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6671 | Setting custom x/y bed bounds for Anet A8/marlin
I have an Anet A8 that I just flashed with the latest Marlin firmware (1.1.9). I'm sending prints to my printer with Ultimaker Cura via OctoPrint.
I have affixed a PEI surface to my bed that's about 10 mm smaller in each direction than the full size of the bed (that is, I lose about 5 mm on each side of the bed). This hasn't been a huge problem as usually I account for this myself and just make sure there's lots of room on each side of a print, but having upgraded my firmware, I'd like to take advantage of Marlin's bi-linear bed-levelling. Unfortunately, several of the points it chooses are outside the bounds of my PEI surface and so it's impossible to get a decent setting for those points.
What's the "correct" way to configure Marlin to know that my bed size is actually smaller than it thinks it is? Do I need to additionally adjust settings in Ultimaker Cura and/or OctoPrint?
The answer to the question can be found in How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset). You need to set correct bed size dimensions and offsets from end stops. This question is a possible duplicate.
As you just flashed your own Marlin, you probably have the marlin.ino and its associated files in the Arduino IDE set for your Processor and board and know how to work with them to some degree. This is just the short version where to find what you need to change the bed size, if the marlin.ino is based on the marlinfw-release.
Changing "home"
In Configuration.h there should be a set of lines that reads akin to this:
// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS 0
#define Y_MIN_POS 0
#define Z_MIN_POS 0
#define X_MAX_POS X_BED_SIZE
#define Y_MAX_POS Y_BED_SIZE
#define Z_MAX_POS 200
Usually it is faster to use Ctrl+F and then typing in X_MIN_POS and adding the hook in front of Search all Sketch Tabs and then moving through all the finds till the right one pops up. This not only brings you right to the lines you want to alter, but also covers up the bases in case the distribution you work with did put the movement limits into a different location like Configruration_adv.h.
Changing Bed Size
Alter these minimum positions and make sure that the Maximum positions (usually just after them) to fit the maximum of the bed.
If you reduced your bed size, you also might need to change X_BED_SIZE and Y_BED_SIZE, which (in the marlin.ino) is in the same Configuration.h - I found it to preceede the Travel limits:
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 200
#define Y_BED_SIZE 200
Adjust these as needed to fit the new sizing.
Hint: Getting the Values for Adjusting
For finding the adjusted values, I have had good experiences using Repetier Host on Manual Control to move the nozzle (lifted 1mm to prevent any accidents) into the correct XY-position and taking this position as adjustments for the minimum positions. Finding your personal settings is a bit of a trial and error still, so take your time.
Finishing up
Now, recompile the marlin.ino (the checkmark in the top left) to check for errors and flash the new firmware it.
Thanks! The starting (x,y,z) values in my config were (-33, -12, 0) and it took me a bit of experimentation to figure out that to adjust the bounds of the bed 12mm right and 5mm back I needed to go to (-45,-17,0), but having sorted that out (and adjusted the max positions accordingly) everything seems to be working the way I'd expect.
@AwesomeTown remember to adjust the ?_BED_SIZE correctly - I forgot to include their lines in the old version, fixed that.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.232190 | 2018-08-14T23:55:20 | {
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6630 | Short to ground error using TMC2130 stepper drivers
I have recently got an MKS GEN L V1.0 board and 5 TMC2130s. (X, Y, two Z, E). I have wired it all up and uploaded Marlin 1.1.9 and after some quick troubleshooting I got the motors moving. Next day I tried it again and it gave me this error:
E0 driver error detected:
overtemperature
short to ground (coil A)
short to ground (coil B)
with the following driver debug report: (notice that the extruder driver doesn't show up)
X Y Z
Enabled false false false
Set current 800 800 800
RMS current 795 795 795
MAX current 1121 1121 1121
Run current 25/31 25/31 25/31
Hold current 12/31 12/31 12/31
CS actual 12/31 12/31 12/31
PWM scale 10 10 10
vsense 1=.18 1=.18 1=.18
stealthChop true true true
msteps 16 16 16
tstep 1048575 1048575 1048575
pwm
threshold 0 0 0
[mm/s] - - -
OT prewarn false false false
OT prewarn has been triggered false false false
off time 5 5 5
blank time 24 24 24
hysteresis
-end 2 2 2
-start 3 3 3
Stallguard thrs 8 8 0
DRVSTATUS X Y Z
stallguard
sg_result 0 0 0
fsactive
stst X X X
olb
ola
s2gb
s2ga
otpw
ot
Driver registers: X = 0x80:0C:00:00
Y = 0x80:0C:00:00
Z = 0x80:0C:00:00
I did some research and found that you should change the CS pin for that stepper and so I did. I tried almost every available pin on my board but no luck. The only change I got was when I wired it to pin 11 and got this:
E0 driver error detected:
overtemperature
short to ground (coil A)
I have the Watterott TMC2130 SilentStep Sticks and have examined the board which seemed correct. Is all wired correctly. Tomorrow I will try to switch the driver to one from another axis and try to switch the stepper to see if anything changes, but it seems to me that it shouldn't since it worked for some time.
I will try marlin 1.1.8 tomorrow and the bugfix branch if that fixes my issue.
I have fixed it. I tried uploading the bugfix version of Marlin and no luck. Then I noticed a loose jumper wire that connected the driver to the board and when re-installing it I noticed it didn't grip the pin that strongly and could be easily pulled off so I switched the wire and everything works now. Turns out that even jumper wires can have a bad connection. Hope this helps someone.
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6959 | 3DTouch sensor fails after probe deployment and triggering
I'm using a 3DTouch sensor (from Geeetech) on a self-build CoreXY printer (HyperCube Evolution). The sensor worked perfectly until not being used for a month.
The symptoms are that it fails to deploy the pin on the second probe deployment so basically it fails after the first probe is triggered by the raised platform.
On homing Z (not only for G28 or "home all" but also for G28 Z to "home Z axis") and goes into some sort of a fail-safe mode where the LED keeps flashing. Sometimes it does deploy and finishes the homing instructions and continues to the G29 instruction (note that double probing #define MULTIPLE_PROBING 2 is enabled in the Marlin 1.1.8 firmware) and show similar symptoms as described above for the G28 command. Note that failing to deploy the probe sometimes leads to a rising build platform that does not stop, other times some fail safe kicks in and the bed lowers and aborts the print.
To lift the fail-safe condition, a reset of the sensor is required (this can be done through the LCD or by command M280 P0 S160).
What I have done to solve the problem is to isolate the wires from the 3D touch sensor as I was under the impression that this was related to electromagnetic interference (therefore when the sensor is probing, the bed and heater cartridge are not powered momentarily), but that did not help.
Any suggestions and solutions to get it working again are appreciated.
Have you checked wire connectivity while moving the wires around? If the sensor wire for the probe (assuming a three wire setup), if the sensor wire (not power or ground wires to the probe) is failing at certain angles, it might give you something like you're stating. Yes, I'm grasping for straws.
Any time I run into a "ran when parked" situation (old joke from used-car collectors), I suspect dirt, dust, grime leading to mechanical failures. See if there's any way to do a careful cleaning.
After troubleshooting I have managed to fix the sensor problems.
(Please take note of the update at the end of the answer below as the problem started again shortly after the so-called fix...)
Digging into several posts I found this post that hints to a solution:
After readjusting, the sensor worked and I was able to produce a print, but the next day it failed again... What I found is that the bed and extruder are NOT shut off while probing although that should have been enabled in Marlin 1.1.8. I assumed that this de-powering is only during the actual probe lowering, so very short. So I figured that this might be an EMI problem. In a last resort I updated to Marlin 1.1.9 which has the functionality to shut the power off for heater and bed and everything now seems to work perfectly. I now see that the de-powering is a bit longer and in fact the extruder temperature drops slightly, this has never been seen with the previous firmware version.
Update:
Not long after the "update"/"fix" the problem manifested itself again... Further troubleshooting revealed that it was a bad connection of the connectors of the sensor that got temporarily "fixed" as the cables had been fiddled with during the firmware update.
I have to note that the quality of these non-genuine sensors is not close the the original BLTouch. The BLTouch has never failed me to date, while several 3DTouch sensors did...
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6945 | Infill failure at the far corner of two different prints
I am a complete newbie at 3D printing (although learning fast). I switched from the default Qidi slicer to the Cura slicer on a Qidi X-Pro machine (which is wonderful). Using: plate 50 °C, 0.4 mm nozzle 200 °C, 1.75 mm PLA, print speed 20 mm/s outer wall, 40 mm/s inner wall, travel speed 100 mm/s (the cura default, I think).
On two different prints, the same far corner (front left) had initial infill problems. Does anyone know why, or how I can solve it? My working theory is that the nozzle shoots across the whole print at high speed to start again at that corner and sometimes the infill filament doesn't bite enough to stick.
Eventually one of the infill layers gets a bite and the rest of the print is fine. But it's disturbing that it occurs on different prints. (I carefully level the plate before every print, so I don't think that's the issue.)
UPDATE
In another question here, turning the Cura combing setting off solved an issue. It probably solved the issue described here, too, or at least contributed to solving the problem described here.
My theory is that with combing on (as it was for that question), the oozing pulls filament out of the nozzle during the travel, so there's not enough filament at the destination corner to bite and bond to the corner wall. Turning the combing setting off seems to have solved the missing infills in the corner. It also greatly improved the quality of the infill walls, too, which relates to the problem described in this question.
UPDATE: Here's a paragraph from a forum posting here that explains how oozing caused by combing can result in "underextrusion effects." That's what I think is happening in this post - the nozzle gets to the corner, but it has no filament to bite and bond with the wall. Credit to @0scar for giving me the forum link. Quote from the link:
Even on interior layers, combing as implemented in Cura is a bad idea,
as it doesn't perform retraction, and that can result in the head
oozing as it moves, especially as each time the head crosses a line of
infill it can tend to pull our some plastic. You can also get some
long moves (e.g., all the way around the curve of a 'C' shaped object
when moving from one side of the opening to the other). This can
result in the head being empty when it starts printing the perimeter
again, with resultant under-extrusion effects.
Now that you are using Ultimaker Cura, the default (probably hidden) parameter Z Seam Alignment is set at Sharpest Corner, so it will always start in a sharp corner. The default retraction settings are pretty high in Ultimaker Cura (I think about 6.5 mm as default Retraction Distance). What happens here is that the filament is not available for printing in time (this is dependent on the extruder type), so the distance should be less than the current value.
It is highly recommended to print a retraction test to find what is best for your setup. For me the 6.5 mm works very well on my Ultimaker 3 Extended and my large custom CoreXY printer as they both use a Bowden extruder setup using 2.85 mm filament, this can be different for your printer. Choosing a different Z Seam Alignment option, e.g. random prevents the use of the same location at every height, but could result in a less aesthetic print.
Furthermore, you could try to visualize the G-code in a viewer, this can be done in the Ultimaker Cura slicer itself, but online viewers are available. After slicing your product, change the combo drop down box from Solid view to Layer view to show the sliced object. Nowadays there are 2 sliders to interface with the model; the vertical sets the layer, the horizontal the progress of the layer. It is advised to play with this to understand how your print is actually printed.
About your settings, print speeds are not high (could be increased), travel speed is fine (is only for non-printing moves). The brim is looking good and the level of your bed is also good.
Hi Oscar, I checked and you are correct! The default retraction was 6.5mm, so I reduced it to 4.0mm. I will report back after my next print. Should I change z-seam alignment to Shortest or Random for better results? Thank you
PS. If the problem is caused by the filament not being ready enough to bite in the corner, why isn't Cura smart enough to push the filament out the right amount in the right amount of time? It knows that it retracts 6.5mm, so shouldn't it extrude 6.5mm (or whatever is best) to get a bite? I really appreciate your help. It sounds like you should have a book out that I could buy too... :-)
@Kevin, the problem is that right after the +6.5, the filament is melting and being forced through the nozzle. This takes a small amount of time, and is exacerbated by any loss to oozing at the start of the layer change. These are really small effects, but enough to affect some prints.
@Oscar, it looks like you updated your answer with a retraction test. Thank you - I didn't even know there was such a thing. Perhaps you could point me to a checklist of all such good tests to set up my printer? Does such a list exist? Sean, thank you for your reply too. I thought for the corner problem I would reduce travel speed so that the head allowed more time to bond before taking off. Also I reduced retraction a bit to give more output in the corner (didn't help much, IMHO), and chose "Random" for starting each layer so the starts didn't add up in the same corner.
I still have some hairs and strings (esp between short 5mm support sequences on the build plate), but now at least I know about retraction tests! I will do my homework and report back. Thank you both again.
I marked this as an answer because it lead me to the answer, as described in this related post here. The two questions are two very distinct symptoms of the same underlying problem (or so I think, as a newbie).
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6315 | Underextrusion after travel moves with PETG/Colorfab XT
I came across several issues which seem to have been lowered.
Firstly, I changed from a 0.4 to a 0.5 mm nozzle. Because of the backpressure I was not able to print my PETG (Colorfabb XT filament) below 270°C which caused unresolvable oozing. After that I was able to extrude till 230°C.
The left print below shows the result. I disassembled the hotend, there was no leak or whatsoever. Maybe it was too cold for printing. However, the temperature displayed was 250°C. Then I replaced the cheap aluminum heat block with a copper alloy based one. After that my PIDs did not work anymore. I had to greatly enhance the d-term, otherwise there was a big overshoot. Guess there was a serious heat conducting issue with the old BQ hotend.
Anyway, from there it became better. However, I noticed that I still have severe underextrusion after travel moves (second piece, first picture, first piece, second picture). I use Cura, so I activated retraction with the feature to prime after travel moves. I got the wall closed just after 0.35 mm³.
My Question: Is this underextrusion after travel moves normal for PETG/XT? I did not discover such behavior with PLA or ABS in the past.
Current Site Advice: Despite the weight, copper heat blocks seem to be worth the upgrade.
What is your retraction length?
I need 2.5 mm for PETG. But the underextrusion happens also if no retraction is active.
Have you tried adjusting the Extra Restart Distance in Simplify3D or Retraction Extra Prime in Ultimaker Cura? Most slicers should have a similar setting, perhaps named just slightly differently. A small positive value can help prime the nozzle after a long travel when you've lost back pressure or oozed a little.
Zero retraction is just a special (worst) case of under-retraction. You'll pretty much always lose material to oozing if you don't retract before travel. At best this ends up hidden inside the print (but can still affect weight and weight balance); usually it'll also harm the surface.
Ensure that retraction is set to always happen (not skipping short travel), and at least 5-6 mm for bowden extruders. Direct extruders can get away with less but I'm not sure exactly how much less. Less-rigid materials need more retraction to make up for compression of the filament between the extruder gear and the nozzle.
The second part of your answer implies Bowden style printers considering the rather large retraction, I think it is best to state that explicitly.
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6922 | Bowden tube clog
There's PLA filament clogged in my Bowden tube, is there a best practice for cleaning it out or do I need to replace the whole tube?
Also, the couplings are totally stuck, so I guess those would need replacement too or are there ways to get stuck couplings off?
Click here for a video.
I use a pipe cutter and cut the last quarter inch off - what I want to know is why it happens in the first place
As a short-term fix, grab a twist drill bit that is on the order of 1.5 mm diameter (assuming a 1.75 mm tube). Using a hand drill, slowly and gently drill out the clogged filament. Obviously you want to try to avoid scarring the teflon lining, so better to use the thinnest drill that will work.
With a little training and a little luck, you'll get the clog cleared. I would recommend removing the nozzle first so that the chips don't fall into the nozzle.
Usually, the Bowden tube is 2 mm in inner diameter
@Trish 1.9 mm is also pretty common these days.
If you are able to force the filament from the interior of the bowden tube without causing damage to the tube, you will be able to determine the cause of the clog. My bowden tube clogged recently, but it was because I left the system idle with old filament inside. The filament broke from brittleness and the edge of the broken pieces managed to wedge against the tube.
I was able to use a "healthy" piece of filament along with great force (pliers pushing close to the tubing end) and remove the damaged filament.
Once removed, the new filament slid easily within.
Your PTC fittings may not have to be replaced if the tubing is not damaged inside and if the existing spacing meets your requirements. A PTC fitting has a ring of teeth which gouge and/or grasp the outside of the tubing preventing removal. It is frequently necessary to push the tubing into the fitting, then compressing the release ring followed by pulling the tubing.
The PTC fitting at the end where only the filament exits is probably a stock fitting. The fitting which has the bowden tube extending through it has been drilled and may be challenging to find. Your best source for such a fitting is the original manufacturer.
It's clear in the video that the threaded portion of the two fittings are different.
The problem is I can't force the filament anywhere. It's totally stuck even with pliers. The ptc fittings are also totally stuck in place even when the lock mechanism is released. I just bought a replacement
that's good that you have a replacement. With such damage, even if the filament was removed, it would probably give you problems in the future.
I haven't tried this, but it's possible to melt filament inside a PTFE bowden tube; some have even used this for splicing filaments. The examples I saw were over a flame but controlled heating would probably be better. If you do this, weld the clog to another piece of filament then push or pull once it's started to cool.
Most standard filaments soften at 200 °C, meaning a pot of near-boiling water should soften whatever is stuck, allowing you to either fuse another strand of filament to it or use it to push it out of the tube.
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19078 | Why should the bed be leveled and isn't just fixed optimally?
In every 3D print that I have seen, the bed should be leveled (manually or with some sensor-based system) on multiple points, pretty annoying because often when you reach the perfect distance on a point another point should be adjusted again repeating the procedure multiple time to have perfect leveling on all points.
I'm wondering why height isn't just fixed with the optimal leveling.
There are printers leveled in the factory: https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/featured-product/alta-plus they level the bed (well, the print head in fact) for you once and you likely won't need to do it again.
The point of "leveling" (tramming) the bed is to make it:
square with the coordinate system of the printer so that it lies in a plane perpendicular to the direction of Z travel, and
a known distance from the nozzle tip at one point (and thus, due to (1), all points) in the plane at any given Z value.
In theory, if the machine were all preassembled and sufficiently/perfectly rigid, this could be done once at the factory and never need leveling again. However, even if that were possible, there's at least one factor that will throw you off: you're going to want to swap/replace nozzles, and they will not all be exactly the same length - especially if you use different nozzle diameters, styles, materials, from different manufacturers, etc. This is why, even with an ABL system, unless it performs probing using the nozzle tip itself, you always have to calibrate out the offset between the probe and the nozzle tip.
In practice, many machines (especially affordable ones) require final assembly by the consumer, which necessitates calibration. They also have parts which can warp or wear and require adjustment - especially POM V-roller wheels - which will then throw off the squareness of the bed with the rest of the frame.
If you find you're having to re-level often, something is wrong with your printer. You may have play in the Z-axis/gantry - on Ender 3 style printers with only one side driven, the undriven side tends to wander up/down unless you get everything tensioned perfectly, and this manifests as apparent loss of leveling. You may have adjustment wheels working themselves loose (watch the end to see final findings) that mess up your leveling (I've had good luck mitigating that with this add-on). You may have an unreliable endstop switch (mine was acting up recently after years of use, and replacing it fixed the problem entirely).
Also platform thicknesses vary a bit, especially if you have different platforms or sometimes use tape and sometimes not.
Why? To provide a 2D plane of the build surface that is parallel to the nozzle at the whole print area (usually the X-Y plane). If not, this leads to problems in getting the first layer to adhere to the build surface (see the many questions on "leveling" on this and other sites).
Please note that for good quality printers the tramming is performed very seldomly. My CoreXY home built and my Ultimaker 3E are trammed once every few hundred prints! Usually as a result of misuse like in pulling of the print when it is still sticking too much to the plate. It is the quality of the printer and the handling of the user that determines how often this should be done, but it has to be done at least one time to establish that 2D plane.
In addition to the answers above, you can have perfect levelling for one filament that doesn't work with another.
So for instance my normal PLA works perfectly at one bed level, yet if I change to the generic silk I have it won't adhere unless I change the bed height fractionally. The differences are tiny but are make or break changes.
Copper PLA filament is slightly different to both in terms of getting a nice first layer.
ABS also requires slightly tighter bed levelling on my printer.
So while I rarely change bed levelling, I do if I'm changing filament. But quite often I don't bother with the whole levelling thing, I just adjust the knobs while the skirt is printing.
This is from my experience, your mileage may differ.
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19868 | Rough surface coated PEI textured build surface to fit Anycubic Kobra Max?
I have an Anycubic Kobra Max. It has a bed size of L430*W410.
I would like to print a rough surface as shown here:
To do that, I need a coated PEI build plate, and I need to print the surface pointing towards the build plate.
The coated PEI build plate that is shown in the photo was designed for an Ender 5.
I would like to know if somebody could point me to such a solution for a Kobra Max as I don't know what would be needed to "fix" it on the build plate.
Here is the full data for the product shown in the image just for clarification of what it shows:
Ender 5 Plus 3D Printing Platform
Double-Sided Powder Coated Without Magnetic Foot Base
3D Printing Build Surface 377x370 mm/14.8x14.5 inch
Size: Only Double Powder Plate 377x370mm
From your description, it looks like you would need a magnetic sheet for the Y-axis carriage. Could you [edit] in a link to the product you are looking at purchasing so readers can help find a solution?
Considering that the PEI coated build surface is smaller than your actual build platform size you should be able to fit the build surface onto the build platform at the expense of a smaller print surface area. In the past I have secured sheets of glass with Kapton tape (very thin high temperature resistant electronics tape), but glass is stiff and rigid. You might be able to use tape to tape the build surface corners to the build platform. However, from the website: supplied without magnetic platform side B, the plates are coated on both sides so you can save one side for flawless parts while you need the other side. The performance may not be good without the soft magnetic base to maintain flatness. Do not recommend using them separately., so you need to get a magnetic platform to use this surface according to the seller.
This makes sense, as the sheet is thin, and some filaments warp (by shrinkage) considerably, the sheet may deform. You could try to use double sided high temperature tape, but that defies the the purpose of the build surface, you need to get it off easy and bend the surface to release the print. Therefore, a magnetic base is required.
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19870 | Are magnetic hotbed plates interchangable?
The Anycubic Kobra Max comes with a glass plate.
I need to use a textured PEI plate for my Kobra Max.
As I understand it, the PEI plate needs to be used on a magnetic bed plate.
Currently, there is no hotbed with a spring steel magnetic plate available for it yet.
I am still a complete newbie at plates.
Could I use an other magnetic plate for this, or do they have to specific to a certain printer (apart from the size of course)?
Usually the build surface is not the magnetic part, it is just a flexible steel PEI coated plate, so yes you could use a magnetic build platform sourced somewhere else.
Currently, there is no hotbed with a spring steel magnetic plate available for it yet.
Actually there are solutions, note that complete build plate and surface systems are sold for the size of your printer, e.g. look into manufacturer BuildTak.
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19733 | Heating Failed: E1 after upgrade to 4.2.7 motherboard - Ender 3 Pro
I upgraded my Ender 3 Pro from the stock 8-bit motherboard to a new 32-bit 4.2.7 motherboard. No problems were encountered with the swap, flashing of the new firmware, or calibration.
When I went to start the first test print, the firmware throws the E1 Error: "Heating Failed: E1; PRINTER HALTED; Please Reset".
When the print started, the bed heated up to the requested 60 °C, and then started warming the print head to 210 °C. Once the print head reached 205 °C, the temperature started to drop. It dropped back down to 200 °C, then up to 202 °C then down to 198 °C and so on. It kept doing the up and down heating until it dropped to 190 °C at which point the E1 error was displayed. I have run through the cycle several times with different prints, and through the menu options; and it always fails in the same up and down way.
Printer Specs:
Ender 3 Pro
Upgraded motherboard 4.2.7 (silent stepper drivers)
Matching upgrade of Marlin to version 2.0.6 (downloaded from Creality)
BLTouch
PEI print bed
Replacement bed springs
everything else is stock
Prior to the upgrade, everything worked fine. I printed several small prints the day before without a problem. After the upgrade the E1 error.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Sounds like thermal runaway protection kicked in, and the PID needs to be tuned. This guide will help you do the PID autotuning https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html#pid
Yes, it turned out to need PID Calibration. I am composing an answer with the details.
Problem Solved
After checking in with the Ender 3 group on Facebook and doing quite a bit more research I tracked the problem down to PID calibration. The default settings for the board were not heating the print head properly. Because it was coming in short, the thermal runaway logic on the new board cut in and shut everything down.
To fix the problem, the printer needs to run a PID autotune. This is a good idea when you replace any part between the nozzle and the logic board. To accomplish the autotune you need to access the printers console through an app such as Pronterface. You should also take care when hooking in a USB cable to the printer. The 4.2.7 board runs power to the USB port. To get the printer connected to your computer, you will need to mask off the power pin on the USB cable (with the possibility of blowing the chip on the board if you skip this step)
The Marlin command for PID autotune is M303. Follow this up with an M301 to set the results from the autotune. And don't forget to finish up with an M500 to save the settings to the EEPROM.
I would suggest this video from Teaching Tech for an example of the process, and this video from 3D Print General to conduct the same autotune on the build plate.
Post Script
Important Safety Tip - The 4.2.7 board draws more power than the old 8 bit board. During my first test print after the PID calibration, the connector between the power supply and the motherboard melted down. It seems that the wires were crimped rather than soldered. This was fine with the old board, but it was too much with the added power draw. The poor connection caused the wires in the connection to over heat. This is a fire hazard.
Check the power connector. remove the shrink wrap and take a close look. If you don't see solder on the joint, replace it. It is worth the slight expense and hassle to avoid ruining your printer and potentially starting a fire.
The issues is discussed in this Makers Muse video.
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19717 | How to fix these issues with Nylon?
I'm using Ultimaker Cura and a Dremel 3D45S with an eSun Nylon filament.
As starting point I'm using the default settings of the printer, 260 °C for the hotend and 80 °C for the bed.
These are the results:
In addition to the poor print quality, the resulting dimensions are wrong. For example, the cylinder is supposed to have a wall thickness of 5 mm, with an inner diameter of 35 mm and the outer diameter of 45 mm. With ABS they are quite good (just a 0.2 mm difference). With nylon they are off by 1 mm! The wall has a thickness of 6 mm.
For both materials the flow is set to 100 %
Any ideas on what I should change to improve the printing?
Here my current settings for Nylon:
Looks like slight over extrution, and also use the newer slicer engine for better Z seam alignment, going a little slower may also help with this
If you look up the hardness of Nylon with respect to ABS you will find that ABS is generally much harder. The effect of softer filament is that the teeth of the extruder feeder dig in more into the filament (so for every rotation of the gear, less material is extruded than in hard filament), if you do not correct for this (lower the extrusion flow modifier) you are under-extruding material.
This is clearly not happening in your case!
The effects you see are caused by over-extrusion. This can cause the effects you see on the outside of your print and also result in dimensional inaccuracies. You need to tune the printer for different materials. Try to extrude 100 mm of filament and see how much is being extruded (mark some filament from a reference point and redo the measurement after extrusion).
Also make sure the filament is dry, Nylon tends to take up moisture which can bubbling (boiling the moisture) during extrusion.
While there appears to be other issues. The first thought I had looking at the print is a problem with moisture.
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19719 | My printer unloads the filament, after I finished the print
I have an Artillery Hornet printer that I am very satisfied with. I make my models in Blender, export them as STL files, and import them into Cura slicer. Everything works great with no problems, mostly. But yesterday, I made a model that I used a reference image in Blender (deleted it before exporting then). And when I printed it, direct afterward, the printer unloads the filament. I tried to print it multiple times and every time it did the same. No big problem then, but a bit annoying.
Does anyone have any idea what could cause this, and how to prevent it? Other models I make in Blender have not given me that result then. I still have not tried making other models with a reference image to compare the result. So I found this place first and try to ask if someone knows about that problem.
This is the end G-code:
G1 E-6 F9000
M104 S0 T0 ; turn off temperature
M140 S0 ; turn off bed
G1 X110 Y220 F10000
M84 ; disable motors
Can you share a link to the G-code, e.g. posted on PasteBin.com?
Can you clarify what you mean by "unloads"? Does it just back out slightly, or eject the filament entirely so it's hanging loose?
The problem was solved by the answer from Peter K. I just disabled the part of end code. It rejected the filament entirely after printing. Not all models, but 1 i made. So i still wonder if disable that part of code, got any negative impact on printing other models. So far it works perfect then.
@mathias Nice that the answer solved it for you, please accept the answer by selecting the tick mark. Our community is built on reputation, please acknowledge the time and effort that is taken to produce the answer. Voting is key! Thanks! P.S. please add the final lines of G-code from the file into your question.
Thanks. Just edited it and added the original end G-code
I haven't used your printer type, but this link suggests:
If your printer unloads the filament after each printing session
automatically, you might want to check the end code of your machine
and disable the retraction (;G1 E-6 F9000).
Thanks allot for that info, i will try it. Even though it not unload filament for other models i made. I just wonder if i disable it, will it have any negative impact on something? what is the purpose with that code line?
I bet the problem is that this was supposed to be a relative move of -6 mm (retract just enough to prevent oozing while cooling down) but the extruder was in absolute mode and it went back to a position of -6 relative to where it was at the start of the print. Instead of removing that line, put M83 on a line before it and M82 on a line after it so it's a relative move.
Thanks allot for that info. Me totaly new to gcode, but i will try this. It worked fine then with just disable that line, but might effect other things i guess then? will try your advice. Thanks!
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE I've asked the OP to paste some lines of G-code in the question, I hope that the relative/absolute option is evident from the G-code. It remains a mystery why that only is happening for that specific model.
@0scar: Cura (and other slicers?) in absolute extrusion mode tend to use G92 E0 periodically so that the E-axis position values don't get too large in magnitude and hit floating point precision issues with firmware using single-precision. If the file ends shortly after such a reset, the move to position -6 would not produce a long ejection. But if it ends midway between them, it would.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE As seen from the updated question, it still is in absolute mode, good spot! Depending on when the last reset was, -6 can take you far. It is worth to add an additional answer pointing to the absolute/relative extrusion as the end G-code is incorrect, disabling the retraction in the end code is just a quick fix.
Oscar. Maybe add M83 before first line, and M82 after first line, as R.Github wrote in a comment? i did not try it myself then though it works great without that first line.
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19756 | Why is my Ender 3 v2 knocking & misaligning for high Y?
On my Ender 3 v2 printer I recently and consistently get some knocking.
