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Makerbot Replicator (5th generation) poor print quality
Current main problem is that at various points during a print, one layer doesn’t attach well to the layer below it. That is what appears to be causing the artifacts in the second picture below, but the picture may not show it clearly.
Background
I have a Makerbot Replicator 5th generation printer. This is the one that is very locked down. As far as I know it can only use the slicer it comes with, Makerbot print, but I'd be happy to be told otherwise. It only prints in PLA and @Trish gave some good advice on drying out the filament. I've also leveled the print bed. Prints have improved from where they couldn't even finish to now where they just aren't very good quality.
The issue I'm having now seems to be primarily that one build layer sometimes doesn't stick to the one below it very well. Then they peel up and the nozzle pulls them and re-melts them into a blob. I've attached two pictures. It's worse in the first one, then I lowered the first model layer fan setting from 50% to 45% and it improved and I was able to get the print in the second picture.
Any help on what settings I can change would be great. Is this because it is underextruding? I think I'm stuck with whatever setting options are available in the Makerbot.print software.

Print settings
The default print temp for this printer is 215. This is at 210 degrees, but those blobs aren't actually burned they are a mix of the previous red filament that was on the outside of the nozzle. The travel speed is 150 mm/s, First model layer print speed is 30mm/s, Raft to model shell vertical offset is 0.26mm, Raft to model vertical offset is 0.33mm (I can't tell what the different between those is), z-offset is 0 (default), Layer height is 0.14mm. In the second picture the print was attached but separated easily from the raft.
A couple more settings that might matter is the Print speed: Outlines is 20mm/s, and the Print Speed: Infill is 90mm/s
Update 3/15/19
I made several of the changes suggested including lowering the temperature, leveling the bed, adjusting the Z-offset, and lowering the infill speed. I also continued to dry the filament in a dry box with a lot of desicant that I dry periodically. The desicant seemed to make much more difference than drying the filament at 50C for a couple hours. Print quality has improved a lot, but isn't great. I'm coming to the conclusion that the filament has been damaged by poor storage. It has been left in a drawer in a humid, hot room over the past summer or more.
I'm still using a raft because prints fail completely without it and work reasonably well with one so I have no problem using a raft. Now most of my problem is blobs of filament that I think are running down the nozzle from the heater core. I may have to take some timelapse video to figure that part out. I'm also having some stringing which may be a filament quality issue and some layer shifting.

Please post some additional information about the slicing, e.g. temperature, speed, raft to print gap, etc. It looks as though your print temperature is high considering the burned blobs.

The default print temp for this printer is 215. This is at 210 degrees, but those blobs aren't actually burned they are a mix of the previous red filament that was on the outside of the nozzle. The travel speed is 150 mm/s, First model layer print speed is 30mm/s, Raft to model shell vertical offset is 0.26mm, Raft to model vertical offset is 0.33mm (I  can't tell what the different between those is), z-offset is 0 (default), Layer height is 0.14mm. In the second picture the print was attached but separated easily from the raft.  What other bits of information would be helpful?

A couple more settings that might matter is the Print speed: Outlines is 20mm/s, and the Print Speed: Infill is 90mm/s

For PLA you don't need a raft. Furthermore, 210 is very hot for PLA, especially if it is 1.75 mm. Infill speed is high, this should be lowered to 60 mm/s. I'm no fan of rafts, I only use it for very high temperature filaments that warp (shrink) a lot. The raft Z offset is also pretty high.

If I don’t print with a raft the prints don’t attach to the build plate at all. I’ll try changing the infill speed and see if that improves things. The main issue now is that various layers during the build don’t attach to the ones below it. Hopefully the infill speed will solve that. Won’t lowering the temperature make that problem worse? I’ll edit the question to reflect the current issue more clearly.

I invite to discuss this in chat

Your printer is improperly leveled with respect to the distance of the nozzle to the bed. This, and a high raft to print part distance, causes consecutive layers to not adhere well.
PLA should not need that high temperatures to print nor does it need a raft. Rafts are interesting when printing filaments that have high shrinkage. Furthermore, a 90 mm/s infill speed is pretty high, and do not use the part cooling fan for the first few layers (if you cool too much it can curl up).
You need to re-level the bed and make sure that the nozzle to build plate distance is the thickness of a sheet of A4 paper when Z = 0.

What temperature should I try? The only options I have available in the software for the cooling fan is Filament Cooling Fan Speed: First Model Layer, and one for the first raft layer, but I'll try lowering the first model layer fan speed. Unfortunately I don't see a way of moving to Z=0 in software. There is an automatic bed leveling and there is a Z offset in the settings in the menus on the machine. There is also this manual process https://thor3d.ca/wp/manually-leveling-the-replicator-5th-gen-build-plate/ and I can try that. Thanks for all the help, I'll try it all in a few days.

Please try out the instructions in that link you posted. PLA tops of at about 200 ℃. You can also make the Z offset more negative in the options. Good luck, update your question with your actions. Good luck!

I invite you to discuss this more in chat

Reading your print settings, I noticed some oddities:

215 °C
raft

These are settings one does not expect for PLA but seem reasonable for ABS. The 215 °C could be reasonable if

the melt zone is extremely short and partially insulated (Makerbot Mk 10 style)
the PLA is a blend with a particularly high melting temperature

Common PLA is printed with

190-200°C nozzle temperature in most e3d-v6 derivates and "Mk 8"*
60 °C bed temperature, when available
no raft but possibly a brim to aid in getting a spatula under the print
cleaning the build platform of residual fingerprints with Isopropyic alcohol or acetone is always adviseable
a glass or metal print surface might get better adhesion from priming it with:

PVA-Gluestick/3dLac/Hairspray
a fresh painters tape, but you need to re-level to include it!

a BuildTak (or clone) surface does not need additional settings

* As far as I know, that Mk 8 does not reference which manufacturer designed this thing, which makes it a kinda nonsensical naming. Mk 8 is short for Mark 8, so by definition the 8th iteration of a specific product.

My post is getting long now and harder to follow. I lowered the print temperature in the update, so I should have specified to 200. 215 is Makerbot’s default and recommend temperature for some reason. They only print in PLA. If I don’t use a raft the print completely fails to adhere to the build surface, so far no matter how much I adjusted the z offset or level the bed. I’m considering a diy heated build plate but I’m going to try an unheated then possibly heated enclosure before the heated bed.

@T.M. I added some infos. IT might help to see your whole printer setup. Also, I invite you to discuss this in chat

You can use other slicers with a Makerbot Replicator 5th gen. Simplify works pretty well so I'd look into that. It's not free but a good program.
All the slicer needs to be able to do is export in .makerbot so Simplify is the only other slicer I have found.


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Failing y-axis home with loud rattling
I have an Anet A8 and I currently try to improve the y-axis (with a tensioner and a frame to support the structure). Now after I dis- and reassembled the y-axis, I get a loud rattling noise when homing the y-axis (and also when moving it stepwise from within the firmware). After the rattling goes on for a second or two, the printer halts and asks to reset. During the rattling, the print bed moves much slower. It appears to only rattle at the end of the axis, close to the endstop, however the point at which it starts to rattle appears random.
I tried a tighter and looser belt and aligning the frame. When moving the bed manually, it does require some force, but it does not appear to be tighter at the back side of the axis. Also nothing seems to block the path of movement.
I noticed that with a tighter belt the rattling starts only closer to the end stop, however it appears like I have to overtighten it to work properly. I got it to hit the end stop this way without halting, however it still produced the rattling sound. Also the y-stepper motor made a high pitched humming noise after this operation.
What else could I check or do about it?
This is a video showing the print bed with the rattling sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Xhz2GtUYQ
View from below:
https://youtu.be/oTEuZUWD0ZM
This is the motor mount:

And this is the tensioner with the support frame:

I added a video of the setup and the sound. The belt does not appear to rub on the frame. When pulling the belt, I get various sounds, like I said, I tried different belt tensions.

Added the pictures. Also I noticed that with a tighter belt, I can control the rattling, however it does not disappear. I added a section on this in the question.

The belt makes  noise like a guitar string. Currently it is at around 100Hz. Like I said, I tried various tensions. At this tightness the rattling is less that with a looser belt.

With the original Anet A8 kit.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The upper and lower part of the belt need to be parallel to the bed, the standard attachment is a design flaw, see a correct attachment here.

From your video, it sounds to me as though the stepper motor is fighting against the bed movement. That would indicate to me the bed rails on the X-axis are not square to the bed movement, which would cause binding of the linear bearings on the bed.
To see if this is the issue, loosen the threaded rods in all six places (three placed times two rods). Loosen the belt tensioner so it is not causing any issues. Then see how the bed moves. If the bed is freed up, tighten the nuts on the threaded rods two at a time on the same plane (each plate of the frame). At each tightening, ensure the bed continues to move freely. Measure the distance as accurately as possible to ensure the frame continues to stay square and are parallel to each other. Once you have tightened all of the nuts on the threaded rod, then re-tighten the belt tensioner.
If none of this solves it, it could also be an issue with your linear bearings. If your Anet A8 is a Chinesium clone, the bearings are not what I'd call "top notch". I replaced mine with Igus Drylin bearings and have not regretted the $10 investment. There are other printed options you could go with as well, which you can find on thingiverse.com.

With the second video and the photos I could identify, that the sound in part stems from the belt:

It is too loose and swing sideways as it pulls.

Tighten the belt till it sounds at least like a C3 or D3 (130/146 Hz) and possibly higher. My Ender3 is tuned to something like A3 (220 Hz). It should be tight and show no sideways swinging on using the motor.
It seems also, that the belt is not running parallel but skewed - that would induce sideways swing too. Make sure the axis of the motor and the pully are parallel and the mounting point of the carriage is not sideways of the belt path, as this will rub the belt against the gear.

Where at the belt should I pull? I measure and pull on the longer end, i.e. the one directly connecting the tensioner and the motor, not the one where the carriage is mounted.

