Illuminate printing area

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:48:24 -0500

The Melzi adapter board for the Panelolu2 has two FETs labelled Transistor1 and Transistor2.
The white headers next to these are the 12V feeds that are switched by the FETs and are mapped to arduino pins 27 and 28.
To turn them on or off in gcode you can just issue the appropriate M42 command:

M42 S255 P27

Switches on pin 27

M42 S0 P27

Switches off pin 27

I just put these in the relevant places in my start and end gcode files.

Re: Illuminate printing area

3Design — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 11:54:19 -0500

i' m also using the panelolu2, can i attach the cables of the led strips on the red connector plate of the P2 or can i attach then to the fan input on the melzi?

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 04:39:03 -0500

Those strip lights are the same as mine - they take 12V, which you can take from the bed cooling fan line or directly from the PSU (might require a bit of fiddling with the 12V lines that you crimped/soldered together originally) - using the cooling fan line allows you to switch the lights on and off via gcode.

If you want to control the lights through gcode and you are already using the bed cooling fan then you'll need to do a little more work.
I use the Panelolu2, which on top of the cool LCD screen and independent controls also gives me two switched 12V supplies which I use for my LEDs.

Re: Illuminate printing area

3Design — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 01:30:39 -0500

I am also looking to attach some lights on my mendel90, i am going to use this lights, they are very bright [hobbyking.com]
But i dont know how i need to power them

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 04:53:45 -0500

yes, I took 12V from the cooling fan line. not a problem :)

Re: Illuminate printing area

Traveltrousers — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 19:12:15 -0500

A 13" mirror from Home Bargains at the back lets me see what's happening underneath the fan too...

That LED fan is great, but could I run the LED's off the fan power?

Re: Illuminate printing area

Garry Bartsch — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 15:31:29 -0500

Thanks. This was such an easy mod. I just bought an LED strip light kit off eBay. It has a 5050 LED chips. We just cut to length and stuck it in place (I printed two angle pieces so the tape had something to stick to when running from one side of the gantry to the other). The adhesive on the strip was poor so we just added clear packing tape so it's very secure and won't vibrate loose. Also we taped on the IR receiver.

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 03:05:31 -0500

looks nice :-)

Re: Illuminate printing area

Garry Bartsch — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 02:10:27 -0500

Here's mine. The extra light sure is nice.
[attachment 22991 lighted.jpg]

Re: Illuminate printing area

nophead — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 12:39:36 -0500

Maybe but if it had a different thermal expansion it would be a problem.

Also maybe if it was held flat the object would lift. I .e. it only stays stuck because it can flex.

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 10:41:22 -0500

If prints do stick better but the problem is just that the material bends, then would it be possible to bond it to something stiff using thermal epoxy?

Re: Illuminate printing area

nophead — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 10:01:35 -0500

I find the tape does not stick as well if you put it on with water so I gave up on 200mm tape and use 50mm strips. I hate putting them on. I always get some bubbles but they slowly disappear during the first few uses. The way to avoid bubbles is to put it on in a vacuum chamber!

The "permanent pressure plate" is a bad translation, I think it should be "permanent printing plate". It is a PEI / fibre glass laminate. The problem I found with it is it bends under the stress of the printed parts, so although they do not lift they are not flat but have a curved base. Same with carbon fibre.

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 09:18:40 -0500

Hehe - the "washing up liquid" technique is what I considered "too time consuming"... :D

It does work though, I just have no patience for that kind of thing for the kind of return so I settled for 50mm tape and 3 lines on my bed. YMMV.

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 08:53:46 -0500

first a hint on kapton tape:
use a drop if diswasher cleaner in some water to wet the glas plate. then lay the kapton striped on the wet glas. you then can easily move the tape over the glas, push bubbles out, move the layers together etc.
if done, push the water out using a credit card etc.
heat up the printbed to some 30°C and let it dry. you then should hava a perfectly flat kapton bed.

about the printplate:
hm, i do not know the english product name for this. it is on this page:
[www.mtplus.de]
and is called "Dauerdruckplatte", looks (and possible is *g*) like a PCB without photo/copper side. Just below the carbon heatbed.
you do not need the carbon heatbed. I use it with heatbed MK2a on a sheet of plain glas and it works. I printed the ABS fanduct at room temp without a cabin!
however, I am struggeling with a very small part that needs to be ABS and the edges lift. The use of aceton to clean the dauerdruckplatte should make it even more sticky! at least that is what the manual says :D

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 03:55:51 -0500

@muelli:
Very interested in that MTplus plate - is it the "permanent pressure" plate they advertise on their site? It looks very similar in the photos to that Garolite stuff that Taulman recommends for printing nylon - is it? Do you just put it down instead of the glass or have you got the carbon fibre heated bed too? How does it perform w.r.t. warping? Please give us the juicy details! :D

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 03:32:19 -0500

@Garry:
Thanks for the link - I have actually tried 100mm PET tape but found it too time consuming trying to lay it down without bubbles. Since I'm equally annoyed by bubbles and tape lines on the underside of my prints I figured that it was a good compromise to have more lines/fewer bubbles if it meant I could re-surface my glass quicker.

