Wiring Z-stop directly to hot end and aluminum bed / spacers So I am really fed up with inductive probes. The one I am using keeps getting shifted slightly every time I switch nozzles or run an oozy print. That means I have to autolevel again, then manually set a Z-offset (as I would have anyway if I didn't have an inductive probe).

On my Lulzbot Mini there is a different scenario. There are four washers at each part of the bed. The nozzle is "grounded" so that when the Mini touches the washers, a current is created that seems to act as the Z-stop. Surprisingly there isn't much out there for a DIY implementation of this.

Since I have an aluminum bed (and aluminum is conductive), I am thinking of doing the following:

1) Put one wire from the Z-stop ground pin to the aluminum bed. Make sure it is away from the wires for the heater / thermister (?)

2) Put one wire from the Z-stop 5V into the heating block of my nozzle.

When the nozzle probes the bed, a current will be created from the 5V heating block, through the conductive nozzle, into the conductive bed, to the Z-stop ground.

I'm always unsure when it comes to circuitry. Will there be any dangerous interference from this technique from, say, the bed heating circuit? I'm not sure what kind of protection circuitry are on each of the Arduino's pins, and I'd rather not fry my board if this sounds like a bad idea to someone.

I figure most people don't do this because they have sheets of PEI or some other non-conductive material on their bed. I can use PET tape but still leave holes in the tape for this autobed leveling probe. It would be really great if it worked and wasn't dangerous.

I shouldn't even need the third pin?

Aluminium is conductive, but aluminium oxide is not, which is just so what there (unavoidably, since aluminium rapidly oxidises in air) happens to be a thin layer of on top of your bed. The coating is very thin, but it might foul your plans. It would work better with a sharp probe (that can puncture the layer) than with a 3D printer nozzle. You should be careful, because your probing method might be unreliable (which could cause the nozzle to crash into the bed).

Wiring the endstop 5V directly to ground will create a short circuit which will damage your printer. You should use the third (signal) pin and ground instead.


Partially missed / dragged layers I'm trying to diagnose a print issue that looks like a missed layer (sorry, first-time printer here)

and

Specs:

Printer: QIDI Tech X-Plus (direct drive).
Material: PLA.
Extruder temp: 200 °C.
Bed temp: 60 °C (70 °C first layer).
Print speed: 60 mm/s (actually 48 mm/s on non-infill because of min_layer_time).
Retraction distance: 2 mm.

Started from a new printer: I was getting imperfect prints (lesser version of this, functional part) and contacted QIDI support. They eventually replied that my bed was too low but I had since lowered the bed on a misdiagnosis. They supplied a slightly modified G-code but that also failed in a similar way.

Since then, I've been raising the bed bit by bit to try to fix this issue. I don't care about the little whiskers much, but the solid "connecting lines" are a problem.

Questions:

Is this actually a bed-leveling/height issue?
What is this defect called (whatever the cause)? I've been googling but can't find something that looks like this.
Is there a better way of fixing bed height issues than just printing->tweaking bed height->printing?

I'd appreciate any help diagnosing this issue - even if it's just the name of this problem. I have no experience disassembling/looking at hardware but I could always give it a shot.

Update

As per comments I took a look at coasting and ran some tests. I first re-leveled the bed manually (I'll call that height=0). I don't want to add tons of pictures so I'll show the baseline, and "bad" refers to similar failure as above.

+--------+--------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+
|        | Combing      | Coasting   | Retraction distance   | Extruder temp   | Bed height   | Results     |
|--------+--------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------+--------------+-------------|
| Test_1 | infill only. | off.       | 2.0 mm.               | 200 C.          | 0.           | Baseline.   |
| Test_2 | infill only. | off.       | 2.0 mm.               | 200 C.          | +0.05 mm.    | ~ Baseline. |
| Test_3 | off.         | off.       | 2.0 mm.               | 200 C.          | 0.           | Bad.        |
| Test_4 | infill only. | off.       | 1.5 mm.               | 200 C.          | 0.           | Bad.        |
| Test_5 | infill only. | off.       | 2.0 mm.               | 190 C.          | 0.           | TBD         |
+--------+--------------+------------+-----------------------+-----------------+--------------+-------------+

(+/- 0.05 mm height achieved with clicks of "fast leveling")

Test 1 external view:

Test 1 internal view:

Update

I think I've confirmed an under-extrusion problem. Here is a top layer printing I stopped partway through.

This looks exactly like Simplify3D's Guide. So I manually pushed through, removed, and re-inserted the filament - and cleaned the nozzle with a brush.

I then ran a new print and noticed a clicking sound in the extruder (I don't know if it's new or if I simply noticed because I was focused on under-extrusion problems) - the print failed in the same "dragging" way as above, but the top layers were slightly better.

I'm now going through the list of possible causes of clicking extruder + under-extrusion.

I managed to confirm the dragged layers were mostly due to under-extrusion.

I had a faulty extruder (clicking sound) and once I swapped it out it was greatly improved.

It's worth noting I also had a slight z-wobble issue so that could have played a role.

Hopefully this can help somebody out as I hadn't seen this kind of symptom in any of the print quality guides.


How to prevent z-fighting in OpenSCAD? Z-fighting is a 3D rendering artifact of coplanar surfaces (means, triangles are located in exactly the same plane, and overlap).

It can happen in OpenSCAD's preview mode when doing a difference() or union() operation. In case of difference(), the rendering artifacts can prevent seeing into a hole in the object. The "compile and render" mode in OpenSCAD does not have z-fighting issues. But since it can take some time to render an object in that mode, it is not a practical solution during development.

How best to avoid z-fighting?

If the answer involves changes to my OpenSCAD code, I would love to see an idiomatic answer / established convention of OpenSCAD coders, if that exists.

The general advice in the OpenSCAD community is to "extend your cuts and embed your joins" (source). The rendering artifacts are one thing but rather just an annoyance; however z-fighting can also cause unexpected errors during STL export (I did not experience that myself so far, just read this somewhere).

So you would change the dimensions of your objects very slightly (0.01 mm works fine) so that:

for a union(), there is overlap volume between the parts
for a difference(), the intersector has volume both inside and outside of the intersected part

Now you could adjust both the size and position of your parts to keep the mathematically exact dimensions for the resulting part. But I found that for the purposes of 3D printing, such accuracy is not worth it because it complicates the formulas so much.

Instead, I adjust either position or size of a part, depending on what is simpler in each case. A measure in the final design will be off by 0.01 mm, which does not matter.

And I keep the 0.01 mm offset in a variable called nothing (picked that up somewhere and liked it …). This keeps the calculations intuitively understandable.

Example

To create a cylinder and cut a hole to half of its depth, I would do this:

//!OpenSCAD
nothing=0.01;
height=40;

difference(){
    cylinder(h=height, r=20, center=true);

    translate([0, 0, height/4 + nothing])
        cylinder(h=height/2, r=15, center=true);
}

Now the hole is nothing=0.01 less deep than half of the cylinder – that's the inaccuracy I accept.

(Note: If you don't have OpenSCAD installed, you can also try the above code online by copy & pasting it into OpenJSCAD. Include the magic comment in the first line to switch it to OpenSCAD syntax.)


What are the ideal print conditions for polypropylene? I'm having a lot of trouble printing polypropylene right now, and I think it may have to do with the conditions. I'm using a very thin coat of ABS on the base plate (just as you would do when printing with ABS) in order to promote sticking.

In this following first picture, I attempted with a 240°C tip and a 150°C bed (above PP's Tg). Oddly enough, one side actually looked somewhat decent while the other clearly had trouble sticking. The print speed on this was 1500 mm/min.

In the second picture, I was printing with the tip at 220°C and a 50°C bed. What's interesting in that print (you may be able to see it) is that the polymer extruded with little blips of material followed by a more stringy section, rather than a steady, even filament. (Print speed on this was 2100 mm/min)

Does anyone have suggestions for doing better prints with PP?

Polypropylene CAN be printed with excellent results, you just need a good filament roll and good printing setup.
A few days ago I read this topic and was kind of afraid of testing it, now I am so happy I tried it.

I am printing the PP filament from the brand Smart Materials 3D (search on google).

I am using a Prusa i3 Mk2, bed heated to 70ºC and hotend to 210ºC. I ventilate the printer as much as possible: room windows open and fan at 100% after second layer.

IMPORTANT: apply some cheap brown packaging adhesive strips to the bed, where the part is going to touch the bed, with adhesive facing down. I tried many other solutions but none worked.

I have printed so far at 20mm/s constant, with 0.2 mm layer heigth, 0.4 mm extrusion width, 0.8mm retraction, flow 125%. Still optimizing setings.
Parts come out very nice, with good flexibility and amazing inter layer bonding. Density is a bit lower than ABS, so excellent, and impact resistance is awesome.
Check some parts I printed today:


What is average price for 3D parabola? So I wanted to print a 3D parabola, with a radius of 15 cm and a height of 4 cm.  I've told this company, they told me that they need 3.5 days and its price will be 147 USA dollars and 50 cents.
I just want to know what is the average price for this?

The price dependss roughly on material, machine hours, operator labour, profit and administrative overhead.
Some companies deduce the operator labour, machine hours and overhead to roughly 10 times the material cost. I think that is kind of fair. In your case I assume that you use PLA, the perabola is hollow (just a flat surface) and the company needs to construct the 3D model the parabola to a specific tolerance.
this model in PLA should not cost more than \$5 in filament, so about $ 50 should be an okay price for your parabola. The total price of \$147 leaves about \$97 for modeling the parabola. I think that's fair, given that a non-mathician has to find a way to construct a model and test the results.
If, for example, you want a metal print and you provide the 3D model I find the price of \$147 to be very normal. These metal printers are very expensive, labour intensive and eat up energy.
You can get instant quotes at the following sites: https://xometry.eu/, https://formalize-am.com/
All above is just my best guess, given the data you provided. Expect a better answer when you provide more data.


What is the meaning of extruder's knocking sound? I have a Prusa i3 printer with mk8 extruder. I am using PETG with (200-240/75-85) degrees recommended temp on it's box. but when I do printing i hear some knocking sound that means there is a problem in extrusion. last time I did increase my temp up to 270 degrees!! maybe this sound solved! but it damaged my extruder's screw's inner Teflon and I forced to change it!

