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614 | What types of pigments can be used when making your own filaments?
There are many types of pigments made for paint, food, fabric, cosmetic and finally plastic pigments. I guess we need pigments made for plastic, or at least pigments which won't decompose, burn or lose their properties at the temperatures inside the filament extrusion machines (around 240C).
So what type of pigment are we looking for (does that type have a name?) and where can they be found (off-the-shelf from some specialized paint store or is it a more specialized pigment for plastics which is harder to source)?
The normal way pigment is added to filament (or any other extruded plastic product) is by mixing "masterbatch" pellets containing a high concentration of dye with the raw resin pellets. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterbatch) This is significantly easier and more reliable than trying to mix raw pigments into the plastic -- the likelihood of clumping and other issues is greatly reduced.
You can buy these masterbatch pellets and mix up colors in whatever ratios you want to achieve specific output colors. Just make sure the masterbatch pellet carrier material is compatible with your resin. There are a wide variety of vendors, including ebay.
Did I understand correctly that "masterbatch pellets" are things from the injection molding, etc. field and aren't found elsewhere?
You won't find them at Walmart. Easy enough to get online in small quantities though, since some vendors have started catering to people making filament.
No I mean in what fields are they used? Only the one you mentioned? Online shopping is cool, but if it can be found locally at X that might be a better option sometimes.
I don't know of any uses outside heavy industry. What comes to mind is injection molding, plastic extrusions, and industrial filament manufacture (for 3d printers or plastic welders).
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620 | What and how much does coloring in the filament affect in the print?
Are there general rules on how much a colored filament vs. vanilla filament affects the print results, what is affected and how those values should be changed in the slicer to achieve more similar results between different color/colored vs. pure filament spools?
The upvoted answer is incorrect. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217847052.pdf
At this point in time I don't think there is a need to be concerned with purity of filaments based on pigmentation.
For the most part, variations in filament quality due to coloring should be the least of your concerns compared to some of the other variables such as quality of the pellets, extrusion temperature (when manufactured), cooling rate (after extrusion), handling/storage, etc.
Also, assuming your focused on consumer 3D printer use, the typical hardware components aren't equipped to be accurate enough to make fine adjustments with regard to the quality range driven by filament color. Even if there were capable, accurate extruder(s) installed, I think you would need a well designed feedback loop to ensure that you're reading temperatures along the full extrusion process (drive, melt, extrude, etc).
I believe what you're asking involves more material science expertise, from a design aspect.
However, I believe that the more "color" you have obviously reduces the purity of the material and thusly the material properties can suffer. Such properties as thermal resistance found in PLA and ABS. So theoretically if you have Black filament, you'll want to extrude with a lower temperature than you would with a natural "White" filament. I would think that the necessary difference in temperature would be a few degrees (Celsius). However, there are many other factors, such as moisture and manufacturing techniques that can take precedence over color differences.
My advice, figure out how to "cheaply" analyze your material and ensure you have an accurate temperature feedback loop. If can you do that, you'll be able to drastically change the quality of consumer 3D printing.
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510 | How thin can my extrusion be from a 1.2mm extruder?
I always assumed that the smallest diameter that you could extrude was equal to the diameter of the extruder tip itself. Recently I heard that you can actually extrude a line that's as little as half the width of the nozzle opening.
Is that true in theory? In practice?
My printer's 0.3mm nozzle broke recently, and the only replacement on hand was a 1.2mm nozzle. The prints have been fast, but really coarse and imprecise. I've dialed the extrusion diameter down from about 2mm to 1.2mm for some smaller, more intricate parts, and it worked fine. Can I go down to 0.9mm or 0.6mm extrusion diameter without it screwing up my prints?
If I can't do that, what does happen if I try to print 0.6mm out of a 1.2mm extruder nozzle?
For this question, let's assume an FDM printer using PLA and/or ABS filament.
All I can comment on is the minimum limit will depend on the physical and chemical properties of the plastic, nothing more.
I gave it a try on a few prints over the weekend. I had both successful and unsuccessful prints. It can work, and certainly working with a 1.2mm nozzle (huge!) reducing down to 0.6mm or even 0.9mm allowed a significant improvement in the amount of detail and the sharpness of corners in the resulting prints. I reduce the layer height down to 0.2mm, too, which I imagine helped.
The main issue with very narrow extrusion widths (less than the nozzle size) is that you get really poor "nozzle squash." The plastic isn't pressed down very hard as it's extruded. That causes poor layer bonding and weaker prints.
The flow of molten plastic coming out of the nozzle must be drawn down by tension in order to end up smaller than the nozzle opening, and that drawing effect makes it difficult to get good contact with the previous layer. So you end up with a "stack of logs" structure kind of like this:
(This photo actually shows layer height = extrusion width = nozzle size, which is another no-no, but the end result is similar.)
What you want instead is something very "mashed together" and strong like this:
How finely the the strand can draw down -- versus smearing or breaking apart into blobs -- will depend greatly on the type of filament and the printing conditions. For example, nylon draws down extremely well because it experiences a large degree of strain crystallization, and actually gets stronger and stiffer as it's stretched. PLA tends to get more brittle when strained and may break into stringy blobs. ABS doesn't change terribly much because it's highly amorphous. Polymer type, blending agents, print speed, printing temperature, and cooling will control the drawing behavior of the filament.
Another factor to consider is what the strand spacing is within the print. If you set the extrusion width equal to half the nozzle width, depending on the slicer, adjacent strands may be placed with pitch equal or slightly less than half the nozzle width. So after the first strand is printed (say an unimportant inner perimeter) the next strand will be printed with the nozzle partially overlapping the previous strand. This effectively creates a constriction to force the plastic out of a smaller opening to one side of the nozzle, which is not too different from printing with a smaller nozzle. Subsequent perimeter strands may then tend to "heal up" even if the first is low quality. This effect doesn't completely fix the problem, but it helps account for why under-width strands seem to work better than they ought to.
Of course, even if the strands turn out ok, it's arguable whether there is any benefit. If the goal of a smaller extrusion width is more precision and sharper corners, you may not actually accomplish that goal. When the filament is being drawn down by tension in the cooling polymer, it may tend to "cut corners" and get pulled into a rounded arc when the nozzle changes direction. That may defeat the point of using a thinner extrusion width in the first place. Generally I only recommend using under-width strands to capture thin-wall detail that is only a little bit too thin for the nozzle, not as a way to improve overall print quality.
In comparison, having the extrusion width equal or wider than the nozzle ensures the plastic is firmly squished downward into intimate contact with the lower layer. You can fudge this a bit and still get decent results, but it's usually best to keep the extrusion width equal or larger than the nozzle size. There's no hard cutoff where it will / won't work.
Very informative answer , but I'll have to respectfully disagree from personal experience. That is, the bounding doesn't seem poor to me which is a premise you made to explain some of the potential issues.
It's hard to objectively determine layer bonding strength without a force tester unit. Performance will vary wildly with settings and materials. For example, Stratasys has some patents on deliberately leaving the nozzle a fair distance above the print and letting the drawn-out strand gently fall onto the previous layer, so they must think it's viable in some cases. (The patents are concerned with techniques of making corners sharp and specific nozzle geometries that prevent material build-up when doing this.)
In other words, your mileage may vary?
Yep. Too many factors to really make concrete predictions. Even which slicer you use. For example, Slic3r assumes the strand has a flattened oval cross-section, so its extrusion volume calculations can go off kilter when your extrusion width is less than [layer height + nozzle size] because that's the minimum size to fully develop a symmetrical oval shape strand.
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11 | How do I give 3D-printed parts in PLA a shiny smooth finish?
The surfaces of my printed parts using PLA plastic look rough and uneven.
Would changing filament to a better one make any difference?
If not, what kind of methods can I use to achieve a smoother finish for my for 3D-printed objects?
PLA parts can be finished with a coat of epoxy like XTC-3D from Smooth-On. This will smooth out the part and give it a pretty nice shine.
I've also had a fair amount of success sanding prints, giving them a coat of automotive filler primer, and using glossy spray paint.
You can also get great results with an acetone vapor finish if you're willing to switch to ABS. Though that will require a heated bed and can be a bit more finicky to work with than PLA.
XTC-3D is more of a resin coat. It works as intended, and looks really good if primed, painted, and sanded, but do know your model will be a little thicker as a result.
+1 for mentioning a filler primer. Just make sure to get an actual filler primer. I have found that Rustoleum's typical Paint/Primer does not have the same properties as a filler. The filler dries much faster and fills in print lines way better.
Acetone vaporing is a great way to smooth ABS prints. For PLA, however, acetone smoothing does not work. An article about smoothing PLA says:
This is a pity, since PLA is much easier to work with than ABS. We found some solutions for smoothing PLA, but most involve rather dangerous-sounding chemicals such as Tetrahydrofuran and Dichloromethane. The one exception we found is Ethyl Acetate which seems to give good results and is (relatively) safe.
Other article mentioned MEK Substitute, which is Ethyl Acetate as well. You could also try some kind of polisher manufactured for 3D print results, such as XTC-3D. Here is a real photo of XTC-3D on PLA:
Ultimaker also suggests using chloroform for smoothing PLA prints.
If your parts are really uneven, it might be a symptom of something bad going on with your print(er), you might want to read Taxonomy of Z axis artifacts in extrusion-based 3d printing.
The most recognizeable cause of this problem is Z-wobble. It is caused by the misalignment of layers in a repeating pattern with a period equal to the Z thread pitch (technically the lead, but this is the same as the pitch unless you are using a multi-start thread), and was a famous problem of the original Makebot, the CupcakeCNC.
Ultimaker suggests usage of chloroform for PLA post-processing: https://ultimaker.com/en/tips-tricks/post-processing
Tetrahydrofuran is not that evil, but it evaporates really quickly so it's not very practical to work with.
It takes quite an effort to make PLA shiny, and it's not as simple as ABS and acetone.
You have to sand down the print with sandpaper with different grit sizes (start with grit P100, then P240, P400, P600, P1500 and P2000).
To make the shining result you have to polish the print with plastic finish compound. Alternatively you can apply XTC-3D Print Coating.
See these posts:
Finishing 3D Printed Parts in 1 Simple Step
Ultimate Guide to Finishing 3D Printed Parts
Your two easiest options are dipping your print in acetone or giving it an acetone vapor bath. Note this process generally only works with ABS not PLA, with the exception of some brands. There are many articles online where you can learn more about the process.
Aside from finishing, you will generally get a smoother looking end result by lowering the layer thickness, and removing any hysteresis/wobble in your print head making sure it's well calibrated.
For a question that asks about smoothing PLA an answer that only addresses smoothing ABS doesn't seem very useful. Calibration is a nice starting point, but won't achieve "shiny smooth".
@Tom van der Zanden, It's pretty clearly addressing PLA specifying that the acetone method will in fact work for some brands. Provided links are for PLA. All other answers in this thread echo similar points.
Acetone does not work for any brand of PLA. The article you linked to doesn't use acetone, they use another solvent.
Not trying to be argumentative, just factual. The third link in the post (https://ultimaker.com/en/community/10412-acetone-finishing-on-pla) which you might have missed due to the way I formatted it, contains information on how one person was able to use acetone finishing with Colorfabb PLA. The reason is because they include a small percentage dissolvable plastics in their formulation, which is what allows this process to work, although marginally.
Make sure your printer is properly calibrated and that there are no jams as this can cause blobs or other defects on the object. Printing at a higher resolution would also make the object smoother, as there would also be less difference between each layer.
The filament that you are using could be a cause for the rough look as well. Make sure you play around with the temperature to find the right range for a specific brand of filament. I have noticed different brands tend to print better at different temperatures, and if it too low could cause flow issues.
Also leaving PLA out in the air tends to have it absorb moisture which is also no good. If you are not going to use it for a while put the filament back in a resealable bag with a desiccant to help keep moisture out.
If you don't want to see the printed layers you could also try melting the surface again with a heat gun to smooth out the object. Be careful not to overheat the object, because could you could discoloring or cause drooping.
Thank you for mentioning proper printer setup. Surprisingly, it seems that you're the first person to bring this up. So +1 for providing an insightful answer!
For a cheap method to smooth out your prints, you can use clear nail polish. It will act as a resin-like coat.
Hi Logan, and welcome to SE 3D Printing! Whilst your answer may be technically correct, it is rather terse, and, as such, it has been recommended for deletion, unfortunately. If you could expand it then you may get a more positive response. I would recommend that in addition to reading some highly voted answers to gauge the standard expected, that you take a look at the help section relating to answering questions, in particular [answer], and take the [tour] for more information on how stack exchange works. Thanks :-)
So we know what doesn't work but what does work (but not well) is alcohol! Only isopropyl alcohol 90% (and up) will work! Also at Walmart you can get stuff called Goo Gone or even better is Oops!
What you're doing is melting the plastic chemically. Since PLA is made from corn (more or less) the same chemicals won't work on this kind of bio plastic that PLA is. ABS is an oil based product so that's why acetone works.
I use those two mentioned products because they are made to remove glues and waxes and don't immediately evaporate so it has time to do its job and dissolve the plastic. Alcohol will evaporate, especially with less water content, and I absolutely positively don't want anyone doing this in a bedroom or kitchen especially do not do it without ventilation! The vapors are flammable and will build up fast at room temp and takes little to set off and it's just bad!
With alcohol I dip and soak the parts till I see them looking kind of soft like having a skin or depending on the PLA used silky. I print hotter than recommended with hot bed little to no fan and more feed because what happens is it gets denser past a certain temp and will look like its messing up and not print right like its clogged or not being fed fast enough and it's true but if you increase the feed rate to say 108 or 115 it compensates for the shrinkage and you get the same fill.
Now that being said your going to get smoother prints because it becomes like watery but with faster speed and or little fan snaps it in place but the hot bed will keep it from getting too hard for the next pass of the hot end and new layer so the next layer wont go on a cold surface and can easily get squished and fused to the last layer and now two 0.15 mm layers act like three but denser and smoother.
Then with the Oops! chemical or alcohol I just take what's left of the imperfections off. I take a dustless cloth and apply the solution onto it and wiping in the same direction with very little pressure till it feels like the cloth is getting stuck or its biting then I leave it alone for 15 seconds and wash it off by dunking it in a bucket of cold soapy water then rinse with fresh water and repeat if necessary. It's best if you use string to hold or suspend the parts because it's easy to leave prints behind.
Also even better (and I don't offer this because any liquid when atomized can be flammable - besides water) is to use spray bottles instead and lightly spray the same process on and dip-and-dunk to take it off - instead of wiping and risking leaving prints with marks on the finished parts.
There is sanding. Lots of sanding is another way to smooth parts.
I also tried conformal coating my parts which works but gets messy when trying to apply over a pre applied coat.
Then there's body filler or if you use paint I recommend either automotive paint with filler primer or a paint in the automotive section specifically for plastic and vinyl or heavy thick paints but not latex but lacquer paint that is heavy and fills in imperfections but lays flat when dried! There are Lexan paints for RC and model plastics but need primer.
But your best bet is make sure that your printer is running 100 % print in as fine detail with no bigger than 0.4 mm nozzle and make sure your slicer profile is setup to work perfectly with how your machine works like your stepper numbers and everything because all that matters first and foremost your first layer determines the rest of the print! Level bed and clean level surface! New nozzle every few dozen prints makes a difference unless you get a high end tip!
Keeping your Bowden tube fresh also makes a big difference! Get yourself feeler gauges and use them to level your bed instead of paper and it will be exact every time! And print the same speed and make as few adjustments as possible through the whole print and it will come out uniform. Taller prints if you need hot bed add heat as the print gets taller or nozzle temp because the print will lose heat as it gets higher up and won't print the same as the bottom layers.
I hope this helps or was the answers you were looking for! I was just passing through and hate useless answers that done have anything to do with the question asked! People like to just talk I guess.
Isopropylic alcohol does not solve PLA - I have had parts exposed to it for weeks and not soften at all. Further it has nothing to do with the origin in what a plastic is soluble but the chemical composition only.
This post is very hard to read as it is one big wall of text. Please consider improving the formatting.
It is called Acetone Finishing
Basically the 3D printed part stays in acetone vapor and the outer shell turns to smooth surface. I have heard that it works better with ABS.
This article shows how with videos:
(Acetone Finishing on PLA - dead link).
New link: Acetone Finishing on PLA
It is worth noting here that acetone finishing works very well with ABS and (at very least) not as well with PLA.
Note that this particular method only works for certain brands of PLA. In most cases there is a good chance that the acetone will do little if anything at all to the PLA.
I have heard that Acetone isn't effective with PLA, but it certainly is for ABS. One place to get acetone is in nail polish removers. Some stores and salons sell 100% acetone variants, while others can be 70% or even as low as 20%, the stronger they are the quicker they will act.
This answer is incorrect. The question asks specifically about PLA, and acetone does absolutely nothing to PLA. You need something really nasty like MEK to affect PLA.
Because this answer is based on the wrong filament, it has extremely low quality and should be removed.
Whilst this is [almost] a link only answer, the link definitely deals with Acetone and PLA, and is a link to a massive thread (20+ pages), which could certainly be useful, but it is way to big to summarise. Hence, I think it should stay, IMHO, but it should be the only exception to the rule.
I suggest using XTC-3D since your prints are small also you can add some UVO pigments in. It's difficult to use in large prints because has small working time. Anyway here is a print I did for a friend:
This now dead link shows more images and say how it is done.
This answer does not add anything over other answers (XTC 3D is already mentioned by a fair few of them). While there might be useful information hidden behind your link, we discourage answers where the main content is a link, as they may become invalidated if the linked content changes or becomes unavailable. Moreover, since the linked site is your own this is a bit of a grey area concerning self-promotion. We're trying to build a repository of questions and answers here, we're not looking to build a repository of questions and people saying "look, you can find the answer on my website".
I think Tom gives a nice analysis of your answers quality - we generally don't like link-only answers. I would recommend you to take the Stack Exchange Tour, in order to get more familiar with our site. :-) Also, welcome!
Your link has died and as you included no information from the link in your post, your post is effectively useless.
because of the explanation of @TomvanderZanden I vote to delete this as superfluous and contentless.
The only additional information that I can see in this answer is the use of UVO pigments.
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49 | Are there any methods of limiting exposure of hazardous fumes and odors emitted by heating the plastics?
When using thermoplastic-filament, this can be potentially hazardous, since constant printing can emit hazardous fumes and odors that may be emitted by heating the plastics.
I understand it normally should be used in well ventilated areas. However I would like to use it heavily in the basement which is not well ventilated.
Are there any practical methods of limiting such exposure? For example locking it in some special box, covering it or suck the odors? Would that help?
Do you have any experience doing so?
Related: http://www.3dprintclean.com/
Using negative pressure ventilation and a suitable organic filter will limit your exposure to toxic compounds, but won't completely remove them from your environment.
Enclose your printer in as air-tight a box as you can manage, then use a fan to suck air out of the box. This negative pressure will ensure that any leaks in the box will not allow gasses to escape.
The air should be blown through an organic filter. This might be done with face mask filters for painting, for instance.
Additional filtering may be done depending on the compounds you expect the printer to produce, but the ideal situation is to set up a ventilation system to the outdoors where the products cannot concentrate and harm anyone.
Another poorer option is to simply wear a proper organic filter mask yourself. It's not as good, since the compounds can spread through your residence or remain in the air and be inhaled when you aren't printing.
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59 | How to recycle filament material from printed parts?
Is it possible to re-use ABS or PLA filament material from printed parts?
If so, what is the techniques to reform it?
There are a few options.
Machines are available which grind the used plastic into fine pieces, melt it down, and extrude it as filament to be reused. Filabot is perhaps the most well known.
Depending on where you live the local recycling programs may accept PLA or ABS. They will then shred it and melt it down for reuse.
PLA is bio-degradable so you can put it in the compost.
I put scrap ABS in acetone which results in a slurry which can be used as a glue to attach ABS parts, fix cracks, and hold parts to the bed.
A DIY alternative to the Filabot is Hugh Lyman's Filament Extruder(s), the latest is v6, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1199870
AFAIK PLA is biodegradable only in industrial composting facilities, not in your backyard compost heap. This is because it requires specific conditions to break down effectively.
I am sorry to say but this filabot thing has a totally unacceptable pricing. I am surprised if anyone would pay this.
If you're more interested in the recycling and reuse aspect than the re-print aspect, you could melt all the scrap filament onto a cookie sheet or into a bar (like in a bread ban). You could then manually work the material, or use a CNC machine to carve out your next thing.
This Youtube video refers to HDPE, but the same concept will apply to other thermoplastics:
This Youtube video uses a cookie sheet and failed prints:
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19 | How to easily get rid of rafts and support structures?
My printed parts consist rafts, supports and other extraneous filament when printing with ABS or PLA.
What are efficient general techniques of removing them?
Can you describe the support structure style, the plastic being used, and whether you're planning on doing further finishing?
You should identify a specific issue in your question. There are many (well-known) techniques for doing this, why do the techniques that you already know of not work for you?
The best way to get rid of them is to change the design of the printed object to make them unnecessary.
Instead of printing the one part with support material, the piece can be split into two or more parts which can be printed without support material and assembled after the printing.
Given that this is not always fully possible, a convenient way to get rid of additional structures is to use a different fillament for them that can be removed easily. This list of printing materials includes Polyvinyl Acetate (PVA), which is water soluble. You can wash the support material away given that your actual printign material is not water soluble. Here's a quote from the website (emphasize mine):
PVA (Polyvinyl Acetate) filament prints translucent with a slightly yellow tint and is primarily used as a 3D printing support material because it is water-soluble, meaning that it will dissolve when exposed to water (and so MUST be kept dry prior to use). PVA is most often used with 3D printers capable of dual extrusion: one extruder printing a primary material (such as ABS or PLA) and the other printing this dissolvable filament to provide support for overhanging features. PVA 3D printer filament is available in 1.75mm and 3mm.
Increasing the distance between the support/raft and the print should allow for easier removal. Some slicers (such as Slic3r) have settings for 0.0 mm spacing for water dissoluble supports, and 0.2 mm for regular plastic supports.
Changing the upper surface of the support also can help. Some slicers will leave the support as lines all the way to contact with the print. Others will put a full layer on the top of the support before the print. The full layer allows for better adhesion and the print not falling between the lines, but it makes it harder to remove.
When the raft/support is done with lines, putting pressure on the lines in the opposite direction should cause them to break off. As you break some of the outer ones, the support can be pulled down which will continuously rip the support off. There may be a few pieces that remain. These can be removed with wood chisels. Sliding the pointed end between the support and the print will cut into the plastic which removes the support. Note: always push the chisel away from you as it may slip. You do not want a sharp blade moving uncontrollably towards your body./
A raft with a solid top:
A raft with only lines for the top:
You might also note the pro's and con's for each one with regard to surface finish, removability, and other machine variables.
I really like this answer, but at the same time, I think this only partially answers the question. The question was about techniques to remove rafts/supports. This answer is about how to make them easier to remove. If you add a section on hardware and techniques for removal, you will have my +1.
I use diagonal cutters and a pair of mini pliers.
I print with Simplify3d and the support structures are remarkably easy to remove, I find giving a quick pull pops most off. The diagonal cutters get rid of any small beads leftover.
For the last few pieces that don't want to come off some coarse grit sand paper can help smooth the surface as well.
That works well but it should be noted this frequently causes bleaching on areas sanded which may not be desired. Also removing supports may cause small white dimples or pimples where the supports were melted to the part.
I usually use a chisel or a flat-head screwdriver to easily remove the bottom plate that the printer auto-generates. I would also suggest using something like wire cutters or some mini pliers to pull them off.
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6 | Multi-color printing with desktop 3D printer?
My MakerBot printer supports only two filaments at the same time.
What are techniques to print objects with more than two colors for one object?
The most obvious solution is to pause the print and swap filament for another color.
Another option is to splice pieces of filament together, though this does not allow very precise control of when the switch happens. There is also a device that can automatically slice filament this way.
Finally, another option that uses very little external equipment is to use (permanent) markers to colorize light-colored filament.
Other options include upgrading to a printer with more hotends, or installing a hotend with multiple filament inputs and one outputs, but these options would involve significantly changing your printer setup.
I've seen where certain slicers and/or firmware installations will allow you to set pauses mid-print so you can insert a different filament and resume. Such firmware that I'm aware of is Sailfish. I haven't personally used this, but I've heard many great things for people who enjoy tinkering with their machine(s). Alternatively, there are 3D-printable attachments for your extruder that allow you setup markers to color your filament (mentioned by Tom in another answer).
Another approach is Mosaic Manufacturing's Palette – it appears to a single extruder 3D printer as a filament reel, but it is creating a custom filament on-the-fly by
pulling information from a multi-extruder .gcode file to determine the length, and the order, each color segment needs to be.
The device was a successful Kickstarter campaign and as far as I can tell it isn't shipping yet (as of January 2016), but they are taking orders and promising an April 2016 ship date.
Answering this question fully depends on the type of printer you have. Some printers have a pause capability, while others do not. Some have multiple extruders, while most do not. Some have a tube leading to the extruder and others do not. You specifically are asking about dealing with more than two colors when you have a dual-extruder, but the question generalizes to how to get more colors than you have extruders.
Markers probably offer the easiest solution. You could have different markers on the feeds for each extruder.
For printers with no pause ability, you might have to snip one filament and hand feed the second color after the first one until it can be caught by the feeder gear.
There are rigs that are available, or that you can make, that will let you connect two strands together lengthwise. You can then make up a single piece of filament that has multiple colors. Thus, one extruder head will be generating multiple colors.
The Kickstarter mentioned elsewhere essentially does this automatically for several strands whose lengths are calculated precisely by special software. The result is a single strand of filament that goes into one of your extruders - the other extruder would be unused with this solution.
The question specifies they have a dual-extruder makerbot. Perhaps you could specialize your answer for that situation?
Disagree somewhat - the original question is about providing more than the two colors that their printer already supports. This generalizes into a question about dealing with more desired colors than their printer supports, for any number of extruders. I'll modify my answer to be more explicit in that fashion.
The standard option is to change out filaments at certain times during the print. Software to add these pauses to your print automatically are around, with one (ColorPrint). This method works if you only want to change at a certain Z height, and not intermix colors on the same levels.
The other newer development that works for many printers (this works for single nozzle printers as well) are getting Y type adapters that allow more than 1 filament to be fed into a single extruder, and use a rapid retraction to pull the filament back out past the Y connector to allow the next color to be fed into the nozzle. Several companies are putting products like this out on the market at this time. An example of this can be seen at this page.
As mentioned in other answers, Mosaic Pallette is an option to drive more complicated multi-color prints, but is a rather expensive option at $999.
The E3d Kraken might be a possible hotend upgrade to a Makerbot, although it would involve a fair amount of work.
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203 | How can I calculate volumetric speed for Slic3r auto speed?
I have noticed that Slic3r offers a speed setting called "auto speed" meant to give a constant filament pressure at the extruder, which I believe could eliminate filament grinding issues at higher printing speeds.
According to the tooltip in Slic3r, auto speed is calculated from two parameters:
Maximum speed
Maximum volumetric speed
Maximum speed speaks for itself, but how can I calculate the maximum volumetric speed of my print?
Auto speed is calculated from maximum volumetric speed in mm3 per second. If you normally print at 80 mm/s, your extrusion width is 0.5 mm and you are printing 0.2mm high layers, your volumetric speed would be 80 * 0.5 * 0.2 = 8 mm3/s, which is the volume of plastic extruded by your printer every second when printing at that speed (not accounting for any die swell).
You are right about the terms: I have updated the post to reflect this. I also found a blog post discussing the math in context of extrusion width, for those interested: http://www.extrudable.me/2013/11/03/slic3r-strange-defaults-causing-qu-bd-woes/
Technically not an answer... he asked for the maximum one, you gave him how to calculate the "usual one" he already tested.
There's no fixed maximum volumetric speed that works for everyone, there's simply too much variables to account for.
By using @Ian Williams explanation you can convert from volumetric to regular speeds but you still need to test what speed works best for your setup.
Just a few of the other variables affecting how fast material can come out consistently: temperature (nozzle & heat brake), extruder motor power, path friction between extruder and hotend, material compressibility, fluidity and glass transition temperature, ..
There are interesting topics on RepRap forums, like this one:
http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?262,654085
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16 | Are there any ways to make a 3D print transparent?
I am aware of several "clear" filaments for a ABS or PLA printer. They, however, have a cloudy or frosted glass appearance. I do not believe this is possible to eliminate but I believe it can be reduced.
Are there effective ways to make a print have a more transparent appearance?
It depends on a lot of factors, type of plastic, whether the parts need to be strong, can you use a vase print, etc. Here's a few thoughts.
PLA - The brand of PLA makes a big difference, some can be printed very clear, some can't. Most of the transparent PLAs I've used print much more clear at around 240°C.
ABS - I've seen some pretty impressive clear parts printed as a single layer shell in ABS and then vapor smoothed. I tend to find ABS more translucent and less transparent though.
PETG - Again the specific PETG you use matters, but I haven't seen nearly as much variation as with PLA. I'm not sure how much temperature matters, but if it's too hot you get bubbles which will decrease clarity.
Thin Wall Prints - I don't have much experience here, but the Smooth On XTC-3D or vapor smoothing seem to be effective.
Solid Prints
If I want transparency, I usually print it at 100% infill (should be a real 100%, too much overextrusion or underextrusion will decrease transparency). Printing slower and with less cooling sometimes helps. It's easier to get the infill solid with a direct drive extruder, I couldn't get decent results with a long bowden tube (a short bowden tube works fine).
Here's a page where I tested 10 transparent filaments, the printed samples are 2mm thick, 100% infill - http://thrinter.com/10-transparent-filaments. Those samples are all overextruded a bit, you can get better results if you dial in the extrusion precisely, but that's hard to get right, and the optimal settings may change slightly depending on the part geometry. Larger nozzles and thicker layers may help to, but I haven't experimented much with that as there are significant downsides to that approach.
It would be nice to include the excellent image, in the link, in this answer, in case the link dies.
Use Taulman t-glase and after a light sanding with really fine paper (optional really, but go for it if you can), spray it with polyurethane varnish or something similar. Check out the article here.
This seems to work for a thin material as in their examples. Will there still be visible striations in a thicker product? I expect it wouldn't be too high if the temp is sufficient but you might know better.
You can make a mold from the print and then get a cast from that mold with a clear casting material.
I feel like this, while helpful information is contradictory to the spirit of the site. This is Q&A. You're choosing not to answer the question here but instead imply that the OP is asking the wrong question.
@deltree if you feel like this is not answering the question, please flag it. There's no such thing as a "spirit of the site". 3D printing has its limitations. Knowledge about technology includes knowledge about when said technology is not well suited for a job or if there's an alternative to it. I did answer the question. If I thought the question was wrong, I would have downvoted it. But I didn't because I think it's perfectly fine.
This method will work successfully if you can polish all the areas of the model that will be visible. So, with ABS it would be relatively easy to vapour polish something printed with really fine layers, make a mould and cast it.
Bear in mind that you will be introducing further complexity when opting for this method, such as shrinkage, mould cut lines etc.
@deltree I am OP and highly disagree. This acheives the goal I want by merely approaching it in a different way.
the question was: how do I make a 3d print transparent. This answer says "make something else instead". I didn't downvote I'm just pointing out that it explicitly doesn't answer the question.
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84 | Does filament have to be stored in an airtight environment?
For standard ABS and PLA filament, most distributors recommend storing the filament in an airtight bag. Does not doing this actually make print quality worse? I have left mine in the open for a year and have had no noticeable problems.
You seem to have answered your own question.
I've heard of issues (more with PLA than ABS, as the PLA is more hygroscopic) when leaving filament out, but like you, haven't had any real issues after having filament sitting out for ~1 year… leads me to wonder if its really worth creating something like this.
It makes a difference where I live, and I'm not in a particularly humid climate (California). When printing with wet filament, you'll sometimes hear it popping and see steam coming out of the extruder (it's usually only this extreme with nylon). With most other filaments, when they're wet, the extruded filament will have small bubbles in it and the surface finish of the parts will be rougher, with breaks in the layer lines. It can also lead to more oozing and stringing. Air print a few centimeters of filament and look at it closely to see if there's any bubbles, if not, it's probably dry enough. Whether the filament absorbs enough water to be noticeable in a few hours, in a day, or in a week depends a lot on the filament (and I assume the humidity too). I'm mostly noticed problems with nylon, ABS, and NinjaFlex, less with PLA and PETG (though I avoid leaving any filament out for more than a day).
If you're not seeing any difference between, then I wouldn't worry about it. Storing filament dry is a hassle.
Humidity may be the problem.
Humidity tends to degrade filament, making it weaker. If you leave a coil of filament out, over time it will be exposed to humidity. I have yet to hear of this happening over a short period of time - the real threat comes if you leave it out for weeks or months - but it can happen nonetheless.
Contamination with other materials is possible but unlikely. The odds of some sort of impurity developing from nearby particles is extremely low unless the filament is actively exposed to some other material.
In most cases, though, things should be just fine.
In most cases, you should be fine with ABS or PLA out of an airtight container. If you're worried about it, throw a few desiccant packets where you store your filament.
However, some specialty filaments should be stored in an airtight container. PVA is notorious for absorbing the ambient humidity around it. When it's heated, the water it has absorbed starts to form bubbles, completely messing up the extrusion.
In short, some specialty filaments, definitely. With others, it isn't necessary, but it can't hurt.
While it's interesting that PVA is nutritious, I don't think I'll try eating it. I guess you meant notorious and autocorrect got you? I was thinking of using a cheap food storage container with some dessicant thrown in.
@SpehroPefhany nice catch- it's so nutritious that it needs to be stored like food
I haven't had any other issues storing it in the open, but keeping it in an airtight environment (especially if you live in a humid environment) keeps it moisture free, which can effect print quality. Manufacturers recommend this to help keep filament dry.
Normally you should check and follow guidelines provided by filament manufacturer or please contact them for more details. It can vary as not all environments are the same. For example frequent temperature fluctuations can increase chances of making a filament turn brittle.
