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Monoprice Select Mini V2 retraction/stringing problem

The Monoprice Select Mini V2 uses a Bowden style extrusion system. Bowden extruders compress the filament in the tube where the gap between the filament and inner tube diameter allow for the filament to buckle slightly and compress causing a pressure build-up in the hotend. Without retraction this implies that the filament will start to ooze out of the hotend once you stop extruding. From your settings can be seen that you are using retraction. The question now arises whether you retract enough? Furthermore, this stringing can be reduced by setting the correct settings for e.g. print temperature, retraction, coasting, travel speed. It is up to you to find the correct settings; test print objects like calibration prints (like in the image you showed) help you with finding the correct settings. Apparently, the retraction you use still allows for some filament to ooze out of the hotend as shown in your image. This means that prior to the travel move there is still some pressure left in the hotend. A parameter that reduced the pressure prior to the travel movement is called "coasting"; basically you define to stop extruding while the head is still completing the printing moves prior to the travel move. It is advised to explore this setting. Other options to investigate further include lowering filament print temperature or increase travel movement.

Filament is not stuck

From the video it is very clear there is a major problem with bed adhesion. It also looks like you are printing on bare metal (aluminium?) which I never saw anybody doing. I must admit I don't know it is impossible or simply very rare, but the first thing I would try in your case is covering the bed in painter's tape and wipe it with some alcohol. This is a surefire method to get good adhesion with PLA, which - from the temperatures shown in the video I assume is what you are using. If you haven't tried this before, you should know that: some brands of tape work well even without being wiped with alcohol you may need to readjust your nozzle height after having applied the tape Unless you have already done this, I would also suggest to print some test cubes and possibly some stress tests as your first prints, in order to check that the basics (extrusion rate, dimensional accuracy...) are working correctly, as well as getting familiar with the limitats of your printer.

What glues to use for PETG?

From forum Bison plastic - works great for me, only it's not "quick dry" but it's very strong, not brittle, holds PETG and PLA very strongly. Buy paint stripper that is/contains methylene chloride (dichloromethane). It will solvent weld both PLA and PETG. Or see other forum which recommends Eastman-910 (original brand of cyanoacrylate) or any equivalent, polyurethane glue, or even epoxy.

Understand and developing firmware - IDE help

As far as I know, Marlin - assuming that is the firmware you are using - is a standard C++ (the big brother of C) project that can be opened and compiled in the Arduino IDE, but also - at least - edited lots of other IDEs. Depending on your OS, there are several alternatives. Visual Studio, Atmel Studio, Qt Creator, XCode, Eclipse, Visual Studio Code, Atom, Sublime Text and the Arduino IDE are just some of them. I also believe that this question should be moved to StackOverflow. However, if you have questions as to how you can make specific modification to Marlin, this forum is the right place to ask. If that is the case, consider reformulating your question!

Which material "creeps" (plastic deformation) the least (or nothing at all) under pressure after being printed?

Your question can not be answered theoretically -- only empirically. You need to print some trial brackets with materials of interest and measure them. The question is: under what conditions should you test them? The problem is that creep involves both compression and tension, and the behavior may be different. It is also impossible to fully translate material specifications into component behavior without a really good model that includes the details of the infill, adhesion to peripheries, and all the microscopic detail of a real 3D-printed part. The problem with typical PLA may be the low temperature. Raising the temperature of a normal PLA printed object to 160°F (70°C) softens it to the point of nearly being limp. I have used this for force-fitting PLA parts by warming a pot of water and placing parts in it for a few moments. That temperature is hotter than your room, but a hot summer day in the sunshine could soften the part to the point of failure. For anything load bearing, I would want a material with a higher plastic temperature. There are PLA formulations which are annealed after printing. This is claimed to allow the PLA to slowly recrystalize and become both stronger and usable at higher temperatures. I don't have experience with this. Depending on your printer, you can also consider using a higher temperature filament, such as ABS or PC (polycarbonate). PET-G is a little better than PLA, but it softens at a lower temperature than ABS. As important as the material itself is the anisotrophy of the printer parts. Be sure to print the parts so that the major stresses are along the strongest axes, typically X and Y, and not along the weaker Z asis. Choose your infill to contribute to the strength, and use plenty of it, or design the part so that the infill is not intended to contribute to the strength.

Bed Adhesion materials

I use a product called 3DLAC but I suppose it's regular hairspray. Makes my PLA stick to the heated bed like a charm. After cooling down the print can be removed from the bed with ease. Only today, after a few thousand prints the glass bed of my printer broke. But I suppose this is because we didn't have enough patience to let the bed cool down to room temperature before removing the printed piece.

Extending extruder heater and thermistor wires

Soldering is fine, both for the thermistor wires as for the heater. The wires don't need to be particularly special, though there are some things you should keep in mind: Current. The heater can draw up to 3-4A, the wires need to be able to handle this. The wires for the thermistor can be thinner. Flexibility. The hotend (presumably) moves, so the wires should be able to withstand frequent movement. Use stranded (rather than solid) wire.

How to prepare bed for printing ABS filament?

ABS can be a problem to print, but there are generally a couple well established methods to prepare your glass bed, which might be combined for best results: Heated bed. A heated bed is almost a must for ABS and would be set to about 75 to 90 °C for most printers. Often this can suffice on its own, but keep the bed running for the whole print! ABS-Slurry. One of the best functioning adhesive helpers is ABS-Slurry, which is made by mixing a little acetone with as much ABS filament as it will solve, then applying a thin layer of this compound to the glass bed right before the print. It will stink a lot, but it most certainly will offer one of the best adhesions you can get and might even prevent Warping due to the stronger bond to the bed. Rafts. You might want to add a raft of at least 2 layers under the print. The Raft can be removed in the end, but it increases the surface area and can often help to reduce the chance of warping. Now comes the good part: you just need to remove all the ABS residue and the bed is ready for the next preparation for any other material. This can be done with a scraper blade quite easily, maybe some Acetone and then alcohol if there are some really nasty bits.

Is B-REP a ready to print mesh

a) about Is B-REP a mesh that only represents a boundary [..] ? B-Rep contains more information, see here: There are two types of information in a B-rep: topological and geometric. Topological information provide the relationships among vertices, edges and faces similar to that used in a wireframe model. In addition to connectivity, topological information also include orientation of edges and faces. Geometric information are usually equations of the edges and faces. b) about and therefore ready to be printed it is need not only check that the model is correct (no lack of a face, no wrong face normals, ...) but also that is valid for a 3d printer (no "floating" parts, addition of supports, ...). Finally, recall the model is not what drives the printer, the printer is controlled by the machine instructions, usually gcode. Thus, the usual evolution is: parts description (.scad, ...), model format (.stl, ...) and machine instructions (.gcode).

Sizing belts and rods for a Cartesian printer

8 mm rods and 6 mm GT2 belts are generally accepted as a good tradeoff between price and performance, an exact calculation is possible but might not be very relevant if another part is flexing. Also, generally speaking, the smaller the part the sooner it will wear out of specification. Thus your service interval might be higher compared to an over-engineered printer. In short, it depends on what your goal is, if you desire low maintenance and accurate machine, you might be better off with heavier gauge parts. Obviously, this will also affect the speed of printing. A 6 mm GT2 belt might have a higher stretch factor compared to a 10 mm belt, but can be mitigated by adjusting the acceleration. In addition, a 10 mm belt has a larger pulley reducing the number of steps per mm, lowering precision. As such you might be better of using two 6 mm belts. Increased rod size for the print bed will not affect printing speed much but might help with accuracy since the bending modulus is lower. Play around with the calculators below to get an idea of the force your beam will have to withstand. That said, there are a lot of other factors that will flex under load, for example, the bed leveling springs. You can replace them with solid spacers, but that might warp the bed when it heats up. https://www.engineering.com/calculators/beams.htm https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/acceleration To conclude, I would use the calculators to figure out if the 8 mm rods are within tolerance for the intended speeds and load, but don't forget to look at the overall picture. The quality of parts you choose is one such thing.

Unidentified problem in printing

Okay so one problem at a time.. You have several issues. 1 You will likely note while it prints, the pillar will almost catch and sometimes twang as the layers get higher and higher. Issue here is you are over extruding a bit and the head is dragging on the print. Add some leverage and then you get this strange pattern. Letting it cool more between layers or by adding a fan will also help. A small pillar like this will not have much time to cool. Or it could be that your Z is not straight. Whats the name of this test? Right the Z resonance test. Check out your smooth rods and screws and see if they are perfect or not. 2 Hmm maybe some oozing / over extrusion. I mean it will never be perfect. 3 Looks good to me. You are printing PLA not ABS?. Looking at your temps and I hope you are doing ABS.. Which probably should bridge a bit better. That said even my highly calibrated machines would have a hard time with a bridge like that. I've been at this for years. Fan will help. Different material will help. I mean you are printing over air. That said 1-2 degrees will make a difference. Try slowing it down. Try lowering temp. Add that fan. Remember every spool will need a new perfect temp. Even a different color will need calibration as the pigments change the temperature profile. Last over all, simplify 3d seems to really help. I rarely spend time calibrating these days. Albeit they cost a lot. no affiliation. I also like this visual guide http://reprap.org/wiki/Print_Troubleshooting_Pictorial_Guide EDIT. I see you have added more photos! For the Z axis, I stick with my first assessment. Over-extrusion. Or it could just be getting too hot the higher you go. Maybe add a min time between layers option if your slicer supports it. Fan is good too. XY resonance.. Tricky tricky. My research shows this can be solved by using a different slicer program. You will have to research how to solve this with your preferred program. Maybe try to tighten belts, and tweek your oozebane settings. I would also play with acceleration and Jerk at the Firmware level.. Last one, Bridging. You have bigger issues than bridging. All that shows is you don't have temp dialed in 100% yet. 230 might be high.. 85 for PLA would be high as well.

Good Designing Software for cheap

Try Fusion 360. It's free for educators, students, enthusiasts and start-ups. It's not 100% intuitive, but once you learn the basics, it probably has all the facilities that you will ever need for mechanical design.

Thermoelectric cooler for part cooling fan?

On the printhead? TECs or Peltier Elements are incredibly inefficient compared to airstream coolers. Their only benefit is perfect temperature control, from which you will have nothing because there is no firmware that cares for the temperature of cooling air or the cooling body of a Hotend. Also, a TEC creates a lot of heat on its output side - which means you heat the air just millimeters away from where you want to cool the air! To get the heat produced by the TEC away, you either need a rather large cooling body - which is a lot of weight and space you need. As a result, you reduce the maximum print speed a lot. A water cooler isn't necessarily that much lighter, but it also gets us the trouble of having a highly conductive liquid right on the printhead. lighter alternative: compressed air You'd have much better efficiency by having compressed air decompress (as in: get out of a slim nozzle) slowly just a few millimeters in front of the air intake of your part cooling fan - expanding air cools down a lot, and running a compressor for a few moments takes less energy than running a Peltier element with the same temperature drop. In a pinch, a CO2 canister could provide the needed high pressure air, and a nozzle like you have it on an airbrush would work. Move it off the printhead? As the weight of the necessary secondary equipment is an issue, it might be better to move the Peltier element off the printhead. For example, by using a flexible hose that supplies the air to the cooling fan, and feeding that with precooled air - and now a Peltier element can shine: by having the weight be no longer a matter, we can use a rather large cooling body on the outside and cooling fins on the inside.

Are there many assembly type 3D printers?

Yes and no: Yes, there are machines, that assemble things from parts. For example, SMT placement equipment & pick-and-place-machines. Almost all electronics are made this way. In fact, a lot of items are made by using Pick-and-Place machines in the final assembly. On the other hand: No, there is no 3D-printer, that works by just being a P&P machine: it simply is not inside the specifications of additive manufacturing to be just an assembly machine. That is an assembly or pick and place machine, no matter if they call it printing. It is not. However, I have seen a recent makerfaire video and a talk that was showing a prototype of an E3D toolhead swapper, which - in its idea - would allow to combine a 3D printer with a P&P machine. Their idea is to fully automate the manufacturing process, including adding non-printed parts with grabbers or the like.

Selective laser melting and building near the road (vibrations)

That depends... Among the fact that can influence if vibrations could be the problem in this case, I see the following s is the most prominent: Powder grain diameter Powder composition Powder shape Aimed for resolution The grain diameter and composition are the more influencing factors: fine powders of low-density metals will be much more affected by vibrations and almost behave like dust or fluid under resonating vibrations. On the other hand varicose powders of high-density metals will more easily settle down and have much higher thresholds for how much vibration affects them. The shape mainly influences how particles coagulate: very coarse particles, think snowflakes, will interlock and bond to one another creating flakes of several powder particles. Vibration can influence the formation and compactness of such flakes and such influence the resolution. If you want to print very coarse with rough, large powders, vibrational mitigation might be not needed. But should you want to print pretty much in aluminium dust... you need to take it into account. Vibration mitigation If the Vibrations influence your prospect machine placement, you'll have to inquire about at your machine manufacturer, best with a seismometer measurement of the places where you want to build. By placing special fasteners and vibration dampeners (springs or rubber feet) in between the machine and the floor, anchoring it to a separate foundation that is not connected to the surrounding building, or even by having the machine float, vibrations can be mitigated. It's often much easier to install larger vibration mitigation equipment on lower floors and mounting it directly to the foundation of a building (ground floor and basement) is often preferred. In case of special projects, the local municipality might allow banning (heavy) road traffic or even pedestrians from areas that affect the manufacturing in such a way - the Cologne Opera is partially under a public space right next to the cathedral, and during events, pedestrians may not use a chunk of it. In my city, the use of one road with trucks is banned due to vibrations they can cause in a nearby old building.

Enclosure, things to pay attention to?

Sort of related, see the answers to: Commercially available 3D printer fume and UFP extractor, and; What are the best air filtration options for enclosures? Addressing your points in turn: Ventilation - Probably not, as you want to keep the print warm. However, when printing with filaments where well ventilated conditions are recommended1, to prevent the build up of noxious fumes, from ABS for example, you would need (active) filtration, see this answer. Filament Placement - I have seen printers fully enclosed, including the filament. However, there is the potential issue, especially if using PLA, that if the temperature inside the enclosure reaches temperatures approaching those of a closed car, on a hot day, then the PLA filament could become damaged/melt, and not roll of the spool correctly. In that case, you could place the reel on to of the enclosure and feed it through a (small) hole in the top. Feeding it through the side, could add additional resistance to it being pulled from the reel, depending upon placement. Noise cancellation - Line the enclosure with non-flammable foam, or some other non-flammable noise cancelling lining Material - As Mark states in his answer, be extra careful of thermal runaway, as 3D printers run hot, and an enclosed printer, even hotter. Wood is the sort of material you probably want to avoid. Whilst it is cheap, and would probably work fine in most situations, in the case of an emergency (read, fire), then you are merely providing additional combustable material. It would be advisable to stick with an aluminium frame (non-combustable) and glass (non-combustable and insulating). Additonal Points: Electronics - You may want to consider placing the electronics (i.e. controller board) outside the enclosure, as the RAMPS board generally likes to be kept as cool as possible (especially the stepper drivers). Display/Control - Along with the electronics, it could be a good idea to also place the LCD display, and conjoint control panel, outside the enclosure, so as to provide ease of access. You don't really want to have to keep removing/opening the enclosure to change a minor setting. Access - Do you want a lift-off type enclosure, or have an access door? The latter is certainly more user friendly, or convenient. Sturdiness - Do you want a light weight (flimsy?) enclosure, or a heavier, more robust, enclosure? Safety - An air-tight fire box could be worth considering. Note: After having stated that wood is not the best idea, it seems that IKEA tables are sometimes used, by stacking two on top of each other: New IKEA hack lets you create a 3D printer enclosure for cheap A safer bet is this delta printer enclosure, which is, essentially, a larger delta frame, made from aluminium extrusion and acrylic, enclosing a smaller delta printer: 4 Simple Steps to Build Your Own 3D Printer Enclosure For an example of a cheap, yet extremely flammable enclosure, made from plastic sheeting and piping, see How to build an enclosure for your 3D printer 1 See Davo's comment.

Gaps in Cura's Slicing for Monoprice Select Mini V2

If you enable the option "Coasting", the extruder will follow the extrusion path at the end of switching to the next layer or the next section, but will not deposit any material as it uses the build up pressure in the nozzle to deposit the final bits. This shows up in your G-code representation by empty (non-depositing) gaps (in reality, when fine-tuned correctly, will be filled). E.g. sliced without "Coasting" enabled: E.g. sliced with "Coasting" enabled:

How to attach insulation to Hot End

Kapton tape would be the logical material. It's unfortunate that your vendor did not supply that as a separate item, rather than sticking it to the "cotton" (I'm guessing not actually cotton, as things might get a bit scorching for cotton, so I'm assuming some type of ceramic fiber or the like.)

Gobs of filament during initial movement of extruder

The G-code you posted indeed extrudes a blob of filament at the origin (6 mm). During this extrusion pressure is build up in the nozzle/heatbreak, if you command a move after this prime blob, the nozzle will leak filament releasing the leftover back pressure, it is normal to include a retraction before moving to the start of the print, e.g.: ; problematic! G1 F200 E6 ; extrude 6 mm of filament G92 E0 G1 F1500 E-1 ... ; End of start G-code, move to skirt/brim etc. An example Cura start G-code could look like: G21 ;metric values G90 ;absolute positioning M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode G28 ; Auto Home All AXIS M117 Heating bed 1st... M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} M117 Heating core 1st... M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} M117 Priming... G1 X0 Y0 F2500 G1 Z2 G92 E0 G1 E15 F250 G1 Z4.0 F500 G92 E0 M117 Wiping... G1 Y5 Z4.0 F500 G1 Y10 Z0.2 G1 Y15 Z0.2 F500 G92 E0 G1 F200 G1 E-3 M117 Printing...

How to print a 6" wheel in ABS?

If you can, set your slicer to do honeycomb fill. Depending on the weight requirement choose maybe 10% - 20% fill. That ought to do the trick. It won't be solid, but it should be strong enough. What are you going to put on the platform?

Why is a heated bed important?

I'll try to give it a shot as the other answer (perfectly sound answer b.t.w.) does explain "how" we use heated beds, but not "why" they are actually needed for good prints. Plastics or polymers are mostly amorphous (no macro crystalline structure) and usually relatively hard and brittle at low temperatures (this is referred to as "glassy"). By increasing the temperature of the plastics the state of the material changes as it becomes soft and more ductile (called the viscous or rubbery state). The temperature at which this transition takes place is called the "glass transition temperature". It is this temperature where you would heat your bed too (or close to this temperature). Below the glass temperature, the expansion is reduced/low because the polymer chains cannot move easily due to the closer packing and stronger inter-molecular forces; increasing the temperature increases the expansion lowering inter-molecular forces. The difference in stress between the bed and your print is therefore reduced (as of the expansion of the heated polymer). This explains why we use heated bed to get the prints to stick to the bed. To answer your question why it helps in removing prints is that when the temperature is lowered, the polymer gets back into its "glassy" state, shrinks a bit and automatically loosens the print from the bed. Indeed for printing PLA you can print without a heated bed, but for materials with a higher glass transition temperature and higher printing temperature it's almost a must to have. Downsides of heated beds are that they require a lot of power and when improperly installed lead to burned wires and connectors. It's usually wise to strain relief the wires from the bed and use proper gauge silicone leads and connectors.

Will a glass bed warp as it is heated?

TL;DR Yes, glass warps when hot. Use a physical touch sensor and calibrate it out, or swap glass if it's "bad". The further you go into mechanical studies like 3d printing, mills, and lathes, you will find out that nothing is perfectly flat. Everything has a tolerance to it, whether the manufacturer provided it or not. Better manufacturers provide the tolerance data. As you have or will find out, yes, glass does warp when heated. That is because you are not warming the glass evenly. When hot and cold spots form in glass, the glass tends to warp up or down, depending how the heat travels. It's common for 0.01 mm warp when a glass bed is brought to printing temps (60-100 °C). If one has a larger format bed, like my Vulcanus at 500x500, 0.03 mm changes are possible. One can remediate this warping, as it usually appears in the same place during the heat cycle. So if you calibrate after the bed is heated, you should reduce said errors. Another more comprehensive way to fix this, is with a physical touch sensor and create a grid map of the bed geometry.

Can I print my own Lego bricks?

The patents that cover Lego bricks have expired, so you are free to print bricks using the same interlocking system. You are even allowed to offer such prints commercially. What is not allowed (and a violation of trademark law) is to call them "Lego bricks" or use Lego's logo. "Compatible with Lego" on the other hand, would be fine.

Can a 3D model of a copyrighted work be rendered legally without infringement?

First, copyright laws are complex and depend heavily on the specific details. IMO, your question is really too broad to answer. An interesting example of how details and interpretation affect whether something is a violation or not is Kienitz v Sconnie Nation. In this case a copyrighted photo was clearly copied, modified, and used to make a t-shirt that was sold; but, it was not deemed a copyright violation. On the surface it seems like a violation; but, the court ruled it was not a copyright violation because of the specific details of the case. Using something as a starting point for a unique creative work that is clearly your own creation is not copying. I am sure you can tell the difference. Second, in your description you mention "Free Use". If the owner has granted "Free Use" of their product; but, they are still wanting to declare the item copyrighted, I would hope that they have granted that "Free Use" under a defined agreement. In that case, it would seem likely that the creator may just be trying to protect his design from being plagiarized and/or sold/used in a way that is against his intent. If you have a way to contact the owner, why not just contact them and ask their permission for what you want to do. If they have put it out for public use, they would probably be excited to have other people see their creation. Just make sure they gets the credit for the design. If it is a creation they are intending to protect (like Disney does with Mickey Mouse); then, the answer will be an unequivocal no. Note that one weird exception is that Disney has granted use rights for Donald Duck to the University of Oregon "Ducks". Finally, you state that that your intent is "for no purpose of using, distributing, creating, mixing, ..." and you list almost every way of making it public. If your intent is for what you make/copy to never make it into the public domain; then, how will your question ever be anything other than hypothetical? I know that there is presently no "private use" exclusion for copyrighted material. It isn't legal to copy someone's DVD for you to watch privately; but, in reality, no one gets prosecuted for a single private instance. It is abuse that gets prosecuted. In what you intend, it would seem that you be best suited to seek out first what would be the "right" thing to do rather than just focusing on what would be "legal". If you are concerned what you want to do may be wrong and/or illegal, it is probably best to not do it.

Are there any methods of limiting exposure of hazardous fumes and odors emitted by heating the plastics?

