I've printed PLA on glass, glass with kapton, and ABS on kapton with ABS paste. PLA on glass works perfectly - 60 degrees. Never clean the glass with nail varnish remover. I learnt the hard way - it has oils in it. I now print on Kapton on glass purely because I previously printed ABS on it so it was easier to leave on. I get great adhesion, easy removal, and I just give it a quick squirt of isby Dodgey99 - General
:-) Good luck. I found previewing the layer by layer construction on Pronterface enables you to see how slic3r has decided to create the support material before you print (I print direct from SD so don't usually use pronterface but it's a great preview tool too)by Dodgey99 - General
Did my 1st print that required quite a lot of support - Lots of overhangs. I installed the latest slic3r as it claims to have better support material management. It certainly does. I set it at 5mm pattern spacing, with rectilinear pattern. The support material snapped off with no effort and left no mess behind. I was also surprised that Slic3r 1.1.2 didn't put any support material in tby Dodgey99 - General
Yep - mine homes with the z switch in the middle of the bed.by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
None. Well, if you "do a G29" from the Smart controller - your G29 has to be in your gcode file - inserted there by your slicing software, or inserted manually yourself. I don't have a G29 option on my LCD. When you do a G29 in pronterface, it's the same thing - it's just sending G29 to your Arduino/Ramps board. In slic3r I have it set to add G29 after a home, on every print. Then I put the gcoby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
I've never had to power cycle and arduino after uploading a sketch to it ( flashing the firmware). My full graphic lcd refreshes as the arduino resets itself after an upload. No need to power cycle.by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Are you taking the servo power from the Ramps/Arudino board? If so - it's not enough. I use either my laptop plugged into the usb to provide enough power, or a separate 5v regulator. The servo is most unreliable using just the board's 5vby Dodgey99 - General
I started with the J-Head Mkv 0.35mm on my i3. It worked well at 1st, then it started to clog. During a clean out I ruined the nozzle, which meant a £12 replacement aluminium hot end. As well as repairing it, I replaced it with a E3D head with a .4mm nozzle. I did this as I wanted easy-to-change nozzles. It has printed flawlessly and not blocked once since purchase. I now have a perfectly goodby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
I've just set mine up and it doesn't raise the Z axis before raising the servo. I assume the programmers assumed it would not be needed. Do you have a particularly big microswitch ? If you look at mine you can see I removed the switch lever so it hits really flat, but it's still not a problem when it retracts.by Dodgey99 - General
Loving the Auto Levelling. It makes printing so much less hassle.by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Indeed. It's been working great for a while now. Got one small Y axis slip when I pushed my luck and dialled the speed up by 10%. Backed the accell off to 800 now and all seems good. Again, it was on a very tight zig zag .by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Ok - played some more. My printer is MUCH happier running a slower Accel. I've bumped it from 500 to 1000 now (X and Y - X was ok but I figure it's better they match) and it's still good but much faster. The new accell figure has stopped all the violent jerking about and general roughness. I'll slowly increase the accel and see where it leads me but this seems to be the culprit of my problems.by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Here you go: Video link at 36s it seems to speed up. Notice how much faster the next perimeter is. I am now starting to wonder if that perimeter is perhaps the 1st that isn't technically an overhang and hence it speeds up. (it's an odd shape so most of the perimeters have at least some overhang). I'm going to slowly ramp accell up until it breaks. I'm suspecting now that I've just basicallyby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Yep - filmed it - will take a while to edit and upload. It speeds up the whole print process just as it reaches the problem layers. I've reduce the accel from 9000 on x and y to 500. It slows it down a lot, and I can hear it accelerating, particularly when it's homing, but it's printing successfully. I can't hep feeling that just reducing the accel is the answer - why does it speed up mid-job?by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Thanks...... - it's getting odder - I've been trying lots, and watching each time, and I've noticed - on this particular print, the printer most certainly speeds up just before the problem starts.. always in the same place.... huh? What would cause it to speed up? Must be in the Gcode?by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Anyone know in which direction and what increments to adjust my Z offset for fine tuning? Auto level is working great. Just need to lower the head by a fraction. At 1st it printed the 1st layer as a smear, as I like it, but as the phyiscal bits settled in it now lays a round line so I want to bring the head down a touch without messing around too much. My Z offset is 3.40 (well, -3.40 in the codby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
