SeeMeCNC orion delta User Manual
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SeeMeCNC orion delta User Manual

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Orion Delta™ 3D Printer Manual
Third Edition – Firmware 0.91 and Higher
V3.05, September 28
th
, 2016
MatterControl v1.2.2
Copyright 2015 By Gene Buckle –
geneb@deltasoft.com
Licensed as Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
This guide will take you through the steps to set up and operate your new 3D
printer from SeeMeCNC. You'll find instructions on calibration, software, maintenance
and more all in this manual. As a new SeeMeCNC™ owner, you'll also find a ton of great
resources on the forums at
forum . seemecnc . com
1

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Summary of Contents for SeeMeCNC orion delta

  • Page 1 This guide will take you through the steps to set up and operate your new 3D printer from SeeMeCNC. You’ll find instructions on calibration, software, maintenance and more all in this manual. As a new SeeMeCNC™ owner, you’ll also find a ton of great resources on the forums at...
  • Page 2 Introduction – Read Me First! This document is your instruction manual for your new SeeMeCNC® 3D printer machine. Before using your new 3D printer, thoroughly read and understand this manual for safe and effective operation of the machine. Warning Personal property damage, serious injury or death can result from not following instructions or warning in the manual or misuse of the machine.

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Installing the LCD Control Panel, USB Cable and SD Card............9 Installing the Power Cord and Spool Holder................14 Loading Filament........................18 Powering Up your new Orion Delta™ 3D Printer for the First Time..........21 The LCD Control Panel......................22 Setting the Z height........................25 Leveling your new Orion Delta™...
  • Page 4 Attention! If your Orion Delta™ has a serial number of 100169 or less, you may need to download the First Edition of the user guide here: http://www.geneb.org/orion/O RIONUserManual.pdf The First Edition covers the older firmware that originally shipped with the Orion Delta™ 3D printer.

  • Page 5: Un-Boxing Your New Orion Delta™ 3D Printer

    Un-Boxing your new Orion Delta™ 3D Printer With your box standing in the upright position, carefully cut the packing tape along the top edges and across the taped seam in the box. After you’ve cut the tape, open the top of the box being careful of any packaging staples.
  • Page 6 Carefully cut and remove the stretch wrap film that is holding the power/USB cables, Orion control panel and accessories on the top plate, as well as the stretch wrap holding your filament to the table top and glass build surface.
  • Page 7 In order to prevent damage during shipping, the hot end on the Orion Delta™ is locked in place over the bed by lowering the delta arms as low as they'll go on each tower. These arms need to be raised in order for the Orion Delta™ to be used.
  • Page 8 Once you've got the hot end in the operation position, you'll need to remove the tape that covers the end stop switches as shown below: This tape helps prevent damage to the end stop switches when the packing film is being removed.

  • Page 9: Installing The Lcd Control Panel, Usb Cable And Sd Card

    Gently pull the pair of flat ribbon cables out a bit from the Orion Delta™ and install them as shown. The “first” cable is marked by an “X” and has a matching “X” on the back of the LCD...
  • Page 10 The USB cable only needs to be used if you wish to manually control the machine from the software on your PC. You can print and do most calibration standalone, without the USB cable attached. We recommend hooking it up now, so if you need to connect it to your computer to make changes etc., the cable is already installed.
  • Page 11 Remove the two black thumb screws as shown and set them aside. Now you'll install the LCD control panel into the Orion Delta™. Please take care as the parts are a tight fit. Align the LCD mounting plate as shown below – there's small locking tabs...
  • Page 12 Carefully raise the panel into place and fit it flush against the mating surface, making sure that not wires get pinched between the two panels – this is a tight fit, so please be careful. Insert the black thumbscrews you'd removed earlier in the mounting holes and tighten them using only your fingers.
  • Page 13 In the accessories box, you should find a small SD card. Insert the SD card into the side of the LCD enclosure as shown below.

