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Building an electronic art project? Or a software radio? Think blue LEDs are cool? Are you a circuit bender? Discuss it here.
Re: An alternative to buying a bad kit for $300-500 - 1 year ago
You could try heating up a large lump of metal up to red-hot and just touching it to the head of the screw for a few seconds - sometimes the sudden expansion and subsequent contraction can free off a screw. Maybe.by David J - General
Re: Extruder completely clogges after only seconds of use - 1 year ago
The E3D v6 doesn't like big retracts - I set mine to 2.5mm @ 40mm/sec. Any longer and you risk pulling the hot and soft filament into the cold area, where it sets.by David J - Printing
Re: Good hairspray for the print bed in the UK? - 1 year ago
QuoteOhmarinus Ohhh my bad, sorry. It's this stuff: It's from Spain, we use it at the academy where I work on the 3D printers. This stuff is unstoppable. I take it back - I just looked it up on Google and it is available in the UK... at £7 - £11 a can! The exchange rate is almost 1 EUR to 1 GBP at the moment. My can of Elnett was £3.50 for 300ml.by David J - General
Re: Good hairspray for the print bed in the UK? - 1 year ago
I've never heard of 3D lac! Maybe not available in the UK? Anyway - what I've got will probably last me a couple of years... the last can did.by David J - General
Re: Good hairspray for the print bed in the UK? - 1 year ago
I can now confirm that "L'Oreal Elnett Extra Strong Hold" works just as well as Sainsburys Basic hairspray! I bought a can today and tried it this evening - just the right amount of sticking on glass for PLA (not tried it with ABS yet). The room now smells like a tart's boudoir though... I also bought a small bottle of white distilled vinegar to try out dc42's method, when I get some time toby David J - General
Re: Good hairspray for the print bed in the UK? - 1 year ago
David - I'll have a go with your suggestions, when I have some time to play around. Mechabits - which type of 'Elnett' are you talking about? There seem to be several types... 'supreme hold', extra strength', plus others...by David J - General
Good hairspray for the print bed in the UK? - 1 year ago
For the past year or three I've been using Sainsburys Basic hairspray on the heated glass beds of my printers, with a lot of success. Apart from working well, it was ludicrously cheap - under 50p (less than 1$) for a 300ml can. My problem is that I've run out... and Sainsburys don't sell it any more. I've tried Tesco Essentials hairspray (ridiculously expensive at 79p for 400ml!) but that's jby David J - General
Re: 0.9° Stepper - Worth it? - 1 year ago
Quoteobelisk79 QuoteDavid J I used them on my CoreXY printer - reduced the noise considerably. With good drivers there is no noise I use a Duet board - which has very good drivers.by David J - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
Re: 0.9° Stepper - Worth it? - 1 year ago
I used them on my CoreXY printer - reduced the noise considerably.by David J - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
I've just had one of THOSE days! - 1 year ago
I've just had one of those "D'oh!" moments... I decided that I wanted to make a small object in nice yellow PLA, so I grabbed the reel and mounted it on my CoreXY printer (my goto printer for most jobs). Set up the model - and it just wouldn't print. The first layer kept getting unstuck from the bed, no matter what I did with it (cleaned it, resprayed with hairspray, and so on), After wastingby David J - General
Re: Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
Well, enif's code works very nicely - here's what I did with it: Desk cable organiser Enif - have a look at what I did with your code, and let me know if you're happy with what I've done. Also, if you want a more detailed credit in the code and on Thingiverse then please PM me with your details. Many thanks to all, Davidby David J - OpenSCAD
Re: Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
Wow, that's tough to read! Clever though... I think. I'll have to get studying. Quoteenif Interesting problem... Here my approach, which is a bit different. Instead of subtracting cylinders to get the chamfer, I construct the cylinder in slices: -- snip for brevity ---by David J - OpenSCAD
Re: Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
Quotefrankvdh QuoteDavid J Right - I tried using minkowski... life is too short... and all of my dimensions were screwed up (as expected); it would be a PITA to make size adjustments to compensate. So, good idea, but too painful. Right... I'd forgotten that Minkowski with a sphere moves the surface by the radius of the sphere. For sphere of radius 1, you need to subtract 1 from each of your widby David J - OpenSCAD
Re: Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
QuoteDust My code is freeware! do with it what you wish, no strings attached. Thank you! If I do create a library then you will be credited in the header...by David J - OpenSCAD
Re: Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
Right - I tried using minkowski... life is too short... and all of my dimensions were screwed up (as expected); it would be a PITA to make size adjustments to compensate. So, good idea, but too painful. I've been trying to develop my own idea, and here's how far I've got: UPDATE 1: I've just look at the code written by 'Dust' - mine follows a similar technique. I didn't copy yours, honest!by David J - OpenSCAD
Re: Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
