text:
Replacement Nozzle options
I was working on what should have been a simple nozzle clog, and due to my own clumsy handling it looks like I'll now need a completely new nozzle for my 8 month old printer. Fortunately they're not too expensive: $10 for a replacement direct from the vendor. Unfortunately, the vendor is out of stock.
So now I'm looking at alternatives. I believe I could get a 5-pack for $6. Wow. But I wonder: what's the quality gonna be like on those nozzles. Really... that's the question of the moment: what can I look for to be sure I'm not buying junk? Even if they are junk, at 1.20 each does it matter, or is the risk to more than the nozzle itself?
Also, while I'm here and since I'm gonna have to spend some money, what options can I look for in this area that could provide a meaningful upgrade for my printer? Is the cleaning kit worth the extra 5 bucks? What about brass vs copper vs hardened steel? If I only ever print PLA, is the all-metal hot-end for $10 worth the trouble?

I don't see you mention ... what is the make/model of your printer? Sure help us to know.

It's a Monoprice Maker Select Plus... but as one of the original launch users for Stack Overflow, I share the platform's aversion to shopping questions. It's a fine line to have this not be a shopping recommendation. I want it more of a "How do I know what to look for?" question than "What should I buy?" question.

I think for all of the Stacks (except a fine few), shopping questions are fairly verboten. However, it's always good to know what you're working with, otherwise it could be considered too broad. Thanks for letting us know.

Get cleaning filament. You can clear a clogged nozzle of any size.

LOL Brass Wear Resistant Nozzle; those vendors will sell anything.

I have always used the cheap nozzles and they have worked a treat for me, no problems as of yet

monoprice nozzles are uning m7 thread iirc and lined to the mid of the nozzle - most other printers use m6 threads and no lining in the nozzle. We had those two questions about what is the nozzle... eh....

RELATED: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/7497/can-the-filament-tube-be-outside-of-the-nozzle and https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/5434/which-is-the-difference-between-mk6-and-mk8-and-even-mk10?noredirect=1&lq=1 and https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8064/correct-nozzle-replacement?noredirect=1&lq=1

With regards to the nozzle material, it boils down to two factors: thermal conductivity and wear resistance.
Brass and copper are better at conducting heat, but they have very low wear resistance: use them with abrasive filaments (PLA infused with metal, fiber glass or carbon fiber, as an example) and they won't last a roll. On the other end steel is not a good thermal conductor, and hardened steel is even worse, meaning the filament will get colder within the nozzle, possibly requiring a slower extrusion speed or a higher temperature, but they are quite resistant to wear.
There are other options, like the famous ruby nozzle, which is very wear resistant and, being made mostly of brass, provides a good thermal conductivity, but it's expensive.
Another factor is the shape of the nozzle: some have a very short tip, others a longer one and that also influences the thermal conductivity and the flow rate, but also take into consideration the long ones don't play very nice with very sticky filaments like PETG.
It is a matter of compromise between material, price and versatility, I don't think there is a single best choice.
Usually very cheap nozzles are not machined very accurately, meaning the hole might not be perfectly round or centered, but unless you require a high level of precision they can be considered "good enough": don't get me wrong, I'm not saying those are low importance factors, but you probably won't notice a great difference unless you are using very good filament and printing at high-res.
It will be very difficult for you to damage your printer using a non high quality nozzle, but replacing the nozzle incorrectly (no matter the nozzle quality) can cause damage to the heat block: try not to snap the nozzle thread like I did...
UPDATE
As pointed out in the comments, there are a couple of factors you might have to take into consideration when buying new nozzles: the nozzle body length (there are nozzles with a much longer threaded body, usually referenced as volcano) and nozzles with different thread sizes (M6 for the vast majority, some use M7, very few use a customized system).

uncentered hole is not a problem, all drill bits makes rouded and shaped holes, the tip size is according to your heating block; Also the thread size is according to this part; mostly are M6 but some newer printers has M7 or bigger.

@FernandoBaltazar Not true: an uncentered hole, other than shifting your print on the bed of a miniscule amount, creates an uneven plastic flow out of the nozzle which, if exaggerated, can cause visible artifacts, in particular on the external perimeters, where we tend to extrude slow. An oval shaped hole is worse: it introduces dimensional errors which cannot be corrected as one direction will experience a larger extrusion than the other.

Right, with oval holes but I haven't seen any as you describe; I've have sold more than 100 nozzles and I'm using them on my printers. an uncentered hole never changes it's position while printing, so shiftting is only the starting point but the piece will be the same.  you will never chage the nozzle in middle of the printing, so that shift will never occur.

Well, you are not considering multiple extruders, but also the flow will be uneven: an hole more toward one side of the channel will experience a pressure difference which also tends to bend the extruded filament toward the same side. I would agree though 95% of the time that will still be unnoticeable on most prints.


text:
Minimum MOSFET rating for MK3 heatbed
My printer (Prusa i3 Mk3 rework clone, with a 200 x 200 MK3 ALU-heatbed, RAMPS 1.4) has a car relay for heated bed control. It works just fine using bang-bang on Marlin, but I would like to replace it with a MOSFET anyways. The specialized MOSFET heating modules are way too expensive in my country, so I was thinking about buying a MOSFET that's good enough to handle my 12 V 10 A bed with Marlin's PWM.
Would a MOSFET like the STP80NF70 be enough (0.01 Ω at vgs 10 V, 68 V 100 A) or would one of the bigger ones, e.g. in TO-3P encapsulation be needed?
It would go in a proper heatsink and ran at 12 V with an optocoupler

Mk 3 of WHAT? Mk3 is just "Iteration 3", oyu have to say the manufacturer or base model together with it. A "Native Instruments MASCHINE Mk3" is something entirely different from a "VW Golf Mk3" or a "Prusa i3 Mk3". The only Item that has no name with it is a British heavy tank, the "Mark" series.

@Trish If there were many brands, it would be necessary. But in regards to 3D printing, I assumed most people would know (or know to google) that this applies to the RepRap project and its designs, i.e. the Mk1 is Prusa's original design, while Mk2A and Mk2B are revisions (forks) on it (all of these are etched PCB heated beds). Then the Mk3 is simply another iteration but made differently with an aluminum plate.
Luckily this does not matter as I provided all the necessary info about my bed (namely, that it's a 12V 10A bed) so you don't need to know what a Mk3 heatbed is to reply.

If you mean the heatbed developed by Josef Prusa, the name is "PCB Heatbed Mk##". and the correct name of the 3rd iteration in aluminium is Mk3 ALU-Heatbed, not Mk3 aluminum or just Mk3.

@Trish and that's pedantic, but true.

Can't you order at those typical Chinese sites? I ordered MOSFET modules there for a few Euro's; takes some time, but they work flawlessly, they don't get hot either.

@0scar I wish... I live in Argentina. Getting something from outside the country involves having to mess with customs and stuff like that. (usually having to go to customs and fill in paperwork)

and welcome to the Stack Exchange 3D Printing site.
Let's look at the specs compared with the requirements.
How much power is used by the heated bed?  You have specified 120W (12V, 10A).  That information makes it easy!  On my homebrew printer it is higher, but that seems like a good high limit for a typical i3-style design.
So, the MOSFET you propose, assuming you completely turn it on, will dissipate 0.01 ohms * 10A^2, or 1 watt.  This will warm the part, and you probably should attach it to a heat sink, which could be as simple as the existing extrusions.  There is a much more complete answer to this exact question on the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange site: Dissipating 1W on a TO-220 without heatsink?
I doubt the PID frequency is higher than 40 KHz.  Since the Vgs rating you referenced is specified with 10V on the gate, you can't drive that directly from an Arduino pin.  You need another driver transistor (NPN or FET) to drive the power FET gate.  The turn-on time for the power FET will be determined (in the simplest circuit) by the pull-up resistor to +12v connected to the output of the transistor and the gate of the FET.

I would hope that is the case, but the problem is actually more complicated if you factor in PID control - the MOSFET'S capacitance MIGHT burn the Arduino pin if the frequency is too high, so current limiting resistors to the gate are used. then switching is slower and lets the MOSFET be in its intermediate state longer, which makes it heat up much more than on its saturated states. Since I don't know the  PID frequency used I can't know if this is going to be a problem, and seeing all those TO3P fet's that supposedly withstand about 200 A makes me wonder if I'll be doing something wrong

Your question was important.  I added information to the answer.

Actually you're right, I was planning on using 12V via a separate transistor... Thanks, I'll definitely do this in the near future

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What is the correct process to make a correct resin casting for jewelry?
I have a 3D printer and I have printed some models with castable resin. When I burn one of these models in the oven and then do the metal casting, the surface of the metal piece is not smooth.
I did a test with a pan. I put a model of wax and a model of castable resin to heat in a pan, and the wax model melts, but the resin model don't.
The resin I have is the following:

What is the correct process to make a correct resin casting?
Thanks for your help.

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE!

Use silicone mold.

What temperature you burn your mold out at?

@FernandoBaltazar silicone molds are not useable for most metals.

Factually, the correct process is to heat up the mold hot enough to evaporate the positive.
In investment casting the process to remove the wax or plastic positive is called the "Dewax" and "Burnout preheating".
The answer to your question depends on the material you use to generate a negative mold of the positive product. E.g. many silicate based materials require up to about 1100 °C to fully burnout all residue before pouring in the liquid metal.

Wax for molding is usually melting low enough to melt out in a pan, unlike resins

@Trish That is why they need to burn out, oxidize. This requires very high temperatures. This is very commonly done nowadays as it is way cheaper and lead times are way shorter. This is a nice article.

Traditional lost molds.
The reason many jewelers use wax for making the molds for lost mold casting is, that it has (compared to plastic molding materials) a very low melting and boiling point, allowing to create molds with much lower temperature equipment.
A variant of green sand casting is done with materials that very quickly decompose in contact with the molten metal or that burn out after setting fire to them. Very common in this context is foamed styrene. Styrene melts and burns easily so it is easy to use in this way.
PLA has been used in some experiments as a positive and then molten out in a baking oven. It and other printing filaments are usually thermoplastics, so melting them out is similar to wax.
Resin is not soft wax or a thermoplastic.
No, in fact, most resins are a duroplastic, meaning that they don't melt.
If you print a positive from resin and then make a mold from that for lost mold casting, you go the traditional way. But most resins don't melt out the way wax does, and on contact with molten metal don'T evaporate the way wax residue does. You got to properly burn out the remains of the cured resin at a higher temperature and for a longer time than the wax as the melting point is much higher - use a proper burning oven. A proper burning oven in this relation reaches something like an email oven (1100 °C) or a clay burning oven (up to 1800 °C)
Putting the molds with the opening down into one of these ovens at high temperature should help a lot. Make sure to put a spacer and a tray below to allow better airflow and get the resin out.
Chemical Club.
Besides heat to destroy the resin, most resins could be solved by very highly aggressive chemicals. Which chemical works highly depends on what the resin actually is - if it is epoxy resin it would be the highly toxic CH2Cl2 while polyester resin is soluble in isopropanol and sulphuric acid.
Cold alternative?
If your product is to be made of a two-component resin or a ceramic that can be shaped cold and that sustains form, then you might also look at silicone molding. This is not an alternative for most metal castings. Among the very few exceptions is pewter, as PunishedPropsAcademy and Evan&Katelyn showed in their video and there are high temp silicones around that could be used repeatedly for pewter.

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


text:
Best way to deal with Resin Printers in your living space
I know I did something stupid. I just had to have a SLA 3d printer. The issue being I live in a one bedroom apartment. In the months of owning it I have made lots of amazing pieces, I also for the first time in my life have not only allergies, but sever allergies. I thought I had the flu, and has been most of the last 2-3 months. After making the connection to the symptoms appearing after I got the printer, I sealed the resin vat and removed all cleaning station items from my living space. I had thought I had done "enough" by sealing the printers door, and making sure I could not smell any chemicals, and getting a chemical grade air filter.
It's been 2 days, and I'm instantly recovering from my symptoms, and have discontinued allergy medication.
Other than not own this type of printer, what kind of setup do I need so that I can safely use this printer? Does anyone sell enclosures or setups for businesses or homes that will solve this issue?
I can move the cleaning station to my balcony, as it also has a sink and space. Placing the printer even in an enclosure outside would be hard due to the humidity and extreme pollen we get here.

See also Commercially available 3D printer fume and UFP extractor and What air filtration options exist for enclosures?

First things first: Resin is very aggressive. It can very easily make you hypersensitive, even to the fumes of it. So step 1 is easy:
Limit exposure
Wear gloves when working with resin. As you live with your printer in the same room, bottle up the resin right after use and only open it during use to prevent buildup over time and exposure. To further reduce the exposure, leave the room while printing if possible and ventilate the room after bottling the resin again. Possibly even wear breathing protection during operation.
Enclose and seal the machine
To keep the vapors away from you, the machine needs to be enclosed airtight. Any lids need to get a seal, non-opening joints of the frame need to be sealed with a sealant like silicone. Often it is hard to retrofit an enclosure to seal up the workspace.
If you want to enclose the full machine, I suggest using glass sheets and silicone sealant for the whole inside. Brace the construction from the outside with L-profiles along the corners and joints. The most tricky part will be the opening hatch and wiring/ducting access hole. The opening seal needs a sealing lid all around that gets compressed on closing the machine up and some kind of lock to keep it this way. The air filtration and wire access are just hard to make because of their circular shape. You might want to use a wooden or metal base plate, so it is best to put ventilation through the base. In case of wood, afterward coat the inside surface with a thin layer of an airtight material, such as epoxy resin or silicone.
Low presssure operation by ventilating the machine
The next best thing to isolating the machine workspace from the air completely is to make it a low-pressure operation. This means that you evacuate the air from the machine. The imperfect seals now work against a high pressure outside and low pressure inside, meaning that the flow in any non-sealed spot only knows one direction: into the machine.
Ventilation outside...
Fred's answer provides good basics on how to do this in general by using parts for Laser evacuation. This is also the most space-economic way.
...and filtering.
But there are (partial) indoor solutions even, based on ventilating the air from the printer into a multi-stage air filter could reduce or eliminate the amount of chemical exposure. This is not a slim piece of foam, it is a boxy setup with about 3 to 6 stages of filtering. Among dry-filters, a paint-filter in combination with an active coal one should eliminate a large portion of irritants from the stream, but might still need to be vented outside to reduce exposure even more. A 'wet' air filter, where the exhaust of the machine is pearled through a basin of a cleaning liquid (often water or a solvent like isopropylic alcohol) like in an aquarium could help to catch even more chemicals but is bulky.

One of the options you have would be to create a negative pressure in your working area. This would be accomplished by installing a fan with the flow direction to the outside. The inside portion of the fan should have ducting that terminates near your printer. You could place your printer in something elaborate, or in something as simple as a large cardboard box and attach the ducting to the box.
As the fan operates, air would be pulled from an open window elsewhere in the room and travel into the cardboard box. It would carry fumes from the printer to the fan and out of the building.
I have a CO2 laser which generates large amounts of smoke. Part of the installation includes a powerful blower not placed in the window, but with ducting from the machine and to a panel in the window frame. I used scrap plastic to make a baffle that accepted the ducting while blocking the rest of the window.

Squirrel-cage blowers provide powerful airflow but you may not need something as expensive as a laser cutter blower. A boat bilge blower might be sufficient to provide clearing airflow for your printer.

Additionally, a small bilge blower such as that shown above will use smaller diameter ducting, which would be easier to find and less expensive. The bilge blower in the picture provides for an in and out attachment, while the not-really-a-laser-cutter blower in the picture does not. A true laser cutter blower has ducting attachments for input and output.
One characteristic of this type of clearing system is that outside air will possibly change the temperature of the room/building. During the winter, the rest of my house got noticeably cooler while the exhaust fan was operating.


text:
Print initial layer only on outside of print
I am using Ultimaker Cura to print what are essentially cookie cutters - a thin wall that is a silhouette of the shape. I would like to have a broader surface for the top. In Ultimaker Cura, I set it to print a wider "initial layer" but this initial layer is printed both inside and outside the print. Is there a setting I can use to print the initial layer outside the print? I am using Fusion 360 to create the model and would like to avoid having to build this separate layer for every model I build, unless it can be done fairly easily as these shapes will vary for each model.
As an additional question, what would be the best way to split an image into individual pieces - one for the outline of the whole shape and individual pieces for each distinct part of the image, say eyes, nose, mouth - that you would use to build the image after you cut out the pieces? I've tried using InkScape but I am not able to get it to divide them into clean pieces.

Does Cura have a setting for "brim"? Because a brim is usually only applied to the outside.

@Davo - Yes it does and I was thinking the same thing. The only thing which may not be optimal is the single layer of it not being very strong (only one layer deep). I don't believe there's a way to get multiple brim layers to make it a bit more robust. It is, after all, made to just peal off of the print. I don't think it would stand up to any long term use.

It is best to design the piece as you want it - brim is too flimsy for this usage.

While a standard brim might be too flimsy, you could manually edit the gcode and replace the first 10 layers with layer 1.

@PerplexedDipole - I think that's what the OP was trying to get away from in the first place ... ie: editing every print prior to printing.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 "Unless it can be done fairly easily" but I guess that is subjective.

Not helpful since it's Cura, but this would be trivial with S3D and two processes for the file.
Simply set the "lower" process to only one perimeter, with "outline direction" set to "outside-in", and enable "merge outlines into a single solid model" if it isn't already.

Thanks everyone I think I’m leaning towards building the brim into the project. As an experiment, I inserted the svg file twice. The brim is a slightly larger scaled version I extruded to 2mm then added the smaller extruded version on top of it. That seems to do the trick. I just need to find a good way to get images separated into individual components for the second half of my original question.

Is there a reason you can't just build two copies of the (flat) shape, shrink one by 10% and take the Boolean Difference to create your 'top'  ?

Carl, that’s essentially what I did. It works in most cases. I only run into issues if it’s a fairly complex shape. In those instances, curves and inside corners don’t always line up, but it’s usually good enough.

The solution to getting the brim set up was to select the area for each individual piece (in GIMP), then duplicate that selection and "grow" it to make it larger to create the lip. From there, I extruded the larger section a few millimeters and extruded the smaller selection on top of that and hollowed it out. Still working on the exact measurements to achieve the lip width and height, but the process is in place.


text:
Progressively worse relative size error at smaller absolute sizes
I'm having a problem where the relative dimensional error of cylinders is rapidly increasing as the absolute size decreases. Printing a calibration stack of cylinders of diameters 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3 mm, they come out undersized by 5%, 5.3%, 7%, 8%, 10%, and 13%, respectively, as measured by a digital caliper. Cubes exhibit a less severe version of the same pattern: 2.5%, 3%, 5%, 4%, 5%, 7%. The cylinders are generated with OpenSCAD using $fn=180, i.e. they're actually extrusions of 180-gons, so the error should not be caused by poor chord approximation; indeed, measuring projections of the model, or reading the gcode and accounting for nozzle width, everything looks right.
Printer is Ender 3, using PLA at 210. Slicing with CuraEngine.
Could this be caused by underextrusion or print speed issues - or some effect where the material pulls itself together under tight curvature? What techniques might be able to compensate for it, short of fudging the model?
Some additional information: As noted by Trish in the comments, the consistency of the absolute error, which is 0.4 for cylinders and 0.2 for cubes, is likely important. I've also subsequently tested with 110% extrusion rate and the errors for the cylinders dropped to consistently 0.2 mm (still a significant increasing relative error), but the skin layers at the top of the 3 mm cylinder bulged, suggesting the increased extrusion is wrong - an excessive total volume of material.

what are the absolute errors?

@Trish: The percent errors were just 1.0-measured_size/ideal_size. The absolute errors were all very close to 0.4 mm for the cylinders, 0.2mm for the cubes.

That is important info, R.. Becasue the absolute error never changes.

@Trish: Indeed, I overlooked that it was near-constant, but I don't have any good explanation/model for why a constant error in dimensions would happen. It could likely be compensated by Cura's xy_offset setting, but that's going to be wrong because it will give holes an extreme error in the opposite direction (holes are also smaller than they should be).

I've had this problem recurringly after marking this solved before, so I'm writing a new answer to revisit it.
Based on the magnitude of the error being absolute rather than relative, and not being direction-dependent (i.e. not backlash), it can't be caused by the motion system. I further ruled out inward warping of the material by running tests with 100% infill. When, even at 100% infill, the diameter (thus volume of material) was too low, the only remaining explanation was underextrusion.
Measuring the theoretical rotation distance of my extruder hob (now a different extruder from the original Ender 3 one), accounting for approximate tooth depth along with a precise hob diameter measurement, I got a value 15% lower than my configured value (E-steps 15% higher). I was already aware there was a discrepency here, just not the magnitude, and had purposefully kept it lower because of concerns that the full value would lead to parts that don't fit, due to imperfections in the walls, and especially that it might make the undersized holes problem worse.
In reality, it's done the opposite. The best explanation I can come up with for fixing holes is that, for extrusion widths narrower than the nozzle (which a 15% under-extruded 0.4 mm line is, since it's only about 0.34 mm), the line does not stay centered well, but gets dragged with the direction of curvature. I think I still have some problems with holes being slightly undersized, but they're at least no worse, and seem slightly better.
As for positive cylinders, at 5 mm, printed diameter is nearly perfect, only under by about 40-50 µm, which is very acceptable and better than being over. Getting this result does depend on having a 100% solid part, though; as soon as infill comes into play, the cylinder is undersized again. Setting Cura's "Minimum Infill Area" high enough, or using enough walls to ensure the cylinder will be solid, can ensure 100% fill without printing the whole part at 100% infill.
So, I think I can conclusively say the main likely cause for this problem is underextrusion due to inaccurate E-steps.

You should not look at the relative dimensional differences, you should be looking at the absolute differences. Multiplying the undersized dimensions in percentage with the cylinder diameter gives you a value of 0.4  mm for each cylinder give or take a few hundreds. So, basically your printer works very consistent it is just suffering from a systematic offset.
Basically, the printing process needs to
adjust the X-Y dimensions to compensate for plastic flow effects. An option or setting in Ultimaker Cura to counteract this is called Horizontal Expansion. Slic3r and Simplify3d have similar settings. In Slic3r it is called XY size compensation.

Unfortunately, the effect happens in the opposite direction with the opposite curvature: holes are too small. Adjusting xy_offset with a positive value will make that even worse. It seems likely that fixing this might require enhancing the slicer to take local curvature into effect when applying an offset.

@R..R Filament could well be dragged before it sets explaining the smaller radius

Yeah, my thought is that something like that is happening to make the error happen in the direction of the curvature - either dragging or some sort of surface-tension like force in the material.

you can set a negative size compensation

@Trish: Right, but that will make the problem described here worse. There's some small constant negative compensation needed for die swell, plus what seems to be a curvature-dependent compensation that would be large and positive for inward curvature and unknown (since I haven't yet measured) magnitude negative for outward curvature.

The increase of the relative error is not an anomaly, it is a direct result of what is the actual error: There is a systematic, absolute error, which is almost the same for all the cylinders and all the cubes. +0.2 mm or +0.4 mm on progressively smaller items gets a progressively bigger relative error. But the source of the absolute error is what you need to compensate for.
Fighting bulging for 0.2 mm accuracy
As you figured out that 110% extrusion did halve the absolute error of the cylindrical test, in conjunction with layer deformation, I suggest to try this:

Extrusion/Flow Multiplier 100 %
Linewidth 0.44 to 0.45 mm

This fights the die swell but also spaces the walls and roofing lines, allowing them to take the extra material. 0.2 mm accuracy is pretty good for a start, you get into the specs of many parts with that, but we want more!
For a slight increase, measure your filament in a couple of spots and do the average, then use that as filament diameter.
Increasing Accuracy further
If you want to go further, proper calibration of the motion system and the extruder are the next steps.
Short Calibration Rundown
The rundown is extruder first, then possibly the axis.

Connect your printer to the PC with an interface such as Pronterface or Repetier Host.
Place a mark 150 mm from the intake of the printer
Extrude 100 mm via G1 E100 F100
Measure from the intake to the mark.
Get the current steps per mm via M503 - it is the E-entry that follows M92
Calculate $\frac {\text{current steps per mm }\times 100}{150 - \text {remaining length}}=\text {new steps per mm}$
Set the new steps per mm via M92 E###.# and save with M500, verify with M503.

The process for the XYZ axis is pretty much the same, but you don't need to mark filament. Instead, print a known size cube, best with a side length that is a multiple of 10 mm.

Calculate $\frac {\text{current steps per mm }\times \text{ designed length}}{\text {actual length}}=\text {new steps per mm}$

Thanks for the detailed information on calibration. I'm pretty sure no X/Y/Z steps-per-mm calibration is needed, or the absolute error would vary proportional with cube size, rather than being constant with respect to it. Extruder error seems possible though.

When you wrote "Extrusion/Flow Multiplier 100 %" under the first heading, did you mean 110%?

No, I meant 100% & 0.44 mm

Ah, so increasing the line width tells Cura to increase the extrusion to fill that width, but also causes it to space paths according to the new width (rather than just extruding more material along the same paths like increasing the flow % would do)? That sounds interesting. I'll try it.

steps/mm for XYZ should not be measured but rather calculated based on belt pitch and pulley diameter. Nothing in the printer allows for variable steps/mm. If you calibrate it you will worsen it for any part which is not the calibration part.

This problem seems to have mostly gone away - at least any remaining error is within a margin explainable by my cheap/low-quality digital caliper. Since asking the question, I've made a lot of changes that could contribute, but the biggest factor was probably the loose X-axis timing belt and misaligned X-axis.
Slicer options may also have been involved. For example, Cura's Ender 3 profile attempts to set limits on acceleration speeds, but does so in a way that requires the GUI to compute derived accelerations; if you're using the command line CuraEngine (which I am), all the derived settings are left at the very high defaults.


text:
Why are there so many print speed parameters in slicers?
The expert mode of Slic3r PE has almost a dozen speed values:

I understand that ultimately print speed at a particular temperature correlates with bond strength, so things like bridges and the first layer having different speeds are reasonable.
What about the rest? Why does infill have 3 variations? How are the different categories listed impacted distinctly from any other form of layer/path bonding?

The real answer is: because we love to tinker.

There are multiple parameters because of the trade-off at print speeds.
Slow printing will have less ghosting and a better overall quality, but it takes way more time.
Fast printing will be fast (oh thank you, Captain Obvious), but you will get stronger ghostings and poorer line quality overall. Maybe some strange artifacts.
But you don't need a good print quality in areas that are not visible at all, but you do need it for the outer shell. Also, is the travel mostly just something that you want done as fast as possible but maybe not so fast that that the whole printer starts shaking?
So, you want to set different parameters for different parts.
Next reason: most slicers are used for a large variation of printers, and every printer is a litte bit different—even the same printer type with different addons (like a vanilla Anet A8 vs. a beefed up Anet A8). For the slicer to be able to be used by all these printers, it is necessary to be able to set multiple parameters.
To get deeper into your question about the different infill speeds: if you print a solid infill you will also need to give the printed material more time to cool down, because it is packed tightly and there is not much surface area for heat to get away. If you print these areas too fast you will end up with a part that is too warm and warps and deforms all the time while the next layers were printed on already, inserting even more heat into the part and isolating the warm parts from the outside. You can observe similar behavior when printing overhanging areas with thick walls: there the part will stay in a semi-solid state, and deforms all the time.
But how fast you have to go depends on the cooling system you have on your printer.

Thanks, but that doesn't answer my question. I'm not asking why different speeds are important, I'm asking about why do the speeds need to differ by those categories and what their respective impacts are.

To get deeper: If you print a solid infill you will also need to give the printed material more time to cool down, because it is packed tightly and there is no much surface area for getting heat away. If you print these areas to fast you will end up with a part that is to warm and warps and deforms all the time while the next layers were printed on already, inserting even more heat into the part and isolate the warm parts from the outside. You can observe similar behavior when printing overhanging areas with a thick walls. There the part will stay in a semi solid state and deforms all the time

But how fast you habe to go depends on the cooling system you have on your printer.

