This past weekend I completed the longest continuous print yet on my Prusa Mendel…just under 9 hours straight. It’s the Basalt Pencil Holder from Thingiverse. It was printed at 100% scale, 0.20mm layer height with 0.10 infill on a J-Head with 0.35mm nozzle in translucent green PLA.
It reached 89.8mm in height (one of the taller things I’ve printed) and turned out amazingly well. It’s solid, dense and nearly a perfect print with minimal stringing.
The Prusa seems no worse for wear either:
One trick that Brad (Sublime) discovered when testing the J-Head with Slic3r is to tell Slic3r that the 0.35mm nozzle is actually 0.30 which seems to better compensate for the swell of the nozzle under heat and results in less blobbing. Since I updated my profile with that change, the prints have been much cleaner.
A brief update on the build status of my prototype version of Brad’s (aka Sublime) forthcoming Tantillus 3d printer and my Prusa Mendel Reprap printer.
Last weekend, Brad & I mounted most of the printed parts, motors and hardware for the extruder and build platform. Part of that exercise was for Brad to see how difficult it was for someone else (me) to assemble the internal parts (it’s tricky!) and for us to get an idea of how to document the build process for others.
Mechanically, it’s complete except for the bowden cable. We still need to source some tubing for the 1.75mm filament I plan on using. Brad’s also been fine tuning some of the printed parts to better match the sourced vitamin hardware.
Last night I started wiring the LCD panel and encoder wheel as well as mounting them to the front of the printer. As I’m building the wood cut version, I had to drill holes in the front. The lasercut acrylic version will come pre-drilled (and it’s seethru so the LCD will be on the inside).
I used this LCD cover I found on Thingiverse and it fits perfectly and cleans up the front nicely although I may reprint it in ABS instead of the PLA that is shown which is semi-transparent so the backlight leaks through.
The LCD & encoder are wired the same way as the PanelMax addon is that I recently integrated into my Prusa:
This is thanks to the excellent printed parts and tutorial TommyC posted on Thingiverse. It really makes a huge difference in using the Prusa without a computer…I simply slice my 3d models using Slic3r, then put the gcode file onto a microSD card (I’m still using my SDRamps board and not Tommy’s SD card reader in the PanelMAX). Power up the Prusa and navigate to the file and click on it. The bot then starts heating the bed, then homes the axis and starts printing as soon as the hotend is to temperature. I’m using Marlin with the Prusa now but am still having issues printing taller objects as I seem to have something off in my Z height configuration. You can see in this photo of two Yoda’s…the one on the left was printed using Sprinter firmware and the one on the right is with my Marlin build (latest as of last week):
A little squished vertically thanks to Marlin settings. More troubleshooting & recalibration to come!
I’m still waiting for my RAMPS 1.4 kit and power supply to come in before I can fire up the Tantillus but they are enroute so hopefully very soon.
UPDATE: Fixed the Marlin issue by turning down the current on the Z driver…it was overheating due to being on during the entire print at a high current so was basically going into protection mode on every layer, hence the weird behavior. My Sprinter config had the Z axis disabled when not in use which also works in Marlin but it works better if it’s always on. (Thanks to Brad for solving this!)
It’s been a few weeks since my last build update so I figured it might be good time to post some updates on all the printers I’ve got on the go at the moment.
Prusa Mendel
I’ve been tweaking my Prusa quite a bit lately and have been getting really good results as you can see:
I’m still using Sprinter with the latest version of Slic3r. Will attempt to migrate to the latest Marlin this weekend but am beginning to suspect some issues with RAMPS 1.4 boards as those with RAMPS 1.3 or lower seem to have no issues.
Tantillus Update
I’ve been working with Brad (Sublime) in testing his design for the Tantillus. Originally designed with a fully printable frame, I’ve encountered issues printing the frame in ABS on my MakerBot. The frame is comprised of 3 levels of 4 quarters of the frame and each is a huge print for the Thing-O-Matic’s build area taking 3-5 hours to print. The biggest problem is cracking from tall prints as evidenced by the photo above. Even after enclosing the walls of my bot with acrylic windows, I still had issues printing it. It’s likely possible with someone’s bot, just not mine…at least in ABS plastic. Brad’s prototype model was done in PLA and even he had some curling.
To combat this, Brad’s also made a version that can be either CNC milled or laser cut in wood or acrylic. We tested this out last weekend thanks to Derek’s CNC mill:
Here’s Brad’s original prototype with the wood cutout version side by side:
I painted my frame green:
and here’s Brad’s updated wood frame version, complete with an awesome Tantillus logo:
We’ll be building the prototype versions over the coming weeks and report back once everything is sorted and working.
