solid-print-3d

Here is a quick pic of the tray starting to disintegrate. Here is another strange problem I'm having where the prints are hanging so far off the build platform they're being cut off. And here is a pic of the "ragging" and overall failed nature of the prints I've been experiencing. Keep in mind, I have gotten some great prints from this machine, and even some that didn't turn out great initially were fixed with sanding and post process, but I can't show those prints becasue of NDA's Here I'm holding up a print that turned out great against a failed bed of prints. It's been suggested that I'm printing too many objects at once , so that's something to take note of.

Apparently, my tray wasn't perfectly level in my cabinet and spilled $50 worth of resin everywhere. Lesson Learned there as for the printer, I'm still having problems. They say you are supposed to use canned compressed air to blow the mirrors off periodically. I've been doing just that, but it appears that my canned air is leaving a residue on the mirrors. Looks like a purple film. I had to get PEC*Pads delivered to me from formlabs to clean the mirrors. Just cleaned the mirrors this morning and have a print on now, so we'll see if that fixed the problems I was having... which was basically "ragging", or at least that's what formlabs calls it. It's where the flakes of excess material hang off the prints and degrade print quality. Another issue I had in the past week was one of my $60 resin trays started to disintegrate at the back left corner. I have no idea why, as I'm very careful with the trays. Luckily, they sent me a replacement tray free of charge. Basically, formlabs has been great in helping me sort out the kinks, but with shipping times, and back and forth communication, it's taking forever to get to a state where prints turn out dependably.

from what I can tell, this technology is going to be geared towards industrial printers. I doubt we'll see a desktop version of this technology any time soon. I'll post some more Form1+ experiences tomorrow.... It's been hit or miss lately, but I'm sure it's just me. There are so many different techniques to producing a good print. I don't want to just report failures because of my inabilities.

So... hold off on canceling my order??? The Meshlab video looks easy enough to stitch scans, which is a plus.

very interested, can you send me some links, etc...? thanks, -Pat

damn.... My fuel3D scanner is shipping early April. I was hoping that it was going to allow me to scan to my hearts intent, but from what you posted, I'm going to have my work cut out for me :( Also, I had no idea that I would have to pay for software? That sucks. Keep us posted

Remember that as the extruder extrudes filament, the filament is being bonded to the layer underneath. With this comes a bond between print head and part. When the part gets to be so tall, the bond the print head is creating starts to move the tall structure in the XY plane. When you add something like a "T" support, the support prevents the print head from moving the tall structure as much. Anytime your print starts moving, even if it's very very little, you lose a lot of print quality. That tall pat will never be in the correct spot for the next layer.

OK this is weird ?? Printed this tube (on right) straight up so it would make a perfect circle. Turns out, it's too tight... all the other parts in the assembly were fitting, so I thought "What the hell"? All the other parts that were in the assembly were printed at a tilt, so I thought I'd go back and print the tube at a tilt (print on left) Sure enough, the part that was printed on a tilt is within a tenth of a mm from the specified part (28.02mm) The part on the right is nearly 1 mm too small!!! Even though it was printed at a more uniform angle. Will have to get into two separate mindsets... ultimaker printing (vertical prints=good) and Form1+ printing (vertical=bad) I will have to do more testing, but this is definitely something to watch out for...

Yes, there is almost always support material used, but it is entirely different than FFF supports. You're left with little dots...half of which require no post process and the rest is usually fixed with a quick swipe of an e-xacto blade. At first I was put off by it, but it's not too bad. I've done the math, factoring in 1L of resin and a spare tray for every 1L, so $210 for 1L. Apparently, with losses in post process, people are reporting getting only 750 to 800 ml out of a 1L bottle. So a conservative estimate would be about 26 cents per gram (1059g/1000ml). Filament-wise, if you spent $35 on a 1000gr roll it comes to about .035 cents per gram. So, 7.5x more expensive than FFF. Keep in mind, you don't print big bulky parts at this price... rather small fine detailed parts. I've actually got a lot of parts lying around and half a bottle left, so it goes a long way. Yes, the UV post cure can be a pain, but what people are doing is buying the $75 UV sterilizing cabinets and placing the parts in there to cure. Supposedly, it cures the part "cleaner" than the sun in that the parts don't yellow as much, shrink, or warp as much. (I haven't noticed much warping using the sun). I'm also getting the hang of the post process work and cleanup. I've dedicated a space just for the F1+ and it's cleanup tools. It's actually not that bad... I don't wear gloves or aprons, and I manage not to get the resin on me or everywhere else. Plus, I love that Dr. Evil mad scientist feeling you get pulling parts out of goo

I agree. Whenever I see a part like this, I add a .42mm ribbed wall. doesn't have to be dead center, but creating that "T" gives it much more stability.

I must be an odd-ball, cuz the regular UM2 is pretty darn portable. I've been going to the schools and doing 3D printing demonstrations... I just throw the UM2 in the back seat No fancy mini version with a case needed!

check out my method I posted here http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3955-any-advice-on-how-to-get-abs-to-stick-to-the-glass-solved/ I'm finding lately that more and more often, ABS print temps are dropping. When I first started 3D printing, 260 C was absolutely necessary... now I'm getting away with 230~235 with most quality filaments (additives?) print bed should be 100~110 (I use 100 C with the ABS slurry) enclosing the chamber helps as well (especially for warp-prone parts) but isn't absolutely necessary for smaller parts. Turn fan to 0~25% (not the 50%... although that's not really relevant for you becasue they shouldn't be coming on anyways until a couple more layers in) If it still won't stick, send the crap back cuz it aint ABS

swap at z plugin. https://www.youmagine.com/designs/swap-at-z Download it and copy it to your Cura Plugins folder...restart Cura. To use: Set the model up for the 10% fill you'd like. Save the model to your hard drive. (ex. C:\10fill.gcode) Now set the bottom layer up to 100% infill. Go to plugins tab and initialize the "swap at z" plugin. Enter height you want the 10 percent version to start (ex. 6.2mm) Enter the name you saved the 10% gcode as (C:\10fill.gcode) *** Make sure you add the ".gcode" ***** Layer view doesn't always show updated gcode works with multiple gcodes Be sure to give pmdude a big thank you!

This might sound odd, but a client of mine had his Ultimaker go out so he brought his file and a roll of eSun Red ABS over for me to print his part with. I was shocked at how well it turned out, primarily the layer adhesion and surface finish. Just to make sure I printed a .42mm walled ring @ 1" diameter x 3" tall. Generally, if you squeeze an ABS ring printed with such thin walls, you will hear cracking immediately and break it soon after (at least with IC3D, Ultibot, Jet, etc. etc. filaments) . The ring printed in eSun was the toughest yet. I know you're saying "well colorfab this, matterhackers that" but come on, at $26 a roll and free shipping with amazon prime, I'll most likely be loading up on some of this stuff.

I've been asked how do the print times compare , Um2 vs. F1+ Here are the 3 gears I printed this morning. First image is print times in Cura @ .05mm layer height. Here is the print time in Preform Interestingly enough, and I have no idea why, the F1+ actually printed the gears in well under 3 hours, opposed to the 3 Hr 13 minutes preform shows. More like 2.5 hours. I thought this was just a fluke, so I loaded another, larger model. First image is the Cura print times @ .1mm layers Here is the same model at the same layer height. Half the time! I've seen posts where people are saying the F1+ generally takes longer than other printers, but from everything I've printed so far, it's much faster? I know there are a ton of variables like print speed I can tweak in Cura, but I like to keep the print speeds conservative so the part actually turns out good. Also, .1mm layer height might be a little fine-detail for a part like this, but it is a customer part that needs to look good. Will keep you posted on further developments

I just put the parts in sunlight for about 20 minutes. I live in Florida, so there's no shortage of sunlight. But yes, it is recommended to post cure in UV light, or "near ultraviolet" light. For the prints that finish at night, I wait until the morning to cure... seems to work just fine.

