Da Clumsy Noob talks Tips for tall and thin objects

[kmanstudios 994]

There was a thread (I cannot find it and this was meant to be there) about someone with tall and thin parts being printed and falling over and leaving a spaghetti bird's nest behind. Once I had my buildplate adhesion issues solved, this has not been an issue for me.

 

NOW!

 

I am not advocating one method over another as it does seem to vary as to what works based on locations and environment and, as always, personal preferences. And, there are some goodies out there. Hairspray, PVA slurry (recycled and watered down glue), @geert_2's salt method, etc. But make sure you get this solved before you try to do this:

 

This was similar to a lithoplane in that it was designed as a relief print to be painted and dry brushed to bring out details. It is a plaque for my daughter who lives in Houston Texas and made it through Hurricane Harvey with no real problems (Truly lucky!!). Made it as large as the UM3E would allow. Serioously, it could not go 1 mm larger, even on the slant. Stuck like a champ. Printed super nice and even picked up the texture from the images used to make this.

 

But, get your adhesion method down! This could easily have been a disaster.

[yellowshark 147]

Nice job . I know it is not very thick but just how thick is it? What technique did you use for getting the images on the surface? On my list of R&D todos is to try out Repetier's Velocity painting.

 

Lol I am just about to start printing some discs for levelling my vinyl record deck; I shall be going to the giddy heights of 0.5mm, or less.

[kmanstudios 994]

It varies in thickness, but the average would be about 3mm with the low being about 2mm and the high being about 4mm. That is around the edges. The overall thickes part gets to about 6mm at the eye of the hurricane and the letters I added.

 

Method was to take the image I finally found with the whole hurricane on a land map with markings and open it up in Cura as an image file. It does an excellent job of doing a height filed interpolation of images. The I took that into 3DSMAX and added the letters and final trimming and massaging of the 'plate.'

[geert_2 320]

I would *not* recommend using my salt method for such huge but thin models. The salt method works very well for PLA, for my typical flat and 100% filled models, which ohterwise tend to curl up if I use no bonding aid or with gluestick. But this salt method seems to be a bit more susceptible to shocks caused by the nozzle banging into model edges when there are overhangs. I am not sure why, maybe because real PVA-based glue has some flexibility to absorb shocks, and salt doesn't? Just a guess...

 

But of course, feel free to try. Just stay with the printer to see what happens.

 

If I had to print such a thin but tall model, I would probably add sideways support columns, similar to those used in old cathedrals and castles for the walls. Or similar to the way bosses are designed for injection moulding. Just to be sure.

 

My typical sort of models. The lower one is as printed. The curled one on top is from a heat test in the oven at ca. 80°C after printing, to see how heat would affect it. It shows that there is quite a bit of stress in the models. While printing, this sort of models stick very well to the build plate using the salt method. But only for PLA. For the manual, see: https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/personeel/geert-keteleer/manuals/

 

This one got knocked off the build plate, due to the overhangs curling up severely (more than 1mm), and the nozzle banging into it really hard. And then all of a sudden, the model popped off the plate. This is the reason for not recommending the salt method for high but thin models...