help-with-3dprinting

[inner cedar]

I'm doing this

[elder oxide]

🙂

[inner cedar]

I didn't think CLEAR printing was possible

[iron remnant]

Of course, you need the right printer.

That being said, T-Glase PETT is astonishingly transparent for something you can run through a FDM printer and there's this: https://blog.prusaprinters.org/3d-printed-lens-and-other-transparent-objects_31231/

[inner cedar]

Guess I'm buying a 6th printer

[soft crypt]

Anyone got any tips for printing with TPU? Trying to get my printer settings dialed in for TPU. I’m really only having problems with stringing, but since it’s pretty difficult to remove all stringing from TPU parts and i need these buttons to move smoothly in the case, some tips to reduce that would be appreciated

[inner cedar]

Make sure you're printing really slow... It doesn't like speed. What are your temps? Might be a little low

Moisture can also cause stringing

[soft crypt]

I had the temp at about 240 and the speed was pretty slow, like 20mm per second

It was probably moisture tbh

[inner cedar]

Yeah, do you have a way to dry it out?

[soft crypt]

The oven should work

[inner cedar]

Just don't use an oven you use for food!

[soft crypt]

Safety means nothing to me!

No but seriously I won’t

[inner cedar]

I have a toaster oven I use for baking boards and stuff

[soft crypt]

I need to get a dehydrator and stuff but i’m always spending money on food and other junk so I don’t have any left for projects

[inner cedar]

Food important

Just gotta make a budget and stick to it

[karmic brook]

All you need is a box, light bulb (for heat), a thermostat of some sort, and probably a fan.

[inner cedar]

Watt's our aim for power consumption?

[carmine peak]

does anybody have 3D models of the following:

USB Type A Female

HDMI Female

Ethernet female

I'm making a front-panel

[carmine peak]

...alright ill just get a ruler

[inner cedar]

Did you check Thingiverse? Lots of things on there, wouldn't surprise me if they had some

[carmine peak]

I've been looking. Nothing so far

[inner cedar]

Huh, surprised someone hasn't made those for prototyping/layout use

[inner cedar]

Did you see my joke? Have you seen this done before? Never thought about a lightbulb for heat, but that makes sense. I have a lot of 60W bulbs from when we switched away that still work

[karmic brook]

I haven't done that myself, but that's how Easy Bake ovens work, and Ed Nisley described making a hot box that way on his blog, to destroy bedbugs

https://softsolder.com/2010/11/20/bed-bugs-hot-box-disinsector/

[inner cedar]

Lol, yeah, EZ-Bake indeed was a lightbulb... I should cook something up

Hmmm.... I've got these weird patterns

They're symmetrical front/back and side/side

Looks like related to the infill? Not sure what's going on -- printed a half dozen of these, same settings, same everything, no pattern

[elder oxide]

It seems to be infill layer shifting

[inner cedar]

I haven't seen this before -- any idea why it happened now and not before?

[empty sedge]

same settings, or same gcode?

also cura's default of printing infill before perimiters seems wrong to me and has an effect like that, but you'll see it in a lot more places

[inner cedar]

Same settings, different slice. Basically on two separate occasions I loaded up the model, set it to 99% scale, touched nothing else, and printed; the 8 other drawers didn't have the pattern. I changed the size to something else and back again to make it reslice, so we'll see if that made it go away

[elder oxide]

It happens inconsistently for me. I think it’s just a slight over drag on the infill

[broken orbit]

https://tenor.com/view/punchline-badumtss-the-pirates-bandof-misfits-gif-5556409

[inner cedar]

Finally, acknowledgement of my genius

[tight cove]

what causes hot steppers? specifically X/Y steppers

as far as i know, its caused by high current limit and lots of movements

also do the motors make more sounds/vibrate more as they get hotter?

is there a way to keep them cool?

[arctic dragon]

It's not necessarily high current limit, it's just high current. The movements shouldn't contribute a significant amount to heat generation, but the current can get pretty high, depending on your stepper drivers.

The easiest way to reduce heat is to switch to a higher voltage supply, assuming your drivers allow it. Going from 12V to 24V should halve your current draw for the same amount of power, allowing you to reduce your current without sacrificing performance.

I don't think they should have significantly decreased performance unless they're getting so hot that they're a straight-up burn hazard. If you're observing such a trend, it could be the lubricant in your steppers are getting thinner as temperature increases, but I have no clue how to lubricate the inside of a motor with a different lube, let alone select one that handles temperatures better. Another possibility is that you just have a bad or low-quality stepper motor whose performance suffers due to an imbalance somewhere inside, and it's amplified by temperature.

Other cooling solutions are probably identical to that of keeping a PC cool, but I would be doubtful of their effectiveness considering the mass of a stepper versus a cpu or gpu.

[empty sedge]

changing your supply voltage won't change your stepper driver current setpoint and may require changing your heaters and control board out to support higher voltages

some stepper drivers have little potentiometers to set the current limit. Others can have it changed in software

[fluid plover]

say i have an item that is 32mm in lenght, and i want that item to fit tightley into the thing i 3d print. do i scale the paer i am goig to 3d print up by 1mm on one side?

[toxic kite]

I end up using lots of trial and error for tight margin stuff

[agile gorge]

It depends on a lot of things, like is it a smallish hole in xy, small holes tend to shrink about 0.5mm

For things that are not holes, you'll generally want 0.2-0.3mm clearance added, depending on how dimensionally accurate your printer is

[broken orbit]

https://tenor.com/view/genius-think-be-clever-be-smart-gif-10617231

[unique pendant]

Just saw this. Polymaker is planting 1 tree for every spool of this PLA sold. https://polymaker.com/polyterra-pla-info/

[inner cedar]

Oh, that's cool

[carmine peak]

the carriage plate on my Ender 3 is broken; screw ports are stripped. Anywho, i'm looking to replace it

Should i upgrade to direct drive while i'm there replacing it?

[inner cedar]

Keep in mind you'll lose some speed and it might shake more at higher speeds

[carmine peak]

alright

well, how about using the Direct Drive carriage plate, but not actually installing the motor?

[inner cedar]

Hmm.... not sure

[half dew]

I upgraded my ender 5 to direct drive - it made stringing a little easier to manage but yeah - vibration related artifacts are worse at the same speeds

On the plus side - I can print flexibles really easily now

[iron remnant]

Well....

That's a flex.

[carmine peak]

how do i deal with this?

[empty sedge]

Is that an actual compile error or just the vscode autocomplete not working?

[carmine peak]

I have no idea

[empty sedge]

ignore it for now and see if you get errors when you compile with platformio

[tight cove]

What causes this?

My bed is levelled, I have a BLTouch that probes before a print and uses that mesh, the Z offset is fine, E steps is calibrated

[empty sedge]

your first layer is too close to the bed

[tight cove]

That's the first layer of a calibration cube

[empty sedge]

the plastic buckles like that when you're too close. I wonder if it's close enough it's from your bed or printer warping as it heats up

do you get the same results on a large print like your first picture if you heat your bed up and let it stay there for 15m before starting your print?

[tight cove]

Haven't tried that, I'll give it a go once this is done, what's weird is that the first layer prints fine but the middle layers buckle and the top layer prints fine

[empty sedge]

your e-steps could be too high then

[tight cove]

It could be that the bed only gets to temp ~15m into the print and the heat expanding causes it, I do still have the magnetic adhesive on

[inner cedar]

What material and bed temp? Sometimes high temps can cause bubbles and buckling

Ah, bed not being at temp can do it

[tight cove]

60c anycubic black PLA, 195c nozzle

[inner cedar]

Ok, those are good temp settings. But yeah, if the bed isn't at 60c when printing starts, that's probably it

[tight cove]

Yeah I'll try preheating it beforehand

[inner cedar]

What do you use to slice? I use Cura, and it always waits for the bed and extruder to hit Target temps beforehand

[tight cove]

Yeah I use Cura

[inner cedar]

Weird, your start GCode must be missing something

Which printer is that?

[tight cove]

Ender 3 Pro, its been modified quite a bit

; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ; Set Extruder temperature
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; Set Heat Bed temperature
G28 ; Home all axes
@BEDLEVELVISUALIZER
G29 T F10 ; Update bed level mesh
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; Wait for Heat Bed temperature
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ; Wait for Extruder temperature
M117 Purge extruder
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
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
M117 By your command!
; End of custom start GCode

[inner cedar]

Lemme compare to mine

[tight cove]

i do probe while it heats up instead of when its at temp

[inner cedar]

... huh, I'm missing the temps entirely in mine?

[tight cove]

i think cura adds them by default if they are missing

[inner cedar]

Must be. Here's my V2's start code [they're similar enough] ; 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

[tight cove]

basically the same

im guessing it buckles/bubbles for 2 reasons in my case,

• probing the bed while heating, instead of after heating
• poor heat conducting to print bed, i still have the magnetic adhesive and a G10 sheet on top of that

[inner cedar]

Maybe try taking out the temp thing and see if it waits to start until it hits temp like mine?

[unique pendant]

It really looks like it’s just the nozzle is too close. Try again after probing a hot bed and if that doesn’t work, redo your Z-offset. I haven’t used the Ender3 much. Can you babystep with that?

[inner cedar]

Just don't try everything at once; if you change 5 things and it works, you have no way of telling which thing it was

[broken orbit]

60c?? My settings are 55c/ 190c

[inner cedar]

60c is pretty standard

[fast horizon]

hello

does anyone know anything abou the lucio gun print

[inner cedar]

JP has a guide for it https://learn.adafruit.com/overwatch-lucio-gun-pt1

Well, set of guides

[fast horizon]

ive searched everywhere and i cant figure out what colors to print the parts

[inner cedar]

I'd just do white and paint it, unless you want to try to print each part in the color it would end up being

[fast horizon]

thats what im trying to do i guess, just having trouble telling eeything apart since the steps dont show every individual part

[inner cedar]

Ohhh, the white was a prototype, he lists the exact filaments he used in this page of part 3 https://learn.adafruit.com/overwatch-prop-gun-lucios-blaster-pt-3/overview

[fast horizon]

yea i saw that but like you said its just the colors, im trying to figure out what color each part is

basically right now im just trying to find each part on the make and list its color with the name

[inner cedar]

Ahh.... doesn't seem to go into that much detail... I'd just load up each piece in your slicer, look at that exploded view for that part, and print in the color it shows

[fast horizon]

thats the plan and process atm

just cant quite tell them apart lol

projects are projects i suppose

[inner cedar]

Yeah, that exploded view isn't exploded enough XD

Also kinda low res

[winged helm]

Is there any reason the kirby fume extractor would work worse than an off the shelf one? I need one for work and I think it's cute. For light to moderate soldering

[inner cedar]

So long as it has the same sort of filter and fan as a COTS one, should perform "identically"

[y'know, as close as practically matters]

[winged helm]

Sweet thx

[inner cedar]

np :D

[fast horizon]

also thank you my good person Doc

[inner cedar]

You're welcome :D

[broken orbit]

Hmm. OK. PrusaSlicer standard for PLA I'm pretty sure is 55c.

My nozzle temp is my own tested temp that's worked best for me

[inner cedar]

Weird

[raven coral]

i noticed that my printer recently started going quickly around the printed part's perimeter when going up a layer

im using cura as a slicer

[shy kelp]

“If you print too slow, the filament has too much time to melt (causing stringing), and the print head stays too long on the same spot and will melt the rest of that area too, causing visible deformation”

Could this be a reasonable explanation as to why there are patches of burnt material? And smooth everything else? I think it was on a pretty low speed.

[empty sedge]

I doubt it

[unique pendant]

I'm a broken record. That looks like wet filament to me.

[iron remnant]

Sometimes it's a cut and dried issue tho.

[raven coral]

okay so i have noticed that there's ;MESH:NONMESH sections in the gcode file that cura produces, but im not sure how to remove that thing from cura

[shy kelp]

Sorry, I’m getting a dryer for that, but I just don’t wanna deal with any nonsense after it is dry

[unique pendant]

Most nonsense I have comes from wet filament.
You can't really run any meaningful tests if your filament isn't dry.

[arctic dragon]

True facts, fresh filament is a world of difference….

[broken orbit]

Yeah....

[broken orbit]

https://tenor.com/view/fresh-so-dance-gif-13122563

[shy kelp]

I still got a tiny bit of burning even when it was just fresh, so it was prob wet before it went sent off then.

[arctic dragon]

Nah, if you tested with a new rol of filament, it’s probably something else at play. How long have you been using the nozzle on your hotend?

[shy kelp]

It’s a new printer

[arctic dragon]

Perhaps a different problem then? It looks like there are some inconsistencies that could also be a result of overextrusion and/or material getting caught on the nozzle tip during printing

Possibly overpressing the first layer?

[elder oxide]

is the bowden tube right up against extruder?

if there's a gap it could cause a buildup of extra material in the extruder the could get burnt and cause issues with flow

[lunar oar]

What the heck is causing these dimples!!!

I've got good retraction settings, and printed it slow, WHAT GIVES!!!

Btw, It's printed vertically on a slant like this:

[empty sedge]

That's the seam where the perimiter starts and ends. In prusa slicer, if you set the seam to "aligned" or "back" instead of the default "random" they will all line up and look a lot better than the random distribution that's set by default.

Cura has similar options too

I haven't spent the time to figure out how to make them less visible because just putting them all in a line has done enough of what I've needed. Supposedly the way Cura does that part of the outer extrusion should make them disappear but I haven't used Cura as my slicer since the UI and profile rewrite with Cura 2.0 in 2017 or so

[lunar oar]

Thats what I would like to think, but in my slicer i have made it to the back, thats why im so fustrated

the white here shows the seam

[lunar oar]

Just ran a test, look at this

[lunar oar]

I'll be editing just one post of what I do to keep things organize and not spam:

-10mms ❌
+10mms ❌
No retraction ✅

[empty sedge]

@lunar oar How are you sending the gcode to your printer? can you try the same gcode from an SD card?

That's really odd to see something with that randomness distribution. If it were mechanical it'd probably be more consistent

[lunar oar]

i use an sd card

[lunar oar]

the last 3 prints i did of this tube, they are all located in the same spot, so its not that random...

[empty sedge]

"same spot" so in a perfect line like the seam?

[lunar oar]

no, but all generaly in the same area

[empty sedge]

does something show up in that area if you turn on the other visibility things in prusa slicer? retracts/unretracts, travel, etc. (or gcode.ws)

[lunar oar]

I use cura, but nothing shows up, seems all good (the red is the affected area)

This is what I mean by it not being random, you can see the seam area at the top left, then this dimpled area at the bottomish area

I turned off retraction and the dimples are gone!!! now to fine tune it!

[empty sedge]

can you send me one of your problem gcode with retractions?

[lunar oar]

what do you mean?

[empty sedge]

I'd like to look through the gcode to see if I can see what's going weird

[lunar oar]

i got it mate! ill just be testing printing a few more things, if i dont know whats up ill let ya know!

i appriciate it!

[agile gorge]

If turning off retraction fixed it, definitely sounds like the seam

Because there's no.reason to retract in the middle of a perimeter

[lunar oar]

what do you mean? i mean it retracts to go from the inner wall to outer wall, during this time air pockets or what not could have been built up, since i never changed that setting, thats why they all occur in the same spot

[agile gorge]

That's the seam location

[empty sedge]

From the cura screenshot the seam is where the two circles get bridged

[lunar oar]

Look back at the other posts i made about how they are in two different places

[empty sedge]

it could be coast or wipe or perimiter order or something but I'd have to look at the gcode or say

[agile gorge]

Where the perimeter loop starts and stops is a de facto seam

[empty sedge]

You're missing the context. the dimples aren't where that seam is. There's pictures above that show both

[agile gorge]

Each perimeter will have a seam

[inner cedar]

But they're talking about spots that are not the seam

There's a clear line of marks where the seam is, and then dimples on another section scattered about

[agile gorge]

Haven't seen the actual seam on the outside, but ok

Anyway, something corresponding should show up in gcode preview

[empty sedge]

if you'd scroll up you'd see that it doesn't

[raven coral]

Okay so this is happening

It's like stringing but on the inside of the part

Nvm o think the whole nozzle was too low so it was chipping at the plastic

I used babystep z to rise it up a bit and now it prints mostly good

[lunar oar]

@agile gorge @empty sedge I think i found the issue! I'm currently printing an Benchy to see how it turns out

[agile gorge]

what setting is changing to support it?

[lunar oar]

Retraction distance: 10mm
Retraction speed: 15mm/s

[stuck trail]

so, I am doing something likely overkill.... but I am putting a BTT SKR pro 1.2 in a ender 3 pro, I am planning on printing out a proper mount for it after I get it going, but wiring it up I have a few concerns.... well, mainly one concern.... the ender 3 pro only has one bed power ground line, the SKR has two options, bed power and bed heat, the only power hookup to the bed on the ender 3 pro is to heat it, should I plug it to the heat power or standard bed power? on the old board it just says bed

I am going to keep looking for the answer online just thought I would ask around X/

I went with the bigger board for the larger memory pool as the ability to use some extra features for a few extra dollars seemed better

[agile gorge]

@lunar oar what is that vs. your old settings?

[lunar oar]

I didn't work

https://tenor.com/view/im-done-gary-graham-making-the-cut-its-hard-headache-gif-22519362

It worked on the tube, the benchy came out like doo doo

[lunar oar]

it was
Retraction distance: 8mm
Retraction speed: 60mm/s

[agile gorge]

which slicer are you using again? what happens if you just paint the seam down a corner?

[lunar oar]

cura, right now im just testing no retraction and what that that looks like

[empty sedge]

I'm confused. Can you link me to wiring diagrams? I've got a SKR pro 1.3 in a delta printer here

[empty sedge]

The SKR 1.2 pro has a power input for the bed heater, and an output for the bed heater. "Bed power" connects to your power supply, "hot bed" connects to the bed heater

[stuck trail]

oh that is odd..... honestly I can't see a need. the ender 3 pro on its normal board has only bed, I would need to run a additional set of power from the psu to the board at that point and I think that would likely fry the board 😦 honestly this has become a minor issue as currently I can't even get marlin to compile properly

[agile gorge]

It allows you to use a stronger/different power supply for the bed heater

If you don't have a separate power supply for heater, jump Vin+ and Vin- to BedV+ and BedV-

[stuck trail]

umm, the ender 3 pro stock psu has some unused terminals tbh

I just didn't want to fry the board

currently I am fighting with dumb compiling issues but I think I will take your advice but also read up on it more before turning things on the first time

[stuck trail]

https://github.com/dylanpoll/Marlin if anyone has any input I would appreciate it, I forked the bugfix repo for marlin, and updated the readme to show the current errors I am getting upon attempt at building/compile, I also uninstalled and re installed platformIO with no change.

I also included all the files for the SKR pro 1.2 in a folder I added

[empty sedge]

There's another power input for the bed mostly because the bed current alone can be high enough to need it. Many control boards are this way, Einsy (prusa i3 mk3s), rambo, and ramps for example

[agile gorge]

Someone please talk me out of getting one!
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMojdj4

[empty sedge]

Very much not eye safe. Won't be great for cutting either.

[inner cedar]

Pop balloons

[agile gorge]

Cuts 5mm thick plywood at like 200mm/min, seems good enough at cutting

[empty sedge]

Assuming that's true, you would still have to build an enclosure and hook up a blower to get the smoke out

[inner cedar]

I'm sus that it says wood 200mm/s but also stainless steal 200mm/s

[agile gorge]

That's for etching

[empty sedge]

you can't cut stainless with that much power

[agile gorge]

You can't cut stainless with it

Just laser etch

[inner cedar]

Mmm yes I'm sleepy and can't read apparently

Also my experience with laser cutters is using DVD/CD-R/RW drive lasers

[agile gorge]

I don't even know what I'd laser cut, mostly acrylic, some metal etching, and maybe small wood bits

[inner cedar]

Put Adafruit logos on all the things

I loves me a laser cut project box

[agile gorge]

Mostly would print, but some things look so much better laser etching/cutting

[inner cedar]

Mmmm

[agile gorge]

I wouldn't bother with an enclosure

[inner cedar]

Printed case, laser cut/etched acrylic lids

[agile gorge]

Just goggles

[inner cedar]

Need enclosure and filter

Gotta get dat smoke so you dun die

[agile gorge]

Pffft

Gonna snort it all day long

[inner cedar]

oof

I'mma do a sleep, night night

[agile gorge]

Most I would do is design a fan mount to blow smoke away for "air assist"

And open the door/windows if cutting plywood or acrylic

Need to understand more about etching metals

But regular acrylic and wood doesn't have me concerned

[agile gorge]

And it turns out diode lasers suck for cutting acrylic

[torpid grove]

If you know what your doing by all means buy it. But if you're feeling uncertain about your ability to build a laser cutter safely than my advice is buy an off the shelf cutter instead. As others have mentioned smoke is a real hazard

[agile gorge]

I'm turned off by not being able to cut acrylic well

[torpid grove]

Their are a lot of good off the shelf options for laser cutting. Also a mini router will cut plastics / wood very nicely and can do 3d structures.

Also no fumes to worry about

[iron remnant]

Yeah, I have to say that the primary reason why I covet a laser cutter is specifically cutting acrylic.

[static pumice]

Does anyone know any good tutorials for designing to 3D print? I see lots of projects in the learning system, but most just include STL files and don't explain how to dimension the parts to make them fit together. I'm pretty competent at 3d modeling with fusion 360, but would like to know best practices for making sure my parts fit together.

