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thread-21564 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21564 | What is the best time interval and method to stop heating the bed to start releasing before the print is finished? | 2023-11-01T08:45:01.660 | # Question
Title: What is the best time interval and method to stop heating the bed to start releasing before the print is finished?
I want to end the bed heating approximately X minutes before the print is finished so that the bed starts cooling and releasing the print.
Since an object can have different sizes and printing one layer can take very long or very quickly, I cannot simply insert an `M140 S0` before the last layer. **What is the best time interval and method to achieve this?** Is there a Cura slicer extension for it, an OctoPrint plugin, or should I write a custom script for Cura? I mostly print with a 50 °C heated bed and PLA using OctoPi on a Creality Ender 3 v2 with Marlin firmware. With a printer bed at room temperature, the print could come loose too early while still printing, so 20 °C might be too extreme. Make sure the printer is finished when the bed is around 35-40 °C? Is there any theory and method to back this up? Does this method have a term or name?
# Answer
You barely save energy keeping a plate warm a few extra minutes, certainly with an insulated bottom. It will not cost much electricity. This has been seen before in various answers.
The chance the print releases increases with stopping heating the bed and increases the chance to mess up the print requiring a reprint. This will add frustration, filament costs and energy costs. Best interval is therefore zero (based on experience with printing on glass, at a certain temperature the print comes free from the build plate on glass). But, different surfaces may hold the print even when cold. E.g. PETG on PEI bonds very well.
If you really want to stop heating the bed, you need to determine for a few various sized prints the point at which the print releases. Based on your tests you could device a strategy to stop heating the bed.
If you want to release a print sooner after printing, get a removable build plate, e.g. a flexible coated steel plate or a few sheets of glass and place the print with glass in the fridge or somewhere where it is cooler.
> 2 votes
# Answer
In addition to Oscar's answer, there is an OctoPrint plugin that attempts to achieve exactly that. The plugin uses the following and-condition to determine the moment to stop bed heating:
"printing finished for at least 90% **and** remaining print time is below 5 minutes".
The plugin is called OctoPrint-BedCooldown. Its page describes:
> **Turns off the bed heater toward the end of a print**
>
> For filaments such as PLA, many printers have more than enough stored thermal mass in the bed to keep bed adhesion throughout the print. Therefore, you may want to turn off the bed heater automatically before the end of a print, saving cooldown time.
>
> The bed heater will be turned off during a print, when both conditions are met:
>
> * The print time left is below the configured threshold (default 300 seconds / 5 minutes)
> * The print completion percentage is above the configured threshold (default 90%) This should cover both long and short prints; you wouldn’t want the bed to turn off 90% into a 20 hour print, or 5 minutes before the end of a 10 minute total print.
>
> Be sure to monitor your print, as turning off the bed heater could cause the print to come loose prior to completion.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: marlin, ultimaker-cura, heated-bed, octoprint, cooling
--- |
thread-22829 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22829 | Why is the heating unit not on top? | 2023-12-19T14:02:25.610 | # Question
Title: Why is the heating unit not on top?
Most printers are build the following (please excuse if I do not use the correct terms)
A heating unit mounted below an aluminum build plate and then some surface on top that can be printed on like glas or some fancy material.
Why is the heating unit not sandwiched above the aluminum bed and the the surface that can be printed on?
wouldn't it be more efficient having the heating unit closer to the printed part and more "insulation" on the bottom?
# Answer
I can think of the following reasons why heating units in 3D printers are typically below the build plate such as:
* Uniform Heat Distribution: An aluminum build plate evenly distributes heat across the printing surface.
* Safety and Insulation: This setup provides insulation, reducing the risk of burns and maintaining a stable temperature environment.
The stable temperature also would allow for a more gradual cooling of printed layers, potentially minimizing warping issues.
Placing the heating unit on top might perhaps improve heat transfer efficiency but would likely lead to overheating, uneven temperature control, safety issues, or print quality issues.
> 3 votes
---
Tags: heated-bed, printer-building
--- |
thread-21042 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21042 | Get 2D object from a 3D object's face in OpenSCAD | 2023-06-11T15:32:20.887 | # Question
Title: Get 2D object from a 3D object's face in OpenSCAD
Basically I am working on automating the generation of upper and lower shells of device enclosures. These enclosures have a rather irregular shape that was generated e.g. with `hull()`. I currently have a hollow enclosure object that I would like to split into an upper and a lower half in order to print them on a 3D printer. This is easily done by intersecting / diffing them with a large `cube` object. But I would like to also have a lid at the split position so both parts have a mechanically solid fit.
My approach would currently be to get the 2D surface of the cut plane and modify it to get an outer part for one shell and an inner part for the other shell. But I do not know how to get this surface object in the first step of the process.
Any ideas how to do this in OpenSCAD? Or even better proposals?
EDIT:
A possible workaround is as follows:
I model the inner hollow structure by combining the necessary room for the components. The enclosure is constructed by applying `minkowski() { inner(); sphere(r=wallThickness); }` to it. The overlapping lid parts are then generated by applying the Minkowski operation with a sphere half the wall thickness in size. Problem is, this creates a non-vertical overlap as you can see in the example by setting `cutHeight = 10` instead of `-20`. I know that having a vertical lid (i.e. perpendicular to the cut plane) may on the other hand lead to problems when the wall thickness is too thin.
```
$fn=32;
wallThickness = 5;
lidHeight = 5;
cutHeight = -20; // or 10
module inner()
{
translate([0,0, cutHeight])
hull() { // example only, may be an arbitrarily irregular shape
translate([0, 0, 20]) sphere(40);
translate([20, 20, -10]) cube(50,center=true);
}
}
module shell(wall)
{
minkowski() {
inner();
sphere(wall);
}
}
module lower_enclosure()
{
union() {
intersection() {
difference() {
shell(wallThickness);
shell(0);
}
translate([0,0,-500]) cube(1000, center=true);
}
intersection() {
difference() {
shell(wallThickness/2);
shell(0);
}
translate([0,0,-500 + lidHeight]) cube(1000, center=true);
}
}
}
module upper_enclosure()
{
rotate([180,0,0])
union() {
intersection() {
difference() {
shell(wallThickness);
shell(0);
}
translate([0,0,500]) cube(1000, center=true);
}
intersection() {
difference() {
shell(wallThickness);
shell(wallThickness/2);
}
translate([0,0,500 - lidHeight]) cube(1000, center=true);
}
}
}
lower_enclosure();
translate([0,110,0]) upper_shell();
```
# Answer
You can use the openSCAD `projection()` function.
With `cut=true`, this slices your model at the Z=0 plane.
3D to 2D Projection documentation.
```
projection(cut = true) example002();
```
> 1 votes
---
Tags: openscad
--- |
thread-11809 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/11809 | Hotend doesn't maintain temperature | 2020-01-19T15:51:16.413 | # Question
Title: Hotend doesn't maintain temperature
I got an Anycubic Predator last month, and after resolving a few mechanical problems, I was able to get it printing decently well. The only significant modification I've made so far is a set of 8-diode TL Smoothers, and I'm now mostly operating it via Octoprint.
However, during the last few prints, I've noticed the temperature dropping midway through the print. It warms up and cools down fine, but for some reason it's not able to sustain the temperature throughout the print.
In this case, the print started out at the correct temperature (200 °C), held that temp for around 2 hours, then it dropped to a lower temp (174 °C). It eventually went back up to the target temp, then dropped again 5 minutes later. I tried manually adjusting it to see if that could fix it, but no luck.
After this print completed, I restarted it to show how it is easily able to reach the target temp and hold it at the *start* of the print:
Any tips on diagnosing and resolving this issue?
# Answer
> 5 votes
## Safety First
Let's look at the graphs. First: you should swap firmware for one that has Thermal Runaway, as, as it is, running about 15 minutes with 28 K less than the printer is ordered to work at is a clear indication that there is no Thermal runaway protection in place - it should have tripped over that long ago! But there is more!
## Problem
But this graph and the lack of Thermal Runaway Protection also are typical for printers that have a design flaw: If the airflow from the part cooling fans or the coldend-cooling fan (that's the fan that always runs) brushes over the heater block, it cools it. This limits the achievable temperature.
Luckily, such is easily remedied in one of several ways:
* Changing the airducts for ones that does not hit the heater block
* Adding a silicone sock around the heater block
* Kapton-tape and ceramic wool can be used to make a heater-sock too
* Adding an air-shield in the shape of a bit of tinfoil can redirect the airflow away from the heater block, but make positively sure it is mounted Fire-Safe and can't be lost into the print!
# Answer
> 1 votes
The rise times are quicker than the fall times, which is not what I expected. Maybe a fan is turning on and off, but I'd expect to see the heater struggling to heat up. On both graphs, the rise times look like good heating and not much interference.
It seems to me that power to the hotend is the problem, but what can cause a drop in power but not to zero (as in the first graph)? Assuming that the file and the software are OK, then it's hardware: the MOSFET and the subsequent tracks and connections become the most likely suspects. So, I'd check all the connections between hotend and control board, even undoing and reconnecting. If you have a logging voltmeter, you could try that to see if the heater voltage changes when it shouldn't. If you have an oscilloscope, see the input pulses into the MOSFET to see if changes happen at the same time you see something weird with temperatures. MOSFETs can fail in peculiar ways, so consider replacement - it's not the cost of the MOSFET that's the issue; it's all the fiddling around to actually do it.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Based on your picture from Octoprint I can assume that you may have the wrong heater. Why? Because heating hotend to 215 takes quite a lot of time (3 minutes) in your case. If you have an appropriate heater it should take around 1 minute
You need to check the resistance of the heater and then calculate the power based on voltage.
Current = Voltage / measured resistance
Power = Current * voltage
For a good working hotend, you need to have at least a **35 W to 40 W** heater.
Some shops sell 40 W heaters but these heaters are for 24 V systems, so in your case, if you have 12 V system it may be the case why the temperature drops because the heater will work like it has 10 W of power
But even if you swap the heater, you need to be sure that your power supply/board will be able to deliver appropriate current without damaging itself - MOSFET/SSR (solid state relay) could be helpful sometimes.
As someone mentioned in a different response it's good to have cooling protection like silicone socks or any other protection material.
---
Tags: troubleshooting, hotend, thermistor, anycubic-predator
--- |
thread-22840 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22840 | Homing fails with filament in run-out sensor | 2023-12-22T00:03:19.990 | # Question
Title: Homing fails with filament in run-out sensor
My friend has an Ender 3 Max Neo that they were just able to reassemble after moving. Looking it over there didn’t seem to be any assembly errors, but the auto-home was definitely causing a few issues.
1. The Printer would hit the end stops for X and Y, auto-home to X:157 and Y:170 to test the Z (where the CR Touch would tap with about 2 mm between the bed and the extruder), then raise the extruder to 10 mm (technically 12).
2. The printer would then stay in that position (X:157 Y:170 Z:10) even though the owner has never had that as the home location. Starting a print right here then causes the printer to try to go off the right side.
3. The printer also can’t seem to auto-home with any filament in the run-out detection. Starting a print, or telling the printer to auto-home, causes the printer to pull the filament out of the extruder and feeder line until it's past the gears. If I don’t pull it out of the run-out detection then it just says “Homing failed” and can’t be exited unless the entire thing is turned off and then turned back on. At first, I thought this was because of a loose length of filament that had been in the feeder line left over from before. But removing that didn’t stop the issue from occurring with a freshly inserted strand from the spool.
My next plan of action is to re-install the firmware and double-check all the wirings.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Homing does work as expected, it hits the X and Y end stops, then it moves to the center of the bed (corrected for probe position) and homes Z (this is caused by firmware option `#define Z_SAFE_HOMING`). As the X and Y endstops are hit the printer knows the position and the location. If your printer now prints in the wrong area, the slicing is probably incorrect, the center of the bed (corrected for probe offset) is never the starting point relative to where the print starts.
The whole purpose of the filament detection sensor is to detect a run out of filament, if run out, the printer stops. So if no filament is detected, it is imaginable that also homing fails. Considering that the homing fails if filament is present in the sensor and not when there is no filament could hint that the filament sensor is incorrectly wired. I would skip the sensor and never use it, it is a pretty useless feature, in the past 10 years and kilometers of filament (1.75 mm and 2.85 mm) I have seldomly encountered broken filament, actually only with the thicker filament and usage of old brittle PLA. Just make sure you have enough filament to finish the print. If your spool has few windings, count the windings and calculate how much is left or unwind the spool and measure the length and compare that to the length the print requires (reported by the slicer). You never run out of filament if you know you have enough.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, homing
--- |
thread-21226 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21226 | Do PEI beds have a maximum safe usage temperature? | 2023-07-26T11:53:44.920 | # Question
Title: Do PEI beds have a maximum safe usage temperature?
I have a generic smooth PEI bed and a Bambu PEI textured bed. I've never used this bed material before and so have no experience with it.
Does PEI have a maximum safe usage temperature or at least one that I could reasonably reach during 3D printing on an X1 Carbon?
I don't want to accidentally toast it printing with a high-temperature setting, as there don't seem to be any trips or safeguards against it in the software.
# Answer
> 2 votes
* For PLA you normally print with a build plate around 60 °C
* For ABS you normally print with a build plate around 110 °C
The X1 Carbon is given for a max hot bed temp of 120 °C as per the manufacturer specs.
In fact, the PEI material itself can sustain temp up to 170 °C continuously. (Source: Duratron® U1000 PEI data sheet)
# Answer
> 0 votes
The maximum bed temperature for PEI is determined more by the way the PEI is adhered to or deposited onto the metal plate.
For PEI sheets attached with the 3M adhesive, I found that at higher (ABS at 105 °C, ASA at 100 °C) temperatures, the PEI eventually starts to detach and form bubbles, which determine the highest temperature.
The PEI powder coating has the potential to deal with higher temperatures better because the fusing and baking process used for powder coating is normally a better bond.
Keep in mind with higher bed temperatures, you have to keep the enclosure temperature high as well to avoid a steep temperature gradient from the bed to ambient internal temperatures. Temperature gradients result in differential contraction ratios which result in warping. This is why much higher bed temperatures are probably not needed unless you are printing very high-temperature filaments e.g., PEEK.
---
Tags: heated-bed, pei, bambu
--- |
thread-22853 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22853 | Does every 3D printer need an enclosure? | 2023-12-26T12:04:46.457 | # Question
Title: Does every 3D printer need an enclosure?
Some materials need a heated chamber, which in itself is an enclosure already. However materials such as rPLA, PLA, PHA don't necessarily need a enclosure, or even a heated bed.
Could printers that only print with such materials still benefit from print enclosures in terms of print quality?
Also, are there other reasons to put printers that use only such materials inside enclosures?
# Answer
> 2 votes
This is one of those "yes, if", or "no, but" situations.
The short answer is that if you have a printer that is only being used for a material such as PLA then the average user will see no advantages from having an enclosure as they print perfectly well at ordinary room temperature, and slight variations in temperature have minimal effect because they're stable and don't warp or shrink very much.
You can probably stop reading here.
Even for printer businesses, most PLA-based print farms use basic open-frame bed slinger-type printers as there are no benefits to enclosing them, so it's not worth the additional cost.
If your printer is in your bedroom, the only advantage that an enclosure would provide you with PLA is that it would be a little quieter.
The exception to this is if your printer is in an area that has high temperature variations, or high levels of humidity. For example, my 3D printer is in a room with two pottery kilns and a wood steamer. Or it being in an outbuilding where it gets down to double digits below freezing.
Some materials don't require enclosures for quality reasons, but having one with proper venting is a good idea due to the fumes that they give off. However, this isn't an issue for most people as these materials are less common.
---
Tags: print-quality, printer-building, enclosure, chamber
--- |
thread-22845 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22845 | What could have caused both belts becoming loose? | 2023-12-24T13:14:16.807 | # Question
Title: What could have caused both belts becoming loose?
Recently both belts on my Prusa MK3S+ became loose. Quite suddenly, too. One print was okay, the next nozzle wobbled in the Y and bed in the X causing layer shifting. More precisely, each movement was shifted pretty randomly.
I checked belt tension and there was basically none. It was good a month ago, and it must've been good enough just one print before. Of course I will tension them again, but I would be glad to know what are the possible causes of belts losing tension suddenly, to check them during the maintenance.
# Answer
> 3 votes
I figured it out.
Long hours of printing ASA parts for my upcoming Voron Trident, in an enclosure, made printer parts softer and belts skipped on the teeth. I needed to glue and shim belt ends in place. Next time I'll need to replace these parts, and belts. Hopefully I'll have another printer by then.
---
Tags: prusa-i3, repair, belt
--- |
thread-21777 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21777 | PrusaSlicer: How do I preserve the location of (interlocking) parts in a muliti-part model exported from OnShape / Blender? | 2023-12-08T16:38:41.913 | # Question
Title: PrusaSlicer: How do I preserve the location of (interlocking) parts in a muliti-part model exported from OnShape / Blender?
How do you import a multi-part object into PrusaSlicer without losing the position of the parts? For example, I want to print a two-material interlocking structure like this:
I've tried exporting this from my CAD software (OnShape) as a mesh (STL or OBJ) but when I import it into PrusaSlicer (v2.7.0) the result is either a single object with no internal walls:
or (3MF) two objects placed on the build plate individually, so they no longer interlock:
If I use a STEP file it at least preserves the position of the parts within a single object, and there are some internal walls, but no internal top and bottom layers which I want for structural reasons (in this case the dovetail will simply crush in the XY plane if the part is tensioned in the Z axis):
What's a good way to import multiple parts and have them "print in place", like they were in the original design?
# Answer
> 3 votes
I've found **a** way to do this, which I'll document here in case it helps someone else in the future.
* Export your parts as a single STEP file
* Import that STEP file into PrusaSlicer
* Set **Print Settings \> Multiple Extruders \> Advanced \> Interface shells**
+ (You need to be in **Expert** mode to see this option)
The STEP file adds the internal walls, and this **interface shells** option adds the internal **top and bottom** layers I was missing:
# Answer
> 0 votes
Despite how featureless the STL mesh looks when imported, all the data is there and you can split it to parts using the right click menu. I feel silly for now having spotted this before .
The result is exactly as I had hoped:
My take away is that PrusaSlicer *does not* always prompt you to split your important mesh into multiple parts; so its always worth attempting to split to parts using the menu after import.
---
Tags: slicing, prusaslicer, multi-material
--- |
thread-22828 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22828 | Is there a metric that defines the abrasiveness of filament? | 2023-12-18T22:12:02.900 | # Question
Title: Is there a metric that defines the abrasiveness of filament?
All filament is abrasive to some extent. Speciality filaments such as carbon fibre filament even more so. How is abbrasivness defined for filament and is there a metric that defines the abrasiveness of filament?
If available, are there any filament producers that report the 'abrasiveness' of their filament?
# Answer
Abrasiveness depends on both the hardness and the roughness of a material. The harder material will grind/polish the softer one. But if both surfaces were perfectly smooth not much would happen, so roughness is important.
For example sandpaper is rated and sold based on its grit which refers to the size of the particles (i.e. roughness).
The encyclopedia Britannica has an excellent article on this, Abrasive | Types, Grades, Uses & Applications. The most relevant part being:
> One of the most important properties necessary in an abrasive material is hardness. Simply put, the abrasive must be harder than the material it is to grind, polish, or remove. Hardness of the various abrasive materials can be measured on a number of scales, including the Mohs hardness test, the Knoop hardness test, and the Vickers hardness test.
>
> \[...\]
>
> Toughness or body strength characteristics are also significant to abrasive function. Ideally, a single abrasive particle resharpens itself by the breakdown of its dull cutting or working edge, which exposes another cutting edge within the same particle.
Some filament manufacturer's do publish data sheets PDFs on their websites, but except for flexible filaments like TPU and TPE I've not seen hardness included, presumably because the hardness of, say, PETG filament should be the same as the hardness of PETG copolyester that can be looked up.
Cheaper filaments tend to have some additives/filler mixed in to make them easier to print or give them desirable properties (like "silk" PLA). These additives are usually not disclosed (they're trade secrets I suppose), so the best we can do is make some educated guesses. "High flow" materials are likely softer than their regular counter parts. Glass-filled filaments hardness will be dominated by the glass. Likewise for carbon-filled.
As for brands which provide data sheets, Fillamentum provide technical data sheets for each of their filaments which include the following specifications:
### Physical properties
* Material density
* Melt flow index
* Diameter tolerance
* Weight
### Mechanical properties
* Tensile strength
* Elongation at break
* Tensile modulus
* Charpy impact strength
### Thermal properties
* Glass transition temperature
* Heat deflection temperature
### Printing properties
* Print temperature
* Hot pad
* Bed adhesive
Hope this helps!
> 1 votes
---
Tags: filament, terminology, abrasiveness
--- |
thread-21601 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21601 | Which detection mechanisms can a filament sensor use? | 2023-11-06T13:27:12.270 | # Question
Title: Which detection mechanisms can a filament sensor use?
Using the official Creality runout sensor, I encountered a few times that the filament entangled around something and got stuck, the printer continuing for several hours (as it didn't run out), printing mid-air aithout filament. Then I got interested in the types of filament sensors that exist such as a runout and jam sensor as those mentioned below:
### The BTT filament sensor
It is supposedly able to detect both runout and jamming, which I **assume** uses the concept of a rotary encoder:
### DIY 'super simple filament jam sensor'
From printables.com, which I **assume** uses simple physics, although it's unclear how this works exactly.
### DIY Optical Filament Sensor
This amazing-looking optical filament sensor from thingiverse.com uses a rotary encoder.
### Question
I guess that a rotary encoder would be best for this purpose because it can detect actual moving filament and potentially even exactly at which speed it is moving. However, how would it account for filament retraction or paused prints (waiting for filament color change)? Is this usually done in firmware or external control software such as OctoPrint?
I would like to understand: What different types of detection mechanisms for filament jam detection exist, and how do they work exactly? Also, which is considered most reliable and why?
# Answer
It's a great question, but I don't think jam detection is particularly common on hobbyist printers.
I know the Prusa MK3.9/MK4 and XL printers intend to add jam detection using the load cell that's built into the Nextruder, where it can detect the force between the extruder gear and the nozzle. It was promised in their promotional material, but is not implemented yet. (Today it uses the load cell to perform mesh bed levelling.) Jam detection using the load cell would have to be implemented in firmware.
Vector3D build a hotend tester using the same principles, and I feel his video nicely explains how the load cell would detect skipping and jamming: The Next Generation of Hot End Testing - YouTube.
I don't have any experience of using rotary encoders on a printer, so I cannot comment on how the data from the encoder is used to alert the user of a potential problem. I would hazard a guess that it's an OctoPrint plugin which require you to use serial printing (so OctoPrint knows how much filament is being extruded/retracted moment to moment). A quick search shows there is at least one such plugin: gmatocha/Filament-Watch-Octoprint-Plugin: Octoprint Plugin that monitors filament extrusion with a rotary encoder, the README lists the required parts and may be a good starting point if you want to build one yourself.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: printer-building, filament-jam, filament-sensor, sensors, runout-sensor
--- |
thread-22812 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22812 | Is there a possibility to reliably print PLA with an Ender 3 that has an all-metal hot end? | 2023-12-13T17:47:14.677 | # Question
Title: Is there a possibility to reliably print PLA with an Ender 3 that has an all-metal hot end?
I want to use my Ender 3 as a multi-filament-printing printer
As many users already have asked, printing PLA with an all-metal hot end is not really recommended.
But, if I am attempting to use my stock Ender 3 printer (no hardware and software modifications) as a safe indoor 3D printer that can both print PLA and PETG, without risking any fumes coming out of the PTFE tubes.
How may I reliably print PLA with an all-metal heat break, without any further hardware modifications?
Are there any reliable slicer settings (such as print speed, retraction, etc.) that should be systematically tried?
# Answer
You can look up the material properties of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and see that its glass transition temperature (when it softens) is around 115 °C, and it melts at 327 °C. The PTFE in a not-all-metal hotend will be in the heatbreak which is significantly colder than the hotend, and should not reach 115 °C.
The plastic casing which holds the heatbreak is typically injection molded ABS which softens at 105 °C. So your hotend would begin to shift in a softened carriage before the PTFE began to soften.
The fumes you are worried about are caused by off gassing, which may be a better term to search for if you want something with hard numbers you can reason with.
That said, if you can reason about the maximum temperature your PTFE will experience in the heatbreak (which should be **significantly colder** than the temperature of the nozzle), you can use this safety chart to reason about how dangerous (or not) it is to be near (see Capricorn's Safety Precautions).
As regards the safety of an indoor printer, PLA does not emit a lot of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and is generally deemed "safe". (ABS is known to emit a lot, and is known to cause headaches). PETG seems to emit more than PLA, but still low at 550 parts per billion (ppb).
That said, all plastics emit some amount of VOCs when heated, so it is always best to print in a well-ventilated area. Personally, I print in my bedroom and spare room and just leave the doors to the rest of the house open, and those little vent slots you get at the top of windows have been enough to keep the air in the house fresh.
(If I print ASA or ABS I absolutely close the doors during printing, then air the room with an open window for 10-20 min when it is done: you don't want the ambient temperature too low when printing - causes excessive warping and other issues).
> 2 votes
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, pla, bowden, all-metal-hotend, heat-break
--- |
thread-22863 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22863 | Is printing from a micro SD card faster than printing over a USB cable? | 2023-12-27T20:35:27.320 | # Question
Title: Is printing from a micro SD card faster than printing over a USB cable?
I've been repeatedly printing the same G-code on two fairly identical machines (Creality Ender 3 V2) with the same settings, the only difference being one is printed from a Micro SD card and one is printed using OctoPi over a USB cable.
Although I didn't measure the exact times, I have the idea that the SD card prints were consistently faster.
Is it possible that prints from Micro SD card are indeed faster than prints sent from OctoPrint and if so, by how much percent could it be and why?
# Answer
> 4 votes
The slowest USB standard is "low-speed USB 1.0", at 1.5 megabits per second. The slowest SD card I've been able to find has a rated read speed of 900 kilobits per second.
The average line of G-code is about 200 bits. Even the slowest USB connection or SD card can transfer thousands of lines of G-code per second, much faster than your printer can carry out the relevant motions. Any speed difference is going to come from how a printer handles those data sources, not anything inherent in them.
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Tags: g-code, usb, microsd, sd, performance
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thread-22846 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22846 | Encountering some weird layer gaps on the last few lines of a particular print | 2023-12-25T06:13:05.207 | # Question
Title: Encountering some weird layer gaps on the last few lines of a particular print
I'm working on printing the 3D Printable Jet Engine w/ Minimal Printing Supports and I'm having a surprising amount of difficulty printing the fan. The fan seems to print fine, right up until the last 20 or so layers, where it starts to gap and blob-like I've never seen before.
I have quite a few photos available to view, but I'm including a few below:
Settings/components:
What I have tried:
* Initially, I thought that maybe it was because I had the infill set to ~40 %, and a lot of top layers, so maybe the print geometry and the infill/top layers combo caused it, but they showed up when I put the infill to 100 %, as well as if I just put the walls to 20 (thus making it 100 %).
* I've tried printing with .20 mm and .16 mm layer height, as well as .16 mm + adaptive layers (which made a lot of it .12 mm)
* Tried switching to a different filament, and encountered the same results.
* Printed some tuning towers to verify that the temperature and retraction are set up okay.
* Tried lowering the speed down to 75 mm/s (usually around 100 mm/s)
If it was something like a clogged nozzle, then I would assume that that same pattern would be seen everywhere on the print. That goes for the temperature and retraction as well.
# Answer
I re-printed the model using Curas overlay settings and some stretched cubes to apply different settings to some of the fan blades: And once printed, the blade seen here at the very bottom looks like it was the best: The changes on that blade were just 4 bottom layers, 0 top layers and 7 walls (effectively making everything after the bottom 4 layers 100% density with just walls).
I'm not sure why exactly the gap between the top layers and the walls was showing up, but regardless, this seems to be the fix.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: ultimaker-cura, slicing, filament-quality, layer-shifting
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thread-22850 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22850 | Is it possible to 3D print without PFAS/PTFE? | 2023-12-25T21:15:09.453 | # Question
Title: Is it possible to 3D print without PFAS/PTFE?
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is one of the best-known and widely applied PFAS commonly described as persistent organic pollutants or "forever chemicals".
If I want to avoid PFAS due to environmental concerns, is there an alternative to:
1. PTFE Bowden tube used?
2. PTFE coated nozzles?
3. PTFE spray used for rod maintenance?
# Answer
None of those items are needed.
If you have a bowden extruder, upgrade to a direct drive.
Even on direct drive systems, PTFE tube is commonly used as a "reverse bowden" or "feed tube" to deliver the filament from a drybox or spool mounting point to the toolhead. Other tube materials may be used, but may contribute too much friction; you'll have to experiment if you want to go that path. You can usually forgo having one at all if youu mound the spool with a good direct path, or setup a system of filament guides/pulleys.
If you have a PTFE-lined hotend, replace it with an all-metal one.
Direct drive extruders may have a small piece of PTFE between the extruder and hotend, even when the hotend is all-metal. This part of the filament path being low-friction is not critical, and it can be replaced with a 2mm ID metal or even printed plastic tube without seriously compromising extrusion capability.
Nozzles should never be PTFE-coated. Don't buy ones that are. The best nozzles are 100% tungsten carbide (never wears out, never wears into air or into your printed parts), but pretty much no nozzle should contain any PTFE unless explicitly marketed as such (eew).
As a lubricant, there are lots of choices other than PTFE sprays, most of which are probably better. PTFE is highly recommended **against** for linear rails, as it's reported to lead to sliding by the balls instead of rolling. For smooth rods it might be a good choice, but I would expect there are grease, graphite, or other options that work just as well. I've never used a printer with smooth rods so I can't recommend anything in particular from experience.
> 1 votes
# Answer
It depends on your printer really. If you have a direct drive printer with all metal hotend, then you can feed filament directly into the carriage without any guiding tubes.
For example, the Prusa i3 models (MK3, MK3.9, MK4) don't require any tubes, as shown in Prusa's own promotional photos:
**Edit**: It seems this is misleading marketing, as there is apparently ~5cm of PTFE internal to the carriage.
As for replacing a Bowden tube with something other than PTFE... I don't know any of concrete examples of a proven solution, but really any tube in which you can easily slide your filaments (i.e. low friction) will do.
