The Official 3d Printing thread

[1911ly]

It powers up without smoke! Thats a win. I have a hot mess of wires, and I can not get my firmware to compile but will get there.

1911, I broke one of the wood attachment supports for the extruder, and the stl files to print are the printed parts section of the software download.

And I just noticed my cooling fan is blowing out not into the heat sink lol. I am using a 12 inch mirror tiles from Menards. There were cheap and seem to work people say.

If you want to email me the STL file I will gladly print the part for you, NP! w9amr@aol.com include your address. I have some ABS coming in the next day or so. I am glad to print it, np. Your machine looks great!

The file won't compile? Or you are you having trouble connecting to the Mega board?

There is a file that in the directory you downloaded from Makerfarm that is already compiled and ready to upload to the mega board. Open the Arduino software and browse to the file. It's extension is "adruino". Don't down load the hourly build version of Arduino. Download an earlier version. You will have issues, I sure did. I used 1.0.6 without issue. If you need to make changes edit the file withing the Arduino program and then compile it with the program.

Air blowing out might melt the fan shield. Turning the fan around is no big deal though. The 12" printer will be here tomorrow. I am looking forward to the build. It should go a lot smoother since I have a printer build under my belt.

I have already printed about a 1/8 of roll of stuff. Lol. My boy is having a blasrt. I am too. I am waiting on the ABS so i can print a "print cooler" and the brackets for the auto bed level. I have printed a lot of brackets to replace the wooden ones they use for the end stops. I think your printer uses the same brackets. I could print those too, but you can easily do that as a first project. I am going to design brackets for the pulleys too. i could not find those on Thingiverse. I already drew up and printed the one for the X axis. The one that is on the right side of the X axis carriage that has 3 screws and holds the 2 roller bearings.

I am also going to print another extruder base, the one that holds the motor. I am going to add a bracket to support the wiring harness so the wires aren't hanging in free space. I am a freak about wiring and these are a little cheesy the way they are done. I goues I have worked on to many industrial machines to let it go. i will share those brackets on Thingiverse. What a place to roam. You can go threw a lot of media on there! lol.

 

[Sailor]

I have printed the part in ABS on my other printer. I am using that to print things till I get this one done.

Got the firmware loaded just re pasted the entire file to the arduino software file.

Hit the home all button and my Y endstop was loose and the motor tried to push it off the frame and my Z motors are homing UP not down. lol. They are wired according to the diagagram will email Collin maybe firemware?

Making progress though.

 

[1911ly]

I have printed the part in ABS on my other printer. I am using that to print things till I get this one done.

Got the firmware loaded just re pasted the entire file to the arduino software file.

Hit the home all button and my Y endstop was loose and the motor tried to push it off the frame and my Z motors are homing UP not down. lol. They are wired according to the diagagram will email Collin maybe firemware?

Making progress though.

You are close! Swapping the motor direction is easy, and not to usual from what I have been reading. Just rotate the plug for the motor 180 degrees. My guess is Collin has already responded with the info. He is prompt!

 

[Sailor]

Yeah he said rotate them. His photo is incorrect in the pdf. I did not try this because rotating polarity does not always turn out well.

 

[Sailor]

I need to find a DC accessory bus to print to make adding more fans and LED's easier. Also need a dual fan stl. With PLA this is a must IMO.

 

[1911ly]

I just ordered a few some centrifugal fans to make a print cooler for my printer and the 12in printer we started building tonight. I am going to make a new box to put the LCD in and and lights for status of the print head and 12v & 5 volt supply and the bed and hot heat heaters fans ect. I like looking at a glance to know what is going on and where.

The fans should be here in a day or too along with the servo I need to make the auto bed level. The bed relay came in. I was going to just etch a board and make my own. I have a lot of relays heavy enough, but my buddy that we are building the 12 inch printer for ordered one for me when he ordered his kit. That was nice!

I am having a good time with it. I haven't had any failed prints that weren't my fault for not paying attention to settings and such. I have used about an inch off a 2.2lb roll so far!

And you guys are right Repeiter is the bomb for slicing and a control interface. Playing with Pronterface too. I bought another laptop just to dedicate to the printer and I will use in on my Small CNC mill that my brother and I build a few years ago.