I test my long arm, with the carriage at the far side. it is not exact, it is just what I like to hear for my tension: both up and low close to one another and around A3

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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How to attach bowden tubing to other side of extruder?
I built a drybox to house the filament roll but now I have to figure out how to attach the PTFE bowden tubing to the other side of the extruder.
Currently the filament just feeds in through the countersunk hole on the MK8 CR-10 style extruder tension lever, but is too close to the Z leadscrew to tap the hole and put a PC4-M6 push fitting.
What is the preferred way to attach this?
THanks!

There are several ways to mount a PTFE tubing to the extruder's feeding side.
Connector solution
You'll need a pair of PTFE tubing couplers, a length of PTFE tubing and tapping tools for the mounting, and the lever should be metal:

Disassemble the extruder
Take the intake side lever
open up the intake hole to your PTFE tube connector's inner diameter (that is the diameter, where you cut the thread from!)
tap the hole
screw in PTFE coupler
connect to intake tube
Repeat 3 to 6 for the drybox side, possibly add a nut from the inside
Feed filament through the tube

If you have a plastic side, it reads like this, and you will need an insert that fits your adapter's screw:

Disassemble the extruder
Take the intake side lever
open up the intake hole to a bit under your insert's outer diameter
use a soldering iron to melt the insert into the lever
screw in PTFE coupler
connect to intake tube
Repeat 3 to 6 for the drybox side
Feed filament through the tube

free "inner" side
Instead of using 2 connectors on either end of the tube, the one on the extruder can just be "slid" into the block and then fastened.

disassemble the extruder
take the intake side lever
drill open till the PTFE tube can slide in snugly into its rest position against an inner ledge.

For REALLY hygroscopic material, drill through
drill a side-hole and use a small screw to fasten the tube in place
alternatively, use hot glue on the outside and secure the tube.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Pronterface won't connect to Printrbot Simple metal with error message
I am using Ultimaker Cura to try and get my simple metal back up and running again. It is the strangest thing as this thing has printed decently for four years with just one calibration being the initial calibration without needing adjustments. I moved recently and the printer has been stored for almost a year. I plug in and updated Ultimaker Cura and then found out the printer won't connect just through Ultimaker Cura anymore and I would need something called Pronterface. I followed instructions from a different printer forum and then encounter that the printer won't connect to Pronterface either. Both with same error message reading.
Error message reads in Pronterface as:
[ERROR] Could not connect to COM3 at baudrate 250000:
Serial error: could not open port 'COM3': WindowsError(5, 'Access is denied.')

I have already checked the ports in device manager and see the the printer is in COM3 and I have tried all Baud rates including 115200 and 250000 and 96000, and the hard reset button next to the connect button three times trick and still the same error message nothing will work. Please help.

Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE!

Two questions: 1) Are you sure you're on the right COM port? 2) I don't see as where you've tired 115,200 baud rate. This is the rate at which I had success.

Try a different COM port, my Mega 2560 refuses to connect to ports at the front of the computer, but works with the ones on the back. This has to do with powering of the ports.

I have tried ALL COM ports and ALL baud rates. Access is still denied with same error message.

Did you close Cura when attempting this?
Cura seems to block all access to all COM ports whenever it's open, regardless of whether it's actually connecting to them or not.


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Need help to only print one small part
I'm in dire need to reprint a small chunk of a print that got messed up during print because the support for it broke which I cannot explain whatsoever.
Anyway. I need to edit the STL file and I don't know what tool to use since Blender is definitely not user friendly for just a simple cut and past.
Anyone got an idea on what I should try to do? Reprinting is definitely out of question since that would take at least another 20 hours, that I haven't got, to reprint the whole thing and I would also just waste a lot of PLA.

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE!

Alright so I asked in my facebook group and a friendly fellow game me the tip to use Meshmixer from AutoCAD and then check a video on Plane cut. I only needed 3 simple cuts and the piece I needed was all ready to print. :) 40 Minutes to print and only 3g of PLA to spend :)

You could import the STL file in a 3D CAD modelling program and edit it there.
To not give an opinionated answer, there are many free or paid alternatives available. Loading the STL generally requires it to be scaled down to one tenth of the imported size and transform the surface model into a solid. Once you have the solid you can cut away what you do not need.

As I mentioned in the first question I didn't manage to use blender and couldn't immediatly find what I needed. ^^
But yeah meshmixer did it for me and I was more or less happy with the result :)

Most slicers like Cura allow doing a Z-Plane cut by pushing the model "into" the base or setting a negative Z position. This is usually very helpful if a print fails on a known layer.

I would recommend to use FlashForge in the future(I know that you already solved the problem, but still), the slicer program that I use as well. Blender is not very good for tasks like slicing, as it is rather for creating the actual models you would like to print. Programs like FlashForge provide you with a kind of preview of the model, which is better for slicing as you can see the expected result.
Another good thing about FlashForge is that you can push models you created with Blender down in the Z-axis and then slice it off at Z=0 , so you can just use your old model without having to change/modify anything about it.
However, as you didn't specify on what printer you are using, I couldn't make sure if FlashForge is compatible with your device. Please send me a comment so that I can come back to this later on, if it is not compatible, there will still probably be a comparable program to FlashForge.
Please also keep in mind that in order to fit the two prints together to get the model you would like in the first place, you need PLA glue or something like that for assembling the two pieces, as well as a roughened surface to apply it to.
I hope this helps you in the future, Kind regards, Max

sorry for the late followup. I have an Ender 3.


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How to repair burnt heat bed connector?
My Anet A8 suddenly had issues with being unable to heat the bed. After ruling out software issues, I disconnected the connector and found this (sorry for the terrible quality):

The left most pin on the male connector (bed) is also charred. How could I best repair this?

So it seems as if the old error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lp0_on_fire found a new use?

Owning an Anet A8 I confirm that the connectors are not rated for the amount of current that pass through them. You do not need a new bed unless the heat element has burned through (but that is pretty uncommon, it usually is the connector). This burning of the bed connectors is a very well known problem of the Anet A8 printers; these connectors are just not rated for the current and the movement of the bed. It is best not to use a connector at all! And yes, the Anet A8 default printer firmware does not have any build in protection for thermal runaway! It is always advised to immediately flash another firmware, e.g. Marlin firmware.
The best repair is to get some high quality silicone AWG 14/16 wires and solder these directly onto the back of the pins of the connector. Also crimp forks to the other end to connect the wires correctly to the printer board.
What I did was cutting up the connector to leave only the 2 middle pins (for connecting the bed thermistor, which does not use much power) and soldered the red wire to the left 2 pins and the black to the right 2 pins. You can do that at the back side of the socket where the pins make an angle.

Why exactly do you advice to solder it to 2 pins? I'd expect pins 2 and 5 to be unconnected?

@DaniëlvandenBerg Because 2 pins for 12 V connections (+ and -, not that this matters by the way) are connected to the heating element each (etched copped resistor elements). This was at my bed, please look into your own bed if 2 pins are connected to the heating elements!

New Bed (Connection)
You will at least need a new female connector, but as the connector burnt, you have some underlying problem that made the connector burn in the first place: either the board is sending bad signals to the bed, or the bed is not rated for the board or you just had a faulty connector (the most usual culprit). Honestly? Replace the whole connector for a properly rated and intact pair - these pin connectors are not rated for 12 V at all but for 5 V!
If you don't use a beefier connector, solder the wires directly to the bed.
Safety first!
Anet isn't known for good firmware implementation of safety, so make twice sure that you run a firmware that has Thermal Runaway Protection enabled!

Thanks for the advice. (Fortunately) I already had Skynet running, which indeed includes TRP.

@DaniëlvandenBerg Skynet3D is obsolete, but good that you at least changed it!


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Why does my model stop printing at the same spot?
I have a Monoprice Maker Select v2 printer which has a printing height of 7".
I tried to print this trophy.
The first time I printed, it stopped about 3/4 of the way (about 5.5").
I use Ultimaker Cura to move the model's z-position down, effectively splitting it in half to print the top half. But on the 2nd print, it seems to have stopped at the same point. There was a lot of extra PLA filament curled up at the end.

Did my printer just jam or am I missing a setting that allows it to print the remaining top portion?

The answer is that you have not used support structures. The printing fails as a result of missing support structures.
If you look closely to the Ace of Clubs card at the top, you will see that the lower point is being printed from out of nothing, this corner needs to be supported. When unsupported, the extruded filament flows freely and where it deposits is unknown. Usually this extruded filament sticks to the nozzle or ends up stuck at the next piece of the printed layer building up. This build-up can cause the head to hit the print and ruin the print.
To enable support in Ultimaker Cura configure your setting accordingly:

These settings are accessible when you select custom settings:

If the options aren't visible, use:

and type in the option.
Please do note that using supports does not guarantee that the print will not fail! Especially when using long slender support structures, the chance that a support structure fails increases with the amount of support structures and the length of the structure. Sometimes long slender support structures are knocked over.

Sidenote:
Your printer has more issues, if you look at the brim, it is not a continuous bed adhesion layer, it looks like it does not adhere too well, see also the bottom of your trophy.

Thanks Oscar. I will try out the supports. As for the adhesion issue, I bought a Magigoo Adhesive Pen. I hope that helps. Otherwise, I might go back to a raft instead of a brim, though I found the raft extremely difficult to remove

@kane Good to hear that, but have you managed to get a whole print considering the other question. If so than we can bag and tag this question. If not please expand the question.


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Internal wall does not print in horizontal print orientation
I have an object that has cutouts in it (alignment pins fit in the cutouts). The shape of the hole is a right triangle with the point clipped off to create a flat surface in the deep part of the hole.
When I print the object in vertical orientation the wall in the deepest part of the cutout is printed properly. But when I print the same object laying down flat on the build plate, the internal wall is not printed and I can see the infill grid through the hole where the wall is supposed to be.
I sliced the object with a slicer based off a recent Cura version. I'm using the same STL to print the object vertically and horizontally.
Why is this occurring? Is there anything I can do about it other than printing vertically? (Because I have a need to print the real part horizontally. The part shown here is just a thin test piece.)  Thank you

Here is a picture showing what the (Cura-derived) slicer does with the model in horizontally-printed position. I checked the layer display in the vertically-printed instance, and the missing wall was correctly rendered and visible.
I guess this is some kind of a slicer bug.

Here is a large-scale picture of what the cutout shape looks like. This picture is of the protrusion tab that fits into the hole. But the same shape was used to cut the hole in the object.

Here is another instance of the same problem. This time, I made up a simple block component, a simple cylinder component, aligned the cylinder into the block volume, and did a combine/cut operation in Fusion to cut a hole in the block (visible in the STL file). As you can see from the (Cura-derived) slicer layer image below, the same problem exists - no wall at the back of the cut when printing in the horizontal position. If I draw a sketch on the block and extrude/cut into the block, I get the same results. I also tried cutting the cylindrical hole, creating a "tin can" shell cylinder with an explicit bottom-of-the-can surface, sliding the open can into the cut hole, and joining the can to the block. Same results. The explicit bottom 0.5 mm surface of the can disappears in the horizontal slicing position. Strange.

UPDATE:
The test object is just a simple block with a cylinder extruded into the block as a cutout. As simple as simple can be. I have determined that Cura 3.5.0 works properly (Cura v3.6.0 is available).
I am using the Qidi slicer v5.0.7 latest, which uses an earlier version of Cura (I don't know which one; I have sent them an email to find out).
I have determined that the Qidi slicer behaves properly if the cutout cylinder diameter is 6mm or larger. But at 5mm, the slicer will not generate a back wall in the cut. The square/triangular cutouts in the example objects below are all 5 mm or less. My installed Cura 3.5.0 generates a proper back wall even at 5 mm. Therefore, it must be a bug in the Qidi slicer, which uses an older version of Cura.
As a workaround, I will increase the size of my cutouts to 6 mm. When Qidi updates to a newer version of Cura (they are currently using 3.3), the problem should go away.

You state you are using "the same G-code" to print horizontally as vertically. I'd suggest this isn't so. G-code is a string of commands which tells the printer, "go from point a to point b putting out this much filament". In order to print in one orientation, the G-code is going to be completely different than what you have going on in the other orientation. Maybe you mean something else?

Yes, of course, you are exactly right. I realized while I was out driving I meant the STL file, not the gcode, which as you point out, must be totally different. My apologies.

Please try to slice the part in non-expert mode and see what the slice looks like. This must be a slicer problem, not a Fusion one. Which Ultimaker Cura version is used? Please update to the latest.

I would like to check it with my Cura settings - could you provide the STL or at least the relevant part of it?

Thank you all for your attention to this problem. As soon as you suggested checking it with Cura, I realized that I could do that and save everyone some time. Cura 3.5.0 works properly. See the UPDATE in the original post. I have a work around now.

if yu solved the problem, you can explain your own solution in your own answer

I found the answer with the help and inspiration of other people above. Their words reminded me that I could check Cura too, to see if it had the problem. Cura v 3.5.0 did not have the problem. The Qidi slicer v5.0.7 (based on Cura 3.3) correctly generated a back wall if the cutout was 6 mm or larger. At 5 mm, the Qidi/Cura slicer did not generate a back wall. I entered a ticket with Qidi about the problem. I expect the problem will be resolved in their next version. Thank you to everyone for your help.

I think this is caused by the shape of the hole. The shape is parabolic or circular, this means that if you slice it as in the green part, the slicer determines the placing of the layers along the curvature. If it has a shallow curvature, and slicing layer height is relatively thick, the curvature of the object cannot be followed. But, if you have more than 1 top layer, this usually should not be visible. I don't think that you have a single layer, so this is a pretty odd anomaly that I have not seen yet (that you look at the infill without top layers).
You could get past this by using a local different infill, e.g. 100 % infill. You can look at this answer of the question: "Different infill in the same part". This should help you out printing in your preferred orientation.

The shape of the hole is a right triangle with the point clipped off to create a flat surface in the deep part of the hole (so I can use a joint origin in Fusion 360). So, this should mean the slicer should create a 2 or 3-layer "top" surface on both the downward-facing hole and the upward-facing hole, yes? There are alignment holes on both sides of the object. The object is thick enough to allow for some infill between the deepest parts of the holes. Slicing layer thickness is the default 0.2 mm. The angle on the hole is 45 degrees. The flat part in the hole is 2.8 x 4.8 mm.

thank you for the link reference - I never knew that was possible! That's a great tip for special infill situations. I'm not so sure it would help in my case, since when I set my infill to Grid, 100%, I still did not get a layer on the back wall of the hole in the layer display. I got a finer grid like shown in the new image above, but no back wall.

@Kevin If you post the STL somewhere, e.g. Thingiverse, I'll take a closer look for you.

Thank you to you and Trish for volunteering to check it out. You both inspired me to check it with Cura myself. I found the problem. The Qidi slicer v5.0.7 (based on an earlier version of Cura) will not generate a back wall of 5 mm in size (6 mm works fine). Cura 3.5.0 generates a back wall of 5 mm properly. Best regards, Kevin

@Kevin No problem, usage of a more recent version of a slicer is always a good idea. Anyways, my suggested solution with 100 % infill should also work.

Sorry to say your 100% infill (I used a grid pattern) didn't work for me. I dutifully tried it immediately when you suggested it. The grid squares were very small at 100%, but there was no back wall printed. I have entered a ticket with the Qidi people. Hopefully, their engineers will be able to upgrade to a newer version of Cura under the hood soon.

@Kevin 100 % infill = solid = shell (or back wall as you call it). Anyways, time for a new version, works perfectly fine in recent Ultimaker Cura versions.

I thought 100% meant solid too, but alas, it did not go solid on my version. The Qidi version has Wifi delivery direct to my printer, which I love, so I prefer to use it when I can. Cura is wonderful as a backup, of course.


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Cube edges squished?
I printed a test cube with ABS on my Ender 3 and after some tuning, I still have a problem I cannot solve. Two of the vertical edges (I believe they are the ones on the X+ side) are slightly squished in. Could this be due to warping or something else? I printed it at 0.1 mm layer height, 235/110 °C hotend/bed temperatures.
Here is a picture:

please proide the following to allow better help: Your print material (PLA? ABS?), your print speed & a screen capture of the model in your slice in layer view, about at the half poin.

If you look closely to your print you will see that the edges are part of the problem, e.g. you also have a problem called "Elephant foot" where the base shows a fairing to the build plate.
The elephant foot deficiency is caused by an imbalanced choice of bed and hotend temperature and print cooling. This imbalance also causes the edges to collapse (probably also caused by the infill, or lack of it).
You should look into finding a better printing temperature combo and experiment with little cooling. This will also help you to better print the rest of the cube.

The warping you see is caused by uneven cooling of the part as it's printed: the printbed keeps the bottom warm, while the middle cools, and the top is still warm from printing.  The fix for this is to place the printer in an enclosure to prevent drafts and raise the air temperature.
People have used all sorts of things as printer enclosures: everything from foil-lined cardboard boxes heated by the printbed, to fancy metal-and-glass constructions with active temperature control.


text:
How to test Arduino Mega, RAMPS 1.4 and Full Graphic Smart Controller LCD?
Unfortunately, my extruder 8825 driver ended up fried. I guess this might have damaged the Arduino Mega and RAMPS Board.
I tested the Arduino Mega and I'm pretty sure that it is fried too, so I bought a new one. I thought the MOSFETs on the RAMPS are damaged, so I removed them and tested them. One of them was not working, so I bought a new RAMPS Board too
Now I have a new 8825 driver, a new Arduino Mega and a new RAMPS 1.4 but the LCD still doesn't show anything and it just lights up on power up.

So basically you just replaced everything except for the LCD (the LCD testing is described a little further). If the LCD is not working then, this could imply that either your LCD is broken, or one of the new parts is not functioning as expected, or you have not connected things correctly.
Are you sure the firmware flash went okay? You could test the Arduino Mega 2560 by connecting it over USB to e.g. Pronterface, you do not need the LCD for testing the Arduino Mega and the RAMPS.
The LCD could be tested separately by creating a sketch in Arduino IDE and connect the correct pins of the LCD cable to some pins of an Arduino device, e.g. load the the U8Glib example sketch "GraphicsTest" and add the following constructor:

U8GLIB_ST7920_128X64_1X u8g(6, 5, 4);  // SPI Com: SCK = en = 6, MOSI = rw = 5, CS = di = 4

This implies that you need to attach the correct pins on the Arduino (in my case to digital pins 6, 5 and 4 for respectively SCK, MOSI and CS to the respective EXP1 pins 5, 3 and 4):

Note that you see 5 pins attached, as the LCD needs to be powered (pin 10 on the EXP1 header) and grounded (pin 9 on the EXP1 header).

I wired this on an Arduino Uno clone and confirmed that 2 of the spare RepRapDiscount Full Graphic Smart Controller clones showed the test program.
PS, this is a simple wiring of the LCD, it displays the test in fade blue-ish, so not the bright colored white pixels, but that is normal!

mega 2560 is fine. firmware flash was okay. I can send commands via Pronterface. I've tested the motors and endstops. they're ok. I think I should change the question now! How can I test the LCD???

@2012User Just find out how the pins are wired. I have wired LCD with Arduino Uno's, this should not be too different, just find an appropriate sketch.

@2012User I have updated the answer with an LCD test and confirmed that it works to test the display. I've tested 2 LCD's to find out that one of the LCD's had the connector shields upside down, so thank you! ;)

@2012User Instead of the Arduino Uno, you can use the Arduino Mega, but it is preferred to use an other device to rule out the microprocessor. Please update the question for more specifics, so the answer can be tailored better.


text:
Can I print and sell 3D models licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Can I Print models from Sources like Thingiverse and sell them ?
I will be only charging the print costs and will provide full credits and attributes to the original creator of the model (with links to their profiles) in my web-page.
There are websites like 3dhubs where the seller will print any file the user uploads. Similarly I want to charge only for the printing services.

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE!

I am not an attorney, so this isn't legal advice. Like any legal question, you should consult with an actual attorney, who can consider all the gory details.
That said, it seems like you've got the BY and SA parts covered. "Non-commercial" is more difficult: does a sale that's not for profit count as "commercial"?
The Creative Commons site (https://creativecommons.org/faq/#does-my-use-violate-the-noncommercial-clause-of-the-licenses) explains it a bit more, as pasted below. But perhaps the best thing is to just drop an email to the originator and ask. Probably you'll get an email back saying it's fine; and who knows, maybe you'll make a new friend, too. I've been on both ends of exchanges like that, and it's generally worked just fine.

Does my use violate the NonCommercial clause of the licenses?
CC's NonCommercial (NC) licenses prohibit uses that are "primarily
  intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary
  compensation." This is intended to capture the intention of the
  NC-using community without placing detailed restrictions that are
  either too broad or too narrow. Please note that CC's definition does
  not turn on the type of user: if you are a nonprofit or charitable
  organization, your use of an NC-licensed work could still run afoul of
  the NC restriction, and if you are a for-profit entity, your use of an
  NC-licensed work does not necessarily mean you have violated the term.
  Whether a use is commercial will depend on the specifics of the
  situation and the intentions of the user.
In CC's experience, it is usually relatively easy to determine whether
  a use is permitted, and known conflicts are relatively few considering
  the popularity of the NC licenses. However, there will always be uses
  that are challenging to categorize as commercial or noncommercial. CC
  cannot advise you on what is and is not commercial use. If you are
  unsure, you should either contact the rights holder for clarification,
  or search for works that permit commercial uses.
CC has a brief guide to interpretation of the NC license that goes
  into more detail about the meaning of the NC license and some key
  points to pay attention to. Additionally, in 2008, Creative Commons
  published results from a survey on meanings of commercial and
  noncommercial use generally. Note that the results of the study are
  not intended to serve as CC's official interpretation of what is and
  is not commercial use under our licenses, and the results should not
  be relied upon as such.

I've informed myself a bit about this and found out the following:
It is good that you state the Name/Website or any Reference about original creator
Creative Commons absolutely requires this, even if you don't charge anything for your prints.
So, whether you are trying selling your print or not, you should still always do this.
You are not allowed to sell your prints
Creative Commons License dictates that you are not allowed to commercialize products that are based on any of their sources. This means, even if you are only charging the printing costs, you are not allowed to sell them, as you are profiting of their sources because you did not design the prints yourself.
For further information on this, you should probably check out the official page for this, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
I hope this helps, Max

If you read deeper into the license and the people that use it, a lot more begins to matter.

Preface
I am Not a Lawyer, the stack does not give legal advice, consult a licensing lawyer and the maker to check your use is within the licensing agreeming or make a seperate one
Read your license
The license CreativeCommons specifies BY-NC-SA as:

BY = Attribute. You may share and modifiy it, as long as you tell who made it.
NC = Non Commercial
SA = Share Alike. You may not change the license

Non Commercial
The Non Commercial clause explained in the FAQ says:

CC's NonCommercial (NC) licenses prohibit uses that are "primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation." [...] Whether a use is commercial will depend on the specifics of the situation and the intentions of the user.
[...] If you are unsure, you should either contact the rights holder for clarification, or search for works that permit commercial uses.

It also provides a CC-Wiki entry what NC is meant to be (pretty much the same as the FAQ), and a survey on it.
What is NC?
Ok, let's look at the NC part of the CC... When is something breaking the NC license? As soon as it is "primarily intended toward monetary gain" it is commercial (short version), and any commercial use is prhibited. What is this? well, let's read the report...

Specifically excluded from the prohibition against
  noncommercial use in the NC licenses is the exchange of a CC-licensed work for
  any other copyrighted work, whether by means of peer-to-peer digital file-sharing
  or otherwise, provided no monetary compensation is involved.p.17
Most[significantly>50%] participants  thought that “noncommercial use” had no
  legal definition, or were not sure.  Some[<50%] participants believed noncommercial use to be
  more likely a fair use than not, and some conflated noncommercial use and fair
  use. Some participants also mentioned personal or private use as being both
  legally and pragmatically a noncommercial use, though they were not certain of
  any law defining “personal use.”p.30
When asked to share their understandings of noncommercial use, no participant
  could provide a definition of noncommercial use that worked for everyone in their
  particular group, although there was much agreement on elements of many of
  the definitions. Through discussion, it emerged that creators take a variety of
  factors into account when determining what constitutes noncommercial use.
  These factors are often considered on a case-by-case basis[...]p.30
However, participants across communities were able to articulate a list of factors
  they generally agreed as a group were relevant to creators’ understanding of
  whether a use of a work is commercial or noncommercial.p.31
Qualitative Research Consideration Factorsp.31

Perceived economic value of the content
The status of the user as an individual, an amateur or professional, a for-profit or
  not-for-profit organization, etc.
Whether the use makes money (and if
  so, whether revenues are profit or recovery of costs associated with
  use)
Whether the use generates promotional value for the creator or
  the user
Whether the use is personal or private
Whether the use is
  for a charitable purpose or other social or public good
Whether the
  use is supported by advertising or not
Whether the content is used in
  part or in whole
Whether the use has an impact on the market or is by
  a competitor

Of particular interest are these paragraphs:

Creators in the groups recognized that they consider some factors more
  important than others, and they also weigh the factors differently. Some consider
  certain factors to be “gatekeeping” questions, the answer to which settles the
  matter. Some creators consider a use commercial if there is any advertising in
  connection with it, for example. Others consider certain factors to be questions of
  degree. For example, some creators consider recovery of costs to distribute a
  work a noncommercial use, but not if salaries or other overhead are calculated
  as part of cost recovery. Rather than constituting a simple checklist, for many
  creators the factors exist within a matrix in which the type of use (for example,
  promotional or advertising use) and the context or community-based nature of
  the use (for example, charitable use, or use in a public school) are important
  vectors. In sum, the decision-making process is not clear-cut.p.32
In the quantitative surveys for both Phase 2 (creators) and Phase 3 (users), the
  first mention of “noncommercial use” appears in an open-ended question asking
  respondents how they would define the difference between a commercial use
  and a noncommercial use of a work, in their own words and without consulting
  other sources.  Creators and users provided an answer in the same ratio –
  approximately 7 in 10 from each group.p.49
A
  large majority of both creators and users define a commercial use as one in
  which money is made (73% of creators, 76% of users). [...] Neither group expresses a majority consensus on an
  understanding of noncommercial use. [...] the most common mention of a
  noncommercial use by both creators and users is some use by an individual
  (19% of creators, 33% of users), including personal and private uses.p.50
Gatekeeping Factorsp.54

Making Money
The figure below provides a visual summary of the anchor point exercise
  measuring responses to uses that make money.

On the question of making money for cost recovery, creators think covering
  distribution costs only is slightly more commercial than covering operating costs,
  or raising money for an endowment fund. Users tend to agree, but overall see
  these uses as rather more commercial than creators.p.60

Conclusion
Contakt the maker that designed the part what is OK with them. But be warned: The broad idea the report gives is that around 3 of 4 of the makers and 4 of 5 users deem a "For Profit-Company selling [a thing] to cover distribution costs" as breaking the NC clause, as they deem it commercial use

Do you know of any updates / consensus regarding the NC part?
It's so ambiguous it propably wouldn't have any effect if it was ever brought to a real court - I feel like CreativeCommons should just drop the concept or completely rework the terminology.

@towe no, the whole thing is just not designed to work with 3D printing

According to Weinberg, 2013, artistic works are copyrightable:  if you're printing an action figure or such a useless pretty piece of art, it's protected by copyright.
For utilitarian things, the copyrightable portion must be severable:  if you're printing a video game controller with an artistic design drawn upon its case—not an artistic shape, but a design that could be lifted from the surface and applied as a separate artistic display—then that design is protected, and the controller that happens to be an aesthetically-pleasing shape is not (i.e. you could wipe away the design details and have the blunt shape of the thing and that would not be protected).
Purely-utilitarian things are not copyrightable.  If you're printing a lamp or a cup holder or whatnot, there are no rights to extend over that.
This is important:  copyright allows you to make decisions about what rights you will extend.  If you don't have the right to copyright, you can't simply slap a license on something and assert you do in fact have that right.  CC-NC licensing prevents you from making a derivative or a collection and selling it, but there is no right to the printed object upon which to extend to the user the right to sell the printed object.  That means, conversely, that there is no right to the printed object to prohibit the user from selling it.
That actually creates some odd situations, e.g. CC-BY doesn't apply, either.  You can't strip the author's name off the file and pass it off as your own, but you don't have to credit them for the physical object.  It is, however, potentially asinine to do that.  Even that can be a judgment call:  it's likely socially-acceptable to print e.g. an ABS gear for a particular machine that strips its ABS gears and sell a repair kit without crediting whoever posted it on Thingaverse; but if somebody made a more unique object, such as a fancy planter for house plants, it might not be copyrightable as an object, but it's certainly not a copy of a gear that goes into a machine and is instead a unique creation of the user who created it.

Very valuable analysis. Your source document link does not work anymore, though (see). But I found a copy in the Internet Archive.


text:
How to print a voxel object?
I recently downloaded Magicavoxel to give this voxel thing a try, and I was curious if there was a way to turn the voxel files into a file for printing?
Magicavoxel doesn't seem to offer a way to export the project as STL.

One does not include the answers in the tagging - one tags questions based on the problem - in this case, the question is about "What do I need to do with this program? It does not offer STL!"

Magicavoxel supports export as .obj, natively or with the right plugin.
While .stl is the standard for 3d-printing exchanges, as it contains a "1-unit" length,(typically that corresponds to 1 mm), .obj is also accepted by most slicers.
To get to MagicaVoxel's native export, look in the lower right corner, click export and see this pop up:

Press the top-left OBJ option and you get a save position window where you can store it. Then open it with your slicer and choose a scale - most .obj files do not contain a scale as the format does not contain a unit measure by default like .stl and has to be given one.


text:
My print failed and looks charred
I started a print on my Monoprice Select v2 and let it run.
I'm printing with Dikale PLA at 200 °C extruder and 60 °C build plate temperatures. My initial layer speed is 30mm/s then 60mm/s after that.
Although the Monoprice comes with an aluminum build plate, I put on a FYSETC magnetic bed plate which says it's suitable for PLA printing between 50 °C - 80 °C.
When I returned home, the print had been lifted off the build plate. I used a brim and even applied magigoo gluestick to help it stick but that didn't do the trick.
I also noticed it's charred at one corner. Any idea of what this might be a symptom of?
Here's what was printed

Please share your other print settings, like temperature, material bed temperature, print speed....

Do you have a spare thermosensor or an IR thermometer, so you can check the temperature of the modified heatbed's surface?

@Trish I don't but I understand what you're getting at. What if I just increase my build plate temperature to 80C?

measuring it would be better, maybe moving the bed thermosensor. If you want to experiment, carefully increase the print temperature in 5 °C steps

Basically, this question is identical to your Why does my model stop printing at the same spot?. This is still the same printing object. The other question should be updated and this one could be closed.

otherwise, you might want to add how this is different from the other problem.

yes, same model, but for this one, I was wondering if the charring meant anything specific. The other print did not have charring

The charring comes from left over burned filament that is stuck to outside of the hotend, it got transferred when the nozzle hit it. This is not a separate issue.

ok, since I was able to get a successful print, I think this issue can be closed too

You have more than one problem going on. As for the print lifting up, that could be for a multitude of reasons. Clearly better bed adhesion is required. It also appears the printer stopped printing at one layer. Now for the charred part, I think it could've been caused by the nozzle staying in one area for too long (possibly when the printer stopped printing.). This causes the plastic touching the nozzle to overheat and burn up. The charred section can usually be pulled off pretty easily. However, since it definitely appears you have more than one issue here you should pursue some research (perhaps other questions on the site) on the matter.
Hope this helps!

1) You have a layer shift. I guess the shift is caused by an overheating stepper driver, because it started relatively late, but could be also a mechanical issue.
2) Print bed adhesion is a minor problem. Just test your printer with a simpler shape (large ground area).
3) After carbonization, your nozzle might be clogged. Make sure there is an even extrusion.

I have a guess and a suggestion. It looks like your bottom most layer is ver thick. Even though most people suggest thick first layer, if it is thicker than 0.25 for 0.4 nozzle it cannot reliably squeeze the plaatic so that it would stick to the bed. I prefer lowering z height in the software (Slic3r allows this) to squish the first layer.
Another suggestion I would make is to set bed temperature to 55. 60c is glass tranaition temperature of PLA. At that temperature, PLA softens and if you have even the slightest over extrusion, the pressure from nozzle can topple tall objects.
And for charring you may want to print a little colder. Not all thermistors are equal and printing too hot causes lots of quality issues. I personally print around 170-180c. If you have layers separating, you are printing too cold. You might want to print some calibration pieces to find parameters for your printer.


text:
Calibration of Z axis in Simplify 3D
I'm using Simplify3d and a DIY 3D printer. The printer works fine and I've printed very nice objects with very smooth and beautiful surfaces BUT they are twice as tall as they should be! It is like they're scaled double in Z axis! I've checked everything, I changed steps/mm from 4000 to 2000 but it ruined the smooth surface. changing layer height just makes smoother surface and doesn't solve the problem. What am I missing in the settings?

Please add photos of the prints.

The steps per mm in firmware is the link to the hardware configuration/setup. Reducing by half must reduce Z advance by half. If your prints are twice as tall, you must have serious under-extrusion problems as when the printer is laying down molten filament for e.g. a 0.2 mm layer, in effect this is a 0.4 mm layer. If this is not the case, you should also calibrate the extruder.
Please re-calibrate your machine Z axis in firmware (most firmwares allow command M92 to set the steps per mm), not in Simplify3d, and then the extruder.

That's right. The point is that Z axis and the extruder calibration are very related to one another. My printer works fine right now. Thank you.


text:
How can I get a 3D model from a bunch of 2D photos?
I am a physics graduate student and I want to create some 3D models for my crystal samples. We have an X-ray diffractometer in our lab. It comes with a goniometer inside it, so basically I can take as many photos as needed from any angles. (I have included a gif animation made of 10 photos taken by the machine as an example below)

My problem is, given these 2D photos, am I able to construct 3D models for my crystals in AutoCAD or similar software so that I can determine angles, edge lengths and volume more precisely.
I am new to 3D printing section. I just thought maybe someone here has encountered with a similar problem. It would be very helpful if anyone could tell me any Github codes, MATLAB scripts, Mathematica scripts or software that can finish this kind of job. I can try to figure it out myself.

YES, it is possible to make a model from several shots, if you know the angle of rotation between the pictures.
most CAD programs allow to insert a picture, for example as backdrop or to trace it. We are interested in the later use:
We insert the picture, trace it in the picture's layer, then insert the next picture, rotated around the axis of rotation of the picture, and trace that. This we repeat again and again. The resulting cloud of outlines approximates the photographed body to a good degree.
There is a big caveat though: all photos must be in the same scale and distance, the rotation of the object has to be around one axis of the item itself (no wobble) and the rotation between the pictures has to be known quite exact. This principle is pretty much used by raster scanning by the way.
With a very hard contrast between the crystal and the backdrop, software might be able to automate the tracing process (for example use a white background and a black crystal and make sure no reflection hits the camera).
Example using Fusion360
Let's assume I have a perfect crystal like this octahedron with two cut tips

To model this, we need at least a photo of the XZ and YZ shape (that is, 90° rotation to each other), which look like this:

But that shape would also match a double-cone! So we'll need some intermediary photos, in this case, the 45° shot that lies on the plane of (XY-diagonal)Z Plane

As you see, the more outlines you have, the more detailed the pseudo-body becomes - it is just a gathering of vertices and lines yet though! But, we can take 3 points and create a construction area on these, then draw the face to merge all points on these faces...

Now, we turn these construction faces into modeling faces, then create a too large object and cut out the whole thing out...

The whole workflow looked like this for 4 pictures (0°, 45°, 90°, 135°)

The actual f3D design file is here.

Hi Trish, thank you for your advice! I have downloaded Auto CAD and 3ds max (3ds max seems to match my goal perfectly when I was browsing Autodesk product page) and I am currently working on it. I will update this page when I have figured it out.

I found a very useful tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmIkOJmBv_c. In this tutorial two photos of a fork were imported into AutoCAD. First the cross sections on two orthogonal directions were traced from the raster images. Then, extend the cross section into two columns. Finally intersect two columns so a nice 3D fork is presented (14:30 in the video). My case is similar but more complicated. I probably need like 6 photos. I have to align photos along the rotation axis and create 6 columns with their cross sections traced from the photos. Then I finally intersect them. Am I right?

pretty much - the more photos you take, the more of the imperfections you get. automatic rastering software uses several 100 photos

@Mr.Octopus I added a simple example using Fusion 360, but most programs should allow to follow a similar workflow

Inspired by the answer given by @Trish and the following YouTube video, I finally worked out the way to reconstruct the 3D crystal model in AutoCAD.

Import 6 images into AutoCAD. The photos are taken from 6 different angles with 30 degrees separation.

Draw 6 lines of length 100 along Y axis in the XY plane.

Use ALINE command to align the rotation axis in the photos to the added vertical lines.

Use SCALE command to rescale all 6 photos into a uniform size.

Use POLYLINE command to trace the cross sections from 6 raster images.

Use 3DROTATE command to rotate 6 images and the corresponding rotation axes and traced cross sections along Y axis. The first picture was rotated 75 degrees clockwise when viewed along the +Y axis, the second 45 degrees, the third 15 degrees, the fourth -15 degrees... (Tips: The rotation gizmo will only show in a 3D view. If you didn't see the gizmo, drag the view cube on the right-top to change the view point and try again.)
(view from Y axis)

(view from Z axis)

Use 3DMOVE command to move 6 images so that the rotation axis of each image is aligned in a same circle on the YZ plane. (You would need a little bit calculation to finish this step)
(view from Y axis)

(view from Z axis)

Use EXTRUDE command to extrude 6 cross sections into 6 cylinders, the height of each cylinder should be long enough so that 6 cylinders will intersect.

Use INTERSECT command to get the intersected part from 6 cylinders, this would be the wanted crystal model.

the more pictures you use, the better the results will be, but it is a good workflow if it works for you

Yes, but you will also need more time. For me, a model based on 6 photos is a good balance between the quality and the time. I am very grateful to your answer, though I didn't use the Fusion360 in the end. Your answer inspired me to a great extent.

You may want to do a search for "photogrammetry".  This is software that uses many photos to build a 3D model.  Dr. Falkingham did a good review of free software on his blog:
https://peterfalkingham.com/2016/09/14/trying-all-the-free-photogrammetry/
https://peterfalkingham.com/2017/12/17/free-photogrammetry-software-review-2017/
His conclusion that works very well for me uses COLMAP to take the photos and build a point cloud, then OpenMVS to build and texture a mesh from the point cloud.
https://colmap.github.io/
https://github.com/cdcseacave/openMVS/wiki/Usage
I have not used many commercial packages, but Pix4D has worked very well for me.
https://www.pix4d.com/
I hope that gets you started.

