[sudo-prints] sudoroom 3D printer back online!

last night I replaced the hotend on the sudoroom type-a-machine 3d printer. after that i spent a bit of time attempting to print and kept running into problems, which i'll list. it seems that some of the PLA we have that came from type A machines is clearly labeled to be printed at 190-220 degrees! I have always used 185, but i guess this is a new formula. When i set it to 205 it still seemed too cold, so i ended up using 220. You should set the temperature in the slic3r before you export your gcode. There are other ways to do it, but if you know them you don't need me to tell you. the other issue is that our spools of filament are dusty! it's gross. And all that dust goes into the extruder and jams it up. The nozzle is only 0.35mm diameter! so clean the filament spool first (DO NOT GET PLA WET) and keep a dust-catcher on the filament before it goes into the machine. I put one on there last night. something like this would be fine, if we had the right foam, but for now i just cut some acrylic fabric and wrapped it around the filament with some copper wire to hold it on there. It should work but check it once in a while, or when changing spools. someone had put tape over the old tape on the platform in a very chaotic and haphazard way. Also there were a few melted spots on the platform where a hot extruder had been rammed into the platform and created a little vulcano. I carved the raised spots off the platform with a flat-edged blade, leveling them off, and then i re-arranged the tape properly so there is NO OVERLAPPING OF TAPE and only one layer of tape. It is necessary to maintain the platform any time you're trying to print if it is not already good to go. I didn't re-level the platform so if someone else wants to do that go ahead. It seemed a bit higher on the left than on the right. I like to get a perfectly cylindrical object and adjust the z-height so it just barely rolls under the extruder tip, and then try in four corners of the platform to compare the height. now join the sudo-prints mailing list! http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-prints -jake