The Official 3d Printing thread

[Mounty09]

I have two different bike racks on my pickup. They are the same style of rack where they only clamp on the wheels of the bike. One has a wheel chock and the other doesn't. I decided that the one needed a wheel chock to make it easier to center the bike on the rack and make it so the wheel doesn't flop around when driving. Fired up Solidworks and spent a little time designing. Sent it over to the Raise3d printer and hit go. Very happy with the results.

 

[russc2542]

I think I have a problem... I picked up a trio of Ender 3v2 printers LOL. I'm Up to 9 (functioning) for no reason but they're fun.

Anyone messing with klipper?
I discovered the Creality Sonic Pad a few weeks ago and have been watching videos, tuning, and ramping up print speeds. Pretty cool. The SP is Creality's easy-button version of klipper that basically comes with pre-loaded profiles for several of their printers. It's not plug it in and poof magic but it allows you to do a lot of tuning that lets you speed printing up a lot.

 

[bashMOH]

I think I have a problem... I picked up a trio of Ender 3v2 printers LOL. I'm Up to 9 (functioning) for no reason but they're fun.

Anyone messing with klipper?
I discovered the Creality Sonic Pad a few weeks ago and have been watching videos, tuning, and ramping up print speeds. Pretty cool. The SP is Creality's easy-button version of klipper that basically comes with pre-loaded profiles for several of their printers. It's not plug it in and poof magic but it allows you to do a lot of tuning that lets you speed printing up a lot.

I've got an Ender 3 from about 2018 that I'm trying to spin up again. I've not heard of Klipper. I've been out of the printing game for about 3 years. I'll have to look into it

 

[jkaetz]

Anyone messing with klipper?
I discovered the Creality Sonic Pad a few weeks ago and have been watching videos, tuning, and ramping up print speeds. Pretty cool. The SP is Creality's easy-button version of klipper that basically comes with pre-loaded profiles for several of their printers. It's not plug it in and poof magic but it allows you to do a lot of tuning that lets you speed printing up a lot.

Looks nice, but does it require an account with them? I don't have any desire to rely on their "cloud" to do my prints. Thus I'm still flipping the SD card back and forth in my CR-10 Smart Pro.

 

[russc2542]

I've got an Ender 3 from about 2018 that I'm trying to spin up again. I've not heard of Klipper. I've been out of the printing game for about 3 years. I'll have to look into it

Klipper runs on a rasberryPi (or full computer, tablet, some people even use old phones). It slaves the printer to it so the little low power printer motherboard just has to carry out commands while the klipper device does all the control and calculations. That means it can read the gcode files faster (IE you can only print a circle (made of lots of little lines) so fast before it can't read commands as fast as it's moving the motors). It also lets you tune acceleration, cornering, pressure advance, resonance, etc so you can physically run the printer faster to match the software speed without artifacts and errors. It also has built in support for web-cams and, I think, print error detection (IE Spaghettification). WIFI print support. probably 50 other things I haven't figured out yet. It lets you really wring the last couple % of performance from the printer.

The sonic pad is a pre-made device running linux/Klipper with some of their profiles pre-loaded but has a few things locked down... think of it like buying a phone from your carrier vs an unlocked one. it's pre-configured with their printer profiles but you can mod them and add your own too. From what I've read, the early versions were a lot more locked down but the latest couple updates have opened it up a lot more like normal klipper. It has 4 USB ports that can run printers or cameras (4 printers, 2 printers-2 cameras, 1 printer-3 cameras).

Looks nice, but does it require an account with them? I don't have any desire to rely on their "cloud" to do my prints. Thus I'm still flipping the SD card back and forth in my CR-10 Smart Pro.

You can print via the creality account but no need to sign up/sign in to any service. You can transfer by USB stick (No SD slot though) or wifi direct from the slicer. Local control is via IP address in the browser.

 

[bashMOH]

Watched this video below and wow. If I had a week and $150, I'd do this in a heartbeat

 

[russc2542]

Because I shouldn't be the only one with more printers than I need, Microcenter Indy has Ender 3 V2s for $100

https://www.microcenter.com/product/623606/creality-ender-3-v2-3d-printer

If I didn't already have 3 of them...

