Just a quick report back and a further question. I have used a new "magic gloop" called Mosquito Boron Nitride Paste which seems to be doing the job. I have now fed several meters of filament through a hotend at 230°C and the resistance of the element does not seem to change. Down to the question. So far I have simply looked at the temperature chart from Repetier Host to see how much additionby leadinglights - General
Thankyou VDX, that site did have useful data and I may use them in the future. The lack of decent information has extended far beyond eBay and Amazon. One of the suppliers I most frequently use, RS Components, has gone into my black book as the datasheets for their "RS Pro" stepper motors is now an almost useless brag-sheet - and there is not even a link to where you can get real-world data. Miby leadinglights - General
Although 3D printing of the actual icebag may be a major challenge, it is possible that a mold or formwork Edit: can be 3d printed for the icebag to be made or assembled on might be a more practical answer. I am guessing that the main reason for wanting to make things like icebags by 3D printing is so that they can be made to an exact fit for each user or patient. While having an intermediate stby leadinglights - General
I am looking for a recommendation for a new go-to supplier for motion control products. I used to use Zapp Automation, but they show every sign of having gone out of existence. I was looking for torque/speed curves of smaller stepper motors, NEMA11 and NEMA14 but now all I can find is the first page of the datasheets with dimensions and a few grudging parameters. Zapp always had full datasheets bby leadinglights - General
Short version for those for whom “Too long: did not read” is a mantra: I am looking for suggestions for how to get software changes and any other comments or thoughts on my two-headed printer bed leveling method. Video at and pictures below Some years ago I became convinced that undebed piezoelectric sensors were the best technology for bed leveling in an FFF printer. In particular, theby leadinglights - General
A bit more on toothed belts, belt tension, and stepper motors. Firstly though, a bit of a disclaimer: I exceed the recommended figures by quite a bit on my Delta printer and I haven't had any real problems I worked out the load from a site that has gone missing in the depths of time, but this one gives about the same results - except that it barfs when I put in the true center distance of 780mmby leadinglights - CoreXY Machines
One point with stepper motors and wide belts is that their rated radial load is not too great. Wide belts lever on the shaft more than narrow belts as narrow belts can be set closer to the flange. An excerpt from a datasheet below gives 28 Newtons (about 2.9kg or 6.3 pounds force) as the maximum for a fairly typical NEMA17. I think they are regularly used at or beyond this but think the gains inby leadinglights - CoreXY Machines
One very important thing about cable for high current is that they should be in free air. There is a lot of difference between the current-carrying capacity of a cable that is in the open and one where the heat can't escape - That is the reason that all of the cable on an extension cable drum should be loose outside of the drum if it is to be used anywhere its maximum current. Thick electrical inby leadinglights - Safety & Best Practices
This project is going on a little slowly but mostly very positively. The accuracy and sensitivity are far better than needed in a 3D printer as the upper touch sensor is able to repeatably detect contact with less than 1 micron of variation. The improvements have mostly been in software with new algorithms for getting a good baseline, and for detecting drift and noise which would make the contactby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Although I used to use under-bed piezo sensors, I have started looking for better ways after discovering that there were chaotic effects that made some spots relatively insensitive. You can minimize, but not eliminate this effect by having 3 or more sensors right on the outer periphery of the bed. You can see this effect visually if you look up Chladni plates on YouTube. A report on the experimenby leadinglights - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
I am fairly sure that the PicKit2 won't program the PIC16F1704 MCU that I use on these boards. There are very cheap clones available on Ebay but I don't know them so can't recommend either way.. I also can't say if the Atmel ICE will work. As far as Microchip itself goes, they do a fairly good free C compiler but their support for assembler is pretty stinky - annoying for me as I do useful workby leadinglights - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
I will give what assistance I can, but don't expect too much as the world is too full of Lurgies and Boojums (disease and misfortune), not to mention the apathy that has laid waste to the RepRap forum and the ravening Dunning-Kruger syndrome which bestrides the world like a colossus. As herd immunity to none of the above has been achieved I may fall victim at any moment. I have some spares of thby leadinglights - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
I will monitor your progress with interest as my piezo conditioning boards were originally intended to work with an I2C for changing parameters - this is still provided for on the PCB although I have not used it yet. An additional question, What firmware will you be using? Mikeby leadinglights - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
A method that I use on one of my printers started as a temporary kludge until I worked out a drag chain arrangement has proven to be exceptionally light. I don't know how applicable this may be to a coreXY printer as it is the print carriage that moves in the XY plane on my printer, not the printing head. To explain the photograph, there are cables for the bed heater and thermistor as well asby leadinglights - CoreXY Machines
