Firmware Github repo.
I hope this helps! :-) |
Can cheap hotend parts sourced from China actually produce good prints? TL;DR
Is it possible to build a hotend, using separate parts, sourced on eBay, from China, and still achieve a high quality print?
In my opinion, the E3D V6 hotend is rather expensive, at $/£70, especially to those building to a tight budget. Now, obviously/presumably, there is some quite rigorous QA and testing of the build, and they have to pay for their research costs and initial machining set ups and this is reflected in the high cost. Also, the expression, you get what you pay for, springs to mind.
However, I wondered if I sourced the individual parts from China, for a dollar apiece, that is to say the:
Throat (with Teflon lining)
Heating block
Heatsink
Nozzle
Pneumatic connector (PC4-05/PC4-M06)
Heater
Thermistor
could I too, end up with a hotend, that performs as well as, or even out performs, an E3D hotend, or am I living in cloud cuckoo land?
After all, let's not forget that most, if not, all of the parts used in a E3D hotend probably come from China anyway, these days, as most production facilites have moved from the US/EU to the cheaper manufacturing bases and machining shops, in SE Asia.
I have read so many times that people were experiencing extrusion problems, shoddy prints, etc, from their cheap printer, until they finally shelled out the cash and upgraded to a genuine E3D hotend. After that the prints were much improved. I have read this countless times, in blogs, threads, etc., so I presume that it is not possible.
I realise that if the parts are not finished correctly, and end up with burring on the inside of the throat, nozzle, etc., then the filament will not extrude correctly. See tbm0115's answer to How long is an extruder's/nozzle's life? However, assuming that the parts that I receive are machined, and finished, correctly then there should not be a problem, right?
Has anyone actually done this? Is tinkering with hotends a done thing? Does anyone have any good pointers and/or tips?
NOTE: This question is not really after opinionated answers, in order to stay within SE rules - although opinions are always welcome - but I just want to know if anyone has first hand (positive or negative) experience of this. | Hard to say for sure - my whole printer is cheap parts bought as a kit in China by a Chinese student who abandoned it in the US (I resurrected it after it was abandoned.) It includes all the parts you list, and I think we finally sorted out what the thermistor actually is so the temperatures are more accurate now.
It prints.
Could it print better? - Probably, but at some point replacing all the various cheap parts starts to look foolish .vs. just build a new printer with better parts all around, leaving the original functional. I doubt I've ever met a "E3D V6" and I'd have to google it to see what sort of paragon of printing it's supposed to be. The only thing I'm actually considering replacing is the nozzle itself, partly because I'm just guessing what size it is (mostly based on the way it prints when set to various sizes.) I'm also contemplating adding some sort of insulation for the heater block, having squnched some aluminum foil around it as a first stop-gap.
Likewise, if your concern is with burrs, etc. a degree of fettling by you can sort that sort of thing out, if you know to do it and how to do it (i.e. you need to be somewhat mechanically ept.) But of course "parts from China" are not a monolithic entity - there are good parts and bad parts that both come from China - given the state of internet sales, you may well have (unknown to you) the choice of parts that passed quality control, parts that failed quality control, and parts that quality control never looked at (some of which might pass, some of which might fail), from the same production facility, available to you from various vendors at various price points. And then there are many different production facilities as well.
Production in the US or Europe is no magic bullet either - competing with imports on price is difficult, so one hopes that superior quality is on offer, but it may or may not actually be from a given vendor, or a given batch of parts. |
Octoprint “using Google's DNS server” octoprint seems to have a setting that involves googles DNS server.
my question is is that server used to access octoprint over the internet via printoid "android app" or via browser? if not then what does it mean? | The program is pinging that address to check the internet connection to "prevent resource intensive operations if it's already clear that they won't succeed anyhow". It checks for connectivity, if it has it then it will check for update otherwise it won't check for an update. |
What is M73 Q17 S43 G-code command? I know that M73 P19 means "Set completion progress to 19%", and I suspect that M73 R42 means "Set remaining time to 42 minutes", but what is M73 Q17 S43? I can't find description of such syntax.
The command is seen in .gcode files produced by PrusaSlicer. | The M73 Set/Get build percentage G-code is only defined for a selected few printer firmwares.
As you suspected, next to M73 P19 (tell the firmware at what completage percentage the print is) the M73 R42 tells the firmware the left time to completion.
If you look at the description of the M73 G-code, the following parameters may be used:
P: Percent in normal mode
R: Time remaining in normal mode
Q: Percent in silent mode
S: Time remaining in silent mode
So, running the Q and S parameters, is similar to the P and R parameters with the exception for referring to the printer percentage/time when in stealth (quiet) mode.
These modes, normal and stealth, refer to power modes of Prusa printers:
Normal vs. Stealth mode
MK3 printers offer two print modes. Normal mode is required for the detection of lost steps (shifted layers), while still being quieter than the silent mode on MK2/S. There is also the Stealth mode, which utilizes Trinamic StealthChop technology, making the printer almost inaudible with the print cooling fan being the noisiest part of the printer. However, Stealth mode does not provide lost step detection.
Stealth mode times can be a bit higher than normal mode estimation times. Estimation is done by the slicer. As Prusa maintains this feature, their times are accurate for their printers, but that does not have to be the case for custom printers.
To get the current progress, the M73 command is called without parameters:
Use "M73" by itself to get a report of the current print progress. |
Tevo Tarantula home offset Following Beny's advice, I've just setup JimBrown-MarlinTarantula firmware.
However, my X0 & Y0 points are off the bed.
When trying to center my prints & afterwards sending G1 X100 Y140 to the printer, I am still off center by the margins of the sizes my X0 & Y0 points are divided by 2.
What should I do? | By adjusting/calibration of the center of the bed you will automatically find the correct offset values.
This is explained in detail in this answer to the question How to center my prints on the build platform?. |
Alignment of dual Z-axis steppers My newly built ANET A8 has dual Z-axis steppers (and two threaded rods), but only an end-stop on one side. Am I missing some detail for ensuring proper alignment of Z as the extruder moves along the Z-axis? I notice there are mountings for a 2nd end-stop, but nowhere to attach this on the MCU board.
It seems that even after I check the leveling, there is scope for the two steppers to get out-of sync once the servos are turned off - is this something to worry about? I realise that during a print run, if I start with good alignment this should stay good.
I've only managed about 10 minutes of printing so far, and everything seems to work, but this is my first printer, so obviously I might have missed a vital step in the instructions quite easily. | All the Prusa-based designs I've seen have only one end stop. While you are correct that it's theoretically possible for the two Z-drives to get out of sync, it's very unlikely in practice (barring serious friction, binding, etc.).
But even if it happens, remember that the endstop microswitch is only used to keep the extruder assembly from crashing into the print bed. The stepper motors do not have shaft encoders, or any other position sensing mech, so if they were to get out of sync, there'd be no way to know this.
The reason there's provision for a stop mount, on both sides, is simply to make the physical parts of the frame the same.
That said, it is important to check the extruder support assembly to verify it's level as you build the printer - "level" meaning both supports are the same distance from the screw-drive shaft couplers. |
How do I get a replacement PTFE tube to fit inside my nozzle? I have been getting clogs and believe that it may be due to a damaged PTFE tube inside my hot end. I have a replacement (it came with my printer), but I can't seem to fit the tube into the nozzle.
I also tried to turn the original PTFE tube around, and I can't get the other end to fit into the nozzle either.
Is there a trick to it? | In the end, I was able to get the tube in the nozzle.
It took a lot of patience, and it seems to help if the nozzle is warm as well. |
Stainless tip for thermistor I would like to secure my hotend thermistor in a more reliable way (now it is just thermistor plugged in the hotend :D). I want to have a stainless steel tip for it to fix it inside hotend with a screw (The same approach as used for the heating cartridge). I have thermistors, but I cannot find any tips to buy separately.
Maybe you have some links for this kind of stainless-steel tips? Or some keywords I can use to search them? | I am not too sure what you're searching for, but I imagine it to be a kind of thermistor housing to distribute pressure from the screw while maintaining good heat conductance.
I first have to say that I'd be afraid to damage the glass droplet of the typical thermistor design by putting pressure to them, especially including later thermal expansion. However, I never tried and we might find some valuable experience on that in other answers here.
If what I assumed in the first paragraph is true, I would suggest forming some housing yourself with copper foil or copper sheets, since the heat conductance of copper is good and it is more or less soft.
However, as a more simple solution, you might just cut the metal part of a 'wire ferrule', if you got some lying around. (Wikipedia has no english article for this, so I link the german one for the images: Aderendhülse)
Additional info: Can't you clamp the thermistor the way it is done in the E3D V6 hotend, see this image?
Thermal contact should be quite good and you don't have any problems which could lead to damage of the thermistor. |
Anet A6 stock power wires.. the live, the zero and the ground. Which is which As an electrician newbie I have a question..
Short question
My power plug is attached to the wall outlet and three wires are at the end of it.. the blue, the brown and the green/yellow oen.
How to determine which is the live, zero and ground wire WITHOUT depending on the colouring?
I want to know this to always be able to check the wiring, if I don't trust it.
Also, I have these sub questions that follow from my situation:
Why does the test screwdriver lit up when connected to the apparant zero line?
How can I determine the live/zero line using a multimeter
Situation
My tools:
a test screw driver
a multimeter
the ANET A6 manual
In the manual it states that
brown is the live wire
blue is the zero wire
green/yellow is the ground wire
I know that in some countries this colour coding is the standard and can be trusted. I just want to be able to check it.
So, my first hypothesis would be.. if I put the test screw driver on the live (brown) wire, lay my thumb on the end, the internal bulb would glow.
This did not happen.
It did happen when I put it on the zero (blue) wire. So I am a bit confused by this.
My second trick was using the multimeter. Using the positive and negative probes to determine the polarity and therefore decide how the current was flowing.
But there was no sign of polarity... duh.. because I was of course on AC, which is always Alternating.. hence no sign information from a multimeter.
So, how CAN I use a multimeter to determine the live/zero line? Maybe measure the current from live/zero to ground? Is that a safe option?
PS: my first post on this forum.. so please correct me where needed | This picture shows the correct wiring for a British 13A mains plug:
The green/yellow wire must always be connected to the earth terminal (at the top of the plug). This is most important, and will prevent electrocution if something goes wrong.
The brown (live) wire should be connected to the fuse, and the blue wire to the remaining terminal. It is true that, since alternating current is being used, the device will likely work if the blue and brown wires are swapped, but it is better to stick with standard practices to avoid confusion.
I would not use a "test" screwdriver to determine which terminal is "live" in this instance, simply because it is unnecessary. The live terminal is always the one that the fuse is connected to. This is done for safety reasons since the device is automatically disconnected from the live side of the circuit if the fuse blows.
How to wire mains plugs is really beyond the scope of this stack. Watch appropriate YouTube videos if you want to make a competent job of it. The only advice that I will give is to always use a proper fuse of the correct rating for the device. Never use something like a paper-clip. Also, don't use the 13 Amp fuse that comes with the plug. The fuse is there to protect the cable, rather than the device. Most printers will draw less than 5 Amps, and will be supplied with a 5 Amp cable, so use a 5 Amp fuse.
Also, never work on a plug while it is connected to the power socket. This is most foolhardy, even if the socket appears to be switched off. |
Why does my DIY printer start printing in air? I've built a DIY 3D printer similar to Prusa i3. It does homing and bed leveling very well with a PNP Lj12a3_4_Z_BY sensor using G28 and G29.
However, when I push the print button on Pronterface or Simplify3D, Z axis goes up about 20mm and starts printing in air. I can't figure out what is going wrong. | If the cad model was imported from Solidworks into Simplify3D. Push "Center and Arrange" button to place the model in the middle of the Heat Bed. There might be a gap between the object and bed level that is hard to see. |
Is there a way to print on a 3D printed surface? I have a 3D printed object that I'd like to print on. Adhesive stickers are an option, but as the surface is rounded it's difficult to get a good film to stick well.
Is there any system to print on a 3D object (e.g. ink jet). I need at least 300dpi. Black in the first instance, but color would be nice for future projects. | Rather than post a series of links for various services and vendors, consider to use as a search term "hydrographic film at home" to find results to suit your purpose. The first search results I found excluded "at home" and indicated it was not suited for home/hobbyist use, but the modification resulted in vendors supportive of home users.
In advanced circumstances, the image printed on the film is topographically matched to the model to which it is to be applied. For home users, I suspect that is somewhat out of reach. Most of the products aimed at the home user are patterns or solid colors, although with care, one could combine films in sequential applications.
Effectively, the process involves a colored film floating on a water filled container. Certain products are applied to the film and to the prepared model to ensure bonding. Additional processes are required to protect the graphic-coated model after removal from the bath/container.
As with the other responses, it's not likely one will achieve 300 dpi resolution without resorting to the topographically matched commercial methods. |
Stringing during travel on first layer with Ultimaker Cura I'm using Ultimaker Cura 3.6.0 and I am getting some annoying "stringing" on the first layer. This isn't new to 3.6.0 as I have seen it on pretty much every version I have used.
What appears to be happening is that as it is laying down the first layer, it doesn't retract as it moves from one area to another. This leaves a trail of filament which then shows up as an unattractive line embedded in the print. (ignore the other extrusion issues in the example below)
A similar thing happens on the top layer. It ruins the look of the nice smooth bottom I get from a glass bed.
I don't have stringing issues elsewhere on my prints.
I thought at one time I had seen a setting to control it, like "retraction during travel" or something, but now I can't seem to find anything that sounds like it in the dizzying array of settings.
Does anyone know of a way to get rid it these lines? | Yes, if you are using the Combing Mode option, please ensure it doesn't do this in the skin, for a leak/string free first layer, it is required to set the Combing Mode to Not in Skin.
When the mode of the option is set to Not in Skin, combing is "off" for the skin; this implies that the material will retract and move in a straight line to the next print area. When material is retracted (and when properly tuned for your printer), the nozzle will not leak filament causing those (deposited) travel movement lines as indicated by the OP. |
Why did my stepper motor controller chips burn? I just installed a few of these chips on my RAMPS 1.4 board and tried to turn it on, and the lights on my RAMPS board lit up, which was normal. Then I saw a spark growing and I turned the power off. I removed the chips and they were burned as in the photos. Is this a fault of the board, or the chips?
I had two more on it which were fine, at least, they did not seem to be not burned. Both chips seemed to burned at the same pins, which makes me think those are just trash chips, but I have no clue. | Without more information it is hard to be certain; but, the most likely cause is that the board was installed backwards.
Looking at the photo, the damage on both boards seem to be centered around pin 20 and 21 of the driver IC. A schematic of a similar board shows these are both 5V inputs (DIR and *ENBL). These signals connect to the top and bottom pins of the left connector to the RAMPS.
Since these are inputs, the most likely cause of a damage to these would be a high current over-voltage condition that caused the upper protection in the IC to conduct. This would require >5.5V and a lot of current.
The RAMPS board routes these signals to I/O pins on the ATMEGA processor - see RAMPS Schematic. These can't easily go above 5V without blowing out the ATMEGA and they are not generally high enough current to cause the damage you see.
The most likely high current and voltage would be the 12V motor supply line (VMM). This comes into the board on the top pin of the right RAMPS connector.
Accidentally installing it 180 degrees (which is super easy to do since the connector is not keyed) would connect the 12V VMM to IC pin 20 instead and you would likely see the same burn mark you see on your board.
A better board design would have been to key the connectors by using two sizes and/or cutting a pin so it couldn't get plugged in backwards - but they didn't. |
Delta printer misalignment at first few layers At first few layers, each layer has offset to -X/-Y direction base on previous layer. But above ~2mm, it is vertical.
I've checked the printer build that there is no noticeable error in towers. Tried both manual calibration and Marlin auto calibration G33 with z probe.
No idea what's the cause and don't know which part I need to check with. | Finally I found out that it was caused by not enough torque output by B tower stepper motor. Increasing current didn't work. I replaced the stepper motor and it prints perfectly. |
How can I set the 1st layer after a raft in Slic3r to print at 1st layer speed When you add a raft in Slic3r, the first layer of the raft prints at the first layer speed. After the raft is finished, the first layer of the print prints at the standard speed. How can I make the first layer of the actual print slow down to the first layer speed? | This is still work in progress, and here is what I have so far, but first:
A useful alternative for similar problems:
A problem very similar to this would be to use different settings for different parts of a model in Slic3r. For most settings, this can be achieved through modifier meshes.
Post processing scripts:
As far as I know, Slic3r does not give you the option of setting the speed of the first layer after a raft directly, but they do allow you to run post processing scripts; that is, to automatically run a set of operations - programmed by you - on the g-code output.
Although far from trivial, you can in theory make a program that runs through the output g-code, adjusts the settings to your preference, and then saves it again at the target destination.
Tuning overall printer speed through g-code:
As it turns out, there is a simple g-code command that sets the overall speed of your printer's operation:
M220 S[some number] ; see the link above for compatible firmware
A newsletter from Reprapwold explains that:
For example M220 S50 will reduce the speed to 50%
of the original sliced G-code. If you want to hurry your print to the finish in time
for dinner, use M220 S200, to print twice as fast (200%)
In other words, just like some printers allow you the change speed mid-print, you can use the M220 command to override the current speed used, either through a user interface such as PrintRun, or by fiddling with the original g-code itself.
Manipulating the g-code output to adjust speed settings:
The easiest way to achieve our goal would be to manually manipulate the output g-code file through a text editor, and insert our M220 command in appropriate places:
Set M220 S50 just before the first perimeter layer (after the raft's interface layer), to slow down the first layer of the actual model.
Set M220 S100 sometime after the first perimeter layer, to resume the normal speed settings.
In order to do this, though, we need to be able to distinguish these two points in the g-code output.
Distinguishing insertion points:
Slic3r offers a setting under Print Settings -> Output options -> Verbose G-code that - when enabled - inserts written comments all throughout the g-code files generated.
If one inspects a g-code file outputted for a model with raft, one will find the comment:
; move to first perimeter point <- lets call this A
and
; move to next layer (x) <- lets call this B
littered several places throughout the gcode.
It is under my impression that the first occurrence of comment A happens right after the raft is finished, and before the actual model is being printed, while the first occurrence of comment B succeeding comment A can be used to set the speed back to normal.
It should be noted, however, that the comments in the output g-code does not seem fully consistent, and I would therefore not recommend anyone to automate this logic into a script without possibly finding other, more reliable breakpoints, and thoroughly verify these through several different models.
I have not looked into the details of writing an automatic script for this task as of yet. |
How to make sure we reach the total feedrate despite jerk When printing a G-code at a high speed/feedrate of 12,000 mm/min versus a slower speed we don't always notice a difference since the geometry does not always allow for the full speed to be reached due to the acceleration/deceleration taking most of the length of the segments.
Is the above a correct statement and is there a way to find the sweet spot between length and fastest speed in relation to the jerk values? | The simple answer is that there's no way to guarantee you reach a specific maximum speed, with a given acceleration limit. You have to accelerate and decelerate along the length of a line, so the distance you're accelerating is roughly half the length of the total line. Imagine you can only accelerate at 50 mm/s2, and you've got a line that allows you to reach exactly 100 mm/s before you start decelerating. If you have to print a shorter line, you're going to reach a lower speed. Any combination of maximum speed and maximum acceleration can be defeated just by printing a shorter line than you tested with.
As far as a sweet spot goes, I'm not sure quite what you're asking there. There are tradeoffs to be considered for any combination of speed, jerk, and acceleration.
Prints with high jerk settings will be able to "skip" a certain portion of the acceleration and just jump straight to some minimum speed. This tends to result in echo artifacts on the print around corners.
Prints with low acceleration settings tend to exhibit some irregularities in line width over the length of the line due to the interaction between pressure and extrusion rate inside the extruder. I went into some detail on the third section of this previous answer of how and why this happens.
Prints with high top speeds, but low acceleration and jerk, can suffer from under-extrusion if you set your maximum speed too high, and it can be a little difficult to diagnose this in some cases. If you think of the extruder as having an internal "buffer" of molten plastic, that buffer tends to fill at low print speeds, and empty at higher print speeds. You may think you've got your maximum speed set appropriately, when in reality your extruder drains the buffer over maybe 50 mm of max speed printing (hypothetical nonsensical number), and attempting to print very long straight lines may result in the extruder emptying its buffer until it slows down again. My recommendation is to do some trial and error testing to figure out the fastest extrusion rate your printer can support for an extended period of time, and then put that maximum limit into your printer firmware to prevent printing too quickly. Acceleration and jerk settings should be set as high as you can tolerate without causing echoes and other odd artifacts, with attention paid to the printer itself; it gains you nothing to shake your frame to pieces trying to chase some theoretical maximum printing speed limit. |
How to identify what type of filament an unlabeled spool is So I have some old filament that I originally got for a 3D pen. The problem is it's unlabeled and I haven't been able to find anything that might help me distinguish whether it's PLA or ABS. The bag it all came in says that wherever this filament came from only makes PLA and ABS so it's got to be on of those two.
I have a roll of PLA in my 3D printer right now, but I can't tell if it's the same as the filament I have for the 3D pen. It's been a while since I've used the 3D pen, but I do remember whenever you used it, it would produce a very very bad smell. I've also noticed that the filament seems to be more flexible that the PLA in my machine. This makes me think it could be ABS, because the PLA smells far better than what I remember the 3D pen smelling like, and it's more flexible.
I also don't really want to do any heat tests or anything on the filament, so if the smell and flexibility is enough to determine which filament it is, could anyone tell me? | Mick's suggestion is a good one. PLA may shed some color in acetone, but ABS will dissolve completely in a suitable amount of time. If you have dark filament, you can test by flexing the filament until it breaks. ABS will sometimes/often/usually fatigue with a white break line, while PLA does not exhibit this tendency as much.
PLA has a somewhat sweet smell, which may be the corn sugars burning off, while ABS has a much more chemical-like odor.
Not doing heat testing does limit your options. |
Stringy first layer (possible extruder issue?) This is my first 3D printer so I'm not entirely sure what could be the cause of this issue.
I recently got a SUNLU S8 3D printer and have been trying to print the first test file, however, the layers end up stringy (for lack of a better word -- if anyone knows whether this is called something else, I'd appreciate the knowledge because Google searching for stringy layers does not yield similar results).
Anyway, I tried to increase the nozzle temperature from 205 °C to 215 °C and that seems to help slightly (filament is PLA and came with the printer). I also noticed that the extruder's feeder gear is grinding on the filament so I suspect that may be part of the problem.
Before I purchase an extruder kit, I figured I'd reach out and ask this community what they think could be the problem.
Does anyone know what might be causing this issue?
Edit
I cleaned the tubing and nozzle, and then releveled the bed. The filament was still stringy and whispy, however, I decided to let it print for a while. Although the picture is a top-down view, the walls of the print are also holey. | The first photo shows under extrusion. This could indicate either a bad filament, a massive clog or the wrong filament diameter in the slicer.
I have experienced, that small demo-reels of filament that come with printers come damaged from the shipping: I have experienced some of them having been exposed to moisture in their zip-lock bags and one time I had no clue what kind of filament that was supposed to be, but it was not PLA, as it didn't properly melt at 200 °C. That might not be the case with your printer, but it leads me to caution towards those 20 g demo reels, so I always test with a known good reel of filament with a known melting point. If it was the wrong material (e.g. ABS), under extrusion due to a too low temperature would be normal. Damaged or bad filament can create several problems: non-uniform thickness can result in random stops in the extruder or underextrusion, waterlogged ("wet") filament can print stringy, hissing, or even with underextrusion, brittle filament might break and result in aborted lines.
A clog in the nozzle could lead to under extrusion but should also show clicking in the extruder (the motor moving the filament). Checking the whole filament path (nozzle, heat break, liner & Bowden tube) for clogs should be done. However, that would be a massive clog to get your depicted prints. It might be a factor impacting it though.
Sometimes, setting up a printer in a slicer is not perfect: You need to make sure the filament diameter fits! 1.75 mm might be the de facto standard, but most slicers are set up with 2.75 mm as filament diameter in the presets for a self-configured printer! That means you only extrude about a third of the filament you actually want! That would be super consistent with your picture but doesn't need to be the only factor. |
My DIY printer only boots when all my endstops are triggered. Why is that? Recycling a Robin Nano board to build a 3D printer using an old computer PSU (300 W), it only boots on when I have no endstops pugged in at all or if I trigger all the ones I have plugged. At the moment I release them the screen goes off (but the fan of the PSU is still on). Does anyone have any clue about what's going on ? | From your fault description of printer logic board losing power when endstops are released it sounds to me like those endstops are shorting VCC to GND when not pressed. That the fault also goes away when the endstops are unplugged reinforces this.
I guess the logic board has its own protected regulator because otherwise you would be shorting out the power supply and that would also turn itself off after likely causing a lot of damage to the logic board. |
Stepper motor for my DIY 3D printer I am make a DIY 3D printer. And I need to which stepper motor I should use. So, I am planning on making a 18x18x18 or 20x20x20 max print size. I am only having a single z-axis like the prusa mini. Which stepper motor should I use for my z-axis, x-axis, Y-axis and the extruder (Planning on using 1.75 mm filament). How do I calculate the power needed? Will 2.8kg or something near be enough? I am not really good at stepper motors, so sorry for the lack of knowledge.
I am not sure if I am following the rules by asking this question. Sorry
Thanks for reading | The size of the stepper is usually determined by the forces it must overcome on the machine (i.e. inertia). Obtaining a powerful stepper motor and then using expensive linear guide rails with high tolerances great axial rigidity is wasteful unless you are trying to achieve something specific (which it seems you are not).
Find the cheapest NEMA17 motor you can from a reputable site and start there.
Most of the work has been done for machines of that size, so you don't need to calculate what's required, you can just look it up online. A 250W @ 24V supply is commonly used on printers of that size. The majority of that power is going into the heated bed. If, however, your environment is so cold that the bed never gets to temp, no matter how long you wait, then it will be time to upgrade that bed to an AC mains heated one. |
Writing G-code : swiping at start of print Ok, I did it, I ordered myself an Ender-3, a genuine 24V e3D hotend, inductive sensor and some better tubing/clamps to cope with the problem the CR10/Ender line has occasionally.
But now I need to fix up my Cura for the machine coming in. The start is the CR10, and fixing the dimensions is easy.
But now comes the tricky part: Start and End G-code. For my TronXY I never bothered with changing it away from the "basic" settings that a "custom 3D printer" on Marlin gave, but this time I want to know what I type in there. The basic code, after I dragged out the G-code handbook from the RepRap wiki to add the missing comments is:
G28 ;Home
G1 Z15.0 F6000 ;Move the Gantry up 15mm going fast
;Prime the extruder
G92 E0 ; reset extrusion distance
G1 F200 E3 ; extrude 3mm of feed stock
G92 E0 ; reset extrusion distance
The RepRap Wiki suggests that there could be made so much more from this.
I would love to swipe the nozzle before starting to print, making sure that the curled up filament from this first extrusion doesn't get squished against the nozzle and make a bad first layer.
How does an example (commented) G-code for swiping the nozzle look like? | What code we have so far
The code already made by Ultimaker Cura 3 (and then commented on) can be explained a little more:
G28 ;Home
This homes your machine to hit end stop positions, from now on your printer knows the coordinates of the print volume. This place it knows as <0-0-0> - check where that is: above the print surface or next to it!
G1 Z15.0 F6000 ;Move the Gantry up 15mm going fast
Instruct the build plate to move down, or in your case lift the head up 15 mm at 6000 mm/min
;Prime the extruder
This is a comment that the nex code will deal with priming the nozzle
G92 E0 ; reset extrusion distance
G92 sets the position of the extruder by resetting the current position to the specified value of zero
G1 F200 E3 ; extrude 3mm of feed stock
This will extrude 3 mm of filament at a feedrate of 200 mm/min
G92 E0 ; reset extrusion distance
This will reset the extruder length again to zero
Result of the code
Basically you will have some filament dangling on your nozzle now, or falling of as the nozzle is hot creating a fine string. You now are facing the possibility that the primed material will be dragged along the build plate to the start of the print.
Nozzle Preparation: Priming sequences
Ultimaker 3: 'blob'&swipe
An alternative I really like is the priming sequence of the Ultimaker 3. The hot end is instructed near the origin of the printer at about a height of 2 mm above the build plate when it starts to extrude plastic, once the extruded plastic becomes a puddle of about 6 mm in diameter the build plate lowers a few mm's and keep extruding for a bit. It then moves in positive Y direction (to the back) and raises the platform (this is the swipe action), then retracts and starts to move to the print start. Now the puddle of filament stays near the origin and will not be dragged.
You can easily make a similar schematic for your printer, I've done so also for various printers. Try and experiment what works best for you. The swipe action is the movement where the nozzle will be instructed to move near the build plate while moving in a certain direction (Y or X), a height of a few tenths is enough to swipe.
I don't have my exact profile here, but you could add (skipping feedrates):
G1 Y15 Z0.2 ; moves the nozzle backwards and down from 15 mm to 0.2 mm
G1 Y20 Z0.2 ; swipes the nozzle, this should cut off the "worm"
G1 Z1 ; raise for movement to start of print to add a little space to travel |
Eryone Thinker SE ignoring endstop, gantry only moves down I just got a Eryone Thinker SE and went through a lot of trouble to get it even working.
My first major problem was it would keep trying to ignore the Z endstop switch and go lower than it should be. I managed to fix it by doing a firmware update to it, and after a lot of trouble with getting the right temperature I started printing a test cube. I left it to print checking up on it every 30 minutes or so and near the finishing of the cube I came back to a screen saying something like "power failure, resume print", so of course I choose resume print but what it ended up doing was moving down, piercing the block on the print bed and then dragging it with it as it decided to home itself. So I immediately hit the reset button do it didn't try to push the block into the print bed.
But now when I auto home the printer, it jabs the print nozzle into the print bed, and it ignores the Z-axis endstop switch causing the right side of the gantry to go lower (due to there being no stopper on the right). Auto leveling just makes the gantry go down even further on the right still ignoring the endstop switch. The other thing is when trying to manually move the Z-axis, instead of going up (even though the LCD shows a positive number) it tries to go down.
Steps I attempted to do to fix it:
I attempted to do another firmware update, but to no avail this time.
I checked all the connections and re-seated them.
Scout the internet hoping someone with the same printer or board has had the same problem, to no avail again.
I should note when homing the printer, the normal action for it is to home X then Y, then Z. When homing Z however, NORMALLY, it will hit the switch move up and baby step itself to hit the switch and stop immediately when it touches it. But now, it will hit the switch, then just go down even more.
Video of what is happening here (Google Drive)
The control board on the printer is a Eryone 2560 | You do a critical error in your order of operations: you home. Then you home again.
However, the firmware does not check if the switch is already depressed, it waits for a signal to cut out. But the signal is already not there. And as you will notice, it moves into X+ and Y+ before rehoming into 0, but does not do so in Z.
To prevent that behavior, you need to move the printer up a little till the switch no longer is engaged, then it will properly home the position.
The proper fix would be to alter the home-Z behavior to include a movement upwards by 2 mm before starting the actual homing. This does require a knowledge of Marlin though. |
How do I decide what size my push-fit feature should be? I'm designing a box and lid that will be FDM-printed. The lid push-fits onto the box. What kinds of gaps/tolerances should I use when designing pieces that fit together? has advice for designing the clearance between the lid and the box. Assume I've already settled that question and I have a good clearance so my lid slides on and off freely.
Now I'd like to add a lip-and-groove feature to my design to hold it shut, with a lip on the lid that clips into a groove in the box when the lid is fully closed - like a cantilever fit, but easy to open, and directly on the mating walls.
How deep should I make the lip and how tall? Does it depend on what plastic I'm printing in? Does it depend on the wall thickness and the geometric rigidity of the part? | A push-fit, or rather snap fit, feature can come in several shapes and forms. Let's look at the example of a snap buckle, inspired by Angus video on the tpic:
This Buckle has a harsh hook, it offers no way to push it in after finding its resting place, it is pretty much a "no release, no safety release" type. But with slight alterations it can become a safety buckle just by altering the 90° angle in the middle and providing a slope while offering a place to press the buckle in at the catch offers user release. Now, what does that have to do with dimensioning?
Dimensioning a piece
When deciding about the dimensions of a feature we need to evaluate several factors against each other:
Intended use
Printability and print orientation
Material choice
Let's discuss the three separately.
Intended Use
The shape is dictated by the function of our part. Do we need a one-time snap fit that keeps the internals of our box closed forever? Do we need to open the buckle whenever we take off a backpack? Do we need a safety release to prevent the backpack from strangling the user if it catches somewhere? As we design the part for the use, and its intended loads, we also design minimum sizes for some features: a user-release buckle or snap fit needs to be large enough to be manipulated by a human (with the right tool), and the dimensions have to be large enough so the part can bear the intended loads.
Material Choice
Different plastics behave differently under stress. ABS is known to be somewhat flexible in comparison to PLA, bending before breaking softly while PLA shatters once its maximum load is broken. The choice of the material also dictates the wall thicknesses, and thus the dimensions, we can use.
As an example, I have printed one of these Z-Axis tension triangles in PLA for my TronXY-X1. Due to how this part is designed, the bent arm can bend a little but wants to return to its original shape, thus forcing the straight arms apart. By this, it applies force on the wheels which in turn roll tight on the beam in between. Even as this is PLA, the work on the part is still in the elastic deformation area due to the sheer size of the item - the lever is quite long to take the little flex PLA has and distribute it over the whole length of the arms.
Print considerations
Now, we have to keep in mind we print our parts layer by layer and the weakest part of a print is the inter-layer bonding. So the strongest snap-fit will have its bending lever printed in the XY plane while the weakest has its lever bend in a way that the bending occurs along with the XY slices.
However, we can use this to our advantage if we want to: I had printed this for StarWarsDay this year, and the little det_button.stl is printed with the levers of the snap-fits bending in the XY layer. They are also extremely fragile (1-2 walls). From own experience, they survive being pushed into their respective hole but can't be extracted without destroying the levers, making this piece pretty much act like a tamper seal. |
Can I use a 2D photo to get a 3D printing model? Can I use a 2D photo to get a 3D printing model that gives a good result? | With just 1 2D photo, you can never get a 100% accurate 3D object. That is because you don't really know about the hidden parts. Think of a photo of a smiling mischievous child that is facing you, and you can't see that they are holding a sling shot behind their back. However, with multiple 2D photos, one can reconstruct a 3D object, provided all the parts are seen. This is called photogrammetry. You can search wikipedia and youtube for in-depth discussion about this. It is an entire science. There are applications that do this for you, but I can't recall the details right now. |
Wiring heatbed into Main using ATX I had my 3D printer powered by dual 24 V PSUs wired in parallel and my heatbed was wired into the main using a SSR to help power it. I replaced the two PSUs with a single Corsair 750 W ATX. My printer runs smoother and there's much less wiring clutter to deal with but now no matter what the heatbed will not heat up.
The main connection of the ATX I purchased is an 8 pin connection so I tried using all 4 wires to power my printer and it didn't make a difference, I tried using the SSR again using 2 connections from the ATX leaving the other 2 to run the motherboard but that didn't work either. I even tried MOSFET and that also failed. I don't see why the Heatbed no longer heats up yet the thermistor is more accurate and working properly since my switch to the ATX, do I need to go up to a 1000 W ATX instead? I can't imagine what more I could do. | You indicated that you were using 24 volts, implying you have a 24 volt bed. ATX power supplies do not have 24 volt outputs. The highest is 12 volts which would heat up the bed, but not fast or probably to full temperature. |
How to make physical buttons send G-code? I want to hook up an Arduino to my Creality printer running Marlin firmware, such that I can have a few physical buttons mounted on the machine that will execute commands such as preheat, home, disable steppers, and so on, so that I don't have to navigate through the clunky LCD screen.
Ideally it would work in addition to the normal LCD and serial functionality, so it would not impede me from using Ultimaker Cura to print via USB, etc.
What is the best way to do this? | One option would be to have your printer controlled by an Octoprint server. You would then use the Octoprint Api plugin to use your arduino to send commands to octoprint - and from there, your printer. Octoprint has a fairly fully-featured rest api that allows you to send arbitrary GCODE to your printer (see here). You would then hook up your buttons to some code that sends the gcode commands to the printer when pressed. It's certainly not as simple as installing a plugin - you'll have to write some interface code, but it looks like those APIs should be able to do what you want, without interfering with the standard controls at all. |
Should black high temperature ABS flow in direct sunlight? I bought a digital sundial online and deployed it in (what else?) direct sunlight in DC in June. Within 30 minutes the gnomon started to sag and the mount started to pull away from the gnomon at the bolt.
This shouldn't happen, right? Or is this expected? | Are you sure that this is ABS? (Since it is already trash, you can make a fire test. It should [correct me if i'm wrong] produce black smoke) Some ABS can becomes soft at already 80°C.
Just for fun I measured the temp of my gray sofa that was directly in sun light: It was over 70°C. So it could be possible that the sun light already was enough to weak the black ABS. Also the ground is interesting. Some idi**** room mate puts my black ¿abs? alarm clock on a metal windowsill because he want to know the temps there in the direct sunlight... the alarm clock becomes deformed :(
Probably white and/or coated ABS would be better. Also a inner rod would help against deformation. |
CoreXY with 8 bit board problems I know that CoreXY kinematics is very complex and hard to calculate for the firmware making it better to use a 32-bit board. For some reason, I can't use any 32-bit board. What problems will occur if I use an 8-bit board like Arduino Mega with a CoreXY 3D printer?
Everything that I wrote in this question about hard kinematic calculations was referenced from this video, HyperCube 3D Printer 8-Bit Speed Wall, by Tech2c (the designer and builder of hypercube). After watching the video I doubted using an 8-bit board. | You can use an 8-bit controller board for a CoreXY kinematics 3D printer. The calculations are not so complicated opposed to those for a Delta.
My Hypercube Evolution uses a RUMBA controller board that hasn't failed me past years. |
Glue sticks for print bed I would like to get a green tombow PITS adhesive stick. On Rakuten, it costs \$1 (USD). On my 3d printer's (XYZ) retailer's site, it costs \$20 (USD). Due to the costs and the fact that Rakuten does not ship to my country, I need an alternative. I am currently using Davinci 1.0 for my bed, which I believe is a glass bed. So, my questions are:
What glue is best for PLA plastic?
What glue is best for ABS plastic?
Is there a glue that functions with both types of plastic? | As mentioned by Matt - PVA glues work perfect for both filaments.
It works well because it's softening temperature is between 45..85C so it's more or less temperature of HB.
Advantages:
cheap
easy to apply on HB
can be applied on cold as same as on hot HB
sticks model very well
non toxic, no solvent, odorless
easy to wash (from HB) (just wash it under water or scrape with sharp tool)
works very well even with old and dry layer of glue
Disadvantages:
quite hard to detach model (I use paper knife)
first layer is not glass-perfect
after detaching, model is a bit sticky (first layer)
I use Scotch Glue Stick by 3M. |
How to smooth the surface of parts printed with Co-polyester (PET) filament Are there any techniques for getting a smooth finish for parts printed with co-polyester (PET) filaments? More specifically, I am looking for an alternative that does not roughen the look of the part - such as using sandpaper - but rather works like acetone baths for ABS.
In particular, I want to treat ColorFabb's XT filament made from the Eastman Amphora™ 3D polymer (datasheet). This is also the polymer is also used in:
ColorFabb nGen and XT
Taulman3D n-vent
TripTech Athiri 1800
3DXTech 3DXNano | I've found a chart which covers several plastics and solvents and only two of them (Chloromethane and Chloroform) are rated "D" which includes dissolving the material and both seem to be quite nasty and I doubt you will be able to purchase them without being placed on several lists.
Is it possible that something like XTC-3D from Smooth-On would work for you?
Also some more information on dissolving PET here, several sources also mention PET is affected by Hydrogen Peroxide but they do not mention to what degree the plastic is affected. |
How to design a DIY printer I am making myself a DIY 3D printer on a budget. And I don't know how to prototype it or design it. Like, I have already planned the parts. But, I don't yet have planned the structure or how parts should go together. I tried using a CAD software, but learning one to reach a skill that is needed will take a long time. I want to know how others design their printers and learn from that. | There are lots of ways from mere specifications to designs. Most follow several of the principles below, but designing a printer is not a light undertaking. it's HUGE.
Copy and adapt
The most easy way is to take a known design, for example from the RepRap wiki, and copy it verbatim. But it can easily undergo some adaptions, like different hotends or bed sizes.
Paper sketch & notes
Writing down the specs of some parts is very important to make sure these stay consistent. Paper is also the tool of choice for initial sketches or even finished designs to guide building the actual parts.
CAD
CAD is an almost indispensable tool to map out the placement of parts and combine them. Or later design parts to print. A CAD design doesn't need to be detailed, it can use stand in rough outlines. Only where parts need to be custom-made, details are essential.
Prototype
All projects go through prototyping when groups of parts are built and tested on their own and combined piece by piece. Also, this step is where you finalize the firmware. |
PLA infill/perimeter-layer to mimic real bone hardness I friend of mine is in need to have human bone printed for educational purpose. Of what I understood they will use it for practicing drilling in it and thus need the printed bone to mimic a real bone. He specified that he wanted them as hollow as possible and with the same (or close to the) density of real bone
Is there anyone who had done a similar print, what material did you choose and how much infill/perimiter-layer did you use. | Generally, if you care about achieving a specific structure inside the "interior" part of a model to be printed, that structure needs to be part of your model rather than generated by a slicer. If it were me, I would programmatically generate a generic pattern for the pockets of hollowness in OpenSCAD over a region slightly larger than the bone, then subtract it from the solid bone. After that, slicer settings will be mostly irrelevant since it will be constrained by reproducing the layer outlines with lots of holes in them.
I haven't done this, or anything really comparable, but it should work. |
Conductive materials quality I was considering the possibility to 3D print some capacitors with various forms and shapes in order to test them. I need to be able to print both the non-conductive and the conductive materials at the same time so I have the following questions:
I suppose that since I need to do multi-material printing, i will have to stick with FDM. Is that correct?
I have seen that there are some PLA materials that are mixed with dust of metals and become conductive themselves. Do they become also capacitive? Are there any better options for a conductive material in a multi-material scenario? | Someone has already studied this: study of electrical properties of 3D printed materials.
ABS: dielectric constant about 3.
PLA: 2.7-2.9. |
Prusa MK3S 0.8 mm nozzle layers separating I am currently printing a simple cup out of PLA (I will later anneal it). My nozzle is 0.8 mm and I'm using a 0.4 mm layer height. Unfortunately, the layers keep separating. They don't detach completely, but there are 1 layer-tall, 3-7 mm wide gaps. I increased the temperature, since my speed is 100 mm/s. I also tried decreasing cooling and increasing the flow. This only helped a little bit.
Moreover, small increases in the temperature like 230/240 °C didn't work and now I have to use 270 and even 280 °C, which is crazy, considering my layer height is 0.4 mm. Is there any easy solution that will increase the quality?
Settings:
Material: PLA
Layer height: 0.4 mm
Nozzle: 235 °C first layer, 270 °C for the rest.
Bed: 60 °C
Cooling: 62 %
Speed: 100 mm/s
I have noticed that 280 °C is better for large prints (large area, not height) and small prints look better when I change the temperature to 240/250 °C.
This is how my prints look by now. The extrusion is very inconsistent, with overextrusion in the middle of the layers and gaps in the corners:
I suspect that the layer lines are not parallel to the heatbed and are over extruded, because of the high temp. I lowered it to 230 °C and there was no drooping/over extrusion, but there were more 'holes'. | After printing ~30 calibration test cubes I finally figured out the perfect settings.
Apparently, the extrusion width in my slicer was set to a certain number, instead of
percentage. I was printing at 0.45 mm extrusion width, which was ~105 % of the 0.4 mm nozzle diameter, but less than 50 % of the 0.8 mm one. Changing the value to 130-140 %
solved the majority of my printing problems.
As I predicted, the 230-280 ℃ nozzle temp. was ridiculously high, even with the
0.8 mm nozzle. I gradually lowered it to 210 ℃ (ironically, the value I chose at the very beginning).
There was some warping, so I cleaned the heatbed from the glue, put the glue again and decreased bed temp. to 50 ℃
Finally, I decreased the flow from 1.3 to 1.05 and everything seems perfect now. |
Point Cloud to STL File I had a friend request that I print out the Bathymetry of Lake Michigan as a gift for her PhD adviser. I went to NOAA and the site had a few files for the Bathymetry of Lake Michigan.
Files and types are located here: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/greatlakes/michigan.html
I am trying to convert this into an STL file to print in my 3D printer however I am having no luck in converting this into a mesh I can use. I have tried multiple approaches with the different files that are listed but cannot seem to get it to properly convert to a mesh. I have tried the following so far:
-Import an .xyz file into MeshLab to convert it to an STL. After I import it looks like nothing imported and I can't navigate around in the file
-Import an ASC file into MeshLab to convert it to an STL. After I import it, I get no errors but the output is a long, thin mesh that looks nothing like lake Michigan
-Just for a test, I imported the .xyz file into Autodesk ReCap just to see what would happen. I noticed that the points were in a long thin area similar to the ASC import but as I browsed around I noticed that the each layer of dots was the actual Bathymetry contours.
I have tried multiple approaches and software beyond these but can't seem to get the files to convert into a printable mesh that I can manipulate to send to my 3D printer. | In order to properly get an STL file out of a point cloud, you'll need some tool to help triangulate the points to create proper vectors. The shell that is created in an STL is what the slicing engine will "slice".
I'm not as familiar with the full potential of MeshLab, but I would think this tool is best suited for files that at least have most of shell already in place. Essentially best for fixing STL's.
In the past, I've used (the very expensive) Unigraphics NX8. This CAD/CAM software is very powerful and has tools for creating meshes out of point clouds. I believe it was the sew tool that allowed me to do this in the past (I no longer have access to the software). Other CAD programs such as SolidWorks, Rhino, AutoCAD, etc. might have similar features.
Alternatively, I think it looks like you might be able to convert a 3D point cloud in SketchUp. If the cloud is layered by height and each layer had points on the same -Z- plane, then you might be able to automate creating lines between the nearest points on the same plane. Then it might just take a little bit of manual labor to "fix" the model to become 3D printing ready. Also check out this forum post, it looks like someone had luck in converting terrain point clouds.
Completely alternatively, have you considered converting an image to STL? I've done this many times before and it turns out quite nicely. If you can find topographical map of the lake, you could alter the image into grayscale (play with it a bit). Then use software to convert the grayscale image to STL. |
Prusa i3 pro b second layer failure I just bought a 3D printer => Geeetech Prusa i3 b.
I build it myself and I'm trying to print the famous boat, the Benchy one.
Here's my settings (I've tried Repetier host and Slic3r or Ultimaker Cura):
And that's the results..
Any tips about the settings? The problem seems to be when I print every other layer but the first one which seems reasonable enough.
I used Slic3r with the settings taken from this video, eBay Prusa i3 slic3r settings (comment response video)
Now the first layer is almost perfect but I still have problems with every other layers, too much filament comes out and it's all messy, a bit like the picture I posted above.
A video of the print can be found here.
The steps per mm value for the Z shaft is 2560. | You need to level the bed properly by setting the correct distance between the nozzle and the bed. Ideally, you need to be able to drag a piece of plain A4 paper between the nozzle and the bed when the nozzle is at Z = 0 giving you a little drag (you feel that by a stuttering movement). From your pictures you can clearly see that the nozzle is way too far from the bed when depositing the first layer (as seen from the video you posted in the comments) as the hot filament drops/falls down to the hot plate. Once it is too far from the plate, each consecutive layer is too far from the previous layer.
From the images you posted, it is clearly visible that you have a mechanical/calibration issue. Your belts are probably not tight enough too, but it is difficult to say at the moment as the products are way off from what they should look like.
Note that the printer configuration could be incorrect (although very unlikely as it is out of the box). E.g. the stepper motor needs to make a certain amount of steps to advance the carriage in Z direction. If the mechanical layout requires 400 steps per mm (which is typical for TR8x8 (p2) lead screws on 1.8°(200 steps per revolution) stepper motors and 1/16 microstepping) but is configured as 800, your layer height advances twice as much although the Z=0 level would be okay! I now read (from the updated question) that the value for the steps/mm for the Z axis is 2560, this implies that you are using M8 lead screws with a pitch of 1.25 mm on a 1/16 microstepping board and 200 steps per revolution steppers.
From the specifications of your printer follows that the Geeetech Prusa i3 Pro B uses:
Stepper Motors: 1.8° step angle with 1/16 micro-stepping
This image show the configuration of the axes:
So 2560 is correct!
Conclusion:
Your initial leveling and height setting is incorrect, when you printer is at Z=0, it actually is positioned higher. Hence your first layer has very bad adhesion and is not properly flattened and each consecutive layer shows the same problems of falling hot filament. When the speed increases on the next layers the hot filament deposition cannot follow the nozzle, hence the "spaghetti" looks. |
Over-extrusion on curved surfaces? I am having issues with my Creality CR-10 S5 running Cura 4.6.1. If I use the Ender-3 G-code, it prints perfect. If I do the exact same print with S5 printer selected, I get garbage prints with lots of burps. | Comparing printing results of some G-code with results of samples generated by a slicer with many unknown settings is too superficial. You need to do more insight.
You can learn by comparing G-code files, but I suppose it would not be sufficient to have successful prints. You can also learn from tutorials on how to properly configure slicer. Understanding slicer setting, common printing issues, physics of plascic and printing is very helpful for troubleshooting.
Between files there are number of parameters which could be different, including:
slicer software, its approach (algorithms) and settings - most probably it was Cura in both cases, but many settings could be different - if you have both profiles, then you may comare them setting by setting (thoguh it is not easy in Cura, but see next)
notes in comments (in opening and ending sections of file) - Cura is printing lot of profile settings at the end of the file
G-code initialization commands in opening section of file - *there may be key changes to printer configuration, and also information about following *
temperature settings - you can read it from G-code or from LCD, when print is started
retraction and speed settings - you can read it from E move commands
layer height - you can read it from Z move commands
total use of filament per print - use analyzer, see below
printhead movements (including experimental Fuzzy Skin) - check settings, and use visualisation in Cura just after slicing
Machine profile ("S5 printer selected") in Cura intoduces subset of default settings. In CR-10 S5 profile created by Creality many settings may be very different than in profile for Ender 3. And still author of original G-code file could update many of these settings before slicing.
You can compare two G-code files for the same shape in GCode Analyzer. For easier work you may open two or more analysers in separate browser tabs. There are many useful information calculated from G-code - about Model (like "Total filament used") and and Layer (like "Retract speeds"). Layers may be changed in 2D view with right scroolbar (clik the square scroll indicator and use Up and Down arrows on keyboard). |
How to feed the filament through the material shortage sensor? I'm just finishing the set-up of a CR-10 Max. It is a new printer.
I don't manage to feed the filament through the material shortage sensor.
I can hear the micro switch click; the LED turns blue, then a few millimeters after that (33 mm total from the entry point), there is something that prevents the filament from going forward. I don't see any switch on the outside of the sensor, and I applied a reasonable amount of force on the filament.
Can you tell me how to troubleshoot this ? | I've designed similar sensor casings, sometimes the filament catches a ridge/ledge or part of the cavity, even when it is chamfered or rounded. The arm of the limit switch pushes the filament up, away from the filament straight path.
Have you tried cutting the filament under a very sharp angle, that may work. |
Can UV cure inside opaque or more massive printed object? From what I understand, UV curing of resin prints works by starting a chemical reaction that hardens the resin permanently.
Also, a curing step after print is needed to speed up the print and also to reduce the curing during print, which would cure resin beyond the current layer.
However, what is the transmissivity of UV light in partially cured prints? If I print a more massive object, or if I use an opaque resin, how deep will the object harden properly? Absorption is always exponential, meaning that it decreases quickly with depth.
Depending on the resin, how thick prints can be effectively cured? This information is not provided with the resin, which I actually would expect from reputable manufacturers. | From what I know about the various resins, once they are printed they are cured enough. Some of the transparent ones require additional curing, however the manufactures of the machines only test based on the max size that their machines can print.
The resin never stops curing apparently, going into diminishing returns; curing slower and slower as time goes on. Only way you will know for sure is by experimentation. You should get a poly-carbonate tube, place black tape along one side then spray paint the rest black. This will leave a window that you can use for future observation. Seal the bottom, and pour in uncured resin. Leave it under a UV source for 2 weeks then peal the tape off to see how much of it has cured. Then come back here and ask Trish to do the math on what the co-efficients of absorption are for the material :) |
Printing with colorfabb XT fails after several successful layers I'm printing parts for a HEVO (HyperCube Evolution CoreXY), using Colorfabb XT filament. After several successful prints. I'm having a lot of failed prints. They start off pretty well but after ~15 layers the filament starts to string and blob.
Printer details
Model: RepRap i3
Extruder: E3D 1.75 all metal hotend.
Nozzle: .4
Print temp: 260°C (max. recommended).
Steps I took to troubleshoot
First I thought my nozzle was clogged. But it's not I can push the filament by hand without issues.
Lowered the speed to 35 mm/s.
Disabled retraction / disabled part cooling.
increased the max temp with 10 % to ensure the filament flow
Printed parts that fail:
Note: the two parts on the left are printed in one job
UPDATE 26/07
Dit a few more prints with PETG to eliminate the moisture problem. Same results. | This looks a lot like under extrusion caused by heat creep.
Heat creep is when the nozzle temperature 'creeps' up through the filament and makes it melt (a bit) and form a blob (or just widen enough to get stuck) a centimeter or two before the nozzle.
The characteristic is usually that everything works perfectly well for some quite fix amount of time, then there is severe under extrusion.
Solutions:
Lower the temperature (yes, as then the heat won't creep as much!)
Add a fan cooling down the cooling part of the print head
I have the same print head as you it seems (E3D 1.75 all metal) and I had heat creep when I changed the fan to a less noisy one (but also less effective). |
Ender 3 seemingly speeds up too much on straight long shell lines After few good prints with my new Ender 3, I noticed that prints with longer shell straight lines (> 5 cm) have extrusion problems in the middle of those lines.
I figured that this might be because the printing speed (70 mm/s) and filament temperature (210 °C for PLA). So I increased my filament temperature about 215 °C and lowered print speed to 60 mm/s. I am using Cura v3.5.1. For the next few smaller prints everything was perfect.
Now I am printing a bigger 128 mm X 48 mm rectangular shape. In the middle of the 128mm line of the outer shell, I have signs of under extrusion. Looks like dents.
I also notice that the head is really fast during this 128 mm travel. No way ~2 seconds would take 60 mm/s to travel 128 mm. It is more like 1 second or less.
Why would my head travel at such speeds?
I am attaching my speed settings.
I am attaching the image of the printed piece and the defect generated. | Your travel speed is set to 120mm/s so it would make sense the 128mm travel takes ~1 second. You most likely have combing turned on so that it doesn't not need to retract on travels. This makes it ooze plastic as it travels and would mimic underextrustion. |
Is it safe to print a rotor insert for a centrifuge using a makerbot? Laboratory centrifuges have buckets that hold the sample tubes in inserts.
The buckets are the black things on the rotor in the upper left corner holding the bottles. Examples of inserts are shown below (the colorful containers with slots for tubes). These fit into the buckets and I'd like to print them since these are expensive.
Is it safe to 3d print these using a makerbot given the g-forces these rotor inserts will be subjected to (potentially 150g's under our settings), or will the inserts deform and unbalance the rotors under the stress?
Additionally, is the precision of the printing good enough that the inserts can be expected to be well-balanced (the correct weight, with a symetric design having even weight distribution)?
We have a basic makerbot that makes little plastic robots. | It's difficult to determine if the buckets are fully enclosed, but I suspect that they are. The enclosure into which the inserts are placed will provide some structural support.
3D printed objects have relatively low torsion strength, but a reasonable compression strength, especially with high infill levels. One could consider that the item placed into the insert will transmit force to the bucket, but likely not compress to the point of destruction.
Allowing also that the forces on a swinging bucket centrifuge are "downward" or when in use, "outward," the primary location of force will be the bottom of the insert you create. It appears that the main function of the insert is to keep the tubes separated, rather than to keep them supported.
Create your inserts, but leave an open bottom. Attach a suitably strong panel to the bottom of your created model with epoxy.
Another thing to consider in this project is the mode of failure. What can go wrong? The tubes in the insert should not explode, but if they do, is it merely cleaning up that follows? I suppose one aspect of the inserts is to keep the tube walls in column, to keep all forces linear to the tube cylinder, rather than out of line. It's easy to keep pennies in a stack under pressure, but don't push on them edgewise.
You can and should perform a test on a 3D printed insert. Make one that is relatively flimsy, say a six-tube unit and spin it without tubes in place. Test it prior to the spin for tube fit, then test it after the spin. If there is deformation, you would not be able to insert the tubes after the spin. |
Why does my domed print have a thin shell? I am making a "fun button", with a dome-shaped top. The vertical sides, top center, and raised lettering seem fine, but the more sloped outer parts of the dome are very thin, with some gaps and the infill pattern is quite visible. It's almost like the slicer isn't recognizing the sloped part as an exterior shell.
What is causing this, and how can I fix it?
The model was made in Fusion 360, sliced in Repetier with Slic3r, and printed on a Monoprice Maker Select Mini.
Edit: More information after checking values used and taking more photos.
This was my second attempt, after increasing the shell count already.
On my first print, I clearly had a low value for horizontal shells, top and bottom were both at the default of 3. I upped these both to 8. (Layer height is 0.13125.) The bottom of the button is now good. The "good" center area extends a little further out, so I think it's probably thicker up at the top of the dome. But the sloped sides are pretty much the same - this is why I'm thinking it's not being considered as a "horizontal shell".
Comparison:
There are some design iterations, but the top surface is the same shape.
Update:
I did a print using Cura, with 0.8 mm shells, and it looks great!
