My first print

I purchased my first 3D printer and I have it kind of up and running. I created a 10MM x 10MM x 10MM cube in FreeCAD, sliced it with slic3r, and printed it with pronterface.

The base appears to be 10mm x 10 mm, but it ended up about 7 mm tall. It seems like it was not extruding enough material.

The printer is a Mendel with Gen6 electronics. I left all settings at their default except the filament size. I set it to 1.75 MM since that is what I'm using.

Can anyone tell from the picture what I should change?

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3D Printer: Reprap Original Mendel with RAMPS 1.4 electronics, j-head MK V-BV 0.4MM extruder, Wade's geared extruder, setup for 1.75MM filament

When I read your post I thought I would see a nicely formed cube albeit not tall enough but I see you have some problems for sure. It looks like you may be using PLA?.. If so, then a cube that small will spend a lot of its time "in the oven" so to speak. Its better to make 2 of them at a time and you should use a fan aimed at the part. I would start by making something bigger.
Anyway, have you calibrated your extruder and measured your filament with calipers?. This must be done as indeed should the rest of the printer (X,Y,Z axes) etc.
What temps are your hot-end and bed set to?

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Waitaki 3D Printer

It seems that there has been a problem after the first 2-3 layers. The picture is too bright so it isn't clear what the problem was. Maybe there has been an extrusion problem at the third layer and the remaining layers couldn't be deposited on top of the lower ones, which resulted in the clumping of the filament. Like waitaki, I'd also recommend you to print a bigger object to be able to see obvious problems in printing.

My prints are getting better. In the first picture attached the newest attempt is on the left and the oldest is on the right, As you can see, each one gets a little better. After my first attempt to print just a single 10x10x10mm cube, I printed two at a time, then I printed 4 at a time.

I then used a caliper to measure my filament. So it turns out my 1.75 mm filament was only 1.66 mm average from several measurements. I changed slic3r to use 1.66 mm filament for the latest test.

My heated print bed is not controlled by the electronics. I manually plug in a separate power supply to heat it up. I measured the temperature of the bed after it had been on for a long time and it read 140 F (60 C).

I also turned the cubes upside down and took a picture of the bottoms. It appears they melted somewhat and mushroomed out. What would be a good temp for the bed when using PLA? What are good temps for the hotend when printing with PLA?

I tried putting a fan blowing directly on the bed when printing. It cooled the bed and parts quite a bit and after several layers the parts came loose from the bed and I had to cancel the printing. Maybe I need a slightly smaller fan or to move it farther away.

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3D Printer: Reprap Original Mendel with RAMPS 1.4 electronics, j-head MK V-BV 0.4MM extruder, Wade's geared extruder, setup for 1.75MM filament

Extruder 185C, bed 60C

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Waitaki 3D Printer

UNABLE TO PRINT.
Although my printer is set up and connected to my laptop correctly (I suppose), when I send print, nothing happens. There is no complain about connectivity with the printer and my software Repetier Host is showing printer connected, no movement by the printer. I know that my motors may not be properly labelled. The 2 top motors are are labelled Y, and the side motor, X and the bottom for hotbed , Z. I am using Melzi board. Any help will be appreciated.

I lowered the temp to 185 and printed four more cubes. They are nice cubes that are very well formed. The only issue I have is they came out 10mm x 10 mm x 6.5 mm. The Z axis seems to be off. How to I adjust or calibrate the Z axis? Can I change that in the slicer settings or do I need to tweak the firmware.

Yep, change it in firmware. Have a look at this ...

[reprap.org]

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Waitaki 3D Printer

That guide has great calculations to determine the settings. What it doesn't do is tell me how to see what the current settings are or how to change them. I've seen a link for how to backup and upload the firmware. I have not seen how to document the current settings, make changes to the .h files and upload them to the board.

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3D Printer: Reprap Original Mendel with RAMPS 1.4 electronics, j-head MK V-BV 0.4MM extruder, Wade's geared extruder, setup for 1.75MM filament

When pronterface connects to the printer I get this status message.

start
Printer is now online
echo: Marlin: 1.0.0 RC2
echo: Last Updated: 2012-02-25 | Author: erik
echo: Free Memory: 1506 PlannerBufferBytes: 1232
echo: Using Default settings:
echo: Steps per unit:
echo: M92 X39.02 Y38.47 Z3240.00 E176.00
echo: Maximum feedrates (mm/s):
echo: M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z5.00 E45.00
echo: Maximum Acceleration (mm/s2):
echo: M201 X9000 Y9000 Z100 E10000
echo: Acceleration: S=acceleration, T=retract acceleration
echo: M204 S4000.00 T3500.00
echo: Advanced variables: S=Min feedrate (mm/s), T=Min travel feedrate (mm/s), B=minimum segment time (ms), X=maximum xY jerk (mm/s), Z=maximum Z jerk (mm/s)
echo: M205 S0.00 T0.00 B20000 X6.00 Z0.40 E5.00
echo: PID settings:
echo: M301 P22.20 I1.08 D114.00

So from that, it looks like I need to increase the steps per unit for the Z axis by 1.5 times. That means I'd change it from 3240 to 4860.

I tried the link to backup the current firmware before I started making changes and it doesn't work for me. Can anyone help me with what I'm doing wrong?

Here is the command line from the Gen6 electronics page.

avrdude -c avrisp -b 38400 -i 10 -p m644p -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -F -U flash:r:factory_gen6.hex:i

Since I'm running Windows and my printer is on COM10 USB I tried this command.

avrdude -c avrisp -b 38400 -i 10 -p m644p -P COM10 -F -U flash:r:factory_gen6.hex:i

When I run that command, I get this error.

avrdude: can't open config file "": Invalid argument
avrdude: error reading system wide configuration file ""

Any help would be appreciated.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2014 09:34AM by EmailGuy.

I found another thread that had examples of how to change the stepper settings using M commands through pronterface. That is much easier than flashing new firmware.

For example, I can change the steps for the Z axis with these commands:

M92 Z1234.56
M500

The M92 command would set the steps for the Z axis to 1234.56 and the M500 command saves those settings. Using the M501 command it displays the current settings.

I found the Z axis moves the correct distance in pronterface, but not the correct amount when printing. It may be an acceleration setting. I can change those using M commands as well. I just need to know what I should change.