  • Page 14: Installing The Power Cord And Spool Holder

    Installing the Power Cord and Spool Holder In order to reach the power supply, you'll need to remove the panel that covers it. Remove the two black thumb screws and set them and the panel aside. Get the power cable from the box the accessories came in.
  • Page 15 If you're outside the USA and live in a country where the A/C electrical power is 240V, you'll need to flip the switch on the power supply to its 240V setting. This switch is located right below the power socket as shown. You can use a flat tip screwdriver to change its position. The power cable is installed by routing it through the hole in the base of the Orion Delta™...
  • Page 16 Now replace the door as shown, replacing the black thumbscrews you'd removed previously. As with the others, tighten them only with your fingers. The spool holder is made from two identical laser cut parts.
  • Page 17 Holding the spool holder parts together, install in the spool holder mount as shown. Press down firmly once the hooks on the spool holder are fully inserted into the mounting holes. This will lock the spool holder into place.

  • Page 18: Loading Filament

    Loading Filament Hang your filament spool on the hanger as shown – you want to make sure that the filament is oriented such that the filament comes off the top of the spool, not the bottom. Route the filament through the first filament guide as shown and then route the filament through the second filament guide that's located on the other side of the rear tower.
  • Page 19 To load the filament through the EZStruder, you'll need to depress the red lever with your thumb (press up) and thread the filament in from the bottom as shown. Continue to feed filament until the filament enters the hot end through the bowden tube.
  • Page 20 Finally, you'll want to remove the protective plastic sheet that covers the LCD.

  • Page 21: Powering Up Your New Orion Delta™ 3D Printer For The First Time

    Powering Up your new Orion Delta™ 3D Printer for the First Time Plug the power cord into a grounded, three prong outlet. Orient the Orion Delta™ to face you and flip the power switch to the right. You should be briefly greeted by a power on message similar to the one shown below.

  • Page 22: The Lcd Control Panel

    The LCD Control Panel Before we get into doing final configuration and printing with your new Orion Delta™ 3D printer, let's take a moment to go over the LCD “home” screen so you'll understand what information is being presented to you.
  • Page 23 All control of your Orion Delta™ when not connected to a host computer is done via the LCD panel and the rotary knob to the right of it. The knob will allow you to navigate the various menus and make selections when you press the knob in.
  • Page 24 Rotate the knob to the left and select the “Home Towers” option. Pressing the button should result in your Orion Delta™ homing all three axes. Note that if you leave the LCD in “menu mode” for too long, it will automatically revert to...

  • Page 25: Setting The Z Height

    Setting the Z height Congratulations! Your new Orion Delta™ 3D printer is alive! But before we get to printing lets take a minute to set the Z height of the machine as it could have been bumped during shipping and it needs to be super accurate to get the best first-layer adhesion of your prints.
  • Page 26 After the machine is homed, scroll to “Z Position” and click. You'll see the display change to what is similar to the photo above. In order to move the platform down, you'll turn the knob counter-clockwise. If you turn it quickly, you'll get large movements and when you turn it very slowly, you'll get a .01mm per-click change.

  • Page 27: Leveling Your New Orion Delta™ 3D Printer (The Easy Way!)

    Leveling your new Orion Delta™ 3D Printer (The Easy Way!) Sometimes the abuse the Orion can experience during shipping can adversely effect the factory calibration. If that's the case with your printer, you can use this easy to follow guide in order to re-calibrate your Orion.
  • Page 28 4) Now you are in the calibration menu. Click Home Towers. The machine will go up and hit all the end-stops. 5) Go down to Z Position and click the knob. 6) Turn the knob Counter-Clockwise to lower the nozzle. Bring the nozzle down till its a couple millimeters from the glass like the following pic.
  • Page 29 9) Go to Home Towers. Click the knob. You have now set the z height, and now it is time to calibrate the towers. 10) Using the selector knob on the Orion, scroll to the Select File menu option and choose the CALIBRATIONS sub-directory: Then chose the TOWERS.GCO file: This will run the tower calibration routine.
  • Page 30 The nozzle will pause at the X corner, then return to the center, and move to the Y tower and pause. After the pause, it will again move to the center, and move to the Z tower, pause, and return to the center. Your focus should be is on the nozzle when it pauses.
  • Page 31 3 pauses compared to the center of the machine. Once the gap is the same at each tower compared to the center, your machine is calibrated and ready to print! The guys at SeeMeCNC produced a really nice video that illustrates the entire calibration process. You can view it using the link below.

