Tip of the Day 30 - Using 3DTouch, CubeX,CubePro and Rapman

[MichaelHerron]

I've been out of this thread for a long time now. I can say that I've given up on the CubePro. It is not worth the time and effort to get good prints. The early folks and Simplify3D made the CubePro a usable machine for a while, but constant filament errors, lousy bed adhesion, and very very fragile hot-ends have cost us thousands in lost time and replacement parts.

I've bought a RAMPS board and a Chimera(knock-off) hot end (total of $100) in parts and I'm in the process of rebuilding this printer.
So far, it has been relatively painless. I've got the motion control working well so far. By next week, I should have the thermal stuff in and working.

My advice to anyone STILL trying to make these #$%# devices work, think about gutting the printer. Simplify3D is vastly superior to the stock software, but there are just too many gaping holes and workarounds STILL left to do to get good prints.

If all goes well, i'll post what I've done.

[ssstraub]

3.1 just introduced native support for BFB. Too late for me as my 2nd gen Cube now collects dust as a $350 Monoprice Maker Select runs circles around it, but surely the BFB support will be great for some still working with Cubes.

[razster]

Soo happy to finally have native BFB support in version 3.1 That's going to make things much easier for printing on my cubepro and hopefully I can finally get rid of the original software which never worked well to begin with.

I'm planning to test some of the new BFB still later today and I'll post back with some findings

[allan_glover]

Trying s3d v3.1 now with cubepro. I believe the issues though is that I have cubepro firmware 1.14B and it doesn't appear to be able to downgrade. I don't think the codex program works with the latest cube firmware. The gcode looks fine, but it will randomely add in a z lift during a each pass while printing. So as it is moving x and y and extruding it will lift the Z up and down. Anyone else having that issue?

[allan_glover]

Very happy to report that s3D 3.1 has fixed the problems I was having . I used the firmware configuration to set it for cubepro trio. I adjusted the temperatures, I changed the material codes in the post processing script, updated some of the speed settings and saved the file. I used CodeX as normal to convert the file to the cubepro file format and it successfully printed! I am printing dual extrusion using hot ends 1 and 3 (hot end 2 has jammed with INF in it at the moment) with PLA in hotend 1 as support and Nylon in hotend 3. Currently still using filament from 3D systems until it runs out.

Next goal is to put in the tool change gcode for the wipe movements, the 3.1 cube profile doesn't include it. Although the ooze shield is doing its job pretty well right now and 3d systems/hot ends don't ooze as bad as what I use in my printrbot. The wipe gcode is already posted either in this thread or maybe I saw it in the kisslicer thread, either way I'll post what I end up using.

I am starting a 3.5 hr print tonight that I printed using the cubepro sofware that took 6 hr's last night and didn't really come out that great

[razster]

The new 3.1 version is working a lot better for me too. Quite happy with it

[allan_glover]

The new 3.1 version is working a lot better for me too. Quite happy with it

I am a bit perplexed because the post processing code is very similar. The flow control is awesome though, very happy. Thanks s3D team

I am realizing though that this still won't solve some of the main issues which are vibration. The cube's firmware is using such high acceleration and jerk that it vibrates like crazy when printing at high speed. I am considering gutting the electronics like others have done. Either ramps/arduino for the cheap route or a smoothieboard and associated hardware

[MichaelHerron]

The new 3.1 version is working a lot better for me too. Quite happy with it

I am a bit perplexed because the post processing code is very similar. The flow control is awesome though, very happy. Thanks s3D team

I am realizing though that this still won't solve some of the main issues which are vibration. The cube's firmware is using such high acceleration and jerk that it vibrates like crazy when printing at high speed. I am considering gutting the electronics like others have done. Either ramps/arduino for the cheap route or a smoothieboard and associated hardware

Sorry i can't be more help, but acceleration can be set in the header script. I don't remember the MCode, but googling can probably find it. You had to be careful before, because without flow control, reducing the acceleration meant badly overfilling small areas.

While i haven't played with 3.1 on the cube-pro (its being rebuilt), it does appear that little has changed.. it still is a largely post-processed "Hacked" solution. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the flow control isn't added in post-processing as well. Because of the extensive post processing, slicing for the cube-pro is quite slow. Still, the "official" software support is welcomed, but only addresses some of the workflow issues with the machine and NONE of the reliability issues.

I saw in this thread mention of using the wiper/waste bin. I'd caution against this. I think the code using the bin in the tool-change script may be mine, originally, but I found that using the wiper resulted in either a small bit of filament stuck to the nozzle very consistently OR snapping off the nozzle occasionally. The threaded portion of the nozzle is quite fragile and can break very easily. The same can be said for the thermistor wires, which are at risk when cleaning some of the many jams that occur due to fans that come unplugged or by overheating the chamber.

I believe that the structure of this printer is very solid. My hope is that it will make a GREAT printer when paired with modern electronics and firmware.

[allan_glover]

Michael

I'll try to find the acceleration setting. Kind of a brain fart. I have adjusted my printrbot's via the terminal so it should have been obvious to do similar commands with the cube...When this thing does small gap infill at 40mm/s the bed shakes so bad.

Good to know about the hot end. I've only had one jam that I've fixed and i ended up drilling the filament out. The same hot end jamed again and is still jammed with INF i need to take apart. I really don't need three hot ends though (why my work decided we needed a trio...ignorance i suppose), only reason to use three imo is if you keep using the cubes filament spools and don't want to spend 15 minutes changing the filament with the horrendous filament change process. lol. Now that i'll be using regular filament, filament changes are only a few seconds so 2 extruders is adequate.

I would think damaging the hot end would only happen if the wiper is not properly adjusted. On the last print with ooze shield it was still pretty bad. I don't consider changing the hot end temp to be an option due to the time delay. Thanks for your input!

[razster]

Thanks for the tips about the wiper bin and the fragile nozzle! Perhaps that's why the S3D profile doesn't go to the wiper bin between every single tool change. They are using an ooze shield instead which is probably a lot more forgiving and compliant so it won't damage the nozzle.

I've done a lot more printing since then and I've noticed there are even more internal improvements than I initially realized. For example, a lot of the retraction controls, coasting, wiping, and even some of the stuff in the advanced retraction section all work properly now with the CubePro. From what I remember before, none of those settings worked properly. The automatic flow rate control also gives you a lot more freedom to use some of their dynamic cooling and speed adjustment settings.

The M108 commands and most of the other M-commands are all added internally by the software. In fact, there is even a new firmware configuration specifically for the BFB printers that defines a lot of these commands, so that's new too.

The post-processing section is definitely smaller now since so much more is handled inside the software and my exports are about 25% faster now In fact, I noticed that the majority of the stuff in the post-processing section is just removing and modifying some of the tags for the CubePro, but the CubeX and some of the other BFB machines actually need to be able to modify these options since they use different syntax. So it was probably a very smart decision to keep some of those things easily editable in the post-processing section since some BFB files will need some slight changes. That lets them support more types of BFB firmwares.