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14534 | Issue with rim of first 5-8 layers of my Prints
I have this issue with my 3D prints on my Ender 3 printer bed. The first 5-8 layers are wider than the rest (exaggerated illustration shown in the 3D rendering below), I think this is because the 3D nozzle is so close to the bed during the first few layers of the print, thus creating a rim/bulge out at the bottom. However, I can't lower the bed any further, else the model will not stick to the bed like it is supposed to.
How do I fix this issue and still allow the nozzle to stay close enough to the bed to make the model stick properly?
Additional information:
I am using a glass bed
printing with PLA,
that I print at around 185-200 °C
and for the bed, I heat it at about 50C °C.
I Tried:
I have tried lowering the bed. Outcome: the print doesn't stick to the bed as it should and just falls off.
Lowering the heat of the bed. Outcome: The same thing.
Increasing the initial layer height. Outcome: The same plus the additional layers on top all go out of wack.
This is sometimes called "elephant foot", and the corrections vary. What kind of printer, what filament, what print temp, and what bed temp are you using?
This defect is called "Elephant foot", it is caused by temperature imbalance, insufficient cooling or a nozzle too close to the bed, a more descriptive answer is found here.
OK. I have tried all of the things suggested in the other Stack Exchange post, and none seem to be working. see edited question above. @0scar
Elephant foot, classic. What temperatures you tried? "lowering" can be a lot...
You should increase the nozzle to glass distance and use an adhesion layer like glue stick or dedicated 3D printing spray. Then you will be able to increase the distance while maintaining adhesion.
What pre-print nozzle priming are you using? A priming line in the slicer's start gcode? Skirt? Without good priming, first few cm of extrusion won't stick and will get dragged around, ruining the rest of your first layer.
Note: I'm talking about the adhesion problem after you fix your bed height, which is the cause of your elephant's foot.
The bed and filament temperatures you are using are the usual ones for PLA, so it probably is not the case that the filament is flowing too much and oozing out of place (*).
So most likely the problem is with the slicer. Things to look for:
Most slicers print the first layer in a slightly different way than all other layers (to improve adherence to the bed) and some parameters may be off:
Easiest check: repeat the print with a different slicer; if it goes better it was a slicer setting that needs finetuning.
More involved check:
For Cura make sure "initial layer height", "initial layer line width", "initial layer horizontal expansion" and "initial layer flow" have the default values.
For Prusa Slicer reset "first layer height", "first layer extrusion width" and "elephant foot compensation" to their default values.
Additionally, most slicers will disable the fan for the first few layers. Change the setting so that the fan is only disabled for the first layer.
(*) That is of course unless you got a bad batch of filament. Less probable than the slicer settings being off, but check with a completely different PLA filament to verify.
Ok. I don’t think i have bad filament, i bought mine from hatchbox...
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.998032 | 2020-10-02T18:53:36 | {
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"toño mateo juarez"
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14803 | preventing my printer nozzle from getting too dull, from nothing but PLA filament
I had a new Extruder tip on my Ender 3 3D printer. the tip looked like the left tip in the below image. After I have been using it for about 5 months, the tip got dull/flat, like the tip on the right in the below image.
The only filament I have used is a spool of PLA (from hatchbox) and a spool of PETG (from sain-smart)
About the Filament
From the time that I replaced the tip, to now, i have only used my 1 spool of PLA filament.
I don't believe it has any carbon-fiber in it, the only other things I can think of, are that the filament has a tough time sticking to the bed, so I have to print pretty close to the bed.
3D prints using my PLA filament
my PLA filament
I don't 3D print a terribly large amount, Is it normal to have to be replacing the pen this often?
How do I prevent my extruder tip from getting dull so soon? Is there a way to prevent the pen tip from getting dull at all?
Images:
I realize the pictures are only illustrations emphasizing the kind of change you see, but since a change that severe isn't plausible, it would be helpful to see photos or some sort of measurement of the actual change you're experiencing. How many nozzles has this happened to? Are you sure you didn't just get differently shaped ones to begin with (there are at least 2 common versions with same orifice diameter but different tip shape).
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE it's feasible: that's about 1 mm, and 0.6 kg of Carbonfiber filled filament do about that to a printer nozzle.
@Trish: wow, is that from combing over the already printed material?
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE it's from printing carbonfiber filled PLA (worst offender in being abrasive) alone. They used a circle or cylinder as a test shape, so the ground is somewhat even.
are you sure that you have gotten the right stuff? Hatchbox PLA should not be that abrasive, and that nozzle really has seen a super abrasive filament.
Im sure. @Trish
Black? Or what color?
Yes. Black PLA. @Trish
That's extremely atypical. I printed about 10 spools or such on my current nozzle and lost not any brass. Could you show a picture of a print and/or a piece of filament?
Ok, the new pictures stun me... that is the result of that very sort of filament only? No woodfill or other filled filament, no glow in the dark, nothing ever?
Nope. Just plain ordinary PLA. @Trish
I bet you have way too smooshed 1st layers. That brass looks cheap too, better nozzles last longer. for PLA, get one of those magnetically removable flexible build plates. I haven't touched gluesticks or hairspray since I invested in one; love it for PLA. Only downside is that you can't heat the bed past 70C.
Your extruder nozzle will wear from the inside out if you are using abrasive filaments, which include carbon fiber, wood type filaments, glow-in-the-dark and many other types.
Because they are abrasive, removing material from the inside also thins the cone shape of the outside (point) of the nozzle.
The solution is to not use abrasive filaments, or to use a hardened nozzle specifically manufactured for abrasive filaments, or to change the nozzle frequently.
If this is a 3D printing pen as your post suggests, please clarify, as the answer is likely to change but only slightly. If this is a nozzle for a 3D printer, consider to edit your question to reflect thusly.
OP claims to use an ender3. possibly an exotic filled pla or glow in the dark...
in a printer
abrasive filament
You probably are using an abrasive filament. The most loss on abrasive filament happens when the nozzle runs over the printed material as it extrudes and less from the bore itself. As a result, the nozzles get ground up from the tip. How carbon-fiber filled PLA grinds away nozzles can be seen on this page of the Olsson Ruby webpage (no affiliation), where they printed circles till the nozzles were ground away half a millimeter: it took just 300 grams for brass, a kilo for stainless steel and 4 kg for hardened steel.
To reduce the wear of the nozzle, one can swap to such from harder material (as seen above), for example, stainless steel or hardened steel, which then needs to get replaced less often. On the flipside, the machining of these materials is harder and thus the nozzle costs more.
The only way to get virtually no nozzle grind-up from printing abrasive material - especially PC filled - would be to go for a ruby nozzle.
mechanical damage
In case you have misleveled your bed and print too close, you might also ram your nozzle into the bed to a point that the mechanical impact dulls your nozzle. Make sure your bed is leveled properly.
in a 3D-pen
3D pens often come with really soft nozzles and mishandling - as in pushing against a surface - can grind their tips faster than a normal printer would. The other things still apply.
@XBuilder that would mean you have set our printer up in a way that literally rams it into the build platform again and again
Well, honestly, either my PLA has something in it (which from where i bought it from) is unlikely, or some sort of mechanical damage. I don't know what else would have caused it to wear down like that so fast. @Trish
@XBuilder which is exactly what baffles me so much. Either the PLA is filled with something as abrasive as fiberglass or the nozzle gets damaged... which would happen at the start of the print usually... Would you do me a favor and possibly swap the nozzle, measure its stick out, level, repeat the measurement and then do a test cube, then measure again?
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16320 | Hotend is oozing out the sides and getting in the way of my print
My Ender 3 just started having this problem a couple of months ago. Prior to that the amount of excess filament showing up on the hotend was very minimal, but now it is oozing so much out of the top of the metal hotend, that it is hardening on my prints and hitting my extruder. How did this happen? and what can I do to fix this problem?
This is the hotend I have, a detailed image of my hotend is shown below:
The part of the hotend that I think is oozing is highlighted in purple/blue.
Here is the actual Image
There is now a clog somewhere, since I changed the filament yesterday, not sure if that is related, just thought I should mention it.
UPDATE: I fixed the clog, and it is not related to the hotend...
Can you supply a picture so we can see exactly what is happening? This will help in being able to give you the best solution possible.
Do you have a motor (pushing the filament) attached to the heat sink or do you have a Bowden tub attached to it?
@PerryWebb I have a filament extruder, attached to a tube, that is attached to the filament hotend.
I know it's a little late... but... this specific problem seems to be common with thread in tips and heat break tubes. E3D's heads have it too.
The source of frustration is there are 3 dissimilar metals that all thread together, all have different thermal coefficients of expansion, so with heating and cooling cycles there is "crawling" of the parts and gaps widen.
Common wisdom is to "assemble everything hot" so you are at max metal expansion before tightening things down. I have only limited success doing this.
If I ever find a better solution, I will post it.
Looking at the picture of your nozzle, it appears to seal against the heat break and not the Bowden tube. (A nozzle sealing against the heat break will have an entry hole of about 2 mm dia. for 1.75 mm filament. A nozzle will have an opening large enough for the Bowden tube to slip into if it seals against the Bowden tube.)
If your heat break is all metal, you have an all metal hot end that can extrude above 250 °C. If your heat break has a Teflon tube inside it, your hot has a highest temperature below 250 °C to avoid degrading the Teflon. Both follow the same procedure below, but you highest temperature for making the seal will be different.
To see if your nozzle is OK (not clogged), try pulling the filament out with the hot end at temperature (same procedure as unloading filament). Trim the irregularities off the filament while leaving a sharp end. Then, see if you can push the filament through the nozzle at extrusion temperature.
If still clogged, remove the nozzle (you will need to tighten it later anyway) and see if the filament will go through without the nozzle.
After camera piture: unless your hot end is all metal, the Bowden tube likely forms the seal to the nozzle. See if the length of the tube going into the hotend goes down to the nozzle. The end of the tube needs to be smooth to make the seal and the seal surface to the nozzle needs to be clean or the filament material soft enough to push out of the way. Pull up to release the tube. When you push down to lock the tube in, it should push the tube against the nozzle.
For an all metal hot end follow the procedure below.
Before camera picture:
Sounds like you lost the seal between the nozzle and the heat break. For most hotends (unless you have a plastic tube that pushes up against the nozzle) heat up to the maximum hotend temperature, then tighten the nozzle tight against the heat break in the heat block, to form a seal between the two.
If the nozzle tightens against the heat block before the heat break, you won't get a seal. You should see some threads of the nozzle exposed and not in the heat block.
Take care not to over tighten the heat break in the heat sink because the heat break is thin going into the heat sink to minimize heat conduction and will easily break.
If your seal to the nozzle is with a plastic tube, investigate why you don't have a seal.
Looking at picture:
Follow the above procedure while the heat break to the heat sink is of less consern since it appears that separate screws tighten it into the heat sink.
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14345 | Mixing nozzle vs dual nozzle vs IDEX vs tool changer for pva and pla
I am planning to build a 3D printer with dual extrusion. I want to use PVA with one of the extruders and the main material with the other one so color printing isn't important for me and I just want to use dual-material (mostly PLA and PVA). I want to know which of the types below should I use and also the pros and cons of each one, especially oozing and final print quality.
Dual extruder and dual nozzle (eg. E3D Chimera+)
Dual extruder and one mixing nozzle (eg. E3D Cyclops)
Dual extruder with 2 independent nozzles (2 stepper motors on the X-axis each one moving 1 E3D v6 individually)
Dual extruder and dual nozzle using a tool changer and a CoreXY setup (using a servo motor to lock the tool to carriage similar to the E3D tool changer)
You forgot the option: toolchanger. Which is in general the best one, if you can build it reasonably accurate
I would advise against mixing nozzle - you would have many jams and clogs and you would have to use purge tower which in my opinion is not worth it. Thats scratching point 2.
Point 1. and 3. are similar to some extent. With both types you have to align the nozzles in all three axes. Crude aligning should be done by hardware and fine tuning done in software (too much difference in Z alignment could cause one nozzle hitting the printed part). Anyway, the aligning is pain and you will have to do many test prints to achieve sufficient results.
In my opinion, point 3. (also called Idex - independent dual extrusion, I believe) will give you best results, because while one nozzle is printing, the other one is parked on the side where it can ooze as along as you manage to wipe it when it is getting ready to print. You can use purge buckets. Also you have to home the extruders indepentently as well (one to right and one to left).
Point 1. will introduce a lot off oozing issues. You would have to use ooze shield, or other methods of wiping the other hotend, if you are comfortable with that.
As for connecting another axis to Ramps 1.4, the board has 5 stepper motor outputs (X, Y, Z, E0 and E1). Therefore there is no output for another X axis, since both E0 and E1 will be used. You have two options I can think of:
Creating your own stepper output and connecting it to auxiliary pins on the board (if you are using legacy stepper drivers, you need 2-3 pins - direction, step, (and motor enable)). That requires some basic knowledge of electrical devices and firmware. However, it is doable. Not easy for someone without sufficient knowledge, but not impossible either.
Or the other option is to buy an existing boar with 6 stepper motor outputs such as Bigtreetech SKR PRO. You still have to configure the firmware but it is much easier this time (it has been made/pre-made several times with tutorials).
I would suggest using Marlin firmware as it supports many configuration types and has very strong community - someone has likely solved your solution or can help you solve yours.
I would also suggest not using Ramps board with Arduino Mega2560. That board configuration is so old. 3D printers have moved on, whereas that board has stayed the same for 5 or so years. It is OK, perhaps good for tinkering, but there are far better options (such as the mentioned BTT SKR series boards).
Good luck with your design.
Note: I do not own a dual extrusion printer of any of the mentioned types. This is just my understanding of the theory and how I would do it, if I were to build a dual extrusion 3D printer.
So if I use idex with a compatible board and marlin, do slicers eg. cura support it and what should I change in them? This is a rare setup and I think it wouldn't be easy to setup slicers for it. Can you please give some explanations in slicing software configurations?
As far as I know, all major slicers support multicolor/material printing. For them it is pretty much irrelevant which implementation you use. They just copy and paste the "tool change" gcode snippet you give them. The snippet does depend on the type of multimaterial printing as it tells the printer when to change and how to change the tools. Idex is not at all rare and should be supported by all the tools you will need (at least most of them). I think there should be many tutorials on the internet on how to setup multimaterial printing or even Idex in particular.
A quick google search found a Reddit post link. Maybe you will find some useful information there. As a side note I recommend using a board with removable stepper drivers, not integrated, as it makes replacement much easier and is more flexible in which drivers you want to use. Also you might consider using a regular board (4-5 stepper drivers) and adding a premade extension which would add the required stepper driver slots. I am not aware of any particular ones. Just search the internet and you will find something.
And if you find something, do not just jump straight to it. Read articles, watch reviews of various products, watch tutorials,... because if you chose wrong, it might make your construction a lot harder, but does not have to. Or if you find someone has solved at least partially your problem, contact them and ask them for help. They might at the very least point you in the right direction, or even modify their solution to your needs.
Beware, PVA printing is not the Holy Grail! It is expensive, very hygroscopic and easily cloggs the nozzle. I've been using it for some years with mixed feelings. Do you really want/need to print with PVA? I would like to remind you that there are brands out there that sell you a printer that are capable of doing what you want.
@0scar I know how PVA is and it's problems but I need it.
@MStarha Thanks for your note about slicer configuration. Also, the only available boards in my country are Ramps 1.4/1.6/1.7, rumba, and some mks boards. The best board for me is skr pro but skr boards are completely unavailable and unfortunately, I can't order from any international shop eg. amazon or banggood. So I don't have many options to compare and read their reviews.
Out of those boards, Rumba seems to have 6 stepper driver slots. Otherwise you will have to add your own slot. And as @0scar mentioned, you can buy different idex printers pretty much ready to go.
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15859 | Is it possible to get higher resolutions by using high resolution encoders and custom firmware?
So I was thinking about is it possible to reach higher resolutions with encoders and DC motors? I found a cheap high-resolution magnetic encoder that can be used along with a DC motor to access higher resolutions. The encoder has 8192 PPR meaning that it can measure up to 0.04 degrees if I have correctly calculated. So if for a stepper with 0.9 step angle and no micro-stepping with 20 tooth pulley and 2mm belt, the steps/mm is 10, it means every 9 degrees with this pulley and belt setup makes 1mm and so 0.04 degree makes 0.004mm movement that is about 4 microns. Is this correct and possible? If so, why don't big companies use this method?
Link to the encoder:
RLS RMB20 rotary magnetic encoder module
The mistake in your reasoning is assuming no microstepping. Most 3D printers use 16 microsteps, and in my experience with both cheap A4988 drivers and nice TMC2209 drivers, microstepping is quite accurate. As part of an answer to a question I asked, you can see a test print showing single-microstep features. My motors have 1.8° step angle, yielding 3200 steps per rotation at 16 microsteps, or 12.5 microns of linear movement per microstep. With 0.9° step angle you could get it down to half that, and you could probably halve it again going to 32 microsteps.
Even if you can't get it as good as your 4 microns with stepper motors though, at 12.5 micron positioning resolution you're already to the point where extrusion error is going to play a much bigger role in dimensional accuracy than toolhead positioning error does. Going past that with FDM requires high resolution extruder axis movement, closed-loop control with a precise filament diameter sensor, direct drive with minimal distance between the extruder gear and nozzle, etc.
So with TMC drivers, you can have 256 microstepping that equals 0.3 microns. But I don't think it has enough accuracy to move by 0.003 degrees. Won't the step losses make steppers unable to perform these accurate steps? If they don't, Then why don't manufacturers say 0.3-micron accuracy instead of 40 or 20? Is that all because of extrusion and filament errors?
@MahanLameie: I would be very surprised if at 256 microsteps you got consistent microstep size. This article shows there may be considerable error (the DRV8825, which has fallen out of use, is especially bad) but most are surprisingly good at just 16.
Note that [non-closed-loop] microstepping is inherently inaccurate under (variable) load, but most 3D printer designs are not actually under any load when the axis in question is at rest, only loaded by accelerating/decelerating the toolhead (thus ringing artifacts).
Anyway, the reason manufacturers don't advertise what you'd get with 256 microsteps is probably a mix of (1) they don't configure the firmware that way, (2) the low-end microcontrollers they use can't handle stepping at that rate (note: this is also a reason for them not to use servos with high resolution encoders), (3) they haven't designed for or tested for accuracy at that scale, and (4) their competitors haven't either so there's no race to embellish the truth about their capabilities.
So if I use encoders that have a suitable resolution, can I get a 256 microstepping resolution without any step loss and low torque problems that you mentioned? Also is there any point in doing that? Will I get better results if I have accurate 256 microstepping and 0.3-micron resolution?
@MahanLameie: As I said in the answer, the limiting factor for print quality is going to be extrusion accuracy. Getting positioning accuracy a few microns better is not that useful when your extrusion widths have errors of many tens of microns. If you've overcome that, I would expect a closed-loop control system positioning to give better results. This could be your encoder servo setup, or stepper motors with a stepper driver that uses feedback from the magnetic fields in the motor to correct for sub-step displacement due to load.
Yeah, the extrusion accuracy will make it useless. But at least it will be good for preventing step losses and layer shiftings.
@MahanLameie: Yes, preventing step loss/layer shift is probably the main practical advantage of closed-loop control for FDM printers at this time. FYI there are companies selling stepper motors with integrated closed-loop control that are driven via the same step pulse interfaces normal drivers take, that can be used as "drop-in replacements" with exiting printers.
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14186 | Which kinematic system has the highest quality?
I am going to design and build a 3D printer. I want the highest quality and accuracy so nothing except that is important for me. Which cartesian design has the highest quality and accuracy? CoreXY, Prusa, or Gantry (Ultimaker)?
Also, is it better to have a nozzle that moves in just direction "X", directions "X and Y", or "X, Y and Z"?
Every kinematic system can reach any quality, provided you spend enough money. You should define what are the constraints: cost? size of the mechanism? speed?
Just to clarify: Examples of kinematic systems would be Cartesian (which includes CoreXY), Delta, Scara, and Six-Axis. The quality of the system has less to do with the system and more to do with the implementation.
Furthermore, there are 2 main types of desktop/benchtop 3d printers that are commonly available: Fused Deposition Modelling (or fused filament fabrication depending on who you ask) and stereolithography; of which the latter, stereolithography, has better accuracy and quality.
In terms of FDM however, it can be easily argued that CoreXY cartesian printers offer the best quality and accuracy (both of which are subjective btw) than either delta or gantry designs (e.g. gantry would be the Prusa i3). The reason is that in order to get the CoreXY to work at all, the overall engineering and frame rigidity must be at a certain minimum. Once this minimum has been achieved, the quality of the prints typically meets or exceeds the quality/accuracy of even a well-tuned gantry printer; and you are going to see it in the cost of a CoreXY printer.
Direct Ink Writing or Robocasting is also available in desktop units.
Gantry is the Ultimaker style, not the Prusa.
@MahanLameie An Ultimaker is also a Cartesian printer! :-)
I know but if Prusa i3 is gantry, what is Ultimaker system called?
Ok, I have alternative names for the styles based on how the bed moves, perhaps I should introduce them: I call the Prusa i3 style travelling beds because it travels back and forth. I call the Ultimaker style and all CoreXYs for that matter floating beds because they move up and down. Lastly, there is the static bed type which doesn't move at all.
The tradeoffs in these systems are all about quality achievable at particular speed and acceleration profiles. If you really don't care about speed at all and want maximum accuracy, you probably want some type of Cartesian setup with no belts, only rigid lead screws which you can take to as fine a pitch as you like, and you can make all the parts as rigid as you like because mass doesn't matter (since acceleration doesn't).
Note however that extrusion accuracy is the limiting factor to quality and dimensional accuracy in even a half-decent printer. Rather than trying to design something with "perfect" spatial kinematics for quality from the outset, I think you should look at existing printers, figure out what about them isn't meeting your quality needs, and start from there to improve. You should also figure out what your speed constraints will be, even if they're only minimal.
So you mean that if I use belts, there is no quality difference between corexy and cartesian. right?
If you go slow enough, there should be little if any difference. Cartesian (with moving bed) has more momentum to deal with in the axis the bed moves on. I guess in theory corexy has more belt length for belt to stretch along. It's definitely better at high speed/acceleration though.
As I said is it good for the nozzle to also move in z-axis in addition to x and y in corexy? Does it increase or decrease print quality?
I don't think it matters which part moves relative to the other in Z. There's only one Z motion per layer, and you just want it to be rigid and reproducible. With corexy, making the bed move in Z is easier to do well.
@MahanLameie Please note, a CoreXY is also a Cartesian printer!
I think terminology usage differs. To me Cartesian means each of the X, Y, and Z motors directly controls an orthogonal axis. This excludes corexy.
@0scar I mean Prusa by cartesian. The style that bed moves in the y-axis, the nozzle moves in x and z-axis. Like Prusa i3 mk3.
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16183 | First move after homing way too fast
There are a few hits on my issue title but could not find an actual answer/advice.
I burned my Ender 3 Pro Creality motherboard and replaced it with an SKR 1.4 + TMC 2209 + BLTouch.
Everything is moving like it should and calibrated.
However, at the end of the homing process, the Z-axis goes up, then it's supposed to move to the printing position.
At that point, the acceleration is so great that the Z-axis barely goes down and I end up printing about 4 cm above the bed.
These are the settings I changed on my Marlin 2.0.7 firmware in relation to the Ender 3 setup:
Configuration.h
set #define STRING_CONFIG_H_AUTHOR "Nicolas Rietsch v 0.1.2"
enable #define CUSTOM_MACHINE_NAME
set #define CUSTOM_MACHINE_NAME "Ender-3 PRO"
set #define TEMP_SENSOR_BED 1
set #define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 500, 500, 5, 45 }
set #define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION { 450, 450, 100, 10000 }
set #default DEFAULT_ACCELERATION 450
set #define DEFAULT_TRAVEL_ACCELERATION 500
set #define INVERT_X_DIR true
set #define INVERT_E0_DIR true
set #define X_MIN_POS -26
set #define X_BED_SIZE 230
set #define Y_BED_SIZE 230
set #define Z_MAX_POS 250
enable #define NOZZLE_PARK_FEATURE
Configuration_adv.h
set #define X_CURRENT 500
set #define Y_CURRENT 500
set #define Z_CURRENT 500
set #define E0_CURRENT 650
set #define CHOPPER_TIMING CHOPPER_DEFAULT_24V
What am I missing?
DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION... what is your current value for Z in EEPROM? Have you checked acceleration settings using LCD or g-code? Or reset to defaults?
Maybe it would it help if you fix #default to #define in the current line:
set #default DEFAULT_ACCELERATION ...
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16171 | Printer with 50 microns or close to 50 micron (z resolution)
We're thinking of buying a PETG-powered printer. When researching printers available on the market, there are machines with a 100 microns. I was wondering if there are machines with a 50 microns or close to 50 micros? Otherwise, why not?
I do not understand what you mean by "50 resolutions". Do you perhaps mean a resolution/layer height of 50 microns? If so, you might find this question on the meaning (or lack thereof) of this "resolution" figure interesting. It is usually not a good metric to judge (FDM) printers by.
Your edit has still not made this an understandable question. It now says "50 microns" but it doesn't say 50 microns of what. Layer height? Resolution (in X, Y, or Z)? Repeatability (in X, Y, or Z)? Tolerance of the final part?
PETG is a material for FDM type machines, not a power source. 0.05 mm is 50 µm aka 50 Micorn.
The Monoprice Maker 10 Mini claims to do this, but the devil is in the details. For example, you may need a special nozzle. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=34438
@JoelCoehoorn a special nozzle and super slow settings and a perfect machine - which means it's anything but a production machine.
PETG is a material type that is only available for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) type printers. Those are limited in their achievable resolution by their nozzle size:
the Smallest depression in a surface that is printable is about half a line width in XY and 1 layer height in Z.
the smallest bulge from a flat surface that can reliably be produced by FDM is in the area of one line width in XY and 1 layer height in Z.
The minimum thickness of an item to be printable is one line width.
The maximum layer height in Z is 3/4 of the nozzle width.
Optimal line width is 1.1 Nozzle diameters.
That all is the theoretical limit, as machine movements and such push this minimum up by a factor of at least 1.5 and more likely 2-3, depending on how much your machine is tuned.
The smallest available nozzles that doesn't require specialty extruders are 0.2 mm. That means the absolute minimum detail that could in theory be reproduced on a surface of enough thickness is a 0.1 mm depression using a design similar to this picture:
As a result: NO FDM with PETG is not a solution to your requirements, you want reliable 0.05 mm resolution in XYZ, which is the area of Resin printers, especially DLP and SLA, but also Stratasys PolyJet can achieve this at the moment.
Estimating from your other questions (like this), I still suggest looking at a resin-based system that has materials that are certified for medical use!
I assume you mean a resolution of 50 microns (0.05 mm step size)
Most FDM printers can produce something useful upto 100 microns. If you want to print with more precision, try resin printers.
The reason for this is that an FDM printer uses an extruder with a specific nozzle diameter (typically around 0.4mm and minimum around 0.25 mm). plastic has too much viscosity to fit through a smaller diameter nozzle easy.
I don't think the question refers to printers with a step size of 0.1/0.05 mm. Most 3D printers have a step size that is far smaller than 0.1 mm. Most printers have about ~100 steps per mm in the X and Y axes (so 0.01 mm per step).
@TomvanderZanden but the best achieveable resoution is about 0.5 Nozzles area horizontally and 1 layer vertically.
@Trish Where does "0.5 Nozzles area" come from? You have to be careful what you mean by "resolution". The nozzle size limits the smallest things you can print but you can still position the nozzle more accurately, e.g., you can print both a 20.0 mm and 20.1 mm cube with a 0.4 mm nozzle and you would be able to differentiate between both prints.
@TomvanderZanden true, what I meant is "smallest achieveable depression in a surface that can be reproduced under perfect movement" - the other way round (extrusion) is in the 1-nozzle area. I elaborated on that in my answer
It's difficult to have a fast enough flow rate to prevent jamming with a 0.2 mm nozzle and 1.75 mm PETG filament. This would be more practical with a smaller diameter filament.
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16168 | How to create an air-free design?
I am creating a bottlecap-like design. The design is sealed by rotating the lid. I am adding a chemical to it for an experiment. I would like the inside of the design to have no air circulating to it through the lid tiny spaces.
My design:
Are there any simple solutions I can implement out there? Design-wise, material-wise, or maybe an extra piece?
Are you talking about sealing design or porosity of the objects when printed (it looks like the final sentence above the image hints to that)?
Are there any simple solutions I can implement out there?
A gasket made of rubber or other elastic or deformable material is probably the best option. Printing one or both of the parts using a deformable material like TPU might also work. Finally, if you don't need to open the unit during the experiment, you could use a sealant like silicone caulk might make sense.
Or a garden hose o-ring.
@caleb How about the air that is in before it is closed. is there a way to force it out?
@AnwarElhadad You could fill and close the device in an inert gas environment, like nitrogen, CO2, or argon. Or you could add a valve that lets you pump the air out after filling. I’m not sure that a FDM printed part would hold a vacuum — you’ll need to test that and perhaps take steps to seal the inside.
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15987 | How to change pin of thermo sensor?
The thermoresistor on my Anycubic Mega displays nonsense temperatures (e.g. 700 °C), since the resistor in the hotend is working fine the problem is 100 % in the board (Trigorilla RAMPS 1.4). Someone suggested switching the pin of the thermoresistor from T0 to T1, so I soldered it this way. Now I have to cook a personalized firmware for making it work. I opened a custom firmware in VSCode but I do not know what parameter I have to change, any idea?
If there are 2 slots for temperature measurements, you don't need to solder anything, just plug the thermistor from one into the other and switch pins in the firmware. This board is basically a RAMPS 1.4 board, it includes the pins_RAMPS.h header file, so in order to switch the T0 with the T1 temperature port, you need to change:
//
// Temperature Sensors
//
#ifndef TEMP_0_PIN
#define TEMP_0_PIN 13 // Analog Input
#endif
#ifndef TEMP_1_PIN
#define TEMP_1_PIN 15 // Analog Input
#endif
to:
//
// Temperature Sensors
//
#ifndef TEMP_0_PIN
#define TEMP_0_PIN 15 // Analog Input
#endif
#ifndef TEMP_1_PIN
#define TEMP_1_PIN 13 // Analog Input
#endif
Ok, thanks. I had to solder the pins since there was no way to insert the cable directly into the board, i do not know how to explain it but f you see he inside of the Anycubic Mega you can understand it immediately. I have edited the firmware and build it but it bricked the printer, i think the board its faulty since previously also the bed heating probe stopped working. Thanks by the way.
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15323 | How to tell if PLA temp is too hot/cold
I was having an issue with flat sheets raising up during initial layers. I had my bed at 80 °C and kept raising it thinking it was an issue with cold. After reducing the temperature to 50 °C the sheets sit flat now but sometimes sections come loose. I ended up using masking tape and a glue stick and everything finally seems to print flat and keep adhesion. I am using 210 °C hotend but I might try lowering it to 205 °C.
How do you check if your printing temperature is too hot/cold or if your bed temperature is too hot/cold? None of the articles I read ever said that a bed too hot would cause PLA to rise but that's what happened.
Concerning the bed temperature, the correct procedure to determine the optimal one is https://magigoo.com/blog/3d-printing-perfect-first-layer-magigoo/
Too Hot
If you're printing too hot (with any filament, not just PLA) you're going to see stringing and blobs/oozing because the material is getting runny and exiting the nozzle in an uncontrolled manner. Because it's uncontrolled, you will also likely see artifacts showing up in your prints.
You might also see your filament burning. Instead of coming out of the nozzle as whatever color it should be, it will look brown or discolored because it was overcooked.
If your bed is too hot, you might start to see "elephant's feet" where the lowest layer(s) are being heated to the point of becoming soft and the weight of layers on top of them are pushing down, causing that layer to "pooch out."
You might also have problems removing the print from the print bed's surface because the plastic has seeped into the details of the print surface and hardened, essentially welding the part to the surface.
Too Cold
If you're printing filament that is too cold, you're going to run into an issue where the material being pushed into the hot end is not getting melted sufficiently. This means that pressure will build up in the hot end that can't be released through extruding material through the nozzle. If you've ever tried to pipe frosting using a bag/tip and the frosting was too thick, you'll know what I'm talking about.
When material is being fed into the hot end but not being allowed to flow out of it, something has to give. That thing is your extruder. It has a wheel with little teeth on it to grip the filament and feed it into the hot end (or bowden tube which leads to the hot end). It can exert a certain amount of force on that filament. When the hot end's back pressure builds to the point that it becomes greater than the extruder's force, it will start skipping.
Imagine trying to push a large, heavy object. Your feet will begin to slip as your the force of your exertion overcomes the friction between your feet and the ground. That's what will happen to your extruder. It will make clicking/clunking noises as the extruder unsuccessfully tries to push the filament through and the friction between the teeth of the gear and the filament is overcome. This is called grinding.
If your bed is too cold, you simply just end up with problems getting the print to adhere to the surface.
Warping
In your particular case, you're describing warping. Remember from physics 101 that cold things contract and warm things expand. Your print bed is warm, and so, too, are the first layers that are near it because the bed's heat is transferring up into them and keeping them warm.
Obviously, your active (topmost) layer will also be a bit warmer as it as just come out of the hot end. However, in general as you move higher up away from the printed bed, the printed layers get colder. Because they are getting colder, they are undergoing thermal contraction.
This creates a thermal gradient where layers go from greater thermal expansion to greater thermal contraction. The combination means that the bottom of the print will start to curl up (away from the expansion and towards the contraction).
This is not an issue with your printing temperature. It's a problem with your ambient temperature.
The easiest way to fix this issue is to put your printer in an enclosure. This isolates the air immediately around the printer from the rest of the air in the room. Because your heater's bed and nozzle are throwing out a lot of heat, they will heat up the print chamber quite a bit (mine typically runs over 30 degrees celsius, even in the dead of winter).
