Matt, What sort of thickness was your cork?by David J - Delta Machines
Whoopie! My round aluminium heated bed has arrived from China. It doesn't seem right to just sit it on the base's extrusions - should I put it on something non-conducting? I have some 2mm thick cork sheet, so I could use strips of that, couldn't I? Opinions? Davidby David J - Delta Machines
I forgot to mention that my filament spool sits high on the frame above the extruder, so it has a short and easy path. It does have to straighten out to get into the extruder, but otherwise it's easy. I'd be surprised if the residual heat got 150mm up the filament - I use an E3Dv6 hot end with its fan, and everything above the head stays quite cool. Obviously the fan is off once the power is sby David J - Printing
I have a Prusa i3, which is working nicely. One problem I've experienced lately is after a long session of printing, I'll switch it off and leave it overnight, with the PLA still in the machine. When I come down in the morning the filament is often broken a few centimetres above the extruder (which is on the X carriage). Currently I'm using 3mm e-sun PLA filament from HobbyKing, but I have seeby David J - Printing
I've used some left-over cable from my R/C models in my printers - it's very flexible, has a very high current carrying capacity, and has a silicone rubber sleeving that can resist up to around 200C. My delta is wired up with 16AWG silicone cable that has a capacity of 22A - more than enough for my needs, considering that the heat-bed will take around 11A or so (wired separately from the RAMPS/Aby David J - Safety & Best Practices
Quotemrorange26 What connections do you use for probe and does it just connect straight to board like the old switch. This may help: Tom on YouTube. He explains how to connect one of these up - you'll need 2 resistors and a soldering iron. 2 wires go to the existing end-stop pins on RAMPS (0v and signal) and the third goes to 12v. Not difficult to set up. He's talking about auto-levelling onby David J - Delta Machines
QuoteAndyCart It would be great to find a similar size probe, or even a smaller one, that triggers at a greater distance but I can't find anything. I have done some investigation in the past - the only sensors I've found with a greater range have either had much bigger bodies, or an awkward shape, or too heavy - or all three at once. As for the probe being some distance away from the nozzle -by David J - Delta Machines
Yes - even if the extruded plastic rises a little bit after being deposited, it won't end up 2mm above the current layer - if it does, you have other problems to fix! UPDATE: As Andy said - this is when printing onto an aluminium plate (maybe with kapton or PET tape on top, or blue painters' tape). It can't sense through a glass plate. I've often wondered how it would work if there was a steelby David J - Delta Machines
QuoteMatt,Wheatley Andy, The sensor has a 4mm trigger distance, how do you ensure the 4mm between the hot end tip to the sensor? Also have you had to change the sensor offset in the firmware config? Thanks Matt That's 4mm when approaching an iron or steel plate - it's less than 2mm for my aluminium heat-bed. Still perfectly usable though. (Sorry - should have attached this to my last post...by David J - Delta Machines
QuoteMatt,Wheatley Andy, The sensor has a 4mm trigger distance, how do you ensure the 4mm between the hot end tip to the sensor? Also have you had to change the sensor offset in the firmware config? Thanks Matt The sensor body is threaded along most of its length, and it comes with 2 nuts - you just set the hot-end nozzle to the desired height, then adjust the nuts until the sensor triggers aby David J - Delta Machines
I use the same probe on my Prusa i3 - works very well. Now Andy - can you design an effector that will take this plus an E3D v6 hot end?by David J - Delta Machines
In conclusion - 1 wire was enough!by David J - RAMPS Electronics
I should also apologise! I was feeling particularly annoyed yesterday as I'd just published a design on Thingiverse in the morning - including FreeCAD files - and invited people to adapt them if they wanted to make changes. An hour or two later I received the update and found that the original design files now appeared to be broken. I take on board everything you say about giving feedback -by David J - 3D Design tools
Frankly - if that's the sort of attitude I'm likely to encounter then I can't be bothered. I certainly won't know the version number I'm coming from as the Linux Mint system has replaced it with 0.15. I'm finding FreeCAD incredibly useful when it works, and incredibly annoying when it screws up my design - which it does, quite often. I know it's free, and in its very early days of development,by David J - 3D Design tools
Unfortunately this upgrade has given me problems when trying to edit files made with the previous version... ...unless you know some way of upgrading files?by David J - 3D Design tools
