The Making of a Maker

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Printer Suddenly Acting Up - Conclusion

Printer was simply trying to go too fast! Someone on the RepRap Forum suggesting I try a slow down and it worked. I was trying to print at 60mm/sec. With the same printer he indicated that he prints at 20-30 for customer work and 40 for his own. In fairness Wanhao Support had said to slow it down to 50 but I was running at the default for the printer from Simplify3D and was being stubborn! In a post or two I will show some results.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Printer Suddenly Acting Up - Part III

Ok, nothing had completely solved my issue entirely though each thing that I did seemed to help a little. The latest changes that I have made were to replace the hot end and PTFE on one of my extruder's, and more importantly, to replace the spacers on the clips that hold down the FR-4 on my build platform.

Here is a photo of the hot end and PTFE tubing that I replaced. To me it does not look like it is in bad shape. Additionally, I only replaced one side and the other is performing the same as the side that was replaced.

That leaves a tighter build platform as the culprit. Which I can believe. Here are two photos of a print before and after the build platform fix.

As you can see on the right most of the whiskers are gone. Interestingly, though, not all.

What confuses me is why it is always the same place on the print that we see this issue. Doesn't that imply a slicing issue?

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Printer Suddenly Acting Up - Part II

I am not sure this is resolved...but...my first thought was that something might have worked loose. I checked everything, or so I thought, and did not find anything that was noticably loose. I did tighten the bolts that hold the sides of the case but these are not structural. They were, however, very loose and it did seem to help a little? Could just have been me.

In any case my post on the Reprap Forum confirmed my original suspicion that it is probably something loose so I checked again.   This time I remembered to check the two bolts that hold on the extruder assembly and sure enough they were a little loose. I do mean a little but every little can count.   So I tightened them.

In order to check these bolts I had to take off the directed cooling duct that I have installed. This duct not only blocks those bolts but it makes it challenging to see the nozzles.   Once it was off I was able to notice that the nozzle that I have been using was in bad shape with caked on plastic. So I cleaned it.

I have done a couple small test prints and I think it might be ok now.   In a few minutes I will do the real thing.

Instructables

I have started to do some instructables. In some cases using content already posted here and in other cases a new topic. Here are links to the three that I currently have published:

Building a 3D Printed Pan Tilt Case for a Raspberry Pi

This instructable describes the building of a case for a Raspberry Pi that incorporates a pan-tilt assembly for the Pi Camera. posted on Apr 19, 2015

Maximizing 3D Printer Build Space

This instructable presents a way of securing glass or FR-4 without using a binder clip there-by preserving as much build space as possible...and...avoiding having a nozzle drag across a binder clip! posted on Apr 18, 2015

Dual Extrusion 3D Prints Using Sketchup and Simplify3D

This instructable illustrates how Sketchup can be used to create dual extruder (e.g. two color) 3D prints using Simplify3D as the slicer. posted on Apr 8, 2015

As you can see one of them has been "featured" for what that is worth!

Monday, April 20, 2015

Printer Suddenly Acting Up?

I am at a loss!

Monday, March 30, 2015

The Danger of Having a Nice Hammer...

...is that everything starts to look like a nail. My hammer of choice, as you can tell from this blog, is the Arduino microprocessor integrated with various electronic sensors and relays and packaged in something 3D printed.

In this case it was a mod for my new 3D printer. The new printer is an enclosure which makes it particularily nice for handling ABS which I have not been successful in doing with my open Prusa I3. What this enclosure does is trap heat inside it which is what you want for ABS...just not for PLA.

Now I can take the cover off the printer, and leave the door open, when I print PLA but I wanted something a little easier than popping the cover on and off. So enter the below configuration:

Two fans connected to a relay that will turn them on and off but also connected to an Arduino Nano for speed control.   Relay driven by the Arduino Nano, however, if the Nano is not present then the fans will run controlled by the on/off switch. DHT-11 temperature sensor also connected to the Nano. Arduino Nano enclosed in my Projects Platform.   All of this gear wrapped into a custom designed chunk of 3D printed panel that replaces one of the side panels in my printer. This panel features cutouts for the fans, power outlet, on/off switch, and a place where the Arduino Nano/LCD Projects Platform can be slotted. The panel also as a little electronics bay for the relay, a power regulator (12v to 5v), and the various connections.   You may be able to see this but there are also wire tie downs printed on the panel.

I had all the hardware assembled and had started on the software. It would function in either a simple on/off mode but more importantly in a mode that would trigger on a certain temperature threshold being hit.   Fans would run at different speeds depending on the temperature deviation.

Somewhere in the process of putting all of this together it occurred to me that all I really needed was some positive airflow while printing PLA or while cooling ABS down for removal from the build platform.   In other words, all that was needed was this simple panel and a cheap fan:

Not nearly as much fun! Bit it meets the requirement just fine!

In the end I did decide that the least that I could do was to use one of the fans that I had already bought so the final cofiguration has the below insert as the cooling option: