Makerbot Replicator 2 restarts after preheating the hbp I've recently upgraded my Replicator 2 with a heatbed and the more powerful power brick (9.2A). The problem I'm having right now is that the Replicator restarts right after the preheat of the bedplate finishes. It does not matter which temperature I set as threshold - it restarts either way.

So it restarts even in very low temperatures on the HBP. Tried upgrading the firmware and even switch firmware to Sailfish, but it's still the same issue. I would really love if someone could help me with this.

Edit: I've checked my cables and it seems okay. Themistor is connected via pin 1 and 3 and the power should be fine.

Edit2: Found the problem. It was a faulty hotend that caused all of this. It works to print with , but togheter with the heated bed it makes the Replicator to restart.

Clues so far:

You changed your hardware to add a heated bed.
You've had the same symptoms with three different firmware versions.
Your Replicator 2 reboots right after preheat, regardless of temp set.

My Assumptions

You have not tweaked firmware or other settings that could cause both the heated bed and hot end to draw high loads simultaneously.  (By default Makerbot handles this in firmware, avoiding situations that could over-tax the 9.2A power supply which isn't really enough to handle preheating both at the same time.)

Potential Problems: Listed starting with the easiest to fix...

No problem, carry on: If you are printing from the USB cable, a restart after preheat could be a normal condition.  The Replicator 2 reboots to reset inputs when you start a print over USB...this is normal.  So, if you're preheating with the buttons and then you start a print, this would be expected behavior.  Try printing from SD card and it shouldn't reboot.
Power Supply voltage switch: Make sure your power supply voltage input switch is on the correct voltage, either 110 or 220.  Having it set to 220 when you're using 110 can cause reboots due to insufficient power. (brown-out)
Wrong heated bed: If your heated bed draws too much power (it is higher power than the Replicator 2 can support with that power supply), you may get reboots due to insufficient power. (brown-out)
Short somewhere: A short somewhere in your system could cause too much power draw.  This could be somewhere in your heated bed, your hot end, or other.  Inspect carefully around the areas where you moved wires.  You could have a frayed wire contacting the frame, a screw shorting between two wires, or a little stray "hair" of copper wire sticking somewhere it shouldn't.  This too will cause a reboot due to insufficient power. (brown-out)

I hope this helps.  For further reference, read this thread as I believe it has some relevant info.  :-)


Minimum material deposit threshold in slic3r I've been using Slic3r for a while now, and for the most part am happy with the results it produces. I mostly use the standard profiles provided by Prusa for my i3 mk3.

However, when watching the 3D printer at work, executing GCODE produced by Slic3r, I notice that frequently the printer makes large travel moves, deposits an absolutely tiny amount of material and does this several times in a row. Sometimes this is so small, barely any material actually comes out of the extruder. I'm convinced the end result would be no different if these operations were simply skipped. In some instances it might even improve print quality, due to reduced stringing.

It strikes me that print time and printer wear-and-tear could be significantly reduced if there was an option to simply skip deposits of material below a certain threshold of volume.

Despite having gone through all the Slic3r options, I've never found something which does this, unless there is a way to achieve it with some combination of settings which I have not understood.

My question is therefore: how can I tell Slic3r not to make individual material deposit moves, below a certain volume?

It does this in small corners.

For example, this model, when sliced has this on layer ~7:

Tiny tiny bit of blue infill.

There seems to be no feature to explicitely disable this.
But sometimes an additional perimeter solves it.


Anycubic Kossel Plus raises the Printhead around the corners of the bed too High if the print is too close to the corners Hi guys I am quite new to 3D printing. I am having this problem with the printhead rising too high during printing when it gets near to the beds' borders. It isn't a problem with smaller prints but it gets very frustrating with bigger ones. I am thinking I am doing something wrong with the calibration but don't know exactly what. I am not calibrating by hand rather using auto calibrate.

I am using Cura 15.04.03 as slicer.

It is a common  problem with "delta"-style circular parallel kinematics machines.  It is called Bowling.  It can lead to the presumed Z=0 plane having a bowl-like shape.  The actual error shape can be more complex.  The job of "bed-leveling" is to make the realized z=0 plane to be identical with the bed.

If you can, use a multi-point (like 40+ points) interpolation.  It builds an error map, and adjusts every point based on that map.


Can I use a material other than PTFE to print PETG? Because of the crazy shipping prices, I want to find a cheaper alternative to ordering a 600$ all-metal hot-end.
Is there a material like that which does what PTFE does but till higher temperatures?

PETG does not need an all-metal hotend or alternate bowden/lining material. Unless you're trying to print at #speedboatrace-competitive speeds, the recommended print temperature range for PETG is 230-250 °C, and the temperature above which you should not use a PTFE-lined hotend is 250 °C.


Slicer for "metal" 3d printer In my last topic I learned that Pronterface can control powder 3D printer provided that the slicer generate g-code for printer which is printing from metal. My question is as follows. Is there a slicer (open-source or other easily accessible), which will generate g-code that will be able to command the printer which operates on the following principle?

Laser SLS printers (3D Metal Printer) software requirements are very similar to SLA printers specially laser ones.

There are lots of different tools which you can use together.

You can use Lasershark 3D together with creationworkshop.

Also you can convert your source file to SVG or image files, using Slic3r, nanoDLP SLC2PNG or Asiga Stomp/Sleece. And convert SVG or Image files to toolpaths using cad.py, gcodeplot or any other freely available softwares.


What are my options if I want to install a bed levelling sensor capable of operating at 100 °C? I currently use a BLtouch 3.1, which is known to stop operating at about 35-40 °C. In fact, when I preheat the bed at 100 °C close to the probe, I sometimes get issues with the pin not retracting correctly.
I would like in the future to enclose and heat the printer chamber, therefore I need a probe capable of operating at higher temperature. My target is 100 °C.
As of now, I'm aware of this solution:
https://hightemp3d.com/products/remoteht-bed-level-probe-3d-printer

This high temperature probe uses a mechanical switch in combination
with a servo motor to probe the bed. The servo motor is outside the
enclosure and retracts the probe pin by pulling on a steel string
inside a spring guide tube.

Microswitches are known to work at high temperatures (that's what the link above uses), but usually need a servo or other mechanism to extend/retract them when needed. Servos typically don't operate at such high temperature, not to mention that they are usually not very accurate.
I saw a Hall filament sensor which uses Hall effect sensors "ss49e" and which could be easily modified to be used as bed probe. Those Hall effect sensors are rated up to 100 °C but at that temperature they have up to 8% shift of the null value and +3/-9% change in sensitivity. The linked project uses two of them in differential mode so the temperature compensation should be much better, but it is not clear how much better. A discussion about it on a Russian forum does not talk about this.
Are there other options operating at 100 °C?

Have you considered using or adapting Prusa’s P.I.N.D.A. V2 or SuperPINDA? Seems that within some bounds they’ve solved the temperature compensation issue.
The older P.I.N.D.A. V1 sensor seems to be temperature-sensitive. See more information in P.I.N.D.A./SuperPINDA Sensor testing article of Pruse Knowledge Base.


What causes bubbles in extruded filament? I've noticed this on almost ever print I've ever had. On the initial first line that clears the extruder nozzle tiny little bubbles/craters seem to form on the line. While I don't think these are causing any issue with my prints I'm curious to know the reason why they form at all.

Is this due to water absorption in my filament that turns to steam, which then bursts through the molten plastic? Is it due to air bubbles in the filament that are cause by the manufacturing process of the filament? Or is this more an indication that my nozzle is damaged or clogged in some way?

This image was made using ABS plastic and a heated build plate. I've noticed these same 'bubbles' appearing using PLA, and Nylon.

Edit: Nozzle temperature 240°C, build plate temperature 150°C, Nozzle diameter 0.4 mm, filament diameter (measured 1.75 mm) retraction distance 1.7 mm. Using the Makerbot Desktop Slicer.

The first line that my printer extrudes, where I'm seeing these 'bubbles' is a nearly full line. Makerbot starts from the right side of the image, extruding to the left.

Oh yeah, that's simple. You are printing too hot and are literally boiling the plastic. Else you have water. However if it was water you would hear Crackling as it printed. If it is too hot you will not hear nearly as much. I am 87.341% sure you are printing too hot.
Looking at your printing temps you are without a doubt printing too hot.
From this link on 3d hubs.

PLA (Only on Replicator 2) Print temp: 210°C (at 100m/s) Notes: heated
bed optional between 40 and 60°C
ABS (Only on Replicator 2X) Print
temp: 230°C (at 100m/s) Notes: heated bed at 110°C


How should I connect a separated 5 V source to an Arduino connected to a RAMPS board I'm going to add a Raspberry Pi to my printer, which requires a 5 V source. I want to take this opportunity to also power the Arduino with that same source, as dropping 12 V -> 5 V is a quite big waste. I know the electronics don't consume much power, and the regulator can handle the heat, but why not?
I want to know how can I safely do this. Is it sufficient to just bent the pin from the RAMPS to the Arduino's VIN?
I'm also using TMC2209 stepper drivers. According to this: https://learn.watterott.com/silentstepstick/pinconfig/, these requires the 12 V line to turn on before and turn off after the 5 V.
I wonder if this is true, as I haven't seen this anywhere else.

I would not recommend changing Arduino powering.
You can either do as you say and power Arduino by giving it regulated 5V to Vin, but then the ATMEGA2560 still will be powered through the 5V voltage regulator. The voltage regulator (NCP1117ST50T3G) needs to be supplied with 6.5V to give out regulated 5V. So you will be powering the Arduino with some 4V, which might work, but it will be less reliable. But it is electrically safe.
Second option is to power Arduino through it's 5V pin. That is less safe, because the voltage regulator might have an over output-over-voltage-protection that will to load or short-circuit the 5V until it is 5.000V.
Regarding TMC2209. I have not seen any documentation that has any opinion on what order it shall be powered up and down.


Ender 5 Slant or Leaning when printing multiple parts Getting slanted or leaning prints when printing multiple parts.
I checked the eccentric nuts and belts aren't rubbing anything. All works well when printing a single part. But multiple parts:

What am I missing?

