3D Printer Help, Discussions and Designs

[TinMan]

A thread for all aspects of 3D printing.

Feel free to ask questions,provide handy tip's,and show off your designs.

May be a good idea to end your post with the modle of your printer.



Brad
Anet A8

[JimBoot]

Thanks Brad,
This bloke has a bunch of good tips that I wish I had of watched  year ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqh3FM12KVg

[JimBoot]

I fixed my extruder clicking issue which was pusching the ptfe extruder tube down towards the nozzle and shrinking it. This caused filament starvation and subsequent blockage of nozzles. The fix was a new ptfe tube and making sur the filament entered perpendicular to the hotend.

Next issue is my right z axis motor has creep of up to 4mm. Over 30 mins it will gain 1mm. I've measured horiz distance beteewn motor screws top and bottom. They are good. I'm yet to pull them out of the flex coupling and reseat them but I think that is the next step or maybe compare volatges between the motors.

[TinMan]

I fixed my extruder clicking issue which was pusching the ptfe extruder tube down towards the nozzle and shrinking it. This caused filament starvation and subsequent blockage of nozzles. The fix was a new ptfe tube and making sur the filament entered perpendicular to the hotend.

Next issue is my right z axis motor has creep of up to 4mm. Over 30 mins it will gain 1mm. I've measured horiz distance beteewn motor screws top and bottom. They are good. I'm yet to pull them out of the flex coupling and reseat them but I think that is the next step or maybe compare volatges between the motors.

Regarding the Z axis problem.
I have seen a few guys now print up two belt pulley's,and put one at the top of each worm screw. They then put a belt around the two pulley's,so as to keep both motors in sync. This way either can miss a step,and the other will turn it that step anyway.


Brad

[Slider2732]

Checking in

Anet A8

What i'd like to know, is if leaving filament out on a spool in a colder room makes it brittle?
The reel of black ABS has been connected up for about a year.... its a big reel.
The room is only partly heated, with the end of the room suffering drafts etc through the floorboards. Temps outside have been down to 15F (way below freezing in centigrade), but no idea of the wooden floor temperature.
My filament keeps breaking now at the extruder input and the thing has to be re-threaded if left overnight. Next day it will have snapped. 
A blanket on the floor would probably help, but just wondered if anyone else has had that issue.

[JimBoot]

Checking in

Anet A8

What i'd like to know, is if leaving filament out on a spool in a colder room makes it brittle?
The reel of black ABS has been connected up for about a year.... its a big reel.
The room is only partly heated, with the end of the room suffering drafts etc through the floorboards. Temps outside have been down to 15F (way below freezing in centigrade), but no idea of the wooden floor temperature.
My filament keeps breaking now at the extruder input and the thing has to be re-threaded if left overnight. Next day it will have snapped. 
A blanket on the floor would probably help, but just wondered if anyone else has had that issue.

Have not used ABS yet. Just reading about it sounds bloody tricky to work with.

[JimBoot]

Regarding the Z axis problem.
I have seen a few guys now print up two belt pulley's,and put one at the top of each worm screw. They then put a belt around the two pulley's,so as to keep both motors in sync. This way either can miss a step,and the other will turn it that step anyway.


Brad

Mmm sounds feasible. Other blokes are ditching their motherboards, I like the pulley idea better. Once I have it going I'll setup Rasppi with Octipi - that looks like a pretty awesome remote setup. Edit - ok parts bought for the pulley solution.

[Chet K]

3D printing Piezos mentioned at Dansie's
https://revolution-green.com/mechanical-engineers-develop-process-3d-print-piezoelectric-materials/

[TinMan]

3D printing Piezos mentioned at Dansie's
https://revolution-green.com/mechanical-engineers-develop-process-3d-print-piezoelectric-materials/

I would like to be able to print solar panels

[Thaelin]

  I use PLA and I have the breakage as well. This is in a typical 80* temp. Didn't do it at first then lately both reels are. I have the feeling that once you open the bag, it may lose or take on moisture which causes this.

Thay
ROBO3D A1+

[JimBoot]

aaaah I wondered what the vacuum seal and desicant was all about... not enough to goolge it until I had the issue though. I've been measuring the effect of using neos mounted on the side to place load or some sort of field resistance.
The pattern that is working atm is South neos on rear and north on right side. I'm not sure now whether it's slowing it or speeding it up.  I'm thinking it's not that's fast up, it might be slow down, I only saw that when I started the print so I have ot measured.

The neos took the difference of a 1mm creep over 100mm to less than 0.1 - still not awesome but better and enough I hope to print some parts for the pulley solution.

[Peterae]

Most plastics absorb water, before injection moulding they roast the plastic granules for a while to remove the water content, sometimes you can here the spitting from the hot end if there is water present.


pla is ok but iis not a permenant plastic, will disintegrate in a moist atmosphere into carbon dioxide, ABS warps for larger builds, I moved to PETG 2 years ago and have not looked back since, I find layer adhesion is really good and can print large objects without warpage


Prusa i2, Prusa Samson in build.