@kolosy I have add the deeper information to my answer :)


text:
Error when trying to upload firmware to cr-10
I've been having trouble uploading the TH3DUF_R2 firmware to my CR-10.  I've already successfully flashed the bootloader using my Arduino,  but when I try to upload the bootloader I get this error:
avrdude: ser_open(): can't set com-state for "\\.\COM4"
Things I've tried:

Changing the usb drivers
Changing the baud rate
Using a different computers without any other usb devices

My printer is not functional right now with just a bootloader and no firmware, so I'm not really sure where to go from here.

Might be a dumb question but have you checked to make sure you are using the right com port?

And the right baudrate?

Yeah, I've tried different baud rates, and I'm definitely using the right COM port.

This happens with a busy port, so your card is operating and blocking the communication. I had the same problem two years ago.

Just unplug the arduino, keep all ready to upload (fully compiled) then connect the arduino and just after the sound of detection device of windows click the command upload. This way you don't give the chance to arduino starts to oparate and sature the comunication from usb port.

Two possible solutions are given in this thread: Upload error: avrdude: ser_open(): can't set com-state for "\.\COM17"
This post says:

i am able to fix this problem very easily... just press reset button on arduino and unplug from usb and go to the arduino software installation directory (c:/program files/ arduino) and open drivers folder and open
  dpinst-amd64 by double clicking on it and just install that if it not runs may be your system runs with 32bit and open the file below the previously opened file and install it again.. close arduino programming software and open it again and choose your board and com ports and now it should upload to your board...enjoy...

Or try the solution from this post:

I could fix this problem! Maybe this solution will works for you:

in device manager I had unnistalled the drivers that I had. After reconnect it then it appears in "Other dispositives" with the name
  "USB 2.0Serial". There are cases that it appears like "FT232RUSB
  UART".
my serial conversor chip on arduino uno board is "CH340G". Check this on your controller boards because others like "CN480661" has
  another fix method. If you can't find this chip maybe this video could
  help you (in spanish, sorry, is where i found the solution):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ar5sjbZFg
download the drivers "CH341SE" from this url: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3csnhlsbdrznbp3/CH341SER.zip?dl=0 and then
  decompress it in a folder
in device manager check whether the arduino is shown (reconnect it for that if you didn't do it in `step 1) then do right click -> update
  software -> browse software in the computer -> examine or browse
Now you have to search the folder in which you decompress the drivers (step 3). After then pulse accept, ignore any advertice and
  continue. Then it will install the drivers and you will be able to use
  your arduino.

NOTE: If in this last step windows has an error you need to enable the
  unknown digital signature installation. check other tutorials for this

These seem to be the only two solutions that worked for other people experiencing the same issue.

Ok... So I found a much simpler answer to this. In my device manager I just right clicked the device (Com port 4, the one that wasn't working for me) and allowed windows to update the drivers from the web.
This fixed my issue. Just wanted to put it out there in case anyone else was struggling


text:
Creality Ender 3 printer power consumption?
Anyone have any idea how much power it takes to run a Creality Ender 3 3D printer every day for several hours at a time? Like what does it eat up per hour? A rough estimate of power use per hour would be nice, then I can figure out how much it costs me. Can anyone help me?

That depends on how much heat is dissipated from the heat bed and nozzle (insulation used?), at which temperatures you print, how long, bed size, etc. Without that information it will be a guess and with the info it will still not be very accurate.

Possible duplicate of What is the power consumption of the heatbed and hotend?

<200W is a quick estimate. This translates to <1$£ per 24 hours,

I'm currently measuring the power usage of my Ender 3. It used about 0.5 kWh for 4 hours of printing. With 2 heat ups (about 280 W each). So approximately 120 W average.
Or 0.12 kWh per hour.
Assumed your printing 12 h a day you're using 1.5 kWh a day. That translates into a cost of 0.43 € a day in electricity (0.3 €/kWh).
When you're using your printer every day for an average of 12 h. You'll be using about 525 kWh a year or 157 € in electricity at 0.3 €/kWh.

Most of my prints are 2 or 3 hours long approximately, I am printing in pla filament and my heated bed is heated to 60 degrees Fahrenheit and the hotend is printing at 200 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. I just was wondering what the cost would be because my mother is saying I can only print one thing per day now. I think it is kind of unreasonable but who am I to tell my mom how to make rules? Anyway I am printing at those temperatures, so how much is the power consumption, I live in new York.

@JamesHanvey Not Fahrenheit, but Celsius.

So how much would that be in watts per hour?

Review the answer, are you talking to me or one of the people who answered the question. I still am kind of lost as to what my ender 3 printer consumes in watts at an hourly rate, because my mom was mad at me for printing out a print that took six hours long and she is afraid it's gonna spike her electric bill. If anyone knows how much a ender 3 printer consumes by printing pla filament at 205 degrees Celsius with a 60 degrees Celsius print bed temperature I would be able to figure out what the electric bill will be when I run it for hours at a time. Thnx everyone for trying to help me.

Why are 0.12kWh odd when you're using an average power of 120 Watts. Energy is power multiplied by time. So 120W * 1h = 120Wh or 0.12kWh.

The Ender 3 has a 360 W power supply. This is the maximum power the printer can use. However, if engineered correctly, it should never actually reach this level of consumption to prevent premature failure of the power supply. It will use the most power during initial warm up, which is a relatively short amount of time. Then the average power consumption will drop considerably once at temperature. So, an average of 120 Wh per hour seems like a reasonable estimate.
It turns out that if you are paying 11.4 cents per kWh (which is a nominal price in the US) the price of running something 24 hours a day is \$1 per Watt per Year. So if you ran your printer all year long nonstop it would cost \$120 per year or \$10 per month.
Since you live in New York, you probably pay about 1.5 times as much for electricity or 17.1 cents per kWh. So you'd multiply the figures above by 1.5, so you would get \$15 per month. Also, you don't use your printer 24 hours a day. Let's say you want to print an average of 8 hours a day. That's 1/3 of the day, so you'd divide your figure by 3 and get \$5 per month. You'd hardly notice a difference in your electric bill.

"120W per hour" is a units error. I think you mean "120W" aka "120 Wh/h".

If it is really important to you to know how much you are spending per any given print, your best bet is not to guess, but to know how much power you're using. To that end, you could purchase a power meter which monitors your power usage. Given the right one, it can even calculate the cost of the power usage all in one little package. This link, The 10 Best Electricity Usage Monitors, should provide you some ideas as to what you might find, but I'm sure there are plenty more out there (NOTE: I have no affiliation to the link provided ... it was just a random one I found through a Google search ... Go Go Google-Fu!).
As 0scar pointed out in his comment, there are just too many variables to try and guess what the power consumption might be. If you are looking for a real answer, I believe something along the lines as I've linked above is going to be your best solution to getting a real answer. Anything else is more or less just a guess.

Other answers include good estimates, and show that for one printer the electricity costs are not very significant. If you are using many printers and want a concrete answer, then it would be wise to purchase a power monitor (for continuous monitoring) or multimeter with clamp.
With a clamp-on multimeter, you can clamp the meter on to the 3D printer's plug and read the Amps being drawn. Assuming a 120 VAC single phase supply (typical for North America), the power consumption is 120 VAC multiplied by the Amps drawn by the 3D printer (P=VI), which you can read from the multimeter.
The amps drawn by the 3D printer will vary throughout your print, but for a longer print, you should be able to get a good average amps read during a middle print layer. Total energy cost of printing per day would then be:
 C = (V*I/1000)*t*E*n

     C, Total printer energy costs per day ($/day)
     V, AC Voltage (V)
     I, Average current draw during print (Amps)
     t, time printers are running per day (Hours/day)
     E, Energy cost from utility ($/kWh)
     n, number of printers

That will give you an estimate of +/- 6 %, which is the variation in output voltage.

@0scar, good point. The multimeter may also have a measurement accuracy listed on the device that can be factored in.

During the printing process: 110 Watts (Average)
Can be calculated as energy: 0.11 kWh (Average)
Just directly multiply it by your model’s total printing time.
In short (on average) (based on 2023 electric prices)

1 hour printing
₺0.17 (Turkey)
\$0.025 (US)
€0.03 (EU)

7/24 printing daily cost
₺3.96 (Turkey)
\$0.63 (US)
€0.73 (EU)

7/24 printing monthly cost
₺119 (Turkey)
\$19 (US)
€22 (EU)

In the table below, you can see all of the actions’ power consumption individually. All values are average and show isolated consumptions.

State
Power Consumption Net (Watts)

1 Idle
7

2 Heating Bed
243

3 Heating Nozzle
41

4 Keeping Nozzle Hot
22

5 Keeping Bed Hot
44

6 Steppers Engaged
18

7 Feeding Filament
5

8 X-Y Motors with Max Feedrate - 150 mm/s
2

9 Hotend Fan
2

For more detailed information, see my Medium Post
Ender V2 Power Consumption

Just order a Watt Electricity Usage Monitor or a similar model and plug it into the wall, or better, a 3-prong extension cord, then plug your 3D printer into it, and you'll get all the power consumption detail you'll need. Show your Mom, and she'll see what to charge you, if she's so inclined. To impress her, offer to pay without her asking.


text:
Odd print artifacts on same layer as large top surface
I printed the following object (I'm printing the single opening version, Flower_pot_3.STL), and observed an unusual print artifact. I would like some idea of what's going on so I can avoid it in the future. The object is essentially an open-top box. In the image below, you can see a ridge along the bottom of the print. This corresponds to the upper surface of the bottom side of the box. The ridge is present for 4 layers, the same number of layers on the top surface. The defect is basically a positive ridge all the way around (not a layer shift). The G-code render below is for the top layer of the bottom surface.
System Settings

Printer is Prusa Mk3, with white PLA plastic. Nozzle is HS steel at 210 °C
0.2 mm Layer height, 15 % Gyroid infill, 3 perimeters
Perimeters are printed first each layer, with the outer perimeter coming last.
 -

Ideally, I would like to know what caused this artifact, and what I could do to avoid it in the future. I can add more information as requested.

