Ninja Log

Chase Schober Summer Log

3D Troubleshooting guide to reference

http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/23-a-visual-ultimaker-troubleshooting-guide

Ultimakers are referred to as 1,2,3 in relation to their position from left to right

Tazs are referred to as 1,2,3,4 in relation to their position from left to right

5/17/2017 - 9:00-5:00

Error Message on the Ultimaker 2+ (1) Read: "X or Y switch broken"

1. Pressed "Home Head" under advanced settings to determine the source of the problem.
2. Stepper Motor ground as it tried to continue to move the printhead
3. Turned off the machine, checked to see if the X and Y switches were being activated when the printhead reached "home"
4. Once the switches were verified to be mechanically activated, the print-head was moved to the bottom right corner of the machine. Pressed "Home
5. Head" and held each of the switches to determine if they halted the movement of the printhead.
6. The x-axis movement ceased but the y-axis continued to jog.
7. This indicated that the error was caused by the Y switch
8. Disconnected the printer from power and un-screwed the Y switch
9. Mechanically everything seemed to be in order so we grabbed a Multimeter to test the switch
10. There was no distinction between when the switch was pressed and when it wasn't (OL both ways)
11. Unsecured the two electrical connections and saw that one of the wires had broken off
12. Grabbed the sautering gun and sautered it to its connection
13. Checked the other connection and saw that it was in need of the same operation
14. Checked the resistance across and saw that it was zero
15. Resecured the left switch to the Ultimaker 2+
16. Tested to see if "Home Head" worked
17. Everything back in order

Laser Printer produced flames, indicating that the compressed air "Air Assist Feature" isn't properly working

1. Check to see if PSI is around 30
2. Disconnect hose and see if air is blowing through
3. Saw that I had enabled color mapping and had disabled air assist
4. Make sure to leave "Air Assist" box checked when color mapping

Ultimaker 2+ (3) print failed mid-way through:

1. Appeared to be an extrusion problem
2. Filament connection was still intact in the rear of the machine
3. Reversed material, saw that the filament was grinding and had gotten stuck
4. Cut off the spoiled filament and reloaded it into the machine
5. Saw a small blockage in the printhead nozzle
6. extruded a little extra of the filament from its chamber and forced it down to push through the blockage
7. blockage cleared easily and I extruded another five or so rotations to make sure all was good.

Ultimaker 2+ (1) Print wasn't extruding

1. After fixing the X and Y switch, a print was started that didn't extrude
2. heated the nozzle and wasn't able to move the material
3. checked in the back and saw that the filament had snapped because there wasn't much filament left in the spool
4. attempted to reverse but there was no movement
5. used pliers to remove the filament from its housing
6. put in a new spool of filament and loaded it into the system
7. prints like a charm

Taz Lulzbot Fix Up

1. noticed that it was in its home position which is touching the buildplate. As a result, the printhead was crusted over and had to be popped off of the buildplate
2. filament had broken near the spool, I heated it up to 215 and removed it.
3. Loaded up some new filament and ran a calibration print
4. Everything looked good from the calibration print
5. Ran the calibration print with the other type of filament (red) and achieved the same results

Birch Plywood 1/8": Laser 1, 9 speed, 100 power cut all the way through a living hinge and some other intricate cuts

Chair fix up

1. several chairs have been stuck in the down position and would drop once you sat in them
2. took them apart to see what was occurring
3. the lever that triggers the hydraulic press was being activated at all times.
4. because of this, weight would always push it down
5. took the cylinder (with the help of a mallet) out of the chair and attached some shims on either side
6. put it back in, secured it, and they work like a charm

CNC (1 hour)

1. started off running it at 6000 RPM because I forgot to check SPEEDS AND FEEDS
2. hit the E-stop immediately
3. rotated the E-stop button and pressed the green button to fire it back up
4. cut at 2500 RPM, 20 thou cuts, 8% (11.2), from 4.00 inches to 3.60 inches.
5. some very fine chips were created, almost like fluff. Probably from the backcut when moving in one direction

Recorded the statistics of the three Ultimakers: 1 Machine on for: 7085:24 ... printing: 2979:27 ... Material: 2310m

