How about a 3D printer section?

[goatman]

downloaded autocad inventor for a 30 day free trial but they are a little too nosey about my life :lol: so deleted it from the laptop

going to try free cad, the hardware guy on youtube explains it well and it looks easy :thumb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh5aN_Di8J0

 

[nicobie]

I watched a bit of him a while back but thought if I was going to go all in on learning this, might as well learn this:

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal It's free too.

Did you get your machine printing anything useful yet? I've been printing upgrades for the machine which is a bit silly as it works OK right out of the box

I stuck a Micro Swiss hotend on mine and am searching for the best CF/nylon filament to try, along with everything else I'll need and need to know, which is a lot. I've learnt enough to know that I still have a long way to go.

 

[goatman]

havent turned it on yet
got a box of anycubic pla
supposed to have my outboard motor conversion done by sunday
was looking unlikely thanks to frockn paypal
but picked up a drill press from 1939 tonight
and printing the motor shaft coupling looks easy in this video
https://youtu.be/IhcLSx2ppUY?t=132

do one in pla then when it works, carbon fiber :thumb:

 

[stan.distortion]

downloaded autocad inventor for a 30 day free trial but they are a little too nosey about my life :lol: so deleted it from the laptop

going to try free cad, the hardware guy on youtube explains it well and it looks easy :thumb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh5aN_Di8J0

Ymmv with freecad, lots of people get on really well with it but it's always made me want to pull what's left of my hair out! If you get on well with programming languages or written instructions then openscad is well worth a look, the initial learning curve is steeper than with a gui but it gets a lot easier once the basics are learned and the online documentation is very good:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/The_OpenSCAD_Language

 

[goatman]

can anyone tell me why cura wont slice large items that are still within my build plate? 200x175

figured it out, snap rotation

 

[nicobie]

Just got the Sainsaint CF/nylon filament delivered and am in the process of printing a 'benchie'.

Used the same settings as I use for PLA+ other than slowing speed to 40 and upping the temps to 255 & 80C. I did flip my glass bed to the smooth side and applied some purple glue stick.

So far it seem to be printing fine. Will report back if it fails.

 

[goatman]

i was looking at the sunlu on amazon today, is that what youre using?

 

[scianiac]

The CF stuff really does make nylon and other warpy stuff waaay easier to print, also the best bed material I've found for nylon is garolite, which you actually need to turn the first layer temp down a bit or it sticks too well and damages the surface, although the damage is only superficial so doesn't really matter besides surface texture of the print. I much prefer bed materials that just work without any coatings, tape, etc. The trick I think is having a bed probe and then you can just swap bed materials easily, something I have yet to do because the options for bed probes that will work for my applications are very limited.

Also just finished off another one of these 3kg bad boys the other day:

 

[goatman]

Just got the Sainsaint CF/nylon filament delivered and am in the process of printing a 'benchie'.

Used the same settings as I use for PLA+ other than slowing speed to 40 and upping the temps to 255 & 80C. I did flip my glass bed to the smooth side and applied some purple glue stick.

So far it seem to be printing fine. Will report back if it fails.

2021-09-09 16_29_01-Photo - Google Photos.png2021-09-09 16_30_40-Photo - Google Photos.png

where did you get the sain smart?
Amazon is sold out

 

[nicobie]

Just got the Sainsaint CF/nylon filament delivered and am in the process of printing a 'benchie'.

Used the same settings as I use for PLA+ other than slowing speed to 40 and upping the temps to 255 & 80C. I did flip my glass bed to the smooth side and applied some purple glue stick.

So far it seem to be printing fine. Will report back if it fails.

2021-09-09 16_29_01-Photo - Google Photos.png2021-09-09 16_30_40-Photo - Google Photos.png

where did you get the sain smart?
Amazon is sold out

I just got it today. I must have got one of the last ones from amazon.

My benchie didn't turn out too good. I screwed up and forgot to turn off part cooling. It layer seperated when taking it off the bed. It had stringing but I should be able to fix that.

Tomorrow is another day.

 

[goatman]

going to try some Sunlu carbon fiber pla, so if i can print it with the stock ender

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07G1R5M3D/ref=twister_B08DLPSHXK?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

[nicobie]

That links to regular PLA??

I just checked, Amazon still has the sainsmart cf nylon in stock for usa buyers.

 

[goatman]

link yes, i thought i could get silver coloured carbon fiber pla but nope :lol:
you have to click on carbon fiber pla, black
going to give it a try

usa customers only, eh?

 

[nicobie]

Sounds like Justin is using cf/PETG for the solar holding brackets on his sailboat.

I'm having problems with layer adhesion with the Sainsmart cf/nylon filament. Hope I haven't pissed away $70. But there is no other way other way when trying new stuff. At times the learning curve gets expensive. I'm used it by now.

I have discovered that the stock ender 3 v2 firmware is capable of running the hotend at 260C without triggering a thermal shutdown. I've read that the ender3 was shutting down at temps over 255C.

Couldn't resist and ordered some linear guide rails for the Y axis.

 

[scianiac]

Is the Stock ender 3 hotend "all metal" IE does the teflon tube go into the heatblock, I can't recall but if it does it's generally not recommended to run them that hot.

As for layer adhesion if you're temps are good (I generally print my carbon Nylon at 265 but 255 is probably enough to start) then it may be just ambient temperature/lack of enclosure even with the cooling fans off, things like the hotend cooling fan will move air around enough to cool the part down. Could also try printing a much smaller part (so there is no time for the previous layer to cool down) and see if layer bonding is improved to test if too much cooling is the problem.

 

[nicobie]

I'm running a Micro Swiss hotend and just upped the temp to 260*C. Switched the stock hotend fan to a Noctua one that might not be pushing as much air as the stock one. I might be getting heat creep that's causing the stringing. I have a 4020 one ordered that I'll put in one of those Hero Me dual blower fan ducts and put the 4010 one in the circuit board box. I'm trying to quiet the machine down.

I can snap the chimmey off of the Benchie with my fingers as it's getting printed now but I'll see what happenes with the cooling off and speeds down to 30 mm/sec. I've got the filament in a sunlu dryer set at 50*C. it's been there for >24hours. Next thing I'll try is a simple enclosure (4 sides, no top). I'm using a .4mm brass nozzle w/.2mm layer that is probably getting worn out (~4hours printing CF) but have a .6mm steel one from Micro Swiss comming in tomorrow.

I printed some flat alinment jigs for the Y axis linear guides I ordered and they came out stout as hell. No snapping them with my fingers!

Thanks for the advice, I can use all I can get.

 

[scianiac]

Yeah I thought you mentioned you replaced the hotend but then I misread your above comment swapping "hotend" for "firmware" for some reason. Yeah the new benchy chimney should be very telling.

 

[nicobie]

I think I'll have to give up on the Sainsmart cf/nylon. The layer adhesion was unacceptable and I've given it enough effort trying to sort it out now to say something is wrong with the roll I got.



I decided to just copy what Justin used for his solar mounts. It's a CF/PETG filament made in Canada (filaments.ca). What he is using it for is about what I need. Even with shipping it was less than all the other cf/nylon I was looking at. I know it's not nylon based, but PETG will work fine for my needs. I should have just tried matterhackers NylonX but they were the most expensive and I tend to go cheap at first.

 

[stan.distortion]

How hot is the interior of your enclosure and what material is the good print in the background? That looks a lot like my first attempts with ABS, layer adhesion reducing to practically nothing as it gets higher and I wouldn't even get layers on cold days, the tip of the nozzle would be too cold to print! Insulating the nozzle and heater with kapton tape helped a lot but it was a quick kludge and could be much better (one of these days I'll try to do something more effective, probably wrap it in fire blanket sheeting).

Enclosing the printer was pretty much essential and temperatures need to be high! The 40 degrees I'm using would be bare minimum, the 70 degrees mentioned earlier in the thread would be a good figure but I wouldn't be surprised if 100+ degrees would work better. You need that heat! The layer being printed needs to be able to heat the layer below to melting point to get a solid bond and there's not a whole lot of thermal energy in a 0.4mm bead of plastic, nothing like enough if the part is dropping close to room temperature between layers.

EDIT: And disable the fans! No fans whatsoever, not even a little tichy one. You need a fan when the print isn't holding its shape and is sagging because it's not setting quickly enough. It's a problem with PLA but I've never had it with ABS, not sure about other materials. I've never seen it before but something like a tiny heatgun would probably work ok, something to blow very hot air on the layer below in the immediate area around the print nozzle.

 

[scianiac]

Yeah Nylon is great but is tricky to print and their seems to be some odd variability in performance of different brands, perhaps depending on CF fiber size? For instance I've tried some 3DX tech CF nylon which should in theory be of decent quality and it was utterly useless, like I can break the raw filament in a single bend, why I have no idea. Based on that print though unless the fiber size is huge it looks a bit moist, the "fluffy" surface texture is what my prints looked like when just storing the spool in a drybox but printing in open but not very humid air. Now super dry and kept in a Molecular sieve drybox at all times they are shiny and smooth.

