mm_build

Ownen, if you go into window>model info you can change the displayed precision, so instead of ~3.4 it will actually show 3.45 or even 3.454. I know there are instances where it "works" when you have lines close together, but I have encountered many reproducable instances where it does not, (under the Architechtural Millimetres template anyway, have not been using any others) The smooth surface you see on a many-sided sided polygon is actually an illusion. You can go to view>show hidden geometry to see the individual lines that make up the polygon. I have found that when selecting a "circle" to draw, the geometry is hidden by default, whereas the same shape when selecting draw>polygon the geometry will be visible no matter how many sides. One more useful tool is the "K" keyboard shortcut (view>edge style>back edges) which shows backfaces, basically gives you a see-thru version of your model.

Alright, so maybe I just needed to complain about it. I scaled my models up by 10x, and magically the holes disappeared when intersecting. I did read somewhere that sketchup did not like working with small mm dimensions, and lo and behold it is true. I have no idea why the program thinks it matters what the "actual" size something is, it's just numbers in virtual space. Not sure if this fixes the lines moving by themselves problem as well, I also disabled line snapping and I am hopeful. Also, the camera "control" in sketchup is maddening, it seems like the camera is always getting caught on something and refuses to zoom, then suddenly breaks through and ends up so far away that your model is just a speck in the distance. Also when you rotate the view it doesn't rotate in one spot as you would expect, it swivels your perspective along some imaginary track that is centred around ??? I don't know what, some arbitarty distance in front of you. Really fun when trying to manoeuvre inside tight quarters and your camera keeps getting kicked out sideways. Enough ranting though, I feel kind of bad moving to a new program after spending so long learning the tricks in sketchup. I don't think I will abandon it altogether, but I do want to give 123d a fair try.

I've been using Sketchup for a few months now, just long enough to be super frustrated with it. There are too many limitations, the lines love to move all by themselves when another line is too close, and intersecting models with a lot of detail always just turns into a giant mess. I'm not wasting my time with it any more, so good timing on this thread. I am going to try 123D, will report in a future update of how things went.

Seems like the spammers all love taking apart their fan! coofercat I actually did use this instruction btw, the bit about the white clip was useful since I've never taken a fan apart before. Thanks for sharing this nice detail!

If you're talking about something that's already been printed, then yes you could still print on top of it in a different colour. I believe the people who print in multiple colours like to feed a new stock in while the machine is running, there is some method or another to calculate how many mm of filament you will use to a certain height in the model. But if that seems too hard you could also finish printing your cube, then print a different model on top of it as long as you start at the height the last model left off. There is a setting (bottom) in skeinforge for that. You would likely want to manually purge the nozzle, should be fairly easy as long as you don't bump your first print and knock it out of alignment. If it's an old print that you one day decided you want to print on top of, you could still do it by tracing the outline of the print in PLA (just re-start the print and stop it after the first perimeter), and use some double sided tape to stick your model back down into position. [edit] if there is not enough surface area on the bottom or the tape is too weak you could also dab a bit of glue to make it work, Just sayin, where there is a will there is a way

Hey, that is pretty slick! Any chance of including acceleration and jerk? PS, curious about the default values you have there as they differ from default Marlin

2.3 KG lasts me about 3-4 months. Have not done any additional calculations

I'm just going to say that a few people have found pauses in with the latest Marlin, while older versions did not have them. I'm not pointing fingers but just sayin since I started using printrun/pronterface the pauses have disappeared. I really like ReplicatorG for scaling and positioning .stl models, sometimes you need it when a model is too high or turned on its side or something. Other than that printrun/pronterface is basically the same. Also in case its not explicit, you must use v.22 of arduino software to compile/upload the Marlin firmware, other versions will not work. PS, upgrade to Marlin you wont regret it.

I think this is what you want SENDING:M302 S190 echo: Auto tuning PID values... echo: Please keep watch over your printer and be ready to shut it down if it acts strangely. echo: Discovering what controller output is required to reach 190C . . . echo: Highest temp: 275 echo: Temperature stabilised at: 134.28 (CO: 55) . . . echo: Highest temp: 312 echo: Temperature stabilised at: 151.86 (CO: 65) . . . echo: Highest temp: 347 echo: Temperature stabilised at: 169.43 (CO: 75) . . . echo: Highest temp: 381 echo: Temperature stabilised at: 186.04 (CO: 85) . . . echo: Highest temp: 416 echo: Temperature stabilised at: 202.64 (CO: 95) echo: Attempting to establish ambient temperature . . . echo: Lowest temp: 66 echo: Room temperature: 32.23C, raw: 66 echo: Determining base tuning constants. echo: Heating printer. Heater pin set to 95 echo: Process dead time: 16.00s echo: startMillis: 4359966 . . . echo: Highest temp: 412 echo: Final temperature: 201.17 echo: 63% PV: 259.56 echo: PV: 412 5301439ms . . . echo: PV: 255 4540238ms echo: Process time: 4547.25s echo: echo: Process gain: 3.00 (deltaPV: 346) echo: Computed values: echo: Kp: 3.000000000 echo: Tc: 4547.253417968 echo: Ti: 4555.253417968 echo: Td: 7.985950469 echo: Calculated P:332.748962402 ,I: 0.073047294, D:2657.316650390 A:998.25 echo: echo: WARNING! PID settings were merely computed. To use them, please enter the following command: echo: M301 P332.748962402 I0.073047294 D2657.316650390 A998.246826171

