To conclude – I bought an e3dv5. Early days yet, but I'm very happy with it so far.by Rook - General
Hi Sanjay, I'm not using an ATX psu, so there are no sockets available for me to plug the fan into. Anyway, this isn't a problem now, it turned out that the disused PCB from my sata enclosure is a perfect solution for powering fans and stuff. For about £2.50 I ordered two convertors (sata to 4 pin molex to 3 pin fan), it works, and I can now have several fans running from the little PCB. I thby Rook - General
I think I may have a simple solution for the fan. I possess an unused (12v 5v) sata HDD enclosure. Inside there is a PCB with a 5v cooling fan already installed, this might even be adequate for cooling the J-Heads. Anyway, eBay has cheap conversions for sata to molex, and there are converters for 4 pin molex to 3 pin too, so in theory I should be able to connect a good range of fans from here. Tby Rook - General
I've just had a thought – probably an obtuse one but electronics aren't my forte. Would it be possible to crudely plug a 2 pin 5v computer fan directly into the gen6 board without modification? There is a spare 12C 4 pin connector on the gen6 board for expansion. Pin one is +5v, and pin 2 is ground . So I'm guessing that if I match a 5v fan's red wire with pin one, and the black with pin two thenby Rook - General
@clanzer & ayouden Many thanks for the detailed explanations of the problems you both had with the J-Heads from eBay. @konwiddak That's interesting, I wonder how many of the people who are having issues with these J-Heads are using the 1.75mm filament (of course this may only be partially related). I would be using 3mm filament btw. @samp20 I'm happy to hear that the eBay J-Head has workedby Rook - General
@clanzer Thanks for the info. Only 30 hours of trouble free printing doesn't sound too impressive, that would be shockingly fast for the hotend to show signs of failure. I wonder what happened?by Rook - General
@jinx It's good to hear something positive about the UK J-Heads. Assuming that these hotends were competently and precisely made to the original specification then I don't see why there should be a problem with them. If you don't mind – I would really appreciate it if you could answer a few questions below: Have you had any unexpected problems with jamming when using the e3d? Do you also use aby Rook - General
Thanks for your detailed response. It sounds like the e3d is a perfect solution for you. Unfortunately if a 30mm fan is absolutely required then this could be problematic for my setup. I'm just using a universal adaptor with the wires stripped to power the gen6 board. A crude assembly – even the heated bed is only manually controlled by a regular household iron. I'm still using nichrome wire toby Rook - General
Thanks for the feedback! @A2 I assumed the spare was to provide the option for a different size nozzle aperture. @ayouden: The e3d nozzle was originally top of my wish list. It looks very solid, and I like the way it appears easy to change the nozzles without needing to disassemble the hotend. My main concern was the number of people I have seen reporting issues of constant jamming (after aby Rook - General
Has anyone had any experience with the UK made J-Head nozzles on eBay? Here: GB_Reprap and here: Reprap-UK I've noticed that hundreds of these items have been sold, but the only information I have found on here concerning eBay J-Heads is dissuading people from buying the Chinese (non-spec) versions. However, these UK models are allegedly made 100% to the original J-Head standard. They lby Rook - General
Some possibilities (assuming your Z axis firmware is calibrated correctly): 1. Layer height is set too high, so with each pass the the distance between the extruder and the surface increases. 0.4mm layers may be a good place to start, that's assuming you are using a 0.5mm nozzle. 2. Flow rate is set too low. This might not become apparent immediately when printing small objects, especially if soby Rook - General
To answer my own question... Apparently the problems were related to firmware. A very helpful person called Action68 on IRC sorted me out. I have the Tonokip firmware installed now. I'll add that the printer is much quieter and seems to be compatible with more host software now.by Rook - General
Things get ugly when I press "home" on an axis in Repsnapper. The printer seems to want to drive the axis off the Prusa! I'm a little reluctant to try the home feature again unless I'm confident I can get it to work safely. I try "G92 Y0" to reset the relative position of Y, and M114 to confirm the input, but when I press "home" for Y the printer seems to attempt to travel infinitely down the nby Rook - General
I also dislike the standard coupling design. There is an extremely fine line between being too slack to grip the threaded rod properly, or too tight to avoid fracturing the plastic. New couplings are certainly high on my list of things to do. Some people seem to have devised interesting alternative designs – like this one: .by Rook - General
Ah ha! That probably explains everything. Thanks! So is Repsnapper the only host software that works with Gen6? My main concern is that I've read that Repsnapper tends to generate inferior GCode to Skeinforge. I can see that it is possible to load Skeinforge GCode into Repsnapper, but the centre of the object seems to be located on the edge of the X/Y axis, and it doesn't appear possible to moby Rook - General
I seem to have all the elements of my printer working now, including the 3 axis, the extruder, the heater and the thermostat. The problem I have is that only Repsnapper seems to recognise my printer. This is the same with both Linux and Windows. The main host software just behaves as though the printer isn't connected, and Pronterface always returns "printer is not online: unable to move". I've tby Rook - General
@droftarts Thanks for the advice. I've avoided using the insulated ferrules, and went with the smaller uninsulated ones (about 1.5mm diameter) and they seemed to crimp nicely. I also coated the ferrules in Kapton tape for now. So far nothing has exploded, and I managed to extrude some PLA and obtain believable temperature readings for the hot end. @jamesdanielv My ferrules are apparently madeby Rook - General
Hopefully I very nearly have a finished Reprap Prusa now. I've found these forums to be an invaluable source of information, so many thanks to all who have helped me so far! My motors seem to be running fine, and I've spliced the Z axis wires, but the hot end still needs to be properly assembled. I'm just wondering what options I have to insulate the ferrules that connect the heater wires to thby Rook - General
Thanks for the tips, but the problem is solved now! Mendel-Parts got back to me and said that the outer wire is negative and the core (white wire) is positive. I've compiled Repsnapper for Linux and had a chance to send a few GCodes to test the various axis. Very early days, but so far so good. I'll probably order a cheap multimeter anyway, I want to be better prepared in future!by Rook - General
Unfortunately, the only meters I can find for £5 or less are sold online, and could potentially take a week to arrive. Pretty annoying considering it is probably the only item I need to get up and running! I can get a multimeter locally for about £10, and that is probably what I will need to do if Mendel-Parts don't get back to me with some definite answers about their HQ power supply wires soon.by Rook - General
I'm about ready to plug in my Prusa, but I'm uncertain about the positive/negative connections to the Gen6 board. Cutting and stripping the cable from my HQ power supply (from Mendel-Parts) has revealed two wires. The inner wire is coloured pure white. The outer wire is exposed and seems to be twisted around the white wire, but it lacks any coating beyond the black protective layer that concealsby Rook - General
Apologies in advance, this is a complete newbie question, but I'm new to splicing wires so I'd like to make sure I get this right. The Gen6 board has a connection point for one Z motor, but the Prusa has two motors. I have some Nema17 motors of identical specification with Molex connectors. I don't have a terminal block or a soldering iron, but I do have some completely insulated crimp connectoby Rook - General
Thanks for the confirmation!by Rook - General
Is it just me, or is the 1380mm timing belt length mentioned in the wiki massively over estimated (http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_Mendel)? For some reason I only seem to need <900mm for each axis, but I'd like to confirm whether I'm sane before I start hacking up my only timing belts . I mean my estimates are close to 500mm less than what the wiki recommends, so either the wiki may need some ediby Rook - General
garyhodgson Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In the setup I had in that photo the screws held > the hot end in pretty well - my experience with > my other extruder is that it deformed due to it > being PLA. ABS would be more resistant I think. > > I can't say whether ABS is good for drilling. PLA > is fine so long as the speed is kept way dowby Rook - General
Thanks for all the feedback! In the end I went with lithium based "Carlube Multi-Purpose Grease" from B&Q. The bushings seem to be moving much more freely now.by Rook - General
So far I have tried attaching some PLA bushings to a smooth rod that arrived lightly oiled, but unfortunately this is insufficient to allow the bushings to move freely. I've read that certain kinds of lubrication are ineffective for PLA/PTFE/ABS, but I wondered if anyone could recommend any types of lubricant for PLA bushings? Thanks!by Rook - General
Many thanks to everyone who responded. I'm glad to hear that I won't be alone in the world of Nichrome heated hot ends. @garyhodgson If only I could attach the hot end in a similar manner to the photo, but the Wade extruder seems designed for the older "two screws at the top" method. I could perhaps drill a couple of extra holes into the bottom of the Wade extruder to accommodate some bolts hoby Rook - General
I took the plunge a few weeks ago and bought the parts to build a Reprap Prusa. The low Gen6 stocks at Mendel-Parts prompted me to make a swift decision on which items to order (Gen6 stocks ran out a day later). I opted for the V5 hot end along with some Nichrome wire for heating. My parts have been dispatched now, so I'll hopefully be assembling this in a few days! However, since making the ordeby Rook - General
@droftarts Don't worry about hijacking the thread, I've been wandering OT anyway with my hobbed bolts. Your last effort looks much better btw, even if you did cheat a little! Also, I really appreciate your kind offer. PM sent... Plastic parts arrived today, less than 24 hours after purchase, so many thanks to nophead too!by Rook - General