Yip, I did the update yesterday for the first time, it was on com6 on my machine as a serial port. After the erase and reset, it became some other device, usb modem I think on com17! Used bossac to flash it on that port and then it was back to com6 as a serial port. If I had not watched the serial ports under device manager, I would have figured I had trashed it. Now my machine is behaving weirdby dieterzar - Ormerod
Try printing a lego block, there are quite a few on www.tinkercad.com, easy to use. I printed one over the weekend. Lego needs to be perfect to fit on a genuine lego block. My daughter was impressed. My first layer and rest were at 0.24 and my prints are still not perfect as I have a "flare" at the base which can be seen when fitting the printed block to other blocks. I have high standards, it muby dieterzar - Ormerod
I don't use the IR either, basically when I switch on, manually move the head to center and the bed to center by hand, wind z down manually and use a piece of paper to set the gap. Then type G92 Z0, hit warm bed, hit the home x and y in pronterface and load the file and all works fine. It does lift the head while warming and drops it to print height moments before printing. Dieter #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
CAD house are out of stock until end of Feb. www.netram.co.za have just landed a massive load in Durban, to be cleared in a day or two. Yes, I am looking too. They are talking about R320 per kg + R55 counter to counter which is very cheap. I can't import it for that price from any place with current $ / R exchange. Economy of scales I guess! Madmob contacted me and found a supplier www.abs.filaby dieterzar - Ormerod
I was going to comment yesterday but didn't get a chance. I must apologize, I often use my tablet to post and things go wongkey typing sometimes! @dmould What you talk about is how the chinese changed the world. They don't worry about quality of supply or supply chain audits. I import a lot and high standards and quality control don't make china cheap as a supplier! After all it comes from chinaby dieterzar - Ormerod
Very very very nice! Ian, are there stl files some place for the perspex bits? Dieter #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
Make sure you wipe down the bed with acetone each time. I found doing this solved the non stick problem. The second thing I found was that manual Z0 with the bed was better using an A4 page folded over or two A4 pages. I needed that extra height. When setting Z0, it's like setting car tappets, the paper must not grab but also night just slide out. When move the paper around, it must just just feeby dieterzar - Ormerod
Since my printer is working hard and I have been playing with slic3r settings, I started researching the net a bit on the bed prep for printing. Blue tape seams good if you dont have a heat bed. Another thread I came upon had guys talking about printing directly on the glass by bringing the bed temp up to 70'C. All PLA related. Seeing I seem to have lifty corners on PLA, I tried a few things...by dieterzar - Ormerod
Same issue, wires are too thin to the heater bed, you will see quite a big voltage difference between the bed and the psu. Add some thicker wire in parallel to the current wires to the heater bed and you should be good to go. Dieter #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
Hi Ian, Mentioned it in one of my posts here after seeing it in the build photos or at least one of them. I don't think you posted any details on how to convert? Dieter Ormerod #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
Interesting, the slic3r manual actually says under first print, it is better to print the first layer or two without the fan running for a better stick. Wonder why then they would not provide for fan control in the firmware? Dieter Ormerod #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
I have to ask, maybe dumb question, is the Slic3r that runs from pronterface the same thing as the latest windows GUI version? I am using the windows GUI version without issues but had no success with the pronterface installed version. The only problem I have at this stage is that my print jobs all develop blobs on sharp corners for example a box corner... probably settings as the default g-codeby dieterzar - Ormerod
dc42, No 57'C is no problem, it is getting it to 110'C that it doesn't seem to be able to do. I get it to 110'C with no glass on the bed but as soon as I add the glass, the loss in thermal ability is very noticeable. Obviously I did the voltage check way back when as discussed in the forums and I have quite a drop at the bed which I think is the problem and the PSU bogs down. As soon as I get goby dieterzar - Ormerod
Hi Ian Parts arrived yesterday and today I have printed pretty much non stop on the supplied PLA. Time frame as I expected. No issues so far. All original, PSU and software. ABS will be a problem as my bed struggles to get over 57'C with the glass on. With it off, it gets 110'C quick. I made a few fixes along the way, bed mounted on 3 points which is much better and easy to level, some ptfe tubeby dieterzar - Ormerod
Ian, One question which I can't get my mind around, why supply it with PLA parts and not ABS? From what I can tell price wise there appears to be no difference in pricing between the materials? Also ABS should be cheaper as it is very common unlike PLA especially if you are buying bulk. Is there a reason for this? Are your machines used for printing the Ormerod parts also not up to printing ABS?by dieterzar - Ormerod
Victors, Having built my own hot end and played around a bit and looked at heat dissipation and looked at the wiki on various head designs and ideas, seems the guys on ebay with the whole aluminium extruder drive and hot end in one seems to be the way to go for ABS. Problem is it runs though on a dual slide unlike the Ormerod, so I am not sure if one can adapt it. Obviously converting everythingby dieterzar - Ormerod
Victors, Thursdays looks really good. All you can do now to improve on that is layer hight which will be a slower print and smaller nozel but that is a really good print I think. Thanks for the info provided on your methods on abs. Looks like the fruits of your labour are paying off. Dieter Ormerod #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
I would love Ian to comment on this in an unbiased fashion! I own the Ormerod, the controller is far more powerful and with time and software upgrades, you will get the advantage despite issues already mentioned here. That aside, the steppers I believe are identical, so it comes down to the mechanics and structure design for durability. I liked the Mendal but watched a youtube video of a guy ripby dieterzar - Ormerod
QuoteRadian OK, so I just pulled the case of a PC with some random cheap looking ATX PSU and dumped a 12V/50W halogen on a spare 5V drive plug. The 12V went up by 0.25V! This is interesting. As a light, it would go on and off with the Heated bed and drive you batty! That would be a first on a 3d printer! Dieter Ormerod #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
Radian, When I posted the pics of the alpine open, I carried on looking and noted the switching transformer is common tapped to gnd. I also know from looking at it that they are doing the feed back sensing on the 3v3 line. Thinking about it, it all makes sense. The psu is designed for pc use where most load will be balanced and mostly on the 3v3 which needs to have the tightest reference. Sincby dieterzar - Ormerod
Thanks Ian I import a lot out of the east and lead time is +/- 2-3 weeks. Customs at Capemail know me and often stop the stuff and ask for paper work which is not an issue but delays things easy by a week or more, so I am not concerned at this stage but will chat to you if I get no notification by the end of the month. I have only ever had ebay stuff go missing that looked of high value but wasnby dieterzar - Ormerod
SuperDerek My kit also came from RS South Africa and was missing the hot end bag. I contacted Ian and he has sent the parts out to me. I have not got them yet but I would prefer not to send my machine back. Lots of time has gone into the build and testing various things including my own hot end I made which I will use on another project. There are issues but there are also a lot of people here wby dieterzar - Ormerod
There is a thin circuit track in the photo that runs back from the back to back diode package passed the transformer but connects to nothing but has a solder pad at the end of it and looks like might have been put there for the possibility of feed back. Hacking the power supply would be easy if I had a circuit diagram to work off. Dieter Ormerod #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
OK, my Alpine just lost it's warranty! lol! Really don't care, opened and had a look at what is going on. 12V out section is a very simple circuit, no feedback and also very little cleaning, no big caps except 1 x 16V 1000uf cap. I have attached a photo of the PSU 12V out section in the yellow block, yellow circle is where 12V wires connect. Purple is the 16V 1000uf cap to ground. Green are 2 x dby dieterzar - Ormerod
Victors, I agree with you and was the point I was making in an earlier post about power hungry PC graphics cards. Interestingly PCFormat SA had an issue a few months back on PSU's with some shockers. Some of the more expensive brands really struggled with cooling and voltage stability and ability to handle shock loads. They tested well known brands from $100 - $250 at current ZAR exchange rates.by dieterzar - Ormerod
Maybe I have it wrong but the entire machine runs off the 12v line, none of the others are used. Basically the power box is just used to bring the power on line to gnd and a small load to ground on 5v most likely to make the psu think there is a load. Don't have it in front of me now to look but pretty sure that will be the setup. I think in the psu, one would need to drill the feed back track fby dieterzar - Ormerod
Radian, You have a very good point on the opto feedback and it just further illustrates that these power supplies are just not up to the required standard in this application. If I were to run this power supply on a PC (mine will kill it) with a high end ATI or Geforce graphics card in it, it would be a disaster!!! Those cards all require 12V ATX plugged directly on to them as some are rated atby dieterzar - Ormerod
Ian and Victors Just going back to the PSU posts of earlier, I have the 550W Alpine PC PSU that came with the kit. I ran a test now, voltage around 12.10V with bed off. Switch bed on to 110'C, voltage drops at the bed to 10.8V and overall system voltage down to 11.33V. Despite this, my heater bed gets to 110'C within 3 minutes or so and then switches in and out. The bed read 26'C before switchinby dieterzar - Ormerod
The fans are so cheap here in SA from local electronics suppliers, R35.00 converted probably around $3.50 that if it blows, just replace it with a better one local supply. Dieter Ormerod #257by dieterzar - Ormerod
Victors, Get yourself a piece of 0.5m solid PTFE 20mm round bar from Maizey Plastics in Pretoria. You have the equipment it seems and make a new mount that replaces the part that mounts the aluminium block to the printer from PTFE. It will not fail even over 300'C. The PTFE bar cost me R103 ex vat and worth every cent and 100% fix for this problem. The screws transfer heat on the original setupby dieterzar - Ormerod