3D Printing

     I have been interested in 3D printers since they were first announced. I couldn't afford the 5g's they wanted for them. When they came down to a grand, I still couldn't justify that amount of money for something that might be a flop.
     I was getting into the Arduino stuff (to try and stay a step ahead of the g-kids) and ran across a board for the Arduino called Ramps. I had to look more into this and what it was used for.
     I found that the Ramps board was developed for running a 3D printer. I got really interested in this because it was open source and all of the parts needed to build the printer can be gotten at various places locally or online for cheap.
     I got a little worried that I was not going to select the correct parts for everything to play nice together. So, I opted to purchase a kit from FolgerTech called the Prusa i3. I liked this model because of the openess of the print bed and the ease of repair.
     When I got the kit in, I got busy putting it together. the printer went together fairly easy. Instructions and all related software are provided via a Google Drive link.
     The instruction also walked me through all of the required settings to get the printer printing. I found later that these settings are rough and slowly got some things ironed out.
     I got to printing multiple things, but had a hard time getting every part to stick to the print bed reliably. Online searches reveal a mixed concensus. I did find that blue masking tape worked nice for PLA plastic. I have now found that the green Frog Tape (found in Wal-Mart) is also working really well with PLA and longer life. ABS is much more sketchy on this.
     After finding material that would keep the parts attached, now it was time to consentrate on actual printing.
     Most designs printed just fine, but larger prints seems to cause the filament to skip and miss sections of the print.
     I later found the skipping issue to be the retract distance was too much. This retraction of the filament is used to prevent the plastic from creating webs and such when moving from point to another without intending to lay down any plastic. when this retraction is too high, it cause the molten plastic to be pulled up into past the heat break. This now cools. And when enough plastic builds up into the colder area, it can be too much to push the filament through. That is when you hear the 'clicking' noise.
     I have now printed many different parts in PLA and at varying sizes and complexities with no issues.