text:
Stepper motors are not working when connected with RAMPS 1.4
ISSUE: Stepper motors are not working when connected with RAMPS 1.4.
OBSERVATION: The LED lights(LED 2,3,4) in the RAMPS 1.4 is not powering up.
PRACTICES: I use Arduino Mega 2560 and installed Marlin firmware in it. And I bought a RAMPS 1.4 in a local electronic dealer. I placed the RAMPS over Arduino Mega 2560. For testing I just connected 2 NEMA 17 stepper motors with RAMPS. When USB port connection is given from laptop to Arduino board, a LED light is ON in Arduino board (L) and in RAMPS (LED 1). I use SMPS 12 V 20 A as a PSU for RAMPS. But in RAMPS the LED 2, 3, 4 are not switched ON. I checked the input voltage to the RAMPS using micrometer and it shows 11.75 V. But there is no output from the RAMPS.
Also I installed and tried Repetier firmware and Grbl but it doesn't work. And I use Windows 10 pro 64 bit OS.
When I flashed Arduino with Grbl, in this case all of the LEDs on the Arduino and RAMPS 1.4 are switched ON. I use Candle GRBL software to test the stepper motors.
And I replaced and tested with another RAMPS which is bought from Amazon but the problem remains unchanged.
Kindly give some suggestions at the earliest.
I have attached the images of my circuit connection:

Board selection in Marlin:
#ifndef MOTHERBOARD
#define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_RAMPS_14_EFB
#endif

Additional clarifications
In response to Professor's questions:

Yes the stepper drivers are connected correctly
Yes the stepper wiring is accurate (2B 2A 1A 1B) as per mentioned in the Ramps 1.4.
No there is no voltage input to stepper motor. But there is 12V input to Ramps 1.4.
Disabled cold extrusion
No, the firmware is not set to no move before homing (issue G28 first)
Yes, pins are set correctly for your board in Marlin

I actually thought the problem is in the electronic circuit but the problem is the baud rate. I initially took the baud rate as 115200 but later. after someone's suggestion, I changed it to 250000 and now it's fine.

to help you to solve this problem - please see my checklist

are the stepper drivers connected correctly (pin1 to pin1)?
stepper wiring is accurate (1a-1a..2b-2b)?
is there enough voltage provided to the steppers (regulate)?
if you are trying to move E0 or E1 then you need to disable cold extrusion as that stops rotation (waiting for 170C deg on the nozzle)
is the firmware set to no move before homing (issue G28 first)?
are pins set correctly for your board in Marlin?

the led's are set on my ramps as they are mostly giving a stutus for heater fan and bed, so grbl software could use those pins differently

New problem professor:
After connecting all the motors in my 3d printer, I use pronterface to control my 3d printer. But now kindly tell me how to set limits and to move xyz axis in negative direction. My printing volume is 180mmx180mmx130mm.
While using pronterface, when I select Home option for x,y&z axis it moves about 5mm in positive direction every single time.
Sometimes it shows, 'Printer halted. kill() called'.
How could this be solved?
Thanks and regards
Baalaji V

@BaalajiV Comments are not meant to start a discussion or launch new questions - as previously stated this is a Q&A site and not a forum. Please open a new question and link back to this question!

@BaalajiV -  Please do not ask new questions in comments. Without wishing to sound harsh, StackExchange is a Q&A site, and not a forum of threaded messages. The reason for this is to aid the search for answers to issues, and provide it in a structured Q&A way. I know that this might seem a pain, but can you repost your question using the Ask Question link at the top of the page? When you repost your new question, please feel free to refer back to this original question using the URL, seeing as it is the reason why you posted in the first place.


text:
Hotend temperature reading limited
After doing some repairs and upgrades on my Ultimaker Original, I found my temperature readings to be weird.
The reading is not incorrect, as long as the temperature is above 110°C. When the real temparature is below 110°C, the sensor will always read 110°C, with only subtle changes around 0.1°C.
This will cause the printer to abort heating, because it does not see a change in temparature for the first 30 seconds (when the temperature is below 110°C).

Here you can see a screenshot of Pronterface, showing how the temperature (blue line) starts increasing when my printer already aborted heating (violet line).
I am certain that the reading is incorrect because at the beginning the hotend actually feels cold to touch.
I am also certain that the reading above 110°C is more or less accurate.

What could this be caused by? What parts should I replace?
If I should replace the TC2, will a TC1 do too? I can't seem to find any store selling the TC2.
If I should replace the sensor, what kind of sensor should I search for?
Or is there a drop-in sensor-chip-combination that I can buy?

What were your upgrades?

A lot of different ones, new extruder, new heater, new (but same) chip. The temp sensor is still the same though, so I suspect it got damaged during my migration into the new heater block.

At first you should check the temperature sensor. See if the resistance increases in proportion to the temperature. Then it might be a good idea to find the component causing the problem by swapping them with the original one by one.

The temp sensor is original though.

Maybe the temperature sensor isn't making proper contact with the part it's meant to be measuring, until said part has slightly expanded? But a damaged sensor would be my first bet.

I meanwhile replaced the temperature sensor with a brand new one, without any change in readings. Would your situation not result in a too cold reading until a certain temperature is reached? Mine is reading wayy to hot until 120°C is reached.

The fact that the temperature reading stays steady while heating and changes once it stops heating makes me thing that you might have a short between your heater wires and sensor wires or somehow have them interconnected. Especially if it shows the same temperature when it's actually below 110°C and heating but shows correct when not heating. I would try to separate the heater wires from the sensor wires and make sure they are not touching, also check that the sensor wires are not touching the heating block.

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text:
Constant under extrusion and filament grinding
I sadly have a big problem since a couple of weeks and I cant fix it myself. For over 20 prints, I had the same problems: At the start, everything goes well but at some point of time, my Creality CR-10 starts under extruding and after like 1 minute, NO filament is extruded anymore and the 3D printer moves over the printing bed without extruding anything. After that, I have to pull out the filament and the feeder always grinds into it.
Some problem with the hotend (so the feeder works well but it cant push the filament through somehow - I cleaned the nozzle and couldn't find anything wrong there. When I push the filament through by hand it gets extruded but after a failed print, it is VERY hard to pull it back (because of the filament being slightly bigger at the nozzle - hard to remove! -
That could be the problem:
I just tried to remove the filament from the printer (another failed print) I had to use two tongs because the filament was so hard to pull back. I noticed that the diameter of the PLA close to the hotend was a lot bigger (way over 1.75 mm) For about 5 cm that's a very long distance - that's the reason why it's hard to pull back (and also push through?) But I don't know why that happens... If I get an answer for that, I think that I have solved my problem
I already tried printing at 50 % which didn't work.

Creality CR-10 with 0.4 mm nozzle,
1.75 mm PLA filament used (white)
0.27 mm layer height
45 mm/s printing speed at 220° (I can easily push the filament through at 200° by hand)
60° bed temp

And here some pictures of the failed prints:

I think I can exclude these:
It could be: (the things I can imagine but don't have a solution for)

The feeder being too strong/my new PLA filament being too soft
Maybe a software problem? I'm using the newest Cura version and I don't know what could be wrong there.

The filament seems to run out of the hotend. Something is really broken here. I tried to lower the print temperature and don't have an issue (at least not that big) with pulling out the filament but instead, the feeder started grinding into the filament again.

I'm very happy for any answer and possible solutions.

Check your extruder calibration, and also print a calibration cube at 100% infill.

According to a deleted answer from @DinaldEnte, it was a loose spring.

@SeanHoulihane Sadly, this didnt fix the problem entirely. It appeared again later. Ill post the fix when I fixed the problem.

Fixed this by replacing the hotend.

Grinding is due to attempts to advance filament faster than it can be melted and dispensed. Try one or more of the following:

Raise the head temperature (to meet current throughput demand)
Lower the print speed (to reduce throughput demand)
Slice for thinner layers (to reduce throughput demand)

Should I print with a temperature higher than 220°C? That would be quite unusual for PLA.. And I will try to lower the print speed.

For your material, you will need to adjust and observe. Perhaps 225°C is best for that speed. Perhaps 215°C at half speed works well. You must test with that material on that equipment. What works for me may not work for you. The slower you print, the more time the material stays in the melt zone of the head.

I already tried printing at 50% speed and it still didnt work :/ I just dont know what else to try..

Please add that info to the original post so others will have that info.

Alright. I changed the post, you might have a solution for it now?

@DonaldEnte Maybe it is too hot and cabonizes?

@Oscar that could actually be it. As you can read below I'll try to lower the temp.

I have had this problem for several reasons.  I can not say what your reason is, but these have been mine.  From your symptoms, I suspect the first problem, but I've listed others in case they are helpful

I had this problem to most with a "Thing-o-Matic" printer.  The problem was that there wasn't a clean enough break between the heater and the filament.  To fix this, I added a fan on the metal tube above the melt zone.  When the filament was sitting, it would soften and expand.  It was then harder to push, and it would cause these vertical strings like you have in your picture.  The Thing-o-Matic extruder was direct rather than Bowden, but the same problem could exist.  I see that the CR-10 has a fan attached to the extruder.  Be sure it continues to run, and that the airflow cools the region right above the hot-end, even when the head is an inch above the bed.
One more thought on this topic: retracting pulls filament out of the melt zone into the space above the melt zone, bringing the heat with it.  Lowering the retraction settings may reduce the heating of the space above the melt-zone.

Bad connection to the heater, so that the temperature drops while printing.

Too much pressure on the filament by the extruder pressure roller.  One pass through is fine, but a pattern of short extrusions with frequent retraction caused the filament to pass repeatedly through the roller, and become flattened so that it had difficulty feeding through the rest of the mechanism.

Jammed filament on the spool, preventing the extruder from smoothly pulling.

Some other problems which could cause this, and I have looked for but haven't been the problem in my cases:

Weak power supply.  Check the +12 or +24 voltage while the problem is occurring.

