Show all posts by user

Re: More than auto leveling ... - 10 years ago

Have you managed to get any anywhere with implementing a full bed height grid for cartesian machines? I am very keen to see this but lack the programming ability to do it. It would be extremely useful to improve printing on slightly uneven surfaces.

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Z Height Setting - 10 years ago

Well in a sense you could set your nozzle to the glass then add 0.1mm in your slicing software, but you have to assume that your glass is both flat (really very flat) and level (both are tricky to achieve to a very high degree of precision in any real world situation) so you risk your nozzle scraping the glass in any areas which are slightly too high relative to it, due to an unlevel bed or an un

by DjDemonD - General

Re: E3d lite6 not secure. - 10 years ago

Yeah large metal washer on top of the hot end, if you're fitting the hot end with the extruder attached to the printer stick a bit of filament in it to stop the washer falling off. I also used m4 bolts to mount the hot end to the extruder instead of m3, which means the bolts bite into the aluminum of the top of the heat break ensuring a tight fit, just make sure it's straight as you do it up if

by DjDemonD - General

Re: plastic (composite) frame for reprap printers? - 10 years ago

Quotethe_digital_dentist What's wrong with aluminum? Unlike the plastics we print with, it's almost 100% recycleable Indeed - why aren't we extruding aluminium in our printers and making metal objects?

by DjDemonD - General

Re: plastic (composite) frame for reprap printers? - 10 years ago

I apologise and I don't want to hijack your thread, if you wish I will happily delete my comment and change it to "moved to xxx" and start a new thread if you prefer, as I see from the discussion above, which is also very interesting, some good ideas are being exchanged. I am inspired and impressed with your desire to do things in a better way to the way we do them now, hopefully I will try to

by DjDemonD - General

Re: plastic (composite) frame for reprap printers? - 10 years ago

I understand the OP intending that this discussion be focused on the practical solutions to self replication, not the philosophy but the philosophy is very interesting. The idea of these machines self replicating, and not relying heavily on manufactured components is a wonderful concept and potentially very enabling, but in a sense haven't the people decided, that what the majority really want

by DjDemonD - General

Plug in timers and radio clock sync - 10 years ago

Okay not really printing related but does anyone know of a plug in mains timer that has radio clock sync to keep the clock set correctly. I have a lot of devices at work that are connected to timers and every time the clocks change (UK) then I have to go around and change them all. Also the clocks do not keep time that well and have to be periodically checked. Radio controlled clocks are now a c

by DjDemonD - Experimental and Hobby

Re: Installing safety system on my printer - 10 years ago

With DC42's help I put together an electrical device to help prevent fire and have written it up here

by DjDemonD - Safety & Best Practices

Worthwhile and cheap fire safety device. - 10 years ago

With a lot of help from fellow forum contributors I have put together a simple, cheap system to provide a little backup safety in regards fire. Diagram included. This system shuts off the power to the printer when smoke is detected and it stays off until you manually reset it. I have not extensively tested it, but in response to blowing some cigarette smoke (electronic) over the sensor it trigg

by DjDemonD - Safety & Best Practices

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

I have included a diagram of how it goes together in case anyone is interested in making something similar and like me wasn't sure how to do it without a bit of messing around and a lot of help and advice. Apologies it is not a proper circuit diagram. Fix the smoke detector on your printer somewhere where it will be able to detect smoke from the extruder and/or electronics board, since these seem

by DjDemonD - General

curious to see if anyone else has had this problem... - 10 years ago

My kossel mini (ramps 1.4 - Rich Cattells marlin) malfunctioned the other day one the of the tower motors was not running at all, obviously this caused some pretty weird movements and I went for the emergency stop pretty quickly. So I wondered if I had a dead motor but this seemed odd as they're quite new and don't run hot normally. I removed the stepper driver for that motor but it wasn't too h

by DjDemonD - Printing

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

Many thanks to those who contributed especially to dc42 for the schematic and dave3d for doing this already which is what encouraged me to make a similar system. I have made two of these devices, and enclose photos. Now to test and set the sensitivity to ensure they trigger when they ought to. I will try to post a full write up of all parts and the circuit diagrams etc.. at some point, if they pr

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

I think I am going to go along with the relay option - it is simpler and much more likely to be something I can execute well, the idea of using an arduino or other programmable board does appeal but my programming and skill with these things is limited so far to printers and configuring ready written software. My smoke detector module which is 9v has a relay built in so this will be relay 1 and

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Flying extruder vs acceleration marks - 10 years ago

Well I can certainly see the attraction of a 10cm bowden tube, my kossel mini had an 80cm tube when I bought it and the filament control was very poor. I reduced it down to about 55 cm by moving the extruder and set the retraction to around 3mm but at 100mm/s (/min?) which works well and the print quality is much better. So I think you can get reasonable print quality from bowden setups but you

by DjDemonD - Reprappers

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

Thank you, I was presuming I would power this device from its own power supply, this makes much more sense now. That's really helpful and looks like it will work very well.

