3D Printers

[Tom]

i was printing things at 195 but increased to 205 recently.

[Tom]

good point with the sample files. ill have to print the cat again.

[Tom]

It happens with the demo cat as well. I'll try hotter I guess.

[Lazybones]

It happens with the demo cat as well. I'll try hotter I guess.

Well that helps exclude the slicer a little.

Most of my PLA prints best between 210-215. However temp readings between printers can differ.  Some PLAs print well over a very large range.

[Lazybones]

Incidentally this is why making a temp tower is handy for setting up new materials.

I have run into problems with temps and SPEED, so I try to print at the highest temp that the material doesn't have stringing issues.

Printing at too low a temp can cause problems with not being able to extrude fast enough and poor layer bonding.. Printing at temps that are too high can result in poor bridging and dripping.

[Tom]

I've pretty much solved those issues now. It was a combination of crappy belts/pulleys and messed up settings in both the slicer and firmware. yay. Acceleration and jerk were too high, especially for the crappy belts that came with this thing.

I replaced the original MXL belts and pulleys with stock 2GT belts and aluminium pulleys, and turned down the acceleration and jerk and things are much nicer.

My latest print didn't turn out super great, but its a semi stress test, and I had the speed set super low, which in hindsight was not a great thing for the bridging in this model...

I also swapped out the bed bearings again for plastic drylin bushings, mostly just because of noise. they are so much quieter, and don't really have any more slop than the metal linear bearings you can buy.

There's a video on fb of this print in case anyone is interested. It's too big to post here.

[Tom]

If going faster when bridging doesn't help, I may have to look into some more cooling. I replaced the stock 30mm fan that was failing with a 40mm fan, and I'm not sure the ring style blower on the adapter I printed is pumping out enough air on the part. hmmm...

[Lazybones]

If going faster when bridging doesn't help, I may have to look into some more cooling.

The slicer defaults for my printer always slow down for bridging not speed up.. Cooling it very important for bridging, many printers have alternate fan ducts kicking around on thingiverse to improve cooling.

Hope you are having some fun with the printer and not just frustration.

[Tom]

If going faster when bridging doesn't help, I may have to look into some more cooling.

The slicer defaults for my printer always slow down for bridging not speed up.. Cooling it very important for bridging, many printers have alternate fan ducts kicking around on thingiverse to improve cooling.

Hope you are having some fun with the printer and not just frustration.

It's actually been a lot of fun, and interesting to tinker with

It's like the most fun mechanno set I've ever played with!

I've read that for bridging, if you speed up with good cooling, it'll leave you with straighter lines, less drooping. but you need good cooling for that. If you go slow... I think the lines can droop more? I'll play with it.

[Tom]

Finally got back to finishing some mod's I started on my printer AGES ago. It's been sitting in a box, in many pieces for quite a while..

Now its still in pieces, but some of the mods are actually close to done!

Now I have a beefier 20A meanwell like PSU which will power the pi via a little 12-5v dc-dc board and the 3d printer board will be powered through a relay that's controlled via the raspberry pi

So now I can program octoprint to turn the entire printer on and off. Planning some other electronics mods, like monitoring power used by the hotend and/or bed (just for informational purposes..) and led lighting control.

I've also replaced the Y axis rods with hardened steel. should help with noise and may even help a TINY bit with stiffness.

In order to fit all the added bits in I'll have to add an extension to the base, which I was thinking of doing this weekend when I had a few spare moments but nope, too cold. dun wanna be messing with the circular saw and a full sheet of MDF while its cold and windy outside.

[Lazybones]

The PSU is almost bigger than the printer now.

Hope it prints again.. Although half the fun sometimes is modding the printer it self.

[Tom]

The PSU is almost bigger than the printer now.

Hope it prints again.. Although half the fun sometimes is modding the printer it self.

yeah I didn't need a 20A. Perhaps I could have found a smaller 10 or 15A that's made "slim" but I was (and am) on a budget so I went with what I could get and will do what I need to make it work. I could also take the cover off and save a small amount of room that way but I think I prefer it being on even though it'll be entirely enclosed.

Should print pretty soon! I haven't done anything particularly dangerous to it other than remove the power header and solder some beefier wires directly onto the board. My original goal was to switch even this PSU with the oi but that would either mean a second ac/dc converter or a custom PSU with two taps (12v + 5v) and I was having trouble making the former option work well enough given the parts I have.

Been fiun though. I'd just like to have it working again. So many times I wish I could have just printed some random thing off.

[Lazybones]

I have added a few mods to my printer over time now as well:

- spool holder
- Octopi and a pi connected to the case
- A pi camera attached to the bed for time laps
- A micro switch filament sensor connected to the Pi
- different fan mount for a noctua fan as part of the cooling
- different part cooling shroud
- added a silicon sock to the heat block

etc.

[Tom]

Hm, I've also done some other mods (in the past):

- spool holder
- octoprint + cam
- new bearings
- a new steppers (except I think I'm only using one new stepper, moved back to the stock ones for other axis for one reason or another)
- Z axis lead screw upgrade. stock was a bent threaded rod. now its a hardened steel lead screw
- removed X axis guard/shroud since all it did was make noise, but that required a mod to move a limit switch.
- added a 12v led strip inside the tower.
- replaced hotend (twice), now its a genuine E3D v6 all metal hotend. so nice compared to the stock pos. but be careful with v6 and clones. they have to be GOOD or PLA will stick to the throat and jam. cheap all metal hotends wont be machined smooth enough often times.
- new part cooling fan (twice), first to a noctua but it wasn't cooling well enough so I got a different fan thats significantly louder sadly... might try a laptop style blower fan later cause the part cooling shroud I want to use needs high static pressure.
- tried a few different part/hotend cooling ducts, started designing my own. might have to start from scratch since the software I was using is now paid only i think?!

Fun times.

I will eventually probably build my own printer from scratch. I'm actually tempted to just build a new frame for this printer, but that would most likely require me to print some new brackets and such, which I'd need a printer for! YAY FOR REPRAP?!?!

[Tom]

Woo. It's printing again! and pretty decently. Just need to find something fun to print.