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Re: Experiments in high speed printing. - 14 years ago

I'm using speeder firmware on gen6 which has acceleration.

Experiments in high speed printing. - 14 years ago

As I have been attempting to do complete print beds I have been wondering just how fast can a Mendel go? So today I thought I would find out as I needed a new extruder base. This was printing at 60mm/s with a 60% slow down for the outer shell. Travel speed between printing was 80mm/s. I had to overcome a few problems as the Z axis has to move independently of the X and Y or the electronics

Re: Independent Z move - 14 years ago

Think I have solved it. Put G4 P000 instead and that seems to work. So the pause command is better for gen6 it seems.

Re: Independent Z move - 14 years ago

I have been experimenting with how fast my printer will print with gen6. Over a certain speed it has this z axis problem. It makes the movement stutter horrendously and the z axis doesn't move the correct distance. The erratic movement on the other axis makes them skip steps as it does it without any acceleration. I tried the home M015 code which makes it raze the z separate but the machine th

Re: X Y axis accuracy doubled. - 14 years ago

The mechanism will work for any machine that uses belts like a Mendel. You just need to find somewhere to clamp the belt on the outside and design a pulley like mine for the carriage. As long as there is space to fit it in it will work. I don't think mine will fit a Pursa. The Y axis clamp parts for the belt might as they just clamp to the 8mm studding but the rest would need new parts I'm sur

Re: Wavy vertical walls - 14 years ago

Not sure what to advise really as the settings I changes were not in the old firmware. I had to alter a very specific setting but it said in the instructions to do so if you kept missing steps. And that worked a charm. I fiddles with the acceleration settings but I would be lying if I said I knew what they all did. That wasn't the problem for me anyway. I was using sprinter firmware BTW. Th

Re: Anyone Nearby - 14 years ago

I don't think there is anybody anywhere near me. I live in Burnham-on-Crouch. It would be cool if there was a club or something a bit more structured to organise development and share improvements as well as help people.

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Did you set the baud rate? I think it is near the bottom of that file. I set mine to 19200. I can post it tomorrow as I have to catch a train to London very shortly.

Re: Wavy vertical walls - 14 years ago

I'm now printing at 30mm/s with a travel feed rate of 45mm/s and a layer thickness of .32mm. My Mendel is not normal though and is a bit experimental. Mine prints really nice at those speeds but 20 to 25mm/s might be better for a normal one. I also have a 5mm aluminium heated bed I attach 3mm aluminium plates too with the tape on so I can change them quickly. So that's 8mm of aluminium in total

Re: New Electronics Design - 14 years ago

That's sounds really interesting. Though I will admit to only understanding a little of that. The electronics are not my strong point. If your going to use gen6 then change the firmware to sprinter or teacup. There's a thread about it in the Mendel section. The standard programing causes micro pauses that make little blobs impossible to avoid. Apart from that its a good simple board.

Re: Idea: Aluminium Oxide PCBs and Redox - 14 years ago

It is possible to solder aluminium. I have used special aluminium solder and it does work but it does not run and flow like on copper. You have to rub it in and it often won't take well. I cant imagine it being at all practical to attach electronic components too. It can be spot welded easily though. That's how aluminium wires are joined to things in motors. A micro automated spot welding syst

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Not as yet. It seems to all work perfectly. I will be attempting a full print bed tomorrow so it will get a good test. That's if that all works properly. The prints all go faster for the mm/s so 25 is more like what 35 is with the old firmware. Best to turn that down and make a gcode before running it. You should have seen it go when I first tired it. Shaking like crazy. And the extruder put

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Thought I should give some notes on using Sprinter with gen6. Firstly use the 100k (or 200k if that's what you have.) files for the thermistor not the Mendel parts one. That ones hopeless. And turn on smoothing for the temperature readings as it seems a bit over sensitive to fluctuations. The second, and very important thing. There is an option to turn on STEP_DELAY_RATIO. You have to turn off

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Tested Sprinter today and it works great. But now my extruder has packed up. So rebuilding that.

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Thanks for the info. I may try sprinter in that case. If I can get my head round it all!

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

I have been observing and my machine seems to pause a lot when trying to do small circles or small parts where the movements take a short time to complete. This is only generally true though as I have made large circular objects that have infilled with rapid movements side to side traveling round the ring and it has not paused at all. It is suggested to increase the connection speed to 38400 i

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Found why it was not extruding. I had accidentally changes a setting. Anyway now it is it still pauses with it set to 0. ?????????

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

Well that's interesting. I just tried setting the reaction settings to 0 and the extruder simply rocked back and forth and wouldn't turn to extrude! I have no idea whats going on there. Does gen6 even work properly with the dimension settings? Would I be better off switching them off completely and using the other settings?

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

I can report that the belt mod makes no difference on the pausing despite needing twice the number of steps. It pauses exactly the same. So the x and y don't seem to affect it at all! I am out of my element with this kind of stuff. I will try setting it to 0 and see what happens. From what has been reported I'm thinking it will not pause. I know that the parts from Mendel parts are printed w

Re: Blobbing due to small pauses. [help me] - 14 years ago

I have this problem with gen 6. You guys know far more about the problems here than be but as I have doubled the steps per mm for my X and Y I can report that mine still runs fine at feed rate of 35mm/s. I have the travel feed at 50mm/s and it all seems fine. It only really pauses with the react. Does setting react to 0 diable the command? I will test it once I have finished fixing some thing

Re: X Y axis accuracy doubled. - 14 years ago

Thanks cluso99. I got my inspiration from cranes and rigging. I'm hoping some other people try it out in the next few weeks. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to design one for the other Mendel's but I only have the standard one to work from. As for accuracy, I just made a 100mm round part and its circular to within .1mm. Allowing for the achievable accuracy of squirting hot plastic that really go

Re: Print stops randomly - 14 years ago

Mine kept stopping and so I have done the usb power saving settings thing with my little netbook. Curiously it never stopped when I was playing music from it at the same time while printing!. I just finished a large part I was printing with no problem. So fingers crossed and thanks for the tips.

Re: X Y axis accuracy doubled. - 14 years ago

On another development note I have been trying a new way to fix my aluminium bed to the Y axis. I didn't like the bolts with springs under and did away with that as the main support, it is too wobbly. Instead I use the screw now without springs to adjust he leveling. The bed is attached to the Y axis by a 4mm by 50mm long stud. I drilled and tapped the bed right in the middle. Then I did the s

Re: Hot Ends and PCB Heatbed? - 14 years ago

Unless the belt is jumping which I doubt as you can normally hear that quite easily. Then the pulley might be slipping on the motor. Otherwise its that the motor is missing steps and stalling instead of moving. It could be that it does not have enough current or that the particular axis is too stiff. Its not always easy to hear it miss one step. I had this happen at first, making wonky prints a

Re: X Y axis accuracy doubled. - 14 years ago

Had it printing all afternoon. As requested, hears it printing and as a bonus some horrendous unshaven monster at the beginning!

Re: Print stops randomly - 14 years ago

I have had this happen a few times. I have now turned off the power saving option in the usb setting for my little net-book I run my printer off. So I will see how that goes. It has not done it when I have plugged usb device in while printing though. And oddly enough it has never done it while I have been playing music in it too. (Its my entertainment media center in my shed.) I will see how

Re: Hot Ends and PCB Heatbed? - 14 years ago

Mine is the heated bed that came with the Kit from Mendel-parts.com. It is an aluminium plate with aluminium heater blocks bolted to it. It take a while to heat up and I measure the temperature with a infrared thermometer so I know exactly what it gets too. I modified the wiring so I could make it get hotter with a more powerful 24v power supply.

Re: Some constructive criticism on the experience of finding what I need to know. - 14 years ago

I have finished testing and it works really well. It up here. Enjoy.

Re: X-axis idler: How do you get the hex-nuts in the nut holes? - 14 years ago

Re: axis motors running hot - 14 years ago

Mine just get a bit warm. Being vague there but I havent measured it. I don't want them getting hot as my plastics are PLA. I don't know about all the different electronics but mine have a tiny pot you can turn to adjust the voltage. You can turn this down to decrease the current and so reduce heat but at the cost of less torque. You should get enough torque to run everything without jumping b