Question:
I'm new to this game, and recently upgraded the hotend on my Ender 3 Pro to a clone of an E3D V6, as I'm keen to do nylon prints at some point. I noticed however that this one I got has a teflon liner which seems to negate the advantage of a metal hotend entirely.

I'm wondering what temperature it's safe to run this hot end up to?

Answer:
It depends how
deep
it goes. If the teflon goes into the hotend then yes, it will limit the temperature end.
But: the teflon may just be something that ends
somewhere
in the cold side and sticks out so there is something to put into the extruder or higher up into the connector.
I cam currently setting up a Slice Mosquito for a Bondtech DDX. The Mosquito is full metal, but there is a (actually printed nylon) adapter for the DDS. In this adapter you put a teflon/capricorn tube, that ALSO sticks out only around 5 mm. Here is the point though: it never goes into the even cold side and is only there so the connection to the extruder on top has a width limitation.
So, it really depends how
long
this tube is (and no-one here will know because a v6
clone
may be different internally from the original). I would suggest pulling it out (it should move out easily) and then seeing how deep it goes. As long as it stays on the cold side before the heatbreak, it never gets in touch with anything that is hot.


Question:
I am building an enclosure for an Ender 3 Pro printer, and am planning on the power supply and LCD unit being outside the enclosure.  How important is it to move the printer controller (where the SD card is inserted) outside the enclosure?
Would leaving it in place affect its longevity?

Answers to the first round of comments/questions:

I expect to be primarily printing in the 200C-270C range.

I'm not worried about losing heat from opening the doors - I'll be putting the SD card in prior to initiating printing.

I'm thinking the stepper motors are somewhat of a moot point, there's no way I could move them outside of the enclosure.

My printer is all stock.

Answer:
It depends on what kinds of prints you make, and especially what kind of materials you want to use.
Certain materials (ABS especially, but also PETG to some degree) will print
much better
if the entire build area, which usually includes the printer chassis and controls, is enclosed to protect from drafts and allow a much higher ambient temperature.
If you print often with these materials, and the control board is included in that enclosed area, you
will
significantly reduce the life of the electronic components,
especially the capacitors on the board
1
.
On the other hand, if you print mainly with PLA, which is not as susceptible to issues requiring an enclosure, and prints better with an ambient temperature closer to room temperature, you can put the electronic controls wherever you want.
1 See especially this excerpt from the section on "Premature Failure":
Electrolytic capacitors that operate at a lower temperature can have a considerably longer lifespan.


Question:
I am going to design and build a 3D printer. I want the highest quality and accuracy so nothing except that is important for me. Which cartesian design has the highest quality and accuracy? CoreXY, Prusa, or Gantry (Ultimaker)?

Also, is it better to have a nozzle that moves in just direction "X", directions "X and Y", or "X, Y and Z"?

Answer:
The tradeoffs in these systems are all about quality achievable at particular speed and acceleration profiles. If you really don't care about speed at all and want maximum accuracy, you probably want some type of Cartesian setup with no belts, only rigid lead screws which you can take to as fine a pitch as you like, and you can make all the parts as rigid as you like because mass doesn't matter (since acceleration doesn't).
Note however that extrusion accuracy is the limiting factor to quality and dimensional accuracy in even a half-decent printer. Rather than trying to design something with "perfect" spatial kinematics for quality from the outset, I think you should look at existing printers, figure out what about them isn't meeting your quality needs, and start from there to improve. You should also figure out what your speed constraints will be, even if they're only minimal.


Question:
I know that CoreXY kinematics is very complex and hard to calculate for the firmware making it better to use a 32-bit board. For some reason, I can't use any 32-bit board. What problems will occur if I use an 8-bit board like Arduino Mega with a CoreXY 3D printer?

Everything that I wrote in this question about hard kinematic calculations was referenced from this video, HyperCube 3D Printer 8-Bit Speed Wall, by Tech2c (the designer and builder of hypercube). After watching the video I doubted using an 8-bit board.

Answer:
The tradeoffs in these systems are all about quality achievable at particular speed and acceleration profiles. If you really don't care about speed at all and want maximum accuracy, you probably want some type of Cartesian setup with no belts, only rigid lead screws which you can take to as fine a pitch as you like, and you can make all the parts as rigid as you like because mass doesn't matter (since acceleration doesn't).
Note however that extrusion accuracy is the limiting factor to quality and dimensional accuracy in even a half-decent printer. Rather than trying to design something with "perfect" spatial kinematics for quality from the outset, I think you should look at existing printers, figure out what about them isn't meeting your quality needs, and start from there to improve. You should also figure out what your speed constraints will be, even if they're only minimal.


Question:
I'm trying to model the threads of a "Poland Spring" 500 ml bottle so I can 3D print an adapter for it. But I can't find information about it. I emailed them but they said they didn't have the information.

How can I find this information out?

The bottle seems to use non standard threads. It uses 3 threads 120 degrees apart that does not go all the way around.   Any information on how to get this information?

Answer:
You can use a program known as
OpenSCAD
with the
threads library
to assist your objective.
The important aspects of a thread are the major diameter (outside diameter at the thread surface), the length of the bolt/nut and for your project, the start count. The noted library has a parameter called n-starts, which covers your triple start requirement.
It may require some trial and error processing, but you have a good foundation with OpenSCAD library.
Even if the bottle is manufactured with Imperial reference (unlikely), you'd probably have an easier time with metric threads. I just checked a Dasani water bottle, which measured at 27.27 mm major diameter, 10 mm length, thread pitch 2 mm. The thread pitch in metric is the distance between peaks (or valleys) from one to the next. This particular bottle has an interrupted thread, but that should not be a factor for creating an adapter.
This Dasani bottle does not have a multi-start thread. It's not a complete thread, but it is single start. Considering that a water bottle top has minimal length, you may also have an interrupted rather than a multi-start thread.
The code for the measured thread in OpenSCAD is relatively simple.
use <threads.scad>;
thread_dia = 27.27;
thread_pitch = 2;
thread_length = 10;
metric_thread(thread_dia, thread_pitch, thread_length, n_starts = 3);
The above code would generate a 3-start thread in the form of a bolt. Using a difference() code would provide for the inverse required for your proposed adapter.
top image is single start, bottom is triple start.
Top view comparison:


Question:
Is there a way of reducing the amount and strength of Model support when slicing in Cura?

Cleaning a model with large amounts of support can consume large amounts of time.

Answer:
You could reduce the
```
Support Density
```
:
A higher value results in better overhangs, but the supports are harder to remove.
Furthermore read
this answer
on question: "
Difficult to remove support material
".


Question:
Does anyone know of a hot end that is sealed? What I meaning is that the hot end has a rubber seal where the filament enters to keep the top airtight (in order to eliminate oozing).

I am looking to build a dual extruder printer but, I do not want any oozing from the hot end which is not in use. I could build a system to retract and 'close' the nozzle but it would be much more elegant if it would work to just seal the top of the hot end. Thus achieving the same effect as when you pull up water with a straw by covering the top with your finger.

Answer:
You could reduce the
```
Support Density
```
:
A higher value results in better overhangs, but the supports are harder to remove.
Furthermore read
this answer
on question: "
Difficult to remove support material
".


Question: Lately I've been having problems with overhangs not adhering when curvature is outward (stringing across instead) that look like what you'd see at insufficient temperature, and that go away with temperature jacked up a bit (PLA at 220 °C, which is a bit extreme) or fan disabled. Is it possible that the hotend thermistor has drifted and is no longer accurate, making the actual temperature lower than nominal? Or do these things fail hard when they fail?

Answer:
It is indeed possible that the thermistor is broken (yet not sure). I am aware of two types of issues with thermistors:
The contact (soldering) is broken, usually due to the temperature extreme variations. The thermistor will indicate the maximum temperature in case of PTC or minimum temperature in case of NTC. In some cases, due to vibrations or other factor, the contact will eventually touch, showing improbable jumps of temperature.
The thermistor is broken internally. In that case it will just indicate a wrong temperature. I can't say if constant temperature or constant delta.
For how to troubleshot the component, however, EE.SE seems more convenient.


Question:
After a resin print completes, what is the expected process to finish the print? Is some cleaning expected? I also some manufacturers sell UV chambers to cure the print surface, is this required?

I purchased a low-cost printer from China that is quite high-quality hardware, but sadly short on documentation. Insight on the proper post-print process is appreciated.

Answer:
It is indeed possible that the thermistor is broken (yet not sure). I am aware of two types of issues with thermistors:
The contact (soldering) is broken, usually due to the temperature extreme variations. The thermistor will indicate the maximum temperature in case of PTC or minimum temperature in case of NTC. In some cases, due to vibrations or other factor, the contact will eventually touch, showing improbable jumps of temperature.
The thermistor is broken internally. In that case it will just indicate a wrong temperature. I can't say if constant temperature or constant delta.
For how to troubleshot the component, however, EE.SE seems more convenient.


Question:
In all the bigger prints I print on my Ender 5 with PETG I have problems with warping and raft detachment during printing. I have a glass bed and I'm using Ultimaker Cura 4.6.1 standard printing settings for PETG (Recently I had some success using 245 °C nozzle temperature and 80 °C build plate).

Any ideas how to reduce those problems?

Answer:
This sounds like a bed leveling issue.  As reported by others, I get much less warping with PETG than with ABS or even PLA, and deal with too much adhesion with PETG rather than too little.  With a Reprap x400, I printed a faceplate for the extruder to hold a electronic drop indicator.  This gives me much higher precision leveling. Of course, I remove the drop indicator after leveling.
If leveling isn't the issue, then you may be printing too fast.  The recommendations I've seen are to print PETG at 50 mm/s or less.  I print a a lower speed than that.


Question:
Is it possible to use a standard color inkjet cartridge to color filament for full color 3D printing?

It seems like a natural next step to me, but I haven't seen much of anything on this. (Just a few ancient experiments on reprap wiki.)

I've learned that some inkjet printers have the heads built into the cartridge whereas others it's part of the printer.  I think the former would be more appropriate.

Unfortunately I haven't seen anything on actually how to drive the cartridges.  I'm guessing the mfgr's treat this as a trade secret (?)  Still, there's got to be some overseas reverse-engineer... something... on this, right?

Anybody have resources/notes they'd like to share?

Answer:
I don't think it makes a lot of sense - you don't need that kind of resolution, and getting a sufficient amount of ink that way to coat the filament would be hard. If you're going to be switching colors rapidly, you'd need a long purge between colors anyway. I also doubt the type of ink is suitable for sticking to filament materials.
If you really want an automated filament coloring system, I would do it with Sharpies and actuators to move individual ones on/off of the filament as it passes through. Coloring PLA with Sharpies prior to printing is a known-working technique, and there are even models available on Thingiverse for holders to keep them in place while the filament runs through. Designing the actuators to switch individual ones on/off, and the firmware controls for them, would be the natural next step.
Here are some examples I did with manual coloring of natural translucent PLA (from left to right: uncolored, silver Sharpie, and red Sharpie):
I didn't color a long enough segment of filament or properly purge for any of them, which is why the coloring is inconsistent/incomplete. But the technique definitely works.


Question:
If I need to 3D print a hollow box that can not have any light permeating into the box, what would be the best course of action? Should I 3D print the hollow box as a whole or print out the 6 sides individually and put them together at the end? And if I do the second option, what would be the best way to put the pieces together (design/connect grooves or use glue)?

I am very new to 3D printing so any feedback would be very much appreciated!

Answer:
Print it as a whole object
Use 20% infill.
Profit!


Question:
I already tried a lot settings in Cura and try to search for a solution but without success. Maybe someone got this issue and solved it.

I want to prevent Cura from printing such gaps at the wings to make it in one run. With ironing one run would (hopefully) bring better results. See the animation for what I mean.

Why want to do this? I hope to prevent thes ironing issues shown in the following pic.

Answer:
Print it as a whole object
Use 20% infill.
Profit!


Question:
Im using Prusa Slicer 2.1 for my FlyingBear Ghost 4.

I just changed my 0.4 mm nozzle for a 0.2 mm but it seems to jam in the heater probably due to too much filament trying to get out by the nozzle. Where is the setting to reduce the filement speed and how much I should reduce it?

Here are my settings:
Config.txt

Answer:
0.2 mm and 0.4 mm are half the diameter, but the maximum flow is not just half: Flow scales with the area. The 0.4 mm nozzle has an area 4 times as the 0.2 mm one:
$\frac{A_1} {A_2}=\frac {0.2^2}{0.1^2}=4$
You need to reduce
```
print speed
```
or the
```
volumetric flow
```
by this factor or make sure your printer can handle the increased flow by reducing the viscosity of the melt - for example by increasing the print temperature.
Also note, that a 0.2 mm nozzle can't be operated with layer heights above 0.15 mm.


Question:
I am using "Pretty PETG" along with PrusaSlicer's consecutive print mode.

What I am noticing is that upon finishing the first print, the printer hits MINTEMP BED Fixed. I'm not sure if it's immediate because I let the prints run overnight but I assume the bed cools down and then the error is hit.

I'm just starting to learn G-code and my initial thought was there's an errant bed temperature instruction but the only M140 S0 instructions I see are in the end_gcode and near the bottom of the file. Maybe there a goto in G-code which may be running after M140 S0 which then causes the MINTEMP BED issue? Perhaps there's something else going on?

Answer:
0.2 mm and 0.4 mm are half the diameter, but the maximum flow is not just half: Flow scales with the area. The 0.4 mm nozzle has an area 4 times as the 0.2 mm one:
$\frac{A_1} {A_2}=\frac {0.2^2}{0.1^2}=4$
You need to reduce
```
print speed
```
or the
```
volumetric flow
```
by this factor or make sure your printer can handle the increased flow by reducing the viscosity of the melt - for example by increasing the print temperature.
Also note, that a 0.2 mm nozzle can't be operated with layer heights above 0.15 mm.


Question:
I took the plunge and bought a resin printer. I was wondering if I could use full strength home-brew vodka at 90 % instead of using isopropyl alcohol before anything is added to clean prints with?

I cannot seem to find anywhere or anyone that has tried this.

Answer:
Isopropyl-Alcohol - Propan-2-ol - and Ethyl alcohol - Ethan-1-ol - are different chemically. As a secondary alcohol, Propan-2-ol has quite different solubility of different materials than ethyl-alcohol.
Now, let's look at home made alcoholic destillate. That stuff is, if done in one refraction and without tossing the first low temperature part, some percentages Metanol, Ethyl alcohol and maybe some water. That has not the same solvent properties as Propan-2-ol.
While it
might
work, nobody will sign a guarantee that it doesn't negatively impact your print.


Question:
I'm trying to connect my PC to my Anet A8 through Pronterface on Ubuntu.

But when I'm clicking on the "connect" button in Pronterface, all I see is "Connecting ...".

What I did so far

added my user to the dialout group

tried to run it as root

tried different baudrates

switch to different USB cables

tried to install and run it on a different machine and different OS (Windows) with nearly the same result (additionally I see repeated lines with M105, but no response)

The printer itself works - I want to connect to it, to "PID tune" it, because I added a different fan duct.

How can I make sure the board isn't somewhat damaged, and its just my setup?

Answer:
You may need to install a device driver for the USB interface chip that your printer uses. I'm guessing that the Anet A8 uses a clone of the FTDI FT232RL chip (which was and may still be common with cheap Chinese printers).
If this is the case, you will need to install the appropriate driver from this site:
FTDI Chip Virtual COM Port Drivers
.
Edit: I can confirm that Pronterface will not work with my Tronxy X1 (which uses an FT232RL clone) on the latest version of Ubuntu.


Question:
So I have some old filament that I originally got for a 3D pen. The problem is it's unlabeled and I haven't been able to find anything that might help me distinguish whether it's PLA or ABS. The bag it all came in says that wherever this filament came from only makes PLA and ABS so it's got to be on of those two.

I have a roll of PLA in my 3D printer right now, but I can't tell if it's the same as the filament I have for the 3D pen. It's been a while since I've used the 3D pen, but I do remember whenever you used it, it would produce a very very bad smell. I've also noticed that the filament seems to be more flexible that the PLA in my machine. This makes me think it could be ABS, because the PLA smells far better than what I remember the 3D pen smelling like, and it's more flexible.

I also don't really want to do any heat tests or anything on the filament, so if the smell and flexibility is enough to determine which filament it is, could anyone tell me?

Answer:
Mick's suggestion is a good one. PLA may shed some color in acetone, but ABS will dissolve completely in a suitable amount of time. If you have dark filament, you can test by flexing the filament until it breaks. ABS will sometimes/often/usually fatigue with a white break line, while PLA does not exhibit this tendency as much.
PLA has a somewhat sweet smell, which may be the corn sugars burning off, while ABS has a much more chemical-like odor.
Not doing heat testing does limit your options.


Question:
What materials work well for lubricating moving PLA, ABS, or PETG parts? I'm talking items like the
the Gear Bearings or Print in Place Engine.

I've played with a few lubricants on my own, including hand lotion, trumpet valve oil, and carmex/vaseline. Of these, the vaseline has worked best for me so far, but I'd like to hear what has worked well for others, or especially if there's anyone here who understands the chemistry involved and could explain what to look for in different situations.

Answer:
When dealing with lubrication of plastics, any solvent or reactive substance is to be avoided. Petroleum is risky and Vaseline™ is a brand name for petroleum jelly.
I've had quite good results using inert lubrication such as PTFE and silicone based lubes. PTFE is the generic term for
Teflon™
and is quite a good lubricant. There are both silicone and PTFE greases for higher viscosity applications.
From the Teflon™ link:
Teflon's amazing properties are down to its structure. Like most
polymers, Teflon has a carbon-based chain. However, instead of
reactive C-H bonds which occur in most polymers, Teflon has all its
hydrogens replaced by fluorines. These strong C-F bonds are extremely
resistant to attack by any other reagents, making Teflon very inert.
This means that no other molecules will react with or stick to Teflon.
The exception is Teflon itself, which will stick to itself quite
readily, forming thick layers or solid blocks. With a friction
coefficient of <0.1, Teflon has the second lowest friction coefficient
(surpassed only by diamond-like carbon), which makes it perfect for
non-stick items e.g. pans. DuPont invented the non-stick pan coated
with Teflon in 1956 and have manufactured it ever since. Teflon
coatings are so slippery that they are the only material that a gecko
cannot stick to.
Who knew that gecko testing was a thing?
Wikipedia
for silicone grease:
Although silicones are normally assumed to be chemically inert,
several historically significant compounds have resulted from
unintended reactions with silicones.
Powdered graphite is also a good lubricant if one can tolerate loose powder in some constructions.
I've read of others using lithium grease, but not for plastic lubrication.


Question:
Not storing left-over photopolymer resin back with pristine resin in its original shipping can seems to be a common recommendation.

What is the best practice here? Store in a separate bottle and pour this "once around the block" resin first for the next print?

Answer:
Considerations for storing resin include using a light-tight bottle, preventing stray ultraviolet radiation from prematurely curing the resin.
You'll also note that users will filter the resin through a fine mesh filter. I've seen some videos in which the user pours through coffee filters to remove as many particulates as possible.
Left-over resin that has been carefully filtered is effectively the same as fresh-from-the-bottle material, from a purely technical view, but you can pick up contaminants that bypass the filter.


Question: My only functional computer at the moment is a raspberry pi, and I was wondering if there was any software that supported it. My printer is a Newmatter mod-t, but I might be able to modify other software to support it

Answer:
Considerations for storing resin include using a light-tight bottle, preventing stray ultraviolet radiation from prematurely curing the resin.
You'll also note that users will filter the resin through a fine mesh filter. I've seen some videos in which the user pours through coffee filters to remove as many particulates as possible.
Left-over resin that has been carefully filtered is effectively the same as fresh-from-the-bottle material, from a purely technical view, but you can pick up contaminants that bypass the filter.


Question:
I want to print a part from Thingiverse. In the description, the creater writes that he used SBS to print it. I did some research because I never heard of SBS.
I found a description on Filaments.directory that describes it as:

Poly(styrene-butadiene-styrene) is a hard, durable rubber that is commonly used for shoe soles, tires and other products that experience high wear.

