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Printing issues ...
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Here's the actual motors that are on the linear rails:
It uses RS-422/485. In it's current configuration, each motor has an IP address and the control computer sends the commands over the network to move the gantry... pretty cool stuff.
Digging through the manual, I see that you can run it by ignoring the Ethernet port altogether and sending commands over Step, Enable, and Direction pins. Th
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gtg252b
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General
Thanks for the input. I'm definitely concerned about warping... more so now than I was to begin with. I could probably build a large heated plate using some aluminum clad resistors mounted on an aluminum plate... the weight of the build platform wouldn't matter since it's not moving. Do you think having the build platform be heated would prevent curling at this size, or would the forces just b
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gtg252b
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General
The gantry that I'm trying to retrofit has a total volume of ~2'x2'x10", so I guess it's not really huge... definitely not when compared to the thing in that video!
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gtg252b
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General
Thanks Victor. That's interesting, but it won't work for my set-up because the motors on the linear rails have the Ethernet ports directly on them. There is no controller board... everything is controlled from a computer. You've given me a thought though. I'm going to take a closer look at the motors and see if I can bypass the Ethernet port. Maybe I can figure out a way to use the pins from
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gtg252b
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General
Hey Guys. First off, thanks for any input you can provide.
I've got a fully-functioning MendelMax that's working great.... so great, in fact, that my boss wants me to try to convert an old gantry that we have into a very large 3D printer. My issue is trying to figure out how I'm going to control the thing. The gantry uses Ethernet controlled linear rails for X, Y, and Z. It seems to me that
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gtg252b
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General
I have the standard Prusa PCB heated bed, and I was able to get it up to 150C. I do have the back side of the bed insulated, and it took forever to get there, but it made it. You could up the voltage to the bed a little bit and it would heat up more quickly, but I wouldn't push it too far.
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gtg252b
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General
I'm in Atlanta, GA. This time of year, it's VERY humid here. Today the humidity topped out around 90%.
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gtg252b
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Printing
One more update for anyone who has similar issues to this. I've got access to a computer controlled oven at work, so I thought I'd try to dry out the spool that was causing me issues. I programmed the oven to run at 75C for 8 hours, and then drop and hold at 40C until I pulled out the spool, and I let it run over night. The hold at 40 was just to keep any more moisture from getting in there.
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gtg252b
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Printing
These guys sell polycarbonate. I would think that it would be your best bet.
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gtg252b
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General
I finally figured it out. After trying everything I could think of (different temperatures, different speeds, different extrusion parameters, etc), I finally decided to switch out the filament spool. the first print after putting a new spool on there came out perfectly, and now I've been getting excellent prints for several days. I guess the previous roll had just sat out too long and absorbed
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gtg252b
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Printing
IceMan,
I've got a cooling fan on there already (and a duct too). I should have mentioned this in the first post, but the 4 parts in that image were all printed independently. For each one I trued tweaking some settings to see if I couldn't fix the issue.
That 25 seconds is just the minimum layer time, so it slows down small layers to get to that time. I do have the extruder retracting befor
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gtg252b
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Printing
Well, I tried a layer height of 0.1 (which should yield a W/T well over 1.5), and it's the worst one yet.
Dad911, I'm already using a minimum time higher than that (I'm at 25 seconds). Maybe I'm slowing the printer down too much... I'll try dropping that time down some.
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gtg252b
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Printing
I've tried both 0.2 and 0.15. Do you think I should try thinner than that?
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gtg252b
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Printing
I recently upgraded from a 0.5mm nozzle to a 0.35mm nozzle, and after some calibration I'm finally able to get decent prints again. One issue that I'm still having though is that small parts of the print aren't adhering to the previous layers. The two attached photos show the issue pretty well. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks.
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gtg252b
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Printing
I recently swapped out the 0.5 mm MakerGear hot end that I was using with a 0.35 mm version as part of an upgrade to my MendelMax printer. At first I was extremely disappointed with the results and I thought that maybe I had gotten a bad hot end, but after a few test prints, the results started to get pretty good. The prints improved drastically without me changing any settings in Marlin or in
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gtg252b
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General
Or, you can just use wperl.exe. It gets installed when you install Perl. Make the target field in your shortcut look something like the following, and you're done.
