Birch V2

[teoman]

True story.
And he applies what he learned to his farming. Utilizing wind and solar for water pumping and testing out cost effectiveness of fertilizer on sample batches etc...

In fact one of his wife's friends who works at ISU hauled my printer all the way here.

[Nylocke]

Okay, so I ordered the FSR sensors, that touch off stuff sounds really great, especially since I love printing in Nylon on a sheet of Garolite, but I forget to recalibrate. rpress, you mentioned something about another revision for your FSR mounts?

[Nylocke]

I got my FSR sensors yesterday, but I've been printing things for my robotics team non stop this past week. Wont have time to tinker with them until next week at the earliest.

The TL arms are a really great improvement. Ive bumped up the speed a bit (I could do more, but its okay at this speed) and the quality is still better than the old arms. I'm beginning to think the TL arms are pretty much a necessary upgrade with the Kraken, unless you don't mind printing real slow with 1000 accel.

I printed a tube for our robot thats 3 inches in diameter and couples with a 3 inch PVC pipe (3.5 OD). It turned out BEAUTIFULLY at .25 layers. It really did turn out very well. Layer alignment was great, everything was great.

One half

Layer Alignment aw ye

Assembled both halves

Took around 9 hours per half.


I've been having issues with circles being more ovals than circles. All sizes of circles (I printed an adapter plate to couple a wheel hub with an axle mount, so 10 4mm holes, 1 9mm hole, and the part was a circle, none of the holes were perfectly round, and the circle was slightly off (closer to the edge of the wheel in some points)) I vaguely remember something about what to do about this, but I don't remember where or what. Something with delta correction gone wrong?

[Eaglezsoar]

Your prints look outstanding in spite of the problems with the holes.

[Nylocke]

I've been trying to develop a profile with Simplify3D that works just as well as Cura, but I haven't been able to figure it out. I might be under-extruding a tad, but not everything is matching up. In Cura, with 100% flow rate I have to set my filament diameter to around 1.83mm, and it still over extrudes a bit (I am fine with it, because I don't have time to get the steps per mm correct, and I'd rather have it over extruding a bit vs under extruding (you can take off material, but you can't put it back on)). I'm not sure what to attribute these to, and I don't want to bump up the flow rate based on whats going on with Cura (would the flow rates on 2 slicing softwares really differ 10-15%?)

Ive also been getting stringing. I have retraction set to 4 (Cura retraction is at 3) so I'm not sure why?

Weird ridges and strings

Tops not quite solid

In addition, I haven't been able to get any good overhangs with S3D. They all curl up, rather drastically too. I've lowered the print temp to 235 and I can't print the low poly charmander without the belly and the bridging material from the legs to the body curling up a ton. It seems to be keeping a lot more heat for some reason. Speed, temperature (I lowered the hotend temp 5-15 degrees), and cooling settings are similar to Cura, and yet Cura has no cooling or warping issues. In fact, my bridging has seemingly gotten better (with Cura) with the CF arm upgrade (quite an interesting change for something that seems completely unrelated, but I'll take it). I really can't figure it out. There isn't a lot of consistency.

All these prints are in ABS. Normal Cura ABS temps for me are 240-250 at .2mm layers. S3D and Cura settings are nearly identical, albeit a few changes (Cura filament width is 1.81-1.83, S3D is 1.75, Cura min layer time is 10 seconds, S3D is 15 (slightly better bridging/overhangs))

And to make things even more inconsistent, I used the exact same settings on another Rostock MAX (With the hotend set to 250C) and it printed without a hitch. Better than Cura with that machine (it even over extruded a tiny bit, which isn't normal for that machine (with Cura it seems to under extrude if anything, same exact Cura settings and S3D settings as my machine, even the flow rate and filament diameter).

I have a real need to use S3D, the support generation is superb, and I have experienced that (I printed a set of 4 Dice with a 2 (actual number) on the bottom (that was the print on the other machine) and there was a tiny bit of support. I took a small flat head screwdriver and it popped right out with no marring of the printed surface, while if I had gotten support to print for the 2 in Cura, there would be lines left). I have an order for an object with an internal structure that I need support to print, and the only way to get the support out is through a small hole at the top of the object. I know from experience Cura won't be able to make this possible, so I need to have a working S3D profile.

Its a lot of information to digest, but I would really appreciate some help, a lot of these issues are beyond me.

[Nylocke]

I've started turning my take on a nozzle design for my Kraken. I'm close to being done, all I need to do is drill a 2mm hole, ream it, chamfer the hole with a counter sink, cut M6X1mm threads, cut the nozzle off the rest of the material, cut the angle, and drill a hole for the material to come out. The college I'm taking the lathe class at is woefully under equipped with metric gear, they don't even have metric micrometers.

Nozzle as of now

[rpress]

I don't know the options for Simplify3D, but I found a z hop setting over 0.1mm causes stringing.

About my FSR mounts, I haven't had a chance to update the drawing. The change is to the puck part, once the O.D. and center hole are machined, I offset the 4-jaw by 0.5mm to make one side smaller. This allows for thermal expansion/contraction, something I noticed now that the garage is getting much colder.

It's sad the college is not moving over to metric. How are we ever going to change over as a country if we aren't teaching it?

[Nylocke]

It's a chicken egg situation. The colleges won't change to metric until industry changes, they won't teach students things they won't encounter commonly (we brush over metric drawings and things, and all the lathes have compounds and cross feeds that have metric and standard on them, but only the Colchesters and the single Victor can cut metric threads. For the nozzle I'm doing I have to use a Colchester because the Victor doesn't have a collet chuck for it (brass is soft and these need to be really accurate to the drawing)). The industry won't change until the colleges and schools change, otherwise the students wont know what they are doing (even though it's base 10).

The sad thing is that either way, kids my age (and some of the college students I'm in my lathe class with) can't read fractional measurements or decimal measurements, regardless of wether it's decimat English or Metric.

I don't print in the cold, so I'd probably be fine. I'm actually going to design my own mount where they mount in the base (looking ahead for those who want HBCs).

I have 1mm z hop in Cura and I get no strings (except with Nylon but that's what Nylon does when it's dry). I'll continue to try to get it working.

[rpress]

I should clarify that cold ambient temps (when not printing) would cause the mount to slip, and then when it's warmed up it will bind, greatly increasing the force required to trip the sensor and thereby ruining the repeatability.

Lowering the z hop had a great effect on stringing for me when printing PLA. For ABS I never had a problem with stringing.

Does Simplify3D have a plugin architecture? I'm really enjoying the ability to write plugins for Cura.

[Nylocke]

It doesn't, but it has a lot of places for custom code upon different events. Tool changes, layer changes, etc. Also you can specify temp and fan speed changes on a specific layer. There really is quite a lot customization, and it's a pretty nice software, I just can't figure out a good profile for my printer.

[Nylocke]

I'm a few steps closer to having my own custom nozzle. Ive drilled all the holes and threaded the M6 thread.

We don't have any 2mm reamers, so I drilled a 1.5mm hole, and then chased it with a 2mm drill bit, hoping that would leave the nozzle smooth enough.

The orfice I drilled with a .0145" bit (about .36mm). Once I machine the angled part I'll (try to) get some pics of the orfice size.

Nozzle

[teoman]

Looking good.

[Nylocke]

I've started work on a printed version of Rpress's FSR mounts. I'm going to print off V1 tonight and see the fit, etc. I hope to have them done (and maybe the "autolevel" system implemented in repetier). I'll try to make a manual of sorts for setting up an FSR leveling system. Eventually I'll adapt the mounts to be inside the base (for heated build chambers, since this was a concern of Generic Default and others).

FSR mount

[Nylocke]

I got both halves done. I'll see how things go. I wont be able to print them for another couple hours though

FSR Mounts top and bottom parts

[Nylocke]

I designed mine for the tee nuts used for the wood parts. I have a ton of them (bulk order from McMaster) and I didn't want to be threading directly into the plastic. They work pretty well. The lower part has a chamfer to fit the countersunk screw without interfering with the FSR. All mine seem to be pretty good, so when I get a chance I'll mount them and test them out.

[Nylocke]

I have the FSRs mounted and connected to my X3. I had to do some extra stuff to get them to trigger correctly (my "pucks" don't have a flat enough bottom to properly trigger the FSRs, so I put a piece of plastic between the resistor and the puck).

I'm not entirely sure how to properly use the auto leveling commands. I tried following the guide on the repetier site, but I can't seem to get it to work (I verified the probing works, tried to get the correct values for the endstop offsets (it said to home the axes, then send a command to remove the extruder offsets. Then it said to disable the steppers, get the carriages all the same distance from the top (I used a random print I had laying around) and send another command (G132), which homed the carriages and got some sort of numbers? Not sure what unit the numbers were in (assuming they were in steps because X and Y were in the 100's?) but I'm assuming they are the relative distance that each tower is off from each other))

After I tried that, I enabled the auto leveling with M320, and then sent a G32 command and it homed and started to descend really slowly. I decided I should try doing it again, only with the effector closer to the bed, so I e-stoped the printer, rehomed, and moved the effector down 340mm or so.

Looking back I realize several of my problems are related to EEPROM being set incorrectly (damn you preset variables!). The positions I chose did not get transferred, and so it was trying to move into invalid positions. Thankfully my max horizontal radius saved me on that, but I still have no idea how this is supposed to work. Before I actually break anything, if anyone has some insight onto the proper procedure, I would really appreciate the information.

If I can get this stuff figured out I'll post everything I've found out here and I'll try to piece together a guide for these FSRs.

[Eaglezsoar]

It is not if you get this stuff figured out, it's when. I know you well enough to know that you will succeed in anything you really want to do.
Your willingness to share is fantastic and you have been a great asset to this forum.

