jonnybischof

The problem is that the driver ICs which are used in 3D printers (DRV8825 or the Allegro 4899 something) are really just mere "drivers". They drive a motor according to incoming control signals. But they don't care about what actually happens with the motor. This needs to be engineered around the driver IC which just hasn't happened yet. (Or maybe it's about to happen )

I know, but I like Cura

Wieviel spart man denn mit einer 500m Spule gegenüber 5x 100m Rollen? Ich bin eigentlich nicht so der Fan von grossen Spulen, weil das Filament dann tendenziell länger "ungeschützt" offen herumliegt. Kleinere Verpackungsmengen werden auch schneller aufgebraucht und haben somit kürzere Standzeiten. Aber ob das wirklich etwas ausmacht? Bisher hatte ich nie Probleme...

I have the following problem with Cura 14.09.1_RC2: I want to print an object, splitting it into two halves and glueing them together. To do this, I rotate the object and sink it into the bottom half way (cut off object bottom): Now, I need support on the left side of the part, but because there is some material underneath, it won't generate any (support setting: touching build plate only). So, the structures that are not printed because they are sunk into the build plate still count as "in the way" for Cura to generate support. Would be nice to have this corrected. There is a workaround here: just use the "everywhere" support, which works for this part. But generating support everywhere can be an issue on complex parts where you wouldn't want internal supports, but just the ones touching the build plate.

Just some thinking for future developments: Approach #1 to prevent catastrophic print failures like these: AOI - automatic optical inspection. Meaning point a camera on the printer and have a software determine whether everything looks as it should or not. If not - kill the print. Probably very difficult to implement. Or is it? Not my field of expertise... It could even be "easy as pie" with a kinect (and it's software) which does similar things. Approach #2: Keep track of the stepper motor current - if any moving part bumps into something, this will be noticeable in stepper motor current because a stalled stepper wants to draw more current than a moving one. Keyword: Stall detection and / or skipped steps detection Common feature of professional stepper drivers, and maybe not too difficult to integrate into our printer's eletronics. I'm actually working on that, but it will take some time. Spare time is hard to come by these days...

I would make a vise out of PLA for the cfk tubes! Just a tunnel to place the tube in firmly, and a 90° slit to saw through the tube. And probably use a metal saw with fine teeth. If you want to minimize (carcinogenous) dust getting into the air, you can spray water over the stuff regularly. I ordered cfk tubes from robotdigg.com, they're 180mm long which should be just right. I don't really have an idea about the correct length of the effector arms yet. The operating principle is still black magic to me. Trying to draw the effector for my delta printer today, actually...

255°C (or 260°C) shouldn't be that much too hot. I've never had any trouble with XT overheating or so... Did you buy that XT directly from Colorfabb? I mean, are you sure that you are printing actual Colorfabb XT and not some fake material? /edit: By the way, I've noticed that in my case, XT prints best at 40mm/s or a little faster. Going slower actually gives worse results (nozzle heats up the lower layers too much).

What's your heated bed configuration? Temperature, anything added to the glass surface? I'm printing XT directly on my PEI build plate, just need to heat it to ~60°C. Never printed on glass before, but I think you're supposed to use blue tape on the glass plate + heat it.

For those who have already assembled the frame: How sturdy is it? Is there any wobble when you hold the bottom part and wiggle the top? I've seen a Kossel build (must have been some early model) in our local FabLab which uses acrylic parts to hold the profiles together. It's probably the worst construction I've ever seen The 3DR is quite different in that matter - so how well does it do?

Would cost me around 350 EUR to get there :(

You can quite easily determine that: If it runs very hot, it's bad. If not, no problem. Very hot means you can't touch it longer than a second or so. Note that 50-60°C (which is hot, but you can touch it for 1-2 seconds) is normal operating temperature for most power-electronics. /edit: Make sure that you protect yourself against http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrostatic_discharge when you touch the electronics! Discharge your body by touching a grounded piece of metal (like the radiator of a heater, or a metal doorframe, or the metal case of your computer).

There isn't, I already bought all of it and am now printing my evil minion army /edit: Right, contribute something... It's not supposed to be like that, but I kinda liked it Diamond Age Sapphire PLA - just. friggin. awesome. !!! My poor photo quality doesn't do it much justice, but that material really looks good. Btw, it failed because I lowered the bed temperature. It sticks well on my PEI plate at 55°C, but not as much as my last PLA, and it doesn't like lower bed temps it seems.

Habe bezüglich IMPLA / HIPLA einen thread im englischen Bereich aufgemacht: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/7776-diamondage-impla-hipla/

I bought that PLA from qu-bd, straight from the US. Shipping is relatively high, but the prices (and the product) are good. It's called "raven black PLA". Just searched for it, and it seems they don't have that anymore... I'm going for Diamond Age plastics in the future anyways. IMPLA seems to have been a bit of a bad shot, but their normal PLA is simply amazing. The best PLA from Europe that I know of is Faberdashery. Color-wise, they're most likely #1 in the world. It also prints nicely and has good mechanical properties. Not PLA, but I've bought a lot of Colorfabb XT this week. XT transparent is an awesome material for technical stuff (especially printer parts) which needs to be really strong. And now they have colored XT which might just push PLA off the table for me entirely (at least the colors that are available in XT).

