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General discussions. For specific printers / electronics / fabrication methods / softwares, please see other sections.
Re: microstepping / layer height relationship - 11 years ago
brnrd Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I see that slicer generates g-codes with three > decimal places for the x, y and z moves. So, even > if it makes a difference, I don't think this would > accomplish your goal of making the layer thickness > a multiple of the z step. But, what is the > evidence that it really makes a difference to make > thby ttsalo - General
Re: SCAD - 11 years ago
Dirty Steve Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I do not like SCAD generated stl files at all. > I've had to clean, patch, and modify EVERY SCAD > file I've pulled off of Thingiverse. > > The geometry triangulation is HORRIBLE! > > I wanted a tapered shoulder on this gear, just > about had to rebuild the entire mesh in 3ds Max. Why would youby ttsalo - General
Re: layer height - big cude - 11 years ago
brnrd Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If he doesn't have a fan, he can improve the > quality of the small cube by turning on the cool > option in slic3r with the option to slow down the > print to a minimum of 20-40s per layer. This can cause the radiated heat from the hot-end to melt the object since it stays right over it all the time. Insulating thby ttsalo - General
Re: PLA and ABS vs food safety? - 11 years ago
crispy1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you print a PLA cup or plate, sure it is safe > for use once. But then you need to throw it away > because things will grow in it. And with PLA, you > can't heat it up enough to steam sterilize it, > because it will turn to goop. What's your basis in saying that every printed object has too many voids anby ttsalo - General
Re: PLA and ABS vs food safety? - 11 years ago
crispy1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Nothing printed with a FFF printer is food safe, > because there are small voids in the part (even at > 100% infill) where bacteria can grow. These voids > will not be cleaned out by running the object > through the dishwasher either. > > This is why you see almost no cups, plates, or > other food iby ttsalo - General
Re: Arcol.hu V4 hot end. Any reviews? - 11 years ago
Sniper4395 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The instructions suggest it has a PTFE tube > inside. That will melt at high temps. Perhaps the > earlier version does not have one? The PTFE tube is in the cold side. It doesn't limit the temperature. The Arcol V4 comes with a plywood groove mount plate with the 50 mm bolt pattern which fits into (almost) allby ttsalo - General
Re: Printing in Polystyrene - 11 years ago
According this table it has a shrinkage factor comparable to ABS, so if it sticks to the usual print bed materials, it should be printable. But I think ABS better in almost every way, I wouldn't use PS unless there was a big difference in price in favor of PS... Edit: I bet it smells horrible too, being pure styrene...by ttsalo - General
Re: Which one of these features is making my extruder a complete piece of uselessness??? - 11 years ago
avayan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What else can I be doing wrong??? I am puzzled! > Have been working for two days straight and am > about to throw the towel on this design and start > from scratch. If there is an easy fixer upper I > would truly welcome it. Thanks for any input! There needs to be a quite sharp transition, heat-wise, from theby ttsalo - Mechanics
Re: 1.8 deg/step vs 0.9 deg/step - noticable difference? - 11 years ago
Olestra Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > unless I bleeped up the math, I think I'll have no > problems using a .9 degree stepper with 1/16th > microstepping. There's another factor and that is the maximum step rate. The step pulses are generated by the microcontroller one by one and while I'm not sure about the maximum rate, I think its something like 350by ttsalo - Mechanics
Re: Gada Prize Still Alive? - 11 years ago
None of the requirements is out of reach by itself, but there's a ton of them and the combination is very challenging. For example, the combination of the maximum power consumption and the large print area means that it must print on a cold print bed. As far as I know, PLA is the only material that can be usefully printed on a cold bed. So the first hurdle has been placed even before any of theby ttsalo - Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize
Re: Cure for Whole Frame Flexing Across X-Axis? - 11 years ago
I (mostly) fixed the frame X-stiffness by bolting in a thick electronics mounting plate, like this: detail viewby ttsalo - General Mendel Topics
Re: Printer slows down around tight bends, with blobbing as a result... - 11 years ago
Two possible reasons: Using a firmware which stops at every corner before accelerating to a new direction. This can be slow on circular shapes made out of short straight segments. Change to use Marlin firmware. Or printing an object which has an unnecessarily large number of polygons, which causes the printer to run out of commands when printing the tight shape. Raise the communication speed orby ttsalo - Printing
Re: Compatable Firmware? - 11 years ago
Well, it did for me, running Marlin with version string "1.0.0" (no RC2).by ttsalo - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Re: Anyone developing a laser welding system? - 11 years ago
Nagle Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > After seeing a few extrusion-type 3D printers at > Techshop (an "Up" and two MakerBots) produce > inconsistent results and weak bonds between layers > and strands, it strikes me that there's something > fundamentally wrong here. This is a welding > process. The extruded strand is being welded to > the prevby ttsalo - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Re: Arcol.hu V4 hot end. Any reviews? - 11 years ago
It works well, but be SUPER careful with the heat break tube. I have already broken two. One was busted when I was making a full bed print and the head apparently hit a raised corner or something at full travel speed. I have been using Z lift after that. The other one I broke when tightening it while hot (tends to leak a little between it and the nozzle if only tightened while cold) and my tool sby ttsalo - General
Re: New Filaments - Heavy Weight, Rubbery, Conductive, Semi-conductive - 11 years ago
You can buy elastic, extrudable filament right now from Orbi-Tech. It's called TPE (thermoplastic elastomer). It's just somewhat tricky to extrude, being elastic and all that... likes to make a pretzel after the driver bolt if there's any extra empty space there (which most extruder designs have.) But it works rather nicely if you can just get it pushed through the extruder.by ttsalo - General
Re: The next generation of the Reprap concept - 11 years ago
Mill-Printer hybrid machine is a somewhat popular concept for the next generation, but the taskloads are just so vastly different (milling: slow speeds, heavy loads from the cutting forces, very stable fixtures for the workpiece needed, printing: fast movement, no opposing force from the work, smooth and heated build platform needed) that any such machine would be an inferior compromise comparedby ttsalo - General
Re: New 3D Printer Design: Arm-based, able to make electronics full auto - 11 years ago
daveycrocket Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 2) I could use some advice on the design in case > I'm making glaring mistakes. I've done the math, > and assuming my tolerances are good and it doesn't > bend a lot, I can achieve the same precision and > better than a regular XYZ stage 3D printer. > > Here is the design. (attached image) The liby ttsalo - General
Re: Who Has Built an Ecksbot? 
