12" I3V Build

[printbus]

There are a lot of resources on the web that can help guide through calibration and efforts involved in bringing a new printer up. Here's just one that touches on some of your current questions - http://reprap.org/wiki/Calibration

Your list of early efforts seems pretty complete. I'd maybe add that on early prints, scrutinize how the bottom layer turns out. Good prints will rarely result if the bottom layer has issues.

One crude way to gauge heatsink or component temperature is to simply feel the amount of heat. Anything that feels uncomfortably warm to touch is something that should be looked into. The stepper drivers will automatically stop driving their motor if they get too hot, which would be very noticeable. Other than that, just touch the heatsinks every now and then on some of your longer initial prints and see how they feel.

On the stepper motor driver adjustments, there's arguably two main camps of opinion. One is to adjust them to for the current spec of the motors, assuming you know what that is. This approach is argued as providing the highest degree of precision to each of the movement steps. The other camp feels this is overkill, and that you can successfully print with the stepper drivers adjusted significantly lower. Higher currents lead to the printer making a lot of harsh noise as the motors are rotated. Adjusting to lower currents can lead to the printer running far quieter. In my case, I noticed that running at lower drive currents also helped eliminate some flutter observed on the X-belt and Y-belt during long moves, as well as eliminated resonances that would come and go as movements were accelerated and decelerated. EDIT: Beerdart later describes how to adjust for the lower current drive level.

[beerdart]

I adjust my steppers while moving adjust till movement stops then slowly increase till you get movement then add some.

[beerdart]

Petg......

[Dustin B]

Accidentally deleted the post beerdart responded to. I'll try to remember exactly what I said:

Getting a little ahead of myself, but I've got PLA, ABS and PETG, what would you use to print replacement idler pulleys?

[Dustin B]

Got the bed levelled reasonably well, I don't think my glass is perfectly flat. But the nozzle is lightly to slightly more than lightly dragging a piece of paper around the build plate.

Got the autotune done. The heat bed ends up reading within 3 degrees of my thermapen at the edge between the heater and the glass. SSR heatsink (with thermal paste) seems to sit around 40C. Sandwhiching the thermapen tip to the heater block on the V6 right next to the tip it ends up reading about 15C low to the set temp the thermistor is reading (I have set it to 5 in Marlin). Not sure how accurate of a reading I'm getting with the thermapen and this technique. I guess I just adjust temps for the different plastics to what ends up working best. Kinda makes telling other people your temps somewhat meaningless since my 225 could be +/- 20 from your 225.

Tried to do some googling and getting results all over the map. What do you guys do: When you're done printing do you leave the filament in the hotend or remove it? And what process do you follow to feed in new filament when you hit the end of a spool?

[printbus]

The hot end temperature seems to always read low when people try to independently measure it. The reprap temperature measurement isn't a calibrated measurement, and yes you should pay more attention to your print results than a suggested temperature setting.

I leave the filament in the printer until I'm about to run out or want to change to a different material or color. NEVER shut off the printer with the hot end hot. That'll cause heat to creep up into the heat break tube and heatsink area. Any filament that melts up in the heatsink area will create a plug that is a PIA to deal with.

If I've been printing and want to remove the filament when I'm done, with the hot end still hot I just release the guidler holding the filament against the hobbed bolt and pull the filament straight up out of the extruder. The filament may be stringy, so just keep pulling until there's nothing else coming out of the extruder. I'll typically cut the last couple of inches of filament off with an anvil cutter to remove the part that had previously ran by the hobbed bolt and to provide a nice clean angle on the end of the filament that helps with refeeding it in the future. The loose end of the filament should always be clipped to the roll. Filament loosening on the spool can lead to the filament not unrolling well later.

If I want to swap filament and the printer is cold, I'll go through a few more steps. I learned the hard way that pulling up on a filament before the hot end is ready to release it can cause the filament to snap off and make things harder to deal with. I bring the hot end up to temperature, and let it soak a bit to make sure any plug in the heat break tube is softened. I'll then test to see if the filament is ready to be pulled by EXTRUDING a short amount. Once I know the filament is soft enough to be extruded, then I'll release the guidler pressure and pull up on the filament as usual.

[Dustin B]

Hadn't read the never turn off the hot end cooling fan tip. Thanks for saving me that headache as I'm sure I would have done that.

What do you do to keep the filament dry when you've left it in the print? Although with Saskatchewan winter humidity I don't think I'll have much of an issue.

[printbus]

The humidity stays pretty low in the Denver, CO area too. I haven't fretted much over humidity, but I do keep filament rolls in industrial zip seal bags with at one or two of the small dessicant packets that come with filament as a precaution. I've been meaning to purchase some larger, reusable dessicant pouches but available funds always seem to be going elsewhere instead.

Some keep rolls and dessicant in a 5-gal bucket with a good sealing lid, like a paint bucket. Buckets commonly found at big box stores like Home Depot typically don't have a seal in the lid, so they won't seal as well.

[Dustin B]

Well I'm pretty happy for first PLA prints. Used MatterSlice, hairspray, 70C bed, 200C hotend, 0.4mm nozzle, 0.3 layer height (0.2 for the first layer) and 25% triangle infill, 60mm/s infill, 30mm/s inside perimeter and 70% of that for outside perimeter, 3 layer perimeter. Took 16min to print each one.

X and Y 200mm test bars

Both measure such that the rounding to the nearest step means I don't change either my x or y steps per mm. The x one is a little warped as I pried it off the bed before letting it cool enough.

Only thing I'm a little worried about is a clicking sound my printer is making during some movements. Can't figure out where it's coming from.

Video of my first print that includes the clicking sound

[Dustin B]

Guess the infill setting did nothing as just noticed it's set to do the first mm and the last mm solid and the model is 2mm tall. Although my completed part measured closer to 2.4mm. Is 4000 the correct steps per mm for the supplied lead screws?

I'll give the idler pulley's a try tomorrow with PETG. Gonna try 85C bed and 240C hotend. 0.2mm and 100% infill, no raft or supports. Any other setting recommendations or suggestions to change the ones I'm planning.