I'd like to be able to 3D-print "photorealistic" objects (maybe I'm too ambitious). So, looking at imqqmi's idea... I'd want to see it in practice. I expect that the lag between the colouring and the extrusion would make it difficult to synchronise the laying down of the plastic with the colouring of the filament. I think that the ideal would be to colour the filament as it is being extruded ouby frankvdh - Developers
OK... what hardware interface do you have? If you have a typical Arduino Mega2560, you'll have a micro-USB port. This will appear to the host computer as a serial port on the USB bus. When you plug it into the host computer (what OS are you running), it should be visible when you look at the installed hardware. Your program will need to open this serial port and write to it to send G-code to theby frankvdh - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
Quotehyabc12321 Hello, I'm trying to write a program to control my printer. It seems that simplily sending g code string via serial port will not work. Is there any solution for this problem? THX This is just way too vague to get a useful answer. What type of printer do you have? What type of firmware is installed on it? Or are you wanting to write the firmware yourself? What hardware interfby frankvdh - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
Quotemrwolfe It has an SPI port on it which can be used for expansion. Yeah, but I don't have the knowledge and skills to translate that into some working stepper drivers. And lots of other things to do, so I don't want to develop this. Hence, your device would be much more interesting if that expansion board could be bought with it.by frankvdh - General
I don't recognise that hot-end, but that's not surprising. However, the heatsink looks much smaller than mine. So it may be that overheating of the "cold end" is the problem, so improving the fan cooling might be significant. That fan should be running all the time, at maximum speed... just wire it directly to the +12 supply. You can make temporary fan ducts out of cardboard or tape or whateverby frankvdh - General
I'd say if your stepper is clicking, you have probably have enough tension on the filament. If you don't have enough tension, the drive gear will grind away the filament. Check the temperature of the extruder stepper motor... if it's hot (too hot to hold your finger on), that will cause it to miss steps.Try turning down the current to the stepper. Also, if you turn down the speed of the X &by frankvdh - General
Well, it took a long time (and a lot of filament) to get it sorted. But it *is* sorted now. Now, if I could just design stuff so that it was right first time...by frankvdh - New Zealand RepRap User Group
Rather than splitting it, fold 90degrees at the edges of the orange square. Add some hinges to the print, and you can do it in one print. jkby frankvdh - General
Bump... I have (literally) a bucket full of failed PLA prints to give away, if someone is recycling it. It just seems a waste to take it to the tip or put it into compost.by frankvdh - New Zealand RepRap User Group
Is it really 200C? Another possibility is that your thermistor isn't seated tightly in the heater block. Try heating to (say) 150C as per your display program, wait a few minutes, then try melting some PLA against the outside of the heater block or nozzle. If it melts readily, then it's above 150C. Or at 200C, try some ABS.by frankvdh - Reprappers
Insulation will slow down the movement of heat, but it doesn't stop it. Stainless transfers heat about 1/4 the speed of normal steel, and epoxies and plastics about 1 millionth. Google "thermal conduction". To keep something cool, you need to remove the heat faster than it travels through the insulator(s). Try a heat sink of some kind (e.g. a large metal washer) in contact with the screw to conby frankvdh - Developers
How do you know the thermistor is fine? Did you measure resistance with a multimeter? IIRC, thermistor resistance varies inversely with temperature, so a max temp reading means a short circuit. The fact that it happens without the thermistor suggests that the short is on your RAMPS board. Presumably you can control other aspects of the printer with Repetier (e.g. turn the bed temperature up anby frankvdh - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Just as a data point, I wouldn't be interested in anything with only 4 steppers. Maybe if you already had an expansion board available right from the start to provide another 2-3. Are the "limit switch" inputs compatible with active sensors (e.g. optical or Hall-effect?) But mostly I'd want to know beforehand how you were going to solve the RT control issue. What software would you implement?by frankvdh - General
Why do you want to go lower than 0? By definition, 0 is when the nozzle is at the right height to print the bottom layer. If you go below 0, you won't be able to print. If you go below -0.3mm, your nozzle will crash into the bed.by frankvdh - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Quotemadmike8 I've got 3 different all metal e3d clones. All with the PTFE liner. All work well with PLA and ABS. I always disassemble them and reassemble them before use. I thought "all-metal" excluded PTFE liners?by frankvdh - General New Machines Topics
