Ahoy folks, I am almost done assembling my shiny new Ormerod printer. As I prepare for my first test prints, I am faced with a difficult choice. I primarily intend this printer to use ABS, since it survives the heat of a Georgia summer in the trunk of my car better than PLA does. I have been told by several 3d printers in my area that the ormerod's heated bed will work great with ABS without any of the kapton tape supplied with the The instructions for initial setup, though, are written for printing PLA, specifying kapton tape with small paper squares in the corners for bed levelling.

How should I proceed? Should I lay down all that kapton tape, paper, etc. as specified in the instructions for the calibration prints, then tear it all off so I can switch to ABS? Or should I just go straight for ABS? Do I really need the paper squares for levelling?

I strongly recommended that you gain experience with printing PLA before you try ABS. Also, look in the RepRapPro documentation for advice on printing ABS, in particular which Ormerod plastic parts you need to print in ABS before you print other things in ABS.

You can get a local glass merchant to cut some more bed plates for you, so that you can keep a Kapton covered one for printing PLA if you wish.

You do need the white paper targets on the bed, unless you either do z homing and bed compensation manually, or you replace the proximity sensor board with something that doesn't need them, such as the probe/fan control/illumination hot end board I supply.

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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].

Thanks for the advice. I decided to use up the PLA supplied with the kit before starting on my own supply of ABS. So I applied the paper squares and kapton tape, and have been happily printing gears, moustaches, and other parts since then. That said, I have a few more questions.

First, where can I get some good test pieces to help me dial in my printer? I've done the basic calibration test, and am happy with that result, now I am looking to adjust temperature, extrusion rate, print rate, etc.

Second, I have the Ormerod 1. I have the list of parts that must be re-printed in ABS for when I start printing ABS, but where can I get the files for those parts? All I've found are the files for the Ormerod 2, and I don't want to find out the hard way if they're different from the original...

The Github repository does still contain the files for Version 1 of the Ormerod. You just have to select the Tag: V1.0 -> [github.com]

You can modify the temperatures on several places. You can change them on the fly in the web interface. You can cange them in the G Code that is generated from your slicer and you can manually change it in the G Code you uplaod to your printer. same with the extrusion rate. You can change that on the fly (at least if you are using a newer firmware like dc42's fork) or in the G Code for each print or in your config.g on the SD card.

Print rate can be changed in your slicer software or on the fly (dc42's fork).

Why not print some replacement Ormerod 1 parts in PLA? You may need them if you need several goes at printing them in ABS.

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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].

Oh, frustration! I have downloaded the V1 .stl files, but slic3r 1.17 refuses to read the very first part I need to print, the X carriage. None of the other files that I downloaded from the github directory worked, either. It "loads" the files, but does not display any preview and freezes whenever I try to export g-code. I even tried slic3r 2 beta and Cura, and they did the same thing. Am I just having computer problems, did I screw up several dozen downloads, or is there something wrong with the files themselves? Slic3r did just fine at g-coding my ABS test cube...

edit: never mind, I wasn't downloading the files correctly. The X carriage is now printing, and I feel very silly...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2014 11:14PM by kotori87.