Need sanity check debugging non-functional extruder This is the same machine involved in this question: ender-3-pro-extruder-stepper-skipping-with-a-chunk-sound.

After reassembling the extruder, I discovered that the extruder stepper did not move, using prepare->move-axis. All three axis steppers did move normally.

The first thing is did to test was to exchange the wires to the extruder and X-axis steppers. After this the extruder stepper moved when I moved the X-axis but the X-axis did not move when I moved the extruder. Therefore, I concluded that the stepper is working.

I then opened up the main board chassis and exchanged the X-axis and extruder cables there (so the cables are exchanged on both ends). This restored operation to the X-axes (operated as such) and the extruder did not function again (operated as such).

From this, I concluded that the cables are also fine and I had somehow blown the extruder driver on the board.

I went on Amazon and ordered a "silent" Ender 3 Pro motherboard, rev 1.1.5 to replace my current rev 1.1.4 board. I just received the new board and, as far as I can tell, it looks like an authentic Creality product. The only visible differences between the old and new boards are the silkscreened version and the color of the PCB itself. Both are labelled "Ender 3 Pro" on the back.

I carefully removed the old board, marking where all cables connect and swapped in the new board. Much to my distress, everything acted exactly the same. The extruder stepper did not turn. Swapping the cables at the steppers restored functionality to the extruder (controlled as X-axis) and the X-axis did not move (controlled as extruder). Also swapping the cables at the motherboard restored the X-axis stepper (controlled as such) but the extruder stepper would not move (controlled as extruder).

I should add for Completeness that my printer was sold by Sain Smart (Creality OEM, I believe) and was labelled as such, both on the metal and on the LCD start screen. However, the motherboard was a Creality3D board, labelled as "Ender 3 Pro" and I believe the only actual difference is the text inside the firmware. With the new board in, the LCD identifies itself as "Creality Ender 3 Pro".

At this point, the only conclusion I can come to is that the new board has failed in the same way, which doesn't make any sense.

I need a sanity check. Does anyone see any flaw in my logic?

I should add that there is an oddity on the new board. The fan on front of the hot end seem to run at full speed and the hot end side fan and chassis fan run briefly at power up an then stop. Using control->temperature->fan-speed seems to have no effect on any of the fans. I never observed the chassis fan with the old board so I cannot say this is different but I did previously have control of the hot end fan.

The extruder motor will not turn unless the hotend is at a certain minimum temperature. This is a safety feature to prevent the extruder from grinding through the filament with a cold hotend. You can use the M302 command to control this behavior.


Stuck getting ANet A8 Printer to build layers I have excitedly decided to get my feet wet in the 3D printing world, and being that budget is fairly small got myself an ANet A8 3D printer. I have it all assembled and am able to 'print' however I don't really have any luck getting a successful print to actually occur.

At the moment I am printing with PLA (start easy(er) is my logic) and had a few issues with getting the print to adhere to the print bed so found a plastic-like print surface that seems to adhere fairly well but I am still having issues :(.

When the first layers are being deposited onto the bed (extruded at 215, to a bed temperature of 60) they appear to adhere fairly well to the surface, and the layers start to be built up. However, after a random period of time, the layers lost adhesion to the print bed and start to move around the bed which stuffs up all the prints.

in terms of the extruder, the range for the PLA is 190 - 215. I tried lower tempertures but it did not really work in terms of properly melting the filiment unless it was around the 215 range.

To give you an example of how the prints come out, i have attached two images (front and back) of a set of prints. I stopped these printing as they lost grip on the bed.

Bottom Layer (on the bed)

Top Layer

Thanks heaps for helping a newbie out. I had tried changing speeds (faster and slower), changing temperatures and so on but i have no real idea what i am doing and was hoping someone far more knowledgable than me could give me some idea on where i may be going wrong and how to fix the issue.

My Cura profile;

[profile]
layer_height = 0.2
wall_thickness = 1.6
retraction_enable = True
solid_layer_thickness = 1.6
fill_density = 20
nozzle_size = 0.4
print_speed = 30
print_temperature = 215
print_temperature2 = 0
print_temperature3 = 0
print_temperature4 = 0
print_bed_temperature = 60
support = None
platform_adhesion = None
support_dual_extrusion = Both
wipe_tower = False
wipe_tower_volume = 15
ooze_shield = False
filament_diameter = 1.75
filament_diameter2 = 0
filament_diameter3 = 0
filament_diameter4 = 0
filament_flow = 100
retraction_speed = 45
retraction_amount = 4.5
retraction_dual_amount = 16.5
retraction_min_travel = 1.5
retraction_combing = True
retraction_minimal_extrusion = 0.02
retraction_hop = 0.0
bottom_thickness = 0.2
layer0_width_factor = 100
object_sink = 0.0
overlap_dual = 0.15
travel_speed = 50
bottom_layer_speed = 20
infill_speed = 0
inset0_speed = 0.0
insetx_speed = 0.0
cool_min_layer_time = 5
fan_enabled = True
skirt_line_count = 1
skirt_gap = 3.0
skirt_minimal_length = 150.0
fan_full_height = 0.5
fan_speed = 30
fan_speed_max = 70
cool_min_feedrate = 10
cool_head_lift = False
solid_top = True
solid_bottom = True
fill_overlap = 15
support_type = Lines
support_angle = 60
support_fill_rate = 10
support_xy_distance = 1.2
support_z_distance = 0.45
spiralize = False
simple_mode = False
brim_line_count = 4
raft_margin = 5
raft_line_spacing = 1.0
raft_base_thickness = 0.3
raft_base_linewidth = 0.7
raft_interface_thickness = 0.2
raft_interface_linewidth = 0.2
raft_airgap = 0.22
raft_surface_layers = 2
fix_horrible_union_all_type_a = True
fix_horrible_union_all_type_b = False
fix_horrible_use_open_bits = False
fix_horrible_extensive_stitching = False
plugin_config = (lp1
    .
object_center_x = -1
object_center_y = -1

Your nozzle is way too far from the bed for the first layer. You should adjust the bed leveling screws to bring the nozzle closer to the bed, to the point where a piece of paper just barely fits between the nozzle and the bed. You should closely watch the first layer as it is being put down, the plastic should get squished slightly and there should be no gaps between adjacent lines.


DIY tensile strength testing I want to tackle an experiment with the following goal:

  Determine the correlations between printing parameters (temperatures,
  speeds, humidity, perimeters, infill, etc.) and tensile strength using
  a specific 3D printer, test specimen, and filament brand/model.

This goal calls for two parts then: a standardized test procedure and test specimen. For the test procedure, I've been asking myself:

  What portable, measurable and roughly consistent tensile strength test
  does not require building a complicated machine, can be performed with
  ready-made tools or machines available at a large hardware store, and
  can be set up within 5 minutes?

I am thinking here about a procedure that lies somewhere between this hanging scale test and ISO 527. Definitely not using bare hands or pliers. Once the procedure is defined, this begs the question:

  Is the ISO 3167 multipurpose test specimen an appropriate specimen for
  the test procedure outlined above or are there other specimens that
  are more suitable?

I was thinking that, since the usual filaments have an ultimate strength of around 40-60 MPa, perhaps the "recoil" would be too much and one needs to use a smaller, weaker specimen.

For these kind of tests you could rely on the ASTM standards. They define test procedures and test specimen sizes for different types of tests. Or you can derive a specimen yourself based on these standards (e.g. for my bachelor's degree I used an alternative notch impact specimen as I was bound to the amount of available material of the turbine rotor blade the specimens were taken from). Considering the material, you could device up a contraption made from extrusion profiles or something.

Please do note that to get reasonable results, you would have to do a lot of tests as the spread in results is probably even more than in metals.

The company I work for does this, these material qualification programmes run for long times (years, as we also do fatigue and creep testing), and a lot of samples are tested to qualify for use in Aerospace applications.


DLP build plate adhesion Does anyone have tips on improving build plate adhesion in DLP printers? I've heard a thin layer of resin or UV glue applied to the plate will help, but we're not sure if we leave the resin/glue wet, or cure it before we start the print. Apologies for the ignorance here, but I'm just trying to avoid gluing my build plate to the bottom of the resin vat! Any advice would be appreciated.

Update
I had a product called ProtoGlass recommended to me in another forum, that apparently works as a good build plate primer for the resin we're trying to grow (BlueCast x5). Ordering today, and I'll update further with the results.

I have heard that adding a few pieces of masking tape to the print surface improves adhesion.


What kind of thermal paste do I need for a heatbed thermistor? I've got a new heatbed. The current heatbed has a screw in the middle of the bed with some kind of thermal paste (feels like silicone). Somebody on reddit said that it is very unlikely silicone, because the curing process of silicone corrodes the electronics. But what is it and should I use just normal CPU thermal paste?

If you need it to hold the thermistor in place, there are thermally conductive electrically insulating potting compounds, such as Appli-Thane® 7300 Urethane that have a temperature range of -100 to 160 °C.
The newest CPU thermal pastes contain silver particles and will conduct electricity. So, it needs to stay away from leads and pads that don't want to be shorted


Streamlining OpenSCAD Code Is there an efficient approach to discovering what is extraneous ("dead" or "unused") code in OpenSCAD to promote the learning process?

I am making progress by using working examples of code; however, some contain code with lots of modules and "test cases" (like gear generators) that aren't always used or referenced.  These are great utilities but in trying to simplify the file to do only a small part of what is possible (usually by commenting out what I think are unused lines of code) things (to me) get very unpredictable.  Reviewing the "AST Dump" has helped some but I'm hoping there is a more practical approach to isolating only the bare essential code.

I have written compilers and optimizers, as well as optimizers which work on raster operations.  I so want to offer you a beautiful solution, but I don't know of one.

If I really wanted to solve this, I would start with this approach:

First, identify each token and expression in the OpenSCAD code.  Assign each a unique identifier, and reserve one bit of storage, initially zeroed, that will be used later.

At the geometric database level, tag each geometric element with the identifier in the source code that generates it.  Intersections become labeled with both operands and the intersection operator.  Same with unions and other operations.

Then render the OpenSCAD form into some representation, perhaps voxels, perhaps STL.  Voxels have a resolution limit but are intrinsically the simplest form.  STLs might require an optimization pass to find redundant edges -- although that may already be part of STL generation process.

Now, go through the tagged representation voxel by voxel or triangle by triangle.  Set the bit reserved with every token and expression to "one" for every identifier associated with that voxel or trianble.

