Building the "Repeat" printer

I have been using whiteout (I wonder how many people reading this do not know what that is???) on my plugs and writing on them with a fine tip pen (0.3mm). Super awesome for plugging and unplugging. I add polarity and stuff as well when needed.

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:joy: You just make me laugh so hard!!!
White out itā€™s a great great idea. I have a bottle that I donā€™t even know if itā€™s still good, canā€™t even remember when I bought itā€¦ The liquid one. Not the type

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Shhhhh, we will act like we donā€™t know what that means. :shushing_face:

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Great idea. Too bad my handwriting is atrociousā€¦ Iā€™m left handed, but due to an accident in between 2nd and 3rd grade, I donā€™t have the dexterity in my left hand to write anymore. My right hand handwriting is ā€¦ passable if itā€™s big enough, but very small, itā€™s indecipherable. I usually have to use tape flags, which are prone to falling off.

So I ran a test of all functionsā€¦

Then I plugged the se3rial line from the TFT back inā€¦ And the 2 pin from the BLTouchā€¦ Then I had to fix the extension for the Z3 motorā€¦ But now it all works again.

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My wife bought me a label maker a few years ago to label all the drawers in my garage/shop so she can find things easier. I think the only thing Iā€™ve manage to label was the dog and the refrigerator.

Every time she goes out to the shop she complains about things not being labeled :slight_smile:

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The 13% may be a minimum start-up speed. Marlin support this because sometimes the fan wonā€™t spin until enough electricity is provided to overcome inertia. The fans on my Prusa clone will spin as slow as 7% (PWM), but wonā€™t start spinning until about 15% is applied. Once theyā€™re spinning, you can slow them down a little, but too low and you risk them stalling out again. The firmware allows you to set minimum and maximum values.

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Just finished updating to the ā€œ513Rā€ firmware.

Looks like I did something weird with Prusa Slicer. It used to behave such that it always ran perimeters in the same direction, which eliminates problems caused by backlash from ruining the surface of the print. I donā€™t think I have any real backlash problems, but maybeā€¦ Because the printer is doing some strange things with one object, and the surface finish is awful. (With a 3 perimeter slice. It see3ms to be fine with 2 perimeters, and since thatā€™s all I need, Iā€™m just doing that.

Probably, because Iā€™m working on a laptop, I hit the mousepad with my thumb or something and ended up typing keyboard shortcuts in the wrong place.

Anyway, the updated firmware looks good. I had to change and recompile it of course, becasue my home offsets are different, as well as the bed size. I also chose to enable babystepping, because itā€™s sometimes useful. I havenā€™t needed it for the past few prints, but I like to have the option.

In the ā€œone hand washes the otherā€ way, this printer is finishing parts for the LowRider, so that I can do some stuff for this printer with the drag knife mount on the LowRider. Itā€™s all new CAD, but re-using the idea that I had for the pen holder, where the part will fit into the Makita router base. The trick there is to hold the drag knife low enough to stick out the bottom of the LowRider. I have 2 ā€œnot quiteā€ base parts, and am printing one that I think has the issues resolved, but starting the third one is when I started having the perimeters problem, soā€¦ weā€™ll see.

Once I have the drag knife mount, I have some vinyl to cut for printer graphics.

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I tried for a few weeks but just could not get prusa slicer right. My S3D prints always looked better and were significantly faster. Since Teaching techā€™s new video and itā€™s ability to use klipper more easilyā€¦super slicer seems like my next try. I think my biggest complaint is PS doesnā€™t seem to have the one setting S3D has, coast, or doesnā€™t do it as well.

My only complaint with S3D is I can not have it on two computers at once. My main complaint with everything else from a production standpoint is myS3D seems to be significantly faster especially with multiple items on a bed.

Someone in the comments also mentioned Cura is even faster. I wonder what is up with the pathing. It used to be S3D would do all the islands in order then move up and do them in reverse order so it traveled a lot less but I am sure PS was doing that now when I checked. S3D used to let you nest way better as well, but I think PS is doing that now as well.

You sure you canā€™t have s3d on more than one computer? Iā€™m pretty sure I have it on two right now.

From their documentation:

Installation: The software can be installed on up to 2 computers that you personally own and use.
Usage: You can use the software on 1 computer at a time.
For example, if you had a laptop and a desktop, you could install the software in both locations, but you should only use the software in 1 location at a time.
Please note: Simplify3D licenses are sold as individual user licenses. A single user license should never be shared by multiple individuals.

I thought ā€œlinear advanceā€ was the Prusa slicer version of ā€œcoastā€ - slowing down extrusion/reducing pressure in the hot end near end of a line in to prevent oozing/bumps.

Coast in S3D goes beyond the end of the lineā€¦or maybe it is called wipe. Shoot you are right, wipe is the one I think makes a big difference on my starts and stops.

WHAT!? This changes everythingā€¦I just tried it and it will not install on the second one. I need to poke around and see what I can find out. It must have an old computer still in the system or something.

Iā€™ve been using PS for over 3 year now, It may not be the fastest but it is the best print quality by far I ever had from any other slicer. Do you remember the Primo parts?
I never used S3D so I canā€™t comment on that.
Iā€™m trying to fine tune Kiri-moto but not much luck there yet.

