Let's talk 3D printers!

I used Cura for 2.5 years.

Had dabbled with PS before, but found the interface differences too different and I was set in my ways.
When one of the Cura 5.x updates wiped out all my profiles, I bit the bullet and switch to PS.
Now I've got PS and Orca set up and happy with both, although I find Orca to be a bit heavy on my system. It's got some really cool features in it.

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That's my problem with Orca.

I'll be honest, it was a struggle for me too - luckily Michael from TT came to the rescue.

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So, in my quest for more speed and higher accelerations, I ran into an issue with my linear bearings starting to slide on the rails. This is bad for the bearings and makes a noise worse that nails on a chalkboard! :scream:

At first I thought I’d over lubricated the bearings, and this turned out to be correct, but probably only small part of the issue, as I’d used SuperLube grease which contains PTFE.

Anyway, I decided to read some documentation from Hiwin along with some industrial forums discussing linear bearing lubrication. And the info was quite interesting.

It turns out that using any grease with PTFE in it is a bad idea, as it causes the bearings to slide at high speed instead of roll.

The recommendations I found were almost entirely for Lucas Oils LUS-10533 White Lithium Grease or any other NLGI #2 spec grease that doesn’t contain PTFE.

After reading through a stack of grease data sheets, I how know why the Lucas Oils product is almost universally recommended, most other White Lithium Grease products contain PTFE.

As a result I’ve ordered some, and will very throughly clean my linear rails and carriages before re-lubricating them.

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Interesting.

I use Superlube Grease on my linear rods & bearings.

I also have Superlube synthetic oil, but that also contains PTFE.
I've noticed that laying a strip of oil down helps quiet things a bit, but the bearings still make some noise.

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I started to run into issues at accelerations of 7k+ and actual speeds of 280mm/s.

I can’t imagine many ppl have printers that can reach those limits. I’m running 2.5 amp high power stepper motors with TMC5160 drivers. So if I fix my rails, I should be able to go up to 20k acceleration and 500mm/s speeds. :rofl:

Good call. I swear by it.

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Nice, I'm glad to hear others have had good results with it.:+1:

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My 4mm Carbon Fiber sheet just arrived, and WOW, this stuff is incredibly rigid, and light! Looks pretty slick too with the carbon weave I chose.

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I really should have prototyped this on some cheap Perspex, as I think I was too generous with the hole tolerances.

But I’m happy with the result - I just need to see if it works as expected.

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And it didn’t, I made a bunch of stupid mistakes! :man_facepalming:

So this time I’ve redesigned it just for my needs and prototyped it in PLA first:

Seeing as that worked out well, I’ve just finished making a CNC prototype using 2mm Perspex.

It came out looking great and is dimensionally accurate. Now I just need my new carbon fibre sheet to arrive. :+1:

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For those interested, here’s the prototype being made on my CNC machine.

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Where are you sourcing your sheet stock?

AliExpress has been pretty good so far for larger sheets, but locally I’ve gotten some via eBay too.

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This is the Chinese supplier I used - 3K Carbon Fiber Plate seems to be the sweet spot for making parts on a CNC machine.

The dust is toxic tho, so you need to use a dust extraction system with a skirt to ensure it picks it all up.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mPteaf4

After putting it off for about 20 years I am finally getting a 3d printer soon.

My only CNC machine right now is a laser cutter which you certainly don't leave running unattended. I kinda have the heebie jeebies about a molten plastic squirting machine running for days at a time. Has anyone on the thread come up with a cool way to do remote safety monitoring?

The best idea I have right now is a Zwave smoke detector that cuts power to a smart outlet, but by the time you have smoke, you have a pretty big problem. It would be nice to keep things from getting that bad.

There's a HE-compatible heat detector someone linked in an older discussion on this topic but no one ever said "yeah I got it and here is how to set it up" so I don't know if it's actually going to be helpful.

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Some printers have this option built in, and you just need to add the camera option.

https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/knowledge-sharing/Spaghetti_detection

TBH fire really is a non issue, all printers have thermal runaway detection and shutdown for the hot end. In fact most decent printers use a ceramic heater cartridge that literally can’t go into thermal runaway as they increase their resistance with temperature.

True but there are more sources of trouble than the hot end. Bambu recalled the A1 for a heat bed fire risk. It would be nice not to find the next problem the hard way.

That was a special case, the bed moves and runs from mains power - IMO it also required customers to damage the cable exiting the back of the printer by crushing it.

The chance of a conventional 12-24v DC bed getting much above 120c are very low.

Honestly I think it showed some excellent customer attitudes from BL.

I can still recall Creality not giving a F’K despite people’s houses actually burning down because they were too lazy to enable thermal runaway protection in their Ender 3’s.

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How much do you plan to run it? I have a ME background and tend to design solutions to 3D print rather than purchase something. I don't run a print farm or anything like that, but have done some smaller batch prints, like keychains, for friends.

I have an X1C from Bambu and I am guessing about 80-90% of the time it's running I'm home with it. It prints fast, so even longer large prints can be completed in the fraction of the time compared to older printers. If I do have a larger queue of prints to run off, I like to run it overnight so it's working while I sleep.

For safety, I do have a regular (non smart) smoke detector mounted above it. Though, it was primarily used with one of my older printers, Anet A8, which was known to have questionable electronics. Still a nice to have, and even if a fire would to happen while I'm asleep, it's close enough I would hear the alarm (couple rooms over from my bedroom).

Then again, after surviving with some of the early, cheap tech like the Anet A8, I feel a lot more safe knowing Bambu has built in some decent safeguards to prevent fires from happening, and even non-bambu printers contain most if not all of the safeguards.

You could definitely do more printing than I end up doing, but personally from my experience I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it. Printers these days are moving more and more to becoming a home appliance more than a hobby tool. I'm sure manufacturers spend a lot of time on R&D looking into safety measures to prevent them from having issues

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