For example PLA can be easily transfigured at temperature ranging from 55-70°, so it should not be exposed directly under sunlight for an extended durationfaq.
PVA specifically is a water-soluble filament, so keeping it dry is absolutely necessary, because when it gets wet it can become unusable. Therefore when possible, keep them in original packaging (a sealed bag with a dessicant packet) as long as possible.
See: How should I store my filament? at MatterHackers FAQ
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147 | Which are the food-safe materials and how do I recognize them?
What materials which are commonly used in 3D printing, are food-safe?
Are there any certifications/grading process for such materials, which can help me with my cross-checking and selection?
I have been using an FDM printer.
Consider narrowing down your question by mentioning what type of printer you are working with.
@TomvanderZanden I am using an FDM printer, so is it possible to print such materials with this printer? If yes, then I would edit my question :)
You should edit your question regardless.
Hello @Dawny33, I noticed your question has been up for a while now. Have any of the answers below been able to solve your question? If so, would you mind accepting the appropriate answer. If not, what is missing so that we may help you further? Also, if you have figured it out on your own, you can always answer and accept your own solution. Thank you.
Related, but for a specific machine and based on certification as food-safe: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6937/ender-3-is-capable-of-food-safe-printing/6941#6941
Food safety is a property of both the process and the material. You can't stick food-safe material in a printer that has previously been used to print something food-dangerous and expect the result to be food safe.
The only way to know if a given material is food-safe is to ask your supplier, but a lot depends on how you then process it. For instance, FDM printers often have brass nozzles, which contain lead. To print food-safe materials, you need to use a stainless steel nozzle.
Food safe materials can be identified by mean of an universal symbol.
Moreover, to ensure food-safety of a 3D printed model you may need to further process it (for instance, by vapor smoothing or coating with a food-safe lacquer). Some claims circulate on the internet that 3D printed models may have surface porosity in which bacteria can grow, but I've not been able to find a reliable source for this claim. Still, you need to be cautious.
Thank you for answering. Are there any official grading norms by which I can make sure? (instead of relying on the supplier's words)
From what I have seen, you really can't assume a 3d printed part will be food safe when it comes off the printer, even if you are using a food safe filament. The best part of this answer is the final paragraph. Use a food safe lacquer, or some other food safe coating. If the object is fully covered in a food safe lacquer, then it is food safe, regardless of what lies underneath the lacquer.
@ScottLemmon - "regardless of what lies underneath" has a hidden dependency on "provided the think lacquer layer is intact". I would not trust the lacquer exclusively, I would rather use it as an extra precaution on top of supposedly food-safe material...
@mac, the point is that FDM is not a food safe process (at least with any consumer printers) regardless of the nozzle and filament you use. You MUST use a sealant of some sort to completely isolate the food from the surface of the print to ensure food safety. It's not an extra precaution, but a requirement. This is because FDM is porous, which leaves areas bacteria to thrive, even with the most rigorous of cleaning methods.
@ScottLemmon - People have eaten and drank from wood objects for millennia (which is way more porous, and offer organic material for bacteria, fungi and algae to grow)... and yet most wood species are food safe materials (re: cutting boards). I got what you mean of course, what I meant was that I wouldn't eat from a lead plate even if coated with the most advanced of lacquers! :)
Haha. Point taken. Ideally, every part of the process is food safe.
Food Contact Substances
There are regulatory agencies in most developed countries that regulate food containers. In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates Food Contact Substances (FCS) which are materials that come into contact with food during production, manufacturing, storage, packing, and use.
They have many lists of FCS which are either approved for use, generally recognized as safe, regulated, restricted, or otherwise already evaluated and for which they have recommendations.
It is up to the manufacturer to ensure that FCS are safe, so the liability rests with the person making the 3D prints. If you make something that looks like a cup and could be confused with a cup, you may be responsible for following these guidelines.
US FDA regulation for ABS and PLA
The FDA has an online resource to help guide manufacturers through these lists, Determining the Regulatory Status of Components of a Food Contact Material.
Within this, for instance, you will find the list for materials that are appropriately regulated indirect additive, under which you'll find where polymers are listed, 21 CFR 177.
Part 177, INDIRECT FOOD ADDITIVES: POLYMERS
Notably, PLA is not present in this section, or any other list that I've searched (but a more thorough search may prove productive).
ABS is included here, in section 1020, which I've quoted below. Whether your filament manufacturer is following this ABS formula or not is something you will have to determine for each ABS supplier you use, though. Additives, colorants, and other ingredients may make a specific ABS non food safe, according to the FDA.
§177.1020 Acrylonitrile/butadiene/styrene co-polymer.
Acrylonitrile/butadiene/styrene copolymer identified in this section
may be safely used as an article or component of articles intended for
use with all foods, except those containing alcohol, under conditions
of use E, F, and G described in table 2 of §176.170(c) of this
chapter.
(a) Identity. For the purpose of this section, the
acrylonitrile/butadiene/styrene copolymer consists of:
(1) Eighty-four to eighty-nine parts by weight of a matrix polymer
containing 73 to 78 parts by weight of acrylonitrile and 22 to 27
parts by weight of styrene; and
(2) Eleven to sixteen parts by weight of a grafted rubber consisting
of (i) 8 to 13 parts of butadiene/styrene elastomer containing 72 to
77 parts by weight of butadiene and 23 to 28 parts by weight of
styrene and (ii) 3 to 8 parts by weight of a graft polymer having the
same composition range as the matrix polymer.
(b) Adjuvants. The copolymer identified in paragraph (a) of this
section may contain adjuvant substances required in its production.
Such adjuvants may include substances generally recognized as safe in
food, substances used in accordance with prior sanction, substances
permitted in this part, and the following:
Substance Limitations 2-Mercapto- ethanol The finished copolymer shall
contain not more than 100 ppm 2-mercaptoethanol acrylonitrile adduct
as determined by a method titled “Analysis of Cycopac Resin for
Residual β-(2-Hydroxyethylmercapto) propionitrile,” which is
incorporated by reference. Copies are available from the Bureau of
Foods (HFS-200), Food and Drug Administration, 5100 Paint Branch
Pkwy., College Park, MD 20740, or available for inspection at the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). For information
on the availability of this material at NARA, call 202-741-6030, or go
to:
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr_locations.html.
(c) Specifications. (1) Nitrogen content of the copolymer is in the
range of 16 to 18.5 percent as determined by Micro-Kjeldahl analysis.
(2) Residual acrylonitrile monomer content of the finished copolymer
articles is not more than 11 parts per million as determined by a gas
chromatographic method titled “Determination of Residual Acrylonitrile
and Styrene Monomers-Gas Chromatographic Internal Standard Method,”
which is incorporated by reference. Copies are available from the
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (HFS-200), Food and Drug
Administration, 5100 Paint Branch Pkwy., College Park, MD 20740, or
available for inspection at the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA). For information on the availability of this
material at NARA, call 202-741-6030, or go to:
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr_locations.html.
(d) Extractive limitations. (1) Total nonvolatile extractives not to
exceed 0.0005 milligram per square inch surface area when the finished
food contact article is exposed to distilled water, 3 percent acetic
acid, or n-heptane for 8 days at 120 °F.
(2) The finished food-contact article shall yield not more than 0.0015
milligram per square inch of acrylonitrile monomer when exposed to
distilled water and 3 percent acetic acid at 150 °F for 15 days when
analyzed by a polarographic method titled “Extracted Acrylonitrile by
Differential Pulse Polarography,” which is incorporated by reference.
Copies are available from the Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition (HFS-200), Food and Drug Administration, 5100 Paint Branch
Pkwy., College Park, MD 20740, or available for inspection at the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). For information
on the availability of this material at NARA, call 202-741-6030, or go
to:
http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/code_of_federal_regulations/ibr_locations.html.
(e) Acrylonitrile copolymers identified in this section shall comply
with the provisions of §180.22 of this chapter.
(f) Acrylonitrile copolymers identified in this section are not
authorized to be used to fabricate beverage containers.
[42 FR 14572, Mar. 15, 1977, as amended at 42 FR 48543, Sept. 23,
1977; 47 FR 11841, Mar. 19, 1982; 54 FR 24897, June 12, 1989]
Regulation globally
The EU has a database for this, though without some industry specific experience it appears difficult to search. For instance, rather than listing ABS as an item, it lists the three monomers that constitute ABS seperately, so you have to read through the Acrylonitrile section, the butadiene section, and the styrene sections seperately to understand the food safety aspects of ABS.
Of course someone has gone to the trouble of parsing all these different regulations in different countries and created a book that summarizes much of what you can glean from individual databases, Global Legislation for Food Contact Materials J S Baughan but it's not an inexpensive resource, and needs constant update so may need to be repurchased each year to keep up with the latest legislation worldwide. It would, however, be a handy reference and starting point for a hack space or library for makers.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that these are regulations formulated by government bodies. They may have a scientific basis (and hopefully they all do) but they do not replace your own testing and common sense. Even if you follow these regulations, you may still be liable for any unsafe objects you create.
There are 3 things that might affect food safety of 3D printed objects:
The filament - it's food safe only if it says so on the package (even if the plastic is not toxic you don't know about the color and other additives)
The hotend - the hotend and nozzle may leak metals into the filament, you need something like a full stainless steel hothead.
And finally, 3D printed objects contain little holes that bacteria can get into - so nothing printed on an FDM printer is food safe unless coated with some food safe sealing material (except for single use)
Do you have a source for the 3rd claim? Note that "hot head" is not the usual terminology, "hotend" is more common.
@tom - thank you for the correction. And sources for the 3rd claim: https://blog.pinshape.com/3d-printing-food-safe/ and http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,164077,168351
I have looked at this a lot, both from the standpoint of my own use, and of selling items on Etsy.
As far as I can determine, PLA and ABS are both generally safe.
The FDA lists ABS and PLA as safe plastics for food contact, although some pigments and additives can bring their own problems. ABS is nit generally safe (per the FDA) for contact with alcohol. I don't know why.
So, for my use, I make wine, beer, and cocktail containers from PLA, and coffee mugs from ABS.
PETG softens too much with boiling water and does not work for coffee and tea mugs. I've tried. It fails.
Be careful if you use acetone smoothing on ABS. The acetone enters the ABS, and even after a few days of ambient conditions, the plastic may contain enough acetone to create bubbles in the plastic when the acetone boils off in response to hot water. I had heavily smoothed this particular teacup. Perhaps if it was less exposed to acetone vapors, it may have let the disolved acetone escape faster.
I have used non-smoothed ABS coffee mugs for months without problems.
You will read about brass nozzles contaminating the print with lead. You will read about the ridges being bacterial breading grounds. This may be true.
ABS still makes a fine coffee mug for personal use.
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107 | What can I use to "sand" my ABS prints?
I have a 3d printer that uses ABS filament. The software I use will generate vertical supports for my objects before printing that can be easily broken off after they have been used during print to hold sharp angles up that would normally fall.
After breaking off the stints, the print is far from smooth. Is there a material that is best suited for "sanding" down prints without damaging the print?
I have a bunch of solutions to this problem but I'm always looking for additional ideas. I usually start by slicing as much as possible off with a hobby knife. The more than can be removed before sanding the better.
For big prints I like big generic sandpaper sheets from the hardware store. Starting with the highest grit and moving down. Make sure you're discarding your sheets when they get totally gunked up (which can happen pretty fast) or you won't get much done.
For smaller nooks and crannies I have a set of needle files. They do a pretty good job clearing out screw holes and smaller features on printed sculptures.
I've also had some success sanding with my Dremel when it comes to annoying stuck on supports or other imperfections. Having some horsepower behind your sanding can be a nice break. I've also seen the wire brush attachments used for finishing Bronze and Copper-fill prints. Just keep an eye on your speed or you'll sand a hole in your print.
Lastly (and one I haven't tried) are these sanding sticks They were recommended by a friend and look like they would be pretty easy to use/swap out used sandpaper.
Addition to the Dremel: don't overdo the speed, as it might melt the plastic instead.
I use normal wet/dry sandpaper and it works just fine. If I remember correctly, I usually start with 220 and then work my way up to 400, 600, and 800.
There are also foam or rubber sanding pads available that work really well when you're sanding something organically shaped.
The grits you start and finish with will depend on how rough your surface is.
I use nail files. They're easy to get, cheap and have different grits on either side. You can lay them flat or hold them in your hand and they have some stability making it fairly easy to sand something that is or should become flat.
Plus, you can fix any nails you damage while removing support structures.
Another method that you could try is an acetone vapor bath.
(All credit to them, by the way)
Just so you know, this is a very risky method, but the outcome is very nice. Remember that I warned you... And please, please watch cautionary videos and practice extreme caution. I cannot stress that enough.
All you have to do is get a heating pad (or anything that can heat up to the necessary temperatures) out into a well-ventilated environment.
Then, get a large glass jar that you probably won't need in the future that can fit the 3D Model and pour some acetone inside. Afterward, you should place a small platform inside, just as in the video. Place the jar onto the heating pad. Now, place the 3D Model inside onto the platform.
Now, remember that acetone is a solvent. That means that it basically melts off the details off of the 3D Model. So, if your model is moreover detailed, you should leave the 3D Model in the jar for a small amount of time (i.e. about 30 seconds at most). If your model is not as detailed, you can put it in for a much longer amount of time, such as five minutes. Remember, the longer it is inside, the less the details!
Also, make sure to take the model out without using your hands, as it could possibly be harmful. You could use a wire hanger attached to a piece of tin foil to take it out, just as in the video.
I hope this helps; be safe!
Seriously, exercise EXTREME caution while handling the vapor, as it is incredibly flammable, and can build up in poorly ventilated areas!
This answer overstates the risk of acetone vapor. It's not that bad.
Yeah... But still - better safe than sorry!
There can be problems with acetone dissolving into the ABS object. I acetone treated a coffee mug (came out nice and smooth!), let it sit for a couple of weeks until it no longer smelled of acetone, and then filled it with hot water. The inside bubbled as retained acetone boiled away, bubbling out through the ABS.
I normally deburr with a deburring tool:
Then I file if needed, then I hit it with a scotch brite pad:
And then I give it a quick pass with a heat gun to darken all the areas that have turned lighter from the abrasion.
Video showing heat gun (but not scotch brite): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Aj9WCabPgw
Why not add some images of the deburring tool and a scotch brite pad (instead of a link to the manufacturer) to give more body to your answer. I really like the heat gun solution! I do the same with the ABS parasol stand to get rid of the pale oxide color, only I use a weed killer gas fired heat gun :)
It should be noted that the suggested methods in other answers all have the following disadvantages:
The vapor just seems to weaken the print to much faster than print smooths.
Sanding melts the plastic pretty easily and just rips the print apart.
Filing helps but leaves blemishes that require the whole print to be sanded and/or painted.
Hi, I flagged this as a comment since it isn't quite an answer in it's own right. There may be other questions on vapour smoothing which this could be an answer to though.
@SeanHoulihane - I've edited it to clarify that this answer is pointing out the disadvantages associated with each of the other solutions provided in the other answers - which I believe was the author's intent (although I might be wrong).
agreed. The formatting makes a difference.
If sanding rips the print apart, you need to fix your layer adhesion.
I've noticed if I'm printing too close too the bed or if the bed isn't level to nozzle across the whole bed the supports will leave marks on the print where the print was 'smushed' by the nozzle being slightly closer on that side. Also, in Simplify3d you can increase the vertical and horizontal distance between the part and the support, which makes a big difference as far as cleanup, too far though and the support doesn't support. I also increase the speed of support printing, since it directly affects layer adhesion. The faster the speed the less likely to bond to the model.
I use small files for small quick imperfections, and sometimes small knives for stubborn brims. For smoothing I now use a quick acetone dip on my parts. Usually 10-30 seconds completely submerged at most. Then without touching the print (it's very mushy) place it down or hang (outside) to dry out the acetone for about two hours for every hour printed or so. You can handle small parts within 10 minutes if you dipped less than 15 seconds. The acetone evaporates over time and the abs print regains its strength completely once all the acetone is gone. This can take days if it's a big part (maybe 9" x 9") and was dipped in acetone for longer than 30 seconds. If the part smells like acetone, it's still evaporating.
Don't over dip the part in acetone, you can't go back. You don't want to lose the form of your print. You can always dip again. Forget the heat acetone method or cool acetone vapor method that takes hours. Recommend doing it OUTDOORS and perhaps a gas mask and eye protection, acetone is very thin and splashes no matter how careful you are. I tried brushing it on but the results were not very consistent. ABS floats in acetone so consider how your going to get the part submerged and then subsequently out without leaving huge finger prints. Practice on a few small prints or even scrap models and failed prints. Strangely, nobody suggests this method in forums. It's much faster and easier than the other vapor methods. The dry out time isn't fast but you don't have to watch it the whole time.
Always be safe and keep acetone away from any ignition source such as an open flame and ensure proper ventilation. 100% Acetone is used in millions of salons every day, safely. Heating acetone up in an enclosed space has severely injured people so I don't recommend adding any heat source.
Acetone evaporates in water at the same rate as not in water (open air) so I'm going to try mixing water and acetone to slow the smoothing for better control and a larger bath. Even medium sized parts need a good deal of acetone to completely submerge them. Also, you can try doing one side and recording the seconds submerged. Then when it's dried out, dip the other side the same amount of time.
Edit:
Sure! I just did two scrap pieces since you asked. It's very difficult to capture gloss. These were about 15 seconds in acetone rotating them to get even coverage in acetone since the bath wasn't large enough to fully submerge them. This method can leave blemishes but these are warped or failed prints anyway. I enhanced one picture to try to show layer detail.
Maybe you could add some "before" and "after" photo's? (of the same object)
Ok added a few examples
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171 | How to print edible food?
I would like to print edible cookies or ornamentation for a cake.
Is printing with edible materials achievable by standard thermoplastic-like 3D desktop printer? Or you need to buy a special printer to do that?
Good question, but I would leave the printer recommendation out of it since that is a purely subjective matter.
You cannot print edible models using a "standard" consumer 3D printer without first installing an "hot end" capable of depositing edible - normally thicker - substances as well as a suitable extruder mechanism.
However, there are not necessarily any technical limitations in the electronics, software, slicers etc. in a typical printer that wouldn't allow you to install such an upgrade. For instance, you could calibrate your extrusion rate and nozzle width to suit batter and similar.
Some commercial printers, such as the DeltaWASP allow for upgrades that print clay, which wouldn't be very different from printing liquid food.
You can, but that doesn't mean it's very easy.
You don't have to buy a special printer, but you need a special extruder (such as http://www.structur3d.io/). Most of these systems can print anything with the consistency of Nutella. However, many parts of the printer may not be food safe.
Another option (if you simply want 2d designs) is something like the PancakeBot. It can probably also "print" with anything that has the same consistency of pancake batter.
MakerBot Industries had a mod available for their early open source machines called the Frostruder. It was basically a syringe connected to your print head. I saw this in action at the University of Washington a long time ago. Check out the legacy ReplicatorG in action!
I like to relate 3D printing as "A hot glue gun on rails". The beauty is that a lot of the home machines can easily be almost anything on rails.
So, you could always try to 3D print a solution of your own. Please keep in mind any federal regulations on food processing materials (ie ABS is not recommended for most food applications).
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20165 | How much weaker do PETG parts become when exposed to UV light from the sun?
What is the effect of UV on PETG parts? Can I minimize that effect by placing some kind of UV light blocking film/coating?
Also, is there a limit in how much weaker a part can become because of exposure to UV light?
Have you done any initial research on this? General knowledge is that PETG is not heavily affected by UV, although the pigments used to color it may be. I'm not sure how to quantify "how much". Are you looking for quantitative part strength tests (like the kind CNC Kitchen does) comparing a part exposed to UV for N years vs a newly printed part? I imagine that will be hard to find.
Yes I have. There aren't any numbers out there
Well then are you looking for anecdotal info?
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20095 | FDM metal printing - is it possible?
Can someone shed some light in why FDM (Fuse Deposition Modelling) is not possible with metals?
Has anyone attempted any experiments with it?
welding wouldnt have a consistent layer deposition as other posters have tried to joke about. It would be good to hear from more experienced people about the challenges of metal FDM printing, and especially without an arc
I removed some of the superflous tags that have nothing to do with the actual core question here.
Although I did post an answer, did you attempt to research? https://i.sstatic.net/xhrNW.png
This looks like a posibility: https://phys.org/news/2022-10-scientists-material-plastic-metal.html
Yes, it is possible and it's done all the time. It's more commonly known as welding.
We did TIG welding on our Hyrel printers back in 2017.
Note: I work for Hyrel.
There are also (possibly experimental one-off) CNC type wire feed welders, commonly known as MIG welding, that are akin to a 3D printer.
@fred_dot_u MIG welding is industry classic, though automation is somewhat in its baby shoes.
Is that really a TIG (with a modification that feeds the filler along the axis next to the tungsten tip) or a MIG that uses the wire as an electrode?
Our chief engineer told me it's a TIG. I wouldn't know one from the other, personally.
I am not an expert myself, and only know that MIG feeds its electrode as filler, while TIG has a permanent electrode - and might work without an electrode melting the stock on both sides of the stock. The two are very similar in construction and even look similar, so I guess your engineer is right.
Robots have been welding for decades, but they don't build objects from scratch with welds as far as I know
@Kilisi https://wonderfulengineering.com/worlds-largest-3d-printed-steel-bridge-made-welding-robots-6-months/
In Polish language, we have this word "napawanie". Literal translation would be "welding on", in contrast to regular welding. And yes, it is sometimes used to build 3d metal shapes from scratch by hand by our artist welders. Don't know if it was ever done in computer controlled manner.
First of all, it is possible in multiple ways:
Computer-controlled-Welding
The most akin to FDM is using an automated MIG-welder, building up weld beads upon weld beads using an arc to melt the metal and keeping the puddle in position by carefully low speeds and coordinated movements. With a little ingenuity, even a TIG could be used, if you manage to feed the filler rod.
Converting a MIG is possible even on a hobbyist scale, as this hackaday 2021 article shows. However, research into something like that is in research since at least 2018, and Hyrel experimented with a TIG setup in 2017.
The items created this way have a rather rough surface, yet they do have upsides: The created metal is easily machineable and can reduce a lot of waste. It might not beat machining from bar stock at the moment, but it can beat steel casting in price, though not in quality. However, automated welding also has the chance to have defects. In some applications, it is used industrially, for example, to manufacture specialized stock for machining with minimal waste or from a special material.
Oh, and it is even rather simple to repurpose 3D welding robots to 3D Weld a gap closed bead to bead, akin to how you'd 3D print in FDM.
Metal Filaments: BMD
There are filaments that contain about 80% of metal powder. These highly abrasive filaments contain a binder that is thermoplastic. You can print on a somewhat modified machine with those. That's called BMD - Bound Metal Deposition. This method is industrial by 2022, and often post-processes the part to remove the binder.
Usually, this post-processing is done in a kiln or sintering oven, melting or cross bonding the metal between layers more than with the plastic binder, and simultaneously at times burning out the binder. This technique exist since at least 2018, as this answer shows.
I concede. You have a better answer although I will keep mine here. I think this method could be greatly improved by shaping the electric field for better control of the deposition. Heliarc, which actually uses argon, could be used when the metal requires.
@PerryWebb nothing wrong with your answer, and it is a good primer about the idea - and it discusses points I don't mention (by design, because I don't want to discuss MIG/TIG too deep)
For many metals you would need to run the hotend around 1000 °C. Aluminum melts at a lower temperature but needs to be in an inert atmosphere, such as argon. Solder melts at the right temperature, but tends to stick to most metal nozzles. It would start dissolving a brass nozzle thus enlarging the nozzle opening. Lockheed has a titanium alloy printer that melts powder with a laser. I would assume they need an inert atmosphere since titanium reacts with nitrogen as well as oxygen.
I am actually interested if it is possible to melt titanium and slowly push it through 0.1 mm hole to get a constant stream of molten metal.
Assuming I can get enough temperature to build a small titanium pool.
Pure titanium has a melting point of 1668 °C https://www.webelements.com/titanium/
nah, you don't run the hotend at all at that temperature, you use an electric arc of that temperature and have no classic nozzle at all. you go the MIG route.
@Trish thus you are still running the hotend at that temperature. You just changed the geometry and ditched the nozzle. You are mentioning methods to greatly increase the temperature gradient. .
true true. the argon stream in MIG or TIG keeps the actual nose (cup?) cool enough.
It is completely possible, there are 3d FDM printers that could do that with the Ultrafuse 316L. You could print filament that has metal in it, you just need a special nozzle for that. The pure metal-printing printers use an industrial heater/extruder that can reach up to 230 °C.
Printing with metal clay or, as you suggest, metal-doped polymer is not the same as printing with metal.
I have tried some stuff. It depends what problem you're trying to solve.
You can get metal infused filaments, both aluminium and copper infused filaments print fine. But since there's plastic as well you don't get the nice properties like conductivity.
If you just want some of the properties then electrolysis might be the better choice of technology.
If you want robust parts then as far as I know the traditional methods are the best as the metals properties are constant or controlled.
Something like cnc welding layers on layers wouldn't make sense in terms of cost and predictability I would think. You'd need too much heat and it's unlikely to be as strong as traditional metal forming. It has been used for a long time to spot weld, but not build up layers as far as I know.
CNC MIG welding and milling is cheaper than casting steel.
@Trish how do you work that out? I can cast steel in my backyard if I want with wood that grows on trees... but you'd need a CNC mill, cnc tig welder, software, and other infrastructure.... none of which grow on trees.
Casting properly functional steel for structural parts for industrial functions is hard, and requires oxygen as well as skin-cooking temperatures. Steel, not aluminium or even iron. Using weld bead to build up missing material on a broken part (e.g. welding over a hole or filling a gap) is a classic fabrication method. The main problem with casting steel is the mold. If you can cast proper steel in your backyard, I'd like to have your backyard kiln - because the best I manage is liquid iron.
@Trish no special kiln need, just a fan to force airflow... steel is just the addition of some carbon... I'm familiar with filling holes and building up welds... lots of post processing. It has it's uses but I wouldn't build anything from scratch with just welds.
nothing larger than about 5x5x5 cm I'd say at the current tech
@Trish no idea, I wouldn't attempt it, just weld plate steel together or something instead
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4703 | Unable to install auto-bed levelling sensor into my Anet A8
I've been trying to install an inductive sensor for auto-bed levelling into my Anet A8 and I'm having a few issues.
I have been using the wiring diagram provided by Solid Ground Electronics in one of his videos (Cheap 3D Printer - Anet A8: Upgrades, Experience & Thoughts), which I decided to follow as it still uses the Z limit switch, in case the inductive sensor fails to work.
The sensor seems to work when I power the printer on, the red LED is constantly on and when it comes into contact with metal, the LED turns brighter (as shown in the photos).
However, when I set it to auto-home, the Z axis does not move down like it usually does (until it hits the switch), but it moves up a bit. Although when I auto-homed the printer with a piece of metal under the sensor, the Z axis moved down, like it should do. So the sensor is acting in an opposite way to what it needs to.
I believe that it's been wired up correctly with a 10k ohm resistor connected to the base of the transistor and the signal wire of the probe. However the NPN transistor shown in the diagram is '2N4401' and the one I used is 'PN2222A', but I believe this should have no difference in the function of the transistor (only the voltages it can handle).
I initially thought that as the NPN transistor is slightly different, perhaps the polarity of emitter and collector is incorrect, so I switched them around but the problem still occurs.
I would thoroughly appreciate it if anyone can help!
The sensor is working correctly, but the signal is inverted.
Take the obvious solution: invert the endstop from being normally open to normally closed or vice-versa in your firmware.
If you still want to use your existing limit switch in parallel with the sensor (as shown in the video), you will need to switch that one over as well (usually limit switches have 3 contact points, one common, one NC, one NO, so you'd need to move the wire from the NC contact to NO or vice-versa).
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880 | Is there a reason for the z-axis M5 drive nut to be super loose on the lead screw?
So I bought a prusa i3 kit from a company called folger tech off of ebay. I've built it and even printed out a few parts, but I noticed that a lot of noise seemed to be happening only while the x-axis motor was moving the extruder. Then I noticed if I put my finger lightly on the plastic part of the x-carriage I could dampen the vibrations and pretty much eliminate the noise I noticed. Then I took apart that part of the printer and examined everything and all I could notice that seemed to be loose was that nut that allows the z motor to push up the x carriage. I don't know if I got a bad nut, or a bad screw, or is it's just supposed to be this way? I thought it was kind of a weird way to build things with a screw turning a nut, because I thought that it would bind up. But now I'm wondering if that is why it was so loose fitting (to reduce friction)? So does it need to be that way? Or could I get a different nut? Or is there some better way to go about fixing this issue? Or perhaps it's not even an issue.. idk.
Could you send a picture?
It's probably intentional. Threaded rods are almost never perfectly straight. If the nut is rigidly coupled to the carriage, then the slightest deviation in the screw will either cause it to bind up or appear as artifacts (e.g. z-wobble) in the print. By making the nut slightly loose, it can move around a bit to compensate for wobble. See e.g. this design and this design for how this is commonly implemented in other printers.
I agree with Tom about looseness.
I would suggest 2 solutions:
Use grease which will reduce friction (and vibrations as a consequence);
Use better clutch (coupling). Full aluminium couplings are prone to conduct noise (vibrations) from the threaded rod. You can use Oldham coupling with a plastic floating member. This will definitely reduce noise on Z axis.
Of course you are encouraged to use both solutions :)
I do not agree with the answer of Tom.
In a proper design, the nut is supposed NOT to be loose, especially in the Z-direction. All options of the nut to move can cause imprecise layer heights and Z-wobble. There is also the possibility to introduce Z-wobble by bent rods and good contact of the nut. However, Z-wobble is not what I want to address.
Yes, to me, it seems possible that your rod or your nut (or both) are looser than they are supposed to be. However, I don't know the exact design of your printer. Usually there is some play along the axis, but hardly any perpendicular to it. Typically this can introduce a hysteresis (wikipedia link) in the placement of the X-carriage. There is a nifty design against this, which most likely should also help you to get rid of your noise: Thingverse: Z-axis anti backlash for Prusa i3.
First, however, you should check the following:
Are both your Z-axis drives set to the same height, or is just one of them doing the work (which would be very rare, by the nature of the design)?
Is your nut lose in the X-carriage? While the nut should not be lose itself, it should be totally fixed in the X-carriage (again: typically, but I don't know the FolgerTech approach).
Try other nuts from the hardware store to be sure whether you have a faulty nut or not.
While you're there you can connect a threaded rod with nuts there to gain experience what the typical degree of freedom in this union is.
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850 | No extrusion when trying to resume failed print with manually edited gcode
I was in the process of printing a 16 hour print, but I must have failed to copy the G-code correctly, because the print stopped after 107 of 223 layers. Looking at the G-code, It also stops there.
However, I had the full G-code on my computer, and decided to try and resume the print from layer 108. It seemed to work, with the exception of a little excess extrusion at a single point in the beginning, but after three layers, i noticed that it wasn't extruding anymore. I am not completely positive that it isn't due to nozzle jamming, but I have a strong feeling that the problem is the G-code itself, as it does extrude some plastic just before printing starts.
Here are the first lines of my manually edited G-code. Can anyone see why I get the blob in the beginning, or why I don't get anything at all later on? Or does it look good, and my problem is probably the nozzle?
;FLAVOR:UltiGCode
;TIME:60308
;MATERIAL:119047
;MATERIAL2:0
;NOZZLE_DIAMETER:0.400000
;NOZZLE_DIAMETER2:0.400000
;MTYPE:PLA
;Layer count: 222
;LAYER:109
G0 F9000 X208.213 Y107.948 Z16.610
;TYPE:FILL
G1 F3600 X210.390 Y105.771 E4104.65185
G0 F9000 X210.390 Y103.170
G1 F3600 X168.331 Y61.111 E4107.77457
G0 F9000 X167.074 Y61.111
G1 F3600 X120.237 Y107.949 E4111.25208
G0 F9000 X121.695 Y107.949
G1 F3600 X74.857 Y61.111 E4114.72962
G0 F9000 X73.600 Y61.111
G1 F3600 X26.763 Y107.948 E4118.20709
According to the RepRap.org list of G-Code commands, see G0 & G1: Move:
The Ennn command is The amount to extrude between the starting point and ending point.
However, according to this a discussion, that is now deleted from GitHub, about the Cura slicing engine:
The E values are in absolute mode, so perhaps the firmware is attempting to move the stepper motor to the absolute position (which is almost 50% through your print). This may lead to clogging or skipping depending on how hot your extruder is at that point.
As a last resort, you can perform a Boolean subtract on your model of the section that's already printed and re-slice the model to print the remaining bit. Then glue, or ABS weld, the remaining piece to the main print. I've done this in the past, it's not super glamorous, but it gets the job done if the part doesn't require a lot of structural integrity.
I was incorrect with the following statements with regard to the Cura slicing engine:
It's been a while since I've looked at 3D printer G-Code, but from what I remember, E values can be the bane of any manually written G-Code. Usually the slicing engine generates the E value as an incremental step value throughout the G-Code (at least this was true for Skeinforge and early MakerWare, please verify this). So, if the value is incremental and depending on the controller, this value could be lost or corrupt if a new print is initialized.
I would hope, that if you're using a slicing engine's custom G-Code input, that the software would be able to compensate situations like this and reformat your provided G-Code to match the value of E or any similar command.
I have not edited any codes, except removing layers 0-108
In removing those lines of code, you would have needed to stop the errant print, remove lines 0-108, re-upload the GCode file, and re-initialize the printer for the new GCode file. In doing so, the value for E is lost after stopping the print. I believe that E sets the position of the stepper motor. I think, in "losing" this value, you won't be able to pick up where you left off. There might be a function in some slicing engines to pick up at a specific line.
it does follow the correct path, it just won't extrude filament
Yes, the machine will follow the correct Cartesian coordinates (XYZ) because they are written in Absolute coordinates. The E value (for the stepper motor and/or distance between nozzles depending on the machine), I believe is written in Incremental coordinates. This would explain why the machine moves to the correct location, but may hang up on extruding. I'll try finding some more information for you to hopefully explain better.
