Prusa Mk3 filament detection sensor, can you access the image data? I have seen that the new Prusa Mk3 design has a optical mouse sensor that can be used to detect if the filament jams. Optical mouse sensors are just a really low resolution camera with no color.
I am interested in finding out if it is possible to get access to the image data coming from that sensor?
Could I add a rgb led and interpolate the filament color by comparing pixel intensity under different lighting conditions?
And I was interested in seeing if the image data could be used to measure the filament width?

I am interested in finding out if it is possible to get access to the image data coming from that sensor? And I was interested in seeing if the image data could be used to measure the filament width?

No. The sensor is the PAT9125EL. The only output it provides is the movement in the X and Y directions. There is no way to get image data out of it.

  Could I add a rgb led and interpolate the filament color by comparing pixel intensity under different lighting conditions

No. The sensor uses laser light of a specific wavelength. It's likely not sensitive to any other wavelengths. On a positive note, there is an "average frame brightness" register that can be read from the chip, but I don't think it's likely to work with RGB LEDs.


Ender 3 with direct drive has severe stringing printing TPU I recently upgraded my Ender 3 Pro with a direct drive kit, primarily so I can print soft materials like TPU. I bought a spool of Overture TPU to try it out.
I'm getting really bad stringing on every print, to the point where it's pretty much unusable. This is my first time printing with TPU, so I'm at a loss for what to do.
Direct Drive mod -
After modding the printer I did a few prints with PLA, and it works great with very little stringing. So I assume I assembled the mod correctly and that's not the issue.
Material -
Reviews of the Overture TPU on Amazon mostly say it has low stringing and are generally positive, so I'm assuming it's not just bad filament.
Temperature - The consensus in the Amazon reviews seems to be that 230°C is the sweet spot. I did a temperature tower from 205 °C to 230 °C by 5 °C, and the print quality and stringing was pretty much uniform throughout.
Retraction - I tried with retraction off, then with 1 mm, 2 mm, and 6.5 mm, in various combinations with temperature and speed. Results varied in details, but all were pretty bad.
Speed - I tried slowing down to 15 mm/s (from Cura's default of 50). Results got even worse.
Following are photos of a stringing test with various combinations of settings.

PLA for reference - 205 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 1 mm

TPU - 205 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 2 mm - Print speed 15 mm/s

TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 1 mm - Print speed 15 mm/s

TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 1 mm

TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 2 mm

TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - Retraction 6.5 mm

TPU - 230 °C - Layer thickness 0.12 mm - No retraction

TPU - 240 °C - Layer thickness 0.2 mm - No retraction
Is there something else I should try to reduce stringing? Is it possible that I just got a bad spool of TPU? Or is it more likely something's wrong with my printer?

Due to the flexible characteristics of TPU, stringing is a known "complication" with this material.

             is a video from Matterhackers:

no retraction - stringing is expected
dry filament - ensure the filament hasn't been exposed to the air for extended periods - use an oven or dehydrator if needed

There are many other tutorials and videos covering the process.
Tom Sanladerer has also a video covering the use of flexible filament.

ensure correct alignment of hobbed bolt and feed hole
consider to use a piece of PTFE tubing downstream of drive mechanism
use 3 mm (usually 2.85 mm nowadays) filament for better results (if possible)
bed temp - 40 °C with glue stick on bed
print slower
adjust extrusion multiplier by testing various settings

Obviously some of the above references don't apply or are being observed.


How to know if I should replace my power connector? I have seen several postings in forums about the power connector on some ender 3's being bad and causing issues or just burning out, potentially causing a fire.

How can I tell if I have the bad power connector?

If you can measure the voltage at the main board where the bed power line is attached, or at the last point in the wiring prior to the connector, then measure the voltage at the bed, you can compare the difference to determine if there is loss related to a failing connector.

One certain indication of a failing connector is to separate the components of the connector and see corrosion, discoloration or any sign of burning. The Robo3d R1+ used 10 ampere connectors and the bed draws 14 amperes, according to the research I've done. When I discovered that information and separated the connector, it was an easy answer, as one side was scorched and the pins on the other were corroded and discolored.

Another method, not for everyone, is to use an IR camera and examine the leads carrying the power to the bed. The failing portion will be absorbing some of the power and heating itself, which will show up as a bright portion in the power path.


Homing a stepper motor as an extruder using E0/E1 with an limit switch and end stop Note: I have extended my question as some of you mentioned that the question is not clear.

I am using a RAMPS 1.4 board with an Arduino mega 2560. I need to drive a stepper motor as an extruder using either E0 or E1. I am using Repetier-Firmware and can drive the extruder (stepper motor) using the E0 (RAMPS 1.4).
Now for my application, I need to make sure that the extruder is in home position before it starts to drive for the very first time. I am trying to use a  switch to connect to the end stop and perform this homing operation. I can do this for X, Y, and Z axes. I was wondering how (h/w connections and firmware modification) can I do it for the extruder?

The edited question appears to mention that the actual extruders of the print head need to home / limit themselves. The answer is that this is not required. When operating direct or Bowden driven extruder setups, you know (or you can measure or find out experimentally) the distance that the filament has to travel from extruder entry to hot end (e.g. to load new filament). If already loaded, because you have printed before, you also know where the filament is (filament could stop after printing, personally I retract the filament en few mm after a print). When a new print starts you usually reverse the retraction at temperature and extrude some extra filament to prime the nozzle to counteract oozed out filament for instance. At that point, the nozzle is primed and the gcode G92 E0 is then used to tell the extruder this is the start at zero length, sort of the home position of the filament. All this is usually done in the start code of your slicer, similar to  disabling bed and hot end temperature or final retract is done in the end code of your slicer.

This answer below addresses the initial question, this question was not quite clear. It was phrased as of the head containing the extruders needed to be homed correctly. The normal end-stops (can be mechanical or optical switches) already ensure that the printer head (containing the extruder or extruders) is homed correctly (if correctly configured in your printer firmware). The home offsets you define in the firmware define that you start at the origin (0,0,0).

Your question does not state what firmware you use, but e.g. in Marlin firmware these settings are found in the firmware configuration file.

In this file the following is defined:

// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS 0
#define Y_MIN_POS 0

These values must be changed according to the offset between your switch and the origin of the heat bed (e.g. Prusa style printers have the origin at the front left).

For my Prusa clone printer I have defined:

// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS -35
#define Y_MIN_POS -12

What this says is that the homing switch for the X axis is 35 mm left of the origin, etc.


Nozzle cleaning tool broken inside nozzle Recently I opened up my printer (PowerSpec Duplicator i3 Mini V2)to clean the nozzle (it comes with the little tool to get tiny bits of filament out of the nozzle). Well, I was using that and when I pulled it out I discovered the tool broke inside the nozzle. Filament is still coming out but obviously not properly. Can someone please help me fix this?

Your best fix is to get a replacement nozzle. Nozzles are relatively cheap. Having and replacing them on a regular basis is a good thing. Replacement can help you maintain proper printing. You can probably get the cleaning tool out of the old nozzle, but most likely you'll damage it further, making it nearly useless.


Endstops will not trigger using Marlin Firmware I have an old Solidoodle 2 that I bought broken from a garage sale that I am converting to use RAMPS 1.4 with Marlin Firmware. All the motors work correctly, I am just having issues getting the endstops to work.

I am using a regular limit switch with NC going to the signal pin and the other to ground. I have this switch plugged into first header column for X-min. My endstop configuration is currently:

//===========================================================================
//============================== Endstop Settings ===========================
//===========================================================================

// @section homing

// Specify here all the endstop connectors that are connected to any endstop or probe.
// Almost all printers will be using one per axis. Probes will use one or more of the
// extra connectors. Leave undefined any used for non-endstop and non-probe purposes.
#define USE_XMIN_PLUG true
#define USE_YMIN_PLUG true
#define USE_ZMIN_PLUG true
//#define USE_XMAX_PLUG false
//#define USE_YMAX_PLUG false
//#define USE_ZMAX_PLUG false

// coarse Endstop Settings
#define ENDSTOPPULLUPS // Comment this out (using // at the start of the line) to disable the endstop pullup resistors

#if DISABLED(ENDSTOPPULLUPS)
  // fine endstop settings: Individual pullups. will be ignored if ENDSTOPPULLUPS is defined
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_XMAX
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_YMAX
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMAX
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_XMIN
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_YMIN
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMIN
  //#define ENDSTOPPULLUP_ZMIN_PROBE
#endif

// Mechanical endstop with COM to ground and NC to Signal uses "false" here (most common setup).
#define X_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING true // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
#define Y_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
#define Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
#define X_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
#define Y_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
#define Z_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
#define Z_MIN_PROBE_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.

I have X-min enabled and inverted. When I send an M119 (endstop status code) I recieve:

Send: M119
Recv: Reporting endstop status
Recv: x_min: open
Recv: y_min: TRIGGERED
Recv: z_min: TRIGGERED

And then when I press down the X endstop with my hand I get:

Send: M119
Recv: Reporting endstop status
Recv: x_min: open
Recv: y_min: TRIGGERED
Recv: z_min: TRIGGERED

-No change. There is no mechanical failure with the switches, I've tested it with a continuity tester. I have even shorted the signal and ground pins on the Ramps board with a jumper wire and I still haven't seen any change.

Where is the fault at?

try uncommenting the following lines to enable endstop detection on all pins for troubleshooting.

//#define USE_XMAX_PLUG false
//#define USE_YMAX_PLUG false
//#define USE_ZMAX_PLUG false

This way the M119 will show any changes.

The only thing I can think of is that either the switch is plugged into the wrong pin on the ramps board (Max instead of Min) or the switch doesn't require the pullup (your could try commenting that back as a second test as well)


How to prevent stringing with 0.25 mm nozzle? When I print with a 0.4  mm nozzle I have no problem with stringing at all but because I need a more detailed print I must use a 0.25 mm nozzle.

I use Ultimaker Cura and an Anycubic i3 Mega.

What i tried so far:

Enable/Disable Z hop
Tried different retraction distance and speed.
Tried with lower temperature
Different wall thickness

If you have any suggestion please let me know.

First, you should change the nozzle diameter setting, not just the line width setting, in Cura. Both are involved in determining extrusion. Line width can be less than or greater than nozzle size, but setting it much larger or smaller is not going to work well.

I suspect your main problem, though, is print speed. The area of the 0.25 mm nozzle orifice is only 39% of the area of an 0.4 mm nozzle orifice, bounding the material extrusion rate at best at 39% of what you could get with the larger nozzle (in practice it will be even lower due to complex fluid dynamics, probably much lower), but at the same linear print speed with narrower lines, you'll be extruding (or trying to extrude) 62.5% as much material per unit time. Now, if that much material can't actually make it out of the nozzle, pressure builds up between the extruder gear and the nozzle, and stringing is the result.

So, try lowering the print speed. A lot at first. If that solves the problem, gradually increase it until you find the limit. Increasing retraction and temperature may help you push it a little further. See my question and self-answer on stringing with flexible filaments, which might give you some ideas on other things to try:

Avoiding stringing with flexible filament


Arduino WEMOS and RAMPS I'm thinking of buying an Arduino WEMOS1 as I am tired with SD card fiddling.

As the ESP8266 chip has 32 Mb (~4 MB) flash memory, I am hoping to be able to push most of the G-code files over the Wi-Fi.

I was trying OctoPi but, having electronic noise issues, the transmission was not stable.

Has anyone tried WEMOS with RAMPS? Is the serial communication stable between ESP and Arduino?

1 Product description is Mega +WiFi R3 ATmega2560+ESP8266 (32Mb memory), USB-TTL CH340G. Compatible for Arduino Mega, NodeMCU, WeMos ESP8266

After having looked into them, these boards certainly seem to be rather interesting.

There appear to be two varieties of this board, as I have seen photos with either RobotDyn:

rear (from Instructables)

or WeMos logos on them.

They may, or may not, be the same. There is also this one, with just a generic "WiFi" logo (from the eBay page below):

Memory Discrepancies

However, there is certainly some discrepancy relating to the specification and amount of memory (unless there are a number of variants - which would certainly be possible):

4 MB of Flash is in the ESP8266-12, as Dan states, see ESP8266 SMT Module - ESP-12. But is it the ESP8266-12 in the board, or is it another ESP variant?
This WeMos product, on eBay, WeMOS Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 USB-TTL For Arduino Mega NodeMCU appears to agree with the 32 Mb1
This RobotDyn board, Контроллер RobotDyn Mega 2560 R3 + WiFi ESP8266b, flash память 8Mbit, USB-TTL CH340G, MicroUSB, has 8 Mb apparently.
However the same product page, but in English, upgrades the memory to 32 MB! See MEGA+WiFi R3 ATmega2560+ESP8266, flash 32MB, USB-TTL CH340G, Micro-USB

Looking at this article, Instructables - Arduino MEGA 2560 With WiFi Built-in - ESP8266, it isn't exactly the ESP8266-12:

  In today's text, we discuss an Arduino that I consider extremely special, as it has an ESP8266 embedded in its board. It doesn’t have the ESP12 soldered onto the board. Instead, it has the Espressif chip. So, on the board you have the built-in Tensilica chip with 4MB of memory, along with the ATmega2560, which is the traditional Arduino Mega.

So the ESP has 4 MB, but where does the 32 Mb come in to play?

Well, looking at this RobotDyn memory table (taken from the Instructables page):

The 4 MB of the ESP appears to have been immediately contradicted and upgraded to 8 MB! The ATmega2560 somehow has 32 Mb (which seems a bit of a lie - as there isn't an ATmega2560 known to man that has that much memory2), and is confused further by the corresponding text:

  As we see in the table above, the ATmega has 32MB of memory, not counting the ESP memory. This is wonderful, since the traditional Mega Arduino has only 256kb of memory.

So MB or Mb? Is there an additional flash IC external to the ATmega2560? Looking at the schematic, taken from the Russian RobotDyn page, there doesn't appear to be:

So this could be nonsense. Logic would dictate that the ATmega has 256 kB and the ESP has 4 MB... But I could be wrong..?

Links from Контроллер RobotDyn Mega 2560 R3 + WiFi ESP8266b, flash память 8Mbit, USB-TTL CH340G, MicroUSB:

Schematic (PDF)
Pin out (PDF) (JPG)
Mechanics (PDF) (JPG)

Reliability of communication

Regardless of the actual spec, to address your question of ESP/Arduino communication reliability:

As the ESP8266 and the ATmega2560 are on the same board one would assume that the (serial) communication between the two would be faultless. However, some issues have been reported3.

Nevertheless, from your question, it seems that you were having issues with the ESP to the OctoPi communication, rather than ESP to Arduino, so maybe this doesn't actually answer your question.

Also, as to their compatibility with RAMPS, there is very little information available currently, and it would seem to be a case of try-it-and-see. The closest I got was this post on the thread, OnStep and RAMPS1.4, but it seems to be spam.

However, it certainly sounds worth a gamble as it would be a nice combination of technologies. However, I would imagine that some modification of the firmware would be necessary.

Useful Notes

From post #8 of Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 (8 Mb mémoire)

  To upload the sketch to the board:

5, 6, 7 ON
RXD3 - TXD3

  To run the sketch:

5 and 6 ON
RXD3 - TXD3

Here is an excellent manual in Russian

Footnotes

1  From WeMOS Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 USB-TTL For Arduino Mega NodeMCU

  WeMOS Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 USB-TTL For Arduino Mega NodeMCU

  Features:

  Full integration on one board: Mega R3 ATmega2560 and WiFi ESP8266 with memory 32Mb (megabyte)
  All of the modules can work together or each separately. And everyone has their own pinout headers
  The convenient solution for the development of new projects requiring Uno and WiFi
  Via USB you can update sketches and firmware for ATmega2560 and for ESP8266. For this on board have the USB-serial converter CH340G
  Use this board is very simple
  The board has DIP-switch, to connect the modules. For example to:

  USB and ATmeg2560,
  USB and ESP8266,
  ATmega2560 and ESP8266

  Table DIP- Switch:

Connection                                                          DIP
                                           1        2        3         4       5         6        7
ATmega2560<->ESP8266                      ON       ON       OFF       OFF     OFF       OFF      OFF
USB <->ATmega2560                         OFF      OFF      ON        ON      OFF       OFF      OFF
USB<->ESP8266 (Update firmware or sketch) OFF      OFF      OFF       OFF     ON        ON       ON
USB<->ESP8266 (communication)             OFF      OFF      OFF       OFF     ON        ON       OFF
All independent                           OFF      OFF      OFF       OFF     OFF       OFF      OFF

Special solution:
USB <->ATmega328<-> ESP8266
Connection                                                          DIP                                     SWITCH 2
                                           1        2        3         4       5         6        7

USB <-> ATmega2560<-> ESP8266             ON       ON       ON        ON      OFF       OFF      OFF         To RXD3/TXD3

  USB converter CH340G connect to RX0/TX0 of ATmega2560
  ESP8266 connect to RX3/TX3 of ATmega2560

  Size: 10.5x5.3cm/4.13x2.09inch

2 From the Atmel ATmega640/V-1280/V
-1281/V-2560/V-2561/V datasheet

3 From Mega + WiFi R3 ATmega2560 + ESP8266 (8 Mb mémoire), there do appear to be some issues communicating between the ATmega and the ESP ICs, with a number of users reporting problems.

However, a couple of solutions are provided:

Solution 1

From post #2

  Set the DIP switch to "special" mode: (1=on, 2=on, 3=on, 4=on, 5=off, 6=off, 7=off, 8=off) see the the description of the
  product.
  Set the switch in RXD3
  Run the below sketch, change the SSID and PASSWORD values. this is just to test that Arduino and ESP8266 are working together. The code
  originated from BISSA ORBOEA in Element14.

  Code:

#include "ESP8266.h"

#define SSID        "YOURSID"
#define PASSWORD    "YOURPASSWORD"

ESP8266 wifi(Serial3,115200);

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);

  Serial.println("Restart");
  wifi.restart();
  delay(1000);

  Serial.println("FW Version:");
  Serial.println(wifi.getVersion().c_str());

    if (wifi.setOprToStation()) {
        Serial.println("OprToStation ok");    }
        else {
        Serial.println("OprToStation  err");
    }

    if (wifi.joinAP(SSID, PASSWORD)) {
        Serial.println("Join AP success");

        Serial.print("IP:");
        Serial.println( wifi.getLocalIP().c_str());
    } else {
        Serial.println("Join AP failure");
    }
}

void loop()
{
}

Solution 2

From post #6

  First you need to write the code for each board according your
  application, but in your code you need to establish a commmincation
  between serial port of Atmega and ESP in both code, again in according
  you application. Finally, put the switches which make the intenal
  interconnection between both.

  For example, I made a code for ESP to connect in an Access Point and
  put on a TCP server. When a wireless client is connected in ESP and
  consequently in the TCP Server, all data send by client I redirect to
  the serial port. As serial port of ESP is connected with serial 3 of
  the Atmega, the code in Atmega pass to theat the data from serial 3.

Solution 3

From post #11

  Follow this if you have the same to my cases:

  programm to the ESP(upload sketch) for wifi connection by configure the DIP to 5:on,6:on,7:on and other off.
  program to mega(upload sketch) in case you want to send communication to each other by configure Dip to 3:on,4:on, and other
  off.
  switch two  RX0/TX0(in my case I use Serial.print() and Serial.readString() for communicate between Esp and Mega)
  after you already upload sketch to both Modules you can test communication between them by configure DIP to: 1:on,2:on,3:on,4:on.
  and then press Reset Button to restart the boards.
  In ESP you can get the string from Mega by  if(Serial.available()) Serial.readString();  and In mega you can get data from ESP by :
  if(Serial.available())Serial.readString().
  After you got a string so you can split or do anything whatever you want.
  If you want send data to Firebase you must use the Firebase Library at the Esp side, in Mega it not support.


Prusa i3 Mk3 - Top layer wrinkles (not on buildplate) Recently started using my kit Prusa I3 Mk3 and noticed that with large horizontal surfaces a wrinkling pattern is emerging.

As you can see in the image the wrinkles seem to run parallel, the surface is 10 mm above the build plate with all bridges fully supported.

Has anyone seen this before? All other areas seem to be doing well.

This print uses PLA filament @ 235 °C hotend temperature and clearly shows a wrinkled pattern on the top layer

If it helps, I haven't changed the settings from the normal Prusa Slic3r 0.15 profile.

The problem reduced to an acceptable level by reducing the temperature to 205 °C but keeping the fan speed 100 %, I am printing PLA. I might reduce the fan speed if I feel troubled by the result.

Waves in printed surfaces with FFF are observed at either the bottom layer (common) or the top layer (less common).
Waves in bottom layer
Rippling/wave generation/wrinkling is a common problem for first layer to occur and has a direct relation to the print nozzle to bed distance; a too short of a distance or over-extrusion can lead to this effect. However, this effect is less commonly observed in top layer finishes.  Bottom layer waves are described in more detail in this answer.
Waves in top layer
I have seen this defect before. It is caused by a combination of incorrect hotend temperature and print cooling fan settings. Please reduce the hotend temperature and reduce the fan cooling. The image below clearly shows the differences of such measures.


Cura grey large grey area, almost nothing fits… I can't seem to understand the margins that Cura uses or how to fix them for my machine. Look at this:

I can't seem to tweak the stuff under machine settings to anything that does this better:

Maybe a bit of dup of Cura not allowing full print area to used, but I think my case is a lot worse and can't be explained by skirts.

I had mistakenly left the setting "one at a time" in print sequence. This meaning the printhead needs a lot of room since it will go back and forth in z.

Cura allocates this extra space even if there's only one object.


Trouble printing Poppy Robot with SpiderBot For a university project, my partner and I need to print the robot Poppy. This is an open source robotic project, poppy-project.org.

We are printing it with a double extruder SpiderBot with PLA and HIPS as support material. Our principal issue is the weakness of the pieces we print.

It prevents us from removing the support material without damaging the piece. We don't have the chemicals to dissolve HIPS.

Have you some advice to make the pieces stronger, or a more gentle method to remove the HIPS?

Thanks for the replies

Having a bit more experience since my comment post above, I can offer up a possible solution. If your printer is able to print ABS, it works great with HIPS as support material. I've been printing boatloads of ABS models. When support is needed, the HIPS supports will bond reasonably well to the ABS, but when cooled, flick off with a sharp pointed instrument such as a razor knife point.

As an additional reference, a good bond to the print bed is required for both ABS and HIPS and if your slicer allows support density adjustment, increase the support in that manner. My slicer (Simplify3D) would print an accordian type of support unless instructed otherwise. I set up for alternating 45° patterns making a denser but also more vertically rigid structure.

If you cannot print ABS, PLA and PVA as Ogre55 suggests is about your only option. I see from the 'net that the SpiderBot Pro supports ABS, which implies the basic version might not have a heated bed.


File too big to open in Tinkercad. How can I shrink it? I need to shrink an STL file below the 25 MB threshold, so I can open it in TinkerCad. I don't care about quality, I just need it shrunk.
How can I do this?

If you have 3D software like Blender you can import your model and use the decimate modifier to lower the number of vertices and then re-export.
Here is a link to how you can do this: Simplify Geometry with the Decimate Modifier in Blender 2.9.


After homing all is fine, when printing the Z-axis stops advancing My Prusa i3 has developed an issue.

It homes fine and has no issues. But, when I press the print button it gives a sneeze (quick screeching noise from the Z-axis stepper motor) and start to print. The only issue then is that there is no lifting on the layers when it prints! When I kill the print, it stops, lifts and goes to the home position as if nothing is wrong.

Video link: Prusa I3 Z-axis issue

Does anyone know of a remedy for this issue?

Awesome, I got it fixed!

I've restored to default the Firmware EEPROM Settings in the driver program and it's all fine now. I have no idea how that got changed as I would never go mess around there.

I CAN PRINT AGAIN!!

The program I'm using is Repetier. It has a Firmware configuration setting under the printer settings. The values in there was a bit odd so I took a chance and pressed the Reset to Factory Settings and it worked. There is no version number attached to the setting


How to remove white marks from PLA When you cut or break a PLA model (for example to remove support) it often leaves an ugly while mark where the removed piece was connected.

Sanding also tend to leave dull white scratches on the sanded surface.

What can I do to restore the white areas to the original filament color?

A quick blast from a heat gun will very slightly reflow the surface texture and eliminate white marks.

However, it's important to avoid over-heating the perimeter layers or you'll see them soften and sag into the infill. So wait for the heat gun to get fully hot and then use a short duration of high heat. Let the part cool between attempts if you don't get it all the first time, or need to clean up a large area.

Incidentally, the heat gun will also help clean up strings from travel moves.


Raise3D Wi-Fi Protocol I am interesting in connecting my RepRap printer to ideaMaker using the same Wi-Fi protocol they use for their Raise3D printers.

I am sure I could emulate it using a Raspberry Pi if I knew the format of the protocol (I suspect it is pretty simple).

Is the protocol documented anywhere?
Is there open source for something that uses the protocol?
Has anyone that has a Raise3D printer looked at the packets it uses?  I suspect the protocol is just G-code in a wrapper.

OK, I have found the first piece of this puzzle.
"The Raise3D printers listen on TCP port 31625 for remote control from ideaMaker."


Can we apply more voltage to a PCB heated bed to get faster heating? From my understanding, the power of heater must higher than heat dissipate to ambient air so the bed can heat up. The reason why a bed heats up too slowly is due to its heat capacity compared to heater power.
As the heater is a resistive load, I think we can put higher voltage to get more heating power.
The PCB heater has two parts: copper and laminate. The reason of failure is that the copper can come off the board due to high temperatures. In this case we can control temperature with firmware. The questions are:

Will this method work?
What can go wrong or what is the risk of this method?

Yes, this method will work. Some (LED) power supplies have a small potentiometer that you can use to slightly adjust the voltage. On a 12 V printer, adjusting the supply from 12 V to 14 V will give a 36% increase in power.
Obviously there is a limit to how much you can increase the voltage. The voltage itself is unlikely to be the limiting factor, but there is a limit to how much heat the bed can dissipate.

The PCB heater have 2-part copper and laminate. the reason of failire is the copper go off the board due to high temperature. In this case we can control temperature with firmware.

This is true, but you have to consider that firmware is not infallible. If you increase the voltage (and thus wattage) of the bed a lot, you risk creating a dangerous situation if something fails. Ideally, you should choose the wattage of the bed such that it does not create a dangerous situation even if it is left on permanently by accident. In extreme cases (e.g. 220V to a nominally 12V heated bed) damage will be almost instantaneous before the firmware can intervene.
You also have to consider that increasing the voltage also increases the current. The wires need to be thick enough to handle the additional current. You also have to pay special attention to the MOSFET that is used to switch the bed; it also needs to be able to handle the current (and voltage, though this is usually less of a problem). Usually the integrated MOSFETs on 3D printer control boards can only handle about ~10 A which is what the bed might normally draw. Also pay attention to fuses and to screw terminal connections. They might not be able to handle the increased current either.


Mechanics for modelling a push button latch spring I am designing a door to put on a small enclosure that will open and close upon pressing a button. The idea is something similar to what you would find on an external DVD reader. My problem is with the actual button I understand I will need to use springs for this but I can not figure out the mechanics of the button.

Are there 3D-printable, mechanical designs that could fit for this purpose?

A commonly seen method to provide spring action in a 3D printed model is to use a series of curved and straight segments. Some of the designs use the segment assembly in compression, aligned with the plane of the print, while others use the segment assembly for springiness perpendicular to the plane of the print.

An example of the latter is a squishy turtle from Thingiverse resulting in four legs that provide some bounce to the turtle if dropped from a small height. This video shows the movement of the legs more clearly, as there were no suitable still photos available on the site.

The image below shows another spring type print from Thingiverse in which the forces are in line with the print plane.

The S-curves cannot be too thick or movement will be severely limited, and too thin means impossible to print and possibly reduced lifespan.

Many designs abound with a search of the 'net for "3D printed springs."


How to generate gcode only for first layer? As first layer is so important, I am looking for an easy way to generate  the gcode to print just the first layer.
I see that with Slic3r you can cut from a Z
But for test purposes I prefer just selecting a number of layers to be generated so I can easily generate different "first layer(s) tests" with different first layer(s) settings (width, height, speed, flow....)
The only way I achieve it is editing the gcode.
Any help?
Thanks

I understand your question like this:

  I know I could cut the mesh and just slice the bottom of my model, but since I am interested in a given number of layers and the heigh of a layer may change according to settings (e.g.: 0.2mm, 0.1mm, 0.05mm...), I want to find a way to generate an arbitrary number of layers from the full model.  I use slic3r.

If my understanding is correct, then you can achieve what you want with a few steps.

Use verbose GCODE

The setting is under "Print settings → Output Options".  This will output gcode with comments in it.

Save the finishing gcode of a valid printing job

Basically, open a valid gcode file, and save the last few lines (comments will help you to understand which ones, it changes from printer to printer) in a separate file (gcode.tail).  These lines are typically those that move away the nozzle from the print, disable the heating element, the steppers and the part cooling fan.

Prepare the first-lines.sh script

#! /usr/bin/env sh
sed -e '/move to next layer (3)/,$d' $1 > /tmp/gcode.tmp
echo ~/gcode.tail >> /tmp/gcode.tmp
echo /tmp/gcode.tmp

What this script does is:

take a file name from the command line ($1) and savie into gcode.tmp only the part of it up to and excluding the line saying "move to the next layer (3)" (you should actually use the number of layers you actually want here, 3 is just an example).  Again, the presence of such a line depends from you generating "verbose gcode".
append to gcode.tmp the content of the file gcode.tail (here replace ~/ with the actual path on your machine.
output as a stream the full content of gcode.tmp

Set your printer to automatically run the script onto the generated gcode

This setting is again under "Print settings → Output Options". You have to type in the full path to first-lines.sh.  Also remember to make the script executable (chmod +x first-lines.sh).

You can also hover over the textbox to get additional information of how you can access slic3r variables there (for example you may want to read the layer height from the settings and compute within the script the number of layers you want to keep).

Profit

:)

Final notes:

I tried the sed command and have post-processing scripts running on my gcode myself, so it should work, but I haven't tried the full procedure myself, if you encounter bugs please leave a comment so I can fix the answer for everybody. :)
I use slic3r Prusa Edition (I believe these settings are the same, but just in case... you may wish to download that version.
All of the above should work out-of-the-box on all mainstream Linux distributions and OSX.  For windows, it has been suggested in the comments to install CygWin.
Since this procedure still slices the full model and then throw away most of it, you could make it faster by only slicing a reasonably thick "bottom part" of your model.  For example: say that you know you will never want to print more than 5 layers and never with a layer height past 0.3mm... in this case you could only keep the bottom 2mm of your model and you'd be safe for all other combinations of layers and layer heights.  Don't keep exactly 1.5mm though, as this is likely to generate a different top layer than the one in the full model.

Good luck! :)


I can't level my bed any more I have a Monoprice Select v2 that I just bought less than 2 months ago. I've manually leveled it on several prints prior.

I noticed a couple of holes in my print bed after my last print, like the extruder pushed into the sheet really hard. They're both on the same side.

I then noticed that the extruder's horizontal bar wasn't leveled so I leveled it. I did this by unplugging the wire to one motor and modified the z-position so that the other connected side would go up. (Is this the proper way of adjusting the horizontal bar?)

And then I moved the extruder back into its Home position at z-position 0.
That's when I noticed that it seems my extruder barely reaches my print bed even though I have the screws almost loosened to the point of detaching from the thread.

The extruder z-limit-switch (I think that's what it's called) seems to be pressed so the extruder is as far down as it can go. The controls also show that the z-position is at 0.

So I'm guessing my print bed somehow lowered. But I don't see how that could possibly be.

Any ideas?

Here are some photos but I'm not even sure what to show really

you can see the z-limit-switch in the right of this pic next to the letter A's

you can see my extruder still has some distance to go before reaching my print bed but you can also see that my screws are loosened as much as possible

showing the horizontal extruder bar is now leveled

The bar where the level is attached is the support cross-bar for the X-axis travel.

It's important this bar be level, but it's even more important the bar be true to the rest of the machine. We call this "leveling" the printer, but really the more accurate term is "tramming". If the bar is level, but the machine sits on an unlevel surface, things are out of sync. This may be the case here.

  I did this by unplugging the wire to one motor and modified the z-position so that the other connected side would go up. (Is this the proper way of adjusting the horizontal bar?)

No. The first image in your question shows two threaded vertical rods: one on the left that is exposed, and one on the right that is more hidden (only a small portion is visible between the two "A" labels). These rods control travel in the vertical "z" direction. Each rod has an inline coupler connecting it to the Z-stepper motors. The coupler for the right side is visible just below the square label "A". You adjust the level of the X cross-bar by turning the couplers while the printer is turned off or the motors are otherwise disengaged. This allows you to make finer adjustments for the bar, often without needing to re-home the Z axis.

You can also use this method to correct your immediate problem.

I own a Select Plus, which uses similar construction to your Select V2. When I first got the printer one of my couplers was not adequately secured to the rod. This made for all kinds of difficulty leveling the bed at first, including at one point an issue similar to what you are experiencing.

Re-leveling the X cross-bar is easiest if you are first certain the printer itself is on a level surface. If this is the case, you should be able to use the level in the images to check the cross-bar in the same way you did previously, making adjustments via couplers. But check that surface first. If the surface is not level, you need to adjust the X cross-bar to be parallel to something in the machine other than the bed. While we want the bed to match the rest of the machine, the very fact you can adjust this means it's not guaranteed at any point in time, and so you should use something more structural to compare against.

In this case, you can place the same level across the two steel Y-axis travel bars below the bed, and check where the bubble sits. Then make sure the bubble ends up in exactly the same position for the X cross-bar, regardless of whether or not that's level to the ground. The greater precision you can get here, the better things will be.

I'm gonna add some notes about leveling the beds on these specific printer models.

There are three basic types of leveling:

Manual. You do everything yourself.
Assisted. You still do most things yourself, but the machine will help by moving the head quickly to certain positions for you to check. This is what many machines refer to as "automatic", even though it really isn't.
Automatic. This is where the machine does everything, using lasers to map the bed or some other contact sensor to detect when the head approaches the bed and make it's own adjustments. Often this only uses software to compensate for the bed, and so you still want to get the bed as level as possible first without this option.

The Select V2 and Select Plus only do #2: assisted.

When I was starting out, my research indicated you should generally level your print beds "hot", because heating a print bed will expand it and potentially change the results. This makes sense to me.

However, the instructions included with my Select Plus said nothing about heating the bed, and if followed precisely meant I leveled a cold bed. Additionally, the so-called "automatic" (really: "assisted") leveling tool in the firmware also does not keep the bed heated, meaning if you want to level it hot you must do it entirely manually.

This caused me great difficulty when first starting out getting a good level, because I was trying to do it manually on a hot bed. I finally gave up on that, and started using the assisted tool on a cold bed. To my surprise and relief — and counter to what I've read elsewhere — I've had much better results when doing it cold this way. But this may be some peculiar to these printers, perhaps involving the special mat it uses on the surface of the bed.

I'm also considering this upgrade (Update: I recently installed it, but it's too soon to know if it's helping), to help improve things even further, since there is some curvature in my plate:

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B251KBS/

Finally, there's an interesting seesaw effect when working on a square print bed with four adjustment knobs. I have a post about it here:

  Leveling a square 3d printer bed with four mounting posts


How to check if filament sensor is ok? The filament sensor of my i3 MK3 stopped working. In the support menu, it just says IR: N/A. This is the same output as if I disconnect the filament sensor.

My PCB says rev 0.2e and this is what I see:

In the Prusa Shop, I found a laser sensor, which has 4 pins, so that's probably what I have.

I have already checked the voltage coming from the Einsy cable. It's 5.02 V, which is probably ok. The remaining two pins seem to be SCL and SDA, so it's likely a I²C bus.

I have Arduinos, ESP8266 and ESP32 around. Is there a test routine that I could run on the filament sensor, other than Prusa's N/A display?

You could try out this Arduino sketch and see if the Arduino can find the sensor on the bus, but I'm fairly certain that the chip has developed a fault and stopped responding to I²C commands, hence the error, or it's giving a value that's outside the limits set in the firmware.

I'd also recommend getting in touch with Prusa Research, they have very good support and can tell you what part you need for your machine.


How can I stop the flare out of the bottom layers? On nearly all of my prints, my first few layers are flared out slightly. I'm using painter's tape for the bed, and the bed temperature is at 60 °C while the extruder is at 205 °C. This seems to happen regardless of print quality settings.

Here's one example below:

That extruded rectangle shape is 19.50 x 19.30 mm on the outside on the straight part. On the flared part, it measures 19.92 x 19.70 mm.

Is there a way to fix this? If so, how can I improve it?

The picture is not very clear so this can be related to either:

Overextrusion at the bottom layer (slicer setting) or an incorrect bed leveling (bed to nozzle distance too small), or
this could be the effect called "elephant foot" that is primarily caused by printers with a heated bed. This issue is related to unbalanced printing parameters: heat bed temperature (too high) in combination with insufficient part cooling.

The general remedy for these problems is to level the bed (e.g. nozzle can be too close to the bed). "Elephant foot" can be reduced by reducing the heat bed temperature, re-positioning the cooling nozzle and/or start cooling at a lower height. Please experiment with the print parameters by printing XYZ 20 mm test cubes till you find the correct settings.


What is PEI+PC 3D Print material? ISS 3D Print Contest There was a contest to develop 3D printable files for the International Space Station's 3D printer.  The winner got a 3D printer ... runners up got Fluke DVOM's and all entrants got a t-shirt.

ISS 3D Print Contest

They offer 3 materials:  ABS, HDPE, and PEI+PC ... I'm not familiar with the last one. Anyone know?

If found this material on Matweb: PEI+PC Alloy

These links are thought to last a very long time.  I hope many of you decide to upload a project into contest site and compete for the grand prize ... A sweet John Fluke DVOM.  If nothing else a free awesome T-shirt.

Apparently the Made In Space printer can print an exotic alloy of PEI (ultem) and PC (polycarbonate).

Ultem is a super-premium material for industrial FDM printers, and requires a very high temp heated build chamber to print. Hobbyists use it as a build plate -- Stratasys uses it as filament in their most expensive FDM machines.
Polycarbonate is a specialty material that benefits from a heated chamber but is just barely printable on hobbyist level machines. (I print a fair amount of PC -- it makes ABS seem easy in comparison.)

By alloying PC with PEI, they are presumably optimizing some kind of performance parameter compared to ultem alone or polycarbonate alone. Exactly what material properties they get will depend considerably on the ratio of the two polymers. Ultem is exceptionally heat-resistant, quite stiff, and extremely strong. PC is very heat resistant, and has exceptional impact toughness. Blends of the two can be somewhat stiffer than either, with most other properties resembling the weighted average of the two base materials. It really depends on the mix, which we don't know.

This is analogous to the PC-ABS blend filaments we sometimes use. You get reasonably intermediate properties.

So, it's basically super-filament that NASA might want to use to make "production" parts in space. I would expect a HUGE degree of warping if not printed in extremely well-controlled conditions. But the Made In Space printer was intensely engineered for this task, so I have to assume they have it all figured out.


How often should I replace the glue layers on the bed? I am printing on a non-heated bed right now, but the question also applies to heated building plates.

How often should you replace the glue layers that's supposed to be applied before printing? Some say you can do up to a few prints, such as in this forum, while others say to replace it every print. What is the correct approach?

Depends on the glue and on your tolerance for messy undersides on your prints. It's fairly common for some of the glue to come off with the print. Or you may have marks from scrapers or rafts. Do you want to touch up that spot and have some artifacts on the bottom of the next print, or clean and redo the bed to get everything flat?

Gluestick is pretty easy to wash and reapply. It can also be freshened up with a gentle spray of water, smeared flat, and redried, or more gluestick added on top. It will really come down to your preferred workflow.


Hotend moves up on HOME command My Ender 3D with BlTouch And Marlin 2.0.1 firmware was working flawless for 3 months.
Yesterday, without any hardware or software change, it started acting weird: on Auto-Home command it first makes expected moves (home X and Y), then moves to the center of the bed and then instead of going down to bed, it rises all the way up and then writes a message about End Stop. This of course happens also on "start print", "level bed", etc.
Before the Auto Home command, I can operate the Z axis normally, after it, the printer does not allow movement down.
Do you have any ideas, what might have gone wrong?

The mystery is solved. The BlTouch probe was slightly blocked and reported (supposedly) being in touch with the plate. Just touching it released the probe from the stuck position and all works well now.
Due to direct sunlight, I overlooked the warning blinking red colour of the BlTouch.


PLA Issue printing first 3 mm with Ender 3 Pro I´ve tried tunning printer settings with different Nozzle(190-210 ºC)/ Bed(0-60 ºC) Temperatures, Fan Speeds (0-100 %), Cura and Slicer adjustemens but nothing worked. I still get the same bubbles in the first 3 mm of every print.
I also tried a glass bed and the magnetic bed that comes with Ender 3 pro and the result is still the same.
The last thing I tried was moving the 0 position of the Z axis 10 mm up, but it didn´work.

What else could I try? Any idea of which could be the issue. Thanks in advance.

This answer hints to the correct diagnosis but doesn't explain how to fix this in Cura or any other solution other than babysteps. You don't want to adjust babysteps at every print...

Basically, your nozzle is too close to the bed (from comment 0.1 mm to be exact). To increase the distance between the nozzle and the bed you can:

level with a little thicker paper,
move the bed down on all corners,
move the Z endstop up,
redefine the Z=0 in your start code,
G1 Z0.1 ; Move to 0.1 mm height
G92 Z0  ; Redefine zero height
install Cura plugin "Z Offset Setting" from fieldOfView (through the Cura Marketplace) and define a Z Offset of 0.1 mm, and/or
increase the first layer height a little.


Changes rods for linear rails I would like to know if it is possible to change the rollers for linear rails, just replacing or some calculation should be done and take some precautions.

In my case,  I have a Core XY DIY printer.

I was reading about need to migrate of 8 Bits to 32 Bits, because for get better resolution, results and should be update more things, like add autolevel, etc.

I've seen mods for the Hypercube (and Hypercube Evolution) using linear rails (e.g. this mod), so yes that is possible. You need to redesign a few parts and make sure you have the correct length, but that shouldn't be too difficult.


Using HIPS as support for PLA printing? I have a question. I have a dual extruder printer and I want to try using HIPS for printing. Can I use PLA as my main material and HIPS for supports?

Searching online I found combinations of ABS + HIPS mentioned. No where is it mentioned that It can be used.

You can as PLA is not affected by Limonene (the chemical used to dissolve the HIPS) but it is not recommended as the print temperatures for each material (~180C for PLA and ~230C for HIPS) are quite far apart and the PLA may not stick to the HIPS.

A better choice would be PVA which prints ~185C and dissolves in water but this material has its own set of fun issues.

*Temperatures are estimates, different vendors may have different temperatures.


Magnetic heatbed options - can I trim these to size? I'm looking at options for removable heatbed surfaces for my Prusa Mk2 clone, which has a MK42 bed, 250x210mm

I have a removable spring steel plate at the moment, but it is not dependably flat - there are often issues with patchy filament adhesion or oversquashing, as it has bumps in it.

I'm looking at a magnetic solution instead.

Does anyone have experience of this type of stick-on magnetic surface?

Any drawbacks?
Can I trim it to size? I can't see any which are 250 x 210

Adhesion and sizing
First of all, the product you link is very likely a BuildTak clone or a similar product. My Ender 3 came with a similar one and I have changed to a different one after I ripped it off accidentally to mount a similar one. I have yet to find a sheet of this material that you can't cut to size, as it is pretty much only a polymer with a strong tape on one side and a rough surface on the other. So trimming is not a problem at all.
Mounting
To mount your new surface, you need to get a surface onto your heatbed that has

good contact on all the area
securely holds the bed in place
is as flat as possible

So you surely want to get a metal sheet that is as flat as possible to mount your surface on. If your bed is heated, your mounting method needs to transfer the heat as good as possible, so a direct contact to the heated bed would be good. This, however, rules out most thin magnets, as these magnet sheets demagnetize under heat, limiting the usability for higher temperature materials, for example, ABS. The original Prusa uses a spring steel bed and high-temperature magnets embedded in the heating platform to work around this.


Oven/Food safe Filament? I just backed a 3d printer on kickstarter, called "Mooz", and I was wondering about some of the possible applications of it. I realized it would be cool/helpful to be make cookie models, and bake cookies to that shape. The cookies can be baked as low as around 250 °F, So is there any food-safe and heat resistant filament that can withstand those temperatures? (I know many filaments are printed above those temps anyways, but in my case I don't want them to even warp.) Google has failed me on this one, so I hope someone here can answer it for me!
-Thanks in advance :)

P.S. My 3d printer will have a heated bed, so it can print more types of filaments. The highest bed temp is 100 °C, and the highest hot end temp is 250 °C. I don't really mind using some sealant, but I'd rather not use something toxic like ABS.

P.P.S I'm a newbie to this stuff, so I apologize in advance if I asked a really stupid question.

Don't try to bake cookies inside a plastic mold; the plastic will smoke even if not melt. If you need to bake cookies use a cookie cutter made of plastic (your own design or copy) obviously printed on your new printer then bake normally. here is a link from thingeverse to get a cookie cutter .stl file

:) enjoy cutting cookies these holidays

Here is another link from hacks from one person is making the same to show his idea.


Homing the 3D printer I have just built my first 3D printer, and I am having some problems. It is a Cartesian based 3D printer, using Marlin firmware and Pronterface software. My problem is homing the 3D printer. I do not have a probe to calibrate the z offset but I have all 6 endstops. The problem is that the "ZMIN" endstop isn't precise enough and my hotend is always either too far from or too close to the heatbed. Is there a way to manually set the home position, so when I start the printer, It just starts printing and it doesn't have to home again; Or maybe some other way to set the correct offset. It would also be helpful if I could use just the "ZMAX" plug, and then manually set the minimum Z position using a piece of paper.

It is possible to "home a printer" without having endstops, technically, you don't require endstops, but it makes your job a lot easier if you want to print something!

Basically, when you don't have endstops or limit switches, you need to define where the head of the printer is located. E.g. you can set the nozzle at [0, 0, 0] (origin in [x, y, z]) and add the command G92 to your print G-code file that it is at that position using G92 X0 Y0 Z0 (or any other location you use, e.g. you could engineer a parking position and refer to that position instead, note that you also need to write the movement commands to get out of that location safely). Don't forget to remove the homing command from your start code in your slicer, replace G28 with the G92 command with appropriate X, Y and Z values.

Regarding the inaccurate repetitive accuracy of your Z min endstop, it might be worth to find out why this is causing such a spread in triggering, maybe you need to invest in some new endstop switches or look more closely to the heated bed attachment to the frame.

Using Z max as a reference point is e.g. used by Ultimaker machines. The heated platform lowers to Z max; the printer knows from calibration and geometry how far it needs to rise to get to Z=0.


Creality CR-10 Clogs and Underextrusion - Filament at fault? I've been printing successfully on my CR-10 for the past year now. I've had issues now and then but have been able to look around the internet and solve them. I've been using some Flashforge white PLA with great results.

Example:

Last week I got a couple of new rolls of filament, black and orange. SinceI tried printing with them, I've got nothing but jams. The white prints fine, however.

I dug around online and found this was happening to my printer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vH_spN5wyw

So yesterday I opened up my hotend to clean it out and got quite a bit of gunk out:

I also changed my nozzle. I printed some with the old white PLA and printed fine. The moment I switched over to the new orange filament, it jammed after a few layers.

I ensured my nozzle was tightened and then got to measuring the filament. The older white one is 1.75mm in most places with some at 1.73mm.

The new ones that I got are pretty inconsistent - the orange one ranging from 1.68mm to 1.72mm; I found very few places where it was actually 1.75mm. The black one averaged 1.72mm.

So I made the change in my slicer but even then the first layer was visibly underextruding and it jammed soon after. I took apart the hotend and cleaned it out. Now, I put the white one back and its back printing fine.

Should I go ahead and return the filament?

Not all filaments are created equal. Even with the very same manufacturer, the addition of colorful pigments can change the needed printing temperature a lot! I have had a white china PLA that was giving ok quality at 200°C, but the same brand's clear PLA only took 195°C to print. My white Kaisertech prints better at the 200°C while orange needs a little more, something about 205°C - this is the same brand and manufacturer mind you. The matte "natural" PLA I have even needs some more heat, 210°C.

As a rule of thumb: Printing temerature is filament dependant. Test around (there are temperature tests - use them!) to find the ideal one for each brand and color combo you have.

It is also a goood idea to replace the claps on the Bowden tube, if the plugs appear more often.


Anet A8 inconsistent filament flow I have been attempting to get my Anet to print for a couple months now. Haven't had a huge amount of time but when I have I've worked on it. A lot of the problems I have had I have been able to trouble shoot, for example for a while I was unable to get any filament to lay, and I have since fixed this issue. Now however my filament will extrude but it is very spacey, and not solid. I have tried re-calibrating the bed, un-clogging the extruder, and increasing the flow rate but nothing works. Is it possible that I have a bad board and that is causing my problem?

[

The skirt looks ok, which tends to rule out the most extreme flow or blockage issues. However, skirt/bottom layer can be over-squashed so not ideal for calibration.

I assume this is intended to be a 100% layer rather than infill. It looks like you're achieving about 50% infill, which is a good clue.

I guessed (and confirmed in comments) that you are set for 3mm filament, but using 1.75? (I had cura default to this on me not long ago, despite printing perfectly before, and no intentional changes). One easy check would have been to try one of the provided pre-sliced models that came with the printer.

The effect of configuring for 3mm filament is to reduce flow by a factor of 3 (diameter squared), so even a 50% over extrusion still leaves you with less than half the plastic volume required.

After fixing this, you will need to raise the Z-home position slightly to enable the first layer to extrude properly.


