Quality Printer

Quality Printer provides a process to check if the 3D printing is accurate. Publication can be found at Springer

Setup

The setup described is for printing a new object. If you are printing an object you have already printed before, you can skip this section.

Slic3r

Download the Printrun: 3D Printing Host Suite. Run Slic3r and load the .stl file you wish to print. Once loaded, navigate to "File->Slice to SVG" then select the .stl file you are printing and press "Open" then "Save" to create the SVG file. Next, to create a G-code file that pronterface will use to print the object, click on the "Export G-code" button. One you have saved the .stl as a SVG file and a G-code file, you are done with Slic3r.

• Open Slic3r and load .stl file
• File->Slice to SVG and save SVG
• Click the Export G-code button

SVG to JPG

In order to see if what we are printing is right, we need to have a 2D image to compare it to. Using the SVG to JPG project included, convert the SVG file you made using Slic3r to a JPG image. Simply put the SVG file in the project path and run the program and the new JPG file will be saved in the project path. This uses Apache Batik to convert the file.

Android App

Once you have the JPG file, you will need to add it to the Android project so that you can select it as the item you are printing. Add the JPG file to the "drawable" folder, and then you will need to make some additions in the code (listed below) in order to be able to choose the item in-app. All of these should be added to the existing control statements that involve other icons. To display the images I used EcoGallery

In the onCreate method of ImageDialog.java add:

else if(imageNumber.equals("yourIconTextName"))
            Picasso.with(this).load(R.drawable.yourFile).into(mDialog);

In the startMethod of CameraFragment.java add:

else if(icon.equals("yourIconTextName")){
    Bitmap layer1 = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.yourFile);
    layer = layer1.copy(Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888, true);
    layer1.recycle();
}

This should be added in this method twice; once under

if(method.equals("subtraction"))

and once under

else if(method.equals("analysis"))

In the getView method of the ImageAdapter class at the bottom of the SetupFragment.java file add:

case x: Picasso.with(context).load(R.drawable.yourFile).resize(200,200).centerCrop().into(view);
            break;

You will need to update the number of positions in this same class

In the changeText() method of EcoGallery.java (in a different folder than the main project files) add:

else if(getPosition()==x)
            icon.setText("yourIconTextName");

In the changeText(int i) method of EcoGallery.java add:

else if(i==x)
            icon.setText("yourIconTextName");

In all cases above, "yourIconTextName" is what the icon label will be, "R.drawable.yourFile" is the file you added to the "drawables" folder and "x" is the next position (typically number of icon files you have minus 1 for newly added files)

Pronterface

Open Pronterface and navigate to Settings->Macros->New. Name this first macro "blank_picture". It will be used to move the printer bed into position to take the picture of just the printer bed that you will subtract from the image with the printed object. In this macro put the single line of code found in "blank.py". The escape character "!" is important when writing a macro in python in this program.

!self.onecmd('G0 X200 Y250 Z190 F2000')

Next, navigate to Settings->Macros->New again and create a macro named "quality_print". This macro will be used to detect when the printer has completed a layer and begin to run the analysis. In this macro put the lines of code found in "quality_print.py". For the line !exitcode = os.system"<path to __main__.py>") you will need to add where the python script that tells the android device to run analysis is. This python script is explained in the next section.

!import os
!notRunBefore = True
!while(self.p.printing and notRunBefore):
     !if (self.curlayer>0.350 and notRunBefore):
          !self.pause() #1179
          !self.onecmd('G0 X200 Y250 Z190 F2000')
          !time.sleep(15) #analysis here, may not work
          #insert path to __main__.py on your machine
          !exitcode = os.system("<path to __main__.py>")
          !if exitcode == 10: #end print
               !print "Error too high. Stopping print"
               !return
          !elif exitcode == 15:
               !print "Error within accepted bounds. Continuing print"
               !self.onecmd('G0 X200 Y250 Z10 F2000')
               !self.pause() #1179
          !notRunBefore = False
!print "Continuing Print"

Finally, create two buttons using the "+" sign. Name these "Blank Image Setting" and "Quality Print" and set their command to the two macros you just created (blank_picture and quality_print respectively). The "Quality Print button will not work until you set up the parsetest which is explained next.

parsetest

The folder named "parsetest" contains the python script necessary to tell the android device to begin analyzing what has been printed so far. To write this program, I used ParsePy to connect with parse. You may need to install this to your Python using the command:

pip install https://github.com/dgrtwo/ParsePy/archive/master.zip

Once you have parsetest on your computer, fill in the path to main.py in the os.system command mentioned above (in the proterface macro). This will be something like "C://Users//parsetest//main.py". In order for this script to run, you may have to put the python application in the printrun folder where pronterface is located.

Inside the main.py file, you will need to fill in several values identified by <>. You will need to fill in your printer id (found inside the Android application), an email (to be used to text a phone) and a phone number to text with details regarding the print.

##Running the Program Now that you have everything set up, you can begin printing with Quality Analysis.

• Add the "G-code" file to Pronterface. In the console, the min and max x and y coordinates will appear
• Start the Android app and enter these coordinates in the EditText boxes
• In the Android app, select how many pixels you want to add to the outside of icon (Error Buffer)
• Select the item you are printing. An image is selected when the TextView has its name displayed
• Choose whether or not you wish to search inside of the icon for errors (in addition to searching outside)
• At the bottom of the screen, a key will be displayed. This is your printer key and you will need to enter this key in the parsetest python code (mentioned earlier). You will only need to do this once
• Click on "Subtraction" or "Analysis"
• Press your "Blank Image Setting" button on Proterface
• When the printer is done moving, set up the Android device on the stand such that the printer bed's border matches where the white rectangle is on the Camera View
• If you selected "Subtraction" click "Blank" on the Android screen to take a before picture of the printer bed
• Click "Start" on the Android screen. It is now waiting until the first layer has been printed
• In pronterface, press "Print"
• Once the device has begun printing the first layer, press "Quality Print"
• The printer will now pause after the first layer and analyze what has been printed and report the error back.

##Device/Printer Settings Here I will explain how/where to account for differences in printer bed size, device size, and printer bed offset