Qidi Tech 1 - Replicator 1 clone

[DarkAlchemist]

I am missing something....

What is the point of these Vref changes?
It changes the power being fed to the stepper correct? But why? The motor is still gonna do the same steps per input wont it?


...

Because you are over driving the motors needlessly and they get so damn hot that the X motor actually burned me as if I were touching a skillet after 1.5 hours of printing (I never touched any of the other motors after that). With a RepRap you adjust a screw to as low as you can go before it skips and the motors are dead cool. A cool motor is a happy motor and lives a long life but lets not forget a motor that would bring a blister to a hand AND is attached to ABS is a double whammy waiting to happen.

Oh, and the stepper drivers on the Mightyboard are happier (cooler) too.

I've been working on one of these https://folgertech.com/products/folg...3d-printer-kit
I's a kit and does have a few printed parts but I like the all extruded aluminum frame and corner pieces.
It comes with everything you need and is easily modified/upgradable. Price is hard to beat.

I have heard nothing but praise for that 2020 model except for the Acrylic bed holders. Replace those with metal if you use a heated bed.

[Syd_Khaos]

Easy way to fix that...don't touch hot parts =P

Honestly though, I have been a metal worker since about age 12 when I started learning how to tig-weld. My fingers don't feel heat so well. I have grabed material off a fully heated nozzle bare-handed....its only hot for a sec. Always grab the plate out of machine soon as print is done, I have a potholder sitting by the printer, almost never use it lol.

I imagine that 3d printing will have much the same end result. You do this for long enough your gonna burn yourself enough that ya just don't feel it anymore.

It's also worth noting that the ABS used in the machine is not the same thermoplastic grade we print with. It has very different properties, as do most injection plastics compared to thermoplastics.
My longest print to date on this machine was a 32.2 hour print in ABS, running basically stock settings in S3D. There is absolutly no deformation of any of the plastic parts on my machine, even the printed feed carriage parts held up just fine, so I don't think that is much to be concerned about.

I can see wanting them cooler for less wear. Kinda odd they are not heatsinked, but I guess ya try and keep weight down. I'm wondering if these value found by others will work...or if I'm gonna have to muck about with em (like everything else) because I live by the ocean....
Kinda miss my home in Az....would be printing heaven there.

[DarkAlchemist]

Easy way to fix that...don't touch hot parts =P

Honestly though, I have been a metal worker since about age 12 when I started learning how to tig-weld. My fingers don't feel heat so well. I have grabed material off a fully heated nozzle bare-handed....its only hot for a sec. Always grab the plate out of machine soon as print is done, I have a potholder sitting by the printer, almost never use it lol.

I imagine that 3d printing will have much the same end result. You do this for long enough your gonna burn yourself enough that ya just don't feel it anymore.

It's also worth noting that the ABS used in the machine is not the same thermoplastic grade we print with. It has very different properties, as do most injection plastics compared to thermoplastics.
My longest print to date on this machine was a 32.2 hour print in ABS, running basically stock settings in S3D. There is absolutly no deformation of any of the plastic parts on my machine, even the printed feed carriage parts held up just fine, so I don't think that is much to be concerned about.

I can see wanting them cooler for less wear. Kinda odd they are not heatsinked, but I guess ya try and keep weight down. I'm wondering if these value found by others will work...or if I'm gonna have to muck about with em (like everything else) because I live by the ocean....
Kinda miss my home in Az....would be printing heaven there.

I just like cool motors and after being in the RepRap world for 4 years you learn about Vrefs and happy motors.

I could care less about burning myself I was just showing how hot it was getting AND no motor should be pushed that hard and that is a fact. In pushed I mean over driving them and over driving them for what purpose? It is stupid to over drive a motor and a heat sink on a motor is just a bandage because if you need to drive the motor that hot then you need a bigger motor with more torque.

It is like using 16 gauge wire with a 20amp load. Sure, it does it but for how long and why do you want the wire to get that hot? Same difference.

[JimHs1]

What does everyone use to smooth an object once printed (in ABS)?

[Syd_Khaos]

What does everyone use to smooth an object once printed (in ABS)?

Depends on said object...mainly its detail.

Any emery based sandpaper works good, and higher grits even benefit from wet-sanding.
Polishing with acetone and then cold water rinse can do good, but its very easy to distort detail like this.
A sandblaster can be used on SUPER low psi with a very fine glass particulate. But again, you will lose fine details using this method.
Also a method called vapor bathing that can be done, plenty of youtube vids on how to do it.
Have also heard of people using prints as a base and going over them with things like epoxy, plaster, and even bondo.

