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Some problems with printing on my Ender 3
This week I got an Ender 3. When printing the models, I get some inaccuracies on them. I tried printing a low-polygon chess rook, and it isn't printed accurately. It has these additional plastic printed that shouldn't be there:

It also isn't symmetrical:

On the top there should be 4 identical cuboids, but on the 2 of them there isn't plastic inside and also they are slightly wider:

This is the STL file and also the G-code file sliced by Ultimaker Cura: files
My specifications:

printer: Ender 3 (nothing is modded, no parts have been changed)
slicing software: Ultimaker Cura
slicing settings:

layer height: 0.12 mm
printing speed: 30 mm/s

initial layer printing speed: 20 mm/s

brim adhesion
quality: 0.16 mm
fan speed: 100%

I have properly calibrated the Esteps/mm and I have levelled the bed correctly.
I would really appreciate your help, I'm new to the 3D printing world.

To follow up advice from comments, I've tightened the X-axis belt and printed the calibration cube, I think now it should be good:
 I'll print the rook model once more and maybe the symmetry will be good now.

have you tried running an alignment check. https://www.matterhackers.com/articles/top-ten-prints-to-calibrate-your-3d-printer

@VarunW. I haven't done these tests. Should I try doing all of them, or are there any specific ones for the problems I mentioned? Thank you.

I would try one and see which axis the problem occurs at then just timer that axis until it works.

Seems like eiterh X or Y is off - please show us a cube that has alignment marks on it, such as one that has X Y Z on the respective surfaces.

@Trish I've tightened the X belt and printed the calibration cube. Since I can't post images in the comments I've edited the question. Is the calibration cube looking good? Thank you!

The initial rook showed the clear signs of improperly tensioned belts. It is understandable to include that part into the question, but, it is part of the solution. Please remember SE sites are different than traditional forums, here we ask questions which are answered by the community or yourself through help of the comments to request additional information. Please take the [tour] and visit [help]! If belt tension is the final conclusion, please remove the part under the line in your question and put that in an answer. Thanks!

@0scar thank you, I've applied your edit. I will print the model once more tomorrow and if the belt tightening is the solution, I will post that as an answer.

So I've been trying to fix that problem and I've managed to do it. I have tightened the X axis belt and went through all configuration files on https://teachingtechyt.github.io, that fixed my problem. Thank you for helping me to solve this issue.


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Is it possible to change the orientation that filament is laid down for the top layer in Cura Slicer?
In Cura Slicer, is it possible to change the direction that the filament is laid down when making the top layer?

For example, in the above picture the filiment is laid down at about 45 degrees to the X\Y axis. Can I make it 90 degrees?

Yes. Set "Top Surface Skin Layers" (roofing layers) to at least 1 and "Top Surface Skin Line Directions" to 0 or 90 as appropriate (instead of 45 and 135).

Which version did this feature appear in?

@Trish: Looks like 2.7, commit 26ac70d2bd adds the config item to fdmprinter.def.json. This was in 2017, well before I used Cura or even a 3D printer.

@Trish: It's part of the general "roofing" feature of Cura, whose purpose is to let you use more visually appealing (or, if you're pushing the limits of your printer on top layers to the point that there are structural gaps, more structurally sound) speed, acceleration, line width, etc. settings for the last layer ot two at the top, without imposing that cost on however many top layers you need (typically 4-5 in my experience, maybe more with some combinations of layer height etc.)

Found it! it is a setting you need to enable first

Based on the comment in Trish's answer, a custom solution might be possible using g-code, but would likely be quite tedious. I have a (retired) client whose career spanned more years than I've been alive. He traversed his development from manual machining through punched cards/paper tape and through CAD/CAM, but always created the g-code from the ground up.
One could, for example, locate a CAM program with which one is comfortable and set about defining tool paths and related configurations. Fusion 360 may have a slicer feature in the non-free portion; I've not pursued that aspect of the software.
One could also examine the g-code generated for a specific layer and make appropriate adjustments to the direction of travel, extrusion commands, speed, etc.
An Instructable exists which describes a method to create a hollow cube for 3D printing, but it's severely limited in scope, in my opinion. It has triggered another thought, to use the g-code generated for laser cutting/engraving as a foundation for the above noted manual creation.
For example, a g-code based laser (i.e., GRBL) could be commanded to cut lines spaced apart by the filament width when placed by the printer, often 0.4 mm approximately. LightBurn software (multi-platform, 30-day free trial, supports GRBL) would allow you to experiment creating the initial code, which would then require manual editing for temperatures and extrusion rates.
This would require substantial experimentation and substantial time and effort.

Yes with a few tricks:
You could turn the item by 45°, then all layers are turned to follow the local X and Y-axis of the body itself, but not the global X and Y of the printer - there'll be a 45° conversion between the items local coordinates and the printers global ones.
Or you could choose a different upper layer pattern, for example concentric, for the upper and lowermost layer.
If you want to define a specific zig-zag direction, you need to go advanced mode, click the gear and enable "Top/Bottom Line Direction". This now allows altering the direction by setting an angle different from 45°/135°. The setting however is ignored if you don't use Lines or ZigZag

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Weird lines in the print at specific heights
I recently upgraded my Ender 3 printer with all metal extruder and upgraded my mainboard from 4.2.2 to 4.2.7 silent board. I also added a Creality touch sensor for auto bed leveling.
Before these upgrades the prints were coming out fine. But after all these upgrades I printed the xyz calibration cube and it came out with weird lines in the print like in the below images.

It looks like there are 2 issues. One at the top where it looks like it has under extruded and the other at the bottom where it has some weird line. Also these line appears at the same exact height and I tried printing the same cube multiple times and the result is the same. I need help in figuring out what this issue is, why it is occurring and how do I fix it.

might there be a bad spot on the leadscrew?

@Trish I checked it. It looks good to me. There is no bending or deformation of the screw. Not sure what might be the issue.

Do the lines occur at the same height as inner floor and roof of the cube?

@Gauthier Yes for that xyz cube it occurs at the same height always.

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


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Extruder keeps crashing into print
I have an Ender 3 Pro and I am trying to print a fairly delicate model of a low-polygon chicken as a Christmas ornament.

My slicer is Cura 4.11.0.  I have successfully printed a dozen of them with 0.2 mm layer height but the legs break off super easily.  As soon as I increase the quality to 0.16 mm and/or change the wall thickness to 5 (to cause complete infill in the legs) the extruder crashes into the print about 80 % through, every time (n=6).  I tried changing these settings (while also troubleshooting globbing/stringing):

Combing Mode: noskin to infill
Z Hop When Retracted: False to True
Max Comb Distance With No Retract: 30 to 10.0 mm per this post
Build Plate Adhesion Type: skirt to brim (less resistant to falling over)
Printing Temperature: 200 to 190 °C
Print Speed: 50 to 30 mm/s
Outer Wall Wipe Distance: 0.0 to 0.1 mm

I've tried three materials, all 1.75 mm PLA:

325(1000G) Silk silver blue 111932
Silk 335M(1KG) Silver 111858
Eryone Marble

The first two generic materials are pretty crap.  The gooping and stringing didn't occur nearly as much with the Eryone Marble.  But that issue aside, the extruder keeps crashing into the print.  The brim and increased wall thickness resist the collisions but eventually, the force is great enough that the print breaks:

Resources:

Timelapse video of failure
G Code of broken print
G Code of working print

I'm just not sure what else to do.  I've never had this issue before on any other model I've printed.  I used a level to ensure the bed is flat.  I'm using a glass bed with great adhesion (clearly; the model breaks before it comes off the bed.)  Instead of the Z-stop, I'm using the BLTouch, which samples 16 points before every print.
I thought that maybe moisture trapped in the material might be slightly increasing layer height with each layer, causing the print to fail after the same number of layers each time late in the print with a low layer height, but succeeding with a higher layer height.  However, the ambient air temperature is 17 °C and the relative humidity is 44 %, not particularly high. Furthermore, different materials of different ages stored in the same location have the same failure.  I don't have a dehydrator to be totally sure, though.  I've been wanting to build one so this may be a good excuse.  But any other advice or suggestions would be immensely appreciated!

What's your nozzle diameter and fill density? +two things to check: 1) Keep 0.2 mm layers and increase wall thickness to 5, set infill pattern to "Concentric", you can also reduce fill density (looks like legs break because of the weight of layers on top) 2) Try better material - PLA plastic is not the strongest one. One of the best suitable for your printer is a mix of PC and ABS plastic. PC is even stronger, but your printer may not support temperature necessary to print it. Pure ABS can also work well.

Thanks @StepanNovikov.  I am using 0.4mm nozzle with 20% infill density.  I did try 0.2mm layers with wall thickness to 5, but I did not try any different infill patterns.  Why concentric?  Regarding other materials, I've never tried anything other than PLA!  I have half a mind to try other materials soon.

I was trying concentric in print with legs and it was a bit more durable than with rectilinear in such places with 100% infill in my experience, however, in general a print would be less strong, especially in places without 100% infill. As I understand, this adds a bit of elasticity even for rigid plastics like ABS, let alone PLA, so to some extent thin concentric shapes like legs would bend instead of break. Anyway, IMHO using plastic with a bit better mechanical qualities like ABS or ABS+PC would give better effect than such tricks.

Do you know if its the nozzle or the bl touch that hits the part ?  Given the last layer is the widest so-far, I wonder if the levelling sensor is mounted low enough to catch it ?

Totally unrelated - try "lightning infill" pattern and see how much time/plastic it saves you.

@Criggie Thanks for the reply!  It is the nozzle that crashes into the print.  The BLTouch sensor in closed position is at least a couple centimeters above the nozzle hot end.


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Impact on 3D printer of movement forced over the limit
Faulty endstop caused the printer (a traditional cartesian FDM) to try to move over the maximum axis limit at top, the noise has been atrocious, I don't see damages (apparently) but I'm wondering if this could have damaged something or the motors aren't strong enough to do any serious physical damage to mechanics of movement.
Could you clarify this?

classic fdm has no physical x-max switch.

the faulty one caused miscalibration that ended with wrong calculation of the distances and this outcome

steppers are usually built to take a bit of a pounding.  Part of their inefficiencies come from each step being both an acceleration and deceleration of the rotor.  The issue is usually that they can only dissipate so much heat- insulation on the coils deteriorates from heat.  If your drivers' current limits are per motor spec and you stopped it, I'd consider it OK.

It's highly unlikely this crash caused any physical or electrical damage to your printer. Printers are designed to be able to withstand an occasional crash as typically, no Axis Maximum endstops are installed. The 'atrocious' noise you describe hearing is the sound of the stepper motor having lost (or, in this case, repeatedly losing) steps. If you are worried, I would check that the X/Y Gantries are still in-tram and that the printer can still home itself without any problems.
If this was a Z-Max runout (ie, printer tried to move too high), I would also check that the Z carriage is still on the Z axis Leadscrews before attempting to home, because if the Z carriage is not on one or both of the leadscrews, It is possible for the machine to engage them at different heights, throwing the X gantry out of tram or worse if only one leadscrew manages to re-engage.

The noise you heard was likely caused by the extruder keeping turning, resulting in the belt stretching enough to jump a tooth or more. I guess it was like "TRRRRR".
If the belt tension is properly set (not too tight), no damage can be caused. In fact, the belt should be loose enough so that such a mistake won't cause damages.
You could also reduce the current to the stepper motors in the future, to reduce even further the risk of damage.

with a bad printer geometry (where there are some areas where the printhead would impact obstacles) or objects invading the movement path, damage could result to the printhead being bonked into such obstructions, but without such, indeed it's nigh impossible.


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Ender 6 un-modded loud retraction sound
Newly built Ender 6 printer makes a loud whine or beep for every retraction, print quality not affected, but is very annoying and louder than the rest of the printer.
Is this normal or do I need to grease or lubricate extruder gears?

Have you tried to isolate where the sound is coming from? It may be the filament rubbing on part of the printer itself.

Hi Owen, can you post a video link?


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Is PETG sensetive to moisture?
Various filaments are sensitive to moisture to one degree or another. So far I've only printed with PLA. I can definitely tell the difference between fresh (just out of the package) PLA but I don't do much to store PLA between prints. I just keep a silica packet in the box.
I'm getting ready to unseal my first spool of PETG and was wondering if the same level of caution will be sufficient, or if PETG needs better humidity control.

Here are some pics I took a while back of a test piece, single-wall cube with no infill, before (right) and after (left) drying PETG:

and again without flash:

As you can see, the undried filament produced significant cosmetic problems (albeit only visible with right lighting and camera angle). Whether these matter for your application, or whether they correspond to structural problems, I'm not sure. My experience with PETG has been that I don't hit serious problems that compromise the print from wet filament (like the runaway stringing you'll get with wet TPU), but that drying is still worthwhile.


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What caused the blackening of this filament?
About 5 hours into a print last night, the filament stopped extruding leaving the model unfinished.
On investigation, I saw that the filament had stopped feeding. I can see marks on the filament left by the wheel that feeds it through the tube. The marks stop with a black mark. Does the black mark suggest a reason why the printer stopped printing?
I am using an Anycubic Mega S with 3dJake EcoPLA.

Probably need information on what printer/extruder you're using, as it may be related.

It would be interesting to see the end of the filament that was in the extruder.  I see a black spec further down the filament too.  It looks like your gear is dirty and depositing grit on the filament that might be collecting in the nozzle and clogging it.

could be black PLA or grease...

I think it is important to figure out what the black residue is and where it is coming from.

Does your filament drive have a rubber-tyred wheel, or a metal wheel?

2 possibilities occur:

Grease/dust has contaminated your filament somehow, and the extruder's drive wheel is not gripping it.  The rest of the printer would have "air-printed"   Maybe the filament was pre-dirty and this is the point it stopped.

Stoppage - something blocked up the hotend and the filament resisted being pushed in.  Perhaps the hotend cooled down and filament solidified, or there's a real blockage in there.

If you had a camera on the printer, you might be able to review timelapse footage and see if anything happened.
Right now I'd suggest you discard that length, refit the same filament, and print something small, just to make sure its still working.  You might choose to aim any timelapse camera directly at the filament drive wheel or just watch it.


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Ender 5 Spool Holder
I switched my Ender 5 to a direct drive extruder and it works great but I need a better place to put the filament spools; probably something elevated (or even just higher than the stock spool holder) that will create an easy path for the filament to go to the extruder. I've tried to find some spool holders on Thingiverse but most of them require a shelf above the printer which I do not have. Do you have any suggestions for how to fix this?

That shouldn't be that difficult as it is a 2020 Aluminium profile printer, so there must be enough ways to connect a spool holder to the frame? Maybe it is better to add an image of your setup, e.g. we don't know where there is space. If space on the sides, you could look into something like the VORON - Vertical 2020 Spool Holder, if not you need to think of a way to lay down the spool under the printer, there are examples found of that also!

I can't get a decent picture without it being over the data limit but I do have space above and to the right of the printer.

There are multiple apps (android, iOS, Windows, Linux) and applications to make an image smaller. I use e.g. GIMP. or a phone app.

You don't need a shelf - your printer is built out of 2020 aluminum extrusion so you can mount stuff directly to it easily.
Something like this will work: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3840176
Or this one, that has like a dozen different options for attaching it to something: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3020026
You'll need a couple of bolts and drop in T nuts to fasten it.

I just checked out those spool holders and found one that should work. I'll probably print a few and post their functionality here before closing the question to recommend which version worked best. Thanks for your help!


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Model looks differently on one leg, has holes
I am currently trying to let someone print a 3D-model of mine for school. The model was made in blender.
Everything works fine until the guy imports my model via .stl for printing.
Suddenly the model has got holes on its left leg. What is wrong? I can not find a solution.

There is a problem, with your stl file, it most probably has some inverted normals. This is quite a common problem with Blender generated files, look into this topic.

Hopefully, Trish's link specific to Blender will fix the problem. In general drawings have issues when surfaces have the inner and outer sides of the surface assigned in reverse. Extra surfaces inside the solid can also cause a problem. These surfaces need to be deleted.

There is also a dedicated Blender SE site at https://blender.stackexchange.com/  that may be worth searching.


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What is the difference between Linear Advance and Pressure Advance?
I've been trying to do some research on Linear Advance (LA) on Marlin and Pressure Advance (PA) on Klipper, and from my understanding the technology behind each is different, although also similar.  If I understand what I have read correctly, then:
LA will alter the extruder acceleration movements so that the extruder can keep relatively the same pressure while printing.  The effect of this would be prettier corners and z-seams
PA also seems to alter the extruder flow rate based on the movements.  This should also prevent under/over extrusion in the print similar to LA, but where does it differ from LA?
Is my understanding of these correct?  I currently have an Ender3v2 with a direct drive setup and am curious if LA or PA would be considered better today (2022)?  From what I understand, my 4.2.7 motherboard is not compatible with LA due to its stepper drivers, and I am trying to determine if I should move from Marlin to Klipper and use PA, or whether I should upgrade my motherboard and use LA in Marlin.  I may need to upgrade my motherboard anyways as I was also wanting to add some additional temperature sensors and fan controls for a heated enclosure I plan to build down the road.
Any thoughts/advice or reviews and/or current comparisons of the two technologies would be appreciated.

Both are implementations of exactly the same concept, even up to the units of the tuning constant being seconds (mm/(mm/s)). The difference is in the implementation details, and particularly how they deal with a mathematically and physically nasty/demanding part of the concept.
In order to compensate for pressure making the filament/filament-path behave like a spring, LA/PA offset the E-axis position by a fraction (K) of the pre-LA/PA E-axis velocity. Mathematically, as an operator acting on the function that's the E-axis position at time t, the basic LA/PA transformation is:
I + K*D
where I is the identity, K is the spring constant, and D is the (time) derivative.
Anyone with a mathematical background in functional analysis or PDEs will recognize this as an unbounded linear operator (at least with respect to most norms, due to the derivative term). Casually speaking, it shifts bad behavior of a particular derivative "down one level". Instantaneous changes of acceleration (starting to accel/decel) become isntantaneous changes of velocity. Instantaneous changes of velocity ("jerk"/junctions) become instantaneous changes of position. (Insert horrified face here.) In short, the result is not physically realizable.
There are two ways to deal with this impossibility:

The Marlin way (Linear Advance): E-axis acceleration and jerk limits are applied in such a manner that the result of the LA transformation is still within those constraints. This makes printing a lot slower. Essentially there's no longer any E-jerk, and E-acceleration is limited by K time E-velocity.

The Klipper way (Pressure Advance): No changes are made whatsoever to the kinematic timing. Print speed is exactly what it would be without PA. Instead, a smoothing convolution with a triangle wave is applied on top of the result of the PA transformation (I + K*D) to make the E-axis position function back into something physically realizable. This introduces a new type of error into the extrusion, but if the time window of the smoothing can be kept narrow enough, the error is expected to be small enough not to matter. Unfortunately, the more extreme your print acceleration, the longer the window needed to keep the result of PA physically realizable, so there are still limits. If you don't tune them right, the extruder will just start skipping.

In my opinion, the Marlin behavior is easier to get started with, but hopelessly slow to actually use unless you start cranking up your acceleration and jerk limits. And this ends up being comparable to the manual tuning you have to do with the Klipper PA smooth time window. But in the end, Klipper's approach will always win on print performance, because the smoothing lets you cheat and do moves that wouldn't be possible with Marlin.