Check for wear in the guide holes in the extruder... if these are out of round, then filament can jam in them. However, there are several forum threads of people who have all-metal E3DV6 hotends who are having problems with jams. Minimizing retraction seems to be a partial answer. FWIW, after I switched to a hotend with a PTFE liner in the top of the heat break, the problem went away. You canby frankvdh - Printing
You need to adjust the height of your endstop so that it triggers when the nozzle is one paper-thickness above the bed.by frankvdh - Firmware - mainstream and related support
If Cura can't save the new object (e.g. it doesn't fit), it will save the previous one. You can tell if an object is good because it shows up in yellow... if it is grey, then it is bad. (You can configure Cura as to what colour is used for "good"... I made the mistake of changing it to grey )by frankvdh - Printing
Very cool. I wonder how big a build volume you need to be able to print the parts? Looks like maybe 150x150?by frankvdh - Developers
Quotealienmike I'm sure the e3d with PTFE liner all the way through it will work fine. But later, I want to print ABS and Nylon, so that is a no go for me. But I think I will order a j-head and e3d clone, without the all-metal, and try those out too. The real e3d is too pricey for me right now, and I am enjoying diagnosing this issue. Yes, I also want to eventually print ABS and other hotter thiby frankvdh - Printing
I have a number of "E3DV6" hot-ends bought from AliExpress, but no original to compare with. There's a range of heat blocks, heat breaks, and heatsinks, so cloning is obviously a very inexact science. I struggled with exactly the same issues as alienmike, but I'm only at 500ft altitude. What eventually got things working was using a heat break which included a PTFE liner... the all-metal versiby frankvdh - Printing
I've been using Chinese "E3DV6" hotends for a while. Surprisingly for supposed clones, I have 3 different heater blocks, 2 different heat breaks (one with PTFE liner, one without), 2 different heat sinks, and a couple of variations of heater cartridge. I had never-ending clogging problems with the all-metal heatbreak, but I'm very happy with the PTFE-lined one. FWIW, I think the manufacturingby frankvdh - General New Machines Topics
OK, my comments were just passing on what I've learnt. My approach is to print at the *lowest* temperature possible... inter-layer bonding in't so much about heat as accurate placement and adequate extrusion. (Paradoxically, over-extrusion can also lead to poor layer bonding, because the over-extrusion causes jams and blockages). I print at 190 without any inter-layer bonding issues. I don't haby frankvdh - Printing
Thanks for the pics.... quality is ok. A couple of comments: Tie your wires to the hotend with a ziptie or similar. You want the flexing of the wires to be spread evenly along the length of the wire as much as possible. You don't want any movement of the wires down at the hotend... that movement will concentrate on the weak point, right by the heater, and break the wires. The position of your spby frankvdh - Printing
Thanks for the pics.... quality is ok. A couple of comments: Tie your wires to the hotend with a ziptie or similar. You want the flexing of the wires to be spread evenly along the length of the wire as much as possible. You don't want any movement of the wires down at the hotend... that movement will concentrate on the weak point, right by the heater, and break the wires. The position of your spby frankvdh - Printing
So your extruder stepper isn't skipping. Yet it seems it is not pushing filament through. Can you check that when the extruder motor is turning, the filament is actually feeding? Is it grinding away the filament when it jams? Can you post some photos of your printer setup? Long views showing filament path from spool to extruder, close-ups of the nozzle & hot-end. +/-3 degree fluctuation inby frankvdh - Printing
Well, firstly, something did change. You just don't know what it was. Having the spool holder behind the printer was what caused wear in my extruder. PLA is abrasive, and gradually ground the sides of the holes until they were out of round enough for (a) the filament to come right off the toothed drive gear, and (b) the filament to occasianlly catch on the burrs around the hole. It also adds benby frankvdh - Printing
I spent exactly a billion years and 3 months figuring out more or less the same issues, and it now works perfectly. So don't despair. I did find a whole ot of things that interacted and caused the same symptoms that made it really difficult to diagnose. I'd actually fix a fault, but the same symptoms would be caused by another fault, so wouldn't know I'd fixed anything, and switch back to the fauby frankvdh - Printing
Define "best". Do you mean cheapest? I suspect that AliExpress is probably best from this point of view. Best selection of colours? AliExpress I guess, because it covers so many online retailers, so somewhere on it you'll probably find every colour available.. Best quality by some definition of "quality"? Less crud in the mix? Driest? Least toxic pigments? Most uniform thickness? Most uniformby frankvdh - General
Thingiverse has been behaving strangely for me for the last couple of days... the automatic scrolling thing when viewing a list of items seems to break. Don't know about publishing. Running Firefox and Chrome.by frankvdh - Reprappers