# 3D Printer problems - Monoprice/Wanhao D6



## ddmckee54 (Mar 11, 2020)

I'm posting this on several forums, so for some of you this might be a repeat.

I've got a Monoprice printer that is actually a re-badged Wanhao D6.  I managed to kill my printer last week, I static ZAPPED it  - but that's not the only problem.  As I was plugging in the SD card to load a new G-code file I felt a shock through my finger tips and the LCD screen went dark at the same time.  I remember I said "Oh Fudge", or something like that because those two events occurring at the same time are NEVER a good thing.  I tried cycling the power to the printer but that made no difference.  I tried the turn it off for a few seconds and then turn it back on trick, still no screen.  I tried turning it off for over  a minute and then turning it back on but still no joy.  By this time it was past my bed-time and I'd run out of the expletives that I've learned in the past 65 years,  so I planned on trying it one more time in the morning before I left for work.  The next morning, this was Friday, when I turned on the printer the screen came to life.  I said Praise Jesus, turned off the printer, and went to work.

After I got home from work that evening I tried to actually do something with the printer and discovered that I had no cursor on the screen and apparently no way to control the printer.  At this point I opened up the printer to see if I could find any part numbers to order replacements.  The D6 uses two proprietary PC boards, through my research into these boards I found that they call them the control board and the motherboard.  I think the control board is the one that I ZAPPED.  It has the SD card hardware, the LCD hardware, and the control knob/button hardware and would have been the first in line when the static charge hit.

BUT, and it's a big BUT, I also found reference to a relay problem on the motherboard.  It seems that Wanhao cloned the motherboard from another of their printers and didn't quite do their due diligence in the design.  They used a relay with contacts rated for 10 amps maximum at 30VDC, this is a problem when just the heater load is 12.5 amps.  Having designed industrial control systems for over 30 years, I can assure you that relay is going to fail.  It's not a matter of IF it's going to fail, it's a matter of when.   One of the messages the failure of this relay will generate is a Heater Error message, which I had been getting on rare occasions for several months.

So my motherboard relay was failing, along with a dead control board.  I try to avoid the long shipping delays by buying from suppliers on this side of the pond - no such luck.  The only place that I could find that had the control board in stock was Aliexpress.  Even with UPS Expedited shipping I won't see my parts until the end of the month at the earliest.

I'm pretty sure that the only thing wrong with my motherboard is the relay.  I have not been able to find a relay that meets the power requirements, both coil and contact.  I'm leaning towards using a remote mounted something, either a relay or a DC rated SSR, there's plenty of room available in the base of the printer.  The problem I've got is that I think the existing relay has both a NO (Normally Open) contact, and a NC (Normally Closed) contact.  I'm not sure if Wanhao is using the NC to do anything.  Anybody know if somebody has already gone to the work of figuring out the schematics of the motherboard?  I could eventually get it figured out, but if somebody's already done it, why re-invent the wheel?

Don


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## XD351 (Mar 12, 2020)

Can’t comment from personal experience as I don’t have one of these printers .
I did find what appears to be a solution in this below .

https://3dprint.wiki/reprap/wanhao/duplicator6/major_components/motherboard

Getting zapped from the SD card socket is a problem though and i would be taking a look at the PSU if it were my printer .


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## ddmckee54 (Mar 12, 2020)

It was static, I was the one that did the ZAPPING.

Recently I had been getting shocks when I touched the metal frame of the printer, or the water faucet for that matter, so that's how I knew it was static.  I'd been trying to be sure and ground myself to the frame before I touched the SD card.  But it was getting late, and I must have forgotten to ground myself before I inserted the SD card.  Felt the ZAP through my fingers holding the SD card.

Maybe I need to look into investing in a grounding mat, we'll see how much one costs.

Don


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## awake (Mar 12, 2020)

Don, if I understand correctly you've already purchased a replacement motherboard ... but if not, or if you run into trouble with that one, you might consider changing over to the "old reliable" RAMPS 1.4 setup. It is a long way from the latest and greatest - only 8-bit, not 32-bit - but it has been running my home-built machine and thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of others, both home-built and commercial units, for a long time now. As a result, it is cheap, it is something of an industry standard, and there is tons of info on the internet on how to set it up.


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## ddmckee54 (Mar 13, 2020)

Oh I totally agree, for most machines an 8 bit processor is quite satisfactory.  I don't do any type of printing where a 32 bit processor is required.

Yes, I have purchased a replacement motherboard.  I got verification from Aliexpress yesterday that they had shipped, now I just have to wait for the slow boat to get here from China.   I'd like to keep the input/output setup that the original control board provides, with the LCD, the SD card slot and the control button all on the front of the printer.  I haven't seen anybody else that offers this, but I haven't really been looking either.  I've seen a version of Marlin on GitHub that's specifically for the Wanhao D6 printer.  So maybe a RAMPS board at 24V can be made to work with Wanhao control board?

The Wanhao motherboard is, according to Wiki, based on the ATMega2560.  It's primarily a 24V circuit with a few 5V pins.  I had considered replacing it, but that relay is really the only issue I've got with the motherboard - other than it's replacement cost.  A supplier in Texas has recommended a replacement relay that at first glance looks good - still thinking about that part.  If I can fix the relay problem then I'll have two working motherboards.  I should be set for a  few years.

Don


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## awake (Mar 13, 2020)

RAMPS board working with Wanhao control board - could be. One of the common options for the RAMPS setup is a ribbon cable connection to a board with an LCD screen plus rotary controller and SD card slot - screen can be 20x4 or a larger graphical display. I don't know if that sounds anything like the Wanhao control/interface.

Only issue on running the RAMPS from 24v is that you need to separate the supply to the Arduino board - it can handle 12V just fine, but I don't think it is able to handle 24v. Basically you would need to supply a separate 5V to it.

On the RAMPS board, the heated bed is switched by a MOSFET rather than by a relay. Arguably this MOSFET is operating at the upper end of its range, but it has functioned perfectly for me. However, it is also easy to use the signal from MOSFET to switch an SSR.


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## ddmckee54 (Mar 13, 2020)

That's the advantage of a 24V board over a 12V board, you're halving the amperage.  So those MOSFET's  that were at the upper end of their range are now operating at an more comfortable level, at least as long as THEY are rated for 24V. 

The Wanhao control board has got the LCD drivers, the SD card slot and the rotary controller.  It appears to have the same features as any other LCD with smart controller, just in a different physical layout.   The Wanhao has the SD card slot rotated 90° when compared to most LCD smart controller cards.  The Wanhao control board uses 2 flat ribbon cables  that APPEAR to be the same as any other 3D printer using the RAMPS boards.  I'm just not sure what the pinouts are, they could be a direct match.  Marlin being able to tell the ATMega 2560 to drive the control board gives me hope that this would work.

But even better news.....  I think I've found a drop in replacement relay that's got contacts rated at 20A.  Well actually it was recommended to me by the supplier, but that's just semantics.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the supplier about ordering in small quantities, and whether or not I need to sign away my first-born to get them.


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## RM-MN (Mar 14, 2020)

You may want to consider one of these combo setups.  This one ships from Pomona, California and while I don't know where you live these might get to you way ahead of the one you ordered from Aliexpress.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/for-Arduin...=3238892000801a162cca1f51407d8b2370eadaae4f6e


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## ddmckee54 (Mar 16, 2020)

RM-MN:

I had considered just replacing everything with a standard RAMPS setup.  But in addition to having to replace/reconfigure everything if I did that, the Wanhao board is a 24V board and most combo offers like what you listed are 12V boards.

I ordered several replacement relays this morning and I should have them by next week.  They'll allow me to directly replace the under-rated 10A Songle relay with a 20A relay.  It'll either fix the problem, or show me the next weak link in the 24V chain on the motherboard.

If the Wanhao motherboard fails after the relay replacement, I'll probably wind up replacing the motherboard with a 24V RAMPS board.  I'd like to keep the Wanhao control board, just because I like the way they've got the SD card slot, the LCD, and the control button arranged.

I'm not totally without a printer now, I've still got the older Prusa I3 clone.  It is usable, it's just when compared to the Wanhao printer it's a little slower, noisier, and has a little worse surface finish.