 

[Mounty09]

I started the frustrating task of printing TPU today. I'm on try number 8. Maybe I'll get it by the weekend.

 

[jkaetz]

I started the frustrating task of printing TPU today. I'm on try number 8. Maybe I'll get it by the weekend.

Outstanding! Let the rest of us know what not to do when you work it out.

 

[Mounty09]

Well after about 8 tries, I decided to switch to my right extruder. Turns out my left extruder was clogging causing all of my issues.



This is far from perfect but at least it finished the print and printed filament almost the entire time. I did find out the drive doesn't have enough to pull the filament off of the spool so I have to pull some out for it to use. I got a phone call and stopped baby sitting it for a few minutes and it ran out.

Tomorrow I plan on playing with temperatures some to get rid of the stringyness and get a better finish on the top layer.

 

[BroodXI]

i've got klipper running on my ender 3 i built for the kids. it's aslo dual belt driven z axis. and a voron afterburner print head. klipper is a step up for sure. but i'm just running my prusa's for a majority of my prints. i haven't touched the ender in almost a year.

 

[Caleb]

Well after about 8 tries, I decided to switch to my right extruder. Turns out my left extruder was clogging causing all of my issues.

View attachment 289554

This is far from perfect but at least it finished the print and printed filament almost the entire time. I did find out the drive doesn't have enough to pull the filament off of the spool so I have to pull some out for it to use. I got a phone call and stopped baby sitting it for a few minutes and it ran out.

Tomorrow I plan on playing with temperatures some to get rid of the stringyness and get a better finish on the top layer.

View attachment 289555

 

[bashMOH]

Because I shouldn't be the only one with more printers than I need, Microcenter Indy has Ender 3 V2s for $100

https://www.microcenter.com/product/623606/creality-ender-3-v2-3d-printer

If I didn't already have 3 of them...

Lol I knew I shouldn't have opened this thread. Every time I do, retirement gets one year further

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Finally got to take this out to the range yesterday. LR-308 chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor with Hoffman Tactical lower printed in Overture PLA+

Only put about a dozen rounds through it, just to get it sighted in. It's an 18" barrel with a rifle length gas system, but it seems to be seriously over-gassed. Didn't have any malfunctions, but brass was landing around 1-2 o'clock, and I could feel the gas in my face with every shot. Waiting on some components to come in; when they do I'll try to play around with different loads, but may need to get an adjustable gas block for it.

 

[Mounty09]

What have you guys found the best way to insert threads in a print? Should I capture a regular nut with a pause in the print or should I buy the heat set inserts?

 

[Freebird01]

What have you guys found the best way to insert threads in a print? Should I capture a regular nut with a pause in the print or should I buy the heat set inserts?

I typically set a pause in the program and insert hex nuts into my prints.

 

[Jtgarner]

What have you guys found the best way to insert threads in a print? Should I capture a regular nut with a pause in the print or should I buy the heat set inserts?

For me it depends on the design. I like to design heat set inserts on the back of something so that the screw is pulling the heat set insert deeper into the print. I have had heat set inserts pull out if they are on the side that the screw enters. This also makes them easy to install, just insert a longer screw into the hole and put the heat on the insert and push/pull it into place with the screw. Any plastic that gets in the threads will just create plastic threads before the heat insert.

I do both though, and keep both on hand.

 

[Mounty09]

I have done a few test with inserting nuts. I was hoping it would be a little stronger. I can only get the M8 bolt to torque to 15in-lbs. Proper torque is 38 in-lbs. I tried inserting a washer but I had issues with adhesion.



This nut test is for a larger project. I am building a tool to fit down inside of a transmission bell housing. These test parts are probably 1/8 of the total plug that will fill the cavity. The one in the top of the picture was the first quick print to make sure the model was correct. The bottom one was printed with more infill and top layers to show my boss how strong it is. Currently just PLA but I think the finished product with be abs or something with chopped carbon in it.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Because I don’t have enough hobbies, the girls decided that being able to fabricate textiles, wood, metal, and stone wasn’t enough, we’ve now joined the 3d printing age of plastic. On the steep upwards part of the learning curve right now but already making useful stuff.

 

[jwamplerusa]

This seemed impressive to me.



The ceramic spacer for the gas tube made sense.