One of the things that happens slowly is printer temperature rising- I don't mean the bed or nozzle, but the air around it and the rest of the machine. Is the belt tension changing with temperature? Is the machine enclosed? What is the ambient temperature?by the_digital_dentist - Printing
You can't trust the thermistor reading to tell you the actual temperature. Printer kit makers use whatever thermistor they can buy cheapest every time they order parts. You have to print at whatever temperature the stuff wants, regardless of the setting in the printer. If it prints fine when your machine says it is 50C, then use that setting. One of the problems with using gcode generated forby the_digital_dentist - Printing
Were print speeds the same for all three?by the_digital_dentist - Printing
The bed isn't rising, the print is curling and peeling the tape off the bed. What material are you printing with? What are the nozzle and bed temperatures? Maybe the tape is the biggest problem- it looks like its adhesive isn't up to the task. Most people use blue painter's tape- the adhesive isn't the same as the brown stuff. Try blue... I see masking tape in the first couple pictures- whatby the_digital_dentist - Printing
Does that bottom layer peel away from the part easily?by the_digital_dentist - Printing
How fast did you print it? If it is the frame wobbling, a lower print speed may help keep it under control.by the_digital_dentist - Printing
If the part starts to wobble because it isn't firmly attached to the bed the wobble will get worse the taller the part gets. Are they staying stuck to the bed? Can you see the part wobbling as it prints?by the_digital_dentist - Printing
It might be a top solid infill overlap or line width problem. On a larger surface area it may not be noticeable but with such a narrow wall it becomes more apparent.by the_digital_dentist - Printing
Yes. It reads more consistently and with a little less variation across the bed when cold. I think heat creeps up the probe and causes shifts in the gauge readings because repeatability is poor at high temperature. I may have to lift the probe off the bed and let it cool between measurements to get consistent results, but that adds any backlash in the Z axis to the numbers. The measurements iby the_digital_dentist - Mechanics
The baby isn't going to get burned by the radiator, is he/she?by the_digital_dentist - Mechanics
Yes. If you switch AC power into a transformer it tends to have high inrush current, even with zero crossing detection in the SSR. If you try doing that too fast you can create a very high surge current that can trip a circuit breaker in your house. If your bed heater is made to operate at 117VAC, it will be OK to run the PID at a high frequency because a resistive load won't produce the sameby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Some creative part sourcing should allow quality machine construction with that sort of budget. Take a look at my machine (linked in my sig, below) to see what can be done with scrapped machine parts picked up via ebay, from local scrap yards, and the local makerspace.by the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
I clamped a digital dial indicator to my printer's extruder carriage and wrote a gcode file to move the gauge around the surface. The bed is a 12.5" x 12" x 1/4" cast tooling plate covered with 5 mil Kapton tape. For this test the bed was heated to 105C and the everything closed up for about 1/2 hour to let the temperature inside the build chamber (and the dial indicator) stabilize. I found thby the_digital_dentist - Mechanics
Check the temperature of the motor driver module. If it overheats it will shut down, then start up again when it cools off, etc.by the_digital_dentist - Printing
You calibrated the steps/mm to get to 20cm x 20 cm. The extruder calibration should be done before the steps/mm calibration. Overextrusion is probably also why your first layer bits kept getting dragged away in the first place. When you overextrude on the first layer, the plastic gets squished wider than it should and when the nozzle passes by it catches the previously overextruded material anby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Not all AC SSRs have zero cross detection, so select a part carefully. I was originally running Marlin on a Arduino/RAMPS set up. I don't know which file has the PID frequency setting because it worked OK with the default and I never went looking to change it. Smoothieboard defaults to a 20Hz maximum PID frequency which can be changed (like everything else) in the config.txt file. I am poweriby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
