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how air gap and raster width are related to each other in FDM process?
In FDM process, what is the relationship between air gap and raster width? are they depended on each other or are they going to get influenced by the nozzle diameter?

What raster and air gap are you writing about? That is not clear from the question, I guess this is related to a raft or support. Please indicate by [edit] of your question which of the two you are referring too. Thanks, and welcome to 3DPrinting.SE!


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Spindle DC motor and drill bit specifications for Circuit etching CNC machine
I'm making a Circuit etching machine (CNC) and I need a good DC motor and drill bit for the spindle.
My machine should be able to etch, drill, and cut:

Etching: take copper off the surface like chemicals or a laser would
Drilling: drill holes for THT (through-hole) components and possibly 2-sided boards
Cutting: cut out a piece of the board (cutting a big piece in half or cut a circle out of a big piece)

I'd like to have 1 drill bit work with all 3 functions if possible. Having to switch out different bits is OK but a single bit is prefered.
What sort of specifications should my spindle DC motor (rpm, voltage/amperage rating, ...) and drill bit (material, size, angle, ...) have?

From Game plan - What is on-topic?, CNC questions are not off-topic. Please be patient and nice to new Stack members.

I've read that CNC questions are acceptable. The machine I'm making is also similar to DIY 3D-printing machines. I believe this should be OK for this forum.

There are several sources of PCB "etching" bits.  They tend to be single straight flutes and high angle, very pointy bits.
For the motor, high speed is good.  Look for 30k+ RPM.  The main thing to be concerned about is the amount of runout, or wobble in the tip.  With a tiny tip, you can't afford much runout at all.  It will broaden the gap you are cutting and put stress on the bit, probably snapping it.
The key to low runout is very careful alignment of the chuck that holds the tip with the shaft of the motor, and a collet chuck to hold the tool.
The power needs aren't high since the speed is high and the cuts are light.  I would think that a 250 watt motor should be way more than sufficient.
The question now asks for drilling and routing, which should work better with the high-speed spindle.  30k is better for the tiny drills than a much slower spindle.  These are hurt by run out.
Usually the drill bits are made of carbide.  For cutting, carbide router or file bits are used.  All drill-bits and router bits and copper cutting bits I have seen for sale have 1/8" or 3mm shank.

At Hyrel, where I work, we use a 12 VDC, 3.5 A, 40 W spindle tool with 1/4" chuck and 3,000 rpm max (without load) to make prototype circuit boards by machining through the copper layer to make isolation traces.

Wow.  That is so much slower than I've seen.  Tools I've looked at wanted much higher speed.  Who makes your tools?

We make them, but we purchase some of the components - like the spindles themselves. We also have a three-phase spindle tool, 48VDC, 8.3A, 400W, 12,000 rpm without load, but this is not needed for circuit board work. Here's the smaller one in action.

TL;DR
From Davo's and cmm's answers there seems to be a wide range of drill spindle speeds used (3k-30k rpm). So, just to add to that... 11,000 rpm would appear to be adequate.

I have been looking into converting a Wilson II 3D printer chassis into a CNC PCB etching machine, recently. In particular, what motor I needed to replace the extruder with.
A collegue pointed me to an interesting video, PCB making, PCB prototyping – UV solder mask STEP by STEP, produced by Wegstr (no affiliation whatsoever), and their machine uses a 11,000 rpm drill. From the specification page:

Spindle - Brushless AC motor
Diameter of spindle - 3.175 mm (0.000737 inch)
Spindle speed - 11 000 rpm
Electronic overload protection for the spindle motor

Apparently DC motors suffer from carbon brush wear, so a combination of DC circuitry and brushless AC motor is used for "superior performance and durability".
The voltage and current of the spindle motor is unclear/unspecified, but the PSU, that comes with it, outputs 12 V 5 A.
However, the parts page lists the spindle motor separately, spindle 11000rpm, with the following specifications:

26V DC power supply
11000 rpm
designed for tools with shank diameter 3.175 mm
fastening tool with the setscrew
in the rear spindle 4x M4 threaded hole for mounting on a substrate
power consumption 25W
brushless construction => no carbon brush wear => long life
low noise

So, given the voltage and power consumption the current rating would seem to be ~1 A.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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What stepper motor to use in heated chamber
I want to build a 3D printer with a heating chamber of around 90 °C with build area 200x200x200 mm. I have never build a CoreXY system, so my design is currently an XY system with moving X motor (mounted on Y). Since it has a heating chamber I can't use normal stepper motor (there's a way, but I have to provide forced air cooling like NASA did, or water cooling). Extruder is Bowden type. I have already sourced almost all components, but I'm stuck at choosing the motor.
I could find high temperature stepper motor in India (that's where I'm from), but it cost too much. I found one at the Visionminer website, they're the dealers for Intamsys printers, which has a chamber of 90 °C and they are providing replacement stepper motors as well.
Comparing the cost, the motor I found in India costs three times as above. Even with shipping I will save a lot. But one issue is they're not providing any details about torque and current rating. There's one image in the website and it says,
MOONS STEPPING MOTOR
TYPE 17HDB001-11N
60904162 18/04/12

I thought it might be a MOONS motor, so I contacted them, no reply so far. I tried to find the motor by part number, but failed. I tried mailing Visionminer as well.
Anyone have any idea which motor is this or know any high temperature motors?
Also they use Gates belts, which is rated for 85 °C. How reliable will it be in 90 °C chamber?
I will heat the chamber using a external heater with fan.
My extruder is Bowden, same as you've shown E3D V6, with updated high temp parts. Plated Cu heater block + Nozzle, High temp heating coil and Thermocouple.
But In my design X axis motor is moving one. I mean it's mounted on Y Similar to this image

So it will be inside the chamber and I have to cool it somehow or looks for high temp motor
What I'm trying to print is PEEK, and it requires around 80-90 Degree chamber, and most stepper motors are rated for an ambient temperature of 50 Degrees. And I'm really planning to seal the chamber using SS sheet. It's going to be something like Intamsys funmat HT. What is the biggest print, I mean duration that you run your printer at 60 Degrees?

Could you not place the motor outside the heated chamber, since it is a bowden setup?

you can use any other motor Nema17, forget moons brand.

@Mick, I can place the extruder motor outside. But what about X & Y?
I will have to then consider CoreXY setup, and read it's is not very forgiving it terms of belt tension . Even with coreXY, I don't understand how to avoid motor getting affected by heater temperature

@FernandoBaltazar But normal motors only work at 50-60 degrees right? I want mine to work at 90 Degree max

The maximum temperature is 80°C but adding a cooler you can have it working below this value. Normally this can be achieved with a fan, just like cooling a CPU or an engine.

Watercooling is really easy, I would consider it. Get a GPU cooling block 40x40 mm and stick it to the SIDE of the stepper (not the rear) with double-sided heat conductive silicon tape (0.5 mm thickness), and put a zip tie for extra adhesion and tighten it well. Get an acquarium pump. Done. Also, don't forget that PVC wiring is rated up to 85 °C, so you cannot get above that unless you replace the wiring.

In an attempt to try to tidy this question up, I have added some important information from your various comments that was missing in your question (Bowden, PEEK, X-axis mounted stepper). This may be why there are a number of answers that aren't spot on, as this information was missing originally. Please try to remember to keep all of the information in one post (i.e. the question in this case), so that people don't have to trawl through all of the comments in order to get a full picture of the issue. Thanks.

An alternative to finding steppers that can withstand the heat, you can consider not getting the heat near the steppers:

Moving the steppers outside the heated build volume
With 2 extra pulleys per stepper you can get the steppers outside the build volume.

Shield the motors from the heat by placing them in a cooler tunnel or behind a face plate/cover
You can also shield the steppers from the heat, e.g. the Ultimaker 3(E) the steppers are behind a cover.

Be aware that creating a 90 °C heat chamber, all the printed parts for the CoreXY need to be printed in a filament type that can withstand prolonged exposure to the temperature you want the chamber to be (or be made in metal). For the mentioned temperature this implies the use of some more exotic filament types, see e.g. this answer.

"Since it has a heating chamber I can't use normal stepper motor"  Sure you can, the interior doesn't get all that warm unless you really seal it up tight, and that's not really needed.  I have an enclosure around my 200x200x200 mm MIGBOT (early Prusa clone with direct drive extruder), printing PLA with 60 °C bed, the interior only gets a few degrees warmer.  The motors can take a lot more heat than you think they can.
I have a couple pictures taken from this question,  Printer cover for noise abatement, cleanliness, temperature control:

The front & back panels are 18x24 inch polycarbonate from Home Depot, I 3D printed the corner brackets, and added a couple of pieces of wood for some stiffness. The entire front hinges up. The top is 24x24 inch, and the back 6" hinges up to access the SD card that is on the display/control panel.

I printed 9 2" x 2" pieces for a chess board, took about 8.5 hours I think.

The heating bed won't over heat the chamber, normally the prints are 50-60 °C for PLA and 80-90 °C for ABS; but if you want to climate the chamber is a good idea but cool the motors with some fans or circulating water. I think this is cheaper that special motors. For the extruder I think will be a hard task since is the moving part, so the extruder need to be a remote extrusion driver. Or you need to change your chamber design.

It is possible to buy cheap high temperature steppers. E.g., you can buy LDO 180 °C winding steppers.
They can be used up to 135 °C without additional cooling and with reduced lifetime probably even higher.

Please state your affiliation with the website, else it might be considered advertisement.

Two things matter for the stepper motor:  the insulation temperature and the Curie point of the magnet.
You probably aren't near the Curie point.
The critical temperature is the sum of the ambient plus the temperature rise from the drive power.  In your case,  I would try mounting the motor to a water cooled metal cold plate.   Bring the lower temperature to the motor.   Mount the full face of the motor to the plate with thermal compound.
Use a tiny pump to move water from a reservoir through the cold plate.   For an example,  check out the E3D Kracken.

