Show all posts by user

Re: Printing TPU (or other flexible filaments) - 1 year ago

I did wonder how the Wades extruder could handle flexible filaments and you have confirmed my concerns that compression and stretching would be a major concern. Thanks for the information. I think that I will stick to printing hard plastics with my Mendel90.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Printing TPU (or other flexible filaments) - 1 year ago

Thanks for the info. Is there any reason why you did not use one of your Mendel90 machines to print with TapU?

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Printing TPU (or other flexible filaments) - 1 year ago

Does anybody have any experience, and hints and tips, on printing with flexible filaments such as TPU? I have searched the Mendel90 forum and have not found anything. I want to make a flexible nose cone for a slope soaring model glider to absorb some of the impact stresses on a not so perfect landing. It would appear that the Mendel90 is capable of printing the material but I wondered how the Wa

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Power Issues? - 2 years ago

I am not currently running my printer but if I remember correctly I also get a slight variation in the hot end temperature during printing.I am using the stock printer except for Neil's version of Marlin, a Panelolu2, Octoprint and an E3Dv6 hot end. As the print quality does not appear to suffer from the slight variations I do not worry about it. I have more problems trying to release PETG print

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Pronterface Error Connecting to Printer - 3 years ago

You will need to supply a bit more information as to when the error message occurs to get any help.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Back after a long break - 3 years ago

As I do not have a spare printer I have a bag of spare parts that I printed a while ago "just in case".

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Print Speed - 4 years ago

That is useful but I really want to know how fast I can drive the Mendel90 stepper motors before they loose steps, burn out or the frame starts to flex with the direction changes.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Print Speed - 4 years ago

I have signed up with 3D Crowd here in the UK to print frames for Prusa RC3 face shields in PETG (which is currently in the post). When I slice the parts I get a print time of about 4 hours but other people in the 3D Crowd group are stating print times of about 1 hour! Can anybody give me some advice on how fast I can make my Dibond Mendel90 print without causing it damage or degrading the print

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Bed Levelling with a BL-Touch - 4 years ago

Although my Mendel90 does not require frequent bed levelling I do check it from time to time. This involves removing the extruder and replacing it with a dial gauge. Whilst this is not too onerous I have bought a BL-Touch probe as a project to stop having to fit the dial gauge. I realise that I could use Neil Darlow's Marlin code to enable Automatic Bed levelling but that is not what I want. I wo

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Fixing up a Mendel90 - 4 years ago

I would suggest that you download the Mendel90 manual, available here , and go through it making sure that all of the printed parts are in good order, the fixing screws are tight and that the electrical connecrtions are all making good connections. If anything is not in good condition then replace it. You will need to level the bed, set the Z-axis home height and e-steps in the software, instruc

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Printing Wade's Block - 4 years ago

Just to close this out firstly I printed the Wades Block in ABS with support which worked well but it was a pain to remove all of the support material especially in the idler roller cutout. I then printed another one using a bridging speed of 30 mm/s and running the extruder cooling fan 100% only whilst bridging. This also worked out well, in some ways better than the print with supports, and the

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Adjust Z-Height with G-code? - 4 years ago

Thanks Diemex. Just what I was looking for.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Printing Wade's Block - 4 years ago

To my surprise the Mendel90 Sturdy document section 28 advises to print the parts using a fan which would help with the bridging. I have not used my extruder fan since I started printing in ABS, I have in fact removed the extruder fan assembly, and the Wade's Block needs to be ABS as PLA would melt. I did once do a single perimeter test piece using the fan but the layer adhesion was awful. The pa

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Printing Wade's Block - 4 years ago

After many years good service my Mendel90 has got a broken mounting lug (and a cracked idler block). Although the printer still works I have decided to print a complete Wade's Extruder before it does fail. I have printed the idler block successfully but I am having problems with the Wades block. The instructions that I have say to print it without support on a 1 layer raft. I have printed it wit

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Adjust Z-Height with G-code? - 4 years ago

I need to give my Mendel90 a service as prints are not as good as they could be and the first layer is not sticking properly. When I have re-leveled the bed, I need to replace the kapton tape on the Ikea mirror tile, and found what the new Z-Height and E-Steps are is there a way to change these using g-code instead of altering the config.h file in the arduino gui and uploading it? Since I last d

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Powering Pi for Octoprint - 5 years ago

Chris, Thanks for the link to your blog. It did not come up on my Google searches but the information is just what I need.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Powering Pi for Octoprint - 5 years ago

