18/04/2015

Cracked it! – 4 trys, 4 successful prints on the Sumpod 3D printer!

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Conrad Electronic UK
Europe's leading electronic specialists now in the UK

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Well I was going to spend the day trying to refine the calibration block but decided it would be more useful to concentrate on one of my designs that has a purpose. I chose the clamp I designed in Alibre 3D CAD (to hold the hot bed I am building in place) and refine that.

Yesterday I used Airtippers (Sumpod forum member) GCode settings to print the herringbone gear but to move forward I needed to print something form my own design. So, after exporting the Alibre 3D drawing in .stl format I loaded it into Skeinforge after spending last night going through the many variables. Again I used the information from members on the forum and saved my own printing profile.

A successful print of a herringbone gear – in pink using my SumPod 3D printer

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Conrad Electronic UK
Europe's leading electronic specialists now in the UK

Well yesterday I had a somewhat frustrating day of trying to get to grips with the software and settings for my own designs. So today I thought I would concentrate on repeatability of printing itself. That meant looking at GCode files by other Sumpod owners, namely Airtripper.

Before anymore boring text have a look at the video: Lovely colour eh!

There are two approaches to printing in 3D with the SumPod under way on the forum, one using Marlin (and Printrun by one owner) and the second, using the original Sprinter and ReplicatorG software. Marlin has the attraction of adding hardware such as an SD card reader and being improved upon by some forum members (Stohn and Electronica to name but two). So I have been trying to get to grips with all the variables needed to obtain a print and differing software approaches. I have decided that my first successful print was using the original Sprinter and ReplicatorG then until I am confident in printing I will focus solely on Sprinter/Replicator.

What a day! My first successful 3d print – 2 gears!

Conrad Electronic UK
Europe's leading electronic specialists now in the UK

Well it took a bit of fiddling and I used the original Sprinter file from Richard, Sumpod with ReplicatorG and Airtripper gcode file from the forum.  There is an improved firmware update being worked on by forum members so it can only get better.

My main lesson today was that the line between success and failure is very small! I organised myself by listing each trial and the variables used. It took to trial 4 before I got success.

first ever successful 3d print, 2 gears!

first ever successful 3d print, 2 gears!

The first one failed because the heating block was two close to the nozzle tip. The extruded filament was catching on the kapton tape. Also when running Replicator and pressing 'Build', a warning came up that the settings would be too fast and did I want to continue? Each time I ignored the warning and continued.

New hot end upgrade extrudes under stepper motor control for the first time

Conrad Electronic UK
Europe's leading electronic specialists now in the UK

Unfortunately I have not been able to spend as much time as I wanted bit I decided today to concentrate on plumbing in the upgraded parts supplied by Richard instead of continuing development of my dual design. That's not to say I am shelving the idea, far from it, I just feel it is necessary to get it printing, now the milling/routing is sorted.

Form this position I feel better able to make upgrades. Once I have printed an item I can make comparisons via setting changes and keeping these items tagged I can then make true comparisons with any hot ends I produce. Well it seems sensible to me.

I did get it producing filament under stepper control, a first! so its just (ho ho!!!!) sorting out the programming and settings. I can't tell you how much of a breakthrough this is. All the main components now work, they just need slotting together.

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