Is there any 3D-printing software that supports Raspberry Pi? My only functional computer at the moment is a raspberry pi, and I was wondering if there was any software that supported it. My printer is a Newmatter mod-t, but I might be able to modify other software to support it

The answer is "yes", but it depends on what hardware you have, what operating system you are using, and what software you want (or need) to use.
I have a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of memory, and I am running a 32-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS. I have been able to install the following software from the Raspberry Pi OS repositories, but not everything is working "out of the box":

Blender 2.79 (starts, but not tested)
Cura 3.3.1 (crashes on startup)
FreeCAD 0.18 (crashes when opening a new document)
PrintRun (PronterFace) 1.6.0 (working)
PrusaSlicer (Slic3r PE) 1.39.2 (working)
Repetier-Host 0.85 (crashes on startup)
Slic3r 1.3.0 (working)

I have been able to download the 3DBenchy from Thingiverse, slice it using Slic3r, and PrintRun (PronterFace) is currently printing it on my Tronxy X1.
I will update this answer if I can get the other stuff working, since I would quite like to use a Raspberry Pi for 3D design and printing. If I can get FreeCAD working, I shall be happy, and OpenSCAD would be a welcome bonus, but I don't think that it has been ported.


Are there any metals that exhibit a large glass state? Plastic is used in 3D FDM/FFF printing partly because it had a wide temperature range for its glass state - where it can be flowed with some force, but won't flow due only to gravity.

Most metals have a very narrow, or non-existant, glass state.  They transition from solid to liquid with almost no flowable-but-not-liquid state.

Are there any metals or alloys that display a glass transition state?

A few things are required for effective extrusion-style 3d printing materials:

It must stay where placed by the nozzle long enough to harden (or, alternately for pastes and such, have a shear-thinning or thixotropic viscous profile so it will not flow under its own weight).
If using a filament extruder, it must have a wide range of viscosity that varies gradually over a considerable temperature range. This is necessary to develop the proper "cap zone" semi-melt shearing behavior that allows the incoming filament to act like a piston and generate pressure upstream of the nozzle. Pellet extruders have a similar requirement but related to screw/wall shearing rather than filament/wall shearing. If using neither filament nor pellets, such as clay printers, the material must be pumpable by a positive-displacement pump. (It is possible to pump molten metal, but the cost is quite high.)
It must form some kind of bond with previously-deposited solid material, without needing to be in a state that will rapidly flow and lose shape.
It must have some combination of low shrinkage, the ability to creep at the printer's ambient temp, and/or low stiffness that allows consecutive layers to be stacked without an unacceptable amount of warping.

Liquid metals tend to have a conflict between "Staying where you put it" and "bonding with the previous layer." In order for deposited metal to fully bond, the interface material needs to reach the melting point so a true fusion weld occurs. And in order to supply enough heat to remelt the interface without an additional heat source like an arc, the deposited molten metal needs to be very hot. So it will tend to run while it cools. High density and high heat capacity makes it run fast and cool slowly.

Pretty much every DIY metal 3d print (such as made by wire-feed MIG welders) ends up looking something like this:

https://3dprint.com/29944/diy-metal-printing-garage/

In comparison, polymers have long molecular chains that allow them to "diffusion weld" and adhere WITHOUT fully remelting the interface. Molten liquid plastic will stick to solid plastic quite effectively. The interface only needs to get hot enough for appreciable diffusion to intertwine the molecular chains. This will occur between the glass point and melting point, without true fusion occurring. So you can print molten plastic at a temperature where it will stay in place long enough to harden, and still get good bonding.

Metals also tend to be very stiff, which encourages warping. It is difficult to build a heated environment of sufficient temperature to properly stress-relieve the thermal contraction stress as the print progresses, whereas with plastic a heated build plate and warm enclosure can permit warping stresses to start relaxing as the print progresses.

It is possible to "FDM-style" 3d print filament/wire made of metal alloys that have a wide range between solidus and liquidus. It has been done using solder and similar alloys. However, between the warping stresses, poor layer bonding from inadequate interface re-melting, and use of soft low-melting alloys, the resulting printed parts will usually end up being weaker than if they had simply been printed in a strong plastic. For example, PEEK is nearly as strong as aluminum, and carbon fiber or fiberglass composite plastics can exceed metals on various performance metrics. So what's the point of printing with weak, brittle metal alloys?

Over the years, lots of people have tried FDM-style metal printing, but no one has found it worthwhile to pursue in the long run. More typical DIY metal printing approaches like 3D MIG welding following by cleanup machining will produce better results.


What is the purpose of partial (<100%) backlash correction? Marlin has an option to fade out the amount of backlash correction, given as BACKLASH_CORRECTION. It is also available in GCode as M425 [F<value>], where 0.0 = none and 1.0 = 100%.
Assuming backlash correction is otherwise well tuned at 100%, when is useful to reduce its effect? Why not always keep it at 100%?

The developers explained the use of the M425 code themselves.

We devised a routine for measuring Z backlash automatically during G29
and found that software backlash compensation does wonders for the
first layer. However, this comes at the expense of artifacts on the
rest of the print. In particular, any rapid motions of the motor to
try to take up any backlash will inevitably create a small pause and
vibration, leading to a seam in the print. We devised a smoothing
algorithm that allowed backlash correction to be gradually applied
over a distance, this eliminated any harsh transitions, which again
lead to a huge improvement. Alas, we learned that the feature was very
sensitive to the variances in the printer build, working amazingly
well in some cases, but leading to a degraded quality other printers.
This perhaps is a feature that could be used by someone who wished to
hand tune the algorithm, but not something we could use in a mass
produced printer.
...
"M425 F" sets a value from 0 to 1 which is multiplied by the backlash
distance. This command is meant for use by the slicer, and allows it
to "fade" away the backlash compensation gradually over several
layers, or to turn it off completely after the first layer (with a
"M425 F0").


BiLinear bed leveling My G29 command reports

+0.178 +0.281 +0.830
-0.614 -0.012 +0.371
-1.208 -0.849 -0.351

So should I tighten up the screw of the bed, close to 0,0 position or loosen it?

I have a feeling that when I loosen it, it gets away from zero and I expect the opposite to happen.

For bed leveling i use a capacitive probe and after playing around with the screws here is the result

+0.406 +0.127 +0.411
-0.161 -0.007 -0.041
-0.572 -0.652 -0.668

Finally the leveling process was found here
But the question remains. The value -0.572 corresponds close to 0,0 ?

Proper leveling using plain "A4" or "Letter" paper is recommended. Level the bed by first homing all axes, then level each corner and at mid-span. In between leveling (by dragging the nozzle head from one to another position, beware of the hot nozzle!) redirect the nozzle to "Z=0" or home Z and instruct the printer to go to "Z=0".

Note that capacitive probe sensors are inaccurate, they tend to be influenced by the humidity of air.

Running Marlin Firmware and instructing a G29 trough a terminal gives me something in the region of the unity matrix:

Recv: Bed Level Correction Matrix:
Recv: +0.999994 +0.000000 -0.003585
Recv: +0.000003 +1.000000 +0.000823
Recv: +0.003585 -0.000823 +0.999993

Running the command G29 P3 V4 gives:

  NOTE:

  P Set the size of the grid that will be probed (P x P points)
  V Set the verbose level (0-4)

Recv: G29 Auto Bed Leveling
Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 22.000 Z: 0.138
Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 22.000 Z: 0.071
Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 22.000 Z: -0.842
Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 97.000 Z: -0.427
Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.083
Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.086
Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 172.000 Z: 0.004
Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 172.000 Z: 0.019
Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 172.000 Z: -0.297
Recv: Eqn coefficients: a: -0.00356075 b: 0.00080090 d: 2.38097906
Recv: Mean of sampled points: 2.07054519
Recv:
Recv: Bed Height Topography:
Recv:    +--- BACK --+
Recv:    |           |
Recv:  L |    (+)    | R
Recv:  E |           | I
Recv:  F | (-) N (+) | G
Recv:  T |           | H
Recv:    |    (-)    | T
Recv:    |           |
Recv:    O-- FRONT --+
Recv:  (0,0)
Recv:   0.13385  0.14866 -0.16731
Recv:   0.21531  0.21284 -0.29814
Recv:   0.26715  0.20050 -0.71286
Recv:
Recv: Corrected Bed Height vs. Bed Topology:
Recv:   0.12837  0.44228  0.42541
Recv:   0.26990  0.56653  0.35465
Recv:   0.38180  0.61425  0.00000
Recv:
Recv: Bed Level Correction Matrix:
Recv: +0.999994 +0.000000 -0.003561
Recv: +0.000003 +1.000000 +0.000801
Recv: +0.003561 -0.000801 +0.999993

Running the command G29 P3 V4 again, but now with my vernier on the bed (opposite to the side of the origin, on the right side of the bed; vernier under probing points 3 and 4), gives:

Recv: G29 Auto Bed Leveling
Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 22.000 Z: -0.003
Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 22.000 Z: -0.050
Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 22.000 Z: **5.709**
Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 97.000 Z: **5.892**
Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.007
Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 97.000 Z: 0.039
Recv: Bed X: 25.000 Y: 172.000 Z: -0.023
Recv: Bed X: 109.000 Y: 172.000 Z: 0.017
Recv: Bed X: 193.000 Y: 172.000 Z: -0.329
Recv: Eqn coefficients: a: 0.02233918 b: -0.01331358 d: 2.30744504
Recv: Mean of sampled points: 3.45099973
Recv:
Recv: Bed Height Topography:
Recv:    +--- BACK --+
Recv:    |           |
Recv:  L |    (+)    | R
Recv:  E |           | I
Recv:  F | (-) N (+) | G
Recv:  T |           | H
Recv:    |    (-)    | T
Recv:    |           |
Recv:    O-- FRONT --+
Recv:  (0,0)
Recv:  -1.27376 -1.23426 -1.57986
Recv:  -1.21205 -1.24414  4.64083
Recv:  -1.25401 -1.30091  4.45816
Recv:
Recv: Corrected Bed Height vs. Bed Topology:
Recv:   4.05814  2.22162  0.00000
Recv:   3.12192  1.21381  5.22275
Recv:   2.08203  0.15910  4.04215
Recv:
Recv: Bed Level Correction Matrix:
Recv: +0.999750 +0.000000 +0.022334
Recv: +0.000297 +0.999911 -0.013306
Recv: -0.022332 +0.013309 +0.999662

From the snippets you can see that the topology is printed in the output. You also see the vernier of about 4.5 mm comming back in the matrices. But the 4.5 mm thickness of the vernier is not easily found in the correction matrix!

The answer to your question is that the origin is in the lower left of the matrix, so you need to loosen the origin screw in the first example (this matrix shows you that the bed is highest at the right-back and lowest at the origin at the left-front). Your second example shows that the whole bed is tilted downwards to the front.


Delaminating in the middle area of photon printer I've been getting delaminating and other issues in the middle area of my Anycubic photon printer.
Sometimes the print won't stick to the print bed and sometimes it delaminates like in the images below, but I'm only seeing issues in the middle of the printer. Anything along the edges of the print area prints without issue.

I've tested the screen, it seems to work. No dead areas.
I've tried multiple different prints (I only have issues in the middle area).
The problem usually is early in the print but the size of the print does not seem to matter.
The print bed does not appear to be warped.
FEP tensioned using the Tuning method.

The prints can be seen attracted to the print bed here. The part of it that is facing each other is where there were issues.

Delamation example (both prints had the same issues)

Settings used:

Resin: Elegoo ABS-Like Grey
Layer thickness: 50 µm
Bottom layers exposure time: 100 s
Number of bottom layers: 10
Normal layer exposure time: 11 s

The print you do is a sealed cup in the position it sits directly on the build plate. As a result, there is a column of resin in the cup as you print and at some point, the weakest spot delaminates, the air gets into the column and drains.
Take the print and either angle it by a few degrees so the hole in the top becomes a vent or add a tiny extra vent-hole.


Does color changing PLA require a hardened nozzle? I've seen comments about glow-in-the-dark filament being abrasive and would damage a bronze nozzle so a hardened nozzle is recommended.

Is the same true for filament that changes colour when warm (for example when held in your hands)?

The color changing material used in the filament is most likely a Leuco dye.  There are several types and some can be abrasive (just like the glow in the dark dyes); but, they aren't like putting sand through your nozzle.  Since brass is really soft, even something like the dyes can cause it to wear; but, it will take a while.

The safest bet is to use a hardened nozzle; but, if you are just doing a small print then it probably won't be too hard on the brass nozzle either.  I have heard of people printing an entire spool of glow-in-the-dark PLA with a brass nozzle then examining the nozzle and not noticing any wear.

Also, some people like the better thermal characteristics of the brass over the steel; so, they just stick with the brass nozzle for everything and replace it when needed.


How to achieve dimensional accuracy of printed parts When designing parts that should either fit with external objects or other printed parts, what measures can one take to ensure that the dimensions of the final print are accurate and fit the other object?

To my knowledge, you at least have two options to account for printer inaccuracy and shrinkage:

Adjust the space around joints in your CAD model
Adjust dimensional offsets in your slicer software

Are there any good workflows one can use to design and print 3D-models accurately without resorting to trial and error?

Unfortunately, different firmwares and different slicers require different calibration techniques! There's a lot of software-specific advice out there, like printing a single-wall calibration box and measuring the wall thickness. That's a good technique for Slic3r, but not for Simplify3D. It can be very confusing.

Here's the general outline of what you should do:

Rough calibration check for printer steps/mm. Do the values in your firmware settings make sense for your linear motion hardware? For example, you can calculate what the theoretical values SHOULD be based on belt pitch and pulley tooth count. Print something moderately big (~100-200mm) and check if it's +/-1-2%. If it's off by more than that, your steps/mm is probably wrong.
Check for mechanical backlash using a backlash-checking print like this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:252490 Tighten belts and perform other printer-specific tuning required to eliminate backlash. Backlash will throw off other calibration steps, so make sure there's no slop!
Follow the recommended extrusion volume calibration steps for your slicer. This starts with measuring your filament diameter with calipers and inputting that into your slicer. And then you will usually either "print a single-walled box and measure the thickness" or "print a series of 100% infill calibration boxes and adjust the extrusion multiplier to the largest value that looks good without bulging." By measuring filament diameter and then adjusting an extrusion calibration setting in the slicer, you will be able to measure future filament and prints will come out right. Giving the slicer fake diameter values will force you to recalibrate every time the diameter changes. Note that you must redo this calibration for each FILAMENT MATERIAL and EXTRUDER DESIGN. Different material/extruder pairs will have different bite depths and effective drive diameter.
Precision calibration check by printing a variety of object sizes and PLOTTING "desired size" as X and "actual size" as Y. Then find a linear fit equation, y=mx+b. (Do this separately for your printer's X, Y, and Z axes.) The value "m" is your scale error. You can use your slicer object scaling to fix this. For example, ABS usually requires 100.3-101% scaling to account for shrinkage. If you have scale error with a low-shrinkage material like PLA, you can adjust your firmware's steps/mm value to compensate. The value "b" is your fixed width error. Assuming you don't have backlash, this is usually caused by the small amount that molten plastic bulges out to the sides, or by extrusion volume calibration error. You can improve this by fine-tuning your extrusion volume. Many slicers also have "horizontal/XY size compensation" settings that you can use to shrink/expand the part by b/2 to correct the fixed width error. Any residual fixed-width error that you cannot correct with slicer settings should be added as a tolerance in your part models.

If you follow these steps, you should get +/-0.1mm or better dimensional precision on your prints.*

*Deltas not included. That's a whole other ball of wax.


3D model with errors when exporting to Cura I 3D modeled a cartoon car using Blender, mostly using add and subtract with boolean tools. When I export to Ultimaker Cura, I get these cuts along the model. Does anyone know why this is happening? Appreciate any feedback on the model.

The blender file: https://github.com/dantedaiki/jQuery-File-Upload/blob/master/Cartoon%20Car.blend

In blender, you can occasionally have faces with flipped normals. Those areas then are "inside out". Such areas are just ignored in Cura. Fixing the files is as simple as recalculating the normals, but you'd best use a program like NetFabb for for that.


Why don't 3D printer heads use ceramic inner walls? Why don't 3D printer heads use ceramic inner walls? PTFE tubes melt with high enough temperatures and all metal ends risk jamming as heat makes its way up the head.

It can be done cheaply, as two different users have proven, see

A practical 10 Cents Ceramic tube hotend, and;
Hotend with ceramic parts.

However, as Paulster2 states in his answer, there are some technical issues with using it, which make it rather problematic. Apparently, in comparison with PTFE, the thermal conductivity of the ceramic in spark plugs is too high, to use (according to nophead - a user on the reprap forums), and there are friction/clogging issues, unless the inner diameter is very well polished.

Synopsis of reference

The RepRap user, hp_, encountered the issues above when attempting a design - from Ceramic Hotend - Part 1

  Research

  As far as I know there are no ceramic hotends out there, I know
  nophead has tried some spark-plugs for nozzle holders but found them
  not suitable(thermal conductivity is pretty high). I wanted to give it
  a go, confident enough (I hoped), that it would work :)

  So in my case, a hotend exists out of 2 main parts, a nozzle holder
  and a nozzle.

  The nozzle is the easy part it would stay brass.
  The nozzle holder is the interesting part, here is what I've come-up with

  total length should be in the range of 35-40mm, see my first sketch
  below:

  here are many types of ceramic out there, ie. 95% AI2O3, 99% AI2O3,
  Zirconia (see material properties sheet Link)

  95% AI2O3 is easy to buy but after a few tests the conclusion was its
  to brittle for my taste, second material to try is Zirconia.

  I've found a few Chinese ceramic manufactures. Only draw back I had to
  order 10 pieces for the first batch.. on something that has never been
  tested, well I'd give it a shot.... and ordered the parts.

but the clogging issue mentioned above was encountered:

  ...after the first layer, it just stopped extruding.. ugh!!! what could
  be wrong????

  Possible root causes
  - Friction coefficient? Meaning after awhile the friction between PLA and the Ceramic became so high it would just jam the nozzle holder.

  Stickiness? Could it be that after awhile PLA would just stick to the Ceramic and would jam because of this?
  PLA thermal expansion( nozzle holder barrel is to small?) so the inner diameter of this nozzle holder is 3.2mm, could it be that the
  3.0mm filament would expand so much because of the heat, that it would start to jam the nozzle holder?
  Connection between nozzle and nozzle holder is insufficient cause the Jam??

The user was forced to return to using PTFE.

From Ceramic hotend part-2, after some rework done by the Chinese manufacturer, the new hotends worked correctly:

  Awhile ago i stared working on the ceramic hotend and found out the
  first version wouldn't work for 3.0mm fillament,

  after some discussion with my chinese counterpart :) i got a new
  version of the ceramic piece.

  They polished the inside very deep and precise. and i gave it another
  go.

and

  some more tinkering with the hotend and a new nozzle design, with a smaller Inner diameter, and its longer

Apart from that the details are a little sparse.

Additional information

From J-head with ceramic body instead of PEEK, specifically this post:

    Just to be clear, it's Ceramic Zirconium.

    My concern was that Zirconium becomes brittle when it is exposed to heat for consecutive long periods of time. I would stay with PEEK.

  MgO or Yttria stabilized grades of Zirconium are very stable.

  Pure ZrO2 is known to crack, so additives are used to stabilize it.

  Key Properties of Zirconium Oxide

  Use temperatures up to 2400°C
  High density
  Low thermal conductivity (20% that of alumina)
  Chemical inertness
  Resistance to molten metals
  Ionic electrical conduction
  Wear resistance
  High fracture toughness
  High hardness

  Typical Uses of ZrO2

  Precision ball valve balls and seats
  High density ball and pebble mill grinding media
  Rollers and guides for metal tube forming
  Thread and wire guides
  Hot metal extrusion dies
  Deep well down-hole valves and seats  -Powder compacting dies
  Marine pump seals and shaft guides
  Oxygen sensors
  High temperature induction furnace susceptors
  Fuel cell membranes
  Electric furnace heaters over 2000°C in oxidizing atmospheres

  Zirconium oxide

  Zirconium oxide is used due to its polymorphism. It exists in three
  phases: monoclinic, tetragonal, and cubic. Cooling to the monoclinic
  phase after sintering causes a large volume change, which often causes
  stress fractures in pure zirconia. Additives such as magnesium,
  calcium and yttrium are utilized in the manufacture of the knife
  material to stabilize the high-temperature phases and minimize this
  volume change. The highest strength and toughness is produced by the
  addition of 3 mol% yttrium oxide yielding partially stabilized
  zirconia. This material consists of a mixture of tetragonal and cubic
  phases with a bending strength of nearly 1200 MPa. Small cracks allow
  phase transformations to occur, which essentially close the cracks and
  prevent catastrophic failure, resulting in a relatively tough ceramic
  material, sometimes known as TTZ (transformation toughened zirconia).

