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Initial auto-leveling configuration
I'm near the end of a full electronics swap of a dead 3d printer.  I'm using an MKS Gen 1.4 board with Repetier firmware.  This is my first try at attempting to set up auto-leveling from scratch.
I've got the inductive probe mounted, positioned and calibrated so that running a G30 (single probe) works perfectly and returns valid results.
However, when I try a G28 (home), then G29 to do a full auto-leveling sequence, just prior to each probing, the Y axis lurches forward (roughly)70 mm, and stays cumulatively out of position by the amount it lurched forward.  Since 70mm x 3 is bigger than the depth of my bed (200x200) the Y-axis bangs and grinds against it's physical limit.  Additionally, that puts the Z-probe beyond the edge of the bed, which causes the firmware to go into error mode, because the actual z-low limit switch is hit without ever tripping the Z-probe.  Which, annoying sends the Z-Axis moving up, until it ultimately crashes into its physical limit and grinds until I kill the power.

Why is my config causing this lurching behavior?  How do I fix it?
Can the error behavior be configured/changed to NOT attempt infinite movement in the Z+ direction?  (It might not matter once #1 is fixed, but I don't like the idea of my printer going into a mode where the Z-stepper could burn itself out if the power isn't flipped.)

Here is the Z-probe section of my config.h:
(Note:  I have tried changing Z_PROBE_Y_OFFSET to -75, to see if I was entering the offset incorrectly.  It didn't seem to change the behavior noticeably.)
// #################### Z-Probing #####################

#define Z_PROBE_Z_OFFSET 0.2
#define Z_PROBE_Z_OFFSET_MODE 0
#define UI_BED_COATING 1
#define FEATURE_Z_PROBE 1
#define Z_PROBE_BED_DISTANCE 8.0 // Higher than max bed level distance error in mm
#define Z_PROBE_PIN ORIG_Y_MAX_PIN
#define Z_PROBE_PULLUP 0
#define Z_PROBE_ON_HIGH 1
#define Z_PROBE_X_OFFSET 10
#define Z_PROBE_Y_OFFSET 75
#define Z_PROBE_WAIT_BEFORE_TEST 0
#define Z_PROBE_SPEED 5
#define Z_PROBE_XY_SPEED 150
#define Z_PROBE_SWITCHING_DISTANCE 1.5
#define Z_PROBE_REPETITIONS 5 // Repetitions for probing at one point.
#define Z_PROBE_HEIGHT 22.68
#define Z_PROBE_START_SCRIPT "m117 Autoleveling..."
#define Z_PROBE_FINISHED_SCRIPT "m117 Autoleveling Complete"
#define Z_PROBE_REQUIRES_HEATING 0
#define Z_PROBE_MIN_TEMPERATURE 150
#define FEATURE_AUTOLEVEL 1
#define Z_PROBE_X1 20
#define Z_PROBE_Y1 00
#define Z_PROBE_X2 160
#define Z_PROBE_Y2 00
#define Z_PROBE_X3 100
#define Z_PROBE_Y3 120
#define BED_LEVELING_METHOD 1
#define BED_CORRECTION_METHOD 0
#define BED_LEVELING_GRID_SIZE 5
#define BED_LEVELING_REPETITIONS 5
#define BED_MOTOR_1_X 0
#define BED_MOTOR_1_Y 0
#define BED_MOTOR_2_X 200
#define BED_MOTOR_2_Y 0
#define BED_MOTOR_3_X 100
#define BED_MOTOR_3_Y 200
#define BENDING_CORRECTION_A 0
#define BENDING_CORRECTION_B 0
#define BENDING_CORRECTION_C 0
#define FEATURE_AXISCOMP 0
#define AXISCOMP_TANXY 0
#define AXISCOMP_TANYZ 0

Seems like a high-Z limit switch (perhaps also X&Y axis...) might be advisable if the tool is crashing into the physical limits. Naturally, something is not right there, as well, but from time to time something won't be right, and limit switches can help to deal with that, either by causing a software abort/halt or by actually cutting power to the axis directly. In this sense, cartesian axes are easier than deltabots to set limit switches on.

Well, I´m using marlin for my printers and normally the offset is negative, this difference is from the 0.0 Z value sensor and nozzle.
For example, I have an aluminum plate, so this material is less inductive and I'm getting a height of nozzle 1.2 mm; normally this value should be above 5mm, but my printers reads 1.2mm
So my offset is 1.2mm (this values is dangerous for me) because I can bend the plate if sensor stop working.
the safety z height on G28 is 4mm and also for auto probing G29, the speed testing for Z is lower than travel X and Y.
    #ifdef AUTO_BED_LEVELING_GRID

    // set the rectangle in which to probe
    #define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 8
    #define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 156
    #define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION 156
    #define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 8

     // set the number of grid points per dimension
     // I wouldn't see a reason to go above 3 (=9 probing points on the bed)
    #define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_GRID_POINTS 2

  #else  // not AUTO_BED_LEVELING_GRID
    // with no grid, just probe 3 arbitrary points.  A simple cross-product
    // is used to esimate the plane of the print bed

      #define ABL_PROBE_PT_1_X 15
      #define ABL_PROBE_PT_1_Y 156
      #define ABL_PROBE_PT_2_X 15
      #define ABL_PROBE_PT_2_Y 20
      #define ABL_PROBE_PT_3_X 156
      #define ABL_PROBE_PT_3_Y 20

  #endif // AUTO_BED_LEVELING_GRID

  // these are the offsets to the probe relative to the extruder tip (Hotend - Probe)
  // X and Y offsets must be integers
  #define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0 //25
  #define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0 //29
  #define Z_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER -1.2 //-12.35

  #define Z_RAISE_BEFORE_HOMING 4       // (in mm) Raise Z before homing (G28) for Probe Clearance.
                                        // Be sure you have this distance over your Z_MAX_POS in case

  #define XY_TRAVEL_SPEED 7000         // X and Y axis travel speed between probes, in mm/min

  #define Z_RAISE_BEFORE_PROBING 4    //How much the extruder will be raised before traveling to the first probing point.
  #define Z_RAISE_BETWEEN_PROBINGS 4  //How much the extruder will be raised when traveling from between next probing points

I hope this help to understand your settings.
I have set the values to Zero instead 25 and 29 because I pre defined the testing points manually to 8 and 156; of course the center of the nozzle is moved 25 and 29 mm from the plate center, this avoids collision to X0 and Y0. And I just the level using 4 points once, if your bed is warped so is needed more internal points
  #define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0 //25
  #define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0 //29


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How do I repeat the layers of Slic3r for every 3 infill layers with different angles? (Might need some programming knowledge)
I'm working on developing alternative infill layers to print at different angles, using Slic3r. Using Slic3r's rectilinear infill, printing at specific angles for 3 layers then repeat.
I'm working towards finding the code in the source code where they alternate the layers and change it to alternate it for every 3 layers.
I know I will need some C++ knowledge to fiddle around with the Slic3r's source code, but if there is someone who can point me in the right direction I would gladly appreciate it!

It would be nice if there were a way to do this, or to specify NO angle changes.

Slic3r is available on Github.
I think the section you'd be looking for is here

Yups! Thank you for the comment! I have found that by changing the out angle you can command the angle at your will (Of course in programming terms).

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Tronxy printers
I am wanting to buy a 3D printer to add to my shop.
I am an engineer and enjoy making/building things so the kit idea sounds fun and economical.
I see Tronxy has two different styles for their larger printers:

P802 (reprap frame) style
X3 (metal frame) style.

As far as I can see, both printers have the same basic resolution, accuracy, and material specs.

What are the advantages/disadvantages/differences between the
P802 and X3?
How important is auto-leveling?

I see somebody voted to close as "opinion-based". I'm not entirely sure I agree, because the question has an extremely limited scope (a direct comparison between two specific printers) which could be objectively answered by listing the advantages/disadvantages of each printer.

That said, it might be better to state this question in a more generic way like "How does a metal frame printer compare to an acrylic frame one?". That way it doesn't depend on a particular model or make of printer.

Though I would accept subjective options, I would prefer that the advantages/disadvantages/differences be objective.  Certainly there are some differences that are clearly objective (ex: Metal Frame vs Plastic frame) and I also believe they use different extruders.  What difference that makes might be subjective.

I agree the question about auto-leveling may be "opinion-based".  I could remove that; but, that is the only answer I have received so far.

You should also stick to one question per question. I.e. if you want to know about the difference between extruders, that's a question. Difference between auto leveling and not, another question, etc...

I agree, I added the question about auto-leveling at the last minute because it is one item that can be different between the printers (though it can be on either or neither).  After rethinking the post, I would have removed it; but it had already been responded to and removing/changing it after that did not seem right.  Oh well, 20/20 hindsight.

I ended up buying a TronXY X3 and have had it several months.
I have seen several videos on the P802 and the X3 so I believe I can answer this question fairly.
Here is what the two printers look like
P802
X3
Here is a comparison of the features

Here are my overall impressions:

Both printers are kits and have their assembly challenges
The X3 is often a little bit (10-20%) more expensive
The X3 frame is very rigid.  I have heard the the P802 is also rigid.
Acrylic is not as durable long-term (it cracks).  There are Acrylic parts on both printers; but, the Acrylic frame on the P802 would concern me more.
The bed on the X3 can wobble and the P802 doesn't look like it would.
(Note there are several available modifications to fix the X3 wobble)
The Boden extruder on the X3 makes the filament pull consistent; but, it can make the filament more difficult to feed.
The External Controller box on the X3 can make the printer more difficult to move and it can take up more desk space.
The biggest negative (and likely a show stopper) on the P802 is the unprotected Melzi, Exposed AC connections, and no power switch.

Auto-leveling is a great effort saver and a best thing in 3D printing in the last 10 years. While you can go without it, and many people do, it reduces the number of failed prints you will have at the beginning.
Properly leveled bed allows you to print without using any adhesive in it, improves you performance with ABS and other stubborn things. Don't skip on auto-level, especially if you are a beginner.

