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Printing issues ...
Nominally, a GT2 timing belt has 2mm tooth spacing. The teeth are spaced so that centre to centre there should be 2mm of spacing. This results in the diameter being approximately 2mm times the number of teeth. A 20 tooth gear should result in about 40mm of travel for one revolution. At 200 full steps per revolution and 16X microstepping, this SHOULD result in about 80 steps/mm. With different bel
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SupraGuy
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General
I had a problem that looked similar.
The problem wasn't loose belts. The belts were tight and seemed fine. I had a problem where the connection from the belt to the moving parts wasn't as secure as it should have been, allowing for some slop in the movement, which resulted in circles that looked much like yours.
In my case, the whole design of the printer was crap, and it needed a major rebuild
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Well, I got it together enough to test for motion. No hotend attached yet, and no build platform. They're sort of there, since my firmware is set to need the thermistors, but they get no heat power, and aren't actually bolted to anything.
Anti backlash nut on the Y axis. This seems to be kind of noisy, I'll have to see why.
Same in the head carriage. Smooth as silk, and moves quickly and easi
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Okay, I think that I have the final pieces in place.
One of the big limitations that I've been facing so far is the lack of a heated bed on my newer printer. This makes printing in anything other than PLA practically impossible. It is claimed that ABS prints are possible with this printer, but I can't seem to get anything larger than 10mm to a side to print without severe warping issues, and tha
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
So long as you've checked your capacitors, sounds like you're good to go.
I think that you could redirect D1 to a 12V source from the 11A input to power the Mega2560, probably easier to just make sure that it's plugged into USB, but I don't really like the idea of something that needs 3 power supplies. (2 is more than bad enough. I'd probably just want to run everything off of 24V myself.)
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
RAMPS and an Arduino will do the job.
There are some limitations. If you want to use higher voltage, then the RAMPS will need some work, Fire is a bad thing. Larger heat beds may be higher wattage than what the RAMPS will provide. I've seen people recommending mains based heated build platforms, though I haven't seen them myself. They should be able to get hot enough, which becomes a much higher
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
I didn't know that the power requirements were that much higher, I only have the 220mmX220mm bed, which was fed by the RAMPS 11A input. Will a heat bed controller take care of its needs, if one wants to go with a single 12V supply?
I remember reading something... There it is. RAMPS with 24V Things to look out for with the RAMPS board if you want to run 24V. Looked like too much trouble for me at
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
GT2 timing belt and pulleys should give you values near the 90 steps/mm point with motors that are 200 steps/revolution, and 16X microstepping.
As stated above, check that there are jumpers under the stepper motor drivers on your RAMPS board. Under each A4988 there will be a group of 3 jumpers. If they are all closed (Jumpers present) then you should have 16X microstepping, which will give you t
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SupraGuy
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Printing
Well, the RAMPS board asks for a 5A and 11A input, at 12V, that's 16A=192W. About a third of the power from a PSU is on the 5V/3.3V rails, so a 300W PSU will do the trick nicely.
If you're not using a heated build platform, then you don't need the 11A input at all, which makes the power requirement something that even the wimpiest of ATX PSUs more than adequate for the job. Even some 12V wall wa
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Thanks, stahlsau.
I do realize that belts produce some pretty good printers. My Amazon kit is running on belts, and seems to be pretty good.
In general though, my I3 kit has always been terrible. Accuracy has always been at best disappointing. I had started to doubt that the models I was printing were worth anything much, except that now I'm printing some of the same STL files with the new prin
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
The pots on the stepper controllers adjust the bias current, which probably needs to be quite low for the DVD stepper motors. You'll want to adjust these down, but I'm not sure what values you'll want to use. Probably if the motors are getting too hot to touch, they're not going to be very happy.
If you're using an ATX PSU, you might consider using the 5V power rail for your RAMPS input for the
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Yeah, I figured as much. The Z axis doesn't move too much, and shouldn't have trouble with the couplers as-is. I'll put in a BB for the X/Y. I could do a rigid coupler as well. for the X axis, I know for 100% sure that I will have near perfect alignment of the motor and the holder on the shaft, so no issues there. On the Y axis, it wasn't quite so good with the first version. I changed the holes
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
By degree of freedom, do you mean the way that the couplers are a little bit compressable? I'm reading your solution to be that you put a steel spacer ball in the coupler between the motor shaft and the screw shaft to reduce/eliminate the possibility of movement in there. I'll keep that in mind. The 8mm screws are down to the bottom of their bore, so they cannot go any deeper. I could drop in a .
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Thanks, Cozmicray, I am aware of those issues.
I was initially looking at a diode laser in order to do exactly as you said, and move the laser around as a simpler system, if it could do as I wanted. As you say, it would take many passes with a 2-3W laser, which is okay, so I was looking at something purported to be a 15W device. If it had been so, I'd have been quite happy, but it seems likely t
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SupraGuy
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Laser Cutter Working Group
My I3 has always been something of a POS. For whatever reason, I've never been happy with the steps/mm settings, I even changed out the belts, because I had thought that they stretched at some point. Even with new belts, getting the steps/mm sorted was never good. Even when it was good, I'd get results where circles weren't circular. I thought that my stepper motors might be going weird, and repl
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Any unusual noises while it's printing? Any popping or crackling sounds? Is this a different filament than you've used before?