If you are printing PLA and PETG I would expect you can get away with using Polyurethane ("TPU"), but might need to lower your speeds to overcome the friction. I've not tried any, but I can see that if you are in the US (I'm not) you can get a variety of soft (i.e. flexible) tubing from McMaster-Carr
The inner diameter may differ slightly from the usual PTFE tubes the printers come with, in which case you may need to tune retractions (larger inner diameter -\> more retraction needed).
If you have an all metal hotend, then the Bowden tube itself won't be subject to high temperatures, so the important characteristics will be its inner diameter, whether it can flex the way you need for your particular printer, and if filament can be pushed through it with relatively little resistance.
If you are feeling adventurous, you could even try printing your own tube from TPU and see if the idea can work *at all*. I'd use some of the stiffer filament, perhaps with a shore hardness of 98A which when printed solid is about as tough as shopping trolly wheels. If you print it thin it bends quite easily.
> 0 votes
---
Tags: maintenance, ptfe-tube, ptfe, pfas, sustainability
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thread-18552 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/18552 | Is resin 3D printing considered "additive"? | 2021-12-13T13:56:08.087 | # Question
Title: Is resin 3D printing considered "additive"?
Subtractive manufacturing has been the way of the world for a while, but additive manufacturing, which is synonymous with 3D printing, has disrupted all of that.
If extrusion-based printing is considered additive, then can we call resin printing additive?
Resin printers start with a resin bath and then essentially "subtract" the material it needs (via UV light). This is just a matter of terminology, no big deal.
# Answer
> 9 votes
Resin printing (aka stereo lithography) was actually invented before (FFF/FDM) filament extrusion printing. The term 3D printing was more or less created as a generic way to name and describe both along with a handful of other methods.
It is additive because you add layers to other layers to build the part rather than carving up an original solid block.
Resin printing is no more subtractive than removing the tip of the filament in FFF is subtractive.
# Answer
> 1 votes
It really took me a little while to understand why you thought that it was subtractive, but I *can* now see your point. Which is, that seeing as the resin model is created *within* the tank/bath, you are saying that the bath is analogous to a block of aluminium which is whittled away, using CNC, to make a 3D model. The resulting aluminium model was once within the block of aluminium, as was the resin 3D model - therefore, you posit, resin 3D printing is subtractive.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed as if you were, actually, correct.
However, then I realised that we were neglecting the hardening process. It is the hardening of the resin that is done in an additive manner, in order to slowly build up the model, therefore the process is additive.
You aren't removing/subtracting non-hardened resin from the model (which would result in a non-hardened wobbly model), but instead, as user10489's answer states, you are adding hardened resin layers.
---
Tags: extrusion, resin, terminology
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thread-22874 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22874 | Only one 4-pin fan on toolhead board - use it for part cooling, or hotend radiator fan? | 2023-12-29T18:37:58.470 | # Question
Title: Only one 4-pin fan on toolhead board - use it for part cooling, or hotend radiator fan?
BTT CAN Bus toolhead control board I'm going to use has three fan connectors. Two 2-pin ones, and one 4-pin. What is more valuable, to have tachometer and PWM control over the part cooling fan, or over the hotend radiator cooling fan? On one hand, better part cooling fan control can make better prints (is the 20% cooling"really a 20%?).On the other, being able to easily detect stall on a radiator cooling may be useless 99% of the time, and save my posterior this one time it's needed, by stopping heater when hotendfan fails. So I am lost here.
Most printers use only 2-pin fans so I guess it's not that big of a deal, and having either one on full control would be a progress, but I want to get the best of what I've got when I'm building it myself.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I would use it for the hotend cooling, not part cooling. There is utterly no reason to need to know if 20% is "really 20%". If you're using sub-100% fan settings, the actual linearity of the percentage is irrelevant; you just need to find (experimentally) the power setting that achieves the results you want, and use that.
On the other hand, as you've noted, stall detection is highly valuable for the hotend cooling fan. It can protect you from potentially very serious damage to your printer, if not outright fire hazards.
If you would like to use both, though, you don't need a 4-pin fan connector. Any endstop/filament-runout-sensor/etc. connector can be repurposed for the fan tach. Just make sure you check the circuit diagrams and ensure they work the way you think they do before connecting anything.
---
Tags: diy-3d-printer, fans
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thread-8616 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8616 | Creality Ender 3 printer power consumption? | 2019-04-05T01:18:45.910 | # Question
Title: Creality Ender 3 printer power consumption?
Anyone have any idea how much power it takes to run a Creality Ender 3 3D printer every day for several hours at a time? Like what does it eat up per hour? A rough estimate of power use per hour would be nice, then I can figure out how much it costs me. Can anyone help me?
# Answer
I'm currently measuring the power usage of my Ender 3. It used about 0.5 kWh for 4 hours of printing. With 2 heat ups (about 280 W each). So approximately 120 W average. Or 0.12 kWh per hour.
Assumed your printing 12 h a day you're using 1.5 kWh a day. That translates into a cost of 0.43 € a day in electricity (0.3 €/kWh).
When you're using your printer every day for an average of 12 h. You'll be using about 525 kWh a year or 157 € in electricity at 0.3 €/kWh.
> 12 votes
# Answer
The Ender 3 has a 360 W power supply. This is the maximum power the printer can use. However, if engineered correctly, it should never actually reach this level of consumption to prevent premature failure of the power supply. It will use the most power during initial warm up, which is a relatively short amount of time. Then the average power consumption will drop considerably once at temperature. So, an average of 120 Wh per hour seems like a reasonable estimate.
It turns out that if you are paying 11.4 cents per kWh (which is a nominal price in the US) the price of running something 24 hours a day is \\$1 per Watt per Year. So if you ran your printer all year long nonstop it would cost \\$120 per year or \\$10 per month.
Since you live in New York, you probably pay about 1.5 times as much for electricity or 17.1 cents per kWh. So you'd multiply the figures above by 1.5, so you would get \\$15 per month. Also, you don't use your printer 24 hours a day. Let's say you want to print an average of 8 hours a day. That's 1/3 of the day, so you'd divide your figure by 3 and get \\$5 per month. You'd hardly notice a difference in your electric bill.
> 11 votes
# Answer
If it is really important to you to know how much you are spending per any given print, your best bet is not to guess, *but to know* how much power you're using. To that end, you could purchase a power meter which monitors your power usage. Given the right one, it can even calculate the cost of the power usage all in one little package. This link, The 10 Best Electricity Usage Monitors, should provide you some ideas as to what you might find, but I'm sure there are plenty more out there (NOTE: I have no affiliation to the link provided ... it was just a random one I found through a Google search ... Go Go Google-Fu!).
As 0scar pointed out in his comment, there are just too many variables to try and guess what the power consumption *might be*. If you are looking for a real answer, I believe something along the lines as I've linked above is going to be your best solution to getting a real answer. Anything else is more or less just a guess.
> 5 votes
# Answer
Other answers include good estimates, and show that for one printer the electricity costs are not very significant. If you are using many printers and want a concrete answer, then it would be wise to purchase a power monitor (for continuous monitoring) or multimeter with clamp.
With a clamp-on multimeter, you can clamp the meter on to the 3D printer's plug and read the Amps being drawn. Assuming a 120 VAC single phase supply (typical for North America), the power consumption is 120 VAC multiplied by the Amps drawn by the 3D printer (P=VI), which you can read from the multimeter.
The amps drawn by the 3D printer will vary throughout your print, but for a longer print, you should be able to get a good average amps read during a middle print layer. Total energy cost of printing per day would then be:
```
C = (V*I/1000)*t*E*n
C, Total printer energy costs per day ($/day)
V, AC Voltage (V)
I, Average current draw during print (Amps)
t, time printers are running per day (Hours/day)
E, Energy cost from utility ($/kWh)
n, number of printers
```
> 1 votes
# Answer
During the printing process: 110 Watts (Average)
Can be calculated as energy: 0.11 kWh (Average)
Just directly multiply it by your model’s total printing time.
In short (on average) (based on 2023 electric prices)
| | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 hour printing | ₺0.17 (Turkey) | \\$0.025 (US) | €0.03 (EU) |
| 7/24 printing daily cost | ₺3.96 (Turkey) | \\$0.63 (US) | €0.73 (EU) |
| 7/24 printing monthly cost | ₺119 (Turkey) | \\$19 (US) | €22 (EU) |
In the table below, you can see all of the actions’ power consumption individually. All values are average and show isolated consumptions.
| State | Power Consumption Net (Watts) |
| --- | --- |
| 1 Idle | 7 |
| 2 Heating Bed | 243 |
| 3 Heating Nozzle | 41 |
| 4 Keeping Nozzle Hot | 22 |
| 5 Keeping Bed Hot | 44 |
| 6 Steppers Engaged | 18 |
| 7 Feeding Filament | 5 |
| 8 X-Y Motors with Max Feedrate - 150 mm/s | 2 |
| 9 Hotend Fan | 2 |
For more detailed information, see my Medium Post Ender V2 Power Consumption
> 1 votes
# Answer
Just order a Watt Electricity Usage Monitor or a similar model and plug it into the wall, or better, a 3-prong extension cord, then plug your 3D printer into it, and you'll get all the power consumption detail you'll need. Show your Mom, and she'll see what to charge you, if she's so inclined. To impress her, offer to pay without her asking.
> 0 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, cost
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thread-22883 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22883 | Does running a PID Autotune with an increased cycle count result in more accurate PID values? | 2024-01-01T14:48:01.887 | # Question
Title: Does running a PID Autotune with an increased cycle count result in more accurate PID values?
I'm using the mriscoc firmware for Creality Ender 3 V2. The firmware has the option to run more PID Autotune cycles. The default is 5 cycles. Does running a PID Autotune with an increased cycle count result in more accurate PID values? For example running 50 cycles instead of the default 5?
# Answer
> 2 votes
In short, **yes**, More PID cycles will generally yield 'better' results.
However, the PID values are being averaged over these multiple runs, and it will very quickly pass the point of diminishing returns after 5 cycles, Hence why it is the default.
By the time you reach the hypothetical 50 cycles, you have likely far exceeded the margin of error present as a result of tolerances in your setup, and are only averaging noise.
---
Tags: temperature, pid, mriscoc
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thread-22875 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22875 | Does a Creality Ender 3 V2 running mriscoc firmware require a micro SD card at all? | 2023-12-30T14:35:30.853 | # Question
Title: Does a Creality Ender 3 V2 running mriscoc firmware require a micro SD card at all?
To my understanding, all settings including those that resulted from the Nozzle Auto MPC tuning and Bed PID tuning and the created UBL mesh are all stored I the EEPROM by the mriscoc Marlin firmware on a Creality Ender 3 V2.
I'm asking because I recently encountered a bad (or very slow) micro SD card, where the printer took long to boot to the start screen and start beep (30 sec), consistently with a bad SD, and without a SD it booted almost instantly.
So, does a Creality Ender 3 V2 running mriscoc firmware require a micro SD card at all, for other things as I previously mentioned?
I'm printing only over USB using OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi (OctoPi).
# Answer
If you only print from Octoprint, the SD card is not used.
> 2 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, marlin, microsd, mriscoc, eeprom
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thread-22827 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22827 | How could dual end-stop switches on each axis improve the functionality and precision of 3D printers like the Creality Ender 3 V2? | 2023-12-18T20:41:08.390 | # Question
Title: How could dual end-stop switches on each axis improve the functionality and precision of 3D printers like the Creality Ender 3 V2?
Looking at a bare Creality Ender 3 V2, I realised that there are three end-stop switches, one for each axis, X, Y, and Z. But this only helps to determine the start (0) position of each axis. Wouldn't doubling the end stops to six instead, two for each axis, one on each side, help to determine not only the start but also the end position? (Besides, to my understanding, the switches are called 'end stops' but are used as 'start stops' in this case.)
If each axis has an 'end stop' at the start **and** at the end, it can dynamically determine how many steps can be taken. Isn't this more elegant and adaptable than using fixed sizes? Also, since end-stop switches are simple and cheap, why don't all printers use them? I think it could also help in **precision calibration** and still stay operational when hardware tweaks are made without firmware changes.
Moverover, wouldn't it prevent wrongly configured firmware (by means of a 'hard stop' where stepper motor are trying to move something moving beyond the physical possible axis potentially resulting in catastrophic damage?
# Answer
First the questions in the body are addressed:
> I realised that there are three end-stop switches, one for each axis, X, Y, and Z. But this only helps to determine the start (0) position of each axis.
No not necessarily, you could mount an endstop to the other end of the axis to determine the maximum value for that axis without the need for a start endstop, Marlin is already equipped with functionality for this:
```
// Direction of endstops when homing; 1=MAX, -1=MIN
// :[-1,1]
#define X_HOME_DIR -1
#define Y_HOME_DIR -1
#define Z_HOME_DIR -1
```
E.g. Ultimaker printers have their Z-endstop at the bottom, so the maximum value of the Z axis.
> Wouldn't doubling the end stops to six instead, two for each axis, one on each side, help to determine not only the start but also the end position?
No, not necessarily, the end is fixed by the start position and the defined axis length (e.g. bed size of Z movement). It might be interesting to use a second endstop in case something goes wrong. E.g. layer shift as a result of the nozzle hitting something redefines the origin and could result in thinking the origin is somewhere on the build plate, adding the maximum bed sizes, the printhead could run into the end and destroy your printer, a second endstop, when triggered will stop the printer. I have used such an endstop on one of my printers, but I have never ran into problems with layer shifting and as such the endstop was never hit; I removed this endstop recently.
> Besides, to my understanding, the switches are called 'end stops' but are used as 'start stops' in this case
The start is also an end of the axis, there are two ends on an axis.
> If each axis has an 'end stop' at the start and at the end, it can dynamically determine how many steps can be taken.
No, steps are determined by your hardware (common hardware configuration for stepper motors is e.g. 200 steps per revolution or 400 or even more/less steps per revolution) together with the stepper driver which allows for substeps of the afore mentioned values.
> Moverover, wouldn't it prevent wrongly configured firmware (by means of a 'hard stop' where stepper motor are trying to move something moving beyond the physical possible axis potentially resulting in catastrophic damage?
Yes it would, I already described that in case of layer shifting. But if you are bold enough to compile your own software you should known what you are doing and configure it correctly. Also test the printer before you use it and keep the powerswitch nearby.
Now to answer the main question,
> How could dual end-stop switches on each axis improve the functionality and precision of 3D printers like the Creality Ender 3 V2?
The precision will not be improved by adding another endstop to the other side of the axis. However, the functionality can be improved by adding another endstop but this is mainly protecting the printer in case something went wrong, as in the printhead has changed its position relative to the origin, e.g. in case of layer shifting. Knowing that the Creality Ender 3 are printers on the cheap end with their shortcomings (see all the questions) this may prevent damaging the printer, but, generally the belt skips when the head is obstructed in X-Y range. For the Z direction this may be different as there are lead screws involved which can procude more force (but I have yet to see a layer shift in Z direction...).
> 2 votes
# Answer
The rule of thumb when engineering things is add sensors for things that can change unexpectedly. If the changes can only occur through the user dismantling and rebuilding the device, sensors that detect that sort of changes are usually a waste of money.
Your print head position can change unexpectedly. Stepper skipping steps, something seizing up, someone moving the bed or print head while the printer is idle. Your bed and gantry dimensions won't change without you replacing the bed and the gantry, and possibly the frame. Never mind the printer won't know how far apart the two switches are, this still needs to be a config entry and changed with rebuilding the bed. There is virtually no precision benefit to having them on two ends. They are used in more heavyweight machinery like big CNC routers, to protect the machine from damaging itself by going past the unprotected end due to a software glitch. In 3D printers if that happens your print is already dead, and your printer will warble loudly but nothing will break (any worse than it already is).
On the other hand, dual switches on one end for dual drive devices are a pretty good idea. Say, the printer with two Z-axis motors and two Z screws - if the motors somehow get out of sync, the gantry will tilt, the nozzle will dig into the bed on one side, fly over the bed on the other, generally problems abound. Fixing this manually is quite a chore. Meanwhile an end switch for each side of the gantry, distance between their activation corresponding to how much out of level it is, can allow the printer to re-level its gantry all on its own. Similar problems occur for CoreXY bed motors, making the bed flat.
In short, start/stop switch won't improve distance precision, but a pair of start switches for one axis can improve the angle precision - how perpendicular the axis are.
> 1 votes
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Tags: firmware, calibration, endstop, hardware, sensors
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thread-12258 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/12258 | .STEP/.F3D to .SCAD file? | 2020-03-27T13:35:13.377 | # Question
Title: .STEP/.F3D to .SCAD file?
I work with Fusion360 for designing lots of things. Recently I learned how to work with parameters that I can easily modify all at once, allowing to pretty much make easily customizable pieces.
Now, Thingiverse wants customizer pieces in the shape of `.SCAD` files, and some people just can't work with Fusion360 (`.F3D`) or proper `.STEP` files that can be imported by most CAD programs.
I have no experience with OpenSCAD. Can I import my `.STEP` into openSCAD, retain my parameters and export it as a `.SCAD`, and if yes, how?
# Answer
Even though OpenSCAD can import a variety of formats, the file structure will not be accepted by Thingiverse in the manner presented by the OP.
OpenSCAD is a text-based description language. One creates parameters assigned to specific aspects of a model and implements those parameters to create the desired shapes/components by typing in a text editor. The native editor for OpenSCAD provides for some management, but notepad or equivalent would work just as well.
The file format of OpenSCAD is text. None of the CAD type modeling programs will provide equivalent text output.
For your objective, you'd have to learn the basics of OpenSCAD (not particularly difficult) and reference the parameters in the STEP files, then assign them to the appropriate labels in OpenSCAD.
If you have particularly complex designs, it can be a handful. It can also be rewarding when you change a parameter as a test and the complete model follows as expected.
> 2 votes
# Answer
Actually there's a solution, albeit not directly from within openscad. I've just found this:
https://github.com/agordon/openscad-step-reader/tree/master
You will need to install or build yourself opencascade, and then it's a matter of running a command line tool to convert a .step to a .scad file.
I've just done it to be able to import a Thorlabs designed optomechanical item into scad and it works swell.
```
./openscad-step-reader --stl-scad RM1B-Step.step > RM1B-Step.scad
```
Then open the converted .scad file. If you want to try, the item can be seen here, get the step file from the list of document.
The result in openscad:
> 2 votes
# Answer
I managed to get openscad-step-reader to compile, but I had to jump through a few hoops:
1. Run the `apt-get` install command from the beginning of the Makefile:
`apt-get install libocct-data-exchange-dev libocct-draw-dev libocct-foundation-dev libocct-modeling-algorithms-dev libocct-modeling-data-dev libocct-ocaf-dev libocct-visualization-dev libtbb-dev`
2. Ignore anything to do with `cmake`. I can get `cmake` to work by creating a `CMakeLists.txt` file, but I couldn't get the `Makefile` it generates to work.
3. Edit `triangle.h` and replace
* `ostream` with `std::ostream` \[2 changes\]
* `endl` with `std::endl` \[3 changes\]
4. Edit `openscad-step-reader.cpp` and replace
* `endl` with `std::endl` \[1 change\]
5. Edit `explore-shape.cpp` and add
* `#include <GeomAbs_SurfaceType.hxx>`
* `#include <BRepAdaptor_Surface.hxx>`
6. Edit the `Makefile` and change
* `7.3.0` to `7.5.2` \[2 changes\] (I realise a better solution would be desirable for this!)
7. Run `make`. The `.o` files should be created, but the `cc` command will fail (after a longish time), citing 'undefined reference' 783 times
8. Copy the `cc` command that was printed whilst running make, and put all the `.o` files before all the `-l` arguments, like this:
```
cc openscad-step-reader.o tessellation.o openscad-triangle-writer.o explore-shape.o -lTKSTL -lTKXDESTEP -lTKBinXCAF -lTKXmlXCAF -lTKXDEIGES -lTKXCAF -lTKIGES -lTKSTEP -lTKSTEP209 -lTKSTEPAttr -lTKSTEPBase -lTKXSBase -lTKStd -lTKStdL -lTKXml -lTKBin -lTKXmlL -lTKBinL -lTKCAF -lTKXCAF -lTKLCAF -lTKCDF -lTKMeshVS -lTKOpenGl -lTKV3d -lTKService -lTKXMesh -lTKMesh -lTKOffset -lTKFeat -lTKFillet -lTKHLR -lTKBool -lTKBO -lTKShHealing -lTKPrim -lTKTopAlgo -lTKGeomAlgo -lTKBRep -lTKGeomBase -lTKG3d -lTKG2d -lTKIGES -lTKSTEP -lTKSTEP209 -lTKSTEPAttr -lTKSTEPBase -lTKXSBase -lTKStd -lTKStdL -lTKXml -lTKBin -lTKXmlL -lTKBinL -lTKCAF -lTKLCAF -lTKCDF -lTKMeshVS -lTKOpenGl -lTKV3d -lTKService -lTKXMesh -lTKMesh -lTKOffset -lTKFeat -lTKFillet -lTKHLR -lTKBool -lTKBO -lTKShHealing -lTKPrim -lTKTopAlgo -lTKGeomAlgo -lTKBRep -lTKGeomBase -lTKG3d -lTKG2d /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKMath.so.7.5.2 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKernel.so.7.5.2 -lfreetype -lpthread -lrt -lstdc++ -ldl -lm -o openscad-step-reader
```
Now, for me, the program will compile. My system is running Ubuntu Focal Fossa 20.04.6 LTS. I contacted the author (Gordon Assaf) but he said he was no longer working on the project. For me, this has been a godsend, since it allows me to import .step files downloaded from the Swagelok website into my OpenSCAD design.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: file-formats, openscad, fusion360, .step
--- |
thread-22888 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22888 | Does Cura's M0 pause work to pause an Ultimaker 2+ (Extended) print? | 2024-01-02T13:30:33.927 | # Question
Title: Does Cura's M0 pause work to pause an Ultimaker 2+ (Extended) print?
I want to make a print where I swap color halfway through. I have tried doing something similar with a 2+ Connect before, and what the internet told me then was to go into Ultimaker Cura and modify the G-code to add a filament change. And the printer blew right past that layer and printed the whole thing in one go. (How Cura would allow me, completely without warning, to insert G-code unsupported by the chosen printer, especially since the chosen printer is of their own make and entirely under their control, is beyond me, and also a different question.)
So naturally, now that I'm working with an Ultimaker 2+ (Extended, with original firmware up-to-date according to Cura), I am inclined to distrust Cura with these things. I have tried to look into modifying the G-code manually to add a pause, and then by hand interrupt the print to change filament. The two main options I have found are the commands `M0` and `G04`. But none of the sources I have found have mentioned printer support. I haven't been able to find anything online that tells me whether `M0` or `G04` are actually supported by the firmware.
The G-code that Cura makes, with the settings I chose, uses `M0`, as shown below:
```
G0 F9000 X19.305 Y19.27
G0 X19.27 Y19.27
;TIME_ELAPSED:25576.615046
;TYPE:CUSTOM
;added code by post processing
;script: PauseAtHeight.py
;current layer: 22
M83 ; switch to relative E values for any needed retraction
G1 F300 Z4.57 ; move up a millimeter to get out of the way
G1 F9000 X190 Y190
G1 F300 Z15 ; too close to bed--move to at least 15mm
M0 ; Do the actual pause
G1 F300 Z3.57
G1 F9000 X19.27 Y19.27
G1 F300 Z3.57 ; move back down to resume height
G1 F1800 ; restore extrusion feedrate
M82 ; switch back to absolute E values
G92 E3066.65549
;LAYER:22
;TYPE:FILL
;MESH:brett.stl
G11
G1 F3600 X34.487 Y34.487 E3067.94669
```
Would this even work? And if it turns out that it doesn't, is it as easy to fix as swapping out that `M0` command with a `G04` (possibly with a specified time argument)? Finally, I want this change to happen between what Cura, in the slice preview, calls layers 23 and 24, where it seemingly gives the first layer the name 1. The G-code insertion wizard asks me to insert the last layer I would like finished before the pause and specifies that 0 is the first layer printed. So I enter 22 in there. But in the above G-code, it seems to have inserted the pause **before** it begins to print its layer 22 (which in the Cura preview would be layer 23?) I need some help untangling this.
# Answer
I decided to go ahead and try anyways, to moderate success.
The main takeaways:
* `M0` does definitely work as advertised.
* During the pause, plastic had been leaking from the nozzle and down on the print, and during the filament change even more leaked out. Next time I'm doing this, I'm adding significantly more height to the line `G1 F300 Z15` (right above `M0`) and perhaps will consider a different parking spot (the line `G1 F9000 X190 Y190` right above that again) to prevent this from affecting the print
* As I extracted the blue filament that I started the print with, I saw that a couple of milimeters at the end had gotten singed and miscolored. Not much of an issue, though, I'll just snap it off next time I load it.
* Even though I did get plastic of the right color coming through the nozzle during the change procedure, as the printer resumed printing, it didn't actually print anything (presumably it retracted a little bit). I had to push the filament through the tube manually to get it to print correctly, but a little bit of the new layer was missing. Luckily, the next layer printed fine even without the layer below supporting it.
* When entering which layer to pause on into the wizard, it seems one should believe the layer numbers in the slice preview of Cura and the part of the pop-up that tells you to enter the layer that will complete before the pause. Everything else around this confused me into suspecting an off-by-one error somewhere, but those were just red herrings.
In the rightmost corner you can see a little bit of the damage from the leaking while swapping filament, but most of it is hidden below the black (and you can also see that it didn't stick to the build plate, but that's entirely unrelated to this issue).
> 2 votes
---
Tags: ultimaker-cura, g-code, ultimaker-2
--- |
thread-4224 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/4224 | Sharing a printer over a network | 2017-06-13T07:24:13.320 | # Question
Title: Sharing a printer over a network
I have a Tronxy X3 (i3 Clone) running Repetier firmware on a Melzi board.
I would like to share the printer over my home network so that:
1. Both my boys and I can use the printer. (We have separate Windows 10 PCs)
2. I can initiate a print from my computer upstairs
3. I can monitor the print progress remotely
I have (and could use)
* A RAMPS board set that I could use to run Marlin.
* A Raspberrry Pi 1B
* An idle laptop I (might) be willing to use
What I want to know:
* Are you sharing your printer on a network, and if so, how long
* What Hardware and Software are you using
* What do you like most
* What do you find most annoying
* What do you want to change
* What is the interface (web interface, print driver, etc.)
* What services are provided (printing, slicing, monitoring, etc.)
* Can two computers access it at the same time Ex: To monitor, or still print if my sons forgot to disconnect
* What sort of monitoring is supported? Ex: camera?
* What runs the print job (G-code)
# Answer
> 6 votes
**NOTE**: This is not from personal experience, but I thought it was worth mentioning:
### Microsoft
You've probably seen this already - I am not a fan at all of M$, but... Microsoft Plus Raspberry Pi Equals Network 3D Printer.
Here is another link to the same, Network 3D Printer with Windows 10 IoT Core, but, unfortunately, your printer is apparently *not* supported.
### OctoPi
However, closed source M$ seem to be playing catch up, whilst the Open Source OctoPi has been about for a while, indeed there have been a few questions on SE 3D Printing about it. From the blurb:
> OctoPi is a Raspberry Pi distribution for 3d printers. Out of the box it includes:
>
> * the OctoPrint host software including all its dependencies and preconfigured with webcam and slicing support,
> * mjpg-streamer for live viewing of prints and timelapse video creation with support for USB webcams and the Raspberry Pi camera and
> * CuraEngine 15.04 for direct slicing on your Raspberry Pi.
See How to Install and Set Up Octopi for Remote Raspberry Pi 3D Printer Control with Octoprint.
A few of its features:
---
As an aside, you could put Pronterface on the Pi too: How to Install Pronterface on Raspberry Pi - Instructables. I wasn't aware of this.
# Answer
> 3 votes
OctoPi works well. Network access out of the box was tricky for me (my router was using channel 13 so the script based config didn't work).
I have octopi send me PushBullet notifications of print progress (which might be handy for sharing). This is handy since it can traverse firewalls more easily than me connecting direct to my Pi from outside my home network.
I'm single user, but it does things like let you upload g-code from a PC, and then action a print later (using any browser). I've not had any problems with stability, although using the serial port does increase the processor loading of the printer a little (so theoretically might have an impact on print quality). My R-Pi 3 onboard wifi did die, but it was replaced with a USB one, and all still works.
There are lots of plugins for octoprint, including some for cloud access to the printer I think, and development seems quite active.
# Answer
> 3 votes
<sub>This has been converted from comment to answer. It adds some extra information to the answer of @SeanHoulihane.</sub>
I'm running OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi (RPi) 2B for about 1.5 years, I only had to switch to another Pi because the copper processor heatsink fell off and caused a short circuit destroying the network communication, but never had a problem with instability for instance. New RPi 2B is running like a charm.
Note that OctoPrint it highly customizable, you have lots of plugins to choose from and you can change/add things yourself. E.g. you can add menu items in the GUI of OctoPrint. This can be used to run shell scripts that control the GPIO of the RPi. With these scripts you can e.g. switch the mains voltage on and off, the annoying extruder fan on/off and e.g. LED lighting.
With plugins I have custom G-codes that enable or disable the extruder fan by injecting G-code scripts with specific, self defined, G-code commands like e.g. OCTO100, OCTO110 (to respectively enable or disable the fan, see some details here).
# Answer
> 1 votes
If you set up OctoPrint or Klipper, you can then use a tool like OctoEverywhere to get remote access and share it. OctoEverywhere has a feature called Shared Connections that lets you share printer access with anyone over the internet.
# Answer
> 0 votes
You can use Windows IoT Core to do it, see -
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot/docs/3dprintserver
---
Tags: software, reprap, tronxy-x3
--- |
thread-22894 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22894 | The part of the motor that the hobbed gear goes on is too short | 2024-01-03T21:50:26.107 | # Question
Title: The part of the motor that the hobbed gear goes on is too short
My Ender 3 had a broken part so I replaced all the plastic above the extruder motor.
