Hey guys! I'm part of the QC Co-Lab which was one of SeeMeCNC's stops on their Road to Maker Faire trip. I've been trying to get our new Rostock MAX printing as well as I can, but I've hit a road block and I'm not sure how to continue. The following are the three things I am most confused about:
1. Extruder: I have verified that the steps per mm setting in EEPROM is correctly set by measuring out 10cm on the spool side of the cold end and making sure that 10 cm gets pulled through the cold end when told to. Next, I heated the machine and tried to print the 20x20x10 cm box as suggested in the sticky in this forum. I set the perimiters to 1 and extrusion width to be .55mm. If I understood correctly, this should have resulted in a box with walls that were .55mm thick. Instead the box came out with 1.5mm walls! Everything I have read up to this point seems to suggest that this big of an error isn't possible, so I'm very confused. Does anyone have any suggestions about what to try to resolve this?
2. Arm Calibration: I've been using the paper method to try and calibrate the arms. When I go around and calibrate each arm individually I can get them to be nearly perfectly flat moving from the center to the calibration point in front of the arm. However, after I've calibrated the last arm I go back to check the previous arms and it seems like those calibrations are no longer set correctly. Am I missing something or doing something wrong? Or do I just have to keep going around and around the arms and the error will work itself out?
3. When printing the overhangs in the skeinforge calibration cube, the plastic is falling and looks "stringy". This would be an indication that our extruder is too hot, correct?
Thank you in advance for any advice you can give!
What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
#1 - Hmm, perimeter + ext. width = 1.55... sounds right. If you set perimeters to 2, wouldn't it be 2.55?
#2 - Your bed is probably not level. There are a great number of posts here - and I would use the latest docs from geneb.
#3 - Stringy indicates either too much feed or too much heat or both. How about slowing down your print, reducing temps, and reducing your rate - all three. I think it's easier to build up to a good print than printing too much and going down step by step.
Ten or fifteen more times and you should get it! (or at least that's what it takes me...
)
#2 - Your bed is probably not level. There are a great number of posts here - and I would use the latest docs from geneb.
#3 - Stringy indicates either too much feed or too much heat or both. How about slowing down your print, reducing temps, and reducing your rate - all three. I think it's easier to build up to a good print than printing too much and going down step by step.
Ten or fifteen more times and you should get it! (or at least that's what it takes me...
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Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
#1. I'll have to look at the exact setting, but I thought perimeters was the number of passes it made, so it's more like 1*.55 = .55, not 1mm + .55mm = 1.55mm. I'm using the default slic3r if that helps.
#2. Our machine was built by committee, so I never read the portion of the docs which talked about assembling the machine. I'll have a look when I'm nearby it and check to see if the platform is level or not. If it was in the docs then I'd expect it to be level, the guys who put it together are usually pretty good about that stuff. I will have a look though.
#3, Thats more or less what I thought, its good to know I'm on the right track with that one.
15 more prints huh? does that take into account the 10-ish almost-prints I've done so far (and the innumerable not-really-prints-at-all)?
This is my first foray into the wonderful world of 3d printers, I never realized that calibration was this obnoxious.
#2. Our machine was built by committee, so I never read the portion of the docs which talked about assembling the machine. I'll have a look when I'm nearby it and check to see if the platform is level or not. If it was in the docs then I'd expect it to be level, the guys who put it together are usually pretty good about that stuff. I will have a look though.
#3, Thats more or less what I thought, its good to know I'm on the right track with that one.
15 more prints huh? does that take into account the 10-ish almost-prints I've done so far (and the innumerable not-really-prints-at-all)?
This is my first foray into the wonderful world of 3d printers, I never realized that calibration was this obnoxious.Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
If you are using Slic3r, make sure to set the extrusion width explicitly to .55mm in the advanced settings, not just the extruder nozzle diameter. 1 perimeter should then be .55mm.
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Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
I've had trouble getting .55mm thin walls lately with Cura. It used to work, but I'm missing a check box or something now... Which slicer are you using, BWT?
As far as the cal-cube goes - again, which slicer are you using? Slicer 0.9.9 has a glitch where multiple bridges in the same layer don't compute well. If your extruder was drawing straight lines across the entire gap, look into what John mentioned. If your hotend was zig-zagging over the gap like an infill pattern, try a different slicer for bridging until a new version of slic3r is released.
For your arms, I would write a script to move the hotend so that you can do it a dozen times easily without having to manually position the head over and over again. Make sure it's level before you worry about delta radius, or you'll just be fighting yourself. If you still can't get it, make sure that your build plate isn't warped or domed.
As far as the cal-cube goes - again, which slicer are you using? Slicer 0.9.9 has a glitch where multiple bridges in the same layer don't compute well. If your extruder was drawing straight lines across the entire gap, look into what John mentioned. If your hotend was zig-zagging over the gap like an infill pattern, try a different slicer for bridging until a new version of slic3r is released.
For your arms, I would write a script to move the hotend so that you can do it a dozen times easily without having to manually position the head over and over again. Make sure it's level before you worry about delta radius, or you'll just be fighting yourself. If you still can't get it, make sure that your build plate isn't warped or domed.
Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
Good to know about perimeters. Guess I never got that.
Forgot to ask, are you printing on glass or on the onyx? Use glass for an even surface, then look at your calibration. You might consider using this STL by HiCooley.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:50505
Forgot to ask, are you printing on glass or on the onyx? Use glass for an even surface, then look at your calibration. You might consider using this STL by HiCooley.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:50505
Technologist, Maker, Willing to question conventional logic
http://dropc.am/p/KhiI1a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://dropc.am/p/KhiI1a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
Never, ever, ever, print on the Onyx PCB without a build surface on it!
g.
g.
Delta Power!
Defeat the Cartesian Agenda!
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Defeat the Cartesian Agenda!
http://www.f15sim.com - 80-0007, The only one of its kind.
http://geneb.simpits.org - Technical and Simulator Projects
Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
I was printing on a cheapo $5 mirror that we managed to find at our local Walmart covered in blue painter's tape. Now we have managed to acquire a piece of glass from SeeMeCNC. I think the previous platform may have been non-level, because I was able to get the arms much better aligned this time.
I also switched our machine over from using the Steve's extruder to now using the new EZStruder. I'm performing the first print as I type this. It looks pretty good at the moment, but I'm still using the old too-hot temp settings so I'll need to adjust those in a minute.
I'll let you know how printing that single-perimeter hollow box goes when I try it again later tonight.
We do have slic3r 0.9.9 as well. When it does bridges it does a first straight line like it is doing a perimeter, but then it infills them in the normal way. Is this not correct? The first straight line also doesn't bridge very well, but instead tends to fall. The infill after that then just looks like crap.
I'll likely google this right after posting, but what other slicers should I look into? I see Repetier-Host has skeinforge built in, which is what our space's makerbot was using. No one here was particularly happy with the makerbot (an old cupcake) however so I hesitate to go with that.
I also switched our machine over from using the Steve's extruder to now using the new EZStruder. I'm performing the first print as I type this. It looks pretty good at the moment, but I'm still using the old too-hot temp settings so I'll need to adjust those in a minute.
I'll let you know how printing that single-perimeter hollow box goes when I try it again later tonight.
We do have slic3r 0.9.9 as well. When it does bridges it does a first straight line like it is doing a perimeter, but then it infills them in the normal way. Is this not correct? The first straight line also doesn't bridge very well, but instead tends to fall. The infill after that then just looks like crap.
I'll likely google this right after posting, but what other slicers should I look into? I see Repetier-Host has skeinforge built in, which is what our space's makerbot was using. No one here was particularly happy with the makerbot (an old cupcake) however so I hesitate to go with that.
Re: What am I missing - Extruder and Arm Calibration
First print with the EZStruder was pretty decent. Printed the 20x20 box and figured out the problem with the last test. I had been printing a 20mm hollow box instead of a 20mm box with 0% infill. The hollow box has a set outer perimeter width where the solid box does not. When you print the hollow box slic3r makes that perimeter the correct size. When you print the solid box with no infill the perimeter becomes just the size of the extrusion.
Now that I've got all of that worked out the prints are beginning to look pretty good. I still think that we're printing too hot even with the thermister reading 210, so I'll have to keep tweaking.
I also really want to try a different slicer and see if that resolves the bridging problem.
Now that I've got all of that worked out the prints are beginning to look pretty good. I still think that we're printing too hot even with the thermister reading 210, so I'll have to keep tweaking.
I also really want to try a different slicer and see if that resolves the bridging problem.