The Official 3d Printing thread

[1911ly]

Thanks Larry I will do that Monday. Roller filament holder complete with a side of rum and coke.

Looking good! Both the media roller and the rum and coke! lol. I have a hundered or so of those bearings I bought 3-4 years ago when I was building my mill. I need to find them. I hate to but them when I bought a bunch.

My Bowden hot ends came in today and I am tinkering around with drawing up a extruder base. A test print is on the bed as I type, if it comes out fair I will post a picture. I am printing the first one in a PLA just for the cost. I am not sure if I am going to do the final print it in ABS or PETG.

Looking at those quads is killing me! I have thought about building one for years. With the printer it just became cheaper and easier. Hopefully I will fly it better then the planes I use to fly. Holy cow, that was a expensive learning curve and I never did get really good at it.

My Bowden extruders will be in tomorrow. I will be tinkering with it the rest of the weekend. I am having surgery on Tuesday so I would like to get it running by then so I can print stuff while I recoup! I will have more time to spend learning CAD.

 

[RobbyMaQ]

ok, so after watching a ton of videos last night, I decided to buy a cheap mk2 clone kit to learn on. While I'm set on the pegasus 12 (for the moment) down the road, the precision needed in the build process has me a little concerned. So I figure I'd pick up a smaller simpler printer, go through the motions, and hopefully have a better handle on what I truly want out of a printer at a later date. While I may tinker with parts/upgrades? I'm under no illusion that I'm going to buy a cheap printer and turn it into a high dollar machine. That's not the end goal. It's a printer to learn on.
I went with a metal frame. FLSUN Prusa i3 kit $220 shipped.
So we'll see how it goes

 

[1911ly]

ok, so after watching a ton of videos last night, I decided to buy a cheap mk2 clone kit to learn on. While I'm set on the pegasus 12 (for the moment) down the road, the precision needed in the build process has me a little concerned. So I figure I'd pick up a smaller simpler printer, go through the motions, and hopefully have a better handle on what I truly want out of a printer at a later date. While I may tinker with parts/upgrades? I'm under no illusion that I'm going to buy a cheap printer and turn it into a high dollar machine. That's not the end goal. It's a printer to learn on.
I went with a metal frame. FLSUN Prusa i3 kit $220 shipped.
So we'll see how it goes

That printer will get you going, np. You might look around Thingiverse for upgrades. It looks like a Bowden style extruder. Let us know what you think of it.


I printer the hot end bracket and it looks like it will do fine.




I might make a few changes to the final print. I am happy with it so far. I am printing a daul hot end fan shroud to test fit. If all goes well I will be printing them in PATG or ABS. I am dwelling between the two. What do you guys think? I am pretty sure I can print a flawless one in PETG. I am afraid of getting a little warping with ABS.

 

[1911ly]

The captive nut fits the slot!



Fan shroud is on the plate as I type. Looking good so far.



If it all fits together well then I will print the real deal. My extruders came in as planned. I have to figure out the mounting and the tube routing.

 

[RobbyMaQ]

I don't expect much, but So much for not upgrading...
It will be a while before I print. I'm going to refab all the acrylic bits in aluminum. We just built a cnc router at work, so will be a good test to reproduce those parts.
There are also upgrades for the z rods (whatever they're called) that I will likely print first.

Still, it's all about learning how the 3 axis relate and movement, etc so i know what to avoid/get in the final printer

 

[Ericpwp]

ok, so after watching a ton of videos last night, I decided to buy a cheap mk2 clone kit to learn on. While I'm set on the pegasus 12 (for the moment) down the road, the precision needed in the build process has me a little concerned. So I figure I'd pick up a smaller simpler printer, go through the motions, and hopefully have a better handle on what I truly want out of a printer at a later date. While I may tinker with parts/upgrades? I'm under no illusion that I'm going to buy a cheap printer and turn it into a high dollar machine. That's not the end goal. It's a printer to learn on.
I went with a metal frame. FLSUN Prusa i3 kit $220 shipped.
So we'll see how it goes

Looks good.

The captive nut fits the slot!



Fan shroud is on the plate as I type. Looking good so far.



If it all fits together well then I will print the real deal. My extruders came in as planned. I have to figure out the mounting and the tube routing.

Are those Bowden?

 

[1911ly]

I don't expect much, but So much for not upgrading...
It will be a while before I print. I'm going to refab all the acrylic bits in aluminum. We just built a cnc router at work, so will be a good test to reproduce those parts.
There are also upgrades for the z rods (whatever they're called) that I will likely print first.

Still, it's all about learning how the 3 axis relate and movement, etc so i know what to avoid/get in the final printer

Half the fun of having one of these is tinkering with upgrades, at least for me lol. The guide rods are how they keep the price down. It is the flimsiest part of the printer. the rods get jitter in them the more you use it the more wear it gets. But my brother is still printing with his printer and it has to be getting close to 4 years old now.

TBH, I wanna see better pictures of it when you get it. I have plenty of rail I can hook you up with. We can change the rods to rails and we can use your extruder guts to reuse on a rail setup. It looks like you have the right print head. You can make that print down to 50 microns with some work. you would need plates for the ends and the extruder and the delrin wheels, spacers and excentrics.

I would print with it like it is for now. Just grab a few projects off of Thingiverse to print and learn the setup and settings. Have some fun!

 

[1911ly]

Looks good.

Are those Bowden?

Yes, I won't be printing any Ninja Flex with this machine because of it. But it should print fast and smooth. I will find out soon enough.

I had the print come loose on the fan shroud. I should have washed the bed, I pushed my luck. Grr, I seldom lose prints. Oh well.

 

[RobbyMaQ]

Half the fun of having one of these is tinkering with upgrades, at least for me lol. The guide rods are how they keep the price down. It is the flimsiest part of the printer. the rods get jitter in them the more you use it the more wear it gets. But my brother is still printing with his printer and it has to be getting close to 4 years old now.

TBH, I wanna see better pictures of it when you get it. I have plenty of rail I can hook you up with. We can change the rods to rails and we can use your extruder guts to reuse on a rail setup. It looks like you have the right print head. You can make that print down to 50 microns with some work. you would need plates for the ends and the extruder and the delrin wheels, spacers and excentrics.

I would print with it like it is for now. Just grab a few projects off of Thingiverse to print and learn the setup and settings. Have some fun!

We've printed a bit at the library, but we're pretty limited in terms of tinkering. And so that's why I wanted to pick one up. Your advice was good in respect to picking up a cheap kit to learn on. Understanding the temps, axis adjustments & mods, and cooling mods will help me better understand the limitations of the process. Something we cannot tinker with at the library.
I gather I will fudge with this one more than you all... but as you said, I'll build it, and print with it, and see what it's like.
I may go ahead an build it before we cut the aluminum, but I will end up making patterns for later before we build in either case.

 

[1911ly]

We've printed a bit at the library, but we're pretty limited in terms of tinkering. And so that's why I wanted to pick one up. Your advice was good in respect to picking up a cheap kit to learn on. Understanding the temps, axis adjustments & mods, and cooling mods will help me better understand the limitations of the process. Something we cannot tinker with at the library.
I gather I will fudge with this one more than you all... but as you said, I'll build it, and print with it, and see what it's like.
I may go ahead an build it before we cut the aluminum, but I will end up making patterns for later before we build in either case.

It will he fun and you are going to learn a lot more when you have one at your figure tips. My son has printed things at the library. The machine that they have is well used and the prints are ok at best. You have to wait a few days to a week to get your prints because of the volume they do. It's neat they have them for public use though. My son has asked for one for the last few years. Right after he saw my brothers printer he got the bug. then having the one at the library really gave him the bug. I got him one and had so much fun with I decided to just build one for me. I wanted to print bigger stuff.

It's been neat to see what all I can make the homebrew one do. I have gotten a bit carried away with the machine. But I am having fun. It's to cold to do anything else. so it gives me something to do. The prints it makes are amazing.

