Interesting. My room is not that cold... Will check. Thanks.by wingnut - Tantillus
I've been chasing what I thought was an intermittent connection to my thermistor for a while. When I start the print, I often get a minimum temperature error. It started getting really bad lately. It looks now like my room is just too cold. I discovered that, If I warm up the hot end with a hair drier, it starts fine every time. I guess I need to bump up the minimum temp setting but where is thatby wingnut - Tantillus
I'm still tuning my printer but I'd be happy to try and print you some parts. I'll kick of a run tonight and see how it goes. I can post pictures here and maybe some more experienced users can chime on whether they're good enough to use.by wingnut - Tantillus
Curious why it's so much more complicated then what is shown HEREby wingnut - Tantillus
QuoteSublimeYou could try the belts I used for the gear replacements on X and Y. The part number is in the readme on github. Thanks. I'm actually happy with the last set I got from Robotdigg. Took forever to get here but they're a great fit for the aluminum pulleys I picked up fleebay.by wingnut - Tantillus
Funny thing about belts is that it took me a three tries to find belts that I liked (this one's too long, that one's too skinny, etc). The last set I ordered came from China (read, cheap and slow shipping) so I ordered ten :-). I will be the guinea pig then and try to come up with a belt driven extruder.by wingnut - Tantillus
Played around some more last night. Trying to get a handle on what I need to tweak to improve accuracy. The cables are definitely due for some tightening. I also noticed some flexing in the acrylic last night. I can see gap in the seam between the sides that grows and shrinks with movement of the carriage. Tonight I plan on chemically bonding all the seams. How does the stiffness of the prinby wingnut - Tantillus
Got the new bowden tube installed and it did indeed fix my feed speed problems. I haven't tried exploring the limits yet but it doesn't seem to have any problems keeping up with the speeds recommended by the Tantillus calculator so I'm happy. I wanted to try out the work flow of creating things from scratch so I tried creating and printing a 40x40x20 open box with 2mm walls using Sketchup. Theby wingnut - Tantillus
I'm working now on replacing the bowden tube now. I did not have access to PTFE locally so I went with some polyethylene tubing from the local hardware store as a stop gap. It took so much force to push the filament through the tube that it blew out of the clamp at the extruder. It's pretty easy to hand feed plastic through the hot end so I don't think it's a temperature issue (to be verified). Iby wingnut - Tantillus
QuoteSublime Are you sure the correct filament is assigned to the extruder in the printer/extruders tab. Maybe you created a correct material profile for the 1.75 but you are not using it because the old one is assigned to the extruder. . doh! that was it. Didn't know that had to be assigned.by wingnut - Tantillus
Still having problems. I tried cranking the extrusion width as high as 80 and the gcode still has flow levels well below the original numbers. It didn't occur to me until this morning to wonder if the filament diameter is somehow being ignored. Will experiment some more tonight. I'm curious what kind of feed rate numbers are others getting for the test cube?by wingnut - Tantillus
Oh.. So Extrusion Width is the parameter that drives the filament feed rate? Good to know.by wingnut - Tantillus
Oh.. and a note about 64bit Windows and configuration files. I figure out the cause of my earlier confusion regarding the placement of config files. It appears that, if you start Kisslicer with no config files, the defaults that are generated are put in $(LOCALAPPDATA)\VirtualStore. Once this happens, copying new files to the the location of kisslicer.exe has no effect because windows has redirecby wingnut - Tantillus
I changed the extrusion width to match my hot end. I think I found the culprit though. I moved the downloaded configuration files out of the way which causes Kisslicer to generate defaults. I then compared the defaults to the tantillus version and I believe I spotted the culprit. The default min flow rate (flow_min_mm3_per_s) is 0.5, the Tantilus version is 0.01. I don't understand why this makby wingnut - Tantillus
Poking around the gcode has been enlightening. The 'good' file is using feed 0.2 and head 5.0 for perimeters. The 'bad' file is using feed 0.2 and head 15.0. For Loop, the difference is 0.6/15.0 vrs 0.2/15.0. Some big differences. I see were the head speeds are set in Kisslicer but I still can't find a setting for feed speed. For the sake of brevity, I'm just pasting the part under "Actual Sliciby wingnut - Tantillus
Yes on the firmware. It seems to me that I need to increase the flow for the whole print. I tried adjusting the Flow Adjust parameter in Kisslicer as high as 50 but no change. The calibration step in the Tantillus instructions require the use of the LCD which I do not have. I tried reprinting a file that I had sliced before updating the configs and it still prints OK so the problem seems to beby wingnut - Tantillus