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SupraGuy
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Printing
So looking around and reading more, a few things are becoming clear.
Few laser cut projects are done with MDF. Most are done in thin poplar plywood because it's a much less dense material, with fewer nasty fumes when burnt, and less likely to catch fire. Okay, I can let go of the idea of cutting MDF, it's not like I can't get a hold of the poplar plywood. I'd still like to be able to cut acrylic
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SupraGuy
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Laser Cutter Working Group
Thanks, Viktor, that was exactly the kind of information that I was looking for. Well, I'd have rather heard that this would do what I want, but I'll take the truth when I can get it.
So it seems that I'm looking for a bit more complicated a system, but I can live with that.
With a tube laser, this isn't going to end up looking like an i3. Too bad, since I have tons of parts for that kind of pl
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SupraGuy
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Laser Cutter Working Group
In the process of working with my 3D printers, the first of which was crap, I have a large collection of spare parts and electronics, including several Arduino Mega, and RAMPS boards, a half dozen or so stepper motors, and many other goodies. Not quite enough to build another setup, but I shouldn't need too large a shopping list to do another simple robot.
I am rebuilding the first printer, in t
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SupraGuy
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Laser Cutter Working Group
This is going to depend on a number of factors.
For me, my i3 was never good. It was always uinaccurate, but I thought that I could make it better. The problem was with the tools that I had to make it better, which was largely the printer itself. I couldn't make the parts that I needed in order to make it better. I ran into a limitation on what I could do, and what I was willing to spend in term
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SupraGuy
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General
@PDBeal: Obviously I'm not averse to doing a bit of tweaking. It is also worth noting that this printer is a part of what is supposed to be a solution to getting the old one to be a more solid platform. Still, there's a difference between debugging/troubleshooting and tweaking. I'd like to be done with the first portion to the point where I get useable printing done, which will continue to be abl
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SupraGuy
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General
Well, it looks like I'm having some Z axis problems. I'm not hearing anything that sounds like missed steps, but there's definitely some weirdness going on. Print below was PLA extruded at 200 deg C.
I took time to really solidly level the bed. I locked the platform in place so that there could be no interference from the firmware, and adjusted the mounting screws so that the print head will dr
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SupraGuy
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General
I've always just used good old dihydrogen monoxide. I take the glass to the sink and run it under the hot tap. Hairspray dissolves easily enough, so unless there's ABS residue stuck to the glass, that's always been enough to get the job done. The trickiest part is getting it dry afterwards, but a paper towel or two usually does a perfectly adequate job. Maybe once in a while a drop of dish soap,
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
I thought that the tape should be okay. Kind of floored by that.
For bed leveling, I do have the build platform level without any need for software leveling. Not that I don't trust it, but... I don't trust it. Still, visually it does appear to have about the appropriate gap for the first layer (0.25mm) which is what I used for my i3. Of course the i3 had a heated bed. I would have rather not us
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SupraGuy
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General
Back when I got my i3 kit, I put up a topic asking "Are all these kits this bad?"
Well, I've run out of patience with trying to fix the i3 up. It's not capable of making parts that would make it better, which is frustrating. It's also degraded over time, and I finally gave up on it about a year and a half ago when it could no longer manage a semblance of a circle.
So, earlier this month, I pick
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SupraGuy
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General
@jerryjs8: Not too bad an idea. For some of it, I want the rigidity of metal, which is going to be much higher than any thermoplastic can manage, and if the stresses on it are too much for 1" by 1/8" steel flat bar to manage without unacceptable flexing, I can't imagine a 3D printed part itself being strong enough to manage, but a cast aluminum arm (not flatbar) will do the job nicely. For some o
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SupraGuy
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General
I'm not sure why MDF would be a bad idea, aside from the fact that it's heavy.
With an auto-ignition (flamepoint) temperature in excess of 200 deg C, it's not in danger of catching fire under any kind of normal operation. Its thermal expansion coeficient is also very low, so that's not likely to cause a big problem. Warping can certainly be controlled via structural reinforcement. I'd be more co
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SupraGuy
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Reprappers
Thanks for comments, I appreciate it.
@Trakyan: I'll look for those filaments. I didn't see any when I was looking before. Because I don't actually need really high resolution, I was looking to put the model directly into the casting sand, directly pouring the aluminum in to replace it. If I want, I can spend time polishing the rough-cast surface afterwards, but I really only need a few small su
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SupraGuy
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General
I'm looking to do some parts that are going to live under the hood of my car. The temperatures under the hood get rather warm, but the other problem is that I need more strength from the part than any 3D printed part I've ever seen. I've done some stuff with lost wax casting for doing small jewelry pieces, and am playing with the idea of casting parts in aluminum or brass, which are possible with
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SupraGuy
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General
1. No, you cannot. What you need is a larger print surface, the print head (extruder) can manage whatever size surface you want, the problem is one of allowing it to move with needed accuracy over the entire surface of the print surface. Think of it this way, they now have what are essentially giant 3D printers that can print houses out of an aggregate material. The limitation isn't the print hea
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SupraGuy
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General