kmanstudios

Just a silly throw in there as well, it would be nice to beable to put in specific rotations by axis in degrees like scaling and moving. And, also to add the ability to raise the model above the 0-Z point.

Ummm, I am not sure what you mean by 'further than the original'. Was this in one axis only? What did you use to slice it with and do you have a screenshot of the file to compare against the printed piece? And, welcome to da forum. I am not a welcomer, but am a noob, not much further than yourself.

There are no stupid questions. It is ok to be ignorant. We are all ignorant and noobs at one point. None of us sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus, fully sentient. That is what the forum is for. And believe me, it is helpful. Ask away without fear. This is one of the most responsive communities I have ever been a part of.

OH!! And I second geert_2's response. Always on a test piece first.

These are the polishing supplies I use when making plastic models. I can get a better surface with them than just a standard gloss coat. http://www.bereahardwoods.com/pen-kit/sets/Acrylic_finishing_kit.html And as a finisher (yes, beyond the US grade 12,000 grit) https://www.novuspolish.com/ The pads are great as they follow an easy path from course to fine grade. They are flexible and water sandable. That is most important when polishing as you do not want to grind the residue back into the surface and make it worse. I have proven that can happen. Failures teach me more than successes do. Also, the finer the grit, the less pressure. You are only trying to get the tops of surface imperfections out and not really dig into the material. The Novus products come with a special cloth that is not abrasive to plastic surfaces and lets the liquid do the work. I have been able to take dinged plastic see-through and polish it out to a fully transparent, non-optical hazed surface as well as that 'wet-look' mirror shine on models and paints. If it will not abraid plastic, it will not abraid metals. Well, anything can be abrasive with enough pressure, but you get the idea. The clumsy noob has found every way possible (so far and still learning) to compensate for said clumsiness.

Thank you for the elaboration. When I taught at a college/institute most of my students were foreign. So we not only had to delve into measurement differences, but also video broadcast differences (PAL vs NTSC) and it was never pretty. Especially if you had to convert and create weird 'mixed frames' (25 FPS PAL vs 29.97 NTSC). So yeah, all industries should get together, make standards and really, the US needs to get off the Imperial measurement system and just go metric. Base 10 is so much more efficient. Fortunately, I spent 3 of my formative school years in the Bahamas and learned the metric system so it is not a full boondoggle for me. But, seriously, I do love the new info. Makes for a more rounded life experience

And on that note, be aware that the U.S. CAMI grit scale is NOT identical to the European FEPA one. Even here in the US we have weird grit scales. Differences between sandpaper and polishers and emery cloth. The polishers and sandpapers are consistent within certain industries. But, why oh why can we not all have a consistent system so it is just easier. and, thank you for the added info. :)That is new to me. Luv da new info!!

Wellll, depending on the brand of filament and environmental conditions as well as the settings are preset guidelines and not perfect (danged close, but not perfect in all cases) you could try a bit of temp differences and speed differences. Whatever you try, make only one adjustment at a time when doing so, so that you understand what each adjustment does to the final print. And, only print smaller sections until you get it right. Like abort the print just a short bit above the point where you can make a decision. No need to wait for the whole thing to print wrong. I can see the blobbing and stringing, but I am not sure about the striations that could be, or not, a flight of stairs traversing the spiral. Those little guys gotta climb that thing somehow, eh?

That is so cool! I never thought of that! Thanks!! I gotta use this as support can eat up a lot of PVA.

Also, if you got an error ER12C, it means that the print cable could have come a bit loose with the extra heat. Check your reseller or supplier on how to properly get to the cable in the print head. It is a quick and easy fix. I have managed to do so without killing the machine.

I would agree and only add that you should make sure it is not just a tarnishing vs deep corrosion or dirt build up. Anything less than 12,000 grit would not be good. Yes, I use that....... but even that could make striations if you are not careful. Most metal polishing materials are more coarse than that and look bright because of the resulting hills and valleys causing higher reflection. But they are still tiny scratches.

"What Defines the Length of the Bowden Tube?" The beginning and the end, of course!! Buh dum PSSSSshhhhhhh.... sorry, I could not resist. Just a moment of silliness that you probably did not need.

If it is a simple enough structure or depending on the software you are using, to slice it into two parts, keeping the same pivot point for both parts. Then use 'per model settings' to assign the part that needs support to have it and the part that does not need support to not have support. Then go to edit and merge the two models. It will still print as a continuous piece but without the supports going all the way up. If you have an uneven bottom as I see in the capture, I have actually put a small box just below the model to raise the model off the bed plate. Cura will not let you 'raise' the model in positive Z. But it will, as gr5 states, allow you to move below the plate to create a flat bottom.

Doooooddddd Thanks!! I will have to look into that as I have 3 spools of ABS that I do not know what I will do with it. I have better successes with the oddball stuff like PC/Flex/Semi-Flex than I do ABS. I have gotten more knowledgeable, but I also find it to be brittle. But, I need to return to that once I finish my current projects. Been stuck on making the best possible options for printing the 14" Enterprise and sometimes, it just takes a while to test options. Thanks again!!

1) Yes, TitanX is some sort of modified ABS. 2) LMAO. Thanks for the quick info. Just got back and it is nice to have one thing I do not have to do while I am solving modeling/printing problems/philosophies. It can now be filed away in the attic of me mind and I can focus on something else and not forget. We really need a 'thumbs up' emoticon. So, you get a heart instead <3

I am going to echo the point of view on a couple of things. I do not do social media because YOU are the product. And as stated that opens you up to a lot of crap. And the way these companies are starting to hide things every time they update things, it is tough to keep security on your system because you have to reset everything or worse, hunt and delve at all times. Second thing is that I agree that having Ultimaker/Cura stuff in one location makes it much easier to find things, and easier for the team to be responsive. And, they are very responsive. Thank you for stating those things. It gets tiring being compared to a Luddite because you do not do what is 'expected', all the while, staying on the true cutting edge of tech in many ways. A common place, that is designed, by fault to be THE repository should be the place to go. It also frustrates me when job seeking, you are viewed as somewhat of a problem when you really have no social media presence. It is getting that antagonistic. And that I rebel against by nature.

Yes. I had a chat with Formfutura representative (who was not really helpful beside citing the specs docs). I went for TitanX as it has much greater impact strength (58KJ/m2 vs. 18KJ/m2 of ApolloX) and is almost as strong in tensile one (43.6 MPa vs. 47.5MPa of ApolloX). Overall, I like this stuff. It is easy to print, nice surface finish, good layer adhesion, has some typical ABS odor, albeit much less than classical ABS. Is it an ABS derivative? Or, maybe a better way to put it, a form of ABS. I really should just google it, but I am on my way out for an appointment and I gotta prettyfy myself and that is a major effort.

I would not know as you were using a different brand. There can be that much difference between brands. Could have been a speed issue too. I know I slowed my print speeds quite a bit. But the brand difference makes it difficult for me to diagnose. Maybe you could contact the manufacturer and give them the details and get some good info. I know I would like to hear that myself. Info is always good to collect.

Depends on your operating system. In Windows, it would be in 'Program files' in a folder that is the name of the version of Cura you are using. It is cura.exe I have not been on a MAC in a while, so no help there, sorry.

Did not think you were trolling. And, I am just offering perspective of seeing "The next best thing' for 35 years and how things swing no matter what people think. I remember one time when I was actually asked if the company I worked for should stop investing in Apple products as the PC was more powerful, cheaper and had software that the Apple did not have available and was getting converts all the time. Programs like Quark, Adobe, etc. that were thought to never stray from the MAC line did so. "Closing the doors" the next day is not going to happen. If you are really worried about your investment, get your own struder (quality, not cheap) and make your own to your own specs. And, getting a product that amortizes out at about $1K a year (not to mention supplies as the added as those costs really vary) and the variety of what is available. Honestly, I cannot think of anything I would really need that cannot be found in the 3MM family of filaments. And, I also said to follow your gut. You know your needs better than anybody else.

I would prefer an overestimation of time as you show rather than underestimation. I posted a similar topic and someone suggested that the quirks of individual printers may have slightly different timings on operations that cause the over-estimation. Also, if it follows some rules that are applied to other software (3D Rendering, animation, compositing) it will speed up and slow down based on a number of factors. But, an overestimation is good by me Helps me factor time better. I would feel more comfortable telling a client 4 hours and have it done in 3 than to tell them 4 hours and it take 5. I have seen people get bit by that in a very, very bad way. Even saw some loose clients. Dunno if this helps. But I can say that Cura had a bad rep for bad time estimations such as being 50% under (6 hours actual printing vs. 3 estimated) and have been pleasantly surprised that it is either spot on or a bit off by way of estimating a bit of extra time.

