I have a printer with automatic levelling that gives similar reassurances but the auto levelling is frequently off and I have to make manual adjustments to get it right. The good news is that a large part of mastering 3D printing is getting the first layer correct, so once you get to the bottom of this you will quickly be making prints, then it is fine tuning to improve the results.
- Thread starter ukracer
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I have a printer with automatic levelling that gives similar reassurances but the auto levelling is frequently off and I have to make manual adjustments to get it right. The good news is that a large part of mastering 3D printing is getting the first layer correct, so once you get to the bottom of this you will quickly be making prints, then it is fine tuning to improve the results.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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Well gents today is my 68 th birthday,
what a birthday!. 
My wife is nearly 15 yrs younger than me 
. so I got all sorts of presents .
Almost the best being that you guys gave me the path as to why my test prints on my self build Prusa original i3 3D printer were rubbish and not sticking to the heated bed I was also on the right lines but on the outer edges ?
Yes the extrusion nozzle was too high above the heated bed , as it was 9oC in the man cupboard the molten filament had set solid before it reached the bed so no adhesion and lots of birds nests of plastic as the cold extrusion followed the oozing nozzle & getting caught up occasionally.
I heated the room to 21oC and ran a few more attempts at getting the test results I longed for . getting better but not what's needed. Today I put electrics by way of a 6 gang switched extension lead in the printer cabinet, shortened the 1.5 mtr power lead to about 600 mm and added a 2 watt LED corn bulb light inside to illuminate things enough to see the nozzle extruding. Made temporary Perspex front cover for the cabinet and slipped the digital thermometer in side the cabinet & turned the printer on to preheat in readiness for more adjusting the Z axis height , it soon got up to 21 oC.
On the Prusa Original i3 MK 3 there is a live Z height adjust which is great .
I ran some six or seven live adjust tests as well as several attempts at printing out a pre made programme that contained the Prusa logo during the adjustments . I think that by adjustment number seven I found out what you guys were meaning . Such as .... the bead of molten plastic sticks to the bed and has a slight flat on the top and sticks to the adjacent bead already on the bed .. had to use a magnifying glass to see it as I'mbuggered if I could see it even with my reading glasses on.
I've taken a series of picture showing the bead at the basic calibration for Z reference point , it then goes down in 0.001 of a mm at a time below the reference point till I got the right profile at - 0.695 mm . ( Took a couple of hours of playing .) Hopefully that will stay constant for the whole roll of PET but before each new print I'll do a full check to see if the programmable memory has remained true and kept it safe .
Once I got the test calibration OK. I printed out the Prusa logo . … it has a tiny hair of plastic on the first two layers because I obviously didn't raise the printer to the top of the Z axis and clean the nozzle before I commenced the print ( now a carved in stone commandment for me ).
I'll see if I can sort out my old Photobucket account , delete 80 % of what's on it and bung up the pictures, then put up a link so that any beginners like me can see what things looked like in my case.
Do any of you use Fusion 360 ? If so would you tell me what sort of computer you run it on .. things like speed , type of drive and memory capacities for main and ram etc .
I'm asking because I can seE that I may be reaching capacity on both of my laptops. I don't wnt to spend hours doing the 3D drawing and slic3r then find the machine has crashed .
what a birthday!. My wife is nearly 15 yrs younger than me . so I got all sorts of presents .Almost the best being that you guys gave me the path as to why my test prints on my self build Prusa original i3 3D printer were rubbish and not sticking to the heated bed I was also on the right lines but on the outer edges ?
Yes the extrusion nozzle was too high above the heated bed , as it was 9oC in the man cupboard the molten filament had set solid before it reached the bed so no adhesion and lots of birds nests of plastic as the cold extrusion followed the oozing nozzle & getting caught up occasionally.
I heated the room to 21oC and ran a few more attempts at getting the test results I longed for . getting better but not what's needed. Today I put electrics by way of a 6 gang switched extension lead in the printer cabinet, shortened the 1.5 mtr power lead to about 600 mm and added a 2 watt LED corn bulb light inside to illuminate things enough to see the nozzle extruding. Made temporary Perspex front cover for the cabinet and slipped the digital thermometer in side the cabinet & turned the printer on to preheat in readiness for more adjusting the Z axis height , it soon got up to 21 oC.
On the Prusa Original i3 MK 3 there is a live Z height adjust which is great .
I ran some six or seven live adjust tests as well as several attempts at printing out a pre made programme that contained the Prusa logo during the adjustments . I think that by adjustment number seven I found out what you guys were meaning . Such as .... the bead of molten plastic sticks to the bed and has a slight flat on the top and sticks to the adjacent bead already on the bed .. had to use a magnifying glass to see it as I'mbuggered if I could see it even with my reading glasses on.
I've taken a series of picture showing the bead at the basic calibration for Z reference point , it then goes down in 0.001 of a mm at a time below the reference point till I got the right profile at - 0.695 mm . ( Took a couple of hours of playing .) Hopefully that will stay constant for the whole roll of PET but before each new print I'll do a full check to see if the programmable memory has remained true and kept it safe .
Once I got the test calibration OK. I printed out the Prusa logo . … it has a tiny hair of plastic on the first two layers because I obviously didn't raise the printer to the top of the Z axis and clean the nozzle before I commenced the print ( now a carved in stone commandment for me ).
I'll see if I can sort out my old Photobucket account , delete 80 % of what's on it and bung up the pictures, then put up a link so that any beginners like me can see what things looked like in my case.
Do any of you use Fusion 360 ? If so would you tell me what sort of computer you run it on .. things like speed , type of drive and memory capacities for main and ram etc .
I'm asking because I can seE that I may be reaching capacity on both of my laptops. I don't wnt to spend hours doing the 3D drawing and slic3r then find the machine has crashed .
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@DAPPH Many happy returns and congrats on getting the printer working.
Normally once you have the bed set up all is fine for a while - it is only if something moves, just keep an eye on for first couple of layers of the print, if they are ok then normally everything is ok. My Ender 3 was set up a few months ago and has only needed re-leveling twice, once after a couple of weeks (I think it was just the printer bedding in) and once when I had to fit a new hot end.
Normally once you have the bed set up all is fine for a while - it is only if something moves, just keep an eye on for first couple of layers of the print, if they are ok then normally everything is ok. My Ender 3 was set up a few months ago and has only needed re-leveling twice, once after a couple of weeks (I think it was just the printer bedding in) and once when I had to fit a new hot end.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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Thanks , yes even moving some machines an inch or less strains a joint here or there and upsets the finer calibrations . Back on 1985 I was learning industrial electronics testing & servicing . We had an early robotic arm called " TINA" , had to build our own stepper motor controllers and had a heck of a time trying to stop the motors twisting in or moving the aluminium arm joints . It ended up getting the welders to weld up a 3 inch alu box section base frame with all our mountings welded on as 1/4 inch plate …..big mistake we hadn't allowed for it getting hot in summer . the final machine had a steel base and mountings . These modern stepper motors & controllers give accuracies we could only dream of ..Seem think that getting within 1/64 th was considered good even if it was as jerky as a sailor going on shore leave . It was all programmed in machine code in hexadecimal none of your nice posh fusion stuff .
I think I did well setting my printer up in the cabinet with such a thick base , the ply grains are all at 90 degrees to each other so the chances of it warping should be very low & the high density particle board covered in Formica for the top layer should hopefully be the icing on the cake .. I must have used 24 x 50 mm square drive screws holding the ply's together and another 9 for the particle board ……. just hope my man cupboard does not burn down, it'll be still burning a week later because of the cabinet base being so thick .
I think I did well setting my printer up in the cabinet with such a thick base , the ply grains are all at 90 degrees to each other so the chances of it warping should be very low & the high density particle board covered in Formica for the top layer should hopefully be the icing on the cake .. I must have used 24 x 50 mm square drive screws holding the ply's together and another 9 for the particle board ……. just hope my man cupboard does not burn down, it'll be still burning a week later because of the cabinet base being so thick .
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bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
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I ran fusion on a dual core dell 2.8ghz with 4gb of ram and motherboard graphics.
it was usable...
I then upgraded to a 6-core 3.2hz processor + a Radeon graphics card with 8gb ram. which I bought as a 2nd hand bundle on the bay for around £200.
a new case cost me £20, and a new PSU was £30?
by FAR the biggest upgrade was installing windows and fusion on a dedicated 128gb SSD which cost me about £50.
but as I say, fusion *is* usable on a slow dual core - which I think I paid £20 for, 3 or 4 years ago.
PhillipM
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I've run it on a 2ghz quad core AMD laptop with a HD8400 gpu and 8gb of memory on board and a Samsung SSD - it's usable but a little sluggish.
The desktop breezes it though (4.5ghz quad core, 24gb RAM, SSD, RX580 graphics card), even simulation and rending work is pretty quick on that.
The desktop breezes it though (4.5ghz quad core, 24gb RAM, SSD, RX580 graphics card), even simulation and rending work is pretty quick on that.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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So my LENOVO AMD A9 -94010 Radion ( dual core , clock speed 2.9 GHz ? ) , 911Gb Hd with 8 Gb ram on windows 10 might just be able to handle things ? I used to be clued up on such stuff but two strokes & 5 years on my memory banks got wiped and only partially rebooted. 
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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[QUOTE="PhillipM, post: 1267476, member: 13541" a 2ghz quad core AMD laptop with a HD8400 gpu and 8gb of memory on board and a Samsung SSD - it's usable but a little sluggish.
The desktop breezes it though (4.5ghz quad core, 24gb RAM, SSD, RX580 graphics card), even simulation and rending work is pretty quick on that.[/QUOTE]
Just seen your post Phillip .
, looks like I'll have to start selling by body gain! I might be able to get the RAM doubled or bigger
Is the solid state drive device fixed internal or a plug in external one ?
