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t.lo's first 3d printer

Discussion in 'Show and Tell' started by t.lo, Jul 5, 2013.

  1. t.lo

    t.lo New Member

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    I got my printer on Tuesday but other than unboxing it and putting it in it's (temporary) location I didn't really have time to mess with it. Until today. Fourth of July BBQs? Going to the beach? Who needs that when you can stay at home and play with your new toy instead?! :D

    I have the ABS/PLA version of the Robo 3D, with the heated bed. It arrived with a USB cable, power cable and a few feet of both ABS and PLA filament. I had previously ordered black and white PLA and black ABS filament from Robo 3D.

    I wish I could say it all went swimmingly, but I had (and still have) some problems. 3D printing is awesome when it works, but oh so frustrating when it doesn't. I can say I learned a lot of jargon even in this one day of testing, reading, testing, cleaning, testing, cursing, reading some more, testing ...

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17003
    First thing I printed was a 10mm cube. Simple enough. I immediately started to run into problem with getting the PLA to stick to the platform. I read that blue painters tape would work so I tried that. It's better than printing directly on the heated bed, but it's still very much a crapshoot if that first layer is gonna peel off or not. On the 3rd attempt the cube stuck to the painters tape and after a few minutes I had this little beauty. Layer thickness is 0.3mm, so this clearly could be even higher resolution.
    10mm_cube.jpg

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:63271
    Then I unsuccessfully tried to print a fram e for my GoPro Camera, mostly with the idea that I could then use that to mount the camera and take timelapse videos of future 3d prints. I tried printing this file in a dozen different ways, in PLA, in ABS, with and without a raft, with and without supports, different speed settings, different layer thickness settings, hotbed at 55F, 65F (PLA), extruder at 190, extruder at 180 (PLA). And any number of combinations of these things. Maybe it's the model, but I was unable to prevent the first layer from lifting off the bed. And then on the second pass the hot-end catches the first layer and it all turns into one goopy mess being pushed around by the hot end. Frustrated, I gave up after 4 hours or so. I had so many aborted prints, I didn't take pictures of a lot of them. This one was one of the BETTER ones as it didn't end up all balled up, being squished around by the hot end.
    gopro_frame_fail.jpg

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24238
    I decided that maybe the GoPro mount is too fragile, maybe I need a better build platform (Boro Glass? Aluminum?). I wanted to try one other thing before going to bed. I calibrated the Z axis once more, this time using a piece of paper instead of a business card, lowering the head even closer to the build platform. I loaded and printed another calibration piece. Somehow the first layer magically stuck to the blue painters tape and the whole thing printed without any major hitches. You can see that the final layer is bulging a little bit. I suspect it's because it gets too hot. As it was printing I could see that the hot end was squeezing on the last cube a bit with every pass. Maybe small pieces like this need to be printed at lower speed so they get a chance to cool off more.
    qbert_fill_detail.jpg
    qbert_bulge_detail.jpg
    qbert_side.jpg

    After that worked so well I tried the GoPro frame again, same result as before. The raft (or the first layer if there is no raft) doesn't lay down properly / stick to the bed and on the 2nd layer the hot end catches on the pieces printed previously and it all turns into a stringy blob of plastic. grrrr.

    So, tomorrow I will visit the local hardware store and see what I can get as a build platform and see if that makes a difference.

    What's a good way to clean the hot end of the bits of PLA that are caked to the outside of the nozzle? Acetone? Or is that just for ABS? Or just head it up to 230 and wipe it off with some q-tips?

    Cheers,
    t.lo
     
    5 people like this.
  2. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Welcome to the fun and frustrating world of 3D printing! Getting the print to stick is a combination of getting the bed level, having the bed prepped well, and getting that spacing right. People have reported that with the circuit board alone, they see some warpage. So that could be part of your problem. Check the piece of paper at several different locations, then print your part on a region where the spacing is constant. Also try running your first layer hotter and slower.
    Of course, this should get easier when you add a piece of glass on top of it.

    The observation about the fan is good. if you set up a table fan to blow across the part, that might help.

    Your gopro frame does look like there is very little surface area. Try adding a brim (in the slicer options).
     
  3. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Welcome to printing and ALL the variable s you get to sit down and try and figure out I wish I knew all the nuances but I learn more and more every day and the thing that changes the most is the fact that I learn there is more stuff I do not know about.

    I think we have a good set up of people here and all are will to put there two cents in may be even 3 or 4 or even 5 cents worth in sometimes we contra dict each other but just remember 3d printing is new to alot of us and I don't think anyone wants to see someone else fail at it so learn what you can spread what you learn and don't get offended if what you think does not match what others believe what may work for you may not work so well for another's personal setup.