  • Page 32: A Simple Guide To Hot End Priming

    A Simple Guide to Hot End Priming Before you can print with your new Orion Delta™ for the first time (or any time you load new filament), you'll need to prime the hot end with the new material. Fortunately, this is a very simple task! Now on the LCD screen, click and go to “Printer Settings”...
  • Page 33 That's all there is to it! You're ready to print!

  • Page 34: Printing From The Sd Card

    If you've got an SD card reader on your computer, you can easily save files to the SD card in order to print with your Orion Delta™ in “stand-alone” mode. You don't need to connect the printer to your computer in order to print! Let's take a look at the demo files that were included on the SD card that was shipped with your Orion Delta™.
  • Page 35 Scroll to the “Print file” menu item and click. This will get you into the top level directory of the SD card. The odd little symbol you see to the left of the directory names are actually little folder icons. This simply helps separate the directories from g-code and other files on the SD card. Click the “GCODE”...
  • Page 36 Note – before you run a print job on your Orion Delta™, you need to apply a thin layer of adhesive using the included glue stick. This will allow the ABS plastic to stick to the glass. Apply the glue stick in a thin layer of parallel lines. Let it dry and repeat the process, using lines perpendicular to the first layer.

  • Page 37: Changing Filament

    Changing Filament Changing the filament on your Orion is a very simple process. First, you'll want to bring the hot end up to the temperature you normally set it at when you're printing. Once the hot end is at operating temperature, pop the bowden tube off the hot end as shown in the following steps.
  • Page 38 When the filament pulls free, it should look something like the photo below. 2. Cut off the filament flush with the end of the bowden tube.
  • Page 39 3. Pull the filament stub from the hotend and then re-insert the bowden tube into the hotend, making sure it seats fully. Here's a video that covers the process nicely! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbS0CCr8USQ...

  • Page 40: Printing From Your Computer

    MatterControl. From now on, I'll refer to it simply as “the host software”, or some cryptic variant of that. You can download MatterControl by going to the SeeMeCNC website – http://seemecnc.com/pages/downloads. Scroll down to the “Software” heading and you'll see the links for MatterControl.
  • Page 41 Now that you've got MatterControl open, you need to tell it about the Orion so you can start printing! Click on “File” and then “Add Printer”. The following dialog will open: This is where you can manage all your different printer configurations. Click the “Add” icon as indicated by the blue arrow.
  • Page 42 After you've saved, MatterControl will prompt you to install the driver needed to communicate with the Orion. Click on Install Driver. Once you've given permission to run the installer, the following dialog will appear: Click on the Install button to install the driver.
  • Page 43 Once you click on Connect, the following dialog should appear: Congrats! You're all done. Click on the Done button to continue. At this point, your MatterControl screen should look something like this. The configuration process automatically loads a test object that you can print. Let's take a few minutes to go over the various features of the MatterControl interface.
  • Page 44 The MatterControl interface is split into two halves. The left half is where you can load objects or G-Code to print, start prints, and manually control the printer. 1. This is the print queue display. If nothing is queued up, you'll see a message indicating that there no items in the queue to print.
  • Page 45 The right half of the MatterControl interface is taken up by a 3D view of your build platform and what objects are currently loaded and ready to print. 1. The 3D and Layer view controls allow you to switch between the 3D view (shown) and the Layer view.
  • Page 46 Since MatterControl was nice enough to provide us with a test object, what say we print it? Click on the Advanced Controls button on the left pane. For right now we're only going to worry about the QUALITY and MATERIAL settings. Click on the QUALITY drop down and select Standard.
  • Page 47 After the print job is done, you'll have a little plastic cube that looks something like the photo below. I suspect your bed glass is going to be a lot cleaner than mine! Congratulations on your first successful print! Let the bed cool to room temperature and you should be able to pop the cube right off the bed without any problems.

