GregValiant
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Posts posted by GregValiant
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I just came across this site "widgetsupply.com" . I don't know anything about them but they carry a lot of hobby tools and stuff.
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That's why it's orange then. The recommended Max layer height for a .4 nozzle is .32.
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It depends a lot on the printer and firmware. Sometimes allowing the build plate to cool off will pop a print off. Once its location is lost, all is lost. It's the same with the stepper motors losing position. You didn't mention your printer and I don't know about the Ultimaker models, but on my Ender, the maximum time I can enter for the stepper motor disarm is 3 hours. After that the steppers lose their position. If that happens then a homing move is required. Sometimes the print is in the way and it can't be done. Even if the print isn't in the way, the end-stop switches on my printer aren't consistent regarding the exact stop point so a small layer shift (up to .5mm) can occur. If I pause a print to change filament I really don't like to have to Home the print head.
With the disclaimers out of the way...depending on your printer and how the firmware is configured, you can pause the print and then adjust the bed temp back to what it was during the print. That at least eliminates one possible failure mode. The whole process really has to be practiced so you know what you are doing and how to overcome any hardware/firmware constraints. On some printers all you have to do is shut the machine off and sleep with your fingers crossed. When you get up in the morning turn the printer on and it asks you to resume the print. If the print didn't move on the build plate it should just go back to work. Shutting off while it's printing support is the best situation with infill being second.
Print a calibration cube and after the first few layers are down practice different methods of pausing and restarting. No matter how you do it - if the nozzle stays in contact with the print it will leave a divot and may glue itself to the print. Re-starting like that would be a bad thing.
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Having an Exacto modeling knife, small putty knife/scraper, micro-files (sometimes called needle files), a pick set (like dental tools), sandpaper of various grits, long-nose tweezers, a small pair of side-cutters (nippers), needle nose pliers, etc., can make life a lot easier when it's time to remove supports and clean up a print.
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Red means illegal. I think orange is legal but "not recommended" or "beyond calculated value" or "do you really want to do this?". If you are running a 0.6 nozzle and want that initial layer height at .666, then yeah, it's going to turn orange. If you make the layer height 0 it will turn red.
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Glad to have been some help. By the way, the "speed factor" in the plugin refers to the time difference that might exist between what Cura says a print will take, and how long it actually takes. It's a percentage based calculation. If the Time line in a Cura gcode file (second line) says 34222 (seconds), and it actually takes exactly 10 hours to print (36000 seconds), then 34222/36000 = 0.95. That is the speed factor for that print. You would want a fair sampling of print times to come up with a good average for the "offage" and enter that average as the Speed Factor.
My thanks to Louis Wooters for writing ShowProgress.Py.
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For more joy...
The next thing is a problem between the 4.2.2, 4.2.7 mainboards the the TFT screens. M0 (used in the Pause at Height plugin), M1, and M117 don't work (on some) because they send text messages to the screen. Once again it's a Creality issue. There was a post here and the OP said he installed a different firmware flavor and the commands started working. Then he disappeared without telling anyone what flavor it was. The folks at Marlin aren't happy with Creality and won't discuss it. I hit a dead end there and lost interest.
I was considering a 2-in-1-out shared heater hot end. I'm going to pass. I would have to change mainboards and firmware and it just sounds like a headache.
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4 hours ago, ScoutParamotor said:
... very disappointing
If the firmware doesn't understand arc moves then any G2 or G3 commands are ignored by the printer. The printer then cycles through the gcode file until it finds a line that it understands. Extrusion jumps to a new value and causes massive over-extrusion along a line that shouldn't have been connected in the first place, and in fact may be at a significantly different Z elevation.
My Ender 3 Pro with Marlin 1.1.8 understands G2 and G3. It sees this Arc Welder gcode file like this.
A printer that doesn't understand G2/G3 sees the same gcode file like this.
It would be a mess. If you don't understand your printer/firmware capabilities you will often be disappointed, or even worse, surprised.
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In the year or so that I've been hanging around here I've developed some feel for the people involved in the work on Cura. I'm sure that some would be able to give you guidance into what the thoughts were behind the software design. Whether or not they have the time (or inclination) is another thing. The Cura Team is heavily involved in the new Arachne version along with maintenance and support of the current and past versions. Additionally I believe most are Ultimaker employees which will no doubt have some political implications regarding how they spend their time and what they give away for free.
Firmware design, mainboard design, and the physical design of your machine, are other things you have no doubt considered. It would appear to be a fusion between FFF/FDM gcode generation and translation and CNC gcode generation and translation. I would call it an ambitious endeavor.
I know some of these are directly involved in the Cura Team at Ultimaker. In no particular order - @ghostkeeper, @nallath, @fvrmr, @rburema, @SandervG and @ahoeben at FieldOfView. In addition @burtoogle (@smartavionics on GitHub) has his own thing going with Cura itself. I hope none take offense that I've included their handles here (and that none I've left out take offense).
