Thanks for the insight Ekaggrat. My diy hotend is just a stainless steel tube (1.98mm ID) soldered into a brass nozzle directly. Would be challenging and defeating the simplicity by adding a PTFE sleeve. I'm hoping polishing would make it a general purpose hotend which could print many materials.by ThanhTran - Reprappers
I'm so glad I found this thread. My home made all metal hotend has been working fine with ABS for the last 2 years until I decide to switch to PLA. It keeps jamming with PLA and I had no idea why. Googling and reading posts suggested polishing. So that's how I came here. Thanks very much for the suggestions folks. I will try polishing and hopefully can have my hot end working with PLA -Thanhby ThanhTran - Reprappers
I've been using Replicator G with my home built & customized printRBot. I used the machine "Klimentkip" in ReplicatorG to talk to Marlin firmware on a Sanguino board. I also had used this same replicatorG and Sanguino board on a repstrap to print the parts for printRbot.by ThanhTran - Reprappers
If the SSR is like these: it won't work with DC voltage on the output (the high voltage side). Basically it will stay close and will overheat whatever you control. These SSR's only work with AC on the high voltage sideby ThanhTran - Reprappers
I didn't have any problem with Kapton tape that I bought from dx.com. It seems to me that it sticks better when the tape is new. I always avoid sticking my finger on it. If I do, I just use acetone to clean it. I tried ABS / acetone juice on a piece of glass from a photo frame, and I then abandon the Kapton tape all together. I don't have to replace tape any more. Parts are easier to remove toby ThanhTran - General
I also have to change the slicer so that it doesn't put gcodes that go home before it starts the printby ThanhTran - Reprappers
I don't use end stop. I just set up the software do that it always prints from zero. And I just move the head to the middle of the table and center the print part at zero before I slice it and print it. So my zero is always where the head is after I reset the boardby ThanhTran - Reprappers
Which one is your SSR?by ThanhTran - Reprappers
wild guess here, but are you using the same temperature sensor same heater block and same controller with the newer hot ends? What I'm getting at is that the core melt chamber may actually be at different temperature compared to what you have had with the original hot endby ThanhTran - General
I use ABS juice in glass for the first time using the glass. After then I realized I didn't have to re-apply the juice again for each print. It seems to stick very well even without the juice. Maybe it just needs the acetone in the juice to clean the surfaceby ThanhTran - Reprappers
Could it be that the extruder stepper motor missing steps?by ThanhTran - General
I've never printed with black ABS. I printed with green & natural ABS. When I increase temperature from 210 to 230, I see significantly stronger bonding between layer. I could be wrong, but you might have wrong temperature reading or maybe your fan is making it too cool. That might explain why your bottom layers are bonding stronger than the higher layers.by ThanhTran - General
My new hit end seems working fine with PLA so far. Thanks for the helps I've gotten. But my PLA prints keepchanging colors. The filament is ppurple, but it looks like the attached photo. Does that look like I have too much water in the filament? Do I need to cook my PLA filament to dry it? Thanksby ThanhTran - General
Thanks for sharing your experience. I use the PID with Thermocouple temperature control from Ebay to control my hot end and heated bed. The temperature seems to agree with a infrared temperature and another thermo couple reader. I then stick the regular 100K thermistor that everyone is using to my hotend just to see a graph from the GUI, and I can see the temperature reported by Marlin is not alby ThanhTran - General
Thanks for the info UGen. Keep us posted. I'm also interested in using Nylon I bought a big plate of Garolite from MCmastercarr for pretty cheap, but I don't know if I bought the right kind or not. Thanhby ThanhTran - General
I'm wondering if you heat the surface up it would be easier to remove the object (kind of like using a heat gun to peel of stamp, tapes, envelope, etc. I'm also looking at using this Nylon filament. From the look of this, I imagine the base of the object won't look pretty like those ABS objects printed on kapton tape or glass surfaces.by ThanhTran - General
I built quadcopter frame out of wood, G10, before. I finished building a printRBot thinking using it for quad/tricopter too. Have not had time to get back to RC yet because the printer and its working become a new hobby that takes quite some time. So be prepare that you would be away from RC for sometimes .by ThanhTran - General
What is the length of gap that people are using in their all-metal hot ends? Thanksby ThanhTran - General
Hi Billy, Thanks very much for the response. I was trying to reduce the lost of heat which results in inefficiency in power usage. My heat sink can slide up and down and thus I can adjust the gap. I was testing it with 4.22mm last night. Didn't work well. Just now I reduce the gap to 3mm, and it makes quite a difference. I can now actually make some small back & forth movement and can stilby ThanhTran - General
I just built this hotend following your advice here. It has problem with PLA extrusion, I need help Thanks -Thanhby ThanhTran - General
Hi everyone I followed the design here: to make my own all metal hot end. 1.95mm hypodermic tubes and heat sink: Assembled hot end with nozzle off: Nozzle assembled: I'm trying to extrude PLA at 200*C and it has this problem: after I simulate the back and froth movement of the fillament, the filament would build up in the tube near the transition section between the hot and cold area of tby ThanhTran - General
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The idea of registering a homemade 3d printer is ridiculous. I don't need a 3d printer to make a much safer plastic gun and not detectable by metal detector The Boston bomber was using pressure cooker and killed and injure a lot of people more than a real gun could. So are we going to register pressure cooker too?by ThanhTran - General
Thanks for the response and the info. -thanhby ThanhTran - General
Maybe you can start putting some designs or codes that would generate parts that people can use for their rep-rap / 3d printer. That would attract people to your site.by ThanhTran - General
Really nice. Totally out of topic question here: what do you use for the back end server? Is it .net, php, Ruby, etc.? I'm slowly get back to web / server development and thus I'm curious. Thanks -Thanhby ThanhTran - General
I'm not sure what the original firmware you mention is. I download Marlin, modify it, and put it onto a Sanguino which controls my printRbot. I use a Chinese 4 axis TB6560 stepper driver board with 16v power supply to drive all the motors. Currently I run at 70mm/s. I think it can run faster because I've manually push up the speed by 130%, and it didn't have any missing steps. The reason I useby ThanhTran - General
I did open a stepper motor once and I could feel big difference in the resistance when spinning the motor shaft by hand. Before I open it, I could feel the cog of each step when I spin the shaft with my fingers. After opening and reassembling the motor back (though I didn't put any metal thing near the rotor) the shaft can be spin almost freely like nothing holding it back. I thought somethingby ThanhTran - General
I use 500 acceleration in my printrbot. It improves the look significantly when I print at 70mm/s.by ThanhTran - General
I have a small CNC machine. So naturally I added an extruder and hot end and made it a 3D printer thinking I will use it only to save real estates and cost. But then I just printed parts to make a dedicated reprap instead. The reprap machine can print a lot quicker and much quieter. The noise from my small CNC machine can be heard even at the top floor of a 3 story home when it has to run fast,by ThanhTran - General