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atoff wrote: I was very close to lucky!! But no, a little too snug. I hope it's okay that I have the bed and hotend heated (55c/190c) while doing the calibration... never instructed to turn them back on, but I'm assuming.

I'm sure that was just an oversight in the guide. You definitely want to make the calibrations with the hotend & bed turned on. Adjustments on a cold machine wont be the same.

wire wrote:

atoff wrote: I was very close to lucky!! But no, a little too snug. I hope it's okay that I have the bed and hotend heated (55c/190c) while doing the calibration... never instructed to turn them back on, but I'm assuming.

I'm sure that was just an oversight in the guide. You definitely want to make the calibrations with the hotend & bed turned on. Adjustments on a cold machine wont be the same.

Cool...well, looks like I'm calibrated... got it on just one adjustment of the radius. I think it could do with a .05mm (more like 0.1-0.2) tweak, but I'll let it go.

Okay, something is very wrong with my extruder. When I try to feed filament it clicks and retracts, clicks then retracts, sounds like it's jamming. It never feeds the filament.

atoff wrote:Okay, something is very wrong with my extruder. When I try to feed filament it clicks and retracts, clicks then retracts, sounds like it's jamming. It never feeds the filament.

Hold the red lever down and push your filament till you see it start to come out of the hotend. I dont think you are supposed to use the feeder. Thats how I have done it anyway. Once you get the filament to the hotend it should be fine. Then you can use the manual feed in Repetier to extrude and see if its feeding.

Okay, thanks, I'll give that a try. Do you know why it takes several presses of the manual feed button in Repetier to get it to actually turn the motor? I have to click it like 5 times before it'll actually trigger.

Are you sure its not moving? Generally I've found it takes about 3 clicks from Repetier to see filament extrude from the hot end when it first gets started. You can increase extrude from the manual setting to 20mm or even 30mm and then watch the results. If its not moving check your connections to the extruder step motor. If you didn't before, make sure the step motor is turning in the correct direction.

Oh it turns, it just takes several clicks before it initiates. No filament is extruding because it's still "clicking" and retracting. I'm waiting for the hotend to cool down so I can check it out. I have a feeling the bowden tube isn't seated all the way in properly. I feels like it's in, but that's the only thing I can think to try at this point. I can feed and retract filament using the knob on the EzStruder, but not into the hotend. It won't turn at that point, which is what led me to believe it's an issue with the tube.

edit: okay, that's odd... same issue, then all of a sudden everything's working. It's extruding when I click the button and it's feeding filament.

Woohoo, printing my fan shroud now!! It's actually looking really decent, though hard to tell... it's only been 10 mins.

Edit: the one issue I notice is that my spool of filament jerks every time it rolls over, so the whole machine jerks heavily... that's going to cause issues! Need to figure out how to prevent that.

Color me impressed!! This is the absolute very first thing my printer printed! No tweaking necessary. Couple of blobs here and there, but really really nice otherwise. Layers are perfect. Those lines are not noticeable in person, looks super clean. Just need to work out how to get rid of those few blobs on the overhangs, if that's even possible.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/xwo2Cpf.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/lfO69sX.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/GupWoYZ.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/qd4d1YT.jpg[/img]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d48fRsKl8Bw

atoff wrote:Woohoo, printing my fan shroud now!! It's actually looking really decent, though hard to tell... it's only been 10 mins.

Edit: the one issue I notice is that my spool of filament jerks every time it rolls over, so the whole machine jerks heavily... that's going to cause issues! Need to figure out how to prevent that.

Check this mod out, im planning on doing the same to prevent any jerking of the machine.

Well when i get it built that is
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... der#p32277

apostoly wrote:

atoff wrote:Woohoo, printing my fan shroud now!! It's actually looking really decent, though hard to tell... it's only been 10 mins.

Edit: the one issue I notice is that my spool of filament jerks every time it rolls over, so the whole machine jerks heavily... that's going to cause issues! Need to figure out how to prevent that.

Check this mod out, im planning on doing the same to prevent any jerking of the machine.

Well when i get it built that is
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php ... der#p32277

Interesting, thanks. I was planning on just printing several sized cylindrical spool holders. Have to think about what'll work best.

Hi Atoff

Impressive, glad that you have your first successfull result.

One try to prevent jerking spool holders could be :
Take a milling machine and a radius cutter 3 mm or more.
Now this suface needs to be sanded and then put Wax on it, this will help 100%, its an old trick for old furnitures. Your spool will slide perfectly. I`m sure.

Elysio wrote:Hi Atoff

Impressive, glad that you have your first successfull result.

One try to prevent jerking spool holders could be :
Take a milling machine and a radius cutter 3 mm or more.
Now this suface needs to be sanded and then put Wax on it, this will help 100%, its an old trick for old furnitures. Your spool will slide perfectly. I`m sure.

Thanks. I don't have a milling machine, nor any other type of wood working tools... but it'll be easy enough to print a nice cylindrical spool holder (or half cylinder). I just need to make the effort.

Print one of these. They work very well.

http://repables.com/r/204/

g.

geneb wrote:Print one of these. They work very well.

http://repables.com/r/204/

g.

Perfect, thanks... printing now!

I have a feeling my settings aren't very ideal. Is it supposed to take 4hrs and 40 minutes for this print (this is even after bumping up the layer height to 0.25mm)? Seems like such a long time for such a small object. My fan shrouds only took about 1hr 40mins each.

atoff wrote:

geneb wrote:Print one of these. They work very well.

http://repables.com/r/204/

g.

Perfect, thanks... printing now!

I have a feeling my settings aren't very ideal. Is it supposed to take 4hrs and 40 minutes for this print (this is even after bumping up the layer height to 0.25mm)? Seems like such a long time for such a small object. My fan shrouds only took about 1hr 40mins each.

What is your infill set at? If it is a high infill value, it will take a long time to print.

Eaglezsoar wrote:

atoff wrote:

geneb wrote:Print one of these. They work very well.

http://repables.com/r/204/

g.

Perfect, thanks... printing now!

I have a feeling my settings aren't very ideal. Is it supposed to take 4hrs and 40 minutes for this print (this is even after bumping up the layer height to 0.25mm)? Seems like such a long time for such a small object. My fan shrouds only took about 1hr 40mins each.

What is your infill set at? If it is a high infill value, it will take a long time to print.

Default settings I believe. I tried overriding the settings to 7% infill, but lately it hasn't been allowing me to override... Spits out an error every time I try to slice. I was able to override the settings before when setting layer height to 0.1mm, not sure why I'm no longer able to. I'm trying to figure out how to set up Cura, since I've been reading that it's a little better, but it's a bit confusing.

Cura was confusing to me at first also but I kept playing with it now it is my goto slicer.
Kisslicer is nice also especially with Mhackeys .ini files but it is really confusing.
I still haven't found a setting in Cura to raise Z when necessary but other than that it is a great slicer and it's print paths seem much
more logical than Slic3R.

Yeah, I'll definitely have to play with Cura. Looks like this thing is printing a solid infill, so makes sense that it wants to take almost 5 hours. Insane.

I've also noticed that my extruder motor is much louder now that I've put the top plate and covers on. It's acting as an acoustic chamber, so might be a good idea to insulate with some foam.

Also, I just ordered a quality SSR for the 24V power supply, which I haven't hooked up yet. I'm finding that with PLA the bed heats up pretty quickly as is, so, not really necessary at the moment, but all the same. I paid $35 for a Crydom D1D40 (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... 39-ND/7519), brand new from Ebay. Here's hoping it's actually brand new, and works. I'd rather play it safe with an SSR, but I just didn't trust that cheap Futek model after seeing so many reviews of it failing and remaining closed.

Zhop is a more recent feature in Cura, it was added in the expert settings menu (expert settings-open expert settings...) its in with retraction.

Nylocke wrote:Zhop is a more recent feature in Cura, it was added in the expert settings menu (expert settings-open expert settings...) its in with retraction.

Hey, thanks man! I didn't know they added it and I am going to try to find it now. Thanks a million!

Well, after playing for a bit, I'm really like Cura!! I can definitely see it take a different approach / path then Slic3r would... and it just works. Also preferring the supports it creates over Slic3rs. I wonder though, is there a way for me to have it do a long "wipe" before printing, like from the edge of the bed? It'll sometimes drag some old dry filament into my print at the very beginning, which basically ruins the entire thing.

Just so no one hooks it up wrong, the SSR used in this picture is clearly wired wrong. The + on the SSR should go to the + of the supply, and the
- of the SSR goes to the + of the Bed, and the - of the bed goes to the - of the supply.

[Now a real relay doesn't care about polarity, and an SSR can also be made to not care about polarity. But I would follow the polarity printed on the SSR]

atoff wrote:Question... is this wiring correct for the 24V power supply + SSR? Also, wondering, does it matter that the thermistor in my heat bed is different than the thermistor I'm using for the hot end? I'll be using the screw-on thermistor for the hot end.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/0cVz1sq.jpg[/img]