Printer cover for noise abatement, cleanliness, temperature control Has anyone made a cover for their 3D printer?
Edit: What kind of Max temperature should be allowed? From the comments, I understand the control board and power supply should be outside the enclosure.  I don't see a way to have the stepper motors outside. I do have a thermocouple probe and can monitor the temperature inside the enclosure; what can the motors be allowed to go up to?

I have a Migbot i3 (prusa clone), looks like it will need a 24" x 24" x 16" cover (leaves room to put a spool on a holder inside also).  I bought some 18" x 24" polycarbonate sheets to make a square box, but it's looking like it will be a bigger project than it was to get the printer running! I need to cut one down to 6" and join it length wise to  get a full 24" for the top. And then print a bunch of corner blocks and drill holes for screws/nuts to secure it all together. Maybe make the front hinge up to lay on top to access the bed and the reel and the finished pieces.

I'm  hoping the cover will block out some of the fan and motor movement noise, and as a side benefit keep cat fur & dust out of the mechanism, and perhaps even help keep the ambient temperature a little more even. I'm not sure that ambient temperature drifting makes much difference with PLA, but ABS is allegedly sensitive to that, and perhaps other materials as well.

Edit 5/25/19: Well, I went ahead built one, it's nearing completion. Found 18x24" Lexan polycarbonate sheets, and printed up corner brackets from thingiverse. Top back has a 6" wide space I can hinge up like the front cover to allow more airflow should things get too warm from the power supply or the 0.4mm nozzle. Have been printing PLA on a cold bed with Vertex PEI material clamped on it (waiting for WhamBam system with spring steel and PEX material, couple weeks out on delivery).

Will be securing it to a base so it doesn't get knocked off the folding work bench (again). Some wood added inside for some stiffness, the Lexan is kind of wobbly in big pieces like that.
Looking at some magnets to replace the wing nuts/screws on the front cover, they're kind awkward to undo.

Taking off the Lexan protective film soon, might wait until securing to a base piece of wood is worked out. Think I have some thin OSB in the garage left over from another project.

Edit 5/26/19:  Printed an hour+ component with doors closed and thermocouple hanging below the LCD screen. Minimal temp rise seen, just 3-4 degreeC, with ambient room temperature also rising some as the sun rose. Printing PLA on unheated bed.

Also changed door closure to have magnets hold closed door in place, works very nice. Wing nuts worked well, but screws stuck out and were hard to open once the screws went thru the door.

(not sure why these are rotated right 90 degrees, they looked fine when I cropped them on my PC)

If you want to have an enclosure without actually building one, you can try a server cabinet. Just take out the server racks and use it as an enclosure. And, as there are many server cabinets available, you could probably find one that suits your needs. Currently, I have my FlyingBear P902 3d printer enclosed in a server cabinet. And, although the doors and removable sides might have air gaps, you can always just tape that off (or use an insulation strip). Hope this works.

You could also look at this website: Perfect 3D printer enclosure for Prusa i3 MK3


What could be causing this spotty extrusion? I'm getting this printing where it's not laying the plastic down very well. What could be causing this? I've printed with these settings before, and it turned out just fine. If you need any other info to properly diagnose this, let me know.

I'm using a Robo3D R1+

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I´ve seen this in my Prusa due two parameters that may vary your results depending on climate if your printer has not a temperature chamber or having a mechanical issue too.

Lack of extrusion is due a cold filament which it can't reach the melting temperature due a fast extrusion feed; I mean in normal conditions we can print @70 mm/s with 195 °C but on wet or colder days is not possible so I need to slow down the speed (feed rate) with 10 % less than normal to get @60 mm/s or less until get a good flow with out modifying the G-code. If I try to print faster on normal conditions I will get the same lack of material due 195 °C is a low temperature (this is an example).

If I set the temperature 200 °C or 210 °C I will get a better flow and also print faster than @80 mm/s (not affected too much on climate on 100 % feed rate).

For first layer I´m using an speed of 40 mm/s to allow a good adhesion and Z height 90 % of layer height (0.22 typically or 0.18).

Mechanical side: The extruder is not feeding all the filament due a missing pression on the traction gear (filament slip).


Finding a shredder for my failed prints I would love to re-use my failed prints by re-extruding the plastic to be used int he 3d printer once again. One thing that stand in my way is finding a effective way to shred the plastic into smaller bits for the extrude to use. What is a good thing to look for to accomplish this? Maybe a really big 'paper' shredder?

there is a project called precious plastic and there is a plastic shredder, but it is a rather expensive solution.

As I am waiting for parts for my Lyman extruder, my plan is to hammer the parts and then process in old kitchen robot with steel working area, an example here

The paper shredder will be ok as long as you can feed it with plastic.


Easy way to create honey comb filling for a generic printer/onshape This is my second 3D model, be forgiving... ;)

I have constructed a 3D model with some bigger solid parts with FreeCAD. After uploading it to shapeways, it turned out to be too expensive to be printed like that.

Googling around, gave me the solution to make it hollow and use a support structure. If you know which exact printer model is doing the print, Slic3r can do the job. But as I want to print with shapeways, I just know the material, and they are doing the slicing. Obviously without creating support structures in solid parts. Hence, this way does not work in my situation.

Searching for an other solution, I found this article, FreeCAD: Perforated Sheets and HoneyComb, describing how to create a honeycomb structure by a little piece of code. I would have to make my part hollow by subtracting a shrunk version of the model and fill it with the honeycomb structure. This sounds feasible to me, but is quiet a certain effort.

Is there an smarter solution to achieve a hollow piece with support structure?

If you want to have a specific infill density, you can design the infill yourself as part of the solid model. (Note I use these two methods to design parts for strength, but it's basically the same thing that you're looking at doing)
I have two methods for doing this as follows (I use Solidworks, but the features exist with most CAD software)
Method 1
Step 1
Design the part for the geometry that you'd like as you usually would. (check the volume of the part)
Step 2
Hollow out your part and set your wall thickness to the desired dimension. In solidworks, you can use the shell command for this. (check the new volume of your part)
Step 3
Create a pattern for the print orientation  you want and make the thickness of the pattern set to a variable you can easily change. For example if you want a hex pattern, then create a hex pattern that covers the footprint of your part.
Step 4
Extrude your pattern from the bottom surface to the upper surface.
(depending on how complex your part is you may have to iterate between steps 3 and 4 to fill the part completely, but that's half the fun).
Step 5
Close the part off. The Shell feature hollows out a part, and removes most of one flat surface. You just need to go back in and close this surface off again once you're done, generally with a single extrude.(check the volume of your part again)
Step 6
Now you can compare the volumes of your part, this may require you to change the thickness of the hex pattern, and may require several iterations to get an exact density that you want.
This process wont necessarily work for every part you come up with but it's a good start for fairly blocky parts. It's also relatively quick and easy to do.
The second way is as follows
Method 2
Step 1:
Create your part as usual and save as a unique file (lets call it "Solid file")
Step 2:
Create hollow the part out and save as a unique file (lets call it "shell file")
Step 3:
Create a new part that is your hex pattern, but instead of modelling the walls that will be in your final part, create the hex voids as a solid. Save this as a separate unique file ( lets call it "Void profile")
Step 4:
Create a new part and import both the "Void Profile" and the "Solid File".
Step 5
Subtract the "Void Profile" from the "Solid File"
Step 6
Import the "Shell file" and merge it with the result of step 5
This process I like a bit more, but it takes longer, creates more files and is a bit messier I think. However it gives you a lot more control over how your voids will work and you can delete sections of the voids if you want different parts to be more solid that others.
If you're using solidworks shell model and you have very tight features sometimes it gives you errors, and you may need to suppress small features and then add them back in after all of this. Just a heads up, it can be a bit of a flaky feature to use sometimes.
Now that you have your 'designed' internal structure don't forget to print at 100% infill, otherwise a slicer program may hollow out your designed infill pattern.


Is Simplify 3D really worth it? I've heard alot about simplify 3D recently. It sounds like it's a great software, but 150 dollars!? The only thing that seems too different from other slicers is the placable supports, but Z suite has that now as well. Cura must be coming out with placable supports soon if they're going to stay in the game. It does also have dual extrusion, but so does just about every other free slicer out there. I just don't understand what makes it worth 150 US dollars.

The free slicers are catching up with Simplify3D, and are even overtaking it in some areas, so purchasing it may not make much sense to hobbyists. However, for professional print shops, where printers may cost twenty times as much (or even more), 150 dollars is nothing (especially since it is 150 dollars per PC, not 150 dollars per printer).


Why don't LCD printers use subpixels in color panels? The LCD resin printers I've looked at have pretty standard resolutions like for a smartphone and I understand they use the same technology. However, color LCD screens have three RGB sub-pixels for each color pixel. Check for example this magnified picture of an S-IPS LCD screen:

It seems like they could just omit the color filter and have three grayscale pixels for each color pixel.

3D printing just uses one color - UV. So why don't they have resolutions that are multiples of three of the usual resolutions?

All results about sub-pixels that I could find are about anti-aliasing, which is different (using the existing pixels better vs. having more pixels).

If what Thomas Sanladerer states is correct, the Mars 2 Pro (monochrome LCD, no color filter) has a layer time approximately 1/3 as long as the Mars/Pro printers (where color LCDs are used):

This would indicate that the light passing through the LCD, when the color filter is present, is 1/3. Put it in other words, only ONE subpixel is capable of transmitting UV light.
Consequently, using all of them would not improve resolution because the other subpixels are always opaque.


Tell tale signs bed tape has given up the ghost I use blue 3M Painter's tape to help with bed adhesion on my heated bed. Are there any tell tale signs which would lead me to believe I need to change the tape out?

For reference, I haven't been printing all that much, so the tape has been on there for some time. I took a look at it today and see there are some bubbles in the tape in the places where the last print I did was laid down. It appears the tape has lost some adhesion to the bed. I can run my fingers over it and it will re-stick to the bed, but is that good enough? (Obviously I'd re-clean the tape surface with isopropyl before I'd use it again, so not an issue there.)

The last thing I want to do is waste time and materials printing when I can be more proactive, so the real question here is:

What signs might the tape be giving me it's time to change it out?

