Quoterhmorrison The filament holder looks familiar! Yes, that one I downloaded from Thingiverse. It works great!by EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
Yes, I'll attach the STL files. You need two each of the right and left parts. The back ones are the same as the front ones. You will need 8 of the caps to bolt it down. I believe I used M3 cap screws the attach the caps to the legs.by EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I found the issue. I had to choose motherboard type 33 instead of 35.by EmailGuy - RAMPS Electronics
I did some more research and found pictures of how the MOSFETs are supposed to be soldered to the board. My MOSFETs look correct. I then did some measurements to see if I thought the hotend MOSFET was bad. When I use a meter to measure the voltage on the gate of the MOSFET, it only reads 100 mv. I would have expected it to read around 5 V as it should be trying to turn the MOSFET on full to heatby EmailGuy - RAMPS Electronics
I just replaced my Gen6 electronics with a RAMPS setup. I have everything except the heater for the hotend working. My X, Y, Z, and E all move in the correct directions and the correct amount of travel. My termistor reads the correct temperature. I checked the voltages from gound to the + and - sides of the D8 connector. They both read around 12 V with the heater on or off, makes no difference.by EmailGuy - RAMPS Electronics
I don't see a VREF test pad on my A4983 drivers. Does anyone know how to find the proper place to measure the voltage?by EmailGuy - RAMPS Electronics
What is the setting for the xy jerk? If you search on xy jerk setting you will find threads that show how this setting affects prints. There were sample pictures where curves greatly improved when they increased the xy jerk setting.by EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
Have you ever wanted your Mendel to be a single unit that you could easily move? I built a stand for mine and mounted the power supply and electronics below the bed. Now it takes up less desk space, I can easily pick it and and move it, and it looks more professional. Let me know what you think.by EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I'm thinking of building another 3D printer to print larger items and add the capability of printing ABS. My current Mendel cannot print ABS (needs new heated bed and electronics to go above 60C). The MendelMax 2 looks really nice. For printing ABS they recommend the all metal E3D hotend. Does that hotend also work well for PLA? I have heard rumors that it doesn't work as well as the j-Head stylby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I tried a couple of test prints with ABS and I cannot get them to stick to the bed. My Mendel is very old and the heated bed uses four 1 Ohm resistors in series with a 12v power supply. So that means I'll get 3 amps at 12 volts for a total of 36 watts. It heats up to 60C plus of minus a couple of degrees. I use Kapton tape over glass on top of the aluminum plate. So without upgrading my bed to aby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
What do people recommend to print replacement or upgrade parts for an original Mendel? So far I've only printed in PLA because my heated bed only heats up to about 60 C. I *may* be able to print in ABS, but I'll likely have issues because the bed doesn't get hot enough. I've read that PLA is stiffer and stronger than ABS. For many parts that is an advantage. My only concern is parts near the hoby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I've basically given up on slic3r. I now use Cura and it works much better. With slic3r I had to use older versions to get support to work and newer version to get other parts to work correctly. Since the ini files are stored in a common path, I couldn't have different version setup at the same time.by EmailGuy - Slic3r
I backed up my settings for slic3r 1.1.7, removed it, and installed slic3r 0.9.10b and used the default settings (other than my filament specifics). It didn't bridge a gap that large either. Then I enabled support material and it actually worked. It supported the middle pretty well and I was able to break away the support material with a small flat blade screwdriver. For now I'll stick with the oby EmailGuy - Slic3r
The part I'm really trying to print is the Wade's Geared extruder body. I measured the cavity on the bottom side for a bearing at 22 MM in diameter. The whole part is pretty large and I don't want to waste the time and material to print it many times until it works correctly. My first attempt without support material looked great for all the other surfaces except that one cavity on the bottom. Tby EmailGuy - Slic3r
Yes, my Z max speed was too high. I lowered that and the acceleration rate and it's printing pretty nice now.by EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I'm trying to understand how to use support material for overhangs. I created a simple hollow cube with a ledge in the center. I enabled creating support material and it generated some really weird material. I had hoped it would be easy to snap off the support material and have a well formed part.I was not so lucky. The material was hard to break off and left a very uneven underside on the insideby EmailGuy - Slic3r
