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Collecting and discussing themes for our magazine.
Re: Tweaking Marlin to run a Convoyer XY printer from an SD card - 5 years ago
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, there was some experimenting with this idea. MakerBot even put a conveyor belt system on the cupcake. It was terrible, like almost everything about the cupcake printer. I don't think they ever got automated serial prints going. Just auto eject. Looks like you could get something similar with M23 and M24 if you know the name of the file you want to print nextby bryanandaimee - Developers
Re: Printer board simulator/emulator? Marlin testing - 5 years ago
I haven't heard of any 3D print electronics hardware emulators. I would guess you just need to test it on your board. If you don't want to test it on an expensive board, just grab a cheap RAMPS board from ebay to test on. Bryanby bryanandaimee - Developers
Re: X axis moving all the way to the right when rotate switch to the left - 5 years ago
I assume you mean that you can control the motion correctly from a connected computer but not from the display. If you can get all the motions correctly from software but not from the touch screen display then there is likely a firmware bug that messes up the input from the touch screen. There is some chance that you need to configure something in the firmware, but it doesn't seem likely. The meby bryanandaimee - General
Re: HIPS RAFT - ABS PRINT (ABS layer separation) - 5 years ago
I doubt this is common enough to get much response. I think most people are printing without a raft these days. Even fewer are likely experimenting with dual material extrusion for rafts. Why did you decide to try this? There are lots of good choices now for build platforms that will be easy to print on without the need for rafts. If this technique is truly solving some problem for you then I wouby bryanandaimee - General
Re: mks robin nano extruder fan - 5 years ago
You need two things. The firmware has to have a pin definition for the extruder fan, and make sure it's not commented out. Then you turn it on in the slicer settings in the cooling section. This is generally a first layer setting and then a setting for the rest of the print. My guess is that one of the FET outputs Is already set as the extruder fan control, since that is a pretty standard outputby bryanandaimee - General
Re: PID autotune failed! Bad extruder number - 5 years ago
I don't think I ever had to preheat my bed when autotuning. There is a timeout, so if your bed is very slow heating that might be why it's failing. A better solution might be to set the timeout value to something larger.by bryanandaimee - General
Re: Geeetech A10 / higher temperatures - 5 years ago
I think the hysteresis is the easiest solution. These thermistors also have a temperature range in which they are nice and (sort of) linear. Outside of that range they can be less well behaved. This can make the noise issue worse. Another thermistor that has better behavior in that temperature range might help stabilize things even more. You would have to redo the firmware to match the new calibrby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Z AXIS Problem, need help - 5 years ago
If homing works then your endstops work. You might check your wires. Do a resistance measurement across the first and second coils. They should be fairly low resistance, and more importantly they should be about the same. If not then you probably have a bad connection in one of the wires. Another possibility is a mismatch in your slicer and firmware. If your firmware is set to absolute distancesby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Stepper Motor Dampers WOW !!!!!! - 5 years ago
In addition, you might also try smoother drivers, vibration isolating feet, grease your bearings. To test the isolating feet idea just lift your printer (safely) while printing. The noise often greatly decreases. This is because the desk you have the printer on can act as a speaker when vibrated by the printer. For printed dampers make sure you use ABS or PETG. PLA will quickly crack and fail.by bryanandaimee - General
Re: New reprap i3 style. Need help - 7 years ago
I would just go to prusa's page and grab his official STL's and print them. If you don't want to wait for your other printer to be up and printing you might find some lazer cutting files on thingiverse or if you have a specific prusa variant in mind then see if you can find the home page for that printer and they might have files. Bryanby bryanandaimee - General
Re: MKS GEN v1.4 HELP 
- 7 years ago
The primary thing you need in order to get the LCD working is the pinout. If you are lucky there is a pinout in the firmware already set up and you just need to find the right one and enable it. If not you will need to dig into whatever documentation you can find and get the pins that are being used for the LCD connection. Then see if you can find an LCD definition in marlin that matches. You wilby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Newbe with printing issue - 7 years ago
Are you using relative or absolute commands for extrusion? It might be a mismatch. You want your firmware and slicer to both be doing the same thing. Bryanby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Going out of my mind with Jams - 8 years ago
Also you might just be trying to print too fast. A 0.35 nozzle is pretty small and if you try to print fast the back-pressure could be enough to cause the extruder to chew through the filament like that. ABS is a bit softer than PLA so more likely to get chewed. A perfectly set up extruder would skip steps before it chewed the filament so you could lower current to the extruder stepper a bit to lby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Finally found an easy method to unclog my nozzles - 8 years ago
I skip the blowtorch and just use PLA plus a small needle if needed. Often the PLA will pull out all the gunk without the need for a wire/needle persuader at all.by bryanandaimee - General
Re: Lets say you were given 10K to spend on printers..... - 8 years ago
I would do a mix if I were me. Maybe a standard format 200x200x200 printer, a large format printer 300^3 or so, a delta for tall prints, and another that might be dual or tri purpose for the PCB's etc. Unless of course you already have the parts in mind and just want to crank out the same parts over and over. In that case you probably want most of the machines to be the same. For long term reliby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Prusa i3 Rework problem - 8 years ago
Can you measure the current draw of the heat bed? It might be too high resistance and not pulling enough current to heat up to temperature. You should be pulling around 10 amps at 12V or 120W in order to get up to ABS temperatures on a standard size bed. You could try measuring the resistance of the heat bed heater but that will be difficult to do without a good meter since it will be in the rangby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Need help fixing my 3D Printer. - 8 years ago
It doesn't seem like just unplugging the power should have damaged the electronics. That is how I always shut down my machine. I haven't gotten around to putting in a switch. That said, I would probably start on a new or suspect board by running things through a usb connection. Don't try to add a display/controller till you have the basics up and running. If you connect to the electronics throughby bryanandaimee - General
Re: The sounds of silence - 8 years ago
Yes, I've used Teacup in the past, especially for my Sanguish electronics. Do you have an idea what the differences are between firmware that might affect the noise?by bryanandaimee - General
The sounds of silence - 8 years ago
I've been on a quest to silence my printer lately. It's a Prusa first gen that I have been messing with for a while now. It makes nice prints and is pretty reliable so I'm delving into the arcane art of acoustics now. So far I have: Moved to DRV8825 drivers to increase to 32X microstepping. This helped quite a bit Put the printer up on printed spring feet to decouple the vibrations from the desby bryanandaimee - General
Re: ALL Metal Hot Ends and Printing PLA - 8 years ago
I use an E3D V6 running 3mm filament, and haven't had problems. From what I've read the main issue with metal hot ends seems to be the inner surface finish of the heat break, and temperature. You need a cool heat break down as low as possible near the heater block. As PLA warms it turns soft and sticky. It will stick in the hot end if it's too warm and jam. Also the retraction seems to be an issby bryanandaimee - General
Re: every layer prints with offset - 8 years ago
You want to turn acceleration on. It may seem counter intuitive, but by turning it off you are demanding that the machine start and stop instantly. In other words without acceleration handling in the firmware, the acceleration you are demanding of the machine is very high. If you turn it on you can set it to a low value such as 500 mm/s^2 so that it starts slow and ramps up to speed gently. Alsby bryanandaimee - General
Re: X axis keeps pausing mid-print, I've tested everything I can think of - 8 years ago
Wow, that's a tough one. As stated above you've done everything I would have done and more to troubleshoot this problem. You have eliminated drivers and steppers seemingly. Is the stepper cable separate or hard wired? If separate have you swapped cables independently from the stepper motor? I only ask because there is no specific mention of changing cables, but with everything else you've done Iby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Display controller installation - 8 years ago
Mostly you just plug it in and then reflash the firmware to enable display support for your display/controller. The only two issues would be which cable plugs in to which connector and which display your "2004" matches in the firmware list. Does the seller not give you this information?by bryanandaimee - Reprappers
Re: Help with compiling marlin with u8glib library - 8 years ago
What is the actual error message when you compile? Also what version of Arduino are you using?by bryanandaimee - General
Re: What RepRap parts would you be interested in buying in a brick and mortars store? - 8 years ago
Hardened rod and bearings are often parts that need to be ordered as they don't turn up locally. M3 nuts and bolts are hard to find in local hardware stores in the US and are used for lots of RepRap designs as well as for stepper mounting.by bryanandaimee - General
Re: How do you check electrical connections before turning on? - 8 years ago
There are some useful tests you can do with a multi-meter before you connect the board to power. Set your meter to continuity. This is one of the modes in the resistance setting. I like to set the mode to a tone based continuity test. When you touch the probes together you should hear a sound. You can test all sorts of stuff this way before ever connecting power. If you made your own cables youby bryanandaimee - General
Re: Band of Missing PLA in Print - 8 years ago
Also check and make sure your spool doesn't catch on anything or get tangled. Some spool holders are too low friction and the filament can unwind randomly and come off the spool and catch on stuff. As small amount of friction in your spool holder keeps the filament wound on the spool and prevents tangles.by bryanandaimee - Printing
Re: X axis measurement prints compressed - 8 years ago
If it's a constant .8mm then it's likely backlash or a slightly loose pulley. If it's more like a proportional factor then it is probably steps per mm. The way to tell is to print test objects of different sizes. Say 20mm, 40mm, 60mm. If your sizes come out 19.2, 39.2, 59.2 then check your pulley and make sure it is tight on the stepper. If it is tight then you could edit the backlash compensatioby bryanandaimee - Printing
Re: Microstepping issues causing inconsistent extrusion? Folger Tech Prusa i3 variant - 8 years ago
Also what is the microstepping setting of your extruder driver? Is it set at 1/16 or something less?by bryanandaimee - Printing
Re: Microstepping issues causing inconsistent extrusion? Folger Tech Prusa i3 variant - 8 years ago
What are your nozzle size and layer height settings. Sometimes I get this if my layer height is too thick for my nozzle. Layer height is generally best at half or less of your nozzle diameter. So a .4mm nozzle prints much better at .2mm layers than it does at .3 or .4.by bryanandaimee - Printing