Thank you for the detailed explanation and breakdown of the differences, this helps a lot.  It gives me some ideas why I may have had some issues with LA on my custom Marlin firmware (perhaps making some excessive demands on my BIQU H2 pancake stepper).  I think I'm going to take the dive and try out Klipper.

This a good quality answer like you don't see everyday... well done. I would add a mention of RRF firmware, to see whether it fits in one or the other techniques.


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Z-axis lead screw not turning to adjust height when using auto leveling?
I have a 3DTouch with my Ender 3 3D printer with the Creality 4.2.2 Board. It is running a custom build of Marlin 2.0.9.2. As I have been watching my prints, I noticed that the Z-axis lead screw does not turn at all as the print head traverses the bed.
With the 3DTouch and a mesh of the print bed, the Z-axis lead screw should very slightly turn to move the X-axis gantry up or down to compensate for deviations and irregularities in the print bed as the print head moves around.
I will add that these print head movements travel across a decent portion of the bed. My bed definitely is irregular, and so I would definitely expect the Z-axis screw to adjust the x-axis gantry appropriately.
Here is my start G-code in Cura:
; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; Set Heat Bed temperature
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; Wait for Heat Bed temperature
M104 S160; start warming extruder to 160
G28 ; Home all axes
G29 ; Auto bed-level (BL-Touch)
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ; Set Extruder temperature
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ; Wait for Extruder temperature
; G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
; End of custom start GCode

Here are my Configuration.h and Configuration_adv.h files.
I wasn't able to paste my entire configuration file here, so I have provided it in the link above.
What have I done wrong?
To be more concise, here is a list of everything I changed in the default configuration file.

I ensured #define PDITEMP is not commented so that I can do PID tuning of the nozzle.
Similar to #1, I ensured that #define PIDTEMPBED is not commented so that I can do PID tuning of the bed.
I commented #define Z_MIN_PROBE_USES_Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_PIN since I will be using the 5-pin BLTouch port that is on my 4.2.2. board.
I uncommented #define USE_PROBE_FOR_Z_HOMING since I removed my z-axis endstop and want to use my 3DTouch as the Z endstop.
Uncommented #define BLTOUCH since the 3DTouch is a BLTouch clone.
Changed my x and y offsets in the setting #define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { -42, -8, 0 }. I left the Z-offset 0, since I will be using the tuning tool to adjust that and observe the squish. For the X and Y, I measured the distance between my probe and the nozzle using a digital caliper.
I adjusted the probe margin from 10 to 15, since I have clips that previously would interfere with the 3DTouch. 15 should give more distance. #define PROBING_MARGIN 15
I enabled and set MULTIPLE_PROBING to 3. I'm paranoid about the current accuracy and am willing to see if that improves anything at the expense of a few additional minutes. #define MULTIPLE_PROBING 3. I think 2 should be fine for general use.
Uncommented #define Z_MIN_PROBE_REPEATABILITY_TEST. I want to test my 3DTouch and uncommenting allows the use of M48 to test it.
Uncommented #define PROBING_FANS_OFF, #define PROBING_ESTEPPERS_OFF, #define PROBING_STEPPERS_OFF, #define DELAY_BEFORE_PROBING 200. The documentation this may improve probing results. I'm all in.
Uncommented #define NO_MOTION_BEFORE_HOMING and #define HOME_AFTER_DEACTIVATE.
Uncommented #define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_BILINEAR
Uncommented #define RESTORE_LEVELING_AFTER_G28. This is to ensure the mesh is applied even after G28, which disables the mesh otherwise.
Ensures that this setting was 10. #define DEFAULT_LEVELING_FADE_HEIGHT 10.0
I set the following: #define GRID_MAX_POINTS_X 7. Ensures a 7x7 mesh grid is created. This could be more or less. 49 points is an improvement over Creality's 9, although a bit much. Worthwhile in my case.
Uncommented #define EXTRAPOLATE_BEYOND_GRID. I was actually wondering if this was causing some of the inconsistent prints near the edge.
Uncommented #define LCD_BED_LEVELING. This is to unlock more options for ABL in the menu.
Uncommented #define LEVEL_BED_CORNERS. This should make moving between corners for manual leveling easier.
Uncommented #define LEVEL_CORNERS_USE_PROBE. This is to achieve exactly what I was doing with G30 in Pronterface. I changed to tolerance with #define LEVEL_CORNERS_PROBE_TOLERANCE 0.03
Uncommented #define Z_SAFE_HOMING, which is important for the BLTouch.
Changed my PLA profile according to what I have determined to be best with #define PREHEAT_1_TEMP_HOTEND 200 and #define PREHEAT_1_TEMP_BED 60

It should not be necessary but try a M420 S1 after the G29 to see if it has effect (G29 should enable the mesh...).  I have had to add that in an older version of Marlin once. Everything else you describe seems correct.

Thanks, I will try that. I'm quite certain that it is with the Firmware, since Creality's pre-built firmware for the BLTouch does work with G29 and the above start g-code. The problem only occurs with my firmware

My firmware actually was working just fine, in terms of probing with G29 before a print and then the Z-axis would adjust during the print.
The way I tested this was by putting an object underneath my probe at only a few of the probing locations at the start of the print G29.
The purpose of this was to simulate very significant deviations in the bed.
Then, when the print was printing its first layer, I would observe the Z-axis and the nozzle, and the printer did definitely make a very obvious motion near the probing points where I put the object underneath the probe.
Looks like when I am printing, it just doesn't seem to make any adjustments at all. I would expect it to make adjustments during the print since my bed is not perfectly level, but I guess it's how things are.
The purpose of this post was to evaluate whether or not my firmware was correctly interfacing with the BLTouch and applying the mesh to my print, and it seems like it is. The question of why it isn't making more noticeable adjustments for my print bed during normal printing is another question.

One full turn of the lead screw is a whole 8mm of movement, so to correct for fractions of the layer height (something on the order of 0.05 mm) in the bed, you're looking at turning the lead screw about 2˚. That's going to be hard to see. Even full layer Z motion is hard to see, IMO.

I fully agree. Thanks for mentioning that. It's just that my first layer is still uneven. I have some places where there is more squish and less squish. It prints pretty much the same way as without a 3DTouch, which is why I was questioning whether or not it even works. I have been disappointed with this method of ABL. It hasn't done anything for me. And my bed has been manually adjusted to be quite level. But imperfections are not corrected in my case

I should also mention that I tested my 3DTouch with M48, and the accuracy is within BLTouch specifications.


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Ender 3 Pro extruder motor failing constantly
I have had my Ender 3 Pro for about 2 years now and it has been working amazingly!
Since November it's struggling very much while printing. I am quite sure the problem lives on the extruder motor.
About 1 of 5 prints come out ok. The main problem is that the first 2-3 first layers are all good. But as the prints develop, under-extrusion problems come. It's not a clog, because I can push the filament and it flows smoothly. It's like the motor cannot push the filament to the feeding line.
Thing's I tried so far:

Upgrading the extruder from plastic to aluminum (verified the tension, not too loose, not too tight)
Changed hotend (PTFE, nozzle, block, etc)
E-steps calibrated
Tried switching MicroSD
3 different brands of filament

I noticed that the motor is getting pretty hot. I mean, you can't have your hand in there for more than a second. My theory is that this overheating softens the filament and it cannot feed. Is this possible? The aluminum extruder also gets pretty hot. There is no clicking sound or anything weird while printing, the first layers come out perfectly ok.

What print speed, layer height, nozzle size, temperature, etc. are you using?

Heat affecting the filament in the extruder gear sounds like a possible cause. The E motor should not be hot to the touch, much less making the extruder hot. If this is the problem, you need to figure out why it's happening.

Hi @R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE I'm using 45 mm/s, 0.2 layer height on a 0.4 nozzle, and 200/60 °C. I have been using Octopi, people says that it can make weird stuff related to the voltage. I'm investigating that right now

There are a few probable causes I can think of based on your description. That it only starts happening after the printer has been running for a bit makes me think it's a heat issue.
The first problem I'd check out is that extruder motor getting that hot. It should be warm, but not so hot it's uncomfortable to hold. Either the stepper is defective, or you have the current to it set too high. There is a small screw on the motherboard beside each motor driver that allows you to adjust the current to each stepper. Find a guide for your printer to adjust it properly. You'll likely need a multimeter to do it right.
The current being too high on the extruder could also cause the stepper driver (a chip on the mainboard) to overheat. When those overheat they go into thermal shutdown and will stop driving the extruder for a moment until they cool off enough to resume. If your printer has a fan for the mainboard, make sure that is functioning properly as well. Those chips do normally get hot enough they are uncomfortable to touch, so to check if that's the problem you'd need a thermometer and to check what model they are to see what their maximum operating temperature is.
If fixing that doesn't solve it, it could be the heatsink on your hotend is getting hot enough that filament starts melting there, you can get a clog that stops the extruder from pushing filament out properly, but still feels like it can be extruded by hand. Make sure the heatsink on the hotend has sufficient cooling. After a bit of printing try touching the top of the heatsink - if it's uncomfortable to touch, you have a problem there.
-

@FedericoPerezDiduch did you get it working? I'm curious what fixed it.

I noticed that the motor is getting pretty hot.

That's not normal. Replacement motors are cheap and easy to find, so I'd swap out the motor before doing anything else. If the new one also heats up the same way, there might be a problem with the main board, but I'll bet a new motor will solve the problem.


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Anet A8 keeps failing prints that it used to be able to complete and new ones
The most recognizable problem with my 3D printer is that the extruder stepper keeps clicking. As you can see in these 2 pictures it fails to extrude out plastic in time when doing retractions and when not doing retractions.

