A lot depends on your background. If you have used CAD before (ProE, SolidWorks, AutoCAD) then the Autodesk stuff will make a lot of sense. If you are a C programmer, OpenSCAD will be a good starting point. If you are a graphics / video person, none of them will make much sense. OpenSCAD is very nice for designs that you want to vary based on settings. Cube with XX mm sides where you put in theby uncle_bob - Reprappers
In no particular order: 1) What happens when you use Pronterface to raise the Z axis (top 10 button)? 2) Where are your end stops located? 3) Where does you head go when you home X and home Y? 4) If you can raise the Z, does it return to the same location when you lower it? 5) What are the current ratings on your motors? 6) How are your currents set (what Vref voltage)? 7) How are your Z motorsby uncle_bob - Reprappers
There are a few common Rep Rap printers that a lot of dealers do as kits. The i3 is one, there are several others. There are also printers that are much less common and that have far fewer dealers doing up kits. In general competition is a good thing. Some of the less common printers are indeed very well supported, often only by a single dealer. In other cases dealers have come up with a custom dby uncle_bob - Reprappers
Oddly enough there are a fairly limited number of things they put in hair spray. The reason the stuff works is that the main useful ingredients are water soluble plastics. If you see things like polyester-5 and polyurethane-6 on the list of ingredients, you've probably got the right stuff. I've been using the Official Rep Rap Hairspray (trademark pending I'm sure). It's Garnier Fructis Style Exby uncle_bob - Reprappers
The drivers have an output resistance. They get hot when current flows through that effective resistance. Heat goes up by the square of the current flow. The data sheet can be found at: Output resistance is on page 4, it's 0.32 to 0.43 ohms at 1.5A. It will increase as current goes up. You have two motor windings and two drive ports per winding. Net is you have 4X 0.32 to 0.43 ohms or 1.2 toby uncle_bob - Reprappers
If you ever do decide to go with a heated bed, you may need another 15A ....by uncle_bob - Reprappers
If you are going with a J Head - buy it from hot ends.com . That's the only place you can go and be sure you are getting the real thing. Buying a knock off and finding out a moth later that it's junk and you've wasted $35 worth of filament finding that out .... not so fun. 1.75 mm filament is smaller in diameter than 1.75 mm filament. You will need more force, but less speed to push 3mm. Some fby uncle_bob - Reprappers
Threads tend to get pretty crazy when multiple issues are involved. It's better to start a new thread for a new issue, or even for a new instance of the same issue. That way it's much easier to figure out who things are in reply to. (.... a message that could be in reply to several above and thus is an example of this ambiguity ) In pins.h you can switch around spare pins for fan control. Theby uncle_bob - Reprappers
By far the most likely is a driver that's getting *way* to hot. If they get close to melting, the shut down to protect themselves. If that's what's going on, you need to roughly cut the heat rise on the driver in half. Usually it's a combination of fans /heat sinks / adjusting current.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
Well since we are dredging up fossil threads. .... Hair spray on glass works just fine. It's far more "level" than anything you can do with tape. If you want a thin first layer it's the right way to go. It's about as cheap as anything else.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
Keep in mind that not everybody uses the same little pot.....by uncle_bob - RAMPS Electronics
There are a *lot* of people who have trouble with the normal (not the 4 layer) 4988's past 1.2A. If you are running a pair of 2.8A motors (standard Z axis) on a single 4988 I'd say that's pretty amazing.by uncle_bob - Controllers
Sourcing parts from all over the place when you don't know much about them is almost guaranteed to get you in trouble. I'd check the connections on the stepper modules, connections on the motors, and connections on the main controller board. Check for shorts with a DVM. Pull out the new parts and see if you can connect to the CPU. If so, plug in the new stuff one at a time and see which one crby uncle_bob - Controllers
As mentioned earlier ... you probably don't want to get the FET's switching a whole lot faster than half a microsecond or so. There will not be any real gain in power dissipation. The ringing issues will keep power sloshing around for quite a while with fast edges. I don't think we want to get into high current ferrite beads on the leads.by uncle_bob - Controllers
I've tried several servos. None of them have created issues for the Mega 5V regulator.by uncle_bob - General Mendel Topics
The kit I bought was: It's a USA ship version of a Wanti kit with three DQ542MA's, three NEMA-23 428 in-oz steppers, and a DB-25 break out board. The seller is: They have a number of similar kits with various shipping options. Once the holiday stuff calms down I'll see what I can do about more information / pictures / what ever.by uncle_bob - Delta Machines