One step forward and two back today. I discovered that had copied the setup files to the wrong directory. I thought they had to be co-located with the kisslicer executable. I figured out where to put them by looking for where kisslicer was generating it's own. The bad news is that now my flow rate is way too low. I adjusted the filament diameter (1.72 for mine) but it doesn't seem to have helpeby wingnut - Tantillus
Yes on the tantillus profile, the nozzle size and material selection. My first attempt did have the speed setting set to fastest which did cause some bad slipping. Subsequent prints have used the slowest setting which I believe fixed the slipping. I was mainly wondering why it was printing the infill so fast. Is that tunable?by wingnut - Tantillus
Thanks! A couple things I noticed when printing the calibration box. First, the printer seems to really speed up when printing in-fill. It seems like the fillament cant keep up. The result is a stringy mess instead of a honeycomb pattern. What knob do I tweak to fix this? The second issue may be related. The bottom layer of the box seems nice and smooth and solid but the top layer is stringy anby wingnut - Tantillus
Thanks for the help Sublime. You were right on the money with the M109 command. Not sure what I'm doing wrong though. I notice that sometimes the slicer uses 109 and sometimes 104 but I can't tell what I'm doing different. Here's a shrunk down version of an owl I downloaded off Thingiverse. I printed this with no supports and no fans (not installed yet). My bowden tube is too large for my filamby wingnut - Tantillus
Extruding now. I think that the problem was an insert used in this hot end that allows for using 1.75 mm filament. The insert makes a step inside the tube that the filament jams against if it's not perfectly centered. I had to pull off the bowden clamp and hand feed the end of the tube down the center. Here's my first print attempt. It's just the first layer of the calibration cube (really hardby wingnut - Tantillus
My first print attempt didn't get very far. Hot end is at temperature but I get no flow. Extruder stepper seems to stall so I'm guessing that it's not a problem with slipping. Can I test for a clogged hot end by hand feeding the plastic? Also, the instructions for loading the filament are specific to the LCD panel which I elected to omit. I can't find a "load " button on pronterface so I just uby wingnut - Tantillus
Went to the local big box hardware store for some glass because I knew that they cut it for free. Smallest piece they had was 12x16 and you have to buy the whole sheet... So now I have a pile of glass beds for my printer for $5.by wingnut - Tantillus
Wow. Having access to printed parts is a big plus. I can't comment on how easy the tantilus is to build compared to other printers other than to say that I found the cable tensioning phase a bit tedious. If I where building from scratch now, I would take a hard look at the variant by Goopyplastic.by wingnut - Tantillus
At the risk of getting ostracized, are you sure you want to start with a Tantilus? There are other printers that are more noob friendly and you can find complete kits. If you do go with a Tantilus then make sure you line up the printed parts from a verifiable source. I don't reccomend ebay. I went that way and it didn't go well. The best way to go is to get someone from the community to prinby wingnut - Tantillus
Moving on to the setup phase and I only now noticed that the bed calls for a piece of glass. Is there any reason that the glass part can't just replace the upper acrylic part?by wingnut - Tantillus
Well drat. Disregard last question. I re-read the setup directions and noticed that the Z is supposed to move down when I press the up button. I guess the firmware is thinking in terms of the carriage moving away from the bed. So I just need to reverse my Z motor. Groovyby wingnut - Tantillus
Thanks. Looking forward to it myself. Had a bit of a setback this weekend. I realized that my Z axis drive screw had come out a bit too long after it was all installed. Getting all those nuts in place behind the z support brackets was kind of a pain so instead of unmounting it all, I got lazy and took a dremel tool it with a cut-off wheel. I completely forgot about how much metal dust this wouldby wingnut - Tantillus
I'm curious where you got your pulleys. I got mine from fleebay and they ended up being much smaller. I'm also not very happy with the belts I got as they are a bit narrow. Waiting for a new set from robotdigg now.by wingnut - Tantillus
Got Pronterface talking to the printer last night. I noticed that the steppers were stalling just jogging around the XY which got me thinking about friction issues again but I went through the stepper driver adjustment and it seems to be working fine after all. I noticed that Pronterface started up with the print volume set to 200x200x200. I changed the XY range to 100x100 but all that seemed toby wingnut - Tantillus