Using negative pressure ventilation and a suitable organic filter will limit your exposure to toxic compounds, but won't completely remove them from your environment. Enclose your printer in as air-tight a box as you can manage, then use a fan to suck air out of the box. This negative pressure will ensure that any leaks in the box will not allow gasses to escape. The air should be blown through an organic filter. This might be done with face mask filters for painting, for instance. Additional filtering may be done depending on the compounds you expect the printer to produce, but the ideal situation is to set up a ventilation system to the outdoors where the products cannot concentrate and harm anyone. Another poorer option is to simply wear a proper organic filter mask yourself. It's not as good, since the compounds can spread through your residence or remain in the air and be inhaled when you aren't printing.

Micro 3D filament food safe

In general, PLA is known as a "food safe" filament, especially Natural PLA. However, filament suppliers have different processes that may detriment the food safe quality. Doing a little digging, I found an article on the M3D site which mentions the following about their filament All of our products, including our filaments are made from 100% non-toxic components and considered generally safe under normal use. They are not considered a chemical, or a hazardous material by OSHA standards. Therefore, OSHA defines it as an "article" and does not require MSDS sheets. You can see more information about that here: http://www.ilpi.com/msds/faq/partb.html#article So, without contacting M3D directly to acquire an MSDS (or asking if its food safe), you will not find one online. Here is an article on a few tips for printing food safe objects as well. In a nut shell, don't 3D print food handling objects with crevasses, using uranium, or intend to put in the oven (a.k.a common sense).

Nozzle always "randomly" moves to 0 during print, then resumes

I see two problems in your video: It looks like the first layer is built too much upwards. (The level calibration should be so that a Z-height of 0 can barely fit a sheet of paper under the nozzle. ) Your printer is not extruding at all. As you said, the extrusion has some problems. Extrusion problems will cause adhesion problems too.

Paper as build surface - how will that work?

Blue masking tape is a common bed surface, especially for unheated beds. It is effectively an adhesive applied to a paper, although I suspect the paper is treated in some manner to serve as a barrier to paint, as the blue tape is sold as paint masking tape. A sheet of ordinary paper isn't likely to catch fire, as the bed temperature will not reach combustion temperature for paper (more than 230 °C), but you still have to have the means of providing adhesion of the paper to the bed. A thick enough weight of paper may provide sufficient rigidity to provide for a stable print surface, if the perimeter is well secured and uniformly (smoothly) attached. You'll have to experiment with various types of paper surfaces as well, as some may be treated (calendared) during manufacturing, which could affect the results. Blue tape is your best bet if you want disposable. Also if you use care in removal, it is not a single use bed covering.

Subdivision surface for STL files

Subdividing an existing mesh further won't do anything because you're not adding additional detail, just representing the same thing with more triangles. Subdividing as "preparation" doesn't make much sense. You should make sure the mesh is created with sufficient detail while modelling. A mesh created for 3d printing should generally have a lot more triangles than one created for use in rendering, but within reason. It doesn't make sense to make the mesh (much) more detailed than the printer can print, and similarly having lots of triangles can make the slicer slow or unreliable. As a very rough guideline, I would say that 10.000-100.000 triangles per model is reasonable (but this obviously depends on the size and level of detail). Some slicers may output G-code that will have segments corresponding to each and every triangle in the model, even if these segments are very tiny. This may cause the printer to slow down a lot while printing, but most slicers take care of this by merging small segments into larger ones. Depending on your slicer, you might have to watch out for not having the triangles be so tiny that the number of segments created becomes a problem.

Is 3D printing really just 2D printing? Because only 2 motors move per layer

I was wondering the other day why don't all three motors move at the same time? That is perfectly possible for most printers (with limitations, "3D Printing" with all steppers being used is called "non-planar" printing), but there are some major cons you need to deal with. First, there are not that many software suites that slice objects perfectly well like the "normal" per "fixed/variable layer height" slicing as the slicers are under developed. Second, it requires a specific tall and slender nozzle/print head, else the height of printing is very limited. Last, besides generally not being useful for rectangular prints (except for 90° overhanging structures1)), this method is only/best suitable for curved objects as the top layer will follow the contours of the object. It makes sense if a 3D printer really does print with all three motors moving. No, it does not make sense, the essentials of 3D printing it that it produces a 3D object, not that all stepper motors should be running simultaneously. Won't it also be more efficient if they do 3D print in all axes? Not necessarily, there are limitations to non-planar printing like geometry and print quality, but, you could (in some cases) print with less support material. 1) : From Rene K. Mueller, published March 3, 2021, https://xyzdims.com: Note that these are demonstration pieces, normally you would rotate the print for 90° and print it sliced normal (planar).

How do the MAX endstops work?

You should see MAX endstops similarly as MIN endstops, or as an additional option to protect the printer: Similarly seen as MIN endstops, you would define in the firmware that you are using them to set a reference point at maximum values, your offsets and bed dimensions would be calculated from the MAX positions; You can configure the MIN endstops and have additional MAX endstops set beyond the bed size dimensions. If the printer would encounter a layer shift causing the nozzle to go beyond the printer (MAX) boundaries, the printer shuts down when the MAX endstop is triggered.

Heatbed PID vs Bang-Bang - which one is more stressing on components?

The frequency of the cycle shouldn't affect the efficiency as such, however more might be lost due to physical properties. Fast should cause less stress on the printed part, unless it hits a resonance frequency, which it unlikely.

Problems with noise, heat bed temperature and no X / Y endstop sensor on Makerbot Replicator 2X

First, your Y-belt is way too loose! (seen at the beginning of the first video). It is so loose the idlers barely grip onto it! Second, the X-endstop metal pin is loose, seen at 1:22 of the first video. Could be that the endstop is not working. Maybe you can hook up your printer to USB, you can then send direct commands to the printer, e.g. M119 will report the status of the endstops. Sending this code multiple times will alternatively pressing the endstops manually you can find out if they work. From the second video can be seen that the nozzle to bed distance it too large, and if fixed and still not adhering you need to apply an adhesive (hairspray/glue stick/or 3D print adhesion spray). This printer is in need of some serious maintenance! Depending on your technical skills this may be a challenge!

3D printer manufacturers - sales statistics

Getting this data is not easy. Many companies that make 3D printers are either private companies that do not report results or are larger companies where 3D printers are one of many products they manufacture. Some companies study this information through mining public sources and surveying users for their opinions and experience. The result of some of these studies are available for a fee. Occasionally, a trade publication will survey data sources and produce an article. In other cases, a trade pub will publish an article generously offered by a commercial contributor. It is always difficult to know what is true when abstracting information from obscured, noisy, and biased information sources. Your question itself includes a bias. You use a words that include a value judgement: "but that likely doesn't translate to sales, at least for the more overpriced ones." The article you reference is not a deeply researched investigative piece. It is simply some product details for the five printers in 2016 which sold the most on Amazon.com. It doesn't include printers which were not sold on Amazon, so it leaves out any printers which use a different distribution channel. Also, the article include an link, probably which generate revenue back to the magazine, to each of the five printers sold through Amazon. To summarize, it is very difficult to aggregate this kind of information. Those who try to do so like to be compensated. A list of the top five devices on Amazon is a biased list.

Acetone making white stains on heat bed

Acetone is quite an aggressive solvent, so white residue could be part of your heatbed print surface that is dissolved, and then when the acetone evaporates the dissolved part crystalise on the heatbed again. Acetone should only be used on PEI sparingly, not at all on powder coated surfaces. Use IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) to clean of residue between prints. If you have problems with adhesion, you can also start by washing the build plate or surface with water and dish soap (with no other additives). The surfactant in the soap traps oils and other impurities and flush them away, instead of dissolving them temporarily and then depositing it on the build surface again when the solvent evaporates. Like mentioned in other comments, use IPA or water/dish soap to clean off any residue.

FlashPrint visual glitch on Linux (Debian testing)

In addition to open source niceties of OpenGL, you need to will often need to install and update the drivers for your GPU. If you do not wish to or cannot utilize your GPU (it'll cost u in performance), look for options to turn off hardware acceleration or use a purely "software renderer" type setting. I don't know if FlashPrint has such settings, but i do know that OpenGL can do some screwy stuff if you lack correct Nvidia drivers (and have an nvidia gpu).

Extruder clicking issue with MKS Board v1.5

There is one reason why extruders "click": the material can't be melted and advanced fast enough. There are two likely reasons why your extruder works when used manually, but not during a print: 1. The temperature is not hot enough for the speed (volume per second) demanded by the print. Have you verified that you're using the proper temperature, and that the head is reaching the proper temperature? 2. There is too much resistance on the delivery. Have you verified that the Z positioning is not too close, causing back pressure and interfering with the deposition?

Proper hotend heater for Reprap x400 Pro V3

The part causing the hot point failure was the connector for the heater and sensor. The connector showed no sign of burns on the heater pins, but the square tubes (see attached image) accommodating pins from the other connector had started to straighten out toward its original sheet metal state due to heating from current. Bending the tubes back in place allowed the connector to work temporarily and confirmed the failure cause. Details: After getting a 12 V 30 W heater, it also didn’t work. The hot point had stopped working because a wire brush had shorted across the heater terminals. Because a spare hot point worked, the failure wasn’t in the circuitry. The spare was a 12 V 30 W heater (from resistance measurements), while the heater on the failing hot point was a 12 V 40 W heater (from resistance measurements). This made me suspect that the heater resistance had shifted, and the circuitry shut off the heater. However, apparently both 12 V 30 W and 12 V 40 W heaters work on RepRap x400 V3. The brief short caused the bent sheet metal of the connector to start straightening back out of the bend.

Dramatic failure of calibration print

The failure you are faicing is underextrusion. Underextrusion can have several reasons. Among the three most common I encountered in my printers: The nozzle could be clogged, hindering flow (Very crushy, squishy prints after it worked fine before) Dissemble the filament path till you can push an acupuncture needle through the hotend, heat it, press out all filament, reassemble. The extruder might be skipping steps or shredding filament check if it is just not gripping the filament, not turning at all or clicking. real Troubleshooting might be needed The g-code might have a bad setup for the filament you are using - try upping the higher extrusion multiplier/flow rate and print at least 2 walls! In Ultimaker Cura: Custom > Material > Flow If not there yet: Gear > Material > hook Flow

Proper wire gauges for extending all CR-10S wires

If my calculations are correct, a typical ceramic heating element for the extruder heating block runs 40 W. At 12 V dc, that equates to 3.33 A. A 24 awg wire is rated for 3.5 A, which means it barely covers the draw from the heater. A high torque Nema 17 motor will draw 2 A (which is probably heavier than most standard stepper motors in most 3D printing applications). Seeing as how the 18 awg wire is rated to 9.5 A, you should have no issue extending your wires using this gauge of wire for all of the extensions.

3D printing template material

Wash-away filament used for support in PLA printing is typically PVA, which is completely water soluble and may serve your purpose. It is easily 3D printed as the primary filament and attaches well to the build plate. Many 3D printer filament suppliers will carry this type of support material. It is important to keep it in a sealed bag with desiccant as it will absorb moisture from the air, rendering it useless for printing. One such resource is MatterHackers which prices a half-kilogram at US$45. The link provides suitably appropriate information: PVA (Polyvinyl Alcohol) is a water-soluble material that is often used as a support material, but can also be used to print independently. PVA supports are useful for complex designs where removing support material manually is difficult or impossible, but leaving the part in a water bath overnight will completely dissolve this material.