Hmm - I need to study your answers! Especially that code example... I hadn't thought about using minkowski when the object has the slots - in the real project I had applied it to the body prior to 'cutting' the slots. I shall have to try that out. However it means re-arranging my code as I have included screw holes in the same part as the slots (not a major crisis). My other random thought laby David J - OpenSCAD
Rounding the edge of a hole? - 1 year ago
This is a simplified extract from something I'm designing: bodyWidth = 25; bodyHeight = 15; slotWidth = 6; slotHeight = 10; $fn = 50; module slot() { rotate( [-90, -90, 0] ) union() { cylinder(d = slotWidth, h = bodyWidth + 2); translate( [0, -slotWidth/2, 0] ) cube( ); translate( ) cylinder(d = slotWidth, h = bodyWidth + 2)by David J - OpenSCAD
Re: Problem with setting filament diameter in Cura 4.0 - 1 year ago
QuoteOhmarinus This option can now be found in the 'Machine' settings when you go to the Cura 4 settings (On a Mac it's under Menu > Preferences > Printer > Machine settings). I think they want you to just specify the filament size you approx. use and then create different profiles from there. I personally tweak the E-steps/mm instead of tweaking the filament size since this both inflby David J - General
Problem with setting filament diameter in Cura 4.0 - 1 year ago
I used Cura quite a lot, up to the latest version, 4.0 - but now it seems incredibly difficult to set the filament diameter when slicing a part. Nearly all of my filaments are slightly different sizes, so every time I plan to print a part with a specific filament I need to set its diameter. In the past I would just change the diameter in the 'materials' part of the setup, but that option seemby David J - General
Re: Do not leave hairspray on your glass bed too long... - 1 year ago
I use hairspray on my printers' beds all the time. Most times the part will come off without a struggle, but occasionally extra effort is required. On those occasions I try (1) just letting the bed cool down - often there's a loud 'click' and the part is freed, or (2) put the bed's glass sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes - has worked 100% so far.by David J - Printing
Re: Fried RAMPS of i3 clone? - 2 years ago
Also, did you switch the printer off before you unplugged the stepper connector? If you unplug it when the power's on there's a fair chance that a back-EMF spike (a pulse of high voltage) could fry something. If you know this already, just ignore this post!by David J - Prusa i3 and variants
Re: SSR's for Heatbed - 2 years ago
Here's a range of SSRs from a reputable British supplier - not Fotec, but perfectly suited for our needs. Rapidby David J - Reprappers
Re: Did something dumb. Ever happen to you? - 2 years ago
QuoteSupraGuy No 'magic smoke' involved in my forgetfulness. I am not the type to indulge in such, and I can't see that changing even with the imminent legalization of such here in Canada. I can't even blame the vodka in which I do occasionally indulge. "Magic smoke" in this instance means the substance that flows through electrical circuits to make them work - the circuits won't work if you letby David J - General
Re: PETG Fuzz - 2 years ago
Are you sure you're printing at the right temperature? It seems a bit high for PETG in my admittedly limited experience (my reel says 195C - 220C nozzle, 35C - 50C bed).by David J - Prusa i3 and variants
Re: Heated bed issue - Solder point de-soldering when heating - 2 years ago
Bad joints have resistance, and will heat up a huge amount when a lot of current is drawn - probably enough to melt solder. As said above - buy or borrow a big, high-powered soldering iron and make a good-quality joint. I put aside my normal electronics iron and got out my old 40 watt Weller with a great big bit on the end, and made good connections in just a few seconds.by David J - General
Re: Heated bed issue - Solder point de-soldering when heating - 2 years ago
QuoteSupraGuy I'm not a fan of the wire that these things typically use. The same wire that manages the ~40W heater for the hot end is not adequate for the ~150W heated bed. I use 16AWG copper wire for mine (Or 14AWG if the wire run is going to be longer than 30cm.) Mine is wired using the silicone-covered wire used by radio control enthusiasts to wire up their motors and batteries. Very flexibby David J - General
Re: Why have I started to get "endstops hit: Z" after G29? [PROBLEM AMENDED] - 2 years ago
Right - I'll start with an apology regarding this flurry of posts! This is the start of the gcode file generated by my stand-alone slic3r: ; generated by Slic3r 1.2.9 on 2018-08-27 at 16:43:05 ; external perimeters extrusion width = 0.40mm ; perimeters extrusion width = 0.67mm ; infill extrusion width = 0.67mm ; solid infill extrusion width = 0.67mm ; top infill extrusion width = 0.67mm M107by David J - General
Re: Why have I started to get "endstops hit: Z" after G29? - 2 years ago
Minor update: I'm starting to think it's something to do with Repetier-Host - I have had a few updates lately. Alternatively, it might be the way I'm using it... If I slice the STL file with my stand-alone version of Slic3r and feed it through Pronterface, the error doesn't appear on the printer's screen. It does appear on the Pronterface log, but that software doesn't consider that it's importby David J - General
Re: Why have I started to get "endstops hit: Z" after G29? - 2 years ago
OK - I've been suffering from some confusion, I think. Disregard anything I've said earlier and base any comments on what's written below. I've just started to attack this problem by running the machine without filament so that I can do G28 & G29 with no complications. Now that I've done that (again) I have come up with the following conclusions: The IR sensor is initialising correctly (by David J - General