Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

162

12/7/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
This is my 3D printer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I built this unit from a kit. You can buy kits like this online pretty cheaply now, but I think you should know what you are in for here. If you buy one of these units, the first thing you will have to do is assemble it. It’s not very difficult to do, but the instructions aren’t great and it can get a bit fiddly in spots. Still with me? I can imagine not wanting to build a 3D printer, but getting one running well is way more involved. In that respect, building from a kit or buying a machine that is pre-built would be no different. Figuring out how it works best and accounting for all the machines unique quirks and variables takes time, patience, and a certain amount of scientific rigor. Diagnosing problems and then finding solutions for them just so happens to make my particular brain very happy. I can understand that this might not be the case for everyone.
Here is a quick example of what I have been dealing with.
My 3D printer has an issue with usb communication. I can see everything that the machine is doing echoed back on my computer, but I can’t send any commands to the board. Running programs off of the sd card still works properly, so if I want to send one small Gcode command or do something simple, like find out what the steps per millimeter is on the Y axis, I have to write a program, unmount the sd card from the machine, remove the sd card, put the sd card in a full size adapter, stick the adapter into my computer, copy the program over, remove the card, put it back into the printer, mount the card so that the printer can see it, and then run the program. The printer will echo back any info to the pc so I can read it. If I want to change the setting, I need to write a program to do that and repeat the whole process. It’s tedious, but it works.
After trying just about everything, I think that this droid has a bad motivator. The mainboard is a little bit broken. Or a little bit bad. Maybe it was always bad. I’ve tested it on a windows and a linux computer with similar results. It’s pretty safe to say that the problem is with the hardware.
A more general problem that would be encountered in any 3D printer, even the several thousand dollar “user friendly” versions, is adjusting the optimal print settings. I spent several years operating CNC router machines. Giant, heavy, room filling jobbers that run tolerances of a few thousandths of an inch over 8 feet. By comparison, this 3D printer is spongy. If you are within half a millimeter that’s about the best you can hope for. To a machinist this would be considered sloppy. Like pushing around a pool of molten mush, not manufacturing. I may have a slightly different mindset to some of the people that write about precision tuning these printers. Getting the machine to run ‘good enough’ is actually fairly easy.
That said, there are a lot of tests you need to do to get the temperature, movement speed, and build strategy zeroed in. If you want the machine to print consistently you need to control the entire operation. This is something I’m still working on, but the prints are getting better.
So there you go. If you don’t like troubleshooting, don’t buy a 3D printer, even one of the very expensive ones.

Picture
This is the bin of failed prints and support plastic. I expect to fill this thing before I get a perfect print.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact