I am not sure whereabouts the offending thermistor is placed, but assume that it is somewhere off center. My own thoughts on the matter are that the right position is around half way between the center and the periphery. My logic is: Assuming the heater has a constant power input across the whole plate then the hottest point will be in the center whether you are considering heat losses by radiaby leadinglights - General
Just checking before comitting the next stage of my latest printer. Since this is one where the build stage moves in both X and Y I am trying to minimalise the moving mass. A short video of ploting out the new heater on Youtube and photo of the new heater made from the marked out PCB material. The supports this time will be soldered to the copper layer on the back. Mikeby leadinglights - General
I see that the typical build stage consists of an aluminium heat spreader, the heater and a glass plate. I had to ask myself if this is really needed and built a stage with no heat spreader. I have done maybe 50 or 60 prints now on that printer and have noticed no problems either with the build stage moving or with uneven heat on the surface. I think you can see above that there is nothing undeby leadinglights - General
The problem has now gone away, leading to one of those "go figure" moments. All I did was edit the original file with preamble to include 20 G1 movements in X only before it started. All of them executed. I then edited out only what I had put in and everything now works. Somewhere between creating the file in LibreOffice Calc, saving it as a .csv, editing it with notepad, loading it into Repetiby leadinglights - Repetier
When I run the attached short gcode program it skips the first approximately 50 steps but then carries on till the end correctly. The file is just to use the 3D printer as a pen plotter and mark out its own heated bed for etching. What is plotted is a Hilbert curve and was produced with a spreadsheet. I think I have included all needed codes but there is something wrong. Edit: Whoops! the versioby leadinglights - Repetier
I have just dropped the STLs and instructions for this on Mikeby leadinglights - Look what I made!
The ripple problem is one that has been plagueing me as well. The first thing I would note is that the ripples that jbernardis is suffering from is not edge ringing - or at least not simple edge ringing as it does not attenuate. It could be an oscillation that starts at an edge, but is more akin to running a finger across the surface of a balloon. I think that an element of sticktion must be invoby leadinglights - General
I have found on occasion that the free end of the filament can get under a loop on the spool. With PLA it can often feed without a problem with theis knot lurking until it decides to bite. I take near paranoid care that the end never gets away having lost a good 150mm bust of Pallas Athena to this exact cause. Surplus ends of spools and samples need to be unspooled and respooled with care to avoiby leadinglights - General
I reported on my experiments with cuttlefish bone in Briefly though: Cuttlefish bone is an exceptional insulator and can take the maximum temperature of any credible plastic extruder. However, it is very fragile. I use thin brass shim to build a protective box around the cuttlefish bone. Mikeby leadinglights - Look what I made!
Hopefully these will give the general idea. Please do not try Tekapeek (graphite loaded PEEK) shown in one of the diagrams - it was an abject failure. View on bottom of hot end on a Mendel Prusa Section showing parts Section showing area fan/heatsink cooler Edit: I have been looking for any photos showing the ducting, but the closest I have is a Youtube video. The silicone tube is clearlyby leadinglights - Look what I made!
My hot end has an air ring around the nozzle with the air fed through a silicone tube from a remote pump, I have been using an aquarium pump but this cannot easily be controlled by the G-code. After spending some time looking at what was available I decided to make one. The normal axial fan is not an option as it can't push much air through a thin (6mm bore) tube. Centrifugal fans are a littleby leadinglights - Look what I made!
My personal choice would be Repetier host as the host software. This includes a choice of slicers including Cura and Slic3r. For the firmware I use Repetier firmware although I haven't tried any others. I won't reccommend a CAD package as I use Turbocad - which I have never met a fan of but I like as I have used it for many years. Only additional software you will need is Netfabb Basic for repaby leadinglights - General
On this discussion I lean strongly towards the 8 bit camp. When you are working with 8 bit microcontrollers it is both useful and easy to know something of the structure of the microcontroller - ports, direction registers, instructions etc.. This gives anybody working with these a greater connection with the hardware. With the 32 bit processors the software is so abstracted that this sense of conby leadinglights - General
To do the STL-->gcode, use the Repetier host. Look under slicer and select either Slic3r or, in the latest versions, Cura as the slicer, play with the configuration and slice. To look at the STL: use Netfabb Basic to import the part in STL and then export as STL (ASCII). Your flie looks like:- Quote solid 40mmcube facet normal 0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000 outer loop vertex 19.999990 19.by leadinglights - General
In early trials with air directed close to the nozzle I discovered the effect that LoboCNC mentions - there is actually not much cooling where you want it and there can be parts that get no cooling at all. A later design used an air ring which sent air directly down onto the print and was much more succesfull. I would have to admit though that it is only about the same as any good fan. I have attby leadinglights - General
That is the same reason that I was looking for low warp ABS in the printing forum - I have heard of a few that may fit the bill, the first two claim to be low warp ABS and I have ordered some ABS+ from Trideus. I hear that proto-pasta are trialing another high temperature version of PLA as even the one can't be used to make a glasses case that can be left on the dashboard under the Arizonaby leadinglights - General
The best temperature varies with many things: The obvious one is the ABS composition including the colourants used in it - the manufacturers may have added carbon black to remainders of other colours to make black for example. I had been happy with 236 hot end, 100 bed and no cooling but found that a design with crossed holes in close proximity caused delamination in the body of the print. Betteby leadinglights - General
The more flexible the filament the less suitable it is, so things like Ninjaflex should be avoided. More retraction is needed with a Bowden so the print time is also increased trivially. Other than those, a Bowden setup can be pretty close to perfection.by leadinglights - General
Yesterday I tried printing another batch of the same part, but using a freshly opened white ABS from 3D Filaprint. While greatly improved, there was still delamination. Today I went back to the TCT exhibitiobn at the Birmingham NEC to see if I could get any further input from filament suppliers there and had several useful suggestions. While I was at the Reprap stand, somebody that I was talkingby leadinglights - Printing
Where I have had similar problems the cause has most commonly been poor interlayer adhesion. This can be faulty filament or incorrectly set up temperature or flow rate. Try doing a calibration with that material and perhaps a test piece that you can do a purely subjective "rip it apart with a couple of pairs of pliers to see if it feels puny" test.by leadinglights - Printing
I spoke to a number of knowledgable people at the TCT exhibition at the NEC yesterday and showed them the sample (photo in earlier mailing) and there seems to be a bit of a consensus as to the cause of this delamination when all normal causes had been eliminated: The ABS that I used was possibly substandard Black is not a good choice for mechanically stressed parts as undispersed carbon black cby leadinglights - Printing
I fear that it has been a couple of years since I last used a Generation 6, but it still comes back as a nightmare*. The first thing was that it didn't have a bootloader - a small piece of software on the Atmel chip that allows actual running software like Marlin or Repetier firmware to run. In order to program this you needed a programmer; athough these are cheap and readily available, each oneby leadinglights - General
Although I built a couple of Generation 6 boards for my first printers and even quite liked them, I think you would be better served by getting a RAMPS and Arduino Mega. The reason for this is that it is a nightmare suitable only for those with a knowledge and programmer for programming Atmel microcontrollers. When you have got it working, it still has no control for the bed heating. Mikeby leadinglights - General
Firstly, and my opinion only. It is counterproductive to do the old "what is the best printer technology" dance again - it is a bit like saying What is the best vehicle, bicycle or Boing 747". For myself, I think that there is a lot of mileage in FFF. I am trying to build a printer for multi materials with mountable heads. Imagine something that could print a tough material like Polycarbonate wiby leadinglights - General
I have managed to take a picture of this problem to better explain. The photo is the worst of 8 prints, others wouldn't have photographed so well, but will still be too weak The print in question is an extruder. The smallest hole is the 2mm filament hole, mid size are for 3mm screws and largest hold is for a 6mm brass bar that the screws screw into. I think you will instantly see why this partby leadinglights - Printing
Protected against drafts by enclosing the whole thing in a box made of large cell double wall bubble film. The temperature self limits to about 40 degrees. I know that geting the temperature up to 60 degrees on my Rostock makes for briliant prints but the Rostock does not achieve the accuracy of my Prusa 1 and the Prusa has PLA parts so even 40 degrees is a bit of a stretch. The best bet remainsby leadinglights - Printing
I am having no problems with attachment to the bed (although it has taken me a long time to learn how to do that for most models) It is failure in the model, typically above 20 mm above the first layer. The only ways that I can think of to cure this are higher chamber temperature or ABS (or other high temperature material) with better anti-warp characteristics. The main types of this, SmartABS anby leadinglights - Printing