I've tried releveling the bed several times, higher and lower printing temperatures, cleaning the nozzle serval times, adjusting print speed, and using brand new PLA filament several times.
So far I have narrowed down the problem to the extruder or the extruder stepper or the software that's interpreting the G-code on the 3D printer. In the pictures above there is the exact same print with the exact same G-code one printed before the printer started messing up and now.
My 3D printer is the Anet A8.
I have no idea what the problem is any ideas?

Possibly related: Anet A8 extruder is clicking and not extruding

Is your room temperature and humidity in the room changing with the seasons?

The room temperature only changes by a few degrees different seasons, on average it’s 70 Degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity rarely changes at all, except a few times a year during monsoon season.


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Adaptive infill density in small region
I'm using Ultimaker Cura to slice my 3D models, and I often have a problem with object with dimensions over multiple orders of magnitudes.
Basically, if I set an Infill of 20 %, the infill is calculated for the entire region, regardless of whether for each z-stack, the region is actually a closed one, or multiple separated ones.
As a result, the fragility is increased in those tiny regions that have no filling, because overall, the infill percentage is respected, but out of unfortunate yet inevitable  statistics, the parts with no infill ended up colocalizing with the regions that needed infill the most.

As you can see in this famous Llamacorn, some closed regions have no infill at all (right side), and the left arrow shows how the infill is calculated based on the entire structure rather than the local one.
Any adaptive option hidden somewhere?
Do I need to tweak the model directly?

Cura has a gradual infill option. You can find it under Infill. However, this assumes you only want to vary your infill based on height.

Cura Maker is not a distribution I know. What is the version number or is this a derivative?

Sorry I meant Ultimaker Cura

Please look into this question, there is no automatic infill based on volume. Good idea though!

Actually, the right region does have a calculated infill; it just happens to be at the edge of the inner wall.

I have drawn a thin black line along the infill lines for this layer and you can see that there is a small infill line.
Cura has a feature called "Support Blocker" that allows you to change the settings for certain areas of your model. You could make those particular areas have an infill of 100 % if you like.
Chuck Hellebuyck has a video on his YouTube channel that explains how to set this up. It's not that difficult and will take some time to get the area just the way you want it. The information for the "Support Blocker" starts at timestamp 2:01.

Another idea is to try rotating the model on the build plate to "force" an infill line to be generated where you need it. The only problem with this is that you may spend more time trying to get all the areas filled the way you want them.

That's exactly the point of my question. I am wondering if there is any way to automate the infill calculation so that the pattern is not calculated on the overall shape, but locally, where infill is really needed. If you compute the % coverage of the small thin line you highlighted, it is clearly not the original 15 or 20%, locally speaking. I added extra walls in this screenshot, but I don't like this fake workaround as it does not solve any "void space" issue.

if I rotate it, I may be lucky for this leg, but maybe not for the 3 other legs and the neck. Rotating is just playing with luck rather that having a rational solution.

@Myoch I just remember about the "Support Blocker" feature in Cura and added the information above.

There is a separate question on the different infill percentage, as far as I know there is no automatic option that calculates infill percentage based on enclosed volume by the perimeter.


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Anycubic firmware update fail and screen blinks or update firmware never ends
I spend many hours tonight with a friend figuring out what's happening and solving my Anycubic Vyper firmware update. I had various issues :

While updating with the current version (2.4.5 as of today) I had many issues from no file update (the firmware update program display a list of file with 000 values on their right showing that nothing is processed and the checksum at the end having done nothing

Partial update leading to corrupted graphical interface freezing or blinking with locked actions/menus.

Never-ending update process blocking in "ICL" files (waited more than 40 minutes)

I solved this by searching clues on the internet (a Reddit topic) that lead me to the following configuration that worked for me (update completed, with sound at the end and all is functional in about 1 minute)

Format MicroSD card in FAT32, with allocation size of 4096 bytes
Use a small SD card (I failed many times with a 16GB one). It worked with a 8GB one for me. (this tip is not said in the Reddit topic but made the job for me)

I recently had an issue with a failing 16Gb card and found that the issue was that I had more than one partition on the card, just in case that helps somebody.


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3D printing using only binary tensors representing parts
I need to 3D print several composites. The constituent materials are photopolymer resins. The composites are very similar to a Rubik's cube. Considering it that way, each voxel (every small piece of the Rubik's cube) is either entirely printed by material A or B.
I have the binary files ready for the parts. More specifically speaking, I have 3D binary tensors corresponding to each composite topology. In my tensors, each of the elements represents a voxel, and their values (binary) indicate the material that should be assigned to that specific voxel. For instance, a 1 or 0 value located at the I, J, K position of the binary tensor simply means that in that composite, the voxel located at that I, J, K position should be printed with material A or B entirely.
I believe for 3D printing these composites, the Stratasys Objet500 Connex3 printer would be a good choice. However, I have no idea how to prepare my files for 3D printing the structures. If it was a CAD file, I could use slicer software, but I do not know how I can print the structures using these binary tensors. I would appreciate any help regarding this matter.

The Objet series is a multi-material resin-jet printer belonging to a rather locked down infrastructure.

It appears that your question is directed to solving the problem of converting your file of parameters to a 3D printable form. I'm far from an OpenSCAD wizard, but I suspect that your parameters file could be read into a properly coded OpenSCAD document to create the necessary STL to be printed.
Your reference of I, J, K is better considered as X, Y, Z and requires an additional value to determine material A, B or nul. If your voxels are uniform size as I expect, the coding is likely not to be particularly complex (for more skilled individuals).
pseudocode:
read entry
translate by x, y, z
check for print material a
create voxel
repeat to EOF
export STL

repeat for material b
It's important to note that a typical STL file requires the object to be a fully manifold creation. If the STL appears, for example, as a QR code, some of the voxels will be floating and may not produce. This is also dependent on the printer selected, as an SLS printer would be able to produce such a design, which would fall apart once removed from the print chamber. These are aspects not covered in the question.

Stratasys industrial machines generally use proprietary software to prepare the print files for printing and don't use common slicers like Ultimaker Cura or Prusa-slicer.
The software that is suggested by the manufacturer for both arranging and preparing prints on their machines of the Objet type is GrabCAD, a free software. The project is owned by Stratasys, so it is pretty much on point to all of Stratasys' machine's capabilities.


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Fusion 360 + Snapmaker original for printing

Total beginner, not a single print yet
Snapmaker original

I saw a couple of tutorials telling one to design whatever needs printing on Fusion 360 and then export it to STL, import on Luban1), and print.
For CNC, I could import a post-processor and the resulting G-code worked fine without having to deal with Luban.
I know Fusion 360 doesn't have the exact machine on the library, but I'm wondering if I could get away with something similar or if there is a post-processor that I could install.

1) Snapmaker Luban is a free, open-source slicing software tailor-made for Snapmaker machines.

One way to completely avoid Luban is to use OctoPrint, and the OctoPrint plugin for Fusion 360.
Loading  the G-code from the USB flash drive can lead to weird behavior, where the Z-axis gets a bit lost. Online printing with luban or OctoPrint worked better so far.
Whatever you do, don't turn off the option in Fusion to start from the home position and set up a reasonable one. Mine went from the homing axis straight to print, including a gash over the plate that was in the way...

usually, Fusion's CNC solution assumes you jog a CNC and 0 against the piece, starting in all negative space (above and away from the 0). This can be seen in that the fusion generated CNC code does not contain a homing command usually.

@Trish yes, but that's not the case with the snapmaker. Once you turn it on, it will "home" the axis and leave the nozzle with a lower Z than the bed. If you disable the default option of "start from", it will move from the homing position straight to where t wants to start the print, and it's strong enough to dent the aluminum bed..


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Why does part of the model come away from supports during print?
I have been trying to print the same dinosaur model for several days and all my attempts have failed in the same place. On every attempt, the tail falls off the supports. Sometimes there is a little black fleck at the point of failure.
I've varied the print temperature +/- 5 °C. I've tried cooling at 60, 70 and 100 %. I've tightened the extruded gripper thing. I've dropped the print speed to 40 mm/s. On my last attempt, I increased flow to 105 % but no joy.
I got the furthest with infilled support, despite the tail falling off.

I'm using an AnyCubic Mega S with PolyTerra PLA. Model is printed with 25 % infill, printing temperature is 210 °C, 0.2 mm layer height, 3 walls @ 1.2 mm, 50 mm/s, 100 % cooling, default Cura support and raft for adhesion. I have inspected the nozzle and it is clean.
Does anyone know what I could do to prevent the tail from coming away from the supports during print?
Edit
The model is the carnosaurus from https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-dinosaurs-pack-200076.
I've been printing it as orientated in the file -- balancing on its tail almost vertical. Is this orientation unusual?

I wonder if this way up is best suited to resin printing and whether I'd have better results if I laid the dinosaur flat.
Update
I decided to print something else. The new model, which I'd printed successfully three times before suffered from the same layer adhesion problems.
I re-printed the carnotaurus last night with a new, 0.25mm nozzle. It came out perfect. I suspect the original problem was down to the nozzle after all but haven't had chance to test another 0.4mm nozzle.

Yes, that orientation is very unusual and will waste extreme amounts of material on supports. I would print it with the feet flat to the build plate (likely best visual quality), or lying on its side as close as possible to the build plate (likely best strength).

I will try a different orientation. One thing I have noticed about the tail down orientation is that the layers look like natural contours of the skin when they're printed that way. I wonder if that's why the designer chose the orientation.

Perhaps. Anyway, it should work, albeit being a waste, in that orientation, so if it's not, something is going wrong with your layer adhesion, and you probably need to spend some time trying to understand what's going on by reproducing the issue with simpler models.

