Makerfarm i3 8" Prusa Printer Tweaks

I'm new to 3d printing and new to this forum. I purchased and built the Makerfarm kit in 2 days last weekend. Well, it took me a day to build it and another day to get my glass, soldiering iron, etc, and calibrate it.

So far I've found that the downloadable configuration for Slic3r mostly works well. However, I've made a few tweaks to that configuration as well as my firmware and wanted to share those and get other tweaks from more experienced users.

Firmware:

I modified my hotend max temp from 235 to 270. I want to use nylon sometime in the future which requires a hotter temperature. In addition I was getting a max-temp error now and again. This new setting fixed that.

Slic3r:

• I changed my initial hotend temp to 230 for first layers and 228 for additional layers. This seems to avoid layer separation. This setting is under Filament Settings
• I changed my first layer bed temp to 108 instead of 110 as my bed will not reach 110. Other layers can cool down to 100. This setting is under Filament Settings
• Under Printer Settings I made sure my nozzle diameter is 0.4 mm.
• Under Print Settings, I adjusted my first layer height to 0.4 instead of 0.35 to get a thicker first layer.

Overall these settings seem to work best for me so far. I'd love to know about other settings that provide a better print.

Cheers,

--Midwire

1 thing comes to mind for me, because i had this problem. but first
I think your printing with ABS looking at the temperatures you're using.

Your bed temperature is probably good for small objects, the problem with larger objects is, that when the bed temperature is so high and your objects that are tall will have a much faster cooldown, this can create warp withing the object so when you have this problem you will know why.

As far as i know the best layer height is half your nozzle diameter which would be 0.2 for a nozzle of 0.4.

But most settings are generally accepted , there is always a variation for everybody, because lining at a different location gives different parameters to think about.

It's great to see what others find as successful settings. Thanks for those. It helps new users a lot because getting started can be daunting. Everyone is excited to get that first print off and when it goes badly right from the start it's frustrating.

I've done something to help get my heatbed to 110C if you think you need the extra degrees. I ordered a cheap space blanket (you know, that really thin mylar silver sheet stuff that folds to the size of a small bar of soap?) from Amazon and spray glued that to some thin cardboard that I also crushed to make thinner. I cut strips up and inserted them inbetween my wood carriage and heated bed. I have 4 strips that cover I'd say about 80% of the open space in there, and the silver points up. Space blankets advertise that they reflect 99% of the heat that hits them, so, mine reflect any bottom heat back up and I have no trouble hitting 120C. I use 105C-110C for my working temp and have not found I need to go higher but it helps the bed heat up faster as a good side effect.

Current thinking is that for printing ABS, 90C is the good place to be. However, if you intend to explore printing with other materials such as nylon, wood etc, your space blanket fix is a good one.

Old Man Emu

Ok, I'll try it lower. You don't have any issues with not sticking at 90C? I used 100C once and my parts were popping off so I went back up. Several of the slicers seem to default to 110C for the bed.

You can change your heat bed temperature in your slicer program. It should work well for you since you have taken steps to make sure there are no drafts blowing on your bed.

OME

Sure, no doubt. I'm familiar with parameter setting in slicers. I was just noting that many of their developers have chosen 110C as the default temp for ABS beds and was primarily why I used it as lower temps have resulted in parts not sticking for me.

We were printing @ 110 for ABS without issues we use foil tape around the edge gap no problem reaching temp. We have drooped the temp to 90 and still no problems sticking using ABS juice,

I've read about ABS juice a little but have had such good results with Aquanet hairspray that I haven't tried it. The plate is so easy to clean in the sink just hot soapy water. However, 90C is less wear and tear on the heater and uses less power so maybe I'll try it.

How often to you have to "rejuice" it? Also, I like the foil tape idea. That traps "all" the air inside and makes a great dead air space of heat. I'm going to try that too.

Thanks...

The juice is a one time use where the part is printed but we move the parts around the table to utilize all the space. We coat both side of the glass so there are lots of prints before retreat. We also have three sheets of glass and we prep all when needed. It also leaves a nice shiny face on the part. IMO it sticks twice as good as the aquanet. Tip do not apply to a hot bed..

I tried the ABS juice and it worked very well. I'll keep trying it. So, you don't have any issues with treating both sides and having the down side stick to the hot bed? I've had issues with just a bit of Aquanet on the bottom of the glass sticking to the hot bed. I'm afraid to try coating both sides with juice. Is it really OK?

Yes it works great zero melt on the bottom side. ABS melts @ 220c ish and our bed is never over 110c we now print with bed temp 90c as we had our glass crack due to the heat and bed warp in the middle.

The MakerFarm provided Slic3r setting files start at 90 for first layer, then heat to 110 for each additional layer. This is quite opposite from Slic3rs suggested hot then cold.

Did you try the makerfarm settings?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RobH2

I ordered a cheap space blanket (you know, that really thin mylar silver sheet stuff that folds to the size of a small bar of soap?) from Amazon and spray glued that to some thin cardboard that I also crushed to make thinner. I cut strips up and inserted them inbetween my wood carriage and heated bed. I have 4 strips that cover I'd say about 80% of the open space in there, and the silver points up. .

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I had thin crushed cardboard under my bed. I didn't notice much improvement but I did notice it caused my bed to bow, which is the worst thing to deal with! So be careful putting anything under the bed which can even put slight pressure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phr0ze

I had thin crushed cardboard under my bed. I didn't notice much improvement but I did notice it caused my bed to bow, which is the worst thing to deal with! So be careful putting anything under the bed which can even put slight pressure.

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I used a piece of sponge, To put under the middle of the heated bed, So the heated bed gets a slight pressure upwards to get less vibirations during slow movements wich are quiet noisy.

But ye it does bend very easily.

When I pull my extruder mount down to fit the auto-leveling servo, I am going to fit a string of LED lights on the underneath of the mount so that the print area will be lit. I'm sick of having to light the area with a torch while things are printing.

OME

I'd like to see that when you are finished. Are you going to use DC or AC lights. I'm not sure, is Australia 120V or 220V?

Quite simply just use a strip of 12V LEDs:

Attachment 1064
and wire them into the extruder fan power supply so they are always illuminated. They cost me $AU3.00 per 5cm strip and have an adhesive backing so they just stick to the frame. I can get them from my local electrical shop similar to Radio Shack. {Edit: Found a strip of these lights in my junk box. I had them on my motorcycle as daytime running lights, so not they can go onto the printer.}

Australia is 240V AC


OME

That sounds like a great mod. I think I'll copy you on this idea.

Can you power them straight from the 12V power supply? *just saw you're using the fan powersupply

Certainly you can power them directly from a power supply. You might want to add a switch to turn them off since the circuit is outside of the printer control board and GCode switching. I'm bummed now because I took my power supply and trimmed off all of the extraneous wires and left only the ones that feed my controller. I then taped and used head shrink on the nub of trimmed wires. Now I'll have to undo all of that to tease out a pair of 12V leads. Some light in there will be nice as I'm always in there there with my small LED flashlight.

I am going to wire in where my 12V supply wires into the RAMPS board on the bottom left hand corner of this diagram. I am not going to bother with an an/off switch. The LADs can stay on all the time that the printer is powered up.

Attachment 1130

OME

That makes sense. They draw such low power and put out little heat. Plus, the lifespan is so long who cares, right? If you rim the rest of the frame in blue it will look very "Tron."