The fact that "it goes home correctly" does NOT necessarily mean that it always knows the head position correctly. I don't know the printer you have, but, generally speaking, printers have microswitches that trigger when they are in the home position. Telling the printer to 'home' typically means it moves in the X & Y axes until the switches trigger. So I agree with TDD. Try moving the heby frankvdh - Printing
I had a similar thing with my Chinese "E3D" hot end. Pulling out slowly jams up inside the hotend. What works for me is to heat the hotend to normal extrusion temperature (190 for PLA), release the tension, push the filament down until it starts to come out the nozzle, then quickly pull it out of the top of the hotend.by frankvdh - Printing
Hi dim, Since no-one else has, I'll give it a try. But I'm close to the limit of my knowledge. My understanding is that if too much current is fed to the motor, the driver on the RAMPS board will get hot. Possibly also/instead the motor itself will get hot (i.e. too hot to hold your finger on). When either of these things happen, the motor will begin skipping steps. The solution to either of thby frankvdh - Printing
All units are the same... mm The 5000 that you saw was the speed, not the position. Actual position is 5mm (Z5). G1 Z0.200 F7800.000 means go to height 0.2mm, as fast as possible (I'm assuming that 7800 is the max speed). You might want to reduce your maximum speed and acceleration settings in Slic3r if this causes the nozzle to actually hit the bed.by frankvdh - Printing
Hi, I wonder if the problem is heat rather than the actual Z layer. What can happen is that the filament in the top of the hotend gradually gets warmer until it is soft enough to expand, causing the filament to jam. So tell us about your hotend, fan(s), and printing temperatures.The same kind of thing can happen if your extruder stepper motor or driver overheats... the extruder motor will thenby frankvdh - Printing
Whilst I don't think that Apple itself will do anything particularly innovative, I do believe that Apple's entry into the market would give it credibility. The 3D printing scene now is very reminiscent of the microcomputer scene back in about 1980, just before IBM leapt in with their PC. And we can all see the progress that flowed from that, which arguably might never have occurred, or occurredby frankvdh - General
I'm running Slic3r 1.2.9 on Linux and getting something really odd. When I use Slic3r on a particular (complex) object, it generates some spurious features. Eventually, after printing about 1.7mm of this other mystery object, it seems to switch to printing my object. Here's what it looks like in Slic3r: Here's what the first layer looks like in OctoPrint's preview... this isn't centred on my oby frankvdh - Slic3r
No need for a drum, though. You could just have some kind of "extruder" (a gear that's driven by a stepper motor, and a clamp wheel to press the belt against the gear) mechanism to move the belt. You would probably also need a couple of guides to keep the belt aligned. This would work with infinitely long belts, but you wouldn't be able to etch right to the ends. I guess the workflow would be tby frankvdh - Reprappers
Steppers are expensive, and then need expensive controllers. If I was a clever mechanically oriented guy, I'd base the whole thing around a single DC geared motor... turn it on and it turns some gears or pulls a string or something like that. Looks like one mechanism repeated twice would do the job... basically it's just a 90 degree rotation. If you use gears, then reversing the voltage would maby frankvdh - Experimental and Hobby
QuoteDjDemonD Whilst this is a good idea to create colour prints I wonder if Apple will bring innovation to 3d printing or just take an existing technology make it look cool and release it at the right moment to sell millions. A smart person would take the existing technology make it look cool and release it JUST BEFORE the right moment to sell hundreds of thousands.by frankvdh - General
Can't you put the belt on the *outside* of the drum? Then you can have a solid axle and spokes. Then just use the stepper that normally moves the bed to rotate the drum, perhaps via a GT2 belt if necessary.by frankvdh - Reprappers
I don't think granite would cope well with heat, being basically crystalline. Basalt would probably be better, being an igneous rock. But, unless you slice it real thin, it's going to take a lot of energy to heat it up.by frankvdh - General
Loose thermistor? Broken (or near-broken) wires to the heater or thermistor? Does this jumping around happen when the head is still? Or only when it is moving?by frankvdh - General
Because of the drop-off in torque with RPM, stepper motors can't start at high speeds. You need to start it turning at a slow speed, and then accelerate it slowly.by frankvdh - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
Has anyone experimented in this area? Free filament It seems to me that I could use this device to create plastic filament which (although rectangular in cross-section rather than round) could be fed directly into my 3D printer's standard 1.75mm extruder + hotend? Or that it could be used to produce (e.g.) 1cm wide strips of plastic to be fed into a custom-made extruder (rather than pellets) tby frankvdh - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Yes... the often-used axial fans aren't good for this application. A radial fan is much better at blowing.by frankvdh - Reprappers
Does the offset always happen at the same height? Is it always in the X or Y axis? Maybe there is some physical thing interfering with the X or Y axis at that height?by frankvdh - Printing
Welcome to the world of clogs and jams. There are a dozen things that interact to cause a clog or jam, including temperature, temperature PID calibration, cooling fans, back pressure (height above bed or previous layer), filament thickness, extruder calibration, play in the mechanism, type of hotend, nozzle size, alignment of hotend and extrude and filament, retraction distance, .... Most (all?by frankvdh - Printing
QuoteForget the kits, and follow a good BOM to get the better possible components. So, how can you identify "better" components on AliExpress? Every vendor claims "high quality".by frankvdh - General
Does the Z-axis status change when you look at it with the M119 command? Do you have a metal bed?by frankvdh - General
Beware of scams... there was recently a scam where the "vendor" would sell something *ridiculously* cheap ($70 for a 3D printer) then offer you a partial refund due to accidentally sending by slow shipping. If you accept the refund, the rest of your money is gone. Also watch out for shipping costs (including on items labelled as "Free Shipping") which can be as much as the item. The tricky thinby frankvdh - General
On my current hot end, pulling PLA back out (e.g. to change colour) sometimes causes it to jam. After a bit of trial and error, I found that pushing the PLA down to extrude a bit, then quickly pulling it out works.by frankvdh - Printing
Check the retraction distance setting in your slicer. E3D style hot ends should have < 1mm retraction. Are you printing PLA or ABS? At what temperature?by frankvdh - Reprappers
What exactly happens when the filament stops flowing? Does the extruder stepper motor continue, but make clicking noises? How long does it print for before it stops? What kind of hotend do you have? Cooling fan(s)? What type of filament are you printing, and at what temperature? Can you print a small object (e.g. 10mm cube)? Can you post photos of what you are getting printed?by frankvdh - Reprappers
Yes, the water will cool it, and that's a good idea. But I still disagree about the thermal compound between the heater block and heat break. You do NOT want an easy path for heat to travel from the heater block to the heat sink. The idea of the heat sink is to cool the heat break, NOT the heater block. You want as little heat to flow from the block to the heat break as possible, so you want toby frankvdh - Printing
Just backing up Bert3D's comments... I DON'T have much of a CAD background. I used FreeCAD for quite a while, and have now switched to OnShape. It's about as fast as FreeCAD, which surprised me. FreeCAD seems to crash a lot (possibly my unskilled thrashing about has meant that I run into bugs that a skilled CAD user wouldn't). My only use for FreeCAD now is to convert files into a CAD format thatby frankvdh - 3D Design tools
Hi Scott, I'm thinking that you don't actually want heat transferred from the heater block to the heat break (threaded tube). Ideally, the filament would soften instantaneously as it goes out of the heat break and into the nozzle. Any heat going into the heat break is a bad thing, IMHO. So the thermal grease in the threads may be counter-productive. But perhaps there should be grease in the threaby frankvdh - Printing
FWIW, when I switched from an all-metal hotend to a PTFE-lined one, I suddenly began printing again. The PTFE in mine goes down inside the heat break. It's important to tighten the heat break against the nozzle inside the heater block, and to do that while everything is *hot*. Search here for my posts to find the correct procedure. Google for "PID tuning" to improve temperature control.by frankvdh - Printing
Another slicer you could try is Cura.by frankvdh - Slic3r
I'm thinking that this would be a suitable job for something like an Arduino Nano. They're cheap as chips. Have the Nano watch the smoke detector and control a Normally Open relay which provides power to your printer(s). At startup, the Nano closes the relay and watches the smoke detector. When smoke is detected it opens the relay and halts. To reset, you would power the Nano down and up again. Yby frankvdh - General