As for me...I know just enough about this stuff to hurt myself.
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When designing scale models you must keep in mind that detail will be lost. When designing scale models for FDM more detail is lost as the printer isn't scaling smaller. There is a point at which a detail disappears from the preview screen because the printer is physically incapable of printing it.
I mention all of that because a primary design constraint must always be the fact that the part will be FDM printed and the printers are good, but they don't scale downward beyond going to a smaller nozzle. Keep it simple and your success rate will be high.
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Tree supports are an option under Support - it's the second setting down "Support Structure" - Normal or Tree.
Cura automatically adds the M140 line to heat the bed and then M190 that means "wait for bed temp". Those are followed by M104 hot end temp and M190 "wait for hot end". Cura purposely staggers the heating because some printers can't handle the power draw of heating both at the same time.
If you put them into your start Gcode (after the G28) you can alter the order and whether to wait or not. The words in the curly brackets are Cura keywords and Cura will fill in the settings. You would need to make a decision about auto-leveling if you have it.
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating the bed
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for bed
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating the Hot end
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for hot end
Changing them around like this is quicker if you have an Ender 3 Pro or something with an equivalent power supply.
M104 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating the Hot end
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Start heating the bed
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for hot end
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;Wait for bed
In the second example, if you put a semi-colon in front of the M190 line then you won't have to wait for the bed to heat up. That's OK for PLA but for PETG where the bed needs to be 80 or 85 degrees, you really want it to be up to temp before printing starts.
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It looks good to me, but what I don't know about Python fills libraries.
Did you try leaving a message on Brad Fetts GitHub site?
Were you able to add a second extruder in the Machine Settings / PrintHead Settings / Number of Extruders?
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@gr5 - I think he means the tall vertical supports that are trying to get to the upper triangles.
That is an extremely tough model to print. The thin walls mean that there will be bridging on all the triangles that have a flat edge on top. Those flat areas are on a curve. With nothing to press against - the plastic will come out of the nozzle and stay in a straight line until it crosses the gap. That will be true even with perfect supports as there has to be some gap or the supports become part of the print. The thin walls mean that any support that gets built in the gap of a triangle will likely fall out and fail.
I would suggest using "Normal" support "Touching Build Plate" and allow the bridges to form across the gaps on all the triangle features while supporting the convex bottom. A couple of layers above the triangles the print will straighten itself out again and resume the curve.
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There are an amazing number of errors in that model. At almost every interface between the various parts, there is no connection. Even within some parts the pieces do not actually connect. You will need to go back to SolidWorks and properly merge all the pieces into a single solid. I would suggest that all the pieces be solid - no pipes. Just solid rods and sub-details.
In the Cura X-ray view the problem areas are apparent.
That is why it slices so poorly. You can see the dis-connects throughout the model. The near pipe only slices the top half. That infers that some surfaces are flipped the wrong way.
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I think the retraction occurs while the nozzle is still in contact with the part. Moving 30mm takes a bit of time so you get a deformed area. You could try setting the Initial Retraction distance to 2 or 3 or even 0. It would end much quicker and the print head would go to the location without spending so much time in contact with the print.
You can also try using Pause at Height instead. It's slightly different but I like it for filament changes because I can set the stepper disarm timeout to 1800 seconds (30 minutes) which I find to be much better than the 2 minutes that it usually is. I don't use the initial retraction at all. On the restart I just pull about 3mm of filament back after pushing enough by hand to change colors. That keeps it from leaving a blob on the restart.
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I think this is what you want HERE.
You copy and paste a bunch of lines from the log file (that you download), and paste it into your Machine Settings End-Gcode. It's an older file and you might have to cross-reference the keywords to make sure they are all included and that none have been deprecated (they are HERE). The plan is that when you generate a gcode file all the keywords get replaced by the actual values from the settings in Cura. I haven't used it (too much information) but it looks like it would be laid out nice and neat without all the newline characters that are in the partial current Cura settings at the end of a file.
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#2 is getting the first layer down. It's the base for the rest of the print. @gr5 is a moderator here and put together a nice video on bed adhesion. It's a tad long and you might want to make some popcorn, but it covers a lot of material.
CHEP videos (Filament Fridays) on YouTube are pretty good. He's kind of Creality centric, but a lot of the material crosses over to different machines very well.
#3 Print. The best way to get going is to make mistakes and learn to trouble-shoot. Most of the stuff people call upgrades are just bling for the printer BUT you're printing and learning.
#4 Practice disaster recovery. Emergency pauses can save a print, but you need a plan. If a print is looking bad, instead of simply aborting and starting over, use it for a bit of practice. Pause, do a hot pull of the filament, re-feed it and restart the print. It can't hurt - the print was junk anyway.