I cut the two bad prints with a hacksaw to see a cross-section. The bottom is clearly thicker. The top on the outer infill void is pretty much the same. The top on the other void is thicker most of the way across, but suddenly changes to thin. | Slice with more solid top layers. I always use five with low-density infill. |
Keeping my filament spools from getting knotted? This is something I've ignored for awhile, but it keeps cropping up, and occasionally, if the filament snags real good, it can mess up a great print half way through, etc.
Basically I have my filament spools hanging on a PVC pipe mounted directly above the printer, and the printer just sucks it in from the spool, but occasionally it becomes knotted at the spool, or becomes otherwise tangled.
I'm thinking even if I completely unwrapped and rewrapped all of my spools so there was no trace of a tangle, what's to stop it from happening again? -- What's a good strategy for managing this kind of issue?
Edit: From some of the answers below, it seems that maybe the travel of my X carriage back and forth could be why my spools keep getting tangled. -- It looks like many people have their spools at about 90 degrees from mine (rotated relative to the Z axis of the printer), so that the travel of the X carriage won't have that affect. -- Also guides, etc are probably a good idea.
Here's my current setup for reference (filament removed): | When I first set up my printer, the spool was able to spin freely. Filament was making loose coils on the outer layer of the spool. Snags happened frequently. I decided that not allowing the spool to spin faster than the rate draw of the filament might improve the way the filament was feeding.
I put more physical distance between the spool and the machine. The filament stopped bunching up in loose coils on the surface of the spool, and the snags went away. The increased amount of slack between the machine and the spool seemed to absorb the "overshoot" of the filament draw and the spools became much better behaved. I also was able to run the spool down to the end more consistently than before.
Not everyone has extra room to use, and not all extruders are conveniently oriented, so moving the spool further away from the machine won't work for everyone. I believe a guide or some sort of dampener would serve the same function, if the underlying problem is the spool loosening up enough to where loops of filament get caught under others and then snag. What worked for me was to stop the spool from "racing ahead" of the rate of draw and loosening up enough to snag. |
Order in a line command in G-code I've started learning G-code for 3D printing and I'm quite confused.
I'm using an Ultimaker S5 printer and the firmware is : 5.5.12 - 20200226-UltiBot
Is there a difference between G1 F1200 X188 Y92 E0.01 and G1 X188 Y92 F1200 E0.01?
Most of my code looks like: G1 X[coordinate] Y[coordinate] E[num] without Z!
How is this possible?! My model is a 3D-model so how come the letter Z appears about 5 times in tens of papers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated! | I haven't used every flavor of gcode or firmware, but I've never seen the parameter order be important, provided that:
The G or M code was the initial entry; and
Each parameter was clearly listed with one or more spaces between parameters; and
No spaces were in between the parameter letter and the value.
We use a custom version of Repetier firmware to run 3D printers and Fadal CNC machines, and in every use G1 F1200 X188 Y92 E0.01 would be evaluated and executed completely identically to G1 X188 Y92 F1200 E0.01
Nearly all gocde variable values are persistent, so if Z remains unchanged because it is only specified once per layer, or if Z remains unchanged because it is explicitly specified (with the same value) on every line, there should be no difference in the behavior of the printer. |
Evidence of a warped build plate? The first layer is very patchy indeed. I've calibrated the build plate pretty accurately but even if it was a badly calibrated build plate I don't think it would have this effect.
It doesn't seem to have a negative effect on the print.
Should I be concerned about this?
Is this due to a the build plate fault? | It looks like your first layer is way too close to the bed. The printer is trying to squash the plastic down very thinly, resulting in inconsistent extrusion. You will likely see better results if you move the nozzle away from the bed a little bit. Increasing the thickness of the first layer might help as well (this is a setting in your slicer).
Keep in mind that if you're trying to print (e.g.) a first layer with a thickness of 0.05mm then a 0.025mm variation in the height of the build plate will result in very strong variation in the thickness of the extrusion on the first layer; in some places it will only be half as thick as in other places. If instead you used a 0.2mm first layer, then the 0.025mm variation barely makes a difference. |
X and Y axes don't move after upgrading to TMC2100 drivers I had noisy DRV8825 drivers for my extruder E0 and X, Y, Z axes. I upgraded all to LV8729 drivers but they were still noisy, so I bought two TMC2100 drivers for the X and Y axes and two LV8729 for the Z axis and extruder E0. I updated Marlin (reversing endstops logic and choosing driver types) and I removed the jumpers under the driver pins. But my X and Y axis don't move; eventually the printer halts.
What could be wrong? | Steps/unit also must be modified. In my case these values made the printer run silent and smooth.
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 100, 200, 6160, 884 }
I set Max feed rate and Max acceleration as below:
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 300, 300, 5, 25 }
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION { 300, 300, 100, 10000 } |
Problem with the first layers on the print I ran out of ideas on what could cause my problem.
Ender 3 Pro
Nozzle temp 200 °C
Bed temp 60 °C
PLA filament
Please look at the pictures. The first layers don't look nice. The top and the sides are perfect.
This happens in every print. With and without raft or brim. The strange thing is that raft and brim looks very good on the bedside. Is there some settings I am missing out on here?
Tried with Creality Slicer that came with the printer, and the Ultimaker Cura slicer. | The filament is not flattened, it looks like the nozzle deposits round filament strings while in fact they should be flattened more. This usually indicates that the nozzle to bed distance is too large. A perfect distance is obtained with plain A4 or US letter paper (usually 0.1 mm thick; or 0.004") during levelling where there is a slight drag/friction force observed when the paper is pulled between bed and nozzle. Alternatively, you can use feeler gauges:
Considering that the raft is printer well, it could well be that the initial nozzle to bed distance is correct, but the distance between the raft and the first layer of the product is too large. |
Anet A8 extruder is clicking and not extruding I was printing with my Anet A8 and it pulled the filament spool off of the shelf I have the printer on and forced the filament out of the extruder. I took apart the extruder and removed the debris that was left inside, re-leveled the bed and tried to start another print. When the extruder tries to feed the filament it makes a clicking sound and won't extrude. How do I fix this? | There are a number of unanswered questions which may serve as a guideline to narrow down a solution.
Instead of attempting a new print, consider to remove the filament again. Shine a light from below and look into the barrel of the extruder to determine if you can see light. If this is mechanically impractical, move to next option.
Manually feed the filament into the extruder. Use the panel to advance the filament rather than creating a print. Does the filament feed properly?
If yes, the problem is not in the extruder system, nor the heat block or hot end. You said you re-leveled the bed. Double check that the nozzle is not being blocked by the bed, preventing filament from extruding.
If the filament does not feed properly, you may not have completely cleared the heat break, hot end, or nozzle. If you can get or have nylon filament in the correct size, perform a nylon cleaning operation. This involves removing the existing filament, raising the nozzle temperature to 240°C while pushing nylon through. You have to be able to manually force the filament through until you see only clean nylon from the nozzle.
I have had to push nylon in at the correct temperature, then pull it back out without any extrusion due to the depth of the blockage.
After you've pushed as much as you can to get clean nylon (or none), cool the hot end to descend below 140°C. After a moment or two, set the temperature to 140°C and forcibly remove the filament from the upper portion of your assembly. It may require pliers and substantial force to get this out.
Repeat the heating, extrusion (or attempts), removal until you get clean nylon from the nozzle and clean nylon at the tip of the removed filament.
Only just today, I had to clear my nozzle using this method, but I was unable to get a reasonable extrusion of clean nylon. I have a 0.4 mm nozzle drill and applied that to the tip of the nozzle, carefully.
I found a burned on segment by this additional step and succeeding nylon cleanings went well and my nozzle is printing cleanly again.
If you don't have nylon, you can perform similar cleanings (called cold pulls) with ABS or PLA. |
Bed is leveled and not warped but still uneven printing? I have the Creality CR-10S. I replaced the glass it originally came with as it was warped and I wasn't getting any material out on 2 of the sides.
I switched to a PEI sheet and got the same results after only a few prints.
I then switched to a mirror I had cut previously, and it worked for maybe 2 days. I scrapped a print off that warped, and then the leveling was off on that. My gantry is level, my beds aren't warped, I'm leveling it to allow a standard piece of paper to have friction by the head. It's either to close and no filament is extruded or it doesn't stick at all and drags filament everywhere. If I can get good extrusion on one side, it's horrible off on the other or all corners.
Note that I have checked my gantry and it is straight as well and my the bed. Not sure what issues I have left. | Be sure that you have no previous bed meshes saved and automatically applied: use the commands M502, M500.
Once you have done that, try this technique:
It's about using a ruler to detect areas which are lower, and then use stickers below the glass to thicken those areas only, resulting in a much flatter surface.
If you don't want to use the blue tape (which will worsen the heat transfer, but not so much after all) you could use 0.3 mm silicone thermal tape, which is more heat conductive but it's also quite thicker than blue tape.
This other alternative consists of flattening the plate itself, but it's inevitably performed when cold, while the tape technique above can be performed at the desired temperature (since the warping may not be constant). |
3D printer destroys part by lowering nozzle I have a Lulzbot TAZ 4 and am using Lulzbot Cura for slicing, printing with HIPS.
Yesterday, I tried a print, only for this to happen:
It appears that the printer got most of the way through printing the part, and then for no apparent reason lowered the nozzle into the part (causing it to detach from the bed), raised the nozzle back up, and then to continue trying to print like nothing happened.
I thought maybe the G-code file got corrupted when transferring to the SD card (a single bit-flip could cause exactly this problem). So I generated the G-code again with exactly the same settings, and the same thing happened again but in a slightly different place and a few layers further up the model:
I have previously printed exactly the same model, only mirrored, with the same settings, and did not have this problem. I've never seen anything like this. Does anyone know what is going on? | This is my bet, based on cooling fan failure (I assume it was nozzle fan, not a heatsink fan), though honestly my practical experience with HIPS is zero. Without this fan heated material printed at high angles will definitely curl up, and even flat may be unstable. I suppose it happend, observing layer inconsistency on middle finger close to the nail.
Then, material could curl a bit and build up. Collisions with hotend could result in blob of plastic here or there, and then something bad happened (see @Jack State comment).
I also suppose that the whole print was detached from bed and rotated, because we see surprising shape across the middle finger, and unfinished index finger. Filament was extruded in random locations, causing more blobs, more curling and more mess. There are some gaps which look exactly like hotend run directly into them. I suppose that object rotated both horizontally and vertically. It could be even dragged by hotend at the end (e.g. filament was extruded inside the index finger). |
Monoprice Select Mini v2 reattach boden tube to feeder head I have a Monoprice Select Mini v2.
The Bowden tube has detached from the filament feeder head... it was actually pushed out by the filament (175 PLA) as it fed. It appears to have been held in place by a compression fitting inside the feeder head. I think the blue plastic collar provides the compression but I hesitate to attempt to remove it for fear of making matters worse.
Looking for advice on getting the Bowden tube and compression fitting back together without wrecking the feed | I had a similar issue with my bowden feed system, those could be the reasons:
the pneumatic connector is not keeping the pressure on the pipe -> replace
the Teflon pipe is faded/worn -> try to cut the end of the pipe
the hotend/nozzle is clogged -> clean/replace
the pipe is excessively bent and gives a lot of resistance -> that usualy needs pipe/tube replacement.
the nozzle temp is to low -> increase printing temperature
In some cases I had to cut the tube above the pneumatic connector and push it down to get it out as there was no way to pull it back from the collar. |
Makerbase MKS Slot2 V1.0 + RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD + RAMPS 1.4 I want to add an external SD card adapter on my RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD. My 3D printer is based on (Arduino Mega + RAMPS v1.4 + RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD).
I buy an SD Card Adapter from Aliexpress (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32873382195.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.4f544c4d5UzB1L) and now I want to add this adapter on my RAMPS 1.4 while not disturbing the working of RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD.
Please guide me how can I add this to my RAMPS? Thanks!
My 3D Printer Details:
Model: A Standard DIY Prusa 3D Printer (Cartesian)
Firmware: Repetier Firmware | A RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD already has an SD card slot reader at the back of the board:
Basically one of the 10 pin headers is used for the display and rotary encoder and reset, the other header is used by the SD card reader.
The module referenced in the question is a breakout SD card slot reader for the TFT (touchscreen) display controllers. Whether these are compatible with the EXP2 header of the RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD should be compared with the schematics. The schematics of the RepRapDiscount Full Graphics LCD are available, but for the SD slot breakout cannot be found. It is therefore unsure if the EXP2 is fully compatible for the SD slot board. To use the EXP2 on a RAMPS shield, you need the L-shaped connector.
The description of the Slot2 explicitly says that it is meant to be connected to either a TFT35 or a TFT70 MKS touchscreen display. In order to use it directly to your RAMPS shield requires finding out which pin goes where. |
Tryinng to get CAELinux to boot I believe that CAELinux has successfully installed on a SD card on a laptop. When I rebooted what I am left with is a GRUB prompt. If I enter the chainloader command it expects things like the device name of the linux image. I really want to know if CAELinux has installed and if it runs OK. Then I shall learn more about GRUB because I have another distribution that I am interested in.
How can I simply start CAELinux from the GRUB prompt? | Per the Getting Started page,
As CAELinux is a customized Xubuntu 16.04 distribution, the installation instructions (and then administration) for Xubuntu/Ubuntu all apply to CAELinux.
For more instructions on how to install CAELinux on hard drive, please follow the Ubuntu instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall
Based on the information provided above, I think this question is off-topic for this site, and should be migrated to either Unix & Linux, or Ask Ubuntu. |
MINTEMP BED Fixed error when running consecutive print I am using "Pretty PETG" along with PrusaSlicer's consecutive print mode.
What I am noticing is that upon finishing the first print, the printer hits MINTEMP BED Fixed. I'm not sure if it's immediate because I let the prints run overnight but I assume the bed cools down and then the error is hit.
I'm just starting to learn G-code and my initial thought was there's an errant bed temperature instruction but the only M140 S0 instructions I see are in the end_gcode and near the bottom of the file. Maybe there a goto in G-code which may be running after M140 S0 which then causes the MINTEMP BED issue? Perhaps there's something else going on? | The bed minimum temperature is defined in your configuration file, e.g.:
#define BED_MINTEMP 5
If the error is displayed, it means that the measured temperature drops below this level.
What I am noticing is that upon finishing the first print
This could hint to a faulty heatbed connector where the connection is lost because the bed moves to the end positions (hard to say without seeing the end G-code).
Basically, you could have a connection to bed thermistor that is intermittently failing, or a bad bed thermistor. If connection is lost the temperature defaults to 0 °C or a lower setting. |
Can a short-circuited heat bed be salvaged? I was working on my printer when something metallic came into contact with the pcb. I smelled smoke and quickly unplugged the printer. Anyway, this is the result and, of course, the heat bed won't heat.