Now I have a new nozzle and extruder's screw, but again I can hear this sound during the printing! I thought maybe it's because of very close distance between the nozzle and the bed, but when I increase the distance, the filament starts to warping!

My nozzle is new and it can't be for clogging. so I decreased the print speed from it's default 60mm(in Cura software) to 50, but didn't solve this sound. Also when I use pronterface and do extrusion manually, it works nice with 200 degrees! but I can hear the sound in 190 degrees. But when I do printing I hear the sound even in 200 degrees! Is this mean I must increase the temperature for printing? how much?

By knocking sound I mean the sound you can hear when you have a clogged nozzle and the extruder's stepper motor can't push the filament into it and rotates with knocking sound!

The extruder motor may be skipping steps because of insufficient current. Typically, the stepper driver will have a small potentiometer that lets you increase or decrease the current. Increasing the current will give the motor more torque/force, but also cause it (and the driver) to heat up more.


Flashing a bootloader on Ender 3 without Arduino I just order myself an Ender 3 Pro which will come by the end of the week.
Before it arrives I want to be ready to flash a bootloader onto it.

I was wondering what other options there are to flashing except using an Arduino?

I have a bunch of ESP8266/ESP32 and a USB to TTL. Would it be possible to use these somehow instead of an Arduino to flash a bootloader to the Ender 3?
Or should I just go buy an Arduino?

What you need to is called a ICSP or ISP: in-circuit serial programmer or in-system programmer, which excludes the USB to TTL device you own.

I've never used an ESP8266 as ICSP but it seems there are some resources out there reporting it is possible.
If you want to go the easiest way probably you want to buy an Arduino and follow the tons of tutorials out there, if you are looking to save some money then you might get around buying an ICSP like the very well known USBASP (just Google for that).


How can I calculate volumetric speed for Slic3r auto speed? I have noticed that Slic3r offers a speed setting called "auto speed" meant to give a constant filament pressure at the extruder, which I believe could eliminate filament grinding issues at higher printing speeds.

According to the tooltip in Slic3r, auto speed is calculated from two parameters:

Maximum speed
Maximum volumetric speed

Maximum speed speaks for itself, but how can I calculate the maximum volumetric speed of my print?

Auto speed is calculated from maximum volumetric speed in mm3 per second. If you normally print at 80 mm/s, your extrusion width is 0.5 mm and you are printing 0.2mm high layers, your volumetric speed would be 80 * 0.5 * 0.2 = 8 mm3/s, which is the volume of plastic extruded by your printer every second when printing at that speed (not accounting for any die swell).


PID autotune fails with a temp too high Working on upgrading my Ender 3 to a dual extruder setup using the Winsinn dual hot end and MKS Base V1.6 motherboard using Marlin FW 2.0.5 and am unable to get the PID autotune to work. When I start the autotune, the temperature spikes pretty quickly and quickly fails, either heating to 60 °C or 200 °C (M303 C5 E0 S60) for either hot end (E0 or E1). After looking through other online messages, I used 24 V heater cartridges rather than the 12 V ones that came with the hot end. Aditionally, I have the thermisistor settings to use config 6 (rather than 1) after reading through user recommendations on the hot end. After failing to get the hotend to heat properly, I have the following questions:

Should I try reducing the current to the cartridge? Currently set to default of 255?
Are there any other PID changes I should make to allow the autotune to figure out the right parameters to use?
Are there any other tests recommended to figure out why the hot end heats without being stopped by Marlin?

Here is a chart showing the temperatures of the hotends and bed while running autotune on T0 and T1. Weird gap in second attempt was verifying that the right sensor was plugged into the right mainboard pin (no power going to hot end at this time).

Thermistor settings:

#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 6
#define TEMP_SENSOR_1 6

As the heating curve is very steep, it could be that the wrong cartridges are inserted, or you have been supplied the incorrect cartridges. (Not long ago I've had a similar experience with a 12 V cartridge in between my 24 V spares...)
To find out for which voltage the cartridge has to be used you can measure the resistance with a multitester/multimeter. You can calculate the resistance roughly by using the formulas:
$$ U = I \times R$$
$$ P = {U}\times{I} $$
Combing these formulas gives:
$$ R = \frac{U^2}{P}$$
(P is power in Watt [W], I is current [A], U is voltage [V] and R is the resistance in Ohm [Ω])
Your multimeter readings should be close to the calculated values. About 4 Ohms for a 12 V/40 W cartridge and about 14 Ohms for a 24 V/40 W cartridge.
Since the Ender 3 is running on 24 V, you need the higher resistance cartridges.

If you are using a 4 Ω (12 V/40 W) cartridge on 24 V, the power would become:
$$ P = \frac{U^2}{R}= \frac{24^2}{4}=144\ {W} $$
This amount of power will quickly raise the temperature of the nozzle! It then becomes very difficult for the PID control schedule to harness that power (e.g. overshoot control).
From the question is read that:

I used 24 V heater cartridges rather than the 12 V ones that came with the hot end

If the cartridges are truly 24 V this rapid heat-up is not expected, it could be that you accidentally received incorrect cartridges, you should measure the resistance to be sure.


Functional object in low poly - program and tutorial I'm losing my mind, it all started out with the idea of a project where I want an abstract shape (I'm going to call it a stretched cube with an angle), now I know a bit of Vectorworks - a 3D/Architecture drawing program. I found nothing in all the tutorials how to make something low poly but still be able to for example screw the bottom of with a thread for example.

I found numerous shapes I like on Thingiverse but they are all STL files which I've learned so far are hard to edit and make them functionally usable when cross transferring them for one to another program.

Today I gave it another try to find other programs which can give me the result and functionality I want. Thus far I've only found program where you make the shape perfectly and then by using a mesh program like 123make and Meshmixer to then change the outcome of the rendering. But in my case this makes some parts unable to use anymore as example the threading?

So for the question I their a program which I can make a low poly shape (example below) where I still can add holes and threading like you can do with AutoCAD, Vectorworks.

I hope somebody knows how to do this I've been searching and asking around for weeks!!

This is an example of the type of shape I would like to create, Low poly vase - mine would be exactly the same but it would be to give you an idea

Example of the thread I would like to implement in the shape above, Tap and Die for 3D printed threads

Yes, you can accomplish threading easily with something like 3Ds Max, Blender, Maya etc. I use Maya personally so, in Maya, all you have to do is:

Create a cylinder. This will be the main body of your 'screw'.
To make the thread, you need to create a helix primitive. You can edit the number of coils and the coil thickness in the Maya GUI.
Once you have the thread, it is a simple matter of performing a couple of boolean operations. The first boolean (union) operation will unite the screw made in step 1 with the thread made in step 2. The second boolean (subtract) operation will cut out the thread from the object within which you want your screw to be driven into. When you print the two models, you should find that the screw nicely turns into the object from which you cut out the thread.

The point is: yes, it is easy to do such things in most 3D software packages. Maya comes with a nice selection of default objects you can use, so essentially you need to do no 'modeling' yourself to create something like the example you showed us.

Your next question, about editing models on Thingiverse. The reason why you cannot edit them easily is because most models there have been decimated and triangulated, which makes them very difficult to reshape or edit because the topology is no longer strictly manifold -- it is just a big mess of triangles!

If you want to edit Thingiverse models, I recommend something like ZBrush. You can import triangulated models and then rebuild the geometry into quads (using DynaMesh, for example), which you can then edit to your liking. Once done, you can simply decimate and re-export as STL or whatever extension you need.

Finally, low/high poly is not so relevant in 3D print outs, especially in mechanically functioning parts. This is because most models are created in high resolution (high polygon count) and then decimated + triangulated down to truncate file sizes. But the functionality and physical feel of the model should not change due to this process - it just takes practice and lots of experimentation.

Hope this helps :)

Hassan


Curing a resin print After a resin print completes, what is the expected process to finish the print? Is some cleaning expected? I also some manufacturers sell UV chambers to cure the print surface, is this required?
I purchased a low-cost printer from China that is quite high-quality hardware, but sadly short on documentation. Insight on the proper post-print process is appreciated.

Yes
You need to do a two-step post-processing:
Washing
This is basically as easy as taking the print and dropping it into a vat of Isopropyl alcohol and vigorously shaking it to get all the liquid resin off. Careful, the resulting contaminated IPA is to be treated as toxic waste.
The reason why you wash the print is to make sure no resin stays on it and cures, distorting the print or altering the measurements.
Post-Print-curing
The next step is just having the item sit in UV light to cure thoroughly, which means either having it sit outside in sunlight or under a UV lamp. Under sunlight, it might take a few hours, under a UV lamp, it depends on how thick the object is and you might need to turn and rotate the printed part. Note that some resins, especially transparent ones, can change their coloration when exposed to sunlight, both during or after curing.
Curing is done to ensure all the resin is fully cured and get the full stiffness out of the print - sometimes prints are still somewhat malleable before giving them time to cure.


Resin types: Water Soluble vs PLA With resin LCD printers (not filament!), what are the considerations to choose between PLA and "water soluble"? Microcenter carries resins from esun in these two types, and their spec sheets indicate that tyhe water-soluble type has higher tensile strength and other mechanical properties. Which leads me to wonder, under what circumstances one selects PLA then?