I wondered why Rich decided to put the electronics to the top when the motors and the (potential) heated bed are in the bottom. The only thing that needs to be on top are the endstops - and long cables don't matter to the endstops (when done properly). Anyways... keep us posted Something coming from my side in the next few weeks, but it's still too early to brag about it

So.... Have you guys gotten your 3DRs to work yet?

I have an enclosed, heated chamber... UM Black PLA turned out to be as crappy as I feared - the filament snapped somewhere between the spool and the feeder, getting me an unfinished print and another half of a day lost. I'm now printing the part with Diamond Age Sapphire PLA. A small test piece printed as perfectly as I expected, looks even better than I thought and seems to be stable enough. I'll get back to the IMPLA when I have time for it. For now, it goes into the "disappointments" box where it is very dark and lonely o.O

Try 100% infill for XT and printing at high temperature (255°C for me) with low fan speed, looks much better and gets rock solid

I tried 190, 210 and 220°C, all with the same result. The viscosity seems perfectly alright at 190° already, so I doubt printing even hotter than 220°C would make a difference. I have a very weak fan, probably about half as strong as the original one. I can try printing witout the fan, it's a very simple part without overhangs. With every other PLA, I never had problems like these - I always print PLA with 100% fan on and I got very strong prints from it (with ProtoParadigm PLA). But as I need the part asap I had to switch to another PLA by now (UM black, I hope it's worth something...).

Looking for a good printing material for technical prints, I'm trying out DA's IMPLA which is a PLA with an impact modifier additive. There are several differences to regular PLA: 1. instead of breaking, it will deform and turn white when you over-stress (bend) it. It will break at some point, but usually only if you bend it back and forth multiple times. 2. There is a difference when you do post-processing with a surgical blade (scalpel). IMPLA is somewhat softer and more elastic than regular PLA, so you can cut it better. My "first-choice" PLA (ProtoParadigm black) is harder than this IMPLA. So in fact - as long as you don't over-stress the material, that PLA is stronger than IMPLA. I also noticed that IMPLA delaminates very easily (bad layer bonding). I'm probably doing something wrong, but if this problem persists, then I'm actually quite disappointed in IMPLA. Did anyone else here try out IMPLA before? What are your experiences?

Thanks! It's better now, but there are still differences which I consider a regress to 14.07: Same part & settings, top layer. While 14.07 only travels once through the surface, 14.09.1 RC2 needs 3 travels. It's the same through all the top covering layers: 14.07 always needs 1 long travel, 14.09.1 RC2 needs 3 for most of the layers. Funny thing: In one layer, 14.09.1 RC2 doesn't travel through the surface at all, but instead just some small travel segment along the edge. This would make a perfect top layer, but instead it's somewhere in between. But it shows that it would be possible to make clean top surfaces. 14.09 actually gave me a "travel-free" top layer. /edit: I was wrong: 14.07 also sometimes needs more than 1 travel through the part. Seems like before it was a coincidence - I just re-sliced with different wall thickness and infill settings, and now I mostly have "3-travel-layers" again...

I have still not mounted the E3D hotends yet because I've been delayed by manufacturing problems with my Trespa frame panels... It seems machining this material is a lot more demanding than I thought. And at the moment my time is very limited.

Did you try another filament brand? I've noticed that the Colorfabb stuff is rather "gummy" and "stringy", quite a bit different from other PLAs that I've used. I haven't actually had any Colorfabb PLA myself, but I've seen and felt it at our FabLab.

With 1407 at the same height, there are also many travel lines, but not as many and not as long ones. I've just started my first print with 1409 and it really seems there have been major changes to the travel behaviour. My printer "screams" loudly on travel moves (seems like something's going to break soon, but I haven't found the issue yet) which makes me notice that difference in 1409 very much /edit: Here's the problem: For some reason, the head travels along the walls multiple times for no apparent reason. But it still travels diagonally across the print so this accomplishes nothing (again - apparently. Maybe there's some reason for this?). I don't think it ever had to travel diagonally across the print that many times in the previous versions. This gives rather ugly top layers... (I'm not going to use z-hop, my UM is already falling apart as it is.)

Neue Bestellung per Ende Jahr klingt gut - habe letzte Woche endlich meine erste Rolle Diamond Age angebrochen und bin definitiv von dem Material angetan Momentan drucke ich IMPLA, zur Festigkeit kann ich aber noch nicht besonders viel sagen. Es ist definitiv stabil, aber das war auch mein vorheriges Material schon. Werde bei Gelegenheit ein paar Vergleichstests machen. /edit: Interessant... mein erster IMPLA Print (der auch genutzt wird) hat ganz klar ungenügende layer-adhesion gezeigt... Habe eine Schraube reingedreht (mit sehr wenig Drehmoment!) - aufgespaltet entlang der Lagen. Werde die Drucktemperatur erhöhen, obwohl ich das Gefühl hatte, dass das IMPLA bei 210°C bereits eine ideale Viskosität hätte... /edit: 220°C hat keine Verbesserung gebracht... Ich frage mich, was ich da falsch mache. Das Material ist so auf jeden Fall nicht zu gebrauchen.