Obviously, if the tape is torn or gouged in area that you intend to print on, you will need to replace it to have a good surface. If the damage is well clear of your first layer and will not risk snagging on printer mechanisms during movement, you may disregard it.

I can't really tell you how much bubbling is acceptable. If your prints still come out in with an acceptable quality, then it's OK. If it causes defects that you don't accept, or failed prints due to a loss of adhesion, then it's not.

When I started printing, I used painters tape, and would change it every few prints. To be honest, I was not very careful about protecting the tape when removing a print, and would often damage it. I also often found it easier to just peel the tape from the print bed as a way to remove a print. I don't even think I finished a single roll of tape before I eventually switched to glass/hairspray.

I never used isopropyl or other things to clean it between prints. If you are concerned with cost and waste, I would think this would be even more than simply changing the tape frequently.


Cooling fan spins extremely fast, noisy on startup I have built a 3D printer from parts. It is using a standard 12V power supply, an Arduino Mega 2560 replica and a RAMPS 1.4 board. The hotend cooling fan is connected to the 12V-AUX pin (the one right next to the x axis stepper driver) on the RAMPS board so that it continuously receives power as long as the machine is turned on. The printer is controlled by the Marlin firmware.

When I give power to the board, the cooling fan starts spinning with a lot of noise. It sounds like it is receiving a higher amount of current than it should. Moreover, the noise is not steady, but fluctuates slightly. After about 30 seconds, it gets slightly quieter; after about 40-50 seconds, there is a sudden break. From then on, the fan spins quietly and regularly.

According to measurements with a multimeter, the power supply is keeping a constant and correct voltage of slightly over 12V right from the beginning. Hence, I suspect the issue is somewhere on the RAMPS board.

I am worried about this being more than a problem of unpleasant noisiness. What could be the cause and is there more to worry about?

You can listen to a recording of the sound: 3D printer hotend cooling fan noise

Note that I am not talking about a fan for cooling the extruded plastic, but the one sitting on the extruder heatsink.

Shutting down the printer (even literally unplugging the power supply) and plugging it back in does not lead to the startup noise appearing again. Only when waiting for multiple minutes before reconnecting does it happen again.

The voltage to the fan is measured to be constant. The current, on the other hand, correlates with the sounds heard. It starts at 110 - 115 mA. When the fan is quiet, it is at about 90 mA.

Now that you have done some measurements, you could make some conclusions.

  The voltage over the fan is reported to be constant, but the current
  starts at 110-115 mA and reduces to 90 mA over time.

With limited knowledge of electronics you can conclude that the resistance of the fan is not constant as the resistance determines the amount of current through the fan. So the fan resistance increases over time. This could just be a manufacturing problem or characteristics of the fan. You could try to replace the fan with another fan to see if this fixes your problem.


Selecting G-code files from SD with serial I'm doing a project for college connecting an app made with app inventor to a Raspberry Pi and then using the RPi to make a printing queue for a Prusa P3 Steel.

The thing is that I already have the comm between the app and the RPi but I need to connect the RPi to the Arduino via USB and select the G-code files that are in the SD card of the Prusa to print. I don't know where should I put the function in the Marlin code or how to manage the serial port read function.

Any ideas?

You can send the G Codes to select and print a file over the serial connection.

List the files

  M20

Select a file name

  M23 filename.gco

Start/Resue the print

  M24

See https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code for more information M20 through M39 are the ones for interfacing with SD Card files.


Resources/methods to construct STL files using disparate parts using OpenSCAD What resources or methods would OpenSCAD users suggest to piece together disparate STL files?

I'd like to take an existing STL model-library of STL parts (head, torso, arms, legs) and make it a Thingiverse OpenSTL maker, similar to the castle generator and/or the puzzle generators available.

This way, users can generate a custom model using the designated parameters and download the model for printing.

I'll offer up the following options, without waiting for an answer to my question.

One can import a specific STL file into OpenSCAD and perform rotation, translation and scale, but it would be "clunky" as you'd be making miniscule changes to the parameters for those actions. Each imported object would have to be manipulated individually via the changes in the code. If your imported objects have quantifiable dimensions, that is, if you know specific measurements, you would have an easier time of the project.

If you are not limiting yourself to OpenSCAD, I'd recommend the easy-to-use MeshMixer. I recently "assembled" the parts of a cosplay "weapon" for a friend. All the parts were individual STL files and were positioned in 3-space using MeshMixer to make the parts appear as if the project were printed and assembled.

The transform tool in Meshmixer is a graphic three-arrow/three-axis manipulator icon. Grab an arrow tip and the model moves in the direction of the drag. Grab an arc between two arrows and the model rotates. If you want five degree rotation increments, move the mouse outward after the grab and get a calibration circle. When the mouse is on the circle, you get snaps to five degrees. If you need smaller movement, move the mouse out even farther from the center.

The 3-space presented in Meshmixer gives you the ability to align pieces/parts in all three dimensions, to your satisfaction. There is a model hide and a model-ghost feature as well, to assist the placement.

I expect that one could use a program such as Blender, but the learning curve is more like a chasm or cliff-face.

One could use an engineering-focus program such as SolidWorks, Fusion 360 and so many others, but I think your head, arms, legs, torso reference means you aren't using orthogonal models more suited to those programs.

Meshmixer, like OpenSCAD is free. I use both and approve this message.


Can 3D printers, such as a TronXY X1, handle 24/7 projects? I have an incoming project and the only 3D printer available to me is the TronXY X1.

So the question is: Can it handle at least four days of continuous load or should I search for an alternate solution?

I don't want to damage (my only) 3D printer for this project.

I have the same Printer - a TronXY X1, and I feel confident that with a little upgrade here and there, it can handle long prints without problems.

The most needed upgrade is a quality power brick. Mine died after some month. For replacement I have chosen a 12 V/10 A output one of a reputable supplier with warranty and it runs without any warming since.

Then, I did upgrade the hotend itself. The built in hotend can become leaky under long prints. I did fix this by exchanging it for a genuine e3d-v6 lite. Yes, only a lite, because this machine can only print PLA anyways for a lack of a heated bed - and there is little size one can add to the machine's print surface due to design limitations (one can only extend Y and Z to some degree without generating problems).

Tighteners for the X on the Z-axis and the bed are a very good idea to make the printer a little more reliable, resulting in less misprints or lost prints at upper heights due to wobble or layer shift.

Generally, I have printed some quite long prints (several 16 hours, one 28 hours), and with a reliable hotend and good filament feed (in once case the spool got jammed by a pen falling into it), the TronXY X1 did do its work quite good. Mind, that I tend to always print at 0.1 mm layer hight.

I do not know how 4 days of continuous load would work out, but my X1 has some summed up 2 weeks of prints under its belt by now, so... I think it can do this, but I would give it a general check (for example inspect if the bed is still settled tight) between prints.


How to format an SD card for Monoprice Select Mini V2? I bought a 32 GB SDHC (Sandisk) I'd like to use for my Monoprice 3D printer.
I have downloaded Partition Wizard and partitioned a 2GB primary partition formatted as FAT and it still does not show any files.

What am I doing wrong?

For an SD card to work with the printer firmware Monoprice suggests to format the SD card to FAT32.

However, the Monoprice Select Mini V2 is not able to read SDHC memory cards, it is advised to use an SD card (smaller than 4 GB) instead.

According to the Monoprice support website: "Why is my printer not reading my SD card?":

  If the SD card is not recognized on the printer or if the files are
  not reading, it could be an issue with the actual card itself. The
  first thing we recommend checking is that none of the print files on
  the SD card contain a space in their name. This shows in the printer
  as an unidentified character and can cause issues. If none of your
  prints contain spaces, we recommend reformatting your SD card.

  Note:  If you choose to purchase an SD card, please make sure that it
  is not labeled HC (High Capacity) as it may not be compatible with the
  printer. This means that the card must be smaller than 4GB in size.

The last part of the support page is probably applicable to your card.

Some further information can be found in What is the largest microSD card that a Monoprice Select Mini can read?, specifically this answer. From this latter answer, I quote:

  Cards between 2 GB and 32 GB might work, depending on the specifics of
  the card

Basically there are no guarantees when using large cards.


Needle Hotend for nonplanar printing To minimize retractions and travel when printing several objects, some slicers produce gcode for sequential deposition when each object is built in a traditional manner bottom up layer by layer before starting a new object. Of course, there are limitations caused by the hotend geometry  :

So bulky hotends don't allow for this trick to be used wen sequential pieces are closer than several centimeters. If there where hotends with minimal end effector geometry (needle like, much like drill bit on CNC) we might even do things like spiralizing contours of a single object.
This has also potential for other tricks like producing interlacing layers for better layer bonding etc. I wasn't able to find any ongoing work on minimal geometry hotends. Any links? And what might be the challenges in making one? heatblocks and heating cartridges are out of the question but nichrome wire and a fast PID heat controller might do the job.

A conventional hot end needs only to be obstruction-free to the desired printing height on two adjacent sides to achieve what you want. The only other requirement is to be able to tell your slicer in what order you want your models to be printed.

For example, if your hot end is free of obstructions on the front and left sides, all that you need to do is lay out your models in a rectilinear grid, and tell your slicer to process them front-to-back, and left-to-right.

I have thought of doing this myself. By mounting my E3D V6 hot end as low as I can on its carrier, I should be able to print models up to 50mm in height, and only spaced 20mm apart. I may have to forego part-cooling, but I mainly print PETG without part-cooling, so no problems there.


What is causing the walls of my prints to separate? I have been having an issue with certain portions of the walls of certain prints becoming separated from the rest of the model. It happens with smooth vertical edges.

Specifically, this model,  ID Badge Holder, on the edges where the lanyard would be attached. And on several places on this model, Cat Necklace.

Here is the resulting issue:

I am quite new to 3D printing, so I'm sure this is an easy fix, I just don't know about it yet.

I am printing with a Monoprice Select Mini V2, using Hatchbox PLA, and the default slicing settings inside Cura. I don't have problems with any of the D&D figures I've printed, or some of the other thicker square pieces I've printed. I know I've got kind of a bargain printer; if it's just a quality issue I have to learn to live with, no problem. But if an expert knows of some slicer settings to tweak for these kinds of prints with flat vertical walls, I'd love to give it a try.

I have faced the same issue if it concerns just gaps between the walls (to the point you could put a nail in between the outer and inner perimeters, so clearly the perimeters were not bonding), for me this was fixed with proper tension of the belts of my Prusa i3 clone, and for my other (CoreXY) printer reducing the friction of the X-Y system. Both help position the head better for proper wall adhesion.

Now that you have posted a picture of your product I do not think the above is applicable to you. Your print looks as if it has an under-extrusion problem as the lines on the faces are clearly not touching, you see the diagonals of the layers beneath. This under-extrusion also may contribute to the vertical wall bonding problems you mention. To fight under-extrusion you need to check a few things:

Be sure the slicer has the actual filament diameter as mentioned on the box, or measured at various points (if it varies, take the mean value).
Check your extruder setup to see whether you have play or friction preventing filament to extrude freely.
Also check whether your extruder gear is not loose, re-tighten the grub screw.
Final step is calibration. You want to be certain that when you demand 100 mm of filament to extrude, you actually extrude 100 mm. Put a mark on the filament and extrude 100 mm using a tool like Pronterface or Repetier-host. If this is off you should readjust the steps per mm in the firmware (if you are able to do so), or increase the extrusion multiplier or flow in your slicer.

Please look here or here for more information.


Assisted manual levelling with Marlin Marlin offers a bunch of different choices for auto-levelling and assisted manual levelling for bent build plates (mesh levelling), but for the moment I want to level things completely manually.

That is, I want to move Z to 0, disable steppers, and then move around the print head and adjust the distance between bed and nozzle at various points with a piece of paper.

With the old Repetier based firmware on my printer, selecting "home all axes" did not only home XYZ to endstops, but it also moved the head to position (0, 0, 0) afterwards. Then I could simply disable steppers via the menu and go on with my levelling. Note that in my case, the coordinates of the endstop positions are negative for all axes, so moving to the endstops alone isn't cutting it.

With Marlin, selecting the "auto home" option merely moves to the endstops and then to some positive Z position (+10). This means I have to use the menu to manually move Z back to 0, which is quite inconvenient, unless I have a PC nearby that allows me to enter G-code.

So, that leaves two related questions for me:

Is there some simple way to move to (0, 0, 0) with the menu?

Can I implement an assisted manual levelling (i.e. some procedure that simply moves the head between a number of different X/Y positions) easily? Does something like that already exist? If not, I wonder why.

Write a few pieces of gcode to do this. Place it on an SD-card (I assume you have a reader) and select the file you want to execute.

Home all:

G28
G1 Z0

Do you really want to home it directly? I would say you want to take it down slowly and adjusting end-stops incrementally.

First:

G28
G1 Z10

Then

G28
G1 Z3

Then

G28
G1 Z1

etc etc

You can also move it around in the X and Y plane:

G28
G1 Z5 X50 Y30


What is the largest microSD card that a Monoprice Select Mini can read? I have a Monoprice Select Mini v2 and it came with a 256 MB SD card. I have a bunch of 16 GB cards. I have made sure that the new SD card has a FAT32 filesystem. I copy the gcode file onto this card and when I put it in the printer, it can't find any files!

And yes, the file is at the root level of the filesystem and it uses the proper naming convention. The file works on the old card.

Since the old card still works, this isn't an emergency, but I want to have a backup and I don't have any other cards that small.

Unfortunately, the answer isn't as simple as that a specific size of SD card works and another size doesn't. The Marlin firmware wiki mentions:

  The SD- or MMC- Card must be formatted as FAT and must have a MMC interface. This is more likely with cards <= 2 GB.

MMC is the predecessor of SD. SD cards are not necessarily fully backwards compatible with MMC. Apparently, Marlin uses some features specific to MMC, so your card should support it.

The SD card support in Marlin is based on the Arduino SD Card Library, which further mentions:

  The library supports FAT16 and FAT32 file systems on standard SD cards and SDHC cards.

Based on this:

Cards should be formatted FAT16 or FAT32.
Cards bigger than 32 GB definitely won't work (not SD or SDHC).
Cards at most 2 GB will probably work.
Cards between 2 GB and 32 GB might work, depending on the specifics of the card.


Which NEMA 17 Stepper Motor for Titan? I'm trying to find a comparable Nema17 (42BYGHW609) for my new Titan extruder state side with non-month-long shipping from China.

Would this work (and about the same size and weight as the recommended 42BYGHW609)?

45 N•cm (63.7 oz•in) holding torque
NEMA 17 bipolar 1.65"x1.65"x1.57" 4-wire
1.8° step angle (200 steps/rev)
Rated current 2 A & resistance 1.1 Ω

Candidates:

Nema Size 17 Stepper Motor Bipolar 45Ncm (64oz.in) 2A 42x40mm 4 Wires w/ 1m Cable & Connector for DIY 3D Printer CNC Rob
Nema 17 Stepper Motor 1.5A 12V 63.74oz.in 4-Lead 39mm Body W/ 1m Cable and Connector for DIY CNC/ 3D Printer/Extruder

The safest thing to do is to wait a month (it probably won't take that long anyway), and order the correct stepper motor from China, or pay more and locally source the 42BYGHW609.

The 42BYGHW609 is a commonly used stepper and it is best to keep all of the steppers matched - just for ease of calibration, matched performance/behaviour, and future maintainability.

Otherwise you need to match (at least) the torque, the inductance, the rated current and resistance of the coils, if not the physical size and the stepping angle. Which is not an impossible task, but a bit of a pain, TBH.

The time that you spend verifying the various steppers and then re-checking and worrying would be better spent ordering the correct one in the first place and waiting for it to arrive.

BTW, take a look at the RepRapWiki - Nema 17 page which lists suitable stepper motors.

As an aside, if this is your first purchase from China and are worried about reliability of service, then don't. I order everything from China, and haven't had a problem. In addition, if you order via eBay/PayPal you are financially protected if your order doesn't arrive (which does sometimes happen), or, alternatively, order from AliExpress, where I have never had something not arrive (if that makes sense)

I have just realised that you need an extruder replacement (and not a X/Y/Z stepper)... in which case, as towe states, either of your candidates is probably fine, although maybe over-torqued (slightly).

However, I, personally, would still replace the stepper with the same model that the 3D printer originally came with, but that is just my personal preference - unless you had found the 42BYGHW609 to be not strong enough, and you actually want to up the torque..?


Why aren't fixed build platform 3D printers popular? I'm trying to build a DIY 3D printer for myself. I've been exploring many different styles of printers and found this type of printer that has a fixed bed that stays fixed in one place and the whole gantry moves which includes all axes.

Why is this so rare?
Are there flaws in this design?
Will print quality be affected by using this approach?

Check out this video for reference and skip to 10:50:

Why is this so rare?

Such kind of printers usually harder to assembles, calibrate, and maintain because 3 axes machine is a bit more complex than 2 axes. For instance, it's can be tricky to move an entire extruder among all 3 axis and some of such printer's designs may require even dedicated exruder's design like Bowden Extruders.

Are there flaws in this design?

The key disadvantage of such kind designs is complexity with moving of an extruder among all 3 axes. Moving platform by at least one axis simplifies that.

Will print quality be affected by using this approach?

It depends on the exact printer's design, so, potentially you can have issues with ease of assembling and maintenance due to more complicated construction and as a consequence higher risk of low printing quality due design, assembly or configuration mistakes.
On the other hand, if you already have some device with precise enough 3 axis machine, like CNC milling machine, you can upgrade it to 3D printer by installing an extruder, however, it would also require update of software and, probably, electronics.


Stone-look surface via painting? Has anyone tried painting a PLA (or other) print with stone-look spray paints? In particular, how does the result look compared to printing with stone-fill filaments? It looks a lot cheaper, but will it look inferior?

One such paint: http://www.krylon.com/press-room/press-releases/2013/04/add-a-touch-of-nature-to-your-next-project-with-new-natural-stone-textured-finish/?

One such filament: https://www.matterhackers.com/store/3d-printer-filament?t=LAYBRICK

It's totally possible to achieve but the result vastly depends on your painting skills and your spray paint quality.

Your can look at this page for a concrete example.

How it compares to stone filament is fairly subjective though. Painting a 3D print usually breaks down in 3 steps :

Smoothing out the lines.
Achieved by either sanding the print or using acetone
Apply coating.
Ensures a better adhesion for the paint
Apply spray paint

If any of these steps are neglected, the final result won't look as good as using stone filament. However, if the quality of you stone filament is really bad, painting will offer a better result.


Prints fail to adhere to build plate I have been using an Anycubic i3 Mega for about a month now and it worked fine. But when I designed a simple model in Fusion 360 and sliced it with Cura it started to have issues sticking to the bed. I thought the problem was the model so I tried to print a Benchy, but the same problem occurred. I readjusted the bed but it's still not working. I'm not sure how I can trouble shoot this.

The proper answer could be not related to Fusion, as you already noticed.
I suppose the issue is that the Ultrabase surface (or any other glass surface you have installed) was not cleaned during the first month? So it should be cleaned from grease and possibly dust. The general cleaning method is to use isopropyl alcohol (IPA) from time to time (btw. I am curious if it is advised in a printer's manual). If it does not fully help, I suppose using a dish soap with hot water prior to IPA is good step. Though I do not own this bed, so could not be 100 % sure of impact. (Definitely do not use any extra adhesion helpers for Ultrabed, because it has some specific microstructure which will get stuffed.)
You could want review other threads like this How to get Sunlu PLA to adhere to the printing bed? to get other hints and supplement your checklist. One thing to check first (and regularly) is proper bed levelling at current moment - and compare to initial layer settings in Cura (thickness, width, flow percentage).


Ender 3 Distorted Calibration Cube Issue: My Ender 3 is creating distorted prints with layer separation and deformations.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Setup:

Ender 3
TH3D EZABL Auto Bed Leveling
1.75 mm ABS filament (245 °C)
Heated Bed (100 °C)
Sliced in Ultimaker Cura (with 1.75 mm filament diameter and 0.2 mm layer height)

What I have tried:

Tightening Z axis screw
Tightening Y axis belt
Tightening X axis belt
Switching to a different spool of ABS
Printing a temperature tower (same problem across different temperatures)
Turning off the auto bed leveling.