My daughters boyfriend ( 17 yrs old ) is into gaming …. I guess he'll have knowledge of any second hand stuff in the area that might be good for me .
The desktop breezes it though (4.5ghz quad core, 24gb RAM, SSD, RX580 graphics card), even simulation and rending work is pretty quick on that.[/QUOTE]
Just seen your post Phillip .
, looks like I'll have to start selling by body gain! I might be able to get the RAM doubled or bigger Is the solid state drive device fixed internal or a plug in external one ?
My daughters boyfriend ( 17 yrs old ) is into gaming …. I guess he'll have knowledge of any second hand stuff in the area that might be good for me .
slim_boy_fat
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DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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Ah.Whirr whirr clank bang ….. I just remembered I happen to have an external WD 500 Gb SSD . Haven't used it since Feb this year when I upgraded to this Lenovo ... Thanks you've got my mind in gear again.
Well I've found the device … just need to find the right cable for it ...later ...much later
, 
it's hanging off the back of the Lenovo, already plugged in and neatly coiled up as it wasn't being used.
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
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Just seen your post Phillip .
, looks like I'll have to start selling by body gain! I might be able to get the RAM doubled or biggerIs the solid state drive device fixed internal or a plug in external one ?
My daughters boyfriend ( 17 yrs old ) is into gaming …. I guess he'll have knowledge of any second hand stuff in the area that might be good for me .[/QUOTE]
a four or five year old "gaming pc" would be perfect - plenty of people upgrading at Xmas?
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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The latest Prusa Original i3 Mk 3 has an optical sensor that stops the programme if the filament runs out . Simply reload , do a cleaning run through, then recommence the print .It also has a similar set up for power failures .
Wendelspanswick
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Your still going to have a cold restart though (top layer of partially printed model will be cold).
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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That makes sense … are there non commercial machines that use a heater device ( laser?) to preheat to prevent a cold start after shutdown?
more the issue was i didnt have any more of that colour in stock!
I think some of the higher end (read industrial) have spool weighers so know how heavy the spool is and know how much filiment there should be. The proper industrial ones how ever use lasers to sinter the material
tflnemesis
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I got an A8 for Christmas, spent 4 days on and off putting it together. Wired it up tonight and spent an hour levelling the bed with a sheet of paper.
Downloaded a new fan duct model from thingiverse, set it off to print, spaghetti all over the place....
Spent another half hour re-levelling the bed from where I had aborted the print on the first layer, set it off and an hour later I had a new fan ducting!
Just set it off doing a T corner to help with rigidity and its purring away quite happily.
Well Pleased with it!
Edit: Now I just gotta teach myself 3d modelling....
Downloaded a new fan duct model from thingiverse, set it off to print, spaghetti all over the place....
Spent another half hour re-levelling the bed from where I had aborted the print on the first layer, set it off and an hour later I had a new fan ducting!
Just set it off doing a T corner to help with rigidity and its purring away quite happily.
Well Pleased with it!
Edit: Now I just gotta teach myself 3d modelling....
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
- Messages
- 7,329
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- Near to Cross Hands Llanelli SouthWales GB
I got an A8 for Christmas, spent 4 days on and off putting it together. Wired it up tonight and spent an hour levelling the bed with a sheet of paper.
Downloaded a new fan duct model from thingiverse, set it off to print, spaghetti all over the place....
Spent another half hour re-levelling the bed from where I had aborted the print on the first layer, set it off and an hour later I had a new fan ducting!
Just set it off doing a T corner to help with rigidity and its purring away quite happily.
Well Pleased with it!
Edit: Now I just gotta teach myself 3d modelling....
Is this any use to you?
Fusion 360 ...sign up as a student for free , after watching all thirteen of " Paul Mcwhorter's " , " Learn Fusion 360 or die trying " YouTube clips ( 13 videos about three hours viewing time in total. They can be a bit wearing when concentration is not so hot but are really valuable to get a good insight to things and build your confidence up .
The Fusion 360 free student version … It's worth ploughing through their videos ( 24 shorties ...3 hrs total time or so ), so you can learn how to get yourself familiar with the setting up , opening & closing files & so you know where your work is etc .
As well as understanding the tremendous flexibility of the system and how it can be used like a massive spiders web with people all over the world doing little bits here & there to make an astounding end result that can be viewed as a number of assemblies as well as a final working model which can be run to show any interference problems etc .
It's also good to learn about it all being on a cloud that Fusion own , it's pretty secure no matter what happens to your computer or home ….which is something I like , for should I get good at playing with 3D CAD and using my Prusa original 3i 3D printer I might just use it as a retirement cash generator after buying my licence for it .
I've also learn the hard way to run an A4 lined hardback 150 page " Forget-me-not " book to jot ideas for things down ... so I can take a look in " Thingyverse " or do my original work for things at a later date . It also contains numerous free hand pencil sketches for several of my ideas too , often including related thoughts , rough calculations & dimensions .
Dave Gould
