3D Printing:
My first 3D printer, assembling and setup

Contents:

1. Introduction, unpacking and assembling sliders
2. Installing the pillars on the bottom frame
3. Installing the top limit switches and the top frame
4. Installing the timing belts
5. Installing the display and the filament feeder motor
6. Installing electric devices and cables
7. Adjusting the print bed
8. Test print and test of Z-axis offset
9. Installing CP2102 drivers and Cura
10. Upload new 3D printer software - Marlin
11. Mechanical calibration
12. Setup Marlin 1.1.19
13. Setup/Calibrate Marlin 2.0.0
14. Tweaks
15. Temperature P.I.D. optimizing
16. Calibrate horizontal expansion
17. Wind shield
18. Replacing the nozzle heater
19. To be continued

Note:
I take no responsibility or liability for what are written here, you use the information at your own risk!

16, Calibrate horizontal expansion:

When the 3D-printer prints it doesn't get the exact dimensions, it expands a little bit in the horizontal plan. The holes get smaller and the outside walls gets bigger than they should be. In the slicer program it's possible to set a compensation for this. But you must know how much it expands to know how much to compensate. To get an idea about this I have made a model that I can 3D-print and doing measurements on. Earlier I have done this compensation direct in the CAD drawing which is to make things more complicated than it should be.

This is my 3D-model, four squares with different dimensions. 5, 10, 20, 30 mm.

I use Cura as a slicer program, in the setup there is a 'Horizontal Expansion' that can be activated.

When this is activated I can setup how much I have to compensate the horizontal sizes.

The outer square I got the X-axis to 30.0 mm and the Y-axis to 30.1 mm. There are no setting to give the two axis different compensations.

I have got some error, the 3D-printer stop to print after about 30 minutes, but I can still do these measurements.

The inner hole I got to 4.8 mm in both directions, it should have been 5.0 mm.

To decrease the hole I set the Horizontal Expansion to -0.1 mm.

After the 'Horizontal Expansion' was set to -0.1 mm I got the X-axis to 29.9 mm and the Y-axis to 30.0 mm.

The inner hole is now 5.0 mm in both directions.

Much better now. I'm not sure, but I think I must recalibrate if I change to another type of filament.