Re: [MakerBot] Support Material - The Print Killer

[Dan Newman]

On 18 Nov 2012 , at 8:46 AM, Salki wrote:

> Hey Makerpeople,
>
> Received my Replicator 2 a few days ago, been trying to get some prints out
> of this that are good enough to start duplicating in resin but still no
> luck. I've come close, but should it be this hard? My major issues are:
>
> a) the printer leaves a surface gap in random areas for no reason -
> previous prints have not had the gaps in the same spot.

If the location of the gaps is not consistent, then it's likely slight variations
in the filament diameter causing feeding problems in the extruder. 'tis why
many Mk7 & Mk8 extruder owners have switched to variants of whosawhatsis'
Minimalistic Mk7 mod. The derivative of that more appropriate to a Rep 2 is
the right hand version of

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:28241

See also,

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/makerbot/hpIebvPqRiY/Js31a2cg4MsJ

If, on the other hand, you were getting pimples/zits at various spots
and the spots were not consistent if you printed the same model twice,
then I'd suggest printing from SD card and with the desktop/laptop
computer not connected to the bot over USB. (That way, there's no USB
comms going on and occassionally slowing down the print when queries
are made for the bot's current temp, etc.)

> b) the support material is completely bonded to the model and impossible to
> remove.

Others may have some constructive advice here. I myself seldom use support
but rather imagine that with PLA it's much harder to detach than ABS. May
be that using a lower temp will help. Dunno.

Dan

[Salki]

Hey Dan, 

Thanks for the reply. I will give the lower temperature a shot, not wanting to mod this.

On Sunday, November 18, 2012 10:46:25 AM UTC-6, Salki wrote:

Hey Makerpeople,

Received my Replicator 2 a few days ago, been trying to get some prints out of this that are good enough to start duplicating in resin but still no luck. I've come close, but should it be this hard? My major issues are: 

a) the printer leaves a surface gap in random areas for no reason - previous prints have not had the gaps in the same spot. 

b) the support material is completely bonded to the model and impossible to remove.

I'm printing this at high resolution (0.1mm) and my temp is at 240 and extrusion speed 70.

Take a look at the prints and let me know if you can think of anything! 

 

[Dan Newman]

On 18 Nov 2012 , at 10:09 AM, Salki wrote:

> Hey Dan,
>
> Thanks for the reply. I will give the lower temperature a shot, not wanting
> to mod this.

I had an interesting experience lowering the print temp.

First, lots of folks who do long prints with PLA on Replicator 1's have found
that they need to use extruder temps in the 190C ballpark. If they use higher
temps, the print eventually fails owing to the extruder jamming. Typical
reason is that heat slowly diffuses throughout the extruder and the incoming
filament starts to soften in the vacinity of the pinch gear and the stepper
motor can no longer push it into the melt chamber.

Okay, now the first prints I did on my Rep 2 were 0.10 mm layer height prints
at the default 240C. They weren't large and took under an hour to print.

Then I did much larger prints with layer heights at 0.15 and 0.30 mm and a
more conservative 210C. No problems.

Then I went back to doing some small prints at 0.10 mm layer height and 210C.
I consistently saw failures where there would be poor adhesion between two
layers. Edit the gcode and set the temp to 240C and the problem goes away.
(And to make sure it wasn't an issue with the filament feed system, I put on
a minimalistic Mk8 mod as I have the necessary parts and already had a left
and right set printed and ready to go.)

There's two things which may be going on

1. The aggressive blower fan. I've always had it on. At 0.10 mm layer heights,
very little plastic is extruder for the individual moves. It could be that the
fan is cooling things a little too fast. Coupled with the temp. swings of the
extruder's heater core, there may occassionally be moments when things cool just
a little too fast? (The temp swings are more noticeable the faster you print
and feed in cold filament.)

