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Is a heated bed an essential component for printing (difference between Creality Ender 3 or Anycubic Mega Zero)? I have two options - to buy either the Ender 3 or the Mega Zero. I'm heading towards Ender 3 because the Mega Zero doesn't have a heated bed. My question is, how is a printer without a heated bed (the Mega Zero) a better option than one with a heated bed (the Ender 3)? Why would I even consider buying a printer without a heated bed when the Ender 3 can do the same things and has a heated bed? I want be able to print not only PLA but other materials as well. Doesn't the Mega Zero limit you to using only PLA?

I used to print PLA with my heated bed turned off, since it was deforming when heated. It works perfectly fine, only detaching the print was terribly difficult. I would not buy a printer without it, because even a weak bed reaching only 50°C gives you many more possibilities. I mean, you could use it to keep your coffee warm while you work at the computer, or to warm up chemical solutions to make them react faster. You can also use the bed to shake the solution! Go for a heated bed.

Creatorbot-3D Kickstarter assembly instructions I disassembled my printer a couple of years ago for a move and now I'm getting back to it and can't find the manual detailing the assembly anywhere and the google drive link is gone. Does anyone have a copy of the PDF somewhere?

In the comments for the Kickstarter, there is a Google Drive link that is still active here.

Cura Filling holes from a model from Blender I am Attempting to print this, from Blender But Cura decides to fill in the middle part of the model. I exported and imported the model from an STL file. If anyone can answer this, that would be greatly appreciated.

Try disabling the "Union Overlapping Volumes" option on Mesh Fixes section. Worked for me.

Severe regression in print quality after adding Z probe I installed a BLTouch on my printer (Wanhao Duplicator i3) with Marlin 2.0.5.3 and enabled AUTO_BED_LEVELING_BILINEAR. However, the results are disastrous when I print. The first few layers do not adhere to the build plate at all. It is much worse with the probe than when I was leveling by hand. In my Marlin configuration, I left the probe's Z offset from the nozzle at 0. Then I went through the Z offset calibration process to set Z=0 to barely touching the build plate. Then I ran the bed leveling process. How can I diagnose what's going wrong? When I run G30 X100 Y100 to probe the center of the bed, I get a measurement of Z=1.18. I'm assuming that represents the true Z offset between the probe and the nozzle tip? Here's another thing I tried. I probed with G30 X100 Y100 which output a measurement like this: Recv: Bed X: 100.00 Y: 100.00 Z: 0.06 I tweaked the Z offset with M851 Z... repeatedly until a probe yielded Z: 0.00 (the offset was -1.07). Then I ran G29 to run bed leveling, which gave me this grid: Bilinear Leveling Grid: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 -0.403 -0.313 -0.258 -0.210 -0.178 -0.138 -0.128 -0.085 -0.058 1 -0.285 -0.223 -0.178 -0.145 -0.103 -0.060 -0.050 -0.023 -0.045 2 -0.178 -0.128 -0.080 -0.083 -0.078 -0.053 -0.045 -0.048 -0.038 3 -0.103 -0.058 -0.028 -0.030 -0.018 -0.015 -0.018 -0.000 -0.030 4 -0.020 +0.015 +0.015 +0.002 -0.000 -0.013 -0.035 -0.060 -0.088 5 +0.030 +0.055 +0.037 +0.020 +0.035 -0.015 -0.023 -0.073 -0.140 6 +0.060 +0.082 +0.087 +0.020 -0.000 -0.055 -0.103 -0.160 -0.210 7 +0.097 +0.102 +0.082 +0.055 +0.002 -0.035 -0.105 -0.138 -0.265 8 +0.145 +0.130 +0.102 +0.077 -0.045 -0.108 -0.183 -0.193 -0.263 You can see at (4,4), the center of the bed is 0.0. Then I saved the mesh and Z-offset with M500. I confirmed repeatedly that G28 puts the nozzle just touching the build plate and not pushing on it. This strategy seems to be work alright. I'm not sure if it's the correct way to do it. I'd welcome any feedback. If anything, I think I should probably raise the nozzle a fraction of a millimeter higher off the bed.

Even with Auto Mesh Bed Leveling, you need to level the bed as good as you can. Your leveling grid show it varies between -0.403 and +0.145, that is about 0.55 mm or about 2-3 layers of filament (0.2 or 0.3 mm per layer). That can't be compensated for reasonably. Re-level your bed so that the corners only have an absolute error of at max 0.1 mm around their average 0 - that's half what I consider the standard layer 1 height of 0.2 mm, regardless of other settings. Make sure the 0 of the extended probe is a sliver under the nozzle, just to prevent piercing your bed on probing G28 should bring the nozzle a hair sliver above the bed - if you move the head in X or Y direction (by hand after disabling the steppers, or move the carriage using the LCD) it should not make contact.

How can I print gears using very high resolution material like nylon I'm trying to gear down a servo even further. I notice that the majority of the gears are made of nylon, and I want to create new gears that come close to the resolution and strength of the existing gears. I have a Replicator 2, but the resolution does not seem to come close to what I need. Any suggestions on how I can create nylon or other hard material parts that might work?

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

Print is not properly laminated at certain height I have a Wanhao Duplicator i3. I have done many excellent prints with this printer, and have first hand experience that it can do a pretty much flawless print. But... Recently, I am experiencing weird results. My "flow" seems uneven. When laying down the first layer of the raft, I can see it looks like it "beads" in some places. Thin lines with little "beads" here and there (which seem to be in a constant pattern) i.e. -------()-----()-----()------()------ etc. I initially thought, wet filament... But drying the filament had no noticeable effect. Further more, all my prints seem to be horribly laminated at a certain "height" of the print. This is really strange as it will print perfectly and only at a certain height, mess up about 5mm of layers (height wise), and then print great again. This seems to be a constant now. I dont understand how/why this could happen, as the whole z-axis is on a linear spiral shaft. Unless there is a gcode issue somewhere that I am not aware off. I am using CURA as my slicer and I feel that even if there was an isnturuction hidden somewhere at a certain height, it would possibly effect a single layer, and not 5mm worth of layers. Any ideas? I have tried: Different filament Pushing flow % to 105 and 110% respectively Cleaned extruder gears and print head Oiled z-axis shafts What baffles me, is the weird delamination (or rather lack of lamination) at a certain height. I have not measured this height exactly, but from guestimating, it looks like roughly the same height on every print where the issue is visible (about 3/4 up in the attached image). My support structures are also VERY messy, whilst they were very precise and perfect previously. Thanks

This looks like a heating or retraction issue. I also have a Di3, and I encountered a similar problem a while ago. I have found that leveling the bed very well and making sure the z-axis is aligned fixes most problems with this machine. Re-calibrate your printer and try out a different slicer. This link from the 3D Printer Wiki is very useful.

Retainer for PTFE in throat I've tried using a throat with a PTFE tube, but encountered the problem described in this question. It seems only a small amount of excess pressure in the extruder is enough to force out the inner tube. This makes me worry that with this particular part, I won't achieve a reliable configuration (and I'm experiencing some binding with the original plain steel throat, so a PTFE liner seems worth exploring). I was wondering about the advisability of using a retainer to apply some pressure at the cold end - a nut with a washer soldered on maybe. My goal is to prevent the teflon tube from rising up, so I can use this part and retain some resilience against excess extrusion pressure. I was assuming I had a slightly sub-standard throat part (in a pack of 6). However, I now wonder if the problem was caused by too high a temperature (this is ABS filament) and maybe the teflon will be too soft to function as designed, so if I go back to PLA filament, maybe it is more likely to work without modification.

In this case I would like to first recommend replacing your PTFE tube with a better quality product. Unfortunately, the quality:price ratio is as to be expected here. My reasoning: PTFE has great thermal properties for a polymer, just like ABS. In fact, the glass-transition state begins at relatively the same temperature between the two materials. ABS starts transitioning at about 105°C and about 127°C for PTFE. However PTFE, traditionally, has a much higher melting point at about 327°C as opposed to the usual 125° we use in 3D printing. My Point: I think the hardware you currently have has low-quality PTFE. PTFE can be recycled for re-use in other PTFE products. In recycled PTFE, you can lose a lot of the desired properties in the material (true for any material). This includes both the ideal "friction-less" and thermal resistance we need in 3D Printing. What I think happened: The higher print temperatures of ABS transitioned the PTFE into its glass-state. As the throat expands, the path of least resistance in the assembly is towards the extruder motor since the nozzle holds more pressure. I would not recommend "fixing" this problem with a retainer! By forcing the PTFE throat to stay in position, you could potentially force the PTFE to expand in other ways. Most likely resulting in constricting the filament, leading to grinding of filament on the drive gear and clogging of the nozzle. Worst case, you end up with gooey PTFE in your nozzle and/or around your retainer.

No movement on any axis on Ender 3 Pro I've printed the dog that came on the SD card of my new Ender 3 pro, and everything worked great. Today, I turned on the unit and plugged in a Raspberry PI Zero to the Ender's USB port. The rPi is running the latest version of OctoPrint. Now, when I try to Auto home, I hear a very brief sound of a motor staring to move on an axis, and then the Ender halts. I've power cycled it several times. When I trying to use the panel on the Ender to move on any axis the same thing happens: it sounds like it's starting to move, and then never actually tries to move again until after I power cycle. This is the same no mater which axis I try to move. I've reinstalled the lated firmware on the Ender. I've opened up the machine to make sure that all of the cables are attaches to the motherboard. I've checked the actuation of the stopper switches and unplugged the switch and motor connectors.

I upgraded to the latest firmware, and now everything works again.

Simplify3D, connection disapear after slice I have a problem with some models like this (trim_tabs version) : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3401852 When I import the model on simplify, the tabs are sticky to the model (see pic3.png) but when I slice it, on the preview, tabs are not sticky to the model (see pic1.png). I tried to do it on Cura and it works ; tabs stay stiky to the model (see pics2.png). What's wrong ? I attach my Simplify and Cura profile to help. To get pics and profiles : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NkMBosI-xalRGjTSua1xDejZ2MKWZcV9

I've tried that item as well. In fact, other than the heart, I built a remix which works better but is still difficult to free up after printing. Those tabs you're concerned about will print better at a very low (thin) layer setting. I am pretty sure that the original design is faulty. All the "leaves" have gears which cause them to rotate when the threaded ring is turned. But the designer made all leaves identical! Each one needs its gear's null-position set differently so that it properly meshes with the thread positions of the outer ring at that leaf's placement. Some day I may remix to adjust those gear positions....

How to build Cura on Windows? I am interested in doing development on Cura. Initially I want to start with the UI rather than the Engine. I have found the repository and have cloned it to my PC. I have also looked over the Wiki and searched the web. For such a popular open-source product, I was surprised I couldn't find a build guide. Can someone direct me on how to get started. I have a LOT of experience in Software Development (more years and languages than I want to admit to); but, I have never used Python. Consider that in your instructions.

The repository's README.md includes a section titled "Build Scripts", with a link to another repository: https://github.com/Ultimaker/cura-build This includes dependencies and instructions for building Cura on Windows.

Printing with Polycarbonate keeps warping I'm trying to print a large piece with polycarbonate but it keeps warping, I'm using a Taz 5 printer and setting 290 C in the extruder and 145 C in the heating bed. Other setting I have are: printing speed: 20 mm/s layer height: 2.5mm infil: 20% brim: 15mm Can anyone tell me any tips or suggestions to avoid warping?

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

Stop and continue 3D printing How to successfully pause 3D printing and turn off the printer and the next day, continue to print the model?

If you enable M413 in Marlin firmware, the printer will write a resume printing file to SD card e.g. every layer. From M413 - Power-loss Recovery documentation I quote: Enable or disable the Power-loss Recovery feature. When this feature is enabled, the state of the current print job (SD card only) will be saved to a file on the SD card. If the machine crashes or a power outage occurs, the firmware will present an option to Resume the interrupted print job. In Marlin 2.0 the POWER_LOSS_RECOVERY option must be enabled. This feature operates without a power-loss detection circuit by writing to the recovery file periodically (e.g., once per layer), or if a POWER_LOSS_PIN is configured then it will write the recovery info only when a power-loss is detected. The latter option is preferred, since constant writing to the SD card can shorten its life, and the print will be resumed where it was interrupted rather than repeating the last layer. (Future implementations may allow use of the EEPROM or the on-board SD card.) This means if you cut the power you can resume the print layer, the only problem is that the part must remain attached to the plate, if it comes loose it is hard to resume printing. This feature is now commonly found on printers these days. The regular pause and resume functionality of the printer will not work when the power is cut over night, i.e. no recovery file is written in such a case.

3d printer drip problem I have a problem with my 3d printer. When I am printing, the printer seems to drip. I am very confused because I never saw this before and I do not know what to do. I attach a picture of it. Why does this happen? Thank you very much for yours ideas. DATA: Printer: Anet A8 Material: PLA Temperature: 200ºC I Have enable retraction and I tried to disable it without changes...

I have two theories to offer. It is really dripping. If this is the case, the likely culprit is a loose part in the hot-end, namely the nozzle/heating block coupling, or the heating block/heat break one. If this is the case, you should be able to see it by visually inspecting the part. The solution in this case is to fully disassemble the parts, clean them thoroughly of any remaining plastic, and reassembling them while hot. This is essential, as parts that are assembled cold have the tendency to come loose when heated (due to thermal expansion). It is overextruding, and the nozzle collect and drag around the excessive plastic, until the blob is big enogh to detach and remain on the bed. If this is the case, then you should calibrate your extruder, and the nozzle height.

How to fix bad extrusion that's likely caused by high pressure in the nozzle I've got a secondhand Renkforce RF1000 which I can't seem to get working properly. Initially, I asked about hardware issues that required fixing. After fixing those I still got some inconsistent printing results. These problems got worse with a new nozzle and new filament. I've now narrowed it down to one problem: bad feeding To summary: I've got a secondhand Renkforce RF1000 I print using 2.85 mm PLA I've got a new 0.3 mm nozzle I've got new springs for holding the filament against the extruder The feeding mechanism The problem seems to be that the pressure for extruding filament through the nozzle is too high. This causes the grub screw to keep spinning without extruding filament. So in the picture, the left screw will spin and the right one will remain stationary. This isn't consistent, it might work for a few millimetres and then stop working for a bit. It can cause the screw to grind into the filament creating a hole that cuts the filament in two. Here's what I've done to try and fix it: Cleaned the nozzle with new 0.25 mm needles Cleaned the nozzle with acetone against ABS that was stuck Did a few cold pulls to confirm there's no filament stuck in the heater. This wasn't the case and when removing the nozzle I could easily push or pull filament through. Tightened and loosened the screws holding the filament against the grub screw Too tight causes clicking or more grinding. Too loose causes the filament to just not get caught at all I'm out of ideas of how to fix this. Any help you can give is greatly appreciated. EDIT: here are some video's extruding 50 mm of filament at 2 mm/s and 10 mm/s Controls 10 mm/s 2 mm/s (both links to imgur, didn't manage to get the video inline) EDIT 2: I replaced the driving gear and replaced the new nozzle with an old one. I'm not sure about the size of the old one but I assume it is 0.5 mm. I calibrated the extrusion and tested at 1 mm filament per second, I now get the exact results. However, when printing two 20mm calibration cubes I get quite bad results. The first cube (left) is printed at a 1.0 extrusion multiplier and the second one (right) is printed with a 0.95 extrusion multiplier. Any idea what these quality problems are caused by? [ [ [ [

I think you are pushing filament too fast. Let's go back to the basics: my hotend (old Ubis, ceramic) and extruder can push PLA at 230°C at max 80 mm/s * 0.5 mm line width * 0.2 mm layer height = 8 mm3/s. At this speed it doesn't extrude very well, there is too much back pressure (see also ). That extrusion speed means (I have 3 mm filament) 1.13 mm/s of filament speed (8 mm3 / 1.52 / pi). You have 0.3 mm nozzle and you print colder, both of which cause more resistance to the flow. If 8 mm3/s is my absolute max, yours should be about 8 * 9/16 (ratio of the nozzle surfaces) = 4.5 mm3/s (really the max). Considering the different print temperature, I would start limit to 3.5 mm3/s, which is 0.55 mm/s extrusion speed. If you print 0.15 mm layers with line width of 0.35 mm, your absolute max printing speed should be 3.5 mm3 / 0.15 /0.35 = 65 mm/s (which is better not to reach, 60 is fine). Try doing the following tests: after cleaning the driving gear, extrude 50 mm filament at 0.3 mm/s and measure how much filament has been extruded. Then repeat 50 mm with 0.5 mm/s, and measure how much filament has been extruded. Try again at 0.75 mm/s. Obviously don't touch E steps and extrusion multiplier. I'm quite sure that at 0.75 mm/s you will notice a measurably shorter length of filament extruded. At 1 mm/s you will see grinding (but not as much as now). If you want, try at regular intervals 0.2, 0.3 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7 mm/s and plot a graph of the actually extruded filament length. It will look like the one in the video (where he extruded a lot more and weighed the filament, which is time consuming and more expensive). And then switch to 0.4 mm nozzle if it's too slow for your needs. Additional information You use 2.85 mm filament with a direct drive, no gears. Judging from your video the radius if the driving gear (teeth) is about 4 mm, meaning 4*2*pi=25.1 mm circumference. The circumference is controlled with 200 steps * 16 microsteps, as result each microstep controls 4*2*pi/200/16 mm filament length, which is 0.05 mm3 and what you extrude along a 0.95 mm length (at 0.15 mm layer height and 0.35 mm line width). Basically your extruder has no control for moves shorter than 0.95 mm, but in fact it's even 4x worse, since you never get a single microstep precision (4 microsteps of tolerance is more reasonable). You should probably use a much bigger nozzle, or 1.75 mm filament, or a geared extruder, or prints will never be accurate and you will have problems all the time, which you cannot physically solve.

Does anyone have a Simplify3D configuration file for a Lulzbot TAZ 5 with a 0.5mm nozzle? I've been searching, but I'm coming up empty-handed. They have a file for the TAZ with the 0.35mm nozzle, but I'm not certain if I can just change the nozzle size and be done with it.

Have you tried the configuration assistant under the "Help" menu? From S3D 3.0.2 And yes, you can just change the nozzle size in the process "Extruder" tab and be done with it, if you're using auto extrusion width. If you're using manual extrusion width, also change that to be equal or greater than the nozzle size. S3D will handle everything else. It's not a bad idea to recalibrate extrusion multiplier (with 100% infill 20x20 calibration boxes) but it isn't strictly necessary. General tip for switching to a larger nozzle: while you get used to it, make sure you preview your sliced files carefully looking for areas with gaps or missing details smaller than the extrusion width.

Is there a lubricant that can be used for linear bearings, bronze sinter bushings and threaded rods alike? My printer will feature LM8UU bearings/threaded rods for the z-axis and bronze sinter bushings on the x- and y-Axis. As also, but not only, written here http://reprap.org/wiki/Lubrication, I know that one should: - use machine oil for sinter bearings, if anything at all, - grease on the 'more fluid' side for the linear bearings so that the lubricant stays eqally with balls on the upper and lower side - and probably PTFE grease for the threaded rods (as for example provided by the Ultimaker UM2) Is there a way to unify this or at least only use two lubricants? I do not have the slightest idea about lubricants, I would not know what to actually buy if the combination would e.g. be machine oil and low viscosity grease. Do you have specific recommendations of what to avoid?

A mid-weight PTFE grease like the popular Superlube will work in all the cases you mention (bearings, screws, and sintered bushings). 3D printer service conditions are quite light-duty as far as lubricants are concerned. You really just need to keep everything a little bit "wet" with oil or grease and performance will be adequate. The main downside to using grease with sintered bushings is that they will likely stop being "self-lubricating" after the first exposure. The grease tends to clog the pores that allow the sintered bushings' factory oil impregnation to maintain a nice oil film on the sliding surfaces. So the bushings will forever-after require regular re-greasing, just like the ball bearings and threaded rod. In comparison, a light machine oil like 3-in-one will maintain the sintered bushings' self-lubricating properties, but if used in ball bearings and screws will require very frequent replenishment. And that is certainly an option -- oil DOES work on bearings and screws -- but odds are good that you'll eventually over-oil the bearings, get drips on the build plate, and bang your head against a wall trying to figure out why your prints won't stick all of a sudden. Grease doesn't need to be applied as often, and it tends to stay where you put it rather than dripping. So grease is generally preferred to oil if you have to pick just one lubricant. Again, the most important thing is to keep sliding and rolling surfaces wet with something. You'll just have various maintenance trade-offs with different options.

Y-axis movement error I have a used Creality CR-10S and I have been using it for one day. I seem to be having problems with my Y-axis. Several times when I selected "Auto home", the bed only moved part of the distance it should have for the head to get to the bottom left corner. It is only the bed movement that has the problem; the head successfully goes to the extreme left each time. It does not always happen and when it does, it seems to usually go half as far as it should, but once the bed did not move back at all. I am having a similar problem on "Bed Auto Leveling". Once when it was supposed to go to the back left corner, the nozzle went past the bed by about 5mm. I tried to reposition it with "Move axis" but it thinks it is at 0.00 and it won't let me go negative. One way I can fix it is to "Disable steppers" and then move the bed by hand. I have done two prints and in both cases there was no Y-axis drift during the print. After first print, "Auto home" only went half way but I was not paying attention to other details. After the second print the machine was off and I moved the bed by hand in response to @octopus8. Then I turned it on and selected "Auto home". The head descended and moved all the way to the left but the Y-axis did not move at all. When I move the bed by hand through its entire range, either with the machine off or after choosing "Disable steppers", it is pretty smooth. It has some resistance to movement, about the same as the X-axis resistance. I can feel very small "steps" if I move it very slowly. These are both consistent throughout its entire range. There are no individual spots where it behaves differently. I have made sure that the bed's belt is tight. I check the wheels.under the bed. I cleaned them with a rag. When I turned them by hand, several were slipping against the rail (not causing the bed to move when I turned the wheel.) I tightened their bolts and that tightened some of them against the rail but a couple others still slip against the rail. Is this important? After these adjustments and turning printer on, "Auto home" worked and the steps on "Bed Auto Leveling" also did the correct things. I will report on more post-adjust experience as I get it. Ever since I tightened the Y-axis belt and wheels I have not had the problem happen again having done 10+ prints. I tried the gcode that @octopus8 suggested at various speeds and the print head always ended up back where it started. I will keep printing and if I experience the problem again I will investigate more then.

octopus8 recommended doing a series of tests to determine the cause of the problem. I started with moving the bed by hand (remember to have machine off or choose "Disable steppers" from "Prepare" menu) and the movement was relatively smooth with some resistance, the same as when moving the X-axis. If you move very slowly you can feel slight, small "steps", this is normal. The movement was consistent across the range of movement. Since this did not indicate a problem, I moved on to checking the drive belt and the bearing wheels. The belt had a small amount of slack which I tightened. Several of the wheels under the bed slipped against the rail they run along. I tightened these. This improved the movement of a couple of them but a couple still slipped a bit. After this I did not have the problem anymore. For 10+ prints over a week or so, there was no incorrect Y-axis movement and "Auto home" always worked. Nevertheless I continued with the next test suggestion which was to send some simple gcode to the printer via USB. I used both Ultimaker Cura 4.8.0's Monitor mode as well as [sending the commands from the linux terminal][1]. I sent the commands G28 G0 F<speed> G0 X200 Y0 G0 X200 Y200 G0 X0 Y200 G0 X0 Y0 with values of 900,1800,2700,3600 and 4500 for and everytime the print head returned to the same place. This is evidence that the tightening of the belt and wheels likely fixed the problem. [1]: How to directly send G-code to printer from a Linux terminal?

Extruder drive cog slipping on filament I've been printing PLA on a Pegasus 12" for 2 years. Print quality has been great but in the last few months the quality of the prints has deteriorated. After looking into it, it seems when the head moves away from the spool and puts the filament in tension (and pulls on the spool) the extruder cog slips on the filament. That results in traces where no plastic gets extruded the furthest away the head moves from the spool (the spool is on the left in the picture below): The cog slipping can be seen between 0:22 and 0:27 on the video below: the cog on the right spins continuously but the ball bearing on the left stops spinning for 5 seconds. https://photos.app.goo.gl/cTfySUgXDy1XKXGv8 The end result is a part with multiple gaps, especially on the side farthest away from the spool. I've cleaned the teeth of the cog (removed plastic dust) to improve traction but that didn't solve the problem. I've also tried to clean up the extruder by inserting a wire from the hot end side, no improvement in print quality. Any ideas on how to fix that slipping problem? Edit with solution: To complement Oscar's answer below, here is what I've done that fixed the problem: it turns out the issue was coming from a lack of friction on the filament. To increase the friction, I've slipped a pair of 0.25mm thick pieces of plastic sheet between the bearing axis and the mount. See pic below. That increased the force on the filament enough to fully solve the slippage problem. The print quality is perfect now (see pic below). The plastic sheet trick is just a short term fix. I'm going to try swapping the drive gear for a slightly thicker one and contact MakerFarm to see if there is any long term modification they recommend.

These symptoms are generally caused by friction in the extrusion path. First, you should make sure the spool of filament can unspool freely. Second, in order to prevent slipping of the filament, you should consider increasing the force of the roller bearing onto the filament and extruder wheel, or increase hotend temperature. A (partial) clog can also be causing this. You could try a "cold pull" or "atomic pull" where you heat up the filament to print level, push a little through by hand and let the nozzle cool to about 60 % of the printing temp and then steadily pull the filament out of the hotend, this should remove all gunk inside, repeat if necessary. A too low of a layer height can also put the filament extrusion under pressure. As an aside, slipping of filament is often accompanied by an audible clicking noise. There are a few questions on this topic. It also looks as though your bed is not centered in the middle as you are printing outside the bed limits in the front and have a little room left at the back!

Offset in X or Y axis How can I set an offset in y or x axis so that I can move the position of my printed object. I have tried doing this with so many options in Repetier, and in Slic3r, and still nothing, please, have you got any ideas? First Edit: I have added an image of the changes I have done, nothing of this works for me

There are two things which shouldn't be mixed. Position of the object relative to its own coordinate system. In general object doesn't have specific position stored inside. Which is obvious as structure of the object should store construction of an object but not its position. So position is relation-to-something so to speak and because object itself doesn't contain any information about object environment then there is no position stored. But there is one hack. All coordinates stored inside object are in fact a realtion to some starting point. Let's say it's a zero-point or starting point of the coordinate system of the object. This is sometimes anoying because it's usually bottom left corner or center of the object. Unfortunately some applications store this starting point out of the object. This means that object has starting point in some point but this point is outside of the object itself. This cause the situation when user loads an object in another application then object is translated in "strange" position. Position of the object in printing application. When user loads an object into printing application then object is usualy set in the center of build plate. This also sounds obvious but if inner coordinate system of the object is translated then object can be repositioned even out of the build plate. So what is the solution for such situation. There are two options. Manage object coordinate system in the application which create STL file or convert object into STL format or Manage (switch off) option called "center on build plate" or "center on the bed" or "center object" or "auto-center parts" in printing application. Then it will be possible (or easier) to position object according to user needs. Another issue is STL object which is in fact kinda assembly of separate objects. If you encounter such situation. See here for example These two guys are stored in one STL file so they have common coordinate system and common starting point. All above applies to such assembly. Applications allows user to split such assembly into separate objects so each one can be repositioned separately. But be careful - split can disassemble parts of the object itself. In the example the tounge of the trex is 3rd object in the assembly. In terms of mentioned aps: Reptier: go to object placement "tab" and set position manually Slic3r: go to Printer settings and set "print center", also you can switch off File > Preferences > Auto-center parts MetterControl: go to printer > print area and set print center

BLTouch Fails & Scraping at the Left Side of the Table Using the following: Printer : Ender 3 PRO - 2019 1.1.4 non-silent board Firmware : Official Creality Ender 3 PRO - BLTouch version Bed : Original Creality Glass Bed Nozzle : Original Stock - there isn't any upgrade Filament : Porima PLA Red Hotend : 210 °C Bed : 60 °C BLTouch : Official Creality V3.1 Smart Z Offset : -3.50 mm which keeps nozzle's distance as 0.2 mm from bed while printing first layers Test Model : Ender 3 Damping Feets 100 % infill - 105 % flow rate - 60 mm/s printing speed This morning I realized that my nozzle is scraping to bed while it's printing left side to the table, I'm using a BLTouch and this shouldn't be happening right? Any ideas what could cause this and how I can fix it?

This left bed side issue could be caused by the poor design of the Ender 3 (portal printer single side Z lead screw and counter rolling guide post) in conjunction with the way the bed is probed and the hysteresis of the gantry. The second photo issue could well a result of an imperfection of the bed, a local bump, which cannot be filtered out with insufficient probing points or the firmware bed leveling option.

Printing issue on Ender 3V2 I am trying to print a fairly simple object yet I keep getting the same issue. As you can see in the picture the print quality is bad with all the blobs on the vertical part of the print. I have leveled the bed many times and I keep getting this issue. I have also calibrated the E-steps. I have replaced the PTFE tube as well. I am printing with Sunlu PLA+. I was printing at 220 °C but now that I set it at 200 °C the result is a little bit better but it has not gone away. Please advise on how to fix this. Note: I have 2 Ender 3 V2's and the other printer is printing the same files pretty much perfect.

Print the same file, with the same settings, on both machines. If the problem persists, try swapping the filament between the two printers. If the problem now occurs on the other printer, that suggests that the filament is the issue. Label the bad one "For lumpy prints" and put it away. If the problem persists on the printer where it first occurred, despite swapping filament reels, the issue probably has something to do with the printer. Remove and examine the nozzle, and consider replacing it even if it looks OK. Nozzles are cheap and easy to replace, so this is an easy early step. If a new nozzle doesn't fix it, other parts related to the extruder like the hot end thermistor, fans, heater block, etc. could be to blame. If the thermistor is just positioned a little differently than on the "good" printer, for example, it might be reading a little low and causing the nozzle to heat up more to get to the target reading. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to replace those parts; you just need to recognize the difference and compensate for it when you use that printer. Just as a baker might think "the recipe says 400 °F, but I know my oven runs hot, so I'll use 375 °F instead," you may need to adjust the nozzle temperature to compensate for the hardware differences when you use this printer.

How to create a 3D model as mold for a 4-legged animal with parallel legs I am new to 3D printing, and new to mold design. I played around with a model from Windows Paint 3D library: And I realized that it would not be easy to 3D print a mold out of this. First of all I focused on the legs, and the fact that I cannot get the 4 legs by just splitting the negative shape into two mold parts. Then I realized that maybe a zigzag cut could help, but it only work for legs when they are not parallel to each other, unlike the back legs. And in fact, there is the same problem for the ears. I'd like to point out that I want to mold paper pulp, so I cannot really do injection molding, which means I really need access to the entire figure from both parts of the mold. It really seems like it is an impossible problem. Are there tricks?

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

What are the reasons for my 3D prints having large numbers of strings between parts of a layer? I am printing a print using PLA on a Prusa i3 printer and an MK8 extruder, at 210 degrees celsius, 60 mm/sec, sliced with slic3r. The print consists of a base, with 4 tower-like projections that then join with a near-vertical overhang slope that isn't posing a problem for my printer. However, even before the overhang begins, I am getting large amounts of strings as the extruder head jumps between the four towers in the print, leading to a "spiderweb" effect between them. How can I deal with these strings, and are they a warning that there might be something amiss with my printer, or possible other failures in other parts of the print?

Stringing is often a result of too-high a temperature, or insufficient retraction. When there is highly liquid filament in the nozzle tip, it can adhere to the remainder of the print while dripping as the nozzle moves, leading to a thin string of the filament forming. As further travel moves are performed in each layer, this turns to a web. The high temperature causes filament to be very liquid, causing it to move downward in the nozzle chamber easily, as opposed to having to be extruded forcefully due to viscosity. The temperature setpoint of 210 was high enough to cause this to happen. A second possible cause, insufficient retraction, can also be blamed for this issue. Retraction is a process in which the extruder reverses its movement to pull filament back up the hotend, preventing it from dripping at the tip, and forming a string. Most slicers will allow specifying a numeric value in millimeters of filament to be retracted. Remember that printers with Bowden tubes between nozzle/hotend and extruder motor will require increased retraction and priming (extrusion when starting to print after a retract-and-move). Note that too much retraction can cause other problems, such as insufficient plastic in the hotend chamber at the start of the next printing move, which can cause gaps and other issues.

is PLA gasoline, diesel or chemical resistant? can PLA be used to print out containers or other parts that are in direct contact with gasoline, diesel or other hard chemical substances? Will it start degrading when in contact with said chemicals? Should I use ABS for this?

I have used both ABS and PLA for diesel gas caps and oil plugs. As well have made a gasoline funnel out of both. Both have done well for me. I have attach a link to a plastics resistance chart if it is any help. Unfortunately it does not show testing for ABS for all. I prefer the ABS only do to the fact some items I have made sit in the desert sun. Plastic resistance chart

How to fight lots of stringing with PLA at low temperature (185 °C)? I just got my first 3D printer (Creality Ender 3) on Friday, 2 days ago. It works great, but for some reason I'm getting a lot of stringing on my prints, especially the ones where the extruder head has to move a long distance between columns/posts, etc. I'm using Hatchbox "True White" PLA, which has a recommended temperature range of 180-210 °C. I've tried printing at 200, 190, and 185 °C and didn't see much improvement. I've also made sure I've enabled the 'retract' setting in the slicer (4.5 mm) and verified the printer is retracting when it should. I'm not sure what else I can try... any suggestions?

4.5 mm is a low retraction distance. Cura's default is 6.5 mm, and the Ender 3 profile provided with Cura sets it to 6 mm. The first thing you should try is increasing the retraction amount up to at least 6 mm. Also, make sure you actually enabled retraction. I saw one question here where a Cura user had enabled "Retract at layer change", which does not enable retraction (but of course it shows the options like retraction amount since you need to be able to select it for this too). Your low nozzle temperature of 185 °C is also a problem. You'll have very low flow at that temperature, resulting in under-extrusion and pressure building up in the nozzle instead of extruding the material. That in turn will make it so, even after retracting, there's still material (and pressure) at the nozzle and it will keep oozing, unless you set a really high retraction amount (and even then problems will build up over time during the print, but you might get lucky and not see them). The only way to print PLA at 185 °C is really, really slowly. In general, some people would also recommend trying a different filament, based on reports that some vendors' PLA oozes and strings badly, but I don't think that's an issue for you. I use Hatchbox filament on my Ender 3 all the time and never have a problem with stringing from it. And even if the filament is prone to stringing, you can almost surely avoid it with proper settings. Even very soft flex filaments can be printed on this printer without stringing as long as your retraction, temperature, and speed are tuned to avoid having pressure at the nozzle during travel moves.

Simplified 3d will not run extruder I downloaded simplified 3d to use with Mach 3 everything seems to work properly except for the extruder which will not communicate with the new software. Not moving filament that is my only problem what is going on?

To use Mach3 to send printing you need to define the extruder as A instead E, since Mach3 only drives X,Y,Z,A and B motors. you can see an explanation here on is possible to send printing with mach3? Question. I haven't tried to see if is possible to change this letters directly on 3D simplify, because i'm using ramps 1.4 instead the CNC driver control. But there is an ADDON to slice your gcode with Mach3 called gnexlab, try to find it on google search. I've downloded few years ago. Added Link gnexlab Addon

Wanhao i3 stops printing after about 40 minutes I have a Monoprice Maker Select V2.1 (rebadged Wanhao Di3) with a microswiss all metal hot-end and machined lever and extruder plate. It had been printing very consistently for months with this set up - through 5 or 6 kg of filament - until a couple of weeks ago when it has started to under-extrude and then stop partway into a print, after about 30-40 minutes. It seems to clog and grind the filament, skipping steps. I first assumed this was heat-creep, and so disassembled the extruder, cleaned the heatsink and applied new thermal paste before reassembling, but to no luck. I also tried new fans on the cold-end but this didn't help either. Other things I have tried: various models - point at which the extruding stops seems based on length of time printing, not z position, suggesting to me that it is not an wires/electronics issue or an issue with the file. various layer heights various temperatures dust filter various filaments (changing reels of similar filament, different colours and brands, although all PLA) cleaned, and subsequently replaced extruder gear to rule out wear to that inserted washer under lever spring to add tension clearing the nozzle (cleaning filament, atomic pulls and drill-bit) I've now run out of ideas of what could be causing the issue and what to try. What other issues could cause the above symptoms or, if it is heat-creep, how else could I solve the issue?

Time to check things that usually don't need checking. At this point I would check the power split. Check the power supply voltage (+12V or maybe +24V, I don't know the printer) at the controller before and after the extrusion stops or sputters. Assure that the voltage stays the same. If it drops you have a culprit. While there, also check the +5V. If the power is inconsistent, check the connections for loose screws. If the power is also bad at the supply, replace it. If the extruder starts clicking, it could be under voltage or under temperature. You have already checked for heat creep, and not found it. Either supply voltage can mess with actual temperature. You have ruled out Z-height, so many possibilities are unlikely.

Cura going to 204C instead of 200C So I started using Cura a few weeks ago, and when I print it goes to 204 Celsius instead of 200. It doesn't really affect my print quality but I just want to know if there's a fix for it. My printer is a Da Vinci Jr 1.0.

Its mainly due to the regulation loop of the PID Regulator implemented in the Firmware of the Da vinci jr. The P-Factor is a little bit too high. This is the reason why the temperature "overshoots". Because the Printerhead and Nozzle has some volume which is heated up. It takes time to cool down after it has detected an overshoot. here you can find additional informations about it: https://innovativecontrols.com/blog/basics-tuning-pid-loops

Do 3D Printers Prefer Particular Topology? Do 3D printers prefer particular topology? In case I'm not using the word quite right, I'm specifically wondering if I should make the faces in my models: triangles quads n-gons..

The most common file format in 3D printing is STL. This file format is using triangles only so when you export an object from your CAD application to STL then exporter has to transform all n-gon faces into triangles. Once the file is created then it is usually imported by slicer application (or module) which performs slicing using polynomial calculation to find intersection with next surfaces. Here is good example of such intersection finding in javascript. So answering your question: no - it doesn't matter as you usually use file format in which faces are triangles but yes - it matters as all your n-gon faces needs to be transformed into triangles

How to recycle filament material from printed parts? Is it possible to re-use ABS or PLA filament material from printed parts? If so, what is the techniques to reform it?

There are a few options. Machines are available which grind the used plastic into fine pieces, melt it down, and extrude it as filament to be reused. Filabot is perhaps the most well known. Depending on where you live the local recycling programs may accept PLA or ABS. They will then shred it and melt it down for reuse. PLA is bio-degradable so you can put it in the compost. I put scrap ABS in acetone which results in a slurry which can be used as a glue to attach ABS parts, fix cracks, and hold parts to the bed.

How to avoid stringing? How can I avoid the irregularities and stringing in the print. Printer Used: Fortus 450mc Model: PC Model tip: T10 Support tip: T12SR Support: SR-100 Slice Height: 0.0050 in I have printed two objects using Grabcad print (with Insight) 1) Voronoi bear: The voronoi bear has missing layers/unattached layer at its bottom everything else seems OK. I do notice a bit of stringing though. 2) Cylinder with hollow channels: The cylinder has a lot of visible stringing and one of the channels is slightly deformed. Please refer to the attached images. Please let me know if any additional details are needed.

I've been able to reduce stringing by reducing the nozzle temp in 2°C increments until it goes away. You'll also want to increase your retraction settings a bit. The problem is caused by the plastic being too hot and oozing out of the nozzle - it's a bit too runny. Search Thingiverse for Heat Towers. You'll need to edit the G-code so that your printer adjusts the nozzle temp at each layer. That will give you a really good indication of the best temperature for the given material. Keep in mind you'll want to print it for each new brand (and sometimes color) of filament.

Gluing paper to PLA objects I have 3D printed in PLA a curved viaduct for a model railway (N gauge) and affixed inkjet paper using UHU glue. The layout lives in my garage and as soon as the viaduct goes into the garage the paper bubbles. What adhesive can I use to prevent this from happening? I've had to strip all the brick paper.

The problem is probably the UHU glue having not had the time to cure through and interacting with either the PLA, the moisture in the garage, or the brick-paper's covering foil. Many of the metal-tube UHU glues - like "UHU Hart" - are resin-based and contain solvents that can interact with some polymers like the coating of the brick paper. Curing times can be up to 48 hours to cure. I have had a very good experience with very basic water-resistant Wood Glue to both smooth over 3D-prints as well as attach layers of wood or paper to it. Most wood glues are made with a chemical that is the same or similar enough to those in Gluestick (usually PVA, sometimes PVP). These usually don't react with the fibers and surface of the NOCH-brand brick paper I know. After having the glue dry thoroughly - for Express type wood glues that is about 2 hours - there is little to no chance that the two interact badly in the garage.

Cura 4.3.0 does not pause on Renkforce RF100 V2.2 Cura (version 4.3.0) has the ability to insert a post processing script to your print. I tried this for printing a key cover around my door key (similar to this question). I designed the STL file with Fusion 360 (version 2.0.6516) and verified that the height of the beginning of the top layers is exactly at 3.1 mm. The top layer itself has a height of 0.5 mm. In Cura I inserted a pause at height 3.1 mm. I tried different post processing scripts: Pause at height Pause at height (BG printers) Pause at height for Repetier After inserting the script I did the "slice" and saved the G-code to an SD card. When printing on my RF100 (firmware version 2.2) no script created a pause at all. All scripts printed the full key cover in one step. The part of the G-Code that does the pause looks like this: [...] G1 X57.522 Y62.32 E134.15939 G1 X57.475 Y62.045 E134.1614 G0 F3000 X57.47 Y62.02 G0 X57.469 Y61.845 G1 F2400 E132.1614 G1 F600 Z4 ;MESH:NONMESH G0 F3000 X54.16 Y67.189 Z4 ;TIME_ELAPSED:247.492714 ;TYPE:CUSTOM ;added code by post processing ;script: PauseAtHeight.py ;current z: 4.15 ;current height: 3.1500000000000004 M83 ; switch to relative E values for any needed retraction G1 F300 Z5.15 ; move up a millimeter to get out of the way G1 F9000 X190 Y190 G1 F300 Z15 ; too close to bed--move to at least 15mm M104 S0 ; standby temperature M0 ; Do the actual pause M109 S210 ; resume temperature G1 F300 Z5.15 G1 F9000 X63.338 Y61.621 G1 F300 Z4.15 ; move back down to resume height G1 F9000 M82 ; switch back to absolute E values G92 E132.1614 ;LAYER:19 ;MESH:0d0e86f0-0b59-4e06-9e77-78fe8e77be5b.stl G0 X54.16 Y67.189 Z4.15 ;TYPE:WALL-OUTER G1 F600 Z3.15 G1 F2400 E134.1614 G1 F2040 X54.171 Y67.193 E134.16172 G1 X54.689 Y67.418 E134.17722 G1 X55.228 Y67.625 E134.19306 G1 X55.776 Y67.811 E134.20894 [...] Cura out of the box has no machine setting for the RF100 v2, so I used the settings for the RF100 v1 and adjusted the dimensions of the width, depth and height to 120 mm. As G-code flavor I stayed with "Marlin". What can I do? This question is not specific to a key cover. I could design this so I could insert the key at the end. But I really would like to know how to do a predefined pause during my print.

G-code M0 is not supported!1) According to the original firmware of the RF100, the firmware is based on Marlin Firmware. From the original sources you can find that in order for M0 (or M1 which is a deprecated alias for M0) to work, you need an ULTRA_LCD supported LCD panel: * "M" Codes * * M0 - Unconditional stop - Wait for user to press a button on the LCD (Only if ULTRA_LCD is enabled) However, your printer does not support such an LCD panel, from the configuration.h can be read that the constant is disabled (// means that the line is treated as a comment and as such ignored by the compiler): //#define ULTRA_LCD //general LCD support, also 16x2 Therefore, these scripts will not work for your printer! (Not your printer is running a very old version of Marlin; version 1.0.3) Solution: It is possible to manually change the G-code for a (in this case) Marlin based firmware2) (so no adding of a pause by Cura) by inserting a few lines to: First set relative movement (G91), then retract a certain amount of filament (G1 E-2 F500) or alternatively use G10 using predefined retraction definitions in M207; Insert a dwell period by inserting the G-code G4 (plus a time to wait), e.g. G4 P2000 to dwell for 2000 milliseconds (alternatively, G4 S2 will also pause for 2 seconds), please adjust the value to an adequate one in which you can insert the object; First, unretract filament (G1 E2 F500) and then put the printer back in absolute movement (G90 or alternatively use G11 using predefined retraction definitions in M207. 1) By your firmware version/implementation 2) Note that certain G-codes only work for certain firmwares! Fortunately, the original firmware of the RF100 is based on Marlin Firmware (unless it has been changed form the factory default.)

Anet A2 3D printer suddenly will not home X and Y I have been using my Anet A2 for about a year. A few problems but none that I haven't been able to resolve. Today it suddenly stopped auto homing. Using the position commands I can advance the X and Y positively but not negatively (after I manually re-position the carriages before turning the printer on). Also the Y stepper motor makes an unusual noise and it will over advance the Y axis. This behavior was preceded by a feed fault. The print started fine but the stepper motor stopped feeding shortly after the print started. I am printing from an SD card as I always have. I changed SD cards thinking it might be a connection problem and I checked the G-code and all the commands including the E commands seem to be there. I have checked all the electrical connections - they seem to be fine. Any suggestions to solve this?

I have experienced this a few times, usually this is related to the end stops. If your end stops are somehow triggered (e.g. short circuit or cable broken; depending on the setup), the steppers will not home (as they think they are at the limits already) and only advance forward. Please look into the end stops of X and Y. Use a multi-meter to measure them and trigger them manually. Alternatively hook up your printer to your computer with a USB cable and download a printer utility/application that can interact with the printer (e.g. Pronterface, Repetier-host, OctoPrint, etc.) and go to the terminal interface and send the M119 instruction to see the status of the end stops.

17-4 PH Tensile Test When I do a tensile test on 17-4 PH stainless steel, the stress-strain curve is very strange, two sections of Young’s modulus appeared. What is going on? The sample is made by SLM.

According to our materials experts, you should always be careful interpreting the start of the force-displacement diagram. It is possible that the test needs to "set" itself, important issues are: the clamping of the test articles in the test bench vices alignment of the test article in the test bench size of the test articles (the load suggests small test articles/small diameter) how is displacement measured (displacement/elongation sensors "slip" easily depending on the expertise of the operator) artifacts in the test article? Instead of proceeding the test till rupture (prior to the in-elastic/plastic region), it would have been beneficial if the test had been stopped at about 8 kN and relaxed to 0 kN to commence a new test. From my own experience with creep test articles we see similar issues and apply a displacement offset so that the "second section" (using your words) is extrapolated to zero load. Usually this is just a few hundredths or tenths of a mm. In this case you could shift the whole diagram 0.3 mm to the right by applying a similar offset of about -0.3 mm.

Ender 3 V2 blank screen and LCD continuous beeping with clicks So I have been having an ongoing problem with my printer that I just can't solve. I don't usually ask the questions on stack exchanges until my problem gets unsolvable. Unfortunately like this one Printer: Creality Ender 3 V2 Current Board: Creality v4.2.7 (Silent Motor) Background: This started when I accidentally fried the T20 chip on the v4.2.2 mainboard when I tried to install the BLTouch incorrectly (I looked at the photo upside down) and and also accidentally pulled the wire out and what I guess is why the T20 chip was fried. I thought at first the PSU was the one causing the trouble at first so I replaced it. Then found the burnt chip and decided to upgrade the board to a v4.2.7. I installed everything correctly according to a video that I found somewhere on YouTube. Current Problem(s): When I turn on the machine the light on the mainboard is on but there is continuous beeping coming from the display with small clicks like a clock every 1 sec. or so. The backlight to the display is on but nothing is shown. I just found with a multimeter that the bed and nozzle terminals give no volts back. Firmware: I have tried to update the firmware to the official one off of Creality's website and also using the source code for Marlin v2.0.7.2 with PlatformIO. The tutorial I followed was here: Update [3/24]: Found that the firmware seems to not flash even after giving the .bin file a different name. Extra Thoughts: I currently have no idea what to do. I think I might replace the LCD and its cable. I have only printed a few things and just want to get back to it but I don't want to buy a whole new printer to do so. I feel like I get closer to getting back to it every time I fix something but I'm starting to lose hope that it's just a never ending problem loop. I appreciate any help given.

Thanks to @Rykara, they led me to the answer. The whole problem was kinda a firmware issue but on the SD card side. The reason why it wasn't flashing was because I didn't flash the SD card to use the FAT32 format. Unfortunately I tried every other format option except that one before hand, mostly because I am mainly on a Mac. Now there is no more problems and I am back on track to printing. :)

Connecting Anet A8 to PC issue I am still at calibration stage and need some info from the PCB. I connected the USB and ran Repetier. The PCB wants to talk at a higher baud rate than my serial port says it can do. I tried setting the serial port to its highest setting 125k and reduced the PCB baud in Repetier setting to 125k. No joy. PC port reverts to 9600 every time I check it. Thoughts? PC running Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit.

Sorted. Repetier Server was hijacking my com port. Uninstalled it and Repetier host worked fine. As I have no desire to monitor or control prints remotely I have no use for the server software. Hope that helps others.

Methylated spirits or turpentine to clean resin printer? I'm new to 3D printing and have bought a resin printer. Cleaning with Isopropol Alcohol seems to be the rage, however I think this is unaware of cost savings. It appears methylated spirits is ok and is 25% the cost of Isopropol Alcohol. I'm now down to wondering if I should buy methylated spirits or turpentine (I ruled out kerosene as too flammable)? I'm leaning towards methylated spirits, however would like input. Factors I'm curious about: Cost: same for methylated spirits and turpentine. Evaporation/solvency: ? Flammability: ? Poisonous levels: ? Resin object cleaning effect: ? Skin effects: ? Smell: ? I checked a few sources.

I would personally stick to isopropanol. Be aware that 3D printing is a very expensive hobby, but health wise this is a better option. Methylated spirits can quickly become dangerous, and often can burn with a close to invisible flame, meaning that you may not even see if it is burning. Also, the fumes can quickly become dangerous, whereas after years of dealing with isopropanol I have noticed no ill effects. Cost should not be your primary concern, health of you and your printer should be.

Internal thread not sticking to inner wall I've been trying to print some M14 female threads. The male threads I've printed were perfect and fit into a female metal nut, but for some reason I cannot get the female threads to "stick". This means that they end up being hard to screw into, or the male end (both metal and my printed versions) goes in wonky. I'm printing in PLA on an Ender 3 V2 at 200 °C on a 50 °C bed. I've tried various resolutions (down to 0.1 mm layer height) and they all exhibit the issue. Print speed is 50 mm/s, cooling is just the stock cooling and fan 100 % after the first layer. The actual file can be found here (note that it's slightly oversized vs a metric M14 female to allow for printer tolerances) and the follow image shows what I'm talking about: It's as though the nozzle is pulling the filament away from the wall, but I've tried Z Hop Retraction and combing (infill only) and that gives the same result. Answer: The accepted answer and the comments against the question pointed me in the right direction. A combination of turning off combing and reducing the hot end temp to 190°C gave me perfect threads in 3 consecutive prints.

I do a lot with printed threads, and find this problem creeps up mostly when the filament is wet. Higher temperature (like 220) can partly compensate but it's better to dry your filament and store it properly to keep it dry. Assuming standard metric thread profile, though, these are also pretty severe overhangs for a concave extrusion (where motion of the head will tend to pull the way you're seeing) unless you use very thin layers. You probably need 0.16 mm or thinner to print reliably (independent of pitch, though finer pitch also needs finer layers for other reasons), and limited acceleration for outer walls (I use 500 mm/s²). If you slice with "outer walls first" turned off, you may be able to get by with thicker layers, provided you have everything else tuned perfectly to ensure the outer wall sticks to the previously extruded inner one (i.e. flow rate perfect). A contributor to your problem could also be underextrusion due to oozing during combing. You might try setting max comb distance very low (like 0.6 mm, around what I use) or turning off combing and see if that helps.

How to find pure PLA filament? Prompted by discussion in comments of a recent question whether PLA is suitable for parts that need to be in contact with acetone, I did some casual experiments and found that my clear/"natural" 3D Solutech PLA is mostly but not entirely resistant to acetone, while my blue Hatchbox PLA is quickly softened and deformed by it. This got me wondering: how do you go about finding PLA that's actually PLA (and nothing else)? Just "clear/natural" in product description does not seem to suffice. I know this is close to a shopping question, so please make suggestions on how it could be improved if it's too close. It'd be great if there were keywords that worked, but an answer is probably going to be more along the lines of how to go about inquiring with manufacturers or where to find places where manufacturers might advertise that their products as pure.

There's only two ways to make sure it is pure PLA without color and additives: Make it yourself. Order PLA-pellets for manufacturing and put them into a filament extrusion machine Contact your manufacturer and ask them to do the above for you. Note though that the pure PLA might have undesirable attributes for pritability that are fought with fillers and additives.

How is my Prusa Mini damaging its X axis belt? I just received my new Prusa Mini a few weeks ago and at first it was great. But very soon a afterwards I started having small issues creep into my prints such as shapes becoming elongated, ridges on what should be a smooth surface, and skipped steps along the X axis. Eventually the entire head carriage started making a thunking sound as it slid across the X axis. This was from the belt, having lost some of its teeth, slipping across the motor. Here is a photo of the damage to the belt: Prusa service was excellent and with a photo and my order number they shipped out a replacement immediately. Swapping in the new belt fixed everything and I thought my problems were behind me. But within a day or two of printing I started noticing problems with my prints. Upon inspection, I found that my belt was again damaged: I've tightened belts before on my other printer and have never seen anything like this. I did notice that the belt provided by Prusa is thinner than the one on my other printer. But the Prusa belt seems to be of a higher quality with some kind of fiber blended into it: The obvious answer is that I've overtightened the belt. But I've tightened belts before and never had this happen. Interestingly, both belts failed at the exact same location. The position where the damage would be at the X axis motor puts the extruder roughly centered on the build plate.

I followed up with Prusa on this recently (a few months later) and they confirmed that there were issues with some belts but that this has been fixed in production. To provide a better guarantee of quality, I opted to replace both the X and Y axis with genuine GATES 2GT PowerGrip GT3 belts. This has fixed the problem for me.

How to express dwell time in G-code I am writing some G-code for my DIY 3D printer. From what I understand, G4 is dwell and its expressed in milliseconds. So my extruder takes about 30 seconds to heat up. Do I just type G04 30000

Depending on your G-code flavor you may be able to use M109 (heat and wait) instead. If supported M109 will wait until the target temperature is achieved.

Thermal Runaway E1 at Layer 2 Before I start, I'll give you my setup: Ender 3 Pro Marlin 2.0.7.2 Material/Nozzle: PETG 0.4 mm @ 215 °C Bed: Glass @ 80 °C Default printing speed: 70 mm/s Standard part cooling fan Since I've updated the Marlin FW on from factory default to 2.0.7.2, my printer stops printing and gives out an thermal runaway exception message. The problem is absolutely repeatable and happens always on beginning of layer 2 (more precisely: 40 seconds after beginning layer 2). Changing PID values doesn't change anything to the moment of the error occurring. I managed to run it longer by repeatedly dropping the temperature set-point and making a photo of the temperature plot. First photo is right after the initial drop from 215 to 205 °C. Second is when the temperature started rising slowly again. After this temperature drop, the hotend temperature seemed to be much less stable and reached only 205 °C. At Layer 12, the same thing happened again. But dropping the temperature far too low for PETG and having the "same" issue again, making me stop the print. This problem is pretty urgent and I haven't found any suitable solution by now. Do you have any ideas of what may cause this trouble? New heaters and thermistors are on their way right now. But I fear that this is not a hardware problem since none of the components are damaged and dysfunctional, nor the moment of failure is random.

It turned out, it was a faulty heater, that wasn't able to reach and maintain temperatures over 195 °C in a stable manner. The order came, had a new 50 W heater, thermistor and a PTFE-Bowden tube. It works just fine again, now!

Big cracks on the Layer view in the Preview mode of Cura I designed a part on Fusion 360 that looks like this: The part is very small, about 20 mm for 10 mm. I'm then importing it to Cura and I notice they are huge cracks on the part when simulating/previewing the print, I'm using a Monoprice mini printer, 100 % infill, and 0.0437 mm.: This is my first-time 3D printing something, so maybe (most probably) I did something wrong.

You have coasting turned on. Cura shows the coasting locations (where extrusion is switched off) as gaps. The actual print may be fine.

MINTEMP error after crash I just got my HICTOP Prusa i3 Aluminium frame printer and finished putting it together. After setting it to preheat, I realized the bed was not level - I adjusted it and accidentally caused the head to crash into the bed. It sounded like something popped, and the printer restarted. It is now showing a MINTEMP error message, and both bed and hotend temperatures read 0°C. The only visible damage is that a thin layer came off the printbed - After testing with a multimeter, I realized that the metal under this layer is connected to power. As both the bed and hotend were heating, I believe I may have caused a short. Replacing the thermistor on the hotend with a spare did not solve the issue. I tested the thermistor on the printbed with a multimeter, and it seems to be working correctly (resistance value around ~200 kΩ at room temperature). Which leads me to believe that I may have damaged the control board. What do I do? Note: This is not a firmware problem as the printer was getting correct temperature readings before that. Also, I have a second extruder thermistor port that is unused. If I did damage my board, could I edit pins.h and configuration.h to use this port instead, and completely disconnect the heated printbed?

After replacing the control board, it now prints flawlessly. Apparently,I really did damage the control board...

CR-6 SE glass build plate - no lifting possible I've been dealing with 3D printing for 1.5 years, but now own a CR-6 SE myself since the beginning of 2021. Most things are already quite clear but for 2 days I have had a problem with the adhesion of the prints. Nearly all prints I have done so far used the filament shipped with the printer (PLA 1.75) and they came off the building plate after some cooling time by themselves. I used the default printer settings for PLA: 200 °C nozzle temperature, 60 °C printing bed. Then 2 days ago the prints began to not stick to the bed anymore and I thought this could be because of dust and from touching the bed. So I cleaned the bed with IPA. The microfiber towel was yellowish afterward - so I thought that this must have been printing residues. Since then every print is kind of "welded" to the bed. There is no chance of loosening it without more IPA or way too much force. I already tried: cleaning the bed with clean water - unfortunately, didn't work setting the Z-offset from 0.1 back to 0.2 mm - also no success Today I also tried a spool of brand new PETG, with the following recommended settings: 240 °C nozzle temperature, 80 °C print bed - but the problem stayed the same. Am I doing something wrong? Did I destroy the "Carborundum" coating (silicon carbide) of the glass plate?

I have had similar issues, and I have learned three tricks: Some slicers (i.e. Cura) let you specify the height of your first layer, and I have found that slowly incrementing up from 0.16 mm by 0.2 mm to find the sweet spot of adhesion without warping. Every brand/type is different. But, usually, for me, fall between 0.18-0.22 mm. Blue painters tape. If you don't need the glass flat finish of printing directly to glass, I always use blue tape. It makes for great adhesion, and also easy removal of super stuck prints, and you can just peel it off the build plate. With blue tape, I tend to add 2-3 °C to the bed temp. Glue sticks (instead of hairspray). But, Elmer's glue sticks that go on purple and dry clear. When you use these, if a print is stuck, you just need to spritz some water around the print. The print and the glue will wick the water under the print, and reconstitute the glue. Once the glue is tacky again, the print will pop right off. The only downside is a slight texture to the print and not glossy glass flat. The reason I like the colored glue, as it reconstitutes it activates the cobalt chloride and turns purple again. This is great for knowing when it is good to start printing again. And also tends to become less of a sticky mess than hairspray.

Linking the 3D printing path coordinates to CAD for modelling I was reading this research paper titled Sub-modeling Finite Element Analysis of 3D Printed Structures. In this, firstly, the author is trying to create a sketch for Engineering analysis using the 3D printing path coordinates and integrating it to a CAD software like Autodesk Inventor. It says, By analyzing the corresponding G-code for the desired structure, important information can be extracted, such as the coordinated of the 3D printing path, key points, paths of printing and non-printing paths. ... The coordinate of the 3D printing path can then be imported into CAD software to obtain the corresponding sketch and consequently a solid body for each layer. Most of commercial CAD software packages are capable of this task. For this Purpose we have chosen Autodesk Inventor. Paper is attached here: Research Paper in subject Can anyone help me out with how this can be done?

The wording in the paper is quite verbose and somewhat unclear. All it says is they read the G-code file and somehow turn it into a 3D model. A g-code file is just a list of linear moves. Here is an example snippet I took from a random file (keep in mind a typical file would consist of thousands of such lines): G1 X140.621 Y114.840 E0.0065 G1 X140.804 Y114.765 E0.0129 G1 X141.016 Y114.737 E0.0199 G1 X158.984 Y114.737 E0.6070 G1 X159.196 Y114.765 E0.6140 Each move is relative to the previous, so the second line of the code (for example) tells the printer to move to X=140.804 and Y=114.765 from the previous position (X=140.621, Y=114.840) while extruding an amount of material equal to 0.0129-0.0065=0.0064 mm of filament. It appears that the authors have developed a toolchain to turn a G-code file into a 3D model, translating every extrusion segment into a part of a solid body (from the pictures, it appears that for a given move segment, they create an ellipsoidal extrusion and merge all of these together into a single solid body) - see Figure 9 in the paper.

Laser scanning to 3D printer I have one *.xyz file (from a laser scan) that I wanted to mesh and create a 3D printable file. I saw some YouTube videos from Meshlab and try to follow the steps explained in the video, 3D Laser Scanning - Meshing Point Clouds in Meshlab; When I reached the step: "Remeshing, Simplification and Reconstruction I discovered that "Surface Reconstruction: Poisson" does not appear in my Meshlab (V2016.12). I search on web to see if I could use another modelating method, but everybody said the «Poisson» method is the "one"! I have two questions: It is possible not have the "Surface Reconstruction: Poisson" in the program (there is something I need to pay for use it?); Not having the "Surface Reconstruction: Poisson", is there any other possibility to create a surface from a xyz point cloud?

Same menu, different location in the sub-menu (at the bottom): As T.M. states in their comment, see Poisson mesh reconstruction on StackOverflow: MeshLab 2016 now uses the new version of the Poisson merging, and the filter is called: Screened Poisson Surface Reconstruction it is in the same submenu, on the bottom. The relevant parameter (octree depth) is called Reconstruction Depth. It is now possible to merge multiple layers at once, without flattening them beforehand (as before). If source layer(s) have color, the result will be colored too. If you want to have the same result of the old version, put 0 in the "interpolation weight" parameter

Do hygroscopic filaments (PVA, Nylon) absorb moisture while in a heated enclosure I’m new to using PVA support filament, and have read it is especially prone to absorbing moisture out of the atmosphere. People made it sound like it starts to happen quickly, and if you aren’t supposed to leave it on the machine overnight, what’s the difference between that and doing an overnight print with the roll? I’m building an enclosure for the printer (BCN3D Sigma, filament lives in the build space), expect the ambient temperature when printing PLA to be ~35 °C, unless I add an active heating element (100 W lightbulb possibly). The question is, do the hygroscopic materials continue to absorb moisture in a warm, toasty environment? And if so, do I need to construct a dry box for the filament to live in as it prints? A frugal attempt at research brought back this: As noted by the Sciencing.com website article "How Temperature & Humidity are Related": As air temperature increases, air can hold more water molecules, and its relative humidity decreases. When temperatures drop, relative humidity increases.

The concept that relative humidity decreases with an air temperature increase runs consistent with the concept of using a food dehydrator to purge moisture from filament spools. As the filament heats up, energy is imparted to the water molecules within. The dryer air around the spool will accept the moisture and "distribute" it to the environment. A warmed enclosed chamber will not have much humidity to endanger the filament. I have a Sigma R16 and have moved the spools to the outside of the enclosure, but I don't plan to print hygroscopic materials in the near future. I suppose I'd have to build some form of drying enclosure around the spools, particularly for nylon and PVA. My Qidi3D X-Max has both internal and external spool mounts and it is recommended to use the internal mount for nylon, as even an hour's exposure to humidity can deteriorate print quality. PLA is safe for days, ABS is safe for perhaps less, but PVA is not a good overnight exposure material and nylon is definitely an inside-the-box condition. I suspect that having the filament inside your Sigma, especially if you plan to fully enclose it, is not going to be problematic. I created a front panel for my Sigma to reduce ABS warping and the internal temperatures reached 37 °C. That's warm enough to keep the water clear of the filament, unless you have an extremely humid environment. Before you add an additional heater, consider to place a perforated container of color-change desiccant inside the build chamber and observe over time the color change. Obviously when not printing, seal the desiccant from collecting non-test humidity, but I think you'll find it's pretty dry while you're printing.

