This weekend I worked some more on my 3D printer with trying to make some larger prints. I updated to the latest version of Marlin and increased some of the printing speeds. I tried out some larger prints, but it seems that 80 degrees celsius wasn't cutting it for the print bed. I was able to get it to 100 now that I have a thermistor right next to the heating plate. Also, the heating plate isn't perfectly flat anymore, so I took out the glass, cleaned it off, put a sheet of Kapton tape on it and clipped it on top of the heating plate, and re-leveled the bed.

After about 6 hours, I successfully printed off the tallest item I've ever printed off, but with a couple problems. First, the bed was just a bit too high and the printer and it hit its ceiling at the top of the print job and some of the layers separated. I increased the temperature of the hot end to deal with the separating layers and tightened the bed leveling screws and re-leveled the bed to deal with the height issue and will give it another try tomorrow. I have a feeling I'll have better luck.

Instead of using my Raspberry Pi 3 for the 3D printer, I decided to use a Pine A64+ that I got off Kickstarter a while back since I already have a nice 7" LCD panel with it. Then I can use it for web-based printing as well as having a nice screen to control the print job. I ordered an injection-molded case for it so that I can have it in the enclosure. When I originally got it, I got a non-LCD case and added the LCD as an afterthought. I went ahead and installed Armbian since it works with the LCD and started setting up the various pieces of software to control the 3D printing including OctoPrint and PrintRun. Unfortunately after spending several hours installing dependencies, I ran out of space on the SD card, so I have to start over with a larger one. :(

I went and ordered a Rigol DS1054Z digital oscilloscope because I had sold my bulky analog one a couple years ago and the cheap oscilloscope kits I put together just didn't seem to cut it and I need this tool to push forward with my inventing.

I received the FPGA in the mail today, but I won't be able to get to that at this time. It will be in one of my upcoming projects.