Update As I said earlier, my brand new Form1+ conked out on me after 3 prints. Some sort of laser malfunction. Formlabs sent a new printer (different serial numbers...I checked :: ) and it's been running great for a couple of days now. I took a look at some of the recent parts that I printed on the UM2's that didn't turn out that well. I tried them on the Form 1+ to get a better comparison. Here is a gear I printed in red PLA that I just could not get to print well. I ended up printing 8 of these or so in multiple configurations, and even changed the pitch of the teeth to compensate for curling during the UM2 prints. Printed another on the Form1+ and it came out really nice first try, with original pitch. here is the side-by-side Another thing I wanted to test was a structural part. I've read some people having issues with tolerances, so I thought I'd try this little washer handle part to check dimensions. The rod fits like a glove, and the overall dimensions are accurate. Being an Ultimaker lover, I thought I'd demonstrate the real advantages of this blessed union between UM2 & F1+. Here is a little project I'm working on for my son. It's a 15" (38cm) Unlimited Hydroplane. There's now way in hell I'm printing the bulk of the boat in $150/L resin. This is where the UM2 shines... brightly . All of the Large pieces are printed on the UM2 in ABS, but the UM2 just cannot print the detailed parts. This is where the F1+ shines. I was simply blown away at how small you can actually print. Here is one of the sideview mirrors. No post process. And the prop, which would not print on the UM2 unless I made the blades much thicker. I will note that for general model making, clear might not be the best color. As you can see from the prop, I had to prime it just to see what post process work needed to be done. Interestingly enough, the same primer I use for my UM2 prints is WAY too thick for F1+ prints. I would recommend a very thin primer as your not really having to hide layer lines. So far I'm finding that where one printer lacks, the other makes up for, making these 2 printers a perfect pair.

I think I've only ever printed one or two items at .02mm layer height. I find that .05~.06mm works just fine if you're looking for smooth prints, but don't want to waste time. Just to show time difference when printing 1cm cube (50mm/sec speed) .1mm = 11 minutes .06= 18 minutes .02 = 52 minutes! I also found that in the couple of prints I did at .02mm, there were some noticeable spots where flow rate resulted in some abnormalities, probably filament diameter related.

If you find a way, let me know For now, I manually add brim in the modeling program when it needs to be controlled. If my initial layer height is set to .2mm, Ill add a .2mm brim to the part and cut out areas I don't want it.

use the swap at z plugin... I believe you'll have to download it, as I dont think it comes standard with cura.. basically it merges 2 different gcodes together. you can have 1 gcode with settings for a thick bottom, and when you get to, say, 3mm, you can tell it to switch to the second gcode (the specialized one)

Praise Jesus, praise the lord halleluiah, amen amen amen

Bullets were printed at .05. The only reason the UM2 print looks bad is becasue at each split it has to retract. If it were a perfect ring, it would look a lot better, and of course, the camera exaggerates things. Keep in mind these are 15mm tall, so there are quite small. I picked the worst of both samples (had to because the client took all the best ones). The UM2 sample has blobs from retraction were the splits start, and the Form 1+ has the supports snipped, but not razor bladed smooth, as well as the splits being fused (like explained earlier) When I get the printer back from Formlabs in a couple of days, I'll do some pretty in-depth side by side comparisons.

They're not bullets, they are sabot round prototypes (they are hollow and encase a smaller bullet). It's one of the first prints I did so It's all I had on hand for a comparison of a side by side for UM2 and Form 1+, but I think it demonstrates the print differences. Making a mold with the slits would be almost impossible. I was just making a cleanup time comparison with the whole 500 thing. Again, acetone washing takes time. My point was that I clipped off 6 supports, and the part is ready to go...period. Yes, the Form1+ is definitely more expensive to run, but it opens up avenues that you wouldn't otherwise have with the UM2 alone, such as castable resins for sacrificial molds, highly detailed small parts, clean and legible text on prints, glass-like prints (with some polishing), and very nice organic modeling. The Form 1+ is not for basketball sized prints. There are also people mixing cheaper resins with form1 resins to lower costs. There are tutorials on re-coating the trays yourself for $10. I'm sure resin prices will go down, and Formlabs is purportedly working on a tray that doesn't need to be replaced as often. I disagree that it's only for Zbrush experts. I'm designing 1/84th scale model railroad equipment for a client that just cannot be printed on the UM2. I've also seen architectural buildings on the form 1+ that has all the details of the building intact , whereas a hotel I'm designing for a client misses all the detail in Cura, but Preform shows all the detail. Haven't tried it yet, but it's a night and day difference in slicing views.

I was wondering what that did

A surface model has 0 thickness, so it's not actually a solid or closed mesh. You'll have to use the thicken command (that's what inventor calls it, not sure what it's called in Rhino) to apply thickness to the surfaces. This will turn it into a measurable solid. I would start with a thickness of .42mm or greater, depending on how many passes you want the print head to take. *Note: The printer will always take at least 2 passes.