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The chinese copies can be functional but you may need to make modifications in some circumstances. It has been my experience that the fit and finish is rougher for the chinese copies. In particular the polish of the inner surface of the heat break tube. This can make a big difference for PLA and cause jamming issues unless the path is very well polished. If it's a model with a PTFE sleeve then th
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bryanandaimee
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Reprappers
Make sure your thermistor is still reading correctly and check that your control software didn't switch from relative coordinates to absolute or vice versa.
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bryanandaimee
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Reprappers
Prusa I2 uses more threaded rod but has lower Z height and is less rigid laterally. The Prusa I3 uses much less threaded rod but is more rigid laterally (in X), and less rigid along the Y axis. Fortunately there are many examples of Y axis stiffeners for the I3 using threaded rod. I would think that an I3 with stiffeners would be a good bet. I did see someone came up with an I3 type frame using t
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bryanandaimee
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Reprappers
I saw one using the Edison chip but not Galileo. Reprap firmware is designed for arduino so in theory the firmware should port pretty easily if you have it set up on the arduino development environment. I imagine pin numbering and naming might be different.
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bryanandaimee
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General
There is no reason to appologize Paul. It's inquiring minds like yours that advance the art. Keep up the good work.
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bryanandaimee
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General
Couple other things can sometimes cause this. Your filament might be smaller in diameter than what is in the slicer. If you have 1.75 in the slicer and the filament is actually averaging 1.6 you might get this. It helps to have a set of digital calipers/micrometer to measure the real diameter. Measure multiple spots and multiple angles.
Double check steps per mm extrusion. It may seem like a w
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bryanandaimee
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Printing
Interesting approach. I've seen reports that slowing down the retraction speed helps. This would seem to take that concept one step further. I wonder if you would get basically the same thing by slowing the retraction speed way down, or if it is still beneficial to have a quick retract followed by a slow "maintenance" retraction. My guess is that the real world behavior is an exponential of some
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bryanandaimee
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General
Just make sure you put a load on the 5V and 3.3V lines. ATX supplies can have stability issues if you only load the 12V line.
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bryanandaimee
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General
It seems like there are some firmware features that would help here too. For instance you could set a Max Printing PWM value that would kick in after the hot end reached temp and the print started. That way if the thermistor came loose the hot end wouldn't go to full power. Most firmware already detects a disconnected thermistor as a MINTEMP error so it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to
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bryanandaimee
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Safety & Best Practices
You guys are no fun at all. We're not talking about industrial metal cutters here. Most encounters with a printer would result in a slight pinch and then the stepper would start skipping steps. You might perhaps get a nice burn if you are unlucky enough to find the hot end through all the fans and steppers and stuff. It would be nearly impossible to do any actuall work on the moving parts anyway.
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bryanandaimee
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General
So a few days ago I was printing some chess pieces for my sons and at the same time I was thinking about modifications to the printer and I thought "Why not?" The printer in question is a Prusa I1 that I have used for quite some time now. I used a 3 inch wide board across the front to hold the electronics. I placed it too high initially and it was limiting my print height. I was thinking that if
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bryanandaimee
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General
Sounds a lot like a clogged nozzle. If you have PLA you can pull it out at about 80 C and pull most debris from the nozzle. Sometimes you have to do it multiple times and if the grit is stuck in tight you might need to stick a needle or something in from the front to loosen it first. Once you can see all the way through the nozzle you are good.
If it's not the nozzle then there are lots of poss
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bryanandaimee
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General
Sounds like the problem is on an extruder? You might also check and make sure the nozzle isn't partially clogged.
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bryanandaimee
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General
Might just be that it is printing too fast for layers to cool sufficiently. Try printing two or three at a time and see what happens, or turn on the print fan if you have one (this is different from the hot end cooling fan). Also you could try messing with the bridging settings. Each layer needs to cool to solidity before the next layer prints on it so small prints can have saging/distortion if t
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bryanandaimee
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General
RPi B and RPi B+ are the same chip. The RPi2 model B is the one with the new quad core chip. That said, you should be able to get octoprint running fine on the older models.
If I had to guess I would say it is likely the USB webcam. Most builds I have seen online are using the purpose built camera module that plugs into the CSI port.
Also just to clarify, are you controlling Octoprint from a
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bryanandaimee
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Reprappers
Is that gunk above the heater PLA? If so you have a leak around your heat break tube. It may have been damaged somehow or may just have worked loose. If it's just leaking out the nozzle then check your retract settings. If it's leaking above the heater block then you need to heat to 80 or 90 and try to pull all that stuff off. Then dissasemble and clean out any remaining PLA. A heat gun and some
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bryanandaimee
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Printing
I've alway been amazed at the level of support provided by Repetier to users and developers. The response time for issues is very quick in my experience. I hope the changes are effective in keeping Repetier software on a solid footing.