  • Page 48: Mattercontrol Basics: Slicing

    MatterControl Basics: Slicing MatterControl is a very complete 3D printing package and it's got a LOT of options. Some people can find this intimidating, but I assure you – there's nothing to be worried about! MatterControl is an integrated host application. This means that it provides everything needed to control the Orion and to prepare models for printing.
  • Page 49 I want you to click on the Advanced Controls button to bring up the Settings, Controls, and Configuration pane. Click on the SETTINGS link to make sure your display follows (by and large) what you see below. The first thing I want you to do is click on the Show Help check box that's highlighted by the arrow in the image above.
  • Page 50 Here's what the Coarse, Standard, and Fine layer heights look like when printing the little test cube in ABS plastic. Starting from left to right, the layer heights are 0.1mm, 0.2mm and 0.3mm. You'll notice that the top layer on the 0.1mm print is kind of ratty and torn up. This is because the number of top layers is set to 3.
  • Page 51 you check the Support Material box, the slicer will automatically design support for the part that's currently (or will be) loaded. Create Raft – A raft is essentially what it says, a “raft” of material that your part will print on top of.
  • Page 52 the part looks like from the side. You can easily see the support material as well as the layer lines that will be at a 30 degree angle when the little cube is laid flat. Support material is generated in such a way that there is just enough of it there to handle the actual print layer that it will be supporting.
  • Page 53 Here's what you end up with after removing the support material from your part. As you can see, there's still a little clean up to to be done to the printed cube (on the left). A quick hit with some 220 grit sandpaper will knock the rough edges of the support material down. That's pretty much all there is to the Simple settings level.
  • Page 54 Click on the Simple setting drop down and pick Intermediate. Your MatterControl settings screen should change to something resembling the image below. Quite a number of new configuration options are accessible under the Intermediate settings level. The first set of options we'll tackle live under the Print heading. Layers/Perimeters –...
  • Page 55 Lines #1 Concentric Grid Triangles Lines #2 The Lines infill pattern differ from the others in that the line orientation is alternated every other layer. All the examples show a 20% infill density. You're probably wondering which infill pattern is “best”. I wish I could go into that, but I've been unable to locate any studies that cover the topic in any depth.
  • Page 56 The next new category exposed by the Intermediate setting is called Filament. Under the Intermediate setting, the only option is Filament. This allows you to set three parameters that deal directly with the material you're currently using to print with. Diameter –...
  • Page 57 The Material Presets list shows you what pre-configured material settings you've got available to you. When you get a new roll of filament in, you can easily keep track of its settings by using this system. Click on the Add button and we'll create your first custom material! When you click on the Add button, you'll be presented with a...
  • Page 58 After you've saved your new profile, it will appear as the currently selected material as shown to the right. Now say you've printed a test cube and have decided that the print might look better if you bumped up the temperature 2 degrees. This is a simple change to make.
  • Page 59 One of the nice features of the hot end that the Orion uses is the ability to change the nozzle that you're using for a print. The stock hot end size is 0.5mm, but if you're going to do really detailed work, you may want to change to a 0.35mm nozzle. If you're doing coarser work and want to print really quickly, you could use a 0.7mm or larger nozzle.
  • Page 60 The Movement Controls pane contains controls that will allow you to manually position the Orion's effector platform. The row of buttons to the right of the little house icon control “homing” of the movement axes in the Orion. Because the Orion is a delta configuration printer, the only buttons active are the ALL and Z buttons –...

