solid-print-3d

I feel you Rhino, For now I've been turning combing off and turning on z-hop ( the .075mm seems to work just fine). You can keep your travel speed at 150 or whatever... This makes the printer retract nicely, even on the initial layer. Combined with a slow 20 to 30 mm/s first layer speed, this really cuts back on filament dragging and stringing. It should be noted that I really only do this for thin complex prints that don't have a lot of layers.

Quick tip about what 3dcase was saying about holes being smaller at the base. If you have a problem with your holes closing up a little at the base (especially on hot glass and long prints), add a little chamfer to the holes that make contact with the glass. The chamfer will take up the sag or "elephant foot". If my initial height is .2mm, and my layer height set to .1mm, I'd probably go with a .4mm chamfer. It all depends on the print though. A long ABS print on 100 C bed acts different than a slow PLA print on a 60 C Bed, so you'd have to adjust accordingly.

@3dCase - That was actually SHORT considering I'm trying to talk about the huge realm of design and how it relates to Cura in few paragraphs Thanks for the input but nothing new there. I guess I'm looking for advanced design input from anybody, and I'm sure other people could benefit from some advanced techniques as well. I would disagree with this statement however --> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- " I think the kind of printing we use is not yet (will never be) ready for the things you want. Tolerances like H7 or H8 are out of reach. Just because the fact of external influences, Like room temperature's, which roll of Pla, which color. A hole near to the heated bed will be smaller than higher up in the print. " --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I regularly design parts with many holes and sliding interferences that never need any modifications or drilling because I model in the correct tolerances and what I know the end result will actually be into the model. Sometimes, it is necessary to close a hole up by .1mm (that's .004" !) to get a better fit. Other times, like these 2 prints I did this month, needed ZERO drilling, milling, filing or grinding. The safe and rifle are fully functioning and there are a lot of tight tolerances in play,so it is possible to design these tolerances in. Not to mention, There are 30 of theses safes and adding time to drill and file would not be cool. Yes, I commonly Use slices from a model mid-design to throw into Cura and see how it's behaving. What would be nice is to KNOW what Cura is going to do without having to do that....Is it going to print that 1.6mm wall in 4 passes? or is it going to add fill? @Blizz - Yeah that's what I though. There's definitely some overlap in real world printing, but I don't know what the numbers are and how they relate to how Cura handles the slicing. This may be valuable information to a designer. For now, I just tweak the shell and setting to get it to slice right, instead of designing it in. @Zoev89 - Yeah, I've ditched the 1 pass method for now. Some slices show a support wall one line wide going up, then skips half the layers, and resumes... don't know what that's all about, so I model in walls at .42mm so Cura just makes 2 passes. I'm sure there are settings to get the walls to print in one line (like making a loop instead of dead end wall), but the the model has priority, so settings are set for it rather than getting supports to print just right. That's it for now. Long enough response ?

after jury rigging my teflon insulator, and with a bowden tube that has more friction than a cats tongue, I'm at a whopping 4mm/s. I would have cried had I not predicted a 3mm/s result. I'll replace the teflon and bowden when they arrive this week, and post side by side results to see what the improvement is (damn sure HOPE it improves).

Have you tried using a brass wire brush? Works for me removing the tough black carbon. Brass on brass is better than using steel wool or a steel wire brush.

Why isn't there any cotton candy on the sides? The sides look great. Just noticed the fan shroud as well. It's as if theres a pin hole in the side of the extruder, where the extruder is putting down the bulk of the filament on the print, and shooting out a liquid like stream through a pin hole or leak. Then the 2 side fans are keeping the cotton candy centered towards the middle as they blow inwards, or the rear fan creates just enough draft to keep the cotton candy facing forward. I'm just having fun shooting from the hip here.... don't listen to me

@3Poro, The redesign statement was a response to the comment before mine from Kris. I still think it would be nice to have a bag of insulators that I could change any time I thought that it might even be REMOTELY contributing to a poor print. At $20 each, there's no way I can afford a bag of them. If it wasn't the cause, I'd just throw it in the bag labeled "used but good". KNOWING that the insulators WILL fail (I print in ABS mostly), it would just make sense to have this kind of option available, opposed to charging $20 each. I mean REALLY? $20 for a part that's proven to fail anyways? That's all I'm saying...that it be reclassified as a consumable, and priced accordingly. OK, I'm done beating that dead horse

I agree, but what's more likely to happen in the very near future, Teflon insulators to become disposable items that we can swap out at low cost, or a complete redesign? I suppose someone could design a liquid cooled, aircraft aluminum insulator, that was coated with Teflon on the inside, anodized on the outside, was good for 5 years, and has an operational range of +400 C ....