2. The Rep 2 has a different temp sensing system than the Rep 1. It's still
a thermocouple, but from looking at the firmware, I can see that the code for
handling it is different between the Rep 1 and Rep 2. So, there's a change
in behavior between the two as regards temp control. I have no idea if it's
a difference which makes any difference. I'm just observing that at the firmware
level there is one.

Dan

[Salki]

Hm, this is pretty disappointing stuff to see that there is a heavy amount of tinkering that needs to take place in order to get a good print. You would think that after dropping $2000+ on a machine, it would come ready to go. It really stinks because I'm definitely not a tinkerer, just a straight up artist that was hoping to be able to print his stuff.

Not sure if I should bother with a 4th test print for this character. It's pretty frustrating that in order for it to work properly I could potentially have to mod my machine.

Thanks

[Dan Newman]

On 18 Nov 2012 , at 1:41 PM, Salki wrote:

> Hm, this is pretty disappointing stuff to see that there is a heavy amount
> of tinkering that needs to take place in order to get a good print. You
> would think that after dropping $2000+ on a machine, it would come ready to
> go. It really stinks because I'm definitely not a tinkerer, just a straight
> up artist that was hoping to be able to print his stuff.
>
> Not sure if I should bother with a 4th test print for this character. It's
> pretty frustrating that in order for it to work properly I could
> potentially have to mod my machine.

You may just need to tighten down the plunger set screw a quarter turn or so.
Someone else posted today or yesterday that that worked for them with a Rep 2
for which they felt they were having some PLA feed issues.

Someone else had inadvertently disabled acceleration. Printing at fast speeds
but with that off would definitely cause extruder feed problems (as well as
increased vibration).

Dan

[wjsteele]

It looks like you only have one shell layer... If you increase it to two or three, you'll get solid prints... No modifications are necessary.

Bill

[PropellerScience]

Paying $2000 to get anything like 3D printing is a miracle considering
the alternatives.

[Salki]

@wjsteele - I've got my shell layer set to 3 for the high-quality prints.

@PropellerScience - I know it sounds like a relatively low-cost investment, but as a struggling artist $2000 is a big deal - all miracles aside :-).

[Adan Akerman]

@Salki, I'd like to chime in with my experience, if that's okay: I totally get what you're feeling. I'm a technical person, technically, but I didn't want to fuss with printer tinkering. I waited until the Replicator (1) before getting a reprap-style machine because I'm much more interested in designing my own stuff and printing it, not working on my tools. And when it came time to buy, I had in mind the kit costs I'd been hearing about... so I was taken aback by the price tag (which has only gone up since).

But I jumped anyway. And whaddayaknow, it arrived with something already wrong! There was a clog in the left extruder from when they did their factory testing. So I was a bit frustrated. But MBI support was very helpful, and this group was unbelievably helpful, and I got through it (and subsequent challenges). Now the dust has settled and I'm a little more intimately aware of how the machine works - which is a good thing, I promise, no matter what you intended when you got it - and I'm very confident that, when something goes wrong the next time, I'll get through it. Most important, I'm confident that the vast majority of the things I try to print turn out like I expect them to. 

So maybe it's that expectations problem: MakerBot, bless their hearts, advertises the bejeepers out of the prosumer reliablility whatnot status of the Rep2... and maybe it's there in some ways. But 3D printing, even with the $10k machines and up, is still early days. Your big investment is nothing to be sneezed at, but it was your ticket into an early adopters' party. 

Anyway. To wrap up, here are some thoughts that I hope will help you: 

1. MBI support remains, as far as I can tell, exemplary. Stay in touch with them and they'll try to help you.

2. This Google Group gets stronger every day. I am constantly stunned by the sheer brainpower and goodwill that is represented here. Stay in touch and they WILL help you.

3. You will figure out what you can and cannot print... and what post-processing helps you bridge those gaps... and you'll have a capability that none of your peers or competition can approach.

Finally, if you're the Kevin Salki of www.kevinsalki.com, awesome! That's some amazing imagery there. I look forward to seeing your upcoming successes.

Sorry, I'm apparently in a wordy mood today :-)  

Adan

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[Salki]

Hey AdanA,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. They certainly did help and held merit as much of what you've stated I can already attest to even though I'm such a new member to this group - great group of intimidatingly knowledgeable people! MBI support has been great so far, although we haven't fixed the issue quite yet, they are quick to reply and help if they can.

I'm going to try printing by generating an S3G from the ReplicatorG software as Adam from MBI tech support suggested. That said, I'm super lost in this software! I managed to build the file with settings I looked up that should work, popped it onto my SD card and tried to print - my bot started yelling at me that it was instructed to have a heated build plate but it doesn't have one. Fair enough. How do I turn that setting off in the RepG software? I'm using the Replicator 2 settings in there, any ideas?

Finally, I'm the Kevin Salki from the website - thank's for the kind words! Can't wait to update it and share some more recent stuff (that i'm attempting to print).

- KOS

[Dan Newman]

> I'm going to try printing by generating an S3G from the ReplicatorG
> software as Adam from MBI tech support suggested. That said, I'm super lost
> in this software! I managed to build the file with settings I looked up
> that should work, popped it onto my SD card and tried to print - my bot
> started yelling at me that it was instructed to have a heated build plate
> but it doesn't have one. Fair enough. How do I turn that setting off in the
> RepG software? I'm using the Replicator 2 settings in there, any ideas?

Sounds like you selected in RepG as you Machine > Machine Type (driver) a
"Replicator" or "Replicator 2x" and not a "Replicator 2". The Replicator 2
does not have a heated build plate. The others do. Double check what you've
selected as the "Machine > Machine Type (driver)".

Dan

[Salki]

Hey Dan,

I triple checked and I had / still have it set to Replicator 2 (right under the 2x). I went into the slicing settings and disabled Chamber, that seems to have all the bed temp settings. Building a new file, hoping that will work.

Should I not have disabled Chamber?

Thanks,

-KOS

[Dan Newman]

On 19 Nov 2012 , at 5:23 PM, Salki wrote:

> Hey Dan,
>
> I triple checked and I had / still have it set to Replicator 2 (right under
> the 2x). I went into the slicing settings and disabled Chamber, that seems
> to have all the bed temp settings. Building a new file, hoping that will
> work.
>
> Should I not have disabled Chamber?

And then when you sliced, in the window that pops up when you click
"generate gcode", did you select in the drop down list

Replicator 2 slicing defaults

That's at the very top of that window with the label "Slicing Profile:".

As to editing the slicing profiles (e.g., Chamber and whatnot), I cannot
recommend doing that until you first have things working reasonably well
with the defaults.

Dan

[Salki]

I'm pretty sure I had everything set to Replicator 2. It's building the S3G file now, and I will keep you posted as to what happens. If it doesn't work I can try setting everything back to default - if I can find out how - and try it from point A like you recommend.

Thanks,

KOS

[Dan Newman]

On 19 Nov 2012 , at 5:39 PM, Salki wrote:

> I'm pretty sure I had everything set to Replicator 2. It's building the S3G
> file now, and I will keep you posted as to what happens. If it doesn't work
> I can try setting everything back to default - if I can find out how - and

> try it from point *A* like you recommend.

If it doesn't, then post the gcode for something really small. I'm wondering
if you have a bust-o-la version of RepG 39 or RepG 40 - beta. There was a bug
in the start gcode for the Rep 2 (and maybe the Rep 1) -- a missing closing
paren, ), in a comment. It then caused the gcode interpreter in RepG to do
unexpected things and produce novel s3g.

It looked like this

(**** begin homing ****)
G162 X Y F2500 (home XY axes maximum

and was about the 10th line in the file. If you're seeing that, then that's
definitely a problem. (But maybe not the only problem.) You can fix it by
adding a ")" after "maximum". Then you need to regenerate the s3g.