Because the ambient temperature in the print chamber is so much warmer than the outside air, that temperature gradient is much, much smaller. As a result, warping will stop becoming a problem.
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15952 | Using auto-bed leveling, do I need to initiate G29 before every print?
Various methods to scan the top surface exist to improve the bed adhesion to prevent prints to come loose from the bed during printing: e.g. BLTouch and clones or inductive and capacitive sensors/probes.
In order, for the print head, to use this so-called auto-bed leveling (ABL) you need to add the G29 command in your start G-code of your slicer.
Is it necessary to call G29 before every print?
The rationale behind this is that scanning the surface takes up some time, certainly on very short prints, it would be great if the surface geometry could be saved.
No, it is not necessary to call G29 before every print to "auto level the bed" 1) provided that:
the bed surface has not changed (e.g. large load or force has been exerted on the build platform, leveling screws are accidentally adjusted, a substantial different bed temperature is used causing different thermal stresses, etc.),
the carriage of the hotend is stable (some printers, e.g. the cantilever type, or single side Z lead screw driven printers are more prone to an unstable or level axis), and
the scanned surface geometry is saved in the controller board memory.
There are several solutions to solve this. You could manually run the G29 command once in a while storing the scanned surface with an M500 command to save the mesh to the EEPROM (memory) of the controller board (this can be done from the printer controller display for Marlin operated printers, an interface like a terminal or a print server application, or from pre-stored .g/G-code files on an SD card). If you use the SD-card, note that it is possible to auto-launch G-code files from the root of the SD-card upon inserting.
Do note to remove the G29 command in the start code of the slicer. The G29 command needs to be replaced with M420 S1 for Marlin firmware operated printers. This command will load the saved mesh at the start of the print from memory. This is especially useful when using a large amount of probing points (e.g. a large bed mesh using a 10 x 10 mesh of 100 probing points, to ensure the mesh is up-to-date, once in a while initiate the scanning sequence to store an updated mesh).
1) Please note that auto-bed leveling might be confusingly indicating that some magic leveling of the build platform/surface itself is taking place (this is also possible in Marlin when there are multiple Z steppers and lead screws used), but, that is not actually what is meant with this phrasing. The process of the auto-bed leveling actually scans the surface of the build surface and compensates the height of the print head/nozzle during a predefined printing height (usually 10 mm, set in the firmware or through G-code: M420 Z10 ; Gradually reduce compensation until Z=10), during this printing process the nozzle gradually be less and less compensated until there is no compensation and the print nozzle will print parallel to the guide axis (e.g. the X-axis in i3 style printers and X-Y axes in CoreXY kinematics printers.
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16044 | Will a Micro Swiss extruder and hotend speed up prints on my Ender 3 Pro?
Long story for hopefully a simple yes/no answer:
I have a lightly modified Ender 3 Pro (BLTouch, glass bed, beefier bed springs and nobs, led lights) and I daydream about someday getting an "Ender Extender" kit to go larger or something, but before I ever do that I need to drastically speed up the prints. Last night the first layer on one of my prints took 40 minutes and I watched the whole time to make sure it laid down well. Can't imagine waiting around with a larger build surface. I understand basic settings like lighter infill/less perimeters/etc... but when it comes to really changing the speed and acceleration settings I'm a bit of a newb.
So after reading this article on improving print speeds, it seems like the Bowden tube style default extruder on my Ender 3 probably doesn't have the grip strength and/or constrained filament path to really push filament faster.
Based on that same article and this one, it seems like there are a lot of options for extruders and hotends to upgrade. The reason the Micro Swiss appealed to me is that it seems like this option is pretty much bolt-on plug and play (additional info here).
And it seems like it already has a convenient spot for my BLTouch.
Which brings me to the title of my question: will that Micro Swiss extruder/hotend combo do what I think it'll do? i.e. allow me to push filament faster and heat it up quicker?
Is there a better alternative extruder/hotend that is also pretty easy to figure out?
Lastly (maybe this should be a different question/too open-ended) are there other relatively simple upgrades/modifications to the Ender 3 Pro that will help it print faster?
You should ask one question, and clearly, not many with different answers. In any way, the extruder is the limiting factor, not the Bowden tube. Change extruder to one which has dual drive and that's it, you don't need it to be direct drive as the Micro Swiss. Also, change heat break to a bimetallic one from Slice Engineering.
If you want a single word answer, then no.
Before you ask this question you need to figure out why your prints are slower than you want them to be. With default settings, unless your models are something dead simple like a big cube or cylinder, you're almost certainly limited by acceleration, not extrusion rate or even max print/travel speed (which you'll almost never achieve). Gcode analysis tools like gcodeanalyser.com will help you gauge this by predicting actual speeds the printer will achieve. Note that even if your model is simple, printing infill and top/bottom layers involves a lot of acceleration/deceleration cycles, so even for simple models this may still be your limiting factor.
Until you reach very high accelerations (over 5000 mm/s²) letting you actually achieve very high speeds (over 150 mm/s or so), the only way to make extrusion your limiting factor is by using really thick layers or wide walls. At 0.2 mm layer height and 0.4 mm line width, even a sustained 150 mm/s is only 12 mm³/s volumetric extrusion rate which is high but reportedly within the capabilities of the stock Ender 3 extruder and hotend (but probably requires cranking up the temperature).
Thank you. Sounds like extrusion is probably not the main culprit. So I guess my followup question is: what should I do about the acceleration? Larger nema motors? I don't mind googling but I'd love it if you could point me in the right direction.
@JosephCrozier: Your first step is probably just tuning your settings (on printer and/or in slicer) to figure out what you can achieve and where you hit limits you can't go past. Then figure out how to improve whatever the underlying cause of the limit you hit was. Bigger steppers are unlikely to be an ingredient in improving anything. Most of the limits you'll hit will probably be soft ones, not hard ones, where quality starts going down (surface defects, weak prints that break easily, etc.) as you push it further.
@JosephCrozier: You might want to browse the #SpeedBoatRace tag on YouTube to look at what people attempting extreme fast prints have done to achieve them. Mostly it involves low mass moving components (needed to achieve high acceleration) and powerful hotends and extruders (needed to increase extrusion rate once you get there). I'm not sure how far you could take these ideas on an Ender 3 frame. I would expect the moving bed/print (with relatively high mass) is a big limiting factor.
May be interesting to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msEpsJdUMUY
@JosephCrozier: Nice. The 45° rotation is a nice trick to spread out the forces between X and Y. Note that setting the speed to >700 like they did doesn't seem to be doing anything; at the size of a benchy and 10k acceleration, you'll never be exceeding 400 mm/s. BTW one thing you can do to tune your motion before considering upgrading hotend/extruder: print really fast but with very thin layers where the extrusion rate doesn't matter. Once you get that working but can't reproduce it at thicker layers, you know it's time to consider upgrading your hotend/extruder.
12 mm^3/s for a stock Ender 3 is quite high, see the graph https://youtu.be/xAiUZ7HDhdM?t=557
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16103 | Heater cartridge extension wiring
I recently bought a Titan Aero hot end which came with a 24 V 30 W heater cartridge from E3D. I'd like to use this but the cable length is only 1 meter long and I need it to be 2 meters. The ends terminate with prong connections and there is no polarity to the prongs. How can I safely extend the leads one meter and then connect to my Duet 3 Mainboard 6HC?
Should the cable terminate with a JST connector instead of the prongs to connect to the Duet board?
Heater polarity doesn't matter
The heater cartridges are just large resistors and so polarity is irrelevant. Either can be positive or negative.
You can extend the leads by cutting and splicing in ~20 gauge wires* to a two pin JST connector line you suggest.
*At 24 volts and 30 watts, you need wire that is rated to carry at least 1.25 amps. The US National Electric Code dictates that this should be 20 gauge wire, but their standard is very conservative. Since you don't need to adhere to NEC codes, you could get away with something thinner (ie higher gauge number).
1 meter puts you far enough away from the heater than you don't need high temperature wiring to extend it. The larger the guage(e.g. 20 guage) the less resistance you will add to the heater circuit. This doesn't matter as long as you can still achieve your maximum temperature (if you can still achieve the same current without maxing out your voltage on the heater).
Your sensor is where added series resistance is critical. Series resistance to the thermistor will give a negative error in the temperature.
I see, looks like for 100k thermistor sensor the difference in resistance is less than 1 Ohm when comparing 250C and 249C so resistance drop here will matter quite a bit.
Tarnished or worn out connectors can be an issue with thermistors.
@Feynman137 The absolute value of the temperature doesn't really matter: you just adjust the setting used in the slicer. What would matter would be a poor connection that changes the resistance during a print.
@Feynman137 That's true for extensions, but worn our connectors may not keep a constant resistance. That's why they are more of a problem.
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16696 | Separate Z-stepper E-steps
I have three stepper motors each with its own stepper driver. Two of those motors have the same lead screw, while the third has a ball screw.
I need to be able to set the E-steps for the ball screw differently than the two lead screws.
Can this even be done in Marlin 2.0?
Unfortunately, It does not appear that any firmware currently available supports this feature, however you can request the feature on the marlin GitHub repository
I thought as much, I am going to need to get two more lead screws.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:45.002813 | 2021-07-09T20:52:05 | {
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16659 | Reverse the X-axis of a G-code file
I've got some sliced models that represent the right-side arms and legs of a robot. I'm really happy with how they printed, so now I'd like to print the left-side arms and legs.
I was thinking it would be pretty trivial to parse the G-code file using Python and change the value of all the Xn commands from n to 2*h - n, where h is in the middle of the bed, say 110 or 120 mm for an Ender 3.
Before I fire up my favorite IDE, are there any major gotchas I might encounter from such a naïve approach to mirroring the G-code like this? I originally sliced in Cura 4.9.1.
There are g-code visualizers which will allow you to open your newly modified file to observe obvious problems. Is your reference to the middle of the bed valid? I've not examined a g-code file sufficiently enough to note if the origin is the bed center or a specific corner.
@fred_dot_u good point, I suppose I could find the bounding box of the print while I'm parsing the file. At least on the Ender 3 the home position seems to be at (0,0,0).
often times you can scale with a -1 value to mirror an axis if your slicer does not have an explicit mirror option.
If your slicer does not have a mirror operation or a scale that allows negative values then mirroring in the G-code should be straightforward.
As long as your printer doesn't have certain specific tool change or homing or purge positions that are done in the G-code you can just transform it, otherwise you would want to skip these sections and just do the model data (it should be obvious looking at the code where model data starts).
In order to mirror it you just need to swap out the X coordinates in your G-code, If (0,0) is the center of your bed, as is often (but not always) the case for delta printers you will just want to negate the X, so G1 X30 Y-3 Z2 becomes G1 X-30 Y-3 Z2. If your coordinates have (0,0) in a corner (often the case for orthogonal printers) then you want to subtract X from the maximum X value. for instance if your bed is 250 mm wide then in G1 X30 Y10 Z3 X30 becomes X(250-30) or G1 X220 Y10 Z3.
There is only one caveat, some slicers will switch to relative movement using G91 for certain operations and then back to absolute with G90, so you will want to look out for these. Between a G91 and a G90 you will want to negate the X, no matter where the origin of your printer is.
When writing your script, I'd keep track of the minimum and maximum values encountered and the new minimum and maximum values and print them at the end as a sanity check so you can see if anything is wonky.
Based on @John Mecham's comprehensive answer, I whipped up a quick proof of concept. In the image below, the left arrow (top) is the original and the right arrow (bottom) is the reversed clone. Cura does generate a little relative offset code at the end, I think I handled it correctly.
import re
data_start = re.compile('^;LAYER_COUNT:[0-9]+')
ifilename = 'c:/Users/jentron128/Downloads/ThingVerse/Tools/arrow.gcode'
ofilename = 'c:/Users/jentron128/Downloads/ThingVerse/Tools/rev_arrow.gcode'
new_data =[]
BEDX = float(235)
h = BEDX # Absolute Positioning is default
mode='Skip'
with open(ifilename, 'r') as ifp:
for d in ifp:
new_d = ''
tokens = d.split()
if len(tokens) == 0:
pass
elif mode == 'Skip':
new_d = d[0:-1]
if data_start .match(d):
mode = 'Go'
else:
if tokens[0] == 'G91': # Relative Positioning
h = 0
elif tokens[0] == 'G90':# Absolute Positioning
h = BEDX
for t in tokens:
if t.startswith('X'):
if len(t) > 1:
x = h - float(t[1:])
t = 'X'+f'{x:.3f}'
new_d += t+' '
new_data.append(new_d)
with open(ofilename, 'w') as ofp:
for d in new_data:
ofp.write(d+'\n') # how does writelines not support a line separator?
import re
from sys import argv
data_start = re.compile('^;LAYER_COUNT:[0-9]+')
ifilename = argv[1];
ofilename = ifilename.replace('.gcode', '-reversed.gcode');
I tried to comment to make it a reusable script that you can run against any file, but the comment got mangled; basically use sys to import argv and use the argv[1] for the filename :)
It didn't work for me nevertheless, not with a file generated by prusa.
At least on Windows I never run Python from a command line. If you have a (preferably small) prusa gcode file I will take a look to see if I can modify the code to work with it.
I think I found the issue, you are looking for a header that seemed to be specific to Cura, I made a new version based on yours which is correctly working for the prusa slicer files; I took all the math you used overall, it seems to work correctly now; honestly I am not sure, I have never touched gcode until now, but I think the G1 is universal.
Yes, my code has a state-machine built into it, and it seems the switch is based on a Cura specific comment. Anything before the first ";LAYER:0" comment is output as read because it's all printer setup, then the state switches to "Go" mode and processes ALL X directives after that, regardless of G code. It treats G90/G91 separately by setting h = 0 for RELATIVE positioning and h = bed width for ABSOLUTE positioning.
The easiest way around this is just change mode='Skip' to mode='Go' and then the script will process all the lines.
However we (or at least I) wasn't sure wether that was the correct assumption, I simply took all G1 token output and flipped that one, assuming those are the instructions; I wrote the code below as you can see.
Usage: python3 [filename.gcode] [bed-width]
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import re
from sys import argv
#first arg is the file, second arg is the bed x width
ifilename = argv[1];
ofilename = ifilename.replace('.gcode', '-reversed.gcode');
new_data =[]
BEDX = float(argv[2])
h = BEDX # Absolute Positioning is default
with open(ifilename, 'r') as ifp:
for d in ifp:
new_d = ''
tokens = d.split()
if len(tokens) == 0:
pass
else:
if tokens[0] == 'G91': # Relative Positioning
h = 0
new_d += d
elif tokens[0] == 'G90':# Absolute Positioning
h = BEDX
new_d += d
elif tokens[0] == 'G1':
for t in tokens:
if t.startswith('X'):
if len(t) > 1:
x = h - float(t[1:])
t = 'X'+f'{x:.3f}'
new_d += t+' '
else:
new_d += d
new_data.append(new_d)
with open(ofilename, 'w') as ofp:
for d in new_data:
ofp.write(d+'\n') # how does writelines not support a line separator?
For those that have a problem with the script above, I think this fixes it.
Also there seems to be a bug with not writting G90 or G91 whenever it finds it.
The way you generate ofilename is not very safe. If the filename doesn't end in .gcode (e.g. if it ends in .GCODE or .gco) the replace will be a no-op and it looks like you'll overwrite the input.
You are right, make a third version or something; I hacked this quickly on the spot, maybe using argv[2] for output name.
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16676 | G-code to make printer move around without actually printing
I have a Prusa i3 MK3S with the MMU on it. At my work, I'm creating a display case to advertise/show off the 3D printing we can do. I was thinking about putting the Prusa in the display case and having it "run" for the two weeks we're in there. I was thinking it'd be cool if I could have the printer pretend to print, i.e. move the axes around, move the bed every so often, etc., but without the need to worry about if a print was messing up (it'll be in a locked cabinet I may not notice more than once a day).
I'd just slice a long print but then the Prusa will wonder where the material is. Any thoughts on how to create that custom G-code?
The simple way to do this is to slice a very long print (near maximum volume should run to 24 hours or longer, anyway), but set your slicer to nozzle temp of 0 °C and extrusion flow rate of zero. Back the filament out of the hot end (in case you want to change before resuming actual printing), but you can leave it in the extruder and Bowden tube so everything looks "normal". You can also optionally set the slicer to a lower print speed to draw out the movement, though this may give a distorted impression of how fast or slow the machine is.
Do test before you set up the exhibit, as it's easy to miss something when doing special settings like this...
Exactly. You can also slow your print speed to draw out the performance.
@Zeiss Ikon so funny story, if you put a cube in prusa slicer, make it the size of the print volume, set it to 0.05 ultradetail and 90% infill, Prusa Slicer will crash. Lol the error I got was "bla bla bla most likely ran out of RAM" which is funny given I have 32 gigs
@JosephCrozier Likely the slicer was compiled with a memory model that limits it to something like 4GB. Try Cura, or try it on a different OS (Linux or Mac or Windows, whatever you aren't running). Or cut down the infill (and remember to set your infill speed slower, too).
@ZeissIkon Oh when I cut it down to 0.15 quality and 50% infill it was still like 3 days and some change, when I slowed it down after that it was fine. Just funny. Would have never pictured the 3d thing I'd make that would overwhelm my computer would be a cube
It's the infill -- especially if it's something other than lines or grid. Glad it works for you, though.
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16511 | PETG layer adhesion problems
I have recently started printing with Polymaker's PolyMax PETG on my Ender 3 v2. I have not been able to get the layer adhesion anywhere near as strong as it should be. I would guess it is around 20-25 % of the strength in the XY direction. The parts snap easily along the layer lines under loads that PLA and nylon hold up to just fine.
Print settings:
0.15 mm layers @ 35-20 mm/s
Hotend temp 245 °C
4 mm retraction @ 40 mm/s
combing on
jerk control on
no cooling
I made sure to use a nickel-plated brass 0.4 mm nozzle. I have calibrated my E-steps and tried printing in an enclosure, but nothing seems to help with layer adhesion. I have made sure there is no debris getting on the filament as it comes out of the drybox and even tried taping around the heater block so there is absolutely no part cooling.
Any ideas as to what I could be doing wrong?
Have you already tried a thicker layer height to see if that makes a difference? E.g. 0.2 mm?
Yes, and it makes no difference. A wider line width just leaves lots of blobs on the print. I think it is over extruding slightly.
Maybe you misinterpreted the comment, I wasn't talking about line width; I commented on layer height. PETG prints better when layer height is not too small, I've mainly used 0.2 mm and printed kilometers of 2.85 mm without major problems.
I got a roll of Hatchbox PETG and the prints are fantastic. Small test prints don't break along the layers even at higher fan speeds. The problem was the Polymax PETG. I took a look at the TDS for it and the impact strength on standing samples was only 29% of the standing ones. I believe the Polymax PETG just has inherent layer adhesion problems.
Please note that Polymax PETG isn't PETG, it's PCTG. I may try doing some firmware changes and printing it at 270 °C later on.
I had this problem with my Ender 3 until I changed to a different extruder and now PETG never has adhesion problems. Even 100 % fan is fine at 245 °C. I think the stock hobbed gear just slips on PETG really badly, giving underextrusion. Go slow, increase the flow to compensate, and possibly increase temperature slightly more. Or buy a decent extruder.
Why would it under extrude if the esteps are calibrated?
@TreeBarkEater: Calibrated under what extrusion rate? Actually pushing material thru hotend at print speed, or just moving it in the bowden? My best understanding of what I experienced was that there was just a lot of slipping under backpressure, and this is really bad for PETG if you're using linear advance since it needs a fairly high spring constant that increases the pressure (and thereby slippage) even more. Also, if you're not using linear advance, that will give rather inconsistent extrusion that also makes the layers adhere poorly.
One more thing: combing is bad for PETG. Because it's so sticky, moving over already-printed material without retracting tends to drag it, making a poor surface for the next layer to adhere to. Try turning combing off (or leaving it on but setting max comb distance without retract to < 1mm).
The OP is already printing pretty slow, the max recommend speed of the PETG I'm using (printed about 20 kg of 2.85 mm filament) is 55 mm/s, so I wouldn't call the OP's speed fast. I fully agree on using a decent extruder.
@0scar: it's not fast, but maybe fast relative to Creality's extruder.
I would think it is being over extruded because when I calibrate the e steps it's extruding faster than when printing.
@TreeBarkEater: I don't follow what you mean by that. If you mean you're doing the calibration with actual extrusion taking place (pushing material out the nozzle not just thru the bowden) that's good, but keep in mind that actual printing is performed by pressing the extruded material against a surface, not extruding into thin air. The backpressure is completely different.
To test this with any certainty, you need to either mark the whole intended extrusion length for a print on the filament, and see that it matches after printing a nontrivial size print, or weigh a print with scale that's sufficiently precise an compare to the theoretical extruded mass.
The layer adhesion with Polymax PETG at 260 °C was great so I didn't go any higher.
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17833 | CR-10 randomly loses connection to computer when printing over USB
I have a Creality CR-10 which is running Marlin because I have a BLTouch installed. All was working fine until it suddenly had an issue where it would lose connection to the computer mid-print when another electronic device nearby was plugged in.
For example: when I plug in my lamp or soldering iron which is 3 meters away, it just stops (doesn't reset, just stops moving) leaving the bed and nozzle hot. The software on the printer is still functional, I can still navigate menus, etc. on the screen but the print stops and can't be resumed from Cura.
I also tried Octopi but it does the exact same thing mid-print and the web interface spits out this error:
device reports readiness to read but returned no data (device disconnected or multiple access on port?)
So it seems I may have some odd interference problem, I guess it could be over the air or through the powerline? I've tried different USB cables, a different power supply for the Pi, but so far, it's still acting up.
I had similar issues when I first started, and I think you are on the right track with interference being a problem.
I have a giant bin of USB cables and started going through them. Only 2 worked out of about 20, and 1 of those 2 was intermittent with disconnect issues. The one that ended up working had gold plated leads and was about 8" long. I assume it probably has some additional shielding of the wires inside as well but I can't say for sure. It seems that the USB connection is very sensitive to interference.
Also, if it is anything like my Ender 3 V2, you will probably want to use Kapton or electrical tape on the last pin (+5v) of the USB plug, otherwise the display and motherboard kept powered on after turning off the printer's power supply (it was being powered over the USB cable).
Another suggestion would be to isolate the printer power supply from other devices (for example using a UPS made for a PC).
Ok, I narrowed down the problem to USB interference. I powered the printer's 12v line from a battery, that way there isn't going to be any interference through the mains. However, it still does stop during the print when i turn the lamp on. I tried SD printing which worked flawlessly, so the problem must be something to do with USB, i'll try the 5v pin trick later today.
Hey there @Ramsom, Your comment seems like an answer If this answer helped you solve your problem please accept it to mark this question as 'solved', Or feel free to write your own answer if you solved your problem a different way!
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17860 | Adjusting layer exposure time for different layer thicknesses
I purchased a bottle of Siraya-Tech Simple Clear and Siraya-Tech has good documents on their resins with printing guidelines like for the simple clear (see their Simple User Guide).
This gives good curing times for different types of resin printers, but they are all listed for 50 microns layer height. If I wanted to print at different layer heights, I am assuming the curing times would need to be adjusted, but I don't have a good feel for how much they would need to change.
My first print was the Make: Rook Resin Printer Torture Piece, and given how short it was, I thought I would try pushing things to the limit and printed it at a 10-micron layer height, but I used the curing times in the guide above for the Elegoo Mars (figured it was the most similar to my actual printer the Halot-One), and as soon as I started the print I realized that I probably should have changed the layer exposure times. I was shocked how well it turned out for using the times for a 50-micron print, but there were parts of the print that looked like there may have been a little bit of light bleed because of the longer exposures for the thickness, and the print definitely took a long time for how small of a print it was.
So, my question is, if I have good times for a 50-micron print, are there rules of thumb out there, or have experiments been done, for how much to adjust the exposure times if you want to do a 10-micron print, or say a 100-micron print? I would imagine it's not as simple as reducing it by 5x for a 10-micron print or doubling it for a 100-micron print.
Key parameters that would need to be adjusted:
Exposure for initial layers
Number of initial layers
Layer exposure time
Based on my experience, cure-time and thickness increase or decrease is not linear and it is mostly curve. For example resin rated for 50 micron 5 s cure time. You should expect:
25 micron - 3.2 s
50 micron - 5 s
100 micron - 12 s
If a resin manufacturer do not provide specific cure time for thickness you want, you should always print calibration objects.
You can cure specific range of thickness depend on resins chemical properties (eg. uv blocker and photoinitiators), usually for non-specialized resins, you may print 1/2 or 2x of the suggested thickness. So you cannot print 10 micron for resins which designed for 50 micron thickness. For some specialized resins you can only print with the rated thickness and nothing else.
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17892 | Flat print blobbing and scuffing with PETG on Ender 3 Pro with Microswiss AMH/DD
I'm getting a lot of blobbing and scuffing on top of my prints in PETG on my Ender 3 with AMH/DD. It doesn't seem to do this if the print doesn't have a flat bottom so much.
I have the E-steps set to 130, which if anything is slightly under extruding vs the caliper measurements.
Any ideas how I can fix this?
Cura settings:
[general]
version = 4
name = Creality Ender 3 - eSUN PETG - Red
definition = creality_base
[metadata]
type = quality_changes
quality_type = standard
intent_category = default
position = 0
setting_version = 17
[values]
cool_fan_full_layer = 3
infill_overlap = 15
infill_pattern = triangles
infill_sparse_density = 10
ironing_enabled = False
ironing_only_highest_layer = True
material_print_temperature = 230
retraction_amount = 2
retraction_speed = 25
skirt_gap = 6
speed_infill = 30
speed_print = 35
speed_topbottom = 15
speed_travel = 250.0
speed_wall = 25
wall_line_count = 3
z_seam_x = 150
z_seam_y = 300
----
[general]
version = 4
name = Creality Ender 3 - eSUN PETG - Red
definition = creality_base
[metadata]
type = quality_changes
quality_type = standard
setting_version = 17
[values]
acceleration_enabled = True
jerk_enabled = True
layer_height_0 = 0.21
material_bed_temperature = 75
material_bed_temperature_layer_0 = 75
Are you sure the 130 E-steps is correct for your extruder? You don't mention what extruder you're using, but presumably, it's something other than just moving the original extruder to a direct drive mounting position or that would be extreme over extrusion.
Assuming that's right, the most likely cause is having the nozzle too close to the bed, so that there's too little volume to fit the extruded material into.
Also, you almost surely need to increase your nozzle temperature a lot. I'd normally consider 235 °C the absolute minimum for PETG, and I can't get it to adhere properly below 245 °C with the stock Ender 3 hotend. Since you have an all-metal hotend you can go even higher. PETG likes to "scuff" like that when it's too cool, and when you travel over already-printed material, and the lowest layers are even more susceptible to it since the bed will be sinking a lot of heat out of the material as soon as it's laid down.
The bit that's really bothering me is... why are the perimeters always spot on? If you look at the picture, the perimeters are perfectly fine, and if the model is small with a minimum amount of infill, everything is fine too. It just seems to be these big blocks of flat infill that cause the problem.
Thanks for the help I'll give this a go and see if changing temp or your other suggestions work.
If the perimeters are printed first, they always have enough room for the extra material to squish out left or right. The solid fill will have this for the first few lines, but once they've squished out enough (the effect is cumulative), the next line has almost nowhere to go.
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16314 | What is average price for 3D parabola?
So I wanted to print a 3D parabola, with a radius of 15 cm and a height of 4 cm. I've told this company, they told me that they need 3.5 days and its price will be 147 USA dollars and 50 cents.
I just want to know what is the average price for this?
What material is this to be printed in? Are you supplying the model or is the company creating the model? There are other variables to consider to be able to supply a sufficient answer.
company created model itself
As a "Math boy" you would expect you do the math . If it is a plastic model, slice the model, note the filament length needed and deduce how many is on a spool at what price and add some extra for your time, energy and depreciation charge of the printer. I am guessing the object to be printed is in metal considering the price. This question is unanswerable without more details, please supply details by [edit]. Thanks.
0scar, you have listed T&M costs only. Of course the designer's work adds to this. And note company overheads (like premises, management, communications, ...), and packaging, shipping, payment handling, and the taxes. Thus it would be cheaper when ordered on bulk ;)
Normally one thinks of a parabola as 2D. Are you thinking of the shape of a parabolic mirror on a reflecting telescope?
Maybe you are asking for a very smooth and accurate print. They may be planning on a 0.1 mm step size with a 0.2 mm nozzle. The model may also have smaller line segments than the default for the slicer.
Isn't the term for a '3D parabola' a 'paraboloid'?
The price dependss roughly on material, machine hours, operator labour, profit and administrative overhead.
Some companies deduce the operator labour, machine hours and overhead to roughly 10 times the material cost. I think that is kind of fair. In your case I assume that you use PLA, the perabola is hollow (just a flat surface) and the company needs to construct the 3D model the parabola to a specific tolerance.
this model in PLA should not cost more than \$5 in filament, so about $ 50 should be an okay price for your parabola. The total price of \$147 leaves about \$97 for modeling the parabola. I think that's fair, given that a non-mathician has to find a way to construct a model and test the results.
If, for example, you want a metal print and you provide the 3D model I find the price of \$147 to be very normal. These metal printers are very expensive, labour intensive and eat up energy.
You can get instant quotes at the following sites: https://xometry.eu/, https://formalize-am.com/
All above is just my best guess, given the data you provided. Expect a better answer when you provide more data.
yeah company told me that they use PLA, is there any cheaper material?
Not really. PLA is about the cheapest stuff you could get. But the material is not the most expensive. having someone do the labour is the expensive part. Still assuming you have to get the parabole modeled by someone, you could try to find an online mathematical model generator or download a parabola from Thingiverse. Some models are in openscad, where you can easily code a math shape. If you'd live in the EU I could help you out printing it.
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16271 | Print not sticking to bed
Today I ran into an issue with the filament not sticking to the build plate. However, the strange part is, that this only happens with one filament color (both PLA, khaki, black works just fine) and only in the main print. The test line on the side of the bed and the brim all stick without a problem. I already releveled everything and as I'm using ABL and the other filament works fine, this shouldn't be the issue.
I also tried increasing the first layer thickness in Cura, however, this leads to extreme warp (2 mm height on 5 mm width).
From my observations, it seems that the print head is raised after the brim is printed. Is there a setting in Cura to change that?
Printer Details: Modified Ender-3 with MKS Gen L V2 Board and TMC 2209 motor drivers and BLTouch
Print temp: 220 °C / 70 °C initial after that 200 °C / 60 °C
Firmware: Marlin, details here
If you suspect that head is raised after printing brim, then you should analyze the g-code and detect actual increase of Z. It is rather easy searching by " Z". Then check comments nearby. Btw. what if you print with e.g. 190 initial temp?
220 deg C seems too hot for PLA. Try 190 and 200. Also sometimes it’s the slicer. For months I tried using simplify3d before realising that anything sliced by it would never work with my printer. Switched to prusaslicer and I get flawless prints every single time now.
Have you tried drying the filament?
Thank you for all your answers! After many failed benchies I fixed the problem now, however I don't know exactly what the problem was so I'll list everything I did:
Dried my filament
Recalibrated the Z-Offset
Turned around my print bed, as I noticed the warp always starts at a
certain spot
The high temperature is actually a recommendation by the manufacturer (PM Filaments).
Yes you can edit many parameters in Cura that may help with your problem.
However, I believe an easier fix to this problem may be to either apply some glue or masking tape to the bed before you try to change Cura settings since the problem only occurs with just one filament type..
Your temperatures look pretty good. You could try raising both bed temperatures by 5°C.
You could try Elmer's glue stick or hair spray.
Make sure your Z height is still OK as well as your bed being level after you loaded the different filament.
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16552 | Lowest temperature PLA pulley print will withstand
I am looking to print an HTD Timing Belt pulley to be used in a laboratory setting that can get very cold for extended periods of time. By "very cold" I mean adjacent metal chambers get cooled with liquid nitrogen to lower than -200 °C. For the purposes of having a threshold temperature tolerance, assume that the metal chambers coming directly in contact with the pulley may get as cold as mK close to absolute zero.
While it was my intention to print this pulley out of PLA, I am unsure whether or not it will be able to withstand negative temperatures of this magnitude or if it will become brittle--or something else will happen to the structure of the print when it experiences these temperatures. I am open to printing any other material if there are some materials that will hold up better than PLA for low temperatures. It is preferable for me to print this part instead of machine it for the sake of a deadline. I was also wondering if there is some infill pattern, infill density, or other structural print parameters that would help reinforce a printed part against becoming brittle when imposed to such low temperatures.
What plastics do you already know can take the cold soaks you describe? Perhaps thermosets rather than thermoplastics (which would suggest an SLA rather than FDM print)?
Do you know a thermoset that would be good to experiment with for testing out these low temperature constraints?
Not offhand, just exploring options. I don't work in cryogenics, I repair power tools. I thought it might be possible to just look up the properties of various plastics, like we used to do with the "Rubber Bible" -- CRC manual -- when I was in college ~40 years ago.
Of course, steel works better than plastics when very cold.
@PerryWebb Actually, most steels become very brittle when chilled, even well above liquid nitrogen temperature. There are recorded cases of cold-induced brittleness causing failures in building structures (under construction) at fairly ordinary outdoor winter temperatures.
True, but even brittle steal is much stronger than plastic, as long as you aren't hammering on it or bending it. If both the steel and plastic become brittle, the plastic will break first. Put a steel ball from a bearing and a rubber or plastic ball in liquid N2, then throw them on the floor to see which will break first.
Another example: a steel trashcan will usually hold LN2 OK, but a plastic trashcan will usually crack if filled with LN2. Teflon tends to hold up well at LN2 temperature. It would make good bearings but too slick for pulleys and a difficult melting point for printing.
Yes, it would be ideal to machine the part of steel, however it is much easier to print it for the purposes of prototyping.