I don't want to criticise you but I have looked at your reference and I believe that you, unfortunately, have misread the units on the power graph. The Pi 3A+ is stated as drawing 1.126W not amps. This would give a current draw at 5v of 0.2252 amps which is lower than the figure I measured but I did have the Pi camera attached but I do agree that I should leave the 10R resistor in place to a oid

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Powering Pi for Octoprint - 5 years ago

Thanks for the detailed reply. I have measured the current draw on an uncalibrated USB meter and I am getting about 0.5 amp when booting and 0.3 amp when idling which does seem enough to keep the ATX PSU running. My figures appear to be similar to those on this webpage . If an 8-20 ohm resistor is required then that would be 5/8 (0.625 amp) to 5/20 (0.25 amp) so I should be OK but as it is a bit

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Powering Pi for Octoprint - 5 years ago

I am setting up my Mendel90 with Octoprint as the SD card holder on my Panellolu2, which are hard and expensive to buy, is getting a bit flakey and the Octoprint plus Pi camera will enable me to monitor prints more easily. The Pi (a Model 3A+) needs 5v on the micro USB socket so I thought that I would power it from the ATX power supply on the printer. Whilst I can use one of the +5v Red wires tha

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Printing in bottom left of bed only - 6 years ago

Kapton tape works well for me to stick ABS to the bed and it lasts a long time. When the bed has cooled the prints either come loose by themselves or require minimum force to remove them.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Programming for Rumba? - 6 years ago

I haven't changed my board as I am happy with the Melzi but a quick Google search brings up this which appears to be a good starting point.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Skeinforge Documentation - 8 years ago

Bob, Thanks for the reply. It worked a treat. Richard

by Bearded Flyer - Skeinforge

Skeinforge Documentation - 8 years ago

When I first got my printer about 18 months ago I found the documentation at a great help. I have not visited that site for a while (about 6 months) and now when I load the page I do not get anything in the large frame where I would expect to find the main menu of Skeinforge settings although if I click on the 'View Source' tab all of the text appears to be there. I have tried different compute

by Bearded Flyer - Skeinforge

Re: Vertical play in x-ends - 9 years ago

Thanks Chris, I loosened the motors and clamps as suggested and moved the motors right with the X-axis at the bottom and the top clamps left with the axis at the top. This had taken out most of the play and a test print 150x150x0.2 thk has printed at the correct thickness both sides. I do not think that any slant of the Z-bars will be noticable as most of my prints are not very tall. Richard

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Vertical play in x-ends - 9 years ago

I have had my Mendel90 for just over a year now and it has been trouble free. Yesterday I re-taped the mirror tile and the next print had a squished first layer. I decided to check the bed for level and the Z home position. I installed my dial gauge and levelled the z-axis to the back corners of the bed. I then noticed that there was play between the left hand Z axis nut and the top of the nut tr

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Weird z-height variance - 9 years ago

Just a wild thought but could it be that the printer is not homing the Z axis the same height every time? This could happen if the limit switch was loose or worn. You could check whether the pointers on the Z axis lead screws were in the same position at the start of each print.

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Weird z-height variance - 9 years ago

Eric, Have you changed any of the start gcode script recently? At the AP meet you mentioned that you left the extruder high during bed heating so that it could warm up quicker under a cover. I use the gcode that Chris supplied where the extruder decends to first layer thickness above the bed immediatly the bed heater turns on. The extruder then starts heating when the bed is about 20 deg C below

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Weird z-height variance - 9 years ago

Quoteneildarlow As an aside, I have noticed that my initial ooze-free startup characteristic has changed recently. I used to get a small blob followed by a thin line before the fat wipe line was printed. Now I seem to get the small blob followed by nothing and a partial fat wipe line. This seems odd because,like you, I have not changed my start/end sequences. Regards, Neil Darlow I have started

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Can't Find Wades Gear stls - 9 years ago

QuoteQuackingPlums Richard, I think Terry and I will be asking for your Skeinforge profiles soon! Your welcome to them Eric but I think that slicing profiles are a bit like shoes. What fits one person perfectly can cause anther person a lot of pain! Hope to see you later this year at the AP Meet Richard

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90

Re: Can't Find Wades Gear stls - 9 years ago

I am quite pleased with these. I printed 2 large gears at once and then 3 small gears. The bolt head trap on the large gears was a bit small and required a small amount of easing but I woluld rather have it tight than lose. I think that my infill settingmay have been a bit too big which caused the infill to pushh the perimiter slightly. Richard

by Bearded Flyer - Mendel90