[Roger36330]

This thread started out with me asking " why are my steppers burning my fingers? Should they be that hot?" And someone told me to check and see what my Vref's were set to. They were maxed out (118) creating enough heat to melt my cooling fan. I changed X, Y, A, B =60. Now they are cool to the touch with enough juice to do the job.

[DarkAlchemist]

This thread started out with me asking " why are my steppers burning my fingers? Should they be that hot?" And someone told me to check and see what my Vref's were set to. They were maxed out (118) creating enough heat to melt my cooling fan. I changed X, Y, A, B =60. Now they are cool to the touch with enough juice to do the job.

Thank you and you're welcome too as I try to help people with the knowledge I do have and I figure the sweet spots will be between 60-80 for everyone.

Really, maxed out Vrefs for what reason? It is very insane and why this helps to confirm that Qidi Technology is incompetent and just winging it as I said earlier.

Want to know something even more insane? Look at the script that is on tverse and shown here for S3D as that sucker does G130 20 for all while the extruder and bed is heating up then 127 for them. Even worse.

G130 X127 Y127 Z40 A127 B127 ; Default stepper Vrefs <--- WOW

[SteveW25561]

Thanks for the tips on the scripts! I'm using Simplify3D and it's good to know how to fix the stepper vrefs in the startup scripts since they would have overidden the setup by ReplicatorG.

I've simply copied the scripts from the post at http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...6116#post86116 and modified the G130 line (but commented to show the original line). I've not confirmed it, but I'm using values of 70 and kept Z at 40. Does this look good?

If others find this works and is useful, perhaps that other post could be updated for future reference. Warning: I'm a total newb at this so take my mod with caution!


Paste this for the Left Extruder startup script

; **** Qidi Tech Left Extruder start.gcode ****
M73 P0 ; Enable build progress
G162 X Y F3000 ; Home XY maximum
G161 Z F1200 ; Home Z minimum
G92 Z-5 ; Set Z to -5
G1 Z0 ; Move Z to 0
G161 Z F100 ; Home Z slowly
M132 X Y Z A B ; Recall home offsets
M135 T1 ; Load left extruder offsets
G1 X-100 Y-75 Z30 F9000 ; Move to wait position off table
G130 X20 Y20 Z20 A20 B20 ; Lower stepper Vrefs while heating
M126 S[fan_speed_pwm] ; Set fan speed
M140 S[bed0_temperature] T0 ; Heat buildplate
M134 T0 ; Stabilize bed temperature
M104 S[extruder1_temperature] T1 ; Heat left extruder
M133 T1 ; Stabilize left extruder temperature
G130 X70 Y70 Z40 A70 B70 ; Default stepper Vrefs: G130 X127 Y127 Z40 A127 B127
G92 A0 B0 ; Zero extruders
M135 T1 ; Load left extruder offsets
G1 X-100 Y-65 F9000 ; Move to front left corner of bed
G1 Z0.3 F6000 ; Move down to purge
G1 X90 Y-65 E24 F2000 ; Extrude a line of filament across the front edge of the bed
G1 X100 Y-65 F180 ; Wait for ooze
G1 X110 Y-65 F5000 ; Fast wipe
G1 Z1 F100 ; Lift
G92 A0 B0 ; zero extruders
M73 P1 ;@body (notify GPX body has started)
; **** end of start.gcode ****

Paste this for the Right Extruder startup script

; **** Qidi Tech Right Extruder start.gcode ****
M73 P0 ; Enable build progress
G162 X Y F3000 ; Home XY maximum
G161 Z F1200 ; Home Z minimum
G92 Z-5 ; Set Z to -5
G1 Z0 ; Move Z to 0
G161 Z F100 ; Home Z slowly
M132 X Y Z A B ; Recall home offsets
M135 T0 ; Load right extruder offsets
G1 X-100 Y-75 Z30 F9000 ; Move to wait position off table
G130 X20 Y20 Z20 A20 B20 ; Lower stepper Vrefs while heating
M126 S[fan_speed_pwm] ; Set fan speed
M140 S[bed0_temperature] T0 ; Heat buildplate
M134 T0 ; Stabilize bed temperature
M104 S[extruder0_temperature] T0 ; Heat right extruder
M133 T0 ; Stabilize extruder temperature
G130 X70 Y70 Z40 A70 B70 ; Default stepper Vrefs: G130 X127 Y127 Z40 A127 B127
G92 A0 B0 ; Zero extruders
G1 X100 Y-70 F9000 ; Move to front right corner of bed
G1 Z0.3 F6000 ; Move down to purge
G1 X-90 Y-70 E24 F2000 ; Extrude a line of filament across the front edge of the bed
G1 X-100 Y-70 F180 ; Wait for ooze
G1 X-110 Y-70 F5000 ; Fast wipe
G1 Z0.5 F100 ; Lift
G92 A0 B0 ; Zero extruders
M73 P1 ;@body (notify GPX body has started)
; **** end of start.gcode ****