2 Machine on for: 4086:21 ... printing: 1564:18 ... Material: 1138m

3 Machine on for: 4415:42 ... printing: 2164:14 ... Material: 1694m

5/18/2017 - 10:00-6:00

Realized Designs Steel Cut

1. Cut steel duct segment down from 24 inches to 18 inches
2. 8-inch diameter, eighth of an inch thick, open cylinder meaning the piece didn't close on itself
3. Taped each side of the piece to close the circle and then set it up for the chop saw.
4. Moved the jaws of the chop saw back to fit the piece onto the workspace
5. Measured out cut with a little extra space to clean it up after
6. Secured it as best as I could and stabilized the piece with my left hand
7. Cut about 2/3 of the way through before the workpiece prevented further depth
8. Spun it around and cut through from the other side
9. Marked out the exact size along the piece
10. Flattened it and cut to size with the shear cutter (way better than my initial idea of bench grinding it down)
11. Took a picture with the guy and was flushed with success
12. Asked Dr. Schuler about it later and he informed me that the piece was actually aluminum
13. Shouldn't have cut it on the chop saw although it's not the end of the world
14. Attempted to cut on the bandsaw but it was hard to get any bite with the hollow piece's tendency to deform
15. Will attempt to cut with the Sawsall moving forward

Taz 1

1. Print had finished but it was extremely stringy and deformed
2. No obvious mechanical issues
3. Restarted the print and it ran perfectly smoothly
4. My guess is that the brim was insufficient and some of the initial filament dump corrupted the workpiece

Taz 2

1. Print had stopped extruding at a certain level
2. Filament was broken off near the printhead
3. Checked the spool and saw that the filament was tangled and prevented further extrusion
4. Unthreaded the spool and removed the spoiled filament
5. Reloaded the filament, restarted the print, and all was good

Ultimaker 2+ (2)

1. Print had finished, ball of tangled filament on the buildplate, error message "Error Stopped / Z Switch Broken", caked nozzle
2. The original piece had fallen underneath the buildplate so that, when the print finished and the plate returned to home, the piece prevented it from doing so
3. Attempted to raise the buildplate through the LCD screen but the buildplate needs to auto-home before doing so
4. Used a hex wrench to wrangle out the piece from underneath without unduly disturbing the bed
5. Moved the nozzle to the middle of the printer
6. Unscrewed the eight screws holding the two fans and secured the fans together with tape and out of the way
7. Unscrewed the four hex screws holding the nozzle body
8. Heated the nozzle to 215 to melt the filament
9. Removed the nozzle body once the filament melted a bit
10. Gently used a screwdriver to detach the caked filament from the nozzle, taking care to not affect the heating wires
11. Used a wooden skewer to remove the filament from the nozzle and its surroundings
12. Once clean, re-attached nozzle body and fans
13. Extruded out the filament, snipped off the corrupted portion, loaded it back in
14. Works like a charm

Ultimaker 2+ (1)

1. Saw the belt of the x-axis stepper motor was rubbing against the wire that we had replaced yesterday. Most likely, this was the cause of the broken connection
2. Initially looked to raise the belt by inserting spacers
3. Determined the problem was because of an upside-down belt thread on the stepper
4. Used a hex wrench to loosen and correct the issue
5. Used a hot glue gun to secure the wires to the body of the Ultimaker
6. Re-attached the stepper motor and secured the belt firmly
7. Ran a print and saw that the belt was slipping
8. Re-secured the belt very firmly and fixed the slippage
9. Problem solved

Taz 4

1. The PEI material has been warped and even burned all the way through
2. Removed the buildplate and dis-connected the heating wires
3. Began the arduous process of removing the existing PEI that was adhered to the plate
4. Got help from Dr. Walker and pulled with two hands as he held the glass plate down firmly
5. Was making some progress until the glass plate snapped
6. Ordered a whole new buildplate and will install once it arrives

Ultimaker 2+ (2)

1. Didn't appear to be laying down properly, the brim forms billows and those corrupt the print
2. Attempted to re-calibrate the buildplate
3. Cleaned the buildplate with rubbing alcohol
4. Tried placing covers on machines so the ambient heat will have less affect
5. The jury is still out on this one
6. Came back to this on 5/22/2017

5/19/2017 - 10:00-6:00

Taz 1

1. 24 hour Print finished completely but the filament had broked just at the end, exceptionally lucky
2. Filament was quite brittle, snapped when I tried to slightly bend it
3. Replaced the broken filament and loaded it up
4. Worked like a charm

Ultimaker 2+ (3)

1. Print had finished but was slightly caked
2. I attribute the caking to a lack of brim which, when the edges of the pieces slightly deformed upwards, resulted in a lack of surface contact area
3. Heated the nozzle, removed the nozzle body without removing the fans
4. Cleaned up the caked nozzle and surroundings
5. Loaded up another print and it worked great

Gave a tour for several high school teachers with the rep. from IDIYA Gave a tour to a prospective high school student

CNC (3 hours):

1. Raised the z-axis to its limit and then performed a restart
2. Hit the E-stop, exited the program, shut off machine power
3. Re-started the machine power, booted up the program, hit the green power button
4. The reset button was flashing but when I hit the button, it read "Z-axis limit switch active"
5. When I tried to move or reference any active, it would not allow me and showed the message "command cannot be executed unless machine is powered on and the control software is out of RESET condition"
6. Re-started it and the problem was corrected
7. Reference z, then y, then x
8. Installed shear hog, tightened up coolant since I'm using HDPE
9. 2500 RPM, 12.8 in/min
10. Started facing technique, dropped in twenty thou increments and uniform across the piece
11. Cut 3 passes to face it cleanly
12. Flipped the piece and did same feeds and speeds but with a 25 thou stepdown
13. Deeper chips, going to consult Ben on his thoughts between the two
14. First pass there were some plastic chips snagged in the superfly, adjusted the coolant to blow on the tool and fixed the problem
15. 30 thou stepdown was very smooth, produced similar chips
16. Put in heimer, zeroed to the bottom of the bed, then measured the height to be 5.7221
17. Faced off down to 5.7 with the superfly
18. Put heimer back in and zeroed the x and y to the center of the workpiece
19. Set up conversational to go from z=5.7 to z=5.5
20. Twenty thou depth of cut, .9 stepover, zclear=5.9, RPM = 2500, tool=2, feedrate= 11,

1. Need to be at least 30 thou according to Ben so changed that up
2. Forty thou depth of cut
3. Xstart=-2, xend=2, ystart=2, yend=-2
4. Posted to file and jogged through gcode to make sure it all was straight
5. Pressed cycle start and watched the magic happen
6. Faced off other four sides to make a box of final dimensions 3"x3"x5"

5/21/2017 - 2-6

CNC (3 hours):

1. Cut a piece of wood stock to 2" by 4" with the chop saw
2. Uploaded the chop saw training manual to the wiki page
3. Loaded workpiece into CNC and used Heimer to center
4. Used conversational to set up a 1" diameter, .1" deep cut into the piece with the 3/8" 2 flute endmill
5. Xstart=0,ystart=0, diameter=1, zdoc=.1, zstart=0, zend=-.1, RPM=5000, feedrate=60, zfeedrate=30, zclear=0.2
6. Posted file, slid velocity to zero and hit cycle start
7. Coolant came on, spindle started spinning
8. Eased up velocity and spindle moved to zclear position
9. Made its passes and all went well
10. Repeated similar cut but with xstart=-0.75, zstart=0, zend=-0.2
11. Changed to rectangular cut
12. Xstart=-1.5, xend=1.5, ystart=0.5, yend=-0.5, radius=0.2, zdoc=0.1, zstart=0, zend=0.1, RPM=5000, feedrate=60, zfeedrate=30, zclear=0.2
13. Repeated but with zstart=-0.1, zend=-0.2
14. Switched to tool 13 (1/8" four flute end mill)
15. Engraved Nola into the bottom of the pocket
16. Height=0.3, xbase=0, ybase=-1.5, zstart=-.2, zdoc=0.05, center
17. Didn't work because end mill did two passes which ruined the definition
18. Re-cut the pocket to -0.3" with tool 12
19. Changed engraving to height=0.5, ystart=-0.25, zstart=-0.3
20. Second cut worked out much better
21. Repeated the procedure on the back side by cutting a rectangular pocket 0.2" deep and engraving
22. Used the 3/32" end mill with same speeds and feeds, much better resolution
23. Next step is to use the 40 thou end mill for engraving

