2 things: grinders, and help with a prussa

[Luke Spychalla]

1) Anyone have a suggestion on a good mill to grind down failed prints and other materials, to run them through a filament extruder? Ideally I'd like to mix in other materials to my polymers, so I'd like to be able to grind materials to 100 - 200 microns.

2) I just finished assembly of a Prussa 8" i3 kit from MakerFarm (link below). For the life of me, I cannot get it to stop shifting in the x and y directions when printing! It's making me crazy(er)! Can anyone be of assistance?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B80A_woXoRWdRm0xMGFhT3FKT1k/edit

Thanks much,

Luke

ldspy...@gmail.com

[the_digital_dentist]

Check the motor current settings for the X and Y axes.  If those are not set right the motors can skip and cause shifting.  Start at a low current and increase it slowly while slewing the axis.  The motion should be smooth and it shouldn't make a lot of noise.  Use the lowest current that gives reliably smooth operation.  The motors should get warm when printing, but not hot.  If you can't keep a finger on the motor, it's getting too hot- reduce the current.   Make sure your cables are making solid connections between the motor drivers and the motors.  Make sure the motor drivers aren't overheating.  If the heatsinks get more than warm you might consider adding a small fan to circulate the air over them.

Good luck grinding the plastic into powder without melting it in the process and good luck extruding it into usable filament.  There's a lot more to making quality filament than just forcing molten plastic through a die/nozzle.

[Luke Spychalla]

I tried that, to no avail! Could be I'm not tuning it properly though. Do think anyone at the 7:00 meetings might be willing to look at the printer if I brought it in?

L

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 12:32 PM, the_digital_dentist <mark.r...@gmail.com> wrote:

Check the motor current settings for the X and Y axes.  If those are not set right the motors can skip and cause shifting.  Start at a low current and increase it slowly while slewing the axis.  The motion should be smooth and it shouldn't make a lot of noise.  Use the lowest current that gives reliably smooth operation.  The motors should get warm when printing, but not hot.  If you can't keep a finger on the motor, it's getting too hot- reduce the current.   Make sure your cables are making solid connections between the motor drivers and the motors.  Make sure the motor drivers aren't overheating.  If the heatsinks get more than warm you might consider adding a small fan to circulate the air over them.

Good luck grinding the plastic into powder without melting it in the process and good luck extruding it into usable filament.  There's a lot more to making quality filament than just forcing molten plastic through a die/nozzle.

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[Ray Scheufler]

Check your belt tension and frame squareness. If the belt is to tight it can contribute to binding. A non square frame will also bind and skip steps.

What speed and acceleration are you running at? Too fast on either of those can cause steps to skip.

Ray Scheufler

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