I should start my own thread for all the "fun" I have with my printer . As well as sorting the Z axis issues I created when I last tore the printer apart, I decided to fix the screw rubbing against the X axis belt. I managed to loosen the glue and undo the bolt, and as IanW suggested I just flipped it around. Except now the bolt blocks the X carriage from reaching its homing point, because the fan hits the bolt before it finds home: I don't have a dremel/dremel-like tool, or a replacement bolt that small, otherwise I could fix this very quickly. My solution was to simply leave that bolt off. The other bolt is still glued in place and that's more than enough to hold the switch in place. Much nicer X axis movement In other news I've started printing parts for a Tantillus printer: gcode.ws estimates an 18hr print time, and I've always found that site's estimates to be optimistic. Here's hoping the printer doesn't burn my house down in my sleep*! *I kid. This thing has proven itself to be pretty safe. The worst that's happened when I've left it alone is that a print messed up and I wasted some filament, and once the heater cartridge & hotend thermistor came loose which tripped the thermal runaway safeguards in the PID loop (subsequently shutting the printer down).
I'd not really read into the Tantillus before. Tempted to make one too, it looks a lot more portable and it'd be handy to have a second machine for smaller prints. Have your priced up the build at all? I've got a few kilos of filament handy so that's no problem.
Good news, everyone! My printer didn't tear itself to pieces or burn the house down, and finally completed the 18hr run this morning. I'm not happy with the amount of banding/wobble (click to embiggen and see what I mean), but hopefully it won't cause me any problems Next: more damn case pieces! These will apparently take around 20hrs to print These are the lower 4 case panels, and therefore the largest - the remaining panels should be much quicker to print. It's quite an old design, it was first published about 4 years ago. The original designer is no longer updating/working on it (although he still pokes his head about on the Reprap forums) but it's been adapted/updated/remixed a few times and there are some good mods available, like a belt-driven or leadscrew-driven Z axis. My main issue is going to be that it's designed for imperial measurements. Hopefully I'll be able to adapt the design as I go; a 5/16" drill rod is 7.93mm in diameter, so it's pretty close. Some parts have already been converted to metric. The main issue I have with my printer is that the slightly larger than average build volume means that it has to be mechanically spot-on in order to get the best results. Larger than average build plate means a higher chance of warping, the Z axis rods/screws have to be juuuust right, the frame has to be absolutely spot on, etc... My kit was a very cheap kit, so the quality of the parts isn't exactly up there. None of the problems are impossible to fix, but fixing them means that I spend more time working on my printer or pouring money into it and less time actually printing things. This design is lightweight, compact, fast, and seems to produce damn good results. If I can get the Tantillus working then I can at least still print parts when my "main" printer is out of action. No, but there's a BOM on the designer's (re-hosted) website, but I haven't priced up the parts. I seem to recall that all the printed parts - if you print the case instead of getting it laser cut - amount to about 1kg of filament in total. I'm starting with the case, that should allow me to see how the overall design comes together and work out what I'm going to need to modify in order to "metric-ify" the design. I haven't decided whether I'm going to keep the fishing wire XY axis drive or switch it to belts. Belts are probably easier to work with.
Spotted in the Configuration.h file for Marlin 1.1.0-RC8: Is that automatic mesh bed leveling I see in Marlin? HELL YES. This warrants further investigation - preferably before I try enabling it... Gotta finish getting the rest of the firmware configured & flashed first though.
Marlin 1.1.0-RC8 is working just fine, as is my swanky graphical LCD. I may switch back to the original 4x20 character LCD though, as the graphical one has a very slow interface. In other news, my print bed looks like this: Clearly that aint right. But the frame is level, all the rods are level, and the bed has been properly leveled. Maybe the carriage is twisted...? I don't know. I wanted to look into this new auto mesh bed leveling feature in Marlin anyway, so maybe now is a good time to give my printer a break from making Tantillus parts. Also: I've started a build log thread for the Tantillus, to save clogging up this thread any more than I already do .
Is RC8 much better than the older ones? I think i might still be on RC5 (was that the one when we first got the HicTops?) Any chance you could send me your marlin build please? I remember struggling quite a bit with it last time!