If you want a more detailed answer, you need to give more details, e.g.; "What filament are you using?" "How old is the printer?" "What mods have you made to it?"

I can tell you two possibilities. Either your x or y axis is slipping which could be because of worn out belts, belts that need to be tightened, or because of too much jerk. The other is overheating of the stepper drivers so make sure the board is getting enough air over it.


What are the effects of the elements on 3D printed objects made with "infused" PLA I came across a new Steel infused PLA from Colorfabb. On the store page someone had asked, what happens if it was exposed to water, would it rust. I am actually, not sure what would happen. I am interested what the effects of leaving in the elements a 3D printed object made of the 2 most common type of fused materials.

Wood Infill
Metal Infill (not stainless steel)

Would it be preserved by the PLA coating it, or would, over time, rust and dissolve? Would the wood last forever, or will the print get discolored and become mulch?

If you use filaments filled with metal particles, some particles will be exposed to the environment. Depending on the corrosion resistance of those metals, yes the environmental conditions will weather the print object. So if it contains iron (and does not contain elements that prevent oxidation like used in stainless steel) and it is subjected to water and oxides, the print will rust.

This is e.g. also valid for copper filled filament, which you can polish to get a gold shine surface (removing the copper oxides), or bronze filled filament, that if correctly subjected to weathering environments, will give the looks of a very old statue. In both cases this implies that the metal particles have undergone a(n) (de-)oxidation process.


Increase hotend temperature on Monoprice Ultimate 2 I'm fairly new to 3D printing and I have a Monoprice Ultimate 2. The Monoprice website says it can reach 250 °C with a 100 °C bed temperature.
I want to print some projects using Matterhacks Nylonx, its recommended printing temperature is 250 °C to 265 °C.

Could I print it on the stock max setting of 250 °C or will it not adhere correctly?
Can I increase the print temperature by replacing the hotend with an E3D hotend?

If so how hot could I get the hotend and how would I go about doing that?

There is not many resources about Monoprice products.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Ok, first of all you need to understand why the limit is given at 250 °C: that's when the hotend design chosen by the Monoprice starts to destroy its PETG liner. To print hotter, you'd need an unlined hotend, which means you'd need a proper all metal hotend.
A proper all metal hodend is a tradeoff, not an upgrade: you sacrifice some ease of printing and risk some clogs in the lower temperature band for being able to print higher temperatures.
When you want to buy an e3D hotend, you should go for a genuine one, as many clones are actually not all metal. Also note, that there are other all-metal hotends around.
If you get an e3D v6, you should make sure to buy the right variant for your machine! Monoprice tells us, that this is a 24 V Machine, so you'll need to get the 24 V Variant! As you also will swap the temperature sensor, you might need to update your firmware according to the e3D installation manual. Since a genuine hotend comes with all the cabling and a new thermosensor, you'll need to rewire the whole machine - and you might need to make new fittings before installing. The standard e3D Thermistor that comes with the hotend is good up to 285 °C, which will be your new ceiling temperature. Take careful note of these two parts that appear in the before assembly notes section of the manual:

The standard V6 is capable of printing up to 285°C, do not exceed these temperatures unless you have replaced the Thermistor cartridge with a PT100, the Aluminium heater block with a Plated copper heater block, and the Brass nozzle for a Plated copper, Hardened steel or Nozzle X.
Firmware modification is not optional it is a mandatory step.


Printed part auto-eject (automatic part removal) What are the methods to auto eject parts (into a collection area/box/basket) in order for the 3D printer to continue printing?

For some reason this feature isn't common (yet?). Is there a hidden reason why?

Will using the print head to ram the part off the build plate into a basket nearby cause the print head to misalign (if using belts).

I am planning to use a Cartesian XY-Head type (like CoreXY) printer, where the build plate moves along the Z axis and XY axes are on the ceiling of the printer using belts to move the print head.

While the "best" method is probably unanswerable since it would be based on very specific requirements and subject to change as soon as a better method were devised, here are some feasible methods to auto-eject 3d printed parts.

Some of these are methods that I've considered for my personal use, others have been mentioned by others and added for helpful reference.  Some have been done, others have not (I think), but all of them are feasible.

Scrolling Conveyor-type Bed:

In this concept, parts become dislodged from the print surface as it is deformed around a roller in the process of scrolling to the next position.  Scrolling bed designs must make allowances to prevent parts from lifting up the bed material which becomes an issue especially with warp-prone materials.  Note: This is the basis of the Automated Build Platform (ABP) originally designed (as far as I can tell) by Charles Pax and later covered in several patents by Makerbot Industries.

Deforming Bed:

In this concept, the bed is mechanically deformed when the part removal temperature has been reached.  This deformation dislodges the part which can then be easily swept off of the bed by an arm or similar mechanism.  (As far as I know, this concept has not yet been demonstrated.)

Articulated Segmented Bed:

In this concept, the bed is comprised of several strips. Slightly lowering a portion (let's say half) of the strips would separate them from the part, then slightly raising that portion would separate the part from the remaining strips.  (As far as I know, this concept has not yet been demonstrated.)

Eject and Replace Bed:

This method ejects the entire bed surface along with the finished parts and then receives a fresh print surface for the next print.  This method would likely still require intervention to remove parts from used print surfaces and then return them to the clean stack. (As far as I know, this concept has not yet been demonstrated.)

Plow:

This method mentioned by Fred_dot_u and AllanL uses a specially designed plow arm to sweep parts off the bed between prints.  This method has been effectively demonstrated in this video by New Valance Robotics Corporation that was mentioned by AllanL (thanks!).

Issues using print head to eject parts:  While this method has been tried, and demonstrated (see below), it has some challenges/drawbacks.

Typical FDM/FFF 3d printers are not designed to apply significant force behind print head movements.  While a printer designed specifically for this purpose could be built, using a typical printer in this way is extremely likely to cause the stepper motors to loose steps and result in loss of position accuracy unless parts separate very easily. (however, position could easily be regained by zeroing via limit switches between prints.)
In addition to skipping steps, mechanical issues such as ratcheting/skipping belts or unwanted frame movement could result from even moderately stuck prints.

Examples of pushing or ramming parts off of bed:
While using various parts of the printer to push parts off of the bed may not be an ideal solution, it may be an adequate solution for specific circumstances.  Here are a few demonstrations of the "ramming" method.

Ramming parts off with frame and moving bed like this.
Ramming part with robust print head like this.
Ramming easy to remove part with print head like this.

Interesting question.  I hope this helps!


How to print TPU material with 3D printer Is there anything special for printing TPU material e.g extruder or temperature?

It's my first time printing TPU material, so if you have any photos, it would be great if you can share them.

Elastomers do much better on direct-drive heads (pulled to the head by the motor) than on Bowden designs (where the material is pushed to the head by a motor). This is because the flexible TPU or TPE can bend in the guide tube, causing lag during advance/retract changes, and sometimes even bind up during delivery.

Look for equipment which explicitly states that it is compatible with, and designed for, flexible filaments.


Why is my 3D printer over extruding when I have set the flow rate very low Hello I am using Cura to slice my prints, and despite turning the flow rate to the minimum value of 5%, my prints are still hugely over extruding.

I have calibrated the extruder stepper perfectly, using Pronterface, so I do not understand why this is occurring. I have also timed how long it took to extrude a certain length and compared it to the length of time it was meant to extrude and it was exactly the same. Therefore, I have concluded it is not a problem with the calibration of the stepper.

So, I think there is a problem with the settings on Cura. Orginally, I had the flow rate at 100% and this was really, really terrible. Then I turned it down as far as possible and the print got better but there was still over extrusion. I can't down it down any further.

I can not figure out what the problem could possibly be and as you would imagine it is very, very frustrating.

Here is the print profile:

Edit - Some extra information

So the printer is not of any model, as it is homemade CD drive 3D printer. It shares many similarities with the Curiosity3D printer, so if you want more information on how it works, then their website will be of much value.
Link

The extruder is a bowden style one. It uses a cheap e3d hotend Link to amazon and a RepRap extruder kit as the motor Link to amazon.

Here are the Machine settings:

This is a photo of two failed prints. On the left is a G and on the right is a heart.

This is what it was the G was meant to look like:

Edit 2 - More information

So here is a link to the configuration.h file which I previously modified for my 3D printer.Dropbox link

Also the filament I use is "Robox PLA SmartReel Cornflower Blue" link

Any help would be much appreciated.

First of all: Can you tell us, what kind of printer do you use and which material? Please give us some pictures of some prints as well.. Also the type of the Extruder setup is relevant. Is it a Bowden or Direct Driven extruder?

For an FDM machine like the Prusa styled printers with PLA:

Flow of 5 % is totally wrong, normally PLA should be run between 90 % and 105 % flawlessly. The problem is elsewhere but not with the Flow settings, nor the Temp is the faulty one.

Temp between 185 °C and 210 °C should be fine for most PLAs
Did you set up your printer correct in Cura (Preferences -> Printers -> Machine Settings)? Material Diameter, Nozzle size and G-Code flavour are correct?

If you give us some more information, I will be glad to get this solved.


White PLA prints frequently have rough sidewalls near top of the print This has happened a few times whenever I print with the white PLA (Hatchbox 1.75 mm). It seems that the print job produces smooth sidewalls for most of the part but at a certain point and above, the walls become rough as if the alignment is off or something. I've attached a picture to show the issue. Does anybody have any insight?

I'm using a Printrbot Simple Metal and some of the print settings are listed below:

Slicer: Slic3r
[First] Layer height: 0.2 mm
Perimeters: 2
Solid Layers [top/bottom]: 3
Infill: 25%
Fill pattern: Rectilinear
Top/Bottom Fill pattern: Concentric
Perimeter speed: 30 mm/s
Infill speed: 80 mm/s
Travel speed: 150 mm/s
Acceleration (perimeters): 1000 mm/s2
Acceleration (default): 3000mm/s2
Default extrusion width: Slic3r chosen
Print temperature: 220°C

I've noticed in the Slic3r rendering that the affected area seems to be the point where the infill switches from 25% to solid as seen in the included picture. If this is the problem, is there any way to enforce solid infill a few layers below this to eliminate the awkward transition, or specify a smaller extrusion width at this point?