Printing starts well but then it breaks down, Anet A8 I'm printing a cylindrical piece but at any moment it breaks down. I tried it two times, both have break down in different place. I'm using a 1.75 mm PLA filament in my Anet A8. I'm using Cura 2.6.2 to export to a .gcode file. This is the original model: And this is the result: Here is the G-code file.

The answer by fred_dot_u is fine for small prints with relative low cost or batch producing, where a single part is needed several times. But if you print something big or unique it's not cost effective. Slowing down the complete print is also not very time efficient. In Cura there an option called Mininum layer time, which addresses this problem: Cooling -> Minimum Layer Time / Minimum Speed This means that it will only slow down when the print distance for a particular layer is short. Giving the material some extra time to harden. Other layers will be printed at normal speed. Increased print time will be limited this way. For your situation I would advise you to increase the part cooling, if possible, in conjunction with configuring the Minimum Layer Time option mentioned above.

How does a 3D printer software/firmware work I have been working on a printer project that basically is a 2D printer (dot matrix type). We are using solenoids as actuators to make impressions on the paper. We are now in the process of designing custom software. But a problem that we have encountered is that we have no idea how to design software as we are a bunch of beginners in this field. An idea we are working on is based on position-acknowledge technique. In this technique the computer sends G-code to the controller. The controller after reaching the position defined in code sends an acknowledgement and the computer then sends the next signal. This is the model we are currently working on. Can anyone suggest any other ideas to make this work? Is Our approach right? Do 3D printers work using same technique?

You appear to be asking about rate-limiting the stream of G-code provided by the computer, but some more context in your question will help if this is not the case. Printers tend to work in two ways. Read G-code from local storage as a text file. Here, the parser/control engine is in full control. Stream G-code over a serial port using an 'ack' handshake. The reference for G-code used in 3D printing is the RepRap Wiki. Here you will find responses such as ok resend and fatal, these indicate when a previous command is processed and something else can be sent, if the previous message was identified as corrupt, or if recovery is impossible. The basic rule for this style of handshake is that after every host to slave transaction, the host must wait for some response before sending another transaction. The slave could send either ACK responses, or other asynchronous transactions if you can design the system to avoid or not care about overrun in the slave to host direction. When designing a handshake like this, you can consider all possible ways for something to go wrong (assume the interface is imperfect). How can you handle a request being missed and no ACK ever? When there is a timeout, can you make a 'benign' request to see if the printer is still connected, etc.

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

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

Possible ways to print soft skin for human robot? Are there any 3D printing filaments or specially designed desktop systems which can print soft artificial skin for human-robot? For example made of soft silicone or something similar?

Oh that is a tricky tricky question! First you will probably need a good scan of the robot. You will have the cad of the robot but chances are scanning will make life easier. http://www.3ders.org/articles/20151201-kinect-easy-3d-printing-tool-with-release-of-3d-scan-app-for-windows.html Also see Reprap for other options http://reprap.org/wiki/3D_scanning Following... it is not going to be that simple. If it was my project I would Print a mold out of ABS. ABS reacts to acetone and you can vapor treat it. http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/blog/01366106156 That said you might burn your house down. Also it is inconsistent. But would give you a smooth finish. Next you can do just normal mold printing and be okay with the ribbing. Then you pour your silicon material Next you can well just print with silicon. The ninjaflex guys have a ton of different types of flexible materials and new ones coming out. https://ninjatek.com/products/filaments/ninjaflex/ On that topic I will mention a local company that I have no direct affiliation with. I just see them at the hacker space. They make a extruder just for flexibles. https://flexionextruder.com/ Other areas to look at. More for making metal but it may be of use. http://www.instructables.com/id/From-3d-printed-part-to-metal-the-lost-plaabs-me/ Last is again the mold but you make the molds on a expensive form 1. Or you make the skin on the form1 as they can do flexibles. Small build area. Material is around 100 a ltr or more http://formlabs.com/products/3d-printers/form-1-plus/ Good luck! Also check out this facebook group (no affiliation) https://www.facebook.com/groups/3DPrintProps/ If anyone has done this it is those guys. Oh Wait No I take that back Look into these fellows. They have a very active group. (google group) not to mention that they are also directly doing what you are. http://inmoov.fr/ Just don't be like this guy and make it look like a movie star... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/man-builds-scarlet-johansson-robot-7667715

Melzi v3b firmware flash I'm trying to flash the repetier Firmware to my Prusa i3 3D Printer, which uses Melzi 2.0 board. I uploaded it successfully 2 days ago with same settings but now is failing always. @avrdude -p m1284p -b57600 -c arduino -P COM%x% -e -U flash:w:%filename%.hex avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9705 (probably m1284p) avrdude: erasing chip avrdude: reading input file "newa.hex" avrdude: input file newa.hex auto detected as Intel Hex avrdude: writing flash (114266 bytes): Writing | | 0% 0.00s avrdude: stk500_paged_write(): (a) protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x64 avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding How do I solve this problem?

I have had trouble before not using spacing between arguments. I think no spacing between -b and 57600 is causing the problem. Try avrdude -p m1284p -b 57600 -c arduino -P COM%x% -e -U flash:w:%filename%.hex

Can a 3D model of a copyrighted work be rendered legally without infringement? I know this is still gray territory and it is asked so many times within the 3D printing and maker community but I'm curious about the limits of 3D models and were it touches on Free Use and infringement. I'm not trying to push the envelope, I just want to be clear on the matter. Is it legal if a design is rendered in a CAD program of a copyrighted material for no purpose of using, distributing, creating, mixing, internalizing, re-licensing under GPL/CC, or any unauthorized use outlined by the owner of the original work? For instance, if someone is demonstrating the abilities of a particular CAD and makes a mock-up of Mickey Mouse just to show the limits of said CAD and the STL/OBJ isn't released or distributed and a letter of intent is given along with the demonstration regarding the original work (in this case, Mickey), is that infringement? In this example, no loss of revenue or sales will affect the original owner, no claims of ownership is implied or stated, and no physical model will be created. While considering all of this, I figured that it wasn't very much different than if an artist sat down and drew a picture of Mickey Mouse. As long as the picture isn't sold, distributed, or released, in my mind, that is the same thing as a 3D render. To further the details of the 3D model, the render would be made from scratch and not imported, copied, or reverse engineered from any other work. Bottom line, it will be a likeness that is created but it will be as close to the real thing as possible to demonstrate capabilities of a particular program (such as organic shapes, stitching, grouping, layering, or any other facet and characterization of 3D modeling). I already understand that it is recommended to err on the side of caution and steer clear of things like this but it is more of a curiosity than a request for legal advice regarding a specific case. Can this be covered under Fair Use? Since there is nothing to be made from creating the render, it isn't released or distributed to others, isn't re-licensed, and no ownership is implied/credit to the original owner is given, is this Free Use or copyright infringement?

First, copyright laws are complex and depend heavily on the specific details. IMO, your question is really too broad to answer. An interesting example of how details and interpretation affect whether something is a violation or not is Kienitz v Sconnie Nation. In this case a copyrighted photo was clearly copied, modified, and used to make a t-shirt that was sold; but, it was not deemed a copyright violation. On the surface it seems like a violation; but, the court ruled it was not a copyright violation because of the specific details of the case. Using something as a starting point for a unique creative work that is clearly your own creation is not copying. I am sure you can tell the difference. Second, in your description you mention "Free Use". If the owner has granted "Free Use" of their product; but, they are still wanting to declare the item copyrighted, I would hope that they have granted that "Free Use" under a defined agreement. In that case, it would seem likely that the creator may just be trying to protect his design from being plagiarized and/or sold/used in a way that is against his intent. If you have a way to contact the owner, why not just contact them and ask their permission for what you want to do. If they have put it out for public use, they would probably be excited to have other people see their creation. Just make sure they gets the credit for the design. If it is a creation they are intending to protect (like Disney does with Mickey Mouse); then, the answer will be an unequivocal no. Note that one weird exception is that Disney has granted use rights for Donald Duck to the University of Oregon "Ducks". Finally, you state that that your intent is "for no purpose of using, distributing, creating, mixing, ..." and you list almost every way of making it public. If your intent is for what you make/copy to never make it into the public domain; then, how will your question ever be anything other than hypothetical? I know that there is presently no "private use" exclusion for copyrighted material. It isn't legal to copy someone's DVD for you to watch privately; but, in reality, no one gets prosecuted for a single private instance. It is abuse that gets prosecuted. In what you intend, it would seem that you be best suited to seek out first what would be the "right" thing to do rather than just focusing on what would be "legal". If you are concerned what you want to do may be wrong and/or illegal, it is probably best to not do it.

FDM printer first layer infill swell upward My Kossel Mini printer was working well. Recently I made some changes including replacing the nozzle and throat, adding a silicone heater cover. Now it has the problem of first layer adhesion. The perimeter sticks well but the infill line swells upward in the middle, while start and end has no problem. In my experience the adhesion problem only occurs at corner but never in the middle. So I don't know what configuration needs to be changed to fix it. Delta calibration has been done before the print. PVP glue was used on the bed.

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

Why is the bottom of my part not smooth I printed Planetary Gears and the top looks great but the bottom doesn't I am printing on a TronXY X3 (Prusa i3 metal frame clone) using eSun PLA+ and sliced using Cura 2.4. I print on glass and do manual leveling (sheet of paper to set gap). What could be causing this? It almost looks like a raft; but, I selected to print with a Brim not a Raft. I have seen this on some other prints so I suspect it is a slicer setting. Note: Bed adhesion seemed great. First adhered well and part popped off with very little effort.

Your nozzle is too far from your bed. The first layer isn't squished down sufficiently, resulting in these gaps. If your first layer looks like this, you should cancel your print and adjust the bed. Alternatively, you can adjust the initial height of the Z-axis in G-code (for instance, G0 Z-0.1 followed by G92 Z0, which should be appended to your start G-code). You can also try increasing the first layer height or the first layer extrusion multiplier. If you increase the first layer height, you will probably still have to adjust the bed slightly to bring the nozzle closer, but the thicker your first layer the larger the window where you get a good first layer. Increasing the extrusion multiplier will effectively stretch the first layer to be thicker (and thus the model will come out slightly too high) and thus isn't necessarily a good idea, though some people find that a slight increase (to for instance, 110%) makes the first layer slightly more forgiving (but this also increases adherence, making parts harder to remove - there is a very fine line between getting good first layers and having your prints stuck permanently to the bed).

Installing E3D v6 extruder electronics on Ultimaker Original+ I printed the mechanical parts to mount a E3D v6 on my Ultimaker Original+. But I don't know how to connect my heating cartridge, my thermistor and my 3 fans to the electronic board. Any idea? Edit: I should have said I'm using the following design: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/e3d-v6-hot-end-mount My main problem is to connect all 3 fans, as the original design of the UMO+ is only using one.

I'm not certain exactly what you're asking, but I'll give this a try. If I've misunderstood, please give more details. It sounds like you're upgrading to the E3D v6. If so, the heater, thermistor, and fans should connect to the same places as the previous ones did. The exception would be if you had thermocouples instead of thermistors before; that's a more complicated change. If the connectors are different, you'll need to get matching connectors from a parts supplier (post a picture if you're having trouble identifying them). Fortunately each of the items you mentioned has 2 wires, and for the heater and thermistor polarity doesn't matter. For fans, polarity does matter, so match up red vs. black, or just try it one way, and if the fan doesn't turn, then swap the wires. Some fans have a third wire, which could be used for measuring the actual rotation speed (see [http://pcbheaven.com/wikipages/How_PC_Fans_Work]); but it's not necessary.

Can't print anything, clicking and low extrusion I am the owner of a pretty Anycubic Mega I3 and it was very cool to own it. However, now I have several problems when printing with it. It clicks all along, at high or low temperature, at 5 mm above the plate, and the result is very disgusting. It is the same with the basic black PLA, or with other PLA from ICE-Filaments but I can't do anything. I use Cura and I've reset it several times, using the defaults options or not. Here are two examples of some prints (normal cube): example 1 and Example 2

I had a similar issue after installing an E3D V6 using a Bowden extruder. PLA needs a heat break that has a PTFE liner, since with all metal heat breaks, it's probable that the filament will reach glass transition temperature in the heat break and stop flowing properly. Also, I had filament that was 1.86 mm instead of 1.75 mm, which caused it to bind inside the PTFE tube. Before correcting these issues, I was able to temporarily fix the issue by doing a cold pull to unclog the extruder, and was able to print around 10 cm in height of a 20x20x20 mm cube. To do a cold pull, heat your extruder between 80-100°C, and then pull out the filament. If successful, the tip of the filament will be shaped as the inside of the nozzle. If needed, heat the extruder to 200°C and manually push the filament to fill up the nozzle and heat brake, then let it cool down to the above temps and do the pull.

How can I include seperate Slicing Parameters in my 3mf file I am trying to write a program that edits a 3mf file by defines different slicing parameters for different stls that I have previously merged into my 3mf file, but I am a little bit confused about the configuration of the 3mf file, and where I would look to make changes in the slicing parameters. Can anyone lead me in the right direction as to where I could look? I'm assuming that I wouldn't be making any changes to the .model file because it seems like it only holds information about the meshes. Thanks and let me know if it would be helpful for me to clarify anything.

Huh. On a hunch I just changed a copy of a .3mf model to have a .zip file extension, and what do you know, it works! 3mf is just a set of compressed xml. The zip folder structure I saw included a MetaData folder. I bet you could put just about anything you wanted in there, as long as it doesn't conflict with things other 3mf parsers are expecting to find. I tested this. I dumped an unrelated pdf file into the folder and re-zipped it. Both MS 3D Builder and Cura were able to open the updated file just fine. However, saving the file again in 3D Builder did not preserve the PDF. I suppose there's a lesson here, too: we may need to be wary of models we download off the internet. They could include literally anything. This also raises an interesting possibility: password protected 3mf files. If 3mf is just a zip container, and zip files can have passwords, it follows logically that 3mf files can have passwords.

How does acetone "rejuvenate" PEI? The Prusa3d knowledge base mentions that acetone will "rejuvenate" PEI in addition to cleaning oil and grease from the surface. About once a week, or when prints stop sticking, use ACETONE to clean the bed. It removes grease better than IPA or Windex. It also rejuvenates the print surface. However, if you use acetone every day, PEI will become brittle and start cracking. From a chemical or physical perspective, how does acetone affect the PEI surface?

Rejuvenate is probably a bit of an exaggerated term. The number one adhesion suppressor is grease. The stuff that comes off of the fingers used to handle the sheet. Even if you are careful and only handle the sides, the grease will be carried to the center of the plate next time its cleaned with less aggressive solvents. Isopropyl alchohol does break down grease but not to the extent that acetone does. Acetone also attacks plastic particles that accumulate on the print surface over time. PEI is resistant to a wide array of chemicals[1] including acetone but it can become brittle if exposed to it too much especially when hot so acetone is not recommended for daily cleaning. [1] Ultem Product Broshure table 4-3

Short to ground error using TMC2130 stepper drivers I have recently got an MKS GEN L V1.0 board and 5 TMC2130s. (X, Y, two Z, E). I have wired it all up and uploaded Marlin 1.1.9 and after some quick troubleshooting I got the motors moving. Next day I tried it again and it gave me this error: E0 driver error detected: overtemperature short to ground (coil A) short to ground (coil B) with the following driver debug report: (notice that the extruder driver doesn't show up) X Y Z Enabled false false false Set current 800 800 800 RMS current 795 795 795 MAX current 1121 1121 1121 Run current 25/31 25/31 25/31 Hold current 12/31 12/31 12/31 CS actual 12/31 12/31 12/31 PWM scale 10 10 10 vsense 1=.18 1=.18 1=.18 stealthChop true true true msteps 16 16 16 tstep 1048575 1048575 1048575 pwm threshold 0 0 0 [mm/s] - - - OT prewarn false false false OT prewarn has been triggered false false false off time 5 5 5 blank time 24 24 24 hysteresis -end 2 2 2 -start 3 3 3 Stallguard thrs 8 8 0 DRVSTATUS X Y Z stallguard sg_result 0 0 0 fsactive stst X X X olb ola s2gb s2ga otpw ot Driver registers: X = 0x80:0C:00:00 Y = 0x80:0C:00:00 Z = 0x80:0C:00:00 I did some research and found that you should change the CS pin for that stepper and so I did. I tried almost every available pin on my board but no luck. The only change I got was when I wired it to pin 11 and got this: E0 driver error detected: overtemperature short to ground (coil A) I have the Watterott TMC2130 SilentStep Sticks and have examined the board which seemed correct. Is all wired correctly. Tomorrow I will try to switch the driver to one from another axis and try to switch the stepper to see if anything changes, but it seems to me that it shouldn't since it worked for some time.