Warping of bottom of print

The first thing to understand is what causes warping. Warping is caused by the thermal contraction of the plastic when it cools down. Simplifying things a fair bit, you can visualise the process like this: hot, expanded plastic gets deposited on cooler, shrunk layers, when the hot plastic cools down, it shrinks and pulls the upper part of the layer below inwards at this point, the layer below has a differential in the compression between its upper and lower parts, and curls up the problem is exacerbated at the very first layer (the one touching the bed) as this is "locked" to a rigid body (the bed) and cannot shrink, while subsequent layers are only attached to the somewhat flexible plastic beneath, and thus can contract. Also notice that the larger the part being printed, the stronger is the force trying to curl-up your print. Once one understands all of this, then it is possible to appreciate the many ways the problem can be mitigated. Here are the common ones: USING A MATERIAL WITH LOW SHRINKAGE COEFFICIENT This translates in smaller tensions and thus less force "pulling up" the corners of your print. Historically, 3D printing started with ABS because this material was one of the very few, relatively safe ones to source. Nowadays there are materials like PETG which have similar mechanical properties to ABS but are much easier and forgiving to print with, so - unless you need ABS for some very specific reason (e.g.: acetone smoothing) consider never printing with it. DECREASING THE THERMAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MOLTEN AND SOLID STATE Concretely, this means lowering the "gap" between the ~200°C of the nozzle and the ~20°C of room temperature by using a heated bed and - possibly - an enclosure. The heated bed not only drastically diminish the shrinkage of the first layer, but because heat radiates, and hot air goes upwards, the entire bottom of the print has shrinkage mitigated. An enclosure just increase the benefit of the heating bed, by reflecting IR radiation back towards the print and preventing hot air to escape. A heated enclosure just improve things even further. Some slicers offer a "shroud" option, that encloses the entire print in an enclosed, sacrificial structure, that tries to emulate the benefits of a proper printer enclosure. INCREASING ADHESION WITH THE PRINTING BED That is the "brutal force" approach: if you face a strong "curl up" force, oppose it with a strong "anchor down" one. The increase in adhesion can be achieved in a number of ways: Lower print speed (more time for the molten plastic to "bond") Overextrusion (more pressure, more material) Disabling cooling fan (more progressive cooling, more time to "bond") Using a brim (more contact surface between print and bed) Using "ad hoc" material on the bed (PVA glue for PLA, ABS sludge for ABS, kapton tape, hair spray, blue tape, etc...) REDUCING THE CURL-UP FORCE This is typically achieved during design. Designing is a vast field and it would be impossible to cover all the possible mitigating strategies one could use, but here are some of the most common ones: Prefer assembling smaller parts over printing huge ones. This is self explanatory really, as the curling force increases with the amount of material "pulling", the least material one has, the less force one gets. Make relief holes above the first layers in long structures. This will essentially "break" the build-up of tension in the layer, creating many points with a little "curling up force" rather than two with a huge one. Something along the lines of this, for example: Avoid extensive overhangs close to the bottom of the print (this is because otherwise you will have considerably more material "pulling up" than you will have "anchoring down". Here is an example of what not to do (to be fair: this was specifically taken from a bed adhesion/warping test). Of course all of the above strategies can/should be combined, when possible. Even if not warped, a part with a lot of internal tension will perform less predictably and possibly worse than a part where such tensions are lower.

Why do 3D Printers Suck? Please share your user experience

First, regarding "Why do 3D Printers Suck?" - The answer is They Don't! Every tool has its limitations and you need to work withing the limitations of the tool. Second, there are A LOT of different types/technologies, manufacturers, and price points and all of these have specific limitations. I live in Tigard, OR and both my boys are in High School. Our High School has a pretty advanced Technologies Department. We have had a 3D printer for a several years and use it for printing parts for our after school programs (we have three FTC teams, one FRC team, and one (underwater) MATE team). This last year the school introduced a CAD class and added about 15-20 new Afina printers so that the students can print what they design. I talked to my sons (they have both used the printers) and they said the only problems they ran into were mistakes they made. Two examples of that are: Printing with ABS and having it warp (probably bed temp) Trying to print a design with too thin a wall I think there is a BIG opportunity for improvement here. Having a "Slicing" program that doesn't require tweaking and would warn of likely print problems would help A LOT. I like the idea of the new PrusaControl. If this idea could be extended further as Thomas Sanladerer suggested in his video review I know the Head of Technologies Department (I help mentor several of the after school programs). He has been responsible for getting printers and I recall he was concerned about more high-level things: Service, Maintenance and Repair Fumes (this is a lot of printers in one place with students in the same room) Network interface and driver compatibility with school computer/network standards. I believe there is another opportunity here. If you could provide some sort of a "printer farm" where the students could send their print to the "farm" and then have a highly visible indicator on the selected printer would their name/ID when their print starts. That way you can get more efficient use of the printers and the space they consume.

Printing shells and pouring filler

I've looked into doing something similar to this before and love the idea, never had the chance to follow through on it yet. This is sort of a hybrid method between cast molding and 3D printing. The accepted answer to a question I had a while back had some very good points by fred_dot_u Post processing FDM for strengrh Short version, Epoxy is a good option but you may have to consider heat generated from it. Urethane is another really good option (cast urethane is a pretty standard process). Chem-Eng isn't my area of expertise but there is a huge range of material options out there that can be mixed as two parts. I think there are enough options out there right now that you can choose your material properties you need and then select the material from there. You could also consider going the chopped-fiber composite route. (carbon, glass, etc) and then combine with whatever the appropriate resin is for those materials. I see the most difficult part of this is getting the shells to print properly. When I had looked into doing this, I considered modeling my part then hollowing it out completely. Then going back into the hollow part and designing in minimal internal structures for the purpose of supporting the thin-walled shell model. Printing that, and then drilling and filling the part after the fact. This approach I see as being a good option however the location of the drill points would be critical otherwise you could get voids as your fill material is injected in. And, the additional modeling time wouldn't be insignificant, however the saving I expected would come from having a ridiculously strong part, with complex geometry and be significantly cheaper than even a cast-urethane part. If you get some good results, please post a link to them! This is a huge interest of mine!

G-code (M-code?) for Get Bed Temperature

M105 should give you the bed temperature. For future reference you can find a general list of G/M codes here - RepRap Wiki - G-code. Most firmware files include a list, Marlin has it in Marlin_main. I have no idea how often the list is updated but they don't change often.

How to avoid nozzle from hitting the model?

It seems the problem was because of Z-axis leveling (level of the X-axis), I found out that the right side was more than 3-4 mm below the left side when the Z-axis height exceeds around 8-10 cm. Below 8-10 cm, the two sides were even. I calibrated the X-axis by turning the eccentric nuts of the wheels and tighten them. I will try printing soon with some test objects.

Increase hotend temperature on Monoprice Ultimate 2

Ok, first of all you need to understand why the limit is given at 250 °C: that's when the hotend design chosen by the Monoprice starts to destroy its PETG liner. To print hotter, you'd need an unlined hotend, which means you'd need a proper all metal hotend. A proper all metal hodend is a tradeoff, not an upgrade: you sacrifice some ease of printing and risk some clogs in the lower temperature band for being able to print higher temperatures. When you want to buy an e3D hotend, you should go for a genuine one, as many clones are actually not all metal. Also note, that there are other all-metal hotends around. If you get an e3D v6, you should make sure to buy the right variant for your machine! Monoprice tells us, that this is a 24 V Machine, so you'll need to get the 24 V Variant! As you also will swap the temperature sensor, you might need to update your firmware according to the e3D installation manual. Since a genuine hotend comes with all the cabling and a new thermosensor, you'll need to rewire the whole machine - and you might need to make new fittings before installing. The standard e3D Thermistor that comes with the hotend is good up to 285 °C, which will be your new ceiling temperature. Take careful note of these two parts that appear in the before assembly notes section of the manual: The standard V6 is capable of printing up to 285°C, do not exceed these temperatures unless you have replaced the Thermistor cartridge with a PT100, the Aluminium heater block with a Plated copper heater block, and the Brass nozzle for a Plated copper, Hardened steel or Nozzle X. Firmware modification is not optional it is a mandatory step.

When to use an anti-backlash bolt for a Z drive gear?

First of all, let's look at the geometry: We have a static XY and changing Z on our build plate. This mitigates several problems we might have faced in a different setup, mainly that our lead screw has loads changing from one face to the other: all loads always go into $-Z$, so the lower surface of the Trapezoidal threads in the brass nut of the bed carrier and the upper surface of the screw will always rub against each other. However, let's talk about your lead. Tr8x8(p2) is not a Metric ISO-Trapezoidal pattern that is commonly recognized - the only 8 mm diameter one in that standard is Tr8x1.5, very flat and very well suited for putting high loads onto it because there are several engagement surfaces in the nut and a low pitch angle - the thread only has about a 5° (+-1°)to the horizontal. Assuming a 15 mm nut, that's 10 times the projected engagement surface for a total area of about 214 mm². A Tr8x8 is a very common oddball as in, it's not in the metric tables but available everywhere. It is considerably steeper, and with a 16 mm nut (for easier calculation) would result in 2 times the projected surfaceof a single engagement per thread. But that's only a projected area of 42.8 mm² per thread - about 1/5th of the Tr8x1.5, which correlates directly into that much less friction, because the friction is linear with the surface, which is linear to the length of the nut. Taking an "intermediary" TR8x4 gets us about 1/2.5th of the Tr8.1.5's holding power per thread at the cost of half of the speed. From a physical standpoint, I'd take this one, also increasing the precision of the Z-movement by a factor of 2 in comparison to the Tr8x8. Tradeoffs Generally speaking, we have a tradeoff here: Pitch is proportional to the movement speed double the pitch and you move twice as fast Pitch is anti-proportional to holding power/torque and Z-position accuracy half the pitch gives twice the torque and the Z-position error is in average reduced by half holding power is proportional to the diameter of the rod and the number of threads engaging with the nut Z-position accuracy is anti-proportional to the effective step-size of the motor Z-position accuracy can be increased by using a reduction gearset: a 2:1 reduction gear halves the step-size and doubles the torque at the price of halving the movement speed. However, it can and will introduce slop and backlash. Due to the geometry, the slop in the nut should not be an issue, as the relevant engagement surfaces never change. Further, the heavier the bed, the fewer problems you'll have with fast movements, as gravity will prevent the bed from going "airborne" at the end of travel towards the printhead. Travel away from the printhead, as it will do during printing, should never experience such.

Can the filament tube be outside of the nozzle?

Let me clean up a little nomenclature The PTFE tube is either a Bowden Style Setup delivering the filament from the extruder down through the cool-end and to the heatbreak or just a liner in the cool-end and heatbreak for direct drive. In both cases they are to prevent clogs. In most setups it is not pushed into the nozzle which is in the heater block (they exist, see below). The liner/Bowden tube guides the filament through the heatsink and into the proper Hotend/Meltzone. In the better designs intended for higher temperature like ABS (see left half), it ends in the heatbreak. This also has the added benefit of having less chance to leak if the tube slips a little bit. Simple setups (see right half) butt it against the nozzle and thus limit the temperature range. This kind of butted setup can lead to leakage if the tube slips up. In either case, it is no problem to reuse the PTFE tube when changing nozzles, it is even advisable in the case of a Bowden setup as it might change the length of the path. The nozzle is usually screwed into the heater block from below, and for best use, one screws it against the heatbreak in a heated state - this is called hot-tightening. If you somehow end up destroying your PTFE Tube, you can get them under the keyword PTFE tube, Bowden tube or Pneumatic PTFE tube on the internet. PTFE inside the nozzle? Yes, these exist, OP has them, they look like this, and are not what has become the industry standard. I can think of no good reason to put an PTFE Sleeve into the nozzle, but someone did it, and it sis a valid approach. However, I see several problems with it: the PTFE tube degrades if pushed deep into the melt zone and can lead to clogs. the added PTFE is not a very good at transmitting heat, thus reducing the effectiveness of the melt zone. This can lead to needing either much lower printing speeds or a much higher printing temperature to achieve good prints It should be of no issue to convert from this style into the butted-style (right) just by using a short length of PTFE in the heatbreak. I would prefer though to combine it with a heatbreak where the PTFE ends and making this what is commonly referred to as an "all metal hotend" (left).