It looks CLEAN - 11 years ago
Sadly it doesn't fix the most serious flaw, which is that the frame is stiff exactly in the direction it doesn't need to be (Y) and flexible in the direction it needs to be stiff (X)...by ttsalo - General
Re: Printable parallel SCARA - 11 years ago
theodleif Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That sounds clever, but it means you have to > interrupt the printing for quite a while each time > you want to move the z axis. That could lead to an > ooze problem. Yes... but if you really wanted to print with just three motors total, it just might work... I did some simulating in OpenSCAD and the reach anby ttsalo - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms
Re: nichrome heated bed - 11 years ago
dave584 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I am a little unsure of a few things regarding the > nichrome heated bed. > Its the electrical side which I am not familiar > with, I have used a calculator program to work out > what wire I need. > I was planning on doing 8 rows of nichrome making > my length required 215cm (my build platform is > 29by ttsalo - General
Re: Screw drive for X and Y axis - 11 years ago
jamesdanielv Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There are issues with reprap firmware and micro > pauses that cause it to be unsuitable for threaded > rod systems, and even for acme drive systems. What micro pauses? I have a CNC mill conversion (with threaded rods) running with reprap firmware and have not seen any issues like that.by ttsalo - General
Re: BiBONE - open source big 3D printer - 11 years ago
So, how many things bigger than 200x200mm have you printed? How did they turn out?by ttsalo - General New Machines Topics
Re: Printable parallel SCARA - 11 years ago
Thanks, Viktor, for the earlier link about the Micro-SCARA robot, that's where I got the concept from. martinprice2004 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Excellent design. It looks like you may benefit > from having the motors / harmonic drives spaced > slightly further apart as this would improve > stability a little and avoid the arm elbows > invertby ttsalo - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms
Printable parallel SCARA - 11 years ago
Just got my parallel SCARA moving for the first time: Parallel SCARA prototype It's fully printable except for the 608 and 624 bearings and M8 and M4 fasteners. (And NEMA17 motors and electronics, of course.) The things below the motors are printed harmonic drive units with 1/22 reduction ratio. The movement in the video happens at 100 degrees/sec velocity and 1000 degrees/sec*sec acceleration.by ttsalo - Polar Machines, SCARA, Robot Arms
Re: Newbie Question 1 - Pulleys & Belt importance - 11 years ago
Sublime Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes the T series belt have a lot of backlash in > the teeth where as the GT2's are designed to have > little to no backlash. You can find both "zero backlash" and "with backlash" pulleys for T2.5 belts from the manufacturers' catalogs. So when building a RepRap, it would be important to ensure that you have "zero bby ttsalo - General
Re: New - Makerbot Replicator 2 - 11 years ago
thejollygrimreaper Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > stl has a capability to definedemensions down to > 0.001 of a Millimetre if your scale is 1:1, > this is the scale pretty much every piece of cam > software defualts to anyway, > > the down side is you don't have things like > layers, you don't have text... boo hoo No, the really big downby ttsalo - General
Re: Slic3r 0.9.2 woes - 11 years ago
Only problem I have encountered in 0.9.1 is the crash when deleting objects one by one, and that's easy to work around (just don't do that). In every other respect it's working really well and producing better quality objects than 0.7 or 0.8 versions ever did.by ttsalo - General
Re: Design question relating to fillets. - 11 years ago
I had a fairly similar problem. I wanted to create a 3D model of a Kort nozzle but the best data I found was this cross-section: (open in a new tab if necessary) This actually has the fillets defined exactly, but the rest of the curves are not. I tried to figure out how to digitize this from just the numeric data, but eventually I just took the GIF, loaded it into Inkscape and handcrafted a spby ttsalo - General
Re: Compatable Firmware? - 11 years ago
I didn't need to do anything except set the TEMP_SENSOR defines to 0 (not used) in the Configuration.h file.by ttsalo - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping