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Printing issues ...
Re: What is a quieter alternative to 50mm blower fan for part cooling? - 5 years ago
Fans make noise because of blade speed. The efficiency of the blade also affects it, but even the cheap fans tend to have fairly efficient blades. So, you can either slow the fan down, thereby reducing the blade speed and noise, or you can go to a larger fan, which spins much slower to move the same amount of air. For "decent cooling" there are a huge number of variables, including the air tempby SupraGuy - General
Re: How far is TOO FAR - 5 years ago
Hotends aren't that expensive, and it definitely sounds like you need one. Sounds like there are some serious control issues. Your Y axis stepper driver isn't happy, it's either overheating, or is underdriven and your motor isn't responding once IT heats up. the pauses would make me crazy. There are several control electronics sets, hotends, and the like available on Amazon for reasonably cheapby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: A fixed-bed gantry design - 5 years ago
I like the idea, but as stated above, I'd be concerned about the print quality shown in DSC1287.JPG I didn't see any other print quality samples on your website, either.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Printer without belts - 5 years ago
A couple of years ago, I got started with my 3D printer, an I3 clone. It wasn't a great kit to start with, and I have never been entirely happy with its overall accuracy. I always felt that I was making compromises with many of the things that I made with it. I made several improvements, and it got better, but it's still not as good as I want. I have never been able to make pieces that fit tightby SupraGuy - Look what I made!
Re: Accuracy upgrades and stepper motor lifespan - 8 years ago
Thanks. I am aware of needing to recalculate torque. the rods that I have aren't too heavy, so I think I'll be fine. My concern with the limit switches is because I do prints where I change the filament, and sometimes I bump things and move them, so it's nice to be able to just re-home the X and Y axis and get back to where I was, but I've found the occasional problem where the X axis isn't quitby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Accuracy upgrades and stepper motor lifespan - 8 years ago
Okay, so my print quality has been steadily getting worse and worse over the last while, and I've traced the problem to the stepper motors that came with my kit. It seems that a lot of rapid reversals have taken their toll on the parts inside the motor, and the result is an amount of backlash that is no longer acceptable to me. It probably doesn't help when I get the occasional failure of the mecby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Perimeter thickness is not constant - 8 years ago
Check that your Z axis couplers are making the rod move smoothly. There are 8 layers per revolution of your Z axis lead screws, so if the screws are turning unevenly, even a little, you'll get that result. This would be that the height of the layers is subtly different, which will cause the layers where the height is less to squeeze wider, and those where the height is greater to thin out. Off tby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: RAMPS 1.4 burned Arduino Mega 2560 - 8 years ago
the Arduino 2560 has a separate programming port for the USB interface. In my case, I fried (Or screwed up the programming for) the USB to serial chip, so I can connect to the Arduino to upload programs, but not to the serial port, which makes it useless for the printer, but I can do other things with it. I had intended to attempt to reflash the USB chip, but I haven't yet done it. If the chip iby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Bed Heater Maxing Out and Unable to Maintain Temp - 8 years ago
Make sure that you have adequate power from your power supply. An inexpensive volt meter will tell the story, if voltage drops, then your power supply isn't able to keep it up. Measure the voltage at 4 places: 1. At the power supply terminals themselves, 2. At the connections to the control board from the power supply, 3. at the output to the heat bed ,and then at the heater bet itself. A drop iby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Printing ovals instead of circles! - 8 years ago
I'm having almost exactly the same issue. It happened before when one of the belts for one axis had a bit of slack in it. I'll be taking things apart to re-check belt tension and see if there is any drag on the belt's movements that I can remove this week. When there is slack in the drive belt, you get compression of circles, because the print head doesn't reverse direction right away, it staysby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: ABS Tprint issues. Wavy? - 8 years ago
Make sure that the printer is in a warm environment, and that will probably help. 110 degrees on the plate is what I use, with extrusion at 240, and in a warm room, I can get stuff to stick most of the time. Some shapes just won't, and that's just how it is, I guess. If the room is cooler, then it's much worse. I guess that's why a lot of people print in an enclosed space.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Sintron LCD 2004 smart display - installation issues - 8 years ago
Looks very much like the LCD controller that I have. What changes have you made to your Marlin config.h file to get it set up? Edit: And are you sure that the rotary encoder isn't pushed down?by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Just a thought. Hobbed nema shafts. - 8 years ago
Well, the first thing that comes to mind for me is that the shafts have a flat spot on them, used to key them for drive gears, at least all of the motors that I have are keyed that way, which puts paid to the idea right there. The second thing is that the shafts are actually very hard, much harder than the iron that bolts are made from, and probably about as hard as most tap and die sets are, whiby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Molten piece - 8 years ago
As it happens, there are several guides for what wire gauge is appropriate for what load over what distance, as this is of much interest for automotive wiring. Having too much wire in a car is a bother, but electrical fires are a bad thing. I found a quick guide for motorcycle wiring (Which has more appropriate lengths than most of the car guides that I found) here : I used 16AWG wire, becauseby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: 
