Please note: Our printer is a prototype. There is still a lot of to improve, but I got to the point where I think models could be printed with satisfying structural integrity so if you are not super-interested in smoothness of final models, I would say for mechanical parts it's sufficient.I would like to improve this smoothness in the future, so this should get better.

Important: I would like to encourage everybody to use this printer. I think you cannot hurt it and if you do, I have a lot of spare parts. I would be very happy if the printer will be used as much as possible. So if you are interested in 3d printing, come over and try to print something.

Here you have simple guide how to use the printer:

1. Plug the printer into the main

2. Wait 5 minutes, open your browser and write http://192.168.1.216/ into the address line, Octoprint web server (running on raspberry) should appear. Login is written on the top plastic cover of the printer.

3. Click connect – this will connect raspberry with hw, which is driving the printer.

4. Go to the control tab, click home symbol in the middle of x y, or click one of the “move” button to be sure that printer is up and running.

5. Upload your model’s g-code (At this point the model must be already sliced and prepared, I will elaborate this particular process in an extra manual)

6. Click print button. Now if you go to the temperature tab, you can see that printer just set the target temperature for printing bed. That means the printing process started – printer will now wait around 15 minutes for bed to reach the target temperature, then it will wait for hotend for reach the temperature (bed is heated first, because heating bed takes more time than heating hotend)

7. Ok, 15minutes just passed so printed is preheated and ready. Once target temperatures were reached, printer starts immediately with printing. This is the moment when a bit of attention should be taken:

The first layer is the most important one. Once the first layer is printed well, probability of successful print rapidly increased:) It's essential for filament to be squeezed properly on the first layer – this influences how well or badly it sticks to the preheated printing surface. Therefore I am always watching the printer during the first layer and in case that plastic doesn't look to be squeezed perfectly, I can comfortably adjust the planarity by tweaking setting screwes at the printing bed. In case that something went wrong, now it's usually better to scratch the printing now and start again.

If the skirt (skirt is couple of loops around the model, which are supposed to be loops for testing the filament and cleaning the nozzle) looks good, there is big probability that also first layer will be ok. After couple of minutes the first layer should be placed and if everything looks ok, you can forget it for a while and check once after let's say 30 minutes if everything is up and running properly.

8. Once printing is done, you can use small knife to put the model out of the bed. Its more than good if you can make this operation without hurting capton tape,which should remain consistent for next prints.

1. Please don't stick anything conductive to the area where electronic is placed. It's not about you being killed by 230V, but you can also hurt the printer's hw.

2. The blue switch at the back of the printer is for immediate switching the motors and heaters off, BUT PRINTER STILL REMAINS CONNECTED TO THE MAIN! If you want to switch printer completely off, you have to unplug it from the main. That means EVEN THE PRINTER IS SWITCHED OFF BY THE BLUE SWITCH, THERE ARE STILL AREAS UNDER 230V!

3. In case you screw up something, please let me know so I can improve the design to be sure that this is not going to happen again.

4. I would be very happy if anybody decided to push this printer a little bit forward by improving it in any kind of way. Let me know also in case of any questions about preparing models or something.

Well that's all. Enjoy your models:)

  • project/3d_how_to.txt
  • Last modified: 2017/01/15 14:29
  • by ivan_ahepjuk