I’ve been interested in 3D printing for a number of years now having used one of the machines in our Technology department. I now have access to one of their first printers that has been set up in the Inquiry classroom’s Makerspace. It’s been a couple of days of trouble shooting to get it to actually print but it’s finally working and I now have a number of sets of wheels for the students to make some Pinewood Derby cars. I thought I’d share a few of the solutions that have worked.
Model: Makerbot Replicator (circa 2012)
Problem #1: Getting the right software to edit 3d files
I have used Createbot (crashed), ReplicatorG, Makerbot print (only works with modern printers) and Makerbot Desktop. I found that Makerbot Desktop was the most reliable and is able to print directly to the printer using a USB cable.
Problem #2: Printer won’t read SD cards
My first step was to update the printer’s firmware. It was running 5.5 with the latest version at 7.5. I followed the instructions on this site and used Replicator G to push the new firmware to the printer via the USB cable. The timing of pressing ‘Upload’ on the Mac and the reset button on the printer was tricky and for me, I had to press ‘Upload’ first, wait half a second, then press reset.
However the printer still didn’t read some old SD cards (8MB and 32MB) that I had. I tried an 8GB card from a camera and even bought a new 16GB card. All didn’t’ work. It became apparent I needed to format the cards to FAT 16. After a number of failures, here is the process that worked for my Mac (yes, I know it’s a long one…):
Format an SD Card FAT 16 on OSX
Sources: Replicator Operator, Mike’s PBX cookbook
Note that formatting the card will rename it: NONAME.
1.) Insert the SD card into the reader.
2.) Open Disk Utility.
3.) Select the SD card by clicking on it.
4.) Right click the SD card and choose: Unmount
The card name will become greyed out.
5.) Open a Terminal window.
6.) Type: diskutil list
This command gives information on all connected devices. The relevant information in this instance is the path to the [SD card] device and it’s name. In the example below the path is: dev/disk2s1 and the name (identifier) is: disk2s1. Note that the actual card ‘name’ in this example is, “TMP_NAME_SD1”.
/dev/disk2 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *31.1 MB disk2
1: DOS_FAT_16_S 3D_ 31.1 MB disk2s1
7.) To format the SD card, type:
(I had to type sudo -s and put in my user password to complete this next step as I think it needed Admin permissions in Terminal)
sudo newfs_msdos -F 16 (path to the SD card device) / (SD card device name)
In this example:
sudo newfs_msdos -F 16 /dev/disk2s1
*Note the underscore in the command is necessary.
If the command is successful it will return something similar to this…
newfs_msdos: warning: /dev/disk2s1 is not a character device
512 bytes per physical sector
/dev/disk2s1: 13170 sectors in 6585 FAT16 clusters (1024 bytes/cluster)
bps=512 spc=2 res=1 nft=2 rde=512 sec=13255 mid=0xf8 spf=26 spt=32 hds=16 hid=25 drv=0x80
8.) In Disk Utility, right click the card and choose: Mount
The card will now be shown as: Format: MS-DOS(FAT16) The card is name is: NO NAME
Troubleshooting.
Command returns: Permission denied.
Is the card right protected? Check switch on side of card.
Do you have the required permissions? Type: sudo -s to get a full root shell.
Problem #3: Printed model comes off build plate
This has been a difficult problem to solve and I found a website that was really helpful. Here are some things I did:
- Pre heat twice before printing
- Have a heating going in the small room to raise the ambient temperature
- Cover printer with an old blanket
- Clean build plate with acetone
It also looks like part of the sticker covering the build plate was damaged and when I initially did a large print (8 wheels) that part of the model lifted. I then changed to a smaller model (4 wheels) to make sure it was being built away from the damaged part of the build plate. Problem solved.