This is frequently seen when prints transition from one shape to another (filled cube to empty cube). You normally see this happen at cheaper or less accurate printers, this can be backlash or plain accuracy of the machine. CoreXY printers don't show this, Prusa models/clone are more susceptible for such defects. Maybe you could point out what the order of printing is of the layer; e.g. first infill or first walls, which walls, when is the inner bottom surface printed, etc. Is the ridge at the top of the bottom surface, or starts at the first layer of the inner bottom surface

Do you print Walls before infil or infill before wallsl? that can sometimes result in such behavior.

I've added the information. What's puzzling to me is that the solid fill is so far away from the perimeter, and the perimeter drawing is almost identical to the previous layer.

At least w/ my Cura defaults, certainly no change in the physical model parameters, and layers 249, 250, 251 (where first layer of solid region shows up) appear to have same gcode operating values

Did you figure this out? I am having the same problem but unsure why it is at the moment.

Just a guess here. If I understood correctly the deformation is at the first layer of the box bottom, it seems highly unlikely that it randomly happened at this exact position so I am assuming that if you do the print again you will get the same deformation at the same place (you can test this maybe ? I know it is a long print). In this case it is more likely that is a slicer issue than something with your machine and it could also be a problem with the stl model. Maybe try to create a small simple box then slice it using the same setting and try to see if you can reproduce artifact.

You've "hidden" two different possible slicer errors.  The first is an actual change in the object shape, which should be visible in LayerView.  The second is a change in gcode instructions as to movement speed, extrusion rate, and so on.   Those would be useful to check out.


text:
Strange outer skin print quality on Ender 3
Does anybody have an idea what causes the strange outer wall skin texture? I don't know why this happens; the inner wall looks fine, but the outer wall looks distorted.
Also it's strange that the distortion only happens on the left side for about 2 cm on all prints.
Disabling retraction had no effect. Reducing the printing speed neither improved it.

Edit: I'm printing at 0.16mm layer height with 98% initial flow rate and 94%. No support.
Standard PLA with the standard nozzle at 190°C. I am using Cura for slicing if it matters.

Printing speed is at 40mm/s for the outer wall and 80mm/s for the inner one. I already tried to decrease the outer wall speed to 20mm/s without any luck. Except for one other print, I never had an issue with those settings.

I just finished a print with 100% flow rate to exclude its the flow rate.
With 100% only the front improved at all.

There is no stringing, your print suffers from under-extrusion. Please add some relevant settings as speed, temperature, extruder type, filament type, etc. This is virtually an impossible task to answer without such information.

Could be speed on outer layer too fast.  Could be hot tip too cold.

I'm agree with Perry, I had the same problems when I started to print. also the filament quality was a headache, but I didn't´notice until I changed my supplier.

Have you tried using one of the default standard profiles in Cura? I'm just wondering if there is some weird setting that has been changed by mistake. It seems unlikely that there is anything wrong with the printer or filament if the inner walls are ok.

My best guess is you have an under extrusion issue, possibly related to retraction: the issue is exacerbated on parts where the printer has to hop over a gap.
I would try running, in the order:

print a flow rate test, to ensure the amount of filament exiting the nozzle matches with your configuration
print a retraction test, to ensure you are not suffering from some bowden tube issues like bad coupling
check for any clog in the hot end, those can require a bigger pressure to build up before the filament start flowing again
print a temperature tower, to find out if 190° is the right temperature (seems a bit low to me)

With regards to point 2, the Ender 3 is somewhat renown for having poor quality couplers: watch the bowden tube couplers when printing and try to verify the tube is not moving back and forth when hopping over empty spaces...

This is an under extrusion due missing feed extrusion vs filament temperature. There are many topics explaining this issue.

Why has this answer been down voted?


text:
Palette 2 with an Ender 3 Printer
Has anyone had any luck with printing multi-colored prints with the Palette 2 on an Ender 3? If so, what is your steps/mm for the Ender 3 and your flow rate in whatever slicer you are using? I currently have my flow rate at 100 % and my steps/mm at 104.4, and I believe this is what is causing my Palette 2 to not produce accurate results.

About the Palette 2
Palette 2 is a separate device providing one multi color filament out of multiple single color filaments.
As the Ender 3 does not support multi-colour printing, that's why I'm using the Palette 2. It allows any printer to print in multi color as it adds multi color printing to single extruder printers.

@TreyHope - You need to add more information like what is wrong. Are the colors not changing where you expect them to?

The OP clearly requires the help from somebody owning both the Ender 3 and the Palette 2, but probably it will be easier for him to contact the Palette customer support...

What they do need to expand on is what "not produce accurate results" means.

Hi Trey and welcome to SE.3DP! Please update your question w.r.t. what exactly is the problem and what isn't happening as you expect it to. If you update your question to clarify what is wrong, then the question will be (most likely) reopened. Thanks in advance :-)

@Greenonline from what I could gather, it seems that you just need to fire up both machines, run the code for the pallete to calibrate the length of the connector tube+bowden tube, then run both machines with the code provided by the slicer - which should run them both to extrude at roughly the same speed forewards  and backwards. though I honestly have no idea how to sync the two as they don't appear to be connected...

On this thread, Does anyone tried Palette 2.0 on Creality Ender 3 or Ender 3 Pro?, there are a couple of useful links:

There is a video, albeit for the CR-101, but that should be of help: YouTube - Setup Guide: Creality CR-10 with Palette 2;
In addition, this Facebook group, Mosaic Palette, Palette+, Palette 2 (Pro) Users, apparently has some users who have paired their Ender 3 with the Palette 2.

However, with respect to your question about the flow rate and steps/mm, there isn't much info out there about that, and no one seems to have experienced similar issues, but your issue might have something to do with profiles - which, as you haven't mentioned them in your question, it is hard to know if that might be the issue or not.
In the same thread, this post, states:

I use it with the Ender 3.  There is a profile in Canvas and Chroma for it also.

This link here, Chroma for Palette 2, states that after using Cura, you then need to load the G-code file into Chroma v3.1, after having selected the appropriate profile. However, if you use Canvas, then there is no need for Cura nor Chroma, as Canvas can slice. This link goes through the whole process for Benchy.

At the risk of repetition, the process for preparing the print, post-slicing, is also given here, from Multicolor 3D Printing How To: Using the Mosaic Palette+ with the Creality Ender 3, albeit slightly different from the link above:

Setting Up Chroma:
When you load up Chroma, you’ll be presented with a blank canvas ready
  to be filled with your 3D creations.  In the top left corner, make
  sure that you have the Ender 3 selected from the drop down menu.
  After this you can click Load Print.  From there you’ll be presented
  with your gcode files that you have on your computer.
In this example we will be selecting the butterfly-1.gcode file, and
  clicking Open.  From here Chroma will be compiling and arranging the
  settings for the gcode file to be displayed.  This might take a minute
  or more.
Selecting Your Colors:
Once the loading is completed, you will be presented with the 3D
  rendering of our butterfly!  This butterfly will be in 4 randomly
  selected colors by default, but we will be changing this next!  To
  change the colors, navigate to the top of the screen where you will
  see 4 colored circles, and drop down arrows along with each circle.
  These circles represent the colors of each tool head.
To change the color, click on the Tool Head Colored Circle, and your
  options for color will appear, we’re going to select Black for our
  first color.  After this, you will want to select the Default PLA
  Settings by clicking the Drop Down Arrow to the right of the first
  Tool Head Colored Circle.
As we make these changes you will notice that the 3D rendering of our
  butterfly will change to our corresponding colors.  Repeat this
  process for the remaining 3 Tool Heads, remember to use the Default
  PLA Settings for each Tool Head.
Saving Your Project:
After you have selected all your colors, you will click Save for
  Printer in the top right corner of Chroma.  From there, name your
  file, and click Save.  You will be then presented with a loading bar
  as Chroma prepares our 2 output files.  One of the files will be an
  adjusted gcode file that has added the purge tower we just modified,
  and the other file will be a file that goes straight to the Mosaic
  Palette+.
Printing Your Project:
Once the files are ready, you will be presented with a screen that
  says “Ready to Print!”.  On this screen you will be presented with the
  files you have created for your project, which for us are the
  butterfly-1.msf which goes to the Mosaic Palette+ and the
  butterfly-1.msf.gcode file which is your newly created gcode file.
  You will also be presented with “Materials Used” for the project,
  “Number of Splices” for the project, and “Number of Pings” for the
  project.
After this, you will need to turn your Creality Ender 3 on if it isn’t
  already.  After making sure that you have all your components set up
  and assembled correctly, then it is safe to begin the printing
  process.
Depending on your specific project will determine how long the
  printing process takes.  But once your printing process is complete
  you will be presented with your beautiful multicolored 3D butterfly
  (or whatever your project was)!  After printing is finished, you
  should let the project cool before you attempt to remove it from the
  tray. Once it has cooled you can now gently pry the project off of the
  tray.

Footnotes
1 The CR-10 is, on a broader level, an Ender-3 with 2 lead screws and a slightly different board.

The guide is at Getting Started With Palette 2 (Setup to Printing), which includes guides to use the correct slicer software and swapping the firmware.
The latter part may be a little bit of an ordeal on the Ender3 as there is no bootloader on it - however, it is not apparent from the instruction, whether this would be an issue or not - it seems to be a fairly simple process.