But if I search for SBS filaments to buy, there only shows ABS up. Did I misunderstood something and SBS  is the same as ABS.

Answer:
As you found and according to this site, SBS is a
Styryne-Butadiene
polymer that only contains Styrene and Butadiene chains interlinked. This is similar to ABS, but not identical.
Some people have access to filament manufacturing machines or use pellet extruders, however, googling for
"SBS" filament
I was able to source at the moment two sites with information:
Craftbot.nl
is a reseller who also explain why this stuff is such expensive with 40€ for 750 grams
the
very site you had (apparently defunct, no waybackmachine grab)
, which tells us there is exactly one brand:
Filamentarno
from Russia, but the link to the amazon marketplace from there shows no availability of this product at all.


Question: Of course I'm referring to side by side and not stacking or overlapping.  200 x 200 mm PEI and Kapton sheets are more readily available than 400 x 400 sheets.  I'm wondering if anyone has tried this and if the edges of the sheets cause a problem.

Answer:
I haven't tried such a thing, but a speculative answer covering the constraints and expected failure modes may suffice here.
Unless the sheets have squared (rather than rounded) corners, the corners will almost certainly be a problem. In particular you'd end up with a hole right at the middle of the bed.
If the sides aren't entirely square (perpendicular) with each other then you'll have large gaps at one end or another.
As Trish noted in a comment, it's also possible that you may hit problems due to mismatch in thickness between the different sheets, although I'd expect these are fairly well-controlled in the manufacturing process; otherwise I'd expect bed leveling issues even with just a single sheet. If you do hit this kind of issue, it may be possible to avoid it with shimming of some sort.
Assuming you can avoid all of the above potential problems, I would expect what you've proposed to work reasonably well, especially if you're ok with very minor surface defects at the seams.


Question:
My goal is to have a speaker inside a PLA casing to produce a nice hearable sound from a submersible item.

I intended to produce that sound from a Piezo buzzer stuck on a membrane held tight in hollow place between two pieces, but the result is unsatisfactory as the sound gets muffled to inaudible levels.

Is there any known 3D printable methods to permit for a sound to be heard from PLA?

Answer:
In space, no one can hear you scream. That's because there's no air to be vibrated, which is part of the definition of sound.
In the case of your model, the described diaphragm will generate sound because it is surrounded by air. The vibrations in the air will transfer (and reflect) from the PLA shell you've created.
In order to hear as much sound as possible, you have to have as thin a shell as possible and only one of them. It would be more effective if you could incorporate the membrane into the shell, which eliminates the sound damping effect of the plastic sphere.
Barring that option, one layer (vase mode, but probably not) would present the created sound with a much less massive amount of plastic to vibrate.
Additionally, PLA is not known for being water tight. One can apply epoxy or other sealants to make it so, but that will add mass to the overall equation.


Question:
I have a 3D print where there are 5 holes with a diameter of 4 mm in a cup, and I would like liquid to flow through all 5 holes at once while slowly draining the cup (by slowly I mean: just take a few seconds and not drain instantly). Therefore the holes can not be very large.

When I fill water in the cup it drains fine until there is a small amount of water left, and then it just stops with a small layer of water flowing over the holes.

I'm guessing it is due to surface tension and not enough pressure from water above to push the water through...

Is there a hole design that fixes this problem? I don't know what to Google or if this is the right place to ask the question. It just takes too long to guess my way through and print every attempt at the right size or shape of hole (which I have done so far and still got nothing).

Answer:
What you encounter there is a combination of Adhesion, Cohesion, and Capillary Force.
Cohesion is what holds the water together. Adhesion is the force to retain water against a wall or hanging from a pen's end, it is proportional to the surface wetted. Capillary Force is the resulting effect where water moves up through a thin tube, it is anti-proportional to the diameter and in the opposite direction of the weight (force). Their relation can be shown in this picture, where a droplet hangs on the end of a glass rod, which has a capillary in it:
How to reduce the water sticking in the cup then?
Make the straight part of the bore as short as possible. This can be done by having a thin cup. The shorter the hole, the less surface there is the water can adhere to vertically, and you might overcome capillary force.
Smooth the hole. Maybe print it 3.5 mm and drill it up to your 4 mm diameter. This reduces adhesion.
Smooth the inside surface. Reducing the adhesion to the inside by having less steps.
Chamfer the inside of the holes. This alters the whole geometry and flow setup in the very low water level case, especially when the surface separates into several areas, above each hole. Then the larger volume belonging to each hole on the inner side means there is a little more pressure and you can get out some more water - and it also shortens the distance the hole has to bridge.
make sure there is some slope everywhere inside so that the water will collect in one of the holes.
An example for a (non measured) design which relies heavily on chamfering to guide the water to the already chamfered holes and then keeps the straight section as short as possible could look like this: the central hole has a very wide chamfer, the whole plate directs water to the center and each of the other holes has a chamfer to guide out water.
However, there is a lower limit to where just tweaking the design will workd, which is based on cohesion. Cohesion is what results in surface tension and viscosity. You can only shift those limiting factors by altering the properties of the liquid, for example by adding an agent that lowers the surface tension and viscosity (soap).


Question:
I would like to create a case or a box which has two holes for incoming and exiting water. I want the box to be opened and closed. Therefore it is good to be something like a treasure box.

Is there a way to design the lid of the box to prevent water from leaking around the areas where the box and the lid are meeting without using glue?

Answer:
"Completely" is always relative, but for water at the pressures involved it's probably achievable. Normally you need some sort of
gasket
(material that can bend/compress to slight imperfections in the mating surfaces), and a means of holding the two surfaces tight against the gasket, to get such a seal.
With 3D printing, it's plausible that the print itself could be sufficiently non-rigid to achieve this, if you have a way of keeping the lid and box pressed tightly against each other - bolts through the lid, clips around the edges, etc. But it's unlikely to work well.
I would either print I suitable gasket in TPU, or cut one from some suitable material if you don't have the capability to print with TPU. Either way you still need to design your box and lid so that they're pressed tightly against the gasket.
One possible frame challenge would be doing a round box instead, with a circular threaded lid. It's likely that you could achieve a decent seal for your purposes without any gasket just by tightening the threads, and if not, you still have a really good setup for use with an added gasket.


Question:
I have an SKR PRO control board with a dead (shorted, it's burning hot) main processor. I ordered a new board, it was my mistake.

The voltage regulators work, so I ordered a replacement STM32F407 processor from STM (a free sample actually) and I'll repair the board in my free time.

How can I test all pins of the new board, so that I can ensure the board is working when I'll sell it/when I'll use it for my next project?

I think that programmatically turning on and off each pin would be enough, then I would use an oscilloscope or a LED to verify the result. The pins which have special functions (heater, fan, MOSFET in general) would be tested accordingly, but I still need the pulsating input.

Answer:
"Completely" is always relative, but for water at the pressures involved it's probably achievable. Normally you need some sort of
gasket
(material that can bend/compress to slight imperfections in the mating surfaces), and a means of holding the two surfaces tight against the gasket, to get such a seal.
With 3D printing, it's plausible that the print itself could be sufficiently non-rigid to achieve this, if you have a way of keeping the lid and box pressed tightly against each other - bolts through the lid, clips around the edges, etc. But it's unlikely to work well.
I would either print I suitable gasket in TPU, or cut one from some suitable material if you don't have the capability to print with TPU. Either way you still need to design your box and lid so that they're pressed tightly against the gasket.
One possible frame challenge would be doing a round box instead, with a circular threaded lid. It's likely that you could achieve a decent seal for your purposes without any gasket just by tightening the threads, and if not, you still have a really good setup for use with an added gasket.


Question:
I'm trying to build a DIY 3D printer for myself. I've been exploring many different styles of printers and found this type of printer that has a fixed bed that stays fixed in one place and the whole gantry moves which includes all axes.

Why is this so rare?

Are there flaws in this design?

Will print quality be affected by using this approach?

Check out this video for reference and skip to 10:50:

Answer:
Why is this so rare?
Such kind of printers usually harder to assembles, calibrate, and maintain because 3 axes machine is a bit more complex than 2 axes. For instance, it's can be tricky to move an entire extruder among all 3 axis and some of such printer's designs may require even dedicated exruder's design like Bowden Extruders.
Are there flaws in this design?
The key disadvantage of such kind designs is complexity with moving of an extruder among all 3 axes. Moving platform by at least one axis simplifies that.
Will print quality be affected by using this approach?
It depends on the exact printer's design, so, potentially you can have issues with ease of assembling and maintenance due to more complicated construction and as a consequence higher risk of low printing quality due design, assembly or configuration mistakes.
On the other hand, if you already have some device with precise enough 3 axis machine, like CNC milling machine, you can upgrade it to 3D printer by installing an extruder, however, it would also require update of software and, probably, electronics.


Question: I am running an Ender 3 pro with an Octoprint connected. I accidentally set the print speed too slow in Cura and the print will take very long. Is there a Marlin command I can issue to the printer to speed it up without stopping the print?

Answer:
yes
Print speed is a setting that can be altered by just turning the click-wheel of the Ender 3. You don't need to push it to gain access to menus. A turn to the right does increase the speed, left lowers it. It is applied only some moments after
stopping the turning - then the firmware does inject a
```
M220
```
command as the next line. This means the current running movement is ended with the last set speed, the new speed is set and the following command will be done with the new speed.
As towe correctly states, one can also send a
```
M220
```
command to the printer via a terminal, but then you need to have one set up
before
the print starts, as plugging in a terminal will
reset
your printer and abort the print!


Question: Assuming a Cartesian printer with a belt and smooth rod design in which one axis moves another (i.e. the X-axis rails 'sit' on the Y-axis rails), what are the main considerations in sizing the rods and belts?  For example, given a base design using 8 mm diameter rods and 6 mm belts (assume these are the limiting factors of the printer and that the frame, etc. can handle whatever you throw at it), what is roughly the maximum load, print speed and build size that this should be expected to support?  If you were to increase the rod diameters to 10 mm or even 12 mm on one or both axes (assume the steppers could handle the increased load), what would the increased rigidity buy you in terms of maximum speed and/or build size and would 6 mm belts still be appropriate?  Ballpark calculations or rules of thumb are fine as I understand the variables are likely not trivial and am looking more for a rough range of guidance to understand the trade-offs involved.

