Best temperature for extruding PLA

A piece of paper is usually .1mm.  The distance doesn't matter for leveling the bed, just that it is the same for all points.  As for temperature, you can't really go by recommendations for other printers because the way they measure the temp is different.  Usually when they say 230, the Solidoodle equivalent will be 195-200.

I haven't bothered with the painters tape for PLA, I found that Kapton at about 50C works fine.

Slowly working some of the bugs out. I just completed a print that turned out the best so far in PLA. I'm using a gold and I also have some silver on hand. I did this at a bed temp of 80 and a start extrude temp of 195 then lowered it to 190. The color and surface look great. All edges are nice and even with no bulges anywhere. It was the Snowflake STL.

I also found the issue with Repieter-Host telling me it could find the file when I asked it to run Slic3r. I had the first layer set thicker than the opening in the hot tip. Just happened to notice a warning message popup to that effect.

I'm now going to run that Exhaust Fan STL that I was having issues with in another tread and see how that runs. If good I'll post a picture here later.

Thanks for the feed back as it's been the only think keeping me from drop-kicking the SD2 throught the goal post. [grin]

I have only tried .3mm so far. In reading other forums - it seems that .2 should be optimum for our .35mm nozzle. I guess there is some optimal layer height below your nozzle size that is the tallest layers you are supposed to print (lower is fine). I think it has to do with squishing the layers properly. The .3mm size has been working well - so obviously this is not set in stone - but my next height I was going to try was .2mm.  I am not sure I have the patience for .1mm layer heights!

I get nearly perfect results with natural - black gets a fair amount of stringing - even with a large retract setting(3mm). (I am using a z-lift of .1mm).   

I also lowered my acceleration and jerk settings in the firmware to reduce overshoot at the corners - that also has slowed my prints. It didn't make that much of a difference - mostly it makes me feel better because the printer shakes less.

Irish - you'd be better off looking into something like the form1 depending on size you are working with.  Sl will give much better resolution of prints.

Yes, I looked at an early version of this, it wasn't as refined as it is now. They still aren't shipping. Cost isn't bad but I don't think what they are quoting includes everything you need. There are a lot of prioritary items that must be bought from them and can't be found on the open market.

I did have a local dealer in 3D printers offer me a demo unit yesterday. Said the price would be below 10K. They are only 6 miles up the road plus they also have a division for doing printing for others.

Like I said, I have a friend with a MB-Rep kit who has done some really nice scale (1:87 and 1:48) work in ABS at .3MM. Some of it he's had to do multiple prints before getting it dialed in but he's reaching the point of only needing one or two test before he has a finished piece good enough for a master for resin casting.

One advantage of the Form1 is it's already a resin product and should easily be detailed. One thing that's almost impossible to do with 3D printing is to add woodgrain, knot holes, etc. to things like wooden workbenches or cabinets. Even if possible it would take way too long in a 3D software program. Only one real good master is needed to use to make a mold master. After that everything is done with castings.

My problem is age (grin), I'm 70, retired, well supose to be. But like a lot of retirees these days I don't have a pension so I need to have an income. I started the company 3 years before retiring and it's 8 years old now. My modeling company has grown every year and we ship all over the World. Just the wife and I and we do 'everything' in house. This year we topped 1,000 invoices which is pretty good for a home based business.

I'll probably use the SD2 to output in 1:35 scale just to prove a design works OK. From there I'll see how I want to repro it in actual scale. thanks for all the input, it helps all of us.