How to Reduce Print Duration

[Clarryparry 0]

Hi all,

Currently lending a hand to a university professor as we are making the transition to Ultimaker 2+ and Cura 2.3 from Makerbots and Makerware this year. The topic is run to allow first year students to explore design and experience 3D printing, so there is a large class size and I was just wondering how else I could reduce print time with the following specifications already in placed.

Layer Height ~ 0.3mm

Shells ~ 2

Infill Density ~ 10%

Build Plate Adhesion Type ~ Brim

An example of a print is 139.5 x 96.7 x 20.0 mm, 3.35m and ~26 g that managed to print in just under an hour on MakerBot Replicator 2 that is currently expected to take 1 hour and 42 minutes on the Ultimaker 2+. Multiply that additional print duration by a large class size and you would end up with a headache too. Hence, any and all help would be greatly appreciated.  

Note that the print setup is sequenced to be done all at once, print speed is currently on 60mm/s and minimum layer time is already at 0s. I am guessing that there are a few speed settings that I can configure to obtain a faster print without degrading the print quality too much but am clueless as to where to start.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Guest

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi @Clarryparry, thank you for your post and welcome to the community!

Reducing print times can be achieved in a variety of ways and it also depends on what the purpose is of the print. For example, if the print is for aesthetical purpose you could do without infill at all, depending on the size of the top layer or overhangs you can do this by using 2 or 3 shells. The layerheight is crucial too and so is the print speed. Depending on what your nozzle size is, you can increase the speed until you have reached the maximum extrusion volume. For an Ultimaker 2+ these are realistic guidelines:

0.25 nozzle: up to 8 mm³/s

0.40 nozzle: up to 16 mm³/s

0.60 nozzle: up to 23 mm³/s

0.80 nozzle: up to 24 mm³/s

You can calculate this by layer height * print speed * nozzle size.

Is this information that helps you get started optimizing your prints?

btw, the print times you refer to, are these actual periods of time passed or estimated durations?