I was about to say that the best thing in the past 10 years was the FDM patents expiring and cheap, open-source printers becoming available but that is already more than 10 years ago! Still, I'd say auto leveling is not as good as you make it out to be. It can be quite fiddly to get working correctly, leveling a printer manually is not that hard and saves your Z-axis rods from wear. Of course, if your printer is built very sloppily and falls out of calibration as soon as you look at it, auto-leveling will be much more useful, but with a solidly built printer you level once and forget about it.

Thanks for the information.  As pointed out, this was really a side question and not an answer to the primary question.

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text:
Structural Analysis
I have some files for 3d printing that I want to do structural analysis because I plan to apply loads on them. I know there is a Solidworks analysis module for this purpose called Simulation, but according to what I have read about this software it is not very effective for analyzing parts that have been created by layers such as 3d prints.
Does anyone work with this and could describe important features to make a good structural analysis?

Depending on whether you can reimport an STL of the sliced model, you may have success with SolidWorks simulation. You would need to empirically model the interlayer adhesion, however, because SolidWorks would otherwise assume a rigid contact constraint. Doing the analysis as a solid model would require an empirical derating of the material properties based on infill density as well as defining rules for non-isotropic properties. It'd probably get messy. Why not just print and test? One benefit of printing is rapid turnaround cycles and (potentially) lower unit cost at small volumes.

For running an analysis on FDM printed parts Solidworks Sim would be extremely difficult to use. It's not really designed for running this type of analysis and is at the fairly low end of FEA analysis packages. An FDM analysis should be treated almost like a composite structure and you'd have better luck running something like ANSYS, or NASTRAN but those are by no means the only two. To get good (and accurate) results from FEA you'll need to model each layer, the bonding between each and the internal structure.
I've never done it myself but i've looked into doing it. The mesh required for even a fairly simple part looks pretty massive. Certainly possible and certainly doable, but you'd need to weigh your expectations against how much time it would take to model everything, set up the mesh and then run the analysis. In my experience, given that most FDM prints are pretty quick to build, it always seemed to be more efficient to build a few parts load them up and watch how they fail in a structural test. 20 hours of printing and then an additional 10-15 of setting up and running the tests were faster than running a proper FEA.
For a quick and dirty FEA, i'd use the solid model of my part and only consider loads that acted normal to the Z-Axis of the print. Any loads that act in shear  apply a huge FOS. The closer to pure shear the larger the FOS you'd want to have. And any thin, tall parts i'd assume can take no loading outside of pure compression.
Edit:
Just noticed that this question had a tag on Heat-management
As far as a Heat loads go, it'll depend heavily on the infill type and density you have on your model. Everything from above will still apply, but the loads would then be thermal loads instead of structural. Particularly with FEM at best your first analysis will only be within about 50% of true values and you will then need to update your thermal model with the results from your first verification test.
Depending on the accuracy required from the analysis you could get away with modelling a hollow part with the walls of the part being the thickness of the printed shells. Higher accuracy analysis you'll have to model all layers as they are printed. If you're just looking for a 'will it melt' analysis, thin walls will work fairly accurately assuming you're confident in your material properties.


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TronXY Windows 10 driver
I am about to purchase a TronXY X3 or P802; but, my PC is running Windows 10.
The spec sheet for the printers does not list anything above Windows 7.
Is anyone using either of these printers with Windows 10?

This might be a better question to ask their tech support.

@Diesel TronXY is one of those chinese manufacturers, where you have better luck asking GearBest to send you replacement parts or refund than trying to get anyone from them on the line.

My problem is I have 2 tronxy printers #1 is a prusia-i3 ,#2 is a tronxy mini and when pluging in one or the other Repetiier always calls them both the MINI ,I tried to create another profile in Repetier but it will not let me so I end up fighting the computer to set up the correct printer ,The main diff between the 2 of then is one has a heated bed and is larger than the other and after I go into the printer settings and correct the bed size it will suddenly connect with no problems , the solution would be for the manufacturer to install a serial number that windows will read to connect and t

Since the printer supports using an SD card, you don't need to connect it directly to a PC. Serial over USB has been broken in the past in various Win10 builds, I've not tried it recently and I've not tried connecting my A8 to my PC recently either.
If you need to use USB, and can't make it work with Windows, there is always the option of using a Raspberry Pi single-board computer (which you can then connect to by VNC from your PC). Depending on the software you want to use, this might resolve any remaining issues you have.

What process/controller does the printer use?
I have heard printer uses an Arduino as a controller. Is that correct?

I now have the printer (X3) and it has a Melzi board and runs Repetier.  As you say I just use the SD card.  The printer is not close to my PC and my boys use it as well (they have their own PC); so, connecting a PC to it using USB probably will never make sense.  The SD card is the most practical thing at this point. Making it network accessible using a Raspberry Pi sounds like a good next step.

@markshancock connecting to a TonXY X1 via "seraial over USB" worked fine in May and June 2018, the feature does however wobble as windows revisions change. To connect via USB allows to tune in the printer easier.

Typically, (hobbyist level, FDM) 3D printers do not require dedicated drivers. They simply show up as a serial port (COMx), and you just need drivers for the USB-to-Serial chip used in the printer's electronics. This is usually an FTDI device, an AtMega32u or CH340. Drivers for those are readily available (and are usually even downloaded automatically through windows update).
The P802 appears to use a variant of the Melzi board, with an ATmega1284p (the less-powerful cousin of the 2560 found in most printers) as the main processor and it claims to have an (FTDI) FT232RL serial converter (I could not find any information on the X3). You should be aware of this, as there are many fake FTDI chips on the market, and FTDI has been known to "patch" their drivers to break the clones. However, this problem is not specific to Windows 10. You can pretty much count on any 3D printer that works in Windows 7 working in Windows 10.

Here's a tidbit that might be helpful to people.

3D Printer: Tronxy X1
OS: Windows 10 (PC)
SW: Repetier-Host
v2.0.5

The TronXY X1 boots at 115200 baud (you can change it in Configuration, but each power on it will reset to 115200).
In Repetier Printer Settings I set the baud rate to match at 115200.
My PC automatically recognized the USB device as USB-SERIAL CH340(COM5).
But...
I had to go into my PC's Devices and Printers, right-click the USB-SERIAL icon, go into Properties->Hardware->Port Settings: change Bits per Second from 9600 to 115200.
All good now.

X1 and X3 do use the same Marlin board. I can vouch for this with the March 2018 Windows 10 release. Not yet tested the May/June one.

For Windows 10 driver, go directly to the Microsoft update catalogue.
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=USB%5CVID_1A86%26PID_7523
Download the .cab file, extract the contents. Using Device Manager update the driver for the partially installed device. After the update TronXY-2 now appears as a COM port.

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Is it safe to print a rotor insert for a centrifuge using a makerbot?
Laboratory centrifuges have buckets that hold the sample tubes in inserts.
The buckets are the black things on the rotor in the upper left corner holding the bottles. Examples of inserts are shown below (the colorful containers with slots for tubes). These fit into the buckets and I'd like to print them since these are expensive.
Is it safe to 3d print these using a makerbot given the g-forces these rotor inserts will be subjected to (potentially 150g's under our settings), or will the inserts deform and unbalance the rotors under the stress?
Additionally, is the precision of the printing good enough that the inserts can be expected to be well-balanced (the correct weight, with a symetric design having even weight distribution)?
We have a basic makerbot that makes little plastic robots.

It's difficult to determine if the buckets are fully enclosed, but I suspect that they are. The enclosure into which the inserts are placed will provide some structural support.
3D printed objects have relatively low torsion strength, but a reasonable compression strength, especially with high infill levels. One could consider that the item placed into the insert will transmit force to the bucket, but likely not compress to the point of destruction.
Allowing also that the forces on a swinging bucket centrifuge are "downward" or when in use, "outward," the primary location of force will be the bottom of the insert you create. It appears that the main function of the insert is to keep the tubes separated, rather than to keep them supported.
Create your inserts, but leave an open bottom. Attach a suitably strong panel to the bottom of your created model with epoxy.
Another thing to consider in this project is the mode of failure. What can go wrong? The tubes in the insert should not explode, but if they do, is it merely cleaning up that follows? I suppose one aspect of the inserts is to keep the tube walls in column, to keep all forces linear to the tube cylinder, rather than out of line. It's easy to keep pennies in a stack under pressure, but don't push on them edgewise.
You can and should perform a test on a 3D printed insert. Make one that is relatively flimsy, say a six-tube unit and spin it without tubes in place. Test it prior to the spin for tube fit, then test it after the spin. If there is deformation, you would not be able to insert the tubes after the spin.

From what I have found in an image search, the TX-200 buckets are closed at the bottom, so adding a bottom plate should not even be necessary. Also bear in mind that in a centrifuge, the centrifugal force is increased gradually - the part will not feel a shock of sudden 150G like when impacting a surface or being hit by something. Gradual changes are way easier to cope with.

It is my understanding that you are looking to print the insert not the gimble bucket. The gimble bucket portion would be difficult and have high risk. Fdm 3d printing looks like it would be a good solution for the inserts.
3D prints have a high strength-to-weight ratio especially in compression and will easily hold their weight and 150g. If the insert is properly drawn in cad with good tolerances the wall and floor of the gimbal bucket will help support the insert. You can experiment with infills but i am sure anything upwards of 30% will do well.
In my experience with printing on a reprap fdm printer, the same gcode and same fillament yeilds exactly the same weights. If you switch fillament types, have some extruder hangups, or modify the gcode and have some small variation; just hit the top of the heavy ones with a belt sander till they all measure the same. Make sure to not sand the bottom because the distance of the sample to the bottom of the gimble bucket needs to be consistent.

The primary printer I use is a makerbot, and my gut is saying no.
150G's of loading even in the XY axis seems pretty excessive for a part made on a Makerbot. Also, given that this is a rotational, the weight and balance will need to be held to a pretty high tolerance otherwise you'll end up having an off-balance centrifuge which could damage a pretty expensive piece of equipment. Admittedly I haven't checked the reliability for weight and balance of a part I've made for the loading condition you'd be going through but I'd be pretty hesitant about trying to run any FDM printed part under a loading case like that Makerbot or a high end printer given the speeds you'll be at.
If it's your only option though, I'd suggest running your centrifuge at a very low speed first with the part in it and check it to see if you're picking up any transient vibration from it. Increasing the speed as you feel comfortable. My gut says that it'll fail before getting up to full speed from out of balance CofG of the part and the centrifuge starting to shake. Sounds terrifyingly fun to try though. IF you do try and run it,c an you post what happens? I'd be very interested in hearing the results.

150 sounded like a lot to me too, but think about the masses involved. If they're spinning something like blood, that's about 1 gram per cc. From the image, they're looking at 50 ml tubes. The tubes themselves probably contribute most of the weight, and googling around suggests that they're maybe 15 grams. So, something like 15* 150 = 2150g, or about 2kg of force, per tube. I don't know whether that's okay or not, but it's a lot less crazy sounding than the 150 G number.

Low mass will certainly help, but because it's a rotating mass, if it's not perfectly balanced, you're going to induce a pretty substantial wobble my quick math says this will be spinning @ 255 rads/s (don't quote me on that though). My big concern with that is if your part changes the CofG  outside the spec of the machine it could self destruct.  Also 2kg isn't a force, that's a mass. 2 kg of mass exerts ~19 N of force :). Regardless, not huge, but it'll come down to your geometry. Definitely can be made strong enough with a 3D printed part.


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Brief very slow moves near top layers
I've been trying to change to the latest Cura (v2.4) from the older v15.04 (I'm sure there's a good story about why they reset the numbers).
There's an annoying behaviour in my prints now, and I can't track down what is happening.  Everything goes fine, but during the print (maybe mostly near later layers) there are these moments when the print head doesn't move with the normal 30-50 mm/second, but perhaps 1-2 mm/second.
Watching the filament closely, it appears to retract filament at that moment, then the head moves painfully slowly around the part. Then 10 seconds later it goes flying around again.
Can't see a "print speed during retraction" setting. I see a speed at which the filament is retracted setting - I'm guessing that's unrelated.
I'm worried these frequent slow move sections are having two effects:

The hot print nozzle sitting on the part is deforming the surface features;
The hot print head is overheating the filament feeding into the nozzle and I get jams or sometimes swollen filament that won't go back into the nozzle as it tries to proceed further, causing a jam.

Any idea what makes these super slow movements? The older Cura never caused any of them.
I'm using a Monoprice Select mini printer, with six months of good results before this showed up, and only with G-codes created with new Cura 2.4.

Doing a test print - of a small section of a prev model. I see those painfully slow moves may be between layers? A layer seems to finish nice and quick, then the slow snail-like move across the model, then another fast layer happens. Looking for related param's to try.

Can you paste or link the gcode for the layer where this occurs?

With further testing, I've found this issue relates to retraction, in that if I turn off retraction, the slow-move goes away. Of course, then I have stringing to clean up afterwards, but it stops the painfully slow moves.  I need to dig into what element of retraction settings would cause the very slow moves still. Suggestions welcomed. (looking at min layer time as sugg by tjb1 below)

Retraction speed would affect the move time.

Are the layers where this is happening smaller than previous layers? Many slicers have a minimum layer time setting where if the layer takes less than X time, it will either slow the layer down or possibly pause until the time is reached.
This can be useful to allow the previous layer to cool down and harden up a bit before more hot plastic is added.  If you're not having issues cooling the print then you could disable this.  I've only ever used Slic3r, KISSlicer, and Simplify3D so I'm not sure where the setting would be in Cura but those slicers all had/have the option.

It is the case that some of the times I've noticed the slow movement has been on smaller layers - I'll check into the minimum layer time settings. Think I've seen it on large layers too, while moving between areas. Will investigate further - thx for the hint.


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Commercially available 3D printer fume and UFP extractor
Is there a commercially available fume and nano particle extractor for a 3D printer, like the Ultimaker3 extended?  I'm looking for a safe solution, to use at home, for around $800.

Following on from Harvey Lim's answer, to give a concrete example of a DIY filter, which uses active carbon, see ABS 3d Printer Nanoparticle and Chemical Exhaust Air Filter:

###Description
Enclose your 3d printer and use this exhaust air filter along with a recirculating air filter to eliminate nanoparticles and chemical fumes. 95 to 99.5% of partilces up to 0.1 micron in size are filtered before air is exhausted into your 3d printing room. This is 3 times better than HEPA filtration. Chemical fumes such as phenols, hydrogen bromide, hydrogen cyanide, and styrene are also filtered out. The amount of chemicals filtered out depends on the amount of carbon filtration media you put into the unit and the strength of the fan you install on the unit. If you are using this for business purposes, you'll have to experiment a bit to have it pass inspection. If you are using it for personal purposes, know that the human nose is extremely sensitive. People who have the gene for hydrogen cyanide detection can smell it down to a concentration of 2 to 10 ppm. Suffice it to say, that if you can smell no evil, you are probably not experiencing evil. This has totally cleared my 3d printing room of nasty fumes. I invite you to try it out for yourself as the cost is very low since I've designed it to use surgical masks and aquarium activated carbon filtration media, which is very affordable. You should change the filtration media and surgical mask every month or 50 hours of printing, whichever comes first. I offer no warranty of any kind as this is an experimental device.

This filter is mentioned in tbm0115's answer to What are the best air filtration options for enclosures?

At the current moment, commercial fume extractors are quite rare in the market, but there are companies releasing some this year (like the 3DKreator's SYNE system). However all commercial forms of it are quite expensive.
What I would do would be using an active carbon filter with a fan.

active carbon filter with a fan... An example of which is ABS 3d Printer Nanoparticle and Chemical Exhaust Air Filter

The Syne system is still mentioned on their website but I can’t find where it ca be purchased.

Dust collectors, fume extractors, and mist collectors for other industrial processes like welding, machining, and woodworking start at a few thousand dollars.
The Allerair AirMedic Pro 6 (formerly 6000 series) is available from as low as $600. It is marketed in some places as an air purifier but others as a general purpose air filter. In any case it uses activated carbon and a HEPA filter.

Matterhackers and Printedsolid both carry the BoFa Print Pro filters. The Print Pro 3 has the benefit of recirculating the filtered air so that it doesn’t drop the enclosure temperature as much. Printed solid has it for \$899 currently. The filters are about \$300 to replace the prefilter and the combined Hepa/carbon filter.
Greenonline's answer gives a DIY solution that seems like a good option. Surgical masks won’t have a very high filter capacity though.
None of the other answers give a commercial filter solution that is available without also buying an enclosure.

the filter capacity depends on the mask and filter: Surgical masks have little to no filter capacity, an respirator filter on the other hand is designed to filter out particles till breathing gets harder (which can take weeks). NRBC Masks designed to keep you alive in a warzone like the M17 mask have filter regulations when to exchange them - for example TM 3-4240-279-10 says "replace after 24 hours or after any attack or if damaged or imersed in water"

To try to answer your question, I found these enclosures on 3DPrintClean, by browsing the Ultimaker forum. I'm not sure it fits your needs since you did not give any details about which Ultimaker you have, nor the amount of money you are willing to spend.

Your link did not work. Here is the correct link : https://www.3dprintclean.com/

There are two main options you could consider. The first being a diy filter and the second being a commercially available fume extractor.

Option 1
You could make a filter yourself. On Thingiverse, there are many ideas that you could implement. A few examples are these :
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1992079
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2285882
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2105113

Option 2
Buy a commercially available fume filter. An example that would be well below your budget ($178) would be the Zimpure (https://www.zimple3d.com/zimpure/). This is a device that will vacuum the fumes right by the nozzle and filter them. Additionally, you could get this filter from Matterhackers : MatterHackers. This could be an option if you are willing to go a little bit above your budget. If you would rather have a filter for 30 bucks, you can also look at this filter that attaches to your enclosure : https://www.3dupfitters.com/products/fan-and-charcoal-air-filter.
Lastly, if you wanted to go all out, you could also get this enclosure : https://www.3dprintclean.com/.

I hope any of these solutions named might be beneficial to you :). For even more options, visit this post : What air filtration options exist for enclosures?

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


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FDM, ABS Post-processing methods
I have built a few parts that have printed 'pins' on them (2mm diameter 1.5 cm length). Due to the orientation that the build requires the pins have to have support material on them. (The part has to be printed with the pins parallel to the build plate for strength reasons and the orientation can't change).
The problems i'm having is that the surface of the pins are quite rough. The pins are designed to press-fit into a soft rubbery tube, and the pin surface roughness is cutting into the softer tube. The roughness is due to both the layer edges of the print, and that the support material leaving some 'burrs'. I'd like to smooth the outside of my pins with some type of post processing technique. Ideally I'd like to keep the pins as close to dimensionally accurate as possible, but I realize they won't be perfect.
The two methods I've considered are sanding the pins by hand and placing my part in an acetone vapor chamber for a while.
Sanding, I think, is the best option of the two so far but it's a bit tedious, and is quite difficult to do, due to the size of the pins, their location and my fingers are pretty big relative to the space I'm working in.
I don't like the idea of using acetone because the few times I've tried doing this in the past, my parts always came out warped or misshapen I think due to the relief of stresses. (or I did it wrong, both seem plausible).
If anyone has a third option (or more) I'd be glad to hear. Or if there is another approach altogether that I haven't considered that can be done on an FDM style printer that would also be appreciated.

My inclination would be to print a hole to receive a separately made pin of some material, metal, plastic, even wood. Not in the spirit of 3-D printing, I know, but probably more practical.

With sanding, you can always remove a little, check, repeat. With acetone approaches, it's very easy to go too far, too fast.

Would you consider printing triangular holes (so no support is required), then printing the pins vertically with triangular bases? If you are amenable to an assembly instead of a mono-block print, I can write out a full answer on this.

I'd ideally like to keep the part a single piece, but It could be an option to replace the pins with a different part. and turn the project into an assembly. I'd more than likely print the part lengthwise along the bed of the printer so that the loading of the pins wouldn't be along the separation layers of the print as the pins will be taking a fair bit of loading.

Your objective is quite a challenge, considering the limitations within which you have to operate. Small diameter of an appreciable length is daunting indeed.
I would consider to use a regulated heat source such as a soldering station, one with removable tips. After electing an appropriate tip to handle the dimensions, a hole drilled into the tip to accept the pin diameter and length would be the next step.
There would be consideration needed for the plastic material pushed ahead of the soldering tip, as well as angular stability while pushing the soldering iron onto the pins.
To improve these circumstances, a sharp edge ground at the end of the soldering iron tip would give a better shearing of the excess plastic.
The temperature control would be critical to prevent destruction of the pin within the tip and to provide optimum removal via the cutting end.
Directly related to the above, but without the heat would be the equivalent tool to be used in a rotary grinder such as a Dremel. The bore of the custom-made cutter would match the pin and the sharp cutting end could also have serrations such as those found on hole-saws. Low speeds and a steady hand are required!
If either of the above suggestions do not remove sufficient plastic roughness, one would make the pins of a larger diameter and ensure that excess is removed to specifications.
EDIT: Additional thoughts. Hobby stores and online equivalents will sell very small diameter tubing. It might be an easy matter to find 2 mm inside diameter tubing of brass or even stainless steel. A few passes on a piece of sandpaper while the tubing is chucked in an electric hand drill and you have a sharp cutting edge.

It's looking like the soldering iron is going to be the best approach


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Error: Dry mode when moving Z-Axis
My printer just stopped working. It seems like it's working perfectly, but it gives me an error whenever I move the Z-Axis (Error: Printer set into dry run mode until restart) then, the bed temperature appears to be at 293ºC when it's actually at 95ºC.
I suspect that the bed wires short-circuited since they got stuck behind the bed when the printer was moving Y-Axis to home (the wires blocked the movement). Since then, the error appeared.
I suspect that the controller board could have been harmed by the supposed short-circuit, but despite the error, I can move perfectly any axis; I can heat the bed and the extruder; I can extrude filament; it is just the error which doesn't let me print.
Printer:
Anet A8 Desktop 3D Printer Prusa i3
Software:
MatterHackers: MatterControl 1.7
Update: The bed temperature is stuck at ~95ºC, sometimes ~250ºC, even if I disconnect the sensor wires and restart the printer, so apparently, it's failing to read the bed temperature.

is at least anybody having the same issue?

I bought a new board controller and it's working perfectly

Try checking the wiring on your motherboard and all of the connections to your steppers. When I first had my printer, the z-axis didn't work because a wire was loose. I took apart the control box on my Di3 and made sure everything was firmly connected, and after that everything worked fine.

The wiring is ok and firmly connected, actually everything works fine but bed's temp, however, I'm not able to print anything since it enables dry mode cooling the extruder, aI'm pretty sure that the controller board has been harmed, I'm waiting for a replacement which should arrive this week, I also will try burning a custom firmware to the harmed controller board. I'll update soon

Are you saying everything except for the bed heating up works? If yes, most likely the connector on the mainboard burned. This happened to me for the wanhao i3 and I am getting a replacement. The connectors are not rated for high voltages, so they burn/melt.

I think I shortcircuited GND and Data+ from heating bed and that harmed the mainboard, even if I desconnect the heating bed, printer still showing always 95ºC, it may be a random value, or maybe it's the last value that printer read from the bed and got stuck in ROM or something, I have no idea


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Resetting the zero position of the X axis on a RepRapPro Mendel Mono
My mono mendel 0,0 position is on the left of the bed, when the nozzle is at the position of the green dot in this image.

I would like to move that point to the left a bit, in order to print a slightly larger part (the bed has about a centimeter more space to the left). I know I can just allow negative values but I'd rather not to, for safety reasons.
However I cannot find where the offset of that point from the endstops (home position) is declared. There is no offset set in either pronterface or Slic3r, and unless my board came preloaded with different firmware than the one reprappro publishes, the *_HOME_POS variables in their Marlin repository are all equal to 0.
// The position of the homing switches. Use MAX_LENGTH * -0.5 if the center should be 0, 0, 0
#define X_HOME_POS 0
#define Y_HOME_POS 0
#define Z_HOME_POS 0

https://github.com/reprappro/Marlin/blob/master/Marlin/Configuration.h#L290
Any ideas how I should go about it?

I think the cleanest option is to move the X-endstop back about a centimeter to match, and then increase the size of the bed in both Slic3r's and the printer's settings.
You could also try using M206 to set a persistent offset after homing.

I can't. The endstop is actually at the very beginning of the X axis (see picture above)

M206 should still work, is it not supported by your firmware?

Haven't tried. I tried with G92 and it just did crazy things such as trying to honor both restrictions and thus restricting X movement completely. Will try and report back.


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Lower BuildTak adhesion
I'm having a similar issue to this one: I have retrofitted my printer with a BuildTak sticker. I'm printing PLA at 60°C bed temperature - currently using a 0.3 mm nozzle, but I had similar issues with the 0.4mm nozzle before.
If I bring the nozzle close enough to the print surface to get a reasonable first layer, I need excessive force to remove the parts afterwards - so much force that I already have damaged the BuildTak in one or two places. If I lower the bed (the physical bed using the screws, not the temperature!) so that the parts come off easier, the first layer is very uneven and it takes 5-6 layers until the layers start to stack onto one another the way they are supposed to. What can I do to influence the adhesion of the printed parts to the BuildTak surface - especially to lower it in a controlled manner without changing the nozzle height?

Try printing with the heated printbed off. Heat makes the pla stick more to buildtak

When I was using BuildTac on a Monoprice Select Mini, I had to print with a hot bed (50 C or so) and then wait until it was cooled before attempting to remove the parts.
I used a set of very thin removal tools and a lot of patience to remove my parts. I would be careful to push only parallel to the BuildTac with one of the sharper tools. Once I was under the part, I could usually slide the tool under the part like a knife to separate the part from the BuildTac.
I was only using BuildTac on that machine because I damaged it's original yellow surface when I removed my first Benchy from that machine. Since then the BuildTac has lasted for months.

These are more like backups for when the part gets stuck, but you could try spraying that part where it meets the bed with liquid computer duster. The shrinkage from cooling usually helps to release the part from the bed. You could also try heating the bed very hot to save the bed at the expense of the part.


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What makes 3D printing noncompetitive for medium production runs?
I've been 3D printing as a hobby for a couple of years now, and have always heard how 3D printing is great for prototyping, but once you get beyond 10 or 20 pieces it's just not cost competitive with other technologies.  I just accepted this to be truth, and have even told some of the customers I've gotten through 3DHubs and other marketplaces the same thing.
Now I'm creating an item for resale and am 3D printing the case.  As I'll need 40 - 50 cases at a time I thought I would shop around for other options.  But I just received some quotes back on injection molding.  The mold price (for half the case) was \$15k, plus \$10 per unit at a quantity of 50 and \$4 per unit at a quantity of 500.  Even in the case of the latter, the cost of tooling plus production is \$34/piece.  3D printing the same part myself costs $7 in filament, and paying someone else to 3D print it cost \$28.
Keeping in mind that 3D printing allows me to make changes to the design on the fly and print the exact number I need without having to worry about volume discounts, I now wonder if I've just been repeating a common misconception.  Is 3D printing really noncompetitive for medium (10-500 pieces) production runs?  If so, what makes it noncompetitive, given the extremely high up-front cost of IM?

Equating "filament cost" to total cost is a shortcut to going out of business. Printer & maintenance costs money, power to feed the printer costs money, space the printer takes up in house or shop costs money, other work the printer could be doing is lost money while printer is occupied... It's a trick going from a hobby mindset where that's all "free" to actually not bleeding money in a business setting; a trick many would-be businesses don't manage well.

@Ecnerwal Yes, that's true, but that's why I included the cost that I was quoted for someone else to 3D print it, which is 4x the filament cost.  That is still less than the injection molding cost per piece, which is why I thought it odd.

In your particular example, unless you can find a place to do the molds for less, the break-even is a bit further out - once it comes, it comes on pretty strong, though. Without bothering to work it to the finest detail, somewhere before 650 is break-even (assuming per piece cost remains at $4) - and then the more you need the less it costs. Whether the other 3D printing operation has got their pricing model correct is unknown (I suppose you could order 100 parts and see if they suddenly want to renegotiate after printing a few dozen, but you'd likely prefer to run your own printer instead.)

See also 3D printed mold techniques for long and short term usage

TL:DR
3D printing is great for low quantities of items, but terrible for large quantities of items.  This is a continuous scale and as your quantity grows, the drawbacks of 3D printing become more pronounced.  In your situation, you seem to be dancing in the nebulous zone where there isn't really a good answer as to which production method is better.  It's more of a question of price vs speed.

There are several factors that limit additive manufacturing technologies (in this answer I'll just talk about FDM since you're asking about a plastic item) from being practical in large scale manufacturing.
Time
Compared to injection molding, 3D printing takes a very long time.  An injection mold can make 72 plastic caps in 3 seconds.  While I don't have a source, I would expect a similar item to take at least 5 minutes to be printed.  In order to produce an average of 24 caps/second, you would need 7,200 3d printers working without down time.  That doesn't take into consideration ...
Labor
Every 3d printed object needs to be removed from the print bed by hand.  That requires a person to be there ready to remove the item.  It's possible to have automated print removal, but for now I've yet to see it as a standard option on any machine.  An injection model machine can just pop the parts out into a box.  Even with the capability to remove the parts extra labor is still required for 3d printing because ...
Quality
Injection molded parts are as smooth as the mold they were made in.  While failures still exist even for molded items, their relatively cheap production cost and very quick production time ensure that an occasional failure won't be problematic.  3D printing on the other hand is still prone to variations in the final product.  For a few items, it's sensible to hand finish the parts with filing, sanding, or other reductive manufacturing techniques, but for many items this quickly become burdensome. Also, given the long production time compared to injection molding, even 1 discarded product will result in a long time required to produce a replacement.

Belt printers inherently have automated print removal. :-)

Short Version
3d Printing is generally the most expensive method for building things mainly because it takes a long time to do. Compared to other methods it's by far the slowest. The few machines that can do parts quickly typically have very small build volumes so they're limited to only a few parts. Compared with injection molded parts you can make a dozen parts in a few seconds 3D Printing is closer to a few hours for one or two parts. Unless there is a change in the process or the technology or philosophy of the process 3D printing will always be delegated to small runs.
Unspecific Answer
You implied something in your post that you didn't explicitly ask for which I might be able to help. 3D printing is small scale, Injection molding is a large scale, but you've glossed over the medium scale production methods that might be worth considering given your project. If you're wanting to make small runs (20-500) units, your time could be well spent looking into cast-urethane parts. A mold will run around 200-500\$ depending on manufacturer, complexity, and size of the mold each mold is typically good for about 20 parts and then materials are roughly 20-30\$ for smaller sized parts. One of the more attractive aspects of cast urethane is that the material properties are very comparable to an injection molded part and the surface finish looks fantastic
In my experience, my workflow for a new part design is 3D print a few models to get from revision 0 to something you're confident should work, cast urethane a few batches to get functional field testing completed, and possibly even sell while the injection molding side gets set up. Injection molding takes 5-6 weeks about as a minimum for the first article, 3D printing is a few hours, and cast urethane is 2-3 weeks tops, less if you pay a bit more.
edit
Forgot to mention that by using cast urethane as an intermediate you still have the flexibility to change your design without resulting in huge mold redesign costs. Because the mold is only good for about 20 parts modifying you can modify your part and update without incurring huge re-molding costs.

I like this answer as it directly addresses the fact that even though everyone says other methods should be cheaper, my experience directly counters that.  I'm curious about the cast urethane though.  You said they're only good for 20 parts; does it then break down and a new mold is needed?  If so, that's $500 / 20 = $25 per part just for the mold.  I'll look further into this and try to get some quotes; thanks.

Definitely get a quote pricing could vary a great deal depending on who you're talking to, the process they use and of course part complexity. It's been my experience that a mold is good for about 20 parts though if it's a simple enough part I think they could last for more runs. Whatever the number is, the mold is effectively useless at that point and it's discarded so a new mold would have to be made then. The molds are typically made from silicone so they're much easier to damage and the constant pulling of the part tears them up as I understand it.

The moulds may only last 20 parts, but the master used to cast the mould should be good for casting more than one mould.

Some small start ups (mainly 3d printing companies) do in fact use 3D printed parts for the production printers they sell. So, at least in some instances, 3D printed parts may be satisfactory for production products.
That being said, other manufacturing methods (such as injection molding) currently have several advantages over 3D printing.
Injection Molding
Pros: It can produce parts of different sizes ranging from small, to rather large (like a plastic chair).  It provides superior inter-material bonding, takes only a few seconds to produce a single part, and can huge quantities of parts (possibly millions) in a single week. Typically injection molding is often entirely automated, with few moving parts. Small details can be repeated well and parts can be made with many different polymers.
Cons: Some geometries (like a hollow sphere) which can easily be produced with 3D printing, are impossible to produce with injection molds. Start up costs very be high. A typical machine can cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Mold cavities are costly to produce and require injection molding artifacts to be designed into the part (like ejector pin notches).  Also, the mold produces edge lines on the part where the two cavities meet. Defect trouble shooting can be very complex and the ability to produce satisfactory parts can depend on heat flow (which can be affected by things like the weather). This can require climate control to eliminate to reduce waste in scrap parts due to warping and other malfunctions. Sometimes advanced statistics are required to measure dimensions and detect developing problems too complex to deductively trouble shoot because they stem from a fluid thermodynamic issues.
Once 3D printing has time to develop further (as injection molding has), we may see it used more and more for production parts.

Also for some injection molds, they can be very large in general (like 10 wide x 15 long x 12 feet high) and in comparison to the part they produce.

Also I have seen injection mold producing around 70 million parts a year (run 24/7 days a week until break down for several weeks) with around 2-3% yield in actuality though they reported around 1% cause they lie. So that is about 1 million scrap parts. I think this is a good estimate on the yield injection molds can obtain here in the states. China and west/northern Europe probably below 1%.

I meaned scrap, so yield -100

Break even points have always been dependent on the part.
If the goal is to make a rod or filament-like piece of your extrusion nozzle diameter, your extruder may be pretty competitive. Additive manufacture has come a long way already so the break even points may have shifted.  Interestingly a great use for additive is to produce tooling.
You could for example use the 3D printed part (with non-stick coating) to make a 600 deg F silicone mold from high temp RTV.  Presuming you have the heating equipment, that mold can then be used to produce tens of the part at slightly lower quality.  As silicone is flexible, it isnt good for high speed/pressure of injection molding.
If you are willing to accept lower quality (3d printing with filament is pretty low so that's likely a yes) and your injection molder is willing to go for DMLS molds with minor smoothing/drilling post-operations, your tooling costs may be significantly lower than your original estimate.  Chances are this isn't happening unless the injection molder is also an additive enthusiast, and often will have to be one and the same as the person who designed at least some of the 3d printed part.


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Printing coarse threads
I have a makerbot, and am using their slicer program. The part I am printing has an extremely coarse thread, 5 threads per inch with a 2 mm thread height. The thread face is at a 30 degree angle (15 degrees of overhang)
I have printed external threads like this without issue and without support material before for various gardening tools (a flow straightener for example). I'm now trying to print an internal threaded part however the rest of the part needs to have support. I've played with the settings in the makerbot software but can't find a combination that will acomplish  my goal.
I'm looking for an idea, a setting, or an alternate way of printing the threads without support,  but still have supports for the other sections of the part that I know do need them.
Perhaps there is an alternate software that can do something like this, or is best practice to modify the part to have  weak structural elements to support the extremely overhanging sections that I'll then break off afterwards and print the part with no supports?

Have you experienced a failure in attempting to print this part? Are the portions of the part which require support in such a position that the supports interfere with the threads which do not require support? Knowing the locations of the threads with reference to the supports would be useful. I'm tossing an answer in the system just in case you find it of value.

Given a nut + threaded bolt is one of the demo calibration parts on the printer. Can you include a pic? That said. Either you do air only, or you don't print it. Unless you have the other makerbot that has duel extrusions then you can do a support material.. Or you buy a copy of simplify 3d.. Their supports are smarter and easier to remove.

There are some software tools that let you manually design support structures so you can target the areas that need them, and avoid others.
For example, Meshmixer can be used to add supports into your STL. I believe you still use a separate slicer.
Some slicers also have the ability to manually add support. I have found that CraftWare and Simplify3D have this kind of feature.

I'm still playing with MeshMixer, but that's looking like the best solution to the generic problem I was having. The solution I ended up using was "learn the makerware software better". I'm marking this as correct as given the problem constraints I set out, this solution would solve the problem.

Consider to create an externally threaded part to mate with the internally threaded part, perhaps with a tenth of a millimeter clearance. If possible, configure that part to have minimal structure, making it easier to break away. The externally threaded part will possibly provide support for the portions of the main body while preventing interference with the internally threaded part.
I believe it's not possible to segment a multi-part print for different levels of infill, but if the above fits your requirements, it would be a thin-wall cylinder, thick enough only to support the mating threads. This would allow easier break-away.
An image, sketch, drawing, model, link of your project would make this answer easier or possibly invalidate it completely.

It might be possible to have two overlapping models taking different print parameters. Doesn't strike me as a good choice though.

I feel a little ridiculous that I didn't try this earlier, but in the Makerware software you can set a minimum overhang to print support material. I've been working to this point (3 years now) assuming they've been measuring the angle from the vertical, not the horizontal. I was wrong.
The solution that I came up with was to calculate the maximum overhang of the internal threads inside the helix, and then not use breakaway support below that angle.
Not the prettiest print I've ever done, but the threads came out useful at least. I'll need to lay with the settings a bit to make sure the part isn't going wonky from the minimal support but as of now it seems to be working well.
A better slicer would've made this whole process MUCH easier, and I'm going to look into them pronto

Try using simplify 3d. It's a very powerful slicing software compatible with almost every 3d printer. It does cost 150 dollars, but that would be the only drawback to using that software. You can manually place supports around your model without having he software mess it up. I think this is exactly what you're looking for.


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Z axis at print is lower than when I home
I replaced the controller board in my Monoprice Select Mini with an Arduino/Ramps setup and compiled an uploaded Marlin 1.1.0-RC8 to run it. I've got most everything calibrated and working with one exception.
I tell the printer to home for xyz and then level my bed with a piece of paper then start a print and the nozzle consistently drops too far down into the bed and nothing can extrude. If I adjust the bed and put 1-2mm gap between the nozzle and bed then it prints fine.
I can't find anything in Marlin to adjust for this and I'm kind of stumped. I'm printing the original cat gcode that came with the printer that should just work fine as it always has and shouldn't have anything that a slicer would put in there to screw things up.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
This is the output of M503
Send: M503
Recv: echo:Steps per unit:
Recv: echo:  M92 X93.00 Y93.00 Z1097.50 E99.00
Recv: echo:Maximum feedrates (mm/s):
Recv: echo:  M203 X300.00 Y300.00 Z5.00 E25.00
Recv: echo:Maximum Acceleration (mm/s2):
Recv: echo:  M201 X3000 Y3000 Z100 E10000
Recv: echo:Accelerations: P=printing, R=retract and T=travel
Recv: echo:  M204 P3000.00 R3000.00 T3000.00
Recv: echo:Advanced variables: S=Min feedrate (mm/s), T=Min travel feedrate (mm/s), B=minimum segment time (ms), X=maximum XY jerk (mm/s),  Z=maximum Z jerk (mm/s),  E=maximum E jerk (mm/s)
Recv: echo:  M205 S0.00 T0.00 B20000 X20.00 Y20.00 Z0.40 E5.00
Recv: echo:Home offset (mm)
Recv: echo:  M206 X0.00 Y0.00 Z0.00
Recv: echo:Material heatup parameters:
Recv: echo:  M145 S0 H180 B70 F255
Recv:   M145 S1 H240 B110 F0
Recv: echo:PID settings:
Recv: echo:  M301 P26.15 I2.74 D62.35
Recv: echo:  M304 P231.09 I45.21 D295.34
Recv: echo:Filament settings: Disabled
Recv: echo:  M200 D3.00
Recv: echo:  M200 D0
Recv: ok

I also wanted to test whether the nozzle is actually moving closer. I did a G28 and manually put a piece of paper's width gap between the nozzle and the bed at all points. Then I started a print with no filament but with the sheet between the nozzle and bed. When it got to temp it homed all the axis and moved the nozzle to the first position. I would expect the paper to maintain the same gap but it tightly presses into the paper. The first gcode move that includes the Z before extruding is :
G0 F3600 X42.228 Y46.985 Z0.3

Which you would expect would put even more space between the nozzle and bed for the first .3 layer of filament but it isn't.
I printed directly from the SD Card to hopefully rule out Octoprint running gcode before the print so I really think the culprit is Marlin at this point.

