Terrible build (user error of course)

[WXML 0]

Hey everyone,

I was hired on as a lab supervisor for a math research group and no one has used a 3d printer before. I have been trying to learn as much as possible in a very short period of time before the lab is officially up and running next Monday. Right now I am only using the stock filament that was sent with the Ult 2 Extended, but I do have higher quality PLA being shipped to us as we speak. I am having a lot of trouble printing more complex objects, for example, attached are two photos of attempted builds, one of a Lorentz Attractor, and the other of Calabi-Yao Manifold. My settings for the Calabi-Yao Manifold was normal print. But, for the Lorentz attractor it was High Quality. I usually like to figure things out myself, but this is so much material to digest in a few days. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Lorentz Attractor attempt:

Calabi-Yao Manifold attempt:

Heres what they should actually look like

Calabi-Yao Manifold:

Lorentz Attractor:

Edited March 23, 2016 by Guest

[gr5 2,195]

Wow those are difficult prints. For example having that yellow thing come out of the red base... SIDEWAYS! pretty much impossible wihtout some kind of support or soemthing. I guess one answer is to just turn on support. Not "everywhere" just do option "touching buildplate".

Personally I would try to use meshmixer support - but it takes many prints to get good at using meshmixer supports - some details here:

http://www.extrudable.me/2013/12/28/meshmixer-2-0-best-newcomer-in-a-supporting-role/

pay particular attention to how to rotate your part in the "annoyances & limitations" section and also note that there is a small error where he set layer height to "0.5" mm and it should be the layer height you print at e.g. .2 or .1mm.

[cloakfiend 995]

As far as im concerned i wouldnt even waste my time trying to print those. They look like perfect case studies of what this printer is not designed for. Even if you managed to, you would have to print them big and the supports would make them look ugly. As a beginner id forget it, as a pro, learn how to cut your model up and start from there because you wont get a nice print doing it as is. Just my honest opinion. The fact that the lower objects entire structure relies on that tiny support at the bottom is madness, it will work as plastic is light but would be prone to breaking.

Basically you could print them, but if you have any sort of standards, they would visually suck.

Another side note is that while an object is mathematically perfect, its printable topology might be complete chaos, hence un printable. The geometry in that multicoloured object looks extremely poor and the verts dont even look welded. I.e. The walls have zero thickness and wont print. You will also have a lot of intersecting geometry which you could fix but could cause other issues, i could go on.....but

Basically in my books, forget it.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Guest

[yellowshark 153]

+1

[ultiarjan 1,223]

This stuff will not work on a fff machine in any decent way. Save yourself the frustration and have it done at

shapeways.com

[ultiarjan 1,223]

And for some quick learning check this;

http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/30-getting-better-prints

[tommyph1208 55]

Whoah... What a nightmare...

I agree with the others here, this is sadly as close to impossible to print as you can get.

If the main purpose for you guys getting into 3d printing, is to print models like these examples, someone didn't do their homework properly before buying an UM (or any fff/fdm type printer for that matter) to do the job.

Maybe with a SLA or SLS type printer... Maybe

[ultiarjan 1,223]

SLA also needs support, don't think it will be much better than fff in this case.

SLS is afaik not yet affordable anywhere... so I think you need to go the Shapeways route.

[danilius 118]

Just in case you need sheer numbers to convince you: the only technology that can pull this off at the moment is powder printing - aka SLS. Trying to do this using FFF/FDM (same thing, just means filament-based printing) is as close to impossible as you can possibly imagine, or certainly so painful it's not even worth bothering.

In fact UM should highlight these images as canonical "what you really don't want to try printing with FDM technology" examples.

Until we get dual head printing, of course, then you are on to a winner.

[gr5 2,195]

You guys are pessimists - I think it might be able to print the upper part just fine (or pretty well) with only "support touching buildplate".

The second photo - not so easy.

[cloakfiend 995]

The topology sucks on the first pic if you look close and the second pic is a joke..... but ask him to send you the files and surprise us, lol.

Lets see what you can do with it.

...?

I didnt say it was impossible. Just that it would look ugly. Im into pretty things personally. (Depending on the mood) lol.

You must also note that they have zero experience in 3d printing.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Guest

[yellowshark 153]

oops.

snip>>>

You must also note that they have zero experience in 3d printing.

 

Lol that was my first thought too- hell I would not try to do those