I thought of this and wanted to pass this along from an old timer's point of view. Way back in the dino days of computing, when the Mac was just a black and white tricorder screen size, running off one, or two if you had money, floppies (375K hard casing) and the PC was struggling to get more than 8 colors, and what we enjoy now was just science fiction, there was the Amiga. That machine was hot. There is a reason that 35 years later there are Amiga groups and meets to swap parts and such. They had software available that took nearly 10 years to even begin to appear/compete on other platforms. It had a 32Khz stereo (maybe 16 Khz) sound chip and 32K colors built on board. No memory limitation like the PC and much more software than the Mac or PC. Cool stuff...free stuff, enthusiasts and pros alike. Yet, it died an ignoble death because the Amiga corp. could not market their way out of a wet paper bag. They had fractals, 3D software, including blobs, and had the first non-linear video editing suite: The Video Toaster. And, the software went on to become lightwave and paved the way for systems such as Pemiere and Final Cut. Animation programs, mouse driven interfaces, GUI and image editing. And, to boot, it was used extensively in the TV arena (X-Files and Babylon 5 to name just two) and STILL could not capitalize on it. This at a time when Alias and Wavefront were two separate companies and Autodesk was just a Cad program. Photoshop was not around and |Aldus Freehand dominated the vector market. I tried to put together a 3D production studio in '87. One shader from Wavefront (Metal Blinn shader) cost $5K USD at the time. Adjusting for inflation, that would be between 15K and 20K. The equipment required a purchase of at least $1,000,000 and upkeep was expensive. Lower cost models and systems had limitations like 5 lights, etc. and everything looked like plastic. Animation cost $1K per second. Again, adjusting for inflation, that would be about 4-5K USD today. This was also the time when the Quantel Paint Box was a $100K investment as a turnkey system. Photoshop killed that one quickly. But the Amiga shone like a bright star. And it died. Only to be remembered by those of us who were there. My only point is this: To try and prognosticate everything for an investment that, should by all reason, and using the old timer's formula, tech should be amortized over a 3 year period. Then time to look anew. Milk it for all it is worth though!! Follow your gut. Investigate and make an informed decision that suits your purposes. Look at ecosystems and needs. For instance, something that may make me look outside of the Ultimaker family eventually is buildplate size. But the mods are there for almost everything else. But, that is me. And, what do I know? I am a noob in this arena. Never too old to be a noob.

If you are looking for something like Solidworks, then 3D Coat will not be good for you. I use it for sculpting and such as well as modding my models. It is more like Mudbox or Z-brush in functionality than a CAD package. But it can flip from Mesh to Voxels in a heartbeat. But, I know it is something I love to use. It has some odd stuff that I just love. Cheap price and constantly being upgraded, unlike the big guys that just move menu items around and throw in a tiny thing here or there and then forget about it. I would also look at Blender. I see so many features in it that 3DS MAX has not been able to implement. But, I do all my combo modeling/modding in 3D Coat because it gets rid of the dreaded red stuff in x-ray view. One of the coolest things I like is that I can bring an image in as a mesh. Really cuts down on bouncing around with logos and stuff. Edit: If you are looking for a good cad package, you can check out Space Claim. It is expensive, but they have a free version (much lighter in functionality) called Design Spark you can look at to see how you like their philosophy. I know I do.

I did a lot of research before I bought my printer. Sizes, brands, filaments, etc. I do not remember there being a lot of one or the other. And, depending on the type of material you choose to use, filaments will be limited one way or another. But, the comparison between Beta/VHS, etc is a false equivalency as they were not upgradable. And, going from DVD to Blu-ray did not invalidate being able to play DVDs. Printers will always be modable and with an open source community like this, it will always have some sort of mod you can use. Market forces drive things and even the UM2 has mods available for 1.75. But, if you are worried, then I suggest that you go with your gut as there is no right or wrong on this. And the way tech changes, it does not matter with the speed at which things change.

Not sure what you are asking. Here is a screen shot where you can choose the top and bottom layers (concentric and lines, etc) but the infill is different.