[theverant]

Hey Mike,

Great build, thanks for sharing. I'm looking at doing something similar with laser cutting my own Baltic Birch ply to upgrade my V1 to V2. I've done some customizations to the original design (like deleting the SeeMe eyes. I love SMCNC but those eyes I just don't like). Is your's 1/4"? You find it's pretty stable stuff? I test cut a single cheapskate the other day and it looked real nice (my first laser cut, wooo woooo!). I like the wood better than the melamine white to be honest, but I would think a nice matte finish would make it look even better, and help seal the wood from moisture (humidity is a big thing in these parts). I'm considering staining the pieces actually, to leave the woodgrain but give it a nice colour scheme.

[Nylocke]

It works great and looks great. I think mine might be 6mm, but I'm not sure. Measure your plywood and your melamine. If there is a difference you gotta account for that in the laser able files, or else your upper part of the machine will be unstable. I had that problem on the first one I got cut.

I've thought of staining it, but that would be a lengthy process. I'd need another printer before I would even think of taking this one apart. Maybe I could start with the cheapskates...

I hadn't thought of that moisture issue. It hasn't affected mine from what I've seen.

[geneb]

If it was ME, I'd make the big horizontal parts out of 12mm Baltic Birch and just pocket them on the back side to allow the tabs from the vertical parts to fit properly. It would look amazing after being stained & varnished.

g.

[Nylocke]

That'd be one mean and sturdy machine there Gene

[rpress]

I did not "calibrate" the end stop steps. I adjusted the endstop screws using the bed, and left the software endstop correction zero. Basically when doing a "G32" it will show you each probe point Z height. I adjusted the endstop screws until they were all as close as I could get to 5.00mm.

Make sure your probe points are set, here is from my Configuration.h (I imagine yours are also in EEPROM)

Code: Select all

#define Z_PROBE_X1 -86.6
#define Z_PROBE_Y1 -50
#define Z_PROBE_X2 86.6
#define Z_PROBE_Y2 -50
#define Z_PROBE_X3 0
#define Z_PROBE_Y3 100

For probing this is what I use:

Code: Select all

G28
G0 Z5
G32 S2

[Nylocke]

I got the points corrected. Forgot how funky EEPROM can be at times. I'm assuming I did everything correctly before hand.

I'm guessing I should probably remove my extruder offset when probing, or does it take that into account?

Thanks for your help rpress

[rpress]

No prob. I assume your offsets for the Kraken are all from the center of the 4? There are separate offsets for the "probe" which your this case will be whatever nozzle is the lowest. But I don't think extruder offsets will play into it, it's the probe offsets. I set my probe offsets to zero.

Here's my complete probe setup:

Code: Select all

#define FEATURE_Z_PROBE 1
#define Z_PROBE_BED_DISTANCE 5
#define Z_PROBE_PIN ORIG_Z_MIN_PIN
#define Z_PROBE_PULLUP 1
#define Z_PROBE_ON_HIGH 0
#define Z_PROBE_X_OFFSET 0
#define Z_PROBE_Y_OFFSET 0
#define Z_PROBE_WAIT_BEFORE_TEST 0
#define Z_PROBE_SPEED 2
#define Z_PROBE_XY_SPEED 150
#define Z_PROBE_SWITCHING_DISTANCE 1
#define Z_PROBE_REPETITIONS 2
#define Z_PROBE_HEIGHT 0
#define Z_PROBE_START_SCRIPT ""
#define Z_PROBE_FINISHED_SCRIPT ""
#define FEATURE_AUTOLEVEL 1
#define Z_PROBE_X1 -86.6
#define Z_PROBE_Y1 -50
#define Z_PROBE_X2 86.6
#define Z_PROBE_Y2 -50
#define Z_PROBE_X3 0
#define Z_PROBE_Y3 100

[Nylocke]

Yeah, I got all your settings from that configuration file you posted in your thread. I don't know if I'll get to trying out some more stuff with the auto leveling. I just finished my nozzle today and I really want to try it out. I'm going to make a few more, and I'm going to try to see what I can learn about this one I've made in the next few days.

.36mm orfice

(The surface finish isn't the best because my tool bit wasn't very sharp, and this one is lacking the wrench flats that I plan to have eventually. The instructor wants me to do all the flats at the same time at a later date)

Side profile (didn't realize how steep it'd be until now)

Down the barrel

I don't know how well it will work with PLA (the angle of the bit I used to drill it out was a standard 118 degree 2mm bit, so its a pretty sharp transition from 1.75 to .36), or how well it will work in general. I'm hoping I'll get some pretty nice surface finishes out of it, I've said before a little bit about my theories on nozzle design performance and quality (sharper the point the better the finish, but if its taken to extremes (the Merlin hotend) it can impact performance). This is assuming the internal angle (transition angle? I don't know proper terminology) is pretty close (if not) the same as the outer angle. More simply put, the sharper the point of the outside, the better the surface finish, and the sharper the angle on the inside, generally the better performance. This is all by observation of the different hotends I've used, and the different prints I've gotten from them and from what I've seen of other's prints.

Back to my nozzle and my machining class, I found an appropriate test print to bring in tomorrow. I'll post some pictures wether or not it turns out...