3d printing Blog

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FreeCAD blog
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(top listing is most recent)

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• 2022/11/23:
  • Finished and installed USB charger and clock mounts.

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• 2022/11/21:
  • Prints have been way messy and stringy. Must slow speed down to about 30% to get a decent first layer.
    Suspect nozzle is burnt and/or partially clogged.
  • Dried filament, adjusted idler, adjusted squish:
    Started at -0.685, settled on -0.620
    However at 230/90 it still wouldn't stick first layer at 100% speed. Works fine at 45%.
  • Have printed a couple of iterations of the mounting plate for the USB charger, and first prototype of locate plate for top of DM-30 supply to hold IC-7000 in position.

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• 2022/05/11:
  • Working on bench tool rack. Remodeled and doing second prototype at this moment.
  • Printed a 18650 case for Baofeng from Thingiverse (4640691). Should have printed with supports, as the cantilevered latch was munched. Managed to break off the bottom locate tabs messing with it. Considering re-printing in PC.

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• 2022/01/31:
  • Continuing problems with Linux, so did a new, fresh install of latest version. Also upgraded PrusaSlicer to newest 2.4, but in the process I seem to have lost all my custom gcode settings files.
    Proceeding now to reconstruct them.
  • Enclosure progress stalled for other priorities.

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• 2022/01/01:
  • Progress on the enclosure. Successfully modeled and printed 4-way and 5-way corner pieces. Did an assembly drawing of the whole thing to figure out how to do the door. I think I have a workable design.
  • FreeCad still crashing on me once in awhile. Must frequently save the drawing I'm working on...

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• 2021/12/12:
  • Abandoned the self-watering pot for now. Design for a mechanical mechanism to close the weep hole eluded me.
  • Have gone back to work some more on the stalled enclosure project. Have not done anything on it since moving from Sketchup to FreeCad, so now I am re-drafting all the part models.
    Got the main frame done and one piece printed successfully, L-bracket model also done but not yet printed.
  • Also drew up and have printed a couple of prototype cases to hold my icom-7000 in the Acura. Some progress, a long way to go...
  • FreeCad is still crashing on me once in awhile. Must frequently save the drawing I'm working on...

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• 2021/08/19:
  • Finished printing the self-watering pot. What a waste. Deceptive design, because it doesn't in fact do what I had thought it would do, that being to act as a reservoir that you could fill once a week or so and keep your plant properly watered. In fact, it really does nothing, that is, it's no different than hand watering into a tray for bottom watering your pot.
  • I did test it, per George's tip, and indeed it does weep through the walls.
  • So I drew up my own design and am printing it. Printed at 100% fill, in attempt to limit weepage. My design will in fact act like a weekly-fil reservoir, and will keep level in bottom-watering tray at a predetermined level, and will blurble out of the reservoir as required to keep the water level constant.
    Downside of my design is that, in order to fill it, you have to remove the plant, remove the reservoir from the tray, turn it upside down to fill it, then re-plug the fill hole, hold your finger over the weep hole as you turn it back over, place it into the tray, remove finger from weep hole, replace plant.
  • Already brainstorming a mod to allow filling from the top, which will require some kind of mechanism to close the weep hole during the fill operation.
  • OTOH, the print is not going well, lots of goobers flecking up in base layer. Tried slowing way down, and that seemed to help for a bit. Paused and pulled the filament to find lots of goober on nozzle. Cleaned it off and restarted and it went well for awhile, but repeated the flecks when I sped it back up.
    Pulled the filament (MH-PET-Wt-06) and replaced with un-opened spool (MH-PET-Wt-05), which should still be fully dry.
    OTOH, new spool was no help. Still globbies if I get speed above about 60%. Bed temp had been at 85 per Prusa default, so raised it to 95, which is my usual, and that may have helped a bit, but didn't fix the problem.

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• 2021/08/16:
  • Printing Prusa self-watering flower pot, outside shell. 20 hrs?!?
  • Thoughts on the TPU problems:
    Saw a note somewhere that nozzles can get "burrs" of carbonized material sticking to the inner walls, especially if you've left a hot nozzle idle for a time. I've certainly done that enough times, doing a preheat for filament swap and then not getting back to it before the safety shutoff activates. Resolved to not do that anymore.

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• 2021/07/19:
  • Back to print breadboard feet with blue TPU.
    Again could not get TPU through the nozzle. Remoived nozzle and cleaned crud off it and extruder heat block.
    Did 3 cold pulls with nylon, and finally was able to manually push TPU through.
  • Loaded print from SD, but still had to mess with it. Slowed speed to 30%, and raised nozzle to 240 (sliced at 220), and finally got intro line to stick (bed at 50).
  • In the end it printed fine, though lots of little stringys between the 4 feet in the print.
• 2021/07/10:
  • Printing breadboard feet with blue TPU, 215 & 50. First try no adhesion. Aborted.
    Second try increased squish to -0.70 and speed at 10%. Still nothing. Doesn't look like filament is coming out at all. Will do hot pull clean.
  • Could not get filament out. Totally stuck, even at 240.
  • Removed idler door to find filament balled up, apparently from being pulled through by the gears, but not being able to get through the nozzle.
  • Heated to 245, and pushed through HB-Ny. No problem getting it through the nozzle. Smooth and easy as butter. However, after pulling the Nylon out, and inserting the blue TPU, I can't get the TPU to go through the nozzle.

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• 2021/06/29:
  • Loaded FormFutura transparent PETG. Dried in oven at lowest setting for ~ 2 hrs.
    Did live-Z test. Best seemed to be -0.63. Previous was -0.65
    Printed extrusion test at -0.64. Fit excellent.
  • Continuing on compost temperature monitor. Printing top rev. 1.03 in transparent FormFutura. All good, though slowed first layer to 20% to get it to stick.

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• 2021/05/26:
  • Working several days now on designing and printing a case for a nano-powered temperature sensor with OLED readout for my compost pile.

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• 2021/04/23:
  • Printing another set of 4 ear savers. Using MH-PET-Blk-03 dried in oven several hours yesterday.

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• 2021/04/12:
  • Printed flag pole holder model from Thingiverse to replace the one here at 315 that broke in the wind.
    Heat-treated for about 4 hrs at 65-70C.

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• 2021/03/16:
• Continued refinement of cup lid design. Now have 3 rings of bb's, and a larger top knob (cupLid-10a)
• Revisiting battery switch project. Have ordered some 30kg servos, since the 20kg that I had were insufficient. Also examined the design and see how I need to modify it for more torque.
  Re-printing all just to be sure everything else is correct. Starting with baseAttach-09b.
  Drying PET spools, 60-70C, ... hrs...

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• 2021/01/27:
• Did some iterations of a cup lid with an internal slot to fill with steel bb's to weight it. Ended up with two rings of bb's to get a nice amount of weight. Did custom gCode to pause print just before cover was printed on top of the slots. It worked well.

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• 2021/01/12:
• Drying worked, mostly. Did 60-65C for several hours. Prints are better, but still some globs. Bed adhesion is better however, as before drying I couldn't get the white to stick at all.
• After sanding off globs, will heat treat the earsavers, 75-80C, 1-1/2 hrs.

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• 2021/01/07:
• Did a print of ear savers with new (though previously opened) spool of MH Black
  It worked, but lots of globs to sand off finished parts.
• It's been raining, ie. high humidity for a couple of weeks, so decided to dry out the spool of black as well as two almost finished spools of HB white.
  MH-PET-Bk-04, HB-PET-Wt-03, and HB-PET-Wt-04
  Oven at 150F, digital showed 60-65C, for 3+ hours.

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• 2021/01/04:
• Discovered the last MH white PETG I ordered was 2.85 or 3.00mm instead of 1.75. Argghhh.
  Order history at MH lists it as 2.85mm, but label on the spool says 3.00 ??
  Ordered some more 1.75 white
• Opened new spool of MH black, however the bag integrity had failed, and first print had lots of globs indicating high moisture content, so will dry it:
  Heated oven to...

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• 2020/12/24:
• First attempts at printing with transparent PET (Form Futura HD Glass)
  Did a little container, a cup, with 2mm walls. Not transparent. Webbing from the infill inside the walls clearly visible. Will print again with 100% infill.
• This particular filament has a tendency to "burn" and turn brown. I think what's going on... if a blob collects on the nozzle, it burns/browns, then can get deposited on the part. This also creates a lump that then causes a crash detect.
  Used 80-grit sandpaper to smooth off the globs, blew off, tried again...

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• 2020/10/26:
• Printed first part with flexible TPU (NT-Ch-TPU-Blu-01) All went well, using 220C extruder, 50C bed.

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• 2020/10/22:
• Have rebuilt some of the custom gCode for the slicer.
• Set infill pattern to Hilbert and now the "top" surface of the clock lid priints pretty, even though because of the lip/rim it's not really the top surface.

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• 2020/10/19:
• Tried first print from 2.2 slicer. Message screen said new firmware 3.9.1 was available. Proceeded to print, but intro line didn't work. Going back to check my custom gcode.,. Discovered gcode is (of course) case-sensitive, and I had typed position codes with "x" instead of "X". Doh.
• Removed my custom gcode in the Printer settings Start section, and reprinted. All successful.
• Flashed new 3.9.1 firmware

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• 2020/10/14:
• Discovered that my custom settings were not transferred to new slicer rev. Reloading them ...

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• 2020/10/13:
• Addendum to fan vs. adhesion: I've been doing a lot of printing (clock case prototypes), and have not manually turned on the fan at all, but for BFM reasons, it indeed comes on during the print. Do not understand the algorithm/programming of when it is set to come on. I think I still have the fan speed sensor turned off (though will need to check that) to avoid the nuisance errors I had been getting...
• Loaded newest version of PSlicer (2.2.0) onto 4600.
  This morning running it to finish setting up my custom settings, it tells me there is an updated "configuration bundle" 1.1.10 available. Installed it.

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• 2020/09/15:
• Have been struggling with bed adhesion, printing earsavers, which have a very low-angle slope on the hooks. My procedure has been to manually set fan speed to 80% and speed to 10 - 20% when calibration finishes, but even so I have had to continually monitor and fix globs and de-attach spots.
  Yesterday I was printing a set of 4 of them, and didn't get the fan turned on unril 3 of them already had first layers down, and lo those had good afhesion and the one with the fan turned on de-attached.
• Bottom line, I'm now printing with fan off. Seems to be working just fine. Go figure.

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• 2020/06/13:
• Per Prusa suggestions: Menu > Settings > Fans Check [off]
  However discovered this not only disables "checking" the print fan, but disables the fan itself.
• Today printed a part with fan disabled and munched it, broke loose from bed.
  Manually turned the print fan back on (Menu > Settings > Temperature > Fan Speed) and all is well.

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• 2020/06/12:
• Things have been going well, doing multiple prototype iterations of servo case and gears. However yesterday I left a 3-hr print unattended and came back to find massive globs on extruder. Cleaned everything off mostly, but now prints error out with "Print Fan Error". Searching online...
• Cleaned fan, though didn't find any strands of filament, only dust. Checked cables and all appear OK. Ran another print and watched the fan continuously and saw no hesitations, yet it again errored.
• Prusa says some things, see here for summary...

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• 2020/05/24:
• Continuing with servo case. Used up a full roll of PET. Loading new roll this morning. Previous roll had been opened and so I had dried it before using it. This roll (PR-PET-Bk-02) has not been opened so I'll trust it's dry...