Please regard this where it refers to the E command as The amount to extrude between the starting point and ending point meaning that it refers to the previous E value to determine how much filament is extruded.
Unfortunately, the link to the discussion has died... I wonder if it has been retained elsewhere on the web, in an archive?
@Greenonline Thanks, the issue that I linked seems to have been deleted completely. I check the issue log on the repository, but it's empty.
I know this is an old thread but I have been running into similar issues with my delta machine with Marlin firmware.
Not all printers running Marlin ignore large E (extruder) moves. G-code has always (even in CNC machines) run commands from were the motors are now, to the value in the G-code line. For example, G0 X10 will move the X motor 10 units. The units are set through G20 or G21.
When your machine has lost power, you need to re-home all axes in order for the machine to know where it is. If you don't, it will likely think that it currently is at 0, 0, 0, 0. Then when you have the line,
G1 F3600 X210.390 Y105.771 E4104.65185
it will try to go from 0,0,0,0 to 210.390, 105.771, 0, 4104.65185 at the feed rate of 3600. Therefore it is always good to home after power loss and add a G92 E4104.4 (last line ran before power loss) even if your machine may not need it.
Good habits make for less mistakes.
Is the hotend temperature set correctly? If you only preheat the hotend but then turn it off, it will behave exactly as you described (while you're above EXTRUDE_MINTEMP it will behave normally, but once the temperature drops too low it will continue doing the XYZ-moves, but stop extruding). Perhaps you need to add a M109 command to set the temperature properly.
In his answer, tbm0115 mentions absolute and relative coordinates. Whether absolute or relative coordinates are used is set using the G90/G91 commands and will always be the same for all axes (XYZ and E). He also mentions that:
so perhaps the firmware is attempting to move the stepper motor to the absolute position (which is almost 50% thru your print). This may lead to clogging or skipping depending on how hot your extruder is at that point.
This shouldn't happen, as extremely long extrude moves are ignored by Marlin. When the printer encounters
G1 F3600 X210.390 Y105.771 E4104.65185
it performs only the XYZ-part of the move, but doesn't move the extruder (assuming the printer was reset and the current extruder position is 0). However, it does update the internal value for the extruder position, so the next move happens normally. Perhaps missing the initial extrude segment isn't a big deal, but if you want the print to resume perfectly where you left off, you should add a G92 command to the beginning to initialize the extruder position correctly, for example:
G92 E4104.4
(but the exact value depends on the last extruder position in the previous layer).
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1362 | Extruder is running backwards?
I have a (HIC) version of the Prusa i3. I have recently installed the E3D v6 hotend and titan extruder. After fixing some other issues, I noticed that there is no filament being extruded. In addition, the gear looked like it was going in the wrong direction. How can I fix this?
You can either flip the connector for the motor around (i.e. plug it in backwards) or (if you are using Marlin firmware) look for the following line in configuration.h: (using the Arduino editor open the Marlin file For your 3D Printer, one of the tabs is labelled "configuration.h" click on that tab to bring it to the front for editing. use the Edit, Find and put E0 in the find box, click find. When you find the line below
#define INVERT_E0_DIR false
change false to true (or vice-versa). Note that if you go for the connector-flipping route, make sure that you only do this when the printer is turned off.
Flipping the connector can be described more precise, if your connector allows it: You can flip two leads of one(!) coil, flip the whole assembly, exchange the two coil leads (without flipping them). Whatever is easiest for you.
Also, make sure everything is POWERED OFF before you start messing with stepper motor wires.
The setting it to true didn't work for me.
@AustinDarga You should probably turn that into a separate question. One simple thing you should at least test: what happens if you command the extruder to turn backwards? Does it reverse direction to turn "forwards"?
@AustinDarga After changing the setting, you need to Flash the firmware and do a full seeding of the settings again.
Reverse the plug for the motor on the board. Or do firmware. Doesn't matter. *** assuming you have ramps and a standard stepper..
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1239 | Failing slow extrusion after upgrade to E3D hotend
I recently upgraded to a E3D full hotend and I started to have problems with slowly printed parts. After I print first object and start next one, then the first layer has serious issue.
The first two test were extruded around 10mm/s, the right one around 15mm/s. The material is PLA (fillamentum.com) at temperature 210°C and nozzle diameter is 0.4mm. The Rebel II RepRap printer uses RAMPS with marlin firmware. I use Slic3r and Pronterface SW.
I didn't find answer in following troubleshooting guides:
Simplify3D - Print Quality Troubleshooting Guide
A visual Ultimaker troubleshooting guide
RepRap - Print Troubleshooting Pictorial Guide
all3dp.com - 16 Common 3D Printing Problems (And Solutions)
Do you have an idea what can cause this issue?
Update
I did a new print, where I just heat the hotend and start printing immediately. This is the result:
Is it filled from below (which would mean it suddenly stop extruding well) or is it filled from above (which would mean it suddenly start extruding well)?
Under extrusion, ususally caused by going too fast vs your temp, or you have a clog / loose filament drive
What kind of e3d hotend is used?
It's e3d v5 hotend.
I bet your old and new extruders have different hobbed pulley/bolt effective diameter.
It looks like your new extruder has smaller hobbed diameter that's why it pushes too less material.
In MatterControl application there is a slider which allows user to tuneup extrude ratio on the fly (while printing). You coud check it so it would confirm the issue.
In Slic3r you could go to
Printer Settings > Advanced > Extrusion width
and experiment with it (especially with Default extrusion width)
Both (Slic3r and MC) could answer your question if it's extrusion ratio issue. If you confirm that - you can proceed with calibration. Here is method to calibrate extruder flow and general calibration article here.
I forgot to mention that I did calibration with the new hotend, where I also have changed the motor to lighter 1.8° version instead of original 0.9°. To be sure I didn't forget anything I will recheck the calibration.
Before considering any calibration you should compute the exact ideal steps per mm from the mechanical properties.
After I print first object and start next one, then the first layer has serious issue.
Are you leaving the hotend on between prints? If you leave an E3D hotend heated up while it's not printing, heat will slowly migrate up the heatbreak and start softening the filament there, which will subsequently become stuck. You should turn off the heat immediately after finishing your print (or, ideally, just have your end G-code contain a command to turn the hotend off).
Yes I am leaving hotend on. But the first object is pretty small, so I would expect to print first layer without problem. I will test this behavior.
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1040 | Would appreciate advice on unclogging hot end [Makerbot Replicator v2]
My Makerbot Replicactor V2 constantly jams. Usually when I go to use it after it's been off for a few hours the filament has jammed and I have to take off the front fan to remove the filament. Today, after going through the usual rigmarole of having to take the front fan and fan guard off, remove the filament, cut it and then load it back in I found that there was another problem.
It appears something is jammed inside the hot end itself. When I loaded the filament back into the machine, it took it but nothing came out of the nozzle, instead it all pooled up around the aluminium mounting block where the filament feeds through.
Here's a couple more pictures, the last one is basically what happens to me on a regular basis: https://i.sstatic.net/sZ784.jpg
How should I go about fixing this? I've already cleaned the extruder nozzle, but unsure as how best to proceed with this. I would prefer to get this fixed fairly soon as I need to 3d print files for a uni assessment piece.
For molten filament to jam at the inlet to the thermal barrier tube like shown here, there must be something wrong with the cooling in your setup. The cold zone needs to be cool for the extruder to work right. It looks like the cold zone is not staying below the glass point of the plastic, so the filament softens and mashes into a jam.
Here are some common causes of jamming in Replicator 2 extruders:
Printer's environment is too hot. If it's in a hot garage, move it indoors. If you have it inside an enclosure or cabinet, open it up to let it breathe. All-metal extruders with PLA are very sensitive to ambient temp.
Not having good contact between the heatsink and the cooling bar. Normally, just bolting them together is fine, but a small amount of of thermal grease (like Arctic Silver) smeared over the contact surface can help too.
Not having the fan pointed the right way. You want the fan to blow ONTO the heatsink: this provides more turbulent flow and better cooling. This means you should not see the fan sticker when everything is assembled.
Fan dying and and spinning too slow. A new fan can be a good idea. (24v fans only!) Or you can try gently peeling off the fan sticker and adding a single drop of light oil (like 3-in-one) to the bearing, then re-attaching the sticker.
Using non-stock thermal barrier tubes that do not have the correct internal geometry. Lots of people sell bad tubes that don't have the "secret sauce" (internal diameter step). The four good vendors I'm aware of for this part are Makerbot, Carl Raffle, Micro Swiss, and Performance 3D.
"Floating" the thermal barrier threads by tightening jam nuts on both top and bottom of the cooling bar. All-metal extruder designs require good contact pressure between the thermal barrier tube threads and the cooling bar, to ensure maximum heat transfer. The best approach is to put one jam nut below the bar to forcibly push the thermal barrier tube threads into the cooling bar, and no nut on top. (Using just one nut on top is better than two nuts, but worse than one nut below.)
It's also possible that there is some material partially blocking the nozzle, which is contributing to molten plastic backup up and jamming.
What I would recommend right now is removing both the nozzle and thermal barrier tube from the printer, and either replacing them or fully cleaning them out. There are multiple options. You can preheat the hot end with the cooling bar in a vise or on a metal surface with no fans attached, to heat up the plastic in the thermal barrier tube and allow you to push the blockage through with a small allen key. Then do something to REALLY clean it out, like nylon cold-pulls, or cooking the parts in a blue flame such as a torch or gas stove. Then check for internal debris with something like a toothpick.
Once you can see through the nozzle orifice and there's no junk inside anything, reassemble everything properly and try again.
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329 | Installing E3D v6 extruder electronics on Ultimaker Original+
I printed the mechanical parts to mount a E3D v6 on my Ultimaker Original+. But I don't know how to connect my heating cartridge, my thermistor and my 3 fans to the electronic board. Any idea?
Edit: I should have said I'm using the following design: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/e3d-v6-hot-end-mount
My main problem is to connect all 3 fans, as the original design of the UMO+ is only using one.
Hi, Alexis. Could you please elaborate on what specific electronics you have and want to connect? This way, your question can be answered by users who does not know the insides of the Ultimaker Original+.
I'm not certain exactly what you're asking, but I'll give this a try. If I've misunderstood, please give more details.
It sounds like you're upgrading to the E3D v6. If so, the heater, thermistor, and fans should connect to the same places as the previous ones did. The exception would be if you had thermocouples instead of thermistors before; that's a more complicated change.
If the connectors are different, you'll need to get matching connectors from a parts supplier (post a picture if you're having trouble identifying them). Fortunately each of the items you mentioned has 2 wires, and for the heater and thermistor polarity doesn't matter.
For fans, polarity does matter, so match up red vs. black, or just try it one way, and if the fan doesn't turn, then swap the wires. Some fans have a third wire, which could be used for measuring the actual rotation speed (see [http://pcbheaven.com/wikipages/How_PC_Fans_Work]); but it's not necessary.
I'm using that design: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/e3d-v6-hot-end-mount and I'm mainly looking to connect the 2 additional fans.
You should be able to just splice the two fans together (red to red, black to black), and connect that where ever the extruder fan you already had was. There should be plenty of power for 2 small fans. If the picture I found at http://wiki.ultimaker.com/images/El1.5.4-PCB.jpg is right, I think the extruder fan connector is the one all by itself at the lower right.
Actually, the UMO+ has an UMO2 board: http://www.printme3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1010x850/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/o/motherboard.jpg All 3 fans are 12V.
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156 | Are there biocompatible materials available to the general public?
I am currently working on parts for a custom prosthesis.
My main concern at the moment is to find biocompatible materials that can be 3D printed from a UP or a Reprap.
The piece would need to be in contact with the skin for extended periods of time, probably around 17 hours a day on average.
The main concerns I have are:
Skin reactions caused by prolonged contact
Skin reactions and bruising caused by friction
Degradation of the materials due to prolonged exposure to skin secretions and sweat
Risks of toxicity in the compounds generated by the aforementioned material degradation
Which materials can you recommend?
Any extensive data (from testing) would be greatly appreciated.
Is there any reason general-purpose plastics (like ABS, PLA) are not suitable for your application? They are used in everything from keyboards, phones, Lego bricks to drinking cups and cutlery. It seems unlikely that skin contact with these plastics could be an issue.
@TomvanderZanden I am concerned about prolonged use and reaction to skin's secretions, but this was unclear in my quesion, I will elaborate. Thanks for the input!
@AdamDavis I see your point. Would yopu feel more comfortable with an edited question stating that this question is about tests, results and observations, but not certifications and medical advice, and should not be taken as such?
There are printers designed for medical use, and the manufacturers supply them with varying levels of certification and testing, however I've not seen a filament manufacturer certify their material as bio-compatible separate from the printer. The printing process changes the material slightly in the best case (and significantly with poor temperature control or badly set parameters), so even if bio-compatible filament were found, the resulting product might not achieve the same level of bio-compatibility.
If your intent is to use hobbyist level machine for medical purposes, you might simply want to use an interface, such as a sock or a molded/cast polymer that you know to be bio-compatible between the printed part and the skin.
I guess it's still a bit early to have certitudes on these questions. Thank you for your input. I will wait to see if there are more answers out there, but ultimately will tinker with the materials myself, and make the results available to the general public.
If you want to know something about what you are questioning, it is interesting to you to read http://e-nable.org/resources/prosthetics-students-consultation/
That's a link with complementary information how to print 3D as a volunteer.
I know that is not enough information about products, but I believe Nylon is the best recommend because it is what generally printers are using, though.
This website supports information with Dr. Chang by the e-mail eagle01@rocketmail.com
but there insnt information about the components used in the prosthetics, but I know that Nylon is the best suited to it nowadays.
If you prefer there is a site with makers loging information about PETG:
https://www.matterhackers.com/news/how-to-succeed-when-printing-with-petg-filament
Hello and welcome to the stack! Please take the [tour]. Link Only answers are not what the stack strives for. E-nable is a well known program about printing external prothetics, but it is done with non-biocompatible materials, as they don't need to be biocompatible.
Your note to the mail of Dr. Chang is nice, but you might want to tell why you tell us polyamide (nylon) is best. You only added more links, tell us their contents
Thanks for your answer but we are looking for comprehensive answers that provide some explanation and context. Very short answers cannot do this, so please [edit] your answer to explain why it is right. Additionally, we prefer answers to be self contained where possible. link only answers are frowned upon (as links tend to rot) & will be rendered useless if the linked-to content disappears. If you add more context and detail from the link, it is more likely that people will find your answer useful.
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14923 | What effects does the non-carthesian coordinate system have on the Part-design process for printing with a belt printer?
Background: What's a Belt Printer's Coordinate system?
For "normal" Cartesian (Portal, Cube) or Cylindrical (Delta) coordinate printers, the same Design Consideratons are to be kept in mind. But on a Belt Printer aka Printer Mill, the conversion from cartesian design space to cartesian or cylindrical printer coordinates is not applied in the same fashion, and as such some considerations based on subsequent laying down of full levels do not apply the same: While there is a common alignment of two axis, the third axis is tilted forward and the printhead does move in the angled X'Y'-Plane. While the Belt moves only in one direction, never backwards, there is a component of negative movement in that direction by lifting the printhead...
The formula for how the new coordinate system is translated to is thus as follows $$X'=-X$$ $$Y'=\cos(\alpha)Z$$ $$Z'=Y-\sin(\alpha)Z$$ To Illustrate this: The Red-Green-Blue is the orthonormal cartesian coordinate system. and the Magenta-Yellow-Cyan is the coordinate system the printer moves in:
The most common angle for currently available designs is 45° as in the Blackbelt or the coming Creality Belt Printer (pre-production in December 2020), making the math for the slicer somewhat easier as $\sin(45°)=\cos(45°)$. As a result of all the math, there is a Cura Derivate, the BB Cura 3.6.2.
Question
What impact does this movement pattern of laying down in an angle upwards have on considerations that have to be taken in the design stage of a model for 3D printing?
Maker's Muse has a video talking a bit about this.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE And so have others, like Joel
Seems like there hasn't been enough trial and error yet to figure things out :(
The first and most important design consideration is the overhang. Normally, when designing a part, you would make considerations based on the fact that gravity will act on the part from the "bottom" towards the top. As a result, when I am designing a part, I am always mindful of the fact that anything which protrudes outside of the intended printing base will be subject to "overhang" forces. Therefore, based on the layer height and nozzle diameter, there is a limit to the maximum overhang angle that can be serviced by the printer. Just as a side note, printers that co-extrude dissolvable supports, do not have overhang problems.
Additionally there are structural considerations with the laminations being at an angle, especially with holes that are intended to have heat-set inserts. Normally, when applying an insert the pressure is perpendicular to the layers. However, depending on where the hole is needed and how the part was printed, the inserting process could promote delamination of the layers and early part failure. It could be even worse with holes that are being threaded subsequent to printing.
Because the first few layers are going down at an angle, the layer adhesion will be unknown.
At design time, all you would need to do is keep an eye on those overhangs. I'd start all models on a plane that was at a 45degree angle. That way I can see the effect of having it being printed on its side rather than perpendicular to the bed.
"The first 3D-printed boat, 'built' by the world's largest 3D printer" was also printed with the nozzle at an angle to the bed; and that seems to have worked out well.
The design of a belt printer puts the printhead to print in layers tilted by some 45° to the XY-plane. How would this impact the design considerations?
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14969 | Can a dual extruder printer print with multiple filament types?
I was looking at purchasing the Creality CR-X or another similar dual extruder (note, NOT dual nozzle) printer. I know it was designed to print two colors of the same filament, but is it able to print two different filaments?
I would be printing HIPS with ABS or PVA with PLA, so the two filaments would have very similar characteristics. It's ok if the printer doesn't know there's two different filaments, I can make it work by playing with the slicing settings.
What you want is a dual extruder, dual nozzle, dual hot-end printer, a printer with two entire print heads.
That model is mostly for color, like a black and white panda, or a green and rainbow lizzard, of the same material.
Your problem is going to be the mixing of both materials in the hot end.
If I were you, I would invest the extra cash into a dual print head printer, so you can print with water-soluble support material, and that soft of stuff, plus if you print black and white pandas, you're going to have pure black, and pure white, with no grey, marbled parts where the two filaments were mixing in the hot end.
OP mentions HIPS/ABS and PVA/PLA combo.
I realize my argument isn't really based on materials, but I do think OP is going to be happier with a dual head machine, rather than a "dual feeder" machine... I think that machine is manufactured specifically for people who want to print in two colors of the same material, and also kinda confuse people who want a dual head machine into getting it, thinking they're getting a deal... OP might have a specific project in mind right now, but I think a dual head extruder might future-proof his investment, and make him a happier person on a long-term... I'm not sure about price points, though...
Yes and No
Yes, if you have two full hotends, you can easily print with two filament types.
Yes, if you have one hotend and both filaments melt at a very similar temperature or are the same polymer, then you can use a Prusa MMU style or splicing machine.
No, if you have only one hotend and the two materials are very dissimilar in their print temperatures (PLA with 200 °C and ABS with 235 °C), then you can't use a MMU/splicing style printing. This does preclude PLA and PVA from the same nozzle: PVA needs about 230 °C according to my data.
PLA can be printed at 235, FWIW. I think the bigger problem is different viscosities and other properties leaving the remnants of the previous material in the nozzle rather than all coming out first on purge. I have that problem a lot switching between PLA and PETG.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE at the cost of print quality, yes, you could print PLA at almost "cooking" temperature.
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14733 | Can I adjust print speed on the fly?
I am running an Ender 3 pro with an Octoprint connected. I accidentally set the print speed too slow in Cura and the print will take very long. Is there a Marlin command I can issue to the printer to speed it up without stopping the print?
You can use the M220 g-code like
M220 S200
to speed up your print speed to 200%.
You can simply enter this g-code command in OctoPrints "Terminal" tab at any time.
Is there a way to set it too a certain mm/s I know I am splitting hairs but I have tried to experiment with that too. This will work for now though so thank you
Not directly - since you may have different speeds for printing moves, travel moves, first layers, perimeters etc.
Theoretically, you could alter the maximum feedrates with M203 to your desired speed, and push the feed rate multiplier up to its limit (990% as far as I can tell). Then all moves should run close to the mm/s speed you set with M203, but that approach doesn't seem very robust to me.
yes
Print speed is a setting that can be altered by just turning the click-wheel of the Ender 3. You don't need to push it to gain access to menus. A turn to the right does increase the speed, left lowers it. It is applied only some moments after
stopping the turning - then the firmware does inject a M220 command as the next line. This means the current running movement is ended with the last set speed, the new speed is set and the following command will be done with the new speed.
As towe correctly states, one can also send a M220 command to the printer via a terminal, but then you need to have one set up before the print starts, as plugging in a terminal will reset your printer and abort the print!
I believe it's applied after the current movement buffer has run empty, i.e. at the same point as canceling the print without M112 would stop the printer.
That could be minutes at slow straight first layers; or fractions of a second for high-speed curved paths.
@towe partially correct: it takes stopping the wheel for a second or two for the firmware to decide "new speed is set... now I apply it"
Are you sure about that? I couldn't find any such delay in a short code search: https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/blob/2.0.x/Marlin/src/lcd/ultralcd.cpp#L580
@towe I am rather sure from practical testing: turning the knob to 250 on a rather speedy baseplate did not affect the print for at roundabout a second, using a Marlin 1.9 design.
Also FTR I am running an SKR board so it isn't the stock marlin version but I forget which one
@Jackie that's a crucial information!
Yeah I know my bad
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14646 | Ender 2 LCD replacement
My Ender 2 LCD is suddenly not lighting up.
Is it possible to replace it with an Ender 3 LCD?
Maybe you could add an image of the Ender-2 LCD or some additional data?
Not easily. Some folks have been messing with both 2 and 3 LCDs and based on their posts, the pinout is different between the two.
Ender 2 display pinout from when one GuzLightyear figured it out for Marlin (MKS MINI 12864 LCD):
-----
5V | · · | GND
MOSI | · · | LCD_RS
LCD_A0 | · · || BTN_EN2
RESET | · · | BTN_EN1
BTN_ENC | · · | SCK
-----
From a user called arnd13, the Ender 3 equivalent would be:
-----
5V | · · | GND
MOSI | · · | LCD_A0
SCK | · · || BTN_EN2
CS | · · | BTN_EN1
BTN_ENC | · · | Buzzer
-----
Maybe you have some luck in debugging your screen (sometimes with these LCD screens, a contrast adjustment resolves the issue).
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15166 | alternative to Mic-6 bed plate
I am building a toolchanger CoreXY 3D printer. I am in big trouble to find mic-6 aluminium toolplate in my country. Can you suggest me an alternative to mic-6? In my country, I can find easily 5083, 6082, 7005, etc. I don't think, that theese aluminium plates are suitable as heated bed. The design of the bed is the same as the jubilee 3D printer, so it will be best to have minimum warpage.
"This heated bed is milled from 6.35 mm cast aluminum alloy tool plate and is designed to meet all specifications of project Jubilee. The tool plate is flat with milled front and back faces to produce a high quality build platform for the printer." (definition of the Mic-6 jubilee)
"1/4 in (6.35 mm) thick ATP 5, ALCA 5, K100S, and MIC 6 all have a published industry flatness spec of 0.015 in (0.318 mm)." (from the Tolerances)
I don't think MIC-6 tolerances really matter for smaller (~200mm) buildplates.
@Rafael The build plate of my 3D printer will be ~360 x 360mm.@Trish I can't find ATP 5, ALCA 5, K100S, or MIC 6 in my country. Can you suggest me, wich type of aluminium can I use. I have read that 5083 is not recommended for use in temperatures in excess of 65°C (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5083_aluminium_alloy#cite_note-2). The aluminium alloy 7005 has been heat-treated, so I think, that it will not be a good heated bed.
I'm not sure what your country is, but You can also use Aludur Plus which has the same properties as 'mic 6' through www.aluminyumburada.com They are based in Turkey and service the general region.
Will you build your own heated with the tooling plate or were you planning on using it instead?
the shiping cost is 30 dollars so I will pay at minimum 20 euro and the total cost will be 60 euros. Thank you for your awnser
Most of the aluminium alloys are fine.
When they say that a certain aluminium is not suitable to certain temperature range they usually mean "under stress"... your bed has no stress at all, it's just staying there with basically no weight on top of it.
Also, you don't need the single micron accuracy either...
Just pick a "cast" and milled aluminium and not a rolled one.
If you can choose among different ones, pick the one with the highest thermal conductivity, and that's it. For example, I can easily find milled plates out of 5083 or 7021. 7021 has a better thermal conductivity, which is good to have a more uniform temperature.
that's helpful!
I cannot find cast aluminum here. Only the standard 5083 e.t.c. I have asked and all of these are heat treated. But maybe they are flat enough (I don't know if they are milled).
Is it Greece? search for "αλουμίνιο cast plate" you can find some. If you search for "cast" in Greek you'll find fewer...
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15094 | What specifics do models need to have to estimate the maximum acceleration my printer can withstand?
Previous questions on the topic of setting acceleration are:
How to theoretically calculate the maximum acceleration? (theoretical calculation)
How do I determine the acceleration value for my printer? (how to find the maximum value, in general)
The topic of the test model to use to stress the printer has not been touched yet.
So, when I want to test experimentally a printer according to the link above to have it skip steps due to excessive acceleration, what features does a model need to have for this to work?
To the extent it may matter, in my case I have a CoreXY printer with Bowden setup, so the stresses on X and Y direction are relatively comparable, the difference is only the weight of the X rods and holder (150 g max).
The firmware I use provides this model to test ringing:
Would that be suitable to stress-test the skipping of steps or should I consider making my own, and if, what features should it have?
"Which models" is overly borad. "What specifics does a model need to test for X" would be better
Does your printer have moving bed or just moving toolhead? Direct drive or bowden? These answers affect the order of magnitude you're looking for and thus to some extent test methodology.
@Trish edited accordingly
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE I think the question should be generic, but I added the information anyway
@FarO shifted focus a little to make it more generic - AFAIK, The main feature should be short movements perpendicular to a movement. Everything else is driving the acceleration settings up with each subsequent layer.
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15018 | Printer halted! Psu dead?
My Anet A8 Plus worked normally, but after the weekend and changing for new bearings on the rods, it is not working anymore at all.
I experience random reboots, the nozzle can only heat to about 10 °C away from the target and then starts to drop, the printer gives the halted error.
Example: Target is 240 °C, the nozzle temperature goes to like 232 °C and then starts to drop pretty fast. The Bed heats good otherwise.
troubleshooting so far
The PSU gives 24 V and the supply voltage switch is 220 V like it should. No matter if I try print it through OctoPrint or Cura, the same thing happens.
How it can break this bad just from replacing a few bearings is not clear to me. Do these reboots mean the PSU is dead and not giving constant voltage? Reboots come even idle or just bed heating etc.
Reboots happen in 2 cases on a printer:
If the board power has been below a the operational threshold (~3 V) and the capacitors on the board are empty, the power dip can result in a reboot.
If a device connects to the serial-USB port, it reboots.
If you power up the printer not connected to any other device, it should run continuously. If it flickers and reboots, the power-lines to the board or the PSU are bad. Check those in reverse.
If it only reboots again and again when connected to a serial port (PC, Octoprint etc), your problem is the cable - it might be jiggling or be defective, or otherwise de- and re-connect again and again.
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15022 | How to get superglue off PLA filament?
So I'm making my friend a Monado sword replica and I've printed the handle in 2 pieces as to fill it with electronics and then superglue the 2 halves together.
I seem to have put too much on and it's leaked out and spread as shown in the picture..
Does anyone know how to get the dried glue off?
Thanks,
(PS. The glue is called "NO NONSENSE SUPERGLUE")
Relevant Reverse: What Glues For PLA
In agreement with what Akriss said, pretty much all "super" glue is CA (cyanoacrylate) glue, which is soluble in acetone. PLA itself is does not dissolve in or react with acetone, but the pigments, additives, etc. likely do, so you should wipe with a paper towel or cloth (the latter might be better to avoid getting fibers stuck on the glue) soaked in acetone rather than pouring it over the piece or submerging it, to limit the effects. Also, test first on a scrap piece printed with the same filament to ensure the results aren't unacceptably bad.
The caution of not soaking is it could unglue your parts. A good idea is to combine polishing after lightly painting with acetone. Use eye protection and good ventilation.
@PerryWebb: Indeed that's also a consideration, but the issue I described applies even if the glue was just dripped on a PLA part that wasn't broken and didn't need glue.
I've used Acetone before. However that said I've not had the need to remove it from PLA. Not sure how PLA reacts to Acetone.
A link that may be of use.
https://www.art-us.com/how-to-get-super-glue-off-almost-anything/
Acetone hasn't worked at all for me, if anything it made it worse by stripping the PLA of the sheen its supposed to have. I have tried various types of Acetone as well, all with similar results.
I know this will sound crazy, but I have been doing this for about 6 months. I use Sesame Oil, applied generously with a Q-tip, and then I "rub it in/dry it off" with a paper towel. This has worked on various sheens of PLA and PLA+ and completely removes any evidence of super glue. I haven't seen the oil dry out yet either. At first I thought the oil would wear off or dry out, but it has not yet and its been 6 months since I've been doing this.
Try wiping with Vaseline petroleum jelly. It effectively removes the white haze that sometimes forms around a joint glued with cyanoacrylate. It may remove or diminish the color of the glue residue, though will not remove the glue itself.
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14470 | Anet A8 board USB broken?
I'm trying to connect my PC to my Anet A8 through Pronterface on Ubuntu.
But when I'm clicking on the "connect" button in Pronterface, all I see is "Connecting ...".
What I did so far
added my user to the dialout group
tried to run it as root
tried different baudrates
switch to different USB cables
tried to install and run it on a different machine and different OS (Windows) with nearly the same result (additionally I see repeated lines with M105, but no response)
The printer itself works - I want to connect to it, to "PID tune" it, because I added a different fan duct.
How can I make sure the board isn't somewhat damaged, and its just my setup?
What version of Ubuntu are you using?
I have this printer and used this board many times over USB.
The genuine Arduino boards use the FTDI FT232RL to convert USB signals to UART signals.
The problem with these Arduino based clone boards is that they do not use the FTDI chips as these are too expensive. These boards use a CH340G chip which is a Chinese clone which requires a specific driver to be installed before you can communicate with the board:
Image shows a close-up of the CH340G chipset on the Anet A8 controller board.
When you bought the printer, the SD-card contained the driver that you need to install on your OS. I remember that this driver was for the Windows OS. However, you can download the driver for many platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) directly from the manufacturer.
Please execuse me for my late reply and thank you for taking the time. The drivers from the manufacturer do not compile on Ubuntu 20.04. But I was able to find, compile and load https://github.com/skyrocknroll/CH341SER_LINUX. I also tried it with https://github.com/juliagoda/CH341SER. Sadly both drivers did not help with my issue. The printer is not recognized. Connecting the printer does not show up in syslog or with dmsg.
You may need to install a device driver for the USB interface chip that your printer uses. I'm guessing that the Anet A8 uses a clone of the FTDI FT232RL chip (which was and may still be common with cheap Chinese printers).
If this is the case, you will need to install the appropriate driver from this site: FTDI Chip Virtual COM Port Drivers.
Edit: I can confirm that Pronterface will not work with my Tronxy X1 (which uses an FT232RL clone) on the latest version of Ubuntu.
Please excuse my late reply. Thank you for taking the time trying to help me. I think my Anet A8 does not have the FTDI FT232RL chip, but the CH340G @0scar mentioned in his answer
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14427 | Problem with grid infill (line positioning)
I have a problem with the grid infill on my BCN3D+ Dual Paste extruder: when I print a structure the lines of the infill are not evenly printed, every two lines the gap between the lines is higher (see the photo) while in the Simplify printing preview (preview image) the space between the infill lines is the same all the time. Do someone know if it can be a problem of the printer or a Simplify command?
What kind of extruder is that?
My guess is that the nozzle assembly just isn't rigid and is deflected according to the last direction it moved or something like that.
It happens with different printing materials (ceramics before calcination) and today I tried with another 3D printer (same model) and It didn't happen, so it should be something of the printer itself, it is a BCN3D+ double paste extruder
It looks like a case of one axis affecting the other. This is a subset of cases where things are not rigid enough. Basically the movement direction in X is causing an offset in the Y, or whatever you want to call the axes. It is present in small amounts in all screw-driven setups where the screw essentially acts as a wedge, and can be in others for various other reasons. The solution is to tighten up your linear bearings/slides so that there is less transverse play.
There is also a chance that you are trying to print beyond the resolution of your printer, in which case it is "rounding" to the nearest within its capabilities, but that seems less likely.
how does this correlate with the information given? The BNC3D is not screw driven on the X axis - it is belt driven.
The correlation is in the direction of one axis affecting the other axis. There are other ways such as having a belt connection location not directly in line with the effective CG (center of force?) of what it pulls. It's fairly easy to check for by moving and watching the nozzle and the solution is the same regardless of belt or screw - adjust the linear control elements to reduce transverse slop.
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14401 | Best filament for epoxy bonded structural parts
I am planning to print some large structural components, and I intend to form them by glueing together a number of printed parts, and skinning those with composites. In other words this plastic needs to bond well to epoxy.
What is the optimal material here? My logic makes me arrive at fiber-reinforced PC as the only good choice. But please point out to me if my logic goes wrong somewhere.
PETG/PP/PA/ABS/ASA are all out of the window. I want this to bond well using run off the mill laminating epoxy. And by 'bond well' I dont mean 'cant pull it off with the first try with my fingers', but I mean I want the glue bond to be about as strong as the underlying material, and that just isnt going to happen with any of the above. I know that for every plastic there is some $100 a tube toxic goop you can get to stick with a few dozen steps of surface prep; but im not going to use that as a laminating resin.
Moreover, I want a fiber reinforced material. Not for the strength per se, but for minimum warp. When printing multiple 30x30cm pieces, I want them to slide together without gaps (or the gaps I designed into it); and if the piece as designed was intended to be straight after assembly, i want to to be straight after assembly. Its frustratingly hard to find quantitative information on warping properties. But polycarbonate without fiber reinforcement does not fit the bill, thats for sure.