Overheated or defective extruder driver chip that fails to drive one or more stepper motor phases with sufficient current.  This can allow good behavior much of the time, but if anything happens that adds load to the motor, it can stop turning.

Thank you very much for your thoughts! Yesterday, I replaced the nozzle and my bowden tube so I can exclude a clog or something different. The next things I will try are 1) raising the temperature (and external measurement) 2) disabling ALL retraction settings and 3)fan on 100% .. if all of these things fail, the only thing left will be too much tension of the feeder on the filament (but I dont know how to fix this because I cant change it on my printer) I checked voltage etc. everything ok

There are many reasons why that could be happening. The simplest one:

The nozzle may be clogged/has debris. Push the filament down into the hot end with your hand to see if more force will cause a better flow rate. Also, if the filament tries to curl as it's coming out of the nozzle (in any direction) there is is most likely a blockage in the nozzle.
There is a gap between the teflon tube and nozzle, resulting in a larger melt zone which makes it harder to push the filament through.
The extruder cooling fan isn't working which allows the heat to travel up heat brake, extending the melt zone.
The extruder gear may be dirty with plastic debris/dust/rust. This will cause slipping. The fact that the print starts working but then fails seems to indicate that the problem is progressive, indicative of slipping.
The motor is under-powered, resulting in step loss and a cumulative error during printing.
The filament is poor. Voids and inconsistent diameters used to be a problem that caused print fails long ago, but not so much these days.
The stepper motor drivers are over heating and shutting down intermittently during printing, resulting in cumulative errors. Use a house fan/ or other suitable fan to cool the board. I had one Anet A8 mainboard die on me due to over heating.

Thank you for the answer. I think it is one of the things you mentioned. The prints started to fail since I bought a new PLA filament. Its diameter is perfectly consistent 1.75mm but its quite soft.. I bought a new Hotend and after installing it, the problem can only be the filament or feeder if its not working right?

If plastic is now spilling out of the hot end then sadly you did what most newcommers do: You inserted the nozzle flush with the heat block, so you have no idea if there is a gap between the throat. This allows the plastic to ooze out between the threads of the throat and block. Don't thread the nozzle all the way down, flush to the heat block. I thread mine until the last thread just disappears. I usually use a piece of 0.5 mm metal to ensure that a gap remains. Then screw the throat in all way until it stops. Lastly, tighten the nozzle.

Under-extrusion after some time printing sounds like heat-creep. If the cold side of the extruder is getting warm, even up to 60°C (the glass transition temperature), then the un-heated filament will start to soften and fill out to block the tube. As this happens, there is more pressure above the hot-end and less extrusion (but even more force to make the situation worse).

The best solution to this is better cooling of the extruder/stepper, and a good heat-break with a sharp transition between solid and well-melted (but something has presumably triggered this failure on your setup, rather than a fundamental design problem).
Other things you could try are:

Less retract distance (to reduce the variables)
Lower print temperature (and speed, but this will increase pressure in the nozzle)
Reduce the extrusion multiplier (if your filament is a bit thick, the pressure might be a bit high)

Alright. I just printed something with 0 retraction so thats not the problem. I think you are right with the heatbreak.. Is the only solution to this to buy a new hotend with everything? (fan etc.)

I have the same problem with pulling out the filament again. I will try printing at 190°C and redruced speed.

No, the printer design is presumably not fundamentally flawed. Really this is about finding the exact problem and making a small change to fix it.

I just tried lowering the temperature. Sadly it didnt work. After a while under-extrusion and stop of extrusion.. But the filament was quite easy to pull out.

Basically all of my prints right now are like the last picture. Do you have more ideas? I am starting to lose mine :/

A 0.27 mm layer height is not correct for any printer, any nozzle/hotend, any file, and should never be used as a layer height variable for any FDM printer.
Layer height should be a factor of the diameter of your nozzle size. i.e. Your nozzle is 0.4 mm, so depending on your printer, your range of resolutions/layer heights could start as low as 0.04 mm, but is monumentally more likely to begin at 0.08 or 0.12 mm, with a maximum value being 0.28 mm, and maybe 0.32 mm if you're doing some risky/experimental spiralized vase printing.

Hi! I would like to discuss with this a bit. I agree that the optimal layer height is related to nozzle diameter. But how would you support the theory of it being the factor of nozzle diameter? I would propose Flow Math article as a counterweight.

That layer height could be poor selection also for some hardware setup. However the question was stated for Creality CR-10 printer, which (afaik) uses T8 threaded rods with 2 mm pitch. Then this layer height is OK even doing full steps for Z axis. Prusa calculator for Optimal layer height for your Z axis is very helpful here.   (When using microstepping, even 0.2675 would be ok ;), but microstepping itself may introduce some inaccuracy. I disable it for Z axes.)

Sadly, this isnt true: "I finally found the solution! It was the spring being slightly too loose at the feeder. That was it. Such a small thing. I thought that I checked it at least twice."
I bought a new Hotend for my 3D-Printer. I hope that solves the problem. I think that the PTFE Tube doesnt sit tightly on the nozzle so that some filament leaks through. And maybe the fan doesnt work properly. At least I can say that the problem is the Hotend. -the cooling of the filament I guess. Thats because the filament always became larger near the nozzle because it melted. That's also the reason why it was so hard to pull out.

I deleted it because sadly it didnt solve the problem.

But this thread is quite messy now, so I ll create a new one. I bought a new hotend. I hope that fixes the problem.

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text:
Extrusion is not continuous
Issue: Printing is not continuous.
Observation: While printing, the upper layer of the nozzle is leaking. And also the printing is not continuous, the layers are not formed properly.
Practices: Alternate nozzle has been fastened, Bed leveling has been checked, Even used the other softwares to print. Reset-failsafe is  also done.
Conclusion: Feeding of filament from the extruder motor is continuous but the printing is not smooth.
Attachment: The pictures and videos (working) are attached.

Which should be a print of the following image of the model:

Certainly I have made certain observations along with your suggested queries. I have listed them please comment.

The brand which I'm using is the TEVO TORNADO.
The material is PLA.
The temperatures are 60-65C (BED) and 210-215C (EXT)
The software I used is REPETIER.
The extruder stepper motor works fine (No clicks) (The teeths are clean)
This is the nozzle leak

https://i.imgur.com/GL67vMh.jpg                                 https://youtu.be/Zwp45vp5AxQ

Hi: we need to know your printer model and the type of filament in use, and the extruder temperature you are using (as a minimum).  In addition, do you mean there is leaking where the nozzle screws into the hot-end block, or is there leaking on top of the hot-end block?

Hi, and welcome to 3D Printing! Please add a picture of what you are printing, e.g. a screenshot of the model in your slicer. It is very difficult to see what is the problem here, it could be under extrusion or massive stringing or even a clog.

@Carl Witthoft -- thank you for the reply and efforts for me. Certainly I have made certain observations along with your suggested queries. I have listed them please comment.  1.) The brand which I'm using is the TEVO TORNADO.  2.) The material is PLA. 3.) The temperatures are 60-65C (BED) and 210-215C (EXT)  4.) The software I used is REPETIER. 5.) The extruder stepper motor works fine (No clicks) (The teeths are clean) 6.) This is the nozzle leak.(Attached an image) link  Kingly help me, since I'm gaining knowledge on the 3d printing. Thanks earlier.

@Oscar thank you for the reply and efforts for me. MY OBSERVATIONS 1.) The brand which I'm using is the TEVO TORNADO.  2.) The material is PLA. 3.) The temperatures are 60-65C (BED) and 210-215C (EXT)  4.) The software I used is REPETIER. 5.) The extruder stepper motor works fine (No clicks) (The teeths are clean) 6.) This is the nozzle leak. link. 7.) I'm printing this. [link] (https://i.imgur.com/GL67vMh.jpg) 8.) It turned out to be like [link] (https://i.imgur.com/AK87Y2a.jpg) Kingly help me, since I'm gaining knowledge on the 3d printing. Thanks earlier

@shachin_vs Please edit the question to clarify the details which you added in the comments. The question should be complete without needing to read the comments.

Hello @Sean Houlihane. Thanks for the note. It has been done. Sorry It's very new for me to be in an open community. Thanks much...

and welcome to 3D Printing Stack Exchange.
From the picture and the video, it appears that you have significant under extrusion.  It is impossible to determine from this information what is causing this.  It could be temperature, such as a nozzle that is too cold, slicing configuration being wrong, such as by slicing for 3mm filament but using 1.75mm filament, electronics, such as the extruder stepper not generating enough torque, or a jam where the filament simply can't be pressed into the hot zone.
I listened to your video but didn't hear anything that might help straighten this out.  But, what I didn't hear was a "clicking" extruder.  The extruder "clicks" if it is trying really hard to push the filament but it is not able to come out of the nozzle.  It might be worth checking the toothed roller that drives the filament to be sure the teeth are clean.  If the teeth are full, the drive roller can't get a grip on the filament to push it forward.
Also, I am concerned that plastic is may be coming out somewhere other than the top of the nozzle.  That shouldn't happen.  Could you attach a photo of plastic coming out of the wrong place?
---  Added after comments, and this photo os the nozzle leak was attached.
3D printing needs a long chain of conditions to be right.  Any problem in that chain can cause unacceptable results.  When trying to get good results, it is always best to fix any problem you find, and the plastic leak is a big problem.  Other problems may exist, but this must be fixed for a print to succeed.
The plastic leak is a big problem for a few reasons:

It allows plastic to leave the melt zone other than through the nozzle.  Since 3D printing depends on controlling the plastic leaving the nozzle for the print, this extra escape path is plastic which should have been neatly deposited on your print.  The control system has no way to know that the plastic it fed through the extruder is not on the print, so you get under extrusion.
There is an extra chamber inside the hot end which must be melted.  In the ideal case, the filament directly enters the nozzle, in which it melts.  Pressure from the cold filament at one end pushes the molten filament toward and through the nozzle.  The filament doesn't not need to change directions or flow particularly easily because it always moves linearly through the hot end.  It necks-down to the output hole size, but that is assisted by an entry cone to the nozzle aperature.
In a working hot end, there is not hot filament inside the hot end that is not extruded.  There are no eddy currents.  There are no places where filament can rest.  PLA is prone to degradation when kept at printing temperatures.  This isn't a problem in an ideal hot end because no filament sits idle.  Where there is an opening, or any extra gap, even if filament weren't leaking past the threads, there would be a pool of filament that was not in the extrusion path which would be hot for tool long, and would degrade into a hard, burned mess.