This happens in only two scenarios.
First, it now occurs all the time when printing the initial test strip gets near the top (high Y value), and knocks several times.
Secondly, it occurs if the model (sliced with Cura) has a high Y value (eg: if the model occupies most of the bed).
(If there is room and I move the model - in Cura - closer to the front there is no knocking.)
On the first 10 (or so) layers the printer sometimes knocks when a high Y value is reached and the entire model is thereafter shifted to the front by a few millimeters.
There is a third scenario. At the end of a print the print head is in the middle of the bed and moves up 20 mm then travels directly to the top left corner. At this corner there are 4 or 5 "knocks" (and the nozzle is 20 mm above the bed).
Any suggestions to diagnose/fix this problem will be much appreciated.
Embarassingly, I discovered that the cable to the heatbed was sometimes caught between the on/off switch and the adjacent power plug. So, for high Y values the cable was very tight and the bed could not be moved. Presumably the "knocking" came from the Y-axis motor. The problem was fixed by attaching this cable to the adjacent hotend/X axis motor cable.
Hopefully this will be helpful to others who have a similar problem. Please add a comment if you experienced this.
Your bed has become unleveled or skewed in Y direction.
When the nozzle is closer to the bed the extruder has to push harder to get the same filament flow through a smaller space, the stresses the extruder to a point that the stepper skips or grinds the filament. This is generally described as a knocking sound.
You need to find out why the bed is higher at the upper end of the Y range and fix this. Otherwise your bed has become warped and may need to be replaced. There are alternatives in using a sensor (e.g. a BLTouch) to sense the shape of the print surface, it will then automatically adjust for the shape during the first 10 mm (default value) of your print product. Installing a sensor requires new or alternative firmware.
Thanks Oscar. That is very helpful if there were only 2 scenarios. But, I found a third that suggests that closeness of nozzle to bed is not relevant.
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19673 | Why are these concentric parts fusing together at seam lines?
The print is a collapsible sword I'm using as a test. Everything seems fine on the outside, but inside it seems the segment parts of the sword inside the hilt are fusing together at the seam lines causing them to stick together.
Model: https://thangs.com/designer/3dprintingworld/3d-model/Collapsing%20Katana-22696
Finished Print (looks fine)
Concentric blade pieces (fuse marks that I sheared off and broke to get out)
Seams on exterior of hilt look great
Print settings/info
Printer: Prusa MK3S+
Slicer: PrusaSlicer 2.5.0a3
Settings preset: 0.15 mm QUALITY
Filament: Prusa PLA
Nozzle temp: 205 °C (default is 215 °C, but lower eases stringing and has never been a problem for many past prints)
Nozzle size: 0.4 mm
Full config: https://pastebin.com/ECa6KkYK
Just to make sure, did you print the whole sword as a print-in-place? If I follow the link to the print files it shows that the prints are printed apart from each other.
After some trial and error I found that the issue was stringing due to excess moisture in the filament from being stored outside of a sealed low-humidity container for long periods.
After placing it in a heated dehydrator for 2 days, my next print had low stringing and did not bond interlaced parts together significantly.
You did well to decrease the temperature. You could go even lower to 200°C
As you noticed, You really have a little bit of stringing between the elements. That's what binds the parts together. Many times when you print only a single part this will be no problem. With many nested parts, you retraction really has to be set to optimal values.
Try increasing the retraction distance in the slicer.
I did try that before the post, but thank you for posting. I believe I found the reason for it which was excess moisture in the filament because after doing a "baking" session I was able to reduce the stringing that was causing this.
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20037 | Can I 3D print a wall assembly and expect it to be load-bearing?
I need to build me a small support wall 250x80 cm mounted on two metal supports approximately 200 cm apart.
I was looking into WPC (Wood Plastic Composite) boards and then it hit me that I may be able to make it functional AND pretty with my 3D printer (Prusa MK3S + MMU2).
However, I have zero idea on how to calculate whether the board will be able to handle the weight of the soil I would shovel behind it, if at all.
My current design proposal is to make a hexagon mesh of PETG filament. The hexagons would have cylinder cutouts in all three directions, through which I would then hammer in cylinders to bind them together. Perhaps even some edge contours so that they fit perfectly.
But, my problem is that I don't know how to calculate the strength of such a solution (or any other).
Is this even a viable idea?
The filament type needs a bit more explanation:
My current proposal is PETG since I read that PLA will become brittle with time (as I can attest to myself having to replace my flag pole holder every 3 - 4 years)
I don't want ABS since I have horrible experience printing it.
I did not find anything of particular use when searching for "3D print load-bearing" on this site and similar with Google searches...
The answer is: "Yes you can", but at what design... (not as compact as WPC boards). Maybe you should add an image of the geometry or a sketch. I can't see you print lengths of 80 cm. Furthermore, it might become pretty impractical to print considering the multiple parts and it may not be cheap.
People make load-bearing parts for printers that handle kg-scale moving parts accelerating at 3-5 gs out of ABS, ASA, PC, and PET, so in general yes, but it depends on the specifics of your load.
Even if your design ends up being strong enough, consider the time and cost of printing it vs simply buying some WPC and installing it. Unless you're in it for the "Look what I did, it's so cool!" factor, it seems totally impractical and overly expensive to me...
They've 3D printed entire bridges (I think just for pedestrians so far, not sure if there are any vehicle-rated bridges yet). So it's possible, just not likely to be within an amateur budget....
Yes, of course, in your wording. Hasn't YouTube showed you 37-or more examples?
You could print a decorative layer that attaches to the WPC board.
It would be faster and cheaper, and there'd be no doubt about its strength.
i was beginning to lean in this direction too: it would save tons in filament cost since strength would no longer be required
It's far too easy to fall to the Law of the instrument. To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Calculations such as you want are not possible in my opinion except in such general terms as to be useless. Differences in layer height, layer adhesion, print quality and what heat you printed the item would all affect the physical properties.
Since it's not a manufactured item with known properties but a unique one. You would have to print and test it yourself.
Here are some general issues with load bearing 3d prints for this type of usage:
If this is to be used outside, plastic has issues with both water and UV exposure making it brittle. PETG does better on both of these areas than either PLA or ABS.
Plastic generally does better with compression than with shear or pulling. In other words, hanging something from plastic might not work well but it might work as a bottom support or in a situation where it is squeezed rather than pulled.
Even if the plastic appears strong enough initially, it may "creep" where the plastic deforms under stress over time. This applies to all three of compression, shear, and pulling.
To optimize for strength, print direction is critical. You want to make sure that the stress will not be trying to shear print layers. Also (for any material, not just 3d printed plastic), curved shapes are stronger than square corners. A fillet instead of a corner makes a big difference, but more extreme curves are even better.
If you are going to make this out of modular pieces joined with a second material, it is very hard to characterize the strength of the resulting composite, but generally it is stronger than using a single material.
Regarding creep, it's very material dependent whether and to what degree it happens. The general consensus is that PLA and nylon do creep, ABS, ASA, and PET don't, and PETG probably does.
ABS does creep, but not a lot, and not nearly as much as PLA. ABS is fairly elastic, tending to return to its previous shape when stress is removed, but it can be made to creep. PLA tends to conform to the shape the stress puts on it, even when it is very small and brief.
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20007 | What is this situation called and how do I avoid it?
I am trying to print ColorFabb XT-Filament PETG on my Kobra Max, and I get the following results:
These are my Cura settings:
WAY too low print temperature/wrong material Profile
That's a PLA profile with 195 °C on the printhead. PETG is recommended between 230 °C and 250 °C. Load a PETG-Profile. in Cura, the material (which dictates print temperature) is a separate thing and can be swapped independent of many other settings, especially how detailed you print. However, very careful piece of advice:
Save your profile before swapping materials!
Thank you. I don't have a PETG profile. I will change the settings according to your recommendation. Edit: Oh, I find an instruction how to activate a profile for PETG in Cura: https://all3dp.com/2/cura-petg-settings-profile/
yes, you can just swap the material in CURA, which swaps print temp and some other things.
The advised temperature of ColorFabb XT is 240-260 °C and a bed temperature of 60-70 °C.
Real PETG needs at least 245 or so to print decently at all, and preferably 260 or so if your printer can handle it safely (needs all-metal hotend). Fake "PETG" can be all sorts of random plastics mixed together and might print anywhere from 210 to 250.
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20201 | Convert model to "skeleton / prototype" model for quick real world "Proof of Concept"
Does anyone know of a method, app, technique to "dumb down", if you will, larger models to do a quick initial print to check that it fits the real world proof of concept that it was designed for.
I am not talking about 0.3 mm draft printing, I already do that... But is there a way or method, to kind of "skeleton" the large print, print it in let's say, 25 % of the actual time to test its physical application. Scaling down works, in some situations, but I would prefer a 100 % model, just "simplified / skeleton'ized", still with the correct dimensions.
I primarily use Fusion360 for designs.
There are techniques to remove material from an exiting model to create less dense models (like in a skeleton). One such a technique is applying Voronoi tessellation (also known as a Voronoi decomposition, a Voronoi partition, or a Dirichlet tessellation), basically the model is broken up in polyhedrons of which the ribs are kept with a certain thickness and smoothed. See e.g. the following example from https://www.voronator.com/:
You can modify files yourself or use an online application to do that for you.
However, you may create skeleton like models, but it is not always faster to print these models; they may have less material, but retraction may cause the printing time to be actually longer than printing the original at low density infill.
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20127 | Print thread is non-uniform
I am finally unable to reach adequate printing with my Creality 3D. This is how it prints a raft
As you see, thread is non-uniform.
What can be a reason?
Printing setup:
Nozzle is brass, 0.4 width, new from Amazon
Filament is PLA
Nozzle temperature is 220, bed temperature is 60.
I am using autolevelling with BLTouch
For PLA you don't need a raft, that is used for high temperature materials that shrink considerably. 220 °C for PLA is also on the high side unless you print fast, print without raft at 200 °C and see what happens. If this works we can answer the question.
@0scar: It looks like OP's underlying problem is not that they have a raft but significant extrusion problems. Raft may have been an attempt to solve the failed bed adhesion that resulted from extrusion not working right
When you use "thread", do you mean extrusion width?
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Indeed, and without the raft it is easier to see what the problems are.
if you found the problem, please paste it as an answer to this question and draw the followup to a new question. Defective boards happen occasionally - if this is a new printer, write to your seller that the board seems defective and you would like replacement. Otherwise, a boardswap is relatively easy.
I found a problem: it is with extruder motor driver.
I tried to control the extruder with the knob and saw it that rotates with strange sounds and jerkily. Then I connect extruder cable to the socket of Z-axis on motherboard and also tried to control it with the knob. This time I found it rotates smoothly.
I.e. motor is good, cable is good, motherboard 4th driver is not good.
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20263 | Old printed object deformed over time
I have an Elegoo Mars.
I have printed a figure in Resin, but after some months I found this - the figure is as if it is not completely cured. The base is open (see picture below). it wasn't open before!
It was printed a month ago, I am not precisely sure. I think I only machine cured and sunlight.
How is this possible?
How long did you cure it, and what was the layer time? You might have too short a layer time, the core possibly being all goo but not solid...
Those are cracks as a result of overstressing due internal stresses to further curing of the print over the course of time (stress cracks).
Most probably the print wasn't cured properly or slicing wasn't optimal.
The outside layer are perfect! So I think the problem can be slicing!
You should probably cure more, but curing should not be complete during print, or the layer will not stick properly.
Also, when you cure with UV light or the sun after the print is completed, you can cure only up to a certain depth, likely around a couple of millimetres.
If your object was massive and you didn't "hollow it" then some resin got trapped inside it and it didn't cure properly initially. It may slowly cure later, but by the time the object cracks due to stress, some resin may still be liquid enough to cause the issue.
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20429 | How to add magnets to 3D print mid-print?
I would like to add neodymium magnets during print. The model, which I would like to print, has fully enclosed holes made for placing magnets.
I added pause on layer (M601) in slicer. Since, this is a very long print, I would like to avoid any problems. I read that the magnet can attach to the nozzle while printing. How can I avoid this, and what else should I watch out for? How should I prepare in advance for magnets placing?
I'll share some experience, I got while printing with magnets:
Firstly, check if the magnet can stick to something around the hotend, especially when using neodymium magnets. It may be necessary to replace the nozzle with a non-magnetic one.
Apply a small amount of glue before placing the magnets. The magnet should be free of metal filings that may stick to the magnet, because the glue will not stick to the magnet properly. In this situation, the magnet will not stick to the print and may frivolously move around in the hole.
I used a small amount of hot glue on the bottom and top of the magnet, completely surrounding it in the hole. Hot glue should be used carefully as it can deform the plastic surrounding it.
Check magnets pole orientation. This one is important, if you want to use magnets in pairs, e.g. for parts that should connect and disconnect. Magnets should either attract or repel each other, depending on the application. Before placing the magnets, check that they are correctly positioned. You can also mark the poles first with a marker.
Make sure the magnet fits in the hole. For this purpose, you can make a quick test print and check if the magnet fits correctly into the hole. This will save potential drilling in the printout and other unwanted problems.
Magnet pole won't matter if it's attaching to part of the printer, however.
Yes, but it is important if you want to use 2 magnets e.x. in a case and a lid.
Unless you are using a nozzle made of magnetic metal, the magnet will not attach to the nozzle. The heater blocks are usually aluminum, the nozzles are brass or copper, although some can be steel. Other portions of your extruder assembly could be a factor but I've not seen examples.
Pass the magnet under the nozzle area close enough to touch the nozzle. This will provide indication of which portions of the assembly might attract the magnet.
Consider to apply some super-glue-type adhesive and allowing sufficient time to cure (or use a thin layer of moisture on the magnet, or an accelerator) to provide additional security. Even a small segment of double-stick tape may provide the level of assurance you require.
I didn't know, that the heater block is non-magnetic. I have to change the nozzle to brass, because my current one is stainless steel and it has too much force, so I don't think it will work.
@kosteklvp Check your existing nozzle -- most stainless alloys are non-magnetic.
Some heater blocks have set screws (sometimes called grub screws). Those are magnetic if carbon steel and may be magnetic if stainless steel, depending on the particular SS alloy.
I've certainly had this happen. While it didn't attach directly to the head, it attached to the steel roller bearings that moved the head, as well as the BL touch probe!
The type of magnet matters as well. If you're just using a regular steel or ceramic magnet, you probably won't have a problem since they usually aren't strong enough to lift themselves the inch or two required. But if you're using a neodymium magnet, then those certainly are.
I've done three things to solve it:
Learned the tolerance of my machine so I know how large of an opening to make for the magnet so it ends up being a bit of a press fit (when designing my own stuff). It doesn't take much to offer just a little bit of resistance to prevent the magnet from lifting.
When printing multiple items at once (made some refrigerator magnets), I arranged them so the print head travel properly and not cross over the magnets of the other items
Used a glue stick to glue them in. I was a bit surprised this worked, but it was just sticky enough to solve the problem.
One of the best first prints I ever did was to create a cylinder, say 1" in diameter, with a hole in it (1/2" in diameter), then create the corresponding "pin" exactly 0.500". Then I'd create multiple cylinders with holes of varying tolerances, say 0.490, 0.495, 0.500, 0.505, 0.510.
Then I could compare the fit between the two items. Essentially if I needed to put a magnet into something, there's no way I can do a 0.500" hole. It's too tight. I've learned that with my printer, that if I oversize a hole by 0.01" diameter, then it's a nice fit with a little bit of resistance. Well worth taking a few minutes to do this.
You want the magnets to fit snugly in the holes for them so they can't jump out. Making the hole undersized is not a good way to achieve this, because forcibly inserting the magnet can then break or deform the partial part.
Instead, I like adding one or more very thin splines, like the ones Lego bricks have to interface with and grip the studs of another piece, in a slightly oversized hole. These splines can wedge against the magnet and deflect without deforming the rest of the part.
Do you have an image of the spline design technique? I think it would benefit the understanding of the answer.
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20463 | Z-Offset Multiple Heads on Tool Change
I have created my own tool changer for my 3D Printer but I'm having an issue with the Z-offset for each head.
Firmware: Marlin 2.1
Slicer: Cura
I have used the offset wizard to get the Z-offset of each head from the bed and then I tried to use the following G-code (M851 Z-4.3) in the Extruder Start G-Code and I have done this for each head, I can see it has changed on the screen in the configuration menu but it looks like it has had no effect as the print has already started.
What is the best way for me to set each offset for all my extruders?
There is a specific code to set the offset between the various tools. This G-code is called M218 - Set Hotend Offset.
@0scar, how is it possible to "view the current hotend offsets with M503"? Where I can read this result value? Here there is an explanation: https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M503.html, but currently is beyond my knowledge...
This may help you understand: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10573/what-is-a-printer-console-terminal
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20538 | Do bevelled corners hold any practical advantages or disadvantages over square ones for blocky functional prints?
I'm producing a series of brackets to allow a laser cutter to be reliably positioned on a waste board\spoil board in that has a measurement grid on it, and to allow a honeycomb bed to be reliably positioned within it in relation to the laser cutter.
Essentially, I'm making 4 large right angle piece with mounting screws and stepped sides. Which will be screwed down to a piece of timber so that things can be fixed to them in the same position each time they're used.
It has a lot of corners, and 90° angles, and it looks like it was designed by a Brutalist architect.
Will bevelling1) the corners for purely aesthetic reasons have any practical effect on the print or the printing process. For example will rounder corners make the print stronger or weaker, or will it make warping more or less likely. Will it improve or harm bed adhesion, will it have any substantial effect on print time or quality?
Version 1.0
I'm using an Ender 5 with PLA and a 0.2 layer height. Because that's what I have on my shelf right now, and I don't want to spend any extra money on this.
1) I'm using the word "bevel" because I'm using Blender to make the model (Because it's what I'm most familiar with), and you create rounded edges using the Bevel tool in Blender.
Bevel chamfer fillet, whatever. For correct semantics see the other excellent answer.
What are advantages of rounded (or at least, less sharp) edges and corners?
In FDM, curved xy paths are stronger than sharp corners and if your printer supports acceleration, may print marginally faster.
Curved surfaces feel nice in general and make the part more professional looking. Sharp corners are...well...pointy and sharp.
Sharp corners and flat side faces can expose calibration issues with your printer that curved faces can hide, so the results look better.
Vertically slanted surfaces with bridged inside horizontal curves are difficult to print without good support. The inside perimeter can separate from the infill, severely degrading print quality. Sometimes replacing circles of slanted holes with pentagons or octagons helps this and improves bridging, but good support works better. This could be construed as a slicer bug, but I've yet to see a slicer that does this well.
For bottom layers, round corners (or just circles in general) can increase bed adhesion and reduce peel up where sharp corners make that worse. This is more of an issue with plastics with a shrink factor (like ABS) and nearly not an issue with PLA.
In general (and fillets in particular), rounded corners anywhere are stronger. Inside fillets reduce stress concentrations, spreading it over the whole curve instead of concentrating it at the intersection. For outside corners, a sharp corner is a target for chipping and direct impacts on the corner can transmit concentrated forces into the part where a curved surface would spread them.
As already stated, curved surfaces in the xy plane are stronger and higher quality with FDM, but even vertical curves can be stronger, as most slicers add extra material around them. However, if you have a buggy slicer that doesn't do this, an upper curved surface with too steep of an angle, like a sphere, may have holes and could collapse. On the other hand, a buggy slicer might not add solid layers under the corner and only have infill support under sharp vertical corners, creating a delamination risk, where a gradual curve or slant would at least have overlapping perimeters. Lower curved surfaces can have support issues.
Curved or beveled edges can increase passive compliance for parts that have to slide to join with other parts, making them easier to fit. However, inappropriate use of this can add unwanted gaps at the edges of joined parts, in which case a gradual taper (or just a square corner) might be better than a bevel or round.
Curved surfaces are harder to draw, and depending on your cad package, may require extra design planning.
Got it TLDR: gentle curves are better because they're more forgiving than harsh angles.
Alternate TL;DR: Use curves, bevels, chamfers and tapers where appropriate, and with an appropriate radius or slope.
Will bevelling the corners for purely aesthetic reasons have any practical effect on the print or the printing process.
No, not necessarily in this model. If one positive reason for using a chamfer1) or a fillet2) would have in this design is that it may make it easier to insert the honeycomb plate in the recess of the corner model cutout.
But, fillets and chamfers can have more useful effects. E.g. a bottom fillet is usually harder to print well, on the other hand, a chamfer prints fine. See e.g. this answer or this answer.
A fillet can also be very useful in preventing stress concentrations in corners (of structurally loaded parts), preventing prints to fail prematurely (like a weld does between 2 perpendicular plates).
The effect on printing time and filament saving is negligible, there is usually not much volume involved.
One of the biggest advantages is that parts look more professional!
1) from Wikipedia: In machining the word bevel is not used to refer to a chamfer. Machinists use chamfers to "ease" otherwise sharp edges, both for safety and to prevent damage to the edges.
A chamfer may sometimes be regarded as a type of bevel, and the terms are often used interchangeably.
2) from Wikipedia: In mechanical engineering, a fillet is a rounding of an interior or exterior corner of a part design.
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20510 | Stringing on Anycubic Vyper
I recently bought a Anycubic Vyper which prints overall not bad but has a real nasty issue with stringing.
I tried out several temperatures, settings for retract distances and retraction speed but nothing seems to really work. All of my filament is new and stringing occurs with different brands so it does not seem to be caused by the filament.
When the nozzle heats up there is molten filament coming out of the nozzle even the extruder is not doing anything at all.
Is there something I can try to fix the stringing apart from taking the hotend apart?
Retraction tower with different retract-values:
Retract test which shows the stringing:
I'm not sure if it is relevent but do the three photos show any particular stringing at certain temperatures or settings? That is to say, the images seem to shown different amounts of stringing, especially the first image, when compared to the other two. If so, could you [edit] your answer and add anything that might be relevent to the image descriptions and image hover tags. It might help to pin point the issue.
Is the temperature for the retraction tower the same for all layers? It looks as of the upper part is printed hotter or at a different speed.
Thanks for the answers. In this special case the printer had a hardware-defect,so I had to send it back.
I don't know which part in detail was defect but the hotend was switched off in the middle of the print, so either the hotend or something at the mainboard.
Please accept your answer, else the question will pop up once in a while to the top of the active questions list. Thanks!
You have a retraction test tower, but consider that a temperature tower is also a useful reference. Your nozzle temperatures may be excessive, especially if you have a substantial oozing from the nozzle when idle.
Consider also that your filament may need drying despite being "fresh out of the box." There are quite a few anecdotes with supporting photos of users printing tests with fresh filament, along with a matching photo of the same test printed after drying the filament in a food dehydrator.
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20470 | raft balling up
Suddenly, I can't seem to print anything on my Flashforge Adventurer 4. No matter what I try, the raft looks like this. I'm re-calibrated and tried all kinds of different heat/speed settings. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Shawn, welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! You don't give us much to work with, please [edit] the material you use, temperatures and speeds. Also state whether it used to work or never worked at all (suddenly hints that it used to work before). Did something change if it worked before? Also note that rafts are seldom needed, it is a relic from the past (only use it when you are printing materials that shrink a lot). If you need a raft for PLA, this indicates that there may be different issues at play, e.g. bed levelling and initial distance.
Thank you for all the suggestions.
My problem ended up being that the filament tube was loose (not screwed in all the way) into the extruder head. Eventually, the printer started giving me errors about irregular printhead readings and to check it. The print head was loose so I took the whole thing apart and put it back together tightly. My next print was perfect.
Glad you solved it and took the time to post an answer, this may help others in the future too! Happy printing!
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20577 | QiDi i-Fast print in parallel
I'm playing with the QiDi Print software to compare the slicing results with mine (Dremel 3D45). One of the reasons I'm going to buy it (QiDi i-Fast) is the printing in parallel using the two nozzles:
But I'm not able to set up the slicer correctly. As an example I set both extruders with the same PLA. I did the following steps:
load the objects (two instances of the same or even two different objects)
select the left one and press "print with extruder 2"
select the right one and press "print with extruder 1"
in the slicer parameters window, if I try to set the extruder for build plate adhesion it is set for both extruders:
So I cannot set Extruder 1 for object printed with extruder 1 and the same for the other.
Hence I tried to select one object to enable the "per model settings". But, looking at the settings to customize, the Dual extrusion panel shows nothing:
I enabled the visibility of all settings.
In any case, trying to slice with these settings, it add a weird wall around all the objects:
I never seen such a wall and I don't understand why is there and how to avoid it.
Finally, how to set up the slicer in order to print two objects in parallel?
The question regarding the wall is covered in the advanced settings for Additions. In the screen capture above, you can see that it is turned on. Ostensibly, it's used to scrub off the previous filament oozing as it sits idle.
I don't have an i-fast and cannot identify the setting you require for duplication printing. Terminology is tricky; my IDEX printer slicer calls it duplication printing and mirror printing.
As an aside, you should have a contact email for QIDI tech support. My experience with the email system is next-day response.
It's not an IDEX, meaning they're not independent extruders. It has two connected extruders in one printhead, it can't do IDEX things, it can print with two different filaments, one at time.
My apologies, I thought this was a comment on the other answer, but now see that it is more related to the question and is in fact an answer. +1 for remarking that what the OP intends is not what can be done (printing independently with the 2 nozzles as there is just one carriage).
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20389 | How can I upload STL files to OctoPrint?
I started playing with OctoPrint and I already have it configured for external access and management, using OctoEverywhere.
I would like it to be an easy to use printer, because it is shared between people that don't use Cura or PrusaSlicer, so I want them to upload STL files and having a slicer built into the print server (printer is an Ender 3) for them to click a button and convert these STL files into a printable G-code. I have tried to add the printer to Cura but it says that the API connection key is invalid. Can anyone help me with this?
What is exactly the problem with adding your printer in Cura?
@kosteklvp I have no issues adding it via octopi.local once inside my local network. The problem is I have octoprint running on octoeverywhere and I would like to add it from that link instead of the octopi.local one, for sending the gcode to the printer over the internet instead of limiting to local network devices. When I add the printer in cura by the https://octoeverywhere link, I cannot request an API key from cura neither.
Giving people a bad experience with 3D printing (for those who it isn't a hobby) is letting them slice their own files... (from experience, I maintain an Ultimaker printer for a staff association). Most users have no clue what a slicer does and how you should place your model and use what settings or materials.
How can I upload STL files to OctoPrint?
There are a few option from available plugins to upload and slice STL files, but these options are not powerful enough with respect to desktop standalone slicing application. Furthermore, when there are multiple materials in play, it is best you appoint some trained/experienced users to slice for others. This works very well from experience, it spreads the load over multiple people.
Also, most of the plugin options are not maintained for a while and use old slicing engines. This shouldn't be the way to operate a community printer.
You can upload G-code directly from Cura or PrusaSlicer, but you need to use a OctoEverywhere Shared Connection when you set up your OctoPrint or Klipper instance in Cura.
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to set Cura with OctoEverywhere.
The latest Octoprint web UI (as of writing, Version 1.9.3) allows for drag n' drop for file upload.
Slice and export locally, then drag it over to the Web UI, or use the embedded upload button.
Do you know what the version number is (to save people later having to correlate the date of writing, release dates and versions numbers)? If so, please [edit] your answer and add it there.
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20406 | TPU on Ender 3 S1 Pro only works when flow is set to 600 %
First time trying the EasyPrint Flex TPU filament. When printing a solid, I can see clear lines with plenty of air on both sides. This gives me the idea that it is not extruding enough filament.
I've tried many tweaks:
Adding/removing tension to the extruder
Pulling at the filament to see if the gears have a good grip at it (they do).
Printing at ridiculously slow speeds (5 mm/s)
Bypassing the runout sensor, in case that is adding too much friction or something.
Adding flow rate in Klipper (maxes out at 200 %, slight improvement)
Adding flow rate in Cura to 600 %
The last tweak makes the most apparent improvement. Printing at 25 mm/s, it's somewhat decent. There's still some air going through each layer, but much less. The result is still dissatisfactory.
As this printer uses a direct extruder there shouldn't be any problem with the feeding.
Can I now conclude that this is simply a crappy filament and my best bet is to buy something better? If not, then am I missing something obvious here?
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Do you have a photo to include (before and after)?
Have you calibrated your extruder E-steps properly?
Thanks for your feedback @Oscar @kosteklvp! While taking the photos as requested I got enough motivation to take everything apart and found the issue, posted below as an answer. This was a tough problem to reason about. Happy to have learnt some new things though.
Great you found the problem and posted the answer, make sure to accept it after 48 hours!
This is the Creality Sprite Extruder Pro.
The tension is controlled by a bolt with a square-shaped nut that is pressing on the lever with a spring. To increase tension to the gears that feed the filament the adjustment bolt is turned clockwise.
However, you have to be very careful not to turn it too far, or the bolt will unhook from the internal nut. Turning anti-clockwise in this situation does nothing.
If you're lucky, like I was, it will get stuck in a position of max tension no matter what you do. If unlucky, the various parts can go into the gears and cause permanent damage.
It is a most unfortunate design as there is no way to tell if you turned it too far!
In my case, having it at max tension at all times caused it to under-extrude. Adding more flow alleviated the problem somewhat. I had to open everything up to see what was going on there. In my case, just putting the nut back on the bolt solved my problem.
TPU is much softer than PLA so it's more sensitive to tension. While PLA can print okay at max tension, TPU cannot.
Remember to accept your answer if it solved your problem.
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12130 | Does it matter what kind of FEP film I use for my SLA printer?
I have a Phrozen Sonic Mini printer, and of course I'm eventually going to need to replace the FEP film on the resin vat. Is there anything I need to take in to consideration when buying some replacement film? Will any legitimate FEP film I find on Amazon work?
Yes*
Any FEP film you find will work fine with any SLA printer you come across. Some may work 'better' or 'worse' depending on the quality of the film, but, for the most part they will all just work.
The caveat is that you must ensure the film is of the correct dimension for the resin vat, If it's too small you may be unable to clamp the sheet in taut enough to get a proper seal.
ASWELL, Some SLA printers do not have a standard 'sheet' style FEP, instead opting for a proprietary/semi-proprietary 'cartridge' style FEP. In these cases, unless you can find some form of 'adapter' or aftermarket upgrade, you will be unable to swap FEP films outside of said cartridges sold by your printer manufacturer.
In the case of your Phrozen Sonic Mini, It looks like it uses the standard sheet-style method, You should have no problems with replacing the FEP with an aftermarket sheet.
I second this, any FEP that's above the absolute minimum size will let you print. The cheaper ones may not last as long, but so long as you fit them correctly they should be functionally identical to any other FEP that you find online so long as you're not running a print farm with multiple prints every day or prints lasting an entire day.
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20425 | How can I test if my model can be 3D printed without having a printer?
This would be my first ever 3D printing
I previously worked in Sketchup to generate simple objects, mostly floor plans and various small objects mostly for visualizing and designing things.
I am now trying to print a dust collector (hose) adapter that would connect my vacuum to my table saw guard. I have the model already (looks like below), I have managed to get quotes from 3D printing service providers so apparently everything looks OK
I still have doubts regarding the stability of the object during the 3D printing.
How can I verify if everything is OK in that respect? I plan to print at our local public library which offers free printing (you pay the materials)
Here is my model, the OD at the base is 64.3 mm (2 17/32", the height is 288.1 mm):
Here is the link to the file.
If it matters the local public library branch has the following 3D printers which I can use:
The LulzBot TAZ,
The Maker Bot Replicator 2
The Ultimaker 2 Plus
Can you share your 3D model? It may help me better answer to your question.
Sure how can I share a model here? I looked for that option but I could not figure out hoe to do it
You can add it on some 3D-models hosting repository and leave a link here. I’ll check it from there.
ok if that is the case I have added the link to the file at the end f the post see the update
What kind of printing services? If it is powder printed (SLS), you don't need to bother about the overhangs.
I don't really exactly, I assumed that the model will present a problem for all of them. They did not say anything so I assumed it was OK. Turns out that the overhang problem is ...a problem :-)) I will fix that
You better may take a closer look to the build volumes of the mentioned printers, none of the three mentioned can fit the object upright!
SketchUp is known to create models which fail in the slicer or during the print. It's a good idea to use a resource to check for flaws/errors in the model. These errors can be quite varied. All3DP has a somewhat misleading presentation purporting to provide resources to repair damaged models, but the linked page merely describes those factors which are to be considered when examining a model. This particular link is included for completeness.
Non-manifold builds, intersecting faces, non-intersecting faces (holes) and others are listed in the linked article and are to be avoided/repaired prior to printing.
Some slicers will identify and auto-repair a model if the "damage" is not too severe.
Windows 10 and up includes 3DBuilder, which will also identify flawed models and attempt to repair them. Despite being bundled with Windows 10, it is a capable program for checking a build.
Meshmixer (windows) also has Analysis, Inspector to identify problem areas, and also to repair them. For your model, Meshmixer does not identify any failure points, making a repair unwarranted.
An online repair resource from NanoDLP exists but does not display any information, merely repairs the model and makes the repair STL file available for download. There may be others of value online, use search terms "online 3D model repair."
If you can identify the slicer used by the library, it's possible/likely that it is a free download. PrusaSlicer, for example, will provide notification when a suspect model is loaded and will auto-repair. As noted above, your model does not have flaws; loading the model will provide other resources such as slicing and g-code preview as requested in your question. Other slicers are available for free download as well, including Cura, as referenced in the video.
The overhang mentioned by @FarO is a valid concern and the video provides a useful solution to the possibility of drooping during the print.
Angus of Maker's Muse on YouTube has a couple of videos covering design considerations to reduce or eliminate the need for supports, a version of the video linked by @FarO:
It's similar in respect to adding material to the model, creating a change from overhang to bridging.
I've had to print a counter-bore with the major diameter on the build plate. This created an unsupported bottom of the counter-bore "floating" above the plate. To fill this area with supports via the slicer would have been detrimental to the print quality and possibly resulted in impossible to remove supports.
The Angus' method served well in that I created a cylinder 0.4 mm larger in diameter than the minor diameter of the hole, placed directly in the center. This cylinder created a bridge from the major diameter, with an overlap of one nozzle width, which was easily snapped clear. One could have even less of an overlap by using 0.2 mm delta.
In the case of your vacuum nozzle, the overhang could be changed from the method presented in the video to a few gussets perpendicular to the surface under the overhang. This would "bookend" the overhang, creating bridging of the shelf, rather than drooping.
This image above is a hastily thrown-together example of the suggested option. The difference between the left and right support panel is the result of sloppy and hasty creation on my part, not a reflection of the model construction.
Addressing the question in the comments regarding print time, multiple factors are to be considered. Print speed for the specific filament type is the first. PLA can tolerate relatively high speeds compared to other filaments, especially flexible types. Layer height is also a consideration. A model printed at 0.300 mm layer height will print more quickly than one printed at a common 0.150 mm or 0.200 mm height. Layer lines will be much more visible on non-vertical faces when printed at 0.300 millimeter layer height, but for a utilitarian purpose such as yours, that's insignificant, in my opinion.
The slicer program selected will also be a factor. At 0.300 mm height, one of my slicers presents a 7 hour 22 minute result, while another suggests 8 hours 32 minutes. As both are in excess of your allowed time, you'll have to improvise.
One option, based on the duration limitations, would be to segment the model in a manner to allow easy assembly after printing, then glue the segments in place. Super-glue-type adhesives are prone to becoming brittle and fail, while solvent types are more likely to create a better bond. A popular adhesive, from my experience as well, is E6000.
If you split this model, use a horizontal plane cut to maintain the vertical orientation. It will provide the fastest printing. You can also create the plane cut at the overhang area, removing the need for manipulating support structures.
I have updated my post with the models the local public library has. They give you two hours for most of the printers; they do have some printers that can be used for longer. How can I determine how long is it going to take to print my model. Also what material would you recommend me to use ? (not sure if they provide the material or I have to come with mine)
Answer to comment question now in edited answer (bold)
Thicker layers are faster only if the printer runs blindly at a predefined speed, which unfortunately is often the case.
The shape seems very easily printable.
The only part which will need supports is the bottom side of the rectangular connection port, in the figure just right to the quote "11 21/32". That part, if it doesn't need to be connected to anything else or doesn't need to be exactly horizontal, can be modified to be slightly slanted, see video below with the issue and solution.
Remeber that the height of the ramp depends on the depth of the overhang part. In the video the ratio is about 0.4 mm ramp height per 2.5 mm unsupported overhang. I would change it to be safer, 0.4 mm per 2.0 mm overhang, so (no less than!) 1 to 5. If your square connector is 5 mm deep (I mean measuring on the outer side of the opening, you get it), use a ramp 1 mm tall or more. The angle will be 11 degrees from horizontal.
Printers may struggle when the angle from horizontal is less than 20, but it's worth a try... or simply make it a bit taller, 0.4 mm per 1.5 mm overhang.
Once printed, file the ramp out so it becomes horizontal again. Try to use ABS if you can, it does better overhangs than PETG. PLA may work too but it's quite brittle if you hit it.
Would these issues be revealed when I try a to simulate the printing in Fusion 360? Still trying to find a video that would show me how to do the simulation, that is what I was looking for when I asked, I also hoped that the simulation would tell me that there are problems with my model as the one you pointed out , thank you for that. PS: I posted a link to the file is you want to have a closer look
only part which will need supports not if you print the tube leaning over. I've printed lots of various shaped tubes for the pool that way.
@0scar bit then you need supports on the bottom, isn't it?
@MiniMe what you can do is to load the STL model in prusaslicer and enable "supports everywhere" to where the software will place them. Then it is up to you to get an Idea of what would happen if you don't use them. Of course, it's always possible to use supports and the issue with sagging is gone
How can I test if my model can be 3D printed without having a printer?
Find out what printer is used and slice the print yourself using free tools like PrusaSlicer, Slic3r, Ultimaker Cura, etc..
From the mentioned printers, none of these allows for the tube to be printed upright, the TAZ has the largest height of 285 mm (depending on the exact version they have), your object is 288 mm...
e.g. One of my printer cannot take the object upright:
This means that you are left to two options, cut the object into two pieces and design a coupling between the two pieces, or you need to modify the orientation of the object.
Do note that orientation of the print on the plate can do a lot to print object that sometimes do not appear to fit on the plate or in the volume.
E.g., you could print the tube other than upright, see below (it fits my 200x300 mm printer):
This is sliced with support, but, a smaller scaled version printed fine without support. The larger version and the shallow incline of the tube need support for the full size print.
Scaled version of the tube printed without supports:
I think the best solution is to break up the part into two pieces and design an appropriate coupling. This would give you 2 parts, but the printing time and the amount of support will be minimum. The less time and the less support the higher the chance the parts print in one go without failing. It is also best to print the two parts after each other, else you will have the nozzle to retract (takes time) in between the two parts if printed together.
I second this, using an open source slicer and go through the motions. This is all that most people do before printing their models.
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20316 | Issues with my 3D prints
I've noticed there have been some strange patterns occurring in my prints lately, sort of like warping. I've attached a picture of a Benchy below and an image of a project I'm working on. But as you'll see on the Benchy, the front is messed up. Never had this issue before, it's only started occurring recently. Any ideas as to what it looks like?
What is the printing and bed temperature?
Looks like insufficient cooling. If it only just started, your part cooling fan might be clogged with dust and debris, or have a failing bearing making it spin slow and give low flow, or might have broken fins, etc.
It's also possible that a difference in ambient air has made the difference. Especially if you're printing PLA on a hot bed, it's hard to get low-to-the-bed overhangs like the Benchy bow sufficiently cooled that they won't deform like this, and having the ambient temperature a few degrees higher can make the difference in not being able to.
If the latter is your problem, lowering the bed temperature (and finding alternatives to heat to get your part to stick) is probably your best option. Or, get better fans.
Thanks for the answer. I would upvote but I don't have the necessary rep yet.
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20373 | What happened during this print disaster, and is it salvageable?
Well, I know what my critical error was, I was in a hurry and set a print running before leaving it unattended for about 8 hours; came home to a great enormous disaster.
What on earth happened? Perhaps more importantly, is anything here salvageable, or do I just need to get a new printhead?
Does this answer your question? Is this hot end salvageable? Or this Heatercartridge bolt stuck
I don't vote to close this question as it is different as in the comment linked above in that the blob is just a blob of filament with a silicone sock, the hotend doesn't look that battered as in the linked questions.
It's difficult to determine if there is anything inside this mass of plastic, but a heat gun applied carefully will allow you to extract it.
When a hot end is assembled, the heat sink (finned cylinder) has a heat break threaded into it (slender metal tube) which then threads into the heater block (block with wires for the heater cartridge and thermistor).
The heater block has the nozzle threaded into it, but it's important to not seat the shoulder of the nozzle on the heater block. Leave a gap of 0.5 to 1.0 mm between the nozzle shoulder and the heater block. Tighten the heat break into the block until it contacts the nozzle. Secure it firmly, but don't snap anything off!
Heat the assembly to the highest safe temperature, between 220 °C and 250 °C and tighten the nozzle again.
Step 7 from cnx-software states the same thing as the paragraph above, but also provides a graphic showing the components:
Your photo shows the results of a nozzle that might have been leaking filament at the top of the nozzle and below the heat break, leaking out of both the top and bottom of the heater block.
Melting the plastic with a heat gun may release the metal components and if you are very careful and very lucky, you won't damage the wiring for the heater cartridge and thermistor. One can expect that the wiring will be damaged, however and you may have to replace the two items. This is advised, as the melted plastic will bond with the wiring and insulation, making it very difficult to manipulate them during assembly.
If you are determined, you won't have to purchase a new hot end and if you have the financial wherewithal, you may want to purchase one anyway.
It doesn't look like a leak from the heater block. More like the filament was coming out of the nozzle and spreading sideways and up, causing the heater block to be completely covered in melted plastic.
I'd say you are quite lucky, the hotend (as seen in the second photo) is fairly intact!
I've had a similar problem recently, but in my case it destroyed an Ultimaker core module hotend, and salvage would have taken too much time.
What happened during this print disaster
What probably happened is that the print has become unstuck from the build plate or a part of the support is caught by the hotend blocking the deposition of filament to the print object and instead it ricocheted back against the nozzle. This is not uncommon.
, and is it salvageable?
I'd say yes. You should be able to get the silicone sock off and clean the hotend. Heating the hotend and scraping it off seems do-able from the photo you provided, it may require some time and elbow grease.
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20888 | CraftBot XL (CoreXY) part of x-axis movement resistance / high force required
I have recently acquired a 'CraftBot XL' 3D printer (sold by CraftUnique), which is a CoreXY 3D printer with linear rails. It is a second-hand purchase and the seller were a company that had several. This particular unit has an issue where sometimes during X-axis movement, the Y-axis would move as well. They replaced the stepper motors, but the problem persisted so they opted to sell the machine.
I have found a possible cause of this issue. When I tried to move the carriage around manually, I noticed a particular heavy resistance / "drag" on approx. 1/3rd to 1/2 of the X-axis motion, toward the left extent of the build space. The remainder of the X axis and the Y and Z-axes are completely free to move as they ought to.
The force required to move the carriage in the problematic part of the X-axis is (subjectively) quite large. Much much larger than any other movement. I believe that during some combined XY-manouevers (diagonal movement), this force is too large, causing the carriage to only move in the Y-axis, resulting in errant behavior (at best: layer shift, at worst: carriage getting stuck and the printer needing to be reset). The behavior arises during homing often, as the home position is in the problematic area. An additional reason that I think the X-axis force is too large is that, when this problem occurs and I ever so slightly help the carriage along the X-axis with my hand, the movement can complete without issue.
Steps I have undertaken to no avail yet:
Re-tension belts, make sure they are of roughly equal tension all around
Lubricate all axes with PTFE dry lube spray
Disconnect belts to see if they are causing the issue (they aren't, with belts completely disconnected the problem is unchanged)
This is a diagram of the setup:
What else could be causing this? I don't hear any out of place noises like metal grinding.
The next thing I want to check is the squareness of the gantry. I think I know how to measure it, but I'm not sure how to adjust it if it's off. Any help there?
Please remove the tension from the belts or remove them completely; then see if the motion system still has a problematic issue with resistance. You can then exclude the belts from the equation.
I have, and it persisted. Managed to accidentally pull one belt loose from the carriage so I will have to disassemble the whole extruder assembly now. As a bonus that will allow me to judge the linear rail and its carriage separately.
I'm going to answer this myself, as I believe I have found the issue. It was purely a mechanical issue.
On this particular model, the extruder motor rides just on top of / above the crossbar that the linear rail is mounted under. The extruder motor was mounted very close to this crossbar, there was barely any clearance between the two. I figure that due to a slight deviation in height or non-squaredness in the ZY-axis, the motor started to heavily rub on the bar toward the left extent of the X-axis. I tested with a piece of paper, which I slid between the motor and the bar. This immediately caused the same "resistance" I was feeling before, but now everywhere along the X-axis.
After re-mounting the extruder motor about 1 mm higher, which the frame already allowed for, there is no longer any improper resistance noticable along any axis:
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21019 | Is 3D printing progress linear?
Is 3D printing progress (the one you check on the display of a 3D printer) linear or not?
By linear I mean that equal differences in percentual progress will take the same clock time.
Depends on the printer. Probably usually not. Programmers are very lazy (source: am programmer.) It's harder to make the progress bar properly linear, so most of them won't bother.
On some printers it's just percentage of layers printed. So if your part has wide portion on the bottom and thin on top, the progress will be very non-linear.
Or sometimes it's a percentage of the instructions in the source file that have been run. Of course, they don't all take the same amount of time...
There are lots of ways in which one could interpret this question, but in pretty much all senses I would say no, the progress is not "linear", unless you're talking about a progress bar whose values were computed based on a detailed computation to predict times.
Progress is not linear because different moves the printer makes take different amounts of time. Some may be performed fast, others slow. Even if you requested everything (travel, perimeters, infill, solid fill, etc.) to take place at the same speed, they would still take different amounts of time, because physics. Just like your car doesn't immediately start and stay at 65 MPH just because the highway speed limit is 65, the printer does not immediately start and stay at the requested speed. It has to speed up and slow down gradually (accelerate/decelerate), both from stops and when entering/leaving curves.
As a result, portions of the print with lots of detail take a lot longer than portions with mostly long, straight or almost-straight lines.
On top of that, for the print process itself to look "perceptually linear", you'd need a similar amount of time to be spent in each layer. However, some layers take a lot more time just by virtue of the amount of material in the, even if detail weren't an issue.
Thank you for the answer. It clarified the issue for me, my experience with my printer was not sufficient to tell either way and it felt silly to run a print just to find out. I guess I don't really understand what the progress bar measures exactly. Anyway, now it makes more sense why it seems to be stuck in a certain percentage for a long time.
Funnily enough, "portions of the print with lots of detail" might just make the progress bar progress a lot faster than portions with just straight line since some firmwares use the amount of lines of code to calculate progress and curves have lots of individual segments. So there's really no safe answer without using plugins that calculate the duration on each line / layer.
If you are using a resin DLP 3D printer. (The kind that projects the entire mask in one instance).
Then 3D printing progress is linear (except for the first layers which are cured for longer).
And the depends on the height of your 3D print, not on its complexity.
Short answer: Usually not.
Longer answer: Depends on the printer.
Many consumer grade 3D printers show progress by how many layers are printed in relation to how many layers in total. But some layers take a lot longer than other layers, so it's just an approximation, at best.
Some higher tier 3D printers calculate differently, and as a result the progress indicator is more precise.
For example, the current models of Bambu Lab printers are pretty good at showing precise progress on the display. I think most resin printers are fairly accurate as well.
I think that if we look back at this question in 5 years or so, the answer should probably be changed to: "Yes, usually", since printers get better and better each year.
I think for all practical purposes, the time can be considered linear, yes.
Sure, there are some differences in print speed depending on the shape of the layer (e.g. ratio of infill, different disconnected surfaces, etc. etc.), but those are all independent of what I believe the real question here is. Assume that one has an object that is very wide at the bottom, but very thin at the top. One could assume that the progressbar is based on the height of the print. In that case, the print would of course not be linear, since the top layers would be printed much faster.
This is not the case, since the percentage is normally calculated on the number of gcode instructions done and to be done. So aside from minor differences in speed of different instructions, it would be near-linear.
The only exception to this would be the heating-up. For most slicers this is not counted into the prediction of time, and is also a very non-linear part of the print.
OP's comment under @R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE's answer indicates that this this is the question he really had. The progressbar being stuck for long periods of time cannot be explained by difference in speeds of certain regions in the model.
"Minor differences in speed of different instructions" is where you're wrong. These are major differences. Measuring as % of gcode file size in bytes, which I believe is what Octoprint does, can give you anywhere from "vaguely right" to "horribly wrong" depending on the particular file. If the slicer estimated the times and put LCD update commands in the gcode, it's likely to be closer, but these estimates are usually somewhat wrong too.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE "major differences" compared to what? Sure, a layer with lots of fine perimeters and hops and retractions will take a lot longer than a perfect square with only infill. (assuming sensible slicer settings)
But are these differences significant, compared to how non-linear the time would be if you assumed the percentage to be an indication of print height? No. They would be near-negligible. That is my perspective in this answer. Which doesn't mean your answer is incorrect. It's just that I'm making the assumption that mine is closer to what OP wanted to know.
Yes, they are significant.
No, 3D printing progress is not linear. Sometimes there are big breakthroughs, like new materials or faster printers, and other times progress slows down. Innovations and improvements don’t happen at a steady pace. It can speed up or slow down depending on new discoveries, research, and market demand. So, the progress in 3D printing is more like a series of steps rather than a straight line.
The question isn't about the progress of 3D printing as a technology, the question is about printing an object being linear. As in, does the progress bar linearly vary with time.
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18715 | BLTouch not working on Creality Ender 3 Pro
When starting the printer, the bed leveling sensor does its little startup thing and then lights up static red. When pressing "Level Bed" or "Auto Home" it homes X and Y and after that sends the Z-axis crashing into the bed.
Is there anything I can change in the firmware to debug or fix this? I have checked the wiring and it's correct.
The BLTouch is not a genuine Creality since at the time it for some reason was not available in my country. The BLTouch is connected like any other BLTouch; 2 wires to the Z endstop connector, and 3 of them to "+5V", "GNF" and "IN". The firmware I got of Marlins GitHub and modified the Ender 3 Pro firmware I got of Marlins configuration GitHub (Marlin BugFix 2.0).
The stuff I modified I put here:
Configuration.h
#define USE_PROBE_FOR_Z_HOMING
#define BLTOUCH
#define NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET { -42, -5, 0 }
#define AUTO_BED_LEVELING_BILINEAR
#define PREHEAT_BEFORE_LEVELING
#define LEVELING_BED_TEMP 65
#define GRID_MAX_POINTS_X 5
#define LCD_BED_LEVELING
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING
Configuration_adv.h
#define BABYSTEP_ZPROBE_OFFSET
I compiled this firmware with PlatformIO in VSCode with env: STM32F103RET6_creality.
The board I used is version 4.2.2 32-bit.
The video I used can be seen here:
Have you flashed a bootloader first? The original Ender3 came without a bootloader. See point 2: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/12153/updating-marlin-firmware-step-by-step-guide
@Trish No, if you have a 32 bit board you just need to put the new firmware on an sd card and it installs it. I have verified that it got the firmware so thats not a problem.
That didn't work for the original, which had no bootloader and a 16 bit board
The later Ender 3 Pros Shipped with V4 boards wich are 32 bit and comes with a bootloader that can firmware update from an sd card
I know this is an old post, but I think I figured out the answer.
I had the EXACT SAME PROBLEM TODAY while trying to compile custom Marlin firmware (version 2.1.2.1) for the same exact setup as you have. My BLtouch probe is plugged into the dedicated probe header on the mainboard, and the Z endstop switch is also still plugged in. The bed probe wouldn't trigger while homing or bed leveling, and the nozzle would plow straight down.
The issue is in the firmware. The line #define Z_MIN_PROBE_USES_Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_PIN was not commented out in my Configuration.h. The printer was expecting an interrupt from the Z endstop switch. It wasn't looking for an interrupt from the bed probe, so the probe triggering wouldn't do anything, and it continued to move. Eventually, the nozzle would hit the bed. If you have this issue still, recompile your firmware with this line commented out in your Configuration.h, at around line 1280.
Please let me know if this works for you.
This is sadly as you said an old post, i have not attempted to use my BLTouch since then. I was a begginer then and i still consider myself a beginner. BUT everything you said aligns pretty good with my issues. I believe this might actually work. I will not guarantee i will try it. But after this post i might dig up my old BLTouch and give it another go. Just logged into my account after a long time and saw this :-). Thank you so much.
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20841 | With remesh tool in Meshmixer; What happens to the details of the model?
I have an organic but more complex STL model. It is so detailed and every detail is important to us.
We have a remesh tool in Meshmixer. It says:
With Meshmixer, you can create an even tessellation using the Remesh command. Click the Select Icon in the menu and click to create an area to be remeshed, or use Ctrl + A to select the entire object. On the Popup menu, click Edit → Remesh or hit R.
Question:
When applying this tool to my STL model, does it happen that any detail will be gone off? Or, will I get same complex model?
While doing this, you may encounter the loss of details. To avoid this, precise settings must be made. For example,
Adaptive Size: This option can be used to configure large surfaces and preserve small details.
Detail Smoothing :With this process, a more detailed examination of the surface is checked. This option must be enabled.
Target Triangle Count:It is used to increase the number of triangles that will divide the surface as the mesh operation is repeated. Using this, the more triangles we can cover the surface, the more detailed information can be obtained.
Hi there. Thanks for helping and contributing to the site. Unfortunately, some of your suggested edits were rejected as they actually changed, or removed, parts of the OP's question, or removed things that, while weren't strictly necessary, did no harm in being there. Admittedly, editing can be a bit of a fine art. However, looking for things to edit in old posts, on a small site such as this, will be fruitless as most posts have already been reviewed by many in the community already. Checking new posts is the best option, as these will not have been reviewed much yet..
If you need some tips, please read this post on our "meta" site: Useful things to check for when cleaning up posts
Furthermore, if too many of your edits are rejected the SE system will think you are deliberately sabotaging the system and you will get a temporary ban. Please read the shared link from @Greenonline in the previous comment if you want to help us out tidying up the site.
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21177 | In the last layer, the nozzle should be at 210 °C of temperature configured in the Prusa Slicer profile
I would like to create a profile, in the Prusa Slicer software, that could be preset so that in the last layer the nozzle is at 210 °C of temperature so that the printer ensures that the inner and outer walls are well together and do not become loose in the layer higher. I have very thin 0.7 mm walls and I usually have problems with the walls opening every now and then...
"The beak" - It would be beneficial if you could explain (even better if there was a picture) of what you are referring to.
I think beak is nozzle? Correct? Furthermore, if walls not stick together you probably have different issues. You could lower the extrusion width to 0.35 mm on a 0.4 mm nozzle. Also look into this answer.
In the printer settings custom G-code you could add a custom G-code there
{if layer_num == (total_layer_count-1) } M104 S210 {endif}
But that does not sound right why not start with 210 °C in the first place? It is perfectly OK to print PLA at 210 °C.
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21088 | How does my printer auto level based off the sensor I installed?
I'll start off with some info in case it's needed, but my questions are a bit lower. I have an Ender 3 Pro with the 4.2.2 motherboard. Grabbed a Marlin firmware bin from Shiny Upgrades and seems to work great (built my own once and wasn't a fan). Got my Z-offset sorted out with a combination of stealing other people's numbers and testing a few prints out. Tried auto homing, but got weird numbers and instead resorted to that other approach. Printer seems work well now and my Z-offset is around -0.8 mm.
Is the Z-offset I set in printer UI the distance between the sensor and the nozzle?If so, does that mean I can now swap beds and expect the printer to automatically adjust for that without having to adjust the Z-offset again? Maybe assume I'm swapping between two perfectly flat beds and one is 5 mm thick and one is 10 mm thick, so we don't have to account for a different bed level mesh or something.
Is my bed leveling kind of useless?I have 7x7 leveling, but the sensor is quite the distance away from the actual nozzle (mainly on the X-axis, but I assume also on the Y-axis), so any point it levels for won't actually be the point where the nozzle prints. I don't recall seeing any X or Y offsets in the printer UI either, just the Z offset. Why would the Z offset be an adjustable value in the UI, but not the other two? Barely anyone even mentions setting an X-offset and I'm not sure why.
Hi welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Please remember to ask one question at a time, please take the [tour] and read our [help].
Is the Z-offset I set in printer UI the distance between the sensor and the nozzle?
From this answer on question "Z Offset on autoleveling sensor setup" we read that:
the offset between the nozzle and the sensor trigger point (to the bed)
If you replace the build surface for a different surface the offset doesn't have to be changed.
Is my bed leveling kind of useless?
No, automatic bed leveling can be very useful if the build surface isn't as flat as a sheet of glass, it will map the surface and ensures the first layer is deposited at the correct distance.
I don't recall seeing any X or Y offsets in the printer UI
These settings are in the firmware, that is where these are defined. Note that these shouldn't be in the UI, as this is a hardware change. Also note that Marlin is pretty well programmed and is aware of this sensor offset, and even will use these offsets to have the print head (nozzle to be exact) stay within the specified print area. This is a good thing, e.g. when the sensor offset is large, and it would probe to the edge of the bed, the head could potentially wreck one side of the printer. This is described in question "How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?".
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21095 | Is a lighter magnetic pad better?
I've had a magnetic sheet on my Ender 3 for some time. It came with a Creality 3D flexible bed. I've since got a couple of PEI coated steel plates and use it with that.
I noticed it had a lot of crud embedded in it, so since each of the coated steel beds came with a magnetic pad, I have a choice of pads to apply.
Since there seems little variation in the magnetism once the plate is fully over the pad. would I be better going for the lightest at around 120 g, or the heavier ones (at around 240 g) which do have a slightly stronger pull?
I'm intending to use a couple of ADXL345's to tune the resonance after I've reinstalled the bed.
If you want/intend to print fast (high acceleration), adding mass to the moving bed is a big problem. It both decreases the resonant frequencies of the system (making it harder for input shaping to suppress them without introducing significant errors into the toolpath) and increases the force needed to accelerate the bed (making it easier to skip steps). So, all other things equal, you want to pick the lighter magnetic plate.
With that said, if you really want performance, the lightest plate is no plate. Myself and at least several other people I know doing high performance printing on bedslingers have dropped (or skipped adopting) the magnetic plates and gone to clip-on plates or no plates at all. I'm running my Ender 3 with "blue tape"/"painter's tape" directly on the aluminum bed (no separate buildplate) and others are using various surface treatments (variants on the old "ABS slurry", hairspray, etc. concepts) to print directly on aluminum. This saves a lot of mass, but can be less convenient for popping prints off.
I hadn't thought of going that path. I have some "picture clips" I used to use with a glass plate and they weigh 1.4g each! I'm not sure I'm ready to go to no plate yet as I've never used tape.
@StarNamer: I got started using tape by using it on top of my buildtak-clone plate surface, as a way to avoid damaging the surface with lots of small test prints with materials that were hard on it. Then, once I found out I liked it, I decided to go without the plate. It got me a much flatter bed surface too, although this can go either way - if your aluminum isn't warped, it's flatter, but if it is warped, printing directly on it gives up the ability to shim out imperfections with shims between the bed and the plate.
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20954 | Printing spare plastic parts
A small [7 cm long x 5 cm high x 10 cm deep] hard plastic piece of my old luggage broke (see attached). The manufacturer does not have spares for this old model.
Is there any way to scan the working piece on the left with an Android app and order a 3D printed one-off one?
For a simple part like that I'd say it would be easier to just draw the part in CAD from scratch than to deal with all the hassle of 3d scanning.
@floppydisk Please make this an answer! This is exactly what I was thinking as well. Having worked with dedicated 3D scanners I know that after scanning you frequently need to redraw or edit the parts anyways as not always the part comes out fine.
IMHO, it would be better to clone the left one with silicone caulk and cornstarch to make a negative mould, then use epoxy to fill the mold and create the positive. You can stain the epoxy with a bit of charcoal dust to make it black. Lots of 3D printing has also taught me that simpler methods are often, well, simpler.
Thanks guys for all the comments!! I am just thinking, is there any possible way to get this for less than... say, $40 USD? Because all this sounds very advanced to me. I wonder if I can scan the piece, share it with some 3d printers online and get it for some reasonable price.
Create a model and find someone with a printer in your vincinity; there are probably open printer networks or maker spaces you can use nearby or through mail.
