> Not sure why Blender should cover the holes. I just had a look in Blender. I think I cheated when I created the faces and just created top and bottom faces bounded by the outer perimeters - intentionally ignoring the holes. Very quick in Blender and yields fewer, cleaner facets when exported to stl. > I guess if it slices okay it does not matter. Yes, it works because the vertices of thby threedyprinter - Mendel90
> Is this a coincident faces problem, i.e. the holes in OpenSCAD should go all the way through and a bit beyond. Yes, that's probably something to do with it. You didn't do anything wrong! I just fixed things up in Blender such that it would be easy for Cura to slice. I'm very cavalier about closed/open surfaces and direction of normals etc. as Cura doesn't care much about such things. I donby threedyprinter - Mendel90
> Indeed slicing is cleaner, but why? I just tidied up some vertices/faces which were slightly out of whack in the original stl. They caused several jagged edges/faces which gave the slicer a hard time.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
> Cura engine is not open source now Let me correct this for posterity: Cura engine is open source and is atby threedyprinter - Mendel90
Neat acetone welds ABS parts together very well providing the gap is small. For larger splits/gaps I have used Wilko Hard Plastic glue very successfully; it's quite viscous so you can smerge it around to fill gaps well. Glues PLA too.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
My X idler bracket (and motor bracket) split a while back. I printed and fitted new ones (before nophead kindly sent replacements). A week later the idler bracket split again. Not all the way through though. It's been like that for a month at least and doesn't appear to be getting worse so I reckon you could afford to wait for a new design. I think there's a new design for the X motor end as wby threedyprinter - Mendel90
I agree with nophead. If you want dimensionally accurate parts (and holes) then SF is the only way to go. I printed replacement extruder gears for my machine last week using SF, Slic3r and Cura. SF was the only one to produce usable parts. (My machine is set up perfectly for E Steps and the slicers are all set with correct Extrusion Multipliers or equivalents.) IMHO: Slic3r works well if you dby threedyprinter - Mendel90
Thanks Chris, that's a great improvement; I had already added the two inner webs to make the thing sit parallel to the bed but the deeper slots are key. I printed it with 100% fill, and used PLA for a bit of possibly extra stiffness. A quick test shows the casing clearing the clips easily now (with foldback handles removed).by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Thanks for a great idea! At last I can deal with 1kg and 1lb spools easily. I slightly modified the stl to make the slicing cleaner and added an extra notch to deal with smaller diameter spools. I made some simple spacers too for different width spools.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Rather than have to change Marlin I just put M201 X2000 Y2000 ;max acceleration in X and Y in start code. I confess to a pathological hatred of Arduino!by threedyprinter - Mendel90
I've only turned Pronterface's visualisation in the GUI round 180 degrees. Nothing else. Out of the box, Pronterface displays objects 180 rotated as compared with how the M90 prints them. If you were to look at the bed from the back of the M90 everything would seem OK. Gcode coordinates remain the same; looking at the M90 from the front, X0,Y0 being the bed centre, X-100Y-100 back right , X-100by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Thanks for the thanks! You may also be interested in this fix which rotates the Pronterface visualisation 180 degrees so wysiwyg: in printrun/gviz.py (somewhere around line 265 in my release of Pronterface) replace: def _drawlines(lines, pens): def _scaler(x): return (self.scale[0]*x[0]+self.translate[0], self.scale[1]*x[1]+self.translate[1]by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Using Pronterface with M90 my little brain gets confused because the move right and move left (X) quadrants are reversed. IE: press a left X quadrant and the carriage moves right and vice versa. This fix makes the carriage move in the "correct" direction (but does not affect anything else like the 180 degree rotation of the item on the plate, or the operation of the position preset buttons "FM",by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Assuming the bed is very level and the Z axis is correctly set up (I got nowhere until they were): I print ABS at 110C bed, 240C nozzle. For small items in the centre of the bed that works fine with just a hint of juice. For tall skinny items that require the fan I use a brim of 5 to 10 mm to keep the thing rooted. For large items that tend to lift at the corners a very thin coating of hairsprby threedyprinter - Mendel90
Looks like fun! I had a shot at compiling it for Mint, but got dependency problems just getting the prerequisites. Good luck, I'd be interested to know how you get on with it.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
@andrea.rimo I like repetier a lot. Up 'til now, I've just accepted everything is printed 180 degrees, but have recently had stupid problems with the fan casing hitting the foldback clips because I forgot when I was plating up. I'll follow the repetier thread as it's definitely worth getting this sorted. @Alzibiff > then front left will be 100,100 (I think!). Certainly is for my M90! Whichby threedyprinter - Mendel90
I guess so. I just like the idea of lumps of s/w doing what they do best; slicers to slice and firmware to get the best out of a particular printer/filament combination.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Yes... Right. So should the slicer be involved at all in setting extruder feed rates? We have your math for calculating feed rate/print speed, we have existing Marlin code for doing the fiddly motor driving. Wouldn't it be more efficient to put your math into Marlin and just have the slicer say "draw a line (or circle, arc...) of x mm width from A to B at speed V. Rather like Postscript I guess.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Ah! The sweet smell of success. I found it very rewarding when I got the first decent android.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
Thanks for that info. Chris. Just to complete the extrusion picture; am I right in guessing that Marlin takes the length of filament demanded, then computes an acceleration-hold-decelerate envelope for the x,y motors, then computes a similarly shaped envelope for the extruder motor that gives the correct feed rate to print speed ratio (line width) at all phases of the movement?by threedyprinter - Mendel90
The temperature thing is weird. I wonder if it might be moisture content as well. Taulman Nylon fresh from the factory in sealed bags wouldn't print at all for me. The moisture made the extrudate impossibly thin and oozy. PLA is not supposed to suffer so badly but I use other (Faberdashery and non-Faberdashery) PLA filaments and they're quite happy at lower temperatures.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
That's a great write-up of the maths, thank you. I have never measured the wall thickness since I wrote that article. So when you change filament you just measure the new thickness; extrude, say, 100mm and adjust some multiplier according to whatever is actually pulled off the reel, and that's it. No need to faff around with cubes, the calibration suggested by Slic3r ought to be redundant? Iby threedyprinter - Mendel90
Feed rate should be the same but low rate for outlines should be slightly less to get the right dimensions. Maybe I misunderstand you but as the wall thickness comes out absolutely right (for me at least), I would think the feed rate / print speed is spot on. The external cube dimensions are, again for me, 6.5% under. I assumed either the thing had shrunk (doesn't appear so) or that the nozzle pby threedyprinter - Mendel90
@JD1 If it's any comfort I have an android man that looks exactly the same! For me, the problems were print temperature too high and / or print speed too low. For the Faberdashery Green that came with the kit, I found a sweet spot at 210C first layer, 195C other layers. 40mm/s print speed was about right at .2mm layer height. Bed levelling: I tried nophead's method without a dial gauge as perby threedyprinter - Mendel90
@nophead For example a 20mm cube comes out about 20.5 Interesting... I tried a 1mm walled 20mm cube. No fill. ABS. It printed at about 10mm/s. Result: x=19.87 y=19.87 z=19.7 The walls were smack on 1.0mm. Looking at the code it seems to use the flow rate for outlines as it infills Surely that's what you'd expect if Infill Speed is set to 0 (ie: use print speed for infill) Or had you set it toby threedyprinter - Mendel90
I started off using Slic3r with my M90. I got reasonable results pretty quickly but, with using different plastics and more demanding models, things started getting difficult. In particular, I found it tricky getting the right amount of infill in the right places. Gaps would be left around holes. Some areas would be overfilled even though E steps and Extrusion Multiplier were set up perfectly.by threedyprinter - Mendel90
This is just what happened to me when my Z axis wasn't set up accurately enough. A scalpel (Swann-Morton*), used very judiciously, always managed to prise up a corner without damage to the glass or print. Had it not, I was going to use some freezer spray (Radiospares or local plumbers merchants). *Cheap and truly useful for cleaning up prints and scraping stuff off the bed. Have only sliced my fby threedyprinter - Mendel90
Yes, I always use 2000 now (set in the slicer, haven't touched Marlin), it makes everything much smoother but banding is still there if you look for it. Info: At the moment I'm printing ABS at .2mm layer height. After 30 sec. in acetone vapour the banding and layering totally disappear; I defy anyone to tell the objects are not moulded. Info: Printing with the rubbery FPE gives an absolutely peby threedyprinter - Mendel90
@nophead I twisted it over to examine the suspect patch and couldn't see anything wrong. When I let go of it, it then worked fine again. All I can think is that it had something stuck in a tooth and I dislodged it. Precisely what I experienced; with both X and Y belts. It was too much of a coincidence to think that something had got stuck in the teeth, but I did wonder if the blacking indicated tby threedyprinter - Mendel90
My main problem was that start.gcode sets the extruder to relative mode and the ABS profile that I was using was set to absolute. I'd never seen that extruder gear spin so fast!by threedyprinter - Mendel90