USB Experience?

#1

KingMartin made a post about printing via USB here. There’s another post, saying that USB printing is slow. Nontheless, KingMartin’s test prints all come from USB printing with a 3rd party slicer.

I just ordered a zim mono, and was wondering if anyone had more details about the USB port? I’d love to be able to replicate the test prints posted here recently (the gears and legos in particular). Has anyone gotten that kind of quality with the built in slicer?

Any cautions before trying to print via USB?

Thank you!

#2

I don’t have it running via USB, just plain original Zeepro :smile:

As long as I am printing with PLA and keep to bigger objects with broad bases, I am having nice results, apart from some stringing.
But I had to tune the standard printing presets, e.g. more end layers on top otherwise I would have defects in the top layers.
I have my Zeepro running a lot and have already printed some kg of filament.

But trying to print smaller objects or objects with small bases I could not get a print result once.
Since I don’t know the problem source, I cannot say if USB and a different slicer would improve the result.

But for example with my top down spinner I created, I have a gap between forced support and object. So in the end my nozzle still rips the object of the print bed.
With another slicer I would have more slicer options like no gap between forced support and object.
Thats the only issue with the Zeepro Slicer I had so far. Otherwise all the necessary options where there.

#3

I’m actually starting to have fun with my Zim and designing things and printing them effortlessly with the blue tape on the glass. As long as objects have at least a 2mm thick 1-layer base, they stick just fine. If not, you can turn on a 2mm brim in the options which also works, but then adds that to all parts. Just make an extra setting that enables brim so you can decide which one to slice with.

It would be nice if you could make a negative brim… some of my parts are like hollow cylinders and need a smoother outer finish. I guess I haven’t tried -2mm in the settings, hmm…

Also if you have a dual extruder make sure your nozzles are at the same height. I go into the http://zim/extrusion_control page, and set both nozzles to 200°C, then go to the leveling process and use a small 7mm wrench to adjust both nozzles all of the way in, and back out the one that has a bigger gap between nozzle and glass/bluetape. As they cool, make sure to wipe off the one that you will NOT be printing with (if printing single color). Because that little tip of PLA will stick down and act as a pry bar on your currently printing part. You can also back extrude that nozzle a bit, then wipe it.

#4

Make sure the bed is perfectly level to the gantry before adjusting the nozzles. I was never a fan of the “piece of paper lightly dragging” test for leveling the table. To level the print platform I printed a holder that mounts a 0-15-0 dial test indicator to the print head/gantry. I then use a metal feeler gauge to set the desired gap under the middle leveling screw. I can adjust the two back screws until the platform reads level on the dial indicator when moving the print head around the table.

Dual Head adjustment?!1
Dual Head adjustment?!1
#5

I run my ZIM via USB (as lividi mentioned) and do not have buffer underruns anymore: as it seems the USB speed is a bit slow so I reduced the temperature check time to 5 or 10 secons and it helped a lot.

So far I operate my ZIM with a Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi (use the pre-configured OctoPi!) and it works perfect.

I printed several kilogramms of filament with my ZIm and also used dual extrusion (completely done on the ZIm in the background)

To keep my prints onto the bed I currently use bluetape (which you have to press onto the glass after sticking it on (!!!)) and only on the blue body part I had minor problems with adhesion at the corners (that’s a 18 hours print!).

EDIT:
print settings:
200°C at PLA
0,15 layer
max. 30mm/s on the outer perimeter
20% infill
Kisslicer to generate the gCodes
no support material at all