I found this article which seems to suggest PTFE is a good choice of plastic for a cryogenic environment. I've read that there are PTFE filaments available for FDM printers, though there are some caveats. First, you will need an all-metal hot end; enough heat to melt a PTFE filament will melt the PTFE filament guide if it is in contact with the nozzle. Second, you will likely need to edit your printer's firmware to permit printing at the high temperatures required. Third, it may require some testing to determine whether FDM printed PTFE will meet your mechanical needs (shear strength, layer adhesion, etc.) and fourth, you might need an unusual build surface, since the polymers used for many existing surfaces can't take the temperatures needed for bed adhesion.
Finally, as with a PTFE guide tube in contact with the nozzle, at the temperatures required you need to be aware of and take precautions against outgassing by the melting PTFE.
The need for higher extrusion temperature is what I would expect. However, that's assuming the same function between the brittle cold temperature and the almost liquid phase.
You could try PETG. PETG labware works down to -70, and there is a video clip where a PET bottle filled with liquid nitrogen that withstands appreciable pressure.
But for whichever material is used, thermal cycling may be a problem.
Welcome to 3D Printing SE and thank you for your contribution. When you get a chance, please take the [tour] to understand how the site works and how it is different than others.
Thank you for the suggestion--I will try it. Unfortunately for my purposes, -70C compliance is essentially meaningless to me (of course assuming you did not mean 70K). The temperatures I am referring to are an order of magnitude lower ~ -459.67C. I am sure thermal cycling is a potential issue that could induce material fatigue characteristics.
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16347 | Is 'natural' colored filament equally brittle compared to white filament?
I've read that white filament is a lot more brittle, because the pigment percentage is close to 50 %, e.g. black filament it's only around 8 %. I was therefore wondering if 'natural' colored filament, which has a somewhat ivory appearance, is also brittle like white filament.
Maybe the color name is a marketing lie or maybe it is really natural colored and there has slim to no pigment in the filament. Making it therefore less brittle. Since the color is closer to white than black I would guess the first one but I would love to be certain.
No
Natural colored filament has no pigments added, the ivory off-white color is the natural color of the mixture in the filament.
Also note, those white filaments can have much less than 50 % volume percentage of pigment, depending on the exact hue of white. The starkest cold whites might make that, warmer white can work with a lesser amount. Pigments are part of the filler materials. The other fillers make the filament behave in the designed way and can make up a considerable amount of the filament. Usually, less than 40 % are fillers compared to the PLA.
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16486 | Can a Prusa be converted to IDEX?
I have a Prusa i3 Mk3s with an MMU2s on it. And to be frank, as far as the MMU goes, I have not had much luck with it. I've seen people print amazing MMU prints and it works great for them, but I have had MUCH less success.
If a print requires 900 filament changes to go back and forth between colors, even if I have the MMU dialed-in to work 99 % of the time, well that's still 9 failures in that print. I'm sure there are things I could do to dial it in, but I have a different question for now:
I have other printers I work with that have dual extruders and work great, and I've been eyeballing an IDEX kit for my Ender 3, which got me thinking that there's gotta be a way to put IDEX on a Prusa.
I was also eyeballing my MMU and thinking I could scrap it for parts (stepper motors etc) for the IDEX. I did a quick Google search and couldn't really find anything, but is there a reason for that? Is the control board not able to handle it, etc?
It would require an adaptation so extensive that I would define it "rebuild".
You would end up savaging basically only the bare frame and the steppers.
I'm not aware, in fact, of anyone ever doing it.
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16502 | Prints have over extrusion only during diagonals
So I have printed multiple benchies with various slicer settings. I have also made sure my bed is leveled well.
But no matter what I do, I get these over extrusion whenever my nozzle is moving in diagonals (left-right). It's always this same angle where it goes wrong.
Has anyone else who has faced this and has figured out know what the issue can be? I'm new to 3D printing so the help would be very much appreciated.
Please tell us what printer, what slicer, and what firmware you are using. Your slicer settings will help as well.
The issue was that the X-axis belt was super loose, figured it after someone pointed it out on Reddit:
swordfish45
You have an extremely loose x belt. That's the root cause of all your problems I can see in these pics.
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16438 | Colour transfer to resin
Is it possible to perform a colour transfer from paper/transparency film to printed resin?
From what I understand there is some sort of transfer process for resin, but I don't quite understand if this works for 3D printed resins.
As shown in the second video, the resin is used to coat a surface. The resin is clear, or appropriately tinted to provide for a visually pleasing background to the transfer. The transparency is printed on an inkjet printer which embeds the ink into a surface designed to accept the ink, rather than allowing it to bead up, as in the first video.
When the transparency is applied to the wet resin surface and the resin is allowed to cure, the specially formulated transparency surface is transferred to the resin surface, akin to gluing the entire image, using the backing of the transparency "paper" as the carrier. Once cured, the backing peels off, leaving the image.
There is no analogy to resin 3D printing. If you 3D print a resin model that has a suitable flat surface, you could certainly apply the same types of resin shown in the video and duplicate that process. If the surface was not flat, you'll have irregularities in the transparency which will prevent the image from being transferred.
I can't envision how the inkjet image could be transferred during the 3D resin printing process, as the transparency film would interfere with the bonding of the resin to the build plate or the vat surface.
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16406 | Ender 5+ stops while bed leveling
My Ender-5 Plus has started failing.
The simplest path to failure is:
Power On
Settings ▶ Leveling (wait till complete)
Tap measuring
The first zone will measure properly, then when starting to measure the 2nd or 3rd zone while the bed is raising the BLTouch, with probe extended, probe will start flashing red before touching the bed, the bed will descend, then my printer remains in that state (auto-leveling reported at zone 1 or 2, head at position 2 or 3, BLTouch flashing red, probe extended, and bed not moving about 2 cm below probe)
I've also had it fail when attempting repeating levelings, and after starting a print immediately after leveling. (The printer will level, then the head won't move or extrude while the printer starts to repeat progress on the print).
I've tried printing from OctoPrint (which had worked and now fails) then disconnected that completely and powered off then on to try from an SD card, w/ no success. I was able to connect the OctoPrint terminal and do some simple gcodes to see if those worked (G0 Z100, G0 X100) and those worked.
I'm not sure what else to try.
This sounds like a broken cable or a problem with the connectors. Please check the cables.
After disconnecting and reconnecting every cable, and doing a wiggle check on each, it still didn't work.
So, I went ahead and replaced the BLTouch sensor with an upgrade from Amazon (Creality BL Touch V3.1 Upgraded Auto Bed Leveling Sensor Kit), and everything started working again. Huzzah!
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18528 | Laser engraver on Ender 3 without taking important ports
I'm contemplating buying a laser engraver attachment for my Ender 3 Pro. Either the Creality official one or the Comgrow version.
When scanning the respective web pages/answers on here and YouTube videos, it seems like you usually unplug cables for fans and swap them with laser, etc.
So I guess my question is: if I still wanted to be able to easily print, let's say within 10 mins of engraving something, without opening up my printer's electronics case to swap cables every time... what would be the best approach?
Is there a way to have everything permanently plugged in and the G-code file simply dictates what is done (3D printing vs lasering).
I have a different board than the default Creality if that changes anything (a BTT E3 RRF Board). I also have the IDEX expansion board plugged in, that's currently only running a second Z-axis motor (i.e. probably has extra plugs on it).
You don't need to open the electronics casing, why not cut/split the (print) fan cable so that you can plug it quick without too much delay. The power for the laser could be fed directly from a power supply.
Just so I understand..... the cable from the board out to the fan would be split (once out of the box) and there would be a plug out there for the laser? I would then plug in the laser to that whenever I needed it? If its that easy.... I'm dumb.
I would cut it at the printhead, just before the cable goes into the fan and crimp on a female and male header on each end of the cable (take some extra length if possible), but I don't have an Ender to verify it that is possible. If you want the laser, disconnect the fan and plug in the laser in the fan socket near the print head. If you place the laser module onto the print head, beware of the offset in your slicer! Your effective area might be less than used for 3D printing.
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18405 | Can't 'tune' out my problem, please help!
Alright, long story but I want to provide as much detail as possible:
I have a heavily modded Ender 3 Pro. Mods include:
Metal Extruder
Capricorn PTFE tube
Glass bed with improved leveling nuts
BLTouch
LED strip
Dual Z-axis motors with the recent addition of BTT E3 RRF control board (and IDEX module so that it could do G34 auto-align) (most recent additions)
I'm using Overture Brand white PLA and for the first print that messed up (pic below), I was using the default "generic PLA" Cura settings for an Ender 3 pro.
The problem:
Anyhow, it caused this kind of print:
There are a few angles where it actually looks pretty good. The hull is fairly smooth, the first layer went down well, the roofs and bridging look tolerable, but as you can see, especially around the "pillars" it looks I don't know... under-extruded? Like the lines don't connect very strongly. In fact, it might be hard to tell from this photo but the bottom actually ripped off when I took it off the plate, mostly due to weak connections between each layer.
What I've tried:
I pretty much went step by step through Teaching Tech's calibration guide.
I started by getting out my bubble level and 90-degree gauge and just making sure the frame/bed/everything was level and perpendicular to each other and everything.
I did the E-steps calibration until I reliably got 100 mm when I asked for 100 mm
My first layer had never been a problem (especially with BLTouch and glass bed), so I skipped that step.
I did the baseline print. My first one looked like the top of the cube had some under extrusion (you can see through it if you look closely in this photo
I did the slicer flow calibration and actually it came out a little tiny bit too big (which would indicate I need to turn down the flow), but as Teaching Tech mentioned at the bottom of the page, you can't always trust that so I didn't end up making any changes to flow.
Worth pointing out, in this photo of the Slicer Flow calibration cube, you can see some weird holes where the nozzle would be kinda late starting a line.
The stepper motor driver current thing confuses me but I had previously set the current of both Z-axis' to the values I've seen in several YouTube videos, including Aurora.tech's channel where she covered the same BTT IDEX board and dual Z's.
I did the temperature tuning and it seems like for this PLA 210 °C seems to work well.
At this point I felt like retraction tuning was the problem and would fix everything, but with the default speeds in Teaching Tech's sample print, distances from 0-8 mm didn't seem to do anything differently in this print:
I never ended up doing the acceleration tuning
For the linear advance, I changed the k value to 0.4
I don't have a dial gauge to do the XYZ steps calibration
Long story short, with those few changes I redid the calibration cube and the benchy and they look maybe 5% better but still weird.
My Z-axis squeaks sometimes when moving through a spot 5-10 mm off the bed, so I lubricated them according to the guide here, but I did that prior to that second benchy so it didn't seem to solve it.
After I first posted this, I decided to dive deeper into that squeaky Z-axis. I triple, super-duper checked that both Z threaded rods were parallel to each other and neither was warped/curved/etc... They seem fine. I lubricated them both a bit more and using G-code told the printer to jog the Z-axis up and down the length of the rods about 20ish times. The squeak did eventually go away so I printed another benchy. No dice. Still looks bad.
Per Criggie's answer, I disabled the steppers and moved the axes around to see if they moved smoothly. Both X and Y move great with steppers disabled and then are pretty firm normally. Z is pretty stiff no matter what but that may be intentional. I previously had problems with my Z-axis falling down when prints were over so I installed anti-backlash nuts and with two anti-backlash nuts (one on each rod) I'm not surprised it doesn't want to fall. But again, when I just tell it to move, it moves very smoothly.
For instance, I just got out my micrometer and measured the Z movement. I told it to move 100 mm up using OctoPrint and measured the actual movement. Seemed to be 100 on the dot.
I have a BTT filament sensor in the filament path prior to the extruder. I noticed it provided a little friction and I was concerned it was making it hard for the extruder to pull the filament. I removed it, but no improvement in print quality.
One other strange thing I've noticed is the benchy always looks bad in the same spot (the pillars). Makes me wonder WHY it's always that exact spot, not randomly all over.
It's got to have something to do with under-extrusion or flow. I think I ruled out the Z-axis. I made a "tall" benchy by modifying the benchy file to have a platform underneath it. This bumped it up a few cm and the problem still happened in the same spot on the pillars of the benchy (which is now in a completely different spot on the Z.
Also, given the "flow" preview in Cura:
That circled low flow area is where it always messes up.
So now to figure out why it's got low flow. Again, I calibrated the E-steps and it seems to be accurate. I've also printed benchy's where I told Cura to have 110% flow just to check. The last one I attempted didn't just fail, it failed big time and became a blob at that same spot.
I wonder if the extruder gear is worn and slipping and/or the Capricorn PTFE tube is too restrictive for the "budget" filament brand I'm using that might have trouble sliding through it. I have replacement steel extruder gears showing up Tuesday, will update my question then.
Next time forget the bubble level! ;-) Level the printer to the printer axes, not to gravity! You clearly have an under-extrusion problem, I wonder how the 100 mm is being determined. If in free air, this may be quite different from "at height" which might add more backpressure causing you extruder to skip.
@0scar Oh I understand. When I say I used the bubble level (I did), I just mean that I checked in a couple places that they had the same angle/tilt/level as a corresponding piece. I.e. they were parallel. I know that it doesn't necessarily have to be level in terms of gravity. I also used a right angle gauge etc.. And as far as the 100mm, that was just in free air, what do you mean by "at height"?
When the nozzle is close to the bed when extruding, there is backpressure from squeezing the filament into the set height (layer height + initial gap). This can cause a different length than 100 mm, but it should not, it means that the filament/extruder is skipping. You clearly are under-extruding, you need to fix that. Could be that your retraction is also not optimal, but you have looked into that. How did you determine the LA value?
@0scar For the linear advance I used the linear advance calibration guide on teaching tech's website. It printed the grid from here: https://marlinfw.org/tools/lin_advance/k-factor.html and the 0.4 line looked the best.
My understanding of retraction makes me think its that, but like I said, distances from 0 to 8mm all kinda looked the same, I must be missing something.
I didn't notice the extruder skipping/grinding/causing dust or anything.... but I'll watch it like a hawk tonight and report back.
@0scar Added some notes above about the stepper movement. As far as the under extrusion I haven't got to an answer yet but I have more info:
I watched it super carefully last night as I printed another benchy. Did not notice any filament grinding and/or slipping. I DID notice that my btt filament sensor wasn't as smooth as it should be to pull filament through, so I took that off to free up the path. Was convinced that would solve it but no dice. Its also strange that the rest of the print does pretty well except for those pillars (happened again).
Excessive force of the filament from the spool (entangled, high friction, etc.) also causes under-extrusion. You really need to focus on the filament and the extruder, the Bowden tube, everything between the nozzle and where the spool is located.
Need to highlight @0scar 's "retraction is not optimal" idea again. The Cura defaults are for a bowden printer, something like 6.5 mm. If you have a direct hot end that will be waaaaay too much. You usually want it closer to 1.5 mm.
@JoelCoehoorn Totally agreed that from my understanding of retraction, it seems like that could lead to the problem. That being said, as you can see in my notes above, I can't figure out how to fix it. I've done a retraction tower with everything from 0-8mm options and they all kinda look the same. I'm on a bowden setup and I think I ended up leaving it at 6mm, but again.... doesn't seem to do anything.
If this is your reference for a calibration cube, please read my comment. You're spot on with the cube makers ;-) , but as in that comment, that image is not correct. What strikes me is the re-occurring pattern like it is in sync with the threaded rods pitch? Maybe you could decouple the spool and feed the extruder a pre-cut length + 1 m of what you would need for the cube, print the cube and measure what is left minus 1 m and compare that to the calculated by the slicer.
It was a worn extruder gear. I didn’t think it was THAT worn, and when I loosened it a bit and slid it a few mm so that the gear hit the filament in a fresh spot it didn’t improve. But new stainless steel gears showed up today and when I installed one it worked perfect. Same file/settings/gcode that had failed several times previously when testing other things
I see positional errors in X and Y, but Z looks okay.
That suggests one or both of your belts is stretched, perhaps damaged, or maybe just loose.
Try engaging the stepper motors in the device's panel and push the head left/right or pull the bed toward/away from you. They should both resist handforce, and you then feel like it needs to be pushed with full arm/shoulder force to move it (but don't actually force anything with that level !!)
There should be none/almost no play in X or Y with the steppers locked/engaged.
Then disable the stepper motors in the same menu, and both bed and head should slide with one finger's push.
This test does not work for Z but that axis seems fine in your benchy print.
Also check the condition of the drive/tension pulleys at either end of the belts. There should be no powdered plastic from the cogs, nor rubbery bits from the belt.
I cannot see any over/under extrusion, so the extruder/drive is probably okay.
Thank you. I'll triple check all this tonight when I get home.
That being said, I had disabled the steppers and moved everything around earlier in the evening before posting that question (not to check anything, just happened to) and it seemed to have fluid movement. I'll purposefully examine it later. Also worth pointing out I edited the question to fix some of the photo links.
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18540 | Is shell scripting possible with OpenSCAD?
I literally just started OpenSCAD today, so please take it easy on me, but is shell scripting possible with OpenSCAD? as in, to write a script in the OpenSCAD syntax, and have it output images, or animations? with or without having to render the image.
I've been reading the man pages, and I'm not sure if that can be done.
How is this being applied to 3D printing? I only ask to avoid your question being closed for not being on-topic.
can it simply be in relation to 3d modeling? or is that too far removed? I mean animation can show me how a model works, so maybe I don't have to waste time modeling mechanisms that wont work if they're printed.
No. OpenSCAD is not a scripting language. You cannot use it to generate any kind of executable code. All that it does is to create static geometrical objects that can be exported as STL files (and other formats). If you want to do scripting, use a scripting language such as Python. Note that Python has some wrappers for OpenSCAD that may allow you to do what you want. For example, see OpenPySCAD.
Whilst OpenSCAD is not technically a scripting language, it has a command line interface which can be given parameters to produce variable models and easily driven from a more traditional scripting languages such as BASH or PowerShell. Or many other programming languages that suit your experience.
You can invoke OpenSCAD from the command line, and have it output image renderings or STL files. The -D command line option lets you pass variable definitions/overrides (or arbitrary scad code fragments) in, which can be used to animate or otherwise. And, like any command line too, you can invoke it from a shell script, although using a makefile tends to be a better option.
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18543 | 3D from 2D picture options
If I want to make 3D printable objects out of my old drawings, what are my options? Do I need to redraw the entire thing in 3D or is there a better way?
This is an example of the sort of pictures I have, I long ago lost the original Macromedia files so I just have them like this.
I presume that what you are saying is that you only have a rasterized image file. For example a .PNG file, and that you don't have any kind of source file containing vectors.
Since you're already a skilled artist from the looks of it, you're largely limited by the software that you have access to, or how much you're willing to spend on new software.
Probably the simplest and cheapest way would be to use a free program such as Inkscape to redraw your image as lineart only (You can import the image into the software and then trace over it). Draw it completely flat and 2 dimensional with no shading or colors. Only lines to represent edges. Save it as a Structured Vector Image (The default file for Inkskape). Then import it into a free 3D package such as blender.
This will import your image as a series of 2D lines in a 3D space. You can then use traditional 3D art skills (Which you may or may not have yet) to give it 3 dimensions.
A complex shape like that might require a resin printer to print due to the high level of detail. Making it wouldn't be a task for the faint of heart.
A more expensive option would be to commission a professional to do it for you.
Yeah I've spent hours trying to find a shortcut, but I think you're right... start again from scratch
As an aside, consider if your objective is to extrude in a single direction, Blender is going to be far more complex than needed. Even Tinkercad will allow extrusion of SVG files. I'd also expect 3DBuilder (win10) to have that feature but I'm currently unable to verify.
Any 3D modelling package that can deal with an SVG file from an art package would do. They could even skip the SVG import and trace their image directly in the 3D software using curves. But that might be a little unintuitive when it comes to complicated details.
@fred_dot_u The issue isn't extruding an svg, I can do that a number of ways. It's the easiest way of getting an svg. I drew these 16 years ago when I had plenty of time and quiet (before I had 6 kids). On the bright side 3dbuilder will allow me to get an silhouette, messes up all the internal stuff but better than nothing
@Kilisi, I and a friend are teaching ourselves to learn Rhino3D using online resources. It's similar to blender, but perhaps not as complex, but also not a free program. Both of those programs would allow you to manually manipulate the elevation of the appropriate areas. If this was a real world carving, for example, you'd be able to perform photogrammetry to get a mesh, but a bunch of ifs do not create a solution.
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18575 | Missing outer wall on some layers?
It seems there are some missing lines on the outer wall on the Z-axis with my prints. I'm not able to pinpoint the problem. Does anyone have ideas about what might be wrong with my setup/settings?
Example:
Here are some settings that I think are relevant:
Printer: Ender 3 v1
Filament: Das Filament
Slicer: Cura
Hotend temp: 215 °C
Layer height: 0.2 mm
Wall speed: 30 mm/s
Travel speed: 200 mm/s
Retraction distance: 6.5 mm
Combing mode: not in skin (Max comb: 30)
Cheers
In case others are interested in the solution, after playing with various settings, increasing the nozzle temperature fixed the issue. Using 217-218 I'm able to get a decent surface now.
I had to raise temperatures and turn off enclosure fans during Winter because the room temperature around the 3D printer is colder.
If this solved the problem, your extruder is just marginally able to push a sufficient amount of material through the hotend at the speed and temperature you're at. Normally I would expect an Ender 3 to do somewhat better than that, so you may have other underlying problems I'll try to address in an answer.
The OP solved the problem by increasing temperature from 210 to "217-218". While it's good to have it working now, this likely suggests other problems with the printer thaat should be investigated.
If the change in temperature made the difference to get this print working, your extruder is just marginally able to push a sufficient amount of material through the hotend at the speed and temperature you're at. Normally I would expect an Ender 3 to do somewhat better, even with the stock extruder and hotend. Here are a few things you might want to check:
Is the filament properly dried? If it's absorbed moisture, the vapor phase transition will absorb at lot of heat from the hotend, making the effective extrusion temperature significantly lower than the block temperature. In my experience, it behaves like it's 20-25 ˚C lower than what you have it set to. You can kinda compensate for this by increasing the temperature (keeping an eye not to go over the safe temperature for the PTFE lining, max of about 250 ˚C) but the right solution if this is your problem is to dry your filament.
Is anything mechanically wrong with the extruder? A crack in the tension arm or weak spring can leave it very underpowered.
Are the extruder hob gear teeth clogged with plastic shavings? This will also leave it underpowered.
Thank you for the reply. I'm rather new to 3d printing (2+ year) though I think there are definitely two factors that contributed to this problem: 1. The filament, I don't need to increase the temp that much with my Creality filaments, so there is something wrong with Das Filament brand (it's new our of box). 2. The weather is getting much colder now so the room temperature is much lower
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18582 | What filament would be best for Creality's Ender 3 v2?
What would the best filament for an Ender 3 V2 be? I don't mind about the look but I would like for you to be able to bridge with it and for it to be reasonably cheap. If possible could you give several different options at different prices, different qualities and could you describe which website/company you can get it from.
Shopping questions like this are out of scope for the site. If you could be more specific about what properties you want, you could reformulate this question into one about what materials have the desired properties and make it in-scope.
Really, there are only a few materials that print well on a stock Ender 3 (PLA, PVB, and to a lesser extent PETG, ASA, ABS, and TPU) and they each have specific reasons you might choose them. Exotic materials beyond that list mostly require high-temperature capabilities and/or heated chamber.
Sorry - no one here can tell you to buy brand X from website Y.
However there are an enormous number of options and eliminating some broad categories can help.
Presuming your printer is stock, it has a brass nozzle, and therefore anything "reinforced" or abrasive is not feasible. That excludes carbon fibre or nylon-reinforced filaments.
ABS is probably unprintable, unless you've added a heated enclosure
TPU might work, but it has properties that suit certain kinds of jobs, like flexible phone cases. If you're not printing those things, TPU is wasted.
PETG is also a maybe - I have no experience with it.
PLA is the best for printing on an entry-level printer like an ender3.
You can eliminate all 2.85mm and 3mm filament, because your stock nozzle is a 1.75mm
I've personally not tried TPU or PETG on my ender3v2, mostly because committing to a whole roll is an expense I can't justify.
If I were you I'd ask anyone locally who prints, "where do you get good filament?" and use that as a starting point. Ask your local library if they have a 3d printing service (this is astonishingly common) and where they source filament.
Some people only use the cheapest filament available, others have preferred brands, and others use only premium supplies. Figure out what your personality is.
Going cheap is reasonable if you're only toying about. If this printer is doing real work for people, consider stepping up to something better - cost of failed prints will outweigh the cost of better filament as your skills improve.
I would suggest exploring different styles of PLA, like the metallic-look or Silk mixes. You can also get great effects from Rainbow PLA, which mean you have to have fewer colours in stock. Lastly PLA+ mixtures exist, which are improvements on plain PLA.
Notes on printing PETG https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10288/how-to-work-with-petg-settings-caveats-etc
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18413 | What OEM is Inland PETG+?
I have a local Microcenter and got some cool orange PETG+. I've never printed with PETG before, but this PETG+ stuff seems flexible and weak. I printed a random part with some thin walls, and when I squeezed it, I broke the thin walls. Interestingly, not across layer lines. The same part in ASA (or ABS? I can't recall) is sufficiently strong and durable, and much less flexible.
I'm reprinting at 100% infill (the first one was 20%), but looking at the place that it broke, I don't see infill. It's ~2 mm thick there, so I'm pretty sure that it's solid. I printed at 240 °C, and my reprint is going at 250 °C.
I'd like to check what this PETG+ stuff is better at than regular PETG, so I'd like to look at what the manufacturer has to say about it, and the rest of the internet. Who makes this?
We know that Inland PLA+ is made by eSun, and when I mentioned that to the local Microcenter 3D printer expert, he said as much too. Here's a reddit post speculating.
Product page
are you comfortable with the possible hydration of the filament. Of the many types of filament, nylon is severely hygroscopic, with PETG coming in close to the top. If you have a filament dryer or food dehydrator, a dozen hours in the heat may improve the results.
I've heard varying degrees of hydrophilia for this kind of filament from "dry it and print from a dry bed" to "store it in a drybox, but it will be fine". The print looks amazing. I suspect that it's something to do with the part. I printed another one at 100% infill, and it broke in the same spot, but then if I tried to bend the piece that broke off, it bent, it did not break. It's breaking with layer lines and bending against it though.
I've had really bad experiences with wet PETG. The mechanism of failure is consistent with what OP experienced - water bubbles exploding during extrusion and creating perforations in the extrusion lines rather than just bad layer adhesion. Somehow PETG really likes to break along "perforations" - this also happens when you have skipping-type underextrusion in a layer.
I talked to the guy at the local Micro Center. He said that Inland PETG+ was OEM'd by eSun, and that Inland PETG was OEM'd by Polymaker.
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18253 | HALOT BOX makes objects with support move up
I'm trying to slice some models using the default HALOT BOX software from Creality, which comes with the Halot One resin 3D printer.
I've oriented them at 45 degrees, and am using supports. When I come to slice the models, the models all jump up a few millimetres, as seen in the below screenshot.
I thought it was just a UI bug, until the same image also appears on the printer screen, with a gap between the supports and the raft.
If I reset the position of the model, it goes back down as I would expect it to be, but when I click "slice" it moves back up again.
My settings are as follows:
How do I fix this?
height from Raft
@Trish Just tried messing around with that, and it appears that defines how far up the model is moved before the supports are created. You can see in this image that it's touching the bottom, and the "Generate support" button is actually disabled (hard to see, but it is). When put it back to 6mm, it can generate supports and looks like this before trying to slice (after which it jumps up again as per the question).
Have you tried "height from Raft 0.2" for a very tiny gap?
@Trish the lowest it lets me go is 2mm. I tried that, but it still jumps up, so I tried setting the raft height higher but it still jumps up beyond that as well. Maybe I need to file a bug report with the developers, but it's a bit annoying I can only use the HALOT BOX software and not something of my choice :(
@Trish So I did what I should have done at the start, and checked for an updated version of the software, which now appears to work! Annoyingly when I ran "Check for updates" within the software it said I was using the latest version, but there was actually a newer version on the Creality website.
Turns out I was using an old (and buggy) version of the software.
The version I was using came on the supplied USB memory stick and was version 1.9-something.
I downloaded the latest version (2.0-something) off the Creality website and now it doesn't appear to have the same problem.
Thank you for providing this info! I too, have had so many failures because the slicer would raise the supports off of the raft. And you can't tell if its printing anything until a couple hours into the print when it rises out of the resin enough to see if anything is there. So much wasted time on version 1.9!!!
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18376 | Want to connect Makerbot Replicator+ to Mac and several to USB hub
I am at a school with several Makerbot Replicator+ – a total of 9 of them.
So, they seem to print fine and I can hook up to two of them to one laptop (they are some Lenovo models from a few years back) using Makerbot Print. Well and good.
But I wanted to hook them up to my MacBook Pro (2020, OS X Catalina) with the USB cables, and the MacBook doesn't seem to "read" the printers, it's like they aren't even there. Makerbot Print (latest version) doesn't seem to "see" that they are hooked up. I checked the system prefs to see if the Makerbots showed up as connected USB devices and they don't seem to be there either.
Now, I am connecting via the USB cables and then through an adapter that connects the USB-A to USB-C. If I should just use a USB-B to USB-C cable (I ordered one to test it) then fine, I'll do that. I just wanted to check that there wasn't some other problem or if anyone else had this issue.
Next up: USB hubs. Makerbot says they don't recommend it, but sometimes I have to print out lots of stuff at once for student projects and I can't tie up multiple laptops for hours-long prints. I have done the technique of leaving stuff all night but that's hit or miss – if something goes wrong I am not there to stop the print (at least once something got unstuck from the build plate and I ended up with an extruder with the end encased in hard plastic like a stalactite. Unless I basically blowtorch it off... )
So, the question(s) is/are:
Any recommendations for USB hubs? (I would do wireless but that I am less sure of, and it seems easier, faster, and more reliable to link up through USB. The wireless connection always drops).
Any recommendations for the MacBook issue? Is it just a matter of finding the right cable? (it's certainly possible my $10 USB-A to USB-C adapter plugs aren't well designed, and I should just go for direct cabling)
Any recommendations for a good USB hub to link a Mac (or anything else) to Makerbots?
Thanks for your time and help. I do hope I am not duplicating a post but I don't see anything in my searches that addresses the specific issues I have; though it's possible I didn't use the right search terms.
you can run into bandwidth issues going the hub route- there is some point at which attempting too many simultaneous prints off a single port will not be worth it. instead consider the sd card approach?
Also what do you mean by SD card approach? The Makerbots take flash drives, but my attempts to print off of one were unsuccessful (it seems to be rather hard to make the right kind of file, it won't work with STLs and I gave up figuring out how to make them .makerbot files)
My answer pivots entirely around my supposition that the Makerbot Replicator has a CH340 IC for the USB. It may not, in which case my answer is useless. It would help to know which IC is actually used to implement the USB interface on the printer control board. If you can take a photo and add it to the question that would be great... however, it should be possible to determine the IC used by search the web - but only if you know the model and version number of the controller board, which should be written on the PCB somewhere.
Further analysis (via the web) appears to show that the CH340 is not used for the USB - see at the bottom of my updated answer. Therefore my answer probably should be discarded and deleted as it confuses matters totally. You really need to check what IC is used by your board, for an accurate answer.
they might take x3g which just needs you to run a makerbot slicing software on your stl. usually can be made from same software that runs printer off usb
You want to make a gcode file, not a makerbot file. The STL file describes the shape of what you want. The gcode file includes things instructions for like temperature, layer thickness, infill density, and speed in various situations.... all the information needed for the printer to produce not only the correct shape, but at the correct quality and with settings appropriate for a specific printer.
As print jobs can take hours, and completely take over the computer while printing, you're pretty much always better off going with the SD card or USB option. Also, a dedicated print station (often a raspberri pi) can work well. But printing directly from the computer is waaaaay down the list. There's just too much that can go wrong over the course of a long print job for a computer to be a good choice.
It would seem that the printer control board doesn't use a CH340 (see bottom of this answer) and therefore this answer should be ignored.
CH340 and OS X incompatibility
The reason your Mac might not see the printers could be down to the USB interface on the printer controller board.
If it is implemented by a CH340 (which is probably is, in order to reduce manufacturing costs) then, historically, MacBooks have a problem with the drivers for this device and its derivatives. That is to say, the OS has a problem - more specifically the device drivers used by the OS X kernel - as opposed to the hardware. There are a number of posts dealing with this problem, it is common on Arduino clones too, see here.
The third party drivers for the CH340(G) written for OS X are often poorly written and/or have shoddy documentation - although this opinion may be hotly debated, and I have no wish to expand upon.
If the USB interface, on the printer controller board, is implemented with an FTDI or a ATmega 16U2 then it will work fine. Unfortunately the solution is probably not to use the Mac and stick with the Lenovos (i.e. PC clone).
See the extensive answers to Can't connect Cura to my Anet A8 on OSX 10.11.6
As an aside, I gave up trying to buy/use cheap Arduino clones with a CH340(G), on a Mac long along, as it just wasn't worth the effort in trying to get the Mac to see it. I now ensure that either:
I purchase a slightly more expensive Arduino which uses a 16U2 (the more pricey FTDI chip is more rarely used on boards these days, but can still be found). Obviously, you don't have that sort of luxury when selecting a 3D printer.
I will use a PC instead, if the board has a CH340(G), or similar.
One possible solution
However, having said all of that, this issue may have been resolved in newer versions of OS X (post Mountain Lion, or thereabouts). This might provide a solution, Connect to ch340 on MacOS Mojave
remove all old drivers:
sudo rm -rf /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext
sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext
Now reboot the computer.
And then (very important, because it took me 10 cables to find the
right one) use a fully connected cable ;-)
Now I have these ports:
/dev/cu.wchusbserial1410
/dev/cu.usbserial-1410
Important note: Clearly, deleting kernel drivers (also known as kernel extensions, .kext) shouldn't be taken lightly. If you feel uncomfortable doing it, or don't know how to revert the process, by using a saved backup of the drivers, then please don't attempt this.
