pwdr / pwdr-model-0.1 Goto Github PK

Hi Matt,

I'm in New York and working on building a Pwdr. I have all of the cut acrylic parts and hardware and electronics. I'm having trouble with your software. Whenever I go to connect to the arduino it crashes and gives me this error:

Exception in thread "Animation Thread" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
at Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.startSerial(Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.java:501)
at Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.mouseClicked(Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.java:1039)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.dequeueMouseEvents(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleDraw(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

Firmware version 2 is on the Arduino Mega.

I get a similar error when I try to slice any 3D model.

What version of Processing are you using?

Is there a default shield already for the connection of the steppers and printhead?
Maybe we can share some effort: I have the idea for an SLS machine, based on the laos hard/software (www.laoslaser.org).
Might want to adapt that to pwdr.

Hi,

I have my PWDR printer running now but am struggling to get any parts out of it which seems to be an issue with the powder/binder combination. I am using a Nylon powder used in our SLS machine and it seems to be too fine to properly bind with the standard ink.

I was just wondering what materials and binders other people have had success with and where they were sourced. I'm specifically looking into ceramics now but want to try other media too.

Thanks.

Hi. Just opened the main assembly in Solidworks -- some files within the assembly reference to parts on your desktop ;)
I think it's just the screws; they all seem to sit in 'smallparts' folder.

Any chance to upload these?

Any one know of a way to pause the printer preferably with a pause button. I needed a way to temporarily pause the printing action and then continue where the printer left off so I can be able to do modifications to my workpiece.

CIao to all,

I am new on the site and we are trying to build this 3d printer with many difficulties.
Problems are not coming from the printer it self but from the material supplier. We are in Indonesia and it is quite difficult to find the proper item and make the supplier understand what you need and get the right price!

Now we are almost get all the item to FINALLY start to build our PWDR but we have received today the sample for the plexiglas part but we are not sure about the dimension (please note that we just download the file and sent to the supplier)

Could anyone help me out if I post or send via email the photo or draw of the parts we got?to cross check the dimension.

We want to avoid to purchase all parts and than find out we got palyed.

Thanks so much to all of you

I used the pause button I created in the arduino firmware on my pwdr 3d printer. It works only when the printer is on jog control. However once printing has started, the button fails to pause the printer.
Anyone with an idea how to make the pause button work when printing?

I came across this article and video that I wanted to share with the project about 3D printing ceramics and the latest technology, self-glazing printing ceramics. Enjoy!

http://www.gizmag.com/3d-egyptian-ceramic-printing/24063/

Hi Alex,

Thanks for all the great work you have done so far on this exciting project. We are hoping to build one of these in the coming months, to supplement our ageing Z-Corp printer. As we are based in New Zealand, we expect it will take some time to receive many of the parts, and therefore would like to order backups for any parts that might be especially prone to failure. I realise the design is very new, but any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I'm assuming that the print head would be a potential weak point, based on the number of cartridges we have burnt through on our Z-406.

Cheers,
Geoff

Hi Alex,

1. Any specific reason for choosing HP C6602A printhead? Do you know the effect of capacity, resolution, nozzle count, drop volume? I found some other printheads having better specs. Here is the list:

Model C6602A 29 94 92 10
Capacity(ml) 18 40 11 5
Resolution(dpi) 96
Nozzle count 12 48 416 416 304
drop volume(pl) 160 87 15 14

I have an intuition that the more nozzle the faster and higher resolution. Is it correct? I am not very sure about the drop volume.
2. I just noticed that the speed of Pwdr printhead is much slower than those in ZPrinters. I have been working with a ZPrinter 310 Plus for a semester. It prints very fast, much faster than Pwdr. And it uses HP 10 printhead(with 304 nozzles and 35pl drop volume) I am not very familiar with steppers. Is it possible to increase its speed without adding too much cost? Thanks.

Congratulations to the release of Pwdr 0.1!

While I am purchasing all the electronics, I noticed that Pwdr is using a power supply of 1500W, is it necessary to power all the motors? What's the idea behind that?

