randyinla
-
Posts
196 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Content Type
Forums
Events
3D Prints
Posts posted by randyinla
-
-
I've been printing using various sticking techniques for a few years. Not going to do yet another comparison/test
But here's what I found that works best for me...I printed up some small ABS hockey pucks, one for each color/type of ABS I have. I will squeeze a few drops of acetone from a small syringe onto the glass and slide the puck around. This liquifies the bottom of the puck and mixes with the acetone to smear around onto the glass. I slide it around until the acetone is evaporated and I have a very thin, almost imperceivable layer of ABS dried onto the glass. I find doing it this way is a much cleaner/faster approach than to actually dissolve and mix up a slurry.
Other than that, I typically set my build plate temperature to 115 degrees for the first 1 or 2 layers, then switch it to maybe 110 degrees for the rest of the print. I also have a plexiglass cover/enclosure on top of my U2 and a plexiglass door on the front to keep the heat in and the warpage low.
All of this has worked very well for my ABS prints.
FWIW, I only use AquaNet super hold hair spray (spray onto a paper towel and wipe onto glass to avoid spraying directly into your printer) or blue painter's tape for PLA, never for ABS. Used to use the Elmer's glue, but now only use the acetone/puck method.
-
Hey, SandervG,
I saw all the deflections to other materials in multiple posts
I have printed things in various PLAs and Nylons and enjoy the materials. Overall, I just like the way my ABS prints have turned out better. To combat warping, I made a plexiglass cover and door for my U2 for a heated enclosure. I use drops of acetone on the glass, smeared around with an ABS "puck" for perfect adhesion that easily pops off the glass when cooled. After printing, I like to suspend some of my ABS parts in a glass mason jar above boiling acetone for a steamy, shiny finish. I have had a challenging time getting PLA to adhere to the plate (hairspray sometimes doesn't work and blue tape can work too good, leaving blue fuzz on the bottom of my print), post processing to get a shiny surface is "meh" and the final part feels different from ABS in weight, feel, brittleness and flexibility. Heat resistance isn't as big a deal for me, but knowing a part "can" withstand higher temps is a plus.
I'm not completely put off by the PVA/ABS incompatibility. Was just wondering if anyone has tried the new HydraFill with ABS and if it works or not? Seems like a lot of people want water-soluble support with ABS.
-
I've been thinking more and more about purchasing an U3 Extended, curious about water-soluble support. I just found out today via this forum that PVA & ABS isn't going to work and HIPS is a bit of a toxic mess. This bummed me out, so I started looking for other options...
Has anyone gotten a spool of the new Airwolf HydroFill water-soluble support material? Forum search returned no hits on 'hydrofill' or 'hydro fill'. They claim it works in any FFF printer and works well with ABS. Also claims, "dissolves in clean water without the use of any caustic chemicals, detergents, or solvents and without the use of special equipment like ultrasonic or heated baths. HydroFill is a universal, green chemistry solution.”
Is a bit more expensive than Ultimaker's PVA spool @ $98 for 1lb (roughly $0.22 per gram), but if it works well with ABS, is non-toxic and dissolves just like PVA, it might be worth it?
Intro article from Airwolf: https://airwolf3d.com/2017/01/05/hydrofill-water-soluble-support/
Airwolf HyroFill product purchase page: https://airwolf3d.com/shop/water-soluble-support-3d-print/
-
Interesting!
So if they don't tell you which side is the tin side, there's no way of figuring it out?
-
1
-
-
It's a piece of glass that's designed (hopefully) to not warp or shatter under high temps. In that sense, there is no side better than the other.
I can tell you to be careful when cooling down. Early on in my U2 usage, I saw a "tip" from someone to spray an upside down can of air onto the glass around the edges of your model to help "pop" it off the glass. This can result (as I found out) in shards of glass separating from the main glass bed and sticking to your model. Don't want to have extreme changes from hot to suddenly cold. Ultimaker were awesome and replaced my glass for free. I'll never do that again.
-
i don't think so.. the glue stick should be sufficient.
I have never liked glue sticks. My sticking agent of choice has been hair spray (Loreal Elnett Satin as they are not all created equally) or more recently 3DLAC which is basically the same thing but you know it will work. I have an extra glass that I keep ready as spraying inside the printer leads to a bit of a buildup (though it does cleanup well). It also works for most materials though not always with ABS where the only thing that works 100% for me is Klapton tape. But sticking is a whole 'nuther topic!
