yellowshark

Sure, we run our 3D printing business from home so are here nearly all the time. Pop up and I will show you the process and the results. You cannot use the messaging system at the moment; I think because you have made 4 posts and you need to make 5 posts?? Post again and I will check.

+1 on PM-Dudes support comment. One of our print specialities is architecture and we never use supports on the windows unless they are curved.

Hi Boudio, one of the best filament makers is based in the UK, i.e. Faberdashery. I have been using them for about 18 months and have never had a problem, it is 2.85 and extremely consistent; I use the Dutch company too . For me Faberdashery has the advantage that you can buy the filament loose rather than wound on reels, so the problems with the last 10-20% do not exist.

Hi guys if you use a laptop to drive your printer then you will find it easier to install RepetierHost or, I suspect, Pronterface both are free. They give you more easy control over the printer, both before and during the print. One function is manually extruding filament before starting the print - all you do is hit a button on the GUI. I always extrude around 30mm before starting the print to make sure it is flowing nicely and there are no issues.

The other alternative is to use brass inserts for plastic. They can be pushed in cold or hot; and indeed screwed in although not sure how "brittle" PLA would cope with that. Quite a few suppliers in the UK

Not at all bad If you want to get a great finish on the vase then coat it with XTC-3D and apply plastic primer and automotive acrylic paint. It is certainly big enough to warrant it and the geometry will make the coating application really easy.

Cura does not really show it properly in layer view but if you take the g-code across to Repetier Host you see this As you can see the middle wall is a bit strange as in places it is a wall and in other places it looks like infill, which was set to 0 in Cura. Of course that may just be a graphics code thing

Ok, it is really difficult to be very precise here because many things affect overhang; it really is very much a case of try it and see, even including trying another filament. I think I would start with. 1. Change shell thickness to 1.6mm - this will stop any infill in that area. 1/16th inch = 1.5nn mm 2. Fans 100% 3. Change layer height to .200; I accept you may not want to use that but in terms of testing to get a good finish it is worth doing; maybe even one pushed to .300 3. Try it at 30mm/s and at 60mm/s 4. Go for a cool extruder temp; the initial layers will show you if you have gone too low, if so you can always push it up a bit via your printer controls (?). .200 at 30mm/s you can probably do at around 205 maybe 200 5. If that filament is white then change to another colour; white tends to be more problematical than other colours in my experience and I have seen others on the forum make the same comment

If you can borrow a set of hex drivers from a friend that will establish the size; RC drivers use them. The one on my printer is either 2.0mm or 1.5mm, 2.0mm I think

Ah I see now, I think. It is the 1/16th inch bridge at the top which is the problem, not the sloping surface in the alcove, yes? It is though a very short bridge and the printer really should be able to cope with that quite easily. What are your settings for print speed(s), wall thickness, layer thickness, fan, extruder temp.? You will probably need to test some different settings to find the best result; in Cura you can sink the model in to the print bed so you only have to print say 10 layers before printing the bridge, which will save you a lot of time; Advanced tab, "Cut off object bottom". If you have the free Meshmixer software you can also cut the model so you are only printing the front portion of the model (shown in the pic) rather than the entire model; i.e. get your 22 hour print time down to < 1 hour. Mind you if you have Meshmixer you can use that to create supports - I have no idea why Cura is not doing it.

Thanks @Dim3nsioneer, I did not think of trying that

+1

I should add that the wall follows the shape of the piece and you can print as many walls as you want. I am not sure how the exact middle (the last wall) of the piece would turn out with an irregular shape

Yes you can

I suspect the wall of your alcove, at the bottom, is leaning over more (i.e. to the horizontal) that at the top. There is a setting for the overhang angle for support in the Expert dialogue box, which I think defaults to 30 degrees and I suspect the top of your alcove is leaning over less than this which is why no support is being generated. You are probably printing too fast, too hot and maybe without enough fan, to get good overhangs. If you post your settings we can help and as Bagel Orb says, a picture would help (a print screen from Cura would be fine). Generally speaking overhangs need slow speed, 20-25mm/s and 100% fan and speeds all the same (this does though depend on the size and geometry of the piece; if the piece is filling the entire print bed then printing everything at 20mm/s is probably undesirable)

