question about filament dia

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I have 2 large 2.85mm dia gray  filament reels.  Can I use these reels on my (stock from the factory) Ender 3 Pro 3D printer?

A 2nd question. Is there a way to pause the print to hang more   filament when the 1st role gets close to running out.

[GregValiant 1,251]

"Can I use these (2.85) reels on my (stock from the factory) Ender 3 Pro 3D printer?"

No.  Your extruder, the bowden tube and fittings, and the hot end and nozzle are built for 1.75 filament.  2.85 won't fit through any of those parts.

 

"Is there a way to pause the print..."

On the Cura menu bar select "Extensions / Post Processing / Modify Gcode" and in the dialog box select "Add a Script".

That will bring up a list and one of the choices is Pause At Height.  I use it a lot.

 

As usual, there are issues.  If there are Z-Hops in the file or if you are using Adaptive Layers then pausing "By Height" doesn't work well.  "By Layer" works fine.

 

When Creality went to the 32 bit mainboards (4.2.x) they also changed the printer screen to a TFT style LCD.  When they did that the firmware did not handle messages sent to the printer LCD.  The normal pause command M0 sends "Click to Resume" to the LCD and that seems to cause the command to be ignored.  That is also true for M1 and M117 (there may be others).

Load a calibration cube in Cura.  Activate the Pause at Height plugin and set the pause for Layer 3 (or some other low layer).  The pause will occur at the end of the layer number you enter.  Fill in the rest of the boxes.  I don't bother with the retraction settings.  The max for the Disarm Stepper setting is 1800 and that should be set.  Gcode before pause can be a beep command M300.

Choose the Marlin (M0) option for the pause command.  Generate a gcode and see if it actually pauses.  To continue the print click the LCD button.  If it does a quick stop (which can be up to 10 seconds because of the following M109 command) and then takes off by itself, it didn't work.

If that doesn't work you can try the M25 command.  If M25 works then to resume you need to click the LCD button twice.

If it doesn't work then you need to use the G4 command in the "Gcode after pause" box.  G4 S60 will pause for 60 seconds and then automatically resume the print.  That's the downside.  You cannot hurry the pause nor can you make it longer.  If you set it for 3600 seconds you will have to wait an hour for the thing to get going again.  If you set it for 10 seconds you may not have time to finish changing filament.

Because the Max Stepper Disarm Time is 1800 seconds then that is really the max for G4 as well.  If the steppers disarm and lose position the print is scrap.

It takes some practice.

As I said I don't use the plugin's retract settings.  I've found that after changing colors and pushing enough filament (by hand) through the hot end to change colors, that a 3mm "hand retraction" works fine.  It's always best if the "resume" is in support but that doesn't always happen.

 

I made these for a friends wife.  The trailer/sleigh had 4 Pause at Heights and the coasters had 5.  The windows and curtains were printed separately and glued in.  I thought the glow-in-the-dark windows were a nice touch.

 

 

 

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The printer has a pause button built into it's menu. The reason I need the pause is to change the filament reel. I only have the small 1.75mm reels that came with the 3D pen. Those small reels don't hold enough filament to print 1 project that I am trying to print. I tried using the pause built into the printer to change the filament reel and when I unpaused the printer. The lines after the pause weren't sticking to the base that was already laid down, there was lines going everywhere. So I aborted the print.

[GregValiant 1,251]

Provided that the reels are all the same material they should stick.  My 3D pen came with ABS which I don't use but that wouldn't stick to PLA anyway.

If there is a retraction in the pause routine, or if you leave the new filament too far back from the nozzle, then the nozzle will run dry for a while until the filament catches up.  On a small print that could mean a missing layer.  Then, after the filament is flowing again, it puts down a layer that is two layer heights above the layer before the pause.  There would be no squish in that situation.

Watching what's going on during that "layer of interest" might provide a better clue.

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8 hours ago, GregValiant said:

Provided that the reels are all the same material they should stick.  My 3D pen came with ABS which I don't use but that wouldn't stick to PLA anyway.

If there is a retraction in the pause routine, or if you leave the new filament too far back from the nozzle, then the nozzle will run dry for a while until the filament catches up.  On a small print that could mean a missing layer.  Then, after the filament is flowing again, it puts down a layer that is two layer heights above the layer before the pause.  There would be no squish in that situation.

Watching what's going on during that "layer of interest" might provide a better clue.

1st all the filament that I have is all PLA. 2nd All of the filament that I have is 1.75mm except for the 2 large gray reels.  The 2 large gray reels are filled with 2.85mm filament, and I don't know what I am going to do with them. The eBay seller that I got the 2 gray 2.85mm reels from has a NO return policy (ASIS). And that is my bad. I didn't check the filament size before committing to buying them. right now I only have 1 large reel of 1.75mm filament, and that 1 large reel of 1.75mm that I have is multi color filament. Right now It doesn't matter if the prints are multi color. I am just practicing how to make prints and to use MS print 3D.  There is 1 stl file that I would like to print. 

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4907266

But I need to figure out how to remove the person's ham radio call letters (that made the above file ) in the stl file and insert my ham radio call letters into the stl file before printing. I will buy a large reel of solid color 1.75mm PLA before printing this project.

[GregValiant 1,251]

OK.  After looking at that model - when you remove the call letters you just have a two tiered base left.  You might as well start in on a CAD program (Fusion 360 is popular) and simply design your own.  You will eventually want to know some CAD anyway in order to produce your own designs rather than having a situation like this where you are kind of stuck with an STL that someone else made.

BTW that isn't a good model.  You can see here that the K and E and part of the "0" are floating above the base.

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, GregValiant said:

OK.  After looking at that model - when you remove the call letters you just have a two tiered base left.  You might as well start in on a CAD program (Fusion 360 is popular) and simply design your own.  You will eventually want to know some CAD anyway in order to produce your own designs rather than having a situation like this where you are kind of stuck with an STL that someone else made.

BTW that isn't a good model.  You can see here that the K and E and part of the "0" are floating above the base.

The only 3D drawing program that I some what know is MS paint 3D. I have never used any CAD programs, I don't know Fusion 360. And the school where I was learning 3D printing closed it's doors because the board of directors where in-fighting like a bunch of school age kids. What I have learned so far is how to download the STL file > open Cura and load the STL file into Cura > make the Gcode > save the Gcode to the SD card > put the SD card in the printer > warm up the printer and start the printer. I have successfully completed printing a few 3D files already.

 

 

 

[GregValiant 1,251]

Microsoft may have included "MS 3D Builder" with your version of Windows.  It's not real intuitive but if you have it you may as well play with it.  One thing it can do is alter STL files.

If you open that Call Letter file in 3D Builder you can then bring in a cube, change the size of the cube, plop it down on that base, and subtract it from the original model.  The letters will be gone and then you just need to build the letters and do everything else.

Much of 3D printing involves a learning curve.  I had a head start being an old Gcode/CNC guy but I still started at the bottom.  I figure I'm a quarter of the way up the curve now after 50 years of putzing with this stuff.  It's not that I'm slow, it's just that the hill gets taller faster than I can climb.

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2 hours ago, GregValiant said:

Microsoft may have included "MS 3D Builder" with your version of Windows.  It's not real intuitive but if you have it you may as well play with it.  One thing it can do is alter STL files.

If you open that Call Letter file in 3D Builder you can then bring in a cube, change the size of the cube, plop it down on that base, and subtract it from the original model.  The letters will be gone and then you just need to build the letters and do everything else.

Much of 3D printing involves a learning curve.  I had a head start being an old Gcode/CNC guy but I still started at the bottom.  I figure I'm a quarter of the way up the curve now after 50 years of putzing with this stuff.  It's not that I'm slow, it's just that the hill gets taller faster than I can climb.

 

To GregValiant I have a bit of a head start.  I have an AA degree in electronics and I used to install in car's and truck's/repaired car stereos, 2 way radios and so on, I also repaired tv's, stereos, vcr's, and computers. My 1st computer was a Commodore 64, then the whole commodore line, then MS Dos, then the Windows line starting with Win 3.0.  I also know tube and early transistor theory. But I am not a computer programmer. Computer programming is new to me and I am a slow learner with dyslexia.

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4 hours ago, GregValiant said:

Microsoft may have included "MS 3D Builder" with your version of Windows.  It's not real intuitive but if you have it you may as well play with it.  One thing it can do is alter STL files..

I would like to learn how to modify the file my self.  To increase what I know.