Just printed the first print.

Just finished the dibond kit bought from nophead. Just wondering if my prints look ok. Are the lines on the back supposed to be so visible? anything else you can spot. Really new to 3D printing.


Also Im having trouble getting the print to stick to the bed.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2015 11:46AM by checkulater.

Hi,

Those photographs look good. Your calibration must be about right.

This print is done from existing G-Code which will not have been sliced using your measured filament diameter. You will find that objects you slice yourself using all your machine's unique parameters will print better than this. That is the hope at least.

I wipe the glass plate with Pure White Vinegar before doing each print. If your Z height is set accurately your prints will stick nicely to a bed set at 70C cleaned this way.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2015 02:12PM by neildarlow.

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

The android is sliced with 0.3mm layers, which are about the thickest possible with PLA and a 0.4mm nozzle. Once your Z is calibrated accurately so that the skirt comes out 0.3mm thick you can then slice it with the PLA 0.2 profile and it will come out looking better.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Thanks for your anwsers. I'll be checking it out tomorrow. My fillament is 2.9 and the slicer is set to 2.86 Is it such big difference?

When I calibrated the extruder (50mm/s) I measured the thickness of the extruded filament as well and it was 0.6mm. Does that seem as much or is it about the right size?

Also why is Skeinforge that is so much older than other slicers better? I mean its not updated in a while, why doesnt the other slicers come near after all that time.

Not it isn't a big difference but you will get more accurate results if you set it correctly.

The thickness of the extruded filament into thin air is not significant as it get stretched to the correct cross section defined by flowrate / feedrate when it is being laid down.

Skeinforge is better because its author, Enrique Perez, is a genius. I haven't heard from him in 4 years though. It isn't perfect but at least it is stable and doesn't get more and more complicated and have more and more bugs.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Afteradding tension to the y axle belt and some calibration this is the result. I dont know If you can se it but the Picture from the side you can see some gaps on the belly. Any ideas thanks.

It looks as good as it gets to me. Try slicing it at 0.2mm if you want it better.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

It is 0.2 mm. Btw thanks for a great kit.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2015 09:30AM by checkulater.

Sorry I should have noticed. One thing that can cause a gap like that is if the filament drags on the extruder and pull it upwards momentarily. It shouldn't happen if you are using the PTFE tube though.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Im using the tube. Can it be underextrusion?

Yes but I can't think of a reason why when the rest of the print looks perfect. Does it look the same if you print it again?

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Im working in norway this week but ill try when I come home. Can it be my nozzle thats dirty.

Also any recommendations on filament? Any brand over another?

A dirty nozzle just leaves brown marks on the print. It doesn't disrupt the flow rate unless it is blocked by contamination.

I know Faberdashery PLA is always very good quality but pricey. No doubt there are other quality suppliers but I haven't tried any others yet.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Just sliced a hollow testcube in skeinforge and was happy with the results. Tried to slice in cura and when the printer started it started to sound funny and slow down. Did not like it so i stopped the print. Im thinking its due to absolute and relative extrusion. Just wondering how to be able to slice with cura. Tried to find where to set relative extrusion on the web but seems they dont support it. Can I just slice with M82 in the start code or is there a better way.

Hi,

I posted some Cura start and end GCode in this thread here.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

Thank you Neildarlow.

Also im having trouble printing overhangs and and bridges. Is there some guide or tutorial on how to print and how to slice? I feel its probably my fault somehow not knowing what to do and how to do it.

Think its a temprature and speed issue. Would really want some help maybe some settings or point in the right direction i.e where to find documentation or a good tutorial.

I'll use skeinforge when printing parts and stuff but want a good allround slicer as well. Wich one(s) do you recommend.

Hi,

There are differing views on printing bridges - some say print fast others slow. I tend to use my standard printing speed of 40-50mm/s. For PLA, ensure the cooling fan is enabled.

Overhangs require individual assessment. I have not found a universal solution but there are a few things you can do:

1. For shallow angles (relative to the horizontal) print with wide, or multiple, perimeters to avoid too much material hanging in free-space
2. For PLA, ensure the cooling fan is enabled
3. Use a good quality filament

I have recently been printing an e-NABLE Raptor Reloaded prosthetic hand. The fingers of this hand are printed upside-down and feature a fingernail with an overhang. I used three PLA filaments with varying results:

• Reprapsource.com PLA (190C at 20mm/s) - left dangling threads on overhang
• rigid-ink PLA (180C at 20mm/s) - handled overhang moderately well but otherwise a poor result
• Reprappertech PLA (200C at 40mm/s) - handled the overhang easily and generally an excellent print

From these results I conclude that material choice is as big a factor in successfully printing overhangs as is technique. Interestingly a better result was achieved, at a higher speed and temperature, using the Reprappertech filament over the other two. The Reprappertech filament is also a much cheaper (Chinese) filament but the quality of results easily matches, or betters, the likes of Faberdashery filament.

Skeinforge does a reasonable job with bridging although it applies the bridge to the whole layer. You will often see Skeinforge put in a solid layer during printing sparsely filled layers and bridging is one reason why.
Slic3r does some interesting things with bridges. I have noticed that it often prints bridges in the direction of narrow cavities instead of perpendicular to them.
I cannot really comment on Cura's handling of bridges as I have not used it enough.

My preference is Skeinforge first then Slic3r and finally Cura. It really depends on whether the slicer is capable of a particular operation or if another does that operation noticeably better. I suggest you try some test pieces on all of them and decide for yourself.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

Thanks for all the info. For now Ive just bought faberdashery of differnet colors not whole spools. Also when it comes to diffrent speeds on the same print, what to choose? Also Ive use 10 degrees higher temp first layer to get better bed adhesion.