Answer:
8 mm rods and 6 mm GT2 belts are generally accepted as a good tradeoff between price and performance, an exact calculation is possible but might not be very relevant if another part is flexing. Also, generally speaking, the smaller the part the sooner it will wear out of specification. Thus your service interval might be higher compared to an over-engineered printer.
In short, it depends on what your goal is, if you desire low maintenance and accurate machine, you might be better off with heavier gauge parts. Obviously, this will also affect the speed of printing.
A 6 mm GT2 belt might have a higher stretch factor compared to a 10 mm belt, but can be mitigated by adjusting the acceleration. In addition, a 10 mm belt has a larger pulley reducing the number of steps per mm, lowering precision. As such you might be better of using two 6 mm belts.
Increased rod size for the print bed will not affect printing speed much but might help with accuracy since the bending modulus is lower. Play around with the calculators below to get an idea of the force your beam will have to withstand. That said, there are a lot of other factors that will flex under load, for example, the bed leveling springs. You can replace them with solid spacers, but that might warp the bed when it heats up.
https://www.engineering.com/calculators/beams.htm
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/acceleration
To conclude, I would use the calculators to figure out if the 8 mm rods are within tolerance for the intended speeds and load, but don't forget to look at the overall picture. The quality of parts you choose is one such thing.


Question: My 3D prints shift along the Y-axis on my Ender 3 3D printer. I don't know what to do. My Y-axis belt is tight, So I don't think that is the problem...

Answer:
8 mm rods and 6 mm GT2 belts are generally accepted as a good tradeoff between price and performance, an exact calculation is possible but might not be very relevant if another part is flexing. Also, generally speaking, the smaller the part the sooner it will wear out of specification. Thus your service interval might be higher compared to an over-engineered printer.
In short, it depends on what your goal is, if you desire low maintenance and accurate machine, you might be better off with heavier gauge parts. Obviously, this will also affect the speed of printing.
A 6 mm GT2 belt might have a higher stretch factor compared to a 10 mm belt, but can be mitigated by adjusting the acceleration. In addition, a 10 mm belt has a larger pulley reducing the number of steps per mm, lowering precision. As such you might be better of using two 6 mm belts.
Increased rod size for the print bed will not affect printing speed much but might help with accuracy since the bending modulus is lower. Play around with the calculators below to get an idea of the force your beam will have to withstand. That said, there are a lot of other factors that will flex under load, for example, the bed leveling springs. You can replace them with solid spacers, but that might warp the bed when it heats up.
https://www.engineering.com/calculators/beams.htm
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/acceleration
To conclude, I would use the calculators to figure out if the 8 mm rods are within tolerance for the intended speeds and load, but don't forget to look at the overall picture. The quality of parts you choose is one such thing.


Question: I am trying to print something that might take 15 hours. I don't want to risk my printer so if I print for 15 hours, what is the worst that can happen? So far, I haven't printed anything for more than 5 hours.

Answer:
Correctly level your bed. Seriously, that's the answer. PETG does stick well, but it only gets difficult to remove if you're smashing the first layer against the bed with a nozzle that's way too close. With the bed leveled properly - using feeler gauges or test prints and a sub-0.1-mm-precision caliper - I have no trouble taking PETG prints off a buildtak-clone bed. Glass should be easier.
If you already have PETG stuck to a build surface you care about and don't want to risk destroying it, try heat, or alternating heat and cold.


Question:
There are lot of advices on the web how to paint the 3D printed objects, but generally they are advices for manual painting and this required special skills, especially if the object is small. My guess is that maybe 3D printer can lay the color layers as well? I am especially interested in the layering of enamel paints (which can be transparent and which can required high temperature heating afterwards). Medieval art has fine examples how detailed enamel art was created on the metal. Maybe something like this can be achieved with 3D printers as well?

If 3D priner with the paint-printing capability is not available generally then what are the prospects when such printer can be available? Maybe there are some early, experimental efforts to create such printer and maybe test devices are available?

Answer:
Painting Prints
Yes, you can paint your models with
enamel paints
. Actually, most paints will work. You might need to roughen the surface with sandpaper a tiny bit. Note that some spray paints might contain solvents that might soften or melt the prints, so read your ingredients!
...not with vitreous enamel
However, you can't use
proper enamel
, as that needs to be sintered after the paints have dried, and that will destroy your print unless you have used a metal-printer.
Printing Color
Now, if you want a printer to print a paste of vitreous enamel, you are looking for a
paste printer
. However, the paint for such a device needs to be very viscous, and the print quality (due to the large nozzle) will be far below what a skilled artisan can achieve. Also, you'd need one paste extruder per color.
Foils?
One could possibly work with foils, cutting them on a plotter and then carefully transferring them to the printed object. This would allow much finer details than a paste printer currently is able to create. Such a foil can also be printed upon by special printers - possibly achieving the full spectrum in a single application step.
Alternatively, one would use a "puzzle" of smaller pieces and apply each piece separately. The result might actually be somewhat similar to the
Chromolith
(Colored Stone) stonewares that had been created by Villeroy & Boch starting 1876.


Question:
I have observed some occasional delamination in horizontal layers of my resin prints — see two examples:

What is the cause, and how can this be minimized?

Answer:
With the information provided my thought is that your layers are underexposed for their thickness. Each layer is just barely bonding to the layer above it. After being pulled on by layers below eventually one of the layers fails. This is especially likely to happen on a thin part of the print any may need more support if it is followed by wider layers. But I would suggest trying to increase your exposure time first.
option two: it could be your FEP if that has seen too much use it may be time to replace it.
calibrating a resin 3D printer


Question: I do not have a clear understanding of what causes resin prints to become brittle. Firstly, it appears excessive cold (in the 40s or even 30s, I am in New England) may be a factor. What else can cause brittleness in resin prints? Is there a difference between resin types?

Answer:
With the information provided my thought is that your layers are underexposed for their thickness. Each layer is just barely bonding to the layer above it. After being pulled on by layers below eventually one of the layers fails. This is especially likely to happen on a thin part of the print any may need more support if it is followed by wider layers. But I would suggest trying to increase your exposure time first.
option two: it could be your FEP if that has seen too much use it may be time to replace it.
calibrating a resin 3D printer


Question:
Given a .SCAD file which contains some modules, how can I execute one of those modules from the command line?

example.scad

module One() { ... }
module Two() { ... }

render.sh

openscad -q -o one.stl --module One example.scad

Note that there is no --module option, but that is what I'm attempting to do. The workaround would be to make another .SCAD file e.g. one.scad which includes example.scad, and simply calls One(); within and render that file from the shell file. But this is not ideal.

Answer:
OpenSCAD doesn't have such an option on the command line, but the general idiom I believe you want to use is have
```
.scad
```
source files which are modules include invocations of the module(s) at the top-level controllable by variables you can set on the command line or GUI customizer interface. Any such invocations will be ignored if the file is used (via
```
use
```
directive) in another file so they don't hurt its status as a library and make it easier to preview/test. So for example you could have:
```
```
wantOne = false;
if (wantOne) One();
```
```
and then set
```
wantOne
```
to
```
true
```
from the command line.


Question: For the purpose of cleaning, I need an aggressive solvent for cured or partially cured resin that will degrade resin down to its liquid state. I'm looking for one that would eat out specifically resin (I'm using regular Anycubic green resin) in a rapid fashion but would leave painted / metallic parts and screen of my 3D printer without damage.

Answer:
Wear Gloves.
Returning is impossible
Resin does not just
harden
,
it
polymerizes
into shape from monomers in a chemical reaction.
That means to break it down, you need to destroy the whole chemistry. There is no solvent that can simply reverse it.
Wiping is easy
As long as the rein is still liquid, you can wipe it off. Then clean the parts with Isopropylic alcohol.
Manual work
Destroying Resin-Polymers is incredibly hard for most solvents. The most simple solution is usually oddly enough to use physical force. Resins are super brittle and chip off, but might damage the paint coat in the worst case.
Thermal shock
If you can, you might put your printer in a cold environment and see the resin gaining cracks, as it shrinks slower and less than the metal. Then, putting it back into the heat adds more.


Question: I am making a bed for my 3D printer. I have bought a silicon heater (31x31 cm) and I want to glue it to my custom aluminum bed. The tape that it had from factory was bad, so I removed it. I want to glue it to the aluminum and I don't know what type of adhesive to use, I was thinking gasket glue with silicon, but I think that it will have bad thermal conductivity. I found this product, a silicon based,  heat transferring paste, but I think that it will not stick good. What is a good adhesive for this purpose?

Answer:
Heat Transfer PAste will not work as a gluing agent. What you need is a high-temperature glue that bonds Aluminium and a silicone rubber. The benchmark temperature that the glue needs to withstand is about 100 °C or approximately 200 °F.
McMaster-Carr
allowed me to search for glue-properties and suggests among others contact adhesives, which are cans or tubes with a very viscous glue. You let that pre-cure on the items and then push the two together, resulting in very strong bonds. One of the items they suggest is
3M 2262
for which McMaster-Carr lists 230 °F as the max temperature, so just in the
safe
range. However, a 32 oz. can for almost 100 $ is surely overkill, the
3M manufacturer catalog
lists only 1 qt and 5 gal as the available packaging sizes, so, unless you build printers for a living or know someone who uses this industrially, this is not an option.
The same catalog also lists the
"3M™ 200MP& 300LSE"
series with temperatures of 148 °C (300 °F) to 204 °C (400 °F). That is enough to print anything on. And it's the same glue that' used on my Build-Tak replacement surfaces to stick them to the Aluminium bed, so it could be suitable for gluing the heater to the bed on the other side too. However, I wish you good luck to find a reseller that sells you a fitting amount. Industrial packaging is available, but you'll need to find a reseller that offers a somewhat fitting size for you - I have seen Amazon listings for both types in sizes that have only small waste for most common heaters.
I am not affiliated with 3M or McMaster-Carr, but I have very good experience with 300LSE.


