3D Printer yet?

[xrunner]

Some artsy stuff I printed. Five platonic solids and another smaller art block I shrunk to see how it looked. Now I might print it out larger. All came out very nice especially the 5 solids. Very sharp and crisp corners.

[SiliconWizard]

Nice. Whereas for my few needs, online 3D printing services were fine until now, I admit at the moment I'd like to have a 3D printer at home.

[mnementh]

Very nice results for FDM. If I get mine behaving like that, might print me up some RPG dice... That cube has a very Borg feel to it. 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[mnementh]

Groceries.   
Back from digitmakers.ca with my order: 1m Capricorn Bowden tubing, 2 x 20T cogged idlers for X & Y, 2 x Formbot T-Rex hotend with 0.4mm SS nozzles (Bought just cuz they were $5), Micro-Swiss HeatBlock upgrade for Creality, 0.2mm Creality nozzle, Taiyo Ceramic trimpot driver (again, cuz it was only $5), 3mm ground shaft for other nefarious purposes, and Creality CR-10 hotend & service kit that even comes with pliers to crimp the terminals. Of course I'll solder mine; but the pliers are good enough to add to the tool drawer.  All parts also fit E3, therefore also my printer; lots of nice spares for US$22. All told, about US$70.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Welp... I tried to remix the stoopit base-bracket for the Fang in Fusion 360 to fit the "almost-but-not-quite-the-same-as-Ender" hotend backplate; couldn't even get it converted to a solid object because 20k + polys and it totally borked the thing even reducing it by half. 

I think I'm just going to do it the old-fashioned way; my eyeballs may be old, but they don't have polygon limits (that I can see ), and my hands may not be as steady as they used to be, but put an X-Acto knife in 'em and they'll slice this bracket better'n Cura. 

See y'all on the other side;

mnem
*slice... trim... file-file... hot-knife, file-file...*

[mnementh]

   



   

Okay... dumb question, for anyone who knows about 3DP. Which of these fittings for the Bowden tube are supposed to be "the good ones" and which the "crap ones" ? They ALL look like cheap China-direct pneumatic fittings to me...

mnem
 

[xrunner]

I can't tell from the pics, but the main issue is how the little "fingers" hold the bowden tube so it doesn't move in and out a little when extruding, there's not much more to it. My tube was moving upon close examination, so I looked into a bowden "clamp". I made this one -

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4041920

It really works and the tube doesn't move a bit. 

[mnementh]

Okay... if you do the hotend side correctly, you tighten the fitting down after inserting the tube so the tube bottoms out and jams the coupling and it can't do that. Extruder drive end you can't do that, but isn't that what these little plastic clips are supposed to prevent...?



Maybe that's what they're talking about with the Creality branded aluminum extruders; the funny little brass fitting on the end of my list there came with my new one, and some of the listings I'm seeing now say it's somehow an "improved" fitting. I'm still dubious, of course...



My life would be a lot simpler if I could just order the real Creality extruder drive kit and complete hotend with roller plate that are "In Stock" on Amazon. I'd do it too, to get the Fang on there without all this headache.

mnem
 

[xrunner]

Okay... if you do the hotend side correctly, you tighten the fitting down after inserting the tube so the tube bottoms out and jams the coupling and it can't do that. Extruder drive end you can't do that, but isn't that what these little plastic clips are supposed to prevent...?

The Hotend won’t be a problem right, but the extruder end will. The clips don’t prevent it after things start wearing in and get loose. So the clamp I linked to on Thingyverse does stop it on the extruder end. Mine been clamped for months and now the tube stays put.

[mnementh]

Moving this here so we're not boring people in the TEA thread sheepless with our 3DP nit-pickery:

Okay... dumb question, for anyone who knows about 3DP. Which of these fittings for the Bowden tube are supposed to be "the good ones" and which the "crap ones" ? They ALL look like cheap China-direct pneumatic fittings to me...

mnem
 

Look inside the barrel is the first place to go. The bad ones lack grip points which is why they start to allow the tube to move in and out over time under extrusion pressure. The early Ender ones were only two points from memory. Other than that assuming you got fittings with your new Capricorn then trust them in particular if they were in a Capricorn Baggy.

You mean the number of fingers in the grip ring? I'll look into that. Thanks. 

I would've gotten the full Cap kit with fittings if they had it; only had the tubing in the Cap baggie. Pretty sure it's real Cap XS tubing; you can feel the slickery on the outside and the ID is 1.9mm as opposed to 2.05ish for that in the CReality kit. Difference is very visible too.

mnem
 

Hmm... big difference between these three examples:



First is the one that came on the hotend in the CReality CR-10 Service Kit. Note the 5 little fingers with lots of empty space between. Spring "feel" is pretty wishy-washy too.   

   

Second is one that came on my Dual-Drive extruder kit; notice the 10 fingers spaced pretty tightly, and more excursion for deeper "bite". The ones that came on my Diggro printer were the same as this one, only black ring instead of white. Spring feel is much firmer, with a noticeable "detent" as the fingers are disengaged, even on the used ones removed from my printer.