Magnets can be damaged by temperatures much lower than their curie temperatures (for neodymium, as low as 80 °C).

I'm just going to come straight out and say it. If you can't design and build a Core XY system then you should not even attempt a heated build chamber.
The Stratasys 3D printers that have heated chambers use a H-Bot design (the predecessor of CoreXY), so as to keep everything out of the chamber. You can't use a regular hot end. You can't have fans on that hot end to keep it cool. You can't have the motors inside the chamber. You can barely have the filament in the chamber because it could get soft inside the tube.
Some of the answers state that motors can operate at high temps already. That is only true in ambient conditions. The heat that the coils of the motor generate is trying to escape to the outside of the motor. It it much hotter inside! Therefore if you raise the external environment's temp to 90 °C then the heat won't escape as quickly; and if it raises beyond the melt/burn temp then the motor will fail. See:

Wikipedia - Magnet_wire
Burning Temperature of Copper Winding of Motor

After that fails the PVC coating on the lead wires will fail, usually resorting in a short, which could destroy the stepper drivers.
Additionally, everything made of metal will expand. The ball bearings will expand, the rails will expand and the hot end will expand. The linear system could become tighter or looser; it could even warp depending on the type of steel. If it becomes looser, then there goes your ability to 3D print! You might end up needing to design and fabricate your parts so that they fit and work properly only when they are at the working temp.
Here is what you need to build:
AON-M2 : High Temperature Industrial 3D Printer

HIWIN linear guideways are capable of operating up 100 Degree Celsius with out reduction in life. There are wires whose temperature rating is 110 Degee or more, even the normal stepper motor cable tubing is rated 110 Degree Celsius. Stratasys has patent on it's build chamber design that's why no one else is using heat barrier as they are doing. Google Intamsys Funmat HT, perfect example hotend, fan, and motor inside the chamber. Depending on the filament I can turn the chamber heater ON or OFF or reduce temp

@Athul, The motors generate heat also. If you are operating hot equipment in a hot environment then you could cross the max rating temp. Just like if you operated a stepper motor in a high vacuum it will melt!

You don't need to worry about the stepper for heating chamber since the direct drive uses a fan for cooling the motor area.

When I started to make my own printer I had the same question but in order to make me feel good and peace. I prefer to use a bowder extruder.

This bowden extruder comes in different sizes: Normal as picture shows above, small, and mini like the other that shows pre assembled below.

However the question should be different like, Can I print inside an oven? for this will address the question to other possibilities:
1.- Cover or shield the motor with some foil to avoid the heating
2.- Add a water cooling like CPU, so the water flows from outside to the motor to keep a low temperature.
3.- Add cooling fans, this ones should take te air from outside and tha air can be directed with a corrugated tube for the Extruder motor and the radiator. For the X, Y and Z motors can be a rigid tube.
This cooling fans won't affect the internal chamber temperature due the cooling process is punctual.
4.- Many electronics components are designed to work at 105°, so won't be affected in short terms, however the life of circutry will decrease a lot, since designs cover until 5 years at normal conditions so your printer can last up to 1.5 years.
Recommendations:
I don't see a real reason to keep the printer isolated to high temperatures while the porpuse of this is to keep temperature variations from clime like winter and summer. In my case the print room has a normal temperature of 38°C on summers and -2°C on winter, so how can I print with the same quality on winter if the printer is so cold? ah, I need a chamber to keep that temperature of summer. then I made the chamber to acheive 38°C not the whole temperature of the bed print.
If I need to print ABS so I set the bed temperature to 80°C so the parts won´t get warped, due the temperature for adhesive for ABS is the correct; also this temperature won´t over heat the chamber at least near to 60°C, but can it be reduced extracting the heat with other fan. For this case is just only one or two fans.

Note:
The Idea to have the whole printer inside an oven will help to keep that 80°-95°C under control is good, but some times is hard to implement it due materials and its purposes are different and serviseable life will be too low.
So your chamber should include the printing area only or follow the recommendation as the picture above. Those photo was taken from the site industrial RepRap and also exposes som e features as i'm suggesting.

you need only a fan like the first image, no matter if your extruder are mounted on verticar or horizontal in the carrier. if you need extra cooling you can add a fan on th back of the stepper; I install this fans on Z axis when I have to print more than 36hrs because the motors can over heat. My local temperature is around 38°C and some times are near to 42°C in the print room.

I can add a fan to cool stepper motor and I have done that. In normal case it would work, but in a closed chamber the air is as hot as  90 degree. Even if I put a fan inside, it will blow this hot air in to the motor. I need atleast air as cool as atmospheric air

You understand that all of that equipment is going inside the heated chamber right?

@Athul Right, you can take fresh air from outside with a corrugated tube like medical equipment or vacuum machine (something lighter). This won't affect you climate chamber due punctual cooling.

Then you need to add water cooling system for them.
Something like this:

Also, water cooled hotend would be a go ahead I guess.

Do you realize that water cooled hotends are very heavy in comparison and introduce a lot of torque on the print head by the flow of water?

@Trish OP asked about stepper motors and nothing with hotend. Steppers must be cooled, otherwise, they are more likely to miss steps. Have a nice day.

@Trish is correct... there is (apparently) a stepper motor that is mobile. That info was buried in this (now deleted) comment, hence the inertia of the water will affect performance/mvement. However, water cooling could be used on the static stepper motors. I have put the info from the deleted comment into the question, along with a photo. Have a nice day.

@Martynas The printer shown has a carried extruder on the Y axis, meaning that you carry the motor as well as the hotend, and then add the heatsink... all extra weight induces torque, especially if the weight is only on one end of the printer frame (as shown). As a result, there will be considerable limitations on speed only by the motor alone, which are increased by the added heatsink and might be also influenced by the flow of water.

@Trish, I do understand what you say. I just said that for like Core XY all steppers are stationary. And at the time of my answer, there was not enough info to say stepper is on moving Y gantry...

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


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Chalk objects: 3D Printed or Molds?
I am thinking about making something from chalk. But can chalk be printed into shapes directly or is it better to shape it with printed molds? What kind of material would be suitable for a mold for the chalk so I can ensure the mold releases after the chalk solution cures?

Asking for "recommendations" don't make particular good SE questions as it can be read as "what is the best solution for ...". You should only ask practical, reasonably scoped, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Please help us help you by updating the question to include what you already found about chalk printing and ask a specific question on release agents of such printing techniques. Are you e.g. hinting on printing with chalk containing filament called LAYBRICK?

Have you considered printing your mold in a flexible TPE or TPU?

Chalk, as a ceramic substance, could be printed with a paste printer and if the substance can hold its shape during drying for a couple of hours.
It might be easier to use a flexible filament like TPE or TPU to print a mold in which the paste can cure slowly to a point it can be safely removed. These filaments make release easier as one can flex them away from the printed object.
Another option could be vapor smoothed ABS and a tapered shape so that the object has no undercuts and easy paths only. If one adds a pusher rod place, which is closed by a plug during casting the chalk and can remove from the back after casting, removal gets easier as air can flow in from the back through the removed plug. It can also be used to use a pen or similar obect to gently release the item with light taps.


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Getting started with converted STL to DXF
I converted the STL file through an online converter https://www.cadforum.cz/catalog_en/stl2dwg.asp
(I work in the program autocad 2017)
Now I open the resulting DXF and I don’t know how to work with it. How do I merge polygons into a whole model?

What are you trying to achieve? STL is a model defined by its surfaces and ca be properly converted to AutoCAD if done right. https://www.laserscanning-europe.com/en/laserscanning-forum/english-laser-scanning-forum/laserscanning-software/import-stl-autocad Or you use the right plugin: https://www.cadforum.cz/forum_en/forum_posts.asp?TID=6024&title=how-to-open-stl-file-from-autocad

I do not know how to convert the resulting model into the body. For this reason, I can not do anything with the model in the autocad. I usually created my own models, and it was easy, but for the first time I was faced with converting and editing STL.

What is your end goal? To bring an existing STL into Autocad to edit it?

I figured it out. Need to go: Network -> conversion to surface
Then we get a surface that is already easy to work with.

I edit the STL and dxf with Sketchup, the STL to change any 3D surface and DXF to convert 2D to 3D printables.


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Walls are sometimes porous
I have a Tronxy P802E, which works pretty well for me. I currently use Ultimaker Cura 4.1.0.  However, I occasionally get a weird problem where the walls in certain parts of certain prints will be highly porous.

Contrast the following similar, yet non-porous, structure elsewhere in the print:

(Note, though, that you can see porosity in the wall of the triangular structure on the right.)
I've printed this twice - once with retraction enabled, and once with retraction disabled.  Porosity occurred to the same degree, and in the same places.  It's neither a jam nor general underextrusion, because it occurred on every z-layer in the same set of xy places, but not in other xy places.  It makes me wonder if there's something about the order that Ultimaker Cura codes the structures to be printed in, that causes this problem - like if it's e.g. transitioning from one wall to an opposing wall after infill, triggers low extrusion, or something like that.  I further wonder if it's a problem in gcode or something that occurs in the physical act of printing.  Has anybody seen this before?  Have they solved it?
Oh, this may or may not be unrelated, but when I've watched the infill, I notice that there's frequently little gaps just before or after crossing another infill line.  I may make a separate question about that, eventually, if it's not related to this.

If it's random, it could be underextrusion as a result of the gear slipping or the filament being dirty, If it is always in the same zone, then it could be that the bed wasn't level.

Could you please add some printing parameters like temperatures, speeds and e.g. filament type (PLA/ABS/...). Look into "Helpful Templates / Help us help you!" for more hints to enhance your question with additional specific information.

If it's always in the same part of the print,  go into Cura and select Layer View to see if the slicing algorithm is not producing a solid wall.  What you show looks almost like failed "bridging" of the roof surface there due to no wall at all existing beneath.

Try examining GCode in another software. But most software does not take extrusion into account. Ot might be possible for Cura to miscalculate extrusion in those places.


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Is a BLTouch probe used during a print after the first layer?
I was looking at a BLTouch probe, and saw the recent question about one with intermittent failure. That was kind of scary, where I might spend a bunch of money for something that would make my printer harder to use, rather than easier.
But I was curious. I don't have any personal experience using these, but it seems like the probe would only be used during an initial level and when homing the Z axis. Thus, as long as the probe works most of the time, and failure to home properly doesn't damage your nozzle or print bed, maybe this kind of thing isn't too bad.
Is this assessment of how the probe functions (that it's not really used after the start of a print) accurate?
In the spirit of stack exchange, I'm not interested in the subjective issue of nozzle or print bed damage; I'm only asking about the objective assessment of how a probe is used by the printer.

If by failing you meant this question: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/q/10345/16827, I believe that was due to user error and I am having no issues with the probe currently and it works as intended.

Your assessment is correct, after probing before printing it deploys several times, after that it is stowed till the end of the print unless you call for deployment.

The probe is used by G-code command G29; this command is used by a few printer firmwares to perform a bed probing sequence where, depending on the options set in the firmware, the surface of the bed is scanned by deploying the sensor at various locations. From these measurements, the firmware will determine the shape or tilt of the bed to compensate for deviations in Z height during the first couple of layers or millimeters of the print. Basically, it will keep your nozzle (approximately, as it is based on calculations) at the same distance all over the bed area.
Once the print starts after the G29 command, the sensor is stowed until the next print calls the G29 command (or M280 with arguments to deploy on Marlin/Duet/Smoothieware, or M340 on Repetier firmware).


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Auto home issue on ender 3
I own a Comgrow Creality Ender 3 3D Printer Aluminum DIY with Resume Print 220x220x250mm
I am a newbie and last night finally got a halfway decent print, but tonight I went to Auto Home it and it just keeps trying to move down, down down even though it physically can't go any lower. The z-axis just keeps trying to spin down. The long threaded metal rod just keeps turning like it needs to keep moving down. Any ideas?

It sounds like your z-stop isn't engaging when it's supposed to. The z-axis end stop should be located at the left of the build plate on the z-axis column. When the gantry (with the printhead) comes down, it should contact that. If it doesn't contact it, or if the end stop isn't functioning (isn't sending the signal to stop), the z-axis will just continue to try and go down. Check to ensure it touches where  you want it to touch, and if it is, then check the operation of the end stop. You can do that with a multimeter set to ohms. Just detach the wiring from the main board, place your two multimeter leads on either wire end, then click the end stop. it should go from no continuity to full continuity when you hear the end stop click.
EDIT: The endstop should look something like this:

Note:  The Z-stop is mounted on the outside of the left pillar.

@CarlWitthoft - Thanks for the clarification ... I was having an issue coming up with the "proper" term :o)


text:
Printer doesn't lift Z between each probe
I don't remember making a change to marlin but today when I tried to probe my bed my Z probe homed and slowly went downwards until the probe detected the first point. then without lifting it it just kept moving over the other points without lifting or even moving the z.
I canceled that and ran an M48, here's the output:
Recv: 1 of 5: z: -0.497
Recv: 2 of 5: z: -0.497
Recv: 3 of 5: z: -0.497
Recv: 4 of 5: z: -0.497
Recv: 5 of 5: z: -0.497
Recv: Finished!
Recv: Mean: -0.497500 Min: -0.497 Max: -0.497 Range: 0.000
Recv: Standard Deviation: 0.000000
Recv:
Recv: X:74.00 Y:191.00 Z:5.29 E:0.00 Count X:5920 Y:15280 Z:116
Recv: ok
Recv: echo:endstops hit:  Z:0.29

Any ideas on what's going on?
This is a link to my config files in a Dropbox folder.
I have an Anycubic i3 Mega-S with a graphical LCD screen.

In my Pins.h folder turns out I needed to put a x-max pin. I hadn't defined that so it was randomly reading it as high. my printer thinking it can't go higher was freaking out basically :) this explains the other strange behavior i was experiencing!


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Inconsistent Layer Issues
I was having some issues with printing, most noticeably in this picture:

The layers are very noticeable and sometimes have gaps, and the overhangs don't print very well (although the former is more of an issue). I just calibrated my E-steps so I don't think that is the issue. It was doing the same thing before I upgraded anything (i.e., I had issues on stock hardware).
My printer is an Ender 3 with the metal extruder upgrade (which replaces the plastic parts as seen here), an E3D v6, printed fan duct (Bullseye), glass bed, BLTouch, and vanilla Marlin. Pictures of it are also in the below album. The printed upgrades were printed on a Prusa MK3S and don't have the same issue.
I am using Hatchbox 1.75 mm gray PLA, printed at 215 °C with my bed at 60 °C. I am using Ultimaker Cura 4.1 but was also having the problems on an older version of Ultimaker Cura (maybe 3.6, but I can't remember which it was). The problems also existed with some Hatchbox 1.75 mm black PLA but I used the same roll on my Prusa MK3S without any issues, so I'm not sure if filament could be the cause (although it is a different printer so it's still a possibility).
I have tried at different printing speeds and the problem still persists.
I also recently tried varying the temperature during printing (first up to 222 °C then down to 200 °C) with no noticeable difference.
Extra pictures here.
Model is part of Printable Scenery's sorcerer tower.

This typically happens when the belts are not tight. Note that a Prusa printer is of better quality than an Ender.

Yes, it is a great printer. I figured I would include that to try to rule out non machine issues.

I was able to determine the cause of the problem. Combing was allowing too much filament to ooze out during long travels and reducing the max distance for combing removed the consistent gaps in the prints. I will add an answer detailing this.

The main issue here (the gaps between layers) was solved by reducing combing.
Combing was enabled without a limit on the range so a max combing distance of 10 mm was introduced. This prevented too much filament from oozing out during travels.
The oozing filament was causing nothing to come out of the nozzle at the beginning of an extrusion, thus creating the gaps that were consistent in location.

Interesting. Could you see oozing/stringing happening inside the infill area? Your experience could be a useful data point for boosting this Cura issue I have open: https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine/issues/1084

Also, it might be interesting to retry this if you ever upgrade your Ender 3 to later Marlin with the Linear Advance feature. In theory it should greatly reduce the amount of oozing that can happen while combing over unprinted area (space between infill lines), and might be sufficient to stop it without limiting combing.

Good suggestion, I'll take a look into that feature if I have time. I'll try to add details later when I'm with the printer. As I remember, the oozing/stringing was not apparent during printing (I just stated that because I assume that was how the problem occurred), but adjusting the combing clearly removed the artifacts (I ran everything the same except the combing changed). The infill in both cases looked identical to me.

Actually, I just looked at them. There is a clear lack of stringing in the large infill areas but not the small ones in the combing reduced print.

These lines could be caused by a mechanical issue with the printer; it looks as if the positioning is not up to par.
This can be related to loose belts of the X-axis and Y-axis, or play in your system, e.g. look at the rollers of the carriage.

I've experienced an issue with play between the idler mounts and the smooth linear rods on a cheap 3D printer kit myself, but that is not the case here. Just added to explain where play may come from.

Thanks for the information, I will look into that tonight and update accordingly.

I was going to write an answer when I got back from mobile to desktop, and yeah, this is pretty much exactly what I thought. Almost surely something is too loose; if not loose, otherwise mechanically irregular.

I tried tightening the belts and printing again, but the print has the same layer issues as before (even in the same locations). I will test again to verify, but I think the issue may like somewhere else. I will update my question accordingly after I do some more testing.

@Blubberguy22 It is fair to say that this may be an answer that solves such problems. In your specific case the solution has to be found elsewhere, I'll leave leave the answer for others that may stumble onto this question having similar issues.

@Oscar definitely, and I think I may still have to tune my belts a bit anyways.

authors: حسوني الزعيم


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What are the effects of the elements on 3D printed objects made with "infused" PLA
I came across a new Steel infused PLA from Colorfabb. On the store page someone had asked, what happens if it was exposed to water, would it rust. I am actually, not sure what would happen. I am interested what the effects of leaving in the elements a 3D printed object made of the 2 most common type of fused materials.

Wood Infill
Metal Infill (not stainless steel)

Would it be preserved by the PLA coating it, or would, over time, rust and dissolve? Would the wood last forever, or will the print get discolored and become mulch?

I would expect the wood to be subject to fungal attack, but I have nothing to substantiate that.

If you use filaments filled with metal particles, some particles will be exposed to the environment. Depending on the corrosion resistance of those metals, yes the environmental conditions will weather the print object. So if it contains iron (and does not contain elements that prevent oxidation like used in stainless steel) and it is subjected to water and oxides, the print will rust.
This is e.g. also valid for copper filled filament, which you can polish to get a gold shine surface (removing the copper oxides), or bronze filled filament, that if correctly subjected to weathering environments, will give the looks of a very old statue. In both cases this implies that the metal particles have undergone a(n) (de-)oxidation process.

The particles on the outmost part of the print which are exposed to air will rust. The ones inside will still be protected somewhat by the PLA. The rust color/effect is part of the idea, since it give certain prints an old look.

https://www.proto-pasta.com/products/magnetic-iron-pla

As the rust takes up a greater volume than the steel, would that cause additional damage to the structure? (Like how rust flakes off old car chassis.)

No, because only the ones exposed to air could fall out. The internal particles are surrounded.

I thought that maybe the expanding rust on the outside of the print might push against the PLA, distorting and breaking it and letting moisture further into the structure where more rust would form, in turn expanding and perhaps pushing off outer pieces of PLA. I suspect that if someone wanted a durable part for outdoors, rustable PLA wouldn't be the material of choice.


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Marlin on Arduino Mega 2650 and RAMPS 1.4
I have been messing around trying to flash marlin 1.1 onto my Arduino Mega 2650 and RAMPS 1.4. I have Managed to get it to upload fine however it will not upload with the LCD I want. I am trying to upload it and have it set to a "RepRap Discount Smart Controller". When I uploaded the firmware it was on the stock Anet LCD, however when I try to change this in the file and verify it I get an error that I do not understand. I have done some digging on google but haven't really been able to figure out the answer. Here's the error:

sketch\ultralcd.cpp:4860:3: internal compiler error: Segmentation fault

   DEFINE_MENU_EDIT_TYPE(uint32_t, long5, ftostr5rj, 0.01f);

   ^

Please submit a full bug report,

with preprocessed source if appropriate.

See  for instructions.

lto-wrapper.exe: fatal error: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\ArduinoLLC.ArduinoIDE_1.8.21.0_x86__mdqgnx93n4wtt\hardware\tools\avr/bin/avr-gcc returned 1 exit status

compilation terminated.

c:/program files/windowsapps/arduinollc.arduinoide_1.8.21.0_x86__mdqgnx93n4wtt/hardware/tools/avr/bin/../lib/gcc/avr/5.4.0/../../../../avr/bin/ld.exe: error: lto-wrapper failed

collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

exit status 1
Error compiling for board Arduino/Genuino Mega or Mega 2560.

Which LCD are you connecting? The discount controller uses the EXP1/2 ports, the Anet uses AUX2. See e.g. this answer; these LCD's require totally different solutions. Please make the question a bit more clear on what you have and what you connect.

Im using a reprap discount smart controller. The marlin setup is far an abet a8 but I changed the motherboard to ramps_14_efb. I have been fallowing a tutorial online that said I only had to comment the stock ante screen and uncomment the reprap discounted smart controller line. However when I do so it gives me the error up above. I hope this clears it up if nto please let me know and I will try to clatter further.

It appears that I am trying to do the exact opposite of the answer you linked me to. Rather than trying to run it off of the ante lcd I want to run it off of the reprap lcd however when I uncomment the line to do so it gives me an error I don’t understand.

Try running as admin. That error doesn't seem to be strictly firmware related.

Sorry I’m really new to the programming side of it. Can you explain what running it as admin means?

Running as admin fixed the issue. Thank you. I’m very new to the programming side and it helped a lot.

Running it as admin fixed the issue.


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Uneven motion in X and Y directions after attempting to adjust Z motion in ADVI3++
A few weeks back I updated my Monoprice Maker Select Plus from the stock firmware to ADVi3++ 3.0.2. I've put more than 20 prints through the machine since then and everything has been fine.
One of the few downsides to the new firmware is the Z control. When moving the head up using the control panel, it only moves a millimeter or two instead of the 5 or 10 is used to, meaning it can be a bit of a pain to clear the head out of the way when working with the printer.
I wanted to adjust the setting, so I went through the settings section of my new firmware, trying different values for various options to see if one would change what happens when I pushed the up arrow button for the z axis. I was careful to only ever change values for the Z axis, and after each change I set things back to where they were.
I never did find what I was looking for, but that will be a topic for a future question.
The very next print after doing this came out awful. I can no longer get a clean, straight line. Instead, the edges are all wavy... and it's way worse than simple ringing. On longer linear stretches I can observe the print head does not move smoothly, but rather speeds up and slows down. It never really stops, but it doesn't move consistently, either. It kind of pulses as it goes.
I have duplicated this with a known good gcode file, so I know it's not the slice. I can move the bed freely with the printer off, and this started on both axises simultaneously, conveniently after my z-axis experiment, so I don't believe it's a problem with bearings.
I've tried restoring factory defaults and even re-flashing the firmware, but it hasn't helped.
Any ideas on how to correct this?

Found the problem.
The screws connecting the carriage plate to the assembly that connects to the Y-axis belt had loosened, allowing some free play for movements in the Y direction and vibration for movements in the X direction. It just happened to go from nothing to unprintable all at once at the same time I was experimenting with the Z settings.

Ain't that always the way? You might want to use some low-strength threadlocker to stop that from happening again. Info: The Difference Between Red, Blue, Green and Purple Threadlockers.

It's already put back together and in the middle of a 9 hour print, but if they come free again that will happen.


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What clearance should I leave between parts that are supposed to fit together perfectly when using a .6mm diameter nozzle?
Here's the thing that I'm working on putting together (the purple stud on the bottom right should be up higher like the one on the left).

Notice how the purple studs fit into the red ring? Well, most of the parts are like that in one way or another. That is, most of the parts need to start right where another part ends with no gap and without being too tight.
Are there any good rules of thumb for knowing how much smaller a male part needs to be to fit into a female part? I want a good fit but I don't want to have to jam them in.
I'm doing this at the library and just getting down there and setup is an ordeal. The blue cylinder (4x102mm) alone takes almost 4 hours to print with a nozzle size of .6mm. ...I imagine this is how it must have felt when people had to program on punch cards, lol. Except, this isn't just a logic thing. It's an experimentation thing and it's taking up a ton of my time.
How can I get these parts to fit together perfectly like they do in my model?

The blue piece doesn't look too complicated ... I'm wondering why it's taking four hours to print? It looks as though this is some sort of electrical outlet, considering the design of the top piece. If this is so, it gives me a good indication of the size you are printing. The bottom piece shouldn't be over 3" in diameter. Given that, if you have everything setup right and with a .6mm nozzle, I'd think this would take less than an hour for it. I'm wondering if your print speeds are set too low? I know this has nothing to do with your question; it seems odd for it to take so long to print.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2: Given OP's dimensions for the part, at 100% infill that would be a 2.27mm³/s volumetric extrusion rate, already ridiculously low. At <100%, even more extreme. I suspect OP is trying 100% infill and has very low speed settings on top of that.

With a large (0.6mm) nozzle and proper settings I'd expect that part to take more like 30 minutes tops.

The top plate looks like a 120V receptacle.  If you are going to use this for electrical purposes, be very careful. You may well be violating local code if you wire this up.

First, find or make a tolerance checking test print. This basically just involves a few cylinders with diameters something like 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, ... mm smaller than a cylindrical hole, and lets you figure out what works without going through lots of iterations on your actual part design or time on the printer. Make note that diameter (2 gaps) vs radius/gap-width (single gap) is a really important distinction here.
With that said, your design does not look well-suited to 3D printing. The purple studs are going to break. That's pretty much a given. And overall there are just way too many pieces. A big part of the advantage of 3D printing is that you don't have to assemble things out of parts that would be easy to produce (or available stock) with traditional manufacturing methods. You can often produce a complete working result all in one print, or two or three if there really need to be separable parts.
I would replace the purple studs and red piece that looks like it's intended to allow easy connection/removal with a threaded interface. That would distribute the forces much more evenly, and it's easier to print. If you don't care what orientation it stops at, it's super easy; otherwise you have to put some sort of stop or predict where the friction will hold it.


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3D printed object can't print straight upward
I have a weird problem, my object base starts good and then as the object goes to the next layers it is off centered. I have a picture to better explain.

Layer shift is the keyword you should use to find existing info on this kind of problem.

This is classic layer shift. There are lots of possible causes, but I would check for over-tight belts first.


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Ender 5: Bowden tube shifts in/out of extruder during retractions
I have an Ender 5 with an aluminum extruder that was printing beautifully for a few days after building it. I received a Capricorn bowden tube and new couplings as a gift, and replaced those, and now I have stringing issues I can't solve.
I've been all over the map with settings (temps, speeds, z-hop, retraction, etc. etc.), I've swapped the tubes, the couplings, the filament, I've checked for clogs, and put clamps on the collars, but no matter what I do, the tube shifts in and out during retractions by about .25 - .5 mm. I suspect that has something to do with the stringing, as nothing else has solved it.
Any suggestions are appreciated. I haven't made adjustments to the extruder, but I don't know if that's possible or necessary. I've never had a system using the bowden, so that part of 3d printing is new to me. I'm using 3d Solutech PLA.

Is it just the pressure fitting on the brass coupler that shifts in/out? That's not a problem unless it causes the PTFE tube to come out entirely, and you can use the blue clips that should have come with the printer to stop it if it is a problem. If switching the bowden tube has caused stringing, it's likely something else about the new tube setup that's' the problem. Can you show some pics of it? Is the length the same as the old bowden tube?

Unfortunately, it's the tube itself that slips back and forth. I have used the blue clips and also small zip ties. It feels like the teeth in the coupler catches well, but the retraction is..."overpowering" it? I swapped the old tube back in and get the same issue (same length, etc.) It's just the basic white PTFE one versus the blue Capricorn.

If the tube slips in the coupler by .25-.5 mm, that's fine as long as it doesn't actually fall out. Effectively, you just lose that much length from your retractions, since part of the retraction goes into pulling the tube back into the coupler. When the retraction is reversed, the effective filament position should go back to what it was before the retraction.

OK, good. It's a really small amount. Just wanted to rule it out as causing anything else that crops up. If you want to post this as the answer, I'll accept.

If you're happy with the scope of the question being "is this shift in/out the source of my problems", I'm happy to post "probably not" with the above explanation as an answer. You may need a new question to identify the source of your problem then.

Yep, I totally agree. I had been concerned about the tube shift anyway, but I don't think it's contributing to the stringing.

If it's just the pressure fitting on the brass coupler that shifts in/out, or the PTFE tube shifting slightly in/out but remaining in the coupler, that shouldn't be a problem unless it's so loose it can come out entirely. The blue clips which should have come with the printer are intended to stop this motion or at least provide enough pressure to prevent it from falling all the way out.
Regarding the small 0.25 - 0.5 mm of play, effectively it just means you lose that much length from your retractions, since part of the retraction goes into pulling the tube back into the coupler. When the retraction is reversed, the effective filament position should go back to what it was before the retraction. As long as your retraction amount is sufficient after the loss, it should not cause stringing.
You probably need to look for another cause of your stringing.

I didn't get any blue clips with my Ender 5, and the little grey thing moves on mine. Will a zippy-tie work?

I don't think a zip-tie is what you want, but you can just print the clip. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2994683 matches the factory design.

Ah yes, of course I can now!


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Setting the startpoint of the EZABL 3x3 mesh
How do I set the startpoint of the EZABL 3x3 mesh. The startpoint is hitting my bed clip.

The "EZ" company (TH3D) is trying to make flashing firmware easy by making choices in the configuration for people to set based on printer type. While this makes the flashing more accessible to more people, it does not help people to understand what actually happens in the firmware or what is meant by certain settings. See it as an automated process to add automatic bed levelling to a number of printer models.
To change the bed probing area, you need to modify some specific lines that specify the probe area. How you should change this is explained in this answer on question "How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?". It would be best to set or increase the constant MIN_PROBE_EDGE. This effectively makes the probe area smaller so you will not hit the bed clips.


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Problems with Z-axis: Z-axis raised not enough at the beginning
My printer had some Z-axis issue. Here are the details:
When I was printing a model, the bottom of the model got bumpy edges(as shown in pic), and the height of the model was a little bit shorter(about 5% shorter).

I thought it might be caused by the Zsteppers/mm. But after I tweaked up the Zsterppers/mm, the problem remained. I realized that the extruder raised not enough at the beginning of the printing. So I print a small cube which hight is 2mm. And the following pic is the result:

Does anyone know what might cause this?
Thanks in advance.

First check your bed height ("leveling"). If it's correct, it's likely that the carriages on your Z rails are not square with it or that the Z rails are not parallel, causing binding.

@R.. Thanks R! I leveled the bed. And the first layer printed good. How can I check if the Z rails are parallel?

Measure the distance between them near the bottom and near the top. It should be the same. But it's probably more likely that the connections between the gantry/X-axis and the carriages that ride on the Z rails are either loose or tightened down with the gantry not perpendicular to the Z axis. For me, it was that the screws connecting the X-axis to the left-side (same side as Z motor) carriage were loose.

@R.. I finally found my problem! Your answer is very helpful! My guide wheels for the Z-axis are too tight!

Here are my problem and my solution. Hope this will help others.
As @R.. suggested, I checked my carriages and as well as z-axis guide wheels(I think it is called guide wheel). And I found that the guide wheels were too tight. I can't rotate them will my fingers. So I used a spanner to adjust the eccentric nuts until the guide wheels can be rotated by two fingers. Do not make the guide wheels too loose, it may cause shaking or other problem.
Since I don't know the exact name of each part. I marked them in the pics. If you know the correct name of the parts, welcome to correct me, I will edit it in my post.
Special thanks to R.. :P
Here are the pics:

Excellent illustrated write-up.


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What filaments allow air to pass but not water vapor?
In some situations it useful to have a material in which air passes but water, and water vapor, does not. Printing cell membranes or cases for something that must be immune to humidity changes (like something that holds a highly oxidative metal) are two examples.
Teflon (PTFE) is a material that has this property. But PTFE is horrendous to 3D print.
Silicone is another material that has this property. 3D printing silicone can be done with a syringe mechanism. But there are also thermoplastic rubbers (e.g. TPU, TPE) that are designed to mimic Silicone.
Are there any filaments on the market which naturally form holes with the porous diameter for this feature? Is there any way to manipulate the diameter of this hole, even starting from pellets? Are some filaments more likely than others to have this feature?

I doubt you'll find many materials - aside from 3d filaments - which can separate gaseous H20 from the other molecular gases present in our atmosphere.

The water vapor molecule is smaller than an Oxygen or Nitrogen molecule. There is no such material in this world. Can you cite a source of that property of PTFE?

Good point about the size of water, but one thing water is, is polar. So its polarity can be used to filter it out more easily despite its size (like in a cell's phospholipid membrane).

Well, there you go, then-- just use phospholipid-based filament.  (Yes this is a stupid joke)

It is difficult enough to make 3D-printed objects water-tight (unless you paint them). Making them permeable to air but not water vapour is too big an ask, I think.

Thanks. I also posed a more generalized question in the engineering stackexchange: https://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/29523/what-is-a-material-that-allows-air-to-pass-but-not-water-vapor/29537#29537. So, I think a silicone syringe is the best option to try


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Can 3d printers be operated at voltages above 24 volts?
Going from 12V electronics to 24V produces a reduction in the overall amount of heat generated in the electronics (that are not intended to get hot). These include the motors, drivers, mosfets and pcb traces.
Why then given that 48V power supplies and electronic components cost exactly the same as their 24v counterparts, are there no 48V 3d printers?
Is there a saftey aspect to 48V that needs to be considered?
EDIT: Yes 48V fans cost a little more but it's not exorbitant. It seems odd to move from 12 to 24 to get half as much heat, when you could move from 12 to 48v and get a quarter as much heat.

I believe the main issue is the voltage regulators and capacitors on your standard print main board are not rated for 48V. You can find some CNC shields that can handle up to 36V but these are lacking 3d printer features such as heater ports and only have 4 stepper slots.

So higher rated components cost way more?

Only in the sense that they are not widely used, therefore the demand is not as high causing the per component price to go up. Note I am not an electrical engineer and there very well could be more technical reasons for main stream control boards to reside in the 12V-24V range.

Search EE.SE for a similar question about solar backup batteries. I believe there is something special about 36V which guarantees SELV compliance with lower risk than 48V.

I found another reason. A lot of these boards use linear regulators. Coming down from 48V to 3v3 would produce quite a bit of heat.


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LCD for SLA 3D printer resin curing
I'm doing some research on what types of LCD displays can be used to filter and pass UV light for resin curing - specifically in the context of building a DIY 3D SLA printer.
The community commonly uses the Sharp LS055R1SX03 module. Looking through the datasheet, there doesn't seem to be any information pertaining to the characteristics of the device when passing UV wavelengths. Is there something special about this module that allows it to filter/pass UV wavelengths compared to other common LCD displays?

Hmm I seen videos off people pealing filters off of lcd screens to let uv pass through.
I believe the sharp unit maybe popular because not all lcds have square pixels and have poor pixel alignment towards the edges, (the focus of the eye can only take in so much information why waste materials producing inperceptable rises in quality, much like having a 8k small screen unless the picture is static your hard pushed to notice difference).
There is also diffraction to think about, crystal size in the resin, oxygen membrane or delamination layer to stop cured resin sticking to lcd, I think there are projects of floating resin on another liquid (fluorinated oils work).
Even with better resolution(4k,) the voxel size does not increase in a linear manner, unless the uv light source is focused an colimated like in a lazer.
I don't know much its just info I've gleaned whilst browsing, I'm sure someone will correct any inaccuracies.

I am not an expert by any stretch but I hope this helps, but these are regular old TFT LCD screens. You can even get 4K ones and use them for the same process. You can for example pick up 4K displays such as the H546UAN01.0 and do the same with them.


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Ender 3 has developed a tendancy to skip Y steps
Recently my Ender 3 has developed a problem of skipping Y steps (layer shift in the Y direction), and it seems to be getting progressively worse. I'd never experienced layer shift before a few weeks ago when I tried some extreme accelerations (up to 3000 mm/s²), which mostly worked fine, but I stopped after getting a couple layer shifts, and now have X acceleration at 2000 mm/s² and Y acceleration back at the default of 500 mm/s².
When the layer shifts happen, I usually hear "grinding" sounds that seem like they're coming from friction of the nozzle moving over the already-deposited material. Bed leveling/height is correct though.
Magnitude of the layer shifts varies between 1 mm and 3 mm. They're all in the positive direction (layers shifts towards the back of the bed).
Speeds are reasonable, 30 mm/s for outer walls, 60 mm/s for inner and infill, 120 mm/s for travel.
Is there a likely mechanical or electrical cause for the onset of skipped steps/layer shift?
Is it possible that the high X acceleration is what's allowing the very high travel speed to be achieved, and that such high travel speed is putting the nozzle on top of cold material that it drags on without giving it a chance to soften it first? Or is the printer underpowered such that there's insufficient current to provide the necessary Y motor torque while the X is under high acceleration? Lowering the X acceleration back to default (500 mm/s²) does seem to make it less likely or less severe, but it's still happening.

OK, trying some longer prints, I'm getting even worse layer shifts. The symptoms are almost exactly like https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/9768 making me think it's a bug in Marlin 1.1.9, which I recently upgraded to, and that the very-high-Y-acceleration skips/layer shifts I saw before were unrelated...

Uhg, this seems to be an ongoing issue in Marlin with no clear indication of what was wrong or if it's fixed. https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/10446 and many more bug threads closed without proper conclusions...

If you're observing 'grinding,' then you may be extruding too much material, causing a buildup higher than the next layer.  Even so, a little drag shouldn't cause stepper skipping.    Then again, as I've noted in the past, something like 75% of all "my printer isn't working right" questions here are for Creality Ender models.   Maybe dump it for a more reliable manufacturer.

I'm pretty sure at this point it's Marlin not the printer. Will update later.

Check your belt tensions. Too tight is as bad as too loose.

I've had Y-skipping issues on my prusa, but that is due to switching to plastic bearings and them not being lubricated enough. Essentially too much friction and a little bit of misalignment on the y axes. Make sure that the y axis is not blocked, the axes are parallel to each other and perpendicular to X axis, that the bearings slide with little friction, and that the axis is properly lubricated.

@Mick: I've adjusted X belt tension a few times, but never adjusted Y since factory; it feels the same as it always has. I'll look at that if it doesn't prove to be firmware.

