Hello From Arizona!

[jpregione]

Hello from Arizona, started 3d printing a couple years ago with a Prusa Mk3s, very inexperienced to 3d printing and for a plug and play solution everything pointed in that direction. Done quite a few mods on that printer (updated extruder, hotend, enclosure and relocated psu. No timeline for next gen Mk3 and the XL is probably overkill for my use (tinkering)... so decided to look for alternatives. Very impressed with Voron printers (especially the speed) and after researching decided to build a Trident 300mm. Kit came in a couple days ago so have that built and am patiently waiting for printed parts so I can continue. Lots of time spent watching videos on build and software install / configuration. Looking forward to completing the print and expanding my knowledge in 3d printing all together. 

[mvdveer]

Enjoy the build. Looking forward to following your progress

[claudermilk]

Welcome to the forum!

Are you printing your parts on your Mk3?

Also, consider starting a build diary once you get going on the build.

[smirk]

Welcome to the group, you've definitely come to the right place! Whose Trident kit did you go for?

7 hours ago, claudermilk said:

Also, consider starting a build diary once you get going on the build.

I would certainly second that, it always good to see what others are doing.

[jpregione]

10 hours ago, claudermilk said:

Welcome to the forum!

Are you printing your parts on your Mk3?

Also, consider starting a build diary once you get going on the build.

Have only printed PLA / PETG on the MK3.... figured this wouldn't be a good time to experiment and I don't have the patience right now so ordered the printed parts kit from West3d. Figured there would be plenty of time later to print ABS and change things up a bit. Not quite sure what you mean by a build diary.

 

[jpregione]

3 hours ago, smirk said:

Welcome to the group, you've definitely come to the right place! Whose Trident kit did you go for?

I would certainly second that, it always good to see what others are doing.

I purchased my kit through Fabreeko, he spent a lot of time answering my questions before I decided to purchase. Definitely recommend.

[claudermilk]

13 hours ago, jpregione said:

Have only printed PLA / PETG on the MK3.... figured this wouldn't be a good time to experiment and I don't have the patience right now so ordered the printed parts kit from West3d. Figured there would be plenty of time later to print ABS and change things up a bit. Not quite sure what you mean by a build diary.

Build diaries are in this section: https://www.teamfdm.com/forums/forum/27-build-diaries/ It's just a thread following progress of your build. We usually put our embarrassing mistakes out there for the world to see. So others don't make the same ones. Oh, and also our victories to publicly revel in.  

You would be surprised how well the Prusas handle a little bit of ABS printing. I printed up my Trident on my Mini+. I was warned to print up spares before tackling the ABS in case of creep from the heat. I still have them all in a box. I put the box the kit shipped in over the printer which kept out drafts and made a nice bubble of warm air. I lucked into a good balance of heat and ventilation, so the ABS parts printed great (just the big skirt & feet parts needed extra help) yet I didn't melt my printer. Of course once your Trident is built that will handle the ABS for you.

[smirk]

4 minutes ago, claudermilk said:

We usually put our embarrassing mistakes

Yup, definitely got plenty of those. I'd also second your comment about having spares.

13 hours ago, jpregione said:

Have only printed PLA / PETG on the MK3.

I printed the parts for my first Voron on a homebrew machine, initially inside a big cardboard box (poor man's enclosure). So a prusa with a bit of enclosing would be brilliant. I was surprised how well the ABS printed having heard so many horror stories about how difficult and finicky it was. I guess modern ABS filaments are way better these days. But back to that point about having spares. I found it invaluable having a few extra pieces. No matter how careful I was there were a couple of pieces that I managed to ruin when putting in the heat-insets or generally ruin in some other way. Even once the printer was up and running I had a guidler split on me (but that may have been a rubbishy print).

I guess the key to printing the parts is getting the tuning right for the ABS parts (which isn't that hard) and trying the test prints to make sure the settings are good.

[smirk]

Sorry, should've said you can find the test prints in the Voron 2.4 (!) github - https://github.com/VoronDesign/Voron-2/tree/Voron2.4/STLs/Test_Prints.

Andrew Ellis seems to be the Gold Standard when it comes to tuning these things. When I was printing my initial set of Voron parts (on my non-voron) it was the extrusion multiplier (flow) that was the key setting to getting things working (I didn't bother with all the stuff to make it look nice). At the time I wasn't aware of Andrew's work, and clearly I did everything he is not a fan of when tuning my flow....https://github.com/AndrewEllis93/Print-Tuning-Guide/blob/main/articles/extrusion_multiplier.md

 

[jpregione]

So I'm going through and trying to do as much as I can while waiting on the printed parts.... already loaded mainsail / klipper on my raspberri pi (stand alone, not connected to octopus), was able to connect via web browser and update programs just fine... however what confuses me right now and might be due to the fact that I am not connected to the octopus board is how do i download the default trident printer config? I found link to the standard printer config file but when i select it it opens in a browser. Do i just select "download" and rename, copy / paste to notepad and save? I think I tried downloading, renaming and when i open mainsail uploaded that file but it didn't appear to like that... again, might be becuase pi isn't connected to octopus.

[smirk]

You don't need the controller board connected to the PI to upload/create the standard printer.cfg file. The worst you'll get is some grumping from mainsail/klipper about the MCU not responding. Now having said that, you will need the controller (Octopus) board connected to the PI to figure out what USB ID that Linux (on the PI) is using. You then need to plug that ID into the appropriate place ([MCU]) in the printer.cfg file. However, you can absolutely create the printer.cfg file without a valid MCU connection.

Other than that there are multiple ways of getting a printer.cfg file onto your PI. Easiest way is to uploading file existing file (like the one above) using the mainsail interface. It's in the "MACHINE" section of the mainsail site and there's a button for "upload" in the "Config" files panel.

As you also guess you could just create a file (in the mainsail screen) and then copy and paste your contents in. Hell, you can even SFTP it onto the raspberry PI host. All the config files will live in the /home/pi/klipper_config directory.

Sorry, re-read your question and realised I'd answered the wrong question. You could download the file and rename it (to printer.cfg and upload that), but to be honest a copy and paste is probably easiest. Use the mainsail interface to create an empty/new file (it's the button to the right of the "upload file" button); and call that file "printer.cfg"

Edited June 28, 2022 by smirk
Answered wrong question

[smirk]

4 hours ago, jpregione said:

but it didn't appear to like that

When you say it didn't like it, what did it do or grumble about? Sometimes some of the errors can be fairly inscrutable. Despite my complete inability to read your sensible question properly, sounds like you've done all the right things.

[Demosth]

Welcome to the TeamFDM community!