How to print this wheel

[devoney 0]

Hi All,

I am very new to 3D printing. In fact, I have only ordered the UltiMaker and I am waiting for it to arive.

I can not sit still in the mean time. Therefore, I wanted to create a 3D model of something.

I have choosen this wheel. It is a wheel with rough dimensions of 13mm (height) x 30.5mm (radius). It is a model of a wheel of my dishwasher, because one of them is broken.

The outer rim of the wheel is extruded from the inner, as you can see in the attachments.

How do I position this wheel best? Do I need some supports? And if so, how do I use supports during printing?

Ultimaker Original+ Press Kit.zip

vf-low-poly-bow-tie (2).zip

Thanks in advance!

Devoney

[owen 19]

I think you would need support.

Print it base down as in your top pic.

[Daid 306]

If you remove the "inset" from the "bottom" side you won't need support any more. (bottom in the first picture) This way the first layer holds everything else on top.

[devoney 0]

Hello Daid,

Thank you for your response. The inset is there because a pin will hold the wheel. Is there another way? The pin is not as wide as the inset. Maybe making it smaller might do it? But then there is still a full horizontal piece to print.

Hello Owen,

Also thank you for your reply. How would I go about using supports? Is a support a prefab object that I put on the print table? Or is it something that the printer prints during printing the wheel that functions as support?

Greets,

Devoney

[IRobertI 520]

The support in this case is printed out at the same time as your object. You can design the support structure yourself but the much easier way is to simply let the slicer do the heavy lifting for you and figure out what's needed. After the object is printed you'll have to manually break/cut/bite/twist/sand the support off.

[devoney 0]

The support in this case is printed out at the same time as your object. You can design the support structure yourself but the much easier way is to simply let the slicer do the heavy lifting for you and figure out what's needed. After the object is printed you'll have to manually break/cut/bite/twist/sand the support off.

That sounds like what I need! I still have two questions though.

Question 1:

What do you mean by 'slicer do the heavy lifting for you'? I found this:

 

Once you've loaded the .stl file, the model needs to be "sliced", or turned into a set of print layers. Don't worry, it's as easy as clicking a button! In this case, SkeinForge, which is incorporated into ReplicatorG, does the slicing and turns the model into gcode. The gcode tells the makerbot how to print the object.

on the following website http://wiki.makerbot.com/how-to-print. I guess that is what I need!

Question 2:

I was wondering, I have seen that little flute/wissle that works directly after it is printed. The wissle has a little ball inside. How does the printer know what to print solid on something, and what to print as a new loose object?

Thank you very much for your answer I Robert I. This leaps me forward.

[IRobertI 520]

For information about how to use the so called slicers I think you're better off reading on the Ultimaker wiki as it is, naturally, geared towards your printer:

http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Software_setup_guide

I think the wiki mostly talks about Skeinforge which is free, there's also a commercial alternative called Netfabb that you might also be interested in.

There's a LOT to read when it comes to the software, both the software you run on your computer as well as the software (or rather firmware) that runs on the controller board of the actual printer. For example I think most would agree that upgrading the stock firmware to "Marlin" is the right way to go. More information about this can be found in the wiki, here on the forums and also in the discussion group:

http://groups.google.com/group/ultimaker/topics

As for how the printer knows what do do, that comes down to the G-Code that the slicers spit out. It's basically a long text file with commands that tell the printer what to do step by step. Now, how the printer knows what's supposed to be solid and not, well, that is described by the CAD-model (the format that the slicers expect is STL-files) that you create or download.

The way the slicer works is that it, wait for it, slices the model Think of it as slicing up a loaf of bread, but horizontally rather than vertically. So, say you have a model of a marble, what the slicer would do with this marble is to look at it in many many separate thin layers (hundreds or even thousands depending on the quality you want and the size of the model) and create G-Code that will make the printer lay out a thin layer of plastic that matches the shape of that slice. So for a marble it would be describing a series of thin circles that initially get gradually bigger and then gradually smaller.

In the whistle example the model has a cavity inside of it in which the little ball is located. This ball isn't floating in space, it's actually resting on the inner surface of the whistle, that's why you have to break it free after the print is complete. And even if it was floating in space naturally the printer can't simple start printing in mid air, that's where support structures come into play. The slicer is smart enough to see that there is nothing underneath the ball that will keep it from falling, so, it creates that structure so that the ball can be printed.

I hope some of that made sense

[devoney 0]

Hi I Robert I,

Thank you for your lengthy reply. That sure helps me out a lot. I indeed was unsure what firmware to upgrade to. I will look up "Marlin" for more information.

That slicing part was totally new for me. I have bought Netfabb software to. As I read somewhere it can produce more detailed results with Ultimaker. I thought, another 150 euro? Ah, what the hell...

So I have a a understanding now how to approach the printing of this wheel. I can not wait for the printer to arrive. Yet I have to ofcourse. I will go for the original model I have made. I do not want to change the model. I am going for automatic support generation with Netfabb slicing I guess. After upgrading the firmware of the Ultimakers hardware.

Thanks again I Robert I and have a nice weekend!

