Tried to print a rocket, ended up with a wig?

[ascended 0]

5 mins in solidworks gave me the base of a 29mm rocket to play with printing:

It was going to take 6-7hrs to print, which I was hesitant to do overnight however Sander said it would be fine... so off I went.

This morning, 7.5hrs after I left it:

Looks like it all fell apart several minutes after I went to bed:

And it also looks like my V2 hotend didnt fix the leaks (yep, all done up tight, no teflon tape however):

 

[gr5 2,173]

It looks like the part moved off the blue tape. Is that true?

There are tricks to keep a part stuck to the tape. The most important trick is to use isopropyl alcohol. Blue painters tape has a kind of waxy non-sticky stuff on the non stick side of the blue tape to keep it from sticking from the sticky side of the blue tape. You need to remove this stuff with isopropyl alcohol aka rubbing alcohol found in any store that sells bandages such as a pharmacy or drugstore or supermarket or convenience store.

The next helpful thing is to use the brim feature. Do 6 to 10 passes of brim. This helps quite a bit.

The next thing is to make sure your first layer is getting squished into the tape. The very first layer - the top should be very very flat. Like a pancake. Each thread, each trace should be clearly wider than it is tall. It should be pressed into the blue tape.

There are more tricks but if you follow these 3 it should be good.

Having said that - the way the fins flare outward is a bit tricky - due to pla shrinking they will be pulled *upwards* and the head or the fan shroud might hit those fins. Once you get to the part where the fins start going vertical your print can be left unattended.

One solution to that upward pulling due to shrinkage is to add support. Another solution is to print in a heated chamber but the support will help much more than a heated bed or heated chamber. You should be able to print this without any heat. Another solution is to have a putty knife in your hand and every 4 layers press down on those fins.

Again once they go vertical you can walk away.

 

[gr5 2,173]

Also I am not patient so I would print this at 240C and at 120mm/sec.

 

[ascended 0]

I agree, I think it came lose from the bed too - wanted to get other peoples opinion first before I said so incase i had people thinking down the wrong track.

Thanks for the tip on the isopropyl, we have heaps of that around so will be no problem. I couldn't find the blue tape that came with the ultimaker so bought two different brands of stuff at the local hardware store that look similar, they are a bit smoother than the stock tape though which I haven't found here yet.

The very tip of the fin does lick up a little bit, but nowhere near enough for the printer to hit. I have a heated bed from last time I was using the printer, but I need to get everything working without it first.

unfortunately, if this is going supersonic I need accuracy so parts fit together with no gap, and I need the layers to be strongly bonded. This is a prototype for something much bigger.

 

[nick-foley 5]

This print seems plenty doable. And I don't think your hotend is leaking - I think it was just melting a green PLA wig all night long and picked up some material along the way.

When I'm printing a tall object with a small base, I either use a large brim, or I peel off the blue tape and smoosh the first layer right into the acrylic itself.

 

[gr5 2,173]

There shouldn't be any stringing so in cases like this definitely go with hot and fast. There shouldn't be accuracy issues. Going fast has more to do with stringing and underextrusion. The UM can do 300mm/sec if the damn nozzle could keep up (which it can't).

 

The very tip of the fin does lick up a little bit, but nowhere near enough for the printer to hit

 

How do you know if you were in bed when it popped off?

That is most likely the problem why it popped off but if you had used ISA it might have hung in there (and brim).

 

[ascended 0]

Because i can see the part which was left

 

How do you know if you were in bed when it popped off?

 

[ian 32]

all i can say is... BRIM and a lots of it... that should stick your model to the print bed like super glue.... MONSTER help for my building models !

Ian :-)

 

[ascended 0]

Thanks guys, I can't find an option in cura for the brim size though, just the option to turn it on? Might be better if i design a support structure into the model in SWX.

 

[3dcase 37]

Thanks guys, I can't find an option in cura for the brim size though, just the option to turn it on? Might be better if i design a support structure into the model in SWX.

 

In the expert setting tab you can set the amount of brimlines

 

[snowygrouch 1]

I recommend recording new or complex prints with webcam on stopmotion. This enables you to

diagnose print failures accurately.

 

[gr5 2,173]

I recommend recording new or complex prints with webcam on stopmotion.

 

Holy crap. I never thought of that. This is why I read these posts every day! Something so simple and obvious...

Now to see if my webcam comes with software to do stopmotion. Do you recommend 1 frame per second maybe?