[TinMan]

This time of year in WA,im more worried about the PLA melting .

I plan on experimenting with all types of filaments,but just getting to know,and improving my machine first.


Brad
Anet A8

[JimBoot]

hahaha 44 here today but only 36 in the shed so got some work done. Turned the temp way down today on prints.

[Slider2732]

Well, fixed it again. Was looking around at comments and found PLA does go brittle.
Big mistake up above, I put ABS, but meant PLA 
The latest was snapped filament inside the hotend. I was sat there for half an hour straightening the filament and it wouldn't go in.

You Australian guys could save a bunch of power, by unplugging the printer, taking it outside and moving the hot end around by hand. Just a bit of pressure on the filament to send it through!

[JimBoot]

LOL. Well fortunately it's not as frequent over here as it is in Brad's shed. I was just watching a bloke who puts his TPU in a food dehydrator overnight. The results were pretty amazing. Luckily I have one which I usually use for tomatoes. Sounds like it mighht be handy for PLA too.

Have printed all the parts successfully including pulleys for my Z axis synchronisation , Giving it one last shot on the rotor before I do the change.

[Chet K]

http://news.mit.edu/2015/3-d-printing-transparent-glass-0914

[Chet K]

Brad
here it is from a very happy girl in Poland

https://news.yahoo.com/inkjet-solar-panels-poised-revolutionise-green-energy-042525891.html;_ylt=AwrJ7JNJ_Fhc2O0AooNXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyYmMwdHFqBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjY4OThfMQRzZWMDc3I-

[Paul-R]

What does it take to use mild steel filaments?

[JimBoot]

What does it take to use mild steel filaments?

Have not tried with mild steel yet but bronze & iron will print on anything that prints PLA, so most printers.  https://www.proto-pasta.com/products/stainless-steel-pla They are non conductive as basically they're a powered material held in plastic. It allows you to play around with density and infill structures though which is interesting when looking at permeability. The ones I've printed so far remind me of mumetal permeability. No data yet though. I'm trying hexagon infill on the split toroid below. ONe trick I'm trying tonight is sitting the roll of filament on the heatbed at 60deg to make it easier to print.

[Magluvin]

A very nice 3d printed motor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkwLpAAfBVI

Mags

[Reiyuki]

Another way to do custom cores with a 3d printer is to print the core with common filament, use it to create a negative mold in clay/rubber/plaster, then use epoxy resin and with metal powders to get a custom core casting.

Ferrite powder, bismuth, aluminum, nickel, etc.  Any kind of custom core composite could be made this way.

[partzman]

Another nice 3D printed motor using a Halbach array.  This gentleman has the art of 3D printing mastered IMO.  Check out his Utube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsSm65DAcCg

Pm

[Magluvin]

Just got my 3d printer yesterday. Creality Ender 3 pro

Took me 2 hours to put it together following the mostly graphical instructions that came with it, plus an hour of tweeking.


The bed rail rollers were preassembled to the base frame that was together. Had to fiddle with those roller adjustments as the table was very loose.  Some reviewers said they had beds that were up to 1mm lower in the center of the bed than the outer edges and went with glass beds instead. But mine seems quite flat. Has the magnetic flexible bed pad for easy part removal. Not a bad build. Everything seems to be good.  Something to note.  When testing the motors motion manually by hand, dont move them fast, and better yet, just dont plug them in yet. They generate voltage and can hurt the electronics. Read that some time ago. Manually you can move the assy faster than it would normally turn the motor in operation, thus could send way more volts back into the electronics than they were intended to handle.

Was $259 free shipping amazon. 2 day delivery.

Not going to fire it up till tomorrow. 130am. If I do turn it on I might as well stay up all night.    Cant do it. worky.

Mags

[Allcanadian]

Magluvin
3D printers are pretty cool and I use FreeCAd and Repetier-Host for render-printing. I use mine to print PLA coil formers in some pretty complex geometries then pack the core center with a powdered metal/epoxy. I can print coil formers which are darn near impossible to produce any other way. 

Note the segmented form of the former below and I print off each half then glue them together then each whole form can be stacked in series if needed. Which begs the question why this exact form for a coil former. The segmented former dates back to the early 19th century and was used for HV Ruhmkorff Induction Coils. If you google "Induction coil" the picture most likely to be depicted is a Ruhmkorff Coil including the interrupter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_coil

This was the precursor to many other variations including what many call a "Tesla Coil". As well many other inventors started noting anomalies with this setup which then spawned many of the most well known FE devices. Many would do well to go back and research the older technologies which were the basis for many of the devices we see today. These devices did not need electronics to produce the desired effects and in fact electronics become problematic when experimenting.

P.S. I have the STL files however it would not let me upload them here.

Good luck and good printing