Thank you, UrQuan3! You just offered so many open-source softwares. I will test them and post another learning notes if I find any software being useful.


text:
Limit Switch problems on RAMPS 1.4 and custom built 3D Printer running Marlin 1.1.0-rc6
So I am trying to fix a custom built 3D printer for my institute and am running into a problem I can't wrap my head around.
So the limit switches for Y-axis and Z-Axis work just fine, but the X-Axis does not.
All three switches are Makerbot (3-pin), and all three light up the LED when they get pressed. However the X-axis does not get recognized by Marlin. When I diagnose with M119 command it does not show as triggered even though the LED is on. All the other ones do.
All three switches are connected to min (X-min, Y-min, and Z-min).
Could this be a firmware problem? Or perhaps my RAMPS 1.4 has burned out the X-axis signaling? (I doubt this because the LED on the switch still turns on).
Let me know if you need any more info to diagnose the problem.
P.S. I have also replaced the X-Axis limit switch with a brand new one and the same result happens: LED turns on upon activation but it doesn't get recognized by the machine.

Considering you're having issues with the board, and the limit switches appear to be registering, but the board isn't doing anything about it, a first good step would be to update the firmware to 1.1.9 as @0scar states. If the update in the firmware doesn't do the trick, then move on to doing as he suggests with changing the Xmax/min stuff around. This just seems like a good first logical step to getting it fixed.

To rule out problem with the switches itself, you can change the Z-min and swap it with the Y- or Z-min. Once you found out that you get the same issues you know that your X endstop module is working (unless they both are faulty, but the odds are small for that), but the signal change is not registered by the board. This could be a faulty port/pin of the X-min port / attached microprocessor pin. What you could do to try to diagnose that is using the X-max header on the board. In order to use that header for X-min, you need to change some code in pins_RAMPS.h, change:

//
// Limit Switches
//
#define X_MIN_PIN           3
#ifndef X_MAX_PIN
  #define X_MAX_PIN         2
#endif

to:

//
// Limit Switches
//
#define X_MIN_PIN           2
#ifndef X_MAX_PIN
  #define X_MAX_PIN         3
#endif

Recompile and upload. Please use the latest sources, 1.1.9, 1.1.0 is very old.

very old doesn't mean that don't work, I have 2 3D printers with 1.1.0 working fine.

@FernandoBaltazar Very true, but considering the many changes since 1.1.0 it is way more easy to get support as most people tinkering are using newer versions. Also newer releases contain bug fixes.


text:
Can a 3D printer make a 3D printer?
Could you use a 3D printer to make a 3D printer's parts? What is the most of a 3D printer that can be made this way? Could parts that break be replaced this way?

Yes, you can print most of the parts (electronics, linear guide rails, ball bearings and nuts and bolts, etc cannot be printed). Actually this was exactly the purpose of RepRap.org:

RepRap is humanity's first general-purpose self-replicating
  manufacturing machine.

and:

Since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints
  those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself - a kit
  that anyone can assemble given time and materials.

There have been attempts in the past to even replicate the frames of printers (e.g. Dollo 3D or Snappy, but such designs are not very successful, printed frames are more flexible than metal frames.

I have built 2 custom printers myself using other printers to print parts and printed all printer parts for several others. It is possible to print your own linear bearings from POM, I prefer these over the noisy metal bearings.

Yes, printers can print printer parts. With the right design, all non-metal/non-electronic parts can be printed on an FDM printer, and a laser-sintering based printer (SLS/DMLS) can even produce metal parts, as long as they fit the printbed. The fact, that a printer can create all the fastenings to build a new printer with just the electronics and linger extrusions/rods/rails is actually the core of the RepRap philosophy.
Some early printers, like the Mendel, did use just materials from home depot and printed joiners together with the electronics.
As a result, all joiners can be printed as replacements or improvements. There is a second limit though: Very small printers might not be able to print parts of the size needed to replicate the parts that they are made from. A common 200x200x200 mm printer can replicate almost all fasteners that comprise it, but the frame will have to be made from sheets of metal, wood, extrusions or rods and the movement system will need rails, rods or extrusions.

Can a 3D printer make a 3D printer?

Not without a bunch of other parts

Could you use a 3D printer to make 3D printers parts?

To some extent.

What is the most of a 3D printer that can be built this way

Basically you you can't print the precision mechanical guides, you can't print the electronics, you can't print the parts that need to get hot, you can't print the motors, you can't print the lead-screws or toothed belts. Printing the whole main frame doesn't seem to be very practical either.
Afaict what you are left with is mostly printing the pieces that join all the functional elements of the printer together.

You can print some of it but not all, as 3d printers can't print metal or silicon to make the boards and frame.

a laser-sinter printer can print metal and ceramics, and TPU is a printable material close to silicon (the flexible material!). Some filaments are even conductive. But you can not print complex electronics.

Also, you can't make the nozzle or any other metal parts


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Z-Axis does not appear to be working on Ender-3 Pro
So, the wife got me a Creality Ender-3 Pro 3d Printer for Christmas.
Assembly was easy, axis movements are all solid... when I go to print the test-dog.gcode file provided with the machine, it comes out looking... flat.
Not kind of flat. TOTALLY flat.
The Z-Axis motor works - I can move it with the machine's control panel - and it moves on it's own for repositioning of the head for printing purposes, but it doesn't seem to be moving 'up' for each new layer.  Layer height is set for 0.1 mm, nozzle is .4 mm. No settings changed in the G-code, or on the machine (and I did a "reset to failsafe" before attempting to print anything).
I'm relatively new to additive manufacturing, can someone help out here?

I always shiver when G-code files are distributed for printing, I'd rather be in control myself. Have you looked into the G-code file? There should be codes like G1 Z x.xx, where x.xx denotes a value. If you see Z increasing in the file, the file could be okay, but I'd rather see you slice it yourself. Does the machine home correctly?

Your first layer appears to not adhere too well, it looks as though the lower right corner of the bed is lower than the other corners. Please re-level the bed, slice a calibration cube yourself and post the result. It is far easier for others to help you based on a simple print rather then a complex object none or few of us printed.

"It is far easier for others to help you based on a simple print rather then a complex object none or few of us printed."  Thanks Oscar, but the issue was that the original gcode file distributed with the printer wasn't printing anything other than on a single layer.

Exactly why I posted the comments to help you figure it out yourself, good job! Keep the questions coming!

It turned out that there's something wrong with the G-code file that came with my printer.
I downloaded a calibration cube from Thingiverse and printed it - while it wasn't 100%, it did print viable. Now I need to get into details as to quality, and I suspect that too will be a factor for the G-code used in the printer. I'm looking at "Ultimaker Cura" to figure out the changes in G-code based on option changes.

most of the quality issiues can be fixed with cura -  show us your cube and we can help you fix it up. They must have changed the g-code between your and my distriburtion - mine rinted perfectly.

Check the following:

Is the lead screw bent? remove it from the assembly and have it roll down a very slightly angled plate - if it rolls at uneven speed, it is bent.
are the motor perfectly aligned with the brass nut? The lead screw needs to slot into the coupling without any force or need to move it just from gravity alone.
is the Z-axis nut spin easily? I gave mine a droplet or two of machine oil, motor it up and down the whole length twice. Some residue grease from the factory can bind up the motor.

If all the physical side is known to be OK: re-slice your object, you might have faulty g-code.

No, the lead screw is not bent.  Per my original post, "Z-Axis motor works - I can move it with the machine's control panel - and it moves on it's own for repositioning of the head for printing purposes"
No, the motor isn't 'perfectly' aligned however, it's close enough that z-axis movement is viable. I addressed this in my first post, again, see above.
"Z-axis nut spin easily"  Do you mean the z-axis screw guide? Yes, the screw spins through that.

I had the same problem on an Ender 3. Totally bewildering, because G-code commands G0 & G1 moved Z as expected, as did Pronterface commands, but Z did not advance during printing.
It turned out to be binding in the Z-axis lead screw caused by installing a BondTech style extruder. Previously, it had caused no problems but reinstallation saw it interfering with the screw. A quick workout on the Dremel created sufficient clearance.
The clear conclusion is that during printing power to the Z-motor decreases for whatever reason.
Check your machine's alignment. The Z screw should turn easily by hand, the nylon wheels of the X gantry the same. The bracket mounting the extruder and lead screw is well known to be non-square. Check by releasing the lead screw from motor coupling and seeing where its 'natural' position is vs the coupling. If it won't fall close to the coupling naturally that could be the cause.
Then RTFM or punish yourself with 1000 YouTube instructionals.


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TPU Filament in Dremel 3D20?
I recently got a Dremel 3D20, and I understand it only takes PLA filament according to the Dremel site.  However, I was wondering if anyone has successfully used TPU filament or knows it will work fine.  I’m more than happy to use other software to change the temperature, I just don’t want to gunk up or otherwise ruin my printer.

TPU wants in general two things of your printer:

A Printing Temperature of (over many makers) 195-230 °C
A Direct Drive (extruder on the printhead)

Bowden extruders are not ideal for printing flexible filaments such as NinjaFlex due to the excessive
  distance between the stepper motor and the extruder head. However, some users have generated
  successful prints using reduced speeds.ninjaflex handout

Check the temperature you can reach, and you are lucky, as some of the smaller Dremels use Bowden but the 3d20 is apparently direct drive.
If you want to try to run a Bowden with flexible filaments, dial down speed down really low (20-30 mm/s at most) and pray.

So in theory I should be good, but it’s not guaranteed good results.  What’s the worst do you think could happen to my extruder?

the worst that can happen is spending some dozen meters of filament on dialing in your settings and maybe a clog. But the most likely is a couple sub par prints.

Fantastic, thank you.  Dremel has some notice about other filaments like ABS plastic voiding the warranty if you try it on the 3D20 so I wasn’t sure if that meant my extruder would explode (not really but you get the idea).