X axis Phenomenon >> - 8 years ago
If you're using a RAMPS board, check the jumpers under the stepper driver. Most of these are configured for 16X microstepping, which requires all 3 jumpers to be installed. Missing 1 will be 8X, and missing 2 will be 4X (Which will result in movement about 4X expected values.)by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: ABS Tprint issues. Wavy? - 8 years ago
It also helps to prevent curling if you print in a warm room. ABS juice also works well as an adhesive for your print to a glass bed, but does leave a visible film on some print pieces.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Molten piece - 8 years ago
It comes down to this: all conductors are also resistors, and resistors are heaters. That terminal was higher resistance than the wire, so it got hot while conducting power. Look at your heat bed, there are no components on it (Other than the diodes and LEDs) it's just trace wires, which we'd normally consider to have no resistance, but because they're thin, and log, they do, so when we run a loby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
It's running a new print right now. I've replaced all of the drivers. I've checked that the hotend mount is securely fastened to the carriage and the carriage to the bearings, tightened the belts. Nothing changed there, so I went ahead and upped the baud rate to 250000. It's distinctly better. I will have to let it get to the hexagonal hole to be sure, but so far the round holes look promising.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
Okay, I double checked everything. The Y axis belt wasn't as tight as I thought that it should be, so I tightened it. The J head is tightly attatched to the carriage. I lowered the extrusion temperature from 230 to 195, re-printed the part. There is some lifting at the gear teeth at the lower temperature, which I kind of expected, as that was a big part of the reason for increasing the temperatby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: 5v stepper motors and ramps 1.4 - 8 years ago
Voltage doesn't matter as much as power. If you set the stepper driver bias voltage lower, you may find that the motors become useable, or you may find that they're too weak for the task, and you need stronger ones. Lowering the stepper driver bias will limit current to the stepper coils which will reduce the produced heat, and may have your motors useable.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
It's a J head style, and when I got the kit it was definitely not as tight as I thought that it should be. I've tightened it up, so it doesn't move much relative to the extruder, but I will check this again, in case it is moving again. Thanks for the suggestion.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
It isn't unique to this print, it also happens with other things. In this case, it's a very clear example.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
I've checked temperatures with an IR thermometer, and they seem reasonably close to what they're supposed to be, si I'm thinking that the thermistor lookup is oka. It's probably right for where the thermistor is actually located versus where I can test. Bed temps are spot on. Hairspray is a fail with ABS, works fine with PLA. ABS slurry is good, though I don't like the film it leaves on the parby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
I appreciate the help. for the time being, I've got a couple of tests to run. 1. Print hte part in PLA. If this resolves it, then it's probably temperature related, since the motion of the printer will be the same regardless of medium. I don't know why temperature would do this, but if it does, then it's probably the rectilinear fill material forcing things to go weird. too bad, since printingby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
I'm reasonably sure that it's ABS. It's supposed to be transparent, but comes out looking white. it dissolves as expected in acetone, no popping noises or weirdness from the hotend. Nylon will not dissolve in acetone, nor will PLA, so that's not it. The X and Y axis slide smoothly and without any issues when I disconnect the belts from the motors. I've checked and double checked that they are peby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
Well, I tried again. I had heard somewhere that a different slicer might generate better Gcode which could alleviate that problem, so I tried slicing with Cura instead of Slic3r. I got very similar results. Taking both gears and comparing them, the overall diameter is identical, and it is as close to perfectly round as a gear like that is likely to be. The one done with slic3r has somewhat betteby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
X and Y axis are calibrated and are perpendicular to each other. I've done prints up to 18cm by 16cm, and checked with my framing square that they are of the size expected, and they are, +/- 0.1mm -- that is to say as accurately as I can measure. I measured the outer teeth of the gear at 0, 45, 90 and 135 degrees. I could measure more, but without a good idea of where the centre of the piece is,by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Extrusion speed - 8 years ago
If your hobbed bolt is stripping on the filament, you can increase your extrusion temp a bit to reduce the viscosity of the melted plastic, which will make it easier to extrude, requiring less torque. if you're using a geared extruder, motor torque usually isn't the problem, but idler gear pressure may be.by SupraGuy - Reprappers
Weird distortions internal holes - 8 years ago
Okay, I thought I had things pretty well sorted out, but I'm getting some weird results here. trying to print the gears from a Wade's extruder (Thingiverse, thing # 5111: ) The outside gear pattern is good, and meshes well with the small gear, but I'm getting some reall weaird effects in the holes in the middle. This is the bottom side of the print: The 4 big holes are supposed to be teardrby SupraGuy - Reprappers
Re: Power for headless printing - 8 years ago
The PSU should have 2 +12VDC outputs, and a couple of commons (Typical of the LED strip PSUs that a lot of the reprap kits come with) -- both of which should be connected to the RAMPS board, one on the high amperage input and one on the lower. IIRC, high amperage feeds heat bed, lower amperage feeds motors and the like. the lower amperage one I also have a 4 pin PC supply connected to to power faby SupraGuy - Reprappers