Octoprint! Woo

I’m having a go at Using Octoprint with one of the 10’s of Raspberry Pi’s I seem to have  Lying around

 

D9 Firmware, Marlin

Whilst waiting for my quieter fans to arrive, A little more digging into the inner workings of the printer is called for – mainly to ensure that Estimated slicing times in Cura get a little closer to the real world slicing times that I’m seeing…

Overall, if Cura suggests it’ll be 6 hours, it’ll actually be a 9 hour print!

Calibration – Part 2……Again!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2479352/

After figuring out that 20mm, just ain’t good enough to calibrate, I had a nose around on thingverse….

The largest ‘calibration’ thing I found was the above 280 x 280mm square……..Awesome, that’s good enough, close to 300mm too for maximum calibratory goodness…

Calibration – WYISYG, Don’t use a 20mm Cube for accuracy!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1278865

 

Lots of basic printing suggested that the front to back measurement was slightly off…so, finally I’ve decided to calibrate the printer….

By, printing a calibration cube! I’ll do it a little differently and record just a bit more information…I’ll measure 3 points for each axis, giving 9 points for the cube….

Levelling – Enter the VL53L0X -World’s smallest Time of Flight sensor ?

I need some way to quickly, ‘cheaply’, reliably and repeatedly to measure distance……

There’s quite a few ways of measuring distance, including the following, often used with arduinos / by hobbyists

• Sound!
• Ultrasound
• IR bounceback
• Visual / camera analytics
• Laser

There’s some newish widgets out there nowadays called ‘time of flight’ sensors….similar to part of how Lidar works

Googling these, seems there’s a fairly cheap one called a VL53L0X…..

Nozzles!….what a minefield

Well, as i’m thinking ahead for a change and have purchased some glow in the dark filament

I’ve now discovered that the stuff is quite abrasive and I really should be thinking about getting some spare nozzles

A quick search for ‘replacement nozzles’ and….err

More alignment…Parallel Rails!

fairly quick one here…..

Make sure your bed rails are parallel by slackening one screw and manually moving the bed……………..

Amazing Price for the Duplicator 9 in the UK – £349 at Box – FREE DELIVERY

I picked mine up for £399 just over 3 weeks ago!.

already it’s dropped by £50………wow!!

https://www.box.co.uk/Wanhao-Duplicator-9_2327623.html

 

I get no benefits at all by linking to these guys, just highlighting a superb printer (so far!) for a superb price here in the UK

 

Immediate upgrades – Better wheels x 6 for the Y axis Bed (open builds type, see my other posts) and a better blower fan – <£40 extra and it’s a superb, 24V printer

Thoughts on technical things

Levelling 3D printers almost seems like some form of witchcraft..….Doubly so when you have a small amount of mechanical knowledge and have some electrical PCB tinkering ability

The Wanhao D9 is a Prusa style printer – it has a moving bed and a fixed gantry

A slight difference is that the D9 has Dual Z axis stepper motors – BOTH sides of  the Z axis are driven, which adds another dimension to the levelling whajmacallits.

Technical Stuff – Noise

 

Well, having left the printer on overnight to knock out an urgent print for a friend, I’ve discovered that, it’s a little on the noisy side!

Some googling…….

The Wanhao D9 has FOUR fans!  (yep, FOUR)

One 60x60x15mm fan in the power supply and Three 40x40x10

 

Two of these…AAA HZHZ 4010 MS 24V DC 0.10Amp fans

One on the extruder, right by the number 7, top yellow arrow

This one is the fan that cools the extruder block

Filament….Sooo many colours

https://www.box.co.uk/Transparent-Steadytech-PLA-1.75mm-Filam_2310940.html

Blimey – first ‘comission’ job!

Have been posting a few of my 3D printer adventures up on social media sites for friends, family and others to laugh at my general nerdinessthings like My third ever print………Yes, that’s Dizzy

First Prints……

I present to you, my first Ever 3D print

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1680918

Yes, it’s a Sinclair Spectrum 48k!

DMT48270T043_07W – the LCD

 

DWIN.COM.CN Link to Screens

AliExpress link

 

Hmm, Looking at DWIN.COM.CN…There’s quite a few LCD’s that may fit the bill- quickly copy / pasted the parts into Excel – All are 2Gig memory and 4.3″ screens

Wanhao Duplicator 9 – D9 – Technical ‘stuff’ – Part Deux, the LCD Part number!

LCD

As you can gather, I get a little sidetracked, this thing’s a 3D printer and, well, I’ve not done a huge amount of 3D printering yet……….Ah well

Lets go back to DWIN.com.cn  

The T5 Processor on the back of the LCD

Wanhao Duplicator 9 – D9 – Technical ‘stuff’

 

Getting right into the guts of this thing, there’s a few basic discoveries

There’s two names on the market –

Monoprice MP Maker Pro Mk.1 is an alternate supplier of this printer – Externally they look identical!

