With the new mount in, I needed to upload new firmware - even though slic3r can take a Z offset, it seems the heating position doesn't take that into account and just goes to Z min, which is now about 7 mm below the plate.
Unfortunately, new security software on my laptop blocked some of the sub-programs used by Arduino, so I figured it was time to switch to the Raspberry Pi I got for the same purpose. Hook up a monitor, a (German) kezboard, and a mouse (I am still amazed that you can plug in random things in USB and they just work and know what they're supposed to do), and up and running.
Except not quite. The Arduino in rpi is rather old, so I decided to try a new one with proper board management and all, compiled from scratch. Took a while to install all the dependencies and everything, but I got it. Except... the Marlin firmware isn't compatible with Arduino 1.5+ :( So back to the old one (with an interregnum of a Chromium update making it fail and requiring a kernel update, and various crashes when I asked too much of my little Pi).
I did update to a newer version of Marlin, though getting that to compile right was tricky. I don't have the Melzi definition installed and remember installing it as a frustrating task, but some sites say Sanguino works as well - and it does! (Specifically ATMega1284p 16MHz). I set the Z_MAX_POS to 200 but allow it to go to -1, in case the frame expands. The Z axis is exceedingly slow, though, until I changed the steps to 200.0*16/1.25 - that's what I had before, I'm honestly not sure where the calculation comes from. I might be able to speed it up... nope, that caused a crash! I'll keep it low.
The bed height when manually calibrated turned out to be 1.1mm above 0, a bit higher than I hoped for, so let's reduce the height to 199mm.
The newer firmware version seems in particular to have better autolevelling support, which I want to include soon. Also, it connects immediately rather than after about 5 seconds, which is nice.
I also need to recompile Slic3r, of course. And somehow it seems every app involved uses a separate set of languages and libraries, so each time I install something 20+ other things get installed. Sigh. But the strangest thing will have to be this requirement for Slic3r:
$ sudo apt-get install libopengl-perl
...
The following packages will be REMOVED:
cura gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad libalien-wxwidgets-perl libgl1-mesa-dev
libgl1-mesa-glx libglew1.10 libgltf-0.0-0 libglu1-mesa-dev libgtkglext1
libopencv-calib3d2.4 libopencv-contrib2.4 libopencv-core2.4
libopencv-features2d2.4 libopencv-flann2.4 libopencv-highgui2.4
libopencv-imgproc2.4 libopencv-legacy2.4 libopencv-ml2.4
libopencv-objdetect2.4 libopencv-video2.4 libreoffice
libreoffice-avmedia-backend-gstreamer libreoffice-base libreoffice-base-core
libreoffice-base-drivers libreoffice-calc libreoffice-core libreoffice-draw
libreoffice-gtk libreoffice-impress libreoffice-math
libreoffice-report-builder-bin libreoffice-sdbc-hsqldb libreoffice-writer
libvisual-0.4-plugins libwx-perl libwxgtk-media3.0-0 libwxgtk-media3.0-dev
libwxgtk2.8-0 libwxgtk2.8-dev libwxgtk3.0-0 libwxgtk3.0-dev openjdk-8-jdk
openjdk-8-jre python-opengl python-pyglet python-wxgtk3.0 python3-uno
raspberrypi-ui-mods vdpau-va-driver xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-fbturbo
I was not done with those! In fact, I just specifically installed libwx-perl to make Slic3r happy. I'm sure stuff is going to break stuff. And it doesn't make Slic3r run, it wants both wx and opengl, but those two cannot live together. What's with that?
Huh. Despite setting the height to 199mm, it still hits the bed at 1mm Z height. Maybe that's because I didn't actually change it.
It seems sometimes the Z movement is a lot slower than normal. It would be nice if Pronterface had a display of what it thinks the state of the world is - where the axes are and how fast they're moving.
Truly, language-specific package managers are a pain, a pestilence, and a pox upon the Linux world. To get slic3r to run, I've been led a merry chase between installing Debian packages, installing CPAN packages, installing Debian packages because installing the CPAN package failed without it, running slic3r again to find another package is needed, etc etc. Only to get to where slic3r runs for two seconds and then segfaults.
This is probably caused by https://github.com/alexrj/Slic3r/issues/3540, and can be cured in the same way by not having the plater. I only occasionally use the plater, so that's ok.
Since I don't feel like digging up the standard (if any standard exists) way to install a Perl program, I'm just pointing at the build dir for now, so my slicer command is /home/pi/src/Slic3r-1.2.9/slic3r.pl --gui --no-plater $s --output $o --load "/home/pi/3DPrint/Slic3r/filament/Simple Mode.ini" --load "/home/pi/3DPrint/Slic3r/printer/Simple Mode.ini" --load "/home/pi/3DPrint/Slic3r/print/Simple Mode.ini". Slic3r is a rather quirky program, all told.
An unfortunate side-effect of switching to a Linux system is that I can't use Google Drive as my shared filesystem any more. But I can mount my home directory from my main machine, which in turn contains a Google Drive mount. Using afpfs, that was pretty simple, except Slic3r without a plater doesn't automatically slice like it used to, so I have to "Quick Slice and Save As" until I find the right commands. Update: No, I just needed to remove the -gui argument.
Trying to print - and no heat. I probably missed a thermistor setting. Or not - the hotend thermistor is definitely the right setting, and setting the bed to something that looks sensible (some numbers have changed) gave wonky results. Trying again, they both heated.
Now I got it to print (with a cold bed), but oddly the print was done a full centimeter above the bed! The new firmware is nice, though, that it heats the bed and extruder while homing. Much time saved. The print is absolutely 9.95mm above the bed, desipte the settings saying Z offset of 0. Odd.
Sunday 15 January 2017
Friday 13 January 2017
Switching mounts in the middle of the ford
When last we met our intrepid 3D printer, there were signs of trouble: The Settlers pieces came out more and more jagged, for unknown reasons, and the proximity sensor holder was quite wobbly. This was followed by some test pieces showing semi-systematic shift in Y mainly:
Not good. Was my belt too loose? No, it strums nicely. Was there a piece of junk interfering with it? Well, there were two pieces of metal sticking out of it:
But that wasn't it, either. Just when I was about to despair, I noticed that the hotend was wobbling back and forth during a print. I should have known - it had once again come loose, probably when hitting the side of that piece that warped up. Alright, that's it, I'm switching over to the new extruder holder I printed earlier, the one that has nophead's sneakier mount system.
Fiddling around with that took a bit of time, but wasn't so horrible. I have to mount the hotend before putting the extruder on the carriage, but it's at least solidly mounted now. Also lots of nut traps.
When testing the mount, it turns out I've lost about 5 mm of build height - oh noes! Had to recalibrate X as my fiddling around had moved things. What's worse, and somewhat strange, is that even after setting a Z offset in Slic3r, it goes several mm too far down when the head goes into position to heat up. It appears to be ignoring that offset, I should probably make the firmware have the right limit instead. Not tonight, though.
You can see here how the new mount works: Three screws with washers (two visible here) hold the top of the hotend into the hole. As long as the washers hold up, this will be very solid - possibly solid enough that I should worry about what part would break instead if there was a bad head crash. The 5 mm less height comes from the mount having a much shallower hole, for not having to have space for screws under the top of the hotend.
Overall a better mount also in other way - nut traps rock my world.
I'm also concerned that the Z rods are noisier and more wobbly than earlier.
Not good. Was my belt too loose? No, it strums nicely. Was there a piece of junk interfering with it? Well, there were two pieces of metal sticking out of it:
But that wasn't it, either. Just when I was about to despair, I noticed that the hotend was wobbling back and forth during a print. I should have known - it had once again come loose, probably when hitting the side of that piece that warped up. Alright, that's it, I'm switching over to the new extruder holder I printed earlier, the one that has nophead's sneakier mount system.
Fiddling around with that took a bit of time, but wasn't so horrible. I have to mount the hotend before putting the extruder on the carriage, but it's at least solidly mounted now. Also lots of nut traps.
When testing the mount, it turns out I've lost about 5 mm of build height - oh noes! Had to recalibrate X as my fiddling around had moved things. What's worse, and somewhat strange, is that even after setting a Z offset in Slic3r, it goes several mm too far down when the head goes into position to heat up. It appears to be ignoring that offset, I should probably make the firmware have the right limit instead. Not tonight, though.
You can see here how the new mount works: Three screws with washers (two visible here) hold the top of the hotend into the hole. As long as the washers hold up, this will be very solid - possibly solid enough that I should worry about what part would break instead if there was a bad head crash. The 5 mm less height comes from the mount having a much shallower hole, for not having to have space for screws under the top of the hotend.
I'm also concerned that the Z rods are noisier and more wobbly than earlier.
Tuesday 10 January 2017
Printing this and that
Printing some Settlers of Catan pieces for fun. Works nicely, though I forgot to take off a skirt of one print so some roads got a little funny. I'm printing one set in purple, but the spool is almost out, so here's some numbers to make sure there's enough:
One meter of 2.85mm filament contains 1000 * pi * (2.85/2)^2 cubic millimeters = 6379mm^3. I have 9 windings of filament left, each roughly 100mm diameter, so 9 * pi * 100 mm ~= 2800mm, Totally I have about almost 18k mm^3, which is plenty, Slic3r thinks the remaining pieces (after printing roads) take 12k, and after printing I have 4 coils left, so my calculations were pretty accurate. And these pieces are totally adorable!
The Aztec set done in white is less interesting, though if I brush up my miniature painting, I could make the cities look like there's the blood of 50000 sacrificed slaves running down the sides;)
I also designed some little clip-on markers for the standard IKEA glasses, so we can keep track of which is whose rather than having to break out new ones all the time and wash them. In the design of those, I confused radius and diameter at first, ending up with some rather thin ones and being surprised that my printer would be off by that much.
I've also been designing a spool for USB cables, since I have a lot of those lying around. The trick with those is that USB cable doesn't like to bend nearly as much as headphone cable. This makes in particular fastening the end of the cable difficult. I have yet to come up with a good solution for that.
Returning to the dog bag issue way back, I decided the rods holding up the sides of the bag were just too thin and bendable (3mm rods). I got some 5mm tubes instead and made little end pieces to make them not sharp and potentially sew-in-able:
In random other prints, I did a new extruder holder adapted to the E3Dv6. The holes came out on the small side, so I since invested in a small round file.
I also got a proximity sensor from +Richard Jørgensen and printed a holder for that. Unfortunately, it looks like my Y belt is under-tensioned, see how the cylinder has wobbles on it:
One meter of 2.85mm filament contains 1000 * pi * (2.85/2)^2 cubic millimeters = 6379mm^3. I have 9 windings of filament left, each roughly 100mm diameter, so 9 * pi * 100 mm ~= 2800mm, Totally I have about almost 18k mm^3, which is plenty, Slic3r thinks the remaining pieces (after printing roads) take 12k, and after printing I have 4 coils left, so my calculations were pretty accurate. And these pieces are totally adorable!
The Aztec set done in white is less interesting, though if I brush up my miniature painting, I could make the cities look like there's the blood of 50000 sacrificed slaves running down the sides;)
I also designed some little clip-on markers for the standard IKEA glasses, so we can keep track of which is whose rather than having to break out new ones all the time and wash them. In the design of those, I confused radius and diameter at first, ending up with some rather thin ones and being surprised that my printer would be off by that much.
I've also been designing a spool for USB cables, since I have a lot of those lying around. The trick with those is that USB cable doesn't like to bend nearly as much as headphone cable. This makes in particular fastening the end of the cable difficult. I have yet to come up with a good solution for that.
Returning to the dog bag issue way back, I decided the rods holding up the sides of the bag were just too thin and bendable (3mm rods). I got some 5mm tubes instead and made little end pieces to make them not sharp and potentially sew-in-able:
In random other prints, I did a new extruder holder adapted to the E3Dv6. The holes came out on the small side, so I since invested in a small round file.
I also got a proximity sensor from +Richard Jørgensen and printed a holder for that. Unfortunately, it looks like my Y belt is under-tensioned, see how the cylinder has wobbles on it:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
I've had the worst time with my PETG filament, test prints literally exploding during the print and finished prints being very brittle. ... -
With my new pretty hobbed bolt mounted, I attempted a little extrusion. Unfortunately, all that happened was that the gear end started unscr... -
After last weekend's fiasco, I've decided to take my extruder apart, at least enough to see if there are any obvious signs of block...