  • Page 61: Mattercontrol Basics: Loading And Printing An Object

    MatterControl Basics: Loading and Printing an Object We've previously worked with the small cube that MatterControl provided as an example. Now we're going to cover loading and slicing an object from start to finish. For this section, I recommend you head over to http://www.repables.com and find something you'd like to print.
  • Page 62 Once you have the object loaded, click on the Advanced Controls button so we can make sure your print settings are the way you want them. For my print, I've decided to leave the QUALITY setting at Coarse and I'm using the tweaked material values that I set up earlier.
  • Page 63 Click on the Scale button to access the scaling controls. As you can see, I changed the value to .75 or 75% of its original size. Click on the small up arrow next to the Save button at the bottom of the window. This will allow you to save the object under a different name if you don't want to over-write the original.
  • Page 65 When it finishes, the layer view will display the first layer of your print job. You'll notice right off the skirt that I covered previously. It's important to make sure that the hot end is primed by the time it begins to print your part! At the bottom of the window you'll see some controls that will allow you to either re-slice the object (Generate) or view the individual print layers.
  • Page 66 After slicing the object, MatterControl will display a few statistics about the current print in the Layer View window. This can be handy information if you're selling your services and need to know how much a particular part is going to consume in both time and materials. Go ahead and click the Print button and get your object printing! After the print finishes, you should have a little part that looks something like the photo below (if that's what you printed).

  • Page 67: Advanced Mattercontrol: Configuration

    Note that this will NOT calibrate a delta printer! What it can do is help improve first layer performance on an already calibrated printer. SeeMeCNC has put together a nice video that illustrates the process quite effectively: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ymbr-AMew The EEPROM Settings configuration option will allow you to edit firmware parameters that are stored on the controller inside your Orion.
  • Page 68 The Gcode Terminal is where you can directly interact with the firmware on your Orion 3D printer. When you first open the Gcode Terminal, you'll be presented with a window that looks similar to the one below: You'll notice that the display will scroll as new information comes in from the Orion. This is how MatterControl is able to continually update things like the temperature displays.
  • Page 69 By default, MatterControl will play a bell sound when the current active print job completes. However, you can change this behavior via the Notification Settings configuration screen. You'll be able to configure MatterControl to send you an email or text message when your printer completes a job.
  • Page 70 The Slice Engine configuration will allow you to choose which slicer that you want to use in order to prepare your model for printing. By default, MatterControl uses the MatterSlice slicing engine that was developed by the MatterControl team. You also have the option of choosing Slic3r or CuraEngine to do your slicing.

  • Page 71: Advanced Mattercontrol: Settings - Print

    Advanced MatterControl: Settings – Print MatterControl offers three “classes” of settings that have a direct effect on how your printer works. Print covers elements that relate to how the plastic is laid down. Filament covers parameters specific to the type of filament that you've chosen to print with. Printer handles those remaining parameters that describe the physical printer you're currently using to print with.
  • Page 72 The first parameter is Layer Height. We've covered this one before, but I wanted to point out something that I didn't go into a lot of detail about earlier. You'll notice that the field has a yellowish highlight to it. That means that the value exists in the currently selected QUALITY profile.
  • Page 73 Spiral Vase mode allows you to print things like vases or other open top, single-wall objects in one continuous layer. What happens is that instead of the slicer raising the nozzle up a full layer height for each new layer, it gradually increases the Z height as the print progresses. This results in a perfectly seamless object, which can be important for artistic prints such as vases.
  • Page 74 The next page in Print is called Infill and covers how the interior of your part is filled. While I covered Fill Density and Infill Type earlier, the Advanced mode adds two new parameters. The Starting Angle parameter allows you to control the orientation of the infill. For example, an infill type of GRID with a starting angle of zero degrees is going to look like this: Now if you change the starting angle to 45 degrees, you'll end up with an infill pattern that looks like the example below.
  • Page 75 The Speed page covers parameters that control how fast various features of the object are printed. The speeds are listed in mm per second, or as a percentage of a related speed parameter. The speed parameters are pretty self-explanatory, especially if you've got the Show Help check box set.
  • Page 76 The last bit about speed settings I want to cover is the first layer speed. You'll see that it's really slow. The reason for this is that while hot plastic loves to stick to hot plastic, hot plastic doesn't like sticking to other things as much. By going slowly on the first layer, you're giving the material time to get a good grip on the surface of the bed.
  • Page 77 If your Orion is equipped with a layer cooling fan, you can use the Fan Speed setting to cool the raft as it's being printed. This is typically only used when printing with PLA. If you've added a second extruder to your Orion, you can specify which one should be used for rafts by setting the Raft Extruder value to the index of the extruder you want to use.
  • Page 78 As the angle increases, the underlying surface area for each layer becomes smaller and smaller until there's simply not enough surface for the next layer to adhere to. In these instances, support material is practically a requirement if you want your part to print at all.
  • Page 79 If you've got multiple extruders on your Orion, these parameters allow you to specify which extruder is used for generating support structure. The Repair page contains a couple of settings the govern how (and if) the slicer will attempt any repair of invalid part models. Sometimes modeling programs will create a model that isn't “water tight”, meaning it's got gaps in the surface.
  • Page 80 The last page on the Print tab is called Advanced. The Advance page currently only has the Extrusion Width section. The First Layer parameter allows you to specify the extrusion width of the first layer. A first layer width that's larger can help with how the material adheres to the bed. You can specify it as either an actual width, or as a percentage of the normal extrusion with (typically the same as the nozzle diameter).