Hardware

Main Board

V Slot Wheels / Bearings – Highly recommended Upgrade

Wheels – Bearings – they’re critical, load supporting and a highly recommended, immediate upgrade for your printer….only 6 are critically needed – 9 will upgrade the Y and X axis – if you’re feeling flush, 15 will do the whole printer!

The V slot wheels on the Y axis that came with my Duplicator 9 were a bit squished in transit…I tried to squish them back together but it quickly became clear that these weren’t quite circular and had an eccentric wobble that transmitted up to the Y build plate.

I tried a few times to use the printer, but the build plate would quickly sag at the rear, making the plate off level to the point where it interfered with and hit the rear microswitch!

 

I guess I needed new ones

You can really see here that the bearings have just popped out

Delivery and unboxing of the D9 – part 2

During the unboxing, a bit of an oddity showed up, the build plate didn’t look level at all

taking a picture from the front, looking in, it’s clear that the height between the plate and that block thing is quite a bit more on the right, than the left

…….See post about V Slot Wheels

Delivery and unboxing of the D9 – part 1

It’s HOOOOOOOGE. look at that box!, you can fit a 6 year old child in that (no 6 year old children were harmed in determining that fact)

Nearly 1 Meter diagonal

nearly 30cm height

More pics…

Creality – comparing, Nah, just buy something else

Now i’ve discovered the fairly cheap seeming   Value for money Creality can be upgraded right from the go, with a much preferred (to myself) user interface….I’m looking more

I’ve dismissed the other touch printers right now as , they’re smaller or more than my £200 / £400 budget…..

Creality CR-10S – Perfect…..

What’s more than my £200 budget, but, less than my self imposed £400…and just happens to sport some ‘go faster’ stripes in my favourite colour

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the CREALITY CR-10S 300

More Decisions

Decisions?

 

So, having discovered that there’s a whole load of 3D printers out there,I’ve no idea what I want, how much to spend and that I’ve still got £200 burning a hole in my pocket after a week,

I figured I’d up the budget to £400

Duplicator 9 – Decisions

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about buying a 3D printer…….Just never really actually pulled the trigger

The lead up to the purchase………..

3D Printer Firmware – Support the Author

Wow,

In my research of 3D printers, it seems that just one bloke is responsible for the massive explosion in popularity in recent years……

This bloke develops and releases for FREE the firmware / software that drives YOUR printer

Sign up for Patreon and donate just once, or just a dollar or two a month….I’ve just signed up for $2 a month….Not much, just imagine how much he’d get if he had just $1 a month off everyone who had a cheap 3D printer

Scott Lahteine

https://www.patreon.com/thinkyhead/

 

Marlin is used on over 90% of printers worldwide. The lead developer Scott sometimes has trouble making ends meet. This should NOT be happening. Please consider becoming a Patreon at his Patreon page below even if you can only commit for a month it is better than nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tightening Belt To Mitigate Vibration Artifacts on Monoprice Maker Select (Wanhao Duplicator i3)

Great piece about why us tinkerers purchase 3D printers and what we expect from them!….it’s small but steady steps that allow you to make great prints

New Screwdriver

Now that my open-box Monoprice Maker Select (Wanhao Duplicator i3) is up and running, it’s time to take a closer look at the less than perfect print output. This was totally expected at this terrifically low price point, and part of the point of this exercise was to learn how to analyze 3D printer problems and how to address them. This printer is not just a tool – it is a project in and of itself!

The first (and as it turns out, a recurring) issue is a vibration artifact in the print after a sharp movement. After some web searches, I’ve learned this was called “ringing” because it’s the after effect of a sharp impulse, like ringing a bell. Looking at the printer, I thought the obvious culprit would be the Y-axis movement. It has to move the build platform so it would have more inertia to overcome and…

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3D Printing

Ok, so a lot has happened in the past few years, much procrastination, an additional child, a move to a new (old) country!

I’ve finally bitten the bullet and gone purchased me a 3D printermathingy

One of these –

Wanhao Duplicator 9 Manufacturers website

 

It’s a little larger  than I’d anticipated – I can print 0.036 of a cubic meter on this thing!….If I ever get my head into an MRI, this beast’ll do a full 1-1 print!

I still own the 3020T CNC – see It’s arrived!

It’s setup right next to my new toy and now looking somewhat inadequate in size…..I’ve decided to keep both machines right now as it fits my procrastinatory nature quite well….if I can do subtractive manufacturing AND additive manufacturing, they really add up to nothing? (crappy dad joke!)

I’ll hopefully update a little more often, there’s little information out there about these D9’s, maybe what I post will help some of you decide to buy, maybe not?