I'm sure this has been posted before, but I thought I'd ask anyways...maybe get a fresh perspective. I Always design with my printer in mind. I use multiples of the nozzle diameter for x and y dimensions, and layer heights for Z dimensions. (when I can anyways) So if I'm making a hollow rectangle that needs fairly sturdy walls, I usually go with 1.6mm or 2mm (2.4 if I'm really being anal and want an even # of passes). If I'm printing with .16mm layer heights, I might go with a 1.6mm bottom thickness on the part (and lose the .1mm because the first print layer is .2mm) The problem is, that even though my walls are 1.6mm exactly, I can't use a 1.6mm shell all the time. I often have to back it down to 1.55mm shell to "Trick" Cura into laying down whole lines and no fill. Notice the picture here. 1.6mm walls, 1.6mm shell It makes 4 passes to get the 1.6mm result, yet leaves voids that need to be filled. So....I change the shell settings to 1.55 and voila, nice even lines. Notice the time difference just by changing the shell by .05mm Same thing goes for cylinders. This is a 1.6mm thick cylinder shell set to 1.6mm This is the same cylinder at 1.55 shell Nice even lines, no fill. My question is, what is going on here? And what are some "Best Practices" for design intent to avoid having to tweak Cura. Do I need to make my walls 1.55mm, and not 1.6mm? Is there another setting in Cura that is causing this such as infill overlap?--> (just spit balling here guys) I understand that what comes out of a .4mm nozzle is not .4mm exactly, once it is compressed against the underlying layer. Does Cura take this into account? On the same subject of Design intent for Cura, would anyone like to share what they use for tolerances when designing? I use +.35mm if it needs to be snug +.25mm if it needs to be tight +.5mm if it needs to be a slide fit For instance, if I have a hole in my design that needs a 4mm rod to fit through snug, I'll model it with a 4.35mm hole. Snug is a relative term (Technically it would be around an IT of H7 or H8) When making custom supports, I use .42mm walls (although Cura just makes 2 passes anyways...I can't seem to get it to ever make 1 pass) This does not include cylinder-style supports. When making custom support, I us .22mm (for my average 1.4mm layer height, this puts down 2 layers of brim, which I find very useful since adding the custom brim is usually for large parts where I don't want brim on the inside holes or features. It still breaks away very nice, better in some cases because there's more "meat" for it to tear off in a single sheet. Well, I've shared what little I know, maybe someone will ring in with some good tips?

I think they'll last more than a week? And to me, it's not very hard to disassemble and replace the head. I think I can change the insulator in under 5 minutes. You could do it at regular service intervals.... Change the insulator, grease the Z, lube the rods, clean up scrap filament under bed. If it's still good, then save it. Same thing with other consumables like the mig tips. Often times you can just sand the tip to a nice copper finish. Likewise, you can trim or deburr the insulator and have it ready to go. I see how this could be a little issue for people who aren't hands on though. As for the lathe, (Cleven), I tried to make one out of aluminum, and it failed, so I will have to do like you guys and get my hands on some Teflon stock to turn my own... like you said, maybe a little taller than spec so I don't have to turn so many. OH! And I do recommend getting a lathe to anyone that doesn't have one. Harbor freight has them for $499 here in the states for those on a budget. A lathe and a 3D printer make for a nice couple

It wouldn't be so bad if the Teflon insulator was just considered a consumable, much like a mig welder tip, or a plasma cutter tip, and sold in bulk at a reasonable price. As it is now, they're $20 each!!! Maybe a bag of 5 for $20? That way we can just burn through them, and replace when needed. At $20 each, it's no wonder people are trying to turn every conceivable material to try to come up with a better solution. You don't see people saying "I've got to come up with a better mig tip!" That's because they're $1.50 each! Use it up, and put a new one on. Maybe that's just my strange way of thinking?

