Nice, I like the lime green joints. Can't wait for it to be fully assembled. Will it be belt driven or fishing line driven?

By the way, I just received my shipment of 3D printer parts, including the hot ends I have mentioned earlier.


Have not tried them yet but I have confirmed the nozzle size to be 0.3 mm. Hopefully the heater cartridge won't burn down my printer.

Fishing line is cheap and plentiful but its hard to find thick ones like 1 mm diameter ones, I am still searching for it . As long as the line can take the weight of the carriage and whatever is on it, it shouldn't be a problem. You might have to tension the line properly to have it run smoothly.

About your mendel bed, the unevenness of the bed could be due to the heater bed warping at different areas. The auto level can only do so much as to align the bed to a flat plane but not one that cancels out unevenness.

UGPM.

Maybe you have to check the carriage for bumps or bent linear rods which could also translate to unevenness since the bed isn't the culprit.

50lb, about 20 kg

Nice, you could also try changing your z-axis couplers to pla couplers. I have made PLA couplers for my 3D printer and have uploaded it to Thingiverse, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:315736. You might want to try out printing couplers available for your printer.

Hmm, could be due to the changes made to the system. It can't be due to the firmware unless you have updated the firmware recently. Can you try printing without the leveling feature?

Are these from the china supplier? Anyway, I am not too sure about your nozzle but you can try and take apart everything and soak them in acetone then use a sharp needle to pick out the blockage at the nozzle end.

Acetone will soften and expand PLA, doesn't dissolve. Since its Ebay, you might want to complain to the seller and maybe get a refund.

Did you unscrew the nozzle to clean? Maybe try adding a few layers of teflon/PTFE tape on the nozzle threading and see if it still leaks.

Hi and welcome to the discussion. As a beginner, I wouldn't recommend starting off with ninjaflex because its a difficult material to print and I have known filament suppliers having problems with this material. As @DarktTennon mentioned, I would also recommend PLA for new reprap users before trying out other materials.

Changing hotend is an operator preference but for me, I would rather use one hotend for each material to prevent material mixing and contamination which could lead to problems such as nozzle clogging.

Another company you can try buying from is Printrbot.com. I bought my 3D printer from them and I am very impressed by the build quality and service they provide. Their printers now comes with autobed leveling using a proximity sensor. Its quite expensive, almost 3k for me including shipping and gst but the reliability is superb. Just don't buy their filaments.

You might want to check out http://reprap.org/ and their how to build a 3D printer section.

Wanted to buy the kit but during launch day but they only sell the pre-assembled one. The kit is USD 50 less and I recommend you go for the kit not just because its cheaper but you get the experience in building a 3D printer and you won't have problems with delivery later on. Unlike my pre-assembled printer, it came with a broken coupler due to mishandling from the shipping company.

BTW, I currently own a Printrbot Simple All-Metal.

Currently I am sourcing for parts in Malaysia as well as Singapore to build a 3D printer of my own requirement.

Yup, manage to attach the china hotend to my Printrbot extruder with out any mods. It was a tight fit since the china hot end was 0.05 mm too wide.


I have not work out the wiring yet but will get to it maybe tonight. Also have to readjust the proximity sensor height as the china hotend is about 10 mm shorter than the stock UBIS hotend. Hopefully will be able to calibrate this properly.

Also, I won't start any prints until I burn in the heater cartridge for half a day. I will let all of you know when I get my first print out of the china hotend.

In the mean time, I tried @QwikFab crystal clear filament at 0.4 mm wall thickness, 0.2 mm layer resolution, and no fill and this is what I got.

I am now using Cura 14.06 from ultimaker as my slicer software. Previously using Cura 14.03 and Cura 12 (version 12 su**s). Its easier to use because there is less settings to play with and I get good prints out of my printer.

Slic3r is good in a way that there are more settings to play and fine tune with but their slicing engine is much faster than what Cura can do for large prints. Usually once you get the right parameters, the parameters will apply well for many prints.

Still, its depends on user preference as I will stick to Cura because I am quite lazy at fine tuning slicer parameters and I find it good enough for all my prints.

Ninjaflex or TPU is quite an expensive material right now. The last I check, you can get a 500 gram spool for less than RM 200. I don't know any local vendors that stock this material as it is considered specialized material. Also if you are planning to print using this material on your own, then I wish you good luck.

So welcome to the 3D printer discussion. You have to find outside sources for those filaments, I don't recommend Ebay from what @DarkTenno has experience for PLA filaments. The nearest supplier is in Singapore for Ninjaflex, you can try this vendor Meka, just let him know I recommended him to you. As for softPLA, I don't know any vendor nearby that has this material. You could also try contacting a local vendor that sells 3D printer filament for help, if they are willing to do so.

I know about Skeinforge but never really tried it yet. . Another slicer software you could use but can be a pain is Makerbot Makerware. Although its for makerbot replicator 2 but you can trick the software with proper placement of the object and export it as gcode.

This post has been edited by altan: Jul 2 2014, 05:33 PM

Oh no, when I came back and take another look at my printer I realize the z-axis cannot go down towards the bed any further than the stock hotend.

Looks like I have to revert back to the UBIS hotend and then spend time designing and printing an adapter for my printer to extend the china hotend further down by 10 mm.

Good idea but for this particular printer, the bed has GT2 belting mounted across the two ends of the bed, raising it would mean raising the stepper motor, pulley and limit switch.

This post has been edited by altan: Jul 3 2014, 05:49 PM

True enough but I may end up using it for different materials in the long run and as replacement in case my hotend fails, touch wood . About raising the bed, I do need an aluminium plate for the top most layer so the proximity/metal sensor can detect it when it does the auto level bed feature and the Z-axis homing. Before this, I tried sticking a thin sheet of aluminium on a thick perspex plate but for some reason the aluminium sheet isn't really flat at some parts so my first layer prints didn't form properly. I have to consider getting thick and super flat 3 to 4 mm aluminium sheets for this trick to work. By the way, the auto bed feature probes three points and compensate the height throughout the bed based on a flat square.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas. I will certainly consider your these ides in some problems I may encounter with this or other printers.

I have seen those aluminum tapes at Ace hardware too. Currently where I am now, there isn't any Ace hardware for miles. I will probably pop into some local hardware store and see if they have any.

Finally manage to get my clone J-head Hotend to work on the Printrbot. I decided to make an adapter that allows me to attach a J-Head to the Printrbot extruder and extend the hotend closer to the bed. You will notice the hotend is much longer than the stock UBIS hotend so now the fan blows at the insulator and not the nozzle end. I notice the 40w heater cartridge is a little too powerful as it overshoots the set temp by about 8% to 10% during warm up.



I manage to print out the 5mm step cube I used for the stock hotend. I realize the nozzle I have set for the step cube in the slicer was for a 0.4 mm nozzle but I manage to print it out with a 0.3 mm nozzle.



I have also uploaded the design to Thingiverse in case anyone wants a Printrbot J-Head Adaptor.

Now to print more stuff and see when the heater cartridge fails.

This post has been edited by altan: Jul 6 2014, 02:47 AM