Sailfish 50 micron (.05mm layers) at 120mm/s on Rep1

[Doogiekr]

Decided to attempt a decent size print at 50 microns since it would not take forever at 120mm/s
 
Print settings were .05mm layers, 25% infill, 120mm/s print, 200mm/s travel all in Print O Matic... no changes made in SF
 
I picked the Yoda bust because I like the details in the skin, and it can be a hard print to get right even at slow speeds
 
Total print time was just over 8 hours and the results are amazing!
 
It is very difficult to find the layers even if your looking for them, the attached pictures were taken with a macro lens that usually makes the layers stand out like a sore thumb.
 
It did have the normal issues under the chin because its way more than 45 degrees, and it has a small hole on top of the head which I think I could cure by using more infill, and the tips of the ears are weak, but printed better than they ever have for me even at very slow speeds.
 
Loving Sailfish more and more every day!
 
Thanks once again Dan and Jetty!

[Jetty]

Sweet, nice print :-)

>It did have the normal issues under the chin because its way more than 45
>degrees, and it has a small hole on top of the head which I think I could
>cure by using more infill, and the tips of the ears are weak, but printed
>better than they ever have for me even at very slow speeds.

Generally as the layer height decreases, I've found you need more
infill.
The reason is the that plastic is so thin, it needs something to be
drawn out against to maintain
the correct thickness and height. If there's not enough infill
underneath,
then there's nothing to draw it out, and the plastic will skip and the
surface will break.
It always tends to be more visible on the top of objects, because on
the sides,
it has the previous layer to sit against, on the top, the surface is
generally flat, and
it's relying more on the infill.

Because smaller layer heights take longer to print, the desire is to
reduce
the infill to speed up the print time, but that tends to work against
you :-)

The other thing is as you reduce layer height, you need to adjust your
Z Home Offset.
I normally change it from the default to 1/2 a regular layer height as
the layer heights get smaller.

So, I adjust it from 0 (0.27mm layer height printing) to 0.27mm/2
(0.01mm layer height printing)
(will be more negative if you're on a Replicator), positive on a ToM.

Below 0.1mm layer heights, set deprime = 0, because as the layer
height gets smaller, the flow
rate decreases and the internal nozzle pressure decreases. Too high a
deprime for the flow rate
would then cause gaps. Bascially the less the pressure, the less you
need to deprime.

Which raises another interesting possibility that's only just occurred
to me.
Extruder slippage is caused by the extruder running to fast for the
back pressure inside the nozzle.
So in theory, as layer height decreases, pressure decreases and
extruder runs slower, therefore you
could likely up the feed rate. It would be worth trying 10 Microns
heights with 200mm/s feed rates,
possibly 250mm/s with a well greased Replicator.

[Doogiekr]

Thanks Jetty... another thing I noticed (not Sailfish related) is that "line" infill is wonderful when using 100% infill but it is really a mess at 25% infill and this became more noticable at .05 layer height. The outside is beautiful because it is laying one layer directly on another (except for the top as you mentioned) but the insides, since line infill appears to be different on every layer, it is like a spiders web. It ended up working fine, but had me worried for a while...

 

The bottom of the print is actually solid, just transparent since its very thin thanks to the .05 layer heights. But you can kinda see the spider web going on in there...

 

And for the Z height, for me I have feeler gauges for my common layer heights .1mm, .2mm and I level my bed using them where i can just barely feel them drag under the print head (gives me flashbacks to setting my valve clearance on my old mustang)... but for the .05mm layer height i used the .1mm feeler gauge and set the bed so that the feeler gauge was a bit hard to move under the extruder and it printed great. I am sure there is a far more technical way to do this, but I am an old school mechanical guy, so the feel of the feeler gauge drag is comfortable for me.

 

As for the deprime, I left it at default and the print was fine, but next time I will turn it off and see if maybe it gets even better results =)

 

I will let you test the 10 microns =) ... 50 microns is very good to me and my old eyes can't see the lines anymore so I am amazed

[PropellerScience]

Yes, awesome print. I find yellow very hard to photograph clearly.
What's the reason for the Z offset? I'm looing for a way to print the
first layer a bit thicker than the rest so the platform level isn't so
critical. I can live with the first layer being a little thicker.

[Doogiekr]

I have gotten quite good at leveling quickly to a new height for layers (takes about 30 seconds to a minute) so I just try to make the gap match the layer height... so if I am printing at .1mm then i use the .1mm feeler guage. In my brain (which is not always right) that means that it should be able to print the first layer in a manner that lets it smoosh it a bit so I dont get corner lifting (much, i do get it sometimes).

 

I have not messed with making the first layer thicker per se... but i am sure it would be possible in a similar fashion to the way a raft is printed thicker than the print is on top of it (I dont use rafts unless I need to also use supports, but just used it for example)... it might be as simple as changing the gcode for the first layer, but again I do not have experience in that either. The only thing I mess with in my gcode is changing the starting position for the first purge blob (since I dont have kapton on the front left corner of my build plate very often) and I also eliminate the second purge blob because I find that i just dont need it, and often it gets hit by the extruder and causes the print to lift at that spot.

