New to 3d printing with smartrap need some help

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duranza
I'm definitely not saying anything bad about the J-head Lite. Cheap, simple and works. <----- Love this... I'm just having noob problems and once I figure all that out it will be awesome. I do know where Regpye is coming from though. There's things we can't cheap out on to avoid headaches. Being on a really tight budget is what has made me who I am. It has made me resourceful. I don't let the lack of funds hold me back. Besides, I learn better by hands on.

I'm very happy that I'm printing after getting a replacement J-head from Ohio plastics. The first one the Teflon liner couldn't get down all the way even when heated to 250c. You should have seen my face when I saw filament coming out with the second one. Now I see why the wood mount too.. The plastic mound gets a little soft after an hour of printing.

The parts that I tryed from Regpye last night failed. Although I did learn alot from this. There is a lot more in the programing/slicing to get it right than everything else combined.

Looks like I needed more turns around the stepper shafts with the fishing line to get more friction. It slipped a little on the X and Y and the print was slanted. Also, I need to eliminate the strings between the parts.

Can I suggest that to start with you print the parts out one at a time instead of doing the whole plate at once.
The reason I say this is that firstly you are still learning how to slice properly, the machine still needs some tuning and you are still gaining experience.
If you use the single parts you can get quicker prints per session, if lost you only loose a smaller amount of time and material, and you are able to see what is happening quicker when just doing a smaller and single print to start with.
The gear set I can split up for you, but if you want to learn something, you can split it yourself with either Cura or Slic3r.
I would then start with printing the easiest and smallest part, and that is the large gear spacer. Should only take a few minutes to print and then go the the next part after making any adjustments.
The files for the newer extruder are on my website under "Free Stuff"

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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goldenmongoose
Haha, I understand Reg. No can of worms shall be opened. Maybe I shouldn't say everyone. Maybe just America loves cheap. I guess there's no Walmarts in the Outback to corrupt your socio-economic world view. Yet...

Yes no Walmart here thank goodness, but we still have some pretty bad things happening here too, and following USA too much. I hope we don't go down that track too far, it looks pretty bad.
Government corruption is everywhere, even here. Used to be called the lucky country, but not so lucky now. Highest taxes in the world, expensive postal system, lies and lies and more lies from the pollies, and rights being lost all the time. It has become a Nanny State for sure, being told what we can and can't do and more taxes added all the time.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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MelT
Glad you sorted it out.

I too, had the slant on X before and just needed to tighten the fishing line. 5 turns on the shaft works for me.

What's your nozzle diameter? And at what speeds can you print now?

On my first SmartRap I used fishing line too, and I also used 5 turns and had no problem.
I also used mono-filament because that is all I could get at the time, and I had no slipping problems with it. I kept the line very tight.
All my future models I used GT2 belts, easier to setup, more expensive, but more reliable.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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regpye
Yes no Walmart here thank goodness, but we still have some pretty bad things happening here too, and following USA too much. I hope we don't go down that track too far, it looks pretty bad.

Nice try Reg, but I've been to Australia and it's a very nice country with very friendly people.

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goldenmongoose

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regpye
Yes no Walmart here thank goodness, but we still have some pretty bad things happening here too, and following USA too much. I hope we don't go down that track too far, it looks pretty bad.

Nice try Reg, but I've been to Australia and it's a very nice country with very friendly people.

I would agree with you there, but the pollies are a different breed.
Things are changing here fast and not for the better.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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duranza
.4 on the nozzle and I'm now printing at 25mm/sec. I'm going to give the extruder another try. Do you use slic3r or cura? I'm trying to get the settings right on slic3r. I also had to level the bed by shimming the plate as I still can't get it to auto level yet.

I used slic3r at first because that's what most people seem to prefer. But after trying Cura, I fell in love with the user interface and how fast it slices. You can do in Cura most of what slic3r can do. There are plugins that help you change the settings like temperature and speed when you reach a certain print height. So far, the only thing I'm missing is the speed at which small perimeters are printed.

It was my plan to shim the bed as a last resort since you'd do it only once anyway but semi-automatic bed leveling works for me right now.

Happy printing!

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regpye
Yes no Walmart here thank goodness, but we still have some pretty bad things happening here too, and following USA too much. I hope we don't go down that track too far, it looks pretty bad.
Government corruption is everywhere, even here. Used to be called the lucky country, but not so lucky now. Highest taxes in the world, expensive postal system, lies and lies and more lies from the pollies, and rights being lost all the time. It has become a Nanny State for sure, being told what we can and can't do and more taxes added all the time.