I have fixed it. I tried uploading the bugfix version of Marlin and no luck. Then I noticed a loose jumper wire that connected the driver to the board and when re-installing it I noticed it didn't grip the pin that strongly and could be easily pulled off so I switched the wire and everything works now. Turns out that even jumper wires can have a bad connection. Hope this helps someone.

Ender 3 Pro Weak Prints after Cura upgrade I'm getting weak prints on Ender 3 Pro with Cura after Cura upgrade. Prints on my Ender 3 Pro have been good until I was forced to update Cura due to having to update the OS on my laptop. Now my prints are weak even after using Infill 50 % from 20 %. Upgraded to Cura 4.8.0. I noticed that it seems my print settings were saved from the older non-working Cura version. I went ahead and printed an XYZ Cube with the same settings from my older Cura version where prints were printing fine/acceptable. It fell apart as I tried to lift it off the build plate so I printed a second XYZ Cube with 50 % infill from previous 20 % pictured below: The above print is noticeably weak, with layers not bonding or maybe something else. Below is an image of when an XYZ Cube printed with my older Cura version. It is not perfect but it is much stronger without visible separation and actually noticeably heavier than the grey XYZ Cube printed with Cura 4.8.0 : The green and the grey 1.75 mm PLA I use and shown in the photos are different brands but both printed very much the same with the older Cura version. I'm thinking this is an issue with the new Cura 4.8.0 that I'm using as nothing about my printing has changed besides the new Cura version assuming that my original print settings were saved which it looks to me that they were. Has anyone had a similar issue or is there a known fix for this? Posting settings pics below: 12/28/20 : Went to https://www.chepclub.com/cura-profiles.html and noted that they mention to use the Cura 4.8.0 Built-In profiles. Below are two pics of test print while using Cura 4.8.0's Built-In Standard Profile : 12/29/20 : Screenshot showing Nozzle Diameter (still using the 0.4 mm stock nozzle) & Flow @ 100 %. Please let me know if these are not the correct settings you asked me to look in :

Total user error on my end. With the new version of this app somehow I did not catch that material selected on the UI dropdown was set to some custom material and not Generic PLA. Once I selected the proper material, all worked as expected.

ooze shield vs priming tower, do you need both? I've been experimenting with two color prints. In my first test, I enabled a priming tower and the print came out OK, but there was definitely some oozing from the non-active head and left a lot of blemishes on the print. I'm trying another print now and I also enabled an ooze shield. This got me to thinking, if you are going to print an ooze shield, do you need a priming tower? I'm using a lulzbot Taz6 with the dual extruder v3

I have the same printer you do. I recall that the ooze shield is printed in alternating layers; first from E0 and then the next layer from E1. But on a given layer, I don't think that there is a guarantee that the ooze shield will be printed in the filament about to be laid down for the part of the layer. (But I might be wrong on this.) But when it comes time to print the ooze shield, what will happen if the filament has already drizzled out during the print of the last layer? The first part of that ooze shield won't get printed properly and might end up causing a print failure. As a separate issue, I found that an ooze shield is only helpful if the overall XY diameter of the print is not too great. This is because it only helps when the print head crosses the perimeter. If the print head spends a fair amount of time inside the perimeter, then the idle head can still continue to ooze out unwanted filament. So for many of my prints, I started using the priming tower, but skipping the ooze shield.

The part printed correctly except few layers As you can see from the picture, the part is good except some missing layers near the bottom. I have tried to search for this problem but nothing similar appeared. So, what might be the cause and what is the name for this problem? Printer: Ender3, new. Slicer: Cura Nozzle: 0.4 mm Temperature: 200 °C nozzle 50 °C bed Material: PLA Print speed: 50 mm/s

This looks like either the nozzle had been clogged for some layers and it resolved itself or the g-code contained incorrect instructions. I suggest altering your print settings slightly and reslicing, then just printing it again. To get more accuracy on the prints, I suggest a line width of 0.45 mm.

Blow vs suck air over hotend's heatsink I've build a 3D printer from sourced parts and mounted the hotend cooler to blow air over the heatsink. Talking to a friend, he said it's better to reverse the airflow over the heatsink, but couldn't give me an argument other than everywhere he saw it was like this: all coolers are mount to suck the hot air away from the heatsink. Is it one way better than the other way ? And if so, why ?

Getting hot air from the radiator is definitely wrong idea because of few reasons: hot air can damage your fan (as they are usually not heatproof). Cold air cools the fan cold air is denser so fan can suck more cold air than hot air so cooling is more efficient (fig A) in terms of plug of radiator (with dust) it's much better to try to push cold air into plugged fan (fig C) than to suck the air from it (fig B). When flow is decreased there is higher possibility to damage the fan as it doesn't cool itself Of course we are talking about 3D printers with small plastic fans. Please notice (almost) all fans construction: they are designed to get air from the top of the fan and push it to the bottom (this construction prevents damaging/plugging fan motor by dust)... and their mounting wholes (or clips) are usually... naturally suggesting to direct air to the heatsink)

Z Axis inconsistency - Geeetech I3 I'm 3D printing almost 2 years, and I expected to have better result after changing to complete smooth rods with new bearings. I have a problem with my Z axis giving me inconsistent prints; I already replaced the leadscrews, E3D clone with Bowden tube, I decided to replace all smooth rods on all axis and also the bearings. After I replaced all this, my prints are still bad, also I'm very dissapointed with the results after the replacements. I have checked all I could think of; PID tuning, belts, ....) but I'm running out of ideas. Printing settings: print speed is 40mm/s, retraction is 3mm at 30mm/s, extruder 205°C for the first layer, then 200°C

From the pictures can be seen that you have good lead screws as there is no cyclic anomaly/wobble present at the side. It appears as though the lines at the sides of the print are more or less random X/Y positional inaccurate. These lines can be caused by various reasons. From what is read you tried to improve the mechanical system by upgrading the hardware. It could still be the case that there is still some backlash or play left in the system (e.g. I had once had too much tolerance on the holes of the linear shafts in the printed X-Z mounts causing similar problems). Vibration should be looked into also, e.g. do you have a binding bearing or a large mass on the printer that interacts with the carriage movement like a spool holder on top of your frame. Or maybe the micro-stepping does not work optimally, so check the stepper driver currents. If it is no mechanical issue, it could be that you are facing inconsistent extrusion caused by variation in filament thickness or gear slipping or too much tension on the filament by friction in unspooling. Or else a hotend temperature variation. Maybe insulation on the hotend helps.

Is there a way to convert a file to .dwg? I can download a file from Tinkercad as any of these: .STL .OBJ .X3D .VRML Is there a way to convert any of those file types to .DWG?

I found this site and tested it a moment ago. I uploaded a simple .STL file (crystal) and had to register as a user (free, unremarkable) in order to perform the conversion. http://www.cadforum.cz/catalog_en/stl2dwg.asp The downloaded file was in .DWG format and opened without a problem in AutoCAD 2013 as a 3d object. Note the placement of the pivot point in Meshmixer (first image) and the corresponding location in AutoCAD.

Layershifting near windows I just got my Ender 3 V2 a few days ago. I have started designing a simple local church but the surface of the print is not what I was expecting. The main issue is layers not being exactly on top of each other near openings(windows). (Red circles in the attached image). Is this setting related or do I need to change my model? For the blue circle, it is not a nice and flat surface. It happens in this location in every print of the church. You can see it in the background as well. Can anyone give me some tips on how to improve these issues?

That's a retraction issue, not layer shift. Your nozzle starts printing a new line in those areas but doesn't extrude enough plastic at the first moments, resulting in a weak line.

Can the resin from Resin based 3D printers be used to make printed circuit boards? Do the properties of 3D printer resin allow it to stick to copper clad surfaces when cured? I am interested in turning my filament based 3D printer into a photo plotter with a laser that can cure a thin layer of resin coated onto a copper surface.

Brushed aluminum is a common bed surface for resin based printers. The aspect of the aluminum that is important to the print is the adhesion, hence the roughness of brushed aluminum. It has to be sufficient to hold the print in place, but not so extreme as to cause destruction on removal. In the case of copper as a print surface, one would certainly want some mechanical adhesion in the form of surface roughness. You've not specified the forces that would be applied to the copper once cured. If you do not plan to manipulate the copper surface in an excessive manner, it's likely that it would adhere. It's also just as likely to pop free if the plate or surface is flexed. I've seen no reference online to copper coated print beds. This would lead me to believe that it was tested and rejected as suitable for 3D printing, but not necessarily unsuitable for your purposes. This is one of those situations where testing is warranted and not particularly difficult to accomplish. You can purchase UV curing resin, build a tin to hold the copper surface and pour the expected layer thickness. Leave it in the sun and let nature's UV do the curing. Consider if you have not yet done so to research safety practice for handling this substance. Wear gloves and eye protection, cover any exposed skin surfaces and have good ventilation.

Please suggest parameters for 0.5 mm diameter nozzle I am building an FDM machine on my own. I am not using any commercial software. So I have a lot of questions regarding the right parameters to choose. I am having 0.5 mm diameter nozzle. What are the parameters that I am supposed to choose? The general parameters that I need to know are: Extruder head speed (mm/s) Layer thickness (mm.) Road width (mm) Filament feed rate (mm/s)

These parameters are not fixed. FDM printers are designed to work over a range speeds, feed rates, layer heights, extrusion temperatures, etc, depending on the type of print job and the filament type used. If you design a printer to work with fixed parameters, you are unlikely to get good results.

Is it legal to make a fire weapon with a 3D printer? Is there any regulation against a 3D printed weapon in the United States or Europe? Some time ago, I saw an article in Israel where they had one that was not detected by the x-ray and was fully functional!

Sort of. Fully plastic guns are banned in the United States by the Undetectable Firearms Act, because they can pass unseen through metal detectors - a huge problem. One way around this is to insert a slip of metal into the gun, thereby making it detectable by metal detectors. 3D-printed guns made of metal - were that possible - would not violate the law. The UFA was originally enacted in 1988, extended from 2003 to 2013, and then again until 2023. It may seem a bit unnecessary, as all-plastic guns, like the famous Liberator have structural issues that make them extremely difficult to fire when compared to a normal all-metal gun. However, then can be used. In Europe, gun laws vary widely by country. The European Firearms Directive is the main international agreement on gun laws, but its application varies, and it does not directly address 3D-printed guns. I'm not aware of a country that has an explicit law banning 3D-printed guns. The only countries that ban them either unintentionally cover them or ban guns altogether.

Print circle arcs without supports I'm still putting aside money for buying my first 3D printer and I'm designing all the things I have to print. As I have a lot of things to print I would like to print as much of them as possible in a single print. I have some arcs of circle (between 90° and 320° and 10/30 cm of diameter) and I'm going to slice them so I'll be able to print many of them, vertically, in a single print. I read in the internet that I cannot print over 45°... but starting from where? The image below shows how I would like to print my (orange) things I suppose I can print my things without supports because from Y-start to Y-end they are <= 45° (as the green line shows) is that right? The red line, instead, shows a case where the angle, starting from a (Y: 50%) point, is higher than 45°. So the question is: Can I print my things in such way?

This depends on your material, your nozzle diameter, and your layer height. In general, shorter layer thicknesses with wider path widths will give better overhangs. And note that the last bit of each of the larger arcs are nearly horizontal, and I do not expect them to work well without support material. See the excellent answers at How can I improve the overhang angles my printer can successfully print?

Surface artifacts when formation of object changes (Layer inconsistency) When my Ender 3 prints a top or bottom layer, it leaves a line on the layer. Slicer Cura Linear Advance: 0.57 Retraction: 3 mm @ 35 mm/s Max Speed: 100 mm/s Ironing enabled Minimum wall flow: 20 % Temperatures: 205 °C hotend and 65 °C bed My belts are tight enough as I push them they spring back up. I bought a support block for my Z lead screw to help with z banding (I also removed it to see if it will fix the issue but it didn't). I tried 50 mm/s, No Infill, swapped out to brand new 0.6 mm nozzle (the picture has 0.4 mm), Minimum wall-flow to 0 % but no improvement. It has to lead me to think its a mechanical issue but I am not sure where to start.

I have found the issue. My extruder gear was deformed after 4 months of continuous use which made the extruder have a difficult time when a rapid change in extrusion happened. I swapped it out to a new stainless steel one and it has been working well so far. EDIT: These inconsistencies are mainly caused by the pressure in the nozzle not changing fast enough. So to solve this you should look at the extruder setup as that is where the pressure is being controlled. Get any gunk out of there and make sure the path is clear and make sure nothing is grinding and you have a good grip on the filament. To reduce the change in pressure you should play with printing speed, hotend temperature, linear advance if applicable and you may tune extruder jerk and acceleration although not necessary.

How to replace the nozzle in my hotend assembly? What should I take care of to replace the nozzle of the hotend assembly the right way? What kind of data, precautions, tools, steps, and verification are important for replacing the nozzle? The procedure seems straightforward but tutorials differ greatly and seem often incomplete. Online videos are great but long, sometimes misleading, and difficult to compare if they use another printer model. For example: This Prusa 3D tutorial starts from heating the nozzle to 280 °C, which is dangerous for some hotend setups. Also, it is created around a direct drive extruder, so it does not advise to what to do with a Bowden tube. Another Changing Nozzles & Bowden Tubes video seems to be a great tutorial but advises heating only to ~210 °C. So I need to make sure I know my hardware limits first? Should I take something else into account about temperature, or just act by experience, starting from 230 °C? Is that heating mandatory, or only when there is residue filament inside? If there is something to consider about replacement nozzle before installing it, or cooling down again, like PID calibration? So I am looking for a general overview: what should I think of to be in control? And maybe a bit of why, but not necessarily how. (As always, each detail may be a separate study, so please don't to fall into troubleshooting, which could be done in separate questions like E3D V6 nozzle seized into heater block).

The exact procedure depends on the design of the printer. After unloading filament, remove and install the nozzle at the highest temperature you will run. Otherwise, you will not get a good seal between the nozzle and heat break if you depending on tightening at lower than operating temperature. A bad seal allows the filament to leak out (oozing). Tighten and untighten the nozzle with wrenches on the heat break and nozzle. The heat break is easily damaged if tightening too tight into the heat sink, but you need a tight connection between the nozzle and heat break. This means the nozzle must tighten against the heat break and not tighten against the heater block; thus space between the nozzle flange and heater block when tightened against the heat break. Note: If you had oozing, it will glue the nozzle and heat break to the heater block. Heating the hot end will often allow you to remove the nozzle. Note the electronics of some printer models can be damaged by shorting the nozzles to heater leads, thermistor leads, or even a metal bed. Check for your model. Running the hot end at 250 °C or above requires an all metal hot end (a heat break without Teflon) or the Teflon will degrade. This also applies to Boden tubes that run all the way to your nozzle. Look for instructions related to your Boden tube. Go to max. temperature for operating with Boden tube, then you usually clamp the Boden tube in place so that it forms a good seal.

Is there a problem with removing a polished rod from the Z-axis? I recently had a problem with the z-axis of my printer. To resolve the issue with the Z axis not moving I remove the left polished rod. Am I able to use the printer with just one smooth rod?

First a resounding no. Not a good idea. Are you saying it works now that you have removed the smooth rod? That tells me for sure your issue was Binding. Which is a tricky problem to solve. Binding usually happens when your carriage is not level. Take a bubble leveler and verify. Another time it happens is when your Acceleration / Jerk settings are too high. Try reducing the Acceleration for Z in the firmware. Another possibility is your rod is Bent. Take the rod on a flat surface. Inspect it as you roll it around. Do the same with the other rod. If it bows and is not completely flat, then you will need to replace it. Last is make sure your printers frame is put together. If it is causing the rod to bend as it is not aligned right then you should try to see if you can fix it and contact the seller. Technically you can run without the second rod. Maybe. I do not advise. It is sort of like cutting off a leg because you have a cramp. It will hurt your overall quality and it is better to just resolve the issue.

Large 3D printer 10'x10'x4' - Need G-code to tell when it stops extruding and to stop machine We use Simplify and have a large 10’x10’x4’ printer. We need G-code that when the extrusion stops the machine will stop and raise 10 mm as to not to burn the print, so we know where the extrusion stopped. We are using beads instead of filament, which work great. We have a mechanical pusher of beads that once it stops spinning, we need a G-code to recognize it is not spinning anymore and to stop the printer at that point and to lift up 10 mm. Printer might go 3-4 days sometimes a week with no problems and all of a sudden no extrusion and machine keeps thinking its printing. We have to start all over. Any suggestions?