Eddie

Hi,

I am having issues while testing with the distances traveled, specifically by the Y axis. When I press print, it starts printing at the zero position (where it is when power is connected). It prints the first layer fine, but then when it goes to spread a new layer it goes all the way to the end and then jams against the edge. This means that either it is set to move too far or I am doing something wrong in my set up before I press print.

Please help me

Good day or whatever time in Your location now :-)
Need some help for refilling printer head with printing solution. For now I simply cut off half of top cover, throw out sponge and fill cartridge with desired "ink" in. It works quite well day or two, but then dont work at all. The nozzle resistance 60-70 Ohm, so it wont burned out. How it should be done properly? Looks like realy a tricky to wash out native ink with standart refilling methods
So how You did this?

Hi guys. I will be building another Pwdr machine. My name is Matt. I live in Düsseldorf, Germany, and i am tired of trying to get my Z400 to work. All material for the Pwdr is ordered, so i hope i will have som3 time for the first buil steps next week.

See ya.

Matt

I use Inkscape to open the files. I found that the width of holes are around 6.43mm. Is that the problem of the software? Are they supposed to be of 8mm width? So I have to scale the file up a bit, right?

I'm having trouble connecting the Arduino. I'm getting a similar error that another user on the forums had with:

ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException:1

Exception in thread "Animation Thread" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
at Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.startSerial (Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.java:498)
at Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.mouseClicked (Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.java:1056)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleMouseEvent (Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.dequeueMouseEvent (Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleDraw (Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.run (Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

It seems that the person who had that same problem before, atticdweller, got past it.

When I try to compile and upload the firmware, I seems to go through. Although, the 'L' led on the Arduino keeps blinking. (To my understanding, that isn't supposed to happen. it's supposed to not blink). I'm using PwdrFirmware2_0_mk1. Processing version 1.5.1.

I did my first print today. The plaster I got was horrible and everything crumpled to dust. But the machine worked just fine! ;-)

http://youtu.be/v4czkelSGHw

Matthias

I am trying to build a Pwdr myself. I notice that the prices on the documentations are not correct.

I checked all the prices on the suppliers provided. I am staying in Singapore and Hence all price on Farnell are based on Singapore and may not be the same as the other parts of the world.

This is what I got:

The corrected total cost is $1116.82(the original cost is $1381.64), more than $250 dollars less! What a good news!

But I am not satisfied. I am only a student without any income. I really want to cut the cost as much as possible. Before I say something silly, I should tell you that I don't have any experience of building anything with any of the parts. I was a DIYer for PC, but I have not idea of all the parts listed on the documentation. So please tell me if I make any mistakes. Thanks in advance.

The first thing I want to cut cost is the acrylic plates.

1. Is 8mm necessary? I can save 20euros by using 6mm and 70euros by using 4mm.
2. How about acrylic XT?(I don't really know the difference. I can save 100euros by using 5mm XT plates.
3. Any other thoughts about the frames? Maybe even thinner plates? Maybe another materials? I think we can save a lot by reducing the cost of the framework provided that it won't do harm to the overall stability.
4. The fastenings. I am very surprised to see the price of the fastenings and nuts. Just two pairs cost nearly $40! If those are not of special kind, I believe, I can get them for just $5 in China. Can anyone tell me the reason of such a high price?
5. I noticed that the Arduino Mega 2560 A000047 and the Arduino Mega Proto Shield A000038 are quite old. They can't be found very easily. Can we replace them with the newer versions?(Arduino Mega 2560 A000067 and Arduino Mega Proto Shield A000080? Depends on suppliers this can cut cost by 10euros.
6. Powder supply. The documentation shows "1500W", but when I check the part number, it turns out to be 350W only. I saw this post: #2 It says 350W is more than sufficient. Anyone knows what is the maximun power required? We can choose a lower power one with a cheaper price.