I used some thermoplastic. It does not look exactly like the original as I had to give it shape with my own hands, but certainly does the trick. It also costs less than $10 USD. Let's see how long it lasts.
I don't think 3d scanning would be practical here since this is a small and very simple part. You can model it using reference pictures in Fusion360 instead. The program is free for personal use too. Plus learning how to do this means you can start fixing other stuff on your house using the same method later.
You absolutely could try using Polycam to try to scan the piece on the left, and then create a model from it. That's not "plug-and-play" though - would take some modeling prowess to get it to what you need.
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21075 | 3D scanning parts that don't stand on their own
All the scanners I have seen, are scanning objects that stand on a platform. What about something like a plastic part which doesn't stand on it's own? for example this plastic piece I broke on my Kärcher pressure washer
Do you just have to be skilled at modelling enough to create a model from scratch?
At work we print holders for parts that don't standup themselves. This part you broke is probably not suitable for being printed yourself, this is most probably Nylon (or even worse, POM), when you print this yourself you will get into some challenges, like warping. If this has been broken, I doubt whether you find a suitable replacement material. Personally, I would buy this part, it is too difficult to scan and print yourself. And, if printed outside using a print service, it will be more expensive then buying a spare.
ok so you print a holder to hold the part you're scanning but wouldn't the holder be scanned into the model as well? how would you get rid of the holder?
You need to edit the scan anyways. I've done it a few times, lots of work afterwards repairing or redrawing the object.
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20720 | How to adjust vase mode thickness
I am new to 3D printing, and are having a problem with wall thickness in vase mode.
I would like to print this vase model: https://www.printables.com/model/60696-blossom-vase
As seen in the "Makes & comments" section, people have printed the model with quite thick walls, and I would like this as well, maybe thicker.
I have a Prusa i3 MK3S+ printer, and are using the Prusa Slicer software. When I import the .stl model and select vase mode in print options, I cannot alter the layer height, solid layers etc. options to increase wall thickness. This means that the 3D print is almost paper thin.
So how can I make a print of this model, with thick walls?
Vase mode implies a single wall, so if you need to have a thicker wall you need to set an extrusion width larger than the nozzle width (you cannot do that unlimited), but usually a 0.4 mm nozzle can print at 0.8 mm width (twice the nozzle diameter), or you could replace the nozzle for a wider nozzle, e.g. a 0.8 mm nozzle (and also print at larger diameter). Note that when using larger nozzles/diameters, the extrusion volume increases, so you need to print slower.
0.4 mm nozzle can typically print up to at least 1.0 mm line width, and possibly more with reduced quality. The only real constraint is that quality will degrade once the line width exceeds the outer flat diameter of the nozzle tip, since material can expand upward around the nozzle rather than outward. Lost in Tech on YouTube has videos showing his results printing really-wide-line vase mode with standard 0.4 mm nozzles.
I edited my typo 0.5 -> 0.8. Up to twice the diameter is accepted in term of quality. So placing a 0.6 or 0.8 mm nozzle and print at about 1.2 mm would be as if you have a vase with 3 normal 0.4 mm perimeters.
I measured several of my nozzles and found the outer diameter of the flat for 0.4 mm nozzles between 1.2 and 2.0 mm, so I think 0.8 mm is still pretty conservative.
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20730 | Upgrading Bowden Tube on Ender 6 to Capricorn
I'm very new into 3D printing.
I brought an Ender 6 and a cover for ABS printing, but the standard white Bowden tube was too short to pass through the hole of the cover. So I'm replacing the Bowden tube for a Capricorn one.
However, the manufacturer (Captubes.com) only states that their 2 meter kit is compatible with CR-10 and Ender 3.
Is this kit also compatible with an Ender 6?
You only need a tube, why order a complete kit? Furthermore, it is very unwise to have really long Bowden tubes (2 meters), this will affect printing quality and at least tuning the printer for the new length. Think of problems with e.g. stringing.
Thank you for your reply. I was really thinking the entire kit would be necessary. I'd actually cut the tube to around 1.1m or 1.2m so that it passes the hole on the cover. Did some measuring here with a string. I have no idea why anyone would manufacture a cover for the Ender 6 that fits perfectly over it, but not design the hole at the proper height.
Consider printing other filaments than ABS (that shrink less), nowadays there are better filament types such that ABS isn't really necessary anymore. ABS is mostly replaced by co-polymer filament.
I'll look more closely into those co-polymer filaments, @0scar.
I ended up getting in contact with the sales team at Captubes.com, and they replied promptly, what I did not expect.
They claim that the Capricorn tube is indeed compatible with the Ender 6 printer, and that they use the same fittings, with the exception of pro printers and ones that use something called a Bondtech extruder.
I'd like to thank everyone that helped to clear this matter.
If this solved your problem, feel free to accept your answer.
It sounds like you're trying to move the E motor outside the enclosure. Don't do that. Bowden extruders already suffer from severely reduced accuracy and increased difficulty in pushing the filament through the tube length. Making the tube longer makes this a lot worse. Instead, feed the extruder, which remains in its existing place inside the enclosure, with an "reverse bowden tube" bringing filament in from outside the enclosure. Or optionally, at ABS chamber temperatures that should be well under the temperature at which ABS softens, just put the filament spool inside the heated enclosure.
I do exactly the same, I use a tube in front of the extruder to pull the filament from the spool from a container. +1
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20748 | Math in Cura start G-code expressions?
My printer's hot end heats up way faster than the bed. Still, it takes its sweet time, and Cura's default startup sequence: heat the bed, wait for bed to reach target temperature, heat hot-end, wait to reach hot-end temperature, proceed - takes considerably more that it should.
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating bed
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for bed to reach temp
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating extruder
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for extruder to reach temp
Sure I could start heating both to target temperature simultaneously and then wait for both, but then I'll be baking unmoving filament in the nozzle for much longer than necessary. What I'd like to do is to start heating the nozzle when the bed is about 20 °C short of its target temperature - that causes them to reach their target temperatures nearly simultaneously. Something along the lines of:
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating bed
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0 - 20} ;Wait for bed to be 20 degrees before target
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating extruder
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for bed to reach temp
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for extruder to reach temp
Except S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0 - 20} isn't recognized as a valid substitution.
How can I achieve the desired effect?
You can't do this entirely in start gcode templates, but you can do it by first adding a custom setting to the json file for your printer profile or the base fdmprinter.def.json file most profiles derive from. It would look something like (copied from my copy of fdmprinter.def.json's material_bed_temperature_layer_0 definition:
"material_bed_temperature_preheat":
{
"label": "Build Plate Preheat Temperature",
"description": "The temperature used for preheating the heated build plate.",
"unit": "°C",
"type": "float",
"resolve": "max(extruderValues('material_bed_temperature_layer_0'))",
"default_value": 40,
"value": "resolveOrValue('material_bed_temperature_layer_0 - 20')",
"minimum_value": "-273.15",
"minimum_value_warning": "max(build_volume_temperature, max(extruderValues('material_bed_temperature')))",
"maximum_value_warning": "130",
"maximum_value": "200",
"enabled": "machine_heated_bed and machine_gcode_flavor != \"UltiGCode\"",
"settable_per_mesh": false,
"settable_per_extruder": false,
"settable_per_meshgroup": false
},
Alternatively, you could set enabled for it to false so it won't show up in settings, avoid the nice description and stuff, and name it something like material_bed_temperature_layer_0_minus_20.
In either case you can then use the new setting in your start gcode.
Awesome! I had found a forum thread about using these expressions, except it was completely devoid of context, no info what file, where to put the code, some scary restrictions on default_value, and so I hoped there is a way. And there is, thank you!
None of the above examples work, because the settings parser is more complex than that.
So you can achieve preheated temperatures by adding the following modification to the fdmprinter.def.json file:
"material_bed_temperature_pre":
{
"label": "Build Plate Preheat Temperature",
"description": "The temperature used for preheating the heated build plate.",
"unit": "°C",
"type": "float",
"resolve": "material_bed_temperature_pre",
"default_value": "material_bed_temperature_layer_0 - 8",
"value": "material_bed_temperature_layer_0 - 8",
"minimum_value": "0",
"minimum_value_warning": "max(build_volume_temperature, max(extruderValues('material_bed_temperature')))",
"maximum_value_warning": "130",
"maximum_value": "200",
"enabled": "false",
"settable_per_mesh": false,
"settable_per_extruder": false,
"settable_per_meshgroup": false
},
A probable reason why the previous suggestions fail is that the code completion will see the inclusion as some sort of conflict/default as it is not listed in the settings ("enabled = false"). When there is conflict, it attempts to resolve it based on the "resolve" field, equating to the layer_0 setting in an incorrect example.
So the value can be something else than what is listed in the "value" category depending on circumstances.
With this addition, the value has no other choice than to compute the preheated temperature based on layer_0 temperature.
For nozzle temperatures, I use fixed value which does not yet cause oozing of most materials during the small mismatch of sync period.
The setting in the G-code generator is as follows:
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_pre} ;Initial bed temperature, wait
M140 S{material_bed_temperature} ; start heating the bed
M104 S180 ;Hotend initial target, no wait
G28 ;Home
G1 Z15.0 F1200 ;Move the platform down 15mm
M104 S{material_print_temperature} ;Hotend actual target, no wait
M190 S{material_bed_temperature} ;Target bed temperature, wait
M109 S{material_print_temperature} T0 ; wait for hotend
So first we wait for the bed to reach preheat temperatures, which takes some time.
Then, the bed temperature is set to target and the nozzle is to preheat levels, but in the background.
During this, we moved to the home position.
Finally, in sequence ultimate target for the nozzle is no wait, and then we stay until the bed temperature is final. To make sure the nozzle is at the final temperature (if it was not reached during bed heat up), we wait for it until it goes to actual printing.
Cura doesn't allow math operations in G-code scripts, if you want to do that you should use Slic3r or PrusaSlicer.
See e.g. this question or this question asked on the UltiMaker community.
This isn't entirely true. You can add new virtual settings to the json settings file which are specified as formuals in terms of other settings. I'll elaborate in an answer.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Please do, this has been a long awaited missing feature in Cura. Although, virtual settings to the json settings file doesn't sound too user-friendly as in using the arithmetic in your start G-code.
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20756 | Splicing G-code issue
I'm trying to combine two different G-code files into one. The reason I'm doing this is that I'd like to print my part with different layer heights. I've managed to combine the two G-codes together, but when it gets to the layer where the layer height changes, it stops moving and keeps extruding for 10-15 seconds, creating a blob of plastic, then moves on destroying the print.
I've tried using with PrusaSlicer's manual layer height feature, but their normal supports are unusable on my part and their organic supports are not compatible with the variable layer heights. Cura simply does not have this capability, and their adaptive layer height feature is not the answer. Here is what I'm trying to do:
Create G-code with layer height set to 0.3 mm
Change layer height to 0.1 mm and create G-code from that
Load 0.1 mm G-code into Notepad++ and find the layer I want to change it at
Delete all G-code past that layer
Load 0.3 mm G-code into Notepad++ and find where that layer would start based on Z height
Copy/Paste the rest of the G-code into the 0.1 mm file
Save and run on the printer
It mostly works but the layer height change stops. Does anyone know what is happening?
Here are a bunch of lines from the g-code before and after where the transition happens. I have it marked in the g-code exactly where:
G1 F2400 E2234.44369
G1 F3600 X105.992 Y179.63 E2234.66835
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2233.86835
G1 F300 Z5.8
G0 F9000 X106.068 Y183.796 Z5.8
M204 S500
G1 F300 Z5.4
G1 F2400 E2234.66835
G1 F3600 X99.843 Y190.022 E2234.8704
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2234.0704
G1 F300 Z5.8
G0 F9000 X101.42 Y192.688 Z5.8
M204 S500
G1 F300 Z5.4
G1 F2400 E2234.8704
G1 F3600 X106.635 Y187.472 E2235.03967
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2234.23967
G1 F300 Z5.8
G0 F9000 X107.871 Y190.479 Z5.8
M204 S500
G1 F300 Z5.4
G1 F2400 E2235.03967
G1 F3600 X104.311 Y194.039 E2235.15521
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2234.35521
G1 F300 Z5.8
G0 F9000 X108.544 Y194.049 Z5.8
M204 S500
G1 F300 Z5.4
G1 F2400 E2235.15521
G1 F3600 X109.947 Y192.646 E2235.20075
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2234.40075
G1 F300 Z5.8
G0 F9000 X120.783 Y90.912 Z5.8
M204 S500
;TYPE:WALL-OUTER
G1 F300 Z5.4
G1 F2400 E2235.20075
G1 F1978 X120.784 Y92.216 E2235.22798
G1 F1939 X120.794 Y92.736 E2235.23906
G1 F1901.4 X120.794 Y122.763 E2235.89141
G1 F1939 X120.783 Y123.279 E2235.90241
G1 F1978 X120.784 Y124.585 E2235.92968
G1 X120.974 Y124.314 E2235.93659
G1 X121.199 Y123.844 E2235.94748
G1 X121.327 Y123.323 E2235.95868
G1 F1939 X121.362 Y122.774 E2235.9704
G1 F1901.4 X121.362 Y92.736 E2236.62299
G1 F1939 X121.327 Y92.172 E2236.63503
G1 F1978 X121.201 Y91.663 E2236.64598
G1 X120.97 Y91.177 E2236.65722
G1 X120.819 Y90.963 E2236.66269
G0 F1620 X120.783 Y90.912
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2235.86269
G1 F300 Z5.8
;MESH:NONMESH
G0 F9000 X100 Y39.255 Z5.8
;TIME_ELAPSED:4586.593663
;-------------------------------------------------------------
;-----------------Transition Happens Here---------------------
;-------------------------------------------------------------
;LAYER:18
G0 X100 Y40.153 Z6.1
G1 F300 Z6.1
G0 F9000 X97.297 Y34.468
M204 S500
;TYPE:SUPPORT
G1 F300 Z5.7
G1 F2400 E2715.82188
G1 F1800 X97.297 Y34.468
G1 X97.47 Y35.08 E2715.86566
G1 X97.834 Y36.138 E2715.9427
G1 X98.102 Y36.794 E2715.99148
G1 X98.421 Y37.518 E2716.04595
G1 X98.79 Y38.243 E2716.10196
G1 X98.96 Y38.555 E2716.12642
G1 X99.366 Y39.232 E2716.18077
G1 X99.605 Y39.602 E2716.2111
G1 X100 Y40.153 E2716.25778
G1 X100.057 Y40.232 E2716.26448
G1 X100.343 Y40.609 E2716.29706
G1 X100.73 Y41.147 E2716.34269
G1 X100.934 Y41.458 E2716.3683
G1 X101.342 Y42.136 E2716.42278
G1 X101.476 Y42.382 E2716.44206
G1 X101.861 Y43.147 E2716.50103
G1 X102.193 Y43.913 E2716.55851
G1 X102.303 Y44.19 E2716.57903
G1 X102.602 Y45.029 E2716.64035
G1 X102.687 Y45.297 E2716.65971
G1 X102.939 Y46.186 E2716.72332
G1 X103.19 Y47.204 E2716.79551
G1 X103.692 Y47.104 E2716.83075
G1 X103.724 Y47.394 E2716.85084
G1 X103.799 Y48.272 E2716.91151
G1 X103.818 Y48.652 E2716.9377
G1 X103.839 Y49.553 E2716.99975
G1 X103.839 Y56.239 E2717.46007
G1 X100 Y56.239 E2717.72438
G1 X97.297 Y56.239 E2717.91048
G1 X97.297 Y34.823 E2719.38494
G0 F1620 X97.297 Y34.468
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2718.58494
G1 F300 Z6.1
G0 F9000 X100 Y40.153 Z6.1
M204 S500
G1 F300 Z5.7
G1 F2400 E2719.38494
G1 F1800 X100 Y56.239 E2720.49244
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2719.69244
G1 F300 Z6.1
G0 F9000 X130 Y89.241 Z6.1
M204 S500
G1 F300 Z5.7
G1 F2400 E2720.49244
G1 F1800 X130 Y125.641 E2722.99852
G1 X127.425 Y125.641 E2723.1758
G1 X127.425 Y89.241 E2725.68189
G1 X135 Y89.241 E2726.20342
G1 X135 Y125.641 E2728.7095
G1 X142.825 Y125.641 E2729.24824
G1 X142.825 Y89.241 E2731.75433
G1 X140 Y89.241 E2731.94882
G1 X140 Y125.286 E2734.43047
G0 F1620 X140 Y125.641
M204 S2000
G1 F2400 E2733.63047
G1 F300 Z6.1
G0 F9000 X100 Y175.345 Z6.1
G1 F300 Z6.1
G0 F9000 X97.278 Y181.097
This is completely expected from your description. You just cannot bluntly paste a different section of a G-code file into another without tweaking the interface layer (unless the extruder length is reset at every layer).
You need to make sure that the extruder distance is set to the right value. Usually the extruder length is reset to zero once in a while or at layer change to prevent too large E values (G92 E0), but when you paste a layer with a mismatch in E value between the two, the extruder will extrude (or retract, this is equally valid, but in this case extrude) first before it will move further.
What you need to check for is the E value, look if it is reset or not and set the value by defining the correct value with G92 Exxx, where xxx is the correct value from the pasted layer (this will be the starting point for E extrusion).
From the updated question with the G-code snippet we see that the above described is actually happening, layer 17 has a final move laying down filament in
G1 F2400 E2235.86269
and layer 18 has the first filament deposition with
G1 F2400 E2715.82188.
You can see that almost 500 mm of filament is wasted (2235 -> 2715). This means that you need add
G92 E2715.82188
before
G1 F2400 E2715.82188.
Hi 0scar, thank you for the comprehensive answer, I will be looking into this tonight.
Unless I'm misunderstanding, isn't this the Modify settings for overlaps Mesh Type in Cura? Layer Height is not an option there, that was one of the first places I looked. Works great with infill, in fact I use it for most things I print because it's so handy.
@Vandel212 I thought I have done this before, I'll remove it from the answer and test it again. Thanks for letting me know!
Haha I just deleted my comment because I saw your edit. That's brilliant! That seems like it would solve that issue. I'll try it out tonight and let you know.
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20758 | Why does my print have this unusual pattern?
Just started 3D printing. Switched from a 0.4 mm nozzle to a 0.2 mm nozzle and am printing my first object. It has this pattern/inconsistency. Thinking it might be temperature variation but not sure. Anyone know what it is?
I changed the speed to 60 % cause not enough was coming out at a time, it improved the results. Layer height 0.2 mm but it may be a little off from because of the leveling. I increased flow 15 % just now and seems to be printing better with more adhesion.
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Did you change the speed? Your print shows signs of underextrusion. What is the layer height?
Yes I changed the speed to 60% cause not enough was coming out at a time, it improved the results. Layer height 0.2 but it may be a little off from because of the leveling. I increased flow 15% just now and seems to be printing better with more adhesion. So underextrusion was the problem I agree. Thx for the timely response!
How does layer height relate to extrusion?
You extrude volume, so layer height and print width make up the volume you extrude.
Layer height should be max. 3/4 of the nozzle width, so you should print at max. 0.15 mm layer height with a 0.2 mm nozzle. So the problem is that you are using a too large of a layer height (0.2 mm). If you push more flow it appears to work, but, for the wrong reasons.
With a layer height as large as the nozzle width, you extrude cylinders/tubes with much space between the perimeters, by increasing the flow percentage you somewhat flatten the tubes, but it is better to lower the layer height.
Thank you Oscar! Very informative
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20618 | PLA temperature tower failed
I'm using the eSun Silk PLA and I printed a temperature tower to find out the best settings. For print speed, the default speed of 50 mm/s and 25 mm/s for walls and surfaces are used.
The problem is none of the temperature levels seem to be the best! As you can see from the following pictures:
The 195 °C step is the "less worse" but still far from good.
Are there any other parameters I should tune?
I have a Dremel 3D45 and I use Cura.
For the most part, a well dialed-in printer should be able to print PLA just fine along that entire range of temperatures. You seem to have various other problems going on which make a temperature tower a poor place to start with tuning. Also, this test makes heavy use of bridging, which is really hard to get right because it involves things like suddenly disappearing backpressure against the extrusion, lack of surface to squish the material against, and how you deal with that. Cura has a lot of settings to tune this, but getting it right is an advanced topic, and hard even then. Judging that you have the wrong temperature because bridging had problems, when you haven't done anything to get bridging to work, doesn't make sense.
The catastrophic stringing at the bottom indicates to me that the filament is fairly wet. I would suggest drying it before doing anything else, because so many of the common print problems folks hit have wet filament as the root cause or at least a contributing cause, and you can waste so much time chasing other things like tuning retraction, temperatures, etc. when the problem was just water all along. Silk filaments are particularly sensitive to moisture, by the way.
You also have a severe ripple artifact in the surface of your print. This could be ringing from having your acceleration set too high for your printer. Probably any more than 500 is way too much for outer walls on this printer; inner and other parts could perhaps go a bit higher. But it's possible you already have acceleration plenty low and that the issue here is poor belt tensioning or a loose screw somewhere in the toolhead or motion system assembly.
It looks like you have some places where the material didn't stay in the right place at corners. This might indicate poor cooling, either something wrong with the fan (filled with dust, broken blade, bad bearing with too much friction) or just that the printer lacks good cooling to begin with. This would also contribute a lot to bridging not working well.
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20634 | How center the nozzle before start printing
I have a BLV Core XY, I'm trying to print different models, but the machine moves the center once it goes to start the process.
This is my G-code of the beginning:
G21
G90
M82
M107
G28
M413 S1 ;Power-loss recovery
;M190 S60 ;bed heat on
G34 ;Auto Z Level
G29 ;Bed Levelling
G28 Z
G1 Z2 F240
G1 X2 Y10 F1200
G1 Z0.2 F240
G92 E0.0
G1 Y150 E15.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 X2.3 F5000
G1 Y10 E30 F1200.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0
M117 Printing...
However, if I do a simple command like, to send the (0,0) on Z axis, it happens fine.
You have defined your bed incorrectly in the firmware.
First line you print is at X=2, while it is printed a couple of centimeters from the edge. Second the final cube is not in the center of the bed while it presumably is sliced in the center.
You should look into the definition of the bed size, the end stop offsets and the probe offsets to fix this. A detailed question and answer is found in How to set Z-probe boundary limits in firmware when using automatic bed leveling?.
Thanks for the answer, but I not have the code to make this changes, the person who assemble the machine never share that.
That is unfortunate, but if you read into Marlin firmware updating and setting up the config file and if you have some interest in computers, coding and unloading over USB or through MicroSD card you should be able to do this. There are lots of movies that explain step-by-step what to do. You only need some basic information on your printer and the electronics. There are questions here but you may always ask yours and we will help you or direct to previous answers!
Sure, I'm a system engineer, I know how to write code, but I never before had been the chance to study marlin, I would wish to change some things, but I will try to get the firmware made by the person who assemble the machine, then, I could start to test new marlin firmware update.
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20821 | Extra external layer (shell) on my first prints
I got my first 3D printer this week, a Creality Ender 3.
Tried to print a few small samples to test it, but every shape I printed had an extra external layer. Please, check these images:
I used Freecad to draw the objects, and Slic3r to convert them to G-code.
Am I doing something wrong? Is my printer not a good one?
Any comment will be very helpful.
It looks like under-extrusion. Have you changed something in printer settings? What settings did you change in Slic3r? Can you share one of G-code files that you are trying to print?
Hi, thank you for your response. I didn't change anything. AFAIK I'm using factory settings. How can I share the G-code? I didn't find a way to upload files here.
You can't. But, you can upload it to some upload site and provide a link here.
See if you can access https://github.com/rppbodo/3d-printing/blob/main/cube-25mm.gcode
You should add this solution as a separate answer. It may help others in the future if someone also runs into this issue. Describe also, what exactly was causing it.
Dear Roberto, please post your update as an answer (the update is not part of the problem, it is a solution, I've hidden the part by placing it into an HTML comment block). SE differs from regular forum sites. It's perfectly fine to add your solution as an answer, you will receive votes and gain reputation. Please do the [tour] and look into [help] to better understand SE sites. Thanks!
If you do some quick calculations it appears that this is caused by under-extrusion.
Comparing the extruded volume to the calculated volume for the deposition there is a mismatch of about 2.6. This hints to the use of an incorrect diameter for the filament $\frac{2.85^2}{1.75^2}=2.65$.
In line 4511 of provided G-code is: ; filament_diameter = 3. It looks like you are right.
@kosteklvp I only looked at the first 20 lines or so, but good spot!
Thank you so much for all the responses. I am waiting for more filament to arrive by mail. As soon as I manage to print again with correct filament diameter, I mark this problem as solved. I'll let you know.
I'm not sure, if you understood it correctly. You should change filament diameter value int the slicer to 1.75. Filaments with diameter of 3 mm are not very common.
3 mm is not common, but 2.85 mm is pretty common, especially for UltiMaker printers. Nowadays is 1.75 mm mainstream for most users, only dinosaurs like me use it for their homebuilds. Note that you need to buy filament your printer is designed for, in this case 1.75 mm and use that value in your slicer.
Yes, I understood. hahaha The config was wrong, not the actual filament width. I bought more 1.75mm, because the sample that came with the printer ended. Thanks, everyone. =)
Yeah! I just printed with new G-code, and it is perfect! Thanks, everyone! <3
That's good, everything is clear.
Wow, why is this still a thing in 2023?!? 2.85/3 mm is pretty much a thing of the past, and should not be popping up in settings unless the user intentionally configured a weird printer.
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20776 | Thermal runaway without error on power-on - Ender 3, BTT Octopus V1.1, and Sprite Pro
I just swapped out my MicroSwiss direct-drive extruder and hotend for a Creality Sprite Pro on my Ender 3 with an upgraded mother board to the BigTreeTech Octopus v1.1 and I'm experiencing thermal runaway on power-on.
Previous (working) configuration:
Ender 3 pro
BigTreeTech Octopus v1.1 loaded with Klipper firmware
MicroSwiss direct-drive
New configuration:
Ender 3 pro
BigTreeTech Octopus v1.1 loaded with klipper firmware
Creality Sprite Pro
Steps that I'm taking to hit thermal runaway:
Turn on power switch for the Ender 3 Pro.
NOTE: Thermal Runaway Protection does not work here. The TRP detects and triggers, but Klipper doesn't seem to have any ability to control the heating tube. Instead, Klipper shuts down and the heating tube keeps running away. Each time I've had to cut the power manually.
Additional things that I've tried:
Powering on using the power from the Raspberry Pi's USB port - this powers on the printer but will error on any attempt to drive motors or run the extruder. RESULT: thermal runaway to the best that it can, plateauing around 60 °C.
Powering on using the power from the Raspberry Pi's USB port, then disconnecting and powering on without the Raspberry Pi connected, then powering down and reconnecting the Raspberry Pi - this confirms for me that in the absence of the Raspberry Pi, it still reaches a runaway state; RESULT: monitoring before and after powering manually showed a jump of 100 °C in 30 seconds, meaning if the printer has power, it will power the heating tube with as much as it can.
Reversing the + and - wires - this is the recommendation in the instruction manual, "If 3D printer restarts during hotend heating up, please reverse the heating tube connectors on mainboard"; RESULT: prevents the printer from powering on - everything appears dead and returning the cables to the correct polarities returns it to a runaway state.
sounds like your board is toast.
You are right. I swapped back in the original heating tube and it had the same issue. I was able to get it all working by using the second heating element port on the Octopus board.
That sounds like an answer! Please post your answer and accept the answer!
Totally unexpected behavior?!
A heater cartridge is nothing but a resistor. Swapping the "polarity" should do nothing. As this results in totally different results, it is to be expected that the motherboard sustained damage in some area and would need a total refurbishment or replacement.
This question seems to be solved, this (community) answer is posted as a whole from comment until the OP adds a more detailed answer.
I swapped back in the original heating tube and it had the same issue. I was able to get it all working by using the second heating element port on the Octopus board.
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20810 | What is the difference between a Bowden extruder and a direct drive extruder?
As these are the two most commonly used extruder systems in FDM printers, I would like to know what is the difference between them. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using each of them?
A Bowden extruder and a direct drive extruder are two different types of extruder systems used in FDM 3D printers. Both feed filament into the hotend, but differ in the way the filament is pushed into it. The main difference is the location of the extruder motor relative to the hotend, which results in some pros and cons in the usage of both of them.
Bowden extruder
A Bowden extruder has the motor located remotely from the hotend, usually on the printer's frame. Filament is fed from the motor to the hotend through a Bowden tube. This setup is typically used in 3D printers that require high speeds and accelerations, as the reduced weight of the hotend allows for faster and more accurate movement.
The main advantage of a Bowden extruder is that it reduces the weight of the printhead. It can improve print speed and accuracy, especially for faster print speeds. It also reduces the amount of space required in the printhead, allowing for larger hotends or additional features to be added.
However, Bowden extruders can suffer from problems with filament control, such as oozing or stringing of the filament. The friction in the Bowden tube and distance between the extruder and the hotend causes the reaction time of each motor movement to be extended.
Direct drive extruder
A direct drive extruder has the motor located directly above or beside the hotend, which eliminates the need for a Bowden tube. The Bowden tube is typically very short or totally absent. This setup is used in printers that require precise filament control and are capable of printing with a wide range of materials.
The main advantage of a direct drive extruder system is that it minimizes the distance between the extruder and the hotend. It allows for better control of the filament and reduces friction due to a shorter distance between the extruder and the hotend. This allows to use smaller values of retraction settings, which can reduce stringing and oozing. It results in better control of demanding filaments. Direct drive extruders can handle flexible and soft filaments more effectively.
However, the added weight of the extruder motor can result in slower printing speeds and reduced accuracy during high-speed printing. A heavier printhead can also cause artifacts and ringing on the surface of the prints.
In summary, Bowden extruders are better suited for high-speed printing and have a lower risk of filament contamination, while Direct Drive extruders are better suited for more precise printing and more demanding materials. The choice between these two systems ultimately depends on the specific requirements of the printer and the printing application. Costs also have to be taken into account, because direct drive extruders are relatively more expensive than Bowden extruders.
Nice Q and A for the knowledge base! I added the tag to the question. Maybe you can add some words on flexible filament (TPU) in relation to these types of extruders? I upvoted anyways, keep them coming!
Thanks. Yes, something about TPU can be useful. I'll add it in the future.