Don


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## ddmckee54 (Apr 27, 2020)

It's been a while, but I have actually accomplished something.  I have received the replacement boards that I ordered from Aliexpress, and I received the replacement relays that I ordered from Omni-Pro Electronics.  I was only going to order 3 of the relays, but the way Omni-Pro had their quantity/price-breaks arranged it only cost me $3 more to order 5 relays as opposed to the 3 that I was going to order.  I've probably got a life-time supply of spare relays now - I hope.  Over the weekend I installed the replacement input board and I'm happy to report that my Monoprice printer is now functional again.  It's still got the original motherboard and 10A relay in it though, I wanted to see if the original motherboard also got static zapped when I fried the original input board.  Since I successfully completed a 20mm cube test print I'm gonna say that the motherboard is good to go.

I will replace the 10A relay on the new motherboard that I ordered from Aliexpress, and install that motherboard in the printer.  I will then replace the 10A relay on my original motherboard and turn that board over to the Storeroom for inventory.  (I'm gonna stash it in the 3D printer toolbox with all the other 3D printer spare parts.)

Now that I have 2 working motherboards I think I'm going to try loading the version of Marlin onto the printer that was developed for the Wanhao D6 printer.  That way if I totally dork up the download I've still got a working motherboard that I can plug in.

The original Wanhao controls never did impress me.  And their main info screen leaves a LOT to be desired, like ANY usable status info on the printer.  I got spoiled by Marlin on my Prusa I3 clone.  The Monoprice main screen doesn't tell you JACK.  No temperatures, no feed-rates, no Z location, no NUFFIN!!!  They don't even give you any reliable information about where you are at in the print, just a very vague count down clock.  It counts down the estimated time remaining in hours left to print completion.  When the estimated time goes under an hour it counts down the minutes left, and that's about all that screen is good for.  Any other information that you want you have to dig out from the various sub-menus.

Don


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## ddmckee54 (Dec 14, 2021)

OK, I admit it - I'm just kinda lazy.  Once I got the printer running again, I just ran it, and ran it, and ran it...  Until it finally dropped last weekend.

I kept getting the heater error message and thought the 10A relay on the motherboard had finally crapped out.  I tried my spare motherboard, but I got almost the same results.  I get the heater error message when trying to preheat both the extruder and the buildplate at the same time.  I was able to get both the extruder and the buildplate up to temp by heating them one at a time - and keep them at temp.  When I home the print head it goes to the correct location, when I lower the buildplate it goes down, but when I try to raise the Z axis  - it goes down and I get a Z home limit stuck error.  I have a hard time believing that error message since that limit was never touched, other than being unplugged from one board and plugged into the same location on the spare board.

At this point I'm wondering if the "Spare" motherboard that I have is any good.  Last night I replaced the 10A relay on the original motherboard with the 20A replacement relay.  I'm going to try putting the original board back in and see if I can get this thing moving again.

In the process of changing the relay I found that I had at some point done the "factory approved" bypass of the relay contacts.  They had a video of how to bypass the relay on their website, so I'm gonna call that factory approved.

So the heater error messages I had been getting were probably caused by something other than the relay.  I'm thinking it might be time to get a new power supply, this one is 4-5 years old by now.

Don


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## awake (Dec 14, 2021)

ddmckee54 said:


> OK, I admit it - I'm just kinda lazy.  Once I got the printer running again, I just ran it, and ran it, and ran it...  Until it finally dropped last weekend.
> 
> I kept getting the heater error message and thought the 10A relay on the motherboard had finally crapped out.  I tried my spare motherboard, but I got almost the same results.  I get the heater error message when trying to preheat both the extruder and the buildplate at the same time.  I was able to get both the extruder and the buildplate up to temp by heating them one at a time - and keep them at temp.  When I home the print head it goes to the correct location, when I lower the buildplate it goes down, but when I try to raise the Z axis  - it goes down and I get a Z home limit stuck error.  I have a hard time believing that error message since that limit was never touched, other than being unplugged from one board and plugged into the same location on the spare board.
> 
> ...



As I was reading the message, I was thinking "maybe bad power supply." Make sure you check the connections first.


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## ddmckee54 (Dec 14, 2021)

Good idea Andy, vibration does make screws work loose, and 3D printers do tend to shake a little.


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 3, 2022)

Printer update -

Before Christmas:

I got myself a Christmas present and ordered a new printer, one with a larger print volume.

I also replaced the 10A relay on the original motherboad for my D6 and put it back in the printer.  While I was doing that I decided it just MIGHT be a good idea to trace out all the unmarked cables to verify that they went where I thought they should go.  I had everything plugged back into the correct location....  With one minor exception, a 2 conductor cable - a red/black twin lead that LOOKED like it went to the fan.  When I was first checking the cables, that particular cable ran under the motherboard and the cooling fan for the motherboard was right there... So I just assumed, and plugged it into the socket on the motherboard marked fan.  The only other socket on the motherboard was clearly labeled GND.  Anyway, upon closer inspection I found out that both the red and the black wires of that cable were crimped into a common eyelet and bolted to the metal frame of the printer.  Wonder what color convention for grounding THAT'S supposed to be following?  I hooked things correctly and I was able to get the printer moving again.  But I still get the heater error, so I ordered a new power supply.

After Christmas:

The new printer arrived, it's an MP10, and I'm getting it set up.  There's a couple of things I don't like about it and will be modifying.  My biggest issue is that a couple of years ago I shelled out the bucks for Simplify3D, guess which printer Simplify3D does NOT have a profile for?  Sometimes Google is your friend, then again - sometimes ya gets da elevator and sometimes ya gets da shaft.  I found several different references to printer profiles that were usable, but no matter what printer profile I tried my 20x20x20mm cube kept coming out 20x20x10mm-ish.  I finally decided to go old-school and use the M92 command to load new steps/mm settings for the axis - I just needed to find out what the initial settings were.  By this time I have a small handful of 20x20x10mm cubes of shame.

That gets us up to New Year's day and beyond:

I dug up the proper USB cable to plug into the printer and suck the initial settings out of it.  The initial settings had the Z axis set to 404 steps/mm, so I doubled that to 808 and printed another cube.  OH-BOY Howdy, I got a 20x20x20mm-ish cube.  I tweaked the Z axis again, and almost launched the thing into orbit.  I eventually discovered that I apparently hadn't entered QUITE what I thought I did on that last edit, the Z axis steps/mm was now 8708 steps/mm.  NO problemo, I'll  just unplug this thing for a while and it'll reload the initial settings right?  Ummm... one of the features of this printer is that if the power fails during a print, it will resume printing from where it left off - no reloading initial settings on power-up.  Eventually I decided to take an existing g-code file and delete everything except the starting and ending scripts.  I loaded the modified settings in the starting script, reset the to the factory settings in the ending script, and called it SAVURBACN.g-code, that way the factory bed leveling function would still work.  It worked as advertised.  The last 20x20x20mm cube I printed came out at 19.88x19.88x19.7mm-ish.  For the final tuning I use micrometer readings, not digital guestimator readings.  I'm still tuning the Z offset to get the first layer height correct, it's currently still too thin.  I think I can still do a little better in the X&Y axis, I'd like to get them into the high 19.9's.  All of the tuning is done on a cube that has been scaled to 106% in all 3 axis in the slicer.  This 106% scaling allows for the shrinkage of PLA as it cools, and SHOULD give me a 20x20x20mm cube at ambient temperature.   If I use a different material I can change this scaling factor and all will still be right with the world.

The new power supply for my D6 printer should arrive sometime this week.  So I'll probably have both printers operational at about the same time.

Don


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## stanstocker (Jan 4, 2022)

Hi Don,

Unfortunately Simplify 3D hasn't been doing any updates for several years.  It was a great product, probably the best slicer around at one time, but these days Cura or PrusaSlicer may do a better job for you.  Good luck getting your new printer sorted out, my printers tend to alternate between being lots of fun and "what now!?!?!" devices placed on earth just to frustrate and confound.

Keep laughing,
Stan


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 4, 2022)

Stan, I agree with you, Simplify3D *was* pretty much the gold standard for slicers - now.... not so much.  There are still a few things that Simplify3D will do that the others won't, so I'll keep using it.  If the current version of the Prusa slicer had been available when I bought Simplify3d, I think I probably would have saved my money and just used the Prusa.

I've been sneaking up on the steps/mm settings and I've pretty much got them dialed in.  My last test cube actually overshot the mark, it was about 20.1x20.1x20.1mm, +/- a couple hundreds of a mm.   I've bracketed the X&Y axis size by about 0.1mm on my last 2 cube attempts, first under and then over.  If I cut that change in half I should be golden on those axis.  I've got the Z offset for the first layer pretty much dialed in, so now I can start correcting the Z axis setting.  A couple more 20mm cubes and I should be ready to print something usable.