I've never used a Dremel printer, thus I cannot guarantee that my solution will work fine, but you might want to give a try to the Ultimaker Cura slicer.
Ultimaker printers have Bowden tubes, like the Dremel, unless I am mistaken, and I've been able to successfully print TPU on my Ultimaker 3 Extended printer. I also know that many Ultimaker users have printed using Ninjaflex without much problems on their Ultimaker machines, both old and new.
Ultimaker Cura comes with pre-programmed settings for TPU95, which is the Ultimaker brand of TPU, then I guess you'll have to fiddle a bit with settings to find what works best with your Dremel. Take a look around Ultimaker's forums, many users have other printers beyond their Ultimaker printers, you might be lucky and find some useful information. The 'search' feature of the forum works quite nicely.
Quick summary of the settings for TPU95A in Ultimaker Cura for a 2.85 mm Bowden setup:

Layer Height: 0.2mm
Printing Temperature: 225°C
Print Speed: 25 mm/s
Cooling Fan Speed: 20%

Depending on how the Dremel performs and the quality of your TPU, you might want to disable retractions, it's been known to help.

The UM3 and Dremel 3D20 cannot be compared, there are differences in filament diameter (UM3 uses 2.85, not 1.75 mm) and extruder style (UM3 uses Bowden, not direct drive).

While the speed is a result of the bowden, the temperature and layer height are good start.

Thank you!  Very helpful info.  Unfortunately Cura Ultimajer doesn’t play too nicely with Dremel files but the other info you gave here is very useful.

@Surge Glad to have been at least partly helpful! ;)


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Basic Spinning Top Prints Fail in Same Location
My attempted prints on my Creative Ender3 of model:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23686
The print uses support structures (generated by Ultimaker Cura) failed in the same location twice. It is printed in PLA (1.75 mm) first print at 200 °C, second print at 196 °C.

To me, it looks like your G-code induces an incomplete layer of support on the still standing piece, which later down leads to the print failing.
Re-slice the whole thing.
As a matter of fact, I would cut the model in its widest place and print both with the large face flat on the surface and glue the two pieces together after printing. That way I can achieve:

no need for support material
maximum adhesion
no surface problems on the transition from the support to the print

Good advice to print this in 2 pieces, lots of supports are usually a pain for printing as the chances that something goes wrong increases significantly with the increasing amount of support.

Thank you Trish!!! this is exactly the kind of help and wisdom I was looking for. And it lets me know that 3d printing is not some magic press a button process (yet ;-) ) Great answer, and thank you so much!!


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How to remove exess filament from bed after removing model
Recently got an Anycubic I3 Mega Printer and I've been playing with what it can do, but after a model is done it leaves residue on the build plate behind that is bugging me. Do I NEED to remove it? If so, how? Thanks! (I'm using PLA if that matters)
My Problem:

My gut check is "yes", mainly because some of it will come off with a new print. If you're using black next, the white filament will then leave splotches on your next print. The reason I'm not leaving an answer is ... I really don't know how to get it off of a bed which isn't aluminum (like mine) where you'd just use a scraper to clean it up. WIth any kind of surface which can be damaged (like I'm assuming yours can), I really don't know the best way to clean them up. Just thinking about it, acetone may work to clean up PLA, but I'm not sure.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Ok, If I do leave it on, will it affect future prints outside of leaving splotches?

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 PLA does not dissolve in acetone.

Possible duplicate of How can I best clean the print bed after a print?

This usually doesn't happen on an Ultrabase, except you did not use it properly. It is essential that you wait until the Ultrabase is cooled down before removing the object. If cooled to room temperature the object can be removed very easily. If not material will stay behind and jam the "pores" of the special surface. Use isopropyl alcohol to clean it.

@KlausD. This is actually one of the best answers I've gotten so far, are you sure isopropyl alcohol will not damage the bed?

Not at all, in problematic cases you can even go one step further and use acetone.

You should remove it because it can and will affect the quality of future prints. Residue can mix up with new filament and create a ugly of colors and also prevent adhesion in places, thus potentially ruining your next print.
You have several solutions to clean up the bed:

Scrape it off: usually works, but you risk chipping the surface if you're not careful or if you stumble upon a bit of residue that is stubborn and you need to apply strength to get rid of it. I think a scraper is included with the printer.
Sponge and soap: Since the bed cannot be removed, as far as I can tell, you'll need to make sure that the sponge isn't dripping or put towel paper around to avoid damaging the components below, including the heating unit. Rub it gently on the residue until it soften and detaches. It might take a bit to work.
Yellow glass cleaner from Karcher: my favourite, the one I use on my printer and it never failed me. Spray it on a cloth or something, and rub it on the bed until the residue softens and detaches. It might take a bit to work, but you don't run the risk of dripping liquid on any component, and it works way better than soap and without the risk of chipping the bed like when you use a scraper.

Thank you! You say that you use the yellow glass cleaner, what printer do you own?

@UltraGamer I have an Ultimaker 3 Extended.

It might be worth pointing out that while there are good reasons for removing it, leaving it in place probably won't affect the print too much. If you don't care about how the bottom layer looks, it probably won't hurt.

@TomvanderZanden The main hurt that this kind of residue does is prevent good bed adhesion. And since it's not always apparent right away, you run the risk of having your print pop out in part or completely several hours into it, ruining it and forcing you to start again, not to mention wasting time and material. Better safe than sorry.

I have had moderate success with a product called Goo Gone (don't laugh). It quite remarkably lifts off any number of "sticky" items from various surfaces.
I work with PLA filament that is very hard and stubborn to remove from any surface.
I own a FlashForge Adventurer 3 that appears to have a carbon fiber build plate. Nothing, except a #11 XActo blade, can harm that.

Good Gone contains d-Limonene which dissolves HIPS, it doesn't dissolve PLA, how does it remove the stuck PLA?


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I want to print an image of a network in 3D — what's the best way to convert it?
Suppose I have an image like this below that I want to print in 3D. What would be the best format to convert it in?

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE!

Is the image the only source of the data you wish to print in three dimensions? Do you have a data file in "typical" database style from which you can extract the points?

@fred_dot_u hey! happy new year! no, I only have a two dimensional image but I have a png version with a transparent also

Even if you had the data, that would not print well

Unfortunately, with only a .PNG or other file format that is traditionally two dimensional, you are missing some critical information. Unless your objective is to print something "flat with thickness," you can't create a 3D model. If your objective is to print something flat with thickness, even a program such as Inkscape with the Path to OpenSCAD extension will accomplish your goal.
I believe that Tinkercad will import images and allow you to extrude them to create the thickness aspect. Another program which supports such activity is Fusion360 (free for hobbyists) which would convert your drawing to a sketch. You'd have to add some width to the lines in order to extrude them in any program you select. It will also be necessary to trace the drawing to convert it to a vector file type. Inkscape excels in this task.
Lastly, you can arbitrarily add a third dimension to the diagram by importing it with SolveSpace. It is another free program which allows one to import a DXF file. Note that DXF is a vector file not raster, excluding your existing PNG format. It might be easier to use Inkscape to create the vector file, add width to the lines, then save it in DXF form and load it to SolveSpace. At that point, it becomes extremely challenging due to the complexity of the drawing.
Perhaps a hint or two (image, sketch, drawing) of your final objective?


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What do you use to keep your blue tape from lifting?
I have a few issues with the blue tape, which I'm trying out for the first time.
The tape seems to warp, bubble and lift from the aluminum plate when it heats and cools and during printing.
I put some clips on it, but not sure if this is standard.
It also seems the print is lifting off the tape itself (bottom left corner). I applied some magigoo glue to it. Maybe I shouldn't have done that.
I feel like this print isn't going to make it...

I'm printing with a Monoprice Select V2, with AmazonBasics ABS with 100 °C bed and 250 °C extruder temperature, at 15 mm/s initial layer speed and 60 mm/s print speed sliced with Ultimaker Cura.

Your printer has a build-tac clone surface. Blue tape does not stick well to that: you would get better results printing directly to the Build-Tac clone.
Painter's tape I use only on a flat surface: it works well directly on glass, aluminium or an unheated fiberglass surface, but you absolutely need to include its thickness in the leveling.

thanks for your input. I will try on the build-tac surface first and then maybe directly on the aluminum plate after

The tape probably would stick better to the Aluminum bed than the BuildTak clone sheet you have as it would have had more surface area to bond to.
What I found that works best is to print on the bare aluminum bed using a PVA based spray, this can be hairspray or a specific 3D printer product like 3DLAC, or just glue stick. I ditched tape after day one (for reasons you mention) and solely print on aluminium or on glass without a problem, sometimes it sticks too well and the bed needs to cool down to room temperature before I can remove the print. This has been described as an answer to: Should you use hairspray on a metal bed 3D printer?
.
Removing the BuildTak clone sheet may be quite laborious if a very sticky adhesive is used (it took me a long time and lots of solvents to remove the goo/glue from a PEI sheet I used once) it is better to try and print on the BuildTak sheet, maybe use PVA based (hair)spray or glue stick.
Furthermore, ABS is more difficult to print than PLA or PETG. Printing ABS is difficult because of the relative large shrinkage when the filament cools. It therefore requires careful heat management (no part cooling, no draft, enclosure, etc.). This filament needs a good surface to build on and requires brims, "mouse ears", adhesive spray or glue to get the first layer to stick and not curl up. Tape at temperatures of 100 °C will become soft and loose its power to stick. Kapton tape might work better.

Ok, I didn't even realize I could print right on the aluminum bed instead of the Build-Tak sheet. I recently swapped out the Build-Tak sheet so I'm sure I can remove it again. A lot of glue was left over from the sheet though. What do you recommend removing that glue with? alcohol?

@kane I only had success with "thinner". But before you remove it try printing on the BuildTak first! You can even use hairspray or glue stick on that surface.

Interesting to know, I always read that printing on aluminium is very difficult and it's much simpler to use glass instead (even without adhesives).

