Seems like these machines should be capable of printing a variety of materials, certainly less exotic materials like PLA, PETG, etc. What is the rational behind limiting use to ABS? I would love to play with TPU and other fun materials on them.
I’m not sure about dms specifically but switching between materials can eventually cause clogged nozzles and problems with ptfe lined hotends. Small bits of older materials can be left and when run at a hotter temperature they can burn.
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We used to allow TPU. I’m not involved in 3D fab at all, so I don’t know if it is still allowed or not.
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Simplicity. We have so many members where their recall and application of the 3d printer training is, shall we say, not as consistent as desired that removing just the one variable of the type of filament allowed makes for a huge difference in uptime.
You can already see how much maintenance is required under the current rules. Imagine how much more would be required if the filaments (and the accompanying nozzle sizes, bed and nozzle temps, etc) were also needed to be managed.
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We already have a lot of issues with printers left with the hot end still on. ABS doesn’t like it, but the results aren’t as bad as quickly as it allegedly is with PLA.
Interesting… I didn’t think that would be possible with octoprint as it seems to time out after a while and shut off the heat.
We tried a plugin to time out the heating but the issue is when the serial connection from the PI to the Polyprinter disconnects, the Polyprinter controller just lets the hotend stay hot and never turns off. If I hear the hotend fan whirring and nothing is loaded on the printers I’ll press the reset button on the Polyprinter. It’s not a good system and I have never been able to track down the cause of the serial disconnects so clogged nozzles happen all the time. Something @Evan_Lott and some volunteers could look into.
One suggestion was use the Pi GPIO to reset the Polyprinter controller if it detects a serial disconnect in Octoprint and automatically try reconnecting. Would probably require a customized plugin.
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I’m guessing they may be USB disconnect cases, or maybe process failures on OctoPrint. But I remember finding hot ends sitting hot when I was a fairly frequent user, and reports of it happening were pretty common here before the pandemic.
Two weeks ago I had to replace three nozzles that had been completely clogged because someone used a low temperature material (PLA) without flushing followed by someone who managed to get the three printers idling for high temperature material (ABS) for hours. $30 + an hour of my time + printers unusable for about a day.
It never ends. We go through so many nozzles. I’ve wasted so much time dealing with mixed material problems.
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Just to add to the other comments here – yep, the rules were made to help reduce maintenance and mistakes. However, if you have specific experiments you’d like to run, simply take it up with the committee. They may grant you permission to do something if you prove you either know how to not break things, or are willing to purchase your own nozzles, etc. Or, they may not.
Thanks!
Justin