IF you only get bits when doing a skirt then something is wrong somewhere. What depends a lot on how much work you have already done setting up your printer. First place to look is extruder calibration.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
Do what you will. I don't like fires very much. I know for *sure* that Hobby King does not make power supplies. I strongly suspect they are not as careful about the sourcing of the electrolytic capacitors as they might be. At least when I looked, the 350W 12V supply was $3 cheaper from them than from the MeanWell guys. That's before shipping. The lower power supply really isn't enough for mostby uncle_bob - Reprappers
You may not have the beast screwed together tight enough.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
What I'm saying is that the default accelerations and jerk numbers in the firmware are for a very odd printer. They simply do not make any sense at all for the sort of printer you have.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
I suspect your firmware is fine. There are no settings on a Ramps for torque. If you can stall the motors with your fingers you do not have enough torque. Your motors are 1.7A each. The pair of Z motors would want 3.4A of current to reach full torque. Even at half current they would want 1.7A. None of that will happen with a 4988 board. You will need something like a DQ542MA to drive those motoby uncle_bob - Reprappers
Much better place to get power supplies. 1) They are a name brand and there is a real warranty on them 2) TRC is a big distributor, you won't get fakes 3) Shipping is *much* faster and cheaper 4) They run off of 110V and / or 220V 5) They are the same price / cheaper / within 10% depending on which one you look at. 6) On a 350W supply a fan is a *very* good idea as long as it only comes on wby uncle_bob - Reprappers
Remember that you also have some jerk numbers to worry about on each axis. They also impact speed related issues. When you do a big change in setup, they need to be addressed as well. Since the firmware uses a non-standard definition of jerk, it's a trial and error sort of thing. Most moves the printer does are X/Y combos. Slowing down one will indeed impact the other. Looking at your acceleraby uncle_bob - Reprappers
If the set screws on the gears are ok, and the bolt is not slipping relative to the large gear: 1) You clamp screws may not be tight enough. They need to be *very* tight. If you almost can't get the filament into the extruder that's about right with most springs. If you have some sort of uber spring, that may not be correct. 2) The current on your extruder motor may not be set right, you may beby uncle_bob - Reprappers
Despite the best efforts of UPS to loose the package, the steppers got here today. Short quick evaluation - I'm impressed. 1) The break out board that goes to the LPT port on a PC (that I dismissed as useless early on) is quite complex. It appears to be opto isolated !! 2) The controllers seem to be well made and they can be mounted easily. 3) The motors are massive .... big heavy tall things (by uncle_bob - Delta Machines
You want the screws on the clamp to be *very* tight. The shaving of the plastic comes from it being to loose or from trying to extrude to fast for your layer height. If anything is loose or slipping on your extruder, that needs to be fixed. They don't work at all well with loose parts.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
If you are running Slic3r *and* you are printing reasonable sized parts *and* you tend to forget things ... Tell Slic3r to print a skirt on the part. Give it a minimum amount of filament (say 10mm) to use on the skirt. That way it will automatically prime the hot end with each print. It will also scrub the print head before the print.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
It's a lot cheaper to drop a 50 cent chip on a normal Mega that it is to buy a Taurino. Either way you still need to power your fans. You will spend far more on a couple of 24V fans than the $10 cost of a very good 12V supply.by uncle_bob - Reprappers
Except for the frame, there is very little you can make yourself on these printers. The printed parts are cheap, and yes you can make them. As far as I'm concerned - they don't count. What counts: 1) Stepper motors 2) Electronics (Ramps + mega) 3) Hot end 4) Heated bed 5) Smooth rod - surface hardened / chrome plated / ground to tight tolerances 6) Bearings of various sorts 7) LCD display &amby uncle_bob - Reprappers
On a normal i3, the X and Y (belt driven) can hit 500 mm/sec. That's not to say they *should* hit that speed, but they can. The normal Z axis on the same printer (running 2 motors) is hard pressed to hit 4 mm/ sec. Even if you double that to 8 mm/sec because you have one motor, that's slow. The voltage on the driver is one issue, the fact that the driver likely goes into thermal limit at 1 toby uncle_bob - Reprappers