Open your Palette 2 package and remove your Palette 2 unit and USB cable. Connect your Palette 2 to your computer.
To help the updater recognize the port for your Palette, try
  unplugging other USB devices.
Download our Firmware Installer for your operating system.
Latest Palette Firmware V. 4.2.3 (Mar 14, 2019)

Windows (x32 or x64) Download
macOS    Download
Linux (x64, Tested on Ubuntu 16.04)  Download1

Follow the on-screen instructions and click "Install Latest"
Once the firmware is updated, you will receive the Success message, and you can unplug your unit from your computer.

1 For Linux users, please refer to this support article.

@Trish - Following on from our adventure, when we updated the firmware on an Ender, this process described above seem to be a lot less painful (Plug in USB and run an application). I wonder how that is achieved, with out the ISP programming (see How to install new ATMEGA firmware via the ISP pins?). Maybe there is a bootloader, after all?

authors: الدنيه مادري شبيهه وياي

authors: تسفيرهـ العتيبي


text:
Is there any (relatively simple) way to determine whether a stepper is being directed to move by the voltage signal across its winding?
This may be a long shot, but I was wondering if the signals seen across a stepper motor's windings could indicate whether the stepper was being told to move over some short time period.  This is in particular for the stepper used on extruders.
I've read that PWM in used in stepper drivers and controls current patterns to move the motor.  And that a current must also be maintained through the windings if the motor is to hold its position.  So it would seem that there is always a pulsing waveform across the windings whenever the stepper is energized, correct?  When the motor is holding its position, is there anything distinctive about the waveform?
This is for a filament sensor I'd like to make.  The sensor would be located at the extruder motor.  It would monitor movement/flow of the solid filament.  A lack of filament flow could be because of filament runout, tangled or caught filament, or non-extruding travel moves. I'd like to be able to tell the first two causes from the last one (when it's not supposed to be extruding for some hundreds of milliseconds or so).  It would also be nice to tell 'no directed movement' from 'very slow movement' which would happen with small nozzles, slow speed or other slow extrusion situations.
I watched the waveforms with an oscilloscope while printing, but travel moves were quick and relatively rare, so I couldn't definitely see if there was something I could use during those times. Could I just filter the pulse waveform (what corner frequency?) to get an approximation of the current waveform going through the coils -- on the idea that the waveform should resemble a DC level during non-extruding but still energized times.  Perhaps another low-pass filtering of that DC level, or a high-pass of the waveform to indicate directed extrusion?  Using DSP on a micro, of course.
Are there any experts here on the subject of low-level stepper motor control?

Yes, there is an input called DIR, so 1 is one direction 0 is the other direction; There is another called STEPS, this receives pulses, if not so the motor is stopped.

So it would seem that there is always a pulsing waveform across the windings whenever the stepper is energized, correct?

Correct.

When the motor is holding its position, is there anything distinctive about the waveform?

Yes there is. This video contains a short example of what the current waveforms would look like.
If I understand you correctly: You want to detect filament events based by doing current sensing on the phases of the stepper motor. The simple of it is that, if the motor is not turning then the Back ElectroMotive Force will be zero. As the speed increases the BEMF goes up, which causes the current levels to go down. Is this how stall detection in some driver systems work.
You may be able to determine if what you want to do is even practical by studying the fundamentals of stepper motor driving; both voltage mode and current mode.
Apart from that it may be just as practical to use a rotary encoder upstream of the extruder motor to detect the filament movement, or lack thereof.
In your case detecting if the filament is present but not moving calls for stall detection. If the PWM pulse occurs but the rate at which the voltage increased (the slope) did not change, then there was no BEMF event. The lack of such an event would indicate that the rotor did not move. If there is no filament to push, then when the rotor moves it will ring (overshoot it's target position and fluctuate back and forth until it settles into the electrical position that the controller intended), because the mechanical load has changed.
For a NEMA17 stepper, these would be very small change in a very brief event. I would start with installing current sensors on both phases, and then doing some signal processing on top of that.

Thanks user77232 for the detailed reply.  So when the extruder is in a hold (energized but not extruding), the filtered waveform won't have the sinusoid overall shape or the steps or microsteps, just a flat line at some level?
The rotary encoder would only show if the filament is moving, not when it is supposed to move.  I'm trying to determine both, and look for a discrepancy to decide the print needs to be paused.  For actual movement, probably something like the Prusa scheme that uses an optical mouse camera to sense movement

Though I'd use a rotary pinch wheel and sense movement of that with the mouse chip, to avoid issues with how various filaments reflect light.

The rotary encoder seems like it might give false reports on some cases, such as printing slowly - with flexible filament for instance- with a very small nozzle, in which case the filament linear travel would be very, very slow.  And then with a Volcano or Supervolcano at maximum melt rate, a geared-up rotary would spin like mad!

You're in for some signal processing here. This becomes more of an electronics.stackexchange.com type question.

@user77232, I watched the video at your first link, and it didn't address the difference between stasis and motion, nor did it discuss the pulsing voltage found on stepper windings.  You state that the OP wants to measure current, but most likely the OP can much more easily measure voltage.  Your comment about BEMF reducing the current is partially correct.  Many stepper motor drivers automatically correct for that because they sense the current and servo the PWM to deliver a commanded current.  One would need to measure the PWM waveform plus add a sense resistor and measure the current.

Well then he could try mounting a microphone near the drive gears and train an AI to detect the different sounds that the different conditions make :)

There is nothing you can do to monitor the extruder stepper motor to assure that filament is being fed when it should be fed.  A common condition is where the filament binds but the extruder stepper continues to move as commanded.  The drive pully strips the dents it presses in the filament, and grinds down the filament.  The extruder still steps, and the filament does not.
You can reduce this for particular filaments by increasing the pressure on the filament by the drive pully, but the optimum pressure varies with the filament.  For instance, I've found that PET needs a lesser pressure than PLA.
@User77232 suggests using a separate rotary encoder to detect the motion of the filament through a different sensor.  This may be better, since you can detect a filament jam with extruder motion.  If you are using a PTFE tube to deliver filament to the extruder, the encoder can be mounted at the other end of the tube.  You may need to make allowance for some compression and stretch of the filament in the tube, which could delay detecting "lack of movement".
I had hoped that the Triaminic TMC2100 chips (spec here) would provide detection of drive torque by watching the back EMF, but reading the spec didn't look helpful.  There was an old patent (that should be long expired) that detected the current needed to move a stepper motor to achieve faster acceleration and quieter operation, but I didn't find on the Triaminic driver a useful torque limit signal.  If one could detect the torque required, one could set a peek torque value that is lower than the initial filament strip torque.
Perhaps one could mount the extruder stepper motor with a compliant mount, perhaps something like a TPU or rubber material, and use a strain gauge to measure the stretch of the mount.


text:
Filament Length too short for extruder to push filament
When filament is too short for the extruder to push will there be a stop in printing on the Ender 3, meaning that I should replace the filament when the end of the filament is near the extruder?

I'm sure I've seen this question asked before, although not explicitly for the Ender 3

The extruder can't push anymore when the filament is past the extruder gear. If your filament has run out to that point, the print will not halt but print without a filament, meaning that the print will fail. You need to pause the print in time and then put fresh filament into the printer.
If the end of the filament is cut flat at the end and the new one is flat too, the new filament can push the old one out to the nozzle, reducing the waste to a minimum, if you can live without retraction for the amount of length that has to be used up. You could friction weld the two parts together to alleviate this.

So that means there will be a minimum of ptfe tube length of filament loss for every spool, it's a bummer that they made the  extruder away from the hot end.

@ABHIGHNASHARMA you can design your own extruder; the direct drive extruder has the same problem, but here is needed to push the filament inside the cooling element, while the filament is broken or has ran out. If you don't want to push the filament flat to flat edge then "weld the edges" to add the new reel.

@ABHIGHNASHARMA it has its own advantages: the extruder motor is not moving along with the hot-end, making the whole machine able to work faster without compromising on quality. Direct drive extruders are more expensive and slower unless you are willing to accept artifacts on your prints like ringing.

Regarding: "If the end of the filament is cut flat at the end and the new one is flat too, the new filament can push the old one out to the nozzle, reducing the waste to a minimum," it's a bad idea to rely on that. Retraction will not work until the old filament is all gone, meaing you'll get stringing all over the place during travel. Just discard the few tens of cm of scrap at the end.

In theory though you could solve that problem by bonding the old and new filament together with a soldering iron set at ~200 C.

@R.. You don't always need retraction, but yes, I will add that

When the end of the filament is beyond the reach of the hobbed stepper gear, your print will stop extruding. Some printers (i.e. Prusa i3, Craftbot 3, etc) have runout sensors. These sensors can be a switch or some form of a circuit that is broken when the filament isn't there to close it (I'm no mechatronics engineer or anything, so my terminology may be a bit off). When these switches are tripped, the printer automatically pauses the print, allowing you to come and rescue it. Fancier printers like the Craftbot 3 will actually send you an email when your filament runs out or even jams! Of course, that machine is over $3600CAD, and well out of most peoples price range. The Ender 3, being around 300 dollars, is not equipped with a runout sensor. Switches and 3D printing files to make your own are either cheap or free.
And yes, some filament may need to be wasted if you do a swap. Direct drive extruders have the same problem but at a much smaller scale. If you just feed new filament into your machine, you will lose all retraction (which is annoying) until the second length of filament is in. At the point where the filament switches, (depending on your extruder and print speed) you may get a small patch of under extrusion. Nothing that will seriously compromise part strength, but it won't be super pretty.
Hope that helps!


text:
Small dent problem
Whenever I print, I tend to have a small dent that appears on several of my prints, that are not in the original design. These are not following the layer orientation.
As far as I notice, nothing blocks the extruder of my prusa-i3. I print with PLA, so not a material where I would expect weird behaviour.