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• 2020/05/19:
• Proceeding with servo case. Ran into issue when I loaded an stl file into Prusa Slicer, and it gave me a warning/error, without explaining what the problem was.
  Did: File > Repair STL File, browsed to and double-click to select the file.
  The only option seems to be to save it as .obj file, which it notes is less prone to "coordinate errors."
  Saved as .obj, which you can import directly into PS, (and gave no warning/error).
• That said, I had gone ahead and sliced and printed the file that had the warning, and it seems to have printed OK.
• Did a press-fit design, with tiny (0.2mm) bumps on outside of lid ridge, which fit very snugly into the lid slot. I think they will work.

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• 2020/05/17:
• Printing iterations to get correct dimensions on servo case & lid
• Tried increasing speeds from the super slow (that worked) to something faster that will print in a shorter time. Default speeds are still too fast. Trying to find the specific speed parameter that makes the most difference (infill speed?)

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• 2020/05/13:
• Finally dialed it in. Nozzle at 240/238, bed at 95 for all layers, and slowed all speeds way down. ServoCase print takes over 4 hrs, but it's clean and nice.

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• 2020/05/12:
• Installed Pr-PET-Bk-01 dried yesterday. Printed latest rev of servoCase. Lots of globbing. Everything substantially successful - servo fit OK, though still needs a dimension tweak.
• started printing servoLid and first layer a mess of globbing. Aborted.
• Cleaned nozzle (it was a mess), and re-sliced with slower speeds, hotter bed and cooler extruder...
  Would not even get first layer started. Intro line thin at the end
• Edited Start gCode:
  changed this: G1 X60.0 E9.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
            G1 X100.0 E12.5 F1000.0 ; intro line
  to this: G1 X60.0 E10.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
            G1 X160.0 E35 F1000.0 ; intro line
• May have helped, but not much, as first layer still globbing and not adhering.
  Heated extruder back to 235 and reduced bed to 95, and slowed speed down to 55%

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• 2020/05/11:
• Printing servoCase in PLA. On third iteration, dialing in dimensions, but now will switch to PET, though need to dry it first.
• Set oven to 150F or a little more. New oven regulates temperature very good. Left roll of HB-PET-Bk-01 in the oven with heat on for 4 hrs or so. Monitored occasionally with laser thermometer, always around 60C or less.

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• 2020/05/10:
• First pass at printing a FreeCAD drawing of servo motor drive gear, minus the gear teeth, but including the spindle socket to fit onto the servo. Checking for dimensions/fit. See FreeCAD blog for gyrations to get the model created...
• ...

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• 2020/05/07:
• Working with spindle socket from Thingiverse: 3033691. Closer examination revealed 3977539 is only 20-teeth, but the MS10 servo has 25 teeth. The ...691 has 25-teeth.
• Printed the gopro version of ...691, in sparkle PLA, but it was too loose. Re-sliced at 90% scale factor, way too tight, as was 95%. Finally 97% scale factor fit very snugly, though I put it on the servo right off the printer bed so it was still slightly warm, so I'll print and try again and see how easy it is to get onto the servo when cold.

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• 2020/05/07:
• Printed servo gear from Thingiverse-3977539. Print worked in sparkle PLA, but it's way too small to fit into the HM-MS10 high-torque servo that I have. Back to the drawing board.
• Scaled up the print in slicer from orig maj diam 12.56mm to 15.69mm

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• 2020/05/01:
• EarSavers printed fine. Did a bunch.

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• 2020/04/30:
• finished process of drying the Sparkle. Heated and manually pulsed to keep temperature 40-45C for a couple of hours.
• Started printing earSaver...

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• 2020/04/29:
• Removed filament. Had trouble. Had to open idler door and cut off a blob at the end of the filament that was keeping it from being pulled through the PTFE tube.
• Removed 0.25 nozzle. Came off easily. Installed 0.40mm nozzle.
• Dried the Sparkle PLA. Used my derived procedure, mostly. Peak temperature < 45C, average temperature probably 30C. Heated and left in oven overnight with heat off, so stone cold by morning.

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• 2020/04/28:
• Printed EarSaver4321239 facemask adjuster, still using 0.25 nozzle ...
  Tried twice, with re-slicing correctly for the 0.25mm nozzle that I have installed, regardless both prints failed.
  Then did a live-Z test print, but it wouldn't even finish before filament flow just stopped. I'm using HB-PLA-Spk-Bk-01, and suspect the PLA may need to be dried, so will proceed to do that.

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• 2020/04/09:
• Printed facemask adjuster remix in PLA. Too thin, gyroid on top surface didn't adhere and peeled off in places,

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• 2020/02/08:
• Printed 3 snowflakes8b with HB-Ny-Wh. All came out fine.
  Then printed a 175mm version. Also fine, though a tiny bit of turn-up warpage at perimeter. There were about 3 blobs that came from somewhere onto the print. Paused and cut them off.
  Blue tape was torn so replaced like 4 strips.
  Now printing a 150mm Organic3 snowflake.

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• 2020/02/07:
• Heat-treating the PLA snowflakes:
  Since my oven temperature sensor and regulation are almost non-functional,
  I have a remote temperature gauge. I put the sensor on the cookie sheet (lined with foil) where I'll be placing the snowflakes.
  I preheated the oven to 60-65C, then put the snowflakes on the sheet.
  The oven temperature over-shot slightly to 71C, but I turned the heat off, opened the door for a bit, and gradually got it back to target 60-65. When it dropped to about 58 I turned the heat on again for a minute or so while watching the temperature gauge, and managed to get it back up to target without overshooting.
  I repeated the procedure of short bursts of heat-on to maintain target temperature for 45 min, then left heat off and door closed to cool as slowly as possible.
• After cool-down for ~ 3 hrs, removed snowflakes. They were slightly warped, turned up around the perimeter. I will repeat the procedure with then laying face down on the sheet.
• Repeated with face-down. Same temperature, 60-75C with oven overshoot. took them out of the oven after about 45 min, did not cool down in the oven as recommended, but after cooling down at room temp, shape was acceptable. One still had a minor amount of warp, but not bad.
  