Whenever I use hair spray, I spray it onto a paper towel outside of the printer, then wipe it onto the glass. Less mess that way.
-
Glad you touched on brim/no-brim for PVA. I'm a fan of squirting out a few drops of acetone onto the glass and swirl it around with an ABS "puck" I made. That creates a thin ABS layer all over the glass that my print sticks to rather well. I don't have a similar method with PLA. If I have dual print of ABS w/PVA, would the PVA stick to a thin layer of ABS or not?
-
You said you have had issues using the SD card and the icon in Cura is not available... I wonder if your SD Card's write protect switch is on? It wouldn't matter if it was on when trying to read, but if it is write protected and you are trying to save to the SD card from Cura while it is inserted into the UM2, then Cura probably can't write to it. I have had to check the write switch on my SD card many times when trying to save to it on my Mac. Just sliding the card into my Mac can cause the switch to move.
-
I see the most powerful one at J Tech Photonics is 3.8Watts. A buddy of mine has a Full Spectrum 20" x 12" laser cutter which has a sealed C02 laser tube @ 40W/45W/90W. Obviously, the 3.8W can't cut as deep/fast as those, but is there a similar kit to the J Tech Photonics that is closer to the wattage of the Full Spectrum? I have an U2 and an X-Carve and it would be awesome to have a single laser attachment I could use on both.
-
Lots of people toying around with fan shroud design. Has anyone tried redesigning the horizontal aluminum piece the hot end attaches to? Since there will never be dual hot ends, why not try to make the overall size of the gantry smaller? Or, if not smaller, at least move the hot end hole in the aluminum to the center? Seems having the hot end currently on the left side of the aluminum would heat up that piece unevenly, and also cool unevenly via the back fan. By having the hot end in the center, the resulting fan shroud angles would be identical for the left and right sides. Seems current air flow analysis (a few posts back) shows the left side has more of a downward, vertical flow vs the right has more of a horizontal flow. Having equal angles on both sides would give the same flow from both sides.
Also, with all the talk about total gantry width after adjusting the angle of the fans, why not put one fan in the back with a shroud that splits into L/R? The width of the gantry would be significantly reduced, not just by .2mm. If having the fan in the back decreases front to back distance too much, how about moving the fan outside the machine and deliver the airflow via tube? Same idea as the compressor, but without the compressor. ie.the fan speed and on/off will still be controlled via Cura. This makes me think that since the air would be piped in from outside the build area, the air would probably be cooler and thus not need to have as much volume?
If this is too far off the original topic, I can move it elsewhere
-
Any news about step files for U2Ext? I have an X-Carve CNC router coming in a few weeks and would love to cut my CNC teeth on a few taller panels
-
I made a transparent acrylic cover and front door for my U2 and love it. It's not an air-tight fit, but keeps enough heat in so the ambient temp stays around 80c (I believe that was the temp when I measured it last year with my Fluke w/temperature wire). I didn't really go off any plans or measurements and just eye-balled it so the cables going to the gantry never touch the top. I angled the front piece back a bit so I could look down on top of the print head. Again, the angle was dictated by where the cables to the gantry end up with the head at the front-most position. I tweaked someone's hinge model to be a little smaller for my door. I drilled a hole through the white face and inserted some magnets. The screw that holds the door handle in place keeps the door closed against the magnets.
-
1
-
-
The problem i see with spacers is that some material could go between it and the insulator, it will then cause a nice clog that would be hard to clean, i really feel that it's better to have the insulator in one piece
Maybe. But wouldn't that already happen between the hot end and the spacer now? both are flat at the mating point. The spring above keeps pressure on it so material doesn't get in between. If the washer was flat, then it seems to me that it shouldn't be any different.
(... )So, if you changed it reguarly it would help the Teflon coupler live much longer, yes. But the point for many is to avoid the "hot end rebuilds" in the first place: (...)(...) Like Didier is indicating: is your washer is not really the right shape you will have a leak, and swamp the whole hot end.
Meanwhile the I2K works well, 500hours/260C and counting.
Yes, taking the hot end apart can be a pain, but it seems like more people are complaining about the high cost of ordering a replacement (if they are not entitled to a free one).
And yes, the shape has to be correct or it will fail.
-
I recently picked up a 7x14 mini-lathe. Ordered a 3' length of 1/2" PTFE for under $10 from Amazon. Will try my hand at turning my own spacer and see how it works. PTFE is PTFE, right? I mean, is there "the good stuff" and "the bad stuff"? $10 seemed pretty cheap. If nothing else, I could make a ton of flat washer-type spacers to go between the one from Ultimaker and the hot end. Would make the official spacer last longer, no?
-
I had a variation on that idea a while ago. Instead of just two on the same plane, rocking back and forth, put three or more around the bottom of a spherical shape, like electric type writers did with the letters on a big metal ball. Then you could swap out with 3 or 4 heads.
-
I like sites that use my avatar on Gravatar.com. I can setup one avatar and know it will look the same on all of the sites that use it. Update it in one place and they all display it.
-
If it hit the right block, wouldn't that cause the stepper to skip, which in turn would cause higher layers to be shifted?
I simply have to try the piece again and be more aware of what's happening during the print. I should also try to drag the piece a little more to the left rather than click "center object on platform".
-
Great investigating work! I am sitting here, trapped at work, living vicariously through your experiment
Ok. So setting Cura to 232mm width means the center is 1mm to the right. How is that a bad thing? When my piece printed, I believe it looked like I still had maybe 1cm of glass space to the right, so there is enough flooring for the plastic to adhere to. And my gantry never hit the side wall (granted, I had to bend the metal fan housing a tad). Would I really have to tweak/adjust the G1/G92 hacks?
-
I love that autocorrect, "print head will heat an endblock" (assume you meant meet or hit?)
I understand how the end blocks / switches work and how playing with the switch position can yield a teensy bit of room (or take it away if misaligned). Even if I were to do that (and I probably won't) I would still have to update Cura to 231mm or 232mm.
This dancing around a few mm's in Cura to print out a 225mm wide piece just reminds me of an underlying angst; that I would LOVE to expand my U2 in both the X & Y by maybe 4" each
. -
I always assumed the published print volume was the max x/y/z distance the tip of the hot end can reach. I'm curious to make some tests tonight to check max X/Y. Something like a long, thin "stick" with a few mm high walls to see if it can reach the max distance AND create the proper wall thicknesses. As I mentioned above, when I finally got my original model to print, the right wall came out to be maybe 15% the thickness of the left wall, and it was not because the gantry hit the wall, which it never did.
-
I'm not sure what physical travel I am or am not getting. I was just going off what Cura would allow me to position on the virtual print bed. My 225mm wide model remained grayed out no matter where I dragged it until I told Cura that the width of my machine was 232mm.
I have my skirt already set to 0. Are you saying that even with that set, it still takes some external space into consideration?
After gently bending my right fan mount, the gantry never hit the right wall, yet, the right wall of my object ended up very thin instead of 1.6mm.
I haven't had time to revisit this piece as it was fine as a first draft and I had other pieces to print that fit onto it. I should be able to update the model and try printing again next week. And I will try using a brim with 0 length and 0 passes.
Thanks!
-
"Submerge it in acetone for 20-30 seconds"?! :shock:
I have a lot of Colorfabb's filament, but assumed it was all PLA. I perform an acetone steam bath on my ABS prints (have left steaming between 30 seconds and 5 min, depending on exposure desired and amount of detail willing to lose), but have never submerged anything into the acetone directly and have never tried doing it with any of my PLA because I've always read that it doesn't do anything to PLA :roll:. I've read that some people have tried certain chemicals on PLA to mimic the affects of acetone on ABS but that those chemicals are much more toxic than acetone and it's not really recommended.
I will try submerging some Colorfabb PLA directly into acetone and see what happens. I am assuming you mean to do this with room-temperature acetone and not acetone that has been heated to 90c boiling?
-
I subscribe to the philosophy "Don't turn it on, take it apart!" (please read that quote aloud in an Australian accent).
Always good to find another Dave fan!
-
Here is not my latest print, but one of my first, but i think its quite nice eitherway so i thought id share it, if you like i can make a regular one without the 6 and upload it for people who love cup cakes, lol. It hasnt been touched after taking it off the build plate, thinking of doing my usual acetone treatment on it to make it perfect. Printed in my ususal colorfabb black at 35mm/s 0.06 layer height and 230C temp.
How do you do an acetone treatment to PLA?!
But here's what I found that works best for me...
Small CSS tweak to "Mark All Read" in Notifications menu
in UltiMaker.com
Posted
I just noticed the link at the top of the Notifications menu, "Mark All Read" (I think that's what it said, now that I've clicked it, it isn't visible anymore) doesn't change the cursor to the pointer on mouseover. It does on the "Settings" link to the right of it.
.whateverYourMarkAllReadClassNameIs:hover {
cursor: pointer;
}