G-code is likely not the solution to your problem. G-code are simple commands that are executed by the printer (e.g. "heat up the hotend to this temperature" or "move the extruder to this position") but there is no G-code for "detect whether the pusher is still running" (and besides, how could the printer possibly detect whether the pusher is running without hardware to do so? You'll likely want to configure your pusher to somehow act as a filament runout sensor. This is a feature in Marlin (smoothieware has something similar) that allows you to pause the print by making an input on one of the control board's pins. You'll need to build hardware that detects the motion of the pusher, and if the motion is interrupted, pulls the FIL_RUNOUT_PIN low (in the case of Marlin). You can then configure what should happen next (e.g. raising the head and stopping the print) using FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SCRIPT (again, only if you're using Marlin).

Ender 3 X axis not level I've been aware ever since I got it that my Ender 3's X-axis isn't level. Measuring from the top of it to the top of the frame, the right-hand (positive) side is about 4.7mm higher than the left. During assembly, the vertical rails were not entirely parallel, and had to be pulled together to get the X axis on and to bolt the cross beam on the top. I suspect this is related, but I'm not sure. Anyway, aside from the bed having to be tilted to be level with respect to the X axis, this never seemed to cause any problem, so I've left it alone until now. However I have measured almost exactly a 1% dimensional error in the X direction that I've now compensated for by setting the steps per mm, and wonder if the tilted axis could be the cause. Doing the trig, that doesn't make sense - a 4.7 mm error across the width of the bed should translate to something like one part in 2000, not 1%. But maybe something's wrong in my analysis so I'd like second opinions. Aside from that, is this something I should try to correct, or just let be? I suspect it's the base that's warped or tapped/cut incorrectly where the vertical rails bolt on, in which case it seems unlikely there's any way to fix it without replacing that part, which is something I'd rather not get into as long as the printer is working. But if there are other possibilities that are non-invasive to try, I might. Further update: if this is the cause of the dimensional error (which turned out to be more like 0.41% than 1%, thus closer to plausible) I probably need to fix it. Using firmware steps/mm adjustment is not viable because it produces aliasing patterns in skin layers presumably due to step width no longer dividing nozzle size/line width.

i've just bought an Ender 3 Pro and on assembly I carefully checked and deburred the uprigh rails on their bottom faces to ensure they did not splay out or in etc. Once the 2 uprights are loosely attached to the base rails I laid the assembly flat onto a table on the uprights to ensure the uprights were square to one another and tightened the screws. Check the uprights are parallel to one another by placing the top crossbeam on the top of the uprights and check if the screw holes are alligned...….if the screws are tight to enter their holes the uprights are splayed out or in and need correcting etc......a small amount of pressure "can" make them line up. The X axis rail slides up and down on the two uprights with two 3 wheeled brackets, one either side, that have 3 wheels on them, one wheel on each bracket is the adjuster and it is easy to have the X axis cross beam out of square if you tighten the one bracket to the rail before you test the rail for squareness. Firstly, place only the 2 wheel brackets on their uprights and adjust the wheels for smooth running, then attach the X axis rail to each wheel bracket and just nip up the 2 screws loosely to hold them to the cross beam. Now, check the cross beam for squareness by running it to the top of the uprights and measuring the gap left to right between the X axis rail and the top rail, then tighten the left hand wheel bracket screws to the X axis rail......and then tighten the right hand wheel bracket to the cross beam. Leave the Z axis leadscrew off for the moment and run the crossbeam up and down on the uprights making sure there are no tight spots due to out of squareness. if it's all freely moving.....fit the Z axis leadscrew. The bed plate can only be set once you have the machine itself squared up. Ian.

Best practise of re-modeling a building The organization I am working for plans to pull down and rebuild our office building. As some people are a bit sentimental about the old building, we think about making a 3D model of the old building. The old house was built in the 60s or 70s, when everything was done by hand. So we have some really detailed hand-drawn plans of the building. We also have a nice and detailed (physical) 3D model of the house. However, what we don't have yet is any material that can be processed in modern 3D modeling software. So this is what my question is about: What is the best (easiest, with reasonable degree of details) way to make a 3D model of the old building? At the moment I think of two different paths: Transferring the hand drawn plans to a 3D modeling software. I think, Sketchup might be suitable, but I am open for suggestions. It should be something easy to start with as I would like to motivate some colleagues to join the project. Using some kind of photogrammetry software to transfer the (hand crafted) 3D model of the building to an "electronic" 3D model. I have no experience with this method, however if it works it might be much easier to do. Can you help me to decide which path to choose and give me some tips on how to do it exactly?

That are certainly trade-offs between the two options. I think main trade-off between the two options you described would be visual details vs. configurability. With a scanned design you have the ability to capture all the visual details that are in your hand crafted model. Those same details might require more effort than you are willing to put into a CAD design (like window and door detail and other architectural accents). The big disadvantage of a scanned model it that it would not be parametric so you can't fiddle with design details - like adjusting the width or spacing of the windows, the position of a door or external approach (stairs, etc). Also you could play with the external skins/finishes and play with how wood looked as compared to concrete of brick. Another advantage of a CAD model would be that you would not be able to break out components and print them separately because of print volume issues or to be able to print in different colors. My personal preference would be to create a 3D Model using a CAD package. The limitation on this would be that it might not have the same level of detail; but it would be much more flexible. You could probably create the base design pretty easily either from the architectural drawings or by deconstructing the hand crafted model. The model was probably built from pieces much the same way a 3D CAD model is created. Here is a good example of how to do that. In the example, they create a pretty detailed house design in Sketchup in 35 min by starting with scans of the architectural drawings. There are quite a few other similar videos so you should look for the one that fits you best.

Options for making Ender 3 v2 fans quieter I have had my Ender 3 v2 for just over two months and have had a blast working with it. I have printed some mods to personalize it. One of the things that I have done to help mitigate the vibrational noise is to place my Ender 3 on a concrete paver that sits on top of 3 inches of upholstery foam. This has made a huge difference. With the vibration noise down, now I can hear the fan on the extruder like never before. Both fans are listed as "brushless" EFS-04D24L; of course, they look different in the pictures below: What options are there to help reduce the fan noise? I wasn't sure if a baffle or enclosure would help. Or would it be easier to replace the fans with quieter ones?

There are companies making fans with blade design based on owl wings to make the blades quieter. Here's an example https://www.moduflow.co.uk/owlet-fans/ and I've seen other designs. I don't know which design ended up being the quietest. First, you would need to find out who makes these fans the right size and flow rate for you, then try to find out which is quietest. Here is another example: https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/718

"Seams" in first layer My first layers started to have these "seams" in them. I am printing on the Anycubic Ultrabase. Any other layer is fine. Has anyone else experienced similar problems or an idea of how to debug this issue? The picture is of PLA (BQ Easy Black) printed at 215 °C on the Ultrabase. The the same issue with BQ Easy PLA red, turquoise and white (205 °C), Zaper PETG Brown 230 °C and HobbyKing translucent ABS Red (245 °C). Changing the nozzle did not change anything.

Normally, such patterns are caused by too close printing to the bed (nozzle to bed distance too small), but considering the not fully flattened out extrusion lines (on glass I get a mirror shine fully closed surface) this does not seem to be the reason; you could try to increase the gap a little, in Ultimaker Cura this is very easily done with the Z Offset Setting plugin. Alternatively, you could use a little thicker paper to calibrate the bed levelling.

What is the best way to print a model with support material in first layer? I am trying to print a model that requires support material to be on the first layer, what is the best way to accomplish this? I am currently using Cura. It seems that the support material is too flaky. I have the infill for the support at around 8%

I had the same problem printing a miniature just recently. As always, settings are somewhat dependent from the object you want to print, but here are some suggestions: Increase the support density: 15% (8% is very low!) Support pattern: zig-zag with "connect zig-zag" option enabled (add stiffness to the "column" of support) Enable support interface (increase adhesion to the plate, and provide a more "beefy" base for the support material) For reference, here's a screenshot of my settings as I tweaked them for that miniature (printed a 0.1mm layer height). ("Support line distance 1mm" is the same as "Support density 15%", or at least it is the same with my nozzle size) If your problem was not only with the "flakiness" of the material, but also with it adhesion to the bed, then prepping your printing bed somehow (with a bit of painter tape, glue, etc... can help. Alternatively using a brim or a raft (as also suggested by another responder) could also help. EDIT: all the above still standing true, it turns out the OP had a hardware problem as well, his timing belt being loose (see comments).

Prusa i3 Z axis only goes down (even on up command) I have just finished building a Tronxy P802M Prusa i3. When I try to move the Z-axis, using the hardware buttons in the LCD menu (without a computer connected), it only goes down, when I both increase, and decrease, the value of Z. Any suggestions?

It could be a hardware fault. First check, and compare, the control board connections to the motors of the three axes. You don't state it in your question but, presumably, the X and Y axes move correctly? If so, then compare the connections for the Z-axis motors with the connections for the motors of the axes that work as expected. If they are correct then the problem is likely to be with the firmware. Have you... homed the Z-axis yet? installed the endstops? From X Y Z axis only move one direction?: Using Marlin? Before you do a G28 homing the axes will only move towards the endstops. But also check your endstops with M119 to make sure they are triggered at the right time. On older Marlin, you may need to set DISABLE_MAX_ENDSTOPS (on a machine that has no max endstops). Newer Marlin uses USE_XMIN_PLUG, etc., to specifically set which endstops are connected. If the switches show the opposite state (off when triggered) then set the [XYZ]_(MIN|MAX)_ENDSTOP_INVERTING flags, as needed. Likewise, from Building a Prusa I3 3D Printer: You will probably also find the motor will turn only in one direction. This is normal for now as we don't have end-stops installed and haven't homed the axis - so the software doesn't know how far it can go in one direction or the other. As Mark states in his comment, the P802M uses a Melzi board. From Github: Repetier-Firmware/boards/Zonestar P802M/: There are some printers sold under different names like 'Zonestar P802M', 'Prusa i3 P802M DIY kit', 'Anet A8-B', etc, which have LCD 20x4 with 5 keys controller connected to Melzi V2.0 board via 10 wires cable. Keys are connected to a single analog input using resistive divider.

Unable to upload firmware to a new motherboard I bricked my Tevo Tarantula's controller board, and I've decided to just replace it rather than unbrick it because they are relatively cheap. I recently bought a new MKS GEN L v1.0 board, but I've been unable to flash new firmware onto it. Every time I go to upload the firmware, I get an error just as it begins to upload, saying: "failed to send command to serial port does not exist or is not connected" avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: ser_send(): write error: sorry no info avail avrdude: stk500_send(): failed to send command to serial port avrdude: ser_recv(): read error: The handle is invalid. avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_getsync(): timeout communicating with programmer Any ideas of what the issue could be? I've tried both the USB ports on my computer and using a USB 2.0 hub (I believe my computer ports are both USB 3.0). I've also made sure that I had the correct port selected in Marlin (1.1.8.13). I also think that its worth mentioning that my bricked board and new board seem to appear differently in the device manager Bricked: While my new board appears as this: The new board also seems to "cut-out" when I first connect it to my computer as well. In the device manager, my computer will indicate that an unknown device is connected, then it will quickly disconnect and disappear, only to reconnect and reappear as pictured above. Do you guys think there is a hardware issue with the motherboard? Thanks for your help, this is giving me quite the headache!

Your motherboard is not an MKS GEN L v1.0, it's a MKS SGEN L - unfortunately, a very very naming scheme. Your board is actually a 32-bit board, and must therefore be flashed with Marlin 2.0, built for the 32-bit board. The firmware is then updated by placing it on the SD card and restarting the board, as explained in the documentation for Marlin here

What happens if you use high temperature PTFE tape with the heater block? High temperature PTFE tape is rated up to 550°F, which is 288°C. I'm wondering if it would be useful for components on the hot end to prevent oozing. Has anyone tried it?

As Andrew stated: PTFE tape should not be needed. Tighten the nozzle with the hotend hotter than you print at and also clean the threads with a tap if you need to. To answer your question: it would stop leakage from the threads.

How to fix wall separation in 3D prints (gaps in between wall perimeters)? The print is very solid except for the 4 walls. From the top, I can slide a paper down to the bottom. This is ONLY between the walls, the rest of the print is solid. The filament is PLA 1.75 mm. But the bottom is solid, no gaps. I have checked the usual problems on Ultimaker troubleshooting photo gallery, but I can find anything similar. Any advice to fix this would be very welcome. Print settings:

Now that print settings are shared we can see that this problem is not related to too fast printing (only 20 mm/s) or too low print temperature (210 °C should get PLA fluid enough). To explain this, a low temperature and too fast printing cause under-extruded lines. There are 2 other causes that might be worth investigating: Under-extrusion. From the top layers one can see that there may be insufficient material printed. Calibration of the extruder helps in this respect. Inaccurate positioning. This may for instance be caused by loose belts or a mechanical defect.

Does a teflon insert in an E3D V6 clone limit it's useable temperature so it can't print nylon? I'm new to this game, and recently upgraded the hotend on my Ender 3 Pro to a clone of an E3D V6, as I'm keen to do nylon prints at some point. I noticed however that this one I got has a teflon liner which seems to negate the advantage of a metal hotend entirely. I'm wondering what temperature it's safe to run this hot end up to?

It depends how deep it goes. If the teflon goes into the hotend then yes, it will limit the temperature end. But: the teflon may just be something that ends somewhere in the cold side and sticks out so there is something to put into the extruder or higher up into the connector. I cam currently setting up a Slice Mosquito for a Bondtech DDX. The Mosquito is full metal, but there is a (actually printed nylon) adapter for the DDS. In this adapter you put a teflon/capricorn tube, that ALSO sticks out only around 5 mm. Here is the point though: it never goes into the even cold side and is only there so the connection to the extruder on top has a width limitation. So, it really depends how long this tube is (and no-one here will know because a v6 clone may be different internally from the original). I would suggest pulling it out (it should move out easily) and then seeing how deep it goes. As long as it stays on the cold side before the heatbreak, it never gets in touch with anything that is hot.

Identifying the plastic type of an unknown spool of filament or recyclable waste Is there any way to test what kind your filament is? There are no labels on the spools and I don't know whether they are ABS or PLA. I got the plastic with the printer, which is no longer sold (Solidoodle 2). Since I bought it on eBay that is probably why it has unprofessional filament. The plastic filament came with the printer which is now off sale (Solidoodle v2). I set my extruder to 210 °C and bed to 50 °C and it printed fine (with tons of hairspray and painters tape). I figured out where I got it. I got it from Solidoodle (who have gone out of business) when I bought the Solidoodle 2 right after it came out. I bought PLA and ABS so it has to be one of the two. Any other ways without having to burn and smell plastic? I just have the roll with no numbers, works or anything on it. And how to I smell without breathing in the fumes?

ABS dissolves in acetone, you could try clipping a small section and leave it in some acetone for a few minutes and if it begins to dissolve it's safe to assume that it's ABS, if not then you'll know that it's not. This won't confirm that it is PLA, only whether it's ABS or not.

How to use a BLTouch or equivalent touch probe to 3D scan objects with a 3D printer? I thought about using a BLTouch probe to do 3D scans of objects. The objects to be suitable require smooth gradients and enough space for the probe, without anything hitting the print head/hot end. What tools do I need to control the printer and obtain such data? are there GCodes scripts for that? I would need to define a grid size, spacing, retraction, maximum expected height increase between adjacent points.

I don't know the probe, but I have used a delta 3D printing machine (of my design) to scan a surface. It takes some time. Your resolution will be limited by the probe geometry of the touch probe tip. You want a Z-probe function that reports the Z-value of the point, not that simply sets Z= when the probe "hits". The RepRap firmware has this in the G30 command. You will need to write a loop that probes all points of interest. This is best done by writing a program (or script) that generates the G-code. I have a PERL script that generates the calibration mesh for my Delta machine, and I can share that with you. I edit the script for the area to be scanned. This includes (in my case) the radius and the resolution. I then run the script to produce G-code to do the probing. I send the G-code to the printer with Repetier-Host. Repetier-Host builds a log file of every character returned by the printer. The G30 command returns in the log the Z value wher ethe probe hit. After the G-code is fully executed, I run a PERL script on the log file to extract the Z height of each of the probed points. What you do with that data is up to you.

