tomnagel

Feature request: varying layer heights. Try to print the famous owl: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18218 With 0.2mm layer height, most of the owl comes out fine. But the top of the head is not nice. With 0.05mm layer height, the top of the head is beutiful, but the total print takes forever. The user interface for this feature will be tricky though...

>>What you need is extra shielding. I do not agree. What UM needs to do is design proper electronics. But thanks anyway. Knowing that the windows drivers handle this badly, is there no workaround for this? I mean, the host software must notice that something is wrong?

I never touch the z-limit switch. Due to wood changing with the climate, the table needs to be tuned every now and then. I use the 4 screws on the bed for that. Just manually turn the z-screw until you hear the click of the switch. Then move your head to all 4 corners, and turn the adjustment screw so that the head just touches the papersheet.

Can you show us with pictures? It's nice to have some sort of reference, to be able to recognise the effect.

In shini.com/ep_edm/en/contect.php?e_id=18&ID=246&flag=1 I read that the moisture content of PLA must be kept low. From work, I know that plastic granulate used for injection moulding must be kept dry. I think the equipment manufacturer that wrote the page mentioned above is referring to the use of PLA for injection moulding. But has anyone experimented with dry or not-dry PLA for a 3D printer? Does it matter? On thingiverse, I found someone who made a special box from which the PLA goes into the printer. (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:52873). Would that do any good? And dear forum member: how do you store your PLA rolls?

Every now and then my printer stops printing when I switch on a halogen lamp on my desk. I got myself a new power supply, and thought the problems would be over (hypothesis was that some voltage dip on the mains power caused this), but they are not. Anyway, the strange thing is that Cura/printrun does not notice this. It still says Machine state: printing. Only when I switch off the printer, it notices somethink is wrong, and the "error log" button appears. I was wondering: where is this error log file stored during normal printing? Is it kept in memory? I cannot find any *.log files in the Cura folders. I'd like to look at this log, maybe I can learn something from it.

It is possible to place the object anywhere with the settings on the 2nd tab: Advanced Config. Machine Center X and Y determine where the object is placed relative to your table. X=100 and Y=100 is approximately the middle of the bed. By the way: your object is very small. The sqares in the figure are 10x10mm

Every now and then the printer stops in the very beginning of a print. Anybody got a clue? My Error log: Changing monitoring state from 'Operational' to 'Printing' Send: N0M110*3 Send: N1M92 E824.650000*79 Send: N2M109 S205.000000*99 Send: N3G21*57 Send: N4G90*52 Send: N5M107*0 Recv: ok Send: N5M107*0 Recv: ok Send: N6G28 X0 Y0*52 Serial timeout while writing to serial port, trying again. Recv: T:210.8 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.9 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.7 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.6 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.5 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.4 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.4 E:0 W:? Recv: T:210.0 E:0 W:? Recv: T:209.9 E:0 W:? Recv: T:209.5 E:0 W:? Recv: T:209.1 E:0 W:? Recv: T:209.0 E:0 W:? Recv: T:208.5 E:0 W:? Recv: T:208.0 E:0 W:? Recv: T:207.9 E:0 W:? Recv: T:207.4 E:0 W:? Recv: T:207.0 E:0 W:? Recv: T:206.5 E:0 W:? Recv: T:206.1 E:0 W:? Recv: T:205.6 E:0 W:4 Recv: T:205.1 E:0 W:3 Recv: T:204.7 E:0 W:2 Recv: T:204.1 E:0 W:1 Recv: T:203.7 E:0 W:0 Recv: ok Send: M105 Recv: Error:Line Number is not Last Line Number+1, Last Line:5 Recv: Resend:6 Recv: ok Send: M105 Recv: ok Send: M105 Recv: ok Send: M105 Recv: ok Send: M105 Recv: ok T:203.6 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:42 Send: N6G28 X0 Y0*52 Recv: ok T:203.6 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:42 Send: N7G28 Z0*126 Recv: ok T:203.6 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:42 Send: N8G92 X0 Y0 Z0 E0*36 Recv: ok T:203.6 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:42 Send: N9G1 Z15.0 F180*62 Recv: ok T:203.6 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:42 Send: N10G92 E0*86 Recv: ok Send: M105 Recv: ok Send: N11G1 F200 E3*58 Communication timeout during printing, forcing a line Send: M105 Recv: ok Send: N12G92 E0*84 Recv: ok Send: N13G1 F12000*111 Recv: ok Send: N14G1 X95.525 Y132.084 Z0.3 F12000.0*18 Recv: ok Send: N15G1 F4200.0*66 Recv: ok T:201.2 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:66 Send: N16G1 E4.5*117 Recv: ok Send: N17G1 F12000.0*117 Recv: ok T:201.2 /205.0 B:0.0 /0.0 @:66 Send: N18G1 X96.107 Y135.953 Z0.3 F1200.0 E4.5953*88 Recv: ok Send: N19G1 X97.847 Y142.587 E4.7624*113 Recv: ok Send: N20G1 X103.088 Y151.648 E5.0174*74 Recv: ok Send: N21G1 X111.366 Y159.097 E5.2887*64 Recv: ok Send: N22G1 X114.636 Y160.825 E5.3788*76 Recv: ok Send: N23G1 X120.947 Y163.336 E5.5442*74 Recv: ok Send: N24G1 X123.529 Y163.949 E5.6089*72 Recv: ok Send: N25G1 X134.173 Y164.336 E5.8683*67 Recv: ok Send: N26G1 X142.189 Y162.323 E6.0697*72 Recv: ok Send: N27G1 X144.913 Y161.137 E6.142*127 Recv: ok Send: N28G1 X151.3 Y157.138 E6.3256*67 Recv: ok Send: N29G1 X153.719 Y155.13 E6.4022*112 Recv: ok Send: N30G1 X159.006 Y148.791 E6.6033*72 Recv: ok Send: N31G1 X163.245 Y139.333 E6.8557*70 Recv: ok Send: N32G1 X163.934 Y136.581 E6.9249*65 Recv: Error:No Checksum with line number, Last Line:26 Changing monitoring state from 'Printing' to 'Error: No Checksum with lin...' Recv: Resend:27 Recv: ok Recv: Error:Line Number is not Last Line Number+1, Last Line:26 Recv: Resend:27 Recv: ok

I'd say there's not enough plastic coming from your nozzle. What filament drive mechanism do you have? Maybe it slips. have you tried tightening it? I think your temperature is rather high, most values I see here in this forum are between 200 and 220.

So the disturbance is related to the heater being on and off. I must agree with Daid about a loose wire ,or bad connection. You say you checked the wires. Did you really unplug/plug the wires, and unscrewed/screwed all wires? Do you have a volt meter? I would measure the voltage between pen 3 (gnd) and pen 1 (V_out) on the small thermocouple board. Do you see the same variations there? (The AD597 chip that is used to amplify the thermocouple readings will give an analog voltage change of 0.3V in case of a temperature change of 30degrees. This is perfectly measurable with a normal voltmeter.)

An interesting problem, very annoying of course. Maybe there is crosstalk between the heater and the temperature sensor. When the heater switches on, the temperature measurement is affected upwards. What happens when you heat it up to about 200-230 degrees, and then lower the setpoint to 0? The result will be that the heater switches off and stays off. It'll be interesting to see whether the "measurement disturbance" is still there or not. By the way, are the schematic drawings of the electronic circuits available somewhere? Anyone?

To experiment with this, I think you can manually add commands to the Gcode file. By heart, I think M104 S210 sets the temperature to 210 degrees. I've never tried it though.

Wouldn't it be possible to filter out these movements? Thinking out loud: if I would make a program that reads all the gcode, and filters out sections with multiple movements without extrusion, would that be a solution?

Here the printed result (left). I sliced the same block with Kisslicer (right) and there is no useless movement, and no disturbance in this area.

I downloaded a calibration block from Thinverse (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5683), and sliced with Cura. During printing, I see that a few of the thin walls insde the object are messed up by the head, making all kind of useless movements above them. In the gcode view this is visible in the blue lines. I noticed this also in other prints, especially with thin walls. I notice in the picture, that the useless movements only occur around these walls. Is there some setting that prevents these movements? Tips, anyone?

please also look to the questions in my other post: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2355 This posting was done by accident.