Disassembling the hot end can be tricky.  The cold plastic is a great glue which has filled and sealed the threads.  Do not use the internal heater to heat it.  The wires will get in the way when you are taking it apart.  There can (will) be broken connections, and possibly uncontrolled heating.  Use a hot air gun or hair dryer to soften the plastic.
If you can not remove the heater and thermistor before taking it apart, find where they are connected to the electronics and disconnect them there.  Do not leave the wires connected.  The heater and thermistor are fragile, and too much bending or force on the wires will destroy them.  You might purchase spares because you are likely to damage one or both.
PLA softens at a relatively low temperature.  When you have a plastic encased mess, disconnected from the rest of the printer, you can soften the plastic either with hot air or hot water.
A "relatively low tenperature" can still give you serious burns.  Use gloves, pliers, toothpicks, and any other tools you need.
When you reassemble the hot end, the nozzle should screw tightly against the upper tube that delivers the plastic.
Inspect the top of the nozzle and the bottom of the tube, and be sure they are flat, smooth, and are cut at a 90 degree angle to their axis.  They must fit together tightly, leaving no gap.
One assembly order is recommended by E3D.  I mention them because they deserve credit, although I am embellishing with details they are unaware of, have not suggested, and are not responsible for.

Start with all parts removed from the heater block (the rectangle of aluminum).
Screw the nozzle into the heater block, and then back it off 1/4 to 1/2 a turn.
Screw the top tube into the heater block until it is tight against the nozzle.
Assemble eerything else -- heater, thermister, wiring, attach to extruder, ...
With no plastic, heat the hot end from the control panel to be hotter than the hottest you will need when printing, maybe 250C if you are only printing PLA and ABS, and assure that it is heating normally.
WITH THE HOT END HOT, tighten the nozzle with a wrench so that it is tight against the upper tube.

Of the three objects in the hot end, the aluminum heater block has the highest coefficient of thermal expansion.  It is higher than both the steel upper tube and the brass nozzle.  The tendency as the hot end heats is to open a gap between the nozzle and the tube.  By making them tight at the highest temperature, they will also be tight at lower temperatures.
When the leak is fixed, you may be done, or there may be other problems to solve.
Welcome to 3D Printing!

Thanks for the reply and efforts for me. Certainly I have made certain observations along with your suggested queries. I have listed them please comment. 1.)The brand which I'm using is the TEVO TORNADO. 2.)The material is PLA. 3.)The temperatures are 60-65C (BED) and 210-215C (EXT) 4.)The software I used is REPETIER. 5.)The extruder stepper motor works fine (No clicks)(The teeths are clean) 6.)This is the nozzle leak. (Attached an image)(https://ibb.co/c6gf2p). Kindly help me, since I'm gaining knowledge on the 3d printing. Thanks earlier

Hello, If possible can you suggest me some software support for my printing? Any easy test files or something. Any Steps, checklists could be very usefull. Thanks and regards.

Hello After seeing image of your hotend I can say this is due to leaking nozzle. I also noticed one thing leakage is from above heater block. I am seeing some threads of throat tube  in pic. I think heater block is not correctly screwed to throat tube. My advice is to disassemble hotend clean it and assemble it again. Also check for any damage in throat tube threads.

@Himanshu Thanks for the comment. I will do the necessary steps and get back on the track.

@cmm Thanks for the time. The repair mod what you'have suggested is very useful. Thanks a lot for the support.

From your linked photo, it appears that the feeder tube is not well-seated in the hotend (heater block). That's why the leak -- the tube should be in firm contact with the top of the nozzle.
I'm not sure how to adjust that with your system, but as a minimum try screwing the feeder tube down farther into the hotend and, if possible, screw the nozzle deeper in as well.
By comparison, my Prusa clone has space for a seating nut on the feeder tube, and by seating that tightly onto the hotend, I can avoid that sort of leak.


text:
What exactly does automatic bed leveling do?
I get the concept of automatic bed leveling...the printer moves around the bed and uses a sensor to identify high and low spots, then "software compensates for differences".
But what exactly does "compensates" mean?
It is extruding more material in the low spots to build them up and thinning out the high spots? Is it adding or removing layers? Is it shifting layers as it goes up to compensate tilt? Or...?
In what ways will this affect the final outcome? Would it be valid to say that if you wanted an automatically leveled bed and dimensional accuracy you should always print to a raft?

it just sets the floor to a non-zero Z value, layers are all bumped up uniformly. iow, if you had 1mm layers, and 5 layers, it could use 1-6 instead of 0-5. it's more precise, but that's the main idea: min z height

This is a great question and I would really like to see some citations in some of these excellent answers.

Let's say your bed is tilted 5 degrees from the northwest corner to the southeast corner. This extreme example is to help with mental visualization. Will the ABL compensate to the point that all faces that are perpendicular to the XY plane in 3d space will be adjusted so they remain perpendicular to the build plate? I think the question about the raft is an excellent one and it does matter. A raft could potentially build up a truly flat surface that is parallel to the XY plane of the print head.  I turned ABL off since I'm fine with leveling the bed before every print.

Last first:  use of a raft has nothing to do with bed levelling. It depends only on the features/shape/etc of the object being printed.
Now, as to what the auto-levelling does: the answer is, sadly "it depends."  A simple algorithm will just find the Z-height of the four corners and apply a bilinear correction to Z as a function of {x,y} coordinates.  A really good algorithm would map the entire build plate to some designated precision (perhaps 5 mm) and create a 2-dimensional lookup table to adjust Z over a curved build plate.     What your printer's levelling software does is more likely the former.
Why? because if you try to correct over curves & bumps, then you will end up distorting your entire printed object (basically forcing every layer to follow those distorted axes).  Far better to have some flattened or "fat" spots in the first layer printed, and then print proper planar layers after that.
Example: I know my bed (AnetA8 aluminum) is slightly bowed, peak in the center; so after levelling the overall bed I try to set the Z-zero so the outer extremes of my object have good adhesion, even if the center region of the first couple layers ends up non-extruding because the nozzle touches the bed.

Basically there are two problems to address: first - bed inclination and second - uneven bed surface.
There are different algorithms dealing with one or both problems.
Most specialists insist that bed should be flat and most people use glass as the top to achieve this. And this eliminates second problem and require to solve only the first one.
To find bed inclination - autolevel algorithm usually do three points test and get transformation matrix. This matrix then used to transform XY motion to be parallel to the surface.
For uneven bed surface more complex algorithms used. But usually bilinear mesh used that could be looked as the whole square surface subdivided into smaller ones with individual inclinations. Basically algorithm from XY coordinates determines the sub-square and then applies corresponded transformation for it's inclination.
The transformation fade out with the Z going up and usually applied within first 10mm over the bed level.
There is UBL (Universal Bed Leveling) algorithm that deals with two problems simultaneously. Only once it probes the whole bed with many points to produce two dimensional mesh to address second problem.
And for each next auto level it does three points test to find the whole bed inclination. Then it combines measured inclination with the mesh information stored in memory. UBL assumes that surface do not change but only it's inclination could change.
In all cases this is all about to guarantee that the first levels of filament will lay on the bed evenly and will stick to it.

A probe or even manual (e.g. through LCD panel) leveling results in either a reference plane or mesh. This depends on the firmware and the options set in the firmware. Basically, this process maps the geometry of your build plate. Once it knows this geometry, printing an object results in the head following the height contours of the mapped build plate. Generally the following of the height contours is levelled out in the first few millimeters, which is also set in the firmware. This means that after a few millimeters of printing the height is not adjusted anymore, but is kept at a single level.


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How to print text upside down for minimal support when printing

Hey!
Pretty new to all this. Wondering how you would approach this problem to have an extruded element on top of a flat surface. I want to avoid lots of support material (actually no support at all for a cleaner print and no work with sanding etc.) I intend to print this inverted in Z (i.e. text down) for the main structure.
My only idea would be to print it separately and then glue it on. But maybe there is another solution that comes to your mind?
Cheers!

Do you have a preference for the program used to edit/create the part with the text? Also please consider to note the operating system you use.

This is irrelevant for this general question.

if the two "legs" joined in the middle you wouldn't need supports to print as shown, since a 45deg overhang is fine. if not, then you need to support the letters, which is cheap, or the whole platform, which is easy.

Your question should be edited to include the comment you made on mbmcavoy's answer.  As it stands it's not really clear what you're asking..."How to add the text to the digital model?" or "How can I combine these after printing both?" but your question is really "I want to print this with the text facing down, how is this best done?".

You are right! Sorry!

Let's assume a general case where the base object has to be printed "face down" for reasons of overhang, strength, or anything.
My recommendation, and it's largely one of personal style, is to modify the face surface to have a couple mounting holes in it.  Then, in whatever CAD or Mesh software you're using, add mating pegs to the backside of the lettering. (This is easier if you can include a thin "base layer" or connectors so the text is a single object).  Then print the base object "face down," print the text "face up", add glue and insert pins into holes.

Yes, I figured this would be the best option! Thanks for the input!

welcome to 3DPrinting.
To make this easier to talk about, let me call the surface on which you want to print the letters the "tabletop".
Looking at your picture, let me guess that you would print the object with the tabletop down.  Then everything prints naturally, with no bridging and no overhangs.
You want to put text on the tabletop.  This could be done by using support material to lift the bed up to the text height, or, in the converse, by using support material to permit the entire object to be printed with the tabletop up.  I can't see enough detail in your drawing to know if the object is printable with the tabletop up without using support material, so I will assume that it is not.
In your drawing, the lettering is a different color from the table.  I'll assume that this is not your intention, and you want the entire object with the text to be printed with one material.
I have solved this in two ways in different cases.
In one case, I wanted extruded letters printed on a vertical surface.  I surrounded the letters with a 45 degree draft so that the overhang was printable.  This won't help you here unless the object is printable on the side.
In another case, I changed my design to have letters engraved rather than extruded.  That prints well against the bed, with no overhang issues, and only short bridging required.
Engraved letters are readable, like extruded letters, and can be printed against the bed.

I think this is probably a better answer than mine. Based on the question, I assumed the object was just an example, and the text would be on the top surface as printed. But given that object without the text, it would make sense to print it upside-down, and with text that won't work...

I would also agree that the "table" does not appear to be printable right-side up without supports. While I don't know the design intent, I would personally modify the design to increase the bed contact, and minimize the bridging needed. Try printing things that push your printers capabilities, and learn what it can and cannot do!

Thanks! Good input. I will make some tests according to your tips!

Supporting the text while printing should simply not be a problem, if printed in the orientation shown. The text, as per your description and shown in the illustration is extruded vertically and there is no overhang. No support should be needed at all.
A few notes:
The bottom (dark grey) portion of your object does have a significant overhang, and may need some support depending on the specific shape. But support for that should not be near the text or affect it.
Text can be tricky to print with high quality if the width is not much bigger than your nozzle size. This is not specific to text, but rather feature size, slicer settings, and printer/filament capabilities. Experimentation is your friend - print it, and then address any quality problems that you find.
If you want the text to be a different color (as in your illustration), you might be in luck. There is a technique to pause the printer at desired layer height, swap out the filament, and resume printing. Your shape would lend itself to this technique. It's not too hard, but the specifics do depend on the software and printer you are using. There are quite a few good writeups on various 3D printing sites. If you want to ask about this, please ask another question, with this information.

sorry I flipped the whole thing to show you the text -  of course I printed it the other way around with the flat side down to not have tons of overhangs and which is why I am here asking.

One way that I have solved that issue is by model it in openscad and embed the letters in the surface.  then with my dual headed printer, print the letters in a different color.  No support material is needed in that case.


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Do all 3D printers allow the printing of flexible material?
Are there any specific type of FDM 3D printers that I should look for?

It does look like a duplicate (which is not a problem, effectively this may be a different way of asking the same question - which also resulted in a slightly different answer).

Possible duplicate of How to print TPU material with 3d printer

See also the answer to this question: Needing a simple fix for loading TPU

Seems like a legit question. The two above linked questions are not the same as 'can all printers print flexible...'.

This question was closed (by the community) due to lack of focus not because it was a duplicate.  IMHO, it seems a bit generalised and open. In addition, due to the lack of focus, it could also attract opinion-based, or shopping recommendation, answers. The reasons for the closing of the question have not been addressed (i.e. the question hasn't been edited since the close date). Finally, it already has a number of highly voted answers, one of which is the accepted answer. So, IMHO, I see little to be gained from re-opening. Maybe, if you want, ask a new question, but with greater focus..?

No.  Not all 3D printers can print flexible material.
The first place you will have trouble is in the extruder itself.  Flexible filament will find any way to escape from the confines of the rollers and the guide tube.  Any opening will allow the filament to buckle and find a new path.  It is common to find that the filament has filled any gaps inside the extruder, and wrapped itself tightly around the drive roller.
@0scar describes this in his answer.  If the extruder does not have tight tolerances, with 1/4mm or less clearance between the drive roller on all sides, AND if there isn't a tube mated right up into the place where the filament is pressed between the drive roller and the idler, your extruder will fail to print Ninjaflex (a very flexible filament).
Oscar also mentions that Bowden feed doesn't work well.  It is fundamentally the same buckling problem.  There is always a gap around the filament inside the Bowden tube.  A stiff filament will rub at some points, but a soft filament will compress and ripple, filling the entire lumen inside the tube, and greatly increasing the friction.  Higher friction means more extruder pressure, so more buckling, more friction, and more failure.
Even if you are lucky and don't experience the run-away friction problem, the flexible filament is more compressible.  With a Bowden feed system, that compression must be preloaded at the beginning of each extrusion movement and relieved for each retraction.  With direct drive, the filament also compresses, but the amount of filament is much less, so the compression is less, and the problems are less.

Not all printers are suitable to print flexible filament. E.g. 1.75 mm filament printers with a Bowden extruder/hotend combination will not work (you may have more luck using 2.85 mm filament, which is stiffer because of the increased diameter). For 1.75 mm filament you require a direct drive extruder, e.g. with the stepper mounted onto the hotend, even then some additional guide parts need to be printed to make it work. This also depends on the amount of flexibility of the filament, some are more flexible than others.

E.g. Ultimaker 3D printers use 2.85 mm filament with a Bowden setup. They also sell a flexible filament that can be printed with these printers. Even for direct drive extruder printers like the Anet A8 (a cheap Chinese Prusa i3 clone) inserts exist (e.g. this or this one) to even better guide the filament to prevent it to buckle.


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Slicing problem - Slic3r prusa
I'm trying to slice this model: https://www.shapeways.com/product/VVNUVZ6JL/dread-warrior?optionId=66361748&li=user-profile

I'm using a .4mm nozzle and .1mm layer height. When using slic3r some of the layers seem to just not get generated. You can see this on the horns. It also has some weird artifacts on the shield of the model.

I tried using Cura to slice the same model and while it does a better job for the horns it removes most of the face on the model.

Are there any slicer settings I can adjust to help fix these artifacts? Is there any other slicer out there that may fix the problems? Is this just a problem of needing to use a smaller nozzle and lower layer height?

It's a nozzle size issue. The model contains a lot of details which is really challenging to print with a 0.4 mm nozzle.
A big nozzle is just not able to print such fine details. You should switch to 0.25 mm or 0.15 mm. Just try to set a smaller nozzle in your slicer.
There is a nice article on Prusa's blog showing the difference in printing details with 0.4mm and 0.25mm: EVERYTHING ABOUT NOZZLES WITH A DIFFERENT DIAMETER, especially chapters Examples of practical use and Printing miniatures.
See the difference:

Wow - I gotta get me some teeny nozzles!

https://e3d-online.com/nozzles-for-3d-printer/v6-nozzles#browse


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Custom 3D printer printing dimensions has changed because of a .gcode file
A couple weeks before, I bought a custom 3D printer that has an Ultimaker 2 motherboard in it. However, the dimensions of the printer is not same with Ultimaker 2 (X and Y same, a bit smaller on Z). The printer had tinkerfirmware installed in it. Today, I tried to print a premade .gcode file (Which was for another 3D printer I guess) and after pressing print, The machine told me the file will overwrite machine settings, and I pressed yes for it. After that, the dimensions of my 3D printer has changed in it's firmware. The bed is raising more than it should while starting calibrating, and not setting it's position precisely. (To make the 1mm gap, I had to move the bed down 4-5mm away from where it should be.) Now the question is, what can I do to fix this problem ? I also tried reinstalling original firmware which didn't really worked. (All the parts are orginal except the frame, which is a bit more smaller on height) How should I measure the height of printing area?

Your printer is an Ultimaker clone or something else?  All of the original firmwares located on TinkerGnome's Github are configured for Ultimaker printers so if you are using them on something different you will need to configure it before using it.  The easiest option would be editing this print file that changed your settings to your desired settings and then reloading it.
How to find your actual Z? Well that's a bit difficult without more information.  I'm guessing from your description that your printer homes at Z max?  If it's homing at Z max you need to home the machine, jog the Z axis to where you want 0 to be (usually using a piece of paper between the nozzle and bed), then record the Z axis position and enter that as your travel limit in the firmware.  If your printer homes at Z min this could be as simple as changing the homing offset.

It's an Ultimaker 2, but with a different casing. The guy who did this was working at Ultimaker technical support in my country, so he made it from parts over there. Thanks for the answer!

Firmware is stored in EEPROM, and may contain some default values, but does not affect the calibration values which are stored in EEPROM.
You should be able to reset the calibration to 'factory defaults', this actually means to take the defaults in the firmware and store them in EEPROM.
Use M502 to load firmware defaults into the current session.
Use M500 to write the settings from the current session into EEPROM.
It is unusual for a design in gcode to include modifications to the settings, but maybe it was done to change acceleration or something similar.

If I knew it was going to change the machine settings and won't revert it back later, I wouldn't really print it. I am just new to 3D printing, I would buy an orginal Ultimaker but the country I live in (Turkey) is having an economical crysis. A couple months before, Ultimaker 2 was near 4000 Turkish Liras, where it's now somewhere near 20.000 Turkish Liras.


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Can G-code scripts be run automatically on inserting an SD card when using Marlin Firmware?
When running Marlin Firmware, is it possible to run G-code scripts/series of commands automatically when you insert the SD card?

I'm running Marlin on a 3D printer board using an ATmega 2560 based board with a reprap discount LCD controller with an SD card slot. I would like to do this without the need to add another computer/board, so native from the board running the Marlin Firmware.

Not quite the answer, but close: https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/wiki/Autostart.

Adding link to Nikkoura's answer and while that deals with power-on only, this post on the Marlin forum asks about purely insertion on a printer which is already powered on. A reply was received and apparently it should be possible by making a code change in ultralcd.ccp

A feature request has been made on Marlin's GitHub, see Can G-code scripts be run automatically on inserting an SD card when using Marlin Firmware?

I am not entirely sure if this is what you are after, or if it will work, but from  this post on Printing From SD Card when printer is turned On

While an LCD controller is not needed for auto#.g to work, if you have an LCD controller you can use the MENU_ADDAUTOSTART option to add a menu command that will run the auto0.g, auto1.g, auto2.g whenever you want.

