hi all, i noticed quite a few c-bots are using makerfarm heatbed here.

Would anyone share some of the thoughts on the heatbed and relays? i am looking at the 12" x 12" heatbed and is the heatbed relay by maker farm works flawlessly? i have too read some of the issue where the screw terminal on the relay itself is melting, due to bed movement over times..

http://www.grepstar.org/prusa-i3-hot-bed-relay-mod/

and also do you guys use bang bang mode with the aboved mentioned setup? or pwm mode?

thanks alot in advance..

 

I am using a Ramps 1.4, Marlin, and Slic3r and running 1.75 PLA/ABS with a 0.4mm nozzle on Windows.
I also have a Bowden feed.
I have printed a few items that came out very good, but some models refuse to work.
If I had a config I knew worked then maybe my tweaks for other models would be more intelligent.

If anyone with a similar config has a stable system they r happy with, especially if u have printed the torture test with it, could u post a .REG file of
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Repetier
and a zip of this folder
C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Slic3r
MUCH APPRECIATED.

also what settings do u have in Marlin for max speed and jerk?

 

I have had 3x 12V 40A supplies (the cheap LED versions from China). One I fried with a short on my hotbed. But the spec specifically states that it is overcurrent protected. Don't believe it. After the fireworks that one had obvious fry marks.
The 2nd one ran for 10min, then the voltage dropped to 7V. The symptoms were as u described. I returned it for #3.

 

IMHO, which is not very refined, I would say loose belts or jerk/acceleration settings r way too high. My belts r tight enough that when I hook my nail on the top edge and pull, the top edge rolls over and the bottom edge stays pretty much in place. When I let go, it snaps back - that is on the longest stretch on a 12x12.

i found this someplace but don't remember where

Ringing is what we call the small waves or shadows that usually appear around sharp corners on a print. It's often very apparent if you have text on your print as you will see what looks like shadows of the text. This happens when the print head makes a sudden direction change and the inertia of the head causes vibrations that show up in the print. To combat this there are a couple of things you can do. Simply slowing down your print speed will help lessen the effect. Decreasing the acceleration of the printer will make a big impact on the reduction of ringing without affecting print speed too heavily. You adjust this setting by going into the advanced settings on the printer itself Maintenance -> Advanced -> Motion settings. Try 3000 or 1500 and see how that affects your print.

There's also another defect that can look like ringing while it actually isn't. Something that can happen is that infill shows through to the outside layer. This can look similar to ringing. To get rid of this the solution is to print thicker outer walls to hide the infill. Try printing at least two outer shells which, with a standard nozzle, will equate to 0.8mm thick walls.

Excessive temperature can also cause strange vertical lines in a print. Try lowering the temperature slightly and see if that helps.

Yet another thing to try is to rotate your part 45 degrees on the print bed. Some users have reported that this has gotten rid of vertical lines on the print.

 

Thanks Carl. I myself has very limited knowledge on electrical stuffs and so i have search online for possible setting for the large heatbed setup and the swicthing parts.

Currently i have found the following ways on how the others setup(trying hard to understand them but yet still confusing to me)
1. SSR (DC-DC) : Use to control DC powered heatbed, but will have overheating issue (approx 2V lost) and too many counterfeit products.

2. SSR(DC-AC) : Use to control AC powered heater pad. Dangerous as to you need to deal with deadly power. (not sure if it has the same heat problem like a DC-DC SSR

3. Mechanical Relay : Does DC or AC is matters for the output? has clicking sounds and some say a fly back diode is needed. Makerfarm's "heat bed relay" is fall under this category?

4. Better Mosfet : is there even Mosfet relay? or just simply replace to a better mosfet on our controller board?

Or anyone know of any good bundle for the heatbed setup? Hope i can learn more from you guys.

 

I did try to reduce the acceleration for all 3 planes without tuning down the print speed and the ringing did reduced but it is not totally gone.
I don't have the printer setting with me right now but i remember how i did it was cutting the value half until there is a obvious difference compare to the initial(affected print), and lastly fine tune to the acceptable value.

 

Hi,

Been slowly building my C-Bot, and it's my first printer ever.
I'm having help from some users of this threat specially by Elmo Clarity, without him I would be lost

I've managed to test the 3DBenchy with a E3d Lite6 (0.4mm nozzle) and with a 0.2mm layer height (I think that's the most used setting for the test)

Not perfect but I'm very happy because I'm just in the beginning and I know nothing about settings, speeds, temperatures, etc...

 

While not my first print (I wrote my first printer) its one of the ten firsts.

I've mainly printed some test cubes for getting the travels ok. And had a lot of help from Elmo Clarity because of an under extrusion problem (solved with a Smoothieboard firmware upgrade and a clean Config file. I was getting crazy...).
I've also printed an Android robot at 0.16mm after printed the 3DBenchy and it came quite well also.

Ill print the 3DBenchy again one of these days with different settings and to try to solve some problems. I have that issue with those cobwebs that I have to understand why they happen...

The important thing is that I'm loving this work in progress C-Bot project and I'm enjoying every challenge.

Thanks for your share Carl!

 

Sure I can share pics but the printer is very far from finish.

You know, I've been like a kid with a new toy. Gotta have some prints before all!
After all this is my first experience with the 3D Printing world

I just wired the motors, hotend and fans so it could print. Don't even have end-stops fitted.
Haven't decided how I will mount the bed to the printer, the mounts I have don't really work. For now I'm just using a 6mm glass.

But this way I'm learning a lot and I will make some configuration changes to the printer.
The major one will be bringing the Lead Screws to the center of the table (gravity).

And this thread/forum is amazing, every day I see a new way or solution for me to follow.
Thank you all.

 

this is the one I have tried in PLA with not much success.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:105054

 

So I got some success with the 'ringing/ghosting', blogged about the results here:
http://www.akeric.com/blog/?p=3436

The short story is: Reduced acceleration from 3000 mm/sec (which was the default value in the Marlin I have) to 800, and way better. Not perfect, but better. Since my bot is so tall, I plan to bolt it directly to the wall, and this should cut down on a bunch of the shake that's happening, and hopefully make the print quality even better. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

 

u can seriously stiffen the uprights by attaching a 3"-4" wide 1/8" board across the members.
The shaking of the unit should not cause any issues if everything is stiff as everything will shake in unison.
Mine shakes when it is really moving and I have not seen any artifacts from it. Mine is only z= 12" so I don't have braces.
I have my accel set to Marlin default but I have not noticed the ringing issue u see. It may be contributing to other issues though. Then again I haven't printed a lot yet.
Still waiting to see some "GOOD" settings.

 

Hello, figure id post a few horrible pictures of my build and my tweaked version of Carls mount for my Cyclops head clone. Printer has been in a semi finished form for a few months now and works like a dream for the most part. Thank you guys for letting me creep around on this forum and gather up some great ideas!

 

I wanted to add a couple mods I'm working on. I started by attaching my X Endstop to the back of the carriage and added a threaded rod to the X End Cap. This gives me the most travel possible on the X axis. I modded the parts in 123D and subsequently converted the files to sat files for uploading to Fusion360. Here are some photos and files.



The XEndCap.sat file was pulled from the remix of Carl's original from the 123D file. The threaded rod is inserted and adjusted after the end cap is assembled. The rod length can be shortened to clear the bolt if you like.

This shows the mounted EndStop Switch (Geeetech Mech Endstop V1.2)



The following two images show the fan mount and ducting for the dual extruders. The fan is having an effect on the heat blocks ability to come to temperature if I run the fan much above 20%. I'm thinking of wrapping them in some kapton tape to insulate them. Obviously, this is a work in progress.



Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

 

Here's a couple photos of my build to date. A lot more calibrating to be done. Currently using two V6 with .4mm nozzles. Once I get everything tuned closely enough, there are two volcanoes in the wings. The build volume is approx. 240mm wide x 270mm deep x ~600mm high. I've yet to test anything taller than 200mm.



Here's the first dual print. Alignment and oozing, the two PLA's (from different manufacturers) were run at different temps (black @ 230 and white at 210). There was an ooze shield for the first 10 layers, but after an abort and restart (one of a few), the ooze shield stopped printing. Just as well as the first layers of the shield had bad adhesion to the bed. I was happy to at least finish it.

 

I like that endstop approach, I was experimenting with a way to put the endstop on the carriage but couldn't think of a good way to mount a bolt to the X end cap. My approach is below but I might try your threaed rod implementation.
http://thingiverse-production-new.s.../79/33/c3/Dbot_Endstops2_preview_featured.jpg

 

I also mounted the end stops on the extruder carriage. I am using a double extruder from Micron 3DP. Please see the attached pictures.

 

Yes, lots of support. I printed it on my Up! Plus2, on its back with the edge of duct touching the bed.

I'm having problems with first layer adhesion (PLA) using Kapton and Aquanet. My white PLA (Matterhackers) practically dribbles out of the nozzle while the black PLA (Shaxon) dribbles out and clogs periodically.

What bed temp and nozzle temps do you recommend? I'm finding a lot of inconsistency with the Matterhackers filament, as if the filament varies in thickness every 6 traces back and forth. What filament have you found reliable?