I also got the replacement power supply for my D6 printer yesterday, so add that to the liist of things to do.

Don


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## awake (Jan 5, 2022)

Reminds me of my attempt to impress my wife after I finished building my 3d FDM printer. "What can you do with it?" "Look at all these 20mm cubes I made!" "Is that all ... ??"


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 5, 2022)

Ummmm......  This is my collection at the office?


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## awake (Jan 5, 2022)

When I decided to pursue the 3d printer several years ago, I really wondered if it was going to turn out to be kinda like the toy robot I got for Christmas as a kid:

December 25: "This is so cool!"
December 28: "Oh, yeah, I should play with that ..."
January 1: "Where is the robot? Well ... I decided to take it apart to scavenge the motor and gears!"

As it has turned out, however, the use and enjoyment of the printer has greatly exceeded not only my fears but even my hopes. I don't use it "all the time" ... in part because work keeps getting in the way of time for my hobbies ... but I do use it extensively. Major use cases include 1) prototyping something to get the design just right before committing to steel; 2) making a fixture to hold something for machining; 3) replacing something that is not otherwise readily available.

An interesting example of the 3rd use case was the shift knob on my daughter's Honda Accord. At 180K miles, the knob that must be pressed to move the lever from Park to Drive disintegrated. I worked up a replacement, printed it, and voila! The car is ready to go another 100K miles!


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 5, 2022)

Andy:

I know what you mean about the printers.

Several years ago I was really impressed with what the RCTractorGuy did with his 3D printer, printing parts for his 1/32 scale RC tractor conversions.  That's what prompted me to get my first printer.  The second and third printer, I think it's some kind of addiction and there's probably a 12 step plan for dealing with it. 

I mostly use mine to print stuff that doesn't currently exist, like the parts for my dust collector airlock, or the Colt 1908 replica rubber band gund that I made for the great nephews and great niece.  Or the holster for the grass shears that I bolted onto the push mower.

My biggest problem is the 3D CAD.  I probably should be using Fusion 360, but I have never been able to get comfortable using it, just haven't been able wrap my head around it yet.  I've been using Designspark3D which is direct modeling based rather than parametric modeling based like Fusion 360.  I read a white paper years ago that people's brains are wired differently, some are comfortable with parametric modeling and others are comfortable with direct modeling - I believe it!  The latest version of Designspark3D allows parametric modeling, maybe that will let me ease my way into parametric modeling, and Fusion 360 will start making more sense.

Don


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## Steamchick (Jan 6, 2022)

I like the idea of using 3D modelling for making casting patterns..... 
And a guy made all sorts of jigs and fixtures for the assembly line at work...
And rapid prototyping speeded-up new model development dramatically. 
But I understand that the polymers available are not all as good or durable as the "original" designers select? (Especially when compared to fibre filled materials, ABS, thermosets, etc.).
But I haven't bit the bullet yet and bought one....
Any suggestions... ? Maybe a "toy" for starters? And what size PC is really needed for CAD? (Mine is from 2008).
K2


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## Shopgeezer (Jan 6, 2022)

I am in my third try learning Fusion 360. I have used Sketchup for years so I am
familiar with the concepts. But the poor training videos for rank beginners turned me off and I found Fusion too confusing and complicated to understand. Fortunately I found the series of Fusion videos on You Tube by Paul McWhorter. He pretty much starts with how to move the mouse so really gets back into what a beginner needs to know. The videos are great and I am getting to know Fusion better. Still an awful lot to learn. I highly recommend the McWhorter videos. 

DonM


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## awake (Jan 6, 2022)

To create the 3d designs, I use two different programs on a regular basis: OpenSCAD and FreeCAD. They are drastically different! In FreeCAD (analogous to what you would do in Fusion 360), you "draw" the model, step by step, seeing the results as you go. In OpenSCAD, you tell it what you want it to do, then click a button to ask it to render the results.

Let's say you want a 20x20x20mm cube with a 16mm hole through it. In FreeCAD, you could do this in a couple of different ways, but typically you would sketch out one face of the cube, and then extrude it to form the solid. Then you would sketch the hole on one face of the resulting cube, and extrude that to make the hole. Here is a rough 2-minute video illustrating the process:





Your browser is not able to display this video.




















With OpenSCAD, you write a "program" - just a text file with the extension set to .scad - to put together the various pieces of what you want. For example, to make the same cube with a hole through it, you would write the following in the OpenSCAD editor:

difference () {
   cube([20,20,20], center = true);
   cylinder(r=8, h=30, center = true);
}

Then you click the icon or press the F5 key to tell it to render what you just asked for, and you will get the following:







It is indicative of the differences in the approach that I could illustrate the OpenSCAD process with a single screen shot, while the FreeCAD process required a video. I find that each approach has its advantages for different 3d printing projects, and I instinctively turn to one vs. the other ... but I have a hard time articulating exactly what it is about any given project that makes it a better fit for one approach over the other. Over all, though, I find myself using OpenSCAD far more often for 3d printing projects, but not always. (Note that for anything other than 3d printing, at least for me, OpenSCAD is never the right choice. I do all of my design and modeling for woodworking, engine, and tool projects in FreeCAD.)


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## Randoo (Jan 7, 2022)

Shopgeezer said:


> I am in my third try learning Fusion 360. I have used Sketchup for years so I am
> familiar with the concepts. But the poor training videos for rank beginners turned me off and I found Fusion too confusing and complicated to understand. Fortunately I found the series of Fusion videos on You Tube by Paul McWhorter. He pretty much starts with how to move the mouse so really gets back into what a beginner needs to know. The videos are great and I am getting to know Fusion better. Still an awful lot to learn. I highly recommend the McWhorter videos.
> 
> DonM


I've been trying to learn Fusion 360 also. One of the issues I've been running into is that the controls seem to change from when older tutorials were made. When shown how to do something I have to search Google to find where the control is now or what it's now called. Then the worst part, I have to remember! Slow and steady I guess.

Randy


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 7, 2022)

Randy, that's one of the things that I hate about Autodesk, they keep moving the commands/icons around.  Somebody had a better Idea??  I'm not so sure.

I started out using ACAD10 I think, it might have been 8 or 9.  Lately it seems like every time they come out with a new version everything gets moved around.  Autodesk is the parent to Fusion 360 and AutoCAD.  Frankly with the rates that Autodesk charges, I'm surpirsed that there's as MUCH of Fusion 360 still available at no charge as there is.  I think that it will probably go to 100% subscription in the future, just like Dassault did with DraftSight.

I'm not QUITE ready to start compaigning to return to clay tablets and sharp sticks - but I'm gettting close. 

Don


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## Steamchick (Jan 8, 2022)

Hi Don,
I have yet to make the move from "pencils to pixels" - but did some training courses (and daily work) on CAD... - not designing just sectioning others' designs and dimensioning for technical documents and pictures. But every couple of years we needed new training courses as the CAD changed (completely!) and we had to start learning again. I reckon that I spent more time "re-training" than actually producing drawing output. But the full time users always thought the "improved tools" were "Great!"
But my modelling design work is still done by pencil... It is what I enjoy and stress free... Surely that is the nature of hobby work? - If stressful and not enjoyable it is not the right hobby.
To that end, I am using a 12 year old PC to write on this thread - all be it with Windows 10... but I prefer it to an "Android". (My mobile phone doesn't even have a camera, but allows me to talk to people... or find out they are not available for a chat!).
I'll be dead before CAD gets easy to learn. Maybe I'll have "Pre-CAD Engineer" engraved on my headstone?
I used computers - when you needed a clever young Engineer to write the software - to do simulations and design work of pressure rises in the various chambers of high speed pneumatic valves and cylinders - but then they invented PCs and I went back to calculators and brain-power (PCs and I were simply innadequate for the first decade or 2!), as the generation of engineering software writers gave up Engineering for the huge salaries in "IT programming" for banks and people like that!
Of course, the advancement of technology is now enabling Boeing to design the modern Concorde - same size and similar range as the one from 50 years ago - in roughly the same timescale and with a similar number of engineers - and using computers! - Is this the technological revolution I expected in my lifetime? Is it just possible that we are spending more time "worshipping to god (= computer) than tilling the fields for sustainance"?
But this PC does let me "communicate with" (= "preach to" ??) all you interesting guys, so not all bad!

K2


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## RM-MN (Jan 8, 2022)

Steamchick said:


> I'll be dead before CAD gets easy to learn.



I doubt that CAD will ever be easy to learn but it has so many advantages over pencil drawing for larger projects that people will work to learn it.  Along with that comes CAM for the CNC machines.  I found CAM to be just as frustrating as CAD but since it can be done once for a part or assembly and the results fed to the CNC it will be the norm for the future.  Making a single part takes more time to draw in CAD and program it for CNC in the CAM than just pencil and manual machining it but when you need several thousand copies of that part, manual machining is gone.


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## Steamchick (Jan 9, 2022)

Having worked in industries that made one-off bespoke installations (for Power stations and factories), low volume products (high voltage switchgear), and high volume (Automotive) manufacture I agree whole heartedly that "computers" win in the professional world. From 1-off to high volume. But I doubt it will ever enter my home workshop. My basis is 1-off models. And even chalk on slate is useful for the simpler things I draw freehand before making them. 
I left the drawing board behind when I movedcto automotive high volume... and didn't need to join the CAD -CAM revolution as it developed. Dedicated new young engineers did that, and I only use my "Old" skills on the drawing board for my own needs for models. I enjoy the application of the human skill of making parts that fit - maybe not perfectly, but as well as the capability of my brain, the machine and my hands. I suspect there are 2 schools. Those who want their models to be "as perfect as possible" for whom CAD and  CAM are suitable, and those who focus on their own skills, where simple tools like pencils, rulers, manual calculations, scribers, squares, files and saws, as well as hand-set machines, suit the task. My 1978 Texas calculator is probably the most complex computing tool I use. But I may explore CAD when I need a new challenge.
Enjoy whatever you do and how you do it.
K2


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## RM-MN (Jan 9, 2022)

You left out my category, those who are doing only 1-offs but have poor fine motor skills so that making parts that fit together manually doesn't really work well and the ones who do additive machining (3D printing) as well as subtractive machining  (mill and lathe).  Learning some CAD drawing has made my 3D printer more fun as I make items for the home and farm that I cannot buy locally and has made my milling much closer to what I intend.


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## kf2qd (Jan 9, 2022)

You all fail to see what CAD is, it is just another form of you paper napkin or chalkboard. I do most of my design on CAD, things are more legible, I can modify the design to see how the mod works out and go back the the previous better one easily. I can work in 2D and 3D and they are very simple.

What I think your problem is - you have not used it enough that is becomes normal. You have not learned the language of your particular cad program (different, but simple). I fought with doing simple things in AutoCad until I learned about a few additional keystrokes that solved 90% of my problems. CAD makes a very nice way to share your ideas. Someone else can see it with the same precision that you do. Hand drawn might be crystal clear to you, and clear as mud to the next guy. And you can backup you design in various places and on various media. Stash them on a CD, on the cloud, on an SD card.

And you can try things in CAD that are very difficult on paper. Was recently working out the dimensions of a Daisy Wheel and Tri on a clock design. Could copy and move the TRI through the equivelent of 12 hours of motion and leave a copy of the TRI in each position which then let me see the clearance  between the Tri as it indexed around for 1 hour. Also let me see the effect a different offset eccentric would have on the operation.

If you get into CAD either find a Book (can still be difficult because you still don't know the lingo), Find someone that will put up with a few dumb questions and ask them how to do a specific thing. (I can think of learning about the R(relative) keystroke when rotation a part. Saved tons of grief. Once you have a few basics of the language it really gets quite easy. By the way - your training sessions probably taught you a bunch of stuff you will never need, and jumped over the basic stuff making it appear unimportant. 99% of CAD is just the basics.


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## Steamchick (Jan 10, 2022)

Fair comment RM-MN, but there will always be lots of little alternative "groups" to the main ones I suggested. I didn't mean to disregard anyone, just explain that without machines capable of CAM, and the need for CAD, there are still some of us making perfectly good models, using more "traditional" methods. Perhaps we are the obsolete breed? But our forbears sent men to the moon and back, flew faster than twice the speed of sound, found oil in vast quantities and made plastics, that many rely upon and are now becoming a pollution problem, made bombs that could destroy the whole planet in minutes, etc., most of which was done without the aid of a computer. Incidentally, we are communicating by a faster version of the Morse code telegraph - that we call a digital computer. And we can now send pictures too!
By Population, the "Modern post-transistor Mechanised" world is probably still in a minority on the planet - I have never thought about it until now. The fact that a good proportion of the planet relies on diesel fuel or electricity for power does not mean it is available to everyone, nor needed by everyone (Consider farming the wheat fields of Canada versus the paddy fields of China, and the sizes of populations depending on the 2 forms of planting). The same applies to "electric thinking machines" - and the "Home-machinist". Of 4 feeds on my lathe, only one can be powered, and none on my mill. Yet I get "adequate" material removal rates, precision of fit and surface finish from "hand-feeding". I am sure CAD-CAM would produce parts hundreds of times faster, but for my "one-offs", the simplicity of my process keeps me occupied. That is reward in itself.
Enjoy "making", however you do it! I do...
K2


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 10, 2022)

I can relate to both sides of the CAD war.  To some people CAD is the greatest thing since sliced bread and NOTHING is done without the aid of the computer and the latest software.  Then there's the other end of the spectrum where CAD is Cardboard Aided Design.

I can relate to RM-MN's comment about the lack of fine-motor skills, BOY can I relate to that.  A lot of my stuff now is CNC, or at least headed that way.  CNC allows those of us with limited dexterity to enjoy this hobby.

I used to be a fair to middlin draftsman, and I also used to be able to read my own writing - not so much anymore.  Anymore if I want to be able to comminicate an idea to someone else I have to use CAD, just so it's legible.

But enough of this nonsense, back to the salt mines...  Ummmm, I think I meant 3D printers.  Over the weekend I decided that no glorified hot glue gun that's controlled by angry pixies was gonna get the best of me!  So I started from scratch.  Alright, alright, SOMEHOW I managed to delete my printer profiles.  No problem says I, I'll just reload my factory file in S3D and start from where I last saved it.  I'm not sure IF I saved my factory file, and if I did I SURE don't know where it got sent - as I could never locate it.  So I had to rebuild my D6 printer profile, and build my MP10 printer profile.  By Sunday noon I had both printers calibrated to within a few hundredths of a mm on my 20mm test cube, so I started printing some REAL parts.

I turned the MP10 loose on the parts for the RC Benchy that I found on Thingiverse, and I turned the D6 loose on some dust collector parts - both printers were happily pooping out plastic parts.  Only problem, when I tried the parts for the DC they wouldn't fit - WTF!!!!  I had calibrated my 20mm cubes using PLA and I had gottten 20mm, why am I off when trying to print a 108mm adapter ring?  Turns out I had used 106% as my scaling factor during the calibration of the printers, allowing for shrinkage dontchaknow.  Much to my surprise, when I Googled PLA's shrinkage factor it's more like 102%-103% - OOOOPPSIE.  That means both the D6 and the MP10 have incorrect steps/mm values and I'll need to fix that problem, *just not right now*.

By this time I'd already printed part of the RC Benchy and the MP10 was in the middle of a 14 hour print for another part.  I'll print the rest of the RC Benchy parts, then fix the issue.  

The D6 I just said *screw it,* I tweaked the CAD until I got the printed part I wanted.  When I'm done printing these adapters I'll actually FIX this problem, not just put a band-aid on it.

Don


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## Steamchick (Jan 11, 2022)

Hi Don. I do understand why you fight the gremlins to make plastic bits that way. But having made them 4% too big, can you not machine or fettle to size? After all, it is just a cast part? If you have a CNC miller, it should cope with the same CAD input?
But I am just a cardboard cut-out anyway, so no nothing of the complexity of your tools.
K2


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## RM-MN (Jan 11, 2022)

Steamchick said:


> Hi Don. I do understand why you fight the gremlins to make plastic bits that way. But having made them 4% too big, can you not machine or fettle to size? After all, it is just a cast part? If you have a CNC miller, it should cope with the same CAD input?
> But I am just a cardboard cut-out anyway, so no nothing of the complexity of your tools.
> K2



Some times the wall thickness on a 3D printed part is too thin to be able to machine it to size without exposing the honeycomb interior.  Along with that is the problem of clamping them tight enough to keep them from moving without cracking them.


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## Steamchick (Jan 11, 2022)

_understand_


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## awake (Jan 11, 2022)

RM-MN said:


> Some times the wall thickness on a 3D printed part is too thin to be able to machine it to size without exposing the honeycomb interior.  Along with that is the problem of clamping them tight enough to keep them from moving without cracking them.



Of course, you can control the number of perimeters to give a thicker wall ...