First of all, let's look at what the filaments are:
PLA & PVA Filaments
Normal PLA and Water-soluble PVA contain for the most part the material on the tin, its precursors, and possibly some modifiers. These are only suitable for thermoplastic processes like injection molding or  FDM/FFF (Filament deposition modeling/Fused Filament Fabrication) printers - the finished polymer can't be made back into a UV-curable resin easily. Both materials are chemically rather well bonded and are not very reactive at all. They are biodegradable and not a lot of toxic waste. PLA needs very strong chemicals such as dichlormethane to go into solution, but PVA is water-soluble.
Resin
Almost no cured resin (as in post-polymerized) is water-soluble, your webshop might have a misnomer as it meant to write the proper name: water-washable, which is meant to reflect the ability to put the unpolymerized monomers into solution in water.
eResin
eSun offers an eResin-PLA-Bio-Photopolymer, which is similar to PLA, but it is not the same material you get for an FDM printer. You see this most easily by checking the density and the MSDS: Real PLA has a density of 1.21–1.43 g/cm³, eResin (as the bottles are labeled) has a density of merely 1.07-1.13 g/cm³. This is a totally different material in the bottle! It is most likely a resin mix that is based on lactic acid monomers and a UV-active acid that can bond the monomers, creating a structure that does contain lactic acid groups and the binder - but most certainly it is not chemically identical to PLA. It contains, according to the MSDS, Polyurethane acrylate as the 'binder', 1,6-Hexanediol diacrylate Monomers, and about 10 % photo inhibitors and pigments. The main selling point seems to be, that comparable to PLA, it would be made from a renewable source to a larger part. The chemical reaction that leads to the completed resin is a question I have pitched on Chemistry.SE.
It needs to be cleaned with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) or another organic solvent like any standard resin and you are not allowed to rinse the material into the sewer: it is classed as a LONG-TERM AQUATIC HAZARD - Category 4 and its MSDS contains:

Solubility：Soluble in ethanol, ethyl acetate, benzene and other organic solvents, insoluble in water

water-washable eSun Resin
eSun offers no water-soluble resin at all, they offer a water washable resin, which means that it is supposed to be less toxic than standard resin and safe to rinse effectively without IPA, creating less toxic waste in the process. The MSDS for this is not (yet)) available so I can't evaluate this. However, I have requested the MSDS for the evaluation of safety procedures needed and hope to hear back from them soon. This resin is most certainly not PVA, but it seems to be chemically somewhat similar to their other resins.


Anet A6 heat bed stopped working Just last night the heat bed stopped working. It was fine up to 75 % of the print, then when it was done the bed was not on anymore. The display said it was set to 50 °C, but it was at 18 °C. I did try moving the pins, and that is not loose (very simple thing to try).

I want to know what could have happened and what to look for when I try to fix the heat bed.

Please note: I do have a multi-meter. I do not use a MOSFET (I do have plans to install on)

Upon further investigation, I tested the mother board for any voltage were the bed hooks up and there is nothing. I had the printer trying to heat the bed when I was testing. But the thermistor is working, when I unhooked the connection the thermistor went to 0 °C, when plugged in it went to 18 °C.

Is it the motherboard? How can I fix this knowing no power is being supplied to the bed from the motherboard? Do I need a new motherboard?

This is a shot in the dark, but the vast majority of problems with a heating bed stopping to work is usually at the cables/connectors interface.

This is because in printers like the A6, the cable/connector is subject to constant mechanical stress, and - since metal fatigue is a thing - either the solder or the cable core cracks.

You should make good use of your tester to verify the integrity of the circuit in the bed and if it is not toasted you should be able to just repair the connection.

For many printers there exist "strain relief mods" to prevent this type of failure to happen.  The first one showing up for the A6 is a full chain, but normally is enough the have a small enclosure for the connector like this one for the CR-10.


Unknown issue affecting print quality I have been having issues with a vase print using a FlashForge Creator Pro.
I am using the default slicer for the printer(FlashPrint) because the Creator Pro only accepts .x3g rather than .g/.gcode.

The issue is that the printer seems to be both under extruding and over extruding.

I am printing ASA filament at 0.18 mm layer height at 240 °C with a heated bed at 110 °C. I am running the print with the fan on. I am also running at 80 mm/s print speed.

I have tried both lowering and raising the temperature, changing the print speed from 80 mm/s to 60 mm/s, and changing the extrusion multiplier.

At this point I am not really sure what to do in order to get this to print nicely, any advice would be welcome.

After a few more prints and the link that "E-Doe" posted I am beginning to think that the problem might be with the z-axis. My reason for thinking this is that the layers that bulge out do so consistently for the entire layer and then stop for a bit. I think I also ruled out temperature variation. I measured the temperature in the enclosure with a separate device and it stayed pretty constant the whole time.

Not really sure how to fix that but I will call this question answered.

A very helpful page for troubleshooting common errors is: Print Quality Troubleshooting Guide - Lines on the Side of Print

It seems like your problem is inconsistent extrusion or temperature variation. From the photo you posted I guess that you use a big diameter nozzle. Keep in mind that your extruder might not be well equipped to deliver such a large amount of plastic consistently. This most likely is a problem with the heating capacity.

You can try to lower the speed even more to give your extruder more time to heat the plastic.


Printed 2 Sided Object? Apologies, I'm a EE designer and software guy.  We've been CNC'ing prototypes, and my office just bought a very cheap 3D printer.

I'm using Cura as recomended, and wanted to print a piece that has features on both sides.

Here is a screenshot of each side.

So if you laid one side flat, you see how there is a subtractive portion underneath it?

Is there a way to 3D print an object like this, and keep the details on each side?

UPDATE
I copied some Cura settings from guys and basically tipped this thing to a 45 degree.  Here are the results.  Pretty good!  The finish has some zits and pops, but the surface details are quite accurate enough to fit a PCB board in there with confidence.

You can print it laying flat on the bed with supports. It will be very laborious to clean up, but it will probably work. supports usually are thin enough to strip away, but they leave marks which you need to cut off to get a clean result.

You can also buy a printer with dual extruders and then use dissolvable supports. That would probably be easier to clean up and provide a cleaner result.

If you're using PLA to print, you might get away with turning up the part cooling fan to the maximum level and hope for the best. Overhangs are very much prone to dropping though. I'm not sure if a stock MP Select mini will get the job done. You might want to consider an upgrade to the part cooling fan. You can look for fan duct related upgrades which allow you to mount bigger fans on Thingiverse

With PETG you can possibly get away with longer overhangs, as it cools quicker. However, PETG is much harder to print well, as it's much more prone to stringing, which can cause issues like artifacts and clogging.

All in all I'd start out with getting a good benchy before you start on engineering projects. This will make sure that you have your printer calibrated to perform for your chosen filament. Every brand and type has their own quirks and differences, so you'll have to fine tune your settings to get the best result.

A CNC-like finish will not be easy to achieve. A CNC type finish will be unachievable without extensive post processing if you're using supports. In any case, getting a good finish requires some practice with finding the right settings for your filament.

Learn how to print and to get your printer dialled in to achieve the required result, which, in the case of it having to be CNC-like, is quite high-end. The fact you're laying down filament means that you'll be able to see lines, even at top quality. Maybe this guide will help you get on your way.

Getting a $1000 printer mainly inproves reliability of the print. The quality of the print is in the skill of dialling in the right settings in your slicer for a given filament choice, plus recognising the type of supports necessary. This takes practice to achieve.


Is nozzle no longer heating up correctly related to hotend insulation being pulled off? The insulation of the heater block got pulled off...
I was trying to print ABS on my TEVO Tornado, overnight. But I not-so-smartly left the window open overnight, thinking it was alright (as to remove the fumes) but then it warped so much that it pulled off the insulation of the hotend.
It is no longer heating up to over 200 degrees Celcius. It starts showing a message saying PRINTER HALTED: PLEASE RESET Should I just re-insulate it? if I should, what do I use for insulation?

Yes I had this same problem myself.
You will need to re-insulate it using a silicone block and next time don't leave the window open while printing. Just keep the fan or AC on to circulate the air.


Strange vertical lines on X-axis direction of parts This one is turning out to be a real head-scratcher. I'm running a stock Creality CR-10S and there seems to be a single line approx 45° across the print on the X-axis direction.
I have attached images to better explain. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In your slicer check your z-seam overlap. Lines like that are what happens when a slicer is systematically trying to hide a seam while not adding a ton of time onto the print by adding in a bunch of additional time for travel.


Bicycle air pump project Is a home 3D printer capable of printing a good bicycle air pump?

I've searched the Internet and there is very limited info on it. Things need to be rigid and very minutious in the valve part of the pump. I could give an example of what I thought in the image

depends
You certainly can print parts of a bicycle pump, for example, the outer case and maybe the inner piston, maybe even the housing for the connection valves.
However, you cant print the buffer spring or the valves itself. You will have trouble printing the adapters. And you will have to print in ABS to smooth the inside of your pump with acetone vapor, so you have a smooth surface that forms an air seal under operation.
It would be cheaper and more durable to just print just the fittings and use a PVC Pipe as the cylinder itself.
As in all things, if this is a good pump depends a lot on design and your machine.


What is acceptable voltage drop from PSU to controller? My voltage at the controller at max load is ~11.4 V
(heated bed + motors + hotend). Is this normal?

I'm measuring 11.8 V at the PSU, so 0.4 V -> 5 W lost in the wires.

I have a pretty beefy ~2 mm diameter copper wire that's ~1 m long. Its area is 2.5 mm2. The diameter with shielding is 3.5 mm.

Could there be a bad connection somewhere?

Checked the wire is warm to touch, so looks like it's actually the cause.
Is this normal? Should I go for even bigger wires?

Regardless of how the voltage is lowered, you aren't delivering the power to the heating elements that they are designed to deliver.  For a resistive heater, the power scales with the square of the voltage.

Delivering 11.4 V to the heaters will result in the power being $11.4^2/12.0^2 = 0.9025$ or 90 % of the intended power.

There are two things you could do to increase the power at the heaters.

Your voltage is starting out low, which you may be able to increase
at the power supply to 12.0 V.
The voltage drop in the 1-meter cables can be reduced by using
shorter cables or larger cross-sectional area conductors.  13 gauge
is not a very heavy wire for low-voltage high-current DC.  I would
suggest 10 gauge, and would prefer 8 gauge.

The logic in the controller board should be fine as you are now.  Controller boards include regulators that being the nominal 12 V down to the 5 V or 3.3 V required by the digital logic.  These will automatically adjust for changes in the 12 V supply.

To actually answer your question, the permitted voltage drop is application dependent.  As a rule, though, I would suggest that the voltage on the pins of the controller should be 12 ± 5 %, or from 12.6 V to 11.4 V.  The voltage you measured should be acceptable if it is the true minimum voltage.


Are there any non-static (ESD safe) materials to print with? I am attempting to replace an SFX power supply of my computer with a PicoPSU. I would like to manufacture a plate to fill the vacant place and to pass through the power lead, and maybe host a power switch and a 60 mm fan.

The thing is, I need to have a material that is ESD safe, i.e. does not collect static electricity. Meaning that the conductivity should be somewhere between 10^(-4)and 10^(-9) if plastic. And also a material that can take screws. So, a metal or some kind of conductive plastic.

Question is, are there any known ones?

If I will seek out to buy or borrow a 3D printer, I need it to support this choice of material.

Yes there are ESD Compatible filament materials.  One manufacturer is 3dxtech.
There are also filament materials that are even more conductive than that.
Pretty much all rigid filaments can "take screws".  You can either have a hole that and let the screw self thread or tap the threads into the hole.  A better option is often to press a threaded insert into a hole.
The bigger question is why do you need this?  Are you trying to prevent ESD.  If so, why, are there ESD sensitive components?  If so, just make sure proper spacing is provided.  If you are trying to manage electrical emissions/susceptibility, there might be better solutions such as a coating.


Polypropylene Bed Adhesion I recently upgraded to a Polypropylene print bed, but I haven't actually been able to complete a print.

Adhesion seems incredibly inconsistent, even on the same spot. Sometimes it goes down great, and sometimes it just curls up and clumps on the nozzle. I even cranked the temp up to 220 °C for the PLA and 70 °C for the bed in an effort to get it to stick for an initial layer, and it still isn't sticking.

Any tips? I've been cleaning with rubbing alcohol, but I don't know if there's any trick. Clean when hot? Cold? Let sit after cleaning before using? Is it just a matter of incredibly precise bed leveling?

If you are using PLA, 200 for the extruder sticks the best for me.  The other issue with adhesion is the greater the difference between the extruder temperature and the bed the poorer adhesion. There are other things can help with this.  Using a higher bed temperature for the first layer can help.  A slower extrusion speed allows the extrusion to cool more before getting as long of a length to for the contraction force; thus improving adhesion.


Heater cartridge extension wiring I recently bought a Titan Aero hot end which came with a 24 V 30 W heater cartridge from E3D.  I'd like to use this but the cable length is only 1 meter long and I need it to be 2 meters.  The ends terminate with prong connections and there is no polarity to the prongs.  How can I safely extend the leads one meter and then connect to my Duet 3 Mainboard 6HC?
Should the cable terminate with a JST connector instead of the prongs to connect to the Duet board?

Heater polarity doesn't matter
The heater cartridges are just large resistors and so polarity is irrelevant. Either can be positive or negative.
You can extend the leads by cutting and splicing in ~20 gauge wires* to a two pin JST connector line you suggest.

*At 24 volts and 30 watts, you need wire that is rated to carry at least 1.25 amps. The US National Electric Code dictates that this should be 20 gauge wire, but their standard is very conservative. Since you don't need to adhere to NEC codes, you could get away with something thinner (ie higher gauge number).


Issue crashing Z-axis when I home X or Y axes I'm just getting started in 3D printing by rebuilding an old machine from scratch updating firmware etc. It is all wired up and I am calibrating and completing tuning before a first print.
I am having a weird problem in that when I click "home X" button in Pronterface, my dual Z axes steppers move in the +Z direction and crash. If I home Z via Pronterface, the Z-axis behaves correctly (moves in -Z direction until it bumps off the limit switch). I am using an MKS GEN L V1.0 board and Marlin v1.1.9
If I move thr Z-axis via Pronterface in the +Z direction, it moves as expected. Both Y and X axes also seem to work okay and respond to commands normally via Pronterface.
Sending a G28 X command also results in a Z-axis activation and crash.
Sending a G28 Y command has the same result.
Any ideas on how to resolve this?

Found the issue with help here! My Z-axis homing height was not set - I set it to 4 mm but found that the Z movement is way off (actual Z movement is more like 15 cm!).
I will update to the latest firmware as suggested.


Second layer: gaps, poor adhesion - why? I'm seeing the following pattern on my Prusa clone:

The first layer prints OK, layer adhesion to the bed is good. The second layer shows the weird gaps. On larger pieces, or with an increased feed rate, it sometimes gets so bad that parts of the second layer detach and are dragged across the print. I get the impression that this effect is worse when printing in the "top left to bottom right" direction, but not as bad when printing in the "top right to bottom left" direction.

This occurs with multiple filaments and materials. I've already tried to manipulate the flow rate, temperatures and print speed, but gotten little improvement if any.

What might be causing this issue?

I wouldn't describe that as an "OK" first layer. The nozzle is either too far from the bed, or you're underextruding. Underextrusion also looks like the cause of your second layer problems.


Large flat ABS print curling during cooldown I am printing a large flat print, approximately 8" x 4" x 1/8". It has good adhesion when printing and lays flat when finished. I allow the print to cool slowly but the center of the print bows upward 1/16"-1/8". It bows in both directions but more noticeably in the longer direction. The corners are not curling up this is the center of the print lifting.

I started printing at 25% infill but have tried 100%. 100% bows less but still bows. This does not happen with PLA or PETG. 100% fill was printed with no fan. 25% printed with no fan for first layers and fan at 40% after.

Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening?

Printer: Lulzbot TAZ 5 w/ 0.5mm hotend in sealed enclosure. Heated bed at 115C, extruer at 240C. Environmental temperatures are 30-37C depending on the stage of the print. Hotter as it continues.

Follow Up Questions:

What is the ideal environmental printing temperature for ABS?
If a part were reheated could an existing arch be corrected?

Update: Build Plate Thermal Images w/plate set @ 115C

Short Answer: Make the environment temperature is a bit warmer to offset the cooling rate.

Long Answer

All materials shrink as they cool, but some materials shrink at a much higher rate than others. This is primarily driven by temperature coefficients and thermal conductivity of the individual materials. There are calculators available online that you can get more involved with discovering how this works mathematically.

However, in layman's terms, the temperature between your build plate and the first layers of plastic are so drastically different, that at a certain point the plastic becomes under tension as it shrinks faster/more than the build plate. Over time, since the surface tension between the part and the build plate is no longer in the way, the corner can continue to shrink.

Here are some options:

Ensure your build plate temperatures are correct acceptable. I've had success with 112C in NW United States. Increasing the temperature will be an attempt to bridge the gap between BP temps and plastic temps during the final cool-down.
Search for ways to "anchor" the part to the build plate. There are lots of resources on the internet on how to do this, so I'll spare you the list.
Increase your environment temperature. I highly suggest this because it can help reduce other errors you might encounter throughout the printing process, such as de-lamination, warping, brittleness, etc. I'm not recommending placing a space heater next to your printer (really, don't do that!), but perhaps even a space heater in the room can help regulate the environment temperature a bit better.
Consider other environment variables. Consider things like "Is my printer next to a window?", "Do I live in a particularly cold environment in general?", or even "Am I baking cookies in the next room?". A lot of these seemingly meaningless variables play an important role in ensuring quality prints.

(I know there's more, so I'll add onto this answer a bit more as I remember them)


Beginner in calibrating HE3D Prusa XI3 This is my first time calibrating my printer and I'm not sure where to start. The printer is running Repetier v0.91 firmware that came on the SD card that came with the printer.

Anyway, the question I have is where do I start calibrating and how would I go about it? I have read on Google many ways and it seems there are different opinions. I am reading this at the moment: RepRap Wiki - Calibration.

There's a great tutorial here on youtube.

And personally my favourite is this tutorial.


Print contaminated by chips of previous filament colors I have a flashforge creator dual.

From time to time while printing a model I notice when there are abrupt changes in direction, that a few "Grains" of old filament fall out from the head.  Generally they end up embedded in the print which is not a big deal, but sometimes they get into a visible portion.

I can mitigate this somewhat by disassembling down to the gears, and blowing out all of the old filament.

My question is two fold
"What is causing these chips to accumulate near the gears?"

"Is there something I can do to resolve this issue?"

My bet is your extruder knurls are scratching the filament. If it happens for specific filament then probably it doesn't keep its diameter. It means you can avoid these grains by using better filament.

If it happens always then you could do 3 things

reduce stress on the spring which pushes filament to extruder gear
make extruder gear less sharp
eventually change the great itself


3D printing a cardboard box Is there an FDM 3D printing material that looks similar to a cardboard box? I guess, and understand, it would not be possible to 3D print a cardboard box but would there be something similar?

The closest thing you will find is Woodfill plastic. As time goes on we are seeing more and more PLA that is infused with other materials. Woodfill will look and feel like waxy wood. We are pretty used to seeing fiber boards and the like so this will not come off as odd. However it is not quite cardboard, except that it is also a wood product. It will also smell of wood.

Here is a close up of a beyond exceptional wood fill printed piece. There is also other types of wood fill including bamboo.

I mean if you want Cardboard.. Why not a laser cutter? While you can get a MUCH cheaper laser cutter, the glowforge comes to mind.


Which firmware to use on printer settings for DIY printer I have a 3D printer that I built using CD-ROM drives. It's all set and ready to go but when I generate .stl or .obj files my G-code sender program cannot load it. I have found that Slic3r will export the .stl into G-code but it has the option of changing the G-code flavour, or firmware.

My machine is running from an Arduino Uno with Grbl v0.8.

So the question is, which firmware setting would be appropriate for my machine that would require the least amount of editing before I can print?

Unless you can find a slicer that explicitly supports grbl, you will need to check the G-code specification and see which common flavour is closest to what grbl supports. The RepRap Wiki includes grbl in it's compatibility chart, but it has question marks against a lot of entries for grbl.

The other alternative is to slice a very simple model and see what commands are issued by the slicer, and whether they are supported by grbl.

Note that there is a question as to whether grbl supports FDM printing technology, i.e. 3D printers that use filament. Most slicers are designed to work with FDM printers, and will expect to be controlling at least one extruder. If your printer does not have an extruder that is controlled via G-code, you may encounter real difficulties generating G-code for it using commonly-available slicers.

RepRap Wiki: G-code


Zonestar Extruder motor does not work - what can I check? While this may seem like terribly noobish question, I'm sure one day someone will have same problem.

I own a ZONESTAR P802QSU (Bowden extruder) and all of sudden my extruder motor stopped working. What I did:

I check whether or not motor is moving freely - I can rotate it without any problems manually.
I checked out cable and plugs - everything seems OK.
I checked whether motor is working after plugging it into another slot in motherboard - motor works fine.
I checked if another motor works after plugging it into same slot on mainboard - and it does not.

It would seem that there is something wrong with E0-mot driver module, or with socket. I'm however totally at loss about what can I do with any of those. I do not have any electronic equipment except multimeter, and voltage on motor seems fine(11.3V between red and black, I guess V+ and ground). It sometimes seemed to get lower, but I'm almost sure it is my trembling hands.

After some googling, I started checking A4988 stepper driver with my multimeter. VDD was ~5V and VMOT around 12V, so it seems to work at least in this way.

What can I do, to see what is broken? Visually nothing looks like it burned out, but I'm fully aware it may not be visible.

Good investigation there!  You are almost certainly correct that a driver chip has gone blooey.  Personally I doubt it's worth the effort to locate and repair, rather than buying a new, trustworthy board.

I recommend this approach because one blown chip may well have caused (or been caused by) unrecognized damage elsewhere, which might then lead to future failures.


StoneFlower3D - how to pause a print? I've been trying to make a paste extruder and I came across StoneFlower3D. In their site, they mentioned about a feature called Infinite Printing. Please see page number 25 of this document.

They're only using Step, Dir, Enable and GND from main controller and there's not a serial connection with the controller.

Anyone have idea about how they're doing it?

The extruder is connected to 3d printer mainboard as a stepper driver.
That said it is not using standard stepper motor output, but it is fed directly from CPU digital pins.

Please see OP reference manual.

The extruder has theability to self-feed (load filament) - so that is the reason of kit/printer switches - see pic 1.
Then pausing a print to feed the clay tank need to be executed from printer (pause print) and then operated locally in the kit mode.

if get your comments well - pic below gives an overview how to connect it to rams - see manual for details


Laser cutting on RepRap I have seen some lasers attached to the RepRap platform for cutting but most seem to be cutting paper, balsa wood, or merely etching.  If I were wanting to build a platform for cutting wood, similar to the wood framed or boxed 3D printers on the market, what power laser would I need for that?  I assume that a lower powered laser would have to travel slower but going too slow would add the possibility of catching the wood on fire (not good).

Please do not go down this road. First, not all lasers are equally absorbed by the material and the energy converted to heat to vaporize the material. The light not absorbed is reflected right back into your eyes. This is especially dangerous because it doesn't make you go blind instantly, fooling you into thinking there is no harm. You got the other part right, the lower the laser power, the less turned to heat, the longer it takes to cut, the longer you risk exposure to your eyes. That's right, a low powered laser is MORE dangerous than a big one. Next, the only way to properly cut is with air assist. This means a stream of air blows away the vaporized material so the laser can keep cutting deeper. This also prevents fires. The thing we haven't even touched is a proper safety enclosure, proper bed design to not reflect the laser beam back into the laser killing it and your eyes, and finally smoke/particle exhaust.

Simply put, these cheapo DIY lasers are dangerous, and are also illegal.


How to remove a resin print stuck to the FEP tray bottom With a resin printer, the print will occasionally adhere to the bottom sheet of the resin tray (the FEP transparent sheet), instead of the stainless print plate.
How does one remove the failed print from the FEP sheet without causing damage?

Wash the resin tray in the normal way, with hot water and dish soap. Once the FEP sheet is warm, run a finger alongside the bottom of the sheet, opposite the side where the failed print is stuck. The slight warping of the FEP sheet will cause the print to come loose. If this does not occur the first time, try again. Proceed patiently and delicately, making sure to wait for the FEP sheet to be sufficiently warm.


PLA wood filament: a special treatment? PLA wood has a beautiful natural texture that I wanted to try. But when I used it in my second print, it clogged the nozzle (solved). I know this filament is composed of 70 % PLA and 30 % recycled pine wood fibers.

Are there special indications for this kind of filament?
Should I modify the temperature, or other settings?

PLA and wood fibres = wood filament
Most wood filamet consists of about 60-70 % PLA and 40-30 % wood fibres. This basically implies that PLA temperatures should be used. It can be printed with standard 0.4 mm nozzles, but it is adviced to be printed with a larger diameter nozzle. A larger nozzle will less likely to cause nozzles to clog (more area for the fibres to pass through).
Basic printing advice
Start experimenting with relatively large layer heights (0.25-0.3 mm layer heights). Printing speeds should be held high to ensure relative short residence times in the hot end (in the range 50-80 mm/s). Short residence times prevent   degradation by heat resulting in clogging. It is best for wood fibres filled filaments to not have the filament to stagnate (e.g. pausing). A higher retraction speed and distance might be needed because the filament usually is a little more runny compared to plain PLA.
Beware
After printing, you should retract the filament from the hotend so that during next printing jobs heat up cycle, the filament doesn't degrade and clogs the nozzle. Alter the end script G-code and also use priming scripts at the start and/or do not forget to use a large skirt of multiple lines or a considerable length. As always, you shouldn't leave the printer unattended, regularly check the printer and shut down the printer when there is something wrong, e.g. not extruding. Also note that wood filled filament is reported to be abrasive to brass nozzles, a (hardened) steel nozzle or a Ruby nozzle should mitigate wear problems.
Basic settings
These settings have proven to work, but are not a guarantee, these settings should provide a reference to start experimenting on your own printer:

Temperature: 190-205 °C
Layerheight: 0.25 mm
Speed: 50 mm/s
Minimal layertime: 8 s
Bowden type extruder

Retraction speed: 40 mm/s
Retraction distance: 5.5 mm

Direct extruder

Retraction speed: 25 mm/s
Retraction distance: 1.3 mm


Query advantages of OctoPrint I have read that if I disconnect OctoPrint when printing, the print will stop.  Since I thought the advantage of OctoPrint over, say, printing from Cura, was that it didn't tie up the computer while the print was taking place, what are the advantages of OctoPrint?

I have read that if I disconnect OctoPrint when printing, the print will stop.

You can disconnect your computer from the OctoPrint server while printing and the print will continue just fine. You cannot disconnect the OctoPrint server from the printer without interrupting the print, of course.

Since I thought the advantage of OctoPrint over, say, printing from Cura, was that it didn't tie up the computer while the print was taking place, what are the advantages of OctoPrint?

The advantage (the one you're talking about, anyway) of printing via OctoPrint (which you can also do via Cura, btw) is that you don't have to tie up the computer that you're using for other things. You run OctoPrint on some other computer that can stay connected to the printer. Typically, a Raspberry Pi is used; they're cheap (~$30), and there's an OctoPi distribution that's practically a turnkey solution.
Other advantages of OctoPrint include:

stores your .stl files, either on the print server or on the printer's SD card
enables remote monitoring, including a webcam feed
lets you control your printer from any device with a web browser
provides a plugin mechanism (and a large variety of plugins) to extend its capabilities


What kind of colors should I use to paint my PLA prints? I'd like to paint my prints, which I printed using white PLA, with some colors. I have no idea what type of paint should stick to PLA well. I need paint that will not be soluble in water and will stick good enough.

What kinds of paints do people use to paint PLA prints?

Fortunately, PLA accepts many types of paints, most common of them is acrylic paint.
Acrylic is water-soluble until it dries, then it becomes water-resistant.

Depending on the goal you plan to achieve, different types of paints can be used - oil paint, already mentioned acrylic, enamels or lacquers.

Keeping in mind that manufacturers may present different types of plastic under the same 'PLA' brand, it is always good idea to try selected type of paint on a print sample to ensure that it sticks well enough and not melts the print too much at the same time.


How to rotate camera using mjpg-streamer-experimental? I've successfully installed mjpg-streamer-experimental from here I just can't figure out how to set the parameter I need in order to rotate my camera 180 degrees (I have my webcam mounted upside down for a custom mount I made).

I'm using a Logitech C270. I've been searching online for hours for a solution to this issue and just can't find what I'm looking for. Doesn't help that I'm not very proficient when it comes to this stuff.

Would really appreciate some help!

Edit: Having now installed Octopi myself, I have found that they made it easy to rotate the image right from the interface. If you open the "Settings" and look under "Webcam & Timelapse", there are settings for flipping the image horizontally or vertically and for rotating 90 degrees.

There are a few ways to rotate the image of which I am aware. You can do it via the input plugin, the client, or post-processing.

The "input_uvc" and "input_raspicam" plugins both have options to rotate the image. If you are using one of these plugins see the documentation at input_uvc or input_raspicam (it is worth noting that the input options may not be supported by all cameras). You should be able to run the command like the following to get a stream that is rotated 180 degrees:

  mjpg_streamer -i 'input_uvc.so -rot 180'

I'm not sure how you are handling the stream, but it is possible that your client can perform the rotation. For example, if you are using VLC you can set the angle of rotation by doing something like this:

Open the “Tools” menu and select “Effects and Filters”
In the “Adjustments and Effects” window, on the “Video Effects” tab, select the “Transform” check box
Select a rotation from the dropdown menu and then click “Close”.

Finally, if you are saving the stream and are only concerned with rotating it afterwards, you can post-process it with a utility like ffmpeg. See this post as an example and look for "Rotate" in the accepted answer.

If your stream is being rendered via a browser you may be able to add some CSS3 formatting to the video element. For example, you could add an ID of "videoElement" to the stream and then add the following to your CSS:

  #videoElement {

transform: rotateZ(180deg);
-webkit-transform:rotateZ(180deg); /* Safari and Chrome */
-moz-transform:rotateZ(180deg); /* Firefox */

  }


When leveling hotend always slams into bed? If the hot-end is at ~0 on the Z axis and I go to level it, as it approaches X = 0 it begins scraping along the bed, then when moving back to probe the center of the bed (after homing X to 0) it will scrape the bed again.

I want to add a glass plate but am worried this aggressive homing will smash the glass. How can I fix it? The printer auto-levels and runs Marlin.

I realised the simplest fix for this shortly after posting the question. In either your slicer or your printer controller (I use octoprint, so I added this there) add to the starting G-code something to lift the head so that it is above the point it is scraping across.

For example, change your starting G-code from something like:

G28 ;Home all axis
G29 ;probe bed

To

G91 ;Set to relative positioning
G0 Z10 ;move head up by 10mm

G28 ;Home all axis
G29 ;probe bed

(obviously remove G29 if you do not have a probe)

10mm should be more than enough to lift by unless you have something seriously wrong, but you can adjust the figure as needed.


Ultimaker Cura problems with build platform size and overhang support I am attempting to print an axial fan blade, and due to the size requirements, I have to angle it on its side (despite only being 7.44 inches in diameter...). I am using an Ultimaker 3, which I thought was able to print 215mm (or 8.46 inches). This leads me to two questions:

Question 1: If my diameter is only 7.44 inches, why am I unable to lay the fan blade flat (see below - notice the dimensions are within the bounds)?

Question 2: What is so wrong with the surfaces in red that Cura cannot print, even with supports? I am using PVA as a support material, yet there is something wrong with my model in Cura. I checked the X-ray view and nothing seemed amiss.

Ultimaker Cura print bed size sizes (shrinks) when you enable skirt, brim or raft build adhesion options. Try to print without build plate adhesion option if you want to push printing to the limits of the build plate. Furthermore, you mention the use of PVA, using 2 cores, the priming print tower also needs space to be printed, this can be also limiting your build plate space. Note that you can define where to print the tower, you could try locating it in a corner where the fan does not reach.

From your screenshot with the fan flat it appears that you have selected dual extrusion. Note that the bed size depends on the amount of cores you use, from Ultimaker:

  Left or right nozzle: 215 x 215 x 300 mm (8.5 x 8.5 x 11.8 inches)

  Dual extrusion: 197 x 215 x 300 mm (7.8 x 8.5 x 11.8 inches)

As an example I have made a 7.44" cylinder of 2" height and put it onto the UM3E build plate to show the differences when you use dual extrusion.

This image shows the cylinder when printed with a single core:

This image shows the same cylinder, but now with enabled "Extruder 2" as the "Support Extruder" option:

Having an Ultimaker 3E myself, printing PVA might not be very good choice as you need to print a lot of support material when printing upright. PVA cooks easily even in the B core, it also needs to be very dry, PVA takes up moisture very fast and becomes useless after that. At work we have much better experience with break-away support material.

Another consideration why you should not print this upright is the orientation of the layers. It is generally known that the layer to layer bonding is less strong that the material itself, it at least provides a lot of notches from which cracks can initiate and grow. This means that if you want to print this, you should lay it flat, this way the centrifugal force is in line with the layer deposition direction.

With the correct layer height (read thin layers), you should be able to print this flat without support. I have printed similar structures like turbo turbine wheels with similar overhangs without support.


Can I use a pin header in a breadboard to wire up the z-axis motors in parallel? Can I use a pin header with the molex on my Nema 17 motors and a bread board to wire up the z-axis motors in series?

Also, do breadboards and pin headers have ratings, the way that wires do?

You could absolutely do that.

Ultimately, the amount of current you can push through a wire/breadboard/connector depends on its resistance: for a given current I, a component with a resistance of R will have a voltage drop of V = I x R across it, resulting in a power dissipation of I^2 x R watts.

I measured the resistance of breadboard traces to be around 7 Ohm/meter (measurement subject to some error, but this is the value I got testing over a 300mm stretch at 0.2A). This is quite high, the wires that came with your stepper motor are probably in the range of 0.1 Ohm/meter. If you had a stepper running at 2A, you'd waste 28W of power in a meter of breadboard rails.

Thankfully you're only going to be dealing with a very short stretch of breadboard (wasting "only" 0.8W for 4 wires over a 3 pin stretch each). It would probably be OK, but it's not ideal. Make sure the connection is good (and keep an eye on it initially) as a bad connection can result in significantly higher resistance and that might generate enough to melt your breadboard and short things out.

A better way of doing this would be to simply solder the wires together, or (if you don't want to permanently connect the steppers) use the pin headers you mentioned, and solder them together directly (for example on a piece of perfboard or perhaps just link them up directly with a few pieces of thick wire).


is possible to send printing with mach3? I was wondering if is possible to send printing using the software MACH3 for CNC since this software can handle up to 3 axes: X,Y,Z,A,B and C.
Of course the CNC needs an extra control for temperature which I already have it; My CNC handle a Z axis with 150mm height, so I could print higher parts than normal CNC.

Well, few years ago I could set the software Mach3 for printing doing the next:

Set a profile for 3D printing for the faster movements that your CNC can support; for example some CNC uses standard threads, others ACME threads and other GT2 belts like the 3D printers. If we try to use a feed rate too high the motors will shake. For this profile is not needed the torque for machining or routing, so we will sacrifice force to gain speed.
Create the proper gcode. Mostly Gcode maker generate the code to send pulses to Extruder E but Mach3 takes as invalid E instructions, so the extruder will never move. To avoid this there are 2 modes:

a) Find and replace all E instruction with A to enable Motor A or

b) Create the Gcode with an interpreter to output A instead E
    like Slicer 0.71 as you can see in the image below. I haven't tried with other software

3.For controlling the extruder temperature is possible with any other controller like REX-C100/C400 any PIC or Arduino. The accuracy will depend on your design.


Strategy to stream large gcode file from serial port I'm connecting to a printer that's using Marlin 1.0.3 dev firmware through the pyserial Python package.

I want to stream large gcode files into the printer and I guess that the buffer has a limited size. How do I know when the buffer is full, so I can wait until a command is processed to send a new one?

I've tried reading a big file, sending all the commands and checking for the printer responses in another thread. I didn't get an error or something that indicates that the buffer is full. I've also didn't found anything about this in the official docs.

It's my approach correct? Is there something I'm missing?

Some of the code:

def check_for_responses():
    while(True):
        response = printer_connection.serial.readline()
        print(response)

async def stream_gcode():
    await printer_connection.open_connection('COM7')
    Thread(target=check_for_responses).start()
    asyncio.sleep(2) # wait to initialize
    file = open("test.gcode", 'r')
    for line in file:
        command= printer_connection.format_command(line)
        printer_connection.serial.write(command.encode())

asyncio.new_event_loop().run_until_complete(stream_gcode())

Well, after some research I found something about Buffering on the RepRap documentation. I didn't see it before.

Works like this:

You send a command. An "ok" response it's received immediatly, that means that the command was successsfuly added to the buffer.
Then you can send another command. When the buffer is full, the "ok" response will be delayed until a new command it's received.

Some commands, for example M190: Wait for bed temperature to reach target temp will cause that the "ok" response will be delayed until the command finish his execution. That means that the printer won't accept more commands in the meantime.

I still have to check how many commands the buffer can save approximately, and if it's convenient to fill it entirely. I guess not, because let's say you want to pause the print. If you added a lot of commands to the buffer, you'll not able to pause it until all of them finished.

This thread on the RepRap forum was also useful.


3D printing with blender I have an object that I want to print in 3D. But I have a few questions about it. What are the things that I have to watch out for when 3D printing?

I know how to change the metric size etc. Some  people said that it's best to set the thickness to a low amount and not make the object solid (to leave the inside empty/hollow) in order to save money when printing.

Is this true or does it not matter?

Also what if I want two parts of an object to be separate colours or materials?  Do I have to change this in Blender?

Any advice and information would be helpful, thanks.

You are correct about the walls. Using a Solidify object modifier is probably your best bet. A low Thickness: value (0.1 is probably good) helps keep the walls thin but strong. You can monitor the thickness while you adjust the value from Wireframe view.

Additionally, and this is probably the most important thing to know, your mesh must be clean. By clean, I mean it must all be one piece. No separate cubes, cylinders, etc. that you added while modeling, just one solid piece. Think about it this way. If you have added a cube and part of that cube is inside the rest, it might look good from the outside. But the 3D Printer isn't printing the outside, it's printing everything. So that wall, albeit hidden, that is present on the inside of your mesh will be printed.

Bad:

Good:

Lastly, if you have parts of your mesh that can't be printed from the bottom up, or wouldn't stand by itself, consider adding supports. You can always cut these off later.

Leg added because it wouldn't stand by itself:


Constrain by surface area in Fusion 360 I'm trying to create a sketch that is constrained by surface area.
In my model I have a relatively irregular, flat area that I would like to constrain by area so that it never exceeds a certain number.
There are a lot of other constraints for angles, lengths, points, lines and the area of a surface is also always available in the properties. As a rather new person to Fusion 360, it feels logical a constraint by surface area should be possible.
Am I missing something or is there a good reason why this constraint doesn't exist?

After some testing, Fusion does have a category to put in an Area parameter [edit -> Parameters ->] for Area that takes measurements in acres and circular mil but no useful measurements such as square centimeters or square inch. One circular mil is defined as a circle with a radius of 1/1000 inch, or 0.0254 mm, for an area of $5.067×10^{−4}\text{ mm}^2$.
However, defining the area of an item isn't (currently) straightforwardly possible: areas are not defineable, and with the obvious lack of possible parameters (square metrics and anything but super tiny or super huge) it doesn't seem to be planned. The best you can do is for bodies that you know the formula for the area in the following fashion:

Here, the left measurement (d2) is 1 mm. The parameter area is 10000 circular mil. Since we know A=d1*d2, we can go A/d2=d1 for a rectangle.


Will a glass bed warp as it is heated? I purchased a glass bed to use with my still-in-transit Ender 3. Since the bed came in before the printer, I pulled it out and used a flat edge ruler to see how flat the glass surface is.

It appears the glass is slightly "dished" in the center from one side and "raised" in the center on the other side. I am wondering if this is a sign of a defective glass, or if it is likely that the glass may change shape slightly as it is heated?

If it does change shape, should it be put with the dish side up or down?

Logic would say that if it does change shape, the bottom would probably get hotter since it is against the heater while the top is slightly cooler, so in theory the bottom may expand more "pulling" the center down?

I guess the bottom line is, should I send the glass back as defective or wait until the printer arrives and see what happens when I heat it up?

TL;DR
Yes, glass warps when hot. Use a physical touch sensor and calibrate it out, or swap glass if it's "bad".