And if it is firmware, I'll open a new question for that rather than edit this one, and close this one with a self-answer that it was firmware.

While I first experienced layer shifts a couple times before upgrading, only while using extreme acceleration settings (3000 mm/s² is fairly extreme for moving the bed), their regular occurrance, which is near-constant with some files, seems to have started after I upgraded the firmware to Marlin 1.1.9. Reverting to the manufacturer's firmware, with no mechanical changes to the printer whatsoever, has the same file printing now with no layer shifts. So I think it's safe to say that this is a firmware problem - either a bug in Marlin, or a problem with the Ender 3 configuration headers for it. The bug tracker suggests this kind of thing is an ongoing issue; here are two among a large number of related bug tracker threads:

https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/9768
https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/10446

I'll try the latest 2.0.x, and/or turning features off one at a time in 1.1.9, and see if I can isolate the cause, then open a new question about bugs in Marlin causing layer shifts if needed.

And this looks promising: https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/12491#issuecomment-443464603

And this might finally be the fix for a second aspect to the issue: https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/pull/16128. I'll update with further info if it is, since I hit layer shifts (albeit more rare) again.

This was never clearly resolved on the tracker, and in hindsight it isn't clear that it was my problem. It might have just been that Marlin 1.1.9/2.0.x were interpreting jerk limits differently than the original vendor firmware, and the jerk limits configured (and corresponding JD constant) were way too high. I won't be revisiting it though since I ended up replacing the board with the SKR mini E3 and the problem went away entirely after that even with much more extreme acceleration profiles...

Of course that leaves plenty of possible mechanisms for how it failed: weak or overheating stepper drivers, slow AVR unable to keep up with stepping schedule, bugs in Marlin only affecting AVR, etc. etc.


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Y-axis layer shifts with recent Marlin on Ender 3
Since upgrading from the manufacturer's firmare to recent Marlin (first 1.1.9, then 2.0.x git HEAD), I've been having significant model-dependent (didn't happen for first few things I tried to print; other prints reproduce it reliably) layer shifting on the Y axis. It's always in the positive Y direction, usually by 1-3 mm at a time.

I first suspected mechanical problems (see: Ender 3 has developed a tendancy to skip Y steps), but reverting the firmware confirmed that it's a firmware problem.
A number of bug tracker entries for Marlin indicate that there are significant ongoing layer shift problems:

https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/9768
https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/10446
https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/12403

But most end up getting closed. Some people say reverting to 1.1.9 from 2.0.x helped; others say 1.1.9 is EOL and to use 2.0.x. Is there a solution? How do I get a working version of Marlin (new enough to have Linear Advance 1.5, which was my motivation for upgrading) on Ender 3?

Buried in a bug tracker entry for a seemingly unrelated issue, I found what seems to be the solution:

@johanmga, I've discovered the velocity jumps here come from using "classic jerk" computations, and happen whether or not s-curve acceleration is enabled.
Try uncommenting //#define JUNCTION_DEVIATION in Configuration_adv.h; that will disable classic jerk and use the junction deviation math instead.
Also for reference, issue #12403 is actively tracking the layer shift issue (please comment there too if you have more information on problems/solutions), and #12540 is has more information on classic jerk vs. junction deviation.

https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/12491#issuecomment-443464603
It seems that the "classic jerk" code no longer works and produces erroneous motion to the steppers under some conditions (dependent on G-code contents), whereas the Ender 3 default configuration file is still using it.
With the default JUNCTION_DEVIATION_MM of 0.02, things worked right away, but printing was so slow that I could plausibly attribute it working just to the slowness.  But increasing it up to 0.1 via the menus got the speed closer to what I'm used to, and it's still printing with no layer shifts.
I've posted my results in the tracker in hopes that they'll lead to discovery of the root cause: https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/12403#issuecomment-519305409
Another issue on the tracker seems to have more detail:
https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/12540#issuecomment-442793326

I subsequently did have more layer shifts, and never identified the root cause, but I haven't had a single one since upgrading the controller board to SKR mini E3.


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Why do my prints have such a rough surface? (Taz Lulzbot Pro)
Model: Taz Lulzbot Pro
Things we tried to get it to work:

Tried both ABS and PLA Hatchbox brand
Uploaded new set of settings from another printer of the same brand that works using the hatchbox.
Tried using Polylite PLA with Ultimaker Cura Lulzbot edition settings

The printer managed to print, but the samples printed were of very poor quality and are filled with ridges and has an uneven surface (I've attached a picture below). The printer automatically cancels the print and quits printing on layer three because the nozzle rubs against these ridges and cannot print properly.

What are settings that may lead to this issue? What is a good place to start trying to improve my results?

Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE!

It sounds like you're not moving enough with each Z move (probably), or extruding too much material (possibly). Get an object that has a known height (verify with calipers) near your max travel in the Z, and move the Z to that distance, then see how the piece fits. Post your findings.

Also, tell us if this is a new printer (to you), or if it has a history of good prints (or of poor prints).

This looks like Z axis offset is set incorrectly. That should come with an appropriate setting from the factory (for my printer it's -.85mm), but that setting can get lost a few ways; you can either reenter the factory setting (if your print head hasn't been opened up), or recalibrate -- but if doing the latter, be sure the nozzle is clean, or the calibration routine can cause the problem you're trying to solve!

If You've Never Reassembled Your Toolhead
Check that the settings from the QA record are still installed.
Your printer came with a sheet of paper including all the measurements that were taken when the calibration prints that came with it were created. If you updated firmware with several versions of Cura LE between the Pro's release and the fix for the relevant bug, the update would have cleared the EEPROM with those settings. A good place to start is to put them back in.
The full set of settings isn't just Z axis offset, but also offset between the two heads, and backlash measurements -- but if you lost Z axis offset, you're likely to have lost all of them, so it's worth going over the full set.

If You Have Reassembled Your Toolhead
Clean the nozzle, and rerun automatic calibration.
"Clean the nozzle", that is, by bringing it up to temperature and using the brillo pad that came in the little toolkit with the printer.
When I say "automatic calibration", I'm not referring to the leveling routine that runs with every print, but the longer routine that's accessed under "Measure automatically" button in the backlash or nozzle offset "Advanced Settings" LCD menu.
The automatic calibration routines determine when the head is in contact with the calibration cube via electrical conductivity. If there's anything on the head that can stop a circuit from being created the moment it touches the cube, that's going to throw off the calculated locations.
(BTW, if your printer doesn't warn you on the LCD display that the head should be clean and unloaded when running this operation, you're probably on old firmware; update Cura LE, and let it upload new firmware for you).
The test print at https://download.lulzbot.com/TAZ/TAZ_Pro/v1.0.3/sample_prints/calibration/vernier_dim-test.gcode (which is perhaps more compact than the one that came with your printer, if you got one of the very first units off the assembly line) pairs with the instructions/documentation in steps 15-19 at https://ohai.lulzbot.com/project/calibration-taz-pro/quiver/. That said, the Z-axis measurements are mostly pertinent for the very beginning of step 15, measuring the height of the skirt around the print before it starts. (You'll want to either pause or cancel the print to remove the skirt for measurement in your calipers; the sample gcode delay isn't long enough to do it carefully otherwise!).

And Don't Be Afraid To Call Support
Customer service from folks who know their stuff and are around evenings and weekends are part of what you're paying for when you buy a Lulzbot. The above is taken from my experience diagnosing quality issues on a TAZ Pro, but support knows what they're doing much better than I do; don't be shy about taking advantage!


text:
Bigtreetech upload stalled after uncommented REPRAP_DISCOUNT_FULL_GRAPHIC_SMART_CONTROLLER
I recently bought a BigTreeTech SKR V1.3 and uncommented REPRAP_DISCOUNT_FULL_GRAPHIC_SMART_CONTROLLER and clicked the upload button but faced an error that says:
Marlin\src\lcd\ultralcd.cpp:767:9: error: 'touch_buttons' was not declared in this scope
if (touch_buttons) {
^~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marlin\src\lcd\ultralcd.cpp:767:9: note: suggested alternative: 'buttons'
if (touch_buttons) {

^~~~~~~~~~~~~
buttons
Marlin\src\lcd\ultralcd.cpp:805:5: error: 'else' without a previous 'if'
else wait_for_unclick = false;
^~~~
*** [.pio\build\LPC1768\src\src\lcd\ultralcd.cpp.o] Error 1

I am not sure what above message means, but can anyone else shed some light on why I am receiving these errors?
FWIW, I am using Marlin 2.

There is a temporary solution which I have found here, on the reprap forums, Re: Upload to the board failed after LCD enabled:

An official fix has been posted. Grab the new ultralcd.cpp from [github.com]

Apparently the sources contained a bug which was fixed later, a new version download fixed the problem.

I realize this is "your" own answer, however, rules still apply to answering your own question. As it stands right now, it can only be construed as a "link only" answer, which would make it ripe for deletion. Please post the gist of the information here in the question and use the link as reference. The reason why we ask this is because links can become stale ... if you bring the information here, it's here for perpetuity.

So what is the actual solution? The link is just to another question... As Paulster2 states, please edit your answer and include the solution.

Marlin 2.0.0 is in an Alpha state. 'Alpha' is a state before Beta, meaning, it's not hot off the presses, it isn't even off the presses. You need to go back to the most recent "stable" version of Marlin, which is 1.1.9 (found on the same page as the link above). This should most likely solve the errors and problems you're seeing.

Marlin 1.1.9. is not compatible with 32-bit boards like the SKR 1.3.
In my personal opinion, there's no reason to use 1.1.9 for any printer these days.