If part of the print is only attached to the buildplate through support structures, and it keeps coming off, the support structures are either not adequately adhering to the print, or they're geometrically insufficient, in the sense that they only attach at small points around which the print sitting on top can tilt like a lever with forces from the printing and eventually work its way off. If that's the case, you might have to fool around with the slicer's support generation settings until it gives you ones that look like they're geometrically reasonable.
If the problem is just poor adhesion between the part and the support structure, you probably just need to adjust some settings in the slicer, like the Z distance between the support and the part, and any options that might be affecting integrity of printing the support. For example Cura has an option, on by default, to skip retractions in the support structure. This causes both heavy stringing and underextrusion of the supports, so that they're weak and don't adhere well.

Do you know what that option in Cura is called? I increased the support interface size to 1.00mm but the tail failed yet again.

"Limit support retractions" I think.

I switched to regular support and doubled the interface to 1.6mm. The tail printed out intact this time. However, when I removed the supports, the tail came apart in exactly the same places. This leads me to suspect that the true problem is layer adhesion. I've tried printing @ 195C, 205C, 210C and 215C and all prints are weak at the same points. Any ideas?


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Gap between offset walls in print in Cura
I've been printing a lot of things with 1 mm offset walls to fit lids.

However, in Cura, it's been slicing them but not compensating for the offset creating gaps since the shell thickness (0.8 mm) is less than the offset. This results in gaps and occasionally allows corners to warp.

IMO it should be creating a layer that sits below the inset wall, filling the gap (i.e. making a thicker wall on the last layer before the inset wall). I've looked through the settings in Cura and couldn't find anything to do this.
I could increase the wall thickness but this will result in unnecessary extra printing time/filament.

Look at the "Skin Removal Width" options in Cura. You might need to unhide them if they're not shown by default. As I understand it, the intent is that the "Skin Expand Distance" feature right next to it is supposed to re-expand the skin areas after shrinking them in a way that results in fewer tiny awkward-shaped regions that are slow to fill; however, as you've found, regions narrower than the wall line width can be lost completely. Setting the "Skin Removal Width" to 0 (and optionally doing the same for "Skin Expand Distance" since it should no longer be needed) will likely fix this.

Thanks! I set it to 0.6mm instead of the default 0.8mm and it worked and should still do the intended function you described (I assume).

@Tyndal: Great! I wonder if this is a numerical stability bug from something that, in mathematical exactness, should be at or just over 2 wall line widths, coming out slightly under and getting deleted. Does 0.79 or so also work? Knowing that could be helpful to reporting the bug and getting it fixed.

Setting it to 0.79 also worked. Anything 0.8 or over fails. I also tried it with a wall thickness of 1.2 and oddly 0.79 didn't work anymore, I had to set it to 0.78.


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Copper-infused PLA for spur gears
I am currently printing PLA infused with 80% copper powder. So far I mainly used it because it looks and feels really nice and post-processing is almost limitless, however recently I have thought that metal-like filaments might actually be a good idea for gears (in case I don't want to use polycarbonate or carbon fiber PLA).
I have been researching about the material properties of copper-infused PLA and found a few studies about the "strength", however, those seem to have exclusively focussed on how much weight can be suspended on a hook where it showed pretty good results. The only other info I found was an unsourced "it is more brittle", however the objects I printed so far do not feel more brittle.
Does anyone have any experience with spur gears printed from copper-infused PLA? Are there any advantages over regular PLA? Any downsides (I could imagine higher abrasiveness is not really helpful)?

You do not "feel" brittleness until you have smacked the part with a hammer lol

feel, seem, appeared, made the impression. Use whatever word makes you happy and conveys "some initial tests did not make it seem all too brittle".

With the right material, you could print the gear and then sinter it, resulting in actual metal gears. However, 80 % metal-filled PLA is at the lowest border to achieve this, and a lot of that technology is patented.
FilametTM
FilametTM is a Virtual Foundry product that contains around 80-92 % metal powder of 100-400 µm particle size, suspended in a carrier. The carrier material is supposedly PLA or at least functionally similar. The resulting filament is highly abrasive, requiring stainless steel1 to print more than short sections. The high metal content also gives the material a memory of its spooled-up shape. This demands extra special treatment during printing to prevent snapping the filament in the shape of a pre-heater to get it spooled off properly. The same company also offers similar products for ceramics. After printing, the models are burned-out and sintered in an oven at very high temperatures. This sintering is done in a crucible filled with carbon and alumina, burning out the PLA carrier while retaining the shape. Their material-making process is patented (patent itself) and covers all their metal, ceramic, and glass materials.
1 - or something even more hardy, like an Olsson Ruby by 3DVerkstan
MetalXTM
The MetalXTM system by Markforged uses a special printer and proprietary Bound Powder Metal Filament that contains an unknown plastic binder. A lot of this machine and surrounding peripheries are patented and information spare. Among others, their method of creating composite filaments and their binder material, support material & sintering process are only described in patents. From their advertisement I could deduce the following process: The MetalX printer prints the item with unknown print settings, resulting in a raw item containing metal and the binder. After wash-cleaning using a liquid known as OpteonTM SF79 (Datasheet) to remove the specialty binder, the sintering happens in a free oven at 1300 °C, leaving behind a metal product. Free oven means here, that the printed part is not embedded in a filled crucible like with FilametTM.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with either Virtual Foundry, Markforged, 3DVerkstan, any of their products or affiliates.

At a guess, copper really isn't that strong so you're likely to see minimal improvements, if any.
The PLA carrier plastic is still PLA, with a low melting point.
The copper won't "fuse" with the PLA, it will still be flakes of metal embedded in a tiny pocket inside of a plastic structure.
However this is all speculation, and your best option for an answer is to print some gears and methodically test them against plain PLA, and perhaps a metal gear if you can.  Try and use identical setups/bearings/pressures and times.
Perhaps a high torque and a high-speed test, in both lubricated and unlubed, for PLA, copper-PLA, and a straight metal gear? That would be 12 tests in all and clear out all questions.

I agree with the general idea, but there have been PLAs that contain metal powder that after printing could be burnt out in a sand oven, leaving behind an object from only the metal powder... we had a question about that - FilaMet(TM) contains close to 90 % metal powder, and then the PLA carrier is sintered out.

The trick is to fuse the copper, burning of the binder. Markforged has built their company based on printers that print metal filament with a binder to sinter printed objects later in ovens to create metallic parts. I think there should be a separation between metal filaments that can be printed at home (usually for esthetics or magnetic properties and printing to create metal parts, the latter is usually not something you do at home.

@0scar you just threw me the perfect bone to make an answer based on the Markforged MetalX as well as Filamet! Incidently, Filamet is the lowest bar to metal printing and could (arguably) be done at home.

Likely the only potentially interesting properties are thermal. Since 80% of the mass (or is that volume?) is copper you'd expect the printed part to have heat capacity closer to copper (much lower than PLA) but maybe also thermal conductance closer to copper (much higher than PLA). Whether this is a net gain or net loss for the application of gears, I'm not sure.

@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE It would also add mass...

@Trish: Good catch.

Simple math example: a solid gear in PLA weighs 10 grams and has a density of 1.25 g/cm³. A solid copper gear of same volume weighs 71 grams and has a density of 8.98 g/cm³ - about 7.2 times. This has lots of impacts on the properties of the machine.


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Printing metal infused PLA does not work well
I have a 3D printer and I want to 3D print with metal infused PLA filament. It seems that this filament does not print that well (it won't melt to the right consistency). I referred to my manual and it does not talk about plastic or metal filaments. Is using metal causing the problem or is it something else.
The printer I have is a JGMAKER Magic 3D Printer DIY Kit with Filament Run Out Detection Sensor and Resume Print Metal Base 3D Printers for Hobbyist Education.
I am printing these Christmas balls  in different colors for the holidays.
The metal filament is Silk Copper 3D Printer Filament PLA (1.75 mm) Shine Silky Shiny Copper Like PLA CC3D ZHUOPU

Maybe you should do images of the prints and add more info on the slicing parameters like e.g. temperature, speed, cooling, etc.

It won't print its consistency is like honey. The temperature is also the same as plastic filament.

This is is PLA, and if you can print regular PLA then this metalised one should print too.  However if its a different brand then you may need to increase the hotend temperature in small steps.
I'd suggest you load the filament, and then turn on the heaters to bring it all up to temp.  Then use the extruder feedingn knob to force some filament into the hotend.  It should come out like hot cheese, and if not then increase the hotend temp till it does.
In your slicer, it should be possible to set up a profile for this material with settings it likes, to ease future printing.

Your comment say it drips, which suggests the hotend temp is too HIGH and the plastic is liquifying.  Start at 140 degrees C and then work up from there, not down.

alternatively you could print a temperature tower.


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How to achieve ombré (or shading) effects?
Is it possible to color a 3D printed object during 3D printing? I am trying to achieve an ombré of many colors.
I tried to stop the 3D printing at individual stages and it looks like blocks. Is there a way to achieve a near perfect ombré or is it not possible yet?
The thing I am printing is Spiral Christmas Balls.
I am trying to achieve something like this effect:

Maybe this is what you need?

No I am trying to achieve something like this.

make a custom filament or a custom extruder that can accept and mix multiple filament.  may need to be something of a mixer before final extrusion.

The ability to shade 3D printed objects is dependent on the printer, the plastic in use, and available dye.
Several vendors offer filament with a gradient or rainbow-colored patterns, so that printed objects will vary in color over their volume.
Several 3D printers give the option of changing plastics during printing which would allow this.
A few 3D printers allow injecting dye into the plastic during the printing process, allowing full 3d coloring of the final part.
If you can find a natural colored filament and a dye that will dissolve in the filament, it is possible to color the surface of the filament before it goes into the printer, and there is some mixing in the nozzle.  (This works well with natural-colored ABS and Sharpie markers, but I haven't found a combination that works well with PLA.)

Do you have any recommendations of a filament?

This site is not for product endorsements, sorry.