The further you go into mechanical studies like 3d printing, mills, and lathes, you will find out that nothing is perfectly flat. Everything has a tolerance to it, whether the manufacturer provided it or not. Better manufacturers provide the tolerance data.
As you have or will find out, yes, glass does warp when heated. That is because you are not warming the glass evenly. When hot and cold spots form in glass, the glass tends to warp up or down, depending how the heat travels.
It's common for 0.01 mm warp when a glass bed is brought to printing temps (60-100 °C). If one has a larger format bed, like my Vulcanus at 500x500, 0.03 mm changes are possible.
One can remediate this warping, as it usually appears in the same place during the heat cycle. So if you calibrate after the bed is heated, you should reduce said errors. Another more comprehensive way to fix this, is with a physical touch sensor and create a grid map of the bed geometry.


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

The extruder can't push anymore when the filament is past the extruder gear. If your filament has run out to that point, the print will not halt but print without a filament, meaning that the print will fail. You need to pause the print in time and then put fresh filament into the printer.

If the end of the filament is cut flat at the end and the new one is flat too, the new filament can push the old one out to the nozzle, reducing the waste to a minimum, if you can live without retraction for the amount of length that has to be used up. You could friction weld the two parts together to alleviate this.


Can I use a 0 mm top layer thickness in Ultimaker Cura to create an open box? Let's say I'm modeling a simple open-top rectangular box to slice via Cura for printing. Normally I would set up a solid box of the size I want in the modeler, and then subtract a slightly smaller box to create the final result.

Is it possible to get the same results with Cura by instead only modeling the simpler solid box if set my wall lines and thickness for the base and sides, set the infill to 0 %, and then set the Top Layers to 0 and/or Top Thickness to 0 mm?
How might that change the resulting print?
How will that impact the total height of the print?

Yes that will work in Ultimaker Cura exactly as you say.

So if you have a solid model of a cube, you select wall thickness, bottom thickness, 0 % infill, and no top layers or top layer size of 0 mm. You will then end up with a box without a top layer, but with walls reaching up to the height of your model.


How does 3D printing over USB work? In Cura, if you plug your favourite 3D Printer you will most likely get an option to Print via USB. If you have never heard of what I'm talking about, please see this video:

I wanted to know some information on how this works:

Is the communication through UART or through Serial?
How can I establish a connection to the 3D Printer?
Is there a list of commands I am able to send?
What is the default baudrate for 3D printers?
How is the G-Code of the print sent to the 3D Printer?

This is just a stub answer. I will try to expand on it later.
The 8-bit microcontrollers used on many 3D printers do not have a USB interface, and so a USB to serial interface chip is used to allow a computer to communicate with the serial port (UART) on the microcontroller. In order for the computer to communicate with the printer, a device driver is needed to allow the operating system to communicate with the interface chip.
The appropriate device drivers should be supplied with your printer, and you should install these drivers before you try to do anything else. The drivers will make the printer look as if it has a serial interface, and the highest speed that most 8-bit microcontrollers can manage is 112800bps.
If the software that you are using has a terminal interface, you can send any G-code commands to the printer. For a list of G-code commands, see here. Note that this list includes commands for CNC machines as well as 3D printers.
For normal printing, G-code commands are sent to the printer using a print manager, such as Repetier-Host. Some slicers may have built-in print managers.


What is the best build surface for PETG? This question doesn't necessarily have one answer.  I'm looking for a build surface that doesn't tear up when removing the PETG print, but still holds the PETG down and keeps it from warping.  I am printing PETG with the z-height almost too high.  Higher causes the PETG not to stick and warp or even release during printing.  But, I still have trouble with PETG prints tearing my build surface.  I've tried PEI and black build surfaces that don't identify the material.  The build plate on my hot bed is glass.

Removable steel spring sheet with PEI textured coatings
I have been using textured PEI string sheet for most of my prints, just love it.
Prints attach so good but not hard to remove(with proper nozzole Z-offset).
If the prints are small and seems hard to remove,heating up the bed helps a lot.
Almost never used the smooth side, even with proper z-offset, it still damages the surface quite fast.
Here's the link i bought before:
Removal Spring Steel Sheet Pre-Applied PEI+Magnetic Base
This is my setup on a ender3pro:


Are 3D printers efficient for printing a detailed iris to bypass iris identification system? A 3D printer can either print layer by layer or carve an object layer by layer to obtain an object. I heard somewhere that 3D printing technology isn't that accurate for printing minute details like fingerprints and iris patterns. Printing an iris pattern using a 3D printer would be a nice test to find this out. Can it print the iris pattern accurately? If not, then to what extent would be the accuracy of the 3D printed model of iris? Many commercial iris scanners can be easily fooled by high quality images of iris. Can a 3D printer print the these minute iris patterns with as much detail?

I take lectures in university and was asked to read a review paper on 3D printed organs by Anthony Atala (the most famous paper in printed organs research). The paper discussed about using several techniques to print the tissue we need at functional resolution. The review also cites detailed procedures to 3D print lung and skin tissues.

Coming back to your question, we have reached a point in time where we can scan a real Iris and print them! Yes. And people use this technique called self assembly to achieve this (Other design approaches like Biomimicry and MiniTissue assembly is also being used right now). To do this we first extract cells from the donor. Or We do a functional high res scan of the extracted cell/part that we want to replicate. This is done via FMT-CT-Fluorescence Imaging, etc. And we cultivate the cells in bio incubators (we can also print cells btw - If the exact environment and operational conditions are maintained, we can print cell-replicas that will later self assemble to form the Iris with the same resolution and functional properties as that of the real one). The cultivated/printed cell is used as the tissue forming material. Forming is done by the cells themselves and is thus christened Self assembly.

Although this may sound futuristic, Autonomous Self Assembly is something that's already being done in Labs! The method works by studying embryonic organ development. For instance, Early stage cellular components of a developing tissue makes their own ECM. Like mentioned before, if we use proper signalling, and environmental manipulation,  we can create autonomous organization and patterning to make something we want. Advantage of this method is that we can work without scaffolds. This method relies on cell as primary driver of histogenesis. Knowledge of how an embryo grows into tissue (embroyo tissue genesis and organogenesis) is applied to achieve "real" cell dimensions/properties.

I would recommend you to read the paper for detailed information. The method I mentioned in this post is only one among three other methods that are being used currently in this domain.

So yeah. My answer is yes. You can print an Iris and fool the system.

--
Updates

S. V. Murphy and A. Atala, “3D bioprinting of tissues and organs,” Nature Biotechnology, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 773–785, Aug. 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2958
Withdrew my claim "any given resolution"
Details of the process


PLA chemical resistances? Especially HCl, other acids I'm interested in 3d printed reaction chambers, but can't find any good information on chemical resistances of PLA, just vague claims that it "might not be" "because it's biodegradable" or that it depends on additives (likely true, but it would be nice to know if there's hope of finding PLA without problematic additives if the PLA itself is okay). Is there any published research or even anecdotes (which could suggest it's worth spending effort to investigate further) on this topic?

As @T. M. notes in his comment, there are many good charts of chemical compatibility with various agents.  Very few (I found none) include information about PLA.  By all means, use search engines to find some information.

But, no data source is as true to your specific needs as is testing your candidate materials with your agents.

As a first test put the agent in a tall thin jar or test tube.  Use a few test filaments so that the ends are dipping into the agent.  Check for signs of dissolution, swelling, softening, or any relevant change in the material's characteristics.  Examine the candidate filaments right away, then after minutes, then hours, and if any material survives, perhaps in days.

Print test objects.  Test them with your agent.  Try until you find something that works.

The online material compatibility tables will help you eliminate materials before testing them.  If it says a material is incompatible, it probably is incompatible.  If rated as highly compatible, it should be tested because the formulation of a filament may not match the material tested for the compatibility tables.  If you are running out of options, try the intermediate compatibility plastics.

Bottom line, use the online information to help direct your search, but you should do your own tests.


Wanhao i3 PLUS restarts when connecting USB I just received my Wanhao Duplicator i3 PLUS. Everything prints and functions fine via SD card and the display but when connecting to my Mac computer the printer seems to restart.

Baud Rate: 115200
Serial Port: /dev/tty.wchusbserial1420

Any ideas what it could be?

I don't know that printer. But Arduino has a feature that a USB connection causes a reset. The Idea is that this helps when doing software update as the Arduino Boot loader will be active for one second after that reset.

This can be disabled, but needs hardware modification.


What is the correct Marlin firmware setting for Tevo Tarantula with MKS Base V1.2 board I am trying to correct the x&y offsets in the Tevo Tarantula that I got from a friend in order that my printer is not printing over the end.
What I got so far is that I need to measure and then enter the offsets into my configuration.h file, build the firmware and flash it to the board.
Because I do not have and can not find the original firmware I found the repository from Jim Brown for the Tarantula.
Looking into the top section of the config file provided by the repo, the board configured is
#define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_MKS_GEN_13        // Original controller board with built in stepper drivers. Works with MKS BASE 1.3, 1.4

However since the board in my Tarantula has 1.2 on it I checked the boards.h file for MKS but could not find the v1.2 :
#define BOARD_MKS_BASE          40    // MKS BASE v1.0
#define BOARD_MKS_BASE_15       405   // MKS v1.5 with Allegro A4982 stepper drivers
#define BOARD_MKS_BASE_HEROIC   41    // MKS BASE 1.0 with Heroic HR4982 stepper drivers
#define BOARD_MKS_GEN_13        47    // MKS GEN v1.3 or 1.4
#define BOARD_MKS_GEN_L         53    // MKS GEN L
#define BOARD_MKS_GEN_L_V2      54    // MKS GEN L V2
#define BOARD_ZRIB_V20          504   // zrib V2.0 control b

Any idea, what board configuration would be compatible for 1.2? Or is there any other way to correct the x&y offsets other then compiling them into the firmware?

The MKS Base v1.2 is basically an Arduino MEGA2560 and a RAMPS1.4 on a single board.
You can use the RAMPS pin designation.
Note that the endstop to origin distances is explained in question How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset).
In Jims Marlin fork you can find this at:
#define X_MIN_POS 0 - XTRA_BED_LEFT

and
#define Y_MIN_POS 0 - XTRA_BED_BACK

Unfortunately, XTRA_BED_LEFT and XTRA_BED_BACK are defined as zero; this implies that the endstops define the origin (not likely) or it is left as an excercise for you to find out. This answer explains how you figure that out.