Can this be salvaged or should I toss it and buy a new one?
update the heat bed was not hot at the time. I had the heat bed unscrewed from the chassis but had forgotten to unplug the printer. I am not exactly sure how it shorted but I think it shorted between the power lead connection and the thermistor. | What happend was short circuit of course. There is no doubt you overheated HB so copper detached from HB base plate. Because you wrote it doesn't work it means copper tracks are broken.
There is very low chance to fix it. I mean it - near to zero.
What you could do is:
Detach HB from arduino
Find a place where track is broken (which needs to uncover it from protective layer)
Connect it with a wire
Unfortunately even if you do it and your HB will work (electrically) your fixed HB which won't be flat anymore.
So definitely it's to be thrown away.
[edit]
I just realised you have double power HB, which means your HB has 2 heaters... which gives a bit hope.
take a look here
here is schematics which could give you an idea
You could check if your second heater works ok
If yes then you are salvaged! :)
[edit2]
I really suppose the schematics of HB is more or less like this
So if H1 is broken there is a chance to use H2 connecting pins respectively |
Dead thermister or dead board on Ender 5? I have a base model Ender 5 with the silent v4.2.7 board.
Earlier this week during an overnight print, I came in to find it unfinished and powered off. I turned it back and it complained about an outage. When I started warming the hotend, it squealed and turned itself back off and then back on.
Now anytime, I try to warm up the hotend, I get the same.
I set up the printer to give data me debugging data via the console in Pronterface and in Simplify3D. I don't receive any kind of error, the printer just powers off and then back on.
I'm hoping that the thermister is just dead and I can replace it easily enough. What I'm afraid of is that the board itself is dead. BTW, I am able to warm up the bed with no problem, just not the hot end. Any insight would be appreciated. | "Heater core" wires are not the same as thermistor wires, are they?
Check if thermistor is properly connected?
Reading -14 C in my case always pointed a disconnection of thermistor. (I didn't had a case of broken one so far.) In case of short it would probably show som max temperature (my guess, I dont want to try), but it is always good to check if wires are do not touch each other and are properly insulated?
Measure thermistor's resistance
If you are able to use multimeter, then:
disconnect thermistor from the printer board
set multimeter to resistance measurement (200k Ohms)
connect thermistor and multimeter using wires - the ones having aligator clips would be the best
read resistance measurent
My spare shows 97k Ohms in room conditions. So value should be high (you may refer to specs sheet of given type when in doubt).
Check that hotend is actually powered
If thermistor is OK, then indeed the hotend powering may be broken. Ths definitely require skills and may introduce many risks to electronics and maybe even to your health - but if you are skilled enough, you may measure with voltmeter if there is correct voltage provided to the hotend. For example the MOSFET on the board may be broken (I already replaced one in the past for my heated bed). |
How to measure the nozzle diameter? On a Creality CR-10 Max, there is a bag of unidentified spares, which include three unmarked nozzles.
There is a needle that is exactly 0.4 mm in diameter, which needle fits exactly inside one of nozzles. It also fits loosely in the largest nozzle, which diameter looks like it's really close to 0.8 mm on my digital caliper. The smallest one has only room for the tip of the needle, and the digital caliper reads 0.34 mm on the tip of the needle when pushed from the inside of the nozzle.
I assume the sizes are: 0.8 mm, 0.4 mm and 0.3 mm.
Can you tell me how to measure the diameter with better accuracy? | I have found that normal measuring devices are not particularly helpful with accurately measuring nozzle diameters. But you're already off to a great start.
What is helpful is to take them somewhere that has a wide assortment of drill bits, and find which two adjacent sizes will and will not fit in the (clean) nozzle; then convert the diameters to mm (if needed), and your nozzle is larger than the small bit, but smaller than the large bit. From that, you should be able to narrow it down to a standard dimension. |
Z axis issue with Ramps 1.4 I just installed a Ramps 1.4 board on to my Anet A8. Everything worked as it should except for the Z axis motors. The Ramps board I have contains two headers for each Z axis motor.
When both motors are connected, one of the motors squeals like something awful. When I disconnect one motor it turns smooth as butter. I have tried this for both motors and when only one is connected it works as it should but does not with both.
Has anyone experienced this? Is there a simple remedy for this issue? Any help is appreciated. | Found the issue. The steps were set way to high. I lowered my steps to 500 and the steppers seem to perform as they should. |
How to straighten PTFE tubes? PTFE tubes are typically delivered coiled up. And because they are quite stiff, they always want to spring back to their original curvy shape, making them harder to route properly.
Is there a way to straighten them out? | I just plugged the ends of tube and soaked it in real warm water for 5 minutes then stretched it out on a table. That helped then the hard part I spooling it up against the arch and soaked it again. This seem to work the best. |
Is inconsistent vertex density a bad thing? Will an inconsistent vertex density likely introduce artifacts in a print? Or is it OK as long as it's a smooth surface? | For the most part, the exact level of vertex density doesn't matter too much. But it does depend on the slicer and settings. Some slicers (like Slic3r) will auto-decimate toolpaths to ensure that the rate of motion commands isn't too difficult for the old, slow 8bit processors in most consumer/hobbyist 3d printers. Having a large number of very small motion commands can bog down these motion controllers and cause pause-stuttering that creates little zits on the print. Most slicers simply reduce model detail level to safeguard the motion controller. Because the contours are decimated to a minimum motion segment length, very small model triangles are irrelevant to printer performance. At the most, they might add a marginal amount of slicing time.
On the other hand, some slicers (like Simplify3d) assume you have the correct level of detail you want in your model, and will pretty faithfully reproduce the model file's contours in the sliced toolpath. If your entire model is very high mesh density / poly count in general, or if your high-density mesh regions are crossed by a layer slice, this can produce a series of very, very short motion commands. Sometimes the motion commands are even smaller than the motion resolution of the printer, and simply take up processor time (to evaluate and drop from the queue) with no benefit to print fidelity.
In a more general sense, high-poly models are dramatically more difficult for the 3d printer to reproduce accurately. There are two big issues:
Each motion segment requires some processor time to read/receive, parse, and execute. But the shorter the segment lengths are, the faster the printer runs through them. A short move takes little time to perform but still has the same processor load as a long move. At a certain point, the processor can't keep up, and performance suffers. The printer may run out of queued moves to execute and pause in place, or it may violate acceleration limits and violently clunk through corners (or even lose position) because it didn't have enough time to iterate through the calculations that determine how fast it should move.
The algorithms used by most consumer/hobbyist 3d printer firmwares (Marlin, Repetier, Sailfish, Smoothieware, etc) are based on GRBL. And without getting into the math, GRBL uses the sharpness of the corners between motion segments to decide how fast to travel through the corner. So a 90 degree turn will trigger a considerable slowdown, while a series of small angles (such as many small segments comprising a curved surface) is not recognized by the algorithm, and it will try to barrel through the curve at full speed. On long, gentle curves, this is fine, but high-poly tight curves (such as a filleted edge or organic model detail) are traversed far too fast because no slowdowns are triggered. This means high-poly models must be printed at much lower feedrates / target speeds, because the acceleration algorithm can't figure out when to go fast or slow. Whereas a blocky, low-poly model can be printed much faster and the acceleration code will speed up and slow down as needed for good quality.
These are primarily issues with high vertex density versus low vertex density, not variable density. Small pockets of high detail are usually not problematic, as long as they are small enough that the motion planner queue (say, 16 segments) doesn't get filled with too many very small movements. A few small segments in a row is ok, but a few dozen is not.
These are limitations baked into the algorithms used by today's slicers and motion controllers. In the future, they may not be so problematic. |
E3D Thermistor Alternative E3D hotends use a thermistor whose legs are insulated with glass fiber sleeving and clamped down with a screw and washer:
This solution enables the printing of high temperature materials, but it's a bit fragile and after reassembling the hotend a couple of times, the screw will have thoroughly mangled the thermistor's legs and sleeving.
Some knockoff E3D hotends use a (horrible) solution where the thermistor is just loose in its respective hole, and kapton taped to the heater cartridge wires which holds it in place:
This solution seems kind of ad-hoc, and I'm worried about the thermistor coming loose. One advantage is that it can be reassembled arbitrarily often, since just pulling out the heater cartridge also pulls out the thermistor without damaging it. Note that the picture shows PTFE sleeving which restricts the temperature, but you could easily use fibreglass in this situation as well.
Another solution is the stud thermistor:
It screws into the hole that is normally used for the clamping screw. Unfortunately you're limited to around 250C because of the epoxy used in the stud. I've also found that the epoxy fails after a while (regardless of temperature) and the thermistor isn't locked in place any more (it still works, by virtue of being constrained by the heater cartridge wires as in the previous solution but that's not ideal).
Are there any solutions, compatible with genuine E3D hotends, that:
are not limited in temperature by epoxy or PTFE,
can withstand being disassembled and reassembled better than the standard fiberglass sleeving,
is a bit less hokey than a kapton taping the thermistor's wires to the heater cartridge and hoping that holds it in place? | I like the mounting method on my Mk9 extruder: there's a small hole drilled into the heat block, parallel to the heater hole. B3 Innovations sells a thermistor packaged into a small spring. The whole assembly goes in the hole, and a setscrew (gently!) secures it. You could just as well put a bare thermistor into a spring or something similar; it's mainly to protect the thermistor from the setscrew, and from excessive bending.
From your photo, it looks like the same thing would work fine for your hotend.
However you mount it, adding some thermal grease can help conduction from the surroundings. |
OpenSCAD library for empty space/holes I am working on a design in OpenSCAD, and need (would want) two things that seem tedious to hand-code:
A pattern of holes in a wall, for less weight/material. Could be round holes or some geometric pattern.
Empty enclosed space, with some grid-structure for stability. Again, for saving weight/material (and time during the printing).
Are there any libraries for these things? | I'm not aware of libraries that do that for you (but you can create your own, see end of the answer), but creating a relieve hole pattern is not that difficult or tedious using iterator functions (e.i. the for loop). Note that it may not be a good idea to make enclosed holes inside your object, see the edit section at the bottom of the answer.
Small OpenSCAD test script:
tol=0.2;
difference(){
cube([100,100,10]);
for (x=[10:20:90]){
for (y=[10:20:90]){
translate([x,y,-tol/2]){
cylinder(r=9,h=10+tol,$fn=180);
}
}
}
}
This can be used for both parts of your question, but in case the pattern needs to be inside an object you need to lower the value of h in the subtracting cylinder and raise/translate it (you could use the center=true in the cylinder function as a parameter and raise the center to the middle of your object translate([x,y,objectThickness/2])). You could make a module of the recurring pattern yourself to create your library.
note: Replace cylinder with cube or any other geometrical solid or (2D) pattern (use linear_extrude) to subtract from your part.
EDIT:
Note that it is not always wise to create your own spacing/grid structure enclosed in the model. Please read the accepted answer of this question. This answer explains that slicer applications work best with true solids! |
Anet A8 stock replacement fuse between motherboard and PSU My inline fuse burned and I don't know how many ampere the new fuse should have. | Couple things to note.
First one is that as @Paulster2 mentioned, the fuse itself should have its rating printed on it.
Second one is that if your fuse blew, there's a reason for that, and you really should try to figure out what that reason is before you start putting fuses back in. The Anet A8 isn't exactly what I'd call a high-quality kit, so there's a chance you've got a blown FET or something somewhere that has shorted closed and is just drawing power nonstop. You should start by getting a multimeter and checking the continuity of the power traces for your hotend and bed, without power in the system. You can do some basic safety checks that way.
Once you've gotten that done, if you're referring to a 12 V feed line, that should be somewhere in the ballpark of 20 A fuse. If it's a fuse on the mains power, it'll be like 1 A or 2 A depending on whether you're on 240 V or 120 V mains (respectively). |
3D printing bed size and selecting models I was thinking of getting the MonoPrice Mini 3D v2 printer. I know the bed is kind of small.
How would I know what I could print from Thingiverse? They don't really state what the bed size should be.
Does the software fix this for you? Do you scale it? | Yes, objects in thingiverse usually doesn't include their size and this can require extra effort to obtain.
There are several options to scale objects to fit your printer. You can often do that in the slicer or using a separate program like meshmixer.
The bed size is not the only (or maybe even primary) limitation you will need to consider when printing an object. You also need to think of your max height, nozzle size and for your choice of material your will need to consider things like you max extruder and bed temperatures (or even have a heated bed), nozzle type, etc.
You should be able to print just about anything on thingiverse; but, the limitations of your printer will affect HOW you will have to print it and whether you will be happy with the final product.
I have heard of plenty of people the have smaller printers and it was the right place for them to start. Having a smaller printer that performs well for you will be a much better experience than a larger printer that performs poorly.
Whether the Monoprice Mini 3D v2 printer is the best printer is something only you can decide. Read and watch the reviews, they can be a great source of "perspective". I know we all have limited budgets and there are certainly way more things you can print with a printer than you can without one. |
How do I use MEGA pin number designations rather than RAMPS pin numbers in marlin I am designing my own shield for the MEGA2650 that I will use to control my printer.
When defining pins in the marlin firmware, the pin numbers are the pin numbers of the RAMPS shield and not the Arduino MEGA itself.
How can I define pins so that I could write #define HEATER1PIN 5 and it will make heater1pin be on Arduino MEGA's pin 5 and NOT RAMPS's pin 5 | The pin mapping that Marlin uses is defined in the file fastio_1280.h:
/**
* Pin mapping for the 1280 and 2560
*
* 1280 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 53 52 51 50 10 11 12 13 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 21 20 19 18 81 82 83 38 00 01 78 05 02 03 79 80 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 41 40 39 71 70 04 17 16 84 06 07 08 09 85 15 14 72 73 75 76 77 74 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42
* Port A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 E0 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 G0 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 H0 H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 J0 J1 J2 J3 J4 J5 J6 J7 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 L0 L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7
* Marlin 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85
*/
Confusingly, the line labeled "1280" refers to the pin numbers as used by Marlin. The line labeled with "port" gives the corresponding port/pin combination as it applies to the AtMega2560 chip itself. To translate between the port numbers given above, and the Arduino Mega pin numbers, you can use the following pinout diagram:
Licensed under CC-BY-SA, www.bq.com
For instance, according to the pin mapping in fastio_1280.h, Marlin pin 34 is "port" C3. This corresponds to PC3 in the pinout diagram, which is Arduino Mega A11. Conversely, if we want to find out what PWM pin 9 is in Marlin, we can look at the diagram to find out it corresponds to PH6, which is Marlin pin 09.