  
• Preparing to print with nylon HB-Ny-Wh-01. I have used this to do hot & cold pulls, but never printed anything with it. This spool has been opened to the atmosphere for months, so I will start with oven drying.
  Some confusion in my mind about what temperature to use to dry it. Online recommendation is 80C, but other notes say you should dry it at a temperature below its glass gransition temperature, which for nylon can range from 45-70C.
  I will be a little conservative and dry it at 60C, though oven overshoot takes it to 70-75 at peak. Dried for several hours.

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• 2020/01/31:
• Starting the process of replacing nozzle with 0.25mm to do snowflake earrings
• unload filament:
  PR-PET-Bk-01 is currently loaded
  move z-axis up for easier access
  preheated nozzle to PET default 230
  when at temperature, menu > Unload filament ... came out successfully
• per Prusa instructions, did cold pull:
  preheat nozzle to 275
  menu > settings > ... but did not need to disable fil autoload, because I have fil sensor off
  menu > settings > disable steppers ...
• Open extruder idler door:
  unscrew both M3x40 screws until door opens
  
  

  Prusa Mk3 Idler Door

  inspect to see if there is any filament stuck in the PTFE tube (if so, see Prusa procedure for removal)
• Manually insert filament (today I'm using HB-Ny-Wh-01, which is surely damp, but hopefully that won't matter for this procedure...) until it starts coming out the nozzle
  Turn off extruder heat: menu > preheat > Cooldown
  Continue pushing filament through until it's too cool to do so (about 170 for PLA, 130-140 for Ny)
• Wait for extruder to cool to room temperature (40C?), then: menu > Settings > Temperature > Nozzle ... and set to 85C for PLA, 65C for Ny
• When extruder reaches temp, grab filament with pliers and gently and firmly pull it all the way out.
• Filament may have extracted crud. If so, repeat: heat-275/insert/push-through-while-cooling/cool-to-room-temp/heat/pull-out ... until the filament you've pulled is clean
• Repeated 3x. Didn't really see a lot of debris.
• Proceed to change nozzle:
• preheat nozzle to 275
• remove part cooling fan and duct piece
• when nozzle is at temp, fit 17mm crescent wrench from front of printer to hold onto extruder block (name?)
  Use 7mm socket wrench on nozzle (the crescent wrench included with the E3d kit is worthless if the nozzle is stuck at all - mine was - as it's relatively soft steel and deformed with the force needed; but the socket worked wonderfully)
• cleaned heater block with scraping (scotch brite, small screwdriver, exacto knife) and sanding (60 grit)
• inserted new nozzle, tightened snugly (spec = 2.5Nm = 1.8 ft-lb), again holding the heater block with 17mm open end
• put it back together: replaced fan duct and fan
• insert filament & adjust idler:
  preheat nozzle to PLA
  when at temp, menu > load filament
  insert filament into top of extruder
  push through manually until it comes out nozzle
  close idler door and engage 2 screws
  tighten down both screws evenly until filament starts to get pulled through nozzle
• printed live-zTest program.
  -0.650 was the best
  but some of the print was so thin I couldn't get it off the bed, so I stripped it and put down a new layer of blue tape.
• Printed a snowflake with z = -0.650. Turned out great, though first edge bead gave warning "bed off level" or something similar.
• Printed several more snowflakes, all successful

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• 2020/01/26:
• Bought a spool of HB "sparkle" PLA black. Will try to print snowflakes again.

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• 2019/12/21:
• Heat treating the snowflakes I printed yesterday. Heated up gradually, watching temperature with laser thermometer closely, like every few minutes. When it got to 175, I shut off the heat, without soak.
  I saw that the actual temperature in the oven cycled a lot, like maybe 30F or so.
• Successfully sanded edges of romeo to remove the puckering.
• glued the two pieces of the sundial together using Testors "plastic cement". Pretty thin stuff. Skeptical. We'll see after 2-hr cure time. Clamped pieces together.
• Glue job didn't hold. Will try again with JBWeld.
• JBWeld worked great. OTOH, got clumbsy and dropped it and cracked it at the weak point. Will have to re-print.

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• 2019/12/20:
• Tested the results of heat-treating the snowflakes. Tried to bend and break one of the arms. Compared to another piece that I didn't heat-treat. No question it was stronger. The PETG isn't brittle, so it just bends and doesn't actually break until you bend it back and forth several times to fatigue it.
• Re-sliced snowflake08b and printed. Nominally successful, though first layer perimeters marginal adhesion and had to pause once and cut off globs.
  Re-slicing (08b1) with 0.35 first layer height and slowing down even more. Successful, even better.
  Re-slicing (08b1Tst), edited gCode with longer intro line. Successful, even better.
  Re-slicing (08b2), edited gCode with even longer intro line. Successful, even better.
• The romeo plaque recovered its flatness with re-heating upside down on the baking sheet, however the bottom edges are puckered. Will try to sand them flat.
• Installed E3d silicon sock (full coverage model)