I bought an extra Ramps & Mega & LCD panel. I am looking at a 18 inch heated bed, and I think you know where this is going... I am going to build a 18 inch printer for the hell of it. I can scale up the Pegasus design. I have been looking at extruded rail on Ebay. I have a spare set of steppers that are more then heavy enough. I have a spare extruder/hot end setup my brother had laying around, Tinkering with the firmware will be the fun part. It will be fun and a long term project to tinker with.

I should have gotten a printer a long time ago. I have had a lot of fun. Oh, and I am learning 123d design. It's going pretty well so far. But have been making things with Tinkercad for the moment. It is a great place to start out learning. We are having a blast!

 

[Sailor]

I have a few different kinds of fans for my other printer but they are 24v so I need to order more. Did you find a dual fan shroud design for that E3D V6 hot end? Its easy to find one hard to find one thats proven to work. My prints with fans on one side only suffer especially bridging. You went with solid state relays? My kit came with a relay already.

I have been using Simplify 3d for slicing and its working fantastic. Much better than Cura. My engineering leaning daughter turned me to Autodesk for design. I suck at it but its a great program and free for students.

So glad you are building this, because I have zero building/engineering skills.

18" wow make room on your bench. You may want to look at that E3D volcano hot end if you go that large.

 

[7.62]

This is a fun print!

To Make or not to Make by LeFabShop - Thingiverse

 

[1911ly]

I have a few different kinds of fans for my other printer but they are 24v so I need to order more. Did you find a dual fan shroud design for that E3D V6 hot end? Its easy to find one hard to find one thats proven to work. My prints with fans on one side only suffer especially bridging. You went with solid state relays? My kit came with a relay already.

I have been using Simplify 3d for slicing and its working fantastic. Much better than Cura. My engineering leaning daughter turned me to Autodesk for design. I suck at it but its a great program and free for students.

So glad you are building this, because I have zero building/engineering skills.

18" wow make room on your bench. You may want to look at that E3D volcano hot end if you go that large.

I will check that hot end out. I haven't found an exact design for my print head setup. I will probably merge a couple designs to come up with something. I will share the design when I figure it out. It will be half the fun. The i3v doesn't come with a fan relay. The Mosfet on board is heavy enough according to the specs, but I can tell you that I see a slight browning of the PCB foil trace between the jack at the Mosfet. The board traces are not heavy enough. I am glad I am adding a relay. I will snap a pic of the board when I take the board out next time.

This is a fun print!

To Make or not to Make by LeFabShop - Thingiverse

My son took one look at it and said "print it" lol. I will have to print that after I get the cooling fan figured out. I see guys with one fan. Usually the biscuit style. The centrifugal are suppose to move a lot more air. I bought enough to do 4 lol. I thing 2 fans blowing at each other might fight themselves. One might not be enough. I will play with the design. The videos I saw on the subject sure showed a dramatic difference with using a fan.

My servo came in. I won't have time to tinker with that unit the weekend. We spend about 4 hours today and have the frame, X carriage, Y axis bed and the extruder and the hot end assembled. My buddy started without me and got a few steps ahead with out looking back at the hardware situation so we had to back track a bit to put T nuts in a few places. But no big deal.

Installing the bed heater and putting the extruder on the X carriage is next. Then wiring is last. Then software, It is going well so far. I will post a few pics of the progress soon.We are going to work on it tomorrow afternoon after I get back for the hospital. Having test done and not sure how much time I will get to spend on it tomorrow. It should be done on Friday at the latest if all goes well. We will see how it goes.

 

[1911ly]

Pics of Harry's 12 inch Prusa Pegasus that is partly build.

 

[Sailor]

Nice flying right along! Make sure the bottoms of those z axis bolts are square. A half a thread on one side and not the other.....

And two of my zip end stops were on backwards.

Looking at the Marlin firmware on my LCD I can not find the menu command to raise the Z axis. move the X and Y yes but not the Z.

 

[1911ly]

Nice flying right along! Make sure the bottoms of those z axis bolts are square. A half a thread on one side and not the other.....

And two of my zip end stops were on backwards.

Looking at the Marlin firmware on my LCD I can not find the menu command to raise the Z axis. move the X and Y yes but not the Z.

We have been squaring everything as we go. Hopefully it's good enough. The zip tie end switch brackets are going in the trash. I am making plastic ones for this thing. I think I can use a few of the ones like the ones I made for the 8 inch. I found those on Thingiverse. I could not find one specific for the Pegasus. The Z bracket is the same. I will put the brackets I make on Thingiverse.

The firmware should be the same as mine? I will know more tonight. When you are in the axis select menu scroll farther down past what is viewed on the page. The extruder is on there too. Select the smallest step when selecting that step. It will try to extrude a lot of plastic and groan a lot, don't ask me how I know. I wish I did not have to go to the hospital today. I'd rather work on this thing.

I'll post more tonight.

 

[Sailor]

I will mess with it more tonight.

I just read that you should only use 2 clips for glass beds front and back. 4 causes some bending that will drive you crazy trying to get a level bed. Replacement end stop holders are on my list also. Thanks for the extruder tip.

 

[Sailor]

First test print is running, I may have had a slight X axis shift.

Anyhow hot filament is squirting on a hot bed and no fires. (Extinguisher is 2 feet away though)

 

[1911ly]

First test print is running, I may have had a slight X axis shift.

Anyhow hot filament is squirting on a hot bed and no fires. (Extinguisher is 2 feet away though)

You didn't have the excitement I had on my first try That is a good thing. Once I got it fired up my first print was great. The 12 inch is a bear to get square. I would not be surprised if it takes a few prints to tweak it. I expecting this one will. We worked on it tonight. He assembled the frame before I got there on the first day. We had to back track a few measurement and hardware issues. We are down to wiring and mounting the electronics. It should be don't tomorrow with some luck. I am eager to see how your print goes.

 

[Sailor]

Good news and bad news. I did not end up with a total fail hair ball print. I did have issues on the entire left side of the print. Hatchbox PLA, no cooling fans yet, bed at 70 extruder at 205. Good possibilities though. Right side behind the eye I can not see any layers at all, looks like its cast. The rest is a hot mess. lol. No idea why my pics are upside down

 

[1911ly]

Good news and bad news. I did not end up with a total fail hair ball print. I did have issues on the entire left side of the print. Hatchbox PLA, no cooling fans yet, bed at 70 extruder at 205. Good possibilities though. Right side behind the eye I can not see any layers at all, looks like its cast. The rest is a hot mess. lol. No idea why my pics are upside down

View attachment 52537View attachment 52538View attachment 52539View attachment 52540View attachment 52541View attachment 52542

It printed stayed on the bed, and did not turn in to a glob or a bunch if strings! Not to bad for a first print. I have been setting the bed temp to 55 (doubt that is an issue with that print)

I have played with temps, 190-205 and 200 seems good for my PLA and every PLA is different. I think you are right, a print cooler would help. Look on thingiverse and find the 1 inch test cube. Print it starting at 205 and and every 10% of print drop the temp a little (4-5 degrees) and do that every 10% and see what the print looks like.

There is also a file called _40x10.stl that prints a 1mm wide test print square rim about 12mm tall that you can use to check the width of the extrusion. I found that on a Youtube video on calibration. You will have to drop the under score in the first letter of the name. The file system doesn't know out to deal with that as a first letter. That drove me nuts figuring it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjE5udkNEA&t=36s

He has a bunch of tuning videos that are great!

Looking forward to more progress on yours. I think you are well on your way to having a awesome setup.

 

[Sailor]

Thanks, I think I remember that guy on 3dprintboard. started a test cube. Offset on 2nd layer, cant be temp related. I will try cura instead of Simplify 3d and test.

 

[Sailor]

Finished cube left side of X axis is all over the place, and the bottom of the left side did not fill. Rest is looking ok.

 

[1911ly]

That's odd print. How tight are the belts? They should be very tight. Like enough to play a note on tight. If they are tight, try this if you haven't:

Set the Temp to preheat PLA or ABS if you are using that. Then home the print head, once it's homed go in to the prepare menu and disable the steppers. Once it is up to temp then grab a piece of typing paper and slide it under the head. I just tear off a strip about a inch and a half wide and 4-5 inches long. Move the paper back and forth. It should just barely grab the paper. Push and pull the X and y axis around and check ithe clearance on all 4 corners and in the middle all around your print area and see if you can spot a bow or warp in the glass.

And try printing 4 or 5 squares to spread it out around the area. Maybe try rotating a few of the cubes 45 degrees in your modeling software to see what the print looks like. You will figure it out. It's tuning.

It looks like the media sticking well to that tape. I haven't tried tape. The hair spray has worked great. I for got to spray the bed on my first print and it stuck great to.