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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: Ambient air temperatures - 8 years ago
Are your objects still attached to the bed, or is the problem that they are not sticking. You can also prevent warping by adding support material which you remove later. Most slicers have options to add support material, but I suspect in your case, you may have to incorporate the support material as part of your designby rogerclark - General
Re: Printing suddenly started to stop mid way through a print ?? - 9 years ago
I never really managed to fix this. But it doesnt happen that often, so I live with it. Somehow there appears to be a failure on the USB communication. If I go into the windows device manager, and disable then re-enable the Arduino USB device, it normaly fixes it. However I think that whats probably happening is that the Arduino is being reset by this. Prior to the reset, the heated bed andby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Embroidery using Reprap ??? - 10 years ago
Hi A2, From what I understand, its not just the needle that needs to be driven up and down. There is mechanics under the foot of the machine which hooks the thread when the needle is down. AFIK, most conventional machines operate from one main motor, and have a cam which moves the needle up and down and the same motor drives the mechanics under the machine. I guess there is no specific reasonby rogerclark - General
Re: Embroidery using Reprap ??? - 10 years ago
Guys Thanks for the detailed replies. I looks like controlling the stitch rate and needed position will be critical and I'm not sure if a regular sewing machine is going to suit this purpose. I will probably need to do some experimentation and research to see if its practical to control a normal machine. Re beam breaking. I'm not sure why this would not be a good method to determine needle pby rogerclark - General
Embroidery using Reprap ??? - 10 years ago
Hi, Could anyone point me in the right direction in order to build my own embroidery machine ? I've done some research on the web but have not turned up anything useful. Looing at commercial embroidery machines, they just seem to be a standard seweing machine, but have a XY head mechanism that holds an embroidery hoop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embroidery_hoop). The XY head is driven asby rogerclark - General
Re: Reducing noise - 10 years ago
Noise on the heater cartridge is possible caused by the way that switch mode power supplies work, rectifying the mains then remodulating it to high frequency sine waves, before converting to low voltage DC. You could try a different power supply, but I doubt you'd get much of an improvement. You could also try swapping the heater cartridge in case the internals are a bit loose, but again, thisby rogerclark - General
Re: Ardoino mega shield problem on Prusa I3 - 10 years ago
I've seen issues with ATX PSUs where they don't like spikes in power demand on the 12v when there is little or no load on the 5v output. I guess this depends on your ATX PSU, but one thing you could try is putting a constant load of several amps on the 5v output. Try to find a load for the 5v output of the PSU of a few amps. I've used a 12v lamp, but connecting to it was not easy as you can't sby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: components - 10 years ago
If you don't mind me asking, why are you building an original Mendel, and not a newer and better variant thats probably easier to get components for, easier to build and would produce better quality prints. That is unless you mean a newer variant e.g. Mendel i3 or a Mendel 90, or perhaps a MendelMax 1.5 or MendelMax 2.0 etc etc ???by rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Help! Stepper Motors are not Stepping! - 10 years ago
Z motors should not be hard to turn, so it sounds like a mechanical fault. Are the threaded rods hard to turn if they are disconneted from the couplers, or disconnect the coupler from the motor? BTW. I you have 2 Z motors wired in parallel (normal reprap type configuration for printers with 2 Z motors), if you leave them both plugged in and try to turn one by hand, it will actually generate eleby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Help! Stepper Motors are not Stepping! - 11 years ago
i had jittering when the motors where not wired correctly. I'd double check the order of the wires, different manufacturers have different notations, some use A and B, some use 1 and 2, some use + and - its easy to get it completely wrong.by rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Quick 3d printing survey: help me with my Master of science in less than 5 minutes - 11 years ago
Karmavore, I'm not sure that comparison with a washing machine is a good analogy for a 3D printer, perhaps a comparison with a mobile phone or even a domestic ink jet printer would be better. e.g. my inkjet printer only works with very expensive supplies if i leave my inkjet printer for a month without using it, the ink cartridge has probably dried out and may be unusable if i try to unblockby rogerclark - General
Re: seeking Gcode Viewer / Editer - 11 years ago
There are several GCode viewers e.g. (see also ) It shows layer by layer GCode paths. However it doesn't edit. (I dont know any that do) IMHO, Unless you can find someone else who needs / wants this, you're either going to need to program it yourself (using the source code downloadable from thingiverse of the viewer) or possibly pay someone e.g. on one of the freelance programmer sites, toby rogerclark - General
Re: slicing revolved / axisymmetric parts - 11 years ago
Quotemullenc525Only problem is cura still steps up z in the same place every time blobbing that region. Any fix to that? Sounds like you may need to tweek your retraction settings. Quotemullenc525 confirmed this is because the slicer is making some sort of assumption that the extrusion will be different in width than the nozzle. I remodelled the part with 1.3mm walls instead, and it now printsby rogerclark - General
Re: Power Supply Shutting Off - 11 years ago
I have been testing using an ATX power supply, and had the same problem. I initially thought a minimum load was needed on 12v, but connecting a 50w lamp to the 12v, only help a little. What fixed it was putting load on the 5V. In my case I took the 50w lamp and wired it to the 5v output. The lamp then only takes around 10W but this seems to be enough to allow my hot end to work ok. I have notby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Auto touch Z end-stop - 11 years ago
Just thinking a bit more about this. The idea seems interesting, but perhaps there are better way to do it. e.g. Modified carriages (both sides), that have upper and lower halves, that separate when the nozzle touches the bed? Use a strain gauge / weight sensor on the extruder? Perhaps even use a microphone attached to the extruder (I'm not sure if this would work, as the "noise" transmittedby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Auto touch Z end-stop - 11 years ago
I was confused about how this worked. Looking on the comments on Thingiverse, the consensus seems to be that on one side of the Z (carriage), the drive nut(s) have been removed, and a secondary module has been added under the carriage, so that the existing carriage rests on the new carriage. There seems to be a contact on the base of the original carriage and the top of the new carriage. Whenby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Removing ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
@Yvan. I was thinking that I'd need to buy a plate that had been machined flat e.g. a 5mm plate. @MrBaz. I do normally leave the plate to cool, and sometimes it still sticks. However I have not tried using a razor blade, just an normal metal scraper. I will try to use a sharp implement in futureby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Removing ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
Hi Yvan No worries. I'm building a new printer at the moment, so I'm looking around for alternatives to glass at the same time. I'm pretty sure I can get hold of steel plate and stainless steel plate locally, but not sure about aluminium. For some reason aluminium seems to be harder to source, unless I want standard things like L shaped extrusion or very thin plate e.g. 1mm thick.by rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: PLA Gears VS ABS Gears - 11 years ago
Sounds like all PLA is not created equal ;-) I would not like to use mine for anything that needed to be shock load resistant.by rogerclark - General
Re: Removing ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
Yvan QuoteThe aluminium may warp with the heat, so that is tricky What about steel or stainless steel ? Or perhaps thicker aluminium e.g. 5mm. I understand that bed weight on printer types where the bed moved in Y or X, and thermal mass would cause bed heating to be slower on thicker pieces of metal. Or is what is required some sort of machined aluminium plate with a lattice structure on theby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Removing ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
I know this is a bit off of a tangent from my original posting... But perhaps I'd be better off getting hold of a piece of machined flat steel or aluminium. Does anyone know why this isn't widely used? Is it that its hard to get hold of 200x200 milled flat aluminium (or steel) plate ? I suspect it would cost around $200 for me to get one made, but it cost me $20 to get the normal 5mm windowby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: PLA Gears VS ABS Gears - 11 years ago
I don't find PLA particularly useful for real world objects as it appears to be to brittle. e.g. I printed a set of replacement feet for my step ladder, but PLA would have broken almost immediately when I use it on a concrete surface. I can see the advantages of PLA for things like cogs, but other printer parts like brackets seem to be better in ABS as long as its thick enough.by rogerclark - General
Cura doesn't seem to retract when doing skirts - 11 years ago
Hi, Does anyone know if there is a way to make Cura retract between different objects when printing the skirt(s) I've just started printing 4 different items (brackets) at the same time, but as Cura doesn't seem to retract between the skirts for each object, I get trails of plastic across the middle of some parts. Luckily I always look at the start of the print, to check its sticking etc, so Iby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: How to start a Dual head for my MendelMax - 11 years ago
AFIK the MendelMax X carriage is the same as the Mendel X carriage, so finding a Mendel X carriage for dual extruders may do the trick. I did a quick search and found this (titled X-Carriage Mendel Max Dual Extruder - Lugs Pillow) Looking at my MendelMax 1.5, I think that if you wanted to use Wade extruders, you'd need to mount the 2nd one 180 in Z to the original one, and you are likely toby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Removing ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
Thanks guys, I'll minimise my use of ABS juice. Normally I can get away without applying new each time, but at the moment I'm printing some large parts that go right to the edge of the glass, and I had curling at the edge (not sure why as I double checked the bed level alignment). Actually today another fleck of glass came off, so I'm going to turn the glass over and try it without ABS juiceby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Need help with the z axis... it doesnt move when printing - 11 years ago
In pronterface, when you use the controls to move X Y and Z does the printer move correctly? If so, this sounds more like a slicing issue.by rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Removing ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
Thanks tmorris9 I had been printing onto Kapton, but having to replace the tape every couple of weeks (depending on the number of prints I was doing), was becoming a pain, so I decided to try printing directly on glass, which works fine as long as I put ABS juice on the glass every so often (not before every print). Actually I had been printing for quiet some time without ABS juice, but recentby rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Help! Ugly Prints! - 11 years ago
Is the ABS sticking to the bed? The only thing that worked for me was ABS juice, i.e leave some bits of ABS soaking in acetone for 24 hours i.e until the acetone goes a slightly cloudy colour. Then wipe it onto the glass using a bit of kitchen paper. Just wipe it once, don't be tempted to rub it in or wipe over an area you just did, as an ultra thin coating seems to work just was well as anythby rogerclark - General
Re: Cheap eBay parts - 11 years ago
@Nununugent I have a blomker kit and (fingers crossed) by hot end etc have been fine. Its an all metal version, was yours a PTFE sleeve version ?by rogerclark - Reprappers
Re: Renoving ABS print took flake of glass of the bed ! - 11 years ago
@A2 The flake is not next to the edge, and I hadn't noticed any flaws in the glass prior to the print removing the fleck. Is possible that the extruder has collided with the bed at some time, but not recently, and I can't really recall where it hit in the past as it didnt appear to do any damage at the time. I'll try to take a photo and post it to the forum.by rogerclark - Reprappers