No suggestions after seeing the video? I'm going to perhaps play with acceleration next ....by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Ok - here we go - any ideas? Video link below. I'm going to stick with one object as it produces the fault reliably and fairly early on in the print. Many other prints of objects are fine. I've got it to print 100% OK with zero infill. I now tried rectingular - and it happened again. The infill doesn't seem to be the problem alone. It happens when there is a combination of infill and also othby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Hmmmm - I've just watched it happen again. It's not belt tension. And I think it is related to gap fill, but more to infill "shake" - particularly with honeycombe infill. I am running a print with 10% infill, honeycombe. it jumps/slips in teh same place each time. I slowed infill down to 40 as a test. That indeed slowed the infill down... until... it gets to layers that have more detail on theby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
...not much to see = a belt vibrating wildly, then the occasional sound of a tooth slipping. Belt tightened and gap fill slowed and all is ok. I think either fix would have worked, but I did both at the same time and not only do the prints come out good now, the printer doesn't vibrate itself across the table!by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
I've been plagued with Y axis drift / shift. On the occasional , specific print job, part way through the print would be off by a mm or two in the Y direction - front to back. So I'd get a stepped print. Maybe one step, maybe several. I've tried tuning the stepper driver, tightening the Y axis belt, checking no wires were jamming the Y carrier, lubricating the bearings. Nothing worked. Today Iby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Clean the splines on your hobbed bolt, feed fresh pla in, and slowly extrude small mounts until it clears. If that doesn't work then take apart the hot end and soak the nozzle in acetone for a good 24 hours then try again. After this happened twice I ditched my aluminium headed J head mk v and switched to a brass tipped E3D head and have had no problems since.by Dodgey99 - Printing
Btw - if you are having problems de-soldering that (mess :-) ) - you are using too small a soldering iron. You need around a 40 Watt iron for that job. A 40W will have the wires off in a second. No need to remove the solder. I struggled for years with just a 12w small iron. The day I bought a 40W for larger jobs I realised I'd suffered for years for no reason! I use both the 12w and 40w a lot. Iby Dodgey99 - General
I had to apply pressure to make all 4 feet flat and at the same time tighten the bolts.by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Regarding the PSU. My i3 has never used over 11 amps at 14 volts with both heaters on and printing, with 2 fans going 100%by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
You can't use an Uno. You need a Mega. Your list: (sorry it's in £) Hot end - all prices. Ebay J-Head is £25, E3D is £55 direct (just ordered one!) Motors are expensive. I'd expect to pay no more than £10 each for 5 I'd consider buying all your electrics in one go. I bought this: There will be an EU equivalent. It came with everything and saved a lot of little orders and messing around. (Havby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
I have the same motors and they are fine. - definitely check you have 3 jumpers under each stepper driver board. Without them the motors will struggle. - When above is ok, check your PC power supply as stated above - it might need an inline resistor / LEDs in the 5v side. Take a big step back. You should not even be trying to heat or run the extruder until you have the X Y and Z axis moving proby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
I had power supply problems with the heated bed. I was using a "12Amp" power supply. Printing was fine, but when I switched on the Heated bed, it would immediately switch back off (even with the hot end off). Then after many tries, the HB would cause the whole thing to power down (inc. ramps). Then I found I could heat the hot end, then switch on the HB and the HB would work (with VERY hot yelby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
Hey - before I delve into auto bed levelling - is there an easy way to add it to the menu on the LCD? (I use a Sainsmart full graphics LCD).by Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics
I've got a Wade's accessible hinged extruder. I've also got a J-Head MK V. The J-Head is inserted directly into the hole in the bottom of the extruder, and is secured by two screws that go through the extruder and lock it into place via it's groove. Fine. The only "catch" is that this leaves only 30mm of PEEK exposed, which makes fitting a PEEK cooling fan quite a challenge. Every time I lookby Dodgey99 - General Mendel Topics