For completeness:
To back up the kext (before deleting it as shown above):
sudo cp /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext.bak
sudo cp /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext.bak
To restore the kext (after having deleted the kernel extension and then finding that it made no difference whatsoever):
sudo mv /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext.bak /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext.bak /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext
Alternatively, instead of deleting the kernel drivers, you could just rename them to hide them, by adding .bak to the filename, like so
sudo mv /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext /Library/Extensions/usbserial.kext.bak
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext /System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext.bak
Then reboot. Check the printer connects or not. If not, then just restore them using the same commands shown above - so you just end up removing the additional .bak from the filename.
With respect to the quoted answer, I'm not entirely sure what is meant by a fully connected cable... There is a well-known issue that some USB charging cables - that look like normal USB cables - have only the power lines connected, and omit the data lines (again for cheapness), and it can be difficult to tell the two apart (usually by thickness, the thicker cables have more lines connected). Obviously, if the data lines are missing then the cable will not transfer data.
However, this usually applies only to cables with mini, or micro USB connectors, and usually doesn't apply to standard peripheral cables such as a USB-A to USB-B cable:
So, this issue should only arise for micro/mini USB connectors... it will depend upon your connector type.
We can't recommend particular makes or models of USB hubs as that is a shopping question, which is off-topic.
Analysis on the printer board
Makerbot appear to use the Mightyboard for the Replicator. INterestingly from the following two photos it would appear that a CH340(G) is not used, and the IC is in fact a 16U2.
Here is a photo of the board (image from MakerBot Replicator 2/2X Rev H Mightyboard – Official, OEM Board w/ 4 BotSteps):
The IC closest to the USB-B port would appear to be a 16U2:
Its form is square like a 16U2 and not elongated like a CH340G
It would appear to have an Atmel logo printed upon it.
This image (from MightyBoard Motherboard 3D Printer Dashboard), also suggests the a 16U2 is used:
All of which means that, if your printer(s) have this board, then your Mac should indeed connect to the printer.
OK, I am not one who understand much of the terminology you just used. But when you say a fully-connected cable do you mean one that does not need an adapter?
To put it bluntly, could you translate your post to non-techie?
I'm not entirely sure myself, as that is quoted from the linked answer. However, there is a well-known issue that some USB charging cables - that look like normal USB cables - have only the power lines connected, and omit the data lines (again for cheapness), and it can be difficult to tell the two apart (usually by thickness, the thicker cables have more lines connected). Obviously, if the data lines are missing then the cable will not transfer data.
Again thanks, and to be clear the "CH340" on the Mac side or the printer side? (Again, a big chunk of the answer you posted is pretty opaque to me). If I understand it correctly you are saying I can delete the USB drivers on the mac, reboot, and it should read the USB printer connection. I am a little nervous about deleting stuff like that from my system.
Updated answer... hopefully it is a bit clearer :-)
YES thanks, it clears up a lot of things (and you went all in with the illustrations!)
You can use Simplify3D to slice your .STL files into .X3G needed for the Makerbot. You can either connect to the printer via USB or export the .X3G file to an SD card for use in the printer. Hope this helps!
what do you mean by SD card approach? The Makerbots take flash drives, but my attempts to print off of one were unsuccessful (it seems to be rather hard to make the right kind of file, it won't work with STLs and I gave up figuring out how to make them .makerbot files)
This sounds like you need a better basic understanding of the printing process.
An STL file describes a shape you want to print, but it does not have all the information needed to actually print the object. In order to actually print the file, you need to know things like what material you will use (which will determine temperatures), what the capabilities of the machine are (how fast you can go), how much vertical detail is important to retain (layer thickness vs print time trade-off), and how strong the piece needs to be (trade-off between infill + wall thickness vs print time + material costs). You also need to specify things like how to orient the shape for best print results and what to do when there are steep overhangs or bridges.
To get this information, you must slice the STL (or OBJ or 3DS) file.
There are a number of different software packages available to do slicing, many of them freely available: Cura and slic3r come to mind. Makerbot also has their own slicer. I know you can download and install Cura on a Mac.
The output of the slicer is usually a .gcode file, and I would expect your Makerbots to be able to handle gcode files that were produced with the appropriate options. In fact, I strongly suspect the ".makerbot" file mentioned in your comment is actually a gcode file in disguise.
Why does this matter?
Print jobs can take hours and even days, and they tend to completely take over the computer while printing. No one wants to leave their laptop sitting next to a printer overnight, not able to do anything else. Newer printers will also have features like automatic resume from power loss, filament out detection, are more, that a are less likely to function properly when printing from a computer.
There's just too much that can go wrong while printing via computer, such that you're pretty much always better off going with the SD card or USB option.*
In other words, printing directly from your main computer is waaaaay down the list. It's not the first, second, or even third of fourth option as the best way to do this.
* A dedicated print station can work well, when setup properly, and people often use OctoPrint installed on a Raspberri Pi in this way. However, this also implies a high-end laptop is complete overkill for the task.
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18428 | 3D scanner capabilities
Will a 3D scanner capture internal details within an enclosure?
I'm contemplating buying a 3D scanner, but they're pretty expensive so I'm looking for advice on whether they will actually be useful for the projects I have in mind. So with the picture below as an example, could I expect to generate a usable STL file by scanning this?
I've found that if you can buy the part you want, it is generally better to do so. Assuming that is the item, it looks like a 38mm or 50mm flush mount box for holding electrical switch plates, and would be cheaper to buy from an electrical retailer than its cost in filament alone. It would be made of ABS, I can see that printed on it.
@Criggie yeah... it's not just this particular part I have in mind, it just serves the purpose of illustrating complexity within an enclosure
If you require precise scanning capability, for the purpose of reverse engineering, a photogrammetric scanner may not provide that precision. As you've noted, many scanners are quite expensive and with higher precision comes higher expense. The professional grade scanners will provide resolution figures based on a sample size. For example, a particular scanner will advise for 1.0 mm for an object of 1 meter (example, not necessarily reality) and the resolution may be worse for a larger item.
Having a stationary object provides for a better result. Living beings tend to move, making it difficult to scan with any detail. Reflective objects may require a non-reflective coating (chalk paint) to remove detail-damaging specularities.
I have what is known as a structured light scanner (SLS). It calibrates by using a known pattern and projects varying light/dark patterns on the calibration panel. This calibration sequence is then used when the object is scanned. The distortion and light/dark changes are then converted into the 3D mesh, which is later converted to an appropriate object, such as .STL, .OBJ or other formats.
In the case of the object in the image, one would perform repeated scans while rotating the item on a turntable or similar work space. These are nested and processed by the software as noted above. With the walls, recesses and holes in the pictured item, it will be necessary to place the object in various orientations, by resting it on a flat side, or upside down. The software may automatically adjust the new scans, or may require point identification to begin the automatic sequence.
Unfortunately, these SLS devices are also not particularly inexpensive, but such a term is fairly subjective. From a hobbyist standpoint, it could be considered big bucks. For a prototyping operation or especially from a production environment, the cost may be a small portion of the budget.
David SLS is one such device. Amazon has a listing (unavailable) as does Walmart (out of stock) priced at US$2360. Not inexpensive, but not astronomical. The listing from Amazon specifies 0.1% of overall size. For a 150 mm wide object, that would mean 0.15 mm resolution.
Thanks, well outside my budget then, better to 3d draw the gadget.
A more budget solution is presented in
with lots of detail posted at https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/modeling-my-grandpa-3d-photogrammetry
Essentially it's some fancy PC software to stitch together a lot of digital photos of an object, and produce something you can print. The code used was COLMAP + OpenMVS and is explained in gratuitous detail in https://peterfalkingham.com/2018/04/01/colmap-openmvs-scripts-updated/
I know this is a link-heavy answer which is discouraged, but there's an inordinate amount of info posted, and is far too detailed to summarise here without losing important points.
interesting approach but too complicated for me I think. Maybe if was a person, but for parts it's probably easier to draw them, just need to get my head around my 3d software
Yes, 3D scanners can do that, provided that all surfaces are in sight of the scanner.
Within our company we scan complex turbomachinery parts (e.g. impellers) using a robotic arm with 3D scanner and a rotating platform to scan the whole surface of the parts to compare used parts to new parts and evaluate if they can be used for another maintenance interval.
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18382 | Fixing stringing within <80% flow print out is weak
Here are the details:
Creality CR 10-S5
BLTouch leveling sensor
Micro Swiss Direct Drive filament upgrade kit
Bed is 66 °C.
I tried dozens of temperatures starting at 205 °C and going all the way down to 180 °C pretty much 1 °C at a time. The present temperature of 188 °C seems to generate a higher stickiness to the bed than other temperatures.
I have also adjusted the flow rate down to 47% and that, although it did help with the stringing, didn't fix it completely and made the whole print super weak. I have discovered going below 80% is structurally a bad idea. I wouldn't mind having it at 90% either.
I am trying different retraction speeds and distances now currently testing 5 mm and 70 mm/s retraction. Previously I tried 4 mm with 60 mm/s and it didn't help.
Using a lower filament flow rate (about <60%) did prevent it from going all the way across at approx 50 mm/s, but alas <60% is too weak structurally. And didn't solve it completely. The tips had a Y-shaped split top on both sides with the one side of the Y being straight as it is part of the tower.
Any suggestions to rid me of this are welcome. Reminder flow rate below 80% is too weak, and 188 °C is preferred.
The picture looks like classic Cura misbehavior - it's skipping retractions that need to happen because it's done "too many" already. You should be able to confirm this by looking at the gcode in an analyzer that shows retractions or watching the print. Set "Minimum Extrusion Distance Window" to 0 to fix the problem.
You should not be reducing flow at all, and certainly not by more than a few percent. Put it back to 100%.
Yes, that's the problem with Cura - it has a lot of settings with wrong defaults that most users don't even know exist... but once you configure it well, it does a great job.
Do you have any other settings suggestions I should watch out for?
Combing might be such a setting.
Yeah, in my opinion "Max Comb Distance With No Retract" should be set to a very low value just large enough to make it so moves between successive lines of top/bottom fill don't need retraction - something like 0.8 - 1.2 mm. This in turn kinda 'requires' turning on "Zig Zaggify Infill" unless you have really high speed retractions.
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18179 | What are the advantages and disadvantages of Eryone's 15% metal PLA compared to other PLA?
I am thinking of using it for a project or two but am still somewhat new to this.
So, I was wondering what are the advantages and disadvantages of Eryone's 15% metal PLA and X% metal PLA in general?
Advantage: It should print like regular PLA at PLA temperatures.
Disadvantage: the embedded metal particles are abrasive and will widen your standard brass nozzle over time. The fix is to use a hardened steel nozzle, or for the extreme, there are options like ruby-tipped nozzles.
Advantage: It should look "metallic" in a way that is more durable than a paint-on topcoat finish, with a depth instead of a surface-only appearance.
Disadvantage: I can't find the product you're referencing. The nearest I can find is Metal Silk Rainbow PLA and Ultra Silk PLA
That latter one is available in gold, bronze, copper, silver, etc. which sounds like metal, but only printing some will show you in person what it looks like.
See also Additional mods for printing metal filled filament with Ender 3 V2?
@agarza "Embiggen" is a perfectly cromulent word.
That's fine, but the idea is for users to easily understand what the answer is. I would venture to say that a great number of people will not know the definition of "embiggen" unless they look it up, which they won't because they are too lazy.
thanks that's just the answer I needed, also @agarza is right I didn't even know that word existed until now.
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18288 | Shocks and enclosures
I have a Creality CR-6 SE running Community firmware. It's printing mostly well, in part because it's improvisationally enclosed (sheets of cardboard between it and the closes window to reduce draft, which was killing my prints on bad days). To make it moderately shock-resistant it's placed on a 50x50 cm concrete tile which is placed on 3 mm of foam. The foam reduces vibrations being redirected to the tile while the tile is heavy enough not to care either way.
Now it has to move because I want to move my desk into the same room as the printer.
This means 2 things:
My and my printer will be getting their required ventilation from the same window, but sitting in the same room as a printer for 8+ hours a day isn't a great idea if we breathe the same air. Either I need to scrub the printer exhaust or pipe it out (totally doable, it's not that far).
Either I have to sit very quietly or the printer has to be placed somewhat shock-proof. The floor itself is of wood and on the first floor, so there's some minor bounce in it. It's not 100% level and it gets (slightly) worse if you stand next to it.
I've been thinking about making a towered enclosure (roughly like the famous Lack approach). However, if I construct a tower, the increased position vector between ground and printer could make the printer shake. Besides, a simple Lack won't work because PLA won't like being confined. Where other materials like getting hot, PLA likes to be ventilated. The obvious solution would be a couple of fans that can be shut-off and covered, but maybe I'm thinking too complicated already. Either way, that's a fixable problem.
See-through sheet work is likely going to be done with 2mm plexiglass (acrylic, PMMA).
I'm currently printing PLA 100% of the time but the enclosure should be able to handle PLA, ABS, and PETG. There's a Raspberry Pi available, so requiring different settings for different materials is not a problem either.
So I can fix all problems, except the shock one. More fans mean more vibrations, so it will get plenty of shocks by itself. Add the shocks of me walking past it, especially if the printer is in a tower, and you can wait for failed prints.
I've seen people put their printers on springs, but is that the best way to deal with it in enclosures? Would it make sense to put the tower on top of the existing foam/concrete base or would it be better to catch the shocks as close to the printer as possible?
Feel free to comment on any-and-all parts of the question, but questions require focus and the focus is on the shocking part (do we need a tag for that?). The rest is context.
I am guessing the foundation of concrete tile and foam is from CNC Kitchen (I have the same setup). You mention 3 mm, which in the CNC Kitchen video shows a 50 mm foam. Have you thought about increasing the thickness of foam to increase shock absorbance? Personally, I have 75 mm of foam and it reduces vibration and noise considerably.
@agarza I picked a piece I still had around, the tile is from my backyard :-)
First, let's get your physics straight:
To make it moderately shock-resistant it's placed on a 50x50 cm concrete tile which is placed on 3 mm of foam. The foam reduces vibrations being redirected to the tile while the tile is heavy enough not to care either way.
No. The concrete tile gives your printer mass by adding its own to it. Mass by itself results in shifting the point resonance (and thus ringing) occurs, and in conjunction with a flexible mounting (the foam) results in the resonance window getting shifted out of the window where it can be problematic. Nothing about redirecting.
Now, to your problems:
Enclosure
If you want an enclosure, you can mount it directly onto the concrete tile, or you include the buffered concrete in the enclosure. Totally up to you. If you exhaust it, just adding a big PC fan to the back and then a flexible tube to the window to get rid of warmth if you need would be enough.
Dampener
3 mm is way too little. You should get at least one of those rubber mats from the home depot that is put under washing machines. Those thick rubber pads are usually 10 to 20 mm thick and would decouple the printer movement very well from steps on the floor. You might even want more of a different, softer foam between that rubber pad and the concrete tile.
Considering the weight of the concrete tile, leaving close to the ground would be preferred. With a combination of thick pads (I know the kind, my washer and dryer have them too), thinner foam and tile, either the whole thing is going to wobble (which can be reduced by more tile) or it should be stable enough for printing purposes, correct? Would the type of (thin) foam make any difference?
extra slabbs would squish the foam more. You might add a baseplate on standoffs under it to decouple it a tad more, if your combined decouplers don't do enough.
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18272 | Pimples/blisters on some curves - cause?
I've noticed my Ender 3 V2 printing odd little bubbles of material on curves. Is this over-extrusion? I'm using Creality PLA at 210 °C with a bed temperature of 60 °C
The opposite side of the same print, with no problem in the curve. Yes, I do have lifting at some corners, but this seems to be a different issue.
This was printing a center-finder
It's a bit hard to see but here's the same blister-like look on the handles of a grabber-toy. Lighting makes it a bit hard to see, as does printing in black.
I have calibrated my E-steps; initially, it was extruding 95.5 mm when told to do 100.0 mm. By changing the printer's numbers, it's now pushing through 100.1 mm when requested to do 100.0 mm. Is that my cause?
Possibly related to https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/13805/over-extrusion-on-curved-surfaces
Does the nozzle move through that section at a uniform smooth rate when printing, or does it slow down and speed up eratically? This looks to me like the fallout of bad interaction between acceleration/cornering profile, the stock firmware's lack of linear advance, and numerical imprecision in model or slicer output making what should be curves into fine jagged details.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE good thinking - I watched a second run of the same center finder, but at 70% not 50%, and the motion looks smooth throughout the whole print. I do have the stock firmware on it, an update is in the plans. What makes no sense is that the opposite curve is perfect.
After much faffing about, I've discovered that OctoPrint is the cause, or specifically running it on underpowered hardware.
I originally thought that OctoPrint sent the job to the printer's internal SD card and it printed from there.
That is incorrect, OctoPrint feeds G-code to the printer. And since I'm using a sub-standard Pi B+, it does not have the resources to keep up.
By attaching a webcam, I doubled down on the resource contention and made it worse.
Basically, the OctoPrint minimum-spec is there for a reason, disregard it at your own risk.
The test object can be found at https://www.tinkercad.com/things/1vjIJXoQkde
and has 5 half-barrels with different segment counts. I originally noticed that the smoother curves suffered worse, and was testing that.
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18285 | Instances won't share support or brim
In PrusaSlicer-2.3.3, when there are two instances of an object closer than the support width, the intersecting surface is filled twice; this is what you can see in the center of the picture. The outer perimeters are indeed correct, but the intersection is printed twice.
It would not be so problematic if this was just for one or two layers, but it's also doing it higher, i.e at the support level, and it ruined the print.
So in PrusaSlicer, how do I slice several objects as one object?
Obvious answer is to space them more apart. If you could, please add an image of how the objects look (on the plate) before slicing.
My goal is to put all of them on the same raft / brim in order to reduce print time and increase plate adhesion.
Try joining them in external software and printing them as one object instead of two. Although if you are not careful, they might end up physically joined too.
I found the relevant answer here
Did you load them as separate objects (which will do what you describe and is wrong) or add the second one as a sub part of the first object (right click, add part->load)?
The latter takes occlusion into account and clips overlapping areas.
Here is what I learned: you can't merge Prusa "instances", they are just a replay of the same G-code
I assume it is a really useful feature if you want to say, fill the bed with dozen of instances of the same product, if you're happy with the settings and you don't want to mess with it. This will just replicate the same g-code at some other place; that makes sense in a production setting.
However, if you're still building then:
Do hard copies (copy paste), reload the same file, or right click on an object, and Add Part / Load. You can merge those ones (as in: CTRL + click / a.k.a multiple selection), right click / merge , and they will slice as expected (as a whole)
Keywords were : overlapping objects, composite object, redundant tool paths
Also, there seems to be a bug in the prusaslicer UI, as you can't reverse the Merge - the objects look like they're trapped under the Merged object once you've committed to it. Set as separate objects is grayed here.
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18295 | QR code 3D printing
Is it possible to 3D print a QR code? or to engrave it using a 3D printer? I tried to convert it to individual boxes but that takes too long and is very inaccurate. Is there a better way?
You could try this method on Thingiverse. It explains step by step how to create a QR code and print it. I used it recently to print 50 QR codes with a backplate red and the QR code in white and it works wonderfully: https://www.thingiverse.com/make:976685.
if inaccuracy is a function of your print rather than algorithm, you may need to print the code bigger.
Could you [edit] your question and post photos of the prints with the issues that you have experienced? It might make your question a little clearer.
I used the qrcore2stl website for my WiFi access point.
You can easily change the parameters of the QR code and associated .stl, as well as add custom text and keychain holes.
For my WiFi access, I inserted a pause command at 1 mm height, and changed filament from white to black at that point.
Please don't flag this as a "link-only answer". Why? Because it is a valid link to an online conversion tool - plus the answer has some useful tips.
From the excellent Thingiverse link, Customizable QR Keyring or Tag by OutwardB - which was provided in the (now deleted) link-only answer:
Create the QR code
Go to QRCode Monkey
Only change the Content settings
DO NOT change the color, logo or design settings
Click Create QR Code
Click Download PNG and wait for the file to download
Convert to SVG
Go to PNG to SVG Converter and convert the PNG image you just downloaded to a .SVG file
Customise in OpenSCAD
You will need QR_Code_Customizer_V01_2.scad from the files
repository on Thingverse
Download OpenSCAD from here and install it - https://openscad.org/downloads.html
Put the downloaded SVG file in the same folder as the .SCAD file from this page
Double-click the .SCAD file to open it
Click Window, then untick Hide Customizer
Optional: Click Window, then tick Hide Editor
Enter the SVG file name in the basic settings tab (or rename the file to qr-code.svg before opening OpenSCAD)
Customize the settings. After changing a setting, you may need to click outside the text box to apply the change
Click Design > Render and wait for the design to render
Click File > Export > Export to STL
Save the file
Notes
Raised and Cut-Out types are for changing filament at layer height
Multi-color and Code are to be used together for inlay/multi-color printers
You can also set Base Height or Code Height to 0 and export each part on it's own
If you want to print a double sided tag, you can set Base Height to 0 and export the second side. Then just flip this over in
the slicer
The text options are a okay for basic text, but if you want to use another program to add some, you can add extra height to the
top/bottom of the card under Extra Size Setting
Advanced Notes
There is some logic in the script that stop you from making the size too small if you have Line Size set, you can set Line Size to 0
or half your line size value if you really want to override this.
You can change the Customize Design settings before generating the QR Code (on QRCode Monkey), but you'll need to set Line Size to 0
and there are no promises that it'll print well
If you want to use a different site to create the QR code, resize the image to 1147x1147 pixels before converting it to an SVG. Or if
the QR code in the image doesn't have a border, resize it to 1000x1000
px.
If you want to use a different source for the SVG file, there are instructions for working out the size in the code
(QR_Code_Customizer_V01_2.scad) at line 215. You'll need to
export it as a STL and measure it outside of OpenSCAD, then enter the
values into the script.
The linked to Thingiverse page also has some extra steps for adding an icon:
Add an icon
You can import another SVG file as a logo or use logo fonts.
The below example uses an wifi SVG file from IconMonstr
Download the wifi SVG file
Place it in the same folder as the .SCAD file
In the customizer:
Add some extra space to the top or bottom of the card under Extra Size Settings
Go to SVG Logo Settings
Tick enable svg logo
Enter the filename under svg logo name
Set the svg y nudge position and svg logo scale
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18078 | Can the Ender 3 Pro be upgraded to use PETG
Is it possible to buy/upgrade the nozzle on my Ender 3 Pro to one that is suited for handling the higher temperatures needed to effectively print with PETG filament?
No hotend upgrade is required to print PETG on an Ender 3 (pro or any other variant). The stock hotend can be used at temperatures up to 250 ˚C, and 230-245 ˚C is the range typically recommended for PETG. I print it at 245 ˚C.
You may however want to upgrade the extruder. The stock extruder lacks both torque and grip, and significantly skips/slips when trying to print PETG at any significant speed. Going over 40 mm/s or so is likely to produced failed prints. Look for an extruder with gear reduction and a hob that's designed to grip the filament better (vs the flat one that comes with the printer) or even dual driven hobs.
would it be one made by the same company, im somewhat new to this so I'm not too sure where I would look etc
I'm not sure what kind of simple drop-in-replacement geared extruder is best for Ender 3 type machines these days. I have a rather fancy remote direct drive extruder on mine, which I'm very happy with, but you don't have to go that direction to get good results. I know a lot of ppl use Bondtech BMG or clones of it and recommend them, but there might be something designed for more direct mounting on E3 that's easier and less expensive.
would it be easier just to reduce the speed, or would that cause worse problems? I think I found one that is compatible but I'd like a second opinion lol Redrex Upgraded Aluminum Bowden Extruder with 40 Teeth MK8 Drive Gear for Ender 3 V2,Ender 3 Pro,Ender 3,CR 10 and Other Reprap Prusa 3D Printers https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07DDGGN92/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_KM48SA9GKYMGPXNEP7GD
I also found replacement grip gears for lack of a better term, that have solid reviews so that is probably a better idea.
@TristanAdams be sure to check that you can remove your hob before spending on a replacement. My Ender 3 has a pressed-on hob, non-removable (without a wheel puller). Cheaper for Creality, requires a new stepper if I want to replace the hob.
good point I'll check after my current print is finished. :)
@Zeiss Ikon yeah I'd need a new stepper thanks for the heads-up :)
Still not expensive -- seems to me they run around $20 for the stepper only.
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18173 | What else can I print with my stock Ender 3
I have used PLA and PLA+ so far and I know that it can use ABS and PETG but I'm curious what other materials could I in theory use with my Ender 3?
It is a stock configuration, for the time being at least until after Christmas, and my grandfather and I have designed an enclosure to build together.
This depends on what kind of hotend you have installed, if you have it in an enclosure and so on. This is an open ended list.....
Is it stock at this time?
PLA is just about the only common material that prints well on the stock Ender 3. The extruder lacks proper grip and/or torque at the hob for printing PETG well, and printing TPU with a bowden tube is very slow and error-prone. All of these should work if you're willing to go very slow (20-30 mm/s top) though. ABS and ASA are probably doable, at least with a simple enclosure, but I don't have any experience with them. Most other common materials need significantly higher temperatures than the hotend's safe limit of 250 ˚C.
However there are a couple uncommon materials that should print well:
PVB (polyvinyl butyral, probably best known as Polymaker Polysmooth). It prints at temperatures similar to PLA, but is soluble (and therefore smoothable) in isopropyl alcohol (IPA).
PLC (polycaprolactone) is a very-low-temperature material most commonly used in "3D pens". In fact the temperatures for it are so low (70-140 ˚C) that you'll likely need to send special gcode commands to disable the "minimum extrude temperature" in the printer's firmware or flash firmware without that limitation.
Finally, I guess I should mention that POM (Acetal/Delrin) is within the range of the stock hotend and extruder's capabilities, but is utter hell to print. It doesn't adhere to anything but itself, and warps badly as it cools.
I'll definitely try PVB for my busts, miniatures etc. thanks
Also we can consider PVA, I suppose.
Yes. I didn't include materials normally used as support only. However PVA is potentially interesting for things like making custom time-release shells (think tide pods, medicine, etc.). HIPS is another material that's usually used as support but might be printable.
A (pre-2019) stock ender3 can't print tpu because of a 3mm gap between the driver in the extruder and the bowden tube. But there are multiple adapter plates on thingiverse that close this gap, and then tpu works fine (with some tuning).
I got tpu to work for small parts even without the adapter plate.
This is incorrect. The stock Ender 3, at least since 2019, has not had this problem. While there are other reasons printing TPU on it is painful, I used the stock extruder for the first 2 years I owned mine and never once had TPU buckle between the hob and the bowden.
Not incorrect, but perhaps out of date. My ender3 is older than 2019. I'll adjust my answer. I've had no pain in printing tpu ince I calibrated it.
Based on things I recall reading, I think they fixed it at some point in 2018, but I never saw the bad extruder myself. Mine has a sort of curved triangle form in the plastic bracket that protrudes between the idler and the hob so that the filament has nowhere to buckle.
Even unmodified, my stock ender3 was able to print tpu for a while but eventually it would buckle and escape the extruder driver.
Consider Wood PLA. It is similar to PLA but more abrasive, and with different happy-temperatures.
Especially useful if you want to paint your output, or if you have woodworking skills/tools then prints can be (somewhat) worked and incorporated into larger projects.
Imagine printing detailed scallions or crenellations or gargoyles for a spooky dollhouse - the main walls would use an inordinate amount of filament whereas sheet-wood is cheaper.
Note: abrasive filaments like this will wear out your nozzle. Have replacements ready.
that's awesome, I love woodworking so this would be super helpful for small parts.
Eryone has a 15% metal PLA is it any good?
@TristanAdams that might be a better question by itself. Also is off topic for being "opinion" Try rephrasing as "what are the advantages and disadvantages of Eryone's 15% metal PLA compared to other PLA?"
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17916 | Inclined plane movement of spinneret
Normally 3D printing is done starting at the base level depositing hot plastic upwards.
In order to create bas relief details, can we deposit hot plastic on an available centered cone base any curve design allowing slow hot end /spinneret movement in vertical or inclined planes (instead of pure Z direction) by any user-defined CNC control program with a 3D printer?
I think you would have to rewrite the code specifically for the surface you want to print on, so the printer recognizes the base is not flat.
You'd have to attach an identical pot in exactly the same spot on your printer bed for each print.
For the pots you show, you might try printing just the black design flat, maybe 1 mm thick to keep it flexible, then gluing it to your pot. Using soft filament would make this easier.
Another option would be a 3D pen.
Or use a cutting machine like a Cricut to cut it in self stick vinyl. I believe those machines use SVG files.
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17934 | Stringing on first layer unless I squish it
I switched over to a new filament recently (Sunlu PLA) and I can't get the first layer details to stick properly without squishing the first layer way too much. Prints don't always fail, but little circles and the initial skirt rarely stick as they should. The issue appears to be that when it starts to extrude at a new location, it's not always close enough or extruding fast enough for the initial filament to stick and it gets lifted on the next pass. Other things stick just fine, it's just at these transitions where things lift a little. My bed is level and in general things are printing just fine. It's just the start/end of initial layers that tend to have problems and lift just enough to cause problems later.
If I lower my nozzle enough, I can get it to stick more reliably but then I have other problems because the first layer is so squished that the ridges rise and cause problems later.
I've read dozens of articles and tried all these things already:
Dried my filament
Adjusted my Z-offset (BLTouch)
Attempted to recalibrate my retraction settings
Replaced my nozzle, cleaned the hotend, and replaced the Bowden tube.
Tried different temperature settings
Cleaned the bed
Calibrated my E-steps and played around with flow rates further
It used to print fine, so I guess it could just be the filament but I'm hoping there's something I can still do. I'm using an Ender 3 v2 with a BLTouch, new springs, replaced Bowden tube and red metal extruder. Printing at 210 °C with 60 °C bed.
What type of print bed do you have? Glass, BuildTak, PEI? Printer model might also be helpful. Please update the question by [edit].
Would you mind editing your post to include some kind of picture aswell?
Try using 75 °C for the bed and 220 °C or highest recommended extrusion temperature for Sunlu PLA for the first layer, then lower the temperatures to 210 °C with 60 or 65 °C bed for subsequent layers.
Other options are Elmer's glue stick, a glue stick specified for a 3D printer bed, or hair spray.
Thanks for the advice, I'll give this a try. So far I've been working around the issue by lowering the nozzle and then raising it once the outlines are complete.
green tape is great too! :)
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18778 | I painted an uncured UV resin print, now it feels sticky through the paint
I know that you are not supposed to cure resin prints in the window, but mostly it has been working OK for me. I mostly print minis and props for D&D.
Last week I printed some walls and was a bit impatient to see what they would look like, so I painted them 1 hour after they'd finished. I´m coming to regret that decision since as of writing they still have that newly printed sticky wetness feel to them. I had calculated with the paint sealing the partially uncured resin in but this doesn't seem to be the case at all.
Does anyone have any ideas that might work? Will they eventually cure enough in the paint layer that the stickiness will go away? Would another layer of paint help? Or leaving them out in the sunlight for a few days? Or do they go into the trash bin? I also considered if some kind of lacquer would help, though I don't want them to be shiny.
If you've been curing through glass, you may not have been getting sufficient intensity of the correct frequencies of UV light necessary to complete the cure. Step outside with the part, rotate it a few times in the sun, perhaps three to five minutes or so. It's astonishing how quickly the big ball of fire in the sky cures the resin. Fully uncured resin in volume gets painfully hot when cured in the sun.
@fred_dot_u winter might need longer time, but the paint coat will not allow UV light to get to the resin.
roger that, my suggestion was directed to pre-painting curing practice.
thanks for the comments both. there has been a new development with my project. One of the walls cracked open a bit and a lot of fluid resin trapped inside the hollowed out model ran out. Yuck! Into the trash they go!
As a side note: a hollowed model needs both an air-intake hole somewhere (preferably as close to the most upper part of the hollow) as well as a resin drain hole, the latter at the lowest point of the hollow. See also the Cupping question
Scrap the prints
You didn't cure the print, and your paint might interact with the resin in such a way that it might never cure. The paint also will prevent UV rays from accessing the resin.
With this prospect, the only diligent way to go is to treat the item as potentially dangerous and discard it in the proper way.
Layering paints that have not cured fully is also an accident waiting to happen, so better don't.
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18781 | Creality Ender 3 Pro: Problem with Z-axis inaccuracy (squashed layers?)
Creality Ender 3 Pro – Z-axis inaccuracy problem.
Before opening this new thread, I did read this question
(Perhaps there is another question on this site I did not see!)
Browsing through comments on that question, I don't really see any clear, verified solution for errors in the Z dimension when printing.
I recently bought a Creality Ender 3 Pro (migrating from a Kingroon KP3, to which I had migrated from a Printrbot Simple Metal).
Today I did a print of a small "testing" object which has a series of rectangular walls (1.5, 2, and 3 mm) running along both X and Y axis which are exactly 10 mm tall (in the STL file). I printed this with both the Ender and my older Kingroon. Kingroon had slight inaccuracy with the 2 mm wall (came out 2.2), but all other dimensions were correct.
The Ender had perfect widths for all walls. But the accuracy of the wall height was TERRIBLE- instead of 10 mm, it was only 9.4!
I should mention two other observations:
Very often I print with rafts to avoid the "elephant foot" dimension problem. Each time I specify a raft with the Ender, the raft is more or less impossible to snap off!
During the print there are occasional "clicks" at the extruder feed gear (more or less throughout the print process). The only time I encountered that type of symptom previously was with the Kingroon on the very first layer if the height was not quite zeroed correctly and so it was trying to print too close to the bed (The whole leveling/height adjustment on the Kingroon was a constant challenge and needed to be redone each day).
In any case, these two symptoms could also point to improper Z movement during the print job. I should note that to create the G-code file for the Ender I used Cura with the default settings for the Creality Ender 3 Pro machine. Also, during setup I did follow the instructions on a video to "square" the frame.
