Gcode Tinkercad

[Berniece Domnick]

Im trying to print my own stl file, which i made in Tinkercad. I'm just trying to print a little box, but it doesn't work. I think it's something with the gcode because when I print a gcode that I found online, it looks good, as you can see in the pictures. I'm using Cura 4.7 and have tried many different print settings but it doesn't get any better. I've added an example of a gcode file that printed horrible. Does anyone know what i'm doing wrong? (I'm using a Balco 3D printer.) Thanks in advance!

Check your Printer Profile and insure that your nozzle is what you actually have installed. The line width is set to .4 but width-wise nothing is connected so it's possible you have the nozzle set to something smaller.

Your main issue is that the first layer is too high off the bed (I think - would be best if I could see the first few seconds after it starts). Does your printer do autoleveling? Manual leveling? for most printers, manual leveling is better so if that's what you are doing, just move the bed a little closer to the nozzle while it prints the bottom layer until it sticks nicely.

Starting out by saying my overall tech level is like a 4/10 so please bear with me. Sometime last winter/spring, I converted my son's hockey team logo into an STL file, played around on Tinkercad with it, and created a simple flat ornament out of it. I have the perfect gcode file of this logo-- except now I want to enlarge it a bit before printing for a couple of his teammates. My son and I cannot for the life of us figure out how to get back into edit mode in Prusaslicer with this file to do so? It's no longer listed in my Tinkercad account for some reason, and I also can't figure out what free website I would have used to convert the original file from jpg to stl, as the few I tried tonight didn't have nearly the detail my gcode file has. Does anyone have any advice? We can only open the file in "Prusaslicer viewer".

Ugh. Frustrating since I literally just want to make it a wee larger. Can anyone recommend a site that converts a jpg into a detailed stl then for me to re-do the file? I've tried 3 different sites and none of them look even remotely like what I did last winter/spring. They have the basic shape but no details.

There are some sites which CLAIM to be able to create a valid .stl file from a .gcode file, but they will do anywhere from a very vile job to a so-so job depending on which site and the phase of the moon.

To give you an idea of what's involved in editing a .gcode file to do what you want, there will be typically thousands to hundreds of thousands of lines in any nontrivial .cgode file. (A spatula that I recently printed, a fairly simple object, has 180,000 lines in the .gcode file.)

To expand the object in the X and Y planes, you would need to adjust the X and Y coordinates of each and every printing and moving command to position and print longer beads. This is not even considering the speed of the moves, etc.

For the Z plane, you would either have to increase the Z distance at each and every layer change, and put up with the loss of resolution and possible lack of filament volume, or else tediously re-jigger each and every layer to print exactly what you want where you want it.

This would be hours upon hours upon hours of calculations and work (yes, if you're fluent in programming you could write a script to semi-automate some of the grunt work) followed by iterations of failed test prints, back to editing/re-doing the .gcode (LOL, banging the nozzle into the build plate with a bad .gcode command?), rinse, repeat.

Ugh how frustrating! It would be very easy to duplicate again if I can find a site that makes a comparable stl file to what I was able to find earlier this year. Can you recommend a site that converts a jpg into a detailed stl then for me to re-do the file? I've tried 3 different sites and none of them look even remotely like what I did last winter/spring. They have the basic shape but no details.

I did not ask you to tell me which site I used; I asked you for a referral of a detail oriented converter if you can recommend one? I do try to keep my laptop in shape so browser history has long been deleted as well as my trash bin that would have my original STL file. I do have the original jpg but have thus far been unimpressed with the sites I've tried as they seem to only convert the basic shape with no details/textures. If you know a good converter, I'd love to try it!

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I created some simple parts, made g-code files using Prusa Slic3r and pasted them onto the SD card but I can't see them on the printer. I tried adding a g-code file from Thingiverse, nothing, I can't see them once I put the SD card in the printer.

Any suggestions? I'm a total newbie. This is my first printer but I'm very familiar with creating 3D models. I couldn't see the stl files I created from Creo in Slic3r even though it said they were there. The parts were so easy, I recreated them from Tinkercad and was able to create g-codes for them.

I can see the files on the SD card while in the computer. I haven't been able to get Prusa Control to work. The files looks good in Slic3r. I put the files in the same location as the gcode files for the sample parts. Should they be somewhere else?

I went back to Tinkercad and created a new stl file, it came in okay and I was able to put it on the SD card and print it. I discovered the original stl files I created from Creo came in really tiny and I couldn't see them, which is why I thought it didn't work. I created the files in inches, do I need to convert to mm and then create the stl file?

I found code that works for what I need, but it is only for one servo motor. I would like to be able to get it to work for three or more servos, but I have little to no experiance in coding. I tried for hours looking at different code to figure out how to tweek it to get it to work but I get a bunch of errors. What I am trying to do is have 3 servos or so each with its own button. When the botton A is pressed, servo A turns 90 degrees. When button A is press again, the servo truns back to its initial state. This part works with the follow code, but I cant for the life of me figure out how to get servo B/button B etc. to work.

Im not sure if I did that correctly, when I put the code in TinkerCad simulator it uploads alright but when I click each button the motor moves a few degrees and returns (not the full 90 degrees) here is how I wrote it:

There is an other way. By updating all the servo motors every 10ms or 20ms, you can program the speed and use them all together.

Start by reading the Blink Without Delay page.

Then try this Wokwi simulation:

Thanks John! I got a chance to try your code and it works too and is much shorter. If I were to add additional servos would I just add to the button count and add the appropriate pins? Or do I also need to add more ++ wherever that is in the code?

The project I am working on is a box that raises and lowers sharpies onto clear 3d printer filament to change the colors. Once I get A prototype working with manual controls I want to add a function to raise and lower the servos in certain intervals as well as a random function(with long times because the filament moves slow and you need 30 or so centimeters to get a band of color on a small print.

Is it possible to add these (I have found sketches that will probably work) to either iterations of code above using adding a extra buttons for the proposed functions? Or would the code need to be rewritten in a different style?

Using servos to color filament for a 3D print is a great idea. With some tuning and Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black Sharpies you could do many-color prints. With the servos you could even press the Sharpie with varying intensity to get more shades.

The trick with coloring filament is that there is a fair distance between the top of the extruder where you can apply the color and the nozzle. Fortunately the extruder motion in the gcode is typically absolute: you know what fraction of a millimeter of filament is going to be used for each X/Y motion. You could pre-process the gcode to move the color change instructions to, say '523 mm' before the corresponding X/Y motion. Add code to the printer firmware (Marlin?) to control the servos based on the color selection.

Can the students use AstroPrint on their Chromebooks to slice their files?

What is the workflow for printing, after the slice occurs?

Can they share/send those gcode files to me without having to download the files?

Thank you for your help!

I am facing another problem. As i said i was able to print the files which i downloaded on Creality website and printed by uploading to the Cloud. Yesterday i tried to print a model which physically 100% completed, but on the Cloud it frozen at 42%. I cannot refresh and stop the printing in order to print new models

Enter the IP address of your printer into a web browser, this should bring up the webpage of the printer. Drag and drop the gcode into the file list box, right click the file and print. Does that work? I get stl files from Thingiverse all the time as well as creating my own on CAD. Creatlity Print to import the stl and export the gcode to a file and drag and drop in the browser. Alternatively you could send it to LAN if Creality Print connects to the device.

Note:

I loaded the g-code in question for the third time and it was loading very slowly so I started the printer which connected while g-code was loading. It was not grayed out so I started the print job which is running fine. This log is from the period I just described:

3a8082e126