How Fast Can I Print?

[arktape 2]

I am printing basically a big block where print quality does not matter. How fast can I print? It is a two day print so I would like to speed it up. I already have a few base layers that I did slow.

 

UMS5 Pro

UM Tough PLA

Currently at 200% print speed of originally 30 mm/s

All other settings default

[Carla_Birch 116]

Is many settings that play a part in the print speed, so no one can really say how fast you can print, its more about how much do you want to push the settings to trade quality vs speed, plus machine wear.

 

For a block, does it need to support weight or have weight? If not you can greatly up the print speed with the infiill setting, mostly the "Gradual Infill Steps" what prints you can print with like 5% infill and it will step up to like 20% infill a few mm before any roofs in the design so the overhang still gets the supported needed.

 

Then you got normal settings like number of shells & layer heights what you could push up to 0.3mm if you wanted, or make use of the "Use adaptive layers" setting.

 

If even a setting called "infill travel optimization" that can speed up prints.

 

Just keep in mind the faster you push filament out of the print core, the core needs to be able to keep up with melting the plastic so higher temps are needed.

 

If you going be printing items like this a lot and if speed is more of a factor than quality, you might want to look into getting a 0.8 AA core.

[GregValiant 1,305]

"How fast can I print?"  A philosophical question for the ages.  On a rainy Saturday morning, here is a philosophical answer.  ("Philosophical" in this case equates to "Useless".)

 

You may print "as fast as you want".  That isn't the same as "as fast as you can", and is a lot different than "as fast as you should".  There is also "as fast as is practicable" which is where you want to be.  It's a question of balance.

 

As Carla says, much is dependent on the print core/hot end and how much melted plastic it can deliver through the nozzle in mm³/sec.  There is a definite "Upper Limit" for any of them for a given material (and about 100 other variables) and likely varies from machine to machine.  Even if the core can deliver enough melted material, there is a point where the pressure in the hot end can't push the plastic out of the nozzle fast enough and the path of least resistance is "up" instead of "out".  That's a condition generally referred to as "Not Good" and so choosing a larger print core comes into play.

There are so many variables that it becomes impossible to make a prediction.  On a small part your print speed can be 1,000,000mm/sec because the Accel and Jerk settings are the limiting factor.  On a large intricate part you may be limited to 30 or even 20mm/sec.  Going around high resolution circles and curves that are comprised of a lot of very short line segments brings the max computational ability of the printer/processor into play.

 

This is just for reference:

I had decided to do an "Extrusion Speed Test" with my Ender 3 Pro.  I found that my printer pushes red PLA the best so that's what I used.  The part was designed to be all skin that took up the whole print bed in order to remove turns and stops from the equation and to insure that the print head was actually getting up to speed.  I set the line directions for Top/Bottom to [0, 90] so all stripes would be the same length.  The nozzle was a 0.4,  My Accel and Jerk settings are low compared to a high end printer like yours.  The extruder started missing steps at 110mm/sec.  There is no way that I could print a real part at that speed as mechanical wobble/looseness/backlash would become additional limiting factors.

 

I conducted another test with "no extrusion" at 400mm/sec.  It showed an average of 342mm/sec on a 650mm course with two starts and two stops (left-front to right-rear and back on my 230 bed).  The agonizing sounds of distress the poor Ender 3 made when starting and stopping at that speed were truly heart-rending.  It was "as fast as I can" and was definitely above "as fast as I want".

Edited March 6, 2021 by GregValiant

[arktape 2]

On 3/6/2021 at 4:05 AM, Carla_Birch said:

Then you got normal settings like number of shells & layer heights what you could push up to 0.3mm if you wanted, or make use of the "Use adaptive layers" setting

I was running Engineering 0.15 but I really should have changed that to at least draft 0.2 or higher. If I print anything else like this I will probably buy a AA 0.8 print core. I had forgotten about the other print cores. 

 

On 3/6/2021 at 6:37 AM, GregValiant said:

I had decided to do an "Extrusion Speed Test" with my Ender 3 Pro.

That sounds like an interesting test! I may have to try it if I have more big parts to print. 

 

At 60 mm/s I noticed the bed was shaking. I think this was due to the nozzle running into infill when printing infill. I did have 70% infill. I then realized that the print would finish over the weekend one way or another so I backed it down to 30 mm/s and decided to leave it there.

 

Attached is a picture of what I printed. It is a mallet, or prototype mallet, to see if we like this design more than what we currently have. I fully expect it to break in the first couple hits but we should know if we like it by then.