Finally, check the bits on each of the source tokens and expressions.  If the bit is zero, that particular element contributed nothing to the result.  If the bit is one, that is needed in the result.

This is oversimplified because one source element can be used several times.  Some may contribute to the output, and some may not.  A fully expanded version of the source should be used, and we have to invent notation for reporting that instance 1 and 3 is used but 2 is not.  I'm sure there are other over-simplifications which someone reading this will immediately realize.

I think, though, that this would be a path forward to the OpenSCAD optimizer you want.

In the meantime, OpenSCAD provides some prefix characters.  One of the, maybe "*", removes a sub-tree from the generated geometry without messing up the parsing.  I frequently use that mark to find out if code is used and to what it contributes.


Which digipot is this with the markings "AAJU" I'm porting Marlin to my Qidi Tech 1 and I'm trying to figure out what part this is. The markings on it read "AAJU". I'm pretty sure its the digital pot to adjust the stepper drivers as there isn't a small adjustable pot on them.

The picture shows, that the marked chip is next to the letters U8 to U12. U is commonly used for Ineparable Assembies, but there are several meanings possible according to the ANSI/IEEE Std 315 (1975). So, let's assume for the moment that this is Assembly 8 to 12.
Note that the X-pot is marked to be down on the right side of each section, right under the sockets, and next to R103 to R107.
The Marking AAJU might belong, according to this reference, to two chips. Both are Voltage uP Supervisory Circuit
AAJU  MAX6339AUT    MAX6339  SOT23-6  Quad Voltage uP Supervisory Circuit
AAJU  MAX6726KASYD3 MAX6726  SOT23-8  Triple Ultra-Low-Voltage uP Supervisory Circuit

The pinout and look of the first chip is very much in line with what I see from the photo:

Sadly, neither a user manual for the board nor the pinout of it seems to be available at the time. My best guess based on these facts is, that it is the Quad Voltage supervisory chip, as the MAX6726 has 8 legs, as the -8 in the entry SOT23-8 indicates.


Output of G29 bed leveling, Marlin 2.0 I want to check how stable the output of the bedleveling protocol G29 was by running it multiple times. When running it four times, I got this as subsequent output
Recv: Bilinear Leveling Grid:
Recv:       0      1      2
Recv:  0 -0.056 -0.475 -0.605
Recv:  1 +0.124 -0.349 -0.595
Recv:  2 -0.023 -0.344 -0.673
Recv:

Recv:       0      1      2
Recv:  0 +0.218 -0.183 -0.325
Recv:  1 +0.399 -0.073 -0.328
Recv:  2 +0.251 -0.072 -0.399
Recv:

Recv:       0      1      2
Recv:  0 +0.498 +0.090 -0.049
Recv:  1 +0.677 +0.211 -0.038
Recv:  2 +0.531 +0.217 -0.117

Recv: Bilinear Leveling Grid:
Recv:       0      1      2
Recv:  0 +0.772 +0.368 +0.222
Recv:  1 +0.949 +0.482 +0.231
Recv:  2 +0.806 +0.495 +0.154

Which are quite unstable, and strange results. It seems as if there is an increment of around +0.27/0.28 for each probe point in the next iteration. How can this happen? What are the right bed level settings right now?

Printer: Anet A6
Probe: BLTouch
Software: Marlin 2.0
Bed level mode: Bilinear
Amount of probe points: 3x3
Probe surface: glass bed

For reference, here are the Configuration.h and the Configuration_adv.h.

Actually the sensor reads the bed correctly in terms of shape, not in actual reproducible distance.
Plotting the grids:

Results in pretty much the same shapes, so, when correcting for the maximum displacement and plotting all results in a single graph gives:

So the sensor does seem to produce reproducible bed geometry, but not the actual values.
Misinterpreting your initial question I assumed a default Anet sensor, this  official ROKO SN04-N sensor is reported to not be very accurate and has a maximum hysteresis of 10 % error of the detecting distance, which is 10 % of 5 mm (so ± 0.5 mm). The overall maximum measurement is in grid 4 with a value of 0.949 mm and in grid 1 with a value of 0.124 mm;  0.949 mm - 0.124 mm = 0.825 mm is well within the ± 0.5 mm. This seems odd as the hysteresis should be in play on all measurements as the probe goes up and down. I've used this sensor myself, but replaced it for a more reliable sensor like the LJ18A3-8-Z/BX.
Now that it is clear that an accurate sensor is being used, there might be some play/backlash present in your printer. You should check the probe mount and the Z-axis.


Designing back plate for Ring Doorbell What is a good tool to use to design a back plate for a Ring Doorbell?  The shape will essentially be a wedge shape, tilting the doorbell to the side and down a bit.  I'll need to iterate over a few prints, so want to be able to tweak it as I go.

I've found TinkerCAD doesn't let me adjust shape sizes, stretching one axis but not the other.

If you wannwa go fully parametric, use OpenSCAD. Or you can use Autodesk Fusion 360 (which is free for non-commercial use)


Choice of lead for lead screw This video brought to my attention the 8 mm lead of the Ender 3's Z axis screw, which seems like an exceedingly bad choice from a standpoint of accuracy with respect to common grid alignments in the Z direction. In particular, with the stepper having 200 full steps per rotation, the 8 mm lead consumes all the powers of two out of 200, leaving 25 full steps per mm - and 25ths of a mm are not a typical unit that layer heights/feature heights are going to be in. It seems like a 5 mm lead would be ideal, giving you 40 steps per mm, evenly divisible by 3 powers of 2 and one power of 5, for exact tenths and exact eights.

Is there a motivation behind the choice of 8 mm lead? Is this common for other printers, and are there printers that use a 5 mm lead, or 5 mm replacements that work well?

I've not seen trapezoid lead screws with 5 mm lead, you can get 5 mm lead ball screws though.

On one printer I use 4 mm lead screws to get native 0.02 mm resolution (so 5 full steps for 0.1 mm, 10 for 0.2 mm, etc.). I also geared down 8 mm lead screws with a 2:1 ratio (e.g. to use a single Z-stepper driving a belt that drives 2 lead screws), works fine.


Why does the print speed change at specific height? (Using Ultimaker Cura slicer) I'm trying to figure out why the print speed changes at one point in this model.

I'm using Ultimaker Cura 3.6 and, as shown in the picture, I set the speed to be the same across the entire print. Is there a setting I'm missing?

0scar is right. Changing the minimum time per layer to 1s (from 3s), makes the entire print print at the same speed, as per settings. However, it's probably a bad idea:

Not being able to see the rest of the model (from the first image), if looks as if the light green sliced area displaying a lower speed for the top of the cylinder, is the only part that need to be printed to that height (now confirmed in the second image). This speed reduction is done by the slicer and is not specifically caused by Ultimaker Cura (other slicers do result in similar behavior). Note this is a good thing! Lets explain.

Filament needs an amount of time to cool before the next layer is deposited onto the previous layer. When the layers get small (surface area) and there are no other layers the print head shifts to, the print process is slowed down to allow the filament to cool down; hence you see a decrease in print speed.  If you deposit too fast, the last part of your print will become too hot and will deform.

A print parameter that influences the behavior is the Minimal Layer Time parameter in Ultimaker Cura, please read the hint information of this parameter:


Mains powered heatbed safety I'm building a 40x40x40cm corexy and I am quite impatient so I want the heated to reach the target temperature as fast as possible, so I ordered a Keenovo silicone heater
It is a 220VAC 1200Watt bed, so I really want to make sure that it is safe to use.
I also bought a Crydom D2450 SSR.

Could someone tell me if the wiring in the diagram I made below is safe?

Do I need to put a fuse or some other kind of safety?

The most important thing is the following: make sure that any exposed metal surfaces of your printer are properly grounded. This includes the frame if it is made of metal, or the aluminium plate you might use as your heated bed. In the event of a fault, having the metal surfaces grounded protects you from getting shocked when you touch the printer. If any surfaces are aluminium, be aware that the oxide layer that forms on aluminium does not conduct very well, so make sure that you get a good connection.

You should consider adding a thermal fuse or bimetallic switch to the heated bed so power gets cut in case the bed overheats (to protect against the relay failing closed or firmware errors).

In principle, if the wires used are thick enough (capable of carrying at least 16A), then there is no need for a fuse. Assuming you are in a normal European household, then the mains line will already have a 16A fuse. If your printer connects to the mains using a IEC C13 connector (kettle lead, very common) then you should have a fuse rated (at most) 10A somewhere because this is the maximum rating of the connector. For a very small amount of added safety, you could use a lower-rated fuse instead (for instance 7A) but this is not required. Your heated bed can draw up to around 5A so you can't use a fuse lower than (or equal to) that. If you are indeed using an IEC socket to connect your printer to the mains, then it might have a fuse holder (or try to find a socket that does).

Your image suggests two possible fuse positions. It would be advisable to place the fuse near the live/hot connection, but as European power sockets are non-polarized, this is essentially a moot point.


How can I generate and export the support structure for an object as a mesh? I want to render a visual of an mesh I created with a real support structure that a 3d printer would print. I haven't had any luck in finding a way to do this. Is there a program (ideally free) that can generate the proper support structure and export it into a mesh format, like .stl or .obj ?

You could try Meshmixer its free and the supports generated with it are embedded into the 3D model.

Here you can find a reference on Meshmixer supports. Meshmixer is well known for making custom supports for complex 3D models.


G-code for 3-axis arc? GRBL I see that arcs are done on a two-axis plane.
However, I am curious if it is possible to move from an <x,y,z> position to <x',y',z'>
e.g <152, 559, -139> to <905, 279,-145> with an arcing z-axis.
Context:  I'm trying to move between the two coordinate points while dodging an obstacle by arcing the Z-axis movement.  I am trying to do the motion on command to be able to operate faster. Using GRBL 1.1

This should be possible in GRBL 1.1, see examples below.
Disclaimer: I have never used neither GRBL nor arcs (G2, G3) in practice.
Support for arcs in G-code
In general, in IJK variant where the arc is described by three points (starting, end, center) anything seems possible, including the rainbow-like moves. I imagine (I,J,K) coordinates as imaginary arrow's nock for bent bow. By moving it around, you will "reshape" the bow as needed. I actually found similar CNC Arc Programming Exercise, including:
G01 X40 Z-25
G03 X70 Z-75 I-3.335 K-29.25

and very interesting Quick G-Code Arc Tutorial on CNC Cookbook. It presents R variant example of helical moves (tread milling) with Z decreasing in steps (relative positioning):
G03 X0.0939 Y0.0939 Z0.0179 R0.0939
G03 X-0.1179 Y0.1179 Z0.0179 R0.1179
G03 X-0.1185 Y-0.1185 Z0.0179 R0.1185

Support for acrs in GRBL
I found similar question in Duet3d forum: Caution! - STL Resolution. There is a sentence:

On GRBL you get some planar support (pick any two axes, eg XZ, but not three). (...) Some controllers even implement a helix mode.. but no standards exist.