After learning how to safely take off the pressure-fitted hobbed gear, I installed a new one that could be replaced more easily. Now the teeth of the gear are too low to reach the PLA. The rest looks fine, I've tried flipping it upside down (the squeezy handle won't fit) and I've tried moving it as high up as I can. Do I have to buy a new motor with a longer rod? (sorry I don't know the names of these things)
As previously mentioned, the gear has already been replaced. It's not stuck and I now have one with screws (its the one in the picture)
# Answer
> 1 votes
So, as mentioned, you could get a new stepper motor. As an alernative, have you tried flipping the hobbed gear around (as shown in this picture)?
# Answer
> 0 votes
The question Problems with stock gear with no screw on Ender 3 pro, more specifically this answer and this answer describe that after changing the gear, the shaft is too short. It is advised to just buy a replacement stepper or tap the shaft from the bottom of the stepper to extend the shaft. First option is probably the easiest solution.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, replacement-parts
--- |
thread-20389 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20389 | How can I upload STL files to OctoPrint? | 2022-12-28T10:04:10.580 | # Question
Title: How can I upload STL files to OctoPrint?
I started playing with OctoPrint and I already have it configured for external access and management, using OctoEverywhere.
I would like it to be an easy to use printer, because it is shared between people that don't use Cura or PrusaSlicer, so I want them to upload STL files and having a slicer built into the print server (printer is an Ender 3) for them to click a button and convert these STL files into a printable G-code. I have tried to add the printer to Cura but it says that the API connection key is invalid. Can anyone help me with this?
# Answer
> 4 votes
Giving people a bad experience with 3D printing (for those who it isn't a hobby) is letting them slice their own files... *(from experience, I maintain an Ultimaker printer for a staff association)*. Most users have no clue what a slicer does and how you should place your model and use what settings or materials.
> How can I upload STL files to OctoPrint?
There are a few option from available plugins to upload and slice STL files, but these options are not powerful enough with respect to desktop standalone slicing application. Furthermore, when there are multiple materials in play, it is best you appoint some trained/experienced users to slice for others. This works very well from experience, it spreads the load over multiple people.
Also, most of the plugin options are not maintained for a while and use old slicing engines. This shouldn't be the way to operate a community printer.
# Answer
> 0 votes
You can upload G-code directly from Cura or PrusaSlicer, but you need to use a OctoEverywhere Shared Connection when you set up your OctoPrint or Klipper instance in Cura.
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to set Cura with OctoEverywhere.
# Answer
> 0 votes
The latest Octoprint web UI (as of writing, Version 1.9.3) allows for drag n' drop for file upload.
Slice and export locally, then drag it over to the Web UI, or use the embedded upload button.
---
Tags: ultimaker-cura, octoprint, stl
--- |
thread-19435 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/19435 | I have a Ender 3 S1 Pro and can't restart a print after a pause at height | 2022-05-25T14:09:08.083 | # Question
Title: I have a Ender 3 S1 Pro and can't restart a print after a pause at height
My printer (Ender 3 S1 Pro) only has a touch screen. When I use the pause at height command, the print pauses properly. However, the screen only displays stop and pause "buttons". Neither of these options allows me to restart the print. Can anyone suggest a solution to this problem?
# Answer
> 2 votes
I found that if I use Cura to generate the pause at height script then edit the G-code file and change the `M0` code to an `M25`. Next, you must use that edited file to print from an SD card. When the printer pauses and you are ready to continue the print (while connected to a computer with a USB cable and with Cura open), select the **Monitor** tab in Cura, type `M24` in the **Send** G-code window, and press the return key on your computer.
# Answer
> 1 votes
A workaround I found is to insert custom G-code before the layer change and simply move the printer head out of the way, wait a couple of seconds so you can insert bearings, magnets, etc. then resumes the print.
```
M300 S440 P200 ;beep
G60 ;save current position
G28 X0 ;home X axis, print head moves to the left
G4 S60 ;wait 60 seconds
M300 S440 P200 ;beep
G61 ;restore saved position
```
Not as good as the printer prompting you but if you don't want to connect a computer then this is probably the simplest solution.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, marlin
--- |
thread-22903 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22903 | Ideal camera position For OctoEverywhere's Gadget AI | 2024-01-04T21:12:45.997 | # Question
Title: Ideal camera position For OctoEverywhere's Gadget AI
I'm trying out OctoEverywhere's Gadget AI print failure detection.
It's been working surprisingly well, but I wondered if there was an ideal camera position, image format, or whatever to ensure it could always catch failures. Does anyone have any idea?
# Answer
The ideal camera position details for AI failure detection are listed on the Gagdget website.
But in general, they are:
1. Make sure there's good lighting on the print.
2. Make sure the entire print can be seen at all times, even if the bed moves.
3. Reduce the number of other objects the camera can see to prevent false positive detection.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: octoprint, octopi, camera
--- |
thread-22915 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22915 | What currently available solutions can be used to determine how much filament weight is left on the spool without knowing empty spool weight? | 2024-01-05T22:56:34.900 | # Question
Title: What currently available solutions can be used to determine how much filament weight is left on the spool without knowing empty spool weight?
Having used multiple brands of filament and different spool sizes what always annoyed me is that almost no single filament producer that I know, states clearly and accurately the weight of the empty spool.
How can we possibly estimate how much filament is left on a spool based on weight if we cannot subtract a know spool weight? Which also can vary based on humidity for cardboard spools?
*Side-note: In my personal opinion filament produces should at the very least publish a reliable empty spool weight and other properties such as a metric of abbrasivness.*
It seems that a filament runout sensor is a real duct tape solution to the problem. What currently available solutions can be used to determine how much filament weight is left on the spool without knowing empty spool weight?
# Answer
> 2 votes
In my experience, empty plastic spools weigh between 125 and 250 grams. My practice is to weigh a full spool after removing all the packaging and record that weigh before using any.
While using the spool I assume the weight of the spool is equal to the recorded gross weight less 1,000 grams. In actual practice over many spools, they invariably end up weighing 5-50 grams more than calculated, meaning that I got a few meters less filament than I paid for. I've never seen one go the other way.
Once a spool is nearly empty (~30 m or less) it's fairly easy to count the remaining wraps, visually estimate the spool core diameter and calculate the remaining length. Experience indicates this can be done to within a meter.
If it's necessary to know the amount with high precision it's not terribly difficult to remove the remaining filament and weigh it directly. The remnant can then be rewound or used directly from a loose coil. I don't recommend that method for anything over 25-30 meters but have done it from time to time with that amount or less without serious problems.
As a final measure if attempting to use the bitter end of a spool, it's wise to be prepared to do a pause and filament swap to a new spool if coming up short. That's fairly easily done but there is always a risk that there could be a slight color mismatch between old and new. I have tried splicing a new length on the fly to one that's coming up short. I've had mixed results with that and now much prefer the pause-and-swap method.
The safest practice if there's doubt that enough remains for a specific job would be to use a new spool and save the nearly exhausted one for a smaller print.
---
Tags: filament, filament-choice, change-filament, filament-production, runout-sensor
--- |
thread-22911 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22911 | How often should you change out your hot end heating element? | 2024-01-05T19:09:32.440 | # Question
Title: How often should you change out your hot end heating element?
I was recently trying to heat my hot end to 250° C to try and get PETG to stop stringing. When I did this, I realized after about 10 minutes of waiting that it never quite got there. It would only get to ~247-248° C, fluctuating in that arena.
This started me to wondering, **is there a rule of thumb for heater replacement?** Should you replace it in a given amount of time, when it isn't doing the job anymore (like mine *seems* to be doing), or just replace it when it dies?
# Answer
> 5 votes
I see no benefit to changing a heater that's performing acceptably. The only rationale I can think of for a predictive or preventive change-out would be to head off the cumulative effects of repeated wire flexing. That would be devilishly difficult to predict.
Unless one was about to kick off an extremely high value print due to high consequence schedule constraints or high material cost, it's difficult seeing a pre-emptive heater change being justified. Even then, it becomes a risk comparison between wear-out of the old and infant mortality of the new.
# Answer
> -2 votes
I don't think there is any rule for when to change the hotend since it's dependent on a lot of factors like the filament types you print with, if your nozzle hits the bed often, etc.
Generally, I check the nozzle every two weeks or so. I end up replacing it about every 6 months, from a moderate amount of printing.
---
Tags: hotend, maintenance, replacement, heating-element
--- |
thread-22907 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22907 | Why do two identical Creality Ender 3 V2 printers have a center that is 3 mm off from each other and 7 mm off expected and how to calibrate it? | 2024-01-05T14:21:49.017 | # Question
Title: Why do two identical Creality Ender 3 V2 printers have a center that is 3 mm off from each other and 7 mm off expected and how to calibrate it?
When pushing the limits of the bed size (235x235 mm) for two Creality Ender 3 V2 printers running the same mriscoc firmware and the same config and upgrades. I noticed that despite using the same G-code for these two fairly identical printers resulted in offsets that was not accounted for.
I sliced and printed a test model 175mm\_bed\_center\_calibration\_crosshair.stl from Thingiverse.com and when slicing in Cura it is perfectly centered as shown below:
However when printed on each printer and measured, the position in mm for both printers (namely Owl and Fox) are off as shown below:
I would like to setup the printers fairly similar, I only print from OctoPi over USB to these printers, one Pi for each printer, so that I can slice once and use the same G-code on both printers. How do I calibrate this without recompiling the firmware? Can I setup a start or end G-code in OctoPi per printer to set a proper center offset? And moreover, why does this happen for identical printers? Shouldn't the tolerance be much smaller than 3 mm difference horizontally and 2 mm vertically (shown from above)?
## Additional measurements
For reference, based on request in the comments some measurements of the end stops relative to the frame of the XY-axes of both printers.
Measurement of the Z-axes are irrelevant for this purpose.
**Owl Y-axis Endstop (85mm)**
**Fox Y-axis Endstop (85mm)**
**Owl X-axis Endstop (45mm)**
**Fox X-Axis Endstop (45mm)**
I also measured the **size between the bed and the frame** as shown below and it's precisely 7mm **on each side** of the bed **on both printers**.
I think these are the only measurements that make sense, but correct me if you have other suggestions for measuring it.
Also, the only offset that is reported after running the M503 G-code in G-cod M851 it not relevant for centering, the Z-offset. For Fox `M851 X-41.50 Y-7.00 Z-1.13 ; (mm)` and for Owl `M851 X-41.50 Y-7.00 Z-1.06 ; (mm)`.
# Answer
I was surprised to find this out as I haven't heard or read anything about this before in any 'calibration instruction' or 'calibration guide'.
However, as I just found out, the mriscoc firmware gladly has a very easy way of changing this from the menu as documented on the mriscoc GitHub Wiki.
As I already took measurements as shown in the question and as my bed is 235x235 mm. I simply used the LCD menu to go to **Advanced \> Physical settings** and then for printer 'Owl' I changed it to:
```
X_MIN_POS = 5
X_MAX_POS = 240
Y_MIN_POS = 5
Y_MAX_POS = 240
```
For 'Fox' I changed it to:
```
X_MIN_POS = 2
X_MAX_POS = 237
Y_MIN_POS = 7
Y_MAX_POS = 242
```
I also set the bed size to 235x235 for both printers. I reprinted the test file on each printer and now it is perfectly and equally aligned for each. The question still remains how this could be so far off the center and off identical printers.
> 1 votes
# Answer
Perhaps the hot-end or end stops of one of the printers are located in a slightly different location. That's why there is a calibration guide to be able to correct that.
> 3 votes
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, calibration, bed, mriscoc, octopi
--- |
thread-22922 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22922 | Error message "homing failed printer halted please reset" | 2024-01-08T00:28:52.307 | # Question
Title: Error message "homing failed printer halted please reset"
I have an Ender 3 Pro 4.2.7 2.0.8.2 that I haven't used for a couple of months; switched it on, all perfect. I tried to print a model and the PLA wouldn't stick to the bed; I think the hotend was a fraction high.
Re-adjusted bed to ensure square and flat as hadn't been used. Switched off and then hotend defaulted to 5 mm above table. Thought I'd do a firmware update, load the latest software put, it on a clean, formatted (4096) SD card, switch off power put the card in, and switch it on, just booted up as normal, ignoring the firmware update.
I followed all instructions from the web including a new card, renaming the file, etc. Switched off, switched on. now when I try to do **Auto Home** or **Level Bed**, **nothing** happens, no beeps no movement, and a minute later get "Homing failed printer halted please reset". Check all connections, put a meter on all micro switches, and perfect.
Nothing now moves and don't know what to do.
# Answer
Check if the firmware is for the board version of your printer. Different boards may have different drivers or pin definition, which happens for example, when you flash a 4.2.2 firmware on a 4.2.7 board and vice versa.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: homing, reset
--- |
thread-22870 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22870 | Can I use two print heads to print mixed material based on own DIW extruder? | 2023-12-29T02:46:03.180 | # Question
Title: Can I use two print heads to print mixed material based on own DIW extruder?
I want to use two SDS 5 (DIW) print heads on our Hyrel 3D printer to print one part with two different materials (not use the mixing component supplied by Hyrel company, because we want to DIY the printing nozzle). During the printing process, sometimes only one print head works, sometimes I need two print heads to work together.
I have thought of possible printing methods, but also have some drawbacks: Uses one print head as master, and another printing head clones the master head, but, using this method, we cannot control the mixed ratio of printing material during the printing process, the mixing ration is fixed during the printing process.
Is there a better way to solve this problem?
# Answer
I've answered Jingcheng already, as he also emailed us with this question.
For posterity, I summarize the answer below. I work for Hyrel 3D.
---
With two separate extruders, you can alternate between, for example, T0 and T2. When the head offset from T0 to T2 is stored on head T2, this provides for tool changes without editing any position or flow data.
For gcode details, please see https://hyrel3d.com/wiki/index.php/Gcode
---
Note, this is not specific to DIW (Direct Ink Writing), aka Robocasting. The user just happened to be doing DIW in this case. Tool changes are the same (on Hyrel equipment) for all material deposition methods.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: multi-material, hyrel
--- |
thread-21737 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21737 | How to wire a DIY filament runout sensor to a Creality v4.2.2 board? | 2023-12-03T16:50:46.180 | # Question
Title: How to wire a DIY filament runout sensor to a Creality v4.2.2 board?
I'm building this simple DIY filament runout sensor for Ender 3 V2 based on this model from Thingiverse.com. I am not sure about the wiring, it seems trivial, I probably need to use 'normally closed' (NC). Below is the result so far.
I found this schematic from a YouTube video which uses a different sensor:
Based on the switch I used and the schematics shown, I guess I need to connect only two wires as follows:
* Switch NC to board Red 5V (most left pin of the connector in the schematic image)
* Switch C to board White Signal (most right pin of the connector in the schematic image)
* No connection to the second, black Grounding pin, as shown on the schematic image
* No connection to the NO pin on the switch
Is that wiring correct?
Lastly, I wonder how the connector is called that is used on the Creality v4.2.2 board, and if I need to use a transistor?
# Answer
> 3 votes
That’s a cool print for your filament runout sensor. I’m planning on doing this same mod to my Ender 3 V2 in the next week or two as well.
I’ve done a decent amount of research on how to implement this so hopefully I can answer some of your questions.
## Wiring
I found this schematic of the V4.2.2 motherboard online.
Here is the pdf download link to the Ender 3 V2 v4.2.2 schematic (clicking on the link immediately downloads the pdf).
It looks like for our motherboard (if you also have the V4.2.2), the pinout is:
* Left pin: Sensor Signal (‘S’)
* Middle pin: Ground (’G’)
* Right pin: Vcc (‘V’)
Based on the schematic, the Sensor Signal pin is pulled HIGH. This means to trigger the sensor, you want to connect the Sensor Signal pin to Ground.
The wiring for the switch is:
* 'C' pin on switch -\> Sensor signal pin on motherboard
* 'NC' pin on switch -\> Ground pin on motherboard
The 'NO' pin on the switch is left unconnected.
When the filament runs out, the switch opens and the ‘NC’ pin is connected to the ‘C’ pin. This pulls the Sensor Signal pin on the motherboard to LOW, which is what triggers the printer to pause.
Here is a diagram of how the switch should be wired to the motherboard.
## Firmware
You’ll also need to update the firmware on the motherboard. This isn’t too hard if you’ve never done it before.
I’d recommend installing the JyersUI firmware as detailed in the video:
Just follow along with the guide to install it. The Jyers firmware also has some really nice UI improvements. Check the video description for links to the firmware.
If you don’t want to go that route, or you if have the wrong kind of motherboard chip (see video), you can also download the official creality firmware to enable the filament runout sensor.
The link to the firmware list is here: Official Ender 3 V2 firmwares
I’m pretty sure the one you’ll want is:
`Marlin-2.0.1-HW-4.2.2-mainboard-V1.1.2-Compatible with BLTouch and filament detection`
I didn’t use the official firmware, and there aren’t any release notes (of course), so I’m only 90% sure that's the right one .
At any rate, it might be wise to check your current firmware and make sure you download that too. That way you can revert your printer to its original firmware, just in case something goes wrong.
## JWST connectors
Finally, the connectors on this board are the very common JST connectors. Here is a link to a relatively inexpensive JST connector Kit and crimping tool: Connector kit w/ crimp tool
It’s pretty easy to crimp and install the connectors yourself. Here is a quick video on how to do it:
If you’re good at soldering you could also just hard solder the switch to the board if you don’t want to buy the connectors and crimper. Although I’d recommend against it.
Hopefully that helps. Good luck :)
P.S. I'll post how mine turns out once I'm finished.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, wiring, filament-sensor, sensors, runout-sensor
--- |
thread-21672 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21672 | How does pressure advance predict pressure without having actual pressure data? | 2023-11-24T12:41:17.290 | # Question
Title: How does pressure advance predict pressure without having actual pressure data?
I'm exploring the concept of Pressure Advance and its ability to predict and adjust pressure changes in the extruder. The image below shows the effects of Pressure Advance:
Source: Teaching Tech via YouTube
Since there are no pressure measurements performed, how does Pressure Advance algorithmically anticipate these pressure variations without real-time pressure data? Which underlying principles are used to estimate the pressure in advance?
# Answer
> 3 votes
Short answer: **by calibration**.
Expanding on this short answer: **pressure advance** (or also called "linear advance") can be used to compensate for the elasticity of the filament and the extruder system. There are at least three sources of elasticity, the filament in a Bowden tube, the compression of the filament itself and the conversion of stepper rotation into torque itself lagging behind.
To counter affect an unwanted effect, you need a measure to change the unwanted effect so that after tuning the unwanted effect is gone.
The build-up of pressure in the nozzle (as a result of the springiness of the complete extrusion system causes the end of a line to over-extrude when movement slows or stops. Consequently, a lack of pressure at the beginning (first need to compress the filament) will result in a lack of filament at the nozzle.
In order to compensate, we use test prints, not sensors, in which the printer owner/tuner selects the best extruded line based on various settings of the pressure advance ratio. This works well, the extrusion system doesn't generally change over time unless you change the extruder, Bowden tube lengths, etcetera. There is no need for a sensor if you can determine how to counter the effect
---
Tags: extrusion, nozzle, pressure-advance, pressure-prediction, pressure
--- |
thread-22876 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22876 | What is the maximum size, read and write speed for micro SD cards on a Creality V4.2.2 board? | 2023-12-30T14:46:23.600 | # Question
Title: What is the maximum size, read and write speed for micro SD cards on a Creality V4.2.2 board?
What is the maximum read and write speed for micro SD cards that the Creality Ender 3 V2 board V4.2.2 can theoretically handle and what is the maximum SD card size in gigabytes?
Micro SD cards have several ratings such as V10, V30, V60 and V90 which is why I am asking in order to be able to select the fastest possible card.
# Answer
From what I have read and experienced, 16 GB is about as big as they can handle. Yes it can be partitioned down to 16 GB but if you are doing that then just get a 16 GB. I tried a 32GB in my Ender 3 with 4.2.2 and it would not read it.
> 3 votes
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, microsd, sd
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thread-19650 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/19650 | How do I change and then save the Z offset on an Ender 5 Pro | 2022-07-13T19:45:05.190 | # Question
Title: How do I change and then save the Z offset on an Ender 5 Pro
Something changed on my Ender 5 Pro. I do not know what. Only that even after re-leveling the bed several times it won't lay down a stable first layer unless I go into the tune menu and manually raise the Z level slightly to bring the bed closer to the nozzle.
How do I change, and then save, the printer's settings so that this slight rise is applied to all future prints?
I presume that this is the offset value?
I'm running stock firmware.
Finding out what changed and why is a question for later.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I know this is old, but did you check that the little bolt/thumbscrew at the back of the printer didn't get tightened/loosened? It's the one that makes contact with the switch to stop the bed once it reaches max height, in between the threaded vertical rod and smooth vertical rod on the right that the bed "travels" on. That was my issue, took me forever to figure out why my prints were all trying to start a few mm in the air.
---
Tags: z-axis, creality-ender-5, bed
--- |
thread-22897 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22897 | How to migrate OctoPi to new camera stack without reinstall? | 2024-01-04T10:20:46.293 | # Question
Title: How to migrate OctoPi to new camera stack without reinstall?
The new OctoPi camera stack is reported to be lighter, more efficient, and overall better. Old camera stack sometimes loses access to my camera during print, and only regains it after restart. Thus, obviously, I want to try the new one. Maybe it'll help with my specific problem, maybe it won't, but it has to be at least slightly better. I do not want to lose my uploaded files, Octolapse lapses, plugin config etc.
So, is there a way to upgrade to the new camera stack without reinstall? Or to save plugins, configs and files to restore them after reinstall?
# Answer
I think many problems could arise from doing this manually such as missing or incompatible dependencies. As I had to do the same I just tested the following successfully:
## Making a backup of the OctoPi configuration (required)
* Login on the OctoPi web ui
* Click settings
* Under OctoPrint (left menu) click on 'Backup & Restore'
* Click 'Create backup now' and when finished download the backup
## Make a backup of the entire SD card (optional)
You can make a full bit-to-bit copy (image) of the SD card as a backup **or use another SD card for testing it first.** On Windows you can for example download Win32DiskImager and make a full image/backup of the SD card.
## Flashing OctoPi with the new camera stack
* Download and open Raspberry Pi Imager
* Choose 'Other specific-purpose OS' followed by '3D printing' and 'OctoPi'
* Choose the 'OctoPi (new camera stack)' as shown below
* Insert another SD card for testing or override your current SD card after you've made the backups as described above
* Choose other specific settings if desired such as WiFi et cetera
* Flash to SD card
## Restoring the OctoPi configuration
* When finished, place the SD card in the Pi and start it up
* When the Pi started open the Web UI again on the Welcome Wizard click Next
* On the 'Restore Backup' screen select the backup you've made on the first step and wait for all plugins to install, config to be restored and Pi to restart
> 1 votes
---
Tags: octopi
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thread-475 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/475 | What could be causing my y axis to slip? | 2016-02-04T03:42:26.377 | # Question
Title: What could be causing my y axis to slip?
Occasionally, while printing, my *y* axis will slip and the layer will, from that point forward, be shifted, ruining the print.
What might be the causes of an axis slipping? I have tried cooling the motor which seemed to have been getting warm, and the belts are not too tight.
This does not happen with every print, and seems to be an intermittent problem.
My printer is a MendelMax RepRap, and the *y* axis is my moving bed.
# Answer
> 14 votes
<sub>(source: all3dp.com)</sub>
Your printer is skipping steps in the y-direction. This can have several causes. Take a look into Shifted layer guide on RapRap.org which lists 29 possible problems that can cause this issue and how to fix them.
First items of the list:
1. Driver current is too low
2. Driver current is too high
3. Belt too Loose
4. Belt too Tight
5. Loose Set Screw/Grub Screw
6. Belt or Bearing is binding
7. Speeds are too high
8. Acceleration is too high
9. ...
When I was dealing with this issue on my RepRap I had to increase current to the particular driver.
# Answer
> 11 votes
In my experience, the most common reason for positional offset during printing, is the *motor skipping steps due to physical impact*.
Your stepper motors do not give *positional feedback* to your printer. So, if you forcefully move your motor during print, then the printer will not notice, and simply pretend it never happened.
In particular, the motor could skip steps if:
* Your nozzle collides with erroneous extrusions (e.g. blobs) during print.
* Your speed settings (jerk and acceleration) are too high for the mass (inertia) of the parts moved by the y-axis motor.
Smaller collisions and nozzle drag at high speed (e.g. during travel) could also cause this problem, since the strength of stepper motors is reduced at high speeds.
# Answer
> 6 votes
The current to your motor driver could be set either too high or too low. If it's set too low then the torque might not be sufficient and the motor will skip steps. If it's set too high then the driver might overheat and occasionally shut down to protect itself.
Another option is that the printing speeds (or jerk/acceleration settings) are too high. I would start by reducing the travel speed (which presumably is higher than your printing speed) and see if that makes a difference.
The motor getting warm is normal and will not cause these issues.
# Answer
> 4 votes
From what I've experienced, there could be three potential reasons.
1. Your belt(s) could be loose. Simply loosen your Y-Axis motor and pull the motor until the belt is slightly more than taught (it will relax into a taught position). Then, tighten the motor securely in its place.
2. One of your axis endstops could be triggered mid-print. If you have a larger print, you run the risk of hitting an endstop, which could cause the machine to lose its coordinate system.
3. I found on my machine, if you run your program via USB (on MakerWare specifically, possibly others) there might be some sort of lag in the serial connection that could cause the entire program or coordinate system to shift. I repeated this issue multiple time using a USB connection and fixed it (repeatedly) by either running off of an SD card, using a different slicer (in my case the Cura plugin for OctoPi), or trying an earlier version of your software (this was my long term solution).
The latter worked best for me. I tried running MakerBot Desktop on my Dual Replicator 1, but ran into the same exact issue as you. In fact, I encountered this issue around firmware 5.0 on the Replicator as well (7.? is the latest). Finally I switched back to using MakerWare 2.4.? and everything worked fine.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Had Y axis stepping issues
Solved the issue by correct pressure on the guide wheels on the Y-axis track.
Too much pressure caused binding and the Y stepper motor to skip steps
Hope this helps some people
# Answer
> 1 votes
Given the last few questions you have I am going to say that you have too much mass.
F = m * a. If you are trying to move a heavy plate, you will need to reduce the Jerk setting. As well as maximum acceleration.
Post your firmware settings for more advice.
Also just for completion, sometimes the Pololus overheat, that can cause it too. As well as a loose belt.
# Answer
> 0 votes
I had a repeatable problem where my prints were shifting to the side after about 5mm. This was down to a loose z-axis guide rail that would come out of its end support about 5mm into the print, but appeared secure when the bed was set to its initial position. (My print head moves down). There was a grub screw hidden below a panel at the base of my printer.
I'm not familiar with the build of the MendelMax so this may be different for you.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Make sure your controller board/electronics board etc is as cool as possible - if not the axis may jump - that's what happened with me - after adding additional fans over the Ramps/Adruino - I did not have the problem again (so far)
# Answer
> 0 votes
I had the same issue. the only thing that helped me was settings.. uneven surface of layers caused collisions with the nozzle. I adjusted the flow by calibrating my steppers.. also the type of infill pattern you use can cause nozzle collisions.
# Answer
> 0 votes
I have some suggestions that might solve your problem
1. Try to use belt tensioner which is suitable from your printer.(You'll probably find one on Thingiverse)
2. The belt has teeth but your bearing which slides your belt does not. So try a bearing cover that has teeth. That will prevent slipping of the belt.
3. Most importantly lower your acceleration constant. This has a lot to do with missing steps from the motor.
4. Decreasing the print speed can help as well.
# Answer
> 0 votes
I fixed this problem on our MakerBot replicator yesterday. The extruder got dislodge on a print some time ago and even after re-attaching it, subsequent prints often shifted sideways on the bed unpredictably. I was skeptical that a firmware update was responsible, so I took a look at the carriage.
The carriage that the extruder attaches to has a belt that moves it from side to side. On that belt is a plastic clip about 2” long that is supposed to be attached to the extruder (actually, not the extruder itself, but the device the extruder attaches to). It had become dislodged and so the sideways motion was entirely relying on friction from the belt which would inevitably slip. Once I got the belt clipped onto the carriage properly, I was back in business.
# Answer
> -3 votes
My Y axis runs on a channel and I believe there was some grit or metal flakes in the channel left over from manufacturing. The wheels in the channel got stuck on the debris and caused the belt to slip. It made a horrible grinding noise when this happened.
So I blew out the channel with pressurized air and tested all the wheels.
I'll update if necessary as I test my fix with longer (taller) prints.
*Update*
Actually, the print had messed up g-code. The gcode file was corrupted.
# Answer
> -3 votes
One possibility is that after some time, your bed's sliding rods become sticky (where printer but not yourself notice). Turn printer's power off, spray windex on rods and bearings, slide the bed forth and back until it becomes slippery, wipe any excess around, turn power back on. reconnect printer and send it to home xyz coordinates since you moved bed, messing up its xyz memory.
---
Tags: fdm, calibration, y-axis
--- |
thread-22935 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22935 | Can I use PT1000 thermistor on my Prusa mk3s+ without installing Klipper on it? | 2024-01-10T17:40:42.517 | # Question
Title: Can I use PT1000 thermistor on my Prusa mk3s+ without installing Klipper on it?
I recently bought a High-Precision (400 °C) Revo Hotside with the intention to use it on my upcoming Voron. In the meantime, I wanted to give it a go and use it on my Prusa, if for nothing else, then at least to print some missing Voron parts. Also, it's still in the "hassle-free return" period, so I'd love to test it without replacing the thermistor or altering it in any other way.
"Sadly", PT1000 is not a drop-in replacement for Semitec 104GT thermistor Prusa is using. It operates in a similar resistance range and should be supported by the Einsy Rambo board, but it works with a higher max temperature\*, and has a different resistance-temperature function.
I was thinking about switching my Prusa to Klipper, but I admit it is a daunting task I don't want to attempt until I have my next printer up and running. So is there a simpler way?
---
* PT1000 works up to 400 °C with precision, some more is still safe when 104GT is up to 300 °C.
