I decided, what with all this extra time at home, that I’d reassemble my old CoLido DIY 3D printer and increase my range of capabilities and throughput.
Self Education:
I’ve been working on educating myself more on FDM 3D printing, so I’ll have a better background for diagnosing issues and fixing problems. Here’s my reading list so far:
3D Printing 101
This book has some useful info I hadn’t considered, but needs a trip to the editor for readability.
3D Printing Failures:
This book has a lot of useful information, minor editing/clarity issues, but is definitely based on a lot of experience and has helped me to better build my list of setting checks, maintenance items, and tests to run.
3D Printing 101 video series.
This series is on the Maker’s Muse channel on Youtube. I haven’t made it all the way through yet, but I plan on running it in the background a lot to try to absorb more information while making progress on this and other projects.
3D Printing 101 By Maker’s Muse
Early Work:
I’ve updated Octoprint to run multiple instances so I can control both printers from the same Raspberry Pi. Here are the links I’ve used so far for it. It doesn’t work perfectly, but at least it works for now.
Setting up Octoprint for Multiple Printers
Multiple Printers and Octoprint
I still want to get it set up with the Wyze camera, but so far no joy. Here’s a link to some of the materials I’ve seen compiled on the subject so far.
I’ve been tweaking and updating the CoLiDo’s settings within Simplify3D for better print quality.
Bed levelling went pretty well. I ran a Calicat (calibration model) and a temperature tower, which both showed significant issues.
I recalibrated the e-steps, and reprinted the temperature tower. This showed little if any improvement.
I cleaned the extruder gear and radiator with canned air, but that didn’t seem to have much impact.
I also lubricated all the rods and pulleys, tightened the belts, and tightened all the screws on the printer.
And I still had issues.
To be continued…
Technomancer's Sanctum 