My Dad uses prittstick on the bed before the print and the bed keeps the prittstick just abbout the right temp for it to stick.

PRetty much any brand gluestick will work this way.  The only potential drawback is sometimes you have to scrape glue off the bottom of the finished part.

@CarlWitthoft Most, if not all, glue from those sticks is water-soluble. Genuine Pritt stick glue has been biodegradeable since the year 2010, so it should be ok to wash it off under a running tap.

@CarlWitthoft quick fix is to wash the finished part.  All the gluestick I have is water soluble and it washes off easily with water and some finger rubbing.

Old thread, but I have a direct answer to the specific question asked. This is a technique I haven't seen documented elsewhere and works quite well for me.

Clean glass plate with an isopropyl alcohol swab - allow to air dry thoroughly.
Apply blue tape (two best known, big-name brands work best) to glass plate assuring no overlaps - slight gaps OK.
Put the plate on the heated bed, tape side down.
Turn bed heat on to 50 °C for about 3 minutes.
Quickly remove the plate and firmly roll the entire surface of the tape with a wallpaper seam roller while the tape adhesive is still warm.
Proceed normally, with or without a glue stick on the tape.

While the other answers are correct, I would say that another correct answer is: you don't keep it from lifting up.
If it lifts up it means that the part is warping significantly, and blue tape has never been meant to deal with those.
Blue tape was introduced in the 3D printing when PLA took over ABS (like 8-10 years ago), therefore specifically because with PLA you didn't incur in the warping ABS had.
If the part is curling up, go for better solutions. You already have the PEI, so use that one.
If you print ABS with an open printer, which is totally possible, you should ditch the blue tape and check my other answer.

The absolute best way to solve sticking problem is Overture build surface. I could not get anything to stick. Got a free build sheet when I bought some filament from them. What a difference, everything sticks now, just clean with alcohol between uses.

Welcome to 3D Printing SE and thank you for your contribution. When you get a chance, please take the [tour] to understand how the site works and how it is different than others.


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Sandable primer suitable for PLA?
What kind of primer should I be using for my PLA prints?
I want to be able to sand the object after applying the primer for a smooth finish before painting.
Would something like this work?
https://www.bunnings.com.au/dulux-duramax-325g-plastic-primer-spray-paint_p1400720

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE!

I stumbled over a fast 2-spray method, added it.

There are generally 2 types of operation you might want to do before priming your object:

smoothing to a point that you are comfy with and
roughing pass with very fine grit to give the primer something to stick to

Smoothing via Sanding & Filler
To smooth your object you generally have two options:

Only sand down (and possibly vapor-smooth) and account for the lost size in the design phase.

Vapor-smoothing can flatten away surface details you might want to preserve, so it might not be an option at all.
While vapor smoothing is possible with more than just Acetone on ABS, the price tag for those chemicals is usually more expensive by a factor of 20 or more due to the fact that Acetone is pretty much dirt cheap as far as chemicals go - and easily accessible via home depot.

Fill up with body filler in areas you want and sand smooth afterward.

This is very labor intensive, especially for complex shapes.

Only after you filled up the structure to be somewhat smooth you apply paint primer. In itself, common spray on primers often are not filling enough to hide away the printing layers.
For rough surfaces that need a starting fill, a paste body filler applied with a spatula works best, and for the last pass over a just lightly scratched surface, automotive body filler from a spray can works great. The benefit of spray-can body filler is, that it also acts as a first roughing step, so you don't need to roughen the surface for the primer. If you grab a filler-primer, even skip the primer.
Sidenote from experience:
Some filler-primer and lacquer spray cans seem to contain solvents that are able to soften PLA.
Smoothing via Coating
A random find on Thingiverse showed me another way to paint and flatten the surface faster and without sanding, at the cost of details getting smoothed away:

Apply a thin paint coat.
Apply a thin coat of a fast drying, transparent Polyurethane coating onto the wet paint.
Let the combined layers dry with extra air flow to prevent noses.
Repeat as needed.

It works by picking up the wet paint and embedding it into the thicker Polyurethane layer, which dries much smoother than the paint itself, filling up the imperfections and the steps between layers. This process will however also fill up non-masked surface details you might want to preserve.
Your product in mind
The primer you took a look at works on PLA, but it would not smooth out all the dimples. It might work nicely for the PU-Buildup variant.


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Why is Print Adhesion almost good, but still not right?
It feels like my print is almost there, I spent a long time fine tuning the calibration with a fantastic set of G-code files from Chuck Hellebuyck.
I am using an Ender 3, on which I have modified the heatbed to carry a glass sheet, otherwise factory standard. The prints are done on the bare glass. When I printed a window some 14 feet (~4.5 meters) away was open to the cold New York winter. The cooling fan on the Ender 3 is mounted on the right side of the hotend and uses a simple declector, it can be seen in picture 2.
However, my print is not perfect yet. I'm using 1.75  mm PLA at a temperature of 200 °C for the 0.4 mm nozzle and a bed temperature of 60 °C. Out of the 4 corners, 3 printed perfectly, the back-left one did lift.
What do I need to do to fix the bed adhesion issue?

This looks like delamination, which is a bit strange with PLA... What's the layer height used and your nozzle size? Also, have you run the calibration process to make sure that your nozzle isn't too far from the print bed and ensure proper adhesion?

Please add by [edit] of your question how the corner fails, e.g. does the brim not stick, or do you have a delamination, etc. You could also add a photo taken from a different angle.

@hunterp So basically this means you have an adhesion problem. This has been asked many times before and very complete answers have been given. Possible duplicate of Filament lifts from the hot bed while printing

Is there a reason you don't just use the original bed? I'd consider it highly preferable to glass in almost every way.

Based on the pictures, this looks like the bed wasn't clean enough, thus why it didn't adhere correctly in some spots. The lifted corner is the worst, but I can see a couple more spots where the PLA didn't stick well enough, though the brim prevented it to completely lift off the bed.
I would advise you to not print with the window open, even if it's only slightly ajar. Weather conditions and temperature will affect the quality of the print, even if it's only a small variation in temperature. I've had enough failed prints due to a shift in temperature to know that, even though PLA isn't affected as much than ABS by temperature changes through a print.
You might also try to increase the bed temperature a bit, up to 70°C or 80°C. I've looked at the recommended temperature for PLA with my UM3E and it says 80°C for the glass bed.
You should always make sure that the glass bed is clean: ie no dust on it and no grease. Yes, touching it with your fingers will leave a thin greasy residue in the form of fingerprints, and even one fingerprint can prevent good adhesion and result in the problem you had.
There are various products to clean glass beds, I've personally found out that the cheap yellow-colored window cleaner from Karcher works wonder. Do not use the standard blue colored window cleaner products: the blue one has a chemical in it that is made with the express intent to prevent anything to adhere to the glass, which is obviously not what we want. The yellow-colored cleaner doesn't have that chemical, and it cleans without depositing an anti-adhesion film on the glass.
If a thorough cleaning isn't sufficient, you can look into various adhesive products. While there is quite a lot of adhesive solutions marketed as being specifically for 3D printing, with insane prices most of the time, I've found that a simple UHU glue stick works wonders. I usually do not need glue when printing PLA, but I use it for Nylon, ABS and other filament that absolutely require it and it's a breeze to work with, and it cleans easily with soap and warm water.

This is a standard adhesion problem with glass beds:
Glass beds are super level, but they transfer heat less good than metal and BuildTak. This also means that not every spot always has the exact same temperature, which can come from a lot of things, for example, a draft from the open window jitting that corner and causing lifting.
There are some super easy and cheap solutions:

Painters Tape adds a little bite to the surface, but you need to level to its top.
a thin PVA (Gluestick, wood glue, hairspray, or specifically designed sprays for 3D printing) bonds the first layers much better to the glass
for ABS, ABS-in-acetone-slurry is a known bed adhesive
measure the top of the bed temperature - you will find out that the increased thermal capacity of the bed+glass sheet means that your set bed temperature is not reached on the bed surface. Adjust as needed!
prevent any and all draft (close windows and doors)

When you have glass, why use painters tape? You give up the perfect level and shiny surface. Furthermore, tape has it's own issues. A more elaborate answer on bed adhesion is found here on 3D Printing.SE.

@0scar some parts have an incredible warping capability because of their design - which can make tape a necessity even on glass. PVA is much preferred though.

Despite all advice to the contrary, I've had no luck with glue or masking tape.  I print directly onto a glass bed.
The glass is much thicker than the surface that was originally on the heat plate, because of this heat takes longer to reach the surface of the glass and the temperature probe on the plate is even more inaccurate than it was originally.
Using a laser thermometer, I found that pre-heating the plate before the build starts solves the problem as this give the temperature time to even out.
Clamp the glass firmly to the heat plate with as many plastic clamps as you can fit (metal ones are too heavy those post office crocodile clips might work).  This will give it a better thermal connection.
If that do any work, increase the bed heat to 60° and/or nozzle to 210°.
Also, clean the glass with washing up liquid and then window cleaner and only hold it with a clean tissue after.

I work with a glass surface on my machine and use a drop of superglue to attach the
corners after the first layer is complete. The biggest contributors to not sticking are :

Bed not level.
Temperature of filament not hot enough.
First layer print speed is too fast.
Heated Bed not hot enough to compensate for cold room. Try enclosing print area.
Head is snagging on print edges (no retraction when moving) and ripping print loose.
Print bed surface is not clean. Use acetone or ammonia for cleaning glass. Alcohol leaves an oily residue.

If you are printing on painters tape, make sure the bed is very clean when you put the tape
down. Then make sure you rub the tape down well so it doesn't pull off of the print bed
surface during printing. Then clean the tape surface to get the oil from your hands off of
the tape.
I use Glass Build Plate Wizard spray for delicate prints and a heated bed. It releases after the print plate cools down. That eliminates the need to chip the print loose. It releases itself after a few minutes.

Is this a GeekBox advertisement?