Other fun stuff
I met Andrew from Glitch 3D Models (who operates a BFB Touch 3d printer) at the Maker Faire event at the Museum of Vancouver last week and he brought his own GIANT Yoda to our regular group meeting:
It was a 36 hour print done in PLA. He maxed out his build area with only a few mm left to go so Yoda has a flatish head.
It’s very cool to see the ever growing variety of 3d printers in the area and it’s been a blast sharing ideas with everyone.
This past weekend, Brad came over and helped me tweak things on my Prusa Mendel. He immediately noticed a few issues in the prints I had previously made.
I ended up swapping out my PLA bushing X-carriage with an updated Greg’s X-carriage with LM8UUs (soooo smooth now!), with the intergrated belt tensioning system (a pain to install but works great once done).
Also added a cooling fan for the J-Head hotend via the extra heater inputs on my RAMPS 1.4 board (pin 9) so it’s now PWM controllable (you can see it in the video below). This allowed me to add fan high, fan low and fan off buttons to Pronterface and to integrate it into my Slic3r start gcode (M106 S255/S128 for high/low or M107 for off).
Tweaking the Slic3r settings really helped to correct the issues I was having. It really is invaluable having someone that understands how these settings work, look at your prints and be able to tell what settings are off. Every machine is different but there are some things consistent across them all. My biggest problems seemed to be not enough filament being pushed through and some layer print settings being too slow. I figured slowing everything down would help troubleshoot things but when printing with molten PLA, faster is usually better.
We attempted to upgrade my firmware to Marlin (from Sprinter) but had nothing but trouble. The endstops were ignored and the axis weren’t responding to commands in the correct direction. Switched back to Sprinter and everything worked fine again. Will have to investigate this further on the forums as it seems it may be a common problem with RAMPS 1.4 and may have been fixed earlier today.
Using the new Slic3r (version 7.0 was just released), I was able to print this Yoda:
I think it turned out better than the ABS version I printed awhile ago on my Makerbot (although this was printed at 50% the size)…the overhangs weren’t as bad either.
Brad also brought along his prototype Tantillus printer which is now printing:
He’s still fine tuning the model files and I’m testing them in ABS (his prototype is entirely PLA). More info soon as he get things just right.
UPDATE: Printed a full size Yoda:
Also added one of the 80mm LED light rings I had with just a couple of zip ties to the fan. I had tried to find a decent way to mount it or simply use some LED light strips left over from my install in the MakerBot but this seems to work the best without getting in the way of anything.
I had to fix a number of alignment issues with my belts, adjust a pulley, reseat and level the print bed to get to this point.
This is a quick printing wire clip which turned out really well considering I haven’t really calibrated anything yet beyond levelling the print bed:
The one on the left is literally the first thing I tried printing (before I fixed a number of issues) and the one on the right is pretty close to what it was supposed to be. It’s a little smooshed as I grabbed it while it was still warm.
Printing in PLA is quite different than the ABS I’m used to…it’s very oozy. I’m going to need to install a fan to cool the print faster.
It’s SOOOO much quieter than my MakerBot!
I’m excited to finally have things up and running. Now I just need to start calibrating the printer.
UPDATE: Received a fresh roll of transparent green PLA and added a temporary light to the extruder. I’d originally tried printing on glass with a cold bed, then a heated bed and then settled on cold blue painters tape.
The first few layers always seem to have issues sticking. Perhaps my Z height needs to be lower (squishier) or it’s a temperature thing. The green PLA seems to be more cotton candy like with stringy micro filaments that get caught under the nozzle and wreak havoc.
The cube on the left was literally the first thing I printed when I installed the new spool of green PLA and turned out nearly perfect. Glassy bottom, not too smooshed 1st layer and the top is nice and smooth. The middle one was a combination of things including a filament feed issue (spool not rolling freely) and the last one was the last thing I printed yesterday on blue painter’s tape. It’s decent but not quite as nice as the 1st cube.
I was tired of printing cubes so I thought I’d try something relatively fast to print, and was a trickier item to print due to the shape of the text. I’ve printed tons of these geeks on my MakerBot so I know how they are supposed to turn out (in ABS at least):
Unfortunately it didn’t finish printing. Just as well too since there were problems with it due to the errant blobs of PLA causing the hotend to skip and the alignment was off on the text layers as it went higher.