Update:

I've measured the temperature of the hot end, it is reading around 205°C +- 20°C
As per suggestion from the TH3D support team, I tuned the PID of my hot end. Unfortunately the results did not turn out much better (1,2) and the support technician is suggesting(a long with many people from the comments) that I should try to replace the thermistor. As per suggestion from @Trish, I measured the impedence of the thermistor and it does seem to be somewhat off from stock (118kΩ vs 100kΩ). Will update again once the replacement arrives.
As requested, here are some more photos front, back, left side, right side. The cube isn't hollowed out just to save material while I calibrate the dimensions.
I printed the same cube out, rotated 90 degrees. I got similar results though: front, back, left side, right side.
Swapping the nozzle out solved the issue! Thanks for the help everyone!

Resolution: After many trials and errors, I finally replaced the nozzle with one that that was not partially blocked by filament at its entrance.

Likely cause: A careful examination of the old part hints, that the repeated blockage in the nozzle seems to have been caused by a gap between the PTFE tube and the nozzle, which has considerably moved backwards under the stress of printing as one can see here in a photo of the PTFE tube.

It took me about a month and I went down a few rabbit holes until @user77232 made a great suggestion to check the nozzle and see if it needs to be cleaned. Thanks for helping me out everyone!


What is causing these strings in the overhangs? I am consistently getting these strings in the overhangs on models that folks say they are printing without supports.  Can anyone tell me what is causing them and what I can do to fix them?

I've attached a picture mid-way during a BB-8 print.  I'm using PLA at 75 % speed.

While this looks a lot like stringing, it's not what I would call stringing. I usually reserve that term for material that should never have left the nozzle to begin with, due to insufficient or missing retraction or excessive compression of the filament between the extruder and the nozzle. The "strings" you've shown look like desired wall extrusions that did not adhere to the adjacent walls in the same layer or to the previous layer.

This is common when printing concave perimeters that are overhanging, due to a combination of minimal-to-no contact with previous layer and acceleration of the nozzle away from the previous wall in the current layer. Sometimes under-extrusion can also be a factor.

You can often mitigate this by:

using thinner layers (for the whole print, or "adaptive layer height" that will dynamically adjust as needed). For a given wall slope (fixed rise over run), this will reduce the "rise", and thereby place the walls of the next layer such that they overlap more with the previous layer. Sometimes this makes the difference as to whether they overlap at all.
increasing hotend temperature. This will improve bonding with adjacent wall and with previous layer, if there's any contact with it.
decreasing print speed, especially for outer walls. This will reduce the effect of the nozzle pulling the wall away from the adjacent wall it's supposed to bond to, and will also deliver more heat to the adjacent wall and previous layer wall you want to bond to.

All three of these will also help if under-extrusion is part of the underlying cause.

If you can't get any of this to work, using supports is always an option, but spherical (as opposed to flattened) domes generally "shouldn't" need support to print.


Auto leveling with Marlin and RAMPS 1.4 does not work I configured Marlin 1.1.3 for auto-leveling with a fix mounted sensor connected to the Z end-stop pin.

I have the following settings in my config:

#define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 25
#define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 20
#define Z_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0   // Z offset: -below +above  [the nozzle]

#define Z_CLEARANCE_DEPLOY_PROBE   10 // Z Clearance for Deploy/Stow
#define Z_CLEARANCE_BETWEEN_PROBES  5 // Z Clearance between probe points

#define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_BILINEAR

#define GRID_MAX_POINTS_X 7
#define GRID_MAX_POINTS_Y GRID_MAX_POINTS_X

// The Z probe minimum outer margin (to validate G29 parameters).
#define MIN_PROBE_EDGE 10

// Set the boundaries for probing (where the probe can reach).
#define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 25
#define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 150
#define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 30
#define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION 180

I enter M111 S38 to enable LEVELING+INFO+ERROR debugging.
Then I enter G28 to home all axes and then enter G29 to start auto-leveling.

The auto-leveling starts successfully and after finishing I see the scan grid in console:

12:41:35.983 : Bilinear Leveling Grid:
12:41:35.983 : 0      1      2      3      4      5      6
12:41:35.983 : 0 -3.127 -3.405 -3.405 -3.292 -3.595 -3.487 -3.537
12:41:35.983 : 1 -3.110 -3.367 -3.337 -3.220 -3.470 -3.350 -3.365
12:41:35.983 : 2 -3.138 -3.367 -3.330 -3.215 -3.442 -3.345 -3.385
12:41:35.984 : 3 -3.013 -3.225 -3.182 -3.047 -3.225 -3.132 -3.150
12:41:35.984 : 4 -2.970 -3.165 -3.097 -2.972 -3.160 -3.045 -3.065
12:41:35.984 : 5 -2.875 -3.075 -3.005 -2.847 -2.990 -2.872 -2.875
12:41:35.984 : 6 -2.680 -2.845 -2.755 -2.615 -2.753 -2.617 -2.622
12:41:35.985 : G29 uncorrected Z:10.00
12:41:35.985 : corrected Z:12.85
12:41:35.985 : <<< gcode_G29
12:41:35.985 : X:120.00 Y:160.00 Z:12.85 E:0.00 Count X:9600 Y:12800 Z:4000
12:41:35.985 : current_position=(120.00, 160.00, 12.85) : sync_plan_position

So the auto-leveling scanning seems to be successful.

Here is a visual of the leveling grid (but upside down to make it easier to view):

Naturally I DO NOT enter G28 after the scanning.

I enter G0 Z1 to down nozzle almost to table. But when I enter for example G0 X25 Y30 and look at level and then I enter G0 X150 Y150 I see the big difference between nozzle levels relatively to table. So it seems that height compensation does not work. I expect that Z axis would lift up or down depending on auto-leveling results but Z motor do not work when I move X/Y.

By the way I tried 3 point autoleveling. It was pretty rough but Z axis corrected it's level when I moved axes using G0 commands.
And to avoid questions "why my table is inclined so much?" I deliberately inclined the table to be sure that auto leveling works. By the way, I tried different Z_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER so the current 0 setting is not actual but situation is the same with any value of this option.

What I am doing wrong?

Bed leveling is disabled by default. So the mesh was scanned but is not apllied after G29 command. To apply the mesh we need to enable bed leveling using

M420 S1

command


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

My FLSUN Kossel 3D Delta printer ($224) has a bowden extruder. It works really well too.

The main advantage of having one is that it reduces the mass of the hot end. That means less inertia, and it's easier on the driver motors as well. All this leads to (hopefully) greater and more precise control at the extruder tip, and, best of all, faster printing.


How to pause a print to insert something in a cavity using Ultimaker Cura? I have a model that contains a cavity, into which I want to insert a piece of metal, so I can use a magnet to stick to the print. How can I introduce a pause into the G-code without manipulating it manually in Ultimaker Cura?

Ultimaker Cura contains "Extensions"; in version 4.1.0, the process is as follows:

Extensions -> Post Processing -> Modify G-code
Add a Script -> Pause at height

Choose the one that matches your firmware!

Choose the Pause height to match the height the insertion should take place. Usually, this is to be the layer just before the roof is to be printed to keep the inserted objects from protruding from their cavities.
Choose a park position well outside of the print. X 10 Y 10 is usually a good position for this.
Add a little retraction if you want.

In printing, you have to wait till the cavity is formed, insert the item quickly and press the control button to resume. The shorter the pause, the better the next layer will hold to the already printed.

Also, keep in mind to make the cavity a little larger than the insert, both in XY and Z, to compensate for the plastic shrinking a little and to allow the nozzle to pass well over the inserted item.


Printing Chocolate with Ramps 1.4 Is it possible to print chocolate or food using Ramps 1.4? I have seen printers that are capable of printing food. But I am not sure if there is one that is open source. Does any of you have any experience printing food? Thanks

The controller interface board (that being the RAMPS 1.4 you ask about) should be up to the task and not care WHAT it's printing. You'll probably be creating your own hotend design to pull this off, and if you make it open source, then it will be. I'm envisioning stainless steel, careful temperature control, lots of mixing, perhaps some sort of screw-feed extruder (or batch-fed plunger with the melting and filling under close control on a separate machine, then the hotend on the printer doing a fine and careful job keeping the temperature right at 91.7 °F around the plunger.) You'll have design work to do on the mechanical hardware side, but the electronics and software should be easily adapted.

Read up some on food equipment design to make sure whatever you come up with can be cleaned appropriately for food handling, and uses only food-safe contact surfaces and lubricants/bearings.


Clicking noise from the extruder and no filament coming out When trying to print (using 215 °C for the hotend and 65 °C for the bed) there seems to be a clicking and filament stops extruding.
After much work I have cleaned the nozzle and made sure there are no clogs in the machine. However the filament seems to not extrude. When I get the filament out, there are small cuts/marks on the filament. Please see the attached picture for a better view.
I'm not sure if the marks are causing the issue or if there could be something else going on. Any suggestions on how to fix the extruder to push out filament? Everything was working normally until yesterday after I leveled the print bed.

There are a number of points missing, but I can offer a few suggestions. The re-leveling of the bed could have resulted in the bed now being in a position to block the nozzle. I have done exactly that in the past. A clean glass bed makes for a perfect clog.
The marks on the filament fit the description of a hobbed gear (extruder drive bolt) chewing into the filament, which would move only slightly from being blocked at the nozzle.
Additionally, filament temperature may be a factor, although it's difficult to determine with the information provided.
For a test, consider to use the controls available to you to raise the nozzle/lower the bed. Bring the nozzle up to your normal filament temperature. Execute an extrusion of sufficient length to ensure that the filament will reach and exit the nozzle.
If this does not provide extrusion, raise the temperature five degrees C and make another attempt. It may be necessary to raise the temperature in steps more than one time.
Use undamaged filament in these tests to ensure that the damage does not factor into the problem.


Recommendation for free, intuitive offline 3D modeling software for 3D printing I've used TinkerCAD (https://www.tinkercad.com/) and was able to easily model objects for 3D printing, despite having no prior experience in 3D modeling.
However it needs to be connected to the internet to work, which is not always available at my location.
At minimum, I need an ability to create solid shapes and holes, and with resize, align and rotate options.
Is there an equivalent program that's free, with a similar intuitive interface as TinkerCAD, and works completely offline?

I suspect there may be fewer answers than we expect.
Personally free software wise I like FreeCAD but it is not similar to the simple shapes of tinkercad at all and not intuitive.
I did know someone who used something from https://www.xyzprinting.com that was very similar to the tinkercad stuff, but eventually ran into limitations and switched to more advanced software anyway.


Steppers don't work as expected while printing I have a problem with my steppers of a RepRap 3D printer I'm making.

I assembled the machine and performed the endswitch calibrations. when the machine is not printing, the steppers are moving as expected. But, when I start printing, only the z-axis moves. it is also moving very fast; X and Y axis don't move. I'm using a RAMPS 1.4 board, NEMA 17 steppers and A4988 stepper drivers. My configuration file can be found here.

Does somebody know what could be the problem?

I've looked into your configuration file of your firmware but cannot find anything that describes this odd behavior. You have used some conservative settings regarding printing acceleration. What cannot be assessed is the amount of steps required per millimeter movement of every axis, that is left for you to re-check.

Note that when the steppers are working as expected when the printer is at idle and you command the printer with an external printer software (e.g. Pronterface from the PrintRun software suite, Repetier-Host, OctoPrint, etc.), the problem could well be caused by the slicer and/or the options used for slicing the print part.


How thin can I make the wall of a pipe? For a science project, I'm 3D-printing some custom pipes and tubes to regulate the flow of gas (a combination of ethyl alcohol and water vapor) through an apparatus. They need to be pretty small, as the entire experiment is designed on a small scale. I'd also like the use a little filament as possible.

How thin can I make the walls of these pipes and tubes before either they collapse or gas leaks out? I know that's possibly an engineering issue, but I'd also need to take resolution into consideration. Ideally, the pipes would be about two centimeters in diameter, possibly a little larger or a little smaller in some parts. I'd most likely use ABS, but PLA is my backup in case there's some unforeseen reaction between the gas and the pipes.

The printer I'm using is an FDM printer, a version of the MakerBot Replicator.

The thinnest wall your printer can print is determined by its nozzle size, and will be a little thicker than that nozzle size.

A great challenge when dealing with thin, hollow cylinders is that the cross-section has very little surface area and it can delaminate easily, especially if the tube is long.

You could try printing the tube with a very thick extrusion with, and using only a single perimeter. That would give better gas-tightness and layer adhesion than two, thinner perimeters, but it may turn out too fragile for your application. In that case, you'll need to print additional perimeters. Sticking to thicker extrusion widths would still be beneficial.

At a two centimeter diameter I'd say the single perimeter has a decent chance of working if you handle them gingerly.


Calibration of Z axis in Simplify 3D I'm using Simplify3d and a DIY 3D printer. The printer works fine and I've printed very nice objects with very smooth and beautiful surfaces BUT they are twice as tall as they should be! It is like they're scaled double in Z axis! I've checked everything, I changed steps/mm from 4000 to 2000 but it ruined the smooth surface. changing layer height just makes smoother surface and doesn't solve the problem. What am I missing in the settings?

The steps per mm in firmware is the link to the hardware configuration/setup. Reducing by half must reduce Z advance by half. If your prints are twice as tall, you must have serious under-extrusion problems as when the printer is laying down molten filament for e.g. a 0.2 mm layer, in effect this is a 0.4 mm layer. If this is not the case, you should also calibrate the extruder.

Please re-calibrate your machine Z axis in firmware (most firmwares allow command M92 to set the steps per mm), not in Simplify3d, and then the extruder.


Should you use hairspray on a metal bed 3D printer? I've heard that using hairspray is useful for keeping the 3D objects from peeling off of the bed, but every example I have seen where someone uses hairspray, they use it on a glass bed.

Is it okay to use it on a metal bed as well?

I have been using a sort of a very strong hairspray called 3DLAC for about 2 years directly onto the aluminium heat bed of the Anet A8 printer I have.

Basically, all those sprays contain copolymer constituents, PVA (PolyVinyl Alcohol), Vinyl or Acetate.  These are also found in  certain glue sticks or wood glues. For me this spray works perfectly! On day one I assembled the printer, the paper tape tore and I was too anxious to wait for new tape to arrive. This worked so well that I have not changed it for that printer.

Cleaning is very easy as PVA or any of those constituents are solvable in water, so a moist cloth or paper towel over the plate is all to clean it. Furthermore, you do not require to spray before every print.

To answer your question if you should use a PVA based spray like hairspray directly onto the metal build plate is a matter of preference, but you definitely could use it as I have been doing it for about 2 years.

To address the comments:
I spray the heat bed platform whilst it is attached to the printer. I do pull it forward and gently spray the bed or just the location where the print is going to be build. Note that you do not need to do that for every print. I recently did notice very little spray on the X guide rods (maybe I have been careless once or twice), but that has not been a problem for my Chinesium iGus ripoff plastic bearings. It is very easy to clean with a damp cloth. It also works great on the glass bed of my Ultimaker 3E, but I usually (unless when I'm lazy ;) ) remove the slate of glass before printing. You could consider shielding the rods with a piece of paper, but it has not been necessary for 2 years.


Weird stepper issue when setting up Marlin printer When manually controlling the z-axis in reprap, it works fine. If I use the home button, it doesn't move. Instead, it stalls/freezes/hangs. It attempts to turn, but can't successfully make a full turn.

lower the moving speed of the Z-axis motor, search for

  homing feed rate

in config.h as it looks like the given speed is to high.


Lead screws - M8 instead of M5? I am building a Prusa i3 MK2S (Dolly). I find it very difficult to find M5 rods for the Z axis, I have an M8 lead screw with 8 mm lead, So I thought since M8 is widely available online I could just use them instead of M5. What do you think about it? What should I keep in mind?

as long as you match the parts that is ok.
The m8 rod will give you more stiffness and will be harder to bend.
As the result, you will have to calibrate the steps/mm settings in the firmware.


Creality 3D Ender-4, a "extruder kit" does not fit the frame This is my first time building a 3D printer (a "Creality Ender-4").

Everything is going fine except the "extruder kit" part that does not have enough space to attach on the frame.  Should I drill it to have a longer hole so it can be attached to the frame? I just want another set of eyes to look at it to make sure I'm not crazy.

From the photo on their website, it looks like you are orienting it correctly.

Here is a photo to confirm the orientation.

Note: I added this as an answer so I could share the photo


M12 vs M18 V5 inductive probe I currently have my printrbot with a LJ12A3-4-Z/BX-5V Inductive Proximity Sensor ( 61mm M12 DC 5V NPN NO 300mA)

That detects my aluminium bed at around 1.2 mm distance. While it works, if the printer does the smallest blob the probe crashes into it.

I am considering replacing the probe by the M18 version LJ18A3-8-Z/BX-5V (
M18 8mm DC 5V NPN NO 300mA).

I haven't been able to find real specs for these probes (apart from what the sellers put in eBay or AliExpress - which I do not trust).

Will I get a larger detection distance with the M18 version of the 5 V probe? (I wonder if the M18 version is exactly the same M12 version with a larger casing).

Or should I move to the 6-36 V versions of the probes - I do not want to do that to not modify my wiring.

The larger the diameter and the higher the voltage the larger the detection distance. You do not need to do much wire modification if you use an optocoupler, see this anwer.


First move after homing way too fast There are a few hits on my issue title but could not find an actual answer/advice.
I burned my Ender 3 Pro Creality motherboard and replaced it with an SKR 1.4 + TMC 2209 + BLTouch.
Everything is moving like it should and calibrated.
However, at the end of the homing process, the Z-axis goes up, then it's supposed to move to the printing position.
At that point, the acceleration is so great that the Z-axis barely goes down and I end up printing about 4 cm above the bed.
These are the settings I changed on my Marlin 2.0.7 firmware in relation to the Ender 3 setup:
Configuration.h
set #define STRING_CONFIG_H_AUTHOR "Nicolas Rietsch v 0.1.2"
enable #define CUSTOM_MACHINE_NAME
set #define CUSTOM_MACHINE_NAME "Ender-3 PRO"
set #define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 1
set #define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE          { 500, 500, 5, 45 }
set #define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION      { 450, 450, 100, 10000 }
set #default DEFAULT_ACCELERATION          450
set #define DEFAULT_TRAVEL_ACCELERATION   500

set #define INVERT_X_DIR true
set #define INVERT_E0_DIR true
set #define X_MIN_POS -26
set #define X_BED_SIZE 230
set #define Y_BED_SIZE 230
set #define Z_MAX_POS 250
enable #define NOZZLE_PARK_FEATURE

Configuration_adv.h
set #define X_CURRENT       500
set #define Y_CURRENT       500
set #define Z_CURRENT       500
set #define E0_CURRENT      650
set #define CHOPPER_TIMING CHOPPER_DEFAULT_24V

What am I missing?

Maybe it would it help if you fix #default to #define in the current line:
set #default DEFAULT_ACCELERATION ...


False "Object does not fit into print volume" warning from OctoPrint Octoprint warns me that the objects do not fit into the print volume. I noticed that this happens after a power-off cycle. Since I was overly anxious until today, I always uploaded the GCode file again and it didn't complain any more.

Of course, always uploading the files again is also error prone. So today I gave it a try and simply started to print the object. As far as I can tell, it prints nicely.

  Image: Octoprint saying something like "Object does not fit into print volume" in German

Is this a known bug in OctoPrint? Are my files really damaged after a power off cycle?

The values (0.00, -3.00, 0.00) seem to be constant in this error message, no matter what object I want to print.

I'm using OctoPrint in the PrusaPrint flavor and I'm running version 1.3.10 (hopefully a recent version, since I usually update). I generate the G-Code with Slic3r.

That's the purging that Slic3r PE adds, the broad line of filament at the edge of the sheet. That is outside the official print volume, which triggers this error.

The G-Code generated by Slic3r PE at the start of the file contains the following lines:

G1 Y-3.0 F1000.0 ; go outside print area
G92 E0.0
G1 X60.0 E9.0  F1000.0 ; intro line
M73 Q0 S174
M73 P0 R173
G1 X100.0 E12.5  F1000.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0

You can see that it explicitly goes to -3 on the Y axis, and then extrudes two times on a line along the X axis.