 

I have messed with the base layers setting (usually changine it from 1 to 3 or 5) in the SF raft area when I want more bottom layers to be present for strength when using low layer heights combined with low infill, but this won't solve the need for precise build platform height especially when printing below .1mm like you suggested

 

Let me know if you figure anything out, just curious if its possible to change certain layers in gcode easily... I probably won't change my current printing habits, but I always like to learn new things =)

[Dan Newman]

On 17 Oct 2012 , at 5:40 PM, Doogiekr wrote:

> Thanks Jetty... another thing I noticed (not Sailfish related) is that
> "line" infill is wonderful when using 100% infill but it is really a mess
> at 25% infill and this became more noticable at .05 layer height. The
> outside is beautiful because it is laying one layer directly on another
> (except for the top as you mentioned) but the insides, since line infill
> appears to be different on every layer, it is like a spiders web. It ended

> up working fine, but had me worried for a while…

I tend to prefer rectangular grid, but it is a bit slower than line fill.

Dan

[Doogiekr]

I will try that next time... thanks Dan

[Cymon]

Trying my own minimal layer height experiments at high speeds (100-200mm/s) I found if I dropped below .1mm my replicator's extruder stopped putting out plastic. Anyone else experience this?

[Dan Newman]

On 18 Oct 2012 , at 8:11 AM, Cymon wrote:

> Trying my own minimal layer height experiments at high speeds (100-200mm/s)
> I found if I dropped below .1mm my replicator's extruder stopped putting
> out plastic. Anyone else experience this?

Nozzle is too close to the platform: you likely need to alter the Z home
offset a tad. (I didn't need to do that myself on my Replicator, but others
have had too. YMMV.)

Dan

[Doogiekr]

Oddly enough, on my machine if i try to print at .05mm with the build platform set at .1mm then it will not print... I get little balls of plastic instead of lines for the first layer... i think because it is extruding so little that it needs to be printing onto something and not onto air. This could also be because i had deprime still on, but what i did to fix it was actually move my bed closer, but not touching. I used a .1mm feeler guage and set the bed so that it was a bit tight under the extruder, when i removed it i could just barely see light between the nozzle and the build plate. After doing this it printed the first layer fine (very very thin) and then continued to print the rest fine as well.

Jetty suggested turning deprime off, so next time i will do that for .05mm layer heights and see if it helps, but i have done a couple of prints now with it on, and it works fine for me as long as my print bed is very close but not touching the extruder...

Just my experience so far... FWIW

[Dan Newman]

On 18 Oct 2012 , at 3:17 PM, Doogiekr wrote:

> Oddly enough, on my machine if i try to print at .05mm with the build platform set at .1mm then it will not print... I get little balls of plastic instead of lines for the first layer... i think because it is extruding so little that it needs to be printing onto something and not onto air. This could also be because i had deprime still on,
> but what i did to fix it was actually move my bed closer, but not touching. I used a .1mm feeler guage and set the bed so that it was a bit tight under the extruder, when i removed it i could just barely see light between the nozzle and the build plate. After doing this it printed the first layer fine (very very thin) and then continued to print the rest fine as well.

And was the print stuck really, really well? I've found that removing
prints printed with these thin layer heights can be really challenging.
The plastic gets really pressed in well.

> Jetty suggested turning deprime off, so next time i will do that for .05mm layer heights and see if it helps, but i have done a couple of prints now with it on, and it works fine for me as long as my print bed is very close but not touching the extruder...

Yes, Jetty used deprime=0 for 0.01mm layer height.
I think he did so for 0.05mm as well, but I may be wrong.

> Just my experience so far… FWIW

Thanks for posting. This is useful data.

Dan

[Doogiekr]

Generally all of my prints stick very very well if the base is of decent size, the .05mm prints seemed to be about the same. I removed them in the same way i do all of my prints (which is another project that I am working on that should be done soon) and no issues so far.

[Levent Aydın]

Hi guys. I want to print 50 micron to 10 micron. What am I supposed to use? I have MM 1.5 with Greg's extruder 3mm with 0.5 nozzle with 3mm filament. I want to change the extruder but I havent got any ideas of what am I supposed to use? MK7?J head? and which version of parts? I'm asking that the people who got 50 micron printings. What are your extruder parts? Can I use them on my MM 1.5 too?

[Levent Aydın]

Guys hi again. I'm using repetier host software. Can you printscreen your configuration of all about the printer please. I want to get at least 50 micron outputs and need to change my config too. Also do I need anything else ? Am I missing something?

[Steve Johnstone]

Thanks for all the great info guys!

0.1mm is as low as I have been and reading your posts have given me the confidence to go lower. For the past couple of weeks I have been printing at 0.1mm and the one thing I have noticed is that I can print overhangs way over 45 degrees. If you think about it, it makes sense as the layer height is a lot smaller in relation to the extrusion width.

Pic - 20mm EDF Rotor

[DRock]

What software is that?

[Steve Johnstone]

It''s Simplify 3D