If you want to change settings on some area of your part check out modifier meshes in Slic3r.

It looks like to0 much heat is delivered when solid infill starts and some melting occurs. See 3D Printing Problems #22: Extrusion Temperature Too High.

You can try:

Lower extrusion temperature
Lower filament flow
Improve part cooling
Lower print speed


What printer is this? I've been watching this video 3D printing guides: Calibration and why you might be doing it wrong and at the start (at 0:30) three of the first Reprap printers are mentioned (and shown):

Darwin;
Prusa Mendel, and;
what sounds to be "Cells".

Here is a screenshot:

which, to me, looks like a Mendel.

However, after having looked at:

RepRapWiki - RepRap project, and;
All3DP - The Official History of the RepRap Project

... I can not see the "Cells" printer listed or mentioned.

Am I hearing it correctly?

Or is it "Sells", in reference to Edward Sells, one of the four authors of RepRap – the replicating rapid prototyper? However, this paper only mentions/shows the Darwin and Mendel printers.

Yes, it is a "Sells Mendel" in reference to Edward Sells. As noted on the RepRap wiki:

  Ed Sells, a student of Dr. Adrian Bowyer, designed and built the first Mendel printer, sometimes called a "Sells Mendel" to distinguish the original design from later tweaks.


How should I test filament samples? I have just ordered some filament samples (each sample is 10m x 1.75mm). How should I test the samples, given that there is only 10 metres of each to play with? Just printing a benchy will use about 4 metres. I would probably want to print a benchy, so that leaves 6 metres to play with. I am mostly interested in producing functional (not decorative) pieces. I do not have a heated bed.

Select an STL that exhibits characteristics you want to test (bridging, resistance to various pressures) and print it with each material. Preferably, run the same exact gcode, only changing temperatures, so that you get an apples-to-apples comparison.


Prusa i3 MK3S keeps clogging during print. Ugly streaks sometimes, and complete clog when printing with lower layer lines The extruder on my Prusa i3 MK3S keeps clogging while printing. Loading is fine, and each time it clogs, unloading and loading the filament seems to work.
The filament extruded just after resolving a clog looks like it has small bubbled on it.

The problem only seems to happen when printing certain models. Printing the Batman symbol at 0.15 mm works every time. But the model I'm trying to print always fails at most a few minutes in.

I've tried cleaning the nozzle. Cold pull twice, and taken it out and heated it with my airgun and trying to work on it with the acupuncture needle.

The print that fails is this "Small Pill Container" with 0.1 mm layer height and 100 % infill, but printing a simple cylinder shape (25 mm outer diameter, 2.5 mm walls) creates the same problem. Trying to print them both at the same slicer settings with 0.15 mm layer height still fails.

The model was sliced using the newest version of PrusaSlicer 2.1.0 and printed with Prusament PLA at the factory recommended 215±10 °C, and tried 220 °C.

Any ideas what could be happening? Anybody experienced a similar issue?

Printing the bundled TreeFrog 50 μm sliced by Prusa for the Prusa I3 MK3S cased the same problem. Jam happened about 30 min in. I guess this rules out slicer problems as the root cause.

After a lot of research, it seems a lot of people have problems with the MK3 clogging, especially with PLA, and especially with prints with a lot of retractions. The issue seems to be the design of the heat-break, which has a throat between 2.2 mm and 2 mm, where the PLA can get stuck. I've ordered a new heatbreak. Please read this answer of my findings.

My problem was 2 things. The heatbreak, which was switched out for the MK2 version(Explantation below). And the Teflon Tube that runs down the heatsink.

Heatbreak

Change the heat-break to a generic E3D one. You can order the heatbreak for the MK2 from prusa, or any generic heat break for the E3D hot-end assembly.

On the Prusa i3 MK3(s), this component has been given a 45° taper in the middle, between 2.2 and 2 mm. This is done to ease filament retraction for the MMU, and will be nothing but problematic if you are not using the multi-material upgrade. Especially with higher nozzle pressures(eq. with lower layer lines), the filament may be squeezed into this taper, clogging the hot-end.

You may not experience full clogs, but partial ones that will show themselves as streaks in certain layers on the print.

Heatsink Teflon Tube

There is a teflon tube that runs down the heatsink. It's crucial that this is mounted correctly and it is not entirely intuative how.

First, press the teflon tube into the heatsink all the way to the bottom. Then, try to pull it out slightly. You'll notice that the small plastic ring at the top of the heatsink will pull out slightly along with it. Now, hold this black plastic part at it's current position with your fingernail, and push the teflon tube in the extra amount. When done, there should be no play in the tube.


Strange layer separation issues on Ender 3 I got my Ender 3 a couple weeks ago. Within a couple days of test prints, I was able to get it working pretty well. Prints looked great. However, I installed a more permanent solution to my X-Gantry binding issues and now print quality is down again.

The bottom .25" of the calibration part looks absolutely terrible, with hideous layer separation issues, while the upper .75" looks flawless. I have little idea what could be causing this issue.

The only possible failure mode I can think of is that the bed isn't the right distance from the print head, but even fiddling with the knobs doesn't yield any better print quality than the print on the right of the first image. What can I do?

I slice with Cura and can make my profile available if it would be useful.

Well, you have several problems with your print. One that could be affecting your print is the nozzle temperature. The print looks wavy and has a lack of adhesion, so the filament is not flowing properly, causing under extrusion and will provoke a clogged nozzle.

Try to increase the temperature by 5°C and do a small test, don't wait to waste material and try another 2-3°C more.

Try to reduce the printing sped; try reducing the feed rate on your printer to 90% or less. While printing you can reduce the feed rate to see which speed works better at your printing temperature. I prefer to do this first rather than change the temperature; If you notice that your print gets better at lower feed rate then change your temperature higher to print a higher speed.


How to accurately print a thin piece with a hole pattern I'm quite new to 3D-printing. I need to build a curved piece with a hole pattern and I was wondering whether it was possible to print such a hole pattern accurately, with such a thin (3 mm) thickness of the piece. In the past, when I tried printing thinner pieces with holes, the piece warped and holes were not printed properly. Therefore is there any changes to the model I need to make to improve the quality of the print, or add any supports?
I am using an Ender 3 Pro, with PLA.

Use the smallest nozzle possible to get better rounded edges on holes.
Slow down the print speed to increase accuracy and prevent errors.
Print it face down against the bed if possible to reduce support requirements for overhangs and increase hole quality.
Clean the bed well, increase bed temperature, stick glue, enable brim, or add 'mouse ears' to prevent warping.
Make sure the bed is levelled properly to prevent warping and increase finish surface quality.
Use a 'stringing tester' to find the best temperature to print at so that you can prevent stringing between holes.
Enable z-hop retraction to prevent stringing and errors.
You can bore through the holes with a drill to clean them flush.


Diamond hotend with single extruder motor Today I started to google the idea of multimaterial printing. I checked out prusa multimaterial upgrade and while it looks nice, it is expensive and will not probably work with my non-prusa printer.

I discovered there is Diamond hotend, which allows for 3 (or even more) colors at the same time. But everywhere I checked, one extruder motor was used for each color. Since my MKS Gen L motor connections are already all used, I was thinking if it would be possible to handle all of the filaments with single extruder motor.

Basically the motor would have long shaft which will cover all filaments, and I would add some servo that would push a pulley against the selected filament.

I think I would slice it as a multiple hotend setup and then postprocess the gcode in a way, that when tool is changed I would add custom command that would push the pulley against appropriate filament.

I would either need a servo for each of the filemants, or maybe with some clever mechanics one servo in different positions could do all of them.

I am just curious if you think this would be possible to do, since I did not find anyone discussing this idea. Probably because it will require adding custom commands to the firmware.

You might save yourself a lot of engineering by copying the Prusa MMU2.  Here is a github project for someone doing exactly that:  https://github.com/cskozlowski/mmu2

If you look on Prusa's web site, you can find printable parts for the MMU2.


Adding support when generating g-code from Cura Engine (command line)? Is it possible to use Cura Engine (the command line tool) to generate a gcode with support?

Here is what I do now:

CuraEngine slice -j /usr/share/cura/resources/definitions/ultimaker2.def.json -l my.stl -o my.gcode

I found this in the fdrmprinter.def.json which you could might make a copy of and use instead for the -j option:

"support":
    {
        "label": "Support",
        "type": "category",
        "icon": "category_support",
        "description": "Support",
        "children":
        {
            "support_enable":
            {
                "label": "Enable Support",
                "description": "Enable support structures. These structures support$
                "type": "bool",
                "default_value": false,
                "settable_per_mesh": true,
                "settable_per_extruder": false
            }
        }
    }

Change the "default_value" under "support_enable" to true and that could work.


How can we control the airflow in a fan which can be 3D printed? I am new to 3D Printing and I have taken up a summer project. The project requires a fan 3D Printed, If I use a normal fan the airflow will make my project (i.e. a air-propelled car) go backward. Can we modify a fan so that when the fans spin my car goes forward? If yes, how?

Look at your fan: it spins in one direction, and the blades push the air from one air to the other side. In fact, the fan is nothing but a propeller! There are ways to optimize them. The Rotation goes for example clockwise, the leading edge grabs the air and the trailing edge releases it on the other side, and if the leading edge is towards you, then the air is pushed away. In the simplest way, it would suffice to physically flip the fan around.
A 3D printed new fan would need to have the whole geometry of the fan blades "flipped" (mirrored around a non-rotational axis). Now the leading edge of the fan is away from you, the trailing edge on your side, the airstream is again from the leading to the trailing edge, and the air comes out on your side.
cave!
Not all fans can be made to reverse the airflow by flipping the fan geometry: Radial fans just because less efficient.
Other fans can be made spinning backwards by swapping the polarity, but others use a simple diode setup and always spin their way. Also note that fans spinning backwards often suffer from reduced efficiency, as the blade geometry is optimized for one direction of spinning.


Building a pivot linkage for servo steering with 3d printed parts. This question is more of a mechanical rather than 3d printing, but I am assuming 3d Printing communty have already come accross this issue, therefore this is a good place to ask.

I am building a simple RWD vehicle using 3d printer parts. See the picture below.

As you can see from the picture, I am using 3d printed linkages for steering mechanism and I used regular bolt and lock nuts to secure them together (thats what I had laying around the house at the moment). The problem here is that, holes in the linkages are not exactly the size of the bolt, and because the bolts are threaded, it generates a lot of friction. Other than that, the bolt seems to sit loose inside the hole and creates an unstable pivot.

If I tighten the nut more, it just presses them together making it hard for the servo to operate. I am looking for a solution that will use simple bolts, nuts and washers which can be bought easily off the shelf (or even with the bolts and screws everyone has around there house). What can be done to make this joint stable in xy plane, rotating freely around the bolt, or whatever the connection could be. By the way, even though I used nylon lock nuts, it seems to loosen after couple of repetitive rotations.

Thanks for your help in advance and I hope ya'll have a great day.

A correct length shoulder screw would work great in this application.  They have a shoulder that is held to a precise diameter and a length.  You can thread a nut on and tighten it against the shoulder to prevent clamping your pieces.  They may be hard to find locally in stores but are readily available at places like MSC, McMaster-Carr, and Bolt Depot.


Updating firmware on Monoprice Architect printer I just received this printer and while it seems to talk to Makerbot Desktop software I'm not sure if I should be trying to update the firmware.

The printer comes with firmware v7.2 and while Makerbot Desktop offers an upgrade to v7.5 I'm not sure if it's a good idea with this non-Makerbot branded printer.

I've also seen information on upgrading this printer to Sailfish v7.5, is this the same thing as Makerbot firmware v7.5?

The Monoprice Architect is is a bare-bones FlashForge Creator that has been re-badged for Monoprice. The Creator line is a very popular set of printers, so there is lots of good advice out there. The FlashForge Google Group is a good community to join: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/flashforge

The entire FF Creator line, in turn, is cloned from the original Makerbot Replicator 1. So you can use Makerbot slicing profiles for the Replicator 1. Just keep in mind that Makerbot does not generally test new software revs with their older printers, and DEFINITELY does not test new software revs with competitor knock-offs. Sometimes they appear to break functionality for non-Makerbot machines on purpose. So recent versions of Makerbot Desktop may not "play nice" with your FlashForge. The most recent "known good" free slicer you should use with this printer is Makerware 2.4.x. You can find links by searching the FF Google Group.

On that note, you may have received instructions to use ReplicatorG with your printer. But RepG is abandonware: development stopped years ago. It should only be used for firmware updates, not as a slicer. You should also only use the most recent version posted on the Sailfish page on Thingiverse:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:32084

Using older versions of RepG with newer firmware revs will corrupt your EEPROM! Only use the version downloaded from the link above.

The firmware that comes with the printer is FlashForge's slightly-customized build of either Sailfish or Makerbot's Replicator 1/2/2x firmware. But here's the trick: Makerbot's Rep1/2/2x firmware is just an old, out-of-date, slightly customized version of Sailfish. Makerbot stopped keeping up with bug-fixes and feature additions a long time ago. Everything is Sailfish: just different versions. You should use the most recent official release version listed at:

http://www.sailfishfirmware.com/

Follow the instructions in the Sailfish manual from the link above, and RepG will automatically pull the right builds from the official mirror and populate a list of printer options to choose. The trick here is which build to download. As of 1-21-16, there is not an official Monoprice Architect build yet. Which would mean editing a machine xml profile to avoid the firmware throwing warnings. I STRONGLY recommend getting used to the printer using factory firmware before trying to fight with custom machine profiles... But here is the basic process to pick a Sailfish firmware build when you're ready:

First: which Atmega processor version do you have? The large chip in the middle of the control board will either say 1280 or 2560. You need to know which version you have. Bad things happen if you load the wrong version.

Second: What is the tooth count on the X and Y drivetrain pulleys? To my knowledge, FF always uses 17-tooth pulleys, which matches the Replicator 1 and FF Creator profiles. The Rep2 and 2x use 18t pulleys, so only use those builds if you have those pulleys. People often mess this up and their prints end up with dimensions ~5% off in X and Y.

Third: The Architect has one extruder and no heatbed, so firmware builds that expect those to be connected (Rep 1 Dual, Creator, etc) will throw errors if loaded. You can fix this from the LCD screen or RepG, but that's a whole separate question. Do some printing and learn about the printer before attempting any firmware update so you'll know what to do if you pick a build with the wrong parts.

Fourth: This one is just for the sake of completeness. Some FF models were shipped with off-spec heatbeds that require special firmware builds to prevent drawing too much current and overheating / overloading the power supply. The Architect doesn't have that, but firmware builds for those printer models (eg I believe the FF Creator 2560) will under-power regular heatbeds. This is just something you need to know with the Architect if you decide to install a heatbed later. But it's a really critical safety warning for people with those off-spec heatbeds.

If this all seems complicated, that's because FlashForge (and in turn Monoprice) relies heavily on the open source Sailfish project to maintain the software ecosystem behind this line of printers. FlashForge has some internal builds that they use for flashing new bots, but these are not kept particularly up-to-date. Nor does FlashForge release the source files, so it's quite opaque where exactly the stock firmware differs from mainstream Sailfish. In the long run, you should install mainline Sailfish. But it's ok to stick with the factory firmware until you get used to the printer.

To summarize: Because there is not an existing Sailfish build, you're going to need to do some investigating and some experimenting to figure out which build will work. Don't try that until you're familiar with the printer. Post on the FlashForge Google Group when you're ready for help.


Rough surface when printing Is there a specific name for that problem? What causes this, and is there a way how to solve it?

Printed with PLA, 2 mm nozzle diameter, 0.2 mm layer height, 20-60 mm/s, 200 °C extruder, 60 °C bed.

I have experienced this problem.  This picture is one that I could have taken.

It has always been because I was putting too much plastic into the available space.

This has been caused two things: overextrusion -- squirting out too much plastic for the intended layer height, and the bed being too "high" so that the gap between the nozzle and the bed is too thin.

In both cases, too much plastic is trying to be placed in too small a volume.  The plastic has to go somewhere, and ripples follow.  Because the nozzle rubs against the adjacent lines which have already been deposited, an up-bump pushes up the nozzle on the line beside the bump, and a coherent pattern of ripples can form.

The "bump up" is a real effect from the elasticity of the Z-axis, including all the resulting strains of twisting and lifting the nozzle.


Online APIs for 3D printing services I'm interested in finding online APIs where you could perform a call to some third party service with some print preparation request with my model (i.e. "heal a model" or "set up support") and get in return GCODE file I can send to a 3D printer.
My input will be :

The 3d model (obj, stl)
My printer (makerbot, ultimaker, whatever) or a printer profile
A printing profile

This is opposed to all the classical 3D printing processes we have right now. Currently when printing in a 3D printer you would need to go through these phases:

Create/Download a model
Prepare the model for printing with some 3rd party desktop software
Export the model as gcode
Save the file to some flash drive
Plug the flash drive into the printer
Print the model with the printer interface

I would like to know if this process can be simplified to a point where you can just print your model directly from your web browser without going through all these steps.
I know I'm over simplifying things here, but I would still want to see if solutions like I suggested exist?

Thanks

There are a few methods to simplify your workflow.  Two solutions are outlined below and both feature a documented API you can use to further customize your workflow.

OctoPrint was mentioned by other users.  OctoPrint will allow you to configure your printer, print profiles and upload STLs for printing from a web interface.  You can configure profiles, slicers and slicer profiles for OctoPrint to use to complete your workflow.

Astroprint offers cloud slicing services in addition to features allowing you to manage printers and print profiles.


Is it possible to convert a Las /Laz file into an STL or OBJ file? I would like to know if there is any tool/library (preferably python based) that could be used in parsing a Laz file to extract info that is normally found in 3d object files such as vertices. Which could be used to create printable 3d mesh.
I already tried Laspy and I could get the  x,y,z data from it but it is not a vertices info but rather a scale info. So I would either need a tool to give that or an algorithm for getting vertices from the data  from laspy.

Given that LAS/LAZ is LiDAR point cloud data, there is a GIS tool called las2tin to convert these files to a triangle based mesh called Triangular irregular networks or TIN by the GIS community. Other GIS tools should be able to do the same, for example ArcGIS.

Once you have the mesh, Google should be able to help you find a way to convert the TIN to an STL. You will need to scale down the STL after creation, as the TIN will probably be at 100% scale.

One example workflow for converting LAS data into an STL is:

Using ArcScene: open DEM > convert to TIN > export to VRML
Using MeshLab: open VRML > export to STL
Using Meshmixer: extrude base > scale to fit standard printing parameters > save as finished STL

More details for the process that I got from Google are available here


Gaps between perimeter walls; potential under extrusion? The cube is a 2 cm x 2 cm with infill at 30 % and layer height 0.2 mm, more details can be seen below.
I'm printing with PETG using an Ender 3 printer.
There seems to be a gap between the perimeter walls, I have already referred to other forums and specifically: " How to fix wall separation in 3D prints (gaps in between wall perimeters)? ", but I still can't find a solution for it.
Most would suggest to tighten up the pulleys, I've tried that, but that didn't work. Others also suggested tweaking to a higher temperature, again I've tried from a range of 230-250 °C, but this also failed.
Infill and initial/top layers seems to be strong and all lines are bonded except for the perimeter walls.
More details regarding the problem:

Here are my print settings:

PETG filament is not entirely rigid and compresses slightly in the Ender 3's extruder gear and Bowden extruder setup. Tightening it will only make this effect greater. Being compressed at the point where mm of extruder advance is applied means less than the desired advance of at-nominal-diameter filament will take place. I find I need a flow of 104% to compensate for this.
When adjusting flow in Cura, make sure you get the main flow setting not the first-layer one (which is an additional factor on top of the main one and can be left at 100%), and that all the derived flow settings for each type of extrustion (walls, top/bottom, infill, etc.) all come out matching the value you set. When I first tried fixing this with flow, they didn't propagate right and I ended up testing changes that weren't actually doing anything.
With that said, you may have something else going on too. The underextrusion looks pretty severe, including in the top layers which you said looked okay. You should not see deep grooves between the lines like that. I suspect they're only bonded to the layer below, not to their neighbors. This could be a result of tightening the extruder pulley, or some other problem.


Purge okay but not extruding during printing I am new to 3D printing and have a newish Eryone Thinker SE.  Its been printing fine with some Eryone Glitter Black (EGB) and I'm happy with the results.
The spool has now finished and I'm trying to use some black Tinmorry and/or Sunlu - both rolls are displaying the same issue.
I can load and purge the new filament just fine but starting a print immediately after results in no filament being extruded.
I have unloaded/reloaded, purged and retried a few times to no success. I also switched back to the take end of the  EGB with success.
Extruder temperature is 205 °C. Is this just too cold for the new spools?

So, I was able to fix this (or it fixed itself overnight as these things sometimes do) with a 5°C increase in extruder temperature to 210°C.  The Sunlu PLA filament specifies 200°C - 230°C as its print range.
I followed the advice of a IRL friend who suggested "What happens if you raise the z a bit so you can see the nozzle and keep raising the heat until it starts to come out on its own.  Check temp and then run a print at that temp."
I only needed that 5°C increase before I could see it oozing.  From there I was able to successfully print a calibration cube and further model.


Anet A6 - First time assembled, won't turn on I recently bought an Anet A6 and decided to assemble it today. When I plugged in the power, I don't get any sign of life from the printer. No lights, no bleeps, no fans which are starting to blow.

I checked the motherboard and it receives power from the adapter (I live in Europe, the Netherlands, so the voltage is 220V) but nothing happens.

Can someone help me out?

I added some pictures of the wiring for references. Display cables are correctly set (J3 to J3 and LCD to LCD).

Welcome to 3d Printing!
as this is a first day of the printer there could be a list of items...

First thing first: disconnect all peripherals, so we can test mainboard.

Before connecting PSU we can connect mainboard via usb and see if it starts (I will probably use a power bank in that case to avoid burning USB (worse case scenario)).
Then you can use cura or another host program to connect to the printer and validate firmware. If the printer is not recognized we can reflash the firmware using provided app or ArduinoIDE .

If all looks good we can check PSU.

please check output voltage from power supply unit (shall be 12V) (on the terminals, there is a small voltage regulator on the lefthand side)
then double check polarity
connect power to mainboard
check if we have same voltage on mainboard terminals
then check if we have 12v on the fan terminal (40 * 10 fan shall run all the time on the hotend)

if that is done and we have power provided to the mainboard then we need to check for 5V that powers the arduino mega2560 (that could indicate a faulty power regulator)

Select one of the available sockets and measure voltage on VCC and GND pins. If we have 5V then we can connect pheriperials one by one, always switching off PSU and disconnecting USB.

If one of the underlying components is faulty then you will see straight after powering the mainboard.

image source


Why does the painters tape have to be blue? I have been looking at getting some painters tape to use on the glass plate for better print adhesion, and everything I read suggests the blue painters tape, such as this:

However, this white tape is considerably cheaper:

This looks like normal masking tape to me.

Is masking tape ok, or is the blue painter's tape preferable? If the latter, then why is that so? What is so special about the blue tape? Is it a different material?

read first
When you use painters tape, you need to level your printer with the tape applied. You need to relevel if you change the tape type.
Basics
It's not any blue tape that printers love. There are basically two factors that make a tape useful:

It has to stick during printing.
Its surface has to allow the filament to stick to it.

Let's look at some different tapes and their suitability - from my own experience.
ScotchBlue
The original blue tape is actually ScotchBlue for delicate surfaces by 3M. It has a good surface to stick to and at the same time an adhesive that does not degrade to unsuitability by heating. The delicate surface one is just as good as the all surfaces type. But don't use the outdoor type, it is sealed too much.
FrogTape
FrogTape has an adhesive that has no problems with heating, the surface is sometimes a little smoother. Its green variant is about as useful as ScotchBlue, while the yellow variant is easier to remove - which can be an issue when the printhead is not calibrated correctly.
Generic painters tape
Generic painters tape is a can of worms - there are so many different ones it is hard to describe. I have had very good off-yellow rolls from the dollar store of the 'fine surface' type - as in the tape had a fine surface - and their adhesive was good and didn't degrade too much under heat. The followup roll was a little thinner of material and released under heat so it can be a hit and miss - it's ok for starting out though.
I also tried a roll of UHU painters tape of the easy remove type and it was horrible, as it didn't want to stick after the nozzle went over it once even on an unheated bed.
Generic blue colored tape
I even tried two blue colored tapes from different dollar/hobby stores. One was ok-ish and had a similar result as the good dollar store tape in look, but left a blue shadow on the base of the print after two or three prints. The other was showing similar behavior to other mild-adhesive/easy peel tapes.
Conclusion
It's not color that matters, it is the formulation. If you must use blue tape, spend the extra bucks for quality. Some bloggers compared other tapes, tested ScotchBlue vs Kapton, discussed the benefits of either, discussed the ScotchBlue tape in depth.
While in general, I prefer to print on the surface of my (blue) BuildTak (clone), I occasionally whip out painters tape on an unheated surface for very delicate prints: I remove the print together with the tape from the surface, which allows better handling. Sacrificing a layer of tape only costs some cents after all while breaking a print is hours and filament for much more  money wasted.


Is there a way to configure printer extruder to go all way up when printing finishes in Ender 3? With Ender 3 is there a way to configure printer extruder to go all way up when the printing finishes?

Or even with the Ultimaker Cura software?

I want this, because i'm going to put a switch on the top of the printer that will switch it off when the printer finishes (if i can make the arm with the extruder go all the way up when printing finishes.)

How can this be done?

The most safe way to move the printer up to the maximum print height is to use a concept known as "keywords" (sort of constants that are filled by the correct value when slicing) in Ultimaker Cura, certainly if you have multiple printers with different print area sizes.

To use these keywords, just add these in between curly braces and insert them into your slicer "End G-code" script. These keywords will be substituted with actual numbers from the printer settings or slicing configuration parameters. In this case we need to use the maximum print height which is specified by the keyword machine_height. This keyword takes its value from the printer settings, set for the printer in the graphical user interface of the printer settings, see image below (this is a configuration of an Ultimaker 3 Extended, it also shows the Start G-code and End G-code which you can tweak yourself, as seen by the additional G-code line G0 F10000 Z{machine_height} that has been added for this demonstration).

E.g. similar to this answer, you could solve this with a keyword. Now when you slice for a certain printer (e.g. with the printer settings of the image above), the correct value will be filled in automatically when slicing the print object as can be seen from this snippet of G-code:

...
G91 ;Relative movement
G0 F15000 X8.0 Z0.5 E-4.5 ;Wiping+material retraction
G0 F10000 Z1.5 E4.5 ;Compensation for the retraction
G90 ;Disable relative movement
G0 F10000 Z300 ; <------------ note to see {machine_height} be resolved to 300 mm
...

This is specifically for Ultimaker Cura. Do note that e.g. Slic3r even takes the keyword  concept further by allowing arithmetic and logic, similar as you could do in programming languages!


What does nozzle size affect besides line width in, e.g., Ultimaker Cura? The Ultimaker Cura documentation says

  Tip: If you use an unavailable third party nozzle size, set the line
  width to equal the nozzle size.

I sliced an object with a 0.3 mm line width. When the nozzle size is 0.4 mm, the results are almost the same as when the nozzle is 0.3 mm. The filament usage is slightly different and the gcode files have similar, but different, coordinates throughout.

What does nozzle size really do besides suggest the line width?

Searching the CuraEngine source, the only places I can find where nozzle size is used directly involve some arcane logic for merging of infill lines, such as:

https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine/blob/05e93dabce9e863b8742fd69ed87717e1594e7a9/src/MergeInfillLines.cpp#L124

So essentially, yes, nozzle size mainly serves as a default value for the line width settings.

However, in general it's not always possible for line width different from nozzle size to be honored.

For line widths smaller than the nozzle, motion along a path where the material being deposited has proper adhesion is required to stretch the material and prevent it from retaining the width extruded from the nozzle, and small lines already printed are likely to be damaged by the nozzle when attempting to print additional small lines in their vicinity. In particular, you won't be able to print small details significantly below the nozzle size just by extruding less material.
For line widths larger than the nozzle, compression against an existing surface is required to prevent the extra material from just sagging down rather than expanding horizontally. In particular, line widths wider than the nozzle are unlikely to work right in the presence of overhangs.

Also, as noted by Tim Kuipers in comments, there are places outside the source, but rather in the json-based configuration tree, where nozzle size plays a role in the defaults and warning ranges for other parameters. Those are mostly line widths, but

  The nozzle size can affect the values of the following settings besides line width in fdmprinter.def.json: Outer Wall Inset, Outer Wall Wipe Distance and Minimum Support XY Distance. Other than that it only influences the conditions under which setting-values give you a warning.


Prusa MK3 heatbed shorted: replace just Einsy or heatbed too? Prusa MK3 heatbed power cable shorted out (on the Einsy side) and it looks like I need to replace the Einsy. Should I replace the heatbed too? I don’t know electronics well and am worried I will just fry a new Einsy.
Heatbed end:

Crispy at RAMBo end:

Crispy at RAMBo end:

Larger images can be found here.