Plain PLA might be another decent option. I cant find much quantitative information about bonding it to epoxy, but at least its not a known no-go. There is some worry about the heat of curing the composites deforming the PLA though.
PVB might be another good bet. Easy to print with, and great at bonding. Might be sensitive to solvents in your laminating resin though.
Of course all other criteria for a nice filament apply as well; consistent extrusion, layer adhesion, all that.
Is CF-PC the way to go? I see very little in the way of reviews about CF-PC; it does not seem to be that popular a combination, which is a bad sign, but I cannot discern much reason for it.
Just an idea, but if the surface was formed of trapeziodal slots (or some other undercut profile) then the epoxy would be physically connected to it instead of only chemically. I guess you would need rather runny epoxy.
Yeah; I've only recently gotten into fiber reinforced filaments and I noticed their surface microstructure trends to be quite rough. Indeed you might take that even further by modifying the surface on the gcode level. It might suffice; but it sounds like a lot of testing before you know how it plays out in practice; and I'd rather spend money on a solution that should 'just work'. But it's an interesting avenue for sure.
[* sp: trapezoidal, of course.]
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14419 | Removing test print from magnetic flexible paper coated build plate
I have a Monoprice MP10 with magnetic flexible paper coated build plate and I have just tried printing bed level test which is, of necessity, very thin on the build plate.
Watching the item print, I saw that the bed level was obviously way way off at the back left corner and down the left side. I was printing with PLA. There was no point in letting the print continue so I stopped it, let the build plate cool down and tried to remove the print.
The bottom line and right hand side came off cleanly but the top left corner and all down the left side stuck firmly. As it was so thin a layer there is no chance of getting something underneath an edge without damaging the paper surface. I tried acetone but this had no effect other than turning the surface white and thin cracks appearing in the paper surface. Wiped down with alcohol which toned down the white but was no help in getting the thin layer of PLA off.
I tried reheating surface, no joy. Does anyone have a foolproof way of getting this off as soap and water don't work either?
you have a scraper?
In my experience with the Creality magnetic textured build surface, it's easier to remove a thin print while the surface is still pretty warm -- probably between 35 °C and 40 °C -- as opposed to fully cooled to room temperature.
If the print is very thin, however (as when the nozzle is much too close to the build surface) printing over it may be the only sensible option. In fact, if the print residue is too thin to get a scraper under, it likely won't show in another print with the same color/type filament, so you can just ignore it unless you're changing color or material.
BTW, don't use acetone. For anything, unless nothing else will do the job. Too flammable, too toxic, and it dissolves stuff you don't want to dissolve (but won't do anything notable to PLA, which is why you can't do acetone vapor smoothing with PLA).
You could try freezing your bed with cooling spray around the print and then wait some seconds and try peel it off.
I had the problem once on my PEI sheet and it did help. I used this spray: Spray
But make sure you don't break any electric parts on your printer.
Could putting the bed in the freezer accomplish the same thing? Not being sarcastic, just a thought.
You could print something on top of it, like a giant square covering the whole affected area. You should use some slightly higher temperatures than usual to make it adhere good (e.g. 75 °C bed 210 °C hotend), make sure that you print several layers.
There are 2 options removing the new print when there is an elevated temperature in the bed left after printing, or removing after a complete cool down.
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14304 | Is there any commercial supplier of 3D printed parts made from acrylic (PMMA)?
I was surprised to learn that, AFAICT, neither Protolabs, Xometry, or Shapeways* can supply 3D printed parts from acrylic. Is anyone aware of a commercial source of 3D printed parts made from acrylic [polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)]?
*Shapeways does 3D print their "Fine Detail Plastic" which is an acrylic. However, during the printing process, the material is UV cured so, AFAIK, it is no longer a thermoplastic (as PMMA is). I need the thermoplastic property for my application.
Are you trying to get optically clear prints?
Hi Perry, not necessarily. I need prints in acrylic as I need both its thermoplastic properties and its non-polar solvent properties.
While I don't know of PMMA as a standard offering, I do know that a lot of the smaller entities will gladly accommodate custom requirements for the right price and an understanding that results may be inferior to their tried and true.
My recommendation is to google "3D Printing Service" and find what's local. Local will hopefully mean you don't have to wait for a shipment to review the quality.
Having melted acrylic on various occasions, I can hazard a guess why FDM isn't popular with this material: not only does it give off an acrid odor, the melted material is sticky and viscous, likely too much so to make into filament or to print reliably if so made. Most acrylic materials are made by curing a liquid resin, either with a catalyst ("casting resin", used among other things to make the spherical hulls of high visibility submarine vehicles) or with UV (these are different materials, but both in the acrylic family).
The "an acrylic" that Shapeways offers, being UV cured, is most likely a SLA ("resin") print. If it's any sort of acrylic, it should still be thermoplastic, but will suffer the same disadvantages as common "Plexiglas" acrylic PMMA -- very, very stinky stuff to melt.
One thing you might consider is using the "mold" capability in Cura Slicer (not sure if other slicers have this, though apparently some mesh modifiers can replicate the effect) to produce a 3D printed mold in which to cast parts from acrylic resin sold for either fiberglass application or casting. If you start with the correct resin type, the cured result will be nearly identical to PMMA, and you can make the mold on a common FDM printer.
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14313 | What is the strongest filament type?
I'm looking for a filament that is strong, doesn't crack and doesn't break easily and is impact resistant. I'm currently using PLA and it's strong, but, I'm looking for something that doesn't snap or break when dropped.
It would help if you indicated what application you are considering. That will inform any recommendations.
"strong" does not mean much by itself and then you asked about cracking but also breaking when hit. The question is too broad and has no definite answer. Provide a specific use case, otherwise we cannot answer.
PEEK may well be the strongest filament out there (and it has other interesting properties to recommend it), but it is very difficult to print and requires a printer designed to operate at high temperatures. If you are still using PLA, your next port of call should be PETG. It is a lot stronger than PLA (although it will shatter if hit hard enough) and it is almost as easy to print. It also gives off hardly any fumes and it can be printed without an enclosure.
PLA (pure, not modified with softeners) is far stronger than PETG, especially layer bonding. The reasons for using PETG are heat resistance and resistance to deterioration from elements. Not strength.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE the question is also about impact resistance and PETG is better than PLA for that. The problem is that the question is broad and poor...
ABS is less brittle compared to PLA.
Strength and impact resistance are not the same. For the same Volume and Shape, I get more tensile strength (can apply a larger force without breaking) from steel than rubber. I can however pound the rubber with a hammer many more times than the steel before I break it.
When it comes to impact (finite energy but potentially extremely large forces), general rule is: that which does not bend shall break. Materials and shapes that can bend to help dissipate that energy will help against impact. Outright strength, on the other hand, often is fairly rigid.
When I need both, I'll depend on a strength bearing part and a soft coating for impact. Works for bony animals; works for parts.
PLA also gets more brittle as it absorbs moisture.
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14084 | Eliminating unwanted internal surfaces
One of the biggest challenges with 3D-drawings is internal surfaces unintentionally formed that cause slicing not to work properly. This is using SketchUp Pro, slicing with Slic3r, and printing with a Reprap X400. Eliminating lines unnecessary to form the outside surfaces helps, but this may not eliminate all the internal surfaces which can be hard to see even with an x-ray view. It often takes deleting an external surface, looking for internal surfaces to select and delete, then adding the external surface back, being careful not to use a line that also adds the internal surface back.
This can be a huge issue when importing an STL file into SketchUP. The import seems to prefer using all triangles and thus the maximum number of lines with no attempt to see which are unnecessary, leaving it up to the user to eliminate lines.
What techniques do you have for eliminating or avoiding unwanted internal surfaces in drawings?
I am sorry to tell you that SketchUp is not a good software for printable 3D designs due to its exporting feature not properly reducing complexity. It creates unnecessary faces and vertices inside of items on a regular basis, which in the slicer creates artifacts.
To make a SketchUp created file well printable, a huge amount of careful re-engineering in a graphics program like Blender is needed, manually removing the excess vertices surfaces.
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14237 | Sending a 3D model from Fusion 360 to Ultimaker Cura for printing fails
How do I 3D print to Ultimaker Cura from Fusion 360?
(from: File > 3D Print)
I added Cura to the 3D print list, but whenever I click OK, the application does not open.
Works just fine for SuperSlicer / PrusaSlicer. Fusion 360 simply creates an .stl and opens your specified slicer with it - similar to dragging the file over a link to the application.
Must be a Cura problem.
If you use the "Custom" option, you can set that to Cura.exe from the correct directory and use that.
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14252 | How to prepare bed for printing ABS filament?
I have never used ABS filament before, so my question is, how do I prepare my glass build plate for printing ABS filament?
My second question, is, after you have prepared it, and have finished printing, can you 3d print with other plastics, such as PLA after?
ABS can be a problem to print, but there are generally a couple well established methods to prepare your glass bed, which might be combined for best results:
Heated bed. A heated bed is almost a must for ABS and would be set to about 75 to 90 °C for most printers. Often this can suffice on its own, but keep the bed running for the whole print!
ABS-Slurry. One of the best functioning adhesive helpers is ABS-Slurry, which is made by mixing a little acetone with as much ABS filament as it will solve, then applying a thin layer of this compound to the glass bed right before the print. It will stink a lot, but it most certainly will offer one of the best adhesions you can get and might even prevent Warping due to the stronger bond to the bed.
Rafts. You might want to add a raft of at least 2 layers under the print. The Raft can be removed in the end, but it increases the surface area and can often help to reduce the chance of warping.
Now comes the good part: you just need to remove all the ABS residue and the bed is ready for the next preparation for any other material. This can be done with a scraper blade quite easily, maybe some Acetone and then alcohol if there are some really nasty bits.
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14057 | Blender file not slicing properly in Cura
I need help with a blender file not slicing properly, the results seem very strange to me. I'm pretty new to 3D printing, I have an ender 3 pro, using Cura for slicing. I have been using blender for a few years, but only sporadically so i'm still somewhat of a novice. I am trying to build a chain guard for an electric motorcycle, fairly simple cylinder with a cutout for the chain, a couple holes for bolts and my logo on the top. I'm not having very good luck with the solidify modifier so i've traied duplicating the mesh and closing the faces to make it solid, still not working.
What I find strange about the slicing is that Cura builds all the supports correctly but doesnt print the cylinder, it also prints the logo fine.
My blend file is a mess, please help.
Thanks
Does this work for sharing my .blend file?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkpxfgvs0f7gy2g/Chain%20Cover7.blend?dl=0
It is not uncommon for Blender to produce STL files that have incorrect normals on the faces. Have you tried repairing the file through an online service like e.g. Netfabb?
That file is borked - it's blender's fault. Before exporting any blender file you need to Recalculate normals!
haha, yes it is borked. I was able to re-draw and make it print ok but i will use recalculate normals in the future, thanks
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13921 | Ender 3 print bed damage
Just got an Ender 3 a week ago. This is my first 3D printer. On the 5th print the object ended up tearing away the surface of the print bed such that it's no longer usable. Trying to work out if this is something that I did wrong or if this is faulty material or a combination of the two?
To set the print head I watched a few tutorials and carefully followed the instructions checking the height with a piece of paper at each corner and in the center and repeated this until it was set.
I watched a couple more tutorials on how to remove the pieces from the bed. I have been removing the top sheet from the print bed by detaching the paper clips. Using the supplied putty knife I've worked around the edges tapping gently with a rubber mallet to get the putty knife under the piece and loosen it before it pops off.
Afterwards I've used the putty knife to scrape off any other residue to make sure that the surface is smooth.
The first 2 prints were with PLA and then the next 3 with PETG. The damage happened when removing a piece printed with PETG.
My specific questions: Is my approach to removing a print incorrect? If so, what would the correct approach be? Did this cause the damage?
I've only seen that kind of damage when either z-offset or lack of leveling drove the nozzle into the bed. Did you're first layer look normal?
Agree with others. You'll need to replace the mat (but it's not that hard or expensive). But the mats should last much longer than a week. This looks like the nozzle was much too close to the print surface. When next leveling, give it just a hair (literally!) more space.
Odd - my ender3 came with a glass bed, the most that needs is a wash occasionally.
Your print surface is destroyed
So, you managed to rip off your print surface in the center. Happened to me too. the corners of my scraper were too sharp, cutting the surface. Another time I did pierce the surface with my nozzle. Damage happens. Replacement surfaces for the Ender3 start at about 5 bucks a piece. So get yourself some spares. Clean your bed before applying the new one.
Removal process
To properly remove a print from the bed, grab your scraper blade and do the following:
Sharpen the edge only on one side.
Soften the corners, they should be slightly rouned.
Make sure the scraper is kept sharp.
When removing prints, be slow! Push the scraper against the bed with the bevel upwards. Apply careful pressure till the tip moves just a little. Move to a different spot till the blade slips under a little, then work the scraper left and right. You'll hear a sucking sound, that's the print coming free. It gets much easier if you let the bed cool down.
For very tall prints with a relatively small area, you might not need the scraper at all.
PETG has a tendency to stick too much with glass and fuse with PEI. We don't know if the Build-Tak clone Creality uses contains PEI. I suggest to grab gluestick to add a safety layer for printing PETG.
In addition OP likely has the bed too high. Prints (including PETG) come off the Ender 3 print surface easily if it's leveled correctly.
If I have the bed well heated and let it cool after the print, the thermal mismatch tends to release the print from the bed.
I agree with @R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE, these types of issues occur when your bed is too high. If you're tired of leveling the bed manually you can consider an automatic bed leveling kit.
You must have a small bed. 400 x 400 mm PEI sheets cost considerably more than $5.
@PerryWebb an Ender3 has 235x235 mm - which is what OP has! replacement sheets (NOT PEI) for that machine cost about 15-20 € per 3 on amazon. 400x400 PEI is entirely something different.
@Trish Yes, PEI sheets are much easier to find and a much lower cost at that size.
@PerryWebb yes, the answer is very specific to the machine and its bed, I clarified it some I hope
PETG sticks to the bed much easier than PLA or ABS. I've found it harder to release from the bed. Note this reference indicates PETG can cause bed damage.
https://www.matterhackers.com/news/how-to-succeed-when-printing-with-petg-filament#:~:text=Other%20Print%20Bed%20Surfaces&text=It's%20not%20uncommon%20for%20PETG,permanently%20bonds%20to%20the%20surface.
If you aren't printing directly on glass, you can use a lower bed temperature to see how it affects the adhesion. Note this reference indicates you don't need a heated bed for PETG on an adhesive surface.
https://all3dp.com/2/petg-print-bed-temperature-all-you-need-to-know/
With a PEI sheet on a glass bed at 50C, I'm getting good adhesion without it being too much.
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11659 | Lines appearing during ironing
I'm new to 3D printing, but have been having relative success with the Ender 5 Pro and Cura.
I'm making some coasters and using the ironing feature to smooth out the top layer. This is mostly working great, but there are lines left on the surface, consistent between identical prints. They appear to be seams between different ironed areas. They form when one continuously ironed area finishes, the nozzle leaves that area, then an adjacent area is ironed later, forming a seam between them.
I'm using the default ironing settings, on only the top layer. I have no clue what settings might be causing this, or if this is an avoidable issue.
Any ideas from more experienced printers?
what settings do you use for ironing?
All default cura settings. Zig-zag pattern, 0.1mm spacing.
Ironing isn't default, that's why I ask. PLA and what temperature, nozzle diameter, extrusion width?
Did you get this fixed OP? I'm in the same exact position was curious if the settings the other person referenced were a possible solution.
There's a couple of Cura settings that can help, that I know of:
In the 'Travel' section, change "Combing Mode" to "not in skin". Combing means it tries to move the head over areas that have already been printed. This is a good thing most of the time, but if it does it while it's ironing, it will make an annoying line. (I am not sure why this isn't automatically turned off for the ironing pass, but it seems it isn't.)
After enabling ironing, an option "Ironing Pattern" appears. Try changing this to "concentric." This produces a different pattern, which you may or may not like, but it seems less susceptible to those kinds of lines appearing.
Here are some other settings that might help. I'm suggesting these on the assumption that some of the lines are caused by the print head travelling over the ironed surface, which is what it looks like to me from your photo. I got them from this Cura documentation page, but it doesn't mention ironing, so I can't be completely sure whether they will affect the ironing step.
"Avoid printed parts when travelling" - this might help a bit more than just turning off combing, since it will try to go around the printed areas instead of just cutting across them. Apparently you have to enable combing for this to work.
"Z hop when retracted" and "Z hop only over printed parts." This should make it lift the print head up when it can't avoid crossing the printed part. It may be that you have to enable retraction, combing, and/or "Avoid printed parts when travelling" for these to appear.
I did try the combing setting earlier, and it didn't seem to change the effect. I'll try concentric on the next print.
I added some additional options that might help. (But I haven't tried them myself.)
The main assumption of this answer, that the lines are caused by the head traveling over printed portions, only addresses part of the problem. The raised portions are seams that happen when the head irons from one position in the middle of a face, then needs to return and iron the rest of it. The seam happens where the ironed portions meet.
@SteveHanov both of those things happen of course. I could be wrong, but at the time it seemed to me like the most visible lines in the photo are due to the head moving, because they cut diagonally across the "grain" of the ironed surface. There are some horizontal lines also, which I guess are 'seams' of the kind you mention. You're quite right that nothing I say here will get rid of those. (Although in my opinion the 'concentric' ironing pattern makes them aesthetically less displeasing, since they become part of the pattern.)
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11578 | 17-4 PH Tensile Test
When I do a tensile test on 17-4 PH stainless steel, the stress-strain curve is very strange, two sections of Young’s modulus appeared. What is going on? The sample is made by SLM.
According to our materials experts, you should always be careful interpreting the start of the force-displacement diagram. It is possible that the test needs to "set" itself, important issues are:
the clamping of the test articles in the test bench vices
alignment of the test article in the test bench
size of the test articles (the load suggests small test articles/small diameter)
how is displacement measured (displacement/elongation sensors "slip" easily depending on the expertise of the operator)
artifacts in the test article?
Instead of proceeding the test till rupture (prior to the in-elastic/plastic region), it would have been beneficial if the test had been stopped at about 8 kN and relaxed to 0 kN to commence a new test.
From my own experience with creep test articles we see similar issues and apply a displacement offset so that the "second section" (using your words) is extrapolated to zero load. Usually this is just a few hundredths or tenths of a mm. In this case you could shift the whole diagram 0.3 mm to the right by applying a similar offset of about -0.3 mm.
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11539 | Diamond hotend with single extruder motor
Today I started to google the idea of multimaterial printing. I checked out prusa multimaterial upgrade and while it looks nice, it is expensive and will not probably work with my non-prusa printer.
I discovered there is Diamond hotend, which allows for 3 (or even more) colors at the same time. But everywhere I checked, one extruder motor was used for each color. Since my MKS Gen L motor connections are already all used, I was thinking if it would be possible to handle all of the filaments with single extruder motor.
Basically the motor would have long shaft which will cover all filaments, and I would add some servo that would push a pulley against the selected filament.
I think I would slice it as a multiple hotend setup and then postprocess the gcode in a way, that when tool is changed I would add custom command that would push the pulley against appropriate filament.
I would either need a servo for each of the filemants, or maybe with some clever mechanics one servo in different positions could do all of them.
I am just curious if you think this would be possible to do, since I did not find anyone discussing this idea. Probably because it will require adding custom commands to the firmware.
Sounds a lot like the MMU concept - which is available online for you to build yourself.
As for the diamond hotend and your board, it might be easier to have a look at the Klipper firmware and just use two boards.
I did not find any information about how to make the MMU, just $300 to buy it.
what you describe is a variant of the Prusa MMU2 but with triple the bowden tubes and a hotend about 2-4 times as heavy.
You might save yourself a lot of engineering by copying the Prusa MMU2. Here is a github project for someone doing exactly that: https://github.com/cskozlowski/mmu2
If you look on Prusa's web site, you can find printable parts for the MMU2.
I also noticed that new version of Marlin includes the support for the prusa MMU2, so maybe this is the way to go... except I still have to solve how to control the additional motors....
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11863 | Edge warping on BIQU Magician
Whenever I print something on my BIQU Magician 3D printer, there is often edge warping. What should I do to resolve this problem?
You should post the bed and hot end temperatures, the speed at which you print, the type of filament used, if any bed adhesive is used. Other factors which you think might be relevant should also be posted.
Hi Eric welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Note this is a very common (adhesion) problem which has been asked before. Do note that you give too less information to work with.Photos are always welcome!
Your question is lacking detail and as such is hard to answer without knowing a couple of things about your printer setup. Please [edit] and fill in the [placeholders] in the template I added and then remove the leading "<" and trailing ">" afterwards. This will turn it visible and help us help you find the actual problem.
Do the edges of all prints (regardless of where they're placed) warp, or do prints warp more on the edges of the actual print surface? The first has been discussed extensively here, the latter might indicate a calibration error.
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11864 | Running costs of 3D printing
In the year that I have had my Flashforge Adventurer 3 I have just had a second extruder head break. The replacement cost (in AUD) is 135.00.
But, I'll also need a new nozzle and a replacement ribbon cable for the extruder head. That will add another $40.00.
Apart from filament costs, that brings the cost of "consumables" for my printer in the last year close to $350.00
I'm beginning to think this makes the running costs for my 3D printing very high, but I have nothing to compare this with.
Does anyone care to share what it costs them to keep a 3D printer operational per year? Do my costs seem high?
Your running costs seem high, but realistic for a relatively closed-ecosystem printer. A replacement extruder head would've cost me around $20 on my printers. Nozzles are effectively free at $5 for 5, and I create the wiring harnesses myself.
As for other consumables, the things that spring to mind would be the V-slot rollers (around $25 for a complete makeover) and perhaps the extruder grab wheel (~$10 after lots of printing).
This is highly dependable on printer and the usage and is not answerable, this will more likely start a discussion. As such this is not a very good question to ask. E.g. my Ultimaker 3E (more than 10 times more expensive than a Flashforge Adventurer 3) doesn't need much maintenance, but if it does, the parts are expensive (e.g. nozzle "cores" for about €150, maintenance kit for €100+). After kilometers of 2.85 mm PETG I'm still using the first "cores". How does that compare to cheap low end printers?
@0scar I have a TronXY X1, which I swapped to a genuine e3d-v6, which still prints with its first nozzle and without any other maintenance done but the mods I installed to get it to run. MY ender3 though needed a replacement extruder, 2 nozzles and I am in my 4th or 5th build tak surface... it all depends on printer, setup and what you run through it! For example if you print PC, you either buy a 100€ ruby or print away stainless nozzles en masse.
Of the four comments so far, I have received one that could be considered an answer. Just because it is not a technical question with a specific answer does not make it an invalid question. I expected to canvas a range of opinions on this subject before summarising it all as an answer. I accept that the question could be refined. I'm really interested in 3D printers at the level an individual might buy and be responsible for rather than high-end ($50-$500k) equipment for business use.
Will, what is a "reasonable" maintenance is extremely dependant on your hardware! You might run your printer shop on 250$ printers and expect some 100$ in spare parts before your printer paid for itself. Or you might have a SLS printer, your running costs might be mainly power, powder and a costly laser-tube per 1000 running hours. Or you hava a stratasys system, you might pay only filament and power... and a quite expensive service contract per year... It all depends on your equipment!
I have a Prusa I3M3+MMU2, which I have had for a year.
During the first year, the display failed under warranty and replaced for free. The power supply also failed, and although Prusa replaced it, I was in a hurry and bought another supply to use as a backup for about \$60.00.
I have used two rolls of paper towels, a bottle of acetone, and a quart of isopropanol, for maybe \$5.00.
I have bought a spare thermister for about \$10.00, but haven't installed it yet.
I bought a couple of new nozzles for specialized materials for \$35.00, but the nozzle I got with the machine isn't worn.
I bought the textured build plate (when it was finally available) for about $30.00.
So, my running cost, exclusive of electricity, is about \$140.00, including buying accessories which haven't been consumed.
I have also bought way too much filament, which you aren't counting. Filament cost has dwarfed my other expenses.
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11865 | Printing Filatech PETG with HyperCube E3Dv6 Clone fails after 3 smooth layers
Recently I got a PETG filament from Filatech to print with my HyperCube printer with E3Dv6 clone Hotend. First 3 layers for every print are pretty fine but 4th layer doesn't stick and my prints fail like the picture below:
I use the following settings:
Slicer: Cura with Generic PETG profile
Hotend Temperature: 240 °C
Bed Temperature: 70 °C
Fan Speed: 100 % at the second layer
Print Speed: 50 mm/s (first 3 layers @ 30 mm/s)
I also tested 225 °C and 250 °C hotend temperatures. Both failing at the 4th or 5th layer. What is the issue here?
BTW I successfully printed with ABS and PLA with this printer.
PETG doesn't like to be cooled at 100 % fan speed. If it cools too much it won't stick (well) to the previous layer. When does the cooler fan kick in? I suspect after the 3rd layer.
Please add to your question when the part cooling fan kicks in at 100 %.
@0scar Added print speed and fan start layer. Now I think it might be related to both fan and print speed. 3 first layers print with 30 mm/s.
50 mm/s is about the upper limit of PETG for my filament with a E3D v6 @ 240 °C. I get better results with slightly lower speeds. I'm in the process of fitting an E3D Volcano to increase print speeds as I'm using 2.85 mm filament. Try lowering the fan speed first.
As this is material dependant, you are facing not a printer, but a settings issue: your slicer needs the right settigns to print PETG.
The first layers look good, but then we get signs of stringy printing. Stringy printing usually happens if the filament comes out of the nozzle too cold (I had tried to print PLA at 170 °C and it would look somewhat similar) or if it gets cooled or stretched too much (forced a print failure by speeding up a 60 mm/s print, somewhat similar around 250-300%; though the filament was not hot enough then too). This, in conjunction with the information, that you print PETG suggests the following things to fix:
Reduce or deactivate cooling. PETG often doesn't need cooling at all.
Reduce print speed. As 0scar said, 50 mm/s is a good upper limit on a well honed in machine. As your other layers with 30 mm/s were fine, you could possibly go down to 40 mm/s, if less cooling alone doesn't help.
Is the speed recommendation based on volumetric extrusion? For example, 60 mm/s and 0.6 mm extrusion width is equivalent to a 80 mm/s with EW 0.45 mm.
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11808 | Anycubic i3 Mega incorrect Heated Bed temperature Reading
It's been about a month since I've started using my Anycubic i3 Mega and everything has been going great. But today, I left it alone to print a 3DBenchy and it suddenly stopped mid-print. I didn't see it stop but once I came to the printer, the motors and the bed were at ambient temperature suggesting that it has stopped for quite a while. I was surprised that the Bed Temperature registered at over 200 ºC (although it wasn't at all hot) and tried to stop the print. However. I wasn't able to stop the print (It said stop failed) and I couldn't change the temperature, so I just switched the PSU off.
After leaving it for a few minutes, I turned the printer back on and the Bed Temperature still registered at absurd temperatures although it wasn't hot at all as seen on the Image Below.
I then tested the Hot End as the temperature seemed normal and it does seem to work and I was able to get some filament to be extruded out normally.
Any ideas on what happened here? It was working fine for an entire month and was working fine for the day, but mid-print it just suddenly broke. I've also uploaded a GIF to Imgur to show how the bed temp fluctuates a lot. Any help would be appreciated :)
I think that this question is pretty similar to "Ender 3 displaying wrong temperatures for hotend and bed", the OP fixed it by replacing the thermistor.
The first value, which is in your pictures 179 and 184 °C, is the measured value. The 0 °C value is the set value. It looks like the temperature reading from the hotbed is not working correctly. So there are two possible issues:
The cable on the backside leading to the hotplate might be damaged. This seems to be a common issue with this printer. You could check if the cables show any obvious damage.
The hotbed thermistor is broken. On the leads on the backside you can measure with a multimeter the resistance between the green an blue cables. Typical readings are in the range of 100 kΩ. If you touch the thermistor, usually it is placed in the mid area of the heatbed, the resistance should change.
Sorry for the super late comment but I suspect that the hotbed thermistor is broken, do you know if this thermistor is easily commercially available to buy and if so the compatible types? Thanks!
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11742 | 3D print Ember Autodesk issues affect print quality
does anyone know something about Autodesk Ember print issues?
Currently I am working on my master thesis and I would like to print with the Ember 3D printer a holder (see attachment) using the Luxaprint 3D mould from Detax.
My problem is as you can see it, the resolution
of print quality is very bad. Does anyone has an idea how to solve this problem?
Thanks a lot!!
Hi Lisia, welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! It is a bit difficult to see with this low resolution image. Do you have some better pictures?
Hi Oskar, Thank you! I add another picture maybe you can see the bad resolution of the print now better
To be honest, not really... but in my defense, I'm nearsighted and colorblind.
Okay, let me take new pictures and then I will upload it - sorry for that!
what are the dimensions of the item? How long did you set the cure times?
The dimensions are 9 mm x 9 mm and the cure time is 4 seconds for all layers
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11677 | Bed size and nozzle homing offset in Marlin 1.1.9 firmware
This is driving me up the wall, hope somebody can give me some advice...
I have an Anet A8 (metal frame, so 'AM8'). Bed is the original 220x220 mm. When the nozzle is at the X/Y end stops it is positioned 16 mm 'west' away from the bed (in free space) in the x-axis, and 5 mm 'north'.
The problem I'm having is with the X_BED_SIZE (surely 220) and X_MIN_POS settings. I keep falling into either the nozzle home a long way from the center (should be 110,110), or getting a message about end stops being too narrow for the bed. Given my sizings above, what should the following be?:
// @section machine
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 220
#define Y_BED_SIZE 220
// 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 240
Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE!
The original Anet A8 has:
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 220
#define Y_BED_SIZE 220
// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS -33
#define Y_MIN_POS -10
#define Z_MIN_POS 0
#define X_MAX_POS X_BED_SIZE
#define Y_MAX_POS Y_BED_SIZE
#define Z_MAX_POS 240
So in your case it would be:
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 220
#define Y_BED_SIZE 220
// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS -16
#define Y_MIN_POS -5
#define Z_MIN_POS 0
#define X_MAX_POS X_BED_SIZE
#define Y_MAX_POS Y_BED_SIZE
#define Z_MAX_POS 240
Tuning the bed to print exactly in the middle so that large prints fit on the build plate is described in question: "How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset)".
Thanks a lot Oscar. I was able to make that change, compile and upload, but it hasn't made a lot of difference. The homing nozzle position is about 20mm north and 28mm west of the actual bed center. This was what got me down this road in the first place... So I downloaded your calibration diagram from thingiverse, and it won't really print because the center is so off. The weird thing is, when I home the printer is heads off to X80 Y110. Why not X110 Y110 since that's clearly the center of 220x220?
Looks like I got there, bed centered and compiled as it should:
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 220
#define Y_BED_SIZE 220
// Travel limits (mm) after homing, corresponding to endstop positions.
#define X_MIN_POS -16
#define Y_MIN_POS 15
#define Z_MIN_POS 0
#define X_MAX_POS X_BED_SIZE
#define Y_MAX_POS 235
#define Z_MAX_POS 240
@AndyDove Are the endstop locations the same as on the Anet A8 (X on the left and Y on the back when facing the machine)? Note the (0, 0), the origin is the left front. So when the printer homes Y, the nozzle is in front of the bed, so a negative Y value should be used (in front of the bed is the negative Y). Maybe you can add a link to your config and I'll inspect it for you. I also have an AM8, modified to my needs.
Hello Oscar, thanks much and sorry for the stunted replies. Just in the lounge heading over to Austria (from Detroit) for a week of business so it's been a day of packing.
The printer is working much better. Stops are exactly as you describe, x on the left gantry and y on the rear right frame. Works well.
What was throwing me is that when the printer homes, it actually centers the bltouch on bed center rather than the nozzle, but when I print it's now printing dead center so all's good. I would send you my config, but I left it on my other laptop - some other time! Thanks again!! /Andy
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11974 | Methylated spirits or turpentine to clean resin printer?
I'm new to 3D printing and have bought a resin printer.
Cleaning with Isopropol Alcohol seems to be the rage, however I think this is unaware of cost savings. It appears methylated spirits is ok and is 25% the cost of Isopropol Alcohol.
I'm now down to wondering if I should buy methylated spirits or turpentine (I ruled out kerosene as too flammable)?
I'm leaning towards methylated spirits, however would like input.
Factors I'm curious about:
Cost: same for methylated spirits and turpentine.
Evaporation/solvency: ?
Flammability: ?
Poisonous levels: ?
Resin object cleaning effect: ?
Skin effects: ?
Smell: ?
I checked a few sources.
I would sort the items differently: 5 4 3 6 7 2 1. If it doesn't clean, the rest of the test is moot. If it is too dangerous to work with, the rest is moot. Cost is the last factor to look at.
If you use turps, you'll need something like isopropanol to clean that off the print. If you use meths in that sort of quantity on a regular basis, you might want to operate in a fume cupboard to avoid inhaling toxic methanol. Whichever solvent you use, you're going to be using nitrile gloves and eye protection at least because of the resin.
Thanks. There is a non smelling methylated spirits. I just ordered alphabetically, however I agree with Trish's priorities. I have bought methylated spirits.
I would personally stick to isopropanol. Be aware that 3D printing is a very expensive hobby, but health wise this is a better option. Methylated spirits can quickly become dangerous, and often can burn with a close to invisible flame, meaning that you may not even see if it is burning. Also, the fumes can quickly become dangerous, whereas after years of dealing with isopropanol I have noticed no ill effects. Cost should not be your primary concern, health of you and your printer should be.
Isopropyl alcohol is also very flammable. Please read both SMDS and see the similarities and differences. https://www.sceneys.com.au/media/pdfs/msds/Isopropyl_Alcohol_SDS.PDF https://www.cleaningessentials.com.au/images/sds/Methylated%20Spirits%20-%20SDS4741.pdf Know the information from a real science source not a single persons anecdote.