In some print I noticed that if I increase the speed, wall thickness seems to go down. That can have more than one cause. So I set out and do some tests. I print a simple hollow cylinder which is single walled. I set wall thickness to 0.5mm. I vary speed (mm/s) and layer height (mm), and measure wall thickness with a digital caliper. To have a smooth wall, I turn on the "Joris" option, so that the z increases steadily during the print. speed, layer->wall thicknessAt 205 degrees 215 degrees 50, 0.1 -> 0.48 50, 0.1 -> 0.53 50, 0.2 -> 0.44 50, 0.2 -> 0.53 100, 0.2 -> 0.28 100, 0.2 -> 0.35 So it is clear that the more the extruder has to spit out (mm3/sec), the thinner the wall becomes If I increase the temperature, this effect becomes less. I my view, temperature should not influence the amount of plastic that is extruded. So what is wrong? My current hypothesis is that my filament drive is slipping, due to the force needed to press the filament into the extruder head. My UM is from september 2012, and came (I think) with the latest knurled bolt. I have a self built "Bertho" drive. Since I have no real info on needed force, I just used a spring I could find at work. The slipping is subtle, there is a clear trend in the figures. Before I start a big investigation in this, a few questions: * With what force should the filament be pressed into the knurled bolt? * Is a perfect press force a gurantee for no slipping? * Or is there always a relation between drive force and drive length? I think for perfect volumetric extrusion, there should be no such relation.

I redesigned my object, so there are no longer single walled parts. That did the trick for me, but at the cost of more plastic.

In the preferences window of Cura, I can set the steps per e. since command for extrusion of 100mm leads to 105mm filament, I want to adapt that figure. But how does that figure end up in the UM? What if I slice with Kisslicer, and print with printrun? I checked this during printing with M501 (by heart), and I saw the default value for steps per e. Another question: I wanted to do the calibration of steps per e, and started the procedure for the first time checks of UM, as I believe it was in there. But is was not, it is able to flash the firmware (skipped that) and it tested all end switches. But no steps per e procedure. I did it with manual commands in the printrun terminal (G1 E100), but that is kind of a difficult procedure (also needed to override cold extrusion). Where is the steps per e procedure?

The rough bed below your object is called a raft. People use it as a good sticky basis, but with PLA and the blue UM tape this does not seem necessary anymore. I'm curious about the lines in your object. I suppose they should not be there? I get those with some of my Sketchup models. I've been told Sketchup is not very accurate, which causes 'holes' in the model. The slicer can sometimes not cope with that, with these strange lines as a result. BUT: the good new is that you can see this before actually printing. Above the model view are a few buttons, one gives a code view, in which you can see every movement that the printer will do, color coded (walls, infill, move only etc.). The faulty lines will be visible in that view.

I'm always in for improvements, but why would a DC extruder drive be an improvement? You mention weight, but since the extruder is mounted on the frame, what drawback do you see for 500g extra? On top of that, an accurate DC drive with encoder feedback requires quite some processor resources (high controller loop freqency (500Hz?)). Therefore, I think the choice for steppers is a good one.

Please note that the blue lines are movements from the extruder head which are not supposed to yield any extrusion. So "transport only".

I'm pretty sure this is not the same. I had the same with another version of my spice jar holder, where the wall of the rings was so thin it only contained 1extrusion. After I printed this, I had *exacly* the same effect. Later I noticed that I could have seen this in Cura before printing: there are lot of blue lines right around the rings. When the head moves along these line, there is little extrusion, causing the rough outside. I bet that the model you are showing in your photo also has these blue lines in Cura. The model that I started this thread with, does not have these blue lines, the rough effect happens during printing. Maybe the cause can be found in the Gcode file, but I have not yet studied it. I will send it to you.

Yes, running stepper motor wires next to sensor wires can lead to problems. But a decent filtering on the control board should not lead to actual problems. A simple RC filter is enough, certainly for an end stop signal. Siert, are you reading this

Would it help to give you the gcode file? Because something must be happening there? I mean, I find it hard to believe that the nozzle is running at one speed, with constant extrusion.