So the support in GRBL may be limited. However this comment seems to be in condtradiction to the official GRBL README.md, saying:

List of Supported G-Codes in Grbl v1.1:
(...)

Arc IJK Distance Modes: G91.1

I leave a practical proof to you now.


3D Printed Lead Screw I want to build a mini CNC machine and need some lead screws. I was wondering I can simply 3D print some. There are a few 3D models out there but I want to know if printing it in PLA+ has enough strength for a small CNC. Is it possible?

Expanding on some previous comments which are probably enough to warrant an answer:
What Trish said is completely right. Leadscrews are readily available parts and any dimensional errors in the leadscrews will be reflected in the output of your CNC machine unless you have some sort of compensation for them. Moreover, if the material is not highly rigid, the dimensions are subject to change over time, so any compensation would have to be ongoing manual adjustment or closed-loop rather than a one-time calibration. "PLA+" is an especially bad choice because it usually means PLA that's been modified with additives to make it less brittle, deforming under stress instead of holding its shape until it breaks catastrophically. CNC Kitchen's video on PLA+ elaborates on this.
With that said, if you don't need a high level of precision, or if you're in a situation where you're unable to obtain manufactured components, I think 3D printed leadscrews would work ok if you print them in the XY plane rather than along the Z axis. While nozzle width and discrete layers produce a sort of "stairstep" quantization of printed threads in the Z direction, that doesn't happen with the threads in the XY plane; the nozzle width limits feature resolution (oscillations per unit length) but the positioning of the threads is quantized only to the X and Y (micro)step size, which is typically on the order of 10 microns. Moreover, the strength and rigidity of the part printed in this direction can be very high, due to the offset-layered zigzag structure.
Back to accuracy of the part, though, it's important to note that whatever flaws your printer might have in XY positioning accuracy will be reflected in the resulting leadscrew. This includes non-linear effects such as belt paths being slightly trapezoidal instead of having perfectly colinear points of attachment to the carriage. In general, when manufacturing parts that will affect the accuracy of the resulting machine, you want to use processes that amplify the precision your tooling was manufactured with rather than processes that reproduce or amplify its flaws.


What is this called? A tube flange bearing threaded for threaded pushrod How should I describe this part which looks like a threaded flange so that I can research replacements? It is the gold piece in the middle of each photo. It is used to create a bed raiser in the FLSUN Cube 3D printer.

It gets attached to a motor using a flexible bearing

To the best of my knowledge, it's just called a lead screw nut or lead nut. The flange and holes for attaching it to a surface are inherent in its role in letting the lead screw move something.


What is G92 used for in G-code On the reprap wiki it says using Znnn it sets a new axis position.  But then it says "No physical motion will occur". What would the line G92 E0 be used for?

The G92 command is used to set the start position (origin) of one of more axes (including the current extruder) to any arbitrary value. The command G92 E0 is often used to perform retraction and nozzle priming. For example, the following commands are often used in start-gcode sequences (prologues) to prime the current extruder by extruding a small amount of filament:

G92 E0     ; Reset the extruder's origin
G1 F200 E3 ; Extrude 3 millimetres of filament
G92 E0     ; Reset the extruder's origin

RepRap Wiki: G92: Set Position


Tevo Tarantula extruder motor clinking sounds The extruder motor makes these clinking sounds.
I read about that and I tried to adjust it with its potentiometer,
I tried reassembling the clamps, reinserted the leading tube in both ends, cutting them in a 90° angle but nothing helps.

It seems that if I have a print of 0.1 mm layer thickness, the nozzle does not put out enough filament and it gets clogged up in the leading metal tube to the nozzle.

On the extruder side it looks like the clogging up gets the motor the sort of skip the push of the filament.

This is my G-code.

What is going wrong here??
How can I setup these params to work together smoothly?

I'd advise against adjusting the driver's potentiometer without also taking a voltage reading and doing the math to find out what current is being driven through the stepper. Having the current too high can damage your driver or stepper. But having the current too low can cause that clicking as the stepper internally skips.

The filament may also be too cold, and is providing too much resistance to being forced out the extrusion nozzle.

Or the filament may be getting stuck in the area just above the heating element in your hotend. This is called heat creep, and can cause jams. Based on your description it looks like this is happening to your hotend.

Or your nozzle may be clogged with dust and contaminants. Check the diameter spec for your hotend and look up an appropriate cleaning method (for ABS you can soak in acetone, for PLA there are tiny drill bits to clear out debris).

Or you may be trying to print too fast. Lowering the print speed means plastic is extruded slower and there's less pressure built up in the hotend. I would check on the other options before adjusting print speed, because it can fix the symptoms but may not be the root cause.


Where to get the Slic3r configuration files for the 3D PrinterWorks Creatorbot printers? I have a Creatorbot 3D printer made by 3D PrinterWorks.  Their website appears to be down, as well as their Facebook page. To me it appears they are no longer around.

I've installed Slic3r as 3D PrinterWorks has recommended in the handbook but cannot download the settings for this from the 3D PrinterWorks website, since that is down.

Does anyone know where I can get the Slic3r configuration file for the Creatorbot?

Looks like 3dprinterworks.net went down sometime after March 2018 and 3dprinterworks.com went down in January 2019. Luckily the Wayback Machine still has the machine's specs.

Here is the instructions for entering settings in Slic3r as found here in lieu of importing a profile. (Please note that I have not used Slic3r so the following is solely based on the link)

The key settings under General are

Bed size*: X = 305 mm; Y = 305 mm; and Z = 457 mm
Print center**: X = 152.5 mm; Y = 152.5 mm
Extruders: 2
Heated Bed: Checked

Under Extruder (each extruder should have its own settings so be sure to set up both)

Nozzle diameter: 0.4 mm
Extruder 2 offset: 30.9 mm (good job, OP on finding the email stating this)
Everything from Retraction and on is up to what works best for you

There may be a set of setting for acceleration (there is in Ultimaker Cura) which is 3000 mm/s2 for most printers, I think. This is the max acceleration, not to be confused with acceleration settings when slicing the model.

The next set of settings, though outside of the Slic3r link, regards the filament. The diameter should be 1.75 mm and the nozzle temperature should be within the range of the filament (e.g. PLA should be set within 180-220 °C) and a heated bed set to 50-60 °C. These parameters are filament dependent and not printer dependent (other than diameter).

That should be the settings that a profile would set for you. Thankfully there's not too many.

*There is a wizard for this section that may make input easier, but here is the build volume.
**This setting may require whole numbers and may, in fact, not be a necessary setting at all.


How to determine shell thickness for parts? Let's say you're printing a container or some other object with no infill. What's a good rule of thumb for how thick to make the outside? I'm looking for something along the lines of millimeters thick per square inch of area.

I'm thinking about PLA right now, but answers for ABS and other materials are welcome, too.

This totally depends on what you think is acceptable for your print, and what the usage of the print is: is it a structural/functional part or just for aesthetic purposes. There is no general rule of thumb for that. Basically this is a design issue.

If it has to be stiff and may not flex much you would require to use more walls to give it more rigidity. Less if it is not that important.

When using infill and depending of the part, 0.8 to 1.2 mm walls are frequently used for nozzle sizes of 0.4 mm, without infill you could use the same values, but need to take less rigidity for granted. Add more walls when you need it to be more rigid. Note that the larger the wall surface area becomes (height over width), the easier a wall can buckle under load; increase the wall count to counteract.

In your case (design of a container) I would consider what the purpose of the container is; e.g. how big is it, how much weight is it going to contain (e.g. heavy nuts and bolts, or left over filament pieces), is it stackable, etc. etc. etc.. As a final thought, note that you can play with the design as well, a straight box/container is less stiff than a box with some curved edges or stiffeners. An example of a stackable container is e.g. this:

The indents on the walls of this container give it more rigidity, these walls are in the range of 2 to 3 perimeters.


3d Key not strong enough I 3d-printed a key.

When I put it in the lock the pins move but, when I go to turn it the key rips and the lock doesn't turn. I compared it to the real key and it's identical. Is there something I can do to make it work and not rip? Is there some filament that I can print it out of? I used ABS.

That is correct! Take your raw ABS plastic and try to bend and break it. Do it again with a few lengths. Pretty easy to break it right?

You issue is the material is not up to par with your goal. Your heavy duty lock takes too much force to turn.

Your solutions are to

Find a stronger material. These are considered stronger than PLA / ABS

PVA
PET
Polycarbonate
PETT (SHATTERS!)
POM, Acetal

Use the PLA to make a lossless cast of the key and use metal
Find a easier lock and or invest in oil for the lock.


Route to transform 2d image (depth map) into a curved bracelet (and STL file)? I've got a bracelet concept that I've sketched up as a flat design. I'm trying to found a route by which I can extrude this into a 3d object (depth map?), curve it into a bracelet, then ultimately create a STL file out of it. I'm having trouble finding a way to do this that allows me to "warp" the flat object into a bracelet before I try to print.

Is there a recommend technique for this? I'm not worried about representation of the picture; it's effectively meant to be an 'etched' pattern.

This may not be your cuppa tea, but if you're willing to learn to use OpenSCAD or already know how, there's a Thingiverse post that appears to directly address your objective.

Correction, this particular post on Thingiverse consists of a series of Python files, of which I have zero experience/qualifications. It may still be of value, if you are Python capable.

Another resource that is strictly OpenSCAD is from Eric Buijs, a rather talented 3D design person. His YouTube channel has a number of useful tutorials for both OpenSCAD and Solvespace. This video in particular describes applying a flat object to a curved one using OpenSCAD, resulting in a lithophane.

As I created this answer, I did not re-watch the 12+ minute video, but I recall how he explains clearly how the program dissects the surface into a number of flat panels and then superimposes the image on each segment. From this presentation, I suspect one could expand to a full cylinder.


