3D Printer Back in Action

[Robert Schultz]

After the meeting tonight, Ian and I squared the frame for the Lulzbot 3D printer. It no longer makes the bad z-index noises and it successfully navigated the entire z-index range and it printed a cube just fine.

So everyone should feel free to print stuff!

Thanks Ian!!

On an another note, the cube did come loose from the print bed during printing, but this I believe was due to the the profile not having the correct flow percentage given the filament diameter (not enough filament extruded, especially important for the first layer). This has been corrected in the profile and it shouldn't be an issue anymore. However I recommend using the rubbing alcohol and cloth circular pads located behind the 3D printing laptop to go ahead and wipe down the print bed before printing (while bed is cool). I noticed the print bed has a little build up on it (it should feel mostly smooth to the touch) but I didn't get the chance to clean it myself.

[Robert Schultz]

Good news!

The printer is indeed back in full working action! I printed an 8 hour print overnight with zero issues! Even had multiple separate parts and everything came out just great. Woot :)

[Ian Baillie]

Great news!

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From: Robert Schultz
Sent: ‎7/‎17/‎2016 9:17 AM
To: Asheville Makers
Subject: {Asheville Makers} Re: 3D Printer Back in Action

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[Robert Schultz]

Just arrived this morning to discover that another 13 hour print had completed successfully!

It feels good to waltz in and see all the objects just hanging out on the printer waiting to be collected :)

Thanks again Ian for getting the frame squared!

[susie.r...@rainbowlearning.org]

Hey Friends,

My name is Susie Robidoux and I work at Rainbow Community School in West Asheville.  I have has the privilege of having some of you come to my classroom to work with my students to help develop a love of tinkering, tools and engineering.  Well we are trying to "up our game" and join the world of 3D printing.  However, we are lacking significant understanding for using the machine with purpose in the classroom.  Would anyone on this list have interest in offering some guidance?  First steps would involve meeting with me and the printer to determine what level of instruction might be needed to get some beginning teachers up and running.  Then we would determine if I would be able to relay this information, or if having the expertise of said volunteer would be needed.  I could pay a small stipend if it was determined that more extensive training was needed.  Should this be of interest to you please contact me at : susie.r...@rainbowlearning.org  THANKS!

[Ian Baillie]

Glad its working still. I sent an email to Susie, anyone else that would like to help is welcome to do so. My weekdays are occupied with work, so it could be tough to schedule, if she isn't around after hours.

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From: susie.r...@rainbowlearning.org
Sent: ‎7/‎18/‎2016 10:37 AM
To: Asheville Makers
Subject: Re: {Asheville Makers} Re: 3D Printer Back in Action

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[Robert Schultz]

A little tip everyone, if your print is going to go more than 6 hours, I suggest turning on the "Raft" option under the "Platform Adhesion" dropdown in Cura. My prints were on the bed for 13 hours and one of them got a little warped on the bottom due to being on a 110C print bed for so long. A "Raft" may have prevented this because it lays down a layer of plastic underneath your print and then prints your pieces on top of that.

[Ian Baillie]

I left a batch of parts running, it should be done by midnight. I meant to raft them, but forgot, so hopefully they won't warp or do anything weird. In the case that I don't make it by to get them before someone wants to print something else, just peel them off the bed and drop them in my blue tote on the top shelf. I will try and make it there around 7:30 tomorrow morning, but no promises. And yes, I know I lowered the layer thickness. They are parts for my printrbot that I wanted pretty accurate for bearings and bolts to fit. If you want a quicker print, reload the ini file, or change the layer height back to .25.  Have a good night all, and keep your fingers crossed for my parts!

             Ian

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From: Robert Schultz
Sent: ‎7/‎18/‎2016 11:28 AM

[Ian Baillie]

Alright, I dropped by and picked up my parts this morning, and I have a couple thoughts.

    1)  I feel like the Z-gap needs to be tightened up just a bit, as the base layer was not as "smooshy" as I like to see it. There were small gaps in between the lines on the bottom of the pieces, where it should be mostly solid. This should help with adhesion to the bed as well.

  2)  I think rafting may be a good option on prints less than 6 hours as well. I believe the time on mine was around 5:30-5:45, and I had considerable warping. The warping is such that a couple small pieces are distorted badly, and the larger pieces have a convex surface on the bottom.

  3)   I may need to print the pieces individually, so all of them don't have to sit on the hot bed for so long, which certainly would encourage warping.

I will likely work on some of the pieces later this week, or this weekend possibly. Hopefully my observations will help others to have increasing success with this great printer. Talk to you all soon!


          Ian

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From: Robert Schultz
Sent: ‎7/‎18/‎2016 11:28 AM

[Zak Smolen]

if you want to set up a folder with the models and list the settings you want we can probably all work on printing them piece by piece for you.

[Ian Baillie]

Thanks! That's a great idea. Actually, there is a folder in the STL folder, named Ian. It has the parts that I printed last night in it. The more I think about it, the more I decide that printing the parts one-at-a-time may resolve my warpage issues, for the most part. Some of the parts are smaller, and basically just baked on the bed while the bigger ones printed. Also, they all stewed longer because there were multiple parts on the bed being printed. I suspect that if we make the z-gap a touch smaller, and reprint individually, the results will be pretty good. The only thing I changed in the settings last night, was to reduce the layer height from .25 to .10, in order to get a more precise part. Otherwise, I used Roberts HIPS standard profile.