  • Page 81: Advanced Mattercontrol: Settings - Filament

    Advanced MatterControl: Settings – Filament The Filament tab allows you to change parameters that deal with the current filament you're printing with. The Filament page is divided into three categories; Filament, Temperature, and Retraction. The filament Diameter parameter tells the slicing engine the size of the material you're printing with.
  • Page 82 Retraction covers how the slicer “retracts” the filament during travel operations where it's not actually laying down plastic. Good retraction settings help keep your part free of little strings and blobs during printing. Length on Move specifies how much filament will be backed out of the hot end during a non-printing move.
  • Page 83 Bridging Fan Speed covers the speed that the fan should run at when the slicer is creating a filament bridge. A bridge is basically a free-hanging length of filament with no support below it. Some materials like PLA form excellent bridges if cooled while being extruded. Disable Fan For The First n Layers allows you to make sure that the fan isn't activated during the crucial first few layers of a print.

  • Page 84: Advanced Mattercontrol: Settings - Printer

    Advanced MatterControl: Settings – Printer The Printer section covers items that are specific to the printer being used for the current print job. The General page covers parameters that describe the mechanical features of the printer. The Bed Size fields cover the width and length of the bed.
  • Page 85 The Firmware section allows you to tell the slicing engine about the firmware you're using with your Orion. Z Can Be Negative can be checked if the firmware you're using on your Orion will accept Z positions below zero. Leave this unchecked if you're using the stock Orion firmware. G-Code Output specifies what “flavor”...
  • Page 86 The last page for the Printer tab is called Extruder. This page allows you to configure each extruder you have installed in your Orion. Nozzle Diameter specifies the diameter of the currently installed nozzle in the hot end. Extruder Offset allows you to specify the offset from the center of the effector platform in the Orion.

  • Page 87: Using The 3D View And Layer View

    Using the 3D View and Layer View The 3D View will show you the part that will be printed when you hit the Print button. The Layer View is used to inspect how your part will be printed, one layer at a time. The 3D View will allow you to view your model in pretty much any orientation you'd like.
  • Page 88 The 3D View will also allow you to directly manipulate the part or parts currently being displayed on the virtual print bed. The first control, Insert is used to add one or more components to the virtual print bed. To give you an idea of how this works in practice, head over to Repables and grab the “Ignite Michiana”...
  • Page 89 You'll end up with something similar to the figure below after clicking on Auto-Arrange. The blue arrow points to a tiny icon that indicates which is the currently selected object. In order to move an object around manually, you'll need to make sure that the “picker” icon has been selected.
  • Page 90 Be aware that if you've got your objects grouped, clicking on Copy will result in the entire group being copied. The Remove button works as you'd expect. Select an object and click Remove to remove it from the virtual build surface. Cancel will discard any changes you've made so far and Save will allow you to save the state of the virtual print surface.
  • Page 91 The scaling operation made the cube 150% larger than the original. The X, Y, and Z fields allow you to specify exact dimensions. However, as long as the Lock Ratio field is checked, any change made to those fields will adjust the others to maintain the same ratio. The Mirror function will simply allow you to “mirror”...
  • Page 92 The Layer View is where you can see exactly what the Orion is going to do while printing your part. When you first select it, it may show “Press 'generate' to view layers”. Click the Generate button in the lower left corner of the Layer View display. This will hand over the parts to the slicing engine and will create the G-Code required to print your parts.
  • Page 93 The Layer View will also allow you to see the layers in 3D. Just click the 3D icon at the upper right corner of the display window to see your layers in 3D! The display can be moved around in the same manner as that shown for the 3D View. 7 Layers in, 3D view.
  • Page 94 Speeds will color the layers based on how fast the layer is printed. The Extrusion option will thicken the lines used to draw the layers in order to give a more accurate visual representation of what the actual print layer will look like when printed. Finally, Sync to Print will allow you to follow the print process using the Layer View.

