Random 3D printing chatter

Man of Honour
Joined
30 Oct 2003
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13,228
Location
Essex
@deuse And anybody else who is taking an interest. I am so close to finishing this rebuild now! ive got the new extruder on and set all I need to do is run a few new wires and finish some firmware changes. The list of new bits it can do are pretty awesome.



This most recent bunch of upgrades adds the following.

1) The pi3 can turn the printer on and off via octoprint and the psu control addin. Wired up via a 3.3v relay.

2) 28 individually adressable leds individually controlable via octoprint and the Ws281x LED status plugin. (More on this later)

3) Titan aero clone, new bed springs, new belts, new pully bearings, new t8's, new antibacklash nuts.

4) pi cam. Not yet installed.

I think im about to pull out the last few original wires. Also @deuse this bed glass sheet flexi thing... where did you buy it.. I think I need a new one as i've managed to dig into it with something and there is a little gouge out of it :(
 
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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
2,821
Location
Stoke-on-Trent
@Cenedd I'm pretty sure it was because of the effect of using alcohol on the Creality coating...

I don't always wait for it to cool but never use that much force, in this case it didn't come off originally with light force and even after waiting for it to cool it wasn't coming off which is when I put it in the fridge to cool further.

For PLA I use 60c bed and 200c hotend, and now I've switched to plain glass with no coating it adheres perfectly and comes off easily even only a minute or two after finishing usually. PETG is 80/230 with no fan at all, same thing (but with some stringing)

Had the same issue on my ender 3 v2 glass bed. The coated side got scratched so easily and again after using a alcohol spray the prints got stuck and wouldn't come off damaging the coating.
I've just switched to the clear side and found no issues with pla adherering and it comes off easily when cooled slightly
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jul 2007
Posts
24,529
Location
Solihull-Florida
@deuse And anybody else who is taking an interest. I am so close to finishing this rebuild now! ive got the new extruder on and set all I need to do is run a few new wires and finish some firmware changes. The list of new bits it can do are pretty awesome.



This most recent bunch of upgrades adds the following.

1) The pi3 can turn the printer on and off via octoprint and the psu control addin. Wired up via a 3.3v relay.

2) 28 individually adressable leds individually controlable via octoprint and the Ws281x LED status plugin. (More on this later)

3) Titan aero clone, new bed springs, new belts, new pully bearings, new t8's, new antibacklash nuts.

4) pi cam. Not yet installed.

I think im about to pull out the last few original wires. Also @deuse this bed glass sheet flexi thing... where did you buy it.. I think I need a new one as i've managed to dig into it with something and there is a little gouge out of it :(


The top part of the flixi bed I got from amazon US. I will look it up later :)
The glass was from E3D and the magnet parts I made myself. I think I gave you some of it?

But It's looking great :)
 
Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
22,695
Location
Wargrave, UK
I said I wouldn't buy an MSLA printer, but I caved. Not as much of a faff as I was lead to believe. I've got for the Elegoo Mars 2 with the Mercury wash and cure station. Using Flash floor cleaner to wash the prints rather than IPA and they come out well.

First thing I printed:

gjGu3d2.jpg

aAnGu1R.jpg
 
Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
22,695
Location
Wargrave, UK
Oh, and if anyone is interested I changed my CoreXY to a 3-point, self leveling bed. It's pretty cool. Uses 3 independent lead screws and probes near each of them. Once it's done the probes it adjusts the bed to make it perfectly level.
The bed on my CoreXY is 320mm so a very slight deviation from level translates to a massive height difference at the edges.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
4 Jun 2007
Posts
2,617
Location
Watford, UK
Nice Rilot. Great detail on it. Any good in terms of strength? (not planning to earn myself a divorce, just curious!). So for example, I managed to print the 2nd, more complicated, one of my ducts and got them fitted. Certainly this 2nd one at 50% infill (vs the 1st one's 15% - Fusion 360's infill seems more dense number for number compared to Cura) seems strong enough for decent service:


 
Don
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18 Oct 2002
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22,695
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Wargrave, UK
Strength seems fine. I'm using Elegoo water washable resin and it seems pretty solid. I'll try some structural parts soon and come back to you.
I mainly bought this just to see what the fuss is all about. FDM is better for my needs as I rarely need to print anything with the level of detail that MSLA can produce.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
4 Jun 2007
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Location
Watford, UK
Don't print something specifically for my benefit - as I say, I'm just curious as to whether it's only for decorative items or strong enough and UV resistant (ie doesn't turn to smush if the sunlight gets at it) to make parts to be used.
As the object moves up and it fuses the bottom layer, do you need support still? Like in my pic, you can see the amount of support I had to put in as that part floated otherwise. Could you print that without the support? Or is it just that you need the support above it instead of below it. Again, just curious :D
 
Soldato
OP
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Bah! The one time you actively choose to use supports and what happens? They don't stick to the bed and end up as spaghetti. So you slap a brim in to support the support and what does it do? Adds a nice brim in round the model and all the way round the support....but without touching the support. Geeeenius!
I'll model a thin pad under the support like a mini raft! Oooh, you don't want that on the build plate anywhere near the model, right? I'll move it closer....nope, entire model and raft moves. Honestly, sometimes it's like 3D printing is trying to be hard! </rant> :D
 
Soldato
OP
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Well, the mini raft under one part worked nicely, the support stuck to that and it all worked. Made a few tweaks to it - like one wall was a bit thin and the printed thread was too big to fit (mmm, custom thread specs in Fusion to get looser tolerance, what fun!) and I didn't like how square I'd made the bottom, from a purely aesthetic point of view....despite it being there to avoid supports and make it stick well. What this print (that I'm having adhesion issues with) needs is LESS material touching the bed! Yeah, that'll help! Rounded off the bottom, made some speed holes (for lightness and maybe a bit of strength but mainly to look cool) and now it only touches the bed for just a strand or two. What could possibly go wrong?! Well, I'll need that mini raft all the way across the part.....hang on, that's just a raft and there's a tick box for that! Oh wait, you can only have a raft if you want a complicated mat of zig-zag layers, infill and surface layers. Really?! ...but I just want a single 'surface' layer, that'll do. Just set the number of those layers to zero and one surface layer....nope, denied! And you guys ask me why I use Fusion as my slicer when it's such a joy to work with! So, manual maxi-raft and away we go! You can't see the speed holes as they're full of support in this pic.



Couple of skate bearings, a printed spindle and some aluminium pins and we have a spool holder :D I'll get a pic once there's not an active spool spinning on it!

Bed braces are also in and certainly seem to make it a bit stiffer. It's by no means rigid but short of another two slides, leadscrew and stepper, this is as good as it gets. You can wipe the bed without one end backing away from you now.
 
Soldato
OP
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Well, I'm trying not to but it looked pretty awful with a squared off bottom. The thread is essentially an M30x3.5mm (ISO Metric Course M30) but I edited the thread configuration data to add a "6g Loose" tolerance for the M30 thread. It's still ISO standard but at the minimum (modelled rather than printed!) dimensions to be in spec.
Thread data is stored here (substitute the <Install ID> with whatever your install folder is - not sure if they're unique or per-version:
%localappdata%\Autodesk\webdeploy\production\<install ID>\Fusion\Server\Fusion\Configuration\ThreadData\
Added this in at the end of the M30x3.5 section:
Code:
      <Thread>
        <Gender>external</Gender>
        <Class>6gLoose</Class>
        <MajorDia>29.522</MajorDia>
        <PitchDia>27.462</PitchDia>
        <MinorDia>25.306</MinorDia>
      </Thread>


This is fitted with the supports removed. The arm it's mounted to is the Ender 5's factory arm. The square part of my model lets you mount it like this or on top of the printer once I've got a direct extruder set up.

 
Associate
Joined
23 Jun 2004
Posts
2,459
Location
Macclesfield
I've been wanting to get back into scale modelling so have accumulated some kit (paints, tools etc.,) to help with that. The 3D printer has been so useful for helping organise in very limited space. In total the paint racks and a paint shaker took a couple of weeks to print out.









Paint shaker is a design off Thingiverse, but I modded it by sticking on some magnets out of old hard drives, then glueing steel penny washers to the bottom of my bottles of paint. A lot easier/quicker than using the adapters and I can shake up to 4 bottles at once :)
 
Soldato
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Now you've finished obsessively procrastinating tidying everything (well done, by the way) you might actually have to do some painting! ;):p:D

Shaker looks like a PC fan. One or two blades removed to unbalance it or a counterweight?
 
Associate
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Posts
2,459
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Macclesfield
Now you've finished obsessively procrastinating tidying everything (well done, by the way) you might actually have to do some painting! ;):p:D

Shaker looks like a PC fan. One or two blades removed to unbalance it or a counterweight?

Hmm, will have to actually buy a kit first lol! I do have some other stuff I want to paint - like the Mars rover I 3D printed, now sure how well it's going to take the paint though. I also have a 1/32 F16 on order but it won't arrive until April, I may cancel that and order elsewhere.

Yep it's a 140mm PC fan. Initially had a lump of blu-tack stuck on one blade but it kept flowing outwards due to centrifugal (centripetal?) force and hitting the frame, so now replaced with a 10mm nut glued on. It works well and much better I think than the many cheap shakers you can buy. Fan is a 3-speed with switch (I'm guessing just 5, 7 and 12 volt switch) which is also very useful for tuning the shaking action according to the weight of bottle(s).
 
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