Is there any way to shrink 3 mm filaments down to 2.85 mm?

I would not recommend you to try and somehow re-size the filament, since even the smallest of irregularities and error in diameter occurring from such a process would ruin your prints with sporadic over and under extrusion. Rather, if you have the tools available, you could grind the filament into pellets, and use a filament extruder to make it anew with your desired diameter. Alternatively, depending on your printer setup, you might very well extrude true 3.00 filament with your 2.85 mm filament printer. If you try to do that, make sure to: Adjust filament diameter in your slicer Check that your filament isn't getting squashed by the extruder wheel Check that all mechanical parts actually can pass through your filament freely I do not own a 2.85 mm printer myself, and therefore have not tried this procedure. There are, however, several people who seem to have done this successfully.

What causes my Bowden tube to melt on the side?

If the tube is PTFE, the tube is not likely to be melting unless your hotend temperature is out of control. You would probably notice the PLA cooking. So, perhaps they aren't PTFE, or perhaps it is wear. If it wasn't PTFE, you should be able to tell by the texture, slipperiness, and bending force. The four thinned faces look like they would correspond to four of the barbs in the connector. The thinned ring below the four thinned faces look like a wear line where the tube is pressing against the exit of the connector. It looks to me as if the tube is moving or flexing in the connector. The barbs act as little chisels cutting into the tube, which is how they restrain such a slippery material as PTFE. It might work better if the tube were a little longer. This might reduce the forces at the limits of movement which may be placing strain on the tubes. If you can, you might also fashion a strain relief for the tube so that it doesn't bend right as it exist from the connector. If you can cut down on the movement, you will help with the external wear. It is also possible that the tubes are being strained by a high filament pressure. All the drive to push filament into the hot end is matched by an equivalent reverse pressure from the tube onto the connector. If you can stand a higher print temperature, the life of the tube may be increased. @towe added a comment: I don't think those are marks from the teeth of the pneumatic coupler. The questions states "where it pushes against the nozzle", and the Ender 3 Pro seems to have a hot-end where the Bowden tube reaches all the way through the cold end and heat break to the nozzle. A mechanical drawing of what may be a MK-10 hot-end as used on the Ender 3 Pro also suggests that the Ender 3 Pro has a PTFE lined hot end. Lets accept that drawing as confirming that @towe is right. Never-the-less, the marks you show in the photo look like the types of cuts I have seen from a pneumatic coupler. How can we reconcile this contradiction? The most direct answer would be that the tube is not reaching through to the nozzle. In the photo you don't show enough of the blue tube to show the coupler scars which should be a little further up the tube. Suppose that, in fact, the tube is not pressing against the nozzle. This might not be the case if any of these are true: There is a separate piece of PTFE that is permanently in hot end. The Creality Ender 3 Pro looks as if it is not configured for a Bowden feed. A PTFE lined hot-end for a direct extruder would have a piece of PTFE cut to length in the hot-end. A simple mod to make that a Bowden would leave that sculpted PTFE tube in place. The pneumatic couplers have been replaced. Many couplers do not permit the tube to pass through them, although the hole in the end can be drilled to 4mm diameter. In fact, preventing the tube from passing through a pneumatic coupler is a feature in the intended application of coupling to air tubes in moderate pressure applications. There is a bump in the path that is catching the tube and preventing it from extending through to the cold end and onward.

How much plastic pellets does it take to make 1 kg of filament? (making my own 3D filaments)

If you ignore losses due to production machinery, your one kilogram of pellets will provide you with nearly one kilogram of filament. There may be some small loss of material stuck in the auger and drips from the nozzle and any place you discover plastic that is not on the spool. How many plastic pellets does it take to make one kilogram of filament? One kilogram plus a bit more. If you are asking about the numerical quantity of pellets, how much does one pellet weigh? Are they large pellets or small pellets?

Ender 3 Nozzle does not clear bed

There are several ways to get the Z0 into a position the sotware can account for it without needing to write your own firmware if needed: Remove the build-tak-clone under your glass sheet to get the better heat transfer and remove a couple millimeters. Tighten the bed leveling to account for some millimeters. Move the physical endstop to account for the thicker build platform.

Bed probing feed rates

To speed up the probing for a touch sensor, a "High Speed" option is available in Configuration_adv.h which is by default disabled (//#define BLTOUCH_HS_MODE) as not all printers/sensors are able to use this. You can also increase the homing speeds in your Configuration.h file. // Homing speeds (mm/min) #define HOMING_FEEDRATE_XY (50*60) #define HOMING_FEEDRATE_Z (4*60) . .. ... .. . // Feedrate (mm/min) for the first approach when double-probing (MULTIPLE_PROBING == 2) #define Z_PROBE_SPEED_FAST HOMING_FEEDRATE_Z // Feedrate (mm/min) for the "accurate" probe of each point #define Z_PROBE_SPEED_SLOW (Z_PROBE_SPEED_FAST / 2) However, you can simply speed up the movement between probe locations by setting the movement speed directly through G-code. The G29 code, used for automatic probing of the bed surface is described in "G29 Auto Bed Leveling (Marlin - MK4duo)". The S parameter in G29 can be used to set the movement speed between probes, where the units are specified in "units/min", e.g. mm/min. Note that you potentially can change the Z-height for deployment: /** * Z probes require clearance when deploying, stowing, and moving between * probe points to avoid hitting the bed and other hardware. * Servo-mounted probes require extra space for the arm to rotate. * Inductive probes need space to keep from triggering early. * * Use these settings to specify the distance (mm) to raise the probe (or * lower the bed). The values set here apply over and above any (negative) * probe Z Offset set with NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET, M851, or the LCD. * Only integer values >= 1 are valid here. * * Example: `M851 Z-5` with a CLEARANCE of 4 => 9mm from bed to nozzle. * But: `M851 Z+1` with a CLEARANCE of 2 => 2mm from bed to nozzle. */ #define Z_CLEARANCE_DEPLOY_PROBE 10 // Z Clearance for Deploy/Stow #define Z_CLEARANCE_BETWEEN_PROBES 5 // Z Clearance between probe points #define Z_CLEARANCE_MULTI_PROBE 5 // Z Clearance between multiple probes //#define Z_AFTER_PROBING 5 // Z position after probing is done

Sealing PLA & oil-based art supplies?

I have worked with PLA and paints before. I use mainly acryl-based paints as well as spray lacquers. Sealent is not necessary. While a sealant is not necessary, you might prefer to use a spray on, smooth drying lacquer to get a smooth surface. PLA does not "soak in" paints or colors like resins.

What type of fire alarm/smoke alarm should my printer have?

Since some prints can take literally days, I would use a combination of techniques if you're worried about a fire. According to The Internets, firefighters are willing to inspect your stuff to see if they pose fire hazards. You could ask your local firefighters what they think of your risk with yoru 3D printer. Keep your workplace free of dangers Don't keep flammables, explosives, or similar stuff near your printer. If it does catch fire, these kinds of things will make it worse. There are plenty of valid 3D printer supplies that fall in this category: alcohol, alcohol pads, acetone, acetone pads, various glues, various cleaners, hairspray, etc. Periodically inspect the high amperage parts of the system Inspect crimps, but splices, solder joints, relays, etc for burn marks, loose connections, or other problems. Solve the problems before they catch fire. Alarm One or more smoke alarms should detect a fire. However, they may give false positives for ABS, because ABS gives off that burning plastic smell. I would experiment with the super-cheap ones and one or two more expensive models to see what kinds of false positives you get. You'll probably want to put at least one of them directly above the printer. If your printer is enclosed, put a sensor in the enclosed area. I think smoke alarms should be sufficient, but I'm not an expert (or even hobbyist) on fire alarms. I have not come across any information that states Carbon Monoxide or Radon are a worries with 3D printers. Area-affect heat sensors may give many false alarms because of how hot printer stuff gets. However, you could use contact heat sensors for parts that should not get too hot and monitor them with a microcontroller or Raspberry Pi. Reading this article, it seems you may want some ionization sensors for the printer, and not photoelectric. My WAG (link) is that the plastic (or electronics) would smolder long before catching fire, so you want sensors that would detect the smoldering. Camera OctoPrint/OctoPi make it easy to use a webcam to monitor your printer. However, if your printer is on fire and you're remote, it may or may not be able to shut the printer down. Even if successful, you still have a fire to deal with. Fire extinguisher You should have a fire extinguisher available to someone to put out your printer should it catch fire. Printers will need at least an extuingsher of Class C rating, and since we're working with plastics, you probably want Class B as well. Most of the fire extinguishers you can find in consumer stores are going to be ABC rated, and powder based. The powder will make a mess and wreak havoc on electronics. CO2 or Halon will not themselves damage the electronics, but are substantially more expensive than their powder based brethren. For example, I get 5lb Fire Extinguishers for ~$30 at Costco, but an equivalent in CO2 would be several hundred. Automatic suppression system As a maker, you could build a reactionary fire suppression system. I imagine it would be cost prohibitive to hire someone to do it for you. Basically, you would use the alarms or special sensors to activate one or more fire extinguishers. You should over-engineer this so that your fire suppression system completely overwhelms any fire that occurs. According to The Internets, firefighters are willing to inspect your stuff to see if they pose fire hazards. You could ask your local firefighters what they think of your risk and suppression system. Firefighting Robot You could build a robot to detect fires about put them out, as sort of an advanced automatic suppression system. Something like Tony Stark's robot, or something emulating what is actually in service (US Navy (CNN), Australia tracked firefighter).

Printing non-commercial model to make money

Intellectual property law is complex, so you might want to consider getting proper legal advice. However, to respect the original designer's intent you need to look at what their license permits and try not to find a loophole in the process. There is nothing to stop you asking the designer (in public or private) to clarify their intent. The biggest 'non-commercial' restriction reason is to protect the design idea, and stop someone mass-producing a clever design for profit. This applies irrespective of the original designer's intent to monetise their work. Another big reason might be to 'hold back' the time invested in the design. Maybe the designer wants to share something they spent a lot of time on, for individuals to appreciate rather than profit from. The designer would presumably gain reputation as a result of wider knowledge of their work. Sometimes, a design inherits licensing restrictions from a 3rd party (even maybe from the design tools used). For example, Fusion360 can be used for free by small companies, students, or for hobbies and personal learning, but has restrictions on commercial, professional or for-profit use. In that case, you would need to ask clarification from the tool provider. The case you describe is complicated. You can't sell the printed part, but a 3rd party can probably contract you to print the part (or rent time/access to a printer). However, your contract rate can't include any element of value derived from the model. Assuming there is no explicit license condition, you should be OK if you charge for your direct costs. As soon as you include time, profit, or any modification to the model, you are on less solid ground. To consider a non-obvious use-case of the Fusion 360 license, a student may well not have their own printer (particularly for an exotic material, or living in university accommodation). Can they contract a fabrication company to commercially produce or evaluate their model for the purposes of education or not? I don't expect you will find a definitive answer to this question since there are too many variables. Creative Commons have a page about their Non Commercial license which identifies some things to consider when you interpret a license. As noted in the comments, you can divide your time and professional contribution (and thus billable items) into several steps. By providing a model, the customer skips step 1: making the digital model preproduction (slicing) printing postproduction (cleaning off support) A clear license would refer to all of these.

Access uncapped 5 V output on 3D printer controller board

Any pin that is labeled as "5 V" can supply the full amount of current. Looking at, for example, the Arduino MEGA pinout, we can see several pins labeled in red with "5 V". These are the pins you can use. Most 3D printer boards will expose the 5 V pins at several points. For example, the endstop connectors often have a 5 V pin that can be used. The pins that are limited to 40 mA that you are thinking of are the digital pins, i.e. the pins that can be switched on/off by the microcontroller. These are actually more limited than this, and while in some cases drawing 40 mA from them may be possible, it is not a good idea.

Ultimaker 2 ticking sound coming from feeder

Ultimately, your stepper motor is unsuccessful in driving the filament through the extruder. A couple potential reasons: extruder temperature isn't high enough. This could either be operator error from not setting the temperature correctly or your machine is getting a false reading. Typically, for ABS/PLA, you can get away with a low extruding temperature of about 210c. filament tension is too high. This happens if, say, your spool of filament gets kinked or wrapped around the spool spindle. your nozzle is clogged. I've encountered where I had back flow coming out of the nozzle (filaments oozed around from the hotend at the threads). This was a result of not putting the hotend back together correctly. There was a enough hardened plastic backed up in the hotend that when I threaded the nozzle back on, it technically didn't fit back on all the way.

left-over photopolymer resins

Considerations for storing resin include using a light-tight bottle, preventing stray ultraviolet radiation from prematurely curing the resin. You'll also note that users will filter the resin through a fine mesh filter. I've seen some videos in which the user pours through coffee filters to remove as many particulates as possible. Left-over resin that has been carefully filtered is effectively the same as fresh-from-the-bottle material, from a purely technical view, but you can pick up contaminants that bypass the filter.

What grease to use for linear rails?

Don't use grease, it is better to use a light oil to lubricate the rods. A light oil will help flush out any dust and filament debris, grease will trap it. I've used both light machine oil (like used for sewing machines) and PTFE based spray (Teflon). Grease is thick and will collect and trap dust and particles more easily than light machine oil. Even high-end consumer printers use light machine oil, e.g. the Ultimaker 3 Extended I got came with a bottle of light machine oil for the linear guide rails. Their advice is to regularly add a drop of oil on each shaft once in a while (how frequent depends on how much your printer prints).

I am getting bubbles and a bulge at the bottom layer of my 3D print

I think that your bed is too hot because the bubbling is only on the bottom layer, if it was through out the entire print, I would say that it is your nozzle temp and you should do a temp tower, but because that isn't the case try lowering your bed temp

Tuning PID parameters for hotend

Issue was with PID tuning nothing to do with the hardware. I switched to a duet wifi and used the auto tuning of the reprap firmware and now it is just working beautifully. I guess I was doing the manually tuning in such a bad way and the auto tuning on marlin was not working correctly for me.

How is a Thermistor supposed to be installed between Heated Bed and the Glass?

Try to use a silicone heat conductive pad between heater and glass, where you can make a hole for the sensor. It also helps to improve the contact between aluminium heater and glass, which otherwise may be inhomogeneous (as expected between two quite rigid materials). They sell them in rolls and you can choose a 1 mm thick one or even 0.5 mm. They are "sticky" but they don't have glue, so you will be able to separate the glass from the pad, even if not so easily as it would be with a clip.

Acceleration with Marlin

Your steps/mm settings are very high. Assuming you are running an ATMEGA based controller, like RAMPS, you will only be able to move at very slow feed rates (<20mm/s). There are also many hardware factors that influence your maximum speed at a given steps/mm (which is typically referred to a your maximum step rate): Supplied voltage. Using too high/low voltage can cause poor stepper performance or create unexpected faults at high/low step rates. Motor specifications. Stepper motors come in a dizzying number of models with varying specifications. This is because each one is tailored to a specific use case. Stepper Driver. There are a bunch of driver designs and manufacturers out there and none of them should be considered equal. It also matters how you setup the driver in terms of current/voltage limits, microstepping, decay modes, heat syncing, etc. Wiring. At high step rates the inductance of the wires between your controller and motors start to matter more, as does interference to/from other electrical devices. If you aren't sure how to set/select/tune the things above it's best to just mimic what is done on common printers like the Prusa i3, which have robust designs. In more direct regard to your Marlin settings, your acceleration and feedrate values are very high for an untested printer. It's best to start with conservative values (Accel ~500mm/s^2, Feedrate <10mm/s) and work your way up 10% at a time until you start having issues, then back off ~20% from there.

How to make symmetric Low-Poly objects in meshmixer?

The best way would be to follow a four-step workflow: Reduce complexity. Cut the object along the symmetry plane. Discard one half of the object. Mirror the cut object along the cut symmetry plane.

Black surface in Meshmixer

With the model file available, I was able to use Edit, Generate Face Groups. This allows one to continue with Select, {set small cursor}, select reversed panels, Edit, Flip Normals. The above steps resolve the cockpit windows, but meshmixer's Analysis, Inspector shows a sea-urchin-presentation of other flaws, including what appears to be zero thickness walls in some locations.

e-steps are wrong only during printing moves

Annoyingly, this went away with a replacement board. I don't have a better fix.

Extruder stepper motor problem, what can be wrong?

Your controller board probably requires calibration. It sounds like, maybe, the extruder's stepper motor is not receiving sufficient current, to make it turn. Or, somewhat confusingly, maybe the stepper is receiving too much current, and overheating. You don't say which controller board you are using, but regardless, there should be an adjustable potentiometer on the board, next to each of the stepper drivers, or on the stepper driver daughter boards. Like so, This potentiomenter adjusts the reference voltage used to control the stepper motor. From this reference voltage, and the resistance of the stepper coils, one can determine the current, which is used to drive the stepper motor. For the stepper driver of the extruder, you could try turning this adjustable potentiometer slightly, in order to provide more current to the stepper, in turn to provide sufficient torque such that the motor is able to turn. Or, less current to stop the stepper from overheating. The adjustments can be made whilst the power is on, but a non-ferrous (i..e. plastic) screw driver should be used, so as to avoid short circuits. Also care needs to be taken, when turning the potentiometer, as they have been known to just fall apart whilst being turned. If you are paranoid, then make micro adjustments with the power turned off, and then turn back on to check the behaviour. Note: it should go without saying that one should never disconnect a stepper whilst the power is on, as both the driver and the stepper motor may be irrevocably damaged. The photo above is taken from POTs Calibration – RAMPS 1.4. If a POT is set too high then the associated stepper driver will tend to overheat and go into over-temperature thermal shutdown (to prevent damage to its components). The first sign of overheating is erratic stepper motor behavior. Typically, this can be recognized by the sounds of the stepper motor suddenly losing power (thermal shutdown). If no load or movement is required of the motor, it is hard to detect whether it is over-powered as the driver is barely producing any heat. and Conversely, if the POT is set too low, the stepper motor can enter an underpowered state. This can be recognized by a lack of holding torque and a stepper motor that is skipping steps because the necessary movement requires a higher power demand than the POT setting allows for. Driver cooling In addition to the possibility of the stepper motor over heating, it could be possible that the stepper driver is overheating, although the symptoms may be different, to those that you are experiencing. Regardless, you may still find it advantageous to cooler the controller/driver board with a fan that is always on (not temperature controlled). Additional reading RigidWiki - Stepper Driver Adjustment, which goes into further detail about the adjustment of the potentiometers, that I outlined above, as well as the reference voltage and the adjustment thereof. RepRap Wiki - RepRapPro Setting Motor Currents describes a different controller to yours, but goes into the process of adjustment, and description of the reference voltage (which is applicable to all boards): The wiper on each potentiometer generates a DC voltage that is sent to the chip. This is the reference voltage; it defines how much current the stepping motor driver chip supplies to the motor. The bigger the reference voltage (VREF), the higher the current (A) that the chip will send to the motor. For most NEMA14 motors, the current maximum is 1A, but this will generally cause it to get warm, so a setting of 750mA is recommended. For NEMA17 motors, depending on size, the limit on current is generally between 1.3A and 1.7A. If you drive stepper motors with more current than they were designed for, the motor will get hot, and may be damaged. Pololu - A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier with Voltage Regulators - this is a very common stepper driver. MyHomeFab - DRV8825 Adjust Stepper Current goes into the adjustment of the reference voltage, for the commonly used DRV8825, which is an alternative to the popular A4988. This thread, about non-actuating steppers, may also be useful, Motors, which mentions setting the trimpots and points the OP to RepRap Wiki - Pololu stepper driver board, which, in turn, refers to this thread, Strange stepper behavior and this video, video-2012-02-02-16-37-26.mp4, which describes a jitter in the stepper behaviour.

Glue sticks for print bed

As mentioned by Matt - PVA glues work perfect for both filaments. It works well because it's softening temperature is between 45..85C so it's more or less temperature of HB. Advantages: cheap easy to apply on HB can be applied on cold as same as on hot HB sticks model very well non toxic, no solvent, odorless easy to wash (from HB) (just wash it under water or scrape with sharp tool) works very well even with old and dry layer of glue Disadvantages: quite hard to detach model (I use paper knife) first layer is not glass-perfect after detaching, model is a bit sticky (first layer) I use Scotch Glue Stick by 3M.

Can you print at 0.3 mm with a 0.2 mm nozzle?

To get the best results, the plastic coming out of the nozzle needs to be squished/ironed down by the nozzle. If you are using a higher layer height than nozzle size, this does not happen. Instead, you are taking a 0.2mm diameter string of plastic and folding it back onto itself to create a thicker 0.3mm bead. Triffid_Hunter's calibration guide recommends using a layer height that is not higher than 80% of your nozzle size, so with a 0.4mm nozzle you should not print layers thicker than 0.32mm, and with a 0.2mm nozzle you should not print layers thicker than 0.16mm. While it is not impossible to print thicker layers with a smaller nozzle, the results won't be as good. Moreover, if you are used to working with a 0.4mm nozzle then swapping to a 0.2mm nozzle may take some getting used to, as printing with smaller nozzles is more difficult (for example, the smaller the nozzle, the higher the likelihood of clogs).

Printed 2 Sided Object?

You can print it laying flat on the bed with supports. It will be very laborious to clean up, but it will probably work. supports usually are thin enough to strip away, but they leave marks which you need to cut off to get a clean result. You can also buy a printer with dual extruders and then use dissolvable supports. That would probably be easier to clean up and provide a cleaner result. If you're using PLA to print, you might get away with turning up the part cooling fan to the maximum level and hope for the best. Overhangs are very much prone to dropping though. I'm not sure if a stock MP Select mini will get the job done. You might want to consider an upgrade to the part cooling fan. You can look for fan duct related upgrades which allow you to mount bigger fans on Thingiverse With PETG you can possibly get away with longer overhangs, as it cools quicker. However, PETG is much harder to print well, as it's much more prone to stringing, which can cause issues like artifacts and clogging. All in all I'd start out with getting a good benchy before you start on engineering projects. This will make sure that you have your printer calibrated to perform for your chosen filament. Every brand and type has their own quirks and differences, so you'll have to fine tune your settings to get the best result. A CNC-like finish will not be easy to achieve. A CNC type finish will be unachievable without extensive post processing if you're using supports. In any case, getting a good finish requires some practice with finding the right settings for your filament. Learn how to print and to get your printer dialled in to achieve the required result, which, in the case of it having to be CNC-like, is quite high-end. The fact you're laying down filament means that you'll be able to see lines, even at top quality. Maybe this guide will help you get on your way. Getting a $1000 printer mainly inproves reliability of the print. The quality of the print is in the skill of dialling in the right settings in your slicer for a given filament choice, plus recognising the type of supports necessary. This takes practice to achieve.