Could you post an output of M503 command?

I did. And I added my latest troubleshooting results.

I found the issue. When the hotend and bed are at temps for PLA everything works fine but at temps for ABS the Z offset would get all messed up. After a bunch of testing I was able to track it down to a single gcode statment G1 Z15.0 F6000
At the higher temps my Z stepper skips steps at that feed rate.
The "Custom FDM printer" machine settings I used for my printer in Cura had that statement in it and so did the cat gcode that was on the card from the factory. I changed the feed rate to 200 and was able to print in ABS.
I was surprised Marlin didn't have a 'limit the feedrate for Z to this number' setting.

To avoid these kind of issues you need to adjust maximum feedrate for you printer, M203 command. This would prevent Marlin from trying to move the head too fast

now I'm confused, in the M503 you can see the setting for the M203 Z is at 5.0, but I can still send G1 Z15.0 F6000 and get it to skip. Shouldn't that be constrained to a max feedrate of 5?

Normally it shouldn't move faster than M503 setting. Make sure that you have saved your settings in EEPROM if you have it enabled.

Error in the comment: M203

If nozzle sets lower than it should, after heating up, then you may need to calibrate with heater turned on.
Another (although less likely) reason can be an incorrect Z steps number. However, if the print, after adjusting the first line height, does well, this should not be the case.
Fast track solution is to use M206 (something like M206 Z0.3) command to adjust nozzle offset, in your case Z position. This does not fix the root cause but should allow you to mitigate the problem.

I did all my testing with the bed at 70c.


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Thoughts on designing and printing 3D miniature house
I've done a few 3D designs in Sketchup and Fusion 360. Prints were done in PLA on an FDM and an SLA machine that I have access to.  Generally I am quite happy with the results. Now the description of my question.
I would like to create a 3D model of the house and yard that my wife grew up in, print it in miniature then assemble it into a snow globe to be given as a Christmas present. Quite a challenge I expect. The final thing does not have to be exact but a fair representation so that she can actually tell that it's her house.  Some specific questions:

The house is brick, would the brick texture actually be noticeable on the printed model if it is say only 1 to 1.5" on a side with either SLA or FDM?
Same for roof shingles?
Or should I just rely on adding these details artistically in the painting process  ( I will have to find an artist to do all that )
Thought on trees/ bushes?  Again I hope to rely on artistic license when designing these parts.
Thoughts on software: "Which would be best to design in?"  It has to be free (or not expensive) since I am not doing this professionally and don't have the money to buy expensive 3D software?  Someone suggested Blender. Fusion 360, Sketchup.  Others?
Thoughts on best printing method ?

A lot of questions I know and I truly appreciate any feedback on any of this.

I voted to close this question as too broad. Please ask only a single question per question. Asking for suggestions that are opinion-based (best printing method, suitable 3D software) is discouraged. Please visit the help center to learn  about how this site works, and how to ask a good question.

there are really only two questions in here, "Is the accuracy and repeatability of SLA printer sufficient to print this" and "What is best for modeling something of this size"

Well said. I appreciate your distilling all that I said into these succinct questions.

Maybe you could edit your question and add a TL;DR summary, using Diesel's distillation...? Otherwise your question may be closed as being too broad...

Answering your questions in turn:

On the scale you're trying for, printing brick with FDM won't show up - you'd have much better results, and could be possible, with SLA. You won't see every brick, but you will see the texture at least.
Same as for brick, You wont see shingles, but you can differentiate that there is a texture difference. If you were to paint it after the fact the color plus the texture will make it clear.
Yup, but both won't hurt.
Doable if they're big enough. SLA would be required I think to make them look good.
For something like this I'd suggest Blender, if your modelling skills are pretty solid. If not, Fusion-360 would work really well. But that's purely opinion based.
SLA if that wasn't clear as of yet.

Sounds awesome. I think the hardest part on this is going to be the modelling, the structure I'm picturing isn't all that complex so it should be doable.

all depending on the scale and details. DLP and SLA or SLS all work nicely, but you can also use FDM to get all the details if the scale is right. 25.4 mm is not enough, but at 254 mm you might get away with FDM.


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Best gear STL to print with ABS
I spent the last days trying to make the best gears I could but they are not "smooth" nor good. I searched at thingverse with "gear" but I see no set of gears. I would like someone to point me a good set of gears (with 5, 10, 15... teeth for example) so I can use this STL file with Google Sketchup.
Do you guys know any good matching gears that I could print?
I will be using this gear in a fast spinning matching so it would be nice these gears to be well designed to support some fast moving.
Also, I think in my case I would like to use gears with this shape (the white gear). Any idea why is this gear design better than the usual?

How is this about 3d printing?

Hi, Samul! In its current state, your question is very broad, and does not have any definite objective answer. For this reason I have to put your question on hold. I advice you to take a look at our [help] for more information on how to ask here at 3D Printing SE. In general, 3D Printing SE is not a very good place to ask for specific STL files. Good luck!

This type of gear is known as a "herringbone" gear. A traditional straight-cut gear is strong, but can cause more vibration as each tooth engages and disengages. A helical gear (slanted tooth) reduces that vibration as the tooth engagement is more uniform. However the angle of the teeth causes a sideways force that may be undesired. A herringbone tooth design effectively cancels the sideways forces but gets the uniform tooth engagement.
A search for "herringbone" on Thingiverse comes up with many gears of this type.
Regarding the quality, if you are not happy with the results of your own design, that's OK - gears are shockingly complex, and people make careers of gear design! However, if you have a good CAD model that just isn't printing well, it's not likely a bad STL.
An STL from a different source is likely to have similar quality with the same slicer/printer setup. You might be able to improve print quality of your design by changing settings on your slicer or adjusting your printer. I'd suggest asking a question with your current setup and specific print quality issues.

Thnks man, I didnt know that name, now I can google it and learn more about it! I am just sad that nobody still created a good set of gears :( That's amazing cause it's really important to have a good STL set of gears, despite slice programs, I know several configs can change it's quality but it would be nice to have some gear set to start with.

By lighting only flaw I can see as you really haven't described the problem with your results, is very noticeable z layers compared to the size of the part making them "pixelated". Other than that due to the different in color it is hard to see dimension issues. You might try smaller layer height coupled with a smaller diameter nozzle?

As for high speed gear ideas why don't you design your own if there aren't any good ones. I will admit sometimes there will be surprising lack of content in some areas and I dont know what you expect, sometimes you do have to do some things your self to bridge the gaps. Maybe try looking into automobile transmission or even jet engines which use two shafts for high speed compressor and low speed fans. Jet engines spin pretty fast over 35k RPM. They may end up using a planetary gear I would think, the forces are well balanced. But you haven't said the purpose of this gear, is it power transmission on separate parallel axis? Speed reduction/change? In engineering, structurally things which use pointy edges can perform poorly under stress, the stress is highly focused geometrically. Instead if manufacturing constraints and design volume allows it, rounded, chamfered, or filleted edges reduce high stress points. Also adding material distributes loads where possible. Smaller teeth may increase vibration frequency but reduce amplitude. Ideally you would want to minimize the relative velocities of the contacting surfaces to reduce waisted force from friction converting to heat. Also heat can reduce strength and increase wear, decreasing life span of the gear.


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How to remove adhered nylon from build platform?
As the title suggests, I am looking to remove nylon that has adhered strongly to my build platform. Mechanical methods (ex. scraping) haven't yielded results, so I was hoping for a solvent or something that would remove the adhered nylon.
Also, the parts themselves remove well enough, but some areas have a bit of nylon that simply persist.

One important and missing aspect of your question is what is your build platform? Glass is likely to give you the best results, while aluminum has some risks, depending on your choice of solvents.
My hasty research at first showed Glacial Acetic Acid to be a candidate, but as a very strong acid, it will require some care in use.
I found a pdf document with a comprehensive chart of possible solvents for nylon. The above noted solvent (100% acetic acid) lists with an Unsatisfactory result. I read this at first as being unsatisfactory for dissolving, but the correct interpretation is that nylon is unsatisfactory for being resistant to this solvent. Additional notes show nylon will dissolve in this solvent.  I have a bottle of white vinegar (acetic acid) but the panel reads as five percent concentration, almost certainly ineffective for your purposes.
There are other solvents listed as unsatisfactory, which points them in the right direction for your purposes. A couple of them are in the chlorine family and no reference is made regarding concentration. Chlorine of even weak concentration will attack aluminum very quickly.
Despite the weak concentration of the white vinegar, I've dropped a segment of 3 mm nylon to see what happens overnight and may report via an edit here later.

I suppose I should have clarified on the build platform material. I don't know. It appears to be garolite, or some similar fiber-reinforced polymer, which has been polished. As it happens, I do have glacial acetic acid (for neutralizing NaOH solutions) available, so I will give that a shot. I'll post back if it does work. It turns out nylon is tricky because it is quite chemically resistant.

of all the materials which your bed could be composed, FRP may be one of the better choices to be resistant to the acetic acid. You could also reduce the exposure to the bed by building a dam around the nylon using modeling clay or similar material. My experiment with the white vinegar was a waste of white vinegar, as expected. As you already have the chemical at hand, you can easily test a small piece in a glass jar to see how quickly it dissolves.


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Delta Kossel 3d Printer Heatsink issues
I feel stupid for asking, but could it cause issues if the Heat sink/Heater block/Extruder tip can spin freely in a Kossel Delta 3d printer? I went to remove the extruder tip the other day, and noticed that all of the assembly is free spinning. I am new to the 3d printing community.
Clarification:
It's the whole assembly rotating as a single piece. The heater block, heat break/sink and extruder tip are all rotating together, in the effector.

I've deleted my answer as being unsuitable to your question.

When assembling the hot end tip, make sure you screw in the extruder tip to the aluminum block first, then screw that assembly to the heat sink fins. On my Kossel, I did it the other way around, and had very poor results.
If the whole assembly is spinning, then the clamp screws are either too long and can't tighten properly, or the holes might be stripped, or they're just not tight.
And yes, any movement in the hot end can cause problems, since we're dealing with steps as small as .1 mm.


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Why 3d print has an ugly surface?
Lately I'm having some issues with white PLA.
It sticks nicely to the print bed, but the very last layer of the print comes out really ugly.
I'm not a native english speaker, I don't know what is the proper term to describe what I see, so I'm attaching two pictures instead:

As you can see, the surface has wrinkles. If you touch it, it feels like a jaggled surface. What is causing this? I've never had this kind of issue before with the same PLA roll, what can be the issue?
I have a prusa-style printer, 45°C printbed, 225°C hotend, 10% hexagonal infill, 30mm/s print speed. The object stays on the surface without warping, I can tell for sure that it isn't detaching from the bed and coming up towards the extruder.
It happens only for infill, perimeters are just perfect.
What can be the issue here?

Have you tried lowering your nozzle temperature a few degrees? This looks like it could be that your hot end is just a bit too warm.

@Diesel Now that I think about it, I always printed at 195°C with this PLA roll, using 225°C for the first layer only to optimize adhesion... I should try to use this setting instead of extruding at 225°C for the entire print. I'll try!

This appears to be the result of your hot end (nozzle) temperature being slightly too high.
I'd recommend lowering your nozzle temperature by a few degrees and retrying the print. If the quality improves you're good. If it doesn't improve significantly try lowering a few degrees more.
If you lower the nozzle temperature to the point that you start having other adverse effects, try going back to the lowest temperature that works and check your infill and shell settings. The top shell of your part may be too thin given the span (top surface, maximum travel length). i.e. the strands being printed on the top of your part are sagging between your infil hex's, by thickening this part in the slicer settings the next layer on the roof won't sag as much as the previous.
By increasing your number of shells or shell thickness (or roof thickness, i'm not sure on the exact terminology) you could effectively hide the effect you're seeing by thickening this section of your part.
Best guess though is nozzle is a bit too hot.

Turns out it was the temperature! I set the new temperature to 215°C for the first layer and 195°C for the other layers, the surface is now smooth as all my other prints. Thank you!

This looks like the air trapped inside the print is expanding, causing wavy surfaces. This can be solved by lowering nozzle temperatures, and turning on the fan.

The fan was already on at full speed, but lowering the temperature to 195°C helped, thank you!


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What kind of aluminium grade for a heated 3D printer bed?
I'm replacing my standard MK3 Aluminium printing bed with a custom sized  bed paired with a silicone heater. I came across a few on Amazon and they all have grades such as 6061, 3003, 5052 etc. I know these mean the composition of the Al alloy and their end purpose but I'm not sure what they mean in terms of being used for a 3D printer. Can anyone here advise me on this?

As @fred_dot_u states, MIC 6 is the way to go. Take a look at Aluminum Sheet Between Heater and Glass and Where to buy an aluminium plate for heate bed. You don't say where you are based outside the US, but I have found some reasonably priced suppliers in the UK.

I'm based in India. I did find a few suppliers here but they will sell only in large quantities. Would you suppliers ship internationally? Could you share details please?

Various grades and alloys of aluminum will have characteristics related to ease of welding, resistance to corrosion, malleability, and other aspects. For a heated bed on a 3D printer, you'd really want to have something resistant to warping and something that can be assured to be planar across the surface, that is, flat.
The terminology you'd want to use for your search is "MIC 6 Cast Aluminum Tooling Plate" and the results are many.
From a rather comprehensive web site:
Flatness tolerance is maintained within .015" on 1/4"-5/8" thickness and .005" on 3/4"- 4" thickness. Thermal Cycling can be performed up to 800° F  under controlled conditions.
You would want to confirm from the seller that the surface has been prepared, as some sites appear to sell un-finished tooling plate, but I've not been able to clarify that. Most appear to provide either no specifications regarding flatness or give a figure such as that above.

Thanks. Where can I order one from? I checked ebay and amazon and they don't seem to have one listed.

I hit ebay as part of the research for your question and found a number of suppliers. My country is USA and that may be a factor. The link in the text of the answer is a location for purchase as well. For eBay, I used "MIC 6 Aluminum" which makes me realize that you're not US based, as you have aluminium in your post.

Yes I'm outside the US. Let me look again.

This seems like massive overkill - can you point to printers using this as a bed? These tooling plates seem like they are really intended for use in welding jigs or CNC milling machines where they could be exposed to extreme heat an/or physical stress, far more abusive than a printer. Also they are very heavy and expensive. Most aluminum beds I've seen are thin sheetmetal. I could see going a little thicker than typical to avoid warping, but it seems like thin aluminum sheet paired with glass would be much more economical. I don't know if the allow would matter.

I agree about the overkill aspect. I have suggested this particular product due to reading about others' experiences with warping from thinner aluminum beds and the answers posted to other forums. A bed of this type, perhaps 3 mm thick, paired with a piece of glass may be a more attractive solution. Glass was not under consideration in the question, hence its omission.

Aluminum has a higher heat transfer ability than glass, allowing for faster heat-up and cool-down. Thin beds are not ideal, you really need a flat surface if it's large. Across a 400mm bed, I would not want to buy a thin bed and find out it's not flat.


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101Hero 3D Printer - Printed object is tilted
I am facing a problem with my 3D print. Whenever I am printing any object, the print from the top is shifting to the right hand side - it is symmetric at the bottom but not at the top.
Checkout the photo below:

You appear to have a couple of issues here,
First off your nozzle appears to be a bit hot for your filament (you can see this be the drooping and sagginess of the layers on the outer shell)
Second issue is it appears as though your belts are loose. You can tell if your belts are loose if your parts seem to be shifted in one way.
Third issue (maybe). You may want to try slowing down your nozzle speed slightly. The faster the extruder moves, the more inertia that is generated which in effect makes your belt act as a spring and will cause it to bounce along the axis while it's printing. Slowing it down will result in your belt acting more like a rigid member and help to clean up the outer layers of your print. Also, it's easier on your belts. The downside is that your parts will take a bit longer to print. In my experience, parts that look great but take a bit longer are well worth the wait.

The usual cause here is a loose belt on the X or Y drive, leading to hysteresis and a shift in the perceived origin of the system.  Try tightening the belts and adding tensioners.

Make sure you are using cura 15.02.1, also download the configuration file from the 101hero website, and upload it to cura using the" open profile" button. Make sure your extruder temp is set to 198. I use a 113% flow rate on my 101hero.

authors: พีต็ิก คนโสด


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Flow Settings in Cura 2.4 for Ultimaker 2+ not available (suspected overextrusion filling small holes)
Cura 2.4 reports that the (printer-dependant) G-Code mode prevents the "Flow" (extrusion rate adjustment percentage) setting from being available. Why? I am using an Ultimaker 2+. Is a firmware update required?
I know the "Flow" can by dynamically adjusted on the 3D printer (either in materials or while printing).
I am asking because I have small holes (1 mm) that seem to slice fine but get filled so the extrusion probably is not that optimally tuned. I suspected reducing the material rate would improve this but changing it on the printer (97%) did not yield noticable results and below that it looked worse.

The Ultimaker / Marlin firmware documentation at https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2Marlin states "M221 S- set extrude factor override percentage".

For the Ultimaker 2 flow is typically handled on the printer.
You could make a feature request at github to let Flow be enabled for Ultimaker 2 printers.
As for your problem: that sounds more like a dimensional accuracy problem to me. I suggest setting Horizontal Expansion to -0.15mm.


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Delta 3D printer extruder?
I've never gotten a 3D printer, nor do I know very much about them, but I'm thinking of buying a delta 3D printer kit for around $450. When I looked online of some disadvantages of Delta printers I found that they typically don't have Bowden extruders. I'm wondering what are the advantages of a Bowden extruder and should I spend more money in a 3D printer just to get one.

Delta printers always have bowden extruders  -- at least all the latest ones.  You said "don't have".  If this was a typo, please edit.  If you don't agree, can you send me a link of one that does not?

Please could you cite an example of a Delta printer which doesn't have a Bowden extruder, which has the stepper located at/on the print head?

My FLSUN Kossel 3D Delta printer ($224) has a bowden extruder. It works really well too.
The main advantage of having one is that it reduces the mass of the hot end. That means less inertia, and it's easier on the driver motors as well. All this leads to (hopefully) greater and more precise control at the extruder tip, and, best of all, faster printing.

Even my super-cheap knock-off delta has a Bowden. Putting a stepper on the hot end would easily quadruple the moving mass.