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 11, 2022)

Steamchick:

For right now on the MP10 that's kind of what I'm doing.  Since I've already got many print hours invested in the Benchy using the incorrect scaling value, I'll continue using those settings until this project is complete.  I may regret this decision as there are a number of commercially available products that will need to be installed and I'm not sure these will fit.  *Awwww Crap!* 

I think I just talked myself into fixing the step/mm on the MP10 first and then reprinting the parts I've already done.  Redrilling/shimming the printed rudder tube and prop shaft holes might just be a hastle I want to avoid.  The servo brackets probably wouldn't fit either, and who knows what else.  YUP, it's ALWAYS the little things that bite you in the butt.

It's kind of the same thing with the adapter rings I'm printing with the D6.  In the NEAR future I will get the D6 steps/mm set so that when I tell it print an object I will get an object of the correct size.  That way in the future if I have some other brain fart brilliant idea and print a different 108mm object, they will fit together with a minimum amount of swearing at the STUIPID designer.  I hate having to post-process parts, de-burring is expected, but having to file/sand parts to fit should not be required.

I'm also thinking that I need to print a larger object as a sanity check, maybe a 40x40x40mm hollow cube with thin-ish walls and no top.  That would still print fairly quickly and give me a sanity check on size.  I could even add lightening holes to the sides and bottom to speed up the print further, no need to waste TOO much plastic.  I'll have to use my digital guesstimator to measure it though, my mike only goes to 25mm.  To paraphrase Bullwinkle - No doubt about it, I need another mike.

Don


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## Steamchick (Jan 12, 2022)

Hi Don,
Gee, you are not having fun just now. Have a day-off and relax then come back fresh and start again.
Do you have a vernier caliper? - Or even hand held external calipers, and a suitable gauge? (Maybe a 40mm diameter ball bearing, or some other ground tool or component of known size? - A light bulb can be used, if you know the size!). Or you can use a gauge made from 2 pieces of 20mm square ground bar... or 2 ball bearings smaller than 1" - but that add to the size of calibration cube you want to make?
Remember, Toolmakers use slips of various sizes and add them together to make gauges for comparing to the tools the are sizing. We don't need "dial gauges" for everything.
Stay cool mate, and enjoy the work - It's a hobby!
K2


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 12, 2022)

Steamchick:

On the contrary, getting these printers calibrated IS having fun.  I went out to Horrible Fright last night, and they had a micrometer set : 0"-1", 1"-2", and 2"-3" for $40.  So I figured I'd give it a shot, I wouldn't have wasted too much if they were crap.  So far from what I can tell they aren't too bad, they even include 1" and 2" gage blocks.  Every thing that I've got that can measure the 1" gage block agrees that it is indeed 1", even my digital guesstimator can't make up its' mind whether the gage block is 0.9995" or 1.0000", I'll accept it as 1".  The 1"-2" mike says the 2" gage block is 2", and my digital guestimator says it's 2", but the 2"-3" mike says it's 2.005", I'm guessing that whoever zeroed the 2"-3" mike was having a bad day that day.  They included the spanner to zero the mike barrels with the set, so I'll just fix that little issue.  I always consider anything coming from Harbor Freight to be more of a tool kit, rather than a ready to use tool.

Anyway, I worked on the MP10 calibration last night, I got the 20mm cube to within a thou or two, which is about as good as I think you get with an FDM printer due to the way they build an object.  As a sanity check I designed a 40x40x40mm cube and printed it.  It's off by about 3-4 thou, so I'll do another tweak to the MP10's steps/mm tonight.

I'm not going to go too far down this calibration rabbit hole, if I can get the 40x40x40mm cube error to under a thou I think I'll call it "crose enuf".  I am NOT gonna print an 80x80x80mm cube just for funsies, I wouldn't be able to mike it anyway since that's over 3".  I might try a 60x60xsomething mm plate, THAT I could measure.

Once I get done printing 4" spacers on the D6, I'll go through the same procedure with that printer.  The spacers take a little over an hour to print, and if I decide to make new blast gates for the dust collector - probably gonna happen - I'll need 6 more 4" spacers.

Don


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## willray (Jan 13, 2022)

ddmckee54 said:


> I'm not going to go too far down this calibration rabbit hole



You might already be further down the rabbit hole than you want?

If you already know this and I'm just insulting your intelligence and understanding, please feel free to ignore me, but:

Keep in mind that a couple thou difference comes from the extruded ribbon not having a nice accurate rectangular profile of the intended dimensions, so you've got a (pseudo) fixed extrusion-squish error that's added to your axis-calibration error.

Try to calibrate that fixed additive error out with the scales-with-size axis adjustment using small-size prints, and you'll get increasing errors at larger print sizes.

If you've got a mill on which you trust the dials, make yourself a set of go/no-go gauges of the largest possible sizes for your X/Y/Z axes, and just print strip prints along each dimension, then check them to the go/no-go gauges with gage blocks.   That way the fixed squish error is as diluted as possible in the axis calibration.


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 14, 2022)

willray:

I agree, I'm already down the rabbit hole, that's why I said I didn't want to go TOO far down it.

Somehow I managed to fumblefinger my printer profiles in S3D, I deleted them. Using the factory default settings in my D6 printer I have significant discrepencies between my 20x20x20mm cube and the actual measurements, X was about 0.5mm out and Y was worse, but Z was fairly close.  This would be fine if all I was printing was artsy-fartsy type stuff like pencil holders and dragons, but I'm trying to print actual usable parts - parts that will fit to something else without fettling.  So far I've printed 20 of the 4" adapter rings for my dust collector project and have at least 6 more to print - so NO fettling.

The cube errors were inconsistent between the axis so I couldn't write it off as a scaling issue.  I had the same problem on my I3 clone, and this calibration procedure of the steps/mm was how I fixed it.  I am currently sacaling all 3 axis in the slicer to 103% to compensate for shrinkage, so even though the parts are built using the equivalent of Lincoln Logs the part SHOULD be close.  I agree, a thou or so error from a 3D printed 20x20x20mm cube isn't bad, but when I print a larger object and the error scales up with it, THAT I can fix - at least get it closer.  When I can print a small part, and a larger part, with about the same error, then it's time to click my heels together 3 times and leave OZ.  (Sorry about the mixed references, couldn't remember how Alice left Wonderland.)

S3D doesn't have a printer profile for my MP10.  When I tried printing a 20x20x20mm cube, I got a 20x20x10mm cube.  I found several references on the ole Interwebb suggesting that this or that printer profile would work - for me, not so much. This wasn't really that unexpected, the Z axis lead screws on my other printers have a 2mm pitch, and the MP10's Z axis lead screw has a 1mm pitch.  So I had to fix the calibration on the MP10 too.  I load the new steps/mm setttings in the g-code when I start the print, then reset them at the end of the print.  I may not have to do that, but the MP10's got a bed leveling function built in and I didn't want to screw that up.

I'm not too concerned about the accuracy of the Z axis.  Unless the 3D printing gods smile on me and deliver a miracle, that height could be off by up to 1/2 of the layer thickness.  If I'm within that +/- half layer thickness, and it stays that way with when printing a larger object, then Z is "crose enuf".

Don


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## awake (Jan 14, 2022)

Don, do you have the ability to update the settings in the EEPROM of your printer(s)? If it runs Marlin or similar, it should be possible to write updated settings to the eeprom, where they will be loaded each time when powered on. Thus not something that has to be kept in your Simplify 3d profile ...


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## willray (Jan 14, 2022)

ddmckee54 said:


> I have significant discrepencies between my 20x20x20mm cube and the actual measurements, X was about 0.5mm out and Y was worse, but Z was fairly close.  This would be fine if all I was printing was artsy-fartsy type stuff like pencil holders and dragons, but I'm trying to print actual usable parts ...



Hehehe -- I will never understand why people are willing to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a device to recreate crap that they wouldn't pay $5 for at the trinket store.



> S3D doesn't have a printer profile for my MP10.  When I tried printing a 20x20x20mm cube, I got a 20x20x10mm cube.



I like S3D (liking it less, as they continue to refuse to release an update), but they do seem to have some problems with their printer profiles.  On one of mine, their default profile produces an object that is skewed diagonally, moving over by 1 extrusion width per layer...

I'm really surprised you're getting the type of calibration issues that you're seeing though.  Lead-screw pitch errors, sure, but off by a few percent on a cartesian is pretty hard to implement!  The only one of my FDMs that isn't accurate to the accuracy of the lead screws is a delta.

Good luck!
Will


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 17, 2022)

willray - All of my printers are belt drives on the X-Y axis, and lead screws on the Z axis.