Can I 3D-print a PET bottle? I want to print a transparent PET bottle for my homemade lemonades and thought about 3D-printing them.

I would like the printed bottle's quality to be as fine as a Coca-Cola PET bottle for coke and the printing substrate or material be something that's cheap or readily available. I thought I might recycle some old PET bottles to print the custom one for my lemonades as I don't want something that would require me buying new materials or re-exporting from the manufacturer.

Is it possible to recycle PET and print it into food-certified containers?

No, due to 3 reasons
PET is not (easily) printable.
There is a lot of confusion on what Filaments you can buy: most times filament branded PET is actually PETG, sometimes PETT.
PET is not an easily printable material at all. With expert knowledge and the right machine settings it can be printed, but even then, it is not as easily recyclable into a useable 3D-printer-filament as you might think. You need full reprocessing capabilities, which means the need for machinery to allow thorough cleaning, grinding to dust, melting it up, pelletizing and finally extrusion as a fresh filament.
The closest related material that is easily printable is PETG, a modified PET that also contains glycol. You can't convert PET into PETG with home or hobbyist applications at all - they are totally different in their chemical behavior, even as just one material was added in production. PETG is not brittle like PET, it does not haze on heating, but it ages in UV light, scratches easily and can't be autoclaved like PET. But the chemical modification has to be done during the initial manufacturing of the material, and it is a huge mess to try to recycle the two together, which can and will happen if you try to work with material you source from recycling.

“When they’re processed together, PETG melts and becomes sticky while PET remains solid. PETG sticks to PET chips and forms large clumps that pose processing problems.” Resource Recycling (magazine/blog)

3D printed objects are very unlikely to become food certified.
You can't easily manufacture (certified) food-rated printed products, like food containers due to the requirements that a machine that manufactures food-certified products needs to comply to. I advise looking at this answer regarding food rating for more elaboration.
It is hard to print really transparent with FDM.
Due to the method how FDM works - extruding lines next to each other - it is often impossible to print fully transparent objects right of the bat - there is almost always air inside a printed object, and there are so many boundaries between the extrusion paths that refract and change the photon paths that the best one can achieve somewhat easily is translucent (=semi-transparent). Read this answer for further information.
But if you manage to get the object really solid, you might get some near-transparent, icy results from some orientations while looking in others still will look matte.
To get them fully transparent you then will have to post-process them to become fully transparent by grinding the surface up to 4000 grit, but that is very labor intensive and most likely not possible for the inside of a bottle. To be clear, you spend hours polishing one surface.
Could it be economic in the slightest?
On a side tangent, the viability of printing a bottle via buying new ones will need to be expored. Shapped PET Bottles with caps start at \$0.01 per piece and top out at \$1 per piece - you get the better prices if you order in larger quantities. You will have to compete with getting under \$1 per bottle, or rather with what the price of a typical bottle you want is.alibaba.com
A typical PET bottle ordered from China weighs 30 g for a 300 ml bottle, and the particular example I looked at comes \$0.22 to \$0.28, depending on the bottle cap, with a minimum order of one parcel with something around 300 items. That seems to be in the average range.
A roll of 1 kg of PET(G?) filament starts at ~\$30 at the moment. That is the weight of 33 shaped bottles per roll. Your print will most likely be heavier than the blown up bottle to get it watertight, but let's just assume you might manage the same weight. Then it's about \$0.90 in the material alone - so we are at more than 300% of a bought product with cap already!
Atop that comes the running cost of the printer, which depends on your print time, printer and electricity price. I know my hobbyist machine comes, maintenance and electricity combined, down to 0.21€/h, so roughly \$0.25. Printing a bottle will take several hours.
PET preforms that can be blown up to almost any bottle shape, type and size and ship much cheaper come to prices due to better density. Which means you compete against \$0.015 to \0.15 per bottle in material costs.
Conclusion
It is not economically viable to even attempt to print bottles beyond a prototyping stage.


Material for autoclave-able part I’m designing a part that will need to be autoclaved—it will be under steam at 121°C for about 15 min per job and I will want it to be able to go through the autoclave repeatedly. I ran a test PLA part through the autoclave and it warped noticeably; based on their glass transition temperatures, ABS (105ºC) and PETG (80ºC) would probably also not hold up. For a consumer-grade FDM printer, what filament materials that could be used for parts that could be autoclaved?

It might seem that common 3D printer materials such as PLA and ABS should be capable of being autoclaved—unfortunately. However, although their melting temperatures are higher than autoclave temperature (typically 121ºC), their glass transition temperatures are below that limit so they can warp or undergo creep deformation.

Sterilization of numerous plastics is described here, with PLA, ABS, and PET all being described as "poor" for autoclaving. For each "good" material on that list, I looked for filament by Googling and consulting material guides from Prusa and Matter Hackers.

Polypropylene (PP) or acetal (POM, also known as Delrin) are the best choices. Filament is available for PEEK, PEI (ULTEM), FEP, PPSU, and PPS but these filaments are expensive (>$100/kg) and require high extruder temperatures (>300ºC).

In contrast, PP is about $50/kg and uses an extruder temperature of 254ºC; POM is similarly priced and uses an extruder temperature of 210ºC. Nylon (depending on the exact type) and HT-PLA may also be worth considering.

"High temperature" filaments are not worthwhile for this application. Again, they're expensive and, more significantly, do not work well with consumer-grade 3D printers. For example, the upper limit for a Prusa i3 MK3s is about 280ºC—the thermistor only is good up to that temperature. Higher temperatures would require swapping out sensors and modifying firmware and building an enclosure. It's been done. Printers designed for high-temperature filaments easily cost thousands of dollars.

This question was previously asked on Reddit a few times but this analysis is more comprehensive.


Prints falling off the bed towards the end of the print I have been trying to print an object that is 4 inches tall. About at 3 inches it falls off the bed. I am using tape on the heated bed and right before the print I am wiping the bed with rubbing alcohol. After the first time I tried hot gluing it to the bed when it was mid way through so that it wouldn't fall off but that didn't work. I am printing at 185°C and the bed is 55°C. I am using PLA to print. Should I increase the temperature of the bed or is there something else that is wrong?

Even though knowing the model of printer is slightly helpful, it's not critical to making your print work. Your PLA manufacturer should have recommendations for both the bed temperature and the nozzle temperature. Is your print bed glass or metal?

As an example, my bed is glass and I set the temperature to 70°C for PLA, but the real temperature at the bed is slightly lower than that.

I'm using 3M brand blue painters tape. What type of tape are you using? It will make a difference. I originally used cleaner on the tape, but found it was not needed. Blue tape means parts stick so well that you have to get them free before the bed cools too much, or you'll have to remove the tape to get the part free.

My PLA nozzle temperature settings range from 190°C to 230°C, depending on the filament. I use the manufacturer's figures and vary them five to ten degrees depending on the results.

Too hot at the nozzle will burn the filament possibly causing a clog, while too cold will cause extruder feeding problems. You did not reference having feeding problems, which implies your nozzle settings are acceptable.

Consider to change your tape and to increase the bed temperature. At a 55°C starting point, you could jump five degrees at a time until you get a good bond.

Also be certain that your bed is level and properly calibrated. The first layer should apply in a slightly "squashed" manner. Too close and the nozzle tears up the tape, but too far and the filament will sit on top and not properly adhere.


I am experiencing some severe under extrusion I did calibrate the extruder to extrude exactly 50/100 mm and it is fine.
I have replaced the old (prehistorical) extruder that was giving me the problem with a new one.
The issue does not go away. It is severely under extruded.
The nozzle is a 0.4 mm, if I extrude manually the extrusion is nice and clean but when printing its a mess.
I have the following setting in Slic3:

Layer height: 0,16
First layer height: 0,16
Filament diameter: 2,94
Extruder temperature: 184°C
Extrusion multiplier: 1
Fill density: 15%

In Marlin I have the following setting for the extruder:

Steps per unit: 1450 (I use micro steps)
Default acceleration: 3000
Default retract acceleration: 3000
Default Ejerk: 5

How can I solve this problem?

This is a 20 mm cube I stopped after 15 layers!

Here is another 20 mm cube, the dimensions are perfect but is absolutely a mess.

Assuming your filament dimension settings are correct and your extruder is correctly calibrated...

Your extruder temperature may be too low.  While 184C can be hot enough, it is very near the bottom of the range for PLA and it appears your filament isn't melting quickly enough to keep up with your other settings.  Your extruder may even be running slightly cooler than you think so your 184C setting may actually be printing at 180C or less.

To solve this:

Raise your extruder temperature. I suggest raising your print temperature to 220 degrees and then gradually lower it until other aspects of your print quality are acceptable (bridging, oozing, etc).
Slow down your print. Slowing down reduces the volume of melted plastic your extruder has to deliver in a given amount of time.  This allows more time for the plastic to melt and allows you to use a lower print temperature

Your filament feed mechanism may be slipping.  Even if you have adequate temperature and perfectly calibrated firmware and print settings, if your filament feed mechanism (the thing that pushes filament into your extruder) is slipping, you will have under-extruded parts.

To solve this:

Make sure you have adequate tension on your filament feed mechanism.  If your feed mechanism is too loose, filament may slip and cause under extrusion.  The part to check is the part the pushes the filament into the rotating hobbed bolt or friction wheel...make sure it applies adequate pressure.  "Adequate pressure" or "adequate tension" will vary depending you your printer's design, but it should be enough to provide a firm grip on the filament.
Verify your feed mechanism is clean.  A hobbed bolt or similar filament drive mechanism that has become clogged or otherwise contaminated may cause filament to slip and under-extrude.
Ensure the end of your filament is not damaged from slipping.  Once your filament has slipped, it may be damaged with a worn spot, a bulge, or some other defect that can prevent proper feeding even after you fix the root cause of your problem.  So, as tbm0115 pointed out, be sure to clip off the damaged end to make sure you have good filament feeding into your extruder.

I hope this helps!