Question: Normally, I'm all fine with my printer and filament. But today I changed the filament for another brand and no matter what, it sticks to the nozzle so nothing comes to the bed and soon my nozzle is full of PLA... I use a sheet of paper for printer to level the bed at 0.1 mm. While leveling, I get the nozzle close enough to feel a bit of resistance from the paper while moving that sheet. Please help me...

Answer:
I believe the problem is not so much that the filament is sticking to the nozzle; it's that the filament is not sticking to the bed.
You've confirmed that you have correct clearance for the nozzle to bed distance. The next considerations are bed temperature and nozzle temperature. New brands often require new parameters.
Consider to raise the bed temperature 5 °C. If you're not using any adhesive medium, perhaps a bit of glue stick will help to have the filament stick better/properly.
It's unlikely that the nozzle temperature is incorrect, as too low would result in a nozzle clog, while too high would "drizzle out" and be everywhere, but don't reject too-high entirely.
If you can get the bed adhesion correct, your nozzle should remain clear.


Question:
I was looking at purchasing the Creality CR-X or another similar dual extruder (note, NOT dual nozzle) printer. I know it was designed to print two colors of the same filament, but is it able to print two different filaments?

I would be printing HIPS with ABS or PVA with PLA, so the two filaments would have very similar characteristics. It's ok if the printer doesn't know there's two different filaments, I can make it work by playing with the slicing settings.

Answer:
I believe the problem is not so much that the filament is sticking to the nozzle; it's that the filament is not sticking to the bed.
You've confirmed that you have correct clearance for the nozzle to bed distance. The next considerations are bed temperature and nozzle temperature. New brands often require new parameters.
Consider to raise the bed temperature 5 °C. If you're not using any adhesive medium, perhaps a bit of glue stick will help to have the filament stick better/properly.
It's unlikely that the nozzle temperature is incorrect, as too low would result in a nozzle clog, while too high would "drizzle out" and be everywhere, but don't reject too-high entirely.
If you can get the bed adhesion correct, your nozzle should remain clear.


Question: The art in question is https://www.instagram.com/p/CIfsO2ZD7Rj/ . I Think the concept artist, Jean Giraud, is dead.

Answer:
While better fitted to our friends at
law.SE
, the general gist is:
No.
Art is protected by copyright, and any adaption (
derivative work
) requires the OK from the right holders
per se
. Only 70-75 years after the death of the author (or publication for company works), a work enters the
public domain
and the copyright expires.
There are some exceptions (
fair use/fair dealing/
...), but
media transformation
is not one of them.
Giraud died in 2012, his estate or heirs - or whoever he/they sold the commercial rights to - own the right to ok derivative Works till around 2087.


Question:
Why does the Ender 3 only have 3 limit switches instead of 6?

How does it handle crashes on other sides?
Is it worth adding them with a new mainboard?

Answer:
While better fitted to our friends at
law.SE
, the general gist is:
No.
Art is protected by copyright, and any adaption (
derivative work
) requires the OK from the right holders
per se
. Only 70-75 years after the death of the author (or publication for company works), a work enters the
public domain
and the copyright expires.
There are some exceptions (
fair use/fair dealing/
...), but
media transformation
is not one of them.
Giraud died in 2012, his estate or heirs - or whoever he/they sold the commercial rights to - own the right to ok derivative Works till around 2087.


Question:
I'm trying to print a gear for a robovac deal.

The issue I'm having is with gaps between the walls of the top part of the gear. It needs to have the corners filled to provide stability or else the tabs easily snap. I've tried adjusting the nozzle size, line width, filter gaps and print thin walls but seems to slice with variations on the same issue. Is this a Cura issue? Is there anyway to slice and print this to fill those gaps?

Answer: The problem isn't Cura, rather its the precision of the 3D model. If parts of the model is smaller than the line width the model cannot be printed. A solution to this would be to increase the thickness of the cylinder, decrease the size of the square or reduce the line width to allow that region to be properly fabricated, another solution would be to decrease the line width (line width option) however, keep in mind that you should not reduce the line width beyond the nozzle hole size (nozzle hole > line width). As mentioned before, if the model requires sections that are smaller than the line width, Cura will ignore it. From the image you provided it would seem that the corners are extremely close to the wall of the cylinder which prevents Cura from making a extrusion path, the reason of which I explained above.


Question:
While printing a paint rack from thingiverse I keep getting jams. Other prints (shorter) work fine. Can anyone give me a clue?

Here's a video of the printer

I thought it was heat creep so I increased the speed and decreased the hot end temperature. It generally prints for several hours then jams.

Answer:
When I started printing ABS with my Prusa i3 MK3 MMU2+ printer, I started experiencing jams on some longer prints, which was heat creap, possibly combined with old filament.
I improved the cooling by filling the gap between the sides of the heat sink and the plastic extruder body. I think I stuffed it with some soft foam rubber, but anything that can handle the (what should be fairly cool) temperature should work.
My hypothesis is that with gap allowed too much of the air to pass without engaging the heat sink, compromising the cooling.
With that change, I haven't had heat-creap jams.
You aren't printing ABS, but the temperature is high, and PLA softens as a low temperature. IMO, it would still be worth making the change.
It is the gap on the front and rear sides that I blocked.  The heatsink fins are fully open for air flow.
Some people here have changed out the Noctua fan for one that is noisier and pushes more air, which should also work. I appreciate the quiet fan, so I tried to get more work out of the fan I had.


Question: High temperature PTFE tape is rated up to 550°F, which is 288°C.  I'm wondering if it would be useful for components on the hot end to prevent oozing.  Has anyone tried it?

Answer:
You'll need a custom firmware.
Yur custom firmware will have to react to the "Change extruder" command differently than a normal firmware: instead of just swapping to a different extruder, you'll need to perform some operations to alter the gearing (possibly a solenoid?), and possibly include some kind of "break" to make sure that the filament is not slipping back without the extruder attached. However, there already is a setup that pretty much does this: the Prusa MMU2 uses something similar. The MMU does use a Bowden setup, but you could use Bowden and direct drive in combination, especially if both motors run in sync.


Question:
I assume SLA printing only works on Earth and upright.

But would fused-filament printer (e.g. Prusa Mk3) work in zero gravity? What about upside down or sideways? If not, could it be modified to work in other orientations? Have there been any demonstrations of it?

Answer:
Yes!
3D Printing upside would only potentially have an issue with the first layer if you're using an extremely large gap on the first layer, however in normal circumstances there's enough pressure that the filament is squished into the bed, if you've got one yourself you can put it on it's side, the question when it comes to 3D Printing
isn't
upside down, but not the correct way, as it's presuming that gravity pushing down is the important thing, while in every other orientation it also works.
In theory SLA printing would work just fine, as long as you're able to seal the build plate and vat together so no resin leaks out.


Question: I have a Monoprice Maker Select Plus (Wanhao Duplicator i3 clone) and I'm having issued with the top layer of my prints. The bottom surface and the sides always come out perfect but my top layer is left with gaps in it. I have tried adjusting the print temperature, flow rate, print speed and layer height all with no success. I use Cura for my slicing software. If anyone knows how to help it'd be much appreciated

Answer:
This is probably caused by too few top layers in combination with a too low infill percentage. Increase skin layers and increase infill percentage.
If you have multiple layers already (at least about 4 for 0.2 mm layer height, for smaller layer heights even more), you might be printing at a too high temperature and or too few part cooling percentage and a too low infill percentage.


Question:
I just got a new Ender3 version two for Christmas and was very excited to use it so I put it together and used the sample filament that came with the printer and everything worked okay for a bit.

That was until I switched something in the settings, or in Cura, or something happened, because the nozzle is too far away from the bed when printing. I will use the auto home feature to level my bed with a piece of paper and once I get that pretty close I try and start my print, and it starts a few millimetres further away from the bed than when levelling it.

Any ideas to solve this?

Answer:
This is probably caused by too few top layers in combination with a too low infill percentage. Increase skin layers and increase infill percentage.
If you have multiple layers already (at least about 4 for 0.2 mm layer height, for smaller layer heights even more), you might be printing at a too high temperature and or too few part cooling percentage and a too low infill percentage.


Question: I am building a toolchanger CoreXY 3D printer. I am in big trouble to find mic-6 aluminium toolplate in my country. Can you suggest me an alternative to mic-6? In my country, I can find easily 5083, 6082, 7005, etc. I don't think, that theese aluminium plates are suitable as heated bed. The design of the bed is the same as the jubilee 3D printer, so it will be best to have minimum warpage.

Answer:
This is probably caused by too few top layers in combination with a too low infill percentage. Increase skin layers and increase infill percentage.
If you have multiple layers already (at least about 4 for 0.2 mm layer height, for smaller layer heights even more), you might be printing at a too high temperature and or too few part cooling percentage and a too low infill percentage.


Question:
I keep having a recurring problem with my ender 3 pro.  The bowden tube keeps popping off here (pictured)

I've read elsewhere online where people are having a similar problem, i.e. the ptfe tube is actually popping out, but I don't know if thats the case here.  It's staying attached to the metal coupler, but that metal coupler is unscrewing during the course of the print and falling out.  Any tips to fix it?  New one? Some sort of loc-tite to get it to not unscrew?  Any ideas?

Answer:
If the fitting is remaining attached to the PTFE tubing, that would indicate that the threaded end of the fitting is pulling out of the drive assembly. This implies that the internal threads of the drive assembly have stripped out. This is not unusual for a plastic drive assembly.
The best solution is to replace the drive assembly. I believe I paid about US$12 for the last one I purchased and it was aluminum, not plastic. A quick search for "Ender 3 drive mechanism" returned a number of choices. One of them from
Amazon
(14.98) is anodized aluminum and purports to be improved over the original.
A less than ideal solution would involve drilling out the stripped threads and installing an insert (sometimes called a Heli-coil™) but that could be as expensive as a replacement mechanism.


Question:
The image below I indicated where the point where the tip of my extruder returns after changing the layer height, I don't know if I am right to call this point "Start Point" ...

The problem I am having is possible to see in the photo, because there is a slip of material and sometimes "webs" are created that compromise the quality of the print.