Yup when printing something small like Marvin you want all your speeds to be the same, i.e. Print speed, infill speed, outer shell speed and inner shell speed. Personally I would not go above 30mm/s and would probably try 20mm/s too. As already said fans at 100%. Set your minimum layer time to 10 secs. You will also need to print at least 2 copies using "Print all at once" to achieve that; maybe three copies but you can visually check that. With .100 then probably no more than 200c temp. Personally I would use .300 for layer 1 to max out adhesion; you should be able to get away without a brim.

Faberdashery(UK) and colorFabb(Holland) are two of the best filament manufactures in Europe. IMHO it is not worth buying cheap filament, especially if you are doing real production. In our business model the filament is normally a small percentage of the final price and so buying cheap filament is nonsensical - I guess it could be different for you. If you need a really smooth finish, like injection moulding, then take a look at the XTC-3D brush on coating, it is great! We are using it for an automotive external body part which needs to be spray painted without any further finishing and as smooth as all the other body panels. Generally speed and quality are mutually exclusive; fast for prototyping and slow for production (unless the product is going to be hidden away and not seen). I stand to be corrected but I think TweakAtZ can only be used once during a print, which may be fine. But if you have a geometry where the speed can changed at several points in a print without negative impact and TweakAtZ does not do it, the Simply3d will. It costs $150 and can provide a variety of benefits; there are people on the forum who use and would be better qualified than myself to comment. With the right geometry it is certainly a way of delivering good quality but reducing time and cost. Unlike modern day computers 3D printing at this level is not plug and play. If you need to achieve high quality repeatable production then be prepared to invest many hours learning, especially if you will have multiple products that pose different challenges.

Use your wall thickness to achieve this.

Hi Cloakfiend, if you have to run .200 at 50mm/s with a temp of 230 then you have a have a fault with your printer, or a setting wrong. I can run .300 at 60mm/s with 220 max, from memory I think probably 215 with most filaments. If you search the net you will find that manufacturers give a PLA temp range and I think none exceed 220c. Oh and a lot of us seek perfection rather than average which is why we change our settings e.g. try getting a decent overhang with a speed of 50mm/s

If you wanted the piece to conduct electricity you could try conductive ink and electro plating http://www.goldn.co.uk/category/non-conductive-surfaces/

Oh and difficult to assess the size of the item but you might need to print two up concurrently to get a required minimum layer time

I have no idea what the settings are in High Quality Print but you also need your fans at 100%. This is sort of a guess but given the small size of the overhangs I am not sure that keep changing the print speed is going to help. Every time you do that you will get a change in pressure in the feeding system which will lead to short bursts of under and over extrusion. Personally I would go as slow as you need to get the finish. Sure try 30mm/s but be prepared to go to 20mm/s, which I think will remove any jerk too.

In the start/end-gcode tab. Start2,end2,preswitchextruder and postswitchextruder are the relevant sections.

I think you need to give permission so that we can view your picture - I cannot!

To complement George's comments. In my experience printing what I will call "rings", i.e. an outer circle and an inner circle, it is easy with the outer circle to get a diameter that is at least accurate to 100 microns; indeed I would be disappointed if it were not better than 50 microns. But the inner circle is different! Often the error will be close to 400 microns but can be 500 even 600 microns. I have not done any specific testing on different PLA filaments (manufacturer/colour) but no doubt these come into play too. The only answer I think is trial and error. With a specific filament you will soon get clarity on the size of the error and you can then make an adjustment in your design dimension to achieve the dimension you require. On the current "ring" I am printing I am using 19.7mm to achieve a diameter on the inner circle of 19.2 and with different outer diameters I have achieved 19.15, 19.2 and 19.25, bearing in mind that measuring the inner diameter accurately is a lot harder than measuring the outer diameter. Certainly an "error", if indeed it is, of 0.05mm is good enough for my particular application.