That earlier thread I mentioned emphasized problems/inaccuracy was in the first few layers.
But in my case the "wall height of 10 mm" (which came out as 9.4) is not the overall height of the object from the bottom, but rather a measurement from the top of the floor of the object to the top of the walls. So this if well above the first few layers.
I have not yet tried monkeying with the eccentric "tightness" adjusters to the wheels on the two sides (I am a bit cautious about those adjustments because there does not seem to be a way to measure/quantify changes made or even be sure you return to the original state. Hence my use of the term "monkeying").
Also, unlike checking movement on X and Y, I cannot simply raise and lower the Z gantry manually to check for smoothness and freedom of motion).
Welcome to 3D Printing SE and thank you for your contribution. When you get a chance, please take the [tour] to understand how the site works and how it is different than others.
Related to, and a follow up of, What can cause Z height loss in the first few layers?. Maybe, possibly, a duplicate(?) - I am not sure... see this comment by the OP.
Well, lacking any other suggestions, I took a deep breath and "monkeyed" with the blind eccentric adjusters for the wheeled assemblies for z-movement. I say this as plural since there is one on the left side (power side) and one on the right side.As I feared, because you cannot freely slide these, it is really difficult to tell if you are tightening or loosening the "movement".Based on the potential cause as I identified in the original question,my goal was to slightly loosen them up.On a positive note, I was able to measure the symptom by using a caliper to check the height of the horizontal gantry above the bed when "homed"(0) then up 10, 20, 30 etc in a non-printing environment. Indeed the height measurements verified that the progression of height did not correspond with the requested/reported movement as shown on the screen. The variation was much worse on the (slave) right side... Counting on nothing more than dumb luck as I tried adjusting the two sides, I ended up with acceptable performance. So for now I am done screwing around with it. If anyone has a great suggestion as to how to better know whether the wheels are getting tighter or looser when making this adjustment, it could help anyone needing to make the adjustment.
This sounds more like updated info to your existing question. If that is the case, please [edit] your original question with this info. After which, you can delete this "answer".
No. Read carefully. It was the solution that corrected the problem.
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18792 | Fluid resin gets trapped inside my prints
I have been printing a few props for tabletop gaming: a statue, some walls, wine barrels... and I've noticed that resin gets trapped inside. If it stayed firmly inside I wouldn't care too much, but a few times now a model has cracked a tiny amount and liquid resin has started flowing out.
I know the obvious solution is just to make the model solid, but I assumed that since all the slicer tools have an option for hollowing with infill there is a solution to this.
I haven't tried too many things yet, because I am a little anxious to fiddle too much with the printer setting. I went from having 0.5 mm walls to 0.8 mm but it still happened. I have tried hex-grid infill and pillars. I also increased the exposure time by a second (from 8 to 9), but this was only to see if the object would be stronger and thus prevent the cracking.
I have considered increasing the Z-lift distance just to have the object longer out of the resin bath to drip off better.
Don't hollow most miniatures below the 40 mm-scale
Tabletop miniatures are quite small in scale. Often they have very thin details. As a result, hollowing them out is not advisable in the first place and you will have the best results by printing them solidly. Most wargames use something between the 16 mm to 34 mm scale, but the problem is still present at the 40 mm scale. So bite the bullet and print solid for small items - it also gives the model a little weight to stay where they shall be on the table.
Only if you start to print things like small busts or vehicles that have quite some hollow pace, you could conceivably manage to include the needed geometry, as elaborated below, and then hollow out the models accordingly.
Hollow prints properly
In case you do have a hollowed print, you need to include two vents to allow the exchange of air and prevent cupping:
First, you need a vent for air to enter the model. This is best placed at the very top of where the included volume will wit on the printer and needs to be accessible to air once the model is raised out of the vat. For safety two bores to let in the air should be present.
The second vent is somewhat optional unless the print takes really long. If you include it, it needs to be at the very lowest point of the included volume to prevent trapping resin inside and allow it to drain the resin out of the model hanging from the print bed. Should the volume have separate lowest points, you'd need to include multiple drainage vents.
All vents also need to be sizeable enough to allow the viscous resin to drain from them. About 3 mm² (~2 mm diameter) is the absolute minimum for low viscous resin. High viscous resins require larger holes of about 10 mm² (~3.5 mm).
Also, no point of the model's interior volume should neck down to below those dimensions or you face the risk of having resin clog those neckings - which is again why you don't hollow small miniatures.
Further listening (especially for larger prints) is here from Angus/Maker Muse, who shows a way to hollow out with a hollow base but skipped the drain vent, and Mark Rhodes, who prefers to use 5 mm holes where possible.
Avoiding holes?
There are ways to avoid holes altogether, if you can orient the item in such a way that at all times one side of the print is open. Let's take for example a crate or barrel:
We could hollow the item and remove the face we want to be on the table later. This way we shape the item into a cup. We could add air access or resin vent, but we could also just put the missing wall to be facing in X or Y and then angle the item ever so slightly to give the item good resin drainage and totally avoid the need for an extra hole in a surface we want to retain. This is how you'd print a cup without a hole, as I had explained in Why cupping is bad for SLA
Or, you could time your return to the printer to right after the print is finished, you turn the print around so the resin that was trapped inside starts to drain down to the print platform and over that into the vat.
Thanks for your thorough answer. Yeah I had already realized that miniatures should be solid by now. What I am printing at the moment as I mentioned in my post are voluminous things like barrels and walls. Since I am printing them upside down and the bottom of the barrel is touching the build platform I guess I would need to add a 3mm hole in the side of the barrel near the bottom and then one in the lid. I guess I can fill these holes with some glue and hide them with paint.
Or you print the lid separately and print the barrels as hollow cylinders. Or you print the barrel hollowed out, lacking the lower part and oriented sideways so that there is a wall missing.
@hansnordblad added some way to try to avoid it
I tend to cut my resin prints in half so that the top and bottom can be printed at the same time on the build plate, which halves the printing time for larger models, and then glue them together. This elevates the need for drainage holes.
thanks again for all the help. I found a really nice stack of 5 barrels on a rack. When printing solid it comes to around 50ml resin and hollowed it about halves it. I am experimenting with hollowing it, then slicing it in half. This should allow all resin to drain out. Hopefully I will be able to glue it together nicely after printing.
if you can 3D model with Blender a bt, you might import the halved barrels there and shape a registration feature, such as an angled lip for centering on one half or little teeth that force a specific rotation and centering.
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18876 | Adjust E-step on Ender 3
I was getting some weird under extrusion and noticed that the gear on the extruder was a bit worn.
I decided to replace it with a dual-drive extruder, but that makes the E-step way off. I tried to run 100 mm through without any PTFE tube and only got 67 mm.
I am trying to figure out where I need to change the number.
I have the 4.2.7 motherboard, and I also put on the Creality touch screen.
It doesn't seem to have any place to enter those settings that I can find.
Which firmware are you using and what version?
@agarza according to the screen on the printer, it's version 2.0.1.4, and I put on the firmware that goes with the touch screen and cr touch bed level sensor
If you are using the Marlin firmware, 0scar's answer will work for you. If you are using something different, i.e. Jyers' UI, that firmware will store the setting in EEPROM.
@agarza I'm using the stock firmware, so Marlin I assume. It looks like Jyers is for the Ender-3 V2, and I have the original, though I did upgrade the motherboard to the 4.2.7 so I could put on a CR-Touch... Will it work for me?
You should be fine with the CR Touch. It is Creality's own product so there shouldn't be any problems.
If there is no interface to set the value through the display, you can always set the E-steps per G-code.
M92 Set axis_steps_per_unit
There are at least 2 options, the first is to connect a USB cable and connect to a console (What is a printer console/terminal?) or second "print" the applicable G-codes by creating a text file (with a .gcode/.g file extension) and place the M92 E139 on the first line and M500 on the second line. The latter option requires you to print the file once as it stores the new E-steps value.
E.g. the current value for the Ender 3 is 93 which gives you 67 mm, to get to 100 mm you would need: $\displaystyle \frac{93\times100}{67} \approx 139$ steps, so M92 E139 would set a new value. Store the value with M500. Note that this board stores the settings on the SD card as it has no EEPROM, so have an SD card present in the slot of the board! If you're unable to store the value you can also put it in the start G-code of the slicer, but that is not a preferred method.
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18687 | Ender 3 Pro extruder motor failing constantly
I have had my Ender 3 Pro for about 2 years now and it has been working amazingly!
Since November it's struggling very much while printing. I am quite sure the problem lives on the extruder motor.
About 1 of 5 prints come out ok. The main problem is that the first 2-3 first layers are all good. But as the prints develop, under-extrusion problems come. It's not a clog, because I can push the filament and it flows smoothly. It's like the motor cannot push the filament to the feeding line.
Thing's I tried so far:
Upgrading the extruder from plastic to aluminum (verified the tension, not too loose, not too tight)
Changed hotend (PTFE, nozzle, block, etc)
E-steps calibrated
Tried switching MicroSD
3 different brands of filament
I noticed that the motor is getting pretty hot. I mean, you can't have your hand in there for more than a second. My theory is that this overheating softens the filament and it cannot feed. Is this possible? The aluminum extruder also gets pretty hot. There is no clicking sound or anything weird while printing, the first layers come out perfectly ok.
What print speed, layer height, nozzle size, temperature, etc. are you using?
Heat affecting the filament in the extruder gear sounds like a possible cause. The E motor should not be hot to the touch, much less making the extruder hot. If this is the problem, you need to figure out why it's happening.
Hi @R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE I'm using 45 mm/s, 0.2 layer height on a 0.4 nozzle, and 200/60 °C. I have been using Octopi, people says that it can make weird stuff related to the voltage. I'm investigating that right now
There are a few probable causes I can think of based on your description. That it only starts happening after the printer has been running for a bit makes me think it's a heat issue.
The first problem I'd check out is that extruder motor getting that hot. It should be warm, but not so hot it's uncomfortable to hold. Either the stepper is defective, or you have the current to it set too high. There is a small screw on the motherboard beside each motor driver that allows you to adjust the current to each stepper. Find a guide for your printer to adjust it properly. You'll likely need a multimeter to do it right.
The current being too high on the extruder could also cause the stepper driver (a chip on the mainboard) to overheat. When those overheat they go into thermal shutdown and will stop driving the extruder for a moment until they cool off enough to resume. If your printer has a fan for the mainboard, make sure that is functioning properly as well. Those chips do normally get hot enough they are uncomfortable to touch, so to check if that's the problem you'd need a thermometer and to check what model they are to see what their maximum operating temperature is.
If fixing that doesn't solve it, it could be the heatsink on your hotend is getting hot enough that filament starts melting there, you can get a clog that stops the extruder from pushing filament out properly, but still feels like it can be extruded by hand. Make sure the heatsink on the hotend has sufficient cooling. After a bit of printing try touching the top of the heatsink - if it's uncomfortable to touch, you have a problem there.
-
@FedericoPerezDiduch did you get it working? I'm curious what fixed it.
I noticed that the motor is getting pretty hot.
That's not normal. Replacement motors are cheap and easy to find, so I'd swap out the motor before doing anything else. If the new one also heats up the same way, there might be a problem with the main board, but I'll bet a new motor will solve the problem.
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18629 | Issue milling a circular contour with CNC – 3018 Pro
I have a 3018 Pro CNC and being trying cutting a contour of a simple circular part:
G-code:
(TestKnobContour)
(T1 D=1 CR=0 - ZMIN=-3 - flat end mill)
G90 G94
G17
G21
G90
(2D Contour1)
Z15
S5000 M3
G54
G0 X10.8 Y0.1
Z15
G1 Z5 F10.0
Z1 F10.0
Z-2.9
X10.792 Z-2.938 F10.0
X10.771 Z-2.971
X10.738 Z-2.992
X10.7 Z-3
X10.6
X10.562 Y0.092
X10.529 Y0.071
X10.508 Y0.038
X10.5 Y0
G2 X9.851 Y-3.634 I-10.5 J0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X8.983 Y-5.436 I-9.851 J3.634
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X3.301 Y-9.968 I-8.983 J5.436 F10.0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X1.351 Y-10.413 I-3.301 J9.968
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X-5.735 Y-8.795 I-1.351 J10.413 F10.0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X-7.299 Y-7.548 I5.735 J8.795
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X-10.452 Y-1 I7.299 J7.548 F10.0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X-10.452 Y1 I10.452 J1
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X-7.299 Y7.548 I10.452 J-1 F10.0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X-5.735 Y8.795 I7.299 J-7.548
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X1.351 Y10.413 I5.735 J-8.795 F10.0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X3.301 Y9.968 I-1.351 J-10.413
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X8.983 Y5.436 I-3.301 J-9.968 F10.0
G1 Z-2.75
G2 X9.851 Y3.634 I-8.983 J-5.436
G1 Z-3 F10.0
G2 X10.5 Y0 I-9.851 J-3.634 F10.0
G1 X10.508 Y-0.038
X10.529 Y-0.071
X10.562 Y-0.092
X10.6 Y-0.1
X10.7
X10.738 Z-2.992
X10.771 Z-2.971
X10.792 Z-2.938
X10.8 Z-2.9
G0 Z15
M5
X0 Y0 Z0
M30
Candle shows that everything is fine for this G-code:
However, I am getting weird results (see top right):
What can I do for troubleshooting?
I’m voting to close this question because 3D printing is additive manufacturing, while the question presents a problem with milling (subtractive manufacturing). Some overlap (g-code) is present, but not really 3D printing related.
@fred_dot_u, could you plsease advise other place for CNC related? I couldn't find more relevant in SE
community. Therefore, I disagree with the suggestion above about closing this question. One more point - you could find here many questions not related to 3D printing directly, like this - https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/4196/laser-engraving-software-for-boxzy-3d-printer?rq=1, so on precedents basis it also looks like here the right place place not only to 3D-printers related questions, but rather for all gcode-driven machines, like CNC , laser engravers and so on.
Try milling with more passes. Those straight edges I've seen before when you are trying to mill more the machine can handle. It appears you're milling 3 mm in one pass, I could be wrong, but the most reasonably priced 3018 milling machines need less input than 3 mm.
Yes, @Oscar, initially I was trying milling it in 3 passes to cut a contour, but it just aluminum 2mm, so after upgrading of its motor and milling cutter it seems to be ok even with one pass. Other than that, have tried it directly from a laptop and it cut it without any problems, so I guess that issue can be in offline module. Will try once more without offline module to check that.
CNC is a grey area. Some CNC questions haven't been closed (whilst others have) and it's not really clear why there is a difference. There have been many requests for CNC questions to be on-topic, see Meta: CNC search. Indeed, CNC is listed as being on-topic. However, to counter that, just because there isn't any other SE site for CNC questions, it doesn't mean that they have to be valid here. That said, they might be on topic on SE Engineering
@Greenonline, I agree - it looks like SE.Engineering more suitable for questions for cnc-related questions in general, however, it looks like on SE.Engineering not that many questions and answers about gcode. Therefore I still in doubt here, especially taking into account such a good conversation we already have here, so it would be a bit pity to start it from scratch on another forum. Anyway - thanks for suggesting me SE.Engineering - I will move there if the majority decides to close this one here.
Personally speaking (and not as a mod), I won't vote to close (I rarely do anyway), as I can't see any harm in the odd CNC question hanging about - they make an interesting change, in a light-relief sort of way... Good luck on getting an answer (maybe if @0scar's suggestion works it could become an answer)..? :-)
does the spindle bend when it tries to do that part of the arc? Have you tried lower feeds?
@Trish, no noticeable spindle deformation, feed rates are at 10 mm/s - no also any noise and any signs that the device is running out of its limits. Other than that, as I mentioned in other comments, without an offline board the same code works well while sending directly from a laptop. So it looks rather like some programming or/and electronics issue, than physical failure.
works from laptop can mean the laptop is doing some cleanup. check file for special characters, newline differences, etc.
@Abel, checked with notepad++ in “show all characters” mode and nothing suspicious – inly CR LF after each row and encoding UTF8. Other than that, have checked SD card and removed everything else but .cn files (like “system volume information”, etc.) with no luck.
Where did the tool started the circle in your foto?
@0scar in furthest right point (near to bottom-right of red squares) and then clockwise. Other than that, it looks that issue can be in a bit weird code auto generated by Fusion 360, so will try code suggested by Davo - it looks better than autogenerated.
I've ran the code on my own CNC machine. I slightly adapted the code as my machine doesn't understand the movement without the instruction code:
Z1 F10.0
Z-2.9
X10.792 Z-2.938 F10.0
X10.771 Z-2.971
X10.738 Z-2.992
X10.7 Z-3
X10.6
X10.562 Y0.092
X10.529 Y0.071
X10.508 Y0.038
X10.5 Y0
is changed to
G1 Z1 F10.0
G1 Z-2.9
G1 X10.792 Z-2.938 F10.0
G1 X10.771 Z-2.971
G1 X10.738 Z-2.992
G1 X10.7 Z-3
G1 X10.6
G1 X10.562 Y0.092
G1 X10.529 Y0.071
G1 X10.508 Y0.038
G1 X10.5 Y0
etc...
As I used an engraver bit, I made sure the depth was touching the wood (engraving) when running at the lowest depth. The contour it drew was a perfect circle.
The code is therefor working as it should (carve a circle, in the photo above, the circle started at the hole in the top left and followed a clockwise path), the result from your milling exercise shows that the final segment of the circle is not giving you a circle segment, instead the milling path is sort of straight. I've seen such paths where the steppers are not powerful enough to mill through the material. As a result they skip steps, and in this case it results in a sort of straight path. You should try running a dry run (in air), or in softer material (this will determine if the code is producing a cirlce in your machine as well), and add more passes to milling the knob (for the final product).
or simply re-run the code in the same pocket, which by necessity will result in less load on that part of the path, possibly finishing the cut.
Yes, after correction of weird auto-generated commands everything started working fine, however, I prefer the manual version with 3 passes as per your and @Davo recommendations. Have created and tested this way and figured out weird peculiarities of my grbl-based controller - it doesn’t stand z coordinates together with G2 command and doesn’t work without specified flow like this "G1 Z-1.4 F10.0" in a beginning of G1 commands.
It is hard to be sure from the picture. When I wrote this answer, material you were cutting looked like clear plastic. When I reviewed it now, the material looks more like aluminum. It doesn't really matter, since the melting point of aluminum is well within the range of both high speed steel (HSS) and carbide.
What follows is a list of possibilities and things to check.
check the mounting of the spindle. Does it hang rigidly as you push the tooltip in x, y, and any point in the circle, or does it tip more in one direction than another? This could be caused by a loose mounting screw.
Are you actually cutting, or are you melting the material? It is very easy for a tool, especially a tight spiral 4-flute tool, to heat above the melting/softening point, and to then push through the material rather than removing it as chips. Using a tool with fewer flutes at a slower speed can sometimes help. You may also want to cool it with some water -- not enough to make a mess of the machine, but enough to help cool the tool. This happens easily with plastic, and also with aluminum. I have several times had to peel bits of solidified aluminum from inside the flutes of a carbide cutter.
It doesn't look like backlash. The 45-degree angle is curious. To see if it varies with or without load, try putting a marking pen in the collet and draw similar circles. It doesn't look like a primary software or hardware problem, since the inner circles were round. Only the outermost circle has the flat spot.
If the departure from a circle is only under load, reduce the load. Step the tool into the work by 1/2 of what you are doing now. How does that change the result?
Chips remaining near the cut can join in the melt. Try blowing compressed air on the cut while it is cutting, both for cooling, and to remove chips.
Some things it is unlikely to be, if the shape was intended to be a complete circle, and if the outer pass is the last pass performed:
Skipping steps due to insufficient stepper motor torque
Belt slipping (or lead screws skipping)
Loose belts or backlash in mechanical shaft connections.
Checked spindle and point with melting versus melting - it actually cuts aluminum plate (2mm thin). Other than that, have tried using direct connection from my laptop instead of offline module and it makes cut properly and it's a bit weird, because the concentric internal engraving was done with offline module without any issues. Maybe the thing here is the error in autogenerated gcode as @Davo mentioned?
Parts of the circle are at different heights. When I rendered your 30 or so actual G1 and G2 lines, here's what I got. It looks like a circle from above, but form the sde you can see depth changes. What are those coordinate lines with no G0 ot G1 or G2 or G3 command for?
=============================
Okay, here's a simple gcode I just made by hand do to something similar. Granted, I used all nice round numbers, but this is an example of what I think you're looking for. You'll have to change it as needed; perhaps more paths if your tool is less wide; more iterations at deeper depths, or even different coordinates. Enjoy.
G0 X30 Y30 ; move to start XY
M3 T12 S50 ; spindle on 50%
G1 Z-0.5 E1 ; down to depth1
G2 X50 Y50 J20.0 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y30 E1 ; corner
G1 X30 Y35 E1 ; move inward
G2 X45 Y50 J15 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y35 E1 ; corner
G1 X30 Y40 E1 ; move inward
G2 X40 Y50 J10 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y40 ; corner
G1 X30 Y45 ; move inward
G2 X35 Y50 J5 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y45 E1 ; corner
G1 X30 Y50 E1 ; move inward
G0 Z 10 ; move up to clear
M3 T12 S0 ; spindle off
=================================
Or, if I've made a mistake and you want simple circles:
G0 X30 Y30 ; move to start XY
M3 T12 S50 ; spindle on 50%
G1 Z-0.5 E1 ; down to depth1
G2 X30 Y30 J20.0 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y35 E1 ; move inward
G2 X30 Y35 J15 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y40 E1 ; move inward
G2 X30 Y40 J10 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y45 ; move inward
G2 X30 Y45 J5 E1 ; arc
G1 X30 Y50 E1 ; move inward
G0 Z 10 ; move up to clear
M3 T12 S0 ; spindle off
This code was generated by Autocad Fusion 360, have only removed some unnecessary commands, and added return to starting position. Those spikes you mentioned is "tabs" option for "contour" feature in Fusion 360 recommended in one of forums to make a part fixed till the end of contour cut. Anyway, if you see any issues with the code itself would appreciate sending me an edited code to try.
I usually use the Prusa toolchain for 3D printing, and my own, non-gcode tool chain for machining. The Prusa G-code viewer rejects the gcode you supplied.
It looks like we have two correct answers on my question and unfortunately, I can mark only one as a correct one, therefore, since @Oscar's answer looks a bit better - in addition to suggestions and corrected code it contains test run using CNC plus Oscar suggested cutting in several passes, which works better, so going accept Oscar's answer.
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18711 | Gap between offset walls in print in Cura
I've been printing a lot of things with 1 mm offset walls to fit lids.
However, in Cura, it's been slicing them but not compensating for the offset creating gaps since the shell thickness (0.8 mm) is less than the offset. This results in gaps and occasionally allows corners to warp.
IMO it should be creating a layer that sits below the inset wall, filling the gap (i.e. making a thicker wall on the last layer before the inset wall). I've looked through the settings in Cura and couldn't find anything to do this.
I could increase the wall thickness but this will result in unnecessary extra printing time/filament.
Look at the "Skin Removal Width" options in Cura. You might need to unhide them if they're not shown by default. As I understand it, the intent is that the "Skin Expand Distance" feature right next to it is supposed to re-expand the skin areas after shrinking them in a way that results in fewer tiny awkward-shaped regions that are slow to fill; however, as you've found, regions narrower than the wall line width can be lost completely. Setting the "Skin Removal Width" to 0 (and optionally doing the same for "Skin Expand Distance" since it should no longer be needed) will likely fix this.
Thanks! I set it to 0.6mm instead of the default 0.8mm and it worked and should still do the intended function you described (I assume).
@Tyndal: Great! I wonder if this is a numerical stability bug from something that, in mathematical exactness, should be at or just over 2 wall line widths, coming out slightly under and getting deleted. Does 0.79 or so also work? Knowing that could be helpful to reporting the bug and getting it fixed.
Setting it to 0.79 also worked. Anything 0.8 or over fails. I also tried it with a wall thickness of 1.2 and oddly 0.79 didn't work anymore, I had to set it to 0.78.
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19219 | Creality Ender 3 V2 little yellow switch on power supply
I just bought and built a Creality Ender 3 V2. The last step of the setup is to flip this little yellow switch on the power supply to be either 115 V or 230 V. From my other research, I think that I have to flip the switch to 115 V because I live in the US. Since US standard outlets give 120 V of electricity and not 115 V, I am confused. Why is 115 V "correct" if the voltage I will supply is actually 120 V? Will this extra 5 volts burn out the printer?
It won't burn it out. The voltage is between 110 to 125. Power supplies are designed to work in that range. So sometimes you'll see appliances rated for 110 V, 115 V, 120 V... they actually are all the same.
Came to answer this, but you beat me to it! The only thing I would've added was this link that explains that the 115 V can suggest that it will operate despite the voltage drop in the cord between printer (or other appliance) and outlet.
so, just to make sure I understand, you are saying that American outlets actually output between 110V and 125V and appliances with ratings anywhere in that range are probably the same?
Not probably, it's standard for any appliances with the 230/120 V rating switch. So the 230 side would work in New Zealand or elsewhere that has a 240 V rating.
@brothman01, go visit [diy.se] for 10,000 questions (give or take...) about the varying voltages. This answer is 100% correct. The US has officially been 120/240v for about 40-50 years, but people still talk about 110v and 220v. Most devices will function just fine with about a 10% variation in voltage, and with international markets, most are actually auto-sensing and will switch internally between 120v & 240v. It's rather surprising that you have to manually flip the switch to specify.
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19215 | Weird top layers on Ender 3 Pro
This problem has been occurring for a while. On the top of round objects, you can see the individual layers. Maybe I just need a lower layer height.
Please [edit] in additional information such as printing temps, speeds, etc. to help offer a solution.
See this answer, it describes why the top layers of dome/round shapes are rough.
At the top of curves layers will always be more visible because the layers are increasing offset from each other. Layer height will help with this, but if you really want it smooth you will need to do some post-processing.
Usually if possible I avoid having a top surface like that of any significant size. But when I do I either leave it and post process or add some little design elements to break it up a bit. So it's still there but not really noticeable.
Kilisi is absolutely right that you necessarily (without advanced non-planar slicing techniques that aren't available in production slicers) have a "stairstep" effect whenever you have a shallow angle top surface like that. However, it looks from your picture like you also have some gaps that are accentuating the problem and making your top surface non-watertight. This can be fixed.
Slicers (at least Cura) are fairly bad about figuring out where they have to put material under the very top layer to ensure that you have a solid wall of the desired thickness. Where the outer wall face is pointing almost-upward, you would need either a lot more outer perimeters than the shell thickness you want, because they're significantly offset from each other (often by as much or more than the whole 2D wall width) at each successive layer. Using excessively many walls will solve this, but wastes a lot of print time and material. Using more top layers is the easiest fix I know. I find that 5 top layers at 0.2 layer height pretty much always gives solid curved tops, even with spherical top shape. The only way that might fail is if you have really low infill and they all "sink in" rather than bonding properly.
Of course these gaps could also be caused by underextrusion or misplaced extrusion. Check instructions for enabling and calibrating Linear Advance/Pressure Advance on your printer for one of the big ingredients in fixing top gaps and related extrusion inaccuracy problems.
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19103 | Ender 3 with BLTouch ignores Z0
I have a problem with my E 3nder3 (3DTouch, Skr mini e3 v1.2, Dragon hotend with afterburner mount, other parts are original), where after using ABL, at the start of the print the Z-axis just seems to ignore where the 0 point should be and keeps trying to go down for a good second, then it just starts the print as if nothing happened.
The things I've tried and the observations I've made:
After reflashing Marlin, I've tried printing without creating a mesh, and it worked as normal (using the BLTouch as a Z stop, but not making a mesh). This should eliminate the Z stop being a problem
After creating the mesh even once, everything goes wrong like explained above
I've tried leveling the bed with paper, and when using the bed visualizer in OctoPi, everything seemed pretty close to normal, so the sensor itself seems to work.
Now the weird thing was, that the day this started happening, moving the Z-axis by hand seemed to be way harder than usual, as if the rod is not lubricated, so I lubricated it with my tool grease. That didn't solve the problem. It still feels as if some of the rubber bearings are stuck on the gantry. After checking them 1 by 1, none of them seemed particularly loose or tight compared to the others.
Successfully solved the problem. Removed the Z rod from its socket, and greased up the threaded slot it goes into on the x gantry, that seemed to solve the problem.
Missing grease can lead to binding, indeed. It might be easier to remove the Z-nut and then move that to add grease, then remount it
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19153 | G-code to get the 3D printer to shake resin bubbles off from a casting
While this is not directly 3D printing related, I intend to use my 3D printer (Labist's ET40) to shake air bubbles off of a resin casting.
I printed parts, made a mould of them in silicon, then cast a copy with resin. All works, great looks and all! Except... bubbles. Especially at ceiling parts that are away from the gas hole.
I tried a few different techniques to get rid of bubbles (heating, cooling, release agent, handshaking, high drop pouring, a mix of the above, different hole positions in the mould), and some I can't due to price restriction (different resin, vacuum removal degassing), but I was explained by an expert I could just have a machine do some low amplitude, high frequency shakin' for me. Again they proposed a specific machinery or DIY project, but I believe I already have the tool for it in the shape of a 3D printer's axes.
Is there a way to create a G-code that would simply move at relatively high speed back and forth on the Y- and X-axis for, say 15 minutes? I'm sure there would need to be some variation to ensure the temporarily repurposed machine doesn't self-destruct in one way or another.
What you suggest is pretty straightforward with g-code. One would expect to have the item secured properly to the print bed. The printer you've indicated has movement only in the Y direction, which means your g-code should reflect that movement only. X-direction movement means the head will travel left and right and have nearly zero effect on the item. This also applies to Z-movement of the carriage.
Marlin (a common firmware) web page lists a specific g-code for repeat:
The Repeat Marker command is used to define regions of a G-code file
that will be repeated during SD printing. A marker is first set with
M808 L[count], and later in the file a plain M808 command is used
count down and loop. (By default up to 10 start markers can be
nested.)
In slicer software put M808 L to the “Start G-code” and M808 to the
“End G-code.” But this command is not the only requirement. Before
starting each whole object it’s important to actually clear the print
area of obstacles and to reset the coordinate system with G92 or G28,
so this command is best used with belt printers or other systems with
automatic print removal.
From a different page on the same site:
The G0 and G1 commands add a linear move to the queue to be performed
after all previous moves are completed. These commands yield control
back to the command parser as soon as the move is queued, but they may
delay the command parser while awaiting a slot in the queue.
A linear move traces a straight line from one point to another,
ensuring that the specified axes will arrive simultaneously at the
given coordinates (by linear interpolation). The speed may change over
time following an acceleration curve, according to the acceleration
and jerk settings of the given axes.
More details specific to this command are also on the linked page. A simple example of a movement g-code:
The most basic move sets a feedrate and moves the tool to the given
position.
G0 X12 ; move to 12mm on the X axis G0 F1500 ; set the feedrate to
1500 mm/min G1 X90.6 Y13.8 ; move to 90.6mm on the X axis and 13.8mm
on the Y axis
There are some caveats related with feedrates. Consider the following:
G1 F1500 ; set the feedrate to 1500 mm/min G92 E0 G1 X50 Y25.3 E22.4 ;
move while extruding
In the above example the feedrate is set to 1500 mm/min, then the tool
is moved 50mm on the X axis and 25.3mm on the Y axis while extruding
22.4mm of filament between the two points.
G1 F1500 G92 E0 G1 X50 Y25.3 E22.4 F3000
However, in the above example, we set a feedrate of 1500 mm/min on
line 1 then do the move described above, accelerating to a feedrate of
3000 mm/min (if possible). The extrusion will accelerate along with
the X and Y movement, so everything stays synchronized.
Consider to limit your acceleration based on the weight of the secured item. You would not be worried about precision, but skipped steps due to weight could bring the bed travel to the physical limit stops, causing stepper grinding.
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18584 | Creality CR-10S Pro V2 Auto Bed Leveling probe sticks
My CR-10 is only a couple of months old. It came factory fitted with auto bed leveling.
Recently, the bed leveling probe has stuck in the withdrawn position whilst it is measuring prior to a print. Whilst stuck in this position the red light flashes. I am able to temporarily resolve the problem by gently pulling the probe down, but then have to start the measuring process all over again.
This problem is occurring more often and if I don't sit through the lengthy measuring process and restart if necessary, the printer will carry on printing in 'mid-air'.
Have you found a permanent solution to this? If so, please post the solution.
Having moved the probe up and down gently to ensure it wasn't catching, I restarted the machine and have not been troubled since.
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19163 | Ender 3 v2 temperature drop
I recently started printing with an Ender 3 V2. I got a few good prints out of it, and then I have had nothing but issues.
Basically, I can start a print, and after about 10-15 minutes, the temperature will decline from 200 °C to 195 °C, triggering a thermal runaway alert, (low temp), and then cancel the print.
Here's an example of the hotend temp profile:
I have tried testing the hotend thermistor, running PID autotune (multiple times, with up to 10 cycles), replacing the thermistor, running directly from an SD card (instead of OctoPrint).
Both thermistors worked, the first one read 108k Ω at room temp, and a new one is at 113.5k Ω at room temp.
I'm running firmware v1.0.4 on a stock v4.2.2 board.
One thing that did seem to save a print was that when I noticed the print temp dropping, I paused it for about 30 seconds and then resumed, and then the temp recovered up from 198-200 °C for a bit. But that's obviously not a solution.
I'm lost, don't know what else to test/calibrate, any ideas?
Could the temperature drop coincide with the model cooling fan coming on after the first layer? I'm wondering if you're running a 24V hotend on a 12V supply..? Or that the hotend heater has a problem.
looks like your code tells the printer to turn off - the light colored lines indicate that. OOOr, of course, layer end and airstream from the part cooling fan hitting the hotend.
Well, this was a setup error. I am amazed it worked at all, but the reason this was happening was that the power supply was set to 230 V from the factory.
I am in the US, so the household current is 115 V. Once I switched the voltage, the printer has been very reliable, and I am not seeing heat drop-offs anymore!