# Answer
There's no reason you need Klipper; in principle you could rebuild Marlin (stock or Prusa's version of it; you probably want the latter) reconfigured for a PT1000. However, that's a fair amount of work and chance for something to go wrong if you're not familiar with doing it. Unless you're actually trying to use extrusion temperatures above 280°C or so, you will get no benefit whatsoever from the PT1000. Above that, the PT1000 will give somewhat better PID control (more stable temperature). If you don't care about perfect temperature stability, the stock thermistor will work up to at least 320°C, maybe 330. But to get access to any of these temperatures you will already need custom firmware, since Prusa has the max temp capped well below that.
If you just want to test the hotend, but don't want higher temperatures, you can just put a standard 100k NTC thermistor like the one you have on the new hotend, and it should work with the Prusa firmware unmodified.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: prusa-i3, hotend, thermistor, e3d-revo
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thread-22946 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22946 | All else being equal, is there a reason to go with 5, 12 or 24 V fan? | 2024-01-13T23:08:35.380 | # Question
Title: All else being equal, is there a reason to go with 5, 12 or 24 V fan?
I'm looking for fans for my upcoming printer. In each common voltage, 5, 12 and 24 V, I see fans with the same advertised rpm, cfm, static pressure and noise.
So, if all else is really equal, are there any important reasons to go with one of these voltages over the others?
My PSU will obviously be a 24 V, like most of the recent designs, so there's no obviously problematic step-up converters. Step-downs for fans are included in most of the mainboards and toolhead boards, so I don't think that's an issue either, but maybe there's something I don't know?
# Answer
> 1 votes
Where will the fan be, is it a parts cooling fan for your hot end or for an enclosure?
Will this be your main parts cooling fan or an auxiliary one?
First, check your main board, it may be a 24 V board, but does it have spare headers for 24 V, 12 V, or 5 V. Check that the Amps match too. You can have a higher amp rating on your main board than your fan without doing any damage, but not vice versa (The device supplying the power must be greater than or equal to the device receiving it).
Next, check that your main board has the spare capacity to control the fan and that the fan has a matching mechanism to be controlled. Some fans have a dedicated control wire, some are controlled by the main board varying the power level that is supplied to them.
If you don't have a matching control method then your fan will be always on\off and always at 100 % speed. Which may not be desirable for you.
Once you have checked these things, narrow down the fans available to you based on these criteria, rather than voltage.
Generally speaking (and I mean very generally) the higher the voltage the less "effort" the fan needs to go to to move the same volume of air. So if a 5 V fan and a 24 V fan claim to have the exact same specifications it would usually mean that the 5 V fan is pushing itself hard or the 24 V fan is underperforming.
Parts cooling fans and fans on the hot end are usually fast-moving and small, so they are normally lower voltage fans as they need to go lick a rocket but only to move a very small amount of air a short distance.
Fans in this case are usually slower moving but much larger, they need to move large volumes of air, so they need a higher voltage because they have to put in more effort (Greater effort = greater voltage requirement).
So, if you are offered a choice by your main board, go this way.
If you're not offered a choice, and you only have 24 V headers, then this is the way that your manufacturer intended you to go, and go for that instead.
I know that this isn't much help, but without knowing more details, such as the model and manufacturer, it's difficult to give more exact advice.
---
Tags: diy-3d-printer, fans
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thread-21726 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21726 | Is the BFPTouch interchangable with the BLTouch for mriscoc firmware without custom changes to Marlin? | 2023-12-02T13:56:38.753 | # Question
Title: Is the BFPTouch interchangable with the BLTouch for mriscoc firmware without custom changes to Marlin?
I have two Creality Ender 3 V2 printers with a version 4.2.2 board. One printer has the official CRTouch, and one is nearly original without a probe. I found a similar product, a DIY project called BFPTouch, and I have almost all the parts needed to make it.
<sup>Model and photo source: Thingiverse.com</sup>
I use the Marlin-based mriscoc firmware on both printers. Version Ender3V2-422-MM-MPC-20231202.bin, and on my printer with the CRTouch, I use the Ender3V2-422-BLTUBL-MPC-20231202.bin version.
Is the BFPTouch interchangeable with the CRTouch, like the BLTouch and CRTouch are? Is the wiring to the board the same, and would it suffice to use the `BLTUBL` firmware version of mriscoc that I've mentioned without further altering Marlin?
# Answer
> 1 votes
No, it is not interchangeable without changing the configuration of the firmware. These sensors do not require you to set the `BLTOUCH` directive, so this must be in your configuration:
```
//#define BLTOUCH
```
For the CR Touch this directive is required.
```
#define BLTOUCH
```
I am building the Tiny Touch an even smaller version of the BFPTouch, in fact it is a derivative! In the last link you find instructions to configure the probe, which redirects to the setup of the BFPTOUCH.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, marlin, bltouch, mriscoc, crtouch
--- |
thread-20982 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20982 | Let the nozzle wait on the parking position | 2023-05-22T07:40:55.337 | # Question
Title: Let the nozzle wait on the parking position
The Sovol SV04 has a "parking" position for the nozzles (i.e. X = -60), outside the bed area. The parking position has a small basket below to catch little pieces of the filament, and a rubber that wipes the nozzle when it enters the bed area.
When I launch a printing, the nozzle goes at the center of the working area and sits down there to wait until the temperature reaches the target. In my opinion it should sit at the parking position, so when the print begins the nozzle will be cleaned by the rubber.
I'm using Cura 5.3.1. Is there a setting I can tweak?
I'm aware about the experimental feature "Wipe nozzle between layers" but it's not what I'm looking for. I inspected the start gcode of the machine:
```
;Single 01 start
M140 S{material_bed_temperature};
M104 T0 S{material_print_temperature};
M280 P0 S160;
G4 P100;
G28;
T0
M190 S{material_bed_temperature};
M109 T0 S{material_print_temperature};
G92 E0;
G1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0;
G1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15;
G1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0;
G1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30;
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000;
```
Should I manually hack this adding, say, a `G0 X-60`) at the beginning? Or is there a more elegant solution? But most important: is there a reason why it's not enabled by default? Perhaps there is a drawback I don't see...
# Answer
There is a specific command that instructs the head to park at the predefined position as set in the firmware configuration of your printer is using Marlin firmware. This G-code, `G27` will position the head at the parking position:
> Raise and park the nozzle according to a predefined XY position and Z raise (or minimum height) value.
> The parking XY position and Z value are defined by NOZZLE\_PARK\_POINT.
> The minimum Z raise is defined by NOZZLE\_PARK\_Z\_RAISE\_MIN.
This implies that if you are using bed leveling with a leveling sensor, after `G29` or `G28` (if you defined `ENABLE_LEVELING_AFTER_G28`) in your start G-code you need to call `G27` or without a bed leveling sensor, like in the example of the question you need to call `G27` directly after `G28`.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I fixed this by homing the x axis again after homing all axis in the starting G-code. There might be an more elegant solution but this works so I'm happy.
`G28; home all axes G28 X; home x axis to get to parking position`
> 0 votes
---
Tags: ultimaker-cura, g-code
--- |
thread-22889 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22889 | My Ender 3 malfunctions with touchscreen | 2024-01-02T20:55:22.867 | # Question
Title: My Ender 3 malfunctions with touchscreen
Yesterday, I upgraded my Ender 3 with a Creality touchscreen that is compatible with it. However, since the installation, it gets stuck on the loading screen once the bar fills up. I tried different versions and even built my own, but they all gave me one of three responses:
* Stuck on loading screen
* `Firmware unexpected. TF may be corrupted. Try renaming or using different TF.`
* Take me to the interface with half the buttons/widgets responding and no functionality.
And I can't reinstall the old LCD because I had to cut its cable to disconnect it.
I also asked the Bing AI, which gave me tips that didn't work. Any tips from **this** community?
# Answer
> 3 votes
Agarza was right.
> Have you checked to see if the screen itself needs a firmware update?
I inserted the SD card into the wrong place. I finally got it to work by inserting the SD card with the DWIN folder into the touchscreen itself (after unscrewing the housing) and successfully flashed the working version of the firmware.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, troubleshooting, firmware
--- |
thread-21083 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21083 | Anycubic Kobra freezing mid print | 2023-06-22T09:25:28.987 | # Question
Title: Anycubic Kobra freezing mid print
About 30 minutes into a print, the printer stopped printing. It froze in one place and when I realised that it had gone awry, there was a large blob of PETG stuck to the nozzle, which I have since removed. The screen was unresponsive at the print page, not responding to me clicking the "pause" and "stop" options. I have turned on and off, both the power outlet and the power switch on the printer. Now when booting up, there is the normal animation of the boot up, but it is stuck on a blank page with the Anycubic Kobra. I bought the printer late last year and I think the firmware is up to date. The numerous previous prints have gone mostly smoothly.
What should I do now? Thanks in advance for all your help. (Apologies for the tag, as I could not find a more suitable tag)
# Answer
Looks like this is a bug when using **Ultimaker Cura** as your slicer. Try using **PrusaSlicer** instead.
> -1 votes
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Tags: fdm
--- |
thread-22848 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22848 | What is a good approach to develop a 'nozzle wear sensor'? | 2023-12-25T15:57:41.857 | # Question
Title: What is a good approach to develop a 'nozzle wear sensor'?
I'm thinking about implementing some kind of nozzle wear sensor. My question is simple: Do such sensors or automatic approaches already exist? Although I expect not and I know nozzles are cheap, it's just a fun educational challenge, not financially viable but that's not the purpose anyway.
I thought about using a simple camera with a proper lens and computer vision to do either one or more of the following things:
1. Have the extruder retract, perhaps brush the nozzle, then have a zoomed camera and light pointing up from under the nozzle, in an attempt (with some reference image next to it) to determine nozzle diameter size.
2. Have a camera from the side of a nozzle, brushing it clean, extruding a few cm of filament, and analyzing how straight the filament flows down when extruded
3. Take two precision measurements from under the nozzle somehow, one of the heat block and one of the nozzle-end, and determine the difference, although I have no way to account for other variables such as the nozzle not being screwed in properly, maybe non-standardized nozzle-height et cetera.
Does something like this or another approach to achieve the same already exist? If not, is this a proper approach or are there other things to consider?
# Answer
It makes a huge difference if you want to measure the internal nozzle diameter or the "typical" wear when using an abrasive filament. CNCKitchen has a nice article,How Much Abrasive Filaments Damage Your Nozzle!, about the typical wear.
TLDR is that most of the wear comes from moving your nozzle through parts of the last layer during travel moves. This way, your nozzle tip gets shorter.
If that's what you want to measure, you might use your bed-leveling sensor for that. If your leveling sensor is precise enough, you could measure the distance to the bed with your BLTouch or other sensor. When your nozzle is new, you can take a second measurement by "pressing" the nozzle into the bed and detecting when motor current spikes, or by lowering it to a conductive edge of your print bed. This way, you can save the distance of your bed leveling sensor in relation to your nozzle tip. If your nozzle wears out, it should be shorter, and you should see that you can move your hotend lower before closing an electrical circuit or before your stepper driver uses an increased current (because it pushes into the bed).
I need to mention that this is just an idea and I have never seen a solution like this. Doing this might pose problems I didn't think of.
As you mentioned in possibility 3, a loose hotend screw can make the measurement of the distance difficult. Maybe you can remove that error by probing against a metal that has the inverted shape of a nozzle (just an inverted cone) which shouldn't change with nozzle wear, and then probe against a flat surface afterward and examine the difference. For this to work, you would of course have to clean the nozzle before any measurement.
> 2 votes
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Tags: nozzle, printer-building, sensors
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thread-5433 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/5433 | What size is the lead screw? | 2018-02-08T05:36:39.727 | # Question
Title: What size is the lead screw?
I built a 3D printer kit a while back but now I want a large printer to play with. I would like to build a 300x300x400 mm clone of a 3D printer. But I am not sure what size lead screws to buy. They come in 300 mm length but once you connect the coupler and the to the screw that takes 20 mm's that the axis can not travel too so isn't it more like 280 mm length? Or do most people round up to the next size?
# Answer
> 4 votes
You'll need to do some calculation to figure out how long of a lead screw you need. The best solution would be to mock up the entire printer in CAD so you can visualize how everything fits together. Not only is the coupler going to take up some space, but the nut also takes up some space, and perhaps (due to design constraints) you won't be able to have the nut go up right against the coupler so you'll need some more space. Unfortunately, there isn't a general "just take the length of your Z-axis and add X millimeters"-type formula.
# Answer
> 0 votes
CAD visualization like mentioned in this answer is the safest route. If you are not equiped with CAD skills you could do some manual calculations as well.
You already confirmed that you need 20 mm for the coupler, and you have to include space for the distance between the coupler and the trapezoid nut, this should be added to the travel length you want.
You can buy the screws in virtually any size you want (many far Eastern vendors, you can ask whatever length you want). You could even buy oversized and grind them to the final desired length.
I once bought oversized screws but was a little too lazy to grind them down, so they are still sticking out, no problem.
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Tags: printer-building, lead-screw
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thread-22965 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22965 | When is a leadscrew too bent and should be replaced? | 2024-01-20T11:20:03.007 | # Question
Title: When is a leadscrew too bent and should be replaced?
I've bought an additional second hand printer and I noticed that the lead screw has been bent. I did not have any issues so far with prints that are only a few cm tall.
I filmed it from the top, next to a ruler, as shown below and put a grid over it for reference. I think it should be replaced. How bad is this? When should it actually be replaced?
# Answer
## It's too bent when it starts to cause issues.
Really, it is that simple. If your prints looks good, you don't hear any screeching sounds, your motors are not losing steps, then you are good and just leave them be. Keep them clean, keep them lubed, and enjoy your hobby.
More specific to your situation, good set of lead screws, with guaranteed straightness and pitch consistency, can cost more than an used Ender 3. Decent "3D printing quality" set will cost less, but still a significant percentage of your machine worth. Enders are good bang for your buck, not because they have a lot of bang, but because how little is the buck. They are designed to be built with imprecise parts, and to still give acceptable quality. You can replace screws, replace V wheels with linear rails or rods and ball bearing, you can add input shaping by changing firmware to Klipper, upgrade hotend, add enclosure, replace extruder with something lighter, and so on. But why?
By the time you will find and "fix" all the quirks of your Ender, you will spend enough to build Voron or RatRig, or to buy one of the Bambu Labs printers or Prusa kits. And that's what I'd do, but if you prefer to tinker, if that's your hobby, go for it. Just remember, it doesn't make economical sense.
To reiterate, if it works acceptably, don't fix it. Unless it's for fun.
> 7 votes
# Answer
## Cause and effect
Bent screws can cause an effect known as Z-wobble. But, to mitigate this, the non-driven side of the lead screw is left unconstrained. This is intentionally designed as such.
This means that as long as the linear guide (being V-slot with rollers, linear shafts or linear rails) are sufficiently guiding the carriage, a little bent screw would not cause too much problems in the print result.
Note that the animated gif shows the end displacement, this exaggerates the actual displacement experienced by the lead screw nut.
> When is a leadscrew too bent and should be replaced?
**If it causes quality issues in your prints.**
E.g.:
## Mitigation
Buying new, straight leadscrews. Usually, the more straight the more expensive, the lead screws from the far East range from acceptable to unusable. Ball screws are much more precise, but also cost more, especially the ground screws.
Some people straighten the lead screws, there are videos to be found how you do that.
But, note that there is an option **not to replace the screws**!
E.g., to completely remove any wobble of the lead screw, you can use something called an **Oldham coupler** to **decouple the X-Y movement from the Z movement**. For Creality Ender printers, there are specific couplers to order to install so that you will not need to buy new lead screws.
Custom printer designed Oldham couplers look similar to:
There are also printable versions that work very well, in fact I designed and used my own, inspired by this design:
> 3 votes
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Tags: lead-screw
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thread-22973 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22973 | Are there any Core Heating Technology (CHT) nozzles available for a stock Ender 3 V2 hotend? | 2024-01-21T21:24:04.473 | # Question
Title: Are there any Core Heating Technology (CHT) nozzles available for a stock Ender 3 V2 hotend?
I already switched my standard 0.4 mm nozzle to a standard 0.6 mm nozzle with a huge printing time reduction without losing much detail. I also would like to try using Core Heating Technology (CHT) 0.6 mm nozzle instead, to be able to increase printing speeds and reduce printing time even more.
CNC Kitchen tested the performance with the following results:
I found some E3DV6 CHT nozzles, do they fit on a stock Ender 3 V2 hotend or do I need a specific E3D hotend for that? Or since I don't want to upgrade my hotend, are there MK8 CHT nozzles, or are the sizes the same?
# Answer
To answer the main question, yes there are, the typical Chinese market places are flooded with these nozzles nowadays, these are less well manufactured than the original BondTech CHT MK8 (coated) nozzles you can find in decent 3D printer shops.
Simply search for "CHT MK8 nozzle" and you get a list to order from in various sizes, including the requested 0.6 mm.
*Image of a typical cloned MK8 CHT nozzle:*
*Image of an original E3D v6 CHT nozzle:*
Do note the quality differences, the original are superior machines apposed to the clones, look at the pattern of the inner 3 bore holes, the original is much closer together so that the filament flows directly into the 3 holes (almost 1 big hole in fact) whereas for the clones the 3 bore holes are apart causing the filament to hit a wall (center piece) and needs to be diverted to the outer 3 holes.
> ... E3DV6 CHT nozzles, do they fit on a stock Ender 3 V2 hotend or do I need a specific E3D hotend...
Looking at the dimensions below, you see that the threads are identical (both M6x1), but the overall length is 0.5 mm shorter for the E3D v6, so this should match. This reference tells us that the nozzles are interchangeable:
> For the \[Creality\] MK8 nozzle, it *\[red. i.e. the E3D v6 nozzle\]* will be compatible with 3D printers that use \[Creality\] MK8 hotends. \[Creality\] MK8 nozzles are incompatible with the V6 ecosystem.
The E3D v6 will work on the MK8 because they are longer from the threads to the base of the hexagonal nut, therefore MK8 will not work in an E3D v6 hotend, they are too short. You cannot screw in the MK8 far enough into E3D v6 far enough, the base of the hexagonal nut will touch the heater block and leaves a space between the nozzle and the heat break. If these aren't sufficiently tightened together, the heat block may leak and the cavity is detrimental for retraction performance.
---
*Information on the dimension of the different nozzles*
Creality MK8 dimensions:
E3D v6 dimensions:
> 1 votes
# Answer
Creality style "MK8" hotends (including the Ender 3's) can use "MK8" **or** e3D V6 nozzles.
Bondtech sells genuine CHT in both Creality MK8 and e3D V6 forms. If you prefer matching what your machine has exactly, you can buy that, but it will only work on the Creality-style "MK8" hotends, not anything else. If you buy the e3D V6 version, it will work on your Ender's Creality MK8 hotend and any hotend that's compatible with e3D V6 nozzles.
I've always bought the e3D V6 version for my Ender and it's worked fine.
> 1 votes
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Tags: nozzle, speed, e3d-v6, cht, mk8
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thread-21600 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21600 | Can a print test be performed to determine nozzle and filament quality? | 2023-11-06T11:27:44.370 | # Question
Title: Can a print test be performed to determine nozzle and filament quality?
Given that, a printer is well-maintained and calibrated.
I'm searching for a particular nozzle accuracy and filament quality test:
* First, is there a specific print test that can be performed to test the quality of the nozzle alone, based on the visual results? Can that be reflected in a score of some kind, a metric reflecting the nozzle quality?
* Secondly, is there a specific print test to test the filament quality, **not strength properties**, solely based on the visual results? Can that be reflected in a filament quality score or metric?
* Lastly, are there "known good" standards that results could be compared with?
# Answer
> 1 votes
## Mostly a Relative measure
Assuming you have a well-known, well-printing nozzle and filament combination, then you can print a **benchmark** print, change one factor and then test with altered settings.
One of the most ubiquitous prints for a benchmark is Benchy. Benchy isn't so much a calibration test, but has all aspects you need in a benchmark. Overhangs, rounded corners, sharp corners, small diameter parts and sharp corners followed by longer stretches: it's all in there! and with those one gets a decent idea of print quality for other parts.
Another typical benchmark test is a cube, which has the sharp corners and stretches.
Depending on which factors you switched, you get a resulting **relative** quality comparison between the two prints. But you won't get a *measurable* metric, unless you invent a score based on artifacts.
## Filament factors
Among the factors that would show up based on bad filament. The three most noticeable I can think of are:
* hissing, bubbling & gaps can indicate wet filament
* stretches of random underextrusion and motor skipping can indicate uneven filament diameter
* sudden stalling of the extruder and no extrusion indicates a bulge on the filament
## Nozzle factors
Nozzle problems generally are systemic and would show up on the whole print.
* clogs from bad machining result in systematic underextrusion or no extrusion at all
* too large a nozzle shows in a larger print
* too small a nozzle shows in bad wall-to-wall and inter-layer adhesion and extruder skipping
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Tags: print-quality, filament, nozzle, quality, filament-quality
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thread-22969 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22969 | Extruder feed tube | 2024-01-20T21:41:22.197 | # Question
Title: Extruder feed tube
I have two 3D printers which both have filament feeder tubes that run from the extruder to the nozzle, as usual. But both feeder tubes are very opaque and it is very difficult if not impossible to see where a break is when the filament breaks inside the tube. My question is why aren't the feeder tubes made completely clear, so that one can get a good look at a break and its location. This would be helpful when hot swapping a new filament into the tube. And if there is no reason for the tubes to be opaque, could I change out the opaque tubes and replace them with common clear tubes of my own, or are these tubes special in some way?
# Answer
## Fully clear Bowden tubes are not availeable.
Bowden Tubes are made from PTFE or similar, very low-friction material. PTFE is a milky white in its natural state. You can not make it fully transparent and the Ultimaker Bowden tubes are about as transparent as you can get.
The choice of low-friction material is relevant. As long as you don't use transparent filament in them, one can see the filament through un-colored PTFE well enough to see the position.
Some fully opaque Bowden tubes have an even lower friction than normal PTFE, which can make printing more steady, or allow printing materials that normal PTFE might stick to.
> 0 votes
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Tags: extruder
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thread-22980 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22980 | Effect of top thickness on print with bumps on top | 2024-01-23T05:59:15.687 | # Question
Title: Effect of top thickness on print with bumps on top
My son is printing a simple block with a small (2 mm high) bump on top - see image below of the cross section. The left shows the 3D model and the right shows where the plastic actually prints, using a grid infill at around 10 %, with a top height of 1.6 mm
As you can see, this is very weak, and the bump very easily snaps off, as it has very little plastic securing it to the layer below. When we increase the top/bottom thickness (in Creality Cloud) to 4 mm this issue goes away, and the bumps are well connected. But then the print takes a very long time.
Questions:
1. Is this the expected behavior of a slicer? Why does it not add material to firmly connect the bump to what is beneath it?
2. How exactly is the "top thickness" setting applied? E.g. if it's set to 2 mm, does that only apply to the layers comprising the topmost 2 mm of the model, or does it stipulate that there must be 2 mm of plastic at the 'top' of the model at all X, Y coordinates?
3. Is there a way to set the top thickness separately from the bottom thickness in Creality Cloud?
# Answer
Modern versions of Cura have a feature called "skin edge support thickness" which will build extra perimeter-like layers under the edge of your "bump" down into the infill area, making it attach much better. I believe it defaults to on.
Your problem is probably that "Creality Cloud" is based on an ancient fork of Cura and does not do this, but you could check and see if they have anything similar available. The right solution, though, is to use real up-to-date slicing software like recent Cura (5.x at the time of this writing; I believe the feature was introduced near the end of the 4.x series), PrusaSlicer, or anything but the junk your printer vendor ships (or doesn't even ship but expects you to interface with via the cloud?)
> 5 votes
# Answer
## Is it expected?
So you want to print a block with nubs.
Putting it into the slicer, and looking at the first layer of the top, you will see that there is a an empty hole that has the diameter of the nub's outer diameter minus the wall thickness, where only the infill is. A little bit further up, one layer over the top layer, it's easy to see that the whole nub is resting on just its wall, which is filled under it.
This means, the contact area between the nub and block is very limited: it's only the walls, and a little bit of squishy infill.
## What are top layers?
The top layers are a number of layers that are **directly** under any surface that is defined as having a normal vector that is pointing "up". In our example, there are two: the circle from the nub, and the block without that circle.
## Why does it work with super thick top layers?
Remember what I said earlier about contact area of the nub to the nub? If the nub is *lower* than the height of the number of top layers specified, the whole nub is solid, and any top layers that are still remaining get resolved to completing the top layer of the block. From the bottom there still is a bore, but the interface between the nub and the block is over the full area of the print. As adhesion goes with the contact area, that means the nub is more resiliant.
But as you print much more plastic, you also print much longer.
## Is there another way?
In some slicers, you can modify the print behavior in specific parts of the print and define a different infill.
One such example is Ultimaker Cura, you could insert a (floating) cube at the interface between the block and nub, intersecting both for at least two layers, and declare that cube a print-setting modifier. Then you declare that cube to be printed with 100% infill, and you get the large interface area between the two parts and at the same time keep more of the model hollow than with many more top layers.
> 4 votes
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Tags: slicing
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thread-21698 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21698 | What are the differences between aluminum and copper heater block and why would I use one vs another? | 2023-11-29T11:46:07.370 | # Question
Title: What are the differences between aluminum and copper heater block and why would I use one vs another?
Just as the title says - I'm in the need of a new heater block, and need to decide which one to buy. Plated copper is 10 times more expensive now, at least where I live (70 PLN *which is about 16 Euro or 18 USD* vs 7 PLN for aluminum), but in the scale of the cost of a printer, difference is negligible.
Copper has better thermal transfer, but it also has a greater thermal mass, so it heats up and cools down slower, but should be able to melt plastic faster. Or so it seems. I don't know how these theoretical properties translate into practical pros and cons for 3D printing.
I'm not looking for "buy this" answer. I'm looking for comparison that will let me, and future readers, make informed decision.
# Answer
The choice depends on the application you have in mind, but basically you can look at the properties of copper and aluminium to find out what may be better for your application.
* Dynamics
+ Copper is about 3 times heavier, this potentially increases the weigth of the hot end and as such increases the change to have more issues with e.g. ringing for a similar sized heater blocks
* Thermodynamics
+ Maximum temperature can be higher for copper, the melting temperature is almost twice the value for aluminium (in printing in excess of 320 °C you want to use a copper heater block)<sup>*1)*</sup>
+ Heat conductivity for copper is almost twice the value of that of aluminium, it conducts heat much better, so the block is more evenly heated.
+ Heat capacity of copper is almsot half of that of aluminium, so it requires more energy to heat up the same amount of mass. Specific heat or heat capacity of aluminum is 0.90 J/(g °C); for copper it is 0.385 J/(g °C). To heat up the same amount of mass you'll need a little over twice the amount of energy, or with a given influx it will take more time. As we can assume the volume of the heatblocks is the same, the mass of the copper block will be higher and therefore will take even more time to heat up.
Copper can be nickel coated/plated, this creates a surface that is less prone for filament to get stuck on and is more easy to cleam with isopropanol alcohol.
A copper heater block may help keep temperatures more stable, but this is already done by the printer controller board (PID tuning). Generally, it will not help with a higher flow rate, since plastic thermal conductivity is the limiting factor here, not the heater block. For increased flow application you should go to a (Super)Volcano heater block; for a smaller volumetric flow increase one could use e.g. CHT style nozzles (effectively increased the filament contact area with the nozzle/heater block.
Basically, using a copper heater block is advised when printing at high temperatures (\> 320 °) for prolonged times.
---
*<sup>1)</sup> Aluminum heater blocks begin to degrade above 350 °C, while a copper alloy doesn't even begin to soften until way beyond 500 °C*
> 4 votes
# Answer
I’ll add from my experience: for printing with composite materials, when using a tungsten carbide nozzle, if screwed into an aluminum hotblock (even when screwed hot), the nozzle quickly unwinds and then plastic leaks. In the case of a copper hotblock, a similar effect is not observed (apparently, this is explained by different thermal expansion of the materials).
> 1 votes
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Tags: heat-management, replacement-parts
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thread-21317 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21317 | How to fix a Creality Sonic Pad error that appears after the first few lines of printing? | 2023-08-14T16:52:17.460 | # Question
Title: How to fix a Creality Sonic Pad error that appears after the first few lines of printing?
I recently updated my Creality Sonic Pad to v1.0.6.49.145 (June 28, 2023 release) and since I applied that update, I've been consistently receiving the error when attempting to print any G-code file:
```
Error Message:
Unable to parse move 'G1 X251.931 Y187.6.324 E35.93675'
```
*(The coordinates in the error message above change based on the model I'm attempting to print, I've just added these for reference.)*
The printer just freezes in place after completing line two and does not advance, then briefly throws this error on the screen. (I had to sit and watch it because the error only appears on screen for about 5 seconds.)
It doesn't matter what model or slicer (Cura or Creality Slicer) I use to create the file, I still get the message. I also receive the message on any files that I successfully printed before the update and have tried to re-print as a test.
For reference, I'm running:
* Printer: Creality Ender V3 Max Neo
* Slicers: Ultimaker Cura 5.4.0 and Creality Slicer 4.8.2
* macOS Monterey 12.3
* Models transferred via USB drive and Moonraker.
Any ideas on how to get past this error?
# Answer
I have had this problem ever since I have had the sonic pad, I found that I just go straight back to print & start print again , it just restarts where it stopped.
> 1 votes
# Answer
Not a fix, but a workaround for anyone else experiencing this issue. I was able to get past it by changing my upload format from "G-code" to "UFP with Thumbnail" in my Cura Moonraker settings. After this change I have been able to print with no problems and I have not gone back and attempted to transfer straight gcode files. (Because I like the thumbnail previews showing on the Sonic Pad. )
You can get to this screen in Cura by clicking the top menu:
**Settings** \> **Printer** \> **Manage Printers...**
On the "Preferences" dialog click:
**Printers** \> **Preset Printers** \> Your printer's name \> **Connect Moonraker** \> **Upload**
> 0 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, slicing, creality, klipper
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thread-22988 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22988 | Why Cura cannot slice this object? | 2024-01-24T14:08:34.890 | # Question
Title: Why Cura cannot slice this object?
I drew this object by myself using Blender:
Importing the STL in Cura v5.3.1 under Ubuntu 23.10 I'm able to slice it for a Sovol SV04 printer, but if I select the Dremel 3D45 printer it fails:
I don't see any "red" spot on the model that would tell me it's damaged.