This (final) post ended up closing the thread so it appears to answer the OP's question - however, whether it will answer your question is another matter.

This post, on the Marlin forum, replicates your question and asks about purely insertion of an SD card on a printer which is already powered on.
A reply was received and apparently it should be possible by making a code change in ultralcd.ccp:

It does not seem like an auto print, when inserting a SD-card, is to
be found in the current program code of Marlin.
You might consider making a feature request here: [github.com]
I do not think that it would require much work to implement a
"card.autoprintfile()" function in Marlin. It seems to me that a call
to such a function could happen at line 5172 right after:
else
LCD_MESSAGEPGM(MSG_SD_INSERTED);

in the file ultralcd.ccp

A subsequent feature request has been made on Marlin's GitHub, see [FR] Can G-code scripts be run automatically on inserting an SD card when using Marlin Firmware?
However, from this reply, it appears that a feature request is already pending:

I'm not in favor of this as a general feature. We already have a
feature request to be able to run custom G-code in response to various
events, with SD card insertion being one of those events. Would that
feature serve your needs?

However, as yet, I do not have a link to this other feature request. Will update as and when.

As an aside, in might be worth mentioning that the SDFat related code could be the place to code this in, see if SD card removed, how to flag and restart?, although after looking at the Marlin codebase, in particular SdFatUtils.cpp, this would appear to be a red herring.

I don't know what you would like to achieve.
As @typo mentioned there is similar functionality which triggers at printer startup: https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/wiki/Autostart
I found in Marlin's source code that you can enable that autostart feature to be triggered from menu. Just enable MENU_ADDAUTOSTART in Configuration_adv.h.
If you really need a g-code that start after sd-card insert then you have to adjust the marlin source code on your own. I suggest to alter file cardreader.cpp. There you have to trigger the autostart procedure after a sd-card is inserted.


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How do I know when filament is getting old, and what things can I do to correct for it?
I've heard I should store filament in sealed container, preferably with a desiccant.
But let's say I let a spool get a little old on the printer, or I purchased a filament spool that was old or improperly packaged. How would I know? How would this impact prints (what kind of symptoms would I see)? What things could I do (perhaps in the slicer) to correct for this and prolong the life of marginal filament?
And the corollary... in a typical environment, how long can filament be left out without suffering from the exposure?
I'm thinking mainly about PLA, but responses for ABS and other materials are useful, too.

If it's PLA it will snap easily. I had a roll for 3 years open to the air. It snapped like macroni. Nylon will expand and not print well. You'll also hear it popping an hissing.

Have you found and fixed the problem? If so, have the answers below led you to the solution? Please vote to accept an answer (using the tick button next to the answer) so this question is not bumped up once in a while and can be removed from the unanswered question list. You may even add your own solution and accept that after 48 hours! If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.

The primary issue with long-term exposure of filament to the environment is that it will absorb water moisture from the air. When a filament that has absorbed water is passing though the hot end of a printer, the water will turn to steam and cause problems with extrusion:

Small bubbles of steam can form, causing extrusion to sputter - you might hear a sizzling noise and have poor consistency.
Large steam bubbles can cause significant oozing followed by no extrusion.
Extreme cases can cause mysterious jams that seem to clear themselves (the extruder cannot overcome the steam pressure).

In short, this will cause terrible print quality and failed prints. As the effects are not consistent, there is nothing that can be done by slicer settings to "recalibrate" for filament that has absorbed water.
This can be avoided by storing filament in an air-tight container with desiccant to ensure low humidity. Some people use "dry boxes" that allow the spool to be mounted inside while filament can be passed to the printer, so there is minimal exposure even while the spool is in use.
If you do suspect that your filament has absorbed moisture, you can dry it out, by placing the spool in a warm oven or in a food dehydrator for a few hours. If you weight it before and after, you should find that it weighs several grams less afterwards. WARNING: It is important that the temperature does not soften the plastic at all, or it can become distorted or bind on the spool. Most ovens will peak well above the set temperature as the thermostat cycles. Of course, fully melting a roll of filament could destroy your oven or cause a fire.
It's hard to say how much environmental exposure is too much, as every filament and environment is different. When I started out, I had several spools of PLA that I stored in the open for months. I didn't think I was having any problems, but I was also learning much and improving my printer settings at the same time. After getting PETG, it became unusable with oozing and jams after about two weeks but a few hours in my oven was a miracle cure! I then dried some PLA as well, and I found that print quality did improve, but not amazingly so. I have not used ABS, but in theory it is less hygroscopic than PLA, so it is probably not very sensitive to exposure.
I set up a dry storage box, and I am careful to always store PETG or my "good" PLA when I'm not actively using it. I have a couple rolls of PLA that I don't like as much anyway and generally just use for draft prints, and I don't really worry about it that much.
Note: An object that has been printed will also absorb moisture, but in general this isn't a problem.

So I could run a dehumidifier in the room with the printer and spool, and probably be "good enough" if I always run through an entire spool before opening the next?

@joel a dehumidifier will be a very slow way to dry the spool.  Putting it an oven at a temperature well below the softening point, e.g. 120 C, will work much faster.   I"m not convinced that modern ovens have overshoot of more than a few Kelvins.

@JoelCoehoorn, I suppose if a dehumidifier can maintain low humidity in the room and you go through a spool quickly enough, this could be effective at preventing filament from absorbing moisture. I'd consider the cost and energy use of a dehumidifier, which is probably much more than just using a storage box. If you go through filament extremely fast (i.e., keep the printer running nearly 24/7), you might not even need to bother.

I'm still on my first full spool for my first printer. Right now I only have the one spool (may order some more this weekend), but I've left it on the printer and it's been about three weeks. No sign of any problems yet, but I want to know what to watch for.

Great answer. We've actually made a filament dryer by taking a deep fryer, adding a spindle, and putting a pneumatic fitting in to run feed tubing (4mm OD) to the print head, so the filament is preheated, dried, and never exposed to the general air. You might try this to salvage older filament, but use caution. Don't set the temp to be too close to the glass transition temperature of your filament.

@JoelCoehoorn Sounds just like me when I was first getting started - hope you are having fun! Assuming you've got PLA, it's probably still fine, and if you do use one unsealed spool at a time and go through it within a few months of opening you might never see a problem. It seems most people do collect a handful of open spools with different colors and types, and some of them last much longer. I've got about six open spools, including the first two I started with about 20 months ago, so a storage box has become essential.

Having lots of fun :) My eventual plan is to use gallon-size freezer bags and just keep them in a nearby cabinet that doesn't otherwise seal well.

Freezer bags (with desiccant pellets) should also be a great solution, although you may need to go for a larger size. I tried this first, but my spools were slightly too large for the gallon-size bags I had on hand and I couldn't quite seal them. Rather than buying oversized bags, I went for a box...

Moisture creeps into the filament when PLA is exposed for a long time to a humid environment. This is audible like popping bubbles when heated in the hotend and does worsen the print quality. The moisture causes a noticeable property as it breaks the long molecular chains of the thermoplastic material. Once this has happened, its effect is irreversible.
The effects of this moisture breaking the long molecular chains results in a more brittle filament; it can even snap during feeding, leading to unpleasant results like unfinished prints. If the filament snaps/breaks when you bend it, instead of folding, your filament has taken up moisture.


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Can 3d-printing be used to print drone frames which carry around 4 kilograms?
What about the strength parameters?
Where can I give CAD models to print them and receive them?
Please guide me.

Hi @Kisor. It's not clear what you want here. Obviously, the answer is yes (why do you think it isn't? Maybe there is a factor which you think is obvious, but isn't in your question). Online 3D printing services is something you should research yourself rather than asking in the same question (price, location being some of the most critical factors that won't make for a good Q&A experience).

to get an answer to your post, you will need to [edit] it and make it more specific. This will work even if the question gets closed in the mean time (that just prevents people from trying to answer it).

do you have a Design?!

Short answer: Yes. But you'll probably need to build your own model, and it's likely to be a complicated (read: time consuming) process to get that right.

@Trish yes, I have! But not currently well-detailed.

@SeanHoulihane Yeah but I didn't think it is impossible but whether it can be used for heavy duty and payload carrying drones. I'm currently involved in a project that attempts to solve coconut harvesting with drones to solve labor pro

Yes, no problem! But this does not depend on the production process, it depends on the design.
Not only the production process (adhesion in Z direction is usually weaker than X or Y) should be taken into account, but also the choice of material. Even carbon fibre doped filaments (nylon or PLA) exist (harder to print however, due to excessive wear of the nozzle by the carbon fibres).
You can also consider using carbon fiber tubes, and only print the connectors/mounts to connect the tubes to the engine mounts and main body mount.

Basically, your question is not specific enough and boils down to a "How do I design a drone frame" or "What are the main design issues for designing a drone frame", which should be asked in an other forum. Once you have a design you could change your question and ask for specifics regarding printing the parts using FDM (e.g. orientation, positioning, materials, etc.).

Thanks:) I have considered using carbon fibre tubes but I do not know of it's fabrication processes, motor mounting fixtures and like that..


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Electric shock from ender 3 printer PSU
I had recently purchased an ender 3 and after setting it up and plugging it in, I received an electrical shock from the power supply. I live in the UK and so I was provided an EU to UK adapter which I used and I set the voltage to 230 V.
Does anyone know why I was shocked and if there is any solution? Was it because EU to UK isn’t grounded (or am I wrong)?
Would an older 10 amp monitor power cable work better as it’s grounded?

Hi and welcome to 3D Printing.SE! Please take care if the mains voltage is considered. Please define shock, you mean a shock from the mains voltage? Or a leaking (low) current giving a unpleasant feeling?