If all the above can be done with 5mm acrylic XT as frame work, we may possibly build a Pwdr with only 900 US dollars. (at least not difficult to make one below $1000)

Hope to hear some exciting thoughts from you guys.

pleeeze do not waisting your time to buid this 3D Printer,
everything is false.

s'il te plais ne perds pas ton temps pour construire c'ette imprimant 3D
tous les dossiers sont faux.

bitte, verschwinden Sie Ihre zeit nicht um diese 3D brucker nachzubauen,
alle files sind falsch.

رجاءًَ لا تضيعو وقتكم في تركيب هذه الطابعة 3د.
فكل المعطيات خاطئة

Hello Alex,

How are you doing? I have been quite busy recently now finally have some time to work on the machine.

I have assembled the machine successfully although I had to find similar pulleys and shafts because some of the parts are not available in the US. Pwdr is a beautiful machine! Anyone else also built the machine!?

Now I am playing with the printer. I noticed several issues.

Questions:

1. I am testing the speed of the roller, because a wrong speed tends to roll the underlying printed layer of powder away. Any good suggestions?
2. Also I noticed that you upgrade the GUI and support slicing STL files. Congratulations! I was only able to convert bmp files no greater than 2000 pixels due to the max array size limitation of Arduino. Any work-arounds? Do I need to add a SD shield? Both GUIs seem to support larger bmp files or STL slices, but I couldn't load them into Arduino sketches due to the array size limitation(2000 elements).
3. After applying 19V voltage to C6602A constantly,(more than 1 minute) the cartridge gets unstable and starts spray in a dispersed manner. Do you have the same problem? Now I am buying a switch to cut off the power supply to the cartridge while nozzles are not printing.

Future Recommendations:

1. Reset buttons at the both ends of X and Y axis. Just like RapRep.
2. Relax the requirements of power supplies to cut cost. I am now using a 24V 5A power supply and it works fine.

Once again, thank you for sharing this great project!

Eddie J

I just found this exciting project today. I can't find any recent activities or updates for the project. How is everyone doing? Do you have anything interesting to share?

Hello,

Is it possible to use the USB cable instead of an SD card? Also is there a way to view the G code after compiling?

Thank you.

Hi all,

I am using an arduino 2560, a RAMPS 1.4 and an inkshield (http://nicholasclewis.com/projects/inkshield/theory/) to operate the pwdr printer.

I have been trying to understand the firmware and processing GUI in order to calibrate the printer but despite best effort, I am still quite newby when it comes to software.
The usersmanual states ''Currently, the only way to change the parameters is by hardcoding them in the Arduino parameter declarations''
To me that sounds like the stepsize should be changed in the firmware, however I can only make the steppers move using the Processing GUI individualy which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the declerations in the firmware. Can someone point me in a direction?

Help is appreciated,
Cas van Schaik,

When I assembled machine, I had to have a little bit of voodoo with the firmware to make it work as it should. Then I experienced some issues. To configure the steppers I tried to print different slices on paper. I tried the square, rhombus and circle. I set the scale factor to 1.0 in the settings and change the length with a width to 600, because the slice is truncated to the size of 24mm. First, I printed a square and it was perfect. Then I tried the rhombus and circle, and they disappoint me. Their top (first nozzles) had significant stepladder. At first I thought that the nozzle is not connected properly. I found that the PORTC is backwards numbering and I reverse the nozzles 1 - 4. This made better, but insufficient. In spite of this, the bottom of the slice (the last nozzles) look almost satisfactory. To understand where the problem is, I connected the nozzles separately and 12 times I printed same layer. I found that at the top of the rhombus, long of lines differs only in 1st and 2nd nozzles, the other 10 nozzles have the same long of lines. In the lower part of the rhombus is almost good. And I found one nonworking nozzle (9) I check connection with multimeter, and check signal on arduino with LED, it's Ok, maybe I smoked ULN or burn the printhead, in any case, one nozzle is insignificantly. To see the problem more clearly, I printed the slice with double the size of the Y-step. You can see the result in the photo:

But with the circle I have a different issue, when converting GUI shows irregular circle. You can see it and printed result on pictures.

