So I tried my first big print and it failed spectacularly! My fault, poor orientation of the part I think. It’s a hard cover for an 8" tablet with a handle that I designed, I tried printing it with the handle to the top (same orientation as the render showing the handle.) and I used lines type support (Cura), everything went well until it tried to put that large surface down on the support and the surface became rough and uneven and the head scratch it off and eventually jammed.
I started it last night at 10pm and at 4am I awoke to the most ungodly noise coming out of my office, stepper motors on full skip! (ಠ_ಠ")
Is there any way to prevent a printer from continuously skipping if the part has someone come loose and jammed the printer? Does it shut it self down eventually or would it skip for 12 hours straight if I’m at work or not at home? I’m guessing that can’t be good for the motors.
I have the PrintrBot + and I’m using a Raspberry PI with OctoPrint.
It’ll just keep skipping until something smokes… You could use the Pi camera and video stream the printer in action and then remotely shut it down if it fails.
Sleeping with the printer running is a good way to start a fire. FDM printers just aren’t reliable enough to run unattended yet. Octoprint will also work with a regular USB webcam so you can keep an eye on things from anywhere. A regular IP camera is another easy option.
I never leave mine running if I’m not awake and in the house. You could probably search for “3D printer fire” and see why. I haven’t seen a 3D printer (hobbyist grade anyway) with a UL listing! They aren’t nearly as safe as a toaster or curling iron - something to think about…
There’s also words on the internets about home owners insurance not covering house fires caused by 3D printers. But I would check with your ins agent before believe crap on the Internet.
I have printers that need to run hours and cannot be supervised all the time. The answer is make your printer more reliable. the bit that will burn your house down is the hotend and the main cause for that would be if your thermistor or themocouple disconnected and your hotend kept heating up till it melts down (i guess the same could happen with your heated bed.) Marlin does have a responce to a termistor failing IE 210’ >> 0’ when say a cable break occurs. and shuts down, but a dosconnect is more subtle the thermistor is stil im proximity to the hot end so still reads a fraction of the temp due to radiant heat. your problem here is bed adhesion, if your print didn’t come loose it would have been fine. work on not letting that happen and you’ll probably be ok. it looks like your print lifed on the left due to warping, which fouled the head and knocked the print off, also evident by the tape lifting off. to help with that more heat in the bed even with PLA I heat the bed to 45’ C. if you printed on glass with hairspary you would get a smooth bottom layer that would be nice for the back of your cover. print the handle seperately and glue it on. remember the plastic is as clean as it ever will be as its just been molded, superglue sticks to it very well.
If run printers for two years largely unattended. The secret is to have good printers and a good feel for what they’re capable of. That print looks like it needs to be in two pieces. The case and the handle.
Second getting rid of the tape. It looks like you are using the heated bed with your Printrbot plus so I don’t see why you would need it. I have never been happy with blue tape. Switched back to glass and glue stick after about 8 months of religiously using blue tape. Don’t regret the switch back in the least bit.
I’d redesign it so the cover and handle print separately. Print the cover with the flat side down and eliminate all the support. Then attach the handle with a few small M3 countersunk screws from the cover and into the two handle bases.