#5 The machine uses Firmware as an operating system. The slicing software resides on your computer. A GCODE file goes between the two. Spend some time going over the various gcode commands at Marlin or RepRap just to have some idea of what you are looking at in a gcode file.
#1 Put the machine together square where required and parallel where required. Put it on a nice solid surface. Calibrate the E-steps. Check everything on it. Tighten screws and nuts and belts. That gives the printer it's best chance to make good parts for you. Just because some (or all) of it came pre-assembled doesn't mean it's right.
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Reflowfilament.com? "recycled from the Benelux region"
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I've never seen those before. For support you will have to go to QIDI or maybe Flashforge.
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Both the LotMaxx version and the Cura version have definition files for your printer (the file name is the same "lotmaxx_sc60.def.json"). The definitions are slightly different. In the Cura version the printer name is "Lotmaxx Shark" and in the LotMaxx version the printer name is "Lotmaxx SC-10 Shark". There are a couple of other subtle differences and a couple of added settings. The physical size of the printer is the same in both definitions.
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The firmware flavor is important as the different flavors may have commands that only they use. I believe your gcode flavor should be set to Makerbot. You need to check the QIDI site to make sure.
As to which Start-Gcode applies: The regular Start-Up gcode lines get entered at the beginning of the Gcode file. The extruder gcode lines get inserted every time that extruder gets activated. That makes them extruder specific. You can test by entering these for the appropriate extruder and then creating a gcode file that uses both extruders. Open the gcode in Notepad and then search for M117. It should be in there multiple times.
;Start Extruder 1
M117 Ext 1
;End Ext 1
;Start Extruder 2
M117 Ext 2
;End Ext 2
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I make no recommendation. It is my sincere belief that when I tell the printer to extrude 100mm of filament, and 100mm of filament gets extruded, that my flow calibration is both complete and sufficient. If filament diameter varies (and I do check it) then I might revisit the calibration or adjust the material diameter setting in Cura.
Consider that if 1 filament is 1.75mm diameter and the second is 1.73mm diameter and I don't re-calibrate (or make the adjustment to the Material Setting) for the second, I will under-extrude by 2.25%. For me, that is easily adjusted (using my finely calibrated Mark I eyeball) by kicking the flow up during the print. In my End-Gcode in Cura, I have M221 S100 to re-set the global flow rate. There is also an M220 S100 to adjust the feed rate just in case I made a change during the print.
Consider a single line of extrusion. It isn't trapped on either side and is free to flow where it wants. Is that the usual real world scenario? Is the resultant width of a single-line wall a number I want to calibrate too? In vase mode (always single wall) I usually push the .4 nozzle at .6 line width. The resultant print is stronger because the flow is higher and the wall is thicker. It's a personal preference for that single scenario.
A dual wall cube has 1 index move (the line width) of the nozzle. The outside edges are free to flow and the measured width is a function of not just E-steps, but also the line width. I have to ask myself again, do I need to calibrate the Flow volume to the wall width? Should I consider a shrinkage factor? Should I re-calibrate every time I change filament spools? I voted no to all of that.
I got into this to print things.
Sorry about the rant. I shouldn't have had the third cup of coffee.
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I was hoping to dazzle everyone with my brilliance. Instead, once again I find out how much I don't know.
I loaded the LotMaxx Cura version (4.2.1), loaded a calibration cube, sliced, saved the gcode. The gcode contains the 300 lines of bitmap. Here is the log file.
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I read that. I'm not talking about a 30% change as a permanent fix. Going from 100% to 105% when changing a material is acceptable to me. If you were to print a lot of PETG then it might be worth re-calibrating. For a few prints, and if the percentage is low, then rather than re-calibrating every time I changed spools (necessary if they spend time sitting on a shelf absorbing moisture) I would just tweak the flow rate. Some folks will no doubt consider that quick-and-dirty.
There are arguments both ways regarding calibrating with a "single wall cube" versus a "double wall cube". Good luck.
New to 3D printing, what materials and accessories should I get?
in Materials & profiles
Posted
PLA and
ABSPETG. Read up on ABS before jumping in. It's a whole 'nother animal. PETG is much easier to work with, doesn't have noxious fumes, and the mechanical properties aren't that far off from ABS.I don't like to advertise because someone always takes offense. I'm in the US and I tend to stay with MatterHackers Build Series PETG and PLA. It's their bottom end filament line. It's well packaged and they go through a lot so it's always fresh. For what I do it's fine but they do run out and there can be a wait. On Amazon you aren't ever really sure what's going on or how long it's been on a shelf. I ordered a couple of rolls of filament from a vendor there (MatterHacker was out of stock) and it was packaged OK but the moisture content was very high. It was essentially unusable until it had spent 8 hours dehumidifying. The Silky colors are nice but I find that layer adhesion isn't very good and they are better suited for art than for functional parts.