Wait!..... NOW the software is a problem too? You know what would be cool.... posting some more positive results of hurdles that have been overcome. It's just flat out depressing that every time I check this forum every other week or so, that more and more problems are listed, and no good news. I'm trying to think of any good news and I can't remember any off the top of my head. Will have to go through all 7 pages again and see if I can find any. Also, could you coat the inside of a metal extruder with teflon (similar to a frying pan) I mean, low friction, nothing sticks to it, very high heat. Surely someone has though of this, so there must be a problem with that too? P.S. Squeek Squeek

WOW, That's one dirty nozzle. Is that from one print? My dirty nozzle usually turns black. How did you manage to get it coated completely in fresh filament? Settings man! I've had prints carry the initial that extrusion booger all over my 5 hour prints... Didn't touch it cuz the print was looking good, but it was odd to see a big glob of filament hanging off the extruder! Still print turned out great.

It's only on the front because that's where the print head is jumping the void. A little more retraction (retraction settings in printers menu), cooler temps, and quicker travel speed to break the strings before they form. For advanced alternatives, you can change shell thickness to get Cura to make an optimal path around part, you may be able to cut retractions down by tweaking some Cura settings like that. Look at the little blue lines in the slicer to see how "busy" the path is. Try different settings and look at the blue lines (Layer view). Try turning off "enable combing" and see if that helps. For some reason, on some parts, if I change shell thickness from .8 to .75, it makes a nicer path. Keep in mind that I usually design my models to have walls in multiples of .4mm, so this might not work the same for you, but little tricks like that can get Cura to behave differently for sure.

@Poro, that's what I'm thinking... Noisy because it's working hard to move the air, and with good bearings in the fan, it's not as though it's just rattling around to make all that noise. However, it is vibrating. You can tell by touching any of the x or y rods. These vibrations transfer to everything else and create a musical instrument that produces a warm tone of BZZZZZZZZZZ. I would love to switch to the tornado's, but with 3 machines, even enclosed, I'm afraid I'll be breaking some sort of noise ordinance Hard to say though because I've never heard the twin tornado's running, just going by what you guys have told me about family members moving out due to their loud scream

Just out of curiosity, does the new quieter fan move the same amount of air as the UM2 stock noisy fan?

I was going to go ahead and turn one like that. What are you using to keep pressure on the insulator? Kind of hard to tell from the image... Awesome job Anders!

you're welcome

for what it's worth, I posted a thread on what NOT to do (at least without an ultimate cooling solution) http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/7247-um2-aluminum-insulator-what-not-to-do/

Like many others, My Teflon insulator is sadly deformed... I had ordered one 9 days ago, but somehow, they forgot to ship it out until I called, an honest mistake I'm sure, but I'm having soooo much trouble with it that I had to do something so I can continue printing! Enter the hair-brained idea of turning a new insulator from aluminum Simple enough. Turned it using open source files for dimensions. Fit nice, installed great. I knew that the aluminum was going to draw a lot of heat from the nozzle, so I added one of the "quick and dirty" fan flow redirects (in other words a little piece of metal that makes more air flow across insulator) I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time coming up with a cooling solution until I actually tried the aluminum insulator. Now for the test. Fed new filament...seemed to work great. Started a print...not so great. It laid down about 50mm of skirt before it just jammed. Took it apart... This is what the filament looked like. It totally conformed to the entire length of the aluminum insulator. There is NO retracting or changing this filament! While I did feel a little defeated that my pretty little aluminum insulator SUCKED, I had to press on to get the machine up and running. I decided to cut some material off the base of the Teflon insulator to get me through the week. Here is a shot of the Teflon insulator. You can't really tell from the photo, but the opening around the base is larger than it's supposed to be. I chucked it to the lathe and cut aprox 2mm off with a very sharp cutoff tool. I reinstalled, and everything is working OK now. Obviously, it's still a screwed up little piece of Teflon, but it's working now, and should hold until my replacement comes.