I've been busy - following on from my previous posting about the XBox PSU socket, I decided to make a little enclosure to neaten up the wiring. It has a changeover switch - setting it to 'on'/'1' connects the PSU's +5v to its power-enable pin, which turns on the 12v supply. Setting it to 'off'/'0' connects the PSU's power-enable pin to PS-ON on the RAMPS board, allowing software like Repetieby David J - Delta Machines
Just to bring this topic to a conclusion - I checked the voltage to where it leaves the RAMPS board and all was OK. Changed the Arduino Mega board and everything worked properly; as the Arduino works from the USB power I suspect that the voltage regulator is not working. I can't find my mains PSU for that board so I can't be sure yet, but it does look like I'll be trying to change that componenby David J - RAMPS Electronics
When I was printing PLA onto glass I found that cleaning the bed with something like meths (methyl alcohol) or acetone, followed by a light spray of the cheapest hairspray I could find, nearly always did the trick. Each spraying would last for quite a few prints as long as I kept my fingers off it. And I mean "the cheapest hairspray" - you need something without additives such as 'added vitaminsby David J - Delta Machines
Thanks - that's what I suspected. I'll try that first, and get inventive if it doesn't behave as expected.by David J - RAMPS Electronics
When you say "balling up", do you mean that it puts down nothing for a few millimetres, then drops a big blob, over and over? If that's the case then I suggest that your nozzle is too close to the bed - the bed itself is blocking the nozzle, until something has to give and all the backed-up plastic is pushed out. This is something my Prusa does with monotonous regularity when the auto-trammingby David J - Delta Machines
Sorry Dust - I've just re-read your answer and realised that you'd given me that information!by David J - RAMPS Electronics
This is a very simple question (I hope): I am wiring up a socket so that I can power my delta printer with an XBox 360 203W PSU. All is going splendidly so far - I can turn the PSU on and off by connecting the 5v and sense wires in the PSU socket. Now I am planning to use PS-ON as a way of controlling the PSU, leaving me with the option of turning it on with a switch or via the software. I knby David J - RAMPS Electronics
Thanks for that. I've already done the demo led flash so I'm hopeful that the arduino board is OK (although I do have a spare). Do you happen to know where the suspect track goes from (i.e. which side of the diode) and to where? If I know where it's supposed to go then I can try tracing it through with my multimeter. Otherwise I'll just do a search in the RAMPS area. Davidby David J - RAMPS Electronics
I have a new Chinese clone RAMPS board (Geeetech) that seems to be working properly when I do basic tests while I'm waiting for my heat bed to arrive. However, if I just turn on the 12v with the USB disconnected then the LCD display stays off - I guess the Arduino isn't powered up. Everything works when I turn on 12v AND have the USB connected. Now I know about D1, and it is in place - before Iby David J - RAMPS Electronics
QuoteDust But it very evident there is zero qc. Quality control? What's that? I recently bought a Chinese-made RAMPS clone from a UK supplier (clearly a UK sales outlet for a Chinese distributor), and had all sorts of issues: it simply wouldn't talk to some of the stepper drivers. Disassembled everything and took a close look at the board with a 30X loupe - I found tiny blobs and hair-like tracby David J - RAMPS Electronics
I'd say that your heat bed is now scrap, it should be removed immediately and never used again! The questions I'd ask include: What sort of heat bed is it? Are you sure you wired it properly? Were the soldered-on wires nice and tidy, and not contacting any other track on the heat bed? Did it look scratched, marked or badly bent when you installed it? (Note: PCB heatbeds do usually come very sby David J - Safety & Best Practices
Quotedougal1957 Eh guys Just had an E-Mail from E3D announcing a new hotend for £21.50 see E3D V6 Lite ok wont go as hot or fast as a full V6 but will still do ABS at reasonable speeds. No reason at all to go for Chinese copies now eh. Doug Damn... just bought an E3D v6 in 1.75mm! I could have managed quite nicely with one of the new ones...by David J - Delta Machines
I'm making progress - all but one of my motors are now running properly, with the Z being the exception. At least that localises the problem and gives me a fair chance to fix it! Many thanks to vreihen for the hint on setting the drivers - it looks like mine are Pololu clones. That, plus changing the RAMPS board over to a spare one, seems to have got me further down the line. Now for some fuby David J - Delta Machines
That's a useful page - are the Chinese knock-off stepper drivers usually Pololu clones? They seem to have the same component layout. I'm having a bad time with my RAMPS setup at the moment - had a good look at the bottom of the RAMPS shield and found many tiny solder blobs and streaks. Cleared all the ones I could see with a high-power lens, but I couldn't look under the connection pins for anby David J - Delta Machines