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10529 | Printing with PETG, printer says it's out of filament when it clearly is not
Background:
I have an Alfawise U20 (CR10 clone) and am still somewhat of a noob, though I've been learning as much as quickly as time will allow.
The Alfawise U20 has "out-of-filament" detection, though I'm not 100 % certain how it works. I think that there's a roller across from the toothed knob that drives the filament into the Bowden tube, and if the roller doesn't roll, that means the filament has run out(?).
I've become fairly proficient printing with PLA but this is the first time I've tried printing with PETG.
Problem:
Almost immediately after starting a print, the printer pauses the print and displays message "Out of filament. Would you like to change filament?" There's not even time for the toothed knob to click, which I've seen when trying to print PLA too fast/too cold.
If I manually extrude some filament, it seems to work fine. When I resume the print, it will print for anywhere between ~2 seconds & ~5 minutes before pausing again, prompting me to change filament.
I'm printing at 240 °C. I've seen opinions vary pretty far & wide wrt how hot to print PETG, with some people saying you can print successfully as cold as 215 °C, and others saying you should crank it up to 250+ °C. This filament is rated for 230-250 °C extrusion.
Again, manually extruding filament works fine. No slippage, no clicking. Smooth extrusion.
I've read that PETG is extremely hygroscopic. Could my problem be caused by the filament having absorbed too much water? How would I even determine if this was the cause?
What else could be causing my problem? I've read some printers' "out of filament" detection have problems with translucent filaments?
Is your filament translucent? If so I suspect that's your problem. My understanding is that most "out of filament" detectors are optical.
@R.. it's semi-transparent. There's a link to it in the OP
@R.. That was my first guess also. W.r.t. being gyroscopic, my largest printer is located in our laundry room, where laundry dries, I have my 2.2 kg PETG spools uncovered, no problem whatsoever.
What kind of filament sensor do you have? Is it optic or mechanical? Please share a photo.
Easy test for optical vs mechanical: if it's mechanical then a sensor has to be physically touching the filament. If you can't tell that, then slide a piece of glass or clear plastic into that slot and see whether the error is reported.
Online reviews indicate that many of the firmware updates cause new bugs. I dunno whether your version generates spurious 'out of filament' notifications, but if you can find a forum page or two dedicated to this model, that might be the best place to ask.
Since it could be a bug, see if it reports that there is filament when there is no filament installed.
@Trish I'm not sure what kind of filament sensor it is... I'm not even sure what they look like or where they're typically mounted
@CarlWitthoft I haven't upgraded the firmware since I got it this past December. I've been wondering if I should try upgrading it, if that would fix it but now it sounds like maybe I leave it as-is
I just noticed @0scar helpfully added a photo of the filament sensor!! Thank you! I'll go investigate on my unit. I can't tell from the photo if it's optical or a simple switch, but it looks fancy soooo maybe optical?
Shoutout to @0scar for posting a photo of the filament sensor, that was super helpful. Also thanks to everyone else who pointed me to the filament sensor and resources around that.
I also tracked down this review which had great information around my printer's filament sensor as well. It turns out that the hole that goes to the sensor is way too big and there's a lot of play with the filament. As I jiggled the filament up & down I could hear the sensor clicking on & off, clearly indicating that if the angle of entry of the filament was too low, the sensor would not be depressed and this would continue to be a problem.
So for my next print, I did what that reviewer suggested and simply unscrewed the sensor & taped it so it would not stop my print. My print was unsuccessful for other reasons (under-extrusion/failed to adhere to the build plate ), but at least I think I've figured out what's going on with my filament sensor. Thanks again everyone!
the clicking tells us it's mechanical
Yes I agree, it's a mechanical filament sensor, not optical
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.532614 | 2019-07-08T21:32:38 | {
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10502 | Standby hotend and bed heating with inactivity timer after print?
Is there any G-code command to turn off hotend/bed heating after a specified timeout? I'd like to edit my end G-code to leave them heated to a standby temperature, rather than immediately letting them cool down, to eliminate the delay of re-heating between prints, but obviously it's not a good thing to leave them heated indefinitely.
Note: if you leave the hot end at extrusion temperature too long without extruding filament, the filament material will carbonize and stop up your hot end.
@PerryWebb: Is that an issue at something like 170°¢, just below extrusion temp? I was under the impression even the "preheat PLA" temp of 185°C was deemed ok to dwell at for a while without issues. But this is another good reason for having a timeout, aside from safety & energy use.
Eventually, but that should give you a lot more time. Getting the hot end to temperature usually doesn't take long. It's getting the bed to temperature that is slow. The only issue with keeping the bed heated is it makes getting the print off the bed hard. The thermal coefficient of expansion causes the print to release from the bed when it cools. You can pry PLA off a bed heated to 70C or below. However, ABS on a bed at 110C will warp if you pry it off without cooling.
I'm actually leaning towards switching away from heated bed entirely for PLA anyway, but normally I remove prints at 60°C with no problem. Been a while since I used PETG but I don't recall having trouble removing them hot either. I find getting nozzle from 20 to 215 and bed from 20 to 60 take almost exactly the same time, though.
For ABS with the bed at 110C, I wait until 65C. By that time the print is completely loose. I've removed PLA at 60C, but it is much easier below 40C, when it starts to release.
I've pulled ABS off at 110C when aborting a print, but the print warps severely. It didn't matter because I was throwing it away. I've removed PLA with the bed at 70C with no problem, but it takes some prying to do so.
Pausing
You could set temperatures for hotend and bed (respectively M104 and M140 and after that introduce a pause/dwell time with G4. After the pause, you could lower temperatures and proceed the shutdown of the printer, as such the setting of the idle temperatures and dwell time need to be done in the beginning of your end G-code in your slicer.
Not powering down
Alternatively, you could just not power down the hotend and bed. A typical end G-code consists of de-powering the fans, steppers, temperatures and positioning the head in a parking position, e.g.:
M106 S0 ; Turn fan off
M104 S0 ; Turn extruder off
M140 S0 ; Turn off bed
// G91 ; Change to relative positioning
// G1 Z30 E-2 F3000 ; Raise Z 30mm (lowers the bed) NEVER DO THIS, IT WILL DESTROY YOUR PRINTER IF YOU PRINT LARGER THAN MAX-Z MINUS 30 MM
// G90 ; Switch back to absolute mode
G1 X0 Y0 ; Move X/Y to origin
M84 ; Disable steppers
You could easily change the temperatures to standby values:
M106 S0 ; Turn fan off
M104 S160 ; Turn extruder to standby
M140 S40 ; Turn bed to standby
// G91 ; Change to relative positioning
// G1 Z30 E-2 F3000 ; Raise Z 30mm (lowers the bed) NEVER DO THIS, IT WILL DESTROY YOUR PRINTER IF YOU PRINT LARGER THAN MAX-Z MINUS 30 MM
// G90 ; Switch back to absolute mode
G1 X0 Y0 ; Move X/Y to origin
M84 ; Disable steppers
Wouldn't the dwell command leave the printer in a state of "still processing SD card print job"? If so, I don't think that behaves well with respect to removing the SD card. Maybe I just need to run one of the print servers you can queue jobs through and all rather than moving each revision of a test over via SD card..
@R.. If you "dwell" indefinitely, you could abort the print, insert a new SD card and continue.
Yeah, that's a possibility. I was looking for something less hackish (and with less manual steps each time) but maybe there isn't one.
Hmm, maybe M85 Inactivity Shutdown? I'm not sure how widely supported it is though. Guess I can try it.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.532986 | 2019-07-06T01:55:50 | {
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10506 | Inconsistent Auto Bed Leveling - Having To Calculate Z Offset For EVERY Print
I am having a problem with my Flying Bear P902 3D printer where I have to calculate the Z offset for every single print. I calculate it using this method (and store it in EEPROM) : Link to Stackoverflow post. Then, it will be able to print the first print with the right layer height. But, when I upload a second print afterwards, something goes wrong. It levels the bed and it starts printing too far away from the bed so it is just printing in the air. So, it must some way not have measured right. I checked the Z offset on the control panel and it does say the right offset that I calculated (-2.3).
During the bed leveling, I do sometimes have a problem. It will try to move the bed up to touch the probe, and there is this loud screeching noise, and the bed will not move upward. But, other times it doesn't have this problem. And, I am not sure if this is related to the inconsistent bed leveling.
Printer: Flying Bear P902 (Powered by Arduino & Ramps 1.4)
Auto Bed Leveling: BLTouch
Anyway, I have no idea what is causing this problem and it is really annoying to calculate the offset every time. Do you guys have any ideas? Have you guys experienced this problem?
I would bet when you hear the screeching noise during z-axis movement, it is binding somewhere, and the motor is turning inside of the rod coupler (whatever that thing is called - the part which attaches the motor to the acme threaded rod). Ensure you have some light oil on the bed support rods (the ones which allow movement on the z-axis). This would have an issue on bed leveling when it happens, but I don't think this is causing your overall issue.
I will oil the rods and check them to try to make them turn more smoothly. Do you have any idea what might be causing the inconsistent leveling though?
Are you sure it stores the Z offset value? Is M500 enabled in firmware?
Yes, I believe M500 (and EEMPROM) are enabled. And, when checking the z offset value on the lcd screen, it also displays the correct value (even after the 3d printer has lost power). I put some lubrication oil on the rods and they are now running smoothly. I am going to check whether all of the screeching from the non-lubricated rods was one of the issues.
Sounds like a mechanical problem with X axis gantry not being square to Z axis. I'm not sure of the mechanical construction of this particular printer though and didn't find good pics to figure it out
When the bed doesn't move up when requested and you hear noises, the stepper most probably looses/skips steps, this means that you loose the level and requires you to re-level again.
Since I lubricated all of the z axis rods, I have not had this issue anymore. I will still look for it though and see if it doesn't come back (cause then maybe lubricating the rods was only a temporary fix)
A screeching noise could also be that the z-axis acceleration value is too high. Lowering it can make vertical movement be more reliable. The problem would only appear on larger Z movements, such as the start of the print. Lubricating the rods could be a good fix, if they were binding, or it could be covering the acceleration problem for a while.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.533285 | 2019-07-06T19:21:26 | {
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10614 | I can't install plugins on OctoPrint?
I have installed OctoPi on my Raspberry Pi 3B+, that is connected to an MKS GEN L v1.0 motherboard for my 3D printer (Ender 3 Pro). When I open my OctoPrint into a browser I can use it, but I wanted to install some plugins. First time I had an error that said my server was offline, after connecting my Raspberry to WiFi and setting up a static ip-address, I've connected my Raspberry to my main board, after that it said the status of OctoPrint was operational, so I expected it will work.
Sadly, it says that my installation doesn't have internet, so I still couldn't install plugins. I see that in the "connectivity check" my host is 8.8.8.8 and my port 53; I've pressed on test and there it said "server is unreachable".
What am I supposed to do?
This is a known issue (WIFI fine, but no internet connection to install plugins) and could well be related to firewall or blocking of certain ports by your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
I quote from the provided link (OctoPrint issue tracker):
Disabling the connectivity check did fix the repository access. The check was configure to use google (8.8.8.8) on port various ports (22, 53, 5000, etc. Not sure the default). I do not have any firewall set up outgoing, unless it is buried in the Raspberian install that I am not aware of.
I stumbled across this issue with the same problem, and I fixed the connectivity check by changing the IP to OpenDNS with 1.1.1.1 instead of the Google DNS 8.8.8.8 set by default.
For me this issue was resolved when I update Date+Time on the raspberry...
For the record, 1.1.1.1 (and 1.0.0.1) is operated by CloudFlare, not OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.533542 | 2019-07-16T08:50:44 | {
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10632 | Do you have trouble with 3D printer on UPS during short power outages?
Using a Gearman RepRap with Slic3r, printing from an SD card, with an uniterupted power supply (UPS), and both PLA and ABS filaments, short power outages often result in x/y-axis offsets (see image). During an outage the power is not as clear from a UPS as from a power conditioner. If both x and y axes offset the results look like Why did my print fall off its raft?. Are you experiencing these same issues? Have you solved the issue.
The image above shows an x-axis shift that occurred evenly across eight parts distributed across the bed. The filament was ABS. The parts still adhered to the bed. Note: the G-code file normally prints well. Thus, the file is not corrupt.
If the UPS does not work optimally, what can the 3D Printing.SE community advice? A better UPS may be an option, one that doesn't cause power ripples maybe? The question does ask for experience of other users, that is not specifically an SE question.
Was the shift at the moment power failed? Seems likely the switchover just wasn't fast enough to keep sufficient current to the motors.
Note that "an x-axis shift that occurred evenly across eight parts" is nothing special. A shift is a one-time event where the logical and physical position of the axis become desynced due to inability of a motor to accelerate or decelerate at the rate the controller is attempting (missing steps). After that event, everything will be offset by the same amount (unless/until another such event occurs).
@R.. So, you're saying the robot motors temporarily lost power while the computer kept stepping through the program. In this case the x motor. So, we need a UPS rated for robotics not just computers.
Part of your self-answer:
What is puzzling is why did the 3D printer run as if the computer was still operating it, when is was printing from the SD card? Was the circuitry getting power from the USB cable from the computer?
is more of an extension of the question, which I'll answer. Generally, yes, the logic of many (most?) 3D printers can be powered by the USB connection. You can try it sometime with the printer not plugged in to the AC power source at all. Under such a power configuration, the motors (not to mention the heating elements) should not operate at all, and I think the firmware has logic to detect this condition and not try to print under it, but I may be mistaken. However, in any case, in the event of an outage during printing, the logic board will remain powered if it's connected by USB, and especially if the outage is short enough, it might not even notice that the motors and heating elements are not functioning, yielding a result like what you saw.
I believe I resolved this issue. The next power outage will tell. After getting a larger UPS used for robotic testers, when swapping out the UPS, I noticed the 3D printer was plugged in to the surge protector side without the battery, probably because the smaller UPS was only rated for power to the computer. Now, with the larger UPS, the 3D printer also has power backup. What is puzzling is why did the 3D printer run as if the computer was still operating it, when is was printing from the SD card? Was the circuitry getting power from the USB cable from the computer?
Note: If one is running their 3D printer using a notebook with a charged battery and the 3D printer doesn't have a UPS, it would have similar behavior.
Yes, most likely the logic components were getting their power from the computer during the brown out event. The steppers may have turned off while the micro controller kept sending out step commands.
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10633 | Flashforge Adventure 3 printer
Recently bought the printer for my son, right from the start it didn’t print well. We made some adjustments and got it working somewhat but now it keeps printing (Benchy) only half way up and starts knocking off top half over leaving it unfinished.
The bottom heat plate looks to be crooked maybe by a 1/16” (1.6 mm) to 1/8”(3.2 mm) off.
Hi Nick, welcome to 3D Printing.SE! Please expand by [edit] what adjustments you made and please add some pictures of the failed print, preferably just after failing on the heated bed.
Nick, welcome to 3D Printing SE. I concur with Oscar. Descriptions of 3D printing disasters and problems are much more helpful when accompanied by photos. If the bed seems warped, take a picture of it against a straightedge. If an anomaly occurs during printing, photos of the result soon enough after the problem occurs so that it all isn't lost is a birdsnest of stray filament may help people understand what has happened. I look forward to your participation here, and your son's. All levels of experience are welcome, and helpful!
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10608 | Ender 3 Z axis not working?
I recently got an Ender 3 3D printer for my birthday, and while I've had a lot of problems with it, there's one that I haven't been able to fix.
I can control the Z-axis, but whenever I go to print anything, it never does anything. The X- and Y-axis work just fine.
Any solutions?
Use the control menu and see if you can Extrude anything at all, maybe your material isn't feeding down into the nozzle correctly to be melted and pushed out. Is the bed and the nozzle heating up correctly?
Does the model look correct in the slicer? E.g. Cura shows a picture of what is meant to printed. Does the z-axis motor make strange sounds?
What slicer are you using?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.534219 | 2019-07-15T21:08:25 | {
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10512 | Tryinng to get CAELinux to boot
I believe that CAELinux has successfully installed on a SD card on a laptop. When I rebooted what I am left with is a GRUB prompt. If I enter the chainloader command it expects things like the device name of the linux image. I really want to know if CAELinux has installed and if it runs OK. Then I shall learn more about GRUB because I have another distribution that I am interested in.
How can I simply start CAELinux from the GRUB prompt?
How's this apply to 3D printing?
CAELinux is a distrubution centered around 3D modelling and printing. I have tried posting on their forums with these questions regarding booting after installation with no reply. I know that it is off topic but this is the closest type of group I can find on the stackexchange to what I want to know.
Have you tried their forum (https://www.caelinux.com/CMS3/index.php/forum)? Seems a more appropriate place to ask.
Yes I have and get no response
Go try the Unix and Linux, they may be better prepared to help on this matter. But I would imagine they suggest what I am going to suggest. Use a more common distro like Ubuntu and install the packages on that, you will find more support that way. Otherwise my guess is that the device of the sd-card reader does not match what grub is expecting and it can't find the kernel because of that.
It is OK, I figured it out. Thanks for the help nonetheless.
Per the Getting Started page,
As CAELinux is a customized Xubuntu 16.04 distribution, the installation instructions (and then administration) for Xubuntu/Ubuntu all apply to CAELinux.
For more instructions on how to install CAELinux on hard drive, please follow the Ubuntu instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall
Based on the information provided above, I think this question is off-topic for this site, and should be migrated to either Unix & Linux, or Ask Ubuntu.
OK it may be off topic, but I still think it is worth considering that this distro is designed for 3D modelling and printing.
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10612 | Sending G-code through USB serial doesn't work (Ender 3)
Recently I was gifted an Ender 3 3D printer. I'm trying to use a Raspberry Pi Zero W to send commands to the printer remotely, if I get this to work the idea is to instruct the RPi to pull G-code files over the internet and then send it to the printer. I read about Octoprint but they don't recommend using RPi Zero W with it, and also I want to learn more about programming (I just know Python), so if possible I'd like to avoid using it.
Here is what I've done:
My RPi Zero W has Raspbian Buster Lite, so I'm using SSH to connect to it remotely. The pi is connected to the mini usb port on the printer.
Once connected I located the serial of the printer, which is ttyUSB0.
I verified the baud rate using stty < /dev/ttyUSB0, which was set to about 9600.
I read on the internet that the Ender 3 controller has a baud rate of 115200, so I ran stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 and that worked fine.
I tried sending the G-code to go to home position (G28) via serial using echo "G28" > /dev/ttyUSB0, but that just restarts the printer (the screen shows the logo and then returns back to the info screen). This persists even when sending different commands.
I tried opening another SSH session to read the output of the printer using tail -f /dev/ttyUSB0, but that again restarts the printer, and sending echo to it when tail is running won't do anything.
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10552 | 3D print appears to print very weak walls in long print
So after a long print the walls in the print begin to weaken and it appears they might not be printed at all. In the upside down picture you can see the weakness where the two pieces are separated. I'm wondering if perhaps reducing my speed and changing the extrusion size from .35 to .45 which is larger than the extruder itself. Thanks for any help and suggestions!
Is this a one-time problem or do you see it regularly at about that height?
What you refer to as weak walls in fact are under-extruded walls. This can be caused by multiple sources, but, since the print recovers this most probably is caused by filament that is entangled on the spool (this causes more friction for the extruder and as such less flow, so under-extrusion; like as if the filament is being pulled back). Any other source that may induce extra friction is equally valid. E.g. kink in filament when using a Bowden configuration (long time extra friction in tube) or friction on the spool itself (I once had severe under-extrusion as the spindle of the spool caught a plastic bag which got wrapped around).
It could also be caused by a kink in the filament (more friction on delivery) or a section of undersized filament (proper advancement, but lower volume).
Besides a kink (which is very possible) I dropped a roll once and tried to re-coil it back up. In doing so I ended up accidentally looping the filament under itself. Exact same result of additional friction, but something to keep in mind if you're as clumsy as I occasionally am.
@Diesel Looping filament under itself is considered entanglement in my opinion. I think we all have had the experience where you forget to secure the end of the filament causing the filament to unwind. :-) E.g. I use a spool of 2.85 mm POM filament, if you let it go (I let it slip once...) virtually the whole spool unwinds considering the high stiffness of the POM in combination with the large diameter.
@0scar, I'd completely agree with you on that. But, unless you've done it before and identified the problem, you might not necessarily think of it. I just thought it might not hurt to point it out for anyone who hadn't thought of it as it drove me NUTS for a week of printing before I put two and two together and fixed it.
A filament tangle is one possibility, one alternative is that you are seeing a jam in the extruder. The trigger for a jam might be excessive retraction, heat soak or some other issue with the heat-break. Less likely, you might have an electrical problem which is position dependant.
The extrusion-related issues won't necessarily react in an 'obvious' way to any tweaks you make to the parameters (for example, slower might exacerbate heat-soak because the downward filament flow and thus cooling effect is lower).
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10564 | Visible/irregular horizontal lines for complex models
There is this small issue I've been trying to find a solution for quite some time now, and nothing I've tried seems to work. My machine is an FDM printer, i3 style, but I have customized so much of it there is little but a few screws left of the original.
As it looks like it might be a mechanical problem, I'll try to add as much information as I can think of now.
The machine was originally a P3 Steel Pro, but I replaced a bunch of things:
Replaced pretty much all the electronics. Got a "premium" RAMPS and Arduino after I killed 1 RAMPS and a couple of Arduinos somehow. Been running with the premium ones for about 4 years now without a hitch. I replaced the drivers that came with the printers with Trinamic drivers, to make the motion silent and smoother.
I also replaced the linear bearing rods for the X and Y axis with some custom cut hardened steel linear rods (G6 tolerance) because the ones I previously had were slightly damaged due to a faulty bearing and I thought this might make print quality better.
Linear bearings I replaced at the same time I replaced the rods, and got some KH0824PP.
Replaced the Z index's lead screws with TR8x2 and plum couplers, expecting this would improve the quality (and it did). At the same time, I installed a custom piece and bearing on top of the Z-axis to make it more rigid (which I have no clue if it worked or not to be honest).
Replaced all the GT2 belts with Gates Powergrip belts, also trying to improve the issue here. The idlers got replaced at the same time with Gates idlers.
Replaced the belt mechanism for the X-axis (the bed carriage) with one that was easier to tension and was more reliable than the original, which I got from toolson edition. Also replaced the bearing at this time, with an SKF608-2Z.
Replaced the extruder entirely around January, using a DD BMG-X2 with a e3d chimera+ hotend. The carriage it's mounted on I edited myself from the original carriage, so it would be able to mount this beast.
Here is a bunch of pictures (sorry for the dirt, I'm experimenting with some soluble filaments that are being a bit of a mess):
The issue I'm experiencing is that the horizontal lines on some models are very visible/irregular on complex models such as this one:
While on models that are more simple like a simple cylinder these lines seem to be barely visible/far more regular:
I see this regardless of line height, though these pictures are at 0.12 mm. I've also seen plenty of pictures of other people's prints that don't seem to suffer from this (like this random google search result).
Let me go through my line of thought/things I've tried:
I first thought this was down to bed adhesion, but I'm using a glue stick to make sure the print is unmovable and I have ruled that out as the source.
I also thought it may be the spools pulling the extruder upwards at some points, but I don't think that'd add up with the cylinder being more regular.
I tried 3 different "high quality" filament brands, with very low advertised tolerances (0.05-0.03 mm). All suffer from the same issue, and at the same height for the same model.
Then I thought it might be a problem with the retraction, so I lowered the retraction from 0.5 mm to 0.3 mm and enabled linear advance on Marlin (and tuned it as precisely as I could to a K value of 0.15 for this PLA). That also didn't seem to make the lines go away.
I also thought this might be down to my stepper motors being able to do 200 "natural" steps, and perhaps the microstepping was making the Z movement fall into "unnatural" positions that are badly rounded and causing this. But according to my math, at 0.12 mm layer height, the issue should go away and it didn't, so I think that rules that out.
The only other theories I currently have are:
The same as the last one (200 steps not being "natural") but this being an issue on the x/y axis, however, I would expect this to cause vertical lines rather than horizontal.
The extruder being incapable to keep up the pressure and consistently extrude, but I would have expected linear advance to fix this?
I have no clue how to prove/disprove the last two, or if there are any other reasons I can't think of why this could be happening. I'd appreciate if someone more knowledgeable than me would give me some pointers as to how to debug/fix this.
It looks to me like you have a mechanical problem with the rigidity of your axes. What type of mechanisms/linear bearings does your printer have? If it's highly custom can you show some pics?
I second the comment of @R.., it looks like you have some hysteresis issues when layers are different in shape which you do not encounter when all layers are equal. Please add by [edit] which printer brand you have.
Hi, I added as much detail as I could think of and some pictures, if there is anything else I can add that would help, please let me know.
The upgrade described under:
At the same time, I installed a custom piece and bearing on top of the Z-axis to make it more rigid
This is not an upgrade. It is best to decouple the movement from the eccentricity of the screw and nut from the X-axis. If you constrain the top, instead of leaving it free, the screw is over constrained, this causes unpredictable movement of the nut and hence defects in your printed object. Decoupling of the screw can be done by Oldham style couplings or specific lifting parts. I've used both to experience increased print quality, the X-Y movement of the nut doesn't get transferred to the hotend carriage.
The couplers can be printed or commercially obtained.
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10575 | Retraction Jamming Problem!
Recently I had this problem where I needed to change filament from PLA to PET-G or similar. And... filament jam. After playing around with different settings and speeds and still getting the same results I had to clean everything. And again during a print, it jammed.
I brought a new nozzle, heating cartage, Teflon (PTFE) tube and some additional components(fans, new wires and so on) but still was the same. Now I'm waiting for a new set of hotend Mk8Design Needed kit.
A week after the order and still waiting, I played with retraction a little. By default, it was set to 0.8 mm on Sli3er but I had set it to 4-6 mm because it gives the best results and no stringing. I changed it again to 1.5-2 mm and... no more jamming at the cost of getting stringing. I'm using PLA which I never had experienced strings before.
So, in summary, the problem occurs due my retraction setting. Either I have to live with strings and no jam problems or no strings but jamming problems during printing.
Have someone had same problem as me? How did you fixed it?
Printer AlfaWise U30(bowden type) but it's no longer the same.
Motherboard: MKS 1.4 Gen A4988 + DRV8825 Stepper drivers(no problems here)
PID(Autotune), Calibrations and so on done correctly.
Firmware latest marlin 1.1.9 (Tried bugfix but the same)
Sofware for slicing PE Sli3er (Tried Ultimaker Cura with same model and same problem)
Would you please provide some additional things to make it easier? You said Mk8, do you mean a Makerbot Mk8 Hotend? Or did you update to an all-metal hotend? What is your standard printing temperature? What is your retraction speed?
There are more settings to fight stringing, e.g. lower print temperature. PETG is more prone to stringing opposed to other types of plastic.
I wrote what I changed. I haven't touched the hotend. It is original what Alfawise had. They used makerbot mk8 hotend (I believe so) but not quite sure about. Because of that I ordered a new one and different. Alfawise doesn't like to share information about they products. The firmware wasn't open source like marlin. Sorry about the temperature or printing. For PLA is 200-220(recommended) So between those temp. It's still the same. Retract is default in sli3er (35mm/s) I tried from 25 to 50 and nothing... same
The most accurate link to hotend:
https://www.amazon.com/Longer-Printer-Extruder-Creality-Alfawise/dp/B07PB2P5N1
Not an answe, but assuming PTFE is a bowden setup, you definitely need at least 4-6 mm of retraction to avoid stringing. 0.8-2mm is not going to cut it anywhere but a direct drive extruder, and I'd be doubtful that it's even really sufficient there. So you should try to fix this right.
I had same issue when switching to PETG.
With a Reprap x400 I could retract 6 mm, but this did not completely get rid of the stringing. Retracting to 20 mm jammed the extruder at the first retract.
I had problems with jamming PETG due to retraction. My model had many retraction moves, such that the amount of filament used during a printing move was less than the retraction distance. I found that several trips through the feed gear flattened the filament, which caused two problems.
The flattened (or ovaled) filament had trouble fitting through the round holes and tubes, and
Since it was thinner, the filament was not gripped as tightly so there was less force pushing it.
I reduced my feed gear pressure and the problem stopped.
PETG is not as stiff as PLA. The multiple trips through mangle flattened it.
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10580 | Using a Full Spool of Filament, Read as "Empty"
I have a cheaper consumer-grade printer that I've owned for a couple of years now. It is an XYZ da Vinci Mini W and it seems to recuperate its incurred losses from selling a cheaper printer by jacking up the prices on their filaments. I don't have much of a problem with this (and I'm not asking to "hack" the chips to let me use cheaper filaments), but I went to switch out my filament with a full one I had laying around and I noticed the chip case it contained was a chip (probably removed by somebody for some odd reason). I used a chip that I had laying around, but the printer read the full spool of filament as "empty" because of the old chip. Because of this, I was wondering if there was a way to force the printer to keep printing when the spool is "empty" or if I can somehow reset the chip.