What could prevent the slicing changing the model of the printer? How to understand why it cannot slice and how to fix then?
# Answer
> 3 votes
While without the files it's a guessing game, we can make an educated guess: the most frequent and likely culprit for this sort of faults is the model not being a manifold.
Most likely you've created several objects in Blender, and visually they comprise the shape you want, but internally they intersect, creating a lot of unnecessary internal geometry under the surface, and Cura fails to deduce what parts of the geometry are the actual "skin" of the object.
First, if your shape is composed of multiple objects, use the Boolean Union modifier, to merge them into a single object. Besides that, install "3D Printing Toolbox" add-on in Blender, find it in the sidebar tabs, and use the "Make Manifold" option, and inspect your shape to make sure it worked correctly and removed everything "under the surface", leaving only hollow skin. If it failed, you may have to do that manually.
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Tags: ultimaker-cura, slicing, dremel-3d45
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thread-22993 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22993 | Can a PLA print be laser engraved? | 2024-01-26T07:46:27.007 | # Question
Title: Can a PLA print be laser engraved?
Is it possible to laser engrave an object that was 3D printed with PLA or will the structure of the whole object simply melt and fail?
How does PLA behave when being engraved? Does it require special treatment of the PLA first or is, for example, more infill required?
# Answer
> 2 votes
## Yes, it is possible
Jered Adams shared, in a Youtube Video from 2023, that he could, in fact, engrave prints with a laser, and his method. The problems he encountered were mostly related to getting good reference points and affixing the part. He did use a large industrial-size machine with a 40 W CO<sub>2</sub> laser module. For the positioning, he used a printed block of known height to adjust the laser module. After making an initial high-power pass with air assist, he added powder-coat paints to the depth to make the engraving easier to see and turned off the air.
During first engraving with 12 %, notice the thin white smoke at the center where the laser impacts, getting pulled away by the air assist. The engraving itself is visible as a slightly different color.
After adding the powder and burning it in with a lower power setting (9 %), the result is very legible:
## Power settings
Mr. Adams used 12 % power on the initial pass and 9 % on the "inking" pass. Taking his 40 W Diode as a base, that'd correspond to 4.8 W and 3.6 W respectively, so could be done with a 5 W laser module.
Do note that the initial pass power could also depend on the color of the laser and the exact composition of your polymer. This is because some colors and materials absorb wavelengths from the laser differently, so it is hard to say for sure the same setting will work for all colors the same.
## Print settings
The engraving, with the right settings, should at most be one wall thickness deep, which would compromise *that* one wall's carrying capacity. A 2-wall print might see significant weakness due to the engraving, but with 3 or more walls, the impact would be massively reduced.
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Tags: pla, post-processing, infill, laser
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thread-22996 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22996 | Creality Ender 3 after normal printing, lost the ability to print in X and Z axis | 2024-01-26T11:13:40.067 | # Question
Title: Creality Ender 3 after normal printing, lost the ability to print in X and Z axis
Everything worked normally until the printer finished with a model after a 22-hour print job. As usual, I made everything like for the previous models to print the next one, but I suddenly noticed that this time it was printing only to the left side, the coordinates of Y-axis. I tried to change some parameters, opened and cleaned the nozzle from the PLA, powered it on-and-off to rest, checked everything, and performed some research on the net and youtube but it's still the same.
Additionally, I'm sharing this photo as an example of the current situation, with labeling that works only in Y-axis:
Any suggestions, or solutions if someone has had the problem before?
# Answer
I unscrewed parts that move X and Z axis, took off E and X connectors and then put everything in place. Gently moved the head on X axis, turned the printer on and it was working fine. Maybe, something was stuck or not in place while printing previous large model.
> 2 votes
# Answer
The problem is, that the printer stopped working in the X-direction. There can be multiple reasons for this:
* The motor is not connected to the mainboard.
+ Check the connectors. It should be plugged into the motor and the mainboard. The Ender3 is known to have its cable in such a position that it can be pulled at by the bed on some occasions, a pulled connector can happen because of that.
* The motor might be stuck.
+ Carefully try to rotate the pulley wheel on the x-axis motor while powered down. If it doesn't move, the motor might need replacement. If you move the printhead manually with a slow to medium speed you might generate current, and light up the display of the printer. Such a lighting up indicates that the motor, the connectors, and some parts of the main board are working. Be careful with this, as you generate current.
* The mainboard has a stepper driver that is damaged and won't supply voltage to the motor.
+ You'd need to get a new mainboard.
> 1 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, troubleshooting, z-axis, x-axis
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thread-23004 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23004 | Can a Oldham coupler and a Anti-Recoil Nut be used at the same time? | 2024-01-27T22:26:36.510 | # Question
Title: Can a Oldham coupler and a Anti-Recoil Nut be used at the same time?
I'm trying to understand both Oldham couplers and a Anti-Recoil Nuts.
* **Oldham Coupler**: Its function is to connect two shafts and transfer rotation from one to the other while compensating for misalignment.
* **Anti-Recoil Nut**: Its purpose is to eliminate backlash in the lead screw, ensuring precise linear motion.
In case of the Creality Ender 3 V2 both are a replacement for the original nut:
Why is there no part that utilises both functions in order to have the benefits of both? Better alignment to reduce Z-Wobble using the Oldham Coupler, and less backlash and better motion precision using the Anti Recoil Nut.
To my understanding they cannot be used both at the same time and I could not find a part that seems to combine those functions. Am I missing something? Does one make the other obsolete?
# Answer
> 1 votes
I don't see why you couldn't use them together. They are both dealing with eliminating a different effect.
The Oldham deals with the movement in the X-Y plane, the backlash nut with the Z-axis.
The backlash effect is not something to worry about, the Z-axis generally moves just in one direction and the gantry has reasonable mass.
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Tags: z-axis, lead-screw, z-wobble, anti-recoil, coupler
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thread-23003 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23003 | How to accurately synchronise dual Z-axis when two steppers motors are used? | 2024-01-27T21:30:24.177 | # Question
Title: How to accurately synchronise dual Z-axis when two steppers motors are used?
I upgraded two printers (Creality Ender 3 V2) with a dual Z-axis upgrade using an additional stepper motor. However, I realized that this could potentially still cause the two screws to be moved individually.
I figured that a mechanical dual Z-axis with a timing belt would have probably be a better upgrade instead of adding an additional stepper motor.
Anyhow, when two stepper motors are used, how to accurately synchronise them so that both screws on the Z-axis are and stay synchronised?
# Answer
There are a few options when adding an extra stepper motor, the usual upgrade is using a single stepper driver, driving 2 steppers either serial or parallel connected, or using 2 stepper drivers, this requires an extra stepper on the controller board (in that case one needs to replace the board; the standard board has the ability to control 4 stepper motors individually: X, Y, Extruder and Z).
The forces in 3D printing of moving the carriage along the various axes are relatively low, far less than e.g. a CNC machine where a spinning tool is pushed through a material. In 3D printing the nozzle hovers over the printing object connected to the print by a molten drop of filament, virtually no resistance. This implies that it is very unlikely to miss steps on one of the driven sides so that is becomes out of sync. Note that you can automatically tune the two sides if you have two steppers on separate stepper drivers and have a BLTouch (I'm using this on my CoreXY).
The two stepper motors push up a reasonably low mass for what the stepper motors can generate, certainly for the Z-axis as these are driven by lead screws. Driving a gantry with one stepper is *the* design flaw of the cheap-end printers, a timing belt with a single stepper works very well (I'm using this on my take of a Prusa i3 I designed), but must be mechanically tuned to be as straight in relation to the frame (if not, a test cube would look more as a 3D skewed cube).
> Anyhow, when two stepper motors are used, how to accurately synchronise them so that both screws on the Z-axis are and stay synchronised?
Print a fixed distance leveling aid, see e.g. these and level the X-gantry to the frame first, remove the levelling aids and then level the bed through the bed screws. The screws will not likely get out of sync, but if so, re-level with respect to the frame. Or, buy a larger controller board with more spare stepper drivers and automatically tune Z1 and Z2; be sure the bed is parallel to the frame then.
> 1 votes
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Tags: z-axis, stepper, belt
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thread-22986 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22986 | How can I improve print speed with carbon fiber nylon and an 0.4 mm nozzle? | 2024-01-24T02:07:53.767 | # Question
Title: How can I improve print speed with carbon fiber nylon and an 0.4 mm nozzle?
I have been trying to print fiber-filled nylons (Polymaker PA6GF and Taulman PA CF) on my Prusa i3 MK3S+ with a steel E3D 0.4 mm nozzle at a reasonable speed. I print at 290 °C for the Polymaker and 265 °C for the Taulman. This is at the upper end of the specified print temperature range. I can only print up to 25 mm/s before the extruder gears slip and never regain traction. They are tightened pretty much all the way (not that it makes much of a difference). Can the print speed be improved somehow without moving to a larger nozzle, or is this the limit? I was thinking a bimetal nozzle or maybe even a volcano-length nozzle with nuts might improve the viscosity. I would like to get up to maybe 50 mm/s.
# Answer
I got a nickel plated copper meltzone extender which solved the problem. I was able to print a decent benchy with the fastest print speeds at 70 mm/s. The melt zone extender results in the same melt zone length as a volcano nozzle in a normal v6 heater block. A volcano nozzle with an adapter or just a couple m6 brass nuts should work the same. I got the Polymaker filament to work but not the Taulman. I would avoid it.
> 1 votes
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Tags: extrusion, nozzle, speed, nylon, carbon
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thread-23001 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23001 | Is there software that allows generating the vertices of a 3D model from a math function and adjusting them dynamically? | 2024-01-27T17:21:53.660 | # Question
Title: Is there software that allows generating the vertices of a 3D model from a math function and adjusting them dynamically?
I want to print a solid of constant width, and I have defined its shape as trios of math equations in two variables: `X(u, v)`, `Y(u, v)`, and `Z(u, v)`. The equations also have two radius parameters, `a` and `h`, that determine the specific shape of the surface generated by the equations.
Is there software that will let me define the vertices of a 3D object with parametric equations, dynamically creating/removing/adjusting-the-positions-of vertices as I change the step size of `u` and `v` (determining the total number of vertices) and the values of the parameters `a` and `h` (adjusting the positions of the vertices), and export the resulting object as a 3D file to be imported into slicing software?
Blender has XYZ Math Surface, which will create an object from three functions; but once created it is entirely static, and the parameters cannot be adjusted without deleting the object and starting over. GeoGebra will create 3D surfaces and export them as STL files, but doesn't allow choosing the step size and thus vertex count. Are there any good alternatives?
# Answer
> 2 votes
The first thing that came to mind was:
* **OpenSCAD**: A script-based 3D modeling tool ideal for creating models with mathematical descriptions.
Two other possible candidates are:
* MATLAB
* Mathematica
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Tags: 3d-models, software
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thread-21800 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21800 | How to design a cable pull relief? | 2023-12-12T14:06:54.140 | # Question
Title: How to design a cable pull relief?
A thick power cable will go into my 3D-printed device, and I am looking for options to design a "pull relief" against the full pull power of a human. Ideally, it should be designed mostly on a flat surface and heat-resistant.
For example, forming a U-loop from the cable and applying a zip tie provides perfect pull relief that I am unable to break with my hands. However, I am struggling to translate that knowledge into some 3D-print-friendly design.
I've been thinking about creating a clamp of sorts consisting of two plastic elements, where the second one is pushed into the cable using a screw from the outside - am I going in a good direction?
Can you suggest a working design for such pull relief without the zip tie?
Some ideas for inspiration:
# Answer
This is what I can think of. The Z channel is where you lay your cable inside. Maybe this is something similar to your "U-loop"? This works by transforming the pulling force into the friction between the cable and the internal walls of the channel: The harder you pull, the bigger the friction it generates, thus keeping it in place. This can be totally 3d-printed flatly and the strength of this would depend on your 3d-printing material, thickness, which I think is enough for your goal.
Now, you need to think about the cons of this design:
1. Space consuming
2. Overbending your cable, damaging it
3. You need to know your cable size before implementing this design, as it requires a tight fit. This means you have to change the design if you want to use a thicker or thinner wire in the future in development
Hope it helps, feel free to point out other flaws of this design.
> 2 votes
# Answer
A common approach to "design a thing that must accomodate a thing" is to first model the thing you need accomodated, add technical margins, then boolean subtract it from a solid block. Then carve the rest of the block to a neater shape, removing unnecessary material, making screw holes and so on.
So, first make the U loop on the cable, with the zip ties, as you found working. Use vernier calipers to measure the real-world model then re-create it in CAD. Make it thicker by some 10-20% than your measurements. Then create a separate object - something very roughly the shape of the strain relief, without any cable channels, then use Boolean operation to subtract the cable from it. Add any stubs to keep the cable from escaping, mounts to keep the cable relief attached to whatever you need to attach it to, extra supports for strength where you suspect it could break, then print it. Try to fit the cable, chance it will work the first time over are slim, but you'll find where adjustments need to be made, and repeat the process until you have a working product.
> 1 votes
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Tags: pla, 3d-design
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thread-23002 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23002 | How do I prevent PETG from stringing and clumping up? | 2024-01-27T21:15:56.213 | # Question
Title: How do I prevent PETG from stringing and clumping up?
My PETG prints keep clumping up and stringing. The print is otherwise fine, but there are so many imperfections because of this. It looks like the clumping comes from the infill.
I tried replacing the nozzle with a hardened steel one and fiddling with the settings, but the issue keeps happening.
How do I resolve this issue?
* Printer: AnyCubic Kobra 2
* Filament: Overture PETG
* Extruder temperature: 240 °C
* Bed temperature: 90 °C
* Layer height: 0.2 mm
* Nozzle diameter: 0.4 mm
# Answer
> 3 votes
The color of these clumps suggests your PETG is burning. Dark clumps, heavy stringing, that totally feels like overheated material. Try to check if the nozzle really is 240 °C because it looks like quite a bit more. Possibly the thermistor lost some physical contact with the heater block and reads way less than it should.
# Answer
> 3 votes
PETG really likes to stick to nozzles, especially when the nozzle moves over already-printed material in the same layer, which can pull it back up and drag it around or leave it stuck to the nozzle for a long time until it eventually comes off somewhere it shouldn't be, often blackened from spending a long time in contact with heat and air, or from getting mixed with carbonized gunk that was already on the outside of the nozzle.
Your picture shows grid infill, which is a prime suspect for the root cause. Grid, triangles, and cubic are all *self-intersecting* infill patterns where the nozzle crosses back over lines that have already been printed. At the intersection points, the slicer does not make any attempt to compensate for double extrusion, and in fact there really isn't any good physical way to compensate without some fancy Z motion or stopping and starting that would be prohibitively slow on most printers.
Non-self-intersecting infill patterns like gyroid (any modern slicer) or full honeycomb (PrusaSlicer & derivatives) should go a long way to mitigate this problem.
Some users also find higher temperatures and/or lower infill speeds solve the problem by giving the needed time/heat to cleanly melt through the original extrusion line when crossing it the second time.
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Tags: fdm, petg, stringing, anycubic-kobra
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thread-23015 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23015 | Getting OctoPrint to continue printing when I put my PC to sleep? | 2024-01-29T12:31:20.743 | # Question
Title: Getting OctoPrint to continue printing when I put my PC to sleep?
##### What I saw
Last night, I sliced a *Califlower* in *Cura*, used the "Send to OctoPrint" option to send it to the printer via the *OctoPrint Connection* plugin (the standard Cura OctoPrint plugin at v3.7.3), made sure the first layer printed fine, and then put my PC to sleep.
That's when I noticed the print had stopped.
##### What I expected to see
I expected the print to carry on in the background, as I thought the print had already been sent to the OctoPrint 'server'.
It seems that rather than Cura uploading the G-code to OctoPrint (running on a Raspberry Pi 5, plugged into the printer via USB) telling it to print and then just monitoring progress, it streams the whole G-code in real time, using OctoPrint as a glorified network attached USB serial port, which rather defeats the purpose of having a print 'server' at all.
##### What I tried
I tried setting the option to "Store G-code on the SD card of the printer", but the *Note:* wasn't kidding when it said this would take a long time. Since there was no option to cancel, I ended up restarting OctoPrint, forcing a disconnect.
##### What I want to understand
Is there any way to get Cura to upload the G-code to OctoPrint and then tell it to print rather than stream it to the printer?
I would prefer my power efficient Raspberry Pi pushing G-code commands to the printer for hours, not my power hungry gaming PC.
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<sup>† Specifically a Raspberry Pi 5, running Raspberry Pi OS the from 2023-13-05 Image, fully \`apt\` upgraded, and running OctoPrint 1.9.3, installed using the recommended \`octoprint\_deploy\` script.</sup>
<sup>‡ When I send a 50 page document to my networked HP printer, I don't expect *that* to stop printing after I put my PC to sleep either!</sup>
# Answer
> 6 votes
The answer turned out to be to update Cura to the latest version.
#### Why does the Cura version matter?
Older versions of Cura (some time before v5.6.0) would stream commands to the *OctoPrint Connection* plugin rather than upload the G-Code to OctoPrint and let *it* stream the commands to the printer.
This is probably because *OctoPrint Connection* started out as a fork of UM3NetworkPrinting plugin which provided the Cura interface to UM3 networked printers, so inherited that heritage.
Because it was Cura itself that was streaming the commands, if the machine running Cura was put to sleep, it would stop streaming those commands. With the latest version of Cura, it behaves as you would expect. It uploads the G-Code to OctoPrint (not the printer, which would be very slow) and then lets OctoPrint stream the commands to the printer, so if the PC running Cura goes to sleep, the Raspberry Pi running OctoPrint keeps sending the commands to the printer.
#### Alternative solution
If you cannot upgrade your Cura version, for some reason, there appear to be several other options which could work.
##### Export & Upload the G-code file to OctoPrint
Export the G-code in Cura to a file and upload the file to the Web-UI of OctoPrint, it's then fully stored on the storage of OctoPrint. There you can then select the file and start the print.
##### Watch a folder on my NAS
If you have network attached storage, you could save files into a network share, then mount that folder on the OctoPrint Raspberry Pi as it's `watched` folder, as detailed in Network Mounting OctoPrint Data from a NAS, then monitor progress on the OctoPrint web interface rather than in Cura.
##### Switch to another slicer.
Another option is to switch to another slicer. It looks like the OctoPrint integration in other slicers support print once uploaded too. Looking at PrusaSlicer & OctoPrint: How to Use Them Together, I can see one of the steps is to check the "Start printing after upload" checkbox, but I haven't tested this yet.
# Answer
> -2 votes
The obvious, a bit expensive but probably best and most common solution is to use Octopi. (it's so common it took me a while to realize you're running Octoprint from a PC!)
You get a Raspberry Pi 3b, or 4, or any of a large number of cheaper and more available alternatives (I personally use Orange Pi zero 2) - then you install Linux with Octoprint on it. You power it up from the printer's power through some sort of regulator, connect the printer with it over a stub of USB cable, and connect it to your home LAN over Ethernet or Wifi. It's powered on and running while the printer is running. You link up Cura to it to upload gcode to its sd card (over LAN, so very fast) and you control it over web interface. That means the PC can be in another room (with Octoptint page displaying camera view of the print bed on second screen, in case anything goes wrong), you can design and slice your projects in silence and shut down your PC when you're done, while the small Pi works overnight feeding the printer gcode over its USB connection.
Configuration:
* From Cura Marketplace install Octoprint Connection.
* in Octoprint: wrench icon, Features \> Application Keys
* Generate key, name: cura.
* In Cura, Setings, printer, manage printers, select the printer, 'Connect Octoprint'.
* Select the Octopi from list, paste the application key in the key field.
From then on the PC is connected to Octopi over the net, so the transmission between the two is vastly faster than over serial, and after slicing you get the drop-down option "Print with Octoprint" besides "Save to disk". Selecting "Print with Octoprint" allows you to type in the directory on Pi, edit the file name, and pick whether to select and start the print immediately - without that it will just be placed in the storage medium of the Octoprint device, to be started from Octoprint at a later time.
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Tags: ultimaker-cura, octoprint
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thread-23010 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23010 | Rocking extruder stepper gets hot | 2024-01-28T07:14:20.940 | # Question
Title: Rocking extruder stepper gets hot
I have an i3 pro. The extruder motor does not work all. It rocks back and forth and gets really hot. I changed the wires, swapped the pins, changed motor - all it does is hum. I even went through the menu and tried to move it. The motor cuts off so I got a new board. The same thing occurs. It does not work. Is there any way to fix it?
# Answer
> 1 votes
<sub>A wild guess, due to the lack of info...</sub>
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#### Insufficient current
It is *possible* that you aren't supplying enough current to the extruder stepper. The humming or rocking of a motor - stepper or otherwise - is *symptomatic* of insufficient current and can lead to a sharp rise in temperature, i.e. the motor can get hot, very hot.
Basically speaking, the current supplied is less than the *stall current* of the motor.
I don't know if your board's stepper motor drivers are A4998 or DRV8225 (or something else entirely), however, you may need to adjust the current on the driver for the extruder.
This diagram shows the motor driver for **Extruder 1** as being the second from the bottom:
So, assuming that you are using the same connections, you need to adjust the potentiometer on this driver, to increase the current, until the rocking stops and the extruder starts to turn and extrude:
Even if you bought a new board, and then swapped over the motor drivers, *without adjusting the potentiometer*, then the same issue will occur. Therefore, it is possible that your first board does not have an issue, either - you just needed to adjust the pots...
#### Dead stepper motor
***If you have checked the current and the potentiometer, then...***
It is possible that the stepper has died (especially if the current *was* too low, and the motor heated and then the windings melted - but that is a lot of supposition).
To check, you could just swap the extruder stepper for one of the other steppers and see if the same low current humming/rocking issue occurs, or if it is indeed the motor that is the problem.
If the motor *is* faulty, then replacing a stepper motor isn't difficult, so long as you get exactly the *same model* as a replacement.
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#### References
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Tags: extruder
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thread-23023 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23023 | Can I use the same flow rate for Core Heating Technology (CHT) nozzles as for non-CHT nozzles? | 2024-01-30T15:45:04.247 | # Question
Title: Can I use the same flow rate for Core Heating Technology (CHT) nozzles as for non-CHT nozzles?
I'm waiting for some Core Heating Technology (CHT) nozzles to arrive which I will then use to do flow calibration. For now I'm however trying to understand flow rate in relation to CHT.
Does a CHT nozzle always require a much higher flow rate compared to 'regular' nozzles or can I use the same flow rate?
# Answer
*Flow compensation*, the slicer feature you seem to be talking about, is about the material properties of the thermoplastic you're printing - its thermal expansion and corresponding shrinkage when it cools, as well as how much the extrusion path cross-section deviates from the ideal model the slicer uses to determine how much material to extruder. It is a percentage to compensate by.
*Flow rate* is how much volume of material you can push through the nozzle per unit time, and typically has units of mm³/s. I think what you're getting confused by is that CHT *enables a higher flow rate* \- this means it lets you push more material through the nozzle in the same amount of time. That has nothing to do with flow compensation and does not mean you should change it.
In theory it's *possible* that you've upped your flow compensation to compensate for slippage in the extruder gear from already trying to go faster than your extruder can really push, and that you no longer have to do this with a CHT. But that was a really sloppy compensation to begin with, if you did it, and would have led to really inconsistent, speed-dependent extrusion.
I suppose it's also possible that the differing melt consistency from a CHT will make the extrusion path cross section more closely match the ideal, which could affect the optimal flow compensation to use. But I have not seen any evidence to that effect.
In short: you don't need to do anything with your flow compensation. Whatever you saw about CHT and flows was not talking about flow compensation.
> 1 votes
# Answer
The flow calibration (also known as extrusion multiplier) must be calibrated each time **at least one** of the following ones are changed:
* type of filament (ABS, PLA, PLA+ which counts differently, ...)
* filament brand
* extruder+hotend+nozzle
* (some people say also) filament colour
If you switch from CHT to non-CHT, clearly the nozzle has changed and you should at least verify the flow rate/extrusion multiplier. Maybe just test a range of +-2% without having to test the whole 90-105% range as you would do for a completely new material.
> 1 votes
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Tags: nozzle, cht, flow
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thread-19652 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/19652 | Very first 3D prints, but bad quality. What can I do? | 2022-07-14T17:35:05.743 | # Question
Title: Very first 3D prints, but bad quality. What can I do?
To start with, as stated in the title, I am very new to 3D printing.
We're a toy/boardgame shop and we're experimenting with 3D printing because it could open up a huge market for us. To this end, I'm asked to try to get this off the ground, but also for me it's a big experiment.
## General Information
**Printer:** Craftbot Plus
**Slicer:** CraftwarePro (1.1.4.368)
**Filament:** PLA - 1.75 mm
**Designed in:** Tinkercad
## Problem
I designed a puzzle box in Tinkercad. Here are some images of the design:
I've printed it twice, but both have some problems. I made some pictures, hopefully showing the flaws clearly.
#### Print 1
This print actually came out pretty ok, but not the quality I'm looking for.
#### Print 2
For some reason, this one came out way worse in my opinion. I didn't change any settings. The reason why I made this second print is that there are some design flaws in the first print.
As you might be able to tell, this one has some more severe problems, like the prolapse on one of the corners of the lid and some threads that just seem to be broken off here and there.
## Question
My question is basically, what is likely to be the problem, and how should I solve them. Are there some settings on the printer, or in the slicer that needs to be changed? Or could it be something with the design, for example, would it be better to have the lids laying down on the bed, instead of standing up as I have them in the design right now?
Also, here and there seem to be threads of plastic where I think there should not be any.
## What have I found myself
Since I'm very new to this, I wasn't really sure what to search/look for. I know it's expected to do some research yourself before posting any question, but I really didn't have a clue where to start.
Though, while typing in the question, 2 suggestions showed up:
#### Suggestion 1
I have bad print quality, what should I do?
I'm not sure this looks like any of my problem areas, but somewhat similar.
### Suggestion 2
Bad quality at horizontal faces
This looks very much similar to how some of my areas look. Is the problem described in this post indeed the same as mine, based on the pictures?
#### Conclusion
In both posts, *"Under Extrusion"* is mentioned this is probably something to look into?
## Some personal observations
There are 2 things I noticed myself, maybe some conclusions can be made from this:
1. Something else I'm noticing while heating up the extruder is that plastic already leaks out in a very thin thread before it actually starts printing.
2. When the print is done, I notice thin threads of plastic between the different objects (Like a spiderweb), this probably has something to do with point 1.
3. When the printer is starting, I notice that the very first threads of plastic are not a fluent string, but sometimes get interrupted, as if no plastic is coming out of the extruder for a short moment.
## Conclusion
Hopefully, I provided every information that is required to answer this question properly. I'm looking forward to any offered assistance.
In case any additional information is required, I'm happy to give this next time I'm at the office.
*P.S. I had to remove 6 links (pictures) to get to my maximum of 8*
# Answer
There are several issues at hand here, first you have an adhesion problem.
This print shows that the print (as it is printed upright) has come loose during printing and lifted up. Such a print should have been printed as it is now laying on your table. You will then also get far better quality of printed holes. So, second is print orientation on the build plate.
This shows another example of adhesion problems, but it also shows that you initial distance between the nozzle and the bed is slightly too large. The paper method usually works fine, but you can use feeler gauges. Alternatively use a specific 3D print adhesion spray (3DLAC, Magigoo, DimaFix) or alternatively some hairsprays or glue sticks.
Third, design. Just a tip, I see that your design uses some sort of a pin:
you should avoid thin pole/spike like prints. These are difficult to print and usually very weak. Think of an alternative, an embedded shaft or a bolt is usually a much better solution.
Fourth, this shows that there was no filament printed, it could be that the spool had extra resistance or the filament was entangled. Check your filament spool.
Fifth, this shows that you have a retraction problem, the filament pressure is still too large when the head moves to the next coordinates, it then oozes until the pressure has been released. Changing retraction speed or distance may help.
> 4 votes
# Answer
I've also found recently that using 4 different slicers, I get 4 different results.
I was getting lots of zits on rounded surfaces such as cylinders/spheres.
I have an Ender 5 S1 with a Sonic Pad, printing at 200 hot end, 60 bed with default slicer settings for my printer.
I used:
* Creality Slicer
* Creality Print (still confused why Creality has 2 different slicers, and which one is the recommended one)
* Ultimaker Cura
* Prusa
Cura was the only one that produced zits. The other 3 printed very nicely.
Prusa was showing "artifacts" through the cylinder when there were threads on the inside. Basically, it looked almost like the threads were extruding through the entire outer wall of the cylinder (it was a female-threaded cap).
Creality Slicer was ok, but slower than all of them.
Creality Print was almost 2x faster than all of the other slicers, until a more complex print was performed and then Prusa seemed to be slightly faster.
This is an old thread, and I'm pretty new to 3d printing, but thought I'd share my experience here with different slicers in case they are having print issues, too.
> 1 votes
# Answer
**Adhesion**
Try raising your bed temperature a couple of degrees at a time. Presumably your filament has some "suggested temperatures" on the spool, but they sometimes only give a hotend's temp. For PLA some people get good results with a 50 degree C bed, I find nothing less than 60 degrees C. Esun's rec seems to be 60-80 for the bed.
For the hotend my esun PLA+ suggests 205-225 and I print at 218.
Depending on the environment, draughts can upset things and trigger lifting. If the printer is in a place where there are winds/breezes, or airconditioning that cycles on and off, the temperature fluctuations can start lifting. Try putting your printer somewhere that there is no wind and air conditions are static. I have a curtain around mine, and some people use enclosures made from popup laundry baskets or similar. Doesn't have to be fancy.
You can try things with light layers of water-soluble gluestick on the bed, which works for me. Others have had success in laying blue painter's tape on the bed but I found the heat made the adhesive a hot mess.
**Orientation**
That pin will never work - 3D printing has layers and items are always weak along the layers. So that part is a poor candidate for 3D printing.
Instead, buy a large assortment box of M3 nuts and bolts. These work much better than thin printed parts.
Also, that large lid should be printed laying flat on its back. Even the action of the bed moving around could be creating enough breeze to cool that part quickly and cause shrinkage.
**Design**
That dovetail at the foot of the box, as printed it will have a layer line right across the base. Since that looks like the most economical way to print this part, you might consider making the dovetail a lot wider, and it may need a slight draught angle added to help the lid engage smoothly.
