Just enough so that the filament doesn't get crushed. You want a lot of tension on that clamp.by the_digital_dentist - General
I like DesignSpark Mechanical for CAD drawing/modeling. It's free, easy to learn, and very powerful, but requires Windows (ugh!). It supports 3D mice. I have been able to do 99% of what I want for 3D printing with DSM. If you must spend money they have a more fully featured professional version called SpaceClaim. Here is my printer's X axis modeled in DSM: And the extruder carriage: Iby the_digital_dentist - General
Which slicer did you use? Have you calibrated the extruder? Did you measure the filament diameter and use that number when you sliced?by the_digital_dentist - General
The silicone didn't stick to the ABS at all. I ensured that the silicone would stay on the core by putting holes in the core for the silicone to fill.by the_digital_dentist - General
I printed a mold for silicone using ABS recently. I was making a plunger for a syringe type extruder. The silicone was overmolded on a printed ABS core. I designed and printed a jig to hold the core in ts proper position within the mold then poured the silicone around it. After the silicone was set I broke the mold off and the result was perfect on first attempt. See here: http://milwaukeemby the_digital_dentist - General
I've had the BullDog XL and E3Dv6 on the machine since December, printing almost daily, so far always ABS, and have not had a single extruder jam or print failure caused by anything extruder/hot-end related. I have not had to take it off the machine for any reason in all that time. It just works. I'm in the middle of a new machine design and build but have some parts (blower and mount) set asby the_digital_dentist - Mechanics
Very interesting! Are the prints intended to be edible, or is sugar used because it is cheap and readily available?by the_digital_dentist - Look what I made!
You'd think with all the negative experience that people accumulate with cheap stuff they'd finally get the message and spend a few more $ to get quality. Maybe they don't/can't/won't learn or their finances don't permit anything but the cheapest of the cheap. Maybe the problem is an inability to distinguish between quality stuff and cheap stuff, especially when things like hot-ends look prettyby the_digital_dentist - General
Maybe your bed warps at print temperature. Did you try rezeroing?by the_digital_dentist - General
My BullDog XL has a 5:1 gearbox and works fine for the relatively low print speeds I use (50-75mm/sec). I recently tweaked retraction settings and found that 20mm/sec with retraction acceleration set to 3000 mm/sec^2 provides very clean layer starts and stops. If you're trying to print at 250mm/sec, 5:1 is probably too high a ratio. You need to know your controllers maximum step rate, and thby the_digital_dentist - Mechanics
That looks pretty good, specially considering what produced it. You've done a good job on that machine!by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Why don't you 3D print a cover for the terminals?by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Quoterohitnalluri I don't mind the increased time. This is passion, not fast food. I'd be happy with print speeds of 50 - 100mm/s, but I know I can go higher. Now layer thickness is crucial, and this is where I am considering using stepper motors with 32 steps - ideas more than welcome! After considering a few designs for the frame, and looking at your own build, I am thinking a moving bed wouldby the_digital_dentist - General
QuoteAndrewBCN ... building a large FDM printer is neither feasible nor interesting in practical terms. If you have a working Prusa i3, I wish you very good prints with it. That's about as large and as good as it gets with current FDM technology. Large FDM printers are feasible and very interesting to many people. There are large format commercial printers available, Gigabot, for example. Theby the_digital_dentist - General
The power brick in the photo is designed to be operated without a fan. The power supply that has a fan is designed to be operated with the fan if not all the time, when it heats up under load.by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
I can only think of three things for which I would use those specific descriptors: 1) Multiple Z axis screws (especially threaded rods) driven by multiple motors. 2) Printer frames that are so flexible they can't hold a level or zero adjustment from one print to the next or require readjustment after moving the machine. If you push on the frame and see it flex, you've got one of these. 3) Bed leby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Here's a recent problem: I tweaked firmware (extruder acceleration, junction deviation, etc.) and Slic3r settings (retraction, extrusion widths, speeds, etc.) through several hours of test prints. And here are the results: These ABS cones are 10mm high with 6mm dia base and 2 mm dia tips, printed on a 20mm dia base, 0.2mm layers. OCD? You might be right, but I won't have to tweak it agaby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
If you want a bed that doesn't move, you're probably going to want to build a delta machine, but a Delta with a 1 m^3 volume is going to be tall. You could make a CoreXY type machine with the XY mechanism on a lift, but I think it would be easier to lift the bed (less wiring). What do you intend to print? With which material(s) do you intend to print? How will you get those materials to stickby the_digital_dentist - General
Uh-oh. That's a hornet's nest you don't want to stir up!by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
While you're at it, why not replace those potentially unreliable fuses with wire jumpers?by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
I've been using Slic3r on and off for a couple years. The ons are because of the extraordinary control it allows over the printer and print. The offs are because of the frequent crashes or just malfunctions. I haven't used Slic3r for about 6 months and decided to try it yet again with a fresh install of the latest stable release on a very recent Win 7 install. It did what it always does. Itby the_digital_dentist - Slic3r
I use a large aluminum pot I picked up at a Chinese food store.by the_digital_dentist - General
The OP said it was different mechanics... I don't think it's OCD to want to be able to produce prints with high quality surface finish, to print precision parts that fit together with very close tolerances, and to do that without a lot of preparatory messing around. If you had an inkjet printer and its color registration wasn't perfect you'd consider it a piece of junk. Why accept any less quaby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Two Z axis screws driven by two motors is awful. Trying to get two with different characteristics to remain synchronized is beyond awful. It's horrible. What exactly are you trying to do?by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Make sure you test the supply while it is disconnected from the controller board. It's possible you blew the MOSFET on the controller board. They tend to die shorted, so if you're testing this with the supply connected to the controller it might continue to misbehave.by the_digital_dentist - General
If the drill bit snapped, it was due to mechanical force, probably bending. Since the drill bit is much harder than the brass nozzle, it's probable that force that broke the drill bit also damaged the nozzle. There's no point in trying to get the piece of drill bit out- you need a new nozzle.by the_digital_dentist - General
If it's one of the cheapo switching supplies, there's usually a fuse inside that you can replace, probably soldered down. Use only the exact same type fuse which is usually marked in the metal at one or both ends of the fuse.by the_digital_dentist - General
Some BLDC motors have hall effect sensors built in and the signals are used by the driver chip to regulate speed, etc. I have a blower from a CPAP machine (from American Science and Surplus) that cost $9 that has a 3 phase BLDC with 3 hall effect sensors. I have seen driver chips for this type of motor that use the hall effect sensor signals as feedback to start up the motor and control the motby the_digital_dentist - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
I realize the thermistor is new. What about the cable to the controller? Did the new unit comes with a full length replacement cable, or did you just connect the new thermistor to the end of the old cable? What you're reading with the meter is called "open circuit"- i.e. infinite resistance. That means there's a bad connection somewhere. There are only 4 possibilities: 1) the pins on theby the_digital_dentist - Controllers