No, I hadn’t. I purchased this as an assembled unit, so I never got around to attempting that adjustment. I just kept adding fans!
Thanks for the information. BTW, during a long print, my extruder stepper will run between 140-170 degrees Fahrenheit! When I get around to setting it back up, I will definitely look at adjusted the stepper current for the extruder!
They didn’t adjust the pots when they assembled your unit. Lucky you didn’t burn out a motor.
Given all of the other things they didn’t do when they assembled and shipped my unit, I am not surprised. Just don’t get me started on Printrbots lack of quality control, poor designs, etc…
The basic design (and cost) aren’t too bad, but the machines, even the ‘assembled’ ones require a great deal of tweaking and QC/QA before you get decent prints.
I would love to talk with the Adafruit author who described these as “The first 3D printer that is plug and play, like a laser printer, for the consumer market…” I made the mistake of believing them!
I was in on the Kickstarter and got a Printrbot LC. They are a lot easier to build and tweak than they used to be.
It has been interesting to watch how his machines have evolved over the years
Assembled should include calibration. Assembly of a LC Printrbot Simple isn’t all that challenging and the metal ones are even easier.
Yeah I would adjust the pots. Luckily for the Smoothieboard I’m using current limiting is done in software.
During the midnight makers build we had difficulty adjusting the z-offset of probe. I think Sean adjusted some of it.
@LisaSelk Do we have the settings we made on the design computers?
I tweaked the positioning of the actual Z probe, and did a bit of tuning with the paper trick and the Z offset command. I did not verify whether it kept the settings across power cycles, but the status report (M501) showed the correct values and the test print did respect the adjustments. The adjustment was about -0.7mm.
Quick update on “Midnight”, our new Printrbot Metal Simple 3D printer. She is out of the box and on the table; but, it is NOT quite ready to be used yet.
Unless you are one of the five members who worked on it Thursday & Friday - or Sean (since he’s helping with the Banana Pi 'n all), please do not mess around with it at this time.
I’ll be sure to let y’all know (here and on TALK) when it’s working and we are ready to train members to use it.
Thanks!
Well, I have been printing quite a bit of PLA on my printrbot lately and thought I would share.
Here is a picture of a cell phone stand I designed and printed. Pretty basic, but the neat thing is that it charges my cell phone via induction. I purchased a Qi power charger base from China and then removed the electronics out of it. Then I designed this holder with a little pocket on the side so that I could slide the electronics into it and create my own custom charging stand.
I also printed a phone holder for my car…again in PLA. THEN I found out that PLA doesn’t hold up to car temperatures…Working on printing it again in ABS. ABS is a PITA to print on the printrbot. I have found that to get it to stick, I went back to Kapton tape and shot some Aquanet hair spray on the Kapton. I am running 230 on the HE, with 90 on the bed using Toner Plastics ABS filament from MicroCenter($18.99/Kg). Sticking doesn’t seem to be a problem, but getting the layers to stick to each other well has so far been tricky. My designs are crude boxy structures, so I am not trying anything fancy. The rounded edges of the above stand is about as fancy as I have gotten to date. So far, running ABS at 100mm/s printing speed at 85% flow seems to be working, although barely.
Here is a picture of my high-tech filament guide…It keeps the filament from coming loose off the spool and wrapping around the dowel on the filament holder.
I am thinking about doing a Kickstarter if anyone needs one…or you can probably just find one in your closet…hehehehe
Here is a picture of one of my boxy ABS car phone holders. I have an aftermarket radio in my Camry and there is a small, almost useless pocket under the radio. The square section you see closest to the camera wedges into that pocket and the C part on the far side allows me to slide my phone in from the side. It holds the phone pretty securely.
You can see some of the layer issues in the print, the white lines about every couple of centimeters. It might be caused by the air conditioner kicking on at certain intervals, but it isn’t blowing down directly on my printer, so I am not sure what is causing that just yet. The max I could get my bed temp to was 105C, but ABS still wouldn’t stick. Using Aquanet in the purple can works great though and I can run the bed at 90C saving energy and ambient heat. I don’t have to apply the hairspray before every print. So far I am on my 5th or 6th print with the same original application of spray.
Here was one of my previous attempts with different speeds, flow rates, and HE temps. Terrible…and the ABS curled off the bed and barely stuck.
So, after some more experimentation, I have two new INI files for Cura for my Printrbot SImple Metal Heated Bed.
You can download them from my website:
http://www.staffordnet.net/ABS.ini
http://www.staffordnet.net/PLA.ini
Dialed in the temps a little more, played around with the speed and flow rates, and using 1.2 for wall thickness. Seems to print pretty good.
ABS can be a pain. Have you considered high temperature PLA? I got some when Proto Pasta did their Kickstarter.
I have designed and printed my own cell phone holders for my car, and ABS is the only plastic that can take the Texas heat in a closed car…
Colorfabb XT is a co-polymer that can take 260C, not sure if the protopasta stuff is the same thing.
Not the same. The proto-pasta stuff was PLA with some mineral inclusions that helped it with the heat. The Colorfabb XT is a copolyester filament.
Some people have a lot of luck with ABS. And it has some nice properties. Others seem to struggle to print with it. And then there is the odor problem…