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• 2019/12/19:
• Pulled sundial north part off the printer, and lo it printed OK.
• Printed live-zTest, varying z between -0.65 and -0.90. 0.65 way too high, didn't even adhere at ends of printer travel.
  Looks like -0.75 is still best
• sliced sundial_south with slower perimeters
  printing ... first layer stringing and not adhering. Aborted
• re-sliced
  added -0.1 "Printer Settings > Extruder > Retraction: Extra Length on Restart
  increased Retraction: length from default 0.8mm to 1.0
  increased Retraction: speed from default 35 mm/s to 45
  saved config as: beepAfterLayer
  failed again
• 3 or 4 more failed starts. Tried cleaning bed with IPA for better adhesion, paused and cleaned off strings constantly, reduced nozzle to 230, nothing worked. Going back to previous/default retraction settings. Saved back to same name. Returned first layer filament to 230. Saved to same name. When I re-sliced, I realized that I hadn't "placed" the model onto the bed in PS before slicing. Did so this time
• Printing... First layer definitely better, adhesion-wise, though still stringy and requiring frequent pauses to clean it up. lowered nozzle to 227 and bed to 90. Had earlier lowered live-z to -0.825, but now back up to -0.775.
• Good news, got through first layer successfully. Bad news: reading documentation to figure out how to assemble this thing, realized that the "South" piece doesn't attach to the North piece that I printed, in fact it's used in the Southern Hemisphere. Doh. So don't need it, so aborted print...
• Started printing sundial Connector. Completed successfully.
• Started printing sundial Top. Completed successfully.
• Reheated romeo and snowflakes to try and eliminate the warping. They had warped with edges curled up, away from the heat in the bottom of the oven, so this time I put them upside down on the tray. Again heated to ~ 210 before turning off oven, but it didn't completely fix the problem. Romeo might indeed be a bit better, but not so much the snowflakes, plus they look puckered and I'll probably re-print them.
• Meanwhile appropriated one of my rPi-designated SD cards (new & un-used) and it worked to transfer files from PC to Prusa as rcvd, without any formatting. Orig card was sometimes failing to read, though after cleaning its contacts it always recovered, still, thought I should have a backup at least...

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• 2019/12/18:
• Sliced the digital sundial model I got from Thingiverse
• Preparing to print, removed white filament and loaded black, messed up and pushed button twice, and firmware got confused... end result was filament jamming. Had to heat it up to 250 to be able to pull it out. Preparing to do a hot pull with nylon. Heating to 250.
• Used HB-Ny-Wt-01. Pushed a bunch through, pulled back out for hot pull about 4x, then pushed PR-PET-Bk-01 through until all the white was through, then did "Load Filament."
• Started sundial north part. Got through not sure to maybe z=1.3mm, and noticed several times it re-homed. Finally looked closely and there was a big glob in the middle that it was hanging up on. Aborted print.
• Re-started new print...
  Paused after layer 0.5mm and cut off some globs. Paused during 0.7 layer and tightened idler...
• Paused print every few layers and cut off globs. Reduced extruder temp from 240 to 235
• 15% fill pattern on this slice is very thin and stringy, and seems to be source of balling up into blobs. If I don't get through this print I'll increase fill to like 50%.
• Meanwhile, put snowflake earrings and romeo into oven for stress relief. Warmed it incrementally, but regulation/stability poor, and it got to 230F before I shut it off, leaving door shut to cool parts slowly...
• After cooling oven, discovered that romeo and snowflakes were all warped, edges and corners lifted. Turned on oven again, cranked it up and watched carefully, and eventually they flattened out. Turned off oven to cool overnight.

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• 2019/12/17:
• Printed test block with color change g-code, and it worked perfectly.
• Sliced romeo4, specified Hilbert pattern for top surface. Also added some custom code to make a beep at end of print.
• Extruder is getting noisy again. Gently tightened down on the idler adjustment screws, about 1/3 turn each...
• Some gapping at first layer circle holes. Should have slowed down first layer speed, and/or increased bed temperature.
• Print completed successfully. However there was an "Err: MinTemp" message on the screen.
  link to: Prusa explanation
  This site suggests it's maybe just too cold in my workroom. Will keep an eye on it. It says if the thermistor is failing it may have erratic readings during extruder movement.
• Idler tightening seems to have worked. Got much quieter.

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• 2019/12/16:
• Preparing to do a test print to see how filament/color change custom gCode works.
  Created a test block in FC, with a short column pad on top of base pad,
  put it into PS to find layer 16 as the point at the top of the base pad,
  inserted M600 code per tutorial, sliced and exported gCode.
• However while I had previously dried out my black filament that I've been using for prints these last few days, now I want to do a 2-color print, making the short column white, but I need to dry out my spool of white filament first.
  Will use HB-PET-WT-01
• My oven temperature tracking to setpoint is so inaccurate that I'm not going to bother with pre-heating. My procedure this time is:
  put filament into oven, turn on oven to some low temperature
  monitor actual temperature of the filament on the spool with laser temperature gauge
  incrementally increase oven setpoint, wait for it to stabilize, measure filament temperature,
  repeat until desired temperature is reached
  When filament measured ~ 150F I left it for a time, then shut the oven off to cool slowly.
• About 4 hrs later, set oven to reach 135F, and left it for 4 hrs, then turned it off.

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• 2019/12/14:
• Created some test drawings in FC, created meshes, exported stl, loaded into PrusaSlicer, and they printed just fine.
• One of the test models had two "features" stacked on top of each other, and while there doesn't seem to be a way to remove any lines between them, like you'd need to do in SketchUp to make your model "Solid", they regardless printed without problems.
• Occasional problems getting the SD card to read after pulling it to add a new model and then re-inserting it into the Mk3.

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• 2019/12/13:
• Working with FreeCAD, some progress, slow going. See: FreeCAD blog
• Writing some gCode files. Stumbling. I had previously done files that played a "tune" of several tones. But today I can only get a single pitch, regardless of the freq parameter I use. Forum searches suggest it's a bug in this latest firmware. Workarounds suggested online are beyond my skill level.