Ok I was just wondering if there was a good brand or like type. But No problem :)


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Are there dedicated setups to perform injection molding from PLA filament leftovers?
I would like to recycle all the leftovers from supports and from failed prints in PLA.
I don't necessarily need to re-extrude new filament from it, so I was wondering if I could maybe perform some molding, but in a safe setup?
Which material should be used for the mold?
How to proceed with the melting of the PLA? In which anti-fouling container shall I melt it to be able to clean it afterward?
Here I'm trying to avoid ruining my kitchen pans ;)
I guess it must have been tried already, in a nonprofessional setup, right?

I'm not sure that PLA is suitable for injection-molding?

It's a thermoplast.  I don't see any reason why you can't do injection molding... it's just a matter of keeping it hot and applying pressure until the mold is full.

I'm looking for an easy, newbie-friendly setup that you can deploy in a garage. I'm pretty confident there are professional ways to do it. But I guess you were replying to Criggie...

As far as I know, injection molding of plastic isn't something that can be done in a non professional setup - mostly because of the high pressure, strict temperature control and complexities of making metallic molds (molds should foresee paths for the molten plastic to get inside and for the excess plastic to get out). This is one of main reasons that 3D printing relies on different approaches than mold injection. There are some instructables about melting plastic (milk jugs) in some kind of machineable bricks, or something like a mallet, but I think that there are no many options beyond those


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Pin layout of RAMPS Plus2 board?
I've temporarily acquired two different 3D printers that I'm helping someone reassemble.  They are delta style printers that at one point worked great. They were being stored in a large community warehouse type place and somebody that shouldn't have had access pilfered them for parts. Well anyhow I've got them 99 % of the way reassembled. Everything physical is back into the right place and now I just have to wire it.
Here's a photo of the board:

It looks like a "BT7200 V1.8.26 Ramps Plus2" board.  I also recently bought that pictured meanwell power supply.
I googled the board and instead of a wiring diagram or anything just found several similar questions to this like "anyone familiar with?", "marlin pin details?" etc...
If anyone is either familiar with the board that can point me in the right direction for guides as far as these style/brand of boards? What the heck even are "RAMPS" boards? The only thing I've ever wired up is Creality and BTT mainboards meant for an Ender 3.

RAMPS boards are one of the oldest types of boards, in Marlin firmware there is a whole section available. Actually, the first were shields that were pressed on on existing Arduino atMega board. Later, the microprocessor was placed onto the shield to become fully integrated boards. Basically, pin layout is very similar for these boards but small differences exist. In Marlin software pin definition you see that the basic layout is read, after which small changes are read over.
The board can be found by e.g. searching for “HE3D Ramp Plus 2 mainboard for the tricolor/K200 DIY 3D printer kit” and appears to be fully compatible with the RAMPS 1.4 pin layout, which is found here.
Snippet from the description by the seller:

Ramps PLus2 is suitable for all kinds of 3D printers, such as UM, Reprap, Detla and Kossel, CoreXY and HBot, SCARA and so on.
Four layers of exquisite workmanship, from millions of automatic patch production line.
Functional characteristics:

A) fully compatible with the IO of the Ramps 1.4, the name is very similar to the name, on the market, the Ramps 1.4 less than 20 yuan of Sheild board, in the field of 3D printers have an absolute position, a large number of Marlin and Repetier code can be used free of charge. When configuring a single extrusion, two boards can wear a pair of pants, and nothing can be changed to work. Even the LCD interface, the two 10P Niu seats are all compatible with Ramps1.4 Reprap LCD12864 (note that MKS LCD12864 and LCD2004 are incompatible because they are incompatible with Reprap).
B) when configuring double extrusion, Ramps1.4 has a drawback, which is to take Fan as a second extruder, so that when double extruding, there is no fan to control, Ramps Plus 2 has been improved, D7 is used as a second extrusion heating, and the fan is still using D9, so that there can be a double extruder heating, and there is also one. A controlled fan (Pin9).
C) the most important thing is that Ramps PLus2 can be expanded to three extrusion…


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Considerations for spray booth filtration
I am getting to the point where I want to start post-processing my 3D prints more heavily, i.e. sanding, polishing, painting. I am currently using PLA but will be working with resin and possibly other FDM materials like ABS or PETG. I looking at making a spray booth that can handle both the sanding and airbrushing of models.
What considerations do I need to take into account? What type of filtration will I need? Is a HEPA filter needed or recommended? What other hazards or concerns?

There is nothing about it that would be special to 3D printing - it would be a simple spray booth - for which by the way there are industrial requirements to be inside and wear respirators.

@Trish My question is dealing with the particulate matter from sanding PLA, ABS, PETG, or resin-based models. I added the note about airbrushing because I thought it would be another consideration in the selection of the filter. I am open to suggestions to improve the question.

There are many factors that play in this.
For example if your room has proper air flow. Next to window. What is the season because having the window open during winter can cause your 3d printer to malfunction. You should look at this chart to get a overall view of what to get.
I recommend HEPA that blocks up to 99.97 because it can block a lot more and because it can be easily bought. Also I recommend MERV 11 filters because they are widely available and can block many 3d printing debris which you don't want to inhale.

https://www.sentryair.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/filter-comparisonchart.jpg


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Can PLA be reshaped after printing if it is heated?
I want to make an anime-style figurine in Blender with long strands of wavy hair coming down from pigtails, similar to sailor moon, but more so.
They are going to be extremely challenging to print in place as they will be very thin and difficult to support.
Would it be possible simply to print long flat strips of PLA straight onto my bed 5 mm wide, 200 mm long, and a couple of mm thick, and then to heat them up after printing with a heat gun or some other means, and reshape them to make them wavy, then attach them to my model with glue before painting?
I haven't started on the model yet so I have no pictures to provide.

Have you considered using a resin printer? These can achieve better details. Of course, would mean buying and learning a new printer if you didn't already have one.

I've tried this kind of thing with a resin printer before and had trouble with the strands breaking when I tried to remove the supports or things breaking free from the support during printing . I'm looking for alternatives.

You can also weld the pieces onto the model instead of gluing them.

Yes, printing a flat strand structure and then shaping it using heat to form hair is something people already do, for example with the Hairy Lion model.

For extrusion printing you may want to add the hair with a 3d printing pen rather than trying to shape the print with heat.  The print will tend to stick to anything that touches it when hot enough to reshape it.  I've tried to smooth surfaces this way (heating the completed print) and it only makes them worse.  Otherwise, you can try using supports as Paul point out.

I might be missing something, but who is Paul, what did he point out and where did he point it out?

YES you can reshape printed PLA with heat.
I have a bin for all my brim/cleanup offcuts, stored at the printer.  When it gets a bit full I simply blast it with my hot-air gun normally used for finishing prints.  This shrinks the wispy bits, and thicker parts soften and droop down under their own weight.
Downside, I think hair that is printed flat, and then softened with hot air runs the risk of looking like "just got out of a swimming pool" hair instead of anything styled or realistic.
Definitely worth a try though!

Yes you can reshape a print with heat. Do note that PLA filament starts to melt at about 60 degrees. There are actually models designed to be printed and then shaped with a hairdryer/heat gun. You can also smooth out prints but that is very tricky and I don't recommend it. If you want to smooth a print you are better off printing ABS and using acetone vapour.
Here is a print that has reshaping hair:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2007221

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Wait for click to continue
To help me with bed leveling my Ender 3 v2 (using stock Creality firmware, V1.0.2), I'm trying to write a G-code that will position the nozzle above each spring in sequence twice, after heating the bed. After each position, I want the printer to wait for me until I have leveled that position. I want to click the knob to continue to the next position. Also, it wouldn't hurt if I could show some instructions on the display.
This is my first G-code attempt, and I don't understand how to make the printer wait for a click, and how to show instructions.
I have tried for Wait for click: M0, M71, M108 and M291.
I have tried for showing instructions: M0, M117 and M291.
All fail. The printer just goes from one position to the next without waiting, until the entire program is completed.
Here is my last attempt:
M140 S60 ; Set bed temperature
M105 ; Report temperatures
M190 S60 ; Wait for bed temperature
G28 ; Home all axes

M117 Going to bottom left. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X30.000 Y30.000 Z2.0 ; Bottom left
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to top left. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X30.000 Y190.000 Z2.0 ; Top left
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to top right. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X190.000 Y190.000 Z2.0 ; Top right
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to bottom rigth. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X190.000 Y30.000 Z2.0 ; Bottom right
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to bottom left. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X30.000 Y30.000 Z2.0 ; Bottom left
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to top right. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X190.000 Y190.000 Z2.0 ; Top right
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to bottom rigth. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X190.000 Y30.000 Z2.0 ; Bottom right
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to top left. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X30.000 Y190.000 Z2.0 ; Top left
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for leveling
M71 Please level and click to continue ; Show message and wait for continue button

M117 Going to center. Please wait.
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X110.000 Y110.000 Z2.0 ; Center
G0 Z0.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis down for checking
M71 Please level and click to end. Restart if not satisfied ; Show message

M140 S0 ; Set bed temperature
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G0 F6000 X110.000 Y110.000 Z2.0 ; Home
G28 ; Home all axes
G0 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
M84 X Y E Z ;Disable all steppers

Another alternative is built into JyersUI firmware. The option is in the Prepare > Manual Leveling. It has five points (the four bed screws and center) for calibration.

As a possible workaround, have you tried G4 S[number of seconds] for a timed pause?

I have a partial answer.
Thanks to Chep, who created a similar file, I found that there exists a less well documented M25 command (Pause SD print). This seems to be the command to call with 32-bit boards in an Ender 3, instead of the M0.
Also I found out that this M25 works a bit buggy. It only pauses after the movement command AFTER it is executed. So you need to execute the command before moving to the place where you want to pause. This bug still persists even on Chep's file.
And it bugs out the user interface of the Ender. Because the screen seems not to refresh, showing "pause" button when already paused. And overlapping a "pause" button over the ending "confirm" button while the program is already over.
I still haven't found out how to print instructions.


