3D Printing Today #578

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

News: 

Bambu Scam

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/youtuber-warns-of-bambu-lab-scam-241530/

millionpodcasts Best 100 Manufacturing Podcasts

Segments: 

Changing out nozzles on the XL, IS FDM different from FFF?, XL Gripes

Thing of the Week: 

Probe Tweezers for Fluke Multimeter

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7068085

Gun-Style Chopstick & Multimeter Holder

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7061021

threedprintingtoday.libsyn.com or 

Search for 3D Printing Today wherever you get your podcasts

[Kurt Gluck]

Andy,

While I have my challenges with PETG/PLA prints - I do believe you misspoke in the episode.  During the past few months There have been some changes to Prusaslicer that support more of what you want.

You now can pick one of your extruders to form the "structure" of your wipe tower.  In this case I have PLA on 1,2,3,4 and PETG on 5. 

The setting "Wipe tower extruder" tells the slicer to construct the "structure" of the wipe tower, in this case with extruder 2 -> PLA.

Also, it used to be you had to set the bed temperatures of all 5 filaments to match - which was anoying, since PETG is 80 and PLA is 60.  You still have to pick a single temperature (I am using 70), but instead of mucking all 5 fillament profiles, I just have to change the one I am using for PETG (in this case), set it to 70 and tell the slicer "Bed temperature by extruder" = 5 (which is the PETG one),

0 for these mean default, and of course that could be more user friendly.

FYI: Some of The settings "infill extruder" etc, don't do anything when you are playing with multicolor, since the act of "painting" your model interferes with it.  (https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/prusaslicer/specific-color-extruder-for-infill-prusaslicer-ignores-my-settings/)

Now, I would love it if they not only would let me pick a single extruder for the wipe tower structure, but they would let me pick a set of them, or a material type.  It is not the most efficient for me to only use one of the 4 PLA's for the entire towers structure.  But this is progress. 

Kurt-A (still struggling with the Dolls bed) 

[Sam Matthews]

Responding to your 3rd gripe about the Prusa XL, I believe I've discovered the solution to the PETG/PLA prime tower problem! It's not well documented (which is it's own problem), and I stumbled upon it by accident, but in PrusaSlicer, under the multimaterial tab of Print Settings, you can designate a single nozzle to print the prime tower. By default, the value is 0, which means that each layer of the tower will be printed by whatever nozzle happens to be available at the time:

That's a fine default for printing multi-pla nozzles. But when printing PLA/PETG I always set this value to my PLA nozzle, and then the entire perimeter of the tower gets printed with that material, and the PETG only gets extruded into the gap area in the center. Found this by accident and totally changed my multimaterial prints.

On Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 4:24:23 PM UTC-4 3D Printing Tips and Tricks wrote:

[Sam Matthews]

Dang, Kurt beat me by seconds :D

[Kurt Gluck]

Sam

Thats because there are two of us 

Kurt-A 

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 25, 2025, at 6:09 PM, Sam Matthews <sam.scowcro...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dang, Kurt beat me by seconds :D

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

VERY FUNNY Dude - but, in this case -- I was NOT Involved! But, YEAH - Funny comment indeed!!!

-K - the 1st One and Only Real Kurt - with Beard but NOT Angry!!!

[Sam Matthews]

You got me there :D

On Friday, July 25, 2025 at 6:55:11 PM UTC-4 Kurt Gluck wrote:

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Awhile back Kurt b pointed this out in another thread. I tried it and it still put the two materials on top of each other.

The solution is simply to have a setting that says “Support prime tower” that uses the tool already set as the support tool. It then prints a completely separate tower.

[Kurt Gluck]

Andy,

Yeah - you basically want separate prime objects for PETG and PLA.  The problem with useing a PLA based tower is the PETG tends to blob up a bit.  I have found that you can made other changes to the tower that helps some.

Kurt-A

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Any weird complication in the sliced object subtracts from reliability and determinism. The prime tower is a boneheaded complex structure that is generated programmatically. It doesn’t have to be nearly that complex. A simple cone shape with each tool having its own path would be simple so less likely to fail, easy to generate programmatically and allow for multiple material since each tool has its own path. There’s no need at all for the stupid structure.. Cura figured it out a long time ago and as far as I can tell Cura actually doesn’t seem to allow for full contact support!

Prusa ignores this hence it is in my gripe list.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

I listened to the podcast yesterday. Yeah - you really did slam Joe & His XL quite a bit. I especially got a laugh out of Whitney with you guys making jokes about the Dumb ball triggers. Yeah - you kept calling them Poop - and that was hysterical. I also liked your idea of simple cylinder prime towers, even with different materials on the inner cylinder. Seemed to me like a great idea - and as Cylinders - they can print VERY Fast!

-K