It stopped printing because my laptop keeps cutting out (like it’s completely powered off with no warning, kernal panic, just off) randomly while printing (after 7-10 minutes of printing), killing the print. I’m guessing it’s a USB communication error (tried both ports & my USB cable already has ferrite cores on each end of it) or line noise from the wiring. It was much worse when I tried to tidy my wires up by bundling them together but once I undid that, it got better (longer prints) but it still happened with this print. My desktop doesn’t seem to have the same problem though but that’s not nearly as convenient to use as a controller for the printer.
Maybe it’s time to get the SD Ramps board installed so I can print without needing it connected beyond starting the print.
Lastly, I found these RepRap coins which are a nice alternative to the calibration cubes. They print fast, are a little tricky and print well:
UPDATE #2: Last night I finally soldered the pins to the SD Ramps board I had ordered with my electronics originally and the headers to the RAMPS (along with the important D1 diode under the X/Y drivers to allow for computerless operation) in the hopes that this would solve my issues (or make it moot) with my laptop not staying connected:
Julian’s post was very helpful in navigating my exact configuration. This involved disconnecting everything and removing the RAMPS 1.4 board to solder onto it which gave me the opportunity to detangle some of the wires which may have been causing my line noise issues. I also labeled each wire before removing it to make it easier to reconnect.
I had originally planned on wiring the SD Ramps instead of the normal header way but ended up going with the headers as it was easier and a more robust connection that I had originally thought. To my great surprise, upon plugging the SD Ramps into the arduino mega, it worked! I then reconnected the RAMPS and all the wiring and reflashed the arduino with Sprinter with added SD support (by uncommenting one line of the configuration code) and hoped for the best. Booted everything up and again, to my great surprise, Pronterface recognized there was a SD card connected and allowed me to load up some of the gcoded files I already had on it. The hot end heated up and away it went printing. I then disconnected the printer in Pronterface and unplugged the USB cord and the printer kept going. A few minutes later I had my first untethered calibration cube printed…and it was nearly the best one yet! Yay!
I got a little cocky and then reconnected everything again and tried to print the geek keychain. It works flawlessly until about 5 minutes into the print and then some blobby PLA caused it to skip again and I ended up reconnecting to the printer to stop it – unfortunately there is no other way to stop the printer when it’s going by itself other than to kill the power.
Stay tuned as I attempt to solve this problem…my guess is that my extruder calculations in the Sprinter firmware needs to be recalibrated. Brad’s also suggested that I switch to Marlin which I may also do in the coming days.
UPDATE #3: Once again, simply showing a photo of a failed print to my pals in the reprap group helped troubleshoot my printing issues. My set screw on my x-axis needed to be tightened and bumping up the temperture to 190C for the green PLA I was using seemed to have fixed things:
Still not 100% but pretty damn close to the happy place I was hoping to get to!
This past weekend, I hosted the guys from our Fraser Valley RepRap group at my place so that we could actually setup our machines to print and tinker. This is something we’ve wanted to do at our regular meetings but the folks at Boston Pizza, while very accommodating, probably wouldn’t be too keen on us printing stuff on their tables during our meetups.
Brad (aka Sublime) was the first to show up with his Prusa Mendel shown here printing a part on my coffee table:
and he also brought along a nearly complete prototype of his fully printable, mini 3d printer. Look how cute it is! Note the pop can for scale inside.
Check out the super tiny hotend he made (although he is considering using a J-Head after seeing the ones we recently ordered):
Derek also brought along his Citadel Mendel prototype printer:
It was pretty cool to see so many printers in one place (my living room & kitchen counter) and that 2 of them were incredible prototype designs.
With Eugene’s help, I also got my new J-Head hotend setup:
Just need to wire it up to my Prusa and (finally) start printing.
This is definitely shaping up to be the year of 3d printing…it seems every day major media is covering different aspects of how this technology is changing the game.
UPDATE:Brad has just posted about his mini printer with a lot more details and specifications. Sounds like it is getting a lot of (justified) attention in the RepRap community.
In my last update on the building of a Prusa Mendel reprap 3d printer, I finally got everything working in with the printer…if only for a few minutes.
I’ve yet to actually print anything recognizable thanks to a number of challenges along the way.
Once I got the software sorted, I tried printing some calibration cubes. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as the extruder got clogged with PLA almost immediately. It seems I was trying to force the filament into the hotend faster than it should have been. So then I had to disassemble it, clear it out and try again.
After rebuilding the hotend, the X axis belt was loose so in the process of tightening it, I managed to break all the PLA bushings that were supporting the X axis. I had already fixed these recently so was pretty much done with them at this point. Fortunately, I received some LM8UU linear bearings (from Mixshop.ca which are smaller than normal ones for some reason) and printed some replacement parts (in blue – I couldn’t be bothered to swap colors to match the previously printed green ones).
I liked the design of the Prusa 2 parts but wasn’t prepared to cut my smooth rod to make it work so I modified a derivative version of the Prusa 1 idler to fit my LM8UUs (which I posted on Thingiverse in case it would be useful to anyone else). I now have a hybrid X axis since the motor mount is this one (with the awesome integrated endstop trigger) and the idler is a modified Prusa 1 version for LM8UUs.
It all works so I’m happy and I don’t have to worry about snapping off any more bushings. I opted to stick with the old X-carriage as it’s opening is large enough to allow me to remove the extruder and hotend without having to disassemble it (although I may swap in this open x version once I track down the bearings…which leads me to my next issue:
Seems that once again, I was pushing too much filament into the hotend and I may have had a problem during one of my rebuilds with the teflon tape getting compromised which lead to the ‘leakage’ of PLA above the PEEK block in the photo above.
This should be easy to fix and I’ll try it all again very soon. Once again, the folks in the local RepRap group I belong to helped out very quickly by helping to diagnose the issues just from some photos so I hope to be finally printing by this weekend.
One final thing for Reprap users on Mac OSX – Kliment has released a native OSX app version of Pronterface which I found on his Github while troubleshooting getting a new version of it running…this is great as it means I don’t need to run a couple of command line scripts in order to get Pronterface going anymore. Works like a charm!
Figured it was time for a build update on my Prusa Mendel 3D printer. I had some friends over this past weekend from our RepRap user group and we ended up spending the whole day tinkering with the printer.
With huge help from Brad and Eugene, we were able to get everything wired up and the motors moving.
It was pretty cool to finally get to this point and have things generally work as they were expected. The only issue I noticed was that the Z axis was inverted so it was simply a matter of flipping the connector around.
It wasn’t without some casualties though…we managed to break off 3 different PLA bushings while testing things.
If I was doing this from scratch tomorrow, I’d definitely skip the PLA bushings and go for LM8UU or brass bushings…the PLA bushings plus the epoxy is just a pain in the butt.
When testing out the Z axis motors, it became apparent right away that that original couplers weren’t going to work. The threaded rods wobbled like crazy and I may have stripped the plastic parts when assembling. Fortunately I had a set of the updated couplers printed which worked really well after a quick trip to Home Depot for some tubing.
At Brad’s suggestion, I swapped out the original belt clamps for the new ones in the 2nd Iteration of the Prusa files as it’s taller, has grooves for the belt teeth to hold it and helps the belt line up better with the motor and bearings on the Y axis.
I had printed some M3 nut thumbwheels for use elsewhere and they came in handy for leveling the build area on the aluminum thick sheet I have.
Brad also soldered the wires to the heated build plate PCB (Mk1) after my failed attempts…seems my new soldering iron tip wasn’t heating up enough but Brad was able to make it work. The PCB works great and gets toasty hot pretty quick.
The RAMPS 1.4 board almost fully wired up…just missing the extruder and thermistor connections:
Note the fancy fan with blue leds – everyone seemed to like it and wanted to get one for themselves. It’s an Antec SpotCool Fan with 3 speeds and is SUPER quiet. It’s mounted to the Prusa frame via this simple mount.
We also had quite the adventure figuring out how to make a usable hot end out of the parts I had from Mixshop. The brass barrel was too short so we cut down the PEEK block and also milled out the heater block with a drill bit and some fancy dremeling by Brad.
Not a lot left to do: mount the endstops, clean up the wiring, finish building the extruder/hotend and check everything is tight and level. Hopefully this weekend I should knock those off the list and possibly even get to the point of extruding some plastic! I can already tell that I’ll have lots of calibration to do…it’s definitely not as solid yet as my MakerBot is so the fine tuning will be critical to getting some decent prints with it.
Also have to say thanks again to Brad & Eugene…they were a huge help and I’m not sure where I’d be without their assistance at this point. One of the things that’s good & bad about RepRaps is that there are an infinite number of ways to build them…having Brad & Eugene share their wisdom was awesome and really sped up the build since I didn’t have to make some key decisions because they’ve already been through the process.
UPDATE: Here’s a couple videos of the motors running. The extruder is just clamped in place (for now) for testing purposes. Yes, it’s a printed clamp :)
I’m currently running the Sprinter firmware on the RAMPS and using PronterFace (running on Mac OSX) to control everything but it also works with Replicator G:
So much quieter than my MakerBot! Although the motor speeds in the videos are pretty low…it can go MUCH faster.