If you want to change this numbering, then unfortunately, you have to make quite a few modifications to fastio_1280.h. For instance, the "reason" pin 5 corresponds to the pin it does, is the following set of definitions:
#define DIO5_PIN PINE3
#define DIO5_RPORT PINE
#define DIO5_WPORT PORTE
#define DIO5_DDR DDRE
#define DIO5_PWM &OCR3AL
If you wanted to point pin 5 towards another pin, you'd need to change all of these lines to point to the correct registers and pin numbers. |
Vertical 5 mm diameter hole comes out fine, but diagonal 3 mm holes keep collapsing I am trying to 3D print an object from Shapeways. Confidentiality prevents me from sharing the actual STL files publicly, but what I can say is that it's a shape about 2 cm tall x 4 cm wide x 4 cm deep, and where the design specifies a vertical hole 5 mm in diameter, the hole comes out fine, but where the design specifies multiple holes 3 mm in diameter, passing diagonally through the shape (at a 45° angle with the ground), the holes seem to collapse (i.e. I can't see through them, and if I push a straightened paper clip through the hole, it's blocked). This has happened repeatedly (e.g. Shapeways offered to re-print some shapes for free when they came out defective, but this happened the second time too).
I am new to 3D printing and trying to figure out:
Is the hole more likely to "collapse" if it's diagonal rather than straight up and down? Is this because when the shape is being 3D printed, it's oriented exactly as shown in the design, and so before the 3D printing materials have fully solidified, the holes are more likely to be collapsed by gravity? Or does it have more to do with the diameter of the holes, and if I made the shape with 5 mm diagonal holes, they might not collapse?
The material I'm picking from Shapeways's options is "Black Natural Versatile Plastic". Are there other materials that are less likely to have this problem? | A member of the public on Stack Exchange's forum gave me the answer:
"The problem is not the hole 'collapsing' in and of itself. The problem is the material.
Versatile Plastic is a layered powder fused together with a laser in multiple layers, so the unused power has to come out from the various holes in the model once printing is completed. However, these layers are also very thin and compact. Therefore, if you make a small enough hole, the powder simply won't flow through it and it becomes stuck. Due to the small dimensions you listed (of said hole) it's gonna be difficult to free it due to the sheer compressing forces involved. When working with such fine details Versatile Plastic is not the most indicated material.
The only correction you can make to rectify the problem is changing material. Fine Detail Plastic would be a good choice for a new test, although it is not cheap compared to Versatile, is certainly cheaper than metals.
Fine Detail Plastic should provide you with a good result if you feel like trying it out."
ShapeWays technical support told me basically the same thing, and added that ordering the shape in black might also exacerbate the problem:
He said that when a model has holes in it, a human actually pokes the holes to get residual material out if possible. Then he adds: "The last issue would be that Black indeed causes additional issues. If the production team isn't able to clean the model properly, or didn't do their work right, this could become and issue when we dye your model. All Versatile Plastic is printed in White, when selecting a colored finish such as black, we dye the model using a bath of regular RIT DYE. If the hole still has trapped powder, the bath will make the loose powder wet and make it become sticky, in combination with the dye this causes it to become chunky on the inside."
TL;DR: I can try to fix it by using Fine Detail Plastic, or I could try ordering in white and then painting it black myself to avoid gunking up the holes (the insides of the holes don't need to be painted black). |
Improving triangulation on AutoCAD-generated stl files In regards to a part that I'm having printed remotely (by two processes:- stereolithography and laser sintering), I've been advised by the 3d printing company that 'the triangulation of the file is rather rough'.
In this particular instance, it probably doesn't matter, but for the future, are there any tips to improving 'triangulation' when generating forms in AutoCAD?
Note, AutoCAD's FACETRES variable is set to 10. | The phrase "triangulation of the file is rather rough" is somewhat vague, but one can interpret it to mean that the surface is what is considered "low poly" in the 3D modeling world.
From Thingiverse, this low poly fox shows an intentionally reduced poly surface. I'm not suggesting that your models appear this distorted, but it may give a hint to what the service is referencing.
Consider to load your model into a program such as Meshmixer, which will show you the triangles in 'W'ireframe mode. If there are few triangles over a surface, you can get the aforementioned effect.
Meshmixer also allows you to increase the mesh count, possibly improving the surface and satisfying the requirements of the printing service. |
Getting started with converted STL to DXF I converted the STL file through an online converter https://www.cadforum.cz/catalog_en/stl2dwg.asp
(I work in the program autocad 2017)
Now I open the resulting DXF and I don’t know how to work with it. How do I merge polygons into a whole model? | I figured it out. Need to go: Network -> conversion to surface
Then we get a surface that is already easy to work with. |
Can I replace the cooling fan blade for the hot end on creality ender 3? I broke one of the blades of the fan and that's making the x-box vibrate. Other than that it works fine and I can still print at a very low flow rate and a lot of noise. Will replacing the blades, not the whole fan work?
Found this and how to replace on thingyverse:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:186979 | It will work, but likely with reduced performances: designing blades is not an easy task and the ones you can print will not be as good as the ones designed for that specific fan.
Overall, do it for fun before you replace the fan anyway.
IF your fan has symmetrical blades (unlikely), another option is to break the opposite blade to balance the fan. |
How to wire an LJ18A3-8-Z/BX sensor with an optocoupler to a stock Ender 3? I have this optocoupler.
and this sensor.
I want to wire them together and use them for auto bed leveling. Note, stock Ender 3 board (Creality v1) has 2 pins for its endstop, not 3, so this:
won't work
However, I found this diagram:
My optocoupler is rated for 12 V so I definitely wont attach 24 V to it. However, everything else seems good. So I could only replace the 24 V to 12 V and it would work? | Both diagrams are exactly the same, the difference is the +5 V that is not connected on the bottom diagram (displayed in white, labelled "not used"), but since your endstops do not have a +5 V pin in the socket (only ground, GND, and signal, SIG or S) you don't need to attach it. You should source the +5 V from elsewhere from your board. As the left and right side of the module are separated circuits, you need to power the board with +5 V.
Read this answer for applying 24 V. |
Flashforge Dreamer not able to read Cura created G-code file I'm using a second hand Flashforge Dreamer with ABS filament and Cura as slicer.
The Flashforge Dreamer cannot read the printing (G-code) file Cura creates, I think due to not knowing what the printer firmware is? I want to use some of the Cura features that the FlashPrint software does not have.
What firmware does Flashforge Dreamer use? I think I have to input to cura the machine details (name not listed on list of printers in the drop down menu) and even Google could not tell me, nor the Flashforge website.
Cura has a built-in list of printer specs, but no Flashforge, so even the name of a clone type of the Flashforge using the same type of firmware would help. | For the Flashforge Creator model an alternative firmware is available; Sailfish. However, Sailfish is not available for the Flashforge Dreamer. As a matter of fact, no alternative firmware is available for the Dreamer as a consequence of the Flashforge Dreamer being closed hardware and closed source.
Not knowing the flavor af firmware (as it is closed source and could well be using a custom firmware build) using Cura to slice models for G-code files gives no guarantee for successful printing.
To be able to use Cura you would have to switch the current board from the Flashforge Dreamer and replace it with a board that accepts Marlin Firmware. Note that there is no default configuration for this pronter available so this requires a little work from you to go through the Marlin configuration file and adjust various constants to make your printer work. [edit: As pointed out below in the comments, in the process you will lose some of the maximum speed the Dreamer is capable of!]
Another option is to buy a license of e.g. Simplify3D (note that I have no affiliation with Simplfy3D!) as they claim to support this printer. There could be other software suites that support your printer. |
Filament lifts from the hot bed while printing I have a Tevo Tarantula 3D printer.
I'm trying to print a calibration cube.
The slicer is Cura and is set for a 1.75 mm filament extruded by a nozzle of 0.4 mm, with a heat bed temperature of 60°C and extruder 200°C.
As seen in the image I stopped the printer after a minute, when I noticed that the filament wasn't sticking to the hotbed.
I've also made other tests, but the result is the same - the upper right part of the print lifts and touches the moving nozzle.
How could I resolve this? Any advice? | Check the following:
Is the print bed clean? On glass, you can use a few squirts of window cleaner.
Is the print bed actually reaching the correct temperature?
Have you manually calibrated the printer (at both the center and the edges), such that you can just about get a sheet of paper between the print bed and the hotend nozzle, at z = 0? This last check ensures that the first printed layer of extruded filament is actually touching and "presses on" to the print bed. See the video #18:Calibration for a great explanation on the use of the paper. Whilst this video is for a Delta printer, it clearly demonstrates the height that the zeroed print head should be at, and how to check using a sheet paper.
Maybe the filament, for the first few layers, should be heated at a high temperature, than the rest of the print, to ensure adhesion.
If all of the above are checked and OK, then (as electrophile points out in their answer) try making the print head more grippy. This can be achieved by simply adding a thin coating to the glass with one of the following:
Wiping the glass with a glue stick or wood glue
Using hairspray
Both use PVA as an adhesive/stiffener.
Or by adding an additional print surface, such as:
Using blue painters tape
Using PEI tape
Using Kapton tape
Using BuildTak
If adding tape, then the printer may require a small re-calibration, due to the thickness of the tape adding a few microns to the print bed height. This can be done in the firmware. |
Optimal ratio of fresh to used nylon powder I am operating a laser sintering machine, using polyamide 2200 powder (with a grain size of approximately 50 micrometers). During a print, a lot of powder goes unsintered and can theoretically be reused. However, using purely recycled powder degrades print quality to an unacceptable level.
Mixing a little used powder into a larger amount of fresh powder seems to work well though. What is the greatest ratio of used to fresh powder that still gives good results, and is there anything I can do (pre- postprocessing) to allow more powder to be reused? | I currently use the 60/40 recycling mix ratio and find that it works very well. I do however wonder if there is an even more effective ratio in order to recycle used powder. I currently discard all "cake" powder (powder remaining in the build piston) and am only "recycling" the push off powder. I found this paper but it's unclear if they are reusing just the push off or both push off and cake. Any further opinions/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.internationaljournalssrg.org/IJME/2015/Volume2-Issue7/IJME-V2I7P106.pdf |
Labists ET4 printer nozzle hits bed after automatic levelling I use Slic3r to create G-codes for my Labists ET4 printer. Usually, no problem.
Now, as soon as I tried to start a print, the nozzle head went down as usual, but this time it went a bit lower than 0 and the machine made angry noises for less than a second.
It went back up again and heated the bed and the nozzle, only to go back down too strongly with angry noises again. Even left a little pokey hole on the bed.
I got scared and turned the machine's switch off and manually raised the Z axis with ease.
Never had this problem before and now I'm afraid to turn on my machine.
I've had the following setup for G-codes prior to today's incident and it had worked just fine:
G28 ; Home extruder
G1 Z15 F[travel_speed]
M106 S[max_fan_speed]; Turn on fan
G90 ; Absolute positioning
M82 ; Extruder in absolute mode
; Activate all used extruder
M104 T0 S[first_layer_temperature]
M190 S[bed_temperature]
G92 E0 ; Reset extruder position
; Wait for all used extruders to reach temperature
M109 T0 S[first_layer_temperature]
After this, I did try the auto levelling, however it still tried to plow into the bed, albeit not as angrily.
Here's other things to potentially consider:
I haven't used the machine 10 days.
It's been chilly in the room where the machine is.
So here's my questions:
"What could cause a 3D printer to have an incorrect impression of Z-axis=0 even in absolute position mode?"
"What can I do to fix it?" | Dirt. It was dirt. Most likely.
Apparently the machine establishes bed level with a sensor, and I might be wrong, but I think the ET4 monitors capacitance as a means to notice how far the nozzle is from the bed.
After all else failed I looked at the nozzle closely and noticed that the whole thing looked fuzzy. Looks like soot (from where though!?) had settled on the machine's sensitive components and de facto blind-folded its sensor.
A wipe and a levelling later, all was back to normal. Yay! |
Problem with first and last layers I bought Ender-5 and if I print sample model in bundle SD, it’s just perfect.
But when I tested basic cube with raft, its base and top is just ugly. Even thought its 4 sides are perfect.
Ultimaker Cura 4.2.1
Bed temperature 45 °C
Extruder temperature 200 °C
Which setting(s) should I check futher? | You may want to ensure that your filament diameter is correctly set in your printer's CURA profile, and that your hot end is at the correct temperature for the material you are using. Additionally, you should not need a raft to print the cube, and should be able to do without a raft or brim. |
Empty space in model is getting filled I drew a fairly simple model in Google SketchUp. I exported it as an STL. I imported it into Cura and exported as gcode. Then I printed the model.
All of the bottom layers of the model cover the entire space instead of leaving the two open gaps that should exist. I don't know why it's happening. Do I have some weird setting in Cura?
The section that is filled, but shouldn't be, isn't a raft. I printed without a raft because my model goes to the max extent that my printer can print and I don't have room for a raft around the edges.
Here is what it looks like in SketchUp:
Here is what it looks like in Cura. The two empty areas are shaded darker than the other empty areas of the build plate. Is that an indication of my problem?
Here is what was printed. The empty areas are solid and filled in as if the center piece extended to the inner edges of that area. (The jacked up corners are due to the model warping a bit and no longer being in the right position for subsequent layers.)
Here is a video of the layers according to Cura, and Cura clearly knows the gaps should be there:
https://youtu.be/r0a9gGFerHI | I suspect, as I am wont to do, that your problem lies in the STL created by SketchUp. It's an unfortunate aspect of that program that it creates non-manifold models which creates troubles such as this.
Consider to load your STL file into a program suitable for showing flaws (and repairing them) to determine where the failure points lie. I'm fond of Meshmixer, but there are many others such as Netfabb with which I am less familiar.
If you don't want to check your STL file, attach it to your post and I'll take a shot at it.
You would also want to consider to learn a new program if you intend to perform such 3D modeling. Fusion 360 has a popular following. I'm a fan of OpenScad, but use Fusion 360, Meshmixer, Blender (only a tiny amount) and anything else I can utilize for model repair, creation and editing. Build a large repetoire of different programs and get the best of all worlds.
SketchUp has a strong following primarily because it's rather easy to use. The same can be said of a few other programs, but SketchUp really generates trouble when it comes to 3D models.
TinkerCAD is very much like SketchUp and will give you better final results. OnShape is another popular modeling program, but I have zero exposure to that one.
It's not out of the question that there's a bug in Cura that's causing this problem. You are not limited to one slicer program, and you can check the results of another slicer such as Slic3r, Craftware or others. |
Does Cura have an algorithm for any infill percentage or does it just have specific patterns? Looking in the Cura interface, I can set any whole number 0-100 for the infill percentage. Does Cura have an algorithm to calculate a pattern for any of those possible values, or does it have a few patterns where it selects the closest one? | I fear I'm going to deny your question. The infil percentage and the infil pattern are two orthogonal properties, both of which contribute to the strength, density, mass, and print time of an object. Since there's no way for an algo to "know" what your desired outcome is, this can't be done.