If anyone wants to play with the printer, but doesn't have something to print, you're welcome to grab a file from the Ian subfolder and print one. When I get back to the space, I will put up a list of files that I need, and anyone that wants to can print them and check them off as they finish. This is an ongoing project for me to upgrade my printrbot, and help is definitely appreciated. I may start a new thread just for that.

         Ian

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From: Zak Smolen
Sent: ‎7/‎21/‎2016 9:17 AM
To: ashevil...@googlegroups.com

[Zak Smolen]

Sounds good. I was thinking of doing small pieces as addons to small prints or before leaving the space just starting a piece or two. Not sure when I will next get a chance to print but I have some stuff I want to get done soon.

[Robert Schultz]

After trying a raft on a test cube, it was a harder to remove the raft from the part than I would have liked. This may be ok for some parts, but might not be for others.

As for the warping when on the heated print bed for a long time, I certainly have seen that smaller parts are much more affected by it. But I've also seen that it usually warps the sides more than the center. In this case, maybe selecting "Brim" under the Bed Ahesion dropdown in cura would maybe help. It basically adds some concentric rings around the outside of your part, these are much easier to get off and maybe it would help.

Lastly, I haven't research this, but perhaps this is the downfall of HIPS? Maybe PLA, ABS or PETG would fair better for parts that need to print for a long time?

HIPS always works great for me for parts that are <2-3 hours but there indeed seem to be some issues with longer pr

[Steve Altemeier]

Ian, I printed the first part in your folder and it came out looking good (to my untrained eye, anyway).  I will leave it next to the printer.  I tried printing two other parts and had failures both times - the parts started out looking fine but at some point they became stuck to the printer head....  It looks to me like the printer head may need to be cleaned, although I wasn't sure how to do that.   Thanks,

Steve

[Zak Smolen]

Did you do pink? I was going to go for a color theme of pink and lime green with a little orange ;)

[Jerry Tice]

I am doing a project at St. Jude Medical Devices in Minneapolis. Talk about nice 3D printers. I love to get access them for a day. Top of the line stuff! 

Jerry 

Sent from my iPhone

[Ian Baillie]

Steve, 
    Thanks, I stopped by and picked it up, and the part looks great. I actually just got home and test fitted it to my 608 bearings, and it fits perfectly! I look forward to getting the rest of the parts printed this cleanly. I suspect that the 'sticking to the head" bit may be an adhesion issue, as usually a part that is stuck to the bed well will take a gouge instead of breaking free and travelling with the head.

Zak,

   Surprisingly, some of my favorite colors are hot pink and bright green! So those colors would work for me, though I am somewhat shooting for a classier, clean look for this build.

And Jerry,

     Its foot to hear from you. I bet they do ha e a nice printing setup there. Swing by the space when you're back in town, and I have your USB drive still, from the old space.

            Ian

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From: Steve Altemeier
Sent: ‎7/‎21/‎2016 4:15 PM

[Ian Baillie]

I took Zaks prints off the bed this morning, and stole the pikachu one. Just kidding, Zak. I ran a print that was just over an hour at .1 layer height, and got some warping on one end. I think it will still work, but when I stopped back by this afternoon, I decided to try the Brim option on the next part, to see if that would help it not warp the part. Just wanted to drop a line and let everyone know that I am testing the options, so we will know what works and what doesn't. Other than that, everything seems to be working fine. One piece of advice, make sure there isn't a little glob of filament on the hotend before your print starts, or the calibration for z-offset will be wrong. I believe this to be the issue that I have noticed in one part looking clean on the bottom, and the other not. This also will affect bed adhesion.

On Tuesday, July 12, 2016 at 10:25:30 PM UTC-4, Robert Schultz wrote:

[Zak Smolen]

I would be happy to tell you what my parameters were for those after I test them! I tried scaling them down a little bit because the first one was so tight I had to smash it to get it back out...

[Kyle Schumaker]

sup guys,

looks like you are printing with HIPPS?  I am not familiar with this material in particular but I was getting a lot of warping when my printer first came online.  Not sure what program you are using to slice but Slic3r has options for the first layer bed temp and subsequent layer bed temps.  I suspect the bed temp may need to be played with, thinking you guys might have it set too high.  just my 2cents tho.  

  

On Tuesday, July 12, 2016 at 10:25:30 PM UTC-4, Robert Schultz wrote:

[Ian Baillie]

As best as I can tell, we are using about the lowest temperature for the bed that will work on HIPS. I haven't tried anything lower personally, but I do know that it wont adhere to a warm bed at all, it must be pretty hot.

I have also, after printing a number of parts with HIPS, decided that I think it will work great as a support material, but maybe just isn't a good plastic to make whole parts from. I will probably run the rest of my parts off in ABS, as I haven't really worked with it much in the past, and I think it is more suitable for what I am doing.

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From: Kyle Schumaker
Sent: ‎8/‎2/‎2016 12:23 PM
To: Asheville Makers
Subject: {Asheville Makers} Re: 3D Printer Back in Action