That was the problem, thank you!

Recently upgraded to some beefier steppers which also have half the step size. Default steppers run 1.8 degrees per step, my new ones run .9 degrees. I adjusted the values in configuration.h, and everything seems to do as I expected. The X, Y and Z seem to all have scaled properly. The problem is that the extruder is only putting out half the needed volume, and no matter what number I punch into the setting, it doesn't seem to have any effect. Can someone please tell me what I am missing?

UPDATE** So I pulled the acme screw out to clean it and test for any bends, I put it on a level surface and rolled it along, could not detect even the slightest bend in the rod. So the rod is straight, but what I did notice was that the rod was not properly seated in its aluminum holder. It is even visible in the picture I posted above, the small part of the rod is showing about half-way out the top. I must have had the worm gears too tight when first placing the rod in, and so it stopped half-way and that is where I tightened it. The movement at the top of the rod must have been from it sitting in the holder at a slight angle. So I re-seated the rod and re-tightened it, did my test again and the z-wobble is greatly improved. I will not say it is completely eliminated because I can still see slight inconsistencies in the layers which are proportional to the threads in the z screw. I can no longer detect any movement at the top of the rod with my eye, so whatever is going on is really microscopic, but when we are printing we are dealing with sub-millimetres anyway. I am not going to pursue this issue any further at this point since it is improved enough for my liking, but future things one might consider to reduce z-wobble are: A deeper seat with tighter tolerances for the z-spindle; A brace for the z-spindle at the top and bottom of the machine; and The Z motor being directly attached to some solid metal framework that also houses the Z axis rods and spindle. Currently the Z motor is fastened to the wood frame which although fairly straight it could introduce some slight deviation.

Sounds like nozzle too low to print bed, and/or too much flow of plastic. What is your speed/flow?

Yes, the screw is clean and well lubed. I looked into this "Z Wobble" issue a little more, apparently in other types of machines it has been reduced by bracing both ends of the z-spindle. I looked at the top of the z-spindle while jogging the machine and saw an ever so slight wobble at the top of the rod. It's hard to believe this tiny movement could affect the result of the print, but I guess it can. I don't know how much bracing the top will help, since it seems there must be a slight bow in the rod for this to happen. If the rod has a slight bend no amount of bracing will eliminate the wobble. I doubt this is something specific to my machine. I really didn't notice it until making tall thing-walled prints. If I leave some G-code here, would anyone be kind enough to try it on their machine and post the results? Here is a print of a triangle with a 15mm radius, 45mm high, and .5mm side-wall. Kind of hard to see but without the camera the lines are more obvious. Up close you can actually see some rippling along the corners This is printed at .25mm layer height, 40mm/sec, 240C, (1.4w/t) G-code Here .stl Here

I had a similar problem when first starting. The first thing wrong was there were two different bolts that come with the Ultimaker, one has small teeth and the other has large teeth. The large toothed bolt is the upgrade and works much better. Switching from the small toothed bolt made a big difference. The second thing I was doing wrong had something to do with the way the extruder was bolted together. Basically I think it was too tight, and one of the screw heads was rubbing against the inside of the wooden gear. It didn't rub when the machine was off only when under load, so you might want to check that there isn't a mark behind the gear from it rubbing. The other thing is, the wooden gear can really be very loose and it doesn't hurt anything. From left to right I have: capped nut > regular nut (the one the wood gear is on) > washer > washer I have 4mm of gap between the wooden gear and the rest of the extruder, there is quite a bit of play. I haven't had an extruder issue for months and months. *PS the pressure on the locking mechanism to hold the filament can be quite firm.

This is not a terrible issue, more of a curiosity at this point. I noticed that when printing a thin wall, there are visible inconsistencies in the appearance, it almost looks like ripples. I lined them up with the threaded acme rod - and they are a match. Any guess how the threaded rod could be imprinting itself in this way? Has anyone else has noticed this?

Just an update, I figured out that unchecking "Infill in direction of bridge" solved the issue with parallel infill layers. The funny thing is, using Skeinforge 44 and earlier it makes no difference on this same model (pirate ship). So, something is a little different under the hood. Cheers

I have been having some problems with Skeinforge 45. The bottom layers of infill are all parallel, and it is causing curling. Don't know why this is happening. I have some really great anticipations for the new "Smooth" setting, but unfortunately I cannot use it at this point because the parallel infill is too troublesome.

Yes, of course I have been very happy with how skeinforge calculates flow with version 40+, for the most part I simply leave flow and feed the same and it all seems to work out. I have had some good results increasing the flow by about 10% over the feed, but again my steppers sometimes have a hard time with all the excess plastic and I am slightly obsessed with getting completely solid filled layers. Yes but, as I was trying to say, I don't think this actually means my threads are that narrow. It just means skeinforge is going to try and put another thread that close to the last one, because it thinks the threads are that narrow, (because that's what I told it). Actually I'm pretty sure my threads are quite a bit wider, but I'm pressing them together intentionally to get maximum infill. Also I still print at 240, I didn't like the results with lower temperatures and transparent PLA.

It's worth noting that changing your W/T doesn't specifically change your actual thread width, it just tells the machine what to "expect" as the thread width, and then it creates lines closer or farther apart based on that expectation. Printing at .2mm I find a W/T of about 1.3 is as far as I can push it down. I get better cleaner (more transparent) prints with lower W/T but sometimes run into problems with skipping and too much filament being pushed together in the layers. For now I'm using 1.4 but once I have stronger motors I am planning on pushing back down to 1.3.

Great Information! It looks like all the steppers used for these sorts of projects are about 2.8V, with the amperage increasing with the torque. I wonder if it would be worth it to explore using a higher voltage/lower amp motor? There are also some of these for sale. The better steppers being used for upgrades appear to all have a torque of about 44, expressed in either g/cm or Ncm. For anyone interested here is an good link for converting torque to a different scale. http://www.numberfactory.com/nf_torque.html There are some heavier motors with holding torque as high as 65 or 80, but be cautious of the overall length which increases with more torque. There is only so much room in the ultimaker for the X and Y steppers (about 55mm or a little more), the motors at ~44Ncm seem to all have a length under 50mm so should be a safe bet. Let us know how your upgrade turned out, Cheers!

I want to upgrade the stepper motors on my Ultimaker, but I don't know what I should be looking for. I know the form factor is NEMA 17, which has a 42mmx42mm housing, but there seems to be quite a lot of variety. I would just purchase the ones from Ultimachine as I have heard people recommend, but I have been watching their space for a while now and they are never in stock, so I would like to source my own. Can anyone say what sort of specs I should be looking for? 1. Type (pretty sure they are Bipolar, Hybrid) 2. Holding Torque (Length of my current motors are ~33mm, which compared to other similar sized motors should give it a torque between 16 and 22 Ncm, I'm guessing I want higher than that) 3. Voltage/Amperage (The motors on Ultimachine.com are rated at 4.2V, 1.5A, are there any voltages/amperages that should be avoided? What is the hardware capable of putting out?) 4. Resistance (Ultimachine = 2.8 ohm) 5. Inductance (Ultimachine = 4.8 Mh) 6. Other? Thanks

If you want to just do a test extrusion, try pasting this g code into repG (copied and pasted from another topic, thanks Florian) G92 E0 (zero the extruded length) G1 E1500 F1000 (extrudes some filament) [You can leave the comments in, increase F to F2000 if you want to double the speed. Set E1500 to E3000 to extrude double the length]

Don't know how else to ask this. When using Skeinforge, the biggest bottleneck seems to be the unnecessary jumps it makes while creating infill. It will start to fill in a layer, then jump randomly to the middle, do a few lines, then jump ahead and do a few lines, then jump back... basically it's jumping all over the place all the time when creating infill and it creates a lot of opportunity for inconsistent adhesion... especially at lower layer heights. So my question is, is it worth it to upgrade to netfabb? this is my number one issue and greatest frustration with skeinforge at the moment, and if I shelled out dollars to netfabb only to find the same thing, I would not be very happy, because for the most part I have tweaked skeinforge enough that I am otherwise happy with it. I know there are settings I can change in skeinforge that will change the amount of jumps and where they occur, but it seems to be totally random. If I was paying skeinforge to mow my lawn, it would be constantly turning off the mower and dragging it to another area for no reason and restarting it... and I would have to fire it. :(