[empty sedge]

not really. Maker's muse talks about some of that in his videos about puzzle box designs and stuff but I don't think he has videos dedicated to it
https://www.youtube.com/c/MakersMuse/videos

[agile gorge]

I remember seeing some tolerance and hole adjustment guidelines somewhere before, but can't find it

For parts that fit together, but aren't holes, I like to have 0.1-0.2mm clearance, for holes, I'll upsize about 0.3mm for pla, and 0.5 or more for petg and abs

Then again, if you're printing out both parts, I will very often go 0 clearance, except for stuff that is meant to fit along z, layer lines like to interfere with fit

[static pumice]

Thanks @agile gorge. I also found an example of what I was trying to do on the learning system.

[shy kelp]

the surface on top of supports looks really bad. help?

[unique pendant]

You don’t have to use Simplify3D to take advantage of this guide. https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/poor-surface-above-supports/

[shy kelp]

I got a SUNLU Filament Dryer Box and after a while of starting it the display reads off er3

[shy kelp]

You

The guy she tells you not to worry about

[broken orbit]

[broken orbit]

I need one once I'm rich

😹

[elder pagoda]

Is there an established practice of 3d printing new enclosures for lithium battery packs to fit the battery shape of discontinued laptop models? If so, is there some place I could read more about this?

[empty sedge]

doubt it

[inner cedar]

Considering the large variety of shapes and sizes, I would guess most folks just design from scratch per battery. I know recycling 18650 cells is pretty common since using the whole laptop battery can be difficult due to a lack of data on the charging circuitry

[torpid grove]

I've never came across anyone printing new enclosures for lithium battery packs its a really cool idea though. I would suggest checking out iFixit or similar sites first if you haven't to see if anyone has a repair guide for your specific model. Also this company seems to be selling some battery elimination / replacement tech. https://batteryeliminatorstore.com/
I don't know if it's open source but still worth checking out what they're doing for ideas / inspiration as it may be similar enough to what you're trying to achieve.

[knotty laurel]

Neat, thanks for the pointer!

[torpid grove]

No problem, good luck with the battery!

[inner cedar]

Those Battery Eliminators probably are closed source, but super easy to make the same thing -- just need a battery shape with space for wires and contacts, and then connect a power brick of the appropriate voltage/current

And since batteries are mostly cylinders and boxes, ezpz to design

[torpid grove]

I was initially thinking of printing my own battery replacement for a desk toy. Decided to see if anyone else had already done the same thing and found that company. Only thing I'd change is switching the power cord to a ribbon cable, that way the desk toy can sit flat.

[inner cedar]

In some cases I've just soldered power brick wires right to the battery pads, if I had zero intention of ever using batteries again

Inline power switch good

[winged helm]

Does anyone know if it's possible to make big block letters in Fusion360? Like a part that is in the shape of text, just extruded

[weary lichen]

It should be possible. I know how it's done in FreeCad, and if FreeCad has it, Fusion360 should have something comparable.

[winged helm]

I'm happy to use a different software, especially a free one

I got some rainbow filament and I want to make rainbow things

[weary lichen]

https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Draft_ShapeString_tutorial

[winged helm]

sweeeet

I have experience with solidworks as well, will that help get up to speed in freecad?

[weary lichen]

I like FreeCad, but as far as I can tell, it's not quite a user-friendly as Fusion360. It is, however, open source and free.

[weary lichen]

Not a clue! I've never used Solidworks

[winged helm]

ok no worries, I'll tinker around with it. Really appreciate the super fast, specific answer

[weary lichen]

I'm no FreeCad expert, but that is one of the things I've used it for.

[winged helm]

noice, I'm looking to print something to hang on a wall for a friend who HATES signs on walls. I'm hoping I do well enough that she likes it

[empty sedge]

the 'part design' workbench in freecad is closest to the solidworks sketch-and-extrude workflow

I'd search youtube for how to do this in fusion if you'd like to use that. I'm sure solidworks can also if you're adding text to a sketch on a flat surface

[winged helm]

I unfortunately lost my license to SW when I left school, but I think free cad will be good enough

[weary lichen]

I basically live in the "Part Design" workbench unless I'm dealing with multiple parts.

[winged helm]

how do I get to the part design workbench? I looked at the wiki and can't find the icon they describe

[torpid grove]

If you don't get block letters working with FreeCAD and have Fusion360 here's what I would do.

-In your design create a new 2D Sketch
-In the sketch create a text box you'll text box under the create panel with all the other geometric primitives in the sketching environment
-Size / position the text box, this will be helpful later if you want to go back and quickly make changes
-Add your text to the text box
-Exit the sketch environment
-Hit E or click the extrude command then select your text
-Extrude to your desired height (extruded text can do anything that normal extruded geometry can do btw)

[winged helm]

Oooh let me try that rather than mess more with FreeCAD

[torpid grove]

Give it a go and let me know if it works for you. If you're still having trouble I don't mind making a quick example part and attaching it here for you to look at.

[winged helm]

that is very kind!

@torpid grove, do you know of a way to use a different font?

Oops there is, mybad

[torpid grove]

Glad you found it, just a note not all fonts may work for extruding. They will have to have closed curvature, far as I know the only way to figure this out is trial and error.

[winged helm]

ah fun

good looking out, thx

[torpid grove]

Rule of thumb most standard MS fonts will work without issue. A few I've downloaded from the internet have not worked though. My solution for this is to add the font to the text box and then trace over it with the spline / line tool. I'd only recommend if you're very attached to a particular font.

[winged helm]

Yeah that sounds rough!

[torpid grove]

It gave me added appreciation for the work that goes into designing a type face

[winged helm]

oh definitely

It's intense work

[weary lichen]

This dropdown selects what workbench you're on.

[winged helm]

Ahhhhhh

thank you

[pallid fiber]

Picked up a Neptune 2 over the weekend and have been having a blast with it. I’m using some Hatchbox PLA filament I got on Amazon so far and it seems to be working well. Looking to pick up a few more spools, any recommendations on brands/type specific to the Neptune 2 or in general?

Mostly printing parts and cases for ESP32 dev boards and modules at the moment

[raven coral]

so i would like to add octoprint to my 3d printer, so i have a question, could i power my raspberry pi 3b with the psu that came with my 3d printer(the printer is based off of an anet a8, using the am8 platform or something like that)

[karmic brook]

Heh, someone else was asking nearly the same question in #help-with-linux-sbcs with the idea of using a DC-DC converter to step down the power supply voltage to 5V to run the Pi.

[iron remnant]

There was a thread like a month or two ago and Snolabs and Atomic were mentioned. I've been using Atomic Filament and it seems to work nicely.

And Matter Hackers Build is quite reasonably priced.

[broken orbit]

Use Tinkercad....

[agile gorge]

no, not from the psu, but you can potentially take a 5v pin from your mainboard to power the Pi

but be aware the pi will take 0.6-0.8A running on its own, plus any peripherals you run on top of it

[raven coral]

i probably wont need any peripherals since i'll be running octopi

to be fair the mainboard seems cluttered

[agile gorge]

webcam, screens, etc. are a thing

[raven coral]

ah

ee i probably wont need any

and i dont think my mainboard has a 5v pin here lol

but the power supply is 12v

[raven coral]

so i could probably try to use a dc-dc converted as stated here

to step down the voltage to 5v

wait actually

what's the J3 port on the anet a8 mainboard used for

next to the firewire port

[arctic dragon]

Looks like it's an SPI connector of some sort. Probably used for additional data line for certain addons, maybe some display?

[knotty laurel]

Yeah, from the schematic it seems to be a combination of UART, SPI, power, reset, etc.

[raven coral]

if i were to get connector for that, i could connect the raspberry pi from the power and ground pins

[winged helm]

the pi needs a good bit of power, 2.5A @ 5V at least or else it complains

[raven coral]

ah

i see

[winged helm]

I'm no expert, but I have been advised by experts not to give less than 2.5 A to my pi

[agile gorge]

that's not entirely true, the pi complains when the voltage drops below 4.65v or something

the standard power supply to make sure there's enough headroom is specified to be like 2.5 or 3A

the pi actually uses 600-800mA while running and doesn't really go above that by itself (maybe under 100% cpu load)

the voltage is easy to drop on a cheap 1-2A power supply

and my PC usb ports will drop the voltage if you draw over 500mA on them

[raven coral]

how should i model a part cooling fan for a 3d printer, as to not have it cool down the nozzle itself too much, because when i had the part cooling fan enabled without a duct by accident it cooled down the nozzle too much and caused thermal runaway

should i keep the opening for the "exhaust" side smaller so it creates more pressure or leave it mroe wide open

[empty sedge]

I made a shield for the heater block part of my fan duct. I lined it with aluminum foil tape and poked a hole only big enough for the nozzle

https://github.com/sphereinabox/SBHXY-docs/blob/gh-pages/images/assembly blower duct.png?raw=true

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/41c3b12e742c4d2f9961aa9b/w/31453eda78b442e38c3c81aa/e/5aa8b5f7616e46e3a144d8ac

[karmic brook]

Are you going to have a part cooling fan too?

[lone trout]

I am interested in getting a 3d printer and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations. I was looking specifically at the Ender 3 V2 and Anycubic Vyper. I'm leaning towards the Vyper but I've heard some horror stories about it that make me nervous. Figure my budget is < $400 at the moment, but < $300 would be better (to appease the wife unit)

[empty sedge]

prusa mini

to expand on that, the creality ender 3 and 2 are very popular but I wouldn't consider them a reliable well-supported machines. There's a ton of community upgrades and help but they're more of a project than "follow the instructions and go"

If you can spend more money on the prusa i3 mk3s+ it's a great workhorse of a machine. We have two at my hackerspace and using the default profile they've been running reliably with minimal trouble for years which I can't say for any other printer we've used

the prusa mini gets 95% of the way there. If you're printing PLA or PETG (get both smooth and textured sheets) and using the built-in profiles it should be a great machine

[torpid grove]

other's might warn you away from the Enders but for your budget I would recommend at least checking it out. They can come in solidly under $300 even with mods. But as others have and will point out they can be a bit fiddly to setup.

However I would also add once Enders are dialed in they're good to just crank out prints as well as most other pricier printers in my experience. The only mods I added myself was a new filament feeder, and a glass bed, everything else I kept stock.

[agile gorge]

Artillery genius pro is probably a decent compromise, a little bit above the $300 mark

[shy kelp]

Hello, I am building that adafruit MIDI Solonoid rum Kit, but I cant find the stl files for the small stands (they look like small catoonish shoes), I think there are missing form the files you can download. Does anybody have the files? that would be great. Thanks a lot! Uhm... sorry if this is posted on the wrong channel...just desperately searching for this files... :/

[toxic kite]

cymbals-mount.stl?
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/37788-midi-solenoid-drum-kit/files

[shy kelp]

Hi, thanks, I thought that to, at first, so I ordered them, but they are different... 😦 The ones that are shown and missing are way smaller...

[inner cedar]

I have and Ender 3 Pro and V2, both have served me well. Slight Z sticking problem on the Pro after it sat for a while, but… I’ll fix it

[torpid grove]

Interesting that's one issue I haven't had. Biggest problems I've encountered was cheap filament clogged the nossle.