What happens when I print a 0,6mm thick wall with a 0,4mm diameter nozzle? The wall thickness is 1,2mm but the lip is only 0,6mm thick. How will the 0,4mm nozzle solve this?

Alternatively I could choose a 0,8 mm thick lip, but then the connecting end should be 0,4mm that is too thin.

I'd say you should experiment with Slic3r

it can manage extrusion in very sophisticated way

it can overextrude if you need a line wider than actual nozzle size
as same as it can underextrude if needed
it can even change extrusion continuously while extruding one line

here are simple examples

i use mattercontrol

take a look here - this is the same object the same layer and the same settings

please notice - this object has wall thicknes exactly 2 times nozzle diam

here is what i get with

native MatterControl slicer engine which gives this slice

and Slic3r engine which gives this slice


Y-axis limit switch adjustment is way off on new Ender 3 V2 causing motor grinding noise and system lockup Just received my new Ender 3 v2. When using the Auto Home feature, the Y-axis motor drives the bed as far back as possible then the motor grinds for about 10-15 seconds. The Y-axis limit switch is not being depressed and the limit stop is about .5 inches away from the switch. The control unit locks at this point and must be power cycled to regain control. If I manually depress the limit switch then it appears to act normally.
Clearly either the limit switch is way out of adjustment or the bed is not positioned properly. Can this be fixed or should I send it back as defective?

It is possible that the buildplate is too low, and cannot travel all way down  the Y axis, but is hitting into the Y motor enclosure.
If you have screwed the Z-stop to printer's vertical frame, shifting the endstop all the way down, there is even bigger chance for this. So one advice is to raise the Z-stop by about a width of wrench key included to the set. Ender 3 V2 has a bit taller glass plate comparing to previous model.
That is not my idea, I just repeat that after the author of "Tomb of 3D Printed Horrors" youtube tutorials. The author also presented quick method Ender 3 easy bed leveling, including fine tuning of the Z-stop position.
Please also note, that there are wires with thermistor taped below the bed with crackling tape (probably capton). So if you raise it too few, you will regularly hear scraping and crackling sounds. Therefore before builtplate leveling, I would advice first to check the initial height if it is already safe.


Hot end temperature varies during print If I set temperature say 220 °C, printer heats up to it and it only varies +/- 0.5 °C under non operating condition. But if I start a print, there's a shift of +/- 15 °C.
I've already auto tuned PID parameters and when I run M503, the printer shows the updated PID values.

What could be the reason?
Electronics details:

Firmware used:  Marlin
Controller board: Printrboard rev D

There could be a number of reasons for that behaviour:

Please check following items:

part blower/fan cools down the nozzle - stop the fan
material is extruded at high speed and takes the heat
loose thermistor (when the move occurs as it moves a bit internally)
the power supply unit voltage varies - so temperature reading varies as well - measure voltage and see if there are significant drops
nozzle heater and thermistor cables can be loose as well (check screw terminals)
bed heater connection cables having not a good connection (check screw terminals)


Wave shift pattern on the Z axis I have a Creality CR-10S Pro V2, I've been printing regularly for one month and then, suddenly, I started to notice waves on the Z axis. They're already noticeable with the test cube but deviation increases with the height and objects are ruined (eSUN Gray PETG 20 mm test cube, printed at VERY low speed):

It was my first attempt to print with PETG then I thought that could be the problem, I cleaned the nozzle (also using eSUN cleaning filament) and switched back to PLA+. The problem is even more evident (eSUN cold white PLA+):

Note how the "wave" pattern matches between the two test cubes. Even if I was printing from less than a month (and "just" 5/6 hours per day, not every day) I thought it might be time for some maintenance:

I fully cleaned the printer.
I checked all the belts.
I checked all the nuts & bolts. A few were loose, including those 4 that "attaches" the horizontal rail (the one that holds the extruder) to the Z axis threaded rods. Loose enough I could screw them with my bare hands (including those two at the left side which are hidden deep inside and they're a pain to reach with tools even removing a the cover).
I fully cleaned the rods and applied lubricant again.

I've got this:

I then moved the printer to the ground and tried again, it helped (possibly a lot) and printing PLA I get a cube almost like the PETG one in the first picture.
I noticed the both threaded rods have some freedom of movement in the Y direction (not the rod itself but the bearing ball they go through at the very top of the printer can move within its plastic enclosure); 0.5/1 mm for the left rod and 1.5/2 mm for the right rod. I don't know if it's an allowed tolerance or the sign that something is wrong (and what).
Searching on-line I read as many opinions as many posts I can find; I wouldn't go and buy replacement parts until I randomly solve the problem. It's frustrating enough to have to deal with it (and a huge amount of material wasted in failed prints and tests) after less than one month of activity...
Update: I secured the two rods using two 0.2 metallic feelers and nothing changed. I still have this shift within the first centimetre (it changes position but it does not go away).
Update 2: everything seems perfectly square (I can't swear this for the rods), cleaned and tight. Everything moves smoothly, and both bed and horizontal bar are fairly leveled. Effect is slightly less noticeable but obviously present.
One concerning point: travel speed was 150 mm/s, if I slow down to 130 mm/s then I can see a slightly less sloped shift; that makes me think that something could be vibrating when moving: top and bottom seem straight and they're printed at a much lower speed (20 mm/s vs 50 mm/s for PLA+, 20 mm/s - 15 mm/s for first layer - vs 30 mm/s for the test cube in PETG; travel speed was 150 mm/s for all of them). I guess that to reduce the printing speed to 10 mm/s for the entire object might help but I wouldn't call it a solution...

This is classic Layer Shift in the Y plane. This happens in one of three cases:

Belt too loose
Belt too tight
Bed movement hindered

The belt should ring and resonate when tapped, giving a nice tune. I haven't really tuned mines, but my ender3 (250 mm bed movement in total) has about a G major.
The bed movement should be, with motors off, easy and smooth. If there are spots where it hangs, you might need to rearrange cabling or check if there is a bad spot on the linear motion system. If the movement is hard, you might need to lessen the pressure. Since the CR10 is pretty much the same as the ender3, the eccentric nuts should be turned so the bed does not wobble or move side to side but not to a degree the friction slows the movement. Carefully tweak here, use increments of about 10° till the layer shift vanishes.
Be careful where you place your printer: cabling can snag on other items or things can brush onto the bed. That should not happen. On the Z-axis it can unplug the X-axis motors and extruder, or in worst case, yank at the heater cartridge and damage it.


Messy top layer with PETG filament? I'm having issues getting PETG to print nicely. I have encountered pretty much every issue because when I fix one thing another issue pops up. I see people saying that you should "just copy your PLA settings", but that definitely did not work for me, with issues from bed adhesion, stringing, globbing, and especially issues with the top layers. At the moment I am getting very decent quality prints from PETG, however the one issue that remains is the top of the print.
Infill looks fine, it is printing fast, so that is where I would expect the filament to glob to the extruder. But that happens on the very first top layer. The printer goes over the honeycomb, and the filament gets oozy and starts forming in globs on the edge of each inner wall. This takes a few layers to print over, and even after 5 layers at 0.25 mm layer height it has holes.

Software: I am using Slic3r PE 1.41.2, on Repetier Host 2.1.3.
Printer: Wanhao DI3 or Monoprice Maker Select Plus.
Filament: Amazon Basics branded Navy Blue PETG.
Settings:

40 mm/s print speed,
0.2 mm layer height,
70 °C heat bed,
235 °C hot end,
15 % honeycomb infill,
20 % - 50 % automatic fan speed.

I would like to solve this without increasing infill percentage because the parts are already quite dense with 15 % honeycomb and I don't want to waste material and time.

Five top layers should normally be more than enough to create a seamless top layer.

Indeed, PETG prints a little differently than PLA. It requires a higher hot end temperature, less part cooling (to improve sticking to previous layers), a higher build plate temperature and usually care in choosing the right initial layer height. Once the printer  needs to create the top surface layers, too much temperature, too less cooling and too low of an infill percentage can cause the top bridging over the infill to fail. Your settings seem to be fine except for the low percentage of infill, 15% is very low.

Other possible causes could be under-extrusion and too fast printing, but in this case the low infill percentage is probably the main reason. To get a better top layer you could first try to increase the infill percentage. If you go to 20 or 30 % infill, you would only marginally "waste" filament. More filament and time is wasted when whole prints fail as of a bad top layer.


Constant under extrusion and filament grinding I sadly have a big problem since a couple of weeks and I cant fix it myself. For over 20 prints, I had the same problems: At the start, everything goes well but at some point of time, my Creality CR-10 starts under extruding and after like 1 minute, NO filament is extruded anymore and the 3D printer moves over the printing bed without extruding anything. After that, I have to pull out the filament and the feeder always grinds into it.

Some problem with the hotend (so the feeder works well but it cant push the filament through somehow - I cleaned the nozzle and couldn't find anything wrong there. When I push the filament through by hand it gets extruded but after a failed print, it is VERY hard to pull it back (because of the filament being slightly bigger at the nozzle - hard to remove! -

That could be the problem:

I just tried to remove the filament from the printer (another failed print) I had to use two tongs because the filament was so hard to pull back. I noticed that the diameter of the PLA close to the hotend was a lot bigger (way over 1.75 mm) For about 5 cm that's a very long distance - that's the reason why it's hard to pull back (and also push through?) But I don't know why that happens... If I get an answer for that, I think that I have solved my problem

I already tried printing at 50 % which didn't work.

Creality CR-10 with 0.4 mm nozzle,
1.75 mm PLA filament used (white)
0.27 mm layer height
45 mm/s printing speed at 220° (I can easily push the filament through at 200° by hand)
60° bed temp

And here some pictures of the failed prints:

I think I can exclude these:

It could be: (the things I can imagine but don't have a solution for)

The feeder being too strong/my new PLA filament being too soft
Maybe a software problem? I'm using the newest Cura version and I don't know what could be wrong there.

The filament seems to run out of the hotend. Something is really broken here. I tried to lower the print temperature and don't have an issue (at least not that big) with pulling out the filament but instead, the feeder started grinding into the filament again.

I'm very happy for any answer and possible solutions.

Grinding is due to attempts to advance filament faster than it can be melted and dispensed. Try one or more of the following:

Raise the head temperature (to meet current throughput demand)
Lower the print speed (to reduce throughput demand)
Slice for thinner layers (to reduce throughput demand)


Why is BLTouch Still Probing Off the Bed Even When `NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET` is Set? So I am almost finished upgrading my CR10s with Hemera and BLTouch hardware, however I can't get past this one problem.
In the picture, you can see that the probe is to the left of the nozzle, and when homed it is not above the bed. The gantry will fall and eventually have the nozzle crash into the bed because the BLTouch will never hit the bed. I tried solving this by setting NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { -40, 0, 0 } (I'm using Marlin 2.0, and those were the offsets I measured (except for the z)). This changed nothing, and the same thing happened again. I could not find a setting that tells Marlin where the nozzle is after it has been homed. Any ideas?

Did you load the values from firmware after the re-flash? Use M502 to load the values you changed, otherwise it will keep using those from memory. Also set #define Z_SAFE_HOMING, then it will home in the middle of the bed.
Also, with a new carriage for the Hemera, your nozzle is not/might not be in exactly the same position as before as I learned from other adopters, you then should also need to redefine the offsets, see How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset).


Has anyone rebuilt Prusa3D firmware for the Genuine Pruse i3m3s? With no answer to my question two days ago about how the Prusa printer behaves with an intermittent open or shorted thermistor, I'd like to ask this question of relative last resort.

Prusa seems to have some version of their i3 software posted on Github.  Should I expect this to be current, or some older version?

Have you rebuilt, reflashed, and operated with rebuilt Prusa firmware?

If so, what tips would you offer?

I ask because once I open something like that up, I inevitably am seduced into making changes.

The Prusa Firmware on GitHub is the very latest version -- it's the code repository Prusa uses for development.  My suggestion is that you don't use it unless you're planning to do firmware development or testing, because like any such software, it tends to have bugs.


Anet A8 prints not good I bought my Anet A8 less than 2 weeks ago. The setup went fine. In the first 1 week, I printed a lot, and the quality was really good. Now, the quality of prints is really bad. The infill is terrible, like little individual sticks and there are strands of PLA attached to the object(see picture). My Cura settings are:

layer height: 0.15 mm
infill: 70 %
infill pattern: grid
printing temperature: 205 °C
bed temperature: 55 °C
print speed:35 mm/s (I reduced it from 60 to 35 thinking it might fix the issue, but no luck)

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

This effect you see is called stringing. Stringing can be reduced by changing any or a combination of the following slicer settings:

lowering hot-end temperature, (less heat means less heat input so less runny filament oozing out),
increasing travel speed, (increase in travel speed reduces the time to move to another point implying less filament oozing),
retraction, (increased filament retraction reduces the pressure build-up in the hot-end decreasing the filament oozing)
increasing coasting length (coasting means that you stop extruding filament prior to a move when the head is still printing, this is explained by the pressure build-up in the hot-end; ideally you set the coasting length as such that all the material that is pressed out as a result of the pressure build-up is extruded just before the head moves/travels to another location),
print part cooling, (see this topic)

In order to find the correct settings you will need to print so called calibration test prints. There are a lot to find on Thingiverse, just search for "stringing".

Your print temperature may be a bit high, but some PLA filament brands require that, I don't know if that is the case with your filament, but you could start try lowering that by 5 °C a time.


PETG warping - adhesion or temperature too high? Ender3 v2, SIENOC PETG which advises temperature of 230-250 °C on the box. I'm printing on top of cleaned blue tape, using a temperature of 230 °C for the nozzle and 80 °C for the bed.
I've had all sorts of trouble getting first layer to stick but finally managed it. However the thin end of this hook has now warped and the other end is too.

Looking at the image above, you can see it's much thinner at that end. Should I try a lower nozzle temperature? Or bed? Or both?
The fans are at 50 % (set in Cura), should I have left them on 100 %?

I have to mention that the tape has been cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. I can print PLA no problem direct to the bed but am having so much trouble with PETG - rather than warping this could actually be adhesion problems.
I've tried a higher initial layer (0.3 mm vs 0.2 mm), 0.1 mm Z offset, gapped to 1 sheet of paper as per PLA, then 2 sheets - I've done that 50 mm in on each corner and then checked it in the middle of the bed too. Initial layer is at 10 mm/s and then to 40 mm/s
As you can see in the picture the brim looks rather flattened, but if I give more gap (e.g. 3 sheets) it doesn't even stick at all.
I have managed to print a benchy after maybe 6 attempts, but this was luck and had really poor adhesion, a gentle tap with my finger dislodged it. The actual print was fine.
Tempted to try another PETG but wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything obvious - at the moment I can't even print the brim again because it won't stick.
I'm really confused because a lot of I read suggests PETG sticks really well but I've having the exact opposite experience.

PETG is a pain to print with, but adhesion/warping usually isn't the issue.
To begin with, fan should be completely off for PETG unless you hit problems that necessitate a fan, and then only minimal. Certainly not 50% or 100%. Fan will seriously impact adhesion between layers and give you brittle prints. It also might be responsible for the warping you're seeing, but the biggest issue here is that you have an adhesion problem.
I'm not sure if blue tape is generally recommended for PETG. The Buildtak clone that came with my (original, not v2) Ender 3 adheres extremely well (if anything, too well) with PETG so I've never worried about adhesion with it. But if it's not adhering to your blue tape or v2 coated-glass bed (or if you're concerned about ruining that bed from PETG adhering too well) you need to find something it will adhere to. I'd suggest getting a Buildtak-clone Ender 3 v1 bed surface (you can find these cheap) and clipping it to your bed (since you presumably don't want to glue it over the v2's much nicer bed).
I guess I should mention that distance to build surface could also be the issue. Make sure the bed is leveled correctly. I don't like the paper method because it's too imprecise; the best way I've found is to move the Z axis to 0.1 mm and adjust until 0.1 mm feeler gauges fit under it with some friction and 0.15 mm ones don't fit at all.


How is a J-Head Extruder Head attached to the Prusa i3 rework? I am building a Prusa i3 Rework, and I haven't been able to find out how to attach my J-Head extruder (see below), at the moment it's just kind of held there by pressure, but it seems there are two holes on ether side of it; not sure if they're meant to hold it in place, but it seems that way.

Any suggestions as to what I should use to hold it in place?  This is definitely a part that gets moved around alot.

update

It looks like the hotend may not be all the way in, are you sure it's not stuck?

If it's stuck and you can get it in further, those holes should go directly through the smaller ring on top of the J-Head.  You just need to run a machine screw into each hole to secure the hotend. The screw will need to at least be flush with the other side to work correctly.


Printer shaking - Marlin 2.0 I just replaced the board on my Creality CR-10 with a 32-bit SKR Mini E3 V2.0 control board that runs Marlin 2.0.  With the new control board, the printer's Y-Axis moves vibrate so much that it blurs the camera I am using that is connected to the bed.
I have checked the mechanical stuff and it seems like the issue is the stepper motors are running choppily instead of smoothly.
I know that 32-bit Marlin has lots of things I can tweak.  Are there settings I should be checking?  Where do I start?

The problem turned out to be mechanical.  The arm that I mounted the camera on had developed a crack where it connects to the build platform.  I used some superglue to repair the crack and the camera shaking went away.
The lesson here is to check EVERYTHING mechanical before trying to blame shaking on the firmware.


Specifications of Prusa Mini X-Axis Belt My Prusa Mini arrived with a defective X axis belt. I can order a replacement and it is covered by warranty. But I would also like to know its specifications. This information is available on the store page for the MK3 but not the Mini.

To be sure you could measure the width and the tooth spacing (pitch). The most probable and used belt in 3D printers is the GT2 6 mm belt. The teeth are spaced 2 mm and the width is 6 mm.


Why are my prints so defective? I received a Monoprice Maker Select v2 (I3 V2 clone) from my wife for Christmas.  The sample .gcode files that came with the printer generally print great with no noticeable defects.

However, when I try to print miniatures for use with table-top gaming (D&D, primarily), I tend to get a lot of oozing and stringing.  On top of that, bridge supports don't cool in time and tend to get fudged by the print nozzle, which results in oddities like arms being only half printed, sticking to the nozzle, and getting relocated to some other part of the print.  If I use full grid supports with the most modest fill settings (8%) they end up being stronger than the miniature and are a real pain to remove.

My printer is calibrated, as level as can be (the desk it's on is slightly warped but I've got the printer in the center of the warp; there is no wobble or lean) and squared.  The build plate is calibrated and set to the right height.

I'm using the version of Cura that came on the SD card with the printer (honestly not sure which one and I'm not at home to check).  I've fiddled with print speed, extruder temp (ranging from 185 to 210), layer cooling, retraction settings, and tried switching to Slic3r (didn't go over well -- couldn't even get past the first layer).

I'm using Hatchbox silver PLA filament (1.75mm +/- 0.05mm).  I don't have another filament I can test with to compare performance.

Even when I import the profile settings from one of the sample .gcode files I tend to end up with blobbing, pulling, and stringing all over the miniatures, in addition to missing or deformed parts.  Notably, arms and hands -- most often overhangs -- tend to stick to the hotend and get repositioned, sending the whole thing out of whack.

I end up with similar problems when I use the Novice mode settings in Cura (Normal Quality, High Quality, etc).

Is there something I'm missing that I can do to improve the quality of small, detailed prints, or is the I3, as an entry-level printer, simply not up to the task?  I'm especially interested in answers from users who have experience printing miniatures and their experiences in tuning for that type of print job.

A few things I've tried test printing:

Printer calibration test model v1

Printer calibration test model v3

Both of these came out very stringy, with lots of blobbing and layer pulling, especially towards the upper portions of the taller elements.

I have also tried printing these two models:

Knight with sword - high detail

Elf monk - high detail

All test prints of these two models had at least one missing hand due to it getting stuck to the hotend and pulling off the part, and both demonstrated lots of minor blobbing and pulling on otherwise smooth surfaces, with loss of detail in the more finely detailed areas.  Here's a sample of the output for the knight model.  Please ignore the fact that he has been dismembered, that was mostly my fiddling with it post-printing (I guess I don't know my own strength), though the left hand was not well-attached and fell off rather easily.  He was printed with both hands and feet/base intact, but you can see the blobbing and pulling pretty well.

I've not done much miniatures printing, but I have the same printer and I happen to have the exact same filament loaded.  Also, I've been doing a lot of tuning lately, including this z-brace mod which has improved my overall print quality, so I thought I'd take a pass at printing the Knight from your photos and sharing my findings.

First, I've posted a series of pictures to show my findings.  Overall, I'd say my print quality was better than what you showed in your photos, but still isn't good enough.  I sliced with Cura 15.04.6, and printed from SD card.  Here are my (Full) settings:

Layer height (mm)         : 0.1
Shell thickness (mm)      : 0.5
Enable retraction         : Yes
Bottom/Top thickness (mm) : 0.3
Fill Density (%)          : 20
Print Speed (mm/s)        : 20
Printing Temperature (C)  : 210
Bed Temperature (C)       : 67
Support Type              : Everywhere
Platform Adhesion         : None
Skirts                    : 3
Filament Diameter (mm)    : 1.75
Filament Flow (%)         : 100.0
Nozzle size (mm)          : 0.5

Retract Speed (mm/s)      : 40.0
Retract Distance (mm)     : 7
Initial Layer Thick (mm)  : 0.2
Initial Later width (%)   : 100
Cut off object bottom (mm): 0.0
Travel Speed (mm/s)       : 100
Bottom Layer Speed (mm/s) : 20
Infill speed (mm/s)       : 50
Top/bottom speed (mm/s)   : 20
Outer Shell speed (mm/s)  : 20
Inner Shell speed (mm/s)  : 20
Min. Layer Time (sec)     : 10
Enable cooling fan        : Yes

I do most of my printing with a later height of 0.2mm, but for a detailed mini, 0.1mm is probably the largest that will look good (and probably the smallest possible on this printer.  I normally set most of my speeds to 50 mm/s, with first layer at 20 mm/s; for this I slowed it all to 20 mm/s due to the fine details, and I think it helped.

Temps of 67˚C bed and 210˚C extruder are what I've found to work best on my machine for PLA, after much experimentation, but your machine may vary; I'm not sure how accurate the temperature measurements are on these machines.  67˚C gives me an observed bed temp of 60˚C, but that's at the top surface - I have PEI atop Borosilicate glass, adhered to the bare aluminum bed with silicone-based heat transfer pad.

I think I miscalculated the top/bottom heights and infill.  I'm not used to printing at 0.1mm layer height, but 3 top layers over 20% infill is clearly not enough - see the closeup of the mini's base in my linked gallery.  Next print, I'll either try 0.6mm top/bottom, or much higher infill.

The supports came off easily; I used a pair of sidecutters from my electronics bench.  A little more cleanup with a sharp hobby knife, combined with a better base top layer would probably produce an acceptable result.

There were two major flaws.  The first are the little blobs on many layers; see for example the inseam area on the picture of the knight's back.  Ed Nisley at Softsolder.com calls these "Reveral Zits", and I think the name is apt.  These happen when the print head needs to quickly reverse direction or stop-move-print, but filament continues to extrude.  I use fairly aggressive retraction settings, and I think my print shows smaller zits than yours, but still far too many.  Ed has explored this topic in some depth; it's possible my extruder stepper isn't keeping up with my settings due to mechanical limits.  This is an area I want to pursue, but I don't have time at the moment.  I plan to read Ed's work and try some experiments on my machine to see if I can get better results; I will update this answer if/when I do.  As it stands, most of them are quite small, and could probably be cleaned up with a knife; the worst are those around unsupported areas, such as the back of the shoulder guard.

The second major flaw is the helmet.  It's just... bad.  I'm not sure the printer has much hope of nailing those horns, but overall the head is just bad.  I'm not sure what can be done there.

To summarize:  @disc0ninja's advice on Bed Level and Print speed are certainly the right place to start; You might want to try my Cura settings to see if you get similar results.  Also, the Z-brace mod I linked to above has made a big difference for me; I rarely have to adjust my leveling anymore.  I also plan to try slicing with Slic3r, which I haven't used previously, but have been looking into.  You mentioned you couldn't print with Slic3r, was that USB or SD Card?  I'd suggest trying via SD if it failed during USB printing.

Update 30 Jan 2017:  It took a little doing, but I managed to slice and print this model via slic3r.  I had some issues with the original STL in slic3er, which I ended up fixing with a free trial at makeprintable.com.  I spent a lot of time fiddling with slic3r; it has a lot more knobs to turn than Cura, and I make no claims of having the best settings for this print.  There are so many settings that rather than transcribe them here, I've captured them in my pictures of the slic3er print.

Overall, I feel like the quality is higher.  The "reversal zits" are hardly noticeable; but the big remaining problem is one I didn't fully diagnose in the original Cura print - lack of support for areas such as the shoulders.  Slic3r added more support than Cura, but it's also harder to separate from the base.  The head isn't great, but much better than the Cura print; I don't think my photos show it as well as it looks.  This print has convinced me that there's plenty of quality still to be wrung from this printer; I hope to make time to do some more slic3r prints of this model while tweaking the params to see what's possible.  If I make any big leaps in quality I will update this answer.


Minimum MOSFET rating for MK3 heatbed My printer (Prusa i3 Mk3 rework clone, with a 200 x 200 MK3 ALU-heatbed, RAMPS 1.4) has a car relay for heated bed control. It works just fine using bang-bang on Marlin, but I would like to replace it with a MOSFET anyways. The specialized MOSFET heating modules are way too expensive in my country, so I was thinking about buying a MOSFET that's good enough to handle my 12 V 10 A bed with Marlin's PWM.

Would a MOSFET like the STP80NF70 be enough (0.01 Ω at vgs 10 V, 68 V 100 A) or would one of the bigger ones, e.g. in TO-3P encapsulation be needed?

It would go in a proper heatsink and ran at 12 V with an optocoupler

and welcome to the Stack Exchange 3D Printing site.

Let's look at the specs compared with the requirements.

How much power is used by the heated bed?  You have specified 120W (12V, 10A).  That information makes it easy!  On my homebrew printer it is higher, but that seems like a good high limit for a typical i3-style design.

So, the MOSFET you propose, assuming you completely turn it on, will dissipate 0.01 ohms * 10A^2, or 1 watt.  This will warm the part, and you probably should attach it to a heat sink, which could be as simple as the existing extrusions.  There is a much more complete answer to this exact question on the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange site: Dissipating 1W on a TO-220 without heatsink?

I doubt the PID frequency is higher than 40 KHz.  Since the Vgs rating you referenced is specified with 10V on the gate, you can't drive that directly from an Arduino pin.  You need another driver transistor (NPN or FET) to drive the power FET gate.  The turn-on time for the power FET will be determined (in the simplest circuit) by the pull-up resistor to +12v connected to the output of the transistor and the gate of the FET.


What defines the speed at which a motor is retracting and how can it be changed? Given a Marlin firmware and a line of G-code such as the following:

  G1 F100 X50 Y50 Z0 E-10

What defines the speed at which the stepper motor associated with the E-value is retracting? It is my understanding that the Feed Rate defines the speed of the movement (in this case 100mm/m) but I am not clear how I could accelerate a retraction?

The reason I am asking is that I am not seeing a swift removal of material as i retract. Could the slow feed rate be the issue? I am using a pellet printer (WASP 3MT) and generating G-code from polylines on Silkworm.

You instruct the printer to move from a certain X-Y position instructed by the previous move, to X=50 and Y=50. While moving at a feedrate of 100 mm/min, it will also retract 10 mm of filament (if the previous extruder distance was 0) during that move. If the movement distance is large, the retraction is slow. If you started from X,Y = 49.99,49.99 it would be very fast.

If you want a fast retraction, first move to a position, and than retract fast, so in separate commands. Do note that we usually do it the other way around: first retract fast and then move, this way there is less oozing of the nozzle.

To sum up, in your G-code command, the speed of retraction depends on the path of travel (the length and speed defined by the feed rate F). If it is fast retraction you are after, you should split the command into two separate commands.


Anet A8 display on MKS Gen L board So I have read this question, Connecting (Anet A8) 2004 display to MKS GEN L.

That looked so easy, so I rewired the connectors and switched the VCC and GND pins. In the Marlin firmware I disabled the MKS GEN L display and enabled the ZONESTAR_LCD and ULTRA_LCD.

Yet when I run the printer, I only get the fully white rectangles. Is there anything else I have to do?

I have a compilation warnings now, because the ZONESTAR_LCD redefines some of the pins that ULTRA_LCD sets, but I guess that is ok. Could it be caused by still including the U8glib library? Do I have to also remove some constant regarding this?

Ok guys I got it! It really was just what is the answer in the other question (Connecting (Anet A8) 2004 display to MKS GEN L)!

My problem was: I used jumper cables and some duct tape to hold them together ... and the only issue was, that I didn't insert it enough. I got mad today and just pushed them really hard more into the AUX2 connector and it suddenly works!


How does a 3D printer print itself given the huge size? How can this be done given that the object to be printed is the same size as itself? In the CubePro printers that I have used before, the object to be printed is inside some kind of glass panel. Only objects that are smaller can be printed.

3D printers obviously do not print themselves. 3D printers are sometimes used to make parts for other 3D printers, and this is what is meant by "self-replicating" 3D printers (which is a bit of a misnomer, considering that all designs require a substantial amount of non-printed "vitamin" parts).

A printer that is able to produce many of its own parts is the RepRap snappy, which (as the name suggests) consists of plastic parts that - while they each fit within the build volume - snap together to make up the larger parts for the printer.


Why are my lowest layers not solid? I have designed this in Blender:

The bottom is a regular n-gon with 0.8mm in height. In Slic3r, I see that the bottom-most layer is not solid:

The green parts (of the first image) are going into that layer, because I wanted to ensure that I don't have air between the bottom and the green parts. Unfortunately they become printed non-solid / empty.

This does not only take extra time for printing, it's also not what I want. What seems to be the bottom here is in fact the top of something and I want it to be a flat surface.

How can I tell Slic3r to recognize overlapping items and generate them in a solid way?

I have already set the infill to 100%, but that doesn't change anything. The Boolean modifier of Blender is also not very helpful. It creates topologies with gaps.

I printed the thing for some layers to see what the printer actually does:

There are clearly too many retractions and unretractions.

This can be seen in advance by letting Slic3r show the retractions and unretractions.

For the green "walls", it became clear that it prints them exactly onto the empty space, so in fact the seem to be floating.

That made it obvious to me: the normals were pointing into the wrong direction. Therefore, Slic3r seems to have interpreted the material side of the green parts inside out. I had the same issue on some other parts as well.

I went to Blender, selected the object(s), chose edit mode and found a function called "Recalculate normals". Since then, the bottom layer is solid.

