pla is non toxic melts at lower temperatures and is stiff. abs is durable, more heat resistant, warps more without a heated bed, and has fume you shouldnt breathe if you're just starting out i suggest 1.75. I use 3mm and am happy with it, but 1.75 is the direction everything is going and it makes sense. 1 pound of filament is about how much i8t takes me to print all of the prusa mendel parts wby Anthong Redbeard - General
I know this isn't your direct question... but i have almost identical setup but print in pla and only need to get to 55c on the heated bed. it's an option... though a pain to clear out the abs from the extruder well enough to start pla.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I am better off without the bottom plate so far.by Anthong Redbeard - General
the sdpsi ones i posted work as a set and are in stock. not cheap tho.by Anthong Redbeard - General
welcome. This IS the best open source community I've been involved with, hardware or software. the z motor thing is actually pretty even in cost, and more than makes up for it in simplicity, i only don't like the coupling + floating threaded rods, but both of those can be modded to be acceptable. simply compare it to the original mendel design z axis. It's quite a few bearings, pulleys, hardwarby Anthong Redbeard - General
going out on a $50 limb here. I found pulleys that have a 5mm bore and matching belts same width + enough length the most difficult part was finding some in stock.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I'm also interested in an exact part setthat people are confident in there are so many optionsby Anthong Redbeard - General
I know we have been around a few times on this, and I know people got it to work... I completely stripped out peek threads on an arcol hot end, they were very tight fitting, I got them too hot and there was a lot of pressure... not the fault of the hot end design really but something I'd like others to learn from... my take is, if you add external support you haven't hurt anything, you've only adby Anthong Redbeard - General
many work well, lots of people like the makergear ones, arcol.hu and copies, jhead and others. I have a few things I commonly say on the subject that I think work well as general rules: 1. Don't rely on peek or ptfe threads for strength, this doesn;t mean you can;t have them just support the pressure with something else. 2. keep everything above the nozzle cool, heatsinks and/or fans help. 3.by Anthong Redbeard - General
Mine WAS doing decent as PCB + glass + kapton... then it got a lot colder in the house and it warps a LOT more, gonna try to cover it up with some vinyl sheeting to make a flexible heated chamber, and at the very least prevent draftsby Anthong Redbeard - General
nope. I'm running ubuntu, latest sanctioned python, sprinter firmware, repsnapperby Anthong Redbeard - General
I did. but I also did try combinations of using someone elses .43 profile that was working and upgrading my own.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I know my esteps are good. I went back to skeinforge 41 and am doing 35/35 - 60/60 and it looks great. I'll just stay on 41 until it's figured out.by Anthong Redbeard - General
tighten your X and Y belts, make sure your pulley set screws are tight, and your pulleys haven't sheared. also, if you'r using pla bushings for Z make sure they dont have any play in them.by Anthong Redbeard - General
Just this week I did a print I was very happy with on skeinforge 41. It was my benchmark before upgrading. I downloaded the latest skeinforge and without changing any settings, or firmware, the extrusion slows to a useless crawl AFTER the 1st layer. The first layer goes down beautifully, then after that it slows to the point where you can barely see it move but the retraction set in dimension sby Anthong Redbeard - General
for the "dragging" in the fil section increase Infill width over thickness ratio, it looks like you are overlapping a lot. for getting fills closer to perimter you can try adjusting Infill Perimeter Overlap. optionally you can adjust Infill width over Thickness to be more accurate.by Anthong Redbeard - General
check your firmware and what thermistor table you have enabled in the config vs. the thermistor you are using.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I've done this on many hot ends now, I've got it down to work really well. it's cheap, it works well, I've pushed at least 7 pounds through with this arrrangement. It's easy. If everything you have bolts up nicely great... not for you. But I have had several instances where I don;t have an ideal bolt and hole alignment solution and this has not failed me yet. I hope it helps others:by Anthong Redbeard - General
the only thing the hot end connects to is the filament drive block which is a printed part... anything listed here will work. I have all of them I get excellent prints with the Arcol one, the Adrians hot end v3, and at least 2 versions of the jhead. I personally recommend pointing a small fan (can be ripped out of any electronics like an old computer) at the insulating barrel for doing PLA prby Anthong Redbeard - General
I suggest going with another software toolchain such as printrunner, replicatorg, or even repsnapperby Anthong Redbeard - General
check all the pins solder to the board. try adjusting the pot, with the power of of course.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I think the key is getting it to stick to the bed. I put Kapton on top of glass and I heat it to 85C, at least the ensor says 85C but It's porbably lower on the print surface. Then I try to smash the 1st layer a bit and make sure it prints slow on that 1st layer. these things all seemed to help.by Anthong Redbeard - General
Johhny (Ultimachine) had me remove the A2 pin on the RAMPS and jumper it to the A3, changed the pin in firmware and it worked 1st time! best support evar!by Anthong Redbeard - General
Thanks NOPhead. I'll try routing the Pin I guess. Failing that the arduino Megas should be chepaer since they just announced the new 32 bit ones.by Anthong Redbeard - General
In firmware you can also tell it you have min limits and not to go below them, but I agree with the multiple solution in skeinforge.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I have a 1.2 RAMPS. I think I managed to short the resistor current to the thermistor. now, even without a thermistor plugged in it reads 30C Does anyone have an idea what this would be? Arduino or RAMPS (Hopefully RAMPS) I see a components for each thermistor on the board, if I borke that 1 component would it make sense to get the results I have? thanks, -Anthongby Anthong Redbeard - General
The only good thing I found with ABS is the heat resistance, works well for the filament drive block on the printer. Most other parts on or off the printer seem to be better in PLA, I haven't tried soft pla yet.by Anthong Redbeard - General
OR you could buy or build an adapter plat that matches up to the ld holes and the arcol ones. I suggest getting the new extruder block.by Anthong Redbeard - General
thanks, it ended up being the set screw on the pulley. I looked at it before but it was a very light slip at a specific angle . Everything is looking much nicer now. I'm considering flooding that set screw with locktite so it can't happen againby Anthong Redbeard - General
they have been overwhelmed since forever, if it's anything like my experience and that of others it probably hasnt shipped yet. it tooke me about 2 months to get mys tuff and people said i shouldnt even complain because they all waited longer.by Anthong Redbeard - General