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I have blind clips that are no longer being produced. I want to be able to 3D print them. What would be the best way to make a copy?
I have a set of blind clips that I want to be able to print out. They no longer produce them and I cannot find a possible place to buy them. I have minimal experience in CAD and am wondering, I have an iPhone with a LiDAR sensor. Is it feasible to be able to make a scan, turn it into a model and print it? What would be the best course of action? I will take any recommendations or advice!
I have a Flashforge Adventurer 3 with PLA and ABS available!

That is a complex shape.  Are the two examples from the same system, but serving different purposes?   Does the clear one have to be clear? Do you have calipers, either Vernier or digital? A micrometer might be enough for getting the external measurements, but internal ones are a challenge.

Have you tried searching for it on https://www.thingiverse.com/ they have great examples to print out.

From what I know the color of the two do not matter. They are from different systems too. I have a pair of calipers so I think as Criggie mentioned, will help. I will have to look at thingiverse more, although it just seems so specific I worry.

This one looks like the clear one: Valance Clip

@agarza: The thing description from your link explains how it was made and would be a great answer.

This is something that any competent hard body model maker or person with engineering or prototyping CAD experience could probably make for you if you had the measurements.
3D scanning isn't quite there yet for this kind of thing. It's best for things like sculptures that don't require precise measurements. At least when you're using most oft he software available to home users.
I would suggest that you ask someone to make a model for you on a modelling forum.
It's a pretty simply item though so it might be a good chance for you to get into hard body modelling in CAD.

Thank you so much @agarza I’m pretty sure that’s it. Thank you also Aaargh Zombies for the information. I might have to get in contact with someone who knows more. I also might try to learn myself? Worst case senecio I lose a little filament so I don’t mind that. Thank you all for the info too! It’s super appreciated. :) maybe one day technology will be there to scan stuff like that.

There is a way to make a 3D model from the original. A lot depends on the original item. The clear clip seems to have been reproduced on Thingiverse (Valance Clip) with the procedure with which the user created his model.
Here are the steps to reproduce the clear clip according to the original user, mattfriedman:

Use a black marker or paint to color the profile of the item
Place the item on a scanner or take a top-down photo (with a white background) of the item
Import the image or photo into Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, or image manipulation software of your choice
Remove any stray marks and clean up the edges of the item's profile as best as possible
Import the image into Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape
Use the "Image Trace" or "Trace Bitmap" menu item from your particular software to vectorize the image into an SVG (you may need to do additional path and point cleanup)
Import the 2D SVG into Tinkercad, Fusion 360, or other modeling software.
Extrude to the desired width/depth.

You now have a 3D model of a real-world object without scanning.


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What is meant by "Junior 3D printer"?
I am looking to buy an Ender-3 Pro, but the place I'm looking to buy from has this picture:

My question is, what is meant by "Junior" in the name?
I'm just wondering if this means it's an alternative kind of version for kids or something, or if it's just the name of that type of 3D Printer (e.g. in the way you might have a Junior Hacksaw or something)? I.e. is this the normal Ender V3 Pro?

I'm not aware of it having any common meaning or of there being a different "junior" model it could apply too. Pretty sure the vendor just lacks communication skills promoting the product they're trying to sell and is using a word that's pointless and confusing.

There is no such thing as a Junior1, you can see the official Creality range of FDM printers on the FDM 3D PRINTER page, on their web site.
Upon a cursory comparison of the photo it is one of these:

Ender-3 Max 3D Printer
Ender-3 Pro 3D Printer
Ender-3 3D Printer

However, the first one can be discounted as the spool holder is missing. So this leaves the last two.
Finally, the biggest clue is in the photo itself, as the name is written in the last line: Ender-3 Pro.
Nevertheless, given the seller's random "junior" labelling, it is not entirely guaranteed that the printer is, in fact, a Pro.
Unless they are super cheap or a renowned seller, then it is probably best to avoid purchasing anything from them. Or contact the seller to see if they would clarify their misleading advert.

1 The term junior could be an indication of the base level entry of the printer, or a reference to its build size, which, while not small and is pretty standard, it is not as large as some of the more pricey Creality models.

...but the ender3 is larger than the Prusa I3 it was originally derived from.

That is an Ender 3, with the vertical PSU, the older interface, and many tweaks like the drawer and filament loading knob isn't present.
Consider the Ender 3 V2 instead, which is an iteration on the same basic design and is newer.
Personally I found it cheaper to buy the V2 direct from Creality's website than to buy the older model from a local or other online seller, and it had free freight from China, and arrived in about 3 weeks.


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Ender 3 v2 BLTouch pushing too far in X axis
I'm having issues with my Ender 3 V2 after installing the BLTouch sensor and flashing the firmware. I downloaded the precompiled firmware from Creality's site for the 4.2.2 board. The thing is, everything works fine, but the X-axis seems to be set up too wide (it lets me go up to 245 mm), which results in the head going too far to the right and hitting the extrusion profile - it makes a creaking sound and jumps a few steps. When going from this point back to X coordinate 0, the same happens on the other side. If it was just about me, I would be careful and would not go manually to the edge, but the auto-leveling process measures the board near outer edges and thus goes into this collision (and then it "confuses" the X coordinate).
I tried measuring the steps/mm, but everything seems fine here.
What am I doing wrong? How come the official firmware doesn't work properly? Can I damage the stepper motor by such collisions? If not, I guess at least the carriage belt won't like it in the long run.

P.s.: If anyone with ender 3 v2 4.2.2 + BlTouch could provide link to correctly working firmware (working with OctoPi ideally) I would be very thankfull.

For anyone interested: Somewhere (I think it was Reddit) I found that the mainboard has trouble with long filenames. I changed the firmware name from E3V2-BLTouch-3x3-v4.2.2-v2.0.1.bin to something like fw.bin, flashed again and the issue stopped. WTH.

If you could [edit] and add the Reddit link that would/could/might be useful.

I'm sorry, tried and failed. I don't know where I read it, can not find it any more... :(


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Ender 5 Plus Bowden tube keeps popping out
My new Ender 5 Plus' Bowden tube keeps popping out of its socket on the extruder mid-print, I've tried several times and it keeps doing it even though it's locked into place securely at the start every time. Is this a known issue? And how do I resolve it?
I just got it so I doubt it's the coupler, I replaced it with a spare as my first solution, I did notice that it got almost stringy plastic around it whenever it gets popped out.... could that be indicative of what the problem is?

The coupler for the Bowden tube is probably worn out or the tube end has been scraped so that the coupler can't grab it or you have left out the clamp on the coupler.
The coupler has a sleeve that when pressed down releases the Bowden tube.  There is a C-shaped clip that should go between the top lip of the sleeve and the body of the coupler that prevents the sleeve from moving and should help hold the tube more firmly.  Make sure this is installed.
If the tube outside is visibly worn with scrape marks (this is rare), it might help to cut a few cm off the end so that a fresh section is gripped by the coupler.  Be sure to cut the end flush so that there is no gap between the heat break and the Bowden tube or you will have other problems.
Alternately (and this is more likely), the coupler itself is worn out, possibly with bent or broken-off teeth.  If this is the case, you will need to replace the coupler.

I just got it so I doubt it's the coupler, I replaced it with a spare as my first solution, I did notice that it got almost stringy plastic around it whenever it gets popped out.... could that be indicative of what the problem is?

That sounds like you have a gap between the bowden tube and the heat break.  When you pull it out, make sure there is no plastic above the heat break, and if there is, clean it out.  Then make sure the tube goes all the way in.  If the tube end is not flat, it might be good to trim it.  One of the easiest ways to do that is to insert it into a spare coupler and cut the end flat with the end of the coupler using a razor blade.

I'm not exactly sure what part is the heat break (I've never really had to deal with the tube and couplers before)

The heat break is between the bowden tube and the heated part of the hot end.  The bowden tube should go all the way down to the bottom of the hole below the coupler.  If there's a gap, molten plastic will collect between the bowden tube and the hot end and solidify and make a mess.  If your tube was slipping, that probably already happened, so now it needs to be cleaned out.

but It's the coupler on the extruder end that's problematic.

@TristanAdams Does it have a clip on it that stops the collet from moving? You can print one if there weren't any included - they are small so you should be able to print one before the tube comes loose.

yes even then it popped out still

Ahh.  If it's the driven end of the extruder rather than the hot end, at least there's no mess to clean out.  If it's slipping, either it is loose and adding the clip will help, or it is worn as I explained in the answer.

well since I tried the clip all that's left is the snip.

OK well I feel silly, it turns out it wasn't fully pushed into place, I pushed it in feeling it lock and thought it was secure, when it actually wasn't, pushing it in till it feels locked up twice resulted in it being properly secured. (sorry if my description doesn't make a lot of sense, I'm not good at that kind of thing, so I'm trying my best.)


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Geeetech A10M extrusion issues
So I purchased a Geeetech A10M a while back and have never been able to get it to print right. I own two other Ender 3's and have been printing for about 4 years now. I fix most issues myself but this has stumped me.
The printer just seems to print "OK" at the start but then starts under extruding. Stringing is also really bad, but the stock cooling is garbage. I've tried new filament as well as different brands with no prevail. I've changed my slicer settings what feels like a billion times. I am unsure if the unique Y-splitter hot end is causing a problem. I've also never used Titan-style extruders and am unsure if those are a problem. I would appreciate any help you can give me.
I use Cura as my slicer. I started with the preset profile already there, and then I edited it as I began having issues. I've tweaked just about everything I can think of in the slicer. I want to like the printer. It's just that it prints like crap right now. This printer is my personal project of sorts so it isn't really bugging me. But the end goal is obviously to get it to print good!
For now the specs of the printer, these will be updated with the values used for the prints from the photos:

Filament diameter: 1.75 mm
Nozzle diameter: 0.4 mm
Retraction 10 mm
Temperatures:

End 200 °C
Bed 60 °C

Speed 60 mm/s
Infill 20 % Rectangular
6 top and bottom layers
5 perimeters
0.2 mm layer height
Flow 100 %
Travel speed 130 mm/s

Okay, clearly an under-extrusion problem. The first layer is okay-ish but could improve. The retraction length is too long for the relative short Bowden tubes on the printer, try something in the region of 4-6 mm. Furthermore, the under extrusion worsens so beware of heat creep, force the cold end to br cooled properly. Also check the extrudes that they are not skipping. Fix this first and update the questions.

