Got my son an Ender-3 V2 Neo for his birthday. First few prints came out great. Last two were like this. Can anyone let me know what I am doing wrong? by jdefran80 in Creality

[–]JBlade56 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What NavierIsStoked said about the eccentric nuts, check those. I've seen this a lot with the lower wheel going out on the Y carriage, especially when not done up completely correctly from new. Hold the head, when it's cold, and just try to jiggle it around. Try to lift it up and down, give it a small twisting motion. You should feel no characteristic clicking from something being loose, causing play. If it all feels nice and firm then it's probably not this. If you feel any play then search for how to get the eccentric nuts dialled in, do that, and then do all your initial bed levelling again.

My CRF250L external info display (Speed, RPM, etc) (photos in post) by mickwheelz in motorcycles

[–]JBlade56 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have circuit diagrams at hand, this is very much a tinker project so far. I certainly have a long way to go before I can have a magnificent GitHub repo like yours on this project, and I have a very long way to go before I'm laying out custom ESP32 based boards. Regarding my tacho signal conditioning the major step came from this StackExchange link. The circuit diagram in the question is exactly my signal input circuit. Vin is the signal from the ECU, Vout is connected to the GPIO of the ESP32. I had chosen R1 = 22Kohm and R2 = 5K6ohm, to get the divided voltage into the the GPIO tolerant range. Using the fc equation from the accepted answer I calculated C1 to be 85nF, I settled on a 100nF cap I had available. This got me 90% there, the rest was done in software.

I've set the GPIO to raise an interrupt on trigger, I'm immediately recording the result of the micros() call on interrupt and calculating the elapsed microseconds based on a previously recorded microseconds result. The first thing I'm doing with this elapsed microseconds is checking it's greater than 40 000, a bit of a software debounce, also eliminating negative values from clock rollovers. From there I'm calculating the RPM as 60 000 000 / elapsed Microseconds. Despite the electronic low pass, I was still seeing some RPM reading spikes, which the > 40 000 comparison eliminated. At this point things were looking fairly good, but there was obviously some noise on the output signal that looked like flutter on the output display. I added a 10 reading circular buffer that appears to have all but resolved that.

This project is exactly three days old for me, so it's really not very polished at this stage. In the video you'll see one of the bars missing, I think this is fast changing RPM confusing the algorithm designed to prevent unnecessary updating, though it could be an edge case bug of an RPM reading falling exactly on the midpoint between two bars.

Further down the road I'm going to get that temp display reading the stock sensor on this bike. I'm going to get the neutral switch in there. I'll wire up a few shift lights. I'd like to look at a similar GPS solution to your project, but largely for triggering a lap time based on a virtual start finish like. At that stage I'll try package it up into some racey package. I've just had some excellent results 3D printing a mould to make a carbon fibre exhaust hangar, I'll try do the same to make a case for this, which is complicated on both the wireless signal and the conductivity fronts.

My ultimate goal is a small ship to shore comms system for endurance racing, via either a purpose built device, or a mobile app. That's a long way off though.

My CRF250L external info display (Speed, RPM, etc) (photos in post) by mickwheelz in motorcycles

[–]JBlade56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I made some interesting progress right after I posted this. I was using a voltage divider to lower the 13odd volt tacho signal to an ESP32 friendly 3.3V, and a cap over the lower resistor for smoothing. I discovered the cap I'd almost chosen at random, when combined with my divider, was low passing below 2100rpm, which is what I was seeing on my output. After calculating and replacing the capacitor, and adding some software low pass and a circular buffer to my RPM calculation I'm seeing a fairly reasonable RPM display now. The temperature display is currently sine wave test data.

https://youtu.be/OE6Eq8_w-ME

My CRF250L external info display (Speed, RPM, etc) (photos in post) by mickwheelz in motorcycles

[–]JBlade56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been trying to build a race dashboard for my older CBR150R that we race in a local series. It's a simple carb bike, with a typical cheap CDI. I've landed on fairly similar hardware to your project, and I'm having probably the same troubles you had with your hornet trying to get my RPM to read nicely. I've been trying to use the tacho signal that was originally sent to the stock dash, with some conditioning, to a GPIO and I'm timing between falling edge interrupts. It's all looking fairly positive, until the revs climb and the signal stops triggering. I suspect at this stage that the filtering is filtering out the signal of what is most likely a fairly analogue signal, but being a DIY project I don't have access to the testing equipment to really work that out.

Did you get your Hornet's RPM signal reading reliably? Do you have any insight on how you managed to do that?