I can absolutely see why the software went closed source. If this were a hobby level effort with one dev spending < 20 hr per week or a large group effort wit
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bryanandaimee
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Repetier
The main issue with these chips is that they require a long step pulse. Marlin's step pulse is by default too short to trigger a step with these drivers. Teacup and Repeteir are pretty easy to get working with these drivers. You can find some discussion about the chips in the Sanguish forum thread. Marlin can be modified to work. I forget where I saw a fork of it, but I've seen someone claiming t
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bryanandaimee
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Controllers
For current settings you need to know the max current of your motors and then set your drivers to that value or something lower. Without knowing the specifics of your stepper motors and which drivers you are using it's impossible to say, but assuming you have pololu drivers you can find information on setting current at pololu.com. If you have stepstick or other drivers you'll need the relevant i
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bryanandaimee
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Reprappers
If it's occuring every rotation of your extruder gear then that sounds like an extruder issue. Try heating up your V6, then turn off the extruder motor and extrude by hand-turning the big gear. You should be able to feel if there is a high friction/torque spot in the extruder. Since you have changed everything else I would still suspect the hobbed bolt. Is the extruder skipping stepps on the fail
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bryanandaimee
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Printing
Looks like simple skipped steps to me. Look for friction in the Y axis, or possibly turn down speed or acceleration settings.
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bryanandaimee
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Printing
Do you have other limits in firmware? Also sometimes there is a perimeter multiplier that tells the slicer to go slower on perimeters. This is due to the belief that slower printing is higher quality and outside perimeters are the public face of your print. Other things that slow down a print are speed and acceleration settings for the movement axes and don't forget the extruder. You might be run
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bryanandaimee
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Printing
Can't you just turn the printer around? If it's not mirrored then the parts should be indistinguishable from parts printed on a similar machine with the origin on the oposite corner as you describe. If you really want to though, it's simple to fix. Just invert both X and Y axes in firmware or flip the stepper connector around on both. Be sure you move the endstops too or change to MAX endstops i
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bryanandaimee
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General Mendel Topics
Best first upgrades for I2 in my oppinion would be good metal pulleys and matching belts. Then a good heated bed and glass surface. Then switch to 5mm threaded rods for the Z axis. Then add some frame braces for lateral stiffness. As for dual color and electronics upgrades, I would do that after you have it printing the quality you want. Maybe think about stronger steppers for the X and Y axes if
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bryanandaimee
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General Mendel Topics
Interesting. It doesn't seem likely that higher drive current would result in lower driver temps. Is this driver a step-stick clone limited to 1A? If so then even at "full" current it's running at half the chip capacity. Which would also explain why the motors are cool. Do you have heat sinks on them?
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bryanandaimee
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Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
Wow! Too many variables. For firmware speed caps I would post a separate question to the firmware forum of your choice. Make it simple.
For a leadscrew system I'm not sure you gain much going from 16X to 128X microstepping. It wouldn't really make any difference if the smallest real step is say 0.1mm and 16X stepping does it in 4 steps while 128X does it in 32. Also if you are looking for spe
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bryanandaimee
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Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
If the stepper driver overheats you should miss multiple steps (large shift). The stepper won't skip steps due to overheating. It will go to 80 or 100 C before it starts to degrade. If it doesn't burn you it's OK. The other causes of skipped steps are too much friction or too much acceleration. So try lowering acceleration settings.
Also check for friction and stiction. Uncouple the belt and run
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bryanandaimee
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Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
Except it's a chopped AC current so you might get wierd readings. Also if you accidentally break connection while the motors are powered it can fry the driver. Probably easier to check the resistance of the current sense resistor with the multimeter when powered off. Either that or email your seller.
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bryanandaimee
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Controllers
Have you checked the teeth of the hobbed bolt? A small section of filled hobbing might cause that symptom. Just gotta floss. Another thing to check might be clogged nozzle. A bit of grit might be partially blocking, gets out of the way after a retraction then works its way back into the nozzle.
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bryanandaimee
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Printing
Belts might be too tight then. Skipping steps is not due to loose belts slipping on the drive pulley it is due to steppers not having enough torque to move the axis. If the belts are too tight it might load the steppers down and worsen the problem.
So there are a bunch of things to try. Moving from least expensive to more.
First, decrease the acceleration, jerk, and speed settings in firmware.
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bryanandaimee
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Printing