[owen 19]

I will go for the original model I have made. I do not want to change the model. I am going for automatic support generation with Netfabb slicing I guess. After upgrading the firmware of the Ultimakers hardware.

 

Hi Devoney,

You can run Netfab now and open your model, in STL format.

Then you can drag your model onto the platform, select support type and click on 'Calculate Toolpath'

When it is done you can view how it will lay down the layers of plastic.

It's a bit of a learning curve but at least you'll be more ready for when you get your UM.

[devoney 0]

Long time ago. But I finally have my ultimaker printer. So I could finally start printing. And especially the first meaningful part for me: the broken wheel of my dishwasher.

So here it is: . See also this high res picture with an original wheel on the dishwasher: http://www.ictmdeklerk.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/dishwasher_wheel_installed.jpg

Some parameters:

I made the GCode with NetFabb with a hollow profile. Replaced the useless warming up command (M109) with M104 since I always preheat before printing to the right temperature.

This way I can manage the first flow of PLA better.

NetFabb does not start the print job on my Ultimaker but keeps disconnecting. So I used ReplicatorG to send the G-Code.

I still have the default 5D firmware on the Arduino. And my coolingfan is broken.... so I can not use that one.

I have used the support structure that the slicer of Netfabb produced. I tried to print the wheel with ReplicatorG and Skeinforge but it did not create any support. Maybe my settings were wrong.

I have noticed that there are gaps in the weel that are probably the result of low tension Y-Axis belts.

I will print these from Owen:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12513

and see if that makes things better.

Thanks for the support!

[Daid 306]

PLA won't survive in the dishwasher as I understood it. You might want to get some ABS for that.

Printing from within NetFabb isn't stable yet, so printing from RepG or PrintRun is recommended.

Skeinforge has support settings, hidden somewhere. But you might want to upgrade to Marlin and SkeinPyPy:

https://github.com/daid/SkeinPyPy/wiki

(Beta3 has an upgrade to Marlin buildin). Even if you slice with NetFabb, it's better to print with PrintRun and Marlin. Because it produces better results.

I wish I could say "Support works in SkeinPyPy!" but Beta3 has a bug which makes support only work if you pick "Everywhere", the other 2 options don't work. And you usually want exterior support.

You do need to adjust the start code of NetFabb a bit if you use Marlin, to insert an "M92 E14" in the beginning.

[devoney 0]

Thank you Daid for your useful reply.

 

You do need to adjust the start code of NetFabb a bit if you use Marlin, to insert an "M92 E14" in the beginning.

As I understand (source: http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code & http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#M92:_Set_axis_steps_per_unit) M92 sets the steps per axis.

What about 'E14' is this a hexadecimal value? The decimal equivalent of 3604 does not make sense to me.

I am going to look for the procedure to update to Marlin. Are there any pitfalls I should watch out for?

Thank you!

[Daid 306]

Some more details about the NetFabb marlin combination can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=479

The E14 is not hex. The "E" stands for "Extruder", so it's 14 steps per "unit" of extrusion. Not sure what a "unit" represents in NetFabb, but E14 is needed.

Upgrading to marlin should be quite painless if you use:

http://daid.eu/~daid/marlin_build/

Set: "M109 settings, Wait Time:" to 3 seconds

Also, if you are still printing with ReplicatorG you need a baudrate of 57600 instead of the Marlin default of 250000

And you can always install the stock firmware from within ReplicatorG.

[ddurant 0]

The E14 is not hex. The "E" stands for "Extruder", so it's 14 steps per "unit" of extrusion. Not sure what a "unit" represents in NetFabb, but E14 is needed..

The E steps on pre-volumetric 5D systems is the number of extruder steps needed to get 1mm out of the nozzle.. There are a number of things wrong with measuring that way which is why it changed to be the number of steps to get 1mm into the extruder for volumetric 5D.

I (still) think the E component of G1 should change yet again to be the volume of the thread but there isn't any firmware or slicer that supports that yet..

[devoney 0]

@Daid:

 

Upgrading to marlin should be quite painless if you use:

http://daid.eu/~daid/marlin_build/

 

That looks impressive. I am guessing you have some sort of linux compiling server on the backend?

Alot of settings do make sense to me, but alot of them do not. Should I use the default settings? (except for the baudrate, thanks for the tip).

This feature is off by default:

 

Enable autotemp feature

I have read that it heats up the nozzle more if the travelspeed of the nozzle X/Y axis increase (source: https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin). Is this useful?

[Daid 306]

@Daid:

 

Upgrading to marlin should be quite painless if you use:

http://daid.eu/~daid/marlin_build/

 

That looks impressive. I am guessing you have some sort of linux compiling server on the backend?

Alot of settings do make sense to me, but alot of them do not. Should I use the default settings? (except for the baudrate, thanks for the tip).

Yes. The default settings are good. The defaults are set so they work for PrintRun in combination with a new version of Skeinforge. Which are the same defaults for SkeinPyPy.

 

This feature is off by default:

 

Enable autotemp feature

I have read that it heats up the nozzle more if the travelspeed of the nozzle X/Y axis increase (source: https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin). Is this useful?

It's experimental, and results vary. I haven't tried it myself. If you are feeling adventurous you can try it yourself and report your findings