Dan

[Salki]

Hey Dan,

Checked the code - its closed so it's all good. That said, the print didn't work. I didn't get any errors, but I just got the extruder letting a giant blob of PLA go on the corner and then moved very very slowly towards the center - I was afraid of clogging the extruder because of the amount of melted PLA so I cancelled. I have reset the preferences for RepG and will try reselecting all Rep2 settings. Keep ya posted.

-KOS

[Salki]

The difference in RepG vs. MakerWare is uncanny.. I.. I just can't believe it.

I will keep you all posted on this one, should be a goodie.

Thank you so much for your help and patience - I'm not in the clear yet, but it looks far more promising than before.

- KOS

[Elbot]

Yeah, I was getting those gaps too until I used higher fill. You probably used the default 10% fill. Try one shell and 20% fill. That should fix the problem. Not enough support material under the shell for the shell to print on.

As for the support material not being torn off easily, use a dremel. I don't know if it is possible, but maybe someone more knowledgeable will know, is it possible to extrude the suppport at a lower temperature? That will make it easier to remove as the temp is too low for the support to stick to the main model's body effectively. It might be possible in replicatorg, but probably not in makerware.

[Adan Akerman]

Hey, I'm glad things are looking up! 

RepG has so many options, it really is powerful. But I've found it has SO many options, it's critical to keep a record of every single file I slice. I thought I would develop a feel for it, get an intuitive memory of how the settings interact, but there are just too many. So now I have a spreadsheet. Every file gets recorded: part name/description. goal in slicing it. result of print. actual print time. and then ALL the standard parameters, and any oddballs I might have gone in and tweaked.

Oh, and I've started using unique filenames for my .s3g files, so there's no risk I'll have one print well and, by the time it's done, I won't be able to remember which slicing it was connected to. So all files start with a date-based code, for instance: 20121118E 174GIMBAL.S3G (which also indicates filament diameter: 1.74mm). So if I slice the gimbal three different ways, and one of them prints much better, I'm certain I'll be able to trace it back to my list and see which parameters worked. Or, alternatively, I'll be able to tell by the file what filaments I can use it with.

As I'm writing this out it seems absurdly complicated. Hey everyone else! How do you keep track of these things? How do you remember which SF profiles are tweaked in what ways for what reasons? I should probably have asked some weeks ago before I began reinventing the clunkiest wheel ever.

Best of luck, Kevin, and do keep us posted.

Adan

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/makerbot/-/73-gRTIds1UJ.

[Salki]

Good morning everyone,

Woke up this morning with a nice little print. I used the basic Replicator 2 slicing settings and switched it to the high-quality settings @ .1mm print, 220 temp, extrusion speed 80, travel 150. I am super happy with the print and am ready to start tweaking the settings to get this surface really 100%. Here are a couple things I noticed on the print (which i've sanded down a bit so some of what i mention might not show up).

a) Banding on the back of the head, not sure why that is there.
b) small dots or surface bumps in some areas.
c) hairline has weird artifacting around where it meets the head, looks like it maybe needed a small support material?

Here are some pics.

[Adan Akerman]

That looks amazing. Just amazing. Nice print!

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[Andy]

Here are some of my techniques for keeping track of my prints and experiments.

Google docs (now called drive) is how I keep track of my various filament measurements and if I'm iterating on a print's settings, I'll make a spreadsheet with my notes.  A sharpe is handy for marking failed or test prints with a version #, so I can always match it up with the notes in my spreadsheet. 

 Every time I slice a model, I take a snapshot of my print-o-matic settings, and store these images next to the STL and resulting s3g.

I keep my SD card empty to minimize the chance of printing the wrong version of the sliced model.  I tried using a file naming scheme but never settled on something I could remember. too many numbers! :)

I have a powerful desktop machine and a slower laptop. I model and slice on the desktop , and will only slice on the laptop if I made a mistake in the slicing settings that I didn't catch. (waiting for the HBP to heat up is a good time to review those print-o-matic slicing settings) I have dropbox setup, and keep all my ready to print stl, gcode, s3g, and the screenshots on both machines so I don't have to leave the bot to reslice.  

As for keeping track of the profiles.  Whenever I am making changes, I make them one at a time, and label the profile as such:

RepG defaults

Sailfish defaults

Sailfish + thicker solid layers

Sailfish + thicker solid layers + no raft

Etc.

For a bit of overkill, I have a "generic" folder I copy and paste for each print with sub folders for all the above mentioned stuff , each iteration's files contained in a versioned subdir. Keeping this in the Dropbox makes hopping between the two machines easy. 

I have not figured out a good trick for keeping my slicing profiles and machine XML files synced, but I think a symlink into some location in the Dropbox would work.

-Andy

[Andy]

Is that Ninja from die antwoord?

Nice sculpt!!

-Andy

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[Salki]

Hey Andrew,

Thanks for the tips / techniques, definately keeping the files organized is a must.

It is Ninja! I'm a huge fan of them heh. Happy you recognized it!

-KOS

[Dan Newman]

In reverse order

c. There was a sudden direction change (of about 90 degrees) in the xy-plane when the hair
was hit. That caused some vibration in the extruder carriage and what your seeing is an
artifact of ringing caused by that vibration. It quickly dampens out.

You can see it big time in this print done by Makebot themselves,

http://www.thingiverse.com/image:168509

Look at the print on the right hand side: look at the ringing after each of the letters at the
bottom. Also at the corners. To reduce the effect of these, you can decrease the max
jerk values.

b. A common way to end up with zits/pimples is when the printing process pauses briefly. When
the extruder isn't moving, the constant process of pressure relieving itself in the extruder causes
some plastic to ooze out of the extruder and onto your print. The longer the pause, the bigger
the zit. With accelerated firmwares, this can happen if the acceleration planner falls behind
in supplying computed, planned segments to be printed. No good fix for this other than to print
a tad more slowly. Another possible cause of pimples/zits is when you print over USB and USB
comms are occassionally occupying the bot. But, I think you've been printing from SD care.
And I don't think you'd get that many pimples/zits from USB. There can be other causes as
well for those pimples/zits.

a. Those bands are also visible on the front as well. They suggest that vibrations or something
are causing a layer to be slightly off relative to the layer above or below it. I don't have
any good advice on how to address it with the MBI firmware. Maybe see if it goes away when
printing with lower max acceleration values for X & Y? (Try cutting them in half.)

Dan

[Salki]

Hey Dan,

Thanks for he tips! I haven't dived into the slicing settings quite yet, but I am guessing that the max acceleration values are in there somewhere? I should go in there tonight and try tweaking a few settings and repeat the print.

I will let you know how it goes.

- KOS

[Dan Newman]

On 21 Nov 2012 , at 10:57 AM, Salki wrote:

> Hey Dan,
>
> Thanks for he tips! I haven't dived into the slicing settings quite yet,
> but I am guessing that the max acceleration values are in there somewhere?

The present day slicers know little or nothing about acceleration.
They just specify a target speed for a given line segment to be
printed. The acceleration firmwares then work with that and impose
maximum rates of acceleration (which are also taken to be the max.
rate of deceleration). Consequently, the max acceleration values
and max jerk values (max speed changes in Sailfish) are stored on
the bot and examined and changed via RepG's Machine > Onboard Preferences.
You first have to connect over USB to the bot from RepG. (If you
were using MakerWare, make sure that the Conveyor service is disabled;
otherwise, RepG will not be able to connect to the bot. Do that
by running MakerWare and then Services > Disable Conveyor [or some
name like that]).

Dan

[Salki]

Ah I see,

I will look into that when I get home this evening then, thanks Dan!