Hard to say whether it's objectively "better". There are definitely better features, like automatic mesh bed leveling, but if your current firmware is working well for you then I wouldn't worry about it TBH. Most of the really important settings can be overridden with EEPROM settings or gcode commands anyway. No problem. All you really need to change is configuration.h and configuration_adv.h, so I'll post them over on pastebin. Make sure you have a backup copy of your current working firmware! Also, I'd highly highly recommend checking my settings against your current setup - these files have been configured for my printer, and could cause unexpected results on yours! Anything I edited has been prefixed with "BLC:", so those are the lines to check. Configuration.h Configuration_adv.h
I've spent the last couple of days playing with slicer software, I've been using Simplify3D for the last few months with great success but thought I'd give the latest version of Slic3r a go based on good things I've heard/read, sadly I've not managed to get a comparable print using Slic3r on anything I've printed. Watching the temperature panel on Octoprint shows that the files from S3D maintain a much more stable hotend temp (+/- 0.5° VS +/- 4.0° with Slic3r) that might not seem like a massive difference but it is the ONLY difference between the prints all the settings are identical, I've no idea why the temp fluctuates so much with the Slic3r files, even a quick test using Cura had similar results to the S3D prints. It's a shame because I actually prefer using Slic3r over either of the others but I just can't get the results I need from it and to put it into perspective I've gone through 5 whole rolls of PLA without a single 'failed' print using S3D, yet every single print from Slic3r was un-salvageable! Mini rant over
If all else fails... use a raft! So I'm designing a board game (No not Catan, that's sitting in a box waiting to be painted)... ...and I'm designing interlocking playing pieces. Little 14mm diameter knurled discs 5mm thick with a 4mm deep socket on one side and plug on the other. They cam together nicely when stacked. I've been using eBays cheapest red PLA out there. Cost me something like £9 a kilo inc shipping. Pieces print fine and I could print a batch of 30 and every one was perfect. I've done all sorts with this filament, it's translucent which isn't great but it's cheap and it works. So, with red done I swap colours, and put in a basic white PLA. Nothing special just Prima Value stuff... works great. Used loads of it, again it always 'just works'. But not for these little sods. Nothing I do will get the 'red' working gcode to stick to the bed. It's a nightmare. But due to their shape they're supported by very little against the bed and this white PLA is getting knocked off as the nozzle brushes over it. Fine on the eBay crap, problems on the Amazon crap. Other prints, fine - but these little buggers have so little against the bed it's a tall ask. Actually it works like 98% of the time, but if I'm printing a batch the first couple of layers have three touching areas per piece - and if any one of them fails (because they're like 1x3mm) the PLA gets pushed around and knocks another... and before you know it's like the opening 10mins of gravity all over again. I could play around with z-hop, temps, or first layer extrusion settings but I'm looking for a gcode file I can just fire at any PLA and it 'just work'. I feel if I upped my temps the white PLA wouldn't be so gooey and more fluid like the red, but the temps I use work great for every filament I use and I don't want the hassle of running with several. The red and white print great with the same settings... apart from the white not being back to stick to the bed when you ask it to layout a hundred tiny little areas at once. So what do I do? So I go with a basic 2 layer raft and tessellate my little pieces to pack them in tight to avoid wasting too much filament. It works great. I feel like I'm cheating, but who gives a flying duck right?
From my experience there aren't magic settings that work for every print. Each time I come to print I have to work with the model and decide whats best. Flow rates, widths and stuff are common per nozzle but as you have found the surface area of the first layers can change wildly and not all filament is created equal. I would suggest using a brim (called brim in Slic3r) which increased the first layer footprint. Its not a raft it just takes the outer perimeter and expands it out many times. This will help with small surface area parts and files / falls off easily afterwards.
Can anyone suggest a place to source a cheap GT2 Timing Belts from? My go-to store sells them at £3.50 per metre, but I'd rather bulk buy a 10-20m reel, save some cash and be done with it.
You can get 10m from Amazon for about £15 iirc, it'll be much cheaper from places like Gearbest/Aliexpress though if you're willing to wait a bit longer for it.
I was wondering if any of you fine gentlemen could do me a favour ? i have the Wanhao Duplicator I3 at stock currently ( aside from the Z brace ) and was looking at cooling upgrades ( especially those that connect to the rear to allow better visibility of the nozzle ) but only being able to print in PLA ( i dont really want to buy a full roll of ABS for one part ) im dubious of the coolers ability to stand up to the temps required, so i was wondering if anyone would be able to print one of the better coolers (http://www.thingiverse.com/make:306048) in a material more suitable for high temps Will happily chuck some beer tokens your way for the plastic + shipping costs
Want - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1554809440/moai-affordable-high-resolution-laser-sla-3d-print
Another follower of GreatScott! I see Since I've been a bit quiet, I thought I'd give an update on my 3D printer... I've ended up changing to a E3D V6 clone hot end, having the extruder attached to the frame rather than the hot-end (this has resulted in much less vibrations from the X axis). I've also mastered using my glass-bed, which I'm now using an adjustable end-stop for the Z axis (although I've just received a 3D Touch clone which will mean I can use bed levelling again once I've designed a suitable mount). On the Y-axis, my existing linear bearings had started to loose a couple of balls, so I've just changed to some igus polymer bearings. They're meant to be better and have no balls in them, rather relying on a polymer block for sliding against. I installed these last night and can already see some improvement - they're certainly a lot quieter. I've also added an adjustable tensioner for the belt on the y-axis, again this has improved things. Also, a wider y-axis bearing (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1711552) which means the belt is no longer rubbing against the edges of the bearing holder itself. All the above has improved print quality bit by bit. Plans going forward are to do the igus bearing upgrade on my X axis too. I recently took receipt of some better filament - Rigid.ink (rather than the generic crap I've been buying previously) so I'm looking forward to seeing improvements from this, given that it's double the price of the generic stuff. It certainly looks/feels nicer out of the box.
Link for files: http://www.uswaterrockets.com/construction_&_tutorials/3D_Printed_Star_Wars_Droid/tutorial.htm
I'm seriously considering a budget 3D printer now - just want to have a go! I'd like one that works largely as intended but can be improved with optional mods/upgrades rather than one like Byron's that needed a seemingly herculean effort just to get it to print something properly. So.... is there a leading contender in the budget class, or are they much the same? Any particular models to avoid? Also, if any of you have suggestions for MUST HAVE mods, please feel free to tack them on to any recommendations. Cheers, me dears! [edit] by budget I mean less than £200 shipped, if that helps.
See my comments in this thread http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=306961 although it looks like the Kossel Mini is now out of date