The model size detection is labeled as beta in the settings dialog. It's not very reliable at detecting stuff like this purging line outside the boundaries.


How is 3D printing done in space? This article states that 3D printing has been accomplished in outer space, on the International Space Station.

I'm curious as to how this works differently from 3D printing on Earth. Are there any extra measures that needed to be taken to ensure that the filament would be correctly extruded onto the print bed, or during other steps?

Most likely, the 3D-printers used on ISS does not incorporate some fundamental difference that allow them to print in zero gravity.

Some people over at 3Dprint.com raised a very similar question, and figured that when turning their 3D-printer upside down and on it's side:

  there’s not really much difference at all. It’s quite interesting to see how the orientation has little effect on the quality.

One of the early 3D-printer models - the Bukito printer - demonstrated that their printer was so portable it even could print on the move, and upside down.

In other words, some consumer 3D printers already print upside down, and so they would probably print in zero gravity as well!

(That's the short story anyway. Have a look at Ryan's post, who gives a great description of the more intricate parts of space printing!)


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

I would like to move that point to the left a bit, in order to print a slightly larger part (the bed has about a centimeter more space to the left). I know I can just allow negative values but I'd rather not to, for safety reasons.

However I cannot find where the offset of that point from the endstops (home position) is declared. There is no offset set in either pronterface or Slic3r, and unless my board came preloaded with different firmware than the one reprappro publishes, the *_HOME_POS variables in their Marlin repository are all equal to 0.

// The position of the homing switches. Use MAX_LENGTH * -0.5 if the center should be 0, 0, 0
#define X_HOME_POS 0
#define Y_HOME_POS 0
#define Z_HOME_POS 0

https://github.com/reprappro/Marlin/blob/master/Marlin/Configuration.h#L290

Any ideas how I should go about it?

I think the cleanest option is to move the X-endstop back about a centimeter to match, and then increase the size of the bed in both Slic3r's and the printer's settings.

You could also try using M206 to set a persistent offset after homing.


Help! 3D Printing Corals for Aquarium Decorations We manufacture artificial corals for aquarium decorations.

We are trying to use 3D scanning and printing to duplicate live corals. Please see attached photos, left is 3D printed model, right is coral molded using resin.

The problem is lacking detail, the real corals have pores (tiny holes).

Can anybody please help to add pores to the 3D printed corals? Maybe using Blender 3D software?

First thing to check it's, What printer are you using? is FDM or SLA/SLS? Technology used is the great bottleneck to achieve the results that you want to.

Also, going cheap in 3D printing it's a way to get bad results. A good setup it's really important to get a great XY and Z resolution.

FDM it's not able to achieve the same resolution as SLS/SLA has, but it's cheaper.

If you using FDM try reducing wall speed, that will increase the detail level. Using a smaller nozzle and lower layer settings will increase it as well.

EDIT: Also, you need to check in the 3D model how the model is. If the details that you're looking for are not there, there is nothing else to do but start doing it by hand.


Can aged PLA be refurbished? Inspired by another question and due to the fact that some of my filament will face the same problem when I will use them again, I wanted to know if there are proven recipies to get rid of water that has ben incorporated to PLA filament from humidity? One knows the filament had too much exposure to humidity when hearing tiny puffs during extrusion and/or more brittle prints.

I know about suggestions to heat the water out of the filament at a temperature well below the glass transition temperature, but can someone provide first hand knowledge or even evidence?

The easiest way to freshen up filament is hot air, although there are other options.

There is an optimal melt processing moisture level for every plastic, typically in the range of 0.1-0.2% water content by weight. But the equilibrium moisture content of most plastics in humid air can be more like 1%. As a consequence, hot air dehydration is standard practice to prepare plastic pellets for extrusion in industry. Pretty much every injection-molded and extruded plastic product in the world -- including 3d printer filament -- is made with pre-dried pellets. Hot air is blown through the pellets until they are below the moisture limit.

Different plastics tolerate extrusion with different amounts of moisture, and absorb different amounts of moisture. They can also tolerate different drying temperatures. So the ideal storage and drying conditions vary by material.

PLA absorbs relatively little moisture, but in humid environments can accumulate enough water content to cause steam bubbles during extrusion. In some cases, steam bubbles can contribute to hot end jamming. Extreme wetness has been known to cause swelling that can increase filament feed drag. It's arguable whether wetness actually causes brittleness, or if that is a separate aging issue. People who keep their homes below ~50% relative humidity usually don't have any problems. Leaving PLA in a dry environment for a week or two should adequately re-dry it, or it can be gently heated to about 120F / 50C for a couple hours. (Some people dry it hotter. but that risks deforming the filament.)
ABS also doesn't absorb very much water, but perhaps a little more than PLA. It also experiences steam bubbles, but that's typically the only issue. Homes below ~45% RH usually don't have problems. Storing ABS with fresh silica gel for a couple weeks will dry it. Or it can be oven-dried up to about 180F / 80C for an couple hours. HIPS can be treated the same.
The kind of PET used in plastic bottles is rapidly degraded into tar by hydrolysis when melted with any significant water content. So PETG filaments are specially blended to absorb less water and to be less damaged by water than PET. But there is still the possibility of bubbles and cloudy strands due to steam expansion at higher temperatures, and there is some evidence that wet PETG produces weaker, more brittle prints than dry PETG. Different manufacturers' blends require different conditions: some people report Taulman t-glase needs oven-drying and careful storage while Esun PETG is fairly tolerant of normal home humidity levels. Oven-drying at 150F / 65C should work well.
Nylon absorbs a huge amount of water, which causes it to swell considerably, produce massive steam bubbles, look cloudy, warp more, and adhere less than properly-dried nylon. It's nearly unprintable when wet. It should be oven-dried at around 150F / 65C for 4+ hours -- desiccant will not strip enough moisture from it. In fact, nylon will pull water out of used silica gel! Once dry, it should be stored with an aggressive desiccant (either bone-dry silica or preferably calcium chloride). It only takes a few hours of exposure to air for it to become excessively moist. Building a sealed drybox feed system is highly recommended to avoid exposed time during and between prints.
Polycarbonate is similar to nylon in that is is an aggressive water-absorber. It will look cloudy, produce steam bubbles, warp more, and provide very poor layer bonding when wet. It should be oven-dried at 180F / 80C if on a plastic spool (up to 250F / 120C if dried alone) for 4+ hours and then stored in a drybox with aggressive desiccant just like nylon. Note that some modern PC blends like Esun ePC are less prone to water absorption, at the cost of some decrease in mechanical properties.
PVA is basically destroyed by airborne humidity, since it literally dissolves in water. Store in a drybox with an aggressive desiccant at all times.

Composite filaments should be treated like the base material.

Some drying and prevention options:

Oven: The "warm" setting will usually work pretty well. Let the oven preheat and settle out for a while, and measure temperature with a good oven thermometer or thermocouple. Shield the filament from direct radiant heating and hot spots with aluminum foil, cookie sheets, etc. Electric ovens will dry faster than gas ovens, because burning natural gas produces some additional moisture. Do not leave the oven unattended if using temperatures above the glass point of the filament, or bad things may happen!
"Light bucket": A 5-gallon plastic bucket with an incandescent lightbulb inside is a pretty effective way to gently warm low-temp filament like PLA for drying or medium-term storage. Leave the lid slightly open if drying.
Food dehydrator: Works great. Set temperatures as per the oven temps above. The main challenge is getting a large enough space inside for a filament spool.
Desiccant: In order for desiccant to actively dry filament, it must be significantly more attractive to water than the filament is. And affinity for water is a function of how wet the material already is. That means dry desiccant can easily pull some water out of very wet filament, but wet desiccant can actually give water TO the filament! Rechargeable indicator desiccant (such as an Eva-Dry E-333 unit) is ideal. It's also important to have ENOUGH desiccant: silica gel can only absorb 10% of its weight in water at 20% RH. That means to pull 1% moisture content out of a wet 1kg spool, you would need to start with at least 100g of bone-dry, fresh-baked silica! "Used" silica is basically useless, it already contains too much water to pull any more from the filament. But you can re-dry the silica in an oven. 250F / 120C for 6 hours should be safe for all types of silica gel, but more aggressive drying (including microwave drying) is possible for some silica gels. Follow the gel manufacturer instructions.
Rice: Does not work. It's basically a myth that rice has drying power. A bag of rice you buy at the store is already pretty close to moisture equilibrium with the air, so it has minimal capacity to pull water from filament (or a soaked iPhone, for that matter). If you dry the rice in an oven to drive out its water first, it will work to some degree, but silica gel is considerably more effective.
Kitty litter: Silica gel style kitty litter is nearly identical to desiccant silica gel. Like rice, it is fairly close to saturated when you open the container, but can be dried in the oven to be a good cheap bulk desiccant. Clay type kitty litter is not as effective. Be careful of getting kitty litter dust all over your filament.
Dry storage A thick plastic box with an airtight seal is preferable. Look for recycling code 2 (HDPE) or 5 (PP) on the box. 5 gallon buckets with sealing lids also work fine. Ziplocks and other thin plastic bags are better than nothing, but are permeable to water (yes, really) and can only be relied on as long as there is fresh desiccant in the bag. Acrylic/plexiglas dryboxes have been sold by various people, but acrylic is very permeable to water, so I don't recommend that option.
Air conditioning: Simply keeping the air in your printing environment reasonably dry will protect PLA and ABS and other low-absorption filaments. It may help to buy a humidity monitor to get an understanding of your ambient humidity.

Now, considering the original question here, it's important to note that moisture content is not the only way filament can age or be damaged. PLA in particular is prone to becoming brittle over time. There are different theories for why this occurs. One is gradual chemical aging because poly(lactic acid) simply is not a very stable polymer. Moisture could contribute to that aging process, but true chemical aging would be irreversible even if the filament is later dried. How much this occurs should depend on the specific polymer blend and storage conditions.

Another theory for PLA aging is that the residual filament extrusion stresses (from being drawn down to the correct diameter and rapidly quenched in a water bath) are slowly creeping over time. Anyone who has placed a PLA part under heavy load for more than a few weeks will see PLA creep. It's a rather odd polymer in that it will "creep to failure" and crack at very low creep elongations rather than progressively deform in a ductile manner like most creep-prone materials. So if the PLA has significant stresses locked-in from the initial extrusion process (which is very common) it may be creeping into a more brittle arrangement of polymer molecules over time. That would explain the aging effect, and it would explain why "drying" sometimes rejuvenates the PLA: heating the filament near its glass point will allow the polymer molecules to gently relax and basically anneal to a less brittle state.


Using a XYZ printer on Linux I have a da Vinci miniMaker and am trying to find a way to get XYZware on my computer which is running Ubuntu Linux 19.04. On the XYZprinting website I found references to a version build for Ubuntu, but it was an outdated version with no download link. If anyone knows any way to print to any XYZ 3D printed on Ubuntu, it would be appreciated if you could let me know.

XYZprinting is a company known for vendor lock-in (even filament), so it's not surprising that their software's Linux support is bad, but apparently it is possible to ditch their XYZware and get it to print gcode from whatever slicer you like. Check out the miniMover repository:

  This is a project that lets you send GCode to an XYZ da Vinci prniter. It will also convert from a .3w file to .gcode and back, and can monitor and setup the printer as well. This works with newer printers that implement the version 3 serial protocol. These include the Nano, Mini W, miniMaker and Jr. line of printers among others.

You'll also need to setup a profile for your printer in a slicer (I'd recommend Ultimaker Cura), but it looks like the thread linked from the README has information on settings needed.


Converting a mesh to constructive solid geometry I have a mesh of a bowl that has the perfect shape of half a sphere. I want to easily convert it to the containing sphere solid and a box solid that will be subtracted from it.

Googling mesh to solid shows that in various tools such as 3ds Max, Fusion, etc., manual approximation of where the sphere might go is created manually by visually comparing to the mesh or the cross section when creating the solid but I am looking for the minimum enclosing sphere and box to be generated/calculated by the software.

Source file format is of course not an issue, it can be any known mesh file.

The calculations for your objective could be considered simple geometry, although the results in terms of formulae are a bit more complex than simple, but not by much.

According to Quora, the foundation for this goal is that the cube's eight vertices will be coincidental to the sphere's surface. If one desires to print a 3D object with this form, such an object may fail the requirement of being manifold, but may not, depending on the floating point operations of the software being used.

I found a simplistic formula which provides the radius of the sphere given the length of the side of the cube.

$fn = 90;
edge = 10;
cube([edge, edge, edge], center = true);
sphere_radius = sqrt((3 * pow((edge/2), 2)));
sphere(sphere_radius);

The above code is done in OpenSCAD, resulting in this image with the sphere made transparent for clarity:

Translated into general english, it appears that one can take the edge length, divided by 2, then take the square of that result and triple it. Take the square root of that value and it becomes the radius of the sphere.

The above answer is courtesy of Math Forum and is represented verbatim as such:

        ____________________________
  D = \| (L/2)^2 + (L/2)^2 + (L/2)^2

The letter D in this case appears to be slightly misrepresented as diameter when it should be referred to as radius.

As part of this fun exercise, I also subtracted the cube from the sphere, slicing it in half for visibility, resulting in this image:


Setting up a brim/raft for only a portion of the overall print I'm trying to build an assembly with one larger part (about 50 mm x 50 mm), two small parts (about 10 mm x 5 mm) each, and one part that starts with two 2 mm x 2 mm squares that eventually bridge into a sort of flap. The larger part has decent adhesion for a couple of layers, but the small parts are slipping off the table right away and the nozzle drags them onto the large part since it's the last part being printed in the group, resulting in some stringing.

My bed is adequately leveled and can print larger models well so my suspicion is that the small parts are too small for good bed adhesion and need a brim or a raft to increase the surface area. Is this correct? If so, is there a way in Cura to add a brim or raft to the small parts and not the large part? Ideally I would print all pieces at once instead of the large part separate since I will be doing batches of these assemblies in the future.

I'm using Ultimaker Cura 3.6, printing with PLA filament set to 200 °C at nozzle and 60 °C on the bed.

In the newest version of Cura (4.5.0), in the per model settings, the only thing you can change for options set Build Plate Adhesion is Brim Distance. What this allows you to do however is create a brim for everything with the distance of a millimeter or two, and then for the part that needs the brim, you just set the distance to zero in the individual part settings. It's a little janky, but you essentially create a skirt for the parts that don't need a brim.


Should I print in a well ventilated area? With hot plastic being laid down layer after layer, I am worried about fumes. Should I only print in a well ventilated work space? Should I add additional ventilation?

The short answer is: yes, it is always a good idea to print in a well-ventilated area.  The longer answer can be articulated as follows:
Definition of "fumes"
"Fumes" is a fuzzy word that from a chemical/physical perspective includes at least three different things:

Vapour - the gas phase of a substance
Aerosol - a airborne suspension of tiny particles of liquid, solid, or both
Smoke - particles and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis (so really: a smoke is a combination of vapours and aerosols too... but the combustion/pyrolysis will have changed the very nature of the material, so it will be "vapours and aerosols of a different substance"

Interactions with the human body
Each of the above has a different way of interacting with the human body.  The list of possible interactions is huge, and out-of-scope for this answer, but just to mention a few obvious ones:

Vapours tend to enter cells by osmotic pressure and can have carcinogenic effects by either attacking the genome of the cell or by disrupting its metabolic processes (think: benzene in car fuel)
Aerosols can trigger the immune system, and in return have the body develop allergies or autoimmune reactions.
Aerosols can deposit their particles on the cellular membrane, making it impossible for it to operate correctly and eventually fail (like neurons failing to transmit electrical impulses, for example)
...

Composition of filaments
Modern filaments are a combination of different substances: the basic plastic (PLA, ABS, PETG...) that gives the name to the filament is almost always mixed with other plastics and additives that change its physical characteristics.
In some cases, the filament is host to particles of other materials (like wood, metals or phosphorescent compounds).
Each of the different materials have different transition and critical and flash points (the temperatures at which they will become vapour and ignite respectively), and different physical properties which in turn will affect differently the size of the particles in the aerosol coming out of the printer.
Conclusion
The bottom-line is that it is close to impossible to have a complete understanding of how a given "fume" affects human health.
Typically the safety of a substance is tested in a lab by directly observing its effect on cells, or by performing epidemiological studies in a population, if the exposure data to a given substance is known.
When people comment on PLA being "safe" for example, they typically refer to studies that tested inert, cold, chemically pure PLA.  But the fumes of a PLA filament will probably not be inert, nor cold, nor be exclusively PLA.
Additionally, it has to be observed that it is much easier to rule a filament harmful than safe: for it to be considered harmful it is sufficient to know that one of its components is harmful (for ABS that is typically studies showing the adverse affect of ABS aerosols on health).  For it to be deemed safe, one must know that all if its components are safe, but most filament do not go through the rigorous testing required to ascertain that.
In conclusion, it is always a good idea to get rid of the fumes from 3D printing regardless of the type filament being used.  The ideal solution is a printing enclosure maintaining negative pressure, but an enclosure with air filtering or a well ventilated room are also good options (ventilation can have adverse effects on printing quality though, due to drafts and their cooling effect).


X axis doesn't lift after levelling So, I recently installed an inductive sensor to my 3D printer for auto bed levelling and now I'm stuck on Z probe offset as it doesn't seem to do much apart from changing number is given on display for the Z-axis. On tutorials that I watched, after Z homing, the print head lifted and allowed to set Z offset but my 3D printer doesn't do the same thing as in the tutorial. I'm not sure if its a problem in Marlin or a physical issue with my 3D printer. If anyone can help me I will be thankful as I'm stuck on this issue for a few days now. Also how far above the nozzle should the sensor be for it to work and not wipe off the 3D prints.
My 3D printer is a Creality Ender 3, glass bed, SKR 1.4 with Marlin 2.0.x firmware and an inductive sensor (LJ18A3-8-Z/BX-5V).

I discovered something which could be the answer to the problem, in Marlin compiling there is:
//#define Z_AFTER_PROBING           2 // Z position after probing is done
You have to uncomment it and change number 2 to how many millimeters you want it to be above the 3D printer bed.


Insulate hotend on Makerbot Smart Extruder Simple question: how do you reinsulate the MakerBot Smart Extruders?

Backstory:
I work at the library. We've recently replaced the MakerBot (extruder connection issues followed by software incompatibility) with a Prusa.

As a new hire, I'm obsessed with the 3D printers. I'm trying to make it my mission to get the MakerBot working again, just so we can have two printers running.

It takes quite the request chain to get materials in and I had some plumbing tape on hand, so I tried to wrap it with that, per this thread. It's not going too well because of the housing around the Smart Extruder, which I cannot figure out to remove (easily and/or without voiding the warranty and taking it completely apart).

I imagine even with the cotton + Kapton tape, you'd need better access to the hotend than the housing allows.

Any help is appreciated!

I recently wrapped a LOT of hot PLA around my print head and, as a result, had to remove the kapton tape and the fibreglass insulation that came with it.

I was reluctant to use fibreglass because of the tissue embedding hazard and the lung hazard (especially on what is effectively an indoor appliance) and kapton tape is very hard to find in Australia.

After some research, I wrapped the print head in 100% wool felt that I bought from a fabric store (be very careful, as most craft felt nowadays is either acrylic, polyester or a poly/wool blend) and then bound it all up with teflon thread tape (plumber's thread tape).

Cotton has a scorch temperature of 150 to 200°C, while wool won't scorch until 500 to 600°C, and the teflon tape can handle temperatures between 200 to 300°C.

Did it work? Well I can now put my finger on the outside of the tape after the element has been at 200°C for 10 minutes, and only feel a little warmth. The print head heats up twice as fast, and I can run my massively oversized print cooling fan at 40% rather than the 10% I could use before. There is no odor of anything cooking off either. Success!


XYZ calibration without PINDA probe I have been happily printing with my Original Prusa i3 MK2S for a few weeks now. I have been thinking about replacing the PINDA probe with a BLTouch tactile sensor.

