Tag: 3D Print

Troubleshooting 3D Printer Issues

In my last blog post, I wrote about getting a new 3D Printer, the CR-10 S5. As of this moment, I am awaiting the arrival of the Pei sheet coming in the mail. So I thought I’d take this time to work on my smaller printer (the Ender 3), which I had upgraded to a DDX (direct drive extruder.) Since I installed it, I hadn’t actually started a print and wanted to see how well it worked. It didn’t work at all. It was not extruding enough filament. At first, I thought it must be the nozzle, probably clogged. So I swapped out the nozzle and tried another print. Still, it wasn’t extruding enough filament on the layers. Then I thought maybe it was clogged, but just higher up in another part of the hotend, so I got a couple of super-thin needles that fit into the nozzle and forced out a bunch of filament. Since so much extra filament came out, I thought for sure that was the issue.

After reassembling the DDX mechanism, I tried another print, but still, it continued to print in an almost dotted fashion. So I went to the Reddit forum: R/3DPrinting and posted about my printer and my issues. also, I tagged this photo with the post:

the first layer of the 3d benchy print fail

(click here to view the post I made) and after about ten minutes of my post being up, I got a reply:

user comments

The helpful user recommended that I change my E steps to 415, which I had not done. E Steps, to put it simply, are the amount of movements the motor makes to move the filament into the extruder. Different motors produced by various manufacturers need to be tuned to the right amount of E steps. For example, my issue was that my printer was under extruding. Which meant that the motor was not pushing the right amount of filament into the nozzle. The ender 3 had the wrong amount of e steps set to extrude it. So every time I set to extrude 100 mm of filament, it extruded 33 mm of filament, which is way off (this article explains it way better than I could, I recommend reading it for more info). So I set the E steps on the screen to 415 as he suggested, and I started another print. It worked flawlessly, and I successfully got a finished 3d benchy.

Overall the reason I took so long to figure out the issue was that I didn’t do my research and look up documentation on how to set this up. The prints need to be tweaked a little more to look better, but im still satisfied with the results.

As I try to figure out how to work my new machines and fix issues, I often post Instagram stories on my Instagram page.

April 27, 2022
New 3D Printer!

Recently I bought another 3d printer from a friend of my brother (Caleb). The original printer is a Creality CR-10 S5. This printer is the largest in the CR -10 series lineup, with a print size of 500x500x500 mm, which is massive compared to the average 3d printer.

CR-10 S5 3D Printer (500x500x500mm)

Ender 3 3D printer (220x220x200mm)

I bought the new printer for about $340. The printer, when sold new, is about $700, but since the original owner had fully customized it with upgrades and it had to be tweaked with a couple of issues. The original owner had upgraded almost every part of the printer. For example, he upgraded the extruder to Direct Drive Extruder (DDX), which means it has the motor for driving the filament into the nozzle that is closer and attached to the same frame as the extruder is mounted. Another upgrade he made was to install a new chassis for the bed Y-axis (which is in the image below), which the upgrade makes the stability more reliable.

X Y Z Axis’ on a 3D Printer

I had an issue with his Y-axis end-stop switch because it was too close to the stopping point where it triggered and was telling the printer the incorrect way. For example, when it was moving the Y-Axis motor, it hit the switch, which meant it thought that the bed was more forward than what it was supposed to be, so the motors would start grinding, tiring to move the bed further forward even though it was hitting the end. I was able to fix this by finding a simple switch holder for the Z-axis (all of the switches are the same type), and I edited it in fusion 360 to fit the same chassis that the old one was mounted onto. I then printed it on my Ender-3. I also attached a piece of aluminum which I cut to connect to the bottom chassis of the bed. Once I got the parts attached, I had to adjust the limit switch location to get it just right.

When moving the 3D printer, I have to disconnect about ten cables to the motors, switches, extruder, etc. When I plugged back the extruder motor into the mainboard, an issue I had was that it just didn’t respond at all. I was able to fix this by unplugging and replugging the cord to the mainboard, but I’m still not quite sure why I had this issue in the first place since the pins were touching.

I also purchased a BL touch since the board seemed slightly warped when heating the bed from the middle. The BL touch is easily the best and cheapest upgrade for many printers that don’t come with auto-leveling. The way it works is it has a small plastic piece that “probes” the board to see how far away it is from the bed and does this in a 3×3 pattern on the printer, so you don’t have to manually turn the knobs to level the bed which can be a long and painful process.

image credit 3pdblog.com

The last upgrade that I am currently dealing with is the bed build surface. The original surface that the original owner put on was not of the best adhesion and had several large bubbles, which can be an issue when printing. So after some research, I found that the best overall material is PEI which can be pretty stick when the adhesion is in mind. But the only problem is since my build plate area is so large (500×500 mm or 19×19 in), it’s hard to find the right size for it when the average printer is in the 100-300mm range. I eventually found one for a reasonable price on Amazon for about $84

Although I first needed to get a glass bed for a flat surface after trying to find one for my printer was sad to discover that they are either nowhere to be discovered or at least another $60. So I saw a sheet of glass that was 24×26 inches on home depot for about $13, which combined with a glasscutter so I can fit it to the correct build plate size will come out to be around $20. which is considerably cheaper than purchasing a dedicated glass build plate for my printer.

Overall I still need to spend hopefully only one more thing to get this fully working and get clean prints off for the future. I post a lot of updates on my Instagram page. Follow if you want to see more videos of the process.

April 18, 2022
Using 3D Builder to Make Custom Keyboard Keycaps

Recently I got back into 3d printing, and after I set up OctoPi with my Ender-3, the first thing I printed was keycaps for one of the specific characters from a video game called Valorant. Keycaps are the keys that you press on when you type on a mechanical keyboard (click here for a better explanation.) (Valorant is a game I play with my two brothers Nicholas and Simeon).

In valorant, a 5v5 shooter-based game with about twenty characters, each has about four unique abilities that can help them perform in the field and switch from your in-game gun to one of your abilities, you press a key that you set on your keyboard. The keycaps I made are for each one of those abilities.

I found a 3D model keycap for only one character from Valorant on Thingiverse. Still, since there are about 20 different characters and they are constantly adding more characters every couple of months, there aren’t many free keycap 3d model designs for each specific character out there. But after looking up a couple of videos and testing different ideas, I concluded that designing them in software called 3D Builder was the easiest, thanks to this video which introduced me to the program:

And after playing around with the program (which was a lot easier to learn than I thought.) I created keycaps for my brother Simeon and Nicholas, who play different characters than I usually play. For future reference, I found that the following steps were the best for making new keycaps:

STEP 1:

Find the character you want to make the keycaps for on the Valorant fandom page, which you can find here. For example, this is Chamber’s page, then click on one of the pictures of the abilities you want to use, then right-click the image and click “save image as” and call it whatever the name of the power was (tip: create a folder to add all of the files that will be used for making the keycaps just to keep it organized)

STEP 2:

Download this blank keycap model from Thingiverse (credit: CASS Designs.) Then open 3D builder, assuming you have it installed. If not, here is the Microsoft store link. Then open your previously saved blank keycap model, rotate it 90° (blank top part facing up.)

STEP 3:

Click “Edit” on the top menu bar, then choose “Emboss.” Then click the “Pattern” dropdown button and select “Load” to find the picture of the previously saved characters’ ability that you wanted on the keycap and double click it once opened make sure that the “Bevel” button on the top menu is not selected. And move the image onto the blank top of the keycap and center it, then drag the green double arrow up as high as you want the picture to pop out. Then hit “Emboss.” If you need help, here’s a short video

STEP 4:

Now just press the hamburger menu button on the top left of the app and hit “Save as,” and save as STL, OBJ, or whatever file type you prefer. Then open the 3D model file in your slicer (I use Cura as it is the easiest for me). In Cura, there is a feature called support blocking, which, as the name implies, blocks the 3D printer from printing supports where you want it to. Click the “Support Blocking” button on the left side menu and then press everywhere on the bottom inside of the keycap except for the small cross-section where you attach the keycap to your keyboard, for example, this video:

And that’s it! If you need help in any way, write a comment below this post or contact me via email at the top of this site.

December 16, 2021
Frostbite – 3D Print

Yesterday I 3D printed a prop from Krunker. Krunker is an online video game 1st person shooter. The item I was printing is called a Frostbite. It looks similar to an ax. Krunker has Mod files so that others can modify the game like sounds, models, colors, etc. It also has 3D models called OBJ files for the weapons and accessories, but the problem was is that all of the OBJ files were named “Melee_0,” “Melee_1,” etc. It didn’t have notes or anything that suggested what was what. So I DM’d my friend who makes a lot of 3D models and worked with Krunker on them, and I asked him if I could get the “Frostbite” 3D model, and he responded with the correct file, which made it a lot easier for me (Link to his Youtube Channel.)

Now all I had to do is upload it to the slicer. So that’s what I did. When using Krunker models in 3d prints, I noticed that they are tiny when imported straight to the slicer, so I scaled it up using the built-in tool that Cura (my slicer) comes with. So I sliced it, and surprisingly, the estimated time that it was gonna take was about 3 hours and 40 minutes. But after about an hour in, the print came completely off of the board. So I stopped the print, cleaned off the board, and sprayed some hairspray on it. Then I started the print again. It looked to be doing well. Still, after the first 2 hours, it warped on the handle, Unfourtanitly this has been happening a lot recently to most of my 3D prints, so I will probably have to adjust the nozzle temperature or the bed temperature lower or higher, I am not yet certain which. I will probably do a blog post on that in the future.

Once the print was finished, I had removed it from the board and checked it. It went pretty well except for the warping on the handle. Soon I will paint it with acrylic paints and give it some modge-podge to finish it off, which I will post a picture on Instagram once it is finished. If you want to see the finished product follow me using this link: Instagram

March 2, 2021