It should be mentioned with "Bowden extruders can suffer from problems with filament control" that you hit these problems hard at speeds far below the point where Bowden becomes an advantage over DD due to lower mass.
To extend this - are there any other configurations for FDM or are these the only two basic designs ?
I only heard about a hybrid one. It's called Zesty Nimble. Here is a Teaching Tech's video about it.
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20784 | What Cura setting is messing up my prints?
After fiddling with the settings on my Cura profile, my Ender 3 S1 is now messing up my prints in a weird way. While printing, it just pauses at a corner on all the layers of the print for a second or so, leading to large blobs of material building up there. What setting(s), if any could be causing this?
As a note, my Cura settings are anything but default. I mess around with a lot of different options to try to optimize my prints. I could reset the profile to default, but I'd rather keep most of my settings.
Here is a picture of the issue:
Do you print from SD card or Octoprint?
@kosteklvp an SD card. Should it make a difference?
Yeah, printing from Octoprint can cause this, e.g. from wrongly set Octolapse. Can you share this G-code file?
@kosteklvp, you were on the right track! After swapping out the SD card, it now functions normally.
Similar to what @kosteklvp suggested, it turns out the problem was related to the SD card I was using. It was a microSD card with an adapter, which may have been the problem. After swapping it out with for a different SD card, the printer now functions properly.
If this is the case, you probably have powerloss recovery enabled, which incurs a write-to-SD-card at a somewhat unpredictable point near the beginning of each layer, freezing the toolhead with the filament unretracted and remelting/oozing all over your print wherever it happens to occur. Using a faster SD card will partly work around the problem, but the solution is to disable powerloss recovery so it doesn't happen at all.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE , that makes a lot of sense, I do believe that I have powerloss recovery enabled. However, after swapping SD cards, I don't notice the problem at all, so it's probably worth it to keep it enabled.
If it's not making problems for you, I guess that's okay, but be aware of it in case it starts being a problem. FWIW I don't think the Creality/Marlin powerloss recovery feature is very useful. If you're using a heated bed, when that cools without power, your print will detach or at least warp enough that resuming is likely to detach it from the bed. And powerloss recovery only saves what layer it was at, not the exact position in the layer, so it will reprint where material has already been deposited, thereby overextruding and making it ugly and more likely to collide and knock the print off.
To my knowledge only Prusa has proper powerloss recovery, which works via a giant capacitor keeping the machine running (without heaters) for a few seconds after powerloss is detected so it can save the exact position it was at, park the head, and power down cleanly. Still, I'm not sure how it handles the cooling of the bed.
To me this looks related to the Z-seam and retraction settings.
Play around with the Z-seam first by setting it to random. it might help. However, the retraction setting need adjusting as well. to me it look like is needs a bit more retraction. Hope it helps.
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20847 | Print failure due to heater inconsistency
After encountering an issue where the original heater cartridge (~40 W) for my generic MK6 hotend was unable to reach/maintain stable temperature at ~260 °C (for PETG) I replaced it with a higher wattage heater (60 W). The new heater heats up faster and can maintain temperature, but I noticed that if I try to print too fast it will become unstable and the printer stops with a heater error, even with a lower temperature of 250 °C. This can be seen in the temperature plot below.
I have performed PID tuning (see the nicely flat spots on the temperature plot), so I don't think that's the issue. The thermistor is well-secured to the block.
I am using a BTT SKR Pico V1.0 control board with Klipper over UART to a Raspberry Pi A3.
Does anyone have experience with an issue like this? Could it be that the SKR Pico is not supplying sufficient power while also running the motors and heated bed?
This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question Diagnosing sudden problem with hotend temperature, where the root cause seems to have been a bad thermistor - internal conductors probably broken in a way that they intermittently make reduced contact during toolhead motion. But I didn't have a problem while heating like your graph shows, only during motion, so it's also plausible that the wiring to the heater is bad. Since these aren't expensive components it might make sense to just replace the thermistor, heater cartridge, and any asssociated wiring if you don't want to spend time fighting with the problem.
I think you're right. After replacing the thermistor the readings are stable again.
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21631 | Connecting 12 V Laser Module to 24 V Control Board
I have a 3D printer (Artillery Genius Pro) with a 24 V motherboard. I want to connect this motherboard a 12 V laser engraver module. If my motherboard was 12 V (with 12 V, GND, and PWM pins), I believe I could do it. In that case, I would connect 12 V, GND, and PWM of the laser module to 12 V, GND and Blower Fan (as PWM) of the motherboard. But my 3D printer has a 24 V board. How can I connect my 12 V laser module to my 24 V motherboard?
Your guidance in this direction will be highly appreciated.
You'll need a 12V step-down regulator to convert your 24V to 12V, or a seperate power supply for the laser module (make sure to connect each PSUs ground terminals).
Then it depends on what sort of PWM your module expects. The fan control on 3D printer boards is done by turning on and off the ground connection to the fan, while the positive supply (12/24V) is on constantly. This may not be what your module requires. Maybe it's fine with a 5V PWM signal, in which case you could use any available digital pin (e.g. from the endstop connectors) and set your firmware up to use that pin.
@towe That sounds like an answer!
Get a proper module
The most straightforward solution would be to get a 24 V rated laser module. However, that boat already departed (unless you can send it back and get a proper one in return).
The fan could be a 5 V signal, a 12 V, or a 24 V one, so make sure your laser module uses that as a trigger.
Often, laser modules line their output directly to their power supply and have no extra switch wires - using the main heater cartridge connectors as the power supply and switch will certainly work on its own, once you get the proper voltage set.
Buck Converter
To get from 24 V to 12 V, you can use a Buck converter, in this application also known as a Step-Down-Converter. This will turn the 24 V output of the mainboard's heater wires into useable 12 V power. Often, these items have quick-connect plugs, possibly allowing you to quickly swap the laser module in, provided you have everything else set up similarly.
Please keep in mind that these modules, depending on setup, can shed quite some heat, and might require a suitable cooling setup. Heating can also indicate bad manufacture.
Voltage divider
If you can be really sure that you get 24 V Output max, you could use a beefy 1:1 voltage divider by using two same-sized resistors and taking the supply voltage between the two before going back to the ground. To alleviate heating problems (you'll shed loads of heat) you should use resistors that have cooling planned in.
Optocoupler
If you want to run the laser from an external 12V, you could run that though an appropriate optocoupler and use any output from the printer as your "signal" to allow power to flow.
Fans (PWM, e.g. the one used for part cooling) on controller boards are typically not 5 V (few exceptions, e.g. Ultimaker uses 5 V fans), but usually the power supply voltage (like the heater element and the bed) is the voltage of the fan, so either 12 V or 24 V.
The part cooling fan on the ender3 & ender3v2 is a 5V fan, but good caveat
+1 Also good to know that those boards use 5 V! All controller boards I bought do not use 5 V but the voltage of the PSU.
My part cooling fan is 24 V. This is why I need to step it down. I can power up the laser module from outer 12 V power supply, but I want to trigger it over the part cooling fan.
that would use an optocoupler
I have converted a 3D printer to a laser printer using the fan port. Although it is possible, I would not suggest to use the fan port for this.
First, make sure what your laser module uses as input. E.g. my laser module could be run from a 12 V power connection, so I did not power it from the printer controller board. Second, make sure the TTL (the PWM signal for scheduling the laser intensity) is able to handle the voltage you send to it. If you use a 24 V controller board, it could be that the fan (as well as the heater cartridge and the bed) run at 24 V. If so, you need to step down the voltage so that the laser module can use this.
Note that when using the fan port as the PWM signal for the laser, you introduce a lag. The controller board chip sends out a signal to the MOSFET to schedule the fan as this is drawing more amperes than could have been supplied over the controller chip. This creates a lag in between the actual controller board pin and the fan signal causing the actual laser engraving to be less accurate (started too late, stopped too late). It was that much that I had to create an application in Python that read created G-code and introduced very small pauses to give the laser time to start and have it stop on time because of the delay. This has led me to directly use the PWM signal (that drives the MOSFET) instead of the fan PWM signal for controlling the laser.
You'll need a 12 V step-down regulator to convert your 24 V to 12V, or a separate power supply for the laser module (make sure to connect each PSU's ground terminals).
It also depends on what sort of PWM your module expects.
The fan control on 3D printer boards is done by turning on and off the ground connection to the fan, while the positive supply (12/24 V) is on constantly. This may not be what your module requires.
Maybe it's fine with a 5 V PWM signal (usually called "TTL signal"), in which case you could use any available digital pin (e.g. from the endstop connectors) and set your firmware up to use that pin as the "fan". Depending on the firmware, there may be delays between the change in "fan speed" / laser power being scheduled and it actually being applied. If it needs 12 V PWM, I like using L298N-based "motor drivers" to drive loads like this. Hook up the inputs to the motor driver to the output of the step-down regulator and connect the corresponding input to one of your motherboard's PWM pins.
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21668 | Issues with slicer creating gaps with surfaces that are not in the model
I have an odd issue with Creality Slicer 4.8 (Cura slicer?)
It wants to cut up my model and add surfaces that do not exist in the model.
These screenshots are without infill or support:
Wire mesh view from behind and to the left (Blender)
I assume that since this model is a base 3D model from a game with the body, clothes, hairstyle, etc put on top, that I have overlooked something which is being interpreted as a surface break. I had a similar problem with the dress and boots, which I solved by tediously removing the inner details.
I have removed the back part of the "skull" and the top of the neck, trying to closed any gaps.
STL
How do I fix this issue?
I am printing on a Creality Ender 2.
This is most likely a problem with the model, not the slicer. If from Blender, the chance that there are normals incorrect or hidden surfaces present are high. You should fix the model first. Please use the search function, there are multiple questions related to such issues. Usually it is recommended to use Netfabb to fix it, this may help your search for a solution.
Why are you still using Cura 4.8 and not yet Cura 5.5? It has some major improvements. Perhaps using that instead can already fix your issue.
@BobOrtiz I just downloaded the latest version I could from creality
Try https://ultimaker.com/software/ultimaker-cura/#downloads.
Some Surfaces are likely inverted - which needs to be made visible.
To see that in blender, you need to turn on "surface normals". The blue spikes should go out of the surfaces, showing the item is properly aligned.
To flip those surfaces and make all show into the same direction, follow for example this answer Slicer is adding additional floor bed - the relevant part for it here:
Enter Edit mode
A to select everything
ALT + N to recalculate normals
Another way to get the normals displayed is:
N then under Mesh Display > Normals hook Faces
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21552 | How to maintain 1 mm rounding when I need 3 mm in a single axis?
I have planned a simple object in TinkerCAD from a box with radius set to 1 mm.
However I would need to get a 3 mm rounding on the vertical axis, therefore I have added a quarter circular eraser.
Please see both of these in this shot:
Now it's time to round the red one:
Looks good from top-angle:
But it's not rounded properly from other angles:
I wish to maintain the 1 mm rounding on the whole edge, how can I do that?
I tried many things:
1.) Inverse ring eraser: almost good, but I would need 2 mm width, and 3 mm outer radius which is impossible (for a ring).
2.) Inverse half sphere: not good, as it's not the shape I need
Finally
I succeeded with a "hack": ring with 4 mm width and 6 mm radius, then scaled back to 50 %, making it 3 radius and 2 mm width. Then create variuos inverse-quarters from it (eraser) and tune them even further removing unnecessary halves:
Using these erasers I could finally reach my goal:
However this is super-tedious, is there a better software out (I'm sure it is), which can do this "rounding" effect on any object? Now I'm satisfied, but if I need to
increase the height
change the size
I'm screwed up: will have to "slice" this object to 3 pieces, increase the size of the middle, and then put them back together. Do this for every single axis. (= scale operation I'll need to slice this object to 9 pieces).
TinkerCAD is a fine tool for simple designs, but when you need to fillet or chamfer corners, this involves too many actions where you cut out the parts to get the requested fillet/chamfer. It might be interesting to save time to move to a different design tool.
This geometry is recreated in a few minutes in e.g. Fusion360, considering this is a simple design, you need to change the order of the actions to fillet the object properly. Fillet the corners of the box prior to filetting the box itself:
In case the design is way more complex an alternative solution would be to join a cube in the corner and round that:
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21698 | What are the differences between aluminum and copper heater block and why would I use one vs another?
Just as the title says - I'm in the need of a new heater block, and need to decide which one to buy. Plated copper is 10 times more expensive now, at least where I live (70 PLN which is about 16 Euro or 18 USD vs 7 PLN for aluminum), but in the scale of the cost of a printer, difference is negligible.
Copper has better thermal transfer, but it also has a greater thermal mass, so it heats up and cools down slower, but should be able to melt plastic faster. Or so it seems. I don't know how these theoretical properties translate into practical pros and cons for 3D printing.
I'm not looking for "buy this" answer. I'm looking for comparison that will let me, and future readers, make informed decision.
The choice depends on the application you have in mind, but basically you can look at the properties of copper and aluminium to find out what may be better for your application.
Dynamics
Copper is about 3 times heavier, this potentially increases the weigth of the hot end and as such increases the change to have more issues with e.g. ringing for a similar sized heater blocks
Thermodynamics
Maximum temperature can be higher for copper, the melting temperature is almost twice the value for aluminium (in printing in excess of 320 °C you want to use a copper heater block)1)
Heat conductivity for copper is almost twice the value of that of aluminium, it conducts heat much better, so the block is more evenly heated.
Heat capacity of copper is almsot half of that of aluminium, so it requires more energy to heat up the same amount of mass. Specific heat or heat capacity of aluminum is 0.90 J/(g °C); for copper it is 0.385 J/(g °C). To heat up the same amount of mass you'll need a little over twice the amount of energy, or with a given influx it will take more time. As we can assume the volume of the heatblocks is the same, the mass of the copper block will be higher and therefore will take even more time to heat up.
Copper can be nickel coated/plated, this creates a surface that is less prone for filament to get stuck on and is more easy to cleam with isopropanol alcohol.
A copper heater block may help keep temperatures more stable, but this is already done by the printer controller board (PID tuning). Generally, it will not help with a higher flow rate, since plastic thermal conductivity is the limiting factor here, not the heater block. For increased flow application you should go to a (Super)Volcano heater block; for a smaller volumetric flow increase one could use e.g. CHT style nozzles (effectively increased the filament contact area with the nozzle/heater block.
Basically, using a copper heater block is advised when printing at high temperatures (> 320 °) for prolonged times.
1) Aluminum heater blocks begin to degrade above 350 °C, while a copper alloy doesn't even begin to soften until way beyond 500 °C
Good answer. My printer is a slow one, so mechanical issue is not an issue - for me. Good to know none the less. I don't think I observe any issues that would require me to upgrade to copper. I have a small amounts of PC and ASA I need to print for projects, but for the most part I'll stay with PLA and PETG. Aluminum in silocone socket should be more than sufficient.
PS could copper block offset worse thermal transfer of a steel or titanium nozzle?
@Mołot The thermal conductivity of pure titanium is 17 W/(mK), about a quart of iron and about 1/23 of copper. Titanium is easy to warm and easy to cool. It's strange that it is easy to warm though the heat conduction is bad. The heat capacity is about the same for Ti and steel. A nice video I just found on using more copper in the hotend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjUXhg7Waqo
Just to put last dot - I swapped for the plated copper and high-flow CHT style nozzle and my ASA prints are finally succeeding. Nozzle itself wasn't quite enough, my print crumbled after about 10 layers as if some filament was extruded too cold.
I would compare copper to aluminium as 4/9th, not 5/10th, but close enough. ;)
I’ll add from my experience: for printing with composite materials, when using a tungsten carbide nozzle, if screwed into an aluminum hotblock (even when screwed hot), the nozzle quickly unwinds and then plastic leaks. In the case of a copper hotblock, a similar effect is not observed (apparently, this is explained by different thermal expansion of the materials).
Thermal expansion coefficient in [m/m∙K]: Copper 17∙10E-6. Aluminium 23∙10E-6, Tungsten Carbide: 5.5∙10E-6 - the copper block does not "swell" as much as the aluminium one, the tungsten carbide is only 1/3rd and 1/5th of the expansion comparatively - it should get squeezed in by both during a heat cycle... copper has much lower friction though.
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21450 | Can I use 3 kg filament spools in an Ender 6 3D printer?
In order to save some money on a project, I'm considering using 3 kg spools on my Ender 6.
However, I never attempted this before, and could not find a firm stance on the web.
I know that it is possible to build a filament hanger/holder separately, but is it necessary on the Ender 6?
For reference, the spool hanger/holder on my Ender 6 extends 9 cm outwards of the printer.
The filament loaded in the printer (see photo) is a 1 kg white PLA. The dimensions of the filament drawing are for the 3 kg filament to be used.
You should add a little more information, first a side view of the printer with the holder (what is the length of the holder to fit a spool) and a spool on the holder (give the diameter of the spool) and also give the dimensions diameter and width of the 3 kg spool. With this information our users can help you if it is going to fit, else you will get answers to put it on a separate holder, but that would not be the point of this question (considering the last sentence). Otherwise this question should be closed, there are lots of separate holders to find.
I have had a look at the Ender 6 specs and surprisingly they don't seem to specify the max. weight supported, so this seems to be a valid question. What does the default support look like? Is the spool mounted vertically or (less likely) horizontally? If horizontally, then the additional weight probably wouldn't matter as much. What are the differences in dimensions of 3kg spool versus a 1kg spool. If the spool is much larger, then would it even fit? Have you tried fitting a larger spool already, and if so, what issues could you foresee? Please [edit] and update question with any new info
Also, do you mean I know that it is possible to build a filament hanger separately? The "but" seems to be incorrect.
I'm not particularly concerned about the weight, the dimensions and the location near the filament sensor and the top of the table the printer rests on might be more important.
I suppose I was just interested in knowing if anyone had successfully used 3kg spools directly on the Ender 6. Just give me a minute, I'm going to edit the question to make it better to be answered, take the necessary photos, as per @0scar suggestion.
It is indeed not possible. Thanks for everyone that helped with this question; thank you @Greenonline for going into the trouble of looking into the Ender 6 specs.
You're welcome, I'm glad the comments helped you realize you could solve the question yourself! And good that you answered it yourself!
Get a real spool holder, preferably with a rewinder. Using holders where the spool slips on a central axis is begging for a failed print due to tangled filament. The extruder pulls filament, spool overcomes static friction releasing more filament than necessary, wobbles, and the most recent loop of filament gets trapped under an earlier loop. The extruder pulls the filament taut, and your print fails as the extruder can't feed any more. And you end up blaming the filament manufacturer. Been there, suffered through that, never again.
While editing this question and analyzing the input the community provided, I've concluded that it is not possible to use a 3 kg filament spool directly on the Ender 6.
The actual answer depends on the filament spool dimensions you are going to work with.
For one thing, the spool hanger has a length of only 9 cm, while the filament spool has a width of 10.2 cm. I don't think it is a good idea to leave the spool hanging loose.
Secondly, the filament spool would hit the filament shortage sensor.
Many thanks for answering your own question! IMHO this answer shoud be the accepted answer as this answers the actual question at hand! Note that accepting self-answered questions may take up to 48 hours to be able to do this.
Why can't you use a big spool with a better spool holder than the peg on the side, which isn't that great for little spools anyway. A better spooler is one of the best bang-for-buck upgrades for your printer. Maybe the question should be "can i use on a fully stock ender?"...
I would absolutely make a more sturdy spool holder that is designed for 3KG filament spools. Spools tend to be filled up to the rim these days, so support your spools as good as you can to ensure straight unwinding.
You really don't want to come back to your printer making a terrible grinding noise where the filament has come off the spool sideways or the spool has fallen off the holder.
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21398 | SuperSlicer model malfunction?
I just want to print this shower curtain ring:
For some reason SuperSlicer doens't like the circles and after slicing the model looks like this in preview.
What is the issue with the slicer? Is there any setting that I might have and ruin the model?
Thanks
Using the link, I downloaded the single ring and Meshmixer says there are no flaws in the model. PrusaSlicer also slices the file without complications. Have you tried another slicer in order to have additional data?
@fred_dot_u I removed the preset that I originally had and reimport it and everything is fine now. Possible that the config got corrupted
Good deal. Consider to create an answer to your own question, give it a day and mark it correct with the check mark.
At the moment I didn't find the exactly what option from config did this but after reimporting the preset everything is back to normal(possible something got corrupted in the preset or the app, I don't know for sure).
I will still research to see what caused the issue for feature.
Thanks all
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21400 | Why is the Z probe offset easily adjustable in the printer UI, but not the X/Y probe offset?
I should mention that this is my experience with Marlin. I can adjust the Z offset all I want in the UI, but not the X/Y offset. If you reinstall the probe, I've heard you may need to adjust the Z offset (makes sense, you might not mount in the exact same way). I assume X/Y offsets get affected as well, so it doesn't make much sense to me that you'd have to rebuild the firmware to adjust those values. Maybe they're less sensitive to change? Anyways, not sure what makes them special enough to exclude from the UI.
My printer seems to work okay using a prebuilt firmware, though it could just as easily be pointlessly leveling 50 mm off of the nozzle for all I know.
Usually you install the sensor once and keep it unchanged for years. Nozzle, though, is an element people, depending on printer usage, replace semi-frequently and the Z offset will change with different nozzles, different tightness, etc.
XY probe offset has very little importance - your bed level changes very little over distances of order of 1 cm, so 1 cm of error in XY probe offset is negligible. Meanwhile, even 0.05 mm Z offset difference impacts first-layer adhesion significantly.
On a separate note, you don't need to rebuild the firmware to change the probe offset. You just need an interface (USB cable) and terminal (Pronterface) that allows you to communicate with the printer using G-code. First issue M501 to load the configuration from EEPROM, then M851 with the right X, Y values to set the XY offset, then M500 to save the changes to the config to EEPROM. No firmware update is needed.
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21382 | Gaps between perimeter walls on only part of the print
So I'm having a bit of a strange issue where I'm getting gaps between perimeter walls, but only on part of the print. Even more strangely, it doesn't happen with every print, though it will happen consistently on the same model if I print it more than once.
I know the go-to answer for an issue like this is "You're under-extruding. Fix your e-steps or increase your extrusion multiplier", however I'm not sure that's the only issue at play here. I did try increasing my extrusion multiplier (tried both 1.05 and 1.10), and while the issue did improve, it didn't fully solve it. The print shown below was printed with an extrusion multiplier of 1.00.
Also worth noting is that there is a bulge in the side of the print toward the bottom, but I'm not sure if it's related to the perimeter wall gaps issue. I have no idea what would cause that.
Basic Info
Printer: Ender 3 Pro
Filament: Hatchbox PLA ("gray blue")
Slicer Software: Slic3r
Slicer Settings
Note: I am only adding the settings I believe are relevant to the question. If you would like to see a setting not shown here, please let me know and I'll add it.
Print temperature: 200 °C
Bed temperature: 50 °C
Installed nozzle is 0.6 mm.
Print Images
This first picture is to show the orientation of the print on the print bed:
You are using a larger than "standard 0.4 mm" nozzle. Large diameter nozzles cause flow volume to increase when the extruder etrusion speed is kept the same as for the standard nozzle which can cause extruding problems like underextruding.
The nozzle diameter increase appears marginal (as in "it is just an extra 0.2 mm in diameter", but actaully the nozzle increases 50 % in diameter), but has significant effects on the volume flow of the extrusion.
As seen from the table below, when increasing the nozzle diameter for the same printing speed, the volume flow increases from 1.26 mm³/s to 4.24 mm³/s which is a 337.5 % increase of the flow for the selected layer height (0.3 mm).
This increased flow must be created by your extruder/nozzle assembly and might fall out of the range it can produce for the current setting. Generally this requires you to increase the printing temperature or decrease the printing speed.
Thank you, I hadn't even considered that the flow volume might be an issue. I finally calibrated my e-steps last night. Doing that and printing a little bit slower seems to have solved the issue.
I had this in 3 new Ender 3 pro's. It was the nozzle was too small. I checked the output of the nozzles by extruding and measuring the filament after it hardened right at the nozzle. A good nozzle will measure exactly to the size.
The amount of material the extruder is pushing, not the nozzle size, determines the width of extrusions.
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14952 | Gluing silicon heater to aluminium
I am making a bed for my 3D printer. I have bought a silicon heater (31x31 cm) and I want to glue it to my custom aluminum bed. The tape that it had from factory was bad, so I removed it. I want to glue it to the aluminum and I don't know what type of adhesive to use, I was thinking gasket glue with silicon, but I think that it will have bad thermal conductivity. I found this product, a silicon based, heat transferring paste, but I think that it will not stick good. What is a good adhesive for this purpose?
Heat Transfer PAste will not work as a gluing agent. What you need is a high-temperature glue that bonds Aluminium and a silicone rubber. The benchmark temperature that the glue needs to withstand is about 100 °C or approximately 200 °F.
McMaster-Carr allowed me to search for glue-properties and suggests among others contact adhesives, which are cans or tubes with a very viscous glue. You let that pre-cure on the items and then push the two together, resulting in very strong bonds. One of the items they suggest is 3M 2262 for which McMaster-Carr lists 230 °F as the max temperature, so just in the safe range. However, a 32 oz. can for almost 100 $ is surely overkill, the 3M manufacturer catalog lists only 1 qt and 5 gal as the available packaging sizes, so, unless you build printers for a living or know someone who uses this industrially, this is not an option.
The same catalog also lists the "3M™ 200MP& 300LSE" series with temperatures of 148 °C (300 °F) to 204 °C (400 °F). That is enough to print anything on. And it's the same glue that' used on my Build-Tak replacement surfaces to stick them to the Aluminium bed, so it could be suitable for gluing the heater to the bed on the other side too. However, I wish you good luck to find a reseller that sells you a fitting amount. Industrial packaging is available, but you'll need to find a reseller that offers a somewhat fitting size for you - I have seen Amazon listings for both types in sizes that have only small waste for most common heaters.
I am not affiliated with 3M or McMaster-Carr, but I have very good experience with 300LSE.
Thank you for your response. Theese double coated tapes are very expensive, 20 euro for a sheet of 31x31 cm. I was thinking to glue it with a thin layer of gasket glue. I can't find the thermal conductivity, but I don't think it will be so bad.
I have seen 25x30 for a 5er, but yes, the stuff IS expensive: 1000€ for a 55 meter, 65 cm wide roll from the industrial resellers. Thermal conductivity is good enough that it'S common to use 300LE or 200MP for the BuildTak.
I suggest not gluing it. Starting from the top, make a sandwich this way:
Aluminium with holes for bolts - Silicone heater - Thin cork (the one from IKEA, 2 mm thick for office desks is fine) - Thin plywood with holes for bolts (or other stiff material holding at least 60°C)
This way you use the aluminium and the plywood to keep the silicone heater well in contact with the aluminium, and the cork insulates so that less heat is lost on the bottom side.
Also, cork is fire-retardant.
If the heater fails replacing it is simple.
Also, you can and should cut away from the cork some space for a thermal non resettable fuse at 180°C to cut power if the heater overheats.
In my case I should have used one more bolt, as you can see in the photo.
Thank you for your response. I am afraid to put a sheet of plywood under the heating element. Beside that it is not a bad idea.
@KostasLazaridis it's not just plywood, it's plywood under cork, which is fire-retardant. You need a temperature safety fuse anyway! Trust me, plywood will be barely hot to the touch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_cutoff#Thermal_fuse
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14986 | Ender 3, why only 3 limit switches?
Why does the Ender 3 only have 3 limit switches instead of 6?
How does it handle crashes on other sides?
Is it worth adding them with a new mainboard?
You only need 3 switches to determine/fix the position of the carriage (carrying the hotend) with respect to the printer frame (for X, Y and Z i.e. 3 dimensions). Firmware setup, by defining the offset and the traveling distance on each axis, determines the minimum and maximum displacement. By default the printer carriage will not go outside the boundaries and will not damage anything. That is sufficient for most printers, but, for those printers that have weak steppers and printers that produce prints that suffer from layer shifting, the coordinate system might be messed up, and the carriage may travel outside the initial boundaries, this can damage your printer, using maximum endstops will prevent the printer from destroying itself.
Why use only 3 switches? The reason for this could also be related to costs, you need half the amount of switches, cables and a less extended printer controller board.
I've had one printer setup with max limit switches, but they never got triggered (unless self triggered for testing), never had a layer shifting either.
max-switches are pretty much overkill - unless your machine prints insane speeds, doesn't know its size before homing or re-homes to the "closest" endstop ever so often to ensure the print is true.
Because it knows the side of the build volume, all it needs to know is one physical location to home from. So knowing {x,y,z} (0,0,0), and knowing x(max) = 230, y(max) = 230, z(max) = 250, and knowing 1 step (x) = 0.001 mm, it can know when to stop before hitting the other side.
Because it knows where 0 is, and because it knows the maximum value, it knows where the other limit is through math.
2-sided limit switches are used on industrial equipment that have open-loop control mechanisms, like a lathe with a DRO, the DRO won't stop the lathe, so you need to hook up a limit switch on the other side to stop the lead screw... You could also have a maximum travel limit switch on a CNC router where if you send the spindle too far, you might break the equipment, or cause injury.
I hope this answered your question, and was also informative on how limit switches are used elsewhere... It's not perfect or exact, but I think it should give you a broad idea...
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15048 | 3D model with errors when exporting to Cura
I 3D modeled a cartoon car using Blender, mostly using add and subtract with boolean tools. When I export to Ultimaker Cura, I get these cuts along the model. Does anyone know why this is happening? Appreciate any feedback on the model.
The blender file: https://github.com/dantedaiki/jQuery-File-Upload/blob/master/Cartoon%20Car.blend
That is not uncommon for Blender created files, look into these questions. It probablyhas something to do with the normals of the surfaces being inconsistent, an online STL fixing utility like NetFabb may help.
In blender, you can occasionally have faces with flipped normals. Those areas then are "inside out". Such areas are just ignored in Cura. Fixing the files is as simple as recalculating the normals, but you'd best use a program like NetFabb for for that.
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13376 | Issues with print Prusa i3 infill breaking and causing clogs
I'm having some issues with my Prusa i3 prints. I'm trying to print the default beer opener print that came with the Prusa's memory card but the infill will break causing clogging and now allowing the print to finish. I've attached a picture of one of the failed prints.
I've checked Prusa's website and tried tightening the extruder gears and made sure the gears are clean. I'm using the PLA sent with the printer (1.75 mm) and with a default G-code file so I'm fairly sure it is a hardware issue, but I'm not sure what the issue could be.
