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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: Cheap, Low Vitamin Count Single Rail Linear Guide - 11 years ago
In my experience both PA and PET need to dried to produce acceptable prints. On the other hand PC hasn't needed any drying even though some people have claimed that it does. I have some 1 year old PC that has been sitting around, never dried, and it still extrudes 100% clear.by ttsalo - General
Re: Cheap, Low Vitamin Count Single Rail Linear Guide - 11 years ago
plastic2print.com recently introduced some new filaments, PET was one of these and I bought a small roll of it. My first test print contained a lot of bubbles from the absorbed moisture (PET is apparently very moisture-sensitive) and unfortunately, when drying the filament after this, I accidentally overheated it and the whole roll melted together. (Oh, bugger.) Now, for some reason, this plasticby ttsalo - General
Re: yeggi - search engine for 3d models - presentation - 11 years ago
sedaka Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The search works with the "and" operator. The > first step is to search absolutly exact, then > stemmed exact and so on.....the last try ist to > search absolutly broad (and/or). We are thinking > about how to show this information in the results > for a better understanding. Could you clarify how exactly tby ttsalo - Developers
Re: yeggi - search engine for 3d models - presentation - 11 years ago
Is there any way to search with AND criteria? For example, I was searching for accessories to ipod classic. Searching for "ipod" gives 120 results. Searching for "ipod classic" returns everything with ipod OR classic in the description, a total of 360, many of which are not related to ipods in any way. I couldn't figure out any way to do an AND search.by ttsalo - Developers
Re: Dreaming of a Static Motor Arrangement and Less Vitamins - 11 years ago
Googled a bit and and I bet this could be printed: Rigid chain actuator Together with Sarrus linkages or similar this could allow printing a Z movement mechanism which goes really flat in the lowest position. BTW, the arm actuators in the SCARA design are harmonic drives, not planetary gears.by ttsalo - Developers
Re: Dreaming of a Static Motor Arrangement and Less Vitamins - 11 years ago
I designed this low vitamin parallel SCARA printer a while back. The current version looks about the same, but it has a printed frame and a bowden extruder. It's not really ready for prime time, the periodic errors in the drive mechanism, with worst case amplitude of almost 1 mm in xy, make it currently a curiosity instead of a general use printer. The sources for the latest stable version areby ttsalo - Developers
Re: Using brass bushings to get power to heated bed? - 11 years ago
You could also get cable that is actually rated for the number of expected bend cycles. I think I have some rated for 1 or 1.5 million bends somewhere, but of course I forgot to dig that up when I was last wiring a heated bed...by ttsalo - General
Re: Printing with nylon - 11 years ago
From reading the other threads it sounds like the only surefire way is to use Garolite or similar material as the printing surface. I had about three meters of the 618 nylon I got as a sample and tried printing on blue masking tape (with and without glue stick treatment) at 50, 60 and 70 C bed temps yesterday and it didn't work worth a damn. The tape's adhesion to bed was just too weak. This wasby ttsalo - General
Re: Comments on polycarbonate? - 11 years ago
I have printed PC on both PET and Kapton tape (on top of aluminium plate), wiped with dilute ABS juice and heated to 120-140 C. It doesn't stick as well as ABS does, but it's good enough for printing medium size parts like the X carriage with no warping. For anything with sharp corners, using a brim is a good idea, it helps a lot with localized stresses in the corners.by ttsalo - General
Re: Comments on polycarbonate? - 11 years ago
I'm close to finishing the 2.5kg roll of PC I bought from Orbi-Tech about a year ago. Most of it printed through Arcol V4, some with the E3D hot-end. It's a great material, the PC-printed extruder gears I have been using are showing no wear at all, whereas ABS gears at similar age would have shed quite a bit of their profile as white dust and developed backlash. There's no need for a heated buiby ttsalo - General
Re: Update on the E3D All Metal Hotend (Now finally shipping!) 
[Lots of pictures] - 11 years ago
Printing 0.3 layers, 0.6 track width at 75 mm/s worked without any problems. That's the highest flow I use with 0.35 or 0.4 nozzles and there were no hiccups at all. Impressive. Here's a closeup of the owl statue printed with 0.2 layers at 66% size (99 mm tall): The side of the log looks a bit uneven, but I think the inconsistency of the filament is to blame. And here's something interestingby ttsalo - General
Re: Update on the E3D All Metal Hotend (Now finally shipping!) [Lots of pictures] - 11 years ago
Got it in the mail already and printed a thing. This is an overhang test piece with cylinders tilted at 30, 40, 50 and 60 degrees, which my Arcol V4 failed to previously print from same plastic with same settings (due to massive curling up). Orbi-Tech ABS at 260 C (that ABS doesn't really seem happy at anything less than that) First impressions: + Accurate output, no visible blobbing at perimby ttsalo - General
Re: Two extruders? - 11 years ago
I just realized that you should be able to use ABS as a support material for printing polycarbonate. ABS dissolves in acetone, whereas PC doesn't. To be accurate, PC does start to look a bit sick if you leave it overnight in acetone, but it doesn't really dissolve like ABS does. And hey, Nylon is acetone-proof as well, so ABS should work as support for that too.by ttsalo - General
Re: Why the Angst about a fan on the hot end? - 11 years ago
A peltier element will just move the heat 3 mm away and add a whole bunch more on the way. Then you have all that heat still right in your print head. Not really useful unless you need to cool something below ambient. I haven't used a part cooling fan since I stopped using PLA. I think I would have more need for a part heating fan than a cooling fan, now that I'm using PC pretty often.by ttsalo - General
Re: Skipping partial perimeter and extra mid-air infills for funzies. - 11 years ago
Have you checked the Gcode with a layer-by-layer Gcode viewer? That should easily show whether the incomplete perimeters are in the Gcode or whether the printer's extrusion is just not 100% reliable. The other thing is probably the slicer enforcing the vertical thickness of the object's skin according to the solid top/bottom layer count. Does it put extra plastic where the model has slopes thatby ttsalo - General
Re: Why the moving platforms? - 11 years ago
Separate axes makes sense because an extruder with onboard NEMA17 motor weighs about the same as the build platform, so you can split the moving mass in about half and half between the axis. If you are willing to make the compromises necessary to move the motor off the extruder, then it of course makes sense to arrange the printer like Ultimaker, Tantillus or Rostock, with print bed that doesn'tby ttsalo - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Differences between types of extruders - 11 years ago
That's interesting, I thought the J-Head had particularly low back pressure, since it's lower than the others I have used (Arcol V4 and my late Mendelparts V9). The Arcol must have a really long orifice length or short melt zone then. The maximum output per second is much less than with the J-Head, but on the positive side, it also has quite a bit more accurate output than the J-Head Mk-Vb:s I haby ttsalo - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Re: Strength of Printed vs Molded - 11 years ago
You could union the truss with a hollow box to make a smooth box with truss infill, but in this application I just unioned in the necessary pieces for external attachments. Using a box shell might be useful for printing thinner trusses. When printing an open truss the bars have to be at least 3-4 mm thick, or they will cool too much and the layer bonding will become a problem. With a solid outerby ttsalo - General
Re: printers longer than 45cm? Is Rapidbot Mega my only choice? - 11 years ago
hendo420 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Plenty of blue painters tape and hair spray and > you wont see warping even on an 8' bed. Umm... no. Print a large enough piece and eventually the warping forces at the ends will exceed the inter-layer bonding strength even if your first layer is bonded to the bed with infinite strength. Snap, crackle, pop...by ttsalo - General
Re: Favorite Slicer? - 11 years ago
I have used Slic3r since it first became feasible alternative to SF. Mostly because I was fed up with slicing times of up to 45 minutes with SF. I generally haven't had problems even with versions that have been loudly disparaged as totally broken by some people, but there are two things I would really like to see addressed: Slic3r still can't put down both the perimeters and infill at the sameby ttsalo - General
Re: Openscad - curved cylinders - 11 years ago
Regular circular curved cylinders? Just rotate_extrude a circle and make a difference with slightly smaller circle, also rotate_extruded. Then cut this further with difference if you want just a 90 degree segment.by ttsalo - General
Re: Differences between types of extruders - 11 years ago
Sublime Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The retraction issue is not a > much of problem with some hotends as it is with > others. What I found was we want a high back > pressure hotend so when we retract it stops > extruding very quickly. This means a long exit > hole and medium length melt zone. Amazingly enough > though these are the charactby ttsalo - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Re: 5v fan from 12V power supply or Sanguinololu - 11 years ago
cobrageek Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is there a good place on teh Sanguinololu to pull > a steady 5V? Can it drive that much extra current > (especially if I wire the heat bed up separately > as described in another thread)? I would avoid doing this because brushless fans pull a square waveform of current and wiring such a fan directly to the saby ttsalo - General
Re: Strength of Printed vs Molded - 11 years ago
uGen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The pyramid truss infill sounds interesting. This > would be interesting for a (nearly) 100% printed > printer frame, right? > Do you have photos of printed parts? A printed printer frame is exactly what I designed it for. This looks pretty rough because I didn't want to waste time while printing it and used the faby ttsalo - General
Re: Strength of Printed vs Molded - 11 years ago
uGen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The pyramid truss infill sounds interesting. This > would be interesting for a (nearly) 100% printed > printer frame, right? > Do you have photos of printed parts? A printed printer frame is exactly what I designed it for. This looks pretty rough because I didn't want to waste time while printing it and used the faby ttsalo - General
Re: Strength of Printed vs Molded - 11 years ago
I wrote a pyramidal truss structure generation module a while ago, because the existing ones I could find weren't very good. Pyramid Space Truss I haven't done any specific tests, but a truss structure should beat infilled boxes at strength to weight ratio.by ttsalo - General
Re: Thin walled object surface finish. - 11 years ago
> I used skeinforge to slice the stl file with a > layer height if 0.3mm and layer width of 0.5mm. > The actual wall thickness of the part is 1mm. 0.3mm is still a pretty rough setting. I would retry with 0.25 or 0.2mm layer height.by ttsalo - Reprappers
Re: Cylindercal printing idea - 11 years ago
Hmm? I don't see how could work right if you just map a cartesian print onto a cylinder without some sort of correction. The rectangular layers are being stretched longer and longer as the radius increases, and if they are from a cartesian print, they will have a constant volume of extrusion per layer (if we consider printing an uniform block for example).by ttsalo - General
Re: New app-store-like website (not for everyone!) - 11 years ago
mehlmanmichael Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Good points! Unfortunately, the level of consumer > I'm aiming at won't know what to do with an .stl. Yes they will. They'll know that they can drop it into their printer (on a memory card or drag and drop onto the printer's wireless web interface), press "Print!" and the object pops out a while later. That isby ttsalo - General
Re: J-Head MK5 hard to extrude - 11 years ago
fest Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As I said- I have cleaned it thoroughly- by > heating it with propane torch until it glows- and > I'm sure there is no contamination there. It's possible for the nozzle to be partially clogged by some foreign particle that does not burn with a blowtorch... I have never had the problem with the J-Heads, but the Arcolby ttsalo - General