Paste this under for Both Extruder startup script

; **** Qidi Tech Both Extruders start.gcode ****
M73 P0 ; Enable build progress
G162 X Y F3000 ; Home XY maximum
G161 Z F1200 ; Home Z minimum
G92 Z-5 ; Set Z to -5
G1 Z0 ; Move Z to 0
G161 Z F100 ; Home Z slowly
M132 X Y Z A B ; Recall home offsets
M135 T0 ; Load right extruder offsets
G1 X-100 Y-75 Z30 F9000 ; Move to wait position off table
G130 X20 Y20 Z20 A20 B20 ; Lower stepper Vrefs while heating
M126 S[fan_speed_pwm] ; Set fan speed
M140 S[bed0_temperature] T0 ; Heat buildplate 
M134 T0 ; Stabilize bed temperature
M104 S[extruder0_temperature] T0 ; Heat right extruder
M104 S[extruder1_temperature] T1 ; Heat left extruder
M133 T0 ; Stabilize right extruder temperature
M133 T1 ; Stabilize left extruder temperature
G130 X70 Y70 Z40 A70 B70 ; Default stepper Vrefs: G130 X127 Y127 Z40 A127 B127
G92 A0 B0 ; Zero extruders
G1 X100 Y-70 F9000 ; Move to front right corner of bed
G1 Z0.3 F6000 ; Move down to purge
G1 X-90 Y-70 E24 F2000 ; Extrude a line of filament across the front edge of the bed
G1 X-100 Y-70 F180 ; Wait for ooze
G1 X-110 Y-70 F5000 ; Fast wipe
G1 Z0.5 F100 ; Lift
G92 A0 B0 ; Zero extruders
M135 T1 ; Load left extruder offsets
G1 X-100 Y-65 F9000 ; Move to front left corner of bed
G1 Z0.3 F6000 ; Move down to purge
G1 X90 Y-65 E24 F2000 ; Extrude a line of filament across the front edge of the bed
G1 X100 Y-65 F180 ; Wait for ooze
G1 X110 Y-65 F5000 ; Fast wipe
G1 Z1 F100 ; Lift
G92 A0 B0 ; Zero extruders
M73 P1 ;@body (notify GPX body has started)
; **** end of start.gcode ****

[SteveW25561]

Can anyone help me troubleshoot my prints?

So far, I've been very happy with the quality of the prints I've gotten, especially since this is my first-ever 3D printer. I am getting some issues with stringing and oozing (see picture below). I tried the tips on the S3D troubleshooting page but I still get some issues.



I'm using the PLA provided by QIDI. My process settings:

Extruder temp: 190C
Bed: 60 C
Retraction: increased from 1.0 to 2.0 mm
Retraction speed: increased from 1200 mm/min to 1300 mm/min

Given the 3 main variables I'm aware of (print temp, retraction distance and retraction speed), I'm not sure which should try to fix next. I know the long span between the highest parts contributes but there are strings over shorter distances. I'm not sure I should lower the extruder temp any further (in the print, you can see the right it had some bed adhesion issues, although all others stuck really well).

Suggestions?

[DarkAlchemist]

Thanks for the tips on the scripts! I'm using Simplify3D and it's good to know how to fix the stepper vrefs in the startup scripts since they would have overidden the setup by ReplicatorG.

I've simply copied the scripts from the post at http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...6116#post86116 and modified the G130 line (but commented to show the original line). I've not confirmed it, but I'm using values of 70 and kept Z at 40. Does this look good?

If others find this works and is useful, perhaps that other post could be updated for future reference. Warning: I'm a total newb at this so take my mod with caution!
[/CODE]

To be honest there is no need to lower the vrefs down as this script did to 20 while heating because I see no effect by doing so. Changing the G130 to 70 and leaving Z at 40 is fine.

What I would do is change the vrefs in firmware and remove the G130 (which I did) from the scripts but if people are incessant upon having it in them then change the first one with the settings to 20 and change them to 70 and Z to 40 then remove the second G130 with all 127 completely. Just make sure 70 works for your machine as some can go to 60 and others will work with 70 and some will require 80.

SteveW25561 That picture is far too small for me to help you.