I would say don't worry too much about it, if the PETG is working then use it, you can always come back to the nylon later. I would say though that an enclosure and filament dryboxes are worth it regardless, even PETG strings much less when it's super dry and can benefit from a more stable printing temp even if it's not super hot. Also an enclosure will probably make the printer quite a bit quieter since most of the fans will be inside and the control board and PSU fan can be pretty quiet fans. Some of my chamber circulation fans are quite loud though as they are all fans pulled from the dump years ago and have not had an easy life spending 100s of hours at 70C, they rattle like crazy but keep on kicking.

 

[Alan B]

Hi Folks.

Just thought I'd mention that the Voron printers print ABS without enclosure heaters, the bed heat brings the enclosure to 60 or 70. It is mostly a matter of getting the build volume sealed up adequately. Bed Slingers (moving bed printers) are not good for ABS since they double the operational volume needed, and they create drafts when slinging the build plate back and forth. The best setup for ABS in the Voron line is probably the Trident which has a build plate that moves vertically while the corexy hotend stays at the top of the frame. The Voron frames are designed to be enclosed, so it doesn't require external stuff and the enclosed volume is fairly small for the printer size. The electronics is outside of the enclosed volume for reliability and longer life. You can choose from a number of print volumes from 120 to 350mm cubic.

Voron is a design group, they don't sell printers. The designs are open for you to build your own, there are partial kits and full kits available from various other vendors, but Voron itself doesn't sell printers or kits. It's a very active group and they release a few new designs each year. There is a large, active and helpful community. Very few hobbyist printers are designed to print ABS, but the Vorons are made with ABS and designed to print ABS which requires a warm print volume. They do not advocate or use extra print volume heaters. Some people who have tried print volume heaters on 3d printers have had safety problems, so be very careful if you choose to try that.

You can find them at vorondesign.com

 

[nicobie]

I've tried printing this stuff with a simple enclosure (4 sides, no top) with the same results. I have a sunlu filament dryer that I kept the filament in @ 55C for about 72 hours. The stuff was brand new out of the vac bag when I started. The cooling was disabled, and I have a silicone sock on the hotend. At first I was hearing a slight sizzling sound when printing, but now it's mostly gone away as the filament has been in the dryer longer. I'm printing right out of the dryer. The good print in the background was of PLA+ which I've gotten to print about perfect.

Everyone on youtube says it's OK to print CF/Nylon without an enclosure. I understand printing straight nylon filament is a different thing with an enclosure mandatory. I've been trying to avoid using one because I like to see what is going on and am always tinkering with the printer.

If I would have known about the Voron project when I was looking into buying a 3D printer I would have gone that route. In fact I had so much fun building and upgrading my little ender3 v2 that I can see myself in the future building one. It does seem the way to go for a really good hobby printer. Right now It's hard to justify having 2 printers, but I'm working on it.

Nice to see you back Alan.

 

[Alan B]

We've been around, but since retiring and getting an electric car the ebike has not been used as much and I come by now and then but not as often.

Some people convert the Ender V3 to a Voron Switchwire. I don't know a lot about that conversion, the Switchwire is a bed slinger, but runs on rails instead of V wheels, and is designed for enclosing. It is a CoreXZ design so it moves fast in X and Z. It can re-use a lot of the parts from the Ender. At first I was going to build a Switchwire but later decided that the 1.8 would be better for my print farm due to more compact design, and then more recently the Trident came out replacing the 1.8 and brought some features I'd been waiting for. So I've switched gears and am collecting parts for the Trident.

In the meantime I'm wearing out the old Prusa MK3, I've printed many dozens of spools of PLA on it, but I want to move to ABS for a lot of things, so the Voron is interesting. The Prusa has been great but it is getting tired and I think it needs an overhaul once I get something else up and running. I'd like to have a minimum of 2 working printers in case one needs maintenance I still have one working to keep things moving along.

When filament is made it is drawn through water baths to cool it, and then they wind it on a spool and toss it in a vacuum bag with a dessicant. So it isn't necessarily very dry, and the vacuum bags aren't totally impervious to water vapor, so new filament needing drying is not too surprising, especially if it has been on the shelf for awhile.

I've printed mostly PLA and some PETG but haven't done ABS yet. I'm not really set up for that with the printer in the office. There's a mod for the Voron that adds a huge carbon filter and eliminates most of the ABS issues.

 

[goatman]

in order to print 220 wide on the ender3 had to change the build plate settings for ender 3 in Cura to 250x250x250, 235x235x250 didnt work

 

[goatman]

now the printer is acting up and printing crooked



only out in this area. the motor makes a different sound when the hot end is out here,
it did it last night so i quit the print, then loaded the coupling file and printed 2 of them no problem.
this morning i tried this file and it happened again



could it be cura?

the motor starts to labor and slow down and it prints at a different angle
ill check the belt

it was bed out of level, i let it keep printing