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• 2019/12/12:
• cleaned nozzle - seems this is a necessary step before all prints, as it gets gunked up with even one print
• started another snowflake08:
  edge starter test strip didn't stick in a spot and dragged a globby string to part perimeter, but I pulled it off.
  print finished substantially OK, except for a glob on very outside edge that I'll try to remove.
• Printed two more snowflake08's. Substantially successful, but some minor imperfections in first layer.
  Not sure what I might do to fine-tune it even more. Perhaps increase squish, slow down first layer even more?

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• 2019/12/09-11:
• Printed another live-zTest
  Varied live-z from -0.800 at start, to -0.700, then -0.600, then -0.650, then -0.700, then -0.750, then -0.720
  Both -0.750 and -0.720 were good.
• Re-sliced snowflake05 into snowflake07 with new PrusaSlicer. 3 failed printing attempts - globbing, stringing, not adhering on initial circles. Finally got one done after slowing speed to 30% with live-tune. Even at that had to pause it during first layer and cut stringers off.
• print settings: 0.20mm Quality
  filament: Prusa PET
  printer: i3 mk3
  infill: 100% (change to rectilinear)
  adjust size: y=50 mm
• print settings > layers&perimeters > first layer height: 0.3 mm
  speed > perimeters: 30 mm/s; small perimeter speed: 15 mm/s; infill & solid infill: 50 mm/s; travel: 100mm/s
• filament settings > temperature: left at default 230 & 240 and 85 & 90
  retraction: left at default length: 0.8 mm; lift Z: 0.6mm
• Found a great resource about printing on blue tape.
• Re-sliced snowflake07 into snowflake08. Parameters as in 07, except:
• print settings > layers > first layer height 0.35 mm
  also: printer settings > extruder > layer height limit: 0.35 max
• print settings > speed:
  perimeters 25 mm/s;
  small perimeters: 10 mm/s;
  infill & solid infill: 40 mm/s
  non-print travel: 75 mm/s
  modifiers > first layer speed: 20%
• filament settings > filament > temperature:
  extruder: first layer: 225; others: 240
  bed: first layer: 95; others: 90
• Successfully printed two snowflake08 without tuning adjustments. Yay!

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• 2019/12/09-10: Started cleaning the Prusa, covered in dust from months of inactivity. Note to self: "cover it with something to keep the dust off when not in use..."
• Powered on, preheated for PET, removed filament
• Downloaded current firmware; updating my pages for the process.
  Successfully loaded Firmware 3.8.1 to printer (see: detailed log of upgrade process)
• Intend to use "PR-PET-Bk01" spool, which has been sitting out in (often moist) air for months, so will oven dry it before using.
Preheated oven to 145-155F, verified temperature with laser thermometer, however later, after spool had been in for 2 hrs, read temperature of the filament itself and it was 170. Hope it didn't over-temp. Turned oven off and will let cool.
• Heated extruder to 230 and cleaned nozzle
• When spool in the oven had cooled to ~ 80F, removed it and loaded it onto Prusa
  Pre-heated nozzle for PET, loaded filament
• loaded live-zTest. It took several tries to get it to work. Ended up slowing speed to 50% to reduce stringing, and increased live-z squish to -0.800 (I think...)

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• 2019/05/07: Received Mk3S upgrade kit. Cool. OTOH other projects are consuming me at the moment so it will be awhile before I can get to it. Have not assembled the MMU yet, so will do both at the same time when I get to it....

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• 2019/04/02: First attempt at creating gcode from stl on Dell Precision version of Slic3rPE...
      This version is different than Windows version. See here for Operation details.
      Struggling to get a good print on 150mm extrusion beam. Default slic3r settings didn't work first try; increased first layer bed from 85 to 90, and that helped; slowed down first layer print speed to 15% and finally got a print started. However there were globs on model corners on the third layer that I paused and cut off. Wondering if I should increase retraction.
      Increased print speed to 100% after about 9th layer all looking good (It would have taken like 20 hrs to print at 15%.)
      ...but broke loose again after about 5-3/8” (s/b 5-7/8" full-size). Looked like a glob had formed, which then snagged the nozzle and torqued to break the base loose. Will re-slice...

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• 2019/04/01: Another couple of failed prints, not sticking well and munching first layer, however then had a failed extruder piece, balled up after doing about 2" height, so not sure what caused it (overnight print). But in the process of balling up, it tore (already!?) the silicone sock I just replaced.
      Another failed print, another extruder piece, this time got to 5-3/8", almost done (which would have been 5-7/8").
      Raised z-adjust from -0.700 to -0.650.

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• 2019/03/30: Have been running white PET for awhile (xmas things), and now switching back to black. Need to get more t-slot enclosure parts printed. First small print came out fine, but next one didn't stick and munched first layer. Discovered the silicone sock had been torn, so replaced it and cleaned extruder heat block as best I could. Slowed first layer speed to 25% and it's working again.

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• 2019/03/20: Got Slic3r-PE onto Precision Linux laptop. Could not however manage to "install" it, but it is functional with a locally executed AppImage. Version is: 1.42.0-beta+linux64
      Have FreeCAD already installed, and have started the Very Long learning curve, as it is SO different than SketchUp, but in the end I think I'll be very happy with it. For one, it is fully parametric, fully Python programmed, meaning I can write scripts to draw things (fractals?). Further, testing reveals it will directly output .stl files, meaning I don't have to convert my drawing files (.dae from SU) through MeshLab.

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• 2019/03/19: Finally finished post-processing on the sun&moon earrings.

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• 2019/02/20: Received what is clearly an error in shipment/bookkeeping from Prusa - a complete Mk3S kit. Say what?! Sent them a note through their website contact page. They just released the Mk3S, and had sent notes out about the upgrade kit that was available, and indeed I ordered one, but clearly some wires got crossed somewhere...

