Monoprice Select Mini 3D Printer (and general 3D printing stuff) Notes

mp-select-mini-notes.md

(all subject to change!)

Filaments tried

ProtoParadigm

• PLA white, black, sapphire: Sapphire was tricky to get into Bowden tube at first, but once in, all three printed fine.
• PLA summer colors: easy to use, cheap for a lot of different colors

Hatchbox

• PLA grey, black: Works as expected
• PETG white: First experience with hotend jams/heat creep, tricky to get right but awesome once working

eSun

• PETG black: knots, knots, knots. When it printed, it printed fine, but it was so heavily knotted on the spool that I had to babysit and manually unwind the filament every so often so it didn't stick.
• PETG white: I print it at 250 and it still is not hot enough for fast prints.

Inland

• PLA pine green: A bit more finicky than Hatchbox PLA, but prints fine once given lots of hotend cooling
• PLA orange: The exact opposite of green. Have to print it at 250 to get it smooth.

NinjaTek

• NinjaFlex Green: Pretty amazing stuff, just take it slow

Monoprice

• Wood: Prints nice, a little stringy, painting, sanding, and staining work pretty well

Smartbuy

• Red PLA: Prints a little cooler than Inland/Hatchbox/ProtoParadigm, but otherwise good, solid, cheap PLA

Temperature, Print Speed, Fan, Bed

• PLA: 200-210, 40mm first layer/55mm, 100%, 60 bed, turn bed off after a few layers
  • Heat creep clogs because:
    • fan not cooling enough
  • Curling because:
    • need bigger brim or a raft
  • Extruder clicking because:
    • not hot enough
• NinjaFlex: 220-225, 15mm first layer/20mm, 100%, 50 bed
  • Extruder jams because:
    • printing too fast
    • using Extrude menu to move filament
    • retraction is on
  • Print gets knocked off because:
    • supports aren't strong enough
    • need thicker walls
    • printing too fast
    • cats
• PETG: 235-250, 40mm first layer/40mm, 20%-100% by layer 5 or so, 75 bed
  • Heat creep clogs because
    • not printing fast enough
  • Curling because
    • bed not hot enough (Mini can go up to 80 on the bed, try 65)
    • need bigger brim (try 15 lines) or a raft
    • bed not level (level the bed with the bed at 75 and the hotend at 235)
  • Stringing
    • increase retraction distance/speed

Octoprint

Pausing and Restarting

I don't like leaving my printer running unattended. Here's how I can pause/restart a print easily. Works fine for PLA and PETG.

Pause

1. Pause the print job.
2. Lift the Z axis 10mm.

• Can't lift it 10mm because you're at the top of the build volume? Just let it finish, ya dingus. :)

1. Turn off the hotend and bed.

• You should have a wide brim if you want the part to stay on here!

1. Turn off the fan once the hotend has cooled down.

Restart

1. Reheat the hotend to the original temperature.

• There should be no need to turn the bed back on at this point (hopefully).

1. When the hotend hits the right temperature, lower Z by 10mm.
2. Resume the print job.

Cura

2.3 PPA

https://launchpad.net/~thopiekar/+archive/ubuntu/cura

• If you want to post-process (Tweak at Z) like in Cura 15.x, cd ~/.local/cura/plugins && git clone https://github.com/nallath/PostProcessingPlugin.

Good Cura 2.3 settings

• Travel/Combing Mode: All
  • Reduce retractions
• Infill/Infill Pattern: Tetrahedral
  • Reduce possibility of Z axis banding where infill is printed, strong more evenly

Good Cura 2.3.1 settings

• Supports: Concentric 3D
  • The best support type IMHO. Super easy to remove and very, um, supportive while printing

Printer notes

• The little PTFE spacer in the stock hotend: 6mm OD, 4mm ID
  • You need this for NinjaFlex!

Making things to print

OpenSCAD

• Cheat sheet: http://www.openscad.org/cheatsheet/
• Need to try this out: https://github.com/farrellm/scad-clj (radians?)

Blender

• You can save .stl of something with modifiers on it and the modified .stl will save
  • Good for subsurf modifier

Cutting holes in things

• Add Modifier/Boolean to the thing to be cut, eyedropper the cutting mesh
  • Play with the different boolops
  • If it's not cutting right
    • Make sure both pieces are manifold
    • Mesh > Faces > Triangulate Faces (Ctrl-T)

Build Surfaces

• The default yellow painter's tape
  • I destroyed it with the terrible plastic spatula
  • Don't use the plastic spatula to remove prints
• BuildTak
  • Pricy
  • Just Works™
  • Easily cleaned with rubbing alcohol
  • I put it right on the aluminum plate. Some heat and a little bit of pulling gets it right off with no mess.
  • Resurfacing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJc2cqYeXI
  • I also got their spatula, which, because of the handle orientation, gives way better leverage for removing prints than other spatulas (less digging into the bed, preserving its shape and protecting the thermstor)

Problem List

• Bed temperature reads 0 when wires under moving bed are in particular positions
  • The wires under the bed get put under a ton of stress. Mine took enough damage that the Bed temperature sometimes reads 0 when the wires are in particular positions.
    • Resolution: Requested RMA
    • Prevention: I put some tape on the bed and the body of the printer to mark the very edge of the Y axis build volume, and I don't pull the bed past that.

Things I did

• Swap out the Sheevaplug with a Pi Zero + Powered USB Hub + Ethernet dongle
  • I printed something that can enclose all of it, and that lets it mount onto the desk where the printer is located

Things I want to do

• Replace the 30mm fan with a 40mm one
  • I'll make the fans easily replaceable with these (https://www.amazon.com/Letool%C2%AE30-1-25mm-Female-Connector-Cables/dp/B013JRWCBU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1476124371&sr=8-4&keywords=2+pin++connector)

My Videos

• NinjaFlex Bulbasaur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvyjCX3Pm6I

This is great information. Thank you. Do you have a V1 or V2 machine?