  • Page 95: A Strategy For Successful (And Great!) Prints

    Some of the links below reference part files that are stored on the forum itself. You may need to create a forum account to reach them. I highly recommend doing this whether or not you need the files. The SeeMeCNC is an excellent resource with a vibrant, helpful and very newbie-friendly community.
  • Page 96 One very easy place to do this is with the model itself. Develop your experience printing the same model over and over until you nail it. Even with a simple model, you can (and should) approach printing it with a methodical approach from the ground up. That's the next strategy. #3 Practice in Measures.
  • Page 97 It may even seem like you are getting a great first layer and great sticking (which you are) but later, you'll discover the part is nearly impossible to remove or your extruder will start making that all too familiar TICK, TICK, TICK sound from missing steps. A perfect first layer will go down smooth and consistently time after time.
  • Page 98 Recently I archived all of my H1 and H1-1 notes. I don't refer to them any longer so why keep them in my working notes? #8 Be Consistent. A CEO friend I worked with many years ago was fond of saying "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds!".
  • Page 99 filament need to be bumped up a bit more than 5° so don't hesitate to experiment and find that lowest reliable extrusion temperature. If you want to get really serious about profiling your filaments, do the melt-flow test at higher extrusion rates - 60 mm/s, then 70mm/s, etc. Don't forget to measure the diameter of your filament too! Not all filaments are created equally.
  • Page 100 This isn't an exhaustive list but it does include the big hitters and, as you can see, there are a few of them so it is very important to take a methodical (#2 and #8) and documented (#7) approach when solving bed-related problems. This is also a place where careful observation (#6) can play an important part.
  • Page 101 There are many other variations on this (changing slicers for example). Learn how to diagnose problems. This requires careful observation (#6). Once you've identified where the problem occurs (let's say getting the first layer to stick) then PRACTICE that piece (see #3) until you sort it out. No need to run through the entire process over and over. Isolate the problem, formulate a hypothesis on what you think might be happening and design a test to prove or disprove your hypothesis.
  • Page 102 When you do determine you have a problem that only a fan can solve, start conservatively. I also seriously recommend using a duct of some sort to focus the air flow where you need it. Ideally, the fan would have the ability to follow the print nozzle and direct a small stream of air to the filament right after it is laid down.
  • Page 103 2) first layer thickness (stop the print after first layer and measure it) 3) total print height (should be about .6mm) 4) X-Y calibration (should be 20mm diameter) 5) eliminate blobbing and other surface artifacts - follow the guide above, print slow, adjust retracts, etc. KEEP NOTES! pt3mmx20mm-cylinder.stl http://forum.seemecnc.com/download/file.php?id=8207 pt4mmx20mm-cylinder.stl http://forum.seemecnc.com/download/file.php?id=8208...
  • Page 104 Highcooley's Onyx Bed Leveling Aid is a great one to test your calibration. Highly recommended. If you can print it perfectly you've "arrived". I couldn't find a similar thing for the Orion. If you know of one, let me know and I'll add it.

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