Marlin 2.0 is still very much in development.
If you face issues like this and you're certain you haven't introduced any typos,
try downloading the most current version of Marlin again (Github -> Download -> Download zip).
Copy in your configuration files and try to compile.
If the issue persists, you may try to use a version from a few days / weeks ago.
For this, select a previous commit from this list, and press the <> button to activate it.


text:
How to fight lots of stringing with PLA at low temperature (185 °C)?
I just got my first 3D printer (Creality Ender 3) on Friday, 2 days ago. It works great, but for some reason I'm getting a lot of stringing on my prints, especially the ones where the extruder head has to move a long distance between columns/posts, etc.
I'm using Hatchbox "True White" PLA, which has a recommended temperature range of 180-210 °C. I've tried printing at 200, 190, and 185 °C and didn't see much improvement. I've also made sure I've enabled the 'retract' setting in the slicer (4.5 mm) and verified the printer is retracting when it should.
I'm not sure what else I can try... any suggestions?

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! Do you have a representative image of what you are talking about? Please add it to the body of your question as an edit.

Which slicer do you use? What is your retraction speed?

@Gogeta  If the option is available in your slicer, you might need to adjust the coast and wipe settings.  Also you might want to try printing PLA at 235C

@GlennG: 235 is extreme temperature for PLA and not a good idea as something random to try. 185 is also extremely low though. Generally the high end of the filament manufacturer's range is what you should use; that works well on my Ender 3. Also, you should not need to set coast or wipe settings to do basic printing of PLA on an Ender 3. They might be useful for more exotic materials, but it's more likely they're only useful as workarounds for other problems that could be fixed in better ways.

I typically use 205 °C when printing PLA and find it works fine.

4.5 mm is a low retraction distance. Cura's default is 6.5 mm, and the Ender 3 profile provided with Cura sets it to 6 mm. The first thing you should try is increasing the retraction amount up to at least 6 mm. Also, make sure you actually enabled retraction. I saw one question here where a Cura user had enabled "Retract at layer change", which does not enable retraction (but of course it shows the options like retraction amount since you need to be able to select it for this too).
Your low nozzle temperature of 185 °C is also a problem. You'll have very low flow at that temperature, resulting in under-extrusion and pressure building up in the nozzle instead of extruding the material. That in turn will make it so, even after retracting, there's still material (and pressure) at the nozzle and it will keep oozing, unless you set a really high retraction amount (and even then problems will build up over time during the print, but you might get lucky and not see them). The only way to print PLA at 185 °C is really, really slowly.
In general, some people would also recommend trying a different filament, based on reports that some vendors' PLA oozes and strings badly, but I don't think that's an issue for you. I use Hatchbox filament on my Ender 3 all the time and never have a problem with stringing from it. And even if the filament is prone to stringing, you can almost surely avoid it with proper settings. Even very soft flex filaments can be printed on this printer without stringing as long as your retraction, temperature, and speed are tuned to avoid having pressure at the nozzle during travel moves.

After seeing your answer, I changed the retract setting to 8mm and used a temperature of 200 °C. I got a LOT less stringing this time around - thank you! However, I still am getting some roughly 0.5 inch strands of plastic hanging off the sides of the posts (I'm printing a base that an arduino can screw into). What would you recommend I try to help reduce that effect even further?

I use 210 °C with Hatchbox PLA, but never had problems when I experimented with lower temperatures. I wonder if you have something else going on causing the problem too. Can you provide more information about what slicer you're using, print speeds, any other settings you might have changed, etc.?

I'm using the Creality Slicer 1.2.2 with these settings: https://i.ibb.co/KmHKBMD/print-settings.png

I've never used Creality's software. You might try Cura and/or slic3r and see if the problem goes away - it could be that Creality's software is doing something wrong with retraction (like not doing it in some places it needs to).

Alright, I'll give that a shot. Thanks for all your help.

I had the same problem with an Ender 3 in the beginning. For me it helped to re-adjust the bed levelling (lower the bed a bit, i.e. more space between nozzle and bed)

The way to optimise retraction is to use this retraction optimisation tool, which tests various retraction distances and speeds.
Remember to perform this calibration AFTER you set pressure or linear advance, which has a higher priority.

You will be able to pick the settings which work the best for that filament brand and type. You will have to do it again if you switch material or brand.

decrease retraction speed to 25-30mm/sec

Try changing retraction to 6 mm but slow it down to 25 mm.  Stopped all of my stringing issues with Hatchbox.

Something strange happened to me (Ender 3 with CR Touch), changed my firmware and stringing happened. I was slicing with Cura and went through three days of breaking my head. You know how I fixed it? Simple, I looked for a pre-made retraction temp. And guess what? It was the slicer all along. I changed to Simplify3D and all of my stringing disappeared. I can't explain what happened, but Cura decided to flop on me. maybe look for pre-sliced G-code tests online, hope you can fix your problem.

Can you elaborate on what "pre-made retraction temp" is? I'm not sure what that means. Did you just reduce hotend temps or something else?

@Kezat I think the text is missing the word "tower", otherwise I cannot explain it.


text:
RAMPS 1.4 Stepper's not getting a good signal
Running on the Marlin 1.1 firmware, for this issue, most other variables of the printer can just be assumed (It's a CoreXY design, but think i3 for my current testing). (Highlighted my only lead in bold, so probably best to read that first)
The problem:
X-axis stepper driver and motor moves fine, all other axis's don't.
What I've tried and deduced.

I've inverted all endstops and ruled out end stop errors, as well as any warnings that get reported through serial.
Swapped stepper drivers from the Y axis (just focusing on the Y axis for now) to the X axis, the X axis is still the only one that moves.
Swapped the X and Y axis motors: only the Y axis motor works, so still only getting powered from the X axis driver
Tested power on the stepper drivers, all stepper drivers get the same motor and logic power within margin of error
Tested step signal on the Y axis with an oscilloscope, found my only lead, when moving the X-axis, the step control has a peak voltage of ~5.2v and the motor moves. When testing the Y axis, the step input voltage from the Arduino  to the driver has a peak of ~1.7v
Assuming something may be wrong with the connection, I tested the resistance between all step pins from the Arduino side to the stepper driver itself and got a constant resistance of 2.5 ohms for all drivers, pins are connected properly.
Pulled the Arduino out, uploaded and ran a custom servo script on it, using pin A6 as the PWM control signal. Server runs fine with the correct voltage (ruled out a microcontroller issue).
Reassembled the RAMPS, motors etc, reuploaded a fresh copy of Marlin from their site that I configured from scratch and did some extra probing around to make sure all the connects are fine, still, only the X-axis works.

Do you own an oscilloscope or could you use a sound card as one so we can generate some readings together?

I own a full digital storage oscilloscope, though I replaced the stepper drivers and all of the axis work now. turns out the one was partially shorting the digital pin causing the remaining drivers to lose power. So glad I figured this out before buying a new logic board.

Turns out there were multiple faulty stepper drivers, if the one stepper driver was plugged in, it would operate, but would draw too much current from the pins on the Arduino causing all the other drivers to receive weak signals.
This is why swapping them around still only worked on the X-axis, if it was only one driver, I would have figured it out.
So if you get a very weak signal on the stepper driver step pin, even when it's pulled out, it's probably because of one of the other stepper drivers shorting the whole rail.


text:
Why don't 3D printer heads use ceramic inner walls?
Why don't 3D printer heads use ceramic inner walls? PTFE tubes melt with high enough temperatures and all metal ends risk jamming as heat makes its way up the head.

It can be done cheaply, as two different users have proven, see

A practical 10 Cents Ceramic tube hotend, and;
Hotend with ceramic parts.

However, as Paulster2 states in his answer, there are some technical issues with using it, which make it rather problematic. Apparently, in comparison with PTFE, the thermal conductivity of the ceramic in spark plugs is too high, to use (according to nophead - a user on the reprap forums), and there are friction/clogging issues, unless the inner diameter is very well polished.

Synopsis of reference
The RepRap user, hp_, encountered the issues above when attempting a design - from Ceramic Hotend - Part 1

Research
As far as I know there are no ceramic hotends out there, I know
  nophead has tried some spark-plugs for nozzle holders but found them
  not suitable(thermal conductivity is pretty high). I wanted to give it
  a go, confident enough (I hoped), that it would work :)
So in my case, a hotend exists out of 2 main parts, a nozzle holder
  and a nozzle.

The nozzle is the easy part it would stay brass.
The nozzle holder is the interesting part, here is what I've come-up with

total length should be in the range of 35-40mm, see my first sketch
  below:

here are many types of ceramic out there, ie. 95% AI2O3, 99% AI2O3,
  Zirconia (see material properties sheet Link)
95% AI2O3 is easy to buy but after a few tests the conclusion was its
  to brittle for my taste, second material to try is Zirconia.
I've found a few Chinese ceramic manufactures. Only draw back I had to
  order 10 pieces for the first batch.. on something that has never been
  tested, well I'd give it a shot.... and ordered the parts.

but the clogging issue mentioned above was encountered:

...after the first layer, it just stopped extruding.. ugh!!! what could
  be wrong????
Possible root causes
  - Friction coefficient? Meaning after awhile the friction between PLA and the Ceramic became so high it would just jam the nozzle holder.

Stickiness? Could it be that after awhile PLA would just stick to the Ceramic and would jam because of this?
PLA thermal expansion( nozzle holder barrel is to small?) so the inner diameter of this nozzle holder is 3.2mm, could it be that the
  3.0mm filament would expand so much because of the heat, that it would start to jam the nozzle holder?
Connection between nozzle and nozzle holder is insufficient cause the Jam??

The user was forced to return to using PTFE.
From Ceramic hotend part-2, after some rework done by the Chinese manufacturer, the new hotends worked correctly:

Awhile ago i stared working on the ceramic hotend and found out the
  first version wouldn't work for 3.0mm fillament,
after some discussion with my chinese counterpart :) i got a new
  version of the ceramic piece.
They polished the inside very deep and precise. and i gave it another
  go.

and

some more tinkering with the hotend and a new nozzle design, with a smaller Inner diameter, and its longer

Apart from that the details are a little sparse.