Both are Class 3 flammable. and have similar properties re danger.
@StacyDennis that has nothing to do with the ability of the alcohol to take resin into a solution.
@StacyDennis Isopropanol doesn't burn with an invisible/close to invisible flame. You can at least see it burning. I'm extremely aware of the fact that both are highly flammable.
Are you for real?
Isopropyl alcohol is less dangerous to your health than ethanol with a touch of denaturant?
Seriously read the MSDS sheets for the products and know what's in them before you say stuff.
The amount of MEK or MIBK is so small.
Some and not many methylated spirits have a small fraction of methanol but so little that it is safe to work with.
Why would they sell methylated spirits in the supermarket and not IPA if it was more dangerous?
Personally, I would read the SDS/MSDS sheet for the metho if you are worried and find one that is only denatured with Bitrex but to be honest I doubt there will be a health issue any more so than IPA with any of them.
Hi, Matthew. This would be a helpful answer if you listed some sources to support what you say. And welcome to the stack.
I agree with Matthew, there is no reason to think Methylated Spirits is more dangerous than IPA, and if someone believes there is, they should give reference to some science based rationale to push their point. "I've used it for years and I'm ok".. is not scientific.
I think Luke's answer needs more of this than Matthews @Davo..
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11964 | How to find correct part cooling fans?
I have a 2-pin 40 mm axial fan as part cooling fan. I don't post a link because I would like a general answer.
It runs on 12 V and when I start it at less than 40% it doesn't start. Even if I start at 100% and then I reduce the speed, at about 30% it stops.
When I read reviews online, I see people use fan speeds down to 10%, which no fan I have ever used can achieve.
How can I pick and connect a correct fan for part cooling, so that I can freely set the speed down to 10%?
If it works fine (and actually changes speed) from 40% to 100%, it shouldn't be the MOSFET or controller per se.
You may want to enable "FAN_KICKSTART_TIME" to give it a boost when starting, or use "FAN_MIN_PWM" to change the scale of the commands, so that even asking for 10% results in fan movement (at ~40%).
What is the AMP usage at 12V? Forget all this PWM stuff and get a fan that has a speed controller built in, which you can then control via the 3d printer's pwm.
If the fan you are using is not defective and if you test another fan that behaves in a similar manner, it's possible your firmware or hardware are the root cause of the problem.
The controller directs the driver to vary the power provided to the fan. It's a method called pulse wave modulation, aka PWM. Full voltage is applied to the fan one hundred percent of the time, for full speed operation.
For fifty percent performance, half of the time full voltage is sent, while half of the time no voltage is sent. The time period is rather short, but I didn't determine that aspect of this answer.
One can find a clear explanation of PWM online but one word is worth one one-thousandth of a picture:
If your fans are not performing properly, either the program embedded into the controller is buggy, or the driver module for that unit is bugging out.
I know PWM, but are all fans supposed to PWM down to so low values? 2-pin fans are not required to go this low, while PWM fans do.
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11912 | Simplify3D, connection disapear after slice
I have a problem with some models like this (trim_tabs version) : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3401852
When I import the model on simplify, the tabs are sticky to the model (see pic3.png) but when I slice it, on the preview, tabs are not sticky to the model (see pic1.png).
I tried to do it on Cura and it works ; tabs stay stiky to the model (see pics2.png).
What's wrong ?
I attach my Simplify and Cura profile to help.
To get pics and profiles :
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NkMBosI-xalRGjTSua1xDejZ2MKWZcV9
Welcome to SE, but please embedd the pictures. Google-drive does not work well with old machines, and for example I can't see them, so I can't try to help you; Slic3r is a specific program, not slicing in general.
I've tried that item as well. In fact, other than the heart, I built a remix which works better but is still difficult to free up after printing. Those tabs you're concerned about will print better at a very low (thin) layer setting.
I am pretty sure that the original design is faulty. All the "leaves" have gears which cause them to rotate when the threaded ring is turned. But the designer made all leaves identical! Each one needs its gear's null-position set differently so that it properly meshes with the thread positions of the outer ring at that leaf's placement. Some day I may remix to adjust those gear positions....
It's not uncommon that different slicers have different effects on different models.
The techniques used to slice the models differs. If the model you slice works fine in one and not in the other it's sometimes a setting but sometimes just the slicer.
Just use the slicer that works :)
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11890 | Can you fix a warped, removeable build surface backing?
I have an Ender 3 with a removeable build surface. The build surface backing has become warped - the center is at least 0.3 mm higher than the corners. I'm not sure what the material of this plate is - it's the part behind the BuildTak-clone surface that sits on the aluminum heat bed and is clipped to it. This makes it impossible to level the entire bed, and annoyingly tedious to level it enough just to use the center, since the paper method doesn't work at the corners. Can this be fixed, or do I need to source a replacement for it?
uhm.. photo please? my Ender3 has nothing clipped. BuildTak is glued to the aluminium bed... Do you have the removeable build-surface?
@Trish: Yes, I think most of the later ones do; AIUI only early ones shipped with the buildtak-clone glued to the aluminum bed. Anyway the question was a setup for a self-answer because I figured this could be useful to others.
Ah, that is the removeable Build Plate "upgrade", yes. I think that is a steel plate.
@Trish: It's definitely not steel. Reportedly it's some sort of acrylic.
hmmm, could you share a picture of the backside of the plate? it could be some sort of fiberglass reinforced plate or something...
Yes. I rigged up the following setup with blue tape and clips and a pen for tensioning, used the nozzle (unheated) to hold the center down against the bed, and set the bed to 100 °C for about an hour. Afterwards the curvature was in the opposite direction and easily compensated by clips.
If the backing of the build surface softens under heat, one might strap it into a contraption to heat, or just put it into an oven on a flat surface, baking it with some weight to flatten it fully.
An alternate to fixing the removeable build plate itself, one might considder to buy a (spring)steel plate and glue a new build surface onto it. Such a plate is really sturdy and would be mountable with the same clips. It might be also faster in heating behavior as steel is usually a better conductor than plastics. It might be thinner than the original sttack though.
Now such a steel plate also is magnetic and could be alternatively mounted by adding a set of high temperature resistant magnets set into the heat bed. Such a rework does however have a higher work needed than a pure fix.
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12175 | Casual under-extruding on Ender 3 (don't know what to do anymore!)
I own an Ender 3 that I bought in December 2018. I have now a problem with under extrusion that I don't know how to solve. I tried everything: I changed the nozzle, changed the PTFE, changed the filament, dismantled the hotend and controlled that nothing was blocking the flow. The problem is that it isn't a normal under extrusion: in fact, the printing starts quite well, then for some reason the filament doesn't flow anymore. If I try to push the filament I feel like there is a gap that, if I continue pushing, it's "filled" and then the plastic continues to flow normally for some time. And when it has to do very little parts of the printing, this problem occurs, and the final result is a disaster. I hope someone can help me because I don't know what to do. The photos show the condition of the printing, and I have also a brief video that explains the situation better. I added also an image of the original CAD file, so you can see how it should have been, and another project where you can see missing layers when things get "difficult" to print (but, in the past, the printer worked perfectly with such projects!) and a simple parallelepiped, that the printer printed perfectly (I assume it's because it never stops sending filament, I don't know). Thank you for your time.
DropBox link for the photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xav38c8tw8mgs8h/AAA7VGypWIrIR0RwB4Ih3O7ma?dl=0
YouTube link for the video (I recorded the printer printing and made a video with the most important moments such as when there is under extrusion; the video lasts 4 minutes and it can help you find the problem):
That is not under extrusion, that is no extrusion.
That sounds as a heat creep issue. Does the cold end gets properly cooled?
You may have a problem with the nozzle heat setting being too low for the flow rate, which is directly related to the travel speed.
As a background, when you're printing fast, the stepper motor driving the extruder has to move filament more quickly. That's obvious, but what is overlooked often is that the heater may not be able to move heat quickly enough to keep up with the filament.
Consider increasing your hot end temperature by five degree steps until you observe that the under-extrusion is resolved.
Some colors and brands of filament require adjustment in hot end temperatures. I'm currently printing with silk-like PLA. The filament I usually use prints at 210°C while it was necessary to turn up the temperature to 225°C to prevent nozzle clog.
Not yet viewed in my inbox is a YouTube subscription notice regarding "calibrating your hot end:"
YouTube hot end calibration
I suspect it may be of value to you in your current situation.
I've tried with only 5 degrees more, and the problem seems solved for now. Thanks for the answer, I'll update the situation in the future!
Glad to hear that it's working for you. Remember that different colors, manufacturers and types of filament require different temperatures. That was overlooked in the video, which I eventually viewed. If you find my answer to be the best available, please select the check mark to accept it.
For some prints, the problem seemed to be solved. This morning I printed a project (I can even share it with you, it's a lateral spool holder found on Thingiverse) and some of the last layers weren't perfect (a bit of under extrusion, nothing big). But, when I tried to push the filament, I noticed that it required a lot of force, more than the force that I had ever used. Now the line extruded is very little. I disassembled the hotend, but nothing is blocking the passage of the filament. Do you have any new suggestions for the problem?
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12098 | Printer inverted Y-axis
I made a custom printer with RAMPS. I used Y-MIN endstop at beginning. After few prints I discovered that Y-axis was inverted (mirrored).
I fixed Marlin firmware and now I have:
#define Y_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING true
#define INVERT_Y_DIR false
#define Y_HOME_DIR 1
#define USE_YMAX_PLUG
I also connected the Y-endstop to Y-max pin on RAMPS.
Now the printer homing in the same direction than before (in front) and the y-endstop works as expected.
If I try to start printing or if I try to press the "center" button in Pronterface, the Y-axis moves in the wrong direction.
Can someone help me?
When facing your printers Y-axis (so from the front), where is the Y-endstop located? In the back or in the front? Adding a sketch may help.
the Y-endstop is in front and the motor is in the back.
This blog post shows 3 main solutions:
Flipping the motor cables (As suggested in the other answer)
Switching the x and y-axis:
This may switch the direction of your y-axis depending on the way your printer is setup)
Change the direction of the axis in firmware which you can see below how to do:
"When the solution opens up, you will see many different files open. You need to navigate to the Configuration.h file. Within this file scroll down to the following lines of code:"
// Invert the stepper direction. Change (or reverse the motor connector) if an axis goes the wrong way.
define INVERT_X_DIR true
define INVERT_Y_DIR true
define INVERT_Z_DIR true
"This is where you need to switch the values around. If they are currently true, change them to false and if they are false, change them to true. Due to the fact I was having issues with my x-Axis, I have changed the above to the following:"
// Invert the stepper direction. Change (or reverse the motor connector) if an axis goes the wrong way.
define INVERT_X_DIR false
define INVERT_Y_DIR true
define INVERT_Z_DIR true
Usually I just flip the connector around on the board. This causes the stepper to reverse without fiddling around with firmware.
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12046 | Cura Filling holes from a model from Blender
I am Attempting to print this, from Blender
But Cura decides to fill in the middle part of the model.
I exported and imported the model from an STL file.
If anyone can answer this, that would be greatly appreciated.
Likely the STL file is not actually valid (doesn't make up a manifold). I'm not sure if getting bad STL files like that is a common issue that can happen with Blender; it happens with various low-quality tools.
:D there are faces inside the infill area.
Have you tried to heal your model in Meshlab, then save and import into Cura?
Nope, I've never tried Meshlab, never even heard of it until now.
Try disabling the "Union Overlapping Volumes" option on Mesh Fixes section. Worked for me.
I would recommend using an actual CAD/CAM program, such as Autodesk Fusion 360, instead of using a 3d model program. Not only will this be able to directly export you finished model to Cura, and the models are made in a way that works with a 3d printing slicer, there will be more help around 3D printing for it.
Although it is slightly difficult to use to start with, as you become more proficient, it is a very powerful tool to have. . Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists or students. See this link for help activating: https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360-for-hobbyists.
Another option would be SolidWorks, although you do have to pay for this option, but it is much simpler to work with in my opinion.
SolidWorks is so extremely expensive -- $4000+ USD -- that "you have to pay" does not really describe it.
Other free option that are easier to use for beginners: Design Spark Mechanical. Not as powerful though.
@Trish Thanks for suggesting that. I will edit my post and add it.
I've never had problems with models from FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, or QCAD, either.
@Davo I'll edit my answer later to include these suggestions. I first need to try them though just to make sure there are no problems, or if there is anything confusing about it. Thanks.
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12067 | Finding the right material to print RC CAR cover
My problem is that I have used a 3D printing machine from the University and found out that the cover for the car was not smooth even after using sanding paper and painting it.
What material would work best to print the cover of the Cyber truck. I want it to be light and smooth.
I have to print it from any online companies that have this service here in Germany.
welcome to 3DP/SE. "Smooth" is not necessarily helpful as an adjective here, as it means different things to different people in different contexts and applications. Perhaps photographs would help to highlight the specific problems you are facing? Also, I am confused by the question a bit, since the first part makes it seem that you have direct access to a 3D printer, but the second part suggests that you are purchasing services. There may be different answers for the two situations.
@cmm, I do have access to printers, however from previous experience I was not happy how the covers of the rc cars looked like and that is the reason why maybe an online service with a different material would be better. I have used PLA
I have 3D printed models which were then sanded using progressively finer grades of sandpaper, terminating with wet sanding using micromesh to 12000 grit. The result was smooth and shining without any coating applied.
If your original results were not acceptable, the process may have been flawed and should be re-considered for technique.
For your purposes, as a body for a radio controlled vehicle, you'll want to consider something that can manage an impact reasonably well. ABS is going to be less expensive and provide some energy absorption but will have layer lines that require sanding and finishing. Layer thickness plays a substantial part in providing for good results and a smooth finish. I used 0.100 mm layers to get optimum smoothness.
You could request your model to be created in nylon using the SLS method, but the surface will be granular and would also require sanding to accomplish a smooth finish.
SLA or MSLA resin printed models will provide a very smooth surface, but the material is brittle and may crack during "on-road" use. You may find a printing service which offers to create using a more flexible resin, but you'd have to request that or confirm the selection when placing the order.
Don't forget ABS can be vapor smoothed with acetone :-)
I've done a number of ABS models and the vapor smoothing works great. It's not so good for details, but on a full-scale banana, the results were striking!
An RC car hood could be 3D printed, vapor smoothed and then the edges re-crisped with sanding. Also, note that ABS is often said to sand neater.
ABS requires a printer with enclosure, or it will warp and never match very accurately the shape of the cover you expect.
@FarO, It's not an absolute that ABS requires an enclosed printer. I've printed ABS on a genuine Prusa MK2s and a Robo3D R1+ with no distortion. Using a full height ooze shield will often resolve any cooling problems.
You may consider PETG too. It's not as strong as ASA or ABS but it's much easier to print.
You can polish it by first sanding and then flame-smoothing.
See this video from CNC kitchen about comparing the different materials (ABS is not considered because similar to ASA in properties but more difficult to print) and see this video about flame-smoothing PETG.
Choice of Material
PLA is an obvious choice, but it has drawbacks compared with ABS.
PLA is more brittle than ABS.
PLA softens at a lower temperature than ABS.
PLA is not treatable with acetone for vapor smoothing.
PLA can not be glued
with (most) solvent-based adhesives.
I would consider ABS or ASA to be good choices for an RC-car body.
Getting Smooth Surfaces
To get a really smooth surface, after printing with thin layers and good print settings to minimize strings and blobs, you will want to treat the surface. The two most common techniques are sanding and vapor smoothing.
Wet Sanding is Great. Dry Sanding is Not.
Sanding is a great smoothing technique for PLA and even for ABS, but one must be careful. In addition to some of the sand paper grains being aligned as proper cutters to remove material, many grains are uselessly aligned and simply contribute to friction. The plastics used in FFF printing are, by definition, thermoplastics and will melt. One can easily soften and even melt plastic with dry sanding.
When the plastic softens, it can form little balls which dig into the surface, or stick to the surface. These hurt the surface finish like snowmen mar a field of freshly fallen snow.
Any sanding should be done wet, with wet-rated paper. Work up through the grits. Lower grit abrasive removes more material so that the surface can be "even". Lower grit lets you sand out the layer lines quickly.
Use a Sequence of Grits
Higher grit papers remove the scratch marks of the previous grit.
Generally, I go up by about 50% of grit number at each change.
When I am removing a lot of plastic and want to end with a glossy surface, I go through this sequence: 36->80->120->180->220->330->400->500->1000->1500->2500->3600->5000. Yes, I know that there are some big jumps there, but I haven't happened to stock papers at intermediate points, and it works for me. Depending on how smooth the surface already is, or how much material I must remove, I start further up the progressing. For 3D printed objects, I start at 220. The last three are critical.
Consider Adding Vapor Finishing to you Toolbox
Vapor finishing of ABS can give some very fine and glossy results. It is worth trying, although be aware that acetone mist is very flammable. If you are heating the acetone, treat it as life-threatening and possibly explosive.
If you use vapor finishing, consider that the acetone goes into the ABS. A warm soak or vacuum degassing could help remove it. You don't want the hood of your RC car to start bubbling in the sun as the acetone is motivated to escape.
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12094 | Does the Elegoo Mars printer support additional file formats?
I recently bought an Elegoo Mars 3D printer. Generally speaking, I'm quite happy with it. But, I don't care for the slicing software, Chitubox. Does the Elegoo Mars support other 3D file formats? I have tried *.stl files, but they don't seem to work with the factory firmware.
Stl files are source models, not the sliced data for the printer. I'm not familiar with resin printer file formats. What does their proprietary slicer output?
A Chitubox file, with a *.cbddlp extension.
Searching for it turns up that it's the same thing as .photon format and there are a number of open source tools for working with it. I would start with googling "photon slicer" and see what you find in the results.
It also works with the .photon format of the Photon slicer.
It is only marginally better than ChituBox though.
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13308 | Pile up objects and attach them for mass 3D printing
I'm completely new to 3D-printing. Because of Covid-19, my dad got a Dagoma Magis 3D printer and we are printing protective visors for hospital workers here in France.
We have been given a 3D model that we can simply load on the printer and it works pretty much alone. The 3D-printed part is quite small and very flat so we thought about piling six or seven of them up so we can let the printer work during the night. Then in the morning we would simply have to detach each piece from the pile using pliers. I thought about doing this using Blender (I know nothing about 3D but I've heard Blender is a good tool for that). In fact, I started by posting this question to the Blender stackexchange, which redirected me here.
This is the piece (or two pieces, actually) that I want to pile up.
My strategy would be to extrude small cylinders to the shape from different points and copy and paste the model several times. The end result would look like this:
The yellow bits are the cylinders I want to insert to separate the different parts. So when it is printed, I can simply cut them to separate each visor.
To do this, I think the best way to proceed is the following steps:
Load up the model as I did (imported an STL file)
Add some tiny cylinders (or another shape) on the top of it by extruding them
Copy and paste the shape and move it along the Z axis to pile them up
Fuse everything together and merge it as a single item
Export as STL
Put into 3D printer.
Is that a good strategy? How should I proceed?
I looked up everywhere at how to extrude a cylinder, or copy-paste a shape and attach it together, but in vain. I'm too clueless about Blender to figure how to do this. I could only manage to make a circle spawn at the origin of the plot.
I know stackexchange is mostly for professionals and this is a beginner question, but this is a quite peculiar situation. I really want to do it fast, as the quicker we print the visors, the faster the medical staff can have them.
Also, if you recommend using anything else than Blender, I'm up to anything.
Hi, welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! SE is for everybody, not for professionals only, we all were beginners! This is actually a very good first question!
Don't modify the STL to separate the visors with cylinders. The rest of the part is unsupported, so this will give you lots of support structures or, if omitted, a gigant spaghetti print.
Josef Prusa is already printing stacked visors on his print farm overnight.
I would stack the models of a set of visors in my slicer and for each visor added after the first disable "dropping print to the build plate" and position each consecutive visor one layer height (e.g. 0.2 mm) higher than the last layer of the previous, this way you use the previous visor as a raft for the next.
Below, a reference of someone who prints 8 parts stacked (4 high) overnight:
I wanted to be able to print more than just 2 at a time. Specially over the night when everyone is sleeping. I came up with the idea to stack them on top of each other. Instead of 2 you could print 8 during night. If your printer has smaller build plate and you can only print one its also big help for you.
After printing jsut simply peel them away and they will break loose.
Gap between parts is 0.3 mm .
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12239 | How to fix a Duet3D board on an Ender 3 frame pausing mid-print
I have just installed a Duet3D Wifi 2 on an Ender 3 Pro. I sliced my first print using Cura and uploaded it via the web interface. It prints fine, except that it pauses for 10 seconds several times per layer. This occurs at the same points on each layer. Here is a video I recorded to show the idea: https://vimeo.com/400385336
I have used the Ender 3 profile in Cura 4.4.0, only changing the G-code flavor to RepRap.
I have not been able to identify what is going on, any ideas?
"changing the G-code flavor to RepRap." - The printer runs on Marlin as shipped. Did you flash a different firmware?
The Duet3D board runs on RepRap https://www.duet3d.com/
by swapping the board you turned your printer basically into a new machine. Ender3 fixes won't help, you need to use RepRap fixes now. Retagged.
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12233 | How do I access Configuration.h?
I am very new to 3D printing and I am trying to adjust my firmware. I use the Arduino IDE 1.8.12.
I downloaded the firmware from GitHub that suits my printer, but every time that I try to open the marlin.ino file within, it opens in the Arduino with only the blue "marlin" tab. It doesn't load the other tabs such as Configuration.h and Configuration_adv.h.
I have watched a few YouTube videos, and in all of them, these tabs seem to open automatically.
Thank you very much for any help, I've been struggling to figure this out.
Did you download Marlin 2.0.x and opened it an older Arduino IDE? Older versions of Arduino IDE do not work with directory structure layout of Marlin 2.0.x.
Thanks for the reply, I have arduino 1.8.12 and Im trying to open Marlin 2.0.x
You can also use VSCode and PlatformIO plug-in
Does this help to answer your question? Updating Marlin Firmware - Step by Step Guide
Can you copy the files to a "real" PC and open the .h files in a text editor?
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13363 | Weird solid infill for chamfer
I am very frustrated with some weird solid infill issue, mostly due to sloped wall such as chamfer for fillet.
Here is an example. I have a 20x20x20 mm cube with 2 mm rounded chamfer at the bottom shown in the figure.
When I slice it using default 0.20 mm profile, at layer 5 I can see some wiggle solid infill near the wall, shown in figure:
I thought that is to help create the chamfer. BUT, if I increase the bottom solid layer number to 50, at layer 51 (which is way above the chamfer region already), I start to see that same wiggle solid infill again! This can't be correct... Shown in the figure:
I am using the most recent PrusaSlicer 2.2.0
The reason I want to get rid of those wiggles is because they create crazy vibrations which then create layer shift for me...
Any help will be appreciated!
What software did you create the cube in? Also, please post the setting for slicing (most relevant); it appears that there is a solid infill layer at layer 50? Looks as if 2 cubes are stacked...
Stiffen your frame. That should be your foremost concern. Just throwing that in here.
user77232, the wiggles of note are not structurally related, they are coded into the build by the slicer.
What are your wall settings -- thickness, etc.
Please answer in which software the cube is designed.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.772362 | 2020-04-07T21:34:39 | {
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13475 | Any defacto standards for controlling new tooling options on generic 3D printers (firmware control and signaling)?
Are there any defacto standards for interfacing between common 3D printers and custom extruders or other tooling? I was thinking how it would be good to have switchable nozzle widths mounted on the same heat block and switched between using a solenoid so you could have say a 0.25 mm for surface layer and details, then swap to 0.6 mm for the infill.
What would be the path of least resistance so it could be accessed in generic firmware?
The design I was thinking would be similar to a generic aluminium heat block with two nozzles screwed in side by side with there inputs meeting in an inverted Y junction with its center drilled out and replaced by a rod with appropriate channeling to divert the already molten plastic between nozzles. Turning the rod would be done from a solenoid mounted somewhere behind the heat-break.with a clamping mechanism.
you mean swapping the nozzles or whole printheads?
Just the nozzle
That will be challenging to fabricate a rotating/sliding mechanism. In firmware it is easy, just select the next tool and handle the tool change in the tool change script. But, I think this idea is outweighed by dual nozzle designs or tool changer designs. Actually, my Ultimaker 3E can already have multiple nozzle sizes. The only thing to do is to appoint the correct nozzle to the correct section to print (infill extruder in Cura).
Generally: nozzles are not changed, the whole tool head is
While "tool change" is easy to implement in a G-code and could be easily adapted in the firmware, there are several practical issues to hot-swapping nozzles without swapping the whole hotend assembly:
The hotend is a fluid-dynamic system that needs to be sealed to operate under pressure and temperature.
The seal of the nozzle-heatbreak system is in most systems a metal-on-metal pressure seal
Rubber seals are not an option in a system that runs over 180°C
Moving metal seals are very hard to make and run smoothly.
Your idea: especially No
There is literally no way to design a turning Y-switch that fits the following bills:
sealed
filament path ~2 mm
screw-in diameter for heatbreak and nozzles M6
creates enough free space between the lower outlets to mount 2 M6 nozzles with enough space to hold a wrench (=15mm diameter of centers)
fit into the form factor of a conventional heater block
Your idea would need to be considerably larger, need a stronger heater element and creates an impossibly to clean area around the turning junction peg. Atop that, you would trade 1 area of possible leak (between heatbreak and nozzle) for 3 areas of possible leaks (nozzle-block and heatbreak block) and one area of guaranteed leak (the turning peg).
How is it done then?!
Currently, there are the following ways to swap between different of nozzles mid-print that have been proven to work somewhat reliably:
fixed independent print heads with independent carriages.
fixed independent nozzles and heaters on one carriage.
swapping print heads on one carriage.
The first design is used for example in the Leapfrog Bolt, combined heads are for example the e3D Chimera, Cyclops and Kraken. e3D also designed on a reliable printhead - or rather tool - swapping system starting about 2018 and did release it to the public in late 2019.
Type 1 needs you to level the printheads well and to the same height in the easy case, but with the right setup of firmware, a Z-offset of the two tools can be included and compensated for - possibly even automatically. Type 3 does usually demands you to include very accurate offsets of the used tools or includes a way to measure the offset during operation, though I lack insight into how e3D solves it. Both setups can mitigate oozing of the unused nozzles out of the printing volume.
Type 2 not only demands hyper exact leveling, but it also is very prone to create some sort of oozing of the unused nozzle.
Tool change is M06 (then some value specifying what change to occur). You will need to implement the necessary changes in the firmware to support whatever electronics is required to perform the tool change (eg stepper driver | hobby servo, mosfets to run the solenoid).
Once done, your slicer now has to do the work of knowing that there is a different nozzle size for different parts of the model. I know of no, slicer that can do that for different sizes on the same layer.
As for your idea: manual "tool changes" might be a better way to go, otherwise you would have to put the entire hot end on a carousel.
Proposed hot end ejection mechanism
The link (authored by me) describes a fast removal system for manually changing the hot end nozzles before prints. The electronics would need to be connected via pogo pins so that the installer doesn't need to connect any wires.
Further in this video (Printhead swapping), the author shows a magnetically attached and registered quick swap hot end, which can even swap the extruder.
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13501 | Hotend on a Neutron printer: E3D vs MK8
I own a Creality Ender 3 printer, and have been printing on it for about a year.
I thought it might be fun and instructive to build a Neutron printer (https://cobyhuang.com/ATOM-Neutron) using my Ender 3 to print the parts.
The Neutron printer can use either an E3D hotend, or an ATOM 2.5 MK3 hotend.
I think that the E3D hotend is more common, so I think that is the one I'll go with.
It occurs to me that the heater block for an E3D hotend uses an M6 thread for the heat break and the nozzle. Likewise, my Ender 3's heater block also uses M6 threads.
Here is my question, it is possible to replace the heater block and nozzle on an E3D hotend with a heater block and nozzle from an Ender 3? Not that I'd disassemble my Ender 3 mind you, but it would be nice to have one set of interchangeable parts.
Yes, but...
Technically, you can reuse your old heater block and nozzles and just buy a new heartbreak and cooling body or the other way around. However, you might run into problems under working conditions, especially if you install the heater block together with its native heating cartridge and thermosensor. Installing a thermosensor to which the printer is not adjusted to can lead to all kinds of problems - Firmware update is a must!
Another source of trouble could stem from not taking care in the change itself. The Makerbot MK8 seals the hotend by pressing the liner against the nozzle, which itself is seated against the heartbreak, just like the e3D lite6 seals itself. On the other hand an all-metal e3D v6 seals itself by seating the heartbreak against the nozzle on a larger area. If the seal is imperfect, the Makerbot Mk8 style tends to leak out through the top. Such a leak can leave plastic in the threading which has to be removed carefully before reusing.
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13534 | Zortrax m200 skipping through menu options on it own and live print bed
Out of the blue I’ve noticed my m200 has been skipping through menu options as if someone is pushing and scrolling the control knob randomly. Then getting a print off today I got several small electric shocks off the print bed through the spatula. Does anyone have experience of this or to I have a £1500 paperweight?
This sounds really concerning.
Instantly remove the machine from the power and check EVERY wire if it might be broken!
Check if your power supply is properly grounded!
Check if the connectors of the bed are undamaged!
I have done and nothing is obvious. I might try it on a different power loop. I’ve only been able to find one other case online of the bed acting live but not the menu skipping.
@JamesB the buttons might be borked. Or your grounding line might be damaged - or not connected to the house ground.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.773463 | 2020-04-26T17:53:10 | {
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13624 | 3D printer emulator
Hello everyone I'm developing a system to remotely manage several printers at the same time, using the OctoPrint API.
I would like to know if there is any way to emulate printers to do the tests, because I only have one printer and I would need several, even if they were virtual.
I tried simrerap but it seems to be too old, and didn't work.
An emulator? as in something that accepts the G-Code and runs it?
(I asked because I have one that can do that, but it is unreleased. I've considered releasing it; perhaps now is a good time)/
@user77232, I don need that it execute gcode right now, I just want that Octoprint detects it as a printer, to work with the API, read sensors etc etc etc....
Reading sensors requires executing g-code; octoprint communicates via printers with g-code. The emulator would need to be able to understand and "execute" g-code that octoprint sends to it.
@user77232, yes you are right sorry I was thinking on gcode only for tool move and print, but you are right all the communication is made with gcode
it's just serial communication, so you can make simple mockups with a PC or an MCU like arduino.
@dandavis can you share it?
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13635 | Face where there should be no face
When importing this .stl file in Creality Slicer another face appears in the middle when viewed in layered view. This face is not visible in my 3d modeling software Blender. I tried cleaning up the model a bit and to triangulate the faces myself, neither helped and the problem is still there. Also I didn't find anything online.
At the intersection of the top and bottom planes of the cross-piece and the cylinder, there are non-manifold edges. Meshmixer is able to identify this problem but cannot repair it. My slicer, Simplify3D also identifies the faults and prints a solid cylinder between the planes. Prusa Slicer 2 also creates a solid at that location.
As you've indicated that you are the creator, consider to use the 3D printing features within Blender to assist you with repairing the problem locations.
File ‣ User Preferences (or Ctrl-Alt-U)
to open the User Preferences menu.
In the Add-ons tab, start typing 3d print into the search bar. Once
the “Mesh: 3D Print Toolbox” shows up, click the checkbox on the far
right to enable this add-on.
Close the User Preferences window.
In the Tool Shelf, there should be a new 3D Printing tab.
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13710 | Longer LK4 Pro moving to corner mid print
My printer is the Longer LK4 Pro, and I just got it 2 days ago. When I started to print some objects, on a certain layer, the printer would stop and move to the far right corner of my bed. What can I do to fix this?
Hi, welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! Is it instructed to do so? Have you checked the G-code file? Do you know what layer? What layer is it printing, e.g. a very small one, is it happening with all prints? Please add more context to the question, otherwise it will be difficult to troubleshoot.
It's possible that the slicer is using a minimum cooling time per layer and the corner is set as its home coordinates. In the settings of your printer you can set the home coordinates and in the slicer you can reduce/remove the time between layers.
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13698 | All-metal hotends are less forgiving / not as good for PLA -- but how bad?
Currently, I'm using a Creality printer to print PLA (that's what I have on hand) but I'm definitely interested in working with other materials that require higher temperatures (both much higher, and just enough higher that the stock hotend is very marginal) in the future.
I understand that all-metal hotends are less forgiving and that they particularly are not the best for printing PLA, and shouldn't be assumed to be an upgrade when only printing PLA.
What I don't understand is, how bad are they? Are they so bad that I should plan on changing back to a PTFE hotend whenever I print PLA or ABS? Or are they suitable for use on a printer that is sometimes used for printing PLA and ABS and sometimes printing high-temp filaments?
Simplified version (needs expansion to be an answer): due to heat creep & lacking non-stick property of PTFE for the entire path to nozzle, retracted filament can finish solidifying and jam in heatbreak/coldend.
ABS does not suffer from heatcreep to a degree that you need to concern about it like for PLA.
From close experience, I know of printer types (commercial available, I will not release the brand) that are excellent in printing ABS, but cannot produce a single print in PLA no matter the settings! Answering how bad is subjective, I'm running an Ultimaker 3 (no PTFE lining) a large CoreXY (no PTFE lining) and my own Prusa i3 design (with lining), either genuine E3D and clones, and can print PLA without a problem. So it ranges from total success to total failure. IMHO, your question cannot be answered. Cooling of cold end and tuning retraction settings is key.
All-metal hotends are less forgiving
Yes
not as good for PLA
No
but how bad?
That is very subjective and totally depending on the skill of the 3D printer operator! So, that part of the question cannot be answered.
Fact is that all-metal hotends are sold as being upgrades to lined versions, this is simply not true. It is a different design that can handle higher temperatures. To operate such hotends you require a little more experience as these hotends are a little less forgiving if you do not have the right slicer settings. Key parameters are hotend temperature, cold end cooling and retraction speed and length and amount of retractions in the model.
