Tag: 3dprint

You can get “bands,” or horizontal lines across your print for many reasons. Typically, it means that something is loose. It’s not always obvious where to start looking, though. I usually look at the roller bearings first. Then I make sure all the nuts and bolts are tight. Then I check the belt tension. Just keep going through your machine until you find something that wiggles more than it should and tighten it. It’s not a glamorous process, but you should be going through your machine periodically anyway. 

Salmon skin, I’m guessing most people have seen this.

In a word, salmon skin is the result of vibrations. Your nozzle isn’t exactly where the printer thinks it is while it is extruding, which causes variations in the surface texture of the finished part.

To improve your surface finish, go through the components of your printer and make sure they are tight. Like many things, some parts of your printer loosen up over time. It’s a good practice to make sure everything is tight periodically anyway. Make sure all of the bolts and nuts are tight, make sure that your roller bearings are smooth. Make sure that your printhead doesn’t have any slop in it if you try to move it with your hand, etc.

Regular maintenance checks should get rid of most of the effects of salmon skin.

Every once in a while I want to pause a print at a specific height. Sometimes it is to change filament, other times it is to add a weight or embed something into the print before it continues printing.

Frustratingly, many printers come with this functionality disabled. If you run into this roadblock too, you have a few options, all of them require reflashing the firmware.

  • Many manufacturers publish their firmware on places like github. You can download it, activate the settings, then reflash your firmware.
  • On Thingiverse, I have found many versions of firmware that people have created where they have updated to activate the most common settings. Just download and flash onto your printer.
  • Download and install something like Klipper, where you can easily enable or disable settings like this with just a printer.cfg file.

Whatever option you choose, it does require a certain comfort level with flashing new firmware onto your printer.

Every once in a while, someone asks about Z offset within a Klipper configuration. More often than not, I advise people not to use it. But, it’s there for a reason, so what exactly is it?

I often see people do a mesh bed level on their printer, then try to set a Z offset from the bed to the nozzle of their printer, and then start printing. Unless you need a few grooves in your bed, I would not advise this method.

Z offset is used when your printer has some type of probe (BLTouch, for example) that is used to automatically create your mesh bed level. The XYZ distance from your probe tip to your nozzle tip needs to be determined and calibrated against, so that when you use it to create a mesh bed level you end up with a valid map.

If you don’t have a probe, you probably don’t want to do anything with Z offset.

I want to briefly talk about how a temperature tower is intended to work.

Every printer configuration and filament composition have a slightly different optimal temperature setting. The temperature tower is a method to find that optimal setting.

For PLA it’s usually between 195 and 205, so I start my temperature tower around 185 and finish around 215. You can apply the same logic to other materials. When you print it, let’s say that for the particular brand that you are working with that your optimal setting is 195 and you start your tower at 185. You will see a steady progression of improvement as your tower goes toward 195, then steady declining in quality as your temperature tower passes 195 and continues to heat up.

Filament, or rather, improper use and storage of filament, can cause a lot of issues. 

Most of it is porous. What this means is that it will absorb moisture over time, especially in humid areas. If you do end up using wet filament, you might notice a couple of things. It might pop or bubble as it is extruded as the moisture boils. It might extrude with holes in the filament for the same reason. Almost certainly, your printed part will have a very poor surface finish.

To remedy this, store filament in a dry area and, as an extra measure, dehydrate it before use.

Clunk.

Clunk, clunk, clunk.

My printer is in the next room from where I work, and that’s what I heard one day. I watched it for a few minutes, but it didn’t take long for me to realize what was causing the noise. Every time the printer would move in Z it would clunk.

I’ve spent so many hours dialing in my settings, making sure that my table is level, etc but I forgot something important. Lube the Z axis lead screws. Make sure that they are tight in the motors and don’t spin unless the motor is spinning.

Someday, I plan on putting together a maintenance checklist. This will definitely be on it.

Material buildup. Your whole print is 20mm high except for in one corner of the print, where it seems that the nozzle is laying down extra material with each pass.

Chances are, it’s probably not. Most likely it is cooling, or lack of cooling actually. When your fan starts going out it doesn’t provide enough airflow to the part to cool it adequately. Then you get buildup in the areas of the part that are the most affected. 

I have a gantry machine with two separate z motors, each with their own endstop. The other day I homed my machine and the left side was significantly higher than the right.

Thinking that my machine was down and that I’d at least have to get a new endstop or something, I decided to go get some coffee and think it over.

When I got back and investigated further, I realized that the left side had come down on top of the cable that supplies power to the motor. A quick zip tie to make sure it stayed out of the way and a rehome and I was in business.

Sometimes it’s the simple things.