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1500 questions
12
votes
2 answers
E3D Thermistor Alternative
E3D hotends use a thermistor whose legs are insulated with glass fiber sleeving and clamped down with a screw and washer:
This solution enables the printing of high temperature materials, but it's a bit fragile and after reassembling the hotend a…
Tom van der Zanden
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12
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3 answers
Troubleshooting poor adhesion at the edge of the bed
I've been printing for a week now on my new printer and have been getting great results, including great adhesion. However, most of my prints have had a fairly small footprint.
Now, I'm stepping up the types of items I'm printing, and I've started…
Jeff
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12
votes
3 answers
Heated bed - what are the benefits? Why use one?
When using a heated bed with your printer, I have seen claims of running temperatures of 90c throughout the print.
That seems like a fairly high power use to keep a large slab of, say, aluminium at 90c for long print times (ie multiple hours).
Is…
Beeblebrox
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12
votes
4 answers
How to easily get rid of rafts and support structures?
My printed parts consist rafts, supports and other extraneous filament when printing with ABS or PLA.
What are efficient general techniques of removing them?
kenorb
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12
votes
4 answers
Is there a way to save a multi part print if one fails?
I'm printing 6 separate parts in one go, after 4 hours of printing one part failed, but the other 5 are printing nicely.
Is there a way to prevent the print from printing the failed part and continue printing the other 5 parts.
I'm using Cura and an…
Nerdroid
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12
votes
2 answers
How to 3D Print 5-pointed star object that doesn't have flat bottom and hole in the middle?
I'm new to 3D Printing. I've created this star from Blender3d. As far as I know, most printers require a flat bottom.
As you can see (blue line is Z-axis, red line is X-axis, green line Y-axis), the star doesn't have any flat sides or…
junerockwell
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12
votes
2 answers
How to choose an extrusion temperature?
From what I've been able to find out, online sources recommend around 205ºC for PLA and around 240ºC for ABS. But these are only guidelines, of course. Optimal printing temperature can be different depending on the printer, the filament, the model…
mhelvens
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12
votes
3 answers
Grease for PLA sprocket
I am attempting to construct model tank tracks with accompanying wheels and sprockets. All parts will be printed in PLA. The tracks will be driven by electric motors.
What would be a suitable grease for this project to minimize friction without…
HenrikS
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11
votes
4 answers
Can a heatbed PCB (Prusa Mk2) be straightened out?
I have a really bent heatbed PCB, the middle is elevated about 3 mm with respect to all edges.
I have found this thread Warped PCBs, where a heating method is applied by baking a PCB in the oven, as described here: 3.2 Bow and Twist Repair.
Can this…
kamuro
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11
votes
2 answers
How many times can you re-flash the Marlin firmware to a RAMPS 1.4 board before it degrades the ROM?
First of all I'm working with a Folger Tech Prusa i3 kit, if that makes a difference. Also I believe the Arduino is a Mega 2560.
I know somewhere in the back of my head that electrically programmable ROM like what must be on the Arduino board…
user273872
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11
votes
3 answers
What's the advantage of two z motors?
Some RepRap models use only a single motor for the Z axis, others use two.
For example, there is the 3drag that has only one motor and a smooth rod on the other side. There are modifications that add a threaded rod on the other side that is…
nnscr
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11
votes
4 answers
How to set the Z home offset
I have what I thought would be a simple question.
I don't have an auto leveling probe, I do my leveling manually with 4 screws and a piece of paper (I measured the thickness to 0.1 mm).
For the longest time I would have trouble with the first layer,…
Matthew Goulart
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11
votes
7 answers
Which filaments actually do need to be stored in a drybox?
As I started to learn about 3D printing, the gist I learned was "it's better to store the filaments in a drybox." As I rechecked these notes, they were to a good degree from an era when PLA was rather new to the market and ABS was the goTo.
Then I…
Trish
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11
votes
4 answers
3D Metal Printing
I have been wondering about 3D metal printing (steel, aluminium), but after a short research on google I found only too expensive printers (markforged, desktop metal and a few other industrial ones). Is there any less expensive printer that is able…
Martin Bariak
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11
votes
2 answers
Are parentheses allowed within a G-code comment?
I am wondering if this piece of G-code is valid:
G0 (Some comment (Its G0 command)) Y10 Z-5
I have tested this on my Chinese CNC machine and it strips out the comment and works flawlessly.
The machine processes this as G0Y10Z-5 which seems like the…
Jan Vorisek
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