I have same problem the nozzle get clogged after while of extrusion, (Especially when used 2 extruders). Have you fixed this?


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Marlin firmware issues
So I'm working on building a Prusa i3 MK3 clone and all's gone well so far but when I make edits to the firmware and reupload it, the printer doesn't seem to be getting it. Like I changed the software endstops to new values in the code, recompiled it and reuploaded it, but when I use M211 the printer still reports its old endstop values.
Also, it seems to only be able to home to the minimum, not the maximum (not the biggest deal).
Any advice on how to get the printer to recognize its new boundaries/is there a way to just set it with a G-code?

Did you load the new values from the firmware you uploaded with M502? If not, that might be your problem. See "M502 will reset all configurable settings to their "factory defaults", which settings are those?".

Did you load the new values from the firmware you uploaded with M502? If not, that might be your problem. See "M502 will reset all configurable settings to their "factory defaults", which settings are those?".
When you upload a firmware, this is done through a so-called binary hex file. In this file, stored in memory of the micro-controller, the complete "program" is stored as configured by your code editor (compiled, hence a binary file). Note that the user of the "program" is allowed to change values of certain parameters1), the changes are stored in a different part of the memory that is not overwritten when a new firmware is uploaded. You manually have to get the "set" values from your new firmware file to store these into the "working memory". Please send the M502 and the M500 G-codes to get and store the values from the firmware.

1) Do remember the inability to store custom parameters in certain older versions of Marlin in combination with certain printer controller boards (e.g. the SKR line of boards), but, this is fixed in the recent versions, storage e.g. is done on the SD card. For that reason the memory storage above is not called EEPROM but the "working memory", i.e. is doesn't have to be an EEPROM storage.

I did that but M211 is still saying my software endstops are in the old location, and now when I try and home the x-axis, it says:                                                  echo:Homing Failed
Error:Printer halted. kill() called!
Error:Printer halted. kill() called!                                                                                any advice?

@amanda With M211 you enable or disable software endstops, with M119 you get the state, and you can invert the state logic. What is it that you do with M211 in firmware?

@0scar can the machine work with just software endstops or should I add physical ones? Would that help with the homing issues?

@natalia For convenience you should use hardware end stops, then you can home each axis, else you need, as printer operator, position the head before each print manually. This is described in more detail here.


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Enabling Pause feature on HBOT 3D 1.1
At work, I have an HBOT 3D 1.1 printer and I need to be able to pause my prints. I've tried all the usual G-code commands (M0, M1, M25, M226, M600) but they don't work.
At home I have an Ender 3 and while I don't know much about modifying firmware, with help from a video guide I've managed to enable the advanced pause feature which solved exactly that problem.
Could anyone advise me what steps to take to enable pausing mid-print on HBOT 3D 1.1?

Do you have the (English) manual? This is a fairly old printer (2013?) which runs an old version of probably Marlin firmware, but could be topped of by OEM specific sources, the display e.g. is quite different as are the menu items if you look into the Polish manual. The question is if there is a way to pause the print at all, it might well be that it is not implemented.

Unfortunately I only have access to polish manual and I've failed to find anything useful in there. There is no section about updating firmware. I've looked into a configuration file on my SD card, but there's nothing interesting there either.


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Gyroid infill affects outer walls
I was printing test cubes to adjust my extrusion ratio, and had ugly walls. I noticed that the pattern on the walls was always the same, and disappeared if I chose 0 % infill (gyroid from PrusaSlicer).
What parameter do I need to change, in order to avoid the marks on the outside?

Top two cubes with no infill. Middle row with extrusion multiplier from 90 to 75 % (!) in decrement of 5, temperature 215 °C. Bottom cube at extrusion 85 %, temperature 190 °C.
Here is an example of when this can turn out to be a real problem, the inside floor of the part shows on the outer wall:

I was surprised that the extrusion multiplier had so little effect, so I tested 50 % just to see that it had:

More info: this was done on a Prusa i3 MK3S+, and sliced in PrusaSlicer.
I can't seem to find how to show the seam anymore, but I do see something interesting:

Even without the layer change, there is a hop in the corners that really look like they could be the cause:

Changing to random Z seam fixes it in the slicer. I have yet to print it.

My retraction parameters (no Filament override):

I performed the Linear Advance calibration from marlinfw, for good measure. Now I got a new value, I'm pretty sure it was a clear 0.05 before, now it's 0.09.
The calibration I made 10 days ago (chose LA K=0.05):

The calibration I made yesterday (chose LA K=0.09):

I also tested the next PrusaSlicer release, 2.4.0-beta3. The seam moves quite a bit more from layer to layer, so the issue is not as visible. I'm surprised that LA has so little effect:

Interestingly, slicing with Cura defaults plus coasting (retraction 0.8 mm, 35 mm/s) gives me much smoother walls and not the artifacts above. I'm not saying this isn't luck, and that I don't still have a backlash issue, but this tells me there's something I could do about it in PrusaSlicer.

It looks to me like the seam point is changing between layers depending on how the infill paths fall, and you have a bulging seam. Can you confirm this by looking at the slicing output or by switching to a "2D" infill (where all layers will look the same, e.g. "triangles" or "grid") and seeing how the results change?

It also looks like you may have backlash on X and/or Y axis from loose belts.

Did you mean flow modifier with extrusion multiplier from 90 to 75 % or is this the infill percentage? If it is a flow modifier, the decrementing does not seem to have much effect nor is it applicable for troubleshooting the issue. No offence, but even the no infill cubes seem to be of very good quality (so actually not good).

I meant extrusion multiplier (it is called flow modifier in Cura, I believe), I added a new image at 50 % to show that the parameter does have effect. Do you really mean "very good quality"? The no infill cubes are ok, but I hoped to be able to get the walls smoother. Anyway, the smoothness is not as high on my list as the wider ribs that appear with infill (and inside floor).

Extrusion multiplier is not your problem. Set it back to 100% so it's not distracting from the problem and start looking at the things that might be causing this. Indeed the quality is not good, but it should be possible to track down what the problem is.

Ok! I was given the recommendation to reduce extrusion to solve the ribs. Any hint as to what things might be causing this? How to prevent the inside structure from influencing the outside wall?

More walls, outer wall first may work. But, your machine doesn't print well, even without the infill, hence @R.. mention to the belts. Edit your question to include the printer brand, or if self-designed, a photo.

@Gauthier: Look at the suggestions in my first and second comment.

It looks like you are right about the seam, see my edit! Do you think that the "bulging seam" is caused by the backlash, or something else? I expect the result to look better after randomizing the seam (or aligning, maybe), but there is still something wrong with the bulge. I've done Linear Advance already.

Bulging seam could be caused by not having Linear Advance tuned well, by having retractions too slow (allowing oozing during retract/unretract), or perhaps other things. What is your retraction length, speed, and acceleration? I think you do have backlash (loose belt) problems too that might be making this more noticable, but that's a separate problem for the most part.

@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Post updated with retraction settings. These are the Prusa default.

Retraction settings look pretty much ok, but there's a hidden parameter not shown, the E-axis acceleration limit. If it's very low (below a few thousand) the retraction will be very slow because there's not enough distance to accelerate to the desired 35 mm/s speed.

@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Right, it's at 5000 mm/s^2. Also, maximum E jerK: 4.5 mm/s.

I just came back to say I'm sorry I don't have any more good suggestions at this time. This is such a well-asked and well-documented question. Your retraction settings all sound very reasonable and unlikely to be part of the problem. If you haven't checked for play in the belts yet, that's probably your best bet. It could cause erratic seams dependent on where the XY motion last changed directions.

@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE I'm really grateful for your help, I really appreciate it!


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Laser engraver on Ender 3 without taking important ports
I'm contemplating buying a laser engraver attachment for my Ender 3 Pro.  Either the Creality official one or the Comgrow version.
When scanning the respective web pages/answers on here and YouTube videos, it seems like you usually unplug cables for fans and swap them with laser, etc.
So I guess my question is:  if I still wanted to be able to easily print, let's say within 10 mins of engraving something, without opening up my printer's electronics case to swap cables every time... what would be the best approach?
Is there a way to have everything permanently plugged in and the G-code file simply dictates what is done (3D printing vs lasering).
I have a different board than the default Creality if that changes anything (a BTT E3 RRF Board).  I also have the IDEX expansion board plugged in, that's currently only running a second Z-axis motor (i.e. probably has extra plugs on it).

You don't need to open the electronics casing, why not cut/split the (print) fan cable so that you can plug it quick without too much delay. The power for the laser could be fed directly from a power supply.

Just so I understand..... the cable from the board out to the fan would be split (once out of the box) and there would be a plug out there for the laser?  I would then plug in the laser to that whenever I needed it?   If its that easy....  I'm dumb.

I would cut it at the printhead, just before the cable goes into the fan and crimp on a female and male header on each end of the cable (take some extra length if possible), but I don't have an Ender to verify it that is possible. If you want the laser, disconnect the fan and plug in the laser in the fan socket near the print head. If you place the laser module onto the print head, beware of the offset in your slicer! Your effective area might be less than used for 3D printing.