A low current unpleasant feeling. (Another question) Also like the 3D printer noob that I am; I decided to open up the PSU and after a check everything seemed fine and I put it back. When putting it back I over tightened one of the hex screws; do you think it’ll still be ok despite being a tad loose

Using a UK 3 pin plug is probably a very good idea, the weird feeling could be due to poor grounding. If it is a tad loose it is probably ok, but maybe a bit of electrical insulating tape wrapped around could be a good idea to keep it together, so long as it doesn't cover any ventilation holes or end up making the PSU get warmer

So the eu cable provided with the printer states 16 amps 250 V on it; is it ok to use a uk 10 amp 250V cable instead then? With the uk one obviously being grounded as well— I’m mainly worrying about blowing the 10 amp fuse at this point.

A blown fuse is not a problem and can be easily replaced, so you shouldn't worry about that. Besides as Tom's comment the printer shouldn't draw that much current anyway. If it does blow, then there is something seriously wrong with the printer, and either check the circuits yourself, or if you don't feel comfortable, or confident, to do it, send it back as it will be a sure sign that the printer is faulty. However, the supplier probably just supplied an over large cable/plug

Have you found & fixed the problem? If any of the answers helped you to get an answer to your question or come to your own conclusions then please do vote & accept an answer (using the tick button next to it). This helps us reduce the unanswered questions list & stops the question from being bumped once in a while. If you found another answer (than those already posted), please add that answer (& accept after 48 hours) to share your experience with the community. If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.

You need to take particular care when using plug adaptors - they are not always made to a high standard, and it is possible that the earth connection is not present. If you suspect that the earth connection won't allow a 13 A fuse to blow, it would be good to destroy the adaptor.
A simple cable (without adaptor) will be better, but is unlikely to solve the problem.
You should also check if your mains supply uses an earth-leakage protection circuit (any modern installation must, but your house may predate this legislation).

The "shock" is likely from noise filtering circuitry at the power supply's input. For filtering, every power supply has a small capacitor that connects the live input wire to ground (a so-called "class Y capacitor"). A small amount of current can flow through this capacitor, which can give an annoying, but otherwise harmless shock/tingle. Grounding the power supply would solve the problem (which you should do anyways, because it is dangerous to run electronics that are supposed to be grounded without ground).

So the eu cable states 16 amps 250 V on it; is it ok to use a uk 10 amp 250V cable instead then? With the uk one obviously being grounded as well— I’m mainly worrying about blowing the 10 amp fuse at this point. Also like the 3D printer noob that I am; I decided to open up the PSU and after a check everything seemed fine and I put it back. When putting it back I over tightened one of the hex screws; do you think it’ll still be ok despite being a tad loose

@jb7852 Please do not use the comments to ask follow-up questions; instead, make an new question. Yes, it will be OK to use a 10A cable since the printer doesn't use anywhere near 10A. Since it's a British plug you can/should use a fuse in it.

I would be concerned about the screw vibrating loose over time and shorting something out. Probably best to remove it entirely if the PSU still holds itself together. Not ideal, obviously.

An electric shock from a PSU usually means that either the PSU is wired up incorrectly, or the PSU is wired to an ungrounded spot.
Often, Adapters are not grounded or sloppily made. Get yourself a cable with the same ampere rating as the one you want to replace which has a UK plug. If this does not solve the grounding problem, you need to check if the ground wire in the PSU is mounted correctly.
If you can't get a cable rated the same, either use a higher rated one or change the plug on it.

I don’t think you can get a 16 amp power cable in the uk. The supplier of the printer just used a 16 amp eu cable with a 13 amp adapter. Can I do the same but with a 13 amp earthed adapter for eu to uk?

@jb7852 I suggest to never use an adapter. It would be more sound to reuse the cable and just switch the plug. Ask an electrician if you need help with it.

@jb7852 - You really shouldn't need 16 A fused plug, a standard 13 A fused plug and lead will do. The printer won't draw more than 13 A - If it does then there is probably something very wrong with it (i.e. a short, or a dodgy heated bed). Besides, all ring mains in British houses are 13 A anyway, apart from the cooker (unless you have a special, high current, circuit (16 A or 32 A) installed by an electrician). Commercial/Industrial units have higher current supply circuits though.

Check the input cable used, I had similar experience when using cable they provided, then I found out that the plug had swapped L and N wires inside, measuring mains voltage between neutral and ground. Swapped cable for known good and the issue was gone.

+1 Live Neutral Reverse - very good point

Had a similar problem with my Ender 5, just a 'static like' shock, not continous.
Put a multimeter between printer frame & earth with printer switched ON & it read 20+ volts ac continously! With printer OFF there was about 0.5V ac.
I connected an additional earth wire from the psu earth terminal to the printer frame & now no more shocks.
I can only assume there not a good earth connection between the psu & printer frame but this doesn't explain where the ac voltage is coming from.
ps
I also measured current flow between printer frame & earth when the voltage was 20+ V ac & MM showed zero micro amps?

on the ender 3, the PSU is screwed to the frame through bare holes, thus connecting the frame to the PSU housing, which is connected to the earth. It seems in your case you might have some isolation between the connecting screws and the frame.

Yes. The shock from the lack of grounding. Most cheap SMPS (switched mode power supplies) are grounded to the metal casing which, in turn, is connect to the ground terminal where the AC plug is wired.
tl;dr, take the plastic box on the end off an wire in a UK plug that DOES ground the power supply.

Sorry for leaving this so late, I completely forgot about my account until I went through some old emails. In terms of the PSU shock issue, it was fixed through a replacement 13 A cable from an old monitor (so @Green Online and @Sean Houlihane's response worked best I think).


text:
How do you calibrate a delta robot 3D printer?
I have a delta robot 3D printer, but I have no clue how to calibrate it. Any advice?

Whilst this question is not exactly the same as Delta printer nozzle not moving square with a perfectly level bed (as if the bed is bent… but it isn't), I think that the answer will be identical - whilst bearing in mind that the values will probably be different, depending upon the dimensions of your printer. Please edit your question and add details about your printer (model, dimensions (of the horizontals and verticals), etc.)

@SeanHoulihane - yes, that is what I thought too. The only difference, and it could be considered significant, is that in the other question, the user definitely had a convex bed, whereas here, no configuration has been performed at all, and the form of the bed (which could be convex, concave or totally flat) is totally irrelevant in this case - as it currently stands.

This answer below is (partially) taken from my answer to Delta printer nozzle not moving square with a perfectly level bed (as if the bed is bent... but it isn't).
Whilst the answer below is for a Kossel, assuming that you are using Marlin, then the process should be more or less the same.

Calibration on any printer is difficult, but especially so on deltas, as there construction is more complex than a cartesian printer.
Have you manually calibrated the printer (at both the center and the edges), such that you can just about get a sheet of paper between the print bed and the hotend nozzle, at z = 0? This last check ensures that the first printed layer of extruded filament is actually touching and "presses on" to the print bed.
I seriously recommend that you watch this video #18:Calibration for a great explanation on the use of the paper. This video is for a Delta printer, a Kossel XL (although the Kossel Mini is also covered) and it clearly demonstrates the height that the zeroed print head should be at, and how to check using a sheet paper.
It is an hour long tutorial video, by Tom of BuildA3DPrinter.eu, and it shows you step-by-step how to calibrate the printer, and also how to deal with deformed beds (concave/convex). It uses:

Arduino IDE, and;
Pronterface
and performs the calibration by adjusting, in the firmware:
MANUAL_HOME_Z_POS, and;
DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET

Here is a run down of the video's contents:

0:00 Intro: The perfect first layer can be obtained, either with/without a probe (the printer is, arguably, better without probe) This tutorial is without the probe.
0:55 Arduino software loaded with Marlin firmware source, looking at the file configuration.h and in particular, the line #define MANUAL_HOME_Z_POS
2:30 - Ensure that the Pronterface USB port is disconnected as otherwise this will inhibit the Arduino IDE from connecting to the printer.
3:20 - Initial test - Gap at the center of the bed

Connect with Pronterface and use the following G-code commands
G28 Home the printer head
G1 Z10 Bring the head down...
G1 Z5 a bit more...
G1 Z4 a bit more...
G1 Z3 a bit more...
G1 Z2 a bit more...
G1 Z1 and if the head hits bed then this is too close
G1 Z2 raise the head again
Paper thickness is 100 microns, place under the head
G1 Z1.5 lower the head again, but no by so much as before
Slide the paper between head and bed. The paper should move freely, but with some friction felt (you should be able to hear the head lightly rubbing against the paper)

7:11 - Deduction of actual distance from print bed is 1.5 mm
7:30 Return to firmware, and finely tune MANUAL_HOME_Z_POS in the Arduino IDE, disconnecting Pronterface again and upload.
8:10 - Return to printer

Connect with Pronterface, again, and use the following G-code commands
G28 Home
G1 Z5 F5000 Move head down rapidly
G1 Z2
G1 Z1
G1 Z0 and the head comes to a rest at the correct distance from the bed
Retest with the paper

9:30 Final test

G28 Home
G1 Z0 Go from home straight down to the bottom

10:02 - Further calibration

G1 Z0.2 Raise head ever so slightly to give us some room
In Pronterface - Move the head horizontally
G1 X50 - Moves head 50 mm to the right
In this case, if there is a larger gap between the head and the bed. This means that the bed is curved, and convex. If the gap was smaller, or the head hits the bed, then the bed is concave

11:40 - Diagram of convex and concave print beds
12:10 - Endstops

G1 X-40 Moves the head to the left (of center) and the head is now further away from the bed than in the middle.

13:20 - This means that the endstops are not correctly positioned. So, before tackling the concave/convex issue, it is first necessary to adjust the endstops, for each tower.
13:37 - Tackling the tower positions individually

G1 Z10 For safety reasons, leave a margin of 1 cm.

14:08 - Calibrating the X tower (left tower). Note: The commands will depend on whether you have the Kossel or the Mini.

Printer moves in three axes:

X: parallel (to the front);
Y: perpendicular (to the front);
Z: height (not of interest at this point).

X tower is not in either of these axes exactly
G1 X-100 Moves the head to the side but 6 cm away from the X tower
G1 X-100 Y-60 Positions the head next to the tower correctly
G1 Z5 - Lower the head bit by bit
G1 Z2
G1 Z1
G1 Z0 and the head is still 1 mm too high

16:50 Endstop needs to be adjusted by 1 mm lower. There are two ways of doing this:

Lower the endstop itself - good for large changes
Adjust the screw - good for smaller adjustments. Turn it anti-clockwise, and raise the screw by 1 mm.
-G28 Home
G1 Z10 Bring head down 1 cm above bed
Move to the tower:

XL: G1 X-100 Y-60
Mini G1 X-60 Y-35

G1 Z2
G1 Z1
G1 Z0 Head hits the bed
G1 Z0.2
So the end stop needs to be raised by 0.2 mm, by re-adjusting the screw (turning it clockwise).
Now home it the head, G28
And bring it down G1 X-100 Y-60 Z0 and it should not hit the glass and the paper should slide underneath

21:00 Minor re-adjustment and fine tuning so that the paper slides without the need a too much force.
21:50 Repeat for each tower
22:15 Y Tower (right tower)
-G28 Home

G1 Z10 Bring head down 1 cm above bed
Move to the tower:

XL: G1 X100 Y-60
Mini G1 X60 Y-35

Repeat the above process - remember to test with G28 and G1 X100 Y-60 Z1 for safety, and then adjust the Z command
This is an iterative process

28:04 - Z Tower (rear tower)
-G28 Home

G1 Z10 Bring head down 1 cm above bed
Move to the tower:

XL: G1 X0 Y120
Mini G1 X0 Y70

Repeat above process

30:14 Re-check! each position (center, X, Y and Z towers)

G28 Home
G1 X0 Y120 Z0 Check Z tower & drop head (head should not touch the bed)
G1 Z10 Raise head (see below)
G1 X-100 Y-60 Move to X tower
G1 Z0 Drop head (head should not touch the bed)
G1 Z10 Raise head (see below)
G1 X100 Y-60  Move to Y tower
G1 Z0 Drop head (head should not touch the bed)
Calibration of the endstops is now complete

31:30 Why the Z10?

G1 Z10
G1 X0 Y0
The first calibration was the center point, but now the endstops have changed and as the bed is either convex or concave, we therefore raised the head by 1 cm, using the Z10, to avoid hitting the bed in the center. Now test it
G1 Z2 Lower head slightly
G1 Z1
G1 Z0 If the bed is concave then the head is still too high! Conversely, if the bed is convex the the head will hit the bed.

32:40 Adjusting the DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET in configuration.h - alter the physical parameter of the printer:

Convex: Increasing DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET lowers the hotend in the center
Concave: Decreasing DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET raises the hotend in the center
Adjust the setting in the Arduino IDE and recompile and upload (ensure that Pronterface is disconnected)

35:07 Testing the new DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET setting - again in Pronterface:

G28 - As the firmware has changed, we must re-home.
G1 X0 Y0 Z0
You will notice the the center point has not changed! It is the same. However if you go to the tower positions you will see that the (previously) perfect gap has changed. This is because by changing the DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET the center stays in the same place but the edges change instead. So, for the convex bed, we have virtually bent the surface, without moving the center point down, and moved the rim up (or, for a concave bed, down - depending upon the direction of the adjustment), thereby flattening the bed.

37:10 Demonstration of adjustment
37:51 Adjusting the height

Return to the firmware and change, again, the #define MANUAL_HOME_Z_POS line that we changed at the beginning, adjusting it by the amount that the head is from the center point.
Disconnect Pronterface and upload the new adjusted firmware.
Then reconnect Pronterface, and Home (G28) and drop to zero (G1 Z0).
The head may still a little too high.
Then move to the tower, and the head may be too close to the bed, without any gap. This means that the bed is still convex and further adjustment is required of the DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET and then, obviously, the MANUAL_HOME_Z_POS.
Again, this is a bit of an iterative process. Don't forget to home after any firmware updates.
Finally once the bed is flat (i.e. it has been virtually flattened in the software) and the gap between the head and the bed is the same at the center and the towers, then adjust MANUAL_HOME_Z_POS (an adjustment of 0.05 or less may be required) to get the paper test just perfect.

44:35 Check each tower (screw adjustment, of the endstops, may be required). As the bed has been flattened, mechanical sub 0.1 mm adjustments may be required. Note that the firmware does not need to be re-uploaded, when making mechanical changes - although the head will always need to be re-homed (G28) after each change.
The head should now be at the correct height.
47:14 - Extruder Calibration


text:
Extruder feedrate when loading and unloading filament
I have an MKS Base 1.4 board with a TFT28 touch screen and a Titan Aero setup.
When I use the load filament command from the touch screen the motor turns at a crazy speed to load filament, whereas if I plug in my laptop and use Repetier host and send a load command it turns at a normal speed.
Is there a section in the Marlin firmware that allows me to set the actual extruding speed during load and unload?

Please explain how you retract and unretract filament with Repetier Host. E.g. are you using the G10/G11 G-code commands?

Loading and unloading filament through the LCD options is taking care of by G-code command M600. The options used when executing the M600 command define where the head goes and how much filament is extruded of which extruder. Apparently, there is a difference in calling the M600 command via the LCD menu or (un)loading filament through the Repetier application.
The Firmware-based and LCD-controlled retract options are defined in Marlin Firmware file Configuration_adv.cfg (Advanced Pause). The settings for Repetier are probably differently defined than in the advanced configuration file; you should look them up in Repetier. It could well be that separate G-codes (or scripts) are used for this. E.g. G10 is used to retract filament as set by M207 (both length and feed rate!). G-code G11 does the opposite, it unretracts the filament as specified by M208.
To answer your question, yes, you need to alter the values of the constants in Configuration_adv.h for changing the speed when using the LCD to change the filament:
// (mm/s) Unload filament feedrate. This can be pretty fast.
#define FILAMENT_CHANGE_UNLOAD_FEEDRATE     10
// (mm/s) Load filament feedrate. This can be pretty fast.
#define FILAMENT_CHANGE_FAST_LOAD_FEEDRATE   6


text:
Extruder/nozzle keeps clogging up
I have an Adventurer 3 printer from Flashforge and every time I unclog it, it gets clogged up again. I’ve done about 6 or 7 prints with it. So after I unclog it, I load the filament and it comes out of the nozzle like it should but once I start a 3D print, it’s clogged again. The process of what I do to unclog it is by heating the nozzle up and then shove a small metal rod down the nozzle to push out the clogged filament. I do this several times until its all gone. I’ve read up on what I can do to prevent it but it doesn’t seem to work. What should I do?

Alternative cleaning methods (then that you used) are described in this answer. It can well be that you only push the clog temporarily away, while the other methods get rid of all the carbonized goo inside the nozzle.

Have you tried a different filament?

You should put a filament filter on to wipe off any dust that WILL settle on the filament during printing. Depending on the nature of the dust, it will collect and clog the nozzle.

I can see from the photo that filament melted and frozen thicker inside extruder. This is the problem and not the clogged extruder. This thick part produce a lot of friction and actually diameter grow until the print finally will stuck. Basically I had the same problem and I could guess that you are also using Bowden setup. The length of this built thicker part is actually corresponded to your retraction length setting in your slicer (the default value in Cura is unreasonably big like 6.5 millimetres). I solved the same problem by decreasing retraction settings to about 2-3 mm. Just try it and I am sure you will not have this problem again.

The Flashforge documentation is not much help, so unless there's a way for you to connect with their user community (because, maybe what you're dealing with is a known issue related to firmware or the machine itself) or Flashforge's customer service folks, you've got some fun detective work ahead of you. Seriously--you will enjoy solving this!
So: It will help to teach yourself the ABC's of clog symptoms, so you can see what the cause(s) could and couldn't be, in your situation. This is not a bad starter guide, and there are lots of others. You say you've "read up" on preventive measures--that's great! When your original post says, "but it doesn’t seem to work," please understand, though, that we who read don't yet know what "it" means, in this case. Clarity & details are you friends here.

Hi and thanks for your answer. The link looks very interesting. However, if your link dies then your answer will not be much use. Please include the details and/or a summary of the link.


text:
Hot end considerations for 300+ °C and greater than 1 mm nozzle size for polycarbonate
I need help with finding what properties or designs I need to look for. I know that I will need these characteristics to work with the material of my choice:

Can reach 300 °C or up
Can handle nozzle size larger than 1 mm
Can be used with polycarbonate filament

I plan to use it in a custom RAMPS 1.4 3D printer running the Marlin firmware, in case this changes something.

Welcome to the Stack! please take the [tour]. While the Stack as a Q&A site handles various ways to deal with problems, it is not a recommendation platform, and indeed, recommendations are something we don't deal with at all.

A suitable question would be if a specific hotend would suit your application, or something related to the technology (such as thermistor type). This is a little bit too subjective/open to attracting spam posts.

Rephrased question slightly, in an attempt to (hopefully) remove the fishing/shopping vibe.

With the rework of Greenonline and mine it is a technical question.

Handling a 1mm nozzle implies a desire to reduce the overall print time (otherwise why use a large nozzle), so you will need to consider not only the maximum operating temperature but also the rate at which plastic can be melted. (See also this question and one on overheating to compensate)
Using 1.75mm filament is a good start, this has a better surface area to volume ratio, but you're likely to see issues with both the heater cartridge power (so a 40W heater is probably going to help), but also the size of the melt zone and the thermal mass of the heater block.
As you need to push a reasonably large amount of heat from the cartridge to the filament, it is important to minimise the thermal resistance - so using a steel nozzle would be a disadvantage here (but since polycarbonate is abrasive, you will need to consider wear resistance as part of your trade-offs). You can get longer nozzles and larger heat blocks designed to work better in high flow applications.
Also remember that your extruder needs to work 6 times faster to achieve the same linear speed compared to a 0.4mm nozzle (with at least as much pressure), so this also might need to be upgraded (or driven a little harder).
If you can however tolerate a somewhat slower print speed, you might not need to reach 300°C  to print PC.

On a side note: PC is a very abrasive material, he might want to look for a very tough nozzle, probably even with a trigonal Di-aluminium-tri-oxide crystal - the red variety of Corundum is available as far as I reckon.

I guessed that part of the question might have some significance - thanks.

@SeanHoulihane Using a large nozzle does not imply printing faster in terms of mm/sec of the head movement. Actually you should reduce the printing speed, like you already explained, the throughput of the filament is way larger which may not be kept in pace by the heater cartridge. However, the overall print may be printed faster as the layer thickness will also be larger and generally less perimeters are needed.

By  interpreting your question as "Can most hotends print polycarbonate at 300°C+?", and taking into consideration the answers to Can cheap hotend parts sourced from China actually produce good prints?1, then it would seem to be safe to assume2 that most hotends can, given a few adjustments or considerations:

Use of a PT1003 or thermocouple, en lieu of a thermistor
Use of PTFE tubing

Taken directly from E3D's V6 product info:

The V6 can comfortably reach 285°C with the supplied thermistor. By swapping a thermistor for a thermocouple (may require additional electronics) or PT100 you can reach over 400°C. This not only allows you to print extremely high temperature materials like Polycarbonate and Nylons but also eliminates HotEnd meltdown failures associated with PEEK/PTFE designs. The PTFE filament guide inside the V6 HotEnd is never subjected to high temperatures, so there is no risk of damage through overheating.

Footnotes
1 The materials used by cheaper clones of the higher quality, more expensive, branded hotends are probably the same as those used in the branded hotends, and indeed are probably produced using the same pirated patterns/molds/casts, but with less care and quality involved. They can even be produced in the same factory, but are items that have failed the QA tests, and as such are not deemed to be brandable.
2 Although, to paraphrase a quote from a movie: Assumptions can be considered to be the mother of all disasters.
3 A Pt100 or Pt1000 is a Platinum RTD (Resistance Temperature Detector) with a resistance of 100 ohms at 0°C which changes with temperature. From this manufacturer's website:

A Pt100 or Pt1000 is a Platinum RTD (Resistance Temperature Detector) with a resistance of 100 ohms at 0°C which changes with temperature. They are suitable for applications in the temperature range of -200°C to 600°C but are more commonly used in the range -50°C to +250°C. These temperature sensors are reliable and can offer a higher degree of accuracy.

I think this is misleading with regard to the PTFE. The design of the V6 has PTFE as a guide up to the middle of the cold side, not extending through the throat. This means that the PTFE does not need to be 'good', it simply isn't stressed.

Also, a 300°C at 1mm diameter might demand a different (stronger) Heater block - Volcano style or even a double-heater-cartridge design might be interesting.

It should be mentioned that PT1000 are highly preferable to PT100, since PT1000 is a direct replacement for a NTC thermistor (after recompiling or configuring the firmware), while PT100 requires an adapter (amplifier) board to produce meaningful measurement at those temperatures.


text:
Sudden underextrusion on Ender3
I have printed a couple weeks perfectly fine with my Ender 3. Two weeks ago I changed the firmware but the settings were all fine and resulted in good prints.
Now, suddenly during a print the extruder motor started to under-extrude.
I thought "hey, could be the file" and used a test file that printed well two weeks ago: Under-extrusion, barely a line.
I looked at the extruder, no filament grinding, no clicking from lost steps or moving against pressure. The Bowden tube is firmly seated though.
I measured what is coming out: instead of 50 mm I ordered to push into the hotend got 28.7 mm. So I went and looked at the steps/mm, which is 93, exactly what it is also on the TronXY X1, which uses pretty much the same extruder setup but for a different style, same sized gear.
I cleaned out the nozzle nevertheless, but that didn't change the results.
What might be wrong and how can I fix it?!
Edit:

Touching the filament while I was printing a freshly sliced test, I realized it DID lose steps, just the filament did slip back (almost) quietly. Pressing a finger on the filament made me able to feel the shiver in it.
Inspecting what was printed showed, that the nozzle had migrated against the print platform a little over the weeks.

Can you change the stepper driver, or is this on a slotted on stepper driver print board?

The Board can't Change them.

Sounds like missing steps, could be the stepper driver is not functioning correctly, or, the stepper is somehow missing steps. Have you tried swapping the stepper motors?

A close inspection of what happened when printing the first layer resulted in this:

The missing steps on the new print came from the nozzle scraping too close to the print surface, which lead to no first layer
Readjusting the Z-axis end stop, which had moved down, resulted in no more lost steps, but the print not sticking for the first test.
Releveling the bed and making sure the bar was parallel to the bed resulted in a perfect first layer.
Lost steps and under-extrusion could not be replicated after 48 hours of rest for the printer.

I have no idea why the print had failed due to under-extrusion during the print, but apparently, my immediate tests were flawed enough to not detect the first layer height resulting in getting almost no extrusion. This I mistook for massive under-extrusion, making me believe something else was at fault.

Sounds similar to something I experienced with my Y-axis. The grub screw on the toothed wheel had come a little loose, and I was experiencing a reasonably consistent degree of slip.
In the extruder particularly, these locking screws might not be too obvious to check.

sadly this can't be the error: after inspection, the gear is very tightly mounted to the motor and can't turn freely, the 2 grubs make it impossible for the gear to slig; one is pressing onto the flat of the motor shaft


text:
Hotend heating failure too short before limit
I am trying to resolve this for months and have tried almost everything, I guess.
I am using Marlin firmware on a custom extruder with a custom fabricated heating block in which heater and thermistor (Marlin Temp_Sensor 11) are set up perpendicular to each other. Whenever I try to heat it up to 200 degree Celsius, it falls short and fails at around 140 and that too with a very low pace (especially between 100 to 140).
I have already tried PID tuning, ADC values calibration, etc. Also, I have tried varying the values of Watch_Temp_Sensor in Configuration_Adv.h. I don't know what's going wrong.
Can extruder coldend fan have an effect on the heating of thermal block?  I have tried heating the hotend without cooling the coldend, although it takes around 10-12 minutes yet it works perfectly fine then and it reaches to the desired temperature.
The power supply is working fine
P.S. I am not using any kind of pre-built extruder like E3D etc.
This is the setup:

This is the thermistor setup:

This is a view of heater position:

The nozzle is screwed into a sort of a heat break I guess, that thing is massively big, isn't that draining a lot of heat out of the heater block into the cold end? And what is that white ring we see? Also post another picture of the side view a little further away, I'm pretty good in reading drawings and constructions, but I miss an overview of the whole hot and cold setup. E.g. what is between the heater cube and mounting screws and what is it screwed on?

This question may be of interest for you.

There are many unknowns at this point, you need to work methodically through each stage. You probably also need some test equipment, at least a basic multimeter. Ideally a temperature probe too.
First, check that your power supply can drive the hot-end directly. You already know how long it takes to reach 120°C, so be sure to not let it heat too far beyond this time. This will bypass all of the control logic, and risks overheating your hotend/burning out the heater - but it should be OK if you limit to a few minutes.
Check the temperature reading, and cross check with some PLA or other low melting point filament to see if you actually reach ~180°C. Check the voltage as close to the heating cartridge as you have a connection point. It should be at least 11V (with a 12V PSU). My guess is that you have a bad connection somewhere...
If you observe the hotend getting hot enough to melt plastic, check the thermistor readings. You should see a fairly constant rate of heating well past 200°C. However, I expect this will work fine.
Finally, check the hotend mosfet drive and output as the hotend reaches the target temperature. It should be on, then switching on/off, then off as you pass the target.
If this all looks OK, repeat but with the board in-circuit and controlling the heater. It may be that the mosfet is damaged, or it is not being driven very well - but to progress past that point we need to see voltage readings at various points.

Actually, for being the safe side, I am using the cross-checking PLA technique already. I observed that the region near the heater is fitted is able to melt PLA very fast but if I try to go a bit far, like, where the thermistor is installed, the melting is taking more time. I am doing this by using a strand of PLA and pushing it against the thermal block. Can this be an issue of thermal block insulation?

It is made from Aluminium only.

Now that we can see the real problem, your heater cartridge doesn't have good thermal contact to the block, and the block does not have good contact to the nozzle.
Where is your heatbreak? You need to perform a basic analysis of the heat flow in your design. Anything that is expected to conduct needs to be clamped, and to have thermal paste. Any connection between hot and cold which is used for mechanical support needs to have minimal cross section, and maybe use materials with poor thermal conductivity.
Example
Here is a simplified diagram, with some assumed thermal resistances. Note that the geometry is not representative since your nozzle is actually within the throat, not between the heater and the throat as I've shown.

Total thermal resistance is 7.5 °C/W. Maximum heat in is 40W, so the heater is at 320°C, and the nozzle can reach 300°C.
Replace the heater with a 20W element, and the nozzle drops to 170°C.
Keep the heater at 20W, to achieve 220° at the nozzle, the throat needs to provide at least 4.5°C/W thermal resistance.
Assuming you're using a 10 mm diameter aluminium bar as a heat break, it needs to be 7 cm long with a 20 W heater. If you use steel instead, the length can be reduced by a factor of about 3.

Don't worry about the nozzle, I have purposely not snugged it. And the through hole in which heater cartridge is fixed is of the same size as the heater cartridge. There is no possibility of moving the cartridge as it is so tightly fitted. Have a look at the thermistor- https://www.amazon.in/3D-Innovations-Thermistor-Pre-Wired-Insulated/dp/B07DCVT7V6, is it the right one or not?

we need a side view, what is the other side of the nozzle?

By the other side, do you mean the opposite side of the third photo?

@YashSoni Quick worked example added.