Here is the link that I've used to help me troubleshoot.
Hi welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! I doubt whether the infill breaking up causes a clog, I would rather say it is the other way around. As this is a pre-sliced model, a similar question "Infill is rough - how to enhance?" might not be applicable, nor can you do anything about the print file. This rests whether you have the correct material loaded (temperature wise) and a good first layer. Please add by [edit] what material you use and what the print requires and post an image of the bottom of the print.
The issue was the filament sent with the printer was PETG and not PLA like this gcode file called for.
Thanks for posting your own solution, please accept this after 48 hours!
this means the temperature is off by some 30°C.
Try calibrating your Z again. It is hard to tell based on the picture, but it could be too close to the build plate, and thus is dragging while crossing the infill section, or it could be too far away and thus is not getting good layer adhesion.
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15049 | BLTouch Stopped Working
I was five hours into a six hour print and got a 28 mm X direction layer shift. No idea what caused it. I stopped the print cleaned the bed and (via Pronterface) went to home the bed (G28). The gantry homed X and Y and then I got the following message:
Error:Printer stopped due to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart. (Temperature is reset. >Set it after restarting)
[ERROR] Error:Printer stopped due to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart. (Temperature is >reset. Set it after restarting)
Error:!! STOP called because of BLTouch error - restart with M999
[ERROR] Error:!! STOP called because of BLTouch error - restart with M999
Entering M999 followed by G28 just reproduced the error. I powered down and then checked the BLTouch connections. The white signal wire seemed a bit loose, so I tightened that. All other wires are secure. Powering back up, the BLTouch did not do its normal probe up and down routine. The main red light flickered for about three seconds, it then flashed 7 times and then came on fully. At the end of the flashing, the blue LED on the circuit board also came on. Testing, the black and white signal wires gave a reading of 0.975 kΩ.
I had homed and levelled the bed (G28, G29) then saved the data (M500) prior to starting to the six hour print print earlier with no problem.
Printer: Hypercube Evolution (CoreXY) with KFB2.0 board running 24 V.
Genuine Antclab BLTouch v1.0.
Anybody any idea what has happened?
Turned out that the BL Touch had packed it in. Replaced with a new BL Touch v3.1 and everything works.
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15105 | Ender 3 Pro not interpreting G-code correctly?
I have an Ender 3 Pro and I have been able to get it to work quite well, I installed a 0.8 mm nozzle to try the Vase mode in Cura. I re-leveled the bed and when I tried to print, I got some very strange behavior.
When it starts the "purge line" along the side of the bed, the Z-axis is too high and instead of going down the left side and back up, it will go down the left side and then from left to right along the back edge and then stop and then just extrude filament. If I look at the beginning portion of the G-code it doesn't look any different than the G-Code for the other models I have printed except for in the initialization script it set the Layer height and Min Z to 0.32 instead of 0.2 and the code for drawing the first 2 purge lines is identical. I tried printing an older file that worked correctly and I got the same results where it went along the left side then along the back side and stopped and just extruded filament.
It seems like something in the printer went wonky? What would cause this and what is the fix? A reset of some sort? And how is that accomplished?
what is the start Gcode? We can't tell you if that is excepted with the code.
It ended up being something with the printer, I powered it down, let it set a few minutes and then powered it up and it printed correctly. Is there a way to "reset" it without the power cycle, and is this something common? Thanks for the response!
yes, there are reset commands, no, a hard-reset works better - as to be able to send a reset command you need to connect the printer to a terminal PC, and that means you reset the printer by connecting it...
Is this something that is a common occurrence? Is there something that might have caused this?
I don'T know what might have caused it, but regular shutdowns are a safety measure and at the same time reset the printer.
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15118 | Are control boards switchable?
I am interested in buying a larger printer, either a Sovol SV01 or a Sunlu S8 (or something else similar).
What I am wondering is, can the control boards and LCD displays be changed to better units later on?
How much are parts interchangeable?
Can the frame, steppers, extruder, base-heater and power supply be run with any control board which has enough outputs? How does this work?
I'm particularly interested in adding silent stepper drivers and BLTouch later on, neither of these units are very popular so not a lot of after market parts are out which list compatibility.
Yes. Stepper motors, heaters, temperature sensors, fans, etc... are all standard parts. Pretty much any control board can be used with the hardware from pretty much every printer.
Some more expensive printers might use more exotic parts (especially temperature sensors), but on the budget printers you're looking at I would be very surprised to find anything non-standard.
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15120 | Layer bending with first layer not sticking
I'm pretty new to 3D printing, so I'm looking for some tips with following problem I have.
I'm trying to print following model https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4671256 on my Ender 3 v2.
But as soon as the print reaches the body and the first layer parts are attached, the print comes loose from the bed and the print will be dragged by the nozzle.
If you look at the picture you can see the bending of the front paws of the sculpture. So they don't stay sticked onto the bed.
I have changed the model to be 80 % in size, but also upped the bed temperature from 50 to 75 °C.
Running at 50 °C was even worse...
My printed 20x20x20 mm test cube was flawless by the way.
You've got an adhesion problem, there are plenty similar questions to find. Other than the bed temperature you could add a brim or add an adhesive.
@0scar true, but I also see lack of support in that area - there should some support structures already supporting in that area.
Try a Brim (the model is rather tricky on FDM), which can help with bad adhesion.
Your first laser appears coarse and not "smooched" as it should. This hints that you leveled either high, or you hit the portal off-angle. If it is just high leveling, a tiny turn "up" can help a lot.
The model has some rather flat overhangs, like the mouth, chin, under the tails and lower body. I suggest printing that with support turned on.
For PLA Filament, I use 200°C nozzle with 60°C bed, so unless you go far beyond that, your print should work.
Last words: that the model you chose was made with resin printing in mind, so you will use some details.
Thanks for the details @Trish ! I will first try the easiest part and change the model to have a brim added to see what happens. And I will read up on the rest of the suggestions.
Brim and support together are the easiest, both are slicer settings.
Brim alone did the trick for this model, worked out nice. Again thx for the tips.
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14912 | Can closed loop steppers be used for extruders?
I am relatively new to 3D printing, but have some background in industrial equipment and test machines.
An important part of printer setup is getting the extruder mm/step rate configured correctly.
I was wondering if anybody has done any research into closed loop drive of the filament where the feedback to close the loop comes from a knurled idler on the filament.
This would mean factors such as drive slippage and different material stiffness could be automatically compensated for.
Going one step further the feedback wheel could be placed at the hotend of Bowden extruder systems negating the need to tune in retract settings for different materials as the closed loop system can just pull back however much material is required to get 1-2 mm as measured at the hot end.
I have seen there are readily available steppers with drive boards built in for closed loop control, I would imagine it would be a relatively simple task to remove the hall effect sensor from one of these boards and mount it remotely to read off a measuring wheel instead of the drive shaft.
I had a bit of a search but couldn't find anything on this topic online, is this something that has already been looked into and if it hasn't are there any significant reasons why this shouldn't work to improve performance and/or reduce manual tweaking and calibration required.
I'm wondering if thus would be useful, if an extruder skips, there could be a fundamental issue that isn't solved with monitoring the steps.
Skipping resistance is more a side benefit, as skipping comes with its own issues such as chewing into the filament. The benefits were more calibration (where different spring forces or filament hardness results in a different effective drive gear diameter).
I guess you therefore mentioned the separate knurled feedback option?
The cost of the encoder for the closed-loop is more than just turning up the power on the stepper motor. In practice, a well-tuned machine never slips.
As per before the benifit is not having to calibrate e-steps as well as having automatic compensation for Bowden tube elasticity.
https://github.com/KevinOConnor/klipper/issues/2610 a possible feedback design for the extruder is discussed
Looks interesting, I might have to play around with a custom hot end design to test it.
Closed loop steppers like S42B are becoming popular for the spatial axes because compensating for skipped steps is the correct way to recover for those axes. For example, if the nozzle knocks into a warped corner of a print and skips, the right thing to do is compensate, commanding additional steps necessary to get to the commanded location.
This is less valuable for extruder, since displacement is not necessarily the target we want to recover, but nozzle pressure. Extruder skip usually occurs when nozzle pressure exceeds the motors ability to drive the filament. Correcting for the skipped steps may result in overcompensating, attempting to drive nozzle pressure up over a longer period of time, since the problem won't clear itself as quickly as it does for the spatial axes. Compensating for skipped steps doesn't recover E errors like they do for X,Y, or Z, since skipped E steps tend to be driven by persistent problems, like low nozzle temp or hotend restrictions, where spatial errors tend to be transient, e.g. hitting a 'speed bump' on the print.
An alternative is filament flow sensors like this BTT Smart Filament Sensor. It uses a similar feedback mechanism like you suggest. It uses a driven wheel and encoder to send pulses to mainboard. When mainboard stopped getting pulses during commanded moves, it pauses print. Instead of trying to correct in a closed loop fashion, its a human-in-the-loop solution
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14933 | After print failure cant extrude PLA
I had a failed print lastnight and a glob of pla surrounded the hotend. After heating it up and removing the glob the extruder does not release any significant material. I checked with OctoPrint and the extruder stepper does push filament without the hot end on.
After fully heating the hot end I was able to remove the nozzle.
I then pushed the previously melted PLA out of the tube and heater. It was discolored in the heater. I then tried to put the nozzle back on and pull the old PLA out of the nozzle but no success there.
Should the nozzle be left in acetone for a few days before trying again or how should this be dealt with. The nozzle appears to be blocked.
Does this answer your question? Is this hot end salvageable? or Heatercartridge Bolt Stuck?
Acetone works on ABS, but not on PLA. If ABS is carbonized even acetone won't work. I've given up on cleaning nozzles if the filament won't push through. It's much work with little success.
Trish the hot end salvage has some decent info in it I would say the answer below best fits my question which is related to the hot end but only about the nozzle. it might be worth combining the info together. the heat gun + acupuncture needle might save it. im also tempted to use fuel injector cleaner to see if the nozzle can be cleaned that way as mine does have deposits on it just for giggles. since carbon is not soluble at all and only die/impurities/oil can be affected to attempt to remove the carbon ill have to update later after playng around.
If the hotend is okay, consider yourself lucky and consider the nozzle a loss. Aside from specialty items like ruby tip ones, nozzles are a consumable anyway. Even if you can clean it out well enough to get it working again, it's unlikely to extrude as well as a new clean nozzle. Acetone is probably not going to help; PLA does not dissolve in acetone, and while the pigments/additives might be affected by it enough to weaken and deform PLA in a way that could get it to detach, what's clogging your nozzle is likely burnt/carbonized PLA that's unlikely to be removable by anything that won't also destroy the brass.
If you don't already have replacements on hand, get yourself a pack of 10-20 for $10 or so and be ready to replace when needed. You can also go for a mixed-size pack if you want to try printing fine details with a smaller (0.1-0.3 mm) nozzle or super-fast but rough with a large (0.8-1.0 mm) nozzle.
After reading that carbon is pretty much chemically inactive except to oxidizers I went and grabbed a pack of nozles of various sizes. hydrogen proxide and white viniger may also be worth trying but we shall see...
Nice. I find that getting a mix softens the blow of having to buy new nozzles for the first time when the minimum quantity feels like more than you'll need, since you get not just a replacement but also more sizes to play with. :-)
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14799 | Output of G29 bed leveling, Marlin 2.0
I want to check how stable the output of the bedleveling protocol G29 was by running it multiple times. When running it four times, I got this as subsequent output
Recv: Bilinear Leveling Grid:
Recv: 0 1 2
Recv: 0 -0.056 -0.475 -0.605
Recv: 1 +0.124 -0.349 -0.595
Recv: 2 -0.023 -0.344 -0.673
Recv:
Recv: 0 1 2
Recv: 0 +0.218 -0.183 -0.325
Recv: 1 +0.399 -0.073 -0.328
Recv: 2 +0.251 -0.072 -0.399
Recv:
Recv: 0 1 2
Recv: 0 +0.498 +0.090 -0.049
Recv: 1 +0.677 +0.211 -0.038
Recv: 2 +0.531 +0.217 -0.117
Recv: Bilinear Leveling Grid:
Recv: 0 1 2
Recv: 0 +0.772 +0.368 +0.222
Recv: 1 +0.949 +0.482 +0.231
Recv: 2 +0.806 +0.495 +0.154
Which are quite unstable, and strange results. It seems as if there is an increment of around +0.27/0.28 for each probe point in the next iteration. How can this happen? What are the right bed level settings right now?
Printer: Anet A6
Probe: BLTouch
Software: Marlin 2.0
Bed level mode: Bilinear
Amount of probe points: 3x3
Probe surface: glass bed
For reference, here are the Configuration.h and the Configuration_adv.h.
Actually the sensor reads the bed correctly in terms of shape, not in actual reproducible distance.
Plotting the grids:
Results in pretty much the same shapes, so, when correcting for the maximum displacement and plotting all results in a single graph gives:
So the sensor does seem to produce reproducible bed geometry, but not the actual values.
Misinterpreting your initial question I assumed a default Anet sensor, this official ROKO SN04-N sensor is reported to not be very accurate and has a maximum hysteresis of 10 % error of the detecting distance, which is 10 % of 5 mm (so ± 0.5 mm). The overall maximum measurement is in grid 4 with a value of 0.949 mm and in grid 1 with a value of 0.124 mm; 0.949 mm - 0.124 mm = 0.825 mm is well within the ± 0.5 mm. This seems odd as the hysteresis should be in play on all measurements as the probe goes up and down. I've used this sensor myself, but replaced it for a more reliable sensor like the LJ18A3-8-Z/BX.
Now that it is clear that an accurate sensor is being used, there might be some play/backlash present in your printer. You should check the probe mount and the Z-axis.
Oh wow @0scar, how sweet of you to take this effort in the plotting! I agree with you that it seems to get the overal 'shape' of the bed. Note however that I am using the BLTouch, which seems pretty accurate seen from the M48 results (I believe 0.0009 standard deviation).
I will see if I can do this test again, but then add a G28 in between the results.. or maybe an M500 command. I can imagine that the routine somehow accumulates all the measurements
@zwep I read Anet A6 probe, now I understand that you mean printer Anet A6 and a BLTouch probe and BLTouch software! Sorry for the miscommunication, I'll alter the answer, but the main message will be the same, you need to check the bracket and the Z-axis for play or hysteresis/backlash.
Hi, just did an additional test with MULTIPLE_PROBING set to 3 and this gave consistent results!
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14358 | How can I tell if BLTouch is triggering?
MY new BLTouch doesn't seem to be actually sensing anything, and I'm not sure how to test it.
Quick background: I have a bit under a decade of experience with printing generally, but essentially none with firmware or any of the specific hardware. I recently got a new Ender 3 Pro, and successfully printed with it for a month.
I recently decided to upgrade my Ender 3 pro motherboard and add a BLTouch. I installed an SKR Mini E3 v2.0, tested briefly (long enough to satisfy myself that it worked as expected, but nothing extensive). I bolted on a BLTouch (not sure if 3.0 or 3.1), built and installed a cable to the dedicated "Z-Probe" port (same pinout as the BLTouch: brown, red, yellow, black, white), and updated the firmware with the binary firmware file from the controller board manufacturer. I have no other mods to electronics.
Right now, I have the following behavior:
During startup: BLTouch extends and retracts several times
In the LCD menu for BLTouch; select CMD:Self Test: BLTouch turns red, extends and retracts several times.
In the LCD menu for BLTouch; select CMD:Extend: BLTouch extends.
In the LCD menu for BLTouch; select CMD:Retract: BLTouch retracts.
In the LCD menu, select Auto Home: behaves as expected (moves the axes until they hit endstops).
So far so good, but then this:
In the LCD menu, select Bed Level: performs Auto Home procedure (as above), moves the BLTouch over the corner of the bed, extends the probe, lowers the Z axis until it hits the endstop. BLTouch probe moves back in. On the way down it turns solid red, then flashing red, then eventually retracts, then the carriage hits the endstop. Process ends.
So, What next? I'd like to check that the BLTouch is actually sending a signal to the board, but I'm not sure how. I've reviewed a bunch of online tutorials and the documentation for the mainboard and the BLTouch, without finding an answer.
Available tools: I have a multimeter and a very cheap oscilloscope. I haven't gotten the maple console installed, but do have a (probably?) functional alternative through the Pango slicer.
Problem is solved, though I still don't know how to test the BLTouch.
I had reversed the power connection (black and white wires) at the connection to the extension cable. Swapping that connector back around restored expected behavior.
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14576 | Thermal Runaway E1
I am currently building a Hypercube Evolution from a kit that was passed on to me. It uses a BIQU KFB2.0 control board and a 24 volt power supply. I have no prior experience in 3D printing.
I was getting to the end of the build. Everything was working. I was testing every component as I added it using Pronterface. I have not covered the aluminium heated bed with anything as I did not want to cause problems for the induction sensor (used as Z Min endstop). The induction sensor has a 4 mm range for ferrous metal and less for aluminium. I was intending to print on blue tape.
One website I visited suggested using feeler gauges as a better choice when levelling the bed. So I did. What I did not know is that both the hotend and the bed have power running to the outer surface. I found out when a feeler gauge touched the bed and the hotend at the same time. Since then, my LCD display gives the message "Thermal Runaway E1 press reset". I have pressed reset on the control board to no avail. Short press, long (5 and 10 seconds) and double press. None of which work. I have disconnected the hotend and it's thermistor from the control board. I have tried using another thermistor, but to no avail. Pronterface, when trying to connect, gives the following two lines:
"Error: Thermal Runaway, system stopped! Heater_ID: 0
Error: Printer halted, kill() called!"
I have disconnected all wires from the control board other than those leading to the LCD screen. The only power coming from the PSU. Still have the Thermal Runaway E1 error.
I have also re-compiled Marlin 2.0.6.1 using Auto Build Marlin and uploaded to the board, still the error persists. Anybody any idea how to fix this problem?
Can you disconnect the thermistor connector at the control board and measure its resistance at that connector with a multimeter? That will check if there is a broken connection somewhere in that part of the wiring.
You wrote "I found out when a feeler gauge touched the bed and the hotend at the same time." - what happened?
When the feeler gauge touched the hot end and the bed at the same time, I got a few pretty yellow sparks. This is when my problems started. The thermistor for the bed shows 137 kilo-ohms. The thermistor for the hotend showed 105 ohms. I removed the thermistor from the hotend and it now shows 110 kilo-ohms.
My limited knowledge suggests that there may be a short at the hotend. Would i be correct?
I have now removed all connections from the board, other than the stepper drivers and the LCD screen. When I connect to the computer, I still get the Thermal Runaway error on the screen.The powers supply was not connected. Pronterface will not connect. However, I can still upload firmware to the board.
Have I fried my board and if so, will I need to replace the stepper drivers as well as the board?
Sounds like your hot end thermistor is shorted / damaged. Probably an issue with its insulation.
Try plugging the heated bed thermistor in the hot end thermistor port - does it read correctly then?
Sorry towe, I have now disconnected everything from the board other than the stepper motors and the LCD Screen. The board will not connect to Pronterface and the LCD screen just reads, Thermal Runaway Error: E1, Printer Halted, Reset. So, at the moment, I cannot check. I can upload firmware to the board, so we do have communication. I have taken a closer look at the thermistor head. On one side there is about 5mm of bare wire between the head and the insulation.
Sounds like the sparks indicated a temporary short that damaged something in your circuitry used for detecting thermal runaway. That's the place to troubleshoot.
I found the solution. Controller board was broken, I had to order a new one.
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14726 | Wiring BLTouch V3.1 on Anet A6 and the JST connector polarity
I have looked at many tutorials already but I am not sure about how I should wire this properly. I bought a BLTouch V3.1 together with an extension cable
Now, the thing is, with that extension cable you get one set of wires for the servo in a Dupont connection (brown, red, yellow) and one for the Z-min in a JST connection (black, white).
The JST connection actually has room for three cables, and when holding it the way you can plug it into the Anet A6 you have the following order: Empty, Black, White. However, IIRC the input Z-min input on the Anet wants the following order: GND, VCC, Z-min.
So if I would use the cable like this. then I would connect the black wire of the BLTouch to the VCC. Will this cause any trouble with my BLtouch?
Because I think it does, but then again, why would you sell such a wire.
Black is GND and should not be connected to VCC.
Note that you can simply pop out the metal parts (use a pin to press a small clip) from the connector and rearrange how you want them to be.
Note that most printer controller boards have the GND of all the endstops connected, so technically you don't need the black wire at all. I make my own extension cables (from 4 wire cable) where the brown and black are connected at the sensor side and a single white wire is used for the Z-min endstop.
Great, thanks for the confirmation. Didnt knew how easy it was to re-arrange the wires in the JST connector!
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11844 | Anet A6, Marlin 1.1.x, bed leveling with sensor probe
I have an Anet A6, an SN04 sensor for the Z-axis, and Marlin 1.1.x software that has automatic bed leveling enabled.
My question is (looking at the image below): "It seems my bed leveling is not working correctly. What can I do to improve it?"
You can see several things below:
I tried to use glue to make the first layer adhere better.. works only for small prints;
the middle part of the print is being done quite okay;
the outer part are either too low or too high.
I used the following procedure to get my leveling "right":
First I set the z-offset with the M851 command, followed by M500. Then I performed the bed leveling with G29 T, followed by M500. Then I started my print.
Maybe I need more grid points for my bed leveling, even though I have this interpolation method on. Or do I need to check the implementation of the bed leveling, maybe something is just plain wrong in the software.
What is your recommendation?
Current bed level status (M420 V)
Send: M420 V
Recv: Bilinear Leveling Grid:
Recv: 0 1 2 3 4 5
Recv: 0 +0.709 +0.609 +0.519 +0.456 +0.448 +0.404
Recv: 1 +0.525 +0.440 +0.370 +0.325 +0.304 +0.298
Recv: 2 +0.368 +0.282 +0.222 +0.177 +0.189 +0.182
Recv: 3 +0.221 +0.152 +0.100 +0.055 +0.069 +0.082
Recv: 4 +0.086 +0.020 -0.028 -0.060 -0.050 -0.020
Recv: 5 -0.027 -0.093 -0.138 -0.187 -0.163 -0.146
It's almost 1 mm off according to the grid, I would start levelling the bed better.
The whole bed is slanted by ca 0.7 on the front row and .5 on the back, and 0.3 from left to right at the top, -0.1 on the bottom. That screams "relevel!"
@Trish but wait... shouldnt this bed level thing compensate for the skewness??
Yes it will, bit still you need to deliver a bed as level as possible, this bed needs manual levelling. Automatic levelling is not magic, if the bed is not level your prints don't have a straight bottom and are skew. It levels out in about 10 mm, depending on firmware settings.
@0scar ah thanks. But if it does correct for it.. then how come this first layer is not properly corrected? Currently my thought is that maybe the correction matrix is used in a 'transposed' way. A reason I could think of was that the bed leveling starts in the bottom right corner, but my bed origin is in the bottom left. Of course a simple correction can be made for that, but I cannot check for now if it does
That is strange, starting in the right (wrong ;-)) corner. Can you share your config file by posting it somewhere online, e.g. PasteBin?
Will do that! But will take some time because of a week holiday. Another thing I tested was the level of G1 Z0 after bed leveling that I skewed on purpose. That seemed to show a proper correction with the bed level data.
So maybe it is that the bed leveling and z offset are too noisy somehow.. Will get back at you!
Eventually it was a mixture of things that sort of solved this.
Setting the Z-offset a bit more tight helped some
Probing with more gridpoints helped
Instead of using glue, I used painterstape. Way easier to refresh and easier to take prints off. I wanted to try kapton tape, but painterstape was good enough for now.
Manually leveling the bed to a better position also helped.
(After edit) recalibrating my two z-axis motors.
In the end, I think my bed has become a bit curved over time. So a final solution would be to print on a glass bed, but that was not really an option when using the SN04 sensor.
I am moving now to a BLTouch sensor + glass bed to make everything perfect again.
EDIT: important note, I also put off bed heating. Since I am working with PLA, it was not really necessary. Doing this allowed me to use painterstape, otherwise it would 'fall off' eventually.
EDIT2: I think I have thought of a better explanation. I am using an Anet A6 and it might be because the x-axis was not parallel to the plate. Meaning that my two z-axis stepper motors were not calibrated properly.
Painterstape is good enough, but has to be taken into account in leveling. With a touch probe it automatically is, but with an inductive one, you need to account for it.
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14706 | New Build. Hotend Overheating. Not Printing Yet
My build with the Hypercube Evolution continues with a replacement BIQI KFB2.0 board. I am not at the printing stage yet. This is due to my latest problem.
The kit contains a “no-name” hotend, complete with round finned heatsink and nozzle. Looks a bit like a V5 J Head Hot End.
Everything is wired up. A 24 V power supply is being used. The printer is connected to Pronterface via USB. Using Pronterface, I set the hotend temperature to 70 °C. The KFB2.0 board lights a bright red LED when power is being sent to the hotend (and/or the heated bed). On initial heating, the red LED is on until the hotend temperature reaches around 65 °C and then turns off. The temperature continues to climb to around 120 to 125 °C, then starts falling. At 69/70 °C the red LED comes on again for about two seconds, the temperature continues to climb after the red LED is off to around 86 °C. It then cycles around the 69/70 to 86 °C position.
I have removed the thermistor to check its resistance. Reads greater than 100 kΩ. When in situ in the hotend, it was reading around 85 k&ohm, but a bit of Kapton tape sorted that. I was now reading 100 k&ohm with the thermistor in place. I then used Pronterface to set the temperature again. This time with a multimeter hooked up to the hotend terminals on the board. It confirmed that the bright red LED was sending 24 V and nothing when not on, so the hotend is recording a temperature increase from around 65 to 125 °C with no power. But, I now got something different when the temperature fell back to 69/70 °C. The red LED flickered for about two seconds and the multimeter showed readings fluctuating between 0.1 and 4.2 V. From this point the hotend kept the correct temperature, even after I had removed the multimeter.
Has anybody any idea why the temperature is going so high and what can I do to fix it?
What is the resistance of your heater?
@PerryWebb 3.9 ohm
Basically the resistance of the heater element is too low causing large currents and fast heating of the hotend. The overshooting you describe is the result caused by the active PID schedule. However, PID tuning is not always possible when you use wrong heater cartridges. I've made this a duplicate of an existing question.
3.9 ohms is a 12V heater. It won't work on 24V.
Thank you. You would think that the suppliers of the kit would include the correct parts. I will try a DC-DC converter to drop the voltage.
Heaters cost lest than a converter.
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14678 | How do you send G-code from a USB port with Python?
I'm working on a project for my masters where I'm trying to detect print errors using object detection and I want to be able to pause the printer when a potential fault is detected. However I can't seem to figure out the correct way to send G-code to my printer from a Python script. Does anyone happen to know how this works?
I'm working on an identical project, I couldn't find any contact in your profile. If you want to discuss/share approaches let me know. Via SO chat https://chat.stackoverflow.com/users/6859185/nickdgreg or my github is in my profile
The process is pretty straightforward, you open a serial connection and send the instructions over the serial connection. The printer reports "OK" when received (not when the command has been executed).
You can use pySerial to connect to a USB port with the correct speed, then send the command you want to execute (include the newline char).
You need to be aware that commands are buffered, if the buffer is full, the printer sends "OK" when there is a spot free in the buffer.
See this question on a sister SE.
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14682 | What are the dimensions of the FlashForge Creator Pro heating block?
I have a FlashForge Creator Pro, couple of years old. I'm looking to replace one or both of the heating blocks, as they're getting old and pretty gunked up. Instead of buying two blocks at \$30 each, I thought I could take some aluminum and make two on my CNC mill. The only thing - are there any manufacturer provided dimensions? I could probably get by measuring with calipers, but I'd prefer the exact specifications.
The FlashForge Creator Pro uses a MK10 hotend:
The Micro Swiss MK10 All Metal Hotend Kit for instance is reported to be a drop-in replacement for the FlashForge Creator Pro, it uses M7 threads.
The heater block for an MK10 has a threaded hole for the thermistor (M4), but some use a machined hole for PT100/3 mm thermistor cartridges. The block measures around 20 x 20 13 mm. The images below should give you enough information to create your custom blocks. However, there appear to be 3rd supplier after-market blocks available on on-line webshops and market places
The Flashforge original spare part heater blocks show that they are slightly different (the top image shows symmetrical heater blocks while the spare parts are not symmetrical), so above drawings and caliper measurements should give you enough information to reproduce the heater block.
It would be a great addition if you added your own answer once you measured your blocks and created some drawings!
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14580 | Order in a line command in G-code
I've started learning G-code for 3D printing and I'm quite confused.
I'm using an Ultimaker S5 printer and the firmware is : 5.5.12 - 20200226-UltiBot
Is there a difference between G1 F1200 X188 Y92 E0.01 and G1 X188 Y92 F1200 E0.01?
Most of my code looks like: G1 X[coordinate] Y[coordinate] E[num] without Z!
How is this possible?! My model is a 3D-model so how come the letter Z appears about 5 times in tens of papers?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I haven't used every flavor of gcode or firmware, but I've never seen the parameter order be important, provided that:
The G or M code was the initial entry; and
Each parameter was clearly listed with one or more spaces between parameters; and
No spaces were in between the parameter letter and the value.
We use a custom version of Repetier firmware to run 3D printers and Fadal CNC machines, and in every use G1 F1200 X188 Y92 E0.01 would be evaluated and executed completely identically to G1 X188 Y92 F1200 E0.01
Nearly all gocde variable values are persistent, so if Z remains unchanged because it is only specified once per layer, or if Z remains unchanged because it is explicitly specified (with the same value) on every line, there should be no difference in the behavior of the printer.
To expand a little on @Davo's answer. Any parameter that is omitted but required for movement is assumed by the g-code interpreter to have the same value in the state machine as when it was last provided. This is true for F, X, Y and Z. If the op wants to go hardcore though: https://www.nist.gov/publications/nist-rs274ngc-interpreter-version-3
@user77232 And E! (then it will be a move without extrusion) See the G0-G1 sources. A parser is used to parse the arguments of a command, the seen method is used to determine if a parameter is specified in the G-code command (whatever the position is), if not, the already set one from previous commands is used.
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14601 | Connecting (Anet A8) 2004 display to MKS GEN L V2.0
Although it seems this question has been answered before Connecting (Anet A8) 2004 display to MKS GEN L this one differs because the v2.0 board has no obvious AUX-2 connector.