[inner cedar]

I haven’t had cheap filament XD

[humble pagoda]

A filament dryer is a pretty cheap (~$30-40) and useful insurance policy. Just because something is vacuum sealed with a desiccant pack doesn't make it dry. Even cheap filament properly dried will generally work pretty well. I dry everything now and haven't had any filament related issues since then.

[inner cedar]

I'm going to build my own with insulation panels and incandescent light bulbs

[empty dock]

I would go with a little inline piston pump to pull a bit of vacuum inside a pelican case

[iron remnant]

Yeah, but @inner cedar has a really bright idea.

There was a YouTube video that showed that vacuum doesn't help that much.

[inner cedar]

I wonder if the vacuum intensity matters

[iron remnant]

Well, here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQRN9TUw08

Actually, I think I'm misspeaking.

[raven coral]

i dont understand why for some reason my prints wont stick to the surface anymore, i changed no settings or anything

it just stopped

nor did i change the surface, or the surface coating or anything

i tried setting the initial layer height lower to like 0.2mm or 0.1mm but it still wont stick

the plastic pretty much curls up around the nozzle

printing at 0.3mm had it kinda sticking to the surface but once the second layer started it didnt hold

[arctic dragon]

Most surfaces do have a lifespan. As you use it, it can become smoother and harder to adhere to?

If you touched the surface, it could also be a problem of oils on the surface.

What kind of surface are we talking about? And what material are we using?

[raven coral]

I have glass surface and i usually spray it with hairspray so bad things don't happen

And im trying to print with petg as usual

[arctic dragon]

Huh, glass is usually the opposite, thank goodness I asked. Do you clean your surface regularly? Residue from old hairspray could affect adhesion as well…

[raven coral]

I did clean the surface

It was a few days ago when I couldn't get the prints to stick

So i washed off pretty much all of the hairspray and then resprayed it

[arctic dragon]

Did you dry your surface before respraying?

I can't think of what else it could be tbh, my PETG experience is pretty limited...

[raven coral]

i mean im pretty sure i dried it, i used a paper towel for that

[arctic dragon]

No observable paper towel residue, I assume?

Idk I'm just trying to check off the obvious until I think of something...

[raven coral]

nope there oesnt seem any paper towel residue

[arctic dragon]

Wash with soap?

Idk

I got nothing

[raven coral]

hmm

at first before washing off the buildplate i thought it could have been perhaps because i was printing my first layers too low, but since i washed off the buildplate there weren;t really any markings on the glass that would indicate that the surface got actually damaged

im gonna try printing an old gcode file to actually properly figure out if its the print settings that i have that are incorrect

[arctic dragon]

Have you leveled and reset your Z-offset?

[raven coral]

hmm i dont think i have a way to set up a z offset on the printer, but i have not tried leveling it yet, gonna check it actually rn

ok so the bed might have been a bit too high but it still seems weird considering i couldn't find a sweet spot even with babystepping z while trying to print

ok so the old gcode files taht i had do print well now

although i had to babystep the z axis down a bit

im looking at a sliced print in cura and im wondering

this means that the base gets printed fast while most of the other layers get printed slower

shouldn't that be the opposite?

[inner cedar]

Oh gosh, he shouldn’t be cooking his filament in his regular oven!

Even with PLA there is some risk of contamination with not nice stuff if it isn’t food safe… this is why I have a toaster oven for not food cooking

[iron remnant]

Oh yeah, I use my oven a lot to make yummy noms so I am not risking contamination.

[empty sedge]

I bet it's slowing down when doing just perimiters and infill to hit the minimum layer time

[raven coral]

Oh

[raven coral]

Quesiton is it a good idea to enable z hop in cura?

[empty sedge]

Depends on the printer. Might as well try it.

[humble pagoda]

Coincidentally, I also run a freeze dryer at work. Vacuum would theoretically help, but the function of the vacuum is to lower the boiling point of the water present so that it spontaneously vaporizes from the underlying material at or below whatever temperature the material is at. In freeze drying we are pulling it down below the triple point of water so that it goes directly from solid ice to water vapor, but the same principle applies with liquid water trapped in filament. Unless you can pull down to single digit Torr or less, I don't see it being capable of making a significant difference. Adding a little heat would be much more effective.

[raven coral]

i saw some bltouch/3dtouch install videos on the anet a8 and im wondering can i connect the bltouch to the J3 port instead of splicing the display cable stuff

[winged helm]

Instagram is trying to sell me the snap maker 2 modular printer/router/laser. Does anyone have experience with this device? It seems too good to be true

[arctic dragon]

Not personally, but I've read up a bunch on it. From what I've read while looking at reviews last year, the hardware is top-notch, but the software and firmware leaves a lot to be desired.

https://all3dp.com/1/snapmaker-2-3d-printer-review-specs/

It's a great entry-level multi-tool, but it's not necessarily the perfect pick for everyone.

[winged helm]

Ok I had a brief dream of my work buying me this. Sounds like I need to do some research

[arctic dragon]

Not sure how much improvement it's seen since the time of this review, but it's definitely a machine to consider.

[iron remnant]

The problem is that the things that make a good 3D printer are in opposition to the things that make a good CNC mill or laser cutter.

3D printers and laser cutters need a lightweight head that moves quickly which makes it hard to have a head that's sturdy enough to apply pressure, etc.

[arctic dragon]

Yeah, it's definitely not top of its class in anyone of the three. Pretty sure its 3d printer is a bit slower than newer single-function machines by a good amount...

As a prototype fabrication tool, though, it does have its niche.

[winged helm]

Don't the heads swap out?

[iron remnant]

Err, not the head, the gantry.

[winged helm]

Ahhh

So probably better off buying a nice 3d printer and paying to use the CNC router and the laser at the makerspace

[iron remnant]

Yeah. Especially because there's "CNC good enough to cut acrylic and wood" and that's not "CNC good enough to cut ferrous metals"

[winged helm]

I think the one at the maker space is only rated for wood. I bet there's someone in town with a CNC capable of metal, I know there's a waterjet cutting guy

[iron remnant]

Yeah, like, while understanding that I have the sort of questionable judgement that netted me the "Master Punster" role, I am the target market for a combo printer thingie because I can afford one, make all kinds of strange things, and really none of them impressed me that much so I didn't even bother getting a Prusa and just got an Ender 3v2.

[arctic dragon]

Theoretically, you can build a small wood CNC for fairly cheap. Metal CNC tends to be a pretty specialized setup you're not likely to have any kind of desktop machine handle, so bonus points to your local makerspace if they have one...

Snapmaker is great for personal hobby use, but if you're imagining something for work, you're better off paying for separate machines. At the cost of a Snapmaker A350, you could get an Ender 7 with a Creality laser engraver module, and still have enough for a decent-sized desktop CNC machine.

[half dew]

+1 to looking for local maker spaces - they'll most likely have higher quality equipment and more importantly - the safety know how and training to use it properly

[blazing hornet]

anyone have experience with an e3d v6 that tends to jam a lot the further you get into a print? "upgraded" my ender 3pro with a v6 hot end, petsfang mount, and 0.3mm nozzle (didn't have a .4mm in stock). stock hotend printed quite well with very few filament issues until it's thermistor started shorting, at which point I accelerated my plans to do the upgrade. it worked OK for a little while, but now after 15-30 minutes into a print, starts thinning out the filament and the extruder motor starts clicking more and more often. small prints that don't take that long finish just fine.

[torpid grove]

I have lots experience with the ender 3 but none with the V6 hot end. What you're describing could be filament issues. If the filament you've been using is low quality, old or not dry that could be the problem. Have you had this same issue across a variety of filaments or just one?

[blazing hornet]

A couple different ones. But I've printed quite a bit of this one, only recent change being the hot end

Guess I'll see if the thrift store has a cheap toaster oven and try drying it...

[torpid grove]

Okay filament is always the place I like to start with these problems. Have you tried upping the temperature of your hot end? Doing that might get your filament flowing better. Could be the hot end can't melt your filament quick enough. But it could also be that your filament feeder is having problems as well so adjusting that may also help.

[empty sedge]

Is your cold side fan working?
Can you upload a photo of how the nozzle looks against the block. There should be a gap between the nozzle hex and the heater block

[unique pendant]

👆 Agreed. The only time I've had issues with that was when my hotend fan wasn't working properly. Either due to me putting a weak fan on (static pressure is the important value so I use only e3d fans now), or the fan not running.

[blazing hornet]

Fan is running, not stock e3d but rather this one WINSINN 30mm Color LED Fan 24V... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087TBB8YV?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Will get picture of gap when I get home.

The extruder has been fine with the stock ender nozzle, so I doubt that's the issue

Temp is pla at 210... Don't want to go much higher

And jam seems to be at nozzle, it's not backing up bad enough to block the heat break.

[empty sedge]

What retraction length and speed are you running?

Also where did you get your new e3d hotend from? I wonder if you got a bad clone

[raven coral]

After running this command it should store the pid settings automatically?

[empty sedge]

no

it applies them but they don't get saved to eeprom

https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M303.html

[blazing hornet]

@empty sedge 3mm retract, 40mm/s. and it's a genuine e3d as far as I can tell (purchased from filastruder.com)

[empty sedge]

Weird. 3mm retract is about double what I'd expect for direct drive but is not too long for bowden

I've always had good luck with filastruder's e3d parts

your nozzle looks about right, meaning that you should have a good seal between heat break and nozzle so retractions shouldn't have trouble with a gap between the two.

weird. I'm not sure what else to suggest at the moment

[blazing hornet]

ya, i heat-tightened the nozzle, so there shouldn't be a gap above it at all

i've got a new .4 nozzle coming "soon", will just wait until I can get that one installed and see if there's any difference. Will burn this one out with a torch too.

i have wondered about the part cooling ... those fangs look awful close to being blowing on the nozzle. can't move them down any further without being below the nozzle, it's only about .5mm space as it is.

and yes, it's a bowden at this point. going to a direct drive, dual extruder setup eventually. going to put a linear x rail in first so it'll support it, and want to put in a quick change (either whambam mutant or xchange) as well. plus, i think i'll wait for the next-gen e3d stuff to be available. 🙂

side question - what should I expect for print speed with a smaller nozzle? I was getting 80-100 with the stock stuff. Dropping to 60 with the .3 helped a little with the extrusion issues, but not sure if I should be dropping it even further?

[unique pendant]

That has to do with maximum flow rate. Try this: https://polygno.com/flow_rate_calculator

[blazing hornet]

Hmm... That says I should be able to get at least what I'm trying to push, if not more. So it's not a feed rate issue.

[unique pendant]

This one is a little more practical: https://dyzedesign.com/3d-printing-speed-calculator/

Oh, wait. That’s for Dyze hotends only.

[blazing hornet]

It would make sense to me that the cooling fangs might be blowing on the nozzle... The longer the print runs, the thinner the extrusion gets. Like it's slowly building up inside the nozzle, kinda like lime scale building up in a water pipe.

I think I'll run a print without part cooling and see what it does.

[lunar oar]

Had a loose bowden tube, still wasn't it, replaced the nozzle, still wasn't is it

I've tried many different combinations of speed of the flow rate and temperatures, but I cant find a solution

before they were more in one area, but now they are completely random, and no they aren't the seam

I'd apricate any help!

[empty sedge]

Send me the gcode for your example cylinder

[lunar oar]

There it is @empty sedge

Ps: mention me ( @lunar oar ) or reply to my message so i get a notification on my phone to respond quicker to

[blazing hornet]

@empty sedge well, i think i found at least part of the problem. decided to go back to the beginning and do all the calibration checks and see if anything was out of line... was testing the extruder, and lo and behold I watch the motor turn, the gear turn, but the filament either not move or only move a couple mm (instead of the 15 i asked for). So the hob isn't doing it's job... which means it'll be down for a bit until I can either get a new stepper that has a socket to match the ender's plug, or bite the bullet and re-wire the stepper cable. thanks for the help!

was going to try to replace the gear with a spare hob-goblin, but Creality, in their INFINITE wisdom, used either some form of adhesive or a VERY tight press fit, instead of one of these modern contraptions known variously as set screws or grub screws. 🙂

[brittle hornet]

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day [U.S.] Modeled in MAYA, Printed with Hatchbox Wood PLA, with baked FIMO clay insets.

[raven coral]

actually question should i do pid autotune close to my bed when i want to tune it with the part cooling fan enabled?

[unique pendant]

I haven’t heard of having the part cooling fan on while PID tuning the bed, but I have been told to have it at about 50% while tuning the hotend. I suppose the problem would be it would be most accurate for small parts while the print head is close to the bed, but inaccurate as you go up. It’s probably only infinitesimal really. The bed is so large it is unlikely to be significantly perturbed by the part cooling fan really so I doubt it would really make a practical difference whether the cooling fan was on or off during PID tuning of the bed. Lots of speculation here, sorry. FWIW, I don’t have the part cooling fan on when I PID tune my bed and it works perfectly.

[raven coral]

ah you probably misunderstood me

i meant when pid tuning the hotend, not the bed

because i tried tuning it once at the fan going 100% when not close to the bed and it reached the target temps just fine, but when i tried to print and the fan kicked in when still close to bed the hotend started dropping temperature fast

[unique pendant]

Oh, sorry. Definitely PID tune with parts cooling fan on. As far as being close to the bed, you may as well try since it didn’t work before. Also, if your hotend has them, use a silicone sock.

[raven coral]

ah sadly i have no silicone sock for my hotend, although i was thinking of getting one

but before that ill probably get a new thermistor and mount it properly without using another small piece of metal to hold it in

it works but it was because i was stupid thinking thermistor was the problem and not the cooling fan cooling down the hotend

[iron remnant]

Thingiverse has leaked a bunch of passwords and accounts: https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites#Thingiverse

[inner cedar]

Ah jeeze

[broken orbit]

Oh, no

I didn't know that

Better watch my bank account XD

Doxxed

[broken orbit]

[raven coral]

Can i have my 3d printer wipe off this strand of plastic that oozes out while the hotend is heating up

[arctic dragon]

Isn't that the main purpose of the skirt?

[raven coral]

i thought its to help with bed adhesion

Because i have set up a skirt, but the strand of plastic kinda gets shuffled around on the bed and stuff

[inner cedar]

Mine does a line back and forth on the edge before it actually starts, but I think that's a Cura default?

Skirt is just for adhesion

[raven coral]

i use cura but

it doesnt do that

and im using mostly default

[arctic dragon]

Skirt is the one that doesn't connect to the print.

[empty sedge]

the prusa start gcode draws a bead on the front edge of the bed

[arctic dragon]

You guys might be thinking of brim?

At least in Cura, anyways.

[raven coral]

im using the skirt

but ye

still strand

[arctic dragon]

If that strand of plastic isn't adhering to the bed, your printer settings might not be dialed in properly. It should print an outline around your print if it's dialed in right.

Other possibility is the material has accumulated further up the nozzle due to a previously failed print or overextrusion. If it's not on the tip on the nozzle, you'll have to manually clean it off.

[raven coral]

i mean the skirt adheres to the bed

just not the strand that oozes out while the hotend is heaitng up

since it is very long

like

[arctic dragon]

It doesn't attach to the skirt as it prints?

[raven coral]

dunno how long but its certainly long

well no

im not sure if a cold plastic strand could attach to the skirt as it prints

[arctic dragon]

Well, if it's on the hotend, the end should be molten still.

[raven coral]

well yeah, that part attaches once it starts printing

[arctic dragon]

And if it's cold, it should be far enough away from said hotend that you should probably clear it off before the skirt finishes.

[raven coral]

but the long edge doesnt

[arctic dragon]

If you try to move it with the hotend in GCode, it'll just melt onto your mozzle and make all sorts of other problems.

I recommend just clearing excess plastic off manually.

[raven coral]

ah

would it help if i were to extrude some plastic and then retract before printing?

so i could have it done in a somewhat automatic way

[arctic dragon]

It would disconnect it from the rest of the print, but I personally wouldn't leave it on the buildplate if I can help it.

[raven coral]

well the nozzle before the print rests outside the buildplate, so if it were to disconnect from the nozzle then it should work fine

[arctic dragon]

Oh. In that case, you might as well just try it haha

[raven coral]

i suppose this has to be done with gcode

[arctic dragon]

Sounds like you might've come up with your own solution.

[raven coral]

adding stuff to prior to print

[arctic dragon]

Yeah. If you're using Cura, there should be a G-Code postprocessor that'll allow you to add custom movements before printing.

[raven coral]

ye but i gotta get it to do it rather in the "middle" of the gcode

or wait

does this code execute before the whole gcode stuff or is it somewhere in the middle

[empty sedge]

before

if you want to add stuff to prime there you'll want to add back the heat-up gcodes.

mine for ancient cura is the following:

G90 ; use absolute positioning
M82 ; absolute extrusion mode
M104 S{print_bed_temperature} ;Uncomment to add your own bed temperature line
M140 S{print_temperature} ;Uncomment to add your own temperature line
M190 S{print_bed_temperature} ;Uncomment to add your own bed temperature line
M109 S{print_temperature} ;Uncomment to add your own temperature line
G28 W ; home all without mesh bed level
G80 ; mesh bed leveling
G92 E0.0 ; reset extruder distance position
G1 Y-3.0 F1000.0 ; go outside print area
G1 X60.0 E9.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 X100.0 E21.5 F1000.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0 ; reset extruder distance position```

[raven coral]

wait but i noticed that

G1 Z15.0 F2000 ;Move the platform```

this code

;ZOFFSETPROCESSED
;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 4.10.0
M140 S77
M105
M190 S77
M104 S225
M105
M109 S225
M82 ;absolute extrusion mode
G28 ;Home
G1 Z15.0 F2000 ;Move the platform
G92 E0
G92 E0
G1 F1800 E-9
;LAYER_COUNT:199
;LAYER:0```

is after the heating up gcode

[empty sedge]

yeah, if you include the heat-up gcode in your start gcode cura won't automatically add it

... or shouldn't. I haven't spent enough time with new cura to be sure

[prime raptor]

Hello all, I ma having an issue with my Ender3Pro and Octoprint. After I send gcode to the printer and it gets ready to print, heating etc, it auto homes then slowly raises upwards. It does not print and just moves upwards very slowly. I have to cancel the print. In the GCode viewer all I see is this: "Recv: echo:busy: processing". I have solved the back power issue from the rpi but it still fails every time.

[raven coral]

At what height should i enable the part cooling fan

[blazing hornet]

mine usually starts on the 3rd layer

@empty sedge - just an update... raising my extruder stepper current from 0.65A to 1A made it a little better, but still happening. new .4 nozzle, every filament i've tried (petg and pla) ... not sure what to try. 😦

it's not the cooling fan, as i've turned it off.

[empty sedge]

see if your homing switch is working. m119 and verify it turns both on and off when expected

[arctic dragon]

What is your print speed set to? Are you pushing filament faster than it can melt?

[blazing hornet]

have tried from 50mm to 100mm... .3 nozzle at .15 layer height, .4 nozzle at .2. Starts printing fine, the further it gets into the print the thinner the extrusion gets, until it starts clicking the motor.

[arctic dragon]

Have you verified your thermistor readings against an external measurement?

[blazing hornet]

used a volume calculator, 50mm with .3/.15 should only be just over 2mm^3/s

no. don't have a suitable thermometer.

is a brand new e3d cartridge thermistor

(not a guarantee that it works, but....)

and i wouldn't think the thermistor would get progressively worse during a print, then be fine at the start of the next one (once I've pushed enough filament through to get it unstuck)

doesn't seem to be getting into the heat break

[blazing hornet]

that said, will pull the heat break and clean it out thoroughly. that's the one thing that wasn't new yesterday.

[raven coral]

that would be somewhere around 1mm off the bed right?

ill probably set regular fan speed at height to 1.5mm

maybe even 2mm

becausse i tried running the pid test at 1mm height and it barely made to 200C

and im planning to print at 225C

[prime raptor]

SO I figured out that I had loaded the latest Marlin and it was not compatible with the 8bit board that I have.

[blazing hornet]

if you're running the PID test with the fan on, and it's not getting to temperature, it sounds like the fan is blowing at least on the nozzle, if not the block itself

i think the reasoning behind fan on layer 3 is that it'll help the first two layers stick together better if you're not cooling them. depending on your layer height, that could be ANY absolute height.

[prisma fjord]

what are good/famous 3D printer companies out there?

[empty sedge]

that's a broad question. Do you mean something more specific?

[prisma fjord]

first time buying 3D printer. I am doing my research.

want to know from what I can choose

[empty sedge]

here we go again

[prisma fjord]

I can buy anything under 1000$

[empty sedge]

the prusa i3 mk3s is a great reliable workhorse printer

the creality machines are popular and have lots of community support but are more of a project to get dialed in and running well. So with an ender 3 or whatever you'll spend a lot more time futzing with it but you'll spend a lot less money

the end

[prusa mini is also pretty good and cheaper, but has a smaller build volume in a way that 95% of the time is not a problem]

resin printers are a different messy world I wouldn't recommend unless you're definitely going to be printing d&d miniatures every week or something. resin parts aren't as useful for mechanical projects and resin printers usually have smaller build volume. The material clean-up and post-curing and gloves and solvents required are too much a hassle for me

[blazing hornet]

stick with a printer with a rectangular bed if this is your first one... deltas are fun to watch, and have their strong points, but ease of use for beginners isn't one of them

@empty sedge i think i got my problem figured out... stray pressure advance setting in klipper. turned that off, and first print is beautiful. 🙂

[prisma fjord]

I see. Thanks for the input

[iron remnant]

I guess you managed to im-press yoruself then.

[raven coral]

Well i tried to position the fan as low as possible so it wouldn't blow on the nozzle

But for sime weird reason it just cools down too much when the nozzle is close to the bed

[empty sedge]

yeah it bounces off the bed

makerbot replicators had ducts that split in two to point on either side of the nozzle instead of at it

[raven coral]

well i have modeled a similiar duct i think

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2133328 i used this duct but recreated it because it kept hitting the heating element cable

so it looks like this now

looking at the printer, the ducts are blowing right onto the tip of the needle, although since they are not that thin, some upper parts of it also get cooled down

i think ill just have to tune the cooling settings so it starts blowing when its high enough off the bed

although i havent compensated for the duct being not completely in line of the hotend

but i dont think that could cause much trouble considering when using the other fan duct i still had the same issue

[unique pendant]

Local/Regional Upstate New York, USA only. A friend of mine is selling is RailCore II 300ZL with Mosquito, magbed, multiple aluminum upgrades, panel due, etc. These do not ship well so that's why local/regional only. This was one of the ones built by Project R3D so it's been properly built. He bought a new printer and doesn't have room for the RailCore any more. He's asking US$1700 which is extremely reasonable if you are familiar with these printers (the unbuilt kit without many upgrades costs that). If you can drive to him he will sell for $1600. DM me if you are seriously interested and I'll put you in touch.

[inner cedar]

Oh wow, wasn't that printer like $2500 or more new?

I kinda remember seeing that model before...

[elder oxide]

Fairly certain my buddy has a railcore

[inner cedar]

I want it, but I can't justify it right now DX

[winged helm]

I do too but I'm top far away to drive

[broken orbit]

I'm having a terrible time with print adhesion. Anyone have any tips?

[raven coral]

is bed cleean and properly leveled?

and do you have something like brim or skirt turned on in your slicer settings?

those can help with adhesion

[wooden girder]

I usually use painters tape w glue stick on my bed

[broken orbit]

Yes and yes

[broken orbit]

I turned off skirt - but I'll try that

[broken orbit]

I've got painter's tape too

But no glue stick

[raven coral]

i print on glass with petg so i usually apply hairspray

[broken orbit]

I'm printing on a factory issue bed w/PLA

[raven coral]

ah

well, i dont know what much else to suggest

[broken orbit]

OK - I'll try skirt

[iron remnant]

Some things that have worked for me:

• Bed leveling. A lot of bed adhesion issues can actually be that the bed isn't trammed and leveled and where the z-axis height is configured properly, which I found out the hard way.
• Elmer's Glue Stick (apparently other brands don't work as well). Most of the tricky PLA prints are solved with glue stick
• Cut the first layer speed. I use that for intricate detailed stuff.

[humble pagoda]

@broken orbit , stupid question but...how are you leveling your printer? A point of confusion I've seen far too many times is that leveling does not mean making it level relative to the earth (though that's not a bad thing), but rather level relative to the XY plane of the machine (usually called tramming by machinists, and IMO a better term to use here). Assuming that you are actually tramming the printer, are you using something like a piece of paper to judge the gap between nozzle and bed? Cause I'd say you probably have too large a gap. You can also try finding a slicer setting to increase the amount of material extruded in the first layer (Cura 4.10 has Initial Layer Flow, which I set to 102% and Initial Layer Line Width, which I haven't needed to toy with but could help too).

I have not needed to use painters tape, glue stick, hairspray, or anything to print PLA before. There's enough slicer settings and machine adjustments that can be made to dial in the print performance instead.

[carmine peak]

i'm looking at default configurations for Marlin. Which one do i use?

[empty sedge]

which marlin release are you running?

[broken orbit]

OK, great. Thanks

[broken orbit]

I'm leveling it with paper

Thanks!

[fading wagon]

I was recently having issues with adhesion too. First i homed the unit and then manually leveled at each corner with paper. Then i print one of the many available bed leveling prints with small squares at the corners. While it prints, you can work on dialing in the bed height. As it prints, adjust the wheels at each corner to get appropriate "squish".

Might need to print 2 or 3 times to get it perfect. Now i get excellent first layer adhesion with pla and glue stick.

[elder oxide]

Let me just say.. I started saving models in the 3MF file format and it is great

Highly recommend

[torpid grove]

I would also recommend anyone with adhesion issues try aqua net hair spray. That stuff is basically glue in a can. Leveling issues can contribute to poor adhesion (among 200 other print factors) but Ive never had issues since I started using it.

[raven coral]

i've tried saving them in 3mf but whenever i put them in cura i cant really place it on the buildplate, some features seem locked out

[elder oxide]

I use CURA and it works great

I can move individual objects in multi object files

Delete parts I don’t want to print

[pliant jasper]

Hi guys! I'm designing an enclosure for housing an Adafruit Metro ESP32-S2. Does anyone have any examples?
Or drawings of the slide switch and neopixel position?

[loud silo]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4798723

it's arduino-shaped, so most arduino case would work with some tweaking

dimensional drawing here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-metro-esp32-s2/downloads

3d models: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CAD_Parts/tree/main/4775 Metro ESP32-S2

[shy kelp]

hi i have an flsun q5 and i just changed the extruder driver to a tmc2208 v1.2 and im getting dotted lines in my walls, infill and top layers and im not sure why

[empty sedge]

Did you wire it for uart communication and get that working in your firmware?

[shy kelp]

no i just plugged it in and reversed the direction, however i didnt change the vref or amps so im going to give that a go on monday i think

[empty sedge]

if the one you bought can be used that way, you probably need to check the microstepping jumpers

[empty sedge]

also you need to check the current setpoint with the tiny potentiometer on the driver. Trinamic uses RMS current not phase current so use half the current you would for A4988

[shy kelp]

im unsure what microstepping jumpers are but me and my brother looked at the max aps for my stepper motors and he worked out the rms current and 90% of that ofc so hoping that will be fine

[raven coral]

is there a way to use octoprint to edit my marlin firmware settings?

or have it edited, recompiled and uploaded to the printer from within my raspberry pi?

[empty sedge]

there are 3 jumpers under the stepper driver board. The manual for your TMC2208 board should tell you how to connect them

[empty sedge]

I've done this by installing arduino and running it with x forwarding to xquarts on my mac

or I've use platformio from the command line

it'd be easier to do it over VNC but my octoprint pi aren't booting into a GUI

[raven coral]

alright looks like ill have to figure out how to do ssh

on the pi

[empty sedge]

what OS are you running on your computer?

[raven coral]

windows

it isnt that easy hauling a whole printer or your comptuer to change some setting on your printer

but what i've noticed is that my printer for some reason wont reach the desired thempereature

by few degrees

[empty sedge]

openssh-client is included with windows 10 now, or otherwise easy to add

[raven coral]

so im planning to increase the heating timeout

[empty sedge]

I think that's a bad idea

[raven coral]

i dont even remember what the heating timeout is

[empty sedge]

you should fix whatever hardware issue is preventing you from heating up enough

[raven coral]

it sometiems seems to ehat up

somtimes doesnt

yesterday i printed just fine without no issues

today it just doesnt give it enough time

also i cant log into my raspberry pi

amazing

[empty sedge]

#define THERMAL_PROTECTION_PERIOD 40 // Seconds

but you've got something wrong if you can't get it hot quickly enough. just increasing the timeout isn't going to help when your fan turns on and cools your hotend off

you either have something assembled wrong pulling the heat away from the hot side, you need a better thermal break, your fans are too strong, or your heater isn't enough wattage

[raven coral]

40W heater, no fans are running

12V system

[empty sedge]

my mendel 90 is 12V with 40w heater and can get to 270 fine

[raven coral]

is there a way to print the current pid settings?

[empty sedge]

yes, look for "print settings" in marlinfw.org to print everything from the eeprom, or just running the g-code to set the pid settings with no other arguments should print them

[raven coral]

ah okay

ill try running just a normal pid tune

and then save settings

and then printing it

because if it will work after this then i have a feeling it just refuses to save the settings

[raven coral]

alright the pid test is done

will try printing again

if it'll succeed, i will see it as it not saving the pid settings properly

how do i set up platformio on the pi tho

[raven coral]

i dont get it why does it get a heating error when im trying to print but when im running the pid test it doesnt get any errors

also im looking at the gcode and its saying M109 S225*107

why is it 225*107

i know that 225 is the target temperature

but why the *107

also that type of code is shown by the terminal in octoprint

[empty sedge]

*107 is the line checksum

[raven coral]

Oh

I don't understand it heats up to 210X

210C

But not more

Like it is offset by 15 degrees

[soft crypt]

It's much slower

It takes like double the time per print on the highest quality settings

That being said

it's an excellent printer and laser, though the CNC leaves a lot to be desired

I pre-ordered the A350 and enclosure and got it for like half the retail price, so far it's been good aside from excruciating print times for large projects with high detail

[soft crypt]

So personally if you ask me, it's good if you're willing to put up with print times and you have a lack of total work area for several machines, the Laser and Printer are great, but the CNC isn't the best, though they are constantly making upgrades like a dual nozzle attachment for printing and all that so you can upgrade it as you please.

The Laser is actually pretty fast

They've also been constantly updating firmware and software to make improvements

As long as you're fine with the Sub-par cnc and long print times for high quality projects, i'd say go for it

Oh and one thing i forgot to mention

it's loud

but seeing as they have upgraded it with the A350T model from now on, i don't think it's going to be an issue, the sound that is

[humble pagoda]

Can you unplug your heater connection and then measure the resistance of the heater? Just because the heater is rated at 40W doesn't mean it's 40W at 12V. If it's a heater designed for 24V, for instance, it would only put out 20W if run on a 12V system. The resistance should be 3.6 ohms if it's designed for 12V, it would be 14.4 ohms for 24V.

It shouldn't be wrong if it's an off the shelf system, but it's also an easy thing to check

[raven coral]

but it shouldn't change overnight from a 12v to a 24v or vice versa

15C feels like too much of a drop in temperature to just be within margin of error or something

[humble pagoda]

I don't mean that the actual voltage changes, I mean the heater itself might be mis-sized to begin with. There's no such thing as a 40W heater, there's a 40W@12V heater which is different from a 40W@24V heater (and there's even 120VAC cartridge heaters). They all have different internal resistances, which is the only way really to distinguish them. A 40W@24V heater will only output 20W if you run it at 12V. That would look an awful lot like a hot end that can't get up to temperature or do so very slowly.

[shy kelp]

I don’t think I ever got a manual for them. I brought a couple from amazon a month or so ago and kept them until now when I decided to use them. I assume there’s manuals or diagrams online?

