A Tea between friends :-) How was Your Day

[LePaul]

Gents....what's going on? It's been quiet here! What are you printing/building/working on?

I just received the pancake motors for my FT-5, the last piece I was waiting for.

Now I need to get the aluminum pieces made up. I was going to CNC them but I am going to see if I can get those water jet, since most of the pieces have hard corners an endmill can't do.

[nilrog]

Learning S3D (with some help from @neotko and @frederiekpascal). Got up and running pretty easily...and I already like it more than Cura.

But now I need to make some adjustments to the printer...@neotko spotted something and gave me some suggestions...and after that...some more upgrades to make it even better...i'm slowly iteration towards "perfection" so I can start to print other things than "upgrades"

[LePaul]

I'm still trying to like that program. I get some prints that are OK but Cura still seems to do a better job. Neo makes a good point that watching Cura do the inside of a print can make you wonder what the heck...yet the outside looks good.

I still struggle with how Cura first layer looks great and sometimes S3D isn't.

The struggle is real

[Neotko]

Learning S3D (with some help from @neotko and @frederiekpascal). Got up and running pretty easily...and I already like it more than Cura.

But now I need to make some adjustments to the printer...@neotko spotted something and gave me some suggestions...and after that...some more upgrades to make it even better...i'm slowly iteration towards "perfection" so I can start to print other things than "upgrades"

Printing upgrades is the fun part!

[Izzy]

Come on list the upgrades! Photos too!

[nilrog]

Come on list the upgrades! Photos too!

They will be in my printer thread. Some of them are already. That's where I try to document what I have done to the printer...it helps me remember what I have done and maybe someone else too

[Anders Olsson]

I am trying to sort out "the underextrusion problems from hell" on my UM2Go.
Changed nozzle, TFM, bowden, filament and firmware so far with no luck.

Tried repeatedly to feed filament by hand and the pressure required does not appear excessive, so there must be something wrong with the extruder motor.
Checked the pulling force several times though and it pulled about 5 kg all times except one, when it pulled only about 3 kg.
I haven't been able to repeat that lower number though, but after all this testing one has to suspect the motor since it obviously sounds weak when skipping.

There are rumors that there were bad batches of motors around when my UM2Go was made, and I have another motor, so swapping motor is next on my list I guess. Hope that solves the problems because it is not really usable as it is now.
The printer has been working fine with this setup for several hundred hours by the way, not sure why it stopped working now.

[Neotko]

I am trying to sort out "the underextrusion problems from hell" on my UM2Go.
Changed nozzle, TFM, bowden, filament and firmware so far with no luck.

Tried repeatedly to feed filament by hand and the pressure required does not appear excessive, so there must be something wrong with the extruder motor.
Checked the pulling force several times though and it pulled about 5 kg all times except one, when it pulled only about 3 kg.
I haven't been able to repeat that lower number though, but after all this testing one has to suspect the motor since it obviously sounds weak when skipping.

There are rumors that there were bad batches of motors around when my UM2Go was made, and I have another motor, so swapping motor is next on my list I guess. Hope that solves the problems because it is not really usable as it is now.
The printer has been working fine with this setup for several hundred hours by the way, not sure why it stopped working now.

On my tests with an oscilloscope that motor is horrible. A half fix is to install a Ferrite Core (the ones I insisted on the UM forum and then magically 6months later all um2+/um3 have them by default by UM never ever admitted this officially, they just magically appeared on all models).

So.. Yea, plug an oscilloscope and record the moves back and forward, not pretty.

OFC sometimes can work, electrical noise is the first source of problems on that motor, the second is that the stepper motors on umo/umo+/um2/um3 are from medieval times. A good post about how much they suck:

About the stepper
https://forum.pololu.com/t/stepper-micr ... ant/6938/3

And... that's all folks

Fix: Increase the quality of the motor (um2+ motor for example is much better for microstepping) or increase the ratio to skip errors (geared solution)

[Anders Olsson]

To my surprise I actually did not find anything wrong with the stepper or the stepper driver, tested both motors with both drivers.
Optionally, both my motors could be crappy, since neither of them is new.

Found another unrelated cause though, which explained why the problems were so severe before I decided to take the printer apart.
Apparently the printer selects the 0.25 mm temperature if you print with 0.35 mm nozzle size in Cura, which means much lower nozzle temperature. Unfortunately I was not there during that print so I did not notice until I printed the same thing again

It might also be that this particular filament (Innofill PLA) that I used during most of the troubleshooting behaves differently.
I had to increase the temperature a bit for it not to skip at 0.2 mm layers and 50mm/s and the filament has a very "sticky" surface that could increase the friction in the bowden I guess.
The other filament I tested (Voltivo ExcelFil PLA) has been working good before though but appeared to suffer from similar issues now, although I did not do any extensive comparison.

Anyway, the printer is working good enough to be usable again now

When putting back the electronics cover I took the opportunity to introduce the printer to our daughter by the way:

Thought it is better to start early, since she is my daughter
She has been watching it printing a few times already, but naturally I could not let her get to close until it was properly cooled down and unplugged from the mains.

[Neotko]

Ohhhhh so cute!!!

[jonnybischof]

Got me a new project

Jess, the original creator of that particular design (Mass Effect Carnifex Pistol by Jessthemullet) was so kind to give me the step files so I can work on the thing myself.

Already added those iron sights with glow tubes (read: transparent orange filament bits) which should work pretty well. I adopted the Trijicon style which lets light enter the tubes from the top - making them brighter in direct sunlight. No actual night-sights since tritium-tubes are a bit hard to come by

Needs moar work to improve the assembly (Already put some M4 screws in place) and some bits here and there, but with Jess' files I could really start off on the right foot

(bottom parts look off since they are already sliced in half)

/edit:
Looking forward to printing a complete set with scope and heavy barrel attachment and play with it all day long
Only downside to the Carnifex: It's supposed to use the Mas Effect standard thermal clips, but I don't see where one would put such a clip into the Carnifex. It seems they just forgot about the magazine completely
Actually, I think I'll just write Bioware and ask them. Who knows, maybe they care to answer..

[LePaul]

She's getting big!

[reibuehl]

Susanne said the same

[nallath]

Got me a new project

EL WIRE! Seriously. Any SF project gets way better with EL. I love that stuff. It has such a nice diffuse light. You can even buy the stuff in sheets.

[jonnybischof]

Got me a new project

EL WIRE! Seriously. Any SF project gets way better with EL. I love that stuff. It has such a nice diffuse light. You can even buy the stuff in sheets.

Will keep that in mind for the lighting
Meanwhile, started a design log:
http://3dprintingforum.us/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=626