The only advantage of Bowden extruder is a reduced mass of moving parts attached to the effector.
All other differences from direct extruder are to the Bowden's disadvantages. Generally speaking, Bowden-type extruder has much worse control of filament extrusion than direct one.
Since most of the modern consumer-grade printers suffer from low rigidity, reducing mass seems as a good trade-off to the printers' manufacturers.
Unfortunately, for the Delta printers trading speed for quality may not be so effective. Delta construction is used with the only goal to achieve highest possible speed of printing. As a contrary, Bowden extruder becomes less precise with the speed increase. This makes it unreasonable to increase print speed at some point when printing quality degrades below acceptable.
As a result, at this moment of time, Delta printers with Bowden extruder is a clear sign of under-performing device.
To answer your question: there is no reason to pay extra for the Delta printer with Bowden extruder, although I doubt that a printer with similar characteristics and a direct extruder would be cheaper.

authors: Михал. Краснобрыжев


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TAIG CNC - Z axis getting bound
First of all I apologize if this stack exchange site isn't the proper spot for CNC questions but I do not see any other ones that are close. If the community feels this is too far off topic then just let me know and I will remove this question.  Even though this is for a CNC machine, the same issue could exist for a 3D printer. I do know this is very specific to the TAIG CNC.
Currently I have the TAIG CNC machine. Recently it has been getting bound when going up in the positive Z direction. It will go down no problem but when going up, at certain points the motor will make a high pitch noise like it normally does when it hits a Z extreme. At these points if I manually try to crank (with the controller off) it is very hard to move up. This indicates that it is a mechanical problem.
I took apart the Z axis and understand that there is a jib inside. I do understand how the jib works, tightening and loosening the top and bottom screws to move the wedge. I have tried with the wedge all the way up (biggest gap) and all the way down, along with in between in small increments. It will go up when the jib is all the way up but if I press down with my hand barely then it gets bound so I am thinking it is something other than the jib? I am not sure which other parts I can adjust or would get stuck. I did follow the directions on youtube of setting the brass insert that is attached to the threaded rod, where I tightened it to the point of where the motor couldn't move and then backed off a little bit. Has anyone had binding troubles like this?
I am a pretty new member on this forum so I apologize if I missed anything but feel free to ask any questions too.

Have you verified the straightness of the Z-axis lead screws? This sounds like your machine could no longer be perfectly square. The further it gets from (0,0,0,) the more apparent the problem would be, hence why you're seeing it further up in the Z-travel.

@Diesel You're talking about lead screws but (from what I can tell on google images) the TAIG CNC only has a single lead screw driving the Z-axis.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic, because it isn't about 3D printing.

Yes there is only one lead screw

One or two, the question remains, has the straightness and perpendicularity of the motion of the Z-Axis mill end, relative to the build platform been verified? One lead screw with a bend in it, or a slight curve would cause your cutter to become more angled the higher it gets. This would increase the friction between the bit and the work piece which would create a squeal, and increase in volume the higher the cutter moves.

So inside the Z axis is a brass component that is connected to the threaded rod (lead screw). This brass component has 3 screws and depending how tight / loose, determines how much it will bind up. You of course don't want it too loose otherwise the enclosure will "jump" off of the track at times.  In my case, the two screws were too tight. The way I determined how tight to go was taking the entire Z track off of the back, tightening both screws just to the point of binding and then backing off 1/2 turn on both.


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Why does the Ultimaker 3D Printer has a Heater + Heater transfer plate (aluminium) + Glass?
Why does the Ultimaker 3D Printer has a Heater + Heater transfer plate (aluminium) + Glass?
I wonder why a glass plate, and if is possible to remove the glass and print directly in the aluminium plate adjusting the heating.
Link to the ultimaker.
Pictures:

Asking for why Ultimaker made this design decision will just result in an opinion-based guessing game (since nobody outside of Ultimaker knows). I think it would be better if you just asked whether you can print on the bare aluminium.

Please do not cross post questions, see Is cross-posting a question on multiple Stack Exchange sites permitted if the question is on-topic for each site?.

Printing directly onto aluminum is something I've never seen before, likely due to the fact that PLA (and other materials) do not adhere reliably to aluminum. Instead, many opt to use blue tape, kapton tape, PEI, buildtak/commercial build surface, or an additional build surface, such as glass. When heated, clean glass can be directly printed on. The use of a glue stick, wood glue, isopropyl alcohol, the above adhesion aids, and others can help adhere your part better hot or cold.
Can you remove the glass, add any of the above to the aluminum plate, and print on that? So long as it's a clean, flat surface, yes. But it'll be more work for you to replace or clean the build surface, as you won't be able to simply remove the glass and replace it. You're not gaining much by taking out the glass. A slightly faster bed heat-up, perhaps.
As for why Ultimaker went with an aluminum transfer plate, that is a slightly more engineering oriented question.

Also, glass is a lot more scratch resistant, so less likely to damage the bed when removing the model, and since it's not directly attached to the source of the heat, it can easily be removed to aid in taking the model off!

I've ditched the tape as of day one and print directly onto the aluminium heatbed using 3DLAC print adhesion spray (sort of a very strong hairspray) and printing like this for almost 2 years, see this answer. I have never had any adhesion problem.

According to this page, heat transfers more evenly across an aluminum build plate than with just glass. But as Kevin pointed PLA adheres better to glass because it doesn't flex as much as aluminum under heat.
The link above shows that aluminum has a much higher thermal conductivity at 205 (W/(mK)) vs glass at 105 (W/(mK)) at 25 °C (77 °F).
Because of this conductivity difference, you may find that it takes longer to heat the glass plate, but it should heat more evenly.

I print directly onto the aluminium build plate, see this answer, it is 3 mm thick, I never have experienced more flexibility using the bed on temperature, for very thin heated plates (like Ultimaker uses) you might be right.


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Slicer reports 1000s of errors not seen in Cura; Render is missing big chunks
Brand new to Slic3r, I've been using Cura for a while, so not sure is happening.  I tried to load this Knight model into Slic3er (v1.2.9 running on OS X), and it's reporting "Manifold: auto-repaired (11430 errors)", and the model looks incomplete.  Hovering the model with the mouse shows more details:

Preview mode shows supports holding up the head, so I don't think it's just a screen rendering issue.  But I loaded this same model into Cura earlier today, and it worked just fine; I've printed the resulting GCode.  So I believe the model is fine.  I wanted to print using Slic3r and compare the results.
Is this a known issue with certain types of models?  Not sure what to try next.

The model is not fine. If it was "fine", Slic3r would not have this issue. Cura does some magic to fix it. Try running it through an STL repair program.

Cura and Slic3r are very different programs. You will not get the exact same print between the two. I find that of late slic3r will try to fill holes when older versions do not. So even versions will not behave the same. I will say I have less issues with simplify 3d, but the price is very high.
Following. When this happens I attempt to repair the model. There is obviously some unresolved issues in the model. I use Netfabb which has been exported to this online tool.
Really though. I would ask for my money back ;-)

Actually, that model author only charges for printed models - if you log in to Shapeways, you can download his STLs for free (and some others, but not all).  So, I got what I paid for :D  Will check out Netfabb, thanks!

@JasonClark Netfabb will export STL. Lots of people use it without problems.

@SeanHoulihane perhaps it's only the hosted version at https://tools3d.azurewebsites.net/?  Could not find any options, only a Download icon upon completion that produced 3mf.  Will check into other versions, thanks!

The full software Will  export as stl. Not saying that it's default format is stl but will export as. Also Unless I did the wrong link the online toolshould be stl format only.

The problem with the model is that of the basic elements that make up the model (fundamentally these are triangles), you'll find some that either cross over, or some that don't touch. This is called non manifold geometry.
The way this comes about is often by the designer dragging part of a model (to re-size it) in a way that one face of the model crosses into or out of another face. It is very common, and some of the slicers handle it better than others. Sometimes a tool can make a good job of repairing the model, sometimes it has to be fixed manually.
In fixing the model, a tool will be able to ignore small gaps and overlaps (which is fine, they are often below the print resolution anyway). Different tools will be more or less successful, it looks like your model here is a bit borderline for automated fixing.


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Print failing when connecting mains loads
I am running the SeeMeCNC customized version of Repetier on a Rostock Max V2. I have experienced this problem with both the stock configuration along with an E3D The Chimera. Sometimes, when I am printing and connect a mains device, my printer will fail in some way. The first time this happened I was printing with ABS, so I connected my fume sucker (A ~25-50W fan) to an outlet. However, when I connected it, the LCD showed garbled characters and my software (MatterControl) reported an error. Restarting the printer returned it to the previous state. I had a ~15 foot (coiled) extension cord connected to a 3-way splitter.
Today, I connected a hot glue gun, and MatterControl reported that Repetier had switched to "Printer set into dry run mode until restart!" (no heat or extrusions). Looking at the firmware, this seems to be caused by a thermistor failure. I had everything plugged into the same setup as before, except for a surge protector at the end. The circuit that it is connected to has a 20A circuit breaker, with probably ~3A of it constantly used.
My theory for this is that an additional device causes a slight fluctuation in the thermistor wires, causing an error to occur. However, the Rostock Max is designed so that wires are inside of aluminum tubes, which I think would provide EMF protection. The power supply is a generic 12V 30A power supply that was included in the kit, usually seen in LED strips. Both of these occurred while printing. I have ordered a UPS for the printer: would its under/over-voltage detection help? Are there any other solutions for this?

You have a 5 m extension cord to which both your printer and the fan are connected? Or is the printer connected directly to an outlet and the device is connected to the cord? And this extension cord is largely coiled up?

Currently, I have a short but thick extension cord, connected to the long extension cord (coiled), and then to a surge protector. I don't have many outlets near my printer, so I have to do that. Is that too long (and I replace the coiled extension cord with several short ones), or does coiling cause EMF, even with twisted pairs? Furthermore, I should mention that both cords and extension cords are from reputable sources, rated for 15A each.

I have had the same Issue with my Maker select prusa printer, the way I found that best combats this is to attach the printer to a UPS and avoid attaching any High draw devices from the same circuit. Every Time i'd switch something on, My TV, my lights, etc. The same would happen. Hope this helps!


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Font for cutting?
I want to print a text inside a box. I mean the text should be cut out (see through). Example:

As you can see the parts in "o" and "e" cant float.. it needs some kind of a support. Also the top triangle in the M can't be printed without a support.
Here is something I found, I think this is what I need:

Can you recommend me a font or some app to make these fonts printable the way I need it?
The software I use is Simplify3D and all the free ones like cura.

I did a quick search using The Google with the terms "stencil font." There were too many results to list here and the first link I clicked on provided some seriously ugly fonts. Stencil fonts by definition will result in supported center pieces. Windows has a native font named, surprisingly enough, Stencil which does the same, but it's not quite as imaginative as the ones found using The Google.
Here's an example from Font Squirell:
Octin Prison

How about something a bit more bizarre from the same location:
VanBerger Font

A stencil font for 3D printing would minimize the connectors that break up the character. These fonts have unnecessary breaks in characters like L, J, Y, 7, etc., which would print just fine and be strong enough without those breaks.