Bed too close to nozzle?

No, the bed does not look too close to the nozzle, it could well be that it is too far from the nozzle. However, the brim looks okay, but the method you follow is questionable. Using a feeler gauge of 0.2 mm is larger than the recommended paper method which is in the order of half that value (0.1 mm). You compensate this larger leveling gap with an over-extrusion of 130 %. The preferred method is using a thinner feeler gauge or a sheet of paper without over-extrusion. The reasoning is that if you have a 0.2 mm to start with, adding the first layer thickness (e.g. 0.2 mm) would imply that you are already starting at a 0.4 mm gap on your first layer. You now try to push out more filament to fill that gap (resulting in not really pressing the filament to the plate). Furthermore, your tape does not look like it is laid down next to each other, it looks as though it is laid over each other. This creates an uneven bed surface. Finalizing, you should do whatever you do to get the filament to stick to the build plate, if it works for you, use it. If it doesn't produce viable prints, or you are not satisfied with the surface finish, change it.

Are the thermsistors identical for both the heatbed and the extruder head?

This depends on how you ended up with your finished printer. If it was a kit, then there is a chance that the thermistors might be the same, however, even a kit manufacturer might buy parts that come preassembled as I could imagine being the case for the hotend. To find out about the actual thermistor you would need to look up the spec sheet of the manufacturer of your printer or the individual parts, afaik there is no way to identify them by having them in your hand beyond identifying the resistivity and the coefficient type by using a multimeter. You could, of course, check the resistivity for a whole temperature range to compare the table of your thermistor to the tables which are listed in firmware, but then you could compile your own tables right away.

How can I fix First Layer Adhesion with BL Touch - Tevo Tarantula

I have the same kind of issues I'm also using Sunlu white filament 210 °C and bed at 60 °C on a CR-10S also original BLtouch v3.1 On some parts of the bed it's okay but in the middle and some corners it's too high and doesn't stick (really annoying). I bought the BLtouch to avoid this kind of issues. I have printed many things with no issues and with this filament It's making some trouble. Ok I have solved the issue, the problem is Sunlu pla+ filament. It seems that their filament is really hard to adhere to bed. I found on another forum that you need to increase bed temperature up to 70° and head to 220 °c at least for the few first layers and don't go under 215°. also moving the head a bit lower to skish the filament on bed. I tried and got much better adhesion. Hope it will help other people

What type of kinamatics is 3D Gence One using?

I'm can't say for sure, since this is my first time seeing this type of 3D printer configuration too, but I think this is a cartesian style printer. If you think about it, it is similar to a Prusa-style printer, but instead of an x-gantry being raised and lowered by a leadscrew, the heated bed is being lowered and raised with two leadscrews. Software-wise, the printer you mentioned should be configured exactly like a Prusa-style printer, but with a reversed Z-axis, since to make the heated bed move closer to the hotend, it must be raised instead of lowered. I personally do not think this printer is a CoreXY configuration since a CoreXY printer relies on two motors that work simultaneously to move the X and Y axis, while the printer you showed has the X and Y-axis moving independently of each other (as can be seen by the belt under the heated bed and the belt that moves the hotend left and right). At least, in my opinion, the way the X and Y-axis operate on a CoreXY is what makes the CoreXY unique, instead of the raising and lowering of the heated bed. You can read about the variations of Cartesian 3D printers here. If you are interested in other styles of 3D printers, you can check the Delta and Polar style printer section of this article. Hope I piqued your interest in 3D printing :D Feel free to comment on this if you have more things to ask, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can :)

Bad layers in otherwise good prints

This can be caused by various problems, of which an aforementioned filament diameter is only one of multiple possible causes. The observed phenomenon is called under-extrusion. Temporary under-extrusion can also be caused by filament friction on the spool, too low or too high filament extruder gear friction (pressure on the filament by the roller), or friction in a Bowden tube (dust particles). Please ensure your spool unrolls freely (not entangled; entangled filament is audible like "ker-chunk" when the filament is rearranged on the spool by force of the extruder pulling) and check the extruder for friction or slip. If the extruder gear slips, this is also accompanied by an audible "click" that is called clicking. This generally implies that there is too much friction in the hot end, or an obstruction/clog. Considering that your print recovers from the problem, and that it occurs randomly, the best guess is that your filament in entangled now and then.

Which belt tension gauge do I need?

It's extremely unlikely that belt tension is actually your problem. I've never heard of anyone using a gauge to measure their belt tension. Typically you just pull your belt tight by hand so that it produces a low note when plucked. It's far more likely that you're experiencing shifts due to too high or too low stepper current. Unless your belt is so loose that it easily skips over the pulley (which should be obvious without using a gauge) or so tight that it completely binds up (it would be impossible to get it that tight without some kind of superhuman force) it's definitely not the problem.

What size is the lead screw

You'll need to do some calculation to figure out how long of a lead screw you need. The best solution would be to mock up the entire printer in CAD so you can visualize how everything fits together. Not only is the coupler going to take up some space, but the nut also takes up some space, and perhaps (due to design constraints) you won't be able to have the nut go up right against the coupler so you'll need some more space. Unfortunately, there isn't a general "just take the length of your Z-axis and add X millimeters"-type formula.

Anet A8 Marlin BLtouch moves up instead of down during homing

SOLVED -- The problem turned out to be that the BLtouch was set up for 3.3 V and my Anet board is 5 V. The docs were not clear on what the BL defaulted to and I mistakenly thought 5 V. After I did a M280 P0 S140 command, the carriage would home properly with G28. Why it was going up instead of down was a Red Herring. I changed the settings in configuration_adv.h to force 5 V and did the EEPROM one time write. Now the A8 works correctly. Thank you for your help Oscar.

Levelling issues with BLTouch sensor; unlevel and weak adhesion

I have the same printer, but what are you printing, is it an stl that you created yourself or that came standard with the printer? In the beginning, I had the same when printing the models that were delivered with the SD card. Can you check your settings as well on Cura, maybe the adhesion type is set to raft then the first layers are like that. If not then see what nozzle you are using and see what settings you have them on, I noticed also that the initial nozzle that was on my printer was a 0.8 mm and not a 0.4 mm. Also, did you check your Z-offset settings on the printer, when printing you click on adjust and then normally in the left top you see Z-offset if you go in minus (try with 0.5) every time and see if it sticks better. Can you try and check this. These things I also had, still figuring out the settings for the CR-10 Max so I'm not an expert, just sharing my things where I also struggled with.

Cooling fan noise when head is moving in the X axis

As discussed in the comments... The problem with the fan seems to be its flimsy attachment to the printer head. The fact the fan chassis is not firmly kept in place allows for it to act as a soundboard, amplyfing whatever vibration nomally occurs in the motor. You could probably get a fan that is more silent in the first place (noctua is a known brand for silent fans, and it is used on the Original Prusa MK3 for example), but since there's nothing inherently wrong with your current fan, I would simply design a custom, more beefy mount for it. For added dampening effect you could also use small o-rings as washers for the screws.

Three RAMPS boards wasted by plugging in a heated bed

It could be a couple of issues: the heated bed tries to use more power than the ramps board is capable of because the traces on the board aren't big enough to get rid of the heat. the thermistor is broken / not properly connected or configured, and it keeps on heating the bed forever. a short somewhere in the wiring. My advice: Check the wiring. If there is no short, check your thermistor. Is it reporting the right temperature? If it reports the right temperature, try using a external mosfet module for the heated bed. These are fairly cheap, and easy to connect.

Cura with Pronterface UI stops printing

A problem I have come across when using Pronterface is that the operating system starves the resources of the program if the program's window is not in the front. If I, for instance, started a print, then started browsing the web, it would sometimes suddenly stop. When bringing Pronterface back to the front, it would take a few seconds, and then continue (if I remember correctly). On OS X - which I am using - I believe this is called app nap, while a similar mechanism exist for Windows. I ended up printing form an SD card myself after this, but you might want to try manually setting the resource priority for Pronterface in your OS. In Windows, you could trying to increase the resource allocation for Pronterface by going to Task Manager -> Details -> Right click the Pronterface process -> Set Priority. I would be careful to set it too high, since you are basically allowing the program more juice to potentially do something wrong. In OS X you could try to disable app nap for Pronterface.

Connector Suggestion for Extruder and Heatbed

You might be able to use one of the connectors (Deans Ultra, EC3, XT-60/30, Bullet) that are normally used for RC models. They're made for very high currents. The XT60 connectors depicted below are rated for 60A continuous (well above what you'd need for any heated bed); their smaller XT30 cousins are good for 30A but less commonly available. (Photo by Mark Fickett) For your extruder you wouldn't need anything quite as drastic as an XT60, even a simple JST connector would suffice (though if you are going to source XT60/30's for your heated bed anyway, you might use them here as well). (Wikimedia Commons, Mike Mahoney)

CR-10 Ignoring Z-Stop Switch, Keeps Trying to Lower

I had this same issue with my CR-10s. My black and white wires were reversed where I plugged them in to the motherboard in place of the stock z stop wires. I had to take apart the connector and swap them, as they came backwards from the mfg. Once I did that it worked perfectly. The image I'm attaching helped me solve my issue. It is not mine, after much searching I found kenneycp's reply on this comment thread https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2975949/comments

Will the TMC2130 V3.0 stepper driver work with the Ramps 1.6 Plus board?

Well I found that I can use a DuPont cable to connect the diag1 pin to the right endstop There is also a beta functionality in the Marlin firmware I haven't tried: Just uncommenting SPI_ENDSTOPS definition * SPI_ENDSTOPS *** Beta feature! *** TMC2130 Only *** * Poll the driver through SPI to determine load when homing. * Removes the need for a wire from DIAG1 to an endstop pin. * * IMPROVE_HOMING_RELIABILITY tunes acceleration and jerk when * homing and adds a guard period for endstop triggering. */ #define SENSORLESS_HOMING // StallGuard capable drivers only #if EITHER(SENSORLESS_HOMING, SENSORLESS_PROBING) // TMC2209: 0...255. TMC2130: -64...63 #define X_STALL_SENSITIVITY 8 #define X2_STALL_SENSITIVITY X_STALL_SENSITIVITY #define Y_STALL_SENSITIVITY 8 //#define Z_STALL_SENSITIVITY 8 //#define SPI_ENDSTOPS // TMC2130 only //#define IMPROVE_HOMING_RELIABILITY #endif

Painting an STL file

It is indeed more related to the blender forum than the 3d printing one. You can start by looking at this post from blender.stackexchange.com which explain how to unwrap and paint on a 3d object. You can also paint the texture on a 2d software like Gimp and then put it in the UV Image editor of Blender. Then you should be able to export your project (with the texture) in a suitable format for 3d print.

Stringy first layer (possible extruder issue?)