I tried to modify the retraction parameters, such as: speed and retraction length ...

Is there a parameter that I can modify to improve my print?

The slicer software I use is the : FlashPrint_4.5.1 (because I have a FlashForge Dreamer NX)

Answer:
Photo interpretation: I understand that the image on the right presents the actual error: it happens on many layers, following the red "Starting Point" line (so above it on the photo). Interesting issue. Btw. which side of the print is the bottom (zero layer)? - I believe the left side, and the right side is the top of the print.
The problem seems to apeear only in the middle of print. Top and bottom layers are usually printed slower, this could be some hint to find the reason. Also, I guess that the vertical cross section is not just a rectangle, but is wider on the top part? - then print parameters (e.g. speed) may change because of overhangs.
Could you share what type of filament do you print with? For example flexible materials will specifically react to the pressure and should not be forcefully retracted and pushed.
What type
Is there any exccessive material anywhere on the table? Like oozing or stringing? Do you see any material lost before printing the first layer? If not, the retraction is good enough or even too heavy - then try to minimize it: you may go down until you see any oozing, and then check the wall.
Could you share what range of parameters you have tried- especially the speed and retraction values? Jerk and accelleration? Do you use coasting or other pressure affecting techniques?
What is the hotend diameter? - the specs says 0.4 mm and the direct extruder. And (in comparision) what is the wall's line width for extrusion? What is the real width of this wall? (Is it properly sliced and reflected in G-Code? I advice to use G-Code viewer and inspect the details in given area.) What is the infill %, and how many wall lines do you have configured? And the layer height?
I hope this is of some help for diagnosis.


Question:
I was able to connect my terminal program (Putty) to my 3D Printer (Creality Ender 3 Pro) and was able to send G-code commands to my printer and it obeys.

Now suppose I sent long command like

G29 ; auto bed leveling

and it is still executing. Printer writes me

echo:busy: processing

How to interrupt it?

I tried to send M0, but it didn't work.

Answer:
Photo interpretation: I understand that the image on the right presents the actual error: it happens on many layers, following the red "Starting Point" line (so above it on the photo). Interesting issue. Btw. which side of the print is the bottom (zero layer)? - I believe the left side, and the right side is the top of the print.
The problem seems to apeear only in the middle of print. Top and bottom layers are usually printed slower, this could be some hint to find the reason. Also, I guess that the vertical cross section is not just a rectangle, but is wider on the top part? - then print parameters (e.g. speed) may change because of overhangs.
Could you share what type of filament do you print with? For example flexible materials will specifically react to the pressure and should not be forcefully retracted and pushed.
What type
Is there any exccessive material anywhere on the table? Like oozing or stringing? Do you see any material lost before printing the first layer? If not, the retraction is good enough or even too heavy - then try to minimize it: you may go down until you see any oozing, and then check the wall.
Could you share what range of parameters you have tried- especially the speed and retraction values? Jerk and accelleration? Do you use coasting or other pressure affecting techniques?
What is the hotend diameter? - the specs says 0.4 mm and the direct extruder. And (in comparision) what is the wall's line width for extrusion? What is the real width of this wall? (Is it properly sliced and reflected in G-Code? I advice to use G-Code viewer and inspect the details in given area.) What is the infill %, and how many wall lines do you have configured? And the layer height?
I hope this is of some help for diagnosis.


Question:
From my understanding, the power of heater must higher than heat dissipate to ambient air so the bed can heat up. The reason why a bed heats up too slowly is due to its heat capacity compared to heater power.

As the heater is a resistive load, I think we can put higher voltage to get more heating power.

The PCB heater has two parts: copper and laminate. The reason of failure is that the copper can come off the board due to high temperatures. In this case we can control temperature with firmware. The questions are:

Will this method work?

What can go wrong or what is the risk of this method?

Answer:
Not necessarily
Potential differential U
, aka
Voltage
of a part, is not to be ignored: a 24 V part needs only 24 V, not 36 V. A 12 V heartbeat is only safe for 12 V. There is a little tolerance for those measurements, but rule of thumb is about 10-15% of the rated voltage, so a 12 V bed should not be operated at more than 13.8 V for an extended period.
What actually facilitates heating is the
Current I
aka
Amperage
going through an item, as the formula for the Work P
h
(dissipated in the shape of heat) of the electric resistance R is
$P_h=R I^2$
.
As long as you stay below or at the maximum
rated Power P
r
or
Wattage
of the heating pad
$P_r=U I$
, you can increase the Current up to the limit of
$\frac {P_r} U=I$
. On the bench, with a regulated power supply, we can use that to get a perfect, maximum output as we want it. But the printer isn't a bench with an expensive PSU, we get only something akin to 12 V out of it, so... what to do?
DON'T route in extra Power!
Yea, in DC circuits we can just add batteries behind one another to get twice the Voltage and push a circuit. Or we can put them in parallel, to sum up the current. But that doesn't work just as straightforward in AC circuits (phase shift between parts has to be taken into account). And routing in an extra pair of wires providing 12 V into an already 12 V part would get us something in the order of 24 V and fry the part. You'd accomplish nothing more than turn your heated bed into a fire hazard or a hunk of scrap!
So straight routing in another 12 V on top of what is rated?
NOPE!
Unhooking from the same PSU?
Some printers unhook the bed from the board's PSU, running a (differently) regulated power source. In the best case, it's set up to a Voltage/Current pair that maximizes the bed's heating. In such a setup, the whole heating power runs through a MOSFET that acts as a switch: A signal comes from the board to the MOSFET to allow current to flow. No signal on the Gate of the MOSFET leads to no current reaching the bed and no heating.
However, that is a complicated setup - yet one of the only ways how a "mains voltage bed heater" can be done with a board that runs on 5 V. You
also
will have to route the high power through a properly rated set of wires and connectors. These thicker wires will need proper strain relief as they need larger bending radii than what is installed before. In other words:
you need to know what you do!
Finetuning the power supply to the bed!
In many printers, there's also a less invasive method to finetune the power curve of a bed. usually, there is a Potentiometer that is used to tune the output of the heating wires. Altering the potentiometer's setting with a screwdriver results in the output voltage shifting.
$U=R I$
does not change when flipping to AC but U and I became wave functions instead of constants. However, R of a long wire (such as a bed) does depend only on the frequency of the signal and not on either the current nor the driving potential, we can assume R to be constant. So, we know we want to maximize I². So what can we do easily?
A 24 V heatbed has something in the order of 2 Ω and accompanied mainboard in my Ender3 is - according to the labeling - good for about 13 A on the bed output, while a typical 12 V bed runs in the order of 1.2 Ω while such boards typically are limited to 10-11 A.
$U= RI$
to the resuce and... Voila: For the 11 A/1.2 Ω case we can tune the potentiometer to get just a smidge below 13.2 V - just at the 10 % point, for the 13 A/2 Ω case is
technically
safe at 26 V - and still well within the 10% rule of thumb. However, if you have a 1.2 Ω bed and your borard only allows to draw 10 A, then you are limited to 12 V.


Question:
I'm struggling with bed adhesion for nylon on a glass bed (122 °C measured) in an enclosed chamber (45 °C near the front, likely more on top of the print bed). I used a glue stick to enhance adhesion, but after around 20 minutes the print comes off the bed.

I tried a no-brand glue stick and a Pritt glue stick.

Now I wonder whether they are suitable for the purpose, because nylon should really be printable in these conditions. Maybe the glue cannot hold those 100+ °C temperatures.

How to find out whether a glue stick is PVA-based and suitable for nylon (or polycarbonate, ABS) printing?

Answer:
Not all glue sticks work! The working ingredient of a glue stick is
Polyvinylpyrrolidone
; a more elaborate answer is found
here
on question:
"Why does hairspray work as an adhesive for ABS?"
.
There are very good alternatives to glue sticks and hair spray nowadays. Specific adhesion sprays exist for several years now (e.g. Dimafix, 3DLAC, Magigoo for PA, Plasticz, PrintaFix, Dr.Mat, etc.; my personal experience is with the first 2 mentioned, both work for nylon: Dimafix has more tack at higher temperatures > 80 °C, up to 80 °C 3DLAC works perfect).
E.g. Dimafix has a higher temperature application range than e.g. 3DLAC. From the
manufacturer
can be seen that:
Source:
http://www.dima3d.com/en/home/dimafix/
This image shows that the spray has its maximum tack/adhesion at about 120 °C and holds this adhesion level at least up to about 145 °C according to the image.
However, not all glues get stronger with temperature! PVA (also called PVAc) glues soften very quickly, making them good only at low temperature. See "
Influence of temperature on the strength of bonded joints
" which discloses this graph for PVAc Rhenocoll 3W, 4B Plus:


Question:
From what I've seen, you can take a typical extruder heater, apply the designated supply voltage without temperature control, and as long as the heater isn't contacting something with a flashpoint below the temperature the heater reaches, the heater will not catch on fire.  Thus, unless one catches the filament on fire, it seems that thermal runaway of the extruder heater wouldn't normally start a fire.

I'm not sure what would happen if someone installed wrong components, such as a 12V heater to a 24V supply. What are situations that could cause a 3D print to catch fire?

Answer:
A normal hotend will not melt or cause fires, usually, see first video. However, if the power regulating unit fails as well and higher voltage is supplied (19 V on 12 V cartridge are enough) it can happen, see second video.
Fires are more likely caused by overheating wires, especially where joints are presents.
Hotend runaway does not cause fires from the hotend itself, but it could cause fire related to its wiring. Also, the uncontrolled temperature may make the hot end fan fail, worsening the situation.
Issues canbe caused also by a runaway on the bed and overheating MOSFETs.


Question: I am looking for a way to generate 2D horizontal templates for manually carving an object. My thought was to produce an STL of the model, generate the G-code, and then transform that into slices. Appreciate any suggestions for where to start. I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty with python, R, matlab, whatever.

Answer:
I would approach following way. I saw interesting example of using
Autodesk Fusion 360
to generate moves (G-Code) for carving in vertical slices. Fusion generated moves like for CNC tool in "parallel mode". You can see details in the video
3D printer cutting styrofoam like CNC router
(software setup is presented at 11:00-14:30). Steps/settings important for manual work would be:
selecting parallel strategy
steup length and width of tool - reflecting "depth/width of slice"
check the simulation
create NC program - creating the G-Code file
I think that even if really working manually, the benefit of such approach would be that you focus on one layer/slice at time, and carve in one depth from the top of "material block" to the line defined be two points (the move in G-Code). The trouble could be actual number of such "G-Code lines": there will be probably too many of them, e.g. to measure each by hand and draw on the sufrface. But maybe this could be reduced with resolution (and quality). You could try to use any G-Code visualizer to project lines (of given single layer/slice) with beamer on the material sufrace.
The depth (real width of slice) could be controlled only manually, to avoid carving too deep.
The video uses parallel carving strategy to work in vertical slices. "Adaptive cleanring" strategy could be used to work horizontally.


Question:
My CR-10 S5 has a feature, that stops the print, when the filament runs out.

However, when the printer pauses, the bed cools down and the print plops if the bed. Is there a way to tell the printer to keep the bed heated, when paused (by the runout detector)?

Answer:
This is varying underextrusion due to loss of material to oozing in the interior of the model.
When printing the infill pattern, the nozzle doesn't follow a single continuous extrusion path, but moves from the end of one path to the beginning of the next, and under Cura defaults,
does this without retracting the filament
. This causes unpredictable amounts to ooze out during travel from one to the next, thereby desynchronizing the planned/intended amount of material extruded so far and the actual amount. This means, when the next outer-wall extrusion starts, there's an unpredictable deficiency between the amount of material at the nozzle to extrude, and the amount the slicer intended to extrude. The result is what you're seeing.
To fix it, you need to eliminate oozing, not just outside the model where it appears as visible stringing, but inside too. Either disable "Combing" entirely in Cura, or set "Max Comb Distance With No Retract" to something very low (0.8 mm or less). Also set "Minimum Extrusion Distance Window" to 0 to ensure Cura doesn't skip retractions for other reasons.
You may also want to play with extrusion length and speed. Too short or too long can be bad; 5-7 mm is the reasonable range for PLA with a bowden. Higher speed generally helps too; the printer should be able to handle 50 mm/s or faster.


Question:
After a long battle with SKR Mini v2, TFT35 and BLTouch and creating the right firmware. I thought I was through it all and ready to start printing again after finally being able to set the Z offset and auto level the bed. My printer has other thoughts. Now my bed temperature will only heat up to 10 °C below the set point temperature and after a few minutes it starts beeping and says this on the screen "Heating Failed: Bed Printer Halted, Please Reset". As an example, set it to 60 °C, it will get up to 50 °C normally and stop at 50 °C.

Anyone gone through this? I'm sure there is some setting in the firmware that I have missed up. I'm hoping someone can educate me on my mistake.

Answer:
Searching the error message "Heating Failed: Bed Printer Halted, Please Reset" seems to indicate that the bed heater is timing out from not reaching temperature.
If you measure the voltage applied to the bed heater before the error message, does the voltage stay at Max.; i.e. 12 V for a 12 V bed heater?  Or, does the voltage stay constant?
If you raise the target bed temperature, does is still error out at stop at 50 °C?
Since you only indicate changing firmware, we would assume the bed heater is the same as when previously working.  Is this true?
Is the resistance of the bed heater a few ohms and not megaohms?


Question:
I am looking to 3D print some small molds that will allow wood glue to dry but not stick.

Is there a recommended filament that is known to resist binding to simple wood glue?

Alternately, is there an inexpensive adhesive (like wood glue) I could use instead that will not stick to the 3D printed mold?

Answer:
You are looking for a filament that does not bond to wood glue, or as weak as possible. You misunderstand how wood glue "bonds" to plastics:
Wood glue is typically PVA. It
bonds
to wood and paper by seeping into them before curing and hardening. The mesh of the glue entangles fibers of the wood/paper and itself, bonding with not only the exposed surface but also with material up to the depth it penetrates.
When such a glue is applied to a typical print surface, it seeps into the cracks and through print imperfections but does not penetrate the print to the same degree as it does in the open wood fiber setup. It clings to the surface and only bonds - if it does - only to the surface layers. The
same
effect happens when you cast resin into for example a silicone mold: there is much less chemical bonding, at best at the interface, and quite some interlock.
To prevent such, two things should be made: first, you need to smooth the mold as much as possible and have all the angles right.  It might be easier and faster to coat the hard molds in a smooth lacquer, which not only removes the creep areas but also acts as an interlayer, making release easier.
Then, you should use a mold release agent. Mold release agents come in many shapes: I have seen Talcum Powder being used effectively for both metal as well as cold casts, if the shape of the mold was well made (no undercuts, no unpowdered areas). Easier to apply are usually mold release sprays for many applications - careful, some are PVA based and would be the same as the glue you want to cast. For a concrete casting, I had used plant fat as a decent mold release agent.
What might be an alternative to wood glue depends on what you want to do with the finished product.
As far as materials that actively don't bond go, you could look into POM (Which is a pain to print and expensive - it's a bearing material) or nylon (also a pain to print).


Question:
I am looking at printing a fair amount of text, ideally using some custom fonts. I quite like Stay Classy but will likely have to consider change if it causes issues.

I am a little stuck on where to start with using these in some tools. I have tried creating an SVG using the font and importing to Tinkercad however that always fails. I only want to print the text, nothing else.

How do I properly convert my font into .svg and import that so I can make my bodies? While I have tried Tinkercad I am open to alternative tools if this can be achieved more easily.

Answer:
Fonts are not saved in a format that is .svg compatible. However, text that is written in a font and saved as a black-and-white picture can be turned into a .svg by software. This .svg can be imported by Tinkercad then.
Step 1: Text Picture
Use any software to create a .png or .jpg or something similar. Among the multitude of programs that can do this are GIMP and Adobe Photoshop. Even Paint can do this, or any word processor and then screen capture. If you know your Inkscape, you can skip this.
Step 2: making the .svg
Either you use software like
Inkscape
to import your picture and trace the outlines, or you use a web service. For example
Convertino
or the
Fontquirrel Webfont generator
. You only need the outlines, no filling!
In Inkscape the rundown to tracing is:
File/Import
Path/Trace Bitmap
Update
OK
Step 3: Import
You got your outline .svg, so import that into any software and you can start making your embossed letters. Personally, I would use Fusion360, but most CAD software support importing an SVG and treat that the same as if you had sketched in that software.


Question:
I need to print a rotor for a DC motor I'm designing. In the process of testing the behaviors of the motor performances, I would need a material that will not deform at a temperature range between 100 °C to 150 °C.

Since I don't have a 3D printer yet, I would like to know what would be the best choice for my need.
I was planning to buy an Ender 3, but I'm not sure this entry-level 3D printer will allow me to obtain the results I'm looking for. I'm excluding PLA material because I think it's the most "fragile" material from this point of view and for my needs.

My questions are:

Which material should I use in order to have a 3D printed object (rotor) that will not deform at a temperature that varies from 100 °C to 150 °C?

Can an Ender 3 (planning to use full metal hotend and also hotbed) be used to print the filament that is heat resistant? Should I buy a resin 3D printer?

Answer:
PEEK (poly ether ether ketone) has a glass transition temperature of 145 °C (293 °F).
Melting temperature
345 °C (653 °F)
Nozzle temperature
370 - 410 °C
Heated bed
120 - 150 °C
Polycarbonate has a glass transition temperature of about 147 °C (297 °F)
Polypropylene has a glass transition temperature is 215 °C
Polymaker PolyMide CoPA (specialized Nylon) Filament has a softening temperature of ~180 °C, but they don't specify the glass transition temperature.  Other materials have the glass transition temperature about 5 °C below the temperature the material softens.
However, the glass transition temperature is only an indication of a physical change: while uncommon, a material may be rigid enough well above it's glass transition temperature.
How to interpret various thermal-related filament properties?
A side issue to consider as far as layout is FDM prints are weakest between layers (layer separation), so you want a layout where this affects your print the least.


Question: After seeing a question about FDM printing of temperature-resistant parts, high-temperature 2-part epoxy came to mind. Are there any (experimental or production) FDM extruders for laying viscous, fast-curing epoxy, mixing it at the last moment before extrusion? Or likewise other cured/resin materials, either 2-part or UV-cured (with whole print volume flooded with UV)?

Answer:
Is this what you're looking for?
(
https://the3dprinterbee.com/how-does-a-resin-3d-printer-work-sla-dlp-lcd-explained/
)
Material Beam
Material blasting is a unique 3D resin printing technology that can be compared to an office inkjet printer. It is also considered one of the fastest and most accurate 3D printing technologies available for resin printing today.
Material Beam 3D printers are similar to inkjet 3D printers in that they also have a print head from which thousands of tiny resin droplets are applied to the building platform and then cured with UV light. Once a layer has been completed, the building platform automatically lowers to the height of a layer and the process is repeated until the object is completed.
The technology of material blasting enables high dimensional accuracy, but speed is also a convincing point. The process in which the resin droplets are ejected from several print heads, which in turn move back and forth over the building platform, is known as line-by-line cutting. This ensures that multiple parts can be produced without affecting the build speed. As a user, you also have the choice between matte and shiny surfaces on your 3D printed object. However, the individual components for material beam technology are very cost-intensive. Other disadvantages are the waste of material when you choose to print matt surfaces and the low strength of the 3D printed parts.


Question:
I got this message from my Creality Ender 6 printer.

Now every time I want to print, or when it heats up, the printer gives me this message.

Can anyone please help with this?

Answer:
Someone with experience using an Ender may give a more specific answer to you question.  This is a general answer, not for a specific model.
"Soon enough" is saying the printer timed out before reaching temperature.
Do you see the temperature increasing on both the hot end and bed?  If one doesn't, that's where the failure occurs.
Are you setting a temperature higher than you have ever used on this printer?  If so, check to see if you are beyond the printers capability.
The hotend will reach temperature first. Does it reach the target temperature? If so, the issue is probably with your bed heater.  If not, the issue is with your hot end.
If you are pushing the extremes of your heaters, especially the bed heater, and your printer isn't in an enclose, you may need and enclosure to run that temperature.
Once you determine where the issue is at, there are things to can do to determine what is failing.


