Ezra Harris

Tag: Octoprint

  • Tuning Acceleration on my 3D Printer

    Tuning Acceleration on my 3D Printer

    Yesterday I got my Printrbot Simple Metal plus running, I had gotten it previously running, but it had significant build issues, mainly with no ease of access of the motherboard, when I designed the adapter for the SKR 1.4 motherboard to fit into the old Printrbot motherboard slot, I had no way of accessing the SD card or the USB port without taking it out of the 3D printer. This time, I had a soldering iron, terminal crimps, extra wires, and most importantly, lots and lots of Zip Ties.

    Once built, I could get it up and running with Octoprint on my laptop server. Thanks to Paukstelis for the excellent Octoprint_deploy script, which makes it a breeze to set up multiple Octoprint instances, which shortened hours to only about 5 minutes of setup time.

    Then I PID tuned, which tunes the heater of the Bed and the Hotend, which tests to see how frequently the heater needs to start heating; for example, before a PID tune, the Bed would either heat over the mark with 63°, begin to cool down but then go below the mark by hitting 55°, then heating up too much. Back and forth, thus making an unstable temperature which can affect the print dramatically. By staying stable, you can see an example of before and after with the Octoprint temp graph:

    credit: u/copppypapper on Reddit.com

    Once PID was tuned, I test-printed a ghosting/ringing test cube model, which came back with this:

    test cube 1

    You can see the ringing from the “Y” letter by the bump around. And some lousy plastic trailing on the lines; I then decreased the acceleration, which is how fast it speeds up and slows down, which causes this foul ringing line around corners. And this was the second cube:

    Test Cube 2

    Unfortunately, I still had very similar results from the second cube after turning it down, there is a very slight difference, but the bump is still very much there. But after turning it down even more and slowing the print speeds. I got this result:

    test cube 3

    The third cube was a success. It had eliminated the ringing, with not even a bump before the letter. But at the cost of speed, which I can sacrifice for quality. There are also very inconsistent layer lines which you can see in the images,, which I am working to resolve to get a better, more consistent cube shape.

  • Upgrades for my Ender-3

    I finally got around to fixing and upgrading my Ender-3. I’ve had my Ender3 for almost 2 years now and have occasionally been upgrading when needed. Last year I made my best upgrade to the “silent board” TMC2208 stepper drivers. Which significantly silenced the noise of the printer when printing. As well as a BL touch which helps with bed leveling. (Read more about that process here)

    I hadn’t upgraded it much further than adding an Octoprint device (wireless control software for controlling and printing and a bunch of other features.) But I wanted to spend a bit more time working on the firmware and hardware because of several issues/features. One was a heating issue if I printed twice before it cooled down. Another major one was I needed to modify the firmware for PID Bed tuning (basically calibrating the temperature for my printer to know what the sweet spot is for keeping stable temperatures). I wanted to add “fast probing,” which made the bed leveling process much faster before it started printing, which I learned about thanks to Crosslink’s blog post.

    I moved my printer upstairs and closer to my desk for easy access and quick printing. As well as using an old laptop, I had to lie around for the Octoprint server and the laptop screen as a sort of 3D printer screen monitor. Which displays the webpage, where I can use the touchscreen to control and view information about the printer. Thanks to a nifty program called Ubuntu Frame, Ubuntu Frame uses the screen in “Kiosk mode,” which runs a website in a stripped-down version of chromium at bootup. Thanks to UI customizer, an Octoprint plugin, I could customize the home screen to look sleeker and in Dark mode, which made it easier for the eyes to see and navigate.

    (What’s dark mode? Click the icon below to see)

    I was also able to successfully program Marlin firmware for my printer with the features mentioned earlier. And ran the PID tuning. Another upgrade I wanted to make was to switch to Direct Drive. I had a direct drive setup from another project printer that I wasn’t using, and since in the future I wanted to run flexible plastics that would better run with Direct Drive, I decided I might as well install it at the same time.

    Took a couple of beauty shots with my brother Simeon’s camera while it was printing, and here’s the result:

  • Octoprint

    Over the year, I’ve used Octoprint for my 3d printers. Octoprint is a server that hosts on a Raspberry Pi (and now even an Android device), which then you connect to your printer, which you can connect using the local IP. Octoprint is mainly used for managing your prints since it’s a lot easier to upload the.GCODE files to a local server and have Octoprint start, stop, and pause the 3D print with a press of a button. Many other features make Octoprint one of the best companions for a 3D Printer.

    One of the other benefits is its plugins; since Octoprint is open-source, they fully support plugins by independent developers; Octoprint has been out for almost a decade now, there are many plugins in its library. Some of my favorites include:

    • PrintTimeGenuis. Which uses an algorithm that can accurately predict how long a print will take, I have used this many times, and after about a month of printing, the plugin can predict the exact time all the way down to the number of minutes a print will take.
    • Octolapse, Octolapse is a plugin that has a highly comprehensive way of taking time-lapses of your print; instead of just taking a video and speeding it up, it can tell the printer at each layer of plastic to move to a fixed point and take a picture, which ends up being similar to a stop-motion video. The amount of options you can change to take time-lapses is fantastic, and why it is a favorite of mine.

    Another valuable tool is Octoapp (android exclusive) Octoapp is a fantastic app by Chris Würthner, who made it work around Android OS. Like many other developers, Chris benefits from a subscription to the app in which the user gains more features, which with a small amount each month, is a great way to support the developer and get valuable upgrades to the app. Many plugins work inside the app, including PSUControl, MultiCam, Octoeverywhere, and many more. What I like is that the app is primarily bug-free when it comes to the interface and is definitely built with the user in mind, such as the quick switch option, pausing and canceling prints, having a swipe to confirm option.

    There are many really nifty and interesting plugins that have been made for every use case available below is a link to every plugin in Octoprint’s public repository, which is constantly being updated with new plugins.

    https://plugins.octoprint.org/by_author/

    Other links:

    Octoapp by Chris

    PrintTimeGenuis plugin by Eyal

    Octolapse plugin by Brad

    Octoprint.com

    Octoprint on Android

    The best Cura plugin for Octoprint

    Note: I am not a developer, nor am I affiliated with Octoprint by any means, just a Octoprint user who is grateful for the many developers who make 3D printing a better experience.

  • Octoprint: Night Vision Raspberry Pi Camera

    Recently when I set up my new Octoprint setup, I had included a raspberry pi touchscreen as well, and I had needed to 3D print a case for it to mount to the top of my Ender-3. After a little bit of searching, I found a design I liked. as I was printing it, I had looked at the “makes” section (the “Makes” section is just where people who 3d printed the model would post pictures of it); when I had looked at one of them, they said they used a camera called the “MakerFocus Raspberry Pi 4 Night Vision Camera” The camera on Amazon was only $20. It seemed to be a good camera for what the reviews were saying, so I purchased it, and a day later, it arrived in the mail.

    When it arrived, I put it together and wondered what the little “eyes” were on the left and the right; when I looked it up, it was an IR sensor for better night vision. Putting together the camera was super easy and was “plug and play” for the most part with Octopi.
    Although the camera isn’t the best quality for Youtube videos, it’s perfect for the price. The night vision works exceptionally well and is very cool to see before bed to check on the print. Overall I really enjoy it, and it is my favorite Raspberry Pi camera I have seen so far.
    Here is a picture of the 3D printer at night when lights are off:
    And here is a screenshot of the camera view of the same thing:

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