Another fact is that e.g. the Ultimaker cores concept (we opened a 0.4 mm core to see that for ourselves) doesn't use a PTFE lining, nor do other brands. They can perfectly print PLA (even with a high retraction length). The only time if failed printing PETG (higher temp than PLA) was the result of a heat creep induced clog which was caused by a cooling fan failure (the cooling fan ingested something and seized up), so just one print of a few meters of the several kilometers 2.85 mm that got printed.
Are they so bad I should plan on changing back to a PTFE hot end?
No, all metal hot end are not that bad, and may even be beneficial when printing at higher temperatures. You mentioned that you want to print ABS and other such materials. At temperatures this high, my understanding is that the PTFE tube in the hot end may melt, or at least become so damaged that the hot end is blocked, leading to needing to replace the tube. My first 3D printer used a PTFE ho tend, which due to the printing temperatures I was using, and lack of knowledge of the many types of hot end, the tube got damaged after about 2/5 hours, leading to me needing to replace the tube. I eventually sent the printer back, got my money back and got a printer with an all metal hot end. That has never failed me in hundreds of hours of printing.
Are not the best for printing PLA
I have never had a problem printing PLA with an all metal hot end, however if you are printing just PLA, a PTFE hot end would be just fine, although not as versatile if you wanted to try different materials in the future.
In Summary:
Provided you print fast enough (I regularly print at 60 mm/s) to ensure that no filament cools down in the hot end you should be fine.
Could you expand on whether this includes printing of models with lots of travel moves where you need frequent retraction to print accurately (without oozing loads of material all over the place in the wrong places), with a working amount of retraction? It's very plausible for an all-metal hotend to work fine printing vases or anything with simply-connected cross-sections, but jam badly due to heat creep under repeated retraction. And as I understand it the particular hotend and how it's installed make a lot of difference to whether that happens.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Retraction typically doesn't cause me any issues. Provided you aren't retracting for hours (unsure how that is even possible), you should be fine. The hot end is still warm enough to re-melt the filament. I always just push a bit of filament through before I start my first print, just to ensure that it is all melted. also, I print 5 - 10 degrees warmer with an all metal hot end just to make sure.
Concern is not duration of a single retraction but retracting roughly the same segment of filament many times, and having it get stuck because of how/where it melts/solidifies or because of non-smooth (compared to PTFE) metal surface or actual ridges.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE Sorry, I misunderstood. Surely if the hot-end wasn't smooth, or was so rough it was causing major issues, it would be time to get a new one?
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13699 | What hotend designs exist as paired all-metal and PTFE-lined versions?
I know that the E3D V6 hotend exists in both the all-metal V6 version, and the PTFE-lined Lite6 version with the same mount and form factor.
What other hotend designs are available like this?
Hotend Designes in General
Lined
Makerbot Mk8 & e3D Lite6
The Makerbot Mk8 seen on many Chinese machines and the E3D Lite6 are both lined hotends, which means the PTFE liner goes down into the heartbreak and butts against the nozzle. This style is very easy to print PLA with, but can't print hotter than about 240 °C.
Makerbot MK10
A variant of the lined hotend is the Makerbot MK10, where the PTFE goes a bit into the nozzle. These nozzles have a larger diameter, the melt zone is very short.
All Metal
There are mainly two designs of consumer all-metal hotend out there at the moment.
E3D v6
Stereotypical by now, the All Metal hotend typically means E3D v6. The liner ends at the end of the heartbreak, the heartbreak of the original is necked down to reduce heat creep. The design is flawed in that heat creep can't be mitigated completely. While this design can print much higher temperatures than lined hotends, the heat creep can create trouble with PLA.
E3D Hemera
The dreamchild of the v6 is the Hemera (formerly Hermes), which fights the problem of heat creep by drastically altering the coolend design: The heartbreak is even slimmer than the v6 and has very little area outside of the cooling block. This cooling block is fitted with a somewhat stronger fan. In theory this leads to much better cooling in the upper filament path and getting heat creep under control. However, due to the manufacturing stop induced by COVID-19, there are not too many Hemera out in the wild. Some early to mid development information could be gained from Joel and Thomas Sanladerer.
Among the still few reviews I have found is Thomas Sanladerer.
Slice Engineering Mosquito Hotend
Slice engineering went a different way to fight heatcreep in an unined all metal hotend: The heatsink is mode away from the filament path and serves as its own structure. As a downsize, each and every part is pretty much precision machined, making it comparably expensive: without heater, thermosensor, and extruder the bare item clocks in 145$. Claimed benefits are, that the thinner filament path (as it doesn't need to be structural) from a low heat-conducting material reduces heat creep and because we have an unlined filament path it can print at 450 °C, making it one o the highest-rated hotends.
Slice Engineering Copperhead
Currently, the same company is working on the Copperhead, in which they introduce a dual metal construction on necked heatbreak. The name Bi-Metal for this however would be a misnomer: Bimetal is a standing technical term for a strip of metals that, when heated, starts to tilt into one direction because of dissimilar heat expansion. The correct term, which they properly use on their website is Bimetallic, not Bimetal.
Because of the dissimilar thermal behavior, such a setup needs to be designed and machined very carefully, but could, help to dissipate the heat from the filament path and massively reduce heatcreep. The Copperhead as shown currently is offered for preorder with two mounting options, one of them the e3D style groove., which might allow drop-in replacement of a full hotend.
The heartbreak however alone could suffice to get some of the effects, and as the website shows, it would be available as a drop-in replacement part. However, pricing and effectivity remain still to be seen.
Paired?!
At the time of this writing in May 2020, the combination of e3D v6 and Lite6 using the same outer form factor is pretty much unique to them and their clones. The Trianglelab Dragon hotend (a review of it here) uses the e3D v6 Style connector on a Slice Enginering Mosquito Hotend design, making it pretty much paired to the two.
However the main functioning parts of the distinction is the heartbreak being either part of the cooling body and lined or a separate piece. The e3D v6 does use the same M6 threading that is also used in a Makerbot Mk8 and many Chinese clones on many machines [Some are M7, so beware!], and thus one can easily make a Frankenstein Hotend by combining the pre-mounted cooling body with a proper e3D v6 heartbreak and turn the lined into an All Metal hotend.
Do note that many Chinese cloned hotends aren't M6 (for the whole heat break like the E3D heat breaks), although they are E3D v6 clones they are M7, hence my large spare part inventory... The threads for the heater block are indeed M6.
Can't the heat creep issue occur with all sorts of non-PLA materials too? It's probably less of an issue with very high-temp ones though.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE it appears, but doesn't hinder the printing in the same way as in PLA.
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11335 | Driving a Stepper Motor with a Mini-Rambo Controller
I have been working with the MiniRambo Controller to try to drive 3 stepper motors using the AccelStepper library. The stepper motors are NEMA 17s with the following specifications:
I am trying to avoid using Marlin Firmware because I want to first make a 2D printer (i.e. a "drawbot") using my own code before upgrading my build to be a 3D printer. Thus far, I have the following for code, where the pin mappings were taken from the Marline firmware and checked against the schematic on the wiki linked above.
#include "AccelStepper.h"
#include "Wire.h"
#define X_STEP_PIN 37
#define X_DIR_PIN 48
#define X_MIN_PIN 12
#define X_MAX_PIN -1
#define X_ENABLE_PIN 29
#define X_MS1_PIN 40
#define X_MS2_PIN 41
#define Y_STEP_PIN 36
#define Y_DIR_PIN 49
#define Y_MIN_PIN 11
#define Y_MAX_PIN -1
#define Y_ENABLE_PIN 28
#define Y_MS1_PIN 69
#define Y_MS2_PIN 39
#define Z_STEP_PIN 35
#define Z_DIR_PIN 47
#define Z_MIN_PIN 10
#define Z_MAX_PIN 23
#define Z_ENABLE_PIN 27
#define Z_MS1_PIN 68
#define Z_MS2_PIN 67
#define E0_STEP_PIN 34
#define E0_DIR_PIN 43
#define E0_ENABLE_PIN 26
#define E0_MS1_PIN 65
#define E0_MS2_PIN 66
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_XY_PIN 46
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_Z_PIN 45
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_E_PIN 44
#define LED_PIN 13
#define ELECTRONICS "RAMBo13a"
AccelStepper stepper(1, Y_STEP_PIN, Y_DIR_PIN); // 1 = Driver
void setup() {
analogWrite(46,166);
stepper.setMaxSpeed(200);
stepper.setSpeed(50);
stepper.setAcceleration(10);
stepper.setEnablePin(Y_ENABLE_PIN);
stepper.setPinsInverted(false, false, true); //invert logic of enable pin
stepper.enableOutputs();
}
void loop() {
stepper.runToNewPosition(0);
stepper.moveTo(500);
while (stepper.currentPosition() != 300)
stepper.run();
}
Currently, my motors will move on very rare, seemingly unpredictable occasions. When they do move, they tick once and then stop moving. Since I still see some of this behavior from time-to-time I don't think I have burnt out my drivers - but who knows. The MiniRambo uses four A4982 stepper motor drivers.
I calculated the value to analogWrite to my PWM pin by referencing the Marlin firmware which states the following for the MiniRambo:
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_XY_PIN 46
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_Z_PIN 45
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_E_PIN 44
// Motor current PWM conversion, PWM value = MotorCurrentSetting * 255 / range
#ifndef MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_RANGE
#define MOTOR_CURRENT_PWM_RANGE 2000
#endif
#define DEFAULT_PWM_MOTOR_CURRENT {1300, 1300, 1250}
Another semi-important piece of information is that I am powering the MiniRambo with a 24V/14.6A power supply.
Any help getting my motors to spin would be greatly appreciated! Further, if you know of a way to test my motor driver to see if it burnt out, I would like to hear about it! When explaining, please keep in mind that I am totally new to the space and not very familiar with much of the electronics (more of a software person). Thank you in advance for your help :)
You are asking to write the firmware from scratch, don't you?
Yup, essentially. I want to write the code that coordinates the movement of the 3 stepper motors (x, y, and z axis) to draw a picture.
ohhh, a plotter`firmware? https://www.thingiverse.com/search?sort=relevant&q=plotter&type=things&dwh=745dc91b3633ea0
Right, similar to this link. But I would like to build it myself, hence my question.
I have frequently gotten the stuttering you describe with a bad connection to the board, usually from poor/dislodged crimping on the wires between the motor to the board. Something to check
@KMmmm this was a good thought - I tried attaching the wires/crimps directly to the board rather than going through a plastic connector and the issue persists.
@peachykeen sometimes cables break in the middle. Try with a short cable, which is fresh, as kind of a "teststand".
There could be a plethora of things you're doing wrong! That's way too much scope for a question like this? Are you sure the driver's aren't shutting down because of over current? Could they be resetting due to brown outs? Are you trying to drive them too fast? Are the motors good? Are the drivers good? Please state/give us answers to how you know everything has been hooked up properly.
@user77232 I will try to answer your questions as best I can.
Too much current? Well I posted my calculation above.
Brown-outs? How would I test for this? My PS is brand new and when measured doesn't spike or drop.
Driving too fast? I don't think so, I am at the lower end of the speed.
Are the drivers good? Well, I just got the controller, but perhaps I could have burnt them out. Hence, my question about testing for a burnt out driver.
Hooked up properly? I followed the schematic on the wiki linked above. If you want a screenshot I can provide that too.
Put 12v light bulbs on the output of the drivers to see if they blink when you give step commands.
@user77232 Would I be able to use a multimeter here?
@peachykeen, nope. Gotta use an Oscilloscope or a bulb
I solved my issue. I read one of the diagrams wrong and hooked my wires up incorrectly. :(
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11338 | Flashing a bootloader on Ender 3 without Arduino
I just order myself an Ender 3 Pro which will come by the end of the week.
Before it arrives I want to be ready to flash a bootloader onto it.
I was wondering what other options there are to flashing except using an Arduino?
I have a bunch of ESP8266/ESP32 and a USB to TTL. Would it be possible to use these somehow instead of an Arduino to flash a bootloader to the Ender 3?
Or should I just go buy an Arduino?
Scenario 1 of https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/a/6686/8884
What you need to is called a ICSP or ISP: in-circuit serial programmer or in-system programmer, which excludes the USB to TTL device you own.
I've never used an ESP8266 as ICSP but it seems there are some resources out there reporting it is possible.
If you want to go the easiest way probably you want to buy an Arduino and follow the tons of tutorials out there, if you are looking to save some money then you might get around buying an ICSP like the very well known USBASP (just Google for that).
Thank you for the info, it looks interesting. I will look into using the ESP8266 as I love to learn new stuff! Will report back with my results when I've received my printer.
You can do AVR programming using USB-TTL adapters. This relies on bit-banging, i.e. emulating the programming protocol by using the serial control lines as general purpose IO.
But this has a few caveats:
USB-TTL adapters limit the speed of control line changes. So the programming will be very slow, taking several minutes.
You need to have the RTS, DTR and CTS lines available on the USB-TTL adapter. Many of the cheap adapters do not have these signals available on pins, though you could solder to the chip directly.
If those two are in order, go ahead and install avrdude, take one of the serial port bitbang (serbb driver) example files and configure it with information on which serial adapter pins you've connected to the AVR chip. Then give -i 1000 or similar delay value to avrdude to slow it down enough to work over the USB interface.
There is a blog post about doing it with PL2303 based adapter, but the technique should work on other USB-TTL adapters also.
wow this is some really interesting stuff for me! Thank you for the information. I will look in to this.
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11323 | Thermal runaway on extruder hotend
I am getting thermal runaway even after PID autotunning many times. I tried 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 cycles and after reuploading FW onto the printer but I still get the error...
I've built a copy of Prusa's i3 mk2 by following Building the cheapest possible Prusa i3 MK2.
I have tried autotune with the cooling fan off, 50 %, and 100 %, but nothing changes.
The printer is in a closed cabinet room.
I was just watching it printing + temperature graph, and after ~20-30 minutes it starts jumping from 199.3-5 to 200.6-9... And that causes, after a few minutes, thermal runaway. The fan was on for 15 minutes or more.
Any help?
Please clarify: is the actual temperature going off the chart, or are you tripping a Runaway warning? Shifts of a few degrees are normal and shouldn't cause any alarms.
If a temperature of (rounded) 201 °C is triggering TRP, then one of three things is the culprit:
The TRP Hysteresis is awfully trigger happy. See What is Thermal Runaway Protection?
Your Heater cartridge is not properly mounted and has a bad connection to the heater block and upon heating and expecting a much higher temperature but not measuring the associated increase it triggers TRP as it thinks "DANG! My thermosensor or heater cartridge must have fallen out of the heater block!"
Your Thermosensor has occasionally erroneous readings that are interpreted as temperatures way over or under 200 °C and trigger TRP.
To rule out the problems, do the following:
Check the mounting of the thermosensor and heater cartridge. Tighten if needed. The thermosensor should have no cracks (glass) or deformation (metal cylinder)!.
Check resistance and wiring of the heater cartridge (it should have some depending on the type) and thermosensor (If you use a thermocouple sensor, you might need to flip wiring).
Use a terminal with a graphic interface and look at the temperature output line as you heat up and print. If it has spikes or sudden valleys, you get occasionally erroneous readings and should go back to recheck your wiring or replace the thermosensor.
Only after making sure the physical side is ok, look at the TRP code and Thermal Settings in configuration_adv.h. Only alter these if you know what you are doing, as you do so at your own risk - the settings in the distribution are well proven to be safe, while alterations might turn TRP effectively off and turn your machine into a fire hazard. Which factors to increase carefully is detailed in this answer.
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11300 | Random lines are being printed?
I recently got a Creality Ender-3, and tried printing a few things for some tests. I’ve printed a cube and just printed a cylindrical tube today, and I notice each time, it adds this random line on the left and a sort of outline around the actual print. Neither of these were there in my Cura file, but they’re always printed and I’m not sure why?
There isn't a problem. These are settings in Cura. I'm not sure what the beginning line is (on the left), but I've heard of it. The lines around the object is a Skirt. You can turn it off by going under Build Plate Adhesion in your profile settings and setting it to "None". Since I don't know how to deal with the line, this is left as a comment.
Can you please share the start G-code? The straight priming line is probably inserted in the start G-code.
Related: writing g-code: swiping at start of print
@0scar That line indeed part of the Start-code preset for Ender-3. Knowing my Cura profiles, I clearly see you are using the Ultimaker Cura Ender-3 preset.
Hello @Geovenox, I noticed your question has been up for a while now. Have any of the answers below been able to solve your question? If so, would you mind accepting the appropriate answer. If not, what is missing so that we may help you further? Also, if you have figured it out on your own, you can always answer and accept your own solution. Thank you.
If the printer is printing, it is instructed to do so by the G-code file unless you are printing through an external software program that has extra G-code to print before your print starts. E.g. in OctoPrint print server it is possible to execute G-code before the print starts.
Left line = Priming
The straight line on the left is typically used to prime the printer nozzle to get the filament flow starting, this is typically seen in PrusaSlicer (Prusa's fork of Open Source toolpath generator for 3D printers Slic3r). This straight line is called priming line, purge line or intro line, and is typically (but not necessarily) printed outside or at the edge of the bed area. Furthermore, a prime line print routine will catch errant nozzle ooze, test extrusion (it is the first indication if the nozzle to bed distance is correct; if not you can abort with minimal material loss) and perform a final wipe action to avoid stringing between the prime line and start of the print. Note that this straight prime line is not a standard option in a custom profile of Cura, so this was part of the Ender-3 Preset you imported or possibly you have copied a starting G-code that includes this prime line.
A typical set of G-code lines to create a prime/purge/intro line is found in your start G-code and could look similar to:
G1 Y-3.0 F1000.0 ; go outside print area
G92 E0.0
G1 X60.0 E9.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 X100.0 E12.5 F1000.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0
After slicing your object, you will find such lines in the generated G-code file, but they are not displayed in the preview. Further information can be found in Writing G-code : swiping at start of print
Equidistant line = Skirt
The lines at distance from the print object is called the "skirt", the skirt is an option found under the "Build Plate Adhesion" options in your slicer. The function of the skirt is similar as described for the straight prime line, but it has additional effects that can be wanted. It also shows fairly fast if the bed is unleveled as a whole or if the bed is greasy. Please look into: "What are main differences between rafts, skirts and brims?
".
Note that it is usually superfluous to use both the prime/purge/intro line and the skirt, both have a similar function. The benefit of the skirt is that you can configure it within the slicer (e.g. length of the printed skirt, height to use as a shield for draft or ooze and distance to product). The downside is, that a skirt limits the useable build area by the distance and width of the skirt.
The outline around the actual print is called Skirts. and the random line on the left is called intro line it's not necessary you need both Skirt and intro line. The intro line can disable from custom starting gcode settings
A skirt is an outline that surrounds your part but does not touch the part.
The skirt is extruded on the print bed before starting to print your model. Skirts serve a useful purpose because they help prime your extruder and establish a smooth flow of filament. Observing the skirt also allows you to detect and adjust any leveling or adhesion issues before the actual model begins printing.
You can easily edit/disable(not recommended) those settings in Cura (or in any slicing software)
In you Cura navigate to Build Plate Adhesion settings
Skirt line count: The number of skirt lines printed around the model.
Skirt distance: The distance between the model and the skirt.
Skirt minimum length: The total length of the skirt. This will
override the skirt line count when the minimum length is not reached
yet.
I also have the Ender 3 (pro) and have been getting annoyed by the intro line / priming line on the left of the print area, since I find it difficult to clean off the print bed. I've now found a way to disable it. In general I have found that the skirt is enough to prime the extruder, so the intro line doesn't really appear to be necessary (from what I've seen so far). Although for very small prints the skirt might not be big enough to fully prime the extruder (but this hasn't been the case for anything I've printed so far).
The intro/priming line is part of the "Start G-Code" in the Ender 3 profile in Cura (I'm using version 4.4). Here's how you can disable it:
From the Settings menu, select "Printer" and then "Manage Printers".
Click the "Machine Settings" button.
Expand the window under "Start G-code".
Find the following 3 lines of G-code:
G1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line
G1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little
G1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line
Add a // to the start of each line to comment it out (so the printer will ignore it)
Thank you for the contribution, but in all of my Cura projects it tells me G-Code editing is disabled and there's no way for me to edit the lines.
These are features, not bugs.
The line off to the left is the "priming line"; the printer is extruding a bead of material to ensure that any oozing is cleaned off of the filament tip, and that the filament is properly pressed into the hotend and flowing consistently from the nozzle, before beginning your print. Notice how plastic didn't start extruding on the "backstroke" until the extruder had almost reached the back of the plate? If you didn't have that priming line, that material would have been missing from your print's first layer.
The ring around your print is the "skirt". The skirt also helps to prime the extruder, and allows you a quick look at your first layer printing behavior before the printer begins printing your actual part. Is your build plate level? Is the nozzle clearance correct? Is the filament adhering well to your bed prep? Are your build plate size and offsets set up properly in the slicer (or are you about to try to print off the edge of your plate)? A skirt can help you determine all these things very quickly, like before the printer starts working over the actual print area, giving you a chance to correct them on-the-fly or at least quickly cancel the print, and it uses a minimum of material to do so compared to a more substantial plate adhesion aid like a brim or raft.
You can disable or alter the behavior of both of these in your slicer software; exactly how depends on the slicer software.
In Ultimaker's Cura, which comes fairly highly recommended for use with Creality printers like the Ender 3, the priming line is part of the pre-print configuration script in the printer settings, and you'll need to have a working knowledge of GCode to mess with that. GCode isn't terribly difficult, but it was designed for computers to generate more than for humans to comprehend, and incorrect GCode commands in this section can cause printer firmware errors, failed prints and can even damage your printer.
The skirt settings are part of the slicer settings for your specific print, under the "Platform Adhesion" section. You can typically choose to print a skirt, a brim (similar concept but it extends all the way in to the outline of the part's first layer, and helps hold the part on the plate while it prints), a raft (a more complex adhesion aid where the printer will lay down several layers of material as a foundation for the actual print), or nothing at all. You can also customize the settings of each of these to create a larger or smaller skirt or brim.
Personally, I keep both of these print features enabled for almost all prints on my Ender 3 Pro; the only time I disable the skirt is either when I want a brim (small parts like 3DBenchies print more reliably with a brim) or when the skirt just won't fit on the build plate (which usually means the part has a large enough footprint not to go anywhere during the print), and the only time I mess with the priming line is when I need that area of the build plate for the actual print. These features cost you maybe a penny or two in filament and can save you far more than that in frustration and wasted plastic on failed or imperfect prints.
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11309 | Removeable Glass Bed vs. Removeable Springsteel Beds
Removeable beds are starting to get more common in low-price consumer-grade printers. There are pretty much 3 types:
Unheated beds
Heated beds from steel held by magnets or clips
Heated glass beds held by clips
Unheated beds are the lowest class, and not an issue here. What are the pros and cons for a steel/springsteel bed versus a glass bed?
In favor of glass:
Smoother surface gives you a nicer bottom layer (though Kapton-layered steel is no slouch)
More even, regular surface makes bed easier to level
Easy to prep and clean
More scratch-resistant makes getting under a part with a metal scraper a little less harrowing
Corrosion-resistant (glass doesn't rust; silicon dioxide is in fact already about as oxidized as it can possibly be)
In favor of steel:
Flexes for easier release
Safer (steel plates don't shatter, at least not at temperatures you're likely to use them)
Conducts heat better for faster and more even heating
Slightly less expensive on average
Surely slower conductivity means more even heating? That way the heat can dissipate more easily.
"at least not at temperatures you're likely to use them" bwahahahaha
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11372 | Difference between Creality V2.1/V2.2 boards? Where to find datasheets?
I can't find an official datasheet for either board. Does anyone know where to find this information? Something that has max voltages, pinouts, etc.
Also, what's the difference between the V2.1 and the V2.2?
Which printer is this? Creality makes boards custom for each printer they make, so it's difficult to figure out what you're really talking about unless we know the actual printer these boards are from.
Please add the printer type for this board, thanks!
Hi. Did you ever find an answer to your query? Or photos of the boards? Or any of the info requested in the comments above?
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11356 | Classifying method of control of 3D printers?
Is there a classification of method of control most (FDM) 3D printers fall under?
From a 1986robotics textbookref I was reading they defined three classes of control:
1) Pick and place
2) Point to point
3) Continuous path
However, both point to point and continuous path control are stated as requiring servo motors.
I know that the majority of 3D printers are actuated with stepper motors as opposed to servo. Does the continuous path classification still apply? Or is there another classification?
ref - Todd, D.J.(Ed.):Fundamentals of Robot Technology: An Introduction to Industrial Robots, Teleoperators and Robot Vehicles - Kogan Page 1986
What does the text book call the Uni robot? or a CNC milling machine?
What is the "definition" of continuous path?
I think the big distinction to be aware of is: most FDM's (G-code users) run on relative positioning. Once they start going, there is no mechanism to catch positional drift. Compared with code that does a "return to zero" after each move -- the endstop switches used in 3Dprinters are too inaccurate to do this. And compare with systems that use shaft encoders or other feedback to set every move to an absolute position.
Did you look into the 1986 edition or a later version? There seems to be a 2012 Springer Science & Business Media, edision.
@CarlWitthoft I concur on the drift part of your comment, but stating that endstop switches are inaccurate is not true. They are accurate enough, the problem is that they are used only once, after that, missing steps cause the drift. If you'd use the switches more often, it would not be a problem. E.g. if Prusa trinamic drivers detect missing steps, the carriage is "homed" and layer deposition continues.
@0scar The typical spring-loaded lever-on-button switches will vary by tens of microns in my experience (in advanced machining labs, not in 3D printers). That means that doing return-to-zero after every operation is likely to cause more trouble than it might solve (i.e. fixing missed stepper motor moves). That's all I meant.
The question is if robots classification terminology the textbook sketches applies to 3D printing?
Servos (closed loop) are used in robots to guarantee position (you don't want to accumulate an error after repetitive movement), most 3D printers use open loop steppers that are instructed on a point to point basis through G-code instructions, implying that the use of servos is not a "requirement" for point to point control.
It is a requirement if you want to be absolutely sure that the position is reached. In 3D printing where the loads are generally low, this requirement is frequently dropped. But, there are printers that use servo control.
Note that many CNC machines (operating at much higher loads than a 3D printer) even don't use servo's but (open loop) steppers, these are generally larger and more powerful (more torque).
Upon further research these defined classes of control (from a robotics perspective) only apply to servo motors.
At the highest level the methods of control being categorised as:
Servo
Non-Servo
The three categories I listed in my question are all subsets of the Servo category and rely upon feedback from the servo.
3D Printers fall under additive manufacturing and then can be classified by the material first. Usually, the material dictates entirely what the design looks like and it would be foolish to not differentiate what you look at by this first. For some materials, there are a couple of subtypes that tell us about which method for fusing the material is used, but usually, there is just one.
light curing resin
projected light
Laser
Paste, gel or air curing resin
direct deposit from syringe
Foil
Laser1
Powder
Laser
Filament (FFF/FDM)
direct deposit
Of all these printers, only the FDM/FFF Group has a large diversity in how they are designed on the outer side, with the main 4 designs (and one example) being
Cantilever (TronXY X1)
Core-XY (Hypercube)
Portal (Prusa)
Delta (Kossel)
Now comes the kicker: Most FDM/FFF Printers do use only stepper motors and use G-Code that is derived from CNC - just like the whole idea of FDM was invented as reverse CNC. Only very few use an encoder at all. Marlin, the main firmware used in 3D printers, executes usually point-to-point instructions (G0 X10 Y10 Z0 E5), but some implementations are able to perform arcs (G2 E7.85 R5 X-5 Y5). Usually, printers run in relative coordinates (to the last position of the nozzle/tool), but for some operations absolute coordinates (mainly start or end codes) are used.
Among the printers that use servos instead of steppers are, to my knowledge, mostly laser-based systems.
Resin may also be directly deposited, with or without photoinitiation. Not to mention clays and biologicals.
@Davo ah, right, forgot paste/gel and air curing resins.
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11495 | Efficient way to create a "mold" of a solid object in Meshmixer?
Currently I have a model of a fingertip finished in my project, however, I would like to create some sort of "cap" that if printed would fit on top of that finger. Is there a good way to achieve this in meshmixer?
Surely! First of all, a mold is, simply put, the negative of the item. So we need to make such a negative and give it some thickness. I have this funnel model...
We start Meshmixer, import our funnel and then go into Meshmix and pull a cylinder into the frame. We size and align it to hide the funnel but for a tiny part at the top (or however much you need to have covered in the mold)
We click the cylinder, press SHIFT and the funnel top. In the top corner a menu pops up:
We choose "Boolean Difference", the menu changes to show this:
Next we alter the Target Edge Scale till we see the top corner (0.6 seems to work) then accept. The result is this mold:
But that's a REALLY snug fit at this moment. 0.0 mm space. We can use that to cast our funnel... but we might want to make this a box for our funnel or we know that our casting material shrinks some 4 to 5 % when curing. So we need some space in the mold or box. So we need to shift the faces some. What happens to holes if we scale the whole thing up by... say 5 %? They become 5 % larger of course! So let's just do that!
Edit
Transform
hook Uniform Scaling
pull X, Y and Z out by 1 mm (which happens to be 4 % in case of a 25 mm item.)
Use those square boxes marked with green dots to pull
Accept and... DONE! Last to do: export as STL and here you go! a Mold that is 4% larger and could be a cap for the funnel.
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11436 | Switched to a Bowden setup. Should I retract the filament out at the end of a print?
I switched my Anet A8 over to a Bowden and it's printing great. Moving that weight off has enabled me to almost double the speed and resonance problems have vanished.
My question is regarding after the print is done should I add a retraction code and back the filament out of the v6 or is it okay to leave it in there?
My concern is that if I leave it in there, will it cause a clog or anything when I warm up the printer tomorrow to print something else? If that's not a something I should be concerned about let me know.
That's not an issue, you can simply leave it in the hot end.
The only "end of print" clogs usually occur when leaving the hot end hot for a while - allowing the filament to drip out - and then retract the filament without feeding it against the nozzle once more. That creates a plug that's larger than the filament diameter that might get stuck in the bowden tube.
@towe That sounds like an answer and please do not forget to vote! Voting will help members get their privileges to e.g. vote and build this community.
That is definitely an answer and I appreciate your quick response.
Is there a way to mark this answered?
@Hellrazor - not without someone actually answering it. The above are all comments, which makes it conjecture. We don't want to steal towe's thunder, so are not wont to place it as an answer in their stead. Hopefully they'll come back on and place it as an answer.
It's okay to leave the filament in the hot end, as long as you let it cool down with the hot end cooling fan running.
From comment:
That's not an issue, you can simply leave it in the hot end. The only "end of print" clogs usually occur when leaving the hot end hot for a while - allowing the filament to drip out - and then retract the filament without feeding it against the nozzle once more. That creates a plug that's larger than the filament diameter that might get stuck in the bowden tube
You should put the details from your comment in the answer.
I agree with towe's answer. I would leave it, retracting at most a mm or two just to avoid a mess. If you retract much at end of print, initial state for the second or later print is different from after just loading new filament, and this leads to different priming/skirt outcomes for the two cases, which can be problematic.
After the completion of a print, remove the filament from the Bowden tube as it may break while not printing and can sometimes be difficult to remove. Basically if you aren’t going to do another print soon, remove the filament.
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11470 | Ender 3 displaying wrong temperatures for hotend and bed
I've had issues with my hot end and decided to replace the whole assembly with this. After the replacement, my printer started reading about 135/185 °C for the hot end and bed are both at room temperature. It also gives the "Heating Failed" error message. Printer halted when I tried to heat it.
Things I've tried:
Checked the wiring, the thermistors are reading about 110k and 10k at end of the wires.
Tried updating the firmware with a few different thermistor settings. Only the static (dummy) ones worked (reading a static value of 25/100 °C)
Tried with old thermistor and reading stayed at 135/185 °C.
I'm suspecting something wrong with the motherboard but was hoping I could figure out what's wrong before going ahead and buying a new board. Would appreciate any thoughts/suggestions.
In troubleshooting the issue, I tried disconnecting one/both of the thermistors at a time and the reading stayed unchanged. Now thinking I might've somehow broken the board when I was disassembling it.
Upon receiving a new motherboard, that fixed the bed temperature reading. The hot end is now reading -14 °C with the thermistor plugged/unplugged. Took the resistances on the old and new hot end thermistors and couldn't get reading from either. So turned out both the stock motherboard and my hot end thermistors were not working. Ordered new thermistors and that should fix the problem.
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! You checked the thermistors themselves, but did you check the wiring at the main board for proper connection?
@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Yes just checked them again and they are properly connected. But I noticed as I disconnect one and both thermistors, the reading didn't change at all. Does that suggest faulty/broken board?
I got my printer fixed and am posting steps I took for people with similar problems in the future.
Initial problem:
After I replaced my entire heating unit and reconnected the wires, my printer started to read about 135/185 °C for the nozzle and bed at room temperature. It gives the "Heating failed, printer halted, please reset" error when I tried to heat the hot end and bed.
Troubleshooting steps:
Checked the resistance of the thermistors. Both the hot end and bed were about 100k.
Reflashed Marlin with different thermistor settings. Only the static (dummy) ones worked (reading a static value of 25/100 °C). All the other settings were giving very high readings at room temperature.
Replaced the mainboard. This fixed the bed reading but hot end was still not working. Checked the hot end thermistor again at this point and couldn't get any values, which suggests the thermistor wire was broken somewhere.
Replaced the hot end thermistor and that fixed all the issues.
So what I think happened was that I messed up the board when I was reconnecting the heating unit. Then at some point after I first measured the thermistor resistance, the hot end thermistor broke. Replaced the thermistor and that solved the issue.
For future readers,
On a second-hand 3D printer with unknown firmware, I compiled the Marlin 2.1.1 firmware for the Creality 4.2.7 board with the default configurations for the BOARD_CREALITY_V427 board, and at room temperature, the hotend reads about 121 °C.
I then measured the hotend thermistor by disconnecting the JST cable and got 9.1 kΩ with the room temperature of about 30 °C. This tells me the thermistor is a 10 kΩ NTC type.