Question:
I'm using Cura to slice prints from a biodegradable polyester called PCL (Polycaprolactone).

I need to print @ ~70 °C but extruder does not run until nozzle reaches 175 °C.

Which setting to change so extruder will turn on when nozzle temperature has reached 70 °C?

Here are my settings for the material:

Answer:
70 °C is a specialty filament. It is well below the
```
MIN_TEMP
```
defined in any sane firmware. In Marlin, you
can't
turn on the extruder in any way, while this is online.
You do need to define your firmware to allow such a print - either by dropping the value in the firmware or disabling Mintemp-protection and then
flashing that firmware
. That is quite invasive.
To
temporarily
disable the
```
MIN_TEMP
```
, you need to run the G-code
```
M302 P1
```
or
```
M302 S0
```
-
```
M302
```
on its own does nothing. However, some firmware distributions might explicitly prevent these two commands of
turning off
the check.
In that case, you might use
```
M302 S65
```
or similar to drop the
```
MIN_TEMP
```
.


Question:
I've just changed the motherboard on my Ender 3 Pro with a MKS GEN_L v1.0 and flashed the latest Marlin version on it.

I've calibrated my bed manually using the default XY and Z auto home commands on OctoPrint and a piece of paper.

I'm happy with the calibration, however whenever I launch a print the Z axis moves up from the calibrated position by about 4 mm and starts extruding.

I've checked my Z endstop status with M119 and it's triggered at the right calibrated position.

How can I correct this?

Answer:
If you are already sure that homing is performed correctly and in valid position, then there are few reasons why printer may start printing in unexpected position.
Do the following checks to narrow down the actual one:
steps/mm
: use
```
M503
```
(or
```
M92
```
without parameters) to check if currently configured steps/mm match
your hardware setup
for each axis
offsets:
use
```
M503
```
(or
```
M206
```
without parameters) to check that there are no offsets configured
backoff:
look in
Configuration_adv.h
for following line:
```
```
//#define HOMING_BACKOFF_POST_MM { 2, 2, 2 }  // (mm) Backoff from endstops after homing
```
```
(Having the backoff set is nothing wrong, actually. But be sure to also check final positioning in the generated file.)
slicer's Start G-code:
review slicer configuration, if there is nothing suspicious injected to the print file, which could temporarily overrid printer setup - esepecially
M428
,
M206
,
G92
(set position is normal for E in relative extrusion mode, but suspicious for X,Y,Z)
generated file:
review initial part of generated G-Code file, if there are any similar surprises, and if on initial layer section there is expected move to valid Z position before extrusion is made


Question:
Apply / find / create a stainless steel coating to apply to a PETG or PLA part to make it react to a magnet.

My goal is to make a small tubular and conical shapes that can be painted with a stainless steel coating and will react with a magnet.

I know I can buy iron filled PLA but these rust which I want to avoid.  I'm trying to get the magnetic properties of stainless steel (no rusting / reacts to magnets)

I have found videos on how to coat with copper / silver / carbon but I'm looking for stainless steel no rust / magnetic properties.

I'm looking for a "low-cost" solution just for testing.

Answer:
The surface won't work
The only true-metallic surface treatments I know to be actual metal in large enough amounts to conduct electricity would be leafmetal, akin to leaf gold, and electroplating. However, you can't use the procedures for stainless steels, and even then, the thickness is in the tenth of a µm area and lower. Not only would that be far too thin to adhere a magnet to, it also would be super easy to damage with rubbing.
Filling?
PLA itself does not block magnetism - I have printed a PLA holder for a magnetic GPS device, into which I inserted a simple 0.5 mm steel plate for a magnetic surface with 0.5 mm of PLA acting as the container and seal against water.
If the prints can be done with one end open and no infill or have a dedicated area that a cheap piece of steel can be inserted into, this method can be used too. The only requirement is that there is a cavity on the inside that at some point is accessible. This also can be during the print.
This cavity could either take a piece of shaped steel sheet or be filled with a different magnetic filler, for example, simple iron powder. The powder could be bound in a non-oxidizing polymer, for example, epoxy resin. This method has been used to
create cast stators for electro motors
. It's
not the most efficient
, but might work in your application - if your walls are thin enough.
With the correct mixture, such a material can be used to coat or fill the inside with enough magnetic material to give the magnets something to stick to and not rust away - the shell and the resin together would shield the iron from any air that could rust it. Indeed, a quite stuffed Resin-Iron-mix and a strong magnet have been
used in 2012 to create furniture by the name of "Gravity Stools"
or other art pieces like in
this video


Question:
I have a 3D printer built from generic, scrap parts.
It's controlled by a 2+ years old MKS GEN L board running Marlin version 1.1.x.

I want to do a complete bed assembly replacement, including:

Heated bed

Thermistor

Y-carriage

All the hardware bits, including the z-endstop are sorted and ready to be installed.

My question is:

Once I replace the assembly, what kind of software / firmware modifications do I need to do to Marlin configuration for my printer to work correctly?

I understand that I need to modify dimensions and offsets but I am unsure what else will I need to change within the codebase before flashing Marlin.

Answer:
The surface won't work
The only true-metallic surface treatments I know to be actual metal in large enough amounts to conduct electricity would be leafmetal, akin to leaf gold, and electroplating. However, you can't use the procedures for stainless steels, and even then, the thickness is in the tenth of a µm area and lower. Not only would that be far too thin to adhere a magnet to, it also would be super easy to damage with rubbing.
Filling?
PLA itself does not block magnetism - I have printed a PLA holder for a magnetic GPS device, into which I inserted a simple 0.5 mm steel plate for a magnetic surface with 0.5 mm of PLA acting as the container and seal against water.
If the prints can be done with one end open and no infill or have a dedicated area that a cheap piece of steel can be inserted into, this method can be used too. The only requirement is that there is a cavity on the inside that at some point is accessible. This also can be during the print.
This cavity could either take a piece of shaped steel sheet or be filled with a different magnetic filler, for example, simple iron powder. The powder could be bound in a non-oxidizing polymer, for example, epoxy resin. This method has been used to
create cast stators for electro motors
. It's
not the most efficient
, but might work in your application - if your walls are thin enough.
With the correct mixture, such a material can be used to coat or fill the inside with enough magnetic material to give the magnets something to stick to and not rust away - the shell and the resin together would shield the iron from any air that could rust it. Indeed, a quite stuffed Resin-Iron-mix and a strong magnet have been
used in 2012 to create furniture by the name of "Gravity Stools"
or other art pieces like in
this video


Question:
Since I have lots of PETG, I ran tuning to 230 °C (average temp for my filaments).
What is it good for, in terms of temperature ranges?

For the same printer configuration, and just different filaments, will I need to run it again and again?
Let's assume that I'll be printing between 200 °C and 240 °C.

Answer:
It's not a straight answer, but you don't have to run PID tuning every time you decide to print with different temperature. (Until you change something in a hardware near or related to the hotend.)
You can tune PID for different temperatures and grab necessary values, for example:
```
```
M303 C16 D1 E0 S190
22:14:31.872 > PID Autotune finished! Put the last Kp, Ki and Kd constants from below into Configuration.h
22:14:31.886 > #define DEFAULT_Kp 30.87
22:14:31.886 > #define DEFAULT_Ki 3.06
22:14:31.886 > #define DEFAULT_Kd 77.75
```
```
and then store respective G-code commands (like
```
M301 P30.87 I3.06 D77.75
```
) as few different "PID profiles" as new entries in
custom menu for Marlin
or
menu.cfg for Klipper
for quick switching.


Question:
Repetier-host has a setting to specify the "print area". That's roughly the size of the bed.

Note that the printer head can go out of those bounds, in my case my bed is very undersized compared to the printer frame, but this would also be an issue if you had clips or some obstacles in the bed.

Is there a similar setting in Cura where I can specify the "print area"/"bed size"/"margins" to be different from the printer width/depth?

Thanks.

Repetier host settings:

Answer:
The print area settings would be in the Preferences > Printers. Select the particular printer on the left side pane, then click the "Machine Settings" button.
You will need to set a printing offset
(
```
M206
```
)
in Marlin: via
Start G-code
in Cura, or any other suitable way (LCD configuration, configuration files, etc.).


Question:
I have PLA and PETG filament.

I hear that 3D filament absorbs water and causes problems when printing but after printing they can be used with water and they are water proof.

So my question is why is it different after printing/what has changed to make it now waterproof?

Is PETG waterproof or does it absorb water?

Is there a limit on how much water PETG can absorb or will it keep going until it splits and turns to mush?

Answer:
Filament that absorbs water prior to printing is subject to boiling temperatures as it passes through the heater block. In extreme cases, steam will be visible and a spitting sound will be heard. The filament will expand as the water exits, causing multiple structural and printing problems.
Once printed, dry filament may absorb water from the atmosphere, but is unlikely to be subject to boiling temperatures.
Waterproofing as a general consideration usually means the ability to keep water out, which is possible if the model is sealed and some printing conditions will adhere each layer well enough to the previous one to provide floating-type waterproofing.
PETG is hydroscopic, which means it will absorb moisture from the air. When printed properly (layer adhesion), the model can be waterproof.
These terms are independent and should not be used interchangeably.


Question:
I'm having a "minor" stringing issue, where I'm only getting stringing in helpers/support and infill area.

Background: Calibrating printer with 1 roll of PLA. Still getting minimal stringing, but mainly, stringing in helpers/support and infill areas. Tried different temps, but didn't seem to affect this.

Suspect some kind of slicer optimization settings? I mean, it's logical to not care about how pretty supports & infill look.

I would like to understand why this is happening.
Please point me to the right direction.
Thanks in advance.

Example photo: Outside in: brim, shell/wall, support, brim.
From Thingiverse.

Answer:
It would be great if you could add an image showing the stringing that occurs on the filled and helper/support part of the print. It's quite difficult to visualise what is happening/your problem.
I would assume that the density/fill of the print will be different for infill versus helper/support parts of the print. As a result, there are more gaps in the helper/support parts and stringing can more easily occur between them.
Have you tried enabling z-hop/retraction to prevent further stringing?