Anycubic I3 Mega 3D Printer. 3D Printer Newbie Experience.

[buttersoft]

I decided to grab something else for myself for xmas, but i really needs to get me a printer soon :(

 

Failing that i need to find someone who'd like to "test" a few prints for me :) The problem is i keep coming up with more things i want to print.

[Arcade King]

 

Thanks mate appreciate it. Got some abs but worried to use it as my printer is in my office and am worried about the fumes. Have you made an enclosure or us the fume scare an over reaction?

 

I used eSun ABS+ Black and a Yellow bought specially for that Carriage. I didn't find it too fumes to be too bad, the back was worse than the yellow though and I didn't use a enclosure being QLD and stinking hot right now.

 

I decided to grab something else for myself for xmas, but i really needs to get me a printer soon :(

 

Failing that i need to find someone who'd like to "test" a few prints for me :) The problem is i keep coming up with more things i want to print.

 

Always happy to help if you can't find somebody local.

 

Skeletor done...I think I had the speed dialed up too high on this one :( You can see that line around his neck and overall quality isn't as good as He-Man.

I wondered why this was already done this morning lol He-Man took almost a full day.

 

[Arcade King]

Here's the Carriage done in PetG. You can see the stringiness compared to the black ABS however that's easy to clean up, the ABS looks nicer though. I've noticed straight away the tolerances are much better on the PetG, I was able to push M3 screws and the nuts into the slots much easier due to PetG being a bit softer. There was defiantly some shrinkage in the ABS print.

No cooling on the ABS however I set it to 60% on the PetG.

 

[Arcade King]

Its been months since I've turned on my 3d printer and wouldn't you know I go to use it its jammed.

I figured since I'd have to pull it to bits id install the new carriage.

all thats needed is to relevel and test.

[Arcade King]

I've been pretty quiet the last week with my mind set on one task....get this upgraded and running again. I got sick of half finished projects lying around for months on end.

I've been really frustrated with the printer especially with the warped bed causing all sorts of issues and wasting time trying to get a decent first layer.

So what have I done?

I wanted to install a Bltouch or in my case a clone version I bought (unknown to me) to see if the leveling process would go any smoother.

Since I had the thing apart I also upgraded the stepper drivers to 2208, these make a huge difference in noise, except for the PSU fan the printer is almost silent now.

To cut a long story short it only made it worse, in fact I was so frustrated I installed a new bed I had bought months back only to have it scratched.

This new bed was perfect, no warping what so ever and I was able to manually level it without issue so the Bltouch should have only made it better....

I got exactly the same issue with the old and new bed where while printing a benchy the left hand side was literally digging into the bed, it can't of been a coincidence. I ended up going back to the old firmware with mesh leveling and everything came good.

I'm now getting perfect first layers every time in fact this new bed has made a HUGE difference.

This red PLA+ always gave me issues, I could never get the first layer down. I still need to play around with the retraction settings but this is a great step forward.

I'm currently making shells for projects I've been doing the latest one is the Sdrive (on the right) for the Atari 8 bit, I even made some SIO plugs for it out of black ABS. The plugs are pretty fine, I probably should have used a .2 nozzle.

 

In conclusion the Bltouch clone I bought is obviously defective. I've already gone to all the effort to put the wiring in so I'm going to eventually buy a genuine one and have another go. It's also interesting that the new bed I bought was 10 mm smaller than the old one.....go figure.

[cwispy]

Trav,

 

You inspired me to print the latest version of the hotend assembly and although I printed it all in black petg, its come out really well. Now I just need to wait for my E3D v6 hotend and thermocouple to arrive so I can put it together.

 

cwispy

[Arcade King]

Trav,

 

You inspired me to print the latest version of the hotend assembly and although I printed it all in black petg, its come out really well. Now I just need to wait for my E3D v6 hotend and thermocouple to arrive so I can put it together.

 

cwispy

 

Pics or it didn't happen :p

[cwispy]

LOL. 😉

 

[Arcade King]

Very nice!

[Arcade King]

Just a quickie

My layers have been deteriorating of late and have noticed a clicking sound coming from the extruder. Pulling it apart the gear that feeds the filament in is clearly wearing down.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Upgrade-...72.m2749.l2649

The Anycubic Mega S uses a generic cheap Chinese knock off Titan extruder so to save money you can buy 2 replacement kits for the price of 1 fully assembled one from the link above and still have cash to spare.

I'll get a pic of my worn gear when I pull it apart.

[cwispy]

I was having a similar issue with mine, and it turned out to be the power supply as well as I needed to increase the current to the stepper motors on the TMC2208.

[Arcade King]

I know the issue you're talking about, my extruder was struggling at first as well after the driver upgrade. I adjusted the voltage up to 1.2 volts what did you settle on?

[cwispy]

I think I settled on about 1.1 for the extruder in the end. The Power Supply was the main culprit though, the output filter caps were all failing after less than a year of owning the machine, and not all that much use.

[Arcade King]

Whats your recommendation on a PSU? the Fan on mine sounds like its going to blow up anyway.

[cwispy]

I just repaired mine initially, but I do intend to replace it with a Meanwell psu at some stage. I changed the fan with a good quality ball bearing fan which quietened it right down. When I get around to changing the psu, I will probably convert my system to 24v at the same time.

[cwispy]

I decided to go all out and I have just ordered a Titan Aero with v6 hotend and thermocouple. This will allow me to print flexible filament as well as ones requiring temperatures above 300 degrees Celsius. So I am now printing out this mod https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4299180

 

[cwispy]

While I had my printer apart today to fit the Titan Aero I also took the Trigorilla board out and I found that the power input connectors (circled in the image) had dry joints. Trav I would recommend checking yours if you have not already. I also resoldered the connections on the hub board which goes out the side of the machine.

 

[Arcade King]

Will do!

[Brad]

Whilst I'd love to tinker with a 3D printer I still cannot find a good enough reason to get one.

 

All these issues and the fact you seem to have to mod them to get a decent outcome makes me glad I haven't bothered yet.

 

Brad

[extendo]

Whilst I'd love to tinker with a 3D printer I still cannot find a good enough reason to get one.

 

All these issues and the fact you seem to have to mod them to get a decent outcome makes me glad I haven't bothered yet.

 

Brad

 

You can purchase 3D printers that are pretty much ready to use right out of the box, it depends what you are looking at spending mate.

 

- Con

[cwispy]

It took a lot of messing around, but I finally got the Titan Aero installed along with a Thermocouple and cable chain. Need to print another couple of bits, but im happy with how its turned out.

 

[cwispy]

Since getting the Titan Aero installed, its been a new learning curve as the machine now behaves very differently to how it did before. So far I am extremely happy with the upgrade and have calibrated the printer getting results of better than 0.5% accuracy on the 10mm and 25mm cubes I printed to test the extruder calibration. I have also been able to increase the speed on PETG prints to 60mm/s and may even be able to go faster than that. Previously I was only able to print reliably at around 45mm/s for PETG. Fixing the dry joints on the mainboard like I mentioned in a previous post has made a huge difference to the heating and print quality, and where I was using temps around 235 °C before I am now using 225 °C for the same filament. Overall I am very pleased with the upgrade and hope to be able to try out some Nylon when it arrives later this week and will have to get some TPU as well now that I have the direct extruder.

 

I have also just started using the octoprint plugin directly from Cura and im really liking it. I no longer need to save the file and upload to octoprint to print. You simply slice the file and choose print with octoprint. Very cool.

[cwispy]

 

Just to prove that the new titan aero does work, a photo of it printing out a small stand. :)

[djc]

I just joined the Anycubic Mega (S) club. Very impressed so far. Huge upgrade from my previous FLSUN. Drivers and quieter fan are en route. On knutwurst Marlin 2 firmware.

[cwispy]

My heavily modified Anycubic i3 Mega has just successfully printed a 25mm test cube out of Polycarbonate!!! I used 270°C nozzle and 110°C bed temperatures. I also used a studymate glue stick from Officeworks on the Ultrabase with a 5mm brim. It ended up being really close to the correct size at 24.96 x 24.86 x 24.95.