I have officially EXITED the printer calibration rabbit hole.  I can consistently print a 20mm cube to within 1-2 thou in both the X and Y axis.  I then printed a 40x40x40mm hollow cube as a sanity check.  The D6 printer kept the 1-2 thou error on X-Y, so I callied it crose enuff.  The error on the MP10 printer held at 1-2 thou on the X axis, so I left it alone.  The Y axis error went up to 3 thou, so I tweaked it slightly and tried it again.  This time the error was 1-2 thou for both X and Y, so I called it good enough for guvmint work.  I think I only changed the X-Y steps/mm by about 4 steps/mm from the original settings on both the D6 and the MP10.  The MP10 started out with a Z steps/mm of 404, which gave me a 20x20x10mm cube.  If I remember correctly the final Z axis steps/mm setting was about 796 steps/mm.

I needed a 4" to 3" offset transition for the dust collector branch to the drill press/bandsaw/whatever and none were commercially available, so I 3D modelled one.  I loaded the gcode into the MP10 and fired it up, S3D estimated the print time at 16 hours.  I had printed a 14 hour print on the MP10 so I figured it'll be fine, and let it print overnight.  The next morning I noticed a dicey looking area in part of the print and hoped it was just a bad spot in the filament.  It got progressively worse and at about 14 hours into the print I aborted it, there were significant defects in the print.  Mostly it looked like it was under-extruded, to the point where the print was so spongy that if I wanted to I could have poked my finger through the 3mm thick wall.  I have seen a similar issue on my D6 printer, on that printer it means that the Teflon liner in the hot end is swelling up and needs to be changed.  I was getting ready to tear the hot end apart when I remembered that the MP10 has an all metal hot end, so no Teflon liner - there had to be a different cause.  What I eventually found was that for some unknown reason the extruder drive gear had started grinding chunks off the filament.  The teeth of the gear were mostly packed full of bits of filament, I'm amazed that it was able to drive the filament at all.  I'm going to babysit this thing for awhile and keep an eye on it.  It'll be some time before I trust the MP10 to extended unsupervised printing again.

The good news is that the D6 pooped out that same transition piece in 14 hours, and it's a keeper.  I have printed several smaller parts in the MP10 since then without any issues, but now I know to regularly check the extruder drive gear for tell-tale bits of filament.

Don


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## awake (Jan 17, 2022)

Hmm ... let's think through the possible causes for the filament grinding / under-extrusion:

1) tension on the drive system in the extruder is not sufficient
2) printer cannot lay down filament as fast as called for (e.g., it cannot keep the filament hot enough as it passes through the print head)
3) print head nozzle is blocked (e.g., due to dusty filament or to filament staying at temp but not moving for too long and getting "cooked" in the print head)

Of these, I've never had #1 occur ... instead, I hear the extruder stepper motor missing steps.

I've had #2 occur primarily with TPU filaments. Solution is to slow the print speed down.

I have had #3 on more than one occasion; most of the time, it is a problem with dust; most of the time, I can clear the blockage by heating the print head up, pressing in some filament, letting the head cool down, and at around 170 - 180°C pulling the filament out. The idea is to let the blob of plastic begin to solidify but still be able to pull out, hopefully pulling out with it anything that is blocking the nozzle. Over several years of occasional printing, I've only had to actually replace the nozzle a couple of times.


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 17, 2022)

I don't think the problem is #1 , but if it is there's not much I can do about it.  I don't see any way to adjust the pressure of the spring loaded roller.

 I also think we can eliminate #2 as the culprit.  Every part that I have printed using the MP10 has been run at 50mm/s print speed with a 0.175mm layer height.  That was the layer height sweet spot found by other users of the MP10 - so I took their word for it.

I also think we can eliminate the plugged nozzle.  The filament while not new, I've had it for a while, was still in the un-opened vacuum sealed package.   So the filament was clean and dry.   I had a previously run a 14 hour print using the same filament, same speeds, and same temperatures with no issues.  I don't let the hot end sit running at temperature for extended periods, so for now I'm going to look for other causes.

I'm going to propose option #4, filament of questionable quality.  This was a low-buck Ebay spool of filament, chosen because I really liked the dark blue color.  The extruder drive gear on the MP10 is a worm wheel, not the straight cut spur gear like on my other printers.  Something caused it to slip initially, this embedded bits of filament into the teeth of the gear, which caused more slippage and more grinding.  There was a significant amount of ground up filament around the gear, and in the gear teeth.  Once I found the problem, it took me a quite a while to get all the crap cleaned out of the gear.  Now I keep an old tooth brush handy to keep the drive gear clean while the printer is running.  I'll probably also avoid using filament from unknown manufacturers in the future, no more impulse buys just because I like the color.

Don


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## awake (Jan 17, 2022)

Ah, good point - I had neglected to think of #4!

Of course, #4 could lead back to #3 ...  I've also had #3 when I've had either the bed or the Z-compensation way out of adjustment - but that should be obvious if you watch the first layer being printed.


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## RM-MN (Jan 17, 2022)

ddmckee54 said:


> I also think we can eliminate #2 as the culprit. Every part that I have printed using the MP10 has been run at 50mm/s print speed with a 0.175mm layer height. That was the layer height sweet spot found by other users of the MP10 - so I took their word for it.



Not all filament, even though the same material, is the same.  I've had to adjust the nozzle and bed temp with a change of PLA filament.


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## willray (Jan 18, 2022)

awake said:


> Hmm ... let's think through the possible causes for the filament grinding / under-extrusion:
> 
> 1, 2,
> 
> 3: print head nozzle is blocked (e.g., due to dusty filament or to filament staying at temp but not moving for too long and getting "cooked" in the print head)



I've had a different, and reliably-reproducible version of 3 - it took me a while to figure out what was going on when my postdoc started having this problem with his prints, induced by an updated version of Cura:

Print-bed temperature too high.   I leave a TAZ 6, with a dual-extruder all-metal hotend in the lab for the kiddies to play with.  An update to Cura increased (for reasons as yet bewildering to me) the default print-bed temperature for PLA from 60C to 80C.  Because the dual extruder hot-end has minuscule fans, and the extruder is huge, most of the air that's passed over the hot end to cool the heat-break, is sucked from near the print bed.

That 20C increase in print-bed temperature resulted in the melt-zone on PLA extending above the heat-break during the first few layers of printing, and as the head got further from the print bed, the cooler air available brought the temperature of that region back down to where the melted filament formed a constriction, and sometimes a complete blockage.

The symptoms were consistent with what you're describing - prints that started fine, but that then began grinding filament after they got up an inch or two into the build.  Took me far too long to figure that out, as my test prints printed just fine, but my postdoc's attempts at the same parts consistently failed.  Somehow looking at the first couple lines of the g-code didn't occur to me for the better part of a week.

Best of luck chasing your gremlin!
Will


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## willray (Jan 18, 2022)

ddmckee54 said:


> willray - All of my printers are belt drives on the X-Y axis, and lead screws on the Z axis.
> ...
> Don



You know what, most of mine are too.  I was just up to my ears in the guts of our Stratasys machine, which is the only one of mine that I'm sure is lead-screws all around, so I'll claim that that's the source of my brain fart, but yeah, of course, small variations in pulley diameters are going to result in needing to tune X/Y on belt-drive machines.

Duh!
Will


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## awake (Jan 18, 2022)

willray said:


> I've had a different, and reliably-reproducible version of 3 - it took me a while to figure out what was going on when my postdoc started having this problem with his prints, induced by an updated version of Cura:
> 
> Print-bed temperature too high.   I leave a TAZ 6, with a dual-extruder all-metal hotend in the lab for the kiddies to play with.  An update to Cura increased (for reasons as yet bewildering to me) the default print-bed temperature for PLA from 60C to 80C.  Because the dual extruder hot-end has minuscule fans, and the extruder is huge, most of the air that's passed over the hot end to cool the heat-break, is sucked from near the print bed.
> 
> ...


Wow, that must have been a hard-to-diagnose gremlin!


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 19, 2022)

willray:

S3D hasn't updated in far too long, so a recent update is not the issue.  I'm keeping an eye on the MP10 and if what's left of the spool of dark blue screws up again, well then it's going to get an up close and personal look at the inside of the trash bin.  There's only about 1/2 of the roll left so it won't be that big of a sacrifice.  Whatever initially caused the problem seems to have gone away.  Since I cleaned the teeth of the extruder drive gear the MP10 hasn't been causing any problems - then again I haven't done any extended prints on it either.

I need to reprint some of the RC Benchy parts, for the 3rd time, now that I've got the printer dialed in.  I've printed these parts on both the MP10, and the D6 and I get a layer shift on one side of the hull about 100mm-ish up into the print.  It's not in exactly the same spot on both prints, so I suspect that the stresses are building up as the print progresses and part of the print is letting go from the print bed, allowing the free end to move slightly.  It doesn't move THAT much, maybe 1/4mm to 1/2mm.  There's not really that much contact area with the print bed in the area where this happens, so I'm going to print a brim on the next attempt and see if that helps.  If the brim doesn't help, well to paraphrase AvE - Filler and paint makes me the printer I ain't.

Don


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## awake (Jan 19, 2022)

Don, I recall a roll of off-brand PETG, some years ago. Initial tests seemed to work well ... larger prints failed, and I think maybe in a similar way to what you are describing. Clearing the nozzle with the half-melted filament trick and trying again, a small test worked well ... and larger prints failed again. I am pretty sure that I remember this filament being responsible for one of the few nozzle replacements I have had to do. I was able to send it back to Amazon and get my money back.

I'd be interested in hearing from others what their favorite filaments are. I have generally had good results with Hatchbox and almost always buy that brand for PLA and PETG. Occasionally I buy eSun instead, due to price or availability, and don't recall any problems there. I have one spool of 3d Solutech that ran well for the one small project I needed it. And I have a couple of spools of off-brand that I have not used yet - we'll see how much I regret buying them!


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## ajoeiam (Jan 20, 2022)

awake said:


> Don, I recall a roll of off-brand PETG, some years ago. Initial tests seemed to work well ... larger prints failed, and I think maybe in a similar way to what you are describing. Clearing the nozzle with the half-melted filament trick and trying again, a small test worked well ... and larger prints failed again. I am pretty sure that I remember this filament being responsible for one of the few nozzle replacements I have had to do. I was able to send it back to Amazon and get my money back.
> 
> I'd be interested in hearing from others what their favorite filaments are. I have generally had good results with Hatchbox and almost always buy that brand for PLA and PETG. Occasionally I buy eSun instead, due to price or availability, and don't recall any problems there. I have one spool of 3d Solutech that ran well for the one small project I needed it. And I have a couple of spools of off-brand that I have not used yet - we'll see how much I regret buying them!



This rating of filaments if a great value to a newbie (like me!!!). 

Is there any way of making this a thread or something where those using 3D printers could chime in. 
That way poor quality stuff is left alone and good price stuff is 'findable' and good quality producers are rewarded. 

Dunno how to achieve this but this is a start - - - at the very least!


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## awake (Jan 20, 2022)

Let  me hasten to add that the filaments I mention above are at the lower end of the price spectrum - not the bottom, but generally in the $20 - $25 per kg. range. I have seen reviews of filaments that rank HatchBox fairly low ... but in comparison to $50/kg rolls of filament. I've never ponied up the money for that sort of roll, and haven't felt the need, since I have generally gotten good results. If I have problems with HatchBox or eSun, it is generally due to dust that is getting into the extruder and causing a blockage.


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 20, 2022)

I only print PLA, so I can't say anything about any other flavors of filament.  Like Andy, I generally look for something in the $20-$30 range per 1Kg spool.  I've also had good luck with eSun fialment.   I tend to shy away from filament that is below $20/Kg, there's got to be a reason that they can make it that cheap.

I've been looking for specific colors and haven't had a lot of luck so far.  I do RC conversions of Bruder construction toys and I've been trying to match the red and yellow that they use - so far I'ved got nothing that matches.  I've got several close matches, butg nothing that close enough.

If you are just starting 3D printing start with PLA, it's more forgiving for a beginner.  Then look at the prices of what's available and pick something that's about in the middle of the range.  If you go middle of the price range the odds are that you'll get a decent quality filament - no matter whose name is on it.  You don't need to spend big bucks at first since the 3D printing learning curve will be causing you to trash an awful lot of prints - we've all done it.  You also don't need to be fighting the issues caused by poor quality filament when you're trying to learn HOW to print.

Don


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## stanstocker (Jan 21, 2022)

Hi Folks,

Esun PLA Pro (AKA PLA Plus) is quite a good filament.  The Inland PLA+ sold by Microcenter has given quite good prints.  The Inland regular PLA is OK, but does not print as well as the PLA+.  Hatchbox has been a reliable filament that prints well also.  Since moving 3+ hours from the nearest Microcenter I've been getting eSun filament online.  The biggest issues most folks seem to have with filament is not keeping it dry and using it so slowly that it gets too old to work well.  I had a few three or four year old rolls that were in ziplock backs with desiccant packs kept in a dry shop with heat and AC.  The filament would snap easily, almost like spaghetti strands.  No way to use such stuff.  Tried drying out a short (maybe ten foot) length in a warm oven but there was no improvement.

Have fun,
Stan


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 21, 2022)

I went so far as to justiify the purchase of a vacuum sealer to try and save filament.  (OK, I got a deal on one in a damaged box - 75% off!  Couldn't pass it up, and it was just the box that got mangled.)  Since I got it I've been using up already opened/used spools of filament, I haven't had a chance to try the vacuum sealer on used filament yet.  The blue stuff on my MP10 was the first roll that I've taken out of a vacuum sealed bag that I can remember.  Since I've been having troubles with it on the MP10, I'm not sure I'll try vacuum sealing it either.

I did have one partial roll of filament that gave me some trouble like Stan had.  It had been sitting for months, maybe longer, sealed in a zip-loc bag with some desecant packets.  It  would be fine while printing but if you let the printer sit overnight, the filament would be snapped the next morning.  That roll printed most of the 4" adapter bushings for my dust collector before I got it used up.  I don't know how long it had been sitting, maybe a year or more?  SOMEBODY forgot to date the stuff.  (Note to self and anybody else interested:  When you store a roll of filament - DATE IT!)

Don

I've been trying 3 times to add an edit saying that I got a food dehydrator and tried it on the brittle roll of filament.  Each time the site kicked me out of the edit mode when I tried to add the degrees symbol.  (I just realized that I didn't have the Num-Lock on - makes a BIG difference.)  I put the filament in the dehydrator over-night at about 110-120°F but it made no diffference on the filament, so it wasn't a moisture problem. (The dehydrator does make some quite tasty Granny Smith Apple chips though - just not at the same time.)


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## awake (Jan 21, 2022)

Interestingly, I have never had any trouble with PLA or PETG filament getting too old or too wet. I do store filament rolls in ziploc bags with dessicant, but I have sometimes left a roll of either type on the machine for a month or two between uses, and when I use it the next time, it still prints fine. Not sure whether that means my house is rather dry ... ? Or just blind luck ... ?


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 21, 2022)

Andy:

Not sure about your humidity, or your luck.  The low-buck roll of blue that I'm currently printing with on the MP10 is one that's been hiding at the bottom of the bin for a while.  I'm pretty sure that it's low-buck because there was no name on the spool, and nothing in the vacuum bag either.

The troublesome spool of filament that kept breaking was from when I was trying to match a filament color to the red color Bruder used on some of their construction toys.  I must have had 6-8 spools of red that were close, but not close enough - too red, not red enough....  I finally got smart and started e-mailing the various companies explaining what I was trying to do, and requesting samples. (I still haven't found a close match in the US though so if you know of filament colors that are a close match to the colors Bruder used in their constreuction equipment let me know.) I was *actively *looking for a color match over 18 months ago, so that spool of red had sat unused in the zip-loc bag for over a year.

Now that I think about it, I did have another spool of dark blue that also gave me fits.  I could not get it to to print reliably on my D6.  The extruder drive kept making popping noises which turned out to be the filament slipping on the gear.  I was running my normal print speed of 45-50mm/s and tried slowing it down but it had no effect.  I even ran the hot-end up to 230°C with no effect.  I don't believe that this was moisture in the filament, because I never saw any defects in the print, it was just an audible popping sound.  I eventually just tossed that roll.  It was another low-buck roll of dark blue - maybe I just need to avoid dark blue filament?