"C:\dev\CitrusPerl\x64\5-14\bin\wperl.exe C:\Users\kc\Documents\3D_Printer\Slic3r\slic3r.pl"
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gtg252b
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Slic3r
Slic3r calculates that automatically by default (and it does a pretty good job of it). It looks to me like you have your filament diameter set too big. For example, if you have the filament diameter set to 1.75 in Slic3r, but your filament is actually 1.72, then you will get too little plastic extruded. Try measuring the diameter of the filament and using the exact diameter in Slic3r.
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gtg252b
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Printing
From the temperatures you mentioned, I assume that this is ABS? Are you using a cooling fan? I find a fan to be very important for PLA, but with ABS it causes the upper layers to shrink too quickly and causes cracking. I don't use a cooling fan at all when I'm printing ABS.
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gtg252b
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General
Thanks Nophead, that seems to have mostly fixed it. To quickly get this working, I just changed my layer height in Slic3r from 0.15 to 0.3 (I have a 0.5mm nozzle), and it's curling much less now. I think I'm going to swap out my 0.5mm nozzle for a 0.35 so that I keep my resolution high without this curling problem killing me.
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gtg252b
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Printing
Nophead, if I understand you correctly, I should measure the width that the nozzle extrudes in free space, then choose W/T so that I'm extruding the same cross-sectional area?
Thanks
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gtg252b
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Printing
Hmmm, I'll give that a try. From Wikipedia, the glass transition is when the material transitions "from a hard and relatively brittle state into a molten or rubber-like state". I could see that making the lower materials softer and more prone to allow curling.
I'll let you know if switching the bed temperature to 55C for the upper layers fixes my issue.
Thanks
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gtg252b
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Printing
I've been having trouble with overhangs curling up now for a while, and nothing I do seems to fix the problem. If the overhang is large enough, the curl will build up to the point where the print catches on the hot end and either pulls the part loose or causes the motors to skip.
I've tried slowing the perimeters waaaay down, using a cooling fan, installing a duct (http://www.thingiverse.com/th
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gtg252b
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Printing
Couldn't you just put 3-4 thermistors in series, then modify the firmware to divide the measured resistance by the number of thermistors? This seems like it would give you the average temperature of the thermistors and a more accurate overall bed temperature.
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gtg252b
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General
It did for me. If the humidity in the room where I'm printing gets to ~70% or higher (I'm estimating here), it just curls away from the heated glass and sticks to the print head instead. Below that, it stick great to the heated glass.
Have you tried printing ABS yet? I've found that it's much less sensitive to humidity. The only downside to ABS is that I can't get it to stick to the glass di
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gtg252b
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Printing
How is the humidity where you're printing? I went through a problem a while back where PLA wouldn't stick to glass at any temperature, but the problem was intermittent. I noticed that it was only happening after it rained outside, and when I opened the windows to enjoy the cooler after-rain ari. Now I just keep the windows closed with the A/C running, and I haven't had the problem since.
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gtg252b
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Printing
OK, I figured it out. It was definitely a humidity issue. The PVA just sucks the moisture out of the air and then gets too soft to extrude nicely. The new material I ordered came with the problem. Protoparadigm thinks that the package ruptured in shipping because of the pressure changes in air shipping (I had ordered it expedited). I was able to dry the PVA out by putting it in the oven at 7
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gtg252b
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Printing
The dev made a good write up on installing slic3r from git. Just remember that you're getting a developmental version... mileage may vary.
kburgess Wrote:
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> Can we get it to try? I just need to print one
> part that must be rotated first...
> Thanks,
> Ken
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gtg252b
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Slic3r
Yes
dansxmods Wrote:
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> Can the parts be rotated?
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gtg252b
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Slic3r
Arghhhh, I'm still having the same issue with the new PVA. This is driving me nuts! I can't figure out why it worked so well previously, but stinks now.
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gtg252b
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Printing
I'm back to 0.7.2b for the moment because I was having some memory/stability issues with 0.7.3-dev. I can describe it quickly though: he's added a tab that lets you import multiple files to slice. These parts then show up in a preview pane where you can drag them around and re-position them. It's very slick... once he gets the stability issues nailed down, it's going to be a big upgrade over 0
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gtg252b
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Slic3r
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