3D printer thread - what have you been printing? - Creationism Corner

Im not really sure what I am doing right haha. I can send you the slic3r settings I am using if you want. The filament is from printrbot.

Still PLA? I may have to re-evaluate my love of ABS if this is what you're getting. But before that I must give "Bridge" a try! [editline]b[/editline] I'll happily look at your printer settings btw.

Yep PLA. I will PM you the settings.

Could you send them my way as well?

Sure thing.

The fan cooling the extruder motor has died. Clearly a wiring issue, if I poke the umbilical cable joining the PCB to the print head it starts up again.

Hey guys, I'v received my prusa i3 kit today and I'v been working all day non stop. I have almost everything ready, except the electronics. Is it necessary to adjust the stepstick trimpots if they are only capable of 1A, and my steppers (17HS8401C) have 1.8A written on them. I'm thinking of just turning them to full blast.

You'll need to adjust the trimpots on your drivers otherwise they will melt. Unless you have some active cooling going on,,then you can bump them up a few hundred milliamps.

yeah they get really hot. What stepsticks do you have? some cool (way) better than others [editline]27th August 2014[/editline] also, there should be tiny heatsinks supplied with the stepticks. They're pretty much essential for cooling

just post your settings in here... please [editline]27th August 2014[/editline] also I use two 40mm fans to keep my board cool, sometimes they would overheat and skip steps and offset the print, ruining it.

I have set my stepstick's (A4988 with 0.1 ohm sense resistors) Vref to 1 volt which should be around 1.25A for the steppers. They do get slightly warm ( around 70*C ). Motors after running for 5 minutes are barely above room temperature. However I have a new problem. My extruder doesn't extrude. Once the filament gets to the nozzle, the grub screw starts eating ( scraping a dent ) the filament. Does this mean my nozzle is jammed or what?

You've over tightened your tension wheel by the sounds of it. [editline]27th August 2014[/editline] Actually did you set your extruder heating element to melting temperatures for your plastic?

[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;45817304]You've over tightened your tension wheel by the sounds of it. [editline]27th August 2014[/editline] Actually did you set your extruder heating element to melting temperatures for your plastic?[/QUOTE] Not sure what do you mean by tension wheel. Its a geared Wade's extruder. If you are talking about the idler ( the part on a hinge with a bearing), its held in place with the supplied springs and screws. I did set the extruder temperature to PLA setting by accident and tried to extrude. I ramped up the temp to 250*C later and I was able to get some plastic going, yet it was very inconsistent and the sound of air bubbles bursting could be heard from the head. I'v submerged the head in acetone in hopes it will clear the existing PLA, so that I can try again. EDIT: I'v checked the feeding holes on the hotend's PTFE tube, and it looks like it has no guide for the filament to smoothly go into the hole. So perhaps it was the filament missing the entry hole on the hotend.

Sounds like it could be low quality plastic, who did you order from and is it black?

[QUOTE=3Dprinter;45823171]Sounds like it could be low quality plastic, who did you order from and is it black?[/QUOTE] Its from replikeo.com . The ABS is white. EDIT: Got that shit fixed and did the first print. [img]http://i.imgur.com/JuuKvWA.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/d8XmNef.png[/img] Not sure if this is this is okay or could be better. Also halfway through this print a wild smell appeared, which didn't seem like hot ABS, but rather burning silicon. I scrambled to the cheap-ass chineese power supply and started sniffing around it, then I noticed a mosfet smoldering on the RAMPS board. Seems like it couldn't handle the current draw of the heatbed.

Not bad, I use that model a lot for calibration. Your steppers seem to be very inaccurate though, how fast are they moving? [editline]28th August 2014[/editline] Current project: Turn something like [url=http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/1591DFLBK/HM856-ND/409883]this box[/url] into a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochromator]monochromator[/url]. [img]http://i.imgur.com/hxf3SzA.png[/img] It looks like a happy face! Anyways, due to the focal length of the two lenses (50mm in a 66mm wide box), I'm going to have to fiddle with the geometry of the mirrors since there will be some overlap.

[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;45826162]Not bad, I use that model a lot for calibration. Your steppers seem to be very inaccurate though, how fast are they moving? [/QUOTE] X is 150mm/s and apparently Y is 500mm/s (oops) . Acceleration is 5000 mm/s^2. Also, the steppers are rated for 1.8A, while I'm running them at only 1.25A, so could it be that, or should I lower my speeds?

I've been saving for a while, and I'm hoping to buy a kit for a printer soon, but I'm still not entirely settled on which printer to get, and I have no idea where to go when I inevitably run into problems trying to get the thing running well. I'm leaning pretty strongly towards a [url=http://www.mixshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=59&products_id=220&zenid=ehl45jrjphnnpc0n3qhpdu4m90]mini Kossel[/url] because of the build height, bowden extruder, potential print speeds, and autoleveling. I'm pretty sure one of the many Mendel variants would cost less and be easier to get working, but I'm looking for a bit of a challenge, and I really love the way deltabots look and move. Does the kit linked above look reasonable for a first-time 3d printer build, bearing in mind that I've got a bit of background with electronics in general? Also, I'm reasonably close to Mixshop, and they apparently offer a pick-up option, so I'll probably go with them unless it's significantly cheaper to source individual parts elsewhere.

I'm getting awful lifting on the first layer infill. Any thoughts? 1.75mm Printrbot PLA on blue tape + isopropanol. Seems to be a recent development. [editline]31st August 2014[/editline] definitely slice settings. Using another set there's no lifting to be seen.

[QUOTE=ramirez!;45856864]I'm getting awful lifting on the first layer infill. Any thoughts? 1.75mm Printrbot PLA on blue tape + isopropanol. Seems to be a recent development. [editline]31st August 2014[/editline] definitely slice settings. Using another set there's no lifting to be seen.[/QUOTE] I saw a great tutorial once about using negative space within the models to minimize lifting, but I can't seem to find it now. As I understood it, you can put cavities into the model to minimize the strain on the edges during printing. If you figure out what setting was causing the lift, could you post it here for us please?

If you are doing negative space, make the ceiling of those cavities either domed or slanted so you reduce the amount of spaghetti.

I'm starting my largest print project to date... a full size master sword. I found a great model in the sketchup warehouse and editited it to be in 5 inch sections and manifold/oriented. I just started printing the first two pieces, here's hoping it all goes well. i'll acetone weld it all together when it's done. as a relevant side-note, I think it's really cool how we can take models that were uploaded years ago and just made for practice and give them new life and actually create them.

[QUOTE=3Dprinter;45857410]I saw a great tutorial once about using negative space within the models to minimize lifting, but I can't seem to find it now. As I understood it, you can put cavities into the model to minimize the strain on the edges during printing. If you figure out what setting was causing the lift, could you post it here for us please?[/QUOTE] I don't know which helped more, but here's what I did: Increased first layer to 195 C Increased first layer extrusion width to 160% Increased infill First layer height set to 150% Lowered Z-Probe Changed filament [editline]1st September 2014[/editline] I've also heard about people doing plastic 'washes' to the print surface, but ehh I'm not so sure that's worth it for the trouble. You'd have to solvate the plastic down to free running liquid, and then let it evaporate on the print bed. I'm sure you'd get hella good sticking, but it's easier to do without. [editline]1st September 2014[/editline] So I've been tinkering with my printer. I'm pretty impressed to see this sort of progress: [t]http://i.imgur.com/vYzyjP7.jpg[/t] Closest to the bottom right is the latest ('bout ten minutes ago), bottom-left is the oldest, top left is second oldest, top right is second newest (yesterday).

[QUOTE=ramirez!;45863747]I don't know which helped more, but here's what I did: Increased first layer to 195 C Increased first layer extrusion width to 160% Increased infill First layer height set to 150% Lowered Z-Probe Changed filament [editline]1st September 2014[/editline] I've also heard about people doing plastic 'washes' to the print surface, but ehh I'm not so sure that's worth it for the trouble. You'd have to solvate the plastic down to free running liquid, and then let it evaporate on the print bed. I'm sure you'd get hella good sticking, but it's easier to do without. [editline]1st September 2014[/editline] So I've been tinkering with my printer. I'm pretty impressed to see this sort of progress: [t]http://i.imgur.com/vYzyjP7.jpg[/t] Closest to the bottom right is the latest ('bout ten minutes ago), bottom-left is the oldest, top left is second oldest, top right is second newest (yesterday).[/QUOTE] Looks like you finally hit the "sweet spot" with bed leveling/settings. Congrats! If you want a challenge, attempt a large, low infill print now like any of fantasygraphs models. and I wonder if turning the first layer speed down is equivalent to your first layer settings. I have my first layer speed set to 60% which helps with the lifting.