The default configuration for Marlin is 100 kΩ NTC.
So, if you have a 10 kΩ hotend thermistor, either recompile the Marlin firmware for a 10 kΩ NTC thermistor (more trouble than it is worth if you do not know the temperature curve data), or get a new thermistor specifically listed in Configuration.h, for example:
* Analog Thermistors - 4.7 kΩ pullup - Normal
* -------
* 1 : 100 kΩ EPCOS - Best choice for EPCOS thermistors
* 331 : 100 kΩ Same as #1, but 3.3V scaled for MEGA
* 332 : 100 kΩ Same as #1, but 3.3V scaled for DUE
* 2 : 200 kΩ ATC Semitec 204GT-2
* 202 : 200 kΩ Copymaster 3D
* 3 : ??? Ω Mendel-parts thermistor
* 4 : 10 kΩ Generic Thermistor !! DO NOT use for a hotend - it gives bad resolution at high temp. !!
* 5 : 100 kΩ ATC Semitec 104GT-2/104NT-4-R025H42G - Used in ParCan, J-Head, and E3D, SliceEngineering 300 °C
* 501 : 100 kΩ Zonestar - Tronxy X3A
* 502 : 100 kΩ Zonestar - used by hot bed in Zonestar Průša P802M
* 503 : 100 kΩ Zonestar (Z8XM2) Heated Bed thermistor
* 504 : 100 kΩ Zonestar P802QR2 (Part# QWG-104F-B3950) Hotend Thermistor
* 505 : 100 kΩ Zonestar P802QR2 (Part# QWG-104F-3950) Bed Thermistor
...
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11239 | Ender 3 BLTouch fails in assorted ways
My recently installed BLTouch probe regularly fails to perform ABL properly. There seem to be 3-4 failure modes:
Probe manages some points but fails partway through, with a "probing failed" message on the LCD screen, rendering it necessary to power-cycle the printer
Probe deploys on some point, then stows itself immediately, and treats that point as being a centimeter or two about where it actually is.
Probe completes all 9 points, then heats the nozzle in the back corner and never moves. The progress bar on the LCD counts up and eventually it claims to have finished the print, but the steppers (including the extruder) never move.
Probe flashes red throughout the cycle, which I believe means it failed a self-test probably because the mainboard started trying to speak to it before it was initialized, but occasionally when this occurs, it still works as expected.
For avoidance of doubt - sometimes it actually does work, and I get beautiful prints that adhere well during printing but are easily removed afterwards. And I have never had any issues with the Z homing using the probe, only the auto mesh levelling.
My setup:
Creality Ender 3
v1.1.4 mainboard with non-silent steppers
genuine BLTouch v3, with official Creality pin27 kit
Marlin 1.1.9 bugfix firmware, downloaded as hex file
single iteration of probing
9 point levelling mesh
Ultimaker Cura slicer 4.2.0
Start G-code heats bed, homes G28, performs ABL G29, then heats nozzle (I don't have the actual G-code on my now as I'm away from my slicing computer)
[Related question: BL Touch Probing Fails Intermittently but answers do not apply as I am already using bugfix firmware and have checked all the cabling and connections]
Have you ever managed to solve the issues? It appears you're not the only one with these kind of problems.
Unfortunately not - in the end I gave up and returned to manual tramming so I could actually get some printing done.
Many thanks for your update, actually I'm experiencing the same, in my case it is caused by a defective touch sensor. I'll write an answer describing this. Switching sensor helped me.
You had a faulty BLTouch. Mine experienced the EXACT same behavior and replacing it with a new BLTouch fixed the issue entirely (everything else I kept exactly the same, firmware etc), I simply swapped over the probe + cable with the new one.
When connecting the new BLTouch, make sure you wire the servos connector correctly. In my case with an SKR Mini E3 v1.2 I needed to switch the red wire with the blue wire. If you start the printer with the wires the wrong way around, it may cause damage. I suspect that is what happened to my original one.
Welcome to SE.3D Printing, good answer, I experienced exactly the same, but then with non-genuine touch sensors, replacing them fixed the problem also.
Connecting the bltouch or 3dtouch clone to the normal Z-endstop connector of a creality board (ender 3 / 3 pro / cr10) is the problem!
Creality added a capacitor to the Z-endstop connector to improve the signal of the normal endswitch. This capacitor impacts the data signal processing of the probe. (filters out signals)
Other boards / manufacturers often do not have this capacitor. So there is no problem when using the probe.
Known solutions:
connect the probe to the ISP header (data to MOSI, Ground to GND).
Others desolder the capacitor next to the Z-endstop-connector.
Here is described my "ISP header solution" with details... (for Klipper, but could be adopted for Marlin)
Further information on BLTouch Klipper docs (search for "Troubleshooting")
After fixing, Z should stop instantly when probe pin pops up. My probe speed is 50 mm/s (for Z). The Readability Check gives me 0.007-0.250 mm ranges between measurements (mine is a cheap Chinese clone).
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11459 | overlaying epoxy resin on PLA
I've been experimenting with FDM 3D printers and PLA for about a year now.
I'm at the point where I'd like to produce something considerably stronger than PLA, and was wondering if there is a faux-pas list, or general instructions on how to coat PLA with epoxy resin, or even fibreglass/carbon fibre and resin to add strength and a surface to sand and paint.
I would have assumed that I'd need to coat the PLA object using a brush and epoxy resin, but I've also seen blogs where the epoxy mix has been heated enough to become liquid and then the PLA object was submerged in it.
Obviously the fibre coating would most likely have to take place manually by adding sheets, unless I decide to go for shredded fibres (which probably won't provide the strength I'm interested in).
Has anyone tried it, or have a guide on how to do this?
Have you considered printing in a different, stronger material rather than coating it? Know that there are also fibre reinforced nylon filaments available. So, is the question still directed to a coating or stronger print?
@0scar I have, unfortunately my current setup doesn't allow me to do so. Furthermore this question isn't only about strength, but also about the finish the object will have. For example, coating it with epoxy would allow me to treat it differently (spraying, painting, even electroplate it). I've seen carbon filaments which are prohibitively expensive and still won't reach the strength of a CF reinforced object.
Fair enough, let's see what post processing answer this generates! Welcome to 3DPrinting.SE! :-)
resin tag does not apply, as that is for SLA/DLP/... Resin Printers
It would be interesting to see a resin that could hold the shape of a PLA print in high temps. Maybe a two part resin, mixed together, painted on at room temp, that would harden and hold PLA's shape up to like 250 C. PLA is just so easy to print
@KMmmm We call that concrete! ;-)
I've bought some epoxy resin, clear and fast curing. I'll try using it on a phone holder, a Moebius artwork and maybe a ring. For the phone holder I want to coat it with epoxy, then add carbon fibre 0.5mm sheet around it and then add another layer of epoxy. For the artwork I just want to encase it/embed it. The ring is meant to have a piece of pebble stuck on top, so the epoxy would need to adhere to PLA, else it will fall off. I'll keep this post updated and if I have time I'll post it on YouTube.
@KMmmm Plaster or Gypsum. I am experimenting with a lost-mold item to be cast in aluminium atm...
I have used Styrol based Polyester resins on prints and they created the usual stench as well as a surefire bond and it is easily useable with unstructured fiberglass, as that fiberglass has usually a binder that will react with the styrol and bond the mat.
Epoxy resins also bond nicely to PLA and don't have the styrol smell, but they are not bonding that nicely to normal fiberglass, you want to use them with fiberglass weave.
Either resin is a quite viscous fluid. When you cast a flat surface, it will try to smooth out to a good degree under gravity. When coating a curved surface, you should make sure to align it in way that the lowest point is either the top of the dome or the lower edge, so it settles equally. You can aid in this process by providing heat as this will lower viscosity. An airstream will also aid as it presses onto the surface helping to smooth out unevenness.
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10972 | Can you recommend professional 3D metal printing books?
I am a fresh graduate student in 3D metal printing. My undergraduate major is mechanical engineering. Later research will focus on the process of metal 3D printing. I hope that you can recommend some excellent 3D metal printing books for learning.
Could be a duplicate of 3d printing references for beginner, but that isn't specifically metal
Don't requests for resources go to Meta?
Google throws up three: 3D Printing with Metals for Design Engineers, Explained, Additive Manufacturing of Metals: The Technology, Materials, Design and Production, Additive Manufacturing of Metals: From Fundamental Technology to Rocket Nozzles, Medical Implants, and Custom Jewelry (Springer Series in Materials Science)
This is free 3D Printing of metals
@Davo - Not sure, where did you read that? Is there an SE.Meta link?
@Greenonline I'm probably remembering this from this Meta.ELU Q&A, and that I believed it to be a site-wide policy. My apologies.
This is a free ebook that I have perused briefly which it looks interesting, and it is free (did I say that already?)
3D Printing of metals
Manoj Gupta
ISBN 978-3-03842-591-5 (Pbk);
ISBN 978-3-03842-592-2 (PDF)
Three other books that might be of interest are:
3D Printing with Metals for Design Engineers, Explained
Ann R. Thryft
Downloadable free ebook, but some sort of sign up is required
Additive Manufacturing of Metals: The Technology, Materials, Design and Production,
Yang, L., Hsu, K., Baughman, B., Godfrey, D., Medina, F., Menon, M., Wiener, S.
ISBN 978-3-319-55128-9
Additive Manufacturing of Metals: From Fundamental Technology to Rocket Nozzles, Medical Implants, and Custom Jewelry (Springer Series in Materials Science)
Although, as the title contains a (rather obvious) mis-spelling, it does not bode well for the rest of the book.
John O. Milewski
ISBN-13: 978-3319582047
ISBN-10: 3319582046
Just wanted to add that ultimately you get a lot more quick practical knowledge from your machine's manufacturer or DMLS service provider so don't forget to look at publications from the industry leaders. They have incentive to make sure you succeed when using their products. Just beware the salesmanship.
For example Stratasys:
https://www.stratasysdirect.com/resources/design-guidelines/direct-metal-laser-sintering
I believe there's also a very similar guide from Xometry and others. Gpi also had some good insights on some of the more exotic materials.
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11174 | CR-10S Pro pausing and starting again
I found this question, CR-10 randomly pauses for a few seconds, that someone asked earlier. I am experiencing the exact same thing, only on a CR-10S Pro.
None of the suggestions on that post helped. For what it's worth, I am using Ultimaker Cura 4.3.
Any help would be wonderful!
I made this video for someone I know from Creality. The pausing seems to happen at each new layer. But, as the layers pass like 4 layers then the pausing stops. This also happens on every print big or small. I changed nothing and it just started happening.
Quoting my comment from the previous question:
I am seemingly having the same issue only on Cura 4.3. There is no
"Maximum Z Speed" anywhere on 4.3 so how can I fix this? As talked
about above I just checked my "minimum layer time" and it is set to
10. I have also used another slicer and this same issue keeps happening it just messes up differently. I've also tried printing from
SD card and OctoPrint. Same issue... How could this be my slicer if
this same thing is happening on a different slicer than Cura?
Hi Matt, welcome! Could you please give some more details when the pausing happens. You can also post a video or a link to a video for others to help you out. E.g. setting "minimum layer time" may have an effect in this when the layers become small (in printed square mm). So, when does it pause exactly?
The additional video is great, Matt. We have recently added YouTube video support to our SE.3DP posts, so you can edit your question to include the URL and others can view it on the page, without having to visit YouTube externally. In fact, all additional information should be edited into the question, and not put in comments, as comments tend to be ephemeral in nature and get deleted over time, hence why I edited in your related comment (on the link question) earlier.
I tried to give the answer but it will not let me so I guess I will keep it to myself. I fixed it. I am also leaving because I am getting corrected over and over instead of getting help from admins. It would be cool if there was help for my issue along with the help navigating this website. Thank you for those that tried to help
From your comment on the linked question you state:
As talked about above I just checked my "minimum layer time" and it is set to 10
Note that Cura's default value is 5 seconds.
This means that the print speed is lowered down to the minimum print speed to have layers that print for at least 10 seconds. When it cannot print slower (there is a minimum print speed) and the minimum layer time has not been reached yet, the print head halts until the time value is reached, then it continues. This behaviour is expected when the print area becomes small so that the time per layer drops under the 10 seconds.
The minimum layer time was 10, not 5. I just installed 4.3 to try and fix this issue and changed nothing. So, are you saying the minimum layer time default is 5 or are you saying minimum print speed default is 5? On 4.3 there is no "minimum print speed".
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11210 | My DIY printer only boots when all my endstops are triggered. Why is that?
Recycling a Robin Nano board to build a 3D printer using an old computer PSU (300 W), it only boots on when I have no endstops pugged in at all or if I trigger all the ones I have plugged. At the moment I release them the screen goes off (but the fan of the PSU is still on). Does anyone have any clue about what's going on ?
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! What controller are you using? Have you double checked to ensure you've attached everything correctly? Have you tried it without anything plugged in (no endstops or motors)?
I doubled and tripled check the wiring. When nothing is plugged it goes on properly. Controller board is a Robin nano board.
Sounds like the endstop switches are shorting VCC to GND when not pressed. I guess the logic board has its own 5V regulator because I imagine the computer PSU would happily melt cabling or weld the switches.
I used the nano board previously on a printer with a 24 v psu without any endstops related issues. The nano is supposed to manage both 24 and 12 volts. I doubled checked on the endstops boards to make sure signal, ground and VCC are corresponding.
In line with @r_ahlskog 's comment - either that or your board is expecting NO switches but yours are somehow N/C switches.
@R_asidkog your comment is good. It may not be right, but it is good. I can't upvote it because it is not an "answer". Could you submit it as an answer?
It ended up I had like super cheap endstops that were actually shorting VCC to GND. Just bought other ones and now it's working Thanks all !
From your fault description of printer logic board losing power when endstops are released it sounds to me like those endstops are shorting VCC to GND when not pressed. That the fault also goes away when the endstops are unplugged reinforces this.
I guess the logic board has its own protected regulator because otherwise you would be shorting out the power supply and that would also turn itself off after likely causing a lot of damage to the logic board.
It ended up I had like super cheap endstops that were actually shorting VCC to GND, as suspected by r_ahlskog. Just bought other ones and now it's working fine.
I'm starting to think that those switches were just wired wrong for your printer. Should I try and edit in that into my answer.
it is relevant in context qith this question if your endstops are NO or NC. It sounds they are NC.
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11194 | The part printed correctly except few layers
As you can see from the picture, the part is good except some missing layers near the bottom. I have tried to search for this problem but nothing similar appeared. So, what might be the cause and what is the name for this problem?
Printer: Ender3, new.
Slicer: Cura
Nozzle: 0.4 mm
Temperature:
200 °C nozzle
50 °C bed
Material: PLA
Print speed: 50 mm/s
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! In order to even start considering your problem, we need to know some key things which may not seem important to you. Such as, what type of filament you are using, what are your bed/extruder temps, what slicer you are using, plus whatever else you can think of about the setup and such of the printer you're using. How long have your had your printer? Is it well used? Is this a new issue or does it appear in all of your prints? Please edit your question and insert as much information as you can so we can attempt to help you.
@PAULSTER2 Thanks, I did not know all of these information are needed, I just updated the question.
This looks like either the nozzle had been clogged for some layers and it resolved itself or the g-code contained incorrect instructions.
I suggest altering your print settings slightly and reslicing, then just printing it again. To get more accuracy on the prints, I suggest a line width of 0.45 mm.
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11153 | Is it possible with current 3D printers to print a sound trace?
Is it possible with the accuracy of current 3D printers to print a sound trace?
On a vinyl record the grooves in the record are an encoded sound. Is something like this doable with 3D printers?
If Vinyl-like isn't possible, could a sound be printed at desktop scale? I mean printing the waves out that if you ran your finger along it it would reproduce the encoded sound? Examples would be Rumble Strips, the Musical Roads or highway rumble strips.
The practicality and the quality would depend on the size of the needle (and the RPM) that is used to play the sound back. I would guess that it is possible but the sound quality would be so poor that it wouldn't be worth it, except for academic purposes. Or are you asking if it is possible to print to a resolution comparable to that of a conventional gramophone record? If the latter, then I would guess not (yet). You'd need to compare the physical resolution (in microns) of record grooves to the smallest movement possible on a 3D printer. IDK but I'd guess they are at least a magnitude apart.
Just a comment, since I feel like adding this as my own answer would plagiarize what's already here, but I also want to sum up the two answers so far, since each covers a different aspect of the question. In short, we're getting close, but current technology can't do the equivalent of vinyl record playable on your parent's hi-fi phonograph machine. The grooves are too fine. But you could print a similar device, where the grooves are much wider, capable of reproducing intelligible human speech or even music, albeit at lower quality than vinyl.
@JoelCoehoorn No reason the fidelity can't be decent so long as you allow a faster speed (think 78 vs 33&1/3) and a larger vertical displacement.
Sound Encoding basics
Sound is a compression wave, and any depiction of it has to be an encoding of it. You can encode it so you can recreate the sound using a contraption that oscillates in the right way to compress air again in the right pattern, but you can't just "print it out" like you can scale up a lightwave from the nanometer scale to a visible one as a representation.
Let's take a simple example: a 440 Hz tune is generally considered to be the A4, aka concert pitch a or A440.
It could be encoded in a various ways. The probably oldest is to encode it as a note in violin notation, which then could be reproduced by anyone using a properly tuned instrument. The actual result depends on the instrument used as much as on the skill of the player. Each instrument thus might decode this encoded note differently, based on the physical setup of the instrument. Each instrument automatically creates the appropriate overtones.
In Midi, it is encoded as Note 69 and any machine that can decode a midi file could use this instruction, paired with an instrument to use, to create the A4 that is set for it. In Midi, the mere instruction of Note 69 does cut out skill, but how it sounds and feels comes from the instrument setup - which contains information about what overtones are to be created when playing this note.
For a physicist, the pure sound is encoded as just the notion of 440 Hz and some amplitude to balance how loud it is. With those instructions, he'd be able to set up a device that has these creates a 440 Hz tune. To generate the sound and feel of an instrument, the encoding for a physicist would need to contain all the overtones that are to swing with this one sound.
History of sound recording
Let's look at the very first way of recording sound: The Phonautograph of 1857 used a piece of paper or a sheet of glass blackened and then a membrane move a needle. When the plate would be moved, the needle left a written path. The encoding was done via 2 factors: the setup of the stylus (mainly how long is the arm) and the speed of the movement of the plate. Changing either changed the encoding. A longer arm would record a larger amplitude (making fainter sounds recordable) while faster movement would alter the timescale recorded, allowing to look at short instances and better compare them.
These vibration-pattern records could be used to measure and compare sounds but not be used to recreate the sound, as lines on paper nor scratches in soot are a good way to keep a reading needle in boundaries. it took till 2000 and the use of scanners as well as digital processing to recreate these recorded sounds.
The solution to recreate sounds was found by the Edison Laps in 1877 with the phonograph, which used a piece of thick tinfoil to record the motion pattern of the membrane. Again, then encoding was done via the arm setup and the speed at which the tinfoil clad cylinder moved (or rather rotated). It would till the 1880s develop to a wax cylinder, which was easier to inscribe and reproduce from. One such machine was used by Carl Orff.
The first Gramophone came in 1889, mainly altering the shape of the recording medium from cylinders to the well-known shape of vinyl records but made from hard plastics and shellac. Around 1901, a 12-inch gramophone disk held only a 4 minutes track, speaking volumes about the problems of encoding the complex patterns of sound onto a disk. At the same time, an Edison Amberol Cylinder held 4 minutes 30 seconds but would spin at 160 rpm. Soon after, celluloid would become the recording medium of its time, and the disk the de-facto "standard" as it was much better storable.
In 1925 finally, a real standard was developed to record at around $78^{+0.26}_{-0.08}$ rpm, which lead to only a 0.34 rpm difference between areas of 60 or 50 Hz mains voltage (though they needed different encoder rings), making records interchangeable between both machine types. All these recordings were encoded naturally: the vibrations of the membrane in the recording tool would be 1:1 transmitted to the vibrating stylus that would then do the encoding in such a way that a machine would reproduce what the recording one "heard" quite accurately.
When Vinyl came to the playing field as a recording medium at the end of world war II, so came a swap in the reading needle type: instead of a needle that would agitate a membrane directily, sapphire needles that would agitate an electrical pickup which in turn would activate a speaker. But while the recording technology advanced, the track length of a 12-inch disk was still limited to about 4 minutes at 78 rpm. It would only reach more than this in the last years of its use by applying LP technologies to pack the track tighter in the 1950s, achieving 17 minutes.
1948 came the LP, what we know as a classic vinyl record. At its introduction it could cram 23 minutes onto one side, making this possible by only using 33.5 rpm as the recording speed and thinner, much tighter coiled groves, increasing the information density by a factor of 5.75 for a 12-inch disk. 7-inch 45 rpm "singles" came out 4 years later. Within 10 years, the 33.5 and 45 rpm encoded variants had almost completely replaced the 78 rpm market.
Vinyl
As the history of analogous recordings shows, encoding a sound signal is rather easy in theory, hard in practice. A typical 12-inch LP Vinyl record of 20 minutes is a grove that is 427 meters long and coiled up 667 times. That means a single groove is between 0.04 and 0.08 mm wide - with an equally thin wall between. That means, that to achieve a printed phonograph record, you'd have to print accurately down to 40 microns to get an empty track. However, we also need to add the signal atop. And here comes the real problem:
An empty track has some 22 µm deviations, which the needle will usually not pick up at all. Dust, which creates the crackling at times, is in the same area (1-100 µm). The actual sound signal is encoded to have features as small as 75 nanometers. That is 3 magnitudes lower than the mere geometry of the grove, and equally much lower than any printer - including SLS - can achieve today, as 50 µm is often considered a lower limit in 2019.
To show how much tiny defects would ruin the sound quality, look at this rapid cast of a vinyl record. The resolution of the negative and the subsequently cast record is good enough to recognize the music, but the resin cast did contain so many gas bubbles that the noise level of the copy is very high.
Bonus: Unlike on cylinders the encoding of the signal on disks changes from the start to the end! The vinyl spins at a constant rate, but the radius from the center changes, leading in the speed on any part of the grove to be different as $|v|=|\omega \vec r \sin(\theta)|$, where omega is the speed in rad per second, theta is the angle of the reeding, so in this case, the sinus term becomes 1 and vanishes. This factor has to be taken into account for encoding so the pitch of the record doesn't change if the record is not created naturally by inscribing the signal onto a spinning disk.
Other encoding
Rumble Strips
However, it is quite easy to create a structure that creates sounds based on interaction with another body. Highway Sound Strips create sounds as the car tire bumps up and down, turning the car and tires into resonance bodies while the street "beats" upon it. In the case of a large percussion instrument like a car, we are talking centimeter scale.
Peg-Cylinder
A very simple method would be to go back to encoding and check out the note notation but limiting the length of notes to one unit. Encoding music this way results in pegs or ridges on a cylinder, which then can be used to actuate a mechanism to decode the music and create sounds like in a music box. In a music box of this kind, the demand for accuracy is about 3 to 5 magnitudes lower than in vinyl records: we speak about a tenth of a millimeter to centimeter scale.
Such a Musical box or noisemaker can be easily printed and is pretty much a rumble strip coiled around a cylinder. The length of the sample is determined by the resolution, playback speed and diameter of the cylinder while the complexity is determined by the rows of pegs of it: a noisemaker is pretty much a 1-note, high speed, music box. Typically, one rotation stores about 25 to 30 seconds. Typical examples would be the first part of Für Elise, or the Marble Machine (Between second 30 and 35 the encoding wheel rotates 1 fifth). Some barrel organs also use the peg method, like one can see here. With some trickery, one cylinder could be used to encode multiple parts that play one after another once a rotation is done by and silencing some parts of the machine depending on an extra encoder, like this 3-part Für Elise music box.
Hole-Plate(-strip)
A different method would be to encode the music as holes in a continuous strip and use air as a decoding method. If the air then gets directed into pipes, we have a street organ. Typically, one would use a paper strip as the encoded message, but it could be printed just as well, especially if one uses a setup that uses plates hinged to one another instead of a rolled-up paper as in this example. With such a way to stash away the extra length, the upper limit for music length rises from a couple of seconds to several minutes easily even with such a "bad" encoding.
@Trish Thanks. I know a little bit about sound. I'm talking about taking an actual recorded sound, any sound, prerecorded and printing out the wave lengths to make a physical conversion. I know it would be a very short sound. I'm thinking trenches.
@1.21gigawatts recorded sound itself is not printable. What you see on your sceen is not sound it is the graphical representation of the mathematic analysis of the physic measurement made by the microphone. It is a representation of the instructions to a physicist "mix these vibrational patterns to create this sound". You can print a device that creates vibrational patterns - like a music box - or a mathematical representation - like a graph of the fourier analysis - but you can't print a vibrational pattern itself.
@1.21gigawatts added more about the limitations of peg encoded and found a way out to get pretty much an arbitrarily long and complex piece of music provided one has the fitting decoder machine.
I think this is just about doable. In this answer, I will assume you want to produce a "rumble strip" style of object that will reproduce a recording of human speech. I'll assume you don't care about sound quality, you just want the words to be intelligible.
The main things to consider are the printer's resolution, the size of the object to be printed, and the sample rate. Together, these factors determine the length of the sound, and the rate at which you need to move along it to reproduce the sound.
Let's start with sample rate. A CD has a sample rate of 44100 samples per second (Hz), but that might be a bit ambitious. Telephones use a lower sample rate of 8000, and it says here that speech is still intelligible at a sample rate of 2500 Hz. Let's go with this rate.
Now let's consider the resolution of the printer. A typical nozzle size is 0.2mm, which probably limits the resolution to around that size, though you can probably do better with some care, and I imagine people in this community will be able to help with that. I am guessing that you would want to print the object horizontally, so you're dealing with xy resolution instead of z resolution. (Note that resin 3d printers have much better resolutions, so they might be ideal for this task, despite their smaller print volumes.) Let's start by assuming 0.2mm is our resolution, since this should be easy to achieve with any printer.
This means that every sample in the sound file takes up about 0.2mm. Let's say we have one second of speech - that's long enough to say "Hello!", for example - at 2500 Hz. That means we have 2500 samples. 2500 * 0.2mm = 500mm, so your rumble strip will be about 1/2 meter long. That's unlikely to fit on your print bed, but you can print it in sections and stick them together - you can probably print them all at the same time. You could even curl it round into a spiral, making it even more like a vinyl record.
Then all you have to do is take a rigid object like a guitar pick and slide it along the strip at the right speed, so that it takes about 1 second. Then you should hear the sound played back. Attaching a resonator to the pick or the strip should increase the volume.
Increasing the resolution will decrease the length of the strip, or allow you to play a longer sound for the same length of strip, or increase the sample rate. E.g. if you can get a resolution of 0.1mm then you could play a 2 second sound instead, using the same 0.5m length of rumble strip.
In principle, creating the object is not hard, but I don't know any software that can do it out of the box. You just need to make the surface height correspond to the waveform. If I was doing this I would probably write a Python script to turn the wave file into a list of numbers, then paste those into in OpenSCAD's polygon function, which I would then extrude to make the object. But others might know an easier way.
This is just beautiful! I was playing with the idea to generate gcode, but openscad sounds like a great idea. I guess that some simple 8-bit tune (commander Keen, super Mario) could be encoded in even less samples per second and a second of "music" might fit on a 20cm. strip.
Here's an alternative which takes advantage of the relatively (!!) high-precision layer capability of the 3D printer: Make a lithopane strip and use an optical sensor to reproduce the sound.
This is (was) done to encode the soundtrack for movies alongside the image frames in the film strip (reel). Basically the thickness of the print at a given location modulates the optical throughput and thus the signal strength out of the photodetector.
Note that, as with movie reels, you will need a lot of real estate to record a decent amount of audio.
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10974 | Is it possible extrude faces along normals individually in OpenSCAD?
For the geometry I am making, I want to extrude each face individually along its normal.
This is a standard procedure in 3D modeling software like Blender; see Example 3 here.
Is this possible in OpenSCAD?
For extruding a single face, as long as you can know the plane the face is in, you can projection it to a 2D shape then linear_extrude that. In general you need the cut=true variant of projection, and you need to translate/rotate the object to be projected such that the face is in the XY plane (this is the "as long as you can know") part. Unfortunately this is subject to numerical instability, so you probably have to translate it by an extra 0.001 or so to cross the XY plane, in which case you'll end up with an approximation of the face rather than an exact version of it.
(Strictly speaking OpenSCAD doesn't have exact things anyway, except in the case of faces sharing points in a polyhedron, so this limitation probably doesn't make the situation any worse than it already is in OpenSCAD).
Once you have the projection, you can linear_extrude it in any direction you want, manipulate the result (e.g. skew with a transformation matrix), and rotate and translate it back onto the face. It should be possible to wrap up this whole operation into a module that operates on its child[ren].
Another approach would be capturing a thin slice around the face manually via intersection, then performing a hull with a translate of itself, but this will only work if it's convex (otherwise hull will fill in the convex hull of the 2D face shape too).
Extruding faces is only possible on 2D polygons. From a 3D object you cannot capture the face and extrude it. To extrude "faces" you would need to define the shape of the face and extend it in the third dimension of your choice. This way a 3D shape is created that could be concatenated (joined using e.g. union) to the original shape. For the extrusion, the function linear_extrude is available:
linear_extrude(height = fanwidth, center = true, convexity = 10, twist = -fanrot, slices = 20, scale = 1.0, $fn = 16) {...}
As long as you can know the plane a face is in, you can projection it to a 2D shape then extrude that. You can also capture a thin slice around a face manually via intersection and then hull it with a translate of itself. (Depending on the object the latter may or may not give exact results.)
@R.. Very good examples to extrude "faces"! Please add that as a separate answer, or include it into your current answer.
I've added this as a separate answer since it's unrelated to my existing one.
@R.. Very nice, and certainly good that you separated the answers!
Built-in to the language and its CSG model, no - processing the CSG tree is a completely separate phase following execution of the functional language, and there is no way to "read back" anything from the conversion of the model into faces in order to operate on the faces.
However, you can do this if you're willing to do some heavy lifting yourself, or look for library code from someone else who's already done it. What it would involve is working out a description form of your own in terms of nested lists representing the model, with a module for converting the list to an OpenSCAD CSG tree. You can then write functions to manipulate this description in arbitrary ways, essentially reinventing the CSG phase of OpenSCAD within its own language. Some lesser versions of this have definitely been done in the past for things like implementing "loft" type functionality in OpenSCAD.
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10951 | Uneven layers- Ender 3
I got my ender 3 about a month ago, it was working fine. Tried a new brand, overture, this is when I started experiencing problems. First, I was clogging nozzles left and right, then I went back to hatchbox, and my layers are messed up...
Welcome to 3dPrinting.SE! How tight are the belts for your x-axis and y-axis? Is your bed tight to the slide? It looks to me you've got a lot of small layer shifts going on, which would indicate you've got slop in your assembly.
This looks like under-extrusion, have you cleaned the nozzle in between brands? Does the spool have friction so that it does not unspool freely?
Every time you use a new filament you should perform a new calibration: extrusion steps, filament diameter, temperature calibration tower, extrusion multiplier (if needed). Have you done it?
I have cleaned my nozzle (replaced it) cleaned my heatingblock. I have not performed a new calibration yet though. How would i do that?
What print settings are used? What temperature? It looks like underextrusion from a clogged nottle.
@Cherndon That is under extrusion due lack of force to feed the filament, also could be a problem of temperature which needs 10 to 15° C more. :D I had a lot of those "curly" layers, even my first hand made 3dprinter has some of those parts yet, that I will change on future.
I wonder if this problem is unrelated to your material or printer, and purely a matter of slicer breakage. Have you tried printing gcode files you created before the problem appeared? If you use Cura and upgraded it, you might have hit one of the bugs where it assumes by default you have 2.85 mm filament, even though your printer actually uses 1.75 mm. That will create underextrusion that has the whole printed object coming apart like an unravelling mummy. When I've seen it happen, it looks very similar to your picture.
Seems like in Movement without displaycement in x and y it seems to fit (neck-area).
I also would check your belts. There may be a bit too much friction.
Otherwise have you made some Testprints (calibration cube, boat)?
Especially the base looks bad. But it is not a cylinder or?
If you want, you may show us your 3dModell (rendered)
The print looks as if it has a lot of under-extruded sections, but indeed the base look odd.
Have you replaced your extruder stepper assembly with a metal one? I had a similar issue after a month of printing on my ender 3 because the plastic part had worn through and was causing drag on the filament.
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18940 | Is resin printing correct for my needs & limitations?
I'm considering buying my first 3D printer. The only place in my house where I have enough space is the garage, and I fear a PLA printer will suffer from the possible temperature differences I may have there.
For this reason (And also the fact that it seems smoother) i'm considering buying a resin printer (like the Elegoo Mars), but I wanted to know if the fact it will be in a garage could be a bad idea? I imagine resin printing is far less sensible to temperature variations, but I may be wrong.
I will only print as a hobby, probably some figurines for me and my kids to paint, or small hardware pieces / boxes for electronic components.
I'm considering the same thing. I eagerly await responses.
Resin likes it warm and dark
Resins increase in viscosity at low temperatures, so having low temperatures may have bad effects on the prints. However, Resin also likes it dark, so if your garage has a temperature above about 10 °C and is dry enough to prevent condensation, then your garage would be a good place.
Figurines and high detail models are a common use case for resin
It is near impossible to print miniatures for wargaming and similar in FDM, but resin printers are a very common type for this use case. Similarly, Cosplay props with a very high detail grade can benefit from being printed in resin, either directly or as an intermediate step to create a mold.
With the proper equipment, one could make flexible molds to cast wax positives which then can be used with the lost-wax-technique to create many high detailed metal copies of the printed first positive.
Containers are a possible use case for resin
Resin prints are more brittle than FDM prints. While limited in size, such containers, just as much as casings for electronics, are a possible usecase. In fact, replacement casings for retro electronics (think SNES controllers or N64 Cartridges during restoration projects) are somewhat common, even though they have not the same sturdiness as the original ABS casings. Here, the high detail grade makes the cut.
Tooling is a poor use case
Resin prints are very brittle and have little to no ductile movement. While I have used FDM-printed parts from PLA in a few projects to make adapters between machines and my shop vacuum as well as to create an aluminium bending tool, resin printed parts with their near to no flexibility are generally a poor use case to create hardware or tooling from.
Thanks for all the info! I should check the current temperature in the garage, to see if I would be able to print during the winter.
I just checked, the temperature is currently just above 12 degrees. It should be perfect then.
@MarcBrillault 10 is the absolute minimum, but you might want to take precautions against condensation nontheless.
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16572 | What is the best way to collect sanding dust?
I am pretty sure that sanding makes a lot of microplastics, so it would be nice to collect the dust, and melt it to got a blob of plastic again instead of millions of tiny particles. What is the best way for collecting it, do you use any dust extractor, or are there different techniques like sanding wet surfaces and filtering it from water?
What material? In my experience sanding PLA just doesn't work without water. You quickly hit the glass transition temperature then it just softens.
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE It is PLA, maybe later ABS. I figured meanwhile, that it would be the best to treat the water with chemicals to break down the microplastics.
Melting it has a significant energy impact. As suggested, vacuuming with bags or without bags and then dumping it in the garbage is the best, it will be collected, separated, burned.
@FarO If you throw it to the garbage it will show up in the food chain. Nobody will recognize microplastics, for them it is just a bag of dust. Burning won't happen either in most countries, they just throw it to a landfill. Better to handle it where you produce it.
I decided to collect the dust and treat both PLA and ABS with chemicals to completely break them down. That solves the issue and I won't rely on false hopes that somehow it does not end up in the environment.
What chemical did you find that breaks down PLA? From my reading, there are few solvents that will affect it...
@ZeissIkon PLA is a lot easier than ABS. Just google PLA hydrolysis. https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/13/9/2111/pdf Looks like a few weeks in 20% HCl is more than enough for PLA. I am not sure about ABS yet. I need to read a lot more about this, probably using google scholar for a few weeks.
ABS is used for drain pipes, so it's chemically pretty tough stuff. Most folks who want do something to it use solvents (acetone is top of the list) but you don't want to put those into your own environment, never mind the world -- and they don't break it down anyway; when the solvent evaporates the ABS is left behind.
@ZeissIkon Yes, maybe I forget about ABS and print only PLA. Though I have an MSc in biochemical engineering, so maybe I'll figure it out later when I need it. Currently it is not a priority.
FWIW, properties wise, PETG does almost everything ABS does, but is somewhat easier to print (say people who've been at this much longer than I have). Probably not any easier to break down, though, but easier to re- or up-cycle...
@ZeissIkon I am a beginner at printing, I really need to see what durability and properties PLA has first. If it is not enough, then I'll check PETG. Thanks for the tip!
Check YouTube for Maker's Muse channel, he had a video where he showed prints that had been outdoors in Australia for a year. Overall, even PLA held up well. Don't use it for anything that goes in your car, though; it'll sag above about 120F, which cars in summer easily exceed.
@ZeissIkon Currently I want to print something like this: https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025267154--Product-Gallery-G7-Laser-Mouse I don't like the shape of current mice, but the sensors and wireless tech are pretty bad in the case of 10+ years old mice like this one. So I decided to print a new shell for my G603. Not sure how long it will take to learn scanning, design, printing. It will be fun. :-)
For something that will live on your desk, there's no reason to look any further than PLA.
@ZeissIkon Yes, sweat is the only problem, but food grade PLA is ok I think. I might coat it with epoxy if it is not durable enough. I was thinking on transparent plastic or multiple layers too. It will be a fun project, maybe I print multiple different ones.
As an environmental thing, micro plastics are an urgent problem for ocean life, it’s getting into the entire food chain. With that in mind dumping it down the drain would be the worst, city filtration systems can’t get the tiny bits of plastic before it drains into the ocean. Sanding outside is kind of bad. I sand stuff over a lined waste basket outside, which maybe catches 75% of the dust. Inside (or outside) with a vacuum running would be good, I think best would be a vacuum with disposable bags. Yes it is still micro plastics, but it ends up at the dump, where the soil is already poisoned, and hopefully nowhere near the ocean/waterways, and likely will stay there while it breaks down. PLA takes ~80 years, but ABS takes 1000 years.
The idea of collecting the dust and fusing it sounds like it would be too much hassle to be feasible long term, it’s good, sustainable habits over years that add up.
As a side note, card scraping is a nice way to smooth 3D prints, that doesn’t make fine dust.
PLA may actually degrade faster as a microplastic than it would as a solid blob.
And not all the garbage goes to the dump. It is often (and hopefully) burned.
while down the drain isn't a good idea, the sewage processing will remove it before it is released. It's plastic thrown on the ground and washed down the storm drains with the unprocessed rain water that causes the problem, unless you are in a country that doesn't process sewage.
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16130 | Creating a 3D modelled "mold over" an imported object
Let's say I've made a 3D scan of my face and managed to get that into FreeCAD. How might I then create an object (it's a mask, okay?) that conforms to the shape of my face, with a given thickness, such that I can export and 3D-print that part only?
So if I printed it, it would fit over my face, but still look like my face from the outside, too. It would be, say, 3mm thickness througout.
To be clear, I'm not looking to make a 3D model of my head (the world does not need such a thing), or 3D model of a mold that I can use to replicate my head. I just want to make parts that conform to the shape of other, complex, parts.
Instead of using FreeCAD, I would import the mesh data into a vertex-based 3D modeling software, such as blender.
After stitching the model in any areas where you still have gaps, you remove any vertex belonging to areas you do not want to use for the mask. This leaves you with pretty much a skin-tight base for your mask. Select all the remaining surfaces and scale S them in all directions in regards to the origin so you create a little airgap 5% extra (1.05) should create enough space to sit somewhat comfortably, but you might prefer a little more. As a stand-in for the face, I use this approximation of a forehead...
Next, we thicken that surface using the modifier menu: Select the Solidify modifier and set a thickness that looks good to you and that might be printable. Then make sure it pushes away from where your face is. Also make sure the Offset is at 1 or -1 to ensure that it does not stick out from the face-scan surface to the back!
Now you got a perfect base to model on the outside of using the sculpt features while retaining the inner surface! Do yourself a favor though: print at least part of this model as a test fit and adjust the mask as needed.
Excellent point. Maybe I'm using the wrong tool for this particular job. I'll try Blender as you suggested and see where I get to. :)
note that cast would be the wrong term: you mold an item over a base/buck
Great stuff. Always happy to learn and use the correct terminology. I'll correct the original post as necessary.
It depends on the software you're using, but here is an example with TinkerCad.
Step 1: Import your 3D model (imagine that the ball is a head):
Step 2: Change its type from "Solid" to "Hole"
Step 3: Create a "Solid" box around your imported model.
Here is the inverted Solid/Hole version:
Here is the Solid version with the Hole model inside your Solid box:
Step 4: Select both models and group them:
Step 5: Add a box covering half of your mold (ideally splitting it in half):
Step 6: Duplicate the mold and the box
Step 7: Group the left mold with its surrounding box:
Step 8: Invert the box of the left mold by taking its left corner and dragging it over to the right side of the mold:
Step 9: Group the right box and the mold.
Step 10: You now have two molds for each half of your model:
Based on your comment, I'm adding a couple more steps:
Step 11: Take your cast, duplicate it, enlarge the duplicate, make it a hole and fit it over your cast (like so):
Step 12: Group the left cast with the larger "Hole" copy:
And if you're going to 3D print it and fit it over the old model, then you might want to enlarge the cast by a few mm.
It's now up to you to figure out how to clamp the molds, inject them, and then separate them.
A few things to keep in mind:
You might want to play with the placement of the model inside the mold a little better so it's not at the bottom of the mold but more towards the middle.
You could also get a bit more creative with the joining of the two molds by adding channels or some kind of way that they can fit into each other with greater precision. Here is an example: .
If the parts are more complex, then the cast will be more challenging and might require to be split into more parts.
Good luck! :)
That is excellent, thanks! I should perhaps have been more clear, though. What I want to do is use a casting-type method in software, such that the final object can be 3D-printed and will fit over the base object but also look like it from the outside.
Aaah, got it... well, that's a bit more tricky and doesn't work too well with complex models, but I'll add a couple of steps at the end to show you how.
Different Software can do this much easier: Vertex based ones.
@Trish that's an excellent point and very useful for 3D prints that require more precision.
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16115 | PETG and Clear Aligner?
There is a material called PETG. In addition, there is a medical solution called Clear Aligner to fix perplexed teeth.
Can I use a 3D printer using PETG and make transparent apparatus?
The program I use gives transparent apparatus, 3-dimensional output in STL format. Do I get results if I send the STL file to the printer?
No
PETG is a material that can only be used in FDM machines. This precludes any internal medical use, as FDM prints can't be made sterile or even hygienic - the sterilization processes would destroy the print, and FDM layers create many spots for germs to grow. Atop that, you can't get the needed precision with FDM - which means any FDM prints are at best waste at worst endangering the patient!
In contrast, 3D printed metals and laser-printed nylon can be created and post-processed in ways that do not have layer lines. Resin prints do not have layer lines that offer these discrete hiding spots for germs. They all are made in a fashion that kills germs or disallows them from being embedded and they can be properly sterilized or made hygienic.
No!
PETG can't be printed completely clear in FDM. By the processing method, air and layer boundaries are included, making prints at least somewhat opaque.
Only Resin prints can be fully transparent as they contain neither boundaries nor air.
NO!!!
STL files contain only surface data and need to be processed into printer readable format. G-code is one of those formats, commonly used in FDM machines and CNC machines.
The processing from STL or other surface data into FDM-3D-printer G-code is done by a program called a slicer. Examples are Cura, PrusaSlicer, Slic3r, and many others.
Resin printers using DLP use different slicers that create images of the model's crossections together with some sort of machine code for the movement. For SLA machines, the code is entirely different again.
Further Reading
I highly suggest you read more about 3D printing dental applications before trying anything for dental use, and especially anything that is printed for any medical application!
+1 for emphasizing the danger to the patient. Even if the patient had access to a specialized 3D printer of the kind that is becoming common in dental and orthodontic offices, the patient does not have the knowledge/training that the doctors do to use the tool correctly.
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16005 | Ender 3 - Tiny strings in print
Suddenly my prints start having small strings and I'm not sure what to do to eliminate them.
I have already tried to clean the filament tube, cleaned up the nozzle, and played with various retraction settings. Nothing seems to work and I still see these small strings.
Any idea how I can eliminate it?
Does this answer your question? How to avoid stringing?
@Rykara unfortunately it doesn't
These artifacts can be either moisture, as explored by this answer or problems with temperature/speed control or the Z-Axis:
If the temperature is not hot enough, the filament might not get melted enough to squish down to the next layer nicely at the speed the head moves at, resulting in the cooling filament getting dragged behind the printhead and forming a line in the air. Due to such errors I generally tend to print PLA more in the upper temperatures than where it barely liquifies.
This also can happen if the printhead is not on the right Z-height and the gap is larger than expected. Usually, this happens only at the lowest layer when you are unlevel (bad bed adhesion is the result), but if you bump the printer or it hooks on something, during Z-travel, it can result in such a mechanical problem. Other reasons that show the same pattern are uneven Z-Axis movement. For example, a loose gantry or a defective Z-rod can lead to it, as could bad firmware or a worn-out motor that lost a coil or two.
The Z problem could also happen if Z steps are uneven, for example due to flat spots on V rollers (hate those things).
@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE that too. Or of course massive miss-calibration, a loose gantry that doesn't stay level or actually any problem of the Z-control
What you're seeing does not look like stringing, which I would characterize as material that exited the nozzle after extrusion was supposed to have stopped, usually due to missing or insufficient retraction, but like the extrusions along the concave contours failed to bond to the previous layer and got drawn across to a point on the other side of the contour where some degree of adhesion resumed. This happens when the lateral acceleration force of going around the curve overcomes the bonding of the new material to the existing material it's being laid down against, and in my experience it's always the result of moisture-contaminated filament. This matches your description of the problem has something that "suddenly" started happening.
To fix it, dry your filament. If your bed is big enough, the easiest way to do this is to lay the whole spool on the heated bed covered by a cardboard filament box with one side cut out to make a heat chamber, and running the bed heater at around 60-70°C (for PLA) for several hours, flipping the spool a few times during it. You can also use an oven but I would not trust the temperature control not to shoot up high enough to ruin the filament. If you want a less hackish solution, all sorts of specialized filament drying systems are available but I don't have experience with any to recommend. I just use my bed for PLA and oven for materials that can withstand higher temperatures.
it can also be too low print temperature or too fast head movement (e.g. printing with normal speeds at 180°C or at 120mm/s with 190°C or something similar)
@Trish: Yeah, and in fact that's what I expected the first or second time it happened, but I couldn't explain why it started happening with no change in settings, and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out if I did something stupid with my slicing config that I forgot.
Which is why I don't touch speed and temperatures unless necessary
I would say that it IS stringing. If you have a Bowden setup, AND you have a different filament, your retraction may need to be tuned! If this is not a Vase Mode (no separate layers, but a continuous stream, these could be because the start/stop point of the layer change is not "fixed"...Check that setting in the slicer! While it looks like missed layer adhesion, it is probably a movement from one stop point of a layer to the start point of the next layer.
This doesn't match with OP's description of the problem as starting suddenly (I took that to mean with no change in settings) and the locations do not look plausible for stringing unless there's missing retraction during travel at layer change and the Z seam location is set to random. This would require a very specific combination of broken, non-default slicing settings (turning off both combing and travel retraction, among other things).
Maybe the change was the model? Curves where layer changed vs. straight lines? That happened to me after playing with the settings on Prusaslicer... So either might be possibe!
I would say that this is stringing, but not from oozing but from pulling a thread on a move. I've seen this a lot especially with PETG. This passage is to the point a movement from one stop point of a layer to the start point of the next layer, the OP could check this in the G-code preview of the slicer.
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15966 | How to improve this Benchy? BIQU B1
I have just acquired my first 3D printer, a BIQU B1. Overall I'm quite pleased with the printing results but I'm having minor defects on the Benchy test. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I guess it's related to the overhang and maybe vibrations.
My print settings are:
Software: Ultimaker Cura
Temp: 205 °C
Heatbed temp: 60 °C
Height: 0.2 mm
Print speed: 60 mm/s
Travel speed: 150 mm/s
Flow: 94 %
That's an impressive result. Do you get these same artifacts on each print produced, in the same locations?
Hi @fred_dot_u! Yes, it is always at the same locations. Even tried other filament, the one that came with the printer as a sample, and produced the same artifacts.
Today I tried a profile for the BIQU B1 I found for Prusa Slicer and the banding like artifact was fixed. But the Benchy was printed with a lot of stringing:
Photo
@Celtc That looks like that e.g. accelerations are different, also you print at a pretty high temperaure for PLA. The Benchy's in the Q show that the filament sags out on overhangs, although this is difficult to overcome completely, you should print at a lower temperature and probably increase part cooling fan flow.
@0scar lowering the temp is a good advice. At first I tried 180° but once I got splitted layers and increased the temp to 205°. But it may be a bit to high. Will try with 190° and 195°.
Would you mind sharing where you found the Prusa Slicer profile? I'm thinking of switching to it and can't find a profile online.
@nathanjaker Here it is: link
The original profiles are the ones name as V1 (Standard quality, the Draft and Super were created by me). I did a lot of tweaking in order to improve them. Last versions are the ones selected in the bundle. I'm still working on them so any feedback will be appreciated.
After two weeks of working on different settings in different slicers, I finally have a profile which has improved the quality of my printings. It still has some overhangs, which I'm sure will improve by increasing the cooling flow like 0scar already mentioned.
Here is the profile bundle (for Prusa Slicer): Link or see this answer below.
It is great that you managed to get a working configuration. However, in the future, at some point, the link to your google drive may end up dying, which would render your answer not so useful. I realise that you can not paste the entire code into the answer (I have just tried to do so and the character limit was reached (Body is limited to 30000 characters; you entered 30218.) . However, if you could paste in just the sections that you had to fix/change in order to get the print to work, then that would be great.
Nevertheless, I have pasted your code (in its entirety) into this community answer
From the Benchys, it is apparent that the temperature is quite high or that there is not enough part cooling flow. This can be seen from the sagging of unsupported overhanging structures. Considering the bow of the Benchy is quite fine, the most probable cause is the temperature, usually with too less part cooling flow, the bow shows defects.
Please note that a Benchy is a gimmick that does show defects, but it isn't a calibration object, there are many other different test prints available.
Code from Celtic's answer:
# generated by PrusaSlicer 2.3.0+win64 on 2021-04-17 at 15:16:02 UTC
[print:BIQU B1 - Standard]
avoid_crossing_perimeters = 1
avoid_crossing_perimeters_max_detour = 75%
bottom_fill_pattern = monotonic
bottom_solid_layers = 4
bottom_solid_min_thickness = 0
bridge_acceleration = 0
bridge_angle = 0
bridge_flow_ratio = 1
bridge_speed = 50
brim_width = 0
clip_multipart_objects = 1
compatible_printers =
compatible_printers_condition =
complete_objects = 0
default_acceleration = 0
dont_support_bridges = 1
draft_shield = 0
elefant_foot_compensation = 0
ensure_vertical_shell_thickness = 0
external_perimeter_extrusion_width = 0
external_perimeter_speed = 50%
external_perimeters_first = 0
extra_perimeters = 1
extruder_clearance_height = 20
extruder_clearance_radius = 20
extrusion_width = 0.4
fill_angle = 45
fill_density = 20%
fill_pattern = cubic
first_layer_acceleration = 0
first_layer_extrusion_width = 0
first_layer_height = 0.28
first_layer_speed = 20
gap_fill_speed = 20
gcode_comments = 0
gcode_label_objects = 0
infill_acceleration = 0
infill_anchor = 600%
infill_anchor_max = 50
infill_every_layers = 1
infill_extruder = 1
infill_extrusion_width = 0.48
infill_first = 0
infill_only_where_needed = 0
infill_overlap = 30%
infill_speed = 60
inherits =
interface_shells = 0
ironing = 0
ironing_flowrate = 15%
ironing_spacing = 0.1
ironing_speed = 15
ironing_type = top
layer_height = 0.2
max_print_speed = 80
max_volumetric_speed = 0
min_skirt_length = 50
notes =
only_retract_when_crossing_perimeters = 1
ooze_prevention = 0
output_filename_format = [input_filename_base].gcode
overhangs = 1
perimeter_acceleration = 0
perimeter_extruder = 1
perimeter_extrusion_width = 0
perimeter_speed = 50
perimeters = 4
post_process =
print_settings_id =
raft_layers = 0
resolution = 0
seam_position = aligned
single_extruder_multi_material_priming = 1
skirt_distance = 5
skirt_height = 1
skirts = 1
slice_closing_radius = 0.049
small_perimeter_speed = 40%
solid_infill_below_area = 70
solid_infill_every_layers = 0
solid_infill_extruder = 1
solid_infill_extrusion_width = 0
solid_infill_speed = 50%
spiral_vase = 0
standby_temperature_delta = -5
support_material = 0
support_material_angle = 0
support_material_auto = 1
support_material_buildplate_only = 0
support_material_contact_distance = 0.2
support_material_enforce_layers = 0
support_material_extruder = 1
support_material_extrusion_width = 0.35
support_material_interface_contact_loops = 0
support_material_interface_extruder = 1
support_material_interface_layers = 3
support_material_interface_spacing = 0
support_material_interface_speed = 100%
support_material_pattern = rectilinear
support_material_spacing = 2.5
support_material_speed = 60
support_material_synchronize_layers = 0
support_material_threshold = 0
support_material_with_sheath = 1
support_material_xy_spacing = 50%
thin_walls = 0
threads = 24
top_fill_pattern = monotonic
top_infill_extrusion_width = 0
top_solid_infill_speed = 80%
top_solid_layers = 4
top_solid_min_thickness = 0
travel_speed = 150
wipe_tower = 0
wipe_tower_bridging = 10
wipe_tower_no_sparse_layers = 0
wipe_tower_rotation_angle = 0
wipe_tower_width = 60
wipe_tower_x = 180
wipe_tower_y = 140
xy_size_compensation = 0
[filament:BIQU B1 - GSDT - PLA+ Silver]
bed_temperature = 50
bridge_fan_speed = 100
compatible_printers =
compatible_printers_condition =
compatible_prints =
compatible_prints_condition =
cooling = 1
disable_fan_first_layers = 1
end_filament_gcode = "; Filament-specific end gcode \n;END gcode for filament\n"
extrusion_multiplier = 1
fan_always_on = 1
fan_below_layer_time = 100
filament_colour = #8B8B8B
filament_cooling_final_speed = 3.4
filament_cooling_initial_speed = 2.2
filament_cooling_moves = 4
filament_cost = 1000
filament_density = 1.3
filament_deretract_speed = nil
filament_diameter = 1.75
filament_load_time = 0
filament_loading_speed = 28
filament_loading_speed_start = 3
filament_max_volumetric_speed = 0
filament_minimal_purge_on_wipe_tower = 15
filament_notes = ""
filament_ramming_parameters = "120 100 6.6 6.8 7.2 7.6 7.9 8.2 8.7 9.4 9.9 10.0| 0.05 6.6 0.45 6.8 0.95 7.8 1.45 8.3 1.95 9.7 2.45 10 2.95 7.6 3.45 7.6 3.95 7.6 4.45 7.6 4.95 7.6"
filament_retract_before_travel = nil
filament_retract_before_wipe = nil
filament_retract_layer_change = nil
filament_retract_length = nil
filament_retract_lift = nil
filament_retract_lift_above = nil
filament_retract_lift_below = nil
filament_retract_restart_extra = nil
filament_retract_speed = nil
filament_settings_id = ""
filament_soluble = 0
filament_spool_weight = 1000
filament_toolchange_delay = 0
filament_type = PLA
filament_unload_time = 0
filament_unloading_speed = 90
filament_unloading_speed_start = 100
filament_vendor = (Unknown)
filament_wipe = nil
first_layer_bed_temperature = 50
first_layer_temperature = 195
full_fan_speed_layer = 4
inherits =
max_fan_speed = 100
min_fan_speed = 100
min_print_speed = 10
slowdown_below_layer_time = 10
start_filament_gcode = "; Filament gcode\n"
temperature = 195
[filament:BIQU B1 - PETG]
bed_temperature = 70
bridge_fan_speed = 35
compatible_printers =
compatible_printers_condition =
compatible_prints =
compatible_prints_condition =
cooling = 1
disable_fan_first_layers = 3
end_filament_gcode = "; Filament-specific end gcode \n;END gcode for filament\n"
extrusion_multiplier = 1
fan_always_on = 1
fan_below_layer_time = 100
filament_colour = #29B2B2
filament_cooling_final_speed = 3.4
filament_cooling_initial_speed = 2.2
filament_cooling_moves = 4
filament_cost = 0
filament_density = 0
filament_deretract_speed = nil
filament_diameter = 1.75
filament_load_time = 0
filament_loading_speed = 28
filament_loading_speed_start = 3
filament_max_volumetric_speed = 0
filament_minimal_purge_on_wipe_tower = 15
filament_notes = ""
filament_ramming_parameters = "120 100 6.6 6.8 7.2 7.6 7.9 8.2 8.7 9.4 9.9 10.0| 0.05 6.6 0.45 6.8 0.95 7.8 1.45 8.3 1.95 9.7 2.45 10 2.95 7.6 3.45 7.6 3.95 7.6 4.45 7.6 4.95 7.6"
filament_retract_before_travel = nil
filament_retract_before_wipe = nil
filament_retract_layer_change = nil
filament_retract_length = 4
filament_retract_lift = nil
filament_retract_lift_above = nil
filament_retract_lift_below = nil
filament_retract_restart_extra = nil
filament_retract_speed = nil
filament_settings_id = ""
filament_soluble = 0
filament_spool_weight = 0
filament_toolchange_delay = 0
filament_type = PET
filament_unload_time = 0
filament_unloading_speed = 90
filament_unloading_speed_start = 100
filament_vendor = (Unknown)
filament_wipe = nil
first_layer_bed_temperature = 75
first_layer_temperature = 235
full_fan_speed_layer = 0
inherits =
max_fan_speed = 35
min_fan_speed = 35
min_print_speed = 15
slowdown_below_layer_time = 20
start_filament_gcode = "; Filament gcode\n"
temperature = 235
[printer:BIQU B1 (No Z Hop)]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 0
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 2.5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.2,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 7
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 (With Z Hop)]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 0
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 2.5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.2,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 7
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 1
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 Alpha v1]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 35
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.4,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 3
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 Alpha v2]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 35
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.4,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 7
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 Alpha v3]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 35
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.4,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 4
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 Alpha v4]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 35
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 500,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.4,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 4
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 Beta v1]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 0
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 2.5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.2,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 7
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[printer:BIQU B1 Beta v2]
bed_custom_model =
bed_custom_texture =
bed_shape = 0x0,235x0,235x235,0x235
before_layer_gcode = ;LAYER:[layer_num]
between_objects_gcode =
color_change_gcode = M600
cooling_tube_length = 5
cooling_tube_retraction = 91.5
default_filament_profile = ""
default_print_profile =
deretract_speed = 0
end_gcode = ;BIQU Default End Gcode\nG91 ;Relative positioning\nG1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit\nG1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract a bit more and raise Z\nG1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out\nG1 Z10;Raise Z by 10mm\nG90 ;Return to absolute positionning\nG1 X0 Y235 ;TaDaaaa\nM106 S0 ;Turn-off fan\nM104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend\nM140 S0 ;Turn-off bed\nM84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
extra_loading_move = -2
extruder_colour = ""
extruder_offset = 0x0
gcode_flavor = marlin
high_current_on_filament_swap = 0
host_type = octoprint
inherits =
layer_gcode =
machine_limits_usage = emit_to_gcode
machine_max_acceleration_e = 5000,5000
machine_max_acceleration_extruding = 500,1250
machine_max_acceleration_retracting = 1000,1250
machine_max_acceleration_x = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_y = 500,1000
machine_max_acceleration_z = 100,200
machine_max_feedrate_e = 75,120
machine_max_feedrate_x = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_y = 250,200
machine_max_feedrate_z = 10,12
machine_max_jerk_e = 2.5,2.5
machine_max_jerk_x = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_y = 8,10
machine_max_jerk_z = 0.2,0.4
machine_min_extruding_rate = 0,0
machine_min_travel_rate = 0,0
max_layer_height = 0
max_print_height = 270
min_layer_height = 0.07
nozzle_diameter = 0.4
parking_pos_retraction = 92
pause_print_gcode = M601
print_host =
printer_model =
printer_notes =
printer_settings_id =
printer_technology = FFF
printer_variant =
printer_vendor =
printhost_apikey =
printhost_cafile =
remaining_times = 0
retract_before_travel = 1.5
retract_before_wipe = 0%
retract_layer_change = 0
retract_length = 7.5
retract_length_toolchange = 10
retract_lift = 0.5
retract_lift_above = 0
retract_lift_below = 0
retract_restart_extra = 0
retract_restart_extra_toolchange = 0
retract_speed = 70
silent_mode = 0
single_extruder_multi_material = 0
start_gcode = M220 S100 ;Reset Feedrate\nM221 S100 ;Reset Flowrate\nG28 ;Home\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nM109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]}; Preheat hotend\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up
template_custom_gcode =
thumbnails =
toolchange_gcode =
use_firmware_retraction = 0
use_relative_e_distances = 0
use_volumetric_e = 0
variable_layer_height = 0
wipe = 0
z_offset = 0
[presets]
print = BIQU B1 - Standard
sla_print =
sla_material =
printer = BIQU B1 (With Z Hop)
filament = BIQU B1 - GSDT - PLA+ Silver
I agree with this answer. There might be an obstruction in the cooling. I also have a B1, have you checked the included printed part that redirects the blower fans towards the part and made sure it's clear? Mine came with some warping that I had to file off.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.784048 | 2021-03-29T00:01:48 | {
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16019 | What to do if filament spool won't fit in 3D printer
My sample filament has just ran out. Luckilly, I've already bought more filament. The only problem I have is that the spool for the new filament won't fit inside my 3D printer. The filament itself works with my printer; it's just the spool that is the problem. Does anyone have any solutions for what to do if a filament spool won't fit in your 3D printer? For reference, I have the FlashForge Adventurer 3.
Keep your old empty rolls ! They're like screwtop jars, always useful for something.
A spool does not need to be inside a printer. Or on. Or even next to.
My Ender 3 pulls his filament in from the rack above it, my TronXY X1 pulls it from about 80 cm to the left of it, where it hangs from a shelf.
When making a solution that pulls in filament from afar, it is necessary to make sure the path is unobstructed and works for the whole movement range of the printer without getting bent sharply, as that can snap or kink the filament.
In the case of the small printer you have, leave open or remove the door to the filament chamber and make sure to place the spool holder so it drags in the filament straight. There are even spool holders designed specifically for this printer.
There are many designs of spool holders out there, many of them free and with minimal assembly.
RE-spooling
Some printers, especially ones that only take marked rolls, might need their spool cores re-filled. In that case, you need to take utmost care: re-filling a spool needs to be without any twist to the filament or you risk entangling, and you need to make sure to not kink or bend the filament in doing so, or risk breaking at those spots.
Due to the risks involved, this should be avoided whenever possible!
Had to look up the printer the OP mentioned. That one has a closed compartment in the side of the printer for the spool (max 0.5 kg spools). Your answer is still valid, but could perhaps be improved by mentioning that an outside spool can be used by leaving open the side cover (e.g. see https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3163417).
I have never seen a 0.5 kg spool.
@AndreKR, they're common for specialty filaments, but I've never seen one for ordinary PLA.
How about winding some filament onto the empty spool?
@Frog that's risking mis-winding and entanglement.
@Trish agreed, should be done properly or not at all
Thanks for the tips. I am now using a broom placed on a box as a temporary rack for my 3D printer. I am also planning to 3D print the extension piece for my printer's spool holder.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.785040 | 2021-04-03T10:50:48 | {
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15785 | UV degradation of UV curable resins
I needed to know if typical UV curing resins, such as the ones from Anycubic, can withstand solar radiation over extended periods of time with little to no degradation. It has been quite difficult to find information about the subject online, so I'm wondering whether anyone here has experience here to share.
Are you asking about the stability of cured or uncured resin?
cured resin of course
Yes, it is actually pretty hard to find that information. First thing is that the resin never stops curing. Additional exposure to UV will continue to degrade the material over time. This is true of even plastics (and human flesh), however, in the case of UV resins we're talking about years not weeks. Each manufacturer of resin, even from different batches, will exhibit different performance characteristics with their formulation. As a general rule of thumb resin prints should not be used as an end product. They are used to either create a mould for the final object or used as a fitness test where the dimensions and tolerances are tight. The cured resin is typically not 100% safe to handle, and as such should not be used on bare skin or inside the human body or as any form of eating or cooking utensil. Colour degradation of resins (they become cloudy) will also occur for resins that were once colourless.
EDIT: (Didn't want to expand this but it seems I have to) Companies that release 3d printed with branded resins have custom formulas to match their printers. This is perhaps to ensure that the customer keeps coming back for the consumables. These custom formulations are most undoubtedly patented, however, it seems that they are keeping the formula a secret (until you reproduce it and they claim you've breached their patent). Due to the fact that the formula is unknown to the end-user no one can certify that the cured resin is 100% non-toxic and safe for contact with skin; either on the outside of the body or the inside ;) Speciality dental adhesives have different formulas (and are perhaps more expensive than) 3d printing resins.
Do you have a reference for your "cured resin is typically not 100% safe to handle" claim? I have seen plenty of information about uncured resin, but nobody saying that finished prints were in any way unsafe to touch.
the resin will stop curing once there is no photoactive monomer left. But before that point, other spectrums of the UV will start to break polymer bonds, especially in the color molecules, which can degrade the plastic. Those are different processes.
Nope, no references. There is simply no way I can find that dude's video after so many years.
UV-cured polymers are used in dentistry as fillings, sealants, and glue, and the dentists seem to feel that it’s 100% safe for contact and that it’s completely cured after about 60 seconds of intense UV exposure. Those compounds aren’t printing resin, but they’re probably work the same way. Without some reference to an authoritative source your answer based on an unknown, years-old video isn’t very convincing.
Well, that's a -1 from me. Saying that fully-cured resin isn't safe for skin contact is just fearmongering, and bad info, unless you can find some kind of useful reference about it.
What seems to be a difficulty is the stabilizers for plastic absorb UV. So if added to UV resin, they probably greatly increase the exposure time needed.
The following show characteristics of some plastics, taken from https://www.coleparmer.com/tech-article/uv-properties-of-plastics
Unmodified types of plastics that are regarded as having unacceptable resistance to UV are POM (Acetal), PC, ABS and PA6/6. Other plastics such as PET, PP, HDPE, PA12, PA11, PA6, PES, PPO, PBT and PPO are regarded as fair. Note that a PC/ABS alloy is also graded as fair. Good resistance to ultraviolet rays can be achieved from polymers extruded by Zeus such as PTFE, PVDF, FEP, and PEEKTM. The only plastics found with excellent resistance are the imides, Polyimide (PI) as used in the Hubble Space Telescope and Polyetherimide (PEI).
PTFE has particularly good UV resistance because of its very strong carbon- fluorine (C-F) bond [almost 30% higher than the carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bond], which is the common side bond that surrounds the carbon (C-C) backbone in a helix and protects it. Most fluoropolymers also do not have the light absorbing chromophore impurities in their structure that can act as an initiator for photo-oxidation.
Sunlight contains the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, including the wavelength to photoinitiate your resin. Most UV-curable materials are kept in opaque containers for this reason. The extent to which your material is crosslinked will depend on your material and how much sunlight it receives.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:54:44.785340 | 2021-03-03T16:50:57 | {
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