IRIC, Marlin uses a maximum PID frequency of 7 Hz. I used to use it unmodified to switch AC power into the 24V transformer that powers my bed heater. When I switched to a SmoothieBoard controller, the default PID frequency was 20Hz which I turned down to 8 Hz because it was blowing circuit breakers at 20 Hz, even though the SSR has a zero-crossing detector built in. PID works fine with AC SSRsby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
Here's a DC-DC SSR good for 40A for $6: . A DC SSR will get hot without a heatsink, and will drop the voltage to the heater a little, so you might have to turn up the power supply voltage, especially if you are using a marginally spec'd heater. If you power the bed with AC instead of DC you can run an SSR without a heatsink. I switch power to my 450W bed heater using an DC-AC SSR under PIDby the_digital_dentist - Reprappers
If you run the Z axis up and down without the servo plugged in, does the controller still reset itself?by the_digital_dentist - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
I think the best possible solution is to just use a flat surface that is properly leveled. My printer has a 1/4" cast aluminum tooling plate that is 12" x 12.5" and covered with a layer of 5 mil kapton tape. ABS sticks just fine and I can print almost edge to edge. I recently printed a circular part that was about 10" in diameter with a 0.25 mm first layer. My machine has a 3 point leveling sby the_digital_dentist - General
My machine's frame is built using similar stuff and is largely modular, which makes it easy to scale. The Y axis is held in the frame by two bolts, the X axis is held on the Z axis screws by 2 bolts, and electronics is located in a drawer in the bottom of the machine. See the link in my sig below. There are very few printed parts in the machine- just the X axis motor mount and belt tensioner,by the_digital_dentist - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Quotebodaciousbrian With the move stepper option under Prepare in the lcd.. I say rapidly but it is quite slow. just +10 cm back to 0 repeat, it wont ever move more than 15 cm total before it fails. 30 seconds total. The main symptom I see other than shutdown is chatter in the servo. All axis cause interference on that servo, but none are anywhere close to as bad as the Z, I suspect its becauseby the_digital_dentist - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
How are you moving the Z axis rapidly? Are you using a jog function or are you manually forcing it to move?by the_digital_dentist - Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors
Glass is a thermal insulator and not an ideal surface for a print bed because of temperature variations across its surface. Temperature variation matters because prints may let go at cool spots on the bed. Tempered glass shelves are frequently not very flat. I started with one of those in my printer and it had a wavy surface- see MegaMax print bed. Glass is commonly used on top of aluminum fby the_digital_dentist - General
Yes the gap will affect performance. Air is a thermal insulator. You are measuring the temperature in the block and the heater is insulated from the block by a layer of air, so the heater will have to run much hotter to get the block heated to whatever the set temperature is. There will be a time delay between turning on the heater and the temperature rise in the block (beyond the delay due toby the_digital_dentist - General
If it has an SD card reader I recommend you put the gcode on an SD card and print from it without host software. Computers and host software decrease the reliability of 3D printing, an already unreliable process. Host software can be useful when you're tuning up the machine's firmware for best performance, but dump it as soon as you can. If you're using the slicer right, you won't need to tweby the_digital_dentist - Extruded Aluminum Frames
If they work with 12 or 24 V, each heater is probably two separate resistance circuits that use 12V at 10A each (in other words, two 1.2 Ohm resistors). If you jumper them in parallel, one heater unit will take 12V at 20A. If you jumper them in series you will need 24V at 10A. In either case you're using 240 Watts for one heater unit. Since you're using two heater units, you can jumper each hby the_digital_dentist - General
If you go to 24V you will connect the two 12V heaters in series and they will require 20A total.by the_digital_dentist - General
Stratasys uses that "oven" temperature for printing ABS. I have found that 45-50C is adequate to prevent delamination, and is a lot easier on the motors (X, Z, and extruder) which in my printer have to remain inside the build chamber. At 45-50C I don't need to bring in cooler room air to keep the hot-end cool. At 70C stratasys machines have to use hoses to supply and exhaust room air to cool tby the_digital_dentist - Mechanics