1 Topic by jon_bondy

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Topic: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

I've been trying to print this part for days and days.  Sometimes it just pops off of the bed in the middle of the print.  Twice, the printer started making horrible grinding noises.  Even after everything seems to be adjusted properly, one edge or another would curl up from the bed, distorting the part.  Since it is part of an assembly, such warping ruins the parts.  I finally managed to get one part to print without an obvious problem.  You probably have no idea which part is the good one.

How did I manage this?  I am not entirely sure, but I did rotate the part 90 degrees, and moved it around on the bed, this last time.  I'm about to try it again: we will soon know if this successful print was a happy accident or not. 

I am using a brand new SD bed on top of which I am using a piece of glass.  One would imagine that the surface was flat enough that position and orientation was not important, but in my case, it seems to have been critical.

I don't know why I have so many problems: some of you claim to print and print and print without errors.  This is more typical of my experience with my SD. I have asked SD for assistance, but they remain mum.

I would say it is POSSIBLE to print things with the SD, but it is neither simple nor a reliable process.

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2 Reply by nickythegreek

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

Is this a 100% solid print?

3 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

I started off with infill at 0.8.  I tried 0.4, but that did not help enough.  Then I rotated the part on the bed, and that did the trick.  Strange.

This is part of a lamp, so the internal structure may become visible if it is too sparse.

nickythegreek wrote:

Is this a 100% solid print?

4 Reply by nickythegreek

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

I like to run my longest horizontal edges from back to front so that they line up over the heater cartridge.  I also find that on larger prints my curl will happen near the door as it seems to be where heat will escape and temperatures might fluctuate. I have been putting a tower over the front of my door lately to try and help keep the heat in until I add some weatherproofing tape around the front frame.  But I image that you will have more curling issues with long solid objects.

5 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

The new SD bed design has a large uniform heater, so alignment with the heating resistor is no long an issue for me.  The good news with this part is that it is not very tall, so most of the part is at the same temperature as the bed during the print.  Not that this has prevented lift-up and warping.

I have to print with the top off of this printer, because when I put a top on, the change in filament angle seems to contribute to extrusion failures (and ruined prints).  Of course, the failures are so random, and the reliability is so low, that I could be imagining that the top is causing the failures.  At one point I cleaned the hob gear, and thought that the extruder became more reliable, but it is very hard to separate all of the factors in such a failure.

I think that there are two meanings to the phrase "getting the printer to work".  I think that Solidoodle is committed to getting the printer to work "at all", but my sense is that they are unable to them to work "reliably".  The only way to make progress towards reliability would be more of those "symptom-vs-solution" writeups in the Wiki.  Of course, there may be so much variability between printers (belt tension, shaft binding, filament uniformity, etc) that real reliability is beyond the scope of the industry at this time.

6 Reply by pcpoirier

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

I added a heating pad to my DS2 and my corners are 38c  while the middle is 90c

7 Reply by Brad

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

Perhaps its a good idea to keep the ambient temperature around the print a little higher?

Brad's Website

8 Reply by pcpoirier

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

I have full covers on and I put thermal paste in the corners.
Perhaps it is because the corners only get heat from 2 sides.

9 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: parts warping off of the bed: 13th try is the charm

So.  I just printed 4 perfect pieces in a row.  With the top off.  With the room no warmer.  All I did was print on a different part of the bed than my previous failures.

As a programmer, I have been in situations where I fiddled with code for hour after hour, and suddenly it started to work.  I would often imagine that the last thing I had done had been the thing that had solved the problem.  Sometimes it turned out that it was a combination of things, but that last tweak always caught my attention.  I started calling it "voodoo programming", when you did things out of superstition.  "Why do you always power cycle before you load, Jon?"  "Well, it seems to work better that way.  I think".

I feel as if most of my success with the SD has been voodoo.  Tweak, tweak, tweak again, and then it works for a day or two.

I'm happy that the parts are printed, but I have little optimism that I will be able to duplicate something like this on, say, Wednesday.