What could cause that problem?

what is the model?

@Trish: the model is one of the russian doll maze, available here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2410748

In case the question leads to the size of the wall, I don't think it is the issue, since it is always at least 3 nozzle large.

Looks like some kind of backlash issue with your printer. One way to know for sure is to print a part that has this issue, and then rotate the part in data and reprint. If the 'dent' stays in the same place relative to the bed/printer, then it's definitely a mechanical issue and not a data issue.

Also, looking at the rest of the print, aren't the side supposed to be smooth? In the thingiverse model, it appears to be so. I'd think you may need to tighten things up a little bit. Also, not sure how the nibs which run the maze are supposed to be supported during print or if there's enough overhang (or angle of the nib while printing) to allow it to print correctly at the top. If you have support turned on, could this be causing the issue where the nib is at?

@Paulster2 Yes, the side are supposed to be smooth. I think that you are right, I should tighten a bit the belts. But I don't think it is a problem of overhang.

This looks very much like it is the seam between the outer perimeters that is placed one over the other. This can be solved by choosing a different Z-seam alignment. In Ultimatker Cura, the setting is called Z-seam alignment and should be set to random for cylindrical items.

Yes this is the seam (start/end of the outer wall perimeter), basically this printer is not calibrated correctly as this effect should be much less observable. Could be the filament is not available in time when the perimeter starts.

Thank you for this information. I had no idea what this parameter was for. But it is likely there are also some calibration problem, as it was a printer I received in kit. What do you have in mind to fix the calibration problem, aside that probably I should tighten a bit more the belts?

Is this the same as setting to "spiralize" , at least for cylinders?

I agree with Oscar that the general inconsistency in the wall of the upper object (in the photo) suggests problems with extrusion and/or excess backlash.

@CarlWitthoft no, spiralize is the vase mode.


text:
What is the reinforcement for 3D printing concrete cement?
When houses are printed with concrete cement what replaces the steel rebar for reinforcement?
Here's a link referencing printing concrete: https://www.aniwaa.com/house-3d-printer-construction/

House 3D printers use extrusion technology. Some construction 3D printers look like super-sized desktop FFF/FDM 3D printers (gantry style), whereas others consist of a rotating mechanical arm.
In both cases, paste-type components such as concrete are used as filament. The material is pushed out of a special nozzle to form layers. To put it (very) simply, paste extrusion is similar using a piping bag to spread frosting on a cake.
The printer creates the foundations and walls of the house or building, layer by layer. The ground is literally the printer’s build plate. Some concrete 3D printers, however, are used to 3D print brick molds. When molded, the bricks are then piled atop each other manually (or with a robotic arm).

Like most of the people here my experience is with a printer (RepRap) that can use PLA or ABS. With all the materials normally put into concrete, using an extrusion printer to print concrete is puzzling.

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! Do you have a link or something to exactly what you're talking about? Never heard before that foundations are 3d printed and would be HIGHLY interested in reading about it :o)

concrete can't be printed, it is cast.

@Trish Concrete can be sprayed, so "printing" should be possible. Walls can already be printed.

In this video they show the reinforcement being rebar. It looks as though the print "material" is concrete, but there's nothing stating that in the video ... it just looks like it.

They use Rebar and  Glass Fiber (GFRC).

If you look at the video @Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2's link and let the videos keep playing until you get a video with sound.  They print the form to pour the foundation almost traditionally, putting rebar in the form.  They put plastic pipe between the form wall to add bolts temporarily to keep the form from expanding.  The wall structure is similar to a one-piece cinder block.  The trick is when you add plastic pipe and fiber reinforcement to the print, push it down below the top surface so the extruder doesn't hit it.   Obviously, they have to pause the print to add objects.  Others may do this different.

To me, the process is more of a "gee whiz" factor than anything. It takes so much time to make it happen. Using plywood or styrofoam sheathing is by far a more economical and time saving way of doing it.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2  You could always do a traditional foundation and use printing to replace cinder block walls.  China is printing multistory apartments..

China: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=3D+printing+appartments+China&qpvt=3D+printing+appartments+China&view=detail&mid=8C8B0ADC49B2595C94358C8B0ADC49B2595C9435&&FORM=VRDGAR

Spaying concrete was already around in the 1970's. (I don't know how long before then.) It is how they make steel i-beams fire resistant.  They put a steel mesh around the bean then spray concrete.  That's used in oil and natural gas refineries.

There is no reinforcement. You can use this ‘printing’ solution for walls but by default not for floors. There are experiments that use the solution to span a gap but they use relatively thick plates.
For example, see this paper, Design of a 3D printed concrete bridge by testing.

It looks like on bridges they are essentially using cable instead of rebar.  Tightening the cables keeps the concrete under compression, so that some consider it superior to rebar.  Concrete printing could easily replace using cinder blocks in buildings.  Spanning with cinder blocks has a similar issue.

@PerryWebb Cables are use to pre-tension the concrete; this effectively puts the concrete under a compression stress, exactly where the concrete excels in. Now when loading the concrete, these compression stresses need to be overcome first, if it can that is.

To answer your question, they use steel or fiber glass.
Why does concrete need reinforcement? Concrete is very useful to absorb compression loads, but breaks and cracks very easily when subjected to tension loads. Rebar, or steel constructions are added to strengthen the concrete to bear the tension loads. My house has walls that are littered with steel wires/fibers of about 10 cm (about 4 inches) and about 1.5 mm in diameter close to the surface (drilling holes into the wall frequently means hitting such a fiber which comes out and leaves a scar on the wall...). My walls are constructed in a factory flat on the ground, those fibers are added to prevent shrink cracks in the first layer of the wall (the side you always look at); after that, rebar is added and the rest of the wall is cast and after drying the wall is put upright and transported to the build site.
Injection of fibers is not new to 3D printing; it is already possible to print short fibers embedded in filament, or continuous where filament and thermoplastic material join together in the nozzle. The company I work for creates molds and aerospace parts this way.
You can imagine that it would be possible to print concrete with fibers/wires or continuously with wires. Technically this should be feasible, but I guess that larger diameter wire (rebar) is actually needed instead of relatively small diameter wires. Also, fibers can only be laid down in the direction of travel of the nozzle, not perpendicular to. Rebar often shows strengthening in multiple (three) dimensions, that is not possible with 3D printing.
There is some reported success on printing reinforced concrete:
According to BAM Infra:

“They have succeeded in developing a process to also print the steel
  reinforcement at the same time. When laying a strip of concrete the
  concrete printer adds a steel cable so that the slab is ‘prestressed’
  so that no tensile stress can occur in the concrete.”

But this means that the print is a part printed at another location, not on location.
There is also some success with using horizontal fiberglass reinforcements within the walls during the printing process.
See e.g. this reference, this reference for more information on reinforced concrete printing.


text:
How does a UV LCD 3D resin printer work?
I've been wondering this for a while, and have searched for hours and have found nothing except undetailed explanations and projects.
How does a UV LCD 3D resin printer cure resin exactly? I understand there is an LCD screen, but where does the UV light come from? Where is it placed?

You should clarify your question.  Do you want to know how the light is directed where it's wanted, or do you want to know how resins change state under the influence of photons?

Carl, It's a year later, but I think that my question is pretty simple, especially since I clarified it in the second part of the question.

I'm surprised your research hasn't answered your question, as the concept is relatively simple. You have most of the answer in the question. The missing item is a light source. Usually the source is an array of ultraviolet LED modules. There are resin printers that would not be called LCD printers, as they use computer display projectors to generate both the image and the UV to cure the resin.
A rather extensive list of various resin printers can be found at aniwaa.com along with a clear explanation of the technologies.
The image below is courtesy of the link in the previous paragraph.

The light source that answers your question is visible in the third picture. As noted, the LCD panel blocks the light based on the image to be cured. I think the "uses its own light" is somewhat misleading, unless the builder has found a high-UV output LED LCD panel or is using daylight resins and has configured for long burn-in times.

Ah yes that seems to clarify things. I recently learned LCD displays are transparent until a certain pixel is turned on, in which it blocks out light. If I am correct, an image is generated, and the actual layer is the negative space on the LCD. Then the UV LED array cures the resin via the open pixels on the LCD

University of Michigan has the ability to do something where they use different kinds of UV light + lasers to better control exactly when hardening happens and to penetrate into the material and cure multiple layers (up to about a millimeter) at once. Prints come out in a matter of minutes.


text:
Long prints shifting with Ultimaker 2
I am currently using Ultimaker 2+ to print some big parts with PLA. As long as the printing lasts for less than 15 hours (that's what I observed by experience, approximately), there are no problems.
If the duration of printing is greater than this time, the part would get shifted from its initial position. It looks like the part is not sticking to the bed anymore.
I was first using classic glue sticks and this problem occurred. Next, I tried with different masking tapes but the problem remains the same. The glass bed is not heated. The first layer and the following are actually pretty clean. I use brim. I reduced the printing speed to 20 mm/s on purpose to see if it would reduce the probability of this phenomenon to occur. However, this is not the case.
Do you have any experience concerning this problem, ideas, suggestions?

Do you see any lifting or "peeling" of the work, especially at the corners of the bottom layers, where it's starting to leave the bed?

