1 Topic by Midian

  • Midian
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  • Registered: 2013-10-03
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Topic: Greetings All

I have been either working with CNC machines or Designing for quite a few years and when I found the Solidoodle site and the Price and build Volume of the Solidoodle 3 I had to order it. I cannot wait to start using it. I ordered it 09/29/2013 and have been like a kid before Christmas waiting for it.

Midian.

2 Reply by foofoodog

  • foofoodog
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  • Registered: 2013-08-16
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Re: Greetings All

Congratulations. I think you will be pleased.

One thing is, lightly treat the bed with ABS slurry since that would have saved me a pound of plastic to start with. YMMV.

For more tune up later make sure the Z axis is set just right. You will know you need that, or bed leveling, if you get head plow and your first layers have jagged/serrated edges. Nothing a little 220 sand paper can't clean up quickly but it can be avoided.

After awhile make sure the belts do not have any slop that you can see but do not over tighten them since the machine will bind and squeal and grind. It should run quietly and consistently with no harsh sounds even when run at a 150 feed rate.

Then maybe get a dial indicator and print the mount, or use some kind of a feeler gauge, so you can level the bed.

And you will need to eventually practice replacing the Kapton tape, or go to a glass bed (I hear).


You can see more of my ramblings here.
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/3742/noob-rambling/

3 Reply by Midian

  • Midian
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Re: Greetings All

Thanks for the info,

Every machine I have worked with has required setup and tweaking before they operated as they should, like if you use an electronic level to level the work deck you must first put the level on the x or y rails and level the machine or you are not really leveling the deck.

My Fireball v90 was the same way, it started cutting off the bat at 2x scale until I calibrated all the axis.

Though I am going to look, has anyone made a PDF setup and calibration manual for the SD3? I will be logging my progress and steps that I take so I can see what I did or did not do correctly.

4 Reply by MixFit (edited by MixFit 2013-10-05 13:00:31)

  • MixFit
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  • Registered: 2013-09-25
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Re: Greetings All

Check out the soliwiki.

If you follow the calibration steps on soliwiki from the top down you'll have good results.

Couple of things that made huge improvements. My printer was overextruding by more than 30% out of box. soliwiki has a link to a video tutorial for a simple procedure to adjust your extrusion stepper.

My print bed was warped badly on the y axis. The glass bed mod made short work of that.

I was printing really poor circles. turns out my belts were a bit out of adjustment.

Check out hacks and mods. Especially the glass bed, abs slurry, and fan install threads. The new printer board has a spot for a gcode controllable fan.