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Had been running into a bit of jam lately. For no apparent reason the filament would jam up above the hot end and crap the print.
Found the cause and issue. The filament was twisting and the grooves from the hobbed bolt were binding on the in port to the hot end heat break. The outlet from the extruder body is 4 mm, which did not help the situation as it allowed too much filament play. So, I pr
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Adafruit comes through again.
K type thermocouple - 1 meter length. AD8495 breakout board. Running off of 5 volts and the output is coming in on A10.
Wrote a new table for the critter and recompiled Marlin. Just did a print and it sure looks good.
The thermocouple is anchored to the Hexagon head by an M3 screw with a washer. The thermistor hole is just right for a M3 tap to thread. A short M
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Quoteitchytweed
Nutz!!!
It appears that the 16U2 locked up again.
Both the RX/TX lights were shining at me. Reloaded the 16U2 firmware and we be back in business.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
QuoteRRuser
"I am through using glass bead thermistors. The glass ends up cracking off and failing the print."
What is causing them to crack?
Thermal cycling and the resultant shock. I don't think that the glass is pyrex and certainly not corning. Plus, the layer is so thin as to keep temp delay to least possible. I have several spares and I am using one but I have wrapped it in one layer of Ka
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
QuoteJ-Max
Hi,
As I see the bended front plate on your Y axis chassis,
I wonder if Makerfarm's plywood quality is cheap
or if the belts are overtight ?
++JM
Answer: Belts are tight. The 12x12 base haas a lot of inertia and it takes a bit to move the energy from the stepper to the platen and not have any bouncing at stop. I have managed to make this machine more than what it was when I bought i
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Been some time since visiting this posting so here are some updates.
The PETG gears are working wonderfully. Plus, I have fallen in wuv with the MicroCenter/ESun PET-G filament. It is so easy to print with - once you get it to stick. It's that first layer....a little glue stick, heat plate to 65 deg C, get a good squeeze going on that first layer - done. It's all about that first layer....first
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Congrats on the new I3. Enjoy it and have some fun.
Your issue is common to everyone. Many issues are at play. Mechanically, for a square corner, you need infinite decel/accel rates (just not possible) and an extruder that respond instantaneously to extrude/stop commands (not possible either). There are also issues about volume packing as well.
Since that is not possible, you have to cheat an
by
itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
This post has nothing to do with the printer, which at this moment is printing out a set of replacement gears for the extruder out of PETG.
PLA is notorious for sucking up humidity and crapping prints. There are some products being sold on the market or can be made that help with this issue. My solution was easy. I have a 20 gallon tub with a lid. I put foam tape along the top part of the tub t
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
As promised, before and after pictures.
This is the front cross piece supporting the Y-axis rails and turnaround idler:
Notice the gap representing the bow.
Here is the angle support installed:
I also have one that I did for the other end as well that I do not have pictured.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Bought some angle aluminum. The bowing of the wood cross pieces for the Y axis has become too much. The angle will act as a stiffener for the cross piece and and anchor point for C-clamps to keep it from walking off the table.
Pictures to follow.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Quoteo_lampe
Thanks DD,
sounds plausible.
The peltier idea has one major drawback. It takes a lot of energy
Passive drying with desiccant ( or some rice ) is much better.
-Olaf
I use a sealed tub with the bottom filled with silica gel. Keeps the humidity in the 20-25% range. Gets above 30%, change it out for fresh and oven dry it for several hours.
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itchytweed
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Reprappers
Been running a print job overnight at 40mm/sec velocity and at 1.5 amps CL on the high-power DRV88's. Ambient room temp is at 20 deg C. Steppers were coming in at 65 deg C. I have not seen any apparent print shift yet. Also, I printed out a couple of beveled idler pulleys out of PETG to go over the X and Y axis belt bearings. This should keep the belt from rubbing against the walls and it has res
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
I was doing a relatively tall print. It completed but it was fail. Come to find out that the steppers lost counts even though I have the CL set for 1 amp. Found out that the steppers on the unit are 4 volt / 1.5 amps. So, it looks like the X and Y axes get turned up a tad. Z is two motors with their own drivers so there is no issue there.
Followup: Increased pot voltage to 0.75 volts for X, Y, a
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
My Hexagon did the same thing. Even though I tightened it almost to snapping when hot, it still managed to loosen up on top and ooze. I cleaned mine offf by burning it off with a butane torch. Let it soak at 200 foa half hour and made sure the unit was so tight something was in danger of stripping. Yes, that tight. No ooze since
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
I run an Astron RS-50 supply on my MakerFarm 12" I3V. I also have the output voltage set to 13.7 volts and paralleled the p.s. with a 27 series AGM battery as a power fail backup. Even though it may be a linear supply, I trust it more so than a swiching power supply of the same size.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
QuoteRRuser
About moisture: PET and PETG filaments don't absorb moisture (they are used for water bottles). Also, PET does not warp, or smell. Seems like a good plastic for non-enclosed printers.
PET and PETG do not absorb water. But if any moisture enters the extrusion process, PET will fail miserably. I have been in plants where they run industrial dehumidfiers to dry out the PET and keep it i
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Been running Slic3r 1.2.9. Ran my calibration cube (EVERYONE has a calibration cube) using my regular settings. Then I turned on the pressure regulation function. Big difference can be seen - win for P. C. Also, there is a difference in the feel of the sides. The P.C. printed block is noticably smoother between the layers. I do though have my max speed at 50 mm/s just to limit pressure in the hot
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
This is from :
MOLDING AND PROCESSING GUIDELINES FOR PLA (POLYLACTIC ACID) COMPOUNDS
In order to achieve optimum performance from articles injection molded out of RTP Company’s polylactic acid (PLA) based compounds, it is important to understand the proper injection molding conditions for these materials. PLA is a semi-crystalline polyester thermoplastic. Because polyesters are prone to hydroly
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
This is a picture of the new thermistor that will be going into the hotend. Talk about small....
BTW, this little beauty is Kapton taped to the outside (just floats in the hole of the Hexagon) and the silicone cover is over it. This also curves out to Thermistor #1 in marlin's thermistortables.h. No need for a separate table for this small piece of cuteness.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
New thermistors are on the way. They are made by U.S. Sensors and not Epcos. I have even made a module for Marlin's thermistortables.h for it from the curve spreadsheet that U.S. Sensors puts out for it. These glass thermistors are rated from -40c to +300c. We shall see.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Watch reported temp. If the temp is staying the same but the filamet gets airy and the bolt chews the filament, you may have the same issue I am having. I have replacement thermistors on order. My I3V does the same after long prints and an IR temp reading shows a cooler than normal hot end. This would tell me someones curve changed. Replacing a thermistor is a cheap test and may be the proper fix
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itchytweed
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Printing
Quotedjmartins
Quoteitchytweed
Note to forum: I am not a bot. Your algorithms are stereotypical fail.
Are you sure of that?
If you were a bot how would you know how it feels to be human?
Love it!!!
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Had one of those nasty jobs to deal with - cleaning a plugged nozzle. Have it cleaned out and running again. Kudos to a small butane torch, some needle nose pliers and a strand from 12 ga copper wire. It measured out to be 0.4 mm in diameter. Cleaned out the nozzle and will try it out on full tomorrow.
*Update* Back to being a printin' fool. I kept off the silicone cover from the Hexagon. I have
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Had a nasty mess to clean up. Apparently I did not have the connector between the heater head and heat sink sufficiently gorilla'd down. Paper towel made cleanup easy....as long as parts were hot.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
QuoteRRuser
Relay controls the bed? I would imagine a non-relay option would be a first upgrade. Or is the cost a big jump?
Look above a few posts. Schematic and picture of what I used to eliminate the heat bed relay and run PID mode on the heat bed. All it took was a 10k resistor, a free heatsink I had in a junk box, and the IRF4905 mosfet ( $3.14 currently at Mouser). Far more efficient and wa
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
There was a question somewhere as to how much power the printer pulls from the supply.
I managed to find my AC/DC clamp-on ammeter. On a cold start with both the bed and nozzle heating and the rest idle, it was 34 amps at 14 volts (476 watts). So 40-50 amps sizing on the power supply is reasonable for this printer.
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
It seems the printer has developed an interesting issue.
The Y-axis rails have taken to pivoting about the two support pegs that cross under the rails. This allows the Y-axis bars to skew out of square with the X-axis. As a temporary fix, I have two adjustable strings running from the front corners of the Y-axis bars to one of the outside Z-axis stepper anchor screws. Not the best solution to t
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
Next thing to do - try my hand at 3D scanning and printing. Going to try Insight3D and my regular camera. May not be automatic but it looks promising. Wonder how it will handle 18MP images...
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
When you are pulsing 500 watts on and off, interesting things can happen. The interesting thing that happens in my mancave where the printer is located ... flash. I have dimmable LED lighting installed and as the heat bed turns on and off, they slightly flicker at the same rate as the power supply does it job. So, I rewired the supply to the printer. I have an Anderson PowerPole fused distributio
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itchytweed
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Prusa i3 and variants
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