So the question is, how can I connect the Anet A8 LCD Panel (with buttons) to the MKS Gen L V2.0 board? Or where can I find the schematics?
Hi and welcome! Thanks for posting a separate question! Note that it probably can be done, but not if you are using the UART, since there is no AUX-2 (and the LCD you want to connect requires analog pins) you need to "harvest" them from elsewhere unused pins. This includes changing your pins_xxx.h file. It is much easier to buy a new LCD that works with the EXP-1/2 ports.
Thanks Oscar for your buying advice. As you might know the challenge of fixing what you have often predominates good sense :-). I will think about harvesting or buying ...
It probably can be done, but, it requires some splicing of your LCD cables (or using some Dupont male-female cables) and altering of the firmware pins header files.
The MKS GEN L v2.0 lacks the AUX-2 port that is present on the v1.0 controller boards. The reason for this is that they implemented support for more modern stepper drivers like the trinamic drivers that are capable of using UART to set stepper options.
The old v1.0 pin layout is displayed below:
The new v2.0 pin layout is dislayed below:
The Anet A8 2004 graphical display (so-called ZONESTAR_LCD) uses (at least one as the buttons are suited with different resistors) analog pin that is used to detect which buttons are pushed.
#elif ENABLED(ZONESTAR_LCD)
#define ADC_KEYPAD_PIN 12
Pins A5 and A9-12, D40, D42 and D44 are used according to the pin layout.
In the pins_RAMPS.h header file the display usage is coded as:
#elif ENABLED(ZONESTAR_LCD)
#define LCD_PINS_RS 64
#define LCD_PINS_ENABLE 44
#define LCD_PINS_D4 63
#define LCD_PINS_D5 40
#define LCD_PINS_D6 42
#define LCD_PINS_D7 65
In order for this to work on the MKS GEN L v2.0, you need to source for free pins that can mimic these pins and alter the header file and create a spliced LCD cable.
It might be much easier to buy a new reprap discount display controller for about 10 bucks/euros and connect it to the dedicated EXP1/2 headers. Stay away from the Anet A6 graphical display.
Thanks Oscar! The dices have chosen to buy one (done). Anyway, your valued answer gave me confidence about modding the board.
The keypad of the Anet A8 just uses one analog pin. In the pins_RAMPS.h file the is further down the definition #elif ENABLED(ZONESTAR_LCD) #define ADC_KEYPAD_PIN 12. The buttons are suited with different resistors. So using your answer and this hint will help to get it running. Finding some time next week I will try to set it up despite my purchase.
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14599 | How to slice rounded corners in thin walls with Cura
I'm trying to print a small box with 1 mm thick walls.
The box has rounded corners.
Cura slices the rounded corners with straight internal lines instead of rounded lines:
The reason for these straight lines is that Cura is using infill to fill the walls, because it determines that there's not enough space in a 1 mm wall for three 0.4 mm passes.
This causes the walls to have small imperfections in the final print.
I was able to solve this by increasing the model wall thickness to 1.2 mm (to allow for 3 0.4 mm lines), but even then it wasn't doing it as a single continuous line, but instead breaking it into short lines at the corner:
Is there a way to avoid this issue without increasing the wall thickness, and have 3 continuous lines?
I migrated to a good slicer after having to deal with those things in Cura.
@towe What slicer would you recommend to use instead?
I'm currently using SuperSlicer (based on PrusaSlicer) and am quite happy with it. You do lose tree supports though.
@towe The question is if this is a slicer related problem or a geometry related problem. I wonder how your slicer would tackle the issue with a 1 mm wall thickness while having a 0.4 mm nozzle. Interesting question, I'm interested in an elaborate answer. :-)
@0scar actually it is a model problem - the walls in rounded corners get closer than in straight lines as they are pretty much attempting an infinitesimal solution, which puts the walls a tad closer together in the center between two walls in those areas.
@towe that is not an error of the slicer, it is one of the .stl format demanding that the model has only flat triangle surfaces and the quality of the export. There are workarounds though.
@0scar Not a geometry problem, at least not for proper slicers. Answer inbound :)
Fixing the model
My solution to this problem is, to increase the thickness in such corners by 0.05 mm by pushing the inner wall's radius towards its center. This allows some extra space as a round corner is not actually saved round but as a pattern of straight wall facets, and those can get squished together just enough to make the slicer believe the wall is too thin for a proper wall. As you see, the new corner rounding starts a little bit before the outer one - in this exaggerated model I use 1 millimeter extra - violet are the normal corners 10 mm apart, black is the new inner corner, the light blue area between them is the extra bulk that will massively reduce the problem.
origin of the error
As an example, let's put the number of facets to 1 and 2 when we form them from the rounded corner. The more facets there are, the closer the distance between the walls will get to the full wall thickness, but it will always stay a fraction below.
How does the model fix work?
Well, we shifted the inner corner away, and with 2 facets we get a fidelity to the intended wall thickness of 96.21 % instead of 92.39 % for the non-modified wall - and with even more facets the fidelity gets better more quickly. However, there is a point where your gaps will start to diverge in the corner, so just using a tiny alteration is advisable - in our model case, 9 facets (a 10°) is the point where the inner wall will start to become more distant to the outer wall. That's why I only need such a tiny bit of extra space if I export the model with the most fidelity in the .stl generation my CAD has available.
making it work in the slicer
Another thing I do when I can't alter the model is, knowing that I usually slice width a line width of 0.45 mm. In case such a corner appears, I can then alter my line width in the slicer down to 0.44[5] mm (or more) and get pretty much the same result at the cost of possibly needing to account for errors in other areas.
Changing the line width fixes some corners, but causes this issue to appear in layers that were previously OK. Can you elaborate on how to increase the thickness of the corners? Do you mean in the model itself?
@YoavKadosh Added a picture. In the model itself you alter the inner diameter a tiny bit. Technically you increase the inner diameter and push it's centerpoint away from the corner. This can be most easily be done by using a Push/Pull on the inside of the corner.
Contrary to the other answer, this is not (exclusively) a model / geometry issue.
Frame challenge: There's no good / easy solution to this when using Cura, at least that I know of. Better slicers can easily handle this situation though.
I replicated all the tests in SuperSlicer, which is a PrusaSlicer branch.
All tests were done with models with relatively high resolution:
As well as a model which I created to replicate a horrible quality .stl:
I checked the continuity of the added internal line with Simplify3D's g-code preview.
For a 0.4 mm extrusion width and a 1 mm wall thickness, PrusaSlicer simply adds a 0.2 mm line in the middle. This line is completely uninterrupted:
The same happens with the very rough .stl:
The same thing happens when using a 1.2 mm wall thickness:
Conclusion: You should not be adding esoteric "fixes" to your models to prop up terrible slicer performance.
Technically you use a Slic3r branch then.
@Trish Correct, though Slic3r itself has become obsolete.
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8242 | Anet A8 ignores extruder temperature?
I don't understand what's wrong with my G-code. I have set the printing temperature to 195 °C but when I try to print, the target temperature is always 0 °C and printing never starts.
I have tried changing material preset to different PLA profiles but that didn't help at all.
G-code:
;FLAVOR:RepRap
;TIME:1736
;Filament used: 0.676205m
;Layer height: 0.1
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 3.4.1
T0
M190 S50
M104 S195
M109 S195
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
G21 ;metric values
G90 ;absolute positioning
M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode
M107 ;start with the fan off
G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops
G28 Z0 ;move Z to min endstops
G1 Z15.0 F9000 ;move the platform down 15mm
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length
G1 F200 E3 ;extrude 3mm of feed stock
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again
G1 F9000
M117 Print0ng...
M83 ;relative extrusion mode
G1 F1500 E-6.5
;LAYER_COUNT:96
;LAYER:0
M107
G0 F600 X90.425 Y93.152 Z0.3
;TYPE:SKIRT
G1 F1500 E6.5
...
In addition, the extruder and heat sensor are working. An older G-code file correctly sets 200 °C as the target temperature for the extruder.
This G-code prints just fine
;FLAVOR:RepRap
;TIME:4628
;Filament used: 1.44191m
;Layer height: 0.15
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 3.4.1
T0
M190 S60
M104 S200
M109 S200
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
G21 ;metric values
G90 ;absolute positioning
M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode
M107 ;start with the fan off
G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops
G28 Z0 ;move Z to min endstops
G1 Z15.0 F9000 ;move the platform down 15mm
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length
G1 F200 E3 ;extrude 3mm of feed stock
G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again
G1 F9000
M117 Print0ng...
M83 ;relative extrusion mode
G1 F1500 E-6.5
;LAYER_COUNT:80
;LAYER:0
M107
G0 F4800 X72.96 Y99.484 Z0.3
;TYPE:SKIRT
---
Note, I have never modified the firmware or changed anything except what I can change with the frontpanel.
What do you mean by "Target temperature" --> the displayed value on the screen? Will the extruder start to move if you edit your code to M104 S0 M109 S0 ? Have you tried more recent versions of Cura? Oh, and what printer are you using, what firmware, etc.?
No, the extruder reads 25/0 on the A8 screen. As said in title, I have an Anet A8 printer. Target temperature is the temperature the extruder should reach before printing.
For troubleshooting further, I suggest to connect to the printer directly (What is a printer console/terminal?) and send M104 S200 or use the UI to set these. We also could help you in [chat] further.
I got the same problem today and after a lot of troubleshooting (following the answers here) I found out that the issue was the connection to the hotbed. After I clean out the connection to the hotbed the printer started working as usual. The debugging logic was that the printer heats up the hotbed before setting the extruder temperature.
Looking to your LCD the issue seems to be the same, since 33 degrees is a normal ambient temperature.
There is nothing wrong with the G-code, M109 S195 sets and waits for the temperature to reach the set point. There must be a different reason, other than G-code, why the temperature is not set correctly.
After updating your question by adding another G-code script, the conclusion is that there is nothing wrong with the G-code itself. The problem is that the printer cannot set the 195 °C temperature.
Could it be that the minimum temperature is 200 °C and that it doesn't set a temperature lower than the minimum value?
If you are comfortable enough to flash a new firmware (which you should always do with an Anet A8 as it has no thermal runaway protection) you could try to see if this is a firmware problem.
The thermistor is working, it's reading room temperature. The display shows 25 / 0 °C. The target temperature is wrong (0°C).
I never had any problem with lower temperature. I can try to set the temperature in Cura to 200 but I know that I printed with 195°C before.
I have now loaded a gcode that has 200°C as target temperature and it shows 0° as well. As another test, I copied the starting gcode of the working file to the file that doesnt work and it still shows 0° ... I am out of ideas now on what to try.
@user6329530 sure looks like a flaky control board, leading to intermittent errors. Just in case, clean and re-engage every connector -- especially the thermistor and heater cables.
How can that be a flanky control boad when the one gcode works and the other doesn't... where is the difference?
@user6329530 I thought you wrote that you retried a working file and it failed. if that's not the case, then you may need to look at your gcode files in a good text editor and look for invisible (but bad) characters
Yeah that's what I was trying to say. I wonder why one gcode works and the other wont. I loaded the same model into Slic3r and had the same result (0° target). That's why I am lost. I can print the thing when I set the extruder temp to a fixed value in the control pannel but that results in overextrusion...
Be sure that you are using the version of Cura (14.07) that comes on the SD card provided with the printer. I ran into this same thing after updating Cura, largely because it prompts you to when it starts.
You don't mention printing via a connected computer over USB, so I assume you're printing from an SD card. I think the most likely cause of your problem is a corrupted filesystem on the SD card, or bad SD card. I've had many occasions where my printer (Ender 3 with Marlin, stock and upgraded to 2.0) fails to see files or correctly read files despite them being readable when the SD card is put in a PC; I suspect the microcontroller library implementations of FAT filesystem reading are less tolerant of errors than real filesystem drivers on Windows, Linux, etc.
Try backing up all the files you care about on the SD card, reformatting it, and repopulting it with known-good files and see if the problem goes away.
Double check the physical connection to the heating element and the thermistor that go in the hot end. Those wires and crimps aren't great. I had one fail on me out of the box with my A8. Re-crimping did the trick.
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14474 | CR-10 heating problem
I've been happily printing on my CR-10 for a couple of months but now there is an issue. As soon as I turn it on the hot-end begins heating. I have replaced the heater and the thermistor but the problem remains. The panel on the control box shows 0 for the commanded temperature, but the actual temp just keeps rising.
Anyone know what could be wrong?
If you power the printer and it starts heating up the hotend, it most probably is caused by a faulty controller board. More specific, the MOSFET (as in an electronic switch component) controlling the current to the heater element is causing this. MOSFET devices usually fail short-circuit implying that when the MOSFET has failed, the current can freely run to the heater element without being controlled by the board.
If you are handy with electronics, you can replace the MOSFET, but it might be better to upgrade to a newer controller board as there may be other damage as well.
The description is spot-on and therefore I'm inclined to believe the diagnosis. I'm OK at basic electronics but I'd rather avoid soldering/desoldering MOSFET chips - I'm assuming it won't be socketed?
This might be a chance to get rid of the controller box - I find it clumsy.
As an older Brit I was brought up to mind my manners, so it grates on me when I forget - electronic versions are well and good, but this world needs a bit more civility methinks, so I'll continue my old-fashioned version :-)
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14505 | What is SBS plastic
I want to print a part from Thingiverse. In the description, the creater writes that he used SBS to print it. I did some research because I never heard of SBS.
I found a description on Filaments.directory that describes it as:
Poly(styrene-butadiene-styrene) is a hard, durable rubber that is commonly used for shoe soles, tires and other products that experience high wear.
But if I search for SBS filaments to buy, there only shows ABS up. Did I misunderstood something and SBS is the same as ABS.
It's probably just a typo, and the contributor meant ABS.
@Mick nope! It's a rather rare polymer.
A and S are right next to each other, the odds this wasn't a typo are slim considering SBS barely is a thing.
SBS is not really a rare polymer. It's used in most shoe soles, your tires for durability increases. It's used in Asphalt as well for the same reasons (Most of the modern Asphalt surfaces have a varying mix of 5-15% by volume of the polymer for dramatically increased durability.)
So it's not rare...save in 3D printing terms. Only a few places seem to have made it even if it made a splash moderately recently. I've a spool of it from Bestfilament that I've not used YET. It's kind of hard to lay hands on for whatever reasons.
It seems that the main source of any of this is from two Russian companies. Bestfilament (which seems to be more accessible other than IN Russia itself) and Filiamentarno (Which has sourcing concerns...)
As you found and according to this site, SBS is a Styryne-Butadiene polymer that only contains Styrene and Butadiene chains interlinked. This is similar to ABS, but not identical.
Some people have access to filament manufacturing machines or use pellet extruders, however, googling for "SBS" filament I was able to source at the moment two sites with information:
Craftbot.nl is a reseller who also explain why this stuff is such expensive with 40€ for 750 grams
the very site you had (apparently defunct, no waybackmachine grab), which tells us there is exactly one brand: Filamentarno from Russia, but the link to the amazon marketplace from there shows no availability of this product at all.
Now I want some of this stuff.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Filamentarno now has got a branch in Estonia, sends plastic to EU.
This response might be way late but no, SBS is not a typo.
Here are the info:
SBS (styrene-butadiene-styrene)
Poly (styrene-butadiene-styrene) or SBS, is a hard rubber that's used to modify asphalt, to make soles of shoes, tire treads, and other places where durability is important. It's a type of copolymer called a block copolymer. Its backbone chain is made up of three segments. The first is a long chain of polystyrene, the middle is a long chain of polybutadiene, and the last segment is another long section of polystyrene.
Polystyrene is a tough hard plastic, and this gives SBS its durability. Polybutadiene is rubbery, and this gives SBS its rubber-like properties. In addition, the polystyrene chains tend to clump together. When one styrene group of one SBS molecule joins one clump, and the other polystyrene chain of the same SBS molecule joins another clump, the different clumps become tied together with rubbery polybutadiene chains. This gives the material the ability to retain its shape after being stretched.
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14509 | How to move Z-axis to a specificic position (Z-max) after printing?
I have a Cartesian printer in a cubic format (the bed moves vertically) with Marlin 2.x
I am not finding a way to make it move to Z-max (23 cm) when finishing the printing.
The idea is to lower the bed all the way to the max, to make easy removal of the printed piece.
To move the bed down, you simply instruct the bed to do so after the print.
The best way to do that is add a G-code line to your "end G-code" script you find in your slicer you use.
Just add the line:
G1 Z230 F500
With this command you instruct the bed to lower to your maximum Z height at speed (feed rate) 500 mm per minute.
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14512 | Marlin 1.0 works: Marlin 2.0 destroys Z-axis motion
I have an FLSun 3D Cube, running off an MKS GEN V.1.4 main board. With Marlin 1.0, the Z-axis works great (and has been for three years). When I try to upgrade to Marlin 2.0, moving the Z-axis 10 mm results in extreme motion -50 mm at least, left motor then the right motor, three or four times, very fast. It's loud, it's jarring, and it's at the very least incorrect.
What setting am I missing?
Are you sure the steps/mm are indentical between your configurations?
Too high values for Z max speed or Z acceleration might also cause odd behaviour.
Are you using Marlin 2.0 correctly configured for your printer? If it's configured for a different printer, anything can happen. Where did you get the Marlin 2.0 image?
I believe (from reference) the default steps per mm for the FLSUN 3D Cube are:
X, Y, Z, E0
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 100, 100, 400, 150 }
Default marlin 2.0.x are:
X, Y, Z, E0
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 80, 80, 4000, 500 }
Such a setting would explain the excessive speeds; while the printer only needs 400 steps for advancing a single millimeter, the stepper receives 4000, this implies a tenfold, hence larger displacement and higher speeds.
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14520 | Constrain by surface area in Fusion 360
I'm trying to create a sketch that is constrained by surface area.
In my model I have a relatively irregular, flat area that I would like to constrain by area so that it never exceeds a certain number.
There are a lot of other constraints for angles, lengths, points, lines and the area of a surface is also always available in the properties. As a rather new person to Fusion 360, it feels logical a constraint by surface area should be possible.
Am I missing something or is there a good reason why this constraint doesn't exist?
Do you have Printer Settings where you can control the Printer Shape? Does this do what you want?
Although this question is not off-topic according to our help section, you might get more response from the Fusion 360 community.
Fair enough. Does that mean we should close this one?
I am testing some things, but the question is good - even though I don't really see an application
After some testing, Fusion does have a category to put in an Area parameter [edit -> Parameters ->] for Area that takes measurements in acres and circular mil but no useful measurements such as square centimeters or square inch. One circular mil is defined as a circle with a radius of 1/1000 inch, or 0.0254 mm, for an area of $5.067×10^{−4}\text{ mm}^2$.
However, defining the area of an item isn't (currently) straightforwardly possible: areas are not defineable, and with the obvious lack of possible parameters (square metrics and anything but super tiny or super huge) it doesn't seem to be planned. The best you can do is for bodies that you know the formula for the area in the following fashion:
Here, the left measurement (d2) is 1 mm. The parameter area is 10000 circular mil. Since we know A=d1*d2, we can go A/d2=d1 for a rectangle.
Yeah, noticed that too and it's confusing as the area is a calculated property on any surface you select. While it's not really solving my issue I think it is the best answer I can expect. Thx :)
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14616 | Water does not flow through 4 mm hole when there is a small amount, how to let water flow through small hole even when there is low pressure?
I have a 3D print where there are 5 holes with a diameter of 4 mm in a cup, and I would like liquid to flow through all 5 holes at once while slowly draining the cup (by slowly I mean: just take a few seconds and not drain instantly). Therefore the holes can not be very large.
When I fill water in the cup it drains fine until there is a small amount of water left, and then it just stops with a small layer of water flowing over the holes.
I'm guessing it is due to surface tension and not enough pressure from water above to push the water through...
Is there a hole design that fixes this problem? I don't know what to Google or if this is the right place to ask the question. It just takes too long to guess my way through and print every attempt at the right size or shape of hole (which I have done so far and still got nothing).
This is almost an engineering question, specifically regarding hydrodynamics and as you suggest, surface tension. How thick is the wall (floor?) surrounding the holes?
less about water resistancy of prints, more about the design and the post processing to solve this problem. While generally an engineering problem, there are solutions for the 3D printed variant.
Thank you for correcting that Trish. Fred, the floor is 1 mm in thickness :)
I think a related question can and should be asked in Physics SE or Engineering SE. If you ask a related but different question (so as to avoid cross-posting), like the relationship between hole diameter and back pressure where dripping stops and factors related to the hole that might affect it, and then mention this question for context, it would have some different and useful answers.
My hunch is that water being so darn sticky there isn't much you can do that will make more than a small difference, but I don't know for sure. Water really, really likes itself!
You can reduce (but probably not eliminate) this by having the inside bottom not be flat, but be a slight cone, so the last of the water is all directed to the center hole.
You didn't mention the material. In materials such as PLA, you may want to paint it before drilling the holes, to make it less porous.
@PerryWebb PLA is rather watertight (I have conducted tests on this by submerging printed cubes, then cracking them open after some time) but Nylons and other hygroscopic materials would suffer a lot in wet conditions. questions about that are [tag:Water-resistance]
Do you plan on trying to smooth the surface?
Although it is not a hole design, you can spray it with 'scotchguard' or 'neverwet' or another hydrophobic treatment to make water not stick to it.
What you encounter there is a combination of Adhesion, Cohesion, and Capillary Force.
Cohesion is what holds the water together. Adhesion is the force to retain water against a wall or hanging from a pen's end, it is proportional to the surface wetted. Capillary Force is the resulting effect where water moves up through a thin tube, it is anti-proportional to the diameter and in the opposite direction of the weight (force). Their relation can be shown in this picture, where a droplet hangs on the end of a glass rod, which has a capillary in it:
How to reduce the water sticking in the cup then?
Make the straight part of the bore as short as possible. This can be done by having a thin cup. The shorter the hole, the less surface there is the water can adhere to vertically, and you might overcome capillary force.
Smooth the hole. Maybe print it 3.5 mm and drill it up to your 4 mm diameter. This reduces adhesion.
Smooth the inside surface. Reducing the adhesion to the inside by having less steps.
Chamfer the inside of the holes. This alters the whole geometry and flow setup in the very low water level case, especially when the surface separates into several areas, above each hole. Then the larger volume belonging to each hole on the inner side means there is a little more pressure and you can get out some more water - and it also shortens the distance the hole has to bridge.
make sure there is some slope everywhere inside so that the water will collect in one of the holes.
An example for a (non measured) design which relies heavily on chamfering to guide the water to the already chamfered holes and then keeps the straight section as short as possible could look like this: the central hole has a very wide chamfer, the whole plate directs water to the center and each of the other holes has a chamfer to guide out water.
However, there is a lower limit to where just tweaking the design will workd, which is based on cohesion. Cohesion is what results in surface tension and viscosity. You can only shift those limiting factors by altering the properties of the liquid, for example by adding an agent that lowers the surface tension and viscosity (soap).
Thank you! I will try those suggestions, the floor is already thin, at 1mm, and at that scale I dont think champfers would be very noticeable. Should I go for thinner floor? or thicker floor and add Chamfer? or just add Chamfer to the 1 mm? And just to be sure, it is the top edge of the hole I should chamfer, right?
@JacobWelin both? and yes, the top. If you can, chamfering the lower would alter the flow pattern but might reduce the kept water even more.
I tried printing 3 test prints with just one hole.
First print was with 1mm floor and a champher.
Secound print was with 0.3mm floor and no Champher (No room for a champher anyways)
And third print was with a 3.2mm floor to allow for a bigger Champher - This third one is the one that worked the best, almost all of the water runns out and only the small champher is left with water in it, but that is just a few drops. So thank you, that worked fine!
@JacobWelin the chamfer does aide in sloping the bottom floor and at the same time does reduce the straight part... let me rephrase the first point a little XD
I tried making the bottom floor as thin as possible with only 0.3 mm in height (I print in 0.2mm layer height, so it was 0.4mm (2 layers) when printed I guess), and if I made it thinner than that I don't think it would be waterproof anymore, but that didn't make a difference to when it was 1mm in thickness... But making the the floor thicker (3.2mm) and adding a champher allowed for low adhesion and higher pressure from the water above in the champher pushing it down. So that solved it.
Beveling the whole inner floor to feed the chamfers might be the best option even for maximum flow
Another quality Trish answer. @JacobWelin, you can also use a hydrophobic coating on the inside of the cup to reduce the adhesion.
@user77232 Would that actually promote flow through the hole though? It seems to me that the cohesion is the main force causing the water's surface to not deform sufficiently to pass through the hole, as opposed to the adhesive forces of the water clinging to the inside of the hole.
@maxathousand, the water is also clinging to the bottom of the cup and not adding it's weight to force the rest of the water out of the hole. Therefore reducing cohesion on the floor of the cup should allow more of the water to fall out of the hole. Just coat the bottom of the cup, though not the hole!
@user77232 Ah, of course! I misread your comment as coating around the hole for some reason.
In the idea correct, but a correction of both of you terms: Cohesion is what keeps the water together, it is weakened by soap. Adhesion is what keeps the water clinging to the surface, it is reduced by hydrophobic coating and a less coarse surface. I'm adding a picture...
If it is possible to add a downward pointing thin needle (hair, AWG-40 wire etc.) to the edge of (each) hole, do it. The droplets will smoothly glide along it to its end, where the needle circumference becomes so tiny that surface tension cannot hold the droplet anymore. Surface tension won't have a chance!
With a very thin needle and funnel-like hydrophobic surface of the vessel, you may get rid of virtually any (microliter) amount of water. It can be hard to make it by 3D-printing, though.
You can easily make "hairs" with a 3d printer, but a slicer won't do it for you in places you want them, only places you don't. :-)
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14620 | G2 / G3 command in Cura
I'm using Cura for my 3D printing (an ultimaker S5 printer) and in order to understand 3D printing I'm trying to learn G-code.
I've noticed that even when the model is full of circles, the G-code is full with the G1 command. I haven't seen the G2 or G3 command at all!
How could this be?
The .stl files most commonly used for printing do not have any circles in them at all!
.stl files describe the surface of the things they represent with lots and lots of triangles:
That also means that your slicer doesn't really know which parts of the model are supposed to be round (where G2 and G3 might be applicable).
And, another consideration, though historical: Most 3D printers were (and are) based on relatively weak 8-bit microcontrollers. It's much easier for those microcontrollers to calculate the movements needed for the print if it's just straight lines, rather than elaborate curves.
One issue that can arise with this is when your model is of high quality, and your slicers uses all of that quality - a simple circle can then become hundreds or thousands of tiny segments, which all need to be transmitted, parsed and executed - which may lead to stuttering.
Thank you!! So if i'd like to print a circle and use the G2 / G3 command , is there an alternative to the STL files?
As of now, I believe all common slicers only accept the common "mesh" file formats - .stl, .obj and .amf.
There are, however, developments like integrating a slicer into Autodesks Fusion 360 CAD suite, which might allow them to use G2 and G3 commands since it could operate directly on your model.
Not all printer firmwares even support G2 / G3 (https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#G2_.26_G3:_Controlled_Arc_Move) and it's optional on some to save space too.
Autodesk fusion does support the G2/G3 in milling operations.
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14626 | Printer with two extruders but one as a backup
I'm trying to make a printer that will have a second extruder as backup for when the primary one clogs or runs out of filament. It is an ongoing project I'm doing to make a 3D printer as reliable as possible. How could you implement this.
This question should be reworded to clearly ask specific points, opinions are not allowed on this site, see help section.
@FarO Indeed, I initially overlooked the part in the body, I've reworded the body as the question (use of a spare tool) has value to retain for the future.
You could use a "filament runout sensor" and combine it with a "filament running sensor". If either fails the controller needs to be notified by a signal. If you configure the Configuration.h filament runout setup such that it doesn't call M600 but instead a series of codes to park tool 0, activate tool 1, home tool 1, prime tool 1, and commence printing, you are near a solution.
Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Btw what are your thoughts on a system that can automatically clear a ruined print from the build platform and start reprinting again?
@FarazAhmed Please look into Blackbelt 3D printer.
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14638 | Are there differences in filament consumption between ABS and PLA
I have been printing the same model once with Verbatim PLA and once with an ABS material from Switzerland. For both I was using two brand new 1 kg spools of filament. I was printing both at the same speed, same additions, same infill percentage, solid layers, solid wall count, etc. Literally everything the same except temperature.
Simplify3D indicated 300 g for each print, however I already realized that all of Simplify3Ds estimates for time and material are - unlike Cura - very poor. However I was still kinda surprised when I checked the two spools after printing. Originally they had the same diameter of material and same depth. After the print the ABS spool looked almost the same as before the print, in terms of diameter it shrank less than 5 mm, however the PLA roll was definitely at least 1/3 empty. The difference was also confirmed by a scale. ABS only consumed like 220 g, while PLA was using a bit over 300 g. ABS surely did not look like more than 20 %, but maybe its inner diameter is larger than the PLA spool.
Since I can order ABS considerably cheaper than PLA I was wondering if this is a common phenomenon. Googling for that leads to a million of pages outlining the differences between ABS and PLA where 999'999 of times it says that ABS is more prone to warping than PLA and the other one is about dimensional accuracy, but I could not find anything about material usage.
PLA is good for dimensional accuracy when you want things to be rigid, but it breaks easier if you bend it. ABS and, even better, PETG work if you want objects that bend. PETG doesn't warp as easily as ABS, but often sticks to the bed too well.
Volume: no (unless the filament diameters differ). Mass: yes.
Note that you can specify filament density in the "Other" tab in your profile if your want accurate weight estimates.
I’ve never actually printed anything other than PLA, but...
Searching the web for filament density, I found this article , among others, that indicate that PLA is nearly 20 % denser than ABS, on average (1.24 vs 1.04 g/cm3). This indicates that a 1 kg reel of ABS will have 20 % more volume (therefore length) than a 1 kg reel of PLA.
This does not quite explain the difference you see as 300 g vs 220 g is 36 % but maybe your measurement is off or the particular PLA mix you’re using is slightly denser.
True, the volume consumption is the same, but the weight consumption is different.
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14639 | How to set Home Offsets and Manual Home definitions in Marlin correctly?