From what is read online, it depends on the firmware version your printer has. It seems that later versions keep track of tag serials and reports tampered tags as non-genuine tags. The best and most recent reference found is from 2018 which describes you should be creating new tags instead of resetting existing tags. This involves installing an Android App from unverified source and new "paper" NFC213 tags.
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10207 | 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.
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! Have you changed the nozzle size within cura?
Yes i have changed the line width to 0.25
Nozzle width and line width are separate.
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
What worked well for me in avoiding stringing is to increase the travel move speeds significantly, disable Z-hop and to decrease printing temperature
These are definitely both good ideas. At first I was confused that z-hop might help avoid stringing, since I mistakenly believed it was caused by re-melting and dragging correctly-deposited material. But after spending a lot of time on it, I found that pretty much all of it was a matter of new material coming out of the nozzle during travel or dragging incorrectly deposited material due to previous oozing from the nozzle.
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10224 | 3D Printers imported from China - avoiding asbestos exposure
Many 3D printers are made in China, and as asbestos is still legal in China (with large ongoing production it seems).
It is thus quite possible to end up with a 3D Printer that has asbestos parts in it.
Even though asbestos is illegal in some parts of the world (like Australia, though not the USA as far as I know), given the above, and the possible lack of care by suppliers and/or oversights during imports, one may want to do due diligence.
This becomes even more important if you plan to make modifications to your printer.
When speaking with even large producers, you may also get very conflicting answers ("yes part xyz has asbestos in it" vs "no it does not") - which further complicates the matter.
Asbestos testing is usually about 50-70 USD per sample, and often destruction of the tested item is necessary, so that is not a viable way either.
There are also heating elements used in printers which may be shielded with asbestos containing materials (as asbestos has good heat resistance properties).
How to avoid asbestos exposure with a high degree of certitude?
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! There's a couple of things here which are striking. First, in order for asbestos to be "bad", it has to be in the dust form. As long as it stays in a solid, no issue. Secondly, the only thing asbestos is used for is insulation. There's almost nothing on a 3d printer which requires insulating (except for maybe the print head, but there are other things which are used for this purpose). Thirdly, it would most likely depend on the printer being looked at. If you're wondering, look up Libby, Montana ... I lived there 9 years as a kid so asbestos is a known to me.
Thank you. The print head may be wrapped in asbestos containing heat shielding, the heated base board may have asbestos in it, etc. Those elements are in constant motion, and many abrupt motions at that. They are also often touched, disturbed and dismantled for upgrades. You are entitled to your opinion, and there is no need to quote your experience (others may have experience too!), but please do not state your view of reality as the truth, i.e. "there are other things which are used for this purpose" is a statement of fact, and it may be quite inaccurate. Let's wait for others. Thank you.
The print head may be wrapped in asbestos containing heat shielding, the heated base board may have asbestos in it, etc - that's quite a few mays. Do you have any actual concrete examples of products with asbestos in them, to back up your claims? That's not to say that it is never used, but I've never seen asbestos used in a 3D printer... however, maybe I'm just not purchasing the same printers as you. Also, duplicating your question as an answer elsewhere is a bit unusual...
I know of not a single chinese printer that does so and I spend some hours a month checking gearbest and such for new printers. In fact, it's obviously cheaper to skip thermal insulation and that is what most printers do or at best use some kapton tape!
Here is one; stock CR10 Creality heating bed; https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/Tx2ORK5BUBPR8MZ/ref=ask_dp_dpmw_al_hza
Even then (the only case retrievable online), a mat under the printer which is not going to be scraped and taken apart by you is perfectly safe. Asbestos is risky if inhaled, not if looked at. https://www.asbestos.com/exposure/short-term/
How to avoid asbestos exposure with a high degree of certitude?
If you're not willing to do asbestos testing yourself and can't trust your suppliers either, then this is impossible.
That said, for most of the components on a 3D printer it is easy to verify they're asbestos-free (I've never seen a steel linear shaft containing asbestos). For the remaining components, you may be able to pick an alternative which you know to be safe, for instance an all-metal hotend without insulating tape, or a heated bed that's plain FR4 without insulation. If there are any components that you distrust specifically (such as a heater cartridge) you should source that from a trusted supplier.
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10229 | What grease to use for linear rails?
What grease to use on linear rails to make them stick as little as possible? I've tried so far:
WD40 (let’s not start a discussion about that please),
silicon spray and
some bearing grease called ‘motorex’,
but with all of them the rails stick quite much and don’t slide as easily as I’d hope.
Can someone recommend some good grease for linear rails (specifically the hiwin type, 12-15mm)?
Don't use grease, it is better to use a light oil to lubricate the rods. A light oil will help flush out any dust and filament debris, grease will trap it.
I've used both light machine oil (like used for sewing machines) and PTFE based spray (Teflon). Grease is thick and will collect and trap dust and particles more easily than light machine oil.
Even high-end consumer printers use light machine oil, e.g. the Ultimaker 3 Extended I got came with a bottle of light machine oil for the linear guide rails. Their advice is to regularly add a drop of oil on each shaft once in a while (how frequent depends on how much your printer prints).
And even with light oil or PTFE or silicone sprays, always wipe off excess.
@CarlWitthoft Indeed, good to mention not to overdo the lubrication!
So the valve oil for my trumpet ought to work great.
A lot of machines are heavily lubed on the bearings, I'll admit I haven't actually ever lubed my machines and rarely have issues. Take a bearing apart and it will be heavy grease. But I also agree on the Valve oil.
@JoelCoehoorn That oil may be designed for brass and so not contain the anti-corrosion additives for steel that some light machine oils might.
Thin grease should be fine, also because linear rails have the bearings on the underside of the bar, so that collecting dirt is less likely. It has to be thin grease, however, not thick.
I have (what I thought was Silicon) spray that was given to me by the garage door installer to lube the rollers for my garage doors. I spray some on a paper towel and wipe the X, Y and Z bars with that. It is called Zep 70.
https://www.zep.com/product/zepcorporate/zep-70
Zep 70 is a soy-based penetrating lubricant that utilizes a renewable soy solvent. It provides excellent long-lasting lubrication, and superior water displacement properties. Zep 70 will penetrate quickly and clean dirt and grease. It will also protect against rust and corrosion. Zep 70 is packaged in a 24 oz. can with a net weight of 18 ounces.
Utilizing a soy-based solvent, a renewable source, helps to conserve nonrenewable resources such as petroleum.
Non-evaporative solvent extends life of the lubricant.
Quickly penetrates parts frozen from rust or corrosion.
Displaces moisture and condensation which can cause corrosion.
Treated surfaces are protected from rust.
Helps clean dirt and grease from metal surfaces.
Reading the can contents, the Lubricant part seems to be TSRN-80100428-5003
The guides seem to slide on the bars with this stuff. Can't find a google hit on it.
I also made a polycarbonate enclosure around my printer to keep dust from settling on everything.
This sounds like it is pretty much WD40
Part of it does, yes. Really slippery stuff on the track bars.
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10173 | Power consumption of filament extrusion
I'd like to calculate the power lost through the filament being extruded (or in other words, at how many Watts I'd have to run an ideal heater that loses heat ONLY through filament so that it stays at constant temperature).
Power is defined in Watts as $\text W =\frac{\text J}{\text s}$
Specific heat capacity of a material is defined as $C =\frac{\text J}{ \text K \times\text{kg}}$
When extrusion happens, the filament of higher temperature leaves the hotend while the same weight of filament of lower temperature enters the hotend.
Let's say the specific heat capacity of the filament is $C$ and the extrusion rate $r$ is given with units kg/s. The temperatures are $T$.
Is it correct then to say that the power consumption of filament extrusion is $W = (c\times T_\text{Nozzle} - c\times T_\text{Environment}) \times r$
meaning that if I would run a heater cartridge at exactly "W" watts and extrude filament with rate "r" and the block would not loose heat through any other means than through the filament extrusion, then the nozzle temperature would stay constant?
Specific heat of a material is drastically different in solid and liquid phase. In addition, there's the heat of transition: the energy required to change from solid to liquid (with no change in temperature). And remember that the hotend heats the liquid phase to well above the transition temperature.
@CarlWitthoft: The materials in question don't have discrete solid and liquid phases involved (no discrete phase change and thus, at least AIUI, no jump in energy without a change in temperatures) but a glass transition temperature at which they begin to soften.
This is very simply stated, in fact the specific heat is a function of temperature and state of the material (liquid or solid). Also you need to consider which type of specific heat you use, e.g. the one for constant volume $C_V$ or for constant pressure $C_P$. Constant pressure is probably preferred considering the mechanics of the printer (pressing filament into the nozzle-heatbreak assembly).
A very interesting source of information is the PolymerDatabase.com.
This source confirms that:
In the case of polymers, we have to distinguish between the heat capacity of liquid, rubbery and glassy polymers. The heat capacity increases with increasing temperature, therefore, a liquid or rubbery polymer can hold more energy than a solid polymer. All materials show this increase in heat capacity with temperature.
also:
Specific heat capacities as a function of temperature have been published for only a limited number of polymers. In many cases, the heat capacity (at constant pressure) as a function of temperature can be approximated by straight lines.
In such cases you can use the value of the specific heat at a predefined temperature (in thermodynamics that is frequently 298 K) to get approximations for your thermoplastic material. These formulae can then be used to integrate over the temperature rise.
Please remember that a cartridge is of a certain value of Watt; to have a lower power, the cartridge modulates voltage to keep the heating block within a predefined temperature range.
No.
Your formula is quite off, and it starts with the nomenclature:
Watt
Watt is the unit of energy transfer which equals power.
The commonly used term "wattage" does not exist in science. It is a very despised shorthand only used in terms of electric power $P=UI$.
Both power $P$ (like work over time) and heat energy transfer $\Delta Q$ (which is one variant of power) use the unit $\text W=\frac {\text J} {\text s}$, which is confusing but a necessary distinction. Always remember that $P_\text{total}=\sum_{i=1}^nP_i$ - the total power in and out of an object is the sum of all partial powers!
Heat Energy transfer
The Heat energy transfer through an object is defined as the change of the heat energy $Q$ stored inside an object. $Q$ is given in $\text J$, so its change $\Delta Q$ is given in $\text J$ too. To get to the power, the energy change needs to be measured at several spots in time, so we make the derivate over time and get the power in $\text W$. We're looking at $\dot Q=\frac {\delta Q} {\delta t}$.
The absolute change of heat energy of an item is defined as $\Delta Q(t)=m(t) c \Delta T$: Increasing the temperature $T$ of an object with the mass $m$ and specific heat capacity $c$ by $\delta T$ (between times $t_0$ and $t$) results in a change of the stored energy by $\Delta Q(t-t_0)$.
So, we know $Q=c m \Delta T$ and $P=\dot Q=\frac \delta {\delta t} c m \Delta T$
Problem in question
We know that the drain (loss) of thermal energy from the system is via three ways:
melting plastic (phase transition)
extruding heated plastic
convective heat loss to the air
black body radiation of the heater block
We know that the total balance in equilibrium should be $P_\text{total}=P_\text{heating}+P_\text{melting}+P_\text{extrusion}+P_\text{convection}+P_\text{bb}=0$.
heat deposited into the system
Let's start at the simplest: we simply know the nominal heating power of the cartridge, it is usually written upon the cartridge itself, usually something in the area of 20 to 40 W. In praxis, it is not exactly that, but the ballpark fits. Otherwise, we'd plug in $P_\text{heating}=\epsilon \frac {U^2} {R}$ for our specific resistor, where $\epsilon$ is a coefficient between 0 and 1 telling us how good it is in converting electric to heat energy. Remember that since $U$ is technically a function of time (it is modulated to control heating behavior), our heating power also is, even though not explicit!
black body radiation loss $P_\text{bb}$
Black body radiation: $P_\text{bb}=A \sigma T^4$ where $A$ is the surface area of the object, $\sigma$ is a constant called Stefan-Boltzmann Constant. That much thermal energy is just lost due to radiation via photons, even if we don't see it glowing.
convection loss $P_\text{convection}$
The change of heat energy via heat convection is roughly defined as $H=\theta A (T-T_f)$ which brings us another coefficient $\theta$ about how good the block heats the air and the temperature of the medium (air) around $T_f$ - which we can replace as $(T-T_f)=\Delta T_a$.
And then we get to the biggest can of worms: the thermal heat transfer for melting the plastic and how much thermal energy is extruded from the system. For one of them, we can estimate some ballpark numbers, for the other, we will get into problems.
extrusion loss $P_\text{extrusion}$
The heat energy removed from the system by extruding plastic we can estimate from what we already established about thermal energy back in the Heat Energy transfer paragraph: $Q=mc(T_0+\Delta T)$ using the specific heat capacity $c [\frac {\text{J}}{\text kg K}] $ of the molten plastic as it is extruded (more about that later). But that's not the loss per time, but the heat energy stored in it in Joules. What factor is changing? In this case, it is the mass $m=r\times t$ where $r=\frac {\text kg} {\text s}$ is the extrusion rate. So $Q_\text{extrusion}=rtc\ \Delta T_\text{extrusion}$ and subsequently $P_\text{extrusion}=rc\ \Delta T_\text{extrusion}$
This leaves us with the big problem: as 0scar correctly pointed out by directing to the PolymerDatabase the specific heat capacity is not a constant and not linear but changes depending on the aggregate of the substance. We can make some estimate about it though from how we formulated the total power and adding a few absolutes for convenience:
$$P_\text{total}=P_\text{heating}+P_\text{melting}+P_\text{extrusion}+H_\text{convection}+P_\text{bb}=0$$
$$P_\text{heating}-H_\text{convection}-P_\text{bb}-P_\text{extrusion}=P_\text{melting}$$
$$\epsilon \frac {U^2}{R}-\theta A \Delta T_a-A \sigma T^4-rc\ \Delta T_\text{extrusion}=P_\text{melting}$$
Remember, that $U$ is a time-dependent factor (because of the control board activating it or disabling it), $T_f$ is also not a steady thing and changes depending on the airflow (though we can just pin it for our thought experiment) and thus $T$ itself might change over time as a result. $T$ is not equal to $\ \Delta T_\text{Extrusion}$ but is the temperature of the heater block system as a whole. $\ \Delta T_\text{Extrusion}$, on the contrary, is the temperature increase of the filament and not necessarily the same $\Delta T_{air}$, the differential between the heater block and the air. Why this differentiation is necessary becomes apparent if one realizes that the path of the filament might benefit from the heat that is lost from the heater block along that path, pre-heating the filament.
Phase Transition $P_\text{melting}$
$\propto$ is the proportionality sign and indicates that I might skip factors or constants.
What is that last part? That $P_\text{melting}$? It is the power of the Phase Transition. Matter does not shift between phases freely. There is energy stored in the state itself! So when transitioning from one phase to the other, that energy either has to be added (when going from solid to liquid or liquid to gas) or removed (when going the other way).
The "heat of fusion" is a material constant. For this look, I'll call it $\phi [\frac {\text{J}} {\text {g}}]$. We can make an estimation for the power that is put into melting the filament: there's an amount of filament that gets an amount of heat and undergoes the phase transition per time increment $$P_\text{melting}\propto \frac \delta {\delta t}\phi m_\text{melting}=\phi*\dot m$$ Now, we have the product of specific "latent heat" and melting mass derived over time... We had earlier the flow rate of material $m=r\times t$ and the "latent heat" is a constant. So, we pull out $\dot m=r$ again. So in the end we get that the power that is needed to melt our filament is proportional to the flow of the material and the material constant. $$P_\text{melting}\propto \phi r$$
Conclusion tl;dr
When eliminating the loss via convection and black body radiation and assuming them 0 or neglectable, we assume our heater is packed in perfect isolation - and call them losses. Assuming $\epsilon=1$ for a perfect heater, we are left with this equilibrium situation:
$\frac {U^2}{R}-P_\text{losses}=P_\text{melting}+rc\ \Delta T_\text{extrusion}$
The sum of the power of the phase transition (melting of the filament) and the energy stored in the extruded filament per time $(\frac{dQ}{dt})$ is equal to the energy deposited into the hotend over time [minus losses over time]
Explanation: is Textrusion changing over time? no, it's the same final value. Therefore if's a constant, and derivative does not touches it. Is Tinitial changin over time? no, as well. Conclusion: deltaT is a multiplicative factor, like c, and is not affected by the derivative. Is m changing over time? yes, the total mass that has passed through the extruder is increasing over time (or you would not be extruding at all), therefore you can derive over time that one, and get m'.
@FarO Correct, I think I found the last errors now.
Pmelting is a bit hanging there without much explanation (the only one without a section for it), but in general it's ok.
@FarO Not sure if I got it down to the last factors, but I get something akin to $P_\text{melting}\propto \phi r$ where $\phi$ is energy that is needed/released for one gram doing the phase transition and $r$ is the flow rate of our filament. I am not entirely sure if I might have missed some offset or other factor, that's why I only point to the proportionality.
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10177 | Overhangs lift up
My printer is exhibiting a problem wherein it's as if the nozzle pulls up on layers. I don't think it used to do this - it seemed like it manifested after I replaced the broken x-carriage with a printed one, but I don't see how that could have caused the issue. It's possible something else I did or replaced caused it; not sure. Allow me to give an example:
I'm trying to print a worm gear, with a tooth size of about 2mm. The teeth, as they appear in the stl, look kinda like
____________
< >
> <
< >
> <
<____________>
However, when printed, the edges are pulled upwards, looking more like
____________
\ /
_\ /_
\ /
_\ /_
\ /
\________/
I originally noticed the pull-up in the surface finish of flat things - there was a grid of raised bumps on the top layer, I believe corresponding to the empty points between infill walls. That wasn't an effect that mattered to me, though. The effect on the worm gear is much more significant.
Anybody know why my printer is pulling up on layers, or whatever it's doing?
props for amazing ascii art. Does this happen when printing larger overhangs as well?
@Nach0z Yes it does, you see this effect many times, e.g. at the bow of the Benchy, myself I experienced this with X-axis idler mounts with 45º slanting slopes.
@Nach0z Haha, thanks. Mine seems to happen primarily with thin layers - but on the other hand, I don't usually print large overhangs, anyway, so that may just be data I don't have.
If you print (overhanging/slanting) fine edges too hot with too little print part cooling, they curl up. Please increase the part cooling fan percentage or try printing with a lower hotend temperature. Another possibility is to print slower, this way the filament cools better for the same fan RPM settings (fan spends more time in the hot region).
The Simplify3d slicer website has a print quality troubleshooting section that describes the up-curl of edges, they also hint to overheating as the source of your problem.
This is absolutely correct. On my Ender 3 I get the effect only on one side of the threaded shaft due to unequal air flow. Going to do a custom fan duct to mitigate it, but short of that, longer cooling and slower printing mostly suffice.
Well, I reduced the temperature all the way down to 175, but there was no change. I do have a cooling fan enabled, though it's kinda homebrew. I'll try slowing down the print.
Yes slowing down also should work, for similar print cooling fan settings, cooling is more effective.
Alas, I cut print speed in half (to 30 mm/sec), turned temperature down to 180*, and the cooling fan speed is at 100%. No change. It's possible my cooling fan is inefficient? I did just tweak it slightly and reprint it, though (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3676251) - no change.
@Erhannis Adding some pictures of the prints and the setup you use by [edit] of your question would help out. Indeed, ineffective cooling can prevent the print to cool properly. You could try a desk/table fan to see if it helps. Sorry it does not work for you, but this up-curling is a temperature problem, fixed as addressed in the answer.
That looks like a hotend fan setup not one for cooling the part...?
@R.. I think the right part is the print cool duct, and indeed it is a very bad design, the area narrows too much for the fan to push air through. There are way better print cooling ducts to be found.
@0scar: Oh I see. Yes. These ducts that concentrate the air flow are awful and bend the deposited material with the pressure while it's still soft. I tried the popular ring one on my Ender 3 and it shrinks threaded cylinders by at least 0.3 mm.
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10161 | PTFE detoriation temperature
I read that PTFE starts to deteriorate past 260 °C. Does that mean heating to 250 °C is no problem at all, or will that destroy the PTFE material over time to?
Degradation starts at 260 °C and shifts towards full blown decomposition towards 350 °C. 250 °C is technically fine, but you should keep in mind that you've got little to no wiggle room for error at that temperature. Your thermistor and board may not be accurate enough to guarantee you'll never overshoot that temperature, and the way 3D printers often handle temperature adjustment exacerbates that risk. You can print at 250 °C, just be aware you've got basically no margin for error.
how fast does ptfe detoriorate at 260°? is that something that takes seconds or days?
More like weeks or months.
yeah if you're exactly at the temperature it's going to take an extended amount of time. I still wouldn't try printing at those temperatures though, because PTFE breaking down isn't an issue because it's wearing out, it's an issue because of the highly toxic and corrosive compounds that teflon degenerates into. Check this link out:
https://www.ewg.org/research/canaries-kitchen/teflon-offgas-studies
"Highly toxic" is meaningless without specifying concentration and exposure. Non-stick pans regularly get around or above 250°C in cooking use. I'd be a lot more concerned about the fumes from the materials being printed at these temperatures than from the PTFE.
Also, the PTFE end is not supposed to be getting that hot - if it were, the filament would be melting inside it. Assuming your cooling is working right (and if it's not, you'll have catastrophic failure regardless of what your hotend temp is set to), it should be at least a few degrees, and ideally a few tens of degrees, cooler than the set temperature.
Also note that 260C equals 500F. It might be a less exact limit than we think.
High temperature rated PTFE tape is rated for up to 288°C (550°F).
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10038 | Can't seem to fix over extrusion
I'm struggling to get my printer up and running for a few days now. The problem is as follows. I got a test model of a cube (40x40 mm) and everytime I try to print it, the nozzle creates these 'lines' on the print which is caused by over extrusion I think? See image:
This goes on for every bottom layer and ultimately when it starts printing the infill the nozzle starts digging into the print and I'm forced to stop the printer, see image:
What I have tried so far:
Calibrating my extruder (by marking 100 mm on filament and command extruding 100 mm, check difference and adjust E step/mm accordingly)
Performed an auto bed leveling
I even halved my flow rate in the slicer (Ultimaker Cura), this gave signs of under extrusion of the first layer but the second layer looks over extruded again
Tried different temperatures in the range of 190-210 °C (I'm using PLA), made no significant difference
My settings and gear:
HE3D K280 Delta 3D printer
E3D V6 Volcano hot end (original, not chinese)
E3D Titan Extruder (original)
Marlin 1.1.8 using Ultimaker Cura as slicer
Nozzle 0.6 mm, layer height 0.2 mm, print speed 50 mm/s
1.75 mm PLA
If anyone could help me fixing this that would be great!
seems to be a overheat vs print speed, remember that your first layer should be 80% as maximun your nozzle diameter. and the speed must be higher is the temperature is also higher and this must be higher is the nozzle diameter is wider. So yours parameters must not the same as nozzle 0.3 or 0.4 mm. verify your nozzle temp, should be differences each 5°.
Long shot, but I'm out of ideas solving this puzzle: "Is the nozzle size selected in the slicer 0.6 mm, but is your actual nozzle (by accident or wrong delivery) a 0.4 mm?".
@0scar this explain why those small mount of plastic on the side on each line, seems to be an uncovered area due an irregular overlap on YX movement. The XY movement is waggled
I would look for Z-axis compliance or springiness. If the Z-axis is too compliant, then it will have a "slight drag on a piece of paper" over a significant commanded Z height.
When printing the first layer, the head will be elevated by the pressure of the plastic being extruded pressing against the bed. When printing the second layer, the actual Z-height won't be a full layer higher, as the previous layer was lifted. The second layer will also be lifted, but it will drag through the first layer.
To test for this, manually set the z-height using a metal feeler gauge. If you don't have one, use a strip cut from the side of a soda can. Set the z-height so that there is some like pressure against the gauge. Increase the height by 0.1mm. The gauge should now be free. If not, continue increasing by 0.1mm steps until the gauge is free. That is how much compliance you have in the feed.
From a home-designed delta I built, I know that there are several sources of this compliance.
First check the 12 joints. Are they tight? Do they have wiggle room? That wiggle room can destroy your precision. Try squeezing the pairs together at the top and bottom with rubber bands.
Second, check that the print head carrier (the part that moves around) is stiff and doesn't flex with pressure against the nozzle.
Third, check that the vertical travelers are following their tracks tightly. There should be no wiggle room for them, either.
Fourth, check the belts, which must be tight. If there was no vertical wiggle in test three, they are probably OK, but tighter is usually better.
Thanks cmm, I checked for any sources and noticed the printhead carrier was not properly fixed (flexed a little) but still got the same results (more or less). I also noticed that the Z-offset I entered in my firmware doesnt have any effect at all which resulted in my nozzle being too close to the bed. I fixed this by just altering the delta height but when I set the height to the point where I have a little drag I still got the same results. Now what did work for me was setting the height so the nozzle leaves a gap of around 0.3mm to the bed, however I dont believe this is good practice..
What are you using as a layer height? My first printer worked best with 0.27mm layers throughout. The Prusa3d i3m3s I'm using now sets up with a 0.2mm first layer regardless of the layer height for later layers. Q: when you measure the Z-height of the head, is it with the bed at operating temperature? Q: The printer you are using has auto-level (from internet information). This may override any mechanical adjustments you are doing. Q: If the printer has auto-leveling, there may be a thermal dependency. Deltas are difficult to calibrate, as they don't have a linear relationship ----
--- between motor positions and head position. They are also prone to errors from all the slight manufacturing defects. I've built "delta" CNC machines with 6 DOF to calibrate, and they are easier than these 3 DOF positioning systems. Have you tried printing on a raft? If you can get the first 3 layers to print and stick, by layer 4-5 irregularities are usually sorted out.
Your images look as if your initial nozzle to heat bed offset is too large. This causes the filament not to be squished. Try re-levelling and have a piece of plain printing paper have a little drag when pulled.
Hi Oscar, thanks for your answer and edit :) Unfortunately I already tried this method (leveling with printing paper) multiple times without any result..
Maybe this has nothing to do with it but when I'm printing it looks like the nozzle pushes away the previous layed line forming the stripes you see on the picture. Almost like the line are too wide and the nozzle pushes away the excessive material
@Mikelo That is strange, it really looks as if it isn't squished. What about your steps/mm of the Z axis?
my Z steps/mm is 80 (default in marlin, have not changed this)
@Mikelo Default says nothing, it totally depends on your mechanical layout (lead of screw) and electronics (micro stepping, stepper type). If you raise 50 mm from the menu, does it reach 50 mm?
Yeah at first I thought this was a z axis problem too, but I don't understand how that would manifest in a delta like OP has...
@R.. A delta uses belts and pulleys or lead screws, but indeed, the carriage is homed at the top, which is defined in the firmware (as Z max), when the carriage drops down to Z = 0 it should be at paper thickness distance. My comment was meant as in: "Don't take default for granted".
I think You need to re-calibrate Z steps. Sometimes Marlin default z-steps/mm won't fit for 3D printer, because it depends on the hardware(z-axis threaded rod) that used to build the 3D printer. Check whether the Z-axis moves the distance that you command it to move. (ex: command to move x distance and check whether it moves the commanded distance)
ehhh, no. The last shows the bed is VERY unlevel.
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10090 | Can commodity 3D printer extrusion hardware and filament be used for injection molding?
Assuming you have a suitable oven to maintain temperature at the filament melting point and a suitable mold that can handle the temperature, is a commodity 3D printer hotend and extruder, with large nozzle, suitable for injecting material into the mold? I'm thinking of a setup like having the hotend mounted through a wall of the oven, braced against a hole in the mold inside the oven, and feeding filament via motor or manual cranking outside. Or is much higher pressure needed to make something like this work?
Certainly there are better setups to do this for manufacturing at scale, but the point of this question is whether you can do it with minimal setup effort and cost using commodity parts and filaments rather than needing expensive or custom-built equipment and material sourcing.
For relevance to the site in case it's questionable: certainly if this technique is possible, it could be used along with initial 3D printing of a design and using that to produce a (e.g. high-temperature epoxy) mold.
This is interesting, considering the recent spate of 3-in-1 devices that can do FDM printing, CNC milling, and laser etching in the same device, depending on the attached head. With the right set-up you could add injection to the list and create a 4-in-1 maker powerhouse.
@JoelCoehoorn: Sounds nice, but I'm not sure how you'd make that practical - it needs an insulated oven.
@R.. you can use a filaextruder as molding injection, just need the mold to be cooled according your volume rate. you don't need as much pressure, you won't make diamonds; you just need more pipes for injection to distribute the material.
Injection molding requires two major components: pressure and heat. So your question can be broken down into those two halves: can your average extruder handle injection molding temperatures, and can it handle injection molding pressures?
Let's start with pressure.
Per this page on the University of Minnesota's site, plastic injection molding tends to require pressures of around 2 to 8 tons per square inch. Assuming you're using a 0.4 mm nozzle, which has a cross-section of 0.126 mm², that works out to be 0.000195 (1.95E-4) square inches, which translates to about 3 lb of pressure total at the nozzle assuming you're going for the high end of 8 tons (16,000 lb). However because of the way that you're treating the molten filament in the extruder as a hydraulic fluid, you've got to deal with the fact that the "piston" on one end is actually quite a lot larger area, which means you have to multiply the force by that difference in size. The cross-section of 1.75 mm filament is approx. 9.62 mm², or 0.149 in². That's 76.4 times larger, which means you need to be pushing on the end of that filament with roundabout 230 pounds, or 105 kg, of force.
For reference, the Nema 17 that's on my extruder is spec'd at 76 oz-in of torque, geared down 4:1 through a Wade's extruder, and then acting on a hobbed gear with a 6 mm effective diameter (3 mm radius). Much to my own surprise, as I write this, that means that my little plastic extruder is actually capable of just north of 160 lb of pressure force! All these numbers would need to be recalculated for 3 mm filament, and I have no experience with 3 mm, so we're going to skip that one for now.
Now, that being said, my extruder is also capable of shredding filament if conditions aren't just right. The main two problems you'll have to overcome is 1) gripping the filament hard enough without destroying it, and 2) keeping the filament from buckling. I think if you got clever with some gears keeping multiple hobbed gears synced up, and a polished aluminum or steel feed tube, you could absolutely make your own extruder that's capable of consistently putting 300+ pounds of force on your plastic filament without it buckling or stripping. The downside is that your feed rates are going to be fairly slow, so each injection molding is likely going to take you quite a bit of time. A larger motor such as a beefy NEMA23 might help offset that by giving you much higher torque at higher speeds, so long as you can melt the filament fast enough. However we'll need to revisit these pressure numbers in a few moments, after I explain a few things about temperature.
Next, let's look at temperatures. Obviously we know that we can melt the filament itself as it's moving through the extruder. Using a Volcano nozzle or something, you can even guarantee molten filament at a fairly high extrusion rate. However most printers are designed such that the filament cools to solid (60-80 °C normally) almost immediately. Injection molding designs require that the entire mass of plastic be kept molten. Fortunately, ABS and PLA melting temps are easily reached by literally any toaster oven, so stick your setup in there and you're golden, right?
But wait, there's more!
One of the problems you'll run into immediately is that extruders are carefully designed so that the plastic is molten for as little time as possible, because molten plastic against a metal tube introduces a bunch of friction, hence the need for super high pressures during injection molding. If the plastic melts too soon, then you'll clog up your heatsink (the "cold" side of the extruder), and won't be able to extrude at all. This is a fairly common source of jams in 3D printing, where you're extruding too slowly and there's not enough cooling on the heatsink. Fortunately, E3D sells a water-cooled Titan extruder that would keep the heatsink cool. However the rest of your gearing assembly, and the motor, will also need active cooling, as heat damages the permanent magnets in the rotors, and the printed geared assembly obviously will melt if put inside an oven. Your best bet might be a water-cooled Bowden setup, assuming you can find tube fittings that can withstand several hundred pounds of force. You might look into using solid tubes like brake line rather than your normal PTFE shenanigans.
TL;DR:
Get you a water-cooled extruder, make a super-strong Bowden setup, and gear down a huge motor with a bunch of synchronized hobbed gears, and you might actually pull it off! There's plenty of Thingiverse extruder files you can use as a starting point.
As far as commercially available extruders go, however, I don't think you're going to find anything that's immediately available that can handle what you need it to without some level of modification depending on your selected injection pressures.
An injection molding injector melts all the plastic needed for the shot and pushes it into the mold and through the sprue very quickly. Perhaps that is why it is called a "shot".
Injection molding machines do not heat the mold to plastic-melting temperatures. This works because the plastic is injected quickly, and fills the mold before the plastic cools. Molds are designed so that this happens, and often include multiple thick sprues to direct plastic to all parts of the hold.
Injecting with a 3D printer extruder will be a slow process. If the mold is not above the melting point, the plastic will cool and likely become a tangle of thread at the entrance of the mold. To combat that, you could heat the mold. This is doable, and will suitable insulation the temperature of the cold end and the extruder should be acceptable.
With the mold heated, you would inject plastic until the mold is full. The mold heater would then be disabled and the mold would cool. This would take a long time.
Injection molding machines typically have water-cooled molds to cool the plastic more quickly. Time is money for an injection molding factory, and cooling quickly is key to productivity.
For the 3D printer injection molding machine, the time when the plastic is hot could be fairly long -- longer than would typically be found in injection molding. I am concerned that some plastics, perhaps such as PLA, would degrade or burn during the long molten time. Experience would be required.
Yes, technically you can but only for small parts.
However the size of the object would be limited (about the size of a button). It has to do with the power of the heater element. Its too small to deliver enough thermal energy to heat enough plastic fast enough to fill a large cavity (i.e. anything larger than a button in my humble opinion). The previous answers give a breakdown as to why. Normally in an injection molding machine, the plastic starts cooling when it hits the walls. As the first set of plastic hits the wall of the mold, it sticks and starts cooling. You have to get the rest of the plastic in before that area cools back down and solidifies. Practical for a small part, but not for a large part.
As for your idea about keeping the mold itself hot, yes that would work, if you could keep the temp within range. Overheating the plastic destroys the bonds, weakening the part. Too cold and it will clog.
But I say try it with a Volcano hot end and an actual mold. The plastic will melt faster if you use a preheater (a second hot end, that is upstream), to print the plastic up to 80% temp before it enters the final extruder.
Why would it start cooling when it hits the wall of the mold? The mold is at the temperature of the oven.
Normally in an injection mold the plastic starts cooling when it hits the walls.
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10359 | How to resolve Ultimaker Cura 4.0 messed up display
I'm using Ultimaker Cura on a Manjaro KDE installation with a 4K monitor and a scaling of 1.7.
All text is misaligned in the Ultimaker Cura application.
How can I make it look as it should ?
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! May incur an uninstall/reinstall.
You could just open an issue at the developers site, they might know exactly what is wrong or if it is a bug? If the latter, the community is grateful you found and reported it!
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10306 | Does PLA become brittle with age?
I tried to use an old spool of PDA and the filament would keep breaking. New filament will discolor white but stay intact when you bend it. This old filament would break off at a clean 90 degrees when you bend it with no discoloration. However, our new material is Hatchbox PLA and the older is a different brand.
It becomes brittle when it takes up moisture, how much depends on humidity and time. The better you store it the longer it takes to become brittle.
Duplicate of https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/1404/can-aged-pla-be-refurbished ?
There are many theories why PLA filament becomes brittle. See the link in previous comment.
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10234 | What do I need to do to recalibrate my printer after updating the firmware?
I just updated my Maker Select Plus from the stock (I believe RepRap-based) firmware to Advi3pp, which is Marlin based. The printer starts up and everything seems okay, but I haven't actually tried a print yet and there was a message during the upgrade about deleting incompatible settings.
What do I need to do to recalibrate the printer following the firmware upgrade?
If it is Marlin based or RepRap based, many parameters are stored in EEPROM memory. A G-code command M502: Read parameters from "configuration.h" would reset all parameters that can be changed to their default value as defined in your configuration file. Don't forget to follow the M502 command with a M500 command to store the loaded parameters to EEPROM. This would overwrite all previous settings.
From the linked source, M502:
This command resets all tunable parameters to their default values, as set in the firmware. This doesn't reset any parameters stored in the EEPROM, so it must be followed with M500 if you want to do that.
You can send these commands over a terminal interface to the printer using applications such as Pronterface, OctoPrint, Repetier-Host, and probably many more, or store the commands in a G-code file (e.g. a text file with a .g extension) and print the file using an SD card.
Marlin also offers to "Initialize EEPROM" in one of the display submenus - this can be used to reset the settings to default as well.
@towe Indeed, thanks for the addition! But not every printer uses a display, G-code always works.
Looks like I don't need to do anything. I printed a 20 mm calibration cube, and aside from some elephant footing it came out as clean and as close to the model dimensions as anything else I've ever put through the machine, with no changes.
So I'll recommend this as a first step to anyone else: start a 20 mm cube going, watch it closely early on to be sure you're getting adequate extrusion and bed adhesion. If it fails here you may need to adjust settings. When it's done, measure it and see where you are. You might not need to do anything else.
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10236 | How do I concave an image to create a 3D file for use in a 3D printer?
How can I print an embossed image in a concaved shape?
Like a big saucer. I will use this an a mold for a project.
So far I've found lots of software with huge spread of features. It's sort of overwhelming. There is lots of ways to create images into 3D printable objects but to add the extra step and concaving that image is harder to find out.
How would you do it? I'm open to suggestions.
I'm new to 3D printing and would really appreciate the help.
What are you using for your modeling software?
I have not selected a modeling software. I'm a programmer and I work with software everyday therefore I'm open to tryout anything.
http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/ can do the interior of a cylinder; I haven't found a free site that will project into a sphere, but I strongly suspect you can take a planar model and use one of the standard CAD/mesh programs to make it spherical. Maybe search YouTube for tutorials on "convert plane to hemisphere" ?
If you know Python, maybe this link https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2770219 or (I have not tried it) the spherical projector at http://maker.dongguk.edu/
What you describe, sounds like you want to create a lithophane; a pattern etched or engraved on a thin translucent base material (in your case a bowl) that can only be seen clearly when backlit with a light source behind it. Apparently you want to use it for another purpose.
Special software and or scripts that transform the image to the base material exist. An example is e.g. this sphere which becomes a globe when lit from the inside. Recommending a tool for creating such bowl is a little out of scope as these types of questions become outdated very quickly as technology changes or tools cease to exist. With the provided information you should be able to find software that is able to provide what you want to do.
You may want to look up https://3dp.rocks/lithophane/ it lets you do things like that
That link was given in a comment previously. It would be helpful if you could summarize the article and maybe give your experience if you have used that technique.
Hi and welcome. This is a link only answer, and when the link dies your answer will not be much use. As such, it may be deleted. If that happens, please summarise the information from the link and flag your answer to be undeleted.
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10276 | How to fix wall separation in 3D prints (gaps in between wall perimeters)?
The print is very solid except for the 4 walls.
From the top, I can slide a paper down to the bottom. This is ONLY between the walls, the rest of the print is solid. The filament is PLA 1.75 mm.
But the bottom is solid, no gaps.
I have checked the usual problems on Ultimaker troubleshooting photo gallery, but I can find anything similar.
Any advice to fix this would be very welcome.
Print settings:
Increase the infil overlap.
Where do you put the paper in between: between infill and the walls, or in between the walls? If the first is applicable, the previous comment holds, else I'll write an answer, I've fixed this for my printer. Please add some basic information on temperatures, speeds, filament type, etc.
To fix this, I had results with the following way:
Change your extrusion width from being equal to your nozzle size (0.4 mm) to slightly larger (I use 0.45 mm). That way you better combat the shrinking of the filament.
Having the Print thin walls setting activated to force the printer to print intermediary walls if there are areas where less than the prescribed wall thickness for a single wall fills in spaces that are as a result of the wider outer walls left. The result for a 1.2 mm wall, the central part is a 0.3 mm zigzag.
Lower the extrusion temperature a tad as hotter filament shrinks more on cooling! For PLA about 200 °C is my sweet spot.
Additionally, there are extra steps that could be taken:
Finally, you could play around a little with the extrusion multiplier to try to get rid of the tiny bit of under extrusion you have.
Calibration could help too.
Are you sure "Print Thin Walls" (fill_outline_gaps) does what you think it does? My understanding is that it has nothing to do with filling a "remainder" between walls. Cura uses low-extrusion zigzag for this in place of an additional low-extrusion wall, and this is controlled by fill_perimeter_gaps, "Fill Gaps Between Walls", which is on by default but omitted for really tiny gaps due to filter_out_tiny_gaps. AIUI, the behavior of fill_outline_gaps is to keep regions of the sliced outline narrower than the nozzle width, extruding w/ low flow.
@R.. I have had the issue before, flicking it on and going 0.45 mm extrusion fixed it.
Is it possible just the 0.45 mm line width fixed it? I've been trying to better understand what the gap options do and think (thought?) I did, so I'm interested in your results here. I actually had very bad results with fill_outline_gaps causing blobs and stringing (mysteriously Cura ignored my retraction settings for this layer?!) on top of a horizontally-printed threaded bolt by printing an extra top layer where just a tiny portion of the thread much smaller than 0.4 mm was present.
@R.. reordered, added explanation why it helped for me
Still, are you sure you didn't mean fill_perimeter_gaps, "Fill Gaps Between Walls"? That's the option that seems to be documented as doing what you want, and that seems to do it for me.
@R.. I did switch "print thin walls", which might contain flipping the other.
Now that print settings are shared we can see that this problem is not related to too fast printing (only 20 mm/s) or too low print temperature (210 °C should get PLA fluid enough). To explain this, a low temperature and too fast printing cause under-extruded lines.
There are 2 other causes that might be worth investigating:
Under-extrusion. From the top layers one can see that there may be insufficient material printed. Calibration of the extruder helps in this respect.
Inaccurate positioning. This may for instance be caused by loose belts or a mechanical defect.
I've experienced this too, especially with flex modified PLA filament. For that, fixing underextrusion and increasing temperature made it go away. Sadly Cura has no option to overlap walls slightly (if printed in the right order, this could be done without affecting dimensional accuracy) except possibly the outer one, so you really have to get extrusion rate calibrated right or this will happen.
Look for the horizontal expansion setting in Cura. By default it should be zero. The description includes this:
Positive values can help compensate for too big holes.
The "holes" here includes these gaps. You can set it to something very small (ie: .01 or .03, probably no more than .05) and that will likely be enough to get it to fill in those gaps.
Unfortunately, I only have a little direct personal experience with this setting, hence the probably/likely weasel words, and I can't give much real guidance on exactly how big or small you can go with this.
These gaps are not those kind of holes. The holes in question are negative space in the sliced layer, not space between extrusions.
The setting "horizontal expansion" is not meant for this purpose. Horizontal expansion should be used when print have a systematic deviation from the actual model size. E.g. a 20 mm or 100 mm box print as 20.4 mm and 100.4, you can use a horizontal expansion of -(0.4/2) = -0.2 mm.
What @0scar said. Also, I realize my above comment was somewhat terse and maybe subject to misinterpretation. "Horizontal expansion" is an operation on the cross-sectional outlines produced during the slicing process, before any extrusion paths are laid out. It may have an effect on gaps due to introducing new space for extra wall lines, skin zigzags, or infill that presses on the existing wall lines in new ways, but it's not in any way a predictable mitigation for gaps and will alter the dimensions of your print, usually in a bad way.
I had the same problem, through multiple models and different brands of PLA. I fixed it by setting the Material "Wall Flow" parameter (both inner and outer wall) to 102%.
Note: The outside dimension is still accurate.
I know this is an old post but I had this problem in Cura 5.8 and found it was because I was using the concentric setting for my walls. It seems to be a bug in this version. I changed to lines and the problem went away. Before finding this was the issue I had tried upping my extrusion rates and line width all to no avail. Did not have this problem in previous versions. I wasted 4 rolls of filament on two bass guitar bodies before figuring this out.
concentric and lines are settings for top and bottom or infill, never for walls, walls are always concentric.
Trish, I see that you are right. I have got myself a little confused now because I changed too many settings trying to fix this. I am sure I changed something from concentric to lines. Note, I have two identical printers and this was only happening on the one with a .6mm nozzle. I had not had this issue on the one with the .4 nozzle. Anyway whatever I changed, it now prints fine. Sorry, I am probably not being much help here.
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10284 | Monoprice printer: no files found on SD card
My monoprice printer was working; I then tried to format the SD card on a Mac, then it stopped working. I have now tried three different SD cards after formatting on a Windows PC, and still nothing works. Are there supposed to be files on the SD card itself like some kind of root files?
See the discussion at https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/7845/how-to-format-an-sd-card-for-monoprice-select-mini-v2 and see if it helps.
I've no idea why 3D printers don't like SD cards formatted by operating system utilities, but they don't. Use SD Memory Card Formatter to format your memory cards. Unfortunately, you have probably lost any data that was on the original SD card.
The SD cards that are supplied with 3D printers typically contain documentation, test files, and device drivers. However, these files do not need to be present for the correct operation of the printer. All that is needed is a correctly-formatted SD card containing the G-code files that you want to print.
This addresses the formatting of the card (like the answer in the linked question, can you comment on the root files part of the question? I've never heard of such files for printers.
I'm skeptical -- my A8 clone is perfectly happy with SD cards I've formatted FAT32 via MacOS
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10424 | Has anyone rebuilt Prusa3D firmware for the Genuine Pruse i3m3s?
With no answer to my question two days ago about how the Prusa printer behaves with an intermittent open or shorted thermistor, I'd like to ask this question of relative last resort.
Prusa seems to have some version of their i3 software posted on Github. Should I expect this to be current, or some older version?
Have you rebuilt, reflashed, and operated with rebuilt Prusa firmware?
If so, what tips would you offer?
I ask because once I open something like that up, I inevitably am seduced into making changes.
The Prusa Firmware on GitHub is the very latest version -- it's the code repository Prusa uses for development. My suggestion is that you don't use it unless you're planning to do firmware development or testing, because like any such software, it tends to have bugs.
But, I should be able to revert to the version I have. Thanks for the info that it is bleeding edge.
Did you get the "intermittent open or shorted thermistor" fixed? Amazon Prime can ship those practically overnight, you should fix that before you overheat & burn something up, they are dirt cheap.
I didn't turn out to have a problem. I suspected that I might, and was curious how the firmware would respond. Since code is sometimes the best (or only) documentation ....
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10435 | Print times not accurate (Ultimaker Cura)
I am using Ultimaker Cura (4.1.0) as slicer and a Monoprice Maker Select 3D printer and have noticed that the reported print times when slicing are something like 25 % less than the actual time it takes to print.
Is there some practicality factor involved here? Have I failed to enter all relevant printer properties in Ultimaker Cura? Are these reported times not actually meant to correspond to reality?
Any insight is gratefully received.
Most likely Ultimaker Cura is not aware of the firmware's default limits on acceleration or jerk. Make sure they match either by increasing the printer's limits or decreasing the ones in the print profile to match.
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3314 | Skipping Y-steps, only when using Ultimaker Cura
In order to find out why my printer sometimes skips Y-steps (always in the same direction) only in Ultimaker Cura, I am digging into the G-code to understand the problem better. However, thousands of lines of G-code are hard to analyze.
I am using a Mk2 heatbed with a glass sheet, and a NEMA17 motor in a P3Steel Toolson Edition printer. The axis feels reasonably easygoing in both directions.
Reducing the acceleration to 4000 did not get rid of the problem completely - it might have relieved the issue, though. I didn't do quantifiable tests, sorry.
Are there any other obvious things I might have missed? I know the acceleration might still be rather high, but since it works with Slic3r easily I would like to take advantage of some features in Ultimaker Cura with this printing speed.
Just to clarify, you never get Y-axis skips when using Slic3r? So, it is definitely a software issue? Otherwise it might be that the stepper motor driver for the Y-axis is providing too much (or too little) current...
Yes, of course, increasing the maximum supplied current to the motor gets rid of the issue. Still, I'd rather go with lower current to limit heating up the motors. I was just wondering if there is something in the two slicing engines that makes cura provoke much harsher movements that cause the printer to lose steps...
Skipping steps means the current to the motor is insufficient for the required motor torque. Principle driver of torque in a 3D printer is acceleration. You could compare the GCode to see what is being set in the M201-M204 commands.
Assuming you set the same acceleration in both Cura and Slic3r, are you sure they are applied correctly in the gcode file? In the case that the software does not output the correct gcode to set the acceleration, then the default values already set in firmware are applied.
Is the same infill pattern being used? Some infill patterns stress the acceleration much more than others.
@markshancock yes, and jerk too!
@Valmond, for an interesting discussion on jerk in 3D printing see Jerk and Acceleration in Marlin. While the "jerk" settings in the 3D aren't exactly "jerk", they are close enough to be the same (except for the units).
In my experience (outside 3D printing), too high "jerk" typically causes mechanical distress. Sort of like on a Roller Coaster, acceleration stops your heart rattles jerk rattles your bones.
For 3D printing limiting jerk too much on the print axes can cause globing in the corners. Limiting it too much in the extruder could cause problems with retractions.
@markshancock Interesting read for real world jerk-examples, but there is a lot of bad comprehensions there IMO (the math part of jerk etc.).
Without more information this issue will never be able to be solved
You answered your own question in a comment.
Yes, of course, increasing the maximum supplied current to the motor gets rid of the issue. Still, I'd rather go with lower current to limit heating up the motors. I was just wondering if there is something in the two slicing engines that makes cura provoke much harsher movements that cause the printer to lose steps... – kamuro May 21 '17 at 21:22
Motors are tough
Motors are meant to be warm, some are made to be hot. Not all motors have the same specs, but I pulled one on Amazon (link) which shows a rated temperature rise of 60°C above a rated ambient temperature of 50°C. If these specifications stack, and they should because the insulation of the motor is rated to 130°C, you can boil water on the stepper motors.
But ... other factors
But, what are the real limits, and how much current should you run through the motors?
First, many 3D printers have plastic mounts for the stepper motors. You don't want that plastic to soften. It can if the motors get too hot. I've seen it in a commercial 2D printer, and gnashing of teeth across the Pacific ensued. Even for PLA, that temperature is uncomfortable to human flesh. I soften PLA at 75°C when fitting tight parts, but PETG and ABS are good for higher temperatures.
Low current hurts accuracy
Motors are remarkably linear converters of current to torque, but they still have non-linearities at the limits. This matters most when micro-stepping, which (AFAIK) all 3D printers use for higher resolution.
Two factors hurt accuracy at lower currents when micro-stepping.
Non-linearities in the drivers result in magnetic fields that do not linearly align with the commanded drive strength. The torque is not exactly what is needed to position the motor between the poles at the correct angle.
Static friction, sometimes called stiction, requires additional torque to overcome. In a slow micro-stepping move, this will result in the motion hanging back, then jumping ahead. Motion can be ragged rather than smooth. Extrusion can be pulsating rather than smooth.
Both are improved by applying enough current to the motor to generate enough torque. More current gives more heat, but also better behavior and performance.
Power up the motors!
They can take it. Check their mounts to be sure the mounts aren't underdesigned.
Why Cura and not Slic3r?
A deeply detailed review of the g-code would be needed. It could be as simple as the direction of infill, or the preferred direction of your model compared with the direction chosen by the two slicers.
It could be some limits coded into the "custom g-code" portion of the two slicers. I am not familiar with Cura, but Slic3r allows you to insert additional g-code under many situations. Something brought in with a printer profile may be limiting acceleration of jerk.
Could be differences in fan setting, or almost anything.
When you are dealing with a marginal situation, and it sounds like this is right on the edge, very small differences can cause dramatic changes in how the whole system responds. 3D printers are complex systems, with resonances, many vibration modes, non-linear friction. Knowing for sure may be beyond the scope of your and our engineering tools.
Don't operate on the Margins
Set the motors to the proper current levels. Set the bed to the proper height. Set the hot end to the right temperature. Try to always stay in the sweet spot. Your prints will reward you.
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3543 | Changing raster angle, raster width and build orientation in Ultimaker Cura
I want to try out different combinations of
raster angle,
raster width and
build orientation
in Ultimaker Cura.
I don't see any settings where I could change these. I am using Cura 2.3
Any suggestions how I could change that?
First: Update Ultimaker Cura. The latest is currently 3.5.1.
You can specify the angles and widths with the settings Infill Line Directions and Infill Line Width.
If you want them differently for different objects on the build plate you can specify those settings in the per-object settings menu on the left.
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3173 | Unable to load G-code in Ultimaker Cura
I have generated a few 3D prints in G-code using KISSlicer and Slic3r, but when I load them into Ultimaker Cura I'm unable to get anything. The number of layers says one but I cannot see anything and print option is not working. I have viewed these G-codes online and they are fine. I'm using a Lulzbot KITTAZ with v2 toolhead (hexagon) and I can print only using Ultimaker Cura. Please tell me what the reason for this is.
Cura prior to version 2.5 won't load G-code, it will only export to it. You could use something like Repetier host to open the G-code and preview it though.
Update:
Cura 2.5, and higher, does load and print G-code.
(The support was added April 19, 2017.)
Cura prior to version 2.5 does not take G-code as an input. I'm not sure what you mean by "print only using Cura." Don't you have a SD slot on your control board? For that matter, why can't you drive the USB port from Slic3r?
Remember: G-code is the equivalent of "compiled code," the raw commands which drive the printer, while STL or OBJ, etc., are the "source code," which you edit to get the shape you want.
I've looked at a few apps which will render a 3D image on your computer from G-code, but I don't know off-hand of one which will "decompile" into a STL or mesh file.
The printer does not have an SD card slot. Is it possible to print using slic3r? I always thought it was only for slicing.
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3075 | How can I learn to create models for 3D printing?
I've recently bought a 3D printer and waiting for it to be delivered I've given quite a lot of time to looking things up on Thingiverse. I see people create incredible models with gears, screws, lids and a lot of very cool and functional connectors (there are some project for boxes with an iris tipe lid that can be printed already assembled as a single model). I'd like to learn to do some of that as well. At the moment I have some proficiency with Blender where I can navigate the interface and sketch up some simple shaped model without any of the functional parts described above. My question therefore is:
Are there any tutorials that could help me create better models? If I need to I'm ready to learn to use a software other than Blender. I've tried searching for a similar question but found nothing.
Hi, welcome to the site! Unfortunately I think this question isn't a good fit, because it is far too broad. We prefer questions that have technical answers that fit within a few paragraphs. "How do I do X in 3D modelling software Y?" is a good question. "How do you learn modelling software Z?" is on the edge. "How do I learn modelling software full stop." is without a doubt too broad.
Hi! As pointed out by Tom, your question is very generic, and therefore have no single good answer. However, I found another question that might be considered a duplicate of your question (except for the particular model the OP wants to create). Does perhaps this question answer your own?
The answer to your question is yes, there are tutorials to help you create better models. Unfortunately, the back-story to the answer is beyond the scope of StackExchange.
Don't limit yourself to Blender, especially if you are attempting to create non-organic (engineering-type) models. Blender is great for curves and bulges and bumps (and animation, and so much else) but not so great for parametric modeling. Meshmixer is a useful program, but more organic than engineering.
Consider to search for OpenSCAD, Fusion 360, TinkerCAD, but also use terms such as "parametric 3d modeling software" to find a wider range of solutions to your quest. The above programs are free, there are too many paid programs to list even a small number.
Oh, yeah, stay away from SketchUp for any 3d print modeling. So many failure modes result from models created with that program.
TinkerCAD has a very intuitive interface and a set of starting tutorials that got me to understand the basic controls in under 30 minutes. Although it seems a little simplistic I'll definitely be using it. Thanks for the advice.
OpenSCAD however feels very rough at first impact and I don't feel like I really understand it after around 1 hour of monkeying around. It does however feel much more powerful than TinkerCAD in allowing me to design more complex shapes so I'll keep looking into it.
Fusion 360 is a little hard to obtain and I seem to understand that there is no support for linux. It's been a while since i last booted windows but I'll definitely give it a try as soon as I can.
Thank you for your answer.
Ah, linux. Another piece of information missing from the question post. That does make things more difficult for you. You have to find the software that does what you want and hope there's enough secondary activity that someone has created videos and tutorials to cover it. I suppose you can restrict yourself to web-based software, but that's not always an easy answer either. OpenSCAD is in an always-developing stage and is indeed powerful, but depends on the code-writer's skill for the power level determination.
onshape is a good tool to get some good cad out.
I think rather than looking for a tutorial at this stage, it might be instructive to watch some videos on tuning and calibration (since these touch on what is difficult). Also download Cura (or some other slicer of your choice) and look into how your existing models would be printed layer by layer. Cura has a layer slider so you can step through the design.
So, to make an attempt at answering what I think could be a good question, things to research whilst waiting for your printer are:
Print failure examples and calibration;
Parametric 3D modelling packages;
Slicer operation (this ties in with calibration).
Thanks for the advice! Since my printer (Anet A8) will come as a kit to be assembled, I've already looked at all the youtube assembly and calibration videos I could find. After reading your answer I started digging into videos about slicers and was quite surprised to find out that changing the slicer can produce such different results on the same printer.
I got mine last week, and I'm happy with the results so far.
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2745 | G-code firmware for handheld plotter (Arduino)
I'd like to build a plotter to work without a PC (power supply by battery).
Plotter will write only several numbers on a card (really short G-code).
Do you know any firmware, which can be easily modified for this reason?
Or do you know G-code library which could be easily implemented into my stepper controller in Arduino?
My plan is to use Repetier (printing from SD), but I prefer to print without SD.
Repetier is also too big, there are a lot of functions that I don't need.
Have you found & fixed the problem? If any of the answers helped you to get an answer to your question or come to your own conclusions then please do vote & accept an answer (using the tick button next to it). This helps us reduce the unanswered questions list & stops the question from being bumped once in a while. If you found another answer (than those already posted), please add that answer (& accept after 48 hours) to share your experience with the community. If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.
Your question may be useful to people interested in 3d printing (the purpose of this SE Site) so, even though you're not asking a 3d printing question per se, I think this answer will be helpful...
GRBL:
GRBL is a well known and mature g-code interpreter that will run on an Arduino Uno and is free and open source. Check it out here.
I hope this helps! :-)
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1489 | Distortion calibration on XY plane in Repetier
I built a delta 3d printer (like a mini Kossel) and now I'm trying to calibrate it. I made all the horizontal and vertical bars myself with wood and I bought angle joints (between bars) made with 3D printed ABS.
It passes all tests in Z correction tools calibration. I used a z-probe (with manual deploying) to calibrate it with G32 and G33 commands.
Now I'm trying to calibrate the distortion that takes place on the x and y axes.
Basically what happens is that in a test cube of 10x10x10mm it is translated on x and y axes at some points in the corners.
Below an explanatory image:
The dimensions are good (less than half of a mm) but got this bad visible distortion (about 1 mm or less).
There is a tool or a command in Repetier-host/firmware that corrects this issues?
i myself find same problem with my machine after searching i found out my frame of printer is bend at 2 degree angle at x axis so my all printed object are printed at that angle of 2 degree in x axis.
so we need to straight our frame but it is impossible to do for me. So if you found something please inform me as well.
Not an answer as specifically requested to use Repetier, but please note that Marlin Firmware has skewness compensation implemented. This is implemented in the configuration file, and found under header Bed Skew Compensation. You basically print a square and measure the diagonals and insert these measurements into the configuration file. This should be used as a last resort, it is better to fix the geometry of the hardware.
Skew distortion in deltas means there is something physically wrong with your printer build, such as the towers not being evenly spaced or being tilted. The first thing you should do is confirm the mechanical build -- measure the distance between towers, angles between towers, parallelism of all three towers, and perpendicularity of all three towers to the bed. If you post photos of your build, we might be able to provide more specific advice.
If you can't get the mechanical issue sorted, it's possible to calibrate out some specific build errors (like skew due to uneven tower angle), but that's nearly impossible to do "by hand." You really need to use a Z probe and auto-calibration sequence such as in Rich Cattell's Marlin fork or dc42 RepRapFirmware.
Hello, i update the question with more info. I know that there is something wrong in my build (nothing is perfect) but what i'm trying to do is to correct this imperfections in some way (preferably via software).
The way you describe your build, it might not even be possible to get all the errors calibrated out. Deltas require fairly high fabrication precision to produce dimensionally accurate output -- auto-calibration can fix moderate errors but not big ones. This is simply the reality of the deltabot architecture. Cartesian printers are much more tolerant of low-precision construction.
And to answer your main question, Repetier doesn't currently have a full-fledged delta auto-calibration technique that can fix skew distortion. It can only do bed tilt and bed grid mapping to my knowledge. You'll need to switch firmware or use David Crocker's manual calibration tool. See my answer to this question: http://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/1460/bed-leveling-method-not-work-with-repetier-firmware-0-92-9
And a manual one (via firmware/software)? Now check your link. thanks
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1444 | First Layer problems?
I am using the E3D v6 hotend with the titan extruder. Everytime I go to do a test print, just enough stringy filament oozes comes out of the hotend "right before" it lays down the first layer. I have no idea why it oozes out the little bit of filament before it prints.... The unwanted filament builds up while some of the first layer is done. As a result, what has been printed or about to be printed get stuck together as it tries to do the rest of the print....
Hi, Chris! What filament and temperature are you printing at? FYI, this is common for bowden pinters: my bowden printer also oozes as the hotend heats up due to the hystiresis (or "spring effect") of the bowden tube. I do not know if the Titan extruder could be susceptible to this since it isn't (?) bowden.
Maybe you could post your start G-code (and a bit of the first layer) so we can see what your printer is actually doing.
Hmm, just to be sure, do you mean the plastic is oozing from the tip of the nozzle (normal) or is oozing out from between the nozzle and hot block?
As the filament in the melt chamber heats up, it's going to inevitably ooze a little bit. Make sure you watch for this and clean it off as the hot-end heats up, and setup you slicing software to print a skirt, which will print a few loops around the outside of your print, separated by a few mm, to deal with ooze and get filament flowing properly.
If it oozes a lot, try reducing your print temperature a bit.
I would even say it's good to reduce temp as a first step, then when ozzing is slightly reduced you could consider skirt as Ian Williams said. Why? It's because skirt is time and material consumming, so it's better to have as less skirts as possible (if it's used only to stabilize extruding process)
The material and time used when printing a skirt are negligible. It's better to stabilise the extruding process to make sure your first layer is good, than to worry about a few seconds of time and a tenth of a gram of plastic.
He he - I fell I misdescribe it. Of course it's good to have stable extrusion but as the temperature is too high the first step is to reduce it so it won't ozzing that much. Heavy ozzing is a signal that there is something wrong so reducing temp is to fix it and when it's fixed then it can appear that many skirt loops is unnecessary. Let's say - you can first patch the tire and then remove the nail but it's better to do it in the oposite order ;)
One possible solution is to "park" the hotend on the print bed as it is heating up. The bed blocks the nozzle, and prevents ooze from coming out. If any does come up, it tends to stick to the bed, not to the nozzle. You can do this by including an appropriate G1 command in your start G-code.
As others have said, printers ooze when heating up. I keep a business card by the printer and do a wipe on the nozzle just before it starts the print.
In general, it's a bit normal to have some filament ooze during warm-up. However, if it seems to be an abnormal amount, you may want to consider reducing your target temperature.
Keep in mind that ideal extrusion temperatures are subjective to the source of your filament. Not all filament is of the same material quality and differing degrees of purity. Sometimes, the same filament will be of different quality from the same source. It might be worth dedicating the first bit of each spool to a bar test to determine what the appropriate extrusion temperature should be.
A simple test would be to use the control panel on your machine or use your software (whichever is easiest for you):
Manually set the extruder to extrude filament
Stop the extruder
Clean excess material from nozzle
Watch for ooze
Gradually reduce the temperature
Repeat until the amount of ooze is an appropriate to your liking
Also remember that there will be some left-over material from a previous spool when swapping spools.
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1207 | How to remove a PLA print stuck to a BuildTak sheet
BuildTak is great because the printed plastic really sticks to it, it pretty much solved all the problems I had with prints detaching from the buildplate during printing.
However, it does sometimes cause the opposite problem of prints sticking too much and just not detaching from the build plate.
I'm specifically not asking how to prevent this from happening - I'm asking what to do after I made a mistake and now have a print that isn't coming loose.
I would do as fred_dot_u initially suggested, by increasing the bed temp (or using a hair dryer) to heat the BuildTak. Then, use a small fan to quickly cool the platform (or at least quicker than room temperature). An ice pack on the build plate/part could also work. This drastic fluctuation between the build platform (or BuildTak) and the part should make it easier to remove the part.
This works because the temperature coefficient is going to be different between the build plate, BuildTak, and the 3D printed part. So, each part rises and falls in temperature at different rates. When objects are heated and cooled, they expand and contract (respectively). Essentially, as each object expands and contracts at different rates, the objects begin to separate.
A good example is if you've ever placed a jar into the fridge/freezer to make it easier to open. Typically the jar is glass and the lid is either plastic or metal. You'll notice that the lid is significantly easier to open, as opposed to its original state, because the lid and the jar physically react differently to temperature changes.
Also, here is a good article explaining a few different ways to remove a stuck part. (for prosperity sake, here's a quick list):
Brute force. Just try to yank on it until it pries off.
Sharp objects. Try using a small blade to get under a corner of the part and wiggle the part a bit. Careful not to break the blade and send it flying.
Utilize temperature difference. I already explained this above.
Use solvents. I didn't know this, but apparently there are solvents in the market that are targeted for 3D printing maintenance. Essentially its just an alcohol-based liquid...
Use floss. Another cool idea that's related to using a sharp object, using dental floss. Basically, any small object that you can remotely wiggle under the part and give you more leverage to yank on it.
Invest in a flexible build platform. I've personally heard some mixed reviews on these (in present day of 2016). But material science is getting better every year, so who knows what will be available soon.
With using sharp objects, a wood chisel works well.
If you have a heated bed, bring the bed up to a reasonable temperature, then do as best as you can to create rapid cooling. If you can remove the bed, heated or not, consider to place it in a freezer or refrigerator. Obviously, if the bed is heated, you'll want to handle the bed carefully and not place it on anything in the freezer that could be damaged while it cools.
Unrealistically, pour liquid nitrogen over the bed. This may crack the bed and/or the model, as well as be all the more dangerous for unprotected users.
Use dental floss. It sounds a bit crazy, but I tried it for the first time yesterday, and it works like a charm.
Wrap the floss around two handles for comfort.
Loop the floss over the print. All the way down against the build plate.
Start pulling towards yourself, slowly but firmly.
Work the floss side to side if necessary.
Once the floss makes it all the way to the front side of the print, it will be removed from the buildtak cleanly, without torqueing the bed unnecessary, or popping the print of suddenly and flinging it across the room.
Glide style floss works better than waxed.
Interesting idea, but requires a lip. Most of the time when my prints are stuck there is no easy to access lip.
Give it a shot, the last model I printed didn't have any lip to speak of and the floss still worked. Floss is intended to get between things, a little bit of back and forth should do the trick.
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3799 | Thoughts on designing and printing 3D miniature house
I've done a few 3D designs in Sketchup and Fusion 360. Prints were done in PLA on an FDM and an SLA machine that I have access to. Generally I am quite happy with the results. Now the description of my question.
I would like to create a 3D model of the house and yard that my wife grew up in, print it in miniature then assemble it into a snow globe to be given as a Christmas present. Quite a challenge I expect. The final thing does not have to be exact but a fair representation so that she can actually tell that it's her house. Some specific questions:
The house is brick, would the brick texture actually be noticeable on the printed model if it is say only 1 to 1.5" on a side with either SLA or FDM?
Same for roof shingles?
Or should I just rely on adding these details artistically in the painting process ( I will have to find an artist to do all that )
Thought on trees/ bushes? Again I hope to rely on artistic license when designing these parts.
Thoughts on software: "Which would be best to design in?" It has to be free (or not expensive) since I am not doing this professionally and don't have the money to buy expensive 3D software? Someone suggested Blender. Fusion 360, Sketchup. Others?
Thoughts on best printing method ?
A lot of questions I know and I truly appreciate any feedback on any of this.
I voted to close this question as too broad. Please ask only a single question per question. Asking for suggestions that are opinion-based (best printing method, suitable 3D software) is discouraged. Please visit the help center to learn about how this site works, and how to ask a good question.
there are really only two questions in here, "Is the accuracy and repeatability of SLA printer sufficient to print this" and "What is best for modeling something of this size"
Well said. I appreciate your distilling all that I said into these succinct questions.
Maybe you could edit your question and add a TL;DR summary, using Diesel's distillation...? Otherwise your question may be closed as being too broad...
Answering your questions in turn:
On the scale you're trying for, printing brick with FDM won't show up - you'd have much better results, and could be possible, with SLA. You won't see every brick, but you will see the texture at least.
Same as for brick, You wont see shingles, but you can differentiate that there is a texture difference. If you were to paint it after the fact the color plus the texture will make it clear.
Yup, but both won't hurt.
Doable if they're big enough. SLA would be required I think to make them look good.
For something like this I'd suggest Blender, if your modelling skills are pretty solid. If not, Fusion-360 would work really well. But that's purely opinion based.
SLA if that wasn't clear as of yet.
Sounds awesome. I think the hardest part on this is going to be the modelling, the structure I'm picturing isn't all that complex so it should be doable.
all depending on the scale and details. DLP and SLA or SLS all work nicely, but you can also use FDM to get all the details if the scale is right. 25.4 mm is not enough, but at 254 mm you might get away with FDM.
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3981 | Second layer of ASA print 'runs'
I am using a Prusa i3 MK2 to do a print in ASA, and I'm having a problem where on the second layer the plastic 'runs' into lines across the direction the head travels. It looks like the plastic is being repelled by the previous layer and running together due to surface tension, but I may be wrong about this.
I thought I had managed to solve this problem previously by reducing the temperature to 230 °C (1st layer) / 225 °C (other layers), but having changed some of the other settings this is no longer solving the problem. I have tried reducing the temperature as low as 215 °C / 210 °C, and this is still happening.
Here is a photograph of the first and second layers:
The direction of head travel for the first layer was bottom left <-> top right, and for the second layer top left <-> bottom right.
The settings were based on the standard Prusa i3 MK2 Slic3r settings bundle for ABS filament with a 0.05 mm layer height, modified as follows:
print temperature reduced to 230 °C / 225 °C
fan speed increased slightly to 15 % as on 10 % the fan doesn't start.
layer height for first 14 layers: 0.2 mm
extrusion widths set to Slic3r defaults
various print speeds reduced, mainly the travel speed.
number of top and bottom layers reduced because of the increased layer height.
The reason for increasing the layer height for the first 14 layers is that the print is a piece of mixed raised text and braille lettering intended to be inset into a larger sign. I want fine detail for the top layers with the lettering, but high speed for the lower layers that are more structural. I am inserting an M600 change filament manually into the G-Code file at the point where the lettering starts. I have so far managed to produce one successful print - see the image below. The reason I am still playing with the settings is that the good print wasn't in high enough quality, and there was some slight stringing between letters.
The good print was based on a 0.1 mm layer height for the lettering, modified to 0.15 mm for the lower layers, with a temperature of 230 °C / 225 °C.
For the stringing issue, you may want to try increasing your retraction distance. From the looks of the image it only is off by a small amount maybe 0.1mm. Are your X-Y belts tight? It looks like you might have a bit of extra play on the printer axis that was parallel to the writing direction.
I've now worked out the reason for the plastic 'running' on the second layer. It is because of the way that I prepared the G-Code file, using the option in Slic3r which lets you alter the layer height for certain layers in the print. The problem with this appears to be that there are other settings which are not altered at the same time for the thicker layers. So the first half of the file ends up printed using the settings that work for a 0.05 mm layer height, but with the layer height set to 0.2 mm.
I have prepared a new file by rendering two G-Code files, one using the Prusa settings for a 0.2 mm layer height, and the other using a 0.05 mm layer height. I then merged these manually by looking for the layer change at 2.8 mm in both files and appending the end of the 0.05 mm file to the start of the 0.2 mm file. (I found the layer changes by using Slic3r's custom G-Code option, and adding custom comments into the G-Code which included the layer number and height on every layer change). Then I inserted an M600 'Change filament' instruction at a height of 3.05 mm, where the writing begins.
When I print this file, the problem with the plastic running together on the second layer disappears.
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4066 | Estimating printing time from Cura
I know that the actual printing time is longer than the time estimated by Cura, due to acceleration and jerk factor.
However, I have printed a small pyramid for which Cura estimates 4.0 minutes, while the measured printing time is 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
What reasons could produce this difference?
For clarity, I'm using a Delta Wasp 20 40 equipped with a clay extruder for which parameters such as E-step (for E axis) are unpredictable since I have no filament.
Related - this answer to Calculating the estimated print time of an already sliced file.
Have you found and fixed the problem? If so, have the answers below led you to the solution? Please vote to accept an answer (using the green tick button next to the question) so this question is not bumped up once in a while and can be removed from the unanswered question list. You may even add your own solution and accept that after 48 hours! If you have not been able to address the problem please update your question.
If you properly define your own machine with a delta_wasp.def.json file you can fill in the acceleration and jerk settings of your printer, so that Cura will use the correct values for print time estimation.
For example, take a look at how the Ultimaker 2 is defined.
Exposing these settings to the Custom FDM Printer wizard hasn't been implemented (yet).
Can you clarify which settings are used? If acceleration and jerk control are disabled in Cura (to leave machine defaults alone), what values are used for estimating? The machine limits? Or the set values of the disabled options?
The machine limits. Disabled settings are never used. It's these settings.
As you note, the estimates are usually optimistic because they're calculated without knowing the printer's actual acceleration as well as communication overhead time losses, etc. However, many estimation algorithms put in a bit of a fudge factor to approximate a typical printer or to approximate startup time. I think in this case, you're just on the wrong side of the fudge factor.
Not true, Cura is just using the wrong acceleration and jerk settings. Cura doesn't use a fudge factor.
Estimating time for any CNC based machines are measured in this formula:
The length of pulses that machine travels x The feedrate of the pulse itself
It gives you the time for whole movements. If you're familiar with NC codes, information of any movement is listed in a single line, having its own feedrate, that's what we call pulses.
As machines are not ideal, some delay occurs between pulses, approximately 1 or 2 ms according to machine type. That's what is not measured in the formula.
If you were able to measure that delay time and multiply it in number of pulses, by adding it in the estimated time found by machine, you could find a much more definite estimated time, for your process.
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3967 | What motherboard ID is appropriate for MKS BASE V1.5 in Marlin Firmware?
I'm struggling with my new printer, and I just want to make sure that I have the basic configured correctly.
What motherboard ID in configuration.h is appropriate for MKS BASE V1.5 in Marlin Firmware?
Marlin appears to support older versions of the board (and possibly this one) according to this line
#define BOARD_MKS_13 47 // MKS v1.3 or 1.4 (maybe higher)
in boards.h which can be found here.
The company also has a guide and looks to provide pre-configured (but not fully configured?) downloads of Marlin. They have different links for different displays but then ask you to change lines manually but don't mention changing the board so I have no idea what they are doing or what is different between the downloads.
It appears either way you go (Marlin from Github or from Osoyoo) you will need to change some lines to get each axis to behave correctly.
A more recent version of Marlin Firmware (version 1.1.9 is the last release of this branch, new developments are done in the 2.x branch) nowadays has a separate board constant for the MKS BASE v1.5 board (BOARD_MKS_BASE_15) as can be found in boards.h.
The following line quotes the constant for this board from the file:
#define BOARD_MKS_BASE_15 405 // MKS v1.5 with Allegro A4982 stepper drivers
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4018 | Filament lifts from the hot bed while printing
I have a Tevo Tarantula 3D printer.
I'm trying to print a calibration cube.
The slicer is Cura and is set for a 1.75 mm filament extruded by a nozzle of 0.4 mm, with a heat bed temperature of 60°C and extruder 200°C.
As seen in the image I stopped the printer after a minute, when I noticed that the filament wasn't sticking to the hotbed.
I've also made other tests, but the result is the same - the upper right part of the print lifts and touches the moving nozzle.
How could I resolve this? Any advice?
Is the print bed clean? Is the print bed actually reaching the correct temperature? Have you manually calibrated the printer (at both the center and the edges), such that you can just about get a sheet of paper between the print bed and the hotend nozzle, at z = 0? This last check ensures that the first printed layer of extruded filament is actually touching and "presses on" to the print bed. Maybe the filament, for the first few layers, should be heated at a high temperature, than the rest of the print, to ensure adhesion.
The bed should reach the correct temperature, that is measured by a thermo resistor and displayed on the printer LCD as 60°C.
Yes, I've manually calibrated the printer, maybe I should check again doing this trial with a paper sheet.
A thing that I didn't do was to clean the bed, maybe this should do the trick.
What kind of filament are you printing? What is your first layer hight? What is your layer pattern? Did you clean your print bed with something to remove fingerprints, dust and oil?
Check the following:
Is the print bed clean? On glass, you can use a few squirts of window cleaner.
Is the print bed actually reaching the correct temperature?
Have you manually calibrated the printer (at both the center and the edges), such that you can just about get a sheet of paper between the print bed and the hotend nozzle, at z = 0? This last check ensures that the first printed layer of extruded filament is actually touching and "presses on" to the print bed. See the video #18:Calibration for a great explanation on the use of the paper. Whilst this video is for a Delta printer, it clearly demonstrates the height that the zeroed print head should be at, and how to check using a sheet paper.
Maybe the filament, for the first few layers, should be heated at a high temperature, than the rest of the print, to ensure adhesion.
If all of the above are checked and OK, then (as electrophile points out in their answer) try making the print head more grippy. This can be achieved by simply adding a thin coating to the glass with one of the following:
Wiping the glass with a glue stick or wood glue
Using hairspray
Both use PVA as an adhesive/stiffener.
Or by adding an additional print surface, such as:
Using blue painters tape
Using PEI tape
Using Kapton tape
Using BuildTak
If adding tape, then the printer may require a small re-calibration, due to the thickness of the tape adding a few microns to the print bed height. This can be done in the firmware.
I don't have this specific printer but this used to happen to me as well on my D-Bot. The reason being bed not being leveled properly. Ensure that your bed is leveled such that the distance between the nozzle and bed is about 0.2mm after homing. Also coat your bed with something sticky like glue or hairspray. You won't need this if you are using a PEI sheet.
I've cleaned the heated bed as suggested using ethanol,
then I've tested the Z distance of the nozzle from the bed with a paper sheet and it was ok. Lastly, I tried to raise the temperature of the extruder for the first layer to 215°C. I think that this did the trick.
Had the same issue mainly with glass bed thought for me it didn't happen on small models but fixed it by using 3DLAC it is just a glue for you 3D printer that makes the prints stick more.
material sticking problem can be due to following reason:
bed level
bed temperature
z motion calibration (ex if not calibrated layer height is 0.2 and z move 0.4 then material cant stick on bed)
bed surface (for sticking first layer on bed what you use)
remove all above reason step by step
first confirm bed level
bed temperature according to material (pla - 70 , abs - 100 )
all above option are good but warpping chance are higher
for last bed surface you have following option to use
use paper tape
use Kapton tape
glue stick
use paste (accetone + abs) abs melt into accetone and it become like cream and you can apply on bed after bed heating
if you are using last option then just confirm bed level again before start print
With PLA I normally run the bed at 70 and the extruder at 190. Make sure the bed gets to temperature before you start and use gluestick on the bed.
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4180 | What tweaks do slicers use to get rafts to stick?
I've always had trouble getting prints to stick directly on my bed, but had great reliability when use rafts. This didn't present a problem when I was using PLA, but I recently got a roll of PETG and it is very hard to remove rafts, so I am once again trying to figure out whats wrong.
I am printing the same file (currently a simple square for testing) with the same settings, except I am turning rafts on/off. When rafts are on, my print sticks perfectly. When rafts are off, my print doesn't stick at all - not even the skirt (which sticks fine on the raft print). With rafts on, I can watch my printer lay down a nice line for the skirt / first layer. With rafts off, I watched plastic ooze out of the nozzle and ride along with the print head, not sticking to the plate at all.
I have a stock Monoprice Maker Select v2 with the PEI surface it shipped with. I haven't tried any bed additions/changes to get better adhesion, since I know rafts stick fine with what I have. I figure there must be some settings I can change to make my first layer stick too. I am using Simplify3D & have tried a few basic tweaks, but I am largely stabbing in the dark.
What are the specific characteristics of a first layer raft, in comparison to a first layer of my print, that might make it stick better?
San you include a photo/image of the part so w get an idea of what you are trying to print. A photo of the part where it connects to the bed would be especially helpful.
@markshancock I was trying to print a 3d benchy before, and have switched to a 20x20mm square (5mm tall) on the theory that it would be a particularly easy shape. I can try to take a photo later.
The 3dBency should adhere fine without a raft. Even with that, I often use a skirt to help. Also, it is common to use a material to help adhere to the table. Glue Stick is probably the most common for that. Another issue can be bed temperature. Some materials will curl and peel away from the bed if they cool to quickly.
Sounds like you're not priming the nozzle properly at the start of the print. I found some initial g-code which extrudes 10mm at the corner of the bed - will try and find it again for you...
Have you ever cleaned your bed with something to remove fingerprints, fat and dust?
You could experiment with the 'cleaning' part of the startup gcode shown here
G1 X100 Y0 F4000 ; move half way along the front edge
G1 Z1 ; move nozzle close to bed
M109 S200 ; heat nozzle to 200 degC and wait until reached
G4 P10000 ; wait 10 seconds for nozzle length to stabilize
G1 E10 ; extrude 10 mm of filament
G1 z15 F12000 E5 ; move 15 mm up, fast, while extruding 5mm
G92 E0 ; reset extruder
I'm not completely persuaded that it helps a lot, but the idea is to fill the extruder (with some pressure from the bed at a 1mm gap) right before starting the skirt. Typically, I still find the first line of skirt may be quite blobby, but a 2nd line of skirt seems much better. Obviously you need the bed alignment right too. A raft seems to have enough 'extra' extrusion to mask these issues a little bit.
Later reflection suggests that these introductory G-code snippets (I've now started using the PRUSA one of a line along the edge of the bed) risk problems with flexible filament, so it might be best to err on the side of conservative for the extrude volume rather than assume that more is better here.
You can find other similar solutions in this question: Writing G-code : swiping at start of print
Interesting. I wonder if adding an extra couple lines of skirt will do the trick.
@MrGlass that gave me the best bang-for-buck.
The default gcode coming out of Cura 2.5 (MacOS) performs this kind of pre-extrusion.
@CarlWitthoft - Disagree. It's machine dependant, and they seem to typically extrude 3-5mm in free space. https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/search?p=2&q=machine_start_gcode&type=&utf8=%E2%9C%93
had to check it wasn't just old settings overriding a new default...
When I started work on mine, the bed leveling and radius (Delta-only issue) were horrid, and my erstwhile assistant was fond of using a LOT of glue stick, which sort-of made things work, though in many cases with no first layer extrusion.
As I sorted things out, I found an apparent bug (Repetier Host (Mac) and Marlin 1.1.0-RC8 firmware - not sure which side the apparent bug is on, really, but I'd guess Repetier) where setting the first layer by percent lead to no extrusion, and setting an actual width/height it extruded. I also got the bed level and radius sorted so the first layer settings actually applied to most of the print area, rather than being wrong for most of it.
Finally, we sorted out some temperature issues (wrong thermistor type setting) and then found a fairly large discrepancy between the heater block and the nozzle (screwed into it) temperature. I now lay down the first layer (PLA) at a purported 240°C, based on a number of trials at different temperatures (which might change with a different batch of filament, I guess) and the rest at a purported 215°C. I set the first layer width to double the height so it's really laying down some plastic. An excessively LOW first layer height also causes problems (as there's very little plastic coming out if the layer is very low, even if you set the width wide.)
My bed is not heated and is plain glass, but I now get reasonable sticking with a very thin layer of gluestick (I put a dab on and rub it around with a little bit of water - it's barely visible.) With a coated heated bed that sticks to rafts, I think you'll just need to work on your first layer settings (including a level bed) and should not need to worry about glue at all.
Good point on bugs - lots of this code is probably correct only in places where it is easily measured, with off corner-case side effects.
While using rafts with PLA is a good idea due to warping, PETG is a material that requires very little build plate adhesion.
When I printed with PLA, I would normally use a two layer raft with a 0.3 mm air gap. With PETG, however, I only need a skirt. I recommend calibrating your extruder height so that when you slide a piece of paper underneath, you feel a gentle tug. While 0.2 mm is enough for printing PLA with rafts, 0.1-0.15 mm has worked well for me in terms of distance from the extruder nozzle to the heat bed.
Also, would you mind sharing your extruder and heat bed temperatures? Ive found that although PETG will melt at the same temperature as PLA, it tends to drag behind the extruder nozzle if the temperature is below ~240°C.
One final note: Even though most PETG distributors specify that a heated build plate is not required, a heated bed helps my prints stick better. I run a 60°C heat bed which seems to make my prints smoother in the end.
Thanks. I know I should be able to print PETG without rafts, which is why I asked this question :) Hopefully we can solve my problem.
I have calibrated my nozzle height as you suggested. As for temperature. I have been running at 245c for the nozzle and 60c for my bed. I did a quick test at 250c but had the same issues.
Still, though, my rafts stick, so I feel like I have the height/temps right (or good enough). I should be able to replicate whatever conditions make the rafts stick using first layer settings (I believe).
Ok, what kind of material do you have on your heat bed? My prints stick with some blue painters tape and nothing else, no glue, no nothing. If you would like, I can share my Cura profile with you so that you can try my settings on your printer. Something else that comes to mind is the environment around your PETG- is it humid or dry? PETG filament is especially susceptible to humidity which may affect the ability of your prints to stick.
My bed is PEI (comes stock on the monoprice printer), sorta a knockoff buildtak. Only time I've had to use painters tape was when my heated bed broke.
Its in a basement that might be humid, but if that was the main factor rafts wouldn't stick either.
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4122 | Printer goes beyond the bed when auto leveling
I am trying to add auto bed leveling to my Prusa i3. When I run G28 my printer hits the X and Y end stops properly, then it assumes X=25, Y=99 position on the bed and performs Z homing, after which it stays there. The problem is when I run G29 then it starts following the grid points from this position and tries to go out of bed.
My settings for the grid are:
#define LEFT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 10
#define RIGHT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 140
#define BACK_PROBE_BED_POSITION 140
#define FRONT_PROBE_BED_POSITION 20
And travel limits are set to this:
#define X_MAX_POS 150
#define X_MIN_POS 0
#define Y_MAX_POS 150
#define Y_MIN_POS 0
#define Z_MAX_POS 220
#define Z_MIN_POS 0
I guess this might be relevant too:
#ifdef Z_SAFE_HOMING
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_X_POINT (X_MAX_LENGTH/2)
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_Y_POINT (Y_MAX_LENGTH/2)
#endif
What should be added to your question is the offset position of the sensor to determine the correct sensor bounds (see e.g. How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?). Note that the presented code is somewhat dated w.r.t. current Marlin configuration, but, if correctly inserted, the printer homes in the middle of the bed dimensions.
I don't know how your firmware load handles G29 ,but here's a guess, based on information at the reprap wiki . Try using FBLR to force the travel limits.
Parameters
P Set the size of the grid that will be probed (P x P
points). Not supported by non-linear delta printer bed leveling.
Example: G29 P4 S Set the XY travel speed between probe points (in
units/min)
D Dry-Run mode. Just evaluate the bed Topology - Don't
apply or clean the rotation Matrix. Useful to check the topology after
a first run of G29.
V Set the verbose level (0-4). Example: G29 V3
T
Generate a Bed Topology Report. Example: G29 P5 T for a detailed
report. This is useful for manual bed leveling and finding flaws in
the bed (to assist with part placement). Not supported by non-linear
delta printer bed leveling.
F Set the Front limit of the probing grid
B Set the Back limit of the probing grid.
L Set the Left limit of the
probing grid
R Set the Right limit of the probing grid
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14603 | Extruder motor not running when using G-code from PrusaSlicer with non Prusa printer
I just assembled an FLSUN QQ-S pro printer and successfully printed two models from the supplied SD card. Everything works fine. However, I tried slicing my own model using PrusaSlicer and although the print head moves, the extruder motor does nothing. What could be the issue? Do I need to modify the G-code commands?
Is this a single-head (max) printer? Does your gcode have a T# argument, to direct extrusion commands to a particular head?
It is a single head printer.
Do you see extruder movement G-codes in the file? e.g. lines with G1 X... Y... E...
I solved the problem. The initialization code generated by the slicer wouldn't work with my machine. I replaced it with the init code from one of the test files.
Despite being solved, I want to note, that this was probaly due to using wrong extruder positioning. Prusa printers use relative positioning, whereas othe printers may use absolute positioning. I do not see any pros or cons for one or the other. Both the printer and the slicer can be configured to use either of them. In your case, it was probably that the printer was expecting absolute coordinates and the slicer was feeding relative coordinates resulting in no or very little movement. The configuration ussually happens at the start of the gcode by giving commands: M82 (abs) and M83 (rel).
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14604 | Got "Heating failed" error while heat catridge is working
I bought an Anet A8 Plus in January. Everything worked pretty well until one week ago. When I tried to print something, I got a "Heating Failed" error, as the hotend didn't get hot. I've made some search on the web, and I tried to use the bed connector on my motherboard, and the cartridge started to head. So I connected the hotend heater again to the hotend connectors.
I conclude the hotend connector may be broken, but this morning, it succeeded to heat my hotend (and then didn't work again). Can someone help me to understand what's wrong with it?
I also noticed that a LED power off when the cartridge's wires are connected (the D8 LED)
"heating failed" is Thermal Runaway Protection afaik. Did you test your thermosensor on the hotend?
This occurs when the hotend does not heat up as expected. It can be caused by many things: broken heater or thermistor wires, loose connectors, faulty heater or thermistor, a crack in the main board (broken copper path on the board). You have a lot of troubleshooting ahead of you. I suggest not printing with it until you have everything sorted out. It is a fire hazard especially with those Anet printers. They have a reputation of being quite flammable due to poor connections of the electronics.
Does your heater use this type connector? https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10695/proper-hotend-heater-for-reprap-x400-pro-v3
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14457 | Ender 5 (Plus) - Gantry not square to frame, how to fix?
How would one go about squaring the gantry relative to the frame?
Referring to the image below, distance A and distance B are not equal.
Also would this account for the reason why when I attempt to print a circle it is not perfectly circular, and when I try to print a square, it is tilted?
I had exactly the same issue and I was surprised with the lack of the information about this topic on the Internet. So, here is how I managed to make the gantry absolutely parallel.
Make sure your frame is square:
If it's not square, try to loosen all the screws (don't forget about those holding the motherboard) and tighten everything again. Use a level and a carpenter's square.
Loosen the shaft couplings on the Y axis. Those:
Loosen these four screws:
Loosen these eccentric nuts:
Now your gantry should be completely relieved and allow you to make the adjustments
Move the gantry to the front side of the printer so that the wheels touch these corners:
If your frame is square, it would mean that X and Y axes would be perpendicular to each other.
Don't push the gantry to hard to prevent wheels damage!
Now tighten the screws from the second step, trying to still hold the gantry touching the corners at both sides:
Then, tighten the shaft coupling from the first step, while still ensuring everything is perpendicular and parallel.
Finally, adjust the eccentric nuts from the fourth step. Make sure they all touch the profile and that they all have the same rolling friction.
Check everything one more time and you're done. Now your gantry is completely squared. Enjoy your skew-less prints!
Ender-5 Pro 3D model: https://grabcad.com/library/creality-ender-5-pro-1
Thanks for this! Really clearly presented with the red/green and graphics.
This fixed my first layer being skewed, but now my z-axis is scewed when it was not before this. Specifically the z-axis skews on the left side of the print, but is correct on the right, so it is like my print twists as it grows on the z-axis, but only on the left side. I am ready to take a hammer to the thing. I have had the ender 5 for a month, and have only stopped tinkering to sleep and I still cannot get useful prints.
Strange. There is no such thing as "Z-skew". Simply use the knobs under your bed to make you bed parallel to the gantry.
How would one go about squaring the gantry relative to the frame?
You first need to make sure that the cube/box frame is square. Once this is done, you need to check whether the gantry is still not perpendicular/parallel to the top frame. If not, you need to loosen the couplers at the front that control the Y movement of the printer. See if you can reposition the gantry to be square to the frame. If that doesn't work, you need to fiddle with the bolts that hold the wheels of the X-Y carriages so that the gantry will become aligned with the top of the frame.
Also would this account for the reason why when I attempt to print a circle it is not perfectly circular, and when I try to print a square, it is tilted?
Yes, a skew gantry causes skew prints, i.e. squares become parallelograms, and circles become oval. There is another solution to fix this in firmware, but, the preferred method is to mechanically fix the issue.
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14462 | PLA does not stick to center of the bed anymore
I have used my printer (Flying Bear Ghost 4) for the last year and a few days ago I noticed that the center of the heat bed does not stick like it used to.
I think it can be caused by the fact that I always print at the center of the bed (glass) and the center is now too much used.
Is there a way to fix it or will I need another bed?
A photo might be very useful too! Are you sure the center is not greasy?
Actually I washed my heat-bed with some dishes soap and dried it very well, releveled it and now all is fine. I guess it was greasy even if i cleaned it as usual.
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14432 | Wanhao Duplicator i3 Mk2 Firmware Update
I have a Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus Mk2. Its auto-leveling never worked properly since I bought it a year or two ago. I decided to upgrade the firmware to try and solve this problem. Unfortunately, I did not know I had a Mk2 when I started this process (I'm a photographer, it is only a Mk2 when it says so on the Camera housing which is seemingly not the case here, you needed to be fortunate to know it is a Mk2 if it has a Z probe). As such, I uploaded the wrong motherboard and LCD firmware (for i3 Plus not i3 Plus Mk2). When I switched on and tried to level, it started driving the nozzle into the bed which in retrospect is to be expected as the firmware is looking for a switch, not a probe. Once I realised what the problem was, I uploaded the Mk2 firmware but it seems uploading the non-Mk2 firmware has confused something somewhere so I can't get it to even be a printer anymore. The LCD is all mixed up with menus over one another and the printer does not react to anything. I tried to format the LCD with the image and procedure on Wanhao's site but this merely seems to exacerbate the problem.
Can anyone please guide me on how to start fresh and get the printer and LCD firmware restored so at least I have something resembling a printer again. The Wanhao customer support has been all but helpful and I've abandoned that channel as they simply email me the same firmware I already downloaded and used to get into this mess.
A quick Google search shows that there are multiple issues with updating to new firmware for printer and LCD (these are separate firmwares!). Useful links are this one and this one which have support for the MkII. Try if that works and update the question accordingly. Did you upload a hex file, or used PlatformIO or ArduinoIDE?
I uploaded a hex file. I will try and pursue the ArduinoIDE path as I have experience with that for Arduino boards.
Try to disconnect the display if you go down the Arduino route and see if you get it running while connected to serial (USB) and Pronterface for instance. When pursuing the Arduino route, be sure to send M502 and M500 after the flash to the printer to get the values from the firmware and overwrite the current stuff in the EEPROM.
My problem was resolved with the help of comments above.
A quick Google search shows that there are multiple issues with updating to new firmware for printer and LCD (these are separate firmwares!). Useful links are this one and this one which have support for the MkII....
Try to disconnect the display if you go down the Arduino route and see if you get it running while connected to serial (USB) and Pronterface for instance. When pursuing the Arduino route, be sure to send M502 and M500 after the flash to the printer to get the values from the firmware and overwrite the current stuff in the EEPROM.
I downloaded the Mk2 firmware from here and then used the normal Wanhao procedure to update both the motherboard and LCD and this left me with a working printer afterwards. Why the firmware downloaded from Wanhao's own site does not work is a mystery.
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14440 | Home-brew alcohol to clean resin prints
I took the plunge and bought a resin printer. I was wondering if I could use full strength home-brew vodka at 90 % instead of using isopropyl alcohol before anything is added to clean prints with?
I cannot seem to find anywhere or anyone that has tried this.
You can cheaply and easily turn 70% IPA into 99.99% IPA by adding table salt to the bottle and shaking it up, then inverting the bottle, unscrewing the cap slightly, and squeezing out the brine layer on the bottom until pure IPA comes out. Or baste/siphon the top layer. Only works with IPA. Science FTW.
@dandavis nice thing! You happen to have a resin printer and can do an experiment? Use that on contaminated IPA and see if it cleans up the IPA!
@Trish i don't have a resin printer...
@dandavis Too bad, too bad, but if I ever get one, I'll try it...
Isopropyl-Alcohol - Propan-2-ol - and Ethyl alcohol - Ethan-1-ol - are different chemically. As a secondary alcohol, Propan-2-ol has quite different solubility of different materials than ethyl-alcohol.
Now, let's look at home made alcoholic destillate. That stuff is, if done in one refraction and without tossing the first low temperature part, some percentages Metanol, Ethyl alcohol and maybe some water. That has not the same solvent properties as Propan-2-ol.
While it might work, nobody will sign a guarantee that it doesn't negatively impact your print.
Answer taken from Apesa's highly upvoted, and now deleted, comments (1 and 2). If Apesa posts their own answer, then this wiki answer can be deleted.
Note: Please don't post answers in comments - that is not how SE works.
Isopropyl Alcohol is the more common choice for cleaning surfaces because it evaporates more rapidly than ethanol and also because it does not leave any traces of oils upon evaporation.
To add one more caveat. Homemade alcohol no matter the proof / % will have many fusile alcohols that will deposit themselves on your semi cured resin. 90% alcohol dosen't equate to clean solvent.
Some manufacturers do recommend ethanol and not isopropanol. The problem would be getting relatively pure ethanol through distillation. When distilling you will get different fractions which may be full of methanol or water. You will probably need to do multiple runs. You could just buy some 95% ethanol and distill it once it gets dirty or leave it in the sun to cure the resin and filter it out.
There are also some potential legal issues with distilling alcohol -- in the USA, it's Federally permitted only for use as motor fuel (gasoline additive or replacement). Beyond that, there are safety issues -- ethanol is flammable, and ignites more easily than isopropanol; it burns with a nearly invisible flame.
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14443 | Wiring heatbed into Main using ATX
I had my 3D printer powered by dual 24 V PSUs wired in parallel and my heatbed was wired into the main using a SSR to help power it. I replaced the two PSUs with a single Corsair 750 W ATX. My printer runs smoother and there's much less wiring clutter to deal with but now no matter what the heatbed will not heat up.
The main connection of the ATX I purchased is an 8 pin connection so I tried using all 4 wires to power my printer and it didn't make a difference, I tried using the SSR again using 2 connections from the ATX leaving the other 2 to run the motherboard but that didn't work either. I even tried MOSFET and that also failed. I don't see why the Heatbed no longer heats up yet the thermistor is more accurate and working properly since my switch to the ATX, do I need to go up to a 1000 W ATX instead? I can't imagine what more I could do.
i don't see how the ATX would connect to a main-powered heater, at all. You should be connecting the bed heater signal wire or the post-mosfet wire to the SSR; it only needs 5v and 0.02A to fully turn on. It's unclear how you have everything wired, a schematic or diagram would sure help. Keep in mind that an SSR that switches AC will not work with DC.
The bed isn't connected to the GND in your sketch. The bed needs to be in the loop with the ATX PSU, it is not now.
There is no ground on my board just positive and negative terminals. How/ where would I ground the connection
So I tried using one of the grounds on the ATX and grounding the power supply to the SSR but that didn't work either. Nothing makes this heatbed heat up but it worked before with the SSR when it was connected to 24V 360 W standard PSU. I don't see the difference it should work if I'm feeding more wattage through now.
First of all, make sure SSR is controlled. Unplug all the bed wires and test it first. Test the wiring. 1000% I give you, you made a mistake while wiring.
@LDF The negative is the GND. If you wired this according to the sketch it is wired incorrectly.
You indicated that you were using 24 volts, implying you have a 24 volt bed. ATX power supplies do not have 24 volt outputs. The highest is 12 volts which would heat up the bed, but not fast or probably to full temperature.
So if I to use a 12 V to 24 V step up converter for the bed could work as a solution that would allow me to keep the ATX in place
@LDF, If you need to step it up, ensure that the mosfet is on the output side of the boost convertor. Flicking one of those on and off is going to produce some "explosive" results.
@user77232: actually the mosfet is likely just in front of ground, not the output; n-chan fets run cooler and work better.
voltage = current x resistance
An ATX PSU is designed to only allow approximately 16 amps per pair of YELLOW and BLACK wires. The yellow is 12 V and the black is GND. If your bed were rated at 24 V then its resistance would be higher than that of the 12 V bed. The best solution for you would be to get a 12 V heated bed, as opposed to using a boost converter. Reason being is that you would need to get a boost converter that can tolerate over 200 W of power! It's just cheaper to replace the bed.
Finally, you need to consider the heat bed, the extruders and the steper motor's power needs before you purchase a PSU. If you had a multimeter with a current measurement, then you could accurately determine how much power each one uses and then purchase to size.
Based on your bed size (600 mm) I think that 500 W should be enough.
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14449 | Thermal runaway
I have a bit of a headache with my Anycubic i3 Mega which originally had a Trigorila 32-bit board.
I decided to swap it because of loud A4988 drivers and got myself an MKS Robin Nano 1.2.
This printer is heavily modded. All the hot-end is swapped to MT2.
Now, MT2 mod was done with Trigorilla, so no problems back then. Also, I know that Anycubic locks their max fan speed at ~80 %, so with that in mind done tests with 100/80/50/30 % cooling fan and the result is the same; temperature drops, and I get "Thermal Runaway".
Now, the strangest part is:
If I set manually 200 °C, wait for it to climb, and then blast 255 °C on the cooling fan, it drops to 199 °C and then back to 200 °C.
I have added a picture below, it has been like this already for about 15-20 min, no probs.
PID autotune was performed numerous times, with values saved, PID repeated, new values stored, etc.
Anycubic i3 Mega
MKS Robin Nano 1.2
E3D V6 original.
Marlin 2.0.5.3
And snippets from Marlin cfg:
#define TEMP_SENSOR_0 5
// Comment the following line to disable PID and enable bang-bang.
#define PIDTEMP
#define BANG_MAX 255 // Limits current to nozzle while in bang-bang mode; 255=full current
#define PID_MAX BANG_MAX // Limits current to nozzle while PID is active (see PID_FUNCTIONAL_RANGE below); 255=full current
#define PID_K1 0.95 // Smoothing factor within any PID loop
// Ai3 mega
#define DEFAULT_Kp 27.69
#define DEFAULT_Ki 2.02
#define DEFAULT_Kd 94.89
Additional information (1):
I have XYZ cube and fan on from layer 3 G-code. It always seems to fail on layer 3, so turned manually fan from layer one, was printing fine till layer 3 and then thermal runaway.
Done a test, sent G-code to see if M106 is an issue.
M104 S210 T0
M109 S210 T0
M106 S204
But no, printer kept temperature steady... Makes me crazy, please help
Additional information (2):
I updated all the images:
Thank you for updating the pictures (twice) and giving us the info to work with!
At the moment I see two things:
First, the printhead doesn't reach the 210 °C set into it in the last timeframe. After some time of printing, this forces TRP (Thermal runaway protection) as the board thinks: "HEY! my thermistor might be loose, I try to HEAT here!"
Second, your graph shows that in the first area, your printhead actually is able to reach the temperature. But something does change which prevents it from holding the temperature.
Then, there's the Anecdotal note:
running same print without cooling fan and its going steady
Those three together tell us exactly what is going on: The airstream from the part cooling fan must somehow brush over the hotend, cooling the heater block and throwing off the measurements.
Fixing in
There are basically 2 things how you can deal with that:
isolate the printhead from the airstream. There are a lot of solutions for that:
Silicone sock to keep away the airstream
Kepton Tape/Tinfoil to try to imitate a silicone sock
different position or geometry of the fan duct to not hit the heater block
turn off/tune down the fan
Thanks Trish for reply. The graph is full cycle of 7min+. The snippet of excel is just when it drifts down. 208.97C is after it started drifting
It doesnt make sense anyway. If I just set to heat nozzle to 200 and manually turn fan on 100% temp doesnt drop. Only happens when printing
https://1drv.ms/x/s!Ap2i4YgMBI90gtV4yzQa7sHOlGixWw?e=B5K7PT this is a link to one drive full excel sheet. Checked thermistor again and heaters, all tight as should be
when printin, the filament takes away thermal energy by melting and getting extruded. You overload what your heater cartridge can do against the airflow.
ahh, really good point! will load some cheaper PLA then? and let it extrude and hit the fan 100%
@Martynas uh... do you have a silicone sock for your heater block? Otherwise, try some Kepton tape or tinfoil wrapped around the sides to try to help to keep the airstream away from the heater block.
of course, I do have few socks. bought couple e3dv6... but moved to a new house and they are somewhere in a boxes... need to dig in the boxes
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14478 | Problems with the right Z axis
My 3D printer was working perfectly, but one day I put it inside an acrylic box and put it to work, that was not a good idea, because the Z axis grabbed the box, after that, the Z axis started to rotate strange, I even tried to change the wires between the motors and the drivers, but it didn't work.
I have a suspicion that the drive must have a safety criterion, so when something strange happens it stops sending the necessary current for the stepper to run, if it is possible. Does someone have any tips on how to make it work correctly again? Remembering that the motor that is working in a strange way is the motor on the right side of the Z axis, the motor on the left side looks normal. Below I will leave a video showing how the printer is working, like, if it moves just a little bit with the Z axis, it looks like it works normally, but if I move it a little more, then it starts to get weird.
On this printer, I used a AtMega Arduino, with RAMPS 1.4 shield, with A4988 drivers, "NEMA 17" steppers and and I'm using the Repetier-host program to control the printer.
Video:
Is it possible that your right Z-Axis motor is now out of sync with the one on the left? Not sure what you mean "because the z axis grabbed the box" I assume somehow it got hung up or hit the box. When I added my second Z-Axis to my CR-10 it behaved similar to yours as it was not in sync with the opposite side stepper. Once I had successfully aligned/ sync'd both steppers it was fine.
I've had this happen before on various Prusa i3 style printers, especially with my homemade tight self printed POM linear bearings for the Z linear shaft. The problem is that the right side Z axis has some sort of friction caused by a skew frame, probably caused by the incident you had earlier.
You need to check whether the X axis carriage goes up and down smoothly. Unscrew the lead screw couplers or the trapezoid nuts and check the movement. If it catches friction, try solve where it comes from. The friction is causing the stepper to skip steps and causes the unsynchronized up/down movement. Please check if the frame or the rods have not bent, the distance between the linear guide rails needs to be the same over the complete height.
Do you mean that I must unscrew the z axis and try to move the x axis manually to check the friction?
@RodrigoFranco Yes, it looks like the frame or rods are bent or some sort of binding occurs.
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14481 | How to identify what type of filament an unlabeled spool is
So I have some old filament that I originally got for a 3D pen. The problem is it's unlabeled and I haven't been able to find anything that might help me distinguish whether it's PLA or ABS. The bag it all came in says that wherever this filament came from only makes PLA and ABS so it's got to be on of those two.
I have a roll of PLA in my 3D printer right now, but I can't tell if it's the same as the filament I have for the 3D pen. It's been a while since I've used the 3D pen, but I do remember whenever you used it, it would produce a very very bad smell. I've also noticed that the filament seems to be more flexible that the PLA in my machine. This makes me think it could be ABS, because the PLA smells far better than what I remember the 3D pen smelling like, and it's more flexible.
I also don't really want to do any heat tests or anything on the filament, so if the smell and flexibility is enough to determine which filament it is, could anyone tell me?
Does it dissolve in acetone? If so, it is ABS.
some good advice in this previous post
https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/3728/identifying-the-plastic-type-of-an-unknown-spool-of-filament-or-recyclable-waste
Mick's suggestion is a good one. PLA may shed some color in acetone, but ABS will dissolve completely in a suitable amount of time. If you have dark filament, you can test by flexing the filament until it breaks. ABS will sometimes/often/usually fatigue with a white break line, while PLA does not exhibit this tendency as much.
PLA has a somewhat sweet smell, which may be the corn sugars burning off, while ABS has a much more chemical-like odor.
Not doing heat testing does limit your options.
PLA dissolves in chloroform. It's hard to get, but it's part of 3D gloop for PLA: https://www.3dgloop.com/
Just burn it and check flame color.
I know you mentioned that you would like to avoid heat test, but this method is much faster and easier then other techniques.
3D printing filament burn test
Do 3D Prints Catch Fire? ABS / PLA / PETG Burn Test - Episode 1
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14483 | Identifying and Replacing Capacitor
So during one of my initial experiments I accidentally blew up one of my capacitors. Everything else works on the board except the motor control with the blown capacitor so I'm going to replace it. Now I know it's an SMD and its capacitance is 47 µF, I'm going to assume that the "H" marks it as a 50 VDC on its voltage rating and it has a diameter of 6.3 mm as measured with my caliper. I can't find anything that read the exact same as what is on the capacitor shown, does that matter or does only the capacitance and voltage rating matter? [assuming my idea of the voltage rating being 50 VDC is correct]
Wouldn't this question attract more attention when posted on EE.SE?
What did you do to blow that cap? It seems likely that anything you could do to blow a cap would damage other components also.
I put 33 volts through my board like a dummy and it blew out the capacitor for the x controller and fried the motor control but that's an easy replacement as I have extra motor controllers. Only the x motor controller was affected by this overload. I checked all the other components with my voltmeter and everything else reads normal.
That capacitor is in parallel with all of the other motor capacitors. I think it is unlikely to be the culprit for that particular motor driver not working. Also, how do you blow up a 50V rated capacitor with 33V?
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14493 | Ender 3 won't power up
I've had an Ender 3 for about a year and a half now and have been using it without issues.
Last week it turned off a few minutes into a print and wouldn't turn back on on power from the PSU. Connecting a laptop to the usb port does turn on the screen, which makes me think that the board should be fine.
Some investigation revealed that the glass fuse in the PSU power connection was blown.
I've replaced that and also ordered a replacement PSU, but the printer still won't turn on.
The PSU is outputting 24 V, I've tested that with a multimeter and attached a picture.
I'd be very grateful for any further hints as far as debugging this issue goes. I feel like the next step might be buying a new mainboard and testing with that, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything obvious.
Hi welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! There must be a cause that spiked the PSU to cause the glass fuse to fail. It could be that you have more damage from that further down the line; i.e. the controller board. Replacing the board would be my preferred solution.
If you're going to get a new controller board, you might want to look at some reviews of the BigTreeTech boards. Just in case you feel like an upgrade at the same time, and that's half the fun of a 3-d printer for some people.
@0scar Thanks for the welcome.
I feel the same way that there must be some other problem that I'm missing, which is the only thing holding me back from just sticking a new board in.
I am looking at getting a BigTreeTech board to upgrade, but I was wondering if there's anywhere else to measure/ check for what might have caused the problem in the first place.
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14494 | Waves in my prints
Around about 2 weeks ago I upgraded my Ender 3 Pro with a micro Swiss direct drive and all metal hotend. I had some tuning with the PID and e-steps to do, but once that was done, it's been mostly good.
However over the past week I've been having problems where my prints appear to have waves in them and after I've levelled the bed and the print gets about ~5 layers in it sounds like the nozzle is grinding against the print and I drop the bed down which I've noticed is something I keep having to listen for and intermittently drop the bed down mid-print.
I thought maybe my bed level was a little high so I went through the bed levelling with my DTI and ran chep's bed level print and watched the print and the filament was being laid down perfectly, adhesion was good and not flat. However I've been trying to print a kitchen roll holder and this is the state of the first few layers:
The layering below is where I've had to manually drop the bed mid print. I was wondering if there's a problem with my Z axis but when I manually move up and down it's fine and I even did a similar check where I measure 100 mm from the top of the bearing and set it move 100 mm on the controller and it was spot on.
My print settings/configuration as follows:
Ender 3 Pro with magnetic build plate and Micro Swiss direct drive
Bed temp: 60 °C
Hotend temp: 210 °C
Slicer: Cura 4.7.1 ( recently upgraded from 4.5.1 - wondering if that's the problem? )
Filament type: PLA
No cooling fan
I'm honestly, very stuck at the moment at what to do for the best! I have a BLTouch to install but I don't want to install it until I understand what the cause/fix for this issue is. I prefer to know pre-upgrade everything's fine so if there are issues from upgrades I can rollback to a working configuration.
Any help / advise on diagnosing this issue would be appreciated! If there's any info I've missed, happy to update with it. I have only had my printer for about 6 months so still a bit of newbie.
I'm currently running a series of tests to check the temperature combinations and to see what gives me the best results. I'm starting at 210 °C and running through all bed temps 40-70 °C to check for waves with 0.5 mm height square, then running the best results through a height test with the XYZcube to see if the height issue goes away. Does anyone know if there's a way for me to batch these tests using Cura post processing similar to a temperature tower? I want to change the bed temperature per model.
Could this answer answer your question?
@0scar sadly, this has not resolved the issues of the waves. I have fan cooling disabled, however I have spent the past several hours trying different variants of bed / hotend temps to try and see if there's a sweet spot I can get to this to, but still no luck!
Did you try to increase the nozzle to bed distance?
Hi @0scar, would this mean modifying the z-axis offset?
Yes, level with a thicker piece of paper, or little less drag, alternatively use feeler gauges thicker than paper.
I want to change the bed temperature per model. -> Look for M140 or M190 in your G-code file and adjust accordingly.
Since you changed the hot end, I'd start at the material diameter setting, followed by the extruder, followed by then check the movements on the z axis.
What you described - a periodic stack up of layers causing distance to the nozzle to decrease can be caused by:
Outputting too much material - this is an extruder issue
most likely happens when too much material is fed into the nozzle either because the motor steps per inch is off or material diameter in slicer is smaller than real material
can also happen due to over temperature when material just drips out the nozzle among other issues.
Expanding the gap too little per layer - this is a z motor issue. Diagnosis can be simple - tell the motor to move and measure how far off the commanded and actual distances are.
likely happens when axis does not move smoothly - misalignment, junk jammed in places, current too low
can also happen when steps per inch are set wrong.
Hi Abel, thanks for replying! I checked the diameter of the material and it's 1.75mm exactly. I checked the Z-steps in my settings and they're set to 400/mm and I checked the z axis moves the right amount by measuring both from the top of the bearing and the rail and marking 100mm and instructed the printer to move 100mm and it hit the mark spot on.
That leaves checking your actual extruder feeding motor and your temperature. You could check the diameter of what that motor is turning, or you could mark your filament some distance and see if more than expected is drawn in.
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15063 | Question about viewing molecular structure of 3D printed objects
I'm writing a research paper about the implications of additive manufacturing for space travel. As a part of this paper, I'm going to illustrate some of the drawbacks of 3D printed objects such as how the strength of an object depends on the direction of the force relative to the layer arrangement.