If I do so, how will I be able to do the XYZ calibration? I believe that the tactile sensor would only be able to do Z calibration. If I need to redo the XYZ calibration in the future for some reason, is it possible to do manually? Or would I need to remount an extruder with a PINDA probe temporarily?

If you want to replace the PINDA probe (whatever reason for) then you can go with the BLTouch Sensor but only for certain operations.

It will be good for leveling the bed before printing because here, only the bed level is important and not the skew of the bed.

If it comes to calibration of the skew itself, the BLTouch Sensor will not be usable because the PINDA Probe detects the boundaries of the copper circles on the print bed. The BLTouch cannot detect these copper areas.

The PINDA Probe is a proximity sensor.

If you want to do a recalibration you have to mount the PINDA again.

Therefore, it is possible but not recommended.


Are the thermsistors identical for both the heatbed and the extruder head? I'm aware of two thermsistors in the Prusia i3 Rework.  Are they the same?  And if not, how do you tell them apart?

This depends on how you ended up with your finished printer. If it was a kit, then there is a chance that the thermistors might be the same, however, even a kit manufacturer might buy parts that come preassembled as I could imagine being the case for the hotend.

To find out about the actual thermistor you would need to look up the spec sheet of the manufacturer of your printer or the individual parts, afaik there is no way to identify them by having them in your hand beyond identifying the resistivity and the coefficient type by using a multimeter.

You could, of course, check the resistivity for a whole temperature range to compare the table of your thermistor to the tables which are listed in firmware, but then you could compile your own tables right away.


Why do slicers have nozzle size settings? It seems to me that the size of hole in the nozzle shouldn't matter in and of itself. If you program in the layer height and line width, then the same amount of plastic has to be extruded, no matter what size the hole is in the nozzle.

Of course I understand that, mechanically, the best results are got with the line width slightly larger than the nozzle size. We couldn't print a 0.3 mm line with a 0.6 mm nozzle, and trying to print a 1 mm line with a 0.4 mm nozzle probably wouldn't work well either. But in terms of what the actual G-code needs to do, the nozzle size doesn't seem to matter. After all, printers feed filament based on length/volume, so the size of the nozzle shouldn't impact the amount of plastic extruded.

What prompted this question: I want to switch from a 0.4 mm nozzle to a 0.8 mm nozzle, but I cannot find out how to change the nozzle size in Cura. There are many bug reports about the nozzle size setting disappearing or not displaying in Cura, and I think that's my problem. However, in the troubleshooting threads, many people claim that you can just change the line width and ignore the nozzle size completely and the result will be the same. In other words, if I want to switch from 0.4 nozzle and 0.48 line width, to 0.8 nozzle and 1 mm line width, I can just keep my slicer set to 0.4 nozzle size, but increase the line width to 1 mm, and if I physically install a 0.8 mm nozzle, it will do exactly the same thing. There are even Cura developers saying the nozzle size setting will be removed in a future version completely.

This may depend on the way individual slicers work. Has anyone tried switching between say 0.4 and 0.6 nozzle settings, while leaving the line width the same (say 0.8 mm line width for both), and see any differences in the G-code? I can't test this myself, because I can't change the nozzle size right now...

I never thought about that!

I do know from experience that Cura uses nozzle sizes to sanity check your settings, warning you if you do something unreasonable. That is reason enough to include the feature for me. However, I did wonder what, if any, differenced this actually makes, so I tested it and here's my results:

I went through and tested it on the 3DVerkstan Face Mask. I compiled the same model in the same place in Cura, the only differences between the two being that I changed the nozzle size from 0.4 mm to 0.8 mm. I then ran the VS Code Diff Checker on the files as well as loaded the exported gcode back into Cura to compare and got some interesting results.

The estimated times and filament usages are very slightly different: 2689 seconds for 0.8 and 2698 seconds for 0.4, 6.18899 m for 0.8 and 6.18883 m for 0.4. This means something different is happening somewhere, but it's very similar to within a rounding error.
The brim is exactly the same for both. No differences whatsoever in the G-code.
When the model starts printing, everything in the gcode becomes different. This seems to be down to a few reasons: (note these photos were taken by exporting gcode then re-opening that gcode into Cura)

Differing layer start positions

Possibly a difference in line overlaps? On the 0.8 mm file, cura shows a larger gap between the brim and the part, and more overlap between the outer wall and inner walls when compared to the 0.4 mm file.

That's all the differences I can observe in this model. Every layer is different in the gocde, but it seems to be down to the two differences noted above. IMO, that's all inconsequential and you should be fine to change all the settings to how they should be for a larger nozzle and be just fine. Other than the warnings, nozzle sizes may be a holdover from a past version when they were more useful, or simply may have just seemed like a reasonable feature to put in at the time and no one really thought about it.

As far as changing nozzle size goes, I go to Preferences > Configure Cura > Printers > Machine Settings > Extruder 1 > Nozzle Size. If that option is not there, consider creating a new machine of a different type that's similar to what you have. I have an Anet-A8 but use the Prusa i3 printer type in Cura since that's most similar to what I have.


Creality ender 3 buildplate jamming I bought a ender 3 a short time ago and yesterday i noticed a print failed. It seems like the buildplate jammed while trying to move along the y-axis so i replaced the v-shape wheels that keep it on the rails. However it still seems like my buildplate jams with every print en so my print layers move when the buildplate doesn't move making the layers not connect at the right places. Is there anyone who had this problem before and might know how to fix this?

that sounds like layer shift... you might have one of these issues

overtightened the carriage wheels.
a loose Y-belt.
something getting into the bed's cable, resulting in drag.


TPE warping problems I'm attempting to print some flexible TPE filament. But I failed to imagine TPE was this difficult to print.

Specs of the shop-brand filament:
Red 1.75 mm TPE (+-0.05 mm).
Hardness: 45D.
Print temperature: 220-260 °C with 0-95 °C bed.

I'm trying to print this on my original Prusa i3 MK3S with powder coated sheet with 0.20 mm layer with PrusaSlicer 2.0.0.

What happens? After 3 or 4 layers, the print warps a lot and detaches from the plate. The object is 40 mm long. The next image shows the print detaching from the build plate as well as a skirt of two layers height:

I've tried warmer/colder, more/less fan, faster/slower. I went down to 1 mm3/s, which is 7 mm/s. For reference, PLA prints 15 mm3/s.

I readjusted my z-cal, and when I test print a first layer with TPE it's difficult to remove from the bed.

I also attempted the glue stick on smooth PEI sheet. Worked until the first few layers of infill, then it still warped.

Do I have bad filament with too much shrink, poor settings or is this 45D just too soft for my MK3s?

Bonus pile of failures:

I have not given up yet!

And I figured it out, I think. I tried many things, dried the spool at 60C for an hour, Simplifiy3D's slicer, but eventually playing around I found a setting that resulting in no warping during the print.

Final solution:
- Original Prusa Powder Coated sheet.
- Changed the nozzle to 0.6 mm.
- 20 mm/s print speed, slow.
- 260 C nozzle temp, make it liquid to get best bed adhesion.
- 90 C bed, this keeps it soft at the bottom. Do not change the temperature, as this will detach the print.
- 0.95 Extrusion Multiplier instead of 1.2

The extrusion multiplier did the trick. It kept pushing slightly too much stuff out, especially on the bottom layers causing ridges that is will pull on the next layer.
It did still warp a bit, I found that this stuff shrinks about 2% when cooled, and when you start infill, it will pull itself loose. Hence the 90C bed temp.

It still prints poorly, but it did print without creating "the blob"!


Help understanding bridge settings I can't understand how to best tune my slicer settings in order to get better bridges...

I've downloaded a simple test off thingiverse and printed at different speeds.

Here are the results, bridging tests (youtube link).

On the left we can see that going at a slow (10 mm/s) speed results in a very poor first layer.

On the right at Slic3r Auto setting which I believe is 60 mm/s is better but there are still a few strings hanging...

The middle one is printed at 30 mm/s and looks the best.

On the one hand I was expecting faster = better because the plastic wouldn't have time to fall, but I once saw a video somewhere off a printer bridging at 10 mm/s and it came out flawless!

So I decided to do some testing of my own and now I'm more confused than before.

Why did the 30 mm/s turn out better than the others and how can I improve my bridging?

The engineering approach is that if 30mm/s is working best on your equipment (at least on that day), you should use it; at least until it doesn't work so well for you. You might also try more different speeds (closer to 30 than to 10 or the assumed 60) in case one works even better than 30mm/s - though you might also want to question the assumed 60 (or test a set 60) since assumptions can bite you.

There's not going to be a fixed speed that's always best independent of the printer - everything is dependent on the printer, and its environment - if the temperature of the room varies a lot, it could change the "best setting" on days of different room temperatures. Perhaps the "10mm/s" that you saw working well was using a more effective cooling fan while bridging, or had other differences from your particular unit - or had different settings (other than speed - nozzle temperature, for instance) which impacted the result.

(note that I have limited tolerance for videos, and have not actually looked at yours, so if you're going to come back with "but I don't have a cooling fan", please post a picture of the printer or results that does not involve needing to sit through a video. And perhaps add a cooling fan...)

As for "understanding how to best tune your slicer settings" - far more testing, and keep track of the results. So, do tests (without altering other parameters) at 20, 25, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 mm/s.

Depending on the results of those tests, say you find the best results at 35-40mm/s, perhaps you try 47 and compare that. Perhaps there's no real difference between the 3, so it's in that range, but not picky.

Then alter one other thing (nozzle temperature comes to mind first, but perhaps it's "fan speed for bridging" or some other, single, item) and do more testing - likely the best speed will change, so you'll need to re-run a range of speeds at the new setting. And keep track of which results (test prints) go with which settings, so you can go back to the ones that work best. Then alter that parameter more, or alter another parameter.

For the most part, there comes a point where it's good enough, or at least where you're sick of testing for a while and results are good enough until you want to test / tune some more.

If you change many things at once, it's hard to isolate cause and effect. If you test many settings but lose track of which settings were used for what result, it can be hard to progess towards better results consistently. When you find a range that seems to make no difference (and it's as good as it gets), be happy that the parameter is not too sensitive, and tend towards the middle of it.