When I got my first 3D printer, 2015 or 2016, I got 2 rolls of filament with it - one a dark blue, the other was white.  I *REALLY* liked that dark blue, unfortunately MOST of that roll wound up in the trash bin.  I had a LOT of failed prints when I first started printing.  Of course it didn't help that my 0.4mm "E3D" v6 hot-end wasn't.  It wasn't E3D, found that out when I tried ordering replacement parts and couldn't find any that looked ANYTHING like it.  It didn't have a 0.4mm nozzle, how about 0.7mm or bigger.  The opening in the nozzle looked about the same size the lead for my 0.7mm mechanical pencil.  When I looked at the heat-break all I could think was mine doesn't look anything like that, and where's the Teflon liner  - mine's got a Teflon liner.  How was I supposed to know it was a conglomeration of crap probably assembled from a spare parts bin?  Most of the parts matched a v5, while a few of them matched a v6.  Ahhh... the joys of a kit-built 3D printer.

Don


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## awake (Jan 21, 2022)

Hah - my home-built 3d printer is still running on a cheapo E3d clone, all-metal hot end. I've been amazed that it has continued to work.

That "popping" sound might be the stepper motor losing steps - or at least, that's what I hear. IOW, if the filament won't feed, there are two options - either the extruder grinds the filament, or (if the extruder has too good a grip on the filament to start grinding) the stepper reaches a point where it "pops" back into a previous rotational setting.


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 21, 2022)

The MP10 doesn't make that popping sound, and the D6 hasn't made it since I got rid of THAT particular spool of fillament.

I was discussing the issue of the MP10 grinding chunks off the filament with one of the engineers at work and he was wondering if somehow the spool was getting bound up and not feeding the filament properly.

I do remember that when I was threading the filament back into the printer after cleaning the drive gear, that I thought there was a lot of drag on the spool.  I'll check on that tonight.  Redesign of the filament holder was already one of the things on my "To Do" list for the MP10 anyway.  There aren't many other tools that can make the parts to fix themselves.

Don


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## awake (Jan 22, 2022)

Spool bound up - that's another good idea that somehow did not occur to me. Apparently it is not hard to get the filament tucked under itself to where it binds coming off the spool. I have only had it happen once ... I found the spool pulled right up to the extruder!


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## skyline1 (Jan 23, 2022)

awake said:


> Spool bound up - that's another good idea that somehow did not occur to me. Apparently it is not hard to get the filament tucked under itself to where it binds coming off the spool. I have only had it happen once ... I found the spool pulled right up to the extruder!



I have had this many times especially with cheaper filaments. Those "El Cheapo" 800 Gram spools you can get on ebay are notorious for it.

The filament is wound on such tiny spools with no side wall to guide it that they can turn into a knotty mess in no time. The stuff seems to print O.K. but you have to keep a very careful eye on the spool. If it shows the slightest signs of tangling, lift it off the carrier and twist it to take any twists out of the filament.

With a little care this can be done whilst still printing but it can be tiresome on long prints having to check it regularly.

On my Chiron I have a ball bearing spool holder which helps. Anycubic Chiron Filler Spool Holder Adapter by RichterScaleStudios and parts of Filler - The Customizable Filament Holder that fills your printer! by HugoHuge

Popping noises are often due to damp filament



ddmckee54 said:


> I've been trying 3 times to add an edit saying that I got a food dehydrator and tried it on the brittle roll of filament. Each time the site kicked me out of the edit mode when I tried to add the degrees symbol. (I just realized that I didn't have the Num-Lock on - makes a BIG difference.) I put the filament in the dehydrator over-night at about 110-120°F but it made no diffference on the filament, so it wasn't a moisture problem. (The dehydrator does make some quite tasty Granny Smith Apple chips though - just not at the same time.)



I use a modified dehydrator myself, I have found that this along  with a domestic vacuum sealer keeps filaments in good condition both cheaply and easily available domestic items 

Degrees symbol - Start - Windows accesories - Character Map - select copy and paste on windows not sure about Mac or Linux    ° ° °  
Banana chips too I love 'Em

extruder drives often click when they do a filament retract perfectly normal and nothing to worry about

Best Regards Mark


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## awake (Jan 23, 2022)

Mark, what type of extruder do you have? I've never heard mine click on retract. Yes, there can be a popping, crackling sound from wet filament. The sound of a stepper losing steps is quite a distinctive sound, and of course can be verified by observing the extruder.


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## skyline1 (Jan 23, 2022)

Standard Chiron Geared Bowden type (E3D clone I think)

Bowden type ones tend to click more than direct drive ones. I think it's partially caused by the filament hitting the side of the tube when it retracts fast.

My other printer is direct drive and that does it much less. It depends on your retract setting of course.

Yes the sound of a stepper struggling is quite different and pretty distinctive, more of a grinding or whining noise depending on how fast the motor is going 

It certainly indicates a problem and it can be difficult to diagnose sometimes. 

My usual first step is to heat up the extruder manually to your normal print temperature then try to push some filament through by hand. You should be able to create a steady stream from the hot end with fairly little pressure. It is a good idea to do this before printing to check things anyway or when changing filaments

If you can do this then the problem is more likely to be either the extruder grip pressure is wrong or the filament is tangled on the spool somehow or possibly the drive rollers are worn. (they have a pretty long life but they do eventually wear out)

If, however you cannot feed filament then the fault is at the heater end. It could be a) blocked nozzle, a set of gas welding nozzle cleaners are useful for checking and fixing this. b) temperature too low. try temporarily increasing the extruder temp. c) a problem or wear in the hotend, the PTFE liner (if it has one) may have worn or the hotend itself may have fractured (I have actually had one break up !)

There are of course other possible causes some which are very obscure but these are the ones I tend to look for first.

One final and sometimes overlooked cause of print failures is ambient temperature, 3D printers (FDM ones) get very temperamental, and sometimes won't work at all below about 15°C so make sure your room is reasonably warm. 

I hope this may help with some of the common problems.

Best Regards Mark


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## awake (Jan 23, 2022)

Good words on the process to unblock a hot end. Do you ever use the "freeze plug" (my name for it - not sure it has a name) method, where you squish some filament into the hot end, let it cool to around 180°, and then pull it out? That has been helpful for me a few times.

Not sure why my extruder doesn't click on retraction, but I've never heard it. Of course, my extruder is a custom design that I worked up to enable printing with TPU (yes - even on a Bowden setup!), so maybe that is the difference.


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## skyline1 (Jan 23, 2022)

Yes I have done it now and then, it's a handy trick to know if the blockage is up towards the heatbreak, using a nozzle cleaner tends to just push a hole through the blockage without completely clearing it. 

With the big Chiron If I start getting problems with persistent nozzle blockages or things like that I usually just change the whole hot end. They take about 10 minutes to change and they are so cheap it's easier to change the whole shebang. They are only about £12 direct from Anycubic for the whole assembly so I keep a couple of spare ones just in case.

Doing It with my little printer (Geeetech I3 clone) is a right pain though so I usually try to clear it in situ if possible.

If your extruder is a custom job for TPU then it probably does retract silently.

I've heard that printing TPU with a Bowden setup is quite tricky because it's so flexible it tries to go everywhere but where you want it, I once heard it described as pushing cooked spaghetti up a drinking straw. It would be interesting to hear your approach to this.

I've tried it quite successfully with a direct drive extruder but never with a bowden one.

Best Regards Mark


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## awake (Jan 23, 2022)

It does feel a bit like spaghetti up a straw ... but surprisingly, it does work. The key is to leave no gaps where the filament can veer off course. In the extruder, there is typically a bit of room between the drive gear / roller / whatever and the start of the Bowden tube. My design uses a V-shaped block that comes right up to the gear and roller, so that the filament cannot squeeze out of line.

TPU does require rather slow printing speeds, at least with my setup - not sure if that is true for TPU in general, even on a direct drive. I generally print PLA at 60-80mm / sec, but TPU at 15-20.


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## ddmckee54 (Jan 24, 2022)

Jeeesshhh, I feel like such a knuckle-dragger.

Whenever I get a nozzle plug I throw in a fresh nozzle, then burn out the plug.  I picked up that trick from a video I saw years ago when I started printing. 

After removing the plugged nozzle, I heat it with a torch, the plug will melt and fall out.  Then I continue heating the nozzle for another minute or so.  I only bring it up to a dull red since you aren't trying to melt the brass.  Then I quench it in a dish/glass of water.  The steam from the quenching will blow any remaining crap out of the nozzle leaving it nice and clean.  It takes longer to get things set up, and cleaned up afterward, than it does to actually clean the nozzle.

If you're worried about the burning plastic starting something on fire, then heat the nozzle over the water.  The burning blob will fall in the water and the problem's solved.


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## skyline1 (Jan 25, 2022)

ddmckee54 said:


> Whenever I get a nozzle plug I throw in a fresh nozzle, then burn out the plug



Great idea, I shall give that a try sometime.

Best Regards Mark


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