This is the funny little brass one (last one on the right in previous list) from my single-drive CNC extruder. An interesting take; there are only 4 fingers, but they look precision-formed to create a flat plane with no gaps once they "bite" into the tubing. Spring feel is a bit wishy-washy tho, and no "detent" action.

mnem
hmmm...   

[beanflying]

Yep those things  I would go with the more bite points as you have them. I am not is the shack today to check for you. - LIFE 

[xrunner]

Maybe that's what they're talking about with the Creality branded aluminum extruders; the funny little brass fitting on the end of my list there came with my new one, and some of the listings I'm seeing now say it's somehow an "improved" fitting. I'm still dubious, of course...

Experiment with several - they aren't a big deal to swap as you know. The thing is, you have metal gripping a softer material. If it was just a connection that stayed in place without pushing and pulling it would be OK. But repeated extrusion, retraction, extrusion, retraction ... makes the metal fingers dig in and pull back over and over. Mine used to look like a puppy had been chewing on the area where the fingers dug in, after a while.

If none of the fittings stop the movement of the tube then just print the clamp. It's a fix that you keep in your back pocket until needed.

[mnementh]

            

Yup... gonna look into it as soon as the new silver extruder shows up. Meanwhile, gonna muddle through with stock parts plus the E3 hotend that just came. I WAS just going to put it all back together with EVERYTHING stock and see if I could make it print like when it was new again... but I have plenty to keep me busy in the meanwhile. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

[RANDOM MODE]



https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/fplla8/just_finished_painting_this_tarrasque_isolation/

[/RANDOM MODE]

mnem
 

[beanflying]

50m of Ender Rails or One Lasers worth 

[Monkeh]

Aw c'mon, if you're going to the effort of changing the extruder, why put a crappy one like that on? At least use a cheap Titan clone..

[mnementh]

   Same reason I haven't put my dual-drive extruder on yet. Not ready to jump into re-cal-ing the e-steps and the requisite recompiling of the firmware. YET. My Kung-Fu is totes weak-sauce. The CReality CNC single drive extruder is pretty well-regarded, for its type. Agreed the brass drive pinion is prone to wear, but it's done that way on purpose as it is a consumable supply.

I just wanna get it back to printing as well as it did when I got it for now; putting everything the same as when I first assembled it, aside from the cogged idlers I just got for X & Y. When the E3 Extruder plate gets here, I'll build all the new stuff on it and plop it in.

mnem
*knocks self unconscious with a printer mallet*

[xrunner]

Not ready to jump into re-cal-ing the e-steps and the requisite recompiling of the firmware. YET. My Kung-Fu is totes weak-sauce.

You don't need to compile the firmware to change the E steps. You CAN set them that way, but you can also just set up a command in your start G code in your slicer like this -

M92 E97.95 ; ***SET NEW E STEP

That will put it in every G code file you make in your slicer automatically.

If you want to set it in the configuration.h file and compile it, you'd set it here -

/**
 * Default Axis Steps Per Unit (steps/mm)
 * Override with M92
 *                                      X, Y, Z, E0 [, E1[, E2...]]
 */

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   { 80, 80, 400, 97.95 }

and you calculate the new value for these settings like this -

100 mm         
-------------- * current E steps  =  new E steps
actual mm

(See tutorials on YT)

[mnementh]

(See tutorials on YT)

 

mnem
*twitch... twitch... twitcha-twitch...*

[xrunner]

(See tutorials on YT)

 

mnem
*twitch... twitch... twitcha-twitch...*

What the matter - don't you like to learn things on your own? 

[Monkeh]

(See tutorials on YT)

 

mnem
*twitch... twitch... twitcha-twitch...*

What the matter - don't you like to learn things on your own? 

Perhaps he's like me and has an almost pathological hatred of 15 minute videos to explain single-paragraph concepts..

[Nominal Animal]

(See tutorials on YT)

 

mnem
*twitch... twitch... twitcha-twitch...*

What the matter - don't you like to learn things on your own? 

What does learning have to do with youtube tutorials?  As far as I can see, YT tutorials are twitch-inducing cringefests rather than a learning opportunity (unless you want to learn the myriad ways humans can do things wrong or just plain stupid).

[mnementh]

It's more the ocean of shite one has to paddle through to find that one good learning wave; and like all good things, it ends all too soon and drops you back into the sewage seas.


mnem
So... just like the rest of the internet, then...?

[xrunner]

What does learning have to do with youtube tutorials?  As far as I can see, YT tutorials are twitch-inducing cringefests rather than a learning opportunity (unless you want to learn the myriad ways humans can do things wrong or just plain stupid).

You just made a basic sweeping generalization fallacy. Shame on you. There are lots of good YT tutorials.

Now do you want to turn this thread into a debate over YT or get back to the topic?

[mnementh]

You’re right, of course. It’s the combination of that long paddle through shite and trying to cudgel this old mind to do Kung-Fu that make me want run screaming into the wilderness...

mnem