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wow that's great - those images are really helping thanks! i'm going to run some experiments!

hello. so how does one go about creating your own supports within a 3d modeling software? there's lots of different ways you could do it i suppose... little boxes, concave platform that would support a sphere... when you model, are you supposed to have a gap between the top/bottom of the box or concave platform in the case of a sphere? if so how much of a gap? a gap larger than 1 layer height? or somewhere in between? do you round off or bevel the top of a box to a point, single vertex then place that x distance from the surface it is supporting? any tips? thanks!

here's the final product. you can see some weirdness on the roof on the right box, i'm assuming those are seams, a blob and the top looks a little rougher in the middle than the ends. the bottom and roof surface look pretty good though. funny how the reflection changes on the big flat roof where the hvac and roof access boxes are, it's like a darker color. i wonder if that's due to slight temperature fluctuations or maybe inconsistency in the filament? i'll be doing some testing today for sure! on little test cubes and such!

thanks! ive read a little about pei, am i mistake or is it some type of flexible very thin overlay like a sticker? id like to avoid stixk on type things especially tape. the borosilicate glass seems lukje a great idea, id still have to have some type of tacky substance on it im guessing. the main thing is that it is flat haha no tinfoil! ill get around to orderinf one but will stick with what i have for now... which mean next week ill probably order so mething. my hairspray doesnt seem that tacky when i touch it, but so far so good. ill see. maybe that pei isnt what i think it is? i did use uhu gluestick that we had ijn the office. it seemed to work but it seems like it is so uneven in thickness so hairspray.... it all washes off well with dawn dishsoap! aldo when i spray, i take the mirror off and put on the floor. oh, i read about a firmware update for my printer that does 3d mapping of the bed. it sounded like its supposed to let you print on uneven surfaces. but still i seem to be in a good spot for now and im sure id still need something tacky. oh and i did see a video where drops of windex helped separate parts from the plate. but so far ive had very little sticking issues. i did have the little bechy boat fly across the room a few weeks agousing the uhu ha!

yeah i think it makes a lot sense to start doing more calibration prints like you say start tuning. i am getting some of the basics down now in terms of machine setup anf some basics in the prgram settings. one thing i was just reading about on printed solid.com blog was corner quality and ringing. i am seeing a lot of rimging. i know why it happens, just have to tackle the 30 different things that can cause it haha. but yeah i should focus on temp, retractions, speed etc kind of low hanging fruit with test cubes and stuff. ps print of the roof finished, looks pretty good! i had to bolt right after it finished. will post tomorrow.

yep architecture. i got this as a hobby for myself and set it up at work because well, my hobby(s) are my work ha! if it works to do for clients then it's just a bonus! yeah i read about test prints for extrusion tests, temperature tests, all in one. little pyramids as i recall. i will have to look those up again or make my own. 4 tall thin boxes shaped like pyramids. it looks like i messed with some settings in my custom profile i saved with the cura project for the 4 walls and base, but retraction distance is 3mm (i think that was the default of 5), all of the retraction speed are set to 40mm/s. i have enable retraction checked, combing off, retract at layer change unchecked. also, i did mention i tried z-hop with this printing and i'm not sure that was a good thing. EDIT: the dimensions of the building walls are ~5 1/2" w x ~5" deep x ~5" tall

yeah, that seems to be catching me more and more - i keep looking at software settings instead of bed leveling or mechanical issues with the printer etc... i'm quickly learning to master that! do test prints ha instead of testing on a big complicated print! which i'm pretty amazed at how the last one turned out given i did nothing but hit print and try z-hop. ha! i'll attach. right now you've all see pics of the "roof" i'm printing separately, i'll attach the base. it's bad, i know stringy like you can't believe, some details didn't print - the window lines, but most did so i'm happy enough but next time will be better! i'm slowly but surely assimilating all this info PS - thanks everyone, this is a great forum, everyone very nice! PPS - i'm experimenting with the infill stepping feature in one of these images.

thanks everyone. so that goofy looking patterned layer print failed. lots of stringy gooey goodness. i was away from it for several hours, 4 maybe. ugh. i whipped off that mirror, got a new mirror and put it on the bed. leveled and it was great leveling it until i heated up the hotend and bed. then, like the first mirror, it was cupped in the center. when cold, it was perfect! so, this AM i went and got tinfoil and stacked up several layers of 6x6" or 5x4" squares of it in the middle of the bed under the mirror. it was back to "perfect". this time thoug, i'm not using glue stick. i sprayed on 2-4ish layers of hairspray so ugh!! also i took the advice and printed some test squares, 9 of them, see attached (wow nice like 8mins to print the squares so much nicer for testing!). also attached is in progress of the crazy patterned print fingers crossed! the other thing on this reprint is that i'm using a lot more "draft" settings, but keeping speed down to the 40mm/s. although my infill seems to print a lot faster than 40mm/s? anwway so far so good, 2hrs into the reprint. i'll have to read up on more sticky type stuff for the bed. like how to do an even coat of gluestick oor maybe i can order some spray on stuff or try another brand of hairspray. right now using suave extreme hold ha.