Identifying this ATmega1284P board I recently bought what I am told is an Ender 3 clone. It is a CTC model and has v1-5 written in the bottom corner and comes with a Marlin v1 firmware. But I have no idea what board it is. When I send command M115, I get FIRMWARE_NAME:Marlin V1; Sprinter/grbl mashup for gen6 FIRMWARE_URL:http://www.mendel-parts.com PROTOCOL_VERSION:1.0 MACHINE_TYPE:CTC 3D EXTRUDER_COUNT:1 UUID:00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Can anybody help me identify this board so I can upgrade the firmware to Marlin 2 in the hopes of getting it to work with Octoprint, and all the safety features that come with the new firmware (such as thermal runaway protection).

This printer controller board looks exactly like an Anet controller board. These also have a v1.5 version: Your board misses the "Anet" branding, but includes the 1.5 version designation. Your board is probably customized with a different silkscreen (ink layer that identifies components and other information) on PCBs (printed circuit boars). Rebranding is pretty common in electronics.

Export Revit file for Fusion 360 3D Print I have a 3D printer hooked up with Fusion 360. I have a 3D drawing in Revit. What format should I export to in order get from Revit to Fusion 360?

In Revit Use STL Exporter 2019 to customize and export your Revit model to an STL file. Click Add-in tab -> STL Exporter panel -> STL Exporter. On the General tab, specify your STL file options. On the Categories tab, specify which element categories will export to the STL file. Click Save to create the STL file. In Fusion 360 Click on a valid project then click the Upload button. Then, click the Select files button and navigate to the STL you wish to import. After selecting the STL file you want to convert, click the Upload button, this time the one in the lower-right corner of the file upload window. Then, the STL file you selected will be imported into Fusion 360. The process can take a few minutes.

Black goo from only one linear bearing - serious issue? I have a cheap cartesian printer with the usual arrangement - X axis with three linear bearings, build plate moving as Y axis on three linear bearings as well, Z axis with lead screws. After about 2 kg of filament printed, I can see that one of the linear bearings (the single bearing on one side of the Y axis) is leaving an almost black residue at the front of the axis. I have thoroughly oiled all of the bearings before mounting them and repeated that after about 1 kg of filament printed. No other bearing is showing this issue, and the black goo appears only on the front side of the rod, not the back side. What might cause this goo - is the bearing breaking up or is it just some residue from the manufacturing process that is slowly being pushed out of the bearing?

After completion of the print job, I was able to perform a closer inspection. The black goo contains metallic particles, and the rail the bearings are riding on has a visible groove - which means replacing both the bearings and the rail.

How to log each G-code line read from the SD card to serial on marlin firmware I would like to log each line of G-code to the serial port as it is processed. Steps to achieve: the printer reads a file from the SD card each line it reads will be serial logged (this I can't figure out) those lines can then read via the serial monitor on a laptop So by the end of the print, on my laptop I would have the reconstructed G-code file (plus whatever other logs the printer outputs). The printer runs the Prusa Firmware. Ideally I would like to achieve the logging from altering the firmware rather than adding an extra plugin/server (For understanding and experimenting purposes). What I tried I have looked in code and found the print functions and examples of them in use in the code. This line is the "command, which is to be excecuted right now", but I think that would be the just one command not the full line. The cardreader or SdBaseFile are where I would expect a G-code line to be read such that I could add a print statement after it but I did not see where. Would it be as easy as setting this card.logging bool to true? I imagine this is quite an easy thing to do and that I have just overcomplicated it by trying to understand the firmware. Any advice would be great!

If you have the hardware at hand, you can use OctoPrint to collect the data you require. It's common for users to create an OctoPrint server on a Raspberry Pi, but it can be installed easily on a Windows or Linux machine as well. Once in place, logging is available for various types of information. From the OctoPrint blog: The logs are crucial instruments of analysis and debugging, so it's usually in your best interest to provide them when asking for help or reporting a bug, even if not explicitly prompted for them: octoprint.log: OctoPrint's main application log file. Contains a general log of everything that happens while OctoPrint is running. Includes version information, installed plugins and a myriad of more data points. This must always be included when reporting a bug 47 to allow for further analysis and reproduction. It is also a very good idea to provide this when asking for help :wink: serial.log: A log of all of the communication going on between OctoPrint and your printer. Usually disabled for performance reasons, enable it through Settings > Serial Connection. Either that or at the very least the output in OctoPrint's Terminal tab is crucial for analysis of any kind of communication issues or misbehaviours observed with your printer, so it's important to include it when discussing such issues. plugin_pluginmanager_console.log: A log of the command line activity of the plugin manager. Very important for analysis of such questions like "Why can't I install plugin $xyz?", so if you have such a problem, best include this. plugin_softwareupdate_console.log: A log of the command line activity of the software updater. Very important for analysis of such questions like "Updating OctoPrint always fails, why?", so if you have such a problem, best include this. Third party plugins might also have special log files here. If a plugin author asks you to provide a special log created by their plugin for further analysis, this should be where you can find it. The above selection is from the linked site, which also includes embedded links for more information regarding the log files. Note that serial.log is specifically referenced to collect data between OctoPrint and your printer, although it defaults to disabled on install.

Describing G-code by start and end point versus end only Will the two following lines of code behave differently given that the path that they describe is exactly the same (two segments)? Option 1 (describes separate segments giving the start and end point): G92 E0 G1 F0 X14.73 Y-30.28 Z0 G1 F3000 X-27.15 Y-18.58 Z0 E2.01 G92 E0 G1 F0 X-27.15 Y-18.58 Z0 G1 F3000 X17.65 Y0.51 Z0 E2.26 Option 2 (describes end points only): G92 E0 G1 F0 X14.73 Y-30.28 Z0 G1 F3000 X-27.15 Y-18.58 Z0 E2.01 G1 F3000 X17.65 Y0.51 Z0 E2.26

You should never use a feed rate of zero to start a command with. Theoretically, the other way around would work as the feed rate specified in the command is the feed rate at the end of the operation, but that is theoretically; if you look into the Marlin Firmware sources you will find the following C-code for the G0 and G1 commands in the function void gcode_get_destination(): if (parser.linearval('F') > 0) feedrate_mm_s = MMM_TO_MMS(parser.value_feedrate()); From the first code line you read that the value for the feed rate is only parsed as the value is larger than 0. As there is no prior code shown or feed rate set, the command will not be executed. Some extra information from G0 & G1: Move describing the usage of the feed rate: Most RepRap firmwares do subtle things with feedrates. G1 F1500 ; Set feedrate to 1500mm/m G1 X50 Y25.3 E22.4 ; Move and extrude In the above example, we first set the feedrate to 1500mm/m, then move to 50mm on X and 25.3mm on Y while extruding 22.4mm of filament between the two points. G1 F1500 ; Feedrate 1500mm/m G1 X50 Y25.3 E22.4 F3000 ; Accelerate to 3000mm/m However, in the above example, we set a feedrate of 1500 mm/m, then do the same move, but accelerating to 3000 mm/m. Everything stays synchronized, so extrusion accelerates right along with X and Y movement.

Thoughts on designing and printing 3D miniature house I've done a few 3D designs in Sketchup and Fusion 360. Prints were done in PLA on an FDM and an SLA machine that I have access to. Generally I am quite happy with the results. Now the description of my question. I would like to create a 3D model of the house and yard that my wife grew up in, print it in miniature then assemble it into a snow globe to be given as a Christmas present. Quite a challenge I expect. The final thing does not have to be exact but a fair representation so that she can actually tell that it's her house. Some specific questions: The house is brick, would the brick texture actually be noticeable on the printed model if it is say only 1 to 1.5" on a side with either SLA or FDM? Same for roof shingles? Or should I just rely on adding these details artistically in the painting process ( I will have to find an artist to do all that ) Thought on trees/ bushes? Again I hope to rely on artistic license when designing these parts. Thoughts on software: "Which would be best to design in?" It has to be free (or not expensive) since I am not doing this professionally and don't have the money to buy expensive 3D software? Someone suggested Blender. Fusion 360, Sketchup. Others? Thoughts on best printing method ? A lot of questions I know and I truly appreciate any feedback on any of this.

Answering your questions in turn: On the scale you're trying for, printing brick with FDM won't show up - you'd have much better results, and could be possible, with SLA. You won't see every brick, but you will see the texture at least. Same as for brick, You wont see shingles, but you can differentiate that there is a texture difference. If you were to paint it after the fact the color plus the texture will make it clear. Yup, but both won't hurt. Doable if they're big enough. SLA would be required I think to make them look good. For something like this I'd suggest Blender, if your modelling skills are pretty solid. If not, Fusion-360 would work really well. But that's purely opinion based. SLA if that wasn't clear as of yet. Sounds awesome. I think the hardest part on this is going to be the modelling, the structure I'm picturing isn't all that complex so it should be doable.

Z-axes out of sync with Simplify3D I have a Robo 3D R1+, and I'm using the default Simplify3D profile for it. When I finish a print, I notice that my X gantry is way out of level. The right side is visibly higher than the left side. So much so that it won't even auto-level on the next print. What that tells me is during the print, the Right z-axis is moving up faster than the left. It also ruins the print. I do not believe this is a hardware issue, as when I use the Craftware slicer, it works properly (I tried the same model with both slicers). Is there a setting or something I need to adjust in Simplify3D to get this to print properly? If you would like to see the G-code for the CW and S3D models I was testing with, you can download them here: G-code download (Google drive)

What you are describing is not possible as a result of changing slicers, this must be an intermittent hardware issue. The slicer has no knowledge of the hardware layout of your machine (other than the build volume and gantry dimensions; if properly configured), it just creates slices of the model you present which are found in the G-code file as Z movements. In case multiple Z steppers are used to move the X gantry, these are usually driven by a single driver, but if they are separately controlled, even in the G-code file the instruction would be to move up Z in total, not per stepper. It is the firmware of the 3D printer that translates this Z level in movement for your 3D printer based on the layout of the machine and the firmware settings. The CraftWare G-code file does show some inconsistencies with respect to the Simplify3D file in that it does not use G29 and has a too large first layer height of 0.45 mm (this is larger than you nozzle diameter of 0.40 mm, you should always limit that to about 75 % of your nozzle diameter). For an X gantry to become unlevel/skew, there must be a mechanical issue that is causing it to miss steps/prevent advancing at one side. It is possible that one of the shafts or lead screws has some more friction than the other (generally it is not a good idea to grease the screws as dirt easily stick to the grease, a light oil may be better suited). This is not uncommon for Prusa i3 clones and is usually fixed by resettling the leadscrew nut by loosening and tightening the screws which attach the nut to the X gantry idler. It is unclear if this is your problem here with this specific machine. To be fair, uneven displacement of any axis powered by 2 separate motors (driven by separate drivers) could be induced by the slicer when unrealistic high accelerations and incorrect hardware/electronic settings are employed.

Bizarre Underextrusion Issue Printer: SecKit Go w/ BMG/v6 and SKR v1.3/TMC2130 Drivers Slicer: Simplify3d or Cura (problem is much worse in Cura?) Long story short - after getting this printer running, I have noticed that it will underextrude ONLY on corners on an internal perimeter specifically once we're above bottom layers - and nowhere else. See below: E-Steps have been calibrated, extrusion multiplier has been calibrated (single perimeters are 0.48 mm), linear advance has been calibrated, but here it gets weird. Anything resembling a 'standard' value (suggested between 1-2) results in MASSIVE underextrusion after the speed change. I was able to get a good looking line using the linear advance test with a value of 0.15 (which seems very low). Retraction (1 mm @ 30 mm/s), junction deviation (0.02) and all other settings are off the factory Simplify3d profile. Turning linear advance off makes the problem slightly better but doesn't fix it, going to a value of around 1 results in huge underextrusion after any change in direction. I am absolutely lost as to what to try next.

From what I can find, the SecKit Go has a direct drive extruder, so 0.15 is a very reasonable linear advance K value. For comparison, I have 0.6 for PLA with a bowden. Values in the range 1-2 are way too high for direct drive except possibly for really soft TPU. Geometrically localized underextrusion almost always means you have either loss of material due to oozing elsewhere, or filament slippage usually due to whatever's being printed just before the part with the underextrusion. If it's oozing you may need to increase retraction or disable or limit combing in your slicer (to prevent unretracted moves; these can ooze a lot of material when crossing infill areas). If it's slippage it could be from trying to print too fast.

Issue on 2 corners but not the other 2 I am printing using an Ender3 Pro with eSUN PLA+ 215/45 and I am getting this issue on two corners, the other two corners look fine. Any idea on what can be causing this? The bad corners The good corners

This has nothing to do with speed, temperature, adhesion, and whatever you do, DO NOT extrude more material per line (increase flow rate), as this will make the problem that much worse. This is a fairly simple problem with an even simpler fix: you're over extruding. Reduce your flow rate by 5%, and see if that fixes the issue. It will definitely improve it, but you might need to lower your flow rate a little bit more. What can often happen when your flow rate is set too high is the extra plastic will concentrate at areas of relatively high acceleration (corners and the start/stop spot for a perimeter of a given layer), but depending on the size of the thing being printed and the degree of overextrusion, it won't concentrate at every spot like this on a perimeter. Usually, I see this happen where the perimeter moves start and stop each time, which (again, depends on the slicer and settings) tend to be the same spot for certain models, often a corner. I couldn't say for certain the exact mechanism, except that it seems like the plastic, given the right conditions, prefers to lay down evenly while the excess over extruded plastic builds up (probably carried by the nozzle, since it is hot and the plastic will want to stick to it) until too much has built up for the nozzle adhesion to keep it from sticking to the print, or the nozzle begins to decelerate (late at a corner or the end of a print move), causing the extra plastic to 'scrunch' up, like something that shoved in a distance too short for it. Knowing this, if you examine the corners, it should be quite obvious that this is what is happening. The perimeter is being extruded with more plastic than it should be, and the extra has a tendency to collect all in one spot each time. Sometimes it is one corner, sometimes it is every corner, sometimes it is corners that are maximally distant from each other (since it takes some time for enough excess plastic to build up to over power whatever effects are preventing it from adhering immediately. So in this case, the two good corners were just where not enough excess plastic had built up yet at the nozzle to cause problems). Another possible explanation is that those two corners are simply where the perimeters were started and stopped, but some layers it was one corner, and other layers the other corner. But you can see over extrusion artifacts lower down on the feet (or whatever they are), and your first layer as well. Do not increase flow rate. Do not increase infill. Do not lower your speed. Do not increase your temperature. None of those will help, and increasing flow rate further could cause the nozzle to catch on the print, potentially damaging your hotend. Just reduce your flow rate by 5%. You should see an immediate improvement, or even elimination of the issue. If it is still there, then reduce your flow rate a percent or two until it does go away. And remember this number, because you'll probably want to use that flow rate in general for your printer.

What can this be caused by? I have changed stock Anet A8 board (Anet v1.5) to new SKR 1.4 with TMC2209. Then I found out these lines on the walls, i don't know how to determine it. Previously this wasn't so visible, but now it bothers pretty much.

Looks like an over/under extrusion. This can be fixed by: decreasing/increasing your extrusion multiplier (flow) lowering your print temperature checking the diameter of your filament. Do you use the correct diameter?

Why laser is not used to melt/soften material in polyjet? Polyjet uses UV light to cure UV curable plastic material. I was wondering as to why laser light can't be used to soften/melt just any plastic material instead of using UV light to cure only UV curable plastic materials?

The question in the title references a specific printer technology, while the question in the body of the post is more generic and is the one being answered here. There are 3D printers which use lasers to cure liquid resin in a manner similar to MSLA 3D printers. The vat of resin sits atop a transparent panel, under which a laser assembly resides. The computer directs the laser over the surface of the panel in a manner associated with each layer of the print. Once the layer is completed, the bed is lifted, peeling the print from the base of the vat and then lowered again. There are some printers which apply the laser to the surface of the liquid but the results are the same. The resin is photosensitive and cures when the laser is applied. Additionally, there are SLS 3D printers. Selective Laser Sintering uses a laser applied to the surface of a nylon powder (one example) which sinters the nylon causing it to bond to adjacent particles. When a layer is completed, the bed of powder is lowered and another layer of powder is applied. The laser again "draws" the layer in the powder and the process continues. This method requires compensation for shrinking, as the nylon powder changes dimensions as it is melted. The bed is also pre-heated prior to printing in order to reduce the amount of energy required by the laser to sinter the design.