I uncoupled my tension arm because while I was changing filaments a large pre-melted bit didn't follow the rest of the filament out of the drive. Now I'm having issues re-tuning the arm >:( [editline]1st September 2014[/editline] I think I put the tension arm back on with the filament between the motor and bearing, things deteriorated from there. Back online now.

I am printing pieces # 8&9 out of 10 for the master sword right now.. getting close and it looks great so far it's going to be 46" from tip to tip

So now that I'm moving out of my parents place, I don't have a spare room to contain and control the ABS fumes. I'm looking at returning to PLA printing. Or t-glase, anyone worked with t-glase?

so I have my mendelmax 2.0 kit 90% assembled and good to go. But MTW sent me the wrong length of extrusion and its just barely too long to fit so I have to sand it down. Problem is we have nothing to sand it with and considering it needs to be reduced considerably and all I have is modelling sandpaper I've procrastinated a bit. I got the kit in June. June 10th or something D: I need a kick in the pants of motivation I leave for college in two weeks gotta get it running before then (yay for seattle and makerspaces and my universities 3d printing club though!) [editline]1st September 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Lapsus;45840441]I've been saving for a while, and I'm hoping to buy a kit for a printer soon, but I'm still not entirely settled on which printer to get, and I have no idea where to go when I inevitably run into problems trying to get the thing running well. I'm leaning pretty strongly towards a [url=http://www.mixshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=59&products_id=220&zenid=ehl45jrjphnnpc0n3qhpdu4m90]mini Kossel[/url] because of the build height, bowden extruder, potential print speeds, and autoleveling. I'm pretty sure one of the many Mendel variants would cost less and be easier to get working, but I'm looking for a bit of a challenge, and I really love the way deltabots look and move. Does the kit linked above look reasonable for a first-time 3d printer build, bearing in mind that I've got a bit of background with electronics in general? Also, I'm reasonably close to Mixshop, and they apparently offer a pick-up option, so I'll probably go with them unless it's significantly cheaper to source individual parts elsewhere.[/QUOTE] When it comes to 3d printers a backgroud in electronics and mechanics does help but really its how well you can persevere. The more of a "kit" you get (whether its just basic hardware and electronics or you self source) the harder calibration is going to get. And while I understand your love of deltas, I would honestly suggest that as a second 3d printer and recommend a Prusa i3 or similar regular ol' Mendel derivative depending on how much dosh you have to throw around. Deltas suffer from [URL="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1p6cBfgiamQ/UI0gqJ1tioI/AAAAAAAAAKw/10McbTnzDco/s1600/resolution.jpg"]diminishing resolution[/URL] wherin the farther from the center you are the lower the resolution is. Also, they really do kinda have small build areas the X and Y direction, but you can work around that with slicing and stl softwares. Otherwise though in total achievable resolution you won't see much of a difference between well calibrated machines of different models, it all depends on how much good work you put into it. Also, there are some who claim Deltas are actually easier to calibrate but I've never used one so idk the above are just things to keep in mind!

do some of you have a good slic3r setting set for (1,75mm) PLA? I want to try some different settings in, as I got a feeling that my last prints have been going wrong partially because of messing up settings. [editline]2nd September 2014[/editline] also, it seems that my glass plate isn't flat. The closer my nozzle gets to the edges (all of them) the larger the distance between it and the plate is. Is there a fix to this besides just flipping over the plate?

on another note, my PLA seems to stick like shit to my glass plate :v:. I've got the heatbed set to 65 degrees (also tried 70) but it just peels off. it gets squeezed on the plate as it's supposed I believe.