  Zirconium dioxide is one of the most studied ceramic materials. Pure
  ZrO2 has a monoclinic crystal structure at room temperature and
  transitions to tetragonal and cubic at increasing temperatures. The
  volume expansion caused by the cubic to tetragonal to monoclinic
  transformation induces very large stresses, and will cause pure ZrO2
  to crack upon cooling from high temperatures. Several different oxides
  are added to zirconia to stabilize the tetragonal and/or cubic phases:
  magnesium oxide (MgO), yttrium oxide, (Y2O3), calcium oxide (CaO), and
  cerium(III) oxide (Ce2O3), amongst others.

  In the late 1980s, ceramic engineers learned to stabilize the
  tetragonal form at room temperature by adding small amounts (3–8
  mass%) of calcium and later yttrium or cerium. Although stabilized at
  room temperature, the tetragonal form is “metastable,” meaning that
  trapped energy exists within the material to drive it back to the
  monoclinic state. The highly localized stress ahead of a propagating
  crack is sufficient to trigger grains of ceramic to transform in the
  vicinity of that crack tip. In this case, the 4.4% volume increase
  becomes beneficial, essentially squeezing the crack closed (i.e.,
  transformation decreases the local stress intensity).

and the following post

  Thermal conductivity:

  Diamond thermal conductivity: 1000 W/(m·K).
  Copper thermal conductivity: 385 to 401 W/(m·K).
  Aluminum: 205 W/(m·K).
  Stainless steel 16 W/(m·K).
  Granite: 1.7 to 4 W/(m·K).
  Zirconia has a typical thermal conductivity of 1.7 to 2.2 W/(m·K).
  Porcelain has a typical thermal conductivity of 1.5 to 5 W/(m·K).
  Glass thermal conductivity: 1.05 W/(m·K).

Rulon

As an aside, again from J-head with ceramic body instead of PEEK, specifically this post:

  Rulon was one material we used. I think it is a glass filled ptfe. The mechanical strength is far better than solid ptfe and it is easy to machine. There are many grades but Rulon AR for example will withstand 288 deg C.

but there are inconsistencies in quality

  Rulon i looked at a while ago, there are plenty of options with it, however the cost of some of these materials can be incredibly high, and in some cases availability is a serious problem, and the difference country to country is borderline criminal in some cases


SKR 1.4 Turbo - Withhout SD-card reader, bricked? Unfortunately and regrettably.
Whilst trying to install and fit an SKR Turbo 1.4 Turbo Motherboard into 3D printer body, I managed to break the SKR 1.4 Turbo Motherboard SD-card reader. The card reader is not flush and protrudes from the board. It peeled the reader from the PCB.
I attempted to fix it without success. I have since removed it from the controller board (the original SD-Card Reader PCB pads are not intact so connecting a new SD-Card Reader in place is not possible)
Have I bricked my brand new controller board?
Please can anyone suggest (If possible):

Is there a way that this could be rectified in respect to uploading/flashing the Marlin 2 firmware to the SKR 1.4 Turbo
without the original SD-Card Reader Module?
I am under the impression I may be able to use a programmer of some description to upload the firmware?

Installation of a new SD-Card Reader that could be used instead of the built in default SD-Card Reader?
I think I would be required to first modify Marlin and then flash the motherboard firmware? Then perhaps be able to connect another SD-Card reader to the motherboard via SPI or alternative e.g wires to the respective pins on the reverse of the board?

Could somebody kindly point me in the right direction?
I would appreciate some guidance if this indeed possible?

You may get lucky flashing firmware with the STM Cube Programmer, though I haven't tried that.
The schematic for the SKR 1.4 Turbo shows that the relevant pins for the SD card are also accessible via the 2x3 SPI header - except for the P0.27 pin used for "SD DETECT", which you may have to circumvent.
I believe you should be able to use an "SDRamps" module and connect that to the SPI header via jumper cables.


Can toothbrush bristles be printed? Is it possible to print toothbrush bristles using a common FDM 3D printer? I am particularly interested in the width of bristles, closeness together of each bristle, and the flexibility of each particular bristle.

Actually last year a group did use a normal FDM printer to 3d print hair, brushed, etc. See the press release from Carnegie Mellon University

https://www.engadget.com/2015/10/29/3d-printing-hair-is-as-easy-as-using-a-hot-glue-gun/

http://technabob.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/3d_printed_hair_by_Gierad_Laput_Xiang_Chen_Chris_Harrison_1.jpg

That said as far as I know you will not have access to this process, and is probably under a mountain of patents and other innovation killers.

Now how to do this outside of fancy software.

For a FDM printer the smallest nozzle I ever got was 0.1mm, it jammed instantly. One could print rows at this precision.

Now we have to move to something more advanced, such as DLP. Not the materials you want, but closer to the size you want. a formlabs can print at 25 microns. Which as a hair is 17 microns, you are "close enough" .. but a resin would be brittle and break. They do have other materials such as flexibles, but I am not familiar with them enough.

Also just going to mention. Tiny slivers of plastic is more likely to cut you than comb you.


da Vinci 1.0 cannot print PLA filament I bought new yellow PLA filament from XYZ (1.75 mm).

Over the past I have printed many objects with my da Vinci 1.0 (ABS only). I found that while the brim is being printing (using default configuration of XYZWare; the da Vinci machines give the user very little control over print parameters, if I remember correctly the temperatures are controlled by the chip in the filament cassette), filament stopped extruding from my extruder immediately. However, ABS can be printed properly.

Could anyone tell me how can I work around ?

The answer to this specific instance appeared in the comments:

  Also, a thorough cleaning of the nozzle/hotend might also be a good idea to get rid of all the stuck ABS residue inside. – 0scar Mar 26 at 8:44

  The problem solved !, my ABS is stuck in nozzle !!! – 3ORZ Apr 25 at 6:52


How can I rotate a 3D model to be parallel with the build plate? I have an STL that has a flat surface which should contact the build place when 3D printing. The model has an unknown rotation. How can I rotate the 3D model to be flush with the build plate?

I am very comfortable with OpenSCAD, and I can use it to rotate the STL if I know the correct angle. Is there a tool that will let me analyze a single face (triangle) of a model to determine it's normal? If I can even get the coordinates from 3 points from the desired face I can calculate the normal and use that to calculate the rotation vector.

Some tools like Cura or Repetier Host have slicers that analyses and tell you if it is ok to print or not. Both of them allow rotations.


Are these the right types of electrical connectors for hooking my Switching Power Supply up to a wall outlet? From what I understand, when you hook up the Switching Power Supply 12v Dc 30a 360w to the wall outlet, you have to be very careful; careful not to get the wires mixed up; careful not to have anyone or anything touch the leads (in fact the first proper project I intend to print out will be a casing to fit around the switching power supply), or just order one from someone.

Now there are three wires that go into the US wall of particular concern, and these wires come out of a standard PC cable with the female end cut off, and they hook the power supply.  Like the external casing, these three wires are also insulated, and when you take the insulation off the bare wires and connect it to the power supply, you have to use Electrical connectors of some sort to connect them to the power supply's screw leads.

I bought some electrical connectors just for this purpose, but I'm not entirely certain they will be good for this purpose, so I thought I'd check here first.

There are specifications on the back:

╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬                  ╬        AWG           ╬  Wire Size  ╬ Stud Size ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬ Spade Terminals                                                   ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬  YF1.25-35 (red) ╬        22-16         ╬   0.5-1.5   ╬    3.7    ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬ Ring Terminals                                                    ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬   YF1.25-4 (red) ╬        22-16         ╬    .5-1.5   ╬    4.3    ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬ Butt Splice                                                       ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬
╬   BF-1.2SS (red) ╬        22-16         ╬    .5-1.5   ╬   n/a     ╬
╬──────────────────╬──────────────────────╬─────────────╬───────────╬

Not sure if I should use ring or spade terminals, and I don't know what wire size to use; and I don't know what wire grade is inside a standard PC power cord or even if these are safe connectors to use for this.

It is okay to just use bare wires in the type of screw connector found on your power supply. They're designed for it; they have a little plate under the screw that prevents the wires from being frayed by the screw.

If you want neater wire termination, you should use one of the spade type ones. Pick the smallest size that fits your wires.

PC power cords are generally fitted with an IEC C13 plug, and those are rated for 10A (meaning also the wires themselves will be able to carry at least that much current). This is fine for any home 3D printer which usually draws a fraction of that.


What is the best infill pattern for shearing strength? For practicality sake, I need to print a design such that there will be weight hanging parellel to the layer lines. Is there an infill pattern that would be better than others at handling this?

I realize that all kinds of infill will still have the same layer boundaries. Just wondering if choosing any given infill might provide better results.

Yes, some infill patterns are better than others for preventing separation of layers. Basically (modulo some assumptions about uniformity of distribution of force), the shearing strength of the part in the Z direction at a particular layer is going to be proportional to the surface area of bonding between successive layers. So infill patterns that stack identical infill extrusions on top of each other at each layer should be expected to be much stronger than patterns where successive layers make only partial contact. In other words, "2D infill patterns" - grid, lines, triangles, tri-hexagon - should be a lot stronger than "3D infill patterns" - cubic, octet, gyroid, ... This matches my experience printing bolts oriented along the Z-axis - ones printed with gyroid snap easily unless other measures are taken to strengthen them, while ones printed with triangles are fairly strong (though nowhere near as strong as ones printed oriented in the XY plane.

If you have other reason to prefer a "3D infill pattern", its weakness can be mitigated mostly by increasing the infill line width, so that the lines of successive layers which don't entirely overlap still touch on more surface area. (Just increasing the infill line width also works to make "2D infill patterns" even stronger.) However, be aware that with high print speed typically used for infill, increasing infill line width can easily exceed the capability of your hotend, resulting in underextrusion, extruder skipping, and stringing all over the place.


Show Build date and time in Marlin 2.0 Is there a command to show the compile date and time of the Marlin 2.0 firmware? Also, is there a way to show this info at boot up?

You can show the compile date and time during bootup by changing the constant STRING_SPLASH_LINE2 in Configuration.h:

#define STRING_SPLASH_LINE2 __DATE__ " " __TIME__