I am using an Ender 3 and I have just upgraded to the Hero Me Gen 5 fan duct adapter. This has shifted the nozzle position. I also flashed some new Marlin 2 firmware and in the Hero Me manual it says to uncomment and change #define MANUAL_Y_HOME_POS -9 to suit this change in nozzle position.
This has, however, not given me the right results. It did not center my prints but actually let the Y-axis grind upon going to Y235. Additionally, I noticed, that my printer must have been off-center from the beginning, because the X position of the nozzle has not changed due to the installation, but the printer homes to a point 5 mm inside the bed perimeters.
So, if my printers endstops dictate an original home position of 3 mm inside the bed area for X and 15 mm outside the bed area for Y, how do I set this up correctly in Marlin 2?
I think the relevant parts are
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 235
#define Y_BED_SIZE 235
// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS 5
#define Y_MIN_POS -15
#define Z_MIN_POS 0
#define X_MAX_POS 250
#define Y_MAX_POS 240
#define Z_MAX_POS 230
...
// Manually set the home position. Leave these undefined for automatic settings.
// For DELTA this is the top-center of the Cartesian print volume.
//#define MANUAL_X_HOME_POS 0
//#define MANUAL_Y_HOME_POS -9
//#define MANUAL_Z_HOME_POS 0
This is my idea, I would let the manual home pos be commented out as I do not know what it does. However, I also want the software endstops to correcly work as to not let the printer destroy it aaaaand my BLTouch to probe the bed and not the air or my bed clips using UBL when doing 3-point probing. Would this be correct? Where do I have to look to let the printer consider my bed clips(only 10 mm on both ends of the y-axis side of the bed)?
This question is very similar, and therefore a duplicate to Recalibrating Home-position and How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset). The answer to those questions describe in detail what you need to do. First question is specific for the Ender 3.
Normally you wouldn't use the MANUAL_xyz_HOME_POS at all.
Home your machine.
Use a caliper or ruler to measure the distance between the nozzle and the edges of the print bed in both the X and Y direction.
If the nozzle was off the bed in both directions, input these measurements as negative X_MIN_POS and Y_MIN_POS values.
If it was over the bed in either of those directions, you'll need to input them as positive positions.
That should result in your nozzle to be exactly on the edge of the bed after a
G28 X Y
G1 X0 Y0
movement.
Oh my god, that is what I did and it didnt work, so then I wondered what I did wrong and came here to ask. But it did work! I just didn't flash the firmware, I must have forgotte nto turn the printer off and on again!
Still, how do I set the probe offsets or whatever correctly to not hit the clips? And is 5mm less of build volume normal?
You'll first want to set the probe offsets via NOZZLE_TO_PROBE_OFFSET relative to the nozzle.
The offsets for the actual probing would be set with PROBING_MARGIN, which defaults to 10 mm.
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14649 | How to wire an LJ18A3-8-Z/BX sensor with an optocoupler to a stock Ender 3?
I have this optocoupler.
and this sensor.
I want to wire them together and use them for auto bed leveling. Note, stock Ender 3 board (Creality v1) has 2 pins for its endstop, not 3, so this:
won't work
However, I found this diagram:
My optocoupler is rated for 12 V so I definitely wont attach 24 V to it. However, everything else seems good. So I could only replace the 24 V to 12 V and it would work?
Does this answer your question? Inductive Sensor in 24 V machine?
Both diagrams are exactly the same, the difference is the +5 V that is not connected on the bottom diagram (displayed in white, labelled "not used"), but since your endstops do not have a +5 V pin in the socket (only ground, GND, and signal, SIG or S) you don't need to attach it. You should source the +5 V from elsewhere from your board. As the left and right side of the module are separated circuits, you need to power the board with +5 V.
Read this answer for applying 24 V.
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14531 | Can PLA carry sound coming from a loud speaker?
My goal is to have a speaker inside a PLA casing to produce a nice hearable sound from a submersible item.
I intended to produce that sound from a Piezo buzzer stuck on a membrane held tight in hollow place between two pieces, but the result is unsatisfactory as the sound gets muffled to inaudible levels.
Is there any known 3D printable methods to permit for a sound to be heard from PLA?
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE!
Thank you! I love Stack Exchange it's really helped me over the course of the years.
This will be a problem, but it's not the material. I've seen recorders, trumpets, and even trombones made from pla. The problem is the shape.
In space, no one can hear you scream. That's because there's no air to be vibrated, which is part of the definition of sound.
In the case of your model, the described diaphragm will generate sound because it is surrounded by air. The vibrations in the air will transfer (and reflect) from the PLA shell you've created.
In order to hear as much sound as possible, you have to have as thin a shell as possible and only one of them. It would be more effective if you could incorporate the membrane into the shell, which eliminates the sound damping effect of the plastic sphere.
Barring that option, one layer (vase mode, but probably not) would present the created sound with a much less massive amount of plastic to vibrate.
Additionally, PLA is not known for being water tight. One can apply epoxy or other sealants to make it so, but that will add mass to the overall equation.
And in space if you try to scream you're out of air very quickly ^^" Thanks that's pretty much what I thought. What about using the shell as the vibrating membrane?
Yes, if you can thin the shell sufficiently, attaching the transducer directly will give you quite a good start. Additionally, consider that you don't have to thin the entire shell, only the portion at which the buzzer attaches. Realistically, you can then reduce most of the assembly.
You are asking about acoustics (see Sound, Acoustics). The main parameters you are dealing with can be seen in the simple harmonic model: flexibility (spring) and mass. Thinner walls give you more spring and less mass. Different filament materials will also change these parameters. One thing to consider is PLA becomes more brittle as it absorbs moisture. Someone who designs acoustical musical instruments could probably help you.
However, note that the ideal acoustics is different for a person speaking versus music, such as orchestra or band. Thus, application is essential. For example, if you are building earphones, you want to dampen external sound.
Very useful link I'm reading through and will see what can be done. Actually this is for an electronic instrument that has a fast decay and I am starting to think that a piezo buzzer may or may not be the best choice.
The acoustics of you sound box will greatly affect the sound of your instrument.
I did a lot of experimentation in this a couple years ago. The limitation on the sound is the amount of energy you can apply to the plastic, and the ability of the plastic to respond (move to) that energy. I ended up using epoxy to fasten a transducer directly to the plastic wall, and while the sound quality was not great (I could not have used it for speech or music) it was adequate to make the alarm sound, 50% PWM @ 3.3V and I controlled the frequency using the Arduino 'tone' library to control the frequency. I printed that side solid (no infill) and a bit thinner than the other sides (2mm instead of 4mm), printed it separately and then used epoxy to glue in (and its attached transducer) to the cube I was using for the rest of the circuitry.
Hi Joseph! Thanks that does make quite a lot of sense. And I guess the separate print and glue helped separate the amplifying surface from its sound box, like a diaphragm.
No. The extra print and gluing the piece to the box compensated for the inability to say to the 3D slicing software, "Use 100% infill on this wall, and this wall only". It would not have changed the sound quality at all had I been able to do selective infill instead. I just needed a thin, flexible surface. The honeycomb infill made a more rigid surface which transmitted the sound less efficiently.
I see! This makes a lot of sense. Thank you! Will check if it's possible to play on different infilling. Where was the honeycomb filling I'm not sure I follow you on that one though?
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13821 | Mesh bed levelling does not update any more after MemoryError
I have had issues with printing on my i3 MK3, especially when it came to the first layer. In March 2020, I have installed the Prusa Mesh Leveling plugin for Octoprint. With that plugin and a Nylock nut modification, I was able to reduce the bed variance from 0.6 mm down to 0.014 mm and prints were great. That took about 25 rounds of calibration and I didn't have any issues with the graphics not updating.
Shortly after that, my filament sensor stopped working and I ordered a replacement, which I installed yesterday. But today, my prints are bad again, especially the first layer. So I thought I would simply run through the calibration and mesh bed leveling again.
First, I turned the screws in the wrong direction, so the result became worse and I needed several attempts until the results went into the correct direction. I'm currently at ~1.0 mm bed variance, which is very bad and I need to continue leveling the bed.
Now, the graphics does not update any longer. It always shows the same picture.
I also noticed some different behavior of the mesh bed levelling procedure. Usually, after running the mesh bed levelling, the printer needs some time (~5 secs) before it will react to other commands like a move on the Z axis. I used the following technique to find out when to reload the graphics:
run mesh bed levelling
tell the printer to move up 10 mm on the Z axis
as soon as the print head moves up, it was possible to reload the graphics
Now, the print head moves up immediately after the mesh bed levelling, without the ~5 secs delay and the graphics does not update.
I have already tried:
click the "reload heat map" button
run mesh bed leveling again
restarting Octoprint
resetting the printer using the X button
looking for disk space via SSH
.
pi@octopi:~ $ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 7.3G 1.9G 5.1G 27% /
devtmpfs 182M 0 182M 0% /dev
tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 186M 2.7M 183M 2% /run
tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs 186M 0 186M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1 42M 21M 21M 51% /boot
tmpfs 38M 0 38M 0% /run/user/1000
In the log file (octoprint.log) with output level set to DEBUG, I could see an entry:
2020-06-06 12:19:52,261 - octoprint.plugins.PrusaMeshMap - INFO - Generating heatmap
2020-06-06 12:19:52,288 - py.warnings - WARNING -
/home/pi/oprint/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/pyplot.py:522:
RuntimeWarning: More than 20 figures have been opened.
Figures created through the pyplot interface (`matplotlib.pyplot.figure`) are
retained until explicitly closed and may consume too much memory.
(To control this warning, see the rcParam `figure.max_open_warning`).
max_open_warning, RuntimeWarning)
As you can see, this was at 12:19. The last graphics I saw is from 12:37.
The logs also contain a message on 12:40:
2020-06-06 12:40:39,262 - octoprint.util.comm - ERROR - Error while processing hook PrusaMeshMap:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/pi/oprint/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/octoprint/util/comm.py", line 2849, in _readline
ret = hook(self, ret)
File "/home/pi/oprint/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/octoprint_PrusaMeshMap/__init__.py", line 90, in mesh_level_check
self.mesh_level_generate()
File "/home/pi/oprint/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/octoprint_PrusaMeshMap/__init__.py", line 236, in mesh_level_generate
fig.savefig(self.get_asset_folder() + '/img/heatmap.png', bbox_inches="tight")
[...]
File "/home/pi/oprint/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/image.py", line 512, in _make_image
output = self.to_rgba(output, bytes=True, norm=False)
File "/home/pi/oprint/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/cm.py", line 259, in to_rgba
xx = (xx * 255).astype(np.uint8)
MemoryError
On 12:46 I rebooted the system
2020-06-06 12:46:08,761 - octoprint.server.api.system - INFO - Performing command for core:reboot: sudo shutdown -r now
but of course that graphics is still missing and the last available graphics is the one from 12:37. So, after the reboot one needs to run the mesh bed leveling again.
Still, no luck...
OctoPrint version is 1.4.0, OctoPi version 0.15.0PE, Prusameshmap Plugin: 0.3.0. As far as I can tell, that's the latest version available.
What can I do to make mesh bed leveling work again?
Is this still a problem? I suspect this is a bug in the plugin. Note this bug report, this is probably the same issue, but it has been closed!
@0scar: it has been closed, but there's no code fix associated with it.
I have formatted the SD card and installed Octoprint from scratch. That's nasty, because I lost all the models I uploaded.
It seems to be a bug in __init__.py of OctoPrint-PrusaMeshMap (archived Github repository).
That code saves the heatmap in this line:
fig.savefig(self.get_asset_folder() + '/img/heatmap.png', bbox_inches="tight")
It uses Pyplot
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
and thus the code should probably use (untested!)
plt.close(fig)
del fig
to free the resources.
Unfortunately it's not possible to file this as an issue because the Github repository is in archived mode and thus readonly.
You have found a bug in the OctoPrint plugin. As you noticed, not more than 20 graphs can be created/open at a time. This implies that the developer has not implemented pyplot correctly, this is a common mistake that I have ran into myself once or twice. You should notify the developer.
The problem is that the old graph is not destroyed or not properly updated (I think it is intended to update the graph). The code passes the create plot multiple times and after 20 graphs it will drop the error message.
If you reset the Pi or reload the Octoprint server you are probably good to go for another 20 graphs.
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14562 | Vertical 5 mm diameter hole comes out fine, but diagonal 3 mm holes keep collapsing
I am trying to 3D print an object from Shapeways. Confidentiality prevents me from sharing the actual STL files publicly, but what I can say is that it's a shape about 2 cm tall x 4 cm wide x 4 cm deep, and where the design specifies a vertical hole 5 mm in diameter, the hole comes out fine, but where the design specifies multiple holes 3 mm in diameter, passing diagonally through the shape (at a 45° angle with the ground), the holes seem to collapse (i.e. I can't see through them, and if I push a straightened paper clip through the hole, it's blocked). This has happened repeatedly (e.g. Shapeways offered to re-print some shapes for free when they came out defective, but this happened the second time too).
I am new to 3D printing and trying to figure out:
Is the hole more likely to "collapse" if it's diagonal rather than straight up and down? Is this because when the shape is being 3D printed, it's oriented exactly as shown in the design, and so before the 3D printing materials have fully solidified, the holes are more likely to be collapsed by gravity? Or does it have more to do with the diameter of the holes, and if I made the shape with 5 mm diagonal holes, they might not collapse?
The material I'm picking from Shapeways's options is "Black Natural Versatile Plastic". Are there other materials that are less likely to have this problem?
could you make a stand in model, for exampe a cube with the holes you describe? Is it SLS or FDM printed?
I had never heard of SLS or FDM. I looked them up, but I still can't tell from Shapeways' checkout process which one they use when I order a print in "Versatile Plastic". I asked customer support to find out. @Trish when you say "could you make a stand in model", do you mean make a design with the same types of holes in it, for the purpose of testing whether it has the same printing problems, and then if it does, I can share that STL file without violating the NDA?
A simple cube with just random holes does not allow to identify the project or item, but it helps to identify the possible print problem. A simple cube, same holes, no other features.
SLS is Selective Laser Sintering/smelting, where a laser melts a powder (usually nylon) to create 3D objects. FDM is Filament Deposition Modeling, where a plastic filament is melted and pushed through a nozzle. FDM is visibly made from layers, SLS from nylon is somewhat porous but layers can't be distinguished.
A member of the public on Stack Exchange's forum gave me the answer:
"The problem is not the hole 'collapsing' in and of itself. The problem is the material.
Versatile Plastic is a layered powder fused together with a laser in multiple layers, so the unused power has to come out from the various holes in the model once printing is completed. However, these layers are also very thin and compact. Therefore, if you make a small enough hole, the powder simply won't flow through it and it becomes stuck. Due to the small dimensions you listed (of said hole) it's gonna be difficult to free it due to the sheer compressing forces involved. When working with such fine details Versatile Plastic is not the most indicated material.
The only correction you can make to rectify the problem is changing material. Fine Detail Plastic would be a good choice for a new test, although it is not cheap compared to Versatile, is certainly cheaper than metals.
Fine Detail Plastic should provide you with a good result if you feel like trying it out."
ShapeWays technical support told me basically the same thing, and added that ordering the shape in black might also exacerbate the problem:
He said that when a model has holes in it, a human actually pokes the holes to get residual material out if possible. Then he adds: "The last issue would be that Black indeed causes additional issues. If the production team isn't able to clean the model properly, or didn't do their work right, this could become and issue when we dye your model. All Versatile Plastic is printed in White, when selecting a colored finish such as black, we dye the model using a bath of regular RIT DYE. If the hole still has trapped powder, the bath will make the loose powder wet and make it become sticky, in combination with the dye this causes it to become chunky on the inside."
TL;DR: I can try to fix it by using Fine Detail Plastic, or I could try ordering in white and then painting it black myself to avoid gunking up the holes (the insides of the holes don't need to be painted black).
I had a suspicion that way, but without the information about the method (nylon powder SLS) I couldn't guess.
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15350 | How do I set my Z offset?
After watching every possible YouTube video on the subject and reading any source available, and although I'm a PhD and quite computer savvy, I still can't make my Anet A6 (no probe) behave in terms of Z offset. I upgraded to silicone bed buffers instead of the stock springs; now my bed is ~5 mm raised, and I don't know how to proceed. Some observations:
G28 makes the nozzle go to the center of the bed. Display says X 111 and Y 111. Is it preferable to set the home to the bottom-left corner, or is the center just fine?
G28 makes the nozzle squish the bed ~5 mm deep.
I've tried the G92 approach and the M428 approach. I can't quite understand what's the difference between them. Can anyone explain why sometimes the former is used and sometimes the latter?
I had high hopes for M428. What could be simpler? You physically guide the nozzle to where you want it to be, send the command, and that's your new 0,0,0. But I guess not. Since my "home" is at 111,111 and apparently M428 can only be used at a maximum of 20 mm from 0, I get a "too far from reference" error message.
At any rate, both approaches (also M206) haven't helped. When I G28, the nozzle still squishes the bed. The display either says Z 5 or Z -5 or whatever I've played with, but the nozzle still squishes the poor bed.
In my LCD menu (Marlin 1.1.9), I don't have Control -> Motion -> Z offset. Since many videos recommend using this, this is quite sad. Can anyone tell me why this option is absent?
On a very conceptual level, I can't quite understand why in all the video guides the bed screws are completely ignored when discussing Z offset. One guy showed how he's correcting his Z offset 0.3 mm using G-code. But he could've easily done it by adjusting his screws... They all say "Z offset means the distance between your nozzle and bed, and here is how to adjust it". Now comes G-code, or LCD menu, etc. But why is everyone forgetting that you can adjust the distance between your bed and nozzle using the screws?! I can't seem to wrap my head around this. In my case, of course, I can't use the screws -- they've reached their limit, so I need to add extra using G-code. But nobody seems to really explain this nicely...
Summary: I urgently need a walkthrough for 6-year-olds. Make that 4-year-olds.
So the new silicone buffers raised the bed by 5 mm? When this happens, you should raise the endstop also with 5 mm. Else the printer will go down to the Z endstop that is effectively 5 mm below the level of the bed. I guess the buffers cannot be compressed by 5 mm, so you need to move the endstop up to the level your buffer compression is in reach of.
No software offset will work (for your current setup: homing on the bed surface does not work as the switch need to be triggered prior to having any offset in play) other than a hardware change or compression of the buffers of 5 mm. It would only be possible to use a software offset when the nozzle homes off the bed surface (next to the bed). The only thing you would have had to do is add in your start G-code:
G0 Z5 ; Move the head to 5 mm
G92 Z0 ; Call this Z = 0
If #define Z_SAFE_HOMING is enabled, you should comment the line in the configuration file to make it home Z at the homed X, Y position.
I will not go into all G-codes, details are read on the G-codes Wiki pages and Marlin firmware G-codes, these won't be able to help you out unless you fix the homing on the bed surface. Currently, you need to do a hardware fix, your endstop is below the surface level of the bed. Alternative is to remove homing Z above the bed surface and redefine the Z offset. A hardware fix is a better solution, and if you manage to print a fancy Z endstop holder and counterpart with a screw you will be able to level the bed more easily.
E.g. M428 can set an offset, yes, but, it needs a reference; that reference is the homing reference or the current position. The current position of a printer that is just turn on is meaningless, it can be everywhere in the print volume. So you need to trigger the endstops first, that is not possible when it is not reachable (without compressing the bed).
@0scar♦ So in conclusion, all I need to do is get rid of my homing-in-center-of-bed (by uncommenting #define BED_CENTER_AT_0_0 in my firmware, I suppose?), and then all my troubles are over and my offsets will work?
I agree with all 0scar advices. Bit funny idea: I would say that there is an alternative solution, but still hardware and I never tried to do that: (1) add the second (upper) endstop for Z (or move & reverse the existing one), (2) change your firmware to reverse Z homing direction (find the highest point, and probably disable Z backoff too), and then in G-Code assume this position to be exact high value (e.g. use G92 Z250 to fix that). Then your actual offset is applied without homing down into bed! I would like to see proof of concept :)
@Pixie, "get rid of my homing-in-centerbed" --> not only, you need to target Z outside of the bed. You would need to ensure homing order (first X or Y, then Z) and backoff to move carriage behind the bed (like -30 or 250, I do not know Anet A6!). Configuring such backoff may not be possible. Firmware may have settings enabled to block it at all. Or you can home each axis separately (e.g. G28 X) and trick the firmware - e.g. after X=0 you call G92 X50 and then can move outside bed (and crash into the frame?), then home Z. Very exaggerted, tricky method, error prone, not worth effort at all.
@Pixie your bed center cannot be in the middle, only a few printers have that. SAFE_HOMING should be in comments. As BED_CENTER_AT_0_0 should be in comments as well.
Setting any offset will move the whole print ("effectively shifts the coordinate space") - so you can set up for printing above or below bed, or shifting several cm to the right, for example - and then your print may not actually fit the printing space. For example: my frame is blocking X moves at the top, I can set the 20 mm X offset to avoid accident when printing high (so shift the print). Or when setting the new print on top of another print, thus shifting the position, etc. If you call M428 in any position, then current position will become the new offset. Current offset settings is reported by M503 (or M206 without parameters).
Also G92 is used as ad-hoc operation when relative positioning is used. It makes sense for extruder movements, but is not used for moving the printing head in practice. I would say that any such calls for X,Y,Z sound like some hacking, and you should know exactly what you are doing for tricking printer's logic this way. I would avoid this at all.
Normally (0,0,0) for cartesian printers is nearest-bottom-left point of the bed. If properly zero the printer is what you are trying to achieve, then you should:
zero any X,Y,Z offsets: M206 X0 Y0 Z0 (unless some is justified like in the frame example)
save this setting for future: M500
home the printer - it zero the position, and then automiaticall backoff to some "safe distance" (programmed in firmware)
use LCD to move carriage back to zero: at least for the Z axis
regulate bed screws to fit the zero position of printing head
There are settings in Marlin's file Configuration_adv.h:
Marlin 1.1:
#define X_HOME_BUMP_MM 5
#define Y_HOME_BUMP_MM 5
#define Z_HOME_BUMP_MM 2
Marlin 2.x:
#define HOMING_BUMP_MM { 5, 5, 2 } // (mm) Backoff from endstops after first bump
They do not change the zero (do not set offset), but force the carriage to move away from zero during homing operation and (Marlin 1.1) after homing, becuse usually it is convenient. Marlin 2.x offers separate parameter for final backoff:
//#define HOMING_BACKOFF_MM { 2, 2, 2 }
If you would like to center the head after homing, I would suggest to use these settings.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.259054 | 2021-01-17T19:25:42 | {
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15148 | Accidentally over curing a 3D print
I'm relatively new to SLA 3D printing and 3D printing in general. I got a budget SLA resin printer that I've been messing with for a few months now.
So I had a few soft prints laying around that have not been exposed to any UV light. It was sunny out and I decided to bring them outside to harden them up a little bit under the sun. And of course I forgot about them! By the time I remembered, my prints got over cured to the point of being super brittle.
Question: Let's say I properly cure a print (however that is). I'm not looking to paint it. It looks like the print could be accidentally over cured by taking it outside or sunlight shining from an open window. Is that true? Should I coat it with some kind of sealant if I'm done curing it?
You are correct, you can over cure a print by leaving it out in the sun. Prints can even over cure just by the ambient light in a room from the sun (though it would take a while).
One easy option to counter this krylon UV-Resistant Clear Coating which can be found at most hardware stores. I have used it but I found that it made my print a little softer this may have been because of the materials in the spray-can, or the type of resin I printed with.
You should check out the answer posted to Clear coating resin 3D prints as it provides some other options you can try as well such as using a brush on option.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.259749 | 2020-12-29T20:53:37 | {
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15281 | Are all glue sticks PVA-based? How to find out?
I'm struggling with bed adhesion for nylon on a glass bed (122 °C measured) in an enclosed chamber (45 °C near the front, likely more on top of the print bed). I used a glue stick to enhance adhesion, but after around 20 minutes the print comes off the bed.
I tried a no-brand glue stick and a Pritt glue stick.
Now I wonder whether they are suitable for the purpose, because nylon should really be printable in these conditions. Maybe the glue cannot hold those 100+ °C temperatures.
How to find out whether a glue stick is PVA-based and suitable for nylon (or polycarbonate, ABS) printing?
For reference about nylon adhesion, see https://reprap.org/forum/read.php?1,175173
Elmer's apparently doesn't reveal its glue stick contents. Elmer's has at least four different glue sticks without giving the difference in composition. You can find glue sticks that specify use for 3D printers. They contain PVP. Many wood glues have PVA. PVA may be labeled also as PVAc, or as "VA/crotonates/vinyl neodecanoate copolymer" (for example in hairsprays).
It looks like you will need to search patents to find contents of glue sticks. Her are examples.
According to Elmer's patent 6268413, Wood Glue Sticks have PVA, but I haven't seen such a thing:
This Elmer's patent has PVA: High-strength adhesive paste and dispenser
Patent number: 6268413
Abstract: The present invention includes a high strength adhesive and includes a dispenser containing a high strength adhesive. The invention is an adhesive composition comprising: (a) water present in an amount of from about 40 percent to about 70 percent by weight; (b) polyvinyl acetate present in an amount of about 15 percent to about 35 percent by weight; (c) dextrin present in an amount from about 5 percent to about 35 percent by weight; and (d) starch present in an amount from about 0 percent to about 5 percent by weight; the adhesive having at least 30% by weight solids, having a paste-like consistency, and having a bond strength greater than about 2000 p.s.i. as measured by ASTM D-905. The adhesive of the present invention has a very workable consistency that is very much like room-temperature butter or shortening used in cooking.
Elmer's patent with PVP: HIGH-STRENGTH GLUE STICK FORMULATION, Publication number: 20110301260, includes water; a defoamer; a bactericide; an oil; polyvinylpyrrolidone; a plurality of polyurethane dispersions; dipropylene glycol n-butyl ether; sodium stearate; casein; sodium hydroxide; and at least one adhesion promoter.
Another Elmer's patent has PVP: Adhesive applicator crayon
Patent number: 6066689
Abstract: Adhesive compositions exhibiting fast cure time in solid form, e.g. in the form of an applicator crayon or glue stick. The adhesive exhibiting polymer of the composition is based on a mixture of critical amounts of high molecular weight polyvinylpyrrolidone polymer, with a lower molecular weight polyvinylpyrrolidone polymer, with water, an organic solvent, and a salt of a long-claim fatty acid, e.g. sodium stearate. Color indicators and other optional ingredients, e.g. mildewcide, can be included.
Not all glue sticks work! The working ingredient of a glue stick is Polyvinylpyrrolidone; a more elaborate answer is found here on question: "Why does hairspray work as an adhesive for ABS?".
There are very good alternatives to glue sticks and hair spray nowadays. Specific adhesion sprays exist for several years now (e.g. Dimafix, 3DLAC, Magigoo for PA, Plasticz, PrintaFix, Dr.Mat, etc.; my personal experience is with the first 2 mentioned, both work for nylon: Dimafix has more tack at higher temperatures > 80 °C, up to 80 °C 3DLAC works perfect).
E.g. Dimafix has a higher temperature application range than e.g. 3DLAC. From the manufacturer can be seen that:
Source: http://www.dima3d.com/en/home/dimafix/
This image shows that the spray has its maximum tack/adhesion at about 120 °C and holds this adhesion level at least up to about 145 °C according to the image.
However, not all glues get stronger with temperature! PVA (also called PVAc) glues soften very quickly, making them good only at low temperature. See "Influence of temperature on the strength of bonded joints" which discloses this graph for PVAc Rhenocoll 3W, 4B Plus:
I think I tested the glue stick at too high temperature (120°C), but anyway yesterday I tried also a hairspray with PVA at 60°C bed temp. and it didn't work for thin areas of a printed part with 3 mm brim. I may try again with 10 mm brim! and with wood glue. But I ordered Dimafix as well. I should have recorded a video...
@FarO A department of the company I work for uses Dimafix for all their prints (I print other materials at lower bed temps, so it has never been my favorite, 3DLAC has better adhesion in the 60-70 °C range according to my experience). Note that also specifically engineered sprays exist for PA (nylon), you could also try Magigoo for PA. I have no affiliation whatsoever! Just sharing my experiences.
Not all Glues are PVA based. There is one glue manufacturer call CGMaxed that makes an alcohol based PVB glue. Sold on Ebay exclusively for 22 dollars per 6 oz. I use it every day when my supports fail to stick or having levelling issues.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.259922 | 2021-01-11T09:34:20 | {
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15286 | Safe, cheap, heated enclosure solution for New England garage
Hopefully this isn't against the rules as it may fall under "opinion" more than a concrete answer, but I'll ask anyway.
I live near Boston and it gets cold here. My Ender 3 Pro is out in a detached garage with no heat and I'm pretty sure the garage getting down to about -12 °C (10 °F) has ruined a few prints for me. Also I'd love to print in ABS at home as well and I think I'd need an enclosure for that.
Now, the printer technically already has an enclosure. It's in a box made out of plywood with some clear acrylic doors on the front, but I think the box itself has too much extra room and doesn't retain heat well enough (thin plywood?).
So my question is, for anyone with experience printing in cold environments, what are some cheap/easy ways to keep the enclosure warm, preferably as safe as possible since I can't always watch the print. I have a small space heater in the garage but I turned it off last night because I wasn't sure how safe it'd be overnight and didn't want to start a fire.
Thoughts on stuff like "reflectix" liners for the enclosure that would help retain heat, small heaters, IR lamps, etc...? All preferably on the cheap side.
Sounds like you have room to insulate the box. Some would be envious of your ability to cool with fans when needed.
The easiest step would be to add some isolation on the outside of the box. If you have space inside, there might be a good spot to store some non-flammable insulation, for example rock or glassfiber wool.
A different material might also be possible - firebrick is not only non-flammable but also a very good insulator! about 2-3 inches of firebrick can contain the heat produced by a tempering oven while the outside is cool enough to be safe to touch with gloves.
However, you should install an extra thermosensor for the chamber temperature - and make sure that the printer enters print halt mode once the temperature in the chamber gets above a critical temperature to try to mitigate fire risks and possibly start a chamber-cooling protocol - which might include aborting the print or activating coolers that rapidly cool down the chamber.
As you pretty much are going heated chamber, you might find a spot when you might want to use a flexible hose to pull non-chamber air to supply the parts cooling fan.
Also, possibly relocate as much of the electronics to a compartment separate from the printer's heat chamber to ensure the electronics don't get cooked and can be supplied with cooler air.
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