The first photo shows under extrusion. This could indicate either a bad filament, a massive clog or the wrong filament diameter in the slicer. I have experienced, that small demo-reels of filament that come with printers come damaged from the shipping: I have experienced some of them having been exposed to moisture in their zip-lock bags and one time I had no clue what kind of filament that was supposed to be, but it was not PLA, as it didn't properly melt at 200 °C. That might not be the case with your printer, but it leads me to caution towards those 20 g demo reels, so I always test with a known good reel of filament with a known melting point. If it was the wrong material (e.g. ABS), under extrusion due to a too low temperature would be normal. Damaged or bad filament can create several problems: non-uniform thickness can result in random stops in the extruder or underextrusion, waterlogged ("wet") filament can print stringy, hissing, or even with underextrusion, brittle filament might break and result in aborted lines. A clog in the nozzle could lead to under extrusion but should also show clicking in the extruder (the motor moving the filament). Checking the whole filament path (nozzle, heat break, liner & Bowden tube) for clogs should be done. However, that would be a massive clog to get your depicted prints. It might be a factor impacting it though. Sometimes, setting up a printer in a slicer is not perfect: You need to make sure the filament diameter fits! 1.75 mm might be the de facto standard, but most slicers are set up with 2.75 mm as filament diameter in the presets for a self-configured printer! That means you only extrude about a third of the filament you actually want! That would be super consistent with your picture but doesn't need to be the only factor.

What kind of thermal paste do I need for a heatbed thermistor?

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

Comparative design methods for joints that will be joined together

One of my favorite techniques is to join pieces with screws, and include a tapered feature that helps align the parts. A single screw can give a very strong joint, that is well-aligned and won't twist. Another advantage is that such joints can be printed in any orientation, since the tapered feature can be designed with 45 degree angles. Here is a cross-section example of such a joint:

What can I do to remove the rounded corners using Junction Deviation?

Contrary to what's implied by its name, junction deviation does not produce rounded corners. It merely allows violations of the acceleration profile at corners that would be allowed if the corner were rounded by the deviation. So you should not expect changes to it to create or eliminate unwanted "rounded corners". However I don't think what you're seeing are rounded corners. They're bulging corners, likely produced as a consequence of the toolhead moving slower just before and after the corner in order to honor the acceleration profile. My guess is that your acceleration limits in Marlin 2.0 (500 mm/s² if I recall correctly) are a lot lower than on the original Creality firmware. You can and probably should increase the acceleration limits. The machine should handle 1000 mm/s² easily and up to 3000 mm/s² or even higher with some ringing; I use lower acceleration for the outer walls and let it run wild for inner walls and infill. But the real solution to your bulging corners problem is to enable and calibrate Linear Advance to get a consistent extrusion rate with varing speed. For my Ender 3, the right constant is around 0.5-0.6 s (yes the units are seconds - it's mm/(mm/s)) for PLA. You can use the calibration pattern generator to run the calibration yourself, but I would expect the same results. This will significantly impact your print speed, since Marlin applies E-axis speed, acceleration, and jerk limits to the advance offsets. You can get a lot of it back though by increasing those limits though; the defaults are a whole lot lower than what the machine can handle. 200 mm/s speed limit and 10000-15000 mm/s² acceleration limit (vs 25 and 5000 defaults in Marlin, respectively) are within reason.

Managing LEDs with NanoDLP

I have no experience with either GRBL or DLP printers, but the M7 M8 M9 coolant control codes should be able to be sent by NanoDLP to GRBL. Those seem to allow for direct digital output. Apparently you can set the pin you want them to use in the cpu_map.h file, with the standard being Analog Pins 3 and 4 for the M8 and M7 commands respectively. // Define flood and mist coolant enable output pins. #define COOLANT_FLOOD_DDR DDRC #define COOLANT_FLOOD_PORT PORTC #define COOLANT_FLOOD_BIT 3 // Uno Analog Pin 3 #define COOLANT_MIST_DDR DDRC #define COOLANT_MIST_PORT PORTC #define COOLANT_MIST_BIT 4 // Uno Analog Pin 4 Hope this helps! Source: https://github.com/gnea/grbl

How should I go about printing easily removable rafts?

As comments suggest, a raft is not all that popular. Consider using a brim/skirt instead. I've had excellent luck with a 4-mm skirt, printing onto blue painter's tape. (Unless you consider it bad luck when I have a devil of a time getting some parts to release :-) ). Skirts are trivial to cut free from the object. In a similar vein, if you run into trouble getting support structures to pop off the object cleanly, try to make them as thin-walled as possible.

File size limit in 3D printing software

As a software developer and 3D printing enthousiast I can tell you that indeed, like Trish said, the limit is your memory (RAM) and loading/slicing time depends on the cpu power. RAM: keep an eye on the memory usage in the task manager/performance/memory tab. When it reaches the top of the graph, the application will suddenly crash and disappear. CPU: The application (cura/slicer/prusaslicer) can become "not responsive". This does not always mean that the process hangs. It just means that the cpu is very busy and the program is not reporting the progress to windows. Most probably the application will recover from this if you just choose to wait. Files do not get dumbed down when imported afaik in cura. They are shown exactly like in the STL. Don't know about other software though, but I doubt this happens. Like you noted, this has nothing to do with Gcode, which is loaded serially.

Can I use Araldite to stick PLA to metal frame?

Araldite is a brand that refers to a range of structural epoxy, acrylic and polyurethane adhesives. Among the vast number of products marketed under the name are also "metal repair" paste and what seems to be silicone based glues. Depending on what Araldite you have on hand, all of these types can be useful for PLA and any other 3D-printing material, as I had elaborated here. I suggest grabbing either an epoxy or PU variant or some kind of silicone for this use. You should make sure several things though if you go with epoxy or PU: make a small sample print and clamp down one side, then put a small weight on the other side. Apply the glue in the center of it. If it sags considerably during the bonding, the heat of the glue curing is warm enough to soften the print. If this happens, you should take precautions to prevent it from deforming during the bonding, e.g. not apply too much pressure onto the bond. The MOSFET can get rather hot. Make sure that the clamp holding the MOSFET still holds the item as it gets hot, as PLA starts to get malleable enough to deform under stress at 50 °C and usually fails quickly at about 100 °C. Silicone-based glues depend on an area to force ratio to stick but offer a flexible bond that is somewhat thermal resistant and very gap filling.

Random hot-end temperature spikes

It looks like a sensor issue. Maybe a temporary resistance in a contact of the sensor circuit made the temperature look low to the controler, so it applies power to raise the temperature. When the contection recovers, the temperature is too high, so the controller lowers the power to restore the temperature.

When installing a glass bed, what do you change?

The most common way to install a glass bed (assuming it's literally a piece of borosilicate glass) is with binder clips. Glass is an insulator, so you may need to adjust your bed temps by a few degrees, and it will take somewhat longer to warm up. You shouldn't need any firmware changes, but will need to adjust whatever z homing you do. If you have a limit switch currently, you'll need to move it by the thickness of the glass. If you have an inductive probe, it should still continue to work, but your z-offset will need to be adjusted. If you have BLTouch or a piezo, nothing should need to change there.

Building 3D printer: LM8UU bearing can't fit into

Bearing on a shaft An 8 mm (ID, Internal Diameter) bearing should always fit on an 8 mm (OD, Outer Diameter) shaft. If it does not fit, one of the 2 is of a different size. Please use a caliper to determine the size of both. Bearing in a housing If it is the outer size of the bearing, i.e. fitting in a printed carriage or a bearing housing (e.g. SCxxUU), you should be aware of the different sizes of polymer bearings. E.g. there are RJMP-01-xx and RJ4JP-01-xx types of polymer bearings (xx denotes the shaft diameter, e.g. 08 for 8 mm shafts). For RJMP-01-xx bearings (not compatible with LMxxUU bearings): // Parameters for RJMP-01-xx (shaft size xx, all dimensions in [mm]) // Designation d1 d2 B B1 s dn //------------------------------------------- // RJMP-01-08 8 16 25 16.2 1.1 15.2 For RJ4JP-01-xx bearings (compatible with LMxxUU bearings): // Parameters for RJ4JP-01-xx (shaft size xx, all dimensions in [mm]) // Designation d1 d2 B B1 s dn //------------------------------------------- // RJ4JP-01-08 8 15 24 17.5 1.1 14.3 d1 is the inner diameter, d2 the outer diameter and B the length of the bearing The RJ4JP-01-08 bearings are drop-in replacements for the LM8UU linear bearings. Note that the RJMP-01-08 have a larger outer diameter and do not fit into the regular bearing housings. The increased thickness gives the bearings more rigidity.

What hotend designs exist as paired all-metal and PTFE-lined versions?

Hotend Designes in General Lined Makerbot Mk8 & e3D Lite6 The Makerbot Mk8 seen on many Chinese machines and the E3D Lite6 are both lined hotends, which means the PTFE liner goes down into the heartbreak and butts against the nozzle. This style is very easy to print PLA with, but can't print hotter than about 240 °C. Makerbot MK10 A variant of the lined hotend is the Makerbot MK10, where the PTFE goes a bit into the nozzle. These nozzles have a larger diameter, the melt zone is very short. All Metal There are mainly two designs of consumer all-metal hotend out there at the moment. E3D v6 Stereotypical by now, the All Metal hotend typically means E3D v6. The liner ends at the end of the heartbreak, the heartbreak of the original is necked down to reduce heat creep. The design is flawed in that heat creep can't be mitigated completely. While this design can print much higher temperatures than lined hotends, the heat creep can create trouble with PLA. E3D Hermea The dreamchild of the v6 is the Hermea (formerly Hermes), which fights the problem of heat creep by drastically altering the coolend design: The heartbreak is even slimmer than the v6 and has very little area outside of the cooling block. This cooling block is fitted with a somewhat stronger fan. In theory this leads to much better cooling in the upper filament path and getting heat creep under control. However, due to the manufacturing stop induced by COVID-19, there are not too many Hermea out in the wild. Some early to mid development information could be gained from Joel and Thomas Sanladerer. Among the still few reviews I have found is Thomas Sanladerer. Slice Engineering Mosquito Hotend Slice engineering went a different way to fight heatcreep in an unined all metal hotend: The heatsink is mode away from the filament path and serves as its own structure. As a downsize, each and every part is pretty much precision machined, making it comparably expensive: without heater, thermosensor, and extruder the bare item clocks in 145$. Claimed benefits are, that the thinner filament path (as it doesn't need to be structural) from a low heat-conducting material reduces heat creep and because we have an unlined filament path it can print at 450 °C, making it one o the highest-rated hotends. Slice Engineering Copperhead Currently, the same company is working on the Copperhead, in which they introduce a dual metal construction on necked heatbreak. The name Bi-Metal for this however would be a misnomer: Bimetal is a standing technical term for a strip of metals that, when heated, starts to tilt into one direction because of dissimilar heat expansion. The correct term, which they properly use on their website is Bimetallic, not Bimetal. Because of the dissimilar thermal behavior, such a setup needs to be designed and machined very carefully, but could, help to dissipate the heat from the filament path and massively reduce heatcreep. The Copperhead as shown currently is offered for preorder with two mounting options, one of them the e3D style groove., which might allow drop-in replacement of a full hotend. The heartbreak however alone could suffice to get some of the effects, and as the website shows, it would be available as a drop-in replacement part. However, pricing and effectivity remain still to be seen. Paired?! At the time of this writing in May 2020, the combination of e3D v6 and Lite6 using the same outer form factor is pretty much unique to them and their clones. The Trianglelab Dragon hotend (a review of it here) uses the e3D v6 Style connector on a Slice Enginering Mosquito Hotend design, making it pretty much paired to the two. However the main functioning parts of the distinction is the heartbreak being either part of the cooling body and lined or a separate piece. The e3D v6 does use the same M6 threading that is also used in a Makerbot Mk8 and many Chinese clones on many machines [Some are M7, so beware!], and thus one can easily make a Frankenstein Hotend by combining the pre-mounted cooling body with a proper e3D v6 heartbreak and turn the lined into an All Metal hotend.