Seems this is harder than i first thought. Lots of trial and error i think.

Is the overhang and bridging worse on smaller prints (because of the temp), Ive been trying to print marvin and am not quite able to get the bottom bridging between legs and bottom part of helmet (overhang) to be sharp, its a mess.

Maybe less infill (20% at the moment) Then im not keeping it as hot as long or am I thinking wrong. Btw is the speed setting on the picture totally wrong? Any hints?

The most important thing with bridging is to be stretching the filament, not compressing it, but not stretching it enough to snap it. I.e. the cross section of the filament spanning the bridge must be a bit less than it would be extruded into free air (the die swell area). If not it will be longer than the gap it is spanning so will hang down. When printing over the layer below you can get away with it being bigger than the die swell area as it just gets squashed wider.

For overhangs you want bigger width over layer height ratios so that, for a giver overhang angle, less of the filament is unsupported and more is overlapping the layer below.

You also need good cooling for overhangs so they are solid enough when the next layer is deposited. Try printing two Marvins spaced well apart.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Super easy to understand but how do i strech it practically in the slicer or is that done automatically?

Also the biggest issue is that my print tends to gurl up during printing making the print look bad.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2015 05:30PM by checkulater.

The slicer doesn't do it automatically unless it lets you enter the die swell diameter. I measure the diameter of the filament when it comes out of the nozzle into free air and calculate the circular area. Then I compare it with the rectangular area of the filament width by the layer height.

To stop it curling up I think you need more cooling.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Hi,

Marvin is difficult to print. His underbelly is not actually bridged it is an oval that barely attaches to the legs.

I am somewhat bemused by this object. It has features that are known to break the rules on what is possible to print without support and people are usually disappointed when they cannot print it.

So far, I have not been able to print Marvin for the reasons you describe but I have yet to try with Reprappertech PLA which I think might do better than others I have tried.

EDIT: Results from Reprappertech PLA filament.

This is directly from the printer with no clean-up. It is the standard size 3D Hubs Marvin printed as a single object with the following parameters:

Filament: Reprappertech.com 3mm Grey PLA
Slicer: Slic3r-1.2.9
Hotend temperature: 200C
Heated Bed temperature: 70C
Layer Height: 0.2mm
Line Width: 0.5mm (all line widths in Slic3r set to this value)
Perimeters: 2 minimum
Bridge Flow ratio: 0.9
Print Speed: 40mm/sec
Cooling: Fan on 100% after first layer and below 240 sec layer time. 5 sec minimum layer time.

This is the first acceptable Marvin I have been able to print and it reinforces my earlier comment that bridging and overhang printing ability is as much down to material as technique. nophead's choice of Faberdashery PLA for the sample included with the kit is wise as a low-risk solution. I think the Reprappertech filament demonstrates that there are good filaments coming out of China and they are a company who are serious about filament development.






Regards,
Neil Darlow

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2015 07:37AM by neildarlow.

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

Wonderful print neil.

Ive felt the same way about Marvin. I feel that if I can print it ive come along to understand printing much better.

I'll try cooling it better to stop the curl.

Also wondering why you got a sag in one of the eyes. Because for me when it prints the first line between the legs it just ejects a blob that hangs almost to the printbed. It relly doesnt look good.

Hi,

If you look at a layer view in your slicer the underbelly is printed as a normal layer hanging in free-space. The outline is printed first then an infill. The success of being able to print that feature depends on the outline holding stable long enough for the infill to attach to it. A decent speed and fan cooling help here.

The small dangle above the eye is due to imperfect bridging. I get the impression that bridging is not one of Slic3r's strong points. These imperfections were all easily cleaned-up and the photographs, being scaled larger than life size, exaggerate the errors.

I still have some tuning to do with my Slic3r profiles and my Cura ones definitely need some more work. Still, more slicers means potentially more chances of achieving a good result with at least one of them.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

I actually used most of your settings. The thing is I still get curling when trinting the bottom of the helmet. Still its the best print so far. Also I tried to print two marlins at the same time to get rid of the curling i noticed that the faults where the same on both. That is in the right eye there is a "bridge" and one string droops on both prints.

Its not much of a problem but Id love a "perfect" print.

Perhaps the slicer starts a thread in mid air at the right eye. Have a look at the gcode in a viewer that shows the starts. You might be able to hand modify the code to start somewhere else.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Btw Neil and Chris Thanks for your help I really appreciate it. There are alot of printer reviews and problems out there but not really a good guide how to print well like a newbie print guide

Hi,

I am pleased that you have made some progress.

One thing I have learned is that I can print my own designs better than those of others - purely because I design with 3D printing constraints in mind and my designs are functional rather than artistic.

Artistic prints are often designed by people without a full understanding of these constraints and they may not even have tried printing their designs themselves.

Also, bear in mind that Marvin, 3DBenchy and their peers are challenge designs. You need a lot of things to be right on the day to achieve anything like a perfect print without having to deal with buggy slicers and tempramental machines.

By all means strive for perfection but be prepared to accept something less!

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

Hi,

Regarding bridges, I just had the need to replace my X-carriage cooling fan due to the existing one starting to scream.

I do not know the airflow specification of the LYF fan that nophead supplied with his kit (and all Internet references just returned non-existent Aliexpress links) but I replaced mine with a Gelid Silent 6 model which has a 16 cfm specification.

I am finding that bridges are much better using this fan. The first layer cools nicely and the bridges are clean without droop.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

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I try to write with consideration for all nationalities. Please let me know if something is unclear.
Printing with Mendel90 from fedora 25 using Cura, FreeCAD, MeshLab, OpenSCAD, Skeinforge and Slic3r tools.

good to know