The lid might spin around the pin and whack the dovetail clean off too - perhaps the two sidewalls should be raised so the lid only slides off in one direction?
**Lack of filament**
Holes in a printed part are a kind of under-extrusion, and mean there's not enough plastic at that time. If your roll of filament is under friction then the printer may not be able to pull it in fast enough.
Also if the hotend isn't hot enough it may not be melting quick enough for your print speed, or there may be clogs in the nozzle from contaminations in the filament.
**Suggestion**
Start by levelling the bed, and then print one item in your set. Use a "brim" to improve adhesion, and it will be done first. As your printer starts the job, watch it closely and manually adjust the bed on the fly.
Imagine these as side-views:
\____ **<sub>\__</sub>** \_____ Nozzle is way too low, you're scratching the bed
\____ **\__** \____ Nozzle is too low, so drop the bed down a bit. The filament should have colour.
\____ **<sup>\__</sup>** \____ This is about right.
\____ **o** \_____ Nozzle is a bit too high
\____ **O** \_____ Nozzle is a lot too high
\____ **<sup>O</sup>** \_____ Filament is floating in the air which is sub-optimal
Ideally you want to feel the printed filament line as a flattened line stuck to the bed, and not a round string lying on the print bed. It should almost feel like the edges of a sticker.
Of course, the printer is moving all the time. Do not get in its way, and if you do block the motion in any direction then the print will likely be ruined.
> 0 votes
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Tags: print-quality, tinkercad
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thread-23011 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23011 | How to disable a filament sensor? | 2024-01-28T22:39:17.150 | # Question
Title: How to disable a filament sensor?
I have a Lotmaxx Shark v2, which has developed the problem of constantly saying the filament has ran out when it hasn't. I've narrowed down the issue to the main board, and tried to work around the problem:
* Installed new sensor (which is just a switch), no effect.
* Checked the cable continuity all the way to the pins that plug into the main board, that was fine.
* Added `M412 S0` to the top of my G-code file to try to disable the sensor.
* Set `FILAMENT_INVERTING` in the firmware configuration.
If, for whatever reason, the main board is damaged, I'd love to just disable this sensor. I don't really need it. Also unused is the second extruder set, so if I can't disable the sensor maybe I could configure the printer to use extruder #2 all the time instead of extruder #1?
# Answer
#### Via firmware
Looking at your M412 - Filament Runout link, it says that it requires `FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR`.
Try disabling `FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR` in the firmware by commenting out (`//`) the following line, in `Configuration.h`, like so
```
//#define FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR
```
From Filament Runout Sensor
```
//#define FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR
#if ENABLED(FILAMENT_RUNOUT_SENSOR)
#define NUM_RUNOUT_SENSORS 1 // Number of sensors, up to one per extruder. Define a FIL_RUNOUT#_PIN for each.
#define FIL_RUNOUT_INVERTING false // Set to true to invert the logic of the sensor.
...
```
---
#### Via UI
Watch this video, The BEST Ender-3 V2 Firmware EVER?! MRiscoC Professional Firmware, at 2:43,
It shows the Filament sensor can be disabled via the UI:
> 2 votes
---
Tags: marlin, g-code, filament-sensor, runout-sensor, lotmaxx
--- |
thread-22979 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22979 | How to set or retain original object size in photogrammetry scans with apps such as Kiri Engine? | 2024-01-22T19:47:24.187 | # Question
Title: How to set or retain original object size in photogrammetry scans with apps such as Kiri Engine?
I noticed when scanning objects using photogrammetry or the AI-based Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) in apps such as Kiri Engine that the original size is not retained in the object.
How can I actually retain the original size, or set the proper sizes when or after scanning objects like that? So that, when 3D printed it is the same size as the original?
# Answer
## Reference objects
When scanning something, including a simple reference geometry, such as a cube, is best. This can then be used to scale the final model to the correct size and as a reference for if the item has the correct angles. Besides cubes, coins (esp. matte ones) make handy markers and scale references.
If your scan contains color values, a simple photo scale angle could suffice. That item would be taken directly from photography. There it is sometimes required to contain size information and a pointer to the angle the photo was made at. This is made by using a square or angle with scale markings and distortions of the item can be solved later till the angle appears properly and to the right scale.
> 1 votes
---
Tags: cad, scanning, artificial-intelligence, photogrammetry, nerf
--- |
thread-21691 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21691 | Why is 'planar-2.5D-slicing' most commonly used instead of 'non-planar-3D-slicing'? | 2023-11-28T11:01:08.587 | # Question
Title: Why is 'planar-2.5D-slicing' most commonly used instead of 'non-planar-3D-slicing'?
Why do most slicers slice, and printers print in 2.5D, a planar method, rather than an actual 3D non-planar method? Doesn't this mainly come down to slicer software limitations rather than hardware limitations?
The results, in many cases, seem so much better. As shown below:
# Answer
> 2 votes
## Degrees of freedom
2D has **3** degrees of freedom: X, Y, and a single rotation. As a result, you can describe any object in 2D by defining its center position and the rotation its surface start point is at and then referencing its shape.
3D has **6** degrees of freedom: X, Y, and Z position, and the rotation around each of the axes. Describing a 3D object is much more complicated.
Printers usually work with fully constrained rotations after the slicing. Traditional machining has limited Z accessibility without a 4th axis or using a 5-axis arm, and is limited in depth by the length of tooling.
## Slicing is a number of mathematical 2D processes
When slicing, the slicer creates slices of a layer thickness. These then are interpreted by projecting to the center the smallest outline that would fit everywhere in the body and raising that outline to the center of the slice.
The stack of outlines is pretty much the outer surface reduced to a number of 2D objects. As placing the object already fixed its rotation, this leaves each outline to be solved for 2 variables for the toolpath: X and Y.
Just stacking all these results in a 3D object in the end.
## 2.5D is a machining term
Traditional machining creates 3D objects. However, machining with a 2.5D setup does not create undercuts, as it only uses cylindrical tooling in most cases. This machining works by projecting the top item onto a plane and having at most one Z coordinate. That means one can easily create a "height map" of the item's surface.
The surfaces in nonplanar mapping are similar: the top examples have a lot of traditional 2D solved printing and a single top layer that follows a 2.5D machine path - which is, remind you, a simplified 3D coordinate system.
By only solving the last layer for X, Y, and Z path coordinates and banning undercuts, the solving time can be massively reduced, leading to faster slicing and allowing more time spent on refining the print paths. 2.5 D path solution algorithms also are much better explored from traditional machining, while true 3D machining requires the machining tool to move with all degrees of freedom.
## Layered 2.5 D
Example (a) below breaks from traditional 2.5 D but can be reduced back to 2.5 D. Cutting the item in non-planar layers that follow the bottom geometry, that geometry can be solved as a 2.5 D machine path, and then the next layer is solved with an offset above that. However, cutting an item non-planarly can become very complicated, especially with more complex geometry than a simple arch.
---
Tags: slicing, fdm, planar, non-planar, 2.5d
--- |
thread-13318 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/13318 | Creality Ender 3 X axis homing issue | 2020-04-03T03:14:04.910 | # Question
Title: Creality Ender 3 X axis homing issue
I bought an Ender 3 recently. Auto-home is on the right front moving away from the end stop. I did reverse the wiring of the X axis motor, it did not work. I had Marlin 2.x uploaded, it didn't work too.
Marlin 2.x:
The print starts off with a boundary line in the middle and goes off the bed on the right corner to print. Y and Z axes are fine. X axis seems to be bumping into the right front, every time while homing. I had tweaked little bit of Marlin, but I'm a beginner and I don't understand it completely.
I'm using Cura, printer settings, max X=235, max Y=235, max Z=250, origin at the center: unchecked.
This might help...
```
// The size of the print bed
#define X_BED_SIZE 235
#define Y_BED_SIZE 235
#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 250
#define MANUAL_X_HOME_POS 0
#define MANUAL_Y_HOME_POS 0
#define MANUAL_Z_HOME_POS 0
```
(left this after so many trails)
In Pronterface the mid point X117.5 is at the middle right corner.
I'm thinking the printer is behaving like the origin(0,0) is on the right front, for X at least and it has nothing to do with the slicer.
It's about centering the prints, but it doesn't print on the bed mostly.
---
Start G-code:
```
; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G28 ; Home all axes
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move over to prevent blob squish
```
End G-code:
```
G91 ;Relative positioning
G1 E-2 F2700 ;Retract a bit
G1 E-2 Z0.2 F2400 ;Retract and raise Z
G1 X5 Y5 F3000 ;Wipe out
G1 Z10 ;Raise Z more
G90 ;Absolute positionning
G1 X0 Y{machine_depth} ;Present print
M106 S0 ;Turn-off fan
M104 S0 ;Turn-off hotend
M140 S0 ;Turn-off bed
M84 X Y E ;Disable all steppers but Z
```
# Answer
The issues you are facing can be caused typically by a defective X-axis endstop, an inverted logic of the X-axis endstop or a defective printer controller board.
When the X-axis endstop is reporting being triggered, it will not move. After "homing" it will only go to the right of the "home position".
There a couple of things to troubleshoot the X-axis endstop working:
* Command an `M119` command over a printer console or connect your printer over USB to a printer software application like PronterFace, OctoPrint, Repetier-Host, etc. and look at the reported endstop triggers; these should be triggered when the endstops are pressed. Issue the `M119` when you press the X endstop manually, if it reports "open" for X you need to invert the logic. If still triggered, the endstop is broken.
* Swap the X-endstop for a any other endstop (Y or Z); then you can also check if the printer board is broken!
---
If it is the case to invert the polarity of the endstop, in the Marlin firmware Configuration.h, look up:
```
// Mechanical endstop with COM to ground and NC to Signal uses "false" here (most common setup).
#define X_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING false // set to true to invert the logic of the endstop.
```
Change the boolean value of the endstop you'd like to invert.
> 1 votes
# Answer
I realize this is an old post, but in the event someone is having a similar problem and this post turns up in a search....
All three axis-stop switches are normally closed, and go open when the axis carriage hits the little lever. What this switch is doing is providing an easy low-resistance path to ground for the 3.3 (or 5) volt control card rail. You have the rail feeding this circuit through a 10K resistor (or some other relatively high value resistor), then the path forks; one fork to the limit switch, the other through a 100 ohm resistor to the microprocessor pin that handles the stop input. As long as that limit switch is closed and the circuit is good, the 3.3 volts goes through it to ground and the microprocessor never sees the 3.3 volts, the pin is "LOW." Once that switch is opened, the easy path to ground is removed, and the 3.3 volts goes to the microprocessor, and the pin goes "HIGH." If that switch or harness wiring has failed in a manner that opens that branch of the circuit, the card thinks the stop is *already* tripped, and won't allow motion towards the switch.
You can verify this easily enough by putting a meter on the two contacts in the Z-stop plug where it plugs into the control card (remove it from the card first so you aren't reading the *card* too.) Using the continuity function (buzzer or just reading ohms), you should get straight continuity with the switch at rest, and it should go open (infinite ohms) when you push the lever.
This checks both the switch *and* the harness wiring. If you don't see that state-change from continuity to open when you push the lever, go up to the switch itself and pull the wires off it, and read the switch pins directly with the meter. Same deal, should read continuity when in the at rest state, and go open when you push the lever. If it does, then the harness wiring is bad. If not, the switch is junk or failing, soon to be junk.
A LOT of people have a LOT of trouble adding a BLTouch to their machines, with many reporting that the gantry won't go down no matter what they do short of turning the Z-screw(s) by hand. This is a direct result of removing the Z-stop switch wiring and/or switch. That easy route to ground was removed when the switch was disconnected/removed, and even worse, now the microprocessor has conflicting inputs as to the status of the Z axis, one input from the BLTouch telling it the Z-axis is untripped, and the missing switch is telling it that it's already tripped... therefore, no downward motion, only up.
To fix this you have to edit the firmware (configuration.h) in the section covering the state of the stop switches. They are all defaulted to "HIGH," meaning that if the microprocessor sees that voltage, it's tripped. Remember, anything that opens that circuit makes the associated pin to high (including disconnecting the Z-stop wiring from the control board, OR removing the switch and mounting bracket completely.) Doesn't seem to matter if you use the five-pin dedicated Z-probe socket for all five wires or put the black and white wires in the Z-stop socket and the other three in the Z-probe socket. You have to change the "tripped state" of the Z-axis in firmware from "HIGH" to "LOW," then build the new firmware and flash the control card with it. I beat my head against that BLTouch for nearly four months before I stumbled across this little factoid that nobody else was talking about (not anywhere *I* was looking, anyway, which was pretty much everywhere.)
Schematics are a HUGE help (for some things) if you can read them!
> -1 votes
---
Tags: homing, x-axis, print-axis-offset
--- |
thread-23041 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23041 | How to fill a void within a body? | 2024-02-03T13:34:35.970 | # Question
Title: How to fill a void within a body?
Starting from this sketch:
I've revolved and extruded it to result in the body shown:
This is destined to be printed, so I need to fill in the cavity of the stick-y-out-y bit. I can use Surface-\>Patch to make it *look* correct from the outside, but there's still a void within:
I've searched using phrases such as "fusion join surface to body" "fusion fill void within body" and have only found results talking about making a body exclusively from surfaces. One promising sounding option was "boundary fill", but it seems to have no effect in this case.
What is the correct tool / technique to use here?
# Answer
## Simplify the order of operations
Sometimes, it is way easier to do the order of operations in a different order:
First, create the thickness of the body. Only then then subtract the rotation profile and last sweep the the outer profile subtractively
> 3 votes
# Answer
I don't know if there is a tool that can do that (would be very helpful), but you could use boolean operators to do the same!
A simplified version of your product looks like:
When you create an box , or part of a box of the same height in the part you need to fill the void it will kook like (2 separate bodies in one view):
Now use a boolean operator "Split Boby":
You can subtract your shape from the box:
to get multiple parts (3 parts in this case):
Now use a boolean operator to glue the parts together (option combine):
This will give you your filled void:
> 2 votes
---
Tags: fusion360
--- |
thread-21766 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21766 | How can microswitch-based automatic bed leveling probes be possibly reliable and accurate? | 2023-12-06T20:10:10.643 | # Question
Title: How can microswitch-based automatic bed leveling probes be possibly reliable and accurate?
I just discovered automatic bed leveling (ABL) probes that only use a microswitch.
For example, the FreeABL as shown below:
<sup>Source: Thingiverse.com</sup>
Or, the magnet mounted KlackEnder as shown below:
<sup>Source: Thingiverse.com</sup>
Both use the simple concept of probing the bed using a microswitch instead of an optical or retractable touching probe, such as the popular BLTouch. However, since no measurement other than touch can be made, how reliable and accurate are such methods? Did someone ever run a Probe Repeatability Test (`M48`) for such microswitch based automatic bed leveling probes, or have experience regarding its reliability?
For reference, a 10-probe `M48`-test using my CRTouch results in a deviation of 0.000750.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I use them both for my Ender 3 home-against-bed and for my delta-calibration probe, and they work reasonably well. Of course, as noted in a comment by Fritz, you should remove the metal lever arm, as that *amplifies any error*, as well as introducing its own non-reproducibility through arm stiffness that may vary with temperature.
I forget the actual spread of values I get probing my delta, but my Klipper probe configuration has `samples_tolerance` set to 0.015 mm, meaning that, when it probes each point 5 times, it will start over if it gets measurements that differ by more than that amount, and normally it does not restart. However, with it previously set lower (probably 0.005 mm but I don't remember for sure), I did on occasion hit instances of it repeatedly failing. So, in my usage, it was repeatable with an error margin of something greater than 5 microns but less than 15. I don't think that's too bad.
The particular switch/PCB I use was a cheap generic "Ender 3 endstop switch replacement" off Amazon.
---
Tags: bed-leveling, bltouch, z-probe, automatic-bed-leveling, sensors
--- |
thread-21402 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21402 | Ender 3 - Prints above bed, but the purge/start line is perfect | 2023-09-06T10:39:17.503 | # Question
Title: Ender 3 - Prints above bed, but the purge/start line is perfect
I'm trying to print after letting the printer taking a break for a few months. Haven't touched anything, but it starts with the purge/start line and it looks good. When it tries to print my model the nozzle is 1 mm above the bed. Tried with both pla/petg, different Cura slicer configs (both default and CHEPs) but nothing makes any difference. Have anyone experience this?
Picture of the purge/start layer, looks ok:
This is when it starts printing the rest, you can see that the nozzle is a few milimeters above the bed:
I've tried level the bed (with the bed and nozzle heated) but does not help.
First 50 lines of G-code:
```
;FLAVOR:Marlin
;TIME:3655
;Filament used: 3.24955m
;Layer height: 0.28
;MINX:93.425
;MINY:80.447
;MINZ:0.28
;MAXX:141.575
;MAXY:154.549
;MAXZ:7
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 5.2.1
M140 S50
M105
M190 S50
M104 S200
M105
M109 S200
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G28 ; Home all axes
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move over to prevent blob squish
G92 E0
G92 E0
G1 F2700 E-5
;LAYER_COUNT:25
;LAYER:0
M107
;MESH:Bodacious Lappi (2).stl
G0 F6000 X98.561 Y101.407 Z0.28
;TYPE:WALL-INNER
G1 F2700 E0
G1 F1073.8 X98.219 Y101.649 E0.0218
G1 F926.6 X96.942 Y101.649 E0.0988
G1 F848.1 X95.665 Y101.65 E0.18294
G1 F969.7 X95.231 Y101.371 E0.21267
G1 F1200 X95.065 Y101.043 E0.22979
G1 X95.065 Y95.95 E0.46694
G1 X95.231 Y95.534 E0.4878
G1 F1073.8 X95.596 Y95.255 E0.51171
G1 F924.9 X96.873 Y95.255 E0.58886
G1 F846.6 X98.15 Y95.256 E0.67315
G1 F969.7 X98.557 Y95.495 E0.70034
```
# Answer
> 1 votes
The default purge line is supposed to be **thick**. So thick that it's actually problematic for some materials. Thus, it's possible for it to come out "thin but adhering to the bed just fine" if your distance from the nozzle to the bed is significantly too high. You probably just need to adjust your bed height.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Don't know if you fixed it yet but this happened to me today. There's an eccentric nut on the right. Tighten it so it doesn't wobble but not so tight that it doesn't move.
---
Tags: creality-ender-3
--- |
thread-23055 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23055 | Ender V3 SE middle of print bed sticking but fine elsewhere | 2024-02-08T14:21:31.033 | # Question
Title: Ender V3 SE middle of print bed sticking but fine elsewhere
Recently got an Ender V3 SE and new to 3D printing. I am having issues where the prints are sticking hard to the middle of the print bed and are difficult to remove, often with damage to the bottom. If offset anywhere else on the bed, the prints are fine. Wondering if the build plate has an issue
# Answer
Consider to measure the nozzle distance from the bed at the "normal" points, those at which you have no release problems and compare that distance to the points at which the release is difficult. It's not out of the realm of possibility that your bed has a substantial enough distortion to cause the nozzle to too-heavily bond the filament to the bed.
If you're willing to put a bit more effort into the solution, you can install Octoprint on just about anything and run the Bed Level Visualizer which will present a color graph representing the flatness of the bed. Image below from linked site:
It's important when running this program to note the scale for the axes. The linked image shows rather large scale which presents a fairly distorted bed, but I've seen similar images in which the scale was one-tenth or one one-hundredth of this image. As a result the distortion is relatively severe, but absolutely measured, quite insignificant.
> 0 votes
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, adhesion
--- |
thread-23059 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23059 | Transparent material | 2024-02-09T14:55:40.753 | # Question
Title: Transparent material
I am searching for some material, that can be turned (even with post-processing) into a "glass" like texture.
Additionally, it should withstand some pressure (0.5 MPa in approximately 30 mm diameter canals) so PLA does not fit my case... Mostly, I would appreciate some CFR, since its mechanical properties are amazing, but it doesn't have to be that way.
I own Markforged FX20, Mark two and Ultimaker S5.
# Answer
> 3 votes
## Print problems
Only very few FDM materials are truly transparent. When printing a line next to line, inclusions of air can and will create outer boundaries that would be visible, so it is paramount to print in such a fashion that prints are as tight as possible. Another problem is, that under normal conditions the extrusion-extrusion boundaries are quite visible and that have different refraction indices inside the part. To remove those boundaries and gaps, it needs special printing parameters that result not only in filling every gap but also partially melt all adjacent lines to create a truly solid part. As such, FDM prints with multiple layers for walls are extremely hard to make fully transparent.
With extreme tuning, the internal voids can be reduced to almost none or truly none, and inter-wall bonding increased to be nigh invisible, but this leaves outer walls.
### Extreme settings for clarity
Stefan from CNC-Kitchen had a whole talk about these specialty print parameters with which he achieved very low-opacity prints in some, but not always all directions. As a baseline, he used settings proposed by Rygar1432. He started using a very transparent PCTG, with already very good results, and then experimented with PETG, which had a slightly less transparent look to it after optimizing the settings.
The exact composition of the print material was found to have tremendous effects on the transparency, thus different manufacturers and even rolls from different batches might behave differently and require different settings. Further, some filaments absorb moisture over time, which will degrade the print result by creating voids of entrapped water vapor. As printers also heat slightly differently due to the variance of the heater cartridges' resistance, your settings might not be perfectly applicable to another printer of the same type and might require adjustment. The most important basic settings discussed were:
* extrusion width & layer height
+ Compared to the standard 0.4 mm or 0.45 mm, a wider extrusion of 0.5 mm was used, but the layer height was significantly reduced to 0.12 mm at the same time, resulting in the plastic getting pressed tighter against the previous print and allowing fusion to other walls
* perimeters
+ Using only a single outer perimeter made the print mainly composed of infill and reduced the different geometries that could create pockets
* printing speed & part cooling.
+ Compared to classic prints, the printing speeds had to go way down to 15 mm/s, which is about 1/4 of typical print speeds. The slower print speed assists with keeping the extruded plastic hotter in the area of the nozzle, assisting with inter-extrusion bonding. This was further assisted by disabling part cooling. However, this resulted in very bad results of bridging material.
* Infill Geometry
+ An aligned rectilinear infill pattern was necessary to remove almost all voids, which was coupled with no top and bottom surfaces to again, reduce different print geometries that could create voids in the print.
The most important factor was the extrusion multiplier, which for Stefan's machine was best at about 101 %, as above that he started to experience some deformation of the part's outer shape, mostly in the shape of rough surfaces.
A slight bit of polishing and cleanup was at times required, as Stefan retold. Also, again, the outer perimeter clearly shows in different alignments of the print, best shown with this shot. While you can see almost undisturbed through the part down like, sideways the outer perimeters are very opaque.
All in all, you *could* get a very well-transparent print in *some* directions, but the outer surfaces are always somewhat rough.
### Specialty Filaments
Some filaments can be treated after printing to create a single, well-fused outer surface that is nigh fully transparent. This precludes prints with many walls unless the interior is already clear, but the results are known to be stunning for prints with a single or few walls. Do note that the order of filaments mentioned here is by the toxicity of their solvents, so the higher up in the list, the less dangerous it is.
#### PVB
The Hourglass by Mageb uses a chemical quirk of polyvinyl butyral (PVB): it is soluble in isopropyl alcohol to a good degree, resulting in softening and smoothening of the surface if the right exposure time is used. It's hard to predict if and where the IPA can creep into the walls to remove cavities without destroying the print's shape, so this effect is generally best used on Vase-mode prints. This of course limits the wall thickness and strength of the print.
#### ABS
It's well known that Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) dissolves in Acetone. In a similar fashion to PVB, Acetone liquid or vapors thus can be used to smooth out the outer deformities of a print and create a smooth surface, though not only is Acetone much more dangerous than Isopropanol due to toxicity, ABS itself is a more challenging printing material to PVB and can emit some dangerous fumes in printing. Since ABS has lost ist appeal to most hobbyists, I could not find any report on possible clouding issues from the treatment.
#### PETG
Yes, Polyethylene terephthalate glycol-modified \[copolymer\] PETG is chemically smoothable. However, the chemicals that can dissolve PETG are even more toxic than for ABS: Dichloromethane, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), toluene, and cyclohexanone are extremely toxic and nobody would guarantee you that the print will stay clear and that the prints won't cloud from the chemicals penetrating the print.
# Answer
> 0 votes
To be honest,3D printing has a poor reputation when it comes to transparent parts as resin tends to discolor when exposed to UV light, and need to be coated with another material such as a clearcoat in order to maintain their glass like finish for any time.
Filament is even worse, it yellows quickly and will have visible layer lines no matter how much you tune your printer.
With machines of the quality that you're mentioning, you would be best going with the manufacturer's own brand PETG, turning the extrusion up to the maximum and the cooling off, then the speed down. Ironically, thicker layers are best as they bond together better and so form less pronounced layer lines.
My personal recommendation would be use your printer to create a part in an opaque material, and then use that part to create a mold so that you can create your part out of two part epoxy resin, or create a blank that can be used in a vacuum former.
---
Tags: filament, fdm, material
--- |
thread-22938 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22938 | Problem leveling printer bed after reassembling after move | 2024-01-11T15:38:08.320 | # Question
Title: Problem leveling printer bed after reassembling after move
I'm not new to 3D printing, but am not extremely conversant in doing mechanical adjustments on the printer.
I took the printer down (minimal de-construction), loaded it into a padded box and drove it to my new home when I moved last year to avoid the handling that it would receive from movers.
Since then, I cannot get the bed to level properly regardless of what I do with the leveling screws. No matter what I do, the left rear corner is way too high for the nozzle and starts to scrape if I try to move it into place. I've tried every adjustment that I can find/think of other than taking the printer apart and re-building it (which I do not want to do if I can avoid it). I'm using the (often recommended) yellow springs that I bought off of Amazon and have a glass print bed.
Any suggestions how I can level the bed without taking the printer apart?
# Answer
> 0 votes
It may be that the surface the printer is sitting on is not planar. That can deform the frame slightly or cause a soft foot condition. Either of those can result in Y guide rods being non-linear. The cure, if that's the case, is either adjustable feet or shimming the high foot/feet.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Step 1: remove the glass and clean up its underside as well as the aluminium base. Some sort of debris stuck under the glass is often the cause.
Step 2: Tighten the eccentric nuts on the bed rollers (then tighten the screws holding them). At least some of the rollers are mounted on special nuts that can be turned to move the roller away/into the rail, make sure all the rollers can be turned with some resistance, loose=no grip, no turn=too much friction.
Step 3. Besides surface, as Allardjd instructs, check for crud stuck to underside of the printer legs. A twist in the frame can introduce this sort of problem.
If all else fails, invest in an auto bed leveling probe, it solves this sort of problems automatically and it's a huge quality-of-life improvement.
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Tags: creality-ender-3, bed-leveling, bed
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thread-21418 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21418 | Issue with PETG adhesion | 2023-09-11T11:04:36.500 | # Question
Title: Issue with PETG adhesion
I am printing on a Prusa i3 MK3 with white PETG and I face several issues when it comes to the extruder shaping the bridge and solid infill. For the record, the temperature is set at 230 °C for the first layer and at 240 °C for the others. The speed for the solid infill is at 80 mm/s. I print with an infill of 0 % and for reasons related to my work I don't want to change that and increase it. Is it a temperature issue? It's like the bridge infill doesn't stick to the perimeters.
After reading similar issues, I have increased the temperature to 250 °C and I still have the problem.
# Answer
Unfortunately I know of no setting like a "bridge infill - inner wall overlap" .
You can however break the top and bottom of the model up into 2 pieces. Use the "per model settings" to increase the thickness (number of walls) of the bottom part. That way the infill has some ledge to hold on to.
> 1 votes
# Answer
You could try reducing the number of perimeters from 2 to 1 *only* for the layer in which the bridge occurs. This leaves the second perimeter in the layer below as a bridge anchor, like shown in these two images: How to configure your slicer to properly support bridges. Or you could change the number of perimeters from 2 to 3-4 in the 3 layers *below* the bridge to achieve the same effect with less visible artifacts on the surface.
Other than that, you can try to reduce bridging speed and acceleration or switch to another slicer. I'm not sure if the Prusa Slicer derivatives like SuperSlicer or OrcaSlicer are better in this regard, but there's always Cura if you want to invest the effort to learn a new software.
There are quite a lot of issues with the bridging algorithms in recent Prusa Slicer versions. See the Github issue Add an option for setting bridge/perimeters overlap for a list of links.
> 0 votes
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Tags: prusa-i3, adhesion, petg, underextrusion, prusaslicer
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thread-23000 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23000 | Nozzle Z-level is not aligned with Z-probe | 2024-01-27T13:26:35.430 | # Question
Title: Nozzle Z-level is not aligned with Z-probe
With my Ender 3 S1 the bed leveling z-probe level and the nozzle Z-level are not alligned. The nozzle is 0.77 mm higher than the bed leveling probe. I think this causes some problems I have:
* When printing the first layer in PLA -- either a G-code for bed level calibartion, or an actual print -- the first layer is not properly attaching plate.
* Because the probe and the nozzle are not alligned, and the probe is lower, the probe pulls the first layer along and messing up the print.
* If the first layer comes out relatively okay and the print can continue, the print has trouble completing because the probe constantly scrapes over the print. Sometimes the print completes, sometimes the probe pulls the print loose from the bed during the scraping and print fails.
My question is, how do I align the Z-level of the bed leveling probe and the nozzle?
I would think there is some mechanism to align them.
Some notes.
1. The Z-offset moves both the probe and the nozzle.
2. I have tried replacing the nozzle thinking the nozzle might be damaged. But the difference remains.
3. I have measured the 0.77 mm at the center, but at all sides of the build plate I see a clear space between the pin and the nozzle.
4. Manually bed leveling does not work because after leveling on the nozzle the z-probe again adds the 0.77 mm space.
5. Printing TPU goes fine. I believe this is because the scraping of the TPU is less risky because the TPU flexes.
# Answer
I found the issue. The nozzle is supposed to be lower than the z-probe. It seems to be caused by some screws that were not fully tightened, and because of that the nozzle assembly was hanging over a bit. Now the z-probe and nozzle are exactly level. I suppose the z-probe can or should be higher than the nozzle. But exactly level is fine too.