Quotemajic79 .................................................................................. For probing, you could sync the query over the serial bus before stepping - might slow things down a bit, but that seems an acceptable price to pay. ....................................... Thank you! As long as response times can be in the low millisecond region. I use a probe speed of 2mm per seconby leadinglights - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
My own personal take on it and for what it is worth: A useful feature on any controller would be a serial interface to subsidiary boards somewhat more complex than simple digital pins for Z probes and other things. Examples of external controller boards that I am playing with and which are limited to simple digital IO are: A toggle motor for swapping two print heads. The control board has an inby leadinglights - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
Sadly, almost nobody here does the free exchange of ideas "spitballing" as it used to be called. When the forum was young it was common for any idea with any merit to generate considered comment and often lengthy debate. Now the most you can expect is about 25% comments about your idea being "interesting" - nice, but not very informative, or, on the other hand, about 75% comments of various leveby leadinglights - General
My own take on it is that a 3D printer can't be used to make anything that could be compared with any real milling machine, or even an engraving machine. Moving the workpiece and/or the milling tool with belt drives is very poor if there is any cutting resistance or vibration from the cutting. Having said the above, there is still a use for a converted printer as a very light engraving machine aby leadinglights - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
The last two weeks have been somewhat frustrating with design changes necessitated by earlier modifications only becoming apparent as the printer moves towards its first tests. Changes in the Z lead screw to incorporate an anti-backlash nut resulted in a loss of 14mm in Z travel. The best way to fix this is by subtly redesigning the frame. The larger stepper motor for the toggle switch got in theby leadinglights - General New Machines Topics
I agree that most pastes will dry out at FFF printing nozzle temperatures; but if they maintain sufficient flexibility to give a few years of service over a few thousand heating/cooling cycles, that should be enough for a practical heater. I can't give any input on V5 cold ends or e3D titanium heatbreaks as I know nothing about them. This is not because I find any fault with them, but what I amby leadinglights - General
Thanks DragonFire. I did look at selected parts of the datasheet using Google Translate. There doesn't seem to be any noteworthy acute or chronic toxicological effects. I did find the spec sheet for MX2 interesting as the kind of temperature drops on load and at idle are pretty much in line with my tests although this is at a somewhat different temperature. I have now got some Slice Engineeringby leadinglights - General
Hmmm, I thought my water-cooled hotend was lightweight and proved that a water-cooling jacked did not need to be big. Look at this image screengrabbed from a video for Zatsit The rest of the printer is also very cool. Mikeby leadinglights - Tech-Talk
Since the last post, I have been working on the software and hardware for the controller for the toggle mechanism to make it play nicely with the Arduino & Repetier firmware. I had already got the toggle mechanism to be repeatable to within ±3µm and to swap heads within 0.6 of a second. All the faults I have been able to think of are now detected by the software on the controller and Repetierby leadinglights - General New Machines Topics
Since even the best crafted insults can only offer so much entertainment, I will go back to my main pleasure, the making of new and challenging things. I have been looking at a simple, very lightweight hotend to be used in a small Delta printer with a heated enclosure. I made a prototype hotend pictured below which weighs in at only 7 grams but have not yet made a good heater for it. A promisingby leadinglights - General
Since it left the arena of psychology and went into the mainstream, the Dunning-Kruger effect is most apparent in those who invoke it. Mikeby leadinglights - General
Alternative realities then? The Donald would be proud. Incidentally, this is almost a reprise of a discussion we had back in 2016 where you were concerned that a PTFE insulated wire could get as hot as 350°C In reality (that word again) the temperature rise above ambient was 53°C so the PTFE would never get above say 163°C with the plate at 110°C. Mikeby leadinglights - General
Quotethe_digital_dentist ...................................... Do you think a 3W resistor uses the same diameter nichrome wire that a 30W resistor (or a 30W heater cartridge) uses?............................................ Hmm, If I find that it does, will you stop being so negative? Or is that too much to hope for? Mikeby leadinglights - General
I did not say that heater cartridges should not be used - other than to mention that my early experience of them was not good. I doubt that anybody would use them if the quality had not rapidly improved. What I did and do reject is the_digital_dentists insistence that resistors were not suitable for this purpose. My own experience is that resistors can give long and trouble-free service. In the cby leadinglights - General
As I mentioned, I was an early adopter of heater cartridges back in 2012. I quickly became an early rejector of them after I purchased three batches of 5 cartridges, in both 12V and 24V ratings. Of these, a good number were rejected due to badly out of tolerance resistance or short circuits to the case. The point at which I would no longer tolerate them was when I had failures with heaters goingby leadinglights - General
Quotethe_digital_dentist ................................................................................. Why mess around with resistors that are not designed for the purpose? Size. I would need a heater 5mm diameter by 12mm long and these are not generally available. The resistors do work reliably although this does require excellent thermal coupling. I tried heater cartridges in about 2012 whby leadinglights - General