You are in the Printshop room of Noisebridge. It is sound insulated a bit from the rest of Noisebridge by its walls and 2 windowed doors, one leading out towards the Entrance and one leading in to the Hackitorium.
You see myriad 3D printers and large format 2D printers as well.
There are many colors of filament spools to use for printing projects. Take note of which plastic type your filament is and choose settings appropriately. Using PLA is strongly recommended in almost all cases. If the filament is brittle, then it has gone bad(just needs to be dried out?). Sealed plastic bags should be used to preserve the lifespan of filament by keeping moisture, oxygen, and dust away.
TODO: Print Labels with QR Codes and start labeling Filaments
Filament Details
Number
Type
Color
Last Used
Brand
Date Obtained
Nozzle Temp
Bed Temp
F1
PLA
Yellow
2022/01/23
PRINTING GUIDE
Apply fresh blue masking tape to the bed if needed.
Select a filament for usage.
If necessary, remove whatever filament is currently spooled into the printer. Do this by heating the printer up to 260C, then quickly withdrawing the filament back out of the print head.
Place your desired filament onto the spool axle, and feed the filament into the print head while heated, until filament extrudes from the nozzle cleanly in the color you inserted.
Configure the printer for the diameter of filament inserted. Diameter is typically 1.75mm or 2.85mm. This value will be printed on the spool.
Remove the extruded filament from the nozzle.
Always level the bed before a print.
Use the printer's controller to move the print head home (X0 Y0 Z0), and disable the steppers so that you can move it freely laterally.
Place a piece of paper between the nozzel and the bed. For each corner, use the adjustments under the bed to change the level until there is a small bit of resistance on the paper between the nozzle and the bed. Video tutorial
Configure your gcode in your slicing program of choice (Cura is easy and popular).
Specify the diameter of your print nozzle.
Specify the nozzle printing temperature (typically between 190C and 230C). This value will be printed as a range on the spool, use the higher end of the range.
Slice your model, and copy the file to a MicroSD card. Each printer should have an SD card in it.
Insert the SD card into the printer, and use the controller to select and print your gcode file.
Once the nozzle and the bed are up to temperature, the print will begin. Monitor as the first layer goes down. If the nozzle is scraping or the filament is being pressed into a very thin layer, the bed is too high. If the filament is not sticking to the bed cleanly, the bed is too low. Either way, cancel the print and re-level the bed, then restart.
If you expect your print to take a particularly long time, you may wish to leave a sticky note on the printer with the date/time you started it so that other makers know your completed print hasn't been abandoned.
Troubleshooting
If the lines of filament coming out of the nozzle are inconsistent, the nozzle may be partially clogged. Insert a very thin wire into the nozzle to clear it.
If you cannot insert filament into the head, or you aren't able to get filament to extrude, it may be clogged or blocked. Disassemble the print head and use a thin tool such as a hex key to clear the blockage from both ends. This might need to be done with the print head hot, so use caution.
If the nozzle temperature is fluctuating without stabilizing at the goal temperature, keeping the print from starting, you may need to do a PID Tuning