I was wondering if, alongside a practical demonstration, I could somehow use some high definition equipment to image the bonding of the plastic vertically and horizontally as a result of the 3D printing process?
Would anyone know what kind of equipment I would need for such a thing(or if there are any studies about it)?
If I had to guess, some low temperature polishing to prevent creep and a scanning electron microscope. But I would ask a university’s polymer department, they might have some experience with it.
I'd try to cast epoxy around the object, sand and polish the surface down to a mirror finish, rinse it in an ultrasonic cleaner. Then I'd use a standard metallographic microscope first to make images of layer-to-layer and shell-to-shell bonds. If you then need still more resolution, you can still fire electron beams on your specimen.
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15066 | Help fixing Prusa i3 MK3 print jams
While printing a paint rack from thingiverse I keep getting jams. Other prints (shorter) work fine. Can anyone give me a clue?
Here's a video of the printer
I thought it was heat creep so I increased the speed and decreased the hot end temperature. It generally prints for several hours then jams.
I hear extruder clicking. What's the material and the temperature you have set?
I set to 0.3 layer height, changed the temperature to 205 from 215. Increased the print speed by 10 mm/sec. These were suggested for reducing heat creep. The filament is Maker Geeks Maker Series PLA. I just noticed this filament recommends 235. Much hotter than any other PLA I've used. I'll try running it at that temp
When I started printing ABS with my Prusa i3 MK3 MMU2+ printer, I started experiencing jams on some longer prints, which was heat creap, possibly combined with old filament.
I improved the cooling by filling the gap between the sides of the heat sink and the plastic extruder body. I think I stuffed it with some soft foam rubber, but anything that can handle the (what should be fairly cool) temperature should work.
My hypothesis is that with gap allowed too much of the air to pass without engaging the heat sink, compromising the cooling.
With that change, I haven't had heat-creap jams.
You aren't printing ABS, but the temperature is high, and PLA softens as a low temperature. IMO, it would still be worth making the change.
It is the gap on the front and rear sides that I blocked. The heatsink fins are fully open for air flow.
Some people here have changed out the Noctua fan for one that is noisier and pushes more air, which should also work. I appreciate the quiet fan, so I tried to get more work out of the fan I had.
I found the answer was the maker geeks formulation of PLA requires much hotter temperatures. Great idea on the airflow. Did you let Prusa know?
The maker geeks formulation of PLA requires much hotter temperatures. The plastic was not melted enough for good flow.
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15051 | How do I fill missing corners in Cura
I'm trying to print a gear for a robovac deal.
The issue I'm having is with gaps between the walls of the top part of the gear. It needs to have the corners filled to provide stability or else the tabs easily snap. I've tried adjusting the nozzle size, line width, filter gaps and print thin walls but seems to slice with variations on the same issue. Is this a Cura issue? Is there anyway to slice and print this to fill those gaps?
What does the original model look like? It looks like they took a cylinder object and binary subtracted a cube leaving the walls too thin near the corners. This looks like an extremely small part...
Hello, thanks for the response. I've messed around with it a bunch more today and I believe that the wall is simply too thin on the corners to be printed correctly. I ended up loading the model into blender and extruding the edges along normals to make it thick enough. Once it printed, I threw it on a little spindle and then used a drill and some sand paper to slowly remove material till it fit the bearing it needed to go into but left just enough to connect the edges. The bearing does compress all the sides so I guess it could work even with the little gaps.
Using smaller line width may work, but Cura has a bug whereby it makes no difference unless you also enable printing outer walls first.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE - thanks for the response, I will give that a go. Good user name!
also, print thin walls can help...or Thickening the area in the model.
The problem isn't Cura, rather its the precision of the 3D model. If parts of the model is smaller than the line width the model cannot be printed. A solution to this would be to increase the thickness of the cylinder, decrease the size of the square or reduce the line width to allow that region to be properly fabricated, another solution would be to decrease the line width (line width option) however, keep in mind that you should not reduce the line width beyond the nozzle hole size (nozzle hole > line width). As mentioned before, if the model requires sections that are smaller than the line width, Cura will ignore it. From the image you provided it would seem that the corners are extremely close to the wall of the cylinder which prevents Cura from making a extrusion path, the reason of which I explained above.
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Please remember this is not a forum of threaded messages, so I've removed the comment as an answer. The Ultimaker printers default profile have line width smaller than the nozzle hole size, this is not an error but is used for a better quality (explained in their forum), so although I agree on the line width not to be smaller than the nozzle hole size, you can do that to some extend. Depending on the model, tuning the line width might be very useful but take care in not making the line width too small.
I personally prefer to print 10% wider than the nozzle.
You can fix it by changing Experimental > Slicing Tolerance > Exclusive
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14955 | Cura 4.8.0 Custom Infill using Shape Overlap Modifier not working
I am using a rectangle to select an area of the model I want to have 100 % infill. You can see my setting below. After several prints, I noticed the little arm was still breaking when under pressure... and sure enough my infill setting had not worked. In looking at the preview in Cura, you can clearly see it is not applying the 100 % infill as you can see set to the left... what am I missing? I have tried several infill types,(lines, hexagon...) to no avail.
Hi welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! This question has been asked before and is explained in this answer. If that procedure is not working anymore (I will check later and update the answer if necessary), you might have found a bug in a more recent version of Cura, please notify the developers. We might close this question as using a different infill is asked before, unless there is a reference for this new feature.
I have just tried to increase the infill to 100 % of in intersecting body in Cura 4.8, it still works. Both for inserted STL files as for "eraser" objects created by Cura. Therefor this answer should solve the issue. Try to remove the STL that is not in the build volume first, or move it into the volume.
I dont understand. In my photo, you can see the preview screen with all my settings. The infill is 20%, and the box is set to modify overlays, and is set to infill 100%, yet as you can see in the preview screen, the area inside the box is not 100% infill. What am I missing?
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15007 | BLTouch Z offset needs changes
Just installed a BLTouch sensor on my Ender 3 Pro (using firmware version: Ender-3 Pro1.1.6BLTouchV3.1PowerLossContinueEnglish), it all works great but each time I set the Z-offset I need to add it again. I home it, it requires -2.9 mm to get a paper sheet thickness from bed so I added that to my 0.00 Z-offset.
When I did a test print, the nozzle was way above bed, so I home the head, moved the Z axis and once again it is 2.9 mm to the correct location. Added this to my Z-offset again... been doing this now for a while and my offset is current at 11.2 mm! I did it on the screen and saved, hence up to 11.2 on the z offset now. If I power off and back on it once again is 2.9 mm from the correct location?
Using the older Ender-3 Pro1.1.6BLTouchV3.1PowerLossContinueEnglish bios as the newer ones left my touch screen blank. Still have not seen this issue reported anywhere
I went and ordered the new board as I have the 8 bit one still, hope that resolves most issues.
I can't really follow the information provided but I've read that Creality had some issues with saving settings if there was no SD-card in the printer when saving, could this be the issue?
I would recommend trying another firmware (not from Creality but something like Smith3D.com (https://smith3d.com/ender-3-v2-bltouch-firmware-installation-guide-by-smith3d-com/) which I've used before with success.
If you're willing to pay for precompiled firmware (and support the Marlin developers) I can also recommend https://marlin.crc.id.au/ (which I use now)
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15034 | Can't get bed to level properly
I am new to 3D printing and just purchased an Ender 3 V2 about two weeks ago. Since I've got it, I've been having trouble leveling the bed. I've tried watching videos, but they don't say how much friction on the paper is good or bad. I have even tried foil, playing cards, and a business card but still can't tell if it's good enough or not. Then when I would try printing calibration squares and adjust as it prints, but when it prints all looks good when printing the outside ring, but when it gets to the square parts there are bumps on the print from the nozzle being too close. Also when I seem to have corner perfect, when it gets to the center it's too close to the nozzle and doesn't even print. I'm using the stock glass bed so I'm not sure if that could be the issue. This is getting frustrating as I really want to start printing. And I want to save money for other parts and try avoiding purchasing a BL Touch if I don't need to. Am I doing something wrong? How can I get this resolved?
Forgot to mention, I upgraded the springs to these yellow ones on Amazon.
Hi, welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! What makes the yellow springs an upgrade? From the description found on Amazon these are pretty stiff, this makes you bed compress less than with softer springs, but when you start this endeavor, you might be better of with softer springs, this may save you slate of glass from accidents where the nozzle goes down too far.
The videos that I watched recommended those springs for that reason which is why I got them
Step 1: stop using paper and get some feeler gauges. The gauge should be able to just barely pass under the HEATED nozzle.
Step 2: What are you using for bed adhesion? I use Elmer's white glue. After you think you've trammed (aka levelled) the bed, apply a generous layer of the glue in a coat on the bed. Let it dry.
Step 3: Verify bed level with a large square print that will cause the head to move to the outermost parts of the bed. Stop the print after a few outlines. Try to remove the print. If some areas are easier to remove than others, apply another coat of Elmer's glue to those areas.
Note: Do not hold down all four (4) corners of the glass bed. The aluminium plate is not going to be flatter than the glass. Only attach the glass to the bed on one side of the bed. I use the side that is furthest from the nozzle.
Feeler gauges are good, but I prefer a drop gauge I mount to my printhead. I level one screw to where I want, lift the printhead up and measure that screw, then I level to that measurement.
I use a feeler gauge for initial Z-height and course leveling, then a drop gauge for final leveling. However, some may not want to purchase a drop gauge.
If you find the bed on an Ender 3 doesn't seem to "take" a level - in other words, if you keep trying to level it and things seem right, but then it's obviously wrong when you actually start printing, and checking the leveling doesn't seem to match what you set before - the problem is most likely in the Z axis mechanics. The Z assembly (including the X axis gantry) is highly overconstrained, between the 6 wheels, the lead screw nut, and the 4 screws attaching the gantry to the Z carriages. When it's not functioning properly, whether from fighting constraints, overtightening, undertightening, etc. you can end up with really bad reproducability* of position in the Z axis, so that homing and moving to a particular Z coordinate gives different results each time you repeat, due to which components bind and which ones give.
If this is your problem, I don't have a good system for solving it. I've fought with it on and off over 2 years of owning one of these machines. At least you should check that the 2 screws holding the left side of the gantry to the Z carriage are very tight (note: they're hidden and inaccessible without taking off the top bar and raising the assembly off the Z extrusions) and that the gantry is mounted level to the carriage bracket, since any play here will ruin everything. One easy thing you can try to confirm whether you have leveling reproducability problems from Z axis problems is disconnecting the right side carriage entirely and tying it off at the top so it doesn't interfere; you can do this without disassembling anything else. This lets you operate the Ender 3 "as an Ender 2", i.e. with a cantilever setup. It's less rigid and probably not a good choice overall, but if it solves your problem then your problem is almost surely something in the overconstrained Z system and now you know where to look.
First, make sure the slate of glass is straight, this can be checked with e.g. a metal ruler on its side against the glass surface. If the glass isn't straight (which should be per the production process of glass, but there have been reported bad glass beds) you never get a perfect level over the whole bed. Also make sure the glass sits on a clean heated bed plate (no debris between the heater and the glass).
Second, level the bed, start with powering the printer. You need to sequentially do the following as adjusting the one corner (screw), affects the other corners (continue this until the bed is level and the one corner doesn't affect the other corners anymore):
Home the machine,
heat up the bed and nozzle to e.g. PLA printing temperatures,
move the nozzle close to a corner (a different one than the previous corner),
put a piece of plain printing paper on the bed,
lower the nozzle to Z=0,
adjust the screw in that corner until the piece of paper can be dragged under the nozzle with a slight resistance,
repeat by starting with homing the printer.
After several rounds of leveling and having a level/straight bed to begin with, you should have a leveled bed that has been leveled against the printers' X-axis.
Now, when printing something it should be level, the only thing that might not be correct is the distance between the nozzle and the bed. E.g. some users prefer a larger distance between bed and nozzle when printing PETG (not my personal experience, but a generally accepted truth). This distance can be tuned without having to re-level your bed; you could if you want to use a thicker or thinner paper, but you can easily change the Z=0 by redefining the Z=0 level at e.g. 0.10 mm height if the nozzle to close. Some slicers even allow you to add an offset (e.g. the "Z Offset Setting" plugin in Ultimaker Cura from developer "FieldOfView").
When you have dialed in the distance also correctly, you should get perfect prints.
Do note that a common issue with these over-constraint "cantilever" printer designs is that by powering a single side, the opposite needs to follow exactly, that is a challenge with that many parts. My preference is using dual lead screws, preferably driven by a timing belt for Prusa type printers.
Addressing the BLTouch part in your question; before you wander in the world of automatic bed leveling (AB) you should first master getting a level bed, or fix the X-axis rollers on Z beams. For ABL you also need to level your bed first else you get non-square prints. The roller solution is one of the major drawbacks of these printers, you need to make sure the X-axis (aluminum extrusion bar) stays level (or better trammed) in relation to the bed level, loose rollers should be properly tensioned.
Should I use the paper method still or is there another method you’d recommend?
The paper method works quite well, provided that your printer doesn't suffer too much from being powered with a single Z lead screw. It is known that the unfortunate design of the Ender 3 causes many problems with leveling when the rollers aren't properly aligned tensioned.
I wonder if that’s it cuz the Z roller feels a little loose. How tight should it be? And I would tighten just one or all wheels? Also just curious what is your opinion on BL touch?
Don't worry too much about it. If you print with a first layer height of 0.3mm, bed levelling only needs to be approximate. If that doesn't work, and you cannot get good bed adhesion, try printing onto blue painter's tape (ScotchBlue). This makes a very forgiving build surface. You will need to clean it well with isopropyl alcohol (or acetone), since it is coated with a wax-based release agent that may prevent the filament from sticking. Once you have got used to printing, you can then refine your bed-levelling techniques.
This depends on the material printed. ABS needs to be pressed down on the bed to prevent warping. PETG needs to not be pressed down, or it is hard to remove from the bed.
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15089 | After installing BLTouch and Marlin, my nozzle is too high when trying to print
So I have an AnyCubic i3 Mega to which I added a BLTouch v3.1 and Marlin (1.1.9 due to older, Atmega 8-bit CPU) using instructions and such from this link.
Finally, I've got everything moving in the right direction, I got the auto-bed leveling (bilinear) going (did a 7x7 grid), saved the mesh, tuned the bed and extruder PIDs. Great! Add the G-code into Cura to load the settings and activate the mesh.
Start the printing, goes to home fine, gets up to temp, and then it moves into position to start the print and it suddenly jumps up in Z-height above the bed several millimeters. I pause the printing via OctoPrint, try and use the control tab to adjust the height, not responding. Canceled the print. Used the M114 command to get the position.
Here it is after I hit cancel.
Recv: X:180.63 Y:171.85 Z:0.00 E:9.71 Count X:14450 Y:13748 Z:2120
Here it is after I use G28 to home
Recv: X:-5.00 Y:0.00 Z:0.00 E:9.71 Count X:-400 Y:0 Z:0
Here is the Start G-code settings from Cura
G21 ;metric values
G90 ;absolute positioning
M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode
M107 ;start with the fan off
G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops
G28 Z0 ;move Z to min endstops
M501 ; bltouch mesh load
M420 S1 ; bltouch mesh load
G1 Z15.0 F{speed_travel} ;move the platform down 15 mm
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length
G1 F200 E3 ;extrude 3 mm of feed stock
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again
G1 F{speed_travel}
G0 Y20 F{speed_travel}
M117 Printing...
G5
It's almost like the Mesh Z-offset is wrong. I do have a probe Z-offset of -4.60, set via M851. I set this, and then I did G29 to re-do the ABL.
With me being new to ABL and Marlin, what did I forget? Maybe I did something wrong?
As a comment, homing is defined as G28 or followed by an axis letter as a flag, not a zero/digit/number after the letter. The X, Y, and Z parameters act only as flags. Any coordinates given are ignored. For example, G28 Z10 results in the same behavior as G28 Z. from G-code manual. Don't read parameters from memory (M501) unless you changed parameters you want to revert back, there is no reason to to this every print.
In some ways, this reminds me of the pain I went through recently. I am also fairly new to 3D printing.
After you have completed the bed levelling using G29 you should have a list of mesh coordinates showing in the interface with OctoPrint. (I am using Pronterface, so am not all that familiar with OctoPrint). You need to save the mesh coordinates to the control board. To do this enter M500 and then M503 to check that the data has saved. If you enter G28 (don't use the digit after the axis!) after using G29, but without saving (M500) the coordinates will be discarded.
When you have set your Z-offset, you also need to save that too (M500).
Unless you bed is warped, a 7 x 7 grid (mesh) is overkill. If you are printing on glass or a mirror, a 3 x 3 grid should be enough. I have a 5 x 5 due to may warped bed.
So, dunno what happened exactly, but through some additional rounds of ABL, and saving (M500) with some additional firmware writes, because I had to invert a few axis to get them to run right, it's running great now!
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15092 | Ender 3 Pro - Randomly skip lines
I am a newbie to the 3D printing world. Every night spending hours researching and troubleshooting. Recently though I am having a weird problem for which I can not figure out a solution. While printing it randomly skips a line or two (see attached photo). I have an Ender 3 Pro that is about a month old. I have installed a glass bed on it and I am using silk white pla. I am printing with the following settings:
210 °C Nozzle temperature,
Bed at 60 °C,
Fan speed at 70 %,
Print speed at 45 mm/s,
layer height 0.2 mm with stock nozzle,
10 % cubic infill,
and plate adhesion type is skirt.
Any help/advise would be appreciated.
Looks like extrusion issues... PLA? Then 210 °C is rather hot.
Are there any sounds like clicking or buzzing coming from the extruder? Is there a lot of dust building up in the extruder?
Can you post your first layer of G-code? Does the rendering show these gaps?
210 is fine for PLA, and hotter shouldn't cause this sort of issue. I normally print it at 210 and 220 on some filament with layers 0.2 mm or larger.
Have you ever disassembled the bowden tube setup, especially at the hotend? Putting it back together wrong can cause this sort of issue.
I didn't hear any unusual sounds asides from the motors itself. There is a bit of residue from the filament by the extruder. I will clean that up and see if that makes any difference.
The render doesn't show these gaps. This happened only in the first 2 layers, after that it printed the rest fine.
I haven't disassembled the bowden tube or the hot end.
I suspect that it has something to do with the extruder. i just can't figure out what is it. As i am writing this, I just realized that the one thing i haven't checked is the extruder gear. Thanks everyone for sharing and commenting
Sorry for the late update. I am still struggling with this issue. The extruder gear was loose and was falling down, hence missing lines completely as the filament wasn't being fed. I tightened the screws and it resolved it for the most part. It is not as bad as the picture but it is still happening randomly. I have noticed though a few things. It only does it in the angle shown in the picture. Which makes me wonder if it has anything to do with the Y axis.
another thing that I have noticed is a loud clicking sound. It happens randomly and when it happens the extruder gear moves back. Not sure if this is normal. I have recorded a video of it. Hopefully ill be able to upload it. It is 5 seconds and the click happens at 3rd sec. I have cleaned the nozzle and ensured that the filament flows properly. If anyone else has experienced this or has any thoughts then I would really appreciate it. Thank you all for taking time to read and comment.
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15099 | 3DTouch Probing Off the Bed X-axis
I have an Ender 3 V2 and a 3DTouch Makerbase sensor.
I have a problem with the bed leveling test.
The first test points are good, after that the nozzle try to test on the X axis outside the bed as can be seen in this video.
I hope you can help me
The problem is that the X-axis doesn't move back after the first 4 probes. This must be a 3DTouch not a BLTouch. What firmware are you using, or what did you change in the configuration files?
I tried several firmware, and I have the same problem. Marlin-bugfix-2.0.x and I followed the steps of Teaching Tech - Ender 3 V2, BLtouch & more, Smith3D-E3V2-2.0.x.14-5x5-SlowProbe, Marlin-bugfix-2.0.x and I followed Makerbase 3D Touch V2.0 Tutorial
Hi and welcome to SE.3DP. I notice that the video is stored on Whatsapp, and I wonder if they have a pre-determined life expectancy. That is to say, will the video be purged after a certain timeframe? If so, then your question may become a little unclear after that time period is up. If that is the case then it might be better to move the video to YouTube.
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15140 | Bed leveling problem
My start G-code:
M92 E128 ; Set E steps to 124 DEFAULT 130
M500 ; Store Settings
G28 X0 Y0 Z0; home all axes
G92 X-3.0 Y-12.0 Z-1.599; set home offsets
G1 X0 Y0 Z0.2 F3000 ; get ready to prime
G92 E0 ; reset extrusion distance
G1 X160 E15 F600 ; prime nozzle
G1 X180 F5000 ; quick wipe
Is used on a Creality CR 10 S5 with upgrades:
whambam systems print bed
micro swiss direct drive print head
BLTouch (doesn't function correctly)
Auto home (nozzle is off the bed and too low, Z -3.99)
(When printing Start I used G92 X-3.0 Y-12.0 Z-1.599; to correct this in Cura 4.8
Raise the Z axis to 2.8
Did 4 corners and adjusted the screws at each corner
Everything is supposedly level at 2.8
Nope its not.
It is not level and the 3D print isn't right.
After months of messing with the screws I decided to get a BLTouch because everyone seems to do that.
I got it almost right but clearly in parts the nozzle is too close and generates small lumps or too high and gets stringy. The instructions have a broken download link.
So I finally get my BLTouch. (x2)
Attaching it wasn't a problem, but nightmares with the firmware.
So I had a 1.1.6 I got from the Creality web site and uploaded.
All the cables attached correctly, including disconnecting the Z axis limit switch and attachment of the BLTouch. Calibrated the BLTouch height screw.
Fire it up, and try to level it.
Goes to the center
Spins the Z axis downwards and never stops
Next up, reconnected the Z axis limit switch and not connect that part of the BLTouch.
This time it seems to level it, but via limit switch and not bed level.
At least I get numbers indicating some kind of level starting at the far right 4.96 with a high of 5.15 on the left front corner. However, the limit switch triggers at -3.99 so actually the numbers should probably be lower.
Downloaded a new firmware, trying to level, Z axis motor spins upwards out of control
Download a different firmware, Similar to the 2nd last attempt, accept it forgot how to print correctly and only uses 250-500 on both the X and Y axis. Also I don't think its printing what I wanted, It isn't the correct shape at all.
I tried 2 different BLTouch sensors. Both had same results.
Any ideas about getting a good firmware?
Any ideas how to get BLTouch working correctly so I can level it that way?
Until it triggers the Z axis at bed level it probably won't work correctly.
I figured out later that the black and white wires needed to be reversed. So the bed leveling system is working, apart from the fact it isn't yet level.
However, the BLTouch firmware is mucking this up. It only wants to print from X, Y 250 to 500. So 75 % is unusable.
How do I fix this. I spent hours tweaking the screws and still don't have great results.
To address the firmware problems, Download a fresh edition of Marlin 2.0.x and configure the Configuration.h and Configuration_adv.h yourself. Others' configurations are expecting fully stock parts, and will not be compatible with your system.
Your main problem seems to be in your Probe Z-Offset. To get good level, you need to calculate how far above the bed the nozzle is when the probe triggers. The BLTouch height screw is NOT for Z offset adjustment, and the Z-offset needs to be set with M851 in Marlin. See https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M851.html for more detail on how to do this.
Additionally, the Z-MIN switch should not be connected when using the BLTouch, as it IS the new Z-MIN sensor.
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15131 | Problems with stock gear with no screw on Ender 3 pro
I am very new in the 3D printing scene.
After a lot of searching for my specific problem (and didn't find any answers, of course) I decided to reach out.
I bought a Creality Ender 3 Pro in November and after a few days of lovely prints
I decided to upgrade the printer with a glass bed and "Aluminum Dual Gear Pulley Dual Drive Extruder Kit".
The Problem, as you might expected already, is with the installation of the dual gear extruder. I have watched a dozen of YouTube videos, and all of them have something I don't – a screw in the stock gold gear on the extruder motor.
How can I install the Aluminum Dual Gear Pulley Dual Drive Extruder Kit if I take the gear out? Should I try remove it with force?
Please if someone has come across the same situation, that there isn’t a screw In the stock gear on the extruder motor and mange to take it out, please tell me.
I'm adding a picture so you understand what I mean.
Welcome to the 3D Printing Stack Exchange! I'm having trouble understanding what the problem is, does the instruction manual that the printer came with (likely on the included SD card or USB flash drive) mention the grub screw there?
no. the problem is to remove the stock golden gear that sit on the extruder motor, so i could installl the "Aluminum Dual Gear Pulley Dual Drive Extruder Kit" ...
Could you add a picture of that kit and the part you need to replace the stock gear with?
this is the kit: https://www.banggood.com/Upgraded-Aluminum-Dual-Gear-Pulley-Dual-Drive-Extruder-Kit-For-Creality-CR-10-or-CR-10S-or-CR-10S-Pro-or-Ender-3-or-Ender-3-Pro-3D-Printer-p-1469345.html?rmmds=myorder&cur_warehouse=CN, and the part is the golden gear in the 3 1st pics i have added...
The motor in question is not a stock motor as I know them... Is that from the "dual drive kit"? Because the stock motor should have an axis that is D-shaped.
Profit rules. Now they're not only pressing that drive wheel onto the stepper shaft, but they're shortening the shaft. Mine ends at the upper surface of the drive wheel, so I can't even install an extruder knob if I want one without replacing the stepper and drive wheel.
This is an older Ender 3 Pro, they at one point came with these press-fit gears, these are not intended to be removed which is a poor design decision. I would recommend buying a new motor than going through the hassle of removing it.
indeed, the D-shafts are 1000% better.
I agree that buying the type of motor of the expected design solves the 3 problems reported: gear press fit, shaft has no flat surface , shaft too short. It's also cheaper than a good puller, and has the less risk of printing problems due to mistakes. The one I selected is specifically for the E extruder "axis".
I had exactly the same problem with an Ender 3 Pro I bought a couple of weeks ago (Mar 2021) and I was able to remove the gear easily with a small gear/bearing puller... take a look at Amazon and you will find plenty of selection.
The 3-arm puller works better as it's much more stable when pulling the gear (this is the one I have). Both work in the same way; the arms/jaws attache to the bottom of the gear and the tip of the top screw pushes the motor shaft down.
I had the same problem with the pressed on gear. With WD40 and a center punch the gear came off alright.
The next problem was the shaft that is to short and perfectly round. With a small grinder (Dremel) I created a flat spot. I carefully tapped the shaft from the bottom of the motor until it was sticking out enough on the top side. Now it works perfectly with my dual extruder.
I accomplished this by using a pair of open-end wrenches and some heat.
Heat the brass gear end with a butane torch or a MAP gas torch
Clamp the stepper motor into a vice
Position two open-end wrenches such that you can use the open-end part of one open-end wrench underneath the brass gear while the second wrench is positioned perpendicular to the first one, underneath it (photos in below article will help visualize)
Gently tap on the end of the first wrench, to release the brass gear
Install the new gear, but you will need to grind a small flat on the shaft of the stepper motor so that the set screw has a landing.
The idea is basically making a lever out of one wrench, and using impact force to release the gear.
See this article for visuals: Micro Swiss Direct Drive Installation for Creality Ender 3 Pro with a Press-Fit Extruder Gear
When using a pair of wrenches to remove the gear. If I understand what they're doing, it's likely to damage the bearings of the motor. Always best to support the shaft and never use the bearings as something to press against.
@NeilinMA The article mentions that a gear puller is the safest approach, as it counters the removal force on the gear with the same counteracting force on the shaft. That being said, I doubt the method depicted here is any more likely to damage the bearing than any other method that does not involve a puller.
Heating it proved futile in my case (I didn't have a blowtorch either), I was able to get the gear off by using a Dremel, I also flattened a small side for the screw.
However, to my extreme frustration, I found out that the actual height of the shaft is not long enough to reach the dual extruder's filament hole and thus had to order another motor.
This brass extruder gear is either press fitted (see other answer) or hot crimped onto the shaft. Brass has about twice the thermal expansion rate as stainless steel, so you could heat the gear while cooling the shaft (e.g. stepper upside down with the shaft in water, heating the gear with a small torch lighter, a makeshift aluminium foil shield could be used to protect the stepper base) to get the gear off.
Grinding it off would be easier (or even more easy is to buy a new stepper motor) as when you get the gear off, the shaft is round, so you need to grind a flat spot on the shaft anyway to make sure the dual extruder gear can be screwed on tightly.
If you cant see any grub-screw on the extruder gear, it's likely that it has been permanently press-fit onto the motor shaft. It is possible to remove the gear if you have something like a Dremel to cut it off, however, do note that it would be a permanent modification, and that your warranty (if you had any) would be void. If you do go this route, be careful not to Dremel into the shaft of the motor, as this would likely cause the new gear to not fit properly.