cool. ok for color got it, makes sense but i thought there was some special case with white the way i've read about it ha. learning quirks for different things in printing! consistency will be the key in terms of filament i'll bet. we'll see how the verbatim goes. one last quick question, does cura raise the z-axis depending on the height of the first layer and subsequent layers? it must huh otherwise the nozzle would be digging into the pla it's laying down. so it can compensate for the whole build - it might be .4mm thick on the first layer but then it says i can skip 3 layers .1 layers overall becasue we doubled or tripled up on the first?

doh! so thats what that setting is right under layer height. i was thinking it just built up the .12mm layer until it got to the height i entered. so if i entered .24mm initial, i thought it would lay down 2 .12mm layers. it actually puts down 1 layer that is .24mm? thanks

thats a great idea! i didnt know i could do that really, change the first layer height to be thick. my current layer setting is .12. pictured is silver hatchbox 1.75mm pla. why do i hear that lately, that white is no good for anything? ha. i just ordered some white verbatim pla purely on company reputation and affiliation with mitsubishi chemical. im willing to bet it is top notch quality and consistency. some utubes i have seen bare that out except for thier first gen stuff. edit - the 47hr print was kicked off based on a previous print that looked fairly good so no reason reason to wory. i wonder if bed leveling was more of an issue. maybe glue stick is old now too?

attached is a pic of the finished 1st layer and it's laying down the 2nd layer, which despite this pic, looks a bit smoother. there will be several layers. so maybe it just evens out. this is only about a 7hr print. it's basically a thin box with 2 other smaller but taller boxes on top of it, one on front half and one on back half.

hi. i just got done with a 47hr print which has a similar 1st layer to the one i'm showing here. the previous model was pretty stringy, the 1st layer is somewhat uneven feeling on the bottom, but other than that it's printed fairly well for 47hrs! so this is another component of the 47hr print, the attached picture is of the first layer. it's about 5in x 5in square. i have glue stick on the bed. the glue stick is probably just too uneven. bed temp 60 nozzle temp 200. i tried changing the nozzle temp to 195, the many of the lines did not connect! so i went back up to 200 for the attached image 1st layer. i went through the level procedure 3 times (4 corners and center with a piece of paper). that needed to be done for sure (amazing how it changes from print to print). this image is after it's been re-leveled. however, even with re-leveling this 1st layer is similar to the other 47hr print 1st layer. i'll have to wait and see how this turns out though to know if it is as uneven as the 47hr print. its funny how these patterns seem geometric like. also, there is a very fine diagonal hair which is showing up in the first layer. so all the patterns seem like something might be pushing up from underneath. anyway does this look OK for a 1st layer of this size 5in x 5in? thanks! ps print speed is 40mm. it's a creality cr10s printer.

so i've been playing with a small building - basically the shape of a box with some ins & outs where windows would be, but nothing really detailed as i'm doing this for comparisons. 1. i modeled the building with the 4 wallls, but ZERO thickness to the walls. (i'll call this "solid walls") in cura i turned off top/bottom - set top/bottom thickness to 0.0mm i turned off infill i set my wall thickness to a multiple of my nozzle dia, 4.0mm i think this is more or less vase mode? 2. i modeled the building with 5mm thick walls. (i'll call this "hollow walls") in cura i turned off top/bottom - set top/bottom thickness to 0.0mm i turned infil on and set to 10% i set my wall thickness to 0.8mm - so this gives me two lines for outer wall and two lines for inner wall with void in-between which is filled with infill i never thought about it to this point, but wow what a difference in estimated print time & material usage the infilled walls (hollow) model is showing 18.25hrs vs. 14.3hrs for "solid" walls and 22.53m of material vs. 44.85m! overall both models are roughly 91mm (w) x 91mm (d) x 78mm (h) you really have to think these things through! one concern might be how thick would walls have to be for some amount of structural integrity. in the case of #1 above, would 4mm thickness be enough for something up to 12inches or 15inches tall? etc etc...

kman and gigi thanks for replies, sorry for late response. great points! kman yeah i started figuring that is the case, just like rendering an animation, trade between time and detail/quality. nice to have confirmation. sometimes i can be real picky! i did notice my cr10s came with a different and smaller nozzle! .2mm i think. gigi thank you, i will check put your model and now that ypu say that, I will play with the model of a building i am printing right now. so does the preview always show accurately? for example i have a building with window frames (these are mullions which in this case are vertical frames, single line inreal life are 2.5in wide by however tall that i had to scale up about 3x their width in order to get them to print, well the bottom where it sits on a window sill, sometimes doest show up in the layer preview. like the very bottom, 5 layers about whereas the rest of its 50 layers donahow up.