There should be no need to replace the heat bed.  It wasn't subjected to any unusual loads.
If the bed isn't heating, there could be one of sever problems, but I would start with the fuse.  If the fuse had time to do its job, it would have blown and protected the circuitry.  In your picture, the fuse is the blue component with "15" stamped on top.  There are also two fuses with "5" stamped on top.  One of these may be blown.  If so, replace it and try again.
If the fuses are all good, and everything except the heat bed works, you have probably blown the FET that switches the heat bed power.  If you aren't handy with circuit board repair, you may choose to get an new Einsy controller and then try to repair your old one.  These repairs aren't usually hard because the FETs are fairly large components.


Hictop prusa I3 clone - broken z axis right bracket bearing I was very excited to get my 3d printer but sadly I didn't realise I'd installed the z axis upside down. There's a plastic coupler that goes into the hole for the polished rods it broke then released 1 -2mm sized ball bearing all over my floor.

Is it possible to just replace that coupler thingy?

Or if I 3d print a replacement will it still need that coupler thingy?

The first picture is the one that spilled it's guts all over my kitchen floor.

The last image is an example of how it used to look like but on the left hand side. I know the image looks like it's the right but you can see a bit of the horizontal rods if look closely

That "plastic coupler thingy" is actually a linear bearing, and it consists of a metal shell, and the metal balls roll between the smooth rod and this shell. The plastic part has a channel that guides the balls in a circle.

It would be best to replace the entire bearing (metal part+balls+plastic liner). It's probably either an LM8UU (most likely) or LM8LUU bearing.

3D Printing a new part will not give good results.


Magnetic field around the printer I'm using a low voltage active screwdriver that is sensitive to magnetic fields.

It is weird, even I put a metal piece on the glass over the heated bed and check it with the pen, it lights fully. If I hold the pen on air anywhere nearby, it is weak but still lights a bit.

My cards and PSU are not mounted on the case. I also grounded my PSU with a small cable from G to V-. So, what could be the reason? Is that normal for such complicated devices? Just curious.

The heated bed is a big PCB whose traces can act like a coil since heating the bed makes current flow through these traces.

By placing a metal object over it, you encounter a phenomenon called induction which will heat up the metal object (that can be the screwdriver tip) because the magnetic field generated by the "coil" of the heat bed.

Since these screwdrivers can be pretty sensitive the electrical current transferred from the heat bed to the metal bit may turn on the screwdriver LED

Also, stepper motors contain magnets and electromagnets which produce an alternating magnetic field when turned on which, by induction, can produce a little current in the spring inside the screwdriver which would act like a receiving coil thus turning on the led hooked up to it.

Try this with your printer on: put the tip of your screwdriver on your tongue (which will effectively ground it with your body) and put the handle over stepper motors or the heat bed and see if it lights brighter.


Which 3D printer to print heat-resistant material? I need to print a rotor for a DC motor I'm designing. In the process of testing the behaviors of the motor performances, I would need a material that will not deform at a temperature range between 100 °C to 150 °C.
Since I don't have a 3D printer yet, I would like to know what would be the best choice for my need.
I was planning to buy an Ender 3, but I'm not sure this entry-level 3D printer will allow me to obtain the results I'm looking for. I'm excluding PLA material because I think it's the most "fragile" material from this point of view and for my needs.
My questions are:

Which material should I use in order to have a 3D printed object (rotor) that will not deform at a temperature that varies from 100 °C to 150 °C?
Can an Ender 3 (planning to use full metal hotend and also hotbed) be used to print the filament that is heat resistant? Should I buy a resin 3D printer?

Using an Ender 3 for high temperature materials is possible but you need to enclose it to be able to heat the air up to 100 °C.
It's quite involved and it would be much better, if it's something you do seldomly, to have the parts printed professionally.
Many thing start warping or breaking at 100 °C.


Practical concerns smoothing PLA print with chloroform vapours One way to give PLA prints a smooth finish is treatment with chloroform vapours (or other solvents, as mentioned in this answer). This method is even featured on Ultimaker website. I would like to try it on some of my prints.

What are the practical concerns I should be aware of using chloroform vapours? I am looking for advice concerning vaporisation temperature, time of exposition that makes for a nice finish, and any other experiences.

Caution!
Chloroform is a moderately toxic chemical! I only approach this method as I have an access to a well-equipped chemical laboratory with a fume hood.

Disclamer:
The question is not about the safety issues using chloroform vapours. It is about how obtain the best post-processing results with least trial-and-error.

This Reddit post seems to have some good trial and error dialog.

This Thingiverse post, along with many other references online, suggest that the results are very similar to that of an Acetone treatment with ABS. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of how it works, but the general advice is to be conscious of what you're working with. A heat-induced vapor treatment seems to yield the best surface finish, but can be tricky to track down proper exposure times. It seems that the time required to achieve a desirable surface finish depends on the size and openness of the features on the object. By openness, I mean how evenly the vapor is able attach itself to the surface of the object as compared to other features. Some this variability may be reduced by streamlining the process. Perhaps if you found a way to rotate either the part or the vapor container during the process. This could ensure contact is made in small corners/features. Other variables to consider may be:

If a gradual reduction of exposure is necessary (as is with most heat treatment operations);
How much temperature effects time. Most pages I've read mention 100C as the temp to vaporize the chemical;
Size of the "vaporization chamber" in accordance with how much of the chemical is available. I've used a gallon paint can lined with lightly dabbed paper towel with Acetone for part between 1"^3 to about 4"^3.

That's all I can think of, currently, that could potentially have the most impact on the process. Just as with 3D printing, there's not an easy way to definitively know how your parts will turn out. The sheer difference in the shape of your parts could throw out any "proven process" you come up with. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what things to look out for in starting out.

Here's information about safety, before OP added disclaimer
As with any chemical, always refer to the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet)! Whichever supplier you acquire the chloroform from, should ship an MSDS with the product. If one is not shipped, you should be able to request one. If they don't have one, don't use the product and don't purchase from them.

In most cases, you can get away with finding any MSDS online, but I'd recommend trying to get one directly from your supplier as they might theoretically have a different "strand" of the chemical. Therefore, reactions and safety precautions may be different than what you will find online.

A quick search yields this MSDS which states that chloroform does have "carcinogenic effects" along with some other long-term, undesirable effects. As with any other MSDS it continues to go over best-practices and extremity limits.


Dramatic failure of calibration print I printed out this calibration shape from Thingiverse with an unexpectedly catastrophic failure.  It looks like there are a lot of things wrong here.

I used the Normal profile in Ultimaker Cura.

There's so much bad in this print that I'm not sure where to start.

It appears that walls weren't printed at all.
Resolution is way below par.
Overhangs are collapsing (not sure if that would be expected at those angles)
The in-filling is inconsistent and "blobby".

The failure you are faicing is underextrusion. Underextrusion can have several reasons. Among the three most common I encountered in my printers:

The nozzle could be clogged, hindering flow (Very crushy, squishy prints after it worked fine before)

Dissemble the filament path till you can push an acupuncture needle through the hotend, heat it, press out all filament, reassemble.

The extruder might be skipping steps or shredding filament

check if it is just not gripping the filament, not turning at all or clicking.
real Troubleshooting might be needed

The g-code might have a bad setup for the filament you are using - try upping the higher extrusion multiplier/flow rate and print at least 2 walls!

In Ultimaker Cura: Custom > Material > Flow

If not there yet: Gear > Material > hook Flow


RAMPS won't PID tune and shows unreal temps About two days ago, I started seeing that my hotend was heating up erratically. I first noticed this while printing a part in PETG and the temp jumped to 260 °C. I shut down the printer at that time and first started checking the hardware. I noticed that the E3D V6 thermistor had been tightened too much. I disassembled the entire hotend, cleaned everything and then reassembled everything. I thought to retune the hotend and when I tried tuning it at 240 °C.

This is where the strange behavior occurs. The hotend steadily climbed up till about 200 °C. After that it just went nuts. I started seeing unreal temps such as 646 °C and such. At this point I thought the MEGA might be at fault. I replaced it and the hotend (an E3D V6 clone). This had the screw on glass thermistor. Again the same erratic behavior and unreal temp readings.

What could be wrong here? What am I missing? Can this be the heater cartridge?

This can come from several sources:
Hardware
The thermistor or its connections might be damaged, and the fault is only observable when the hotend is hot or moved to a certain area. Start by checking the wiring! You may be able to repair a bad connection easily, but depending what was broken, you may need to replace something. In some cases squishing a thermistor cartridge too much can destroy the internals, so a replacement is needed.
A mainboard failure is more likely to just show a static temperature, and a heater failure would show as maybe not getting past a certain point.
Firmware
If it had not worked before or you changed the firmware, the firmware should also be a suspect. The firmware can 'fail' when using the wrong thermistor type/table which can result in a very big offset or bad slope, resulting in wrong or unaccurate readings.


Strength of 3D printed Objects I am new to 3D printing and need to know if I use steel in printing, do I get the same strength (compression and shear) as steel profiles manufactured in a factory?

A laser sintered part typically uses what could be described as surface bonding, as it does not melt particularly deeply into the powder. It would not have the same strength characteristics as machined steel or otherwise processed metal. A part constructed from 3d printing using feed metal/welding methods would have more strength, but would not necessarily have un-modified steel strength, due to the heat applied during the process.

Using a metal which responds to post processing, as in tempering, will likely improve the strength, but I believe that one is unlikely to reach the same values as "ordinary" steel. Compression along the lines of the construction layers would be reasonably strong, but forces applied in other directions are likely to match only the characteristics of the bond. The same consideration applies to shear strength.


Ender 3 Pro not interpreting G-code correctly? I have an Ender 3 Pro and I have been able to get it to work quite well, I installed a 0.8 mm nozzle to try the Vase mode in Cura. I re-leveled the bed and when I tried to print, I got some very strange behavior.
When it starts the "purge line" along the side of the bed, the Z-axis is too high and instead of going down the left side and back up, it will go down the left side and then from left to right along the back edge and then stop and then just extrude filament. If I look at the beginning portion of the G-code it doesn't look any different than the G-Code for the other models I have printed except for in the initialization script it set the Layer height and Min Z to 0.32 instead of 0.2 and the code for drawing the first 2 purge lines is identical. I tried printing an older file that worked correctly and I got the same results where it went along the left side then along the back side and stopped and just extruded filament.
It seems like something in the printer went wonky? What would cause this and what is the fix? A reset of some sort? And how is that accomplished?