Those bureaucrats only think for themselves, they don't care for the country.
Everyone who had basic economy lessons knows that when you want a economic boost then you need to LOWER the taxes, then people buy more 'crap' and that least to a better money flow. But then the buraucrats get less money for their corrupt system, and so they choose to RAISE taxes only because it fits THEM and to hell with everyone else.

Yea way off topic though i needed this out there for everyone to know... Over here the Liberals are ripping us off big time. It's religious how they spread their lies and make people believe their stupid tricks. And then preach the lies to everyone else. The new bureaucrat religion... I don't believe in anything but i'd sooner believe a Buddist then a bureaucrat. I prefer facts.
If PLA is to cold, then it will not be molten. Though a bureaucrat will say: Just believe me, you just have to wait long enough and then it will flow.

Bottomline.. never believe a bureaucrat. Just demand facts or burst. My apologies for dwelling off topic here.
(If there are any replies please consider it as a Private Message)


@ MeIt,

I had good results with fishingline on only 2 turns, it all seems to be a matter of trial and error.
Berkley Trilene .014" (2 turns and average tension works best for this type of line) though the braided Spectra line worked better with 3 or 4 turns and very high tension.

Where do you guys buy your filament? What brand? The 1 pound spool I bought came from Kbell. I don't really like it since it prints at 230-240c and the hot end gets real hot and makes the mount soft.

Also, how do you make the honeycomb pattern bigger or smaller in slic3r? I went through the 1 pound spool very quick because of it.

Infill percentage is how solid it is.

I got a few good 1/3kg spools in green (175C to 185C). I then tried purple, and it's like what your describing (215C+). Then I went to pushplastics.com, and I've been very happy with them. $29 a spool with free 2 day shipping, and works well at 185C.

So, infill density? Will this decrease the amount of plastic is deposited? or spread out the pattern?

Yes, reducing the infill density will reduce the amount of plastic to fill the space inside.

I print things hollow to save filament when I dont need something to be strong (like action figures as opposed to printer parts).

I'm also looking for a good supplier of better quality filament as I'm down to half a spool. .

Nevertheless, you should plan on using a fan. I completely got rid of my wooden part after installing a fan. I'll take pictures and share some tips in that area :-)

Here's the fan and the duct I designed. My fan is 60mm wide which is overpowered so I only turn in on at about a third of the power during a print. The PLA parts that hold the j-head don't get soft anymore even at during a 3 hour print. A smaller fan will work too. You just need some air blowing on the cold end. Insulate your heating block so the fan won't cool it down.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2014 07:05PM by MelT.

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goldenmongoose
regpye, cudos on the new hot end design. I wasn't refering to the performance of your hot end. But, it's easy to make an expensive hot end that works well with PLA. It's much harder to make an inexpensive hot end that works well with PLA. I saw you're hot end design and it looks cool. But, are there any source files available? I'm curious because it looks pretty long compared to most others. A standard J-head is about 2.5" and reg's is 4"?

Nice try Kyle.

Also available for standard Wades type extruders or will fit almost any extruder with the supplied adapter plate.
That means if you use on a SmartRap and later want to use on a i3 or another printer, it will most likely fit that too.


Metric measurement


Imperial measurement

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

Ok guys, I'm having problems with the prints being good in the first 2-3 mm and then it starts to be intermittent with the filament flow. Any Ideas? I'll post a picture in a bit

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duranza
Ok guys, I'm having problems with the prints being good in the first 2-3 mm and then it starts to be intermittent with the filament flow. Any Ideas? I'll post a picture in a bit

Refresh our memories, what extruder are you using? geared or direct drive?
Which hotend are you using?

Fan? Speeds? Temps?

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

J-head lite, direct drive, no fan, 20mm/sec at 220c anything lower and the extruder kicks a lot more.

220 seems high for pla. I haven't had any problems with pla at 185. Running pla at high temperatures might be gumming up the works. I'd recomend setting the temp at 220 and purging the hot end while gradually decreasing the temperature.

You could also try increasing the torque on your stepper driver to stop your motor from being over torqued. Increasing the temperature may seem like an easy fix, but it doesn't fix the underlying problem.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2014 09:52PM by goldenmongoose.

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duranza
Ok guys, I'm having problems with the prints being good in the first 2-3 mm and then it starts to be intermittent with the filament flow. Any Ideas? I'll post a picture in a bit

A picture would help.
Does it maintain the temperature within a couple of degrees?

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goldenmongoose
220 seems high for pla. I haven't had any problems with pla at 185. Running pla at high temperatures might be gumming up the works. I'd recomend setting the temp at 220 and purging the hot end while gradually decreasing the temperature.

You could also try increasing the torque on your stepper driver to stop your motor from being over torqued. Increasing the temperature may seem like an easy fix, but it doesn't fix the underlying problem.

It may have to do with the quality of the filament but believe it or not, I print PLA between 235 and 240.
I guess we're the unlucky ones to have bought a bad filament. Changing the filament is the only thing left I haven't done to rule it out as the cause of bad prints.

I will have to buy an airtripper extrudder to get it going. I think what I have noticed is that since you can't adjust the distance between the extrudder gear and the bearing it might be causing the stepper to overload with the bends and change of thickness of the filament. I can push the filament through the hot end by hand at 180c, but not manually working the stepper with the lcd

Sounds a bit like the issues i had.
I now use Reg's geared extruder and hotend and that solved the them.

I still have a lot of details to figure out. With some prints the PVA doesnt stik good enough and with others i have to fight for several minutes to get a print loose :-)
Now experimenting with a fan to cool the print too. but that changes the game once again

Hey MeIT, can you share your cura settings? I'm going to try to use it to see if it does any better.

Thanks

Sure. I'll get that for you. Do you need all of it? There's an option to save the settings to a file so I will just upload it.

While I get that though, I would sway you away from buying an airtripper extruder. I printed one and it's really not any different than the smartrap's original design. If you're going to buy something make it a geared extruder. I noticed a big difference when I printed one.

Here you go...

Not sure what you need so I shared my settings when I was using a direct drive and when I'm using the geared extruder.

Using the geared extruder, I normally turn up the speed using the LCD controller so that's definitely not the maximum. The maximum speed depends on what I'm printing. If it's printing a big flat area, I was able to turn it up to 130% and still get a good result. I haven't tried pushing it harder than that though. Maybe I will try that with a new brand of filament (they are just so expensive locally )

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BackEMF
Sounds a bit like the issues i had.
I now use Reg's geared extruder and hotend and that solved the them.

I still have a lot of details to figure out. With some prints the PVA doesnt stik good enough and with others i have to fight for several minutes to get a print loose :-)
Now experimenting with a fan to cool the print too. but that changes the game once again

I'm happy with the geared extruder, too. I just installed it permanently on my smartrap last night.

I'm using bare glass on my smartrap and so far, I only had 2 instances when the print came loose. That was when I was printing a top heavy thing and the other one was when I was printing a tall item (a tunnel for my son's train set ).There wasn't much touching the glass.

I learned from that though and on this kind of prints, I use a wide brim (at least 5 lines).

And when you use a fan, make sure it doesn't blow air at the base of your print. I once had a fan on full blast and it cooled the base of the print and I heard crackling sound indicating the the print coming off the glass. I save the print by putting some blu-tack to keep it sticking to the glass (I slowed down the print while I did this)

Thanks MeIT. I just tried the default robot and will you look at that.. it printed right up. I really like that cura posts the g code with no wasted movements.

robot

I'm going to slice RegPye's extruder one more time with cura and give it a try.

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duranza
I'm going to slice RegPye's extruder one more time with cura and give it a try.

Use at least 35% infill, more for the gears for best results.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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duranza
I'm going to slice RegPye's extruder one more time with cura and give it a try.

Exactly my thoughts. Slic3r to me makes nozzle moves that do not make sense. With Cura, it prints exactly how I would print it if I was a printer I wish it had specific settings for overhang and bridge though. I work around that with the plugin but the setting applies for the whole level and not just where there's a bridge. But hey, it works.

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regpye
Use at least 35% infill, more for the gears for best results.

I used 40% fill without a problem.

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MelT

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duranza
I'm going to slice RegPye's extruder one more time with cura and give it a try.

Exactly my thoughts. Slic3r to me makes nozzle moves that do not make sense. With Cura, it prints exactly how I would print it if I was a printer I wish it had specific settings for overhang and bridge though. I work around that with the plugin but the setting applies for the whole level and not just where there's a bridge. But hey, it works.

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regpye
Use at least 35% infill, more for the gears for best results.

I used 40% fill without a problem.

40% is good or even more for lasting parts.
I love Cura too, but it still needs a few more tweaks to make it perfect, I use it all the time now.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

Well the stepper motor gear came out great. Now on to the clamp, and tomorrow I'll try the big block...

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duranza
Well the stepper motor gear came out great. Now on to the clamp, and tomorrow I'll try the big block...

That is good news that you have it printing now. You will see a huge difference once you start using the geared extruder.

Someone asked if I would share the separated Y axis files and I can't find the thread, so as we all read all the threads I thought it best to post here so there wouldn't be any disappointment.

The file has all the parts needed for the separated Y axis and it is also wider too.
I would suggest that the legs be printed separate from the main parts so it is easier to keep them on the bed, I used a raft for doing the legs and not for the rest of the parts.

Separated wide Y axis

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci