You probably need to add a gearbox to your prices, and I'm not sure if brushed DC motors are the right way to go. At least the drone market is reducing the prices of nice BLDC motorsby JamesK - General
My guess is that colour printing will go to SLS printers. The top-down process is amenable to colouring with a relatively standard inkjet type print head after each layer is sintered. Unfortunately SLS isn't particularly DIY friendly.by JamesK - General
I'd never thought about a minimum speed - something new comes along every dayby JamesK - General
Well that looks excellentby JamesK - General
QuoteSensors I've found so far seem to run $10/piece Far from out of the question for a high-end printer though. It depends on how the advantages/disadvantages and costs stack up vs rotary encoders. From your first post it sounds like you had this in mind as a cost reduction strategy compared to steppers. I'm not sure if that is viable or not, but closed-loop as a quality/reliability improvementby JamesK - General
Excellent. And I see they have the sensors too, although I didn't have time to figure out the price differences and come up with a total printer cost. But looks interesting for sure! 180 lpi seems a bit low resolution, but I guess interpolation can be used.by JamesK - General
QuoteSecond, does anyone know where I can get optical encoding strips for cheap? I think that issue is exactly why the existing projects are using shaft encoders.by JamesK - General
Quotehard to see with clear filament so I usually went by touch to check for gaps That brings back memories. When I started I assumed that the natural filaments would be the easiest to print with, so that's all I ordered. Then I discovered how hard it is to judge over or under extrusion with clear filament!by JamesK - Printing
I guess we agree in parts. I build my own hotends and have well polished all metal ones that will run PLA fine, so, yes I agree it's possible. I also think that for PLA temps and given the amount of trouble people have with PLA, using a PTFE liner is a good way to improve reliability. My hotends are quick-change, so I have PTFE lined ones that I use for 1.75mm PLA, but since I can't fit a liner fby JamesK - Printing
My first roll of PETG was natural and I found it very difficult to print well (filaments.ca brand). I recently tried a roll of MG chemicals red PETG and found it much easier, so variation between rolls, in my case maybe due to brand or colour is a definite possibility. With softer/lower temp filaments I've had problems later in a print where the filament was heating up as it passed by the hot stby JamesK - Printing
Well found, and a classic photograph to illustrate the problem. PTFE liners that don't go all the way to the nozzle junction are a real pain and very prone to exactly the problem you had. You really want at least two hotends, one just for pla with the PTFE to the nozzle, and another for everything else without a liner.by JamesK - Printing
Neat idea!by JamesK - General
I'm not quite clear on exactly what you're seeing. You said you thought the problem was with the bed and not the extruder - what was that based on? Are you looking at heating graphs in host software? If so, could you post screen-grabs of the graphs for us to see? If the graphs show spikes to lower temperatures as the printer moves that's typically an indicator of an intermittent connection increaby JamesK - Printing
Hi, welcome to the forum You didn't post any questions, but I guess you are looking for some kit recommendations? It's always hard to know what to suggest, especially without knowing a lot about your skills/experience, intended use and budget. The general truths apply abundantly to 3d printing - if you purchase at the low cost end of the spectrum expect a steep learning curve and some limitatiby JamesK - General
Quotethe_digital_dentistI'm not sure why you'd want the line width to be a function of the layer thickness. Indeed. I've always thought that was a bizarre choice on the part of developers. I guess it made sense to somebody at the time. Saint' - we're still a bit short of info on your settings. You've told us that your using pla with a 0.4 nozzle, so as starting point, try printing a 20mm solidby JamesK - General
Thanks for the feedback. I've got another print running now with a different brand of PETG (filaments.ca natural) and I'm not noticing any problems. The print yesterday was with MG chemicals red, but for all I know it may have been something completely unrelated. I'll keep an eye out during future prints.by JamesK - General
Bravo and thank you.by JamesK - Developers
Hi all, so I guess we're all familiar with the smell and possibly health risks of ABS, but has anyone noticed any problems while printing PETG? I haven't done a lot of printing with PETG, but I was running an 8 hour print yesterday and noticed some unpleasant burning in the airways and possibly some head-ache/grogginess. It might just have been coincidence, but I was curious if anyone else has nby JamesK - General
Believe me, there are worse failure modes for a switch-mode psu than a low output. I had a 12V power brick blow it's main input capacitor recently, which was enough to split the plastic case in two and blow one part across the room. What was left of the PSU was buzzing and getting very hot by the time I killed the power, but at least it didn't dump rectified mains voltage into the load. I don't lby JamesK - General
The key to extrusion problems is to figure out what is happening when extrusion fails. Does the motor keep turning or stop? If it stops, does it go completely still and quiet for a while (stepper driver over-heated and shut down, reduce the Vref) or does it jump back and forward making clicking noises (motor stalled due to lack of torque, increase the Vref unless things are already too hot, inby JamesK - General
While 3dBenchy (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622) is undeniably a useful and well known test, I'm not sure it's a good place to start (along with all the other very-difficult to print torture tests published by various sources). A straight forward test-cube is relatively easy to diagnose, prints much more quickly than benchy and doesn't use much filament. Other than that, as Roger said, iby JamesK - General
QuoteMechaBits So it's got Soot in it. Pretty much I had some real CF tube that I cut down and sanded square for one project - that sure made a mess! Looks pretty though, they do a great job of the clear top coat over the woven fibers.by JamesK - General
Duet wifi is a great looking controller that seems very well thought out. Possibly not enough emphasis is given in the marketing to the stepper drivers that are used. The TMC2660 is a really nice chip - a major step up from the A4988 and DRV8825 modules that most of us are using. They are also expensive which must contribute to the price of the board, so it's worth making sure that people understby JamesK - General
Oh my, that really is expensive! Look forward to hearing how you get on with it.by JamesK - General
Quotebobc RAMPS strikes again! Amazing we don't have anything better yet. There are several better' choices for printer control boards if you're willing to pay the money, or did you mean specifically a different adapter board for arduino? It is a shame that we don't have a good ramps-like adapter for the STM32 family of development boards, although I guess we could just use their reference desiby JamesK - General
LeadingLights has a nice looking design on Thingiverse:by JamesK - General
Yes, I had exactly the same thing a couple of weeks back. After I replaced the wire I spent some time trying to locate the fault in the original one and wasn't able to, which was a bit unsettling. It does seem that it's worth investing in good quality flexible wire for the runs to the print head, as well as trying to maximise the radius on the cable chain. I'm still not sure what the best way toby JamesK - Printing
I was given one for Christmas and used it to fill in a gap in a printed part where I'd been careless with the slicing when using a big nozzle and 1.5mm extrusion width. It saved me a repeat on a 4 hour print with 250g of filament in it, so I was quite happy. The quality of the hand repair was obviously different to the printed surface, so this probably isn't much use for bare decorative parts, buby JamesK - General
QuoteOrigamib The problem with carbon fiber filament is that the fibers are not giving anisotropic strength to the part, they are only giving strength in the XY plane, which if your printer is set up correctly will already be terrifically strong. If you want awesome strength, consider annealing. Even PLA performs well with annealing. Strength is a multi-faceted concept - I'm already happy withby JamesK - General
Quoteo_lampe Then I'd give CF/ABS a chance and just dip it in aceton for a short moment. That would improve layer bonding a lot. Funny you should say that, I've been printing the corners for my next printer in ordinary ABS and experimented with brushing acetone on them as a post processing step. My impression is that it penetrates into any gaps and helps form a stronger shell around the print. Iby JamesK - General