I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated I am getting…
That is all.
Please dont use a 3D printed part in a Nuclear Powerplant, its unlikely to be certified. At all.
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It’s fine I got a surge protector.
Edwin asked me to print some gcode to test some stuff out, its a 13 and a half hour print wtf lol
I was working on a new part for the snapmaker print head to share, wanted to make a minor tweak before sharing it but I guess that’s not going to happen today.
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13 hours lmao. Can’t have print problems if your printer is busy doing something else 
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Man, i’m so annoyed right now.
i had traded linear modules with a spare, and then they instructed me to do that test, so i thought all right i will rule out this axis by running the test, which came out fine.
so then i said ugh i will put it back and get the other axis to mess up and at least have a replacment on hand, and that test also came out fine.
been printing for 2 or 3 days now with no issues, and bam - it happens again last night. layer shift over maybe .5 mm, about an inch or so up the print, on the same freakin balloon i was printing before (which by the way I have several copies of that came out just fine).
so I am thinking that maybe the calibration cube does not have as many ultrafine details as the balloon does which is causing these minor skips in the axis. theres some really good detail going up the entire print with some ropes etc.
Regardless, running another stupid 13 hour calibration cube now… i hope it screws up so i can get this resolved.
its this model, i wanted to print for my dad for christmas… i was trying to do it in silk pla but god the dimensions are so wonky with that silk pla, the extrusion comes out nearly twice as thick, but trying to tell it to extrude less made a claibration cube come out with no letters on it!
also have tried other hot air balloon models out there, which were kind of retconned into being 3d printable i think, but some of the details are so small that even with .02 nozzle they print bad, and they wouldnt be able to support themselves anhow.
so i gave up and said fine i will print it in a regular pla and chose a nice green matterhackers color. i have a good wood basket already printed for it, but the silk pla never fits on therre because everything comes out wonky.
Thing files for The Skylift by MakerBot - Thingiverse
i just wanted to print something nice for my dad for christmas!
all of the gifts im trying to print are having issues, they are all multi color prints that you assemble like a chief wahoo with 3 colors, but they dont fit together well, so filing and filing and filing away.
oof.
Its to late timewise but for another ‘higher’ volume part, get one good print, make it perfect and do a resin cast of it? Looked at vacuumforming before for a simmilar thing.
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I see what you are saying, but yeah I don’t mean I have many good ones, I have been printing it repeatidly trying to get it perfect and suddenly it wants to layer shift after i finally have it tuned the way i want
No chance you’ve witnessed the shift? Have a video camera you could set up to watch the process? I bet if you saw it happen it would be obvious what caused it.
Does it happen at the same spot each time? Could try printing only that section for troubleshooting.
Could try thicker or thinner layers.
Oh man you’re right, i might be able to go thru some footage - i had put a cam there recently but forgot because it wasnt really my long term solution
im almost positive the plate didnt move, im pretty particular about the placement of the print sheet on the heated bed.
and yeah maybe i should slice out that general vacinity too, good idea. thanks
edit: of course the battery on the camera died at 12:40 am, about 3/4" before it occured
I’m going to cancel this stupid 13 hour cube and try to do that instead when i get home.
Yea, other options include the nozzle crashing into something, steppers skipping, or other things that would probably show up on camera. Can’t wait to see the footage after you replace the battery 
im nearly positive the stepper is skipping, thats why he is trying to make me print the cube, but i dont think that its doing as much motion in the cube, as there are a lot of little micro movements involved to print the rope on the outside
i’m gonna get it.
theres actually a second cam i have pointed at it, but i dont think the footage will show up on there in the dark well. lil junky china spy cam thing i had laying around. gona check anyhow later, remotely its not even feasible its so junky.
Maybe they can just watch your print as it prints then 
Have you noticed any curling of the print? That’s the only time I’ve had skips - when the print curls at the edges more than my Z hop.
No, the parts are very firmly adhered to the print bed, they have a wide base to them
they are also beautiful looking, very accurate, just - shifted over a bit after awhile…
It is likely they do have access to the cam footage, its a questionable app too, but i’m not too worried about them seeing me in my boxers ripping out whats left of my hair over the issues with the machine
gotcha, nope - nice and flat! i have a picture of one of the purple silk pla ones floating around, which were a coming out pretty decent, but this regular green pla is printing realllly nice.
i feel like the detailed braids in the rope continually is causing some hiccups in the stepper, but its hard to prove when their test is to print a 50mm cube that comes out fine. 50 sounds kinda small i think it was more like 60 or 70 actually, i have to go check it.
You could try printing this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2166102
Right here, as the bridge closes, I noticed a tendency to curl. Adjusted the fan until it didn’t:
A small piece of the braid might be curling up, and adjusting the fan might help.
Wont hurt to try.
I think that i just have faulty stepper that is inconsistent, but ill print one of those out with my settings
using the blower fan i print 35% airflow, in reality the purple balloon above was before the mod and the green one from last night was with the mod tho
if the print sheet seemed like it wasn’t sitting where i put it id be more apt to believe that it was a nozzle crash or something, which has happened before but just not seeing the evidence for that right now.
will keep working it out. maybe ill just put the new linear module back on and try to print the balloon and see if it goes or not after all above else
i was considering investing in an oil crayon to mark the side of the heated bed and print sheet to prove alignment didnt change, which i keep forgetting to order, and now its too late to have it here today. due to some prior arrangements i cant get it til monday now hehe
not sure if a grease pen or soapstone stick would be better, probably the ladder.
edit: found a welder pencil so that should work just fine 
Well
It happened again.
I am not seeing a particular event causing this in the footage.
For some reason the footage sounds an awful lot noisier than it seems in reality, but
i think that this is the apex of when the change occured, there are several videos around here and they all seem pretty similar, but i hear some kinda grind sound in this one
the thing is, I marked the print sheet and heated bed with a silver graphite mark in several places, and it doesnt look like the the plate shifted at all.
I am speculating that this noise is occuring inside of the linear module. its at around the 35 second mark, after which alot of the random noise kind of ceases.
I will say, that this time the shift was in a different direction that before, it previously was left to right but this one is now front to back.
If you dont think you see anything in here it may be in a previous or later video, but they all look the freakin same to me. this one had the noise.
its hard to tell, but i have marks around the plate in many places
i circled a couple here.
If the nozzle crashed into the part and caused the plate to shift, those marks should not be lined up anymore, but all of them still are. every single mark lines up with the mating part…
furthermore, this part is firmly cemented to the plate, its not loose and didnt shove over or anything like that. this is a solid piece!
Here is an additional video showing the machine in action with a little tour around it to prove my points
One last comment i should make, i previously had said this occurs at about the same elevation, however this is not an accurate statement to make. it is not a consistent height that this occurs.
I have temporarily paused the print to take some photos of various examples:
at this point i am just going to go ahead and resume the print and let it complete… not a very impressive present for my dad but apparently the best im going to be able to do.
I have tried this in high quality, medium and fast. the current green example is fast. fast is a 6 and a half hour print, to give you an idea of how hard i tried to make this work…
I have successfully printed this model in the past, however as i used the silk pla the dimensional accuracy was so bad that i was unable to assemble the model, the pegs and basket did not fit. i do not have the model anymore unfortunately.
the g-code can be found here: