Speed

Ok... How fast do you go?
I've just upped the speed here to 75mm/s and the quality is amazing...
I've already altered the settings to 80mm/s for my next print.
Unfortunately..... As WE are having one of thoses days where if it can go wrong it will, I forgot to alter the infill on this large sculpture so it's doing it at 40%....
I meant to set it to 10% or less... Oh well...
(I'll post a picture when it's done....)

Oh and just to cheer everyone up, I did another fopa tonight.... Cleared off to the shops, but turned the burglar alarm on on the way out....
Well at least I know it works....

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Please send me a PM if you have suggestions, or problems with Big Blue 360.
I won't see comments in threads, as I move around to much.
Working Link to Big Blue 360 Complete

Now I'm fed up..... After 5hrs printing the printer just stopped for no good reason...
Heater are still cycling, but stopped dead....


It just said 'Not SD Printing'

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2014 07:57PM by KimBrown.

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Please send me a PM if you have suggestions, or problems with Big Blue 360.
I won't see comments in threads, as I move around to much.
Working Link to Big Blue 360 Complete

Eww, this happened to me several times when I was using the old RRP firmware, sorry to hear that. What firmware version are you using and did you have any chance to collect some debug information?

My printer settings currently look like this:


I always print my pieces with Honeycomb fill pattern. For big parts I usually set the fill density to 20-25% and for smaller parts to 30-40%.

Yes, It happened sometimes. stop printing without any reason.

Kim, what's your layer height please?

Ew

Ew..... 0.24mm

Zombie... DCs 57y... It's normaly sound as a pound, and doesn't have to many Glitches.
I suspect it was me either using Explorer to look at folder, or something minor.
It just went from printing full on, to stopped dead in it's track with no info other than 'Not SD Printing', but I still had control of the machine...
The SD card is a class 10, so should be good.
So maybe Slic3r flipped and had a stop code in it 3/4 of the way through the file I don't know.
That was the second time yesterday. The first was when I forgot, and unplugged a card reader on another USB port.
This one, I'm stuck for a reason for, other than I was on the Laptop at the time, had opened Explorer to look at a directory, and also opened the CAD software to edit a design while it was printing... That's normal for me, and it hasn't cause problems.

Earlier problems I had and thought were down to 57y, DC pointed me in the right direction of, and were machine problems where a lead to the Y axis limit switch had come unplugged. Going to try another big print later, but not touch the Laptop at all and see what happends.
As for the failed print, I might be able to salvage it for another modified use, and turn it in to something else....
I'll have to think about that.

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Please send me a PM if you have suggestions, or problems with Big Blue 360.
I won't see comments in threads, as I move around to much.
Working Link to Big Blue 360 Complete

Just trying a print at 80mm/s it's a reasonable size with only a 5% infill to both speed things up and reduce plastic.
What I'm finding is that as I increase speed the quality is either as good or better than at a lower speed which has supprised me.


PS The print has just got to a stage of a 25mm Bridge using the Big Blue 360, and it's absolutely perfect without any Belly.
However the transport speed is a fraction over the machines limit I think, but the rest is fine.

PPS The transport speed proved to high for it, and the print eventualy failed due to a jump on the X-axis by about 1mm
However the other speeds seem good so far... Slowed the transport down to 170mm/s for now, might have to go slower yet.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2014 09:38AM by KimBrown.

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Please send me a PM if you have suggestions, or problems with Big Blue 360.
I won't see comments in threads, as I move around to much.
Working Link to Big Blue 360 Complete

I have attached my speeds i use with Cura. I had previously set all to 100 but the extruder couldn't extrude fast enough and kept skipping. How do we get the extruder to throw out filament faster? I saw a video of the ultimaker printing at high speed and its bloody fast!

Quote
KimBrown
Ew..... 0.24mm

Zombie... DCs 57y... It's normaly sound as a pound, and doesn't have to many Glitches.
I suspect it was me either using Explorer to look at folder, or something minor.
It just went from printing full on, to stopped dead in it's track with no info other than 'Not SD Printing', but I still had control of the machine...
The SD card is a class 10, so should be good.

Look at your G file (the one actually on the SD card, not the one you copied it from) with a text editor. Go right to the end and see whether it is complete (ends with your custom end code and filament length comment if you use Slic3r).

I had exactly the same thing happen, and it turned out that I'd copied the G file to SD card before slic3r had finished writing it. Slic3r is impractical for large prints - I've waited 2 hours on a big print and it still hadn't finished. Cura sliced the same STL in a couple of seconds.

A file can also end up truncated on the SD card if you remove the card before explicitly dismounting it first.

I printed those same owls with 0% infill and 4 perimeters (hollow). Mine was a reject, but it mostly came out OK, just failing to completely close some top holes, and you will probably do a lot better because your printer is better at bridging than mine. You can see early if it's likely to work without infill by whether all the rounded tops of the owls' toes fully close up or not.

Dave
(#106)

Quote
PaulHam
I have attached my speeds i use with Cura. I had previously set all to 100 but the extruder couldn't extrude fast enough and kept skipping. How do we get the extruder to throw out filament faster? I saw a video of the ultimaker printing at high speed and its bloody fast!

The extruder sets the speed limit for me also (in my case at around 70mm/s for 0.2mm layers printing ABS). If you make the layer height smaller you can print faster (because thin layers don't extrude so fast). Obviously that won't make the print take less time in total, but you get a finer layered print without taking twice as long. I upped the extruder current to 1200mA which made a slight improvement. At least it doesn't limit the non-printing moves, which you can make pretty much as fast as you like and rely on the acceleration parameter to limit the speed. That makes a huge difference with some designs that need a lot of non-printing moves.

Dave
(#106)

Quote
dmould
...Slic3r is impractical for large prints - I've waited 2 hours on a big print and it still hadn't finished. Cura sliced the same STL in a couple of seconds...

First file I sliced with Cura was a single wall test as to get flow rate just right and it did not turn out well, after the bottom layers it just raised to the top and did a vomit all over the bed - it was like Cura was giving me the finger!

Then one day Slic3r repeatedly failed in slicing a file I knew was OK so gave Cura another try and just plugged in the flow rate from Slic3r (0.85/85%), it sliced it in no time and the print came out just great! - then I read that Cura sometime have trouble detecting thin walls...and I know for a fact that Slic3r sometime makes single walls out of what should have been a 1mm wall so now I slice with both and test the print visually on gcode at ws before printing

Erik

Quote
dmould
Look at your G file (the one actually on the SD card, not the one you copied it from) with a text editor. Go right to the end and see whether it is complete (ends with your custom end code and filament length comment if you use Slic3r).

The latest web interface and 058e firmware give a couple of clues to this:

1. If the object height is filled in with a value lower than the actual object height, the file may have been truncated;

2. When the print progress bar shows something greater than zero, if it displays the filament used and total filament, then the "filament used" comment at the end of the file has been found, so the file is likely to be complete.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Lots of interesting stuff said there above from everyone....Thank you....

Ok the File was complete.... That was the first thing I looked for..... I'm wondering if internally the firmware might have a hidden file counter that is the limit....Only an idea.... as it must keep a record of it's position in the file. In this case the file was BIG 2.5Mb so while the counter might not be visable in the code, it might be in the compiler it's self.... This is just my hunch about it.... In other compilers I've seen similar problems, and normally theres a way of setting the file position to an Extended Variable.

I'm using DCs 57y Firmware, via USB Pronterfizzel... Note I don't like Pronterfizzel wonderfully... I get no readout of how far through the file it is or time, or even what time the next bus to Manchester is...... It's Basic in other words but I haven't a clue about setting up the Internet side of things, and it leaves me cold most of the time.

Now the print I've just done is really really GOOD!!!! First class I think. In fact, because of it's glossy colour and me using a camera phone, the pictures don't do it justice. I did this for a friends pub..... I'll let you guess the name of it... I was a little apprehensive about the model because of the size of support it had, but the designer knew their stuff, and it wasn't actually fixed deep and hard to the model... I'm very pleased with the result.

As for printing the owls without infill, I might try that next, and up the speed a fraction more now...

170mm/s really seems the tops for transport.... As for the rest... The only way is up....

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2014 12:40PM by KimBrown.

---

Please send me a PM if you have suggestions, or problems with Big Blue 360.
I won't see comments in threads, as I move around to much.
Working Link to Big Blue 360 Complete

For non-printing moves the speed should not have a maximum limit, only the acceleration (set separately). It is not speed that causes motors to miss a step (at least not until they are stupidly fast), but too high a rate of acceleration or deceleration. You won't hit the dashboard if you slow gently from 100MPH to 0, but stop suddenly by hitting a brick wall at 20MPH and ...

Hmm - "The Lion" is such an unimaginative name for a pub, I think. A guy I know took over a pub called "The Lion" in a less than salubrious part of a town that came with a certain reputation. I suggested he re-name it to something more imaginative and in character, such as "The Slippit Inn". Sadly he did not go along with my suggestion. I like the name of a local pub "The Bent Arms". The sign carries a picture of a two bent arms holding pints. A road leading to a police station also has an appropriate name - "Letsby Avenue"

Dave
(#106)

Quote
dmould

Quote
PaulHam
I have attached my speeds i use with Cura. I had previously set all to 100 but the extruder couldn't extrude fast enough and kept skipping. How do we get the extruder to throw out filament faster? I saw a video of the ultimaker printing at high speed and its bloody fast!

The extruder sets the speed limit for me also (in my case at around 70mm/s for 0.2mm layers printing ABS). If you make the layer height smaller you can print faster (because thin layers don't extrude so fast). Obviously that won't make the print take less time in total, but you get a finer layered print without taking twice as long. I upped the extruder current to 1200mA which made a slight improvement. At least it doesn't limit the non-printing moves, which you can make pretty much as fast as you like and rely on the acceleration parameter to limit the speed. That makes a huge difference with some designs that need a lot of non-printing moves.

Dave
(#106)

I have also upped the extruder current to 1200ma. I brought some black PLA and it was horrible. I couldnt get past 30mm/s without the extruder skipping. the other 2 colours i purchased at the same time from the same supplier work just fine at 65mm/s

Quote
ormerod168

Quote
dmould
...Slic3r is impractical for large prints - I've waited 2 hours on a big print and it still hadn't finished. Cura sliced the same STL in a couple of seconds...

First file I sliced with Cura was a single wall test as to get flow rate just right and it did not turn out well, after the bottom layers it just raised to the top and did a vomit all over the bed - it was like Cura was giving me the finger!

Then one day Slic3r repeatedly failed in slicing a file I knew was OK so gave Cura another try and just plugged in the flow rate from Slic3r (0.85/85%), it sliced it in no time and the print came out just great! - then I read that Cura sometime have trouble detecting thin walls...and I know for a fact that Slic3r sometime makes single walls out of what should have been a 1mm wall so now I slice with both and test the print visually on gcode at ws before printing

Erik

Yeah, Cura doesnt like thin walls. I tried a thin wall test and it only did the base (it didnt vomit for me though)
I also tried to print Kim's 'bigblue' but it messed up due to some thin walls.