SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — my first large printouts

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-15T22:03:41Z

jon_bondy wrote:

Putting the case on for printing, and going from 0.3 to 0.1 did the trick!

Glad things are going well!

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-11T12:36:16Z

Putting the case on for printing, and going from 0.3 to 0.1 did the trick!

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-07T22:16:16Z

You definitely need the build environment as warm as possible on long prints.

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-07T21:34:59Z

jon_bondy wrote:

Stoney: I was just playing around: there will be no serious testing. That said, the thing spins madly when blown on. It really is quite cool.
cmetzel: I will try for that You Tube video soon!
I tried to print another huge part, and about 6 hours into a 12 hour print, it all split apart. I was away for a while, so I do not know if it split immediately, or slowly. Not sure exactly what I should do before attempting it again.
I did try for the absolute minimum of infill, and that could have been part of my downfall. I did not print with the case on. I'm not sure I am willing to baby sit the print and paint the surface with ABS, as was suggested on another thread.

UGH!! Hate that to happen on a long print... I am the one who suggested painting with abs... Keeping the entire print enclosed definitely helped with the splitting since the environment stays much warmer and is less prone to temp differentials causing the warping. The cracks generally happen quite slowly and develop over time...

A couple other things to keep in mind are to make sure you are getting enough flow since a slightly low flow might not extrude quite enough plastic to adhere properly... check to make sure the width you tell it that you are getting is what you are actually getting... Maybe try to speed up the printer a little bit so that there is not such a long time between layers... This may be the most important one, especially without a case... With a non circular perimeter such as this, I would think you would be able to print at 100 mm/s quite accurately... You might have to bump the temp up to 205 or so to get the extruder to keep up.

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-07T21:26:15Z

Stoney: I was just playing around: there will be no serious testing. That said, the thing spins madly when blown on. It really is quite cool.

cmetzel: I will try for that You Tube video soon!

I tried to print another huge part, and about 6 hours into a 12 hour print, it all split apart. I was away for a while, so I do not know if it split immediately, or slowly. Not sure exactly what I should do before attempting it again.

I did try for the absolute minimum of infill, and that could have been part of my downfall. I did not print with the case on. I'm not sure I am willing to baby sit the print and paint the surface with ABS, as was suggested on another thread.

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-05T14:53:51Z

Pretty cool Jon, can't wait to see it assembled and working, hopefully you can put up a video on youtube.

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-05T01:05:51Z

Is the sd nicknamed Jarvis yet?

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-04T22:56:35Z

do you intend to use the scale model for testing ?

not brave enough for 6 hour prints yet.

Re: my first large printouts

2012-11-04T21:31:32Z

Nice!

my first large printouts

2012-11-04T13:42:17Z

I finally summoned some courage and printed two larger parts. I saw a wind turbine that my friend, Ralph Lemnah, had created, and decided to try to design and print a similar structure, only in miniature (his is about 4 feet high; mine is about 6 inches). I created a 3D model in Sketchup for 1/2 of the structure, flipped (mirrored) it, and then printed both the top and bottom parts. Prints were at 0.1 mm, and took about 6 hours each. I now wonder whether there was any point in printing at 0.1 mm. I imagine that slicing and printing at 0.3 mm would have been faster. BTW, Slicer took over 10 minutes to slice this model: I had never seen anything take more than about 1 minute before. I cannot imagine how long it would have taken Skeinforge.

Although part of my bed is 0.010" (about 0.3 mm) lower than the rest of the bed, the part stuck to the bed reasonably well. When I finally popped the part off of the bed, the bottom of both parts showed a pattern that clearly showed which parts of the bed stuck well and which did not.

I was concerned about cracks appearing in the parts (as documented by others on this forum), but none appeared. At one point, while printing the 2nd part, the computer paused for about 30 seconds: that did result in a visible line in the part, but it remained structurally sound.

I am feeling as if my Solidoodle is now a production machine. I start the job, make sure that the base sticks properly, and then go away, for hours. Imagined idea to 3D model/design to finished part in an afternoon. This is why I purchased the Solidoodle!