Do you let your 3D printers run unattended for hours at a time, or overnight?

[Kevin Jarrett]

Hi all,

Yesterday I encountered two filament tangles on our pair of Lulzbot Mini's, which I was fortunately able to address before too much damage was done. We are running 3mm HIPS by eSUN, purchased from the Lulzbot / Aelph Objects store. In both cases, I heard the tangle as it started to bind up the extruder. I was able to untangle the spool without killing one job, but in the other case, I had no choice and had to end it.

Wondering what would have happened if these printers were running overnight, unattended, as we have in the past at times.

Has this happened to you? Did the printer get damaged? HIPS is pretty strong, I worry that it would grenade the extruder or pull things out of alignment as it dutifully keeps pulling on a hopeless tangle. Would the filament snap? Or the drive wheel just grind the contact point into dust and then just sit there and spin without extruding anything?

Thanks, kj

​-----

Kevin Jarrett

Middle School STEAM Teacher

Technology, Engineering & Design Program

Northfield Community Middle School

kjar...@ncs-nj.org | @kjarrett

"Life ​changes when you trust kids.​" - ​Ira Socol

[Evan Worth]

I have a Lulzbot Mini and a printrbot simple metal and generally try to avoid overnight prints. Pretty much had every printing problem imaginable so far so I guess I'm paranoid. Once I found. Bowl of spaghetti stuck to the hot end and getting it off gave the red sock on the printrbot a nice battle wound. Still works fine, was just a scary sight to come in and see.in the morning.

I ran into the problem where the filament had a knot in it (I'm losing my prior enthusiasm for hatchbox filament from Amazon.) what happened was the filament eventually snapped. The extruder was tugging on it for a while and eventually snapped it. There was a bunch of filament in the teeth of it. The printer was fine(this happened to the printrbot) but I can't imagine it was good for the printer either.

That being said I did print a student design last night on the Lulzbot. So I'm hoping that it's fine when I come in....sometimes I don't learn from my mistakes.

[Alicia Testa]

I don't run them overnight.  I will go back to school and turn one off if I have a long print or I will cold pause it for the morning.  my longest print has been only 12 hours.  So it hasn't been that bad.  I am hesitant about leaving it overnight, as I don't want to be the one to set fire to the school. 

[Kenton A. Hoover]

I have run it overnight in the past as I've had really poor results with cold pauses but I avoid it. Now that I can remotely observe and control it (octoprintI just check on it every 20 min or so but I avoid runs that really need to be overnight.

I have a big production run coming up for an 8th grade project that will probably entail some late night runs.

Kenton A. Hoover
Director of Operations
Tehiyah Day School
2603 Tassajara Avenue, El Cerrito CA 94530
kaho...@tehiyah.org
+1 510 233 3013 (main)
+1 415 830 5843 (mobile)

On Jun 4, 2016, 08:51, Alicia Testa wrote:

I don't run them overnight.  I will go back to school and turn one off if I have a long print or I will cold pause it for the morning.  my longest print has been only 12 hours.  So it hasn't been that bad.  I am hesitant about leaving it overnight, as I don't want to be the one to set fire to the school. 

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[Hilary Fenton]

Hi! I have two makerbots, the z18 and the 5th generation replicator. I've run both overnight and I would say the 5th gen replicator has a 60% success rate and the z18 has a 5% success rate. They seem to have trouble in the first few hours of printing then are ok for the rest. 

Hilary

Design Lead

Woodside Elementary School

[Jason Mickelson]

Last year I had one bad experience with an overnight print with the print (most simple triangular prism, no support/overhangs) coming off the platform and the hot end becoming totally absorbed in melted PLA. A little stinky but no damage to printer or classroom. But the replacement hot end never did allow the printer work the same after that.

Now I will let certain prints go into the evening without supervision if they are fairly "simple" prints. Simple meaning no complicated geometry, support/overhangs. (I admit I'm not sure what logic I'm relying on here) I've also paused a few and restarted in the morning. The enclosure of the MOD-t printers we've been using this year keeps a nice warm cloud around the print area which has almost completely eliminated prints coming off the platform and will "rewarm" the print area when restarted.

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 3:55:24 AM UTC-7, Kevin Jarrett wrote:

[Kenton Hoover]

My favorite overnight failure wasn't a sticky mess -- it was a filament misfeed. When I came in the next day I had 12m of tangled "slinky" that I had to cut away from supports and belts to get out.

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Kenton A. Hoover

Director of Operations

The Tehiyah Day School

2603 Tassajara Avenue, El Cerrito CA 94530

kaho...@tehiyah.org

+1 415 830 5843 (direct)

+1 510 233 3013 (main)

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[Angi Chau]

As a general rule, I don't allow overnight prints in our lab - my first year in this job, some students had keys to the lab and one of them ran a job overnight and there was a big jumble of filament when I came into work in the morning. That was annoying and wasteful enough that I made it a rule that the printer cannot go overnight. I would cold pause if something is still going when I lock up the lab for the day.

Also, a while back, someone posted a pretty scary-looking incident with a 3D printer going overnight on this group and that sketched me out enough that I felt even more justified by this rule. :D

However, if I am able to remotely monitor it (via a webcame) AND I live closer to the school (i.e. I'm able to get to the lab fast if something did happen), I might consider it...

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Angi Chau, PhD
Director of Bourn Idea Lab, Faculty Advisor for Robotics @ Castilleja School
650-470-7756 (direct)
ac...@castilleja.org

WOMEN LEARNING  |  WOMEN LEADING

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[kgo...@marymountnyc.org]

I recently ran a 65-hour print on our Makerbot 5th gen - nonstop across several days and nights. It worked out perfectly! I have had excellent luck with overnight prints on all of our Makerbots. During our busiest times of the year it's practically a necessity that I run prints continuously, even overnight.

[Tim Cooper]

I run quite a few jobs into the night but I try to

- do a unload and load filament - also make sure there is at least 1.5 times the filament (It never uses more, but sometimes I guess incorrectly).

- get them at least 20% done before I leave -

- only use regular pla or regular abs -(No crazy filaments) -  I would feel okay using HIPS too

- pick prints that are least likely to have problems.

- pray

I have a had a couple of problems but nothing catastrophic only frustrating. Had the ceramics crack on one of my extruders that I think was caused by the buildup from a jam but got some awesome silicon ones to replace them and all is even better. So far all tangles have led to a printing error which stopped everything or the filament has just broken off with no major alignment issues. We have makerbots (5th gen and 2x - I m a little afraid to let the 2x run overnight very often because I find the the 5 gen is way conservative on when it errors out while the 2x not as much). Also the situation of my printers is that if they were to spontaneously combust the sprinkler would soak them (and my lab ...). If I could not print overnight I would lose 10-20 hours a week (especially crucial during a full class project).

I think you need to know your own equipment and safety supports to make the decision. Good luck! and Kudos to kgodwin on the 65 hour print!

Good luck and trust your gut !

Tim Cooper

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Tim Cooper

Technology Teaching and Learning Coordinator | THE YORK SCHOOL

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[Marry Jeyn]

Hi! I'm planning to buy a 3D printer, but before that I want to understand what costs I can expect when using it. Are there any convenient tools for calculating the cost of materials and printing?

вторник, 21 июня 2016 г. в 19:32:56 UTC+3, Tim Cooper: