Thing-O-matic 3216 Armed and Operational

[Rich]

Finally got it running last night over 30+ aggregate hours.

Thanks to those that helped for the tips and encouragement.

So far I've only put threetest prints through and it looks like I need
some calibration.
I did a couple 20MM cubes and they both slipped the y axis (the second
less than the first)
then just to see the detail level I tried printing han solo in
carbonite.
i didn't get any axis slipping, but the han solo looked pretty
scribbly.

I read on another post that these machines need to be run for a while
before they start running their smoothest. bearings settling in and so
forth.

We'll see how it goes. I'm very happy that when it was all together
that it actually worked. I'm cool with fine tuning as long as it
works.

[hybot]

Congratulations. It's quite exciting to get your first print isn't
it?

I'm still tuning mine, after having it together about two weeks.
You'll find lots of hints here and elsewhere for tuning (Dave Durant
has some of the best), but one I'll repeat, given it's mid-winter and
you're in snow-country, is air temperature is important: crank up the
heat, or turn on a space heater, in the room with the printer, and
maybe enclose the sides to keep some of the generated the heat in the
chamber. Obviously you don't want to over-do this and fry your
motors, but keeping a chamber ambient air temp of say 85 degF can make
a big difference in adhesion, curling, and consistent flow.

[Rich]

Thanks, hybot.
The room my makerbot is in, is the warmest room in the house, so that
won't be a horrible problem, but I'll keep that in mind if i get some
curling.

One thing that surprised me is the amount of nuts and bolts I had left
over when I was done.


One thing- did you notice prints getting nicer with time 9even without
adjusting settings) as was indicated on another post?

[hybot]

They give you extra nuts and bolts, as spares and in case you loose
some. I used most of mine to also assemble the heated build platform
-- sans linear bearings and the actual heat platform, no extras
there :). I'm thinking of switching out the ABP, since you can't
really queue prints yet and with tuning i don't like having to wait
for the cool down and eject to try the next permutation; to that end
i've commented out that stuff in end.gcode, so really i'm using the
ABP as just a HBP anyway. The difference would be less mass to haul
around, as i'm cranking up the speed.

A bit hard to say about better prints over time "just happening".
Even with the original profiles i've tweaked the hardware enough that
it's not the same. Little things mostly: better belt tension, grease
on the rods, tightening bolts, enclosing the sides and keeping the
chamber heated, strapping it down to the workbench to help minimize
vibrations. I think most everyone is doing similar tinkering so i'm
not sure it's just a matter of breaking it in, though of course that
may be an additional factor.

[Rich]

I got straight prints running yesterday.
I had to turn up the REF on the Y axis all the way up to get there,
but now no Y-axis shift.
Things are printing well and I'm running quite a few experiments.

My next problem is "rafts or not rafts."
Without raft is quicker and takes less plastic and I don't have to
figure out how to get the raft off of the item, but on the 'con' side,
the first inch or two of extrusion doesn't like to stick when I go
raftless.

It's a process.
Thanks for everyone's support so far.

[Andrew Plumb]

What temperature is the HBP set at? If raftless isn't sticking at the default (125C) try bumping it up to 135C.

Andrew.

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[Rich]

Sounds good. I'd try that, but since my last post, the extruder motor
stopped spinning altogether. can't get it to spin in a build or in
the control panel.
Ugh.

[hybot]

Is your PWM set at the max 255? Many people, myself included, are
having problems at extruding at anything less, even 254. Mine will
occasionally work at lower settings, but not reliably.

As for rafts, you can always enable raft, then in the raft settings
turn the base and interface layers to 0 -- that makes you raftless.
Then adjust the first object layer (also in the raft module) to have
setting similar to your raft base layer. The bottom of your object
essentially becomes the raft. Also, read my pending post about
Frogtape.

[Rich]

yeah, I've got it at max:
M108 S255

it conked out in the middle of a print and won't start up again.
I started a print, watched it print for a while, set up some slack on
the filament, went to fix some food for my kids and when i came back
about 10 minutes later to check on it, the axis were moving as if it
were printing but no extrusion.

I went to the control panel. the heat was good,. everything else is
fine. no filament feed.
Very frustrating for this to happen so quickly after getting it
running and calibrated.

[Rich]

thanks for the setting tips. I'll try those if I can get it running
again.

On Jan 2, 4:42 pm, coasterman-1674 <coaster...@live.com> wrote:
> I would suggest these things:
> 1. Always leave "Use Raft" checked.
> 2. Settings:
> Raft-Base Layers = 0
> Raft-Interface Layers = 0
> Raft-Object First Layer Perimeter Feedrate over Feedrate = 0.9
> Raft-Object First Layer Flowrate over Flowrate = 1.0
>
> This prints the first layer perimeter slower, and it will adhere
> better.
>
> The HBP should be at 120. Going higher will cause the adhesion to
> degrade.
>
> Covering it in blue painters tape will help a lot, especially with
> PLA.

[Andrew Plumb]

What values show up for your heater's PID settings?  Is it remembering the "Default PID Settings For Plastruder MK5" values as outlined in the calibration instructions? http://wiki.makerbot.com/thingomatic-doc:calibration

If those aren't correct, the heater temperature may drop gradually over the course of a build to the point where the plastic isn't fluid enough to flow and the motor and/or controller burns out.

Andrew.

[Rich]

When i went to the Control panel the extruder was still registering as
220 so i don't think it's that.

How long should I expect it to take for them to respond from
Sup...@makerbot.com?

On Jan 2, 5:48 pm, Andrew Plumb <and...@plumb.org> wrote:
> What values show up for your heater's PID settings?  Is it remembering the "Default PID Settings For Plastruder MK5" values as outlined in the calibration instructions?http://wiki.makerbot.com/thingomatic-doc:calibration

>
> If those aren't correct, the heater temperature may drop gradually over the course of a build to the point where the plastic isn't fluid enough to flow and the motor and/or controller burns out.
>
> Andrew.
>
> On 2011-01-02, at 5:49 PM, Rich wrote:
>
>
>
> > yeah, I've got it at max:
> > M108 S255
>
> > it conked out in the middle of a print and won't start up again.
> > I started a print, watched it print for a while, set up some slack on
> > the filament, went to fix some food for my kids and when i came back
> > about 10 minutes later to check on it, the axis were moving as if it
> > were printing but no extrusion.
>
> > I went to the control panel. the heat was good,. everything else is
> > fine.  no filament feed.
> > Very frustrating for this to happen so quickly after getting it
> > running and calibrated.
>
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