Also printing time is reduced by half an hour.


How do I find the best settings for a resin? I have an Epax X1, I have just purchased the 2nd and 3rd bottle of resin, but I don't know what are the best settings.

What is the best way to find the best settings for a new resin?

Is it possible to print a calibration object that starts with some settings and changes as it goes? For example starts with 12 seconds and decreases half second every 5 mm?

EDIT

The 2 resins I am dealing with right now are Nova3D and Elegoo. Any help with those two resins would help right now, but I would love to have a more generic answer that would allow me to explore and troubleshoot any resin without asking every time.

Since every printer is slightly different (light intensity, for example), you probably want to run one of those 12-spot test patterns where each "spot" gets a different exposure time, then see what time works best.

I found a more general test pattern at Amerilabs Calibration File which may be useful. Not to mention a zillion other test patterns


What is the maximum length of the TMC drivers signal wires? I would like to place the TMC drivers (the stepsticks modules, in fact) on the side of my controller board for easier cooling.
What is the maximum length of the data wires? Specifically, Step and UART, the other ones should not pose any problem.
In my case I would extend them by about 10 cm.

10 cm would be fine. That's the short answer, the real answer is that it depends on the UART speed and the exact conditions that you will be extending them. If you expect noise feedback from the motor coils inducing voltages into the UART lines, then perhaps they should be shorter. Keep the high current wires and the signal (UART) in separate places if possible. Also if you can use a shielded cable (e.g. and old shielded USB cable) then you could get away with a meter thereabout.


Clamps / clips for glass on heatbed I'm looking for clamps to fix the glass on my heatbed. After some search I found that some people use clamps printed of PLA. Can I use PLA clamps for a heated heatbed (~60 °C)?

I also tried foldback clips but they block my nozzle. The Anet A8 starts in the front left corner. When I start to print, the nozzle moves a little bit up on z, then up on y and right on x. At this first move it moves into the fold back clip. I'm looking for a way to fix the corners and not to fix the edge in the middle.

What other clamps or clips can I use to fix the glass (~3 mm) on the heatbed (~2.5 mm)? I don't want to use glue.

My printer is an Anet A8.

How about the Ultimaker clips? Ultimaker uses 2 mm heat bed and 4 mm glass, that should be within reach by bending the clips a bit. They have quite a low profile/footprint.

These clamps are very cheap and can be found on those typical auction or Chinese sites.

Alternatively, you can also tape the glass to the aluminium bed using kapton tape if you are concerned about hitting the binder clips.

Note that e.g. in Marlin firmware, you can define a Z-offset to prevent hitting the binder clips on movement.


Z-axis comes down and presses the bed while printing I am using a Prusa i3 with Marlin Firmware.

All the components of my 3D printer working fine. I have a problem with my Z-axis, it comes down and get pressed by the bed. I have tried adjusting the endstop switch and calibrated the Z-axis still Z-axis comes down while printing.

edit: - additional information -
While printing the first layer is printing okay, but while filling the inner layer and continue with the next layers the nozzle actually drags and pressed the print.

Can anyone explain why this happens?

When the head/nozzle assembly runs into the bed, you need to watch out for:

Check for Endstop problems:

Is the switch properly wired up?
Is the switch working?
Is the switch mounted firmly to the frame and correctly adjusted?

Level the bed as level as possible; what is meant here is that the bed needs to be parallel to the X-axis, not bubble level. This ensures that the nozzle is exactly at the same distance away at every point on the build platform. You achieve this by setting the Z endstop as such that the nozzle is close to build platform with platform screws screwed in for some distance. When the endstop is firmly attached, home the printer through the menu of the printer, try adjusting the screws such that the level is everywhere the same (in between changing the location of the nozzle carriage to set the level, home the machine once in a while). Use a piece of paper for the correct distance; a slight resistance felt when dragging the paper is sufficient. Please note that it makes a difference when you level the bed cold or hot, hot is preferred.
Slicer settings; Be sure that your slicer doesn't introduce a Z offset.

EDIT:
With respect to the additional information, you really need to check the level of the bed, level with a hot bed and a hot nozzle (e.g. PLA temperatures of respectively 60 °C/190 °C). Furthermore, be sure that you get enough adhesion. Use (sanded and cleaned) tape, hairspray, glue stick or whatever trick you can find to get the filament to stick well enough that it won't be picked up by the nozzle and dragged around. For me personally printing directly on the aluminium bed with 3DLAC (sort of super strong hairspray) or on glass works best, I'm not a fan of tape.


Determining the temps and speeds for DIY printers? I've been going down the learning road with two broken printers that I'm rebuilding with better parts and electronics.

One thing that I've recognized is that there is a pretty low likelihood that any hotend or heatbed that has had the thermistor/thermocouple and/or the printer board swapped with a non-OEM part can be trusted to accurately report it's own temperature.

Sure, there are lots of things I can (and do) do to try to make it as accurate as reasonable like calibrating with thermistors from multimeters, IR thermometers, etc., but each method has limitations.  You never know if the 2nd thermistor is mounted both correctly, or if it is reading the same local temp as the printer thermistor.  IR thermometers have issues with reflective surfaces (like aluminum hot ends and build plates)  Calibrating the thermistor constants from experimental data isn't perfect.

IMHO, any hotend/heatbed temp on a DIY setup might be off by a constant ± 5 °C or so, more if it is poorly calibrated.

Printers use PID controlled heaters to keep oscillations down to a degree or two Celsius, because people say it impacts print quality.

Is there a good visual or experimental way to know whether your temperatures are "correct" for your printer/filament?  IOW, if my filament was supposed to be heated to 220 °C, how would I know if my printer was having issues because the "true" temperature is only 215 °C (or 225 °C) when it is reporting 220 °C?

One common problem I've experienced is the nozzle clogging after the transistion from layer 1 to layer 2.  (Layer 1 = higher heat and slower speeds, Layers 2+ = lower heat and faster speeds.)  It's been a struggle to know which factor (lower heat or faster speeds) are to blame for the clogs after the transition.

The short answer is, you use the temps and speeds that give you good results. It's trial and error.

The temperature number your printer reports really doesn't matter. That's just a process control variable: it needs to be consistent and repeatable, but it doesn't need to be accurate against an independent reference. What you should care about is your print results.

Some signs your printing temp is too cold:

PLA printed parts have a dull, matte surface
Poor layer adhesion
Extruder stalls or strips the filament at fairly low printing speeds for your extruder and nozzle size

Some signs your printing temp is too hot:

PLA printed parts have a very shiny surface
PLA has a very strong sugary/waffle smell, or any material smells burnt
Stringiness during travel moves that you can't eliminate by tuning retraction
Excessive oozing while the nozzle is stationary off the print
Bubbles or cloudiness in extruded strands in extruded strands even with dry filament

You will also calibrate speeds via trial and error. There are two main speed limits for a printer: how fast the motion mechanism can move the nozzle without running into issues or unacceptable print quality degradation (which is also a function of acceleration settings), and how fast the hot end can heat up and melt filament.

The mechanism speed limits you have to find via trial and error. Pick a test print you like (such as Benchy) and repeat it with different tuning until you find your preferred limits.

Melt flow restrictions are slightly more complex, because they are a function of VOLUME flow rate, not commanded speeds. Make a large boxy test print (with long straight lines) and multiply extrusion width times layer height times feedrate. That will give you your approximate flow rate in mm3/sec. Generally speaking, every extruder + hot end + material combo will have a maximum feasible flow rate. For example, most "average" hobbyist printers with 0.4 mm nozzles and good extruders can extrude about 4-8 mm3/sec with PLA. PTFE-lined hot ends are at the lower end, all-metal hot ends are at the higher end. The value will depend on your hardware. But you can do a few quick benchmarking tests to find the limit, and then use that to determine peak feedrates to avoid exceeding the melt capacity of your system.


In Fusion 360 how do I select an entire 3D object, not just its sides or faces? I'd like to mirror a triangular prism I made. However, whenever I select it I am only able to select the faces or sides.

Is there a way to select the whole 3D object to move or mirror it?

Selecting the body in the browser will select the entire body. Clicking on the body in the viewer will only get you faces or edges.

A long click (click and hold) on the model will give you options on what to select. You can choose a face or body under "Depth" or choose a body or feature under "Parents."


Dual extruder setup in Marlin I have a Tevo Tarantula with a MKS Base 1.5 board and dual extruders.  I am running Marlin RC8 Tevo Community build for the dual extruder, large bed and SN04 sensor.

All temperature sensors work and give accurate reading but E1 when activated runs at 100% until the overtemps kicks in and shuts down the system.  Like I said, it reads proper temperatures through the thermistor it just won’t stop at the set temperature.  I checked the MOSFET and there is no obvious scorching or bad solder joints on the MKS board.  This leads me to believe it is a mix-up in firmware but, being a bit of a newbie on this, I am still getting familiar with G-code and Marlin.

I have confirmed the correct board is being referenced in firmware from boards.h but looking at configuration.h I just get confused.  What I am thinking is somehow/somewhere E1 might be referenced as a fan that is just off or on.  Anybody have ideas?

I am not sure what the hardware config is for the Tevo Tarantula

Make sure your configuration.h file is setup for your hardware.
The extruder defines are describe in Conditional_LCD.h

It looks like the configuration.h file on GitHub is configured for a single extruder.

For example, if you have 2 hotends; but, "HOTENDS=2" is not set then the I/O will not be configured for the 2nd hotend.  I just looked at the code and if HOTENDS == 1 then the MOSFET_D_PIN will be used to control FAN1 (which sounds very similar to what you are describing that you are seeing).

  #if HOTENDS == 1
    #define FAN1_PIN     MOSFET_D_PIN
  #else
    #define HEATER_1_PIN MOSFET_D_PIN
  #endif


Calibration print shape To check my leveling etc. is correct I was going to print a wide and thin cube.  My theory being that I should be able to spot any obvious separation of the layers.

Does anyone have any better shape that they print as a dry run?

Your calibration shape depends on what you want to calibrate on. Among the most popular:

Benchy as a general "overall" test.
Lattice Cubes for retraction/stringing and overall quality.
Two pillars to test for stringing and temperature/cooling control.
Spikes for retraction, stringing and temperature/cooling control.
Bridges for cooling control.
Cubes for sizing. They also allow seeing if the printer is skewed in X or Y.
Circles, crosshairs, and squares of just a couple layers high to determine the correct center of the print area and measure sizing.
Cylinders in each other to check the achievable resolution and clearance.
Overhang tests to test just overhangs.
Temperature towers for temperature and overhang.
Impact1 & Bend & Tension test pieces for filament properties - if you have the setups needed.