It ended up being something with the printer, I powered it down, let it set a few minutes and then powered it up and it printed correctly. Is there a way to "reset" it without the power cycle, and is this something common? Thanks for the response!


Do Cura's self-crossing infill patterns account for excess material from self-crossing? As far as I can tell, Cura's infill patterns which are self-crossing, such as triangles, don't do anything special to account for extruding material over the crossing points multiple times. In theory this should produce either a blob around the crossing point, or excess pressure in the extruder due to blockage from the alread-deposited material that will result in over-extrusion after the point is crossed until the excess pressure is dissipated.

Is Cura doing anything to account for this? It doesn't seem to do travel moves across the intersection, but maybe it's adjusting the overall flow to compensate for the crossings "on average".

If not, it seems like crossing points near the walls would be a source of dimensional accuracy problems, which I've seen in tightly confined areas and which I'm looking for a root cause for.

With most filaments you don't need to do anything special to account for overfill caused by these crossing points. When the nozzle extrudes the second direction, it pushes the lines laid by the first direction out of the way. The same happens when the third direction crosses the first two. There's a blob, but it's a blob within the plane of the layer, so it shouldn't stick up out of the layer and upset subsequent layers. There are two complications which can occur though:

When filling each direction, it's usual to keep extruding when moving from one line to the next (not a travel move), which results in getting an extra half perimeter around your infill. This is fine for a single raster pattern, and for box infill, but with triangle, hexagram, or similar, you'd get three half-perimeters (one for each direction). The slicer needs to offset the third direction so that those extra perimeters don't overlap. I don't know how Cura handles this; it's possible that's the source of the dimensional problems you're seeing.
With abrasive filaments, or those that don't stretch (such as carbon fibre or metal fill filament), the "pushing the existing lines out of the way" doesn't really work. You just end up wearing down the outside of the nozzle and getting the kind of blobs you're afraid of, sticking up into the next layer. It's just best to avoid infill with crossings (box, triangle, hexagram, etc.) on such filaments.


Sharing a printer over a network I have a Tronxy X3 (i3 Clone) running Repetier firmware on a Melzi board.

I would like to share the printer over my home network so that:

Both my boys and I can use the printer. (We have separate Windows 10 PCs)
I can initiate a print from my computer upstairs
I can monitor the print progress remotely

I have (and could use)

A RAMPS board set that I could use to run Marlin.
A Raspberrry Pi 1B
An idle laptop I (might) be willing to use

What I want to know:

Are you sharing your printer on a network, and if so, how long
What Hardware and Software are you using
What do you like most
What do you find most annoying
What do you want to change
What is the interface (web interface, print driver, etc.)
What services are provided (printing, slicing, monitoring, etc.)
Can two computers access it at the same time
Ex: To monitor, or still print if my sons forgot to disconnect
What sort of monitoring is supported? Ex: camera?
What runs the print job (G-code)

NOTE: This is not from personal experience, but I thought it was worth mentioning:
Microsoft
You've probably seen this already - I am not a fan at all of M$, but... Microsoft Plus Raspberry Pi Equals Network 3D Printer.
Here is another link to the same, Network 3D Printer with Windows 10 IoT Core, but, unfortunately, your printer is apparently not supported.
OctoPi
However, closed source M$ seem to be playing catch up, whilst the Open Source OctoPi has been about for a while, indeed there have been a few questions on SE 3D Printing about it. From the blurb:

OctoPi is a Raspberry Pi distribution for 3d printers. Out of the box it includes:

the OctoPrint host software including all its dependencies and preconfigured with webcam and slicing support,

mjpg-streamer for live viewing of prints and timelapse video creation with support for USB webcams and the Raspberry Pi camera and

CuraEngine 15.04 for direct slicing on your Raspberry Pi.

See How to Install and Set Up Octopi for Remote Raspberry Pi 3D Printer Control with Octoprint.
A few of its features:

It also supports monitoring via a camera.
The G-code is sent over the serial to the printer.
You can use OctoPi to control multiple printers as well, as it isn't particularly resource intensive, see Control Multiple 3D Printers Using A Single Raspberry Pi and Octoprint].
You can configure access control for multiple users, or for a better presented version, see Access control.

As an aside, you could put Pronterface on the Pi too: How to Install Pronterface on Raspberry Pi - Instructables. I wasn't aware of this.


Problem with Marlin 2.0.5.3 / BLTouch upgrade with Sovol SV01 I have just fitted a BLTouch to a Sovol SV01, and flashed Marlin 2.0.5.3 firmware. Bed leveling etc and building the bed mesh all went OK. Slicer is Cura 4.7.1.
However, it won't print.
The Gcode created by Cura after macro expansion etc is as follow
;FLAVOR:Marlin
;TIME:246
;Filament used: 0.14214m

;MINY:115.791
;MINZ:0.3
;MAXX:159.709
;MAXY:144.209
;MAXZ:1.5
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 4.7.1
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
M501;Load settings from EEPROM (necessary for Z offset)

; Following settings from Sovol
M201 X500.00 Y500.00 Z100.00 E5000.00 ;Setup machine max acceleration
M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z10.00 E50.00 ;Setup machine max feedrate
M204 P500.00 R1000.00 T500.00 ;Setup Print/Retract/Travel acceleration
M205 X8.00 Y8.00 Z0.40 E5.00 ;Setup Jerk
M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate
M221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate

M190 S60 ;Heat bed - wait
M104 S200 ;Heat extruder - no wait

G28 ;Home
M420 S ; Turn leveling back on after G28 (why is this needed?)
G29 L0 ;Load mesh
G29 J ;Three point level

M109 S200 ;Heat extruder - wait

G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
G1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position
G1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line
G1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little
G1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up

G92 E0
G92 E0
G1 F3000 E-3
;LAYER_COUNT:7
;LAYER:0
.... and so on

It heats up the bed OK, and it starts heating the nozzle. It then does the three point level OK, then waits for the nozzle to get up to temperature (200) - the M109 S200.
But that is as far as it gets. The nozzle comes up to 200 and generally moves between about 197 and 203 degrees. The bed sits at around 60/61. I can hear a fan keep speeding up and slowing down, and the info display just says 'E heating ...'. That's it.
It cannot seem to get past waiting for the nozzle to heat - but it has, and M109 S200 should wait for it to reach temp, and continue.
Can anyone advise what has gone wrong here?

I think I might have found it - PID problem (heater has a PID loop). Standard values are 32/3/85 (P/I/D). Just watching the temperature, I noticed there was a lot of overshoot.
It appears that to continue after a temp wait, it must stay within some limit for a period - don't know either number. But, presumably, it wasn't.
There is an autotune PID gcode - M303 E0 S200 C8 says 'autotune extruder 0, at 200 °V, looping 8 times. Ran that and I could see it getting better on each iteration. Unfortunately, didn't manage to find a way of seeing what it came up with, and could not get the result written back to E2P either (M500).
So, resorted to tried and trusted techniques - fiddled with it. In the end reduced P to 20.0 and I to 2.0 - and it started printing.


Details of Marlin's feedrate calculation I want to programatically generate G-code for a (Marlin-based) Ultimaker 2+ printer, and I have been looking at the Marlin documentation and working G-code examples generated by Cura.
This has left me confused about exactly how Marlin interprets the feedrate (F) parameter in G-code commands.
If I move on a single axis (e.g. G1 F7000 X10 or G1 F200 E50), then I assume F simply says how fast that axis should move (ignoring acceleration).
On CNC milling machines I've worked with, the same is true when moving on multiple axes – for instance, G1 F1000 X10 Y10 Z10 would mean the tool moves at 1000mm/min, and therefore the individual axes are each moving at 693mm/min.  Which is good, because it means the feedrate doesn't depend on the direction of movement.
But a 3D printer has four axes (E, X, Y, Z), and Marlin only uses a single feedrate parameter.  So do I need to calculate that in four-dimensional space?  In other words,
$F = \sqrt[4]{F_E^4 + F_X^4 + F_Y^4 + F_Z^4} ?$
If that is not correct, how is the feedrate related to the feedrates for the individual axes?.

Feedrates are not 4-dimensional, and yes this makes them a bit inconsistent. But physically the 4-dimensional speed would not make any sense - for example, slowing down the E axis while speeding up the X axis would not maintain the same "overall speed" in any meaningful sense.
So, feedrates work differently for:

Moves with a nonzero X, Y, or Z component: the feedrate is an ideal, desired speed in 3 dimensions, possibly limited by the max feedrates of each axis (including E) individually, as well as their acceleration profiles.

Extruder-only moves where X, Y, and Z components are all zero: the feedrate is an ideal, desired speed in one dimension: the E axis, and may be limited by the max feedrate and acceleration profile for the E axis.


Strange leveling problem by PrusaI3 I have a PrusaI3(Chinese kit that I assembled myself). my strange problem is that: when I try to leveling the bed, upper-left and bottom-right corners of the bed, are more far than the nozzle, respect to upper-right and bottom-left.

I don't know why, but I can't level them with the screws(because upper-left and bottom-right screws goes to be free sooner than their opposite side screws!!). I thought maybe the heated bed is not flat but I use a glass upon it! and it's not possible both of them are not flat!

EDIT: I can remember the last time I used my printer, there was a knocking sound when Y-AXIS was moving about the half of it's way. I very tried to find the cause of knocking sound but I couldn't. now, I have opened the heating bed and there is no sound when I move Y-Axis by hand.
I hope you can understand me and help me too!

EDIT2: I did measure the rods and bed corners, I found that this corner(pointed by finger) is about 2 millimeters lower than other 3 corners! (It seems the bed part is not flat).

How can I fix this?

