Should I get a 3D printer...?

[VJ]

Small update... I have put the frame together, and while the metal parts are of fantastic quality, the 3D printed parts are quite bad. To such an extent that it prevented me from completing the printer. The company acknowledged the issues, which they say was caused by their supplier of printed parts taking some shortcuts that lowered the quality to keep up with the orders (I was not the only one who had issues). They told me that they are in the process of finalizing their own in-house print farm and offered me the option of either having new printed parts from their supplier, or from their in-house print farm (but that would take a few weeks longer). I opted for the latter, as I assume the quality will be better (for sure their first batches will be double checked for dimensional and structural properties). So still a bit of waiting...

Meanwhile, the list of things we feel could be printed keeps growing longer...

[VJ]

Just to get back to this: I made a first print yesterday!
Well... not much of a print, but rather a somewhat shapely blob...

At least the movement is working very nicely, amazing to realize that the z-movement is in steps of 0.01 mm and that that works consistently . I'm also amazed by how silent it is: the loudest component is the 30mm 24V fan that cools the heatsink above the hotend. But this assembly is up for upgrading as soon as it works well enough to print parts to do this upgrade.

The print did go wrong, most likely as the extruder (the thing the supplies the filament to the hotend) is not well calibrated. I ordered a new extruder, as the one that came with the printer frame (diy type solution) is not so good. With any luck it will arrive tomorrow. Another reason why the print may fail is that I don't have a print cooling fan (yet): the printer frame requires a printed part to mount this, but of course I don't have a printer. I should be able to circumvent the issue by printing slower (or pausing after a layer). Not ideal, but it could allow me to just print the needed part.

[Umfriend]

I know it may sound as a broken record but...pics? Love to see how you upgrade that thing. And people pay $$ to see somewhat shapely blobs (or so I am told).

[VJ]

I know it may sound as a broken record but...pics? Love to see how you upgrade that thing. And people pay $$ to see somewhat shapely blobs (or so I am told).

It was a first print of Benchy, a typical reference print. The print failed due to an extruder problem.

20190821_214534.jpg

On the back, there is a hint of good quality (smooth corner, outline of the hole is quite sharp near the bottom). But esp. towards the front it is a mess. Possible causes according to the facebook-group:

• over-extrusion (extruder not well calibrated and pushing too much plastic)
• too high temperature (settings are fine, so would have to do with PID fine tuning)
• inadequeate print cooling (my personal guess: I don't have a print cooling fan yet - could be solved by pausing between layers)

(and if you look closely, you may see the apartment in the reflection )

[VJ]

This is a view from the front side:
20190821_214757.jpg

The platform on the bottom is a setting of the slicer to increase adhesion to the bed, but it is not really necessary for the bed I have (forgot to switch it off).

Plan is for the next days to finetune the PID of the hotend, install a new extruder and calibrate it properly, and then try again.

[Umfriend]

How large is that? Would like to see better prints of the same object if you're gonna make some.

[VJ]

All the details on the Benchy-object are here: http://www.3dbenchy.com/about/ . Overall length should be 6cm

Most likely my problem is a combined one: overextrusion and lack of cooling fan. I already have a new extruder that should be easier to setup and calibrate, but still have to work out how to mount the print cooling fan. There is a 3d model for a mount, so you can print one, but of course you need a working printer for that. My plan is to temporarily put the fan and pause between layers, hoping that it will allow me to print the fanmount. Most likely I'll have some time on Monday and Tuesday.

[Greebe]

Cannot see enough detail in your pics to see what the problem may be... at first glance looks like under extrusion, but again cant really see well enough to tell. Better pics please

pics of my constantly being upgraded Creality CR-10 S400 slowly being moded into a CR-10S S400 dual extruder, part way there

Last pic shows the new E3D V6 clone with a custom part Thingiverse CR-10 Heavy Duty purchased from www.tinymachines3d.com for $60. I have an uninstalled EZABL auto bed leveler so this mount was ideal. New control board and display for the dual extruder hasn't been installed yet is already preconfigured for EZABL or BLTouch in it's unified firmware from www.TH3Dstudio.com.

New hot end has been modified with a titanium all metal heat break, which greatly reduces your retraction... default setting will jam this puppy so fast lol... reduced currently from default of 5mm to 2mm and works a peach. Left the standard V6 alum heat block, 40w heater and thermistor, tho do have E3D's new all copper heat block. Also installed an E3D copper alloy nickel plated 0.4mm nozzle. Upgrades to install yet is changing out the heater for a 50w model and adding the auto bed leveling for now. Need to make parts before more upgrades for the time being.

Under the bed is a new 1000w heater, heats up very quickly now, run a separate controller for the moment makes dialing in setting much easier without having to reset bed temp constantly. Bed is a Wham Bam Systems magnetic high chrome spring steel bed thats covered in PEX and is rated to 150c before deguassing the magnet. Works very nice.