[raven coral]

Well to be fair it does barely reach 230C when I'm trying to heat it up(although if i slow down the heat break fan it does reach higher temperatures but that is a not a smart solution)

So the previous owner might have actually installed the wrong cartridge

I did order a 40W@12V one

I'll test them tomorrow since i dont have a multimeter with me atm

[empty sedge]

Hopefully the brand has a good manual. I doubt you bought the watterott ones from amazon

[raven coral]

how many times do i need to run the pid autotune for it to work properly

yesterday i ran the pid autotune and it left the printer capped at 210C when im trying to reach 225

today i ran it and now it reaches 219C

[raven coral]

alright running around 7 autotunes in total made it reach the 225C temperature mark

[raven coral]

nvm its still a bit struggling

[empty sedge]

a single time should be enough. I usually run it with c8 or whatever to do 8 iterations

[raven coral]

weird

alright so im about to flash marlin again, maybe the old config was messed up or somethign

but im not ure which one to use

i will assume that the first one should work

[raven coral]

i love how it just magically doesnt work

i printed something and it printed just fine, as it used to

now im printing again, and it is struggling to hold its temperature

this is how the temperature graph looks like

dropped to like 216C, and then went back up to 225C

[empty sedge]

this isn't going to be fixed by firmware

[inner cedar]

That sounds like your heater isn't capable of maintaining that temp

[agile gorge]

Do you have a heater block sock? It helps with heat consistency very much

[inner cedar]

Socks very good. A simple silicone sock might be all you need

[karmic brook]

I must disagree with "socks good"...

[agile gorge]

@karmic brook that has nothing to do with having a sock

That is an incorrectly tightened nozzle

[raven coral]

Still how come my heater can't handle the temperature now, but like 3 days ago it was finee

[empty sedge]

maybe a wire or connection is loose? maybe you set bang_max?

maybe it's cooler now in the room with your printer

[raven coral]

no the temperature is quite the same

also what's bang_max?

the connections should be good

also i could not get my printer to not just cool down too much with a part cooling fan, it just alwaays seems to cool down too much

and somehow the heating element manages to hold the 225C temperature while it's doing pid tune

which still makes me think that its rather a firmware/software issue

[shy kelp]

I haven’t had time to sort my printer out yet but I just want to double check this is the cause/solution. So I changed the extruder stepper motor driver in my FLSUN Q5 to a tmc2208 and I believe the nozzle as well to one I’ve used before. It was printing perfectly fine before I done this but now I’ve got these lines of under extrusion. The only thing I haven’t done to my extruder driver is change it’s voltage which I’ll be doing tomorrow but yeah I’ll put a picture here as well of what I’m getting and I just wanna make sure it’s either the stepper driver voltage or possibly a blocked nozzle. I’ve printed many of these and even in different filament and it’s happening at exactly the same layers. Sorry for the wall of text!

[raven coral]

Update to my situation : the heatbreak fan shroud had a gap that allowed air to flow backtowards the main heating block, thus cooling down the whole hotend

And giving me problems

[inner cedar]

It can hold material that backs up from the nozzle not being secured directly, but I've also seen blocks enveloped without socks... But having a sock helps hold the heat in the block

[dusty granite]

Hey guys,
I'm modeling a box which I intend to have 3D printed for an electronics project. I plan to stack a few components vertically inside the box (adafruit feather, myoware sensor, a lipo battery).

My problem is that I'm unsure how to add supports inside the box to place the boards on so they don't move around. Any configuration I can think of makes it close to impossible to assemble, as supports for higher components block the insertion of the lower components.

Can you suggest solutions, keywords or resources to look into for that task?

[old iris]

Design it like a cabinet with shelves that are removable. Each shelf could print separate in any orientation to suit the mounting pegs/standoffs. Then have the main box use slots that each shelf slides into.

It could be similar to this, but instead each tray would have your boards and parts mounted on it. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:398548

Ideally the trays would not be drawers, but rather thin and flat. That way the I/O holes could be made on the box to plug stuff in.

Or you could make the box different, with stackable separate sections, similar to how sandwich style mechanical keyboards are assembled together. Each board has a separate layer and all of them have holes that align that you can put long screws through

Hopefully that gives you some ideas

[dusty granite]

Ooh that's brilliant, it didn't even occur to me to make the box in multiple parts beside the cover. I'm gonna try that, thanks!

[inner cedar]

Could have a card edge connector on each and a mating connector inside the case, modular device!

[old iris]

A mini VME chassis haha

[bold yoke]

https://puu.sh/IkKFE/487a145c0a.png

i designed this L shaped bracket to hold my rayguns switch to activate zappy sound effects

is this sensible or am i being silly?

[raven coral]

okay so i printed this table clamp and a screw for it on my 3d printer aand i noticed that it is kinda squishy in the z axis

like

i can squeeze it a little bit

and im not sure why has that happened

i used superslicer as the slicer program for the models, and the infill was like the star/triangle pattern

[arctic dragon]

In the Z-axis?

[raven coral]

yeah

so if i were to press on the green marked area it would kinda squeeze a bit

so like in the z axis

[raven coral]

might be too late, but have you checked if the steps/mm setting for the extruder is properly defined

maybe the motor driver messed something up wih the steps/mm

[shy kelp]

i changed the voltage, it was at 1.3 and i lowered it to 0.81 and i also changed my nozzle. it all seems fine now, skin has a lightly strange texture but its nothing bad so yeah it could've been a combination of those two things

[raven coral]

ah i see

[shy kelp]

thx tho

[raven coral]

np

[raven coral]

how can i override print settings in some area of the model with slic3r or superslicer?

[scenic shoal]

well I don't know about overriding print settings but if you want it to stop printing and you can't cancel the print order you can just unplug it.

[empty sedge]

In prusa slicer you can start/stop on particular layers and override settings inside there

Or add a modifier shape that overlaps part of your model and override the settings there

I did the latter once to print a part with half hexagon half cubic infill

[raven coral]

o okay, i'll try with the modifier shape

[empty sedge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PVeh43Or-g

[inner cedar]

Getting these random fills/layers... Thankfully this one is JUST a single layer, so I can clean it out, but I've had a few randomly fill half the thing. Any idea why this might be happening? If I reposition/reload it'll be fine

[empty sedge]

your model is probably non-manifold

[inner cedar]

Any way to check that? It's a thing I got from Thingiverse

[empty sedge]

the x-ray view in cura or "select non manifold" in blender

[inner cedar]

Let me take a look

[inner cedar]

Ok, I pulled it up in Blender, but I don't see a non-manifold option under Select All by Type...

[empty sedge]

in mine it's under select all by trait

you need to be in edit mode

[inner cedar]

Ah, I was in object mode, oops

Nothing appears to happen

[empty sedge]

it selects the edges that are non-manifold. You're probably not seeing them because in solid display mode you can't see through the model

switch to wireframe, or switch x-ray on in the top right

oh, and you need to de-select everything first

[inner cedar]

I need to practice Blender more XD

[elder oxide]

turns on blender to make smoothie

So easy

[inner cedar]

Lol

[iron remnant]

hey

[elder oxide]

Is for horses

[stuck trail]

so, I am a bit certain now at this point that my issue has to do with the board declared for my marlin config.... I used meld to do file comparison 3 ways, 1 official release of marlin, 2 my config that wont compile, 3 a rework started from the original release of marlin..... and I pushed the found differences in the config files in my config that would not compile onto the rework slowly building between each change..... and there is literally only one thing that causes my build to fail.... and that is the board declared.

https://github.com/dylanpoll/Marlin is my repo for this...

this has the non compiling build

this, and the platform.io board declared are the only things different

this is how the site for the board and all the articles say it should be declared

this is how it comes out of the original fork

the failure codes I get are shown in the readme of my repo

if anyone knows the board declaration I should use please let me know..... I can't find it.... and editing the installed serial com functions ends in nothing but failure as well

[empty sedge]

Sounds like you're using the wrong platform

let me see what I used for my delta

[stuck trail]

thanks, I am and have been stuck here for a while

I have found something interesting?

https://github.com/bigtreetech/Marlin this is the manufacturers fork for the bugfix branch and this is what I am using atm to attempt to build after the original and original bugfix branch failed..... and on this branch the listed boards don't seem to match up

but the actual instructions from their site clearly state what board declarations to use

[empty sedge]

ok, I'm running #define MOTHERBOARD BOARD_BTT_SKR_V1_3

and to compile, I don't use the default platform, I compile the LPC1768 platform

[stuck trail]

oh god I hope this works X/

thank you btw

[empty sedge]

skr pro is not lpc1768, but stm32f407

[stuck trail]

yeah and I have the v1.2

this is the only STM32F407* I have as a listed option

and it isn't loading oddly

I have STM32F10* folders but not the 407

[empty sedge]

maybe you need the BIGTREE_SKR_PRO platform below it

[stuck trail]

I tried that one but it also isn't loading.... I am going to attempt to do this on my laptop to make sure it isn't something with my desktop

it loaded actually but ends in the same result

[empty sedge]

see if "teaching tech" or chris on youtube have a tutorial about configuring marlin on skr pro

[stuck trail]

thanks I will check them out X/. I honestly think there is something really wrong with the declared dependencies for the board itself in particular with the serial

lol looks like I have been here before XD

[empty sedge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PPBHn-jU0k#t=40m01s

[stuck trail]

but isn't that for the version 2 and not 1.2?

[empty sedge]

skr 2 is stm32f407 like your skr pro 1.2 so you're a lot closer

[stuck trail]

thank you, I will give this a shot X/

[empty sedge]

but also chris suggests a vscode plugin for this right after the timestamp in video above

[raven coral]

Alright how high the nozzle should be from my print bed, because whenever I'm printing it seems to be very low

And i cant consistently level it with paper, but I have some feeler gauges

So I'm thinking I could just level it with those and have it a bit more precisely leveled

[unique pendant]

If it’s too low while printing you need to adjust your z offset

[inner cedar]

I think 0.1mm? Not sure, I level by eye

[grand cove]

If both the bed and nozzle are at printing temperature, the nozzle should be exactly as high as the printer expects it to be. I.e. if the printer's display is saying Z=0.2mm then the nozzle should be 0.2mm high up. If the display is saying Z=0mm then the nozzle should be barely touching the bed, without pushing down on it.

[raven coral]

Ah

[tight cove]

What causes this?

That's the second layer

[empty sedge]

you're over extruding or you're too low

[raven coral]

i have my fan settings set to this, will the fan speed up from the 3rd(or 4th, not sure) layer to the 10th layer or not?

im looking at behavior at the bottom of the page and it doesnt mention anything about speedup

im trying to have my fan gradually speed up so the pid process has enough time to compensate for the fan blowing cooler air towards it

[empty sedge]

Check the generated gcode
M106 or M106 S255 is full fan speed
M106 S127 is half
M107 or M106 S0 is off

(in practice, your fan probably doesn't actually start spinning below S64 or something)

[raven coral]

ye i noticed that at low speeds my fan makes a sound like its motors are trying to spin but it doesnt spin

o it does increase the speed

[inner cedar]

Ok, need help... I need to swap filament at a particular layer. Cura sending to OctoPrint for an Ender 3 V2. "Filament Change" does nothing at all. "Pause at height" doesn't stop at the right layer and makes a mess for some reason anyway... Any ideas? Can't do it manually as I'm not watching the printer directly

[inner cedar]

Ok, so, it worked when I did mm instead of layer....

Printers weird

[elder oxide]

Yeah so weird

[inner cedar]

Gotta wait to see if it made a mess again

It does give me this

[elder oxide]

For stopping?

[inner cedar]

Yeah

[elder oxide]

Huh weird

[inner cedar]

Ok, figured out the mess -- it wasn't retracting or extruding on pause, so I told it to retract to keep from leaking and then extrude [and I grab the string] before resume

[lament dove]

There's an octoprint configuration somewhere for commands that are disabled via octoprint. Just fyi

Its been like a year since I found it but it also caused an issue for me with something similar. Sorry I can't offer more context but you should be able to find that setting to unblock commands if you want to

[inner cedar]

Ahh... That is helpful!

Any lead is a good lead

[inner cedar]

... Pi Zero 2 W might be perfect for a tiny OctoPrint server since it's in the realm of Pi 3 performance

[inner cedar]

PLA + TPU fusion attempt in progress!

[brittle hornet]

@inner cedar Did you change any settings? if so what? during the filament swap

[inner cedar]

Nope, no changes. Same temp range for both (215-230), set at 215, running at a low enough speed the TPU should be happy with

[brittle hornet]

Cool beans! best of luck!

[inner cedar]

Thanks :D very hopeful it works, I need this for work tomorrow...

[inner cedar]

Bleh, have some curling... But I think it'll be good enough

It's almost 1/3 of the way and I don't want to stop it

[graceful nest]

Could we see the final product if it came out well?

[shy kelp]

So it seems my ender 3 model is too old to have the keyed stepper motor (42 - 40) fillament driver that allows my mod to attach to it, where can I find an exclusively keyed one?

Mine

one I need

[safe cave]

hey....anyone here experienced in editing gcode? i have some generated from cura and i accidently stopped my print...i have the x y z it was at when i stopped it...

[robust grotto]

You can pop it open in notepad and search for the specific layer you were at. So if you know it stopped at 10mm, search for Z10 and cut out everything before it.

[safe cave]

thanks...i tried and i think it worked out mostly okay except...prior to moving on as expected it decided to drag the hot extruder across my print in a diagonal line...

[robust grotto]

Ghaa, hate that!

[safe cave]

luckily my print is the top of a keyboard case (building a redox) and the side with the line will be facing the pcb 😅

[robust grotto]

I didn't even bother trying to keep printing on my last fail; just redesigned the computer case top to attach where the case itself failed. lol

[unique pendant]

best to use notepad++ if you're on Windows or TextEdit if you're on Mac. Regular notepad can add formatting data that will mess up your gcode.

If you have the Z data, you will know the layer and can go directly to that section

[vestal thicket]

Anyone ever mount a NeoPixel Featherwing & Feather flush? I'm not having much luck finding any existing STLs, which surprised me. If anyone knows of a project that might have something, let me know. (I know, I need to learn FreeCAD!)

I am printing the one from the Ruiz Bros on Adafruit for Feathers to test it out, but I'm thinking I want to print a diffuser in transparent and either flush mount that in a speaker stand or just flush mound the Featherwing and the diffuser could stick out

[carmine peak]

my ender 3 makes a loud grinding noise coming from the motors (but nothing moves) if i try to do anything on it like home, manually control, print, etc. It also gives the HOMING FAILED error. Please help

[empty sedge]

There's a lot to check

• do the axes move without a lot of force
• are the cables fully seated at both ends without any visible broken wires
• do you get the same behavior starting from the center of the bed as from the corner
• do the homing sensors work? M119 will print their status to console so try while holding the button on each switch and not and make sure you see a change

but I'm not sure how you'd get a grinding noise out of such small motors. When they bind up or otherwise can't move it's more of a buzzing/clicking sound

[carmine peak]

Ok uhh

turns out a screw securing my fan mount was too long

[bleak socket]

so I have an odd question - does anyone know of a USB cable that has the power lines unconnected out of the box?

I've got an Ender 3 Pro and got a OctoPrint Raspberry Pi connected to it. And the Ender tries to power its entire everything through USB.

Which makes the Pi very upsetty spaghetti.

Or - has anyone tried to mod their Ender 3's USB port?

[elder oxide]

@bleak socket I modified my USB cable to cut the VUSB, leaving ground intact (need common ground to send messages)

I cut away enough of the VUSB line so they wouldn’t ever touch, then used electrical tape to cover the area up

[bleak socket]

that seems doable, probably cheapest and easiest too

also I totally would have killed the ground like an idiot

[void niche]

I just put some electrical tape over the Power pin on the USB-A connector...

[bleak socket]

I'm not sure my hands are steady enough for that

[iron remnant]

You can get USB terminal block breakout..

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3628

[iron remnant]

So I used that, but then there's this: https://www.th3dstudio.com/product/power-blough-r-pi-usb-power-blocker/

[old iris]

I made one of those as well. Here's my KiCAD/gerbers for it

[empty sedge]

What are all the 3d model sharing sites these days besides thingiverse?

[robust grotto]

Prusa has one; just started exploring it last night:
https://www.prusaprinters.org/

[iron remnant]

PrusaPrinters is a lot more browsable and snappy than most of the other thingiverse alternatives.

Like, Cults and MyMiniFactory are interesting but the UI is unpleasant.

[tight cove]

why does cura slice like this?
line width = 0.4mm
the model has a 1.2mm wall thickness

nvm the model isnt actually a consistent 1.2mm

i fixed the model but it still slices with those yellow lines like that

[half dew]

You can try picking a different infill style - but thats just kind of how infil is

If you want it to be solid and have less infill you could increase the number of inner and outer walls until its enough to fill it

[tight cove]

it should have 3 walls

but instead it has 2 walls (both outer) and some weird top/bottom layers

[empty sedge]

It can’t fit 3 walls on both the inner and outer edge.

[broken orbit]

I love PrusaPrinters

[broken orbit]

And Yeggi's just 🤬

I mean, it's helpful, but man

[iron remnant]

Yeah.

[haughty thistle]

does anyone have a cura profile for a 1mm volcano nozzle

[empty sedge]

Yes but I don’t think it would help much

[lament dove]

thangs3d is another newer one, like an aggregator.

way better than yeggi, but i feel like i need to really know what i'm looking for there--just browsing for models is overwhelming for me compared to thingiverse/prusaprinters

[bold totem]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3516810/

anyone have any clue what filament they used for these?

it's a perfect color

[unique pendant]

My guess is it was Ultimaker PLA since they were printing on an Ultimaker. At least it would have to be 2.85 mm. The video gives some hints as to the actual color of the PLA, especially when it is shown during printing. I wouldn't be surprised if that's just the regular Ultimaker white. If you look through the video you can see their white balance was incorrect every time, sometimes making it look like a buff color, sometimes giving it a magenta cast, etc. During the print, there's a few frames where the same light falls on the print and the Ultimaker white extruder housing and they're the same color.

I found a couple from Filamentum that look close to what the photos seem like. Kind of like that old buff plastic the computers in the '80s were made of. https://shop.fillamentum.com/products/pla-extrafill-light-ivory

https://shop.fillamentum.com/collections/pla-extrafill-filament/products/pla-extrafill-electric-grey

https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/filament/60-beige-pla-filament-1kg.html#

[rough cedar]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5087060/files Seems to be missing the plate that the Playground attaches to, anyone know where I could get that .STL

[bold totem]

@unique pendant thanks for all this input!!

[unique pendant]

@empty sedge I know this is old, but I use these sometimes:
My Mini Factory https://www.myminifactory.com
Youmagine https://www.youmagine.com

There's also a paid one mentioned at the end of the 3D Printing Nerd project with Neil Patrick Harris: https://www.nikkoindustries.com/

[unique pendant]

15% off everything at filastruder.com for 2 days including RailCore kits @karmic brook

Code is ANNIVERSARY

[unique pendant]

Also, Proto-Pasta is having a 20% off sale on everything. Code = NOV21

[small heron]

I have been wanting to try proto pasta for ages

but the makerspace is still sadly not open

[rough cedar]

Anyone have a clue what could be causing these big blobs on my prints?

[elder oxide]

Alien infestation?

More than likely moisture

[empty sedge]

Looks like you’re over extruding and printing 100% fill with an unusually low layer height

That said the blobs might be from interruptions streaming gcode. Can you print from SD card?

[bold totem]

wish filastruder sold voron kits

i would buy a v0

[unique pendant]

https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/specialoffer3dprinter.aspx

[old iris]

So it is already on sale for $199... I wonder if the coupon is applicable. That would make it $99

None of my phone numbers work for the coupon signup though.. lol.

They don't allow VOIP lines, and it says to try a different cell phone carrier for my normal cell phone (I'm using Google Fi)

"We’re having trouble registering this mobile number. For the security of your Micro Center account, please try another mobile number from a major US phone carrier."

[empty sedge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9peACH52KTo

@karmic brook ^ Probably late next gear .Get ready

[old iris]

$2k, lol no thanks

[karmic brook]

My next printer will likely be a Railcore. Very tempted by the sale.

[bold totem]

when i get a new apartment im gonna make a voron

@unique pendant couldn't find a in stock light ivory, so i grabbed inland bone white from microcenter and it's 'close enough' light ivory would definitely be a perfect match for my old mac pizzabox

[sharp thunder]

What’s a good printer to get started with? By good, I mean one that gives precise prints without a need for a lot of tuning. I’d appreciate any recommendations.

[knotty laurel]

The Prusa i3 is often recommended as a solid no-fiddling-needed printer, though that sort of reliability means it's more expensive than things like the Ender.

[sharp thunder]

I have the MK3S+ kit on my list of potential printers

Also looking at Crealty CR-6 SE

I’m a bit weary of the Ender 3 V2

I don’t want too many headaches. Also, is it worth it paying for Software such as Simplify 3D?

[empty sedge]

Prusa slicer has great profiles for the prusa. You don’t need simplify3d at all

[sharp thunder]

Thx for the feedback @empty sedge @knotty laurel

[unique pendant]

I’m going to move to Cura very soon as it has some great controls over supports.

[winged helm]

how do I tell what the units for an .stl are?

[knotty laurel]

AFAIK they don't encode the units, so that's just a scale that has to be defined by the software reading the file. Usually they'll be millimeters or inches, though.

[winged helm]

interesting, shapeways is asking me the units

[knotty laurel]

I'd just try mm and see if it comes out to a reasonable size or is about 25 times smaller than you expect. 😁

[winged helm]

haha I'll see what happens

[cosmic star]

Has anybody seen a small, minimally sized case that can hold a feather board with a wing and has holes for the USB port and for other wires like connecting LED strips?

[knotty laurel]

I don't know of anything specifically, but that sounds like the sort of thing people would have made 3D-printable designs for, so you might check sites like Thingiverse.

[broken orbit]

Ender 3

[arctic dragon]

Creality is a great brand with a nice tinker to print balance, but not exactly the top dog as far as unbox and go is concerned. If you really don't want to do the tuning, go for something like a makerbot or an ultimaker. It does come at a pretty hefty cost, though...

At which point you do have to weight the tradeoffs and consider HOW MUCH tuning you want to do.

[elder oxide]

Is you print with only PLA, usually there’s very little fine tuning, just occasionally changing nozzles, and the occasional leveling. But printing with anything else does require a bit of effort. I’ve not really done any tuning with my Ender 3 pro since April or so