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When I got my first 3D printer (2013? I think?) I got what turned out to be a super-crappy I3 clone for the low-low price of $600 or so. None of the endstops worked right, the Mega2560 board died trying to flash the firmware, the frame had some crazy flex, and skewed if you looked at it crosseyed. Actually, itā€™s a wonder that I didnā€™t turn my back on 3D printing right thenā€¦

I made several improvements over time, that resulted in acceptable printing, but choices of slicers were Slic3r and Cura. I never got an acceptable print from Cura, so I stuck with Slic3r.

Itā€™s really only recently that I switched to Prusa Slicer, which is based on the same code. I havenā€™t branched out much in that regard.

I donā€™t know that I want to pay for a slicer program, unless it can show clear and repeatable print quality improvements, but Iā€™d also have to take some time to actually fine-tune my firmware to start with the best possible results. Iā€™ve dialled in my tgemperatures somewhat. Bed temperatures are a little wild with the new printer, but it seems to be working. Iā€™m sure that I could do better.

Once I get the firmware better dialled in, I should compare slicer programs. I should have some example prints around of things that will let me know. Mind you, Iā€™ve never printed even one Benchy. I usually just look at the results for things that I actually want when theyā€™re done. The Maneki Neko print is probably the only real exception.

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For my gridbot, I decided to use prusa slicer and I told it I had a prusa mk3 and then adjusted the settings from there. I remember a few tricky things in there (I had to rewrite the starting ending gcode scripts but there were also some things like ā€œif printername == mksā€ that I had to change).

I like the quick settings for rough, detail, etc. I probably wouldnā€™t bother tuning all those profiles for myself.

I havenā€™t tried cura since 15. Kiri:moto worked fine too.

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I switched to S3D many many years ago. A friend of mine bought the design for a 3d printed plane and asked me to print it for him. The company used S3D and recommended it. They provided pre-populated build plates. I tried it out and decided I liked it.

I havenā€™t bothered to try anything else since. Iā€™m one of those ā€œdonā€™t change what ainā€™t brokeā€ types.

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I still need to redo the wire bundle going to the carriage, and put it in the sleeving, and I still need to extend one of the Z endstop wiring harnesses. This is a chronic problem when I get something thatā€™s functional. Getting to those finishing touches takes a long time.

I have done some dialling in of print settings, trying to get the best print quality at the highest speeds I can.

Print quality is excellent. Iā€™m very happy in this department. Speeds, I feel that I could do better at though. I need to do some serious calibration printing. Some temperature and retraction prints at the least. I still get some stringing, and while itā€™s not bad itā€™s still there. Probably a temperature tune will help there.

The bed temps are stll set higher than Iā€™d like them to be, so it takes a long time to warm up. Iā€™m very thankful though that I did set up the insulation layer. Itā€™d be nuts without it.

I am holding back on projects for a bit though, Iā€™ve got some expenses coming up and need to save some money. Honestly, the money I spent on this printer should have been saved, too, butā€¦ putting the toothpaste back in the tube, and all.

Iā€™m running a reprint of the vase mode print. Itā€™s about half done, and no sign of the same artefacts on the sides that the previous one did. Same GCode, so it looks like I might have got that issue solved.

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On my printers, the max volume of plastic the extruder could put out was the limiting factor for print speed. Once the volume is identified, then you can tune acceleration and velocity to balance print speed with quality (e.g. eliminating ringing). Getting this sorted out was an investment in time, but not a lot of money as I had filament on hand.

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How did you determine the max, when it actually skips steps or when the output fall below a certain weight (90% the weight of a slower speed)? I find mine can go pretty far before it skips, and if I go just under that I get a pretty solid temp dip in real life printing. I want to redo all the teach tech tests with max volume set by weight I think.

From there, the next tuning I think is missing from teaching techā€™s manual is min speed per layer. This was my big hiccup. Small test prints get too mushy, and for large ones I can print waaaay faster but my slicer settings didnā€™t work for bothā€¦until i tuned the min time per layer to something like 20-25seconds (for PLA). That gives little things time to harden and big or multiple things to print way faster!

Itā€™s been long enough that I donā€™t recall the exact process I used, but it is similar to whatā€™s documented here. I donā€™t recall if it was skipping steps or grinding the filament, but the primary problem was that the heater block couldnā€™t liquify the plastic any faster so no more filament would go in. You could see the temp go down (or fail to stay up, I guess) on the chart in Repetier Host.

I havenā€™t doing much itty bitty stuff, so havenā€™t tweaked the minimum layer time (that I recall - I could check the settings but theyā€™re on a different machine from where I am at the moment). I do recall I had to tune down my part fan as it would cool off the bed, leading to a thermal runaway error. I expect this is because Iā€™m using a 12v rather than 24 v setup.

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Has anybody here used https://3doptimizer.com/? I have a Chinese Prusa clone that I run a 3 into 1 on and settings are always shooting in the dark it seems to me. Curious if anyone has used/had success, I feel like it might be worth a shot here, though not sure it will exactly solve everything mentioned so far.

Speaking of which I need to get a post on this site up, I feel like this community would enjoy/be a good source of new suggestions. My plan is to build this new printer for 3 color when itā€™s a little more ironed out.

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