Thanks Andrew, I faced exact issue and got resolved by setting power supply to 115V. This saved me lot of effort to troubleshoot.
I ran into the same issue. I have a Creality Ender3 that has caused me problems with the hot end heating. I went so far as to change the heating element and thermistor, but still had the problem.
Hot end would slowly cool. I turned off the hot end fan in the code. That helped, then blocked the front fan for the hot end heater with tape. That also helped but I would still get error, thermal runaway. But was actually too cold of temperature.
I read about the 240/120v switch. Checked it and sure enough it was set to the wrong voltage for us.
Thanks for the insite.
Dave P
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19172 | Why layer shifting prints on Ender 3 Pro?
Prints on an Ender 3 Pro using a standard printing profile results in layer shifting or over extrusion. I can’t figure out what the problem is. I tried reducing the flow as well as print speed but nothing really changes. Any thoughts on the XYZ cube test print below?
Have you checked belt tension?
Thanks. I checked my belts and x axis was very loose.
Does your prints over adhere or ooze with all filaments? I've found different filaments needing quite different heats
This isn't what folks usually refer to as "layer shifts" - those are generally permanent (for the rest of the print) and don't correct unless you get an equal opposite-direction shift, and are caused by things like a stepper motor skipping a step, a belt skipping a tooth, or the print surface shifting on the bed.
Your problem looks more like excess play in the positioning, particularly on the X axis, likely due to a very loose belt. If so, it will manifest differently in different layers due to the geometry and the last direction of motion.
It's also possible that it's Z wobble, where the toolhead experiences a Z-coordinate-dependent displacement in the X and Y directions due to irregularities in the Z motion system. This could be a bent or nicked lead screw or nut, flat spots or other damage to the V roller wheels, or debris on the aluminum V slot extrusions that the V wheels are rolling on.
The fact that the top layer came out very clean and consistent makes me actually suspect it's the latter - some sort of Z wobble.
Appreciate the detailed comment. Tightening the Z axis belt removed most of the print issues however there seems to be another issue where the print is over-adhered to the stock flexible print bed. This also results in the first layers oozing out. Kind of apparent in the provided picture but not as much as other prints.
Marking this as correct answer because it was detailed and in the answer format. Didn’t take care of 100% but about 90% of issues.
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18809 | Ender 3 print temperature
I've tried different retraction speeds and distances using calibration models, Z-hop, coasting but nothing prevented stringing. Now I tried printing at 230 °C and that seems to do the trick. Even 220 °C gives me strings. The filament is quite new.
Has somebody had a similar experience and could you tell me if something else is wrong maybe?
Can you add a picture showing the stringing you see? There are several different "types" and seeing which it is can help a lot in diagnosis.
If increasing temperature helps, I think the most likely cause is wet filament. Even new filament can be wet, even if the manufacturer did everything right, if the distributor/warehouse/shipping handled it poorly. Especially thost numbers - going from 210 to 230 is exactly what I have to do to compensate for wet PLA if I'm too lazy to dry it. I don't get stringing, just other problems, but that's probably because my retraction and travel speeds (45 ms, 400 mm/s) are so high as to not allow time for oozing.
I think you are right, I will try it with different type of filament.
You could also just try drying it.
It just needed drying, even though it was brand new. Thnx @R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE.
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18913 | How to calculate a rough 3D printing time?
So I have little to no idea regarding 3D printing and was building web-based software for a client, I have 3 values in my access,
Material: PLA
Material Cost: 1300 kr per kilogram
Infill Percentage/Density: 50 %
Material length: 13000 mm
Printing Cost Per Hour: 70 kr
Given this information, what would be the formula to calculate the rough estimation of the time required to 3D print this? I know that it's different for all the 3D printers but still, I would like to have a way to calculate a rough estimation of the 3D printing time, that possibly but not necessarily, touches the reality of most 3D printers.
The slicer should give you a good time estimate. There is no sane way to estimate time without generating the slices and tool path. There is just too much variation influenced by the part geometry.
@user10489 I can't use a slicer, there are only somefor web-based software, the ones that exist are too complex
You really can't get a good estimate at all without a slicer. Geometry factors can easily change print time by a factor of 10, and slicer parameters (like infill pattern and density) can change print time by a factor of 2-3 or more. There really is not a good way to escape using a slicer of some sort.
You'd certainly need to know more information than that provided. 3D printers have speeds ranging from 20 mm per second to as high as ten times that (extreme 3D printer sports!) and the speed during printing varies with the geometry of the object being printed.
More considerations involve printer nozzle size, object layer thickness (if uniform throughout), printer model, slicer software used, slicer software profile used.
For a rough estimate with the information, you could expect a variance fifty percent or more, if someone was willing to take the risk of making an estimation.
Yes, as I said there is need of more estimation but I'd like to get a rough estimation with the given information, what to expect?
Too many variables left unfilled to provide any answer of note.
Okay, I've actually got some more info now. Should I edit this existing question or post a new one?
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20333 | Ender 3v2 stops mid-print
My Ender 3v2 stops mid-print; every print. The head just stops moving. The nozzle and bed temperatures are still on.
I then can cancel and start the job but it's stopping again, even when using totally different G-code files.
I'm using OctoPrint and didn't change anything lately. This never happened before.
Any idea why this is happening?
Maybe try printing directly from SD card and see, if this problem still occurs.
I reinstalled the firmware and also reinstalled octoprint. Since then everything seems to be printing fine.
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20419 | Is there a conventional scale for 3D printing models?
Is there a convention for the scale of the 3D printing STL files that are shared online and/or expected by 3-D printers?
I found a model on Thingiverse that is useful for my project, a connector that must fit with other parts, so precision is important. Eyeballing, it seems that each STL unit corresponds to 1 millimeter, is this a safe/conventional assumption?
The STL File format is unitless, It only contains relative positions for the vertices of the mesh which makes up the part. As such, there is no true "standard." However, most 3D printing focused slicers will import STL files on the millimeter scale.
The vast majority of STL files you find online will be in mm units, however, It's important to note that such is not always the case.
Typically however, a file imported in the wrong unit will be very obvious, and unless the model author has done something very unusual, scaling should be trivial within your slicer software of choice.
This. By convention, STL units are mm, but this is a human convention not conveyed in any way through the data. Every once in a while you find files where the author has done something else (inches is probably the most common) or (mostly in pure-art/non-functional models) where the author designed freehand with no care whatsoever for the scale of the numbers and you just need to pick a scale you like for printing. I find the latter case are almost always very-low-quality because the author paid no attention to printability affects of detail resolution.
STL files are based on coordinates rather than individual units of measurement as they're supposed to be completely unit agnostic in order to allow them to be evenly scaled on any platform, and to not be bogged down with unit translations.
Typically, the units are set by whoever makes the model, and by whatever the default of the software that they use is. In most cases, creators use a one-to-one scale.
So, the answer to your question is that the conventional scale is "100%". Though probably isn't the answer that you're looking for.
If you print it at 100% it will be whatever size the creator intended it to be. For example, if you were printing a Warhammer miniature and it has a base attached to it, and you print it at 100% then that base will be 25mm wide, and the figure will be the exact height that the creator intended it to be. Whatever that height is.
For the purpose of your question, if the part "looks" like it was created in MM then it almost certainly was.
If you take that STL file and put it into your slicer, then use the default scale (100%), you can use the slicer to determine how its width or height or length in MM. Just set the scale of the model to whatever makes that dimension the same as the dimension you need it to be and the rest of the model will be scaled accordingly.
Your biggest problem might actually be the material that you use, as some will shrink after printing, or shrink unevenly.
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20486 | Auto Homing issue (Z-axis ignores endstop but individually homing each axis there is no problem)
I'm experiencing an issue with the auto homing where the Z-axis will ignore the endstop when I use the auto home button in Pronterface. Strangely, homing the axes individually I don't seem to have any issues, but when I use G28 or home the axes sequentially I observe the Z-axis motors to continue moving the gantry down despite definitely having hit the Z-endstop. Below is a link to a video demonstrating this issue:
Triggering the Z-endstop manually (with my finger) the M119 command shows "TRIGGERED". I tested, starting from a high Z position and descending towards the endstop, manually triggering the endstop (with my finger) and I observed the Z-axis motors stop.
I used Marlin Bugfix 2.0.9.3.x preconfigured release from BTT's GitHub corresponding to this board (BTT SKR 3 EZ), only changing things like motor direction and build area so as to correspond to the printer.
I am able to copy/paste the configuration.h file if that will help.
P.S. a bubble level is useless for levelling the printer, see here.
For anyone looking I figured out what the issue was. Turns out that I had miswired the JST connectors coming from the switch to the board, having not double-checked and proceeding to connect wires to the board from the switch based on the color of the wires and my assumptions (black to ground, red to VCC, other color to signal). Actually for my switches black was VCC, red was signal, and the other color was ground. Thankfully it seems the board isn't worse for wear despite my errors in wiring previously, and now the printer is functional.
Thanks for posting the answer and glad you found it. I have never heard or had experience with such an issue, strange it worked individually but not sequentially. Please don't forget to accept the answer after 48 hours!
Thanks Oscar I appreciate that, and will mark as complete the answer I submitted. Yeah this is the first time this happened for me but I'm glad despite my mistakes the board is still good. I saw your comment earlier about using the bubble level and I agree, just used it for coarsely resetting the position after experiencing the issue with the Z-axis motors and endstop.
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20233 | Ender 3 Pro Direct Drive weird/small blobs?
I have an Ender 3 Pro with the direct drive upgrade, aluminum extruder (The same problem happened with the plastic one), double-sided bed default black on one side and PEI on the other (Happens with both), aluminum adjustment knobs for bed with better springs, and upgraded spool holder with ball bearings.
Things I have done to try to fix this:
Add aluminum extruder
Upgraded spool holder with ball bearings
Calibrated my E-steps
Upgraded firmware
Stopped using OctoPi
Switched build surface (The only one that I could try that I have on hand is glass but that didn't work the last time I tried it)
Tightened belts
Printed calibration cube
Printed temp tower
Printed retraction tower
Printed retraction speed tower
Looked up YouTube videos
Cleaned motherboard (There was dust in there)
Those all failed and I have no idea what this is or how to get rid of it, please help.
Settings:
Layer height: 0.2 mm (I haven't tried a different layer height)
Print speed: 40 mm/s (I have tried slower/faster)
Nozzle temperature: 195 °C (I have tried higher)
Infill density: 15 % pattern: cubic (I have tried different infill patterns and density)
Cooling: 100 %
I'm afraid there is literally nothing else I could possibly do at this point except replace/tune mechanical parts, which I have tried.
UPDATE: I have determined that the problem has something todo with infill. If I change the infill then the problem also changes (Like the pattern on the surface changes) I'm currently trying different infill patterns to see which ones yields the best results.
What settings do you have on the shell? The shell should always be multiple of the nozzle diameter. Also what nozzle size you're using and which slicer. Depending on the slicer there are some settings that like print shell before infill and infill overlap.
@LostKatana, can you explain what you mean by this? In PrusaSlicer, vertical shells are a quantity, not a distance. On horizontal shells thickness, it should be a multiple of the layer height, not nozzle diameter, right?
I am using Cura Slicer; and did you mean walls? I've tried 2, 3, 4 walls and it still looks the same.
@LarryBud I'm not familiar with PrusaSlicer, but the shell/wall should be a multiple of the nozzle as e.g. Cura calculates based on the thickness how many (wall line count is the setting name) it needs and will adjust gcode accordingly.
AdamSalem yes, in Cura it is called walls. Is this effect on all sides?
Your wall settings would be helpful here. I have a .4mm nozzle and usually print with at least 3 walls. I have not faced this so far.
What you can also look up is the Infill overlap setting, maybe this has been modified by accident.
Do you print the walls first, or the infill? As far as I know, such patterns can come when you're printing the infill first, so if you do, maybe try the opposite way. The next reason I can imagine are retract settings or vibration issues.
I tried both printing infill first and walls first.
I bought a TL smoother which fixed the problem!
It would be beneficial to future readers if you could explain what TL smoothers are and how they fixed the problem.
TL smoothers only work for DRV8825 drivers, so the question is, do you have these drivers?, else there might be a different solution, or did you print the exact G-code file. Please expand the answer to include more information.
This seems plausible even with the A4988s in a classic Ender. Without reduction gearing, the E motor only has 5.8 full steps per mm of filament moved. 1 mm of filament is about 30 linear mm of extrusion, so you get a full step about every 5 mm of motion. If microstepping linearity is poor (and it's likely to be poor under the high holding torque needs of a direct drive extruder) you'd expect to see this kind of oscillating extrusion.
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20258 | 3D printing filament that can absorb photosensitive liquid
I'm a student artist trying to use 3D printing in my practice a bit. I'm working with liquid light, which is essentially a photosensitive liquid that you can apply to surfaces and later develop in the darkroom. I'm hoping to do this on 3D models that I print and was looking for advice on a good filament to print with that would absorb the liquid light. The manufacturer of the liquid recommends using a semi-gloss or glossy clear polyurethane to treat nonabsorbent surfaces, but I was hoping to avoid this. Anything would be appreciated and helpful!
If PU works to treat existing surfaces, TPU - available in a lot of different hardnesses - sounds like a good thing to try.
Have you thought about using a porous design printed on a resin printer? of course the pores would be relatively big but surface tension would likely keep the part soaked.
@FarO If it's for purely artistic purposes and original surface quality doesn't matter, one could also try reducing the flow for the external perimeters so that the outside layer before ill-extruded and porous.
PrusaSlicer (free, multi-platform) supports a feature known as fuzzy skin. Text below from linked page. Additionally, Cura slicer and Super Slicer also support this feature.
The Fuzzy skin feature lets you create a rough fiber-like texture on
the sides of your models. If enabled, the perimeter will be resampled
with a random step size and each new sample point will be shifted
inside or outside of the perimeter by a random length limited by the
Fuzzy skin thickness. This simple algorithm produces surprisingly nice
results suitable for tool handles or just to give the print surface a
new interesting look or to hide print imprecisions. You can also use
modifiers to apply fuzzy skin only to a portion of your model.
This would result in a roughened surface, if the right parameters were used, allowing surface tension to secure itself while the "outward" or fuzzy portion might prevent shearing or peeling.
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20093 | Ender 3 first layer inconsistent layer lines
I was running my Ender 3 just fine with good first-layer adhesion/everything else but my setup changed after my Pi SD card got corrupted so I had to re-install and reconfigure my bed leveling via OctoPrint. After this my first layer started to look like this:
* this is the bottom of the completed print
IIRC I changed the following (and have tried undoing it but to no avail):
Increased extruder tension (since it was skipping while retracting)
Lowered z-probe offset (since re-calibrating it was too high)
This is with PLA
Running a modified Ender3 w/
BL Touch
Micro Swiss Direct Drive Extruder for Creality CR-10 / Ender 3 Printers
PEI Plate
BIGTREETECH SKR Mini E3 V1.2 Control Board w/ Marlin dev built 20210609
Sliced on Cura 4.11.0
Printing Temp: 210.0 °C
Bed Temp: 60 °C
First Layer printing speed: 20.0 mm/s
First layer acceleration: 500.0 mm/s^2
No first-layer fan (or any cooling at any point)
I've tried:
Increasing initial Z-offset; this doesn't work since it will affect my bed adhesion to the point the print will pop off
Adjusting extrusion gear tension; will start skipping on retraction/no-luck
After the first couple of imperfect layers get ironed over, the upper layers will not have any extrusion problems, or whatever this is, and are basically fine.
This has been asked before, but I can't find the question. I think the nozzle is too close to the bed. Will try to find it!
Yeah this is it, it's strange because I'd never seen an extrusion pattern like this. Anyways after opting for higher rather than lower and swapping to a glass bed so it would be flatter I was more easily able to get this tuned in. If you want to write/link to the other answer as an answer I would be willing to accept it as correct. Thanks.
I can't find the other question, but know it exists. Please write your own answer and accept it after 48 hours. We can always mark it later as a duplicate when i have found the question. It is good to have duplicates because this issue is hard to capture in a question title and key words.
Solved, the nozzle was set too low and was causing pressure buildup at certain points since the PEI plate wasn't perfectly flat.
After raising it and swapping for a glass bed I was able to stop this behavior.
Note: While this helped this issue a little bit, it was also making adhesion really poor on faster prints. A better fix I found was that I recently swapped filament spools, it looks like the average spool thickness was greater than the previous one, and after reducing the flow 5 %. I was able to eliminate this problem entirely, thanks to the question What is causing 'droplets' on first layer?
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19320 | 3D Builder: position shifted after auto repair
I build and export my model using ZBrush and as STL files.
To fix the mesh for 3D print, I try to use 3D Builder which can automatically repair my parts.
As it saves as a single file, if I import all parts at once,
I import the files one by one, repair them, then save them as a new file.
After all the parts were repaired, I import all parts to see the result
but find some repaired parts' positions shifted.
How should I handle these issues?
Why not just move them back where you want them?
@Kilisi because I break into parts using boolean inside zbrush, if i move by myself, there will definitely have some tiny overlapping
STL models as exported by software often include their origin in the origin of the design software. However, when using software to fix modeling errors, those origins are not always retained and thus when importing them into a different software their center of mass is taken as the new point of reference.
Slicers are notorious in that they ignore the included origin. Even if models contain an origin that would, when imported into 3D design environments result in the items lining up correctly, the slicing software will simply not care and take a lowest point in the projected center of the object as the coordinate for the item, as this is what is relevant for positioning in the software.
To mitigate that problem, it is best to export models that need to be joined after processing a boolean union on them.
I came across this thread as I was facing the exact same issue. I am also using 3D Builder to repair my STLs before 3D printing them.
The previous answers were however not sufficient (for me) so I went on a trial-and-error spree to determine what was happening, I think I found the answer! (hope that you can still use it!)
An STL file has certain characteristics regarding its location (origin point): X, Y, Z and rotational for the same axes. When you import one or multiple STL files in the 3D builder, it keeps all of these origin points except for the z axis, it automatically places the model/models on the bed so that the lowest point in your (combined) model has a point of Z = 0.
To ensure that all your parts have the same "origin point" you should import the model all at once and then remove all parts except for one. Then, auto-repair it and save it under a certain name.
For example: You have a combined file consisting of three parts.
Import parts 1-3 → remove parts 2 and 3 → repair remaining part 1 → save as part 1
Import parts 1-3 → remove parts 1 and 3 → repair remaining part 2 → save as part 2
Import parts 1-3 → remove parts 1 and 2 → repair remaining part 3 → save as part 3
You now have a repaired model for all parts and their origin points should all be the same!
It has moved the object to the ground as close as it could. This is generally best for 3D printing separate objects.
If you need them together, you can reposition them, or combine them.
Alternatively, change the 'Collision' and 'Intersect' settings until you get what you want.
Thanks, so I guess even the position was shifted, it will not affect the printing result.
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19689 | Are there any major safety risks of PLA plastic?
Are there any safety risks inherent to PLA plastics used for 3D printing?
The material safety data sheet of some PLA plastics indicates low risks at a toxicological level, but I'd like to make sure some other factor isn't overlooked.
(1, 2, 3)
SECTION 11: TOXICOLOGICAL INFORMATION
PRINCIPLE ROUTES OF EXPOSURE: Eye contact, Skin contact, Inhalation, Ingestion.
ACUTE TOXICITY: None noted during use.
LOCAL EFFECTS: Product dust may be irritating to eyes, skin and
respiratory system. Particles, like other inert materials, are
mechanically irritating to eyes. Ingestion may cause gastrointestinal
irritation, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
SPECIFIC EFFECTS: May cause skin irritation and/or dermatitis.
Ingestion may cause gastrointestinal irritation, nausea, vomiting and
diarrhea. Inhalation of dust may cause shortness of breath, tightness
of the chest, a sore throat and cough. Burning produces irritant
fumes.
CHRNOIC TOXICITY: None noted during use.
REPRODUCTIVE TOXICITY: No data is available on the product itself.
CARCINOGENIC EFFECTS: None of the components of this product are
listed as carcinogens by IARC, NTP, or OSHA.
It's hard to prove a negative, but the polymer itself is even used medically inside the human body. So it seems very reasonable to believe the major risks are just mechanical in nature (abrasion, particulates, etc.) not chemical/biological processes.
I wouldn't worry about health risks for PLA. There are no proven cases of dangers to printing in a populate area/room. Although smoothed PLA could be fine for touching your food or mouth, I wouldn't inject or burn PLA.
Extrusion of PLA through a nozzle can cause microparticles to be generated (referenced as "dust" in your document) which can be temporarily airborne. If ingested through breathing for an extended period of time, this can cause respiratory distress. Your document claims "no acute toxicity" from this.
My personal experience is that:
Different plastics at different temperatures emit a variable amount of this dust.
A cloth mask effectively blocks it.
The dust settles very quickly, in both time and distance.
The effects (for me at least) are irritation only (well described in your document), and disappear completely in a time proportional to the length of exposure, but not more than a day or so.
PLA is not near as bad as other plastics like ABS. But either of these burns is much worse.
The paper "Review on particle emissions during fused deposition modeling of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and polylactic acid polymers" goes into this in greater detail.
There are probably others.
Without intending any offense at all, most of this answer is just the experience of a single person, on which no scientific conclusions can be drawn (n=1). There are some cases of people smoking cigarettes and having only minimal health problems, yet millions of smokers (and many non-smokers in their vicinity) have died from cigarettes. I'm not saying that using PLA is better or worse than smoking, I'm just saying reporting about the effects on a single person is actually worse than meaningless... it can be downright misleading.
The point is that the data saftey sheet is correct, but not very explicit. I was trying to expand a bit on what it means. I wish I knew where the paper was that I read about this, but I didn't find it in my document library.
oooh, searched harder and found it. Link added.
If you are concerned about inhalation (and I think you should be), you should use a hierarchy of controls to mitigate the risk.
NIOSH (part of the CDC) have a good document outlining how to mitigate the risks of 3D printing particulate emissions.
Note that the smell you experience may be VOCs, not particles. Both are important to block. To do so, use a respirator with both particulate and organic vapour filters, in addition to an air purification/local exhaust ventilation system. The ‘carbon filters’ often seen in 3D printers do almost nothing for particulates, only nuisance levels of vapours.
Welcome to 3D Printing! and thank you for your contribution. When you get a chance, please take the [tour] to understand how the site works and how it is different than others.
Sounds like good advice for almost all the plastics (except PLA which is fairly non-toxic).
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19666 | First layers going funny
I've just bought my first 3D printer (Malyan M200 V2). For the most part, it's been really good and I've had no issues, apart from when printing the first few layers the printer doesn't seem to extrude enough material and doesn't form the correct shape. Whether it's a circle, rectangle, or anything else. So for example I've printed the below part.
The raft prints perfectly:
Then when it starts the first few layers of the actual print it extrudes a bit of material which then hangs from the nozzle and is dragged about the surface of the raft before stopping as more material is extruded. So when the print finishes the first layer looks messy like the one below:
But everything after the first few layers is perfect for example the top of the same print:
I've tried adjusting the temperature of the nozzle and the print bed neither has made a difference. The bed is level I've double-checked that. Trying to find the issue online keeps bringing me back to temperature or bed levelling.
I'm using this PrimaValue PLA Filament
The leaflet in the box recommends printing at 210 °C, I've tried 210, 215, and 220 °C.
The print bed I've been keeping at 60 °C which seems to have been working but I've tried printing down to 45 °C on the print bed and the same issue occurs. I'm not sure what an ideal temperature is for PLA, I've seen some posts saying that a heated bed isn't needed for PLA and others saying that it should be heated to between 50-70 °C (my printer only heats up to 60 °C).
I've looked at some of the settings in Cura and there are various settings for things like initial speed and first/last layer speed which sound like they might help but I don't know anything about them. I have tried slowing down the print but again I just watched it happen more slowly, albeit that did help some as that's when I've realised it doesn't appear to be pushing out enough material on the first few layers. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The bed temp is fine at 60 °C, even down to 40 °C. As you are getting a nearly perfect first layer on your raft, you could consider to begin the print without a raft, perhaps only a skirt or brim with which to prime the nozzle. I'm not a Cura user, which prevents me from identifying which setting might be affecting the raft/first layer interface.
the start Z height is not the same of the nozzle, this is a miss calibration, may be an error of 0.2mm
Hi Thanks for all the suggestions. I've been experimenting with various prints using some of the different settings and it appears that I needed to increase the initial layer height. Now the first layers are printing as they should.
PLA doesn't need a raft.
Try printing without a raft. If you print with a raft because of adhesion problems, solve those first. A raft is only needed for filaments that shrink a lot and/or are printing at very high temperatures.
If you want a raft, check the distance between raft and print object and know that a raft never gives a smooth bottom. This is because in order to prevent fusion of the print object to the raft a distance between the raft and the print object is accounted for. A property that controls the distance between the raft and the print object is called Raft Air Gap in Ultimaker Cura. Default for my setup this is 0.3 mm which I find rather large.
For example (not raft, but support with a solid top layer, which is quite similar to a raft), I have used support structures with a roof to support large flat overhanging areas that where printed at 0.2 mm distance, this gave relatively good surface quality and barely no fusion to the print.
It seems to me that the problem is over extrusion. Those temperatures might be a little high for this PLA. In my settings I usually put it on 200 or 205 °C (when printing faster). But the real problem might be a wrong extrusion multiplier for the first layers or a mixed with temperature, low speed, or no retraction.
My advice:
Try a little bit lower temperature
Try reducing the first layers extrusion multiplier
Try increasing the retraction a little bit
For the problem of not extruding plastic at the beginning, you should print a purge line (as Ender 3 does) or print a skirt (instead of a raft, that you might not need). This problem is very normal and is easily fixed.
The bed temperature is correct for PLA (60 °C).
Maybe, only maybe, your nozzle is a little bit high. It should squash the plastic on over extrusion, which I think is not happening in your setup. My advice for this is to use a paper sheet and fold it once.
In Cura, you can indeed set the height of the first layer separate from the subsequent layers. So if the first layer is printing nicely, that's a good sign. That's usually the place prints fail. There are a few settings, but here are a few things to just double check:
Is your nozzle set to the right size
Is your raft layer height and regular layer height wildly different? Try setting them to the same, or if same, try making them different. There may be a 'raft top thickness' that's wrong for the nozzle size, (try 0.2 for a 0.4 mm nozzle)
Layer height of your regular layers should be no greater than 80% of the nozzle width
Print cooling (on), but initial fan speed (0)
Supports: try printing with, or without. Look at Enable Support Interface (or disable it)
Try just disabling your raft and see if it gets past the danger point. that will indicate if there's something misaligned with your Z.
Check your axis rollers too! from this question, First 3 mm prints poorly, then fine after that
edit: check your axis rollers too! from here
You can make additions or changes to your answer by using the [edit] link below your post. Comments may be deleted over time so making edits to the post is preferred. I have taken the liberty to do this for you, if this is not to your liking you can "rollback" the edit.
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19450 | Thermal Runaway issues on Ender 3 Pro even after replacing thermistor and heater cartridge
I have an Ender 3 Pro with the BTT SKR E3 V2.0 mini with Marlin firmware 2.0.8.2.x.
I am trying to print PETG, which requires decently high temperatures.
I initially replaced the stock board after a thermal runaway event that seemed to have damaged it. After installing the new board and getting all the settings dialed in (typically 260 °C hotend and 90 °C bed), it worked great for about 2 weeks until I got the thermal runaway event error again.
Here is what I have tried so far
replaced the thermistor with this
replaced the heating cartridge with this
replaced the hotend with this an all-metal one
measured voltage coming from the power supply and coming out of the board going to heater cartridge (both ~24 V)
I PID tuned the printer using M303 E0 S260 C10 and stored new PID values in EEPROM + firmware. A note, running this multiple times seemed to constantly increase the P and D values. I stuck with the initial values given (kP 13.97 kI 0.84 kD 57.96). I still continued to get thermal runaway events.
I then tested the heater cartridge and thermistor with my multimeter. The heater was 13.5 ohms which seems about right. I was unable to measure the thermistor value. Searching online shows I likely need a better multimeter to do so. It's possible it is bad, but I find that hard to believe considering this issue was happening prior to my replacing it.
Example log of the failure happening. All I did was heat the printer up, leave it on for a bit, set it to cool down briefly, then tell it to heat up again. The printer was heated for ~5-8 minutes before this log starts.
Could this be the board again, or is there something else I'm missing?
I'm fairly certain I have solved this issue, and it ended up having nothing to do with the printer and everything to do with what it was plugged into!
I had it on a smart outlet with some automations set up to kill the power if there was ever a fire. Unfortunately, the outlet I was using was only rated for 8A, while the Ender 3 Pro can draw up to 15 amps. When it was unable to draw more than 8A to heat the hotend, this likely caused the printer to think there was a problem, triggering the thermal runaway failsafe.
After moving it to an outlet with a higher amperage rating, I have had no more issues.
Recv: T:224.24 /260.00 B:88.95 /90.00 @:127 B@:127
You are trying to achieve too much!
The maximum rated temperature for an Ender3 is 260 °C, yes, but to achieve this you need to insulate the heater block with a silicon sock from losing heat to the surroundings and with some tinfoil from an airstream over it from the cooling fan. And even then, you are trying to work at the absolute maximum the printer can theoretically reach - which means it is above the temperature you can operate it while printing.
Likewise, you try to have the bed at 90 °C and that is too high to consistently reach with the heater installed.
To print at those elevated temperatures you need different gear:
You absolutely need a heated chamber.
You need a specialized hotend that does not suffer heatcreep and is rated to at least 275 °C
The rest of the printer needs to be able to work at those elevated temperatures.
I have a silicone sock on the hotend. Also, If you read through the link for the hotend and heat cartridge I linked, they are both rated for well over 300° C. In addition, I have the printer in an lack enclosure, so while it's not actively heated, I would think it should be sufficient. Also, this issue is definitely with the hotend; you can see it in from the linked log.
I run a small print farm made up of Ender 3's with SKR Mini 2.0 boards. We print ASA, ABS, and Nylon with Nozzle temps of 245-260 °C and bed temps of 105 °C. This is all done without a heated enclosure. There is no reason for your Ender 3 to not be able to do this as well.
My first check would be the attachment of the thermistor to the heat block. Any chance this got dislodged and isn't taking accurate measurements? Does it have a good thermal connection to the heat block? I haven't seen this type of thermistor before. How does it connect to the hotend?
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19468 | Saggy vase walls. What are the tricks to successful vase mode printing?
I've tried printing in vase mode (or "spiralise outer contour" in Cura) and while the floor looks fine, the vertical sides look "saggy"
I'm using a 0.4 mm nozzle, with eSUN PLA+ at 218 °C and a bed temp of 60 °C. This combination works fine for normal printing. Layer height is 0.28 mm (Low Quality mode in Cura) with a line width of 0.4 mm
Image is backlit by a monitor to show the laciness in the walls.
The original model was a 1x1x6 Gridfinity bin that uses less plastic than the original.
https://thangs.com/designer/LittleHobbyShop/3d-model/%23gridfinity%20Vase%20Mode%20Single%20Box-65828
Is this insufficient cooling, or too fast a print speed letting the filament sag under gravity before it cools? Or is a 0.4 mm nozzle too small?
This reminds me of brickwork where the mortar is too wet. The bits that work right look fine, but all four sides have bad parts.
What's the trick to vase mode printing?
You likely hav a mix of insufficient cooling and excessive layer height for the overhang angles in that model.
Cooling: The amount of heat you have to displace per unit of time is proportional to the amount of material you extrude per unit of time, which is the product of layer height, line width, and print speed. Going slower is one way to fix this, but not necessarily the best.
Overhangs: The model seems to have walls that tilt outward at 45°. This means, if the layer height were half the line with, only half of the extrusion line in the new layer would be over top of material from the layer below; the rest would be overhanging. But you're using 0.28 layer height. This means only 0.12 mm of the new line, less than 1/3 its width, even touches the line below. This is going to give you at best a very weak print, and likely troubles like what you're seeing.
I would go with thinner layers, and the same or wider line width, possibly at lower speed. Wider line width (note that you don't need a wider nozzle to do wider line widths) will improve the amount of overlap between layers, but it does increase the amount of material you need to cool. My preferred options for that print would be around 0.16-0.20 mm layer height, 0.5-0.6 mm line width, and whatever speed your cooling can handle.
The trick was to change a lot of settings and save as a separate set.
What works for "normal" prints does not work well for vase-mode work.
I had to:
Decrease layer height from 0.28 mm to 0.20 mm
Increase line width from 0.2 mm to 0.6 mm
Drop speed from 125 mm/s to 80 mm/s (though this could be tweaked upward I suspect)
Vase mode also cannot deal well with printing multiple parts at the same time, and if you use "one-at-a-time" mode in your slicer then the max height caps out at 25 mm for me, which is not a lot of use.
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18310 | Dye sublimation printing on 3D printed object
Has anyone been able to dye sublimate 3D printed objects? Which materials work and what products are necessary?
I've been trying to find out and apparently it is supposed to be possible. But I'm not finding more detail than that. (Actually, a lot of sites say it isn't possible)
Sublimation is the transition of a solid to a gas without a liquid phase. For example, Dry Ice turns into CO2-gas via sublimation. Is that what you want to ask about?
@Trish dye sublimation is a method for sublimating dye into the surface of an object. My question asks if anyone has experience doing this on 3d printed objects sucessfully, which I assume you don't or you wouldn't be telling me about dry ice.
it is possible to powdercoat a dmls part (closest i can think of)... extruded plastic prototypes and vapor deposition though I'm not sure when that would even be worth doing versus a dip or spray.
@Abel dye sublimation allows you to infuse full colour at photographic level quality into the surface of objects so the picture cannot be damaged by scraping it off like a sticker or washing it or something. Very different from dipping or spraying because they sit above the surface and are vulnerable. It's a fairly common method of putting logos and pictures on items that expect high handling, aluminium, ceramics, plastic etc,.
Yes, ABS can be dye sublimated quite easily using a press, timing is the main issue.
