Hold the presses. I didn't notice if anyone else has mentioned it, but there is now a product called "Embedded Pi" available at the element14 site. It's especially for this purpose. It has the header layout for Arduino shield, so you can directly attach RAMPS 1.4 to it, with the SD/LCD package and all. That should speed the porting process! The price is US$39 Depending on the jumper placementby Thinkyhead - Controllers
Just saw this, haha!by Thinkyhead - General
My first printer so far (a Prusa i3) uses a 4mm thick glass mirror for the heated bed surface. Bare glass, cleaned with a solvent and kept heated at 70-80°C, can work pretty well with PLA, but ABS will pull right off. With both materials you'll get more reliable adherence with kapton, PET, or blue tape on the bed. I got frustrated with bare glass because it's too unreliable, so for a while I weby Thinkyhead - General
I loved the first issue but oh the typos and other errors. If you're looking for a proofreader to go over the next or subsequent issues before publication to give it a more professional polish, I'm your guy. I'm a software geek through-and-through just getting into RepRap and electronics, but evidently I have stronger language skills (660) than math (570). And as it happens I just built a Prusa iby Thinkyhead - RepRap magazine
Happy to see this cool new nozzle option. As for the future, I'm not sure why 0.6 would be in demand, and I think 0.25 might be pushing it, but if your testing shows them both to be reliable and useful I'll be very intrigued. Currently I'm using an 0.5mm nozzle and while I love the speed I definitely could use a finer XY resolution to produce better Mendel parts for sale. I will continue to lurkby Thinkyhead - General
The original Prusa i3 BOM that lives at has been edited into oblivion, but I made a copy and have been modifying it here: Thinkyhead's Curated Prusa i3 BOM.by Thinkyhead - General
I've been getting educated on similar topics in "Lower Voltage But Louder Motors?" and maybe some of the information there will also be useful for you.by Thinkyhead - For Sale
Who needs a helper script when you can call shell script by string directly in AppleScript? For this revision I removed dependency on an external shell script. I also employed a new trick to get the location of Slic3r.app (because AppleScript's "get path to application" causes Slic3r to launch). This method finds all your copies of Slic3r, including any that might be embedded in the Repetier Hostby Thinkyhead - Slic3r
Thankfully you can bypass the filament cartridge in the Cube and use your own, but its firmware apparently won't accept standard GCode files and won't interoperate with popular RepRap host software. So I'm curious if any enterprising person who got stuck with a Cubify Cube (or a MakerBot Replicator 2) has managed to convert it into a vanilla RepRap so that any software can be used to drive it? Myby Thinkyhead - General
I'd like to request that an #include directive be added to the Slic3r config file parser. I have a growing number of config files that only differ by a small amount. I'd like to keep the things that don't change, or which would be universal, in a master config file, then have smaller config files that #include that one. It would be a great convenience! (If I can figure this out myself, I'll sendby Thinkyhead - Slic3r
I've been slicing up a lot of Mendel parts onto an SD card lately, and it's rather slow going through host software or the Slic3r application every time. Then I end up with gcode files that are hard to differentiate at a glance from others, so I always have to do some extra organizing work. The output_filename_format setting could help, but most host software overrides it. To deal with these issby Thinkyhead - Slic3r
Catching up, my i3 build continues. Are they ever really completed? I bought a set of 6 bipolar stepper motors ($10 apiece) because I was concerned that my current X/Y/E motors could be more efficient. As I mentioned, they're hybrid steppers that can only run in unipolar mode with RepRap electronics, so I thought bipolar would be a better choice. (Happy to say they weren't 24V/12V after all, hahaby Thinkyhead - General
It's possible I haven't been getting great micro-stepping and this is adding to the vibration. The G3D stepper drivers that I use include a voltage pot and also a separate 30K trimpot, described this way: "turned fully counterclockwise pulls the ROSC pin to ground, turning it clockwise lets you to choose a reference. By pulling the ROSC pin to ground, mixed decay is set to be active 100% of the tby Thinkyhead - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
I've been using a set of Shinano Kenshi STP-42D3018 stepper motors for the X, Y, and E motors in my RepStrap that are 8.8V 0.64A 11.6Ω bipolar and 5.2V 0.9A 5.8Ω unipolar. I've been using them as unipolar motors because the bipolar resistance of 11.6 Ohms is apparently too high. They've actually worked quite well, especially the XY, with 47 oz.in. of holding torque. But it seemed like a waste toby Thinkyhead - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
J-Head extruder 0.5mm 3mm PLA only, so far I've been calibrating this Prusa i3 for a couple of months using PLA and Slic3r, and I'm pretty confident with this combination at this point. Soon I will be starting to print ABS and trying some other slicing software.by Thinkyhead - General
Hi HoloPed, Here's some what's been going on with my Prusa i3 so far… After dealing with the usual technical glitches everyone encounters in these builds, this is turning out to be a decent printer. At the moment I'm having a leaky nozzle issue — hole in the inner PTFE liner — so I have to print slowly. Next week I'll have a new nozzle and I can start tuning the printer for more speed. In otherby Thinkyhead - General
I'm trying my Shinano Kenshi motors (STP-42D3018) in bipolar mode and getting unusual results. They had been working very well as Unipolar but I learned they might use less current and run cooler in bipolar mode, so I am trying that out. The problem I am seeing is that printing suddenly stops, which made me think possibly the G3D failsafe was tripping. I want to make sure these motors are compatiby Thinkyhead - For Sale
I had similar issues for a while. I couldn't get the firmware to upload to the Arduino successfully either. Replacing the cable didn't help. Finally I tried something stupid. I pressed the reset button on the RAMPS board before attempting a new firmware upload. And oddly enough it worked. I haven't had a single problem since. It's probably a total post-hoc fallacy, but hey, anything is worth a trby Thinkyhead - General
Following up, my Z max feedrate was set way too high in Marlin, so it wasn't overheating after all, just losing steps from trying to move too fast. Meanwhile I haven't seen any problems with these overheating after eliminating that false flag. Nevertheless I put a fan into my RAMPS box to cool things down. Now, of course, after pushing the speeds upward I have the new challenge of an overheatingby Thinkyhead - For Sale
When building plastic assemblies I sometimes find it more convenient to make separate parts and then glue them together. I have had some success using Gorilla Glue with PLA but the adhesion isn't 100%, so I was thinking of trying Elmer's Glue next. What adhesives do you use with different materials?by Thinkyhead - Polymer Working Group
Hi all, still printing? My name is Scott, and I'm a software engineer and musician originally from Cape Cod. I'm living in Ballard now and I recently built a Prusa i3 which I'm still refining and calibrating. I'm always up for getting together to compare notes, share ideas, and print stuff. I occasionally go to the 3D printer night at Metrix, which is always interesting. I even got to meet Johannby Thinkyhead - Washington, Seattle RepRap User Group
Actually it turned out the polyfuse was probably fine. I replaced it anyway. In the process I discovered that the D2 diode was cracked, and this is the component that smoked when I plugged in the board. Since it burned up when I plugged in the board correctly, I'm now unsure whether I ever really plugged it in wrong. Anyhow I replaced the diode and now all is well!by Thinkyhead - RAMPS Electronics
I see! My assumption was based on looking at gcode without any retract-lift moves in it. In those the Z speed is not altered. My main point is that in all .gcode files the Z speed is assumed to be limited by the firmware, so whatever speed is set for it is meant as a theoretical max.by Thinkyhead - Repetier
Actually if you examine a Slic3r gcode file, you'll see it leaves the Z feedrate alone. It doesn't set it to any value for retract-lift moves, for example. I believe it's counting on the firmware to take care of limiting the speed. (G29 uses the homing feedrate.)by Thinkyhead - Repetier
Have you adjusted the trimpot on the Pololu? Too little or too much voltage can cause the stuttering you're seeing. Also having the motor wired wrong can do that, or having the plug in wrong.by Thinkyhead - RAMPS Electronics
I just accidentally fried my RAMPS 1.4 board by plugging in the PSU without being careful, and the plug was offset by one to the left. Needless to say there was smoke and now the board is dead. Fortunately the Arduino is still fine. I can see that one of the Resettable Fuse Polyswitch packages (F1) has a brown spot, so I've ordered a new set of those in the hopes that all I need to do is replaceby Thinkyhead - RAMPS Electronics
This is probably more detail than you need but here goes... I just built a Prusa i3 (single plate) around the laser cut frame from SeeMeCNC ($53), sourcing parts from various places. I bought 5 NEMA 17 motors on eBay for $83 (too much). I bought smooth and threaded rods and all the metric hardware from McMaster-Carr for around $50 (good prices). I bought the RAMPS kit with heated bed PCB and Smaby Thinkyhead - General
Looks like conductive PLA is right around the corner too. Check out this paper.by Thinkyhead - For Sale
I'm using these on my Prusa i3 build, and they work great. I keep the trimpot all the way CCW and the motors are quiet as can be. For some reason the Z motor driver is prone to overheating, maybe because it's attached to two motors, or because the Z axis is a little busier with retract_lift. But maybe it would help if I use "turn off motors when not in use" in the firmware. The next thing I planby Thinkyhead - For Sale
D'oh! Nevermind. I discovered my problem... #define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 500, 500, 150, 45 };by Thinkyhead - Repetier