I test fit the prototype and it fits great. I made a few changes though, mostly hardware related. I am printing it in PETG. I hope I got it right. I am pretty sure I didn't mess it up. It takes a while to print it at 200 microns per layer. Here is the test fit of the prototype.



Justin drew this up today for his Nintendo DS. He printed it on his 8 inch machine. It is right at the limit of the width of his the machine. It came out good.



I am hoping to get the dual extruder setup running tomorrow. I still have to print a spacer to go between the carriage and the bracket and a cooling fan mount. then I have to make some kind of bracket to hold the extruder motors and figure out exactly where I am going to mount them. I am thinking of putting them on the back of the machine. I will maybe sit the media on the top of the machine. And most likely going to use the roller setup Sailor showed me. Hopefully the Velcro will be in this coming week. I might get a chance to enclose it later in the week. I am eager to print with ABS and make some lowers. I need to print my French buddy a paper weight too.

 

[Sailor]

Great progress going on here. I am looking to duplicate this stock, by using the minimalist one in the fosscad zip by warfairy.

[video=youtube;VT2tEjeuhmY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT2tEjeuhmY&t=2s[/video]

 

[1911ly]

Great progress going on here. I am looking to duplicate this stock, by using the minimalist one in the fosscad zip by warfairy.

[video=youtube;VT2tEjeuhmY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT2tEjeuhmY&t=2s[/video]

PETG would be the bomb for that. That stuff is growing on me.

The dual hot end base took 4 and a half hours to print. I test fit the hot ends this morning and they fit great. The hot end fan cooler is printing at the moment.

 

[1911ly]

I just learned that a print cooler with PETG can get you in trouble! I tried 3 times to print this cooler and it would always get to the same point and fail. It would start stringing. The print has a inside taper and the inside loop right on the edge would drop and basically start a avalanche of failures. Live and learn....

 

[1911ly]

I have gotten a bit more done. The hot head cooling fan shroud came out great on the 4th try :



I had to but the things nickname on it. The lettering came out good for using a .4 nozzle.



Front few showing the fans:



Hot end view:



Side view:



A back view showing the spacers I made out of PETG. These are needed to give a space for the carriage hardware to clear the hot head base. I printed these out of PLA. They aren't in a area that gets hot, or has a lot of stress.



Next step is to figure out where I am going to put the extruder drives and routing for the PTFE tubes. Then swapping in the dual hot end step. Loading the firmware and calibrating it all is last. The calibration is probably going to be a PIA. The second power supple is not in yet so I won;t be dual extruding unless I grab a second supply off of something else. And I might do that if I get far enough along.

I will be happy just getting the extruders to print seperately! I can work on dialing the two in together later. Hopefully the Velcro comes in soon and I can work on enclosing the machine. Then it might just be done.

 

[1911ly]

What do you guys think of Simplify3D? Are you guys using it?

 

[BroodXI]

it seems to slice better than cura. i had tried using octoprint but got tired of it, it didn't seem to work very well from the get go. simplify3d seems to be my go to for most prints.

 

[1911ly]

it seems to slice better than cura. i had tried using octoprint but got tired of it, it didn't seem to work very well from the get go. simplify3d seems to be my go to for most prints.

Thanks, before I pony up 150 bucks I wanted some good feed back! I might just pony up for it.

 

[Sailor]

Great work Larry.

I use S3D and love it.

 

[Sailor]

Pretty slow weekend printer wise, lots of time at kids tennis.

Printed 3 tiny pots for air plants for my wife.
Cut a top out of plywood and added non snagging grommet with the rollers.
Tried printing flexible TPU, did a benchy at 50% size and it printed at least. I have some extrusion tweaking to do as it has blobs on it. Will attach my profile for S3D as a starting point for anyone who wants to try it.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4862324/Pegasus Flexible.fff

 

[1911ly]

That stuff is pretty cool. My nephew bought something that is flexible to try. I am not sure if he has tried it yet.

I have the Ramps build wiring changes done. The firmware is loaded and tested. I heated both heads up and tightened things down. I still need to make a cable for the #2 extruder drive and put the drive together, then mount them both. I have the fans wiring done too.

It should be printing something this afternoon. I have Dr appointments first.