PLA can also be dye sublimated if you're careful but will lose a lot of volume due to the heat and pressure. Not too bad if you print solid, but with infill expect the infill to collapse, or melt (unsure which).
PETG is excellent for Dye sublimation. Like ABS it's all in the timing but the result is superior.
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19974 | Changing a teflon tube inside a hotend, help with disassembly
I have an HBot 3D 1.1 printer (it's a CoreXY style printer, newer versions are produced by ZMorph). I think that a filament guide tube inside the hotend got damaged, resulting in decreased diameter, which means I can't push the filament through it. It stops halfway through the heatsink (black marker in the attached photo).
I need some help, I'm not sure how to disassemble this type of hotend. With my Ender 3 which I have at home, I can just unscrew the nozzle since it's simply a hexagonal nut, but here it seems that the nozzle and heat block are one part and I don't think I can unscrew the heat block and the heatsink. I'm not sure what to do.
I'm sure the nozzle itself isn't clogged. I've done some cold-pulling on one end, inserted a thin wire from the other, and examined the insides with a flashlight.
This is an old hotend type, it is called a J-Head (see e.g. the J-Head Nozzle Mk V, I'm unsure which exact version you have). The hotend is serviceable, you can buy separate "nozzles" (with integrated heater block) for it in some e-shops. You should be able to unscrew the "nozzle" from the PEEK nozzle holder. The milled flat surfaces indicate that you can use a 13 mm or 1/2" open-end wrench to disassemble the PEEK nozzle holder.
The "nozzle":
The instruction to assemble such a hotend are:
Mk V
Secure the brass nozzle in a vise by the heater section.
Wrap a couple of turns of PTFE tape (plumbing tape) around the brass threads.
Screw the nozzle holder down onto the nozzle. If no flats are milled, use a pair of pliers to tighten the nozzle. The nozzle holder can be protected from the pliers by first wrapping it with a rag or paper towel. If there are flats milled, a 13 mm (1/2") open-end wrench can be used to tighten the nozzle.
Remove the brass nozzle from the vise.
Slide the PTFE liner down into the nozzle holder. The PTFE liner needs to be inserted such that the flat end is making contact with the brass and the internally tapered end is towards the top.
Install the washer.
Screw in the hollow-lock socket set screw. Ensure that the washer stays centered while tightening this set screw. Use a piece of filament to ensure that the set screw is not too tight as the liner can become compressed and obstruct the passage. If this happens, slightly loosen the set screw.
To disassemble you need to reverse the order.
You need to ask yourself it you want to change to a newer type of hotend, but generally, these are higher, e.g. compared to a V6:
I've managed to disassamble the hotend, but PTFE insert was caked with carbonized filament and partialy melted, I had to drill through it and right now I'm filing out the rest. I can't really find the 1/4''OD, 1/8''IN PTFE tube domestically, but I think I will just try the 6x3 mm one and hope it's close enough. I didn't file all of the previous insert so it might just fit snugly.
Not exactly the type of answer you probably want, but this hotend does not look servicable. The nozzle is usually considered a consumable part unless it's made of something like tungsten carbide, or at least steel. The nozzle is almost surely long past its useful life unless the printer was barely used, and the entire hotend has lots of design flaws like very small thermal mass and heat sink butting up against the heater block, which defeats the purpose of having a heat sink.
The right solution here is to figure out what kind of attachment it's supposed to use (dimensions of that groove mount) and buy or put together a replacement hotend.
It is serviceable, but I agree, it could be time to update!
Nozzle seems fine, the problem is with the PTFE tube inside. Unfortunately it's a printer I use at my workplace so I have to operate on a shoestring budget. You might be right though, I might have to look for replacement if replacement doesn't work out.
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19982 | Using 40W adapter on 30W heater cartridge?
Recently, I accidentally shorted out my heater cartridge when trying to do my first nozzle swap on my Prusa MK3S+. I just ordered a new E3D v6 Hotend with 30 W Heater Cartridge and it will be here in a few days. I just cut the wire from my heater cartridge to my heat block (long story short, I can't remove it from the block). I'm not sure I understand exactly the wattage though. The heater cartridge that came with my Prusa MK3S+ is 40 W. Does that mean the actual cartridge or the plug into the board? Also, can I just solder the existing 40 W wires to the new 30 W cartridge? If so, does it need to be a precise solder (I'm not very good at precise soldering) Finally, can I just wrap the connection in electrical tape? Sorry for so many questions; this is my first time trying to understand the electrical component of 3D Printing. Any help would be appreciated.
I can't replace my individual heater cartridge because the screw was melted in. I checked my mainboard fuses and they are fine. My printer still powers on, all the motors work fine, and even the bed heater works. I cut the wires at the heater cartridge and left them in the air not touching, and now it thinks it's heating up, so I think that I can deduce that the wires were touching the heater cartridge, and I wasn't able to separate them. Unfortunately, I don't have a wire crimper and am trying to keep this fix as simple as possible.
Note:
After using a 30 W heater on my MK3S+ for a while, I started getting thermal runaway problems somehow, and I have switched over to E3D Revo Six for the safer PTC heating element.
Welcome to 3D Printing Stack Exchange. Please take the [tour] and read through the [FAQ] -- your question has too many questions in it and will be closed as it stands. Please [edit] your question to ask one question. You can ask the others separately (you don't even need to wait for this one to be answered).
I don't think this is really multiple questions, just clarification of what the OP doesn't understand about replacing the heater. The overall question is "what do I need to do to fix this?"
There's a lot going on in this question, and I think you would have done better to ask first before ordering anything how to fix your printer. It's not even clear what part is damaged. A heater cartridge itself can't be damaged by shorting, as that's basically the normal mode of operation for it. However, if you shorted the leads going into it to one another, bypassing the heater, those wires or more likely your mainboard could be toast. Or you might just have broken a wire.
Moreover, it doesn't make sense why you ordered a whole replacement hotend, much less one that's a downgrade for your printer. The E3D V6 is woefully underpowered at 30W. 40W is a bare minimum nowadays.
To answer your specific question points, normally heater cartridges and preassembled hotends come with wires long enough, and proper gauge, to go all the way to the terminals on the mainboard. Some, however, have short wires and some sort of connector. If it has long wires, it's best to just run them all the way to the mainboard as intended rather than splicing. If you do need to splice wire or add a connector, wiring that was made for a higher current will be fine for lower current (as long as it's undamaged). Solder joints are generally not a good idea, though, as they will undergo wear when the wire moves with the toolhead. My understanding is that it's better to use some sort of crimp splice.
And of course, before you do any of this, try to determine whether your controller board is what's damaged. If so, which I think is fairly likely, then you need to either repair or replace it, not the hotend. Connecting a multimeter (in voltage mode) or light bulb of the appropriate voltage to the heater terminal on the board and trying to run the heater would tell you immediately if it's bad (no output) but won't necessarily tell you that it's good.
Thank you for your quick answer. I was going to get a Prusa-specific hotend from E3D, but the shipping would take a few weeks. I can't replace my individual heater cartridge because the screw was melted in. I checked my mainboard fuses and they are fine. My printer still powers on, all the motors work fine, even the bed heater works. I cut the wires at the heater cartridge, and left them in air not touching, and now it thinks its heating up, so I think that I can deduce that the wires were touching at the heater cartridge, and I wasn't able to separate them.
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19768 | Can I print multiple parts in a single G-code file?
I have 12 parts for a model I want to print but I would like to know if I can put all of them in a single G-code file and print that on its own. Would this affect the model in any way?
I’m using PLA on my Ender 3 Pro
I have 12 parts for a model I want to print but I would like to know if I can put all of them in a single G-code file and print that on its own.
You certainly can. The printer doesn't care how many parts there are. Many single parts, like those with holes, will have layers that have areas that aren't contiguous. To the printer, multiple parts look just like a single part that happens not to be connected.
That said, printing multiple parts at once means that the job will be larger and take longer, and a problem printing any of those parts can force you to stop the whole job. Because small parts have less area in contact with the bed, small parts are more likely to come loose from the bed during the print, so running a job with many small parts can be risky -- if any one part comes loose, you might lose all the time and material you put into the whole job.
One tool that can help mitigate that risk is the Cancel Objects plugin for OctoPrint. If you use OctoPrint to manage your printer, you can use the plugin to stop further work on any objects that have problems during the print and continue with the rest. Here's a video about using Cancel Objects.
Also, when printing multiple parts, be sure to check that you have enough material (filament, resin, etc) available to complete the whole job.
This answer assumes FDM printing -- for resin printers, as I understand it, as long as there's flow space between parts, if they fit on the build plate, they'll print.
For FDM, generally, you'll get better print quality printing a single part, because layers don't cool while you print the same layer for each of the other parts (meaning layer adhesion will be better). That said, if the parts are very small, this additional cooling may be an improvement vs. having to set your slicer to provide a pause between layers to avoid slumps and layer spreading.
A compromise, if the parts are low enough, is that most slicers can be instructed to print the parts sequentially -- that is, print all of part A, then all of part B, and so forth. This has some limitation in that all parts already printed must clear parts of the machine, and may also require larger clearance between parts for items like fan shrouds.
But printing a bunch of parts at one time does work, if the compromises in layer adhesion and other quality issues related to traveling between parts are acceptable. The only way to be sure is to print the whole lot (perhaps with a large nozzle and thick layers, low infill, etc. to minimize filament consumption and print time) and see if they're good enough.
How much layers cool from one to the next has nothing to do with how many parts you're printing; it's really a function of how much there is to print in each layer. If you're printing a single large part with infill, you're going to get much more cooling between layers than you will if you're printing half a dozen small parts. IOW, the printer doesn't know or care whether the area it's printing is contiguous or not.
Would this affect the model in any way?
Resin would be fine.
Filament is more problematic. Printing multiple items increases the chance of a problem with one eg. a failed support, impacting on the others.
You also increase the chance of stringing between items and can have problems with layer adhesion higher up the print.
Having said that.... I do it all the time, because it's just easier. The only real concession I make is that I check periodically that the first couple of layers are fine, after that I just let it do it's thing.
The only filament I do it differently is TPU because I turn off retraction, without retraction it's guaranteed stringing between parts, so when I do multiple ones I always join them into one with a couple of lines then cut the joins off afterwards.
With a printer that has all the physical/mechanical problems worked out, and with slicing configuration tuned to make sure the slicer isn't doing anything stupid to introduce problems, printing a whole plate of parts at a time should be no problem. This is how folks use high-end CoreXY and Cross-XY printers printing more printer parts (to sell, etc.) all the time.
But if your printer sometimes has problems, doing multiple parts at a time drastically increases your risk that something will fail and mess up all the parts on the plate. And unless your printer is really fast, there's not a whole lot of benefit to plating a large number of parts together. Having to manually start a new job after a 6-hour job finishes is usually not a big deal unless you're trying to take advantage of overnights, which are an even worse idea if your printer isn't reliable. But on a fast printing setup, having to start a new job every 20 minutes rather than a plate after 3 hours is a big productivity killer, making large plates more attractive.
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19896 | Ender 3 S1 fails printing mid ways
I got my first 3D printer, a Creality Ender 3 S1.
I followed the Quick Installation Guide for the initial configuration. I also had to adjust the corners of the bed manually (the very first print ended up as spaghetti).
Now I wanted to try the first print, so I decided to print the "rabbit" that was included as a G-code with the SD card for the printer. I used the filament that was included with the printer.
The problem is that after half of the rabbit body is printed, the nozzle moves the rabbit, and the rest of the print ends like a spaghetti mess and I have to cancel it. This has happened three times now and I don't understand how to fix the problem or what causes it.
Why does the print of the "rabbit" fail mid-way up?
Are there any settings I should adjust? How should I figure out what settings I need?
I used the G-code that was already stored on the SD card, with default settings after adjusting my bed.
When you say "the nozzle moves the rabbit", do you mean that the model is knocked from the surface of the build plate, i.e. no longer stuck?
yes, it is no longer stuck, so it is moved on the plate.
My first thought was that the model did not have sufficient adhesion to the build plate. It seems that you have worked out the problem and things are working out now.
yes, how do I get better adhesion to the build plate? Probably need a good Z-offset for that? It was strange that it was moved after half the print, it sounds like higher temperature was important to not have filament clogged in the nozzle.
There are several things that can improve bed adhesion such as you mentioned good Z-offset, ideal bed temp, glue stick/hairspray, etc. Take a look at the other questions here with the tag 'adhesion'.
I have now got a print of the "rabbit" working.
I did a few things.
Make sure no parts of the printer are loose. I had to fasten the extruder on the X-axis a bit better. (I think this is an important point)
I tried a different filament, AddNorth E-PLA
These alone did not solve the problem.
Then I did these adjustments:
The AddNorth E-PLA filament had a recommended nozzle temperature of 205-225 °C. The default nozzle temperature of Ender 3 S1 seem to be 200 °C. The prints worked better when I set the nozzle temperature to 220 °C (in the beginning of the printing session).
I tried to use the Ultimaker Cura slicing software, instead of the pre-generated G-code file on the SD card. I used the STL file of the rabbit that was on the SD card as input.
After these adjustments, I finally successfully printed the rabbit.
The included filament in the package seems not that high in quality. Changing the filament as you did is really helpful. In my case, the first printing is fine, but the part is very sticky to the surface. Really sticky, like it was glued on the bed surface.
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19917 | How to keep model flat in resin printing?
I am having some trouble with model adherence to my print bed. As shown in the attached photo, my model is pulled away at the sides leaving it bowed even though it is designed to be flat. Other than this "bowing", the model is of good quality.
The model is printed solid on an Anycubic Photon M3 Plus with Anycubic 3D Printing UV Sensitive Resin. My print settings are:
Bottom layer count: 6
Bottom layer exposure: 22 secs (also tried 30 secs and 40 secs with the same results)
Normal layer height: 0.05 mm
Normal layer exposure: 2.5 secs
Off time: 0.5 secs
Z lift height: 6 mm
Z lift speed : 360 mm/sec
Z lift retract: 6 mm
The bed is aligned. Could anyone suggest what is wrong and what I could try to remove this "bowing" effect?
It looks like the top of your model (The lowest part in the picture) is wider than the bottom (The part in contact with the build plate).
This means that there is a substantial lip with nothing under it to support it, or to attach it to the build plate.
If I remember my rules of force correctly (and I may not) this means that the force excerpted on the part of the object furthest from the build plate is the square of the force on the part nearest to it that's touching the build plate.
By 3D printing standards this is quite a big number. You either need to angle the model to reduce this force (Draw a triangle from the corner to the big touching the base plate, and angle it so that the triangle is as shallow as possible, or to add additional material in to make that angle as shallow as possible.
I would suggest that you don't place your model flat on the build plate, instead angle it at maybe 30 and use heavy supports.
Print orientation
Your model is pulled up from the FEP film with a huge force. It releases from the film first at the corners, then progresses to the center. The force bends the model down as it is still flexible, so it creates a bent item.
This can be mitigated by reducing the area that you pull at. Commonly, you'll turn the item so the area is minimized, and you also might want to angle the item. This will cost some material in support structure, but you reduce the force on the part that can deform it in printing.
If the peel action bends the layer, wouldn’t it make it happy face shape, because the center gets sucked down relative to the rest of the layer, and peeled last? Here in the photo it is sad face shape.
@ChinchillaWafers the forces are strongest on the edges, it pulls there first.
It's most likely that your bed does not mechanically reach the correct position before the printer starts curing the resin. Many printers and slicer software allow setting wait_time_before_cure to e.g. 6 s (I don't know about your printer/slicer). That means that once your bed has presumably reached its position for curing, it waits another 6 s to settle mechanically. If your slicer software does not allow to set wait_time_before_cure (or similarly named) but your printer can handle wait_time_before_cure, you can use the open source tool UVtools to do that. (Edit: I just saw a discussion so it's basically possible with your machine even though not optimally so.)
It's much less likely that your FEP has become less transparent towards the edges of the vat. You could fix that by putting a new FEP on.
Bottom layer exposure: Once you increased wait_time_before_cure, you can go with something around 7 s.
Z lift speed: 360 mm/sec: if the printer could achieve the acceleration necessary, it meant that your bed could jump within less than a second to the top of the rails :-) Set it to something in the order of 50 to 80 mm/s.
Peel force is very unlikely an issue with this 3D model and orientation on the print bed. We have printed 1000 s of similar models flat on the print bed, so orientation is likely ok.
Leveling of the bed seems ok as the peeling happens on all sides symmetrically? If it wasn't symmetrical, bad leveling might also have an influence.
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19784 | Extra extrusion at seam of print with PETG
I recently purchased a spool of PETG to try working with it. I have managed to dial in most of the settings in Prusaslicer but one, in particular, is giving me a problem. As seen in the photo, the clip I printed has extra extrusion on the inside and outside. I have noticed that the nozzle will pause at the seam for about 5 secs before continuing. (The bottom is not Elephant's foot, I just didn't clean off all the brim)
I positioned the seam on the inside of the model. I know that the extra extrusion is caused by the seam but why would it also appear on the outside of the model?
I have printed the same clip in PLA without any printing errors. What setting within Prusaslicer needs to change so I can get rid of the extra plastic on the inside and outside of the print?
[I don't know what relevant print settings are needed to solve this problem, but will edit the question when I get some guidance.]
It's very likely just wet. PETG does awful things on resuming extrusion after retract/travel when it's wet. Unless it's been activelly dried in the past week and stored in a sealed container with fresh/dried dessicant, PETG is wet.
Funny enough, it has been in a filament dryer for the past week.
It depends how good the filament dryer is. If it's completely closed and no air can get in/out, the humidity stays inside.
What @FarO said. There are plenty of bad filament dryers that don't actually work.
While the idea of "wet" filament is possible, it would manifest itself over the whole model not just in one area. As seen in the photo, the front and sides of the print are fine; the area where the seam occurs is noticeably bad. But another solution was found.
After checking several places online, I finally got an answer in a Discord chat.
The solution was to turn off the Power-loss recovery setting on the printer itself.
After that was done, the print came out beautifully.
I just thought of that when I saw this question bumped and came here just to suggest you check that. Yep, power-loss recovery is the most horrible anti-feature on these printers. It's designed to stall the printer for a long time after unretracting but before printing by performing the (long, blocking) SD card write at the first print (extrusion+motion) move of a new layer. It's just horribly misdesigned and useless and needs to be turned off.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Very true. Just another example of a great idea that was poorly executed.
Yep. Executing the idea well is rather hard though. To actually work well it'd need something like a small UPS to power the printer minus bed heater until next layer change, then pause, park the head (so the hotend doesn't sit on the print and ruin it), and record state for recovery. It also needs a printer that homes at max Z, not min Z, so that Z can be re-homed without destroying the print, and that has very good homing reproducibility in X and Y. And it needs a bed surface that doesn't release the print on cooling. And.....
Looks like Retract at layer change is causing this. Disable that and see. This will help you to improve the quality a lot.
It will be under retraction settings:
After disabling "Retract on layer change", the problem still exists.
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19881 | Which material can be used to print a drop protector?
I would like to print a custom version of something akin to this rugged case that was originally created using injection molding:
The outside consists of a material that is a bit softer than the main body.
It is used to protect the electronics against drops when the case falls onto the floor.
Unfortunately, I don't know which material this is, and I don't know which method I could use to measure its softness.
I would therefore like to ask if anybody has experience with such a softer outer hull and can tell me which material could be used when I want to 3D print it.
I would like to use this case in a hospital environment.
TPU or TPE
You are looking for a Thermoplastic Urethane or Theroplastic Elasomere. Both are types of FDM printable synthetic rubbers, which can be used to create such flexible buffers. However you need to properly design your casing with the correct thickness and hardness of the material in mind - you can not just take the dimensions and design from an over-molded material.
Most flexible filaments need to be printed hollow to achieve good protection for the part. In some cases, you might want to use a foaming TPU/TPE that expands and creates cushioning voids, allowing to slow the part falling down to a slow enough speed to protect sensitive circuits.
Thank you. Can you please tell me which possible pitfalls you might see?
@tmighty, the obvious pitfall is printing it solid. TPU isn't like foam rubber -- it doesn't compress much. A good fall protector is as much about picking the correct infill as it is about the overall shape.
Also, not every printer can handle these materials well, and you may need print much slower (as low as 25mm/s) than you are accustom.
I do it a couple of ways.
I use TPU which is pretty good for impacts and either make it thick or stiffen it with another filament as an inside or outside shell.
But TPU is what you want for this project because it's flexible in the way you need it to be.
Thank you. Can you also tell me what you would use for the stiff interior plastic?
I have used both PLA and PETG for that. Just a plate of it rather than a full cover. But TPU on it's own is fine as well. I used the plates because I wanted something totally rigid to build a swingout stand with
Case designers usually use TPU for flexibility and polycarbonate for stiffness
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19754 | Thick stringing next to a perfectly printed model
Both items were printed at the same time. The item on the right was perfect while the one on the left has crazy thick strings. Sorry I didn't keep the build plate's orientation, you can see how they were positioned in the Cura screen cap.
I thought the stringing was from nozzle travel but if that were true the strings would be coming from the center pillar which they are not. Some of the strings shoot out from the left which doesn't make any sense.
I checked the bottom and it seems like the first layer is perfect or pretty damned close to it.
Sovol Sv01 pro
This is similar to an Ender 3 S1
direct drive
Creality silent board
CR touch
Marlin 2.0
hot end I'm not sure what's in there but it has a V6 nozzle rather than an MK8
PEI sheet
K value 2.0 - this was the factory setting
All the parts are pretty new since I bought the printer on an Amazon Prime day about a month ago.
Settings
Inland PETG - Yellow
a few days ago it had a 6hr session in a filament dryer
225 °C nozzle
70 °C bed
retraction 3.0 mm
print speed 60 mm/s
print acceleration 500 mm/s
jerk 12 mm/s
The max print speed of the premium quality 2.85 mm PETG I use, is 50 mm/s at higher temperatures you use (240 - 245 °C). I do have a no-name 1.75 mm PETG brand that prints at 230 °C, but that is with an expensive hotend capable of melting the PETG quick enough. You should increase temperature and lower print speed.
Are you using combing with max comb distance with no retract? Is it possible to share the G-code to check?
That's not stringing, that is a perimeter line that is missing from the item that was not deposited properly and "dragged" behind the nozzle. Misleveled most likely.
225°C is way too cool to print PETG, especially at 60 mm/s if your printer's extruder is similar to the Ender 3's stock extruder (going off what you said; I'm not familiar with your specific printer). It will be having serious trouble extruding, slipping in the filament gear, at which point you'll have too little material, so what does get extruded gets stretched out too thin and is under a lot of tension, and since it's not hot enough to bond well with the previous layer and also not thick enough to press well against the previous layer, it gets pulled across a diagonal rather than following the toolhead path.
Drop your speed for PETG to 30 mm/s or lower and increase the temperature to 235°C at a bare minimum. I would really call 245°C the minimum for PETG, but that's borderline too hot for the stock PTFE-lined heatbreak and will degrate the PTFE (and arguably offgas harmful fumes, although probably at levels way too low to actually be harmful) over time.
I was just using the default settings in Cura. I'll try 235 and 30mm
I did a temp tower and 235 was the best range. It was shiny and it didn't snap off easily. Did a benchy at 235 and 30mm and it was perfect. Thank you.
If you're not too busy I have another PETG question I'd like your input on. https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/19828/petg-benchy-boogers-and-stringing. Thanks.
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21564 | What is the best time interval and method to stop heating the bed to start releasing before the print is finished?
I want to end the bed heating approximately X minutes before the print is finished so that the bed starts cooling and releasing the print.
Since an object can have different sizes and printing one layer can take very long or very quickly, I cannot simply insert an M140 S0 before the last layer. What is the best time interval and method to achieve this? Is there a Cura slicer extension for it, an OctoPrint plugin, or should I write a custom script for Cura? I mostly print with a 50 °C heated bed and PLA using OctoPi on a Creality Ender 3 v2 with Marlin firmware. With a printer bed at room temperature, the print could come loose too early while still printing, so 20 °C might be too extreme. Make sure the printer is finished when the bed is around 35-40 °C? Is there any theory and method to back this up? Does this method have a term or name?
Nice energy-saving idea. Similar to turning off the (electric) oven or ring ten minutes early, to allow the residual heat to continue the cooking.
That's another added benefit indeed. Although micro optimizations, this probably could also save some energy: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21565/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-automatically-disabling-stepper-motors-after-a-pri.
You barely save energy keeping a plate warm a few extra minutes, certainly with an insulated bottom. It will not cost much electricity. This has been seen before in various answers.
The chance the print releases increases with stopping heating the bed and increases the chance to mess up the print requiring a reprint. This will add frustration, filament costs and energy costs. Best interval is therefore zero (based on experience with printing on glass, at a certain temperature the print comes free from the build plate on glass). But, different surfaces may hold the print even when cold. E.g. PETG on PEI bonds very well.
If you really want to stop heating the bed, you need to determine for a few various sized prints the point at which the print releases. Based on your tests you could device a strategy to stop heating the bed.
If you want to release a print sooner after printing, get a removable build plate, e.g. a flexible coated steel plate or a few sheets of glass and place the print with glass in the fridge or somewhere where it is cooler.
The energy saving, as mentioned in the comments, is of least concern. Do you know of an existing implementation of this strategy (in OctoPrint, Marlin or Cura)?
@BobOrtiz No I don't know of such implementations, that doesn't guarantee it doesn't exist, but I think it doesn't exist for these exact reasons.
In addition to Oscar's answer, there is an OctoPrint plugin that attempts to achieve exactly that. The plugin uses the following and-condition to determine the moment to stop bed heating:
"printing finished for at least 90% and remaining print time is below 5 minutes".
The plugin is called OctoPrint-BedCooldown. Its page describes:
Turns off the bed heater toward the end of a print
For filaments such as PLA, many printers have more than enough stored thermal mass in the bed to keep bed adhesion throughout the print. Therefore, you may want to turn off the bed heater automatically before the end of a print, saving cooldown time.
The bed heater will be turned off during a print, when both conditions are met:
The print time left is below the configured threshold (default 300 seconds / 5 minutes)
The print completion percentage is above the configured threshold (default 90%)
This should cover both long and short prints; you wouldn’t want the bed to turn off 90% into a 20 hour print, or 5 minutes before the end of a 10 minute total print.
Be sure to monitor your print, as turning off the bed heater could cause the print to come loose prior to completion.
Nice find, but Ill refrain from using it! Considering the caveat at the bottom, be careful!
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21681 | Why is MPC better than PID for 3D printers, and (why) is it more useful for 'high-power heaters'?
The YouTube video 'PID vs MPC' from Mark Misin Engineering Ltd perfectly demonstrates that Model Predictive Temperature Control (MPC) is more powerful than Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID). Marlin implemented MPC as described in Marlin's MPC documentation. The Marlin-based firmware version I use also describes MPC in the mriscoc MPC documentation and as follows:
In the latest releases, MPC is being incorporated in all versions. MPC has proven to be a better algorithm for keeping the nozzle temperature stable, and it is also very useful for high-power heaters.Source: GitHub mriscoc repository for Ender 3 V2/S1
Since 3D printers, especially the heated parts (bed and nozzle), are relatively simple, with only simple control and sensor readings, why exactly is MPC a better choice than PID? And why is it more useful for 'high-power heaters'?
Short answer
PID reacts only after the temperature changes are registered by the sensor. MPC instead calculates the expected heat loss before the temperature actually changes and then applies heat to prevent those changes.
Here's a graph comparing PID and MPC, created by Reddit user yelleck:
Slightly derogatory answer
PID and its modifications1 is the duct-tape solution to the hotend temperature regulation problem2, and MPC is the engineering-PhD solution.
Slightly longer answer
MPC is a predictive model that compensates before the temperature actually changes. It calculates a physical heat model (effectively a Thermal Resistance Circuit). Using this, it figures out how much heat energy (in Joules) will leave the hotend in a given time—through radiation, convection, and extruded molten plastic—and thus it knows exactly how much heat energy (again in Joules, or "Watts times Seconds") it has to put in to keep the temperature the same or move to a new temperature. The properties of this physical model (heat capacity, emissivity, etc.) can be obtained automatically with fairly good accuracy or looked up in a table (filament heat capacity per mm).
PID on the other hand is a reactive model that can only work after the temperature has already changed. It is more like a vigilant operator who stares only at the measured difference between the actual and desired temperature. If this temperature difference changes by just a tiny bit, or by a large step, it will immediately try to counteract that error by applying its three rules: P, I, and D.
The three PID coefficients can also be auto-tuned, but the results are... well, let's say there is a reason that there are dozens if not hundreds of PID tuning guides and forum questions out there. The coefficients are not linked to any distinct physical property of your hotend: The geometry, fan, heater power, silicone sock, and filament are all mushed together into three abstract numbers. So far I have tried a handful of times to get a deep, intuitive understanding of PID behavior and tuning, but have failed each time, and honestly, I don't consider it worth my time anymore. MPC just makes so much more sense.
The PID controller does not know or care why the temperature difference changed. It could be due to faster extrusion speed, switching on the fan, or a changed temperature setpoint (M104), for example. A PID controller has to react to any changes using the same rigid 3-rules-system1, although the three situations will in practice require different reactions. The MPC model, on the other hand, can figure out precisely how much each of those changes would influence the temperature and how it must react to prevent that.
So in a PID-based system, the temperature will always fluctuate a little by design. It needs those temperature changes in order to know how to react (unless you assume a completely static situation), because it is the only measurement it has. Consequently, a noisy temperature measurement, which looks like a lot of tiny, very fast changes, will force the PID controller to react to them, which leads to even more noticeable fluctuations because the system reacts to a change that isn't really there, since it's just noise. Alternatively, you could make it react slower to ignore these fast noise fluctuations, but that will make it... well... slower.
And why is it more useful for 'high-power heaters'?
As explained above, the PID controller must react to noise. With a high-power heater, even a tiny adjustment in the PWM can lead to a large increase in temperature. So the controller must react more slowly and carefully so as not to overshoot or oscillate. But by going more slowly, you are throwing away the main benefit of your high-power heater, namely: faster heating. Since MPC largely ignores noise, it won't oscillate. And since it knows your heater power in Watts and the exact amount of energy needed in Joules, it can just go "full throttle" when a higher temperature is needed3, stopping just in time to avoid overshooting. With a lower-powered heater, this problem is not so apparent, because it can only go slowly anyways.
1 Yes, Marlin has PID_FUNCTIONAL_RANGE, PID_EXTRUSION_SCALING, and PID_FAN_SCALING to work around these issues. Those are hacky, ad-hoc solutions that try to do the same thing as MPC, but without a correct and complete physical model underneath. It's rather like adding more duct tape to the problem instead of stepping back, understanding the situation, and engineering a proper solution. Also, each of these functions has its own configuration parameters, which require separate tuning, while the auto-tuning in MPC can take care of all of them together (except filament heat capacity, which you can look up or calculate using physics instead). So if you consider using those additional PID features, you are essentially using MPC, but without a solid theoretical foundation, so you could as well go all the way and just use MPC instead.
2 Don't get me wrong: PID control is a flexible and well-established tool that is for many, many different tasks everywhere. Just like duct tape. But it is not the best tool for every job. A well-tuned PID can control the hotend temperature within a few degrees with little overshoot. It just wasn't specifically designed for this case, and thus it is outperformed by tools that were.
3 Marlin PID tries to do the same thing with PID_FUNCTIONAL_RANGE: it goes full power when the temperature difference is greater than this configured value. But with a high-power heater, this is an additional value that you have to tune. And after the PID kicks in, it needs some time to "wind up", which is another time during which the heater is not using its full potential. Also, the PID coefficients have to be tuned for different, partially conflicting goals: heating up quickly, avoiding overshoots, and avoiding oscillations. Again, all are lumped together into three abstract numbers with no physical meaning.
Welcome @Fritz and a very good and comprehensive answer. Thank you!
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21770 | Is it safe to use 230 V AC, 10 A relay shield to turn my Prusa MK3S+ on/off using OctoPrint?
Prusa says the MK3S+ draws up to 120 W. So let's say 150 W of inrush current.
$$150 W \div 230 V ≈ 0.65 A$$
An order of magnitude less than a typical Raspberry Pi optically isolated relay shield can do.
Is there anything I should be aware of when choosing the board? Anything I'm missing here?
I doubt the printer will do that in idle when you turn on the printer, the power will be much less (no heating of the bed or the hot end).
@0scar I also doubt it'll be a problem, but I'd much rather know it won't. I hope someone here already knows and can share.
Yes it is safe to use such relay modules. Note that the printer will use less power than the specified power, when in idle it nearly doesn't use any power at all, the inrush current will be ver low when switching the relay. Furthermore, the relay is capable of handling the current according to its specification. Do note that you are using mains power, which can be dangerous, please make precautions working on mains (pull the plug from the socket) and shield the wires and use proper crimping tools, no solder.
I have done this with 2 printers, one where I cut the 230 V, but the latest one uses a computer 12 V PSU which has a separate wire (I think this is 5 V) which you can short to start the PSU; this is much safer. I used and use OctoPrint with custom shell scripts to turn on the printer and the hot end cooler fan as described in this answer.
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21528 | Changing axial fan on CR-10 smart caused temp fluctuation/heat creep
Printer: Creality CR-10 Smart
Slicer: Cura
My axial fan, which cools the heatsink, broke down. I replaced it with a cheap knock-off fan, as it was the only option available. However, this replacement caused temperature fluctuations that went beyond the acceptable range.
Here's what I tried to fix the issue:
I initially tried flipping the direction of the axial fan to make it blow hot air instead of surrounding air. This seemed to work for a while, but it caused heat to build up, and my 3D printer's filament stopped extruding from the nozzle.
I attempted to lower the current supplied to the fan, thinking it might help. However, this turned out to be a bad idea, as I wasn't sure how much current the main board could safely supply through this port. The result was that the resistor I used got fried.
I then decided to mount a 740 Ω resistor in series to create a voltage drop, leaving about 10 volts for the fan. Unfortunately, this also led to heat build-up.
Finally, I tried mounting a 320 Ω resistor, leaving about 14.5 volts for the fan, and this seemed to work fine.
I'm concerned about heat dissipation and the overall reliability of this solution. What are your thoughts on this?
The issue stems from the small size of the heatsink and the large size of the axial fan, which directly faces the heat block. I'm now considering the option of mounting a 24 V, 3x3 cm fan and creating a custom mount for it.
instead of messing around with resistors, get a cheap adjustable fan speed controller with a knob.
not available in my area
After encountering issues with an unknown brand fan overpowering the Creality fan, I experimented with resistors. Initially, a 330-ohm resistor resolved the thermal runaway warning but led to under-extrusion due to inadequate cooling.
A 100-ohm resistor addressed under-extrusion but triggered thermal runaway.
The optimal solution was a 220-ohm resistor, resolving both issues.
I've tested this setup for approximately 1 day, 11 hours, and 7 minutes with successful results.
why is that? the reading on the Multimeter is the voltage drop through the resistor.
True! I misread the connections.
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21598 | Does additional thermal runaway in OctoPrint add anything and shouldn't it use a smart plug to kill power instead?
With the following thought in mind: 'Two eyes are better than one' does additional Thermal Runaway detection in OctoPrint add any benefit?
This OctoPrint-ThermalRunaway Plugin seems to add a basic ThermalRunaway detection in OctoPrint. I understand all the smart disclaimers he makes. Security-wise, of course, we should prefer mechanical over firmware, and firmware over external software (OctoPrint). And I think printers that don't have at least any kind of firmware runaway protection should be trashed instantly.
However, assuming you already have a printer running firmware runaway protection would this OctoPlugin add any value, 'in case firmware runaway protection' somehow fails?
Related: Firmware runaway detection as well as the mentioned 'solution' in OctoPrint are based on sending an emergency gcode to the board and performing an emergency shutdown.
Wouldn't it be better, more secure if the power was cut from the printer entirely? Eg. instead of an OctoPrint plugin sending an emergency g-code, it sending an power disable command to a smart plug (API)?Source: Octoprint-ThermalRunaway issue
It can save prints in specific situations. If you set maximum temperature lower than the one configured in the firmware, and configure the command set to cause printer to stop heating instead of stopping altogether, it is possible that plugin will stop printer from overheating before printer will panic and stop mid-print.
This, of course, does not replace other protections, but I recently lost a couple of hours of printing due to stupid error on my part, and this plugin might have prevented it.
It shouldn't be used instead of firmware protection. But I can see how it can be use to supplement it.
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21674 | How do I 3D print an object inside another object?
I have a tooth and a nerve inside it as two different objects.
The first picture is a molar tooth and the second image is a nerve inside the molar tooth.
My question is; how to generate supports so that the nerve inside the molar tooth will be printed out? (3D printing object inside another object)
The purpose of the aim is to use the printed object as patient education material. (Not for sale)
How would the patient see the nerve if it is inside the tooth?
@Oscar, molar tooth as transparent pla and nerve as Red pla
Transparent is usually not so transparant as you wish considering using FDM as you used tag PrusaSlicer. Furthermore, do you a have printer that can print multiple colors? Please update your question by [edit] to include the printer make and model.
With great difficulty
Problems
From your tags, it looks like you want to use FDM process. Unless you have mastered How To Print Glass technique, you can forget about the inside model being visible in the outside one. Even if you did, I have never seen anyone manage to make it work with multicolor / multimaterial printers. That is, if you even have one, most of the people do not.
The best translucency I was able to get using FDM is this:
Printing two models separately and making them fit perfectly is another can of worms. Printers have limited accuracy. Materials have shrinkage that is different in different colors, if ever so slightly.
My solution
Print one transparent part, with a hole in the shape of the inside part. Then, fill it with UV resin or paint. If possible, use transparent resin instead of FDM - you will get good enough transparency without a need to tune your printer and polish surfaces.
That's not something I have tried, but indeed something I planned*.
* printing TransparentTestPart_0.12mm_PETG_MK3S_50m.gcode now, as I write this answer.
Best I've ever seen is posted here: https://learn.colorfabb.com/lets-make-something-clear/ Note that my own experience produced exactly the same translucent (not transparent) parts you also produced! :-)
Similar to the answer above, but with a bit of a twist, it may be simpler to print both parts out as molds, and then to cast the parts that you want in two-part casting resin.
There are various tutorials on the internet that go into detail on how to do this.
For example: 3D Printed Molds Tutorial: How to DIY Your Own
Cura slicer even has a function for this. Mold mode though I've never used it.
Use a Boolean function to create a cavity inside the tooth using the nerve as a cutter, and then export it. Then use Cura's mold function to create a mold of the tooth with the cavity inside it.
Create a resin tooth using clear resin, and then once that is set mix up some red resin and pour it into the cavity.
It's still using 3D printing, just not as you originally thought. IT may be easiest to do the tooth mold in two parts and then join them together.
Transparency is interesting, but maybe one of the following options, for the purpose of inspiration, is more achievable:
An anatomical model
A model consisting of different parts that can be taken apart for demonstration. Printed or painted in multiple colors. Such as:
Source: Mentone Educational
A cross-sectional model
A model that is cut in half, showing the insides. If printed in the right orientation, multi-color prints can, to some extent, be achieved by changing the colors at a certain layer, or by painting. Such as:
Source: Free3D
+1 Although not really an answer to the question (considering the comments), the answer does provide an alternative solution. I think I would prefer such a print if I'm at the dentsit as this is more close to the real molar. With about 4 colors and some STL editing skills you'd be able to reproduce the molar from the first photo!
You can accomplish this with a multiple extruder 3D printer.
You'll have one extruder print in transparent and another in red. However, you'll also need a third extruder to print "soluble" supports.
When you print with soluble supports, there are extra columns used to secure partly "floating" objects like the red nerve during the 3D printing process. After the print is done, you drop the 3D print in water. The soluble supports dissolve away, leaving just the nerve and the tooth.
Soluble supports and multi-extrusion printing are how you would print something like this. I'm not sure if you'll go through the effort to do it, but it can be done.
I have no experience with transparent filament though, it looks like by the other answers it's not very good.
The red nerve is printed inside the molar cavity, so how would you get water in the cavity to dissolve the support? Furthermore, soluble support sounds amazing, but having used it for a while, my personal opinion is to avoid it.
Ahh i wasnt aware that it was totally enclosed. And yes, now that you mention it, my few tries with citric acid soluble support never dissolved 100%, it more just made it easier to remove the supports. I never tried the water soluble one tho - went back to just single extruder printing after that
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21534 | Creality Ender 3 v2 1st layer too high off bed
On my Creality Ender 3 v2, I have performed bed levelling and am fairly confident that the nozzle height is correct - a piece of paper under the nozzle can be pulled out with a gentle tug. For some reason, the first layer that prints always has the nozzle too far off the bed and so it's not adhering correctly.
I'm not sure if I've missed something with bed levelling, or if there is some other setting I need to tweak.
FYI I'm printing with a 0.8 mm diameter nozzle with 0.5 mm layer height and 0.45 mm initial layer height. When I look at the printer in action, the first pass looks like the nozzle is about 1 mm off the bed.
Are you using a BL/CR Touch?
No I don’t think so. That’s the auto-levelling thing, right?
Yes. Have you tried lowering the Z Limit Switch bracket?
No, I did see some article mentioning to make sure it’s straight, but not tried to lower it yet.
Does this answer your question? Nozzle not level and first print failed
Can you add a photo and a link to your G-code to see if there is something wrong in the start G-code? Without much more information, this could be closed referring to the previously mentioned topic as a duplicate.
I think there were two things wrong here:
I was not levelling the bed correctly - I was manually moving the z-axis down to the lower limit - which can be slightly different to the printer lowering until the limit switch activates (Menu > Prepare > Auto home).
Looking at the suggested answer Nozzle not level and first print failed I did check the position of my z-axis limit switch and it was pushed all the way downwards. I decided to try filing a bit off the notch which rests on the base rails so that the z-limit would be hit a bit lower.
Is this an answer that solves your issue, or actually an update to the question? If the latter, then please edit your question and add it there. If the former, then please mark this as the accepted answer.
You can check for offsets to the home positions. M206 will show home offsets. If you have automated bed levelling with probing there is another offset to view with M851. Depending on firmware versions you might have to run M503 to show all the offsets.
As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.
Thanks for answering. Could you explain how I use those G-codes to get the offsets?
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21570 | Is it possible to 3D print plastic straws?
Plastic straws are forbidden in the EU so it will get harder to buy them. I wonder if it is possible to 3D print plastic straws? I would likely use them as tools when woodworking, but if you can use them to drink beverages that would be a bonus. I am not familiar with 3D printing so I don't know if it is possible to get them bendable and so on like usual plastic straws.
It's of course possible but the question should be about food safety really.
You could buy packages of 1000 straws each straight from China... Also, how do you use them for wood working??
I have ordered a 100 straws so I will have some stock to use from. It was good to collect junk when chiseling or gouging by dragging the straw along the corner (the junk goes into the straw). I was taught this trick some weeks ago so I have not tried it myself, but I think paper straws might just break.
Yes, it's possible to print, you can print almost anything. The question should be if you actually want to.
From 3 July 2021, single-use plastic plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks and cotton buds cannot be placed on the markets of the EU Member States.(Source: EU restrictions on certain single-use plastics)
A few things about this, if you use them as a woodworking tool, I suppose that's not a single use. Also, you're not selling them ("placing them on the market"), it's for personal use only. So my guess would be that this use case is allowed.
There are many designs that are about straws or include straws. I'm sure you can find some design or make it yourself since the shape is quite easy (as is tinkercad.com).
However, it's not generally recommended for health reasons to eat or drink from 3D prints. To my understanding, PLA is the most food-safe but it perhaps lacks the flexible properties you asked for. However, even with PLA, there are concerns about the intake of microplastics, which is very concerning in health terms.
If you want truly flexible material you could print with TPU but as far as I know, there isn't a food-safe TPU on the market. There are special "food safe" filaments on the market but the issue with microplastic intake due to the inherent result of (FDM) printing layer on layer remains.
Maybe it is possible to print in a more food-secure way with resin printing but I don't know enough about that.
Some, or maybe lots of TPU is safe up to 125 °C, so parts can be sterilized at 121 °C. FDM itself creates layers and therefore always crevices for germs to grow in.
Yes, you can print functional straws with FDM printing. Most manufactured straws are polypropylene (PP), which is a food-safe plastic you can print, though it's reportedly a little bit difficult due to adhesion and warping issues. While not as common as PLA, ABS, or PETG, PP is readily obtained as filament. Thin-wall PETG or PET would likely also have the flexibility properties you want and may be easier to print.
In terms of printing, orienting the straw along the Z axis is definitely possible, but difficult on bed slingers because the motion of the bed is working hard to deflect or detach it while you're trying to print. It's also very hard to cool sufficiently fast. But it does allow vase mode, which makes water-tightness/air-tightness easier and gives a nice uniform surface.
Printing horizontally will not give a uniform round shape, but if you're happy with a slightly truncated cylinder, it's a much easier option. I have printed straw-like hoses successfully like this.
Another option is orienting the straw diagonally so that you have much larger cross sections than a fully vertical print, but a flat/truncated surface against the bed only at one end, where you can just cut it off. Depending on the angle, this probably requires minor supports, but that's an advantage since it gives you a lot of stability.
Printed straws will be difficult to clean, but in most reasonable materials, including PP, PET, PETG, or PLA, they should be entirely food-safe for single use, contingent on lack of unsafe pigments. If you want to use them this way (note: this may be an accessibility need in places where plastic straws are banned), choose uncolored/natural-color filaments and purchase from suppliers with a MSDS and/or other technical documentation that the filament does not contain sketchy additives. I do not see a plausible concern about microplastic ingestion here; if you're concerned, pre-rinse them to get off any dust. But PLA is safely absorbable by the body (used in medical implants, even) and PETG is essentially no different from polyester garment lint which you ingest in much larger quantities.
Update: Somewhat inspired by this question, when I found myself without a suitable straw for bubble tea, I quickly printed one from material that was known to be food-safe (it was formerly a seltzer water bottle) and it worked. Short video showing print orientation/process here:
It indeed is possible to print a plastic straw via 3D printing, however it requires a considerable amount of precision and supports during 3D printing, modelling and slicing.
This is because as the 3D printers build the plastic straw layer-after-layer, the circular structure could result in instabilities and therefore requires some time to condense.
Overall, these structures are possible to be 3D printed but not as easy as it seems, and way more expensive to print as well.
Yes! I would print in a vertical configuration. So you'd need a 6-8" Z-axis, and I'd definitely check my Z-axis, you'd have a better result if you printed in a continuous mode. Increase the tempemperature for PLA by 5 °C. Turn your cooling fans up to 100 %.
To be honest: No, straws are long, open structures that don't print well.
When printing vertically, the layer lines are horizontal and make the straw structural weak. It will break when bent a little.
When printing horizontally, it will have rough sides because of support material or sagged sides.
It will probably not be watertight. FDM prints are rarely watertight.
When printing vertically, going upwards, the print head will bend the straw and deform the result and maybe even fail, depending on the height.
Even though I would drink from PLA material, it is not considered food-safe, especially because the rough edges cause a nice home for bacteria
TPU won't be your friend here as it will bend when printing. having a Prusa i3 derivate will make this even worse as it rapidly moves the printbed back and forth, which makes the straw bend all over the place.
SLA prints won't have as many of above issues, but until cured well, it is pretty toxic. Also it will be even less strong.
You're probably better off importing straws or rolling your own from a thin sheet of plastic. (roll 2 times and secure with a small piece of tape. )
Interesting. I have been looking for thin sheets of plastic in two or three hardware stores but have not found any yet.
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21478 | First layer disaster: auto-leveling the bed. Need guidance
I have been printing on and off for years. Generally, I have had no issues until recently. Upon thinking back I don't think I used the Z-offset at any point and only manually leveled my Ender 3 S1 Pro.
I'm not sure if it's material or me, or both.
I have to learn this. I bought a new, expensive printer which is ABL only. No knobs, only Z baby-stepping in software. The card reader in my S1 broke so I bought a new board and discovered I needed to do this process again. Since I purchased a Sonic Pad, I changed over to Klipper and printed TPU for 2 weeks fine.
I bought a spool of Overture PLA, it's been a disaster. Before trying to dial this in last night the spool had been drying at 45 °C for 12 hours. Doesn't seem to print any differently.
Instead of the config steps, after manually leveling and getting the mesh, I made a one-layer print of concentric squares with a solid 1" box in the center. I'm baby stepping trying to find the sweet spot and think I do. I begin printing my model, 5 copies, layer 1: 1 - doesn't stick; 2 - sticks; 3 - sticks; 4 - sticks. I stop and clean the bed with IPA. Copy 1 - sticks; 2 + 3 - doesn't stick. Stop printing, manually level, and find no resistance with paper. Re-level manually only, print, skirt doesn't lay down right.
Tried the Creality "BuildTak" bed first, and worse.
Printer: Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro - Sonic Pad (Klipper)
Nozzle: 0.5 mm Hardened Steel @ 215 °C
Bed: 60 °C PEI and "BuildTak"
Layer Height/Width: 0.3 mm 0.5 mm
Filament: Overture PLA Highlight Yellow
Speed: 25 mm/s
What's the process? 1) Manual 2) Probe 3) Mesh? Does the order of 2 and 3 matter?
Mesh and manual are easy enough. I won't be at my printer until 7 pm Central be eager to read any advice during the day. I have Googled this also; obviously, I missed something.
As I was z-baby stepping down with my concentric boxes, I assumed when it not sticking well or looking good the z-offset was too high. When looking good it was okay. And continuing down, it started to come off the bed in some areas... I assumed to low. But this seems to allow the paper when manually levelling to have zero resistance under the nozzle.
Elephant's foot compensation, could this be the problem? It was at 0.1 mm and now at 0.05 mm. Leave it at 0?
I printed a temperature tower beforehand: 190-230 at 5 degree increments. It broke off the bed during 195. All overhang areas severely curled up.
I'm not claiming this is the definitive answer but I made a successful print with these changes.
There were several things I did that may have helped but I don't think solved the problem. I eliminated the elephant's foot compensation. I brought up the flow ratio to 1.01. Even though I had indicated no cooling on the first layer, I unchecked the box that indicated fan Always on.
The real solution I believe, increasing the nozzle temperature to 230 °C and bed temperature to 70 °C for the first layer and afterward dialing it back to 210 °C and 60 °C respectively.
I've had rolls of PLA for a long time. Perhaps the formulation has changed over time but I didn't have to go through such steps before, nor print so hot on layer one.
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21499 | Heater on bed stopped working on Fusion3 EDGE printer
I just received a Fusion3 EDGE printer and tried printing ABS with a 0.4 mm extruder at 260 °C and bed at 115 °C (the temperatures set by the demo print). The bed started heading on the first print, then stopped heating after a few layers and hasn't heated since after repeated tries. Does anyone know if the fault state is causing this or if a failed heater is causing the fault state?
I've been going through the document Fusion3 EGDE-Troubleshooting: Heater Faults.
Reset the heater fault and get the heater is heating too slowly.
I'm waiting for tech support's response before moving this to an answer, but this is the result so far.
I measured the voltages on the SRDD100 relay. When the bed heater was turned on 24 V was across the input and the output passed 24 V to the heater (relay on). When the bed heater changed to the fault condition, the input had 0 V and the output did not pass the 24 V to the heater (relay off). Turning the power off on the 3D printer, unplugging the bed heater, and measuring the resistance of the bed heater showed an open circuit.
Note: the ABS not adhering and touching the bed indicated that the bed was indeed at room temperature.
My first step is to go through this document just sent. https://www.fusion3design.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EDGE-TROUBLESHOOTING-Heater-Faults-6.26.23.pdf
Appears to be open circuit for bed heater.
This should be followed up by a call to the vendor or the manufacturer. You wouldn't expect this for such an acclaimed high end commercial printer.
@Oscar I am working with the OEM now. This was the easiest way to give them images. If they don't post an answer here, I will post their answer. I have requested the parts needed to change the bed heater element.
I measured the voltages on the SRDD100 relay. When the bed heater was turned on 24 V was across the input and the output passed 24 V to the heater (relay on). When the bed heater changed to the fault condition, the input had 0 V and the output did not pass the 24 V to the heater (relay off). Turning the power off on the 3D printer, unplugging the bed heater, and measuring the resistance of the bed heater showed an open circuit. The OEM also concluded that the bed heating element failed and is shipping a replacement.
OEM comment:
every machine that is built runs through at least 12 hours of printing high temperature materials before it is allowed to ship. Having it basically show up not functioning is. . really weird.
My response:
This looks like it was on the tail of infant mortality for the heater exceeding the burnin time or a burnin escape. It only lasted a few minutes into a print with bed at 110C. Otherwise, it would be a defect caused in the process between burnin and arriving here.
The packaging showed no sign of mishandling and nothing on the unit showed signs of mishandling. There was no sign of damage to the heater. The lack of response to this question here supports that this is a rare incident.
The OEM has also requested the return of the failing heater element for analysis (shipping container included with replacement part).
Received new bed from OEM, installed bed, and printed successfully. First print after installing bed:
Below is normally a difficult print to not have strings between the stringers, but the Fusion3 Edge printed with no strings on the first attempt.
When looking at SRDD100 application notes, I wondered why the 3D printer designer switched the positive supply voltage instead of the ground as in the application notes. But, thinking about this, the heater is attached to the grounded aluminum bed. If the designer switched the ground instead of the positive supply, a short to the bed could cause thermal runaway. Thus, the designer had safety in mind.
Even if tested sometimes components do fail prematurely. Kudos for referring to this case being a rare incident and to the support of the manufacturer, this is handled as it should for a high end piece of machinery. Would love to test one!
Please accept the answer after 48 hours!
@Oscar its working great.
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21515 | How can I get PLA to stick to my printer bed?
I'm printing a model, sliced in Cura, on a Monoprice Mini Delta v2.
The model is long, about the width of the print bed. When I print it, the extruder drags the filament (which should stay in place) into the wrong position.
To summarize, my white PLA won't stick to the print bed (which is heated to 40 °C). Is the bed temp too low? Is the nozzle too high (200 °C)?
If someone could tell me how to get the PLA to stick- preferably a long-term option like print or bed temp - it would be greatly appreciated.
Probably the initial distance is too large, and you may increase temperature of the bed to 50 °C or use an adhesive. Could you provide some photos?
what's the print surface? ever since i moved to a slightly textured mat, i've not had to fuss with tape, gluesticks, etc.
I would go with 60 degrees on the bed and check the bed levelling. You shouldn't be having a problem with PLA if the levelling is fine unless your filament has gone bad.
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21620 | Does one has to take into consideration the nozzle diameter while designing something that will be 3D printed?
I am really new to 3D printing. I started with downloaded stuff about 2 months ago and now I am starting to do my own "easy" things.
While looking at tutorials I heard one of them talking about doing a chaffer of a specific size/height because he had a 0.40 mm Nozzle (the same as the one I have with an Anycubic Vyper). This got me thinking about if I should also take into consideration my Nozzle size for when I try to design something.
For example, should I think about multiples of 0.40 mm when deciding overall lengths or heights?
If I need to create space between 2 pieces, or joint pieces, should I always have to leave a multiple of 0.40 mm space between those pieces?
I have tried to find out info about this but I just found info about the importance of the Nozzle size at the time of print, but not at design time.
I am using Fusion 360 if that info is needed.
Nozzle size isn't what matters most time - Line width is
On many printers, it is actually common to print with a line width larger than the nozzle size. This is typical for many i3 style machines, such as Prusa I3 or Ender3. For a 0.4 mm nozzle on those two, the standard line width in Prusaslicer is set to 0.45 mm.
On Ultimaker Machines, the default in several slicers on the other hand is nozzle size to slightly lower (0.4 or 0.38 mm).
In any way, the factor you should remember here is the line width set in your slicer, which is dependent on the nozzle diameter. However, that is not the nozzle diameter itself.
When to use line width in designing
It is generally not advisable to design parts that are less than one wall thick. The slicer will usually drop those sections or, if not outright ignoring those sections, will result in considerable print artifacts. So, as a rule of thumb, the line width is the minimum thickness you should design for.
If you try to create sturdy walls, such as for containers, using an exact multiple of that line width is very common, which in turn creates very fast layers: two perimeters of 0.45 mm come out as a 0.9 mm wall, three to 1.35 mm, and so on. But that all depends on your line width.
When to ignore line width
If your item isn't structural in any way, forget anything about line width. Just design your aesthetic parts, and only in the end make sure that thin sections are at least one line width thick - by tossing your item into the slicer, check which sections are ignored, then thickening just those areas till you are happy with the approximation of the slicer.
You can go further than 110 %, see this answer and the discussion underneath.
@0scar indeed, but it's the bottom line^^
Not exactly, that is still with 0.45 mm lines. A 0.4 mm nozzle can do 0.8 mm lines easily. https://youtu.be/tJHnx89Fmi0?feature=shared Furthermore, Ultimaker has adopted a theory where the standard linewidth is smaller than the nozzle diameter. E.g. when using a 0.4 mm core the linewidth is set to 0.38 mm (this is standard set for you when you have an Ultimaker), so the nozzle diameter is not the minimum at which you can print.
It is not "common" to print with more than 110-115% of nozzle diameter. It is done, but for most users, which don't tweak anything, it's not common. Cura defaults to 100%, for example... (at least on UM2)
@FarO clarified - you should design for your machine's line width, not some arbitrary number in any way.
It would depend on what you are printing and the tolerances that you require.
For example, if you are producing engineering parts, and are a skilled designer, then you should take the nozzle size and layer height into consideration. Though the order of wall printing will probably be of more interest to you (If you print the inner walls first then the outer walls might bulge outwards slightly, and vice versa).
If you ware making garage kit style sculptures and busts, then you don't really need to think about the nozzle at all. Your slicing software will automatically adjust the print to fit what is possible and the slight differences won't make much of a difference.
If you're trying to print warhammer size figures, then yes you do need to take the nozzle width into consideration as it will effect the small details that you print. Which is why people mostly choose resin printers for this scale.
If you're only an average skill designer making items that don't require extremely delicate details or high tolerances for practical parts, then don't really need to even think about your nozzle.
I have an Ender 5 that's still using the 0.4 mm nozzle that it shipped with quite happily.
TLDR: If you're new to 3D printing and aren't trying to print Warhammer figures or engineering parts, you can largely forget about your nozzle. You won't notice the difference until you're much more skilled at modelling and are looking to do resin quality tollerances.
Thanks for your answer! I think I like the pain because my first ever "from zero to 3D print" thing was a 40mmx20mm case for an LD2410B sensor that fail on the joint because it merged :/
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21512 | Need help identifying cause of frequent Y layer shifts
I'm getting frequent layer shifts, always in the Y-axis. It's happening on more than one model, at least four to date, and on multiple attempts at the same models. Some of the models are mine (Tinkercad), some from Thingiverse. I can't think of any model that has not failed recently except some very small, simple ones.
The printer is a RepRapGuru I3 clone, from a kit, purchased, built, and put in service in Summer 2018. I've been using it almost daily since. It's gone through at least 50*1 kg spools of filament in that time so has seen a lot of use.
The printer has a single direct drive extruder, not Bowden. The frame is acrylic/plexiglass. The frame is solid, with no loose fasteners and no cracks that I can detect. There's no "soft foot".
If a model fails, it fails consistently on every attempt to print it. The layer shifts occur often, but not always, at exactly the same point in the print job. In those cases where I've witnessed the shift, there seems to always be a very rapid "jitterbug" motion going on, as in inter-wall infill or while laying down a long narrow section of the model or while building overhang. It happens sometimes, but not exclusively, on the first continuous layer of a "ceiling" above infill and often at or near a corner of the model. I don't believe I've seen it happen on the bottom few layers where the model has a solid "floor" nor during "steady steaming" printing of a large surface.
The magnitude of the shift varies but is typically roughly 5 mm, give or take. One, however, was about 30 mm. When it happens the sound suggests to me that the motor is slipping poles, not that the belt is slipping on the pulley, but that's only an impression. [NOTE: It's just occurred to me that I can put match marks on the belt and pulley. After a layer shift, if they're still aligned, I can pretty much rule out belt slippage. There's only a 1 in 20 chance they'd still be aligned after a shift. Will do that tonight.]
The failures I've seen do not occur at the beginning of a layer, i.e. during perimeter printing; they occur somewhere in the middle details of a layer.
The layer shifts began a few months ago. Prior to that, the machine had no chronic problems.
I few months ago (note the coincidence with the above paragraph) I rebuilt the printer with all new guide rods, linear bearings, belts, and pulleys, in stages over several weeks.
Before and after those updates, the Y carriage moved/moves smoothly and freely through its entire range with no tight spots.
Later still, I replaced the original quarter-inch acrylic Y carriage plate with a 3 mm thick (220 X 220 mm) aluminum one, with four linear bearings (new ones again) in new aluminum pillow blocks vice the original three bearings in split plastic pillow blocks on the original. I replaced the original heated bed with a new one that has, unlike the original, a 3 mm aluminum backing plate. The very wimpy original heat bed springs were replaced with new, stiffer ones.
The Y layer shifts started sometime shortly before or during the first series of updates. I'm certain the problem predates the heat bed and Y carriage replacement, but I've included that info above to communicate the current state of the machine.
I'm unsure whether this issue began before, during, or after the guide rod, bearing, belt, and pulley replacement, which were done in phases over several weeks. I can't definitely tie the issue to any particular phase of those upgrades. The layer shifts definitely began before the heat bed and Y carriage plate replacements.
Y belt tension is pretty normal, certainly not loose enough to cause it to jump teeth yet not overly tight. Tension is similar to that of the X belt, but that has a shorter span so maybe apples and oranges.
Speeds slow/fast Settings:
Print: 40/60 mm/s
Travel: 65/80 mm/s
First Layer: 30/30 mm/s
Outer Perimeter: 40/40 mm/s
Inner Perimeter: 40/40 mm/s
Infill: 40/40 mm/s
Skin Infill: 40/49 mm/s
The only changes to these speeds have been to reduce some of them since the layer shift problems began. None were particularly high to begin with except Travel/High was 150 mm/s vice the current 80 mm/s. Reducing them had no effect on the problem.
I typically run with retraction (2.5 mm; 40 mm/s) and Z-hop (0.5 mm) turned on.
The Marlin firmware on the 2560 main board has never been updated or modified in any way. I don't know the version but it's whatever RepRapGuru shipped with their kits in mid-2018. The shield board is RAMPS; I'm almost sure I remember "Version 1.4" on the box it came in within the kit.
I've never attempted to modify acceleration or jerk settings. They're as they've always been.
I use Repetier V2.3.2 software. I use the embedded "Cura Engine", which I believe is really an older Cura Steam Engine slicer, not the current Cura slicer. I have not tried other slicers.
The machine is controlled directly from a PC using the Repetier software and the embedded CuraEngine slicer; there is no SD card slot, digital display, or rotary encoder control. Gcode comes directly from the Repetier software on the PC to the printer via the USB connection.
Things I've tried:
I've used the "Cut off Bottom" feature of the slicer to print test versions of some of the problem models at partial height, beginning a few layers before the common failure points. The failures still occur mostly at the same point in the model, indicating height above the bed is not the determining factor.
Where I can identify a common failure point in a model, I've examined the G-code in the vicinity of the failure point of a couple of models and can't see anything anomalous. I should point out I'm not a G-code expert.
I sent the G-code output from my slicer for an object that is consistently failing with layer shifts, to a friend. He printed it on his machine without problems (different machine, but still Marlin/RAMPS). This seemed to absolve the slicer/G-code as the culprit.
I swapped the X and Y stepper motors. The layer shifts continued, still always in the Y-axis. Motor shafts were straight and undamaged, motor mounting screws were tight as found, bearings seemed OK, and pulley set screws were tight. This seemed to absolve the Y stepper motor.
I swapped the Y stepper driver board with the unused E1 stepper board. The layer shifts continued, still always in the Y-axis. This seemed to absolve the stepper driver. (The motor and driver swaps were performed independently, with a failed test after each. Motors and driver boards are the originals.)
I rechecked the stepper current limit settings on the driver boards and all were found OK. The largest discrepancy from the target setting (0.50 V) was 0.03 V.
I had installed "smoothers", i.e. Schottky diode boards, between the drivers and stepper motors on X and Y a few years ago and never had problems but also didn't note any improvement from them at the time. I removed them during these problems without affecting the layer shift issue. They remain out.
I put an 80 mm muffin fan on the bench, directed toward the stepper drivers. It had no effect on the layer shifts.
After match marking the Y motor pulley and belt, I ran another test print. I killed the print after a series of Y layer shifts totaling approximately 8 mm in the +Y direction. The belt/pulley match marks were still aligned. This indicates pole slip.
The slips I observed were occurring where the printer was beginning to build a small section of overhang, where a brief but rapid series of short moves were made. There was a definite, dull clunk each time the motor slipped.
I was monitoring the 2560 Vcc at the time and saw nothing unusual.
I don't know if this should be edited into the body above or in a comment here... If this is wrong, let me know and I'll move it. A Repetier Host Forum rep has suggested that the problem is crosstalk between Y endstop wires and other conductors. Apparently Marlin checks the Y endstop during moves. I've braided the three conductors to the Y endstop and encased the Y motor cable in grounded, braided copper sheathing. No change in behavior.
Thanks to some help from an expert this issue is resolved. The culprit was crosstalk between the X motor cable and the sense line of the Y endstop. Re-routing cables to separate the two has solved the problem.
Marlin monitors the endstop switches while printing unless inhibited by an option in the firmware; default is monitoring enabled. If a false low is detected during a move that move is stopped, resulting in a layer shift
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21567 | Why are my Cura generated thumbnails showing in one flat color without any depth?
I recently started using this Slicer Thumbnails plugin in OctoPrint and added the steps to my Cura 5.5 slicer. However, my thumbnails are in one color, like this:
And are not showing any depth as shown for example on the plugin page:
Am I missing something here or is there a better way to create and add beautiful thumbnails?
For reference, I used the model Female Scart Dust Cap for Male Scart Connector.
After a lot of trial and error I figured it out. I thought it was the result of having very small models but it turns out that simply changing the Filament Color in Cura Filament Profiles also translates to the Thumbnail color. Using a filament profile with the color black apparently doesn't show depth.
Below is the thumbnail using the original Cura Thumbnail Script and another Filament Color which resulted in the following transparent PNG Thumbnail:
Instead of the original script I also tried using the Cura script Cura JPEG Thumbnail creator as described at How to generate a gcode preview which resulted in the following JPG Thumbnail:
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21333 | Are there any 3D printer boards or expansions that support more than 3 thermistors?
A long time ago, I went through the experience of adding extra thermistors to my 3D printer board. Ultimately, I did get it to work, but it resulted in extra wiring and was not as clean as I would like.
I was wondering if there are any ready-made 3D printer boards that support adding extra thermistors. I need 5 thermistors for a large 3D printer with a long heated bed. I need the thermistors to measure the temperature of an extruder, the chamber (in 1-2 spots), and 2-3 spots along the bed.
Since I am looking for a new 3D printer board anyway, are there any boards that support adding extra thermistors using a premade PCB or that come with specific JST connectors for up to 5 thermistors?
Yes. Generally, it will be the boards with lots of steppers (or rather stepstick sockets) which also support lots of heaters/thermistors. For example the BTT Octopus Pro has 4 hotend heater ports, heated bed terminals with dedicated bed power supply, and 5 thermistor ports TB/T0/T1/T2/T3. I suspect other 8-stepper boards are similar, though I haven't checked.
If you'll be using Klipper, though, there's no need for lots of ports on the same board. You can use cheap RAMPS boards or old Creality boards or whatever and connect as many as you like to the Klipper host for it to control in sync.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:45.029315 | 2023-08-18T18:08:48 | {
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