I have my printer working pretty well except for one issue. My prints come out about 90% the height they should. I've checked my Z axis calibration. I measured the height of the carriage off the print bed, then sent a command to raise it 80 MM and then checked that it moved exactly 80 MM. I also checked the calibration of my extruder by placing a post-it note on the filament, sending a command tby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I have a couple of sheets of glass covered with Kapton tape and they work great for PLA. I clean them with acetone and heat them to 60C. Things stick so well I have to let it cool to be able to pry the parts off. I believe using acetone to clean them makes all the difference.by EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
Here is an update. I went and purchased a roll of 3 MM PLA and tried it out. The first couple of prints came out great. Then I started to have issues. I realized that my Kapton tape was getting ragged. The previous owner of this printer covered the thick aluminum bed with lots of thin strips of Kapton tape. After printing many parts and cleaning with acetone, the seams were getting rough and caby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I had shifts on my Mendel until I lowered the acceleration settings. Send an M501 command and paste the resulting display here. What was happening was the motors cannot start and stop as fast as the firmware was trying to move them. I'm using a 250 watt ATX power supply for my electronics and steppers and a separate 72 watt power supply for the heater and it works fine. You also want to makeby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
So I managed to take my extruder completely apart and clear out the jam. Here is what I did. - Removed Kaptan tape - Removed Thermistor - Removed heater resistor - Unscrewed brass nozzle from PEEK - Found a glob of PLA up in red tubing in the cold end of the extruder. It probably got lodged there when I tried to change filament. I was able to clear the glob of PLA by pushing it out the tby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I bought a used Mendel, so I'm not sure what all the parts are that are in it. I'll attach a picture of the extruder and hotend. The extruder looks like a Wade's geared extruder. The hotend appears similar to the J-Head MK V-B. Its square brass about 13 MM x 13 MM. I don't know the size of the opening in the nozzle. I see common sizes appear to be .5, .35, and .25 MM. I have issues with the nozby EmailGuy - General Mendel Topics
I changed my extrusion width to .59 and made one pretty decent print. Now I seem to be having a problem with my nozzle clogging up. After I can figure that out, I'll try again. I think setting the width manually was a big part of my issues. It appears slic3r wasn't calculating it correctly when left to the default of zero.by EmailGuy - Slic3r
I completely uninstalled the 1.0.0RC2 version of slic3r and installed the 0.9.9 version. I deleted the configuration files so that it would go through the first time setup wizard again. I sliced the corrected model that QuackingPlums uploaded and I still have the same issues. No matter what I set the numbers to for the solid top and bottom layers, it only does one layer. I selected concentric foby EmailGuy - Slic3r
I'm using the latest version I found (1.0.0RC2). I'll look for 0.9.9 and try that. Now I get an error whenever I load an object. See the attached screenshot.by EmailGuy - Slic3r
I increased the solid top layers from the default of 3 to 5 and it didn't make a difference. It actually works fine with STL files I download from thingiverse. It messed up with the STL I created in FreeCAD and the one QuackingPlums created in OpenSCADby EmailGuy - Slic3r
The default for those are all set to zero. When I look at the default print profile, under advanced, extrusion width, the only non-zero value is the first layer setting. It defaults to 200%. I actually changed that to 0 since I didn't want a super thick first layer. I have not made any changes directly to the ini file. I simply took the default settings and made a couple of changes. Here is whatby EmailGuy - Slic3r
I tried that model. It seemed to have a bottom, but no solid top layers. When I look at my print closely with a magnifying glass, the diagonal strands have gaps between them that is wider than the strands. It looks like the top layer is about 40% instead of 100%. I'll export my slic3r config and attach it as a text file. I do actually think the issue is the model, not slic3r. I've downloaded a cby EmailGuy - Slic3r
I'm pretty new to 3D printing but I'm making progress. I have my printer setup and printing pretty well, but I have one issue. When I create an object in FreeCAD, export it to an STL, slice it with slic3r, and print it, the top and bottom layers are not solid, they are the infill pattern. The attached CAD picture is what I expected the part to look like. The other picture is what I got. You canby EmailGuy - Slic3r
I found another thread that had examples of how to change the stepper settings using M commands through pronterface. That is much easier than flashing new firmware. For example, I can change the steps for the Z axis with these commands: M92 Z1234.56 M500 The M92 command would set the steps for the Z axis to 1234.56 and the M500 command saves those settings. Using the M501 command it displays tby EmailGuy - Printing