Most of my prints actually fit within the 50mm width of a single piece of tape so I just make sure I position the object in between the tramlines before slicing - as can be seen in the photo above. Most larger prints are still under 100mm wide so they will only have one line on them, and larger prints still suffer a little from lifting in the corners anyway so lines are the least of my worries! :D

You may have more patience than I do - I did meet a guy at a show who was very adept at laying down 200mm Kapton across his entire bed, despite having to squeeze the roll through the side window which wasn't even wide enough for the roll!

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 02:51:24 -0500

yes it was quite a challenge! I am printing the ABS with no cabin or cover whatsoever.
But since saturday I got the printplate from MTplus and it is incredible how good the ABS is sticking to it while hot.

nophead: thanks for the hint, that might be the reason why my bridge looks not so good :) Using 45 infill direction it tries to span the bridge diagonally and most if the first strings are not holding....

Re: Illuminate printing area

nophead — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:55:04 -0500

To print the fan duct with Skeinforge I use 0.35mm layers and set the infill direction to 90 degrees so that the first bridge layer spans directly across the gap.

Re: Illuminate printing area

Garry Bartsch — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:38:37 -0500

Quote
muelli
Phase 2 finished, project complete. Now everything on the printbed and around the nozzle is in bright light!

Nice Job! I am amazed at the speed you are learning all the aspects of printing with the Mendel90. Printing that fan duct seems challenging.

Re: Illuminate printing area

Garry Bartsch — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:22:33 -0500

@QuackingPlums
Thank you. That's good information. I will go to a local Michael's craft store and see about getting 214mm square mirror glass or other glass and see if they can clip the corners at a 45 degree angle for the screws. Mirror glass might be good because it would be easy to see smudges or any grime on the surface? It would also let you see the print in the reflection? And bounce light?

If you ever need wider PET I found some here: Wide PET

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 15:58:08 -0500

Phase 2 finished, project complete. Now everything on the printbed and around the nozzle is in bright light!

I had to change the fan duct a little to be able to print it without support: I printed two, one sliced with KISSlicer and one with skeinforge50plus.
Kisslicer came out better, that was a surprise. However, I had to clean them both up a little, the bridging is quite extreme on this object.

See attached STL file and pictures.

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 15:50:50 -0500

Hi Garry, yes it is SÖRLI, stuck down with Kapton along all four edges (only needs about 2-3" of tape per side). They come in packs of four, so I have one covered with PET tape (4x 50mm wide strips), one with ABS slurry, one with dilute PVA and one just clean glass. That gives me the choice of four printing surfaces at the same thickness so I don't need to re-calibrate when switching materials. They're a tiny bit smaller than the kit glass so I would have to be very careful positioning the glass on the bed if I ever wanted to print a 200x200 object but so far I have not needed to.

Chris (Nophead) actually says that mirror tiles are often coated with something that makes them harder to print on, so maybe IKEA not having them in Canada is a good thing - I had a spate of problems with first layer adhesion that I never got to the bottom of, but I narrowed it down to either the glass or a bad batch of ABS.

Re: Illuminate printing area

Garry Bartsch — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 13:46:54 -0500

Thanks. It must be the SÖRLI. I am in Canada and I can't find that mirror on the IKEA Canada website. Maybe they don't have it. None of the other mirrors they have are suitable size without cutting.

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 05:56:56 -0500

should be the well known IKEA mirror tile.....

Re: Illuminate printing area

Garry Bartsch — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 02:19:43 -0500

Great lights pictures both!

@QuackingPlums: I am interested in what type of mirror you are using? It appears to have rounded edges and no clips. Is it just held on with Kapton tape? It looks good.

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 06:08:29 -0500

I am limited by the length of the flex cable and do no want to buy a new one (cheapskate *g*).

attached is the prototype of the fan duct with led and cable clips.
ABS should arrive today, as soon as I know how to print ABS the tests will start :)

Re: Illuminate printing area

QuackingPlums — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 04:42:52 -0500

My camera is only slightly higher than yours but I get a good enough view to monitor my prints remotely, so you might not have to move it far:
[attachment 21212 TBSDiscored.png]

Having said that, my wife is complaining that it points out from my man-cave though so I'll probably move it to the front left corner (facing backwards) once I get a new webcam - this is just a spare Microsoft Lifecam that I had lying around.

My buddy Chargenut has designed a mount for his Logitech C270 HD webcam that he uploaded to another thread - I'll probably do the same.

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 04:08:05 -0500

Well, not really. Plus the mount is just temporary and not accuratly directed at the printbed. I do not use the camera right now so this will most likely not be fixed soon :)
Would be better to place the camera somewhere else.

Re: Illuminate printing area

Nilez — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:02:47 -0500

Looking slick Muelli! Lights on the carriage would indeed be very cool. Very curious about that one. I saw you have a Pi-cam installed? Can you get a good view of the print with the fan installed?

Re: Illuminate printing area

muelli — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:33:27 -0500

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present:
the illuminated Mendel90 printbed!

That completes phase 1.
Phase 2 will begin as soon as I get my white ABS to print the X carriage fan duct with fittings for three 5mm LEDs to shed even more light to what actually happens on the printbed.

PS: Of course the light can be controlled via gcode. Check out this thread for details: [forums.reprap.org]