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• 2019/02/12: Printed mini-DVM enclosure from Thingiverse, then edited it ("remixed") and uploaded my first model to Thingiverse!!

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• 2019/02/10: Having trouble with first layer adhesion again. This is a part with lots of holes top-to-bottom, so first layer prints a bunch of disconnected circles. Getting stringing and globbing between them. Finally got a passable print by increasing bed from 85 to 90deg, and increasing squish from ... to -0.700, and slowing speed down to 50%.

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• 2019/02/03: Installed new e3d pro socks, that only have a tiny hole, vs. the other ones that were open to the whole top of the nozzle. The orig ones didn't keep the nozzle clean, but I'm hopeful these will do better.
        Working with the load cell project. First breadboard worked, and the 100g load cell responded to flexing. However after doing some printing for mounting etc, and coming back to it, now I can't get it to respond. I do have a clone HX711 board, so I'll hook it up and see what it does. I also have the 50kg bathroom scale load cell, so I'll try that too.

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• 2019/01/29: Updated firmware to 3.5.1 (my notes)

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• 2019/01/20: Had another failed print from apparent nozzle clog. I had reduced nozzle temperature for layers +1 to 230. Heated nozzle, pulled filament, cleaned nozzle (very gunky), re-loaded. Next 3 prints were fine. Re-cleaned nozzle.
        That said, extruder has been getting very noisy again, chattering progressively more every day. On an inspiration I tightened down the idler (on the fly while printing - VERY gently), and it worked - chattering reduced to almost nothing. I did about 3 flats (1/2 a turn) on both screws.

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• 2019/01/19: I've been trying to print a small (30 x 50 x 2mm) pendant of an Aztec idol I got from Thingiverse. The printing is working, but the details of the figure are difficult to see, being so small, and in black PETG, and with probably hundreds of tiny strings all over. The stringing is impossible to remove manually, which increases my motivation to get a sandblast cabinet set up. Don't want to take the time right now to dial in printer to reduce the stringing, so I'll abandon the model for now.

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• 2019/01/16: Progress printing the Mega-Anti-Tangle spool holder from Thingiverse. Had another aborted print from unraveling from a full spool and wrapping around the spool axle until it bound up.
        Continuing to revise t-slot designs for the enclosure frame. Adjusting profile and dimensions of the nut-capture basins to firmly hold the nuts so they don't fall out when inverted. Need to figure out the MMU to know how high I need to build the frame to clear.

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• 2019/01/13: Back on track. Revised snowflake gcode to my current standard, with 0.3mm first layer height, and Very Slow printing, and they're working. Happy Camper.

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• 2019/01/11: Printed a bunch of non-demanding parts successfully, but when I tried printing a snowflake model, which is only 1.5mm high, filament ended up in a ball.
        Received spool of white nylon filament, so did a "cold pull" nozzle clean. It seemed to work, but I didn't get much gunk out...
        Finished the first roll of MH black PET. Suspect extruder may be way off calibration, because based on the quoted density, there should have been 327m on the roll, but I printed ~360m.

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• 2019/01/10: Finally got it working, at least a make-do. I adjusted live-z more positive, to -0.675 from -0.645, changed first layer to 0.3mm height, and slowed down first layer speed to 20%, and things are working. That said, I've cheated and broken my troublesome junction part into two pieces that I'll glue together so I don't have to use supports, which are what were globbing and munching the first layer...

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• 2019/01/08: Still can't get a good first layer. Drying the filament (in my conventional oven, 170F for 3 hrs) had one interesting consequence, that being the test bead after leveling was long and full, like twice as long as usual. Perhaps because the filament was still warm from the oven? OTOH the print still didn't stick the first layer. Trying a bunch of online-recommended things, increasing retraction, lift-Z, etc. No success yet...

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• 2019/01/08: Been struggling with getting good prints for a t-slot frame junction piece that I need like 60 of. Generally works well, except I get munching on the print bed surface at one end, presumably where it makes the transition from printing supports to doing infill. I've tried different temperatures, speeds, wipes, etc, with no improvement. I'm almost at the end of this spool of MH PETG, so I'm going to try oven drying. It's been 2.5 weeks since I opened the pkg and started printing with this spool, and weather has been generally damp.
        Also studying and trying writing my own gCode

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• 2019/01/06: Did a live-z calibration. Settled on -0.645
        Also reading on how to eliminate stringing.
        Also did a thorough clean of extruder heat block and nozzle. Heated to 230, then used green scotchBrite and a small screwdriver blade. Installed a silicone sock.
        Also adjusted idler tension.

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• 2019/01/05: Broke tab off one of the 3-way frame corners while struggling to get screw in. Crap. Tried to break others with same amount of force and they all held, but I could see the infill pattern in the broken piece, so I'm going to generate new gcode with 100% fill.

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• 2019/01/04: After more fumbling around, it appears all is well again. Bottom line was I needed to tighten the idler so this slippery MH filament can be grabbed better.
        Spoke too soon. After two successful prints, clogged and air-printed again. Then had two prints that didn't even stick first layer, after dropping it to 80. So cranked it back to 90, with 240 nozzle, and that worked again.

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• 2019/01/03: Still struggling with failed prints due to nozzle clogging. See my maintenance page. However so far have not found a fix that persists. Prusa site cautioned about having extruder fan mounted correctly, suggesting clogs can happen if the extruder is too hot, so I'm wondering if the problem may be from my having increased temperatures to 245 recently.

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• 2019/01/01: Started another print this morning. Adjusted live-Z from -0.750 to -0.700.
        Chattering started again about the second hour of this print. Not too bad, but when the print started it was completely quiet.
        Have had some warping on the print bed. Not so much as to make the parts un-usable, but curious anyway. It happened on parts I was printing at 100% fill, so I tried printing at 40% fill, but it didn't help.