> 1 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, pla, bed-leveling, nozzle, z-probe
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thread-23008 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23008 | Deformed 45 deg angle on outer wall | 2024-01-28T06:17:14.533 | # Question
Title: Deformed 45 deg angle on outer wall
I have tried a couple different fixes but none worked, when watching the printer it looks like the head accelerates suddenly when printing that wall. However, when looking at the gcode the acceleration appears to be the same everywhere.
down the middle of the pic you can see what I am talking about. On the far left there is another 45 deg angle that printed just fine.
This is on a Anycubic Chiron using Cura 5.6.
* I have a Anycubic Chiron which I use together with Cura.
* I print in PLA at 210-215 °C.
* The print bed is set to 60 °C.
* I use a print cooling fan at 100 %.
* The layer height I set to 0.2 mm
* The line width 0.4 from the 0.4 mm nozzle.
* The printing speed is set to 50 mm/s for walls (outer walls are 35 mm/s) and 75 mm/s for infill.
* My retraction is 0.8 mm/off at 10 mm/s.
# Answer
> 0 votes
These kinds of artifacts can arise in a lot of ways, and are really frustrating to deal with. From what I can tell, they're related to the "stalagmite" stringing you can get on travel with wet filament or insufficient retraction, and the basic mechanism seems to be material failing to come out of the nozzle when expected, then getting "pulled out" by surface tension or similar type forces starting upon hitting a slightly larger bump of material from the previous layer just below it.
It looks like you're having this problem right after travel/unretract to a starting point on the outer perimeter. If so, this could be a result of losing material during travel (especially likely if you're skipping retractions for travel within the infill region).
Another very likely cause is wet filament, making it so that it takes just a moment longer for the extrusion to start, due to getting past bubbly gunk or taking more energy to overcome the water stealing it for boiling or whatever. Drying your filament would be an easy thing you could do to check if this is the cause before spending lots of time on other possibilities.
Another cause for this sort of thing is using a line width narrower than your nozzle orifice. This allows the material to expand outward in the nozzle orifice before it really starts flowing out. I know you said you have an 0.4 mm nozzle, but if it's old or if you've been printing anything abrasive (including matte filaments, glow-in-the-dark, wood fill, carbon fiber fill, glass fill, nylon, etc.) then it very well might actually be 0.5-0.6 mm or even worse, and could cause this sort of artifact.
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Tags: ultimaker-cura, filament, slicing
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thread-23073 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23073 | What scale of accuracy in measurement tools is required to verify a FFF item's specs based on the technology properties? | 2024-02-15T17:43:09.660 | # Question
Title: What scale of accuracy in measurement tools is required to verify a FFF item's specs based on the technology properties?
Measurements in machining often are done to an accuracy of "thou" which is thousands of an inch, or about 0.0254 mm. The measurement equipment for such is usually to an accuracy of tens or hundreds of that.
Construction is often done with an accuracy of about 1-5 mm on lengths, and the measurement equipment is accurate to about 1 mm.
FFF Printers often have tolerances somewhere between 0.1 and 0.5 mm in the XY axis, depending on the size of the nozzle and the quality of the printer.
As a result, what kind of accuracy should measurement equipment for consumer FFF prints (before postprocessing) have and what kind of size scale size is required?
# Answer
> 0 votes
I take exception to the common wisdom that FDM printers have XY tolerances in the range 0.1 to 0.5 mm. That might have been the case 5 or 6 years ago, but with a modern printer, you expect tool positioning accuracy and reproducibility (layers lining up) on the order of 10 microns (0.01 mm). The major source of inexactness is extrusion width, due to the cross sections of your extrusions not being perfect rectangles, but bulging at the sides in a shape like two matching parentheses and their convex hull `( )`.
One reason I bring this up is that one of the most important uses of calipers with FDM printing is to calibrate your extrusion multiplier to compensate for these effects. If you can only measure in 0.1 mm increments, measuring printed perimeters is just going to come out the nominal 0.4 mm or whatever, unless things are more than 15% or so off. That's a big relative error that will have consequences in terms of solid layers coming out with gaps or coming out over-filled and colliding with the nozzle as it digs them upward. With 0.01 mm measurement increments, you can get your extrusion right within 1%. This makes a big difference to your ability to print parts that fit the first time rather than needing trial-and-error refinement.
As for actually making things, if they're going to fit together with other real-world stuff, they need to be made with significant adjustability or with precise measurements. Often adjustability is the way to go when you can, but for printing replacement parts this often isn't an option. And if you need parts to match for a snap fit, interference fit, holding gears or bearings in a particular place without backlash, etc., measuring to the nearest 0.1 mm is not going to cut it. Especially with digital calipers, seeing a measurement like 10.2 doesn't tell you whether it's actually 10.151 or 10.249, or even further off if the calipers are low quality (which the ones that only show 0.1 mm scale tend to be). I found that upgrading to higher quality 0.01 mm scale digital calipers made a huge difference to my ability to just "get stuff done" with 3D printing, without having to re-print over and over tweaking dimensions. Particular applications that come to mind where it made a difference for me were:
* Enclosures for PCBs/SBCs.
* Upgrades/add-ons for printers: brackets to mount things to the aluminum extrusions, fan ducts, etc.
* Small plastic pieces to reinforce laptops & other electronics where screw points on housing were broken.
* Lids to pop in and seal against gaskets in air-tight bins.
* Feet to fit snug on metal furniture legs.
Finally, even if in practice FDM printers can only meet mediocre tolerances, being off by something like 0.05 mm or even 0.1 mm from a known good measurement is a lot better than being off by that much from a measurement that itself was already off by nearly 0.1 mm.
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Tags: fdm, knowledgebase, dimensional-accuracy
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thread-23079 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23079 | Ender 3 Pro Beeping when Hot End Reaches 100 ºC | 2024-02-18T02:48:45.510 | # Question
Title: Ender 3 Pro Beeping when Hot End Reaches 100 ºC
A little context might be important to troubleshoot this: Last year, I have changed the extruder and the entire hot end piece of my Ender 3 Pro. One day, while cleaning the nozzle with a metallic brush, something on it short circuited and this bricked my mainboard.
Recently, I have changed the broken 4.2.0 mainboard with a brand new 4.2.7 one. Everything seemed to be fine until I attempted to pre heat the nozzle again to 200 °C.
Every time the nozzle reaches around 100 °C the printer starts beeping loudly and resets continuously until the nozzle cools down to room temperature.
I have it connected to OctoPrint and I could see that there were no errors being logged apart from it saying that there was no SD card and no EEPROM.
What can I do to further troubleshoot this error? Is there anything from the OctoPrint side that could provide more information?
# Answer
A firmware is configured with settings which are stored in the chip called EEPROM. EEPROM is short for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory which is a kind of non-volatile memory (see wikipedia). It is the chip thar stores the firmware settings you generally see when you command the `M503` G-code (see M502 will reset all configurable settings to their "factory defaults", which settings are those?) in a terminal (What is a printer console/terminal?).
The Creality controller board V4.2.7, with a 32-bit microprocessor (most 32-bit microprocessors do not have a EEPROM), stores the data on an SD card, not in the EEPROM. But, the firmware thinks that the EEPROM is used, it is merely a file on the SD card. This could hint to the errors that you are receiving.
To solve this, you need to insert a working SD card (format the SD card as FAT32) in the machine and keep it there.
> 2 votes
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Tags: troubleshooting, creality, heating-element, mainboard
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thread-23082 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23082 | Poor first layer even after careful calibration | 2024-02-18T21:09:20.730 | # Question
Title: Poor first layer even after careful calibration
I am using Klipper on a modified Wanhao Duplicator i3 (Monoprice Maker Select V2) featuring a BLTouch probe. I am working through the painstaking process of bed leveling, but even though Klipper seems happy with the level, my first layer calibration print using SuperSlicer is not coming out well:
First, I adjusted the gantry to be level to the table (not the bed). I checked that the `PROBE_ACCURACY` looks good:
```
probe accuracy results: maximum 1.995000, minimum 1.987500, range 0.007500, average 1.991250, median 1.991250, standard deviation 0.002016
```
Then I use the `SCREWS_TILT_CALCULATE` command to adjust the bed screws until they are very close:
```
rear left screw : x=50.0, y=200.0, z=1.89750 : adjust CCW 00:02
rear right screw : x=200.0, y=200.0, z=1.89750 : adjust CCW 00:02
front right screw : x=200.0, y=50.0, z=1.89500 : adjust CCW 00:02
front left screw (base) : x=50.0, y=50.0, z=1.87750
```
The `BED_MESH_CALIBRATE` command determines that there is maybe a 0.185mm inconsistency across the bed.
I added `BED_MESH_PROFILE LOAD=default` to my start GCODE, after homing completes.
Then I ran the bed/extrusion test print that SuperSlicer generated for me, shown at the top of the post. The center looks best but the left side is too far and the right side is much too close.
Isn't the mesh supposed to correct for this? What might I still have wrong?
# Answer
> 1 votes
As pointed out by Jake Palmer on the Klipper forum, I needed to apply axis twist compensation.
> Some printers may have a small twist in their X rail which can skew the results of a probe attached to the X carriage. This is common in printers with designs like the Prusa MK3, Sovol SV06 etc...
I have Z braces installed but I believe these were poorly set and exacerbating the twist. After fiddling a little while I got dramatically better prints.
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Tags: bed-leveling, bltouch, monoprice-maker-select, wanhao, superslicer
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thread-17979 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/17979 | Print bulging and curling on the edges | 2021-08-26T03:09:13.967 | # Question
Title: Print bulging and curling on the edges
I recently installed the BigTreeTech SKR E3 mini V2.0 on my Ender 5 and I'm having some print quality problems even when using the same settings as before the board swap.
The edges are rough and curling and there is some bulging on the X and Y-axis. I printed a 20 mm cube and after measuring it, the middle is about 19.9 mm wide (on the X and Y-axis) but the top half and bottom half of those same sides measure up to be around 19.6 mm which is a pretty large difference when compared the near-perfect ones I used to achieve.
I've tried calibrating the E-steps and lowering the wall speed to 20 mm/s but I've had no luck. Is there anything I can do to fix it?
# Answer
This mostly happens if the belt has very little tension, this will be the issue 90%, if not please comment below, I'll give you other solutions.
> 0 votes
# Answer
<sub>This is a Wiki answer posting the solution from Carter's comment. If the OP (Carter) wishes to post and accept their own answer, then this wiki answer can be removed.</sub>
---
> I did tension the belt the best I could (which wasn't too much from the original) but I think it did help a little. I also took off the Hero Me fan duct I put on and I think that helped a ton too. I was having some clogging issues as well and when I disassembled the direct drive kit I had on, I found the fan duct mount was cracked and was leaning about 20° forward. Because of this, I think the fan duct was dragging way too low and touching the print when travelling fast and this caused a ton a problems.
> 1 votes
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Tags: print-quality, creality-ender-5
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thread-23094 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23094 | Printer keeps going down when BLTouch activates during auto homing (4.2.2 board) | 2024-02-22T20:52:03.293 | # Question
Title: Printer keeps going down when BLTouch activates during auto homing (4.2.2 board)
When I auto home my Ender 3 Pro, it does its usual thing where it goes to the corner and then comes to the middle. Although, when it goes down and the BLT activates, the nozzle keeps going down afterwards and hits the bed while the BLT is flashing blue and red.
I have tried swapping the terminals in which the BLT is placed and re-flashing the firmware yet it still doesn't work. I am using the 4.2.2 motherboard and I followed this video, ENDER 3 / ENDER 3 PRO With Board 4.2.2 - How To UPDATE FIRMWARE, to make sure the controller and board were correct and this video, How to install Marlin Firmware with BLtouch for your simple Creality printer, for the settings.
Here is the video for my problem: 3D Printer Demo.
If you need any more info, I will try to respond as soon as I can, thanks!
# Answer
Turns out that the trigger signal (white) and GND (black) wires just had faulty connections.
> 1 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, bed-leveling, bltouch
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thread-23096 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23096 | Is an e3D hotend with 3 mm filament diameter still compatible with 1.75 mm filament? | 2024-02-23T03:45:03.073 | # Question
Title: Is an e3D hotend with 3 mm filament diameter still compatible with 1.75 mm filament?
I am looking to buy a low priced 3 mm e3D all-metal v6 hot end. It says 3 mm, however I am wondering if I could make it compatible 1.75 mm if I just get a different Bowden tube and Bowden clip.
Is an e3D hot-end rated for 3 mm actually machined for said filament diameter, or is such constraint only relating to the diameter of the Bowden clip?
# Answer
> 3 votes
You shouldn't buy a hotend for 2.85 mm (which is the actual filament diameter, real 3 mm filament is hard to get nowadays) when you need a hotend for 1.75 mm filament.
Indeed, the Bowden tube is way thicker (about 6 mm) for 2.85 mm filament apposed to about 4 mm for 1.75 mm filament, so you need a different coupling, but, the inside of the hotend is not meant to transport the thinner filament, so you need to fill the inside with a proper tube. This essentially makes your metal hotend a lined version. Furthermore, the nozzle has a bore of about 3.2 mm (like the heatbreak), this is detrimental for your retraction and ooze performance.
I operate printers with both filaments, but always found that it is better to buy dedicated hotends for the correct size you are operating, unless you have many spare parts lying around to rebuild the hotend (nozzle, heatbreak, tubes and coupling).
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Tags: filament, hotend, e3d
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thread-22832 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/22832 | How to fit a model into a hole with the same shape? | 2023-12-20T08:46:34.653 | # Question
Title: How to fit a model into a hole with the same shape?
I've 3D printed a box with a hole in it, the hole looks like a horse. My idea was that I then 3D print that horse in a different color and put it into the hole. The problem was that the horse didn't fit the hole, as they were the same size. I then made the horse smaller, but that made a new problem. Now the feet of the horse don't align with the hole. How can I scale the horse easily, like how can I just make everything thinner?
The image above is how the horse looks, and what I want is to make all sides go in 3 mm, I'm not sure how to do it without the legs moving.
# Answer
> 8 votes
## What you need
You don't need a scaled horse, you need an **offset** off the outline.
## Designing the offset
This can require to create a whole new model, with slightly altered ratios between items. Look at this example:
As you see, some sections - especially the diagonals from bottom left to upper right - have the identical length to the line they are offset from, others are longer and others shorter. if you have the design-sketches in a STEP file, it's as easy as defining an offset and re-extruding the shifted item.
## Altering the model
If you only go the STL, some programs do offer an offset-function to alter the model. In the case of blender, you could choose all vertical walls and *extrude* negatively by a little.
## Slicing with offset
As jpa correctly noted, you can force slicing with an offset in many slicers. Often this function is called XY compensation, Horizontal expansion, or similar.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Many slicers can do this directly:
* **PrusaSlicer**: Print Settings -\> Advanced -\> XY Size Compensation
* **Cura**: Print Settings -\> Horizontal Expansion
Setting a negative value will move each wall inwards along its normal.
# Answer
> 1 votes
A less elegant but easier to implement alternative to what Trish suggests (for example, doing 'offset' in FreeCAD is a chore and a half), is to use draft angles / chamfers. Make the hole and the horse walls 45 degrees (matching the angles so both the hole bottom and the horse bottom is smaller than the outline). It will always fit for sure but likely stick above the surface of the hole, which may be desirable, and if not desirable, place the horse model in the slicer bigger side down, then sink it into the build plate (uncheck 'drop model' then modify the Z coordinate of its position in the Translate mode) by as much as it sticks outside the hole, and the part that sticks above the box surface simply won't be printed.
# Answer
> 0 votes
This might be an absurd suggestion, but have you tried freezing the horse? Just throw it in a freezer for an hour or two and then quickly try to fit it into the box.
That's a pretty typical way of getting an interference fit: Cool one part to allow it to shrink then insert it and let it expand into place.
Though it might still be too tight since both parts are literally the same size and have not been designed with any tolerance.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Scaling in FreeCAD is very easy but you must remember that it's CAD not art. You can offset the sub-binders off a face or sketch. You can't offset the pad or the sketch without playing with parameters, a lot, which you won't want to do.
Give the sub-binder (the green one) a negative offset of say -0.5mm. Pad it as if it were a sketch and it should fit the hole.
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Tags: scaling
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thread-23104 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23104 | Help With Bottom of Sphere Coming off With Supports | 2024-02-29T01:28:02.490 | # Question
Title: Help With Bottom of Sphere Coming off With Supports
I printed this on an Ender 3 S1 Pro at 215˚C with a 20% infill (actually 5 were printed at once). The print bed was leveled prior to print.
When I tried to remove the supports, they took the bottom of the sphere off with them.
How typical is this, and what parameters can I change to have the best chance of a successful print?
# Answer
> 0 votes
Have you seen question 3D Printed Sphere, How to Remove Roughness? Although the question is centered around the roughness, not the supports, the answers hint to a solution for this question.
If you look at the answers, you see that in case you have have unsupported perimeters (see image below), they sag out (as seen in your print where the lower perimeters of the sphere are not perectly round) and may fuse with the support causing the support and the perimiters (walls) to bond quite well.
Furthermore, if you use too few perimeters and a low infill percentage, the print object will become weak and have an increased change that removing the print from the plate or the support from the print cause the print to break.
<sub>Picture credits to Trish, this is 180° rotated</sub>
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Tags: support-structures
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thread-21740 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21740 | How to add a multi-color flush logo to a flat surface? | 2023-12-03T22:12:21.193 | # Question
Title: How to add a multi-color flush logo to a flat surface?
I've been banging my head against the desk for two days so it's time to ask for help. This is the second thing I've ever tried to design in Fusion 360, so very much a newbie.
I'm trying to make some coasters for my dad for Christmas. What I've done.
1. Created a sketch
2. Created a square
3. Added some fillets
4. Extruded
5. Right-clicked on the top surface and created a sketch
6. Imported SVG of logo and positioned it
7. Extruded the stuff on the logo that should be white by -0.4 mm into a new body
8. Extruded the stuff on the logo that should be red by -0.4 mm into a new body
This is what it looks like in F360.
I now export to STL and open in OrcaSlicer. First problem I notice is that not all the bodies that were created are paintable. For example, I can pain "NEW YO" but the "R" and "K" just don't show up. Second problem is that this is what my first three layers look like (sliced at 0.20 mm). I'm assuming my error is on the F360 side but I just don't understand what it is. I've watched several videos on YT about doing this, but they usually are doing a single color and are either embossing or debossing it. I want it flat.
After that it goes to infill and the rest looks fine.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Do two extrusions in F360.
The first will be a 'cut' into the coaster. This removes the volume from the the coaster that will be your lettering and graphics from your stencil.
The second will use the same profile and depth. Except this time it will be a 'new body.' This will fill the volume that was removed in the first operation.
Looking at 'Bodies' in your F360 expandable tree in the upper left corner, your coaster should be one. Every letter and graphic that is isolated and not touching another letter or graphic should be another body after the last extrusion.
If you have a dual extrusion printer the coaster can be one extruder. All other objects can be the other extruder.
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Tags: fusion360
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thread-23109 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23109 | M303 Autotune for heatbed fails with "Bad Extruder Number" error. Why? | 2024-02-29T23:00:03.447 | # Question
Title: M303 Autotune for heatbed fails with "Bad Extruder Number" error. Why?
I'm attempting to get Autotune PID values for the heatbed. I'm using `M303` with an `E-1` parameter to designate the bed. I'm also using an `S` parameter to designate the desired temperature. It's returning a "Bad Extruder Number" error each time. `M303` with no `E` parameter correctly runs the Autotune process and returns valid P, I and D values for the Extruder heater.
I'm using instructions found here, Marlin Firmware M301 / M303 / M304 G-Code Commands Explained.
Printer is a Prusa i3 clone using Marlin (version 1.1.6) with Repetier to send the commands.
# Answer
> 1 votes
Your Marlin version is pretty old.
To enable the tuning of the bed, the `configuration.h` file requires the following compiler directive to be set:
`#define PIDTEMPBED`
If the hotend is tuned instead, this means that either the directive has not been set, or that the firmware is flawed by the following issue (#12468).
You should update the firmware to a newer version by flashing a more recent build. Note that the issue was present in a Marlin 2.0.x bugfix branch, so try the latest version or one from early 2019.
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Tags: pid, autotune, m303
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thread-23112 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23112 | Print nozzle too far from the plate | 2024-03-01T12:45:51.307 | # Question
Title: Print nozzle too far from the plate
My son has a Creality Ender 3 S1. It had been printing fine until this morning. The nozzle is about 3 mm (1/8 inch) from the build plate. Is there a "reset" or "calibration" function I'm missing in the menu?
# Answer
#### TL;DR
There *should* be both a "Restore factory defaults" setting and an "ABL setup" setting in the touch screen UI.
---
#### Bed level
From section **6 - Auto leveling** of the user guide:
> Go to "settings" and tap "leveling" to enter the CR Touch leveling interface. Tap "start" and wait for the automatic leveling to complete.
Section 7 covers "Assisted Leveling" or manual leveling.
#### Factory Reset
***Inexplicably***, this isn't in the User Guide, but from How do you factory reset an ender 3 S1 pro?:
> Settings \> ADV SET. \> Restore All Set.
---
### Still having issues?
I can't give a verified answer, but there *seems* to be a common-ish issue<sup>1</sup>, after having done a bit of googling.
I assume that your S1 has a Automatic Bed Levelling (ABL) probe.
From Reddit - Bed Leveling problem on my new ENder 3 S1 pro - ABL doesnt seems to compensate well, there are at least three potential solutions (copied verbatim with no corrected typos):
> Make sure there is no clog in the nozzle or throat. that is not the fix but i did have problems with clicking and that fixed it. you only need to run the Auto level once. the Auto level on these machine are garbage. after the auto level adjust the z offset with the paper USING the touch screen adjustment. then go to all four corners with the paper at least twice using the knobs under the bed, not the touch screen adjustment, to get it dialed in. DO NOT run the Auto level again after this. if your g code is set to tell the machine to auto level before or after printer, Disable this. It should print fine until you do an auto level again. also make sure the bed is super clean. We are stuck with non working fancy stuff on these printers until someone can save the day with nice firmware changes, except for people like me who have the crap chip that wont let you flash at all Sorry for any run on sentences. Also do the manual bed level with the bed warmed up not cold. my machine will crash the software if i try to auto level warm, so i have to heat it up and turn on off the bed
or
> 1. Loosen all Axis just to the point of a tiny bit slop.
> 2. Clear settings(factory reset)
> 3. Manual level with paper all four coners and 80c
> 4. Run ABL
> 5. Be happy with your printer again.
or
> * Reset to factory defaults
> * Iniciate leveling throught settings
> * Wait for the Home routine
> * Using the point 1, I adjust the z-offset using the paper metod
> * Cicle all corners (using the touch menu) and adjust the bed height using the knobs until all have the same resistance. Do not return to the first point in this step
> * Return to the point 1 and set the z-offset to zero.
> * Run the ABL and wait.
> * Return to home screen using the top left arrow.
> * Run a first layer test and adjust the z-offset.
> * Done
---
<sup>1</sup> Which may or may not be a bug in the firmware
> 2 votes
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, troubleshooting, bed-leveling, z-axis
--- |
thread-21296 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21296 | 3D printer not printing | 2023-08-08T23:16:22.510 | # Question
Title: 3D printer not printing
I’m new to the printing scene and got an Ender 3 Neo Max. I printed a couple of models with no problem, then the filament just stopped dispersing. I figured I had a clog, so I tried to shove something up the nozzle and it wouldn’t go in. I disassembled the piece and took the nozzle off, put a new nozzle on, and the filament still wouldn’t disperse. Any tips?
# Answer
> 2 votes
One of the approaches I have tried in the past is to heat up the nozzle to a hight temperature ( a little less than 260) for several minutes, and to then see whether you can move filament through the extruder by using the menu to go to Motion, Move Axis, Extruder, 10mm.
If that does not work, I suggest that you turn off the machine, let it cool down, and then take apart the hot end - there are online videos to do so. It's a bit scary the first time but if I can do it, and I have, so can you. After taking it apart and separating the hot end from the heating block, see if you can feed filament through the hot end. Then determine if you can feed filament through the heating block. If you get stuck, I have found it easier just to buy a new hot end or heating block. (If you buy a new hot end, I suggest getting a bi-metal heatbreak as it does a better job of separating the heat from the tubing that feeds the filament into the hot end. - Chep has a good video on this on YouTube for the Ender 3 Neo.)
If you haven't found any blockage in the nozzle, heating block, or hot-end, it's possible that the tubing through which the filament flows has been damaged (probably by heat). If that is the case you want to replace it with capricorn tubing which can stand a higher temperature. It is also a good idea to replace the heatbreak as discussed above.
If none of these fixes your problem, it maybe that the extruder needs to be replaced, or that the control board is broken and not driving the extruder.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Your printer should have come with a bunch of tools, one of which is a thin wire with a rudimentary handle, and the pointy end stabbed in some foam/polystychrene for protection. Is that what you tried inserting?
It is a very small hole in the end of the nozzle, and you need it hot else the whole thing is blocked with hard filament.
---
Tags: pla
--- |
thread-23117 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23117 | Creality Sprite Pro Immediately starts heating hotend on startup | 2024-03-04T04:32:39.117 | # Question
Title: Creality Sprite Pro Immediately starts heating hotend on startup
### My Setup
* Ender 3 Pro
* Creality Board v4.2.7
* Klipper Firmware (worked great with the stock Creality Bowden hotend and Creality Direct Drive Extruder)
* Brand new Creality Sprite Pro hotend.
### Wiring
* I have verified that the hotend heater cartridge is wired properly. In fact, if I reverse the polarity of the hotend heater, the LCD blinks on and off as if the board is continuously rebooting.
### Problem
The hotend immediately starts heating at 100% (24 V DC) on startup without any command to do so.
### What I've tried
* I've unplugged the hot end heater (on the Sprite Pro head) and I see 24 V DC at the board nozzle output.
* If I unplug the ribbon cable on the sprite end, I see ~ 300 mV at the nozzle output.
### Question
How do I stop the hot end from heating up on startup?
Klipper printer.cfg:
<pre><code>[include moonraker_obico_macros.cfg]
# This file contains pin mappings for the Creality "v4.2.7" board. To
# use this config, during "make menuconfig" select the STM32F103 with
# a "28KiB bootloader" and serial (on USART1 PA10/PA9) communication.
# If you prefer a direct serial connection, in "make menuconfig"
# select "Enable extra low-level configuration options" and select
# serial (on USART3 PB11/PB10), which is broken out on the 10 pin IDC
# cable used for the LCD module as follows:
# 3: Tx, 4: Rx, 9: GND, 10: VCC
# Flash this firmware by copying "out/klipper.bin" to a SD card and
# turning on the printer with the card inserted. The firmware
# filename must end in ".bin" and must not match the last filename
# that was flashed.
# See docs/Config_Reference.md for a description of parameters.
[skew_correction]
# [filament_switch_sensor runout_sensor]
# pause_on_runout: True
# switch_pin: PA4
[stepper_x]
step_pin: PB9
dir_pin: PC2
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 39.83
endstop_pin: ^PA5
position_endstop: 0
position_max: 235
homing_speed: 50
[stepper_y]
step_pin: PB7
dir_pin: PB8
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 39.78
endstop_pin: ^PA6
position_endstop: 0
position_max: 235
homing_speed: 50
[stepper_z]
step_pin: PB5
dir_pin: !PB6
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 8
# position_endstop: 0.0 # disable to use BLTouch
# endstop_pin: ^PA7 # disable to use BLTouch
endstop_pin: probe:z_virtual_endstop # enable to use BLTouch
position_min: -5 # enable to use BLTouch
position_max: 250
[safe_z_home] # enable for BLTouch
home_xy_position: 157.5,120.5
speed: 100
z_hop: 10
z_hop_speed: 5
[bltouch] # enable for BLTouch - fast-mode
sensor_pin: PA7
control_pin: PB0
pin_up_touch_mode_reports_triggered: True
probe_with_touch_mode: True
# x_offset: -44 # modify as needed for bltouch location
# y_offset: -6 # modify as needed for bltouch location
x_offset: -28 # For the sprite
y_offset: -40 # For the sprite
#z_offset: 0.0 # modify as needed for bltouch or run PROBE_CALIBRATE
speed: 10
sample_retract_dist: 5.0 # Can be set lower, example 2.5 depending on height of bltouch from bed
lift_speed: 40
samples_tolerance_retries: 3
speed: 10
samples: 1
[bed_mesh]
speed: 80
horizontal_move_z: 5
mesh_min: 18,18
mesh_max: 175,202
probe_count: 5,5
algorithm: bicubic
# manual Bed adjustment via BED_SCREWS_ADJUST
[bed_screws]
screw1: 72.5, 41.5
screw1_name: front left screw
screw2: 198.5,35.5
screw2_name: front right screw
screw3: 198.5,205.5
screw3_name: rear right screw
screw4: 28.5,205.5
screw4_name: rear left screw
horizontal_move_z: 10
speed: 50
[screws_tilt_adjust]
screw1: 72.5, 41.5
screw1_name: front left screw
screw2: 220,41.5
screw2_name: front right screw
screw3: 220,212.5
screw3_name: rear right screw
screw4: 72.5,212.5
screw4_name: rear left screw
horizontal_move_z: 10
speed: 50
screw_thread: CW-M4
[input_shaper]
shaper_freq_x: 100
shaper_freq_y: 100
shaper_type: mzv
[gcode_macro G29]
gcode:
G28
BED_MESH_CALIBRATE
G0 X0 Y0 Z10 F6000
BED_MESH_PROFILE save=default
SAVE_CONFIG
[extruder]
max_extrude_only_distance: 100.0
step_pin: PB3
dir_pin: PB4
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 33.500
nozzle_diameter: 0.400
filament_diameter: 1.750
heater_pin: PA1
sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F
sensor_pin: PC5
control: pid
pid_Kp: 21.527
pid_Ki: 1.063
pid_Kd: 108.982
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 250
[heater_bed]
heater_pin: PA2
sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F
sensor_pin: PC4
control: pid
pid_Kp: 54.027
pid_Ki: 0.770
pid_Kd: 948.182
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 130
#[fan]
#pin: PA0
[fan]
pin: PA0
[mcu]
serial: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-1a86_USB_Serial-if00-port0
restart_method: command
[printer]
kinematics: cartesian
max_velocity: 300
max_accel: 3000
max_accel_to_decel: 3000
max_z_velocity: 5
max_z_accel: 100
[display]
lcd_type: st7920
cs_pin: PB12
sclk_pin: PB13
sid_pin: PB15
encoder_pins: ^PB14, ^PB10
click_pin: ^!PB2
[gcode_macro G29]
gcode:
G28
G1 Z10 F600
BED_MESH_CLEAR
BED_MESH_CALIBRATE
BED_MESH_PROFILE SAVE=default
SAVE_CONFIG
[temperature_sensor raspberry_pi]
sensor_type: temperature_host
min_temp: 10
max_temp: 100
[temperature_sensor mcu_temp]
sensor_type: temperature_mcu
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 100
[board_pins]
aliases:
EXP1_1=PC6,EXP1_3=PB10,EXP1_5=PB14,EXP1_7=PB12,EXP1_9=<GND>,
EXP1_2=PB2,EXP1_4=PB11,EXP1_6=PB13,EXP1_8=PB15,EXP1_10=<5V>,
PROBE_IN=PB0,PROBE_OUT=PB1,FIL_RUNOUT=PC6
[exclude_object]
[include mainsail.cfg]
[include timelapse.cfg]
[gcode_macro do_the_mesh]
gcode:
BED_MESH_PROFILE LOAD="default"
SKEW_PROFILE LOAD=my_skew_profile
description: Either load the default mesh or perform a mesh load operation.
#*# <---------------------- SAVE_CONFIG ---------------------->
#*# DO NOT EDIT THIS BLOCK OR BELOW. The contents are auto-generated.
#*#
#*# [bltouch]
#*# z_offset = 1.420
#*#
#*# [bed_mesh default]
#*# version = 1
#*# points =
#*# 0.005000, -0.022500, -0.015000, -0.015000, -0.017500
#*# 0.032500, -0.022500, -0.015000, -0.042500, -0.047500
#*# 0.105000, 0.022500, 0.020000, -0.045000, -0.077500
#*# 0.140000, 0.080000, 0.055000, 0.015000, 0.022500
#*# 0.225000, 0.182500, 0.147500, 0.077500, 0.067500
#*# x_count = 5
#*# y_count = 5
#*# mesh_x_pps = 2
#*# mesh_y_pps = 2
#*# algo = bicubic
#*# tension = 0.2
#*# min_x = 18.0
#*# max_x = 175.0
#*# min_y = 18.0
#*# max_y = 202.0
#*#
#*# [skew_correction my_skew_profile]
#*# xy_skew = -0.0008053242270892168
#*# xz_skew = 0.0
#*# yz_skew = 0.0
```
</code></pre>
# Answer
After much gnashing of teeth, I determined that the problem revolved around the Z-stop wire from the 40 conductor cable being connected.
The Sprite Pro is equipped with a 5-pin BL Touch connector. For whatever reason, having the 2-pin connector plugged into the Z-stop port causes the nozzle heater output to peg at 24 V DC.
### Updated printer.cfg
<pre><code>[include moonraker_obico_macros.cfg]
# This file contains pin mappings for the Creality "v4.2.7" board. To
# use this config, during "make menuconfig" select the STM32F103 with
# a "28KiB bootloader" and serial (on USART1 PA10/PA9) communication.
# If you prefer a direct serial connection, in "make menuconfig"
# select "Enable extra low-level configuration options" and select
# serial (on USART3 PB11/PB10), which is broken out on the 10 pin IDC
# cable used for the LCD module as follows:
# 3: Tx, 4: Rx, 9: GND, 10: VCC
# Flash this firmware by copying "out/klipper.bin" to a SD card and
# turning on the printer with the card inserted. The firmware
# filename must end in ".bin" and must not match the last filename
# that was flashed.
# See docs/Config_Reference.md for a description of parameters.
[skew_correction]
# [filament_switch_sensor runout_sensor]
# pause_on_runout: True
# switch_pin: PA4
[stepper_x]
step_pin: PB9
dir_pin: PC2
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 39.83
endstop_pin: ^PA5
position_endstop: 0
position_max: 235
homing_speed: 50
[stepper_y]
step_pin: PB7
dir_pin: PB8
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 39.78
endstop_pin: ^PA6
position_endstop: 0
position_max: 235
homing_speed: 50
[stepper_z]
step_pin: PB5
dir_pin: !PB6
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
rotation_distance: 8
# position_endstop: 0.0 # disable to use BLTouch
# endstop_pin: ^PA7 # disable to use BLTouch
endstop_pin: probe:z_virtual_endstop # enable to use BLTouch
position_min: -5 # enable to use BLTouch
position_max: 250
[safe_z_home] # enable for BLTouch
# home_xy_position: 157.5,120.5
home_xy_position: 139.5,169
speed: 100
z_hop: 10
z_hop_speed: 5
[bltouch] # enable for BLTouch - fast-mode
# sensor_pin: PA7 # 3 pin connector plus separate z endstop
sensor_pin: ^PB1 # 5 pin connector: https://www.reddit.com/r/ender3v2/comments/pw1eyq/printercfg_with_bltouch_for_klipper/
control_pin: PB0
pin_up_touch_mode_reports_triggered: True
probe_with_touch_mode: True
# x_offset: -44 # modify as needed for bltouch location
# y_offset: -6 # modify as needed for bltouch location
x_offset: -30 # For the sprite
y_offset: -41.5 # For the sprite
#z_offset: 0.0 # modify as needed for bltouch or run PROBE_CALIBRATE
speed: 10
sample_retract_dist: 5.0 # Can be set lower, example 2.5 depending on height of bltouch from bed
lift_speed: 40
samples_tolerance_retries: 3
speed: 10
samples: 1
[bed_mesh]
speed: 80
horizontal_move_z: 5
mesh_min: 18,18
mesh_max: 175,202
probe_count: 5,5
algorithm: bicubic
# manual Bed adjustment via BED_SCREWS_ADJUST
[bed_screws]
screw1: 72.5, 41.5
screw1_name: front left screw
screw2: 198.5,35.5
screw2_name: front right screw
screw3: 198.5,205.5
screw3_name: rear right screw
screw4: 28.5,205.5
screw4_name: rear left screw
horizontal_move_z: 10
speed: 50
[screws_tilt_adjust]
screw1: 72.5, 41.5
screw1_name: front left screw
screw2: 220,41.5
screw2_name: front right screw
screw3: 220,212.5
screw3_name: rear right screw
screw4: 72.5,212.5
screw4_name: rear left screw
horizontal_move_z: 10
speed: 50
screw_thread: CW-M4
[input_shaper]
shaper_freq_x: 100
shaper_freq_y: 100
shaper_type: mzv
[gcode_macro G29]
gcode:
G28
BED_MESH_CALIBRATE
G0 X0 Y0 Z10 F6000
BED_MESH_PROFILE save=default
SAVE_CONFIG
[extruder]
max_extrude_only_distance: 100.0
step_pin: PB3
dir_pin: PB4
enable_pin: !PC3
microsteps: 16
# rotation_distance: 33.500 # for stock extruder
rotation_distance: 7.53 # for sprite pro
nozzle_diameter: 0.400
filament_diameter: 1.750
heater_pin: PA1
sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F
sensor_pin: PC5
#control: pid
#pid_Kp: 21.527
#pid_Ki: 1.063
#pid_Kd: 108.982
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 250
[heater_bed]
heater_pin: PA2
sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F
sensor_pin: PC4
control: pid
pid_Kp: 54.027
pid_Ki: 0.770
pid_Kd: 948.182
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 130
#[fan]
#pin: PA0
[fan]
pin: PA0
[mcu]
serial: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-1a86_USB_Serial-if00-port0
restart_method: command
[printer]
kinematics: cartesian
max_velocity: 300
max_accel: 3000
max_accel_to_decel: 3000
max_z_velocity: 5
max_z_accel: 100
[display]
lcd_type: st7920
cs_pin: PB12
sclk_pin: PB13
sid_pin: PB15
encoder_pins: ^PB14, ^PB10
click_pin: ^!PB2
[gcode_macro G29]
gcode:
G28
G1 Z10 F600
BED_MESH_CLEAR
BED_MESH_CALIBRATE
BED_MESH_PROFILE SAVE=default
SAVE_CONFIG
[temperature_sensor raspberry_pi]
sensor_type: temperature_host
min_temp: 10
max_temp: 100
[temperature_sensor mcu_temp]
sensor_type: temperature_mcu
min_temp: 0
max_temp: 100
[board_pins]
aliases:
EXP1_1=PC6,EXP1_3=PB10,EXP1_5=PB14,EXP1_7=PB12,EXP1_9=<GND>,
EXP1_2=PB2,EXP1_4=PB11,EXP1_6=PB13,EXP1_8=PB15,EXP1_10=<5V>,
PROBE_IN=PB0,PROBE_OUT=PB1,FIL_RUNOUT=PC6
[exclude_object]
[include mainsail.cfg]
[include timelapse.cfg]
[gcode_macro do_the_mesh]
gcode:
BED_MESH_PROFILE LOAD="default"
SKEW_PROFILE LOAD=my_skew_profile
description: Either load the default mesh or perform a mesh load operation.
#*# <---------------------- SAVE_CONFIG ---------------------->
#*# DO NOT EDIT THIS BLOCK OR BELOW. The contents are auto-generated.
#*#
#*# [bltouch]
#*# z_offset = 4.350
#*#
#*# [bed_mesh default]
#*# version = 1
#*# points =
#*# 0.005000, -0.022500, -0.015000, -0.015000, -0.017500
#*# 0.032500, -0.022500, -0.015000, -0.042500, -0.047500
#*# 0.105000, 0.022500, 0.020000, -0.045000, -0.077500
#*# 0.140000, 0.080000, 0.055000, 0.015000, 0.022500
#*# 0.225000, 0.182500, 0.147500, 0.077500, 0.067500
#*# x_count = 5
#*# y_count = 5
#*# mesh_x_pps = 2
#*# mesh_y_pps = 2
#*# algo = bicubic
#*# tension = 0.2
#*# min_x = 18.0
#*# max_x = 175.0
#*# min_y = 18.0
#*# max_y = 202.0
#*#
#*# [skew_correction my_skew_profile]
#*# xy_skew = -0.0008053242270892168
#*# xz_skew = 0.0
#*# yz_skew = 0.0
#*#
#*# [extruder]
#*# control = pid
#*# pid_kp = 19.488
#*# pid_ki = 1.101
#*# pid_kd = 86.236
```
</code></pre>
> 3 votes
---
Tags: creality-ender-3, hotend, klipper
--- |
thread-23119 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23119 | Can I use Web Serial API to send G-code to my Ender 5 Pro? | 2024-03-04T11:54:16.633 | # Question
Title: Can I use Web Serial API to send G-code to my Ender 5 Pro?
I recently started experimenting with sending G-code to my printer via USB cable. I downloaded Printrun and it works great! **However, I want to be able to do this from my web browser because the app im developing is web based.**
I found this Chrome app called chrome-gcode-sender that does this but it unfortunately no longer works because Google sadly ended support for all Chrome apps in June 2022.
The maker of this app suggested on GitHub that the same thing should be achievable using Web Serial API. I have been trying to get this to work for almost two days now but with little success. I found several tutorials online about how to use Web Serial API but nothing for this specific use case. **Here is a sample of the code I have developed so far, just a simple HTML document with some vanilla JavaScript:**
```
<html>
<head>
<title>Web Serial API Demo</title>
</head>
<body>
<button id="connect">Connect</button>
<script>
var device
let button = document.getElementById("connect")
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", event => {
button.addEventListener("click", async() => {
try {
device = await navigator.serial.requestPort()
await device.open({baudRate: 9600})
console.log("Opened: ", device)
console.log("Info: ", device.getInfo())
const encoder = new TextEncoder()
const writer = device.writable.getWriter()
await writer.write(encoder.encode("G28"))
writer.releaseLock()
await device.close()
} catch (error) {
console.log(error)
}
})
})
</script>
</body>
</html>
```
When I click the 'Connect' button and select the device I want it appears to connect fine. However, when I try to send a simple G-code like `G28` (*autohome*) the printer does nothing. If anyone has an idea how I could get this working please let me know! Im also 100 % open to an alternative approach! **The main idea is just to be able to send G-code from a browser to a printer.**
**Notes:**
* I've also tried experimenting with Web USB API but no luck here as well.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Finally, got it! I was very close, but two changes needed to be made to the above code for the example to work.
1. The `baudRate` needed to be changed to `115200`. This value can vary from printer to printer but `115200` is fairly common, and thus a good default. If you find it's not working for you try looking up the recommended `baudRate` for your printer/firmware version.
2. I needed to add `\n` to the end of my G-code string. In this example there was only one command, `G28\n` but if you want multiple commands in a single string you will need to add `\n` after each one.
Awesome!!! It is possible to send G-code to a printer from a web browser with just a few lines of JavaScript!
**Update:** If anyone is interested I built this simple terminal-style app. It should work with any compatible browser and is also usable offline if you clone the repo and open the `sender.html` file in your browser.
---
Tags: g-code, creality-ender-5, usb, serial-connection
--- |
thread-3129 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/3129 | Using CAT6 cables for 3D printer motor / sensors / fans | 2016-12-02T20:22:25.327 | # Question
Title: Using CAT6 cables for 3D printer motor / sensors / fans
I'm considering using CAT6 cables to connect my printer's extruder assembly to the control board. They seem like an elegant solution, but I've read conflicting opinions online on whether or not this would be feasible.
I would like to know if CAT6 cables can handle the required current, whether I should be worried about electromagnetic interference or other problems, and how I should pair up the wires. Cable length would be 30cm max.
Here are the relevant parts:
1. E3D heater cartridge (2 wires)
2. E3D thermistor cartridge (2 wires)
3. 30mm hotend fan (2 wires)
4. Z-axis auto-leveling probe (3 wires)
5. NEMA 17 extruder motor (4 wires)
6. 50mm part cooling fan (2 wires)
**\[cable A\]** I imagine I would use one CAT6 cable for parts 1-4, which form a logical unit (and in the future I might combine them into a removable module). I've been given to understand that power for the fan can be spliced from the z-probe or heater cartridge, so 8 wires should be enough.
**\[cable B\]** I would use a second CAT6 cable for parts 5 and 6. There will be two spare wires, so I could potentially double the bandwidth for the motor.
# Answer
The ampacity question is not completely answerable because CAT6 does not specify wire gauge, so the current limit will depend on the specific gauge you get. CAT6 can be anywhere from 22 AWG to 24 AWG, and depending on who you ask this can be good for as much as 7A or as little as 0.5A. Given that you will have a bunch of wires in a bundle, this may cause them to heat up more than if they were in free air. For the steppers (1-2A) a single wire should suffice, but for the heater (around 3-4A) you might want to double up.
EMI will likely not cause any problems regardless of how you wire things up. CAT6 cables have the wires twisted in pairs of 2. Some people recommend to take advantage of these pairs: the +12V and GND of the heater should use a pair, each of the two coils of the steppers should have their own separate pairs. The reasoning behind this is that with equal current flowing in opposite directions in each wire of the pair, the generated electromagnetic fields will cancel out.
Twisted pairs are usually used when dealing with multiple pairs of wires that are carrying high frequency signals that might affect each other. The main concern for crosstalk in this application is if the stepper motor might cause the endstop to be erroneously triggered, but this is only a concern during homing when the feedrate (and thus frequency of the signal) is low anyways.
> 9 votes
# Answer
I did this for some of the wiring on my printer, and it's working fine so far. The two cautions are:
* At @tom pointed out, the heater is the high current item, so be careful of the wire gauge, and avoid running the wire where air can't circulate well to cool it. Wire ratings differ greatly depending on whether they're in a bundle (poor air circulation) or free.
* For the most part I agree that EMI shouldn't be a problem -- but if you switch to thermocouples it might become a problem -- they're much more sensitive, and this might have been part of the problem I described at How to get consistent and accurate readings from thermocouples? (though alternate wiring didn't completely solve the problem in that case).
> 8 votes
# Answer
CAT6 cable by itself is not a problem, it is typically 23 AWG solid core wire which can take you to 4A just fine. The real problem comes from the connectors you use. CAT6 usually goes hand in hand with 8p8c ethernet connectors which only have contacts rated to 500mA.
Also typically CAT6 cable is meant to be stationary (hence the solid core wires), so I'd go for something stranded. McMaster sells some nice cheap cabling that fits your needs, and it's actually meant for moving platforms like a CNC machine.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I've used some cat 6 in one of my printers and just to be safe I used 4 wires for the extruder heat block, 2+, 2-
On the thermistors 1 is more than enough for each +/-.
I also stripped the thick shielding off and used some 'curly' cable organizer in it's place, not the shielding on the wires but the cord. So i could fit 2 cables in slightly more than the same space as one. You are probably doing this to keep it organized too but this is an option if you run out of space in your wire runs.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I was using network cables, for a new tool head (a stealth burner). I needed 14 wires, so two cables would be amazing, as I would have access to 16 wires, at 23 AWG, with an amazing rate of current for everything I needed.
Observation: Some network cables are 24 AWG, so be aware.
I remade the cable five times, and I am going for the sixth. It always broke something, and I thought it was due to so many mistakes that I made myself. It looks like my big mistake was using these cables for moving parts - they are not suitable, for moving, and will break overtime.
One of the mistakes I thought what that I was using solid core, and then I switched to flexible network cable, but same thing - it just broke on me, for the fifth time.
So this time I will waste a few hours researching for a good flexible cable.
I might be wrong, and I might have made a mistake in another area. I will come back and tell you guys if it's the case. However, I truly believe the cable that I used was my biggest mistake.
Network cables are amazing - just don't put them on anything that moves.
> 1 votes
# Answer
It would be best to use stranded wire, since the cables will be subjected to constant motion. The service life will be higher.
Connector current is a issue. My experiments in years past with connectors is that up to 2 amps it is unlikely to be a problem. But pin materials and formulations change.
Were this my printer, I would look for commonalities. For instance, does the thermistor have any direct signals in common with the Z sensor? Avoiding loops is good, so don't have the wires tied together on each end. But, if, for instance, the thermistor was connected to GND or VCC on one of the wires, and the Z-sensor had the same direct connections, I would share the line between the sensors. This saves a wire.
Ideally, the rapidly switching lines would be separated in a different cable from the more static lines. This requires knowing how the lines are driven. For instance, the heater could be driven with a 40 KHz PWM signal, or it could be derived with a 1/2 Hz bang-bang signal. The fans are listed as 2 wire rather than 3 or 4 wire, so rotation feedback may not be used. The fans are likely to he a high-frequence PWM, which is more likely to interfere with the sensors.
The motors are definitely driven with a high-frequence PWM signal.
If you could consider using 3 cat6 cables, you might use:
Cable 1, pair 1: motor A winding Cable 1, pair 2: motor B winding Cable 1, pair 3: hotend fan Cable 1, pair 4: part fan
Cable 2, pairs 1, 2, 3, and 4: heater, each pair carries the two lines so that everything remains balanced. One pair could be reallocated in the future if needed, but best to have the current capacity if available.
Cable 3: pair 1: thermistor Cable 3: pairs 2 and 3: Z-sensor. Double the GND wire, one per pair Cable 3: pair 4: spare
> 0 votes
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Tags: electronics
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thread-23124 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23124 | Using Blender for design and Cura for slicing; trying to figure out why this is slicing this way | 2024-03-06T20:27:36.737 | # Question
Title: Using Blender for design and Cura for slicing; trying to figure out why this is slicing this way
I am trying to create a test model for a project I am working on and am confused about why this is slicing like this. In Blender, I used the difference boolean to cut a hole in the cylinder on the side of the cube and I deleted the faces of the cylinder and the cube.
I have uploaded the Blender and the .stl files and made them available:
# Answer
> 2 votes
I'm not a Blender user but the STL file shows a zero wall thickness on the cylinder and no closure to the cylinder. If you close the cylinder, you should be able to test for 3D printable status with a built-in feature of Blender.
Image below is screen capture from Meshmixer user created content:
There's a YouTube video that addresses the 3D print tools, auto-starting at 8:01
If your objective is to have an open cylinder and cube, it is necessary to offset the walls inward or outward to create thickness. Also ensure that the offset walls are closed.
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Tags: ultimaker-cura, blender
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thread-23122 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23122 | What is causing this under extrusion that only happens after travel moves | 2024-03-04T20:00:28.877 | # Question
Title: What is causing this under extrusion that only happens after travel moves
I am getting this under extrusion on my prints but only after travel moves. The rest of the print looks fine.
My printer is a Monoprice Maker Select V2 (rebranded Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2) with a DiiiCooler with a radial fan. I was using Repetier 0.92.9 but have upgraded the firmware to Marlin bugfix-2.1.x commit 9e879a5b.
I'm using Cura 5.6.0 and the default Draft profile with the following settings changed:
* Wall Thickness: 1.2 mm
* Print Thin Walls: True
* Infill Density: 10%
* Infill Pattern: gyroid
* Print Speed: 50 mm/s
* Travel Speed: 150 mm/s
* Initial Layer Print Speed: 20 mm/s
I'm printing with Inland Turquoise PLA at 215 °C and the build plate at 60 °C.
I am printing Kersey Fabrications Speed Test.
I'm pulling my hair out. I've tried the following without making much headway:
* Completely disabled retraction - made the problem worse
* Replaced the nozzle with a Micro Swiss Nickel Plated Brass 0.4 mm Nozzle for PTFE lined hotend and replaced the PTFE tube - no improvement
* Lowered the temperature to 205 °C - no improvement
* Changed firmware from Repetier 0.92.9 to Marlin bugfix-2.1.x commit 9e879a5b - no improvement
* Enabled linear advance and tuned it using these instructions. The test pattern looked best at 0.25 but that only made a slight improvement to the issue
* Set "Max Comb Distance With No Retract" to 10 mm - slight improvement
* Tried different filament (Inland Black PLA+) - no improvement
* Disabled "Print Thin Walls" - no improvement
* Lowered part cooling fan speed to 25% - no improvement
* Changed the following: - no improvement
+ Printing acceleration 600-\>1500
+ Retract acceleration 3000-\>2000
+ Travel acceleration 3000-\>2000
+ Junction deviation 0.2-\>0.1
* Lowered "E maximum acceleration" from 10000-\>100 - no improvement
* Checked the extruder gear and it was clean. It has the newer D4 style extruder gear, not the duller slightly hobbed gear that Wanhao originally used.
* I did the Teaching Tech 3D Retraction Tuning with a base feedrate of 60 mm/s.
For the first print, I did 0.5-3 mm distance, 50 mm/s retract, 20 mm/s advance. There was very slight stringing at 0.5 mm and none in the other sections. All of the sections had slightly jagged edges except for 1 mm.
For the second print, I did 1 mm distance, 20-70 mm/s retract, 20 mm/s advance. There was no stringing and I didn't see any apparent difference between the sections.
For the third print, I did 1 mm distance, 50 mm/s retract, 10-50 mm/s advance. Again, no stringing and no differences between the sections.
None of the three prints showed any signs of under-extrusion.
* I printed the Teaching Tech 3D Acceleration Tuning Tower and it has the same under extrusion issue in the back left corner inner wall. This would seem to rule out any slicer settings being the cause of this.
* I took apart the extruder and found that the v-groove idler wheel that pushes the filament against the extruder gear was full of grease.
It didn't spin freely, it turned but felt mushy. I cleaned the grease from the wheel and the surrounding area and added a drop of sewing machine oil to each side of the wheel. After that, it spun freely.
I did a cold check of my extruder steps with the extruder removed and found that it matched what I found earlier when I checked it hot through the hotend.
After reassembling the extruder, I reprinted the acceleration tuning tower from the same G-code as before but I saw no improvement to the under extrusion.
* I took apart the hot end and replaced the PTFE tube again. I was very careful to cut it perfectly straight and exactly the right length so that it was touching each end but not compressed. I also added Kingpin Cooling KPx thermal grease between the heat break tube and the cooling block and between the cooling block and the heatsink. After reassembling everything, I printed the acceleration tuning tower again but saw no improvement.
* Printed the acceleration tuning tower at 30 mm/s, 0.5 mm retract, and 0.13 linear advance - no improvement
* Printed the acceleration tuning tower at 225 °C, 195 °C, and 185 °C - no improvement
* Checked extruder stepper current voltage reference on the Melzi board. I had adjusted the voltage for all four steppers years ago. The extruder stepper is rated for 1.02 A but the voltage reference was set to 0.695 V (0.87 A 85% of rated). It should be set to 90%. Either I set it wrong or it had drifted even though the other three were correct). I tried printing with it set to the factory setting of 0.886 V (1.1 A 109%) and the correct 0.734 V (0.92 A 90%) - no improvement either way
* As suggested in the comments, printed the acceleration tuning tower with linear advance set to 0.04 and retraction distance set to 0.4 mm - no improvement.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Printing with a brand new roll of Polymaker PolyLite grey PLA seems to have fixed the problem. I'll have to redo all of my tuning and do some more tests, but there's no sign of the under extrusion so far.
I ran out of the Inland turquoise PLA doing all my testing but I have tried drying the Inland black PLA+. I've dried it a total of 36 hours now at 50 °C and it made no improvement to the under extrusion issue. 24 hours of that was in a Sunlu S1 filament dryer (the original model without a fan) in 6 and 12 hour increments. 12 hours of that was in a convection toaster oven converted to a reflow oven with a Controleo3 kit. I tried drying with and without desiccant packs in both the filament dryer and the reflow oven.
I don't know how or why the filament degraded but it does not seem to be due to any current moisture content.
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Tags: extruder, underextrusion, retraction, monoprice-maker-select, wanhao
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thread-20138 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20138 | Installing Creality CR6 SE Community firmware | 2022-10-27T22:26:20.400 | # Question
Title: Installing Creality CR6 SE Community firmware
I want to know how simple is it to install CR6Community firmware
https://github.com/CR6Community/Marlin/releases
I do not want to make low-level modifications for it. And also I want to know how simple is it to get back to official firmware?
I want to update because I came to know it has better calibration options and also I'm having issue with Z Axes that does not remember its position.
# Answer
> 2 votes
If you can reformat a (micro)-SD-card on a Windows PC (there are built-in system tools) and copy files to it, then you have enough skills.
Going back to the stock firmware is as easy as copying the files to an SD-card and having it inserted to the printer while it starts up.
After that you have to reflash the display, but this is similar to flashing the printer, as you have to copy files on a micro-SD-card and unscrew the back of the display to get to the card-slot on the back of the display-control-board.
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Tags: firmware, creality-cr-6
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thread-23131 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/23131 | What is the potential impact of security risks associated specifically with 3D printers or their hosts? | 2024-03-07T17:22:10.460 | # Question
Title: What is the potential impact of security risks associated specifically with 3D printers or their hosts?
Recently a bunch of Anycubic 3D printers have been hacked as reported in an article from bleedingcomputer.com.
> According to a wave of online reports from Anycubic customers, someone hacked their 3D printers to warn that the devices are exposed to attacks.
> According to the same text file, 2,934,635 devices downloaded this warning message via the vulnerable API.
>
The impact in this case seems limited to only a warning using a text file that was placed on the printer. However, I can imagine a scenario where (through an intermediate host such as OctoPrint) the printer firmware can be reflashed (some OctoPlugin for example allows for remote flashing). The firmware could pose a real physical danger, for example when thermal runaway protection and heating limits are removed, or when fake temperature values are reported to the printer LCD.
My question is, what specific vulnerabilities or risks are associates with 3D printers or 3D printer hosts and what potential impact does it have?
# Answer
It would be highly dependant on the exact printer and the nature of the vulnerability.
Using past events as a guide, we could potentially see the processing capabilities of a 3D printer used to form a botnet for a DDOS style attack. This has previously been done with compromised routers and other IOT Devices.
Example
We might also see printers with built in cameras being hacked to allow images to be taken inside people's homes
Example
Hypothetically speaking, with a 3D printer, an attack might involve some form of blackmail. Forcing the company to pay money or have their products attacked in some way. For example having a malicious update pushed down to them that rendered them useless.
We could also possibly see someone doing something silly such as to have printers simply spew out spaghetti, or malicious such as having code inserted into them that would drag the nozzles across the print bed, damaging one or both of them.
In an extreme case it's possible that a hacker may find a way heat up a printer until it catches fire.
Given that many 3D printers are wireless, it's possible that they could be harvested for wifi passwords, or for log in details to cloud accounts that contain personal information or payment details.
All of this is speculative though.
> 0 votes
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Tags: octoprint, safety, security
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thread-20857 | https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20857 | How to fix "SD Init Fail" on Ender 3 | 2023-04-21T22:43:53.473 | # Question
Title: How to fix "SD Init Fail" on Ender 3
My Ender 3 is showing `SD Init Fail` when the sd card is inserted. I tried rebooting, reformating the card etc. At first, I thought the card is damaged, so I bought a new card. Still the same. I can use the card with the computer without any problem.
Also, I tried to print from Cura 5.3.0. But the printer is not detected.
What could be the reason? Since the SD card is not detected, I can't even flash the firmware
# Answer
A possible fix that worked for me is to convert your SD card from GPT to MBR.
Modern systems will usually initialize them in GPT, which seems to be incompatible with Creality boards.
At least with my 4.2.7 board, this was the solution. And obviously, it has to be formatted in FAT32.
Instructions on how to do it are available at Convert a GPT disk into an MBR disk.
I think it's worth a try.
> 2 votes
# Answer
I had a similar issue with an old Ender-2 from 2019.
In my case, this happened because I was using fancy 32 GB, Class 10 or UHS 2 SD cards. It stopped happening when I started using a cheap 512 MB, no class visible card.
Try at least using a card with lower capacity, like maximum 2 GB and see what happens. You can also try using short names with no spaces for the G-code files, and leaving more free space on the SD card.
If the problem is still happening, then it might be a SW issue. Obviously, you can't flash via SD if the card is not detected, but this is likely solvable by upgrading the Marlin version (the factory version may be really old!) or just flashing a clean build. One way to flash the Firmware without the card could be by using an ISP or an ISP-USB cable.
> 1 votes
# Answer
Copying all the files to my computer and then reformatting the microSD as FAT32 worked for my 3D printer.
> 1 votes
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Tags: creality-ender-3, microsd, sd, ender3
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