Has anyone encountered such issues? Where there may be a bug? This is a bug of converting with GUI, or bug in STL Model? I look at the models with MeshLab, and they looks fine.

Hello,

Another question for stepper motors, is micorstepping used when driving the steppers? Is it possible to build a simple circuit using ULN2003 to power the motors, that is, without the driver boards? After some calculation, I think the precision is 1mm/(360/0.9)=0.0025mm for the Z motor, which surely suffices.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best,
Eddie

hi,
I would love to download the lasercut drawings, but they do not seem to be available.
Is it possible to share them again?

Thank you!
best,
Marita

Hello,

I have been trying to find the right software to operate a pwdr inkjet printer and translate a .stl file to readable instructions. The printer consists of 5 stepper motors (X, Y, Z, Z2, Roller). I am using an Arduino MEGA 2560. I am completely new to this and am still trying to become familiar with the language.

So the firmware2_0 file does not include the rest of the arduino files. Which of these do I need for operating the motors and how do I combine them into uploadable firmware?

Also does anyone have a reccomendation on which slicer to use?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have run into my fare share of bugs with this project, but this one has us stumped... I am unable to print anything with a void. All empty areas are being filled in and I am not seeing a file issue or identifying exactly where in the GUI this is happening. Basically if I try to print a hollowed box, it comes out completely solid.

Anyone else had this issue yet?

Are the outputs for the ULNs all supposed to be greater than 20 volts? When I apply 24v DC power to the protoshield (without it connected to the Arduino), I get 22.3 volts at all 12 outputs on the ULNs. However, when I connect the protoshield to the Arduino Mega and apply power to both the mega and protoshield, the voltage drops to .15volts for 9 of the ULN outputs and 22.3 volts for the other 3 outputs. The ink cartridge was semi operable in this condition but appeared that ink was not spraying from all nozzles. Now I believe the cartridge was damaged as it is no longer spraying any ink.

So my question is, are all 12 outputs from the darlington arrays supposed to have 20+ volts? Also, where are you grounding pin 8 on both darlingtons? Currently I have these two pins connected to the circuit (as shown in the schematic), but not grounded in another place as the schematic suggests. When I connect these pins to the ground from the 24v power source (which is connected to the ground from the Arduino power source), I get voltages of 10+ volts at each of the ULN outputs... does this seem right?

Appreciate the project and assistance.

Those files really don't belong into a repo; consider adding them to your .gitignore and removing them from the repository.

Hi all,
I am trying to use the GUI_V0_3, I have an arduino MEGA2560 attached that is not yet connected to the printer and I use processing 1.5.1. When I click the connection tab in the interface after converting this warning pops up in the message window:
WARNING: RXTX Version mismatch
Jar version = RXTX-2.2pre1
native lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7

I have followed the steps described in this link and added rxtx-2.1-7-bins-r2.zip to the processing :
https://forum.processing.org/one/topic/how-do-i-install-rxtx-2-2pre1-jar-on-windows-7.html#25080000000981023 but it doesn't seem to change anything.

When I ignore the warning and click the COM port that connects my arduino, the following error comes up:
Exception in thread "Animation Thread" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
at Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.startSerial(Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.java:498)
at Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.mouseClicked(Pwdr_GUI_V0_3.java:1056)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.dequeueMouseEvents(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.handleDraw(Unknown Source)
at processing.core.PApplet.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
I have already filled in the correct serial port (COM3) at line 6 of the serial tab.
Is this familiar to anyone?

I mistakenly purchased 1.9 degree stepper motors for the x and y axis. As such, I'm having trouble getting the gantry to move properly with the code as it is written (gantry crashes into the sides when attempting to print, gantry crashes into side of machine when returning to start position)
Since my step angle is twice of that used in the Pwdr, I know that I must make changes to the Pwdr code below, but am not extremely savvy with coding.

Can someone kindly educate me as to what, for example, "StepX = 21" means in terms of actual distance traveled? Does the '21' indicate the number of steps? If so, would 21 steps translate to a distance traveled of 21*(.0943396mm)?