1 - I couldn't find a proper model for an ISO 148-1 Charpy pendulum impact test in thingieverse


3D print appears to print very weak walls in long print So after a long print the walls in the print begin to weaken and it appears they might not be printed at all.  In the upside down picture you can see the weakness where the two pieces are separated.  I'm wondering if perhaps reducing my speed and changing the extrusion size from .35 to .45 which is larger than the extruder itself.  Thanks for any help and suggestions!

What you refer to as weak walls in fact are under-extruded walls. This can be caused by multiple sources, but, since the print recovers this most probably is caused by filament that is entangled on the spool (this causes more friction for the extruder and as such less flow, so under-extrusion; like as if the filament is being pulled back). Any other source that may induce extra friction is equally valid. E.g. kink in filament when using a Bowden configuration (long time extra friction in tube) or friction on the spool itself (I once had severe under-extrusion as the spindle of the spool caught a plastic bag which got wrapped around).


Adhesion problem (heat bed or extruder issue) I am having an issue with the transition  from the first layer to the second. It seems that the first layer isn’t staying put on the hot bed and the extruder is dragging it around creating a ball of filament.

Is this a "height issue" or a "hotbed temperature issue"?

Also I ordered a new glass hotbed top.

Can I remove the tape that was on the hotbed when it came in the package?

If the first layer is not sticking well to the bed it can be caused by several issues. Usually the height of the first layer plays a significant role as does the flatness of the bed. Temperature can definitely  also play a role; you want the temperature to be close or at the glass transition temperature of the plastic filament when it is in a sort of fluid state.

Personally I hated the original tape that came with the bed or blue tape I bought separately. Also the surface finish is nowhere close to printing directly onto the Aluminium bed or on a glass plate. For adhesion, a PVA based spray (e.g. hairspray, or more expensive special print spray like 3DLAC or even a glue stick), should be used as it becomes very sticky at elevated temperatures.

The tape can be removed, but should be replaced with something that grips onto the filament, see previous paragraph. I removed the tape after day one I got build my kit and started printing directly onto the Aluminium bed using the sticky spray.

To answer your questions, the following checklist determines the order in which you should solve your issue:

First check the nozzle position relative to the bed; this should ideally be the thickness of a single plain A4 paper.
Make sure the bed is level; what is meant that the bed is relatively level with respect to the nozzle, not water bubble level with respect to the Earth (you'd be amazed to find how many people do that).
Use the correct bed temperature; it is usually found on the tag of the spool of filament. Alternatively, look it up on the internet, or increase it at first with about 5 degrees Celsius at a time.
You could over-extrude a little for the first layer by increasing the extrusion multiplier for the first layer, or add some extra temperature to the extruder (increase with 5 degrees Celsius).
Printing brims or adding mouse ears or discs integrated in your design may also work to create more grip.

And yes you should remove the masking tape before you put the glass on as it would only act as an insulator.


Understanding water soluble support structures I've just done my first print on an Ultimaker 3 Extended and I'm slightly disappointed with the results, so I'm trying to understand how I can do better next time.

My first print

Preparing for printing I naively just dropped the two stl files into Cura, set the recommended layer height and infill, selected support (defaulting to Extruder 1), deselected adhesion, ran the slice, saved the g-code and started the print running. Luckily the head 1 did have the same PLA AA 0.4 filament that Cura assumed.

When the print finished, I stripped out the support structures, cleaning out the hollow, and cleaning off lots of stringy loose filaments between the lower support and the bottom edge of the print.

Even after cleaning up though, the overhanging structure above the support structure turned out to be very rough with many individual filaments visible and in irregular positions, rather than the nice concentric lines in the slice.

My first attempt to optimise the print

Looking at the completed print I realised that there would have been only a fraction of the support structure, and probably clean edges, if the part had been oriented as a d rather than as a p (the rough surface being the bottom of the p overhang).

I re-ran the slice in d orientation and that saved 10 minutes of print time, and a 100 mm of filament, so I know I'll definitely need to look out for that in the future. I can also see how that would fix the problem with the external overhang separating out into loose threads, since that face would no longer be an overhang.

Trying to add water soluble supports

After the first fix, I wondered what I could do with the second extruder and realised that it was filled with water soluble PVA filament. This made me wonder if this would have helped with the internal overhang.

I Configured Extruder 2 as PVA BB 0.4 and selected Extruder 2 for the support structures and re-ran the slice.

I was surprised that the it was now taking 40 minutes longer and using almost 470 mm more filament!

Looking at the slices, Cura had created a huge PVA scaffolding on the outside of the print, leaving the inside, where the previous PLA support had been, completely empty:

vs.

This was not what I was expecting.

Questions

Why didn't the slicing algorithm place PVA support structures inside the overhang, in the same way as it placed the PLA support structures?
What is the reason for the external scaffolding, and how does it help support the internal overhang, which now has no internal support at all?
Is the behaviour I expected possible, advisable or configurable in Cura? If so, what options should I be looking at, if not is there other software that does support this?

Owning the Ultimaker 3 Extended and having printed kilometers of filament on this printer I can tell you that printing with PVA, apart from the slicing problems you mention, is not easy as it looks. PVA clogs up very fast and is very hygroscopic. Moist PVA will make popping sounds on extrusion and is prone to failing. PVA is not my preferred solution. An alternative solution is to use break-away filament, my colleagues have some reasonable good experience with that.

  Why didn't the slicing algorithm place PVA support structures inside the overhang, in the same way as it placed the PLA support structures?

The difference you report could be caused by the slicer settings. I get exactly the same results if you set the slicing parameter Support Placement to Touching Buildplate (first image), or Everywhere (second image).

vs.

  What is the reason for the external scaffolding, and how does it help support the internal overhang, which now has no internal support at all?

To answer the scaffolding part of your question, that can only be explained by being the decision of the developers. There must be very good reasons for doing it like this as a similar support structure is generated in other slicers, e.g. Slic3r (actually this is caused by a slicer setting, see this answer explaining why the scaffolding is caused). Some slicers do have options to change the support type, e.g. Slic3r has the option pillars, which creates pillars without external scaffolding:

vs.

  Is the behaviour I expected possible, advisable or configurable in Cura? If so, what options should I be looking at, if not is there other software that does support this?

Playing with the settings to reduce the amount of PVA as suggested in the comments by enabling the type of extruder for specific parts of the extruder I was able to create a solution without scaffolding. This solution only uses PVA for the bottom and top layer of the support structure.

The shown settings1) produce a support structure with PVA top and bottom layers:

or

Where the latter image is in material color; black PLA and natural colored PVA

1) It might be worth mentioning that by default, the Support section doesn't show the Support interface extruder options and you have to go into Preferences and check the Setting Visibility option for those to appear.


Add brim everywhere, not just around the outermost line I have a repair part that I need to print with ABS and I know that I have warping problems with ABS.
I'm now trying to mitigate this by printing a circle around my object and use more brim. You can consider this as a manually designed skirt, but I want the brim to be on both sides of the skirt.
However, when slicing the repair part with the ring, I get brim only outside the "skirt", not inside of it.
How would I get brim also in the area marked here?

When there's a cut in the outer ring (the manual skirt), Slic3r will fill the area as expected:


Stepper motors making noise after steps/when idle Why is it that if I execute a gcode command that causes the stepper motor to turn in reverse (any negative move on the X axis), after the step it will emit a high pitched whine until it gets another command to rotate in its forward direction?

Executing multiple reverse commands will cause the tone to vary in frequency each step, and always it goes away after another step in the opposite (forward) direction.

Sometimes.

And other times it does it in both directions, but only on every other step. One step +X its there, next step its gone, next step its back, and so on...

Then they also make a different noise when idle, before I disable them with the "disable steppers" command.

What are these noises?

And is it bad to leave the motors in this state? Will it burn them out?

When idle, the stepper is stationary, no rotation.
Normal standard electric motors will start spinning as soon as you apply power to them. However, steppers only rotate when a magnetic field is applied1):

Stepper motors effectively have multiple "toothed" electromagnets
arranged around a central gear-shaped piece of iron. The
electromagnets are energized by an external driver circuit or a micro
controller. To make the motor shaft turn, first, one electromagnet is
given power, which magnetically attracts the gear's teeth. When the
gear's teeth are aligned to the first electromagnet, they are slightly
offset from the next electromagnet. This means that when the next
electromagnet is turned on and the first is turned off, the gear
rotates slightly to align with the next one. From there the process is
repeated. Each of those rotations is called a "step", with an integer
number of steps making a full rotation. In that way, the motor can be
turned by a precise angle.
The motor's position can then be commanded to move and hold at one of
these steps without any position sensor for feedback (an open-loop
controller), as long as the motor is carefully sized to the
application in respect to torque and speed.

When you power the printer and energyze the steppers there is no movement, but, the magnetic coils in the stepper are activated to hold the rotor in position. This is controlled by the stepper driver. The creation of the signal for the magnetic coils is causing the noise. It is a function of the driver type, micro-stepping setting, the stepper motor inductance, current setting and supply voltage.
If the stepper motor, stepper driver and power supply can take it, increasing the current setting of the driver may lower the noise.
Turning off the steppers (disabling them with G-code using M2, M18, or M84 depending on your firmware) will stop the noise, but you will easily lose the current position as it is not hold into place anymore.

1) source Wikipedia


German RepRep Neo can't heat the extruder The printer stopped heating the extruder in the middle of the print and I noticed it getting cooled down. After a few seconds, I heard a ticking noise near the filament (which could probably mean the filament was being pushed into a cold extruder and was skipping. Now, when I try to heat the extruder, it won't heat up. What could've gone broken?

first, check the breakers

pic source

secondary stuff

please see a list of item to check, that could point you to the source:

heater cable cut/melted/loose => the best way will be to check the resistance (it shall be around 3.3 Ohms) from the heater cable terminals on the mainboard, if that fails it could be a wire on heater itself.
with the heating switch on - measure the voltage on terminals - shall be 12V, if not  - that  could suggest a mainboard failure or mosfet failure (in case of mosfet you could measure if there is an input signal given on the middle pin)
there also could be a breaker that was engaged due to short circuit on the wires (the main board layout is not known to me and it is not clear form manual I found online)