some stupid questions from a long time beginner

i'll start with the good thing first, i started this project in februari,
and now for the first it's printing (well, there is stuff coming out, and it's moving as it should)
but i still have some (stupid) things that i can't figure out:
to start, i have a prusa with sangluinopopolu and use redsnapper

so here we go:
-can someone invent a new name for sangluinopopolu?
i asked my girlfriend one for my birthday and we both don't know how to pronounce it( we speak dutch/flemmish).
(it is however a lot better that my gen3 electronics.)

-i have printed thus far with a 8inch test piece, and there is now 1 inch left above the extruder and i can't get it out.
do i just insert new one as i print more?

-when i now print it doesn't stay on the bed, so i print something that looks like shit (really!)
is this because i don't have my heated bed running yet?

-my Z-axis sometimes skips a bit, even with the current set high on the stepstick stepper for Z-axis
is there a trick to make it run smoother (like take the 2 extra bolts out those X-axis frames)
or to WD40 the whole thing?

-do i need some sort of cooling for my electronics? (heat shields om the transistors, or stepper IC's? a vent?) or are they able to handle some abuse?

thanks,
pieter (a very happy reprapper who for the first time has produced something, even thou it does look like shit.)

I don't think I could say the name if I tried either.

To remove the fillement, try turning on the heat for the extrude for a few minutes and pulling it back out (this is what I do). Otherwise, you can follow the previous segment in with new fillement like you said. (This is one way people get different colored layers when printing one part)

What is your bed made of? If it is just a metal plate and you are printing with PLA plastic try covering it in blue painters tape. (I don't know about ABS plastic as I don't have any) The tape does need to be replaced after a few prints, but it has worked well for me.

If you are having trouble with skipping, try putting a cooling fan over the electronics to cool the motor controllers. If they overheat they will skip steps. which would probably answer your last question. I would put a cooling fan on the electronics. Even more so if you have them in an enclosed box.

Hope this helps!

What's wrong with Sanguinololu which is how it's spelt as well

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2011 06:57PM by NelsonRap.

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Experimenting in 3D in New Zealand

Sang - win - o - lo - lu is how I say it. Kevin looks like he's answered most of your other Qs.

we are back at it,

Z-axis works with the WD40 trick now
also could get new fillament in.
i know have my heated bed installed, a alu bed from around 5mm thick from mendel parts with 4 power resistors from 2,2 ohm (also mendel-parts)

i'm heating it with my S(angl....) electronics board and i can't get more that 40° (takes over 30 minutes)
how do i solve this without over heating the transitor?

i'm printing on kapton tape and even at 40 C° it started to stay in place, as it was making a frame thingy to print on, but after doing the horizontal lines,
and going back for the vertical ones i took some with it, and started making a big mess again.
for your information,
i'm printing the flying spaghetti monster from thingiverse, using light blue PLA at 200 C° on redsnapper with the G-code made with replicatorG, because the G-code generator doesn't work in redsnapper for me.

i'm asuming there still are a lot of things wrong with my setup, but figuring out how not to do it is also learning to me.

pieter

ps: if someone in belgium has a running prusa, and some time i would more that be happy to bring it so you can calibrate it a little...

possenier Wrote:
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> i'm heating it with my S(angl....) electronics
> board and i can't get more that 40° (takes over
> 30 minutes)
> how do i solve this without over heating the
> transitor?

Do you have the resistors in series or parallel? In series they will be putting out very little heat (even less than your extruder hot end). At the very least I would run them as two in parallel, then connected in series to give 2.2 Ohm total resistance.

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If you're driving your bed from the bed terminals on RAMPS, you can bring the resistance down to about 1.2 ohms without blowing the 11 amp fuse on the board. That will draw 10 amps at 12v for 120 watts of power. With that my bed heats up to 100C in 10 min.

NewPerfection Wrote:
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> Do you have the resistors in series or parallel?
> In series they will be putting out very little
> heat (even less than your extruder hot end). At
> the very least I would run them as two in
> parallel, then connected in series to give 2.2 Ohm
> total resistance.

thanks for making me feel like a complete idiot
i'm an electrician and never thought about that.

it's up and running now.

i now somehow jammed the extruder and have to figure out hot to clean it.

results are getting better and better as i can already see a bit of the shape of what i'm printing, so i'm going to get there in the end...

thanks for all the advice.