Acryllic Rulers

1. Set up the ruler design provided by Epilog
2. Slightly enlarged the fonts and added intricate color mapping
3. Laser #1 worked like a charm, saved the settings on Corel Draw for future use

5/22/2017 - 10:30-7:00

Ultimaker 2+ (3)

1. Filament had broken so I tried to replace it
2. Had trouble inserting filament into the gear box, decided to take the whole thing apart
3. Vacuumed out the interior and attempted to re-load the filament
4. Didn't work out too well, the spring had too much tension on it
5. Took it apart again and checked
6. Appeared that the part of the plastic holding the tension screws was deformed.
7. I was incorrect, the tension screw is activated by the case lid and not the holding platform that I had thought
8. Put it back together and it ran great

CNC (3 hours)

1. Sawed and loaded a 4x6" piece of wood
2. In order to load it high enough, I placed two sets of paralells underneath the wood
3. Used a shear cutter with 2500 RPM, 11.8 IPM, and .1 DOC
4. Tried the 40 thou but it didn't give improved resolution
5. Switched back to the 3/32" end mill
6. Did a three part cut by engraving "NOLA SUMMER 2017" on three separate lines
7. Used the append file to complete this operation
8. Spoke with Cody and he recommended bumping up to 50 IPM at least which is nuts
9. Performed all actions confidently, excited about my progress

5/22/2017 - 10:00-6:00

Ultimaker 2+ (2,3)

1. Opened and cleaned out extruder boxes as outlined in the previous log

Taz (3)

1. Been having trouble with this Taz for the past month
2. Printed a calibration print and lowered the back of the plate
3. Everything else looked good so I ran a print on it
4. After slight adjustment of the tightening screws, the print worked well
5. Still concerned that extrusion problems might occur on a longer, higher print

Chop Saw

1. Trained on the chop saw by Dr. Schuler
2. Make use of clamps and try to avoid stabilizing with your right hand
3. Chopped up a 2X4" into 6" blocks for CNC practice

5/25/2017

Spent morning putting together Ninja Guide going through the Epilog training manual and coming up with inefficiencies to correct.

Cleaned, calibrated, and focused each of the lasers

1. Changed out old filament for Hatchbox filament and reset the printers and Cura to the default settings.
2. Early to say yet but they look pretty damn good.

5/26/2017 10:00-6:00

Spend the morning working with the 3D printers and reveling in the prints that they were producing. The new filament, combined with the default settings, is producing extraordinary prints.

Spent the mid-day working more on the laser engravers and compiling the knowledge in the manual to the ninja guide to the laser engravers

Spent the afternoon discussing and filming a set of basic safety rules for the MakerSpace with Andrew from IDIYA.

5/29/2017 12:00-4:00

CNC Work on Cryoptic chamber (3 hours)

1. Messed around with CAM to finalize design and procedure
2. Performed 3 iterations on wood and 1 on cutting board stock to ensure design specifications
3. Shear hog is amazing, its clearance rate is unreal
4. Gained a lot of knowledge and practice maneuvering CAM and G-Code
5. Only concern before machining aluminum piece is the depth that the shear hog needs to achieve. Radially, it has a slightly bigger diameter about .5" above its cutter and I worry that this will inhibit its movement during the adaptive clearing
6. Cam is set to jet, I'm asking Cody for a second opinion before embarking on the final piece.

Ball in a box Ember print

1. Took the design from Thingiverse, it's a print that it only possible with this type of additive manufacturing
2. Had to remove a build up from the LED window, something to keep in mind because it was hard to spot
3. First real exposure to the Embers, going to continue this line of work

5/30/2017 10:00-

Set up some prints on the 3D printers, Taz 1 and 2 and all of the ultimakers are working really well.

Ultimaker 2+ (3)

1. When changing out the filament, there was a blockage above the printhead that prevented insertion of a new material. While this has occured before, i have always been able to plunge the new filament into the blockage and clear the clog.
2. However, this time the clog was positioned so that I couldn't get enough leverage to force it through
3. I unscrewed the four long screws holding the printhead components together
4. Took a pair of tweezers and removed the clog once the componenets were disassembled