Start a square vase mode tower. After the first few layers take a black marker and put some "witness" marks from the bed to the part in a colour that can be easily seen. After it fails check if the line is now broken.

If you are having trouble with adhesion, your brim will warp up off the bed.  Are you sure you aren't getting power surges or something occurring on your computer.? I've seen this with a power surge.

For long prints on a RepRap, I print from an SD card to prevent events on the computer from interfering with the print, especially when the computer is unattended.  Don't know if you have that option.

If the brim is firmly connected to the part and sufficiently large, you could "duck tape" the brim to the bed after a few hours; by then you should have enough space/clearance to work with.
But maybe the best advice is to invest in a heated bed platform, or use the heated bed if you only did not enable it. Heating the filament to the point close to the glass transition temperature ensures that the printed filament stays ductile. Once filament cools down, it shrinks and cannot grip on the to build plate indefinitely.
My Ultimaker 3 uses a heated build platform that can virtually make every filament stick to it as long as you prepare the bed correctly. On glass I prefer to use a specifically designed printing spray called 3DLAC; that, and a little heat (depending on the filament you print; i.e. the glass transition temperature) make that I never have had any problems with getting filament to stick to the build plate. I'm even able to get the slippery filament POM to stick to the heated bed.

I agree with trying to tape down the brim.   Just warning that if there's extreme curling or lifting of the bottom layers the tape may not hold (I know from sad experience)


text:
PLA 3D Print longevity after being printed
I am curious about the longevity of a PLA printed part used in a commercial application.  It would be a mounting bracket installed in an industrial enclosure.  The internal cabinet temperature would be less than 100 °F, and have an internal air circulation fan to keep the control PLC cool.
It would be in a steel enclosure, in an industrial environment, with no sunlight or UV exposure.
Would the PLA hold up over time, or have any issues with delamination or brittleness?

I'd be more concerned with the mechanical stresses involved. In particular, parts are very weak in bending forces that can cause printed layers to separate.  The environment you describe is certainly benign.

I've had white Hatchbox PLA parts in use outside in direct or partial sun for 3+ years without issue. It may help if you paint the parts for outdoor use, but I suspect the environment you describe would be fine for several years.


text:
Handling retraction when using a mixing extruder (2 in 1 out)
I have a Zonestar Z5FM2 running Marlin 1.1.8 with a mixing extruder.
That is, 2 extruder stepper motors feeding a 2-in 1-out hotend (similar to the E3D cyclops).
I'm slicing with Simplify3D and I have set up:

T0 set to the first extruder;
T1 set to the second extruder;
T2 set to a virtual extruder consisting of a 50/50 mix of extruder 1 and 2(made by having M163 S0 P50 followed by M164 S2 in the start code)

I was wondering how you handle the retraction. Currently only the active tool (e.g. extruder motor 1 when using T1) retracts, which leads to a lot of oozing since the filament in the unused half is still applying some pressure.
I read that for a setup like mine it is necessary to get both extruders to retract. How do I do that?
I've seen the documentation for programming G10/G11 firmware retract with M207 but there does not seem to be a way to specify the tool to use.
I could make a find-and-replace post processing script in Simplify3D to replace retracts of T0 or T1 with retracts of T2 (so both motors retract), but then how would I get it to switch back to the proper original tool when resuming printing?
Is there a way to address an extruder directly in G1 commands (so I could force both to retract), or temporarily switch a tool for just one command (so I could switch tool for the retract command only and it would go back to printing with the previous tool afterwards)?

In Slic3r and Prusa Slicer 2.0, you can set a seperate retract value for when the extruder is inactive.

I found this post on the S3D Forums that seem to have some interesting information on custom scripting within Simplify3D. While this doesn't seem to SPECIFICALLY address the question you've got, it looks like there's a "Retraction Scripts" tab that you could probably leverage your T2 tool inside of, using "OLDTOOL" instead of "NEWTOOL".
For additional information on what variables are available, I found a different forum post here that seems to have some documentation on Simplify3D's built-in script variables. Additionally, from the GCode in the first link's example scripts, it appears that you should be able to actually address M-commands to individual extruders (such as T2 in your case) simply by adding "T(x)" as a parameter to the individual command. I just ran a quick test on my own Marlin-based printer with a 2in-1out hotend, and I was not able to get it to address G1 commands to specific E motors without switching tools.
All in all I think you should be able to use the custom scripts available in S3D to accomplish what you want by switching tools in the layer change script, but aside from that, I don't know what options you have available with that specific software chain.


text:
My stepper motor has resistance, but does not respond to commands
I have a RAMPS 1.4 setup and I am trying to get things to move.
I have a DRV2258 attached to it, and when I power on the 12 V power supply the stepper gets some resistance.
However, when I try to send commands in Repetier Host, the stepper doesn't even move. Only the led on the Arduino Mega flickers (as it should, as it is instructed in the G-code).
I have:

Baud rate set to 115200
The stepper driver also has 1.7 amps, which seems to be correct.

Hi Wessel, welcome again! Like the previous question, your question is not very clear. Please look into [ask] to create a good question. You could add information on the research you have done and how you isolated the problem. E.g. you should test this for a single stepper first, also explain how you tuned the stepper drivers.

Alright! I will do that in the evening

Does the stepper click? When you back drive the stepper (e.g. pushing the extruder side to side, or pushing the bed back and forth) do you get a distinct thud each time you move it? It could be that only 1 phase is getting powered. Do yo have a multimeter? Did you check the voltage drop across the phases? Is the motor getting hot? Are you sure you put the driver in the correct way? Is it doing this for one axis or all axies?

It is fixed. It were just some cheap broken chinese rip offs, bought legit ones and now it works like a charm!


text:
Cause of slicing artifacts layers not connecting diagonal errors
Sometimes my meshes turn out with artifacts Which can be seen in the bottom image. What is the cause? The first image shows my mesh which its generated from.
I've tried multiple slicers. This tends to occur sometimes.
Any help appreciated. Is there something going over my head???

The artifacts you spot in your slices do not come from the slicer, they are actually present in the STL file you export.
I suggest checking your model for problems like vertices that share a position or edges that are parallel but not joined. Use the remove doubles function in blender to merge up these vertices. Then make sure that your surface consists of only squares and triangles to aid the stl generation.

The issue was solved by disabling coasting in the options within the slicer


text:
Premium heated bed upgrade options?
The stock heated bed which came on my Creality printer is significantly warped beyond any simple leveling with the screws. Lets say I want to upgrade the stock bed to a premium heated bed, does such a thing even exist? None of the beds I see list any specs or tolerances regarding flatness or deviation.
What should I be looking for to ensure I am looking at a superior bed?

I have an ender 3, my heating bed is working perfectly fine. We don't endorse in bashing, we don't endorse in product recommendations as those are not allowed as per stack policy.

+1   I have the same problem and am looking at junking my whole CR10 as a result; any cheaper suggestion/solution would be welcome.

How about an aluminium heated bed? This might be a useful question for you, although it doesn't deal with warping directly, Do aluminium PCB heatbeds reduce hotspots? I could turn this comment into an answer, if it is useful and relevant...

If you are only trying to upgrade the "flatness" of the bed and are okay with the heating times you can just put a peice of glass on top. Otherwise you can look into getting a milled tool plate which will be much flatter than a rolled or stamped plate, but you will have to attach your own heating element to this.

also note that a milled plate is usually a custom ordered part and can be quite expensive, especially if you want to use a really good heat conductor. Copper is about twice as good as aluminium, Steel about half as good (but cheaper)

My creality printer came with glass. warped. Flipping the glass upside-down helped slightly, but
wasn't great.  I tried replacing with a 12" mirrored tile, but the metal bed that the glass attaches to is slightly convex (+/- 0.35mm), so when you clamp down the glass to achieve good heat transfer, it bends any glass on the bed.

@davdavis what are you clamping the glass down with?


text:
Steppers don't work as expected while printing
I have a problem with my steppers of a RepRap 3D printer I'm making.
I assembled the machine and performed the endswitch calibrations. when the machine is not printing, the steppers are moving as expected. But, when I start printing, only the z-axis moves. it is also moving very fast; X and Y axis don't move. I'm using a RAMPS 1.4 board, NEMA 17 steppers and A4988 stepper drivers. My configuration file can be found here.
Does somebody know what could be the problem?

Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE!

Hi Duz1Adam, I've cleaned up the question a bit. Please describe how you move the steppers when you are not printing; e.g. are you using Pronterface and if you command for 10 mm in X or Y, it actually moves 10 mm in X or Y direction. If so, this could hint to a slicing problem, not a firmware/hardware problem.

Can you add the g-code that you are testing with?

I've looked into your configuration file of your firmware but cannot find anything that describes this odd behavior. You have used some conservative settings regarding printing acceleration. What cannot be assessed is the amount of steps required per millimeter movement of every axis, that is left for you to re-check.
Note that when the steppers are working as expected when the printer is at idle and you command the printer with an external printer software (e.g. Pronterface from the PrintRun software suite, Repetier-Host, OctoPrint, etc.), the problem could well be caused by the slicer and/or the options used for slicing the print part.


text:
Stepper does not move smoothly
I have a problem with the y movement of my machine.
When i select y+1 in repetier, it moves, but with a very strange noise.
I have a video to show the problem here
I have:
Set the voltage of the stepper drivers to 0.6V
Set the voltage of the power supply to 12V
Tightened the belts (but not too tight!)
Does anyone know what this is? Is it a problem with my belts or are my stepper motors too weak?

Please provide the name & model of your machine so we can understand the problem as well as how you solved it.

Fixed. One of the two was movign in the wrong direction. Problem solved!