UPDATE #2: Success! Last night the bot extruded it’s first plastic (PLA). The hotend worked perfect right out of the gate (once I had all the wires properly connected), it just needs to be tidied up with some kapton tape. Next step is to calibrate and actually print something:
I was a little disappointed though. I had read that PLA (which is basically cornstarch) smelled like candy when extruded in this manner…sadly it doesn’t…in fact it doesn’t smell like anything although I haven’t had it printing for hours…perhaps it will be more noticable once I start printing objects.
UPDATE #3: Printing! Sort of!
Had an issue with the Z-axis voltage being too low to move the whole extruder (now properly installed), the whole X-axis fell down and the filament was sliding off the hobbed bolt teeth (results of which are in the video above). I’ve printed a filament guide that should help with this so I hope to actually be printing something recognizable tonight.
My original plan was to use Replicator G but I’m quite liking PronterFace with SFACT installed instead of the regular Skeinforge. It’s almost like the Print-O-Matic settings options I have for my MakerBot and aside from my filament issue, the above print is done with no calibration at all! It definitely looks correct when it’s going thru the motions.
I’ve been busily printing Prusa Mendel RepRap parts for people on my MakerBot for awhile now and decided to finally setup a proper online store for them and other printed objects at AllThings3D.com
After playing with a bunch of different storefront options, I’ve decided to just use a simple PayPal order button for now. There is just too many options and settings to sift through before I’d feel comfortable running one of these stores so I thought I’d keep it simple to start.
There is also a capacity issue as I can only print so much with only one printer online (the 2nd, my Prusa, should be online in a week or two) so it’s currently only offering Prusa parts at the moment with up to a one week lead time.
I plan on expanding the printed item offerings (and the storefront) at AllThings3D.com as soon as feasible. I’m also planning on detailing my Prusa build on the blog over there (as well as here still) to help illustrate using the parts I’m printing to build a 3D printer…hopefully a value add over other sellers of the parts, and definitely better than what you get on eBay.
It’s been awhile so I thought I’d post a quick update on my Prusa Mendel build progress.
Technically, I’ve got everything I need to assemble the 3D printer…just a lack of time lately. I’m hoping to fix that this weekend though.
I’ve got all the electronics now and just need to wire them up.
I ended up going with RAMPS 1.4 that I bought preassembled from Ultimachine. They seemed to have the best reputation and easiest shipping options for me. I also got my heated build platform from them as well. I’ve got the RAMPS mounted to an acrylic mounting plate from Lulzbot.com (I bought just the plate, not the kit, by mistake so had to find some compatible hardware to mount it and fortunately, they posted the mounting clamps on Thingiverse so I was able to print them myself) as I liked how it looked. It also has room to hold an LCD or keypad which I’ve also purchased although I haven’t landed on specifically which firmware to use yet that will ultimately dictate these extras usefullness. My plan is to ultimately be able to print from SD cards using the LCD/keypad combo directly but that’s another hurdle I’ll tackle when the main build is finished.
A friend cut some glass and I now have a 20cm x 20cm heated build platform…nearly double the size of my MakerBot’s!
The Y-axis motor has been mounted as has the lower thick sheet, belt and bushings.
I’m still concerned my bushings are too stiff so will be attempting to loosen them up this weekend using the heat gun on the smooth rod trick I’ve heard about.
And lastly, I’ve figured out what I’m going to do about the extruder and hot end. In the photo, it’s just sitting on the rods for the X-axis and not mounted nor fully assembled. I’m going with Greg’s Accessible Wade’s extruder and the standard hotend for the Wade’s that I got from Mixshop.com. I’ve been waffling back and forth over which diameter to use for the extruder given I have so much ABS plastic filament and PLA is generally harder and more expensive to get in Canada. But I’ve decided to go with the 1.75mm PLA filament for now, as I had originally planned. I bought the parts to make two complete extruders (one in each diameter) so I could always swap it out at a later point if I decide to change my mind.
The biggest challenge during this process is the constantly evolving Reprap community. While I’m half way through my build, a number of revisions to parts I’ve already printed have shown up that makes me ponder reprinting the new parts vs going with what I have and swapping out later. Also, as you can see from the various parts listed, I’ve had to literally source parts from all over the place. Places like Mixshop and others are now starting to put together complete kits for sale but I guess the benefit of sourcing things from all over, it gives me more control over the options that I build into the Prusa.
It’s definitely not for the faint of heart and unfortunately it’s a fairly technical process…but it is a hell of a lot of fun to work on.
As a side note, I just sold my first complete set of Prusa printed parts to someone locally so they can start building their own 3D printer:
I’ve already started printing another set. Contact me if you’d like a set to build your own 3D printer.
Fan with 3 speeds and is SUPER quiet. It’s mounted to the Prusa frame via this 