Yours is made from PC if not mistaken. Good for beginners as the trade says and I dislike that. PC is good only for PLA and TPU. It cannot handle the higher temps ABS or PETG require. PEI is very good, but beware of using PETG on it because the two compounds are very similar structurally will permanently bond to one another if temp is set too high. Recommend only use lowest temp required to stick.

Tomorrow Amazon shows up with yet another Raspberry Pi case, last one came with four 3mm screws for the case. it must require 2-2.5mm screws. Not an off the shelf item in the backward USA.

Had purchased some Thermal Grizzly HS compound, very good ratings for use with my SSD and various other things in the works. Then I found BN paste from www.sliceengineering.com (check out the Magnum hotend!!!)
It's made by ZYP Coatings out of Oak Ridge TN. Nice folks up that way, visited many a time. These guys specialize in coating products for primarily aluminum metal castings industry but others as well. Their BN Paste eg Boron Nitride paste has a thermal conductivity >2.7x greater than the aformentioned Kyronaut. It's also cheaper, $10 vs $18 Kyronaut comes in a 3gram syringe whereas the BN paste comes in as 5cc's in a syringe. Alot more. Next up BN paste can handle temps of 1000c which means you can use this on your hotend without question and it's MSDS is non toxic. It will dry as it's water not silicone based. Residue is a white powder coating.

As you can see I have an Octoprint/Octopi server running. PuTTy into that or use keyboard/mouse on Pi's 7" touchscreen.

[Greebe]

Yes you need cooling fans. The original seen in the full photo barely has enough airflow for pla and only blows in one direction. The new setup runs typically at 1/2 speed once your above 5-6 layers so not to blow the hot filament off the part. Cools very very well. I have 4 spools of PETG I want to make some parts from and some metal copper pla to print a Millennium Falcon. TTYT3D on Amazon sells really nice shine pla https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J2ZQ7RS...v_ov_lig_dp_it
Very good reviews

[Greebe]

some helpful guides

https://rigid.ink/pages/ultimate-troubleshooting-guide

https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/

https://all3dp.com/1/common-3d-printing-problems-troubleshooting-3d-printer-issues/

[VJ]

FWIW,my printbed is a heated (800W heater) Anycubic Ultrabase; the photos were not made on the printbed but after removing it. For sure the cooling is an issue, I just did not expect it to be such an issue. Hopefully the next attempt on Tuesday will be better.

[Greebe]

It's TUESDAY!... Progress?

[VJ]

On Monday I installed and calibrated the Titan extruder. But it was too late to do anything else (I tried to jerryrig a fanmount but that did not work). On Tuesday, I recalibrated the Z-probe offset and tried another Benchy. I used Cura and tried to set it to a minimum time of 10s per layer... but I had a setting wrong and it often ignored this. Still, Benchy does not look too bad:
20190828_073317.jpg

The top is better than the bottom, probably due to better cooling (heated bed is further away, more airflow, more detailed layers so the head is moving over it more to maybe also add to the airflow and create more time inbetween layers).

I think my roll of filament got stuck at some points (it did not roll smoothly), which I think explains these holes:
20190828_073328.jpg

But I thought the quality was good enough to print the fanmount that would allow me to install a print cooling fan: bottom layer of Benchy was fine (which in the fanmount contains all the screw holes and so), dimensions are perfect. This time I correctly set the minimum time to 10s, and this is the result:
20190828_073213.jpg20190828_073229.jpg20190828_073241.jpg.
Not perfect, but useable for sure. And less of the issues that Benchy had (ok, there is less overhang and so).

I'll install this mount today and then try some other print.

I still need to optimize speed settings and so on, but getting there.

[Greebe]

You should be using a blower type pwm fan, not the axial type. My setup has dual 5015 12v pwm blower fans. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2494642/makes/#makes

I don't think those holes are from the filament hanging up on the spool, try changing the infill so it's finer eg higher, like 20% changed to 25%

Don't apply cooling for at least 5-6 layers and careful of how much airflow after this. I use <50% on lower temp materials like PLA with a 0.4mm nozzle. Larger extrusions and hotter materials require more for sure. Also don't cool the hotend

The fan shroud looks pretty good. Think your retraction rate could be reduced a tad and those zits will disappear. Mine in CURA was set for 60mm/s and reducing it to 25mm/s got rid of the zits and pretty much all stringing.

[VJ]

I printed this fanshroad as it is the easiest one to mount on the printer (it is the default one), I have a suitable fan and I needed a part cooler. For sure the print cooling part will be upgraded later, but I will couple that with upgrading all the fans to silent fans (which also means adding some electrical components as the printer is 24V but my favourite fan-supplier - Noctua - does not have small 24V fans)