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Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

Hi everyone,

 

I am trying to print different components with my Ultimaker S3.However, I have noticed that some of my components (especially the last thinner parts) have a poor finish (see attached photo) which makes the component unusable... I am using Tough PLA red with the print setting suggested by Ultimaker and the version of Cura is 5.9.0.

 

I would really appreciate it if someone could help me with this!

 

1000080831.thumb.jpg.327b97d8f734db1fc4ffdb8a693522a8.jpg1000080830.thumb.jpg.56e8c2621fc08493af3b250edc3b09ec.jpg

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    If you could share your Cura project file (.3mf, get it set up then go to File > Save Project) that would really help because it lets us see your printer and quality settings. Just a couple of photos aren't really enough to by 99% of the time (this is part of that 99% 🙂)

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    In the second photo, is the part in the orientation that it was printed?  In other words did the point of the part peel *up* from the bed?  I can't tell because maybe you rotated the part before photographing.

     

    If so, then you need to get your part to stick better to the print bed. Your S3 should have come with a glue stick.  use it if your parts aren't sticking well.  Many people don't use glue stick and they are usually fine - you do however have to keep the glass extra clean from oils if you don't use the glue stick so you could try removing the glass and cleaning it with glass cleaner but the glue stick can really help.

     

    If you want it to stick even better you apply glue stick in stripes with only 1/3 of the glass covered then use a wet tissue or paper towel and spread it around.  Part of the goal is to use *less* glue (counter intuitive).  But if you do this you may find your parts stick too well.  And you might even occasionally remove thin slivers of glass from the bed.  But with PLA I usually go with this "thin glue" technique.  Still I recommend you don't do that unless you have a problem.

     

    If you lost the glue stick, any brand of glue stick will work fine.  Find them wherever you can buy school supplies.

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    Posted (edited) · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    @gr5 The model has a compound curve (double "sweep") on the bottom.  I'm guessing it's the mating surface to whatever it gets attached to (a surf board?).

    This is after much fooling around with the rotation.  The center area is a cavity about 0.6mm deep.

    image.thumb.png.2cf43449adeddc6cc009ea635fffc60c.png

     

    The slice looks really good.  There had been a bug that would have caused the front and rear "knife" edges of the fin to get "jaggy".  I don't see that here.

    Layer cooling looks like it might be an issue.  Lots of layers going down one right after the other.

    image.thumb.png.eafa4f736f178f1241ffe24fd689e1d2.png

     

     

    Edited by GregValiant
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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    Okay so you can ignore everything I said above because it looks like the tip of the part is *not* on the bed.

     

    So that is very difficult to print due to cooling effects.  I would print a 1cmX1cm tower next to the fin so that while it is printing the tower the fin has time to cool.  I would put the tower very close to the fin so that the fans on the S3 print head are blowing on the fin while printing the tower.  Look at the location of the fan exhaust - you want the tower left or right of the fin, not front or back.  As close as possible.

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    If you find or create a simple cube with no writing on it - just a cube - add that to cura and you can scale the cube in X,Y,Z in any amounts to set the dimensions to be 10mm X 10mm and set the height slightly taller than the fin.  You have to uncheck the "lock" so you can scale the cube axes in different amounts.  So the cube stl file you load can be any size and then you scale it to the desired shape.

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    Anyone call for a cube?

    cube 10mm.stl

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    Moo! ♥️

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    Moo too.

    I'll call that cube and raise by one cutting mesh.

     

    Fin.3mf

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    Hello everyone!

    Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm going to print them out right away and let you know how they turn out. 🤞

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    Okay so maybe my first suggestion was valid then?  I'm really confused about what the problem is in relation to the print bed.  To be able to make a suggestion we really need to know which way the tip of that thing was curling:

     

    Was that the tip top of the print?

    Was that supposed to be connected to the glass bed but it warped up?

    other?

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    I have slightly modified the file provided by @GregValiant, since I need two fins, so I just copied and pasted the fin. What I got is much better than before (thanks again for all the help!) and I think that the main problems were related to the adhesion to the glass bed and the temperature. By printing the file, I saw that in the small cuboid, the warping started when it started to move because it was not fixed at the base, and the slight warping present at the tip of the fins is due to the excess material accumulated on the nozzle of the extruder. Since I have to print more fins, I will let you know if I can solve the problem by using a cooling tower.

     

     

     

    1000081063.thumb.jpg.33f98e648de7e03f4defae07e8e2de8a.jpg1000081062.thumb.jpg.26d77ff786f6cd45508c4c9e4918671d.jpg

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    I don't know the cooling requirements of "Tough PLA".  The "Advanced Cooling Fan Control" post processor will allow you to set the cooling fan speed at particular layers.

    Here I have the cooing fan set to go to 35% at layer 5 and then go to 100% at layer 250.

    image.png.5783c691836f55084a3b16552c58ae21.png

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    Posted · Poor finishing of 3D printed components

    As I mentioned, I printed the components again and was able to get a good finish. I'm attaching the cura project file. Thanks again to all!  

    UMS3_Part #5.3mf

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