Abstract
Building a 3D printer and seeing the mechanical bits together for the first time is quite an accomplishment. However, you aren’t done yet. To make the most of your new printer, you need to configure and load the firmware on your printer as well as install software on your computer to control the printer.
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Notes
- 1.
Check out the features of the average high school and college-level graphing calculator. Those things can solve complex calculus problems with a few simple entries. Now, that’s cheating!
- 2.
Note the repeating decimals. This indicates a slight rounding error in the calculations. This is usually not a big deal, but may be the source of very minute differences.
- 3.
Granted, this is a very small difference. Interestingly, since it is not an accumulated error, a 100mm object with a 0.3mm layer height would be 99.9mm tall.
- 4.
To me, they are named strangely.
- 5.
Can you guess how I know how this feels? It only took me a day to discover my blunder. Do as I say, not as a I do (have done).
- 6.
Interestingly, this feature can be found on the fifth-generation MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D printer.
- 7.
You don’t strictly have to do this because you can hard-code the text string, as you will see in the next project, but it is convention to use #define statements to locate all of the text strings in a single file. It makes for easier maintenance, especially if the strings are reused in several places.
- 8.
OK, so it is a hack. It works!
- 9.
Secure Digital (SD): A small removable memory drive the size of a postage stamp (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital ).
- 10.
Talk about your extreme close-ups! Sadly, this will likely reposition your camera so that it is taking pictures of the wall or your own mug staring at the print (we all do it) or depending on how firm your camera mount is, it can knock parts off the print bed.
- 11.
It is a rare and precious gem of a gadget indeed that doesn’t require us to spend thousands of dollars replacing a perfectly good and functional printer for the swanky new model (not that there is anything wrong with that).
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© 2014 Charles Bell
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Bell, C. (2014). Configuring the Software. In: Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your 3D Printer. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6808-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6808-6_4
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Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4302-6809-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4302-6808-6
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