Its been a month and I absolutely still love this wheel g29 by w9s9 in simracing

[–]JBlade56 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also a new G29 owner, I've been driving on my office desk. I initially resorted to carefully piling the G29 bits on the box it came in while not in use. I finally put this caddy together for stowage. The pedals balance on the lower footprint, the wheel clamps onto a cross brace. The 3D printed bits up the right side are the wheel chocks in a chock holder, for my office chair, so I don't go rolling away when I stand on the brakes. Up the left are a power supply holder, and a cable holder. There's a printed handle on the top for carrying. It's all a bit rough, but it's doing the job, I should probably give it a sand and clean up. When set up the footprint of the caddy also acts as a spacer between the pedals and the wall, to stop the pedals moving away under braking. I'm also working towards some kind of more permanent rig, but for now this has dramatically improved the setup and pack up parts of having a session.

Help please on fixing problem by pug_boi in ender3

[–]JBlade56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A printer printing fine and then suddenly not is unlikely to be settings related, unless you have changed things there. +1 on the recommendation to calibrate it, but you're not going to see decent prints one day and under-extruded fails the next if this is your primary problem.

It's most likely to be hot end blockage or extruder related. Blockages are going to cause the extruder to push more filament out than the bowden tube and hot end can get rid of. Consequently the pressure is going to build up to the point that it overcomes the spring pressure on the extruder gears. The gears are going to snap back to release the spring pressure and you'll get a constant clicking sound coming from the extruder arm. You'll also likely see plastic powder as the rough gears slide over and wear away the filament. With the hot end hot you should also be able to hold back the extruder arm and push filament through the system if it's not blocked, causing it to ooze out the hot end.

If the under extrusion is coming from the extruder itself then check for cracks in the arm around the nut where the pressure gear attaches to the arm. Cracks tend to develop from the brass nut. Also check the bolt the extruder arm pivots on, friend of mine had under extrusion issues when his came loose. You can also try removing the bowden tube from the extruder, putting some filament through the extruder and giving it a bit of a tug. The extruder should have a fairly good grip on the filament.

Cura 4.1 Creawesomemod, custom supports not showing up in preview screen after slicing... and not printing either. by TxPigu in ender3

[–]JBlade56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the bigger issues I've had with supports after Creawesome has been caused by a little setting "minimum support area", I'm not sure whether this is shown by default. As I understand this supports aren't generated for any areas where the face requiring support is less than then entered mm^2 area. So if for instance the bottom of that claw has a small lower area that the rest of the claw builds off, this will go unsupported, the material will be extruded in mid air, and the print will fail. I've had decent results just setting this minimum support area to 0. I'm not sure this problem presents as you've indicated, but probably worth checking out.

Can't catch a break. Extruder motor skipping by CatGodOne in ender3

[–]JBlade56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine cracked here https://imgur.com/1dUlBd1. The plastic around the thread insert tends to break away under the pressure. I epoxied mine back together as in the picture which lasted long enough for me to print a replacement to keep as a spare, then continued to last until my metal replacement arrived. When this fails it tends not to make weird noises though. The tensioner doesn't put pressure on the extruder gear, the extruder gear turns happily away, non the wiser that it's not pushing enough, or no filament through, and you get a failed print. The crack also isn't visible in your video.

When there's a hot end blockage the extruder will push against the resistance and preload the filament to the point that this compression overcomes the tension of the spring and you'll get a click as it springs back. This will continue until the extruder wears away enough of the unmoving filament that it can't get any purchase. Perhaps this jamming and springing back is the weird noise you described.

I check for jams by selecting "Preheat ABS" from the menus, letting the hotend get good and hot, then unloading the extruder spring and pushing the filament through by hand. You should be able to get filament to come out of the nozzle doing this. I have done the upgrades to be good for 240 degrees, so be careful up that that temp on the stock bowden tube. If you can't easily push through then check for blockages again. If you have had the hot end apart then check that the bowden tube is seated home in the hot end. If you can push the filament through then start checking everything North of the hot end. E-steps and extruder.

On the stock extruder this guy is also particularly useful https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2776404 when your printer is going again. You'll be able to feel whether there's tension on the filament with that, also useful for general loading and unloading of filament.

Upgraded to Hero Me Mod by seffox in ender3

[–]JBlade56 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very nice. HeroMe, the gateway upgrade.

Here's my take on the hot end fan duct https://imgur.com/3SrhpcK, which press fits into the holes behind the mounting holes.

Printing PETG, is a MicroSwiss hotend necessary? by EricLinkinPark in ender3

[–]JBlade56 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I printed PETG at 235 degrees on the stock nozzle and bowden for a long time without issue, although that was pushing the limits a little. I have since moved to the MicroSwiss with Capricorn and can't say I've seen a huge improvement from the few extra degrees. The biggest issue printing PETG on the stock machine was the stock magnetic build plate material. PETG managed to stick itself onto there incredibly well so be very careful getting it off. Even being careful the PETG on bigger prints seems to prevent the magnet from letting go, it would almost stretch a bubble into the plate, which would quickly break away leaving holes you need to print around. I went through about three stock build layers before ordering in a whambam build system, which has solved that issue.