Additional information
From J-head with ceramic body instead of PEEK, specifically this post:

Just to be clear, it's Ceramic Zirconium.
My concern was that Zirconium becomes brittle when it is exposed to heat for consecutive long periods of time. I would stay with PEEK.

MgO or Yttria stabilized grades of Zirconium are very stable.
Pure ZrO2 is known to crack, so additives are used to stabilize it.
Key Properties of Zirconium Oxide

Use temperatures up to 2400°C
High density
Low thermal conductivity (20% that of alumina)
Chemical inertness
Resistance to molten metals
Ionic electrical conduction
Wear resistance
High fracture toughness
High hardness

Typical Uses of ZrO2

Precision ball valve balls and seats
High density ball and pebble mill grinding media
Rollers and guides for metal tube forming
Thread and wire guides
Hot metal extrusion dies
Deep well down-hole valves and seats  -Powder compacting dies
Marine pump seals and shaft guides
Oxygen sensors
High temperature induction furnace susceptors
Fuel cell membranes
Electric furnace heaters over 2000°C in oxidizing atmospheres

Zirconium oxide
Zirconium oxide is used due to its polymorphism. It exists in three
  phases: monoclinic, tetragonal, and cubic. Cooling to the monoclinic
  phase after sintering causes a large volume change, which often causes
  stress fractures in pure zirconia. Additives such as magnesium,
  calcium and yttrium are utilized in the manufacture of the knife
  material to stabilize the high-temperature phases and minimize this
  volume change. The highest strength and toughness is produced by the
  addition of 3 mol% yttrium oxide yielding partially stabilized
  zirconia. This material consists of a mixture of tetragonal and cubic
  phases with a bending strength of nearly 1200 MPa. Small cracks allow
  phase transformations to occur, which essentially close the cracks and
  prevent catastrophic failure, resulting in a relatively tough ceramic
  material, sometimes known as TTZ (transformation toughened zirconia).
Zirconium dioxide is one of the most studied ceramic materials. Pure
  ZrO2 has a monoclinic crystal structure at room temperature and
  transitions to tetragonal and cubic at increasing temperatures. The
  volume expansion caused by the cubic to tetragonal to monoclinic
  transformation induces very large stresses, and will cause pure ZrO2
  to crack upon cooling from high temperatures. Several different oxides
  are added to zirconia to stabilize the tetragonal and/or cubic phases:
  magnesium oxide (MgO), yttrium oxide, (Y2O3), calcium oxide (CaO), and
  cerium(III) oxide (Ce2O3), amongst others.
In the late 1980s, ceramic engineers learned to stabilize the
  tetragonal form at room temperature by adding small amounts (3–8
  mass%) of calcium and later yttrium or cerium. Although stabilized at
  room temperature, the tetragonal form is “metastable,” meaning that
  trapped energy exists within the material to drive it back to the
  monoclinic state. The highly localized stress ahead of a propagating
  crack is sufficient to trigger grains of ceramic to transform in the
  vicinity of that crack tip. In this case, the 4.4% volume increase
  becomes beneficial, essentially squeezing the crack closed (i.e.,
  transformation decreases the local stress intensity).

and the following post

Thermal conductivity:

Diamond thermal conductivity: 1000 W/(m·K).
Copper thermal conductivity: 385 to 401 W/(m·K).
Aluminum: 205 W/(m·K).
Stainless steel 16 W/(m·K).
Granite: 1.7 to 4 W/(m·K).
Zirconia has a typical thermal conductivity of 1.7 to 2.2 W/(m·K).
Porcelain has a typical thermal conductivity of 1.5 to 5 W/(m·K).
Glass thermal conductivity: 1.05 W/(m·K).

Rulon
As an aside, again from J-head with ceramic body instead of PEEK, specifically this post:

Rulon was one material we used. I think it is a glass filled ptfe. The mechanical strength is far better than solid ptfe and it is easy to machine. There are many grades but Rulon AR for example will withstand 288 deg C.

but there are inconsistencies in quality

Rulon i looked at a while ago, there are plenty of options with it, however the cost of some of these materials can be incredibly high, and in some cases availability is a serious problem, and the difference country to country is borderline criminal in some cases

Because PTFE doesn't transmit heat very well? The whole idea when using a PTFE tube (and this is just my understanding ... which could be wrong), is for the tubing not to transmit heat, therefore allowing the filament to pass through it without melting or at the very least, collecting a lot of heat along the way (which helps prevent jams). PTFE does a pretty good job of standing up to heat while accomplishing the task at hand. Ceramic does an excellent job of standing up to heat. The problem is, it will pass the heat along to the filament, most likely melting it, thus causing it to deform and jam before it gets to the hot end. This would then become a maintenance nightmare.


text:
How to set up Marlin to use a heated chamber?
I have an infrared lamp I'd like to use to heat my chamber. Right now I don't have plans to install a cooling fan, but I will if I need to. This question pertains to Marlin (2.0, preferably) in combination with an MKS Gen L v1.0 board.
In the documentation for the thermal settings it specifies you can set a heater pin to be used to heat up the chamber. It says this variable is called the CHAMBER_HEATER_PIN but in Marlin 2.0's Configuration_adv.h file there is something called a HEATER_CHAMBER_PIN that has been commented out.
Secondly the Configuration.h file:  there is something called an AUTO_POWER_CHAMBER_FAN. Is this meant for a fan used for cooling, or a fan used for cleaning out the chamber of particles? In either case, I probably don't want to have this fan always on, but only use it to cool the temperature the heater has been on too long.
So really there should be only 2-3 changes I need to make right:

I need to specify an already present digital pin for

the chamber heater
the chamber cooler (fan)

Turn thermal runway active.
It needs to use the Marlin Chamber feature so that the readout temperature appears as "C:" in the arduino logs. This allows compatibility with octoprint
Lastly I need to set an analog pin for the chamber thermistor

These are the things I can't fully figure out on my own.
A detailed set of instructions or code snippets for a similar setup would be helpful

what board is this using?

MKS Gen V1.0. I would prefer Marlin 2.0 actually. I am going to update the question actually to specify that firmware. I would prefer to use the X-MAX or Y-MAX endstop as the heated chamber digital pin. And the thermistor can be the second extruder thermistor

a MKS Gen L 1.0? The board is relevent because you need to have some pins free, using the unused endstops could be an option, if the board can be retaught to do so.

Yes I agree that there are a lot of other pins free on the Gen L. I want to use the max endstops though because they have a 3 wire slotted connection and won't come off the board when connected. They also have everything you need to activate a relay (5V, GND, D2). Im comfortable with activating new pins, it's just using the "Chamber" feature of Marlin that I specifically want to use because it is compatible with Octoprint. There doesn't seem to be any documentation on the web for it, except perhaps the answer to this question.

I tried to rework the question for easier readability.

Here is what I found to be the easiest solution. Please use this image for reference. I recommend doing these instructions once from source, since a lot of things can go wrong,  then once everything works, go back and integrate them into your existing Marlin codebase.

Get some 5V relays to run the infrared lamps. These relays take in a 5V digital signal from an arduino pin. When the arduino activates these pins, the lamps will turn on. Get a cardboard box, line it with aluminum foil, and attach a lamp to the top of it using a lamp switch. If you are going to do this NEVER leave the box unattended, as a relay can get fail especially when it gets warm (this happened to me). Dont cause a fire, make sure to keep it attended. Anyway, One wire for the lightbulb goes to NO on the relay, the other goes to D-. One wire from 120V power goes to COM, the other also goes to D-. The yellow "jumper" on the relay boards I posted goes between HIGH and the middle pin. These are pins on the relay, not the MKS GEN board.

On the MKS GEN board, we will be using the X-MAX endstop as the digital pin to run the chamber. Wire the 5V pin on X-MAX to the D+ of the relay. Wire the GND pin to D- of the relay with the two other wires there. Wire pin D2 on the MKS GEN Board to IN on the relay. Bold means the pin is on the MKS GEN board.

Clone the Marlin-2.0 repo: git clone -b bugfix-2.0.x https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin.git

In Configuration.h, change TEMP_SENSOR_CHAMBER to 1 or 11 (depends on your thermistor, might be other values.) Since we will be using the board's second extruder thermistor as the thermistor in this example, change TEMP_SENSOR_1 to 0 for now.

#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 1
#define TEMP_SENSOR_1 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_2 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_3 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_4 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_5 0
#define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 1
#define TEMP_SENSOR_CHAMBER 1

In the file src/pins/ramps/pins_RAMPS.h, add this line:
#define TEMP_CHAMBER_PIN 15. Note that this is the thermistor
slot usually used for a second extruder. If you're already using
this thermistor for the second extruder and want to use a different
analog pin, see this question. You'll need some resistors.

Also, around line 95 in pins_RAMPS.h, change X_MAX_PIN to use an unused pin. The number 4 is good. If you don't do this, your Chamber's digital Pin will be always "on" by default. You want it off by default, then activated by the Marlin code.

In Configuration_adv.h, change //#define HEATED_CHAMBER_PIN 44 to #define HEATER_CHAMBER_PIN 2 to use the X_MAX endstop's digital pin.

Upload...

Go into OctoPrint settings. Click Axes and Volume. Next to a checkbox for heated bed, there is a checkbox for heated chamber! Click that, and your chamber is active.

If some part is wrong (e.g. lamp doesn't go on because wire came loose on relay), debug that and keep working. Check the octoprint log to make sure the C value is shown.

Once everything works, generalize these solutions to your set-up (e.g. using multiple extruders).

"Please use this image for reference.".  We would if it still existed. This is another example of why images etc. should always be permanently included in the post, not simply referenced by a mortal link.