I also have a question regarding how the physical 'y' distance of the machine is defined in the above code.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

"
// Size of steps for stepper motors
const int stepX = 21; // 0.09433962264 mm per step (5_9.6mm_PI/1600)
const int stepY = 500; // 0.09433962264 mm per step (5_9.6mm_PI/1600)
const int stepZ = 95; // 0.1mm per full stap (10*0.01)

// Size of steps when jogging
const int jogStepY = 1000;
const int jogStepX = 500;
const int jogStepZ = 250;

// Size of machine in steps. Type long because number of steps > int (2^15)
const long build_piston_width = 11000/stepX; //2000/stepX; // total width: 14800
const long build_piston_length = 28000/stepY; // total length 76000
const long distance_roller_nozzle = 34000;
const long piston_depth = printfilesize[2]; // The depth of the part is defined by the preprocessor
const long build_piston_end_stop = 76000; // Absolute end of the machine
"

Do you have any advice for someone in the United States for modifying the design to accommodate the sizes of acrylic sheet that are available here? It turns out that 4.5 mm and 9 mm are the most common sizes close to your spec. I don't really relish the idea of redesigning the chassis, and I'm wondering if I can get away with sanding down some of the tabs to fit, or adding shims where necessary.

Is Pwdr going to have any legal issue with the 3DP and SLS patents?

I found the patent of 3DP on Google Patent. There are many versions of it. This may be earliest one http://www.google.com/patents/US5204055?dq=three-dimensional+printing+techniques&ei=8SfsUNOFJMf_rAf_yoHAAg&cl=en
with filing date of Dec 8, 1989. The lastest one may be this: http://www.google.com/patents/US5340656?dq=three-dimensional+printing+techniques&ei=8SfsUNOFJMf_rAf_yoHAAg&cl=en with filing date of Apr 9, 1993.

I am not very familiar with intellectual property laws. Which one should be used to for expiration date calculation? If we refer to the former one, the patent is already expired, but the latter is still valid for another three months.

In addition, Zcorp also has many patents related to 3DP after the original MIT patent. https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=inassignee:%22Z+Corporation%22 I am not sure whether those patents cover what we are doing in this project.

Hope my concerns are not issues. I am really excited about this project, and planning build one myself.

Thanks again for the help with the Arduino problem, everyone. Now, my next roadblock...

When I go to print something, the printer head is depositing ink in a haphazard fashion. For example, I loaded a model from Thingiverse called 'SmallHelperDisk'. Here's what it looks like as its converting:

The problem is, the printer is nowhere near the circle shape. It's depositing ink all over both bins. Here are some sheets of paper I put over the bins:

Is there a way to fix this? A way to calibrate, in a sense, the printer?

Hey Alex,

While I was preparing the acrylic boards, I noticed that on the list, there are three 790_384/8mm boards and one 384_384/5mm board. But in the CAD drawings/lasercut folder, there are four different 790_384 boards. Am I missing something? Is there a CAD file for the 384_384 5mm depth board?

Thanks,
Eddie

I think there is an error in the diagram. At the right side, the connection form pin 9 of both ULN2003 and the HP goes to the negative side of the cap (and, if you follow it further, to GND). If I read the diagram right, I beleive that this connection should actually go to the positive side of the cap, and hence +20V.

The ULN's can then pull the ink jets to GND, and the flyback diode inside the ULNs would work as expected. In the current setup, the ULNs would not do anything, or even cause a short.

Hello!

I am from the University of Alberta and we are excited to be building not only one, but several of these machines for research if the first one works. However, I am having some difficulty...

1. After much fiddling, Processor now will talk the Arduino (I believe), however, whenever I try to "Convert Model" I receive the error "ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException:521216"

Also, after selecting the right COM, I receive "SD Initialization Failed." Does the SD card need to be hard-wired in before the program will work? I am trying to program the Arduino while I wait for parts to come in the mail...

1. Any suggestions on where to get the small belts for the gears? I can't find much smaller than 60 mm and some require 40-50 mm on the carriages.

Thanks!