looks like it's more than just the initial layer and top layer. In your first picture, you can see past the voids in that first layer to what looks like the same thing in the next layer? I can't speak for all the top dogs on here, but when I run into these kinds of problems, I have a checklist that I run through. #1, atomic clean the extruder #2, check filament extruder (check for tension, debris, grinding etc) #3, feed filament through advanced settings menu and check characteristics of extrusion. This usually tells me how the next print is going to perform. If it's curling up real bad towards the nozzle, somethingis wrong, clogged, etc. If it curls a little, then starts to flow straight once the weight of the extruded filament starts to pull on it, I move on. #4 Check the printer temp settings, and Cura settings to make sure I didn't change something by accident. Initial layer height is a biggy if you want that glassy first layer (in conjunction with a level bed). Once I've tried these 4 steps, it will almost always take on different print characteristics. And if there is something that is still off, it most likely is easier to identify since I've already eliminated so many variables. I can perform all 4 steps in under 5 minutes easy, so I've gotten into the "good" habit of just checking everything. Also, there is another thread that talks about bed leveling (impossible bed leveling I believe), where people are leveling the bed as your printer is printing a nice large brim or skirt. I too have since switched to this method. Read more on that to get the best possible leveling and that glass finish on your first layer (again, combined with the cura setting for initial layer height). You basically level the bed on the fly with the adjustment screws as it prints the brim/skirt and you get a real-time view of the extrusion widths/thickness as it lays down more brim/skirt Other than that, I would recommend spending half a day or so and reading through all the topics in the forum, you never know when you're going to need some of that information, and believe me, one day, you WILL need that information.

For what it's worth, I tried most of the feeders out there. And had problems with them all. No offense to you guys and your hard work, I really appreciate the effort! I've been using this one for the past 2000 print hours or more with absolutely no issues. Printing in Ninja Flex, Nylon ABS and PLA. https://www.youmagine.com/designs/um2feeder-v3-1-1 Keep in mind that I'm more volume/production oriented, so I pound this feeder 24/7. So far, the only sign of wear is at the filament entrance where the filament rubs the opening orifice. Shouldn't have to print another one for another 2000 hours or so, if that. Update: Takei Naodar has sent me this feeder with filament change capabilities. We'll see how that goes. Keep ya posted.

Do both, and save out as Step and Igs (or iges). Both are inter-compatible with almost every decent cad program out there. I have noticed that Keyshot tends to import igs files a little better for things like springs, or other complex objects. Inventor, Solidworks, and all the other big dogs, will easily import step or igs. Fusion handles step and igs. Some step files that have faces with their own texture applied sometimes carry over better in step (214, not 203, but that might just be the programs I use). Sketchup needs a plugin to open step files. It only starts to get tricky when you want to save for poly modeling programs like Blender. They don't seem to know what to do with step or igs, but most poly modelers will import the tried and true .stl. For what it's worth, I use nurbs modeling, and save everything out as both step and igs, so the end user can pick which one is best for them.

3D-Coat V4 has a very cool feature where it lets you pick a texture image and paint that texture on to the model. Here's a clip of it being used When importing into Cura, the newly textured .stl looked exactly how I wanted it to.

I'm an inventor user. I've also used Solidworks. I could only afford one program , so I chose Inventor for the simple fact that I can do basically everything in inventor that I can do in solidworks, but I can do it a lot faster because of the UI. I don't think there is a huge difference between the 2 programs. Solidworks has a few more tools, but I don't know how many of those tools the average 3D print designer will utilize. Besides, after you've mastered Inventor, you learn how to do some pretty tricky modeling, using various techniques to get some complicated modeling done. I got to try Siemens NX for a week, and I really like it. It's like solidworks and Inventor had a child together. Very smooth UI, with all the bells and whistles. You'll have to sell your first born to buy it though. Blender is free and good for organic modeling, but terrible for engineering purposes. I've only tried 2012 or 13 fusion (inventor fusion I believe it was called) It handles surface modeling pretty well, and was surprisingly loaded for the price tag of...free. I can only imagine how the newer 360 handles. As far as computing, I switched to an i7 4770k around 9 months ago... I could go on and on about the performance improvements to my workflow speed, but I'll just say that the i7 handles whatever I throw at it. PERIOD. Don't even get me started on Keyshot rendering. With Keyshot utilizing all 8 threads on the i7, rendering times are cut dramatically. By dramatically, I mean, "How in the world was I getting by with my AMD Phenom?". Same goes for large assemblies in Inventor. I only use the SSD for operating system, and to install main programs, so the programs load in seconds. The SSD doesn't really have much bearing on actual productivity, but it is nice to reboot windows in 15 seconds, and load Photoshop in 2 seconds. Video card, I picked up a used Quadro 4000 from eBay for $280 (9 months ago remember). I couldn't tell you weather or not it's an improvement over the i7's IGP, because I've never used IGP, but the Quadro works great, it's accurate, and when used with my 3d space mouse, panning and zooming are unbelievably smooth.