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• 2018/12/31: Clicking has increased. Suspect from extruder. This morning inspected my 9-hr overnight print and it appears the filament stopped after print was about 10% done. No clicking now, all quiet, though x, y, & z axes still going through the motions.
        When initiating "unload filament," after pre-heating, there was some quiet noise, but not the usual, and filament didn't move. Couldn't pull it out, either.
        Pulled fans off, opened idler. Filament was still in place. Pre-heated and attempted removing filament. Successful after several attempts. A 'plug' of filament came out as well. Reloading was successful and now printing without chattering.

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• 2018/12/29: Printed some more of the tall & thin frame pieces. Went back to 80deg for first layer and 85 for the rest and have done several successful ones.
        After 300+ hrs of printing, the Prusa is getting noisy. Something out of adjustment?

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• 2018/12/28: Printing more t-slot frame members. Not working. Two prints broke loose from bed after about 3/4 done. These are 30 x 30 x 150mm parts, so tall and thin, but earlier ones printed OK, before I started messing with bed temperatures. Forum note said if you're using blue tape, you shouldn't have to use any temperature, like 60deg was OK. So that's what I tried, but clearly it didn't work.

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• 2018/12/27: Revisiting Aztec pendant. Discovered some things:
• The .stl file I downloaded and unzipped has like 400k faces. This is totally unmanageable in SU. Currently in process of reducing # of faces in MeshLab, then scaling in SU to get to "actual" size to be printed.
• The model is two-sided. That fact was difficult to see with so many faces making the whole thing almost solid black.
  Will need to either print with supports, if I want to retain the two sides, or else split it.
• The model, even with # of faces reduced to 10k, is still way too detailed for printing resolution.

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• 2018/12/22 - 24: Printed tao symbol, poohda, hunab ku, tao sedum pot, snowflake, and ball ornaments for Christmas presents. Everything worked except the aztec pendant.

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• 2018/12/21: Printed filament clip (thing:12516) to keep ends secure on partially-used rolls. Printed filament guide (thing:1240326) to manage filament from roll to extruder. ...

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• 2018/12/19: Switched to Ball-wHoles, printed without supports, speed 70, bed 70, nozzle 245. Print worked, however there was still some globbing on the model esp. in lower third.
        Trying to set up custom parameters inside Slic3r so I don't have to "tune" and adjust settings during the print.
        In Sli3r: Print Settings > speed: defaults are different speeds for different moves. Changed infill and Solid infill from 200 mm/sec to 100.
        Filament Settings > Filament > Temperatures: Extruder: 245 for all layers; Bed: 60 for first layer, 70 for other layers. Have printed 2 balls, and all worked mostly, though some post-processing filing and sanding needed to clean up strings and blobs. In process of third, larger.
        Had second incident of filament unraveling and then snagging and stopping print. Researching designs for a remedy.

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• 2018/12/18: Loaded spool of HatchBox white PETG. Will be printing some Christmas ornaments.
        Have pulled a lot of designs from Thingiverse. Figured out how to "reverse engineer" them, put them into MeshLab and output a .dae file that I can load back into SketchUp so I can edit them if desired.
        Live-Z adjust has been at -0.850 since setting it up for PLA. Thinking that may be too much for PETG, decreased it to -0.700.
        First attempts failed early, with gooey blobs and filament not sticking to bed. Tried increasing extruder temp from default 230 to 240, and bed from 85 to 90. Jury's out, as noticed that nozzle is gummed up with black and white PET. Per forum suggestions, heated up (to what? 225?) and swabbed with small pieces of green ScotchBrite. Came substantially clean.
        Forum recommended adjusting "esteps calibration" to eliminate supposed "over-extruding." Other recommendations were: lower bed temperature to 40-50C if using blue tape; increase nozzle temperature; slow down print speed.
        Tried 245 nozzle, 60 bed, speed at 70. Better, however noticed later during the print that bed temp was up to 90, not sure how/why that happened. First layer did seem to work mostly, with just a little globbing. This model ("Collection-onion") is a very open design, and with supports it ends up being almost solid, and pretty much impossible to trim the supports. Definitely motivation to get the MMU with PVA functional.

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• 2018/12/17: Finished HB PETG spool, or most of it. Have been printing t-slot extrusion frame for an enclosure. It will take a LOT of pieces, surely weeks of printing, to build. I did all the drawings in SketchUp, processed through MeshLab then Slic3r to create gcode.
        I finished the battery holder, 9 pieces screwed together into an assembly. Unfortunately the design doesn't work. There's not enough slope for the batteries to roll easily, so they get crossed and jammed. Back to the drawing board.
        The blue tape is working well. I have had to replace center strips several times when they've gotten torn, usually from trying to pull the part before it's cooled enough. I've been using a 4" wide putty knife to help remove parts and then to smooth down the tape. It's working well.

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• 2018/12/16: Printed new knob for Prusa control panel - taller, easier to get ahold of, no annoying tab.

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• 2018/12/08: Loaded first spool of PETG, black from HatchBox. Covered print bed with blue painters tape. Used 1" wide tape, laid down with tightly butting rows.

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• 2018/12/07: Used up first spool of filament, the gray PLA from Prusa. Have printed bunches of arduino cases, and lots of prototypes towards a battery holder rack for my rechargable AA & AAA batteries. Everything is working well.

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• 2018/11/07: (date est) Received Prusa MMU kit! It will be awhile before I can focus on building it...

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• 2018/09/14: final calibrations: including self-test, XYZ calibration, and first-layer calibration

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• 2018/09/06 - 09/11: assembly notes including pre-flight checks

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• 2018/08/31: Ordered, received 9/6, DHL very fast.

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