The Prusha I3 design uses two rods to guide the Y axis, which moves along the rods on linear bearings.  If the rods are not strictly planar, there will be movement of the bed as it moves to and fro.  You would not be able to correct this with the leveling screws.

Be sure that the rods are planar, and that there is no torque on the bed from uneven rods.  Even if the bed doesn't flex, the frame may flex if the rods are not planar.


how to level kossel's endstops? My printer is kossel (delta 3d printer).

I have a probe far away from the nozzle (offset -x45 y17),every time I run G29, the result is unacceptable, the z distance between points is over 0.5mm, it's not because of the probe's accuracy, I test repeatedly the result is the same.

I cost much time level the bed, finally I realize maybe it's because not only my bed, but also my z max endstops are not horizontal.

My question is

how to level the z endstops? (now I think both bed and z endstops are not horizontal)
is my analyzation correct? any other possible?

First, you should make sure that printing surface is adjusted correctly: it must be perpendicular to all three delta columns, all other adjustable parts must be checked and adjusted if necessary (depending on actual printer design).

Assuming that upper end-stops can be adjusted as well.

Home effector with G28 command, then move it close to one column (some versions of Marlin have these commands hardcoded in the menu)
Move Z-axis slowly until the nozzle touches the bed
Record Z position
Repeat above steps for two remaining columns
Then adjust end stops: if you need to raise nozzle (it touches the bed too early), then you move endstop up. If nozzle is too high (it reaches Z0 and still toes not touch the bed), then move endstop down.
Move endstops very gently because sometimes it it can be a matter of a fraction of millimeter.
After endstops calibration is done, verify that nozzle is properly calibrated at the center of the bed. Or run G29 if you like.

This procedure should make your endstops properly adjusted relative to the printing bed.


Can't print anything! Is this heat creep? (Detailed explanation & Photo) I have bought an Ender 3 Pro in November. I loved 3D printing and even upgraded my machine to improve my experience. However, lately, I can't print anything due to an issue I can't seem to resolve.
I will provide as many details as I can in an orderly fashion.

My machine: Ender 3 Pro w/ BLTouch clone installed. Running Marlin's latest bugfix branch. Also has a Raspberry Pi with Octoprint built into the PSU so I can control both the Power and functionalities of the printer. I have a glass bed, red aluminum extruder.

My settings:

Printing with PLA;
Hot end at 200 °C;
Bed is at 70 °C;
ABL is on;
Nozzle: 0.4 mm;
Layer height: 0.2 mm;
Slicer: CURA

The issue: While the first layer is printing, the filament bunches up around the nozzle and if it somehow touches the bed (like I reduce the Probe-Z offset) it doesn't stick and drags on a few mm. It eventually sticks and keeps printing fine for long straight lines but it's impossible to print a little circle inside, for example. The small details aren't printed on the bed, the filament just bunches up around the nozzle.
Also when I do a cold pull(heat up to 200 °C then pull at 90 °C, the tip of the filament looks like this:

I have tried the following:

e-step calibration
PID Autotune
Lowering/increasing temp (210-190 °C)
Lowering/increasing first layer speed (+/- 10-25 %)
Changing the heat block and the throat tube (twice)
Taking the entire hot end apart and cleaning it and changing the nozzle (even re-cutting the PTFE tube) multiple times

My theory is that the heat traveling up the cold block thins out the filament, causing under extrusion. The filament can't properly stick to the bed because it's too thin. But the hot end fan works. Should I still replace it?
Or is my problem something completely different?

This sounds like nothing but a bed leveling (distance from nozzle to bed) problem, though you may have introduced other problems disassembling the hotend. It's normal to have material oozing and bunching up before the print starts; this is why you start printing with a priming line or skirt.
Clean the bed well with isopropyl alcohol, level it (paper method at Z=0 or feeler gauges at Z=0.1, I prefer the latter), then fine tune with a leveling test print. If you're still having problems make sure the PTFE tube is tensioned against the nozzle right inside the hotend. Having any gap will make for all sorts of problems.


Why does my PLA filament keep snapping? Why does my 3 mm PLA filament always snap near the spool some time (usually a few hours) after a print has finished?

I have had it snap mid print but this is quite rare.

I have 3 rolls of 3 mm PLA filament from Velleman and 3DPrima. They all exhibit this behavior. They are between 2 and 3 years old. Each roll is stored in a foil bag with some desiccant, although this was not the case in the first year. The temperature in the room ranges between 14 °C and 18 °C in winter and rarely up to 30 °C in summer. Current relative humidity is 49 %. In summer I think I have seen it as high as 70 %. I baked one spool in the oven at about 50 °C for a few hours but this does not seam to have helped. When I remove the loose end of filament from the extruder after it has broken, some length of it seams to snap easily and some of it will just bend.

The printer has a direct extruder so there is no bowden tube.

PLA seems to become brittle with age. Micro-fractures develop on the surface, and they will grow if filament is taken off the spool and held straight. This behaviour does not seem to be linked to moisture content. The best course of action is probably to use PLA quickly. Don't give it time to age.


Delta printer not responding to changes in DELTA_RADIUS As mentioned in my previous question, I have some bed-levelling issues with my printer. Following the link in @tjb1's answer I figured they were all about to be solved - just follow the steps and bim, bam, flat printing aligned with the plane of the bed. I was wrong. Firmware is Marlin 1.1.0-RC8

From minow.blogspot.com:

  For Marlin in Marlin.ino.Marlin.pde

  DELTA_RADIUS is DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET - DELTA_EFFECTOR_OFFSET
  -DELTA_CARRIAGE_OFFSET
              To correct the problem, the best course is to change one of the variables set earlier to force the value of DELTA_RADIUS to
  increase(to lower the extruder nozzle) or to decrease (to raise the
  nozzle).

  To lower the extruder nozzle increase DELTA_RADIUS by increasing
  DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET(Marlin) or PRINTER_RADIUS(Repetier).

  To raise the extruder nozzle,  decrease DELTA_RADIUS by decreasing
  DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET(Marlin) or PRINTER_RADIUS(Repetier). For your
  first cycle, if you are above the build surface, increase DELTA_RADIUS
  by (about) the same amount.  If the extruder nozzle hits the build
  surface, decrease DELTA_RADIUS.

  Next, repeat the ABC tower calibration process.  Changing the
  DELTA_RADIUS changes the tower calibrations, so you must cycle through
  the process of adjusting the ABC buttons/scripts again.  And when the
  ABC towers are set, test the center D button/script.

  You may have to repeat this a few times with smaller changes to
  DELTA_RADIUS, but eventually, the drag on a piece of paper should be
  the same at all four locations.  Now the printer knows how to print
  flat at a given Z height.

So I did that. It's about 5-6mm high in the center of the bed. On point in front of the 3 towers. And it stays pretty much there (less than one 'precision' business card movement, if any) when DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET is increased, increased more, or decreased, for that matter - we started wondering if there was a sign error issue and tried the other way.

There is mention on the page of "turning off EEPROM" lest values be over-ridden by those in EEPROM, but the text appears to suggest that it's a Repetier-firmware-specific problem. So I was not expecting to have it in Marlin. Does it also apply to Marlin, or:

TL;DR mode: why would changes that should affect the "DELTA_RADIUS" to get the printer on plane with the bed be ineffective?

]3

OK, so a little more poking around finds that it does seem to be loading values from EEPROM and ignoring the configuration files. So that's not Repetier-firmware-specific.

...and I found M665 in G-code which lets me just set a value for it, then M500 saves it to said EEPROM. And it's making a difference (so much of one that I may need to reset Zmax before I can actually adjust it all out as the endpoints on the bed are now off, but they are all 4 much closer to being off by the same amount!)


Tinkerine 3D Printer I am trying to print model for Prosthetic Hand
(File Here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:596966) using Tinkerine 3D Printer. It went smooth for first hour and after that it started messing up(attached image).
I checked the leveling of plate and it was fine. Also, the nozzle didn't get clogged anywhere. Can anyone suggest, what could be the reason for this or what should be inspected in order to overcome this?

Expected Result

Actual Result

The issue occurring here is similar to a question asked over here. It looks as though this is a result of a hardware fault related to the stepper drivers. @DarthPixel recommended placing heatsinks on the stepper driver(s) and/or properly placed fans.

Depending on the design of your machine, some stepper drivers are going to be worked harder than others. For example, a MakerBot Replicator will work the X-Axis stepper driver more than the Z-Axis stepper driver. Therefore, you have a higher chance of overheating your X-Axis stepper driver.(Images are of A4988 Stepper Driver, not directly compatible with MakerBot Replicator)

Alternatively, I personally have seen the issue repeated by manually triggering one of the limit switches. The effects seemed to take effect on the next layer.


Home E / extrude until endstop is triggered I'm working on something that I'll share once it's done (then hope it's not a disaster and actually useful to someone).

It requires a stepper to rotate a part by a certain amount of degrees, which I plan to achieve by using E1 and simply issuing an appropriate G0 command.

The issue I'm having is that I would need Marlin, upon start to check if the part is actually rotated to the 0 deg position.

I suspect that there is no way to i.e. use an unused Z max pin and issue something like the well known G28 or like Duet3D does with G0/1 S parameter. Is there maybe a hack I can apply with a filament run out sensor as that axis endstop?

You should be able to adapt the "Dual X Carriage" feature for your project.

That allows a second print head (on the X axis) to move independently of the "main" X axis motor - and it can also be homed against its own endstop.

You can enable this feature in the configuration_adv.h file under "Dual X Carriage".

By default, all "Dual X/Y/Z axis" features use the first free extruder stepper driver - which would be E1 in your case.

You would have to adjust the X2 parameters to allow you to zero the motor on the endstop (X2_MIN_POS 0, X2_HOME_DIR -1, X2_HOME_POS X2_MIN_POS), as well as setting the default mode to "FULL CONTROL" (DEFAULT_DUAL_X_CARRIAGE_MODE DXC_FULL_CONTROL_MODE).

As far as I understand, you can then use
T0 and T1 to change between both "X axes", with T0 selecting your real X axis, and T1 your custom stepper motor.