If this is a new printer, I would recommend assembling it with the stock extruder assembly first, and ordering a secondary extruder motor without the gear press-fit onto its shaft. Then you could swap them out and not need to worry about damaging the existing motor.
I picked up a used Ender 3 Pro, which needed a lot of work. I discovered the same annoyance, the extruder "gear" was press-fitted, and the shaft was too short for the manual add-on wheel. I had a look-alike motor (with the same connector) in my parts bin, so after some effort1, I removed the gear and installed it on the new motor.
Once in place, I have plenty of shaft to mount the handwheel. One additional comment, the connector was the same, but the wiring was not. I had to ohm-out the windings and move a couple pins in the female connector. Runs great now, and all is wheel (pun?).
BTW, I saw someone above using a pair of wrenches to remove the gear. If I understand what they're doing, it's likely to damage the bearings of the motor. Always best to support the shaft and never use the bearings as something to press against. My 2c.
1 I mimicked the effect of a gear puller. Using a small arbor press I supported the gear with a cross bridge made of two short pieces of 1" dia. dowel (as the pillars on each side) and a pair of 1/4 inch square steel rods to span the distance under the gear. one on each side of the motor shaft. The motor is now dangling in free air, supported by the gear. I then pressed down on the end of the motor shaft, eventually the motor broke free and dropped, leaving the gear on top of the rods
I had the same problem. Bought my Ender 3 Pro in July 2021, so not sure if the new or old versions have this problem. I solved the problem slightly differently.
I could not pull out the gear it was too tight, so I put the pliers on top of the gear and then hammered the gear down, not up. Then on top of it I have put the gear that came with the dual drive on top of the old gear and screwed it according to nozzle position. After e-step calibration, to my surprise the whole thing worked and printing fine.
Same problem here. I removed it by force using a pliers and a hammer, then drill a spot on the shaft using ikea drill. Everything works fine so far.
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15109 | Ender 3 Pro - "Pause at Height" automatically resumes after a few seconds
I recently bought an Ender 3 Pro, and while I'm super happy with it, there's one issue I'm having with it.
When I set "Pause at height" to a specific layer in Cura, the print will pause at that height, but as soon as it pauses the nozzle heats right back up and the print continues. It's like it pauses for only 30 seconds.
Here's the G-code for the pause command generated by Cura:
;MESH:NONMESH
G0 F300 X115.454 Y119.213 Z1.96
G0 F9000 X117.5 Y120.392
;TIME_ELAPSED:283.376298
;TYPE:CUSTOM
;added code by post processing
;script: PauseAtHeight.py
;current layer: 6
M83 ; switch to relative E values for any needed retraction
G1 F1500 E-10
G1 F300 Z2.96 ; move up a millimeter to get out of the way
G1 F9000 X190 Y190
G1 F300 Z15 ; too close to bed--move to at least 15mm
M104 S0 ; standby temperature
M117 CHANGE
M0 ; Do the actual pause
M109 S200 ; resume temperature
G1 F1500 E10
G1 F1500 E-10
G1 F300 Z2.96
G1 F9000 X116.604 Y120.251
G1 F300 Z1.96 ; move back down to resume height
G1 F1500 E10
G1 F1200 ; restore extrusion feedrate
M82 ; switch back to absolute E values
G92 E256.16251
;LAYER:6
;TYPE:WALL-INNER
;MESH:Super Curcan.stl
Anyone ever run into this issue?
I heard in a YouTube video that M0 (the pause command) doesn't work in the Ender 3 Pro firmware. It didn't work for me, either. I guess this confirms a stock firmware Ender 3 ignores the pause command.
I had the same problem (Cura v4.9.1). What fixed it for me was switching to a different Method.
On the screen where you set up the pause, the 3rd dropbox is Method. Set this to BQ (M25). That did the trick for me.
As I understand it, it mimics a pause like what you get with the pause you would execute using the menu on the printer.
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15115 | Ender 3 Pro + SKR mini E3 1.2 + BLtouch doesn't work with downloaded bin file
I have a Ender 3 Pro V1. I installed the Bigtreetech SKR mini E3 V1.2 + TFT35 touchscreen + Antclabs BLTouch + a pre compiled bin from here .
the board works
the screen works
the BLTouch is erratic
A) it tries to exceed the X limits and makes the loud clicking sound while performing the bed leveling. it even tries to move past the X end stop switch.
B) when printing, it moves to the far right rear corner and extrudes off of the bed.
C) OctoPrint can no longer connect with the printer.
I think this is just a problem with how the bed size is setup and it identifying the limits of the print. I just can't figure out how to configure and compile a working bin file.
A) it tries to exceed the X limits and makes the loud clicking sound while performing the bed leveling. it even tries to move past the X end stop switch.
This tells me that the firmware you use is faulty - it has a faulty bed-size or home.
B)when printing, it moves to the far right rear corner and extrudes off of the bed.
This can be intended in the G-code, or bad homing, again, firmware home position.
C) octoprint can no longer connect with the printer.
This, again is a thing that happens if the firmware is not configured properly or flashed correctly.
You might have accidentally chosen the wrong firmware distribution - your config points to the Ender 3 - SKR Mini E3 v1.2 - BLTouch, not the Ender 3 v1.5 or v2 (slightly different hardware), and possibly adjust the proper homing position.
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15122 | Eryone Thinker SE ignoring endstop, gantry only moves down
I just got a Eryone Thinker SE and went through a lot of trouble to get it even working.
My first major problem was it would keep trying to ignore the Z endstop switch and go lower than it should be. I managed to fix it by doing a firmware update to it, and after a lot of trouble with getting the right temperature I started printing a test cube. I left it to print checking up on it every 30 minutes or so and near the finishing of the cube I came back to a screen saying something like "power failure, resume print", so of course I choose resume print but what it ended up doing was moving down, piercing the block on the print bed and then dragging it with it as it decided to home itself. So I immediately hit the reset button do it didn't try to push the block into the print bed.
But now when I auto home the printer, it jabs the print nozzle into the print bed, and it ignores the Z-axis endstop switch causing the right side of the gantry to go lower (due to there being no stopper on the right). Auto leveling just makes the gantry go down even further on the right still ignoring the endstop switch. The other thing is when trying to manually move the Z-axis, instead of going up (even though the LCD shows a positive number) it tries to go down.
Steps I attempted to do to fix it:
I attempted to do another firmware update, but to no avail this time.
I checked all the connections and re-seated them.
Scout the internet hoping someone with the same printer or board has had the same problem, to no avail again.
I should note when homing the printer, the normal action for it is to home X then Y, then Z. When homing Z however, NORMALLY, it will hit the switch move up and baby step itself to hit the switch and stop immediately when it touches it. But now, it will hit the switch, then just go down even more.
Video of what is happening here (Google Drive)
The control board on the printer is a Eryone 2560
You do a critical error in your order of operations: you home. Then you home again.
However, the firmware does not check if the switch is already depressed, it waits for a signal to cut out. But the signal is already not there. And as you will notice, it moves into X+ and Y+ before rehoming into 0, but does not do so in Z.
To prevent that behavior, you need to move the printer up a little till the switch no longer is engaged, then it will properly home the position.
The proper fix would be to alter the home-Z behavior to include a movement upwards by 2 mm before starting the actual homing. This does require a knowledge of Marlin though.
Ah okay. I get that part with the switch and not checking if it is already depressed. The normal action of the printer when homing is to home X and Y, and then it goes to home Z. Before, it would hit the switch then move up to un-depress the switch, then move down just until it depresses the switch again. But now, it hits the switch and just moves down further instead of going back up to hit the switch a second time.
@McGlowSticks that's how the firmware defined the "homeZ" button - I guess that's a pre-modified and not a self-set-up Marlin distribution?
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15168 | Under-extrusion near the seam
I have an FLSUN QQ-S Pro and I'm trying to print a part consisting only of thin walls with PLA. I'm using Cura 4.8.0, "FLSUS QQ-S" profile. Unfortunately, near the seam there are signs of underextrustion. It only happens near the seam, and after a few millimeters the wall is nice and smooth again.
Things I've tried:
Increasing hotend temperature to 210 °C
Setting flow rate compensation factor to 105 % (can't go much higher as the wall thickness will go up from current 0.4 mm - which is the desired result for this printer)
Disabling retraction
Enabling ironing
None of that helped. Is there some way to push filament a little bit forward at the start of each layer?
What does the coasting setting look like in your Cura setup ?
@ManfredR it's disabled
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15169 | Turn off OctoPrint server after starting print from SD card
I have OctoPrint set up on a Raspberry Pi (OctoPi). I have loaded a number of G-code files to the SD card on the printer.
My question is: If I initiate a print from the SD card via OctoPrint, can I then turn off the RPi so I can use it for other things while the print continues?
Your printer will stop printing. So no.
Disconnecting the USB or connecting it triggers a reboot in the printer. As a result, you can not disconnect or turn off the print server running OctoPrint.
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15202 | First few layers are now printing very badly
Machine type is an Ender 3 pro with the 4.2.7 board, the latest Marlin bugfix code, latest BLTouch 3.1, latest all metal extruder feeder hardware, Capricorn Bowden PTFE Tubing.
This really started after having a bad clog in the extruder, thus had to take it apart, clean the clog and put it back together. Nothing changed in any of the axes gantries it just all of a sudden started printing the first few layers very poorly. In fact anything that is only say less than 3 mm tall won't print hardly at all.
First layer print for bed leveling does print well, and the bed is pretty level. PLA used as filament, temperatures are 200 °C for the nozzle and 60 °C for the bed.
That looks like cooking the bottom area... what#s the temperature of the bed? And the material? 200 head/60 bed would be typical PLA.
Sorry, missed that vital info!! I've updated the original post, but it was 200 nozzle/60 bed.
Well, I guess if I were more experienced I would have checked this earlier. I tried everything almost tore my printer apart and rebuilt. One more testing of a cube and the filament broke. I became suspicious and replaced the filament with another brand and voila, no more printing issues! Looks like it was the filament.
You may be able to recover the filament, if you have sufficient volume to justify it, by dehydrating it. Some filament turns bad from absorbing too much moisture and will print again after drying.
oh wow, yeah, hardly any has been used, 99% is still left. I'll google on how to dry filament.
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15206 | Z-axis scale wrong
When printing the Z-axis appears out of scale. I'm using a self-built 3D printer.
For example:
When printing a 10x10x10 mm cube, the Z height is 9.01 mm;
When printing a 20x20x20 mm cube, the Z height is 18.6 mm.
Does anyone know a possible cause of this problem?
I checked the G-code and everything is sliced correctly.
I have now tried connecting a computer to the printer via usb and I executed the command M92. The response I got was this: M92 X200 Y200 Z8000 E500.
Assuming that the model is sliced correctly, not scaled (by looking into the G-code you can find out if it is sliced correctly, look up the last layer move G1 Zxx.xx, xx.xx should be the height of the model). If that is correct, then your Z might have a problem in that the steps per mm are set incorrectly, or your Z stepper is missing steps.
As Marlin is used as printer firmware, you can check and change the configuration of the Z steps per mm. When using a console you are able to communicate with the printer and see output return.
With G-code M92 you get a report of the current settings. These should be verified with the mechanics (e.g. gearing) and electronics used (e.g. micro stepping value).
In firmware configuration this is found in file Configuration.h (note: this is an example and may differ from your values!):
/**
* Default Axis Steps Per Unit (steps/mm)
* Override with M92
* X, Y, Z, E0 [, E1[, E2...]]
*/
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 80, 80, 4000, 500 }
The third value is the setting for the Z axis. Your value is too low and should be increased according to the fore mentioned mechanics and electronics.
By sending the command M92 Zxxx (where xxx denotes the value you calculated) will update the steps per mm.
There are online calculators that can help you calculate the correct value.
As an example, a very common lead screw is the trapezoid Tr8x8(p2). Assuming that you have normal 200 steps/rev steppers and use 16 micro steps and have the fore mentioned lead screws with a 2 mm pitch, the Z requires 1600 steps per mm.
You should check your hardware, stepper, screw and driver. Note that 8000 is a strange value, your Z axis is only about 10 % off, if 8000 value is correct for 200 (1.8°), 1/32, 0.8 pitch, but also for 400 (0.9°), 1/16, 0.8 pitch (M5).
Considering you are losing about 10 % it can also be that the Z stepper is missing some steps. Increasing the Vref of the stepper motor drivers may help with that.
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15243 | Ender CR-10 Max with BLTouch won’t level
I don't even know where to begin with this one. From day one I have had nothing but problems. The only reason I still have it is because the store I bought it from is refusing to accept a return. So the issue is out of the box.
I levelled it [paper test] set the BLTouch to do its job [measuring] upon completion. I used Blender to export the default cube I then used Cura to scale, multiply and position a cube in each corner and the middle and set it to print, at this point I was hopeful that the BLTouch did its job but unfortunately it did not. The first layer didn't stick. I cancelled the print, re-levelled and tried again, this time a Mandalorian helmet, thinking that maybe the issue was that I was printing small with a 0.8 nozzle.
About 1/4" to the print and it failed again. This time a better first layer though but to my surprise, when I removed the failed print and hit auto home, it auto homed at about 18 cm (7 inches) off the bed and would not return.
After about 3 weeks I finally received a G-code to reset Z offset and thought I was some what back in business. I levelled the bed let the BLTouch do its thing and set it to print and again the first layer did not stick. Someone suggested that I check the BLTouch pin which looked like a cork screw. I replaced and repeated the level and BLTouch steps and, again, the same issue.
I also tried pre-heating both nozzle and bed to respectively 210 °C and 80 °C and letting the BLTouch do its job and the same issue occurred.
I have learned that natural oils from our fingers can cause the prints not to stick so I bought 100 % alcohol wipes and cleaned the bed, let it dry and repeated the process to be double sure that it was clean.
I air dusted the control box and extruder to remove any dust that may have occurred. I re-levelled and turned the BLTouch off and levelled again in the hope that it would work like a manual bed levelling and had no luck. At this point I'm figuring out that this BLTouch "Auto Levelling" should be called "Auto Unlevelling".
Hi Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! With "default cube", you imply a test calibration cube? You don't need Blender to scale a print, Cura can do that very easily. Note that Blender is a powerful tool, but it can also mess up models if you don't know what you are doing. What is meant with 1/4" is that length or time? Note that Auto Bel Leveling is sold to simplify leveling, but it does not, it requires some extra steps to set the correct offset. Since your first layer doesn't stick, the initial nozzle to bed distance (defined by the sensor offset M851 Zx.xx) might be incorrect.
People would love to help you out, but, although the question is lengthy, it doesn't contain much technical data to help. Please add a photo of the first level failing, a few lines from the G-code file (must include at least the first use of G1 Zx.xx). This may attract more people and help you solve the issue!
How can I set the initial bed to nozzle distance to the correct value?
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15173 | Incorrect inner dimensions of 3D prints with Ender 3
I have problem with my Ender 3. Whenever I print, I have proper outer dimensions (accuracy usually better than 0.1 mm, sometimes a bit worse), but every hole, pit or any inside dimension is inaccurate (0.6 - 0.8 mm never less or more).
I have tried extruder calibration. Calibrated extruder voltage and e-steps (in Ender firmware), but this does not change a lot.
Here you can see test dimensions I modeled:
And it will come out with these dimensions:
Aaand the final print looks like this:
As you can see, my estimation (second picture) was almost perfect. 19.3 mm and results are weirdly consistent. Always holes are 0.6 - 0.8 mm smaller than holes in model.
Do you have idea why this is happening?
Specs:
Printer - Ender 3 with original circuit board
Printer software - Marlin 2.0.5
Model cutting software - Cura 4.8.0
Modelling software - Fusion 360
Found a solution in Cura
What's your line width?
If the wall width isn't a multiple of your line width you can end up with a bigger or smaller wall width depending on the way the model is sliced. It shouldn't cause a big error but maybe it adds to something else.
There are 3 effects at work, and you misread your micrometer: the measurement is 19.35 in the picture.
You have a little lip
There's a little lip at the top and bottom of the print. You'd need to clean that up with a sharp knife or sandpaper. That is the biggest part of the error you measure.
Movement errors accumulate
Errors also collect on the center of holes due to the order in which walls are usually placed, resulting in outer walls having the correct diameters but inner holes having a small offset.
Plastic shrinks when it cools
A smaller part of the error is the plastic shrinking as it cools, but that can be compensated for by the slicer - if your printer allows for it: Under Materials, there is a Shrinkage Ratio setting.
There's compensation for that in Cura
The option is under Shell and called Hole Horizontal Expansion. Setting that value to 0.6 mm to 0.7 mm should solve the hole sizing error.
The error here is way too large to be shrinkage with PLA, especially as it's a thickening of the part not thinning. I'd suspect loose belts here.
I read 19.3 mm from my micrometer, proper value (will not argue about 0.05 mm). On this side of 3D print there is no "elephant foot". I am still missing 0.7 mm (or 0.65 mm with your readings).
So there is no little lip and I think that PLA does not shrink that much. 0.6 mm is a lot when working with holes as big as 5 mm for example.
I guess my problem is "Movement errors accumulate". Is there a way to improve that?
@JanKowalski usually try to use multiples of wall thicknesses to get that small... or you might compensate by demanding a slightly larger hole...
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15175 | Slicers and printers compatibility
I am a complete beginner so I apologise ahead for probably an obvious question. From what I understand up to now, slicer software basically takes a 3D model and turns it into instructions that say move your print head to this and this position and extrude up to this position and so forth. If that is correct then each slicing software can result in different "filament paths" in printing of the same model ultimately having the effect on the quality of print (unless the "Slicing algorithm" is some open industry accepted one and everyone uses that). But then, it would be advantageous to use other slicer software than the one supplied with the printer. On the other hand, if a slicer gives the instructions to the printer and assuming the G-code is a universal instruction kit (standard each printer understands), it needs to know, at the least, the parameters of the printer.
So the questions are:
Can I use any slicing software with any 3D printer and are there any things that may cause a problem (e.g. "How do I set up the slicing software for a particular printer?")
If not, am I stuck with the software provided by the printer manufacturer and thus, before buying a printer, one should also analyse the slicing software provided or is there some compatibility chart?
Regarding 2. I looked at both PrusaSlicer, Slic3r, Cura. None of them provide any information on the compatibility. I have access to Creality CR-10S printer but when I saw e.g. PrusaSlicer compared to the Creality, it has more options it seems. But during the installation of the Creality slicer, it forced me to choose the printer that I will be using which suggests that printers are locked to the manufacturer slicer.
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Do note that e.g. Cura (on which the Creality slicer is based) has many, many, many options, but most of them are hidden, these need to be "checked" to become visible in the advanced view! Automation of the printer configuration is slightly overrated, it basically needs some info on your build platform/volume and filament diameter, it ain't rocket science!
FDM Slicers are not proprietoryexceptions apply
Most commonly uses Slicers are generally not locked to manufacturers or models. Creality's slicer is a variant of Cura, Prusa Slicer is a (further developed) variant of Slic3r. You can slice models for almost any G-code reading 3D Printer with any of the 4.
The question at the first startup or installation is to automate setup: back when I bought my Ender 3, I had to manually make a profile that would fit my printer. Now, you can choose presets that set up the bed size, a safe start G-code and some settings from where you can work.
exceptions
However, some machines are not compatible with normal slicers, because they either don't run G-code but a proprietary file format or because their geometry is non-standard.
An example of the former type is for example the DaVinci Color printers that use .XYZ files, which contain not only movement commands for the printhead and extruder, but also color print commands for the ink-head. An example of the latter type is "Belt Printers", which use standard G-code but are sliced not in the same way as for normal printers - you need the Cura Blackbelt variant to make the proper command file.
Other slicers like Voxelizer are locked down to the printers of the software's manufacturer.
Traditional paper printing has the model where a document is sent through a driver to convert into instructions in a generic control language, such as PCL, PostScript/PS, XPS, or UFR. The resulting commands are spooled (queued as a group) by the computer to the printer, which then renders it to paper.
3D printing uses a similar process: a model is sent through a slicer to convert into instructions in the G-Code control language1. The result is manually uploaded and invoked on the printer2, which then renders it in plastic.
There are some differences here. For example, the lack of spooling. Slicers usually produce entire G-Code files rather than sending individual instructions via USB. This is by design and preference. Paper prints take seconds; 3D prints take hours, and waste considerably more resources if they are interrupted. Much better not to have your computer involved in the actual printing process instruction-by-instruction.
Additionally, with 3D printing there are more ways to end up with the same result, and which is correct or better can vary greatly on the situation. A model may print with 5% infill, 2 walls, .24 mm layer heights, and 65 mm/s as a draft, or 95% infill, 5 walls, .1 mm layers heights, and 30 mm/s for the final product if it's structural. Or you might use anything in between as a display piece, or based on needs of the model from one to the next for things like overhangs, bridging, bed adhesion, and so forth. You might even need to print the same model in different materials, which also impacts temperatures and speed.
This gives the slicer a more central place in 3d printing. With traditional paper, you might never see your driver directly or only minimally, and instead invoke it from your word processor. This can happen with 3d printing, where the slicer is invoked directly from modelling software, but it's not the norm from my experience. Instead, most models will want their own specific slicer settings.
And now we get at last to answer the question as asked.
This prominent position for the slicer has let to the rise of both commercial and open-source options that work with a wide variety of printers. For sure, there are specialty and experimental printers that require specific slicers, but that's not what a hobbyist is likely to encounter. You will almost certainly be able to select or import a pre-written profile for your printer in whichever slicer you choose.
There are exceptions, but they are rare and should be avoided by hobbyists.
This still commonly happens by physically moving around an SD card, but wifi is becoming more common, as are options like OctoPi. Some systems do support "spooling" jobs directly from the slicer)
the design of lack of spooling and preference to move complete files stems from the origin of FDM in CNC control code. In fact, the slicing of 3D models for printing is almost the same as the art of making CNC code.
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15241 | Ender 3 Pro thermal runaway
From day one, I had issues with the bed unleveling all the time even if I hadn’t touched it.
After watching more videos I bought springs and I was having fantastic prints every time. There was no need for levelling between prints - it worked perfectly.
The day before yesterday I got an error warning thermal runaway printer halted please reset so I did as the printer said and again tried the print and 20-30 mins in the exact same issue. I watched more YouTube videos and replaced the motherboard with an SKR E3 V2.0 mini with Marlin firmware installed on to it.
After installing I went ahead and tried to test print (file on provided micro SD card) and 30 mins in I got a thermal E1 so I went ahead and watched more YouTube videos which suggested that I connect my printer to my PC via a USB (provided) and download Pronterface. I followed the instruction of typing M303 V5 200 into the command prompt and sent it to the printer which again halted the printer with E1 error code. I went over to the printer and unplugged the USB and waited while the printer was off before plugged the USB back in.
After doing this I got a TMC CONNECTION ERROR message on the printer. I followed some Reddit/Github posts that said:
Send command M122 to the printer, this should work, which it did not.
As it stands at this moment this printer has gone from working perfectly to nothing at all.
Please clarify your question:. "nothing at all" doesn't sound like "thermal runaway."
It will print 1 or 2 layers then thermal runaway message comes up with a loud beeping noise
So you replaced the controller board and experience the same thermal runaway behavior. That implies that the board isn't the cause. You need to check the rest of the hardware. Loose/faulty thermistor or heater cables, fan shifting onto the hotend, etc.
I have corrected this issue by fully replacing the hot end and wiring (thermistor and heating cartridge)
I’m guessing you don’t know then
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15296 | Can RAMPS 1.4 be used for a 3D printer?
I am making a DIY 3D printer on a budget. So, I came across a kit with RAMPS 1.4 with an Arduino Uno which is really a great price. But, I don't know if the RAMPS board and the stepper driver (DRV8825) which it supplies, can be used to make a 3D printer. And also will it come with average quality parts as the total amount of that kit is 2999 rupees or 40 dollars. Here is a picture if needed:
RAMPS was made specifically for 3D printers and those stepper drivers were used often in 3D printers. Have you searched online?
To answer your question, yes, RAMPS 1.4 can be used for a 3D printer, but note that it is an outdated platform.
But...
From the supplied image can be concluded that the seller doesn't have a clue what is being sold in the webshop ( e.g. incorrect naming for the shield, 3 stepper motors and 4 stepper drivers?!?).
This is not a RAMPS set (RAMPS is a shield for an Arduino Mega 2560) but a CNC shield set. An Arduino Uno isn't typically the hardware used for a 3D printer (better suited for laser cutter), but you could use it. Also RAMPS itself is already outdated, there are other options for a bit more money.
With a limited budget and limiting the time and frustration spent on building your own first printer from scratch it might be more economical to buy a 3D printer kit; a kit has all the parts for frame and electronics to get started relatively quick. These kits are documented, have upgrades and have proven to work and can be used to build a better 3D printer (that is exactly what I did). Note that building a printer yourself is usually not more economical, large kit manufacturers have discounts on buying parts in bulk which you don't have. Unless you are building a printer from wood/MDF and have a lot of parts readily available a kit may be a more economical solution.
Trying to build 3d printer, before buying parts, the buyer should first spend amount of time reading, inspecting blueprints and detailed descriptions available online. For at least one complete 3d printer (probably FDM-type). There is number of different approaches to many things (e.g. what is movable, what not). Should study the BOM (bill of materials) to understand even how many motors, screws or meters of wires to buy. Not to find one late evening missing a rod, spring or nut. There is a lot of online sources to study to get an idea, try reprap.org.
Best and cheapest solution IMHO is to get a kit, it has everything from frame to electronics. It is hard to beat the prices as the manufacturers get great deals on the specific parts when they buy in bulk.
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15259 | Considering size of smooth rod
I am making a DIY 3D printer based on the Prusa MINI. I want to ask what smooth rod size is great for a printer with a 20x20x20 cm print volume. I am planning on using a 8 mm rod for the z-axis and 6 mm rods for the Y and X axis. I chose this as I am using a 2.5 kg.cm stepper motor for all the axis, so the X-axis needed to be light and the z-axis needed to be stronger and I chose 6 mm for the Y-axis as it is cheaper then other widths. I am worried if 6 mm is too thin to hold the hot-end (Which is a Bowden type) on the X-axis and a 20x20 cm glass plate on the Y-axis.
Are you on a budget? Linear rails would be very interesting for such a printer, it is not "strength" you should worry about, but "stiffness"! If you want to copy the Prusa model, copy it, not make changes, if thinner rods where giving the same performance, the manufacturer already would have switched to that. Note that the Prusa MINI is completely open source.
Thanks ❤️, Yes I am on the budget, and I had already checked the price of those, and they are more expensive that the whole 3D printer. I just checked the prusa documentation, and it uses 10mm for the z-axis and 8mm for the Y and X axis. I might do as you said, but I am worried if the 2.5kg.cm stepper motors I am using can handle the weight of two 8mm rods and the prusa uses a 5kg.cm steppers. I am not really copying the prusa, I am just basing it on the axis design
Linear rails or at least Open-V-Slot are much stiffer than any rod can be. Note that a full TronXY X1 set comes down to about 150 €, but lacks a heated bed.
Thanks @Trish ❤️, I kept open-v slots away as they need more parts and need to be more accurate in the placement than rods, and might cost more.
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15318 | Anet E10 - Print above 270 °C or "maxtemp" error
Hoping to determine the reason for my inability to print over ~270 °C on my Anet E10.
To date all operation has been fine. Attempting to move to a configuration that supports above 250 °C up to ~300 °C.
The control board is the default V1.5 with no changes purchased ~Aug 2019.
I use OctoPrint to interact with the printer.
When attempting to print with a temperature > 270 °C OctoPrint shows it is stopping with a "maxtemp" error. The same "maxtemp" error occurs if I just set the settings to 270 °C and let is sit there for a couple of minutes at most.
This occurs with or without the bed being heated.
I can print successfully at 260 °C with or without the bed being heated.
I have changed the thermistor to another 100k glass bead and a 100k within a canister. There where no changes in the ~270 °C "maxtemp" stoppage.
I have also changed the heater from what was there (30 W I believe) to two different new 40 W (resistance of about 4.1 Ω) without a change in the ~270 °C "maxtemp" stoppage.
The power supply seems not to be involved here since "maxtemp" stoppage occurs without the bed being heated.
I believe this is solely the reason that the control board has a "maxtemp" set at 275 °C. (but I don't know this since I can't find a statement that the V1.5 has this setting by default).
Is there something I am missing in this scenario? It seems I need to flash the board with settings that have maxtemp > 275 °C - say for my needs ~300 °C.
Regarding the hotend, I neglected to mention and should have, that I have upgraded it to a Micro Swiss in preparation to print over 250 °C.
Your firmware has set a limit of 270 °C, normally, (default Marlin configured value) this is 275 °C. It appears that the Anet E10 developers have edited the value if you cannot exceed the 270 °C setpoint.
The configuration file for Marlin firmware has the following maximum temperature limit set for the first hotend:
#define HEATER_0_MAXTEMP 275
You can change this yourself, but, you need to flash new firmware, making sure that you're using all the correct settings for this printer model.
As a general remark (for others reading this), you shouldn't simply increase the temperature without changing the hotend (unless it is capable of high temperature printing), if the default hotend is lined with a PTFE tube, the PTFE can form dangerous/toxic gasses at elevated temperatures above 270 °C. But, in your case, an all-metal Micro Swiss hotend is installed that doesn't have the PTFE liner.
Note that the Anet E10 configuration can be found in the Marlin configurations zip file. For the 2.0.7.2 version, the E10 already has the hotend temperature limit increased to 305 °C.
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15321 | Filament doesn't retract for some travel movements using PrusaSlicer
The printer does not retract the filament for some travel moves result in scrape printing part as shown in picture.
This is my printer setting. Not sure which part be the problem.
I want my printer to retract the filament as I have set it to. Where to check and what could be the problem?
What is meant by "result in scrape printing part"?
The nozzle do rapid move and hit under layer. Sometimes the build plate shifted or the part popped out from bed.
Minimum Travel after Retraction is exactly what it says on the tin: if the travel after a retraction would be less than 2 mm, it does not retract. You'll want that to be short, but not 0, because retraction can lead to under extrusion at the start of a new line, and every swap from one shell to the next shell right next to it is classed as travel.
I think so but you see somw travwl got very long distant but it still not retract which so confusing.
Set it to line width and see what happens?
0.4 or slightly over should work fine.
Retraction does not cause underextrusion though; rather it's necessary to prevent it.
Okay then any way to make 3d printer just lift the nozzle up with no retraction?
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15307 | No stepper motor movement on Ender 3 Pro
I've recently updated my Ender 3 Pro to the latest Marlin 2.0 firmware and when I press autohome or try to move the axis, I hear a very quiet noise from the motors trying to move and then they just don't. I did get an error message about EEPROM when I first booted the printer after flashing but I just pressed reset and the issue hasn't come back even after trying multiple different firmware versions.
Hi, welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! This could we'll be related to an incorrectly configured configuration file, it is very hard to guess what is causing this with this little information.
Jacob, were you able to resolve your issue with steppers movement? If my response below helped you (and you can accept it to close question)? Or do you have any other explanation to share, like stepper driver settings in firmware? I am very curious of the actual reason. Also let us know if you still struggle with this.
This is a theoretical assumption, but I suppose that your steps/mm values are now wrong in the EEPROM - specifically that they are set to 0 (zeroed steps per mm)? Could you please use the LCD and navigate to Configuration > Advanced Settings > Steps per mm and check what values are set there? If there are zeros, could you set them to positive values (e.g. =80) and check homing again? Then save the changes using Configuration > Store Settings.
I just made the following test proving that this may be the cause. I set steps per mm for X=0 (executed G-Code: M92 X0 from serial terminal) and tried to move X. The stepper motor was enabled (quiet noise or hiss), but it didn't move at all. There was no additional feedback e.g. on LCD. Pretty similar.
If this is not the only broken setting, then option Configuration > Restore Defaults should reset the EEPROM to values defined in Marlin's configuration. I needed to perform Configuration > Store Settings to make it persistent. But this will reset many other values, so I would suggest writing down all current values from LCD before doing the reset, for reference in future (in case they were valuable). And you still may not see all of the settings on the LCD, therefore I would use G-code for this operation - see below.
These operations can be also performed from a serial terminal using G-Code commands: M503 to verify and copy the current configuration, and M502 followed by M500 to perform a factory reset.
In your platformio.ini file check the default_envs variable if it's mega2560 set it to your board type, this video from ruiraptor explains how to get your board type. It fixed it for my Ender 3.
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14818 | Ender 3 unknown (maybe bed leveling) issue
I halfway feel like I walked into a landmine, neighbor's kid saved up and bought an Ender 3 base model printer. Just before it was given to me he installed a BL touch I bought him in exchange for him printing some parts I was modeling and so our story starts...don't think I can go into my full sob story so I'm going try and cut to the chase but I have little knowledge of how this is put together and coming in in the middle and backpaddling whether is was put together correctly.
As a 3D modeler I attempted to print a demo file or two in preparation to print a case for a raspberry pi camera I've been working on during COVID. At some point during the print while I wasn't around the bed flew off, and there was an inch of plastic melted around the head. Long story short I spent the last week finding, buying and replacing the whole hot end assembly as it was cheaper then repairing it. So now I believe I'm back to square one.
While watching something print, I noticed the PLA wasn't getting bunched off on one part of the print so I stopped it before a repeat of earlier in the month happened. While sitting on the floor I began to notice the right side of the bar where the hot end/nozzle attaches is about 1 cm or so higher then the right. As I have no frame of reference I'm hoping someone can confirm whether that should be the case.
Raising the Z to the top and measuring to that cross bar I don't know that it's the bed but I don't have a small enough level to put on the bed.
I'm seeing if I print something like a calibration cube it's printing OK, but if I go for something wider like 3D Benchy or my camera case the filament only touches on one part of the bed. This is occurring on both the original bed and the glass bed I installed and readjusted the Z for.
Sorry...Hope that's not TMI, there's a lot going on. Also I'm using a spool of Hatchbox PLA if that matters and the new hot end is a Creality one from Microcenter as I didn't trust what was on Amazon to be 'authentic'.
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Checking for bubble level is not necessary, you need to provide a square set of axes (X, Y and Z). Also, the axis need to be kept straight and square at all times, often with the portal roller style gantries, the X-axis isn't keeping the same distance over the X-axis as a result of a single side driven Z screw and issues with roller pressure.
Non-square gantry is a common problem with the Ender 3. You should be able to compensate by adjusting the bed leveling screws so that the nozzle at Z=0 is touching the bed at each of the four adjustment points. This will leave some skew, which you may or may not care about. But the right thing to do is leveling the gantry.
Both sides' Z carriages have some play in how the gantry mounts to them - the holes are larger than the machine screws that go through them - so after loosening the screws you can make adjustments. The screws on the side with the Z motor are hidden between the carriage and Z axis extrusion it rolls on, so to adjust it you need to roll the whole assembly off the top of the printer (with the cross beam at the top removed). Since you can't tighten it in-place, you just have to do your best to get it straight before putting it back on. The unpowered side, however, has screws that are reachable with the whole assembly in place, so you can square the gantry with the Z extrusions before tightening them.
Keep in mind that the whole Z axis system is severely over-constrained, with 6 wheels where 3 should suffice to constrain it. People have a lot of different ideas about how you should deal with this, and I'm still not sure what's best, but I think you want to get each of the V-roller sets tight (using the eccentric nuts to adjust the inner wheels) before leveling and tightening down the gantry. Otherwise the wheels may have uneven tension, causing the assembly to want to twist.
I wouldn't be the first Ender 3 with a skew gantry caused by the single Z stepper and the V-roller issues!
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14863 | Is it an issue when X-axis rods are able to slide in their mounting bracket?
While disassembling my printer, I found that the X-axis rods were able to be slide back and forth within their mounting bracket. This seems like it could lead to this axis shifting from vibration alone.
But, it might not matter, I think, because the extruder carriage is tensioned by a belt and it simply uses the rails as a guide to slide across. Even if the rods were to move, it wouldn't take the carriage along with it.
Will the X-axis rods sliding in their mounting bracket have an affect in print quality?
Here is a video:
If the x-axis rods only move in the x axis then there’s no problem, but if they aren’t firmly secured in the other axes then there could be issues. If they’re able to move then presumably they aren’t secured that well. Given the relatively small forces involved in 3D printing though, you may well be fine.
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14901 | Retuning a very delicate and tricky print after print failure
I recently leveled my bed on my Monoprice Select Mini v2 and tried printing this object with family:
Pentagonal Hexacontahedron Bracelet by mathgrrl - Thingiverse
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:288182
The symptoms were as follows:
the print footings did not stick to the bed
during the print some of the footings looked misshapen
Eventually everything lost cohesion and looked like a mess of silly string
the insulating tape on the heating block started to come off
Immediately after the insulating tape came off we aborted the print.
Here are the steps we followed to convert, slice and print the object.
We loaded the STL file into Ultimaker Cura 4.8.0, using a preset in the wizard for the Monoprice Select Mini v2
We opened the STL for the small bracelet, chose ‘Slice’, and copied the resulting .gcode to a microSD.
We popped the SD into the printer, preheated the nozzle and extruded a small amount of PLA (we used the PLA for a demo print of a cat hours earlier and it worked great for the demo)
We went to print and chose the .gcode for the small bracelet and let it start to operate.
The heating settings for the bracelet .gcode from Cura were a bit different different than those used for the demo cat .gcode that came with the machine. Both had the nozzle heated to 190 °C. The bed heating setting for the bracelet was 5 degrees hotter than the cat at 65 °C.
Any tips are appreciated. I don’t know what happened or if it possible to print this object successfully with the Monoprice Select Mini v2.
That print is very delicate and tricky. I suggest to use: Brim & support. But the tape is a machine-manner, not one of the print
I'm replacing the tape. I'll read up on 'Brim' & 'Support'. Is this what you were talking about? Brim: https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printing-brim-when-should-you-use-it/ | Support: could not find. Send a link with docs for what you mean by 'Support'?
the tape on the printhead is usually Kepton and holds some sort of insulating pad. Fiberglass or rockwool or something similar.
The print is extremely challenging, as it has a lot of thin diameter items growing up, a lot of overhangs and a rather small surface to hold to the bed. So you need a Brim and support:
As OP found, a Brim is a setting that adds extra material in the first layer around the print to increase adhesion.
Support Structures are to give an overhang something to rest upon. Removing them can be tricky, but they make some things printable at all. Like this bracelet. You'll have to finetune your settings, best by learning with less complex models first or mimicking the settings of others that made the bracelet.
The thin vertical parts can make the print fail nevertheless - you can possibly fix some of the vertical adhesion issues by printing slower. If these parts are too thin, you might be unable to print them at all with a 0.4 mm nozzle! As a rule of thumb, it is really tricky to print pillars slimmer than 2.5 nozzle diameters and almost impossible to print them nicely under 2 nozzle diameters.
My settings
I print my PLA at 200 °C, the bed at 60 °C, but then again I don't have a glass bed.
I only print on glass, for PLA I use exactly the same temperatures. But note that temperatures may vary a little from brand to brand, also on application.
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14805 | Under extrusion on one side, but only while printing support material
Trying to print a bracket for pliers, however the support material on the left side always fails by under extruding. The model is left-right symetrical, so the support is the same for both sides. However, only the right side prints flawlessly, while the left side barely extrudes any material at all. So far, I have tried increasing the extrusion multiplier to 125% (from default 109% - actually resulted in less support printed on left side), increasing the density of the support material and reducing retraction distance while increasing the retraction speed. I cannot get the left side support to print properly. The actual model prints without any issue, only the support material is failing to print.
I am using a Flashforge Creator Pro and Flashprint slicer software.
I allowed one of the prints to finish, pausing numerous times to add/adjust some tape to the almost non-existent left support structure to help hold it together. Once it reached the top part of the model where it printed the overhanging portion, it printed near-perfect, with some minor under-extrusion along the way (as seen in the first image)
I can't remember the exact settings used for each attempt, but I can recall (mostly) the settings I adjusted
^^ Default extrusion multiplier (109%)
^^ 116% extrusion multiplier (little perceivable difference to default)
^^ 125% extrusion multiplier (less extruded support material)
^^ Left side support failing to print, right side perfect
I have noticed there is a delay between when the extruder "starts" extruding and filament actually coming out. The print head moves during this time as though expecting filament to be extruding resulting in the first few cm being under-extruded, or not extruded at all.
Almost surely the slicer is skipping retraction in support, thereby oozing out all the material that's needed somewhere else. Classic bad Cura behavior. Wouldn't be surprised if Flashprint does it too.
Thanks. I have since noticed there is a delay between when the extruder "starts" extruding and filament actually coming out. The print head still moves during this time resulting in the first few cm being under extruded, or not extruded at all
Another supposed cause for this type of problem is moisture in your filament. My guess at the mechanism would be water absorbing lots of the energy intended to heat and melt the filament after unretract due to its high specific heat and phase transition energy, only allowing the filament to start flowing once it's all boiled off.
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14807 | Specifications of Prusa Mini X-Axis Belt
My Prusa Mini arrived with a defective X axis belt. I can order a replacement and it is covered by warranty. But I would also like to know its specifications. This information is available on the store page for the MK3 but not the Mini.
You might just ask them... They are pretty responsive to email or questions on their web site.
To be sure you could measure the width and the tooth spacing (pitch). The most probable and used belt in 3D printers is the GT2 6 mm belt. The teeth are spaced 2 mm and the width is 6 mm.
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14809 | Horizontal faces not generated in Cura
I've never used a 3D printer before. I'm trying to print the calibration cube found on Thingiverse. After the process finished, I noticed that the face pointing up that forms the inset at the base of the letters Y and X was not printed and I could see a hole. The same for the faces pointing down at the top of the letters. At first I thought that it was a printer issue, then I checked the relevant slices and I found out that those faces are not built at all in Cura:
If I do the same in the Prusa slicer, I get the necessary base:
How do I get the same in Cura?
How is this setting called?
Cura has several settings that can cause it to erroneously omit small top/bottom surface "skins". Look for preshrink ("Skin Removal Width"), expansion ("Skin Expand Distance"), and particularly the limits on when expansion takes place ("Maximum Skin Angle/Minimum Skin Width for Expansion").
Normally Cura shrinks then expands skins by the same amount, proportional to line width, to avoid generating skin (which is slow to print and harms layer adhesion when mixed with walls) in places where the walls will already cover it. But the recently added max-angle/min-width settings cause the expansion to be skipped in certain places, leaving just the shrinking, and thereby serious gaps in the surface. This feature is just misguided and should be disabled by setting the min width to 0.
If you still have problems after that, you can try lowering both the shrink and expand, possibly even all the way to 0, but this will harm print quality and shouldn't be necessary.
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14811 | Cleaning the nozzle every Xth layer G-code
I want to make a G-code script for Cura to clean the nozzle every Xth layer or every one minute?
With Cura there is only start and end G-code, so there is no "layer change" G-code like another slicer (e.g. Ideamaker).
Where should I write the code?
How can I define the Layer number?
just as a side note. Is this something that you would want your printer to do automatically without needing to resort to g-code modifications? I'm asking.. er... for a "friend".
yes the Printer should do this automatically, you have to write the G-code in the Slicer (Cura) and every time you slice the written G-code will be automatic there! sometimes you have to be careful, if you change the Template the Orginal G-code will be used! just look if you still have the same G-code!
Not an answer, but if your nozzle is getting dirty during your print, it means there is a significant amount of material that came out of the extruder that did not bond where it was supposed to. This means the part was not printed right, and does not have the structural properties it should. You should probably try to figure out why that's happening and fix it, and if you do, you'll probably find that you no longer need to clean the nozzle.
Cura now has a setting "Wipe Nozzle Between Layers", located in the Experimental settings group. it requires the installation of a wipe brush or wipe surface that is fixed to the x axis at a certain x position and moves with it the y and z directions. You can find suitable 3D printable nozzle brush holders for most 3D printers.
It does more or less exactly what you are looking for, just that you do not specify nozzle cleaning intervals "every Xth layer or every one minute" as you want but by print volume – see sub-setting "Material Volume Between Wipes". B setting this to a very small value, you can however force a wipe after every single layer, as that is the hardcoded maximum number of wipes that this setting will generate.
For a good article explaining the setting in depth, see "Cura Wipe Nozzle Between Layers" by Martin Lütkemeyer.
There are extensions for Cura that can do almost what you want to do for you (with respect to the layer or height).
You need to add post-processing scripts to the Cura slicer. You do that from the top menu options Extensions -> Post Processing -> Modify G-Code and then add the option of choice.
E.g. for an event at every layer change you should use script "Insert at layer change" and fill out the G-code you want to perform.
There are options to write your own extension, but that would require some software development skills.
Optionally, you could use the "ChangeAtZ" script to add absurd temperature changes of the extruder to post process that later by a simple e.g. Python script (outside Cura) to replace those actions with the cleaning actions you want to perform. But, when you can do that, you could write a script outside Cura to detect the layers (e.g. from the comments or from the layer change command G1 Zxx) and insert that right away.
For inserting this on the basis of time would be very difficult, it is difficult to estimate the time printing actions take to then inject such a script.
If you want to add markers, just add comments instead of adding absurd temperature changes.
@fectin That script won't add solely comments, so inserting a absurd/strange/"other than the used" temperature is a viable solution I've used in the past.
ahh, gotcha. Maybe use one of the statuses instead, like M113? Or a beep with M300?
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14831 | Cura: How to prevent my 3D printer from auto cooling after prints
Is there a setting or G-code, to prevent Ultimaker Cura from setting the nozzle and build plate temperatures to 0? I have looked and have not found anything in the printer beginning/ending G-code, print settings, etc...
Would this have something to do with it?
Cura will skip emitting the heat-up gcode at the beginning if your custom start gcode contains variable expansions for temperature, but I don't know if there's anything comparable for end gcode. This is actually really annoying. You might need a postprocessing script to fix it.
Playing with the settings, I can keep the build plate hot, but the hotend still gets reset.
It is a fire hazard to not turn off the hotend after the print.
In CuraEngine's FffGcodeWriter::finalize method, G-code to zero the bed and enclosure temperature is only written if the machine profile defines a heated bed/enclosure, so you could in theory avoid the cooldown by telling Cura your machine doesn't and putting the heatup commands in your custom start gcode instead of letting Cura emit them itself. However it unconditionally zeros all of the hotend temperatures, and does this after emitting your custom end G-code, so you can't even turn the hotend back on from there. The only way to undo Cura's insistence on turning it off is with some sort of postprocessing.
Update: There's actually a way to fix this purely at the configuration/profile level! Set machine_nozzle_temp_enabled ("Enable Nozzle Temperature Control") to false (off) and Cura will not emit any M104/M109 temperature commands. You can then put whatever temperature commands you do or don't want in your start/end gcode.
The insistence on turning off the hotend is a fire safety thing.
@Trish: Yes, but that can be handled better in the firmware or print server (preferably independenly in both, so if either one fails on its own the other works as a fallback) as an inactivity timeout rather than an immediate cooldown (which messes up immediate second print; even if you rapidly re-select "preheat" it's cooled down to 160 or so already).
It's actually rather odd that Cura doesn't have an option to disable hotend temperature controls entirely, since presumably some people will use it with non-heated extruders for pastes that are viscous but flow at room temperature.
And... it turns out it does! Updated answer with new info.
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14834 | Limit X axis due to direct drive
Recently I printed this direct drive mod and installed into my Ender 3.
After installation, the stepper motor constantly bangs into the right Z frame of the printer. I have already set the bed X axis size to 190 mm within Cura slicer and my OctoPi printer profile but when homing, it will home to left and move towards right at a fairly fast speed and "BANG", I can hear the motor skipping a few steps, not sure how to proceed from here...
What flavor and version of firmware are you running?
A photo would be welcome also! It homes in the correct direction, I'm curious why it moves instantly to the right, a link to a video might be interesting to.
Try using a pancake stepper I heard those work quite well, they do have less torque but you can overcome that with gear ratio's like on the bondtech extruders. It should be thin enough so you can use the full volume again. If you dont think that's worth it you should move you X-axis endstop since the homing is where it goes wrong, as far as firmware goes I can't help you in that aspect as well as other would be able too. I hope this helps.
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14838 | Ender 3 Pro with BLTouch bed leveling stops after 1 test (Marlin 2.0.7.2)
I have an Ender 3 Pro with the BLTouch installed. Firmware is Marlin 2.0.7.2. I followed this instruction.
When I start the bed leveling it will go to the center, check it twice and then return to the home position. When I did this with the firmware from Creality it would check 9 different points. I would expect this also from this firmware.
In the Configuration.h I have this setting:
#define GRID_MAX_POINTS_X 3
so I would expect 9 tests.
I double check everyting with the video. The only difference is that the video is based on an older version. The setting
#define MIN_PROBE_EDGE = 10
is missing in firmware 2.0.7.2.
Is there maybe a new setting that I should enable/disable?
obviously, something in the frmware is wrong. Without knowing your firmware settings we can't help. Please copy the firmware settings to a pastebin.
Have you looked into the configuration file and overseen #define PROBING_MARGIN 10 :-) This is not the problem however!
https://pastebin.com/r2r0yhes
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14977 | Can I sell a handpainted large scale 3D model of a copyrighted 2D concept art?
The art in question is https://www.instagram.com/p/CIfsO2ZD7Rj/ . I Think the concept artist, Jean Giraud, is dead.
While better fitted to our friends at law.SE, the general gist is: No.
Art is protected by copyright, and any adaption (derivative work) requires the OK from the right holders per se. Only 70-75 years after the death of the author (or publication for company works), a work enters the public domain and the copyright expires.
There are some exceptions (fair use/fair dealing/...), but media transformation is not one of them.
Giraud died in 2012, his estate or heirs - or whoever he/they sold the commercial rights to - own the right to ok derivative Works till around 2087.
Yes, better asked at law se, however, if the work is a 3d model inspired by a 2 image then it can be argued that it's a new work. This concept came up when people were thinking about selling 3d prints of existing sculptures; in that case, the answer was a definite no.
@user77232 inspired by is ok, but 3d representation of a 2D art is not. There is a rather blurry line between inspiration and derivative
yes; and this is why we have lawyers :)
This is something that might have a precedent, where the line is blurry, someone might have already tried, and in that case the judge's decision in that court case is the official interpretation of the law towards that specific scenario.
There might also be definitive laws regarding "derived works"...
Like the others, I would ask the Law SE for help.
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14979 | Print quality: possible Z wobble
The printer I am using is an Artillery Sidewinder X1. In the photos attached you can see that I am having a lot of inconsistency between layers.
The problem has never gone away and I always thought it was Z wobble but now I'm not so sure it is because we have tightened everything up, making sure everything is stable and tight.
Is this Z wobble or is it something else. Could it be the filament? Does it have anything to do with the slicer settings?
that marks are due heating problem vs quality filament vs speed printing. I had the same few years ago.
Thanks for putting me on the right track. I will look into those three things and post an answer if I fix it.
For me this also look like overextrusion and heat- notice the drops in the middle of boardside's lower part. Also, corners (booth, bow) seems emphasized - and if it's not filament (too much + too hot = pressure) then maybe too little jerk?
No, this is not Z-wobble, Z-wobble is usually characterized by a repetitive distortion, from the supplied images this repetitive pattern is not observed. A Z-wobble pattern is typically caused by the lead screws, or the Z drive where carriage follows the X/Y motion of the lead screw nut.
A typical image of Z-wobble on a Benchy would look like:
Your print doesn't look that bad for a low-end 3D printer.
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14985 | Parameterizable customer object in Tinkercad
Background: Basic shapes in Tinkercad have parameters like Sides, Segments, ... (see screenshot below).
Using codeblocks one can create custom shape. Within the code it is possible to define variables which can be used as a parameters based on which shape is created. This is not flexible solution because if I want to modify some variable I need to enter codeblock, change the value, export to Tinkercad and then I can use it.
Question: Is there a way to create custom object with parameters controlled from Tinkercad like in case of basic shapes?
Yes, there is such a way in Tinkercad. It is called a shape generator and it is very well hidden. you can find it here:
Open Tinkercad and select a model to Tinker or create a new one.
select the "Basic shapes" pulldown on the right and choose the last option: "shape generators".
choose "create shape generator"
choose "new shape generator" and select a template to start from
Here you have the javascript code to create a shape with parameters like basic shapes.
Unfortunatelly shape generators access has been limited. Authors encourage to use codeblocks instead. You can read more here: https://tinkercad.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360035611434-Attention-Tinkercad-to-limit-access-to-the-Shape-Generator-code-editor-for-new-users
That's a shame to hear. Let's hope that codeblocks matures before the JS scripting is disabled.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.560453 | 2020-12-08T21:13:31 | {
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14926 | UBL Marlin settings to cover whole bed
This question is related to:
How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?
I am trying to figure out how to set UBL In Marlin to cover as much bed as possible.
So My bed is size of 300x255 mm
#define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { -34, -1, -2 }
My Probe can physically cover 255 mm (whole Y) and 272 mm (of X size)
Let's give it a bit of margin of the 0Y -> 3 mm and from 0X -3 mm
So idea is to cover X from 3 mm to 269 mm and Y from 3 mm -> 252 mm
How should I set
#define PROBING_MARGIN
and
#define MESH_INSET
so it covers my bed and probes 100 points ?
I tried different options, most of the time it stops at 57/100 and printer HALTs.
Only setting I got it working with was:
#define PROBING_MARGIN 30
#define MESH_INSET 50
But that does not cover whole bed. I am struggling to understand how it's calculated.
Other settings I found was commented as below.
#if PROBE_SELECTED && !IS_KINEMATIC
// #define PROBING_MARGIN_LEFT PROBING_MARGIN
// #define PROBING_MARGIN_RIGHT PROBING_MARGIN
// #define PROBING_MARGIN_FRONT PROBING_MARGIN
// #define PROBING_MARGIN_BACK PROBING_MARGIN
#endif
Any suggestions ?
PROBING_MARGIN and MESH_INSET make the effective probing area smaller, so if you want to have more area, you should reduce the value of these constants.
As of Marlin 2.x, the probing area isn't defined directly by the firmware configuration settings, but calculated, based on the probe offset settings. The constants you mention are reducing the probing area to keep the carriage/nozzle on the build surface.
If you have enough space on your printer to accommodate probing the whole bed, you could minimize the marging and define edges:
#if PROBE_SELECTED && !IS_KINEMATIC
#define PROBING_MARGIN_LEFT PROBING_MARGIN
#define PROBING_MARGIN_RIGHT PROBING_MARGIN
#define PROBING_MARGIN_FRONT PROBING_MARGIN
#define PROBING_MARGIN_BACK PROBING_MARGIN
#endif
Thank you for the response, I did get to that setting, however it doesn't seem to work as I thought it would, somehow I've managed to cover most of the bed, but it still doesn't finish 100 points but stops at 91, however at least mesh is valid after that.
What's the case, when it calculates probing points ( 100 ) and some of them are outside allowed area, because that's what seems to happen
Could be you don't have enough memory to store the points?
As far as I understand, this is how the limits are calculated:
The probing size is first calculated from X_MAX_POS and Y_MAX_POS and your NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET values. If you changed the extruder or part cooling system or added a BLTouch you will have to update these.
This calculated area is reduced by MESH_INSET if you want to make the probing area smaller. I don't really know why you'd do this so I always just set it to 0, and also it seems totally redundant with PROBING_MARGIN. I don't know if they are calculated any differently, it would be great if the comments in Marlin were a bit clearer here
This area is further reduced by the PROBING_MARGIN for situations like if you have bed clips around the edges, or if you're using a contactless probe which can get bad values near the edges.
So basically, if you're using a contact probe like BLTouch and you don't have any clips or obstructions around the edges, you can just set both MESH_INSET and PROBING_MARGIN to 0 then provided your X and Y axis max positions have enough extra room compared to the nozzle to probe offsets, you should be able to probe all points without issue.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.560611 | 2020-12-02T18:17:18 | {
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14949 | Intermittent lifting (Creality CR-6SE + glass bed + stock PLA) issues
Creality CR-6 SE 1.0.2
Creality Slicer 4.2.1
stock PLA roll
Slicer settings: Default (generic PLA) 0.2
Having intermittent issues where prints (usually edge) would "lift".
I replaced the bed, and the filament, and I don't see this issue anymore, but..
I'm a new student of 3D printing, I want to understand why issues happen, and not just how to patch/workaround them.
This is a classic example of not enough adhesion. Adding brim, more temperature in the bed and using an adhesive like glue stick, hair spray or a dedicated print adhesion spray solved the issue. See e.g. this question which is very similar.
Thanks! I postulated that it was either adhesion issue or cold bed. I may have inadvertently improved this issue by switching from glass to PEI bed, but, as always, it's good to understand why things happen and learn properly.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.560862 | 2020-12-06T05:18:44 | {
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14951 | Crashed while printing (adhesion issue? Level issue?)
Printing with "Amolen bronze PLA", success with smaller prints.
Decided to print the "Fillenium M", but it crashed at 50 % during the print.
I assume the print fell down (due to raft failure).
Or, it might be some other issues (no idea?).
Temperatures are:
Extruder 190 °C
Bed 50 °C
In your experience, what would be most likely culprit?
Picture attached below (see the notch where the nozzle crashed into print)
Amolen Bronze PLA
Creality CR-6 SE 1.0.2
Creality Slicer 4.2.1
It is very hard for us to answer this question, there are too many unknowns. Generally, the use of a raft is not necessary and from the image cannot be concluded that the raft is the issue. Bed temperature for PLA can be seen as too low, but that depends on the used filament.
Thanks. I should finish my octoprint box. That'd be handy for fails like this one.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.560986 | 2020-12-06T06:07:55 | {
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"معشوقه ومعشوق"
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