Note - I used 'orthogonal' in the Hilbert sense, meaning neither property is a function of the other. |
Is Tetrahydrofuran viable for dissolving PLA and sticking PLA objects together? According to Wikipedia, Tetrahydrofuran dissolves PLA. It also apparently dissolves PET.
THF is considered a relatively nontoxic solvent, with the median lethal dose (LD50) comparable to that for acetone.
Wikipedia further states that it's not particularly dangerous provided you keep it away from air circulation, so that it does not form peroxides.
One danger posed by THF follows from its tendency to form highly explosive peroxides on storage in air.
So well, this seems acceptable compared to other possible solvents which are all ridiculously dangerous. The question at hand is now of practical nature:
Is Tetrahudrofuran actually viable replacement for acetone, which only works with ABS?
I am asking because the fact that it does dissolve PLA does not really at all mean that it will work well. It could damage PLA structure, be more toxic than wikipedia says or not dry well. | According to Shuichi Sato, Daiki Gondo, Takayuki Wada, Shinji Kanehashi & Kazukiyo Nagai: Effects of various liquid organic solvents on solvent‐induced crystallization of amorphous poly(lactic acid) film in Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Volume 129 Issue 3 (2013), p1607-1617source, Tetrahydrofuran is classified as a solvent for PLA. The specific entry on page 1608:
Group Solvent Solvent type dd dp dh dt Result
Ether Tetrahydrofuran Polar aprotic 16.8 5.7 8 19.4 soluble
The values dd dp dh and dt are explained on page 1607:
The effects of 60 liquid organic solvents on PLA are systematically
investigated using the Hansen solubility parameter (HSP). The HSP
is one of the digitizing methods for analyzing the interaction
between polymer materials and organic solvents. In HSP analysis,
all solvents have three parameters: energy from dispersion bonds
between molecules (dd), dipolar intermolecular force between molecules
(dp), and the hydrogen bonds between molecules (dh). All solvents
were characterized by a point in a three-dimensional structure
at which dd, dp, and dh are plotted on three mutually perpendicular
axes. Generally, if the HSP values of the various organic solvents
are near that of the given polymer, the solvent is considered compatible
with the polymer material.
The factor dt is the total Hansen solubility parameter - the bigger this is, the better it is a solvent.
19.4 is a rather good solvent but extremely explosive: in air 20000 ppm (2%) are explosive and thus the allowable concentration in an area is 2000 ppmsource
Alternatives
A similar potent solvent would be Benzene (dt = 18.6) which more easily available and less explosive, but more deadly (10000-20000 ppm fumes) and has an allowable concentration of 500 ppmsource
Ethyl-acetate is also a solvent (dt = 18.2) and more available. It is explosive at an equal concentration as Tetrahydrofuransource, but it has just about half of its vapor pressure (73 mmHgsource vs. 132 mmHgsource), so can be stored more safely, and is less aggressive on the body. It is sometimes used to Smooth PLA via vapor chambersource, and only comes at a price tag of ca. 90 €/l for the pure stuff and also is used in some nail polish removers, put into a safe mix.
Acetone is classified as a better solvent (dt = 20.1), and it is known to act as a glue and to soften PLA with some exposure time, but from experience, it can't smooth it. It is available most easy (nail polish remover and in the home depot), and is the least deadly option.
Propylene-1,2-carbonate is classed as solvent and a far better at it with dt = 27.2. It has been used as an alternative to Ethyl-Acetatesource and its MSDS is rather gentlesource. It comes at a price tag of 130 €/l for the chemical-grade liquid.
Conclusion
Tetrahydrofuran is not a viable replacement due to its explosive properties. It is not an improvement above Benzene, which at least can be stored safely.
Using Acetone as a benchmark, Tetrahydrofuran should not smooth the surface in a vapor chamber, as it is a worse solvent than Acetone. It should also take longer to soften and dissolve objects than Acetone, but a heated bath or coating the surface with it could help to generate the needed exposure times.
However, its comparable ethyl-acetate has been claimed to be used as a cleaning, vapor smoothing, and brush on surface smoothing agent successfully and can be used better by helping the solubility via heating, which can be done much safer with ethyl-acetate than THF. In a proper chemical mix, its storage problem can be solved too.
A better alternative is propylene-1,2-carbonate, which is a better solvent, and much less dangerous.
tl;dr: No, Tetrahydrofuran is not able to dissolve PLA in a reasonable time1 without heat activation and it has worse characteristics than Acetone. It could arguably be used to weld parts, but Dichloromethane would be more effective.
1 - Sato, Gondo et al. in the aforementioned paper: Solubility tests were performed for 24 h at 35+-1 °C. which means we have a prolonged exposure of a thin film to a huge amount of solvent. how thin a film? Very thin: The PLA films
were prepared by casting 2 wt % dichloromethane solution onto a
flat-bottomed glass Petri dish in a glass bell-type vessel and by drying
under atmospheric pressure at room temperature. Each solvent
was allowed to evaporate for 48 h. The dried PLA films were then
thermally treated under a vacuum for 48 h at 70 °C to eliminate
the residual solvent and to obtain amorphous PLA films. Afterwards,
the thermally treated PLA films were cooled at room temperature
under atmospheric pressure. |
After print failure cant extrude PLA I had a failed print lastnight and a glob of pla surrounded the hotend. After heating it up and removing the glob the extruder does not release any significant material. I checked with OctoPrint and the extruder stepper does push filament without the hot end on.
After fully heating the hot end I was able to remove the nozzle.
I then pushed the previously melted PLA out of the tube and heater. It was discolored in the heater. I then tried to put the nozzle back on and pull the old PLA out of the nozzle but no success there.
Should the nozzle be left in acetone for a few days before trying again or how should this be dealt with. The nozzle appears to be blocked. | If the hotend is okay, consider yourself lucky and consider the nozzle a loss. Aside from specialty items like ruby tip ones, nozzles are a consumable anyway. Even if you can clean it out well enough to get it working again, it's unlikely to extrude as well as a new clean nozzle. Acetone is probably not going to help; PLA does not dissolve in acetone, and while the pigments/additives might be affected by it enough to weaken and deform PLA in a way that could get it to detach, what's clogging your nozzle is likely burnt/carbonized PLA that's unlikely to be removable by anything that won't also destroy the brass.
If you don't already have replacements on hand, get yourself a pack of 10-20 for $10 or so and be ready to replace when needed. You can also go for a mixed-size pack if you want to try printing fine details with a smaller (0.1-0.3 mm) nozzle or super-fast but rough with a large (0.8-1.0 mm) nozzle. |
What to do if filament spool won't fit in 3D printer My sample filament has just ran out. Luckilly, I've already bought more filament. The only problem I have is that the spool for the new filament won't fit inside my 3D printer. The filament itself works with my printer; it's just the spool that is the problem. Does anyone have any solutions for what to do if a filament spool won't fit in your 3D printer? For reference, I have the FlashForge Adventurer 3. | A spool does not need to be inside a printer. Or on. Or even next to.
My Ender 3 pulls his filament in from the rack above it, my TronXY X1 pulls it from about 80 cm to the left of it, where it hangs from a shelf.
When making a solution that pulls in filament from afar, it is necessary to make sure the path is unobstructed and works for the whole movement range of the printer without getting bent sharply, as that can snap or kink the filament.
In the case of the small printer you have, leave open or remove the door to the filament chamber and make sure to place the spool holder so it drags in the filament straight. There are even spool holders designed specifically for this printer.
There are many designs of spool holders out there, many of them free and with minimal assembly.
RE-spooling
Some printers, especially ones that only take marked rolls, might need their spool cores re-filled. In that case, you need to take utmost care: re-filling a spool needs to be without any twist to the filament or you risk entangling, and you need to make sure to not kink or bend the filament in doing so, or risk breaking at those spots.
Due to the risks involved, this should be avoided whenever possible! |
Is this re-Arm controller actually 24 V capable? I would like to make a 24 V (3D printer board and shield) setup, as opposed to the usual 12 V, and to do so I had been considering using the Taurino Power board, or the clone Eruduino. However, I just found this board:
The specifications state a DC input of up to 36 V:
Does anyone know whether that really means it can handle 24 V in the same manner as the Taurino/Eruduino? If so, then that looks like a double win: not only 24 V support, but also a faster processor. Anyone have experience with this board?
I was thinking of using with a RAMPS1.6 Plus (maybe), or just a regular RAMPS 1.4 (hacked to support 24 V). I'm just shopping about, and I thought that if I was going to spend £14 on an Eruduino, then I just as well spend that money on something better.
It does work with Marlin apparently, as some of the customer reviews would suggest, but none of the reviews that I could find referred to a 24 V setup (heated bed etc.), hence my question. | Given that the capacitor near the input is quite clearly marked 35 V, a 36 V rating seems questionable.
The (buck) regulator used on the (genuine version of the) board is the AOZ1282CI which supports up to 36 V input. This is probably where they got the 36 V rating from, but obviously the 35 V-rated capacitors drop the input voltage down below this.
Schematics for the board are available on the RepRap wiki and show that the input voltage only feeds into the regulator. I see no reason why this board couldn't handle 24 V input, as this is well within the rating of both the regulator and the capacitors. |
Is there any opensource software that controls the RAMPS RepRap board directly from the computer? I'd like to find an opensource software that communicates directly with the RAMPS board (or any other 3D printer driver) without using the arduino...
It doesn't matter if it runs on Windows or linux as long as it's opensource. Also, I'm not worried about how this communication is done (USB, serial port, parallel port)...
Has anyone ever heard about projects like this? | No, there exists no software like that. You can't communicate with a RAMPs board because a RAMPs board has no logic built-in; it's just a dumb breakout board that connects the Arduino Mega to your printer's components (such as stepper drivers, MOSFETs for controlling heaters, endstops,...).
If you wanted to connect a RAMPs board "directly" to your computer, you'd need a way for your computer to generate the pulses that the Arduino normally generates. You could potentially use a parallel port for this but you'd need many more outputs than a single parallel port can provide and you'd need to find a way to do the analog to digital conversion needed for the thermistors.
It's just not very feasible (considering how few computers have parallel ports nowadays). |
When is kapton tape useful as a bed adhesive? I've long since been aware that some people swear by Kapton tape as a bed adhesive, with MatterHackers claiming that Kapton tape is the recommended bed adhesive for ABS.
What makes Kapton tape so useful for printing with ABS? Is it also useful for printing with other materials? | I tested Kapton tape for PLA, ABS, PETG and XT. I know it works for other materials as well. What you need to keep in mind is that many materials only stick to Kapton tape well if you use a heated bed.
The advantage of Kapton tape in comparison to other materials is its heat endurance and mechanical stability. It protects the glass underneath, while you remove the print from the surface. Some filaments stick so well to glass that you may break chunks out of it.
The major disadvantage of Kapton tape is the time to apply the tape to the print surface and its very smooth surface pattern which seems odd in comparison to the rest of the print. |
Simplify3D with error in preview? I am trying to print a belt but when I preview it, the model doesn't fully render
It isn't rendering the full model correctly. The model is rendering halfway but isn't fully which is why you can still see the infill when the slider is at max which isn't normal.
This is what it should look like:
I have a 0.4 nozzle and those with a 0.6 have been able to print this. What is going on? | First I thought that the model was improperly modeled due inverted faces or any missing line to close that faces but, I rendered the same STL to be printed 0.4 nozzle with height 0.2mm and looks pretty well.
Then I suspected that you were trying to print with 0.4 nozzle at 0.6 layers, which this is totally wrong but, I decided to set the 3D simplify and do the test. The program just show a warning about first layer height adhesion, the click OK and the part is rendered correctly.
However the recommended settings for a 0.4 nozzle should be less than 80% diameter = 0.32mm as maximum to get a proper bonding.
So, I think that you need to download the part and render it again. The time to process this render under XP with an small PC last for 5 minutes. So on bigger PC's will be faster.
Here is the link where I downloaded the "belt Komplett 805" |
E3D V6 nozzle vs MK8 nozzle, first layer adhesion Does anyone notice that when they upgrade from an MK8Makerbot(?) to a E3D V6 hotend that when using the same settings and bed-leveling/z-distance-setting procedures, that the filament is much more likely to be pulled up and bunch up around the nozzle while printing the first layer?
It occurs mostly when printing small details, such as 3 mm bolt holes, and not so much when laying down long lines.
Is this due to the shape of the nozzle, which on the V6 is much more flat when compared to the MK8 which is more sharp, or is it due to something else that can be easily fixed? | When filament curls up this generally means that there is some sort of obstruction or burned material in the nozzle causing uneven flow. You can use the Atomic Method from this answer.
Being a new nozzle, I would expect that this is not the case, so that it should just drop out of the nozzle and not curl up. It could be that the nozzle is not perfectly machined and a defect in the geometry is causing this. You could try to replace the nozzle with another nozzle. They are pretty cheap, you should buy a few extra.
As far as why the filament sticks easier to the E3D nozzle when it curls up, is that this nozzle has a (hexagonal) flange that sticks out, while the other nozzle does not have such a flange. If it curls up, it has a larger probability to hit the flange and stick to the outside of the nozzle than a nozzle that has no such flange. |
Standard Settings for AnyCubic Printers? Does anyone know where I can find a list of recommended settings for different types of resin / print objects for Anycubic printers?
I realize that some of the details will need to be tweaked on a case-by-case basis, but having some general starter information (exposure times for first 6 lines + rest of the print, step settings based on type of print, etc) would certainly be better than starting "cold".
It seems like this information should be gathered somewhere, either for ALL printers, or separate ones for each type of printer. | Times are not dependant on the printer but the resin. Please look at the resin's label, which should have recommended settings. |
Where is the "slice" button in Cura? I'm relatively new to Cura, having just installed it a few weeks ago. I have 3.0.3 and I'm running on Windows 7 64 bit. I noticed the auto slicing setting while poking around the settings. Auto slice almost always works.
A couple times now, Cura won't auto slice. I can't seem to find the slice button. How do I manually slice? I found an article on how to disable auto slicing, but it doesn't show how to manually slice.
Where the button "save to file" is is greyed out and just says "Print with Octoprint".
Closing Cura and re-opening it will fix the issue. | If auto-slicing is disabled, the button in the bottom-right corner of the window toggles between "Prepare" and "Save to File" depending on whether the model needs to be re-sliced or not. While slicing is in progress, it changes to "Cancel".
If auto-slicing is enabled, the button always reads "Save to File", and is greyed-out when slicing is being performed (it does not change to "Cancel"). |