    Just go with the FLOW
     
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  4. t.lo

    t.lo New Member

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    Thanks PS and Jeff for your comments and encouragement. This whole 3D printing thing is amazing!

    I have made some progress, here are some updates.

    TL;DR version:
    - The slic3r "brim" feature is great if you try to print very narrow objects that don't have a lot of surface area on the print bed.
    - Lexan makes for a great build surface for PLA.
    - Adding a fan helped me to reduce drooping during printing due to excessive residual heat.

    Details:
    1. I added a Brim to the GoPro frame as Printed Solid suggested and that certainly helped stabilizing it. It printed out fine, the rounded edges of the two mounting flanges drooped a little bit at the bottom. I printed with supports enabled in slic3r but it doesn't seem like that was enough support. I might try this again in the future, but apart from the cosmetic aspect it works as required so I am not in a hurry for a do-over.
    gopro_frame_ok.jpg

    2. I bought a 10x10.25 sheet of Lexan at the hardware store, clamped it on top of the heated bed using binder clips one size up from the ones that Robo used to attach the heated bed and have been printing PLA on the Lexan with great success. After a few prints it stopped "sticking" but I wiped it down with isopropyl alcohol and that seemed to remove the fingerprints and whatever else was on the surface that stopped the PLA from sticking.

    2.1 Lexan is heat sensitive and it IS possible to melt in bits of PLA if you let the extruder sit at one spot. I have black marks at the "home" position and at the "dump" position. No big deal. But I modified the "dump" position to be 30mm up on the Z Axis.

    3. My next project was a mount that would allow me to add a 30 pin connector to my iPhone car dock, so I don't have to plug the 30 pin plug in by hand all the time. I know, TOO MUCH WORK. The car dock is a "Pro-Clip" brand mount that I already had. Yes, I could have just printed a whole new mount. :) I realize that now.
    I designed it in TinkerCAD and had something printable in about 30 minutes. At first I tried to print the whole piece as one. I will post pictures, but there is basically a back-plate and then a little square protrusion at the bottom that has holes for the 30 pin connector. Printing it as one piece looked ALMOST perfect, but the bridges over the voids in the bottom part were drooping and it made it difficult to fit the 30 pin plug. So I ended up printing the back plate and the bottom piece separately. Both came out beautiful and I superglued them together. I cut a cheap 30 pin cable in half, threaded the wires through the mount, soldered and heat-shrunk it back to gether and screwed the whole thing in place. Looks totally Pro if I can say so myself. :)
    proclip_30pin.jpg proclip_30pin_installed.jpg proclip_30pin_phone.jpg

    3.1 During the first print of this bracket I noticed that some parts of the material remained soft for too long. The extruder kept pressing and squishing them. That brought me to the next big improvement ... putting a fan behind the Robo, blowing across the build platform. The extruder has no issues compensating for the airflow. The faster cooling seems to improve definition on edges and corners. No more sloppy rounded corners, everything is very straight now.

    Ok, what am I printing next then? :)
     
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  5. JDM_

    JDM_ New Member

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    One thing that has helped me is using digital calipers to measure the filament in several locations, added the measurements and dividing by how many measurements taking..... Basically taking the average. Then using that number in your settings as you filament size. I have noticed that the filament I use averages smaller than 1.75mm. So far it has made my prints more accurate. For example the calibration blocks are now the correct size.

    As for getting prints to stick I started with just Kapton tape over the heating pad and using AquaNet hairspray and that works great for PLA and ABS. I have now added boro glass and use AquaNet hairspray and have not had any issues with prints sticking.
    purchased
     
  6. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    Wow! Very nice. I continue to be impressed with the quality people are getting out of their machines. I bet if they had their machines printing like this during the kickstarter campaign, they would have sold twice as many!
    Can't wait to get mine!

    The brim is definitely an awesome feature.

    I've noticed that slic3r does have some good options around bridging that you might want to play with. slow bridging speed with a good fan on the hot end is supposed to work well.
     
  7. tesseract

    tesseract Moderator
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    Looks like you got a handle on it great looking prints
     
  8. Harry

    Harry Team ROBO 3D
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    I can second what people have said above! haha
     
  9. JDM_

    JDM_ New Member

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    Is that car dock is ABS??.... I hear PLA will get soft and possibly deform in a hot car... Let us know how it holds up.
     
  10. t.lo

    t.lo New Member

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    Bumping this old thread.

    JDM, well, let's just say after the scorching temperatures here in SoCal these last few weeks I am now printing out a new mount out of ABS. Yes, the PLA got soft and today it finally drooped so much that the phone wouldn't connect anymore.

    That's ok. Great opportunity to test out my ABS printing again. First test worked GREAT. ABS on Lexan sticks nicely.
     

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