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

I am not familiar with flyback diodes but will do some research. What I am unclear about is how will putting a mains voltage switch in line with the supply to the printer energise the second relay to switch the current on? I have enclosed a back of fag packet diagram to see if I understand what you're saying.

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

Hi, I have thought about this, and in my previous comment above this is the equivalent to shorting the RCD test circuit, which I have done using an insulated screwdriver, this tripped the house RCD also, but I have not tried using the relay, though I am sure it would work, as I suspected it would destroy it and I only have 2 smoke sensor modules at the moment. However I figure that if a genuine

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

As it turns out this is much more difficult to do than it appears. Here's where I have got to. I cannot trigger the dc solenoid in the RCD without sending it 50v so this is not very practical as I would need a rather cumbersome power supply for the 50v and another for the 9v smoke detector. I have tried to trigger it using the test button contacts but this was not very good either as it creates a

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Beginner's questions - 10 years ago

I think you just have to take the plunge and have a go you learn everything you need to along the way and there's plenty of people who can and will help. I bought a second hand i3 with laser cut metal frame as my first printer and whilst I didn't build it, it did need almost a complete overhaul to get working, many many upgrades later it prints great and looks great. I'd agree with the comments a

by DjDemonD - Reprappers

Re: Thermistor Hole in Center of MK3 Heatbed - 10 years ago

Yeah I filled mine with kapton, damn stuff peels off anytime I'm printing a very tight first layer or have changed something and the nozzle clearance is a bit low. Was thinking of either second aluminium plate on top, or glass, but I'm using an inductive sensor. So it's a case of changing to capacitative sensor and maybe using a sheet of printbite which is very good. When I researched these mk3

by DjDemonD - Reprappers

Re: Flying extruder vs acceleration marks - 10 years ago

So you're using cura now what we're you using before? When you say you have to test a bowden setup, do you mean you haven't tried one before? Or haven't tried it on this particular printer? What printer is it?

by DjDemonD - Reprappers

Re: Flying extruder vs acceleration marks - 10 years ago

I just saw a video someone posted of the Wasp Delta and the flying extruder does seem to be a great solution keeping the bowden tube very short and the mass/inertia on the effector as low as possible. Quite keen to try this. Did you print modified carriages to attach the elastic supports? The only thing is I just ordered a flex3drive as an alternative solution to getting better filament control

by DjDemonD - Reprappers

Re: Heated bed/Cooling fans - 10 years ago

The cooling fan is essential for PLA when you print small layers, i.e. short layer time, as the heat does not dissipate into the air quickly enough and the part can end up looking melted. I tend to keep the air flow small and very directional using a cowl with a nozzle pointing at the part this does not cool the bed too much. I remixed a couple of other parts to make a compact fan cowl for a Delt

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Capacitive sensor with mechanical endstop - 10 years ago

You could have both endstops connected to the same pins on the ramps as long as they both trigger Normally open (NO) i.e. switch from 0v open to 5v triggered. That way if they are both open, the voltage on signal pin is 0v but if either one triggers the voltage becomes 5v. If they are normally closed (NC), then they will both be sending 5v to the signal pin. If one sensor triggers and switches

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Major Temp drop while printing - 10 years ago

Perhaps it is your heater cartridge. The cooling effect is less if you are not running filament through the hot end, just the heat conducting up the heat break. If your heater is not giving its all, then maybe it can maintain temperature sat idle but isn't putting out enough heat when filament is running through. Try extruding into thin air very slowly, if the temperature drops see if it is l

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

Calm down, all I am trying to do is trigger a circuit breaker when a smoke detector goes off. I DO NOT intend to have my moistened fingers on the high voltage contacts at any point.The RCD just happens to have everything in it that I need ready-made, a latching double pole contact, a socket, a nice insulated box for it all to live inside and a DC operated solenoid which disconnects them. I am not

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

12v 1A is not enough to trigger the solenoid in the RCD - anyone know what current and voltage these things need to trigger them? I do not have a bench power supply so I am limited in my ability to work it out by trial and error. They trigger from current induced in a sensor coil, which I assume is rectified then passed to the solenoid, there are a bunch of diodes in the RCD. Since the RCD I am u

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Stupid endstop question kick me if necessary - 10 years ago

Thanks, I have no problems with mechanical endsotps they've worked fine for me for a long time. I do not rehome during printing so reproducibility isn't high on my list. My frustration was that the pcb endstops seemingly cannot be configured to give a NC output and therefore I wonder why they seem to be so popular, their only saving grace is that they have an LED on them and do not require any so

by DjDemonD - Printing

Re: Fire safety device - 10 years ago

My plan is to hack an RCD domestic socket outlet, and connect a DC supply via the relay on the smoke detector, to the solenoid in the RCD, to trigger the solenoid if the smoke detector triggers, thereby killing the live and nuetral high voltage and everything connected to this socket i.e. the printer. It will also kill the power to the smoke detector, as I intend to run it off the 240v out from t

by DjDemonD - General

Re: Stupid endstop question kick me if necessary - 10 years ago

Simple solution just use some plain microswitches configured to NC and everything works fine, not sure why these little PCD boards exist except that they have an LED on them.

by DjDemonD - Printing